It's the Let's Watch Some Wrestling AEW Full Gear Review!

Good Morning!

Full Gear was pretty good! I really had a good time watching this show, and that wasn’t only due to the fine pizza and cat antics offered by my buddy’s hospitality. HOWEVER, if you haven’t tried it yet, I cannot recommend 7-Up’s Shirley Temple drink enough -- it’s amazing and defeats their cherry offering as my favorite version of the pop.

But I digress. Full Gear outdid my expectations, and featured matches where I didn’t expect much but was pleasantly surprised, matches where I expected more but was satisfied with the result, and one match that I was incredibly happy to have been wrong about on several levels. Let’s dive right into the review!

Zero Hour: Costco Man defeated QT Marshall, Anna Jay defeated Deonna Purrazzo, and Buddy Matthews defeated Dante Martin, Komander, and THE BEAST MORTOS

My Pick: Costco AJ and his Costco Son -- I WAS RIGHT!

2k24 said: QT

We only picked ⅓ of these matches, because only one had been announced when we wrote the preview. That 4 way was fun, but nothing special for AEW, and I missed the women’s match entirely. The Costco match was fun, though, for what it was. As I said in the preview, I have no co

nnection with the guy or the kids, but you could tell that both of the kids were having a blast. The crowd seemed genuinely into the match, and QT is the very definition of the wrestling term “a good hand,” doing all the best heel spots from the ‘80s in an attempt to get Costco AJ over. Even Big Show/Paul Wight got in on the fun, walking The Rizzler to his timekeeper post and defending him from an attempted assault by Marshall. Overall, it was a pre-show match that got eyes on the product. Could be worse -- could be a Paul brother.

Private Party © defeated The Outrunners, Kings of the Black Throne, and The Acclaimed to retain the World Tag Team Championship

My Pick: Private Party’s gotta retain here -- I WAS RIGHT!

2k24 said: The same!

Private Party won in a kind of surprising fashion, but they felt more like an afterthought in their big title defense. Tension between the Acclaimed’s Max Caster and Anthony Bowens was the big focus of this match, starting with Max throwing his microphone at Bowens before the match began and continuing in several spots during the fight. I’ve grown more and more annoyed with Caster over the past few months, with his edgelord Twitter shtick and increasingly trollish entrance raps going from silly to grating for me. I’m really hoping he initiates the breakup with Bowens, only for Bowens to end up being the member of the Acclaimed that MVP and the Hurt Syndicate wanted all along. Let him be a heel without a stable, just an unlikeable prick to eat losses and steal wins to get some heat.

The Outrunners and House of Black had some good points in this match, and Brody was able to shine as the big bad house of fire as well. The match was good, and the right guys won, but hopefully Outrunners vs FTR, an Acclaimed break, and the House of Black reunion with Julia Hart are all coming to keep those teams relevant too.

MJF defeated Roderick Strong

My Pick: MJF comes out on top -- I WAS RIGHT!

2k24 said: MJF

A match born from a rivalry that’s been simmering for over a year now, kind of, Roddy Strong vs MJF was another good, serviceable match with the right guy winning and the story coming out of the fight being more important than the fight itself. MJF’s submission win in this match made sense, and Strong going for backbreakers all night was expected, but the inclusion of Kyle O’Reilly, Adam Cole, and the Kingdom guys should all lead into some new directions for everyone involved except Cole and MJF, who HAVE to meet at World’s End to blow off this neverending feud.

Mercedes Moné © defeated Kris Statlander to retain the TBS Championship

My Pick: Mercedes retains -- I WAS RIGHT!

2k24 said: Statlander!

