I can’t wait for Xavier Woods’ heel turn

August 30, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Lots of long-time wrestling fans are smarter than people like to give them credit for. The wrestling industry is at its best when they treat the fans with a modicum of respect for their intelligence and don’t go out of their way to dumb things down that questions it instead.

At this point, I can confidently believe that Xavier Woods’ heel turn isn’t so much just being hinted or teased, it’s definitely something that’s going to happen with the only question really being is just, when?

As much as I was a fan of the group, let’s not deny the fact that The New Day has been dead for the better part of the last few years. One member of the squad has always been injured at various points throughout this span, and as much yeoman’s work the other two have done in their absence, the fact of the matter is that The New Day has always been a three-man group, and whenever it’s unable to be such, it means that The New Day isn’t really there.

With the unfortunate neck injury that has basically retired Big E at this point was really the nail in the coffin for the group, and it’s like Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston have just been chugging along under The New Day banner, mostly out of a general lack of ideas of what to do with them in the meantime. They’re both trustworthy hands, their brand is still popular and easy to stay over, but the reality remains that them and the group have just been a dead idea walking.

And then they just plucked Odyssey Jones out of NXT and went boom, you’re The New Day member #3, and I’m just like, nah dog, I’m fuckin out. No disrespect to Odyssey, but it’s kind of low-hanging fruit and insulting that they just take a big black wrestler and throw him into The New Day with the express purpose of replacing Big E’s spot.

However, the best thing to emerge from this is that it appears that The New Day are back in the general plans of Creative™, and the wheels are in motion for the ultimate dissolution of the group together, culminating with what appears to be a heel turn for Xavier Woods, who has been the one member of the group to have been overlooked and not given a genuine chance at singles success for over a decade now.

They’ve teased Woods’ seeming lack of satisfaction of the inclusion of Odyssey Jones, there’s been remarks on live television about how Woods is the only member of the original squad to never have won a singles championship, and Woods himself has been doing an excellent job of facial expressions, body language and subtle, non-verbal performing that’s adding to the fuel that something is about to catch fire.

The only problem is that when the match is lit, and heel-Woods is initiated, I have this sneaking suspicion that the result isn’t necessarily going to be what the WWE is going to hope is going to happen, and the fans are going to pop like motherfuckers when it happens.

Kind of like when Becky finally snapped and decked Charlotte Flair during the pre-The Man days, the crowd went bonkers in support of Becky’s heel turn, because Becky Lynch was a performer that the fans had gotten to know, earned their respect, and drew empathy from the notion that they’d been held down and been a bridesmaid far too many times.

I feel like Xavier Woods is in a similar boat, and regardless of how he’s portrayed on television, he’s been building his personal brand for the better part of the last 10+ years on the internet, utilizing Up Up Down Down for people to get glimpses of Austin Creed, and there’s probably a notable amount of overlap between fans of Austin Creed and fans of Xavier Woods, and I predict that when Xavier Woods finally, goes heel and beats the fuck out of Odyssey Jones with a chair, and then plasters Kofi Kingston with a shot to effectively close the book on The New Day, people are going to pop, because the spotlight will suddenly be on Austin Creed, a guy that’s never really had the opportunity to have it, and they will all be excited to see how he handles being given the ball.

Just the thought of singles feuds for Xavier Woods, with inevitably Kofi, Sami Zayn and Jey Uso definitely seem like the types of programs that would get me to actually put effort into keep up to date with the product, but the question really is when they’re going to happen. All the same, I can’t wait for it when it does, and let’s hope Creative pulls the trigger at the appropriate time, and doesn’t wait too long like they used to do so often throughout the early 2000’s.

I am not a fan of MJF’s short reign as American Champion

August 25, 2024August 30, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This post could’ve just as easily been called WTF is AEW doing #413, but we’ve gone too far now, and the wheels of writing are already in motion. But after maybe what, four or five weeks after MJF defeated Will Ospreay for the re-christened American Championship in an absolute banger of a match on Dynamite #250, he gives it right back to Ospreay at All In.

