DMJ

^ Great review, ThreadKiller. I agreed with so much of it. - I actually thought the street fight was the best match on the show and exceeded expectations. The powerbomb spot through the "lid" of the announce table in the timekeeper's area was something I'm not sure I've seen before and the "Super Riptide" off the table was a solid finish. With WWE streetfights/hardcore matches, they're so formulaic, "soft," and feature so many of the same spots that I applaud any fresh wrinkle. I liked the physicality and thought they were, by far, the two hardest-working performers the whole night. - This Bloodline shit is so, so lame. I mean, its nWo-at-its-lamest level at this point with a new "secret family member" popping up to screw over a babyface every other month. Am I crazy or was Tala Tonga's debut the exact same as Solo's, Tonga Loa's (or the other one'?), Jacob Fatu's, and JC Mateo's? I know that's the point. I get it. But its lazy. And there's also something called the rule of 3s. This is, by my count, the 4th or 5th guy that has debuted this exact same way. Is it any wonder that none of them are over except Jacob Fatu? I know Solo Sikoa has some fans here (somehow), but he's mid at best. Fatu and Solo had the worst match of the night. For a guy whose tagline is "All Gas - No Brakes," that match had quite a few breaks where nothing was going on and Solo's incessant talking did nothing to add any drama. Throw in that dogshit finish and it was irredeemable. - But what about Cargill/Asuka, you ask? Wasn't that the worst match? No...because Asuka is Asuka. I thought her offense looked great and it was at least interesting to watch her try to carry Cargill through something resembling a high-stakes tournament final with a runtime under 10 minutes. Asuka can still go and I hope somebody backstage was paying attention because the crowd was still into her act. No surprise there: her strikes and kicks look nasty and her creepy dancing and character work is still magnetic and engaging in a way that you can't just manufacture with a cool lightshow-enhanced entrance. But I fear the WWE sees her like they see Alexa Bliss, worthy of only the occasional "re-heating" despite the fact that the audience still vocally treats them as the top-of-the-division stars they once were. Cargill might still be decent one day, but I'm not sure when or if that happens. It took awhile, but Nia Jax got alright. Nikki Bella eventually became pretty decent. Sometimes I think there's a "light switch" moment and she hasn't had it yet. Coincidentally, according to Wikipedia, it was Mark Henry who "discovered" her and Mark Henry sucked for a long, long time before he had that "light switch" moment. Cargill has been trained by some very good people, before AEW, during AEW, and now in the WWE, but she continues to look and move awkwardly. I think its mental...which is why it may never happen. I can see her quitting before we ever see her "get it." - As far as the main event goes, I must sound like a broken record but, at this point, I don't care if Cena's performances are meant to be "meta" and "bad on purpose" as a way to generate heat with the "smart" audience (by being formulaic, by Cena doing everything in slo-mo, by mostly consisting of non-stop finisher spamming, etc.) or if this is actually John Cena trying his best and he just can't go anymore, the end result is the same: bad matches. The booking of the final minutes of this were terrible, especially in light of already doing a very obvious rerun finish for the Fatu/Solo stinker a half hour earlier.

Lots of good points, but just to add a few more - * Some of the metrics are deceptive, though I think they're all still undeniably positive for the WWE. For example, their record-setting gates are not because they're selling out stadiums or basketball arenas every night. Prices have gone up and they're happier selling 1 seat for $150 than 3 seats at $35 because, ultimately, that does make business sense. I think most people would think that a company setting new records in live gates must be expanding its audience, but really, it seems to be that its the same audience as last year and the year before and the year before and the WWE has just been able to get more money from them. If you paid for tickets to go to RAW 2 years ago and had a good time at $75/ticket, the WWE seems to be confident you'll pay $105 this time they're in town. * The Peacock and Netflix deals were incredibly lucrative, but the viewership, at least in the US, seems to be the same as it has been for awhile. What I do think has helped the WWE is the additional partnerships and TV exposure they got with FOX, NBC, USA, A&E, YouTube, ESPN, and a number of high-profile podcasts too. It really seems like, in terms of saturating the market, at any given moment over the past 5 years, WWE or WWE-adjacent content (like the A&E Biographies or "Miz & Mrs." or "Total Bellas") has been available on cable 5 days a week, multiple times a day. Then you have plain ol' social media making WWE news and highlights and clips and fan discourse available on everyone's phones every day, all day, and its no wonder that the company is seeing engagement and merch sales and views that its never seen before. But I don't think the actual number of fans is growing all that much. But engagement is non-stop in a way that technology didn't allow it to be even 15 years ago, let alone 25 or 35. * Others have said it, but as the WWE gets more and more corporate, more and more entrenched in the broader media world, closer and closer to being seen as a brand like Disney or Major League Baseball, the more omnipresent and bulletproof it becomes. I don't think they had that same strength when the Benoit Murder-Suicide happened. I think we would've seen considerably more pushback against the WWE if the Vince scandal had happened in 2002 or even 2012. The WWE has become popular the same way certain brands are perpetually, always popular. And with how much money they generate just from the Saudi deal, it doesn't really matter if they slip 100k viewers here, gain 50k back there, or stay hovering around the same number of fans, they're gonna get their money. * Lastly, something anecdotal: There's always a new generation of fans being born and while most of that generation will probably stop watching (not everyone is a lifelong fan), if you can keep hold of a certain amount or bring back those childhood fans later on in their lives, that's good enough. I think the WWE has gotten really, really good at being a "big tent" brand that appeals to young viewers under the age of 12, more girls and women than ever before, and older, lifelong viewers. I think they learned, at some point, that even bothering to try to market the show towards older teens/early 20s people is a dead-end (and it absolutely is). You're not going to create a wrestling fan at the age of 17. You create them young, lose them for a little, and hope they come back. That seems to be the pattern/relationship that all my friends have with pro-wrestling. When I was in middle school, Steve Austin was my idol and I wore wrestling shirts every day to school. Within 3 years, I got my driver's license, picked up smoking, started to dress like a member of The Strokes (or tried to), and my hero was Vince Vaughn from Swingers because he was good at picking up chicks (why I thought emulating his speech style, poorly and with way less charisma, would somehow work is beyond me). I think we see that sort of wave happen with the WWE all the time and, theoretically, that cycle is only going to repeat and get bigger each time if they continue to focus on younger viewers, which is 100% what they did for much of the late 00s and 2010s.

