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Elevated Darkthoughts 1) Danny Limelight vs Jungle Boy. Crowds love Jungle Boy. Tall Paul pretty good on commentary so far. And this is a hot match. Limelight is presented as strong, and has a very different type of cruiserweight build and style to Jungle Boy. There's always been something very Territories Babyface about Jungle Boy in a good way. Love the ring apron duel. Limelight is looking either a bit tired or a bit nervous in the later stages of the match. Bit of a botch with the snare trap at the end, but overall this was very good, and Limelight would both give a lot and get a lot from being part of AEW. 2) Miro and Kip Sabian vs Baron Black and Vary Morales. Looking forward to Morales being lawn darted. Baron Black has something, and is better than he was, but his ring gear always strikes me as doofy. I enjoy the changing dynamic of Miro and Kip. Very crisp missile dropkick from Morales. And now it's the Miro Murdershow. The anger at Morales "wasting his time" is great. Kip gets the pin but the story was how aggressive Miro is becoming even towards his own team. Penelope's little look to camera was great. QT Marshall interviewed, getting more heelish. I enjoy it. 3) Big Swole vs Skyler Moore. Swole. Swole. Green gear matches green hair. Her ring presentation is so amazing. Skyler is pretty good, and great as an enhancement test for people, but she'll have to be more than "pretty good" to be more than enhancement talent. Swole is getting stuff together and I really enjoy it. Paul selling Vickie's presence as scouting is a good touch too. Helps create a broader AEW world. The kick/dodge stuff between Swole and Skyler was good too. The match overall was perfectly fine, but there were a couple of points where I could see a more aggressive Swole start to come through and I'm here for it. AEW casino game commercial. 4) Marko Stunt vs QT Marshall. Marshall is a pretty good bully, it matches his style much better than enthusiastic babyface. He's built like a bully and it fits with his background as a trainer. I feel like they're building to a Marshall / Johnson match and I'm very here for it. Marko is just so very good at the lionheart tiny babyface stuff. Presuming the "first victory" line was first singles (but even there inaccurate, Stunt has beaten Nakazawa amongst others). Marshall wins in a good match. And post match, Avalon and stooges jump Stunt and Marshall just leaves him to die. Nicely done. Lee Johnson package. As an interviewer he is a very nice guy, but not really a good talker. He urgently needs to work with some good promo guys and find a way to get the passion he clearly has into his words. He'll get there. 5) Tay Conti vs Ashley Vox. Loved Vox on the indies, looking forward to this. Wow, Conti has some serious business strikes tonight, she's so joyful to be out here. Wish Paul wasn't leaving as much dead air here. Match has a couple of awkward spots near the start but then it warms up a lot. Negative 1 in the background is just hilarious. Vox is a superb seller and has some very decent attack in her. I really want her and Delmi Exo to come in as the Sea Stars. Wow, Conti just losing her poo poo during this match, I LOVE it. I know I say it a lot, but WWE saw nothing in this woman. They had no idea what to do with the gift the universe gave them with her. 6) The Sydals vs West Coast Wrecking Crew. I like the Crew's matching gear. Isaacs in the one without the beard. Oof, clumsy start. Nice Dragon Gate ref from Schiavone. I like the Sydals. Perfect as a talented lower card team. I don't see gold in their future, but I see a lot of good matches. Royce Isaacs has some very decent power in him, and he and Nelson have some good double teams. I'd have to see them against some other people, but they've got some nice resonance as a tag team. Hahaha, loved the Matt Sydal corner run and knee strike. Clumsy double team counter, but I liked the double lightning spiral at the end. Hobbs and Hook. Hobbs is a drat good interview actually, and Hook scows in the background. Great. 7) Dani Jordyn vs Red Velvet. This could be fun. I'd love to see Jordyn as part of Baker's group, she's got similar energy. As a side note, they are focusing a LOT of women's talent on this episode so far. I really appreciate that. Jordyn is pretty solid, but still needs to sharpen some stuff. She's technically sound but needs to finesse things like looking dangerous when she rushes someone, laying in strikes, getting snap on her moves. She could be really great through, without too much more work. Solid win from Red Velvet. Oh hey, Kenny, interrupting a Sydal Bros interview. Oh, fun, if Matt Sydal beats Michael Nakazawa he gets to face Kenny? 8) Max Caster vs Dante Martin. The rap was fun, and the "your mom told me that, Dante" was a nice ribbon to it, Nice athletic dodgy start. I kind of wanted Dante to be angrier with Dante at the start. Couple of rough edges to the spots, but overall these two are very smooth. Loved the dodge sequence where Dante kept looking for the way to hit Max. I liked Caster trying to put a pin together and just not getting it. Dante is so good at the stuff he's good at that I'm really eager to see him get the smoothness and flow that his matches will need for him to be a legit force. That tope over the top was glorious. Caster's elbow drop is really pretty good, but it could be great with just a bit more practice. Platinum Max wins, but both guys looked great here. Really good match. 9) Abadon vs Abadon's Latest Victim (Ray Lynn?). This is a fun Abadon horror match. Ray is doing a good job of being the screaming victim. Not much of a match but a lot of a character piece. Nice. 10) Will Hobbs vs Brandon Cutler. I think Cutler rolled a natural 1 to get this match. At some point Cutler, who is athletic and hits hard and is an excellent wrestler, will find a way of not looking like a goof. Love the Cutler flurry at the start, lots of fast strikes, lots of momentum, firmly establishing a story where Hobbs grounds him and he only wins if he gets away. A quick match, but a very solid dominant win for Hobbs. I love the tiny touch of Hobbs not wanting some scrub ref to raise his hand. oh good, a commercial for Scorpio Sky's podcast. It would take more production, but I'd be more sold on this by 30 seconds from the latest episode. 11) Diamante vs Lela Grey. Grey has a great look. Diamante is an absolute murderer. A short aggressive match, where Grey got some okay offense in. I want to see what Diamante can do on singles as she's really talented. 12) Butcher, Blade and Private Party vs Party Of Scrubs plus Carlie Bravo. I like that the camera headed to the face tunnel for Private Party but then they came out of the heel one. David Ali has something, technically sound, but needs to develop. Dean Alexander is currently a glass of room temperature nothing, but he could improve. I like Brick. Brig big lad. But then he runs into Butch, the biggest lad. JD Drake in the crowd, wearing a steakhouse jacket. The point of this match was to show B&B working with Private Party, and mission accomplished. Promo for Lexy Nair interview show. OK, cool. 13) M T Nakazawa vs Matt Sydal. From the desk of Kenny Omega. Comes out with the headset and the apple and it's all a very nice shot at QT. Fun. Nak heeling it up in what's basically a DDT match. Nak gets pantsed and loses. OK, perfectly enjoyable comedy match, and Matt gets a shot at Kenny Omega to earn a shot for the world title. Cool beans. And then Kenny murders him. 14) Kenny Omega vs Matt Sydal. Sydal died. He went away. He's gone. ON SCREEN TONY! Authority figure sets a match! Sydal gets a match next week on Dynamite. Tony Khan should stick to pretapes but this is fun. 15 Riho vs Maki Itoh. Two very different types of joshi energy here. The kokeshi is the best move. Dodge and kokeshi is awesome. Itoh shines a lot in the start of this, which is appropriate as she's the new hotness. I like a dominant Itoh here. And I will always love the pure babyface energy of Riho on the attack. Riho looks... mildly inconvenienced by that Boston Crab. Loved the chase to the ropes to a running knee. Itoh mocks Fuego with a tornado DDT. Riho's strikes look GREAT now, by the way. Some great submissions from Itoh, and overall a very very back and forth match. Riho wins, but wow was that hard fought. Great match, so much fun. This was a good first show, there were a couple of slightly rough bits and they need a title sequence, but as a proof of concept this was a hell of a show.
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Mar 16, 2021 08:35
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The Omega / Sydal angle was the most overtly "sports entertainment" booking I remember seeing from AEW. a champ books a match for later in the show, they do the "you have to book my lackey to get to me" angle, there's a post match switcheroo, and then a GM overturns it. I could imagine this happening on a RAW from ten years ago, except that here it was done well.
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Mar 16, 2021 09:14
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Cody's not like Triple H at all. What he's like, what he's always tried to be like, is Dusty Rhodes. Win a lot, lose to the big guys, elevate the boys, have the most emotional match on the card and treat it like the main event even if you're on first, bleed like a motherfucker. He's his father's son.
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Mar 16, 2021 21:11
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Dark can be whatever length they want it to be as it's the dark match bucket. But Dark Elevation, which is more of a produced show, should be a tighter and better defined length. And it needs titles.
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Mar 16, 2021 23:25
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karmicknight posted:It really doesn't need titles. Let me clarify: opening titles, not championships. I just don't like the cold open.
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Mar 16, 2021 23:32
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Prokhor Zakharov posted:Cody is the styling himself as the example and shepard for newer talent who need to learn things the old-school way. What I'm saying is that he's directly challenging Suzuki-Gun so he should battle Minoru while QT fights Taichi QT stops mid-match to try and show Taichi how to do a less dogshit Kawada kick. Taichi refuses to learn.
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Mar 17, 2021 12:13
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sticklefifer posted:I was thinking it's kinda weird how "video game enthusiast" is the AEW champion and "tabletop enthusiast" is at the bottom of the card. We're going to find out that resolutely middle-of-the-pack SCU are really really into collectible card games.
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Mar 18, 2021 12:32
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CombineThresher posted:That's not a huge change, if we're being honest. Be fair, Hot Topic and Spencer Gifts are different stores.
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Mar 18, 2021 22:19
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And then the Special Main Event with the Kiss demon.
