The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

Ok, last thoughts from me.

The Willow and Julia match was actually pretty good, but then seemed to just end. Was it cut short? Weird.

Did Mercedes get booed? Haha. I hope they turn her heel. Everyone thinks the CEO chant (that is literally part of her song) is lame as hell and so is her corny dance moves. Her presentation is very cheesy.

The commentators mentioned more than once that she's immediately getting a title shot and hasn't even had a match. Is this becoming an angle then?

Toni vs Thunder was fine. It was a decent enough match, but they need the belt to feel more serious and that requires Toni dropping it. Are they working towards Mariah being the one ot dethrone her? Speaking of Mariah May, she looked so hot last night.

[Reprise]

I lied. I just remembered I forgot to mention how they seem to have changed their presentation and format somewhat. I quite liked seeing Renée talking as Pac was making his entrance. Something about how they altered their presentation this show really helped give some matches a big fight feel. I think the video packages they showed before each match really helped too.

When I first started watching AEW, that was one of my early criticisms, because I was a bit late watching. It was early 2020 I think and I watched the 2019 PPVs to catch up and I noticed that the shows, whilst great (particularly Double or Nothing), lacked that professionalism WWE has and part of that was a lack of video packages and commentators really explaining who a lot of the people are and why they are fighting etc.

[Reprise]

I actually don't mind this jab...

“Anthony, I promise you, no matter how many matches I win, no matter how many stories I finish. I will never call you into the ring to celebrate with me.”

- Toni Storm

[Raging Justice]

Ok, last thoughts from me.

The Willow and Julia match was actually pretty good, but then seemed to just end. Was it cut short? Weird.

Did Mercedes get booed? Haha. I hope they turn her heel. Everyone thinks the CEO chant (that is literally part of her song) is lame as hell and so is her corny dance moves. Her presentation is very cheesy.

The commentators mentioned more than once that she's immediately getting a title shot and hasn't even had a match. Is this becoming an angle then?

Toni vs Thunder was fine. It was a decent enough match, but they need the belt to feel more serious and that requires Toni dropping it. Are they working towards Mariah being the one ot dethrone her? Speaking of Mariah May, she looked so hot last night.

The dancing stuff with Mercedes is very WWE. I saw a video online of a show WWE did last night, probably a house show, and Jade Cargil, Naomi, and Bianca Belair were dancing like a bunch of stupid high school girls. It was beyond cringeworthy. I like when Daniel Garcia dances because it's SUPPOSED to look stupid, that's the joke, and that's why we love it. Bianca Belair dancing around and swinging her own hair around is some of the cringiest stuff you'll see in WWE, and don't even get me started on Seth, who acts like a badly done parody of The Joker. Both him and his wife have worn some of the stupidest looking outfits I've ever seen on WWE television as well.

On the subject of hot, I saw some google pictures of one of the girls Rossy Ogawa hired for Marigold (Chika Goto). I probably can't post them here even though there is no nudity or anything pornographic about them, but goddamn she looked hot. I think he got her from a Promotion called Actwres girl'Z that actually had something called a "sexy body" contest last year LOL. Here's a pic that I don't think is objectionable (she's just in a swimsuit), but I'll spoiler text it:

I'm really starting to have a thing for Asian women LOL.

I read that Bryan is fine and that it was a work, I think Ospreay has even said he's retiring that Tiger driver move he used on Bryan. So this is an angle. I don't like injury angles personally, especially since people legitimately worry about Bryan getting injured since he was forced to retire years ago. I mentioned before how I hated the injury angle Billie Starkz did at Supercard of Honor. It was a shit ending to a great match

I don't think the Hook/Jericho match was terrible, Jericho is no worse in the ring right now than someone like Sting or Dustin Rhodes, but AEW fans are so anti-Jericho right now and when AEW fans start to feel a certain way about someone it can be hard for them to change their minds. Ask Cody Rhodes about that, he fucking left the company because he got so sick of being booed

Cody deserved it though

I heard some boos when Kingston did his stupid, corner chops

Little by little AEW fans are starting to realize how much he sucks, but he's still largely over with live crowds.

I love video packages. They set the stage for big matches and shows, and tell newcomers a little bit about the wrestlers, the feud, and the reason for the match. Lucha Underground had some of the most epic video packages I've ever seen. It was REAL cinema, unlike the crap WWE applies that term to these days.

