sek69

Nice to see Dom honoring both his dads with the 619/Frog Splash combo.

I've said it before, but Randy Orton is the wrestling equivalent of the guy in real sports who racks up a lot of stats because he was around for a long time and people use that to argue they're a Hall of Famer.

Keith Lee with the Wakanda gear tonight.

Nia marking out for winning the belts was precious.

I love that it looks like they tried to give Shayna the Ronda Batwings around her eyes but just smeared it until she looked like a raccoon.

Also Riddle's gear really accentuates the idea that pro wrestling is dudes fighting in their underwear.

Corbin is so great at so many aspects of wrestling, yet he has never had a match that I give two shits about. It really is amazing.

Oh no.....WWE acknowledging Mat Riddle has "problems at home"

Yeah, JBL: Champion of Black Wrestlers is a weird and unexpected turn.

BOB DA GAWD wins back the US title!

IIconics match wasn't bad, they are much better in ring than they used to be. Liv out there being the dumbest babyface in the history of dumb babyfaces tho.

Interesting, they played part of the Big E/Miz exchange from Talking Smack on the Kickoff show, albeit with as little of the racial context as possible. Basically just with the suggestion that Miz felt E needs to be more serious to be a main eventer and E said being who he is got him this far and he won't change now. The surprising part is Booker T agreed with Miz and JBL and Rosenberg agreed with E. How can Booker honestly believe Big E would need to change what he does to be a main eventer when (as JBL immediately pointed out) he was doing Spinaroonies while being world champion. Booker made himself look like a boot licking clown there.

Yes, like how they just so happened to put the Evolve 10th Anniversary show up against the charity show AEW was doing. Completely coincidental according to Papa H.

Plus no one is buying WWE shows as PPVs, only as Network subs these days. (Yes I realize there are a small amount of people who actually do buy WWE shows on PPV, but statistically it's too small of a number to matter anymore).

The Thunderdome seems to have buoyed the ratings back up to somewhat respectable levels again now that Raw and Smackdown kinda look like actual WWE shows rather than bunch of matches in a gym somewhere. As far as ratings bumps go, audiences have been trained to watch the Raw after one of the Big 4 shows as WWE usually kicks off new programs then. It was kind of interesting to see that still happen even in the Pandemic Era, but I suppose that just goes to show fans realize WWE is so ingrained in how they do things it would still be worth tuning in for.

The dirty secret always was that all of the universally praised NXT women's matches were endlessly practiced and walked through beforehand, which is great but wasn't preparing them for life on the main roster at all. Which is the reason why they pretty much all struggled at first since all that alleged state of the art training ended up meaning approximately jack shit at that point. I think that's probably why all the women praise Nattie, I have a suspicion she was either told or took it upon herself to be like "OK I know what you learned down there, but here's what you really need to know now you're up here" and guided them through the maze of surviving on the main roster.

Most of his best work would probably have been in Southeastern and I don't think much of that exists sadly. The most complete stuff I've seen would have been in the Continental era which would have been towards the end.

Not that Evil was going to set the world on fire regardless, but the New Japan fans HATE all the run in bullshit Bullet Club was doing during his run, and not in the "boo I hate the bad guys doing bad guy things" way but the "fuck this nonsense ruining this match" way. The fans were a thousand times more in to the match once LIJ came out to clear out Togo and Gedo.

Kane was portrayed as an abuse victim who was being used by Paul Bearer, and then they did the deal where X-Pac was befriending him and helping him find his "human" side. Bray/Fiend is the abuser in this scenario, and there's really no way to babyface that without being all kinds of problematic (not that WWE cares about that).

Also lol at AJ crying to be sent to Smackdown because Heyman was somehow to blame for his friends getting released only to have him show up there too,

.....and somewhere a monkey's paw curls a finger. Babyface Fiend? How the hell can that even be possible?

It amuses me that Vince, a notorious hater of smoking, now has a voice like a 3 pack a day smoker.

I would be okay with either of those outcomes.

Guess I was right, WWE must have told the folks voluntarily staying home they were going to stop getting paid. Everyone's back except Bryan who famously gives no Fs about money (and also has Brie out there getting that People Magazine cash to cover the new baby expenses).

I'm not sure what's funnier/sadder right now: NXT turning into a breeding ground for conspiracy theory brain worms, or UFC stans cheering Uncle Dana's RNC speech after yelling at reporters to "stick to sports".