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Mar 21, 2021 20:58
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SonicRulez posted:Isn't Red Velvet still not signed? She's been signed since November https://wrestletalk.com/news/another-talent-officially-under-contract-with-aew/
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Mar 21, 2021 21:39
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Sad as it is to say, Leva is a very good test for new AEW talent. See what kind of match they can get out of someone with loads of character and not much skill
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Mar 21, 2021 23:53
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Swole has got better since she debuted, and is more held back by health than by not being good. She just needs to be well enough to get sufficient ring time.
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Mar 22, 2021 12:48
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Dark Thoughtavations Still no title sequence 1) Tay Conti vs Ray Lyn. I remember Ray Lyn being pretty solid last week. She's got attitude. Paul, you don't need to call every move. There's some nice technical stuff here. VERY nice spinning kick from Ray Lyn. Rome Hat sighting in the crowd. Tay does the Suzuki thing of smiling more each time she gets hit, I really like it. Spinning backbreaker looked great. And then that execution Hammerlock DDTay and it's over. Fun little match. Hope the slightly mushmouthed commentary isn't a sign of the show to come. 2) Lee Johnson vs Adam Priest. Big Shotty is still not a good name. let him be Shotgun Lee Johnson. Johnson's gear is looking better these days. Some nice smooth chain wrestling to start. Priest isn't bad, muscular little dude with some very solid strikes. Got some real power behind him. The match is coming together better than the last few Johnson matches. Johnson and Priest both could do with a tour somewhere like Dragon Gate or DDT where they can build up some non-US experience and have a match every night. Jeez, is that finisher new? It looks devastating. Ryan Nemeth interviewed in a pink corridor. Pretty good promo, but I chuckled about Nemeth bragging about being trained when talking about Orange Cassidy. Orange. Cassidy. Hollywood Honk. 3) Varsity Blonds vs Fuego del Sol and Jake St Patrick. I like Jake St Patrick. Nice positive attitude. This must have been a 3AM taping because Tall Paul sounds exhausted. St Patrick dances out of a couple of Pillman holds. He's not smooth yet, but he's getting there. And Griff is becoming a really great territories big face. He feels like someone who would have done great business in World Class back in the day. However he's also got the power and aggression where he could be a very effective bully heel one of these days. Pillman has improved a fair bit, too. He's not as good as his partner, but he's not having to be carried to anything. And I love Fuego, obviously. So Fuego can hit the tornado but is yet to capitalise on it 4) Max Caster vs Ryzin. This could be fun. "I heard you go streaking because you're weird" was good, but the rest of it was a bit eh. Anton LaVey shout out from commentary. Pro Wrestling's Paul Simon? ? I like Ryzin, he's got tons of character, he's not bad in the ring, and he fundamentally does the job of enhancement talent perfectly: he makes his opponent look better. Was that a Cassidy taunt post-pin? Red Velvet package. Full credit to Red Velvet, she was given a huge hill to climb with the Jade / Shaq match, and she really made a good show of it. She still needs confidence and seasoning, but the way you get those is to wrestle more, so good for her. 5) Leva and Madi vs Red Velvet and Big Swole. Swole. Swole. Swole theme is the biggest banger they've got. I absolutely love Swole and Velvet together. Hoping they work around Bates' limitations. Thus far they've kept things pretty tight by only requiring Leva to do basic things. her snap suplex isn't bad. Wrenkowski has got a lot better lately and it's clear that Swole and Velvet have more stuff they're willing to do with her than with Leva (not a knock on Leva who I love as a character). Love when they get Swole to be a powerhouse. Know your friends are your enemies or something like that. Oh, and I like the spot of Leva abandoning Madi. Nice character work. Oh poo poo, Jade and Nyla as a team. I am absolutely here for this. Give me this as a tag. Ethan Page does a pretty good arrogant promo. I would have preferred if the numbers line was "The only numbers I care about are 1-2-3". 6) Starks and Hobbs with Hook vs Nelson and Isaacs. Team Bus Seat Pants have impressed me so far. God, Hobbs is fun. Agile and powerful and used just right. And that smile of his is evil. And I do love Ricky. I wish they'd let him do his video promos again, because those were always awesome. Fun little tag. 7) Danny Limelight vs Baron Black. "The Radioactive Papi" is a BAD nickname. Just awful. Danny, you can do better. Speaking of doing better, Baron Black continues to need better gear. gently caress, Limelight is so agile. The corner headstand was incredible, although the kick it resulted in looked weak. See how much better Black looks with the straps down? Just give him some tights! This is a really fun match, honestly. The camera angle on Limelight's submission was bullshit, but the submission itself seemed pretty great. 8) Hollywood Honk vs Orange Cossidy. Chuckie T comes out with Orange because Greg still got that broken titty. I continue to get real Scrappy Doo energy from Nemeth. The two of them are not quite gelling here. After a while they find each other's rhythm. I'll give Nemeth the credit that he goes frustrated arrogant heel very well. Love that Cassidy flipping DDT. Liked Nemeth's dropkick, but it came in response to a flying nothing from Cassidy and I never like that. Very nice mousetrap pin. Perfectly respectable little match. Nemeth attacks OC, Chuckie runs in, and JD DRAKE comes out as muscle! I would be happy to see this pairing. It didn't deem to get much response from the crowd though. 9) Ethan Page vs 5. Good and simple story of power vs speed here. Page is big enough to yeet people around, Angels is quick enough to rush in with some lightning kicks and get out before any retaliation. Paul, I know you didn't mean what it sounded like you meant by the Tax Season line. Page is impressing me here. Athletic big lad style, some nice heel work, I think he's got something. Throw Spears out of the Pinnacle and put him in. I'm very much enjoying the Page bullying and Angels fighting from underneath. Good semi-main Decent basic promo after. 10) Ryo Mizunami vs Leyla Hirsch. Aniki bringing that Glam Butch energy strong. Hirsch is cool as gently caress and has such swagger to her now. She's shorter than you which means your vulnerable spots are easier to hit. Good power struggle to start, and a HELL of an elbow strike from Leyla on the ropes. gently caress, Ryo ran her OVER with that shoulder tackle. Ryo's clowning is always gold, and I love that Leyla has NO loving time for it. Leyla showing Edge how to do a top rope hurricanrana. This is a great match, really hard hitting, a ton of skill on both sides, and real passion shown. Excellent submission from Ryo at the end. Wow, this elevated both participants. Leyla looked tough as nails here. Overall, this was a better structured show than last week. Less filler, more matches that mattered, but still space for new people to show up and show out. Give me a theme tune, lock the format at 90 minutes, and let Paul work out all the rust in his commentary game and this is a winner.
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Mar 23, 2021 08:44
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Lead Pipe Cinch posted:*pounding on table* "You talking to me, lady?" "No, my son is also named Chobbs"
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Mar 23, 2021 23:06
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Elevated Darkthoughts Nine billion matches on the card tonight. Mox promo to start. Pretty good standing start promo. And titles! A pretty good start sequence honestly. 1) JD Drake and the Hollywood Honk vs Dustin and OC. And Where Is My Mind works perfectly for Orange, honestly. And good job to tall paul for selling it. Toney trying to explain why Best Friends and Miro have beef. "He's known as the, uh..." implies he's not known as that, Paul. Anyway, this is a fun tag that needs more of an audience. Loved the elbow and head drop combo. I continue to love JD Drake as a bruiser. Between them Drake and Honk average out to having an appropriate amount of spray tan. This was a fun active opener, I could definitely stand to see more Drake / Honk. Miro is getting really fun as a bully towards his friends. And of course his enemies. I enjoyed the fakeout. 2) Bill Collier vs Jon Moxley. Bill Collier has a HELL of a look. Dude is put together and looks ready for business. Just hoping the dude can work after this. I like Mox's new gear. Nice chain stuff to start. Sweet dropkick from Collier. This isn't the fastest match but it's pretty enjoyable, and Collier kicking out of the piledriver was nice. 3) Penelope Ford vs Lyla Grey. Grey has a good looks and some okay offense but needs a heck of a lot of seasoning. Not much to say about this one, other than that it feels like the women's division is further on than this now. 4) Rex Lawless and Milk Chocolate vs Large Adult Gunns. I like the dude from Milk Chocolate mocking smallest adult Gunn. Summers clearly has some chops. Austin is a good hurt sponge, because there is no sense in which you mind seeing him get beaten up. lawless looks better in the singlet, it makes his beefy wideness seen more like an amateur wrestler's build than him looking like a door in jeans. Not much to this match, but you could bring Milk Chocolate back and give them matches against a few more guys and I'd be fine with that. Thunder Rosa promo. Very babyface, which is fun. Sets up Gracia match for later as having stakes, which is nice. Ooh, and we get Diamante. "Technically, you don't even go here" is GOOD poo poo. I am absolutely here for this. Are they storifying the Ivelisse / Rosa beef but with the less problematic Sicaria? 5) Joey Janela vs Chandler Hopkins. Cowboy hat, big yeehaw. Like the look of Hopkins. He's not bad and some of his strikes have a nice element of reality to them, but his stuff isn't that fluid yet. His frog splash was good. Yet another AEW Shooting Star Press that doesn't come close to landing. Not a bad match, but Hopkins has some way to go to live up to his potential. Catty Angelico, I'm here for it. Evans continues cutting the promo that was already running in his head. 6) Alex Gracia vs Thunder Rosa. Very much a student / teacher match. Rosa knows what Gracia does well and finds ways to work it in. As a result Gracia looks pretty good here before the inevitable - and perfectly well performed - conclusion. 7) Legit Leyla Hirsch vs Vipress. Leyla just power walks in there, captures a leg and starts stretching. She and Vipress take a minute to get on the same page. This gets some good back and stuff in once they've worked out how to work together, and Leyla is getting so fluid at locking in the arm breaker. 