Lorne Malvo

Komander being one of the only people to reverse the Seatbelt because the guy who trained him invented the move is the kind of nerdy shit I love.

Can't believe I forgot to nominate the Hardys for Worst Wrestler. Jeff in particular can't even do the Stinger Splash without it looking like it might kill him. Even Mark Briscoe felt diminshed several notches just by teaming up with them. Please let Private Party beat them in some kind of passing the torch moment then fuck them off for good.

10 hours ago, JLM said:

 I even skipped the main event Komander/Vikingo/Lee Johnson vs Workhorsemen/Gringo Loco. I'm sure it was a fun spotfest but it feels like last week's main event, only slightly worse.

It wasn't even that, you didn't miss anything here. One of those matches where everyone seems to be half a step off each other and the crowd was completely dead too. 

It was the most nothing ROH show in quite a while. 

Kyle Fletcher vs Willie Mack was good but also seemed like they were holding back a little, so wouldn't mind seeing them face off again. 

Mox and Renee get to go on their holiday.

Really enjoyed that show. Garcia vs Swerve and Takeshita vs Darby were both belters, and the four-way was fun although Beretta was probably the least exciting winner of the four.

Felt like a bit of a reset show with a clearer focus than previous months. Good stuff.

26 minutes ago, Shy Dad said:

Are we expecting them to shit a brick and try and get something in place for this evening?

WWE has Rock and CM Punk back and an announcement teased for tomorrow morning in America for the press to get behind and AEW is coming off a PPV saved by 2 or 3 matches, covered in all the chaos and shit from Jericho and Tony's stupid hat and the antagonist and protagonist of their long running big reveal both being injured and unable to really progress it any further.

Where are we at on WWE releases being able to work for other companies from the last wave of sackings?

Do they push to get an 11th hour deal with Mone done so that she can debut tonight? It just feels with how much they are hyping it's 5 years of AEW and the first show of 2024, there's absolutely nothing major in the air from Saturday that can continue forward.

I really hope they don't shit the bed just because Luke Hobbs showed up on Raw.

The best thing AEW can do right now is keep their heads down, so to speak, and just focus on creating good TV with a lot of momentum and an emphasis on their young hungry talent. Knee-jerk signings and rushed angles to combat WWE having The Rock and Punk on their shows won't be a good thing in the long-run. Besides, whose on the market right now who could match up to those two? Ziggler suddenly appearing isn't going to put a dent in WWE's momentum.

Garcia vs Swerve is an odd choice of match. Right now, both of those could do without a loss. Garcia getting the hard-fought loss after winning his previous two matches might feel like a bit of a backwards step.

Orange Cassidy vs Darby Allin finally happens and I wet myself in excitement.

THE GOOD
Best Women's Wrestler - Athena has been excellent all year, nobody is on her level at the moment. Julia Hart, Kris Statlander, Willow Nightingale & Billie Starkz all good to great too.

Best Men's Wrestler - Orange Cassidy is the heart and soul of AEW. By far my most loved wrestler this year. His first title run was the most I've ever been invested in a title reign since I was about 10. Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley are having bangers every single week and make it look easy. 

Best Tag Team  - The Acclaimed have ran out of steam the past few months but still had a very good year. FTR are still great and I've got the added benefit of not reading Dax moaning on Twitter. The Gunns are a great oldschool heel team and vastly underrated (I don't think Colton has ever had a match outside of AEW - it's easy to forget how early into their careers they still are). Better Than You Bay-Bay had some great feel-good moments.

Best British Wrestler - British Wrestler in any promotion, not just UK-based Will Ospreay 

Best Non-wrestler - Don Callis is still fantastic. Prince Nana just as good and it's lovely to see him finally getting to do it on a big stage. Taz is always on the list, I love him. Renee Paquette and Lexy Nair both show more personality in their backstage interviews than the wrestlers do at times. 

Best Event - AEW All In was special, loved it.

