The Wrestling Blog

The Champ of the Hour
all photos courtesy of WWE.com

If you're reading #IV of the BGS, there are two things that are certain: you're probably having a better week than Clayton Kershaw, and you know that so far the ratings scoreboard reads Dynamite 2, NXT 0.

The ratings may only be a metric for those of us concerned about the future Vinceification of the program to further worry over, but it should be noted that this new era of NXT is still pumping out high quality shows, just longer. L'horreur: instead of one really good wrestling show on Wednesday nights, there are two! Next thing you know, al pastor will cure cancer and catapult me into a richly deserved and delicious immortality.

But NXT didn't choke in the postseason or taste like French kissing god with the right salsa on top: it started hot with a title match, ended with a hard-hitting affair between two undefeated superstars, and in between advanced a lot of plots on a multitude of fronts, sometimes within the same segment.

Let's come to collect!

GOLD (literally): Lio Rush
Having successfully incorporated it under their banner, the first thing NXT did with the Cruiserweight championship was give it the prestigious show opening spot (thus making the second consecutive week they kicked off with a title match), had Rush and now former champ Gulak put on one hell of a match, and then not only gave Rush the title clean but had Gulak grumpily break up William Regal's attempted coronation only to put the big purp on Rush himself and offer up a handshake before stomping off to the back.

Wrestling! What a concept!

While the match itself took two segments, it was all encapsulated in the opening 20 seconds or so that featured Gulak whiffing on a surprise dropkick at the bell followed by Rush hitting a Spanish Fly for a nearfall. It wasn't like he got run out of the building - Gulak, a wrestler's wrestler, has probably been too good for that this entire millennium - but Rush started off with the momentum and maintained it through most of the match, even figuring out a Bret Hart style reversal to the GuLock and briefly putting one of his own on.

Whatever problems he had with management earlier this year, it's clear they're positioning Lio now as one of the highlights of the show. Not only will it be interesting to see who they have him mix it up with on their roster in future title defenses, it'll be interesting to see if Gulak's time at Full Sail leads into his own incorporation of feuds and dream matches. Who knows, with Matt Riddle and TAFKA Big Stoke running around, could 2020 be the year we see a version of Catch Point on prime time network TV? It'll be interesting to see how Gulak's evolution in NXT continues.

Hey, speaking of Evolve-ing...

We have a whole lot of superstars on this stage here tonight...

GOLD: Swerve, finally
On the off chance any of you readers were out there wondering why I was getting all Old Man Yells Because He Can't Figure Out the Cloud about Swerve not getting on TV, *gestures at this match*.

For some reason when I think about what this archtype of match is supposed to be, I remember a Edge/John Morrison match from SmackDown over a decade ago that fully established the latter's babyface bonafides in a plucky but eventually losing clean effort. With all that FOX and Saudi money coming in, they somehow couldn't afford to get the Lucha Underground alumnus his signature theme "Ain't Nobody" by Chaka Khan and he didn't even get the benefit of pre-match mic work before he fought Roderick Strong. But no matter - the Full Sailors loudly and proudly proclaimed it Swerve's House before the initial collar and elbow tie up had even gone down and he lived up to that hype by landing high elevation before impactful kicks (that step up enzui single leg back kick should be a signature called the Killshot going forward for a multitude of reasons), went strike for strike with Roddy in the stiffest portion of the match, and it could be argued that the match was only lost after the rest of the Era came out for a distraction. (They didn't actually interfere, but their presence alone muddied the waters enough to open the door for Strong's closing four-signature flurry.)

Nothing against Jordan Myles, or Bronson Reed, or Angel Garza - hell, I even have nice things to say about Cameron Grimes later on (seriously) - but if anybody should've won that tournament and used it to propel himself into NXT's firmament, ladies and gentlemen, I give to you Swerve.

When Adam Cole post-match sarcastically told the faithful for Isaiah "Swerve" Scott", the applause and cheering that followed were anything but two-faced.

In fact, let's chop that up...

He didn't say much. He didn't need to, either.

GOLD: UE v. the (NXT) World
The Champ also noted that as good as Swerve is, he wasn't on Roddy's level and like the rest of NXT the best of the best show up to Full Sail to see if they can hang with the Era and fall victim to an unrealistic dream that they can stop the golden prophecy. This brought the Velveteenest of Dreams out to...sadly, do the main roster babyface staple Fun With Photoshop! but also announce in two weeks' time that he'd be getting a title rematch to actually strip Rod Strong of the North American title and show the world why he just doesn't measure up.

Dream, the day after their wedding his wife was in a wheelchair. He's not called Roderick Weak, is what I'm saying.

Roderick's yelling about breaking Dream's back was cut off by the greatest song that Marilyn Manson never wrote, followed by Tommy Sports Entertainment arming himself with a steel chair in addition to a familiar looking crutch that suddenly made the Undisputed Era realize that they had yet to get their parking validated. (And man, Dream going after Goldie feels like it happened in another lifetime instead of last year, doesn't it?) All he had to say was "Goldie? Daddy's home." But it was more than enough, and poor Angel Garza getting in his face in the backstage segment after this sets up on this week's show what is sure to be a filleting of a ridiculously handsome man with an aversion to pants. And there are so few of us left in this world as it is!

This was ECWian in the best possible ways - previous feuds were furthered, weaved seamlessly between players, and even added some new wrinkles ahead of a new match without clearing its throat between transitions.

Also, if we don't somehow get two of the Era against a Velveteen/Swerve tag team, then this world is even more bullshit than previously suspected. Their names are the tag team name! It writes itself! (Though I'm super into this theoretical dyad being named Young, Black and Infamous since the Inner City Machine Guns are already taken and probably won't fly on USA airwaves.)

What's Austrian for thank u, next?

GOLD: the MAIN EVENT
You can tell a show's good when a main event delivers in the upper echelon and somehow is still slightly relegated by other matters on the show. But no need to wonder if KUSHIDA/WALTER is WORTH YOUR TIME, because it is. It's just that in this reality, Goliath took a few shots on the chin and then still slayed David. Hell, technically Der Ring General won with a short lariat, which just goes to further underscore the point made since he gained the WWEUK title earlier this year: this man has finishers because he wants to have finishers. Even a basic move with a man of his size can be a match ender, let alone against someone he outweighs by 100+, so the end could be coming from anywhere and could be anything, theoretically. In a similar bracket to the Swerve/Strong match, there was always a threat of Imperium getting involved on their leader's behalf, but he didn't even utilize them

The Full Sailors may have been chanting "WALTER's gonna kill you!" at various points during the match, but that's only because...well, the possibility of an accidental homicide was in play for both segments no matter how talented KUSHIDA is. And he did everything from mocking pats on the head to outright slaps, submissions via the cross-armbreaker and the Hoverboard Lock (even a flying Hoverboard Lock off the top rope in a stunning display of athleticism from both men) but the biggest moment in the match may have been a botched KUSHIDA springboard - assuming it wasn't just planned to look exactly like a stumble - that saw him lose his balance, stagger into the ring but still managing to land safely on his feet, only to turn around and get m e r k e d by a big boot that saw the champion standing tall while Special K's body was in the ring and his head was fallen back over the apron like a broken Pez dispenser. They could've ended the match right there and no one would've blinked, yet it happened at the outside of the second segment and the match continued on to garner the borderline mandatory NXT! and This Is Awe some! Chants

In fact, the only downside to this is that KUSHIDA has suffered a legitimate injury (not due to the match, it's believed, but still). Hopefully, it doesn't keep the Time Splitter away from the ring too long, because any excuse they have to put these two against each other is a fine one by me. As for the champ, if he's looking for something to do and someone to fight, well...
(yes yes for the love of Io's leather pants YUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS)

GOLD: Cameron Grimes? Cameron Grimes!
It looked like he was taking advantage of BOA's greenness and the general stupidity of referees when needed in this business to cause a distraction at the bell to give him an opening for his 1-Up Stomp finisher. It turned out that Killian Dain was actually coming to the ring, and he got the Stomp and 3 count before bailing out, leaving BOA to get pancaked by the Beast of Belfast and incurring no damage to himself or his top hat while putting another sub 15 second win in the books. Nothing he's shown so far has lived up to the Technical Savage nickname they seem desperate to get over, but he's not a moron. You take your wins where you can get them.

HEART EYES, MOTHERFUCKER

GOLD: Rhea Ripley and Bianca BelAir
Rhea came out to put the second L in Aliyah, culminating in a Gorilla Clutch (!) into a giant swing (!!) into a facebuster (!!!), all while maintaining the hold that eventually secured the victory. She waved on Vanessa Borne, who wisely opted to live and not step to my Australian girlfriend who is super real. She got on the mic to say that while Shayna had made everyone else tap, snap or nap, she hadn't done it to the former UK Women's champion and she was still coming after her.

Later in the show, it took Bianca far longer against the superior competition provided by Dakota Kai, but the returning Kiwi found herself on the receiving end of the Kiss of Death. After that detente, Bianca got on the mic herself to UH uh! away any ideas that someone else, let alone Rhea, was going to get another chance to off the Queen before her.

It's a testament to how deep NXT's waters are that before she said that I hadn't ever thought of a Ripley/BelAir match, and the millisecond she foreshadowed it I wanted it yesterday. Hell, worse comes to worse, l'horreur deux, we could get a Ripley/BelAir/Baszler triple threat match for Mrs. Goldie between three of the most talented competitors NXT's women's division has ever had. It'd also be interesting to see play out for the crowd reactions, as BelAir seems to be in full-on tweener mode and Ripley is basically a heel who's becoming a face by facing a greater evil.

GOLD: Equal Time
We're getting Lee/Dijakovic IV this week (say hallelujah! say amen!), and both men got stingers of their victories over the other and promising victory come Wednesday; likewise, while we all suspected the reason behind Damien Priest jumping Pete Dunne last week, both men got time ahead of their upcoming match also this week to deliver their respective points of the former looking to make his name live forever at the expense of the latter. Not everything needs to be a 10-minute monologue, and not everyone can deliver them. Well done all around.

Also, Lee/Dijakovic IV, y'all. I promise to not give a BLACK for the ensuing double countout or DQ that ensures the real rubber match takes place at the upcoming Takeover: WarGames. But into every spring, a little rain must fall, and the guiltiest parties this week are…

BLACK: Forgotten Son
They laid out the Above Average French Canadians, took their spot in a match against Breezango and won it. The Sons - well, the tag team iteration of them - aren't subpar. Their various double team backbreakers should set up a double team backbreaker finisher but Blake and Cutler are the Mechanics before they became the Revial. Jaxson Ryker, on the other hand, should be flung at the sun in order to properly gauge its temperature. At least when Aliyah shows up, it's to get someone else over. The Sons have been in this weird limbo for the past 18 months seemingly where they get pushed to a ceiling's extent, failing in every big opportunity they have while also somehow completely dominating every opportunity in every non-title match. And with the Era on top, there's not even an opportunity for them to be the dominant heel faction on the show, let alone in the tag division.

They beat Breezango after Ryker interfered. You're shocked.
---
So, outside of that, NXT more or less delivered a flawless weekly TV wrestling show. That seems to be going around lately; can't imagine why.

The important thing is that we all get to watch it and revel. One might even say - given the marquee match on tap this week - that we can bask in their glories.

One thing is for sure: NXT's growing, and so far has managed to avoid most of the pains. It's going to be great to see what comes together for the fourth iteration of the black and yellow's WarGames, even if I won't be in attendance this year.

Power's first episode shows promise in being different
Graphics via NationalWrestlingAlliance.com

The National Wrestling Alliance has been promising some return to prominence ever since Billy Corgan bought the rights to the name. While I wouldn't say it's in the upper echelon of promotions right now like another company that just debuted television, All Elite Wrestling, having a fully formed wrestling program on a platform even as public as YouTube is a start. NWA Power dropped for streaming this past Thursday, October 10. It was, much like the televised wrestling of the '80s, shot in front of a live studio audience. The only match that ran over ten minutes was the main event pitting NWA World's Champion Nick Aldis against Tim Storm. It was in every sense of the word a throwback to the olden days, and it was refreshing, not in a sense that all wrestling should be like what the NWA produced, but that it was so different from what everyone else was producing.

Wrestling is an artform that plays best when promotions differ from each other in presentation and style. One can try to emulate what WWE does, but really, one, why would you, and two, even if what WWE did was original and worthwhile, no one would do it better than they would. Yeah, there are cosmetic similarities among the leaders in WWE, AEW, and New Japan Pro Wrestling, but each promotion is different enough from each other that you can make distinctions and have people who are solely fans of each company. When you're starting out with no existing fanbase, no real distribution, you have to go all the way in one direction to stand out and get people to notice. Dramatic Dream Team, for example, has done this for years and has carved out a sizable niche in Japan with a growing following in North America. Of course, the NWA has gone far in the other direction, but there's nothing wrong with an hour each week of homage to the days of smoky auditoriums and traveling Champions. In fact, I'd venture to say that the Power arena in Atlanta wasn't smoky enough. However, the way the whole show was shot and presented is enough to hearken back to an older time. One could say Power's biggest asset was its authenticity.

The wrestling itself was good for the most part. Caleb Konley vs. Eli Drake and the main event are matches worth seeking out. The Dawson Bros. squash match was notable for watching two big guys romp around the ring and treat poor Sal Rinauro and Billy Buck like great danes would treat a Kong full of peanut butter. Perhaps the best part of the whole thing wasn't any of the wrestling but a commercial for Austin Idol's wrestling school. Shot with all the kitsch and low-budget flair you'd find from a local television commercial from the 1980s, Idol hams it up for the camera selling his potential students on making big money in a break from the daily routine. I understand that it was probably an earnest commercial, but the ironic trappings make it worth the watch as one waits between matches.

There was a match featuring Thomas Latimer, Bram to those familiar with him in TNA, and while it lead to something even better, namely the debut of Eddie Kingston and Homicide into the fray, it showed that the show and the NWA in general, are not perfect and that they still have lapses in judgment with the talent they bring in. Honestly, Latimer shouldn't work anywhere, but because Aldis recommends him, and because an entire country's scene sticks up for him despite the fact that he trapped his then-girlfriend in a bedroom and held her down by her throat, he gets bookings. It's par for the course given that Michael Elgin, Rich Swann, Sami Callihan, Randy Orton, Steve Austin, Mr. 450, Chasyn Rance, Aaron Epic, and countless other people in wrestling continue to have jobs or get bookings despite instances of abuse, assault, or sexual impropriety. I'd also say that Jim Cornette mentioning that the NWA doesn't have "cosplayers" is a black mark too given that I'm not sure he can keep it in his pants for an entire broadcast. He was otherwise great in his role as color commentator, but if the crabby purist bullshit bubbles to the surface in the first episode, I'm wondering how much of a free reign he'll have to yell about shit in the future.

Overall though, it was a positive experience in that it was a show that showed that there's a place and a niche, no matter how large or small, for big boys slapping against each other in front of a studio audience. When Jim Cornette says that all wrestling should be like old Mid-South and Jim Crockett, he's a loudmouth afraid of change. However, he'd not be wrong if he said there's a place for it. NWA Power shows that, and it will continue to grow and find its true footing on YouTube. Becoming something bigger would be great, no doubt, but it should also be considered a happy accident if it does. Habitating where it is now would be a perfect slot for it, a place for nostalgia to reign for discerning fans who want to experience it and be able to find it.

