Reviews: AEW Dynamite (7-9-2025) and Collision (7-10-2025)
Let’s get ready for All In Texas! I’m goddamn fired up! Got a machinehead! That song is hilarious but rules! Hell yeah!
AEW Dynamite (7-9-2025)
Live from the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas! Who the FUCK is Curtis Culwell, though?1
Matches
Kyle Fletcher & Konosuke Takeshita vs Brody King & Bandido: Warms my heart that AEW fans respond to Brody King just for being who he is. Look, Fletcher has a big match at All In, so I’m not expecting much of the result other than the Callis Boyz winning. But we get to start with Brody and Takeshita, and I’ll watch these big boys roughhouse any time. Callis joins commentary, as he usually does: “I’m very impressed by Brody King, I’m also terrified of Brody King.”
Bandido and Takeshita are just outstanding together, I’ll have to get to Supercard of Honor late and not live, but I’m really looking forward to that match. Fletcher and Takeshita have great tag chemistry, but King and Bandido are outstanding for a total makeshift duo, too, their strengths play well together, both in their contrasts and similarities. You’d honestly say Bandido is more of a power wrestler than King is; King uses strength, but in more of a brawling form than higher-impact offense.
“Just” your standard AEW “banger” that eats up time on a show with something that kicks ass to watch instead of a plug for Jelly Roll or two entrances broken up a commercial break and a promo or another video package on JD McDonagh. Ugh. Where’s the STORYTELLING?
Aw beans am I doing Tribalism?
Finish is Takeshita pinning Bandido to add some fuel to Supercard of Honor. Good stuff. Extra reason to want to see what is all but guaranteed to be a great match, whether or not you give an “F” or “D” about ROH, the ROH belt, or anything else. ***¾
Ricochet vs Blake Christian: Ricochet kinda lost some momentum heading into All In Texas, but that happens to various people ahead of WrestleMania or anything else, too, timing isn’t always right for everyone to have something big, and the best you can do is keep them busy. They’ve kept Ricochet busy, and even made a moderately intriguing way to use Blake Christian, who I couldn’t really care any less about.
Lee Johnson is out of action so he’s not here, thanks to the Gates of Agony, and Christian just wants Ricochet to leave the Gates out of this so things can be settled. But Blake may be an idiot who hasn’t seen any wrestling or movies. Gang guys don’t leave the gang out, and Ricochet fancies himself a gang guy at the moment, plus the gang is new! You always love your new stuff the most for a minute.
The match is fine, Christian’s doing OK and then, yep, the Gates of Agony arrive in the entrance aisle for a distraction. This is, in fact, very exactly a 3/5 or 6/10. So precisely and entirely that, no more and no less. You are fibbing yourself if you think it’s anything else. Higher? No. Lower? No.
Ricochet wins. Gates beat up Blake after. ***
I’m not really sure if Ricochet and the Gates have any chemistry yet but even if they do would generally agree it’s best to save them really showing something for after All In.
Tay Melo vs Queen Aminata vs Thekla vs Megan Bayne: For the second spot in the women’s Casino Gauntlet, which is every bit as “good” as the first spot. Kris Statlander watches from ringside. Melo goes face-to-face with Bayne, the other two interrupt, and then Melo hits Aminata with one of the worst strikes I’ve ever seen. Not the best starting moment, and man, out there without a partner and without like five or seven other people, this is the worst Tay has looked since the return. She’s slow, a step off of the others at least. Bayne does her best, the most dialed in. Aminata and Thekla are OK but Thekla still isn’t quite clicking with me in AEW, doesn’t seem fully comfortable just yet. Bayne hits Aminata with a killer running power bomb for the win, with referee Paul Turner shouting, “shoulder, shoulder, shoulder!” at Aminata, who has a shoulder up before he starts counting. So the Casino Gauntlet will start with Stat vs Bayne. **¼
After the match, Renee talks with Thekla backstage and Aminata runs in to attack. These two are at least getting something to do while not challenging for a title or anything. Mark Briscoe interrupts to yell.
