DMJ

Surprised to see the love for this week's episode, though I only watched the first hour. Starting the show off with a heel/heel match was...a choice. The crowd was hot, but that match probably would've died if it had happened in one of the larger, mostly empty venues they were booking up until a few weeks ago. The smaller venue plan is a good one, but I just don't know why TK would think that kicking off the show with Shelton Benjamin and Kyle Fletcher was a good idea. Especially when you have White/PAC and Swerve/Caster on the same show. If your wrestling show starts with 30 minutes and the crowd has nobody to cheer for, there's something wrong with your card. It also doesn't help either guy to become "the de facto babyface" even for one night if the long-term plan is to have them as viable heels. The battle royale was bad in every way and almost felt like TK trolling the audience. Cole is the only guy to get an entrance? I mean, we all knew he'd be one of the winners but why not at least pretend? Speaking of pretend, the finish was just insulting and I felt bad for Archer and The Butcher (I think?) for having to pretend like two dudes the size of Cole and O'Reilly could eliminate them. Again, feels almost like trolling with how they're pushing Cole. HOOK's promo would've sounded amateurish at your local armory promotion being put on by trainees. Woeful stuff there. Swerve/Caster should've been even more one-sided. I also didn't actually like the post-match attack - not because Caster didn't deserve it or it made Swerve look too heelish, but because the double-stomp takes participation from the guy on the receiving end so you had Caster, who was lifeless as Swerve was climbing on the rope, have to sit up to "take" the move. Would've preferred him ending the match with the Stomp and then just House Call'ing him during the post-match or, hell, just House Call'ing him repeatedly until a bunch of officials have to stop him. Silly little things, but right now, I feel like AEW's "coldness" is real "death by a million cuts."

Not alone there. To me, it was a tale of two matches. First half was not very good at all. Nia, who I'm often higher on than most and have been for years, just looked awful out there. Not sure if it was just the environment, the pressure, or what, but there were multiple sequences that looked like they were happening in slow-mo or were painfully telegraphed. At a certain point, I think they just needed to take the camera off whatever she was doing. But then the match steadily got better and better until it was a total blast. These matches have become formulaic and built around overly choreographed spots, but the sequence where all the women hit a signature move in rapid succession was really well done. Plus, as others have noted, the match was all about Rhea and Liv and both were spotlighted well. To be honest, I know it was probably either a hollow bat or a plastic one, but the baseball bat shots from Liv looked great to my eyes. I also liked the Tiffany cash-in tease as I'm not sure we've seen that before in the middle of a War Games or even a standard Survivors match. The Men's match started slow and then just kinda stayed at that pace. Once again, Jacob Fatu was the New Bloodline's MVP but that was to be expected when it is so painfully clear that nobody else in the stable has a fraction of his charisma or athleticism. The Tonga guys are mediocre at best and Solo is good-not-great from what I've seen. Meanwhile, I'll continue to say that Jimmy and Jey have an unfortunate habit of shrinking in the spotlight a bit as singles too and the Men's Match didn't pick up till Sami came in. As for Ludwig Kaiser, I guess I'm in the minority here too. I think he's great. Loved everything he did in that match and didn't find his presence to be superfluous at all. If anything, I thought he was - from a character perspective - holding the whole thing together for its first 2/3rds. Bron is somewhat of a "tweener" in that his mannerisms and attitude all say heel, but then the fans are cheering for the guy anyway. Sheamus is a beloved babyface at this point. Kaiser was the guy they could both beat up, but who also could play the spoiler as needed (and I thought he did an awesome job in that role). I also loved the psychology behind his immediate attempt to use a chair - I mean, it is 100% legal so why wouldn't he against two monsters? - and how it became the "Chekhov's Gun" element of the match. I thought, beginning to end, that was the clear match of the night and maybe even a sneaky Top 10 Match of the Year for WWE. More than any other match, it was the one where I said, "Now I want to see Kaiser vs. Bron and Kaiser vs. Sheamus and Sheamus vs. Bron."

