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https://www.wrestlinginc.com/1572463/every-2024-wwe-draft-pick-monday-night-raw/

The supplemental draft picks that occurred overnight after RAW went off the air:

#25: Odyssey Jones – "Raw" (again)

#26: Dijak – "Raw"

#27: Apollo Crews – "SmackDown"

#28: Kayden Carter and Katana Chance – "Raw"

#29: Natalya – "Raw"

#30: The Creed Brothers (Brutus and Julius) and Ivy Nile – "Raw"

#31: Giovanni Vinci – "SmackDown"

#32: New Catch Republic (Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate) – "Raw"

#33: Tegan Nox – "SmackDown"

Spot the people the writers don't have huge plans for - unfortunately, in a few cases there.

 Dysartes wrote:
Spot the people the writers don't have huge plans for - unfortunately, in a few cases there.

You mean like Dijak?

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/1573410/newly-drafted-wwe-raw-superstar-not-re-signed-company/

Well, in general - the message I get as a viewer is I should be interested in the people who get drafted on the show, and that the people in the supplemental draft aren't as important.

Mind you, it helps when the draft actually shakes things up...

Heyho, I've just come from the house show in Vienna. So much better than 5 years ago. Unbelievable. The absolute crème de la crème was there. Becky, Cody, Damage Control, Orton, Jade Cargill, Tama Tonga, Sami Zayn, Gunther and so on. Initially I was a bit worried they'd bring loads of recently called-up NXT people I'm not familiar with yet, but nope. All A-league main roster people. Really impressive



Short notes from memory (nothing necessarily new here):

.) Cody is great and exactly where he belongs
.) Jade Cargill is smaller than I thought. I had imagined her to be about 2.30m tall.
.) J.D. McDonagh bumps like a madman. You really can't accuse him of lacking commitment.
.) Ludwig Kaiser is very, very good at the sports entertaining. Weirdly, Sami Zayn seemed a bit to run on auto-pilot. Btw, here's how to get heat in Austria: Be German. Works every time, without fail. They had a winner of a prize draw out, being interviewed by Byron Saxton (who once more did a great job). She said she was from Germany, and the hall erupted in boos as if she'd just cut a vicious promo. That was a bit much. Also, the Austrian flag stuff. But it's okay.Wrestlers wrapped themselves in the Austrian flag were US-born, and they have quite a different relationship to their national flag (entirely positive) than we got here (ambivalent).
.) I like Nia Jax. She's good at what she does.
.) The most over people in 2024: Randy Orton (who is a funny, funny man) and R-Truth (also a funny man!). What a world we live in.
.) I'm worried about L.A. Knight. I'm getting the impression that apart from "yea" there isn't all that much to him, which is a shame. Because he's really good at the wrestlings AND the talkings.
.) I don't love the "yeet".
.) Asuka is fabulously good in the ring and also at standing next to the ring, watching her tag partners. She's always doing something. You see that on TV too, but last night it stood out to me as well. Very observant, quick-thinking lady.
.) I never was a big Dakota Kai fan, to me she was "the lady who got her arm broken by Nia Jax and is a bit like a fragile Bayley with less charisma" for years, but she's also very good at all the audience interaction stuff..
.) Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair seem like very nice people. In general the 3-women tag team (DMG CRTL vs. Cargill, Belair and Naomi) reminded me reminded me of similar matches in TJPW. Wrestlers hopping along with other people's entrance music, generally just a vibe of the people in the ring having fun.
.) Chad Gable is a legend. He had a match against the Hometown Hero Gunther. Interesting constellation, because with this pairing it's not very easy to sell Gunther as a babyface and especially Chad
Gable as a heel. But ok. They did it. It worked anyway. And the current presentation is definitely better than "Shorty G", who was heavily pushed last time WWE came to Vienna. Dark times.

Anyway, a great night was had. This time I paid about twice as much for the seats, but it was worth it. Because the 'cheap' seats at Stadthalle Vienna are like EUR 75,00 anyway, so getting seats along the entrance ramp thing for just under EUR 140,00 isn't bad at all. Also: lovely companions and drinks.... it all worked out nicely.

