The World Ended, The Rock Returned, and The Devil Was Revealed: It's Casual Friday, January 5th, 2024!

 

Good Morning!

Let me be the…well, like the 500th person to wish you a Happy New Year, dear reader. We persevere, we move forward, and hopefully this upcoming year isn’t a dumpster fire.

Resolutions! People are always resolving to do stuff this time of year. Getting to the gym is a popular one – I wouldn’t say it’s high on my list but I am trying to be more conscious of what I’m doing with my life. Actually going to the doctor for the first time in like 15 years was step one. This week, I’m getting some blood drawn and a CPAP machine to see if some of the stuff they found is treatable. It’ll be interesting to see if I sleep a whole lot better with a modified Bane mask on. It should, at the very least, make the wife super turned on to sleep next to me while I tell her, “Oh, you think darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, molded by it…”

No, I have only one true resolution this year. Well, okay, two. I hope to somehow make something out of nothing twice, and have this blog turn into a paying endeavor, or have it get my foot in the door at a website that’ll pay for me to write about pro wrestling. It happened once, so there’s no reason why I can’t make it happen again. I have some ideas – writing recaps if I get to live shows, or hitting up the local wrestling school to see what goes on there. Obviously, dear reader, you’ll be the first to know when we do some of that stuff. The first non-Casual Friday thing I plan to work on was prompted by the great trio of hosts on the That’s Freakin’ Wrestling podcast – a top twenty list of “Superstars”, however one defines that phrase. I’ll get into how I personally define it when I get that sucker published, which will be in the next week or so. 

Oh, the other resolution? To memorize every word of this song:

“It’s A Soap Opera With More Suplexes and Less Violence”

…in which I discuss the storylines that keep us watching week to week

What a strange and eventful week it’s been for us wrestling fans! 2024 is off to a fascinating start, with basically all of our WrestleMania fantasy booking thrown out the window on this week’s Raw thanks to the return of The Rock. Rocky did his usual schtick, running down villain-of-the-moment Jinder Mahal (who did some great work in that impossible scenario) and getting the crowd to do some chants. But it was the closer that really got people talking, when Rock asked the crowd where he should sit when he went to dinner:

With that line, wrestling fandom lost its collective mind. What happens to Wrestlemania now? Rock HAS to be on the card, doesn’t he? They wouldn’t dare waste him at Elimination Chamber – despite some reports that the Australian tourism board specifically asked that Rock make an appearance! 

At this point, WWE has an absolute embarrassment of talent at the top of the card. C.M. Punk versus Seth Rollins, Cody Rhodes versus Roman Reigns, the Rock versus Roman Reigns, Becky Lynch versus Rhea Ripley, IO SKY versus Bayley…and that’s just matches that have been hinted at! There’s still two major Premium Live Events and over three months for things to play out for unattached performers like Drew McIntyre, Randy Orton, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and tons of others. 

I love guessing as much as anyone, but I think it’s also important to give Triple H and the WWE writers some credit – they’ve done great work over the last couple years, and there’s also only so much time on the two-night WrestleMania. And there are spots to be filled between the signature matches on both the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber shows. So place your bets, make your prognostications, but also maybe don’t take it so seriously that you “work yourself into a shoot” and get disappointed by expectations you yourself set. It’s just wrestling, after all! Glorious, wonderful, escapist entertainment.

Over on AEW, we had what felt like a true reset on Dynamite. The Devil and associates, having been revealed at the end of the Worlds End PPV, opened the show, with Adam Cole explaining his motivations while flanked by Roddy Strong, Wardlow, and the Ring of Honor tag champs The Kingdom. It might have been the most obvious choice, after months of speculation that it could have been anyone from Swerve Strickland to Dr. Britt Baker under that mask, but in the end there’s nothing wrong with being predictable, or making sense. And it did make sense – the story is basically that MJF was a douche and is kinda getting what is coming to him. 

Cole explained his goals for the new group well – basically he expects everyone to follow the Kingdom’s lead and get gold, and the face Wardlow made when Adam Cole claimed Wardlow would win the AEW World Championship and forfeit it to Cole upon his return to in-ring competition was wonderful. I liked that both bad guy group Bullet Club Gold and good guys The Acclaimed came out to challenge this new group too, as they were both dragged into the orbit of this story and got beaten down for their proximity to it. 

Elsewhere, Swerve Strickland continues to be the best thing AEW has going for it, and if that man isn’t wearing some gold by summer I’ll be very disappointed. He and Toni Storm are both superstars, and it looks like the company is very aware of that. Storm has some fresh new competition in new signing Deonna Purrazzo, and in her debuting protege Mariah May. Swerve, meanwhile, will have Keith Lee, Hangman Adam Page, and whoever else is in the main event picture to contend with, and programs with guys like Jon Moxley, Daniel Bryan, and hopefully some of the good young talent on the roster should give us a great year of Strickland matches.

We Watched Some Wrestling!

…in which I recommend some of the best matches I saw last week

Matches! So many already, and that’s not counting the stuff that happened on the other side of the world for New Japan’s big events, which are just starting as I write this. Okada versus Danielson is bound to be fantastic, so I’ll have to find a way to check that stuff out. 

So what I will suggest, aside from the last three matches on Worlds End, is the Konosuke Takeshita match against Darby Allen on Dynamite. It’s around ten minutes of my sweet Cinnabon son, the subject of one of my favorite pieces for Wrestling Inc., using Darby like a rag doll, tossing him around the ring and reminding those who may need a refresher that Take is the future of this company.

