Zack T

It's hard to say. The kid may have thought that if he were nice to MJF, that MJF would be nice to him. Most of the time, the heels will behave that way (at least for kids). But MJF is MJF. Truthfully, I can also say that if it had been me and my son in this situation, my reaction would be based entirely on my son's reaction. If he laughed it off, I'd be able to enjoy it too. But if he took it to heart, I'd have words with MJF about taking it too far on young kids because in that moment, it just became personal. And he'd likely just continue to be MJF to me, which would just rile me up further because I'd KNOW IT and feel he wasn't taking me seriously. Not that I'd try to fight him, I know I'd have 0 shot at that. But ANYWAY, my point is I can totally see from the dad's perspective. Seeing someone be that rude to your kid and hurt their feelings hits you deep, even if you know it's meant to be entertainment. I think Cody's reaction was the best one he could give. They want to support MJF being his character, but they don't want to alienate fans. Spreading the word like he did via that public announcement (Twitter counts!) that MJF will be MJF should hopefully help set the precedent for everyone to maybe not bring the little ones to MJF. But he also offered the apology to the family, and that was classy of him.

It's Vince McMahon's fault that WrestleMania is in as chaotic a state as it's in. Obviously he's not responsible for Covid-19, but he is responsible for how he decided to handle it. From what I've read, literally everyone in WWE didn't want to move forward with WrestleMania in this circumstance, it's entirely Vince pushing it forward. As a result, people like Roman or Lashley are getting screwed over because they're either in quarantine or don't feel safe exposing themselves to the risk. I mean, Roman Reigns was set to face Goldberg in a mega main event where you gotta believe Roman was set to win the title. Instead, he's backed out of it due to his immunosystem deficiency due to Leaukemia - And yet Vince is still moving forward, despite a main event being changed. I just dunno. It's a tough situation all around, but I feel like people would've appreciated it more if we could've just settled down and delayed Mania until we can gather for it again. Alternatively, if we could just do Mania, use the Raw/NXT/Smackdown after to tie things up and take a break til this is all over, that'd be a good way too but I doubt that'll happen. AEW reportedly wishes they could've at least gotten to Blood and Guts, they would've done that and then took a break. But unfortunately, just couldn't quite make it. Dang virus.

AEW deals are not on the same level as WWE, primarily because WWE deliberately began signing people to much higher contracts in 5 year exclusive deals to make sure they don't go to AEW. AEW's got good financial backing, they do take good care of their talent. A big difference is that AEW wrestlers are actually employed by AEW and not considered "independent contractors" like they are in WWE or other places. That gives them full set of benefits instead of having to take care of that themselves, as well as AEW paying their share of wrestler's taxes like your job does for you. Retirement as well, all that jazz. WWE does take decent care of it's talent, especially when they need surgery/physical therapy or rehab, but they still try to get away with not providing the rest of the stuff. Fyter Fest and Fight For The Fallen are just charity shows and while both of them have some good matches, they're not essential viewing either. Dustin/Cody Rhodes vs The Young Bucks is brilliant though.

Randy's never really done much to begin with, beyond a Superplex or a really flashy RKO. Beyond that, he's a very methodical and paced wrestler. He's good in no DQ situations because he can get wicked with it, and he's good in things where he can be in and out. But he's had extremely few memorable 1 on 1 matches and the few he's had, are arguably more because of who the opponent was. Not saying Randy's a bad wrestler, he's not. He's super well timed, athletic, accurate, safe, and fairly well versed in grappling around and brawling. But his style is just very safe and boring, except for his few flash spots.

Alex Marvez comes from a different sport, I can't remember which one. I agree with you, it felt a lot like he didn't have much knowledge of what he was commentating for. I think he was trying real hard, and I'd imagine by now he knows much better, but I think it was a situation of AEW just pulling in anyone they could. Nah it's cool, I love talking about wrestling <3 You'll come to love all of Jurassic Express, Luchasaurus is great, Jungle Boy is actually quite incredible, and so is little Marko Stunt. Good grief, you wouldn't expect him to be so awesome, but he is.

Punk's done acting, training for his UFC fights, but otherwise kept a fairly low profile. AKA, just living his life, minding his own damn business. He's had a couple 1 off wrestling appearances for his old friends, but he's done those under a mask and they never led to anything more, just little favors. Otherwise, he does 1 or 2 convention appearances a year, and that's basically it.

