NotJayTabb

TBF, the crowd was hot for last nights show. A bit quiet at the start of Jack/Gable, but they soon got into it, and the main event got over huge, with "205" chants busting through. There may not be many size differences to the main roster, but something about the show feels fresh in comparison, the wrestlers felt like they were going all out and were given time to do so.

Absolutely, Chad Gable vs Jack Gallagher was just terrific. Some lovely matwork to kick off, before Gable unleashed some beautiful suplexes and Gallagher laid in some big bombs of his own. Good to see both guys get some time to work with, would happily see the two paired up again.

Goldberg hitting a shoot brainbuster on Taker probably wasnt in the planned match.

I think that was the crux of his NXT gimmick, terrifying monster in the ring, but calmly and politely talking to "Mr Regal" in the back I loved it when Mike Knox had a similar gimmick. One time he came to the ring and just destroyed Rey. He goes backstage and gets stopped by an interviewer asking why he hates Rey Mysterio, where you'd expect an angry, raging promo. Knox stops, looks puzzled and calmly says "I don't hate Rey Mysterio" and walks off. That was great stuff.

Obviously comparing football to wrestling is like comparing apples to oranges, but Tony Khan's stewardship of Fulham is not the example to be looking at. They were a freshly promoted, promising team when he decided to become more 'hands-on'. In the following 12 months they spent £100m on transfers, went through three managers in a season, were comfortably relegated with a month left of the season and Fulham fans dislike him so much that he was trolled into an embarrassing public tantrum on Twitter over a clearly photoshopped flag proclaiming "Tony Khan wanks dogs". Not saying this will have any bearing on his running of AEW, and he seems to be hiring wisely with experienced heads, but I would be loathe to use "runs a large-ish football team" as proof of his acumen.

Thomas Santell was one of the Heartbreakers, right? I love the fact you never know in wrestling who is going to get a late career reinvention

I think it's a fun idea. Gives TV time till guys who would otherwise only appear on Main Event, and if one or two of them make themselves stand out in the process, then it's worth it. A little bit of chaos to liven up the shows. Plus those guys who are more creative can use this as a vehicle- already Drake Maverick is on Twitter, shooting videos hunting down R-Truth for the belt

If it is suicide, that's terribly sad and really hammers home that you never know what's going on in people's lives. Her last tweet from a day ago was a cheery message about sending out some fan mail, while Bull James tweeted that she'd been training for a wrestling comeback and, in his words, was SO excited about it. RIP

Just before the chest bump, when Bret has Magee in the opposite corner, you can see him nod his head as Bret gives him instructions too. It was nice to get Magee as part of the documentary, he seemed like a nice guy.

I think it's mainly because she's been wrestling for years, but still makes Peyton Royce look like Meiko Satomura.

Apparently the actual reason Andrade got moved back is because Fox want someone to appeal to a Latino audience when the show moves over. Which meant Zelina Vega moved back, in turn bringing Aleister Black for the ride.

Dasher/Touchdown is my match of the weekend so far. Apparently only the third ladder match in Chikara history, which is pretty impressive for a 17yr old promotion. They built to the big payoff spot nicely, and everything made sense. Really good. The whole Chikara show was really good TBH, really enjoyed it. The Orange Cassidy show was a hoot. I'm not a huge fan of comedy wrestling, but in this case I went in knowing it was going to be goofy, and if you're going to be goofy, at least be entertaining with it (a lesson Joey Ryan could stand to learn), and this was really fun. The scramble match was a legit good spotfest tho, and the UMB/Gage Christmas death match was really fun.

So Bully Ray has apparently gotten some power in creative, which explains why they marked their MSG debut by introducing Enzo, Cass and the lesser workers from the Beautiful People.

WWE is a global brand though, whereas while I'm aware of SNL, it has no visibility in the UK, and I suspect that's true for the rest of the world.

Amused by the idea of AJ "carrying" Orton, given that his Mania matches against Jericho, Shane and Nakamura have hardly set the world alight. Certainly nothing as good as Orton dragging a decent match out of Rollins. I have no doubt the AJ/Orton match will be very good - I saw them pair up in a house show three-way that was great whenever Jinder wasn't involved - but I think Orton will be an equally important factor in it being good.

Gene Munny Nia. Jax Beano Chris Dickinson Cara Noir

At this point, Seth is probably the member of the Shield the audience is least excited about getting into the match. Roman is having his first match back from cancer, there's happiness that Dean has returned to the side of his Shield brethren after a terrible heel run, whilst Seth is just there.

I think it stems from a photo of Liv sitting on the middle rope, when anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the human body knows that sitting down is not the best position to showcase the stomach, so to speak. It's madness. It feels like, for some fans, there's this impossible middle ground for women wrestlers between "getting fat" and "too skinny to safely bump" which only their favourites will sit in.

Also, you can only imagine what a group of Twitter trolls insulting an attractive woman must look like. The state of them!

While there might well be something self-serving in it for WWE, I imagine it'd be quite nice for Roman to get some love from the crowd, especially if it's good news, after all he's been through.

One thing I think has become more noticeable over the years is that there's more variety on how women look in WWE. One thing TNA had in their early days of the women's division was a range of looks, to the point that the Beautiful People's gimmick partly worked because they were "traditional" looking female wrestlers in a division of varied looks. We can see from looking through this thread that there's a range of views on who people find more attractive (if you asked me to pick the three main roster women I'm most attracted to, it'd be Nia, Asuka and Nikki Cross) and it makes sense to appeal to as broad a spectrum as possible. Plus the more different people look, the more they'll stand out.

I don't really blame Stephanie on that one TBH. If I was her, and my husband's ex made a porn film parodying me, my husband, my father and the family business, then I'd probably not be rushing to celebrate their career in my vanity Hall of Fame either.

It's odd, but the person Dream reminds me of most is a young Sting. Natural athlete, in great shape, innate charisma, still putting it all together but having good/great matches on the way. A guy who's still so early in his career, but carries himself like a star, a leader. Obviously different characters, but that's the vibe I get from him.

I've been rewatching 94 Raw, and I agree with almost all this. IRS is very much a guy you'll give 3.5 minutes to, and one minute will be chinlock and two will be abdominal stretch. Meanwhile, Jarrett is great at fitting a story into his four minutes - he'll control the match, start getting cocky, his opponent will get a few openings, then an embarrassed Jarrett will swiftly beat him and pin him. Makes it far more interesting. The only reason I said "almost all" is because I quite like Typhoon as a squash worker. Mainly because he has this awesome suplex where he grabs a front facelock, and just powers them over, not even bothering to hook the arm. Really neat to watch.

For me, it depends if the chops are going to be laid in this hard on a regular basis. My initial reaction was that this was ridiculous, but that image of Jack Starz's chest has been all over the internet. People who didn't watch the show will have been that photo, and now WALTER's chop looks lethal to the audience. Now, in theory, he can hit lighter chops and the crowd will buy it as a death move because of that photo. I'm sure Jack Starz is ok, more people know who he is than did one week ago.