It’s funny because the WWE gets a tremendous amount of flack when they do 50/50 booking, when feuding competitors trade wins back and forth, because “it devalues” both of them having to take losses, but this is a prime example of a zero-sum gain of 50/50 booking between two guys that are expected to be torch bearers for AEW, in MJF and Will Ospreay.

Ospreay takes a loss at Dynamite #250, loses his blet to MJF, and MJF does some really, really outstanding work in the span of him turning it into the American Championship, cashing in on all sorts of cheap heat by taking the title to Mexico and Europe and going ballistic on foreign countries, drawing nuclear amounts of heat in the process.

But instead of continuing to run with this ball that had a tremendous amount of mileage still left in the tank, AEW books MJF to drop the title right back to Will Ospreay, so that MJF can go feud with Daniel Garcia, whom I like, but at the same time, now there’s nobody next in line for Will Ospreay, although I think it’s evidently clear that it’s going to be Ricochet, because Tony Khan doesn’t waste any time at caving to what he and the fans want, which is an inevitable Ospreay vs. Ricochet match.

And just like that, a mega-program between two of the company’s most mega stars is over as quick as it started, all because a notable program needed to be lit and burned for All In just because it was in London and Will Ospreay of course needs to go over in his home country.

Frankly, this is all just extremely short-sighted booking that just occurred, because MJF is probably the most protected man on the entire roster, and he had to take an L, primarily because Tony Khan waited until the last minute to start his science project, panicked and forced two of his top workers to put together a hackneyed program that resulted in both of them taking losses and swapping a belt in rapid succession. These two guys should be built up for at least six months for a program at Revolution, or Double or Nothing, or whatever one of AEW’s show is supposed to be their grand daddy of them all.

Honestly, I have no doubt in my mind that MJF being the obnoxious asshole American could have gone several more months of him showing up in other countries to wrestle their hot stars, or show up on AEW programming and defeat non-American after non-American for the title. Frankly, he could have carried this program on as long as he felt like carrying it, because there’s really nobody better than MJF at taking the low-hanging fruit and running with it.

I like Daniel Garcia, but there’s no chance that he could compare with Will Ospreay in carrying his end of a feud. Ordinarily, I’d say that MJF dropping a mid-card title is really a sign of an impending promotion, but Tony Khan doesn’t seem to follow any logical rules as much as he’s always trying to swerve the audience for really no other reason than because he’s deliberately trying to swerve them for the sake of doing such.

It’s just a shame that it’s going to come at the expense of a rare MJF loss.

I don’t think AEW knows what Unified means

July 28, 2024August 1, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As I was doom scrolling before going to sleep, I came across a video clip of Dustin Rhodes and what appeared to be two members of the Von Erich family, winning the Ring of Honor Six-Man Tag championships at some Ring of Honor show. I wouldn’t know which one, because ever since Tony Khan bought the entire promotion, it hasn’t held my interest beyond the one Final Battle show I went to a few years ago, and fuck if I’m going to pay actual money to see a TK production.

The thing is, up until seeing this title change, I had no idea that the ROH Six-Man championship was still in existence. I was under the impression that in an attempt to reduce the sheer volume of blets in AEW/ROH, that when the Bang Bang Gang* defeated The Acclaimed and “unified” the ROH Six-Man blets with the AEW Trios blets, six blets would be reduced to three.

*The amount of turrible that this name is, is unprecedented, and even in a carny, smarky bubble that AEW and their fans exist in, this stands out as that bad

Naturally, instead they ended up with nine total blets to cart around, as Jay White, Colten and Austin Gunn would lug around each an ROH Six-Man blet, the gaudy pink-strapped Acclaimed-version Trios blet, as well as the OG black, blue and gold AEW Trios blet. There exists enough physical blets in AEW and ROH combined for every single talent that appears on screen to have one.