8) Danny Limelight vs Frankie Kazarian. Fun. Lots of good technical stuff from two very talented guys here. They really are taking a serious look at Limelight here, and with good reason, he's got really solid skills. But then we've largely seen him facing really good guys. Big fan of Kaz ending with a crossface chicken wing. 9) Ethan Page vs Fuego. This match is fine. Fuego does a good job, Ethan works well with him, but I'm not seeing what's special about All Ego yet. 10) Tay Conti and Hikaru Shida vs Tesha Price and Jazmin Allure. Kind a matching gear both sides. Tesha has some nice looking offense. Love the stereo Tay / Shida stuff. Welp, this was over fast. 11) Jungle Boy vs Jack Evans. This is the good poo poo. Evans is an angry flippy dirtbag and he brings it to Jungle Boy in all sorts of fun ways. Everything Jungle Boy does looks great. Everything. Especially the snare trap which is a really superb finisher. 12) QT Marshall and Lee Johnson vs Adam Priest and Aaron Frye. Expecting fuckery here. Okay match, but short, and the point was the tag steal, which looked good. 13) KiLynn King vs Ryo Mizunami. New music for KiLynn? Aniki looking loving great out there. Picking up Bryce was awesome. This is a solid match. I'd really love to see King do a tour with someone like Marvelous, get some experience under her belt in hard hitting matches in small venues. However she and Ryo match really well for an intentional mismatch. Lots of comedy, lots of character. KiLynn is finally laying in those strikes and it looks great. Ryo just has so much swagger. She works hard, she wrestles great, and all the time she's doing so she's projecting character. Both a great performer to have on your card, and a great wrestler to have working with your young prospects. You couldn't help but get better working with her. King is figuring out how to be a power wrestler here, while exerting character of her own. The chop exchange was amazingly good. This match was loving awesome and I would LOVE these two to tag. 14) 5 and 10 vs Vary Morales and Rome Hat. I do love the five and dime team. Power and speed and a lot of good work together. They're resolutely the third team of Dark Order but I don't mind that at all. Rome Hat is super good fun and Morales has potential in a small venue lucha way. We'll have to see if that translates to something bigger. Jesus, that 10 ragdoll full nelson is vicious, he's like a dog shaking a rabbit. Like the Bear Country video package 15) Bear Country vs Private Party this is an awesome matchup, let's see if it becomes an awesome match. I enjoy agility meeting strength here, Kassidy and Quen are so fast, but it's not like the bears are slow either. I love that Kassidy screams when he sells. Holy poo poo, Bear Boulder catching Quen in the cross body with Kassidy over his shoulders was utterly astonishing. Private party hit a desperation tight-grab rollup, they really sold this as an either-way deal. Very good match. Post-match we get set up for Bear Country vs Jurassic Express. This could be great. 16) Scorpio Sky vs Mike Sydal. Mike comes out to his brother's music. Bet he feels great about that. This is solidly athletic and well wrestled. Sky is shading more heelish which is good. I'd like to see Sky work a solid program against someone as build up for an inevitable match against Kazarian or Daniels. Which is not to look past Mike, who is doing a very solid job here. Fan of selling serious business submissions Ooh, and we get Ethan Page beating down Matt Sydal post-match. I'd watch that tag, and watch the Page / Matt singles that would follow. Not a bad show overall, with a few filler matches and a few really excellent matches. I still want them to pare the format down a bit. 90 minutes would work.
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Mar 30, 2021 08:39
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Darkthoughts Elevation Enjoying a daytime presentation, gives it a different look. 1) Hangman Page vs Bill Collier. Chyron: "Doesn't know it's not Wednesday". They're giving Collier the serious look then. Hell of a chop battle to start with. Bill looks drat good in there, hitting some really meaty lefts and rights. Hangman is so effortlessly skillful that he can make anyone look good, but even taking that into account I really enjoy Collier's parts of this match. I wouldn't mind a Page / Collier power guys tag team at some point. Good looking match and these two had really nice chemistry. Tossing a beer to Big Bill was a nice touch. 2) Dean Alexander and Carlie Bravo vs Varsity Blonds. Always love a solid young lions vs slightly older lions match. Garrison and Pillman are nice and dynamic together. There's a couple of points where they're clearly still learning with regards to chemistry and flow, but it all looks pretty good. Bravo and Alexander are obviously brand new but they don't look bad by any means. Not a long match, but a pretty good fun bout. 3) Alex Gracia vs Dr Britt Baker. They've put the bloody face into Britt's intro, which is fun. I love the idea of Baker targeting Gracia because she faced Thunder Rosa last week. This is such an amazing shithouse promo. Not really a match, but a lot of arrogant fun. 4) 10 vs Danny Limelight. This is a fun mismatch. If they're letting Limelight have more matches I'd really like to see him vs Vlan Vngels. Limelight has been in the military AND the Marines! Dany focusing on the strikes, which is good. He's wrestling a smart match which is always good to see. Some delightful selling from Limelight after the pump kick. Theatrical without being absurd. And that triangle sleeper on 10 looked fantastic. Absolutely love the ragdoll full nelson finisher. 5) Big Swole vs Jazmin Allure. Swole. Swole. She's finally getting to the point where her in ring stands alongside her character. At one year on, Allure can definitely work a match. She lets all of Swole's gear look good. Kind of wanted to see her do a bit more for herself, though. She has a couple of breakaway spots but gets caught. Pretty decent back elbow, though. Allure needs to work on making her stuff look dynamic and impactful, take a few of those Dustin Rhodes classes. Swole clearly has as her shots are much better than they used to be. No idea what was happening with that Texas cloverleaf, looked a bit weird. oh hey, Mike Sydal actually knows how to talk. They both sound like Crispin Glover characters, but that's okay. 6) Michael Nakazawa vs Vary Morales. Nakazawa's QT gimmick still pops me a lot. Fun stuff with the headset. BEAUTIFUL high fly armdrag from Morales, like absolute textbook. Very decent comedy stuff here, Nakazawa as trickster and goof. We get to see some really dynamic fire from Morales here which I like. Lots of excitement, nice floor dive, and gets the small crowd behind him. Fun match. 7) Baron Black vs Lance Archer. If there's anything important you want to say to Baron Black, now's your chance. Jake on commentary, or maybe someone's just rubbing some gravel against a Yeti mic. Solid big man squash. Baron Black is actually really good, but most of what he was doing in this match was showing off his selling. Jake grumbles for a bit. Lance cuts a decent promo. 8) Ryo Mizunami vs Tesha Price. I tensed for a moment when Toney said that Ryo loves having fun, but that's just residual WWE brain, becuas that actually IS part of Ryo's gimmick. She's having fun beating the absolute piss out of people. Tesha is pretty good in this match, grasping that her role and her objective is to look like she's trying to get the lucky shots and build up momentum, while Ryo can play the trickster monster. Very decent match: not quite at the standard of last week's absolute war with KiLynn King, but a very watchable women's match where Tesha gets a lot. 9) Max Caster vs Colt Cabana. This could be a really fun one. Not a bad rap from Max. I quite like him ending it with just some spoken word insults. This is nice and physical from the start. Colt does comedy so well that people forget he has a really solid core of chain wrestling. Caster is such a gifted lower card heel. He has the mannerisms and style exactly right so everything he does is looking for sneaky lovely advantage. Slight whiff on the drop toehold into the boombox, but the end sequence was perfectly fine. 10) Adam Priest, Ryzin, ROME HAT, and Fuego vs the Hardy Family Office. Tall Paul said "Bad Bunny". Big Butch and Marq Quen kneewalking. This is all amazing. RIP in peace Rome Hat. Rome Hat vs Marq in a hair vs hair battle, book it. Bunny just beating the poo poo out of Rome Hat and laughing is great. Allie is only ever a so-so wrestler but she is such a great character. Fuego NEARLY lands the tornado and does an awesome moonsaultish thing. But then it all breaks down and he gets murdered by Private Party. And then murdered by the Butcher and the Blade. A solid killing here. I'll take the casino ad over the New York Subway Ratman. John Silver sitting down with Tall Paul. Pretty good interview that gives you reason to care about Silver. 11) Matt Hardy vs Alan Five Angels. Really glad to see some fire and spice from Angels here. Flurry of good looking chops and kicks before Matt starts shutting him down. Hardy remains in decent shape, and has successfully transitioned his ring style to wily veteran in a way that doesn't stop him doing his more energetic stuff but means he doesn't have to go balls to the wall the whole time. "Angels is going to use the middle rope as a springboard and miss completely". Good stuff. Fun match and I like Hardy's new finisher. Hardy promo. Decent promo that sets his agenda. Fine. "I didn't sell out, I smartened up" was pretty good. But... maybe don't cut a promo on a guy for his title when he's got a title match on Wednesday. 12) Sky High Ego vs the Sydals. Sky and Page together actually works for me. They have matching types of cockiness. I also have to say that the Sydals have grown on me. Perfect lower card face team. Some very neat athletic stuff from the Sydals, nice bit of psychology with Mike's knee. Good heeling from Page and Sky with targeted offense. Page's stuff isn't flashy, but he's a very skilful technician doing a great job of dismantling an opponent. The build to the Matt hot tag is very good here. Ethan Page has a Baron Corbin frown-tummy. I do like the Ego's Edge. Enjoyable match that will hopefully let Ego and Page move up to fighting higher profile teams. Not a bad show, plenty of watchable matches here.
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Apr 6, 2021 08:00
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flatluigi posted:honestly they should really give him some time on dark or dynamite to just get on a technical match with someone (like angelico, maybe?). with some prep and enough hype he'd be sure to put on a mat classic Bravo. In all seriousness I'd love to see him and someone like Kip Sabian do a World Of Sport match at some point.
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Apr 6, 2021 08:13
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Chinston Wurchill posted:I'm pretty sure Bill Collier appeared in the crowd shot while he was waiting in the ring during Page's entrance. I didn't think they were doing teleportation gimmicks anymore. Yup  
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Apr 6, 2021 14:06
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Mr. Squishy posted:They're going to reupload the episode with Tony phoning in a line about how Bill's a legendary quickchange artist, or how his twin brother has come to support. "In the crowd, up and coming prospect Cal Boiler..."
