Flyin' Brian

Yeah, maybe save a big match like FTR/Gunns for it or have a match/tournament for a title shot to at least build up a storyline. The matches are just random and out of nowhere. Yeah Hobbs beat the Lucha Bros in back to back weeks and I guess this is their opportunity to get their win back but we all know QT is taking the fall. Hobbs definitely deserves better and so do the Lucha Bros. On one hand Hobbs/QT is long term storytelling, but on the other hand Hobbs is definitely at a point where QT drags Hobbs down to his level and that’s not good.

I really wish AEW would make a bigger deal out of these Battle for the Belts shows or just stop doing them. At first it was sold like it would be an updated Clash of The Champions, now it’s becoming like an episode of Rampage just all the matches are for a title but there’s no chance of a title change. Tonight’s show on paper looks like a skip for me.

It wouldn’t surprise me if All In isn’t just AEW/ROH. The first All In featured wrestlers from seven different promotions.

Welcome to the first episode of World Wrestling Endeavor Raw.

Didn't get to watch night 1 live but night 2 was fun. That Snoop Dogg save had me thinking that was the plan all along it was so good. Miz did great too, and part of it probably is most people would jump at the chance to punch him in the face and drop and elbow on him. lol The main event was so good I can't crap on the finish. I think that Cody wants to do an actual War Games on the main roster, Cody/Sami/Owens/maybe Dustin Rhodes if his contract with AEW is up vs Reigns/Usos/Solo. Maybe bring back the Great American Bash and do it there. Then give Cody the win at Summerslam, or throw in a Dusty finish and keep it going until next year's Wrestlemania. I'll wait until I can go back and catch up on what I missed but this felt like the best Wrestlemania in years, maybe the best since XXX for me.

Everyone did well on the mic, most surprisingly Jungle Boy. If they are going to start building up the pillars that’s a good thing.

Maybe Rhea Ripley should be the one to retire Rey and take his mask.

Just saw Keiji Muto aka The Great Muta might go in this year. Interesting choice.

Orange Cassidy is great. Match vs Jarrett should be fun.

Interesting news, Backlash just got announced to take place in Puerto Rico with Bad Bunny hosting. Apparently they ran New Year's Revolution there in 2005 but I totally forgot about that. Might go back and watch it just to see how it was presented.

Wardlow's car got broken into and the TNT title got stolen. Maybe AEW needs to give everyone backpacks like Orange Cassidy and make them carry the title around at all times.

This RJ City guy is awful. Crappy backstage interviews are not going to convince anyone to buy this show.

Dynamite was a mixed bag. I love Orange Cassidy and enjoy him getting the spotlight, but having the All Atlantic Title and being in the tag title match at Revolution might be too much. Really hope they retire the tag team battle royals for title shots for a while too. They have a tag division that could be great, but most of the teams don't do anything most of the time. I'd love to see some feuds between the teams that aren't currently going after the titles to build up some contenders. Glad Hobbs won the ladder match but wish they would have grabbed another ladder instead of having the refs help hold up the broken one so Hobbs could win. Just didn't look right. Eddie Kingston's misuse is one of the biggest wastes in AEW. I hope he gets a great run in ROH and if so it might lead me to subscribe to Honor Club. They should call an audible and have Danielson win the title. I like MJF, but I think he still needs some seasoning before he's ready for that spot. Danielson, mostly because he didn't want the top spot, hasn't been treated like the star he is in AEW. He's spent a lot of time trying to help make guys from underneath, but I think he could do the same thing and do it better on top. Give him the world title and he can give title shots to anyone he wants to work with. The stakes would be higher and AEW would benefit from it more I think.

Show looks decent tonight, think I’ll give it a shot. Jericho vs Peter Avalon is a WTF match but I’m at least interested in everything else.

Yeah, I think the notion of any real competition between AEW and WWE was a pipe dream. Hopefully AEW can just focus on being the best promotion that it can be for as long as it can be. There’s no ‘war’ to be won and there really never was.

