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Welcome to what will hopefully be a long-running weekly column going forward. This will be a weekly post documenting the wrestling I watched throughout the week with very brief reviews and recommendations of what I enjoyed from each one. I won’t be going into detail for my own sake so that I can get this posted each week promptly, but I will give each show a rating of good, bad, or decent and also a match of the night, and probably a segment of the night for most TV shows as well. I will usually throw in some non-wrestling reviews in a similar format for UFC shows, movies, or TV shows, that will just depend on what I did during the week.
AEW All In - August 25, 2024
London, England, UK
All In 2024 was one of the best shows of the year, and possibly one of the best I’ve ever seen from top to bottom. I thought this year’s show was more memorable than last year’s, and I understand that I might be biased, but I thought Bryan Danielson winning the title in the main event was one of the absolute best moments in the history of wrestling. Other than that, Will Ospreay vs MJF, the Trios title ladder match, Casino Gauntlet, and Mariah May vs Toni Storm matches were all big standouts. I can’t recommend this entire show enough, Zero Hour and all. I genuinely do not think I’ll be voting for anything other than this for Wrestling Show of the Year, and I’ve had a week to think about it.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Bryan Danielson vs Swerve Strickland
WWE Monday Night Raw - August 26, 2024
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
This was a very good Raw that pushed the top angles of Bash in Berlin well, while also providing action that was unrelated to the PPV with marquee matches. The main event of Uncle Howdy and Chad Gable was the most intriguing match to me before the show, and it was better than I expected for a return from Howdy. Like the 6-man match the group has done previously, Howdy took more inspiration from the early incarnation of Bray Wyatt as opposed to the Fiend which I think continues to make this group the best of both worlds as far as Bray Wyatt personas are concerned, the presentation of the Fiend, but the work of the cult leader bell-to-bell. Outside of this, I would recommend Randy Orton’s promo, the Dunne/Miz/Woods triple threat IC title qualifier, the Judgment Day/Terror Twins segments and match, and the crazy Bronson Reed and Braun Strowman brawl after their match into the parking lot.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Uncle Howdy vs Chad Gable
Segment of the Night: Randy Orton in-ring promo
WWE NXT - August 27, 2024
Orlando, Florida, USA
NXT was taped this week, and I’d say it wasn’t noticeable from the talent side of things, but man the crowd was way more dead than usual so maybe that’s a reason why. This resulted in a bit of an average show, the only things that felt that hot were TNA stars tbh. Rosemary’s surprise was well-received and Joe Hendry was over as fuck as usual. His segment, especially after Ethan Page came out, was made a lot better due to the crowd, along with both their performances. Wes Lee and Zachary Wentz also had a really good face-to-face before their match. Not much else I’d recommend here tho, a rare down NXT week.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Je’Von Evans vs Joe Coffey
Segment of the Night: Joe Hendry concert/Ethan Page interruption
AEW Dynamite - August 28, 2024
Champaign, Illinois, USA
This was a good show overall, I’d say the biggest negative was the crowd was weird. They weren’t your usual dead crowd as they were making noise most of the night, but I think they were just a boring crowd. They didn’t react how I wanted them to react to certain things would probably be the most accurate way to state my complaint. But otherwise, the action was really good. It started hot with the surprise return of Jon Moxley, though I’m still a little confused about where that’s gonna go, I can’t say I’m not intrigued. Tomohiro Ishii/Hangman Page followed which was the high point of the show next to the main event segment with Bryan Danielson, and in between that, I thought the action wasn’t quite as good as Dynamite has conditioned people to expect, but they did a great job quickly getting some All Out build started.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Adam Page vs Tomohiro Ishii
Segment of the Night: Swerve Strickland/Adam Page segment
Ring of Honor Wrestling - August 29, 2024
Arlington, Texas, USA
After multiple weeks of very good Ring of Honor television shows at the eSports Arena in Arlington, this was a huge disappointment. Outside of the Lee Moriarty/Angelico match which wasn’t even advertised for some reason and was booked mid-show with pre-taped promos, this was almost all squashes. I know it’s a meme that ROH is AEW Dark behind a paywall, but this might be the closest it’s ever come to actually feeling like that. And again, after some downright great episodes in the last few weeks, I think this makes it even more disappointing for me. Despite that, I’d recommend the main event Pure title match I mentioned, Mina Shirakawa (as usual), Athena’s match, and the Johnny TV vs Sidney Akeem (formerly Reggie/Scrypts) match if you’re a fan of anyone involved. Otherwise, skippable show.
