Plus an update on Bryan Daneilson’s injury, celebrating 25 years of Hell in a Cell and more.
It’s been an insane week of pro wrestling and somehow the wrestler foremost in my mind is the icon, Sting. If you watch my podcast, Knitro, we all marvel at how amazing Sting was… twenty-five years ago, and yet here he is, still always putting together performances that leave you remembering him over the other talent that worked the show.
I attended AEWxNJPW Forbidden Door live this weekend and wanted to share some thoughts. I hoped to get this column up earlier in the week, but due to bad weather and travel cancelations, I was distracted at the beginning of my week. So, I figured I would watch Dynamite and then write my report after.
After watching Dynamite, all I can think about is STIIIIIING. Namely, this insane spot from the middle of the tornado tag match where Sting teamed with his (figurative) son Darby Allin to take on “The Painmaker” Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevarra.
Sting is 64 years old. This spot resulted in Sting chipping a tooth and needing stitches in his lip. Sting told the live crowd after the match “I’m gonna have a bunch of stitches in my lip, and one of my teeth seems halfway knocked out,” and then he added “But it was worth it to do it right here.”
A few days earlier, this happened.
This insane competitor has been giving us, the wrestling fans, his all for 40 years now, and I can’t thank him enough for all the entertainment he’s provided us. Sting is approaching the final lap of his career, he feels it will be over soon. Sting noted at a press conference this weekend that he’s feeling good and is hoping to last at least through the end of the year. That makes every one of these moments extra special.
Some more notes from attending Forbidden Door live in Toronto.
I have attended many venues and the Scotiabank Arena may take the cake for the most uncomfortable seating I have ever experienced. It’s not so much that the width of the seats are narrow (they are) but worse is the minimal amount of legroom. Airline seats have more legroom than the seats in this arena. I am 6’5″, so I know I require more than most, but all my buddies who were 5’10” had the same problem. I only mention this because it made it a little harder to settle into the action when I kept feeling pain and soreness in my knees (I am also old.)
For me, the best match of the night was easily Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay. It was the moment where I forgot about everything else and just lost myself in the action. Those two are incredible artists that put together a masterpiece that everybody in attendance was marveling at. It was one of, if not the best match I’ve ever seen live. It seems like they’re teasing doing another round at Wembley for All In, and I am all about that.
The main event was Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada, the match I was probably looking forward to most. However, this match came about four and a half hours into the event and started around 11:30pm Eastern. I was tired. The whole crowd was tired. It was very hard to get into the match. With Bryan coming out to “The Final Countdown,” it felt ironic for me, because it reminded me of attending Ring of Honor marathon shows in NYC 15 years ago, where we would see the most brutal, hardcore matches and then it was 11:30 and Danielson would come out to do chain wrestling, and as good was it was, I didn’t have the stamina to take it in that late into the show.
This is a bigger problem that I feel AEW has, which is problems with pacing. If the show had cut one or two matches, I imagine the main event would have had a much stronger reaction. Don’t want to cut any matches? Fine, then start the main show an hour earlier. If the show ended at 11 and not midnight, I imagine the crowd would’ve been much livelier. Worse, about 10 – 15% of the crowd left during the main event to catch trains.
During my aforementioned airport hell, I kept running into other people who attended the AEW event and tried to get out of town. When I asked what they thought of Okada/Danielson, literally every person I asked (about five total) almost felt guilty in saying they were too tired to properly enjoy it.
As for the rest of the show, I really enjoyed Orange Cassidy, his match was a lot of fun with Shibata, Zack Sabre Jr. and Daniel Garcia, and I loved the Elite vs. BCC ten-men tag. CM Punk and Kojima had a good match and it was fun to see Punk get all his heat and I think MJF did the best that he could with Tanahashi.
All the action from the show was good, the Omega match was better than anything on last year’s card, but overall I think last year’s show was better. It flowed better and felt more like AEW vs. New Japan, whereas the undercard here felt like an AEW show with New Japan special guests sprinkled in. I want to be clear, I sympathize with the promoters because I can only imagine the scheduling nightmare they face. The Omega match makes everything else worth it, that was worth the trip alone, as was hearing Bryan come out to “The Final Countdown” for one night only. I will definitely consider going to Forbidden Door again next year (unless it’s in the Scotiabank Arena).
It’s the night after WCW Halloween Havoc, and WCW phone in an absolutely disappointing follow-up episode do their big event. Colin is on the road this week, so filling in is his Hardlore tag team partner, Bo Lueders. We see Scott Norton vs. The Shark, the final appearance from Sabu and Lex Luger and Meng teaming up.
Outer Heaven’ guitarist Zak Carter talks about getting into pro wrestling from a young age and how it influenced his music tastes, being an ECW guy and his love of Cactus Jack and Terry Funk. He talks about how Fozzy was his gateway to hearing Iron Maiden, which is his favorite band ever, stories about Lemmy, ECW’s Sandman
Impact Wrestling is on tonight at 8pm on AXS TV with this lineup:
Ring of Honor has 11 matches tonight streaming on WatchROH.com:
WWE Smackdown tomorrow at 8pm is the final event before Money in the Bank
AEW Rampage tomorrow at 10pm on TNT has this lineup:
AEW Collision on Saturday at 8pm on TNT has advertised:
WWE Money in the Bank is Saturday afternoon at 3pm on Peacock:
Bryan Danielson suffered a fractured, possibly broken arm during his main event match with Kazuchika Okada last weekend, and still powered through. Brie Bella shared on X-ray of the break on social media and noted “Not sure to be proud or chastise him for wrestling 10 more minutes with this break!! Definitely worse than we thought!! Nurse Brie ready for action!!”
Something that makes me feel very old is that we just passed the 25th anniversary of the infamous Hell in a Cell match with the Undertaker and Mick Foley. The duo got together to watch the match to celebrate the anniversary and the resulting video is a must-watch for longtime fans:
AEW announced a weeklong residency in Chicago for All Out weekend. Dynamite and Rampage will be held on Wednesday, August 30 at the NOW Arena. That following Saturday, Collision will be live from the United Center and All Out will also take place at the United Center. AEW Grand Slam is coming back to New York’s Arthur Ashe Stadium on September 20th.
The next edition of AEW’s Blood and Guts (their version of War Games) will take place on July 21st at Boston’s TD Arena with the Elite taking on the Blackpool Combat Club.
Fightful Select reports that Logan Paul’s next feud will be with the Brawling Brutes, and Sheamus, and that might be a sign that he’s not winning the Money in the Bank briefcase this weekend. LA Knight is the odds-on favorite on booking sites.
Do you enjoy pro wrestling? Knotfest Wrestling has a bi-weekly column filled with wrestling news. Read previous editions of this column here. You can always follow me @robinjection on Instagram and Twitter and @Squaredcirclpit.
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