The coolest
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein

Welcome to a feature I like to call "Best in the World" rankings. They're not traditional power rankings per se, but they're rankings to see who is really the best in the world, a term bandied about like it's bottled water or something else really common. They're rankings decided by me, and don't you dare call them arbitrary lest I smack the taste out of your mouth. Without further ado, here's this week's list:

1. Darby Allin (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Look, you can laugh at wrestling being behind the times or levy that it is inherently uncool, but honestly, most people who watch it are out of high school now. No one watches wrestling to be cool. No one ever watched wrestling to be cool outside of maybe a few months in 1998 when everyone loved Steve Austin kicking his boss' ass. Darby Allin flying down the ramp in a skateboard to beat the shit out of Chris Jericho isn't "cool," but it was cool to wrestling fans, cool to me, visually impressive and something not tried since probably the beginning of the '90s. And really, the Dynamic Dudes were an old guy's idea of what skaters were. Darby Allin was born in the halfpipe. Darby Allin IS the halfpipe. Authenticity is key, and Allin may be the most authentic wrestler going right now.

2. Maki Itoh (Last Week: 3) - Do you really think a typhoon could do any damage to Maki Itoh? You are a fool if you think so.

3. Orange Cassidy (Last Week: 8) - Pfft, so what if he got the biggest pop of the night Wednesday? Shhh, no big deal.

4. Eddie Kingston (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Kingston appeared on two of the three best shows this past week, Power and Uncharted Territory. Where will he show up this week? Will he backfist someone at NXT so hard that they become WWE employees? Will he destroy every team in the New Japan Super Junior Tag League until no one is left but he and Daryl Takahashi? WILL HE APPEAR AS A DISEMBODIED FLOATING HEAD AT CMLL IN ARENA PUEBLA TONIGHT? I guess one will have to stay woke to find out.

5. Jimmie Ward (Last Week: Not Ranked) - I don't wanna talk about the Eagles. The 49ers, however, proved that their defense is legit by stymieing the high-powered Los Angeles Rams thanks to some big pass break-ups by Ward, the sixth year safety out of Northern Illinois. Can the Niners run the table and be the shock of the NFC this year? Maybe! The Saints and Seahawks look tough, and the Niners have three games against those two teams, including a December 8 showdown in New Orleans that could decide who gets homefield in the NFC. The Niners are what the Bears were last year, only with a better QB. If the Eagles can't win the NFC, hey, let it be San Francisco that gets to try to slug New England in the mouth in the Super Bowl this year.

6. Riho (Last Week: 9) - Not content to show that she can be a high-accuracy joshi striker after a war with Nyla Rose, Riho proved that she can embody the spirit of Memphis in a sloppy, satisfying brawl where she teamed with Britt Baker, who is a dentist (did you know that?), against Emi Sakura and Bea Priestley. She really is the best wrestler in that company.

7. Holly the Bear (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Holly is this year's fattest bear in Katmai National Park and Preserve! This honor goes to the bear that can amass the most weight and thus have the most comfortable and healthiest hibernation of the winter. We here at The Wrestling Blog salute Holly, showing that you don't need to be romantically entangled to get things done. In fact, you probably SHOULDN'T be or at least be married for a long time before you can. Ah, I don't know. Everyone's different. But Holly's the best!

8. Kazuchika Okada (Last Week: Not Ranked) -

Sanada is my friends crying and ranting and im Okada who doesnt know what to do imain this situation but wanting to be there for friends pic.twitter.com/mNbVLQc5k0
— shane (@blackhatrusso) October 14, 2019

9. Pad Thai (Last Week: Not Ranked)OFFICIAL HOLZERMAN HUNGERS SPONSORED ENTRY - Thai food is excellent in all shapes and forms, but there's nothing wrong with eating the starter dish every once in awhile. Sure, it's not as adventurous as the green curry but hey, it's a comfort food for a reason. Please note that if you're allergic to peanuts, pad thai is not for you, please don't go to the hospital because I told you a food was good, thanks.

10. Tony Schiavone (Last Week: 10) - Schiavone with two more shows under his belt, the pilot of Dark and the second episode of Dynamite, is rounding more and more into ring commentary shape. All I can say is... alright wrestle fans, that's all the time we have for the blog today. Tune in next week for the Best in the World Rankings!

Does the Hidden Blade look too good to be a staged move?
Photo Credit: NJPW1972.com

Bret Hart once said that the thing he was proudest of during his career was that he never hurt anyone. Part of that is luck, yes. Even in the olden days with lower risks, fewer dates, and lesser impact, people still got hurt doing wrestling. Whether or not it was easier to work several matches without an injury happening in them, to you or your opponent, it is still a point of pride for a wrestler to be able to say they never saw an opponent get hurt in a match. I don't want to say that attitude has eroded completely, because if wrestlers didn't protect each other, it would be MMA in there. However, you see it with a preponderance in dives in WWE with less than half the roster being able to catch their opponents correctly. You see it with wrestlers bragging about the marks they leave on others with their chops or how they're so macho on how red their chests get from being chopped. Everything has to look stiff nowadays. The desire to make everything look as real as possible (in an age where more and more people are in on the joke than when Hart was active) significantly decreases the margin of error for keeping you or your opponent from getting hurt. This isn't to say that all dangerous looking moves are bad; I'd venture to say that most of them are okay with moderation and a company that doesn't run its roster into the ground ('sup, WWE).

That being said, some moves are bad ideas from get-go one, and some people shouldn't be trusted doing big high risk moves (or in the case of big, dangerous dives, taking them, looking at you, Mike Mizanin). As one might expect, Will Ospreay doing the Hidden Blade forearm to the head and neck of his opponent is an intersection of both. The move debuted at WrestleKingdom this year when he clocked Kota Ibushi from behind with it, and he used it again at King of Pro Wrestling yesterday, this time in sliding fashion while facing El Phantasmo. Both times, it looked dangerously stiff to the point where it felt like it would be the ultimate in wrestling gamesmanship if he was able to work it to the point where the contact with El-P was minimal. Do I believe he didn't rock Phantasmo's or Ibushi's domes with his elbow? I'm skeptical to say the least.

The converse is moves that hit a little are better to look at and I get it, people don't want to watch strikes with the accuracy of Shane McMahon punches. I like a snug wrestling match too, but the difference between snug and stiff and shoot are pronounced. Stiff is probably where most people, myself included, think the coolest shit lands, and Ospreay is nothing but a rampant self-promoter in that everything he does in service of making himself look cool. He's shown a stunning lack of self-awareness at various points during his career, so what's a little fast and hard elbow to the head among friends (or in the case of Ibushi, to someone who clearly doesn't care about his own self-preservation)? It's all part of the game to him.

But what happens when the game ends up leaving someone with CTE? Now, I know what the counter is; everything in wrestling nowadays could give CTE if done wrong. That being said, I've never seen any move done where I feel like it's an injury waiting to happen, not even when Tetsuya Naito and Kota Ibushi did Stupid Wrestler Tricks on the apron earlier this year. That was a move that usually goes well and just went off the rails in that instance. It happens, but you can make sure it doesn't happen again with better planning. You may find me concern trolling or being biased against a wrestler for whom I have a known distaste, but I can't see any scenario where that fucking Hidden Blade doesn't land as hard as it would if he were doing it in a MMA bout. I could be wrong, and for the sakes of the people who take that move, I hope I am.

But overall, I hope that more wrestlers take Hart's words seriously. Yeah, you can fuck up a spot if it means saving a guy's health or life. The longest life cycle that the hullabaloo from that "botch" will last is however long it takes the furor from Botchamania to die down if it happens to appear there. I mean, no one really gave Ryback shit for going out of position to catch Kalisto on a dive gone awry in the former's final WWE match ever. If anything, he was lauded for making sure Kalisto didn't end up in the hospital or worse. Ospreay's not the only guy who needs to clean up his act. Like I said above, three-quarters of the WWE roster suck at catching people doing dives, and WWE mandates that everyone except like Big Show and Otis do dives anymore. That being said, that Hidden Blade is gonna give someone a grade one concussion one day because every time I see Ospreay do it, it's like I'm watching land the last blow to someone in UFC. I don't trust him with it, which is fine. I'm some idiot with a blog and a bad reputation on Twitter, right? That being said, I hope he doesn't betray the trust of anyone he does that move to.

If Bennett wants out of WWE, he should allowed to be out
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Mike Bennett (called Mike Kanellis in WWE) signed a five-year extension with WWE earlier this year. That's why it was so surprising, at least without any other context, that he'd ask for his release from WWE on Monday. The reason he gave in that Notes screenshot was that he was only wrestling one time a week. While I would be content to be paid money to work for 15 minutes a week at best, I'm also not a prideful professional wrestler, one who takes pride in their output and isn't nominally in the business as a means to an end. I buy Bennett's reasoning only so much.

Another reason I think he might be out the door in WWE is that after signing that contract, thus taking his services away from a scene that frankly could use bodies as they're getting sucked up by WWE and to a lesser extent All Elite Wrestling, they rewarded him by putting him in an angle where his wife Maria Kanellis "admitted" that the baby with which she is currently pregnant, was not sired by him. It didn't lead to any payoff other than Becky Lynch pinning him on RAW in the aftermath. One of these days, people are going to have to reconcile Vince McMahon putting yet another angle on television where his talent is mocked and ridiculed for no payoff other than to sate his cruelty, but honestly, I've been shouting about it for years, and my response was to quit the company altogether.

The reactions to this request have run the entire gamut, but a frightening enough amount of people are blasting him for wanting out of a contract he had just signed. They say he has a commitment to WWE to see his contract through to the end, which in a perfect world might be the case. However, Bennett works for a capricious billionaire who doesn't care if he lives or dies as long as he doesn't sign with AEW or Ring of Honor. That same billionaire would under different circumstances release Bennett from his company at a whim for whatever reason, and people would take the side of capital. It's not a hypothetical. Long ago when WWE hegemony was unquestioned and New Japan Pro Wrestling was still a spectre from across the sea, McMahon released whoever he wanted whenever he wanted no matter how much those people wanted to remain with his company and received the elevated fiduciary benefits of remaining there.

In the current day, no matter what the circumstance, McMahon will keep anyone under contract by any means necessary, whether it be refusing a release request, which is what will probably happen with Bennet, or tacking time onto an existing deal to cover for time lost due to injury while suffered on the job. The latter sounds hella illegal under normal circumstances, but current day America is creeping further and further towards autocratic fascism by the day, and the ways that it allows businesses to pillage and abuse labor have been in place before Donald Trump took office. Either way, McMahon will do anything he can not to acquiesce to the wishes of his talent, because talent is insignificant to him. He won't classify them as employees; what makes anyone think he'll let a piddling peasant out of a contract he just signed? He's doing the same thing to Luke Harper and Lio Rush, although the latter may stay with WWE at this point past the expiration of his current contract given current circumstances.

The question, easily answered, by the way, now becomes should WWE talent be allowed to move as freely as McMahon's whims allow him to keep his roster, and the answer is a resounding yes. WWE isn't unique in the regard of the way it treats labor, but the current growing leftist/socialist movement is looking to liberate workers from oppressive conditions. If Bennett isn't happy in WWE, and given that he wants to wrestle more than once a week and not have to treat his family as a point of shame, he should be allowed to leave to pursue what makes him happy. Any wrestler should. Anyone who works for WWE in any capacity should.

The thing that everyone who licks the boots of WWE management either doesn't realize or ignores is that if they wanted to, they could oust McMahon, work as a wrestler-owned collective, and still have a modicum of success similar to what WWE is having right now. In no way shape or form could McMahon maintain WWE if everyone in the company quit on him. The only reason that no one thinks in this way anymore is because society has been drilled to remember that the people who have money are their betters, and that is not true at all. McMahon didn't earn his money from the ground up; he stole what his father built to start. It's the same way with anyone with a billion dollars. Either their parents were modestly rich and they got an interest free loan to start a business with a cushy backup plan if they failed (Jeff Bezos), or their parents were filthy rich and they were trust fund children (almost everyone else). No one who has a billion dollars earned either. They hoarded it from marginalizing and squeezing labor. That's why labor unions rose up at the turn of the 20th Century, to take their fair share from the Carnegies and Rockefellers of the world.

The tale of Mike Bennett is only another in the cautionary tale of why wrestlers should be unionized, and why every moment that they aren't is wasted. It's one thing to say that Bennett should be able to leave WWE whenever he wants, but the only way he can do it is if he and every other wrestler collectively bargains for that right that should be theirs by virtue of their labor being valuable. If the roster, hell, the whole industry doesn't act, it's their lives and livelihoods at stake. Then again, just as rat bitch Hulk Hogan ratted out the first attempts at unionization to Vince McMahon all those years ago, I bet Seth Rollins would probably sniff any attempts out and snitch on his "brothers." That guy has never met a boot he didn't wanna lick.

The future of AEW right here
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein

Last week on All Elite Wrestling Dynamite, Chris Jericho revealed a name for his stable, Darby Allin won a shot at Le Champion and then assailed him with his skateboard, Riho and Britt Baker roughhoused their way to a tag win in preparation for their match this week, and Jon Moxley not only confronted Kenny Omega again, but showed his disdain for PAC attacking his target before he could. Episode three emanated from the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, PA this week, and it was a show built on title bouts and tag matches.

Lucha Sneak Attack! - Dynamite opened this week with Feníx and Pentagón, Jr. waylaying Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian of SCU in advance of their first-round tag tournament match with the Best Friends. It was a vicious beatdown, the kind that really gets the blood pumping, and it ended with Penta spiking Daniels on the ramp with a package piledriver and Scorpio Sky making the save before Feníx did the same to Kazarian. The good news is that the Lucha Bros. get to be the BAMFs that they need to be in order to get the most out of them. The bad news is that SCU was positioned as a sympathetic babyface team when, uh, they come out and say every town they're in is the worst town they ever have been in. Again, it feels like AEW is either playing with shades of gray or they really don't care about keeping alignments consistent, which I get it, everyone in the company is over at this point. Somewhere down the line, I wonder if it'll be an issue.

Anyway, the match itself continued the streak of Dynamite opening with a main-event quality bout. Outside of Sky interrupting a hug between Trent? and Chuck Taylor (Sky has a history with homophobia, and even if the Best Friends aren't a gay gimmick, well it doesn't stop homophobes from trying to frame platonic acts of friendship as gay), it was a solid opener that hit some high notes and got the story it was supposed to tell over. Sky wrestling with only one shoe was also more impressive than one might think. I can't even walk if I only have one shoe on without being a topsy-turvy mess. I guess even bigots can be athletically inclined, who knew?

Also, points to Taylor for pandering to Philly fans with the Ben Simmons jersey. There is absolutely nothing a Philly fan loves more than being pandered to. I know, because I am a Philly fan who loves being pandered to, and lo and behold, Chuckie T is one of my favorite wrestlers.