Wheeler Yuta vs Samoa Joe: Saw someone point out that AEW crowds in 2024-25 are obsessed with peoples hair or lack thereof, so Yuta has made his a focal point to get heat, or at least “heat.” Simple, TV-style Samoa Joe match, a little Greatest Hits, like those Rhino Hi-Five deals from back when. Yuta’s plenty good for that, plenty up for it, does enough nice and clever work, and he’s the younger guy with more gas, more speed, but he’s caught in the Coquina Clutch and has to tap. ***
Post-match, Gabe Kidd runs in to attack Joe, and then Powerhouse Hobbs and Katsuyori Shibata run him off.
Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Young Bucks vs Hangman Adam Page, Will Ospreay, Powerhouse Hobbs & Katsuyori Shibata: This one is less about having the best match possible than it is selling Saturday’s pay-per-view, and in that way I think they do a very good job. The match itself is very good, but these things have a habit of being pretty goddamn great in AEW of late, and for years now, really.
The crowd feels really primed to see Page win the strap, man. I think you gotta pull the trigger on Saturday. You can probably get a single PPV cycle out of Moxley trying to get it back, not that I think that’s absolutely necessary.2 Page is just on fire in this match, the Bucks in particular put in great work to make him look as fiery and dangerous as possible, like he’s more locked in than ever.
Nice stand off of the match’s power guys with Claudio and Hobbs, and Claudio throws the first shot, and then they’re trading. Hobbs gets to be the heavier hitter, and also the tougher guy, and that’s how it ought to be, I think. The former because, well, what else can he do to be “better than” Claudio, and the latter because he’s the Fan Favorite and Claudio the shithead Rulebreaker.
Moxley so obviously loves selling for Hobbs.
It still tickles me constantly that I’m watching Shibata in an American TV promotion in 2025.
Ospreay kinda clown-ish over-selling a Bucks double superkick. Hobbs gets put through a table. Shibata eats the EVP Trigger even though he once had his brain removed and put back in. Castagnoli Neutralizes Shibata, Moxley bulldog chokes him, and the match has to be stopped. Shibata is fighting but he can’t fight that hard. ***½
Post-match, Page tries to save Shibata from being potentially choked to death, and the heels get to work taking over the ring with a chain, flanked by Gabe Kidd. Ospreay tries to help Page but can’t, it’s the Numbers Game. The crowd chants for Swerve Strickland as the Death Riders and Co. aim to use the plastic bags on Page and Ospreay.
And on the screen, yes, it’s Swerve Strickland. He says he’s about to take control back, or at least some of it, specifically targeting the Bucks. And then he does some Stone Cold shit, crushing the Bucks’ limousine with some heavy machinery. Why the Death Riders and Gabe would care about this enough to stop the bag assault is beyond me, but whatever.
Samoa Joe arrives to even some odds and just slams the shit out of Moxley and drills Claudio with a lariat, Ospreay taking Kidd out, and then Will dives onto everyone but Moxley. Swerve is still fucking up the limo on the screen.
We get down to Page and Moxley squaring up in the ring, and Page gets tossed the chain, a callback to their first Texas death match. Marina pulls Moxley out, and the visual of Moxley flustered and left on his own while his allies hobble or have bailed and a unified babyface front gathers themselves in the ring is a good one for the pre-PPV Dynamite to end on.
Oh wait, it doesn’t end there, it ends with the stupid ass Young Bucks making “Tiger King” references in the parking lot and Prince Nana showing up for a chuckle before Swerve jumps on them. We do go back into the arena, but I think that Bucks parking lot diversion was the wrong call.
Other Stuff
We’ve got Mercedes Mone to open the show. She’s here for a face-to-face with Toni Storm. Toni: “Only two things come from Texas, and I am at least one of them.” A steer! Toni’s on the screen and Mercedes calls her a mark, which Dave Meltzer once said was as bad as calling someone—well, let’s not.
