Velonica's World: The Saga Begins Part 1

It is time for me to cover my thoughts on the wrestling shows from the past week or so, I watched a lot of wrestling so this is gonna be a bit hard to narrow things down. First off, I'll start things off with Stardom. I'll be limiting it to a few because I'm pretty sure that people don't want to hear me rambling about other promotions especially ones they don't watch. Pretty unorthodox intro but I'm giving it raw with this one, no formalities needed. Stardom, NOAH, NJPW & AEW will be talked about and hell, I'm gonna punch down on the World Sports Entertainment because they continue to do the most nonsensical things in the industry. I'm doing a two part since this is going to be very long an some things need to be separated lets dive on into the two hottest companies in the world right now.

Stardom

I'll start off with Stardom since it is probably my favorite active promotion that isn't called GLEAT at the moment. Stardom has been exciting because it is putting on some banger matches and programs and remains consistent and stable. Their growth has only been second to AEW in the past couple of years and they have solidified themselves as the spiritual successor to AJW, what I also love is that they're starting to break out of the isolationist habits and are having more outside talent compete for the company frequently. The 10th Anniversary is a obvious example as well as their previous involvement with the short lived ASSEMBLE group that comprised of most of the top joshi organizations holding shows and workings together. Recently, they've announced this event which will highlight the future of joshi wrestling ranging from Stardom to other promotions under the name "New Blood". This idea came directly from Executive Producer Rossy Ogawa, who started out in the business as a photographer turned public relations executive for AJW in the past. 

In 1996, Rossy produced the Joshi Puroresu Junior All Star show held by AJW with young talent from AJW, GAEA Japan, Jd Stars, FMW, LLPW, IWA Japan & JWP competing in a tournament which featured the likes of Meiko Satomura, Hiromi Yagi, Michiko Omukai, Yoshiko Tamura, Chaparita ASARI, Toshie Uematsu, Carlos Amano. Sonoko Kato, Rie Tamada, Sugar Sato and many more.

The idea of the tournament is to revitalize the joshi industry said by Rossy Ogawa himself in a interview with Tokyo Sports. It is fantastic news and I think it is a great way to showcase the influx of young talent on the rise in joshi right now. Moving on from that, there is also the matter of Prominence coming in and challenging Stardom's top stable lead by Giulia. Prominence is a deathmatch group comprised of former Ice Ribbon talent and the aspect that made this exciting aside from the fact that you have a large percentage of what made up the main event and upper card scene in Ice Ribbon is that they have set their sights on the top faction in really the entire women's wrestling scene most specifically Giulia who was also a former Ice Ribbon wrestler. When Giulia left Ice Ribbon, she made several headlines as she appeared for Stardom immediately hours later after the announcement and it became a hot topic and put Stardom and Ice Ribbon in the center of controversy just a week or two prior to the big Bushiroad announcement. 

Issues were resolved behind the scenes by the companies but issues between the members of Prominence(most specifically Suzu Suzuki who had a sisterly bond with Giulia back then) and Giulia has only begun to reach the surface and now they're out for blood. They appeared at Stardom's Nagoya Supreme Fight directly after the first two matches and wasted no time calling out Giulia and brawling with DDM. They made a challenge for Stardom's Ryogoku show but Prominence making an appearance once again at the Korokuen Hall show said that they were not willing to wait until that show and that they wanted a piece of DDM immediately at the next Korakuen event. World of Stardom Champion Syuri and now SWA World Champion Thekla(Another former Ice Ribbon talent that recently joined Stardom) accepted the challenge from Risa Sera and Akane Fujita. This is an indication that the mere concept of a forbidden door isn't exclusive to just AEW and with the histories of these groups and their past involvements with each other, it'll be hard to find anything nearly as captivating as of this moment.

AEW

Make no mistake about it, AEW has become the top professional wrestling organization in North America. Forget about how much a company is making in profits and what network they are featured on, when it comes to being financially stable as well as producing great professional wrestling content, AEW is on another level and we're not even talking markets and ticket sales which they have excelled at all year. But with that being said, AEW isn't without its issues. I'm mainly going to jump into the issues that I've seen with the shows from the previous week. Let's start with this MJF/Punk thing, while the segment was pretty good, the storyline has its ups and down and that is mainly on MJF's end with the one dimensional promos seemingly having to constantly go back to one liners and insults. This isn't exclusive to MJF, I've seen this done in promos with Britt Baker, Chris Jericho, Dan Lambert and even The Elite at times and it is one aspect that I think could be toned down a bit more. It is cool to do 4th wall references every once in awhile but if you continue to do it, you're gonna tear the whole wall down and that is not what we need to be doing. Wrestling has many interpretations but at the end of the day, it is still a show and one that is on television, wrestling is also supposed to incorporate elements of realism which gives the authentic feel of the sports based product that AEW is aiming for, but all the insider terms and stuff like that could be toned down and I'd also like promos to have more than a cheap pop aspect, I want something that is gonna make me be the next PPV or tune into the next show. That is what needs to be tightened up.