I saw it posited either here or elsewhere but one cool idea that I saw would be MJF gets into the Gauntlet and gets eliminated by a "surprise entrant" that ends up being Mistico. I like Mistico as a surprise entrant more than Danielson or Darby, only because, I don't see why Danielson or Darby need to return in a gauntlet match when (a) Mox legitimately tried to murder Danielson with a plastic bag and (b) I feel like its been established that Darby is a wildman who can show up and just run-in and do something crazy, take on all comers with his skateboard, maybe ride his motorbike or whatever into the ring ala Sting or Stone Cold. Their returns shouldn't be treated like "Hey, we're back and we're coming for Mox and the Death Riders...but we're going to do it by earning title shots with victories in sanctioned wrestling matches!" They should be coming back giving zero fucks about rules or "fines" or suspensions (hell, Danielson is technically retired so, storyline-wise, he's not even subject to disciplinary action, right?), just attacking when they have the opportunity and trying to maim Wheeler Yuta specifically. Basically serving the Death Riders their own medicine by helping Hangman win the title and then running the Death Riders out of town (maybe big blow-off at Blood and Guts?).

Somewhat surprised to see she hasn't been nominated yet, so here goes... Rhea Ripley 2026 might be a bit too early for her, but if we're talking about peaks, Ripley is right up there with Roman Reigns and GUNTHER in terms of importance and consistency in the WWE landscape over the past 2-3 years. The storyline with Dominik Mysterio and Liv Morgan carried the Raw brand just as much as the Bloodline saga carried SmackDown, though obviously not for as long. The heat for their segments and interactions was tremendous and did wonders for Dom and Liv's respective careers. I'd even posit that Damien Priest gained popularity just by being associated with Ripley. She was and is that over. Match-wise, Ripley has also been consistently delivering Match of the Night-caliber matches for a few years now. Her series with Charlotte in 2021 resulted in some good-to-excellent bouts and, over the next few years, despite injury, she continued to have some standout performances (including giving Zelina Vega her career match at Backlash 2023). Then, in 2024, she just dominated and had one of the best years that a woman has had since Becky Lynch. This year, she had the best match on the biggest stage of the year. If John Cena was known as "Big Match John," Ripley is on her way to becoming "Big Match Rhea." Speaking of Becky Lynch, though - I give massive credit to Lynch for what she accomplished and the glass ceiling she broke through. Becky Lynch proved that a female wrestler could be the top babyface of the entire company and be the "A" star. It wasn't the longest run, but for a time there, Lynch was the "must see" star of the show. But...there was always a question of whether that success could be replicated. Rhea Ripley may not have a WrestleMania main event on her resume, but her popularity is about as close to peak-Becky Lynch as any woman has got. And, to be fair, Rhea Ripley's stellar 2023-2025 run coincided with not only The Bloodline saga, but also the return of Cody Rhodes and CM Punk, two guys who completely invigorated the WWE main event scene, as well as increasing on-screen presence by The Rock. Looking back at the WrestleMania XXXV card, The Man's competition for "top storyline" was an unmotivated Brock Lesnar in an uninspired feud with Seth Rollins, two old timers in Triple H and Batista reheating a rivalry from a decade+ prior, and the feel-good but relatively minor Kofimania story on the B-brand. Not to take anything away from Becky Lynch, but does she main event WrestleMania over Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns? Or close out Raw over a segment featuring The Rock? Does Lynch/Flair main event WrestleMania without Ronda Rousey's involvement? All of this is to say that, while I don't think Ripley is a real contender for a Top 50 spot, she's still a valid nominee for a 90-100 position, especially for voters, like myself, who tend to be a bit more focused on major US promotions of the past 30 years. Recommended Matches: War Games Match (NXT Takeover XXXII) vs. Charlotte Flair (WrestleMania XXXIX) vs. Zelina Vega (Backlash 2023) vs. Liv Morgan (SummerSlam 2024) w/ Damien Priest vs. Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio (Bash in Berlin 2024) vs. IYO SKY vs. Bianca Belair (WrestleMania XLI)

Some thing that struck me, watching this for the first time (but on silent, so maybe I missed context given by commentary), but at one point, Hogan gets what very clearly looks like a 3 count and the referee - Lord James Blears - stops counting. - Was Blears a heel who was "helping" Bockwinkel by not counting 3 that time but then, in the end, makes the actual 3 count because it was "undeniable"? - Is it just bad camerawork where we can't really see Bockwinkel get his shoulder up? (It is hard to see in the video) - Or is it just a miscommunication/mistiming where they just kinda had to pretend Bockwinkel kicked out?

I also thought the promo was pretty fun when I caught it today on Reddit. My only assumption is that this is setting up a Punk promo on Monday where he'll essentially be given the opportunity to speak to "John Cena" but actually be talking to all the fans that have been dunking on him ever since it was announced he'd be going to Saudi Arabia? In terms of building a wrestling match, I think its silly and a bit too "inside baseball" because here is much more history between the two and more of a story to tell that is completely separate from CM Punk going back on his criticisms of the Saudi government years ago. But if this leads to a 10-minute CM Punk mea culpa promo where we get to see him squirm and try to defend himself to "the IWC," which is just such a useless endeavor anyway, I'm making popcorn because this is the type of surreal, absurd shit I really enjoy.

