I was sports entertained.

The prospect of CM Punk with actual main event recognition and juice and without the restrictions of WWE writers and H’s jacket of doom. Seems kind of incredible even if it has been 7 years

Ok AEW, you have my attention and my viewership commitment. Don’t you dare **** this up

...has Moxley been hitting the juice since his WWE days?

Alright time to be critical:

A 1 hour live wrestling show with no ability to run over just feels impossible to execute properly. We get 3 matches, all of them have a wrestler 'already in the ring', and you just end up getting a rushed finish.

It's very odd to me that AEW doesn't just go over on some shows. I'd think TNT would be pretty open to it. I don't think 'Hercules: The Thracian Wars' starting 7 minutes later is gonna hurt the network much.

Part of what made live wrestling so exciting and boom in the 90s was that feeling that anything could happen. Anything can't happen when it's 10:58 and you know the pinfall is coming in the next 45 seconds.

Very surprised Tony Khan isn't fighting hard for that.

He’s actually gotten a little fat I think

Yeah I wondered if it could be that too. His face got rounder. He still had a muscular body though. I was just caught off-guard by his look when he showed up on-screen.

It wasn't the same thing because Scott Steiner obviously 100% cranked the steroid usage up to 11 during the late 90s, but I remember Scott coming out on Nitro one night and me just going "WTF, what happened to him? That doesn't even look good."

His stomach has done pudge too and his hairline looks awful with the short haircut

He was off tv for a couple of months after Renee had their kid and came back a bit chubbier.

Goddamn that mother****er can cut a promo.

Lol with 5 minutes to go, Arn’s son about to get murdered. This has been a good/okay show. Crowd is weird. All In looking stacked.

Expecting their biggest rating ever and that's the show they put on.

They have way too may guys on the roster

It occurred to me when Punk teased Daniel Bryan in response to the crowd...seems like a very solid chance we could get Final Countdown for his theme. Would be so much better than the bastardized Flight of the Valkyries.

Re: Bryan. Unsure it need a spoiler tag but:



First Dynamite I watched in months. Enjoyed it enough. Rampage with Bros vs Jurassic sounds good to me and All Out looking good too

Bryan coming out to the final countdown in a packed house might be the only thing that could get me to mark harder than punk’s return

Holy ****, first match of Rampage was a ****ing banger.

I forgot that was on tonight. Gonna go download it now and have high hopes now . tr to come

Worth the watch . Loved the ending of the opener despite despising the Canadian Destroyer. They made it look awesome. Bucks vs. Bros in a cage should be a lot of fun. 8-man on Dynamite should be fun too

i havent watched tonights show.

i re-watched the cm punk segment with my wife, who used to watch rasslin with me like 10+ years ago. i actually got emotional the second time around, which i didnt expect, and writing it down sounds like the most ridiculous thing ive ever heard...but it happened. im kinda feeling the same just typing it! lol@me

i liked the comment "i was sports entertained".

im so glad to see some new people getting to sample the product. its interesting to read your perspectives. try to at least give it a few months. its so far superior to the "other guys" (imo obviously).

i have really enjoyed rampage so far. being 1 hour feels just right so far. its not another slog of hours; it feels snappy. it allows more overall storytelling per week, which is good.

ive really been thinking lately about all the people saying the roster is bloated. i guess i agree, but most of the stuff is at least somewhat interesting.

Yeah, I'm totally in. AEW is where it's at.

Just went back and watched Jungle Boy vs Omega, great stuff! Love heel Kenny. Jungle Boy's theme absolutely SLAPS.

I fear that it's going to be difficult for me to get into any company that isn't 100% committed to fixing the superman kickout problem, but I'm definitely paying some attention now.

im not familiar with the term; are you referring to the last split second kickouts that have become common? if so, it would be an interesting discussion.

i forgot to add in my last post: mark henry is just not working on announce AT ALL. they need that change asap.

It's really just what I call it for lack of a better term for it. Basically going for a broader term than when people kick out of finishers, because some other non-finisher kickouts are also just stupid and need to go away.

Finisher kickouts should be a rare and special thing, so that when it does happen it's actually a surprise. Now, at least within the WWE/NXT model, if there's a big match then you have to wait through the first three finisher kickouts before you can take any pin attempt seriously. And the purported smarks will respond to the dumb kickouts with ****ing "this is awesome" chants rather than properly crapping on them. Since these continue to remain over with the crowd, there's just little reason for me to hope that they'll ever dial it back. If I were a promoter then I have to think I'd probably stay the course, given the crowd reactions. But as a fan, it really hinders my ability to enjoy wrestling matches.

They've gotta give him a chance to speak! He's not gonna improve if he can't get a word in. I love Jericho, but he was talking (read: yelling) over Mark quite a bit.

100% agree.

The only technical thing that kinda bothers me about AEW is the ref inconsistency with interference in tag team matches. I like the idea of "looser" calling and the extended count, BUT it really needs to be consistent across the board.

In that case, how do you feel about a finisher that's never been kicked out of (i.e. Kenny Omega's One-Winged Angel)?