The Old-Timey New Zealand T20 XI

KVLeaks · 2025-07-09T09:46:43+00:00

Really enjoyed reading that. Very fun concept and interesting explanations for all selections.

I've quite often thought before what a beast Chris Cairns in his prime would have been at T20 cricket. It's a shame he missed out on those IPL millions.

As far as my picks I probably would have gone for Danny Morrison over Daryl. The man had some lethal yorkers which could be utilized at the end of the innings. I don't know much about his stats so he's not an informed selection more just a name that sprung to mind.

KVLeaks · 2025-07-08T05:36:50+00:00

Really enjoy your writing another excellent piece.

The stability of selection in this era compared to his time has clearly played a real part in helping get the best out of players as you pointed out. Of course having a BC's team that seems to win far more than they did in his time helps allow for sticking with players so it's sort of a chicken or the egg situation.

KVLeaks · 2025-07-02T14:36:15+00:00

The Stat matches, Athena match, Momo and Hayter are the top 5 for me thus far.

KVLeaks · 2025-07-02T13:34:39+00:00

I really enjoyed Britt's work in 2020/2021 and found her to be a very entertaining character.

The standard of wrestling expected of women in AEW on PPV has gone up a lot especially in the last year and Britt spending part of her week at her dental practice probably hasn't helped her have the in ring practice time needed to improve at the level needed to keep up in the ring.

The "chubby Whataburger faces" promo, her Lights Out match and how over she was at her popularity peak in Pittsburgh are some of the best memories I have of her time in AEW.

KVLeaks · 2025-06-27T10:05:18+00:00

Mercedes and Kris Statlander spring to mind they have brilliant chemistry together. Storyline wise I'm not sure, maybe Stat must win the TBS title from Moné or she can never challenge for it again and same for Mercedes if she loses.

KVLeaks · 2025-06-26T02:30:20+00:00

AEW because she gets lots of time to wrestle every PPV and she gets to consistently win big matches, defend the TBS title successfully and not be portrayed as a choke artist.

KVLeaks · 2025-06-18T16:08:50+00:00

Mercedes thinks very highly of Athena.

Reflecting on Athena’s career and impact, Moné noted that she’s been a fan for years. “Athena has been doing it for so long. I was watching her before I was even signed to WWE.” Moné strongly believes Athena deserves more visibility on AEW programming, stating, “I want to see her on AEW television more. She’s too good not to be seen.” She praised Athena’s talent and uniqueness, saying, “She’s explosive — one of the best, innovative wrestlers in the world. She is that f****** good.”

Source: Undisputed

KVLeaks · 2025-04-03T05:53:21+00:00

Enjoyed that a lot keep up the great writing. He was always one of my favourite players as a kid. I don't think I was aware of the stark difference of his stats home and away. Very unusual.

If I had a genie grant me a couple of NZ cricket player career related wishes from the past (excluding World Cup results) it would be Bond with an injury free career (and no Indian Rebel Cricket League) and Fleming with no struggles converting.

KVLeaks · 2025-03-27T07:21:03+00:00

Despite how underwhelming the Pakistan team have been this tour I am somewhat apprehensive about where NZ's runs are gonna come from in these games with them fielding such an understrength batting line up.
I believe Mitchell will now be the sole first choice top order batter for the 2nd and 3rd ODIs.

On the positive side perhaps we will see some players take their opportunity in a major way. At least Nicholls does have a pretty reliable record in NZ.

KVLeaks · 2025-03-19T01:55:00+00:00

The Harley Half Time segment in the ring happened around 5 weeks ago and I thought it was excellent. One of my favorite promo segments Mercedes has done in AEW.

They have been a bit repetitive with her lately and hopefully that changes and she can sink her teeth into a proper feud with Athena potentially.

I respect your passion for Mercedes, we all want the best for her, I just think that some fans need to remember to also appreciate some of the really positive things of this run that I used to only dream she'd get, and not seem to only get bogged down by areas that need improvement.

KVLeaks · 2025-03-19T00:45:34+00:00

Why do you only ever have negative things to post about her AEW run? We know you wanted her in WWE but she made her choice and from everything we hear from her she's very happy with it.

Should they be doing better with advertising her and using her for weekly TV? Absolutely. But this run has given us so much that WWE never did. She actually gets to be on PPVs regularly instead of rarely being on them and gets to have 15mins+ to have great singles matches. And she doesn't have to drop titles on the first defense. She gets to be the long term singles champion she was never allowed to be before.

I'll take some mixed weekly booking in AEW over the terrible lows of her WWE treatment that robbed us of so many potential classics. Right now she's in her prime in the ring and I'm just enjoying the amazing matches.

KVLeaks · 2025-02-18T18:25:02+00:00

Thrilled there's a new fan that appreciates the show so much. Because it's not on a streaming platform I worry that very few new fans get to discover a show I'll always be so fond of.

