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Thanks to WWE for re-stocking the American indie scene

As I've understood it, Sinclair is a billion dollar TV company that uses Ring of Honor as cheap programming on a shoestring budget (Cornette has horror stories about this) to boost ratings averages in bad late-night timeslots that otherwise wouldn't draw much of anything. It sounded like they were spending some decent money on talent ever since the MSG show but once the Elite left, they never got their reputation back. I'd guess that without a live crowd for 18 months and being set to lose a few more guys to their contracts running out (I think PCO wasn't re-signing, Rush got injured but he was probably gone as well), they probably just said fuck it and mean to sign cheap talent to put on anything in those spots. But like, I'd also assume there's no way they let the Briscoes and Jay Lethal go too so who really knows.

Damn, would've thought it was Impact that died first.

Spoiler results plz, I'll try to watch that one eventually

I love that their first show back is a Mystery Vortex

It was super weird because they have access to all these wrestling historians but instead take the word of a North Korea expert who told the North Korean byline of the Rikidozan story.

I'm only interested in a few episodes here and there. So far I've watched Nick Gage (really good) and Collision in Korea (not really that good, got some basic facts wrong), I'm really interested in the FMW episode, and somewhat interested in The Steroid Trial, Bruiser Bedlam and Luna Vachon.

Ayyyyyy PWG's back

Man, that Nick Gage episode of Dark Side of the Ring

Shiozaki/Mutoh had at least two "OH SHIT" moments and then quite the ending

Just finished the 5-star match, Go Shiozaki vs Takashi Sugiura from the 11.22.20 NOAH The Chronicle 20th Anniversary Show Perfect representation of what NOAH's all about. Also feel like I'm watching Shiozaki's body fall apart during his heavy-duty title reign (which weirdly mirrors Kobashi's body falling apart during his pre-Okada GOAT title reign)

Been catching up on Pro Wrestling NOAH since the "reboot" (actually just a return to form after they were bought by the company that also owns DDT and Tokyo Joshi Pro, the only thing that really changed was the ring is no longer green). Only been watching Heavyweight Titles and tournament matches. Think this one's being slept on, it's stiff as fuck (like the crowd breaking the "Scream Inside Your Heart" rule because god-damn some of those shots connect), pretty high quality heavyweight division (I skip Juniors, already watch too many promotions as it is), had one of the weirdest wrestling matches I've ever seen in my life (GHC Heavyweight Champion Go Shiozaki vs former IWGP Heavyweight Champion and MMA Fighter Kazuyuki Fujita) and I'm just about to hit the Dave-rated 5-star match from December. Modern favourite is Kenoh ("Fist King", he's foul-mouthed, kicks a lot, thinks everything is a conspiracy theory against him, and has proclaimed that he's going to kill his next opponent in 3 seconds, which his next opponent is the guy who formed Pancrase with Minoru Suzuki so my body's ready), absolute fave is and always will be Naomichi Marufuji, inventor of probably every spot you love in modern wrestling with KENTA

One thing I will say about Danhausen in RoH: They paired him up with the exact right guy to feud with to get over his character. I watched last week's RoH (we get it on Sundays here and I DVR it) Brian Johnstone freaking out about him was awesome and now I am going out of my way to watch their youtube match

I kind of just assume they want a meme wrestler on hand in case Orange Cassidy is where things are going (though they adjusted him to be more like Yano where he makes a joke out of his opponents rather than he is the joke, but I dunno how much the business recognizes that), and he was already working their house shows before the lockdowns, or at least there is Ring of Honor footage of him in front of crowds, I don't know if it was more than one show

Danhausen's the one thing I don't want in Ring of Honor right now, kind of just flies way too much in the face of everything else they're doing right now with the Pure Title and having more of a UFC-style serious interview segment before every match. Like we'll have an interview segment where Shane Taylor's talking about his house getting shot up because his father challenged the drug dealers on the block and how he can't wear a ski mask like Brodie King and actually get away with it, and then suddenly here's somehow doing '80s Beetlejuice (complete with comedy transitions during his entrance) And it's really weird that they even bothered, he'd fit more with Impact being anything goes or maybe AEW depending on if it's just ironic enough for Tony Khan

I thought he was the owner of it?

Isn't BAR Wrestling Joey Ryan's? That's giving him youtube revenue when other indie wrestling networks don't want to work with him any more

Slammiversary was good as fuck

I'm pretty hype for Slammiversary, even if I assume I'm gonna be disappointed by the surprise entrant in the four-way match for the Title (I want EC3, I wanted Rusev but he popped for Covid, I assume Eric Young or James Storm or maybe someone else which isn't bad but isn't super-hype, but I also think Ace Austin is winning the match so it probably doesn't matter at the end of it). Also I absolutely need Johnny Swinger, Chadd 2 Badd and Sex Ferguson together as a six-man tag team Impact and Dynamite are the two wrestling shows I watch almost all of every single week

Was scrolling up to see your BOLA thoughts and bumped into this. Chris Bey made his debut on Impact a month or so ago. He's mostly looked good but they tape a few months at once and he busted his lip in his first match so he's had a droopy thing going for him the entire time. They also paired him up with Johnny Swinger, my favourite gimmick at the moment As far as I can tell, Tony Deppen's gimmick is that he's a cartoonishly angry Irish Ginger but without the Ginger and without the Irish

PWG BOLA Night 3 2nd Round Matches I'm pretty sure I had the tourney winner spoiled way back when it happened but I don't know who made the finals, so the third round will still be partially interesting 3rd Round and Final

PWG BOLA 2019 Night 2 was probably a better wrestled show, but not as much variety. I liked what I saw of Mick Moretti, mourning the loss of Jake Atlas from the indies (especially to WWE, RIP his career, long live his wallet) and I think I hate Tony Deppen. Orange Cassidy vs David Starr is easily the best OC match I've seen and probably the best way to do OC matches realistically

Eric Young, Drake Maverick, EC3, Guns n Gallows, Mike and Maria and Rusev via a Bulgarian Flag were all promoted on Impact's Slammiversary video with the idea that it'll be the first show after that big wave of releases that they're all available and at least some of them should be there

BOLA 2019 Night 1 This was a really good show, lot of different match styles represented so even the worst parts of it didn't feel like it dragged too much A-Kid vs Lucky Kid was probably the best match of the night, if you mix in Daniel Bryan Danielson bullshit I basically love you Caveman Ugg impressed me, Brodie King is okay (I'm familiar with him from RoH) but annoys me because he's doing lucha shit and he's way too big for anyone to really base all that well for him when he does lucha shit Dragon Lee vs Rey Horus and Mexablood vs Lucha Bros was good lucha shit and you more or less knew what to expect there Blake Christian/Tony Deppen vs Joey Janela/Alex Zayne was a bad wrestling match that had some cool spots in it Darby Allin vs Black Taurus was a weird match on paper but fun Gresham vs Artemis Spencer was shaping up to be a bad match but they got it back by the end. Spencer looked pretty green or maybe nervous Jeff Cobb vs Daisuke Sekimoto was a good wrestling match without many cool spots in it. I love Big Japan slugfests but I think they play better in front of Japanese crowds

With everyone else shut down, finally catching up on Ring of Honor and BOLA 2019