ediger

That stood out to me, too. Really dug Abadon vs Shida on Dark a couple months ago. Was pleased to see her again, was really surprised that she squashed Anna Jay after they had been promoting her return to Dynamite. And then having Dark Order come out to lead Anna Jay away instead of just burying her? Fantastic.

That's exactly it. It's what separates him from Hogan, Undertaker, Flair and most of the other big names that stuck around a long time. Jericho has never felt like a nostalgia act or had to rely on looping back to previous gimmicks.

Good point re: grudge matches. And I've always liked brawlers so I'm not exactly complaining. I also wouldn't have complained if one of the brawls was switched up for something more technical. Others have been bigger names than Jericho and made more cash, sold tix/merch/whatever during certain eras, but I can't think of anyone who has done it as successfully at the level he's done it at for as long as Jericho. All things considered, he'll probably get my vote for best ever when he wraps things up.

Enjoyed the show overall. Thought there was maybe a bit too much brawling and that it lacked some of the variety that other AEW PPVs have had. Ladder match was pretty good. I like the idea of a ladder match/royal rumble mashup that they use. Brian Cage will be a good addition I think. Massive body obviously, he can move good and some people I respect have good things to say about him as a person. Interested to see where it goes. MJF vs Jungle Boy was the best pure wrestling match on the show. Old school ****, very good stuff. If I ever attend an AEW show, I will run the risk of getting booted from the venue because the urge to slap MJF will be crazy high. Statlander vs Ford was fine but didn't have anything behind it so it was sort of filler. Basically a Dynamite match that got thrown on PPV. Dustin Rhodes vs Shawn Spears was tough to call a match, but it was a fun segment. Showed that Rhodes isn't done and I don't think it hurt Spears at all. In fact, I think it went a long way in establishing his personality. The last few weeks he seems to be getting better and better on camera with more of that personality coming through. More please. I thought Cody vs Archer was a bit clunky. Not sold on Archer in ring and I don't think Cody is the type that can have a great match with anyone. With the right opponent, you can get the best match on the card out of Cody but with others, I feel like his matches fall a bit flat. I liked Shida vs Rose. Didn't expect the title to change hands so quickly but I'm happy to see Shida win, she's definitely the most talented wrestler on then AEW women's roster and the crowd loves her. Mox vs Brodie Lee was a good brawl with some brutal looking moments. Brodie seemed a bit gassed towards the end. Moxley is simply the best performer in North American wrestling right now. He's exactly what I was hoping he'd be in AEW. Finally, the Stadium Stampede. Holy ****. That was something else. Watched it a second time last night and there are so many hidden gags in the background. The minds of Kenny Omega and Matt Hardy working together on matches like these is an exciting prospect. Favourite moment? Kenny getting irish whipped into the backstage area like it was one of the old Smackdown games.

I like how that one dork thinks this is some kind of scandal or will have any effect on anything moving forward. Anyway, good Dynamite last night. Scary bump by Sammy G off the golf cart, but one hell of a visual. The whole street fight was really fun. I have to assume Kenny put that together as it had a distinctly DDT feel to it.

The talent cuts will save them about $703,000 per month, $4 million includes all expenses cut including expenses of moving into a new office. https://t.co/5AD9Eie1mc — Dave Meltzer (@davemeltzerWON) April 16, 2020 Vince could have paid all those guys for 50+ years out of the reserve. Shitty move to do this right now.

I hope it's defended each week. I think you can do some cool stuff with that. You can have an underdog win because the champ is worn out after wrestling 14 weeks straight or whatever. Or build someone up with an unexpected streak. I also hope they have the old WCW 15 minute time limit. Put it on a heel and have them keep it through a bunch of time limit draws. Lots you can do with a TV title.

Really liked tonight's Dynamite. Brodie Lee as the Exalted One makes so much sense when you think about it. The Dark Order's whole deal has been recruiting people who feel unappreciated and forgotten. The exact kind of person people viewed Brodie Lee as Luke Harper. Debuting Hardy the same night was great and somewhat unexpected after he turned out not to be the Exalted One. Still figured he was coming eventually, just not later in the same episode. While I'm sure Hardy would have excelled with the Dark Order, he has more freedom without them.

Was just coming here to say the same thing. They're having some fun with it, which is good. Having MJF ringside being a loudmouthed smartass is a great idea.

That would be my assumption. The logistics of doing some sort of last minute touring are pretty much impossible.

well there are a bunch of last minute openings at MTS Centre.

in MJF's case, it'll probably be after he's made a boatload of cash.

They're pushing it so hard that it's making me think it's all a distraction and it won't be Matt. And then I'll be surprised when it is Matt Hardy cuz I'm stoopid like that.

