Chris's Week in Review

[Chris]

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


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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.

 

[Chris]

For added context to the ratings as best as I can

Good = if you're on this website, you'll like most of this

Decent = maybe only watch the specific highlights of people you're a fan of

Bad = watch if you're me

 

[Chris]

NXT No Mercy - September 1, 2024
Denver, Colorado, USA

This was an excellent outing for NXT with the big arena in Denver being a big improvement over the usual PC crowds, and it made the show even better. Each match delivered except Kelani Jordan vs Wendy Choo which was sadly disappointing, but the other women’s title match with Roxanne Perez vs Jaida Parker more than delivered, plus the post-match saw the debut of Giulia who had a great crowd reaction. I also thought it was notable how over Chase U still was in front of 7-8k people considering it’s an act I’ve seen dozens say couldn’t make it outside of the PC crowd.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Axiom/Nathan Frazer vs Chase U (Andre Chase/Ridge Holland)

WWE Monday Night Raw - September 2, 2024
Denver, Colorado, USA

This was a solid Raw overall for the second night at Denver. I thought the crowd was shockingly not as hot as NXT actually, but overall they weren’t dead or anything. There weren’t any standout matches, though I will shout out Ilja’s performance in his three-way. The best parts of the show were the Punk/Drew and especially the Sami/Gunther angles. The Wyatts/American Made feud also continued well, and I love how they’ve kept the Alpha Academy relevant for it because they’re still putting on quality performances. And finally, I did like the Judgment Day developments with Jey finally joining up with Priest, though I am curious how much Sami stays involved because I was certain he and Jey were winning the tag titles soon.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Dominick Mysterio vs Dragon Lee vs Ilja Dragunov
Segment of the Night: Gunther/Sami Zayn in-ring segment

WWE NXT - September 3, 2024
Orlando, Florida, USA

While still nothing all that special of an NXT show, this felt like it came back to life after last week’s oddly dead, taped show. The opening triple threat tag team match was a lot of fun, and I loved seeing the Rascalz get the win and continue their NXT run with Wes not even involved for a week, just two TNA talents getting a title shot from this. Then from there the show just felt like crash TV, and not necessarily bad, but there were the Trick/Pete brawl segments and then that match which was just pure chaos and ended in the double countout. I liked that quite a bit, and in between it was some short matches, and what felt like a billion short backstage segments. They were all fine or good from what I remember, but nothing I’d recommend. This episode felt more like a setup for post-No Mercy and CW things more than anything else. The most obvious was the final women’s segment setting up Giulia/Roxanne which I thought was a lot of fun, using Chelsea was hilarious.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: The Rascalz vs Hank and Tank vs Gallus (Mark Coffey/Wolfgang)
Segment of the Night: Roxanne/Chelsea/Giulia segment

AEW Dynamite - September 4, 2024
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

What a killer episode of Dynamite. This was one of the best episodes of television I’ve seen this year with great wrestling and segments throughout. It’s outstanding how much better this company has gotten at go-home shows in the last couple of years, it was such a weak point prior. Now they balance matches with segments so much better to put over the upcoming PPV. The Hangman/Swerve angle was the high point of the night. I don’t have much more to add that anyone else hasn’t said, just one of the best angles I’ve ever seen. Elsewhere, there were two great matches with Okada vs Kyle Fletcher and the BCC/Conglomeration (and Ospreay) trios match. I was a little disappointed that Nyla Rose didn’t get a better babyface reaction, but that’s probably because she never gets to cut promos on TV. The women’s content on the whole was good, they had almost the first half of the second hour alone. I can’t recommend this episode enough.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Blackpool Combat Club/Pac vs Conglomeration/Will Ospreay
Segment of the Night: Hangman Page burns down Swerve Strickland’s childhood home

Ring of Honor Wrestling - September 5, 2024
Arlington, Texas, USA

This was a much better outing for Ring of Honor. It was longer and still had quite a few squashes, but it also had way more competitive matches, which was what I’d gotten used to. There still wasn’t anything I’d say is a must-watch, nor any real story development, but there were some good backstage interviews at least. I enjoyed every match that got at least five minutes, but Josh Woods vs Shibata and Mina vs Taya were the two stand-outs, and they closed the show which ended on a nice note.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Josh Woods vs Katsuyori Shibata

TNA Impact - September 5, 2024
Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Impact was solid this week coming out of emergence and going into their short victory road build. While they didn’t have any blowaway matches since it was more angle-heavy, I thought Josh Alexander was the star of this show. He wrestled, cut promos, and even did commentary, and stole the show throughout the whole night with this new heel persona. Also, Nic Nemeth cut a promo to close the show that I thought got this next match with Moose over huge, especially considering I wasn’t looking forward to that one when it was first announced.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Josh Alexander vs Kushida
Segment of the Night: Nic Nemeth pre-tape promo

