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 Mr. Burning wrote:
What Jim Cornette gets right IMO is that you need time to build a story, you need to tell that story within the ring. WWE have for many years disregarded a slow burn story, partly because of VKM's distaste for old school 'wrasslin.

Definitely one of the few things ol' Corny gets right - and with the Bayley/Sasha stuff, we're starting to see the pay-off of a long-term feud.

Lance, if you want colour within WWE at present, I direct you to The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods) - probably WWE's top tag team/stable for the past five years, though two of them are currently injured.

I was into wrestling as a kid in the late 80s and then again in the late 90s thanks to ECW and the Attitude Era. Then fell away from it till Smackdown went to Fox last year. My daughters love it and I love watching it with them.

I love that Cesaro and Shinsuke are the tag champs and I hope they get a long run and can build up the tag division.

The women have tended to have better personalities and stories than the guys.

The Roman Reigns heel turn was a great moment and I hope it lasts for a while.

What do they think of Bray, The Fiend and the Firefly Fun House, bbb?

 Dysartes wrote:
What do they think of Bray, The Fiend and the Firefly Fun House, bbb?

I'm curious about that as well.

Is the friendly children's presenter in a red sweater still a thing that is on TV nowadays? I suppose the general style of presenting will still be there but wondering if the clothing choices have changed, I guess

And on thinking on that, Bray Wyatt new stable of dark children's presenters with intersecting vignettes effectively forming a complete children's program station when?

I just asked my 11 year old and she said she think's he's a good wrestler and she loves the Firefly Funhouse.

I like everything about Bray/Fiend except when he gets in the ring. Just seems too powerful an entity to care about wrestling/be hurt by wrestling.

It should be interesting to see where they're evolving Alexa Bliss towards, as well - Twisted Bliss as a female Fiend?

Didn't she use the Mandible Claw on Smackdown? So it might be the way things are going. Which I'm all okay with. Alexa Bliss has been great with any role she's been given so far (being ten times better a heel than a face of course). She could pull it off.

As for women's wrestling in WWE on the whole - I absolute agree with what's been said above. It's consistent (mainly), entertaining, and mostly not very embarassing to watch. I love how they actually took time with the Bayley/Sasha storyline and they finally get the story they deserve. Asuka has been consistently great for the past months, carrying large chunks of the raw women's roster. The whole Becky Lynch thing has been really good as well before. Splitting up the IIconics was rather sad to see, but oh well.

Now as for AEW: Well. The ex-WWE people of course stick out and probably are a bit of a requirement in the beginning. And truth be told - I love watching Jon Moxley. Liked him in WWE, loved him in NJPW and AEW. Great promo, good wrestler, great champion. They do build their own people too though. MJF is great at everything. Sammy Guevara is a tip top level twerp. Britt Baker got a TON better, even though I'm still not a big fan. It'll take 10 horses to make me a fan of Darby Allin, but people seem to like him. And so on. Yeah, the women's division is a bit of a problem (especially in comparison to the great work WWE's been doing for the most part on the women's division), but Hikaru Shida is a really good champion, they got Diamante now, I think there's huge potential in Abaddon. Can't wait to see Yuka Sakasaki back once travelling gets easier, I really like Shanna, and if they get Thunder Rosa to work for them some more that would be great.

"Bullet Club and Friends" - well, for once the Bullet Club's been the hottest thing in wrestling for the past years and most people have been in the US branch anyway (recently I heard SCU were in the Bullet Club at one point. I hadn't even known that.). And The Elite took the ball and ran away with it and painted it golden and called it AEW. So of course the Young Bucks, Omega, Page and Cody are at the core of anything at AEW. In fact they used Omega (in his role of "best singles wrestler in the world, etc.") pretty sparingly over the first year. But now things seem to pick up steam. Heel Bucks, Tweener Cleaner Omega, Distraught Face Hangman Page - this will be good.


