Oh good, he landed on one.



Casually excreting ****3/4 ratings like it's a bodily function is such silliness. I struggle to believe that a show exists in all of wrestling history with four ****3/4 matches.

Some actual ratings:
Kingston/Jericho: ***3/4
JE/YB/ReDRagon: **1/4
Punk/MJF: ****1/4
Rosa/Britt: ***
Moxley/Danielson: ****

To be clear: although that tag match drags the average rating down, the above set of ratings amounts to a show that brought plenty to the table. Obviously I'm not operating on the rate-by-excretion method, so the fact that I'm coming in lower than Meltzer on everything does not make my ratings an insult. Except to that tag match, I'm fine with insulting that one since it was nothing.

As always, any rating from anyone is to be taken with a pound of salt (especially Meltzer). These meticulous scores and rankings are not worth the mental effort.

Remarkably, I did have to take a nap after all the energy I spent on those ratings!

I thought for sure he was gonna win the TNT title, but now they just put the belt on Scorpio Sky and title runs of a week or 2 doesn't seem like AEW's style so who knows.

If you think about it, the idea of botches is kinda strange. Like these are supposed to fights more or less, and in real fights people miss kicks/punches, they screw up slams, b/c their opponent is trying to avoid damage. Maybe that makes it feel more real in a way.

Your ratings are almost exactly what I'd have said.

That tag match just sucked, and I say that as someone who doesn't mind an occasional match that's more choreography and unrealistic moves than a usual wrestling match. I loved The Bucks/Lucha Bros cage match for example. But that tag match was a turd imo

This particularly informed my watch of the Punk-MJF match. Not so much in botches, but in the way they sold the moves and had slow, exhausted pauses in between a bunch of spots. In the moment, it's not the most enjoyable thing to watch. But as I stand back to appreciate it, it boosted the reality of the match. If you imagine that two dudes are dropped into a dog-collar match as an actual shoot, that seemed like a really solid take on what it could look like.

I do agree more generally too about botches actually being a good thing sometimes for similar reasons.

Right, I loved the Bucks/Lucha Bros. cage match too, it provided good confirmation of why it can still be good to stay locked in and watch the Young Bucks do their thing. But even on a relative spotfest scale, this wasn't even a particularly good spotfest. Nothing new was brought to the table in terms of the spots themselves, and two near-falls got blown because the ref had to hesitate before making the count, giving away that a kickout was coming. Surely one of the wrestlers' faults for being too far out of position rather than being the ref's fault.

To expand a bit on "nothing new was brought to the table": that part is not so much a criticism of the wrestlers as it is a criticism of spotfests in general in the year 2022. I loved them at one time when Rey Mysterio Jr. and the luchadores came to WCW, but it's been done. It's exhausted. There are just only so many moves you can do. That's why psychology and storytelling has to be the bedrock for good wrestling matches the overwhelming majority of the time.

Card is looking ****ing STACKED tonight, basically another free PPV.

Ready for Rosa to dethrone Britt!

Missed first hour. Had no idea time changed cause lol AZ

Disappointing to not see Punk save Wardlow. I understand why but the fans wanted it bad.

Awesome show.

- Seeds planted for Yuta are exciting
- What’s up with Statlander?
- Deeb promo ****ed
- The Acclaimed deserve everything
- Cage match was great and the right call over PPV

Looking forward to Rampage.

It’s funny to me when JR calls a Rosa match and sometimes shortens her name to “Thunder.” I squint at my screen and go, “Really? We’re going with ‘Thunder’?”

Such a great moment, I was tearing up a bit at the entrance and title win of Rosa. Now we can finally get some elite title matches. Can you imagine TR-Deeb?

1 question, what the **** was the point of Britt going over TR at the PPV? It needlessly took something away from this win. I think AEW kinda realized it too as they were practically pretending that match never existed and making it seem like the match a year ago was the last time they met.

Looks like Wardlow is gonna have to go thru a lot of BS to finally win the belt, but I like it. A Wardlow-Max program would be great. AEW seems to love these long arcs. They kinda buried Scorpio though, right out of the gate. He looked like a weakling compared to Wardlow, but then again, everyone does. Just a matter of time until Wardlow gets the belt (maybe both belts?)

They wanted to hold off on TR winning until she was in her hometown of San Antonio (last night)

That part makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense is having the PPV match at all. Just have Britt vs. whomever and then the Thunder Rosa story comes full circle with the win in SA. As is, they had to pretend the PPV match didn't even exist and act like TR's been waiting for her shot since the unsanctioned match last year.

Britt's still fairly new and can improve, but I kinda doubt it. Her only interesting matches are when weapons get involved. I think she's just way too limited athletically to put on a great traditional match.

And it was worth it. Crowd was on fire last night.

Definitely a better choice than the deflated vacuum immediately following the dog collar match at Revolution.

I can agree here, Revolution match didn't do much for the feud at all.

I do think people are needlessly hard on Britt as of late. She should obviously chill on the back burner for a bit, but I think she still has a great future. It's simply been a long reign.

OK, I'm starting to get on board w/Rampage being a B or even C level show. They've been putting on some amazing Dynamites while Rampage gets worse every week. I find myself just fast forwarding 2 of the 3 matches most weeks and just checking in on any storyline advancements.

She's ok and still relatively new to the biz, so plenty of time to get even better. For me, the issue is exacerbated by the fact that the other champ is Jade. So you have both women's belts on women who are OK at best workers. It means that basically all your high profile women's matches are gonna be mediocre.

Main event of Rampage was off the chain. Starks and Swerve both have charisma for miles. Crowd was HOT.

Great episode of Dynamite. Time has been flying by.

That FTR-Bucks match was sooo good. Wish we got that version of the Bucks that tells a story more often and doesn't just jump from spot to spot.

Wheeler Yuta v. Mox was another excellent match. LKJ will appreciate that after a couple close nearfalls Yuta would immediately slap on a submission instead of crying that he didn't win.

YUTA

Man Jericho is complete AIDS. Somehow he's involved in by far the most uninteresting program for months on end. First the crap against ATT, and now the Eddie Kingston thing. Theoretically, Santana and Ortiz being kicked out should've made for a "can't possibly mess up" program between them and IC, but they've found a way.

It also always leads to these stupid 3v3 and 4v4 matches which I hate, and I'm sure it will be the worst or 2nd worst match at the upcoming PPV. Does anyone even like that match type? Seems like a way just to shoehorn a ton of guys into TV time, but those matches usually end up being the worst on the card.

At least MJF continues to kill it. Him vs. Wardlow is gonna be insane when it happens. I laughed when they said they had found an opponent to finally end Wardlow and it's...The Butcher.

Not really feeling the Jurassic Express run, I think they'll prob drop to FTR soon, who is red hot.

Finally, does Sammy Guevara have a clause where he gets unlimited shots at the TNT belt? Seems like even when he loses he just gets another shot soon anyway. It'd be great to see Scorpio crush him and put an end to Sammy in the TNT picture for a little while and also legitimize Scorpio (he has the streak, but still kinda feels like a fraud), but I doubt they do that to one of their "Pillars".

It’s TIME for the MAIN EVENT!

god I love wrestling

This match ****ing RULES