Let’s Remember A Show, aka Our Worlds End wrap-up

…in which we reminisce about a lesser-known wrestler or gimmick from the past

I really have to get into the habit of doing a shorter recap-style post for pay-per-view weekends. By the time this goes up, we’ll have already watched the fallout from the last show of 2023, making this part a little moot. But we’ll do a short version here, if only to check in on my predictions:

Zero Hour: Willow Nightingale versus Kris Statlander

Welp, I didn’t make a prediction for this because it was announced on Rampage, thanks to lovable pot-stirrer Stokely Hathaway trying to drive a wedge between these two amazing performers. They put on a good, stiff match with a lousy finish that was a double-bummer when the pair tried to run the finish back to make Willow’s victory look a bit better. Still, the ending does not make the match, and these two will continue to be awesome in the new year. 

Zero Hour: 20-Man Battle Royale for a TNT Championship title shot

My guess was Hangman Adam Page, which turned out to be a bad one since the Hanger didn’t even make an appearance on the show. Luchasaurus Killswitch ended up picking up the win in a pretty fun battle royal with some cool spots, and his win would come into play in the Copeland/Cage match later on. Still, a prediction is a prediction, and it isn’t a good look to hedge bets in the prognostication business. So I was wrong, and that’s 0-1 so far.

Zero Hour: Hook © versus Wheeler Yuta in an FTW Rules match for the FTW Championship

As predicted, Hook picked up the win here, in what was basically a no-DQ match for the FTW title. Yuta played his part as the douchey toadie, and got choked out when it mattered. A good lil’ ending to a tidy lil’ rivalry. 1-2.

Claudio Castignoli, Bryan Danielson, Mark Briscoe, and Daniel Garcia versus Brody King, Jay White, Rush, and Jay Lethal in an eight-man tag team match

The good guys picked up the win in this show-opening opportunity to hook the crowd that mostly went great. I loved Garcia siding with the good guys and getting the pinfall, and even getting a little respect from the BCC in the process. If they’re never gonna disband that group (they should) maybe it’s time to inject a little fresh blood into the pool…maybe even replace Wheeler Yuta? Regardless, we’re 1 for 3 now.

Miro versus Andrade el Idolo

Miro won with the help of his beloved wife, sending Andrade el Idolo packing and hopefully getting both Miro and Andrade onto greener pastures. The match was fine, hard hitting but also kinda overlong and slow in parts. 

I like Miro and CJ on screen together, and I hope AEW can find something to do with the big fella. Oh, and 2/4.

“Timeless” Toni Storm © versus Riho for the AEW Women’s World Championship

The build was basically, “Hey look, it’s Riho and she was the first AEW Women’s Champ, and she wants a title shot!” I mean, Riho did have a grudge in the whole Outcasts angle, but that’s not even Toni anymore! Anyways, it was short, it wasn’t bad, and Storm busted out a cool arm-drag DDT thing that I hadn’t seen before to finish the match. Storm retains, and we’re three for five.

Swerve Strickland versus Keith Lee

So, I said that Swerve Strickland needed the win in this match. And he did. He got that win, albeit not against Keith Lee, who has apparently been working hurt for the past year-plus and wasn’t cleared to compete. So his tag-team partner and AEW mainstay Dustin Rhodes subbed in. Swerve dominated early, crushing Rhodes’s ankle on a cinder block, but what should have been a squash got dragged into a competitive match. I get that Rhodes is a good wrestler, solid hand, and was doing everybody a favor by filling in at the last minute. But the story we needed to tell here was Strickland dominating in the cruelest way possible. He’s over as hell, and letting a 50-year old forget to sell his smushed foot so he could pull off a Canadian Destroyer didn’t do any good for anyone.

Whatever, it’s fine, Strickland wins. 4 for 6.

Ricky Starks, Big Bill, Konosuke Takeshita, and Powerhouse Hobbs versus Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara, Darby Allin, and Sting in an eight-man tag team match

The other multi-man extravaganza was marred by some controversy, as Chris Jericho had some…I don’t even want to call them “allegations” lobbed his way on social media. As it’s all speculation at this point, all I’ll say is that the crowd was definitely split but there were some loud boos directed towards Jericho. The match suffered as a result, with spots where Sting and Jericho hit moves simultaneously felt less like cool moments and more like desperate attempts to get the crowd back. Even without the public opinion, the match just felt like a clunker. But the good guys win – as I said last year, we’ll likely never see Sting lose another match again – and that brings us to a record of 5/7.

Julia Hart © versus Abadon for the TBS Championship

The crowd chanting “THIS IS SPOOKY” was the best part of this match between two young, deserving competitors getting a chance to showcase their stuff on a big PPV. It was obviously too soon for Julia to drop the title, but the inclusion of Skye Blue made Abadon remain a tough zombie who might have stolen a win, if not for those meddling kids. Match fine, champ retains, six-for-eight.

Christian Cage © versus Adam Copeland in a No Disqualification match for the TNT Championship

This match went hard as hell, with Copeland and Cage bringing their decades of experience to the ring for this no-DQ affair. Flaming tables, kendo sticks, steel chairs yeeted at Cage’s face, and a stolen finisher led to Adam Copeland picking up a hard-won victory. HOWEVER, Killswitch appeared after the match to “cash in” his contract from the pre-show battle royal. Cage told the dinosaur something that made him turn the contract over, and one spear later, Christian Cage became TNT champ once again. Still, he didn’t technically retain, and therefore we’re down to six-for-nine.

