Oscar Film Journal: Broadcast News (1987)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

We're headed back to 1987 for a look at James L. Brooks' third film, Broadcast News, starring Holly Hunter, William Hurt and Albert Brooks, about a trio of characters who work in the, well, broadcast news business but get snared in both a love triangle and a professional one.  

Holly Hunter is Jane Craig, a star producer so in-demand she has no time for a social life, who sees the TV news industry on the verge of crisis as it becomes more about fluff and sensationalism.  Albert Brooks is her best friend and colleague Aaron Altman, an extremely talented journalist who lacks social skills and isn't particularly photogenic, and thus isn't seen as anchor material.  William Hurt is Tom Grunick, a former sportscaster given an anchor position despite not being particularly qualified, mostly on the basis of the camera loving him and his innate ability to "sell" a story.  Tom is hired by the Washington DC news affiliate where Jane and Aaron work - Jane is initially repelled by him because of his (admitted) lack of qualifications but also strangely attracted to him for his looks and willingness to learn, while Aaron resents him immediately as he himself becomes persona non grata, both at the station and as a romantic suitor for Jane.

Oscar Film Journal: Nightmare Alley (2021)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Time for another of this year's Best Picture nominees, the atmospheric, dread-laced film noir by acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro, Nightmare Alley!  Starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette and Willem Dafoe, Nightmare Alley is the second film adaptation based on the 1946 novel about a down-on-his-luck carny, on the lam for murdering his father, who joins up with a traveling carnival and gradually carves out a lucrative grift for himself as a mentalist.  

Cooper's character Stan takes carnival grunt work at first but befriends a married couple who teach him the ins and outs of the carnival's psychic act Madame Zeena (Toni Collette), warning him however that learning too much about this particular con, especially when it involves "contacting the dead," will only end badly for him.  Meanwhile the carnival owner Clem (Dafoe) explains how he gets drunk vagrants to agree to join the "Man or Beast" geek show, by getting them hooked on opium and threatening to fire them if they don't go all-in to sell the act.  Stan convinces Molly, one of the other performers who does an electrocution act, to leave with him and put together their own psychic show, using the system of verbal cues Zeena and her husband Pete taught him, and they become a success in Buffalo, NY, performing for wealthy spectators.  The aforementioned warnings of course go unheeded and things take a turn when Stan is recruited for private consultations regarding deceased loved ones, for which he enlists the help of a noted psychologist (a steamy femme fatale performance by Blanchett) who knows much about Stan's new clientele.  I won't divulge anything further, but if you know the genre or the fatalistic nature of Greek tragedy, you can imagine where this is going...  

Oscar Film Journal: Stagecoach (1939)

Welcome to the Oscar Film Journal here at Enuffa.com, where I examine a Best Picture-nominated film, either from this year or yesteryear.

Today I'm heading way back to 1939 again, to review one of the most influential of all Westerns, John Ford's early opus Stagecoach, featuring an ensemble cast that included John Wayne in his breakout performance, but also Thomas Mitchell (whom you might recognize as Uncle Billy from It's a Wonderful Life), and Andy Devine (whose voice you might recognize as Friar Tuck in Disney's animated Robin Hood), as well as John Carradine, Claire Trevor, and Louise Platt.  The film's premise is fairly simple - put a host of characters of divergent backgrounds and moral inclinations together in a confined space, and see how they all interact with each other.  It's a very familiar concept seen as recently as Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, just to name an example.  In Stagecoach you have the lawman, the driver, the prostitute with a heart of gold, the doctor (drunk for most of the film except when he has to sober up to deliver a baby), the corrupt banker (who pontificates early in the film about the virtues of deregulation as he's engaged in major embezzlement), the gambler, the soldier's pregnant wife, and the outlaw, all traveling from Arizona to New Mexico for various reasons, with the very real danger of an Apache attack looming over the entire trip.  

As expected the prostitute is ostracized early on, and only the outlaw treats her like a human being, while the dashing gambler makes it his personal mission to look after the soldier's wife, having served under her father in the Confederacy.  The lawman intends to turn the outlaw in to the authorities upon their arrival, while the outlaw toys with the idea of escaping so he can exact revenge on another outlaw for the murder of his father and brother.  We're introduced to the ensemble in quick succession, but the film breathes enough to let us form opinions of all the characters and draw our own allegiances.  Thus when the various threads play out and the inevitable Apache attack comes, we care enough about the characters to be invested.

Oscar Film Journal: The Power of the Dog (2021)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  The 94th Awards are only six weeks away and I have some major catching up to do - to that end, let's look at another one of this year's nominees!

The frontrunner this year is Jane Campion's psychological drama/western The Power of the Dog, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee.  The film is set on a 1920s Montana cattle ranch, owned by Phil and George Burbank (Cumberbatch and Plemons).  The unkempt, dour Phil does most of the ranching work, along with a team of hired hands, while polite, good-natured George handles the business end of things.  While on a cattle drive the brothers stop over at an inn owned by Rose (Dunst), for whom George immediately develops romantic feelings, consoling her after Phil cruelly mocks her awkward, effeminate son Peter (Smit-McPhee).  When George and Rose marry and she moves to the Burbank ranch, it sets off a contentious battle of wills between Phil and his new in-laws.  

And that's about all I'll say regarding the plot; The Power of the Dog is one of those films where you don't fully know what you're seeing until it's all over and you've had time to piece it together.  Campion's writing and direction are so subtle in fact, it's almost a little frustrating trying to figure out what's happening between the characters and why.  And yet, once you've completed the film and reflected a bit, you begin to marvel at what she's done and how skillfully she's toyed with your expectations.  One's sympathies shift from character to character throughout the story, no small feat considering what a loathsome cur Phil seems at the outset.

Oscar Film Journal: Gone With the Wind (1939)

Welcome to a rather unusual entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

I say unusual because today's subject is a film about which I had very strong mixed feelings, in a way I'm not sure I've experienced watching a classic movie.  Gone With the Wind is of course considered one of the all-time great epic films; adjusted for inflation it's still, over eighty years later, the highest grossing film ever made.  Seriously, based on 2020 ticket prices this movie made just shy of $1.9 billion DOMESTICALLY, almost $900 million more than current domestic box office champion Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  So suffice it to say this record is not likely to ever be broken.  Like, ever.  Pretty staggering considering its 220-minute running time.  

But back to mixed feelings.  Gone With the Wind is, from a cinematic standpoint, a stunning achievement in filmmaking; massive in scope, visually breathtaking, pro-feminist in a roundabout way, well ahead of its time in dealing frankly with issues the Hays Code tended to stifle, and boasting numerous great melodramatic performances.  This is epic 1930s filmmaking at its finest (minus the score, which is so ever-present in every scene it fails in its primary task of heightening the drama).