Matt literally just debuted last week. No, he'll be singles, Jeff is still in WWE and just returned to Smackdown a week or 2 ago. Fite.TV and Bleacher Report have them, yea :D

Revolution was the most recent PPV, that was pretty good. Though honestly, I'd suggest starting with Double Or Nothing, then All Out, then Full Gear, then Revolution. That's the only 4 real PPV's they've done so far. There's also Fyter Fest and Fight For The Fallen that took place between Double Or Nothing and All Out, but those were charity events that had little to no impact on storylines. But they do help you get to know the characters a bit more. But for realsies, start with Double Or Nothing. Cody vs Dustin Rhodes is incredible, Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros is out of this world. Kenny Omega vs Jericho is great. All around it's a really solid show too. You may not be familiar with the rest of the people or even most of them, but that's ok. I was the same way. I know who Cody, Jericho, Dustin Rhodes are, obviously. I knew who Young Bucks and Kenny Omega were by reputation, as well as a couple others. But it only takes about 2 or 3 shows and you'll start to get real familiar with them. You'll also see their growth in terms of commentary and production. Double Or Nothing is literally their first ever live show, and although there's some miscue'd spots and the commentary team could've been better (Mainly Alex Marvez, but thankfully that's the only major PPV he does commentary for I believe, he's a backstage interviewer now) but overall it still looks GREAT. Make sure to watch the Buy In as well. They have a Casino Battle Royal thing. It's basically a mini royal rumble with different entrant rules - They enter in groups of 4 (these groups aren't allies, just all entering at the same time), then 1 final entrant (like a #30 entrant) after these 4 groups have entered. The winner goes on to face the winner of Jericho/Omega for the first ever AEW World Heavyweight Championship match at All Out. The battle royal is real good fun.

I just recently read that WWE reportedly still is butthurt about CM Punk and have absolutely no desire to sign him as a wrestler at this point. CM Punk, on the other hand, seems pretty apathetic about it. I think if they offered him a boatload of money and a good measure of creative freedom, he'd probably be down for that. But since they likely wouldn't do that, he's content to just do what he's doing.

I am a full-on introvert in person, so this staying at home business mostly is awesome for me. But it does make it harder to keep myself in the proper schedule-routine.

I work for the federal government, the courts system specifically. While our federal courts are still trying to poke along even if only at a snail's pace by doing 1 or 2 small hearings a day, we're all mostly working from home. For some of us, that means we can't even really do anything at home because we don't have access to the systems we need access to. But that's a known factor and our health is being prioritized over efficiency at the moment. We're being told to just do what we can. My job is pretty awesome. I have Thursdays and Fridays completely off to care for my son during this crisis period while the schools are closed, and it won't cost any of my own leave I accrue over time. It'll be administrative leave, which in case anyone doesn't know, that means paid time off approved by the head of the division for special occasions. Like random office closures or whatnot. And that's not just for me, it's for everyone in my office. My boss made a point to tell everyone that she wants us to be safe, be healthy, and that she'll accommodate our needs. I'm very fortunate to be taken care of. I wish everyone was :(

It's a highly highly highly contagious virus that seems to have the highest mortality/problem rates among the very old or the very young or those with compromised immune systems. The idea is the shut things down BEFORE the infection rate is nearly everyone. That's called prevention. Better to deal with that, than wait a few weeks for everyone to get infected AND THEN shut down on top of that. If we try to control social meets now, we can slow down the spread. That being said, yea there's a lot of people wildly overreacting and panicking. This craze on buying everything in bulk like the apocalypse is upon us is stupid. Walmarts and Sam's Clubs doing 500,000 dollars in sales every single day right now, that's how crazy some people are going. Closing schools is wildly inconvenient, but it makes sense. Kids pass germs along real quick and easy. All it takes is 1 person randomly coming into contact with someone else who has it and boom, the school will be infected within a couple days.

I don't mean to make it sound like I'm trying to convince you that marriage is the right answer, but my way of thinking is that we have to have a reason for it. Saying "I just don't want to!" is a simple explanation and valid. But that's such a big decision and I feel like your boyfriend or any others you see may want a more detailed reason than that. Simply saying "I don't wanna!" comes across like a parent saying "BECAUSE I SAID SO!" with no rhyme or reason. If you can't understand the "why", you won't be able to accept the decision very easily, if at all, because it won't make sense. Even if they don't agree, if you have more reason, it makes it a lot easier to live with. My main point in this particular post is that it can be helpful to further explain/detail exactly why you don't want to get married. Not just "I want my freedom", but what exactly that means to you. Yes, "Freedom" makes some sense, but if your boyfriend already looks at you as though you currently do have freedom, saying something like that may be very confusing and even lead him to believe you don't want to be with him at all, or don't take the relationship very seriously. There's absolutely nothing wrong with your desire to not have kids, not get married. I think my main issue is that I don't see the connection between getting married and not being free. Obviously it's gonna depend on who you spend your life with, you could find someone that sucks your free time or drags you down...but then again if they're that way, why would you want to be with them in the first place even before marriage? Again, not trying to bash your choices, it's 100% ok for you to make those choices and live however you choose. I'm sorry if I sound real conflicted or confusing. I'm trying to walk a line between encouraging deeper reflection and communication about your reasonings, while also trying to make sure to reaffirm that you're not wrong for wanting to live your life how you want to, or come across like I'm trying to convince you to change your mind.

