Stiva

There was a story last month how they were going to use the planned London shows to debut him.

I imagine, with it being taped, every single second of Edge/Orton will have been pored over and edited to the point where it probably will be pretty good. Meltzer said it went 30-35 but neither man has 35 minutes worth of stuff to fill a match so I’m guessing it’ll clock in at 20-25 in the end. But I bet Styles/Bryan is better.

I was just about to chime in with Kingston as a personal pick. I can't think of a time where he hasn't brought something great to a match and he's one of the most underrated sellers (not bumper) of all time.

I wouldn’t call WWE a poor environment for Bryan. He didn’t necessarily have the freedom he would on the indies but he got to have long, varied matches with just about everyone on the roster you’d want him to, complete with both an all-time face run (2013-14) and heel run (18-19)

I think Brodie Lee’s debut would have been a much more impactful moment had there been a crowd too.

I thought every match on Smackdown was at least good and a couple, the main and Gulak/Styles were great. What an incredibly stacked roster. If this show had any semblance of actual pro-wrestling booking, this crew would be remembered as fondly as the 02-03, 06 and 09 crews. Hell, even 2011 Smackdown.

The opening statement was a nice touch but AEW still feels like it could do better with black representation on their shows. Opening tag wasn’t great, really. Omega’s AEW run continues to be so inconsistent; I know it’s next to impossible to make Kip Sabian’s offense look good but that’s no excuse for that drunken stumble into the ropes after the drop kick. He seemed pretty slow for him too so I’m not sure if he’s carrying an injury or not. In front of a crowd, it would be even more readily apparent that Page is their first “homegrown” top guy though, he’s leaping off the screen. The Cage squash wasn’t as good as last week since it didn’t have Lee Johnson bumping like a lunatic but these squashes leading to title shots are pretty delightful in how old-school they are. Taz as the mouthpiece is surprisingly good too, I’m amazed he was sitting on commentary for years without trying it elsewhere. Lance Archer kicking the shit out of some random fellow in a wasteland was hilarious but they should totally keep up those vignettes until they build up someone in the baby face side to fight him. Part of me wants to see Jake Roberts come face to face with Broken Matt Hardy. Hardy meeting with Private Party gives me hope that they’ll debut the 6 Man Tag Titles when they get the second show. Sammy popping Jericho by singing the song a couple of lines ahead was hilarious. If Jericho is still good for a few potatoes a match, those boxing punches in the corner had to be bad for Cabana. The match was perfectly good TV fare, the right length with a good finish. I actually dig Cabana as a guy who has enough credibility to have competitive TV matches before putting people over. The Britt Baker segment was incredible. If she’s coming up with this stuff by herself, she’s a certified genius. Treating riding the wheelchair up the ramp as a fear of strength after not being bothered to do the actual hard work was a great gag. Butcher and Blade feel like the perfect first team for FTR to face since they’re a really underrated team that will match their style. It should be a genuinely great match. Dug the main event, especially all the continued hints at Cody’s heel side. Him blading after headbutting the wall was a fairly wild spot and I loved Jungle Boy going straight after it, as you would in a title match. I really like these 2-3 week spots that they do to elevate certain guys since they always have an improved standing after it, even when they’ve been defeated since it also establishes the hierarchy. Now that Cody has said the open challenge is open to workers not on the AEW roster, I’m guessing now that it’s how they debut Zack Ryder. Even though I’m hoping for a one-off Heath Slater appearance. I’m also making a prediction that we get an equivalent of the World Tag League in AEW at some point.

Yeah, this is where I am with Impact too. It’s a very competently booked promotion that has good ideas and uses everyone very well but it comes off as such a flat, product on TV, even before the pandemic. They felt like a hot deal after that great Slammiversary a couple years back but for whatever reason, that just wasn’t sustained.

I don’t know about that. For AEWs core audience, Adam Cole and Undisputed Era are the greatest thing in the world. He might not be a needle mover with ratings (who is?) but he’d make them a ton of money

Incredible. I also think it's worth mentioning that little Pepe never repeated an outfit in his time on the Nitro commentary desk. That dog had quite the wardrobe.

He was pretty god-awful, especially considering he had a US Title run. Jeff Jarrett seemed to find a decent formula with him by working over his legs so Mongo just had to lie around selling until he hit his clotheslines and piledriver. Speaking of which, it really is insane that he didn’t kill anybody with his tombstone. I thought he was a half-decent promo though. Even if he did only have one volume and crowds were always invested in his matches at least.

What news story or film from 1996 did Vince only get round to seeing this week to inspire him to do a drunk-driving angle?

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I had no idea it was out there. I’m about 50-60 pages in and can recommend it already.

