Jmare007

Punk just doing The Rock promos from the early 2010s.

I read that quote as Cody thinking he's a babyface while doing heel stuff and getting booed.

Or the women's TBS title?

Rosters after the draft RAW Big E Bianca Belair Riddle Randy Orton Edge Rhea Ripley Nikki A.S.H. Keith Lee Rey Mysterio Dominik Mysterio Austin Theory Nia Jax Drake Maverick Reggie Zelina Vega Akira Tozawa Otis Chad Gable R-Truth John Morrison Doudrop T-BAR Apollo Crews Commander Azeez Becky Lynch Bobby Lashley Seth Rollins Damian Priest AJ Styles Omos Kevin Owens The Street Profits Finn Balor Karrion Kross Alexa Bliss Carmella Gable Steveson Liv Morgan The Miz Cedric Alexander Shelton Benjamin Tegan Nox Mia Yim Tamina Dana Brooke Dolph Ziggler Rober Roode Veer Jaxson Ryker SmackDown Roman Reigns Charlotte Flair Drew McIntyre Kofi Kingston Xavier Woods Happy Corbin Madcap Moss Hit Row Naomi Jeff Hardy Aliyah Toni Storm Drew Gulak Mace Mustafa Ali Mansoor The Usos Sasha Banks Shinsuke Nakamura Rick Boogs Sheamus Shayna Baszler Xia Li The Viking Raiders Ricochet Humberto Carrillo Angel Garza Cesaro Ridge Holland Sami Zayn Jinder Mahal Shanky Shotzi Natalya If Rollins and Owens had stayed in SD, I would be actually compelled to give RAW a chance, alas...

Next year's could be an insane with Danielson, Miro and probably Punk + Kenny.

Yeah, the constant undercutting was what fucked Roman's chances of ever being a "babyface Ace". It's true that Cena is unique in working around the backlash to a push, specially in the context of WWE doing the worst job possible at booking a babyface champ, but even he wasn't undercut as Roman was. John got the current heel Reigns push as soon as he got his first WWE title. Roman had to wait 6 years to get it . It's pretty crazy. Vince really fucked up in always wanting to punt Roman's moment to coincide with Wrestlemania, so any time he could've gained momentum, he was brought back, jobbed and cooled off until Mania season, at which point fans knew what was up and would reject the idea. What's interesting is that I associate being done with WWE to Rollins and Owens big main event runs and not the "dread" of Roman waiting in the corner during those times (to get his coronation at Mania).

This has a slow start, the action is good but the pace is too slow and there's no sense of urgency from anyone, which was surprising considering the talent involved. Thankfully by the 5 minute mark shit gets more interesting with Daichi working a good control section over Nomura and setting the tone for the match. From that point forward is basically 20 minutes of very good tag team action and all four showing out, as they usually do when they face each other. Some great nearfalls and saves, fucking LOVED everything Okami had to do to keep Abe at bay and just focusing on Nomura. This started "meh" and slowly but surely ended up being pretty great.

I remember that was the biggest criticism of her Authority run. She would show up, shit on X wrestler and it would never translate to anything meaningful, just her looking superior with no redeeming angle to justify it. The Rousey tag match, which was awesome, but it was in 2018, five years after The Authority gimmick began and almost 2 full years after it stopped being a thing and stopped showing up on TV altogether. People loved Shane because he's kind of the "outsider" McMahon so they just assume he can't be worst than the rest because he was out for so long and even before leaving, he wasn't all in the video taking up screen time and never getting his ass beat. This comeback run quickly made people realize he's just as bad as the people grew tired off

Nah, he's gotta work from underneath when facing a bigger, dominant opponent, he's one of the greatest ever at "David vs Goliath" type of matches. He worked kinda similarly during his last WWE Title run, just mauling people and doing shit like it's 2006-07 (he even did the "I've got till 5" shtick, which truly surprised considering it was the E). He's just able to go a little bit further in AEW and that's awesome because it's the side of him that made him get just a big following in the first place.

