FMKK

I think there's a good story and they're building this Roman character well but I can do without my wrestling matches coming to a halt so they can act out scripted dialogue. It just feels like spoonfeeding me the story instead of just conveying it in the ring. Roman beating the piss out of him til his brother throws in the towel is a fine story otherwise. Now please God don't bring back The Fiend for his next programme.

No it doesn't. That being part of their culture doesn't mean mid match promos with bad acting instead of telling a story with actions is suddenly good. If it stinks when Ciampa and Gargano do their amateur dramatics, it sucks when Roman and Jey do it as well.

It was soap opera shit because of all the dumb dialogue, especially the bit at the end with Jimmy calling him the chief. I cringed.

That's most of WWE's booking honestly. The stuff that vaguely makes sense anyway.

Minoru Suzuki vs Tomohiro Ishii ****1/4 Two mean old men beat the shit out of each other and it was fantastic. Suzuki as the evil sado-masochist and Ishii as the more-guts-than-brains pugilist is the perfect match-up. This had still strikes, incredible selling and wonderful facial expressions. A brisk 13 minutes.

Gedo turned on Okada and joined Jay White before he had won the title or truly established himself as a top guy. No reason there couldn't have been a similar dynamic with Heyman.

The idea of Reigns as a heel suits his demeanour so much more but all that soap opera dialogue and 'you are the tribal chief' shit was cringe as hell. Can we not just have wrestling matches? Surely the whole point is that they tell a story through their actions rather than lying around doing ACTING~!

Night 5 - A Block Taichi vs Yujiro Takahashi - **1/2 Over the last year or so, Taichi has grown on me a fair bit. But he ain't carrying Yujiro. This was very punch-kick-bullshit with Yujiro looking sluggish as always. It had a few nice character moments though I guess. Jeff Cobb vs Minoru Suzuki - **1/2 This was disappointing. The opening matt sequence was pretty boring. And just like last year, Cobb falls flatter as the tournament goes on. He whiffed a shoulder block and a couple of forearms, made to look all the worse because Suzuki hits hard. Cobb can do nice spots but the in-between stuff just isn't there. Tomohiro Ishii vs Kota Ibushi - **** This is what you would expect. I thought the back and forth strike exchanges at the start went on a bit long and weren't mega interesting but once they got into the actual meat of the match it was good shit. I especially loved the Ishii headbutting out of the Kamagoye spot and the Ibushi punch to the throat spot. Will Ospreay vs Shingo Takagi - ****1/4 Ospreay leaning into being the heel prick he seems to be in real life is a good choice. He was such a dick in his promo the other day and again in the opening minutes with his trash talk. This match wasn't as good as their classic last year, but that was never going to be topped. I don't know if the controversy around Ospreay is making feel a bit less into his matches or whether the lack of crowd noise makes the 'wow' spots he goes for fall flat. In this match, I did not like the dancing reversal sequence in the opening minutes. But too much negative. This was a really good match with a cool flipped dynamic for last year where Will is now the big, strong bully and Shingo is fighting from underneath. Kazuchika Okada vs Jay White - **** Okada is weird. It's clear that this Money Clip thing is an angle but what is it supposed to be? That he's forgotten how to do the move that made him a five time champion? Like, what is the storyline reason for him ditching the Rainmaker for this shitty choke? And on the health front its also weird. Sometimes he looks as good as always and sometimes he looks like he's moving awkwardly. But anyway, this was a very good storytelling match. White's heeling is now top level and his relentless targeting of Okada's back carried us through the match. Okada sold the attacks really well and really vocally. The Gedo interference stuff wasn't too bothersome, though I wish they would drop it because White no longer needs it. He's been an excellent performer since his return to Japan.

Agreed. They're trying to make themselves ironically entertaining but this stinks just as much as the gimmick.

Eh, he's dunking on a shitty gimmick on Twitter. It's not like he killed someone.