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Apr 6, 2021 14:46
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Elevated Darkthoughts Ooh, we have a crowd, to some degree. 1) Zack Clayton vs 10. Zack Clayton does a good job of having a lot of ego for someone who could be lost in a crowd of one person. Audience popped for 10 pretty big. 10 has improved a lot over the last year and become a very serviceable midcard superman. They give Clayton a lot here. -1 interference is fun. Honestly this match while it started out a little clumsy is getting pretty good. Clayton plays a good bully, and 10 had to do a lot to get past him. Nice match. 2) Hayden Backlund vs Miro. Hayden Backlund has the face of a much larger man. Speaking of a much larger man, Miro is just built to a different frame from other humans. AEW has bigger guys and taller guys but they might not have anyone else as put together as Miro. Respect to Backlund for playing desperation offense well. And I enjoyed that Miro felt insulted by this match. Time to prepare for the Miro rocket boost. 3) Tay Conti and Hikaru Shida vs Katalina Perez and Leila Grey. Let's not push the "negative one has a crush" thing, Tall Paul. Leila Grey has something. She needs to develop but she's very watchable. And speaking of watchable, Tay just ragdolling opponents and then loving starching them is awesome to watch. As is a Shida dropkick. And as especially is that discus knee from Shida, that's a murder move. Nicely done short tag. Love how cheerful Tay is with the "hahaha yeah we have fun (I'm going to knock you the gently caress out and take your title btw) love you!" 4) TH2 vs Carlie Bravo and Dean Alexander. Nice way to link the storytelling back to the Factory angle, guys. If QT's faction is the Factory, does that make him Tony Wilson? Angelico doing some delightful fun loving grapplefuck. Evans is such a superb little gremlin. He will gently caress you up and talk the whole time and the talking will hurt worse. Some smart tagging from Bravo and Alexander. Some dumb showboating from Alexander, which sells him being new in a nice way, and then Angelico collects another knee. Dasha interviewing Thunder Rosa. Love this promo, love the code switching from English to Spanish. 5) Orange Cassidy vs John Skyler. Nice early arrogance from Skyler. Like him showing character. This is fun, and Skyler does the frustrated tough guy well. Skyler is the gamest cock in there. Short but sweet, like a nice glass of orange juice. Focus on Shawn Dean. Very good working stiff story. They do such a good job with these packages. 6) Konosuke Takeshita vs Danny Limelight. New gear for the Papi, ooh and Excaliba on commentary. Aah, and I love the Takeshita music. (I get the feeling that Excalibur is here to stop people loving up Takeshita's name). Some nice athletic and sneaky spots towards the start. Limelight looks like he's having the time of his life in there. Love that Takeshita flying clothesline. drat, there's some chops here that can be felt in the bones. Love Limelight mocking him, but I feel like that's going to backfire. This is a super enjoyable back and forth match. This elbow strike exchange is just loving gorgeous. Oh my god, that DDT. Holy christ above. And that DEADLIFT WHEELBARROW GERMAN SUPLEX. God drat, this was excellent from both guys. Joey and Sonny with a promo I can only describe as having happened. Joey's nipples are now part of storyline history. 7) FTR versus Jay Lion and Midas Black. Awesome, the touring company of The Wiz gets a match. And get murdered fairly quickly and appropriately. 8) Rey Fenix and PAC vs Andre Montoya and Vary Morales. Expecting a fun lucha execution here. PAC is so loving great. Montoya is very very good. Fast and violent and unafraid even against Fenix. Morales does a good job too, but steps into the jaws of the meat grinder. This is in no way an even matchup, as Rey and Pac are dominating, but Morales and Montoya are doing a good job of getting killed, and on occasion fighting out so they can be dragged back. This was good. 9) Dante Martin vs Baron Black. I'm glad they're letting Dante get some ring time in while his brother heals up. Baron's white ring gear looks better than his black. But again: let this guy wrestle in just longbois. Fast, dynamic back and forth to start. Black is putting on a good strong showing here. He's bigger than Martin and he's wrestling bigger than him, lots of nice power stuff, wish Martin only getting the advantage when he breaks away and takes to the air. Tells a nice kinetic story. Hard fought win for Dante, who is about as pure a babyface as I ever did see. Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky talk poo poo on Sonny and Joey. This is pretty good, they are getting better at having resentful douche energy. 10) Britt Baker vs Sky Blue. Standing observation that it was absurd to ever book this woman as a face. Sky Blue has a lot of moxie and is just about to die horribly. Some nice valiant babyface stuff from Sky who looks pretty good, but Britt is in no mood to indulge a rookie here. 11) Nick Comoroto and QT Marshall vs Andrew Palace and Cole Karter. Nick Comoroto is about to rip two scrubs in half and splatter the ring with gore. Some very decent bullying here. Comoroto is of course just a wild mess of power, but QT is getting really good as a resentful skilled bully. Comoroto wants to beat his opponents up, but QT wants to hurt them, which is a nice dynamic. The "look at me" spot before the Diamond Cutter was great. I hope he gets to hit that on Cody at some point. poo poo, I hope he gets to hit that on Diamond Dallas Page at some point. 12) Michael Nakazawa vs Mike Sydal. Nakazawa does this gimmick so well. Mike Sydal is coming into his own. He's got this sort of quiet dirtbag charisma. Obviously this is a pretty straightforward comedy match, but they're pretty good and have decent charisma together. Loved the Sydal sideways flip to avoid Nakazawa, very unorthodox and looked great. Toney, the "his apple and his apple" joke doesn't work when the laptop is obviously a Dell. Splits to avoid the laptop spot was good. Ooh, Nak kind of bleeding from the mouth. PAC and Rey Fenix promo where they promise to murder the Young Bucks and I will hold them to that. 13) Leyla Hirsch versus some racist. Hirsch has so much swagger it's unreal. She's dominating the early going of this, to the point where Shanna looks a bit staggered. Credit to Shanna, she sees that the crowd is behind Leyla and has started working heel rather than just living heel. Good submission spots here, with Hirsch wearing her opponent down until she can trap the arm and finish things. Finish looked ugly, but god did Leyla look like a monster here. Takeshita gets interviewed and Kenny come in. Love Nak as translator. Kenny "Speaks Japanese" by having Nak translate. Love the setup of Nakazawa and Takeshita vs the Sydals. Sound mix on this episode is super uneven. 14) Brandon Cutler vs Penta El Zero M. Tall Paul plays D&D, love it. Get him on Critical Botch! Ooh, love how fresh Penta's gear is today. I like Cutler not being intimidated by Penta. Penta has such superb swagger and is so dangerous. Cutler sells for him superbly, gets some nice dynamic offense when he gets an opening, and is otherwise here to do what he does best: make opponents look fantastic. Jesus, Cutler is bleeding like hell. Execution of an arm breaker, and a package piledriver that puts Cutler out of his misery. Very nicely done. 15) Diamante vs Thunder Rosa. This could be good. Nice hard hitting stuff. Rosa recognised that what Diamante does well is grappling and hitting, and she's letting her do all of those to good effect. Bruising Shibata style corner dropkick from Rosa. They're selling Diamante's arm being messed up well. LOVED the struggling out of the arm breaker. And Diamante really hosed Rosa up with that desperation lariat. This is a very enjoyable fight, and the Fire Thunder Driver is one of the best finishers in the women's division. 16) ScorpEgo vs Bad Romance. A tag team attraction, you say. I'm higher on Page and Sky than most people, I think. I like arrogant athletic heels, and Sky is starting to find his charisma as a douchebag. Some nice arrogant ringwork from Sky, and I love Page as a smiling smug heel, especially where he starts getting his comeuppance. Joey is selling like he got beat so hard he's lost all reason, which I like. I enjoy the prospect of Janela being the face in peril and Sonny being the hot tag. Match lags a bit towards the end, they either needed to keep up the energy more or needed to go for the pin quicker, but overall I liked this match. 17) Hollywood Honk and Cezar Bononi vs Best Friends. I'm so happy to see Trent back. Farm Anderson at ringside. Comedy faces doing well against comedy heels. The Honk is a perfectly respectable lower card guy and very good as a person for fans to make fun of. Bononi has improved since starting with AEW, and could ultimately be very good, we'll have to see. Okay, that corner DDT from Trent was just absurd. It's clear that Chuckie and Trent are just so happy to be having this match and teaming again. Another win for the good guys. Really enjoyed this. There was a flawless 90 minute show in this 150 minute show. Lots to enjoy, but two and a half hours felt just a mite long.
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Apr 13, 2021 08:32
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Lily Catts posted:Important context on Take's finisher: God, I love him so much.
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Apr 13, 2021 09:42
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The mix of individual segments was just fine, but the volume varied considerably, at least for me. Several times I had a quiet promo I had to turn up, only for the theme in the next segment to blare out super loud.
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Apr 13, 2021 13:25
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I wonder if part of Excalibur's job is to be the research backbone for the booth. I remember back when New Japan English commentary was still live and in person, Kevin Kelly used to say that he turned up to the venue on the day, got the run sheet, then spent about two hours working on how the different wrestlers had interacted in the past, their respective win / loss records against each other, their motivations, etc, so that anything they might do during the match was something he was prepared for. I could see Excalibur putting together cheat sheets for Toney and JR with similar info, especially for new guys.