I'm curious to see where AJ lands this time around. I know I have him fairly high up on my list (maybe even top 10), having now gone back and seen quite a bit of his work in TNA. I think, and its not even particularly close, he's been in the top 5 in-ring performers in the WWE over the past decade when he's been healthy. Maybe not the runaway #1, but his consistency is pretty off-the-charts. 2017 had him vs. Cena and Brock. In 2018 and 2019 there was vs. Joe, vs. Danielson, and vs. Ricochet. In 2020, I really liked the AJ/Sami/Jeff Hardy three-way. More recently he gave Cody one of his better matches in the WWE at Backlash: France. I'm a big mark for the Undertaker cinematic match too. To me, AJ also deserves a ton of credit for influence. I personally like Danielson more and I'm a bigger Samoa Joe fan and, if CM Punk is on, I'm watching...but if you look at those 4 as being the most significant/important performers of their generation, I think AJ would be the most influential in terms of in-ring performance. You look at Seth Rollins, Swerve Strickland, Ricochet, Ospreay, Omega, Hangman, and just about anyone else who is mixing spectacular high-flying with striking and submissions and doing it at a high athletic level and that's AJ Styles. (Danielson does most of those things too, but his high-flying was never as flashy as AJ's and that flashiness is a huge part of today's well-balanced wrestler, where it used to be that everyone needed to do a moonsault, now everyone has to do a 450). That's not to say AJ is the most original wrestler ever or anything or that he himself wasn't inspired and influenced by wrestlers in the 80s and 90s, but I see way more guys trying to "do it all," blend every style, throw in every crazy move they can, fly off every structure possible, and AJ Styles was doing that 20 years ago. The difference is, I think AJ tended to structure his matches better to build to those moments and the psychology was there and he did it, in TNA, with some horrendous writing behind it.

WARNING - Writing this as I wait for my plane to board after countless delays and cancellations. So I'm going to go long... Charlotte will make my list. Not only do I think her resume of good-to-great matches is there, but she has some of the intangibles that I highly regard and that I think people almost overlook or criticize her for in a way they don't, say, John Cena or CM Punk or Brock Lesnar. With Charlotte, there's not just "big fight feel" in a lot of her matches, but there's also a legit sense of "This could go off the rails" and "Everything else on this show is fake, but Charlotte's match is real." Its not the best example - I think the Becky Lynch/Ronda feud is better - but the most recent Mania story with Tiffany Stratton is a good example. During the build, there was legitimate question as to where the line was between Charlotte being in-character and some real-life animosity and talk of "burials." It made the match "must see" because every punch, every miscommunication, every big spot was being watched in a way very different than Rhea/IYO/Belair. The latter was the better match in every regard...but the former was the one where I watched it like a no-net high-wire act. I tend to review and rate matches with an "anything I see/feel/hear" is part of the grade. Its why Foley/Taker in the cell is a 5-star match to me just as much as Bret/Austin at WM13 and so is Punk/Cena at MITB and so is Flair/Steamboat (take your pick) and so is, warts and all, the Montreal Screwjob match. If I'm emotionally invested/mentally engaged, that matters. The edge of the seat is the edge of the seat no matter what is pulling me towards it. A trainwreck and a masterpiece can both get me there. And, in 2025, when we've seen every spot possible, when so much of the WWE feels "safe," when the most interesting aspects are basically what's going on backstage and the finish of a given match*, Charlotte is one of the few who keeps me engaged because you don't really know what you're going to get, not just with the finish, but almost move-to-move. Now, is she a sloppy worker? Sure. Does her moonsault look awful? Yeah. But Cena calls spots. CM Punk can be awkward. Brock Lesnar can seemingly turn it off and on whether he wants to actually work or not and is wildly inconsistent (even against the same opponent in the case of WrestleMania 31 being a banger and WrestleMania 34 being total dogshit). But, like those three, she has great presence. She's a terrible babyface, but an all-time great US women's heel (maybe even the best ever in that category), a naturally unlikable nepo-baby who, like many great villains, so clearly wants to be loved and adored by the masses but can never be and - when she's willing to play along - takes that feeling of rejection and turns it outward so that she is every bit the despicable narcissist we see her as. Now, the fact that this character seems informed by real-life anxieties and depression is worrisome and I have actually have sympathy towards Ashley Fleihr, but I won't deny that it adds to the intrigue and the drama presented on-screen. It couldn't be scripted better for the daughter of a guy infamous for not being able to separate reality and wrestling to be plagued by the same thing. She's not the greatest promo, in fact, she's among the worst and I do think its the weakest part of her game. But there's that trainwreck thing again. Its very entertaining and interesting to me to watch her go out in front of 20,000 bloodthirsty fans who want to tear her to shreds and, often times, eat shit. Its almost reminiscent of the I Think You Should Leave sketch where Tim Robinson plays the silent performer whose audiences are so insanely hostile that he can't get through a single minute of his act. A Charlotte promo, at its best (or worst?) is that. But, of course, everyone calls it "go away heat." Again, it doesn't really matter how you hook me, Charlotte Flair in-ring segments hook me because the likelihood of something go incredibly wrong and getting "real" is higher than what you get with any other woman. Now, I'm not going to posit that this makes her a top 10 or 20 or even top 50 nominee, but I do think there is space on my list of 100 to give this woman her flowers for being among the hottest of hot messes in modern wrestling history while simultaneously actually delivering some excellent matches and somehow not completely flaming out in spectacular fashion. As a wrestling fan, I'll admit to digging the chaos sometimes and she brings it. * Was the selling point of either Cody/Roman match actually how good the action would be or was it whether the WWE would pull the trigger and end Roman's...well, reign?

