Josh Average

Sorry. Gotta watch several days worth of pro wrestling. Gotta catch up on Season 32 of Monday Night RAW. Yeah, it's a whole thing.

I finally started watching AEW weekly programming properly over the last few weeks. I dunno how it plays to most of the audience, but I love that there are titles from all over being defended on AEW. Someone’s got a NJPW title, someone’s got a ROH title, there’s a title for the channel they’re on, there’s obviously the AEW titles themselves… there’s titles everywhere. It kinda rules because it really feels like the world of wrestling is huge in AEW. It’s not just AEW and ROH, it’s basically as big as any company that wants to work with AEW. Oftentimes in WWE the accomplishments outside of the company is ignored or gestured at vaguely (up until recently with the TNA stuff). Feels like a completely different philosophy, and a completely new philosophy to someone like me who wasn’t around when alliances and such were more commonplace. It’s neat! I dig it!

wrestling rewatch podcast that covers the no-audience era of the WWE. Call it "Off The Top Of My Dome".

going from a shitpost to a genuine idea: going from Elimination Chamber 2020 (last live audience PPV before COVID shutdowns) to WrestleMania 37 (first PPV with a live audience since COVID shutdowns) isn't that many events. Totally doable.

More thoughts on this idea.

First, it's only 16 events. I could do that, that's way more doable than my other review ideas[^1].

Second, it gives me lots other options. Keeping it to just WWE, I could look at the first and last empty-arena/Thunderdome TV shows and first/last TV shows with an audience. I could look at the same scope for NXT. As mentioned in the comments of the previous post, I could look at the AEW events. How was TNA around that time? IDK, I guess I could find out!

Third, if I have the time, I could have a "pilot episode" for this done this month. I have made this whole month "pilot season" on my YT channel, this would be a great way to get the idea out and see if it has legs!

anyways, I am Thinking and Considering

This is such a hard question lmao

First, some background about me: I got into wrestling at the age of 19. The first full episode of RAW I watched was the Occupy RAW episode, and the first PPV I watched was WrestleMania 30. I've gone back and watched some stuff here and there, but I'd say the bulk of my WWE knowledge of wrestling before WrestleMania 30 is from podcasts like The Attitude Era podcast, Wrestling With Wregret, The Power Bombcast, occasional episodes of Tights and Fights, and like... general osmosis through people into wrestling that I follow. I'll also say that I've watched a bit of "everything" (Lucha Underground, AEW, YouTube-era NWA, TNA by way of Pluto TV, Chikara, occasional Wrestle Kingdom matches, and probably a lot more I'm not remembering lol), but, like how people talk about Mario Kart, WWE was my first experience with pro wrestling so that's what I gravitate towards the most.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I think my favorites tend to change and flow depending on what's going on in my life and what aspects of wrestling I'm into at the moment. Because of that, I'll give you a handful of wrestlers I'd say are in my ever-changing "top spots".