Beaver Boys on TV - So LAX or EYFBO or whatever Santana and Ortiz are calling themselves nowadays got themselves a match with enhancement talent. Of course, being who runs AEW, that enhancement talent was none other than John Silver and Alex Reynolds, the Beaver Boys. As far as squash matches go, it was entertaining inasmuch as a match where one competitor or team of competitors had no chance. Silver got to flex his muscles while preening at one point, so not all was lost for the TV jobbers who both have good spots on the indies (tune into Beyond Wrestling Uncharted Territory tonight live on Independent Wrestling TV!). The interesting, for bad reasons, thing that happened during this segment was the post-match promo, where Jericho appeared on the Tron and started putting over his henchmen. The problem was he veered into racist territory calling them "thugs" and "pit bulls." Of course, earlier in the day, he did a spon-con tweet to pub Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, where he plays a KKK Grand Wizard, by hashtagging the letters KKK. All in all, not a good day for Chris Jericho and race relations. Good on LAX for just yelling over it though. They can talk; let them. They're quite good at it too.

Where Are the Promos? - A long pre-taped vignette hyping up Cody aired next. It was well-shot, well-produced, and really got over the fact that Cody needs to beat Jericho at Full Gear in order to be complete. It was the only real part of the show dedicated to promotional ventures outside of the short promo that preceded it from Jericho and a short pre-tape from Jon Moxley before his match. I feel like a dweeb and a hypocrite for saying this, because the wrestling on the show has, by and large, been dope these first three episodes. That being said, there are guys on the show whose intentions I want to hear about from a crew other than the commentary team, especially when the commentary team contains Jim Ross yammering on about the legal man or doing his best to humanize LAX when they're the characters on the show in least need of warm anecdotes.

My biggest complaint about AEW so far is definitely how character motivations are laid out and fleshed out. I know the Lucha Bros. don't like SCU, but why? Even if it's just that the Luchas think SCU are the top dogs and they want to punch them in the mouth, how about letting Feníx say it? Wrestling and subtlety don't get along all that well because you're asking big humans whose job it is to land on their heads for a living to emmote like Daniel Day Lewis. Anyone who says otherwise is acting on headcanon, which is fine, but not relevant to an accessible and widespread conversation. As much as I want wrestling to get at that level of thespian fidelity, I'm not sure that's a reasonable short-term goal. It's great that Cody got this big vignette to explain the torture he has inside, but he's not the only person who needs some exposition time. For example, the Dark Order hasn't been seen or even mentioned since they won the bye in the Tag Tournament at All Out. Don't you think they need some sort of hype?

It's only three weeks, and very few wrestling companies really have fully formed stories in that time. WWE going to Monday Night RAW wasn't a fledgling company; it had eight years of direction from Vincent Kennedy McMahon and several decades of history from Vincent James McMahon. AEW has what, a YouTube series that only a fraction of the audience watches? I don't want to have to watch YouTube to get the whole picture. What makes Dark so great, for example, is that you don't have to watch it to get the story of what's happening on Dynamite. It's good to supplement with online, but the gist of what you're saying needs to happen on television if you're a television-first promotion. If not, then what am I wasting my time on Wednesdays for?

Teeth. Teeth! TEETH! - Britt Baker and Riho squared off for the Women's Championship, and I think it's time to start a dialogue about the dentist-wrestler. Hey, did you know Baker is a dentist? Anyway, I still think Riho is the best wrestler in that company, and I also hate using the term "carry job" for matches. However, I don't think this match was good, and I think it was watchable because Riho busted her ass, but Baker had no idea how to handle a wrestler that size. At least that's the best case scenario. At several times, it looked like Baker didn't rotate enough or get low enough for her moves to look good. The match happened on an episode of Dynamite, not a pay-per-view, so it's possible that she's not at the top of the division right now. That being said, who else does AEW have on its bench? Bea Priestley and Nyla Rose are good options, sure. I'm not sure how many episodes of Dynamite they can count Emi Sakura in for. Kylie Rae left, and I don't think Sadie Gibbs has wrestled a match yet. Aja Kong and Yuka Sakazawa are still in Japan. Allie/Cherry Bomb hasn't made it off Dark. AEW has a good women's roster, sure, but is it robust?

Friend of the blog Elle Collins asks where the third women's match during the taping session is. For that matter, where's the second match during Dynamite? AEW crows about its inclusion, but the female roster feels paltry if talented. I don't want Dynamite to become like NXT in that you kinda have to hope and pray that a non-title women's match gets added to the PPV. Even then, Takeover only has five matches, and NXT found a way to get Io Shirai vs. Candice LeRae on the last one. Full Gear will have eight matches. Again, they still are finding their feet, but there are certain things that you would like to see addressed earlier rather than later.

Shut Up About Marko, Nerds - So, awful news dropped last night as Luchasaurus tore his hamstring pretty badly preparing for the Jurassic Express/Lucha Bros. match. Marko Stunt replaced him, making Jungle Boy the surprising heavy for the match. The bout went as one might expect, with the diminutive Jurassic Express getting in their shots using leverage and strikes with the pointy parts of their bodies while the Luchas played the roles of sledgehammers. It was a fine match, possibly better than the opener, and I thought it did a good job establishing all four guys as discrete characters on a show where people need those to hang their hats on.

Of course, it's not surprising that a certain segment of mouthy, reactionary wrestling fans took umbrage that someone bigger than a toddler sold for Stunt. If you're small, apparently you don't hurt. Those people have never interacted with toddlers before I can tell you that. If you've ever had a 30-lb. four year-old girl jump on your stomach and didn't feel the need to recoil in reaction, you're lying or you're Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. Even if the agents laid the match out to have Stunt doing Last Rides to Penta, the overarching thing is that it's wrestling. Unrealistic shit happens all the time. Undertaker once ended a Batista/Rey Mysterio match by shooting lightning from backstage. People accept that but they can't accept the Luchas selling because Marko Stunt jabbed an elbow into their soft tissue at high speed. Honestly, I should stop recognizing them, and really, so should you.

Bring Me Deathmatch Kenny - PAC and Moxley vs. Hangman Page and Kenny Omega was what you'd expect from those four at this point in the year. It hit hard. It had great counters. PAC chewed scenery while working over the babyface. Mox brought the manic energy. It also furthered tensions between Moxley and PAC, showing that just because they're both heeling doesn't mean they're aligned. I like that demarcation in Mox's character, that he wouldn't pick the bones off PAC's kill of Omega last week and thus got angry that PAC would snipe his kill this week. It's a simple character stroke that I'm used to not seeing because WWE builds monoliths.

The most exciting thing about that match was Omega continuing to tease becoming as much of a deathmatch wrestler as AEW's sponsors will let him. I know it's corny as hell, but the barbed wire-wrapped broom is just inherently satisfactory. If the Mox/Joey Janela match from Fyter Fest is any indication, an AEW deathmatch, or more accurately a hardcore match, will probably get to about half as violent as something that might happen in Game Changer Wrestling, and maybe Omega and/or Moxley will bleed a little bit. After seeing years of hardcore matches in WWE with no blood or plunder greater than a chair and a table, I'm ready to see how AEW will explore the studio space while seeing how they self-regulate.

Darby Allin, Made Man - You know a match is gonna be lit when Jericho comes to the ring with the Kefka facepaint on. I'd say he pulled his weight, but man, the star of this match was Darby Allin, who continues to both be a revelation and also prove that Gabe Sapolsky was a goddamn fool for not putting a title on him and letting him ride. He's got such an uncanny knack for the moment. Every time he went in with strikes on Jericho, you could see the palpable desperation-backed intensity in each one thrown. When he bumped, it showed how much of an uphill battle he had to climb. It was the kind of fight you'd want not only your babyface underdog to show, but the protagonist in your action movie.

The little things in presentation made for an enhanced experience too. More often than not, you have no-disqualification matches in WWE where the referee enforces rope breaks even though there's no reason why anyone would let them go if they couldn't get DQ'd for it. Mentioning that you couldn't win the match if a rope break was being made gave some sense into why Aubrey Edwards was enforcing them and why either one of the competitors complied. It's not about being mechanical about the rules or making sure you're enforcing them by the letter, but about them providing some sense into what's going on.

Of course, the ending couldn't be Allin winning when Cody chasing Jericho was the story (although having Cody wrestle the kid he couldn't put away at Fyter Fest would've been an intriguing story as well), and it would've been foolish to have had Allin taking a clean-for-a-street-fight pinfall. Having Jake Hager emerge to cost him the win was the right call, especially given how the crowd has been reacting to him all three weeks. Allin may not be in the plans now, but after last night, I can't see how the folks in the creative room aren't already thinking about when they can tell the story that puts the title on him in a pinnacle moment. It's hard for me to watch AEW and Allin in particular and not think he's a made man after this, even with the heels in the ring celebrating with A LITTLE BIT OF THE BUBBLAY at show's close.

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost

It's Twitter Request Line time, everyone! I take to Twitter to get questions about issues in wrestling, past and present, and answer them on here because 280 characters can't restrain me, fool! If you don't know already, follow me @tholzerman, and wait for the call on Wednesday to ask your questions. Hash-tag your questions #TweetBag, and look for the bag to drop Thursday afternoon (most of the time). Without further ado, here are your questions and my answers:

Best 80s movie soundtrack?
— Sean McLaughlin (@soggyhydrox) October 16, 2019

This is hard for me because the first movie that I really noticed for its soundtrack was Batman Forever, which came out in 1995. Before that, the earliest soundtrack I own is from 1992 (Singles). So this might be a cop-out answer, but I mean, no other movie soundtrack from the '80s has "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr., so my answer is Ghostbusters because it has the song "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr.

Once again, @VANGUARDMKE has updated its menu. https://t.co/kCzXy0WHOt Which of the new items trip your personal trigger? #TweetBag
— Star of Savage (@StarOfSavage) October 16, 2019

I know that Vanguard is mostly known for sausages, but man, that Paddy Melt looks MIGHTY good. I'll take three of those, and I'll also at least try the Okada, given its wrestling name and such. However, you'd think that from watching the G1 Climax that any dish named after the Rainmaker would be a beef bowl of some sort, given that Rocky Romero was sure to mention before every one of his big matches that he has a beef bowl before said matches. Then again, Vanguard is a sausage joint, so it's a wonder they even have a patty melt on the menu so...

if you could outlaw one wrestling move (assume for non-safety reasons) what would it be and why?
— Jake Rapoport (@steaker) October 16, 2019

Will Ospreay has a lot of moves that are extra and have bad names, but I'd probably get rid of the Robinson Special. It almost never looks good at the point of impact because he's never in place to do it right. Personally, I'd ban all of his moveset and exile him to Siberia if I could, and it's getting to the point where I am seriously considering skipping all his matches on New Japan shows going forward. That being said, that Robinson Special kick never looks good and I'd rather just never see it again.

The honorable mention is the Sling Blade because everyone uses it and only Hiroshi Tanahashi's looks good. But Tanahashi's looks good, so I can't get rid of it forever.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being unbothered and 10 being absolutely crushed, how do you think Bryce Harper is feeling about the Nats in the World Series. P.S. MARINERS NOW THE ONLY FRANCHISE TO NOT MAKE A WORLD SERIES, GO MARINERS, WE OWN ALL THE BASEBALL INEPTITUDE! #TweetBag
— René Sanchez Proclaims... (@SupemarketSweep) October 16, 2019

It's probably a 3. He's bothered a little bit because he can't be with the teammates he had for a long time finally breaking through and going to the World Series. I mean, anyone can have regret. Then he probably remembers the cheap ass owners and general manager tried to give him a shitload of deferred money on his contract, felt insulted again, and called up Matt Klentak begging him to sign Anthony Rendon and Stephen Strasburg. Of course, Klentak probably won't sign either one of them, but hey, he probably made the call anyway.

I’ll piggyback off this: How much of this Nationals run is a result of Harper no longer being there?
— Nick Christakos (@nick36c) October 16, 2019

Bill Simmons came up with the term "Ewing Theory," a theory that states a team will do better when it's missing its big star. That theory is bullshit, since most teams that do better without their superstars are complete teams and just hit a spate of better luck. Would the Nationals be where they are now with Harper? I would say it's more than possible. They may not have had to play the wild card game to get into the playoffs if they had Harper. Of course, they could have then run into the Cardinals instead of the fraud choker Dodgers and lost and then people would continue to make fun of that franchise. Sports are cruel, and luck plays into them more than anyone wants to admit. But no, the Nats wouldn't be worse off with one of the five best position players in baseball on their roster because their team as constructed is still really, really good.

why is Rowlet the best Pokemon
— Rowlet Nut In Jail (@DerangedRowlet) October 16, 2019

Venusaur is the best Pokémon, but Rowlet is top tier because it's a Grass-type who is cute and weird and incredibly meme-friendly. BUT VENUSAUR IS THE BEST DO YOU HEAR ME? VENUSAUR!

Protected user @earthdog:

After having some Humboldt Fog cheese this morning I was thinking "I wonder why TH has not come to visit or our Marin and North cheese tour" yet. What are the stops are your World Wide food tour become coming Marin for cheese?" #tweetbag Humboldt Fog is damn good cheese.

The short answer is I can get cheeses like that at Trader Joe's and save money. The long answer is that I have small kids, and California wine country isn't really a destination to bring them. It would be easier to convince the Mrs. to go to California to eat artisanal cheeses and see the sights than it would be to, for example, go to Los Angeles to eat In n Out and go to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. But for now, I'll just have to get those cheeses at Trader Joe's I suppose.

How much yuan will it take for you to sell out
— Mike Parlett (@Parlett316) October 16, 2019

¥8,000,000,000, but even then, I would use part of that money to hire security detail to make sure that when I talked shit about the Chinese government again, I'd be protected from their version of the CIA trying to have me killed.

Is the WWE trying too hard with Becky Lynch?
— The real dajerseyboy (@dajerseyboy) October 16, 2019

WWE tries too hard with any top star anymore. I would argue that maybe they pumped the brakes on Lynch even after she won both titles at WrestleMania, but when they tried turning her real-life relationship with "Uncool" Seth Rollins into an on-screen partnership, they crossed into "Roman Reigns winning Superstar of the Year despite being injured for three months of it" territory. Vince McMahon has not only lost his fastball, but he gets no movement on his breaking balls, and people are even walloping his floater. He's lucky that Mohammed bin Salman and the folks at NBC Universal and FOX don't care about his failing ratings and are still shoveling cash at him anyway, or else. Or else.

However hard they're trying with Lynch though, they're trying 70 times as hard with Rollins though. I don't think he's ever gonna happen. Reigns will (in the same sense that crowds finally came around to Cena), but Rollins never.

I just can’t get behind folks who critique Allin, Havoc or ZSJ for not being buff and acting like it makes shit more believable if they were, when in actual shoot fights men look like this 👇 sometimes. Should these fed stans/old schoolers just admit it’s an aesthetic preference? pic.twitter.com/fIiceHlG4q
— 👽pffffffffffffft wrestling account👻 (@Leaveitbe22) October 16, 2019

I think it's less defined muscle and more that they don't have any mass. A guy like Josh Barnett can have a ~~steroid~~ beer gut, but people believe he can hit someone hard because he weighs over a certain threshold. Now, Barnett is believable as a hard hitter because he proved it in MMA. Someone like Sabre hasn't, and people say he shouldn't have people selling for him because he's not the size needed to be a believable grappler. Of course, those people might be right in a shoot, but the beautiful thing about wrestling is that it's a work. It doesn't matter if Sabre doesn't have muscles or if Allin would fight in the welterweight class in MMA or if Marko Stunt looks like he'd get washed in a schoolyard fight against a burly fifth grader. Wrestling is a place where anything can happen. You don't need to have your protagonist look like Mr. Universe for your crowd to get behind him, and that's why it's beautiful.

