Craig H

I sometimes forget it's just constantly dark out so when they were at the school a couple episodes ago, I was a little confused why high school was going on at night. And then I realized I'm dumb. I'm slightly surprised by the low audience score. I may have really loved that first season, but this season has been creepy as fuck in all the right ways and the mystery stuff has been rock solid. Part of me wonders if it has to do with the female centric cast.

It’s my fault. I let SD get me so riled up that I went looking for other people’s takes on this on Reddit and, ugh, Twitter, and then almost immediately regretted it. I then logged out of my Twitter account which I probably haven’t logged into for over a year. Done stare into the abyss, kids.

Maybe because the shows have been better?

I’ve already read people fat shaming Bayley. People fucking suck. Nearly perfect body, but yeah, let’s call her fat. Fucking incels.

Jacob Fatu also now a free agent. Jacob Fatu being the Classic Coca Cola to Solo’s New Coke.

So after a lot of reading this morning, yeah, this looks like a total power grab and ego stroking move. If you’re intent on doing the Rock vs Roman, then fine, but give people a better story for it than this. Not to mention, for the millionth time, Rock vs Roman doesn’t need to be for the title, it could be on night 1 or night 2, but whatever night it’s on you could still do Cody vs Roman on the other night for the title since Roman works like 10 matches a year. But instead we got Seth and his title getting buried, Cody getting cucked (and I really hate that fucking word but that’s the only one that fits), and shoehorning in Rock. I just think you could have done something better creatively if this wasn’t ego stroking and a power grab. And if I’m wrong and this is the best creative they could come up with then everyone in creative fucking sucks.

Honestly the only way to salvage this is if they do a redux of the Glock Anderson promo, just without, you know, the part where Arn says he would pull out his gun and blow a man’s brains out. That would be a wild turn in this story though to have Arn come out on Monday, do the promo of Cody getting soft, saying Cody would just roll over and just hope a carjacker wouldn’t hurt him, and talk some sense into Cody where Cody is like, yeah, fuck all this, fuck the Rock, I want that title, I want it at WM and no one is taking this away from me, and I’m done being the nice guy.

For real, the Rock and Gewirtz are the only two that make me say, you know what, maybe Vince’s creative wasn’t that bad. The only thing worse would be if Vin Diesel somehow wormed his way in. These two though, holy shit, they make one shitty thing after another. Bad tv shows, bad movies, etc. And if Rock and Gewirtz are both involved, then I’m guessing Dany Garcia is too. So this is basically Seven Bucks Promotions taking over WWE because they lost a battle with WB over the future of DC. Raziel is right. We all should have bought in to Black Adam, XFL, etc. And I think my anger and confusion is now more sadness. I feel really sad and bad for everyone that actually stuck around for another year, bought tickets, bought tons of Cody merch, all just to see him come out last night to say, “I had you! You cheated me! I’m going to take that title from you! But not where it matters, come on out Rock!”

What the fuck is happening? Man, this season of Ballers is the fucking worst.

Personally, I know I’m back to how I kept up with WWE before. I’ll catch things on YouTube, maaaaaaaybe I’ll turn on a PPV, but I’m just really back to not caring. Whereas with AEW, I actively watch Dynamite and Collision, I haven’t kept up with Rampage, I watch and rewatch their PPVs, but I don’t feel the vigor to comment as much about it. It’s a different kind of apathy, but it’s the kind of apathy that doesn’t make me turn away from their product. It may also be a Dean being gone thing. Dean brought big time Ryan Davis energy to the AEW posts, but that was well after we all were doing it first. Dean kept the party going when we started to tire out. I don’t know, maybe I should present my positive thoughts again, but I find I like doing that more on a Discord voice chat with my close friends when we’re on to play games. Anyway, this is all to say that I think we go back to the recent status quo of there not being much commenting for either company.

Anyway, can someone ask HHH what inning of the story are we in at this point?

Well, good luck drowning that out because it's going to get a whole lot louder this week most likely. I'm guessing the Vince stuff won't die down a little for another week or two.

