Stiva

Thought the opening battle royal was fun but man, Jack Evans deserves better than getting tossed out early like that. They should have worked that spot with Angelico and let Evans fill his time with more interesting stuff. And holy shit did Sammy Guevara ever eat that superkick like a motherfucker, it looked like it killed him. CIMA joining the Dark Order is fine with me if it means we get a prolonged CIMA TV run. Tony crawling up to Britt Baker to avoid any more insults was a nice little running theme on commentary and Statlander is adding the things to her formula that will continue to keep her over. Shanna seems talented but is a little dry; maybe when they get that second show or the Women's Tag Division, she can begin to stand out. I wonder if there was any planned link to The Dark Order and The Inner Circle sharing the same ringside seats...Saying that, Cobb/Moxley felt kinda flat but maybe I was building things up too much in my own head. Jericho having the time of his life at ringside was incredible though as was the post-match with Darby looking like a total superstar. I don't know if the Allin/Moxley strange, semi-alliance was planned when they had their match or if Tony Khan is secretly great at connecting dots but it added an extra layer to him coming out and going after Sammy. I have a feeling that Dustin/Hager will be a quietly fantastic match. I wonder if Cobb is staying on or not since I'm not particularly certain this was a great showcase since he was kind of an afterthought once the post-match got rolling. The tag title match was suitably ridiculous and I'm guessing they pull the trigger on any turn next week? They're in a strange position where Page is clearly the one who should turn heel but at this point, absolutely nobody is going to boo a beer-drinking man of the people. It seems like a corner that is really difficult to book yourself out of. That AEW cage is a thing of beauty, man. That's awesome and I hope they use it sparingly. The match was pretty fun and helped a lot by Cody getting colour early and just lawn-darting himself into that cage. The best spot (other than the moonsault) was in the picture-in-picture where Cody was dangling from the bottom rope by his feet and Wardlow was just smashing the cage into his face. MJF getting his comeuppance by Arn twice was neat and the moonsault was a crazy spot and well worthy of putting Wardlow down who didn't look half bad. He seems like a freakish athlete when you watch his training montage and the height and grace he got on the Swanton. I LOVED Tony's open-mouthed wonder at the moonsault in the post-match commentary. The biggest AEW Superfan of all is on commentary and it's fantastic. Also, Raven was spotted sitting just behind The Dark Order when Scorpio Sky was brawling with them so AEW leaned into it on Twitter, as expected.

The Garza/Humberto/Rey/Andrade circle is going to always produce great matches alongside one another but there's the awful feeling that they're never going to get used like they should. It sucks to be this cynical about 4 fantastic wrestlers but this is where we are with WWE these days.

Also, being from Newcastle, I was popping at all of the landmarks in PACs vignette. Big props to him for cutting a promo in his ring gear down what appears to be the tight back alley near the cities Jazz Club. Also, the restaurant he runs past on Dean Street is Babucho's which I fully recommend if you're ever in town.

No idea about US TV but AEW have finally hit their stride where the excitement around who may be coming in and the work they’ve done in establishing guys underneath is all coalescing into a great product. Not to mention that a lot of the guys are becoming better big-stage TV workers and 2020 could be an all-timer year. Also, Broken Matt Hardy leading The Dark Order against Drunken Adam Page could lead to some pretty great segments.

I have watched Dynamite, spoiler free, every week since it’s inception and the one week I look at the results ahead of time, I spoil Jeff Cobb for myself. Lesson learned.

I'll make an early prediction that Cena teams up with an actor in one of the semi-mains.

The Cody match on the PPV is probably going to involve a ton of bells and whistles; Wardlow and Dustin are definitely going to be involved at the least so I’m not sure you can judge MJF too much on it considering he’ll more than hold up his end of the bargain when it comes to nailing the interference and heel spots. What is clear about him is that he understands the core aspects of pro wrestling so clearly that when the in-ring work does catch up, he’ll be fantastic. I am slightly worried about where he goes post-Cody though since his entire run in the promotion so far has been defined by his presence in Cody’s orbit. It would be easy to say that he’s Moxley’s first challenger for the title but I’m not convinced Jericho should be losing it for a while yet. At least not until they finally run the Inner Circle/Elite War Games match.

It was wild seeing this advertised on BT Sport during the Premier League games today. I guess part of the WWE deal involved BT also showing the XFL in the UK.

Wyatt/Goldberg is such a shitty match up when Samoa Joe/Goldberg is right there. And the promos would be so much better.

That final segment was masterful; Cody Rhodes is an absolutely incredible babyface and the escalation of his support was great. Handing the 9th shot off to Wardlow was a nice touch as a final attempt to get Cody to give up but no, he's powered through it by his newly turned wife. I am very hot and cold on the in-ring product on these shows but they really do have a great average when it comes to nailing the angles, especially the big ones on top. It's going to be down the road but whenever MJF is World Champ and Cody is persuaded to finally challenge for the belt, it's going to be fantastic.

Say what you will but #FUCK is a great hashtag.

NXT UK seems like the kind of place you could get away with running a 20 minute, unproduced WALTER/Thatcher match and have Vince not notice. Fingers crossed.

Hopefully Braun is in the Big Show position where, one day, with the right booking, he can be rehabbed and turned into a top monster again. If Show can come back from the impression business, Braun can recover. It's probably helpful that nobody even remembers him teaming up with a 10 year old, to be fair,

The USO’s are a little stale these days but they had a run of about 5 years where they were just about untouchable, I’d say. The initial heel run was a fantastic freshening-up.

I agree with most of the points but I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks, the angles and build ramp up as they did with Full Gear. But yeah, a real wheel-spinning show but NXT was largely the same, I thought. A bit of a calmer week after the frenzied couple of months. I will say that Moxley's Nick Fury eye-patch is a fantastic visual and may actually be contributing to his overness; a dude with an eye patch dispatching heels with a baseball bat is so great.