Best Wrestling Show - Dynamite. For me it's my favourite wrestling TV show ever. Sure it has the odd lulls and weirdly dead episode here and there but the vast majority of the time, I really enjoy it.

Best Feud or Angle - Jack Perry vs Chistian Cage was great at the start of the year. Blackpool Combat Club vs The Elite, Castagnoli vs Eddie Kingston, Jon Moxley vs Orange Cassidy, Christian Cage vs Adam Copeland

Funniest Moment - Christian Cage getting his daughter thrown out of the building, Toni Storm accepting her championship like she'd won an Oscar, 

Best Heel - Christian Cage has been ridiculously good this year. So hateable. Swerve Strickland up there too. There's not that many options this year though, AEW used to be really good at getting the heels booed and the faces cheered but the lines are a little too blurred for my liking this year.

Best Babyface - Orange Cassidy gets me invested in his matches like nobody else. Mark Briscoe is phenomenal. MJF has pulled off one of the finest babyface turns in a long-time in that I genuinely believe he is trying to be a better person despite his nature. Eddie Kingston is one of the most vulnerable characters in all of pro-wrestling and pulls it off perfectly, the fans are with him every step of the way. 

Moment of the Year - the crowd pop huge for Anthony Bowens saying he's gay, CM Punk with the trans rights sign, Jon Moxley skewers in the head, Hangman drinks Swerves blood, and the most heartbreaking moment of the year, Jon Moxley beats Orange Cassidy for the International Title.

Match of the Year - Moxley vs Cassidy, All Out. Swerve vs Hangman, Full Gear. Stadium Stampede, All In.

Promo of the Year – can be an individual promo or a two-person back and forth but please be specific i.e. show and date Hangman to Swerve, Dynamite 15h Nov.

Breakout Star - Takeshita and hopefully next year is even bigger for him.
 
THE BAD
Biggest Letdown - CM Punk returns to AEW carrying a sack, wearing shite tights and doing poor promos, AEW's stop-start pushes meaning people like Takeshita and Hobbs lose all their momentum, Reigns beats Cody 

Worst Wrestler - Gravity (can't even do the slow-mo walk properly), Ross Von Erich, Serpentico, Hardyz

Worst Non-wrestler - Tony Khan, I don't even have Twitter but his few appearances on screen are always dreadful. Kevin Patrick who commentates the whole time like he's cutting a promo, stop shouting at me! Alex Abrahantes is a fucking dork. 

Worst Match - Roman Reigns vs Jey Uso is still going on, Von Erichs vs The Outrunners (may be some recency bias there but it was dire)

Worst Event - WWE in Saudi Arabia

Worst TV Show - Collision is a lot better now but those early months were rough going. I find Raw and NXT unwatchable mostly but it's not really fair to vote for them when I've seen less than 10 episodes!

On 12/19/2023 at 2:24 AM, JLM said:

 

By far the highlight of Zero Hour though, was Daniel Garcia vs Blake Christian. Would actually recommend going back to watch this one, and I say that as someone who usually struggles to watch Blake Christian matches because his look turns me off so much. 

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but ever since I noticed his resemblance to Frank Costanza it has really took me out of his matches.

"You want a piece of me?!"

5 hours ago, BomberPat said:

I'm not sure any other suggestions I've seen make sense. Swerve Strickland, for example, has already done some pretty despicable things and made it abundantly clear what his motivations for doing them are - so why would he bother disguising his identity and sneaking around in the shadows to do all of this stuff?

It's a good point. I guess one answer to that is if Swerve did all this shit and wasn't disguised, then he'd have Hangman, MJF, Cole, Acclaimed, Bullet Club Gold etc all gunning for him at the same time. While he's disguised he can do things on his time/playing the long game etc. 

The bigger issue with my suggestion of Swerve is why wouldnt they have targeted any of his Continental Classic opponents.

I don't think it will be him anyway. Britt Baker would genuinely get me interested. PAC is a good shout but I don't think Khan will ever give him a proper sustained push/main event story. 