The other amusing thing is that here we are again with another milestone WM where the booking going into it feels completely fucking sideways and you just don't know if they're going to straighten it out. It felt like that with WM 10 with Bret with pivoting back and forth from Lugar to Bret, it felt like that with WM 20 with Benoit with Benoit muscling out Big Show but then HBK gets involved and you wonder if Benoit will actually win it, it felt like that with WM 30 with Danielson and there's no sense in rehashing that whole story, but this time, for 40, they're completely locked into this fucking zoo of booking.

This is time stamped at 7 minutes. For 5 minutes and 52 seconds this is a hell of a segment. Roman breaks it down that Cody can be the very best #2 or he can take another crack at #1. Cody comes out, responds, says he wants that title, he's going to take that title, finishing the story now means taking everything from Roman, and then literally 2 seconds later he says he's moving his own goalpost and again says he's going to take that title from Roman. And then 8 seconds later it turns into utter dogshit and nonsense. He's going to take the title. He's going to finish the story. But not at this WM?! So everything said about winning the Royal Rumble was...what? I can't even begin wrap my head around this whole crummy situation. And sure, it's a neat moment when the Rock's music hits and Roman realizes who Cody is talking about, but reality quickly sinks in that the Rock can't go anymore, that this flies directly in the face of everything that was being said by Cody just a minute earlier. The other thought that sinks in is the promo Cody and Punk had with each other. That 10 years ago Punk was where Cody is now and someone came in and stole his spot and this time that person's name is CM Punk. Turns out, no, the person's name is still the Rock. It's 10 years later and it's still happening. And for what? There are no buyrates. Ratings are good and better than they have been, but they're stagnant and they're going to be worse for SmackDown once it moves to USA and ratings will be irrelevant for Raw, nevermind the fact that none of that is happening until next year. WM is already sold out so there's no tickets to move. Cody is already the top merch mover and people are going to be a fuckton of merch regardless. Peacock is in the toilet and the Rock main eventing one night of WM against the Rock isn't going to change that. In fact, Peacock doesn't even give a fuck about live viewers for WWE PPVs or PLEs or whatever you want to call them. The Rock doesn't mean fuck all for Netflix at this moment in time. And this happened on a Friday. When the opening bell on the trading floor rings on Monday morning, is this going to matter that much then when there is still an avalanche of trouble Vince has caused? Maybe there's a bump, but it's going to settle back down. The point is, this is completely and utterly illogical. The Rock came in to raise Roman's hand at the Royal Rumble years ago to try and give Roman some kind of a rub because Roman was trying to become the guy and it didn't work. And yet here we are, again, with the Rock stepping in someone else's way. Someone who isn't old as shit, someone who can actually go in the ring, and someone who can help elevate talent. I think where most of my saltiness comes from is that I started watching Raw again, and SmackDown. I watched the Royal Rumble. I've been into the story of Cody finishing the story and my god, they actually made it a whole year without an injury or something else happening to Cody or Roman, and it's blown to bits. What's worse is Cody didn't even say what he was even going to do at WM. So, what, he goes on Raw on Monday with his tail tucked between his legs and challenges Roman to be the very best #2 in the company? How dumb and weak is that? So I reinvested myself because a lot of things were looking better and then once again it's like Charlie Brown and the football. It makes it feel like WWE isn't a company you can get emotionally invested in as a fan because there's never a payoff. For a short bit it looked that way. And shit, we're still 2 months away from WM. Is Dwayne going to wrap himself in bubble wrap so he doesn't tear something while working out again? So let's say that happens and Cody has locked himself into this not as good match against Seth. And never even mind that you still have Elimination Chamber coming up to determine a contender for Seth's title. The solution to all of this was so fucking simple. Drew wins the Chamber and challenges Seth. Drew wins or loses based on if he re-signs or not. On night 1 of WM you do the Rock vs Roman for Head of the Table. Regardless of the outcome, it's non title, but it's still a huge, huge match. And then night 2 you go with Cody vs Roman. Maybe to even the playing field on night 1 Cody has to overcome the odds against Jimmy and Solo, or hell, Solo and a recently debuted Jacob Fatu. This shit ain't hard to book for, and yet here we are, even after Vince is gone, with overly complicated and nonsensical booking.