What obligations are you referring to? I didn't know you were Catholic though, so that adds a good bit of context here and gives a bit more reason for you to be feeling like you do. Religion, especially Christianity and Catholicism, puts a lot of emphasis on the dutiful woman/wife. BUT if he's an athiest, then he likely wouldn't be feeling the same way about those obligations you think would be enacted. Changing your last name, for example. I can't say how he feels about it, but I personally think it's unnecessary and if you don't wanna do it, then don't. I told my ex wife NOT to change her name to mine, because I felt her maiden name was a lot prettier (Quintanilla compared to Teachnor). She still did, but only because she wanted to. Is it perhaps that you feel you'd be expected to have children? Maybe become a stay at home mom or wife? I'm struggling to come up with more examples, and that's probably because I'm a man and therefor don't have the same personal viewpoint and experience that you do about this. But I am genuinely curious what you think would be expected of you, and whether those expectations/obligations are things that have actually been talked about or if they're what you assume. I've cheated before too, although that's not what led me to polyamory. Cheating and polyamory are not the same thing, after all. Cheating is breaking of trust, whereas in polyamory you go into that already knowing that there's not the same type of exclusiveness that there is in monogamy, so it's a very different situation. In fact, I'd say that actually hurt me moving forward because of all the guilt I had about it for a very long time. Still not proud of it, never will be, but I think after 5 years I've finally put it behind me. Oh, I do try to be as open/honest in real life. It's perhaps a little more difficult when you're face to face with someone, but I've found that it's just the most effective way for me to communicate. It may be awkward at first and uncomfortable as hell, but the end result is often worth it.

Yea I'm all current with AEW. Jake Roberts return was freakin great, didn't see that coming but boy howdy that was wonderful. It's really telling, the differences in the crowd. Remember back to January 2014 when Jake Roberts returned on Raw Old School? The fans in attendance barely reacted for him at all. It's like they didn't remember, or they just didn't care. But that's what you get with a lot of WWE fans these days, more and more of the deeper-loving fan base is leaving because the product sucks overall (despite having great talented wrestlers) and what's left behind is a bunch of kids and casual fans who may be vaguely aware who Jake Roberts is, but don't care. Then, fast forward to 2020 and Jake Roberts comes out on AEW and the roof explodes. THAT'S the reception he deserved. Cody's neck tattoo is real, by all accounts. Give it some time. We'll end up getting used to it. I think pushing Jericho has made a lot of sense, because he was legitimately their biggest starpower name at the beginning of AEW. Now you could argue that Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega are up there too, maybe even Cody, but the problem is Jon Moxley would be unfamiliar to the lapsed fan that AEW would hope to draw in - They'd maybe know him as Dean Ambrose. Kenny might be known by reputation but heck even a super fan like me hadn't actually seen him perform until Double Or Nothing last year. So keeping the focus on Jericho for just a bit longer feels right to me. Don't worry, he's got maybe 1 last title match for now and then he'll either truly take some time off, or he'll feud with someone else. But for now, I think the booking is logical. Jericho forms the Inner Circle to help him dominate AEW and when he finally loses the title, the Inner Circle gets even more vicious because they want that title back. It's logical that they wouldn't just back off and be like "Aw shucks he got the best of us, I guess we'll try to do something else". The women's division is a work in progress, I agree. But how can you not like Riho or Britt Baker at the very least? Throw Nyla Rose and Kris Statlander and Hikaru Shida in there too, because all 5 of them have had some pretty kick ass matches, especially Riho and Nyla. They need more top talent women for sure - Big Swole and Kris are both good, but they're also still fairly inexperienced and are gonna get better over time. Past that, the biggest thing hurting them I think is that they want to rely a lot on the women from Japan - Logical, because they're very very good. It's problematic though because that means they have to compete with Starrdom for talent-time. But as we've seen, that does lead to us having a bit of a rotating roster and I think that's interesting and ultimately beneficial. Riho is a big splash every time she's there cause we don't get to see her quite as frequently, and she over-delivers every time she's there so it's always great to see her. But it also means we have people like Emi Sakura, Yuka Sakazuki, Bea Priestley, and so on all taking a few months over there, then a few months in AEW, and back and forth like that. I think that'll help keep their characters fresh in both promotions, as well as probably provide the talent with a nice change of pace every so often as well. If they start hitting a wall in 1 place, send them to the other and see what other cool stuff we can do, what they can learn. By exchanging talent like that, the women will keep on growing as they're exposed to both styles of wrestling and different opponents and talents in both places. Hopefully they can really start setting the women's division into place, get them some major stories going like the other divisions have, and it'll be good.

