Stiva

I want nothing more than that host podium to suddenly explode

I see these pre-shows are still unbearable. Heenan and Monsoon these two are not.

What we got of Gulak/Cesaro was great.

They should put an angle together where Roman is Poochie. Braun and Goldberg standing in the centre of the ring watching him float off back to his home planet. Instead, it'll be some shitty injury angle that nobody buys because they know the truth.

After seeing that NXT match having the spot where everyone lies down to get the crowd to chant "This is Awesome!" I can't WAIT for guys to absolutely bust their asses with crazy spots because it's Mania to get zero response. What a ridiculous idea this is.

I was pleasantly surprised with Trent/Omega until Trent managed to shrug off the powerbomb to the post and the brainbuster on the knee like it was nothing because it was his turn to go onto offense. Their insistence on quietly pushing him as a singles guy is baffling. I enjoyed everything else though; these empty arena shows are pretty fun considering they have enough running gags and are still allowing the roster to show their personality by sitting around ringside. I'm missing some of the great angles they've run in front of a crowd but, under the circumstances, this feels about the best you can pull one of these shows off.

Darby finally getting his win over Cody and a title to boot in the final would be a good story but I can see Cody getting it so he can work competitive TV matches like the one with Jimmy Havoc every week.

The trailer for the Big Show Netflix comedy is out and it looks truly terrible

That was a great use of two hours, a good distraction from the world falling apart. Jericho is a total pro, he was amazing cutting the promo on Vanguard and then somehow not laughing at Hardy pointing out Martin Luther King in the empty crowd. Tony was fantastic on commentary too; Excalibur is very good but it was awesome hearing Tony be the main guy for two hours

Apparently this is still going on with essential personnel only which still seems ill-advised to me but that’s how it is Omega vs Guevara and the Hardy/Jericho confrontation seem like they could be good but Cody has the greatest test of his AEW career as he tries to drag something decent out of Jimmy Havoc.

His 2007 has crazy highs with McGuinness and Morishima but his 2005 may have been more consistent?

It's worth mentioning that this week, to my knowledge, had the biggest rating gap so far since Dynamite fully kicked NXT across the shop. Now is probably the time that AEW wished they had another show next week but I'm assuming it's not to be.

These shows are a nice little change, especially when modern wrestling production can be ridiculously overwhelming at times but yeah, the big reveals tonight would have been amazing moments with a live crowd. I'm not sure these shows can continue in perpetuity since they'll lose more and more novelty over time. Also, props to, I believe Spears, for shouting "I got $200 on you, Tarzan. Do something!" during the Jungle Boy match. That popped me. In fact, that whole match was good fun. Butcher and Blade are a quietly solid tag team.

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.