As political commentary goes though, this film is pretty wretched.  Based on Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel, GWTW is told from the point of view of Scarlett O'Hara, a wealthy southern debutante-turned-businesswoman trying to maneuver her way through Civil War/Reconstruction Era society.  But thanks to Mitchell's Jim Crow south upbringing and the impression left on her by films like Birth of a Nation, the novel and its movie adaptation are steeped in revisionist Lost Cause myth, rather shamelessly whitewashing the horrors of slavery and presenting the African-American characters as crudely drawn stereotypes - well-treated house servants without a need for independence.  The Yankees are presented (mostly offscreen) as ruthless conquerors who burned the beautiful Old South to the ground, the carpetbaggers as opportunistic parasites exploiting the decimated post-war economy.  The whitewashing goes so far there's actually a scene where Ashley Wilkes chides Scarlett for employing white ex-cons at low wages, saying something to the effect of "I can't support building a business on other people's misery."  STUNNING lack of self-awareness there, Ash.  To her credit, Scarlett calls him out with "You didn't seem to mind using slaves," and he replies "We didn't treat them poorly."  Holy shit dude.  Even for the late 1930s this blatant disregard for the ugly truths about slavery seems shocking to me.  And yes, I know segregation was alive and well, Jim Crow was still fully in effect, and apparently the agrarian elegance of the Old South was still being romanticized.  Still given the borderline insidiousness of this misrepresentation, it's pretty shocking this film was so universally well-received 75 years after the end of the Civil War.

Oscar Film Journal: Licorice Pizza (2021)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal here at Enuffa.com!  Hey look, it's a 2021 Best Picture nominee!

Yes, now that it's officially joined the ranks of the Academy's illustrious Best Picture candidates, I can write in this "journal" about Paul Thomas Anderson's latest opus, Licorice Pizza!  Based loosely on the adolescent misadventures of his friend Gary Goetzman (noted Hollywood producer and former child actor), Licorice Pizza is set in 1973 and mostly centers around a budding romantic relationship between 15-year-old child actor Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman in an auspicious debut that does his father Philip Seymour proud) and 25-year-old photographer's assistant Alana Kane (folk-rock musician Alana Haim, also making her motion picture debut with a bang).  The pair have an odd sort of anti-meet-cute, during which Alana makes it clear she has no interest whatsoever in the precocious, cocksure Gary.  But when he asks her to meet him that evening for dinner, she does so anyway.  From there they become almost inseparable, Gary clearly harboring real romantic feelings toward Alana, while Alana isn't really sure how she feels about him.  They become business associates when Gary starts up a waterbed store, but during the gas crisis of '73 it becomes untenable due to supply chain issues.  Alana then decides to break into acting and later local politics, while Gary goes into the pinball machine business.  

But all of these plot points are more or less incidental.  Just as PTA's 1997 masterpiece Boogie Nights wasn't so much about the adult film industry as it was about a gang of misfits looking for love and happiness, Licorice Pizza is less about Nixon-era LA and more about two oddball young people trying to find their respective places in the world while consistently and inexplicably gravitating toward each other.  It's almost a bell-bottom-clad When Harry Met Sally, but with a far more bizarre supporting cast.  

Oscar Film Journal: The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  This year's Academy Award nominations are imminent, so it's time to start bingeing Best Picture nominees once again.

Today I'm traveling back to 1933 England for a satire of sorts, The Private Life of Henry VIII, starring Charles Laughton in the role that put him on the map, along with his wife Elsa Lanchester, one year before her star-making performance as The Bride of Frankenstein.  TPLOH8 (as I'll be calling it to save time) is a rather comedic look at the infamous 16th century monarch and his string of marital failures, depicted in tongue-in-cheek fashion, with Laughton playing the decadent, gluttonous king as a short-tempered buffoon without a grown-up attention span.

We jump into the story during his second marriage, as his first to Catherine of Aragon "contained no particular interest" and ended in uneventful divorce.  At the film's start Henry is married to Anne Boleyn, whom he's ordered executed for infidelity - by all accounts she was falsely accused and the charges were a pretense to free Henry up to marry Jane Seymour, portrayed in the film as a youthful, simple woman who wasn't going to cause him any trouble.  Seymour of course died in childbirth and the country later clamored for Henry to remarry; we get multiple scenes of the king's servants and cooks gossiping about his love life and Henry himself hemming and hawing about what he should do next.  For political reasons he courts German princess Anne of Cleves (Lanchester in a very funny performance), who has no interest in Henry and makes herself as unappealing to him as possible, using their brief marriage to achieve her own political ends.  Finally after the dissolution of his fourth marriage, Henry settles on Katherine Howard, a woman from his court, whom he'd had designs on for years.  Katherine values advancement above all else and their marriage seems a convenient arrangement for both partners, but gradually she learns that a loveless marriage is also a joyless one, and falls in love with Thomas Culpepper.  Henry executes both of them and ends up marrying a domineering shrew, Catherine Parr, with whom he remained until his death.

Oscar Film Journal: L.A. Confidential (1997)

And we're back with another entry in the Oscar Film Journal!

This one's a little different for me, as I'd actually seen today's subject in the theaters when it came out.  But viewing L.A. Confidential as a rather naive 22-year-old, I must confess most of the film went way over my head.  The labrynthine plot, with its varied, seemingly unrelated threads and pretzel twists left me confused and disengaged by the end.  I dismissed the film as overrated and dull, and somehow erased 95% of it from my memory.  Indeed, I was surprised to discover on this second viewing that Danny Devito and James Cromwell were in it; that's how little I remembered.

So suffice it to say, this viewing of Curtis Hanson's acclaimed neo-noir was essentially a fresh look for me, and what a difference a quarter-century makes.  Where in 1997 I was largely unfamiliar with the film noir genre, 1950s culture, the appalling notion of corrupt police departments and their code of silence, etc., watching this film through my early-middle-aged 2022 lens, I was fascinated.  

For those unfamiliar, L.A. Confidential concerns three principle LAPD officers and a mass murder that may or may not have involved numerous cops, a stash of heroin, and a prostitution ring.  The three main characters are all seemingly on different sides of the straight-and-narrow.  Edmond Exley (Guy Pearce) is a young, clean-cut optimist who plays things by the book while taking advantage of every legitimate opportunity for career advancement.  His father was a police detective killed in the line of duty, the assailant never caught.  Bud White (Russell Crowe) is a tough-as-nails cop with a mission to punish abusive men (with good reason, as a 12-year-old he was forced to watch his father bludgeon his mother to death) and a penchant for beating a confession out of perps.  Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is a star detective who consults on a hit TV show and also has a side hustle with a tabloid reporter, setting up high-profile celebrity arrests.  All three get wrapped up in the mass killing case, as their police captain (an icy James Cromwell) increasingly reveals that he may not be what he seems.

