Go2Sleep

His in-ring work is the least of his problems fitting in. It's the tone of all his (presumably) self-written angles being incongruous with everything else on the show. Too much worked-shooting, no clear direction for any of his programs, going over in feuds that he shouldn't. Pretty much everything he's been involved with since he went over Brodie has felt off and hurt the flow of the overall show.

This is super fun palace intrigue, but I doubt this moves the needle for either company. Are WWE fans really clamoring for Cody Rhodes? He was a pretty generic midcarder for most of his time there. Ironically, I think the only reason the needle might move for a week or two is AEW fans checking out his debut before the ensuing segments remind them why they stopped watching WWE years ago. He'll be booked well enough, probably along the lines of Drew McIntyre who had a similar career arc on a smaller scale. He'll have his moment in the spotlight, then go back to the upper midcard rotation. While he was a founding father for AEW, the company has outgrown him creatively. Jericho does the role Cody should be doing way better than Cody ever could. What AEW fans wanted is a big-budget alternative to WWE, and they have that now. It's possible be respectful of Cody's legacy within the company, while understanding that he just doesn't really fit in anymore as a top guy. The only program I feel like was left on the table was with Punk. Otherwise, freeing up the tv time he was getting for his meandering programs for other talent will probably only improve the average show quality.

Keith Lee should be the favorite because he has AEW World Champ written all over him. Everything about him screams top guy. I like Kross more than most, but I don't see him as top singles guy in AEW. Kross and Scarlett could round out the House of Black nicely, but I'd rather see Julia Hart get that opportunity to see what she can really do in a non-jobber setting. Gargano is a guy who would get lost in the fold very quickly, but I wouldn't mind Andrade bringing him in as a "business partner" where he could use his comedic talents to take over Matt Hardy's role, while Matt goes on his nostalgia trip with Jeff.

In 1997, they literally had a PPV called "Final Four" the month after the Rumble. It became more of a trope during the 2000s, especially as WWE started doing their counting stats hype videos for the Rumble every year.

I'm very ready for Mox to turn down Bryan leading to their postponed ppv match, then having Garcia take Bryan up on his offer. Not sure what the point of the Brandi/Lambert worked shoot stuff was. They're very good at being catty to each other, but it doesn't seem to actually accomplishing anything. Yes, I know PVZ came out, but to a muted reaction since she was in the middle of two mega-heels, and let's be real, a match with Brandi is gonna do her no favors. Tag match was good as expected. The main was good, but could've stood to be a little shorter with MJF going over clean. If MJF won with that Serenity Lock or just the SOTE after Punk's leg gave out on the G2S, I would've been on the 5* train. From the overkill stretch, though, I did like Punk using the poison rana, showing that he's still learning how to adapt wrestling in 2022, and the Wardlow swerve was pretty sleek. I like how they aren't rushing the turn, even though it's obviously coming. Reminds me of MJF and Cody.

WWE and The Simpsons is probably the most apt comparison. Just a hollow husk of a once great concept that offers nothing new artistically but generates so much money off pure inertia that it will lumber on until one of the irreplaceable parts (Vince or one of the core 5 voice actors) is physically unable to continue working. At least WCW had a proper flame-out. I'd watch every hour of WCW from the finger poke to the end before I watched every hour of any given year of WWE since 2016. Anyway, I did check out the Rumble with some friends. Not sure if it was the worst ever (95, 99, 11, and 15 are serious contenders for that honor), but it is the first Rumble that makes me want to actively avoid Mania.

I think here, she got a little shaken because she forgot/realized she messed up the football reference. I think she was trying to reference the game against the Steelers where Baker Mayfield was sacked 9 times (which is a lot, and bad) instead of throwing 9 incompletions (which is normal, and would probably be quite good for a whole game given the average number of passing attempts in the NFL today). Either way, I didn't find it that terrible, I just had to think for a minute about what she was saying and I watch a lot of NFL games. Britt is very marketable and AEW should keep putting her in the spotlight. Her promo work now is significantly above where it was 2 years ago.

Good thing Orange countered, because if my calculations are right, he would've gotten about 8 feet of height on the piledriver.

Well, with HHH being unceremoniously cast aside for run-of-the-mill corporate grifter, it will be even more interesting to see what happens when Vince dies/is otherwise incapacitated now.

