Ramblings of an Englishman

It’s the August bank holiday weekend and as such it’s time for AEW to bring itself to the UK. Change of tactic this year with no All In and no Wembley we are at the O2 for Forbidden Door. First issue, fuck you Coldplay. I don’t care for the ceo guy suing them for his own actions ruining his marriage I care for the fact I don’t get All In that was a great show. However, I will concede that show was right to happen early in the year the change of world title couldn’t have waited until now. Speaking of timing I know people have issues with the build and the lack of New Japan talent. Look, I get it but if you’re complaining about that you know the reason. All of New Japan’s best talent is locked in the G1 which has only just finished, STARDOM are still mid 5 Star Grand Prix there’s a lack of cross promotion. I mean what do you expect when everyone is locked up? Should AEW have moved a difference show here? Maybe, but I feel they are using the good will of the UK (and Europe) fanbase for th...

2024 was yet another year of fun live wrestling events I attended. It was a year of real quality throughout the 4 shows I was able to go to in which the top 5 matches I've seen live was turned on its head and given a new running order. In order to determine the best matches I saw live this year I took a step back from immediate thoughts and rewatched them all recently in order to give a full breakdown on what was the best match. For this list the events I attended (in order) were as follows. RevPro: High Stakes - 18.02.2024 - Crystal Palace National Sports Centre RevPro: 12th Anniversary Show -  24.08.2024 - Copper Box Arena AEW: All In 2024 - 25.08.2024 - Wembley Stadium NJPW: Royal Quest 4 -  20.10.2024 - Crystal Palace National Sports Centre To start with though I wanted to cover a few honourable mentions. If this was a top 10 these matches would've made it: 10th: IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Match: Zack Sabre Jr (c) vs. SANADA 9th: Cut Throat...

  I started writing this on my way to work the Thursday after All In, I didn’t want my thoughts to be wrapped in hyperbole as for the second year in a row I attended the show. However, I find myself unable to shake that and truly believe this is one of AEW best shows they have done.  I won’t break the show down match by match I feel it’s different being their live to watching on TV. For example, pretty sure I missed half of last years Stadium Stampede because there’s just too much going on and too many places to look. But I will say for a PPV card it flowed so much better than last year. This could be because of the build to All In being more fleshed out this year headed by a main event where someone puts their career on the line over two friends fighting.  I do think as expected Ospreay vs. MJF and Swerve vs. Danielson were the stand out matches. I will honestly say that Swerve vs. Danielson was one of the best matches in AEW history and is for sure the best match I’ve e...

With 2023 coming to an end I think it's time for many to look back at the year they had. For me one thing I wanted to do this year was go to more wrestling shows. I only ever seem to go to one show a most a year but this year managed to get to a few more. Always a fun time so I wanted to compile my favourite matches I saw live in person. For the record the events I went to this year as follows: Revolution Pro Wrestling 11th Anniversary - 26th August 2023 AEW All In - 27th August 2023 NJPW Royal Quest 3 - 14th October 2023 Revolution Pro Wrestling Uprising - 16th December 2023 So without any other delay my top 5 live matches from this year are as below. 5) MJF vs. Adam Cole - AEW All In Starting with the main event of the biggest show I went to this year I found mtself as part of the group of people that enjoyed this match. While I understand those who don't like it due to it being like an old NXT Takeover style main event which I did like. It felt like a large part of telling t...