Toni does arrive. She kicks off her shoes on the way in. Mercedes offers a civil, champagne toast in the ring — but it’s a toast to her, get it? The ego on this lady! Ha-ha-ha, ha! Toni thinks Mercedes is a big, fat phony! All of this tracks well with how Mercedes has presented herself in this feud. Storm wants to know what Mone is so afraid of that she hides herself behind the mask of her belt collection. Mone: “Toni, you and I have walked very similars paths…” There is is. The Mone fuck-up that she just rolls right through. She fears nothing! Not even spiders! She steals a line from Dustin Rhodes’ sobriety story.
Mercedes says she’s the one-woman revolution. She fucks up another line. I don’t know how Disney+ didn’t give her Star War character its own limited series.
“Legacies don’t exist, Mercedes!” Well, that’s debatable, T-Bone. Lots of people have died and left a legacy. This sounded better than it plays if you think about it, I suppose. But it also doesn’t sound very good.
Toni trying to draw on her feud with Mariah May and that great final promo ahead of the final showdown. Doesn’t hit nearly as hard here. Not bad, but not as good. This isn’t as good. Little is as good as Storm vs May was, though, being fair.
Mercedes fucks up another bit. “So this Sunday, I mean, this Saturday—” Crowd jumps on that one. There’s the toast, Toni downs the champagne and says, “Eat shit, bitch,” and when Mercedes tries to strike her, Toni counters, but Mone escapes. Nothing much happens. This had its flaws — Mone’s flubs aren’t flaws, they’re normal — but anyone who cares is fired up and let’s be real, AEW PPVs are for people who already care.
Right after that, we go to Jon Moxley in a pre-tape backstage to address Hangman Page. Understanding that he needs to explicitly spell things out and not possibly leave anything up to interpretation, so that Bryan Alvarez will actually understand it, Moxley acknowledges he has had a Texas death match with Hangman before. Moxley still has the vibe of a guy who wants you to believe everything he’s saying, but you can make an educated guess that he doesn’t fully believe it, and in fact, maybe never has. A bad guy! A bit of a liar!
Excalibur thinks the Young Bucks have an ugly limo. Taz tries to defend it, then decides he just can’t.
We get a little video package with The Outrunners deservedly talking that shit after their classic with FTR on Collision 100. Talk loud, boys, you earned it. They say it’s not over with FTR. Hell yeah.
Backstage, Renee Paquette is with FTR, Stokely, and The Patriarchy. FTR, Christian Cage, and Nick Wayne will team up on Collision against The Outrunners, Kevin Knight, and Mike Bailey. Cage puts FTR over and is impressed with how they’ve behaved lately. “If you scratch our backs, we’ll scratch yours after we become the AEW tag team champions.” Stokely thinks it’s a travesty that FTR aren’t in the tag title match at All In. Christian obviously bristles at this. Sure, they’re all Rulebreakers, but this isn’t cut-and-dry, because FTR are smart loners at this point, feeling that past alliances have cost them, and Cage is an opportunist and guy who takes advantage of others.
Renee Paquette is back to speak with the Hurt Syndicate, then the others leave MJF to set up a bit where Lashley and Shelton and MVP find a note on a dry erase board from “JetSpeed,” who have stolen the belts. The others leave again, and Renee reminds MJF of the “Talky Talk.”
