Greggulator

Just look at how Mercedes and Willow are standing with regards to each other during all of this. They are barely facing each other at times. Like side-by-side or Willow’s back is almost fully to Mercedes. This is just so sloppy looking. Or the staging of this is also ass. Jack goes and steps in the camera lens a few times. Britt Baker broke out because she had a knack for organically knowing where the camera is during her matches and doing things like winks or trash talk at it. This feels like Jack is trying to do that, but it’s so forced and bad during an in-ring segment. They really need to ask something like “Why is this character sticking his face into the camera and speaking with emphasis right this second?” I know it sounds very nit-picky of me. It is. But not thinking about this stuff really limits how good the product can be.. It’s a television show of a simulated live athletic contest and they forget that.

I love Willow but I thought her segment with Mercedes looked weak because of her. Willow was angled to try and look at the camera a lot, as opposed to looking at Sasha who was directly angled at her. In live theater, actors always “cheat” and tilt themselves like that so the live audience can hear better. It felt like they were trying to do that at times last night. You don’t need to do that when something is mic’d up. It just looked off. Like, the sneakiest and most conniving women’s wrestler ever who is coming for your title who you injured in a match is right there, you should be staring her down to try and not worried about anything else. Maybe the venue’s camera set up was weird or they were trying to do something a bit different since the WWE has been getting raves for their new direction. It just looked off at times — like with Jack deciding to turn and look directly in the camera for no real reason at times.

The final angle was at least interesting. Heels With Authority angles are definitely played. But The Young Bucks have been hitting it out of the park with their EVP act. Okada looks like a million bucks as their ringer. I’m willing to run with that since they’ve been so great. But man, there was just so much bad blocking and set-up in the final segment. First, why is Jack Perry asking Tony Khan to come out to reinstate him? It felt like TK should be the one out first as the authority figure determining the fate of Jack Perry in his hands. TK looked like such a total goof during the segment, just smiling wide and accepting this without hesitation. It just made me ask why some villainous heels haven’t attacked TK already since he was ripe for the picking. Or why any of the babyfaces would feel so loyal as to run to his side when he was just such an obvious patsy? But the main part was so much of the staging was amateur hour — Jack Perry deciding to talk to the in-ring camera for no real reason a few times beyond Jack probably thinking it’s a cool thing to do as opposed to responding authentically to your scene partner. That’s just amateur hour stuff. But I don’t hate it as much as I traditionally would hate a shoot-y style angle like this.

Becky winning is to build Liv up as the next challenger as Liv fully turns heel. They have been building up to Liv via the Revenge Tour already, and Liv was already moving into a tweener status by sneak attacking Rhea. They also just teased something brewing with Liv and Dom, which makes it possible for Liv to steal Rhea’s boytoy or to worm her way into the Judgment Day or what have you. Either way, Liv’s in the Chad Gable spot where we’re understanding her motivations and seeing the seeds planted. We’re a Becky Lynch making a cocksure remark to Liv away from the heel turn fully happening and Liv willing to do anything to show she is no longer second place. Heel champion Liv timing out with a returning Rhea writes itself. (Yes, I did listen to Busted Radio but it is a pretty easy path to see unfolding.) They could have gotten to the championship with Liv winning the battle royale. But Liv becoming an underhanded sneak to overcome Becky (the ace of the WWE’s women’s division) gives Liv a story and if/when they pull the trigger she now has more equity as a character to cast doubt about Rhea being able to get her own revenge. And if Dom ends up as Liv’s manservant or something along those lines? That is a really strong storyline. I think Liv does need the underhanded conniving role to really pull off being a champion. She really has an organic connection with the audience and clearly works hard. I think she’s pretty good at knowing how to tell a story. Her brawling recently looks really good. But her size and being a step down in athleticism from Becky or Rhea limits her as a face in having a quality PPV match. But if she’s a cunning heel? I can easily see her pulling that off.

Sorry for the piecemeal recap. But man, Bayley/Naomi were tearing the house down until Tiffy Time showed up to run the proceedings. Best Naomi has ever looked. They need to run that back and let them have 15-20 minutes. Bayley is the absolute best. Naomi has always had really great athleticism and flashy moves and reacts well when taking damage. She’s just not-so-good at connecting all of that together, so a lot of her matches look disjointed. Bayley thought is at the very elite level of knowing how to tell a story in the ring. It’s in a way a perfect pairing. Naomi has all the ingredients, and Bayley is the Master Chef.