^ On both sides. The McMahons being MAGA isn't newsworthy anymore and Trump/RFK being clueless about actual medicine, health and fitness shouldn't be shocking, but I guess just seeing those things converge is still breathtaking and makes me laugh? Triple H has exceptional health and fitness, though. He's the exception when people say 99.9% of Americans won't need a pacemaker before the age of 55. Between him and RFK, I'm not sure which one looks more like their head is about to burst due to cardiac edema first.

Just watched this match for the first time and, if I'm not mistaken, this is the first time I've ever seen Ogawa in action. I think you nailed it with your words here, Superstar. The last time I put together a ballot for GWE, 99% of my viewing had been solely US wrestling - WWE, WCW, some ECW, some TNA, a sprinkling of ROH. I found this website around 2012/2013 but was still really intimidated by the incredible knowledge of and the sheer volume of wrestling from before 1984 and outside of the US that so many of the posters here had watched. Among my friends, I was the most "well-versed" wrestling fan I knew, but y'all made me feel like I hadn't even scratched the surface. And I hadn't. And I still haven't. But I've made a real effort over the past 12-15 months to watch even more stuff out of my wheelhouse while still watching the big shows from WWE and AEW and that has led me to really seeing Misawa, Jumbo, Hashimoto, Kobashi, Tenryu, and Kawada for the first time (which is extra cool because it has also allowed me to see more Terry Funk, Stan Hansen, Terry Gordy, and Bruiser Brody, all guys I knew had huge runs in Japan but who I really only knew for their work in their US). Anyway, enough back story... Ogawa is just fantastic here, even if you're like me and only really have a surface-level understanding of what you're watching. It is like watching Batman vs. The Joker where Kobashi can clearly and easily overpower this undersized asshole, but because Ogawa fights dirty, he manages to gain the upperhand. And once he has it? He taunts and mocks and wants to make Kenta Kobashi suffer because, well, overconfidence is always a cartoon villain's fatal mistake. Maybe this match is too simple or "Western" for people with more discernible tastes, but as Superstar wrote, this connected with me because of its universality and also because both guys in it are so good at their roles. Its also worth noting that it does take a great performance to make this dynamic work because, often times, the smaller heel will eventually gain sympathy for the ass-beating they get from the bigger babyface. If you oversell and bump too much - I'm thinking heel HBK in the 90s when he went up against Deisel or Razor as one blatant example, but also Savage against Warrior at WrestleMania VII - you end up outshining the babyface with your resiliency. It can be an effective tool to help turn a heel to a face (as my examples above show), but if that's not the direction you're going in, that heel performance has to be non-stop and the minute the audience even *thinks* of having some sympathy, the heel has to do something dirty. In this match, that's Ogawa with the low blow. For a second there, I felt kinda bad for him...but then he hit Kobashi in the balls and I didn't anymore. Needless to say, I went to YouTube and added more Ogawa matches to my "Japan" playlist, which has ballooned to over 100 matches. I'm not sure I'll get through it all, especially as I am continuously adding more matches based on recommendations or just because I "discover" a wrestler I really like, but it is matches like these that motivate me to try.

Full review will go up on my blog eventually but some notes... * Not a terrible show, but not an all-timer. I've said it before but the talent level in WWE (and AEW for that matter) is so high that you rarely get an outright bad match these days. It's not like 20-25 years ago when you might get a Mideon match on a PPV or an awful "comedy" match with the Funkasaurus and Lord Tensai. Even when the WWE does do something gimmicky, like Chad Gable's current "El Grande Americano" thing, its still Chad Gable doing Chad Gable things. * Speaking of Chad Gable...the amount of time spent by the commentary team talking about him during the Men's MITB match really, really bothered me. I'm not sure who is producing Cole backstage these days (it used to be Vince so I assume its Triple H), but whether it was someone in his ear or Cole himself, it doesn't really matter. Had Cole devoted even a *fraction* of the time he spent on Gable's El Grande Americano storyline as he did on the growing tension between Fatu and Solo Sikoa, it would've helped contextualize Fatu's turn so much more (especially for those of us who don't watch SmackDown weekly). IMO, that turn was really poorly executed, though I'll also admit that the crowd did love it (which means, yeah, I'm "wrong"). To me, Solo came off as sympathetic. When Fatu essentially handed him the victory, Solo wasn't ungrateful, he wasn't bossy, he wasn't disrespectful - he came off as appreciative in the moment. I think they could've got a bigger "moment" if Solo was doing something *heelish* in the moment that caused Fatu to finally snap. Instead, it comes off as a calculated decision by Fatu to screw Sikoa over, a premeditated act rather than a crime of passion. I think babyfaces doing something to screw over someone else should almost always be a "in the moment" decision so that it doesn't come off as conniving (but maybe that's just me). * I know its not the first time but another reason I disliked the Fatu/Solo segment taking over the final 5-8 minutes of the match? Not only did it require the 5 other participants to play dead on the outside, by that point, the number of people sitting back and doing nothing also included JC Mateo, Bronson Reed, and Bron Breakker, all relatively "fresh." Oh, and also the Creed Brothers, who were explicitly shown backstage being told by Gable that they should help "El Grande Americano." That's a whole lot of people who basically disappeared. * Speaking of disappearing acts, after a really great performance, I feel like Penta's "shine" from this match was almost entirely erased once the match became about the Fatu turn and, before that, Rollins' being aided by his new stablemates. * Triple H saying that the R-Truth fiasco is "all part of the show" is hilarious and so lame. I can't believe anyone could think this was a "work." I'm not saying we know every detail or that we ever will. Were there any negotiations prior to the announcement that they weren't renewing his contract? Did they offer a new contract but it was a paycut? Did they offer to let his previous deal "roll over"? Did they offer him a new deal with only a nominal raise and Killings thought he was worth more? What is this new deal? But the answer to these questions doesn't really matter. From a PR perspective, the WWE looked bad and they needed to fix it and it had nothing to do with "the story." * And, weirdly enough, R-Truth's return being part of Cena's "story" is the one thing that I don't think ANYONE asked for. Sure, it makes storyline sense that R-Truth would want some revenge on Cena, but R-Truth hasn't been presented as a serious character for years. Him getting this sort of role is just...not what people were asking for when they said "We Want Truth." It also, to me, overshadows the Cody return a little bit. * Speaking of the main event, Jey Uso and John Cena can add another clunker to their 2025. It was like a competition over who could telegraph, position themselves awkwardly for the next spot, or overact more. And the sad part is that the guy who won the briefcase is someone else I don't really enjoy.