Toni Storm has her moments, I won't deny that. I don't like Nyla Rose, but she has had moments that entertained me. Overall though, I think Toni Storm is cringe and the constant color shifting they do whenever she's on TV is one of the lamest and stupidest things I've ever seen in AEW. I don't think I have enjoyed anything from Storm since she first came to AEW, and some people have been saying that her in ring work has noticeably regressed since she started doing this gimmick. I think anyone with some curiosity about AEW would tune into a show for the first time, see a Toni Storm segment and be like, "Okay, this AEW company is fucking stupid. I'm not watching this garbage"

Granted, some people say that about Orange Cassidy, but I have seen actual evidence of people who are not regular consumers of pro wrestling content who saw something featuring him for the first time and found his schtick funny and cool.

I saw someone online say that Julia Hart is working through an injury, maybe that is why her match was so short?

I think the Hardies and The Young Bucks did have an ROH match, though I vaguely remember also seeing them in some kind of match that took place in an outdoor setting, like a baseball field or something, but I could be wrong. I've watched so much wrestling that this stuff all starts to blur together in my head

[Reprise]

Yeah, WWE has been really cheesy for a while. The women often do that really cringeworthy dancing stuff. It stands out like a sore thumb in AEW.

Speaking of "cheese", Goldberg was asked if he has been in talks with AEW and if he will ever join and he bluntly responded that AEW is too cheesy and he wouldn't be able to look at himself in the mirror if he did. I mean, I am pretty sure the feeling is mutual, Bill...

I googled Chika Goto thanks. She is very attractive.

I think Julia Hart is injured. It was on Dynamite I think. Willow seems to go kind of soft on her.

[Reprise]

Another thing about Mercedes and the commentators (can't remember who it was) mentioning that it's odd she gets an instant title shot when hasn't even wrestled a match. One of them - might have been Schiavone - also said that she's ruining Willows moment by coming out to stare off with her. It makes me wonder if they are turning her heel.

[Raging Justice]

AEW pushed the race thing just a little too much last night with Swerve, I've seen a few people (myself included) slightly annoyed by that. By and large though, everyone is happy he won the title, but we all wanted him to be champion because he's earned it and he deserves it. We don't care what his skin color is. I thought the Black Panther thing and some of the pandering Swerve did before and after the match was a bit off putting with him talking about starting some kind of movement as if no black person has ever had any success in pro wrestling.

All in all though, I'm very happy that he is the champion. I think the time was right to pull the trigger and give it to him. Now it remains to be seen if we'll get an Asian world champion with Takeshita or Okada. If AEW does do that, just cut back on the pandering a bit is all I'm gonna say. We don't need to see either guy come out dressed up as some Japanese super hero or anime character.

[Raging Justice]

Another thing about Mercedes and the commentators (can't remember who it was) mentioning that it's odd she gets an instant title shot when hasn't even wrestled a match. One of them - might have been Schiavone - also said that she's ruining Willows moment by coming out to stare off with her. It makes me wonder if they are turning her heel.

It's a bit hard to know where they are going with Mercedes, but her going heel and brutalizing Willow seems likely. I don't see Willow holding the title for long, which is sort of unfortunate. It seems she always gets passed over by bigger stars like Giulia and now Mercedes, but we'll see

The running theory on Toni Storm is that she's dropping the title to Mina Shirakawa. I just hope they handle it right. Right now, they are not really featuring Mina enough on TV. AZM is now in the mix too, I don't know what they plan to do with her. I've said it before, but the women's division has soooo much potential right now, but it's all up to Tony to use it. We've got some great talent in ROH too. Supercard of Honor put recent AEW pay per views to shame (including Dynasty), when it comes to women's wrestling. You saw that six women trios match, any one of those women put into a singles PPV match would be amazing, and Billie Starks, Queen Aminata, and Athena all bring a lot to the table too. Athena and Shida put on a clinic.

If WWE could synergize with Marigold, man there will be some incredible women's wrestling in the near future. NXT seems to have a ton of good women, and there's some good talent on the main rosters too. Honestly, I feel like the women's stuff is the most interesting in WWE right now, as the male side of things has gotten kind of lame lately, particularly with all of the focus on Cody. I'm hopeful that Chad Gable's recent heel turn can bare some good fruit, cause there's little of interest to me from WWE right now beyond what's going on with some of the ladies.

[Raging Justice]

So Swerve is champ now. I don't know how long he will have the title or when he will drop it.

Cody is going to be champ until next year's Wrestlemania.

Why do I point this out? To show one of the key differences between the two products. I like not knowing what's going to happen. I like that AEW's world title picture is not always clear.

[Raging Justice]

Billie Starks is whining on Twitter because of some silly thing ONE person in a crowd shouted at her. These people are so thin skinned. They'd break down in tears in the fetal position if they had to deal with 90s WWE/ECW/WCW crowds who used to shout out things ten times worse.

These people are so soft it's ridiculous. GET OFF YOUR STUPID PHONES AND GET OFF TWITTER if you're going to be such little babies.