cm funk

I actually watched RAW in full for the first time for sure this year, maybe since early in the pandemic last year. Between hot shotting anything and everything possible they finally got my attention - biggest negative out of the way first: when Lashley started using the chair and Graves yells "TRIPLE THREAT RULES IT'S ALL LEGAL" I cursed out loud at them. WWE just makes up the rules as they go, don't they? If everything was legal why wasn't he using a chair the whole time? Where were the Usos? Meh. It lead to a good finish with everyone staying strong tho, so I guess it's a mild complaint. But in the moment it was a total WTF because I was like "Why the fuck isn't this a DQ?!!?" and then the stupid announcer tells me there are no rules in this stupid company - the show overall wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. It def felt like a lot of hot shotting. Like clearly the opening trios was leading to a triple threat the way it ended, but I thought it would be at Extreme Rules (totally forgot/didn't know about Demon match). Then they're doing Orton/AJ and Hardy/Sheamus unadvertised on TV which feel like PPV caliber matches to me or at least something you build up, but whatever - Riddle was extra annoying, and I used to like his act in NXT. I guess this is the main roster norm for him now? - I thought the stuff with Nia "not cooperating" playing off the Charlotte match was really lame. I hate the work/shoot stuff and it felt very late stage WCW there for a moment. Then Shayna killed her and killed her some more and it was fine. Fine if this leads to Shayna being a serious badass again, but not sure what another Nia babyface push is going to do for anyone (the last time she was a face the fans ended up turning on her IIRC) - I actually really enjoyed the brief Ali/Mansoor v. Angel/Humberto match. I'd forgot Angel was even around anymore tbh, and I'd forgotten that him and Humberto were related? Both of these teams showed potential if they actually stuck with them and ran a legit tag division. LOL, I know. I almost forgot who the tag champs were just typing that and they were all over the show - the 24/7 backstage was lame - I was surprised that I enjoyed the Charlotte/Alexa deal. Most everything I've seen of Alexa in this gimmick has been an instant turnoff for me. This was tolerable and at least somewhat interesting. Charlotte wearing an overalls type outfit mean anything? This was definitely more interesting in presentation and verbiage than the other Alexa/Lili stuff I've seen, and thankfully they've ditched the magic act - Lashley was great all night, as was Roman. Big E was good in the matches, but maybe it was just me I'm not buying him as champ yet. WWE has made him such a permanent mid-carder in my mind, and they started off RAW showing how he won the belt in a super cheap fashion (first time I'd seen the clips). At least with Kofi he won it fair and square after an uphill climb against D-Bry at WM. I think they might have doomed Big E off the bat having him become champ that way, but time will tell. At the very least he was booked really strong last night against the two strongest, most protected guys in the company right now - crowd wasn't great, but I've surely been spoiled watching mostly AEW lately. Are SC crowds usually so meh? I also noticed at several points that the ring seemed to be off. New ring crew? I noticed several people having issues on the top turnbuckles, and there were a few spots where it seemed like the ropes were loose. I think I heard something in the ring pop late in the main event and Roman tell E to avoid the ropes too, but I might have been imagining it

GB/Detroit is a longtime classic NFL rivalry. The Packers have been around over 100 yrs now, the Lions 90 something. MNF was surpassed by SNF a long time ago when it comes to marquee matchups, MNF tends to get more legacy ones in-season that will be a bigger deal in-market and to diehards. Someone can probably correct me on that because I don't watch the NFL anymore, but it was that way not too long ago