I have Ospreay on my list currently and I don't see him leaving, though he's not necessarily ranked all that high. He's hovering in the 80s right now. I'm a very US-centric, WWE/WCW 80s-to-today viewer, though. That's what I've seen. That's what I know. Those are the storylines I'm familiar with. It makes my ballot look goofy at times because while I've been watching more and more AJPW from the 90s and lucha stuff and other things, I'm watching "random" matches void of any context. So, yeah, I just watched Misawa vs. Taue and I dug it, but I had to do some post-viewing research to even understand why Taue going after Misawa's eye was brilliant rather than just your standard great heel work. There are layers to these matches I'm completely missing. But that's also why I think Ospreay is that good. You can go into his matches cold and he's still doing something "cutting edge" in almost every match. Sure, if you scour the indies and are super knowledgeable of that realm, Ospreay's innovative sequences might not seem all that innovative. But, to me, he's stupendous. I wouldn't quite put him up there with Rey or AJ Styles (who, in TNA, was also basically doing at least one sequence or counter or high spot that would blow your mind in nearly every single high-profile match), but damn, Ospreay's ability to blow people's minds in 2024 is almost more impressive because the envelope has been pushed so very far. If you hate this style, you're not going to see an Ospreay match that will change your outlook. It is undeniably a "performance." It is undeniably "showy." To be honest, it is not my preferred genre of wrestling. But, within its genre, he is at the pinnacle. I'd much rather watch an Ospreay match, willfully going into it expecting to be blown away by a bunch of convoluted spots designed for the sole purpose of "popping" the crowd, than, say, watch a Seth Rollins match where he'll try to do the same thing but get nowhere close because (a) his offense isn't nearly as exciting and (b) if you're going to just not sell, its almost better to just not sell the whole match. Ospreay is a maximalist and, if you're going to be that, if you're just going to do superhero wrestling where almost nothing matters because everything is going to get a 2.9 count, well, you have to really, really blow the audience away with your stuff. If its going to be a fireworks show, you can't have any misfires. Ospreay does it better than anyone else I've seen in the past decade.

One question will be just how much juice this story has and if the intention is it for it to absolutely be the "A" story for the next 3 months, 6 months, 12 months. I'd argue that the nWo storyline was good-to-excellent - if we start with the Hogan turn - an unbelievable 18 months from Bash 96' to Starrcade 97' and I could see the argument, especially in terms of ratings, profitability, etc., it was still working after Sting's big victory. (I wasn't into the Wolfpack and Hollywood split, but it does have its fans and its fans bought a bunch of merch and PPVs in 98'). If the intention is to make this angle be "The Show" for the next year, I think the challenge will be how to book enough swerves and twists to make it engaging - something TK and the Bucks ultimately failed to do with the EVP storyline. I mean, I'm not saying its any real barometer of relevancy, but on the Bucks' wiki page, the last entry related to the EVP is from July 24th. That's a 3-month gap since they've done anything resembling a major or important angle (aside, of course, walking away from Mox and Co.).

Woah now. I get disliking Shawn, but that first Hell in a Cell is an all-timer. And I'd argue that the Mankind/Taker one is equally awesome, even if what it spawned could be considered a net negative. That match was more than just stunts and is an incredibly engrossing and legitimately shocking and tremendous presentation. Punk/Drew was a very good match, one that I'd recommend and would consider a potential MOTY for WWE, and probably among the top 5 Hell in a Cell matches ever. But Shawn/Taker and Foley/Taker are probably in the top 25-50 matches in company history. I don't think Punk/Drew got there.