Eddie Kingston versus Jon Moxley in the Championship Final of the AEW Continental Classic for the Ring of Honor World Championship, NJPW Strong Openweight Championship, and the AEW Continental Championship

Everything we could have wanted out of this match we got, plus the added bonus of some great Bryan Danielson commentary throughout. Chops, slaps, suplexes, finishers, chops, submissions, chops, headbutts, and chops were featured, but in the end our boy Eddie Kingston managed to stay conscious and vertical long enough to be called the Triple Crown Champ, and AEW’s first Continental Champion. 7/10

MJF © versus Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship

The conclusion to a months-long storyline finally arrived to close out the year. MJF had a great intro video with several Long Island natives sharing stories about “our scumbag.” Adam Cole appeared to back up the champ, but even a successful Kangaroo Kick wasn’t enough in the end. Samoa Joe won pretty cleanly with a victory by stoppage, making our one true king of television our one true All Elite Wrestling World Champion. That makes us 8/11 for the show!

What happened after the match was the real story, as Adam Cole joined MJF in the ring when several masked henchmen climbed into the ring with a steel chair. Both men begged the devils to attack them instead of their buddy, but after a blackout in the arena it was revealed that the steel chair was just a seat for the devil himself…Adam Cole. The other guys revealed themselves to be Roddy Strong, the Kingdom, and Wardlow. Beatdown on MJF to close the show, the angle, and the year.

I think that, yeah, maybe it’s the most obvious way to go. But that doesn’t make it bad! A shock reveal may have been more fun in the moment, but then what more would we get from it? At least with Cole you’ve got a proven doucher, teaming up with a crew of easily disliked veterans and a justifiably grumpy Wardlow. I’m looking forward to the explanation we’re all sure to get on Dynamite, which I’ve already talked about in the “Soap Opera” section above.

The Mailbox

…in which I answer your questions

This week’s question comes from our pal Crystal, who writes:

Hey there! Way back in the day I was kind of a wrestling fan (think early to mid 90s era) but I kind of grew away from it. That said, some of the newer stuff I've been hearing about in the pro wrestling world have started to interest me again but there's so much going on I'm not sure what I should check out first. What do you recommend I check out that gives me an in with the modern stuff but also has some of that nostalgic energy?

Hey yourself, Crystal! Thanks for the question. I, too, was kind of a wrestling fan back then, I just never grew out of it like most normal adults.

So here’s the thing – there’s enough wrestling out there, both in America and around the world, that there’s bound to be something that scratches the specific itch you have. For sheer accessibility, WWE is the easy pick. Recent booking by Triple H (yes, we’re old enough that many of our superstars now run shows) has elevated lots of great talent, and throwbacks like all-American good guy Cody Rhodes and dominant villain Roman Reigns keep the traditional good-versus-evil stories going, while in-ring talent has evolved into something a little less stiff, and a little more acrobatic. The matches aren’t going to be AEW-level insanity, but they are still more flippy than what you may have grown accustomed to watching Attitude-era WWE. Just flip on a Raw or, preferably due to the lesser time commitment, SmackDown and see if it holds your interest!

Most of my focus is on WWE, NXT, and AEW, so my recommendations may be a little more limited than others. I always like to suggest local shows if one wants to try a live event – they’re almost always cheap, usually on a weekday, and often are performed at a cool small venue. I’ve seen shows in beer gardens, wrestling schools, VFWs, and high school gyms. 

Many of them take advantage of YouTube, and regularly post matches and events on their respective pages as well. We’ve got Rocky Mountain Pro here in Colorado, but given your post code Enjoy Wrestling is probably a bit closer, and is a great time with some progressive young talent. These smaller shows will often attract some pretty big names, too – most of the trainers at the local gyms are former pros themselves, and can use that clout to bring in the occasional former WWE or current AEW star. Support local wrestling! Get out there!

Closing Up Shop

…in which I say goodbye for now

And that’s it! Thanks for coming with me on that journey. No pay-per-views or premium live events this weekend, so it’s “just” the five hours of WWE SmackDown, AEW Rampage, and AEW Collision to keep up with. 

We’ll see you next week for the usual Casual Friday blog. If you have questions, concerns, or comments, drop 'em in the comments section below! And follow us on Twitter (X), Facebook, BlueSky and/or Instagram using the links on the right.

Thank you so much for reading. If you liked what you saw, consider telling your friends, mentioning Let’s Watch Some Wrestling on social media, or even buying me a hot cup of coffee using the Ko-Fi button. Have a great week, and we’ll see you back here next Friday. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!

Casual Friday Featuring The LWSW "AEW Worlds End" Preview

Good morning! It’s another pay-per-view week for All Elite Wrestling, with Saturday bringing us Worlds End. No apostrophe in there, either – this is the end of many worlds, not just the one!

I sincerely hope you had a great Christmas, or just a nice Monday off if that’s how you celebrate. It was a bummer of a holiday here at the Pequeño household, as we lost our beloved little pug on Christmas Eve. She was my sidekick for the last five years, and provided the calming snoring I needed to stay focused while I started this whole writing thing over a year ago. 