I'm a fucking vegetarian and confident I could cook a better steak than this dude. He's like my grandad leaving it on the pan until the smoke alarm goes off.

Roman is a dork. Out here doing the usual WWE interview where it's all the fans fault that their TV is awful. https://twitter.com/mitchellpwtorch/status/1309498712465584128?s=20

People are talking about Ben Carter seeing WWE as his main ambition but to me, these guys should realise that they'd get a better push in WWE if they do AEW for a few years and then jump rather than rotting in the PC doing weightlifting drills.

Night Four - B Block Sanada vs Hirooki Goto - ***1/2 I liked this quite a bit. They've got sneaky good chemistry and their moves match up well for reversals. Sanada is such a smooth and athletic worker but Goto was really bringing the grit and fire as he fought through his taped up arm being worked over. These two have a great match in them with more time. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Toru Yano - **1/4 Usual Yano silliness. The blindfolding stuff was a fun twist and Tana was game for the nonsense. Kenta vs Juice Robinson - *** Like Juice's last match, this was an eternity. There was some nice stuff, like Kenta slapping the piss out of him, but clunky moments too. Especially the finishing sequence. Evil vs Yoshi-Hashi - ***1/2 These two are usually a charisma vacuum but YH brought some good fire right off the bat, stomping on Evil like he was Steve Austin. His valiant babyface act against Evil and Togo's cheating made this work quite nicely. Good match, but Evil doesn't scream main event act at all. Tetsuya Naito vs Zack Sabre Jr. - ****1/4 This was really good. They managed to work a nice blend between a Naito match and a Sabre match, with Naito game to trade submissions. Zack springing from the corner pad to hit a Tornado DDT was the spot of the night. Strong main event. Naito has been the MVP of the tournament so far for matches but ZSJ has had two really good performances now too.

People see the guy reading some Ayn Rand bullshit backstage and they're just like "wow, that dude had a book!" And now he's got a reputation as a smart guy instead of as a fucking dullard.

Night Three - A Block Shingo Takagi vs Jeff Cobb - ***1/4 Shingi rules. Cobb is patchy. If you imagine a decent match between these two in your head, it'll be pretty close to what this was. Cobb hits his spots nicely but Shingo was much more interesting to watch. Kazuchika Okada vs Yujiro Takahashi - **1/4 Look, I can't blame anyone for dogging it against Yujiro. He's shit. But I've seen Okada do it like three times already this year. Enough. And his new choke still sucks. Minoru Suzuki vs Taichi - **** Suzuki-Gun explodes as these two went right at it with chokes, punches, slaps, kicks and chair shots. Suzuki is a great brawler as always but it was nice to see Taichi mixing it up as well. Different than anything else so far and great finish as well. Tomohiro Ishii vs Will Ospreay - **** This was technically well wrestled with a lot of impressive spots but it was too much of an Ospreay juniors match as opposed to an Ishii match for my liking. A little much counter-fu in the middle. However, I have no doubt that a vocal crowd would've bit big on some of the nearfalls. The finish absolutely ruled as well, which is just enough to push it to four stars. Jay White vs Kota Ibushi - ****1/4 White has always been good at his character but the in-ring has come on leaps and bounds. He was great at trolling the crowd for not being able to cheer and also at punishing Ibushi's leg with precision throughout. We also got the return of glassy-eyed psycho Ibushi, which is his finest form. The finish was amusing because it had a great sell from White on a V-trigger, Ibushi completely whiffing a kick on Gedo and then an awesome sell from Ibushi on White's finisher. A shit sandwich with beautiful bread lol. Match was excellent though.

Lance Archer announced on Twitter that he's tested positive for Covid. Bad for him obviously but it also sucks for Will Hobbs, who was going to be in that six man tag tonight. It would have been a hot match. But they're doing Moxley vs Eddie Kingston for the title instead so that's a great replacement.

