Wednesdaymania 248: Wrestling Is Awesome

In Which I Like Wrestling

So last week kind of was a bummer on the wrestling front with Cornette and all of that badness. And yes, there's badness this week with the news from ROH firing their women's champion while she's concussed and spilling the tea on her ridiculously crap pay. Yes, there's badness this week with Corey Graves maybe having beef with Mauro Renallo and Dave Meltzer.

But I want to talk about things that don't make me sad.

It's cloudy and I have a sniffle. I don't want to feel bad. I want to feel like wrestling is awesome.

And it is!

Wrestling is still awesome because the bell-to-bell is awesome. The promos are awesome. The shows are awesome. In spite of the crap people keep giving each other, wrestling is still, as it has ever been, awesome.

So first of all, I haven't watched Powerrr since the Cornette awfulness, so I cannot speak to its continued quality of both wrestling and promo work on the part of the wrestlers, but I have to commend Nick Aldis for his cool head and strong presence in the face of a really bad time. He provided a classy face to a very unclassy problem and he's really good about that. tl;dr: Cornette bad. Nick Aldis good.

Secondly, I hear that the NXT guys are really getting popular when they storm RAW/Smackdown, so that's pretty great!

I also keep seeing good stuff from MLW Fusion, though it's been a while since I've watched any. I've been pretty distracted lately, and I apologize for that. I'm sure I've missed some awesome matches, especially since they just created their women's division!!!

Speaking of women's divisions, holy cow I'm loving what I'm seeing from AEW's shows. This week's Dark episode was dominated by the Big Swole/Shanna match, and it was pretty spectacular. While Big Swole was clearly the better wrestler of the two, Shanna has a lot to offer in the ring, and I'm excited to see them both work more with other wrestlers.

I love Leva Bates. I love the Librarian gimmick. Leva is maybe not as dynamic in the ring as many of her contemporaries. Do I think she's a bad wrestler? Not at all. She could definitely work on her flow of movement, but that will come as she wrestles more often. It's been a while since she's had regular matches after all. On a character level, however, I don't know if anyone else is as good at filling her role as Leva is at being The Librarian. It's adorable, it's awesome, and she's great to watch. RIP The Librarian after her match vs Awesome Kong. And Peter Avalon worked perfectly in that moment :) Great match.

I hope the Inner Circle aren't mean to Leva. They did kidnap her, after all...

...

I'd be down with suddenly-evil Librarian Leva. After all, Jericho has written a book...

The Trent vs Pentagon match was insane. I knew Trent was a great wrestler, but I didn't know just how toe-to-toe he was with the best there is out there. If Scorpio loses to Jericho (which I feel would be a probably bad move, but I've been wrong many times) then I could absolutely see Trent becoming a champ. This roster may be too loaded with greatness. It's mad.

I wish I could say the Kenny match vs Jack Evans was amazing, but sadly, since the internet in my town is notorious, we ended up with an overall 12 minute delay for that match and missed the finish. I will go back and watch that match again today, but for now, I will have to tell you that what I saw was still mindblowing, and if you haven't watched this week's AEW Dark, then do it.

So yes, wrestling is still awesome, and pretty much every company out there right now (even IMPACT!!!) has something incredible to offer. Definitely go on a hunt for the good stuff and try a little bit of everything. This is a good time to be a fan of the sport!

Go Enjoy Something!
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