My wife drove from our home in Colorado to our friend’s sister’s place in Michigan, picking up this little creature that was no bigger than a can of pop. Charming, sweet, lovable, loud, and stubborn, Curmudgeon a.k.a. CM Pug will be with us in spirit forever. It continues to sink in that she’s not gonna run down the hallway with her little dinosaur in her mouth. Just yesterday, I had to move her little “meal crate”  downstairs because big brother Ditka kept sniffing at the blanket inside and crying…which then led to me kinda bawling. It was a whole thing.

"Mudgie in the Bank" was one of our WWE 2K22 pay-per-views

Hug your pets! I know this is only a year and change after I lost my old man, and I promise next year’s blog will be a little more upbeat, as we’ve instituted a “no dying in 2024” clause in the contracts of the remaining three pets and both me and the wife. It’s the only way to be safe, really, and we all should have one. But I digress…we’ve got a metric ton of stuff to catch up on, and less time to do it in, so let’s get to work!

It’s A Soap Opera With More Suplexes and Less Violence

AEW’s programming has, in my opinion, improved dramatically with the Continental Classic being the focus of Dynamite and Collision. When the company started, it billed itself as a sports-based alternative, where records mattered and professional wrestling could thrive. I still believe it can be that company, and the in-ring product is reliably amazing, but this recent focus on matches as story-drivers has really made the product worth watching. 

So after a good Gold League final that saw John Moxley defeat Swerve Strickland and Jay White by pinning the Switchblade, I got what I expected in an Eddie Kingston victory over a man he’d never previously defeated, Brian Danelson. Both guys cut incredible promos after their match, but nobody was nice enough to put those on YouTube, so we’ll see if we can’t embed the AEW tweets here:

EXCLUSIVE! To win the #AEWContinentalClassic Blue League, #EddieKingston had to defeat Bryan Danielson for the first time in his entire career. Now, Kingston must face another competitor THIS SATURDAY at #AEWWorldsEnd that he's never beaten: Jon Moxley. pic.twitter.com/F4QRcDH6zZ

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) December 28, 2023

EXCLUSIVE: After suffering a defeat in the #AEWContinentalClassic, a passionate @bryandanielson comments on his future in #AEW. pic.twitter.com/9XVLH3AyBP

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) December 28, 2023

WWE was on autopilot last week with shows highlighting the best matches of the year for Raw, NXT, and SmackDown, so I didn’t catch any of those. I am impressed and happy that the Fed gave their performers the week off, which never would have happened with the old management. It’s nice! 

We Watched Some Wrestling!

I hate to sound like a broken record, but basically every match in the AEW Continental Classic delivered. Highlights from the past week included that Danielson/Kingston brawl, Danielson and Claudio Castignoli fighting to the only draw of the tournament, and Daniel Garcia finally earning a win by defeating the enormous Brody King. Keith Lee had a fun match with also-large Brian Cage in a match that didn’t quite hit BIG MEATY MEN SLAPPIN MEAT gear, but it came close. And we got the in-ring return of Thunder Rosa in a fun match where La Mera Mera helped out new pal Abadon before Abbie’s title match this weekend against Julia Hart.

The devil story also moved forward, hopefully leading to a resolution at Worlds End. Our buddy Adam was right (as usual) when I pointed out that we had 3 segments to knock out with only a half-hour of Dynamite, and he called the non-match to finish the show. After the participants were announced, Samoa Joe was the last to get his entrance music and he…wasn’t there. A camera backstage showed Joe writhing on the ground in pain, and MJF decided to defend the Ring of Honor tag belts by himself. That was a poor decision, as there were two masked dudes in the ring but another three or four outside, and the numbers led to Max losing. Joe then limped to the ring with a steel chair as the beatdown ensued, but after the big screen showed the devil, followed by a “Pleasure doing business with you,” Joe pulled a Michael Myers head tilt and whacked Max in the back. So Joe clearly worked with the devil, but also isn’t the devil himself.

I still feel like Britt Baker would be the most fun reveal as the devil, but it’s starting to look like Adam Cole is the most logical choice. Which, fine, logic is fine. It’s just not as enjoyable sometimes. Swerve Strickland, Wardlow, Roddy Strong, or MJF himself are still on the table to varying degrees, but I think many people are just prepared to be disappointed regardless of the identity of the devil. I’m a little exhausted with the storyline, but I feel like we’re at the end of it anyways, so whoever is under the mask, at least we’ll have a new big bad to go against Max in 2024. 

As I mentioned, WWE took the week off of television, but CM Punk and Dominik Mysterio battled in the annual Madison Square Garden house show, giving fans there a holiday treat and the chance to see the Best in the World return to a WWE ring for the first time in years. 

It’s the Let’s Watch Some Wrestling AEW Worlds End Preview!

We’re gonna skip Remembering a Guy and the Mailbox (please submit your questions in the comments or on socials!) this week, and jump right into the preview for this weekend’s big AEW show. If anything is added on Rampage, I’ll jump in and update this preview. Here’s the card, as provided by the ever-reliable Wikipedia!

Pre-Show: 20-Man Battle Royale for a TNT Championship title shot

Not knowing who’s participating makes this a little hard to call…but as I’m going to assume that Christian Cage will remain our Patriarch and our TNT champ, it’s gotta be a good guy. So let’s say (scrolls through AEW roster page) Hangman Adam Page. He’s in need of a feud, and Swerve needs to be shot to the moon ASAP, meaning he doesn’t have time to deal with the Anxious Millennial Cowboy right now. So, sure, Hanger / Cage would be fun!