Solo taking over The Bloodline absolutely ruled. I loved how he upgraded into the “gang kid going to senior prom” suit. Tonga looks like an absolute psychopath. I love all of his mannerisms. Him dragging a bloodied KO for more was absolutely nuts. All in on this. Damage CTRL and Bianca/Jade in dueling skyboxes was really good. Dakota Kai does not get enough love for being such an obnoxious piece of shit. The tag match for the first to get to A Town Down Under was very 1997 WCW Nitro lucha car crash, a style that I often times prefer.

Can you imagine having ot so good that the biggest issue in your life is a transgender child’s athletic career? One of the big winners of this whole fake outrage is Riley Gaines, who swam for Kentucky and against the trans woman from UPenn who was the first person these creeps decided was a huge problem to society. She is on the speaking circuit and does stuff with Turning Point USA. Nice to get paid for your outrage instead of having a real job.

The Chris Adams episode is DARK. An extensive interview with the dude who shot him (Boo Ray.) A ton of wild interviews with Lady Blossom (the former Mrs. Steve Austin) and Iceman King Parsons, too.

YES. You can also really see them writing not just on a week-to-week basis and even beyond just knowing what's happening next week, too. They've been really good at putting people in the right places for a few weeks out, and then they can get to the specifics of what they actually want to do when it comes down to it. (Gable, Liv and now Bronson Reed and the impending Finn/Priest showdown/etc.) The show is so organized right now. But it also feels completely loose, too. Even though it's probably more rehearsed than ever before and still pretty tightly scripted. Another great part about having the stories unfold where you see motivations -- it makes the things you need for actual surprises to actually pop, like Tonga's debut on Smackdown.

Gable was a great doofus heel in his early days of NXT when they were starting up American Alpha. He’s been a heel on the big roster, too, and good. The Academy were fun borderline delusional heels until they built Gable up for the awesome Gunther saga that led to the awesome Sami stuff. Also: You put Gable in the Twin Cities against Sami, you can get the inverse from last night in terms of reaction. What a great storyline. They did such an awesome job weaving all of this together — Gable wanting a shot at Gunther, Sami showing doubt in the stands touching on his Roman match (and subtly building up in the audience’s mind to last night by mentioning Montreal), the Gauntlet Match where Sami won (and a pro-Gable backlash) and then the past few weeks. As people pointed out elsewhere: Was there some disingenuousness with Gable wanting Sami to win because he thought Sami an easier target? But, best of all, Gable didn’t do a poor sportsmanship turn right after he lost. He snapped when he saw Sami hugging his wife, because he remembered the heartbreak of losing to Gunther as his family watched. He literally snatched the moment away from Sami by pulling him from his wife into a German Suplex right in front of her. So nasty. We all saw it coming, but understanding and seeing Gable get to this breaking point over the months is a great story. He gave into his jealousy, and we know why. That is why it is so effective and villainous. Another great moment of genius between Sami and Gable last night was how they got to the awesome visual at the ending. It is so organic. Gable rams Sami headfirst while they are both on the apron and Sami falls so naturally between the turnbuckles for Gable to to hit the ankle lock, which could have looked so convoluted in the hands of people who aren’t two of the most gifted storytellers in wrestling. Also: I think it’s really likely Rhea’s arm was messed up somewhere else and they pulled the trigger on the Liv attack last week to put the heat on Morgan, since she’s been heelish in the few weeks before WM (with a pretty great segment against Becky) knowing Rhea was having surgery. I rewatched the Liv attacking Rhea spot from last week and while it looks snug, there doesn’t look like anything so nasty it would mess up Rhea’s slinged arm. Plus, that was also their bit of tracking shot wizardry last week (Rhea and Dom do a Sorkin walk-and-talk to set up him versus Andrade before the attack) and then Dom reappears and tells the camera to get out of here, and it goes to an extended crowd shot. It’s so well blocked that they had to have rehearsed it a bunch of times and probably kept it pretty safe for Rhea. Man, I just can’t get over the type of stuff we are talking about now with the WWE’s production. It’s been a bunch of really fun small changes (the quick backstage interviews, a lot more pre-taped stuff like Sami in the crowd or the KCs partying) but now it’s so remarkably different. I think they are smart enough to just do one tracking segment a show (at most) because you want those for special moments and since they’re really hard to pull off live, you really need your most talented people to do those because you need to hit certain marks and timing. (Jey has to get to Sami pretty quickly and literally shoves a fan to make it happen, then Sami has to get to the right section to walk down to and they have to time all that with the music cue.) I am such a fanboy for production stuff. I was a TV Production major in college. I had absolutely no interest in doing that professionally but I always liked seeing how it was put together.