WWE SmackDown - September 6, 2024
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

I wasn’t too high on this episode of SmackDown, but starting with the highs, I did enjoy the Bayley/Tiffany and Bloodline matches. I also thought the Cody/Bloodline segment was great, and Cody carried it with an outstanding promo. I was pretty peeved by what they did with Vinci, and time will tell, but I really can’t see why they’d hype the debut up for that. We’ve seen it done a million times in multiple companies and it so rarely helps the losing wrestler. I will also lastly shout out Kevin Owens. His match was ridiculous, but he could just do anything; an absolute S-tier worker.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Bayley vs Tiffany Stratton
Segment of the Night: Cody/Bloodline Segment

AEW Collision - September 6, 2024
Hoffman Estates, Illinois, USA

This was an interesting way to do Collision right before the PPV, and I thought it worked so well. They didn’t sell the PPV as much as the PPV sold Collision to me. Yes, the winners of these singles matches qualified for the PPV match against Okada, but to me, it was using that PPV match to get 3 otherwise random great matches on Collision to have stakes. Then the main event as well, just thrown together from PPV feuds. All of this resulted in a very fun episode of Collision with great action throughout the night.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Konosuke Takeshita vs The Beast Mortos

AEW Rampage - September 6, 2024
Hoffman Estates, Illinois, USA

It’s very hard to rate this episode of Rampage on its own considering the first 15 minutes of it was the Collision main event. So due to that, this was probably the hottest 15 minutes of Rampage in ages. Afterward, it wasn’t anything special. The main event started so ridiculous I thought House of Black was being ribbed but after the first few minutes, it turned into a damn good wrestling match on its own. I’m loving MxM so far.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: All-Star 8-Man Tag (continued from Collision)

AEW All Out - September 7, 2024
Hoffman Estates, Illinois, USA

What an insane show. This was one of the most visceral 4 hours of wrestling I’ve watched in so long. It started just like I’d have expected, albeit with a much weaker Zero Hour lineup than usual. Thankfully, those matches delivered, and then the main show just felt like it never stopped going full speed, and the crowd never let up either. Pac/Ospreay may have very well been one of the greatest matches I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know how they’d follow it, and they did that with the most brutal women’s match that’s ever taken place on American soil. Finally, we get to the last two segments, the BCC turn on Danielson with the plastic bag, and then Swerve/Hangman try to murder each other inside the cage. Once again, I can’t think of anything this visceral I’ve watched in so long. I did not feel good after watching this wrestling show despite my rating for it. I felt uneasy, maybe even a little queasy, but also a little sad because this was probably a bit of a peak. We won’t see anything like Hangman/Swerve for a long, long time. We might have more women’s street fights as they’ve become a bit of a tradition, but they won’t live up to Kris vs Willow.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Will Ospreay vs Pac

Show of the Week: AEW All Out
Match of the Week: Adam Page vs Swerve Strickland

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Non-Wrestling

Legion (S03E04-S03E08)
July 5 - August 12, 2019

The last episodes of Legion were very entertaining. My fear of the rushed plot was a little true, but overall, I think it turned out good enough to overlook that. The ending was probably as satisfying as reasonably possible, and we got a rendition of “Mother” by Pink Floyd in the finale so I can’t ask for much else. This is a “what could have been” show, but the three seasons we got were still worthwhile themselves. I wouldn’t exactly recommend it specifically if you’re a fan of this comic book character (kinda don’t like him myself though), but just as a standalone show, it’s pretty good.

One Piece (S03E13-S04E29
December 2, 2001 - August 11, 2002)

I watched another 30ish episodes of One Piece this week. We’ve moved from a snowy island to a desert island and one of our first major arcs has started. Luffy is working to defeat the Baroque Works organization and their leader Crocodile, but first, he has to stop the Kingdom of Alabasta from breaking into civil war as part of Crocodile’s plans. Good stuff, a few major battles, and a long arc that doesn’t move too fast.

The New Mutants
August 28, 2020

This was hilariously bad. Compared to Dark Phoenix, I think this was a worse movie easily. There were transitions from scene to scene that had me confused about what just happened because of the editing, which is stuff I tend to only notice if it’s really bad. However, I wasn’t as mad at the portrayal of these characters, probably because I wasn’t ever a big fan of most of them in the comics. So this was mostly just comedy to me, and I was laughing from the opening line because I had no idea this movie started with “Inside of you there are two wolves…” and once that was said, I was already losing it. I do not recommend this, but it was short and I can’t say I wasn’t entertained.

