Yeah, that was wild. I realized in the middle of the match that I loved them both equally and did not know who I wanted to win. Wild.

I really didn't think they'd have Miro lose to him. Glad they did though. Sammy been one of my favorites since day 1. Good for him.

That whole sequence was so good.

Yeah, I’m still in shock. I love Sammy but could not see Miro losing. The buildup with his “weakness” to the DDT has been great, but I’m still surprised.

It’s really cool how valuable Miro has made the TNT title. Feels huge.

CM Punk chants were annoying af.

Great match and great ending. They usually do a big, obvious build up before a title change but this one was much subtler, with the whole Fuego storyline.

I like CM Punk better on commentary than in the ring. I hope at some point in the future he permanently gets added to the commentary desk, maybe when JR retires?

Alright, I didn't get to watch last night since the Mariners have forced me to become obsessed with the final week of baseball season, so I'm catching up now. Mostly unspoiled...until Twitter told me the result of the main event this morning. Oh well. Posting this before catching up on the thread.

Thoughts:

Jungle Boy vs. Cole
*It is SUCH a heavy lift to ask a discerning viewer to sit through Adam Cole's entire entrance and not just give up altogether on the concept of watching television, if not living entirely. Holy ****. It's such a hole they dig into right before his match starts.
*When fans suddenly start singing Jungle Boy's theme in the middle of the match, is that their polite way of chanting "boring"? I mean, they can't be invested in the match if that's the **** they're doing. Oh good, they moved onto "this is awesome." While probably only halfway watching the match. Wrestling fans are awesome.
*Jungle Boy walking into Cole's superkick was a great spot. Panama Sunrise is an awful spot that needs to be retired immediately and never used again. At least it was followed by that stupid ****ing "OMG he kicked out" reaction.
*Match was fine. The fact that it was always just going to be part of the inevitable Adam Cole mega-push hampered my enthusiasm a fair bit.
*Post-match group promo was mostly an obnoxious waste of time. And then Bryan Danielson comes out to contribute..."Kenny 'No Balls' Omega"? Wow, I sure hope that incredibly clever **** catches on.

Rhodes/Lee vs. Martin/Sydal
*Double-jump moonsault is another one of those masturbatory spots that nobody should celebrate. Wrestlers are not to be praised for just actively choosing to do things that don't even purportedly advantage them in kayfabe during the match.
*Match was fine, I didn't really care about it, but Arn Anderson lighting up Cody on the mic after the match was awesome. I feared that this whole deal with Arn as a manager might not be particularly useful based on his corner work last week, but unlike a lot of the old-timers, it sounds like he can very much still go on the mic. He might even be able to get me to care about Cody and his ****ing neck tattoo.

Darby/Moxley/Kingston vs. Bear Country
*I must say, Darby Allin's coffin drop has immediately become one of my favorite signature spots of anyone wrestling right now. I can't recall anyone else using it.
*Not much else to say since this was a squash. Quite the babyface move to have Sting come in to pile on with a cheap shot afterward, much to the adoration of the fans and the babyface announcers.

Britt/Ruby promo
*"You may have had 20,000 people singing a song because it's the song they like. Not you, Ruby." YES! Thank you, Britt. Every wrestler needs to adopt renditions of that talking point to make sure that no wrestler ever again feels good about the fact that people are singing along during their segment. The ****ing lack of self-awareness it takes to feel good about that...
*"Back of the line, babe." I very, very much appreciate AEW indicating that they aren't just going to keep giving rematches to a wrestler for the kayfabe reason of "they want one." I hate that ****, and I appreciate any company improving upon that.

16-Man Tag
*Punk says he was in the crowd for Danielson-Omega. Umm...that seems unlikely? Seems like that would cause a big distraction during the match that we would have been aware of.
*This was good. It was more substantial than what you would usually expect to see out of a tribute match.