If true, he probably should have been fired and never employed by WWE again. But we know that didn't happen at all.....seems they reached a quiet settlement and Flair continued to be employed and featured on television This will be my last word in this thread on this topic since I was gonna let it breathe and let it go but I see multiple people taking shots at me and I take offense. For what exactly? What did I say that was so bad? If you think I'm an idiot that's fine, but there's a decade of me posting here that would indicate that I'm neither an idiot (mileage might vary) nor someone looking to make hot takes for hot takes sake as someone seemed to suggest. I also didn't know my "gimmick" was "railing against cancel culture" but whatever is clever as the kids say I'm not defending Flair's behavior. But it's very old news. I just find it ridiculous that everyone all of a sudden freaks out about an almost 20 yr old incident, one of multiple involving Ric Flair, when all the stories about him have been around for decades. This one in particular, and multiple ones on airplanes. I know it might sound like I'm defending him, but I'm really not. I just hate this bullshit revisionist culture developing where we retcon outrage. If you want to cancel Ric over this, whatever, have at it. Honestly, you might as well just stop being a fan of any old school rasslin if that's the way you feel. And you definitely should never watch WWF/WWE. But nobody likes to hear that argument either, so I guess the only way to conform is to either shut the fuck up or pretend to be outraged to get along? And you can laugh at me all you want and say I'm making a false equivalency, but there's some seriously dark bad shit happening in our world right now. Tons of it. Maybe I just don't have the energy to be outraged about an old Ric Flair story, ya know? I really didn't want to shit up the AEW thread with more of this. Can it be moved to the Ric Flair thread or something? If anyone wants to argue with me or tell me what a jerk I am please take it private. Thanks. ............................................................................ Y'all will probably shit on me now for following that with this......but the Martha Hart/Owen Cup news legit brought a tear to my eye.

I'm not gonna watch it, much like I haven't watched any of the darkside episodes. I've heard all the stories, it's sleazy tabloid trash IMO

Donald Trump was the president of the USA and probably will be again in a few years. What Ric is being accused of is relatively tame in comparison to multiple rape accusations Weren't Brock and Hennig shoot wrestling on a F'n airplane!?!!?!?!? If I'm a flight attendant or pilot I'm way more concerned with that than some drunk Ric Flair deciding to take his pants off. The proper response to that is laughter

where is Jake Roberts btw? I always fear the worst but I want him and Suzuki interaction

thank you. this needs to be said much more often. accusation is guilt and everybody wants things to be black and white, and it's bullshit I never even heard that about Rosario being "transphobic" but some carelord here googles her and tries to start shit. get that shit out of here

also yea, a lot of cussing, too much one might say the dude must abide

that show was great and it ended with SUZUKI GUN what a time to be alive!

He might have. He was/is doing cupping. He's done interviews with WO/F4W and he was talking about being really banged up back when he won the title but he's "taking one for the team" so to speak. In the most recent one before All Out he downplayed it but it sounds like he's the walking wounded Tanahashi or Naito style right now I know it wasn't the plan originally, but if he's really that banged up it might not be the worst idea to put the belt on Bryan, give him some time off, and build to a rematch b4 getting back on the Page train, and save a Punk match for much further down the line because it doesn't need a title involved at all. Could totally work out for the best if they play their cards right This is part of what makes AEW so fun right now, they could go in several different directions and almost all of them can't help but be good

This. I like Cage, but in another era he's on to another territory at this point. Only thing I can think of to do with him is to use him as a gatekeeper JTTS which he's not going to be super happy with, or put him in a tag team, which the roster is overloaded with already I think this is a really good test of Tony's booking acumen. Can you keep Cage strong and a valuable part of the show without really pushing him beyond the mid/upper-mid spot he's in? Heyman did a really good job of this in ECW, and WCW stumbled into it with guys. Can he turn Brian Cage into a modern day Axl Rotten?

Bruce named his son Kane IIRC, so.........

Man, I was all excited for REX STEINER (perfect name for the son of DFG) and we got BRONSON BREAKKKER or whatever the fuck Isn't the whole idea, "can you see this name on the WM marquee?" LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR MAIN EVENT......BROCK LESNAR VS. BORK BREAKKKER!!!!!!!!

Didn't watch but super happy for Big E. Going back to FCW he's been in WWE since 2009. Not how I would have done it, but there wasn't really anything left to do with Lashley as champion. E is a great ambassador for the company and they need more legit babyfaces. Now get him out there on the talk show circuit, push the hell out of him as champ, and don't job him to Gable Steveson in 6 months.