Jimmy Havoc is a dork though, and it has nothing to do with his physique. Everyone should kick his ass.

What would be the modern day equivalent to Terry Funk winning the ECW World Title at Barely Legal? #TweetBag
— Andrew Smith (@OMGitsOFS) October 17, 2019

It's not a one-to-one analogy, because he didn't win the titles that Funk did, but Dustin Rhodes winning the All Elite Wrestling Championship would give off similar vibes. Chris Jericho remains Champion, filling the Raven role. Slide Jon Moxley into the Sandman role and, say, Darby Allin or Joey Janela into the Stevie Richards role, and you can do the whole thing at a pay-per-view like Barely Legal shot for shot. I'm not sure if Rhodes is on the EVP "not allowed to win stuff" list, but I think his body of work during his career has cemented him as someone who could win a World Title without batting an eyelash.

@tholzerman What match do you most want to see AEW put on over the next 365 days? #tweetbag
— the Portrait In Paul Rudd's Basement (@reallybutch) October 18, 2019

Darby Allin vs. Chris Jericho in a steel cage for the title with all members of the Inner Circle handcuffed to a hot water pipe in the arena boiler room. Let Allin win the title by doing a kickflip on his skateboard off the cage onto Jericho. I need to see this match, even though I've seen the two of them in the ring together before. If you want a match that hasn't been presented before, then give me Jon Moxley vs. CIMA for 30 minutes.

Just like old times, more or less
all photos courtesy of WWE.com

NXT has problems.

Real problems.

More accurately, real life problems. The ratings are continuing to go down by degrees and remain secondary to Dynamite; more concerningly, some injuries to the upper midcard are starting to have on screen consequences, keeping a narrative from taking hold within the North American division.

And yet, another tight two hours with oodles of character development, above average matches at every turn, future matches set up or hinted at, plenty of time for the women's division to shine, and heels getting over by doing dastardly deeds while also setting the possible seeds of their future title reigns demise. If you think that's easy, try watching a main roster show in comparison. While the show wasn't entirely flawless, it was far more wheat than chaff, and we can begin this edition of the Standard the same way the show itself started, via the best song Marilyn Manson never wrote...

GOLD: returns
Because they were their respective return matches, you won't be surprised to find out that Tommy Sports Entertainment and Tegan But Not Sara won them pretty much going away in both instances. But while the possibly uncrowned Goldie holder came face to face with the Era as expected after beating Angel Garza, Nox got both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised in short order after she Shining Wizarded Taynara another L. That W gave Dakota Kai the cheap excuse to come out and hug her longtime friend, thus for the first time on NXTV Team Kick on camera side-by-side. Unfortunately there are two of them and three of the Horsewomen, the most talented of whom hilariously dismissed Dakota because of, well, you know, history and then turning her cannon fire on Tegan by stating she's running out of limbs to rehab and instead of getting a shot at the gold to call her when she's done something worth talking about. Queen Baszler and her subjects left the friends fuming, so unconcerned that the smacktalk wasn't even precursor to a beatdown on which they'd have the advantage of numbers; they just left. The list of Baszler's would be dethroners seemingly gets longer by the show (more about which later), but of all the interesting options of future champions the most emotionally fulfilling would probably be Kai especially given how hilariously viciously she was written off on this show. WrestleMania weekend isn't for half a year, plenty of time for her to get her dander up and overcome the shattered arm of her past as well as the woman who did it to her.

Rod, you big dummy

BLACK: Roddy watching the show he's on and the shoot health of his possible future opponents
Velveteen Dream won't be getting his rematch, because he's legit hurt. (Apparently, the injury reports that come out post-show aren't entirely kayfabed. In the immortal words of R-Truth, my bad. This one's on me.) On camera, they wrote that off by having the Era "beat him up backstage" as we found out after the Ciampa match and then Master Regal pivoted quickly to make Keith Lee v. Dominik Dijakovic IV a #1 contendership match with the winner to take Dream's slot. They put on similar stuff to what their first three matches of varying degrees of very goodness showed while also varying and expanding their narrative (Keith focused on D2's arm for most of the match in both on the mat tactics and even hitting it with a frog splash, Dijakovic moving quicker to top rope moves as a possible result). Two segments in and it seemed like they could go another two easily...so the above happened, and somehow Roddy thought that had gotten him a completely blank dance card.

Roddy: I'm black. You know what I don't do? Go out to the woods by myself at night and talk about how fine everything is. It's one of the things that's kept me alive for nearly half a century. Anyway, this incursion bought Master Regal back out and He Was Not Amused, Y'All. I know he's been retired for years and I'm still scared of that GIF. Regal did the obvious to everyone not North American champion and announced a triple threat match, except that now Keith's on the injury report on the most recent release. Hopefully the injury is a minor one ahead of the Limitless One's first NXT title shot. Besides, if it turns out Roddy's not been watching the show because he's been marathoning No Mercy and knows that the best way to win a triple threat is to let one of your opponents hit their finisher on the other one, then toss them out and pin the unconscious guy, he'll get off my On Notice list.

Soon, my babies. SOON.

GOLD: the Women's Division, especially the midcard
Kayden Carter showed us something in her match, but the Choke Me The Fuck Out, Io Shirai variant of recent vintage is Miss Thing, and didn't hesitate after her victory to say not Rhea (an antihero at best) or Bianca (ditto, and note it's a clearly minted heel threatening those alignments in order to go after possibly the biggest villain on the show) should be getting the next shot at Shayna, only for Rhea Ripley to come out and in not such an exact term tell the Genius of the Sky to keep her name out of her mouth since she was already set to shut Bianca up come the next show. When/if Rhea and Io have their contretemps I will get a doctor just so I have somebody to call four hours after I see that match, and I mean that in every single way implied.

UN DEA FEA TED

GOLD: Damien Priest
The easiest way to get booed in NXT? You saw Rod Strong do it: interrupt a dream match before it can reach a resolution. Second easiest way? Be a bad guy with a lower pedigree than a good guy, then use a distracted referee moment to kick him in the theme park and nerf him with your finisher. So at the end of the show, Damian Priest was truly a main event Full Sail villain.

But he was also still undefeated. And this was really a coming out party for him, as maybe only his match against Keith Lee (which he also won in a similar fashion) went more than 5 minutes without Priest getting his hand raised. Talented as we all know Dunne is, Priest hung with him from bell to bell and landed some impressive looking kicks and a Frankensteiner to add to his mysterious aura. His step up tope con hilo drew Holy Shit! chants, FFS. He survived the joint manipulation, when the match went late into the second segment and a hockey fight broke out he fought it to at least a draw, and he avoided the Bitter End. So that's plenty of mental toughness before having the acuity to Eddy his way to victory. It's a shame none of the men's singles belts is held by a babyface, since that would seem to be the natural direction to take him next. Even Dunne has something planned out in all likelihood, as the departing Dain got in the Bruiserweight's face when he came out and got his fingers snapped for his smacktalk. Priest's win could be a launchpad for future brighter Full Sail successes, but what they do with him next - and who they pair him against - is where the watchword really is for him going forward.

GOLD: rebuilds
So you lost a #1 contendership match. Have a shot at the greenest guy on the roster who you jumped and injured last week! So you lost the title match under shady circumstances that the first guy didn't even get a shot at because you beat him? Here's a guy from the Breakout tournament! Up and down the two hours, winners bounced back from losses everywhere that wasn't the main event, especially Matt Tha Stallion and Killian Dain. Even with the expansion and channel change, there's only so much oxygen in NXT's airing room, so at least being on the show twice in a month is probably a good metric for the lower and midcard wrestlers to hope for or maintain. Riddle is a little bit better than Dain and certainly better than Bronson Reed (at least right now); Dain can easily eat BOA's lunch and still want a title shot afterwards. As much as AEW hypes win/loss records, NXT's version of climbing the Mortal Kombat ladder has its own clear delineations in not even six weeks and is very easy to follow along with for those who keep up with the show.

Coming up next on NXT and the Standard: we get to see if Rod's got a game plan or if he's going to spawn 2 opponents for him and his boys at the next WarGames, and Bianca and Rhea are about to throw down in their quest to dig the grave for the Queen of Spades.

Coming to America
Photo Credit: NJPW1972.com

American wrestling is undergoing rejuvenation to levels not seen since the downslope of the Monday Night War. Much as late World Championship Wrestling posed no threat to the then-World Wrestling Federation starting in 2000 or so, All Elite Wrestling probably isn't at a point where it can affect what main roster WWE does in terms of revenue overall. However, one can look at the ratings of the last three weeks and see that AEW's Dynamite program is kicking the ever-loving shit out of NXT and that Friday Night Smackdown ratings are sliding into the toilet only after three weeks. Once again, one cannot discern a pattern after three weeks, but the opening signs show that sooner rather than later, AEW might be player on the level of 1997 WCW.

However, there is another player in this budding war, and that player comes from a rich wrestling haven in the East. New Japan Pro Wrestling announced today that it will be operating in America with a subsidiary promotion called New Japan Pro Wrestling Of America, a simple yet effective name. The venture will start next month, and the touring plan includes a total of 27 cities in five distinct touring areas (Northeast, Midwest, Pacific Coast, Texas, Southeast). The base of operations will be in California, which makes sense as the company's American dojo is in Los Angeles. The move comes as no real surprise to anyone but maybe the people in Ring of Honor's front office. New Japan has had American dreams since 2011, when they partnered with Jersey All-Pro Wrestling to put on the Invasion Tour, where they crowned their first Intercontinental Champion.

While this expansion may have happened regardless of context, it comes off the heels of WWE attempting to make earnest headway into Japan. Vince McMahon's Big Trump Fundraiser attempted to buy Pro Wrestling NOAH, but the company, founded by a rolling-in-his-grave Mitsuharu Misawa in 2000 rebuffed the offer. Additionally, they tried buying STARDOM, one of the top joshi promotions in Japan. Rossy Ogawa rejected WWE's offer and instead sold the company to Bushiroad corporation, which many know as the parent company of, yes, New Japan Pro Wrestling. It's no secret that WWE wants so bad to start NXT Japan as a way to leach the life out of the Japanese scene as NXT UK has done to Europe. That being said, Japanese promotions have a lot more pride than the folks running PROGRESS, Insane Championship Wrestling, and Westside Xtreme Wrestling, it seems

Of course, the failures to buy those companies don't mean NXT Japan is dead in the water; it probably just means they won't have existing heritage to use to hit the ground running. Rumors are already swirling around that the Fed is gonna sign Daisuke Sekimoto, and they've been working closely with Meiko Satomura and Sendai Girls. If they have to build something from the ground up, they will, because no wrestling market should exist without them dominating it, dammit. It's not a matter of if, but when. When Paul Levesque stood in front of that world map with NXT logos on various parts of the world, it wasn't a pipe dream. Whether it will catch on is another story. I'm not qualified to speak on cultural differences between America and Japan, but I do know that expanding into another subsidiary when your domestic business is being propped up by blood money from Saudi Arabia and contracts you signed before the tailspin began in earnest is like trying to solve marital differences by having another baby.

Still, any company with the history and wealth that WWE has behind it will be formidable. Thankfully for New Japan, they too also have money and heritage. It'll be a battle fought on two fronts, and although competition always invokes the late '90s, I doubt it will ever reach the heights of the Monday Night Wars. I don't think WWE will gain too much of a foothold in Japan, and I also don't know how big New Japan will get over here. The truth is that as long as they're not partnered up, New Japan and AEW will be competing for audience most likely. These subsidiary companies feel like stretch goals for both the bigger entities. However, I feel like New Japan America will have a better chance of lasting longer, especially if they don't do anything stupid. I could be wrong about all of this, but what I'm certain about is that both of these companies look at each other as global rivals, whether or not they want to admit it.

As for Bushiroad's purchase of STARDOM, I don't expect there to be much crossover at first. If New Japan needs women's matches for shows overseas, I can see them adding a STARDOM match or two. That being said, apparently, New Japan is on one television network (TV Asahi) and STARDOM on another (NTV), meaning combining their streaming services will cause a headache domestically. I don't know if that will remain a permanent situation, but for now, all hopes of being able to watch joshi on a New Japan World sub are pipe dreams.

That ball's outta here.
Photo Credit: Troy Taormina/USA Today Sports

Welcome to a feature I like to call "Best in the World" rankings. They're not traditional power rankings per se, but they're rankings to see who is really the best in the world, a term bandied about like it's bottled water or something else really common. They're rankings decided by me, and don't you dare call them arbitrary lest I smack the taste out of your mouth. Without further ado, here's this week's list:

1. Jose Altuve (Last Week: Not Ranked) - The Astros are going back to the World Series thanks to a walk-off homer from the diminutive but talented second baseman in Game Six of the American League Championship Series. The Astros will look for their second title in three years facing the upstart Washington Nationals, who made their first World Series in franchise history, whether in DC or Montreal. It's a shame the Nats still aren't the Expos, because this World Series could've been a match between the 'Spos and 'Stros, baby.

2. Darby Allin (Last Week: 1) - Allin may have faltered in his attempt to win the AEW Championship from Chris Jericho, but man, he looked impressive in defeat. He's only 22, and he has such a grasp of the moment. He's gonna be huge someday and someday soon.

3. Lamar Jackson (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Do not say to me the words "Philadelphia Eagles." Anyway, Jackson was titanic in the Ravens' road victory over the Seahawks in one of the toughest places to play in the league. He won with his arm and with his legs, and he's on pace to break Michael Vick's rushing record for a QB. Jackson is so likable and talented that he's singlehandedly changed my opinion on the Ravens franchise.

4. El Hijo del Vikingo (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Vikingo won the Pena Cup at Heroes Inmortales this past weekend, a said-to-be great performance on a show that ended in nonsense. AAA went back to the silly well after a satisfying TripleMania. Still, Vikingo has a lot of eyes on him to come up north and play in the indies. He'd fit well.

5. Maki Itoh (Last Week: 2) - She won the Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling International Princess Championship this past weekend, but who is surprised by that wrestling acumen? NOT ME.

6. Otis Dozovic (Last Week: Not Ranked) - MY BIG BOY DID BIG BOY SUPLEXES YEAHHHHHHHHHH

7. Orange Cassidy (Last Week: 3) - You know, if Orange Cassidy were out there, the Best Friends would've beaten SCU. It's just science. Or whatever.

8. Riho (Last Week: 6) - Riho got a really good workout Wednesday carrying around all that dead weight in the ring in a public workout. It was entertaining enough that I could look past the questionable decision to put such a display of... wait, that was a match against a REAL PERSON? Man, she really is good.