Maybe it'll be Christopher Daniels to make up for him not being the Higher Power.

Give it Big Sam until the end of the season / Phase Six or whatever.

I don't want it to be MJF, I hate swerves like that.

It's got to be Adam Cole, really. If not then maybe Swerve Strickland (Hangman did say Swerve would never reach his goal of winning gold while Hangman was around - then Hangman got attacked the week after). But just have it be Cole and reveal it soon please.

Watching Seinfeld last night reminded me Jason Alexander has one of the all-time great sitcom voices. 

@BomberPat I completely forgot about them constantly switching the hardcam halfway through the show. Really weird production choice. The 2nd hard cam facing the crowd was a much better visual than the one facing the ramp so not sure why they didn't go with this originally.

10 hours ago, King Mal the Glorious said:

Kevin Kelly does seem to have settled in a bit. I'd much prefer Excalibur or Riccaboni but he's a lot less shit/awkward than he was at the start. 

He's a lot better than he used to be, I think adding Schiavone to the team has a lot to do with it.

He's also (unintentionally) hilarious at times. There was a moment on this weeks show when Garcia lost and the camera cut to Daddy Magic on commentary, and Kelly was just staring at him as if to say 'oh well!' which cracked me up. 

5:15 here!

Continental Classic continues to be brilliant.

Has any group ever played the tweener role better than BCC? All 3 of them can get the crowd booing or cheering whenever they want. Claudio taking the low road here and getting booed out of the building for it being a prime example. (Wheeler Yuta doesn't count because everyone hates that prick.) Kevin Kelly is shit but gets a pass this week for referencing King Of The Hill.

Kingston vs Garcia was excellent. If Garcia loses to Brody next week I might cry.

I really hope Swerve and Keith Lee continuing their feud elevates Lee more than it stalls Swerves momentum. Hopefully it doesn't last 6 months and actually has a proper conclusion unlike last time.

A rare example of Collision being better than Dyno this week, for me. The street fight was a lot of fun, OC had another good title defence (Bryan Keith has had a standout weekend) and I'm happy to see Thunder Rosa back. Hopefully they give her some promo time next week so Britt Baker has something else to moan about!

4 minutes ago, JLM said:

 Julia Hart and Skye Blue have both improved in-ring over the past year or so, but I don't feel like Anna has progressed at all. 

If anything, I'd say Anna Jay has regressed. She looked really promising when she first debuted (even getting a surprisingly good match out of Brandi Rhodes) but then she got injured a while back and hasn't been great ever since she returned.

One of the biggest problems with them scrapping Dark/Elevation (other than missing out on Taz and Excalibur commentary) is people like Anna not getting regular match-time anymore.

When NXT went through their first 'talent acquisition' phase and stated hiring everyone and their dog, I always remember Eric Young feeling like a really weird signing. Sanity were okay on NXT and a load of nothing on the main roster and it was obvious they weren't interested in doing anything with him. Surely if he'd have stuck it out in TNA during the 2016/17 wilderness years he'd have been given another title run as a day one-er. This was the period that Eddie Edwards and Eli Drake were getting title runs so Eric Young would've been near the top of the card surely.

Then again, you could make the case he'd done everything there was to do in TNA and a change of scenery did him good, but I thought his entire WWE run was a waste of time.

On 12/16/2023 at 1:33 PM, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

Her assistants are getting sacked. Fair play to those two lads but like the rest of the people on The Last Leg they come across as insufferable pricks. 

Stuff like this is a massive bugbear of mine. It's utter shite. Just like the Katie Hopkins prank that Houchen mentioned or people stitching Farage up on Cameo. What good does it do? Sure, you'll get a few back-slaps on Twitter from left-leaning middle class twats but other than that, what a colossal waste of time. I'd much rather they put their time, effort and money into doing something positive for the comumunity/cause they believe in, but this doesn't garner as many likes as going 'look, we made this cunt look like a cunt!' Pathetic.