Later, it’s the “Talky Talk” with MJF and Mark Briscoe. MJF is not into this. “First of all, the phrase ‘Talky Talk’ is about the dumbest shit I have ever heard in my entire life.” Texas bites on MJF’s basic bait, as most crowds do. Briscoe suspects MJF needs “a good, old, country ass whoopin’.” Briscoe’s proud to be a country boy, a redneck, and that he’s had to work hard for every dollar he’s ever made. “Your little dumbass scarf that probably cost more than my whole wardrobe.” Briscoe is rich in family and friends and faith in Jesus Mother Fucking Christ. “You are morally bankrupt and you have no soul.” Damn. Briscoe calls out that MJF is going to “talk some dumb shit about (his) brother” to rile him up. MJF swerves that by saying Jay was one of the best of all time and there’s a special place in heaven for him — and that he is looking down with disgust at Mark, and that Jay would have wanted for Mark to die instead. “He went too far,” Taz opines. Indeed, Taz. I agree.
Briscoe attacks and then the Hurt Syndicate arrive to uneven the odds. But JetSpeed jump them from behind, so MJF hits the bricks with Briscoe chasing behind.
This was all fine. Nothing that will go down in history or the like, but JetSpeed getting one up on Lashley and Shelton is good. And then The Patriarchy arrive and beat up everyone, picking the bones of the Hurt Syndicate after taking down JetSpeed. Lashley gets his ankle/knee smacked up with a chair so that you might believe anyone in the match can beat him on Saturday.
Excellent Kenny Omega video on his rivalry with Kazuchika Okada, saying he was happy to leave their history in NJPW. I really buy the, “And of course, you had to come to AEW” part. There’s a note of genuine melancholy in it, like he really never wanted to do this again, but not because he’s scared of it or anything. Just that he knows how insanely difficult it is when these two match up. As a character or “mic guy,” I think Omega is better than ever as this version of himself, but I fully admit that’s personal. I just like this guy more than “The Cleaner” or the like. “I’ll hurt you,” Okada says. “Maybe I’ll kill you.”
Three Stars of the Show
Konosuke Takeshita: Somewhat lost in the shuffle at the moment, as happens with a stacked roster, but they found something cool for him to do in the meantime, and he gave a little reminder in that opening tag of just how great he is.
Kenny Omega: Excellent work on that pre-tape. I’m more excited now for past-peak Omega vs Okada than I was before I saw it.
Hangman Adam Page: It’s his time. He looks the part, he’s working the part, he feels like the part. This is the most ready he’s ever been to be The Guy.
AEW Collision (7-10-2025)
Also live from the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas!
Matches
Adam Cole, Roderick Strong & Kyle O’Reilly vs Kyle Fletcher & RPG Vice: Hard to buy Paragon as a fully unified group when Cole gets his own entrance separate from the other two. Fletcher’s a bigger star than his partners, too, he came out with them. Maybe it’s just that the DCF group are three egomaniacs and Paragon only has one. Callis and Schiavone are in rare form together on commentary.
HEY! It’s another very good AEW trios/quads match on television. This Collision is leaning heavily on those because we’re two days from The Big Show, of course, so it’s a tried and true way for them to fill out a show, it’s the house style.
O’Reilly again excellent in this match, and man, I am loving watching reinvigorated tag specialist Rocky Romero in AEW lately. Romero and Strong are terrific together, which makes sense, those guys have been wrestling each other for over 20 years now. I was a big fan of both in my indie “fandom” heyday of 2004-05, the absolute peak of it for me, when both were “potential” guys. Strong’s gotten even better than I ever imagined, and I was a huge fan of Romero in his Havana Pitbull days, I thought he was going to become a real top guy on the indies. He didn’t, really, not how I envisioned, but what a career he’s had, too. I was far more right than wrong about how he’d turn out, he just went a different path and truly is best in tags.
Cole has a good hot tag here. I do wish he’d stop doing “hockey fight” spots because he stinks bad at them and also they usually just stink period, but I love how aggressive he is about wanting to get at Fletcher. I will always see Cole as a heel first, but he’s working his ass off to be a fiery babyface.
Cole winds up pinning Rocky. Sturdy trios match to kick off the show. Good stuff. ***½
Post-match, Fletcher looks to jump Cole, who turns and stops his advancement in its tracks. Cole challenges Fletcher to fight right now, Don Callis shouts out for Fletcher to not take the bait, and Schiavone admits Don is right in this case. The fight is Saturday, don’t risk anything now.
