strobogo

I think Jericho's reinvention factor is wildly, wildly overstated. Outside of the slow talking suit character change in 2009, he's been the same corny buttrock guy since 1999 with the only tweaks being hair and smarminess/lameness of insults depending on if he was heel or face. His "reinventions" post WWE run have literally just been taking his opponents' nicknames/looks and using them for himself or leaching off of younger guys' looks/gimmicks.

Could it be that he hadn't had a singles match on TV since March 10th, 2021?

I can only imagine how much of a mutant late stage Eddie (and Benoit) must have looked next to normal sized humans

The Panama Sunrise is actually what bothers me the most. Even by wrestling logic, the physics of that make no sense. It's especially dumb when he does it on the floor/stage/ramp where there's not even semblance of spring from the ring. Not only does it look stupid, but there are a dozen dudes doing Canadian Destroyer variations on AEW shows.

It's not that he's not a star. He does come off like a star and has everywhere he's been. The people that don't "get" Adam Cole I think it primarily comes down to he works that "my spot, your spot" back and forth style even against guys much, much bigger than him and it looks silly.

It's not about big = being tough. It's just visually Adam Cole controlling Keith Lee with side headlocks or doing hockey fights with Luchasaurus looks silly.

I think you're looking way, way too deep into this. The issue people have with Adam Cole is that his size and psychology are at odds with each other. It just plain looks silly when he's going toe to toe with guys much bigger than him. It's not that he isn't muscular enough or manly enough, it's that his psychology sucks. It's very weird for an undersized heel to wrestle like he does and it throws a lot of people off.

I would say that 2.0 and Garcia seems more natural for a Jericho stable than LAX/Sammy did, but it still feels completely out of the blue

Jericho with 2.0/Garcia seems random because it was just a few weeks ago that 2.0 were doing beat downs of Jericho, and Bryan was scouting Garcia for his possible shooter stable. I'm sure there will be a promo to explain it but it feels out of nowhere.

Sammy's reign has been a dud but I think it's less the reign and more that he's not a likeable face at all. The swap with Cody was a pretty weird detour that didn't make sense at the time and makes even less sense with the hindsight that Cody was leaving.

This felt like a WWE show in the worst of ways

Sammy sucks as a face and making Sammy/Tay an on screen thing is going to suck because they're an aggressively annoying and obnoxious couple.

Shane's issue with Flair always seemed so pathetic when it was clear all he wanted to be was EXTREME Ric Flair.

Yikes the absolute silence for Scorpio

There's been a lot of talking on this show and not a lot of it has been any good

That segment was real bad before Jeff showed up and even then, man looked old and hobbled. Hardys vs Sting/Darby could be a disaster.

Absolutely zero issues with it being a "confrontation" or even an extended brawl that runs some spots. I just don't want Austin coming back and being like Taker.

He did actually in TNA on the UK tour that his last couple of matches were on.

HE DOES THIS HE DOES THAT

It'd be fucking rad if Sting came out to either of those

I felt like a lot of the live crowd had no idea what the song or gear were about and were confused for most of Punk's entrance.

You have to have something hot to perk up a crowd before the main on a long show. The cooldown match has always been stupid, especially as WWE always used it to put the women in a nothing match to make sure the fans know not to give a shit about it. You should want the crowd buzzing as much as possible going into the main event, not cooled down needing to get excited again.

There was also one in Layla/Statlander, and the triple threat

I was thinking how it does seem like there have been an awful lot of tombstones on this show. Reminding me of 80s NJ/Stampede.

Too much good wrestling on a show is a problem, but it's a pretty good problem for a company to have