George didn't write the Game Of Thrones TV show, it was written by David Benoiff and D.B. Weiss. RR Martin wrote 1 episode in each of the first 4 seasons, but then he completely stopped to focus more on writing the books. He did produce it, which means he had some creative authority to approve or disapprove ideas. As I understand it, the show tries to stay true to the books in most cases but some things are changed, either because it's better for TV or just because the writers had a different idea. Also, the last couple seasons passed Martin so while I'm sure he gave them a direction, they're the ones who decided what to do. Might be why the final season feels so drastically different than the rest. Anyway, books are 99.99% of the time gonna be better than the show or the movie. I like books being translated into tv series better, as you get a lot more screen time to fill it out. A movie, you get 2.5 hours tops usually. A TV show, even just a simple 10 episode one like Game Of Thrones is, you get about 10 hours to work with and you can fit so much more in. But even still, not everything makes it. Also, don't read them out of order. It's so easy to get them in order, don't mess up your story experience by jumping around randomly.

Have you ever looked into polyamory? Your thoughts about not wanting to be tied to 1 person forever or being concerned it'll eventually lead to cheating make me pause for a minute and think that perhaps a traditional monogamous relationship isn't what's best for you. That's not to say Poly is necessarily the right answer either, just a thought you might like to research a little bit and see how the idea of it feels to you. But to put that as succinctly as possible, polyamory is the practice of having multiple ongoing romantic relationships at the same time, doing so in an honest and open way. A lot of folks work it out so that they have 1 primary partner they live with (whether that's just a long term relationship they have no plans on ending or an actual spouse they've married), and have 1 or 2 others that usually don't live with them. Poly is not typically about short flings, but it does allow that kind of flexibility that maybe you're only with someone for awhile before your lives change to a point where it no longer works out to be together (Maybe they move, for example). It also allows you to experience different people, different relationships, without sacrificing the one(s) you already have. It kind of makes me think that if you're concerned about cheating, perhaps you've had a lot of unhappy examples of marriage and long term relationships in your life. Maybe you need to think a bit more about what you want for the long term - If you don't want to be attached to any single person forever, perhaps you should start off by telling them that. As I understand it, the vast majority of people out there are dating with the intent of finding a forever-person. The way you said it, it sounds like you don't exactly have an end-date in mind but that you also aren't wanting to assign a sense of permanence to the relationship either. Maybe that's a commitment issue, maybe that's a personality trait, but regardless of what it is, it's probably gonna be a good idea for you and anyone you get involved with to know what to expect - that anything with you has an expiration date because you say you don't want to be tied down forever. Saying you don't want to get married is NOT the same thing as saying you don't want to be tied down. Maybe you don't want to actually have an expiration date, but you think adding a wedding ring to the mix will change the dynamic and make you feel trapped. If that's all it is, then hey that's fine just don't get married. Just don't get so stuck on the idea that marriage is bad and ruins things that you let it ruin what you have. I mean, if you're really happy with the guy otherwise and have been for a long time, maybe you should try and objectively evaluate what you think might change if you did get married, why, and also TALK TO HIM about it and see what he thinks. Even if it is a difference of opinion, it can help you both understand each other better.

I really appreciate that, I had no idea some folks liked it enough to read them regularly. I'll try to get back to writing them weekly. It does take a bit of time, probably about half an hour to 40 minutes is what it took me to write that Revolution review. But it just flies by because I'm reliving it in my mind, trying to remember all the stuff I wanted to point out. I also type at over 100 WPM, so that's helpful. I particularly aim to bring up things that maybe aren't what a regular fan would immediately think of, or even a more knowledgeable fan. Not that I'm a genius :p I just have been watching over 20 years at this point and would've gone into pro wrestling myself if I hadn't of had back surgery at 18 years old.

