Leaderboard

I thought Samantha Irvin was fucking great.

If anyone has me on ignore go fuck yourself

you’re in a lot of trouble, buddy

If you're a social media star and Logan Paul invites you to a WWE event, just say no.

That end was Dusty/Heyman Pro Wrestling 101 and it was fucking amazing.

I loved Rey and Andrade's chicken-fight dive to the floor. Gotta love seeing a move that you've never seen before. Did you notice that Michael Cole called Corey Graves the "heir apparent"? That tells me they must like Corey's work on Smackdown and are considering him to be the future top play-by-play announcer. Good for him! That would be the highest level a former wrestler has achieved as a play-by-play announcer since Gorilla Monsoon.

Batman '66 style. Pow! Biff!

Night 2 shit all over Night 1 that's for damn sure...... Cody finishes the story!! Match of the Night for me was Bayley finishing HER story against Iyo Sky. Hell of a match!

This is the kind of stunt that has the potential to backfire so bad it will go down in the annals of wrestle crap history. So I'm tuning in.

WWE has been firing shots at AEW all week. Given ample opportunity to say "We're going to have a great couple of shows on Saturday and Sunday, be sure to watch on WWE Network or the domestic cock", instead they've been acting like they're obsessed with the competition. AEW deciding to capitalise on that is the exact professional wrestling move they should be doing.

The commentary was mostly hog piss

I just found out that the HHH comments were over Ospreay signing to AEW instead and with that crucial piece of context, it is such hilariously passive-aggressive horseshit, even more than it already felt. Yelling "WELL WE DIDN'T WANT HIM ANYWAY HE WAS JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR OUR SCHEDULE" and then running away is what it sounds like, with Chris Tucker standing there telling Ice Cube "He gonna cry in the car."

Night 2 was awesome. It had all of the spectacle that night 1 somehow missed. That main event was almost everything I wanted. The only thing missing was Austin. I’d love to know the reason why he said no because I can’t imagine that the Rock’s biggest rival wasn’t asked to come and even the odds. However, people asking about the Taker connection, how short are your memories? Not only did Taker and his Mickey Mouse tattoos feud with the Rock constantly, but Taker and Roman have history. Roman killed Taker at WM and handed Taker his second loss and what many thought would be Taker’s last match. Everyone that got involved in the match or came out after it was over had history with Roman. This shit ain’t hard to figure out. Anyway, only thing that left a bad taste in my mouth was Bruce, but Punk’s face made me crack up at that. This felt so special and unique. You can’t do this every year. Hell, this should only ever be done once every 5 to 10 years or never until a situation warrants it. And this situation sure as fuck warranted it. I fucking love wrestling. When it’s good there’s nothing better (except my Cubs winning it all and anything with my kids) and when it’s bad, all you want is for it to be better. Pro wrestling motherfuckers.

Loved the weird sexy crawl across the announcers table by Drew

My connection (as a viewer) with Punk in AEW was entirely transactional. While he was in AEW, he could push back against the 25%-33% of the product that I don't have a lot of use for by 1) taking up TV time with matches that I do enjoy, 2) pushing the overall aesthetics/style more in that direction in general, and 3) championing wrestlers who work along those lines and be a counterbalance to other voices that champion other wrestlers. While yes, there were certain philosophical agreements that came from that, overall, that wasn't actually the point. It wasn't about being right in some sort of moral argument with wrestlers or other fans, it was about enjoying the product as much as possible. Now that he's gone, I've got very little use for him except for that maybe he'll push the WWE/NXT in directions that I'm happier with over time. Right now, I don't want to be happy with WWE because the company more or less makes me sick, so I'm totally fine with him going away except for if people keep asking him about Vince in interviews; that would be ok.

Atlanta raves sounds like a heck of a party scene

In other news, the announced matches over the next week are the most interesting ones in a while. Dynamite: Copeland vs PENTA Joe vs Dustin (Eliminator) Jericho/HOOK/Shibata vs Taylor/Moriarty/Ogogo Mariah May vs Anna Jay II Rampage: Julia Hart vs Leyla Hirsch BOTB Strong vs Rocky (Eliminator) That's all stuff that I am legitimately looking forward to or are just weird and wacky enough to be interesting.

The image of Sami showing the Takeshita/Ospreay match to HHH and co. and saying "See, look, it wouldn't kill him if I screwed it up!" is humorous.

It makes me happy that y'all aren't shamelessly fellating this steaming pile of prison ass like they are other corners of the internet. I love you all. Fuck this company, and fuck the people running it who covered up human trafficking.

Roman was Taker's last Mania loss.

How’s Cody’s emoting when he hits a missile dropkick these days?

I don’t think I’d ever heard Cody’s full song until tonight. Holy shit is it bad. I’m shocked at how over he is. He’s just such a dork, but hey, it’s working for him. That main was big and dumb, but it was well-done big and dumb.