Chopper's Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals/Dream Soccer King
March 2, 2002

This is the third One Piece movie I’ve seen so far, and much like the others, I didn’t find anything worthwhile while watching. The Crew being more established together made it a bit more fun than the previous so far, so that was a plus. But overall, this was 100% skippable if you’re watching the series. I also watched the short that was aired with the movie in theaters, it was fun. Luffy dreams he’s playing a soccer game with other pirates as this was around when Japan hosted won. Good, topical extra content.

Secret Invasion (S01E01 - S01E06)
June 21, 2023 - July 26, 2023

I thought this was okay. It had some good points, and I liked the performances in it, but I think that makes it even more disappointing how convoluted the plot ended up being. Like a lot of these Disney+ Marvel shows, I was enjoying the ride right up until the end, and then I felt like they just threw out all the spy and intrigue for kinda meh action and swerves. Watch for Nick Fury maybe, nothing else. I had much higher hopes, but by the time I finally watched, I’d heard how disappointing it was, so with that already in mind I wouldn’t say it was any worse than I expected at least.

I Am Groot (S02E01 - S02E05)
September 6, 2023

There's not much to recommend here, they’re just five shorts around three minutes each. They’re fun and cute, I don’t get why there’s only so few when they’re so short.

Loki (S02E01 - S02E05
October 5, 2023 - November 2, 2023)

I didn’t quite finish season 2 of Loki yet as I have the finale remaining, so this is a bit of an incomplete review, but I loved this season just like the first. The dynamic between all of the characters might be even better this point around. The plot is pretty insane even for modern Marvel, but I thought they did everything to make it work, and laid down some good groundwork for Deadpool and Wolverine.

UFC Fight Night: Burns vs. Brady - September 7, 2024
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

The UFC returned to the Apex this week for an under-the-radar card, which most non-PPV shows in the Fall tend to be with football dominating. This was a good card though outside of a disappointing main event which I can’t believe how often happens. The undercard was very exciting with some finishes in competitive fights. Then the main card was also going well if not quite as exciting until the semi-main event women’s fight which was also awarded fight of the night (by UFC and me). Then the main event was fine, but it was the first fight with multiple stoppages for fouls and just overall, did not live up to the fights that preceded it.

 

[Chris]

The week of September 8, 2024 - September 14, 2024 saw NJPW return to touring and CMLL celebrate it's 91st Anniversary show. I was able to keep up with all the NJPW tour shows this week, sadly the last two didn't have English commentary live, but that's becoming less and less of a problem. I watched what will in all likelihood be the only Lucha Libre show I review this year since I didn't watch a single TripleMania, but the CMLL Anniversary show was a lot of fun and I have a month of the Fan Leyenda tier on YouTube now so we'll see. Other highlights this week saw TNA Victory Road which was a good special for the company, and a very good week of wrestling TV with WWE having an abnormally strong week stacking everything on USA. I also watched UFC 306 at Sphere, finished a few more MCU properties, and the first major arc in One Piece.

NJPW Road to Destruction: Night 2 - September 8, 2024
Korakuen Hall
Tokyo, Japan
This felt like such a waste of a show, and a waste of English commentary compared to later ones at the very least. Outside of the main event between Cobb and Tsuji, which was excellent, there wasn’t anything on the undercard worth watching at all. Everything felt like a complete house show, with no stories advanced for future title matches with anything meaningful, just people going through the motions. The main event wasn’t enough to save the show, especially limited to only being 15 minutes by the TV title, but I would still recommend checking it out.

Rating: BAD
Match of the Night: Jeff Cobb vs Yota Tsuji

NJPW Road to Destruction: Night 3 - September 9, 2024
Korakuen Hall
Tokyo, Japan
Night 3 of the Destruction tour was much better than the previous night. Outside of the usual House of Torture nonsense, the undercard was engaging. Like the previous night, the main event was by far the best part of the show however, and this time it was an absolute classic. I don’t think I’d give Henare vs Hiromu much in the way of Match of the Year consideration, but I wouldn’t judge anyone that did. It was such a great clash of styles, and Hiromu especially was on another level. I wsa disappointed he lost again only for Henare to be challenged by Shingo. That match will be great, but we’ve seen it so many times already, and Hiromu is still stuck where he’s been.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: HENARE vs Hiromu Takahashi