Triple H Touts WWE SmackDown Crowd In Lyon Being So Loud They Got Noise Warning Alerts - Wrestling INC

Watching SmackDown and the crowd reminds me of some of the louder post-WrestleMania crowds

 Sigur wrote:
Heyho, I've just come from the house show in Vienna. So much better than 5 years ago. Unbelievable. The absolute crème de la crème was there. Becky, Cody, Damage Control, Orton, Jade Cargill, Tama Tonga, Sami Zayn, Gunther and so on. Initially I was a bit worried they'd bring loads of recently called-up NXT people I'm not familiar with yet, but nope. All A-league main roster people. Really impressive



Short notes from memory (nothing necessarily new here):

.) Cody is great and exactly where he belongs
.) Jade Cargill is smaller than I thought. I had imagined her to be about 2.30m tall.
.) J.D. McDonagh bumps like a madman. You really can't accuse him of lacking commitment.
.) Ludwig Kaiser is very, very good at the sports entertaining. Weirdly, Sami Zayn seemed a bit to run on auto-pilot. Btw, here's how to get heat in Austria: Be German. Works every time, without fail. They had a winner of a prize draw out, being interviewed by Byron Saxton (who once more did a great job). She said she was from Germany, and the hall erupted in boos as if she'd just cut a vicious promo. That was a bit much. Also, the Austrian flag stuff. But it's okay.Wrestlers wrapped themselves in the Austrian flag were US-born, and they have quite a different relationship to their national flag (entirely positive) than we got here (ambivalent).
.) I like Nia Jax. She's good at what she does.
.) The most over people in 2024: Randy Orton (who is a funny, funny man) and R-Truth (also a funny man!). What a world we live in.
.) I'm worried about L.A. Knight. I'm getting the impression that apart from "yea" there isn't all that much to him, which is a shame. Because he's really good at the wrestlings AND the talkings.
.) I don't love the "yeet".
.) Asuka is fabulously good in the ring and also at standing next to the ring, watching her tag partners. She's always doing something. You see that on TV too, but last night it stood out to me as well. Very observant, quick-thinking lady.
.) I never was a big Dakota Kai fan, to me she was "the lady who got her arm broken by Nia Jax and is a bit like a fragile Bayley with less charisma" for years, but she's also very good at all the audience interaction stuff..
.) Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair seem like very nice people. In general the 3-women tag team (DMG CRTL vs. Cargill, Belair and Naomi) reminded me reminded me of similar matches in TJPW. Wrestlers hopping along with other people's entrance music, generally just a vibe of the people in the ring having fun.
.) Chad Gable is a legend. He had a match against the Hometown Hero Gunther. Interesting constellation, because with this pairing it's not very easy to sell Gunther as a babyface and especially Chad
Gable as a heel. But ok. They did it. It worked anyway. And the current presentation is definitely better than "Shorty G", who was heavily pushed last time WWE came to Vienna. Dark times.

Anyway, a great night was had. This time I paid about twice as much for the seats, but it was worth it. Because the 'cheap' seats at Stadthalle Vienna are like EUR 75,00 anyway, so getting seats along the entrance ramp thing for just under EUR 140,00 isn't bad at all. Also: lovely companions and drinks.... it all worked out nicely.

Glad you had a great time. I really need to get to a non-televised WWE show sometime, I hear they're mainly about fan service and having a good time.

Yeah, it's really good fun. This is what I like so much about watching live wrestling every now and then. It is a different thing to the TV product. Funny thing is how the wrestlers still mostly seem to work towards the 'hard cam side'. We were sitting along the isle, but most wrestlers spent much more time at the opposing side, which would be the side of the isle which usually is where the camera would point much more than to the other side.

I'm a sad, old NEERRRD, so I threw up a Too Sweet-ski when Tama Tonga walked by, and I think that maybe his evil smirk was directed at that. Or maybe just part of his entrance.



edit: speaking of being a sad old NEEERRRRD, I'm just watching Backlash. During an ad break they showed clips and stills from the shows from the European tour now, and in one of the picture there's me! Well, my hand. But still - i'm on a WWE PPV.

Feels daft typing this, but AEW Stars Kip Sabin and Claudio Castagnoli are doing a demo game of the new Age of Sigmar 8pm CDT on 16 May on Warhammer’s Twitch channel.

Utterly surreal!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Feels daft typing this, but AEW Stars Kip Sabin and Claudio Castagnoli are doing a demo game of the new Age of Sigmar 8pm CDT on 16 May on Warhammer’s Twitch channel.

Utterly surreal!

Knew that Claudio was a Games Workshop fan back when he and Shayna Baszler visited Warhammer World but didn't know about Kip Sabian.