I've seen very little NXT the last couple years, do they still have a crowd of diehard regulars? Or are they like a pandemic crowd now where they boo and cheer who they're told to? Gotta be honest I'm way more interested in the "new" NXT than the old one, if only for the potentially hilarious trainwreck. doubt I'll last more than one week

Maybe I'm just jaded and callous, and it is really shitty that they cut her match, but Zelina/Thea was free and clear from this rotten company and chose to go back. I have zero sympathy for her getting fucked around by their shitty booking. Just like jobbing her in her first match back, I wouldn't be surprised if they did this to test her. Why did they even sign her back in the first place? Of course a normal company would do something constructive with her life story, HAHAHAHAHHAA

FWIW Meltzer confirmed this. Says they pitched the idea of Cole being in the Lio Rush role to Keith Lee's Bobby Lashley *shrugs*

Early in the show I thought they really missed Excaliber. JR seemed low energy/off and it took them a bit to find their rhythm. JR's lead announcer days are clearly behind him, and I'm someone who likes what JR adds to the product which seems to put me in the minority around here. Show was definitely rushed at points because they had so much to cram in, but I'm not going to knock it because they knew they'd get a lot of fresh eyes on the product and wanted to get as many of the big storylines and characters on as possible. The show was promo heavy but it kinda needed to be. But yeah, early into the second hour I started worrying about Mox and Suzuki not getting enough time unless they were going to do an overrun, and also with Suzuki not being an American TV performer that it might fuck up the match. Cutting off his music too soon was kinda inexcusable, but what annoyed me more was Mox taking his sweet ass time on the entrance. He at least knows timecues intuitively at this point. Then the commercial break..... Oh well. Could have been better, but the match was fun for what it was. Hope we get to see Suzuki again in NYC. The Elite really played up the dorkiness last night and I loved it. Matt looked like the biggest fucking geek on the planet, lol. And yes, Cole calling Tony a nerd repeatedly while being a nerd and hanging out with a bunch of goofs is heel heat. They're actually getting the AEW crowd to boo them, to boo them taking credit for starting AEW, which is impressive. It's gonna be interesting the more they're on the road and the more new fans are coming to shows to how much heel heat they can get, and hopefully the core hardcore fans play along And anyone thinking Cole is being "overshadowed" or whatever, they're doing it on purpose and I think it's for the best. They'll slowburn a match with Kenny, and IMO it needs it. Let's be honest, Cole was a big fish in NXT who was barely ever on the main roster, he's not even close to being a name on the level of Danielson. There's hardcore WWE fans who as recently as a couple years ago would proudly shit on NXT and claim to not watch it. He's in the spot of Waltman joining the nWo essentially. I totally see him and The Bucks being a trio within the Elite and probably being the first trios champs if they ever introduce those belts, and it's a great spot for him. Also, he's really friggin small and it's really noticeable when he's in the ring with Callis, Good Bros, Cutler and even Omega who all tower over him. Not just height but build. It was hidden pretty well in NXT when he's in a stable with other short guys and wrestling Gargano or Balor. I like Cole, and I liked UE, but it definitely ran it's course to the point I'd totally lost interest in both him and NXT. I think this is a spot he's much better suited for. Ruby looks rusty, which is not surprising given the pandemic and WWE never doing anything with her. Plus, she's still coming off major knee surgery and has that huge brace on. I liked her in WWE when she actually got to wrestle, so hopefully with some more ring time she starts looking better. You could tell in WWE she was a bit of a ring general with some of the greener girls, and AEW definitely needs that. I love Punk being paired with Team Taz. You'll get two entirely different matches with Hobbes and Starks and the first interaction with him and Taz was great. Some folks might complain but this is the kind of stuff I want to see Punk doing, and this is clearly what he wants to be doing. I know people made the Bret Hart comparison with the Darby match, but Punk as 1995 special attraction Bret working with different talented mid-card guys while the title picture is occupied is IMO the perfect booking for him. He doesn't need the title, and he's got seven years of ring rust to work off. They'll get to him and Omega down the line, but with Danielson there now, who was just in the WM main event, that's obviously the direction to go first. I hate to bring up Cornette in these threads but I still listen to him and the majority of his AEW complaints just ring hollower than ever and a lot of it has been reduced to complaining about booking decisions. Like, I know it's personal with him, but now that Tony is being praised for his booking and AEW is hot he seems to be focusing more on nitpicking the booking and it comes off even more bitter than usual. He shit on Punk's first physical stuff being with 2.0/Garcia, and shit on those guys in general, which I thought was totally off. Not only are they perfect in their role, they had the ongoing stuff with Darby and Sting. He suggested using higher up the card heels for that to give them a rub, and says it was completely wasted on those guys. He might have even suggested Team Taz, which wouldn't have fit for multiple reasons and I wouldn't have fed them like geeks to build up the Darby match (shit like this and that he admits to fast forwarding thru shows makes all his takes suspect). Now that they're doing Punk and Team Taz I wonder if he'll shit on it, or begrudgingly like it while taking credit for the idea and saying he could do it better. Anyway, wowzers. I didn't mean to type so much. Another great show, AEW is red hot and I love having a national promotion that feels like it's being booked for fans like me but will also appeal to casuals/lapsed fans/new fans. I really notice that with some of the "insider" stuff they pepper in that you don't have to be an uber smark to pick up on for it to work in context. The early Nitro comparisons are totally apt, not surprisingly, complete with Vince/Bruce/Dunn being many steps behind what the audience wants