WWE Monday Night Raw - September 9, 2024
Scotiabank Saddledome
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
This was another good Raw. It’s starting to hit a really good stride in a bit of a formulaic approach, so I’m getting even more curious how the switch back to two hours, and then the switch to Netflix messes up any of the status quo. But for now, it’s still working. Both the opener and main events were very good matches, and what was in between wasn’t anything special, that’s when the segments shined. Gunther and Sami’s feud again stole the show for me, and the involvement of Bret Hart helped a lot this week. Drew McIntyre cut another good promo to continue the feud with Punk off-screen this week as well, and both Judgement Day feuds continued to heat up.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Wyatt Sicks vs American Made
Segment of the Night: Bret Hart/Gunther/Sami Zayn promo

WWE NXT - September 10, 2024
WWE Performance Center
Orlando, Florida, USA
This was one of the better NXT shows in the past few weeks. I’d almost call it a return to form to the peak they were having this summer, and it’s great timing going into the CW debut. Trick vs Pete ended up being a great short term feud, assuming it ends with the last man standing match this week. It did everything it was supposed to in order to build Trick back up to hopefully win the belt on the CW debut. Likewise, Giulia had a fun debut. I was a fan of Chelsea being her first opponent, maybe she can convince all the other girls that the knee doesn’t hurt that bad. Of course, the surprise of The Bloodline appearing, which I have to assume was a last minute addition with Trey Miguel’s injury was the cherry on top of an already good show. It wasn’t needed at all, but when you have a last minute title match get canceled, what better way than to make up for that than sending out Jacob Fatu.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Pete Dunne vs Trick Williams
Segment of the Night: Duke Hudson pre-match promo

NJPW Road to Destruction: Night 4 - September 11, 2024
Sendai Sun Plaza Hall
Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
Another solid outing for New Japan, following the similar formula of the previous shows with the one main event title match carrying the show. Thankfully, this undercard saw a pretty major development of Sanada pinning Zack Sabre Jr to set up what’s hopefully Zack’s first IWGP title defense in England. The main event was still the easy match of the night though with a great showing for Douki and Taiji Ishimori. This one will probably fly under the radar, but it was still one of the top matches of the week. Also, I would be a complete failure if I didn’t mention how great it was to see Taka Michonoku in a competitive singles match against Francesco Akira.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: DOUKI vs Taiji Ishimori

AEW Dynamite - September 11, 2024
Rupp Arena
Lexington, Kentucky, USA
This was a chaotic Dynamite to follow All Out, which I thought was fitting after how the PPV left us. For once, the in-ring was overshined by the promos, which might be why the episode felt as odd as it did looking back. Hangman Page and Jon Moxley (multiple times) were the obvious stars coming off the PPV. I’m also a big fan of the Grand Slam matches even if the way we go there feels like some plans got switched around. I think my one major criticism there is the Nigel match is non-title which I didn’t realize on the broadcast. I get why I think, but he’s losing anyway so why not would be my argument. In-ring wise this was a bit average for Dynamite, which means we still got one crazy match in Sammy Guevara vs Ricochet. The main event Gauntlet was fun too, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the singles gimmick. Moment of the night was the Outrunners pop.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Ricochet vs Sammy Guevara
Segment of the Night: Jon Moxley promo following AEW All Out

Ring of Honor Wrestling - September 12, 2024
Esports Stadium Arlington
Arlington, Texas, USA
It really feels like we’re just getting the excess of the Arlington tapings now, and once Collision wrapped up, they stopped taping anything with any real angle attached to it for the solo Ring of Honor tapings. That said, despite most of this show being squashes or extended squashes, the main event of Lio Rush vs Rocky Romero was still very good, and I have to shoutout Ian’s commentary getting it over even more too. Outside of that, I think Ari Daivari and Sammy Guevara was the only other competitive match, even the others that got longer time were just extended squashes. At least I enjoy the people getting the squash wins, but it was about an hour and a half of them tonight then a couple competitive matches.

Rating: BAD
Match of the Night: Lio Rush vs Rocky Romero

TNA Impact - September 12, 2024
Old Forester's Paristown Hall
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
I didn’t think this was that great of a go-home show for Victory Road, but as a standalone episode of Impact it was still decent. The best build was for Josh Alexander and Joe Hendry with a great segment from them. But otherwise, I didn’t think there was any special action or promos during this episode. The Hardys vs System main event felt like it was just there, and the Hardys won clean despite the System challenging for the titles the night after which was odd even in hindsight.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: ABC vs First Class
Segment of the Night: Joe Hendry/Josh Alexander segment