Rating: BAD
Match of the Night: Angelico vs Lee Moriarty - Pure Championship
TNA Impact - August 29, 2024
Tampa, Florida, USA
I thought this was a very entertaining episode of Impact. I’d rank it up there with the better weekly shows this week. This was the go-home show for Emergence, but I’d say it mostly stood on its own as an enjoyable show with good action aside from the main event face-to-face segment, which in itself was a great promo battle between Josh Alexander and Nic Nemeth. Mike Bailey also beat Rich Swann in what will most likely be Swann’s last match in TNA for a while as he’s entered rehab, and it was quite good. In the in-ring main event, TNA has once again struck gold in a gimmicky street fight variation with the “Match by Elegance” which featured weapons such as actual diamonds.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Mike Bailey vs Rich Swann
Segment of the Night: Josh Alexander and Nic Nemeth face-to-face
WWE Friday Night SmackDown - August 30, 2024
Berlin, Germany
I was so thankful that I was able to find a live stream of this show on a European feed to watch at Noon my time while I was at work before all the other wrestling I’d planned to watch on Friday night. On a week of go-home shows, this was certainly another one. For that, I think it did well. I don’t think the standalone angles outside of Bash in Berlin held up as well as I wanted though. Carmelo Hayes vs Andrade has the MOTN fairly easily this time with their 4th match in their unofficial best of 7 series, and apart from that you had Ludwig Kaiser answer LA Knight’s open challenge which was solid in itself, made a lot better by the unique crowd reaction during it. Nia Jax/Michin was an okay main event, we’ve seen it already with the same stipulation even, and I didn’t think they did anything new this time though. The finish was pretty brutal though, that left a lasting impression.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Andrade vs Carmelo Hayes
Segment of the Night: Kevin Owens/Cody Rhodes Promo (this was very good, don’t get me wrong, but with these two involved I did expect better)
NJPW Strong Capital Collision - August 30, 2024
Washington DC, USA
This was an interesting show would probably be the best way to put it. I thought in-ring, it was overall very good with some outstanding matches, and nothing less than decent at all, but presentation-wise, I don’t know if this could have felt lower quality with everything running as smoothly as it did. By that I mean there were no technical issues that NJPW has had on some American shows in the past, the stream was fine, but the audio quality was just not great, the crowd sound was even worse, and even the stage and arena setup was just about as bad as I think you could have made this venue look. Now, dispute all of that, the work was again extremely good. Mercedes Mone and Momo Watanabe had one of the better women’s matches of the year on the US soil I thought, and they proved giving them the main event was the right call. Gabe Kidd vs Lio Rush in the semi-main, I’d recommend anyone checking out as well. Those are two styles that just ended up meshing so well, and it’s another example of Kidd’s rising star. Zack Sabre Jr vs Titan was another match I’d say just about any wrestling fan should check out because you will enjoy it. Other than those three, I personally really liked seeing Ishii and Tanahashi winning a shot at the Strong tag titles, and Tanahashi looked so much better for once. I certainly can’t recommend the $20 price tag this show came with though.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night Mercedes Mone vs Momo Watanabe
TNA Emergence - August 30, 2024
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Like Dynamite, let's get this out of the way early: this crowd fucking sucked. Like it was pretty indefensible, they were just trying to see who could out-smark each other the entire night by chanting for former angles or ring names of whoever was in the ring. They seemed downright bored during the phenomenal Iron Man main event. I’m ashamed that people like that buy tickets to this thing that I love. But again despite that, I thought the talent did well. This was a two-match show for me with the Ultimate X and the Iron Man match dominating over everything else, and thankfully those were both good. Sadly, the rest of the show wasn’t all that hot, but I can’t say enough good things about those two matches specifically. I know a lot of people are turned off by hour-long matches anyway, and this crowd does make this one a little harder to recommend, but it was so good, I’d just say watch it on mute.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Josh Alexander vs Nic Nemeth - Iron Man