Listening to Eric Young's podcast on the Chris Van Vliet show, I was curious about a recurring talking point that EY has brought up. Maybe someone here as more insight. So the timeline goes that Young came to NXT and did the Sanity thing, then had a bad experience on the main roster, left for TNA, got rehired by Triple H some time after but never actually appeared on TV (possibly to be in an earlier version of the Wyatt Sicks), Vince came back into power and Young immediately asked for his release...and had to sign an NDA. I guess I'm just curious about why he had to sign the NDA. That implies that he was privy to some sort of event or incident that would be damaging to Vince. Was he included on a text chain detailing one of Vince's sexual conquests? Did he have first-hand knowledge and evidence of something nefarious? Did he confront Vince about an allegation? If Eric Young, a guy who basically had a cup of coffee in the company, was so disgusted with the toxic culture under Vince (a culture he experienced for like a year or two?), I'm really curious how much other bigger stars with much longer tenure were aware of involving Vince. Does everyone who leaves the company have to sign an NDA? I mean, are you telling me that Dolph Ziggler, for all the time he spent there, doesn't have any crazy Vince stories? Just seems weird to me that Eric Young learned about/witnessed something so absolutely stomach-turning about Vince McMahon that he was like "Nope, I'm out if he's here" while everyone else has been able to compartmentalize the various "lives" of Vince McMahon. When Vince briefly came back into power, I don't remember the roster going on strike. Is it just EY virtue signaling? Or is there something more to the story that sets what he experienced apart from, say, what someone like Kevin Owens or Seth Rollins or Bobby Lashley or whoever experienced?

I'm cautiously optimistic about MAX being the home of future PPVs/PLEs. Right now, the price of AEW PPVs keeps me from purchasing them and I've rarely heard great things about the services that were carrying them. So, I found alternate means to watch the shows the next day. But having now done that for 4-5 shows, I definitely see the value of the PPVs and would gladly pay $10-$20 to see them live/on delay and not feel like I'm downloading every piece of malware ever while I do so. Above that price point, though, I'd probably stick with what I'm currently doing.

Watched the first episode despite my earlier claim that I wasn't interested in yet another wrestling documentary going through Vince taking over the company, expanding into the territories, cherry-picking talent, and creating WrestleMania. But, hey, like many things in life, it's not always about finding a new angle or unearthing new footage or solving a mystery. You can give me and a world class chef the same knife, the same vegetables, and the same oil and vinegar and one of us is going to make a remarkable salad and the other will make that one that is less so. I know they got more access to footage, more interviews, etc., but really, this is content we've all heard before - at least Episode 1 is - but this is that content being presented by real top-shelf producers and editors. It's not the story, its the storytellers here that pulled me in and have me recommending it to even the most "I've seen it all before" wrestling fans. Yes, you've seen it all before. Episode 1 is not groundbreaking (I can't speak for any others). But you've probably had pizza from dozens of places in your life too. If you're like me, though, that doesn't mean you don't try a new place when one opens in your town. You never know, they might actually make a great pie. I thought Episode 1 was a great pie.

Watched this in full recently for my blog and...it's not good. - The brawling is decent, but nothing special and actually exposes just how important Vince's foils were over the years to carry him to things resembling good matches. With Austin in the cage, they threw in a ton of high spots that were fresh for their time and lots of booking obstacles for the Rattlesnake to overcome. With Hogan and Shawn, you had guys who really knew how to play to the live crowds and were also willing and able to have bloodbaths with Vince that played to the super popular babyface/super hated heel dynamic well. Here, it just doesn't work. Vince wasn't/isn't a sympathetic babyface then, now, forever, so you're not really rooting for him. Triple H dominating the match is fine, but like any other Triple H match where he dominates, it's not exactly riveting stuff. Nor is it inventive or creative or innovative at any time. - I get that the overall storyline and angle was a big one and that you can't get too nitpicky with Stephanie's heel turn...but there was a better way to do it. What the story should've been was that Triple H, by going the lengths he would go to in order to be the Champion and keep Stephanie as his bride, had proven to her that he loved her. Instead, we get Stephanie pretending (?) to be crying and worrying about her father during a 30-minute streetfight only to screw him at the last possible moment after also seeing her husband - whose side she was on all along - also go through all sorts of punishment (which she was visibly and repeatedly cheering for). It just made no sense the way it played out and, when you're invested in a 30-minute match, it's much worse than watching a 2-minute clip of it and thinking about it hindsight. - Finally, as noted earlier, this was a lot of mid brawling and some really lame backstage stuff involving cars to give a "cinematic" feel because that was just what the WWE was doing at the time. I'm not a fan of it now and wasn't then either. Its borderline "If you can run over a guy with a car, why not just bring a gun to the ring?" territory for me where the very limited confines of what pro-wrestling is have been stretched so beyond recognition that it's no longer grounded in even the thinnest accepted reality. Also, again, had Triple H killed Vince, would that have also been part of Stephanie's plan all along? This match was seemingly scripted by Vince saying, "We'll do some garbage to start, then we'll do more garbage in the stands, then you'll try to run me over a car, then we'll somehow get back in the arena and I'll take a big fall into some crash pads, and then we'll get back in the ring and Steph will turn," and the problem is, none of the moments felt organic or suspenseful or fresh. Even with all these bells and whistles, this match was just super boring.