Anyway though, the whole point of a unified championship is the consolidate the number of titles, to increase the prestige of a singular championship, and despite the fact that there were at one point nine blets to signify the Unified Trios championship, the reality is that the Acclaimed-pink blets and the ROH Six-Man blets should have been taken off television.

Recently, whether it was legitimate or kayfabe, Jay White was injured, and taken off television; I’m hoping it was the latter, and that an injury angle is what was needed in order to break Jay White away from the Gunns and Juice Robinson, so that a guy that hasn’t been even a full year removed from being the IWGP World Champion can actually reset his trajectory in AEW, instead of being like Kazuchika Okada and being used at a fraction of his true capabilities and instead stashed with C-tier talents and meaningless television segments.

As a result of White being out, the Bang Bang Gang was stripped of the Unified Trios championship, and forced to fight The Patriarchy for the right to win them back. And with their top worker out, Christian and his cronies would pick up the win, the titles, and hopefully he will elevate the Trios blets as well as he had elevated the TNT championship.

The thing is, what everyone failed to mention, and/or I was never made aware of because I don’t pay that much attention to AEW/ROH, is that the ROH Six-Man championship was un-unified just like that, and it wasn’t until I saw Dustin Rhodes and the Von Erichs winning them did I even learn that they were even active championships again.

Look, I’m fine with championships being resurrected when the need arises, but the thing with this convoluted journey of Six-Man/Trios championships is that it all happened within the span of a calendar year and basically ended up in the same place in which it started:

August 2023: The Acclaimed win the AEW Trios Championship
January 2024: Jay White and the Gunns win the ROH Six-Man Championship
April 2024: Bang Bang Gang defeats The Acclaimed, becomes the Unified Trios Champions
July 2024: On account of Jay White’s injury, Bang Bang Gang are stripped of the Unified Trios Championship; unmentioned, the unification is severed, and both sets of championships are rendered vacant
July 20, 2024: Christian and the Patriarchy win the AEW Trios Championship
July 27, 2024: Dustin Rhodes and the Von Erichs win the ROH Six-Man Championship

AEW/ROH doesn’t need 35 championship blets floating around, and yet they had the opportunity to pare down for the sake of the others, but instead they added more, and when they had a second chance to consolidate again, they only reduced out the custom-variants of the Acclaimed, and ended up with two different six-man titles in the end.

What all this amounts to is the sheer frivolity and unimportance of six-man tag team wrestling, if their championships are going to be monkeyed around with and passed around like a blunt at a rap concert.

It’s funny, because the WWE often got flack for their dismissive attitude towards tag team wrestling, to the point where when AEW came into existence, they made it a high priority point to emphasize tag team wrestling, because of the Young Bucks and FTR. But whereas the WWE shit on tag team wrestling, AEW apparently has decided to basically create a six-man tag division, so that they could have something to shit on as well.

MJF and the new AEW American Championship

July 25, 2024July 26, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A week ago, I tuned into AEW Dynamite #250, because I bit the bait at the idea of MJF vs. Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland vs. Kazuchika Okada. Now the Swerve and Okada match was a stinker and a schmozz, giving credence to Arn Anderson’s adage that two talented workers don’t mean they’ll have any chemistry.

But the MJF and Will Ospreay match was definitely an instant classic, and if Dave Meltzer and the Wrestling Observer had any credibility anymore, I’m sure the match probably got like some convoluted number of like 6.69 stars in his meaningless rating rubric, but the fact of the matter was that it was a great match, resulting in a surprising title change of Ospreay dropping the AEW Intercontinental International Championship to MJF, which I kind of wasn’t expecting.

I intended on watching this week’s Dynamite, I mean BLOOD AND GUTS, because it was something I could do while I ate my dinner, but the TBS app appears to have been developed by RealPlayer and I ended up missing the first 15 minutes of the show because it simply would not stop spinning and ultimately required me to restart the app and re-login in order for it to get working again.