AEW Rampage - August 30, 2024
Champaign, Illinois, USA
This was your average “good” episode of Rampage, with an especially hot main event. Outside of the main event, I wouldn't recommend any of the content with my usual exception of if you’re a fan of anyone involved, check it out because it’s solid content that you will probably enjoy. This main event though, was one of the best matches of the entire week on probably one of the lesser-watched shows of this review. Takeshita and Mortos just absolutely man-handling Rush and Komander is something everyone should enjoy.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: The Beast Mortos vs Komander vs Konosuke Takeshita vs Lio Rush
WWE Bash in Berlin - August 31, 2024
Berlin, Germany
This was another very good WWE PLE outing from an international location. Like the others, the crowd was arguably the biggest story due to how entertaining they were without actually taking away from the wrestling. At one point they did veer on doing this in the main event (of all matches too), but Randy Orton to his credit, brought them back into it. Sticking to the main event, I thought that was easy MOTN, but that’s not news at all, I could have predicted it would be. If there’s any complaint for this show it’s that there wasn’t any “news” coming out of it, but I wouldn’t rate that complaint at all personally. Every match delivered with the two world title matches being the standout. If you skip anything, maybe the women’s tag, but I thought that was even a little better than expected, just nothing special. I’ll even shout out the Punk/Drew match for making use of the 4 corner rules (which if you know me, you know I hate) delivering a satisfying and new ending, and only having one annoying spot because of the rules otherwise in the match.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Gunther vs Randy Orton
AEW Collision - August 31, 2024
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
I was blown away by this Collision, especially for a show that didn’t have a single match announced until less than 24 hours before the show. First, I’d like to shout out this crowd. After the Champaign one, this was a breath of fresh air. I’m not sure how many they had in the building, but this was a South Dakota debut and these people seemed like they were extremely happy to be here watching this show. The final 3 punch combo of matches to end this show is insane, Kyle Fletcher vs Tomohiro Ishii followed by Buddy Matthews vs Komander followed by the women’s 4 way match, like it just kept getting better and better. As far as angle progression, there wasn’t much to speak of other than some matches announced for Dynamite and All Out, but I can get behind Collision being this show. Just looking at the ending again, Fletcher is an up-and-coming star getting a big win, Buddy Matthews winning set up the match announced for next week’s episode (thankfully not the day before this time), and then the main event set up a PPV title challenger. Even though it’s just “matches” i’d say they all accomplished very specific goals. Very good show this was despite the inevitable low rating it’s gonna get this week.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Kyle Fletcher vs Tomohiro Ishii
Show of the Week: AEW All In 2024
Match of the Week: Bryan Danielson vs Swerve Strickland
***********************************
Non-Wrestling
My current non-wrestling projects that I’m working on at a sporadic pace include finishing up the last of the X-Men Media franchise (movies and TV) before moving on to what I haven’t yet seen of the MCU to catch up to Deadpool (which I’ve already seen), and I’ve started One Piece, which will most likely last years of my life given it has over 1100 episodes. For the Marvel content, I finished the second and last season of The Gifted, watched Dark Phoenix, and started season 3 of Legion. For One Piece, I’m approaching episode 100. Here are my thoughts on all of these.
One Piece (S01E51-S03E12)
March 7 - November 5, 2001
Almost 30 episodes of One Piece down this week and I’ve seen Luffy and his gang go from the East Blue to the Winter Island and meet their medic, Chopper. This has been very enjoyable, I’m hooked on the show. The dynamic between the crew has only gotten better the more adventures they go on so far too. My favorite so far has been the flashbacks of Chopper’s origin. I’ve seen the character in a ton of stuff before just bc it’s a popular design, but I thought he was just some cute mascot lol I don’t even think I knew he was from One Piece.
