FMKK

I can't wait til the entire promotion becomes freak show bookings of long retired stars and MMA fighters angling for a Saudi payday

I presume so, otherwise what matches would they use?

Dark matches are going onto YouTube

When you can't actually build a star, you've got to present the ones you're buying in pretty well.

Massive new era for WWE where the big angle they shoot is for Saudi Arabia and the big build for the last couple of weeks has been for Fox, with the PPV totally neglected. The Network and the PPVs mean less than ever and it'll be interesting to see if Fox are pressuring them to put the big title matches etc. on TB every Friday if the ratings aren't what they want.

People are getting very sad and/or pissed online about Kofi. I think they probably should've given the guy a hope spot or two but he's been wrestling cold title matches to crickets for six months like. His time as a main eventer is over.

Well they did the fucking Firefly Funhouse stuff. Also, I know it's par for the course with WWE but it's disappointing that we went into this week with two advertised championship matches and one didn't take place the the other didn't last ten seconds. Not that I particularly wanted to see Brock selling for Kofi's weak offense but still, Rey vs Rollins I was interested in.

Velasquez kinda looks poor physically though. If you didn't know who he is, you'd think he looks like shit beside Brock.

At least the WWE title isn't a midcard belt anymore

How the fuck are they squeezing Austin, Sting, Taker and the WWE title into half an hour?

He's very big in Britain. Being pushed in America at the minute but I'm not sure how much traction he's gotten yet.

Shane looks like he should not be in the ring again. Looked like he was on the verge of death after the frog splash spot.

I'm not sure if the Firefly/Fiend shit is the thing to be putting on when you have a bigger casual audience than usual. To me, it comes off hokey.

Also, they cut a cool little angle with Cody attacking Jericho at some convention in New York

ROH is looking like a whole lot of Dishonor on the way to Death

When someone inevitably writes a book about all this in ten years, there really needs to be a chapter on WWE making itself a heel through a) decades of presenting the company owners as evil psychopaths, b) allowing those heel characters to be melded with their 'real life' perceptions, and c) that phase from 2013-16 or so of relentlessly trolling their own audience and baiting them to turn on the shows. Even if the booking turns around and WWE is producing amazing angles, it'll take a long time to repair the broken trust with the audience, if that's even fully possible.

Surely they have to let Rock and Austin interact, even in a backstage skit

Fox is really going all out for this thing

Money talks and Blood Money Mania talks louder than anyone.

Another Edge match is really not something anyone needs to see

Can't say I like this very much at all on first impression

Yeah, I do think we could be seeing the beginnings of divergent wrestling audiences here if AEW can keep things up. The concerning sign for WWE is that their audience is the older one. Who popped the rating for Raw on Monday? Hogan and Flair! I would love AEW to keep it up not only because it would be great for the business, but also because the implications for WWE and HHH in particular are fascinating. His booking on NXT has been praised for years now but this is really the first time when he's had to pop numbers.

This is probably the biggest L HHH has taken really since the start of big push 20 years ago.

I think you can kinda do both. There's no problem with Cody getting the belt for a few months while the Kenny story is bubbling away and then running them against each other.

Yeah, what can NXT bring that's bigger than what they did last night? AEW still has a fair bit in reserve with big matches on the table. Obviously they've got to try to maintain this now, which is difficult, it an encouraging start. So, Taker vs Goldberg rematch in Full Sail next week?