Ugh Mice. Mice have found their way into my house too. Not sure how many, I've only ever seen 1 at a time and only 3 separate occasions have I ever even actually seen a mouse. Pretty sporadically too. At least they're good at staying out of sight and out of mind. My ex wife and my girlfriend are both dealing with mice too. My ex wife's apartment occasionally gets 1 or 2 sometimes, my girlfriend had a full on family move in. Caught several mice via traps or her dog too. I don't particularly enjoy cleaning, but I also keep myself in a few light housekeeping habits that make a good bit of difference. I make my bed every morning (Nothing fancy, I just mean pulling the blanket back up so it looks fairly decent), I wash dishes either immediately after using them or within a couple hours, I do laundry every week, and clean my bong every week. I should sweep more, I'm bad about that. I have all hardwood floors. But it also doesn't get bad enough to make me do it often. Just light maintenance like that for a couple minutes at a time here and there does help make it real easy overall.

Lance Archer was originally advertised to debut this week, but plans change. They may have had a different idea about Archer last week and then suddenly had a better one shortly after the announcement. It's fine. I figure Jake Roberts is either Brodie Lee or Lance Archer's manager but it could be someone completely different. Maybe they'll swerve everyone and it'll be for Matt Hardy :eek: Regardless, I really enjoyed Jake's promo. Started off like he was gonna give Cody a grizzled old vet toughen up speech, but then he went full heel and it was glorious. The opening segment was very WWE-esque and that's not necessarily a bad thing, they do need to do storytelling segments like this. But admittedly this one wasn't super great, it went on too long. If they'd shortened it by maybe 5 to 10 minutes even, it would've been cleaner. It dragged on, as much as I enjoy listening to Jericho trash a crowd. I expected the Exalted One to arrive tonight, but "He" did not. Ah well. Makes sense Cabana would get a feel-good win in his AEW in ring debut. That's fine. Once the Exalted One debuts, I imagine Dark Order will be on a winning streak. Also, I LOVE The Dark Order now. I get their music stuck in my head, I love their vibe, I love the mystique. They really turned that team and that gimmick around. Adam Page coming out was absolutely the highlight of the night for me. I was hoping he'd make the reluctant save, but what we got was so much better. I think he tricked the Inner Circle into thinking he was gonna join them what with the tension Page has had with the Bucks and the Elite lately. Good grief, the crowd just loves Adam Page everywhere he goes and that's another dude who's gone from being another "indy" guy to being on FIRE. Adam Page may be AEW World champion within the next year or 2. I would not be surprised if he were to win it this year. At All Out, he didn't feel ready. I'm not saying he's quite ready yet (Though I think he is), we have plenty more journey to fully explore before he gets set on that path. But they're building Page up extremely well and at this point, I'm not sure if he's going to turn on anyone anymore. They could just keep him as he is and let him be that, seems to be working brilliantly. Also, I love the little snippets they put on Adam Page's name graphic. Last week it was "For the love of god give me my own graphic even for just 1 frame" and it displayed for less than 1 second. This week it was "Whooped both their asses". Little touches like that go a long way. QT Marshal has a dad bod and I just can't take the dude seriously with the acrobatics he pulls off. It just looks so weird. But they might be able to do the underdog slightly comedic tag team with him and Dustin, though I'd like better for Dustin. I'd rather him win the tag belts with Cody. Big Swole won a match, I don't even remember her opponent anymore. Swole's getting over though, she's got a presence and charisma. Still not all that great in the ring, but she is functional and can hang when she's got a more experienced opponent in there with her to help guide her. Britt Baker is a gem, heel Baker is absolutely wonderful. Was it just me or did Chuck Taylor seem like he was moving sluggishly during that match? Just seemed like he didn't have as much energy throughout most of it. Maybe it was the elevation, being in CO and all. LOVE how Orange Cassidy stepped up to PAC at the end, and Lucha Bros teaming with PAC makes sense. They've teamed off and on for a few months now and it's finally coalesced. THOUGH I do wonder if maybe we're forming 1 too many trios/stables in AEW. Inner Circle, Dark Order, no more Nightmare Collective but we still have the Elite and the Nightmare Family, Jurassic Express, SCU, Best Friends, and now Death Triangle. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, I just worry that too many teams will dilute the pool so to speak. But so far so good, we'll see. There was some great shots during the commercial break when Best Friends were at ringside. I always love seeing them get those commercial break spots cause they all just go around doing fun stuff with the fans. Cassidy takes pics with people, their props, it's great. Earlier, Brandi and Dustin and QT threw fake apples they had all 3 autographed into the crowd during their commercial break. When Cody was out during commercial break, he introduced a couple camera men to the crowd as well as Doc Samson and some of the clean up ring-crew guys, put over the production crew. The crowd chanted those people's names, it was very endearing. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy, giving appreciation to the unsung heroes that help put these shows together. Great promo by MJF. Especially love that jab about the neck tattoo at the end, really well done. That's a perfect example of how you stay topical without beating something into the ground the way WWE does when they realize something's "hot" or being noticed by the fans that they didn't plan on. We saw A LOT of the Inner Circle and Jon Moxley tonight. So much so that I thought for sure Moxley would leave the night standing tall and send Jericho packing for 60 days, but surprisingly it went the other way. Thank goodness the outside attack didn't send Mox into the dippin dots, they didn't do anything to anyone damn it! But they did hit him with the Shield's triple powerbomb (I wish Jake would've done the OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAH thing for good measure) and instead of bumping fists, they all flipped Mox off. Nice. Darby Allin looked like a star, and I love how he gave himself the hot tag at the end. That dude is FIRE. Him and Sammy seem to have excellent chemistry too. While this episode of Dynamite may not have been as great as last week (Come on guys, we had a 30 minute iron man match last week, nothing's gonna compare), I enjoyed it and we immediately began moving pieces around to set ourselves up for the Blood And Guts (HAH) War Games coming up in a few weeks.