The Gifted (S02E09-S02E16)
December 4, 2018 - February 26, 2019
I mostly enjoyed the second half of season 2 of The Gifted. I’m not 100% sure, but I feel like around this time, they were told the show was canceled and they were rewriting the end of this season to be the end of the show, and honestly, it felt like the show gained a bit of direction because of that. I liked the Jace Turner character, seeing him go deeper and deeper into his hate was both frustrating and felt like the most gripping part of the show. I thought the Von Strucker family themselves all became a lot more likable over the second half of this season as well. The last episode specifically, I did think ended up being a great ending to the show. I said to myself that if specifically a few of the things that happened ended up happening, I wouldn’t have anything to complain about, and then they all happened so yeah thumbs up overall, was just rough going getting here.
Dark Phoenix
June 4, 2019
Yeah, I’d avoided seeing this movie for a while because I’d heard how bad it was. I’m not even too high on the original Dark Phoenix comic book story, but I appreciate the scope and the significance, and this butchered it in almost every way possible. I’m not going to act like it didn’t have some redeeming qualities, but they’re almost all negated by the negatives of the movie itself lol. I was so invested in seeing the end of these characters knowing this is the last time we’ll see this version of Charles Xavier or Magneto, and they just succeeded in making me not care whatsoever about any of it. I’d rather not spend more time on this as this column is supposed to be mostly about positives in what I watch. Overall, I’d probably still categorize this as decent if I’m trying to be objective, but if you’re a fan of X-Men things in general, you’ll hate it even more, and you’re supposed to be the target audience.
Legion (S03E01-S03E03)
June 24, 2019 - July 8, 2019
This was a thrilling start to the final season of Legion so far. I thought they did a great job showing how insane David has become, and that you aren’t meant to be cheering for him anymore. It’s pretty sad to see what’s happened to the original team, and how little David feels towards them. The introduction of Switch was done well in episode one; that has been one of my highlights of the season so far. My only concern is with only 8 episodes and so much of the time so far spent on not advancing the plot, the final episodes might be rushed.
AEW All In - August 25, 2024
London, England, UK
All In 2024 was one of the best shows of the year, and possibly one of the best I’ve ever seen from top to bottom. I thought this year’s show was more memorable than last year’s, and I understand that I might be biased, but I thought Bryan Danielson winning the title in the main event was one of the absolute best moments in the history of wrestling. Other than that, Will Ospreay vs MJF, the Trios title ladder match, Casino Gauntlet, and Mariah May vs Toni Storm matches were all big standouts. I can’t recommend this entire show enough, Zero Hour and all. I genuinely do not think I’ll be voting for anything other than this for Wrestling Show of the Year, and I’ve had a week to think about it.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Bryan Danielson vs Swerve Strickland
WWE Monday Night Raw - August 26, 2024
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
This was a very good Raw that pushed the top angles of Bash in Berlin well, while also providing action that was unrelated to the PPV with marquee matches. The main event of Uncle Howdy and Chad Gable was the most intriguing match to me before the show, and it was better than I expected for a return from Howdy. Like the 6-man match the group has done previously, Howdy took more inspiration from the early incarnation of Bray Wyatt as opposed to the Fiend which I think continues to make this group the best of both worlds as far as Bray Wyatt personas are concerned, the presentation of the Fiend, but the work of the cult leader bell-to-bell. Outside of this, I would recommend Randy Orton’s promo, the Dunne/Miz/Woods triple threat IC title qualifier, the Judgment Day/Terror Twins segments and match, and the crazy Bronson Reed and Braun Strowman brawl after their match into the parking lot.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Uncle Howdy vs Chad Gable
Segment of the Night: Randy Orton in-ring promo
WWE NXT - August 27, 2024
Orlando, Florida, USA
NXT was taped this week, and I’d say it wasn’t noticeable from the talent side of things, but man the crowd was way more dead than usual so maybe that’s a reason why. This resulted in a bit of an average show, the only things that felt that hot were TNA stars tbh. Rosemary’s surprise was well-received and Joe Hendry was over as fuck as usual. His segment, especially after Ethan Page came out, was made a lot better due to the crowd, along with both their performances. Wes Lee and Zachary Wentz also had a really good face-to-face before their match. Not much else I’d recommend here tho, a rare down NXT week.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Je’Von Evans vs Joe Coffey