That was a great episode. The build to the PPV has been really good. Even though the whole card looks really good, Orange Cassidy vs PAC put it over the top for me. Really. There's an intrigue to that match that the others just don't have. Oh, and Kenny is a star. Anyone saying otherwise is just being obtuse.

DO NOT disparage Whattaburger in Texas. Holy geez. That was great to see. I agree on both accounts, Brit and MJF are getting great heel reactions. My favourite part is that they're booed right from the start. With Jericho, he'll get cheered, **** the crowd will sing his theme while he enters, but then they boo as soon as he starts trashing them. Still good, but man I love when the crowd gets heated right from the first note of the entrance song. Watched the last AEW Dark the other day. Sonny Kiss is in the running for most improved. He's been working with Dustin Rhodes a lot and it shows in his strikes. His match with Jimmy Havoc had some stiff looking shots from both guys. His timing is vastly improved as well. I think you'll start seeing Sonny on the main show before too long.

Maybe he's just a blithering idiot and thinks the speaker in his helmet is his inner-dialogue?

Uhhh... the exact same way anything else builds in popularity? Casual fans tune in, see something they like (Hangman) and tune in the next week. If they keep on enjoying what they're seeing, they become regular viewers. It's not exactly a new or difficult concept. Also, the've been pushing a million nearly every week this year... 2020-01-01 967,000 2020-01-08 947,000 2020-01-15 940,000 2020-01-22 871,000 2020-01-29 828,000 2020-02-05 928,000

Completely agree. He's the next big star in pro wrestling. He has so much going for him and I think AEW is juuuuust a big enough platform to have him take off. He could be what takes them to the next level as far as ratings are concerned.

I think I'd actually prefer Broken Matt Hardy in that spot over Scurll. Anywho, LOTS of good local shows coming up over the next little while. All four promotions have solid cards booked. Gonna do my best to get to them all but we'll see how things pan out. For those unaware Tomorrow (Jan 18) - PCW @ Doubles Fun Club - Tag Team title match, Cheetahbear, Adam Knight vs ATM, Uncle Dave's 4th of July Celebration Jan 24 - CWE @ Rookies Sports Bar - ft. Pat Tanaka Feb 27 - WrestleMax @ The Neon Factory - ft. Colt Cabana Mar 19 - WPW @ West End Cultural Centre - ft. Brian Pillman Jr. Random notes: Cheetahbear is always great to catch and the 4th of July Celebration should be worth the price of admission... Tanaka is coming in as a replacement for Shannon Moore, I believe... WrestleMax is a super fun time. They merged my love of pro wrestling, punk rock and abandoned buildings... Airwolf and/or Angel Dorado (the Flip Bros) from Minnesota are on at least a couple of these shows. They've been doing a lot of local shows lately and are definitely a couple of guys to try to catch... Minnesota wrestling scene is hot in general right now and we've been benefiting from it. A lot of guys making the trip up the highway for shows in Wpg... I liked the convenience of the Sherb for WPW (I live 2 mins away) but the WECC is a far superior venue both from a spectators POV and for the performers. And from a personal perspective, it's still close enough for me to walk. I loves my dive bars and it made me happy to see a shithole like the Sherb packed, but it's not a great layout for anything other than plugging the slots and watching lunch hour strippers... got some cool news about a show in the spring... well, cool for me at least...

JR has been pretty hit and miss. When he interacts with Tony its all good but outside of that, there's definitely been some clunky moments. He appears to be getting more comfortable with Excalibur but that's combo is still a bit awkward. JR seems like he needs the perfect environment to thrive which is not ideal. I have a feeling if he was in a two man booth with Tony and deleted his Twitter account, we'd see a happier and more engaged JR.