It's nice to see GW reaching out to celebrities like Claudio and Kip to show that miniature wargaming isn't just for nerds (plus it helps GW as well ).

was a bit baffled to see this when someone shared on discord, but i guess i'm intrigued enough to check it out

Ha, GW even advertise it on their AoS FB group.

I never got the concept of "I like X and I like Y, so I want my X and Y to mix, because it's ought to be good". Maybe it's just me clinging on to anything that gets me away from the world of these effin little puppets even just for a bit.

Just a bit of the ol’ Razzle Dazzle, innit.

With GW getting ever nearer to breaking into the mainstream and the potential to become a pop culture Juggernaut ala Star Wars and Star Trek (with an arguably deeper and more fun universe), these sort of “cool people play and love our games too!” are a cheap and effective way to get eyes on.

I mean, seeing Shayna Baszler wear inspired gear in the ring is one thing. But for her and Henry Cavill to visit Warhammer World is a degree or five above.

To think in my day the highlights were Bryan May and son in WD, and me selling Bob Mortimer some stuff for one of his kids 🤣🤣

 jreilly89 wrote:
Eh, haven't been a big fan of wrestling since the Attitude Era. That being said, I have great memories of Stone Cold, The Rock, Kane, Undertaker, and Mankind.

I'm from the cowboy styled randy savage era and none of the modern wrestlers can compare. I mean its all show and all but that man was just entertainment personified.

Also brett hart for some reason I always liked, perhaps because he was so out of place in his goofy pink lycra, the man looks like a crushed pineapple today though.

I never really saw Bret Hart in action, but I like the guy. He took things seriously (for good or for bad), he had a proper background in wrestling, he was a plausible babyface and even a plausible heel. Didn't watch much Brett Hart matches, as I said, but if I go back to that time (new generation era?), I'll usually end up watching a Brett Hart match. Like the one against Steve Austin with the double-turn (I've seen that in real life once, in a women's match. Local bubbly lady vs. French blonde woman who won over the crowd. Surreal experience, but very fun, since at shows like those it's usually very, very clear-cut who's good and who's bad and it stays like that), or the 60minutes ironman match vs. Shawn Michaels. Brett Hart is the man.

As for Randy Savage - when ever you feel down or unhappy I suggest watching Randy Savage promos from the period you mentioned. It WILL improve your mood. Watched even fewer Savage matches than I did Brett Hart (he sure was ahead of his time though, that Randall Keith Savage ), but I must have watched hours of his promos. Speaking of promos - Jack Perry got way better at talking now. And if you'd asked anybody 2 years ago if Jungle Boy could grow even some sort of beard you'd gotten laughed out of the building. Now he's got a big'un.



Anyway, I wonder when I will stop enjoying wrestling because it changes and will wistfully think back to the glory days of the mid-to-late 2010s.


Well, a big weekend lies ahead of us! King/Queen of the Ring on Saturday, Double or Nothing on Sunday. It will be _lovely_. Any predictions personal highlights you look forward to?

I'm looking forward to Logan Paul getting battered, but I'm sure it'll be more annoying and upsetting than anything else. As usual with that guy.
King of the Ring finals I assume will be Orton vs. Gunther and I'm hoping for Gunther to win it. I'd prefer for the finals to be Gunther vs. Tama Tonga, but okay. Orton is MASSIVELY popular. The people I watch WWE stuff with absolutely adore the guy, any audience anywhere in the world does as well, and even I came around on the guy in the past 2 years or so, but Tama Tonga is new and they should use him as much as possible. Either way, Gunther should win the thing to keep him 'relevant'. He should instantly smash the tacky crown on the RAW thereafter.

Queen of the Ring finals should be Lyra Valkyria vs. Nia Jax with Jax winning.

Lynch vs. Morgan - I strongly assume that Lynch retains, even though I'd very much prefer for Morgan to get another title run.

Zayn vs. Reed vs. Gable 3-way match - that'll be lovely. We will see Chad Gable do physically impossible things to Bronson Reed and Sami Zayn wins. Everybody will love it, because whereever you go in the world, people love a Sami Zayn victory. And right they are.

I'm really liking those HHH 5-match cards. Not looking forward to the ads in between, but okay. It'll be lovely.


And the nicest thing is how different AEW PPV cards are! So the next day we get Double or Nothing! 10 matches, and what matches we got to look forward to!

