AEW All In 2023

All In 2023… the big AEW show… a show that I almost didn’t watch because the build up had been so mediocre. However, this show took place in London, which meant it aired on a Sunday afternoon… which meant that I could watch it while doing other stuff and that’s what I did. So what did I think of the biggest event in wrestling history?

It was fine.

That’s it.

A show like this needs time for me to process. I could just spout out quick thoughts and whatever, but this is supposed to be a big deal.

Continue reading “AEW All In 2023”

A Very Shit Trek

It’s Star Trek Day… apparently.

So they uploaded a new Short Trek animated thing where the captain says a metaphor and ends up offending somebody. It’s a cute little bit. And then it kept going. And it kept going. And then it kept going. And then finally the ship blew up.

What the fuck did I even watch?

Moral of the story; shut the fuck up and you won’t offend anyone.

AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door 2023

(I had this in the can, so might as well put it out before the shows people would rather hear me talk about.)

You’ll have to forgive the longer than usual wait for this thing. I had intended to have this up much earlier, but apparently, the draft that I wrote for this was misplaced and the post that had published came up empty. So I ended up re-writing a lot of the notes that I had before and that’s why you’re only getting this now.

So I skipped out on Double Or Nothing. The card just didn’t seem that interesting on paper. I almost skipped out on Forbidden Door and didn’t bother to catch the show live, but I eventually bought the replay for one specific reason and that is to help Tony Khan make back some of that money that he spent on Final Countdown. Call it a fleeting moment of charity.

On with the show, I guess…

Tony Khan secured rights to The Final Countdown for Bryan Danielson to come out to in his match with Okada. Then Bryan Danielson broke his arm during said match with Okada. So I guess Tony Khan saved himself some money because he won’t have to play it anymore until All In or something… oh waut.

In any event, I missed out on the Forbidden Door show when it aired, but learning about said song being licensed prompted me to give it a go. If nothing else, it’d be nice to write about a current wrestling PPV event, especially one that I found myself enjoying for the most part. Certainly a far deal better than having to endure shitty TNA PPVs from 20 years and while the WWF 2000 PPVs provided slightly more entertainment, I wouldn’t have minded a break from that as well for the sake of doing a write-up on the second collaborative PPV between All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling.

However, when it came time to actually write something about this show, my mind was a blank. The most I could come up with was a quick blurb that would end up being an answer to an email that I used for the mailbag edition of the DTM-Cast. That blurb, for those who would rather not dive into an audio program of sorts, is as follows:

“I actually bought the replay and yeah, that was a great show. Danielson/Okada was a tremendous match considering Danielson fractured his arm and still kept going… the fact that they actually snagged the rights to Final Countdown made it special, because that song is notoriously expensive to get the rights to, so that made it somewhat special. Omega/Ospray was a spectacle that I’m sure Meltzer’s going to give a billion stars because that’s the sort of hardon that he has for that pairing. Jungle Boy turning into a Jungle Man, blinding siding Hook which got a huge negative reaction and ol’ Jack Perry just drank it in, baby… so that’s something to look forward to.”

So I set it aside and continued with the usual stuff… and then I watched the show again recently and once again, I had the same problem as before; I liked the show, but not enough to actually write anything substantial… which is funny because there were plenty of PPV musings – especially in regards to PPVs from twenty to thirty years ago – where I would say almost nothing beyond a couple lines for each match. Because these musings are not recaps or reviews; I just talk about stuff that I’ve seen and add whatever comes to mind.

A couple days ago, I gave the show yet another watch to refresh my memory… and turns out I’ve got quite a bit to say about this show… such as the sound mixing being utterly atrocious. The crowd in particular seemed somewhat muted and not quite as loud as they should be. Well, it’s either a bad mix or a bad crowd because this took place in Toronto.

So when all was said and done, this is what I thought of the show… in slightly greater detail than I had before, but not as much as I would’ve liked.

Continue reading “AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door 2023”

State Of The Blog – September 2023

Note to self… need to stop scheduling incomplete posts for the future.

Anyway, after a long, protracted road, we finally hit 1000 reviews. It’s been a fun time, but I’m glad that it’s finally over… now we take a bit of a break this week and we’ll keep going afterwards. In the meantime, we’ve got some minor housekeeping to take care of.

REVIEWS
Reviews will resume next week and should proceed on a Tuesday-Friday upload schedule. Don’t expect anything “big” as far as what’s being reviewed, as I’m mostly finishing up some stuff that’s been on the backburner for a while. I’m also somewhat planning ahead on stuff that I want to prep for 2024 so that things turn out a bit more “smoothly.” On a sidebar, I am considering taking requests for a short while and turning that into a gimmick month of sorts. I’m working out the kinks on how I want to take these requests, but people want me to review stuff for some reason. So I’m working on that.

PPV MUSINGS
PPV Musings have slowed down considerably over the past month. I’ll be honest; I haven’t been keeping up. I’ve seen the All In show, but the musings won’t be ready for another week or so, especially in light of the recent Punk news. I’m not sure if I’m going to be watching All Out, but I made a note to check out last night’s Payback show from WWE. I still have a couple WWF 2000 PPVs to bang out sooner or later. We’ll see how things go.

POWER RANGERS REFLECTIONS
I know this has been largely dormant, but I want to bring this series of lookbacks back. I want to look at Cosmic Fury, but don’t know if I’m going to do it episode by episode or do it all in one shot since it’s going up on Netflix in one-shot. I do know that I’m going to have to catch up on Dino Fury since that’s important. While I’m not sure of it happening soon, it is something I want to bring up for 2024.

On that note…

PREPPING FOR 2024
2023 has been a trying year and while we’ve got some stuff out here and there, there’s also been prevailing circumstances that have derailed entire plans. With that in mind, I’ve been putting together some stuff that I’m hoping we’ll see the light of day in 2024, including a redo of the entire Ramblemania series that will be consistent with the recent Musings format. This may also include the return of other dormant projects.

Anyway, things will be picking up. What that actually entails is another story, but hopefully, the content train won’t totally derail.

21 Years Ago In TNA #12 – Not Doing A Best Of Show (September 4th, 2002)

TNA didn’t have a proper PPV event today; they’re aired a best of X-Division show instead. I didn’t watch it, but I’d thought that I would mention it here to keep the ball rolling, so to speak.

Anyway, the next “actual” PPV show would take place in a couple weeks because TNA didn’t do a show on 9/11. Don’t recall if it’s out of respect for those who lost their lives or because they just didn’t have money to do another one. Either way, there’s no weekly PPV and we’re given a brief respite.

With that said, I do have a PPV Musings for a couple TNA PPVs from later down the road. The good news is that both shows are pretty damned good.