Coffey

Tony Khan as an on-air character was inevitable. Shame.

I had an epiphany today. Bear with me, as I struggle to try to explain myself as I go: When I was a kid growing up, my favorite wrestlers, as you can probably imagine, were just the top pushed babyfaces. Over the years, a lot of nostalgia makes it so that I fondly remember the likes of Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior & Jake "The Snake" Roberts. I'm able to separate the performer from the person, because I learned a lot more about each person over the years & none of them turned out to be super great dudes. I got into Japanese wrestling thanks to the internet become more stable at the end of the 90's. With watching Japan, tape trading & what not, I got into guys like Terry Funk & Stan Hansen. Other greats as well, too, like Kawada, Misawa, Kobashi, etc., but it was the Americans wrestling in Japan that stuck with me. It was kind of surreal to see a guy like Vader mean so little in WWF when he was such a monster in Japan. Or Scott Norton in WCW compared to Japan. When the Monday Night Wars were going on, I loved Raven & I used to really enjoy the Goldberg squash matches. Sting coming down to fight off all of the nWo by himself & hitting the Scorpion Death Drop on someone was must-see TV for me. I was real big into ECW in the late 90's too. Especially when they finally got their PPVs in my areas. I instantly became a fan of Rob Van Dam, The Dudley Boyz (who had the best finish I had ever seen!) and many more. So when my friends & I were talking, since most of us have been watching wrestling since the late 80's, we were talking about our favorite wrestlers over the years. I had my childhood favorites. I had my teenager favorites. I had my tape trading favorites & guilty pleasure wrestlers & all sorts of many guys from over the years, from all over the world. WWF, ECW, WCW, Japan... Then I realized, man, I never really give the proper respect to all the Indie wrestling I've watched over the years. Samoa Joe, despite wrestling in TNA, AEW & WWE, made me a believer because of his ROH run & the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I think Samoa Joe, just based off of the strength of his Ring of Honor run, is one of my favorite wrestlers. There was a time when I think ROH was the best promotion on the planet. Their roster was stacked. You had American Dragon, Jamie Noble, Homicide, Punk, Nigel, etc. all these crazy good wrestlers - many of which went on to much bigger things - and you had Samoa Joe holding down the fort. Looking like the ultimate bad ass. Sounding like the ultimate bad ass. Putting on a ton of good, believable, strong style matches. I still have the Joe Vs. Kobashi ROH DVD. It's a shame that Joe spent so long in TNA & got hurt because he deserved to have a bigger platform for a longer time but I'm glad he got his run in WWE & his run in AEW. Now that he's passed the torch to Swerve, I just wanted to give Joe his flowers because I feel like I've overlooked him a bit & he's one of the all-time greats, even if his peak was on the Indies.

He can barely walk... Just hang it up.

I'm glad that Nyla, at least on the outside, is taking it in stride because that's super fucking shitty. I wouldn't blame AEW if they never went back to Oklahoma ever again. Shit like that should cost the state business, straight up.

Good. I'm happy for him. He's not awful & he has a great look & size. If WWE are going to do the Uncle Howdy stuff with Bo, getting Rowan back is smart. I like Sek's suggestions of Braun & Alexa too. They might not be able to do The Wyatt 6 anymore but it's more intriguing to me without The Fiend. I mean, maybe the idea was to do like the movie Split with The Fiend being The Beast? It would be interesting if WWE were to bring in someone like Raven for creative for it. He had some pretty off-the-wall albeit similar storyline ideas in the past. I remember him talking about that Seven storyline that was on Sunday Night Heat forever.

I know it's faux pas to say nowadays but Hook is just too fucking small. He's not Rey Mysterio. He looks like a literal teenager, and the suspension of disbelief is out the window. It's not like he's doing a Danhausen gimmick, he's trying to be Taz without any of the aura. Taz was small, yes, but he was built like a tank & when he choked people out, it was believable. Hook has NONE of that. I'm not sure WWE would even be interested in him. I don't see him being marketable like Jade is.

I don't get WWE being stingy with all the money that they're rolling in lately. It's the same reason they lost Sasha Banks. Just pay it, you can afford it. Per Google: WWE posted revenue of US$331.2 million in Q4 2023 Like? How much did Austin ask for? Sure, $3M for a 2-minute run-in is probably insane but they could have done it...

Jesus, this company is nothing but weak-willed, petty fucking man children.

They really need to put Athena back on the main AEW show. Especially now that AEW signed Mercedes Moné. Athena has more than proven herself in ROH.

So when is Jacob Fatu showing up?

Regardless of everything everyone has said, including Meltzer & Tony Khan himself, I'm still taking a wait-and-see approach. There's no way it's just going to be showing the footage & AEW going "Punk sure is a dick, huh?" That would be completely pointless.

I *loved* Wrestlemania. Night 2 was legit a fantastic show. It was a fun whole weekend. However, El-P has a point. For all the heeing & hawing that WWE are doing about the NEW era & how it's no longer Vince's show blah blah blah, Night 1 started with Triple H. Night 2 started with Stephanie McMahon. The main event involved The Rock, John Cena & The Undertaker. Cody called out Triple H & Bruce Prichard, of all people. None of that feels like a new era. And all the Vince McMahon accusations & shit, Triple H saying he hadn't read it, people just casually forgetting that Nick Khan was named & he was there in the front row hugging Cody. All the wrestlers themselves whenever they're ask about it play it off because they're afraid for their jobs, just like Ronda Rousey said. Hell, that's AT BEST, at worst you get shit like Cena saying he loves the man (Vince) & Becky saying how much he put her over & didn't see shit like that first hand or whatever. It certainly appears that the WWE stance is to just ignore it & hope it goes away. Right now there's more of a stink over AEW saying they're going to show the Perry/Punk footage than over the Vince McMahon, Jr. story which should be the biggest wrestling story in the last thirty plus years & instead, everyone (myself guiltily included) is like "that was a good show, huh? AEW lul." Although I guess if it was settled out of court & is never going to go to criminal court, there's not a lot more we can say or do as fans. I've not even kept up with it lately, I don't even know where the suit lies right now. But boy, Michael Cole sure does seem happier!

Also, I think I need to rewatch the Iyo/Bayley match. I didn't get the hype that I'm reading the first time around & I think it may have been because I was on my phone too much or just not as invested in it the first go around, not sure. I did notice the selling because at first, I thought Bayley was legit injured. Especially the way she sold it like "goddamn, I hurt myself, I'm mad about it!" Her entrance could have been so much better. Iyo's was more simple but made Bayley's look even stranger by comparison. Also, if anyone mentioned it earlier, I missed it but the new AJ Styles theme sucks!

The only thing I can think of is that they asked & Austin just wasn't interested. I was expecting the glass shatter as well.

Great show