Either way, the pandemic (and to a lesser degree AEW) forced WWE to be a bit bolder and more inventive, and that certainly can't be bad. NXT seems to be a bit less nice now that it's mainly used to counter-program AEW and running on tv now and all, but oh well. Still good (btw, Balor and Adam Cole both also have been in the Bullet Club as well of course.). All's well, lots of wrestling. Lots of good wrestling.

 Sigur wrote:
Didn't she use the Mandible Claw on Smackdown? So it might be the way things are going. Which I'm all okay with. Alexa Bliss has been great with any role she's been given so far (being ten times better a heel than a face of course). She could pull it off.

Not sure about the Claw - though the Fiend did use that on her - but she did hit Nikki Cross with Sister Abigail on the last SD, before wandering away from the 4-way match in a trance...

 Sigur wrote:
As for women's wrestling in WWE on the whole - I absolute agree with what's been said above. It's consistent (mainly), entertaining, and mostly not very embarassing to watch. I love how they actually took time with the Bayley/Sasha storyline and they finally get the story they deserve. Asuka has been consistently great for the past months, carrying large chunks of the raw women's roster. The whole Becky Lynch thing has been really good as well before. Splitting up the IIconics was rather sad to see, but oh well.

There's been some good work at the top end of the card, but they could really do with getting some mid-card feuds working better. It often feels like you have the [BRAND] Championship, and no-one else is really doing anything. And thanks to Vince being Vince, there's still a number of cringeworthy storylines around the women - I give you the "Let's cuck Rusev!" story, for the most recent big example.

 Sigur wrote:
Now as for AEW: Well. The ex-WWE people of course stick out and probably are a bit of a requirement in the beginning. And truth be told - I love watching Jon Moxley. Liked him in WWE, loved him in NJPW and AEW. Great promo, good wrestler, great champion. They do build their own people too though. MJF is great at everything. Sammy Guevara is a tip top level twerp. Britt Baker got a TON better, even though I'm still not a big fan. It'll take 10 horses to make me a fan of Darby Allin, but people seem to like him. And so on.

Given how many people WWE have had on their roster over the years, it's a bit tricky to not hire ex-WWE guys. Hell, Kenny Omega wrestled for them (briefly) at one point.

Mox is definitely doing better now he doesn't have to be wacky. Jericho has been gold for them, he really has. Dustin Rhodes is still a Natural.

The not-WWE wrestlers they're developing are going to take time, so it isn't surprising the first year has leaned on ex-WWE peeps so much - if you've not been used to TV-style wrestling, that's something you need to train for and get used to, which is why Dark is so handy. I'd add Orange Cassidy, Best Friends and Jurassic Express as wrestlers or teams from outside WWE that seem to have flourished within the first year of AEW.

 Sigur wrote:
Yeah, the women's division is a bit of a problem (especially in comparison to the great work WWE's been doing for the most part on the women's division), but Hikaru Shida is a really good champion, they got Diamante now, I think there's huge potential in Abaddon. Can't wait to see Yuka Sakasaki back once travelling gets easier, I really like Shanna, and if they get Thunder Rosa to work for them some more that would be great.

They definitely messed up the booking to start with, and then just when they were getting back on track both Britt Baker and Kris Statlander got injured - and given COVID disruption meant certain Japanese talent couldn't come back, it left the division a bit stretched. Shida is proving to be a good champion, though, and they keep signing or trialing interesting talent. Hopefully when the second show comes online, we'll be able to see more women's matches across the three programs (Dynamite, Dark & TBC), and they'll be able to get more proper feuds running. The men's side of the fence is in a good place - if they rein in some of the sillier/dangerous spots - so I'd like them to focus on the women's division in AEW Year 2.

 Sigur wrote:
"Bullet Club and Friends" - well, for once the Bullet Club's been the hottest thing in wrestling for the past years and most people have been in the US branch anyway (recently I heard SCU were in the Bullet Club at one point. I hadn't even known that.). And The Elite took the ball and ran away with it and painted it golden and called it AEW. So of course the Young Bucks, Omega, Page and Cody are at the core of anything at AEW. In fact they used Omega (in his role of "best singles wrestler in the world, etc.") pretty sparingly over the first year. But now things seem to pick up steam. Heel Bucks, Tweener Cleaner Omega, Distraught Face Hangman Page - this will be good.