The Beast Mortos vs Mistico: Fans! FANS!!!!! It’s the idrinq Match of the Night!!!! FANS!!!!!!!!! Kind of a lazy good match, in that it’s easy for them to have a good one and neither of them are going all-out for this Thursday night Collision, which is fair enough, really. Mistico has aura enough to get by on that, and Mortos is well-known to the crowd now, and plays off of them well. Honestly, I get that it’s sincerely beneficial for the partnership with CMLL, but I can’t help but wish that guys like The Beast Mortos, who are fully AEW roster members, would just get some wins instead of being used in this role. I try not to focus too much on stuff like that anymore, but it still happens. ***¼
Post-match, MJF is on the screen with Mistico’s stolen mask. This really feels like an MJF side quest, but it’s a good one. Side quests make up a lot of my favorite stuff in World of Warcraft!3
Kevin Knight, Mike Bailey & The Outrunners vs Christian Cage, Nick Wayne & FTR: Bailey and Wayne start. They’ve met before on the indies, and teamed together on occasion, and had one singles match back in 2022 for a Prestige and West Coast Pro co-promoted show in San Francisco.
Outrunners are coming off of by miles their best match after five days prior on the last Collison. Nothing they can do in this eight-man will convince anyone that that wasn’t just a one-off, but I don’t mean that to say they can’t have more great matches. It will just have to be straight tags and given that sort of time for them to work the way they worked in that match. I don’t know that they can ever equal that match with FTR, but I do think there are plenty of teams they can have good matches with in that situation. They aren’t just cosplaying classic tag wrestlers, they really understand that stuff from the babyface side.
Truth Magnum doing some nice, more modern styled, “indie” work with Nick Wayne, too, then Christian gets the tag and suddenly I think AEW should start taping extra matches off TV for Coliseum Video style releases. I will write in and request Christian Cage vs Truth Magnum for the AEW Fan Favorites portion of a tape, which I assume would just be a YouTube playlist.
OK, dude, Truth is suddenly wrestling like the best Classic Pure Babyface in AEW. He’s been paired with excellent heels to do this the past week, sure, but man is he good at it. His selling is outstanding.
It’s another fantastic AEW quads matchup on weekly television! Bailey gets an excellent near-fall on Dax, and then Bailey side-steps Christian and Dax gets speared. Bailey works with the Outrunners effectively, Knight flies in, the chaos portion is really fun. Dax eats the shit out of one of Bailey’s kicks and Knight hits the UFO, Harwood gets pinned. You don’t “need” to pin Dax or Cash there, but they aren’t in the title match at All In, and it’s not gonna hurt them, either. They’re fully made men. ****
Shortly after, Big Stoke says that FTR will face The Outrunners at Zero Hour on Saturday, and they’ll be paying attention to the tag title match on the real show.
Gabe Kidd vs Katsuyori Shibata: Kidd feels that his teacher Shibata has no fighting spirit anymore, so they’re trading shots immediately. Good and physical, goes to the floor quickly and Shibata takes a bump out there despite the situation with his brain. Shibata looking to teach Kidd a lesson here, basically, but Kidd really is a mean, tough bastard, so the old man has a fight on his hands and then some.
Kidd does Shibata’s corner dropkick and then the pose in the center of the ring, spinning around to find the hard cam. Good job, Gabe! You did it!
Lots of hard chops and the like, as you’d expect. Basically the match is a high-end version of what you could expect it to be on this show. Shibata is vicious when he gets on offense, because (1) he’s Shibata, (2) Kidd has talked shit about him, and (3) Kidd has annoyed him in this match specifically.
I’m always either real in or real out on Kidd. In this match I see how that happens, because even though I think this rules, the worse stuff is all from him, and it stands out against someone so fundamentally sound, and so excellent at this style, as Shibata.
