AEW Worlds End 2024 Review: Ospreay's Double Duty

AEW closed 2024 with a bang, delivering yet another excellent PPV in Worlds End.  Unlike the 2023 edition which was fine but a bit underwhelming, this was a streamlined 8-match card where the worst thing on the show was still very good, plus we got two instant classics, two big returns, and a slew of **** bouts.  In fact only one of the eight matches failed to crack that ceiling for me.

The show kicked off with one of the best opening matches I've ever seen, as Will Ospreay and Kyle Fletcher renewed their heated feud in a Continental Classic semifinal.  This was 16 blistering minutes of two of the top in-ring workers today, building on what they did last month at Full Gear.  Ospreay bled early and by mid-match his face was covered in crimson, which splattered all over the ring like a grotesque work of pointillist art.  Fletcher cemented himself as one of the most over heels in the company, alternating crowd-pleasing moves with smarmy asshole antics.  At one point a fan held up a sign that said "Ospreay better," which Fletcher grabbed and tore in half, and the fan held up another sign saying "Ospreay still better."  I laughed.  The match built to a peak of nearfalls and counters until Ospreay put Fletcher away with a Styles Clash (which paid off in a hot nearfall later in the night).  Fantastic match and it wasn't even the best thing on the show.  *****

The History of NJPW WrestleKingdom (WK13)

I'm not sure there's ever been such a great PPV that left me with such mixed feelings as WrestleKingdom 13.  From a booking standpoint everything was done really well.  From a match quality standpoint there wasn't a bad bout in sight, and a few were flat-out excellent.  But the decision to limit the show to four hours when thirty extra minutes would've elevated it to the Best PPV Ever conversation, coupled with numerous impending departures, made this a bittersweet show.

In the opening match, which has to be on the short list for best openers ever, Will Ospreay defeated Kota Ibushi for the NEVER Openweight Title.  This match was fast paced and dazzling as expected, with loads of back and forth offense, some intense striking battles, and tons of athleticism as only these two can deliver.  My favorite spot involved the two of them trading strikes while Ibushi was hanging upside down from the turnbuckles (which is where a legit Ibushi concussion occurred).  Late in the match Ospreay kicked out of a Last Ride and avoided the Kamigoye knee (though Ibushi at one point hit him with the Boma Ye, a move he'd adopt in tribute to Nakamura), knocked Ibushi loopy with a driving elbow to the head, and landed the Stormbreaker to win the title.  Ibushi was stretchered out with a kayfabe concussion that in fact turned out to be a legit minor one.  These guys left enough on the table for a rematch, which occurred during the G1 Climax and actually topped this one.  Regardless, this was an incredible opener that set a high bar for the night.

Next up was the Jr. Tag triple threat, with El Desperado & Kanemaru defending against RPG3K and Shingo & Bushi.  This match was fine and all action, but was too short to amount to that much.  It was far better than a WWE throwaway but still felt like a throwaway.  This was one of four or five matches that could've used five more minutes, hence my earlier comment about the show needing an extra half hour.  Shingo was the star of this match, dominating the later minutes and finishing off Sho with Last of the Dragon to win the belts.  He'd break out of the Junior division later in the year, in favor of becoming a NEVER-style bruiser.

Another match that could've used more time was Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr. for the RPW Heavyweight Title.  As expected this was a stiff, gritty fight pitting Ishii's strikes against Sabre's grappling.  Sabre dominated a lot of this match, which made for a pretty shocking ending when Ishii submitted to Sabre's new double-arm octopus hold.  This match was very good but about five minutes short of greatness.

The heavyweight tag match was definitely superior to its Jr. counterpart, as Guerillas of Destiny, The Young Bucks and Evil & Sanada had a wild, energetic match.  The big story element here was Tama Tonga's apparent change of heart at wanting to be a "good guy."  So GoD refrained from their usual illegal shenanigans and it ended up costing them.  The last few minutes of this were insane, with big move after big move.  With GoD knocked out of commission, Evil and Sanada hit Matt Jackson with a Magic Killer, followed by a Sanada moonsault to win the belts and officially move into a tag team centerpiece spot, replacing the departing Young Bucks.