Aye, the Big Five (Cody, Bucks, Omega, Page) have been pretty well-utilised over this first year, without doing too much to hog the spotlight. Yes, Cody as TNT Champion and Page/Omega as Tag champions has been a thing, but they've hardly been squashing opponents each time. I can't think of anyone who faced Cody for the TNT title that didn't come out of it looking good in defeat, for example, and he was able to bring eyes to talent you might not have thought of - and it is entirely possible that without wrestling him, neither Ricky Starks nor Eddie Kingston would now be signed to AEW.

 Sigur wrote:
Either way, the pandemic (and to a lesser degree AEW) forced WWE to be a bit bolder and more inventive, and that certainly can't be bad. NXT seems to be a bit less nice now that it's mainly used to counter-program AEW and running on tv now and all, but oh well. Still good (btw, Balor and Adam Cole both also have been in the Bullet Club as well of course.). All's well, lots of wrestling. Lots of good wrestling.

NXT has definitely suffered for being on TV, though I would imagine there are now more eyes on that product than there was when it was just on the Network. The sheer number of title matches - and title changes - outside of TakeOver events tells a story all of its own, especially if you compare to the previous year. I hope that their broadcast partner does push for an end to the Wednesday Night Wars, though, as NXT has (unsurprisingly) been doing better numbers on the nights when it isn't trying to counter AEW - I want to say by up to 200k, but I don't have the figures in front of me, so I'm going with a hazy memory

Agreed that WWE do seem more experimental due to COVID.

Highlight for me is the 24/7 hour championship. It’s just a chance for proper nonsense to go on. It’s silly, they know it’s silly, we know it’s silly, and provided it’s not allowed to get out of hand, a good laugh.

Reminds me of my heyday thoughts, when John Cena was Champ, and had an open challenge.

It really played to the crowd, and Cena’s strength. Contrast and compare to my favourite whipping boy Brock Lesnar, who only turns up once in a blue moon, and it made for a more dynamic show.

Finished up Summer Slam and most of the way through Payback.

Fiend angle continues to be lost on me. I dunno why, but it just isn’t landing quite right.

Otherwise both pretty decent shows. And always nice to see Randy Orton get slapped around. He’s a decent heel, which is why it’s enjoyable!

Some of that might be due to the fact that Bray, while good, is no Undertaker, in terms of size, mystique, cache, etc.

Some of it might be due to how inconsistently he's been booked, and wrecked, and built back up.

And some of it just might be that this style of 'gimmick' is from a bygone age, and doesn't work well anymore.

He also somehow looks shorter than he is?

Now. Apropos Roman’s heel turn?

He wears it well. Just wish they’d leaned into it earlier. Accept the Push to Face isn’t working, then a Heel Turn to really give the crowd someone to boo from the heart.

With crowd ill blood bled off? Let him show his genuine skill as a Wrassler. Face Turn as and when.

There was definitely a great opportunity to turn Roman heel after the WM where he beat the Untertaker - coming out to ~5 minutes of booing to deliver a one line promo really should've been a clue to Vince, y'know?

Indeed.

You have to play to the crowd.

The moment I knew the WWE Universe actually liked him, but objected to the way he was pushed?

When his leukaemia returned, and he did that vid. The crowd were genuinely bummed for it.

My kids love him. They're not sure how to handle the heel turn.

 bbb wrote:
My kids love him. They're not sure how to handle the heel turn.

This is something that we old grumps often overlook.

Roman is popular with younger viewers and he sells a lot of merchandise.

I think that this is potentially the best time for him to turn heel at this point due to the lack of a live crowd. If you had live audiences then I reckon he'd have been cheered when it was revealed that he was a heel out of sheer stubbornness from some who will refuse to do what they think the WWE want them to do with regards to Roman and relief that they finally pulled the trigger from others.