9. Peasant Bread (Last Week: Not Ranked)OFFICIAL HOLZERMAN HUNGERS SPONSORED ENTRY - My family and I sampled this fried dough at the PA Renaissance Faire this past weekend, and let me tell you, it is some good shit. You could probably make it on your own too. In fact, several cultures have adopted the process of frying their bread, most notably the Native Americans. If it's so widespread, you know it's good stuff.

10. Tony Schiavone (Last Week: 10) - Wrestling fans, can Dynamite continue the strong run of live shows this week? I guess we'll find out when... and that's all the time we have this week, tune in next time for The Wrestling Blog's OFFICIAL Best in the World Rankings!

Pictured: a dinosaur

Professional wrestling has its roots firmly planted in carnivals of yore. Even today, carnival games are based on deception. They let you play games that you think you have a shot of winning, but the hoop you shoot your basketball through is bent, or the ring material bounces too hard off the bottle. Those big stuffed animals atop the stand? They've been there for years, man. While carnivals predate basketball, their proclivity to deceive is at their bedrock. In post-Civil War America, carnivals would put on worked wrestling contests and pass them off as shoots. While wrestling has outgrown the secrecy, the people running it haven't. Promoters today, especially older ones, still have the mentality that they have to swindle as much money out of as many people as possible rather than present what they're promoting as some kind of hybrid between sport and theater and thus building a consumer base.

The most successful wrestling companies are ones that embrace the fact that they have fans who come to every show. It shouldn't be surprising that one person who doesn't get where the paradigms have shifted is Vince Russo. Well, it is surprising that he has a following still, given that every single venture he took on after he first left WWE was a failure and that he was only ever employed over the long-term because Dixie Carter for whatever inexplicable reason liked him. His success in the business came at a time of great largesse for the company that employed him, so that paints his viewpoint. He was around for a load of casual fans tuning into the show weekly and inflating ratings, so of course, success to him means people who aren't wrestling fans checking the show out. Of course, he misses the greater reason behind why casual fans took a liking to RAW and Nitro, but that's not surprising for a guy whose critical reasoning skills range somewhere between a goldfish and a drone ant. He sees WWE bringing in Tyson Fury presumably to go over Braun Strowman, and says it's a good call because it theoretically brings in non-wrestling fans to watch the terrible Saudi Fuck Money show.

The reason why the Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars-era Nitro had a ton of viewers is because they put on a great wrestling show, or at least one that seemed great to a great number of wrestling fans. Those fans were not embarrassed to admit they watched wrestling, and their buzz caused other people to pop in and watch to see what all the hullabaloo was about. Some stuck around for the long haul. Others bailed at any time between the end of the first show they watched to sometime around 2002 when it became apparent that WWE wasn't interested in doing anything but lining up people to pay tribute to Triple H. Whether or not the post-Invasion shows were better than the Attitude Era ones or not is immaterial. They less served what those wrestling fans wanted, and not only did the casual fans go away, the core fans started to leave too. When WWE started to serve the interests of what wrestling fans wanted, the following grew.

That reason is why people have flocked to All Elite Wrestling's Dynamite. It is run by wrestlers who revel in fan interaction and who know that that loyalty is built to a wrestling show by catering to wrestling fans first. Russo doesn't understand that because he's a carny grifter who learned under the tree of the biggest carny grifter of them all, Vince McMahon. Of course he thinks that AEW ratings are going to crater because they don't "cater to casual fans." The point of AEW was that it was going to be wrestling for wrestling fans, an alternative to the company that continues to cater to people who don't watch wrestling.

Of course, Russo's argument might hold water in alternate universe where logic was backwards. WWE's MO in the last decade has shown that logic in fact works in this universe the way it should. WWE had in 2011 the beginnings of an organic movement for wrestling fans with a wrestler's wrestler in CM Punk. They decided to book that story in the direction of giving its semiretired Chief Operating Officer the rub. They welcomed Brock Lesnar back in and booked him in a way that lets him dominate the narrative in ways he couldn't before he left for UFC BECAUSE he became world famous in UFC. Guest appearances from celebrities that are supposed to enhance the wrestlers, like Sheamus yukking it up with Beaker from The Muppets or Kevin Owens powerbombing Machine Gun Kelly off the stage, are fewer and further between compared to ones that demean wrestlers, like Flo Rida continually getting over on guys like Heath Slater and Bo Dallas, or Hugh Jackman owning Damien Mizdow. You might think that it doesn't matter when the victims are usually low card guys, but celebrities are to the low card what the part-timers are to the high card. The consequence from that pandering to non-wrestling fans and old fans who dropped off is saying that the people who are there day-in and day-out mean nothing, and when the bait leaves, so do the casual viewers.

WWE has seen diminishing returns on barometers of healthy business like attendance and ratings for two decades now, but they've been able to hide it due to massive returns on television deals and taking blood money from a genocidal authoritarian kingdom. They're not getting bumps in casual viewership organically, so those bumps go away and then people like Russo and especially McMahon take them the wrong way. That's the thing. The problem isn't Russo cheerleading this bullshit, it's that McMahon is the guy who keeps doing it and decreasing interest in his company, trying to recruit people who might tune in for a little bit and who won't stick around at the expense of fans who spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars year on tickets, Network subs, shirts, replica title belts, plane tickets and accomodations for WrestleMania, and other ancillary expenses they put out for a wrestling fandom that if it's with WWE does not pay them back in kind. Fans of Floyd Mayweather or Machine Gun Kelly or Flo Rida or whoever don't stay with wrestling unless they also like wrestling. Why the fuck should you cater to those people anyway?

If WWE created a product with good buzz from its base, it would get casual viewers. AEW is creating a good product with buzz, and people are talking about it without shame or trepidation. Time will tell whether the ratings crater or not, as three weeks are too little to judge accurately. That being said, they're in a good position. The wrestlers on the show who are being pushed feel important. There are stakes. It's a show that leans on wrestling fans, and those fans are responding well for the most part. That idea is foreign to a hack like Russo because he only ever had one idea that he kept humping, and that's to break kayfabe. The National Football League doesn't tailor its game to cater to non-fans. If it did, the rulebook wouldn't be arcane. Twin Peaks didn't dumb its wit down to appeal to those who don't get it or aren't interested in its weirdness. Why should wrestling do it for those who don't like wrestling? Smart promoters aren't trying to fool people anymore. They're trying to hold their attention and give them what they want (or at least make them want what they're being given). The game has changed. Arenas aren't carnival tents anymore. The only way that things change is if McMahon and his hangers-on like Russo realize that.

Not sure I'd trust this guy to tell me who's a man or not but hey
Photo Credit: Kevin Steen

NWA Powerrrrrrr has been a good find for the first two weeks. The third episode dropped yesterday at 6:05 PM Eastern Time, but I haven't gotten to it yet. That being said, it's a breath of fresh air for old school wrestling done by guys who have a knack for timing. The promos are mostly good too. It's refreshing to see a show that lets guys talk without overscripting. There are some missteps, however, as with any wrestling show. The most glaring to me is the insistence that Powerrrrrrrrrr is for "men." Multiple times an episode, whether it be Eli Drake or Jim Cornette or someone else, there's this insistence that the NWA has MEN. It was mentioned once that the counter for the comparison is "boys" rather than "women," but you can see how it might be troubling when that clarification only comes up once in the second episode. Even without that qualifier, insisting that your show is for "MEN" spoken by people with a history of chauvinism might be off-putting.

Contrary to popular belief, gay, trans, and nonbinary people watch wrestling. So do women. They go through life being told that they're not good enough to do hard tasks because they're not MEN. Many of the people harassing, assaulting, and demeaning them are MEN. Toxic masculinity is a big problem, and when it tends to be brought up, especially concerning wrestling, it gets dismissed because what's more masculine than wrestling, even though many of the best wrestlers of all time are women, the very best among them being Japanese women who weigh less than Yokozuna's legs. I think you can have masculinity, or things that people consider to be masculine, without them being toxic.

For example, All Elite Wrestling, one of the companies that Cornette at least is accusing of being filled with boys compared to the MEN they have without actually saying their name, has a lot of hard-hitting action. It might be in a different style than what the NWA presents on Powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, but it goes hard to the point where there's no denying that under different presentation, they could be considered MEN. About the only thing I dislike about the presentation is Jim Ross' insistence at saying things like "Sonny Kiss may be weird BUT BAH GAWD HE'S TOUGH BELIEVE ME." Jim, no one who tunes into Dark or Dynamite thinks Kiss isn't tough or doesn't belong. He did the same thing with Shinsuke Nakamura at WrestleKingdom 9. But Ross by far is the worst part of any given telecast. Otherwise, the fact that people like Kiss and Nyla Rose can be who they are without qualifier on Dynamite leads by example.

What can Powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr do to improve presentation? I see nothing wrong with the intent of what they're saying. Wrestlers like Drake and both Storms and Trevor Murdoch are rough and tumble. They're not fancy. They hit hard. That's not the domain of men compared to boys. They're certainly not the domain of men compared to women, which to their credit, they acknowledge by featuring Allysin Kay, Ashley Vox, and other fierce female competitors. There are ways you can put that across that aren't yelling at various LGBT+ viewers you might have, whether or not you realize you're doing it. A little bit of care goes a long way.

It's a fuckin shirt
Photo via Moano Store

Corporate wrestling is a dirty, petty game. Those too young to remember the then-World Wrestling Federation battling against World Championship Wrestling are getting a glimpse of what that's like now with the nascent All Elite Wrestling popping up on a major cable network and pulling a sizable following from jump. While AEW has hit most of the right notes in this rivalry, WWE has gone into full panic mode, mostly using Universal Champion and bootlicker supreme Seth Rollins as a mouthpiece. Now the company is allegedly clamping down on wearing AEW merchandise at televised events. The reasoning on their part makes sense if you see the company as a paranoid entity that thinks militantly making no reference to the other guys (even though both Paul Levesque and Sami Zayn have made references to said other guys on WWE television) can make people think that WWE is better. Hey, if you can't see any trace of the competition, are they really competing?

It's a dumb move regardless, because honestly, what's a shirt gonna hurt WWE's perception than what everything the company has done in the last 20 years hasn't? A shirt is a shirt, and those people who wear those shirts paid money for a ticket. Hassling them only decreases the odds of them spending more money in the future. Of course, one could say "wearing the apparel of the competition is a sign they won't," but honestly, have you met wrestling fans? It's a base of people that loves to spend money and on different promotions too. All you have to do is say "New Japan should have women," and about a billion different people will yell at you to spend another eight-or-so bucks enough for a STARDOM World sub. That's not a value judgment on whether New Japan should have women's matches (I'm agnostic anyway); it's just an example of how much many wrestling fans love capitalism when that capital is pushed towards a wrestling company, any wrestling company.

Of course, it's never that cut-and-dried. People started to defend the policy saying you should only wear AEW apparel to AEW shows and WWE apparel to WWE shows and so on and so forth. This is a psychotic reverse of the High Fidelity"never wear the t-shirt of the band you're going to see" corollary. Honestly, you should be free to wear whatever you want to whatever wrestling event you want. Some people don't want to pay exorbitant prices for t-shirts that WWE produces that look like they were designed by graphics design flunk-outs. Aesthetic is important to a lot of people. Just because most wrestling fans don't give a shit how something looks as long as they're supporting a wrestler or they like the kind of shit that WWE (and AEW AND indie wrestlers) put out doesn't mean they should be shunned or mocked.

If you start treating wrestling shows as having some kind of arcane dress code, you're just as bad as the paranoid charlatans running the various companies. If fans want to wear a Young Bucks or AEW logo t-shirt to a wrestling show, why should they be judged? Again, it's a fucking shirt, and that person paid money to WWE to be there anyway. WWE doesn't need help enforcing bullshit guidelines to how their fans dress. They do it because they have money and power and people allow them to dictate the terms of their attendance in manners not befitting the safety of other fans. Why the hell would anyone else not working in that company's employ do it? It doesn't make sense until you realize how much wrestling fans hate each other.

I mean, whenever a WWE show goes south, you see the Greek chorus on Twitter yell about DISRESPECTFUL FANS chanting their boredom instead of the company for putting on an awful show. I see more vitriol for beach balls than I do for Randy Orton phoning an entire calendar year in, and it's mind-numbing. I get it. Wrestling contains a bunch of boors and slobs and bigots in its fandom ranks. Folks who demean others for who they are or endanger other fans around them should not be tolerated. The minute you start getting on people for expressing distaste at a show they most likely paid for in advance, you start to show a self-loathing for liking wrestling in the first place. You can't look anywhere else to blame other than at the person who has made wrestling feel like such a low-class affair, Vince McMahon.

If you look at all the bullshit he's produced under the WWF/WWE banner since he took over, whether it be making Tony Atlas parade around as Saba Simba or Mae Young giving birth to a hand or Hot Lesbian Action or even something like Shorty Gable, it's easy to see why people have had a hard time admitting to liking wrestling. It's one thing to apologize for unsatisfying booking; every company under the sun, from WWE to Chikara to New Japan to every promotion that has ever existed, has had that. But the vindictive, cruel, and ribald streak that McMahon has had as the final stopgap for anything put on television should give anyone pause, not because it's not "PG" or whatever, but because it is demeaning to the butts of the jokes, and it is demeaning to certain sections of fans. It's only natural people lash themselves for liking an industry dominated by that kind of shit recently.

But as with most self-loathing, it is unnecessary. That's why you shouldn't take the bait and defend a paranoid company's rash policy that only inconveniences the dwindling number of fans willing to pay money to attend a show on any given night. A shirt will always be just a shirt, unless it contains harmful messaging to real people, like as one might find on the back of a neo-Nazi. I don't think AEW apparel is all that dangerous to anyone but a billionaire's psyche anyway.


ALL HAIL THE BASTARD KING Photo Credit: WWE.com

Last week, Dynamite saw both Britt Baker and Darby Allin challenge unsuccessfully for their respective divisions' titles, the Lucha Bros. put Christopher Daniels out causing Scorpio Sky to wrestle in his sneakers (losing both), and Jon Moxley got sick of PAC's shit. This week's show emanated from the other major city in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh. The Tag Team Championship Tournament continued, and other shenanigans were afoot.

Always Start Strong - One of the things that Dynamite has gotten right four weeks straight is putting on an exciting match that will get the live crowd stoked for the rest of the night. Strange how wrestling fans like to kick their nights off with a hot match rather than authority figures and the wrestlers allowed in their orbits coming to the ring to yak for 20 minutes. This week's offering was a semifinal match in the tag tourney, upstart Private Party vs. the Lucha Bros. in an aerially spectacular match. As with the Jurassic Express the week before, the Luchas played bully. Honestly, you expect that from Pentagón, Jr., but Rey Feníx hit a level of brutality with his highspot oeuvre that was both visually impressive and brutal at the same time. Turns out maybe those Lucha Bros. are pretty good all-around wrestlers after-all. Private Party, as always, were good working underneath.

Anyway, about the only thing I didn't like about the match was at the end where the Gin n Juice attempt on Feníx was a lot less sharp than it was against the Young Bucks two weeks prior, and Penta's counter of a second attempt was a little wonky too. I'd chalk it up to a match perhaps running a bit long and that highspots such as these don't always look as smooth. It's a lot more forgivable than just running through spots while you're out of position, optics be damned. But this was Lucha Bros. vs. Private Party, not Will Ospreay and his mates doing god knows what on New Japan undercards. Also, the Luchas winning almost telegraphed that the Dark Order was about to become the mid-aughts San Diego Chargers of the tournament against SCU.