Oscar Film Journal: Fences (2016)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  For those joining us in progress, it's awards season so I'm catching up on as many past Best Picture nominees as I can before this year's Oscars.  

The latest nominee to which I circled back is the 2016 drama Fences, starring and directed by Denzel Washington, with Viola Davis, and based on the Pulitzer-winning play by August Wilson (who also adapted it for the screen).  Fences is a simple narrative about a working-class African-American family in 1950s Pittsburgh.  The patriarch Troy works as a garbage collector, and the film begins as he and his best friend/coworker Jim head home for their weekend ritual of sharing a bottle of gin and engaging in spirited debate about work, baseball, Troy's past, his kids, etc.  Troy has two sons from different mothers, the elder is Lyons, a 34-year-old musician who often drops by to borrow money, and the younger is Cory, 17, who lives with Troy and his wife Rose.  Cory is a promising high school student who's being courted for a football scholarship, but Troy, having hit a glass ceiling as a pro baseball player (Major League Baseball wasn't yet integrated during his career in the Negro Leagues), is disillusioned with pro sports and doesn't want his son suffering the same fate.  Rose quietly puts up with Troy's bombastic posturing but calls him out when he takes it too far, like when he claims to have actually won a wrestling match with death.  Troy's mentally impaired brother Gabe lives nearby and often visits; Gabe earned $3000 in disability compensation after sustaining a head injury during World War II, and Troy used the money to buy the house he and Rose live in, while Gabe has since moved out.  

Oscar Film Journal: Minari (2020)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Well I've completed my viewing of every 2020 Best Picture nominee, and rounding out the list is Lee Isaac Chung's semi-autobiographical drama Minari, about a family of Korean immigrants who move to rural Arkansas in the early 80s.  The father Jacob plans to start a Korean vegetable farm serving the growing number of countrymen and women immigrating to the region, supplementing his funding by taking a chicken-sexing job (that's separating baby chicks by gender to weed out the males who aren't useful for either meat or egg production).  Jacob's wife Monica, having grown up in the city, isn't excited about leaving their former life in California to move to the country, and would've been content to remain in the chicken sexing business if it meant being able to provide for their two children.  But Jacob wants something more than a menial 9-to-5 job, and their conflict about what's best for the family plays out throughout the film.  To make life more palatable for Monica, Jacob arranges for her mother Soon-ja to relocate from Korea and provide childcare, and her relationship with their son David (a rather disagreeable six-year-old with a heart condition) takes center stage during the film's second act.

Minari is a quiet, contemplative film with very relatable themes - chasing one's dreams as opposed to just being a worker bee, wanting to do so without needing to rely on other people, making choices between one's family and the self (when of course those two things often aren't mutually exclusive), and of course failure.  Countless films have been made about pursuing the American Dream since the advent of cinema, and Minari puts a personal and unusual twist on this classic format, with a film steeped in old-school American "values" for lack of a better word, but from the point of view of an immigrant family who speak their native language most of the time (The Hollywood Foreign Press Association drew deserved criticism for nominating Minari as a Foreign Language film instead of as a Best Picture candidate, on the grounds that over 50% of its dialogue was in a non-English language - an absurdly arbitrary metric).  

Oscar Film Journal: The Hours (2002)

Welcome to another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!

Today I'll be talking about the 2002 drama The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry, starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and in a turn that won her an Oscar, Nicole Kidman.  Based on Michael Cunningham's 1999 novel, the film is a triptych, three separate stories that play out simultaneously before our eyes, connected thematically.  The first takes place in 1923 and concerns English writer Virginia Woolf (Kidman) and her most famous work Mrs. Dalloway, a day-in-the-life story dealing with themes of mental illness, existentialism, and sexual orientation.  Woolf drew from her own experiences and injected much of herself into the titular Dalloway, who questions her life choices throughout.  The second part of the film's story is set in 1951 and centers around Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), an unhappy, pregnant housewife who spends her days caring for her first child without any sort of fulfillment.  Like Mrs. Dalloway (and Woolf herself), Laura is finding herself attracted to women, while also struggling with suicidal thoughts.  The third segment is set in the present day (2001 in this case), and stars Streep as a New York publishing editor possessing many of the same character traits as Mrs. Dalloway, her day mostly spent prepping a literary award party for her friend and former lover Richard (Ed Harris), who is slowly dying of AIDS.  

Oscar Film Journal: The Father (2020)

Welcome to another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!

Catching up with last year's nominees, I finally sat down and watched The Father, directed by playwright-turned-filmmaker Florian Zeller, based on his own acclaimed play Le Pere, about an elderly man suffering from dementia and his daughter's ongoing struggle to provide him the care he needs.  

We're introduced to Anthony (a sublime Anthony Hopkins in a late-career highlight), who seems to live alone in a London flat, visited by his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman, subtly fantastic as always) after he's chased away a hired caregiver.  They discuss her frustration at his unwillingness to accept help, her impending move to Paris, his rather explosive resentment at being abandoned, and his chronically missing wrist watch.  From the opening scene we assume this will be your usual well-acted but narratively ordinary family drama, but things quickly take a shocking turn when in the next scene a man we've never seen shows up at the apartment, saying he's Anne's husband and that this is actually his place.  Anthony is as confused as we are, and things go further south when Anne herself comes home, now played by Olivia Williams.  This jarring transition sets the tone for the rest of the film, which actually puts us inside Anthony's increasingly decaying state of cognizance.  Bits of dialogue, indeed whole conversations are repeated, familiar characters appear as unfamiliar faces, the apartment's decor changes slightly throughout the film, and like Anthony we are at a loss trying to discern what is true and what is the dementia.  

Top Ten Things: Tom Brady Super Bowls, Ranked

Welcome to a special Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com, where I rank ten something-or-others and you all read it and dispute my ranking....

UPDATE: Tom Brady officially announced his retirement today, ending the greatest professional football career of all time.  Thank you Mr. Brady for two decades of excellence.  We New Englanders are now a spoiled fanbase because you made it look so damn easy.  There will never be another like you.