Movie Review: Nosferatu (2024)

Visionary horror director Robert Eggers is back with his highly-anticipated reimagining of F.W. Murnau's Expressionist milestone Nosferatu, starring Bill Skarsgard, Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult.  A long-gestating passion project of Eggers', this film was originally to be his sophomore effort after the unexpected success of The Witch, but Eggers felt he wasn't yet ready to tackle such a monumental piece.  Murnau's original film is what inspired Eggers to become a filmmaker in the first place, and he even directed a stage version in high school, complete with black and white imagery and makeup, and dialogue cards.  So there was a lot riding on this project and Eggers wanted to really put in the time developing it properly.

This version of Nosferatu pulls no punches, both in terms of atmospheric dread and grisly imagery.  True to Robert Eggers form, the sense of dread is oppressive from the opening prologue, where we see a young Ellen make a lonely pact with an evil spirit in the form of the titular vampire.  Unique to this version of the story, the heroine is bound to this parasitic creature all along and is long tormented by visions of death and doom.  Years later her husband Thomas Hutter, a Wisborg real estate clerk, is sent to Transylvania to execute the purchase of an old ruined building by the mysterious Count Orlok, and the transaction awakens Orlok to the existence of the young girl he encountered all those years ago.  From there bedlam ensues as Orlok makes his way to Wisborg, bringing plague and demonic possession.

The History of NJPW WrestleKingdom (WK12)

New Japan draws its biggest Dome crowd in twenty years, thanks partly to a huge dream match...

WrestleKingdom 12 - 1.4.18

The 2018 edition of NJPW's flagship show took some very unexpected turns (most of which made total sense in hindsight) and left more than a few people scratching their heads by the end.  But regardless of flauting anyone's expectations, the 12th WrestleKingdom was still a helluva show.  The nine matches on the main card ranged from inoffensive to pretty awesome.  While WK12 lacked for me that one blowaway match, it was a newsworthy PPV with a ton of variety, and while a bit of an endurance test (The shortest bout was over 14 minutes), never got boring.  There was no intermission and the matches were presented one after the other without a lot of wasted time in between.

The show kicked off with the Jr. Tag Team Titles, as RPG3K defended against The Young Bucks.  The match, like its WK11 counterpart, was much more psychology-based than your average Jr. Tag match, as the Bucks and Sho/Yoh waged a war of attrition, one man from each team selling a back injury.  I especially liked the exchanges where Nick and Sho took turns kicking the injured backs of their respective opponents.  This match got a robust 18 minutes before the Bucks hit Yoh with the Meltzer Driver and finally tapped him with a Sharpshooter.  The ending felt a little flat to me but otherwise this was a fine opening match.  RPG3K would regain the titles shortly after this and the Bucks moved up to heavyweight over the summer.

Next up was the one skippable match, the 6-man gauntlet.  This was mostly pretty nondescript but also inoffensive.  The first segment involved Suzuki-Gun against War Machine and Michael Elgin, which had some fun exchanges and ended in roughly six minutes with Zack Sabre causing Rowe to pass out with a leg scissor.  Ishii/Yano/Beretta then made quick work of SG when Yano rolled up Taichi for the pin forty seconds later.  A few minutes after that Yano pinned Taguchi with another rollup.  Finally the champs, Fale and Guerrillas of Destiny arrived and had the longest segment of the match, looking pretty dominant for a while but ultimately losing the straps as Beretta polished off Tama Tonga with a Dudebuster.  So new six-man champs as per usual.  Again, this match was skippable but fine for what it was.  If this is the worst thing on your PPV, you've put together a pretty damn good PPV.

AEW Worlds End 2024 Preview & Predictions

The final AEW PPV of 2024 is upon us, capping off an absolutely stellar run of events, arguably the best single calendar year of wrestling PPVs to date.  If anyone's got a better example, comment below.  But AEW's weakest PPV this year was probably Double or Nothing, which I still gave 9 out of 10.  That's remarkable.

Anyway on to Worlds End 2024.  Once again this show is partly about crowning the Continental Champion, and unlike last year we have the semis and finals all on one card, plus a host of other strong bouts (and likely one or two more to be added last-minute).  

SPOILER ALERT: The final CC bouts haven't aired on TV yet, so some of you may not already know who's in the semis.