And after the match, there was a vignette for Wardlow that was about as generic as you could get with him just doing body guy stuff. I'd have been nonplussed about it if I hadn't seen him work a Pizza Party Wrestling show earlier in the year and looking good in the process.

Starting a Dialogue About Jim Ross - I realize Jim Ross is a name, a family friend of Cody's, and someone who will defend the turf against dipshits up north. He's also not been a good wrestling commentator for close to a decade (I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in his dying days in WWE). I was able to tune him out in the first couple of Dynamite episodes, but his bad habits are rising above being able to willfully ignore what he has to say. I started to notice how pervasive his rot could be on the week 2 episode of Dark (from Boston), where Joey Janela and Kenny Omega had a "lights out" unsanctioned match. Ross' commentary never rose above rote explaining of the rules or about how there were no rules. He'd been calling Omega matches since at the very least WrestleKingdom 9. Janela isn't a hard person to find out about on the Internet.

Conversely, you look at Tony Schiavone, who like Ross hadn't been the most up to speed on the current wrestling scene, and he's acquitting himself fine. Part of that is that enthusiasm and curiosity will go a long way to endear oneself to a viewing audience when the knowledge is lacking. But Schiavone at least tries to do his homework. He even shouted STARDOM when describing Jaime Hayter! Meanwhile, Ross mentioned that if there was a draw during either one of the tag tourney semifinals that both teams would be eliminated at least five times each match, and the most animated he got was when he was praising the idea of time limits. He never goes above describing what the wrestler has to do in a match to win outside of the moment. I get no insight from him on who the people are or what their motives are. To me, that's more important than saying Marq Quen has to make a tag or offering bemusement at Evil Uno's listed weight. I mean, he even tread all over Penta's celebratory CERO MIEDO taunt at the end of the match. WHO DOES THAT?

Honestly, I'm not really expecting any changes to be made on this front. Ross, again, is a name that people recognize. No one will list him as a problem outside of folks like me because commentary, unless it's Mike Adamle bad, doesn't leave a mark. That being said, when AEW gets further away from friendly territories like Philadelphia and Chicago and into noted dead zones like Corpus Christi and Salt Lake City, if, say, the Dark Order or Joey Janela don't get the reactions they got when in places where extremely online fans with access to plentiful indie wrestling, maybe decisions like having a total stubborn cipher like Ross in the booth who take up the lion's share of words spoken by a three man booth won't look as good.

The Bye, It Does Nothing! - As expected, SCU defeated the Dark Order in a decent but unremarkable match. The most notable thing was the Inner Circle making their way up to a luxury box as ticketholders during the match. It killed the crowd for a little bit, but luckily, people are into both teams. Other than that, I was taken by Scorpio Sky's athleticism, and obviously, the Dark Order are a spectacle. Some matches you just take in and don't really have anything insightful to say about. That being said, I need to ruminate on the Dark Order a bit. On one hand, no one really knows a whole lot about the former Super Smash Bros. Outside of a post-match invasion at Fyter Fest and the three matches they've had since All Out inclusive, I'm not getting anything about them outside of they have a coterie of minions. Where's the expository number on them like you had for Cody last week?

On hte other hand, do you need expository for everyone on the roster? Can the Dark Order be just a menacing cult without needing them to do things like Firefly Fun House? Wrestling has had spooky characters get over on just promos and angles. Granted, the Dark Order hasn't had either of those either. Again, I hate bagging on a show for giving too much wrestling because there's no such thing as too much wrestling, but part of why NWA Powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr is so critically successful so far is they let their guys talk. Leaving the tag tournament might be a good way to push a soft reset on them.

This Time, It Counts - The best thing that could've happened for Joey Janela is that his high-profile losses to Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega didn't count. That being said, his loss this episode to Omega did count. Granted, Janela looks like a star whenever he goes out there, whether or not the match is good. This time, it was, but Omega is a fine dance partner for almost anyone who gets in the ring with him. He looked good on his own accord though, hitting a sick lariat at one point. Also, his bump-and-sell of the V-Trigger knee is just art. I'm willing to forgive the lack of wins for the Bad Boy because he will always have a following due to his aura, and also Omega just won the AAA Championship and is in the second-from-top match at Full Gear. But they gotta kick something into high gear for him in November.

DIPPIN DOTS! - So the Inner Circle in the luxury box conceit paid off when Cody came out to cut a promo in the ring teasing an announcement. Chris Jericho wouldn't allow him to make it due to insane heckling. Now Cody knows how most comics feel. Anyway, one thing led to another, and the Inner Circle, sans an in-training camp Jake Hager, brawled with Cody, Dustin Rhodes, MJF, and DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE. If the shock of having DDP there wasn't enough, Jericho at one point stole someone's crutch to use as a weapon before having Cody dunk his head into a canister of Dippin Dots. Overall, it was a fun piece of business that helped further a story.

Leave Orange Alone! - Best Friends and the Young Bucks engaged in a "consolation match" from the tag team tournament. Poor Jurassic Express left out again. Anyway, the focal point of the match was Orange Cassidy, whom the Bucks picked on to distinguish themselves as the heels in the match. I'm gonna stop nitpicking alignments because it feels like the situational heeling and babyfacing is working thus far. You gotta know your audience! Anyway, about the only thing that brought the match down was the fact that when Cassidy went into his "superkick" routine, both Ross and Schiavone acted like they weren't briefed on what he was about. Try selling what Orange is bringing to the table, okay? Anyway, the other takehome from this match is that Chuck Taylor is an exceedingly good hot tag, which you'd never notice before since on the indies he was mostly a self-deprecating dipshit heel most of the time. The Bucks won because they can't lose to everyone, I guess.

Leave Britt Baker in Pittsburgh - It was telling that Britt Baker in her home crowd had them at their deadest the whole night. The thing is, Hayter looked pretty good in there with her, but Baker continues to look loose and mistimed in the ring, which is not very good when the other wrestlers in her division have joshi stock. For example, the only person who should do the Sling Blade is Hiroshi Tanahashi because it's a hard move to make look good. Baker did it twice and each time it looked like Hayter's head snapped back as if it were stricken by a ghost instead of Baker's arm. She has a great hook in the dentist gimmick and she's also got maybe the best finish in the company with Lockjaw. There just isn't a whole lot else to Baker otherwise.

After the match, Hayter got laid out by Brandi Rhodes for no spoken reason from the Chief Brand Officer. Hayter vs. Awesome Kong should be a great hoss fight, but why Rhodes would make that call by laying her out herself feels... sketchy.

Luck of the Draw - The main event of PAC vs. Moxley started with PAC waylaying Mox as he entered the ring, and it kept accelerator down to the floor for the whole match. PAC looks like he's just having way too much fun being the biggest prick bastard in the company. Even though he gives up size to most wrestlers and has a style that lends itself to a rah-rah happy babyface, he's incredible at laying the heat down in a way that makes people hate him. He was impressive here between Mox's manic bursts of energy that fit him so well. You can have a loose cannon gimmick, but unless you have the burst that Mox has, it's not going to come off as well.

I loved the match ending in a TV time draw as well. WWE has wanted to have matches where both of the guys come out of it looking "good," even back to the Attitude Era, but they've spammed fuck finishes so much that they really don't mean anything. A draw, however, is something ingrained in wrestling history that allow both guys to look like they could have won the match, and even more, it stokes the crowd for a match with a conclusion down the line. I maybe would've had the time cues from Justin Roberts be less frequent, but otherwise, it was a great ending to a serialized wrestling show in advance of a pay-per-view. All in all, another strong episode for AEW.


Being a super fan of this company will get you some derision Graphics Credit: WWE.com

What’s up with nearly every person on here who completely fits the definition of “fed stan” being insulted at the term and thinking its a fake bullshit description?
— ☠️an autumn wrestling account💀 (@Leaveitbe22) October 23, 2019

I think people just don't like having negative connotations attached to their name. I could compare it to something in real life, but unlike the person who decided to say the AEW t-shirt ban in WWE was just like the China/Hong Kong protests, I'll refrain. I'll say instead that a few of the people you and I call fed stans have good takes elsewhere. They're just really passionate about defending the fidelity of their preferred wrestling. It can get grating, but I'll take someone who has good leftist politics and is evangelical about whatever the fuck they're doing with The Fiend and Seth Rollins than some dickhead who goes to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla shows but sells shirts with the Fourteen Words on them.

The thing with terminology is that even if it's true, people take offense to it. You gotta pick and choose what terms you wanna defend. Obviously, "fed stan" is innocuous. The discourse is rough, my friend.

How can you not love the Blazers?! They're The Miz of the NBA! They won a title a long time ago that still seems random, yet deserved, they're always good but rarely great, and only a very small group of people claim to be Blazers fans or that The Miz is their fave wrestler.
— René Sanchez Proclaims... (@SupemarketSweep) October 23, 2019

When I say I don't feel anything for a team, it's not a bad thing. I don't hate them, and I will celebrate them in their good things and their memes, like when Dame Lillard posed for that dead-eyed picture after he hit a big game winning shot in the playoffs this past season. I will root for them. I just don't have the energy to be actively invested in them like I do the Sixers and to a lesser extent teams like the Clippers.

Per Twitter, last night Tom Morello reportedly did shots with locals at the bar down the street, which shares a parking lot with the Jiffy Lube Mitch Trubisky uses. Who’s cool in your neighborhood? #TweetBag
— Star of Savage (@StarOfSavage) October 23, 2019

Where I live in the Philly suburbs, no one cool lives. You could say that my neighbors live near noted blogger and rabblerouser TH. I'm also so out of the loop on local nightlife here because, well, I have children and am old. That being said, I did have a brush with a wrestler back when I was in high school. One day at the restaurant I was a busboy, New Jack came in for a bite, at the height of Extreme Championship Wrestling no less. Having the utmost respect for dining celebrities and a healthy fear of one half of the Gangstas, I let him be rather than bugged him for a handshake or whatever. But either way, it was cool to see a wrestler I was a huge fan of come into my place of work.

Favorite outfit and/or weapon in BOTW
— Erica (🎃) (@TheEricaB) October 24, 2019

Weapon is a bit hard because there are SO MANY WEAPONS in that game, which is a reason why I love it. I love the idea of Link going through swords and bows to fight because he's just so beset on all sides by nasty Moblins and Lizalfos. That being said, for use, my favorite weapon isn't so much a weapon but ammo for a bow. The explosive arrow is great because you can really fuck someone up from far distances, and it's a callback to one of my favorite glitches in the Zelda series, the bomb-arrows from Link's Awakening. Favorite weapon for sentimental reasons is the broom, because I just laugh everytime I think of Link bashing a Bokoblin in the skull with a friggin' broom. It's also why I love Deathmatch Kenny Omega.

As for outfit, I actually like the main one, the khaki pants and the blue Champion's tunic. The green forest elf get-up is more iconic, but Link actually looks a lot sleeker in the tunic. What can I say?

What's your NBA Finals pick?
— Robert O'Neill (@RobertONeill31) October 24, 2019

I originally had Clippers over the Sixers, but after predicting a Phillies division title and seeing them fall on their asses and an Eagles Super Bowl and seeing them give a long touchdown to Amari Cooper once every 20 minutes for the last five days, I'm gonna pump my brakes, not jinx the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers, and say Clippers over Bucks. I'm a Kawhi Leonard believer, and he's arguably got a better team out in LA than he did in Toronto, if not by much. I will bet against him when he's retired, and even then.

What wrestler, from any era, would you take out of theirs, and what era would you elect to drop them in instead.
— The Honda Odyssey Smashmouth Offense (@dansbadtweets) October 24, 2019

Tiger Mask, the original Satoru Sayama, was a legendary innovator and the thanks he got for it was to have to wrestle Dynamite Kid over and over again. I'm not sure if it was wear and tear on his body that caused retirement, but Tom Billington couldn't have helped. Anyway, imagine plucking him from that era and putting him sometime in the last 20 years to wrestle all the people he's inspired. It feels like something that a lot of people would surely enjoy.

Alright. Purely gut instinct, but it feels like NJPW lost a lot of juice overseas once Omega etc formed AEW. Are you getting the same feeling? Is that more than just gut instinct? If it is, what do they do to regain their NA hold beyond the US territory they're planning?
— Scream-ian Wailliams (@Brock_toon) October 24, 2019

While I think losing The Elite cost them some buzz, judging from the ticket sales and chatter over the G1 Climax this year shows that maybe reports of their demise in North America and Europe are greatly exaggerated. New Japan has always had guys who appealed to a large base of people, and most of them haven't left. People will still go see Kazuchika Okada and Minoru Suzuki (at least until he leaves) and Tetsuya Naito and the rest. I think it also helps that All Elite Wrestling runs once a week and something like one out of eight Sunday nights. It's not a massive commitment, so it's not like you're choosing between Omega and the company he left behind. That being said, their New Japan of America venture will shed a lot more light on that situation, I think.

what good do The Librarians serve other than showing how good Elias was at shitting on [your local sports team]?
— Henry 👻T.hirty-five soon👻 Casey (@henrytcasey) October 24, 2019

It's a cheap heat low-card gimmick that works but for how long? Honestly, there are far better uses of Peter Avalon, who can be one of the most annoying little shits you can dream of if you let him loose. Granted, they haven't been on Dynamite yet, and if they make it off Dark, I'll be surprised. Everyone needs to have people in positions on the card where they know they fit. But if the Librarians get any more of a push than "opening of the show crowd warmers" then AEW will have a problem.

Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy? Show your work if you're so inclined, I know that otherwise this has a two word answer.
— Untitled GHOUL Game (@TVsMattB) October 24, 2019

My first jRPG was the original Dragon Warrior, but I didn't play any of the sequels until later. It has to be Final Fantasy by default, right? Still, if you just compare the NES games, it's really close. Dragon Quest flew so Final Fantasy could run, so it's not a "one is good and one sucks" situation. But I mean, I can't discount the hours I spent playing the PlayStation Final Fantasy games, y'know?

Who's had the more disappointing season so far, the Eagles or the Browns?
— 🍂JUANCH-O-LANTERN🎃 (@JuanchoS) October 24, 2019

It's hard, but I mean, the Eagles at least know what they're doing on offense for the most part. Fumble luck aside in the Dallas game, they were moving the ball well when Doug Pederson didn't try to ESTABLISH THE RUN. You always knew the Eagles were a bit of a liability on defense if the pass rush couldn't get home. Yeah, those Dallas and Minnesota games were embarrassments. That being said, they turned around last year after the Saints decapitated them.

The Browns, however, hired the offensive coordinator who was behind their surprising resurgence lsat year as head coach and saw him turn into a pumpkin and the franchise QB Baker Mayfield turn into a turnover machine. You could say "it's the Browns," but even by that franchise's standards, this is cruel and unusual. The Eagles can turn it around. I suspect the Browns can too, but I feel like the Ravens are a better team that will be harder to catch than the Cowboys will (even if in my heart of hearts I don't think the Eagles will catch the Cowboys).