TNA Victory Road - September 13, 2024
Boeing Center at Tech Point
San Antonio, Texas, USA
I thought this was one of the better TNA specials of the year, maybe even as good or better than some of the PPVs themselves. Outside of the Steph De Lander segment which replaced the scheduled match with an atrocious crowd reaction to her announcing she couldn’t wrestle due to her neck needing surgery, all the matches that actually took place delivered. Odd title changes aside, Mike Bailey vs Zachary Wentz was awesome, one of TNA’s top matches this year. The other two hot feuds in Nemeth/Moose and Hendry/Alexander both delivered as well with the shocking finish of Hendry tapping out Alexander going over huge. The crowd was really good all night outside of the reaction to Steph as mentioned prior. It was even evident as early as the pre-show.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Mike Bailey vs Zachary Wentz

WWE SmackDown - September 13, 2024
Climate Pledge Arena
Seattle, Washington, USA
SmackDown had an excellent return to the USA Network this week. In some ways, what we predicted happened as Roman did show up, but I don’t think many expected Cody to beat Solo completely clean in the cage first. I thought that was a nice surprise and resulted in a much better cage match than I was expected. This match and the segments relating around it that followed felt like half the show, but everything went over great. This feels like the hottest thing in wrestling again, just as hot as Cody chasing was earlier this year. Outside of the Bloodline saga, the Kevin Owens and Randy Orton stuff was great, and Carmelo/Andrade killed it again. The only thing that was weak was basically everything about the Michin/Piper/Chelsea angle, I hope that picks up.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Cody Rhodes vs Solo Sikoa
Segment of the Night: Cody Rhodes/Roman Reigns/Bloodline closing show segment

AEW Rampage - September 13, 2024
Rupp Arena
Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Just about as bang average of a Rampage as you’ll get this week. Konosuke Takeshita continues to be the star of the show, but this week’s main event against Action Andretti wasn’t as blow away as some of the previous he’s had. Roderick Strong vs Beef was a bit of a Dark Horse of a match, it got more time than most people probably expected with how unknown Beef still is, but I think it’s a good sign he’s getting on AEW with this act that started on ROH just a few weeks ago already, at least for him.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Action Andretti vs Konosuke Takeshita
Segment of the Night: Outrunners Vignette

CMLL 91st Anniversary Show
Arena Mexico
Mexico City, Mexico
I believe this is the first CMLL show I’ve watched in full since they’ve been on this hot streak again, as opposed to just watching the single matches weeks later. First off, great show and atmosphere overall. I was familiar with most of the talent, so nothing really surprised me, but I still thought Mascara Dorada and Titan were on another level than everyone outside of maybe the 4-way workers. Speaking of the 4-way, it was crazy good, an easy Match of the Year candidate. Euforia was actually someone I wasn’t as familiar with going in, and I was still emotionally invested by the end when he unmasked. Already being such a big Hechicero fan made the match even better for me too, I can’t recommend it enough. And on that note, I definitely understand why people were upset Mistico vs Chris Jericho main evented over it. I didn’t think the match was that bad myself, but it had no business closing the show after that 4-way, and I thought Orange Cassidy, who’s involvement earlier in the show as great, making the save to close out this PPV for a b-tier AEW feud was unnecessary. I don’t think people would think the match was as bad if it was just the semi-main, but it’s not much I can really defend otherwise. I would just stear clear of anyone saying it ruined the entire show, because that’s doing a disservice to the workers even more as this show was really good.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Esfinge vs Euforia vs Hechicero vs Valiente

NJPW Road to Destruction: Night 5 - September 13, 2024
Noboribetsu City General Gymnasium
Noboribetsu, Hokkaido, Japan
What is it with the weekend shows being worse than the weekday ones with way less fanfare? In fairness to this show, it was always advertised as being more comedy oriented with the Ranbo, and the 6-man tags main eventing anyway, but even looking at it with those eyes, this was hard to get through without Walker Stewart’s commentary to pass the time. The Ranbo itself took up most of the time and was fine for the most part, I liked the cameos and the actual action by the full-time guys was good when it happened. Outside of that, it was just your basic tour matches between factions though. The United Empire vs LIJ series continued to be a better one on this tour, but that match itself wasn’t anything special. The main event was Tanahashi vs House of Torture. It’s been going on all day, we got the same thing we usually do except this time Yano got a pin which was cool I guess. And they’re running it back again in two weeks I saw.