Its only puzzling if you willfully ignore that the WWE has consistently and successfully pushed one masked lucha star in the past 30 years. That's not to say other US companies have done much better, but there's an asterisk next to nearly every successful Mexican star the company has featured since Tito Santana. Eddie and Rey are at the top of the heap, but they were also somewhat proven commodities when they arrived in WWE. Alberto Del Rio was pushed very strong, but I don't recall a single stretch of time at any point when fans actually wanted him in the main event or that he was regarded by critics to be particular great or even over as a top, top guy. Sin Cara flopped. Andrade, Escobar, Garza...does anyone see any of them being top guys in the next 5 years? Dragon Lee could be the best wrestler on the planet, with the most marketable gimmick, and I would still bet against him getting much figure up the card than Kalisto did based on the company's history.

Glad that its broken up into episodes with the last one being about the lawsuit. Will make it very easy to skip every other episode unless I hear otherwise. I lived through, read enough, and watched enough about Vince's rise to power, the steroid case, the war with WCW/Attitude Era, and the globalization of WWE over the past 20 years to think there'll be much of anything new or revelatory for me to see/hear. I don't know if there's any figure in pro-wrestling I might actually know more about already than Vince McMahon. But the final episode? Yeah, I'm curious.

Times running out if he wants those two matches at Mania, but I'm not so sure he couldn't be swayed to do one of those matches at SummerSlam or one of the Saudi shows, especially considering that he is also part of the TKO Board. Maybe someone who understands the legality and finances of this can make it make more sense to me, but would he not be able to negotiate his own payday with Saudi Arabia and Nick Khan for it to be 4-5 times more than whatever he makes comparatively for a single appearance?* Maybe he also figures that if you're going to train for 1 match, might as well do 2 in a span of 4 months? Certainly makes things easier to schedule around if you know you're devoting that time to WWE rather than spreading it out over 2 years. * Wasn't that how Vince was able to convince HBK et. al. to come out of retirement or make the trip for the first few? By basically making sure they were paid such a big number that it would be insane not to take it?

Insane match that I watched in my effort to try to get a more complete view of La Parka for the GWE (just based on WCW output alone, he's a top 100 guy for me but I'm trying to set a rule for myself that I can only have guys on my list who I've seen at least 10 matches of*), but as someone completely unfamiliar with the context, what was with the bizarre finish? Can someone maybe explain the ending? * As a very WWE/WCW-centric viewer whose also only really watched some-but-not-all ECW, TNA, and AEW outside of that, I'm 100% ignorant to international wrestling, but I'm going to try to at least try to watch more matches from the Japanese and Mexican wrestlers who made the 2016 list. I have a list of 105 matches to watch between now and when ballots are due and foresee that I'll add even more over the next 3-4 months.