I really, really hope TK doesn't go that route too. Even if it was "accidental," there's no reason to make Ospreay look like a goober. There's also simply no reason to put heel heat on Ospreay when he has been killing it as a babyface for them. I just don't see the logic in muddying those waters, especially if the longterm plan is to give Ospreay the title in some sort of big babyface title victory in late 2025/2026. Also, with Forbidden Door in the UK in August, you'd be a fool to turn Ospreay before that event even if he was stale (which he isn't). To me, you give "Hangman" the win over Mox. I'm not sure how you get there, though I assume the plan is an overbooked mess (which I'm okay with as the ends justify the means). I guess if I had the pencil, I'd have Willow and Briscoe run in to even the odds at one point, they can't do it because there's more run-in fuckery (Young Bucks?), so out comes Ospreay, he can't turn the tide either because of Gabe Kidd (?), so out comes Swerve...but Swerve doesn't help either side, he just watches, conflicted. Mox gets the upper-hand with a low blow or some other heel bullshit, but instead of Swerve doing the right thing, its Darby Allin who returns to help Hangman win. Hangman gets his victory, shakes Darby's hand and shakes Ospreay's hand, walks out with the title, brushes by Swerve (who stands with a face of angry resignation/frustration/mixed emotion as he's angry at himself for not screwing Hangman, but also respects that Hangman beat Mox and the Death Riders were vanquished). Show closes with the "feel good" babyfaces (Darby, Ospreay, Willow, and Briscoe) celebrating in the ring. From there, you kinda have a lot of big chess pieces on the board for Forbidden Door, but you've effectively kept Ospreay as a babyface, taken the title off of Moxley and put it on Hangman (a huge plus), given Allin a big return and instant feud with Mox (which doesn't need the title) plus implied heat with Swerve and maybe even a little with Hangman (who hates that he needed Allin to save him), and provided something of a blow-off for the Death Riders storyline so that it can evolve into something different, which it desperately needs to do.

When R-Truth came out as John Cena on Saturday Night's Main Event, holding up the "One Last Time" (or whatever it says) towel, it did strike me that maybe this was, in a weird way, some sort of "secret" retirement match for him. But then I kinda thought, "No, if he was going to retire, they'd make a bigger deal out of it and use that to get more heat on Cena and I'm seeing 'signs' where there are none." And then, based on what's on Cagematch, it looks like he fought Jeff Cobb on SmackDown two days ago too. Any which way, as much as I know some would scoff at yet another ex-WWE guy going to AEW, especially one who is so much of a "sports-entertainer" than a wrestler at this point, but he's one that I think would be great there for a short run. Great connection to the crowd, supposedly very well-liked backstage, and he'd be awesome as Ricochet's "back-up," for example. Even at 53, he can still work as a tag guy too, which could make for some good Collision fodder.

I'm curious if he'll make anyone's list. He could end up on mine and I'm not afraid to say 2024-2025 may be the reason. His match this past weekend against Ospreay was excellent. It was still an Ospreay fireworks show with the crazy sequences and countless counters, but Page brought the little things that differentiated it a bit - the intense stares and deliberate pacing, the big forearms to the mush, the nasty lariats, and, oh yeah, Page's reckless abandon and willingness to do crazy (cowboy?) shit like taking a Styles Clash from the apron to the floor. I know its not everyone's cup of tea, but in the main event of a PPV with title shot implications, it works much better than when its happening in the opening match of Colission. I'm slowly working my way through the pre-2024 AEW PPVs as they get released on HBO MAX so I can't really even speak on much between 2021-2023. I know I've got some acclaimed matches ahead of me. I've seen a good amount of his TV matches, though, and he's been a consistent highlight. Last time around, I had Marc Mero and John Tenta on my list because I really do enjoy them so Adam Page making the cut is very, very possible.

Just saw this match, unaware of its rep, and, wow, from the very beginning this match feels special. This is a masterpiece and I'm not usually a big Ronnie Garvin fan. Everything they do looks good and intense and competitive and heated. Listen to that crowd, too. They bring a ton to the atmosphere of this match. The finish is basically the only flaw I can find in this otherwise excellent, excellent match.