Wheeler Yuta provides a distraction and Kidd wins with a low blow and piledriver. ***¾
Post-match, Kris Statlander starts her way to the ring and Kidd and Marina Shafir go back to pull Wheeler over the guard rail to leave. Stat joins commentary for the next match. Interested to hear Kris on commentary. Talking is not her strong suit, but sometimes someone can be much better at the conversational commentary tone than Cutting a Promo.
Athena, Julia Hart, Thekla & Megan Bayne vs Thunder Rosa, Queen Aminata, Mina Shirakawa & Willow Nightingale: Yeah, Stat’s better at this than she is at promos. Not saying she’s great at this, but she’s more natural than Adam Cole is, and Cole is better on traditional promos than Statlander. Styles make talks!
HEY! I think this is the best of these all-star women’s tags thus far. Having Willow in there helps, I mean even on their best day(s), Tay Melo and Anna Jay just aren’t Willow. Or Mina, for that matter.
Think Thunder Rosa’s looking pretty peppy recently, and I had a period of time where I thought she was pretty lousy. Maybe she’s gonna win on Friday? I wouldn’t do that, but there are worse calls than a fan favorite veteran like Rosa being the one to just get the better of Athena on a single night, so that Athena can move to the main roster fully.
Bayne and Athena have a fun “uneasy allies” chemistry that they’ve shown a few times now. Kinda love that the heel side has Skye Blue and Penelope Ford and Billie Starkz out there at ringside, it’s like a Survivor Series team with clients of Jimmy Hart, Mr. Fuji, and Frenchy Martin.
I keep forgetting Julia Hart is here. Which is a statement on her entire career right now, maybe.
Aminata is really helping Thekla find her footing in AEW with these matches, they’re picking up a nice chemistry together because Thekla is someone totally willing to be as physical as Aminata requires to be as good as she can be.
Bayne gets pounced, and goddamn does the big gal fly on that! Athena O-Faces Willow, Rosa dropkicks Athena, Mina dives onto Bayne and Athena outside. “Dives” is maybe generous; she kinda falls forward at the correct distance.
That really sets off the “chaos” portion of the match, just a lot happening from there. Hart and Thekla hit not-quite-stereo suplays from the second rope where they both do the spider hold deal in the corner. Aminata is so sick of Thekla’s spider shit. Mina punches Bayne right in her jaw with the best right hand of the entire show, like, it wasn’t errant (I don’t think), it just looked tremendously good.
Mina knees Hart in the face, Willow hits the Doctor Bomb on Hart and gets the pinfall. ***¾
Post-match, Jimmy Hart and Frenchy Martin attack the babyfaces before “TayJay” come down to even that up and throw some of the worst strikes you’ll ever see. Did Melo forget how to throw a right hand this week
Statlander gets into the ring to square up with Bayne, as the two of them will start the Casino Gauntley, and Penelope jumps on Stat. The show ends with an all-out brawl, which works for me!
Other Stuff
Big thing up top: Hangman Adam Page spoke with Renee Paquette after Dynamite. He says he probably should address what happened at the end of that show, but not with Renee, and he goes to the locker room of Swerve Strickland, who is seated with Prince Nana and Will Ospreay, the latter of whom tries to keep them apart, but Page asks for two minutes, and Swerve quietly agrees to it.
Swerve assumes Hangman is here to ask for help. Hangman says that’s not it. He’s going into a suicide mission4 on Saturday, and he wants to do what he should have done two years ago — then sits in a chair, and Swerve, after a moment, sits down, too. Page says he had nothing to do with what happened at Dynasty, and Swerve says he knows. Page emotional about what Swerve did to his family. “I hate you for that, and I always will.” He believes Swerve knows he deserved what came back to him, which Swerve has already admitted once, of course, but they’re bringing it back up here. He says that makes him regret what he did to Swerve, and needs to know if Swerve regrets what he did to Page. Swerve says in the past, he would have said no, but now that he’s been through more in life and his career, he does. And they leave it at that. Well, Page says he’s bringing his family on Saturday, at least earlier in the day. Swerve says he’ll stay clear.