Yea, for whatever reason, they just really never got behind the guy even when, to my ears, he was getting consistently strong reactions and had an "aura." I've seen the term "microwavable" used to describe certain guys that you can reheat anytime and they'll still deliver - Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Bobby Lashley, Sheamus, even Braun Strowman pre-injuries - but of all these guys, I still think Lashley had the most marketable, most dependable ability to be a top, top guy in terms of credibility. Legit athletic background and MMA experience. Undeniable main event "look." Is older than John Cena but looks at least 4-5 years younger. Dependable in-ring work. As far as I know, drama free and well-liked backstage. I'm not against him popping back up in TNA or going to AEW, but wherever he lands, he needs to be treated like an immediate big deal and plugged right into the top spot. To not use this guy in that fashion is just silly when the top guys in these companies are generally like 5'8 and 225 pounds. Lashley is a beast.

I like Peacock and do think its worth it if you're at all a fan of current WWE. I don't watch the weekly TV often, but I still watch the PLEs and $6 a pop will always be a bargain to me because I grew when PPVs were $30 to $50. Also, as the poster above said, the library is deep relative to what probably 99% of fans could ever want to watch. Every WCW, WWE, and ECW PPV. Every RAW, Nitro, SmackDown, and Thunder, I think. Lots of ECW TV. A ton of Coliseum Home Videos. A ton of WWE documentaries and behind-the-scenes shows. A whole bunch of territory stuff, though, sadly, it doesn't seem like they're adding much older content often. If you haven't had access to the Network before, you're not going to run out of things to watch on it. I'm also a Dick Wolf Universe fan - Law & Order, SVU, and Criminal Intent, specifically - so there's that too and the various Chicago franchises. Also, for comedy, I think Killing It, Bust Down, Paul T. Goldman, and AP Bio are worth watching and are/were exclusive to Peacock, if I'm not mistaken. To answer your specific question, if it was a Trish or Mickie James match that was televised on SmackDown, RAW, or on PPV, it is on there.

I know this isn't the thread for this, but the narrative that Vaquer got so over that it "forced a Sasha heel turn" is inaccurate. The Mercedes Mone character has been a "tweener"-leaning-towards-heel for months. Her biggest feud has been with 100% babyface Willow Nightingale, who got a visual pin over Mone before getting screwed by Kris Statlander out of the TBS Title. Whether it's because her personality is that overbearing and egotistical in real life or not, every one of her appearances has involved some amount of her speaking condescendingly about the rest of the roster or delivering very "fake" sounding cliches about her love of the fans. She's calling herself the CEO (evocative of another major heel faction's moniker), which is basically the same thing she was doing as her original heel character, "The Boss of NXT." There will always be a portion of the audience who will cheer her because, like Jericho or MJF, part of the "smart" wrestling audience loves being contrarian/ironic even when the wrestlers are trying to get heal heat. She's also, without question, the biggest star in the division and, despite lots of folks saying she's "just another wrestler," does actually have an aura to her that no other woman does in AEW. They've definitely pushed Mone further towards the heel side of things since Forbidden Door (and, yes, Vaquer's amazing work in that match helped), but they also now have Britt Baker back and Baker is very over as an "AEW Original" with the AEW audience. I can see why TK didn't want to necessarily push Mone as an outright heel until Baker came back or they had someone that could really measure up as Mone's foil.