I have him on my "bubble" list. On one hand, I don't know if the resume is there yet. On the other hand, I have guys on my list like Abdullah the Butcher, Tracey Smothers, Batista, and the Ultimate Warrior who I will readily admit are on the list due mostly to nostalgia or being "I like them because I like them!" guys. There's no science behind them or fleshed-out argument as to why they're on my list aside from rose-colored, nostalgia-fueled personal enjoyment. So, if Swerve continues to deliver, there's a decent chance he'll make my list in 2026. He's still adding to his resume while others are not - and maybe more interestingly, my opinion on wrestlers like Edge and Moxley and Becky Lynch have diminished a bit over the past few years.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this was all, somewhat, "by design." I don't mean to imply that Jeff Cobb purposefully is going out there to do bad work...but I don't think he came to the WWE with the naive belief that he was going to get some big push or be treated as anything more than a hired goon. If anything, I hope he has the good sense to try to get over the way Tozawa, Otis, Heath Slater, etc. did: comedy. I don't know if he's funny or not, but he has an intense look and, as far as I know, has always been presented as a legit asskicker so there is comedic potential to be mined there. "The Big Bad Dude who secretly likes _______" or "The Big Bad Dude who is actual super smart/super dumb" are tropes that have been used for ages. All you have to do is add a somewhat new wrinkle to it. And a catch phrase. The ship sailed years ago for him to come into the WWE as a legit serious player. He's 42. I'd hope he recognizes that and maybe finds a way to bring something new to the New Bloodline. The Tonga boys are black holes of charisma. Solo still has a ways to go before he's anything special. Jacob Fatu came in and within 3 weeks had outshined everyone in the stable. Cobb won't outshine Fatu in the ring or in terms of sheer charisma. He's not going to "out serious" Solo Sikoa, who is the established ice cold leader. But there is room for him to shine as some sort of comic foil to Sikoa's perpetually mean-mugging character if he can pull it off. JC Mateo as your standard silent heater is DOA.

He's definitely dropping down (up?) my list from this run. I thought the Cody match was Cena trying to be too clever for his own good. It was almost like he said, "I'm going to do every bad thing my critics said about me - I move too slow and awkward, I call my spots too blatantly, my facial expressions are too theatric and 'big,' my matches follow a predictable formula - but now I'm a heel and doing these things is actually me winking-to-the-audience to get heat." But the reason his critics disliked those things is because they DID take you out of the match and make his matches tiresome at times. "I'm going to have a bad match on-purpose" is still John Cena having a bad match. Its like purposefully overcooking a steak as a commentary on steak preferences when...you could just, I dunno, cook a steak the way you think people would enjoy it. Rhea/IYO/Belair went out and had a banger. Drew and Priest had a banger. Just go out and kick eachother's asses and try to find interesting set-ups so you can hit your signature moves. I don't think it needed to be a 5-star classic, but it also didn't need to purposefully be the opposite of that just to make some sort of weird point. The Orton match was just bad and fell even further into cartoonish finisher-spamming and referee bumps. I don't even think it was an ill-conceived "artistic choice" like the Cody match. I think it was just, let's go out, do some brawling for 10-12 minutes, peak with the AA-into-an-RKO, and then throw as many more finishers and ref bumps we can until we can get away with a screwy finish. Oh, and R-Truth should come out too and we'll do the same low blow and championship belt shot as we did at Mania. A "call back" to another underwhelming match. Who'll make the run-in for Cena's next defense? PN News? That being said, I've actually liked Cena's heel promos. Its just a shame that I think, conceptually, his vision of this heel run and how he is going to work these matches is as brilliant as he thinks it is. I admire that he wanted to take a big swing here, but, yeah, his past two matches have just been bad.

I only saw half of Dynamite so I can't really speak on everything this week, but two thoughts - * The Young Bucks are funny to me in the sense that, when I hear the music, I'm always like, "Man, not these guys again." Which, if you look at the ratings, it seems like a lot of people think the same thing. And then, like 10 minutes later, I'm watching them and thinking, "These guys are so goddamn good." And that happens consistently with them. I can't really think of any other act that gets that response from me where, if you ask me my thoughts on the Bucks at any random time, I'd probably say, "Yeah, they're just annoying and I'm not a fan," but if you were to ask me that same question while watching a Young Bucks match, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying it. I'm not sure how they overcome that sentiment with people who grab their remotes when they come onto the screen. Those people miss great matches like the one they had this week. * Love Stokely with FTR. He is excellent and deserves to be with a true, top-level spotlight act. He did good work with Willow and Statlander, but it was often comedic. I like him being a "serious" heel manager even better. Really liked that segment, even with how predictable and trope-ish it was, mostly because of Stokely and Dax's mic work.

Paul Heyman adding "I'm also openly racist" to his character gives him go-away heat with me. Wow, using current political awfulness to get you more heat - what an original and brilliant concept! /s His mother was a Holocaust survivor, now he's making jokes about deportation/imprisonment without due process to help get his on-screen persona over. He does know that this is creating modern concentration camps, right? He can get fucked. He's been overexposed anyway and this new stable with Rollins and Bron already feels old hat less than a week later. Also, people joke that he "knows where the bodies are buried." Yeah. Probably. And he also did nothing to stop any of it. Scumbag. As for the rest of the roast jokes, it sounds awful and also like the WWE doesn't actually know what a "roast" is. For starters, the people getting "roasted" are usually there, aware that they are "in the line of fire," and are somewhat "in" on the jokes. Most of the people who were made fun of at this roast were not there. It seems the WWE just wanted an excuse to make racist, xenophobic, misogynist, homophobic jokes like the ones they used to tell in the locker rooms "back in the good ol' days." Oh wait, Orton was shitting in women's bags in the 2000s, Dok "P.S" Hendrix has never not been a racist, the guy at the very top up until semi-recently was a sexual trafficker, and the guy that heads creative now did blackface in the 90s. So, no, it wasn't that. It was just that the company is every bit as racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and homophobic as it ever was. I've always been willing to watch WWE - even with all of its huge flaws - because of the wrestlers. To watch guys like GUNTHER. To watch guys like Danielson back in the day. To watch Asuka. To watch Rey and Cesaro and so many other wrestlers that I really enjoy. And, right now, their roster is as stacked as ever. I still like many wrestlers on the roster. But this past week makes it really hard for me to even do that. It's all just become too much. I can almost tolerate "MAGA-adjacent," but straight-up MAGA is a bridge too far.