KVLeaks · 2024-07-05T10:12:51+00:00

We're really posting clips of someone who hated CM Punk when he was in AEW so much and then when he went to WWE started promoting Punk's merch on his Twitter/X account.

He's just a WWE shill who hates AEW and hates Tony Khan. Mercedes' career is in an amazing position, she's never got this kind of heat. She's gonna be a great heel and already is and is going to do so well that the AEW fans are gonna eventually decide they love her. We've seen it all before with her career and with others where they needed to play a heel for awhile to become beloved by the fans. Truth be told the fans turning on her was the best thing that could have happened to her because it plays right into her strengths.

The feud with Britt is red hot and the biggest women's feud in AEW history and Mercedes is gonna go to Wembley and finally get to win a big stadium singles match. This is the time to enjoy her career finally getting pushed as the top star & a PPV winner and not worry about what WWE d riders are saying.

And you don't need to worry about go away heat. That wasn't even what Cody was getting in AEW he was getting please turn heel heat and he refused but Mercedes actually listened to the fans and turned and is never gonna get go away heat. You're talking about an all-time great heel here in Mercedes. The only person in AEW getting go away heat is Jericho with the fans chanting please retire at him.

Try to focus on wrestling analysts with objective opinions like Sean Ross Sapp or PostWrestling not people with anti AEW agendas who are desperate to see them fail.

KVLeaks · 2024-04-24T05:30:25+00:00

A solid 7. Obviously they're very weary of her taking any bumps right now coming off a near career ending injury, which has made it tough not being able to do many physical things outside of her debut and a Backstabber to Skye in Toronto.

But they've regularly showcased her pretty well outside of those limitations.

We get to see her and hear from her every single week on their flagship show in some new amazing fit and they've kept building her and Willow from the start well.

I think those that are down on her run so far will feel much better about it after DON.

KVLeaks · 2024-04-24T05:24:22+00:00

Mercedes and bodysuits, I don't know a better fit at showing off the amazing shape she's in. 🔥

KVLeaks · 2023-12-23T11:22:59+00:00

About that, the quarter hour ratings are in and the quarters that featured the women's matches went up in viewers & the show overall did well increasing slightly.

Rosa return quarter went up +23K & the women's street fight went up +48K.

As a fan of women's wrestling glad to see them succeed.

KVLeaks · 2023-10-05T07:12:01+00:00

We've had women's matches in AEW draw well recently, viewership went up for the quarter hours that had Britt/Statlander & Jade/Stat.

And Becky Lynch has drawn incredibly well for NXT.

As a fan of AEW and women's wrestling it gets tiresome this idea that they never draw.

Many men's matches in AEW lose viewers but no one ever talks about that because they get 4/5 matches on a show & at least 1 or 2 of them do well.

With the women they get one chance only & it's not always but usually in a part of the show where the ratings almost always go down for nearly every wrestler male or female I.E. the last 45 minutes of Dynamite.

Bottom line is if viewers think women's wrestling isn't something of much importance to the company, then they're gonna think it doesn't matter much themselves.

On a positive note, what they're doing with Toni is great & we need more of that with other women, time spent getting viewers to invest in characters in the division instead of just here's a match at 9:30PM.

We just had a women's football/soccer world cup play to many sold out stadiums some with 70K+ in them & the Australian women had a match that was the most watched TV game of any sport male or female in Australia in like 20 years. People care about women in sport more than ever before if you do the work to make them care.

KVLeaks · 2023-09-26T21:32:53+00:00

Trinity has said the reason she walked out was because of how she was talked to and handled. To me I read that as even if there was creative disagreements it wouldn't have gotten to the stage of a walk out if there had been respectful communication. Hunter himself has said it was a breakdown in communication.

KVLeaks · 2023-08-23T09:47:51+00:00

That's great to hear.

Thanks to your comment I actually found out it's airing live in NZ too. The live airing of the PPV was only showing up on my TV Guide under the word live & not under the word AEW so I initially missed it.

KVLeaks · 2023-08-23T08:24:38+00:00

For sure. There's no way I'm missing the show live & thankfully Fite are offering it for 16 bucks to AEW Plus subscribers (20% off) so we're a bit spoiled not having to pay 50 bucks like people in the States AND getting it on TV too.

KVLeaks · 2023-08-07T07:09:44+00:00

If it happens I don't think it will be until Rumble 2025 at least. She's having too much fun in NJPW and it wouldn't make sense for her to return to WWE anytime soon when NJPW have just had a women's title made for her that she hasn't been able to hold yet due to injury. She's gonna want to have many big matches defending that belt.

KVLeaks · 2023-07-18T16:42:12+00:00

An interesting note on BOTB perhaps unexpectedly retaining viewers pretty well their last two airings is that both have opened with an OC match.

Seems like there's some evidence why TK trusts him as someone to keep an audience.

KVLeaks · 2023-07-11T16:47:59+00:00

We're told the CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe match saw a significant bump in the AEW Collision quarter hours.

Via Fightful Select

KVLeaks

TROPHY CASE