I'd have to look back at my list as I'm not sure he made it last time... And I think he would this time around. I've been watching some 2008 WWE PPVs for my blog and I've been pleasantly surprised at just how good Batista is. Like, he's legitimately fantastic. The stretcher match against Shawn Michaels at One Night Stand 2008 is a match that I don't recall seeing on anyone's shortlist of great WWE matches from the 2000s, but it is damn good and arguably one of Shawn's best matches post-comeback, even if you're wishy-washy on Shawn's histrionics. Here, its earned because Batista just mauls him. More recently, I watched his match against Edge from Night of Champions 2008 and, again, I'm left feeling like this was almost a Batista carry job. Batista takes a terrific table bump early in the match from a baseball slide-dropkick, all of his power moves look great and impactful, and his energy and connection to the crowd means this one never really slows down or gets boring (even when Edge's offense starts getting repetitive). There are moments to nitpick, including the overbooked finish, but Batista's actual performance is really good. IIRC, this was a point in time when Batista was very unpopular in the IWC and he was even considered "lazy." Ironically, from what I've watched recently, its actually Cena who was having the uninteresting, cookie-cutter matches and Orton and Triple H's feud wasn't great either. Of the three, at least for this brief stretch, Batista was having much better, more interesting, more dynamic matches. And his character work was cooler too. I think its one of those things where he was unappreciated at the time, but on re-watch, the lightbulb goes off and you go "Oh, yeah, now I get why the live audiences always went batshit for this guy: he was an awesome powerhouse."

Just watched this for the first time based on someone referring to it as one of (maybe even "the") best WWE women's match ever in the Melina GWE thread. I wouldn't necessarily go that far (I really liked Sasha/Bayley in Brooklyn and Rhea/Charlotte from WM39 and also Bayley/IYO from this year's Mania) but being in the conversation considering WWE didn't treat women's wrestling seriously until about 5 years after this match and that, as we've learned in various interviews, the women were often told specifically not to overshadow the men, is no small feat. As the poster above wrote, Phoenix is outstanding here as the powerhouse. Melina is incredible too and puts on an excellent babyface performance (which, to me, is even more impressive considering that I often go into Melina matches not necessarily wanting to cheer for her because of how much I associate her with being an on-screen heel and also, according to industry gossip that should probably be taken with a grain of salt, being a "diva" backstage). The only extra note I'd have is that the powerbomb Phoenix gives towards the end of the match is devastating and had me audibly "pop" watching by myself as I did leg raises in my basement. Usually, I'm pretty silent watching a match by myself, so, when that happens, you know it looks nasty. An easy 4-out-of-5 on my scale, which puts it into somewhat rarefied air (the rating scale I use on my blog - cheap plug, Kwang The Blog only goes to 5 and I only do .5-point increments [no quarters]) as a 4-out-of-5 is in the territory of "Should Watch/Must Watch" if you're at all into US wrestling from the past 40 years.

I'm not sure I saw what the botch was? Maybe it was just the bad camera angle? From what I saw, Orton hit the RKO and had the cover, but Gunther slapped/punched him in the knee (which Orton had been consistently selling as damaged from early on during the abdominal stretch), which shocked Orton into sitting up. Gunther then rolled him up (sloppily, but good enough) to get his shoulders on the mat for a quick pin. I thought the match was terrific. Maybe not MOTY-territory, but very, very good. I'm not as well-versed on Gunther's resume, but just based on his main roster WWE output, he's got to have one of the highest batting averages of banger matches I can recall.

- I'm fine saying that Danielson/Ospreay was one of the top 50-75 matches I've seen and I'm an admittedly rather ignorant WWE/WCW/ECW viewer who hasn't seen a ton of ROH, TNA, Mexico, or Japan stuff, let alone whatever Europe or Australia has to offer or territory stuff from the 70s. But even with that mainstream-dominant background, I think it is hyperbolic to call it the best US match in history. As someone else said, I think the Takeshita match from the last PPV was almost nose-to-nose until the last 10 minutes of this one. Plus, sure, this had a ton of great moves and counters and I loved how they built to the Tiger Driver and I'm a mark for basically everything Danielson...but, push comes to shove, I don't know, I still think there is more subtle brilliance in the Austin/Bret series? Or HBK/Mankind? Or some of the Sting/Vader matches? Flair/Steamboat obviously? Nostalgia certainly plays a factor, sure, but I'm much more comfortable calling this a top 50 than I am a top 5. - I thought the FTR/Bucks match was terrific as well. They had a very hard act to follow, so I'm glad it was a ladder match spotfest. It also meant that the Bucks didn't do any of the lame, "anti-comedy" bullshit that they did on TV last week. That shit was unfunny and atrocious. I thought this was the best possible solution - go out there, do a hard-hitting, physical, weapons-heavy spotfest that shows off both teams' exceptional timing and execution, and then do the big "swerve" at the end to protect FTR while giving the Bucks the W. (Is Cash Wheeler going to prison? Is that still possible? I'm a bigger FTR fan than Bucks fan, but I feel like that still needs to be sorted out...?) - Liked Jericho/HOOK more than seemingly everyone else on Earth. You can call it "Go Away Heat" or "Jericho Heat" or whatever you want, but the crowd seemed into the match. The real problem is that HOOK isn't very good and the crowd was much more anti-Jericho than it was pro-HOOK. But, in terms of who delivered, my eyes saw Jericho taking some gnarly bumps and really working his ass off to try to "make" HOOK. I am 100% in agreement that Jericho needs to go home for awhile (I've also suggested before that instead of being "Lionheart," he really should be going back to his even lamer bedazzled-vest and short haircut gimmick from the mid-00s when he came back as a lukewarm babyface to feud with Orton), but I thought this was easily the best 15-20 minutes of Jericho I've seen in at least a year or two.

