Show Reviews
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Throwback SmackDown Shows that WWE Has Lost Its Grip On Nostalgia
Yesterday was the “Throwback Edition” of WWE SmackDown. Normally, this wouldn’t be something worth writing about, except that the show that normally gets the throwback treatment is Raw, which that has been on the air since 1993, and between the current WWE roster’s various rap beefs and the three or four times I’ve seen Rey…
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Stacking Belts Like Pringles: Impact Wrestling Rebellion Recap and Review
Rather than pretend to an expertise that I don’t have, I’ll be up front: I don’t watch Impact Wrestling, and I never really have. The company’s 20th anniversary is next year, and over the course of that time it’s existed in a very strange universe of its own making, simultaneously the only mainstream-ish alternative to…
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Blame It On the Rain: WrestleMania37 Night One Recap and Review
Night one of WrestleMania 37, WWE’s make-good on last year’s purchase of a bunch of non-returnable pirate gear it didn’t get to wear to last year’s WrestleMania, was the first time fans attended a main roster show since the COVID-19 pandemic moved WWE’s product into its Performance Center last March. WWE’s official attendance number for…
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Is AEW Dark: Elevation Worth Watching?
I was suckered into watching two hours of AEW Dark: Elevation by the promise of its main event and the amount of advertising that went into its debut, but, being honest here, no, it’s not.. It’s just AEW Dark with a subtitle, an endless stream of competitive enhancement matches filmed before an audience of wrestlers…
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Sting Is Alive? AEW Dynamite Recap and Review
After Monday’s Women’s Eliminator Tournament Special left me a little deflated, I found myself dreading the prospect of this week’s dynamite. Once you make a claim like “Dynamite can trim enough fat to fit a second women’s match on the show,” you’re kinda stuck looking for that fat. It’s not a fun way to watch…
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This Could Have Worked On Television: AEW Women’s Eliminator Week 2
Last week’s YouTube exclusive portion of AEW’s Women’s Eliminator Tournament covered the whole of the Japanese half’s first round, introducing and reintroducing eight women to AEW audiences in an easily digestible one hour show that was intensely enjoyable. I liked it so much that I gave it the benefit of a doubt so far as…
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Simps Don’t Be Sad: AEW Women’s Eliminator Tournament Night 1
Last week, in reviewing the first match of AEW’s Women’s Championship Eliminator tournament, I said that it might be the AEW women’s divisions long-awaited breakout moment. This week, the tournament produced what might stand for the rest of 2021 as the best single unit of television produced under the banner of an American wrestling company.…
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A Trip to the Potato Farm: AEW Dynamite Recap and Review
Last week’s Beach Break edition of AEW Dynamite was, among other things, notable for the debut of Kenta, the number one contender to Jon Moxley’s IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. This was a big deal because Kenta is contracted to New Japan Pro Wrestling, and his arrival in AEW, Mox carrying his US Championship around,…
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Improv Night at Daily’s Place – AEW Dynamite Recap and Review
Faced with another Wednesday where professional wrestling paled in significance to the geopolitical comings and goings of the United States of America, All Elite Wrestling played it somewhat safe this week. Storylines were nudged forward a tad. Matches were either multiman scrambles or singles bouts that didn’t invite the viewer to imagine another outcome. It…
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New Year’s Smash Night 1: AEW Dynamite Recap and Review
I’m going to acknowledge the weirdness of this moment and move on to wrestling. Back in May, I posed the following question: Why is wrestling satisfied with being a distraction? Yesterday’s double shot of wrestling amidst the storming of the U.S. Capitol was something of a reprieve from the wall-to-wall news coverage I’ve been watching now…