This way hopefully by the time the audiences come back he will established himself as a great vicious heel and will be able to get some great authentic reactions. I just hope WWE doesn't try to hotshot his face turn when they think they've got the audience playing along but really wait until they've got a perfect story set up for his redemption arc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

The moment I knew the WWE Universe actually liked him, but objected to the way he was pushed?

When his leukaemia returned, and he did that vid. The crowd were genuinely bummed for it.

Yeah. Joe Anoa'i is, by all accounts I've heard, a really nice guy. He's well respected by the other performers backstage, with some of them crediting him as being a major part of cutting out the hazing and bullying bs, and is reliable and solid in the ring.

The issue is that the WWE writing never let any of his actual personality, or even the personality he had developed during his time in The Shield, shine through in the scripts they gave him during that post-Shield run. They gave him, a performer who was still pretty green on the mic as his role in the Shield was the mostly quiet bruiser (which meant that when he did speak as a member of the Shield, it worked), lines that The Rock and 99-00 Mick Foley would have trouble getting over, and they were some of the best corny catchphrase slinging talkers in the business.

Keeping him in the Shield gear also didn't help. The smarky fans could see that the WWE were just trying to basically transfer all of the Shield's heat onto him by having him keep the gimmick (the clothing, the entrance theme etc.) whilst the other two developed their own style. And it wastes his physique. The guy has been in incredible shape look-wise his whole career. Flaunt that gak!

I think Little Kuriboh does a really good job of examining the issues which caused the Roman Reigns problem in this video from three years ago (I also very much recommend the entire Mark Remark video series for anyone who wants to have a nostalgic laugh about 2015-WM34 WWE):


One of the things he brings up with regards to why turning Roman heel might not have been the fix that people thought it would be was due to the babyface situation at the time. Basically, if they turned him heel years ago then the issue would be a lack of babyfaces who could match his level of heat. Basically it would have created a situation similar to the Austin heel turn at WM 17, where your top guy leaves a big vacuum when they turn heel and if you do not have someone to fill that vacuum then you can end up with your storylines massively stalling. Thankfully they've managed to do a better job of building up some faces who can fill that gap now.

In terms of him being an excellent person?

Rumour has it he chinned Enzo Amore when he got out his pram. That’s reason enough.

There was also a promo shoot for his feud with Bray Wyatt, which showed him having a tea party with his daughter.

Many of my lady friends fancied him anyway (and who can blame them?). I shared that, and it was as if a million ovaries cried out in adulation.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Thankfully they've managed to do a better job of building up some faces who can fill that gap now.

Erm - [CITATION REQUIRED]?

As a general rule, WWE are terrible at building babyfaces, particularly in the men's division. On SmackDown I can only really think of three groups or singles acts - Heavy Machinery, The New Day (2/3 of whom are injured at the minute) and Jeff Hardy, though it looks liek they may be turning Bray and The Fiend face, which baffles me.

RAW is in a slightly better position, with Drew, Keith Lee, KO (I think?) and both Mysterio generations, but then you're deep into the mid-card before you run into the likes of Apollo Crews (despite his US title run). NXT is in such a bad position that there wasn't even a face in the recent 4-way match for the NXT title!

Vince does a great job of turning faces heel, and giving heels some degree of motivation (usually *cough*Aleister Black*cough*). He is awful at building faces, especially those that don't get crammed into the Cena/Reigns mold.

I'd also love to know which tag team touched him in a bad place back in the day, given how much he seems to enjoy breaking tag teams up and under-utilising the tag divisions.

I feel that NXT is more fluid in terms of face and heel dynamics.

I put it down to HHH literally running the show. He was both during WWE’s heyday, and has clearly picked up on the gubbins that drive such things.

Been a while since anyone had anything to say in this thread, but this seems like a nice way to bring it back.

Shayna Baszler was on Up Up Down Down today and talked about Warhammer a bunch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhIWr3FZ0Nw&feature=youtu.be

 Dysartes wrote:

 Sigur wrote:
Didn't she use the Mandible Claw on Smackdown? So it might be the way things are going. Which I'm all okay with. Alexa Bliss has been great with any role she's been given so far (being ten times better a heel than a face of course). She could pull it off.