I really felt like OC/Stat should've won. OC is supposed to be the non-jobber in Best Friends and even he's getting dominated in this feud. The finish with Adam raging over Britt going through the table was ripe for an overzealous mistake leading to a flash pin. I guess the other option is maybe OC goes over in the unsanctioned match so Cole can take a loss and not have his title push derailed much like Britt with Rosa. I liked the way Hangman was booked in the post-match with Archer. Lance is obviously a filler program, so don't have him beat up Page every week to pretend he has a chance. Book it as a big man taking his shot, but the champ is the champ for a reason. AEW needs women's tag titles, because a Serena/Leyla team would rule. Caster's line about Starrcade 97 was great. Sting/Darby team continues to deliver.

I only meant to compare the aspect of Bate/Ilya being able to get high-impact offense on Walter. Overall quality wise, I would look at Walter's matches vs. Ciampa and Kushida that were more sprint-y. The quality of the Kushida match in particular would be about what I expected from this one, but it fell short imo, largely because they didn't let Roddy do much.

The best NXT match from last year imo was the Dunne/Dragunov match that was just build-up to Dragunov/Walter. Dunne vs. Melo and The Way vs. Bronson/Dexter/Shotzi/Ember were two of my other favorite NXT matches from last year. The Thatcher/Ciampa fight pit and Finn/KoR rematch happened on weekly shows. They had build in the sense that they were longer feuds, but I don't think either match was hyped for more than a couple weeks and weren't on "Halloween Havoc" type shows.

Because that happened frequently over the last 6 years?

I think he's mostly just leaning into the "stoic German (Austrian) professional" stereotype. I think a good question to ask here is what would a non-comedic German heel have to do to not draw nazi comparisons from an American audience? Also, all this Imperium talk has reminded me of another question I've been pondering: Is "Dresden Hatchetman" Alexander Wolfe the coolest nickname ever wasted on a jobber?

So I went out of my way to see Walter/Roddy and ended up watching the second hour. Tony D'Angelo is a really bad gimmick. Totally dated stereotype that seems like a trick question for the game "Is this gimmick from 1992 or 2022?" And the guy playing it totally lacks the presence to make anything out of it. Melo, on the other hand, comes across as a real star. Took me a while to realize KLR is a face now. Despite not being super-imposing, she has a naturally surly aura that makes it hard to be a face without a lot of work. Kind of like Randy Orton or Kyle O'Reilly. Ivy came across as lot more babyface here, although I guess Diamond Mine is kind of tweener now. Kinda feel for Mendoza/Wilde. That's a team that deserves a run, but just keeps on jobbing. At least Santos is getting a title shot I guess? Kacy/Kayden as mid 20s party girls instead of the pure babyface work ethic team feels pretty wrong, but at least they're still around. Walter/Roddy was ok, but exposed the big flaw with bringing NXT into full WWE style. It's not the new people not being able to work up (they seem mostly ok despite some awful gimmicks), it's the elite wrestlers having to work down. Roddy and Walter are capable of a match 10x better than this, but neither guy really got to show their best stuff. Roddy not being able lift Walter when Bate and Dragunov could suplex him made no sense. There was way more to be done building around the two best choppers in the company. Walter's mid-match control is usually way more intriguing than a chinlock. Just felt like a lot was left on the table because ultimately, these two aren't gonna be that important in NXT. And Gunther reminded me of the talking monkey in Futurama, which I guess is at least a couple steps up from a literal nazi.

Given WWE's aversion to people with the same name, I can only assume Gunther Stark will be Zoe's dad or brother.

I mean, that's obviously a heel gimmick even if most of his points are true. It's literally Muhammad Hassan 15 years later, except at least played by an actual person of the culture being depicted. A face or even a true tweener can't be openly hostile to the audience. Once the fans start booing your smug superiority, any good points you make will not only be lost, but seen as wrong and bad. Then you get an established face coming out and saying "I know the people of (insert city) aren't racist" and it's all over. If you want a successful anti-racist angle in wrestling, the character has to be an unambiguous face, then you use established heels to be the racist assholes. The announcers and other established faces should also denounce the racism. Nothing undercuts a "nuanced" gimmick like the announcers saying "Well, I don't agree, but it's America, so he's entitled to his opinion." Basically, you can't expect one PoC to make an anti-racist angle work, it has to be a company-wide effort.

