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Hello, hello. Bad Blood was quite something, wasn't it. It's the HHH era good and proper, it seems. They're being very, very smart about how they put PPVs together. Not to mention the smartness in making up that Crown Jewel belt. This way they can give the Saudi money some title change and still keep it basically non-canon.

Punk-Drew surely was the match of the night. In terms of wrestling I really liked the Ripley-Morgan match. I'm becoming more and more of a fan of Liv Morgan, even on an in-ring level. And she can talk and emote in funny ways.

Unfortunately, Bayley vs. Nia was not a good match. Like everybody else, I'm a big fan of Bayley's, and I actually like Nia Jax as well, because she adds something to the women's roster nobody else does.

The host segments I did not get; the Chelsea Green bit was just mean and out of nowhere.

Gunther had a guest spot. Really good to see how well he talks now and how he's being pushed. Unfortunately this seems to lead to a Goldberg match, but okay. Can't do anything about it and it'll go away again soon.

Main event was a Bloodline match, carried out by people who know their craft and are very good at that style of match. I also do like a match-up in which a tag team dominates over two thrown-together main eventers.

Bad Blood was average to middling, but that HiaC match was off the charts amazing.

Anything they can do to make Crown Jewel inconsequential to the overall product is a win.

Have tickets to Oct 21 Raw, so have to start thinking of signs.

Bad Blood had a dude hold a "Walk With Elias!" sign, so that's out, I'm afraid.

I'm sure that a Dakka Dakka sign would be allowed by the forums elders.

Am I the only one who can’t take Dominic Mysterio seriously? Not in terms of wrestling skill. But as a character. Like Liv and Rhea are just mucking him about?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Am I the only one who can’t take Dominic Mysterio seriously? Not in terms of wrestling skill. But as a character. Like Liv and Rhea are just mucking him about?

Yeah, I mean he is a comedic heel really. Not in the way that he's a cool, joke-cracking dick, but a major-league twerp, and that he is really good at. During the match the people I watched with raised the question whether Liv Morgan is just using him as part of her revenge tour thing, and I would kinda like that, but that would also go hand in hand with Dom basically becoming a de-facto babyface, which would take effort to make work. To be honest though, I'd also like to see Morgan and Dom just be a pair. They look cute together.

Woooahahhahaa, Wrestledream came and went, and what an interesting event it was. I'm still enjoying the differences in PPV booking between WWE and AEW. A super-tight package of purposeful matches (plus lots of advertising) vs. a lovely buffet of loads of different things pro wrestling has to offer, even though one might not like everything presented to the same degree.

Things I didn't enjoy as much: The women's match didn't do it for me. Not a huge fan of Mariah May as a champion and I'm feeling a bit of Willow fatigue and the outcome was rather predictable. Making this the only women's show on the main cards made it a bit more bitter for me too. The Darby Allin match was just that. I'll probably just never become a fan of his, so I'm not too sad about his latest PPV matches all having been very swift and inconsequential (boy, would I like to see the House of Black being presented a bit better. Maybe not as a faction, but just as a tag team or Aleister Black as a singles wrestler.). Also, I was okay with AEW doing 4 PPVs each year. Not hugely into having a PPV so soon after All In and All Out, mostly due to cost.

But that's all minor points. It was a rather lovely show with some amazing matches, and - as mentioned above - just a great mix of different things. Of course the Beast Mortos is 20000% cooler than Hologram. Btw, last night I tried to look up when Angelico had a TV match last, and was surprised that it was very recent. A swift Collision affair in which he put Hologram over. Angelico should be allowed to do more on TV.).

Heel Moxley is great.

Here's people I'd like to see do more on AEW TV/PPVs: The Beast Mortos, Shelton Benjamin [great fan of his], Angelico, Yuka Sakazaki. I might add Athena to the list as well, because she rocks and the RoH men's champion is mostly on AEW tv as well anyway, but on the other hand it feels like she holds RoH together, and has been doing so for years now. And I heard Penelope Ford is back now, so I'd like to see her do more. I think she's really good at being a mid-card heel lady.

Oh, and the ending was extremely interesting.

 Sigur wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Am I the only one who can’t take Dominic Mysterio seriously? Not in terms of wrestling skill. But as a character. Like Liv and Rhea are just mucking him about?

Yeah, I mean he is a comedic heel really. Not in the way that he's a cool, joke-cracking dick, but a major-league twerp, and that he is really good at. During the match the people I watched with raised the question whether Liv Morgan is just using him as part of her revenge tour thing, and I would kinda like that, but that would also go hand in hand with Dom basically becoming a de-facto babyface, which would take effort to make work. To be honest though, I'd also like to see Morgan and Dom just be a pair. They look cute together.

It definitely feels deliberate. But, as an arguable Nepo-Baby I just hope it doesn’t backfire on him career wise when the stories inevitably change.

Mind you it’s been a while since I last watched outside of instagram clips, so I accept I’m not seeing his usual in-ring performances, just carefully curated highlights to drive his character.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Sigur wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Am I the only one who can’t take Dominic Mysterio seriously? Not in terms of wrestling skill. But as a character. Like Liv and Rhea are just mucking him about?