Plus he came back after The Authority stuff had ruined the product for more than 2 years so it was a combination of people being sick of Steph/Hunter, Shane always been perceived as the "good McMahon" AND fans believed he was truly back to takeover the company (which was supposed to be a good thing).

Dragon doing the Ohtani spot because Nick's kicks are weak was something. Very good match, nice to see the elbows+Cattle Mutilation combo back Also like how Kenny can't help but go Marty McFly when he's called Kenny No Balls, also good to see him try to save his buddy.

They way your standards go way up when watching AEW is fucking hilarious man

That's pretty spot on analogy, bubba. (and I'm in the "LeBron will never reach MJ" side of that argument, but that's besides the point)

Not sure about that. The match everyone wanted to see gave them 1.5 million at some point (after the break when word of mouth began to spread). I agree that 1 segment a show to try to grab "outsider/more casual" audience can be very useful if done right, but I'm no sure they've reached the limit of what they core audience will give them with just the best wrestling they can imagine.

That Rampage segment died a death for me, I wonder how the rest of the AEW audience will feel about that feud going forwards.

I could be remembering wrong but I was sure the Bucks were already heels by that DDT4 tournament or they turned before the Finals. I had to google and read that the Buck actually wrote about it and it reads waaay more dramatic than what it looked like. Then again, I wasn't the one getting chopped and kicked to oblivion. EDIT: Watched some bits and the ending and wow, I was totally misremembering. Dragon even cut a promo to put them over on some Roman Reigns shit

The fact they did a more strike based match was for the better. If they decided to focus on a body part and started doing holds and shit, more people would've been frustrated that initial work was mostly meaningless (it's one of my main issues with a lot of New Japan's more tauted matches) because they for sure were gonna have the same match they did after the commercial break, as that was what that crowd was expecting and wanted to see. Hell, Danielson DID work the arm for a little bit at the start but it was quickly dropped once Kenny was back on top, after that it was solely strikes and big moves. Which as MoS and El-P said, it's basically what most of the Japanese heavyweight style is about. That's been the case for a hell of a lot longer than mid 2010's though. @Jimmy Redman the wrestling holds weren't there so you are not gonna get a "good" answer to that question. The style of the match they had was exactly what people wanted and it was actually a lot more restrained than what they'll most likely do in the future. As El-P said, Danielson wants to have these types of matches with certain people (with others, it will be almost solely mat work and strikes, like his matches with Gulak) and Omega is better suited for this style too. I'm on the opposite end of @Mad Dog. I was really impressed at how Kenny paced himself here, he showed the type of restraint I wasn't expecting from him and most importsntñy, he kept me engaged when things were really slow, I think that's a first for me. I usually an bored to tears with him in control and the first half of his matches.

Tonykism?

No giant can topple the power of thigh slapping!

Is Rick Knox the Bucks official referee? Feuding in Reseda sure paid off for dude.

I meant drawing wise.

Yup, 1.2k people for A Block (Ishii-Ibushi & Shingo-ZSJ) and 800 people for Okada-EVIL. The card for the first night at Budokan looks fucking rough too. How much are they limiting attendance though? not sure how many people they'll be able to fill in for the final day either, that's gonna be the real test tbh.

I thought Omega/Danielson was fucking great. Surprised is getting THAT much praise here though, I don't think it's as good as a bunch of his WWE matches but to each their own I guess.

Well Dave broke his system years ago so a 5 star in 2021 is not the same as it was five or six years ago. Basically he gave Dragon a other 4 1/2*match In all seriousness, it's the nth example as to why no one should take ratings that serously. It's one person's personal taste, take it or leave it. He definitely does. He said in an interview he wants to do it in England. I wonder where they could have that match because it sounds like Dragon wants to be the asshole heel and that's his best versión as a wresler. The most funny part though is that he explained he wanted the match because ZSJ has won so many "Bryan Danielson Award" while AmDrag has been an active wresler

You gotta get out of your head that Kota would've stayed put in WWE if he would've been signed (let alone wasted). Motherfucker would've showed up in GLEAT show in Japan in front of 100 people doing phoenix splashes to dolls on a weekend he wasn't working because he was bored and missed Japan