It turns out that I missed the only good thing about the show, which was the opening segment where MJF tossed the International Championship blet into the trash, and unveiled a ridiculous, gaudy new championship blet, aptly called the AEW American Championship, hilariously with no AEW logo on it anywhere.

The man truly continuously grasps at low-hanging fruit storylines and plot devices, but repeatedly knocks them out of the park with his above-average mic, promo and character work, and it’s hilarious that he’s always opening, because you know he’s bouncing from the arena as soon as his work is done for the night.

The strap has the stars and stripes of the United States flag, and the side plates read Better Than You (And the UK) And You Know It on one side and Only Country That Matters on the other side.

It’s an abomination of a championship blet.

So naturally I want it.

Regardless of what it’s called officially, it’s still basically another United States championship, and I don’t know why, call it patriotism or whatever, I’ve always been drawn to US Championships, and I have one from most promotions where there’s been one; WCW’s, WWE’s and even New Japan’s. I also have the NXT North American blet, and it seems appropriate that MJF’s American Championship blet would be a good addition to the collection.

However, AEW’s replicas, at the low end is $599, and I’m sure a replica would be of high quality, but that price point is just a real bitter pill to swallow. The most I’ve ever gone on a blet is $550, and even that came from pool of house money when I was doing internet surveys obsessively for two years.

It’s not even available yet, so we’ll see what happens in the future to whether or not I’ll manage to get my hands on one of these things, but despite my self-anointed status as a premiere blet collector, I still don’t have any AEW replicas, mostly on account of their egregious pricing, but if I were ever to start with any, the MJF American Championship seems like the most likely to be my first.

TIL: Mercedes Mone’s creative control clause

July 1, 2024July 3, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t watch AEW’s Forbidden Door (3) pay-per-view because one, who in the world actually pays for a ppv anymore these days, two, the card seemed entirely way too predictable, and I called like 90% of the card correctly and 100% of the singles matches, and three, there were probably 3-5 other things that I’d rather have done with that time in my life instead.

Naturally, as stated, the card was ridiculously predictable, and much like the years before this one, almost all of the New Japan guys and all of the CMLL guys from Mexico took the losses in their matches, and for some reason, AEW keeps feeding Orange Cassidy to the next big thing in New Japan, with it being the very obvious Zack Sabre, Jr. who was one of two NJPW guys to actually come out with a W.

For obvious business reasons, it was a foregone conclusion that Jon Moxley was going to drop the belt to Tetsuya Naito, because fuck if NJPW would allow a guy in another promotion to continuously hold their top prize any longer than this, but good for Mox to be able to lay claim that he’s held World championships in the WWE, AEW and NJPW among numerous other titles he’s held in his career.

But if there were any other guarantees on the night, it was that Mercedes Mone was without any question, going to defeat Stephanie Vaquier and walk out with the NJPW Strong women’s championship, and be a double champion. I mean really, I don’t like to bet on things, but if I knew of a safe and legal way to gamble, I would’ve felt comfortable dropping like $500 Mercedes was going to take the W in their match. I mean the NJPW Strong women’s championship was basically created for her, and if not for a Shrek-green Willow Nightingale legit injuring her, she probably would’ve been the NJPW Strong champion when she debuted with AEW.

Back to the title of this post though, it was afterward through scuttlebutt did I learn that Mercedes Mone actually has creative control baked in to her AEW contract. Obviously, this doesn’t look like anything to anyone who doesn’t follow professional wrestling, but basically it means that Mercedes Mone has legitimate legal veto power over the way she is booked in the company.

In other words, if she shows up to the arena one day, and Tony Khan says to her, “Hey Mercedes, I’m going to have you lose tonight to Kris Statlander and drop the TCM belt to her” she could actually say “no, that doesn’t work for me brother” and force TK to go back to the drawing board and book a better scenario for her, and there’s really nothing that he can do about it. He can’t flex his position as owner of the company or that he’s the boss, because he gave her creative control in her contract.