Rating: BAD
Match of the Night: United Empire vs Los Ingobernables de Japon

AEW Collision - September 14, 2024
Nutter Center
Dayton, Ohio, USA
I feel like this was an obviously taped Collision as the more we have the more you can really see the distinction vs when they’re live. In some cases, the taped ones have positives as I feel the editing and production is usually a lot more crisp, which was the case for this episode. The downside is there’s usually just not as many stars, and it’s hit or miss whether the matches booked overperform enough to bring the episode over the top. The main event delivered exactly as I thought it would have along with The Conglomeration and Yuka/Deeb. My big shoutout has to go to Wheeler Yuta this week though. His match against Anthony Henry was fine, but the way he sold what happened to Danielson in both his promo and the match was absolutely outstanding. He couldn’t have gotten the bag incident over more.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: FTR vs Grizzled Young Veterans
Segment of the Night: Wheeler Yuta pre-match promo

Show of the Week: WWE SmackDown
Match of the Week: Esfinge vs Euforia vs Hechicero vs Valiente

***********************************

Non-Wrestling

UFC 306: O'Malley vs. Dvalishvili - September 14, 2024
Sphere
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
What an insane show. The Sphere setup was on such a higher level of anything I’ve ever seen. I had no idea how it’d translate to TV, but I didn’t expect it to look so good. They have to go back even if Dana said they never would, it was just too good. I need to see wrestling at this venue shot the same way. And on top of that, the fights tonight were insane. It wasn’t quite as many total as the prelims were a lot shorter, but the action felt nonstop which is pretty rare for UFC. The Zellhuber/Ribovics fight was a legitimate fight of the year contender, and between the presentation and action delivering, this is probably easily UFC’s best show of the year. I don’t think they can top it.

Loki S02E06
November 9, 2023
I loved this finale of Loki. I raved over the rest of the season last week, but this episode was the best yet. They handled the ridiculous plot well, and Tom Hiddleston's performance was incredible. I hope this isn’t the last we see of him, and without spoiling anything about the ending I don’t think it will be.

The Marvels
November 7, 2023
The Marvels had its faults, but it was a lot of fun most of the time. The comedy was excellent, especially Kamala Khan’s character. It was the film's best part for me, with the weakest point being when everything got serious. The villain was disappointing, she reminded me of those early MCU villains defeated in one film and never had any substance. I’d still recommend though, I thought the characters were all great. Again, Kamala Khan stole the show, but I enjoyed her family and Nick Fury a ton as well.

What If…? S02E01 - S02E09
December 22, 2023 - December 30, 2023
I liked the second season of What If, especially the second half of it when the episodes started interconnecting more. Someof the early ideas felt a little lazy or rushed, but once we got into Captain Carter’s story, I was sold. Peggy Carter has really been a major constant in the eras of the MCU’s additional content.

Echo S01E01
January 9, 2024
This was a good start to the Echo miniseries. I’m glad they filled me in on exactly how things were left off in Hawkeye because I needed a refresher at this point. I’m not really sure how the past opening will relate to the modern world, and I’m more intrigued by it than what’s happening in present day. Outside of Wilson Fisk and Maya herself, I couldn’t really get into any of the characters, but hopefully that changes as the show goes on.

One Piece S04E30 - S05E08
August 18, 2002 - December 22, 2002)
I finished 18 episodes and one major saga of One Piece this week. The finale to the Alabasta saga and Luffy’s defeat of Crocodile were great, probably the best moment of the show so far, along with the ending of the Civil War and peace being returned to the country. From there, the crew continued their adventure with a new addition, and season 5 has been a bit of a break with more light hearted stories focusing on each crew members before some more issues with the Navy. These aren’t as good as the end of season 4, but it’s a nice change of pace for now until the next big arc begins.

 

[Chris]

This was probably one of the lighter weeks I'll have. There wasn't any major wrestling, and the UFC had a week off. So for this week, we only have the weekly TV shows and I was satisfied with them, wrestling is in a great spot right now. For non-wrestling, I finished my Marvel watch for now as the goal was to get to Deadpool & Wolverine. I'll probably just go back to watching one-off movies while continuing the One Piece project for now.

WWE Monday Night Night Raw - September 16, 2024
Moda Center
Portland, Oregon, USA
This was one of the best under-the-radar Raws of the year. By that, I don’t think anything major happened, but this show was extremely enjoyable and had some good build towards Bad Blood on top. It’s WWE, so the promos were the bigger stories than the wrestling, but we had some good ones this week with Bron/Jey and Punk to open the show. Jey Uso had a great performance himself after I was getting worried he was over-relying on the Yeet. And while he’s feuding with Bron, he’s getting deeper involved in the Judgment Day storyline which had some good advancements during this episode. The matches were all good themselves too, but the obvious standout that you’ve probably heard a ton about already was Bianca Belair vs Iyo Sky. This was a great match, and probably not even their best, but for a random Raw, they killed it.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Bianca Belair vs IYO SKY
Segment of the Night: Bron Breakker/Jey Uso promo

