Iron Moose

I'm shocked we haven't gotten to Gulak, Dempsey, Axiom, Thorpe or Bate as possibilities.

RKO is the ducked-Superman Punch follow-up. Spear goes into Powerslam. Meanwhile, on LVL UP: Von Wagner beats Luca Crusifino Elektra Lopez beats Brinley Reese in a pretty good (but basic) outing Gulak over Tavion Heights, also worth watching.

Meanwhile, on LVL UP: a clip show, with Thorpe/Chen, Lola/Ivy, Wendy Choo/Kelani Jordan, and Axiom/Tavion Heights all from earlier this year. Good stuff all around.

one idea I saw someplace was that Chase bet on Tiffany to beat Thea and then threw in the towel to ensure it happened.

Meanwhile, on LVL UP: Tatum Paxley beats Dani Palmer. This is a follow-up to Paxley abandoning Palmer in mid-tag match weeks ago, and might have landed a lot better with a bit more promo time beforehand? The ringwork ranged from questionable (some preemptive selling) to effective (Paxley's work on Palmer's leg starts really bad and gets much better). It's good that they didn't start with a collar and elbow since there's a personal issue behind this, but on the whole this was uncharacteristaically disjointed. Fans of tiny paunts will dig this one. Riley Osborne d. Tavion Heights. Fun overall, but I don't think it had a clear dynamic aside from both wanting to win? Heights has some fun suplexes, Osborne got good air on sometimes-unnecessary flips. A few moments of miscommunication where everyone seemed uncertain, but that's what shows like this help practice dealing with. Osborne's pants, while not tiny, have cutout patterns that are more associated with distaff counterparts.

Clip is here: https://old.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/jnijio/uncool_with_alexa_bliss_alexa_bliss_recounts_an/

oh, absolutely Reigns. Gunther, you can break the glass for Ilya or Bron, or do a multiman or ladder where someone else wins without him losing. Reigns has a lot more emotion and identity wrapped up in his story. And Gunther still has room to ascend.

Meanwhile, on LVL UP: tl;dr: good episode, go watch it somehow. Ivy Nile d Kiyah Saint. This felt longer than expected, in a good way. Ivy gave Kiyah a good bit of time on control or establishing parity, but IMO this was more interesting in showing some challenges for Ivy and the model of the show as a whole. For Ivy - she has really effective physical charisma in contradictory directions. She's been able to pull off 'confident, cold, aggressive', and she can pull off 'desperate, uncertain, overpowered', but 1) being in relatively short matches against inexperienced oponents means that neither extreme feels earned, and 2) the latter is a stretch when she looks so much stronger than almost all her opponents. The other thing was that this was a decently compelling face performance from Saint, but the audience was generally very pro-Ivy the whole way through. The crowd's bias for familiar talent might be complicating the situation for the less-familiar ones. Axiom d Riley Osborne. Riley's entrance is hazardous for people with photosensitive epilepsy. There's a lot of very clean flipping and Malenko-Guerrero reversals starting this off, and we get a few moments of escalation that don't quite work for me. Early on, Axiom extends his hand and helps Riley up, midway Riley extends his hand and Axiom slaps it away, and then later we get Axiom letting Riley back into the ring cleanly, to which Riley shoves Axiom and Axiom responds with ... a very slow single-leg. A bit later we get a shout of frustration which is immediately followed by a forearm, rather than either a slap or punch. There's some very fun stuff - a rana with some real snap on it, something that might be called an armdrag over the top rope, a midair dropkick counter that evokes HBK/Shelton from the Gold Rush and a great frog splash over the ref into the finish - and I think you could pretty well call both of these dudes up to the main roster yesterday, but with a critical eye there are some subtle points that could be polished. Axiom leaning a bit heel is interesting, as flippy, heroic and masked is very uphill to boo, but it worked here.

the weird thing about that vignette to me was how dated it seemed -- like it's from when they were briefly trying to give GUNTHER a stereotypical finisher (the emerald flosion, as "the last symphony"). The bit with the hand sanitizer also felt a lot more Previous Creative Regime than anything we've seen recently from Kaiser et al.

Toni Storm's script from last night

Dragon Lee also seemed like a natural fit.

I'm not that clear on a winner, but I understand why the buzz trends towards Vice. - she has a clear ally in Elektra Lopez who's been established as decent at cheating - she's got another front-runner (babyface, adrift since Sol's injury) in her first match (who can make her look good) - MMA in WWE has been positioned as generally above singlular martial arts, and she's had significantly more screen time than Petrovic - I think she was the one to announce the tournament, giving her a primacy bias - even though Lola's still in very broad strokes, we have less of a sense of who Kelani is (and a loss would give her more to work with as a character) - if the endgame is a shot at Becky, a villain might get more out of that than a generally friendly cipher, but that's a lot more debatable?

Bracket for the Women's Breakout Tournament in the first spoiler box, speculation below.