International Championship: Konosuke Takeshita vs. Powerhouse Hobbs

This one stems from the fact that Don Callis allowed Hobbs' contract with the Callis Family to run out while Hobbs was on the shelf.  Since returning Hobbs has gotten right in the faces of the Family, and thus we have this title match.  Should be a pretty great, hard-hitting match.  Problem is I don't really want to see either of these guys lose here.  I think Takeshita probably has more time with the belt, but Hobbs also needs to get the big push because he's a potential breakout star.

Pick: I think Takeshita retains through nefarious means

Top Ten Things: WWF Saturday Night's Main Event Matches

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Things here at Enuffa.com, where I count down the ten best (or worst) items pertaining to something-or-other....

Today I'm talking about what used to be, for me growing up at least, the greatest wrestling show on television, Saturday Night's Main Event.  For those not familiar with the show (I'm not sure I wanna know you), Saturday Night's Main Event aired a few times a year on NBC during Saturday Night Live's timeslot and usually featured four or five matches taped a few weeks earlier.  This was back when you almost never saw real matches on free television, as the weekly shows generally consisted of quick squash matches designed to draw ticket buyers to local house shows.  But every couple months we were treated to a handful of competitive bouts between top stars, and it was EVENT VIEWING.  As a 12-year-old who never got to see the PPVs until they were available on VHS, seeing Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage or The Ultimate Warrior wrestle a match on free TV was the most monumental thing happening that month.

The show's initial run ended in '92 (following a one-year move from NBC to Fox) before it resurfaced in 2006-07.  Unfortunately by that time the magic was gone, as fans had long been accustomed to seeing big free TV matches every week on RAW and Smackdown.  SNME was clearly a pre-Monday Night War phenomenon and so far hasn't worked in the modern era.  But maybe the 2024 incarnation will be different, we'll see.  But at the time of its original run it was truly a delight.

Here now are the ten greatest matches in the history of this fantastic show. (Note: for the purposes of this column I've included the air date as opposed to the taping date)

10. Hulk Hogan vs. Big Bossman - 5/27/89

Hogan's first televised WWF Title defense after WrestleMania V was against his old foe The Big Bossman, in a steel cage no less.  At the time I had jumped off the Hogan bandwagon, siding with Randy Savage in the MegaPowers split.  Thus I wasn't terribly excited about this match going in, nor did I care for Hogan's No Holds Barred nemesis Zeus being integrated into WWF storylines.  Zeus attacked Hogan prior to this match to add a little suspense, but it was obvious Bossman wasn't winning the belt here.  However the match itself turned out to be a very entertaining cage brawl, the highlight of which was Hogan suplexing Bossman off the top of the steel structure.  In 1989 that spot was one of the most death-defying things I had ever seen, and it made this a very memorable bout.

9. Mr. Perfect vs. Tito Santana - 7/28/90

On a stacked SNME episode that featured three Title matches, what seemed like a throwaway Intercontinental defense turned out to be a very well-worked, show-stealing match.  This aired a month before Summerslam, and oddly they gave away the scheduled Warrior-Rude PPV main event on this show for free (I know the SS match was in a cage, but still).  So there wasn't much suspense there, and even less in the Tag Team Title match, as Demolition (scheduled to face the Hart Foundation at the PPV) defended against The Rockers here.  But Mr. Perfect, whose Summerslam opponent was up in the air following Brutus Beefcake's infamous parasailing accident, would face the man he defeated to win the vacant I-C Title that April, Tito Santana.  At the time I feared Perfect would drop the Title here, setting up a rematch at the PPV, but with some help from Bobby Heenan ("He's gotta beat you!  You don't hafta beat him!") on the outside, Perfect delivered a successful and enjoyable Title defense.

8. Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff - 1/3/87

At the time this was one of the WWF's biggest televised matches, being the blowoff for the legendary Hogan-Orndorff feud which lasted through most of 1986.  It was also the first steel cage match ever shown on free WWF television, and therefore felt like a huge deal.  While this doesn't get a lot of points for technique, it was a pretty good brawl that led to a false ending, when both men escaped the cage simultaneously.  As I recall this was the first time I ever saw such a scenario, where two different referees declared opposing winners.  The show broke for a commercial and when it resumed the match had been restarted.  This of course led to Hogan getting the clear victory, settling this rivalry and freeing the Champion up for his impending feud with Andre the Giant.