WWE NXT - September 17, 2024
WWE Performance Center
Orlando, Florida, USA
This episode of NXT did a great job building toward the CW debut, but I didn’t think the show itself featured much in the way worth checking out sadly. The Trick Williams/Ethan Page and Giulia/Roxanne Perez matches for the CW debut, but had good build on this show, with CM Punk lending his name to both. The Tony D’Angelo angle took a strange, but compelling turn this week too, and I think it’s one of those things where only he can pull it off because anyone else who tried would end up severely damaging their stock. Match-wise, I wouldn’t normally recommend anything, but it was a slow week in general for once, so my MOTN was Cedric Alexander/Je’Von Evans vs the No Quarter Catch Crew, very good stuff from them.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Cedric Alexander/Je’Von Evans vs No Quarter Catch Crew (Myles Borne/Tavion Heights)
Segment of the Night: CM Punk/Giulia/Roxanne Perez segment

AEW Dynamite - September 18, 2024
Mohegan Sun Arena
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA
Another good episode of Dynamite this week, mostly carried by the second hour this time. The last two matches were nuts, with Ricochet having another good showing against The Beast Mortos, and then the main event trios match delivered just as you’d expect from the names involved. The first half wasn’t bad, but it certainly was dragging. I liked the Orange Cassidy/Chris Jericho match mostly, but I do think it wasn’t the best choice to start. But segment by segment, I liked everything. Hangman Page continued to be the MVP of the company with another great promo to set-up the dream match upcoming with Jeff Jarrett, and Jon Moxley’s new character is still keeping me interested, though I’m finding it harder to predict what he’s actually up to.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: The Don Callis Family (Konosuke Takeshita/Kyle Fletcher)/Will Ospreay vs The Elite (Kazuchika Okada/Matthew Jackson/Nicholas Jackson)
Segment of the Night: Hangman Page/Jeff Jarrett/Tony Schiavone promo

Ring of Honor Wrestling - September 19, 2024
Denny Sanford Premier Center
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
We’re out of Arlington and back to the basic tapings with Collision I guess. This show was nothing, thankfully all the nothing was good, but I can’t believe how uneventful it manages to be. I feel like I repeat myself most weeks, but as usual, the matches that got some time were good for what they were. The squashes were good too for the most part, but I’m annoyed with how there wasn’t any follow-up on Athena, anything to do with Mark Briscoe (that’s not new), or even anything with Judge and Lee Johnson possibly forming a partnership a couple of weeks ago.

Rating: BAD
Match of the Night: Dark Order (Alex Reynolds/Evil Uno) vs Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara

TNA Impact - September 19, 2024
Boeing Center At Tech Port
San Antonio, Texas, USA
This was a solid episode of Impact. I wasn’t completely invested in some things, but JDC and Mike Santana had an excellent Texas Death Match. They did that stipulation justice and then some, and I don’t care what reservations anyone might have about Fandango, check that match out. I’m still enjoying the Hardys involvement as well, I think they’re doing a legacy act well and it just works in TNA because, with their roster, the Hardys are still believable as top guys too. Happy to see Josh Alexander isn’t straight-up gone after the Joe Hendry loss, and I’m still interested in where he goes now.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: JDC vs Mike Santana
Segment of the Night: Frankie Kazarian/Joe Hendry/Nic Nemeth segment

WWE SmackDown - September 20, 2024
Golden 1 Center
Sacramento, California, USA
I liked this episode of SmackDown, but I do think without Roman there live it lacked some. I know he obviously won’t be there every week, but sometimes they make up for it and sometimes it’s just not quite as good. But that said, he did still have the cinema-style segment with Cody Rhodes which was very unique and they performed well. I like how they’re treating Roman and Cody teaming up so far, and Kevin Owens was able to carry that feud himself because he’s such a pro this week too with his segments. For the other angles, Andrade vs LA Knight was good, and a great choice of opener. The women’s match due to the stipulations was a little wonky at times, but I liked how they ended up going about it too. My biggest criticism is still why are they doing this to Vinci. Two weeks of this, and he’s not more over, but we’ll see. It is just a low-card act, all things considered, I just like the guy.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Andrade vs LA Knight
Segment of the Night: Cody Rhodes/Roman Reigns face-to-face

AEW Rampage - September 20, 2024
Mohegan Sun Arena
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA
This was your average Rampage episode. It didn’t have anything eventful, but I liked the matches, and unlike ROH, I cared about all of the segments even though they’re lower card acts. While I’m not happy the Jericho/Conglomeration feud is continuing, Mark Briscoe vs Bryan Keith was exactly what I wanted. I loved the further developments with Yuta, and I thought Harley Cameron and Shida had a solid match, though I find it odd that Jamie Hayter is currently on the Rampage beat with Saraya until they have their actual match. I’m still not sure what they ever do with Kip Sabian from it, but the main event benefited a lot from it being a backdrop of the 4-way, and Nick Wayne had a great performance to win.

