Stiva

Holy shit, Roman coming out to boos after narrating a video about a cancer charity is something else. Oh man, it's a meaningful, heartfelt promo about charity work. Live TV everybody. ANYTHING can happen

Not going to repeat too much of what others have said but I dug the show and still love how they cut and present their video angles. For me personally, I’ve been getting diminishing returns as each of these big shows come and go. I’m definitely ready for this roster to move to weekly TV with shorter matches and a more angle-heavy focus.

Jurassic Express are so much fun, they’re total breakout stars.

Yikes, I’m not sure the TNA style entrance videos being shown on TV is the right idea

Jazz's look is incredible! Badass as all get out.

If, like me, you couldn't find the Buy-In on AEW's Youtube page, it's streaming on TNTs

I feel like Orton needs a recurring spot on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia so we can see how he compares to The Maniac

Maybe Wyatt has learned that his promos and character need some form of solid, explicitly stated motivation and cause this time around...

Luger was clearly reinvigorated by jumping back to WCW which led to some fantastic work from 95-97. He’s a really underrated part of the whole nWo hot streak.

I really hope they hit some home runs on the early TV because that'll set the tone for the dates following. Like you say, they're building some momentum and they just have to hit the right air pocket to keep it up.

The obvious thing to do with Cassidy seems to be him doing his shtick and jobbing for a while until he, somehow, finds himself in a big TV main event and then shows that he can go. Similar to the match he had with David Starr a while back. Where you go from there, I don’t know but I actually have some faith that these guys are thinking long-term, to a degree.

I guess the highly touted September NXT class is going to have someone in it that'll unseat Shayna? Or maybe they are just stretching this as long as possible to lead into a feud with Ronda. And I thought I hated post-Jesus Shawn Michaels matches but I think i despise Shawn Michaels agenting even more.

I read a Youtube comment, of all things, that had the awesome idea of Bray coming out in his Mr Rodgers gear, the week after attacking Finn, to save him and doing a split personality gimmick. Now that hasn't happened, I'm way less excited about the whole thing. Also, imagine if you were in a coma for a year and you woke up to Summerslam having a random Goldberg vs. Dolph Ziggler match for very little reason.

I kind of dig the idea of Bryan siding with a newly invigorated Bray with Rowan as the go-between, to take over the shows. I mean, in my head, they'd find a way to rationalise it and play back into past history with Wyatt, Roman and Bryan but I'll even settle for them not doing that just to see something halfway fresh.

They should have just revealed it to be Joe trying to kill him tonight rather than having it be a limp reveal next week. Has there even been a rumour of what Bryan’s announcement will be? Do they run the Henry fake retirement angle but with Bryan going back after Kofi?

I have the trust in Joe to heat up that feud by himself if they let him talk. And I really hope the Summerslam match is a heavyweight sprint; those two could work a great one of those.

The Firestick App has always been solid for me and they’re a pretty useful device for other services for their price.

Holy shit, they killed him. He's done.

Some stray thoughts as I progress through the show. Hopefully Willie Mack is a guy who is going to get a push throughout the rest of the year since the dude is so enjoyable and was a clear step above the other 3 guys in the opener as far as charisma was concerned. The tag match was OK but was strange to see them follow the opener with a match following a similar formula. Injury angle worked fine and I really liked Ethan Page as the quasi-big man, kicking and throwing guys around and breaking up pins in increasingly nasty ways. The Rascalz are portrayed as weed smokers but they work like Jack Evans on speed which is something I appreciate, they move at 100mph and The North should be good bases for them going forward. They need to find a couple of new teams from somewhere though. Kross has won me around in recent months; he’s got great presence and carries himself fantastically well which makes up for some of his poorer in-ring work. As much as people may hate to hear it, he seems like a guy who Heyman would push for to get on Raw. Match with Edwards was fine and Edwards as would-be Foley, getting over by taking ridiculous punishment is the most I’ve ever enjoyed him. Will probably finish the rest tomorrow before this crazy weekend but Impact really do know how to build to these shows and deliver when they get there, even on these smaller undercard matches. Everything is super satisfying.

I'm still waiting for WWEUniverse.com to finally catch on and usurp Facebook.

So there’s a Women’s show featuring Steph being made for something called Quibi (?). Where the hell do they find these bizarre, unheard of, Silicon Valley start-ups to partner with?

If the rumours are true, I'm intrigued to see

This was fucking awesome btw. So, imagine my huge disappointment when the internet came out of the show talking up Devlin/Dragunov which was good fun but nothing I haven't seen a million times already on the indies. Both guys in the main had that untouchable charisma which really elevates pro wrestling. I'm beyond lucky that I got to see Eddie Kingston in North East England on his retirement run.

He'll be a solid hand up and down the card for a few years, at least. Can work heel or face and is a good tag worker so I understand why they've taken him on. Especially when you consider that he's tight with Cody. I'm not too sure about him jumping immediately into a big program with Cody either but it was one hell of a way to debut the guy so I'm willing to go with it. It's also a case where AEWs promo vids might actually come in handy where they can have him cut an edited promo ala Dustin's to explain the motivation and history in a compelling way.

In another era, when they didn't have to go out of the cell, I think these two could have pulled off an all-timer of a brawl because everything before they leave the cage is fantastic. HHH is at his athletic bumping peak and he just takes everything with such snap and force. When you couple it with Foley bumping like a lunatic, it makes everything look so violent and dangerous. The strikes are excellent, the spots with the steps are great and HHH in 2000 really was a pretty incredible bleeder. Sadly, they have to go into the stunt show spots and the matches loses something, even if it is the thing that gets the crowd involved. If they had kept it inside, had the BBQ bat under the ring and worked the same spots and worked to a finish in the cell, it would have been remembered like the Taker/Brock matches. As it is, it loses a little something with time but these two had an undeniable chemistry when it came to working these kind of brawls and it can stand up pretty strongly to the Rumble, even if I do think the Rumble is the superior match.