Yeah, I was bracing for Jey to get got, too! It was such an awesome touch for Jey to be the one to get us to Sami considering the importance they have both had to each others careers and to the Sami/Roman match in particular. It even had that little element of surprise that comes from these new staging techniques they are using and we don’t know how they’re going to be used yet. The last shot of the camera looking up at Chad Gable doing the ankle lock on the top rope was just some really good Film Making 101 and the usage of a subjective camera angle to make Gable look even stronger.

Everything from when Jey handed the baton off to the credits running with Chad wrecking Sami’s ankle in front of his wife was as perfect as professional wrestling gets. The aforementioned entrance to a banger of a match to Gable snapping. You really don’t get moments like that too often.

The Sami entrance from him at the front of the building until the commercial break was one of the best 90 seconds in Raw history. Such a beautiful shot that really captured why we are wrestling fans — the utter joy that comes from watching someone like Sami. There’s at least one kid who saw that tonight and is now a lifelong rasslin’ fan. Hot damn that was just something else.

There are all kinds of ways this can work. Vince’s shares (and any other shares given to executives who work for a company) are given a special kind of status. How it works — a company has what is called its treasury. The company holds there what Re called “authorized shares.” When a company wants to raise money, it will then sell what are called “issues shares” out on the market. It’s usually done through an underwriter (think some giant investment bank) because of the technical steps that have to happen for it to work, and then to the general public. This is when a company receives money to operate in exchange for selling off ownership stakes in the company. Once they are able for someone like us to buy and sell on RobinHood, they become what are called “outstanding shares.” (And they do not result in the company recieving any money.) When a company decides To grant stock to its employees (like Vince in this case), they almost always come from the treasury directly. They will also have a lot of technical restrictions on them (how long you have to hold onto them before you can sell them, etc.) and are usually given a certain specific designation. This designation essentially means that if whoever holds them wants to sell these shares, the company has to be notified first in case it wants to buy them back. Companies buying back stocks from investors happens regularly. If you buy shares back, you are limiting the supply and raising the price of each share — not a bad thing to do if you think your company is being undervalued, and then in a few years when investors now “properly” see what your company should be valued at you can reissue the stock. But, also, it might help the company’ board of directors consolidate ownership. Also — Vince owns an insane amount of shares. He can’t just say “I want to sell this $45 million worth of shares” and use a brokerage like RobinHood or TD Amweittade to do so. They aren’t equipped to handle something like that.

One of the best promos you’ll ever see. You really can see how the staging and blocking of this promo is seeping into production for the past bunch of months. https://youtu.be/40SBZ2f1mAc?si=gDdU_cTmzAoLlv29

Yeah, this isn’t the end of AEW at all. It’s just really indicative of the problems they have as a company and it’s a self-inflicted wound that could not have come at the worst time. It’s such a stupid idea. WCW was awful before 2000 and before Vince Russo took over. In my memory, WCW from the nWo onwards had a decent amount of good matches, occasionally something fun from someone like Jericho, a lot of stuff involving people like High Voltage and Sonny Ohno, and about 75 percent really annoying and repetitive stuff with the nWo, especially the Wolfpack vs. Black and White split. How many Scott Steiner insinuates he enjoys sexual assault while Buff Bagwell prances around with a top hat with his face on it promos can one promotion have? WCW in that era was good and interesting for like 6 months before it became annoying. (And I say that as someone who loves older WCW.) AEW is better written with a more organized show and product. It’s not even close to the dregs of WCW.

The West Virginia point is so spot on. One of the biggest single throughlines in wrestling history is blue collar people just trying to do right for their families against priidged rich assholes who stack the odds to their advantage even more than they already have. Even still to this day when we all know it’s performance art. That resonates with who we are as wrestling fans — and especially in West Virginia, where the class divide issues are just in the background of your lives at all times. Man, just have FTR touch on what you said before until the Bucks do something heinous in throwing their weight around. Or have the Bucks come out and act sanctimonious about having to come to this worthless hillbilly state when they should be having caviar with executives like them and you’re all going to die poor until FTR come and punch them in the face a bunch of times. Just give me wrestling please.