In the wake of Tom Brady's historic seventh Super Bowl win, I thought I'd take a look at his equally historic ten Super Bowl appearances.  But before we get to that, let's take a moment to appreciate just how superhuman this quarterback really is.  There have been 55 Super Bowls.  Tom Brady has played in 18% of them.  Brady debuted in the 2000 season as a fourth-string quarterback.  He became a starter in the 2001 season.  That means that there have been twenty Super Bowls since Brady became a starter.  He's played in half of them.  Not only that, he's played in five of the last seven Super Bowls.  The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hadn't won a division title since the 2007 season, and since then had failed to crack .500 in all but three seasons.  Tom Brady took them to the Super Bowl and beat the 2019 Champions.  Not only has he played in and won more Super Bowls than anyone else, he's played in several of the best and most exciting Super Bowls of all time.  The man is not of this earth.  He is a once-in-a-lifetime athlete, and it's very unlikely that anyone currently living on this planet will ever see another like him.   

But enough praise, let's take a look at his ten Super Bowl games and find out which were the best (I've tried to balance Brady's performance and the quality of the game itself)....

10. Super Bowl XLII vs. New York Giants - 2.3.08

Of Brady's ten Super Bowl appearances, his upset loss to Eli Manning's NY Giants has to be considered the most disappointing.  The Patriots went undefeated in the regular season that year, a feat not achieved since the 1972 Miami Dolphins.  By comparison the Giants boasted an underwhelming 10-6 record, a recurring theme in this mismatched rivalry.  The usually dominant Pats were confounded at nearly every turn by a strong Giants defense, going scoreless in the first and third quarters.  Meanwhile the Giants managed a come-from-behind win in the final moments of the game with a stunning 83-yard drive (that included David Tyree's famous "helmet catch"), capping the score at 17-14.  Pats fans everywhere were left scratching their heads at such an uncharacteristically ineffectual performance, but sadly it wouldn't be the last time Brady was unseated by Manning.

9. Super Bowl XLVI vs. New York Giants - 2.5.12

Of all the championship-caliber quarterbacks Tom Brady has faced, it's baffling to think the one guy who truly had his number was Eli Manning.  The Patriots came into this Super Bowl 13-3 on the season, while the Giants set a new record for the worst win-loss ratio by a conference championship team, a scant 9-7.  This game on paper should've been a cakewalk for Brady et al, but once again the Giants' defense kept the Patriots off-balance and scoreless for two of the four quarters.  As with Super Bowl 42 the Pats led going into the 4th quarter but the Giants scored a go-ahead touchdown (uncontested, mind you, a strategic move designed to give New England more time to catch up), bringing the score to 21-17.  The Patriots had just under a minute to move the ball back down the field and win the game, but came up short after a messy drive and a batted Hail Mary pass.  For the second time in four years, the seemingly underqualified New York Giants had brought down the mighty New England Patriots for the championship.

Oscar Film Journal: Mississippi Burning (1988)

It's been a while but I'm back to reopen the Oscar Film Journal!

Today's subject is the 1988 historical crime thriller Mississippi Burning, directed by Alan Parker and starring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as a pair of FBI agents sent to the deep south to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights workers in 1964.  Met by the racist local law enforcement with scorn and a stubborn refusal to cooperate, the two agents find different ways to navigate this hostile, ignorant environment.  Dafoe's character is a youthful star agent who sticks strictly to the book, appalled by this toxic, violent culture but concerned above all with seeing justice done according to the letter of the law, while Hackman's former sheriff is more pragmatic and experienced, using a finessed approach to deal with the friendly locals and intimidation for the obvious suspects and their enablers.

Based loosely on a real 1964 murder case, the film takes some dramatic liberties, and despite numerous award nominations (including a Best Picture Oscar nod), was criticized for reducing the black characters to background and focusing only on the white characters.  While this is a valid critique - one could make a compelling argument that this is yet another "white savior" movie - Mississippi Burning succeeds prodigiously as a crime thriller that pulls no punches in showing us the reprehensible, racist underbelly that existed in the 1960s south.  This is a brutally honest look at a society so beaten down by failure and ignorance its authority figures exploited the widespread self-loathing of poor whites to further their own bigoted agenda.  From the town's Mayor (played by R. Lee Ermy with a false brashness betraying deep feelings of guilt) to the loathsome Sheriff Ray Stuckey and his insecure deputy Clinton Pell (Brad Dourif), to Stephen Tobolowsky as a local businessman turned would-be demagogue/Klan leader, each of these disgusting characters and their abuses of power still ring disturbingly true in 2022.  Whatever the film's shortcomings in terms of representation, I've no doubt its heart was in the right place.

WWE Royal Rumble 2022 Review: Junk Food for the Brain

Ah WWE circa 2022, a company without highs or lows, where every PPV (ahem, premium live event, a phrase no real human being will ever use in actual conversation) is steeped in mediocrity and there's no reason to get invested in anything because the company will just screw it up anyway.

The 2022 Royal Rumble fits the above description to a tee.  A bunch of just-okay matches, in one ear, out the other, the details of which will all be forgotten by WrestleMania.  No one gets over except the one or two established stars the company wants to push, thus both Rumbles felt like everyone involved was just killing time.  Was it a reasonably entertaining way to spend four hours?  Sure.  Was anything here even close to being a great match or having any historical significance?  Nope.  Even the first-time WWE Title match with a big-fight feel was more of the same ol' shit with repetitious action and a bad finish.  WWE could fuck up a can of Pringles.

Speaking of bad finishes, the show started with Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins, in a very well-worked Universal Title bout where Seth, dressed in his old Shield gear and entering through the crowd to the group's classic theme, resided fully in Roman's head.  No matter how badly Roman beat him down, Seth kept smiling and asking for a fist bump.  Roman couldn't stay on his game and Seth dominated much of the bout.  They did the old spot from 2016 where Roman went for a spear and Seth countered into a Pedigree for a near fall.  This was a very good match.  And then the finish happened.  Roman locked in a guillotine choke, Seth struggled to get to the ropes but fell short and went limp.  The referee lifted Seth's arm for one, two, and on the third drop, Seth's hand fell on the bottom rope.  Yes, the referee inadvertently put Seth's hand on the rope, and then demanded Roman break the hold.  Ummm, what?  How can that be a rope break if the referee is the one who put his hand there?  Roman, the heel, rightly refused to break the choke and was disqualified.  Oh super.  So Seth got legitimatelybeaten and Roman did something stupid to cost himself a sure victory.  Who was this designed to get over?  This was yet another very good WWE match ruined by stupid WWE booking.  And sadly it was the best thing on the show.  ***1/2

WWE Royal Rumble 2022 Preview & Predictions

This Sunday Saturday! is the 2022 WWE Royal Rumble, and the company seems to be fixin' to shake things up a little.  Maybe we'll see some exciting things for a change....