Pre-Show: Hook © versus Wheeler Yuta in an FTW Rules match for the FTW Championship

Yuta is so good at being the irritating guy who pals around with the tough guys. That’s not to say that Wheeler isn’t a good performer, or even a good wrestler, it’s just that his character work is really good and he’s really hateable because of it. I would prefer HOOK keep his title though, as this multiple-champ thing is getting a little overused. It’s understandable, as AEW and RoH share roughly four dozen titles, but separation of belts would be a nice way to start the new year, and with Yuta already holding the RoH Pure title, maybe he could hang out on Ring of Honor TV for a while.

Ricky Starks, Big Bill, Konosuke Takeshita, and Powerhouse Hobbs versus Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara, Darby Allin, and Sting in an eight-man tag team match

When Kenny Omega went down with diverticulitis (get well soon, buddy) it seemed like Jericho was just going to grab a replacement-level Canadian and burn the Golden Jets’ title shot. However, with attacks by Ricky Starks and Big Bill during the Callis Family segment on Dynamite, we ended up with this eight-man brawl featuring some great performers passing the time. It’s hard to get excited for this type of match, even if I know I’m watching some of Sting’s last performances in a wrestling ring. The good guys will win and Stinger might even get the pin, unless Guevara was brought back early to help ease the loss of Omega. If that’s the case, the guy deserves to pick up the victory. 

While it’s not related to the outcome of the match, I’d really like for Don Callis to take a back seat to these guys in his Family. Takeshita was primed to become one of the breakout international stars of AEW, and my sweet Cinnabon son has defeated Kenny By-God Omega in that ring. How he’s not featured in weekly matches is beyond me. And Hobbs has shown talent outside of just being a real big dude, working with that bad book gimmick as well as QTV for weeks and weeks. Personally, I’d love the two to team up and overthrow the bald blowhard before going their separate ways, amicably or otherwise.

Swerve Strickland versus Keith Lee

Swerve is easily the hottest person on the roster right now, and resuming this Keith Lee feud isn’t exactly using that momentum. Still, it’s closure we never got when the two were battling after their tag team breakup, and they’re bound to put on a good match. Swerve has to pick up the win here, and move on from Lee (no offense to Keith) and into the main event level.

Miro versus Andrade el Idolo

I heard a podcast that suggested this be a Loser Leaves Town match that both Miro and Andrade walk out of for a double-countout. While that’s a funny idea, I don’t keep up with the backstage stuff enough to really know if Miro and Andrade are so mad that they’re ready to go back to the Fed, which is apparently where everybody who leaves AEW wants to go if you believe the internet. These two are capable of having a great match, and as long as they’re in the mood to do business they should do just that. I’ll say Miro wins, because it feels like he hasn’t had much to do since his return and a win could put him on the right path. Andrade had a great showing in the Classic, and I hope he’s got something coming up in the new year as well. 

Claudio Castignoli, Bryan Danielson, Mark Briscoe, and Daniel Garcia versus Brody King, Jay White, Rush, and Jay Lethal in an eight-man tag team match

A late addition to the card is this match, featuring some of the participants in the Continental Classic. It’s a nice way to showcase the talent that’s been carrying Dynamite and Collision for the past several weeks, but it doesn’t mean anything at the end of the day. And while I’d usually go with the good guys when the result is inconsequential, I think we’re getting that in the aforementioned Sting and Pals match. So, Bad Guys win, because they put in some great work in the tournament. And it gives Danielson something else to be mad/sad about on his flight to Japan for next week’s NJPW Wrestle Kingdom match against Okada.

Christian Cage © versus Adam Copeland in a No Disqualification match for the TNT Championship

The first of five championships to be defended on the main card (technically seven, if you count the 3 in the Continental Classic, but I digress…) is this rematch between Cage and Copeland. It should be a lot of fun, in that old guys doing moves slowly but selling them dramatically kind of way. I think Christian retains, but there will be some shenanigans from the other members of the Patriarchy that’ll cost Copeland. The former Edge can move on from here, although I wouldn’t rule out another rematch later in 2024. 

Julia Hart © versus Abadon for the TBS Championship

This creepy matchup should be a win for the rising star that is Julia Hart. She’s got the new, evil Sky Blue backing her up, as well as whatever evil sorcery the House of Black provides, and while it’s been nice to see Abadon get a push for the last few weeks, I can’t imagine they come out of this with much more than a “thanks for eating the pin.” Thunder Rosa might get involved to even the odds against Hart and Blue, although we had Willow Nightingale make the save on Dynamite for Kris Statlander while Abadon lurked in the background…so unless we’re just getting all the women involved (and that’s not necessarily a bad move) I’m probably just overthinking things. It is a little surprising that Nightingale and Stat aren’t on the show, with both of them hailing from Long Island, but two women’s matches already strain the Tony Khan booking style. Never count out more pre-show matches being added, however!

Eddie Kingston versus Jon Moxley in the Championship Final of the AEW Continental Classic for the Ring of Honor World Championship, NJPW Strong Openweight Championship, and the AEW Continental Championship

For all the fantasy booking that the Continental Classic let us perform, this feels like it was the inevitable conclusion. Jon Moxley is the face of AEW, and it seems like most of the major championships run through him. Eddie Kingston put two championships on the line just to make this tournament feel more important, and so it only seems right that he earned his way into the final to essentially defend those titles. 

