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If Cena can somehow get across an attitude of Laziness, Disloyalty and Disrespect it would be fantastic!

Maybe a slow walk to the ring now, with new music, disinterestedly tearing up young fans' signs...

 Alpharius wrote:
If Cena can somehow get across an attitude of Laziness, Disloyalty and Disrespect it would be fantastic!

Maybe a slow walk to the ring now, with new music, disinterestedly tearing up young fans' signs...

This concept tickles me. Getting the name of the camera guy wrong....

Well, since I still have to catch up on AEW Revolution all I can tell peeps about is the live Wrestling I attended last weekend. Lugner City, Vienna. Lugner City Cup.

It was very fun. Very much a mix of things. Four title matches, no title changes. Was very surprised to see James Storm who had a very neat comedy match against Michael Kovac, who - moving towards the end of his career - does more character and comedy stuff. He's good at it though. Another guest star: Pascal Spalter, whom I hadn't seen in years (but I don't pay too much attention to German wrestling. My loss.). Yeah, several fun things, often a bit hampered by slightly annoying spots (an ankle injury, James Storm spanking the small lady [she'd been nasty, but still.. it felt a bit weird]. The host's husband, local politician of that extreme-right party, handing over prices [he did get boo'd though].). One funny thing - it seems like they ran out of Germans, so one of the matches had a Swedish guy had to fill in as a heat-seeking heel. I'm up for that, but I'm not sure if the rest of the audience is as into the Thirty Years War as I am. And eversince then, the Swedes generally have been very nice. Oh well.

Live Wrestling is just super cool. Initialy we'd planned to attend the WWE event here in Vienna, since they're doing that Wrestlemania tour, and I'm sure it would have been HUGE, but somehow the notification thing for the ticket website didn't work, so we only noticed the sale a day late, and all the good seats were taken, so we opted to forego that one. Instead we attended that local event. Having been to two WWE house shows and a bunch of local shows by now, I think I'd always suggest people to either get GREAT seats at the WWE event or none and go to several indie events instead. At least at the big venue here all the seats are expensive for WWE shows, but any but the ones that are closest to the ring or the entrance are just not a very good experience I thouhgt. Live wrestling is supercool, but I think that you get the most out of it if you're close to the action. That 'BANG' of people dropping on the ring is just magical.

watched Revolution last night. skipped the main event, but it was otherwise all bangers, no misses. the Hollywood ending was incredible, and it's amazing that the cage match was as good as it. needed to go for a walk after the cage match to cool down!

Sounds good. So far I've come up to the cage match. The guys climbing on top right away.

Hollywood ending match was impressive with some amazing visuals.

Tag Match was lovely.

Omega/Takeshita

Moné/Watanabe was good. Great showcase for Momo Watanabe who I was not familiar with because I know zero about Stardom. Still baffled how anybody would choose CEO for their wrestling persona. Is it a US thing? I my mind the associations with CEO are "overpaid corporate tool with little to no merit". This isn't a dig at Moné, who is a really good wrestler most of the time. The whole CEO thing just irks me. Maybe that's the point.

Okada/King was really good. Can't say much about it either. Okada can not have a bad match.

Hangman/MJF was a typical MJF AEW PPV opener and thus really good. Big fan of Hangman since the get-go of AEW (less so before that). MJF's vulnerable side at least added something to the whole thing. Not sure I'm necessarily a fan of it, but it probably is good on the whole.

Strickland/Ricochet was great of course. Wtf was that drummer? Why do we add these people to entrances if it messes up the entrance so badly? Why do we put a drummer with that very beat-heavy hip-hop song? I do love me some hiphop played on actual instruments; wonderful things can be achieved that way. But this was just distracting. Anyway. good match, nice, basic story.

Watched the rest of Revolution now. All lovely, I'm happy.

Ospreay/Fletcher Cage Match - damn. I love me some blood, and it's really stupid to critizise when getting lots of good stuff, but it almost felt a bit much on the same card along with the Hollywood Ending match. Either way, really good cage match with some good spots. One of my favourite things was Ospreay bending Fletchers fingers around the wire mesh or what it's called. Good use of the cage.

Main Event: Cope/Moxley for the heavyweight title. I'm perfectly okay with that.


For many weeks, it seems like the Death Riders storyline gets some critizism. I don't quite get it. Of course the 'reign of terror' could be a bit more terror-y. I acutally liked how at first they had all these geeks trying to stand up against them, being ineffectual, the younger pillars being ineffectual because they can't get on the same page, old people coming along (Cope),

Watching RAW, all the Cena stuff was good of course, but I realized something interesting - maybe it's just me, but does it seemt to you as well that Ludwig Kaiser's promos sound like Jay White's promos? Kadence-wise especially. It's funny.