Moxley vs. Takeshita, IWGP eliminator match: Takeshita will win this one, I'm fairly certain. After a gruelling BATTLE.

Copeland vs. Black: Aw yes. This will be lovely and I hope it won't be too long. It's almost easy to forget, because he's got so few singles matches, but Malakai Black is such a cool wrestler. Even when I didn't like his persona much, when ever he was in the ring, I was fully convinced of the guy. And he looks scarier than ever before.

Toni Storm vs. Serena Deeb: IIRC Storm toned the wackiness of her matches down now, which is very welcome. She'll win.

Trent Beretta vs. Orange Cassidy: I want Beretta to win this. With him, they got a pretty cool 'dark horse' upper midcard heel going, they just have to keep on pushing him. And I think we all can do with a little Orange Cassidy pause for a while.

Chris Jericho vs. Hook vs. Shibata: That Chris Jericho, amirite? The Learning Tree /Jericho vortex(?) sounded SO stupid and everybody was SO tired of seeing him leeching on to promising up and comers (Hook, not Shibata ), but now he turned it into something pretty funny again. I have no idea how he does it. Anyway, I kinda expect Jericho to win this via Big Bill related shenannigans (btw, Big Bill, eh? He's good. Jericho was on commentary on this week's Dynamite. In between, they stuck a mic in Big Bill's face - i doubt this was planned - and he talked good and proper! ).

Bang Bang Gang vs. Death Triangle: Battle of the amazing entrances. Death Triangle to win. Rey Phoenix looks scary. Glad he isn't bigger.

Willow Nightingale vs. Mercedes Moné: Moné is a heel. And will win. And I kinda hope that Stokley Hathaway and Kris Statlander align with her in the future. Be a stable, but DON't be about money or contracts or crap like that. Nightingale gets proper messed up and takes some time off (no worries, she'll get plenty of title runs in the future, she's great.).

Anarchy in the Arena Match, The Elite vs. Team AEW: That'll be fun and insane and The Elite wins. Maybe with the help of a returning heel Hangman?

Swerve Strickland vs. Christian Cage: I think that this will be better than we expect it to be now. Compared to the other matches on the card and on paper this looks very predictable and not like an insanely great match. But especially those tend to turn out really memorable in AEW PPVs.

Roddy Strong vs. Will Ospreay: Something for the afficinados for sure. This might end up being the strongest wrestling match of the night. And somehow I think that this isn't just a stop-gap thing for Ospraey. I'm having a hard time thinking that Strong wins against Ospreay, but I feel like this might start a program against the Undisputed Kingdom and a returning Adam Cole. Which would be cool, but now I'm starting to think that maybe this also triggers an MJF return, and I really don't want to see an Ospraey-MJF tag team run. Oh well. Let's keep it simple: Ospreay to win, followed by an AEW-typical beatdown by the heels. Somehting like that.



WWE's PPV will be very nice (despite the Saudi Arabia thing). AEW's PPV will be amazing, but possibly overfraught with stuff. In general I find myself being able to sit through these new-stylee WWE PPVs without a problem, but these huge (and always amazing) AEW PPVs I often have to pause throughout. Maybe it's because I watch these on my own and can't really make time to watch it all in one go though. Anyway, it'll be a lovely wrestling weekend.

not gonna be checking out this weekend's shows due to travel, but i recently watched Marigold's debut show and it was all-around fantastic. one of the best joshi shows ive seen. has me very enthusiastic about the future of the promotion. definitely recommend checking it out

I anticipate Cody vs Logan will be a good match, but end in a DQ when Brock Lesnar returns and causes a ruckas to set up Cody vs Brock for summerslam.

 bbb wrote:
I anticipate Cody vs Logan will be a good match, but end in a DQ when Brock Lesnar returns and causes a ruckas to set up Cody vs Brock for summerslam.

Remember that if Gunther wins the King of the Ring tournament, he gets a world title shot (presumably against the champion on the brand that he's on) at SummerSlam which would be against whoever holds the title after the Cody Rhodes v. Logan Paul match .

Gunther is on Raw, so if he wins his title shot would be against Damien Priest.

 bbb wrote:
I anticipate Cody vs Logan will be a good match, but end in a DQ when Brock Lesnar returns and causes a ruckas to set up Cody vs Brock for summerslam.