- I liked the main event, especially the second half of it. Sure, its finisher-spamming and "main event style," but I wasn't expecting anything else and it delivered the drama and the cool combos/counters that it needed to. I'm far from a Rollins fan, but I thought he was the MVP of the match. The spear-into-a-pedigree counter looked great. He was consistently "the spoiler" whenever Punk or Roman looked to have it won. He was booked, in the build, as the third wheel, but he's also "The Architect," so him and Heyman being in kahoots makes "wrestling sense" (heels do heel things). - I liked Charlotte/Stratton more than most. It was physical. It was messy at times. But I didn't see "sandbagging." I didn't see anyone taking liberties. If anything, what I think caused the sloppiness was that, as is her wont, Charlotte wanted to do everything in the match, including some sequences/counters that maybe a 4-year professional in her first major WrestleMania match isn't yet smooth enough to pull off. The match, to me, looked like Charlotte taking Stratton into the deepest part of the swimming pool and seeing if she could swim and then, to prove a point, holding her head underwater for a few seconds. Ultimately, Charlotte did the clean job and took every spinebuster and every back elbow with gusto, though. She did business. Here's hoping Flair does take some time off - her recent interviews have made it impossible to ignore the emotional baggage she's carrying from her most recent divorce, issues with her dad, and heartbreak from an unfortunate failed IVF, and she deserves time to try to get some of that sorted - but I don't say that because I'm not a fan. She clearly led the match last night and while it veered into "extra"/"try hard"/"y'all doing too much" territory, I respect the ambition. She wanted to steal the show. She wanted to see if Tiffany could steal it with her. She forgot that in a wrestling match, chemistry can matter more than how many moves you can cram into it.

I'm all about pro-wrestling as escapism, but the pre-Mania media blitz has had an undeniable, unmistakable political element. This isn't us talking about the tariffs or the deportations or DOGE, this is dialogue about the WWE, Triple H, Nick Khan, Roman Reigns, and John Cena. If those entities/names don't qualify as fodder as "Pro Wrestling Only," I don't know what does. As for enjoying WrestleMania, I'll still be watching it as I usually do - over the course of a few days, while I exercise - and I'm hoping to enjoy many of the matches. I am willing to accept that, even just by watching, I am supporting this awful company and its awful people because I am part of the statistic the company uses to promote itself and sign ever more lucrative deals, one of the 5 or 10 or however many million people who watched WrestleMania. But I don't buy merch. I don't buy tickets. I don't buy video games or toys or replica championship belts. I tell myself my Peacock subscription is going towards the Law & Order franchises, giving Homicide an eternal streaming home, and, hopefully, more seasons of Killing It. This also won't be the first time I've waffled on my view of CM Punk. At times, I really like the guy and what he stands for. I like that he goes out on TV wearing tee-shirts that support causes he believes in. At other times, I think he's a selfish egomaniac (which makes sense considering most of his celebrity "punk" friends are also unapologetic capitalists and, in some cases, groomers or groomer-adjacents). But if the rumors are true and Trump shows up tonight, then, yeah, he can eat some shit for it. It doesn't make him a hypocrite or a scumbag...but it also means he can drop some of the holier-than-thou rhetoric and reflect a little on what he truly has done for the business and "the boys." He's been a trainer. He's given advice and supported others. He walked out of the WWE for his health and sanity. He's done a ton of charity work. But lots of guys have done those things. Its great, I support all of it and applaud him for it, but you can basically say the same thing about any number of guys, including Moxley and Christian and Cody and others who have done these things or similar things. He's a guy who does good things, but that doesn't make him the Ghandi/Che Guevara/Rosa Parks of wrestling. In fact, the three guys I mentioned earlier - Mox, Christian, and Cody - did more to to make the non-WWE wrestling landscape a better, more lucrative place for "the boys" than Punk ever did. Moving on to Triple H...yeah, he's always been a fucking doofus. Still carrying water for his rapist father-in-law. Nice to see Linda in the crowd too, taking a night off from trying to make sure kids with disabilities never learn to read. Also, to keep it PWO, Triple H is one of the most overrated wrestlers in WWE history and you can tell that he's the type that laughs at his own jokes loudest. Oh, and Taker's induction speech...yikes. Felt like the Phenom google-searched "Hall of Fame induction speech wife ideas" on the flight and then selected the cliche that he thought sounded the smartest without actually considering if it was remotely true. I'd feel bad for Michelle McCool, but well, you married this brain surgeon. Her new Hall of Fame ring will go great with her tacky-ass True Patriot tee-shirts. Undertaker said how important she was, making it possible for the women of today to do what they do. He must've confused her with Mickie James, Ivory, Gail Kim, Molly Holly...I mean, I thought these types hated stolen valor?