AEW Dynamite! Good. If one's hankering for very good wrestling matches, Dynamite delivers. Very interesting how many perceived misgivings about Revolution were adressed by making the Moxley-Cope-match a streetfight with several icky and one absurd spot. And lots of people. And they bent the story in an interesting direction there. Also: Claudio Castaglioni holding the table half like a shield as his group makes their way across the barricade was a funny visual.

Also - Billie Starkz. First time I saw her was in 2022; she was surprisingly good then. Now she's got more years (and I assume excellent training) under her belt, along with a storyline which basically carried RoH, and she's the real deal. She's got the audience interaction down, the facial expressions and to top it all of - she's a good, natural babyface (without going in that 'divas' direction which for some reason seems to have been resurrected).The match with Moné wasn't perfect in some spots, but that doesn't really matter. They got a really good, upcoming talent there in Billie Starkz. And I'd love to see a Moné/Athena feud next.

I also liked the main event. Pretty sure it was the first time I saw a Megan Bayne match. Perfectly OK. Great match-up for Statlander. Toni Storm on commentary is very entertaining; I'm just always a bit worried that people like her on commentary overshadow the match. Because she's just super entertaining. I did like the character stuff towards the end though, where she got a bit worried actually, and then we got the little promo, and Timeless Toni Storm is really good at that. I'm becoming more of a fan of hers now than on her first championship run.

NATALYA vs. MIYU YAMASHITA announced for Bloodsport XIII, April 17th. Oh yeah. The times we live in.

Went to RAW in Glasgow and damn was it a great time.

Seeing John Cena, Rey Mysterio, CM Punk, Rhea Ripley, and Cody Rhodes all in person was amazing.

The matches weren't the strongest I've seen but it was still a good ratio of good vs mediocre. The finale between Penta and Breaker was a bit meh, but that led into the after-show, which was top tier fun.

Sounds like fun - and watching this on TV always makes me jealous as the European crowds are beyond electric!

Give us a rundown of what happened once the cameras were off!

Punk, Cody and Rey vs Judgment Day in a three way tag team.

CM Punk did a striptease taking his top off. Ref did a cartwheel when he ejected Raquel and Liv from the arena.

Finished up with Punk, Cody and Rey doing a lovely speech to the crowd thanking us for a great night.

That sounds class.

Yup, I love those shows from European venues. Always a hit, great crowds.



This weekend the Vienna house show took place, for which we didn't get any seats because the sale started earlier than announced. Oh well.

AEW Dynasty was really, really good.

I'm rather sure that the three-way would be my go-to match to show people who are interested in wrestling to win them over.

i was pretty disappointed with dynasty. i mean, it's still an AEW show, so the matches were great, but it felt like it had less highlights than usual

three-way was incredible, tho. easily match of the night, and worth watching the show just for that. i was watching the show on discord with some friends, and there was someone new to wrestling there— when he hit the avalanche OWA, they lost their gak

Aye, I'm back to watching AEW stuff on my own, because I don't wanna bother friends and family (even though one friend of mine got back into watching weekly wrestling, including AEW, so I might ask him in the future) any more. WWE stuff I watch with friends over Discord, but they're proper people, so don't have the time to watch different promotions.

AEW PPVs always deliver extremely high-level matches. Opener was great as well even though they did nothing to introduce us to Mr.Knight, did they? He did very well though, and Ospreay is very giving in these things. Maybe a bit too much? Not sure. I agree, it didn't have as many highlights as Revolution for instance. Which in my mind almost had too many highlights tightly packed together.

To be honest, I didn't watch much of the Fletcher/Briscoe-match. I'm not that into Kyle Fletcher (yes, he's very good at the wrestling. And he kicks out of a LOT of things. Which is a thing which slightly bothered me here and there in this PPV). I did watch the Cole/Garcia match, and it was super okay. Same with Jericho/Bandido. Jericho can be pretty darned good in the ring; it's really impressive. The ending was....alright.

Oh, the tag match. Big Bill and Bryan Keith vs. The Hurt Syndicate. Perfectly serviceable. Good showcase for Big Bill, who I think should be up for a singles run. The only problem I see is the hurt syndicate being SO bloody strong. I have no idea which tag team could dethrone them. Swerve and Hangman? Certainly not the Outrunners. This is something I don't get about some internet critizism - some vocal people on the internet claim AEW should have put the titles on the Outrunners when they were very new to AEW and their merch outsold everybody else's and they were super popular and all. That's no reason to put the titles on them. And I like the Outrunners, as mentioned numerous times before. That vignette in which they say hello to [sports players team XY] has one of my favourite sentences: "80% of it is mental. The rest's in your head!" (paraphrasing). Very funny indeed. Anyway, the tag scene should be very interesting the coming months.