Not sure about the Claw - though the Fiend did use that on her - but she did hit Nikki Cross with Sister Abigail on the last SD, before wandering away from the 4-way match in a trance...

 Sigur wrote:
As for women's wrestling in WWE on the whole - I absolute agree with what's been said above. It's consistent (mainly), entertaining, and mostly not very embarassing to watch. I love how they actually took time with the Bayley/Sasha storyline and they finally get the story they deserve. Asuka has been consistently great for the past months, carrying large chunks of the raw women's roster. The whole Becky Lynch thing has been really good as well before. Splitting up the IIconics was rather sad to see, but oh well.

There's been some good work at the top end of the card, but they could really do with getting some mid-card feuds working better. It often feels like you have the [BRAND] Championship, and no-one else is really doing anything. And thanks to Vince being Vince, there's still a number of cringeworthy storylines around the women - I give you the "Let's cuck Rusev!" story, for the most recent big example.

 Sigur wrote:
Now as for AEW: Well. The ex-WWE people of course stick out and probably are a bit of a requirement in the beginning. And truth be told - I love watching Jon Moxley. Liked him in WWE, loved him in NJPW and AEW. Great promo, good wrestler, great champion. They do build their own people too though. MJF is great at everything. Sammy Guevara is a tip top level twerp. Britt Baker got a TON better, even though I'm still not a big fan. It'll take 10 horses to make me a fan of Darby Allin, but people seem to like him. And so on.

Given how many people WWE have had on their roster over the years, it's a bit tricky to not hire ex-WWE guys. Hell, Kenny Omega wrestled for them (briefly) at one point.

Mox is definitely doing better now he doesn't have to be wacky. Jericho has been gold for them, he really has. Dustin Rhodes is still a Natural.

The not-WWE wrestlers they're developing are going to take time, so it isn't surprising the first year has leaned on ex-WWE peeps so much - if you've not been used to TV-style wrestling, that's something you need to train for and get used to, which is why Dark is so handy. I'd add Orange Cassidy, Best Friends and Jurassic Express as wrestlers or teams from outside WWE that seem to have flourished within the first year of AEW.

 Sigur wrote:
Yeah, the women's division is a bit of a problem (especially in comparison to the great work WWE's been doing for the most part on the women's division), but Hikaru Shida is a really good champion, they got Diamante now, I think there's huge potential in Abaddon. Can't wait to see Yuka Sakasaki back once travelling gets easier, I really like Shanna, and if they get Thunder Rosa to work for them some more that would be great.

They definitely messed up the booking to start with, and then just when they were getting back on track both Britt Baker and Kris Statlander got injured - and given COVID disruption meant certain Japanese talent couldn't come back, it left the division a bit stretched. Shida is proving to be a good champion, though, and they keep signing or trialing interesting talent. Hopefully when the second show comes online, we'll be able to see more women's matches across the three programs (Dynamite, Dark & TBC), and they'll be able to get more proper feuds running. The men's side of the fence is in a good place - if they rein in some of the sillier/dangerous spots - so I'd like them to focus on the women's division in AEW Year 2.

 Sigur wrote:
"Bullet Club and Friends" - well, for once the Bullet Club's been the hottest thing in wrestling for the past years and most people have been in the US branch anyway (recently I heard SCU were in the Bullet Club at one point. I hadn't even known that.). And The Elite took the ball and ran away with it and painted it golden and called it AEW. So of course the Young Bucks, Omega, Page and Cody are at the core of anything at AEW. In fact they used Omega (in his role of "best singles wrestler in the world, etc.") pretty sparingly over the first year. But now things seem to pick up steam. Heel Bucks, Tweener Cleaner Omega, Distraught Face Hangman Page - this will be good.