That was the most sports entertainment match to ever sports entertain and I loved it. Seth is the ultimate company man because he looked like a GOOBER tonight. This weekend was Bizzaro WrestleMania 39. Night one had two fantastic matches and night two killed it. Nothing touched 95% of ACTION DEAN~ but good on them for trying.

Color me sports entertained - only quibble would be it should have been Austin instead of Undertaker.

Main event was awesome. Poor Seth had the worst weekend tho. Bayley and Sky were the show stealers of the weekend.

Definitely put people on ignore. Life's too short and it makes our job easier. It drives me nuts that the same people on this board have been bickering with each other for so long. In some cases it's been years. The same fight for years.

I'm not entirely sure why Philadelphia keeps catching backhands in this thread, but: the Wrestlemania crowd is from everywhere, and not made of 70,000 local denizens there's only a few of us on the board formerly/currently from there, and we already hate ourselves more than anyone else could

They never really figured out how to book Bianca outside of Mania. That they spent the last 3 years feeding her Sasha, Becky, and Asuka and now she’s in an undercard 6-man that was more about putting someone else over really says it all.

Well I didn’t have this on my bingo card.

I hope its real footage with The Bucks doing in-character commentary over it. Apparently there is no NDA at all related to the incident so nothing Punk can do about it, as long as they don't so severely edit it that they show the events too far out of context. I'm sure AEW's lawyers have that part covered. Petty TK is the best, and anyone saying he "shouldn't do this" after what Punk said last week is no fun at all.

So business as usual for AEW.

It pops a rating when they badly need one popped, helps them redebut Perry, and if they do it right (big if), puts needed heat on a very cold FTR vs Bucks IV. Maybe more importantly, we’re in between nights 1 and 2 of Mania, and I woke up to everyone talking about this instead.

I don't know which is worse - watching the Usos match or getting food poisoning. Both are pretty miserable experiences.

The worst thing Punk ever did was choke Jack Perry in London which inadvertently led to him being pushed as some sort of outlaw and the next likely member of the new Elite with fucking Okada of all people. I love ya Punk, but goddamnit. Throw chairs at a Young Buck all you want, let your friend cosplay as a zombie and eat Omega’s arm, but you do NOT put the wrestling world in a position where Jack Perry is a key player.

the board was angry that day... like an old man attempting to send back soup at a deli Honestly most of these people I had no Idea where still under contract Hope Slim J gets some west coast bookings

Dax Harwood: "Tony and I worked together on getting this song for Mark. It was so important for Tony to have this song on such a special night for Pugh family. Maybe I shouldn't share this, but Tony's exact words to me were... "This is the best $_____ I've ever spent." That's the kind of boss we work for."

I feel dirty saying this, but… I enjoyed tonight more than I have recent AEW shows.

I think everyone just scared away the people that wanted to be positive haha sometimes its hard to be the one going against the grain. I liked the show more than some here but the biggest issue to me was only... two matches felt like WrestleMania matches. Sami/GUNTER and the main event. Not to say the main event was good but it felt special since The Rock was in it. Becky/Rhea was fun, ladder match had some good spots. But the women's tag and lucha match just felt like Smackdown matches, nothing wrong with either but instantly forgettable. The Usos match was just bad, it came six months too late and no one cares anymore. I felt bad for Jey as he had to know it was a turd, whoever produced that match should be sat down and talked to by someone. Main event was 20 minutes too long, liked the end stretch but too plodding to get there. Sami/Gunter clearly the match of the night. Top to bottom it was *fine*, I don't regret watching it but I hope Night 2 is better. The potential is there, just has to deliver.

Best message board on the 'net.

I preface this by saying that WWE's presentation has never been less "for me" than it is currently. I don't give a fuck about moments. Having said that, I really thought this was fucking brutal. Other than Gunther/Sami, which ruled ass, there was not a single genuinely compelling moment on this show. Triple H might be better at diplomacy than his father in law, but the idea that "we will tell you how to feel" is as alive as ever in WWE. Becky/Rhea was okay. I don't have much feeling about either woman. Rhea is cool. Becky appears to be on her way out. Andrade/Rey vs. Santos/Dom was so counter-intuitive. It feels like Andrade was promised a prominent 'Mania spot as part of his WWE return. Wrong team went over. Carlito should've turned. Some cool moves, but again, no genuine emotion. Just being dictated to about what a big moment it was for Rey and Andrade. Santos Escobar deserves better. He's so fucking good and is stuck. Angel and Berto, too. Tag Team Ladder match was what it was. Theory and Waller are the embodiment of what's wrong w WWE today to me. Great look. Good athletes. Not one speck of realism. R-Truth getting a moment was cool. Maybe the only truly earned moment on the entire show. I tell a lie. Sami winning was cool, too, even thought this feels like a huge demotion from where he was last year. Great moment, though. Women's trio match was cookie cutter. Handful of badass entrances, though. Match did it's job, even if it was as vanilla is it gets. Main event was fucking dogshit. Just awful. Whoever laid this match out wanted it to feel epic so bad. Multiple staredowns to silence. An indecisive, dead crowd. Heavy handed, plodding, devoid of genuine emotion. It's not a good sign that Roman felt like a complete afterthought. I've always known Seth Rollins isn't a star, but holy hell did he disappear during this. This match could not have gone off worse than it did. That's not true. Everyone involved could've torn an ACL. Besides that, this was worst case scenario for Triple H. What's really galling is that there are Wweeboos in certain corner's of Beyonce's internet who will insist that Triple H was "cooking" and that this is "cinema." I'm gonna watch the 8 man tag from CMLL a couple weeks ago to cleanse my pallet from this generic, overproduced nonsense.