I think that maybe the biggest motivator is that the WWE is the hottest it has arguably ever been and coming off a really great WrestleMania. The buzz bin factor of AEW has fallen off, a lot compared to when Punk and Danielson and etc. came aboard and a little bit from other really good stretches they had. TK wanted to get people talking about AEW again. So they threw this out there to get people talking, but everyone is just dunking on this because it’s so dumb. That’s not the conversation you want, and you absolutely don’t want the CM Punk chants coming for the next few months (and I don’t want those anywhere in my life.) The shame of it is that AEW was building up some its reputation again. I told a few people who stopped paying attention to AEW that it’s gotten fun again. None of them stopped watching because Punk left. They stopped watching because there’s only so much wrestling they want to watch and the WWE has taken their attention. But things like Mercedes Mone showing up or me describing Swerve Strickland or that Joe rules or Toni Storm’s awesome character and etc. just gets swallowed up by this stuff. And it’s all being done to set up the fourth friggin’ feud between The Bucks and FTR. I love FTR and am so into the EVP Bucks, but literally anyone with a passing interest in AEW has seen that already, and putting up a stupid fight that’s loosely, at best, connected to the parties involved. Or it’s going to reintroduce Jungle Boy, and he maxed out with the Jurassic Express and Christian feud, and a work-shoot Jungle Boy (and his history of awkward promos) is probably DOA. Like… give us things like Orange Cassidy Becomes The Best Wrestler Alive or The Acclaimed have really funny raps or Swerve’s rise or Will Osperay brings down the house with his awesome Bruv persona and insane moves you’ve never seen before or MJF doing fun stuff. It’s just really disappointing to me. I really like so much of what AEW does. When it works, it is so much fun. But this sideshow stuff just swallows everything with it up and it’s so dumb.

I admittedly have not seen (or plan to) see the whole dumb Punk stuff. But The Bucks claiming they lost to FTR at All In because they were busy hobnobbing with King Charles or buying up post-Brexit peasant housing and ran late to the arena is so much better than what they did. Then the FTR “We’re country boys just like you, and these corporate California snobs…” like you suggested is just so much better in every way.

This is all exhausting and stupid and a waste of time. Do you know what would make me want to watch another big FTR/Bucks match? They have a natural rivalry and now there’s a new dynamic with the awesome new Bucks EVP personas that can use to pull rank against the old-school FTR dudes who will fight fire with fire. Not something with friggin’ CM Punk. Work-shoot stuff is the same to me as referencing a local sports team for cheap heel heat. There’s no art or craft to any of this at all in terms of storytelling. TK just needs to stop with thinking this is good. Just do what you do well (have good matches with a lot of variety) with fun characters. Whether angles work or not is always going be to hit and miss with any wrestling company. But this isn’t doing anything for anyone. It overshadows absolutely everything else on the show that was probably worth checking out. It reeks of desperation. And it is all so easy to just avoid.

I have never hear of Chris Colt. Dude is completely off the chain. Calling himself “The Chris Colt Experience” and coming out to an Alice Cooper song in like 1975 is so far ahead of the game. The part where he’s nearly intentionally run over is about the 18th craziest thing in this thing. Man, I love Chris Colt now.

Best role you can have for long-term work, too.

Also: Sami and Gable is going to be awesome next week. The Montreal crowd and those two who already have great chemistry? Give that a few final hour segments and end it with Sami winning and a sore loser Gable trying to snap Sami’s ankle right in front of his crying wife and you could end up with a riot.

They kind of remind me of The New Day in that matter — from the DOA gospel gimmick to one the all-time best stables who could do everything asked of them and always make it work. Judgment Day have a long ways before they make that happen and are a different kind of group. But they really click and make it work. It’s really clear that they all do enjoy each other’s company in real life, too. Their coming out after Damian’s cash-in and celebrating really felt organic. They also do have the benefit of having Rhea Ripley. Like… she is just an absolute star. Could easily see her headlining a PPV or two this next year if she gets a really hot feud with someone. Not sure Liv is it (although Liv is really solid) but Bianca or Jade? That would do it. I also think we could easily see Rhea not in the WWE in a few years to start playing a hench woman in some action movie. But she also is really funny and could even show up in some bit role in a comedy. I think she has that much of an it factor.