Ford/Bunny vs. Conti/Jay
*First of all, sup ladies. Which sounds like what Punk wanted to say before he shrunk and backed away from it.
*Meh. Not a lot to this one.

MJF Promo
*He had this moment where he talked about himself and then slowly built up to saying his name, and I seized in terror because I thought it was going to be some "DMD" sing-along ****, and then he said his full name with no particular cadence. I love this guy.
*Darby tells him to leave, says "nobody here would care," and the crowd basically no-sells it. Gonna go out on a limb and guess that people would care.
*The "let me exploit a tragedy for heat" thing feels desperate in this segment. Like, it doesn't offend me as an empathetic human or some such thing; it offends me as an admirer of MJF's work who regards a detour like that as the laziest way that he could flail for a crowd reaction in that moment. Then again, I loved him cutting a promo on Brian Pillman (Sr.) in hell. As with all edgy promo work, if you're clever then all is forgiven. But the place he went with Darby isn't clever. Meh.

Miro vs. Guevara
*Like I said, I got spoiled on this. Wish I hadn't been.
*Right away, just during entrances, it struck me that AEW has noticeably improved on the WWE model of still conferring value to its belts. This was a very credible main event to the show. In WWE, if you're anything but the world champion, you're just going to wrestle in the midcard to...a no-contest, or a non-title distraction roll-up, some stupid **** like that. The destruction of titles in the WWE is among its greatest wrestling-specific crimes, and another company actually restoring value to titles would go a long, long way.
*I thought they were laying the foundation for a good story, wondered if it might turn out to be a great match...but then the final act was just to turn it into a match that Miro 100% gave away, and made the new champ's title win a complete fluke? You can put a chickenshit heel over for a title that way. I hate giving a babyface a title that way. And I just felt like the potentially strong story petered out into nothing.

There was enough good on the show to enjoy it overall.

A fluke? They were simply closing the loop of the bigger story of Feugo being crushed by Miro 3 times by having him get some retribution with being part of how Miro loses his belt. Thought it was done very well.

So my lack of long-term knowledge could easily be hurting my ability to judge that sequence, I readily concede that. I don't know this backstory.

But ultimately, the match was Miro being completely dominant and then ultimately straight-up giving the match away in a way that makes it feel like the winner mostly just mopped up after an unforced error. I just don't really like a title being won that way by an upstart babyface.

I could be off-base. But I was enjoying the match a fair bit, and it was actually just the last sequence that I had an objection to.

Again, I think it's just that Miro's reign (and Miro himself) has made the belt feel so significant. TNT title should definitely be used to make stars, and Miro is certainly there at this point.

I too am a latecomer to AEW, and did not realize how long this reign has been (2nd only to Cody). As NJPW points out, they have indeed been building this for a bit with the Fuego stuff especially when they trumpeted his and Sammy's relationship after Fuego's contract match (which is right around when I started watching).

Also, Sammy being a babyface is only a recent development. It sounds like he was a heel for quite awhile.

While initially conflicted about the result, I realized this is simply because I haven't witnessed much of Miro's reign. And again, the fact that they made a match where I truly didn't want either guy to win/lose makes it a good choice for a change, in retrospect. Reminds us how this title can change hands on the weekly show, but still feel super significant. I'm definitely curious to see what they do with Sammy and am hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

Yeah, I have no real opinion about whether it was good for Guevara to go over. I'm really not familiar with him. The result itself might be just fine. I don't see the way it happened being helpful to him, but we'll see how he's booked going forward.

Also, I think MJF doing the cheap heat thing is intentional. He didn't really do the "this town sucks" cheap, easy stuff until recently. I think his loss to Jericho has rattled him and he's scrabbling to regain composure. Just a thought I had.


LKJ,

Knew you'd love that Arn bit.

Oh yeah, I only made it like 5 minutes into Rhodes to the Top before turning it off. I might binge it someday when I'm hungover or sick, but that's it.