Look, I’ll admit to having been kind of a turd on this one. Mercedes hasn’t impressed me since her match with Willow Nightingale, and I honestly gave most of the credit to Willow for that one. Haters might say the same about this match, which is reasonable considering the fact that Statlander can make anyone look good. But Mercedes more than held up her end of this battle, and I was really impressed by everything she did in the ring on the night. Her reactions to Stat’s kickouts were wild, and I loved how she went from annoyed, to a tantrum, to confident, to angry, to finally relieved at the final three count. Statlander and Moné had amazing chemistry, showed some incredible creativity in their reversals, and put on what I would call Mercedes’ best match out of the Fed so far. Good on both women. 

I would have loved to have seen Statlander win gold, but with the turn on Kamille, Mercedes has more than a few women waiting to challenge for that title. If AEW decides to do that match at Winter is Coming, and quickly go with Jamie Hayter challenging for the TBS Championship at World’s End, Mercedes has the built-in excuse of working three big shows in a row against three big meaty women in a row. It all works for me.

“Switchblade” Jay White defeated “Hangman” Adam Page

My Pick: Hanger hurts Jay real bad among a sea of “Leaves IS Plants, Dumbass!” signs -- NEWS FLASH, DUMBASS, YOU WAS WRONG

2k24 said: Page

I loved this match, more than I expected to. Switchblade is a solid, dependable wrestler, and a guy who can get good results out of anything you throw at him. Heel leader of some weirdos slapped together to sell more Bullet Club merch? Sure. Babyface who maybe walked into a deathmatch with a guy whose singular focus has been murdering his one true love/rival? Why not?

I really thought this would be the match where Hangman’s current trajectory into darkness would pay off, but it was not to be. I like the story, though: you can go to “that place” when you’re faced with a rival like Swerve Strickland, but if you stay there, you’re not going to find anything but heartache. Jay White deserved the win, too, given how often he ends up losing these bigger storylines when he’s inserted into them. Maybe he’s the next guy to go after Moxley? I don’t think he’s quite beloved enough, but we’ll see soon enough.

Full credit to the “Leaves IS Plants” sign holders for getting BlueSky lore on TV, although maybe you don’t need to block the folks behind you every 40 seconds.

Kyle Fletcher defeated Will Ospreay

My Pick: Fletcher surprises with a victory -- I WAS RIGHT!

2k24 said: Fletcher

This would have been the match of the night on any other night, and probably on this night for many AEW fans. Flips, melodramatic acting, full-on SCREAMING from Fletcher, reversals on reversals on reversals…just great, top-tier professional wrestling. I love that Ospreay is so willing to get other performers over despite the massive pops he continues to get when his music hits. This is a guy who (Undertaker voice) “RESPECKS THE BUSINESS” and is doing all the right things to help get AEW back on track. 

I know some people have a problem with Ospreay’s history, but I think he’s shown genuine growth as a person and has apologized for his past, which is way more than I expect from most people these days. You can’t go back, but you can learn and grow and that’s gotta count for something.

Daniel Garcia defeated Jack Perry © for the TNT Championship

My Pick: Daniel Garcia steals one for the good guys -- I WAS RIGHT!

2k24 said: Daniel Garcia

Another guy I could easily see falling into the AEW vs Death Riders story is Daniel Garcia, who has been at the front line of the big team brawls in weeks past. Garcia picked up the win after some dramatic self-sacrificing by Perry, which will probably lead to a bit of “I wanted you to win for yourself” type promos in the coming shows. I’m not as high on Garcia as some people are, but I like him just fine and I’m happy to see him succeed. We’ll see if his character work is as strong as his wrestling as he moves on from the Scapegoat and into the featured feud on AEW’s weekly shows.

Konosuke Takeshita defeated Ricochet to retain the International Championship

No predictions

This was another match I wasn’t able to preview due to a late announcement, and if we’re being honest I would have been wrong anyway. I wanted this match to happen, and I wanted it to happen before Fletcher/Ospreay in a “top that” kind of way, in part because I knew that the Protostar and the Aerial Assassin would do just that. I dearly love my sweet Cinnabon son, and you can ask those closest to me about my lifelong crush on Prince Puma/Pretty Ricky. If anything, I wanted Take to lose, giving him a reason to enter the Continental Classic (more on that later). 