Aye, the Big Five (Cody, Bucks, Omega, Page) have been pretty well-utilised over this first year, without doing too much to hog the spotlight. Yes, Cody as TNT Champion and Page/Omega as Tag champions has been a thing, but they've hardly been squashing opponents each time. I can't think of anyone who faced Cody for the TNT title that didn't come out of it looking good in defeat, for example, and he was able to bring eyes to talent you might not have thought of - and it is entirely possible that without wrestling him, neither Ricky Starks nor Eddie Kingston would now be signed to AEW.

 Sigur wrote:
Either way, the pandemic (and to a lesser degree AEW) forced WWE to be a bit bolder and more inventive, and that certainly can't be bad. NXT seems to be a bit less nice now that it's mainly used to counter-program AEW and running on tv now and all, but oh well. Still good (btw, Balor and Adam Cole both also have been in the Bullet Club as well of course.). All's well, lots of wrestling. Lots of good wrestling.

NXT has definitely suffered for being on TV, though I would imagine there are now more eyes on that product than there was when it was just on the Network. The sheer number of title matches - and title changes - outside of TakeOver events tells a story all of its own, especially if you compare to the previous year. I hope that their broadcast partner does push for an end to the Wednesday Night Wars, though, as NXT has (unsurprisingly) been doing better numbers on the nights when it isn't trying to counter AEW - I want to say by up to 200k, but I don't have the figures in front of me, so I'm going with a hazy memory

.) Fiendish Alexa Bliss: Right you are about the Claw vs. Sister Abigail. That's what I get for not actually watching RAW but watching youtubers talk about it. She is doing a good job though, isn't she. But then she's doing a good job at everything.

.) WWE Women's Mid-Card: True that. What happened to Mandy Rose? Did they fire the writer who was in charge of the Otis/Rose Story? Now she's back to being "one of the WWE blondes" again and basically indistinguishable from the others. Also: Splitting up the IIconics. The ONLY proper tag team they had. And say what you want about Nia Jax (whom I don't find horrible) - her and Baszler are an okay tag team. At least Baszler gets to do something, which is always good. Because she's cool to the bones.But yeah, otherwise - no tag teams at all, right? Sure, there's the Riot Squad. Hahahahahahaha. Ruby Riott and the one that said she'd change and then showed up as "one of the WWE blondes". Fire&Desire were okay as well (due to Sonya Deville), but those are gone too.

.) Ex-WWE guys: Absolutely agree with you there. WWE's been buying talent left and right for years, impossible (and also it would be silly) not to pick any of them up. And in time WWE will pick up ex-AEW guys too in a few years. Things will get rather fluent I think.

.) AEW women's roster: Yeah, they just had a smaller roster to begin with, lots of international talent, so COVID hit hard. I'd love to see Shanna again. I think she's good. Possibly just because she's from a not-traditionally-well-known-wrestling-country-in-Europe. Shida is still a good champ. Tomorrow she's up against Nyla Rose again. It'll be OK, Shida will keep on being a good champ. And Kris Statlander's good to return soon! She's big and cool. I'm still not a huge fan of Britt Baker. I know she's kinda chosen to be the top heel of the women's roster, but...eeeehh..... I think I'd prefer to see a bad-ass kind of character in that role? (somebody who isn't Nyla Rose, mind you) I don't know.

.) Cody's TNT open challenge: Absoplutely agree again. Everything they use Cody for is so well thought out, isn't it.

.) NXT: Still haven't watched it again I have to admit. I don't even watch the Takeovers any more as they're more all over the place rather than before the big four, which kinda sucks.



@bbb: I do like me some UpUpDownDown, and I do like Shayna Baszler. The Warhammer thing I can take or leave. Just kidding, just kidding. I bought a bloody space marine puppet the other week.


Roight, AEW Full Gear tomorrow!

Here's my predictions:
AEW World Championship: Jon Moxley (c) vs. Eddie Kingston in an I Quit Match. I say Jon Moxley retains. Despite CERTAIN youtubers having put a flea in my ear about Kingston winning. Which would be amazing, but I just don't see it. Also - I need a face champion for my awesomely creative booking plans for AEW to go on.