There's no way around it - it was a bad segment and a bad decision, as everyone predicted. But I think last night's Dynamite was actually proof that the company is really dying not from a single bad segment, but from a thousand cuts. I didn't finish the show, so maybe the second hour was miraculously great and, if so, I'll admit I'm wrong but I thought the first 60 minutes were among the worst the company has had in a long time. - Edge/Penta did not click with me and certainly didn't need 20 minutes. I respect Edge for wanting to go out and put on hard-hitting wrestling matches that showcase his passion...but his strength has never been to go out and do 20-minute, straight-up babyface vs. babyface matches. If you made a top 20 Edge matches list, there wouldn't be a single one with that formula. If you made a top 50, I don't think you'd find one there. He's just not that guy. - I have no idea what Jericho is doing or thinking, but I'd put not telling Jericho to ditch the Lionheart Revisited gimmick as another mistake by TK. Jericho at least used to have an entrance that was over. Now he doesn't even have that. And the partnership with HOOK has got to be the 3rd or 4th time now that we've seen Jericho do this sort of storyline (with Sammy, with MJF kinda, with Omega sorta). If Jericho wants to do a retread of a bad gimmick from his past, he should do the corny one from 2007 when he wore the cheap sparkly vest, had the short hair, and looked like a wedding DJ. That would be somewhat funny. - AEW gets shit on for having too many good wrestling matches, but the audience that is tuning in - a not-so-small 700k fans - is tuning in for that. This show kicked off with a 4-5 minute beatdown segment, followed by an Edge/Penta match that overstayed its welcome, and then we didn't get another wrestling match for 30+ minutes. At some point, TK needs to realize that a good wrestling match doesn't necessarily mean it needs to go 2 commercial breaks and that it doesn't need to be a squash either. For someone with an "encyclopedic knowledge" of pro-wrestling, this guy has seemingly never heard of an 8-minute match.

- Not sure if someone else mentioned this in the thread but...no big introduction for CM Punk during the PPV seems like an ego check from ol' Papa H. Basically, "Yeah, we know that 'Cult of Personality' would blow the roof off the place and be an incredible opening moment for Night 2...but we're going to go with Stephanie and then right into Drew and Seth and you'll already be at the table. Be happy that you're here at all." They had plenty of time. They gave Snoop Dogg an entrance as guest commentator for the next match. They gave Bubba Ray an entrance. They gave Snoop Dogg essentially a second entrance when he announced the attendance. This was a humbling from Paul to Phil. - Bayley/IYO wasn't just my pick for Match of the Weekend, it might be on my shortlist of best Mania matches of the past decade. Just an incredible match with a variety of good spots, great selling by Bayley (someone needs to sit Seth down and have him watch what Bayley did here), wonderful execution by IYO, some great counters and pin attempts...I thought it absolutely smoked the Becky/Rhea match. - Have to believe there was a reason Austin wasn't the guy to save the day. I'm curious what the story is there. Triple H low-balled him? Austin demanded too much? The offer was never really made? - Anyone else think that the two people Cody was going to thank were his dad and Dustin? Bruce Prichard and Triple H getting celebrated at the end was not something I wanted to see or hear. You've just won a wrestling match, don't thank the stunt coordinators. - God, I hate Seth Rollins.