I’m not sure if the Continental Championship belt is another title to be defended, or if it’s a tournament trophy like the Owen Hart Classic belts. I really hope it’s the latter, because the last thing we need is more belts to pass around in AEW/RoH. Regardless, this match is gonna be bonkers, and if it weren’t for the devil storyline basically requiring the championship match to go on last this should have main evented. 

Eddie mentioned in his many stellar post match promos that he’d never defeated Bryan Danielson, until he did. He has also mentioned that he’s never defeated Moxley, and what better place for him to finally get that win over his longtime friend than in his own backyard? Eddie wins, we all cry, and that nifty new belt gets to hang, undisturbed and undefended, on Kingston’s wall for a year. I hope.

“Timeless” Toni Storm © versus Riho for the AEW Women’s World Championship

The pop Riho gets every time she comes out is always a welcome surprise for me. I think she’s great, and I think it’s great that fans recognize the talent of the beloved Kenny Omega protege. I couldn’t tell you WHY people love her so much – it’s probably a combo of that Joshi pedigree, her in-ring talent, and the inherent underdog status given to the 80-pounds-soaking-wet Riho, despite her being a former AEW Women’s Champ. 

That being said, Toni Storm has a strong gimmick that people like, and she’s 1/1A with Kris Statlander as far as match quality in 2023. There’s no reason to take the title off of her just yet, and with Mariah May waiting to debut on next week’s Dynamite, the belt should stay on Toni just to be a part of that “understudy makes a play for the big role” story. Toni should win clean, but there’s also the lore of the butt-plate that she used to win the title in the first place to consider. I’ll say Toni Storm goes steel Sweet Cheeks Music to retain.

MJF © versus Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship

And finally, the main event, the end of the devil, and the big reveal. I think. We’ve already gone over my outlandish predictions for the reveal – although an interesting thing I’ve heard is that maybe some of Max’s former pals in MLW might be among the devil’s associates – but let’s focus on the match itself. MJF has defended both his title and the RoH tag belts on his own for months. He managed to retain both until this week, when a guy he was told to trust by best pal Adam Cole turned on him. So now he’s doubly beat up, rightfully paranoid, and probably feeling a little unappreciated as a nice guy. 

Apparently Twitter is way better at predicting matches than me, because everybody seems to definitely know the predictable ending to this match – which is funny, because there are so many different results . I don’t see a clear winner, myself. Joe is deserving of a title, and I would think the big reveal would be made even more dramatic if the devil is flanked by the new Ring of Honor tag champions as well as the even-newer AEW World Champ. It also makes sense for MJF, a good guy for several months, to get the comeuppance he deserves despite his change of heart. After all, just because he’s been nice to Adam Cole and select others doesn’t make up for the absolutely horrendous things he did to so much of the roster over his career. 

HOWEVER, one could see MJF retaining as necessary for the devil story to move on. The hero of this story, regardless of his past, is Max – unless we’re shown otherwise. He, and those who have associated with him, have been the victims of these devilish attacks, and he’s been adamant that other people have been attacked because of their willingness to join him. And if he can somehow overcome the odds, perhaps by offsetting the masked goons with his own crew of loyal new pals, then we end 2023 on a happy note, showing that redemption is possible and giving Maxwell Jacob Friedman a full-on character arc. 

But this is professional wrestling, and sometimes the obvious thing is obvious because it’s the most appropriate way to move the story forward. I just don’t know what that is! So I’ll go with my heart and support my one true king of television, Samoa Joe. I’m sure I’ll feel like an idiot for missing several obvious clues once the big unveiling has happened, but until then BRITT BAKER DMD IS THE DEVIL.

Closing Up Shop

And that’s it! Thanks for coming with me on that journey. Enjoy Worlds End as a nice, clean finish to both the Devil storyline (I hope) and the year of wrestling! We’ll talk results next week, as well as WWE’s return to live programming with the Day One edition of Monday Night Raw, NXT’s New Year’s Evil, and SmackDown’s New Year’s Revolution. Should be a busy week! Do I dare tease a second blog? Reader, I will not. Every time I do I either forget or get bogged down by other stuff. If I do, though, I’ll be sure to let you know on the socials.

We’ll see you next week for the usual Casual Friday blog. If you have questions, concerns, or comments, drop 'em in the comments section below! And follow us on Twitter (X), Facebook, BlueSky and/or Instagram using the links on the right.

Thank you so much for reading. If you liked what you saw, consider telling your friends, mentioning Let’s Watch Some Wrestling on social media, or even buying me a hot cup of coffee using the Ko-Fi button. Have a great week, and we’ll see you back here next Friday. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!

AI is coming for my job! It's Casual Friday, December 22, 2023

 

Good Morning!

Artificial intelligence is popping up in the news a lot lately. And not the cool, Terminator-style AI I was hoping for, but just the glorified chatbots and art generators that learn from art that actual people produce and regurgitate it as a crappier version of its former self.

Futurist published a pretty damning investigative report on Sports Illustrated’s use of the technology a month ago, which resulted in the firing of two execs at SI as well as the CEO of the company that publishes the magazine, The Arena Group. Last week, Defector.com’s Dan McQuade wrote about Jeff Bezos’s company Wondery producing an episode of sports recap show The Lead: Starting Five that used an AI host, which was widely regarded as cringeworthy at best, and outright lousy at worst.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that it’s kinda already been accepted as the new normal by a lot of people I speak to. However, as a guy who writes the kind of content that AI is most likely to replace first, it’s kinda unsettling! One can literally open up Google Docs and let it make you a top ten list of just about anything, even though there’s nothing published about where it got its information, or how it came up with that list. 