Overall, I think it was about a 7.5/10 type of show. We had a match of the year (Tag title match), we had 3 damn good matches (Cody/MJF, Sammy/Darby, Cassidy/PAC), 2 solidly good matches (Women's and AEW World title matches), and then 2 decent matches (Hager/Rhodes and SCU/Dark Order) plus a nice surprise debut by Colt Cabana. There hasn't been a bad AEW pay per view yet, just like there hasn't been a bad NXT Take Over yet. Loving that trend. Hope they keep it up!

I'm still visiting, albeit sometimes I forget for a few days. I've been posting thoughts about shows less in general (Here, and my other forum). Over at my other forum, I've posted some majorly long ones and ones about the length of Kam's post above and I dunno, I just get tired of it sometimes. Lack of feedback, I guess. I'm putting all this down in writing and it's mostly for myself, but I'm also trying to discuss it with others and see if they agree or disagree with me and how they view it and oftentimes, I just don't get that nearly as much as I'm hoping to and so I don't do it as often. BUT SINCE YOU ASKED AND I'M BORED WITH NOTHING TO DO AT WORK, HERE WE GO. SCU/Dark Order - Didn't see this due to not watching Revolution on Saturday the 29th, I watched it the day after. What I read makes it seem like a quick and easy match, the real story was Colt Cabana and to a lesser extent, Christopher Daniels. I have seen that both on YouTube and on Dynamite this week when they recapped it. I'm glad to see Cabana, I've actually never seen him wrestle outside his brief stint in WWE as Scotty Goldman. Good for him though, he seems like a good dude. Hager/Rhodes - So if you had told us in say, 2013, that we'd get a pay per view match between Jack Swagger and Goldust, I think the collective response would've been "...Why?". However things are different in 2019/2020 AEW and I was looking forward to this one. I didn't expect it to be a 5 star classic, but I did expect it to be better than what it was. Dustin Rhodes has stepped up his game but also has been showing everyone that WWE only ever allowed him to be weird, not great in the ring aside from a couple moments in his WWE run. Unfortunately, Jake didn't really rise to the occasion. He was still essentially the same old Jack Swagger, and while I don't have a problem with him using the same moves (I love the Gutwrench Powerbomb I WISH he'd use that as his primary finisher), he just didn't have much flair for story telling and he was honestly a bit sloppy in his execution. Not as accurate as others his age are, which is odd given that he's MMA fighter. You'd think that'd require him to hone his accuracy on strikes a bit more as the opponent will be actively trying to dodge or counter him. Anyway, it told a fine story, it was functional, it wasn't "bad", just kinda there. Hager winning was the right move, though. Darby/Sammy - OH BOY. This was freakin nuts. I love Darby's recent character work, sort of like a new age Charlie Chaplin in his silent promo's and it's rad. Hopefully they don't force him to remain silent much longer though. Not that he should talk A LOT, but he should be able to talk. Anyway, fantastic match. They went fast and hard throughout the whole thing. Sammy doing that 630 to the outside through a table was one of the craziest things I've ever seen, and he NAILED it. AEW loves their young and somewhat inexperienced wrestlers. Darby is at 5 years, Sammy is at 7. But as we've seen with some guys like Velveteen Dream, youth and being surrounded by the right people helps groom these wrestling prodigy's. Darby needed a big win here, and he got it. Hopefully he goes on and gets another big win after this. Tag Title Match - The first thing that I think of when I think about this match is the very end. Right at the very end, you can hear Justin Roberts announce "30 minutes gone by, 30 minutes remain" and within a minute or 2 of that, the match ends. I remember hearing that announcement going "Wow it's been 30 minutes? I haven't thought about the time or how long this match is going even once". From start to finish, this match delivered and far exceeded my already high expectations for it. You take Adam Page, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks and throw them in a tag match, you're gonna get something good, it'd take a catastrophe for it not to be good. But the story telling they put in before this match to set the stage, and then in the match itself...my god. On 1 hand, you could really feel for Adam Page now that he'd finally expressed his frustrations in that interview last week on Dynamite. "This is the biggest accomplishment of my career so far and you already want to take it away from me!" - That was SO simple, but damn if it doesn't make sense. The Bucks, on the other hand, feel disrespected by Page and that continued in the match. I love the tension they showed, I love how both Omega and Nick Jackson had to pull Page and Matt back at times because both of them got so heated that they were taking things too far. I love how Kenny seemed trapped in the middle between both teams and ended up actually getting caught in the cross-fire, the Bucks didn't give him any mercy after awhile. It was so intense