The only one who competes with Arn to be my personal favorite talker of all time is Jake Roberts, who it sounds like we'll have again in AEW soon. I'm sure it says something about me that I like Arn's and Jake's dark **** more than I liked what Flair/Rock brought to the table (though I absolutely loved both of them too).

Though you obviously expect wrestlers to degenerate physically, it has surprised me to see how many of them become worthless even in talking segments. Flair just straight-up sucks as a character in 2021. Every Hulk Hogan appearance is trash. Bret Hart was never on their level as a promo, but he's also considerably worse than he was. So I had just kind of gotten used to the idea that once a wrestler is washed, that applies to their mic work too, which caused me to rush to judgment about Arn still hanging around.

Mind you, I didn't necessarily get the sense that Arn was going to start cutting promos like he could 20-25 years ago, but even if he's 20% worse than his prime he's still going to be one of the best talkers in the company.

It's Friday, you know what the means!

Rampage thoughts:

- Opening match was solid, no complaints. Elite shenanigans were fun.

- Ricky Starks has quickly grown on me, a lot

- Really enjoyed the women's 3-way. Jade has such an incredible look, Nyla is a great heel, and of course Thunder Rosa is just the ****ing coolest. Chair shots seemed excessive (the amount, not their impact), but I guess it makes Rosa look that much better.

- Malakai's promo game is dope.

- Lollll, the pre-match interview was hilarious. Jack Evans has also grown on me, hope he splits from HFO.

- It's time for the main event! (always and forever)

- Orange Cassidy has such a great gimmick. I think part of the reason it works so well, is that they're good at sprinkling his appearances and never indulging too much. He oozes that "freshly squeezed" coolness.

- Lol, hair matches are so ridiculous

- Wow, -1 putting on the Brodie mustache brought a tear to my eye. Glad he's finally put his troops in line. Love how two factions, Dark Order and Best Friends, are literally just about being good friends and supporting each other. This has become a main theme in AEW in general, and I'm totally here for it. Wholesome af.

WRESTLING IS AWESOME

Rampage thoughts:

Bryan Danielson vs. Nick Jackson was fun. Even as someone who usually doesn't like no-selling, the sequence of no-selling the kicks to the chest by Danielson really worked for me. It's a step further than toughing through a series of chops, but still not entirely unbelievable. I can offer no such charity to the spot where Jackson jumped off the top with a 450 splash and was awkwardly transitioned into the LeBell. I ****ing hate those forced spots where a person jumps into a submission in a way that doesn't look at all believable. That's just one quibble though; the match was very enjoyable.

Danielson's posse just seems like such an eclectic group that it's a weird counter to The Elite. I like all involved, but they just seem awkward as an alliance.

Please don't push Ricky Starks.

Rosa-Cargill-Nyla was mostly boring. Triple threats are not my thing. The Nyla table bump was fun, no matter how inorganic, but I shrugged at most of the rest of this. I will say: I like "just hit someone with a chair a bunch of times and then pin them" as an ending, though as a Thunder Rosa mark I was hoping she would go over. Jade going over is fine though, no major complaint about the result.

The formulaic Mark Henry main event introductions are just uncomfortable.

I don't think I like Orange Cassidy, and I couldn't bring myself to care about the main event.

---

Feels like I said more negative than positive here, but I liked the episode well enough. Danielson-Jackson made it worth tuning in, and even the stuff I'm criticizing wasn't difficult to sit through.

Some really good ****, here. I've had some random passing thoughts like this, but it's really compelling to see it all put together.

Also, there's weirdly an Anakin Skywalker comparison.

That could've been nasty the way his left leg got caught under Miro. Luckily, he was unfazed.

It’s Wednesday night, you know what that means!

Card looks ****ing great. Happy 2nd birthday AEW!

Abolish 8-man tag matches.

Oh great, “Kenny No Balls” has stuck. Stuuuuupid.