sek69

To be honest, in the moment I just thought he said what he did about Page to cement to the crowd that he's back to being asshole heel Punk and not lovable rascal babyface Punk.

True, but since the MJF deal did happen, it's odd to me that no one seems to think it's even a possibility that it could be what is going on now. Despite TK having a pretty clear track record of sticking to the same gameplans if they prove to work. (just to be clear I'm not saying this dust up is a total work, just that I don't think we can discount the possibility of that)

Interesting that literally no one seems to think this is all just some storyline to work Hangman back into the title picture, I suppose it's sacrilege to suggest Coach Tony K would work the sheetz. Despite the fact that he basically just did that with the MJF deal (yes it was a shoot at first but I 100% believe "WILL HE SHOW UP TO THE PPV" was all a work).

in before we find out Vince was using NXT UK as some sort of tax write-off to offset all his sex crime payments.

Kenny said repeatedly he did not want to come back too soon and get injured again, and even pushed his return back to make sure of that (it was hoped he would be on Forbidden Door) so this is definitely a "guy returning from injury is trying to regain his footing" story like when Bryan came back.

DON CALLIS!

Dragon Lee is here to terrorize @The Thread Killerwith his tiny trunks.

Billy Gunn back with his real sons like nature intended.

Hell, give me Team Dragons (Danielson and Steambot) vs 2.0

I love asshole Punk, he's 1000% better in this role.

Conrad on his own seems like a harmless enough carny we've seen hundreds of times in wrestling. His biggest legacy however is going to be creating the current Wrestling Podcast Grifter economy where has beens and never-weres rail against whatever company they're not trying to actively get a job from. That's going to have more of a long term negative mark against him than anything else IMO.

So the digging in to Vince's payments showed he gave $5 million to Trump's org off the books, it showed that he had his people make sure it was in the WrestleMania contract that Vince couldn't say he had to shave his head even if his wrestler (Lashley) dropped dead in the ring. Between this and him calling the day after the "Vince explodes in his limo" angle to make sure he was okay, it seems like Trump 100% believes wrestling is real.

She bounced Stark's bad knee off the table so hard she went flying, it was kind of more comical than violent IMO. Also the picture going black seems to happen in women's matches a lot, I assume it's to prevent any wardrobe malfunctions from making air.

To stay with the Punk comparison, they did the same thing with his debut. Get the Big News out of the way off the bat so it doesn't overshadow the rest of the show.

They are doing with Omega what they did with Punk, never outright say he's coming but they pretty much say he's coming.

Santos is gonna be money on the main roster.

Melo vs Vinci was a banger, the swerve teasing Diamond Mine imploding leading into Gallus was unexpected, and once again Roxanne Perez made Jade look like a million bucks,. NXT hitting on all cylinders tonight.

Also someone like Hunter has a vested interest in keeping the image of Saint Vincent the Great intact, lest people keep digging and look into things like Trips turning a blind eye to his boy Hugh Morrus doing weird shit in NXT training camps.

Not denying the cult aspect, but there is a business aspect in not burying Vince on the way out to people who only put their money in because they believed he was the be all and end all of pro wrestling. They desperately want to convey to investors that everything is fine and it's business as usual without him, when it's already clear to regular viewers that things are different than they used to be.

Have to say so far the post Vince era has been a breath of fresh air. We may not be getting everything changed that we would like, but right now WWE programming fresher than it's been in ages. Everyone seems to have new life breathed into them and it's nice to see people who don't look and sound like they had all the joy berated out of them. Also all the effort being put into rehabbing the secondary titles makes me wonder if the plan should be to make them the top titles of each show, the US title for USA and the IC title for Fox, and then they can be like the top territory title when the world champ isn't around. That way they can stay with the single world champ and not have the silly dueling WWE/Universal champions.

I think its less fellating Vince than them covering their ass in case the whole thing falls apart without him, so they can point to that line and tell the investors "well we said this might happen".

Evil Soccer Mom Bayley is amazing

That had to have happened in TNA at one point, right?

KO/Drew was money from the promos to the match.

It's always funny when Damien Priest's NEW YAWK-ness peeks out like when he just said he'd put Edge in a CAWFIN.