I think a DQ finish to cost Wardlow would've been better. That small package didn't look like it should beat anyone, let alone a fresh Wardlow. On the flip side, the semi-botched GTH at from Sammy still looked like a total killshot. I agree that Julia needs to turn and join the House of Black. Griff and BPJ have too much loser stink on them, and looked even worse here as Black laughed at their 3 on 1 beatdown. I'm torn on whether HoB or Red Dragon should dethrone Jurassic Express. RD is a safe bet with a clear story arc, but Malakai and Brody seem like a perfect new-age hoss team that could make for compelling matches with just about anyone.

I'll concede that we'll never know for sure since we don't have the proper data, but I don't think you weigh the entire PC budget against two of the more "replaceable" parts. How much were they paying Tyler Breeze specifically? Probably the same amount they're paying Joe Gacy right now, and I'm betting Breezango moved more merch than Gacy ever will. Even then, I think you're undervaluing Breeze and using the wrong guy to make your point. Finding a steady guy to do the comedy matches on house shows, put over the bigger names, mentor new guys, and (as a bonus) build up enough good will with the fans to get a feel-good tag team push with some merchandising opportunities is worth 50-100k he cost in NXT. They spent the same amount on Tino Sabatelli and got way less for it. I think even a good developmental system is going to be close to 50% busts. Think about all those "new signing" group pics and how many actually even end up on tv, let alone successfully. When you weigh the PC budget, you have to look at it against the 4HW (by far the HHH era's biggest success), and huge merch movers (Finn, KO, etc). Maybe WWE thinks they can downsize and still get comparable results for the main rosters, but I'm leery of the effect the lack of actual talent and quality training in the pipeline will have over time. Not that it will put WWE out of business or anything, but I think it lessens their chances of finding that coveted cross-over star, since all their previous ones started out being good at wrestling first.

I'll preface this by saying I disagree with your talent grouping there. The Rock is on a level all his own. No developmental is going to consistently pump out Hollywood A-listers who make 9-figure-grossing movies every year. Your metric for a developmental should probably be more like finding HHH/Orton/Roman level guys somewhat consistently, that can at least main event some Manias and have multiple credible title runs. By that metric, old NXT found 3 of those at least. Becky, Sasha, and Charlotte. There was a window for Finn, KO, and Keith Lee too, but ya know... Booking. On top of that, not everyone is going to be a main eventer and NXT has consistently churned out midcard talent for years, most of which can be considered upper midcard that can get occasional main event runs. Sami, Neville, Breeze, Bayley, Alexa, Nia, Joe, Nakamura, Shayna, Asuka, Corbin, Revival, Roode, Ricochet, Black, Riddle, Bianca. If that's not good enough for a few years of scouting, I don't know what is. I suspect in a few years when we can factor in success in other promotions, the talent level of 2014-2020 NXT is going to look even more ridiculous.

I don't see how Jamie is an interesting challenger since her role so far has been "job to Britt's next opponent to build heat for the title match." That's a feud you run after Britt drops the belt, but even then Jamie needs some major rehab to seem competitive. Rosa and Jade are the only credible challengers left.

Yeah, I'm really surprised they opted for a secondary singles title over tag titles for the women. I get not wanting to copy WWE too much, but some things just work. I don't know how you differentiate 2 singles belts in a division of about 20 people.

KO's thoughts are basically "Yeah NXT sucks now, but WWE is paying me 3 mil a year, so I won't completely shit on it."

I think Undisputed Era 2.0 vs. Bucks/Kenny is the correct route. Cole pushing the Bucks aside because of their silliness (and weakness losing to Jurassic Express) and replacing them with guys he can trust makes perfect sense. Kyle can easily do a "time heals most wounds" promo and put over Bobby Fish as the guy who got the band back together. The pop when Kenny comes back to save the Bucks, Cutler, and Nakazawa from a massive beating will blow the roof off. Malakai killing the Varsity Blonds was fun. Whoever decided to give FTR that super 80s theme is brilliant. I love Cult of Personality and Ruby Soho, but something about a good in-house theme just hits right. Darby's bowling ball dive was a thing of beauty, and I love seeing Sting getting to go out on his own terms. I like how he went from doing taped cinematic matches, to live 20-minute tags over the last couple of years.

So, which belt had more prestige in the end, the purple CW title or the European title? The CW title probably had the better matches between Kendrick, Pac, Murphy, etc, but the Euro title can always say it was held by Shawn Michaels, HHH, and Kurt Angle.