Well all signs point to the third Roman Reigns-Brock Lesnar meeting at a WrestleMania (Jeezus H.), so this Rumble lineup looks a might different than I'm sure the company planned on a month ago.  But the good news is there are two big title matches that should both be entertaining, and it leaves the men's Rumble match a bit less predictable than it probably would've been.  But before we get to the fun stuff, let's look at some of the undercard drivel....

RAW Women's Championship: Becky Lynch vs. Doudrop

Becky is keeping busy with another babyface no one buys as a legitimate threat, and thus no one wants to boo Becky, and thus her segments are devoid of real heat.  Can we cut our losses with this heel turn experiment already?  Actually what with the rumors abound the last few days that may just happen.  But more on that later.  Becky isn't losing here.

Pick: Becky retains

Edge & Beth Phoenix vs. The Miz & Maryse

Christ, we're still doing this dumbass mixed feud?  What a difference a year makes, huh?  Edge went from running the table in the 2021 Rumble and headlining WrestleMania to attempting to answer AEW's Punk-MJF feud to attempting to answer the WWF's Dusty/Sapphire-Savage/Sherri feud.  This is weak sauce and I don't care about it in the slightest.

Pick: Edge & Beth

NJPW WrestleKingdom 16, Night 2 Review: Okada and Ospreay Tear the House Down

Well, WrestleKingdom 16 Night 2 was a slight step up from Night 1.  As with Night 1 it felt overall like just another New Japan PPV (great main event, one or two other very good matches, the rest skippable), but unlike Night 1 it featured a Match of the Year shortlist candidate and nothing offensive.

This show strangely had three pre-show bouts, but things kicked off in earnest with the Jr. Heavyweight Tag Titles, as Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask defended against El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori, and Rocky Romero & Ryusuke Taguchi.  This was a lighter echo of the Jr. Tag 4-ways of old, with fast, nonstop action and loads of quick tags.  But things took a turn for the stupid when the babyfaces ganged up on El Phantasmo and took off his shoe to reveal the metal plate he's been using for months to win matches.  Nevermind that a plate sculpted around a person's heel, inside a padded boot, would hurt the wearer more than anyone he happened to kick with it.  The referee was appalled and disqualified ELP and Ishimori, leaving the two babyface teams to finish the bout.  Eagles put Romero in the Ron Miller special (a pretty not-painful-looking leglock) for the tapout win.  This was hurt by the dumb North American wrestling tropes.  **1/2

Next up was the featured Stardom match, as Mayu Iwatani & Starlight Kid faced Tam Nakano & Saya Kamitani.  This was nine minutes of wildly quick action that blew away the previous match.  Highlights included Starlight diving off Iwatani's shoulders for a cross-body as the latter stood on the second rope, numerous dives to the outside, a sequence where each woman tried to pin an opponent with a rollup, and finally Kamitani hitting a crisp Phoenix Splash on Starlight for the win.  A very fun undercard match that gave everyone time to shine.  ***1/2

AEW Dynamite on TBS Preview & Predictions

Right in the middle of one of the busiest wrestling weeks in recent memory we have what might end up the highlight.  It's AEW Dynamite's debut on TBS!

We're about to enter a new era, as Dynamite premieres on its new network, and they've lined up a stacked lineup to kick things off right.  A huge AEW Title rematch, a Tag Title contest, and the finals of the TBS Title tournament, just to name a few.  It should be a helluva premiere.  Let's get to it.

MJF vs. TBA

MJF is on a collision course with CM Punk at some point, but lately it seems like he'll have to contend with his buddy Wardlow first.  The monstrous Pinnacle bodyguard has been on a tear lately, polishing off jobbers left and right in short order.  So now it seems to be MJF's turn to do the same.  No word on who the opponent will be, but since this match is billed as "MJF in action," it's safe to assume it'll be another local guy there to get squashed.  The question is whether the MJF-Wardlow or MJF-Punk feuds will be escalated somehow.

Pick: MJF

Malakai Black vs. Brian Pillman Jr.

After Pillman and Griff Garrison's friend Julia Hart was sprayed with the black mist, an outraged Garrison challenged Malakai Black to a match and got dispatched quickly.  Now Pillman is stepping up to the plate and promising a new version of himself.  Whether that means he'll take on an edgier persona or even join Malakai's House of Black (at least one announced member has been teased) remains to be seen.  Black is obviously winning this.

Pick: Malakai Black

NJPW WrestleKingdom 16 Night 3 Preview & Predictions (by Landon Wayne)

JB Note: For Night 3 of Wrestle Kingdom 16 (I'm still not sure why they're calling this part of WK instead of making it a separate event, but whatever), I've enlisted the services of our old pal Landon Wayne, whom you may remember as an Enuffa.com contributor from a few years back.  Landon is up on all things Pro Wrestling NOAH, so he'll be able to offer much greater insight about said promotion than I will.  Take it away Landon!

We're half a decade later but much better off for it, it's NOAH vs New Japan time, everyon1! I wanna thank Justin for letting me guest write for this night of Wrestle Kingdom, given my relative expertise on the matter. In 2020 I dropped New Japan entirely and took up being a bannerman for Pro Wrestling NOAH, so the moment this show was announced I was excited. Seeing the card, there's a lot that I wouldn't have booked but it's not a bad show, especially if this is only the first show in a series? Let's go through the matches, You ready, Justin?

Yasutaka Yano vs. Kosei Fujita

Yasutaka Yano has only been wrestling for a year and change, but he already shows greater promise than his elders Yoshiki Inamura and Kinya Okada did at this stage of their careers. In what is likely the first match of the show, he gets to make the first strike against the New Japan Roster.

Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, & Yuji Nagata vs. Akitoshi Saito, King Tany & Mohammed Yone 

UNCLE FIGHT. The Third Generation of New Japan clahses with the Disco draped veterans of Pro Wrestling NOAH. The word is out on whether this will be a particularly good match, but all six men are fun to watch when they're motivated. So, will they be motivated this night? We'll find out/

NJPW WrestleKingdom 16 Night 1: The Armor is Cracking

Well.....that was underwhelming, wasn't it?  

WrestleKingdom 16 Night 1 overall was I daresay the weakest edition since 2012, with a pretty fantastic main event, a very good semi-main, a couple good matches, and some pretty not-good stuff.  Most of this show did not feel like a Tokyo Dome show to me, and while the reduced, silent crowd didn't help things, that didn't hurt last year's edition much at all.  This show was missing the magic for most of its running time, partly due to booking, partly due to the lack of Ibushi or White, partly due to the product just not being very hot right now.  Let's take a look, shall we?  