For context, there are only two other instances I can think of where wrestlers had any degree of creative control in their contracts, which was Hulk Hogan during his time in WCW, where he had full creative control, and where he has been alleged and accused of various instances where he utilized it in order to maintain a high-stature within the company. The other was Bret Hart, who had a degree of creative control baked into his WWE contract if he were ever to be on his way out, so that the company couldn’t bury him on the way out and make him look like a putz going to another employer.

Hart really didn’t get to use his control due to the Montreal Screwjob, but Hogan, as mentioned was alleged to have flexed his power numerous times throughout his WCW tenure, and there are many stories and accounts out there from former colleagues and wrestlers who claim that he did.

What I’m getting at is that it’s a really dangerous sword to give to just anyone, because there’s never any guarantee that someone with it, won’t just go into business for themselves and ensure that they’re always in a position of looking strong and prominent, and suppress the rise of any potential partners to draw money with.

And yet, Mercedes Mone has creative control in her deal. I don’t care enough to dive deeper to find out just how much of it she has, or what if any conditionals exist with the deal, but the point is she still has it, and I can’t help but feel that that’s a really dangerous thing to give to a person like her, whom for all intents and purposes I do like as a performer, but I also think she’s kind of a spoiled entitled brat who has demonstrated a tendency to cry foul and walk away when things haven’t looked too great for her character’s portrayal.

I mean, even before I found out that she had creative control, I would’ve bet a large sum of money that she was going to beat Vaquier, but now the perception is murky on if it happened because it was the best business decision, or if it happened because she pulled her CC card and made it happen.

Even before finding out she had CC, I had already fantasy booked her future where she would undoubtedly go on a blet collecting saga, because that seems to be the well that AEW and TK seem to repeatedly dip into in order to cement guys as legends, like they did with Kenny Omega, and also did with FTR, and it seems like they’re doing the same with Mercedes Mone.

Without question, she’ll probably collect one of the women’s titles from Ring of Honor, whether it’s taking down Athena for the ROH’s women’s title, or perhaps she’ll keep her sights on television titles, and be the one to part the ROH Women’s TV title from Billie Starkz. And then when Stephanie Vaquier comes back for a rematch, she’ll probably demand that it can’t be for free, and that she needs to put her CMLL Women’s championship on the line for a shot to get the NJPW Strong women’s blet back, and then collect a fourth belt.

And as long as AEW has their open door policy with NJPW, this keeps the chances alive that Mercedes will go on to re-capture the IWGP Women’s championship, or maybe she’ll stealthily slide her way into the partnering Stardom promotion, and start hoovering up blets there too.

Eventually, it culminates with her setting her sights on Toni Storm and the AEW Women’s championship, and despite the fact that I think Storm has been the legitimately best thing in the entire company, all it takes is a little bit of flexing of that CC clause, and she’ll complete the god-tier run of collecting blets.

Would it be best for business? Probably not. But when you give an inmate creative control, you put yourself in a position to where that doesn’t matter if that’s what they want.

And as a fan, that wouldn’t work for me. Brother.

Dad Brog (#134): Father’s Day 2024

June 25, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

#3 of forever

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that there are few things that I look forward to every year more than this photograph. I actually almost took it a month early, because the conditions were ideal, having just gotten a haircut, my lawn just been freshly cut, and the weather wasn’t sweltering yet, but mythical wife kind of poo-poo’d on the idea, and so I felt that I should just hold off until the actual month of Father’s Day.

But that’s just how much I was looking forward to this particular shoot, that I was on the cusp of doing it nearly seven weeks earlier than I would’ve actually done anything with the photo.

Regardless, when the conditions were right to do it in June, there was no stopping me this time. I got the blets all out of their storage, took time to deliberate on which blet that I wanted to wear myself because I’m a hipster that loves rando-midcard titles over any traditional World championship blets, and got all my camera equipment prepared for, what the girls have declared, “belt picture day.”

