The Man in Blak

Yeah, that was the first time I've watched the opening hour of Raw in almost a decade and I think I'm good to go another ten years now. Then I came back in time for Lesnar to blow up the main before it even started. Cody/Lesnar is sort of a double curveball in that it seemed like a logical post-Mania build for Cody as champion (which didn't happen), but it also came completely out of nowhere tonight as an off-ramp for Cody from the title picture. It all feels like there's a lot of good will being burned here for no real good reason.

Yeah, I'll stand corrected, I mixed up the timings there - it's hard to keep track of how many times Naito has had a disappointing loss in a world title match sometimes!

Okada/Naito, weirdly enough, is the most optimistic outcome here -- especially if this ends up sparking a killer heel turn for Cody like it did for Naito -- but I feel like there's also a chance that this ends up being a mirror universe version of Starrcade '97, where the finish was so bad that it ends up poisoning everybody involved. Regardless of who wins it now, the wrestler that beats Roman is going to have to fight through some resentment from the fans that they got the spot instead of Cody or Sami.

Bringing it full circle with Jey winning it from Roman would be one way to salvage this, except that you're asking Jey Uso to be capable as a singles babyface in a way that feels completely out of reach right now. Jey's definitely leveled up through his arc in the Bloodline and he's absolutely someone that seems primed to hold a singles belt at some point in the future, but that still seems like a bridge too far for me in 2023 on the heels of this. If you're looking to "keep it in the family" with whoever beats Roman, why not give it to Solo at this point? The other thing to call out separate from the decision itself is the actual finish - having Solo somehow sneak back in and cost Cody the title would have been a bullshit overbooked finish for a B-Tier supercard main event, but to do it for Wrestlemania? Really?

I think the match eventually got to the point and the dynamic you’re describing here, but it took 10+ minutes of a bog standard Charlotte match to get there. Before Rhea caught her on the top and accidentally (?) dumped her on her head with that first messed-up German, Charlotte was chopping, clotheslining, dialoguing and kipping up, all while spending plenty of time in control. Yeah, the DDT counter to the Riptide from a few minutes earlier looked badass, but it was basically a cutoff of a desperation finisher attempt, rather than Charlotte working from underneath. The rest of the match after that first botched/awkward German definitely picked up from there and, with the benefit of a second watch of the match, the slow first half of the match helped lay the foundation for more physical intensity in the back half. But, on the first pass, it didn’t strike me as “generous” as much as it was meandering until they finally found something to justify kicking things into a new gear. That said, your points on Charlotte’s acting are 100% correct, especially in contrast to Rhea’s goofy facial reactions to nearfalls. The way that Charlotte kinda no-sold the finish of the match to sit against the ring apron and smirk while Rhea celebrated was a little obnoxious, but I could see it being poignant if it *is* a true changing of the guard - we’ll have to see how post-Mania storytelling plays out. If we’re back here again with a Backlash rematch next month, it needs to pick up where this one left off.

I couldn’t attend the show because of a family event, but I looked at tickets last night out of curiosity and there were still plenty of seats available. No idea how the walk-up sales turned out, but definitely seems like a disappointing gate.

I think the reactions online are more revealing than Dave’s introspection here. The missing context that Dave’s regretting — and that the tweet thread here glosses over like it’s no big deal — is a pretty big part of how the narrative got so screwed up in this particular instance. Everybody is so deferential by default to Meltzer that they can’t even trust the man himself when he admits he messed one up.

There's still time!

I feel like I need to read that four more times to actually understand what's being said, but yeah, the main event was a success. I agree with what Phil Schneider wrote at the Ringer: this was basically 2023's version of Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psicosis debuting on ECW. It may not have been a five-star classic, but it definitely turned some heads and did a great job of introducing Vikingo to a larger North American audience.

I appreciate the work that Wrestlenomics is doing and I'm probably as high on MJF as anybody else here but, as it's presented here, "Count of items in daily top 10" is a pretty weak metric for this sort of thing, especially in a weekly context. I'm guessing/hoping the Patreon post this was pulled from has more details on the methodology.

Decent odds of Punk not even making the PPV in that scenario, due to him probably blowing out a knee or rolling both ankles due to a wayward horseshoe crab or an elaborate sand castle that hadn’t been taken by the tide yet.

If Punk wasn't cleared to wrestle, then they shouldn't have been planning to put him in the ring even for a squash, full stop.

Setting up Wardlow as a transitional champ between Joe and Hobbs seems like a pretty big airball. Giving Hobbs his first title on a win where QT Marshall gets the “heat” — as much as there can be in a fustercluck like this — is like trying to crossover dribble, rolling your ankle and falling square on your face, breaking your nose.

I think what's throwing me for a loop with the discussion here is how MJF splashing a drink on this kid is being treated as though he's crossed some kind of moral event horizon. This is a professional wrestling event, an event where every conflict is resolved by violence, where "Holy Shit" is a common refrain from the crowd, where one guy notably stabbed another guy in the head with a fork multiple times while attempting to choke him out and then, later, the guy getting stabbed with a fork won the match by literally hanging the other guy from the top rope with a chain. Characterizing MJF's actions as an assault, while technically valid in the abstract and absent of context, also feels like it's in direct contradiction to the event that provided MJF and others the audience and the opportunity to perform. Everybody has their own lines to draw with this sort of stuff -- if you want to say that this is a violation of some sort of implied social contract in pro wrestling where the wrestlers and their performance should be in a "magic circle" that's safely divided from the audience, so be it -- but the actions here are not so far removed from the surrounding moral ambivalence of pro wrestling as a whole that it warrants such a charged discussion in my view. To me, it's a screw-up because the upside of MJF proving that he's a Real Heel in that moment doesn't really make up for the downside. You can Always Be Working - these are professional wrestlers we're talking about - but they still need to be working effectively. Despite all of what I said above, I also agree that this is just one more instance of TK exercising no semblance of control over the product. If this isn't what TK wants to present as part of All Elite Wrestling, then he needs to step in and shut this sort of thing down, full stop.

