The Thread Killer

Without exaggeration, tonight’s episode of SmackDown might be one of the worst episodes I have ever seen. There were three matches in two hours, and the rest of it was nonstop back to back crappy, scripted promos, and backstage segments. It’s lucky for them there was a rain delay in the Jays game, but still. That was complete and utter shite.

Well said.

It was okay. Better than Night One of Wrestlemania this year, that’s for sure. -> Iyo vs Liv was definitely the best match I’ve ever seen them have against each other. There were a few botches, but that’s par for the course, even for Iyo. They got 13 minutes, which I thought was pretty fair. There were some good highlights. I wasn’t crazy about the Judgment Day run ins, those were totally unnecessary, especially because they went with a clean finish. I would’ve liked to see Iyo win, but Liv is definitely improving in the ring. -> The 6 Man Tag was what it was. It didn’t suck, but it wasn’t great. It probably could have used a bit more time. Any time LA Knight gets a major win, on a PLE no less, I’m all for it. I would never have figured he would pin Jey Uso. I’m not sure what the heck they are doing with Solo now. Then again, I don’t understand what they are doing with the entire Bloodline either. They act like heels, but still play to the crowd, and of course, the stupid fans still cheer them. I don’t know what the heck they are doing with Jacob Fatu. I was guessing that Solo was going to turn, but he didn’t. But anyhow, this was inoffensive. It should be noted that this match perfectly encapsulated why I hate Michael Cole. At one point Keys was throwing a series of right hand punches, while Cole proclaimed him as a “southpaw.” This was shortly before he called a spinebuster, a powerbomb. But hey, the guy has only been working there for over 30 years, and he was all of about 5 feet away, so of course he would screw up. -> I loved Aldis vs Gunther. I have always been an unabashed Aldis fan, and I challenge anybody who saw his interview with Chris Van Vliet this past week to watch this match and not feel good for the guy. I was afraid that that the fans were going to sit on their hands for this match, but they didn’t. I was afraid Aldis was going to look like crap, but he didn’t. I was afraid Gunther was just going to eat the guy alive and not give him anything, but he didn’t. This went pretty much exactly how I hoped it would. -> The Women’s 6 Person match was definitely the low light of the night for me. I have no idea why WWE rehired the Bella Twins and Paige. They managed to pretty much kill the previously super hot Women’s Tag Division. They bring nothing to the table at this point, if they ever did. But at least Fatal Influence went over. As far as the angle after the match, we all saw that coming, and once again, who really cares? I might be wrong, but it looked to me like Brie Bella got legitimately hurt during this match. She did NOT look happy, she was clutching her shoulder, and she did not participate in the beat down on Paige. -> I have mixed feelings about Cody vs Punk. I didn’t like the lead up to this match. The first portion of the match was way too slow, and even the crowd wasn’t into it, but they seemed to get going and warm everybody up as the match went along. I think it was a fair to good match. I don’t have any strong feelings about the ending. For whatever bizarre reason, WWE seems determined to run Orton vs Cody but at least this way, there are no more celebrities involved, and the title is not on the line. I’m glad Punk retained. There are way more enticing matches for him as champion than there would have been for Cody. Cody is starting to get a bit stale for me. -> As far as the Main Event goes, what can you say? I can’t imagine anybody was expecting anything different from what we got. It was short, it was stiff, it was violent. Say what you want about Lesnar, but he pretty much made Femi in this feud. Femi looks like an unbeatable monster now. I was going to say there is no way they could screw this up, but of course, these are the people who managed to take all of the momentum that Gunther had after retiring Goldberg, Cena and AJ and totally piss it away, so of course they can screw this up. But if he is booked correctly, Oba Femi is a made man now. I would not be one little bit surprised to see him in the World Title picture from this point on. So like I said, this wasn’t bad. I enjoyed parts of it quite a bit. Conversely, tomorrow looks like it’s going to be total shit. Aside from Gable vs Penta there is not one single match on that show that I have any desire to watch.

If they do Punk vs Cody, I am there for that, and I’m curious about Brock vs Oba in the Cell, but they need what…14 matches? They need to get going and I have no confidence in their current booking to come up with anything decent.

The shitty booking isn’t helping either, I assume. Was there really anybody on earth clamouring for Reigns vs Rollins: Part 137?

There have been so many “experts” on Twitter claiming they knew for sure who it was that TKO strong armed into taking the 50% pay cut. First it was LA Knight (which I am sure Kevin Nash would have been thrilled to report on his podcast, since he seems to hate the guy for some reason) but then it was Damien Priest. Then it was Sami Zayn. Like @DMJ says, I have also heard The Miz’s name thrown around. There are so many people who claim to know who it was, but of course they can’t offer any proof, so I take it all with a grain of salt.

The dude is 48 years old, becoming increasingly injury prone, and has always had a reputation as a bit of a backstage bully…but I guess if AEW wants him, more power to them. He’ll probably get signed to a massive contract, make a couple of appearances, and then disappear into the AEW vortex, never to be seen nor heard from again.