AEW Women's World Championship: Hikaru Shida (c) vs. Nyla Rose. Shida retains. She's a perfectly OK champion, which Nyla Rose is not. Rose has Vickie Guerrero, that's good enough. Shida can go on doing better things with Thunder Rosa, Britt Baker (who then can go on feuding with Kris Statlander).

AEW TNT Championship: Cody (c) vs. Darby Allin. I don't care for Darby Allin. I don't get the appeal. I listened to the Talk is Jericho podcast episode which usually helps me getting behind a wrestler. Did not work for me. Of course he does great, athletic stuff and all. ANYWAY. I think that Darby Allin wins this, despite me being old and 'not getting it'. I think to AEW he's one of the top talents they wanna build up, and this will be the stepping stone.

AEW World Tag Team Championship: FTR(c) vs. The Young Bucks (if the Bucks lose they'll never go for the tag titles again). Interesting stipulation, isn't it. That's why I can't see the Young Bucks losing. They can't have that on Cody AND the Bucks. They'll win by evil means. I'm not sure i'm 100% behind the Young Bucks heel turn, because even in being heels they're always funny and cool and smart and all.

Number One Contender Match for AEW World Championship: Kenny Omega vs. Hangman Adam Page. Ooooooh, what a lovely story. Everybody loves Hangman Page, right? Yes, I thought so. Kenny Omega will win (and for that alone i need Moxley to retain, so he can face ...a face). He must win. He's Kenny bloody Omega and eversince AEW started he's been in a slump. The Tag Team stuff was good, but what we need is a Kenny Omega singles run. And he needs to dress more properly too. No more t-shirts and horrible shorts and all of that stuff.

Elite Deletion: Matt Hardy vs. Sammy Guevara. This will be interesting, won't it. Hard to say who will win this one. Not sureit matters that much either. It will end this weird feud, it will further Sammy Guevara's storyline and probably character, so it might even end in a double count out or KO or something like that. If one match is pre-taped then it's this. Probably will be, simply due to the scary last match.

Singles Match: Chris Jericho vs. MJF. MJF wins, leading to upheaval among the Inner circle and possibly a split of the faction.

Singles Match: Orange Cassidy vs. John Silver. Erm. Yeah. Meh. Cassidy wins. It'll be a palett cleanser, won't it. I see what John Silver does for the company, but I'm not a big fan of the character. Well, maybe they'll do something with the Dark Order. That would be nice. I think there's a lot of potential there (TONS with Evil Uno and Cabana. Silver and his pals are just for comedy bits on BTE).


Pre-Show:
NWA World Women's Championship: Serena Deeb (c) vs. Allysin Kay. Why is this not on the main card, but Cassidy/Silver is? Oh well. Serena Deeb retains. No title change on the pre-show.



This will be good, won't it. Very much looking forward to it. The last PPV wasn't that well received (personally I liked it, but The Internet tends to get screamy about ONE thing... okay, thinking about it there were some thigs I didn't enjoy that much about the show [lke Darby Allin], but oh well), so they'll put in extra work and make this really good.

Here's another thought before I go to bed: About the pandemic one of the things that annoys me the most (apart from a deadly pandemic sweeping the globe of course) is no crowds at wrestling shows. And not being able to attend wrestling shows. Not that I visited many before. Not that there are that many 'round here. But still. Things will get better. Starting tomorrow, with AEW Full Gear! Wahey!

Well, that was a great PPV. Loved it.

I haven't caught Full Gear yet but your predictions seem pretty solid. Really looking forward to the Moxley Kingston fight.

Personally I hope this is the last we see of Heel Bucks. Their recent promos have been excruciatingly bad and I think AEW need a top face team right now.
Think about it who are we supposed to cheer for atm? Best Friends? The Jungle Goofs? Dustin and the other guy? They are really scraping the barrel.

On the heel side there are some great teams for Young Bucks to feud with as faces.