Uh, what? What do you think he would do with the title? Defend it. More than Roman has. Again, there's zero point to have this title reign last as long as it has. Cody could have put over anyone else, had rematches against Roman, Roman could have kept his shit with the Bloodline going. It would have been a more interesting title picture than the utter boring shit that's happened for the last year.

How the fuck is the Rock winded during that post-show promo? WTF is going on? At least the Rock can't get injured being put in side headlocks or very long staredowns. Right? And anyone thinking that a Philly crowd, even if it's a WM crowd from all over, isn't going to shit on Rock vs Roman is deluding themselves. God. This endless title reign is fucking lame. It has gone on so long that someone is bound to get injured or get cast in a movie and fuck it all up. No one gives a shit about Roman having a longer run than Hogan. Also, what's this shit that it would have been a mistake to have Cody beat Roman last year? Exactly how would that have been a mistake?

My interest in WM just dropped to absolute zero. This is completely a lose-lose scenario. First, for a YEAR since he lost last year at WM you continue building to Cody finishing the story which was winning the title Roman has. Then you have Cody win the RR two years in a row. You have him cut this promo about Seth's title is this but Roman's title is the one with all the history and the one that meant the most to his dad and ultimately he...steps aside so a blown up Rock who can't go for more than a minute can challenge Roman at WM for the title that Cody has been going for and finishing the story is now taking the WWE universe from Roman? Uh, what? The mental gymnastics involved here and the galaxy brained thinking is astonishing. Seth vs Cody is a foregone conclusion. Seth's body is fucked. There's no fucking way Cody is losing to Seth so there's no drama there. No only that, but he's settling for a title that Roman just buried two minutes prior. And on the other side you have Roman vs Rock where Rock has zero cardio and Roman puts on a boring as fuck match so maybe, MAYBE it might be ok and he can carry Rock to something passable, but the two outcomes from that match stink. So Rock wins and a dude who is even more part time than Roman or anyone else is champion, a guy whose best option after winning the title is to drop it back to Roman because that dude is going to have shit matches against just about everybody. Plus, the Rock is the one to unseat Roman as champion, not Cody and not even anyone else worth of getting that kind of a rub or torch passed to them. And if Roman wins, great, he continues a title reign that is absolutely fucking dead and boring for another year or whatever the fuck. It's just stupid. It's Vince level booking. You could have easily gone with Drew vs Seth at WM and Cody vs Roman vs Rock with Cody in the Bryan Danielson spot beating an all time great and the head of the table to finish the story, but no, we must do this shit ass match with Roman and Rock.

Looks like a Chikara gimmick.

I really don't like the Chiefs and never have, but I dislike the Niners even more and I'm a...Taylor Swift fan... Yeah yeah, whatever. I don't care. I like her music. I'm old and I'm allowed to like some commercialized, mainstream pop music. Plus, if the Chiefs win, like Johnny said, all of the right wing nutjobs will lose their fucking minds if Swift can make it to the game.

According to Meltzer, Mox is working with a back injury. So that’s great.

Yes.

So uh, Enshrouded rules. Even with quest progress being tied to the server and not the player, there’s still plenty to do if you happen to miss out on a quest of your friends do it without you. 4 of us were on the other night and having a good time where one of us would venture out into a shroud, die, someone else would come rescue him, they’d both die, then eventually we’re all there trying to kill some stuff that’s probably a level or two higher than us. Lots of laughing and making progress and then back to gathering materials, building stuff, etc.

Man…this is a depressing video. I didn’t like how he conducted himself in AEW and thought returning to WWE was pretty funny given everything he said, but I can’t help but feel bad for the guy here. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/s/v4GaXH4EUb

Oof, in all of this I didn’t even think about Punk not main eventing a night of WM.

Another wrinkle to this is that Drew may have just cashed himself a huge paycheck on a contract extension if he really hasn’t re-signed yet. Gunther can’t work EC, Drew is the next logical choice. Or I guess you could have Gunther find a way into the match with Seth and Drew, but I think it would be better for Gunther to drop the IC title at WM.