Are the old podcasts with Lars still up anywhere? I remember listening to them a long, long, long time ago I love the use of real music, but using such established old classic songs in a major promotion in 2021 is taking a bit of getting used to for me tbh. The crowds love it though and it's a hook for randos so I'm def with it. I can accept that I'm becoming a cranky middle aged man and that a lot of the kids don't necessarily have a 30 year relationship with The Pixies already or remember Tarzan Boy from the 80's The bands that license with them are smart, it's going to juice their sales like it did for Living Colour back in the day. I get why Europe didn't want to. That song was in a big commercial campaign in the US semi-recently (so effective I don't remember what it was for lol) and the lead singer was in the commercial. I'm sure he got a fuckton for that one, gets a fuckton when it's in movies, and he might not understand rasslin fans I actually like a lot of the AEW original music a ton and don't think they need to go wild with the licensed music. Like, I thought Mox's original theme was great and there was no reason to change it. The original P&P theme. Kingston. Miro. I love Statlander's music, that one def gets stuck in my head. Omega. The Elite. etc. etc. They were already beating WWE handily in the original music department IMO

Cole getting the rub by being outshined by Danielson was the best thing that could have happened for him. Him and The Bucks will be a great VM Wolfpac I caught the look on Jungle Boy's face when they were all raising hands there in the ring at the end. Can't wait for him to be the first big babyface turned to the darkside by The Elite.... LULU F'N PENCIL! great show.

The Punk thing with the beer guy was great, but it totally looked like a planned spot to me. They're in Chicago, probably some dudes Punk knows and they thought it would be funny Another strong episode. That power spot Statlander pulled off with Rebel on her shoulders was incredible.

First things first: the synthwave music during the Mox/Kojima hype vid was dope and I need to know what it was during the show I was really feeling it was too heavy on ex WWE/WCW guys another thought was that they're killing Chicago with all these shows. Punk felt much less over here. Maybe it's just me but now that he's back the shine has already worn off, I want him to ditch Cult of Personality and the decade old merch and reinvent himself. By necessity he's going to have to or he's going to get dusted, unless he like Cody wants to be a neo-HHH the most over people on the show with the crowd were AEW originals and not ex-WWE guys. food for thought AEW. This was the first show where about half way in I was really getting the "omg almost everybody featured on the F'n show is ex WWE/WCW" and that's not a good thing I had a bad taste in my mouth up to the point where SHOWGUNNS EXPLODE 20 YEARS LATER LMAO. I actually marked out for that, didn't see it coming, and I loved QT's reaction. That actually got me back into the F'n show! Poor Jack Evans looks horrible. I've been a huge fan of this dude for a long time but he's looking like old man Scorpio out there I loved the main event and the ending. I love The Elite though, so I get that mileage varies. I find it F'n hilarious though, people like Cornette saying "now that Tony has real stars maybe he'll wise up and get rid of the Bucks and Omega!" as if they aren't the reason AEW is where it is in the first place Super hyped for that cage match. Lucha Bros have been one of the best things going in wrestling for a long time now and it's time for them to get the gold. A cage match is the perfect way to do it too, and I love that AEW treats it like the big deal it's supposed to be The show overall was a really good go home IMO. The cage match, Eddie/Miro, Omega/Christian, Mox/Kojima and Punk/Darby all have me fairly hyped for what should be another awesome big show from AEW

I also think the rumours of Paul's demise are being greatly exagerated. Tis a temporary setback