 Kroem wrote:
I haven't caught Full Gear yet but your predictions seem pretty solid. Really looking forward to the Moxley Kingston fight.

Personally I hope this is the last we see of Heel Bucks. Their recent promos have been excruciatingly bad and I think AEW need a top face team right now.
Think about it who are we supposed to cheer for atm? Best Friends? The Jungle Goofs? Dustin and the other guy? They are really scraping the barrel.

On the heel side there are some great teams for Young Bucks to feud with as faces.

Yeah, that's a good point. In the promo package aired on Full Gear they summarized the story a little, and it makes a bit more sense, but still a bit odd on the Bucks' side. Maybe they just wanted 'classic Young Bucks' for this match, and this means cocky Heel bucks. Maybe with basically all of the Elite turning heel they'll try to push younger guys as faces. Private Party, Jungle Express (these guys are funny. Very much dislike how Marco Stunt is used. That's a heel thing, bringing a third guy who intervenes in matches, right? I'm also not willing to be behind the guy just because he's small. I'm so-so on Jungleboy. He does impressive things, sure. But oh well. Big fan of Luchasaurus, as everybody is. Wish they just wouldn't make dinosaur jokes. He's a big dude in a cool mask who does athlethic things. Should be enough.), and.... err... I'm sure they'll come up with something. Don't get me started on the Nightmare Family. Well, that's harsh. Dustin Rhodes is amazing for his age. Not a fan of QT Marshal, not a fan of the Ally storyline (which seems to have beeing 80% on Dark anyway). To me QT Marshal is along the lines of any librarian, Brandon Cutler, etc. .... the bits of AEW I'll probably skip.

Your point of 'who are we to cheer?' is a very good one though. I'm not sure how soon the Bucks are turned face again (I'm suspecting them to be more like tweeners for a long time now, at the very least until there's a resolution to the Hangman Page story, which is amazing). At least we got the Best Friends. There's WAY worse face tag team options out there. Oh, and we got SCU! Those guys are great. Every single one of them. I guess Christopher Daniels is doing less and less in the ring now, but Scorpio Sky and Frankie Kazarian are tip top. Always love seeing them.


Aanyway, I hope you'll enjoy Full Gear. Certainly my favourite PPV of the year from beginning to end. Unless Survivor Series turns out amazing. Which I doubt. I'm not a fan of the artificial 'brand warfare', which means nothing. I do like a SuSe elimination match though. Oh well, let's see.

Has anyone been able to get in to the Thunderdome? I've tried for weeks, but every time I try to log in I get told that it is full. I'm hoping tonight works since my call time is 7:45, which is the earliest I've gotten yet. My kids were extremely disappointed when we couldn't get in the first time. Since then I've kept trying, but not telling them so as to keep their disappointment down.

I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic to try, bbb.

@bbb: Hope you get in there eventually!

@Dysartes: I think they accept everybody. Inhumane time of the day aside of course.


Well, Dynamite was interesting this week. Starting on a ghastly low, on to a weirdly extreme match, on to really good stuff in the end.

Yeah, Siggy, the time was my issue with it.

Chelsea Green was unlucky in her SmackDown in-ring debut (I think) last night.

And Zelina Vega getting released seemed to come out of the blue. I reckon Mr. Black won't be too impressed by that.

 Dysartes wrote:
Yeah, Siggy, the time was my issue with it.

Chelsea Green was unlucky in her SmackDown in-ring debut (I think) last night.

And Zelina Vega getting released seemed to come out of the blue. I reckon Mr. Black won't be too impressed by that.

Mmm, came just after she posted something on twitter about unionisation apparently. Though apparently she said to her fans on a twitch stream or something that she asked for her release (allegedly, haven't seen the stream myself and others are saying she didn't say that so who knows?).

Saw a post on r/SquaredCircle about Black asking to be sent back to NXT. Can't blame him, to be honest. He has been massively underutilised on the "main roster". Plus, in NXT with Finn Balor? That right there is a dream match. Would also make for a killer tag team.

Oooh...a Balor/Black Tag Team would be awesome!