FTR coming in brings yet another dimension to a tag division that should be set for the next 18 months easily, it’s a crazily stacked division. Lee Johnson should have a job for as long as he wants it; he bumps like a machine and made Cage look like a monster. What a great squash to establish him. Britt is one of the best personalities on the roster, maybe the best. The wheelchair is a great heel touch and it’s so disappointing that there isn’t a crowd to respond to it. The battle royal was fun but if he didn’t before, he feels like even more of a wasted spot now that the roster has filled out nicely. The one thing I do love about AEWs battle royales is that almost every elimination follows a story or builds to something. It’s so simple but it’s another example of them giving a damn. Giving Jungle Boy the shot next week is a nice way to build on his match at DON. I popped for just about everything in the Pep Rally. For five guys that felt thrown together, they’ve really grown into an amazing stable. Ortiz is incredible: eating a wrap with ear protectors on is a hilarious image. Mike Tyson vs Chris Jericho is the summer program I didn’t know I wanted and the pull apart was really good. Fuck it, add Belforte and Cejudo to the tag division and have them put Havoc and Sabian out of my misery Also, if Vickie is there regularly, they need to put her with a heel. Even if it's just to be their personal ring annouincer.

They would have a better shot if they dressed Matt Riddle as Edge, Cesaro as Orton and let them go at it.

Natural Nightmares vs Reynolds and Silver has some strong WCW Worldwide energy. A jobber team busting out whatever new offence they learned that day, a good hot tag from Dustin with the tiniest sliver of an angle running through it. NN would be a great Saturday Night super team

The July show was set to be their London debut and would feature the debut of Anthony Ogogo apparently. I was planning to travel for whatever show they’d put on over here so that’s unfortunate but obviously not unexpected at the moment.

Some stray thoughts: The ladder match was not at all great and was far too bloated with 9 wrestlers. Scorpio, Darby, Cassidy, Fenix/Janela, Luchasaurus and Cage would have been a much less convoluted line-up. MJF/Jungle Boy is a great match-up; one fantastic face and one fantastic heel is really all you need. Archer/Cody was overlong but Tyson popping for everything was great and I’m glad Cody finally won a big match. I think there’s still legs in the feud so it’ll be interesting to see if it’s dropped after this show like Cody’s other feuds. They are really trying with Spears and I still can’t see it. He’s a solid hand but they need to get back to giving him a tag partner and start building some tag feuds outside of the title programs. Nyla Rose has really improved dramatically since Dynamite’s debut. She carries herself so well now and was able to sell and bump really well for Shida when she had to. It makes some sense to get the title on a face since I assume the plan was for Shida/Britt over the title this time but that’s obviously scuppered. Shida’s Tifa cosplay stirred something inside me also. Moxley/Brodie was really good and felt like the match Moxley/Hager was supposed to be. Especially with Mox going wild on the cut and Brodie coming back every time until the choke. They’re really doing an awesome job at making Moxley a badass, tough as nails baby face champion. The Moxley/MJF program is going to be money and I’d be tempted to hold off on it until we have a live audience again. Hangman Page riding a horse into a football stadium is a top 5 entrance, no matter what way you swing it. Sammy really is the unsung AEW MVP. I can’t recall the last time he was involved in something that wasn’t fantastic. Santana and Ortiz were similarly great; they were having the time of their life. I’m hot and cold on Omega but I really enjoyed concession stand brawler Omega since he used just about everything he had available to him in nasty ways. The Hardy stuff was fantastic, I don’t care. Everyone fully leaning into it is what’s making it work. The whole thing felt like a bizarre continuation and evolution of the concession stand brawl, completely helped by the commentary, even JR, cracking up and loving it. I honestly think you could have The Inner Circle and Elite + friends orbit each other for another year in various permutations and it wouldn’t grow stale. I honestly think that may be one of the most genuinely enjoyable things I’ve ever seen in wrestling. Really solid show that surpassed all expectations after a so-so build. Now that they have the whole crew back, the roster is looking pretty deep, aside from the women, and the top of the card could throw up a lot of interesting possibilities.

Chuck Taylor has been out of this match for about 5 minutes for a reason that I can’t even remember

FWIW, I can't remember seeing much resentment toward Charlotte until she got wedged into the Becky/Ronda program. That was a HHH-esque move if there ever was one.

Fenix is out of the PPV, replaced by...Joey Janela. What an incredible downgrade.

I thought this was a pretty solid go-home show. Ten showed some good stuff, MJF worked a perfect competitive squash and Rey/Fenix was pretty fantastic. The two have great chemistry even though those dives after the match were terrifying. Did nobody want to even try and catch them?

The final entrant in the ladder match is a “mystery entrant”. Let the speculation begin

The problem with Otis is that nobody on top is a good enough foil with him. He probably needs someone like Planet’s Champion Daniel Bryan to heel up and cut promos on him rather than Strowman/Wyatt but that can’t happen now, obviously.

Not a lot of tonight worked for me, sadly. In-ring anyway. 2020 looks like it needs to be Chris Daniels’ retirement year and the women’s 4 way was a shambles. Did Santana and Ortiz ever get their title shot? I honestly can’t remember. I imagine Page is handing off the title to Matt Hardy so they have to go over but still, I love me Santana and Ortiz. Vanguard getting destroyed was hilarious. Everyone on the roster taking Matt Hardy completely serious is making it so much better.