The Phantom Rant: The Chase is where the money is & Ricky Starks Drama
I hate to toot my own horn, but TOOT TOOT. Last week in the column I said the following “Realistically there is only one person who if Roman was able to get touch with Paul Heyman that it would work storyline wise and that’s CM Punk. Punk is a Heyman guy so if the Wiseman was in a pinch and needed to ask for someone for help, odds are it would be Punk. “ What did happen on Friday Night Smackdown this past Friday? Team Roman needed a fifth man and Paul Heyman showed up and who did he bring with him? Why it was CM Punk. Not all is not perfect in this team as Roman and Punk don’t like each other. So there are seeds being planted for that feud (which I love). The mens War Games match is going to be so awesome on so many levels.
So yeah, I called that. I knew they wouldn’t go with Seth and The Rock probably isn’t showing up. Always listen to me. Okay, now that I’ve stroked my ego…onto the rest of the column.
AEW had Full Gear the other night and as I said, the matches were pretty good. I was surprised how good the preshow match of BIG BOOM AJ vs. QT Marshall was. Either QT is a miracle worker or this AJ guy actually was that good. Either way you should check out the match on youtube. It was pure entertainment and nothing is wrong with that. In the end, that’s what we tune in for. Entertainment.
I think sometimes we forget we are watching for entertainment. We get caught up in workrate and star ratings and stuff like that and just forget why we were watching in the first place. Me personally, I don’t pay attention to star ratings. I just know when something sucks and when something is good. And as I said, I thought the matches at Full Gear were pretty good. The main event of Orange Cassidy vs. Jon Moxley was the bloody war of attrition I thought it would be. Orange tried his best, but his best wasn’t good enough and Moxley prevailed in the end.
Now just because Moxley won this battle does not mean he has won the war. I think there’s still mileage in a feud with Moxley and Orange Cassidy. I did like the ending with Wheeler Yuta sneaking in to cost Orange the match. Moxley might be tough, but he can’t win without his other Death Riders. Post match saw Moxley and Yuta try to murder Orange with a bottle of Windex. I guess the plastic bag spot is too violent even for AEW now. We also got a bunch of run in’s from people including Hangman Page, Christian trying to cash in his contract and Switchblade Jay White stopping Christian from cashing in.
It’s not about the catch, it’s more about the chase and Cassidy is one of many who are chasing Moxley. That seems to be the big story coming out of Full Gear. Moxley has all these challengers for his title. I am very excited for the possibilities of who could challenge next. And I haven’t even mentioned Darby Allin who had the biggest literal impact at the end of the pay per view when he actually crashed a car into The Death Riders umm ride. Darby is the obvious choice to be the next challenger for Moxley…but he’s in the Continental Classic so that’s probably going to be pushed off for a while.
Jay White would be a natural to have the next shot if Darby is otherwise occupied. I just like how there are all these choices for a challenger to the championship.
BREAKING NEWS!!!
We interrupt this column for some breaking wrestling news. Tony Khan and AEW have pulled Ricky Starks from all his upcoming GCW appearances.
https://nodq.com/news/aew-pulls-ricky-starks-from-all-upcoming-gcw-appearances/
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful posted the following about what happened.
“We’re told that AEW had taken exception to GCW talent Effy bringing up Shad Khan on a recent podcast, in regards to AEW running Hammerstein ballroom, and Shad effectively paying Tony Khan to stay away. After that, AEW was not interested in having Ricky Starks work GCW. AEW also says that Ricky Starks is able to take other independent dates from other companies.”
First, Tony Khan needs some thicker skin. This isn’t the worst thing ever said about his dad Shad Khan and not even including what most Jacksonville Jaguar fans think of him. But also…DAMN IT EFFY!!! Maybe Effy has a point about AEW running the Hammerstein Ballroom literally a couple of weeks before GCW does in January. But he should have known how thin skinned Tony Khan is. It was going to come back to bite him in the ass.
Ricky, though didn’t help his cause when he went on the Chris Van Vliet podcast.
He was poking the bear here. But what I don’t get is why keep the guy if you don’t want to use him. It’s so stupid to keep someone and continue paying them if you’re not going to use them. So what if they go somewhere else and become a bigger star. That’s on you for dropping the ball with them. Same goes for Rey Fenix. Yeah, he’s got a deal from the WWE waiting…but so what. If you aren’t gonna use him then release him.
AEW has the core of a good story with the people chasing Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship. I don’t want to see them screw it up because of petty crap.
On that note I am done for this week. I’m sure more will come out as the days move along about that developing story.
Until next time have a Happy Thanksgiving or a normal Thursday depending on where you are.
If you want to leave feedback you can do so below, on twitter, or actually e-mail me (I swear I’ll respond) at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com