Things started off with a rare opening singles match, as former partners Sho and Yoh squared off.  This was one of three bouts hurt by lame WWE-style shenanigans and I've come to an unfortunate conclusion as a result, but more on that in a bit.  Yoh went right after Sho to start things off, and the action spilled to the outside right away, but Sho took advantage after using a ring crew member as interference.  Sho dominated much of the action but Yoh went after a leg, locking in a calf crusher variation and getting a visible tapout while the referee was distracted by Dick Togo.  Sho locked in his own Snakebite submission and almost got the win but Yoh just barely made the ropes.  Sho tried to use a wrench but Yoh sent him crashing into Togo and rolled him up for the win.  This match was good, and a solid opener, but far below my expectations.  ***1/4

WWE Day 1 Preview & Predictions

It's 2022 folks, and this year that means it's time for some WWE predictions on the first day of the year!

Yeah so Nick Khan apparently came up with the Day 1 idea and wants to make it a huge annual event (nevermind that in the past when they've tried to cram in a January PPV before the Royal Rumble it hasn't worked out great), always on January 1st.  Which seems odd since January 1st won't always fall on a weekend.  But whatever.  The lineup looks alright I guess.  Let's get to it.

Pre-Show: Cesaro & Ricochet vs. Sheamus & Ridge Holland

Hey remember last year when it looked like they were finally gonna push Cesaro?  Gave him a big win at WrestleMania and even gave him a PPV main event against Roman?  Good times.  Now here we are and the guy can't even get on the main show of a PPV.  Don't even get me started on Ricochet - that guy needs to get the fuck outta there immediately.  Anyway I have no faith that Cesaro and Ric are coming out of this with a win.

Pick: Sheamus & Ridge

Drew McIntyre vs. Madcap Moss

What in god's name are they doing with Drew these days?  He went from being a dominant WWE Champion to losing every big PPV match and occasionally feuding with underneath guys for no reason.  I assume he'll end up getting the big WrestleMania main event against Roman, but having him beat a couple humps like Corbin and Moss doesn't exactly make him look like top contender material.

Pick: Drew

NJPW WrestleKingdom 16 Night 2 Preview & Predictions

And we're back for NJPW WrestleKingdom 16 Night 2!

Click HERE for Night 1.

Night 2

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Flying Tiger vs. Taiji Ishimori/El Phantasmo vs. Ryusuke Taguchi/Rocky Romero

I'd like this better if it were just the first two teams but this should be a very enjoyable clusterfuck of a Jr. tag match, a la WK7-10.  Flying Tiger have only been champions for a couple months so it makes sense for them to retain here I think, but these belts hop around all the time so who knows?

Pick: Flying Tiger retains

Stardom Match: Mayu Iwatani/Starlight Kid vs. Tam Nakano/Saya Kamitani

I like that the Stardom gals are getting a showcase match on the main card.  Much more fun than the same old throwaway undercard tags they usually do.  I know nothing about any of these four women so my pick is coming from a completely uninformed place.  I guess I'll pick Iwatani and Starlight.

Pick: Iwatani & Starlight

KOPW 2022 Fatal 4-Way

We already know Yano and Owens will be involved here and maybe Kanemaru as well.  This is gonna suck regardless.  Get rid of this stupid comedy trophy.

Pick: I'll pick Yano to start the year as provisional champion

NJPW WrestleKingdom 16 Night 1 Preview & Predictions

It's about that time kids.  NJPW's biggest show of the year, now spread over three dates.  It's WRESTLE KINGDOM!

Yeah for some reason WK is now a three-night event, with the third night emanating from Yokohama Arena instead of the Tokyo Dome, and featuring NJPW vs. NOAH matches all night instead of the traditional WK format.  Why that show isn't taking place under a totally separate name I'm sure I don't know.  But the first two nights look and feel like the Wrestle Kingdom lineups we all know and love.  

So for these predictions I'm going to handle the first two shows and my esteemed colleague and former Enuffa.com contributor Landon Wayne will cover Night 3 (He's all about Pro Wrestling NOAH these days).

Let's get started!

Night 1

Pre-Show Rambo

So far no participants have been announced for the annual snorefest known as the Rambo, and once again the purpose of this match is to determine the four contenders for the KOPW match on Night 2.  So still pointless.  No real way to predict winners here without an announced lineup but obviously Toru Yano will be one of them, and almost certainly so will Chase Owens.

Pick: Yano, Chase and two other guys

Sho vs. Yoh

What a way to kick things off on the proper show.  It's not often we get a blazing singles match to open the PPV, so this feels special.  These two had a damn fine match at Wrestle Grand Slam last summer and should do so again here.  Yoh is coming off a Super Juniors Final, while Sho has just kinda been doing Bullet Club things.  With Hiromu Takahashi likely reclaiming the IWGP Jr. Title he never lost, Sho seems the logical choice to earn a title shot here.

Pick: Sho

The 2021 Enuffa.com Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards

Welcome to the 8th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com, where I celebrate the highs (and lows) of the year that was, inside the squared circle!

After 15 or so months of wrestling shows being held in front of virtual, or no, crowds, 2021 saw the welcome return of real, in-person wrestling fans.  For WWE it was Wrestlemania 37 that began the renaissance of live crowds, albeit in a limited capacity, and for AEW the May PPV Double or Nothing was the first of the year to feature a packed Daily's Place.  NJPW had been running shows with limited audiences for months prior, but since fans in Japan aren't allowed to vocalize, it wasn't as stark a contrast.  Regardless though, touring wrestling shows with packed houses was something we'd all dearly missed during quarantine.

As far as wrestling content, the quality from the big three companies was quite varied.  

WWE once again struggled to present a consistently good product or elevate new stars without later cutting their legs out.  Bianca Belair began the year with a gutsy Royal Rumble win on her way to capturing the Smackdown Women's Title in the main event of WrestleMania Night 1, only to get squashed by a returning Becky Lynch four months later.  While she's likely to finally win back the title at this year's 'Mania, the abrupt title change made her look pretty silly and the subsequent Lynch heel turn hasn't been working much at all. 

Rhea Ripley was once again poised to be a top women's star, defeating RAW Women's Champ Asuka at 'Mania before losing the title to Charlotte Flair only three months later, basically duplicating the push-derailing loss to Charlotte at 'Mania 36.  Since then Rhea has been stuck in a go-nowhere tag team with Nikki ASH.  Once again the company failed to truly pull the trigger on this unique star.