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Apr 13, 2021 21:17
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Elevated Darkthoughts Daytime show. 1) Hangmin Page vs Spencer Slade. Fast start here, nice bit of backstory for Spencer Slade. Hell of a sprint of a match, and that powermbomb-to-pin was neat. 2) Britt Baker vs Tesha Price. Tesha feels like she's getting closer and closer to time to step up. She's doing fun character stuff, her in ring is definitely improving. You could have fun with her in your undercard. Neat kicks from her too. Britt is doing some great bullying. Tesha is doing some great facial expressions. They're giving Tesha a lot here. Obviously the result will be what it will be, but Britt's having a harder time getting there than she thought she would. Pretty good match. 3) Jurassic Express vs Jay Lion and Midas Black. Expecting some fun nonsense here. Kind of impressed by Team Circus tbh. They've got their shtick down, they're having fun, and they'll stick in your mind. Absolutely loved the bit where Midas Black was being passed back and forth. Not a long match, but silly and fun. 4) TH2 vs Morales and Montoya. Expecting a good lucha... thing here. Morales is always impressive, Evans is always a douche, let's get the nonsense going. The glee that Angelico has when he's going to grapple someone is great. Good short match. Nice interview package with The Acclaimed. God, Bowens is such a natural face. He heels pretty well, but the way he talks about Max and hypes up his friend is just absolute good guy energy. "We're hugging" 5) Starks and Cage vs Mike Magnum and Stone Rockwell. Enjoying the look of Stone Rockwell. Like wrestling having burly dudes. Cage throwing guys around is great. I love that Tall Paul is appreciating that guys can be more than just big. Stone Rockwell is an unpolished gem at this point. He's got great strength and good ring presence and just needs someone to get him a bit crisper and more aggressive and he'll be a lot of fun to watch in the ring. Absolutely loving the Team Taz performative working together. Nice subtle storytelling. 6) Abadon vs Skye Blue. God I love Abadon so much. So much character, such fun matches. She's heavy on character rather than technique, but that works perfectly. Fun messed up match. 7) Orange Cassidy vs Prince Kai. I like Prince Kai getting the Tenacious D entrance. And then we're done. Okay then. 8) Private Party vs Colt Cabana and Alex Reynolds. Quick start to this, and some great heeling that Tall Paul clearly enjoys. Private Party are a load of fun as heels. This is a super athletic match between one genuinely great team, and two really good members of a great stable. Some really neat stuff between Silver and Cabana, and I liked the storytelling on who the legal man was. Private Party are on their way up. 9) Shawna Reed vs Thunder Rosa. Reed's gear sure is a series of choices. Oh, NICE early submission stuff from Thunder Rosa. Nice athletic match with Rosa clearly in the driving seat. A couple of flubs, but a decent and decisive squash match. 10) Kit Sackett and Hayden Backlund vs Best Friends. Kit Sackett is a great wrestler name. You can imagine him facing Dick Murdoch on a WCW undercard in 1991. Trent is so energised here, so happy to be in the ring. Short match, but did a lot to show that Trent is warmed back up. 11) Leyla Hirsch and Ryo Mizunami vs Nyla Rose and Madi Wrenkowski. Justin getting yelled at was great. Leyla has Ryo Shades! gently caress yes, give me the Athletic Butch and Glam Butch team. I really like how much Schiavone and Tall Paul like Hirsch. I would very much like another singles match between Ryo Mizunami and Nyla Rose at some point down the line, but for now I'm happy to watch her Bugs Bunny on Madi. Competitive match with the right end, and I'm delighted that Leyla won with the armbar. 12) Austin Gunn vs Aaron Solow. Solow has really good presence and swagger now. Austin Gunn is by all accounts a really nice guy. I kind of want to see him die here. Aaron is a good aggressive heel here, showboating for QT in a really effective manner. Very good match up to the Quick Draw. You didn't need to protect Austin loving Gunn here. You want the heels to be dominant early on in this angle. 13) Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky vs Carlie Bravo and Dean Alexander. For two guys who are brand new, Bravo and Alexander have good skills and good chemistry. Couple of awkward spots (the "woah woah woah" spot was dumb) but both of them are getting there. Double dropkick spot was NICEly done. Sky and Page are rounding out their heeling skills nicely. Quick win for Page and Sky, but enjoyable match. Set up for a QT / Billy match. I'd be fine with that 14) The Sydals and Danny Limelight vs Kenny Omega, Konosuke Takeshita, and Michael Nakazawa. Danny Limelight is smooth as gently caress. Kenny and Nak are being fun dumb idiots. And then we get Takeshita tag in and a wrestling match happens. This is house show bullshit in the best way. Love Limelight getting a catching fire moment. And the Sydals are always fun. Here's a fun idea for a lower card feud: Sydals vs TH2. Start with Angelico vs Mike, then Jack vs Matt, do a trios match with Limelight and someone else included, then finish with a number one contenders tag match. That's four weeks of TV there for you. Anyway, back to this really awesome match. Limelight vs Takeshita have such absolutely unreal chemistry. Their stuff just looks so good together. And Limelight is looking like a hero in this match. Fighting out of the snapdragon setup TWICE looked great. Jesus, the heart on this kid, and oh my GOD that DDT. I can only assume he's already signed because he looks absolutely amazing here. loving hell, that corner to corner dropkick from Takeshita. This was an awesome match. I know Takeshita is just here on a working holiday but Big Biceps Tony needs to fill his hotel room from floor to ceiling with bricks of cash to make him stay. Sleepy Elevation to start, but there were a couple of really great matches on here.
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Apr 20, 2021 07:21
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That's the last Takeshita match in AEW for now but he intends to come back. https://twitter.com/Takesoup/status/1384310398321496064?s=19
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Apr 20, 2021 08:57
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While I'd like to see Eruption vs a wide range of different people, the one that instantly came to mind was Eruption vs Best Friends and Kris Stat. I want to see Trent? and Sakaguchi Strong Style each other. I also want to see a Best Friends parody of the Eruption entrance video where Chuck Taylor trips over a sleeping Orange Cassidy.
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Apr 20, 2021 16:15
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Lead Pipe Cinch posted:Really looking forward to the Hirsch/Nyla match that a COVID exposure stole from us. 
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Apr 20, 2021 16:15
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Taz comes out to try and recruit Ryo and Leyla and is interrupted by "TOKYOOOOO" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ6GpiOixf4
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Apr 21, 2021 15:11
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by the way, Stone Rockwell (the Indiana Jones dude who wrestled on Monday) has his own merch store and his shirt is awesome. https://twitter.com/DSSAdventure/status/1384292310834290688
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Apr 21, 2021 22:01
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MorningMoon posted:im dying from this spicy topokki it's so good it's murdering my mouth joey save me Buldak / Samyang do amazing hot chicken stuff. They have a hot carbonara ramen that will make you see visions of the next world.
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Apr 27, 2021 07:10
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Elevated Darkthoughts High energy crowd today 1) Chuck Taylor vs Rey Fenix. Oh boy. Rey out with his brother. Hoping we get a Best Friends vs Lucha Bros match out of this at some point. Bit of miscommunication towards the start, but it turns into some nice mat stuff. Delicious strike exchange between the two of them. Oof, that flash dropkick from Rey just switched Chuck off. Ahaha, Chuck's counter to Rey's rope shenanigans was beautiful. And then we get the Alex / Orange / Penta spot which is great. This was a good match, but it felt a half step behind being a great one. I could happily see more of this bullshit. 2) Ryan Nemeth vs Ryzin. Gentlemen, we are at Full Honk. Drake, Avalon, Bononi and the Honk. Good bullying by Nemeth who is really feeling out the "lovely lowercard heel" role. Ryzin looking good and working face very effectively. I wouldn't be surprised if his BTE stuff hasn't raised his stock a bit with the company. Inevitable result, but this was quietly fun. 3) Dean Alexander vs Orange Cassidy. Justin Roberts really leaning into the "wearing.... WHATever!" tonight. Dean Alexander does a good job as frustrated stooge here. Not a long match, but we get the Orange comedy stuff we came for. Wingmen sketch. JD looks pretty good in that shirt, honestly. Let's touch tips, boys. 4) The Acclaimed vs Liam Grey and Adrian Alanis. Okay rap, but as they're fighting scrubs it doesn't really land. New guys have a good but simple look. It's a squash match, and quite nicely done. What's notable is that Paul and Toney are finally finding their energy. Excalibur and Taz are the weirdest podcast you ever heard. Toney and Tall Paul are minor league baseball commentary. Ooh, very nice weird slam from Liam Grey. Alanis has some nice power and a decent big man style. You could build something on this frame. But not right now, as they have to lose and get their hands kissed by Max. He's locking eyes with me. I don't like it. Alex and Five promo. This is pretty good. Five is such a good comedy stooge. 5) Nick Comoroto vs VSK. Is that VSK? Well, he's dropkicking a monster, so I guess so. Comoroto is such an amazing physical specimen. Some nice lionheart underdog stuff from VSK but he's just hitting a WALL here. God, that military press impaler is just gorgeous. I do really enjoy the presentation of the Factory. I hope they get to persist after the Nightmare Factory feud. Oddly for being the most physically imposing, Comoroto would be the easiest to turn face if you needed her to. Leyla Hirsch package. It's a good package, and really pushes that she is built from the ground up. Her being on the boys and girls wrestling teams at high school makes a lot of sense. Love that they got footage from the Collective of her vs Lindsay Snow. That's a match I'd like to see in AEW. God, imagine a history where Leyla stayed in Japan working for Stardom during the pandemic. This is how you sell me on someone, Leyla is a loving badass. 6) Diamante and Amber Nova vs Leyla Hirsch and Ryo Mizunami. Glasses Crew represent. Fast and kinetic start. Good pairing to put Leyla against Amber, where you can get both Leyla's excellent grappling and some good height disparity. And Aniki and Diamante had some good fun hard hitting stuff. Amber Nova has some good raw material and some nice flashy moves, but needs some real toning up. Which luckily AEW is really good at. Ryo taunt spamming is my very favourite thing. Leyla egging on Ryo with the corner chops is fun too. Hahaha, assisted top tope senton from Leyla was awesome. And then Strong Short Girl makes Tall Abs Girl tap. Diamante attacks Leyla post-match, setting us up some potential singles stuff later. Leyla Hirsch vs Diamante. Yes loving please. Ethan and Sky interviewed by Dasha. It's okay. 7) Tesha Price vs Kris Statlander. Tesha is getting some really good weirdo energy going. But speaking of weirdos, here's their queen. Kris Stat is in superb shape. Not much match in this match, to be honest. I like Kris's tombstone finisher but boy does she leave a lot of air on it. 8) Page and Sky vs Five and Reynolds. This is pretty good fun. Reynolds and Five aren't normal tag partners but they're familiar enough with each other that they work together really fluidly. Lovely strikes from Five. I'm still waiting on the thing that will make Page and Sky - a pair of excellent all rounders - stand out. I'm reminded again of the Minoru Suzuki comment about all rounders being boring because there's nothing to grab on to. This warms up into a really fun match. Bullying power against lionhearted skill. Reynolds is an excellent hot tag. I'm glad they didn't make this a more dominant match. Having Ego and Sky fight for the win looked good. 9) Nyla Rose and Madi Wrenkowski vs Big Swole and Red Velvet. Vicki hitting on Justin but then rejecting him was fun. I'm glad they made the "Nyla disrespects Madi" subtext text. Madi needs to be less amused by this though. Swole. Swole. Swole. Oh wow, Swole's hair looks GREAT. I loved it when it was long, but those really short braids are awesome. gently caress me, Red Velvet just launching herself at Nyla like a missile, then tagging in Swole was great. Swole's new presentation is very strong, she is in really excellent shape. This starts into a good match, until Nyla just murders the gently caress out of Madi and leaves. Kind of wanted more for this relaunch of Swole, but it was a good storytelling match. OK, this tiny clip of Outside The Ring was hypnotic. 10) Matt Sydal vs Joey Janela. Coward Tony, spend the money to give Joey Protovision. We are nearing the bottom of the Paul Wight Bag of Aphorisms. Nice technical start with Sydal and Janela. I think people forget that Joey can actually wrestle. This is a really fun meat-and-potatoes back and forth match. That standing twisting moonsault from Matt Sydal is a thing of beauty and signifies that we're putting the damage on. Moves get wilder from here, and Joey has a nice run on dominance while he tries to keep Sydal grounded. They do a good job of not going to the high flying moves much and having Sydal build up some brawling and grappling. Holy poo poo, that midair Sydal counter was excellent. It took me a bit of time to get into this match, but it's actually really good fun. Oh, and a beautiful snappy knees up counter to the elbow drop, leading to a lightning spiral for the win. Really good match ultimately. Solid episode. They're finding the shape for this show. Drop the pure squashes a bit, give more character development time, and I think they've got a winner.