But he didn’t. This was a good, not great, match that hopefully leads to a great rematch somewhere down the road. Takeshita is as much raw talent as he is potential, with years left in his career to grow. He’s strong, smart, agile, and able to perform in any context asked of him. In short, he’s gonna be fine. Ricochet is evolving into more of an AEW style performer every week, and while getting the Fed off him is taking some time, you can really see that he’s trying his best to become what many folks thought he would be if he’d stayed on the indies, rather than going to WWE. 

Bobby Lashley defeated Swerve Strickland

My Pick: Big Bob smash, Big Bob win -- I WAS RIGHT!

2k24 said: Strickland

I really thought this would be more of a squash than what we got. It’s fine, though; Strickland is a former world champion, and we’re not trying to tell the story of his monumental collapse after losing his title. Lashley is going to be established as a monster more in the coming weeks, I’m sure, so this fight against one of the best talents AEW has on the roster makes sense in that regard. The post-match shenanigans let us know that the Owie Organization means business, and their business is DEEP HURTING.

The placement of this match on the card was a little weird, too. Likely meant to be a cool-down spot after what was assumed to be a barn-burner between Takeshita and Ricochet, I thought the proximity of “heel group beating down a beloved star to establish themselves” matches stuck out like a sore thumb. I love the Hurt Syndicate, don’t get me wrong -- if anything, I hope they stick around long after the Death Riders are forced to disband. That’s just all the more reason to keep the two teams separate, for now.

Jon Moxley © defeated Orange Cassidy to retain the AEW World Championship

My Pick: Mox retains  -- I WAS RIGHT!

2k24 said: Mox

This went just about exactly how I expected, up until the post match insanity began. Cassidy came out hot, hitting Moxley with Orange Punches galore. He was then beaten down and bloodied, but remained resilient and defiant, hitting a Beach Break that I nearly bit on. In the end, Moxley stood tall over the defeated Cassidy, and added insult to injury by going full Art the Clown on Orange, pouring what we were told by Excalibur was some kind of industrial ring-mat-cleaning fluid on the bloodied man’s wounds. 

After the match was when the real fun began. Hangman Page faced down Moxley before Christian Cage, his part-time associate, attacked from behind. Christian readied his contract for cash-in on the prone champion, only for Jay White to attack Cage. I don’t have much of a theory on what this means for any of the four men involved, although they do all have a bit of history that justified this whole angle. I’m definitely in “let it play out” mode here.

The mWo (I refuse to back down on that name) was headed back to their pickup truck/escape vehicle when what looked like a spray painted taxi obliterated the front half of their truck. The announcers asked who could have driven the vehicle, but come on -- spray painted skulls on a crap used car? It was Darby. So then Claudio assaulted the valet guy, stole some keys, and the Riders rode off in an SUV. The camera (shoutout to AEW for using this more mobile, handheld-style camera throughout the night) moved around the smashed truck to reveal Darby, skateboard in hand, as the next last hope for the All Elite brand jumped onto the hood of the pickup and smashed the windshield to end the show. 

The Continental Classic, version 2.0!

Sunday brought us the announcement of this year’s brackets for AEW’s now-annual Continental Classic, a points-based tournament that has two divisions and runs throughout December, culminating in the winners of those divisions face off at World’s End. Here’s the divisions:

I’m not sure if AEW plans on separating these divisions by show, like they did last year. Collision and Dynamite were operating with an unofficial roster split during the last C2, and if that holds true, the Blue Division is the one I’m way more excited for: that lineup can GET IT. Okada, Garcia, Briscoe, Benjamin, THE BEAST MORTOS, and Kyle Goddamn Fletcher? Tell me one matchup in that murderers’ row that doesn’t have the potential to steal any show.