Much like pretty much everything else involving Seth Rollins, I am finding this Rollins/Breakker Cage Match to be quite ponderous. And Michael Cole’s hysterical shrieking isn’t helping any. EDIT: And putting Rollins over by pinfall in the middle of the ring is a particularly stupid decision.

Welp, I guess they either aren’t doing Oba/Brock III at SummerSlam after all, or Oba is working both nights. I’m just glad we were spared a Jey Uso win and another Main Event run for him. I was getting nervous there for a minute.

Seems like Billy Corgan’s NWA finally got themselves a decent streaming deal. They’re going to be on Tubi, which has pretty wide availability. It comes automatically on a lot of smart devices and the app is easily accessible. Pity that the NWA is dogshit now and this deal comes about 5 years too late.

Sounds like Tommy Dreamer got the boot. Now do Hunter Johnson, because the creative in TNA is truly dreadful. Them having a snazzy new TV deal hasn’t done them a bit of good because the creative has been absolute shit.

So the Final 4 of this year’s KOTR are Oba vs Dom and Jey vs Je’Von Evans. Normally, I would assume that Oba is just going to steamroll his way through the rest of the tournament, and go on to get a world title match at SummerSlam, except the conventional wisdom seems to be that he will be fighting Lesnar again, so I can’t figure out what their plan is for the winner of the tournament, and who will go on to get the shot at SummerSlam, and who the winner will face? The way things are going now it seems to look like Gunther is going to beat Cody for the title next Friday as well.

That’s the big question. TKO would be idiots to let him back in, in any capacity. No matter how you slice it he’s probably going to end up costing them millions of dollars to settle this lawsuit. And he certainly proved before the lawsuit that he is long past his expiry date when it comes to his creative and management abilities. No matter how you look at it, he is a liability. He cost them tons of money already, and he’s liable to cost them more in the future. But on the flipside of that, TKO are a bunch of morons. Mark Shapiro may be the dumbest executive in the history of combat sports, and that covers a lot of ground. And of course, the moronic fans would welcome Vince back, even if a lot of the locker room would secretly be devastated if he did come back. I don’t see a scenario where Vince McMahon returns and Triple H sticks around, and as much as people love to dump on Hunter, I would still take him on his worst day over Vince McMahon on his best.

Seeing as this was a civil matter, I never thought there was going to be a day where Vince McMahon was going to be called to account for his behavior. He was thoroughly investigated by the Justice Department (and this was before Trump took office) and the bottom line is, they could not find grounds for criminal charges. The fact that they took so long to investigate has led many people to speculate (and I agree with this theory) that they actually impaneled a Grand Jury and presented all the evidence that Grant’s legal team turned over, but they were unable to get an indictment. Even if he had been criminally charged, Human Trafficking would have been a very difficult case to make. And McMahon has proved in the past that he can purchase the best defense money can buy, so he probably would’ve skated anyways. Not to mention, McMahon is 80 years old with a history of steroid and cocaine use. By the time this thing got to trial he probably would have been dead or in a wheelchair anyways. Once it became clear he wasn’t going to be criminally charged, the worst case scenario was always going to be that he was going to be taken to the cleaners and have to pay a ton of money. Which, for a guy his age, and with the amount of money that he has, really probably doesn’t mean anything. At this point, I’m not even really sure what “Justice” would look like in this situation, but whatever it is, I don’t think we are going to see it. Janel Grant is going to get rich, and TKO and Vince McMahon are going to stay rich, just not as rich as they were I guess. The only real result of this entire mess is that it ended up with Vince being run out of his own company, which is something I guess.

Some interesting news has come out in the past 24 hours. Firstly, apparently a former member of the WWE Board of Directors stated during a deposition that they are convinced Nick Khan is the one who leaked the Vince McMahon/Janel Grant fiasco to the media, basically as a way to force McMahon out of the company. Secondly, and this is pretty big, reportedly WWE, Vince McMahon and Janel Grant’s legal team have all jointly filed to go to arbitration. That essentially means that this case will probably never go to court, which I always suspected, but I never figured Janel Grant’s legal team would go along with it. Essentially, that means there is a better than average chance that basically WWE and McMahon write a (very big) check, including another NDA. And then the whole thing goes away.

That was awesome. I really enjoyed that show. It’s insane how popular Kaiser…I mean El Grande Americano is. I assume since he won Rey de Reyes this year, he gets the shot at the Mega Championship at Triplemania? If so, bring it on. Strap that dude up. Poor Gable was busted up after that match too. It was also amazing to me how much respect the fans gave him after the match, considering how much they hated him during the lead up.