When I said it was time for belt picture day, I was so tickled when #1 quickly grabbed her little bejeweled tiara and magic wand, and was 1000% on board with her accessorizing for the photograph. #2 still isn’t as gung-ho about it as her sister is, but she also didn’t fight at all when I said it was time to go outside. Fighting boredom is clearly among the most important of duties I have as a parent in the summertime, and I’m fortunate that they still love the idea of belt picture day.

I almost thought this might be the year in which I could actually do it all in a collective photo, seeing as how they both got into their chairs with their blets, and all I had to do was jump in, but getting them to actually look at the camera, and not at a bird, a squirrel, or the dog taking a dump in front of them was too much to ask for, and despite some funny candids, I did have to resort to shooting them individually and then myself, and putting this together in Photoshop, in post.

But all the same, mission accomplished. I’m so stoked with how it turned out this year, and much like how I happy I was last year, the following year just gets better, and I’m thrilled to time-lapse these, and see just how big these kids are getting with each successive year.

So until belt picture day in 2025, fare thee well.

Does a Popeyes title make Chris Jericho the Nueve?

April 26, 2024April 27, 2024 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the appealing card on paper, I didn’t watch AEW Dynasty. Frankly, I don’t know how I’d watch it, or any true pay-per-view event anymore. I don’t have cable, so it’s not like I can call an automated system and pay over the phone. I typically refuse to download anymore apps, especially to watch a singular event, and frankly, the WWE has conditioned me over the last few years of just how convenient it is to have a singular service where I can get these events included, and it’s about as easy as it is to tune into something on Netflix or Disney+.

All the same, I was intrigued by the card, to where I took the effort to seek out results, on the same night in which it happened. Most everything happened close to how I’d have predicted it, showing that my decades of watching professional wrestling has gotten to where I barely need to watch the product to know what’s going to happen anyway. Okada over PAC, the Bucks over FTR, Ospreay over Danielson, and I figured Swerve was finally going to dethrone Samoa Joe, because you just can’t keep feeding a champion the same guy three times in a row and expect the result to just continue to be the same.

But amidst the results was one thing that caught my eye: Chris Jericho defeats Hook to become the new FTW champion.

So the question I have is, does Chris Jericho winning a Popeyes title (unsanctioned) count towards his world title count? After all, it does say “World Champion” on it and frankly, even in the ocean of championships that AEW has floating in its pool, between Hook, Jack Perry and Brian Cage, the holder of this Mickey Mouse blet has done some good work.

That being said, that would make Chris Jericho no longer the Ocho, but the Nueve; I doubt such will happen, but it is still funny to hypothesize the silly wrestling logic.

But even funnier will be the fact that despite it not being a sanctioned championship that “counts” in the AEW canon, I think it’s a safe bet that Chris Jericho is still going to elevate it to the point where it’s going to get some substantial television time and attention over a number of the men’s championships the promotion has in circulation:

Because that’s what Chris Jericho does, he elevates things, regardless of how much the fickle AEW fanbase seems to have turned on him, and are giving him the old Big Show treatment of pretending like they want him to hang up his boots. These are the same fans who will be bowing in the crowd and chanting positive things like “you’re the great-est” when he actually does hang it up, but a guy like Jericho also doesn’t care, because he understands the most important thing about working is the ability to get a reaction at all, and he’s a man who has thrived under fan hate in the past, and will undoubtedly do it again and again until he’s done.

It seems obvious that he’s basically repeating the same program he did with Cesaro Claudio Castagnoli, where he won the Ring of Honor World Championship, ducked him repeatedly and made him work to get back in contention, and then dropped the title back to Claudio, but with the title in a better place in which it started.

Chris Jericho hasn’t hidden the fact his desire to work with, and elevate young talent, and there’s no question that he’s going to accomplish such with Hook. And by the time Jericho drops the title back to Hook in 5-6 months, the Popeyes title will probably be worth more than over half of the above listed championships, because that’s just the kind of thing AEW would let happen, having a meaningless blet become more meaningful than their own prizes.