What did you see after that first Sixers game of the season that made you feel good or made you a little nervous?
— BC (@BillyCarpenter_) October 25, 2019

I didn't watch any of the game because I was busy with Dynamite and then It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The former, I'm a wrestling-first guy, and the latter is more of a thing I watch with my wife. That being said, I followed along on Twitter where I could, and honestly, as a Sixers fan, how can you not be pumped after night one? They beat the shit out of the Celtics, a team that has vexed them the last two seasons. Sure, Al Horford is on the Sixers now, and Kyrie Irving went to Brooklyn. HOWEVER, it's always a mental thing, y'know? And the way they beat them, by rallying to take the lead right before half and shutting down Kemba Walker for only two in the second half, gives me nothing but good feelings for the rest of the season. It's only one game, but it was a statement against a team that probably is gonna compete for a playoff spot. I'm pumped.

Why does Doug Pederson who has won a Super Bowl and is actually a risk taking innovative coach not get the same national love say Sean McVay does.
— Jason Brown (@j0brown31) October 25, 2019

In my heart of hearts, I feel like it has EVERYTHING to do with the market. The NFL has been horny to get teams back in Los Angeles since the moment the Rams and Raiders left in 1995. So of course, McVay coming in and making the Rams a title contender off the bat is going to get the marketing arm of the league, which includes the journalists as well, in full lather. I think some of the bloom has come off Pederson this year so far, but it felt like it last year, and his coaching down the stretch was brilliant. They would have won in New Orleans if not for Brandon Brooks tearing an achilles. That being said, McVay's team got STOMPED in the Super Bowl by a New England team that was not much different from the one that Pederson beat the year before. And if you wanna say "well Todd Gurley was hurt," the Eagles were a MASH unit their Super Bowl year, having lost both their starting QB and his blindside protector during the course of the season.

It's not "bias" in that it doesn't affect the results of games, but league officials DEFINITELY like it better when their A-markets - Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago - do better. They're not going to do anything to fuck over the B or C markets, but they're going to shout more loudly if the Rams have a hot wunderkind coach who has slick new offense than what they do for an old backup quarterback making it work in dreary, hostile Philadelphia. That being said, the funniest thing is everyone looking for the next McVay and then you have Doug Pederson staff member Frank Reich becoming an elite head coach in Indianapolis too. I will bet you Pederson's (and by proxy, Andy Reid's) coaching tree is gonna bear more fruit than McVay's.

Thoughts on the current state of Rusev and if there's any chance of salvaging his WWE career?
— Card subject to change (@Janai_Day) October 25, 2019

I might have said "yes" three or four years ago as to whether he could be viable in WWE again, but even then I was more naive. The truth is that when Vince McMahon saddles you with a cruel and demeaning gimmick, you're dead in the water. Nattie Neidhart, for example, was the woman who farted, and no amount of rehab could make her serious again, no matter how hard they tried.

With Rusev, it's even worse, because it's not the first time that his relationship has been the subject of a humiliating angle. If you believe the 'sheets, the first time, one that culminated in Rusev throwing a fish at Dolph Ziggler, was a result of he and Lana getting engaged and not telling anyone, as if it was anyone in that shitheap of a company's business. No matter what Rusev does, he's just going to cycle back to a humiliating angle making light of his real-life relationship with Lana because McMahon is nothing but a jealous and cruel billionaire who sees his labor as cattle. Rusev should really just get the fuck outta there and go to New Japan or some other place. New Japan is the best option because he will probably fit in well there, and I wanna see him in a G1 Climax, dammit.

The sad part is that Rusev is perhaps the greatest (only?) success story from the Florida Championship Wrestling/NXT training system, a guy who actually became a good worker and got organically over without the benefit of being known as an indie wrestler first. But because he's got brown skin, an Eastern European accent, and is married to a smoking hot blond White woman, McMahon sees him as a whipping boy rather than a talented wrestler. When WWE fails and the smoldering ruins are a public urination spot for people in the industry that McMahon has wronged, you can look back to shit like this as the obvious reason WHY.


Myles first piece of NXT merchandise was pretty racist Photo Credit: WWE.com

Wrestling and the Black community has a pretty one-sided relationship. Black fans continue to sit in attendance and spend money on merchandise, but companies across the board have had problems serving them. Pushes of guys like Junkyard Dog in Memphis to Kofi Kingston today in WWE have been few and far between. The only demographic minority that has gotten decent representation in wrestling has been Pacific Islander, but at the same time, even those gimmicks have been racist as fuck. All Elite Wrestling has come under fire for its lack of inclusion on Dynamite thus far. WWE conversely might seem like they're turning a corner with Sasha Banks in a prominent role, Velveteen Dream in the main event picture in NXT, and Kingston remaining a force after losing the title he won at WrestleMania. However, as much as you want to give the company that ran Triple H running a dog-whistle character straight from National Review against Booker T in advance of Mania XIX and WINNING credit for race relations, this past weekend, they proved that they're still a racist organization with no quality control from any of the racists overseeing anything:

Yes, that's a t-shirt they released. In case you don't know the context, Jordan Myles, the former ACH on the indies and in New Japan, is a Black wrestler being given a shirt with his name affected in the style of racist old caricatures of Black people back before the Civil Rights Movement. The fact that that shirt even made the light of day is a complete system failure. Even if the affectation wasn't intentional, someone along the line would have had to have seen it. They didn't, and the reason is the company is owned by a racist family that has helped fill Donald Trump's coffers. The company hires racist people. It shouldn't be surprising that this happened, and it won't stop happening until the McMahon family forfeits or sells the company. Even then do you think things will improve drastically to a point of acceptability if, say, Disney swallows WWE up in its Kirby-suction of American pop culture? If you do, you're a fool.

The lesson here is expecting corporate wrestling to do the right thing regarding racial minorities and other marginalized people is a fool's errand. You can try to have a dick-measuring contest over this, but the fact that you would says more about you than it does anything. Both WWE and AEW are not doing right by non-White, non-male wrestlers, and you don't have to compare either to each other as if WWE making Kingston Champion (and then having him put up the weakest fight to the Aryan homophobe Brock Lesnar since he came back) or AEW not doing anything egregious against their marginalized wrestlers make either company less culpable here.

The big problem is that I can't see any way that a corporate wresting company can become suddenly not racist, because capitalism rewards White supremacy. Even when the owner is a person of color like Tony Khan, they see not the people in the same racial demographic as them as their first comrades, they see people in their tax bracket. The ultra-rich have class solidarity, and that class is overwhelmingly White. So when Nyla Rose isn't featured on an episode of Dynamite after the first one, or when Private Party loses in the second round of the tag tournament, it's fair to ask questions, even if Latinx and Asian representation is robust. The thing about representation and grievance is that it's not a zero-sum game, and you're not really in good taste telling Black people that they shouldn't be mad that they don't have more of their own in bigger positions in any company.

It's depressing and frustrating to accept that marginalized people will get representation when they stop being marginalized, and that marginalization will cease when capitalism is toppled and socialism redistributes all the wealth worldwide, but at this point, you can't really hope for widespread change. If it happens, it's a happy accident. In the meantime, all you can hope for is that the company looking to topple WWE hegemony is going to give more Black people chances, or that the biggest company in the world doesn't do anything mind-numbingly racist. When you can't even get that, well, things are fucked.

Of course, as an epilogue to the whole debacle, WWE released this statement:

Albert Hardie Jr. (aka Jordan Myles) approved this t-shirt for sale. As always, we work collaboratively with all of our performers to develop logos and merchandise designs and get their input and approval before proceeding. This was the same process with Albert, and we responded swiftly once he later requested that the logo/t-shirt be redesigned. No t-shirts were sold.

What a weasel-word statement. I don't believe at all that WWE would allow a NXT wrestler that isn't named Adam Cole, Shayna Baszler, or Velveteen Dream to approve a t-shirt, and even if they did, it's clear that they didn't listen to Myles' objections with it. Again, if you think you can count on any corporate body, let alone in wrestling, to do right by the marginalized, you're the textbook definition of the word "mark."


He's speaking truth to power in the most vulnerable position possible in wrestling Photo Credit: WWE.com

Welcome to a feature I like to call "Best in the World" rankings. They're not traditional power rankings per se, but they're rankings to see who is really the best in the world, a term bandied about like it's bottled water or something else really common. They're rankings decided by me, and don't you dare call them arbitrary lest I smack the taste out of your mouth. Without further ado, here's this week's list:

1. Jordan Myles (Last Week: Not Ranked) - One can look at his Twitter today and say he should log off. Me, I think he should keep going. He's in a unique position as a member of the WWE roster who isn't afraid to go after the company for being racist. People going after him for speaking his mind only reinforce what he's been saying. The endgame is that he's not going to get fired, but he'll be paid to stay at home until his contract runs out. Or maybe they'll try to bring him back to do something with him like they're doing with Lio Rush in hopes that he quiets down and maybe accepts that the company he works for is late-stage capitalism at its worst. Either way, what he's done today is not something to be trifled with.

2. Jordan Howard (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Look, I didn't mean for there to be two Jordans at the top of the list, but it just fell that way. Howard, along with Brandon Brooks and Carson Wentz, has been keeping this Eagles offense afloat in the lean times, and yesterday, he came so so SO close to being the first Eagles 100-yard rusher since the Super Bowl year. Still, even though he didn't get to that mythical platform, he, Miles Sanders, and those run-blocking hogs helped the team defeat a tough Bills defense and get back to .500 after two embarrassing losses that I'd rather not say anything else about.

3. Maki Itoh (Last Week: 5) - Not only did she retain the Princess of Joshi Championship, her respect army has gained a powerful member in Chris Brookes. Did you know he's half-octopus? No? Well he isn't. But it would be cool if he was.

4. Brandon Graham (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Yeah, the Bills' offense is about as exciting as soggy bread, but I mean, what did you want from them, to make them look like the 2018 Chiefs? The defense, led by Graham, did its job. Graham had another good game working against a tough line. He will get some help, as Fletcher Cox is finally looking more like himself and Derek Barnett has stopped committing dumb personal fouls long enough to start producing. Things are looking up for a beleaguered defense.

5. New England Clam Chowder (Last Week: Not Ranked)OFFICIAL HOLZERMAN HUNGERS SPONSORED ENTRY - Honestly, it's the best soup when it's done well, and McKenzie's Brew Pub has a pretty fine version. It even has spice to it! I don't think Bostonians are legally allowed to consume anything above a Scoville rating of -10, so that's something.

6. Orange Cassidy (Last Week: 7) - Pfft, get bent. Those superkicks ruled.

7. Everyone In Attendance At Nationals Park in Washington (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Donald Trump decided he'd waddle his ass over to World Series Game 5 last night, and when he was introduced to the stadium, every fan in attendance save a few dopes decided they'd let him know the score. You could say that the President never gets a good reaction at sporting events anymore, but honestly, it was still so satisfying to hear people give him a blow to his pride. Trump's cult tells of his great leadership and unifying ability. The boos say otherwise.

8. Austin Idol (Last Week: Not Ranked) - AMENITIES

9. Matisse Thybulle (Last Week: Not Ranked) - The Sixers rookie defied odds by making the court at all given every first round draft pick by the team since Nerlens Noel has missed time. He's a contributor too! Thybulle's three-and-D might be the thing that lifts the team to the Finals, or at least past the second round.

10. Tony Schiavone (Last Week: 10) - Folks, hasn't AEW Dynamite been a blast so far, in part because of Schiavone's commentary and... folks, we're out of blog time! Tune in next week for the Best in the World Rankings!

Pictured, the whims of a tyrant come to life
Photo Credit: WWE.com

It's common knowledge that Vince McMahon is cruel. You kinda have to be to amass over a billion dollars in wealth, to be honest, which is one of the many reasons why massive wealth is highly immoral. Anyway, when the cruelty seeps into his booking, things get awkward for the wrestlers involved. Of course, wrestlers get "humiliated" in wrestling all the time. Heels have to get comeuppance. However, there's a steep distance between "heel gets decisively beaten in the middle of the ring" to "David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty have to defend themselves from being called 'unentertaining.'" I could be wrong, but that cruelty hasn't manifested itself as viciously as it has with how he's overseen booking Rusev and Lana though.

In case you're keeping count, the current angle with Bobby Lashley cucking Rusev, who is married to Lana in real life, mind you, is a new low for McMahon's concern for the well-being of his roster. It's also the third time their relationship has been used in a borderline degrading angle. The first one was put into motion immediately after they announced their engagement; Lana's cheating dalliance was with Dolph Ziggler. It did provide one memorable thing, Rusev throwing a fish at Ziggler, but at the time it was viewed as a petty action by a company that was mad because two consenting adults did something in their personal lives, something which shouldn't have had bearing on their work lives. The second time was Enzo Amore trying to woo Lana. Granted, it didn't actually put Amore in an extramarital relationship, and it's the most defensible use of their relationship in a wrestling angle.

This current instance features Lashley and Lana making out in front of Rusev for titillation. It also plays into the racist trope that Black men want nothing more than to steal White women away from their partners. Once again, WWE shows how racist a company it is. Beyond that, the first instance should never have been pitched in the first place. It is a gross overreach of capital to mandate a cuck angle like this see the light of day, one that might have been nixed if wrestlers were unionized.

"What if they're okay with it?" Although wrestlers are carnies who are down for anything, I'm not sure it's something that their boss should even ask them. IF they're swingers anyway? It becomes murkier, to be honest, but at the same time, by all accounts, the Ziggler cheating angle was by surprise and a reaction to McMahon being mad that they got engaged. I'm not entirely sure this time around is much better, to be honest. What probably happened is Rusev, whose appearances on television has been spotty over the last few years despite getting himself over organically with "Rusev Day," was presented this idea from creative and made the hard choice not to sit on the sidelines and waste more of his wrestling prime working Main Event and get some exposure. On the odd chance that it was his or Lana's idea, and I mean odd chance, it's not something a reasonable person would put on the air.

OF course, the counter is "what about Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth?" Honestly, given what I know about their relationship, it probably shouldn't have gone down the way it did, even though it's what made me a wrestling fan today. That being said, that angle happened in a time when WWE wasn't as lascivious with the content they put on television. It's not bad in and of itself to have skin on the show or to deal with more adult themes. That being said, when you're doing the Savage "jealous eyes" leading into the Sensational Sherri relationship angle, you probably shouldn't be doing it out of spite against a real life couple while throwing in a heaping helping of racism into it. You could also argue that Savage, Elizabeth, Sherri, and Hulk Hogan all being massively over helped ease the sting of Savage and Elizabeth, a real life couple, doing this shit on screen. Ironically, their make-up and wedding on screen happened after they bitterly divorced... Savage famously said to Lance Storm"I did an angle with my wife one time, and I ain't got no wife no more."

The question then becomes "is any cucking angle okay?" which to me feels like a whopper of a question to ask when Mike Bennett asked for his release from WWE almost immediately after the conclusion of the angle where his wife Maria Kanellis told him that the baby she was carrying was sired by someone else. It's shit like this that makes people continue to think wrestling is low-brow, which affects ad rates for shows with good ratings let alone the shit that all three main shows have been pulling. I mean, if good taste and proper treatment of labor isn't going to make them stop doing this shit, maybe the bottom line will.