Enjoyed this show, for the most part. They did a good job of mic'ing the crowd considering it looked like nobody was there.

Vikingo vs Black Taurus was a weird one. It seemed like Vikingo was half a step behind for some of this which lead to some nasty looking bumps and awkward moments.

The Trios match was fun. Gates of Agony & Cage have been doing good work in ROH for a while now, I wouldn't be against them holding the AEW trios titles at some point. Bad Dude Tito had a great night, would love to see more of him.

Ethan Page vs Tony Nese was great! It's just been the epitome of a strong mid-card feud, this. The crowd loved it and if it leads to another Men Of The Year run that can only be a good thing.

Survival Of The Fittest may be my match of the night. Kyle Fletcher is an absolute stud. Fantastic closing stretch.

Wheeler vs Lawlor was okay but not on the level of recent Wheeler matches. The finish looked shite too with Lawlor's shoulder being up and his foot touching the rope. Not sure why they didn't do Wheeler/Hook here instead.

Wasn't arsed at all about Keith Lee vs Shane Taylor. I'm just glad this feud is over. Reunite them as a tagteam just so Keith Lee has something to do other than shite backstage interviews, please?

I wasn't as up on the BCC vs Dem Top Guys match as everyone else. I loved the first half of it, but when they restarted the match as no DQ I lost interest a bit. 

Eddie Kingston vs Anthony Henry didn't really need to be on this show. I love JD Drake but have never quite bought into Henry and I've realised why, it's because he's a complete CM Punk circa 2008 ripoff. His moveset, his mannerisms, his gear, the taunts/poses etc, it's all Punk.

Starkz vs Athena was a fantastic main event. Starkz is phenomenal in-ring considering her age. I'm glad they kept the belt on Athena too. The post-match with Starkz agreeing to be Athena's minion again was really odd and seems to contradict the whole stoy of this feud but I'll see where it goes. 

On 12/16/2023 at 7:49 AM, ReturnOfTheMack said:

On the flip side, the Von Eric's were not good at all.

If you thought they were bad on Rampage, their match on the Final Battle pre-show was much worse. The lad with the black beard in particular looks completely lost out there. 

That main event was bonkers fun. And the commentary team remembered that The Acclaimed exist! Top Flight vs The Acclaimed for the Trios titles doesn't sound bad. 

Apologies for the double post but I've just watched Zero Hour and the crowd does NOT look good for this show. One side of the arena is completely empty.

The Von Erich kids had a stinker too.

I always feel like companies/wrestlers are missing a trick when they announce injuries like this instead of working it into some kind of angle. Starks and Big Bill doing Omega over (even in an off-camera backstage beatdown) would add some heat to a team who are floundering a little at the moment and Omega has got a ready-made feud when he returns. We don't always need to see behind the curtain.

Another bang average ROH show this week but there were a few highlights:

- Wheeler Yuta continuing to be a delightful little shit. Playing with his opponent and forcing him into using all his rope breaks then as soon as he starts to fight back, the vicious Wheeler comes out and he ends it quickly using the ropes to his advantage.

- A fun Dalton Castle & the boys vs Iron Savages match. I always feel like they could be doing more with Dalton but I do wonder if the gimmick limits him?

- Gravity completely missing Brian Cage on a moonsault and nearly killing himself, the useless shite.

Is the Athena nose-break legit? It looked like it. If so, what a time for an accident like that to happen! On the final go-home brawl making Billie Starkz look like shes finally ready to fuck Athena up.

Final Battle is quietly shaping up to have a really nice lineup. 

45 minutes ago, Gay as FOOK said:

Me and a friend have long workshopped a sort of metal patch jacket that would instead be filled with middle of the road bands. Nothing too on the nose like Coldplay, just real landfill shite that leaves just enough of a question mark to make people wonder if the jacket is for real. 

M People have always been the large centre patch at the back. Other alumni include Toploader, Babybird and Shed Seven. 

One day I'm going to commit to it! 

Ocean Colour Scene would get @Carbomb on board.