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I think it does, at the very least its the best Mania match in about 15 years. There's probably a reflex to say it's not since the build to this year's show went off the rails, but I can't think of one in that time frame that even came close.

As someone who's only been somewhat following Joshi, am I wrong to assume Rossy has been around as long as he has more due to him being one of the few people in Japan who gave a shit about women's wrestling enough to promote it instead of him being any good at it? It seems like Stardom success was more in spite of him rather than because of it. Her doing a run there or even in CMLL would be amazing. Since everyone working together seems to be down for sharing talent it's surprising she hasn't gone on any excursions yet.

It would also explain why AEW was so certain he was free and clear of his contract when he (first) came back.

He's someone I would have expected to cause issues but he was fine with doing business. It's tempting to look back and wonder if he wanted to go back to WWE to try to repair things with Charlotte (they divorced within 6 months of him returning). I could see him telling TK he has to go see if he can fix this and then being welcomed back when it didn't work out.

His dad El Fantasma is the head of the Box y Lucha commission which actually has pull in Mexico. If I were to put on my conspiracy theory hat I might think WWE moved Santos to AAA in hopes it would grease the wheels with the commission and maybe pops said no.

Not dismissing any of that, but as a business move it was practically perfect. Also this ladder match has been as bonkers as expected with everyone in it.

That match was exactly what it needed to be, Oba is a made guy after that. I wasn't expecting Brock to do the retirement deal (at least not until he had a match with Gunther), but honestly that was probably the last good use of him.

So clearly WWE isn't a lot of people's jam right now for both in and out of the ring reasons, but there's still some fun things going on. I watched Joey Janela's Spring Break and while GCW is also not everyone's jam (for entirely different reasons), they are extremely good at the fun kind of pro wrestling bullshit. Sandman's last match was just what it should have been and the whole build to Brodie Lee Jr's match was great. Yeah the Effy vs Allie Katch was some peak HBK overwrought nonsense at times but it was the payoff that was supposed to happen last year before Allie went and did a Sid on her leg. Speaking of Effy, watching the Big Gay Brunch and so far it's more entertaining pro wrestling bullshit. For all the jokes wrestling fans have about the homoerotic undertones, it's fun to see a show just drop the pretense and be as gay as humanly possible.

I think Raven would have been smart enough to put something together that would have been pretty great.

The look on that kid's face when she said that had me rolling Speaking of kids, watching the kids in the audience losing their shit when Darby won reminded me of Ron Simmons winning the WCW title. Obviously the contexts were different but that vibe of "my guy did it" was similar.

This is all true but folks shouldn't lose sight of how dire the creative aspect was in the last few Vince years. Even this current panic booking Triple H run is better than having everything being rewritten and/or thrown out at the last minute. Big Macs seem like fine dining after you've spent years eating scraps from the trash can. What kills me about him the most is the unearned arrogance he seems to show at all times. His entire time in the business has been him Forrest Gump'ing from one place to another always able to politic his way to the top. At least when Vince was a smug bastard he earned that shit. Hunter should be giving 10% of his earnings to Mick Foley for him spending the last year of his in ring WWE career doing everything in his power to get him over.

It also shows how little he knows about sports when teams have their seasons crater due to a star player getting hurt all the time. Yeah an NFL team has a backup QB but 90% of the time there's a reason that guy wasn't starting. Ask the Chiefs how it worked out for them when Pat Mahomes' knee exploded last year.

Hey the women's division can use someone who can be something the babyface overcomes on the way up the card.

Heel Okada has been one of the best things to come out of AEW, and I love how he's clearly having the time of his life doing it. Also the Bucks may be the greatest I have ever seen at putting matches together. They just never miss.

Based on New Japan booking, it looks like Callum Newman is going to turn on Will at some point.

So Dynasty was great and all, but it was odd that all the Canadians lost on the PPV in Canada except....... *checks notes* Kyle O'Reily? Jericho I get, he probably wants to show that he can put over the youngins. TK probably has the AEW title booked for the next 7 years so Omega wasn't winning, but I was shocked Cope and Cage didn't win the tag titles.

It was such an easy card to build too. Besides the 20 years of Cody/Orton history, you have Roman as Punk's former young boy (which he did touch on in a promo briefly but that was all). and the whole Iyo/Kairi/Asuka triangle where there's a race to see who will beat their mentor's ass first. Instead they have to overthink everything and make shit more complicated than it needed to be. You'd think they'd notice that the build that got over the most is Oba/Brock because it's two meaty men slapping meat and you don't need to make it anything more than that.

What jumped out to me was Pat calling out CM Punk's hypocrisy on Saudi Arabia. which by implication meant he was right in calling them out. Say what you will but I'd be willing to believe Ari Emmanuel is enough of a worker to go along with getting heeled on in a promo, can't say I'd say the same about MBS.

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.