Wrestling – Live posting AEW Redemption
The following paragraphs were written live while watching AEW Redemption
I’m writing this live. I think opening with the ladder match for a shot at the International Title is a good choice. Speedball Mike Bailey has to be winning this, right, considering he’s Canadian? That was a pretty fun ladder, but a standard AEW ladder match. That sounds so entitled, like it was just another good AEW ladder match, boo hoo, but it makes it harder to write about, to be honest.
The Young Bucks’ tag match is up next. I’ve made my opinions on this Ospreay/Moxley story very clear, but I know when it comes to wrestling, this is going to show out. I am curious who is going to win if the Bucks are going to face Cope and Christian at All In, and Ospreay is going to face Omega, perhaps Moxley should take the pin. Jon Moxley pinning anyone in this match if he doesn’t have a match yet at All In would just be weird. Perhaps this match will end with a returning Swerve involvement? I’m not sure. The match started off a little slow, but it’s really starting to pick up the speed of what I tend to expect from a Bucks match. The story of the match seems to center around Nick Jackson taking a lot of abuse, being out of it, and Will Ospreay being unsure how far he’s willing to go. Personally, I’ve said my opinion on tweeners and Opsreay leaning that way is no different. The ending of the match was exactly what I wanted. Moxley took the pin, and less waffling about whether Moxley is heel or not. The seeds of descent between Ospreay and Mox are what this has needed the whole time. Young Bucks save Jon Moxley’s stories once again.
I know Bandido and Kyle Fletcher is going to be incredible, but do we really need Bandido losing again? I like the way Bandido and Fletcher’s gear sort of feels counter to each other. This match is starting off a lot slower than I expected, but my friend is distracting with bad Bandido puns. I might need my own hydration break soon. Bandido’s dead lift suplex is a thing of beauty. I could see Bandido versus Kyle Fletcher being a future AEW World Championship match within the next two years. They seem to have good chemistry. I thought the power bomb to the outside was intense until Bandido did a frog splash on him from the top rope to the Kyle below. A lot of people predicted these two would steal the show, and so far, they’re not wrong. Owwww, Bandido just slammed Kyle’s face into the mat. This match has done a great job of convincing me that Bandido could really win this, and that is when wrestling is at its best to me. One of those matches where I go this is it for a pinfall and then someone kicks out. The crowd is with Bandido, and I know this won’t be their last match together. I just love saying Michinoku Driver. I knew Kyle would, but I still feel slightly deflated. Bandido has lost again. Fantastic match though. This should be Bandido’s last loss on an AEW PPV for a while.
Bang Bang Gang vs. The Dogs? Hydration break time. I don’t think Jay’s cowboy boots go well with his pants. I say that observation causes this match isn’t really doing anything for me, even with the chain. Someone mentioned two chains on commentary, and this is how I found out 2Chainz left Def Jam. Clark Connors and Juice Robinson have done more for me in this match than David Finlay and Jay White. It looked like Finlay dropped Jay White right on his neck at one point. I really am trying to feel something for this match but damn this might be really bad. Wait, nevermind, Wheeler, Yuta, and Daniel Garcia are here to get beaten up by the Gunns and let Marina hand Finlay the Shillelagh, wow. If this cements the Death Riders as more heels than tweeners, I’m happy with that, but what the fuck was this chain match? What was Jay White wearing? It felt like Clark and Juice cared more about this match than their partners.
Will Ospreay referencing a winning bonus, hell yeah, love it. See, this is another reason why what Mox is doing isn’t working for me. He gets on the mic and says this championship doesn’t matter, or this match doesn’t matter, then why should I, the viewer, watch anything Mox does?