Truth be told, I'm not sure if Rusev wants out of WWE, even though his and Lana's Twitter activity at times indicates that the couple wants to leave. Either way, it feels like Rusev, who ironically is the most valid piece of evidence towards the NXT-only training method WWE employs working, is a victim of roster bloat and WWE vacuuming up every wrestler it can with a shitty contract and promise it can become less shitty if they "make it." While WWE won't let either Rusev or Lana out of their contracts if they want it and will try to pull every shady piece of business it can to keep them locked up, the company probably wouldn't miss either one them on top of every other wrestler they could trot out there with the severely limited amount of time they have. It'd be better than them sticking around and having to deal with more worked infidelity putting strain on their marriage out of nothing but their boss' acute sense of cruelty.

Balor Club is...fine?
all photos courtesy of WWE.com

The purpose of instituting the Standard when NXT made the jump to USA was to compare and contrast the parts of the show that worked against the parts that didn't. Brilliant as I sporadically am, this isn't exactly reinventing the wheel; however, I figured with twice as much weekly content to write about there would be...how do you say...twice as many things to write about.

A month and a half in, my expectations have been subverted. To put it in the terms of the wisest possible meme, you can't write about the good and the bad of a show when the show is just good. Mid-level dream matches set up epic dream matches, both the main championships regardless of gender have a ridiculously deep pool of possible opponents to pull from with multiple long-term storytelling implications for multiple characters, the mid-level singles title is being defended multiple times in the show's main event without it being due to an employee refusing to show up to do their jobs, and even the tag division is seeing longtime Full Sail staples get rewarded for their longterm loyalty by slowly getting maneuvered closer and closer by the week to a title opportunity in the cases of two teams (both Breezango and the Allied Strikers)! Instead of having a bunch of decent shows to set up a great Takeover, they appear to be putting on mini-Takeovers to form a Voltron Takeover.

It's like a dream come true.

Like slipping on an old, comfortable skin.

GOLD: Prince De...uh, Finn Bálor
And lest we forget to give them their proper due, God's Production Team and whoever set up the show ender, because man!

The Era had jumped Keith Lee following Roderick Strong's successful title defense in the main, and as they put a beating on him Ciampa came out, crutch in hand and didn't hesitate to get in the ring and in their faces. On the heels of that, out came Johnny Gargano - was I the only one who saw Sting tag Ric Flair when he slid into the ring next to a weapon-possessing Tommy Sports Entertainment? Hm? - to stand by his longtime friend and epic rival. When Catch Your Breath hit, immediately all the fuzziness surrounding the upcoming WarGames IV seemed to be set: you got three former NXT champions together lined up side by side, and with all these entrances providing enough recovery time, Keith Lee was going to rise up and put some meesters on their keesters, giving us the Era v. Limitless DemonIY.

Many of us, it turned out, misconstrued what "My future is my past meant", as barely the thought had formed before Bálor suddenly floored Gargano with a Pele kick. The Era looked as shocked as Ciampa was, then realized what they had and swarmed him. Finn dragged Johnny outside, gave him the W00 dropkick through the barricade (and hopefully what were plants) before delivering a 1916 into the ramp that sent the last NXT champion out of the building in an ambulance with the longest reigning one pointing a pair of very familiar looking finger guns at his fallen form. Keith didn't even get up off the deck; nor did Dijakovic, for that matter. The Era flashed their gang sign, but it was clear who's moment it was - and just like the last time Johnny got sent out with lights flashing, they picked the exact right moment to surprise and stun everyone when they did it.

Gargano/Finn is a matter of when now, not if. But also, Finn seemed to be decidedly not with or part of the Era. Everything he's said on follow up before the show this week whether on WWE programming or social media has been promising Prince Devitt in everything but name, and if he comes out in a light-up jacket on Bronson Reed's shoulders before the year's out, it'll confirm that. Full Sail got stunned into silence, and then into buzzing. Maybe they were seeing a FinnCole v. DIY match. Maybe they were seeing a Lee/Dijakovic v. Not ReDragon one, or maybe Ciampa/Finn; despite the fact the beating kept the big Texan hoss down, the possibilities spawning from those three moves and alignment shift seem to be limitless for NXT going forward.

And it all got done without giving away any sort of clue as to where we go with WarGames. Considering one of his biggest potential rivals seemed to defect and he and his cronies got to lay a world-class beating on the other, you'd think that the champion of NXT's world would be living large. Yet I can't help but think…

BLACK: Adam Cole
…like the plurality of the audience, I found myself Surrender Cobraing but pleasantly surprised by the non-Isaiah Scott Isaiah Scott at the end of the show, so take this prediction with an entire time zone of Morton's factories: at some point next year, the Undisputed Era might as well be Bálor Club, and their former leader will turn full bay bay faced by getting jumped by his former underlings

Again, nothing should I say should be taken seriously unless on the off chance I'm right, in which case you will hear about it forever and will have to address me with the formal usted should you wish to do so in Spanish.

Rod, you glorious chode

GOLD: dat main event tho
Not only did Roddy lead the Ciampa attack charge, he did so after retaining his title the way anyone who's played a video game of WWE this century has: let one hit the finisher on the other one, then throw him out and steal it for yourself. As for Lee & Dijakovic, you knew they were main eventers who hadn't done so yet before this title match and they went out and proved it, seamlessly folding Roddy into their year(s)-long game of Can You Top This? for three segments, multiple standing Os, and even more crazy-ass moves. (For some reason, when they do things like avalanche choke bombs or Spirit Bombs, their kickouts get far less pique than I would normally divulge in similar situations. You don't beat Godzilla with a couple of gunshots, after all.) Most tantalizingly before they fought for the final portion of the match, there was a moment where they briefly teamed up to swat Roddy down with a Feast Your Eyes setting up an out of the ring Pounce and stared at each other in some kind of recognition before they resumed contretemps. I've been saying this for years, but let me say it again here: why are you guys trying to kill each other when you could team up and kill everybody else for y e a r s? Didn't the Era just piss you both off? Don't they have shiny tag titles? Rhetorical questions, rhetorical questions. The fact of the matter is, the Takeover card so far as we know it is empty: Roddy may have to defend his title, but Dominik and Keith should definitely kick things off with their rubber match. New Orleans can't have the best opening Takeover match forever, you know?

It's almost a shame the Finn turned happened immediately afterwards and took up pretty much every bit of the oxygen in a Florida room, but give the main a shot if you haven't already. And if you've got 15-20 to kill, watch it again.

If only this dyad had some sort of nomenclature we could refer to them as!

GOLD: the Women's Division, yet again
It's easy to parse (For Some Reason On the Broadcast or the RegalTron They Were Not Referred To As) Team Kick beating the Horsewomen Underlings to earn a shot at the Kabuki Warriors - if Shafir/Duke was that close to a title shot, then let me throw my fiancee's cat and I in the ring - but that's going to happen and possibly headline today's show. Kairi Sane and Asuka are going to return to Full Sail, and they're doing so against Tegan Nox & her biffle, Dakota Kai. That's - again - literally a Takeover-worthy match they're rolling out on TV because Dynamite is A Thing Now. And the winners is us.

Speaking of which, the show started off with Rhea Ripley's hardest task in NXT Stateside to date, as she not only had to fight Bianca BelAir for a couple segments but fend off interference from Choke Me The Fuck Out, Io Shirai to do it. Candice LeRae came out to counter the interference by nullifying it, thus allowing Ripley to counter the Awful Waffle into the Riptide and cleanly best the EST of NXT. This would seemingly line her up immediately against Shayna, and Candice/Io II might be happening right after you read this. Then again: look at the ridiculous amount of talent on display! Bianca and Rhea got a crowd to pop over who would successfully execute a suplex (it watched better than it reads, assure you), let alone their testing of strengths against the other and reeling off signatures. A more heelish Bianca can complain about the shenanigans and ask for a rematch...we could get the Teddy Long special out of this configuration...hell, make them have a fatal four-way. Do all the things! If the ratings aren't going to magically fly and Cody and Company aren't going to magically stop making shows, make your shows ridiculously awesome. Part of what got NXT over to begin with was people feeling like they were something akin to a scrappy little roster that could, and continuing to put on excellence show after show while taking a ratings beatdown might be a cousin to the thing that helped it explode to prominence in the first place.

Another hard-hitting, critical darling episode of the Bro Show aired

GOLD: Matt Riddle/Cameron Grimes/Tyler Bate
Tyler being at ringside meant Something Was Going To Happen, and it did to set up another fine match for this week. Before that, however, both men teased their finishers and dodged the others' to provide a hot start to the bout. Riddle still has the quickest Takeover match on record and Grimes has been waylaying everyone this side of the Breakout tournament with his 1-Up Stomp, so it made logical sense. Then they settled down into a wrestling match where Riddle not only succeeded at the mat work that he executed, but responded to the Full Sailors mockingly chanting his name a la a certain former World Champion's that he almost immediately debuted the Matthammer in response, something that was immediately picked up on by the announce and woven into the remaining commentary of the rest of the match without being overly unctuous about it. Riddle's post match response to the chant was to raise an eyebrow at the hard camera, point at it and smile.

As for Grimes, in a real stooging masterclass, he refused to take a post-match Bro Bump, then when Tyler (Team Bro all the way) gently chided Grimes for not accepting it, he shoved Bate and put on his hat only to get it BOP BANGED off his shoulders. It's a bit of a convoluted way to get to Grimes/Bate, but it should still be a low-level barnburner. My earlier complaints on the Standard still apply to Grimes, but if he's going to be putting on above-average matches and eating Ls to people currently higher up on the food chain than he is, dayenu.

KILLSHOT

GOLD: SWERVE
Over the past few weeks, NXT has gone from Spider-Man 2 to Into the Spider-verse, and not coincidentally, Swerve is getting TV time and starting to climb the ladder in NXT. First, a competitive loss against Roderick Strong (who technically would go on to beat Dominik Dijakovic and Keith Lee by himself later on, so no shame in that), and then teaming up with Breezango to best the Forgotten Sons. Not only that, his theme has changed, keeping the dream of Chaka Khan debuting his true theme live at a Takeover in 2020 or 2021 alive. The trios match was a Swerve showcase, as while Breezango kept things humming along, Scott got all the chants, and the flashiest moves (the fact he did a backflip double kick off of Ryker into an Asai moonsault onto the other Sons almost finally justified the Heavy Hitter's existence) causing Mauro to augment his signature call with a Great Scott! He finished off Blake, and then it was the time on Sprockets when we dance, and his reaction to Fandango being from the streets in the post-match video is so great it deserves to be seen by more than 40k people. Swerve might turn out to be the BASF of NXT, making the things you like better.

Please don't make me regret that by forcing me to watch him try to drag Ryker to something palatable one-on-one. Wesley Blake's right there and he took the pinfall, for crying out flayven.

Es muy guapo y talentoso

GOLD: the Cruiserweight Division
Let's ignore the fact that the Champ of the Hour was surprisingly somnambulant on commentary for the division's featured match on the show and focus on what he saw: his presumable first challenger, Angel Garza besting Jack Gallagher and wanting a shot at the purp as a result. Most noticeably, it appears Garza may in fact be too attractive to get booed in front of the Full Sailors at this point, who were happy to see Jackie Boy back in their graces but cheering loudly and repeatedly for the man who hates pants just as much as I do even though he faked adhering to the Code of Honor at the match's outset. The match may have even played into it with Gallagher whipping off Garza's pants (phrasing!) and Angel hitting a dropkick on the confused Gallagher to a loud wave of applause to set up a slingshot inverted suplex. Again, considering the abundance of female Full Sail fans - a couple of the luckier ones who got to kiss the luchador on the cheek - they can do a lot worse than putting he & Humberto Carillo in a team and doing the most lucha libre version of the Rock n Roll Express. Brother, you'd never hear so many screams. They'd sell that son of a bitch out with those handsome smiles on the marquee. Hopefully, Gallagher will find a different way and look better in future NXTV appearances, and Garza/Rush when and if we get there should be sneakily good as well.

NXT UP: Tyler Bate/Cameron Grimes! Candice/Io II! Did we mention Team Kick v. the Kabuki Warriors with the straps on the line. No wonder so many people like crack so much. And this is so much less expensive and better on my veins!

Can Jericho go 60? Will he be called on to do so?
Photo Credit: WWE.com

All Elite Wrestling, a propos of nothing, announced yesterday that Cody and Chris Jericho would have a 60-minute time limit at Full Gear, and that if the match went to a draw, that there would be three judges at ringside to decide who the winner would be. It's not a new gimmick. World Championship Wrestling did it with Ric Flair and Sting at the first Clash of the Champions. It went to a draw, and the judges were deadlocked as well. Ring of Honor used the gimmick again in 2010 at their Eighth Anniversary Show, but Tyler Black did not need to go the limit to defeat Austin Aries. It's a sparing gimmick because generally, folks like to see things settled in the middle of the ring, not at the judge's table.

Everything about the announcement feels rushed at first glance. Jericho and Cody haven't had much in the way of wrestling matches that indicate either one will go broadway. It's an extraneous thing that doesn't make much narrative sense and instead will drive the narrative as an instance of Chekhov's Gun. I know AEW has this notion that it wants to treat its product like a sport, and in combat sports, all matches (not just the title matches) have judges who score it in case they reach the limit. Why one match has the judges table and, say, Jon Moxley vs. PAC from last week's Dynamite is beyond me. Maybe they need to clarify.

That being said, the announcement makes sense only if they're going to establish the judges table is going to be a thing in the future. The hour-long time limit isn't anything new. The National Wrestling Alliance had them for years. WWE made an hour the length of the first Iron Man match at WrestleMania XII. New Japan Pro Wrestling has hour limits on all IWGP World Championship matches. What is different is the judges table, and it is going to come into play, if not at Full Gear, at some point in the future. If I had to guess, Kenny Omega will be the first guy to go to the judges in a title match because having long matches is what he does.

So the issue is that either AEW is telegraphing a 60-minute match, or they're engaging in bad storytelling for the sake of seeming like a sport. Contrary to popular belief, telegraphing is not a bad thing. Swerves and surprises usually have some sort of foreshadowing, even if it doesn't seem obvious at first. Superfluousness isn't appreciated in storytelling, as unneeded diversions tend to muddle the narrative and leave viewers/readers looking at the wrong things after the story's over. Plot points have to make sense, so setting up one thing and going with another that isn't supported by the story so far is bad craftsmanship.

So AEW viewers are going to have to brace for a pay-per-view main event that goes the full 60. Do I think it's going to be Full Gear? Look, I like Chris Jericho a lot, even now, but asking him to go a full hour seems to be a fool's errand, no matter how large a gas tank Cody has. If they do, and Jericho doesn't keel over, then I'll be willing to eat crow. That being said, even if it's not at Full Gear, some match is going to go 60 minutes sooner rather than later. If not, then it'll be a legit critique of AEW. For now, I'm going to expect one, because track record is an important thing. Even though AEW isn't even a year old yet, I can't say that the promotion has presented any show that hasn't been satisfactory at least. Will it continue? Things like how this 60-minute time limit with a judges table to prevent any unnecessary draws will go a long way into answering that question.

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