I don't expect great things from Luther or anything, but I've been a fan for a long time so it's just kinda neat to see him on TV. Maybe he'll be a decent character. Some sort of madman that you can use for the occasional violent spot. The only issue with that becomes that all these factions seem to have a non-wrestling, non-speaking enforcer. Eventually that gets tired. At some point you're going to have to have Jake Hager & Wardlow wrestle or ditch the idea of just having them around. If Luther is a short term thing, I think I'll like it more. I'm always game for bringing in new guys just for a quick run to keep things different. Brandi, yeaaahhhh... it's bad soap opera acting. I could see her having a "it was me, Austin!" moment with the Dark Order. I hope not. I think the Dark Order has the most potential out of the creepy angles and the past two weeks seemed to get that back on track a little bit. The Butcher, Blade, Bunny thing tends to get lumped into the creepy thing by a lot of fans. I don't quite see it that way. There's no supernatural or cult stuff going on there, those are just a couple of tough SOBs with a total babe valet. Then again I hang out with a lot of metalheads and punks so that **** isn't that weird or creepy 😛. Really though, you'd find people like that at Wellington's or Ozzy's when they were open. Maybe it's weird to some people but I feel like there's waaaay more people out there that could identify with them than Dark Order or Brandi's deal. Either way, they should get them talking or get some vignettes going to define that a bit better. Although they could go the creepy route and bring in Allie's friend Rosemary from Impact (depending on when her contract is up) and get another Winnipegger in the mix. Kenny is really ramping it up and so is the crowd. It almost feels like the AEW audience was just waiting for full-on Kenny to really get behind him. Like they weren't sure what to make of his first few months. I can't speak to his mindset but if there's any element of "I'm a VP and I don't want to look like a spotlight hog", I hope he gets past that. He's the most talented person on the roster and having him at full-flight would be a boost to the company. Page, Sammy, Jurassic Express, MJF & Darby Allin are a great core of young guys to have coming up. They are all well on their way to being legit stars. I want to reach through the screen and slap Sammy Guevara every week and I couldn't be happier about that. His matches are real good and when he talks or even just looks at the camera, I forget about that and just hate his ****** face. MJF has that quality too. His matches don't standout as much but he plays that character incredibly well including during the matches. I shouldn't be amazed by that guy in ring, he should be cheating and locking in sleeper holds for 15 minutes. It's the simplest formula in wrestling. Good guys give the fans what they want to see, bad guys try to keep that from happening. MJF works that formula tremendously. I agree about Daniels but I think he's serving his purpose along with Kazarian in getting Scorpio Sky over. Almost forgot, I'm really digging PAC in AEW. He's a dude I would not want to mess around with.

Pretty good episode tonight. Good start production-wise. Hangman and Omega got to do their entrances while the crowd was hot from the show open before the ring announcer introduced them. Also announced Private Party after the recap played. Little things that make the show seem smoother. Ref was enforcing tag rules pretty strictly during the opening match. Not as much during the later tag matches. They're getting better in that regard. Side note, Kenny might want to go in for the back cupping a few days earlier next time 😆. Dr Luther made his debut. I don't care that he's 50-something, it's kinda cool to see him on national TV. Unfortunately he debuted during a dud of a segment. The Nightmare Collective stuff is kinda clunky. Brandi's mic skills are not up to snuff for the leader of a stable. Sammy G/Christopher Daniels had a bit of a weak ending but I liked what followed with the Dark Order coming in and trying to recruit him while he's down. Evil Uno can cut a good promo so getting him some mic time is a good thing. They should have done this sort of thing for weeks/months before the big swarm. Build it up with a few guys trying to take over and getting beaten down, making them angrier and more bitter. Use that to fuel their recruitment drive until they have the sheer numbers to be a force. Then you do the swarm and reveal that a couple of the creepers are big names. Maybe guys from NJPW sent over to take down AEW or whatever. The MJF promo started while they were in split screen. That's something they need to avoid. The ending segment with Jericho and Moxley was weird. It felt like something earlier in the night ended early and they were left with too much time but the guys in the ring didn't get the memo until they were down there. Lots of dead air. Really strange for a segment containing those two.

Completely agree. Okada/Naito match had a similar feel to it. Both guys were just spent at the end with nothing left to give. When they did muster up the will for one more move, the crowd was insane. I agree about AEW too. If I have 3 complaints about the in ring product with AEW it's the lack of selling, the timing of top rope moves (guys standing around too long waiting to take a move) and the overuse of some moves. I imagine a lot of this has to do with the lack of TV experience on the roster.

The long matches in NJPW feel like they're long because it's two evenly matches opponents giving it their absolute all. WWE always seems to play up the favourite/underdog side of things which really doesn't play into long matches well. I suppose it also helps that NJPW guys generally have a decent amount of experience in long matches. Well, the top guys at least. But I'm not all that interested in watching Yano go for 60 anyway 😛

A few takeaways... the two night thing is really good. Keeps each day a manageable length and keeps the crowd in it. Plus they had some matches on night one that set up matches for night two. Speaking of the crowd, they were RED HOT during the Okada/Naito match, particularly during the ending. Same goes for Jericho/Tanahashi. I love how long they'll hold submissions in Japan. The crowd in the US would be dead bu the Japanese crowd was going insane. The undercard for night two was much better but night one was still very good. Moxley vs Juice Robinson was very good but when Minoru Suzuki came out to challenge Mox after the match, I got chills. That is a match I NEED to see. While liking them as performers, I used to really hate Juice Robinson's look as well as Jay White's. Not anymore. Now I feel like I can get behind those guys. Stupid reason, I know, but whatever. Can't say the same for Zach Sabre Jr. Great wrestler, still don't dig the look. Goto/Kenta was another stellar match. Kenta looks primed for a big push. Overall, great show. In typical WK fashion, the main events and the semi-mains were all must see matches. Fantastic stuff in all of them.