Drew McIntyre spent most of 2020 at the top of the card and looked to continue that streak into 2021 but lost the WWE Title to a Miz cash-in, Miz dropped the title in short order to Bobby Lashley, and Drew found himself out of the title picture and out on his ass after failing numerous times to regain the title from Lashley.  Great for Bobby, not so good for Drew.  

Of course WWE television was dominated by Roman Reigns, who's in the middle of a year-plus Universal Title run, having beaten everyone they've thrown at him.  Really the only star they've portrayed as being on Roman's level is Brock Lesnar, begging the question, who ultimately benefits?  The point of having a dominant long-term champion, aside from making that guy, is to make someone new in unseating him.  But if he crushes all the full-timers and only the older part-timers look like they can hang with him, where are the new stars coming from?  As of now there isn't anyone who looks remotely ready to beat Roman for the title.    

Big E was perhaps the one real WWE success story of 2021 in terms of actually elevating someone, winning Money in the Bank and cashing in on Lashley over the fall.  While he's not being pushed on the level of Roman Reigns, at least they haven't made him look like a fluke champion like so many other cash-ins have.  Of course it remains to be seen whether he suffers the same fate Kofi did (a humiliating title loss followed by an express ticket back to the tag team ranks), but for now Big E is enjoying the best push of his career.

WWE cut a swath of talent throughout 2021, citing budget concerns despite raking in record profits.  Among the surprising releases were Braun Strowman, Bray Wyatt, Nia Jax, Karrion Kross, Aleister Black, Andrade, John Morrison, Bronson Reed, and many others.  In some cases the release was the best thing for them - WWE's loss was AEW's gain - but a few of these were baffling indeed.  Part of the impetus for cleaning NXT house was Vince and his creative goons taking control of the developmental brand and renaming it NXT 2.0.  Gone was the emphasis on crisp in-ring action and great workers, and in its place was a garish mid-90s aesthetic, a focus on large men and pretty women regardless of wrestling ability, and as it turns out, even worse ratings.  Hunter must be soooooo pissed right now.

Okay, enough bitching about WWE.  

New Japan had a rough year to say the least.  Aside from their crowd size being limited, the company was plagued with injuries and illnesses affecting numerous top stars.  They also discontinued the IWGP Intercontinental Title, merging it with the IWGP Heavyweight Title to create an IWGP World Title, a belt that the vast majority of fans seem to feel is a major step down.  Regardless of the title design though, the belt took numerous hops through the first half of the year, some planned, some not.  Kota Ibushi finally won the championship at WrestleKingdom, the culmination of a multi-year journey, only to drop it to Will Ospreay a scant three months later.  Then Ospreay had to vacate the title in June due to a back injury.  The plan was for Kazuchika Okada to face Ibushi for the vacant title but then Ibushi developed pneumonia and had to be replaced by Shingo Takagi.  Takagi won his first IWGP Title, well-deservedly I might add, and has kept the championship picture stable ever since.  But the main belt wasn't the only title vacated, as Hiromu Takahashi had to step away in February, relinquishing his IWGP Jr. Title in the process.  And of course the most jarring blow to the roster was Kota Ibushi (this guy can't catch a fucking break) dislocating his shoulder during the G1 Climax Final, executing a Phoenix Splash and cutting the epic match short.  Jesus, this company needs a huge rebound in 2022.  Fortunately WrestleKingdom 16 is looking pretty stacked over its three-day(!) format.

But the most fun story of 2021 involves our first award.....

 

AEW Dynamite: Winter is Coming 2021 Preview & Predictions

December 15th, 2021 is a Wednesday, and you know what that means (RIP Brodie).....  That's right, it's time for the second annual Winter is Coming episode of AEW Dynamite!

Only four matches have been announced for the show so far, which likely means the main event is gonna be a long one.  But before we talk about what is sure to be a major Match of the Year candidate for the richest prize in AEW (if not wrestling as a whole right now), let's look at the undercard.  Goddamn, this should be a helluva show.

Dynamite Diamond Ring: MJF vs. Dante Martin

Two-time ring-holder MJF is defending said trinket against the other finalist from last week's battle royal, the up-and-coming Dante Martin.  Dante, like Jungle Boy a year or so ago, is one of those young stars who's clearly destined for great things but thus far hasn't racked up many big wins.  And I'm not sure he'll do so here, given that MJF is being primed as a tip-top guy and is in the midst of a white-hot major feud.  However, either CM Punk or Wardlow could be a factor in this match, somehow costing MJF the ring or coming close to doing so (on purpose in Punk's case or accidentally in Wardlow's).  MJF-Wardlow has been on the horizon for a long time and we got another tease of it last week when MJF eliminated Wardlow from the battle royal ("accidentally").  So while MJF has to be the favorite I could see Wardlow returning the favor by cockblocking MJF here.  A win over MJF would certainly be a big boost for Dante.  But on balance you have to pick MJF to three-peat.  This match should be fantastic.

Pick: MJF keeps the ring

WWE Survivor Series 2021: It Was Fine

Well that was a show.  A pretty good show.  Certainly a pretty good show by 2021 WWE's standards.  Of course it was not without moments that make rational viewers go "Huh???"  Jesus there's a lot wrong with this product right now.  But Survivor Series 2021 was a perfectly decent watch overall.

Of note before I get into this, it's a mistake to watch an AEW PPV one weekend and then a WWE PPV the next.  Wrestling quality aside, WWE's live crowds are lifeless compared to AEW's.  I don't care what side of the wrestling fence you're on, there's simply no getting around this fact.  AEW fans are so much more excited to be there than WWE's, and it's not even close.  Just about every match at Full Gear got enormous crowd reactions throughout, while almost nothing on this show made these fans give a tupenny fuck.  Everything at Survivor Series lost up to a full star off its rating, just because the crowd was dead.  I've said it before, but how does Vince not think this is a red-alert-level problem?  If your audience doesn't react to anything, you're clearly not engaging them.  If you're not engaging them, they aren't going to watch your show.

Oh also?  Pat McAfee is annoying as shit.  Guy doesn't shut up and half the time says things that make no sense.  It's good that unlike every other WWE announcer he has a personality, but someone's gotta reign him in a little.  