I thought everybody came away looking great - Buddy had an awesome moment with the finish and both Buddy and Black had some great shine off their opening exchanges with Omega. If anything, I came away wanting to see an Omega/Black match (that will never happen) because they had great chemistry throughout.

I thought Elite/HoB was "fine", but I do agree that the finish helped them stick the landing. I can't really stand the Bucks (and even, to a lesser extent, Omega) as babyfaces, but that disdain kind of enhanced the match because the high-level storyline of the match was largely the House of Black kicking their faces in. The details when you zoom in further get messy as always - the Julia Hart interference sucked and the Elite were as predictable as ever - but it felt like the match was structured to get the House of Black over as being too vicious to be trifled with and that mission was largely accomplished. I don't know that the HoB has gotten that kind of reaction at any point in AEW up to this point and, if they are looking to actually keep this trios title going (meh), AEW desperately needs them to be in the mix.

There are plenty of places to hide in an Iron Man, as long as they're willing to run up the fall count with countout and DQ shenanigans. Even Rock and HHH were able to have a solid Iron Man match in the middle of the Attitude era by exploring those possibilities. And, given that MJF has already said that he's willing to do anything to win, I've got to imagine they'll dig deep into that playbook. If we're taking over/under numbers on falls, I'm thinking we're looking at over a dozen.

I think this is worth bringing into even sharper focus with the current MJF title reign. It's kind of stunning how little TK is actually asking Danielson to do here - Brian Danielson is one of the greatest of all time, but you could put literally anybody else in this spot and it would not change the shape of this program, which is why it feels like a foregone conclusion before the match has even happened. It's a placeholder program that's more of a vehicle for TK to fantasy book Danielson into "dream matches" than an actual legitimate world title build. I know a lot of people are getting tired of MJF but, to me, that's a byproduct of the booking, which has been an absolute disaster. When one wrestler is being asked to carry the entire narrative load for a program week after week after week for months with basically nothing to work with, anybody is going to get over-exposed. That's when you get things like MJF frantically trying, week after week, to connect with something - anything - as a narrative foundation for this thing other than TK smashing his MJF and Danielson action figures together. I still think MJF's reign has been better than Page's run with the belt, but I would concede that the Page title reign had a similar root cause -- it even had Danielson as a placeholder challenger to build up Page as a credible champion! Even Omega's run didn't really have a compelling follow-up after he won the belt from Moxley: they had the disastrous exploding barbwire rematch, an out-of-left-field three way match with Orange Cassidy and Pac (with virtually no build, again) and a weak run with Christian Cage that centered more on the IMPACT championship than the AEW strap. So, yeah, I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that this has been an issue with the world title (maybe even the company as a whole) ever since Moxley won the belt for the first time. Even in TEW, you can't build dream match cards forever.

Has there been a confirmation that the Elite resigned, since their contracts were supposed to be up this month? Seems like that might qualify as a “distraction.”

I can’t believe they sacrificed Montez Ford to build an angle where Seth Rollins gets high on curbstomps.

Yeah. It’s probably too old fashioned to suggest this, but would a 30-minute broadway worked better as an ending? Sami going the distance with the champ, with Roman failing to get the win and maybe furthering that friction with Jey in the process? If they were dead set on having Sami lose, Jey “turning” on Sami and staying with Roman would have at least given Sami some protection and still setup whatever they wanted to with Sami and the Usos down the line. As it was, I don’t know that it was all that effective of a match, even with Sami and especially Roman bringing their A-game. It was overbooked to the moon (two ref bumps!) and it still doesn’t feel like there’s much that’s appreciably different coming out as there was going in, other than Sami potentially coming out worse. We’ll see how over he is when he’s not across the ring from the Bloodline.

Not pulling the trigger on the Jey turn was a surprisingly restrained bit of storytelling. I’m happy to be wrong there - guess they’re saving that for WM to put Cody over the top?

Before the match, this approach was pitch-perfect - Roman didn’t say a word and it was said everything about the moment and Roman’s emotional ride. Now that it’s Shawn Michaels’ Dialogue Time with Sami’s wife, not so much. I know that’s been a “feature” of a lot of Roman’s fights, but it still takes me out of it.

Intellectually, it feels like Jey comes down, fakes a turn on Roman, but costs Sami the win. But a crowd this hot makes anything seem possible. Also, Roman already turning in an all-time heel performance, just in mannerisms alone. He’s making it seem like Sami’s taking on a Greek god tonight.

MJF's promo was totally fine up the point where Christopher Daniels got involved. Having MJF just stand there while Daniels did his speech felt very contrived, very WWE, and the comeuppance at the end wasn't really all that great. It just felt really uninspired from a booking perspective which -- surprise -- seems to be a recurring theme as of late. Sure, it was a comedown from MJF's match with Takeshita last week and the wild post-match promo. The whole show felt that way. But it felt that way because every moment in the show seemed like it was meant to tread water between the big Clash of the Champions-style special and the go home shows next week.