Botched!: Arn’s Fall, Cody Rhodes’ Back, Bron’s Cutters, More

Hi, hello & welcome to Botched! I’m Steve Cook, and it’s been another wild week in the world of professional wrestling. We’ve got some AEW, some AAA & a little NXT for ya this week, along with a final word at the end of the column.

1. Arn vs. AEW’s Stage

Some would ask the question of why Arn Anderson is being put in spots like these at his age & condition. I have no doubt that he wants to be, it’s not like AEW is forcing him to do things they know he isn’t capable of. It’s become obvious that AEW needs to be safer and more controlled in situations involving Arn though, like this one where he stumbled into a poorly lit hole.

I shouldn't laugh but goddamn LMAOOOOO #AEWDynamite pic.twitter.com/1AaTnYzlEj

— Italo Santana (@BulletClubIta) December 2, 2021

Which led to Jose, the assistant of Andrade El Idolo, pulling Arn out of the hole while acting like he was trying to beat him up. You feel bad for Arn.

2. Cody’s Back

I wasn’t quite sure which part of Cody’s act to highlight here. Technically, he didn’t botch the flaming table bit because he protected his opponent. I’m not a huge fan of moves that obviously look worse for the giver than the receiver, but Cody’s fans want me to give him credit.

So we’ll focus on Cody’s back pre-flaming table and how it either freaked people out or smartened them up:

cody rhodes back looks disgusting lol pic.twitter.com/Seg3th3aO7

— Boris "#Feared4myLife" (@borisluchas) December 2, 2021

Dude, you could have worn a t-shirt. It wouldn’t have changed anybody’s mind.

3. Jade’s Pump Kick

Jade Cargill has more potential than almost anybody mentioned in the column this week. (You’ll see who I’m talking about when we get to 5.) She’s got the look & presence down. Her matches have mostly been quick & to the point, which is the right way to do it. Not everything is going to be perfect, and you just hope that the slips aren’t too bad. Fortunately, this pump kick at 2:25 wasn’t too bad, even though it takes one out of the beatdown she’s putting on Janai Kai.

Better she completely miss it than give Kai an injury in my book.

4. Sam Adonis Eats It

AAA held their big TripleMania Regia show this past weekend. We love AAA because they give us lots of content. People go crazy and try things that they probably shouldn’t try, or they just happen to miss one time on their biggest show. Here’s Sam Adonis moonsaulting somebody on a stretcher.

https://twitter.com/KnowTheX/status/1467320290501816326

Of course Matt Striker doesn’t even try to sugarcoat the situation. Bless his heart.

5. Bron vs. Bolt Cutters

There’s a lot to like about Bron Breakker. He looks like a natural in the ring. He’s proven that he can do the WWE corporate speak when necessary. There’s no doubt in my mind that he will be a future star. Bron’s only made one mistake so far in his young career, and it wasn’t even his fault. Why in the world did Tony D’Angelo try to padlock the cage before all of his partners had entered the match? Bron had to break in due to his partner’s foolishness, and he made the mistake of going for the bolt cutters.

watching NXT WarGames 2021 pic.twitter.com/qGHHpGy3jx

— forever botchamania (@Maffewgregg) December 6, 2021

They just got too cute. Ignoring the stupidity of his own partner locking the cage before he got in, the better move would have been for Bron to just rip the darn door off. That’s how you make somebody look super strong, not have them get a tool that they probably don’t use too often anyway. How often do you think Bron Breakker has used bolt cutters in his life? Probably not very.

And now, a special announcement…

After 181 columns and 3.75 years of giving you some botches and hopefully some hilarity, it’s time to move on to other things. Don’t get too excited, these other things will be at 411mania too, so you’re still stuck with me doing top 7 columns, ROH reviews (if the show is still a thing) and whatever else I can think of to annoy the public. This will be the last Botched! column with my byline, and I don’t know whether or not it’ll be returning with somebody else or not. TBD.

It’s been a good ride. Thanks to Ashish, Larry, Jeremy Thomas and everybody else at 411 for giving me these platforms to pontificate. Wanna thank all the gifsters & YouTube folks. I also want to thank Botchamania legend Maffew, who I expected to completely hate this column if he ever saw it. When I was first given the idea in early 2017, my first thought was “jeez, another Botchamania thing?”, so I was expecting the blowback that came. It didn’t come from Maffew though, he was very supportive.

Thanks for reading! You can still hit me up via e-mail at [email protected] or on the Twitter with any thoughts or concerns, though I won’t be needing the botches anymore. OK, you can send them if they’re funny.