Wait Swerve calls Page back after Hangman tries to leave. He talks about the house Page burned down, and his plan to raise his kids and grandkids there. “After thinking about it, I don’t know, maybe it was time to let go of the past after all.” And that’s where they leave it. This is melodrama, but it’s good melodrama. With Page gone, Swerve picks up the chain Hangman left on the floor and has thoughts about it.
Another good Jon Moxley pre-tape with the rest of the Death Riders. Again, I don’t think this finally coming together makes the earlier months less rocky than they were, but it has turned around. Gabe Kidd has a problem with Shibata, Wheeler Yuta with Hobbs, Marina Shafir with, y’know, everyone.
Later, Jon Moxley hits ringside after the Hangman/Swerve bit, and asks “what the hell kind of goddamn crybaby crap was that? … That ain’t no cowboy I’ve ever seen!” See more Westerns, Jon. A lot of them are far more emotionally complex than it seems you understand. Marina Shafir calls Page a “pussy.” Twice! In case we didn’t hear her the first time! Mox says the difference between them is that after Saturday, he will make no apologies and have no regrets. But it’s clear Hangman is in Moxley’s head, and really for more than one reason.
Technique by Taz! Taz breaks down Mistico’s La Mistica. This is a good idea. Yes. More of these.
Harley Cameron is a big fan of “idrinq” and we get a solid look at her cleavage to learn this fact.
…alright, sure. Good luck to them.
Mark Briscoe speaks about his spot in the Casino Gauntlet match at All In. Honestly, the story of Mark winning that would be incredible, but I don’t expect it. He also addresses his ongoing issue with MJF, and he’s subdued and focused with that. It’s good promo work as always, and once again we see that there’s a lot more to Mark Briscoe than just the funny yelling guy.
That Cookie Doofus From the Internet is here with His Kid and The Small Child Who Knows How to Touch His Own Face. AJ will team with The Conglomeration at Zero Hour against the Don Callis Family, who are here. Kyle O’Reilly is rejoining the group for one night only.
Three Stars of the Show
Megan Bayne: A lot of good performances in that main event, but she was particularly good. I love the balance she’s found between being an overwhelming powerhouse and dominant figure and selling the shit out of the right stuff at the right time, showing the right vulnerability when she should, and not just doing it to do it.
Katsuyori Shibata: Like Takeshita on Dynamite, a nice reminder of what Shibata can do given a chance. Never gonna be SHIBATA! again but he can still rip shit up now and again.
Truth Magnum: On a different week, Truth could get the No. 1 slot with how much I enjoyed his work in that eight-man. He was fantastic. This is a guy coming into his own, and that is a tag team truly finding themselves; like Bayne, it’s about the balance of things.
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You could also simply get Moxley an overdue vacation.
I started playing after Burning Crusade was out, because I had friends that were in a legit raiding guild. I never raided; I enjoyed just luxuriating in the world and doing Stuff. But I played for years. The last expansion I legitimately enjoyed was Mists of Pandaria, which put me in a minority with long-time players then. I didn’t like Warlords of Draenor, didn’t like Legion, didn’t like Battle for Azeroth, and finally quit after trying Shadowlands, I didn’t even finish out the main world quests or max level again or anything. Just too bored by what was going on. I think they lost me for good when they murked Vol’jin, because I was a troll loyalist. I bet it’s how little kids who love Jey Uso felt watching him lose the world title after two months. Except I was a grown man.
HEY! Swerve loves Mass Effect! He’ll understand that!
Also Toa Liona wearing street clothes and gym shoes is mind blowing. Shouldn’t be legal.
Tape, any chance you’ll be getting to the Aragon Ballroom in the next few weeks?