Since Shida’s return, she has felt significantly slower and less graceful. I was pretty disappointed by the Queen Aminata match, so I have low expectations for this Maya World match. Maya World has improved with every match I’ve seen her in, and I hope she’ll get to bring something out of Shida and win the TBS title. Shida has had exceptionally bad-looking gear for a while now, but this most recent one is a much-needed improvement. To me, selling a hurt body part during a match would be one of the more difficult aspects of wrestling, so Maya selling her injured leg that Shida is targeting is working for me. This match has been better than my expectations, with Shida getting overconfident and trying to bully Maya, only for it to be her downfall. The right result in the end.
It’s Cope and Christian time which means it’s look at my phone or play video games time. I love The Bastard PAC, and like Claudio, but it’s not enough.
The Painmaker is so funny to me. I thought Ciampa vs. Jericho at Beach Break was actually good and Jericho’s best match since returning but this probably could have ended with Ciampa just getting the win and Jericho facing someone else in Canada. Jericho always needing to get his win back has always been a detriment to him trying to get people over. He’s already getting some points, though, for pocket sand. The plunder in this match has really heightened how much it rules. As my friend said in the group chat, as this was going on, I do love it when a wrestler does a move on a plushie. The sandpaper to the face had me cringing in phantom pain at the spot. Oh my god, Jericho has a tac in his head. This mirror spot Jericho is setting up as I type this is rad as hell. I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying a Chris Jericho match in 2026. ANOTHER MIRROR? A PAINMAKER MIRROR? MIST? A Judas Effect with Ciampa’s own weapon and Ciampa kicked out, WHAT? A drill to the head submission for the ending? Wow, what a match.
I got distracted and missed some of this Andrade v. Mark Davis match. It seems hard-hitting now that I’m focused on it again. I did really dig what I think is new music for Andrade with the how you know? worked into it. I was having trouble getting into this match at first, but Mark Davis and Andrade are just too good to ignore. Andrade’s spinning back fist cannot be matched. It rules. I hope Andrade takes the belt to other promotions like CMLL and NJPW, too, as it was originally envisioned.
I’m excited for Willow vs. Thekla. Thekla’s entrance jacket looked more like nacho cheese than fire to me. Thekla’s hair looks strange without the part, but I love her red and white gear. Willow’s pink and gold gear is magnificent, though. Canada is on Willow’s side, and who I expect to win. Whoops, spoke to soon, the Thekla fans in the crowd have since let their voices be known. Oh shit, she’s biting the injured ear on Willow, hell yeah. Thekla had a lot of doubters when she won the world championship, but I think she has done an excellent job with no Mercedes Mone and no Toni Storm to either heighten her run or take some of her spotlight. She has one hundred percent earned her spot, but I’m ready for Willow to take her place as the top women’s babyface (and possible top babyface in the company) with the World Championship. This match is hard-hitting, and I’m loving it so far. Willow is so great at getting the crowd behind her; she is so easy to root for. I would have preferred Willow win with her finisher, but that was an excellent reversal into the pin. I’m so looking forward to Willow vs. Mercedes III. Willow Nightingale has deserved this for quite sometime and I am glad they finally crowned her here.
Main event time. Kevin Knight, how dare you interrupt Kenny’s entrance! Kenny Omega silencing the crowd and yelling at Kevin has been fun for me. I love it when Kenny is a nice guy outside of the matches, but then turns on the Best Bout Machine button when he wrestles. It’s the kind of intensity and in-match storytelling that has always fired me up when watching him wrestle. Kenny has earned being cocky in the ring, even if he is the babyface. Kenny catching Kevin with a dropkick on the outside was awesome. I was hooting and hollering at the sunset flip from the top rope from Kenny, followed by the V-Trigger, what a move. I’m disappointed Kevin Knight got out of the top rope Snap Dragon Suplex. I really wanted to see it. The switcheroo with the two belts by Knight was nicely done. One Winged Angel for the win. That match was incredible. This is why I love Kenny Omega and, oftentimes, All Elite Wrestling.