Finally finished the show... - Not sure why everyone isn't going ga-ga over the Bayne/Toni Storm match. An easy MOTY contender to me* and a real feather-in-the-cap for Toni Storm. If you're not a fan of AEW because of Ospreay or Omega's style or you're not into gratuitous bloodshed or you dislike the Bucks or you think Adam Cole looks like the "bad boy" from an after-school special set in junior high, Bayne/Storm will still knock your socks off and prove that the promotion still has something for everyone that enjoys pro-wrestling. Note the huge response to Bayne kicking out of the Storm Breaker. More is not always more. Kicking out of a dozen finishers is not as big a moment as kicking out of one believable match-ender. Nobody expected Bayne to win, but that kickout had me wondering if she might actually win. That's a feeling us longtime nerds don't usually experience and a testament to the way that match was worked. Great, great match. - The rest of the show had its highs and lows. It was too long. It had too many matches. The middle section felt like filler to me and mostly because, surprise surprise, it featured several storylines that have really only been established on Collision (the clear B-show). So, I'm not surprised that Jericho/Bandido and Cole/Garcia got somewhat tepid reactions. They were also probably the two least interesting matches on the card. Jericho/Bandido veered into "cheap," unearned sappiness with its focus on Bandido's family at ringside and the wacky Dusty Finish while Cole and Garcia exposed both guys' unfortunate limitations. In Cole's case, its the unfortunate truth that, like Brian Pillman in 95', there are just too many wrestlers with too much more athleticism and innovative offense for him to really stand out as an in-ring performer. And because he's back to being an undefined "tweener" - is he a cocky jerk? a beloved underdog? a gang leader or a man standing on his own two feet? - his character has no hook. As for Garcia, he's still clearly "putting it all together" and there's no shame in that...but when guys like Fletcher are accelerating faster on the card with their physiques and ridiculous movesets, its hard to get excited about a Daniel Garcia. - Speaking of guys who have turned their game up: Ricochet has been a real treat to watch and I thought he and Speedball were the MVPs of their "fireworks show" match with Omega. Now, that's not to say Omega wasn't good too - they all were sharp - but, yeah, its going to be hard for Adam Cole or Daniel Garcia to climb the ranks when you've got Ricochet and Speedball doing what they do and Ospreay doing what he does and Takeshita and Kyle Fletcher and Swerve...There were elements of the triple threat match that I did not like, including the really bad habit of wrestlers (male and female) to "push off" their opponent when they have him in a pin at 2 or to blatantly position themselves for certain moves, but overall, how can someone hate a match that was so clearly built around the concept of "What if we do THIS?!?" God bless the dreamers who are still trying to give us something new in 2025 when some of us thought we'd seen it all when Rey Mysterio Jr. came on the scene 30 years ago. The Triple Threat wasn't my favorite match of the night, but for those that hate it, rein in the vitriol. Be indifferent to it. I'm indifferent to most every Marvel movie after the first Spiderman and the first Ironman. I just wasn't super interested in them. Its okay to be indifferent. Its okay to say "Not for me, but I'm glad people enjoy it and they're not wrong for enjoying it." That was the triangle match to me. Was it my MOTN? No...but it was fun and I'm glad this sort of match can happen and be enjoyed by lots and lots of people and I popped multiple times watching it just because of how crazy some of the spots were, especially Bailey's multiple flipping knees things. Those were awesome. * I'll admit - in terms of current wrestling, I only really watch AEW and WWE PLEs, so I know there's probably better matches out there happening...but between WWE PLEs and AEW PPVs and TV, we're still talking hundreds of hours of current wrestling programming and Storm/Bayne was special.

My assumption would be that Penta, being 5 years older and having a much longer resume than Ricky Starks is one reason. The other reason is because I suspect Penta and Fenix were a package deal and that comes with some added leverage and motivation to push Penta right out of the gate. I'll also make another assumption - Penta and Rey wanted to go to the main roster for main roster money. Unlike Starks, who was kinda "WWE or Bust" at this point, I assume the Lucha Bros could've freelanced around the world and been in relatively high demand in Mexico, Japan, UK, Australia (?)...and then also probably still signed with TNA. If the WWE wanted them, with the exclusivity the WWE demands, they had to make it worth it. I don't think Starks had the same leverage in that sense either. Finally, I also think that because Starks has that reputation - at least online - of being "Cody's guy," I'm guessing there was some discussion about why going to NXT for a little bit would maybe get some of that supposed "heat" off him and allow him to prove he's not a prima donna or whatever the reputation from leaving AEW was. Yes, Cody might be his buddy and Punk might be his buddy, but its still pro-wrestling and there will always be backstage politics where, if the wind blows a certain way, you can find yourself benched. Going to NXT, working for (and getting along with) Shawn, showing that you don't see going to NXT as an insult or "step down," is a smart move.

Only watched the first hour but I thought it was solid. - Don't mind watching Kenny squash somebody. Blake Christian has a really good "sizzle reel" on YouTube so I wouldn't mind seeing him pop up more on AEW TV (I think his mannerisms, facial expressions, attitude is even more impressive than his moveset)...but AEW's problem isn't that they don't have enough time or enough wrestlers, its that they have arguably too much of both and so guys (and gals) come in and out and get cycled through and lost in the shuffle or just go from relevant to irrelevant within 6 weeks (according to Cagematch, Private Party haven't had a match on TV in 2 months). Blake Christian is a guy they don't need because the roster is so bloated, but he's a guy I like more than some of the guys on the roster. - Curious where this MJF/Hurt Syndicate thing goes. I don't think Hurt Syndicate is really over over as babyfaces. Like, yes, they get pops and people like to chant "Hurt People Hurt People," but I'm not sure fans are really going to rally behind Bobby Lashley in every situation. Seems like TK is playing with fire a bit. MJF really, really needs to stay heel after that corny face run and, theoretically, Hurt Syndicate v. Bill and Keith is positioning them as faces...but are the AEW fans really going to cheer for Bobby Lashley over MJF? When the size differential is going to make MJF look like the underdog in the fight? When Lashley is an ex-WWE guy and MJF is "our scumbag"? When MJF still gets his fair share of cheers when booked against just about anybody? I like that this storyline feels messy - which is different and fresh - but, yeah, I don't have much confidence in TK being able to stick the landing. - Speaking of Hurt Syndicate, boy did Big Bill biff that promo against MVP. I've seen some online try to blame MVP for "burying" him, but I dunno, between that bad "American Psycho or Iceberg Slim" line (not clever enough to warrant going over the heads' of most of the audience) or using the word "bitch" after MVP had already used it - and delivered it - with more gusto, its hard not to "bury" someone when they're digging themselves into a hole for you. MVP was hired to talk shit and he did it and did it well. TK made the mistake of putting Big Bill out there to "match wits" with a guy he's paying for his mic skills/charisma.