sek69

If you haven't read the spoilers for Smackdown yet, you may want to do so not just to not get spoiled but for your own mental wellbeing.

For a company that puts smiles on faces, that was quite the gloomy Raw. Nearly all the heels won, Nia turned, and the main event was watching Kurt Angle get squashed.

I would think this is more for Network 2.0, plus WWC wasn't doing anything with their library so it's a win for everyone.

Yeah I know they seem to like this champ vs champ format for SS, but I don't think Ronda-Becky is going to go the way they think it will. Either their cash cow Ronda gets murked in the buildup, or they try to have her demolish Becky and cement her position as fem-Bryan.

I would be more excited about AOP winning if the Raw tag belts meant a goddamn thing.

Dave was pretty clear he thought the show sucked and was surprised to hear there were people who thought HBK was at the same level he was at before. Also Taker and Kane letting Shawn crash and burn right between them was some stuff you'd expect to see in CMLL in the opening match. At least it seemed to convince him to stay in retirement (at least until the next Saudi payday) as opposed to him working with someone who could have carried their end of the deal more and caused us to have to endure another comeback tour.

Damn, I would have had David Manning in the pool of WCCW officals most likely to get KTFO.

The issues that brought down WCCW would have happened regardless, but a Von Erich heel run might have prevented the absolute cliff they fell off of. Of course there's no way Fritz would have ever gone that direction. His boys were ultimate Christian superheroes, no matter what reality was telling him. In another reality, a heel Kevin and Kerry team would probably have done good enough buisness that they wouldn't have felt the need to push Mike so fast as the replacement Von Erich. I could see Kerry in particular having good heel charisma, and it would have livened up a territory that saw crowds drop by half or more post-Freebirds feud.

Dave gets shit for saying it, but it really is amazing how a four hour NJPW show seems to go by quickly as opposed to the usual WWE slog. Just so much more respectful of the viewer's time: each match has a quick video recap of the storyline building it and off we go. No filler backstage bullshit, no endless video packages shown multiple times.

Watching the show now, and good lord the Suzuki/Ishii match. The absolute bombs those two throw at each other.

This is kind of surprising, Taz doesn't seem like the kind of guy Russo would normally be into.

We should take a moment to appricate what a tough bastard H is. From finishing a match with a torn quad to working pretty much the whole match here with a torn pec....dude must not have any pain receptors.

Looks like Triple H is going to need surgery for whatever injury he got today, so maybe a silver lining from today will be no plodding WM "instant classic" match.

Well considering he did basically the same match for 40 years he kinda did wrestle like Ric Flair! (I kid, I kid) Like I said before, the first time you see an Abby match it is quite an experience. The problem is that it's like a really great magic trick you can only do once. Once you get past the initial shock of "wow he's carving that guy up", it's hard to not notice that there's not much else there.

I wonder if someone else was supposed to win, and had second thoughts about being associated with this show/possibly being used for future SA propaganda. Also I'm all for them turning this show into a farce as some form of meta-level piss take.

I guess this means Brock signed another deal, which if that's the case we might need to move him past Kevin Nash in the "most money for the least work" Hall of Fame rankings.

I like how the last one was clearly tacked on at the last minute, as if Jim Herd just happened to open the phone bill while writing these down.

The first time I saw an Abby-Brody brawl (in World Class) I did in fact think it was pretty cool. However every time I've seen him since it was the exact same match. He seemed to draw big in most of the places he went so I can't argue he wasn't any good business wise, but it's not much of an argument one's favor of not sucking when you only have classics with two of the best brawlers and two of the best wrestlers of all time. Most of us could have excellent matches vs the Funks and Brody (probably not Sheik, but then if you're cool with him just stabbing you for 15 minutes maybe).

Every year in NK they have a big festival where everyone is basically marched into the big stadium to watch the government sponsored show. They made a point to get Inoki because A: they know he's a giant mark for himself and B: his mentor was Rikidozan who was from NK and was (probably still is) one of their national sports heroes.

I'd go with Abdullah myself. Every match was just him waddling around and stabbing people with a fork.

I watched it. It was better than I was expecting a Wagner/Jarrett match in 2018 to be, but that's damning with faint praise for sure. Scarlett Bordeaux showing up in the 4 way women's match and in the main event running interference was one of those surprising-but-not-really-when-you-think-about-it moments considering AAA and Impact are besties again. Blue Demon Jr's heel turn was obvious from outer space, but in the end the right guy won. It came off as giving Wagner a big win to build for Triplemania next year with Park, but Park peaced out on them because he doesn't get along with Konnan. Apparently he gets along with Dorian Roldan which means the big match is still at least theoretically happening, but who knows.

To be fair, if WWE is really all about introducing the Saudis to American culture to break down barriers, I can't think of anyone who personifies 2018 America more than Hulk Hogan.

So it looks like Hulk's going to be the "host" of the show now, wonder if that means the New Day will opt out of going.

Obviously there's no way he would have known what would happen almost exactly a month later, but that's a "holy shit in retrospect" moment.

Looks like the new official WWE Branding is to call it "Crown Jewel: A Global PPV Event" based on them calling it that every time it was mentioned on Smackdown. But where on the globe is it happening? Like evolution, it's a mystery.