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Apr 27, 2021 07:42
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Dark Order versus NEO-Bishiki-gun. Silver entranced by a tall aristocrat, Grayson furious at a goblin maid.
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Apr 27, 2021 20:01
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Elevated Darkthoughts 1) Miro vs Will Allday. Someone's about to have a Will Bad Day. Very good bullying to start. Nice desperate fightback from Allday, who has some nice speed and good looking offense, until Miro just brings him down from the sky. Miro is taking his time on this one, not in a taunting way bit just in wanting the violence to go on for longer. And his conducting of the boos is just great. "GIVE ME YOUR CHAMPIONS!" is a brilliant terrifying thing for him to shout. Perfect execution of an execution. Look at you Toney with your broken heart medallion and open collar. 2) Abadon vs Ryo Mizunami. Sickos window yes dot jpg. Ryo is so much my favourite. I have no idea what is going to happen in this match and that's awesome. Ryo psyching herself up to attack Abadon is great. Love Ryo doing all her shtick except she's kind of terrified. And the cursed hand spot! Ryo is so loving good. They shouldn't do it for a year or so, but I'd love a story where Abadon bites someone to win a match and they sell the bite for a couple of weeks until they come out as Abadon's undead servant. Folks, I am enjoying watching a pro wrestling match this morning. Oh wow. I was NOT expecting Abadon to win here. That is huge, and what a great match to set that up. 3) Jon Moxley vs Andrew Palace. I've been impressed by Andrew Palace the last few weeks. Obviously no wins but he's had some very good looking losses. Palace has some really nice offense here. He's showboating too much and Mox is taking full advantage, but Palace hung with him for a couple of minutes. That falcon arrow into the rear naked choke from Mox was excellent. 4) 10 vs ROME HAT. Rome Hat gets music! Rome Hat gets punched right in the goddamn mouth! 10 is getting so much better. Iron is sharpening iron, and his strength and aggression and ability to put a match together are all improving. I absolutely love the lighting of this match: the last rays of the magic hour make everything look great. D3 did a good job bumping like gently caress for 10 here. 5) Orange Cassidy vs VSK. Kris Stat coming out with OC was adorable. She looks so happy. The hands in pockets bit was great. Walking across VSK was fun as hell. It helps that he and VSK clearly know each other well. Wow, that reversal of the Orange Punch was great, but ultimately did nothing for VSK. Short one, but fun. 6) Hughes Bros vs FTR. HUGHES BROS, D-VON'S SONS, CERO MIEDO, BETTER THAN THE GUNNS. Love their twin pitbull logo. Some very nice hard hitting tag stuff. The Hughes Boys have a bit of a fumble with a planned spot (the footstool one) but generally they hang very well in there. FTR are of course very good. God, you could really do something with the Hughes bros if you gave them a bit of big ring experience. They're powerful, they hit hard, they have this really nice rugged babyface energy. I want to see them do well. Today, however, they get killed by FTR, which is as it should be going into Blood and Guts. Lexy interviews Nyla on Friday! Yay! 7) Nyla Rose vs Madi Wrenkowski. Vickie bribes a ref in the centre of the ring. OK, sure. Oh, I love Nyla's hair today. Madi starts off hot, which might be the only way to hang with Nyla at all. And then she gets shut down. Nyla just demolishing her with lariats, throws, and a shoulder barge that just looked murderous. Short match, Madi looked good, Myla looked like a killer. Because she am one. 8) Nick Comoroto vs Baron Black. Baron Black is trying here, but he is facing a force of nature here. Oh gently caress me sideways that powerbomb is loving sick as hell. It's all over fast after he just splatters Baron Black into the canvas. Nicely done murder. And I LOVE Solow's lovely little grin. 9) Red Velvet vs Reka Tehaka. I do not know Reka Tehaka, Let's see how this goes. Tehaka is still a bit green, but she's got a lot of strength. Some nice blows, and someone has been showing her how to lay them in. But she's facing Red Velvet who is physically small but has a superb killer instinct. Velvet wins, but Tehaka looked pretty good in there. I'm entirely fine with this. 10) Private Party vs Ganon Jones and Duke Davis. Davis and Jones are huge guys, and were impressive last time. It will be nice to see them against small fast guys. I have to say that I absolutely love Private Party as heels. They still get to see all the fun stuff they did as faces, but now they get to be sneaky and lovely and funny too. Oh poo poo, that corkscrew moonsault from Ganon Jones was loving sick as hell. I would have no problem with Mane Event as underneath guys. 11) Thunder Rosa vs Willow Nightingale. Been looking forward to this one. Rosa is great, and Willow's been my girl since the first time I saw her. Rosa is one of the best in the world. Willow has absolutely superb facial expressions. Willow landing strikes and getting pumped up, The cartwheel thrust kick looked good. The match could do with a bit of tightening up, but Willow is showing some great power and the two of them have decent chemistry. However we get the Fire Thunder Driver and that's all she wrote. I enjoyed this and I hope we get Willow back. 12) Dillon McQueen vs QT Marshall. McQueen impressed a lot on the Nightmare Factory showcase, so this could be fun. I expect QT will give him a decent amount of shine before just flat out loving murdering him. The "Cody Killer" weight belt is a nice lovely touch. Nice fire flurry from McQueen, until he overextends and Marshall takes advantage. Marshall is absolutely great at being a loving snake. Uh oh, McQueen is busted open. He's looked good here and got the crowd behind him. The Diamond Cutter - pullup - cross rhodes works as a scumbag finish. This was good. QT piledrives McQueen on the steel steps. And nobody comes out. All your gods have abandoned you. 13) Chaos Project vs Gunn Club. I try not to get hot about the results of wrestling matches, but Chaos Project better loving win. Serpentico isolated, but when is he not? He's either being beaten up by his opponents or used as a weapon by his partner. Serpentico hugging Luther to get him to tag in was great. God, remember the dark days when we all thought Luther sucked? Serpentico is unusually accepting of the weapon spots here. Love the docie doe corner spots. Chaos Project are so much fun. It's easy to forget that Serpentico is a really really good worker. Annoyed at the team who need the win least winning, but the match was fun. 14) The Blade and Matt Hardy vs Dark Order's Alan Angels and Colt Cabana. I love that Dark Order are a New Japan style "pick 2 guys" stable. Four really solid guys who can have a great match at the drop of a hat facing off. Blage just punishing Five for existing in the same ring as him. Hey, you know what would be really good at some point down the line? Butcher and Blade feuding with Best Friends. Maybe with Hardy to even out Orange Cassidy and The Bunny to even out Kris Stat. Enjoying Blade and Colt facing off. Hardy cheating like gently caress because he might as well is great. I quite like that the face in peril spot has Colt as the face in peril with Five as the hot tag. Paul, Colt calls it the Flying Apple because if he called it the Flying rear end in a top hat he'd get taken off TV. Lovely hot streak from Angels, lots of innovative stuff and nice strikes. Aw, loved the assisted moonsault from Angels and Cabana. This is a really nice match. Oh, I really love the Leech submission from Hardy. Just drains the strength from Angels beautifully. Good main event capped off a good show. An enjoyable block of wrestling.