I try to inject a little personality into my work – I think it’s a lot easier to read a top ten list when it’s written by someone who can give you a little insight into the subject at hand. These AI articles, things that have been published on pretty well-known sites like Deadspin and CNet, are just garbage. There’s literally a volleyball article that mentions how much more difficult it is to play the sport without a volleyball.

Anyways, support your local writers if you can. If you read something they made that you enjoyed, tell them, tell their editors, or at least retweet the thing so somebody else might also have a chance to read something new.

We Watched Some Wrestling!

Top Flight with Action Andretti against Penta el Cero Miedo, Kommander, and El Hijo del Vikingo was everything it was hyped up to be and more. Action went a mile a minute with some stuff I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, and by the end of the match it was just finisher after finisher. An incredibly choreographed bit of amazing professional wrestling.

It’s not often I tell you to go out of your way to seek out a match on Rampage, but good lord man…if you can, watch the whole main event from December 15th’s show. I posted some highlights above, but there’s so much that doesn’t cover.

Actually, AEW had a hell of a week, with its Continental Classic giving us another handful of great matches. It’s silly to try and point out some, but not others, but if I’m going to single out one in particular I’d vote for Eddie Kingston/Daniel Garcia on Collision. We also got our annual bloody women’s street fight, with Kris Statlander and Willow Nightingale teaming up to defeat Mercedes Martinez and Diamante in a match that included thumbtacks, shattered glass, and some really stubborn particle board tables. I think maybe we gotta look into gimmicking these tables better. We’re having way too many “I AM THE TABLE” spots happen when people get flung into these self-important folding tables.

WWE had some good stuff this week too, with some fun US Title contender tournament matches on SmackDown and another good fight between The Miz and Gunther on Raw. Nothing “can’t miss” but some solid stuff.

It’s A Soap Opera With More Suplexes and Less Violence

I’m seeing a lot of opinions online about Tuesday night’s NXT ending, where Ridge Holland appeared to injure Ilja Dragunov in their main event match. Injury angles happen a lot, but many are saying it’s in poor taste to have the guy causing the injury be a wrestler a lot of people deem unsafe. Holland, you might remember, is the guy who was in a match with Big E when E had his career-ending/threatening injury. And while E has gone out of his way to not blame and even support Ridge, the online community hasn’t been nearly as forgiving. I think a lot of people have let a lot of things slide for the greater storytelling opportunities wrestling thrives off of – Eddie Guerrero and Paul Bearer’s names come to mind – so I wouldn’t be too surprised if we find out later that E was consulted about this whole thing before WWE went ahead with it. Sure, it’s in bad taste to some degree, but wrestling needs us to have these passionate reactions to keep stories running alongside the in-ring action.

In other, less controversial news, we’re getting a three way dance to decide the Gold League of AEW’s Continental Classic. Jon Moxley, Swerve Strickland, and Jay White will all compete to represent the Dynamite side of the tournament, and the winner will face whoever wins the Blue League on Collision at next week’s World’s End PPV. It promises to be pretty damn good. 

Swerve was also injected into the Devil storyline with MJF, as the champ found a discarded ski mask outside of the Mogul Embassy’s locker room after a dispute with Samoa Joe. I love that even though he’s playing a good guy, AEW isn’t letting us forget that Max was a real douche for a real long time, and the people he works with haven’t all let that go. Nor should they! Working with douchebags sucks!

In WWE, we suffered from a distinct lack of The Punker after last week’s head-to-head promo action. Roman Reigns showed up to work, and it looks like he’ll be facing Randy Orton at the Royal Rumble, which should be a good match and a way to keep both guys busy. We also saw the return of AJ Styles, who took out both Roman Reigns and LA Knight, keeping the alignment of the newest contender a little hazy for now. Over on the Red Brand, R-Truth solidified his position in the Judgment Day (kinda) by beating up JD McDonaugh with some Christmas decorations in a *deep breath* “Loser leaves the Judgment Day Miracle on 34th Street Fight.” New women’s tag champs were crowned when possible ecstasy enthusiasts Kayden Carter and Katana Chance defeated the delightfully over-the-top team of Piper Niven and Chelsea Green. Not a big fan of that, to be honest. The challengers have been booked to look good, but aside from a couple cool tandem moves they’re not the deepest of characters. But I’ve been wrong plenty of times before, so maybe they’ll get a chance to grow now that they’ve got the belts. WHO’S TO SAY? 

Let’s Remember A Guy!

Our guy for this week, and the final guy of the year (of two, as we’re still getting settled in here) is themed for the upcoming holiday! It’s also a briefly relevant gimmick, but I digress. This week’s Guy is…

THE CHRISTMAS CREATURE! A creation of Kevin Lawler of the USWA, the Christmas Creature was (obviously) a big bad guy created to get some cheap heat around the holiday. He wasn’t really given much backstory – the announcers mention his size a lot, and his manager beat up Santa before the match I’ve posted below – but he was a big guy, and a jerk. Which both make sense when you learn he was played by Glenn Jacobs, who went through a number of crappy gimmicks before landing on Kane, brother of the Undertaker and scary big dude. Jerry Lawler fought the Creature a couple of times – literally, the Christmas Creature’s only two matches, per cagematch.com – and, I assume, defended Christmas, saving Santa and, by proxy, 1992’s Christmas for all the boys and girls of the world.