WWE isn't bringing brock back until the lawsuit goes away (and depending how that goes, possibly never)

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
not gonna be checking out this weekend's shows due to travel, but i recently watched Marigold's debut show and it was all-around fantastic. one of the best joshi shows ive seen. has me very enthusiastic about the future of the promotion. definitely recommend checking it out

I watched half of the Marigold show yesterday, and it looks really good. Tried my best to memorize names, but failed to do so (apart from the big ones of course). Going to stay tuned on that one. It's not often we get to see a new promotion of that calibre emerge. (and since we're talking about joshi stuff, I was gutted to learn that Hikari Noa left TJPW. Somehow all my favourites seem to leave the promotion, and I'm not quite happy with other things. So maybe Marigold is the thing to watch in the near future. Maybe it's just time to watch some 'serious' joshi wrestling.) Should be interesting to see how the roster develops.


@bbb: I heard the Lesnar name being thrown around, but I doubt it will happen. But then I've been surprised by Lesnar returns the past years too, so let's see.

I'm a-okay with a Gunther-Cody programme, but somehow I think that maybe The Rock will throw his weight around to have a Cody-Rock-match for Summer Slam? Btw, i heard rumblings about Summerslam becoming a 2 day event? Please say it ain't so.

2026 Summer Slam will be 2 nights. Speculation I've heard is that 2026 Wrestlemania could be outside the USA, so the 2 night SS would be to give a 2 day event to the USA as well.

 Sigur wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
not gonna be checking out this weekend's shows due to travel, but i recently watched Marigold's debut show and it was all-around fantastic. one of the best joshi shows ive seen. has me very enthusiastic about the future of the promotion. definitely recommend checking it out

I watched half of the Marigold show yesterday, and it looks really good. Tried my best to memorize names, but failed to do so (apart from the big ones of course). Going to stay tuned on that one. It's not often we get to see a new promotion of that calibre emerge. (and since we're talking about joshi stuff, I was gutted to learn that Hikari Noa left TJPW. Somehow all my favourites seem to leave the promotion, and I'm not quite happy with other things. So maybe Marigold is the thing to watch in the near future. Maybe it's just time to watch some 'serious' joshi wrestling.) Should be interesting to see how the roster develops.

i was really sad to hear Noa was leaving, too. thankfully, even with her getting more and more bookings in the US, it seems like Maki Itoh isn't going anywhere, and i can't imagine Hyper Misao ever leaving

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Sigur wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
not gonna be checking out this weekend's shows due to travel, but i recently watched Marigold's debut show and it was all-around fantastic. one of the best joshi shows ive seen. has me very enthusiastic about the future of the promotion. definitely recommend checking it out

I watched half of the Marigold show yesterday, and it looks really good. Tried my best to memorize names, but failed to do so (apart from the big ones of course). Going to stay tuned on that one. It's not often we get to see a new promotion of that calibre emerge. (and since we're talking about joshi stuff, I was gutted to learn that Hikari Noa left TJPW. Somehow all my favourites seem to leave the promotion, and I'm not quite happy with other things. So maybe Marigold is the thing to watch in the near future. Maybe it's just time to watch some 'serious' joshi wrestling.) Should be interesting to see how the roster develops.

i was really sad to hear Noa was leaving, too. thankfully, even with her getting more and more bookings in the US, it seems like Maki Itoh isn't going anywhere, and i can't imagine Hyper Misao ever leaving

Yeah. Hikari Noa is a loss, Nao Kakuta (best entrance theme in wrestling) is retiring, Sakazaki left for AEW and instantly be injured (is there something different to AEW rings than there is to Japanese ones? I vividly remember Miyu Yamashita almost slipping off the apron twice in one of her AEW matches.), ... okay, Saki Akai retiring didn't bother me that much, even though Neo Biishiki-Gun was a fun stable to see every now and then.

Itoh seems to work tremendously well in this weird TJPW/GCW zone. I'm not the greatest fan of hers, but she undoubtably has 'it' and is a huge boon to the promotion. And she's got a ton of overseas experience now, which clearly shows in how she carries herself in the ring and how she interacts with the audience. Each time she's in a match you can see that she's just a level above in terms of that stuff.

I fully agree about Hyper Misao. I imagine she's the Undertaker of TJPW. Home-grown talent, strong gimmick, locker room leader (even though of course it's more than silly to assume what the locker room is like and somehow I think I don't really wanna know anything behind-the-scenes there), and she seems to be into bringing in her own ideas.