WingedEagle

I watched AJ/Rollins after GOT last night and thought it was great. Among the best main roster matches of the year. AJ reined in Rollins's usual flaws and to their credit the match actually felt shorter than it was. Kofi/KO was in the death spot but at no point felt like anything more than a placeholder. Curious where they go with that title in the near term. I'll catch the men's MITB match tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm a mark for Brock matches and still not at all excited about that decision. Nonetheless, it still sounded like a more satisfying finish than Thrones.

Great cash in. Should've called it on Charlotte but well done.

When do they unleash Lacey Evans and she becomes a good performer in the ring?

Damn it. Miz/Shane is one match I was really hoping would fall during GOT. So much for that.

Women's MITB was a lot better than I expected and well laid out. I could see a Bayley cash in tonight as a way to avoid too clean a finish in Becky/Charlotte and split the belts as that doesn't feel like something they'd stick with for long.

Per dot com, tonight's accurate and complete lineup includes: Universal Championship Match Seth Rollins (c) vs. AJ Styles SmackDown Women’s Championship Match Becky Lynch (c) vs. Charlotte Flair Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match Intercontinental Champion Finn Bálor vs. Sami Zayn vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton vs. Ricochet vs. Baron Corbin vs. Ali vs. Andrade Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match Bayley vs. Naomi vs. Carmella vs. Natalya vs. Ember Moon vs. Mandy Rose vs. Dana Brooke vs. Nikki Cross WWE Championship Match Kofi Kingston (c) vs. Kevin Owens Raw Women’s Championship Match Becky Lynch (c) vs. Lacey Evans Steel Cage Match The Miz vs. Shane McMahon Roman Reigns vs. Elias United States Championship Match Samoa Joe (c) vs. Rey Mysterio WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match Tony Nese (c) vs. Ariya Daivari Kickoff Match SmackDown Tag Team Champions Daniel Bryan & Rowan vs. The Usos On paper and before booking gets in the way there is no reason not to expect good things from Becky/Charlotte, while AJ/Rollins, Kofi/KO, Men's MITB and Usos vs. Bryan/Rowan all look promising on paper. The rest of the show doesn't really do much for me. But let's get to what's really important: how's everyone handling the show vis a vis Thrones tonight? I plan on watching until Thrones starts, then perhaps popping back in here or catching up throughout the week. We'll see how tired I am.

I can't honestly say I remember the performances, but I absolutely associate the name Silver King with fun tags from the Nitro days. Will have to revisit those at some point. Thoughts and prayers to his friends and family.

Coming Monday to the Network: https://www.wwe.com/article/wwe-most-infamous-lost-match-has-been-found-bret-hart-tom-magee-wwe-network

Its a definite buzzkill for fans, but no one's holding a gun to wrestlers' heads. Every contract has two signatures on it.

I was giving the baby a bottle during AJ/Joe/Rey and thought I was distracted because it just wasn't holding my attention. So after putting him to sleep I watched it again. Quite disappointing. I'm not quite sure what it is but everything felt just a tad too slow and choreographed, aside from the finish. Everyone was going through the motions and it was quite disjointed for a WWE triple threat match, which often exceed expectations and make good use of the numbers. Not on this occasion. Am I crazy or was Becky/Alicia Fox a pretty solid TV match? Pretty straight forward until the finish, but the opening headlock action was strong and Becky took a nice bump outside as well. Becky's offense in a straight match still leaves a lot to be desired and her promos are becoming a bit too cute, but this over-delivered. That Bray Wyatt business -- is this something about drugs? I don't even think I'm kidding. Literally no idea what I watched, whether he was a heel or babyface, if it was remotely genuine or pure trolling, or something else entirely. Just beyond confused. AJ/Seth is at least a fresh match on paper. Hopefully both can pull out something solid that night. Although going head to head with the Thrones finale it will have to wait until another night.

You were right... ...this was absolutely tremendous.

I'm not sure if this was an intended nod at NXT, but its one reason I find the show stays a lot fresher. Part of this comes down to math as they've got a lot (and potentially more in the fall if Smackdown gets a 3rd hour) of hours to fill, and I'm not sure there's a good way to do that. Overexposure just doesn't happen on NXT TV because 60 minutes isn't enough time to touch on every program much less burn out every potential matchup within a few months. Simpler is better, especially when we're running on over 2 decades of TV written around authority figures pulling levers. I don't quite want to say anything else would be better, but its almost the case as something different would at least give the TV a new coat of paint simply because its different.

So is Braun the big finish since he's technically "big"?

Unlikely a lot of sleepers, but here's everything that earned 4 stars or better in my list: Walter vs. Jordan Devlin (OTT 3/16/2019) Jay White vs. Will Ospreay (NJPW 47th Anniversary Show 3/6/2019) Tetsuya Naito vs. Kota Ibushi (NJPW NJ Cup 3/10/2019) Kazuchika Okada vs. Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW NJ Cup 3/21/2019) Kota Ibushi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW NJ Cup 3/16/2019) Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW NJ Cup 3/21/2019) Tomohiro Ishii vs. Yuji Nagata (NJPW NJ Cup 3/8/2019) Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shota Umino (NJPW NJ Cup 3/10/2019) Tomohiro Ishii vs. Taichi (NJPW NJ Cup 3/13/2019) Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa vs. Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish (NXT 3/6/2019) Jeff Cobb vs. Shane Taylor (ROH 17th Anniversary Show 3/15/2019) Walter vs. David Starr (WXW 16 Carat Gold Night 1 3/8/2019) Walter vs. Fenix (WXW 16 Carat Gold Night 2 3/9/2019) Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi vs. Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama (AJPW 3/19/2019) Adam Cole vs. Ricocchet vs. Matt Riddle vs. Velveteen Dream vs. Aleister Black (NXT 3/20/2019) Will Ospreay vs. A-Kid (Triple W 3/30/2019) War Raiders vs. Ricochet & Aleister Black (NXT Takeover New York 4/5/2019) Velveteen Dream vs. Matt Riddle (NXT Takeover New York 4/5/2019) Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole (2/3 Falls, NXT Takeover New York 4/5/2019) Tetsuya Naito vs. Kota Ibushi (NJPW/ROH G1 Supercard 4/6/2019) Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada (NJPW/ROH G1 Supercard 4/6/2019) Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada (NJPW/ROH G1 Supercard 4/6/2019) Shuji Ishikawa vs. Yuji Okabayashi (AJPW 4/4/2019)

So what are you watching these days? Good to have you around!

Is this now officially hour 9 of Mania?

So I really wanted to like Balor/Zayn but it seemed like a match that was just there outside of Balor's nasty dropkick. Nice heel promo though. Really curious to see what they have in store for the main event. With Smackdown moving to Fox in the fall and the women's belts unified (temporarily?) I could see a clean finish tonight but my gut says angle alert.

Great to have you back!

Wow. How do you pull off such an anticlimactic finish?

Alright this is pretty fucking cool.

Imagine if they had Steph come out and announce that Finn/Bobby is now an iron man match. That would legit crack me up.

Perhaps I'm missing something. I don't find any part of his character or act engaging. The one spot he does well is the old Bossman slide out of the ring and pop in. Everything else I see is a dud.

Why did that happen? The Corbin push/employment is still one of the most mind boggling. He's not good in the ring, doesn't have a good look, and isn't charismatic. I could go on but surely there has to be something beyond his height?

When Flair doesn't even get a pop you know a crowd is dead. Hopefully the main comes on before everyone falls asleep.

Does this match end by 12?