Toni Storm vs. Megan Bayne was class. I like Penelope Ford's role there. Good to see her on tv more in general. Bayne is good.

Mercedes Moné vs. Julia Hart. Julia Hart is super good. Oh, is she ever good. When that slip-up early on happened I was very worried it might become one of _those_ Mercedes Moné matches, but it didn't and it was a good match.




Btw, where the heck is Wardlow?

Wardlow died on the way back to his home planet

Watched the main event on Dynamite last night and had to do a double take when Claudio Castagnoli made his way to the ring. Claudio (a well-known 40K fan) had his coat covered with purity seals

 Ghaz wrote:
Watched the main event on Dynamite last night and had to do a double take when Claudio Castagnoli made his way to the ring. Claudio (a well-known 40K fan) had his coat covered with purity seals

Yeah, he's been doing that for a while now. I think it looks pretty silly, but if he likes it...


Speaking of Dynamite:
.) Jericho segment: good!
.) Pac injury: daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn. :( That sucks so bad.

Might have happened on the Buckle Bomb?

That type of move always seems so risky - even if 'done right' it looks like the recipient is in danger of an injury, and when done wrong...

It is the move the derailed Finn Balor's life in WWE...forever.

Wrestlemania Night One.

So far, fairly meh. The matches are fine (just done L.A. Knight/Jacob Fatu), but none have felt like a Wrestlemania moment.

No spoilers, obvs. But definitely awaiting a WOW! Factor.


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Charlotte v Tiffany was a solid match, but not yet feeling that Wrestlemania Pop.

Still, at least we’re being spared maggots being projected on the mat, because that’s just spooky crap.


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Reigns/Punk/Rollins was really good fun!

Sky/Ripley/Belair. Absolutely superb. This was a proper Wrestlemania match. It also got Bianca Belair over with me, as whilst she’s great in the ring, I’ve never seen her this good.

And Y’know what’s nice streaming as catch up? Fast forwarding through all the guff.

Priest/McIntyre. Excellent match. Always pleasing to see heavyweights being athletic in the ring, especially two who are so good at Selling.

Orton/Hendry. Look out! It’s CAPTAIN BORING AND HIS ADAMANTIUM PLOT ARMOUR! Cannot stand Randy Orton. But even I could stand him, I’d still back Joe Hendry. Because we’re both Edinburgh lads.

Styles/Paul. Let’s just not, and say we didn’t. Skippity Skipping.

Love that Joe Hendry got to do both Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania.

...I'm still baffled as to why the Rock wasn't there to help finish this particular story?

Without his involvement as Mania...it just feels off, in terms of Cena's turn.

Has this been addressed anywhere?

You’re not wrong on that one.

I did enjoy the match, and both gave it their all and proved Why They’re Both Over With Everyone.

But that absence was weird.

 Alpharius wrote:
...I'm still baffled as to why the Rock wasn't there to help finish this particular story?

Without his involvement as Mania...it just feels off, in terms of Cena's turn.

Has this been addressed anywhere?

Here's a video when he explained on the Pat MacAfee Show why he wasn't there (1:22 minute mark)

The reason the Rock didn't show up was...there was no plan for him to show up?

Huh?

Not sure if serious...but, that is perhaps the dumbest reason possible to not show up.

Gotta disagree with Rock too - he definitely needed to be there to finish this chapter, and I think the majority of the opinion leans this way too.

WWE sure is putting out a lot of new shows...

I have increasingly formed the opinion that Dwayne has become less charismatic and more obviously narcissistic with age.

Contrasting with other Attitude Era stars such as Stone Cold, HHH, Mick Foley, Undertaker, Kane, etc., who have all largely either gained or maintained a high level of esteem in my mind.

 bbb wrote:
I have increasingly formed the opinion that Dwayne has become less charismatic and more obviously narcissistic with age.

Contrasting with other Attitude Era stars such as Stone Cold, HHH, Mick Foley, Undertaker, Kane, etc., who have all largely either gained or maintained a high level of esteem in my mind.

You're...not wrong.

But it still would have been nice to have him at Wrestlemania, to slowly nod his approval at Cena's heinous actions in order to become a 17 time World Champ!

I mean, he should have been. What's the whole point of all this "Cena sells soul to the Rock" thing if the Rock isn't even going to show up for the title win.