Yep, the workers need to organize.

Oh god fuck this guy. Some real boomer-ass “I work 18 hour days and never see my kids” grindcore bullshit. This is up there with Undertaker’s “today’s locker room is soft” comments. “I made every town, slept 5 to a room, held Shawn’s hair when he puked, drove cars for addicts because I was sober, jobbed like crazy, etc, and you don’t belong here if you can’t work that hard.” I swear wrestling will never get better until we’re at least a generation or two removed from these old school carny fucks.

This is amazing. This place, more than any other, has shit on Seth so fucking hard for so many years and now people are calling out Seth being made to look like a goof. Look, Seth is going to be fine. Y’all will go right back to hating the dude and that’s fine too.

This was my first WWE show since Night 2 last year. Money from Google Opinion Rewards accumulates and I never have anything to spend it on, so there you go Peacock you got me for a month! Hopefully there's some non-WWE stuff worth watching.... Stone IPAs mixed with ganja had me nice and lit by halfway in. It was a pretty fun show to watch drunk/stoned. I'm not sure how much I would have enjoyed most of it without the gimmicks but as a big event I thought it was pretty ok and it held my interest for the most part. Definitely nowhere near as good as night 1 last year I really enjoyed the main event. Thought Rock looked great, everyone delivered and it hit all the notes it needed to. I didn't watch any of the buildup and had pretty low expectations for Dwayne based on getting hurt in the Cena matches a decade ago. But he was moving well, didn't seem to have any limitations. They protected him but so what, they should do that. He's probably got a couple matches left in him, it just sucks that one of them will likely be in Saudi and I won't be watching it Sami/Gunther was MOTN, no surprise there. Sami's wife is great at ringside. Rhea Ripley is fucking awesome, total rockstar! Great entrance. I didn't think Becky was a great opponent for her but it's still a big win. I remember back in 2019 when I was still semi-watching WWE/NXT, and she looked on the cusp on megastardom when they had her interacting with the main roster. It's awesome to see her become such a huge star and great character after they seemed determined to fuck it up back in 2020 I forgot how annoying WWE commentary is. I guess McAfee had his moments but I just can't handle Cole anymore. He is the voice of shitty Vince McMahon WWE to me and he's still loaded with Vince-isms and WWE speak What the fuck was up with Lil Wayne? First of all calling him the greatest rapper alive is laughable. He was on point like 15+ years ago, I haven't heard shit from him in years. Then he comes out rapping about menstrual blood on his sheets and they immediately cut him off with Jey's theme.... Rest of the show was just kind of there but I didn't think anything was actively bad. I actually thought it was lacking in the big pomp and circumstance I expect from WWE in the entrance department. I did think Seth's robe was incredible. looking forward to night 2. Not gonna get quite as ripped

I guess it worked. If someone can eat McDonald's long enough, they can be convinced it's filet mignon. Roman Reigns is boring, pedantic, and generic as a wrestler. His moves elicits no reaction. His promos elicit barely a reaction. You would think a heel on his level at this point would lead to the audience clamoring to climb over the railings to beat his ass whenever he does anything. Nope. Whatever fans he has point their index finger in the air when he does while the rest of the crowd sits on their hands and stare at their phones or begin to get up for a bathroom break. The Bloodline came to Philadelphia, took a shit in the ring, and that was the Rock/Roman vs Cody/Rollins match last night. Reigns is going to beat Cody tonight, sod off for the rest of the year, and maybe come back around Summerslam or Survivor Series to possibly face another wrestler about as dull and lifeless as he is at this point, Gunther. And the crowd will go mild. I hope I'm wrong and Cody does beat Reigns but I've seen this story before. It doesn't end well.

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!

brb boutta go down an NWA Wildside rabbit hole on YouTube like it’s 2003 and I’m playing EWR at 2am on a school night

I agree with what you've said about her ability, but you don't hire Jade to have good matches. You hire her to be a star. The fact that Triple H couldn't get her in the ring on day 1 is a pretty blistering indictment of him, IMO. I think Tony's booking of her is one of his strongest examples of his prowess. She looks, talks, and acts like a star. Who gives a fuck if she can bump? She doesn't need to.