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May 4, 2021 08:02
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Elevated Darkthoughts Golly, AEW have a lot of guys to put in the title sequence. 1) David Ali vs Lee Johnson. I like Ali's look. I like Lee's theme remix. I still dislike "big shotty" as a nickname. Solid chain wrestling at the start. This is a well wrestled if unspectacular face vs face match. Nice and technical and proves that Ali's got something, but does more to establish Johnson as dominant, something he hasn't been on Dynamite. 2) Eddie Kingston vs VSK. Hey, is that VSK? Rolls into the ring and directly into a headlock from Kingston. Toney describing the specific shots he wants Kingston to take on Nick Jackson is funny. Nice dodge of the backfist and some good offense from VSK. Props to Kingston for giving him this much. Not much of a match, but it was fine. 3) Fuego Del Sol and Baron Black vs Page and Sky. Honestly I really quite like Page and Sky. I want them to do more, but what they do is perfectly entertaining. Baron Black, I continue to implore you to get different gear. Black looks good here, very hard hitting, stood toe to toe with sky, but they do a good job of showing the experience edge by having him hoodwinked into disadvantage. Fuego ragdolls nicely for Page. Easy win. It's not competence, it's all Fuego. Danny Limelight interview. This guy is so goodhearted and humble. He's also a really good straightforward talker. 4) THUN-DER RO-SA vs Renee Michelle. Thunder Rosa is so loving cool. She's got that Miyu Yamashita thing of having such iron clad inner confidence that it gives her swagger. Nice bridge from Renee there. This is a bit clumsy as a start, but as soon as they're on their feet and Rosa is in control, it warms up. As time goes on this match goes from okay to good. Rosa is a violence machine, Renee is a damage sponge, and thus our story goes. Great weird submission from Rosa too. Pretty good Kingston promo, liked the shout out to Renee (different Renee). 5) Chuck Taylor vs Vary Morales. Morales has impressed me so far on Dark. Small, which makes him easy to overlook, but fast and athletic and he gets it in the ring. Kind of want to see him face a hoss in an even match. Jesus, that Chuck knee in the corner snapped Vary's head back like a Pez dispenser. Not a long match, but both guys looked great. And I will never tire of the Rainmaker zoom out for the Best Friends hug. 6) Leyla Hirsch vs Dani Jordyn. It's a crowded field these days, but I think Leyla is my favourite wrestler in the women's division. Just so confident, so competent, so much fun to watch. Dany Jordyn has improved before our eyes on Dark and is at the point where I really hope they've got her on some kind of deal. I love that Leyla makes every match she's in a wrestling match. Other people can do what works for them during it, but Leyla is going to get you on the mat and make you suffer. Nice fightback from Jordyn though. I liked this one. Dasha interviews Page and Sky. They've got fun absolute dirtbag energy. 7) Matt Sydal vs Manny Smith. I like that you can tell whether you're getting Matt Sydal or Matt & Mike from whether it's My Time To or Our Time To. Manny Smith is a nine piece chicken mcnothing. Sydal is strange and innovative and I love how he's changed up his style from just high flying guy to submissions offense. A match between him and Angelico would be money. Manny gets a bit of personality as the match goes on, but he's not much of anything here. 8) Jade Cargill vs Reka Tehaka. We all know Jade looks good and is getting very competent in the ring. Worth also looking at how hard hitting and strong Tehaka is. Fast and explosive and has real potential. However, this match is all about Jade's vicious precise moves. Ahahaha, Smart Mark Sterling! Jade is looking at him with this wonderful contempt. But maybe not, I was sure this was going to be Sterlng getting destroyed, but this is interesting. 9) Matt Harty and Marq Quen vs Dean Alexander and Dillon McQueen. McQueen is pretty good. Hardy is a superb bully. Love the street clothes HFO team. Alexander is a great serious bruiser. Treat him right and he could be a Lance Storm. Expected result but this was good. 10) Dr Britt Baker DMD vs Raychell Rose. This left little impact on me. It was fine. Ogogo as next guest on Outside The Ring could be fun. 11) Tay Conti vs Madi Wrenkowski. Bell wrings and Tay goes for Leyla's rep as an arm collector. Lots of nice submissions, lots of nice strikes. Wrenkowski looks pretty good here, but she's up against Tay on the run of her career. It occurs to me that we have never had Hirsch and Conti face each other. That's one to bank for a rainy day. Tay's looks of glee when she gets to do the hammerlock DDT is great. Rosa introduces her new submission move, the Calavera Choke. I really like the concept of introducing new moves like this. I also love them putting over the NWA women's championship here. 12) Chaos Project vs Jurassic Express (Stunt and JB). Looking forward to some fun little guy as weapon stuff. Congrats to Serpentico for being the taller dude in a fight. Hahaha, the presto-changeo of Serpentico using Luther as a weapon is great. This is a super entertaining house show match. 13) Isiah Kassidy vs Alex Reynolds. Expecting a low key belter of a match here. Did something happen to Toney's voice during this match? At points he sounded really weird. Nice athletic contest, with frequent outside interludes for the hardy interference story. Reynolds is just remarkable. It's easy to focus on Silver because he's a pneumatic bout machine, but Reynolds is quietly brilliant. Super solid win from Reynolds and then a brutal beating after the bell. Love the Mox / Nagata package. This match is going to be a corker. 14) Denny Lamlat vs Jon Moxley. sickos window dot jpg. Mox comes out with the belt to fight a New Japan guy. I'm absolutely fine with this. As expected, this is really good. Obviously Mox is dominant because he's Mox, but Limelight has good white meat babyface fire. The Limelight leg capture sequence where he rises to his feat and then shoots his shot on Mox is great. Thanks for your support, Toney In Post. Holky gently caress, that top rope Death Rider was absolute murder. Jesus, you pair of madmen doing something like this on a Youtube show. Limelight looked great here. Overall, good show. Some filler, but the last few matches were all great.
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May 11, 2021 08:17
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I feel like Dustin / Solow could be a sleeper hit as long as they let Solow actually fight.
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May 17, 2021 19:51
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Elevated Darkthoughts 1) Adrian Alanis vs Jungle Boy. People LOVE them some Jungle Boy. And with good reason, he's as good here as he always is. Alanis is mostly reacting, but he looks good here. Couple of whiffed moves, but you could build Alanis up well if you had the desire to. 2) Aaron Solow vs Dustin Rhodes. I continue to love the QT throne steps. Dustin starts off dominant and fights Solow into the crowd. I get that Solow is the Factory designated pin-taker but I'd like to see him get more here. Some nice shenanigans with the Factory being ejected, a couple of nice bits of Solow offense. Once it gets into an actual uninterrupted singles match, this is really good. Dustin stops wrestling Solow like he's a brat and starts treating him like a man. There is some great athletic stuff here, Solow's leaping double stomp was great. The bullrope spot at the end worked very well too. The post match with Comoroto was great too. I kind of want the Factory to rack up more wins in this feud. 3) Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston vs Royce Isaacs and Danny Limelight. No "Wild Thing" here. God, Limelight is so good. Just smooth and athletic and great to watch. Him vs Kingston was really nice. Isaacs is a quarter step behind, but I like his ground game. I love Mox and Kingston squabbling. Holy mother of God, that leaping DDT from Limelight was astounding. This was a super fun little tag match. Lance and Jake promo. I love the Sting stuff in there. 4) Lance Archer vs Bear Bronson. Things are about to get beefy. Very hard hitting, lots of strong style strike exchanges. Both of these guys are good in the air too, so I'm waiting for them to get there. The match heats up very well, and for a surprisingly long time Bronson is not just in contention but occasionally dominant. This was very good. Honk interview. Nice and sincere. The thrown away "little brother" line was nice. 5) Leyla Hirsch vs Natalia Markova. Little sloppy at the start as they feel each other out, but it gets good when Leyla starts spamming suplexes. 6) Page and Sky vs Kaelyn Branden and Trevor Jordan. I like Branden and Jordan's gear and their swagger. Jordan has some good moves. Page is starting to really impress me. He did a really high suplex in this match that just looked gorgeous. Not much of a match, but some fun stuff. Hardy Family promo for King vs Bunny. Cool. 7) KiLynn King vs The Bunny. This could be rough, but I'm hoping King brings it together. Off to a good start with King showing power and speed. Decent enough back and forth but I'd have given King the win. 8) Acclaimed vs Blackwood and the Bennett. Not wild about the rap this time. Blackwood has something. Less sure about Bennett. Props to Tall Paul for being cool with young people doing whatever with their hair. This is scruffy but had its moments. Bowens putting Purel on the one kid's hand was funny. Page and Sky want to celebrate Darby Allin's rear end. 9) QT Marshall vs Baron Black. Not a bad match, between two guys who can wrestle, but didn't ever catch fire. 10) Joey Janela vs Daniel Garcia. This was fun. I know Garcia from Beyond and other places, and he does a good job as a compact war machine. Enjoyable back and forth. Factory promo. Well, a container for a really excellent Ogogo promo. I cannot consider someone a heel if he calls Cody a 'pissboy" 11) Private Party vs Reynolds and Five. This is as good as you would expect. Any Dark Order combo is great, Private Party have figured out so much in their time in AEW, especially their heel run. The only problem this match has is that it feels like we've seen Dark Order / Private Party a Tekkers/GoD number of times. Liked the Shida /Stat / Britt segment. Stat nearly got hit by the crutch there 12) Honk and Drake vs Army Boys. One of the army boys is built as gently caress. Not much to the match apart from yay Honks. 13) Tay Conti vs Kiah Dream. Conti is such a great showboat. Dream is very new and sells well, but still needs to get a credible offense together. Jeez, the kick to the side of Dream's head was a real rattler. Fun. 14) Penta El Zero vs Robo The Punjabi Lion. gently caress, I love Penta's new music. Robo has a LOOK. And some pretty stout moves. Nice. He performs like someone who knows he belongs. But then he gets on the wrong end of the Skeleton Man. Paul thinks he invented shush chops. FOr a first appearance, Robo is being given a lot, which makes me think they see something in him. I definitely see something in him. Nasty arm breaker, package piledriver, and the win for Penta, but that was very good. 15) Thunder Rosa vs Robyn Renegade. Renegade doesn't get that much offense, but she's got solid fundamentals, and a frame you could build a great wrestler on. Oh hey, I think this is Alan Angels' other half, and a student or former student of QT Marshall. Wow, this is hard hitting, but even in an enhancement position Robyn is able to show skills. Nice looking sling blade. It of course goes without saying that Rosa is an absolute beast. The ending is a bit awkward but I enjoyed the journey. I like that commentary kept Rosa's options open re: NWA and AEW. Honks promo. Teasing dissention, but Sexy Boy JD Drake is solid with his buddies. 16) Mike Sydal vs Brian Cage. My condolences to Matt Sydal on his brother's untimely demise. This is really hard hitting. Mike is athletic and fast and has some fun flexibility. Cage catching Cage from a tope suicida is really incredible. This match is basically just really good fun. Cage is an absolute freak, Sydal is smooth and athletic and has some very nice strikes. SO you get this dynamic of Sydal flying round, hitting strikes where he can, and then Cage just SWATTING him out of the air. I enjoyed Tall Paul roasting Toney by implying that Excalibur is a better announcer. I loved that we got Sydal moving in for what looks like a flying nothing into a powerbomb, but then flipping with a headscissors to show why people go for moves like that. I wasn't expecting much out of this match, but Sydal blew me away here. Great match all round. Overlong Elevation, but enough really good stuff that it was worth watching.