Depends on your definition of “too late”. AEW will continue on for as long as Tony Khan wants it to continue, even if it becomes an online only promotion on YouTube and Honor Club in the future. Who knows what the future of professional wrestling will look like if/when WWE is sold. If McMahon and family are no longer involved after that then it’s a whole new ballgame really. It’ll be interesting to see what happens if/when WWE completely becomes just a cog in a corporate machine instead of the primary focus of ownership.

Yeah, pre WCW you pretty much had Dusty and Flair when he was a babyface in that category and that was it.

That sucks. I'm actually halfway tempted to cancel my Comcast internet when they do.

Just checked these out, and unfortunately they are basically just podcasts. They’ve done two, Austin Idol and Tom Prichard, and it’s just talking with little to no footage. It’s ok for what it is but I was hoping for something closer to a WWE DVD release with interviews and matches/promos/angles.

Maybe this one? They had some matches around then with the Bushwhackers and JIm Neidhart too but I don't know if they made tv.

Then you’ve wasted Cody coming back and winning the Rumble. The best thing I can think of is to have Roman lose the WWE title at Elimination Chamber in the chamber match to someone like Rollins or Gunther thanks to Sami taking him out, then do Rollins/Gunther vs Cody for the WWE title on night one and Sami vs Reigns for the Universal Title on night 2.

I think in this case it really hurts WWE to have both championships on Roman because they have two worthy storylines and they both have to have the same ending which is Roman getting beaten. Cody’s storyline doesn’t need Roman, so if someone else had the title it honestly wouldn’t matter. It’s Cody’s quest for the belt that his story is about. On the opposite side Sami’s story is all about Roman and the Bloodline. It doesn’t need the title but it has to have Roman. At the same time it would seem like a letdown somewhat if that match isn’t for the title because Roman is the champion. One of those two stories is going to suffer because of the other one. If they do Reigns vs Sami at Elimination Chamber that doesn’t really give it the stage it deserves. If you do it at Wrestlemania along with the Reigns vs Cody match who goes on night one and gets the first win over Roman? Probably Cody, but then you’ve got a weakened Roman going into the Sami match that doesn’t really give Sami the big win he deserves, and you’ve had Roman do the job on consecutive nights for both titles which seems a bit much and dilutes both. If it’s a Bloodline vs Sami and Owens Elimination Chamber match and Sami wins is that good enough? Then who would Sami face at Wrestlemania? I keep going over different scenarios in my mind and I’m not seeing a good one that gives both stories a fitting ending at Wrestlemania.

Just heard about this but didn't know how it happened until I came here. He was younger than me. I hope everyone else hurt in the wreck makes it out of the hospital ok. I've got one daughter in cheer and another in guard, crazy how everything can end in an instant just taking the kids to practice.

Yep. I’m watching tonight for Cena but I’m tempted to call it a night now.

I'm getting so sick of this 'Punk's effect on locker room morale' bs. You have two camps in AEW, the camp that probably didn't want Punk there to begin with (The Elite, Colt Cabana, Jericho, Matt Hardy) that have said things about Punk that were negative, then you have a second camp (FTR, Darby Allin, Powerhouse Hobbs, Ricky Starks, The Acclaimed) that have had nothing but positive things to say about Punk. It's just that in the wrestling bubble, the former have more of a relationship with the wrestling 'journalists', so their take is amplified vs what the latter has been quoted as saying. Unfortunately, the former group is so insecure that nothing positive about Punk can be allowed, the narrative has to be 'he's a cancer' so that they can be seen as right and the good guys. Dak and Punk's response to what Dak said seems to indicate that Punk is ready and willing to do business and make money, but the wrestling 'journalists' come out almost immediately and parrot the response of that former group that there's no way they can work together because if they ever do it shows that Punk isn't what they have made him out to be. They wanted Punk gone and they don't ever want him to come back, but it's nowhere near the entire locker room and never was.