That’s not to say that the Gold League is bad -- Darby is gonna get murdered (again) by Claudio Castignoli and Brody King, and even Ricochet and Will Ospreay can toss the little guy around while using their aerial abilities on him. It’s gonna be a fun December, and while I’m a little disappointed that my son Takeshita wasn’t entered, I’m looking forward to a potential Ospreay/Okada final, even though there’s plenty of fans who have seen that and are over it. But there are other potential finals that are interesting, too: Okada facing down Allen for the last piece of gold that the Elite holds is something. Claudio claiming another title for the Death Riders is another direction. Danny Garcia vs Castignoli keeps both of them involved in that AEW/mWo story too. There’s plenty of cool outcomes, is what I’m saying. What’s important is not to marry yourself to a fantasy booking and getting pissy when it doesn’t come to bear; there’s so many directions that both the ending of Full Gear and the whole December of this tournament can provide. I’m legit excited to see where 2024 ends for All Elite Wrestling, and hopefully next year provides more growth in audiences and love for this company that so many of us have enjoyed since its inception.

And that’s it!

Full Gear was a blast. Was it the best show AEW has done all year? No, but who cares? It was fun, it had some good wrestling, and it’s given us some very interesting possibilities for future rivalries and matches. Oh! And Mariah May turned on beloved visiting superstar Mina Shirakawa by trying to smash her upside the head with a champagne bottle! Mina, lovely and wise performer that she is, saw that attack coming and put her former partner through a table for her troubles. So, no Toni Storm just yet, but Mina vs Mariah should be a blast.

I still think it’s too soon to get right into Darby vs Moxley, but that’s because I think all signs point to the little skull-faced psycho becoming the last man standing for AEW. I think we’ve got to let things get worse, in kayfabe, before a Sting-like Darby appears in the rafters, ready to set things right again. I thought about Mark Briscoe being the next sacrifice to the Riders: a man literally every wrestling fan loves getting laid out to end 2024 feels like the way to go before the good guys finally mount a real comeback. Briscoe’s presence in the Continental Classic likely puts an end to that theory, but I still think there’s a few months in Moxley’s latest title reign before we put a new hero over. 

Next weekend is Survivor Series, which I’m not super high on because I don’t like WarGames as much as some fans. It’s usually fun, but I feel like WWE made a good decision in ending stipped-up premium live events like Hell in a Cell, and it always feels forced to make teams for the annual big cage match. I am looking forward to the stories that come out of this show, which has become the time of year when WrestleMania plans start to come into focus. Owens/Rhodes should transition nicely into Cody versus Rocky and KO taking Sami Zayn, and the Bloodlines will evolve and separate into a few different matches, I think. 

I’ll sim the announced matches a little later this week, and the Let’s Watch Some Wrestling Survivor Series preview will go up on Thursday or Friday. Then we’ve got some catching up to do with NXT before their next big show, Deadl1ne.

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, have a great Thanksgiving whether you celebrate or not, good luck to you retail warriors on Black Friday, and I’ll see you back here next time, dear reader. Until then, Let’s Watch Some Wrestling!

2024 Predictions

WWE Royal Rumble 2/4

NXT Vengeance Day 1/6

WWE Elimination Chamber Perth 4/4

AEW Revolution 9/11

NXT Roadblock 4/6

NXT Stand and Deliver 5/7

WWE WrestleMania Night One 4.5/7

WWE WrestleMania Night Two 4/6

AEW Dynasty 11/12

WWE Backlash 5/5

WWE King and Queen of the Ring (SSM XIV) 6/6

AEW Double or Nothing 9/12

NXT Battleground 4/6

WWE Money in the Bank 2/5

NXT Heatwave 3/6

AEW All In 6/10

WWE Bash in Berlin 3/5

NXT No Mercy 3/6

AEW Full Gear 8/9

Total Correct/Total Predictions 93.5/133

2K Predictions

AEW Full Gear 4/9

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!