…and then Jon Moxley and the Death Riders have to come out, of course. This sucks. Is this a Will Ospreay story or a Jon Moxley story? Is this a Kenny Omega v. Ospreay story or a Kenny Omega v. Moxley story? Enough. Ospreay is not a great storyteller, to be honest, but I’m glad he made some kind of choice there (but I still think Kenny should retain at All In.) Just as I type this, though, oh my god, Kenny, thank you so much. I laughed maniacally when Kenny Omega One-Winged-Angeled Ospreay, he deserved it.
Post-PPV Thoughts: Ospreay got what he deserved at the end of the main event. He may have hesitated to take out Kenny but he thought about doing and Kenny knew it. I don’t think that was a heel turn, but more teaching Ospreay a lesson for trusting the Death Riders and listening to Mox in the first place. As many others have said about the situation, and other wrestlers have said to his face, he’s thirty-three and shouldn’t be surprised the ruthless guys are ruthless. The booking has done no favors to persuade me to root for Ospreay to win at Wembley, and that is kind of a shame. If Ospreay shows up to Dynamite saying he can’t trust Kenny, well Will maybe it was you who broke that trust first.
Books – Decision Paralysis
I don’t really have an update as far as reading is concerned. I’m kind of having decision paralysis on what I want to read next, but I’m still read The Thrice-Bound Fool and Jade City. What I’m really reading is my email waiting for Lit Escalates to ship my The First Law New Edition Hardcovers that I contributed to Kickstarter for. Not that they’re late, they’re actively shipping them with 4000 orders already on their way, but when is it gonna be my turn? I’ve already seen they made the shipping label recently so fingers crossed my editions ship soon.
Games – Backloggd My Personal 100 and Bomberman 64
I believe it was either Dan Ryckert or Mike Minotti of Giant Bomb who discussed creating their own list of the one hundred greatest games of all time, so as an active Backlogged user I decided to do the same.
It’s an interesting task to do. At 41 years old, the top five are likely cemented with a little wiggle room, and that wiggle room grows as the list goes from 6-10, then 11-25. 26 – 100 is a lot more maleable. The difference between whether Batman: Arkham Asylum is above Spider-Man (2018) is sometimes down to how recently I’ve played it. It’s become a fun thought experiment for me about recency bias. For example, I haven’t played The Witcher 3 or Yakuza 0 since 2018, so they’ve fallen to around the fifties on my list. However, I wonder if I play them again, whether they’d stay in their positions. When I think about The Witcher 3, I worry that I won’t like it as much as I did when it first came out, because my taste in games has expanded. On the other hand, it might remind me of all the fond memories I had playing it originally, which may raise its ranking on the list.
This brings it around to what I’ve been playing on my Retroid Pocket 4, Bomberman 64, which I now have as ninety-seven on my list. I was surprised how much I still love the Adventure mode after all these years, finding all the different customization parts, unlocking gold cards, making bomb staircases to get to secret areas, and pumping up bombs to hit bosses on the head with. I kinda wish Bomberman had stayed on this track for future games or go back to it, because both the story and the gameplay in single player are so much fun to me. The only downside is I know what framerate is now, and this game chugs when you have too many bombs on screen, but I have a lot of fond memories of bringing my custom Bomberman to a friends hosue via the N64 control pack and playing multiplayer for hours. If whoever owns the rights to Bomberman released a remastered collection of the N64 Bomberman games, I’d cop that instantly. I still have the commercial for this song ingrained into my memory more than the actual Spider-Man theme it’s based on.
A month ago, this game wasn’t on my list at all, a beloved childhood game, so what else am I forgetting? There is a lot of the PSX, PS2, and PS3 staples that I completely missed being a former Nintendo fanboy and Xbox 360 owner. I do find myself having difficulty going to older games on my Retroid that are new to me, probably as an ADHD side effect, where I’ll lose focus and retreat to a game I know better. It feels like now is the time to play old games, though, because Autumn is loaded with new games that might end up on this list in the future. My biggest curiosity is whether the Ocarina of Time remake could possibly enter in the top ten or even rise above the original, which sits at number seven on my list. That’s all from me, until next time.
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