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So Liv showed off the egg she's sporting from her and Roxanne clonking heads on Raw.

So I thought Raw was pretty good in-ring wise, but lol at CM Punk having to do another Pipe Bomb calling out Ari Emmanuel to lower the Mania ticket prices due to the absolute clusterfuck they created. On top of *gestures at everything*, TKO thinking they can treat WWE like UFC because they both (sorta) are combat sports is one of the greatest audience misreads I've ever seen. WWE has long strives to be a family friendly enterprise (again, sorta), so their big brain idea was to make tickets unaffordable to families just because it works for the chuds who go to UFC shows. Also I thought Gunther was moved to a program with Seth because Rey was hurt when they were building a feud when he was murdering Dragon Lee. Now Rey just comes out and adds himself to the IC title ladder match because reasons? I mean it's probably going to be awesome in the ring on both counts but it had me "wtf?"-ing at the TV.

Ospreay is clearly going to be main eventing Wembely, I don't think anything but his neck disintegrating will stop that. I'm probably giving New Japan (and definitely Gedo) too much credit, but they needed to make new stars and they sure did everything possible to do that even if it's not who we would choose.

To quote my favorite WWE commenator, I'm afraid I have some bad news. It looks like the plan is the Usos and LA Knight vs the Vision and IShowSpeed. To be fair he's a very popular streamer so it's not like he's some Z list celebrity even if us Olds may not know about him. And yes, as much as I personally would wish otherwise, Pat's a pretty mainstream star considering he's got the juice to go on his show and talk shit on ESPN execs with no consequences. What I hate though is apparently this was all an Ari Emmanuel deal like the Rock was before, and folks are starting to get annoyed in the company at TKO meddling in creative. Cody in particular wasn't happy about this and he was told to go out there and basically shoot on Raw in his response promo (with the Disco Inferno remark being a callback to the time where he famously clowned him on Twitter).

I don't necessarily disagree with them putting the belt on Newman to try to make a new star, but it seemed way too soon to take the title off Tsuji.

Well that makes more sense, it's an angle advancement match. Will seems shocked and surprised that the United Empire guys are acting like the heels they've been for the past however its been.

Watching Sakura Genesis, and maybe it's the gummy i took but Robbie X is way more over than I would expect. I admit I have been kind of lax in my New Japan viewing but I wasn't expecting to be hearing the crowd in Sumo Hall chanting his name. Also lol at Ospreay's big return to Japan is in a nothing 6 man teaming with The Great O-Khan and Henare. Plus they had the nerve to have the announcers come up with a storyline reason for why he's doing it. To be fair, considering "guy's been having a rough time in America and wanted to come back home to find his mojo" isn't the worst bullshit pro wrestling has asked anyone to believe, but the fact that they needed to come up with a reason is kind of embarrassing.

Truly stunning. That's all I can say really.

Dave casually mentioning there's an earthquake happening during the WO radio show is the most Dave thing I've heard in a while.

They don't need him, but I would have assumed they'd want to have him just to "hurt" AEW since one of the reasons they initially got a deal with WBD is that Jericho was a name their execs recognized along with Jim Ross.

PWO's favorite wrestler is back, baby! Jericho returned on Dynamite tonight. I have absolutely no source for this but I would not be surprised if he had been watching the build to Mania this year and was like "nah I'm good, I'll head back to AEW".

NXT has been creatively dogshit for over a year now. They had Je'von last year and spent the whole time having him never win anything of significance. Any woman who got over with the fans got immediately put in their place, all while showing the world that Toni Storm did for Blake Monroe what the Young Bucks did for Private Party.

Man, another #1 contender match ending up in a screwy finish leading (probably) to a three way title match on NXT. In a vacuum it wasn't bad but they are doing SO MANY of these its turning into go away heat.

Is it me or has the build for this Wrestlemania been really piss poor? Other than Oba/Brock, it's been really jumbled and rushed. Beyond the injuries previously mentioned apparently they also had a Vince-ian "tear everything up" moment after ticket sales weren't hitting the the numbers they were expecting.

But think of the MOMENTS they can have!

Mauro really is great when it comes to really put over the emotional moments, but the problem is he seems to thing EVERY moment is an emotional moment.

HA having a couple of Steelers shotgunning beers ringside at a wrestling show is the most Pittsburgh thing they could have possibly done.

Dang, Jelly Roll out here looking like he's working the JCP houseshow loop between concerts. He's stupidly good at this for someone who's only did this like 3 times in his life.

i dont care what anyone says this gimmick is officially over with me now.

Hearing the pop Danhausen got from the Pittsburgh crowd made my heart feel all warm and cozy.

Yeah, Brock doesn't mind doing business if he likes who he's working with so I don't see him having an issue putting over Oba. What will be interesting to me is at some point Brock has to get heat on him in order for this to not look like a total squash, and Oba hasn't really been put in that kind of position on the main roster.

Jevon is so great he got Corey to hit a soprano note in that match. He's really reminding me of ECW Rey Misterio, this tiny young man doing things I have never seen before.

You know, there's a real good story to tell about Becky. Losing her mind about the return of the star the era she feels she had to clean up the mess of, feeling like all her effort just went down the toilet seeing how the crowd embraces the embodiment of an era she hates. And then there's whatever the hell this is. For one it's telling how they let Becky lean way more into the obvious Trump parody on social media, but on TV she comes off as "crazy person who gets arrested on an episode of Law & Order that leads them to the real bad guy of the episode". Like this is a match that practically books itself and they had to make it this cartoon villain shit.

I felt so bad when that happened, dude was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught in the crossfire. Also them showing Logan Paul and Tom Brady obviously building for some kind of Mania deal at that flag football game on RAW just reminded me that when it was covered in the LA news it was them just like "yeah this is for some fake wresting shit".....and WWE has such a massive fetish for mainstream coverage they'll take it.

As a kid, I only caught the tail end of the Eaton/Condrey version and I also preferred the Eaton/Lane version, but between Youtube and watching the Mid South eps on the WWE Network the Condrey version quickly rose to the top for me. Listening to Dave talk about it, apparently the MX vs MX feud ran out of gas because the powers that be basically didn't want it to keep going, which considering how over it was is just crazy.