that even Kenny Omega was hesitant to shake hands afterward. This match had absolutely brilliant story telling that allowed you to make up your own mind as to who was in the right and who was in the wrong and even when you had your opinion, you could still understand why the other side was behaving/feeling the way they did and your heart was torn to pieces because you probably loved everyone involved and it was just brilliant. Not just the best match of the night, quite possibly (And dare I say, probably) the best tag match of the year, possibly the best match of any match type. Also, it was great Omega/Page won. I thought they would, it seemed slightly too soon to break them up just yet or end their run. Bucks will be tag champions eventually, no doubt. Women's Title match - Kris Statlander and Nyla Rose had to follow THAT. What do you even do? The crowd is exhausted from going crazy for half an hour straight, and to be honest this match didn't have a ton of build for it. However, Nyla and Kris are both turning heads and they put forth a great match. It started off slow enough that it allowed the crowd time to recover, and later in the match when Kris and Nyla were both getting their stuff in (Like the boop!), the fans had been allowed to rest enough that they came alive yet again. There was some sloppy spots in this match, but nothing that was so badly bungled it took away from it. And to be perfectly honest, I like it when there's a little bit of imperfection. It can make a match feel more like a real fight when things don't look quite so perfect and crisp and clean. Anyway, more young wrestlers getting a chance to shine and they did real well. Kris Statlander's only got slightly less than 3 years wrestling experience and she's already here (You can see her inexperience at times, she's still kind of lost when she's in control and not doing a pre-planned spot, but she's improving). Nyla Rose has more experience, she's around 8 years now, but she's also been in and out doing acting at times. She's more confident and took charge of this match more than Kris did, which was the right call. It was also the right call to have her win and retain, Kris looked great in defeat and that's exactly what you want. MJF/Cody - Similar to the women's match, they played it a bit slow in the start, build anticipation and give the crowd a chance to rest. I thought Cody's entrance started off very well. The live band playing was a cool reveal, Cody coming out with an extended crew was cool. I'm 90% sure Stephen Amell (He played Oliver Queen in Arrow) was among them, and if so they really should've had the camera focus on him just a bit more to take advantage of the "cool celebrity" factor, but they barely showed him and the commentary didn't even mention him, which feels like a missed opportunity. Cody's song probably shouldn't have been played the full length, though. It got a bit awkward about halfway through when it SHOULD'VE ended, but they kept going and the Nightmare Family had to pace around to wait and the crowd kinda stopped reacting to the music, conserving energy for the match itself. Regardless, EXCELLENT match, great emotion, and I also expected MJF to win. There's more to having Cody chase him a bit longer, I think. Regardless, Cody certainly looked like he could've won, but allowed his emotions to cloud his judgment. Excellent. Orange Cassidy/PAC - Jesus. I didn't know what to expect here, but WOW. My 2nd favorite match of the night. I LOVE Orange Cassidy, I LOVE PAC, and I love how the crowd treats Orange Cassidy like he's the biggest star on the planet. It's just wonderful. I legit laughed out loud when Cassidy was rolling away from PAC over and over again, at one point Cassidy looked at his face and laughed and started rolling away again. I actually believed Orange might win for a brief moment there, WELL DONE. Orange Cassidy will eventually casually walk his way into becoming AEW Champion. Moxley/Jericho - I loved this. The match itself was fairly average in terms of the fighting, but there was great psychology and that's more of what you should be looking for from Jericho at this stage in his career. Moxley absolutely was the right person to put the title on. I loved the subplot of Aubrey Edwards refusing to DQ/Count out Jericho and Mox. There's just something about adding that to an important match, that even the ref is willing to bend the rules so that we get a proper decision. Figured that Moxley would lift the eye patch and reveal he actually can see, it got a big pop. That was a cool moment, although it's weird to think about it logically. Why not just lift it up in the beginning? Kinda silly to take all that beating, but it was good in the moment. Love Mox's promo at the end too, especially when they played his music for just a sec and he says "Hey what the f***", I legit laughed out loud again. Little things like that highlight the difference between AEW and WWE. WWE would've given him a script. But the AEW way allowed him to just riff how he wanted and it wasn't always super coherent but it was genuine and that's what mattered most. You could FEEL his energy, his happiness, and the crowd's as well. Great way to end the show.

