Agreed that both are at fault. Rock forced the throwing of a curve ball despite having no intention to remain involved or add anything to it when it desperately needed him. But H also just let Cena show up at his leisure, cut the same "You have been awful to me" promo the times he actually bothered to show up, and didn't try to salvage the angle when it clearly wasn't working.
So the options were to either not charge hundreds of dollars for tickets and build a better card, or entirely screw up their plans for Wrestlemania. They chose poorly.
I hated it because instead of trying to get revenge and attack the guy who brutalized him and his brother he just...cut a promo about how he was going to win for his family. And it didn't make sense to me for Gunther to sell it. He's gotten the better of Jey almost every single time.
The stubbornness to try and see this through is really frustrating. Considering AEW has managed to change course when things weren't working in the past, it boggles my mind that they didn't learn their lesson from Revolution.
Pretty much where I'm at. Always a consistently "good" wrestler, but never thought he was ever a truly elite worker in the promotion, at least not over the last decade or so.
I've only seen bits and pieces of Goto's pre-2016 career, but he's always been a consistently solid guy. That being said, he's always felt like the least interesting of the hard-hitters in NJPW compared to Ishii, Suzuki, Shibata, and Shingo.
I assumed Charlton was just leaning into kayfabe like Kidd, but yeah he was particularly sassy where I understand why that would displease some higher ups. Now do I think Tony called up the front office and said "Get this guy off commentary!"? I'm not sure. But it wouldn't surprise me if it pissed him off and NJPW reprimanded Charlton as a result.
As for the shows this weekend, don't have much to say other than Kenny-Gabe was great and it's pretty miraculous how Kenny hasn't lost a single step despite such a serious illness and extended layoff. And NJPW pushing Shota over Tsuji and fans turning on him seems to sum up a lot of their problems. No doubt losing talent to AEW hurt them, but they still have the talent to build momentum but they're just not really doing it.
Pretty much sums up where I'm at with him. I honestly think he's been one of the best in the world for at least the last 5 years if not longer. It's totally a style I get people hating, but I more often than not impressed by what he can do and the consistency to which he can pull it off.