Wardlow's turn is highly anticipated but I don't think he needed to give an advantage to Blade for as long as he did in their match. Fans want to see him kill guys at this stage, that is something that you wait for after the big turn when you put him in a competitive match against another big star, you can't go from dominating CM Punk to a midcard act like Blade taking advantage for more than 15 seconds, I'm not saying squash him but don't have the big man backed into the corner selling more than he needs to in that stage. Jay White's debut was great, this is somewhat similar to the whole Prominence/DDM stuff, the topic of Bullet Club has dominated the wrestling world for almost a decade now, I believe the WWE fans who said that they don't know who Jay White is only because of the fact that they know none of the guys they get excited for until they are on the team. They hear about them and know their reputation but if the Undisputed Era and the man I'm about to bring up next is any indication, this is the most disloyal, ignorant and annoying type of fanbase you could be involved with. Period.

Keith Lee! Fantastic debut, the Biel was probably the clip I've seen the most this week. He has a bit more weight on him and hasn't moved like the usual Keith Lee at 100% but given all the things this man has went through, plus the topic of ring rust playing a factor, it is quite easy for me to give him a break especially since despite all of that, he was still very impressive but once he gets back into gear, there is no stopping this man. Lots of talk about black talent in wrestling today, but I think AEW has done a solid job of presenting them to their capabilities and Keith Lee could be that big shift that the community needed because there are very few that are at main event level, let's be real. Compared to the WWE who had guys established and had a significant head start with those talent, a lot of guys haven been exposed to play at a high level or are just making it, but guys like Jay Lethal & Keith Lee closes that gap up greatly and when you have guys on the rise like Lee Moriarty, Ricky Starks, Scorpio Sky, The Acclaimed, Private Party and hell even Lee Johnson showing up and showing out every week, we are gonna get there and take over. Trust.

Nothing in depth to say about Punk/Moxley vs FTR other than it was a classic. All for men have drastically underrated minds in wrestling and the call back spots and top level work rate from each of them are just incredible and up there with the very best of them. Jade Cargill(Who is defending on TBS!!!) vs AQA had some impressive spots and I am usually one of the big Jade Cargill defenders but I know how wrestling fans get when they hear interviews and details come out and it causes people to shift their opinions a bit. People have heard that Jade is training with Bryan Danielson so that lead to people finally admitting that she has gotten better but the issue with this is that it isn't really concrete judgement and it is fairly misleading when the person is still pretty green. She tried hard and looked good but the match went far too long and the crowd wasn't into it. Wanna know the difference why? Jade was working with talent that knew how to connect with a crowd in the previous weeks from Rosa to Ruby to Anna Jay who still needs work but that match was very impressive. Having dance partners that at least know something about crowd connection is important when guiding talent to better matches, Randy Orton and John Cena has the same level of experience and Randy Orton is widely regarded as one of the best in-ring workers in the world but even he admitted that he learned some things from Cena when it comes to crowd reaction, there are a lot of ups and downs to that dynamic but I'll get into it some other day. 

Some things didn't come across all that good and both talent was very green but one positive thing I can say is that despite it going too long when they're clearly not ready, they're done a lot of things that even experienced talent struggles with and they did impress and show a level of fire and "IT" that you just can't teach and they have that fire that says that we can go place, they have massive potential. But the match didn't connect but they have time and now with more veteran faces in the locker room, they'll get there in no time especially Jade who is ahead of A LOT of talent in that division. TRUST! Serena Deeb squashed Katie Arquette, so this is the first time we get two women's matches on Dynamite and I'm pretty sure most people didn't like that the match was this short but it had purpose, I do agree that segments could've been cut down so we'd have enough time for two decent length women's matches.

The Inner Circle, I almost forgot about it but Proud n Powerful were great there and that Chris Jericho did his best work on the mic since the MJF feud started getting intense. He pissed a lot of people off with that Eddy Guerrero line but a lot of the people that were mad were doing it for performance(I thought it was dumb too but not nearly the way these opportunist does lol). Sammy wasn't that good though, man needed to be a little more convincing. There was no real passion in what he did at all. 

Archer vs Page was a banger, every time something is said about Hangman's reign falling off, he has one match that shuts people up until probably the next promo or him being off TV for one week since a lot of people have gotten way too used to how WWE produces content and don't pay attention to the things that are right there if they didn't skip everything. I hated some of the spot selections like Hangman clearly placing the trash can behind him for the purpose of a chokeslam in it, I wouldn't have minded if he teased a move prior but it looked too obvious that he was doing him a favor but aside from stuff like that, great action. The Bucks vs RPG Vice was pretty solid, this is what we need to start Dynamite off with again because the 20 minute promo concept needs to stay where they got it from.

Not too much to say about the rest of Dynamite, Leyla Hirsch is a raw promo, just very real, straight forward and believable vibes and Kris Statlander really shines during these promo packages, she delivered a savage line to Leyla about her past as a orphan, it felt like one of those moments where the good guy of the story has to say something to connect that shot like Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor. I loved her exchange with Ruby when she did these before and what she was doing with Britt and this was no exception. More of that is needed in wrestling. HOOK is a beast and Taz needs to call all his matches. And the main event was very good, The Gunn Club impressed the hell out of me here and Jurassic Express with Christian was the kick that they really needed because ever since this pairing, they have gotten better and better and I think it is even bleeding over to the structure of the match, there is no way that Christian isn't pitching ideas to get the matches over and for two fairly young teams to have a solid straight forward performance where even the run ins doesn't take away from the action makes it that much more special. Take notes House of Torture.

I don't know when I'll have part two up but just know that it will be up soon and it won't be too nice since I didn't get down to shoot venom, just know that NOAH will have no piece of that venom. Until then, this is Velonica's World and Sav is out!