I think people are being a bit harsh on the main event. Had "Big Fight Feel." Crowd was generally into it and much louder than they'd been for some of the other matches despite the temperature, which I'm guessing was close to 40 by that point and maybe lower? Of course, it is going to start slow and build to the big interactions. That's been every Roman Reigns match for the past couple years (to varying success) and, considering The Rock's age and endurance, you had to know the match was going to feature lengthy stretches where he'd be on the outside catching his breath with equally lengthy segments where they'd do the exact same "shit"* that helped him stretch out his matches back then (namely brawling in the crowd and jawing with referees/commentators). All in all, it checked all the boxes. Now, if that's not your thing, fine, but its kinda like going to Pizza Hut and being upset that pad thai isn't on the menu. Or expecting a big Marvel summer blockbuster to wrap up in a tight and efficient 88 minutes instead of needlessly going 150. Great false finish with the double pedigrees in a match with a conclusion that everybody predicted going in too. Yes, there was some "holding back"...but, again, they have to leave something for tonight and, to be honest, without The Rock's star power and aura, I'm not sure tonight's match is going to actually be as good as this. We'll see... I'm as anti-Rollins as they get most times, but I thought his selling was better than usual in that he's usual a D- but, in this match, he was closer to a C. Yes, its silly that a guy who is selling a severely damaged knee is also going for top rope splashes and Curb Stomps and whatnot, but at least he's doing it in the context of the biggest match of his career. I find it much more egregious when he's doing it in run-of-the-mill TV matches on Raw against JD McDonaugh or Baron Corbin. Or maybe I'm getting softer in my old age. Zayn/GUNTHER was the clear MOTN, but I still wouldn't consider it an all-time classic. Needed a little more time and, maybe its just me, but GUNTHER losing because he lost focus and was going back-and-forth with Sami's wife just seemed...I dunno...a little out of character? I don't watch the weekly TV, but I thought GUNTHER's thing was that he was almost an emotionless Terminator who could be boastful at times, but was generally laser-focused when the bell rang. I dunno. Just felt like they went too far with the Rocky III idea and turned GUNTHER into Clubber Lang when he's never before been that.

This definitely reeks of Bischoff challenging Vince to a street fight on PPV. Was that in 98' or 99'? I won't bother looking it up as it wouldn't have mattered if he'd done it in 97' or 2000 or 94' - it was a bad idea and only drew attention to how much the people in charge were obsessed with "the competition." Plus, you don't get a single match out of it. There's no potential payoff. Or, for that matter, when JR promised to bring back Razor and Diesel (not putting the blame on JR either, it was obviously a Vince idea) which was equally lame and a terrible idea that had no chance of leading to any sort of payoff anyway. Just a horrendous, horrendous decision that I predict will have minimal positive impact on a rating while further giving AEW haters something to dunk on.

Seems to me like they might try to do Ospreay/Swerve at Wembley and do Callis' big heel turn on Ospreay at the show. At least that's how I'd figure your typical booker would do it. It would put a ton of heat on Callis, but I'm not sure who you have step up as the top heel for the Don Callis Family at that point. Takeshita, Fletcher, and Hobbs have all lost to Ospreay clean already. Maybe Callis finds a new ace? I can think of one guy specifically that might work and hasn't been up to much and also would probably get a big reaction (he's from Newcastle and a match against Ospreay would probably bang hard), but I'm not going to throw out the exact name... Swerve keeps the strap and Ospreay has a couple-month feud and then you revisit later down the line?