Yeah, I mean he is a comedic heel really. Not in the way that he's a cool, joke-cracking dick, but a major-league twerp, and that he is really good at. During the match the people I watched with raised the question whether Liv Morgan is just using him as part of her revenge tour thing, and I would kinda like that, but that would also go hand in hand with Dom basically becoming a de-facto babyface, which would take effort to make work. To be honest though, I'd also like to see Morgan and Dom just be a pair. They look cute together.

It definitely feels deliberate. But, as an arguable Nepo-Baby I just hope it doesn’t backfire on him career wise when the stories inevitably change.

Mind you it’s been a while since I last watched outside of instagram clips, so I accept I’m not seeing his usual in-ring performances, just carefully curated highlights to drive his character.

It's been years since I watched a WWE weekly show, but I see the guy at PPVs and he's doing alright there. I could see him being the cowardly leader of his own heel faction, I could see him as a cowardly manager, I could even see him doing a sort of "unlucky Corbin" thing. I think there's some potential for some sympathetic doofus character in there as well.

Wow, so Sadiq Khan is the only one out there holding a WWE and an AEW title now?

So apparently Malakai Black is not leaving AEW. Phew. I can't think of many other wrestlers who in theory never interested me, but completely win me over with their in-ring stuff every single time I see them. Looks hard as hell, knows how to wrestle in all aspects. Great asset to AEW.

Other observations from Dynamite:
.) Is Ricochet really tall or is Powerhouse Hobbs not as tall as I thought he was? When Ricochet brought him back and they walked side by side Ricochet looked way taller than I thought.
.) I really wanna see Shelton Benjamin be presented as an equal to Bobby Lashley. Benjamin is great. Maybe they'll manage to make them different enough by making Benjamin throw people around and Lashley running into people real fast or something. This somehow is the image of them I have in my head. Kinda like the tag team cyclopses in The Messenger.
.) Really liking the Brian Cage/Lance Archer tag team.

The Bloodline is getting stronger with reports saying that WWE has signed Lance Anoa'i.

 Ghaz wrote:
The Bloodline is getting stronger with reports saying that WWE has signed Lance Anoa'i.

Question is - which one?

 Sigur wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
The Bloodline is getting stronger with reports saying that WWE has signed Lance Anoa'i.

Question is - which one?

That is the $64,000 question...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
SmackDown just introduced the Women’s United States Championship.

After last week's Bandido vignette I was VERY concerned and sad. After this week's I'm on board. Reminded me of the vignettes before Wardlow's debut.

Been to the 'rasslin last night. Prater Weihnachts-Catchen. It was rather lovely. Peter White's final match and retirement had the weirdest finish ever. Maybe I missed something, but it went down like this if I remember correctly: The baddies used a steel chair during a ref bump bit to torture White's padawan in the ring, White grabs the chair, ref comes to, sees him with the chair, DQ finish, the baddies win. Bit of discussion, the other referee comes out, the ref's decision is reversed and the goodies win! And that was it. How odd. Afterwards Peter White said some nice words, which was nice.

As usual the whole thig started with a big old Royal Rumble, so we get to know the wrestlers. It featured local hero "Yugo Boy" from the World Underground Wrestling people who wrestle at Weberknecht bar in Vienna regularly.

Then we had a LOVELY tag match between Team Visegrad (from Poland, basically kinda like latter Moustache Mountain) vs. Team Energy from Austria, Space Cowbow somethingsomething and the Austrian Wolverine Chris Colen. I like them. They aren't remarkable, they're just good at the wrestling thing and make for good goodies. Also: willing to bleed. Very entertaining match; the moustachio'd heel got over by being a funny heel based on "I'm handsome, you are not". Brought a mirror on a stick with his entrance, holding it in front of people who boo him enthusiastically, giving them a thumbs-down. Classic. Also asking the crowd "Am I pretty?". Very solid. Good times.

Georges Khoukaz vs. I think Fabio Ferrari. The former, billed from Aleppo, Syria (topical!) I remember as a big heel 1.5 years ago. I also remember running into him at the toilets as he washed Tajiri's black mist out of his face in the sink then. Now he's a babyface, his beard glorious, and he's very tall and good. Fabio Ferrari is THE solid go-to heel on these events. He's been at almost every single live wrestling event I attended (WWE houseshows excluded ).

Women's Champion Lexa Velo, German, meaning instant-heel is out injured (still came out for a promo, SHOOT ATTACKED my sister with a baseball cap. Dastardly.), so the match was for the contendership. Moxie (pretty much local, always the heel vs. the flown-in opponent. Interesting ring gear.) vs. Heidi Katrina from the UK. The latter being just a pro and a vet and all of that it seemed.

Martin Pain vs. Gianni Valetta. Very cool match. Martin Pain is a madman who will jump off the top turnbuckle at any opportunity. He's not even a small or slight guy. Gianni Valetta (from Malta!) is very fun. Does headbutts and then sells it. That's something I like.