Benoit was one of my all time favorites too. The current medical opinion seems to be that he was out of his mind at the end of his life. Maybe it was brain damage, maybe it was psychotic break due to depression or other things, but whatever it was, he wasn't his normal self. That doesn't erase what he did, but for me at least, it sort of provides that barrier and distinction that he wasn't in his right state of mind anymore. If he hadn't of killed himself, it's entirely possible he would've been committed to a mental institution. Or wouldn't have done it at all...ugh.

Oh yea I'm still very happy with it. I know that I'm not totally cutting edge, I'd have to get an i9 or Ryzen 9 or Threadripper processor and a 2080 Ti or even a RTX Titan if I really wanted to hit it. But it's not just about being top of the line to me, it's also about cost effectiveness. I'm at the point where I'm about maxed out in terms of a reasonable cost-to-performance ratio. If I wanted to get higher, it'd cost thousands and thousands of dollars and I wouldn't really be getting that much more out of it, so it's not worth it in my mind and I'm not bothered by it. That bleeding edge thing, I experienced that TWICE. 2011 - I have the chance to finally get a new computer built after owning the same one for 7 years. Designed it through Cyberpowerpc.com back then because I didn't trust myself to put it together yet. Unfortunately, this was Feb/March of 2011 so while SATA 6 and USB 3.0 had just come out, they were still too expensive for me to get a motherboard with those capabilities. So I was stuck on SATA 3 and USB 2.0 connections til I build my next computer in 2017. 2017 - I BOUGHT a computer from BestBuy because I had a bestbuy credit card. Bought a decent system, it was an FX-8350 with a GTX 1060 6GB, 128GB SSD and 1TB HD, 16GB Ram. Major upgrade from what I previously had (Phenom X6 1100T with a 560 Ti and GT 430 as dedicated PhysX card, 1 TB regular HD SATA-3, and 8GB of RAM). So at FIRST I was real happy. But about 2 or 3 weeks later, a friend of mine expressed interest in also getting a new PC. I recommended him the one I just bought and went to BestBuy to find him the link, when I discovered all these new "Ryzen" PC's out and I was confused because I hadn't seen those just a couple weeks earlier when I bought mine. Ryzen 1st gen was released like, 2 or 3 weeks after I bought that PC and I was so...frustrated. I ended up selling the BestBuy Computer, somehow I got more for it than I paid (I paid 997, sold it for 1200, got real lucky there) and used that money to build my own computer for the first time. Ryzen 1600x, 16 GB Ram at 3000 MHZ, 250 GB SSD, 1 TB HD, GTX 1070 PNY OC Edition. That's the system I just upgraded from, and I managed to upgrade the GPU from that 1070 to a EVGA 1080 SC model thanks to craigslist. Sold my 1070 after, only cost me 25 bucks in the end to upgrade, woo. Anyway, that Ryzen 1600x system still is rockin. I got it ready for sale, it's wiped clean and only has Overwatch on there to provide a real time example for anyone who wants to buy it from me. Nearly 3 years old and it still gets 120FPS on Ultra settings on a 2K HD Monitor. I'm so proud of it. <3

https://pcpartpicker.com/b/7qD2FT Detailed reasons behind each component, but also most importantly, pictures!