As a few people have pointed out, it kind of sucks that the only two stories they can do with Okada are 'he's the unbeatable ace' or 'he's lost his mind because he isn't the champion.' Like, if the dude is hurting then pair him up with Goto and stick him in the tag division for a bit. Or better yet, have someone beat his ass and put him on the shelf for a bit so he can rest up and then come back for revenge.

Feel like all of the top three matched were in the 3.75-4/25 range for me. Need to watch Cobb vs Shingo again though because I was making coffee during it.

Lol I ain't watching this shit man. I follow via social media to laugh at their booking but I haven't watched a WWE match since Wrestlemania. Honestly, it's so bad it even puts me off watching older stuff from the promotion.

Reports seem to suggest that it was spread by a coach. I bet it's definitely not the Doad Rogg Bessie Lames.

What better punishment than having to be part of Raw every week? The bad acting, awful scripts, listless commentary and fake crowd noise make this sound like a cut scene from Smackdown vs Raw 2005

Quick and dirty ratings of the shows so far Night One - A Block Will Ospreay vs Yujiro Takahashi *** About as good as anyone can get from someone who sucks as much as Yujiro. The finish was cool. The promo afterwards stunk however. Jeff Cobb vs Taichi ***1/4 This started slow and built towards a finishing stretch that was better than I expected. Cobb just completely abandoning his leg selling to do spots brings it down. He's so hit and miss. Minoru Suzuki vs Tomohiro Ishii ****1/4 Two mean old men beat the shit out of each other and it was fantastic. Suzuki as the evil sado-masochist and Ishii as the more-guts-than-brains pugilist is the perfect match-up. This had stiff strikes, incredible selling and wonderful facial expressions. A brisk 13 minutes. Jay White vs Shingo Takagi ***1/2 A well worked match with two good professional wrestlers but it didn't reach the heights of other Shingo performances, possibly because they had to do the usual Gedo run-in bullshit before the end. Kazuchika Okada vs Kota Ibushi **** This was weird because it wasn't the blow away match expected but it was still good. There is a debate about whether Okada is washed or working an angle. I'm sure he's hurting from years of punishment but they were obviously trying to tell a story here with him abandoning the Rainmaker for his shitty new chokehold. This had the usual Okada slow build but ended abruptly at the 20 minute mark when you'd usually expect them to kick it up a notch for an extended finishing sequence. Night Two - B Block Juice Robinson vs YOSHI-HASHI ***1/4 Juice's new look is shit. His ability to work a crowd even in the COVID era is commendable though. That made this match a tad better than anticipated against the competent but dry as the Sahara Y-H. It should have ended a few minutes earlier though. SANADA vs Toru Yano ** It wasn't good. It wasn't bad. It was just Yano. It is what it is. KENTA vs Hirooki Goto ***1/2 This was a pretty good fight between two hard hitters, but nowhere near the level of the Suzuki/Ishii match. Again this went a tad long perhaps but I liked KENTA's arm work and the definitive submission finish. If you're a pushed guy you should dispatch of Goto and he did just that. EVIL vs Zack Sabre Jr. ***1/4 15 minutes of EVIL is far preferable to 35 minutes of EVIL in main events. It still had the Dick Togo bullshit and his general blandness but he was a bit better as a bully than usual. Still, how did this fucking goth end up with the title for the summer? Zack was really good here fighting from underneath and could make a good babyface in future. It was surprising to see a primarily submission guy work those into babyface comebacks but he did it well. Tetsuya Naito vs Hiroshi Tanahashi ****1/2 The best New Japan match since COVID. Naito was good her aside from some sloppy Destinos at the end but Tanahashi was a marvel. He rolled back the years with High Fly Flows to the outside and conveyed so much passion in his performance that the crowd was on the verge of just cheering when he leapt to the top rope during the finishing run, COVID restrictions be damned. He may be old and being cycled down in the booking but he's still the Ace to me damn it!

I think they will keep both. Haaland has only been there six months and the trail seems to have gone cold between United and Sancho. They have other areas that need addressed before spending £100 million on him.

I have those two meeting in the final with White going over.