Meanwhile, on LVL UP : Fallon Henley's hot streak continues with a fun, solid match against a returning Ariana Grace, who is now workshopping a beauty queen gimmick (although a "you may kiss my hand" moment feels more like generic princess. ) Grace gets a few moments to cut a promo about how she's happy to be back, we can call her Miss NXT, and that her first act is to teach humiility to the classless brute Fallon Henley. Henley reacts well through the entire bit - she's happy to see Ariana back, bemused and a little impatient as she goes on, and then skeptical, offended, and increasingly irritated as the match goes on. Henley moves fast, hits her stuff clean, and I get the impression that Grace has a good instinct about the level to which she should be selling, for example, a glancing blow compared to a more impactful one. Grace also gets bonus points for, when she tries a feet-on-the-ropes roll up, pushing off the rope with her foot to add to the leverage. It kind of feels like the NXT Women's Division pendulum swung to gymnasts and combat sports and this is a brief swing back to delightful character schtick. Myles Borne (w/ Gulak, Dempsey & Kemp) d Riley Osborne - it's my first time seeing Riley. His pre-match promo is a bit grating (he has a lot of energy! he's excited!) and his entrance might induce seizures, but he's very quick and flippy. He does that weird UK sequence with offering his thigh before going between his opponent's legs, and then a few seconds later he does the same kind of flip out of a hiptoss that Sol did a bunch. There's a fantastic transition where Borne kicks him out of midair, and they have some nice peppy exchanges throughout before Myles wins with a dragon sleeper (after Riley misses a shooting star and lands on his feet. ) Good work from both. Oro Mensah (w/ Meta Four) d Tavion Heights - Mensah is a bit of a mystery. The contrast between the Little Mermaid palette and the painful kicks is a lot. Heights has some good power spots, but this overall left me a little cold. Still, really solid episode from top to bottom.

That would be wildly unexpected and chaotic and now I will be disappointed if it's not the case. Also, this works equally well as a response to Shadow's post

With the upcoming Women's Breakout Tournament (bracket to be revealed at No Mercy), my speculation is that we can reasonably predict finals as with ... I would speculate

Meanwhile, on LVL UP: we get a surprisingly fun Ivy Nile d Izzi Dame with the standing dragon sleeper. Ivy spends a good bit of time working a headlock on the much larger Dame; Dame goes after Ivy's leg with aplomb. Dame hasn't fully clicked for me yet, but this was alright all around. Luca Crusifino d Ikemen Jiro - meh Axiom d Charlie Dempsey - also fun!

Brooklyn Barlow gone as well

Raw IS ... all men all the time ...

right after Smackdown on Peacock / the Network, and various sketchy streaming sites after that.

Meanwhile, on LVL UP Lash Legend & Jakara Jackson d Dani Palmer & Tatum Paxley after Paxley refuses a tag. Lash and Jakara are putting the pieces together; Lash's control segment had a really nice bit of blocking Palmer from tagging; Paxley showed some fun face charisma midway through. some other tag with Nima and Price Tyler Bate d Charlie Dempsey in a great back-and-forth match in the heritage cup tournament. Worth seeking out!

Meanwhile, on LVL UP: Tavion Heights d. Ikemen Jiro Fallon Henley d. Karmen Petrovic. Petrovic has a promo that meanders a bit beforehand, but it's pretty well delivered. This was mostly Henley, and I'd describe her performance as surprisingly confident, with a hint of irritation. Her punch from the outside looked good, she had a nice sidestep on a whip and a nice bodyscissor roll-up. Petrovic is still work in progress, Henley could probably fit in at a lower tier of the main roster right now. Joe Coffey d Akira Tozawa

FWIW, my experience is that if you change from https to http, the back and forward buttons work.

Punk and Joe are such savvy pros in the ring. Going from a Cena sequence to Hogan's took guts and it was delightful.

Meanwhile, on Level Up: Jacy Jayne d. Karmen Petrovic. Both threw some nice punches, and Jacy was a joy to watch stalling and working the crowd. Petrovic is still figuring how to work her karate background into a match (coming to the ring with a sword is not it, IMO), but had a few nice moments - an upward kick interrupting an 'up and over', a good struggle on a takedown into a snug headlock, and a really nice hooking kick near the end. Dani Palmer d. a re-debuting Brooklyn Barlow (after an ACL tear). Pre-ACL-tear Barlow was kind of generic and sporty, she's now doing some kind of hippie/Austin Powers thing but doesn't seem to have nailed it down yet. To her credit, she does have some of it come through in the first few seconds of ringwork, and does some low-profile things quite well, starting off with a toe hold while stepping on Palmer's other foot. Palmer ends up doing a handstand reversal into some kind of ... indian deathlock, almost? A few moments later Barlow does a wheelbarrow into a headlock takeover that doesn't look too contrived, holds a decent headlock, and Palmer lets the moment breathe a bit before the traditional headscissor out (and Palmer blocks a reversal of that by planting both her elbows on Barlow's neck). We have some back and forth with some dodgy strikes, a monkey flip and a nice armdrag, and Palmer hits a really neat handstand kick in the corner before finishing with a corkscrew moonsault. Level Up Dani Palmer somehow resonates more with me than NXT Dani Palmer, and Barlow was really solid despite less than a dozen matches under her belt, although I think her personality faded out as the match went on. I would love to read a @Matt D or EricR dive into the non-Indie women's division on Level Up, see what they pick up on from the behind the scenes. Oro Mensah d. Ikemen Jiro after Lash Legend & Jakara Jackson interference. eh.