I was pretty pissed to see Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Damien Priest get bumped to the pre-show, particularly considering just how much time was wasted on video packages, commercials, entrances, etc.  There is no excuse whatsoever for a match of any importance being relegated to the Kickoff while the company pisses away airtime on a video package for Drew McIntyre or Bobby Lashley.  What the fuck were those all about?  Yeah, we know who both those guys are, why are you showing us documentary-style videos with no objective?  Or how about Vince McMahon and the stupid gold egg?  Are we seriously building an entire episode of RAW around "Rich Old Guy's Expensive Trinket Missing?"  Imagine thinking your wrestling audience wants to see your obscenely wealthy 76-year-old ass whining about how someone stole your new toy.  Anyway, Nak vs. Priest was pretty good while it lasted, with lots of nearfalls and counterwrestling.  Until Priest let go of a submission hold because Nakamura's guitar player friend distracted him with his guitar playing.  What the actual fuck is with this gimmick?  Welcome to WWE, where a legit badass with MMA experience gets turned into a comedy character.  Priest went after Rick Boogs, took his guitar away, broke it over his knee, and bludgeoned both Boogs and Nakamura with it, drawing a disqualification.  So Damien Priest, who had been undefeated for months since debuting on RAW, loses by DQ on a Kickoff show.  Makes sense....  Like I said, this was good until the finish.  **1/4

The proper PPV opener easily stole the show, as Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair had a very intense, aggressive fight.  To WWE's credit they resisted the temptation to make it look like a shoot or have some wacky Montreal-esque ending.  Becky and Charlotte worked stiffly and urgently, using their real-life tension to fuel the bout.  There were a ton of nearfalls, both women used each other's finishers (Becky didn't quite lock in the Figure Four properly and had to kinda turn it into a heel hook), and it built to Flair attempting to steal a win with a rope-assisted roll-up, only for Lynch to reverse it and use the ropes more surreptitiously so the ref didn't see it.  Lynch got the pin and gloated over her archenemy.  This was a very good match with a few sloppy moments, like Charlotte's top rope moonsault that more or less missed Becky.  Still this was unquestionably the best thing on the show.  ****

WWE Survivor Series 2021 Preview & Predictions

It's that time of year again, when WWE takes a once-great gimmick PPV and half-asses the shit out of it because Vince doesn't care!

That's right, this Sunday is the 35th annual Survivor Series, which means RAW and Smackdown are once again feuding, even though they've done precisely zero to build up the brand rivalry thing and barely even mentioned the various matches on the card.  Except for the numerous elimination team substitutions they've booked for whatever reason, I guess to build up Adam Pearce as the 163rd heel authority figure in the last quarter-century?  Imagine being so creatively bankrupt you keep recycling the big angle from 23 years ago just because it was white-hot THEN.  Anyway, apparently if no Saudi blood money is involved in a given PPV Vince just isn't that into it anymore.

What's sad is this show actually boasts a pretty strong lineup.  Two elimination matches and four champion vs. champion bouts.  If Vince just stays out of the way of booking the show it could turn out pretty solid.

RK-Bro vs. The Usos

The two sets of tag champs will face off and on paper this is a fine matchup.  All four guys can work a match, RK-Bro is one of the most over acts in the company, and it's a shame Vince doesn't see Matt Riddle as a legit badass despite the fact that he's a legit badass, because he's almost certainly eating the pin here.  Riddle could be a main event player in a non-dysfunctional company, but no, Comedy Stoner Buffoon is about the best he can hope for from Old Man Vince.

Pick: Usos

Damien Priest vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Speaking of legit badasses Vince doesn't get, Nakamura has been the Intercontinental Champion for what, three months now and has defended it on television ONE time?  And hasn't had a PPV match at all during this reign?  This guy needs to get the fuck outta there, pronto.  If given time this match should be very good as well.  Damien Priest is one of the few recent signees the company hasn't screwed up yet and they've amazingly done a good job of protecting him.  So he's undoubtedly winning here; no way does Priest get pinned or submitted by a guy they have no plans for.  Hopefully they get a good 17 minutes or so to try and steal the show.

Pick: Priest

AEW Full Gear 2021: An All-Time Classic Pro Wrestling Show

Hey, remember when All Out was the best PPV of 2021?  That was a fun couple of months, wasn't it?

Ho-lee shit, what a show Full Gear was.  Just a stellar night of professional wrestling from start to finish.  Great matches, memorable moments, the long-awaited payoff to a two-year story in the crowning of a new champion, this is how you do wrestling in 2021.  I can't recall the last PPV where the worst thing on the show was "very good."  All of the greatest-ever shows of the past had at least one or two middling or throwaway bouts - WrestleKingdom 9 had a pair of skippable multi-man tags, WrestleMania 17 had Chyna-Ivory and the Gimmick Battle Royal, 'Mania 19 had that awful Taker vs. Big Show/Albert match, etc.  Full Gear's worst match gets a ***1/2 from me, and I count six ****+ matches on this show.  Six.  That's flat-out insane.  I can't think of another show with this kind of consistency.  And, every match was different.  You had classic grappling, you had crazy highspot wrestling, you had gritty fights, you had outrageous car wreck matches, you had big storytelling.  If you couldn't find something to enjoy on this show, I'm afraid you might be your own problem.  I dunno what voodoo magic AEW is practicing, but keep it up guys.  This was one of the greatest wrestling shows I've ever seen.

The show opened with a classic good vs. evil bout, as Darby Allin faced MJF.  Two of the company's future main eventers battling to be #1 of the Four Pillars.  True to his word, Allin concentrated on trying to outwrestle MJF rather than rely so much on death-defying moves.  That's not to say Darby didn't do a few of those as well - a lightning-fast missile dive through the ropes flattened MJF on the outside, while a missed Coffin Drop attempt on the apron put Allin on the defensive for a while.  MJF hit a slew of backbreakers, one of which tweaked his knee, making it a target for the rest of the match.  After a crazy exchange with both guys countering rollups and small packages (making referee Bryce Remsburg earn his pay and then some, counting 20 or so nearfalls), Allin hit a Code Red followed by a Coffin Drop on the floor.  MJF countered a second Coffin Drop in the ring by raising his knees, injuring both Allin and himself in the process.  Wardlow and Shawn Spears attempted to interfere but Sting came out of nowhere to intercept.  MJF handed Allin his skateboard and tried to goad him into getting himself disqualified, but Allin refused.  With the ref distracted, MJF broke out the Dynamite Diamond ring and clocked Allin with it, and then put Allin in a side headlock and pinned him (A great payoff to MJF's promo a couple weeks back where he boasted he could beat Allin with that exact move).  This was an absolutely fantastic opener and the best match on the show until the main event.  Both guys are great, but MJF is a next-level performer.  He may be known for his promos but he's a pretty amazing wrestler too.  This guy is the complete package and the only thing he's missing is the AEW Title.  ****3/4