Segment of the Night: Joe Hendry concert/Ethan Page interruption
AEW Dynamite - August 28, 2024
Champaign, Illinois, USA
This was a good show overall, I’d say the biggest negative was the crowd was weird. They weren’t your usual dead crowd as they were making noise most of the night, but I think they were just a boring crowd. They didn’t react how I wanted them to react to certain things would probably be the most accurate way to state my complaint. But otherwise, the action was really good. It started hot with the surprise return of Jon Moxley, though I’m still a little confused about where that’s gonna go, I can’t say I’m not intrigued. Tomohiro Ishii/Hangman Page followed which was the high point of the show next to the main event segment with Bryan Danielson, and in between that, I thought the action wasn’t quite as good as Dynamite has conditioned people to expect, but they did a great job quickly getting some All Out build started.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Adam Page vs Tomohiro Ishii
Segment of the Night: Swerve Strickland/Adam Page segment
Ring of Honor Wrestling - August 29, 2024
Arlington, Texas, USA
After multiple weeks of very good Ring of Honor television shows at the eSports Arena in Arlington, this was a huge disappointment. Outside of the Lee Moriarty/Angelico match which wasn’t even advertised for some reason and was booked mid-show with pre-taped promos, this was almost all squashes. I know it’s a meme that ROH is AEW Dark behind a paywall, but this might be the closest it’s ever come to actually feeling like that. And again, after some downright great episodes in the last few weeks, I think this makes it even more disappointing for me. Despite that, I’d recommend the main event Pure title match I mentioned, Mina Shirakawa (as usual), Athena’s match, and the Johnny TV vs Sidney Akeem (formerly Reggie/Scrypts) match if you’re a fan of anyone involved. Otherwise, skippable show.
Rating: BAD
Match of the Night: Angelico vs Lee Moriarty - Pure Championship
TNA Impact - August 29, 2024
Tampa, Florida, USA
I thought this was a very entertaining episode of Impact. I’d rank it up there with the better weekly shows this week. This was the go-home show for Emergence, but I’d say it mostly stood on its own as an enjoyable show with good action aside from the main event face-to-face segment, which in itself was a great promo battle between Josh Alexander and Nic Nemeth. Mike Bailey also beat Rich Swann in what will most likely be Swann’s last match in TNA for a while as he’s entered rehab, and it was quite good. In the in-ring main event, TNA has once again struck gold in a gimmicky street fight variation with the “Match by Elegance” which featured weapons such as actual diamonds.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Mike Bailey vs Rich Swann
Segment of the Night: Josh Alexander and Nic Nemeth face-to-face
WWE Friday Night SmackDown - August 30, 2024
Berlin, Germany
I was so thankful that I was able to find a live stream of this show on a European feed to watch at Noon my time while I was at work before all the other wrestling I’d planned to watch on Friday night. On a week of go-home shows, this was certainly another one. For that, I think it did well. I don’t think the standalone angles outside of Bash in Berlin held up as well as I wanted though. Carmelo Hayes vs Andrade has the MOTN fairly easily this time with their 4th match in their unofficial best of 7 series, and apart from that you had Ludwig Kaiser answer LA Knight’s open challenge which was solid in itself, made a lot better by the unique crowd reaction during it. Nia Jax/Michin was an okay main event, we’ve seen it already with the same stipulation even, and I didn’t think they did anything new this time though. The finish was pretty brutal though, that left a lasting impression.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Andrade vs Carmelo Hayes
Segment of the Night: Kevin Owens/Cody Rhodes Promo (this was very good, don’t get me wrong, but with these two involved I did expect better)
NJPW Strong Capital Collision - August 30, 2024
Washington DC, USA
