MoS

Santana completely punked out Jericho lol, he is awesome, and Ortiz isn't far behind. Maybe Jericho is more self-aware than we thought

Is that the first impromptu big-time match Dynamite has had leading off the opening segment? They shouldn't do it too often, but once in a while it's great, makes things feel more chaotic, even though Loss if he was on the booking team would almost certainly question the internal logical consistency here. Everyone was tremendous here, Wardlow's eventual face turn will be amazing

Somehow all my work emergencies happen on Wednesday nights?! Fuck due diligence. Starting Dynamite now - already been spoiled but that's fine, looking forward to catching up - and I am just popping for this MJF entrance. Jerome said the other day that making out on camera is a heel move and clearly MJF is a student of the game

Keith Lee once debuted in an indy promotion by literally blowing the door off its hinges. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this is a way-too-cute reference/segment based on that.

Going to steal half a page from good bubba KawadaSmile's book. Rampage might actually be sneakily my favorite hour to watch in all of weekly wrestling, but it doesn't really warrant its separate thread. Texas Death Match for the world title should be good. I like Archer and Hangman is great. Looking forward to what Punk does next. As long as the surprise isn't fucking Karrion Kross or Bray Wyatt, I am good.

Orton has displayed more personality since the start of the pandemic than he has in his career since he was a cocky 23-year heel just as good as he claimed he was. It's been a pleasant surprise.

I again recommend watching the international fite feed of the match for those North American people who are cool with it. There's an amusing explanation for why the crowd was a bit quiet coming off the final break. MJF and Punk tried the old Bret Hart ringside figure four spot on Punk's knee but MJF couldn't do it, and the crowd started chanting you fucked up at him. As the segment started, MJF had just got done throwing Punk back in the ring and the crowd had just got done chanting that at him, so they were a bit flat, luckily for the wrestlers, it happened during commercial. They quickly got the crowd back though.

The fact that Vince's ultimate takeaway from that More McMahons is good isn't really the fault of the feud though. If you think of the feud as ending when Austin beat Rock at Backlash, I think it still remains by far the best feud in WWF history. Vince's mistake was not realising that such a feud could only work once, and only with singular people in Austin and Vince himself.

Russo fucked the buildup to Survivor Series 1998, but I thought the PPV itself and the tournament was quite a clever idea, although obviously Vince McMahon oversaw that. Tournaments don't draw well generally but that tournament was quite intriguing, and did a great job elevating Rock and turning Mankind once and forever into a highly sympathetic main event babyface. There was a lot of trash and convoluted shit in the buildup, like there always is when Russo is involved, but the fundamental idea was great, and that's why I think it worked. No matter how shitty the dead weight was, you still had Rock and Foley getting elevated while Austin continued to add wrinkles to his feud with Vince McMahon. Vince was tremendous in using Austin and himself, and the dynamics of their feud, to build up several main event stars that could headline his shows when Austin inevitably succumbed to his injuries. It's why I think for all the nonsense, Austin v. McMahon is still the greatest feud in WWF history. It just totally changed WWF's landscape in every conceivable way.

I meant Biden, not Rogan lol. Got my Joes confused

Rock takes very few stances on Twitter apart from hard work being Good, and not chasing your dreams being Bad. Man makes way too much money to take any kind of strong stance anywhere. His mildest possible endorsement of Rogan had the QAnon people speculating that he had died and was replaced by a lizard, so I don't entirely blame him for that.

After the Mox segment and before the main event, the only quarter to show growth was the Hangman-Archer angle one. Apart from Soho-Nyla, Brandi and Lambert lost a shit ton of viewers, so I am guessing this time Brandi isn't going to pettily publish the minute-by-minute ratings on Twitter for a victory lap. Chart courtesy- Brandon Thurston and Wrestlenomics

All of wrestling, really. Although with the WWE-Shane o'Mac thing, it's less rough and more flat out hilarious.

Some Attitude Era signs brought by the fans during that time are burned permanently onto my consciousness. One of them is "Stone Cold is Cartman's father!"

That for the sure, plus the middle of the show wasn't very appealing. Nyla v. Ruby lost a lot of viewers, as did the House of Black match (although Black generally draws good quarters). Punk-MJF did grow viewers but they started from a low point. From a ratings perspective, it was probably a good thing they went 45 minutes and not 15. I think we had also forgotten just how popular and good of a ratings draw Moxley is. Granted, a lot is the lead-in factor, but even on Rampage, his quarters have done really well. I expect to see the Mox-Danielson program draw great numbers too.

After Punk-MJF, if anyone wantsa to say that Punk's AEW run > Danielson's AEW run, I won't argue too much

He definitely was considered the good McMahon, and I have never really understood why, because as I have said before, his 2000 push was as obnoxious as you can imagine. It has to be partly cuz the wrestlers hated Hunter and thus Shane was by default the good one, as you said. Funny how both of them seem to have lost significant power in 2022.

Nice to see I have been bitching about the same shit here for at least 6 years now: Also: Time is truly a flat circle hahaha, this might as well have been said this week. I had also forgotten that Shane came back the day Hunter totally sandbagged Roman and made him look like shit, right when Roman was at his hottest and most popular as a babyface. Everything ties back together lol

That was just perfectly done, everything about it. Excellent professional wrestling, loved it so much

God Idc I love this match so much

PEPSI PLUNGE

Hahaha the crowd sure let MJF know he couldn't do the Bret Hart spot

This match has been excellent