WWE Survivor Series 2024 Review: Watered-Down WarGames

WWE Survivor Series: Watered Down WarGames III has come and gone, and it was basically exactly what I expected, a mediocre show with two overlong gimmick matches, and I do mean overlong.  The two WarGames bouts totaled eighty, EIGHTY minutes, most of which was pretty skippable.  I'll keep saying it till they listen: WWE WarGames needs to either go away or be a once-in-a-great-while event.  Both of the top-billed matches would've been infinitely better as elimination bouts.  If you're not gonna either reintroduce blood or create some truly unforgettable moments, don't try to recreate the magic of Dusty's brainchild.  There was some decent wrestling on this show but nothing worth going out of your way to see except maybe the Intercontinental Title match.

The opening match, the Women's WarGames, didn't officially start until 15 minutes into the show.  Why does this company waste so much airtime on window dressing?  Bayley and Nia Jax, yes, the cosmically inept Nia Jax, started the match.  Miss me with Triple H's "I only see talent" bullshit.  Nia is there because her cousin is on the Board of Directors, period.  Nia and Bayley exchanged awkward sequences for a while until Bayley removed a leather sleeve she was wearing and started whipping Nia.  Nia took it away and whipped her right back.  Naomi entered to the rescue, bringing in a kendo stick (of fucking course) and a toilet seat.  Sorry, why is a toilet seat under the ring?  Event security needs to be way more diligent leading up to showtime apparently.  Naomi beat Nia down with the stick and the babyfaces double-teamed Nia until Candice LaRae came in for the save, bringing in two chairs.  Nia grabbed one and clumsily whacked both faces with it.  The heels took out both of them.  Bianca entered next and brought in a trash can, a fire extinguisher, a table and a chair.  Does every entrant need to bring in multiple stupid weapons?  And doesn't it undermine the urgency of saving your friends when you spend a minute and a half searching for shit under the ring?  Tiffany Stratton was next for the heels, and she brought in a trash can.  Tiffany cleaned house and then did some bad-looking tandem moves with Nia.  Iyo Sky was next and had to run to the opposite side of the ring to find a weapon, in this case a custom trash can with a rope attached so she could do her top-of-the-cage dive (if the implication is that Iyo placed that under the ring, why did she put it as far away from the entrance as possible?).  Candice cut her off and they set up a sunset flip bomb but Iyo lost her grip and they had to settle for a top rope dropkick.  Iyo beat everyone up with a chair until Nia knocked her down.  Raquel Rodriguez entered next and, you guessed it, stopped to find stuff to bring in with her, in this case a table, which she didn't even bring in.  She looked for something else but couldn't find it.  If you're gonna have everyone bring in a weapon shouldn't you also have them memorize where to look for it so they don't come off like idiots?  Nia and Raquel beat everyone up.  Rhea Ripley was the final entrant for her team and brought in the table Raquel pulled out, but got triple teamed.  But the babyfaces ran wild and Rhea whacked everyone with the toilet seat.  Liv Morgan was last, and hesitated because Rhea was the only woman standing.  Liv brought in a baseball bat.  Rhea removed the mask she was wearing to protect her injured orbital bone but the heels ganged up on her.  Liv beat her down with the bat.  Everyone took turns hitting moves on each other.  Iyo and Tiffany each climbed opposite corners so everyone else could get into position - uhh, shouldn't the climb be AFTER everyone's in position?  Did all the participants read the script?  Iyo hit her trademark trashcan moonsault on one side while Tiffany hit a swanton.  Ring psychology my ass.  Tiffany pulled her Money in the Bank briefcase out of a trashcan and teased a cash-in but Iyo sprayed everyone with the fire extinguisher while Rhea handcuffed Raquel to the ropes.  Nia put Bianca on a table and teased a Vader Bomb but Bianca and Naomi powerbombed her through it.  Liv hit Oblivion on Bayley but Rhea made the save and the two rivals fought.  Liv went for Oblivion off the top rope but Rhea countered into a Riptide through the table for the win.  Last few minutes of this were entertaining but as usual this was sanitized, weapons-heavy and mostly devoid of a story.  It was about Rhea and Liv, who didn't enter until the end of the match.  And in what universe do you put Nia in for the whole thing??  **1/2