That’s the million dollar question right there. I don’t know if it’s Jeremy Borash, or The Undertaker or who it is, but somebody is making some very smart booking decisions with that promotion right now. They are using native AAA talent still, but they are also mixing in Mexican WWE talent who are basically treading water on the main roster, and sending some top prospects from NXT. The combination seems to be working. Look what her time in AAA has done for Lola Vice. For example, the Rey Fenix vs Laredo Kid rivalry or The War Raiders vs Psycho Circus angle? Give me that stuff all day long. It is resulting in great matches, and that’s all I really care about. There is definitely an argument you can make that they are essentially using AAA as a developmental territory, but as long as they continue to feature the best AAA talent they do have, like La Parka, Octagon Jr., Vikingo, and El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr., it still has the appearance of Lucha, even if it’s not the traditional pure style presented by CMLL. And I love to see guys like Fenix, Cruz Del Toro, Dragon Lee, and Joaquin Wilde actually get a chance to work. Let’s be honest, guys like Jack Cartwheel, TJP and Los Garza are never going to get a shot working on the Main Roster in a significant way anyhow. Throw in Main Roster names like Mysterio (father and son both), Penta, Bayley and Nattie making regular appearances, so far it has been a winning combination. Especially when it is presented on a show that only lasts an hour and is not a total chore to sit through.

I will be the first to freely admit that it is truly bizarre that in 2026, I am actually stoked to watch a match which is essentially Chad Gable vs Ludwig Kaiser, and where the supporting characters are the Creed Brothers, Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne. But I will be damned if they haven’t managed to make this compelling and exciting. The buildup to the AAA part of this feud has been pretty much flawlessly executed. You cannot say the same of course about the parts of the angle that were shot on RAW, but that also has a lot to do with the American fans not really giving a shit, and the WWE Main Roster “creative team” basically ruining everything they touch by doing it via corporate committee. lt’s insane how popular Kaiser is with the AAA fans, in large part because he speaks Spanish and has been cutting a bunch of “man of the people” type promos. For the few fans that have been complaining about this, I simply remind them that prior to WWE taking over, AAA was pretty much shit anyway, and their number one star was Alberto Del Rio, so how much has really been lost, really?

I have mixed feelings about that. It’s probably best for his overall health, and especially his joints to lose all that weight, but on the other hand, the old school wrestling fan in me always loves an athletic fat guy. I feel so conflicted and torn.

Man, The Vision is the most snake bit stable I have ever seen. Rollins, Breakker, Reed and now Logan Paul have all been shelved with major injuries in the past year. It’s crazy.

One of the main reasons FTR left WWE to begin with is because the fed treated their Tag Division and Tag Team Wrestling like a joke and an afterthought. That hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s gotten worse. There is literally no competition for FTR in WWE. I’m not even an AEW fan but I think it would be ridiculous for them to leave AEW. Plus @sek69 is right, no way TKO pays the kind of money FTR would want to make the jump.

Having said all that, I still thought “The Curse of the Von Erichs” was outstanding. The 4 Horseman episode was okay. Family drama aside, The Road Warriors episode really wasn’t all that good. There were glaring historical omissions, (like @WrestlingPower said, Japan was totally ignored.) And I’m sorry but when you put Peter Rosenberg and Sam Roberts forward as your main Pro Wrestling Historian talking heads…I just can’t take you seriously.

So Rey Mysterio is now the storyline “General Manager” of AAA, an unfortunate byproduct of which means that he’s off the announce team, which is a shame because he, Corey Graves and JBL were great together. Mysterio was just getting comfortable in the role and was great at providing backstory to certain things from a Lucha perspective. The other main issue with this, is that Mysterio acted as the translator for the English announce team, and he was very good at it. He would basically tell the fans what was being said during in ring and backstage promos, pretty much word for word. He was definitely better at it than Konnan was. Rey’s replacement this week was…Savio Vega. I won’t comment on a Puerto Rican star being selected to replace a Luchadore to explain Lucha Libre. I will say that his overall commentary skills are a major step down, and his translation abilities are, shall we say…lacking. As in… *Somebody delivers a long promo in Spanish* * long pause* Savio Vega: “He say…they going to have a big match!”

She’s very upset that she was not asked to participate in the episode, but Animal’s first two wives and his daughter were. Thing is, she met Animal much later in life, long after his Pro Wrestling career was over, so realistically I don’t know how much she really could have contributed to a documentary about his Pro Wrestling career or The Road Warriors. It’s my understanding she didn’t even know Hawk. She was physically with Animal when he died, and she’s claiming Animal’s daughter is lying about the details of his death. The relationship between his last wife and the rest of his family is clearly very strained. Animal’s body was barely in the ground when she was online trying to raise money off the guy’s name, claiming he didn’t leave her any money and that he didn’t have Life Insurance, so she was essentially broke. She ran more than one unsuccessful Crowdfunding attempt after he died, trying to get financial support she claimed she needed. Apparently the rest of Animal’s family tried to ice her out of his Memorial Service as well. I guess Animal did leave her the Road Warriors/LOD trademarks (apparently he owned them, not Hawk or Ellering) so she has had disputes with the rest of his family around that, as well.

Yeah, he was great as Roman’s goon, and there’s plenty of room for him as a midcard guy, but they have pushed him beyond his capabilities. His promo skills are especially weak.