This was an interesting show would probably be the best way to put it. I thought in-ring, it was overall very good with some outstanding matches, and nothing less than decent at all, but presentation-wise, I don’t know if this could have felt lower quality with everything running as smoothly as it did. By that I mean there were no technical issues that NJPW has had on some American shows in the past, the stream was fine, but the audio quality was just not great, the crowd sound was even worse, and even the stage and arena setup was just about as bad as I think you could have made this venue look. Now, dispute all of that, the work was again extremely good. Mercedes Mone and Momo Watanabe had one of the better women’s matches of the year on the US soil I thought, and they proved giving them the main event was the right call. Gabe Kidd vs Lio Rush in the semi-main, I’d recommend anyone checking out as well. Those are two styles that just ended up meshing so well, and it’s another example of Kidd’s rising star. Zack Sabre Jr vs Titan was another match I’d say just about any wrestling fan should check out because you will enjoy it. Other than those three, I personally really liked seeing Ishii and Tanahashi winning a shot at the Strong tag titles, and Tanahashi looked so much better for once. I certainly can’t recommend the $20 price tag this show came with though.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night Mercedes Mone vs Momo Watanabe
TNA Emergence - August 30, 2024
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Like Dynamite, let's get this out of the way early: this crowd fucking sucked. Like it was pretty indefensible, they were just trying to see who could out-smark each other the entire night by chanting for former angles or ring names of whoever was in the ring. They seemed downright bored during the phenomenal Iron Man main event. I’m ashamed that people like that buy tickets to this thing that I love. But again despite that, I thought the talent did well. This was a two-match show for me with the Ultimate X and the Iron Man match dominating over everything else, and thankfully those were both good. Sadly, the rest of the show wasn’t all that hot, but I can’t say enough good things about those two matches specifically. I know a lot of people are turned off by hour-long matches anyway, and this crowd does make this one a little harder to recommend, but it was so good, I’d just say watch it on mute.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Josh Alexander vs Nic Nemeth - Iron Man
AEW Rampage - August 30, 2024
Champaign, Illinois, USA
This was your average “good” episode of Rampage, with an especially hot main event. Outside of the main event, I wouldn't recommend any of the content with my usual exception of if you’re a fan of anyone involved, check it out because it’s solid content that you will probably enjoy. This main event though, was one of the best matches of the entire week on probably one of the lesser-watched shows of this review. Takeshita and Mortos just absolutely man-handling Rush and Komander is something everyone should enjoy.
Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: The Beast Mortos vs Komander vs Konosuke Takeshita vs Lio Rush
WWE Bash in Berlin - August 31, 2024
Berlin, Germany
This was another very good WWE PLE outing from an international location. Like the others, the crowd was arguably the biggest story due to how entertaining they were without actually taking away from the wrestling. At one point they did veer on doing this in the main event (of all matches too), but Randy Orton to his credit, brought them back into it. Sticking to the main event, I thought that was easy MOTN, but that’s not news at all, I could have predicted it would be. If there’s any complaint for this show it’s that there wasn’t any “news” coming out of it, but I wouldn’t rate that complaint at all personally. Every match delivered with the two world title matches being the standout. If you skip anything, maybe the women’s tag, but I thought that was even a little better than expected, just nothing special. I’ll even shout out the Punk/Drew match for making use of the 4 corner rules (which if you know me, you know I hate) delivering a satisfying and new ending, and only having one annoying spot because of the rules otherwise in the match.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Gunther vs Randy Orton
AEW Collision - August 31, 2024
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
I was blown away by this Collision, especially for a show that didn’t have a single match announced until less than 24 hours before the show. First, I’d like to shout out this crowd. After the Champaign one, this was a breath of fresh air. I’m not sure how many they had in the building, but this was a South Dakota debut and these people seemed like they were extremely happy to be here watching this show. The final 3 punch combo of matches to end this show is insane, Kyle Fletcher vs Tomohiro Ishii followed by Buddy Matthews vs Komander followed by the women’s 4 way match, like it just kept getting better and better. As far as angle progression, there wasn’t much to speak of other than some matches announced for Dynamite and All Out, but I can get behind Collision being this show. Just looking at the ending again, Fletcher is an up-and-coming star getting a big win, Buddy Matthews winning set up the match announced for next week’s episode (thankfully not the day before this time), and then the main event set up a PPV title challenger. Even though it’s just “matches” i’d say they all accomplished very specific goals. Very good show this was despite the inevitable low rating it’s gonna get this week.
Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Kyle Fletcher vs Tomohiro Ishii
Show of the Week: AEW All In 2024
Match of the Week: Bryan Danielson vs Swerve Strickland
***********************************
Non-Wrestling
My current non-wrestling projects that I’m working on at a sporadic pace include finishing up the last of the X-Men Media franchise (movies and TV) before moving on to what I haven’t yet seen of the MCU to catch up to Deadpool (which I’ve already seen), and I’ve started One Piece, which will most likely last years of my life given it has over 1100 episodes. For the Marvel content, I finished the second and last season of The Gifted, watched Dark Phoenix, and started season 3 of Legion. For One Piece, I’m approaching episode 100. Here are my thoughts on all of these.
One Piece (S01E51-S03E12)
March 7 - November 5, 2001
Almost 30 episodes of One Piece down this week and I’ve seen Luffy and his gang go from the East Blue to the Winter Island and meet their medic, Chopper. This has been very enjoyable, I’m hooked on the show. The dynamic between the crew has only gotten better the more adventures they go on so far too. My favorite so far has been the flashbacks of Chopper’s origin. I’ve seen the character in a ton of stuff before just bc it’s a popular design, but I thought he was just some cute mascot lol I don’t even think I knew he was from One Piece.
The Gifted (S02E09-S02E16)
December 4, 2018 - February 26, 2019
I mostly enjoyed the second half of season 2 of The Gifted. I’m not 100% sure, but I feel like around this time, they were told the show was canceled and they were rewriting the end of this season to be the end of the show, and honestly, it felt like the show gained a bit of direction because of that. I liked the Jace Turner character, seeing him go deeper and deeper into his hate was both frustrating and felt like the most gripping part of the show. I thought the Von Strucker family themselves all became a lot more likable over the second half of this season as well. The last episode specifically, I did think ended up being a great ending to the show. I said to myself that if specifically a few of the things that happened ended up happening, I wouldn’t have anything to complain about, and then they all happened so yeah thumbs up overall, was just rough going getting here.
Dark Phoenix
June 4, 2019
Yeah, I’d avoided seeing this movie for a while because I’d heard how bad it was. I’m not even too high on the original Dark Phoenix comic book story, but I appreciate the scope and the significance, and this butchered it in almost every way possible. I’m not going to act like it didn’t have some redeeming qualities, but they’re almost all negated by the negatives of the movie itself lol. I was so invested in seeing the end of these characters knowing this is the last time we’ll see this version of Charles Xavier or Magneto, and they just succeeded in making me not care whatsoever about any of it. I’d rather not spend more time on this as this column is supposed to be mostly about positives in what I watch. Overall, I’d probably still categorize this as decent if I’m trying to be objective, but if you’re a fan of X-Men things in general, you’ll hate it even more, and you’re supposed to be the target audience.
Legion (S03E01-S03E03)
June 24, 2019 - July 8, 2019
This was a thrilling start to the final season of Legion so far. I thought they did a great job showing how insane David has become, and that you aren’t meant to be cheering for him anymore. It’s pretty sad to see what’s happened to the original team, and how little David feels towards them. The introduction of Switch was done well in episode one; that has been one of my highlights of the season so far. My only concern is with only 8 episodes and so much of the time so far spent on not advancing the plot, the final episodes might be rushed.
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