In an interview on Jerry Lawler’s Dinner with the King podcast, Jacobs ran down the creation of the short lived gimmick. Lawler’s son Kevin was running some shows in Memphis, where Lawler is a really big name as both a performer and a promoter. At the time, Jacobs was just getting into the pro wrestling business, and played one half of a Russian Olympian themed tag team. Kevin called Jacobs and told him he wanted him to play an evil Christmas Creature. The creature wore a green cowl, red-and-white candy cane stripes on arms and legs with tinsel and Christmas lights. Jacobs recalled, “...it was way ahead of its time, it even had flashing lights, with a battery pack and the whole thing.” That costume was designed by Kevin Lawler but was actually handmade by Jacobs’ mom! 

Jacobs talks about the match with Jerry Lawler and Bret Hart here, in a clip from WWE’s Table for Three.

The Mailbox

No really, I want to do a mailbox! Comment with questions, or tweet/facebook/insta/bsky em! Until then I’m just going to pester friends to get something to fill this space. This week’s questions are from my sister, who I harangued into giving me something to talk about.

Mandy texts: “How many years does the average wrestler have to perform? Most common injuries? What’s a first down?”

I love my family. 

So the average wrestler thing…I would say now more than ever wrestlers are working later into their lives than in the past. The biggest recent example of a guy calling it quits on his own terms is The Undertaker, the character I most associate with getting me into this insane sport in the first place. Officially, his last match was the Boneyard Match, a cinematic event that finished off the first ever “night one” of a Wrestlemania when the pandemic gave us an otherwise silent PPV. So that was a career of 33 years according to cagematch.net, the big online database of wrestling statistics. Ric Flair just had his last match this year, in the aptly-named pay-per-view event “Ric Flair’s Last Match,” in which the Nature Boy teamed up with son-in-law Andrade el Idolo to defeat Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett. That match was about 11 years after Flair’s previous last match for Impact Wrestling, but we’ll still round up and call it a 49 year career for that guy. Sting’s last match will be at AEW’s Revolution show next year, giving him a lengthy 39 years if he sticks to that proclamation. 

But guys have also had their careers cut short by injury or death, unfortunately. One of the best to ever do it, Bret “Hitman” Hart, got concussed twice in a match with Bill Goldberg at WCW Starrcade in 1999, bringing an abrupt end to Hart’s 21 year career. Chris Nowinski was a Tough Enough finalist who lasted a year in WWE before a brutal head injury during 2003’s Royal Rumble led to post concussion syndrome and a retirement from pro wrestling at the age of 24; Nowinski has gone on to become an advocate for concussion awareness and treatment, co-founding the Concussion Legacy Foundation. Brian Pillman, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit all died while still actively wrestling, albeit all passed in very different circumstances. Owen Hart and Perro Aguayo, Jr. are among those who died in, or on their way to, the ring.

Others, like Diamond Dallas Page and Kevin Nash, were in their 30s when they got started in the business, throwing longevity numbers a little off. Hell, the guy who we all know as “The Boogeyman” was 40 when he began his wrestling career.

And finally, if adding more numbers to this whole shebang helps, the ages of the performers at 2023’s Wrestlemania were all over the place - Austin Theory and Dominik Mysterio were 25 at the time, while Edge was a graceful 49. So I guess, using that metric and assuming Edge has maybe another year or two in the tank, we could say something like 25-30 years is a good, long professional wrestling career.

As for injuries, well, there’s a lot. Just because you know somebody is planning on dropping you on your head doesn’t necessarily mean that spot will go according to plan. Neck and back injuries, broken bones, torn muscles, and concussions are all pretty common occurrences – many of us who watch live remember seeing Sid Vicious’s leg explode during the WCW Sin pay-per-view back in 2001, or when Sami Zayn jacked up his shoulder prior to his main roster debut against John Cena back in May of 2015. Thankfully we’re getting a lot better about avoiding regular shots to the noggin, but the other injuries are just kinda part and parcel of being a professional wrestler.

A first down is when an American football team moves the ball ten yards up the playing surface within the four-try limit, resetting the down counter and giving the team four more tries to get into the end zone or get another first down. In college, getting a first down also stops the game clock, although that's not a rule the National Football League employs. How does this tie into wrestling? Well, umm...lots of wrestlers used to play football in college and the pros, including the aforementioned Bill Goldberg.

Closing Up Shop

And that’s the end! Thanks for coming with me on that journey. No pay-per-views or premium live events this weekend, so it’s “just” the five hours of WWE SmackDown, AEW Rampage, and AEW Collision to keep up with. The next big event is gonna be AEW’s World’s End, which I’m pretty sure is next weekend, so we’ll preview that in our big year-end edition of the blog. Then there’s WWE’s Day One, which is just a branded RAW but with some good stuff, and then NXT’s New Year’s EVIL (MWAH HA HA). I think that the twice-a-week idea was a pipe dream, but it’s a new year in just a few weeks so maybe we’ll try again.

So, I’ll see you next week for the usual Casual Friday blog. If you have questions, concerns, or comments, drop 'em in the comments section below! And follow me on Twitter (X, ugh), Facebook, BlueSky and/or Instagram using the links on the right.

Thank you so much for reading. If you liked what you saw, consider telling your friends, mentioning Let’s Watch Some Wrestling on social media, or even buying me a hot cup of coffee using the Ko-Fi button. Have a great week, and we’ll see you back here next Friday. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!