You know what sucks though? If you're sitting at a wrestling show and after the Royal Rumble one of the wrestlers (done for the night) sits down in front of you, his (quite obviously very new) girlfriend on his lap and they just have a good time for the rest of the night. Meaning nobody behind them has a good time. That annoyed me a fair bit, but I couldn't come up with any useful arguments to stop them, because how would you? Technically I saw what's happening in 80% of the ring, but still kinda annoying.


Anyway, still a fun night out.

Rampage/Collision: Toni Storm is back, first match on Rampage, many people were up in arms. What actually happened: It didn't matter, nobody lost anything, Harley Cameron won much from this. Collision: Very interesting character developments, very cleverly done. This might give us the best of both worlds (character stuff, in-ring stuff). Very glad to see Toni Storm (non-timeless) back, and they're doing interesting things with that character.

Heyhey, happy new year.

Fun little story: my sister watched the McMahon documentary on Netflix, wants to make a serious effort of getting into WWE stuff again. Her and her BF decided to watch some stuff, decided to watch some Bray Wyatt match, because he was possibly one of the flashiest characters of recent years. Very sensible. The match they chose was the Wrestlemania match with Randy Orton, with the floodlights blinding the audience and the projected maggots and such.

Way to start 🤣🤣

Quite so! Have we ever talked about the first matches we ever watched in this thread?

For me it's a bit hazy since I had a bad cold, I had the TV on and RAW came on after the film I'd watched. I very vividly remember seeing Dean Ambrose for the first time (it was right after Rollins had turned on The Shield), but I think the first match I watched was the Usos vs. the Wyatt Family. Possibly a trios tag team match with Ambrose along with the Usos on one side.


Oh, now that I think of it - anyone of you seen anything WWE on Netflix yet? For Germany/Austria (probably Switzerland too) we have to wait until bloody mid-2026 for that stuff, because until then the rights for broadcasting are with a private German TV company....

I honestly couldn’t say.

I’ve been in Wrasslin’s orbit since the mid or late 80’s, but never had WWF/WWE on my telly, as that was Sky Sports.

Sky One would get the highlights show, but with all the fun bits cut.

And even before that? Big Daddy and Giant Hastings could be found on ITV’s World of Sport.

My first match was probably back when the WWF (yes, the WWF) had a Saturday morning show amidst all of the cartoons and the announcers were Vince and Jesse. The wrestlers were still characters like Hillbilly Jim and the Killer Bees.

 Sigur wrote:
Oh, now that I think of it - anyone of you seen anything WWE on Netflix yet? For Germany/Austria (probably Switzerland too) we have to wait until bloody mid-2026 for that stuff, because until then the rights for broadcasting are with a private German TV company....

New content begins with the RAW on Monday, Siggy, but I'm given to understand that quite a bit of back-catalogue stuff may be up already.

Not sure when we'd get it in the UK either, off-hand, but as I don't have Netflix I haven't looked into it.

i probably saw some matches here and there before being a fan, but after deciding "i should get into wrestling", the first match i saw was the opener for TJPW Grand Princess 2022. a bit of a recent one, compared to the rest of the threat

 Ghaz wrote:
My first match was probably back when the WWF (yes, the WWF) had a Saturday morning show amidst all of the cartoons and the announcers were Vince and Jesse. The wrestlers were still characters like Hillbilly Jim and the Killer Bees.

Same for me, but in the late 80s.

I've never actually watched a wrestling match unfortunately!

But the first one I saw on TV I think was a Rick Flair match because I remember thinking that blonde haired cheating guy had a lot of charisma XD

 Ghaz wrote:
My first match was probably back when the WWF (yes, the WWF) had a Saturday morning show amidst all of the cartoons and the announcers were Vince and Jesse. The wrestlers were still characters like Hillbilly Jim and the Killer Bees.

Same here, I think!

I'm also fairly certain Randy Savage was on that show - he became a favorite of mine on the spot with that top rope flying elbow!

The things that used to be sure-fire finishing moves!

 Dysartes wrote:

 Sigur wrote:
Oh, now that I think of it - anyone of you seen anything WWE on Netflix yet? For Germany/Austria (probably Switzerland too) we have to wait until bloody mid-2026 for that stuff, because until then the rights for broadcasting are with a private German TV company....

New content begins with the RAW on Monday, Siggy, but I'm given to understand that quite a bit of back-catalogue stuff may be up already.

Not sure when we'd get it in the UK either, off-hand, but as I don't have Netflix I haven't looked into it.

It's all up and being advertised pretty heavily on netflix in the UK. Not only the new stuff, but huge portions of the vault of raw, smackdown and PPVs.

WWE on Netflix.

Any UK early adopters able to consider if, finally, I might be able to watch Raw and Smackdown in an up to date, not a month behind so the PPVs make no sense manner?

Because that would be nice.

Smackdown will be the tricky one, as that hasn't moved to Netflix.

Someone with the platform will need to comment on the rest, though.

 Dysartes wrote:
Smackdown will be the tricky one, as that hasn't moved to Netflix.

It's moved to USA from FOX.

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a63348232/wwe-netflix-schedule-2025/

Seems like it will be on UK Netflix at 1 am on Saturday..