Stiva

To be fair, while Vince’s “never stop for anything” mentality is reckless and unhinged, I’m now more interested in an empty arena Mania, purely out of curiosities sake

HHH dropped "Smiles on people's faces" in the first 30 seconds like they do with any kind of tragedy or public crisis. I'm not sure what the solution would be but having everyone do their video game entrances to an empty arena is maybe peak WWE.

Cody is going to cut such an awesome promo to rally the Elite and Moxley into a cohesive unit.

Su Yung would be a pro pick-up. It’d be great to see what she could come up with some top-tier production muscle behind her.

They upload some classic matches onto their YouTube channel but there’s every chance they’re just uploading them from some hard drive full of torrented shows.

Trevor Lee is a textbook example of them signing a guy just to sign him.

Kind of a flat show, all in all but I'm digging the seeds they're planting. There's so much intrigue about who is coming in that they have to pull the trigger on some of them eventually. If Hardy is the Exalted One, it has to be next week because this week already felt like a week too far. Jake was awesome though but I hope this isn't the end of Cody/MJF. I assume they're going to string the threads together for Not-War Games.

The teases for the Exalted One are kicking into overdrive. I guess there's spoilers for this but Do we also see Archer debut and go after Moxley tonight? Everything still feels super exciting.

It had a guy getting a skateboard thrown off his head so yeah, it was up there.

Spot of the night was Ortiz bumping for Aubrey ejecting them from ringside.

What a great PPV. What’s so crucial about AEW for me is that they’re absolutely relentless in getting everyone over. Not in the shitty Russo way of shoehorning terrible programs into the undercard but highlighting everyone’s strengths and, more importantly, having the patience to spotlight the right people and the right time. This was the exact right time to kick into the second part of Orange Cassidy’s gimmick and, even in defeat, the dude was pretty much made. In 6 months, they could have him opposite the World Champion and it would be fully earned and everyone would be fully invested in the story. There is a slight whiff of self-indulgence about these bigger matches but fuck man, they do so much right that you can turn a blind eye to it. And we’re finally going to get The Inner Circle vs AEW War Games match! I love how they’re spotlighting specific episodes of TV in between their major shows. It’s a real Clash of the Champions vibe.

I wonder if they'll be able to get the Fire Pro devs or if they're contractually tied up to New Japan.

Did they really have The Fiend point at the Wrestlemania sign?! The motherfucker doesn't shut up most weeks and that's how they have him challenge Cena?

Goldberg/Reigns looks like it's a-go, folks.

Lance Archer has officially signed. More big boys!

I actually think I’d prefer Cena/Goldberg as a one-off marquee match.

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.