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May 18, 2021 12:58
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Just let her win matches with vicious looking moves and cut promos and hang out with Red Velvet and Big Swole and have fun matches. She'll be just fine.
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May 18, 2021 14:22
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Swole is Big, Velvet is Red, KiLynn is Big Red.
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May 18, 2021 14:30
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Elevated Darkthoughts 1) QT Marshall vs Robo The Punjabi Lion. Robo is formidable. Well built, great skills, good character in the ring. I'd love to see him against a Jungle Boy or a Rey Fenix. However, pairing him with a bully like QT works really well too. That weird backbreaker slam from QT was great. Not a long match, but I hope Robo sticks around. 2) Abadon vs Leila Grey. Abadon is so flawless in the character aspect that it's hard to notice sometimes that she has really improved in the ring. She had some great unorthodox suplexes. Leila Grey is a good foil but didn't offer much. 3) Thunder Rosa vs Ashley D'Amboise. Rosa is so loving good. Ashley D'Amboise might well be great, but we would need to see more from her to know, and that's not what this match is for. The turnbuckle spot was ludicrous. And that choke at the end is monstrous. Sad but inspirational music for the Gunns. I don't care about the Silly Sonns as wrestlers but by golly they seem like good people. Colten is so understated compared to his brother and father. It's interesting. 4) Lee Johnson vs Daniel Garcia. If Garcia brings the Red Death, this could be excellent. He needs new ring gear though. Garcia has really great intensity. His look isn't interesting but his in ring is hard hitting and painful. And Johnson of course is hugely athletic and fun to watch. Not sure about that finisher though. That's not how Beetlejuice works, Sky. 5) Nyla Rose vs Robyn Renegade. Love watching Nyla murder people. Robyn does a good job of getting murdered. 6) Ethan Page vs Alex Reynolds. We're in danger, I think, of the Dark Order leaning into the unsinkable jobbers thing too much. Reynolds is so good that I want to see him rack up wins, and the fact that losses don't hurt him much isn't reason to give him a losses only diet. Nonetheless this is a really good match. 7) Tay Conti vs Queen Aminata. Love Aminata's ring gear. This is really good fun. Aminata is starting to get it in the ring, and Tay is just a spectacle to watch. 8) Penta El Zero Miedo vs Mike Sydal. This unsurprisingly is a hell of a match. Sydal is super athletic, Penta is cool and unstoppable. Not a long match, but I enjoyed every second 9) Scorpio Sky vs Alan Angels. Five is great and getting better, but I kind of wish it was Stu in this match. I kind of wish it was Stu in most matches. This is a really fun match and I'm glad Five is getting some shine. His kicks are excellent. Sky's heel hook is superb. Big Money Matt promo. 10) Fuego Del Sol vs Matt Hardy. This is a super fun match. Fuego is great, and really brings it to Matt with fast acrobatic stuff. However the result is in no doubt. Matt looks rocked a few times but secures a decisive win. 11) Ren Narita vs Royce Isaacs. Isaacs has a great look. Narita looks like a stone cold killer. We get some great chain stuff to start. Isaacs is a great foil here. Royce just HAULING Narita off the turnbuckle to lock in the cloverleaf was great. Really good and athletic match. 12) Rocky Romero vs JD Drake. You shut your rear end about JD's shirt, Paul. This is such a fun match. Rocky is so good at making a big guy look good. This is really good fun. Rocky is always fun to watch, Drake is an amazing bruiser. Wow, beautiful tornado DDT from Rocky. One of the best things about Drake is that he wrestles like he's fighting. His stuff isn't always crisp, he doesn't look like he's dancing, but he sure as hell looks like he's trying to kill you. Post bell we get a beat down and then ROPPONGI VICE REUNION! gently caress yes. Really fun show, let down only by the commentary.
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May 25, 2021 08:25
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Elevated Darkthoughts Absolutely love this Proud & Powerful promo. Superfaces. 1) Rache Chanel vs Jade Cargil. I like Rache's new look. Unfortunately it's a new look she's about to be buried in. Jade is working it out in the ring and is incredibly physically impressive. OK, that throw into the crucifix press was really impressive. It's a squash, which is what it needed to be, but it was fine. 2) Liam Gray and Adrian Alanis vs Proud and Powerful. God, people have been waiting so long to cheer Santana and Ortiz. Alanis has been very impressive on previous appearances, and works pretty well with P&P. However this match is all about giving Santana and Ortiz their shine. Before P&P face the Bucks again I'd like to see them do a program against someone like The Acclaimed just to really establish some strong face cred. Wow, Grey took FLIGHT on that bump out of the ring. Very solid short tag. Evil Uno in a suit and the fit is absolutely incredible. 3) Scorpio Sky vs Taylor Read. The Men of The Year branding has really given the finishing touches to Sky and Page. Sky has worked out some stuff about heeling that he didn't totally have down before, and Page is really superbly dislikable. Taylor Read does a perfectly acceptable job of getting his rear end kicked in this match. Ethan on commentary instantly makes commentary better. He's got good energy with Tall Paul and Toney and has a really good commentary voice (he's like a wrestling Scott Auckerman). Varsity Blonds promo. These guys are such great midcard faces. 4) Cage and Hobbs vs Trevor Aeon and Kendall Blake. Wow, there was a BIG pop for Cage and Hobbs, and they look really impressive walking to the ring. This match is already awesome from the point where one of the jobbers fucks around and finds out in the opening seconds. Is this the old Ezekiel Jackson spamming powerslams spot? It really works, as does him just dropping the guy because he got bored. Okay what the gently caress was that pump handle thing Cage just did? Just pure power from both of them. Very nice looking. 5) Danny Limelight vs Evil Uno. Ooh, Danny got his own music! Nice! Love Uno playing to the crowd. Toney, this is Uno's third singles match in AEW. You called the other two. This is a slow match to start with as these guys feel each other out. Limelight has some crazy athletic stuff that he makes look effortless. I'm a bit sad the crowd isn't more into this match than they are. Really good fun match that had the benefit of making Uno seem like he could put up a fight against Miro. Nice little Diamante promo. 6) Mike Sydal vs Ethan Page. Ah yes, the singles match we never got from the tag match we did. Mike has improved a lot since debuting. Sky on commentary, playing PS4 like a heathen. OK, the Wonder Years line was fun. Page is just really so good at the little heel mannerisms. The fake poo poo-eating grin that just peels off his face, the little touches of viciousness that make a kind of faceish moveset look brutal and bullying. He's really good. And saying this takes nothing away from Mike Sydal who has great physical charisma and a beautifully athletic style. That meteora he did was just... effortless. Yeah, this was great, and Sky as an annoying goober on commentary was superb. 7) Alan Angels and Alex Reynolds vs The Acclaimed. Yo. Yo. Hey. Corporate synergyyyyyyyyyyyy. gently caress me, these guys are so great. Reynolds and Angels team well and we get a great speed vs strength match here. Bowens is deceptively strong and people often don't notice because he's pretty fast and agile as well. Nobody in the game cheats like The Acclaimed. But the Dark Order just absolutely no-sell it. That sequence was hilarious. 8) Kris Statlander vs Queen Aminata. We get an attempted boop-off. Some fun stuff up top in this. Aminata has some good technique, and has clearly gone to the Rika Tatsumi school of butt-based offense. Jeez, that hip attack to the corner was vicious. This is a pretty good looking match. Aminata has stepped her game up since her early matches, she and Stat match well here and a women's hoss off is always fun. (oh god I just realised eventually we're going to get Jade vs Kris). Big Bang Theory at the end was sloppy as hell, wondering is Kris tweaked her knee a little. 9) Honks vs Blonds. Paul, shut the ABSOLUTE gently caress up about JD Drake's shirt. He looked nice in it! People are hot as hell for the Blonds, by the way. The Blonds do a great line in clean hot face stuff while Honk does smug cheating and Drake is an absolutely incredible shitkicker. This wasn't a gamechanging match but everything looked pretty good and it told a simple story well. 10) Diamante vs Hikaru Shida. OK, I LOVE Shida's new hair. Loved the old hair, but the change in look really works. It's less theatrical, but makes her look more like a fighter. This is a really good match. The two of them hit hard, Diamante is clearly trying to establish herself here. And Shida is going HAM with some of these strikes. NICE corner dropkick from Diamante. She does a good line in body missile offense. Really enjoyed this one. Good episode overall. Tall Paul is finding his niche well, and while there were more squashes than I care for the "proper" matches were all good.
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Jun 8, 2021 07:26
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