Rating: DECENT
Match of the Night: Bryan Keith vs Mark Briscoe

AEW Collision - September 21, 2024
MassMutual Center
Springfield, Massachusetts, USA
I really liked this episode of Collision. It’s still very much in a B show spot, but at least when the shows are live, it’s probably the best B show format you’re ever gonna get with two hours. I’d go as far as to say this was one of the better Collisions of the year, but I’ll admit I didn’t look back at any previous cards to see if I’d still believe that. The Bunkhouse Brawl match to open the show was insane, and Dustin Rhodes continues to have a 2024 no one could have expected. The main event all-star tag was a lot of fun too, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Rush get the pin this time. The star of the show was unquestionably Nigel McGuiness, though. His promo to end the show was 15 years of greatness all put into one. We’re so lucky he’s getting this chance after all these years.

Rating: GOOD
Match of the Night: Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs Undisputed Kingdom (Matt Bennett/Mike Taven)
Segment of the Night: Nigel McGuiness promo

Show of the Week: WWE Monday Night RAW
Match of the Week: The Don Callis Family (Konosuke Takeshita/Kyle Fletcher)/Will Ospreay vs The Elite (Kazuchika Okada/Matthew Jackson/Nicholas Jackson)

***********************************

Non-Wrestling

Echo S01E02 - S01E05
January 9, 2024
I finished the final episodes of the Echo miniseries and it was interesting. Maybe it’s because of how featured Wilson Fisk was, and how they maintained Daredevil continuity, but it felt more like a Netflix Marvel show than a Disney+ one. That said, it wasn’t Daredevil or The Punisher, but those were the overall vibes I got and maybe more on the level of Luke Cage and Iron Fist for comparison. Fisk was the obvious standout, but I did like most of the new characters introduced as the show went along and we saw them. I wouldn’t recommend this for most people, but I think the best reason to watch is because it seems like it’s a going to be a good bridge from Netflix to Disney before the next Daredevil series comes out.

Deadpool & Wolverine
July 22, 2024
This was the second time I’ve seen Deadpool & Wolverine, and I loved it just as much. My original plan was to catch up on everything, and then watch this movie, but I could tell it was going to take too long so I went ahead and watched, I thought for continuity purposes I needed to fit it in again once I got caught up. I’m not going to spend forever on this, I’ve already posted my thoughts in the movie thread, but it’s just phenomenal. The best thing this movie did was give a send-off to the Fox superhero universes when they didn’t have to. I won’t spoil the surprise appearances but just look at the credits scene. They play “Time of Your Life” with clips starting from the first X-Men movie, which Kevin Feige himself worked on and has said there wouldn’t be an MCU without. For a studio that put out probably as many bad as they did good superhero films, the influence they left is still crazy, and it makes me so happy that a movie this great and also successful will be their final legacy.

One Piece S05E09 - S06E06
January 5, 2003 - March 23, 2003
Only 11 episodes of One Piece down this week, but I finished the short season 5 and started the longer season 6. Nothing extremely eventful here, the crew is still going on adventures as they make their way through the Grand Line, but major story points are still just being teased or set up until later in season 6 for now. Once season 6 got started, things already picked up. I think I’m going to like the Sky Island arc a lot.

One Piece The Movie: Dead End no Bōken
March 1, 2003
This felt like the first “real” One Piece movie even though it’s the third one. It was a lot of fun. It helped that it was a complete gimmick for the first half with a death race, but with a twist, since they’re pirates, it was a death race at sea. Afterward, we had a good anime movie battle and resolution, kind of formulaic but very satisfying.

One Piece: Open Upon the Great Sea! A Father's Huge, HUGE Dream!
April 6, 2003
Unlike the last one, this was a TV special that aired only in Japan. It was two episodes in length so about 46 minutes. I enjoyed this as well for what it was. It was a basic standalone adventure, made a lot of fun because I enjoy the characters at this point. The plot was easy, and satisfying enough once we concluded. These TV specials are easy to find now, but if they weren’t, I wouldn’t say you seek it out too hard.