Godfrey

Vince would've beat Cody two years in a row just to prove a point, with HHH I don't know. It depends on what they have planned after and who's staying on, if the Rock wants to turn face to go after Roman at Summerslam they could risk Cody losing again. Or they could add Tama Tonga and Jacob Fatu to the Bloodline and go another full year of dominance but there's no way they do the same main event 3 Manias in a row so I think it's either now or never for Rhodes and my money is on now

They have but if you don't like the WWE house style it's still a tough go. Jey Uso is the wrestling opposite of someone like Will Ospreay

Re: Jungle Jack, here's his quick NJPW post-match promo (with spoilers). And if this is any sign I think he's improving https://youtu.be/cPnXvt7PceQ?t=65

I think the criticisms of Jungle Jack are less that he 'crossed Punk' so much as his unprofessionalism (along with Punks' and others) contributed to the chaos backstage during one of the most crucial periods for AEW. I thought he was fine but bland as a babyface and could've used something to switch things up, who knows if a heel turn and House of Torture is the solution but it's something new and to me that's a positive

Agreed, especially if there were no plans to push him in an already crowded field Were he and Ortiz on the outs so bad they couldn’t do a major feud? I think I read they had their blow off on a random Rampage

Seth and Cody did alright to open. The lead up to the Diarrhea Dwayne line made it worse, if he had just thrown it away I wouldn't have cringed so hard I wanted to see Gunther/Mysterio and it did not disappoint. Dom trying to go blow for blow with the chop champ worked about as well as you would think but he showed some skill in the process and people even bit on the sunset flip Not only did Cole congratulate Sting on his retirement, Pat McAfee called the retirement match epic. That was a nice shout out Actual line improvised by Dakota Kai: "Friday, right? Friday. It happened, right?" Those UCB classes are paying off! KC2/Bazsler and Stark was okay, there was a little awkwardness in the double teams which looked more like inexperience between partners than between opponents. The double Spanish fly off the top getting a 2 count is hopefully the beginning of the end for that highspot, it's up there with the Canadian destroyer in terms of nonsensical moves Jax/Lynch was solid, some really nice stuff balanced out by Nia doing one of the more hilarious arm waving bumps out of the ring. (Also, McAfee said momentum is important no matter what some stat nerds say, is that a shot at real sports or TK or...?) I wonder if its worth analyzing how wrestlers like Andrade switch their game up when changing companies. Him and Crews pulled a full Davey Richards no-sell of a superplex in their match which gets a Boo-urns from me Imperium and Judgement Day worked it out. Two heel vs heel matches on one show doesn't happen often, the crowd were fine to cheer Balor and Priest though McIntyre telling the uncomfortable truth like a good heel does. Jey Uso has yet to show me he can fly as a singles wrestler. Is the crowd not into him except for the Yeet or are they just waiting for the Bloodline interference? Neither is good

Not sure what went down with Proud and Powerful, they were featured early on but never got a memorable run in the tag scene and then had that ugly and mostly off-screen split. Tbh I have no idea what Santana's potential is as a singles guy especially if he's trying to bulk up. Could be he needs to do a tour of the indies to get his feet under him again like McIntyre If Ortiz is still under contract I hope he gets to do some character babyface stuff, I think he'd excel as a goofy-to-violent midcard guy

This sounds like straight up abuse behavior, love bombing and devaluation. I read an article once about narcissistic organizations that turn the bosses behavior into company policy

Who will be his Kane?

If Sting in AEW is like Terry Funk in ECW, the Funker went on a real tear and beat almost everyone before losing the world title to Sabu and then getting pinned by Shane Douglas in a triple threat in his last two matches there. I could see Sting doing the favors in his last match. And Terry did think he was retiring around then too so it's sort of similar

Fair enough, there's a lot not to like

I mean, they weren't close to unionizing in the late 90s and it worked then. And again with Danielson 10 years ago. People don't like their own bosses, I think that's enough to make it work

Daniel Bryan vs Kofi Kingston - WWE Title - Wrestlemania 35 Just reposted on YouTube, not sure why. This is the New Daniel Bryan when he turned heel and called the fans fickle complete with title made of vegan materials and Rowan for muscle (in a George Romero shirt). Big "Kofi" and "Kofimania" chants to start. Bryan nails him with European uppercuts and Kofi fires right back with his own. Daniel's cut offs are what make the early parts of this match, like a great counter as Kofi tries the standing double stomp but Bryan scoots under and gets a high angle Boston crab. I'd say that section goes on a little long but when Kofi fires up the place loses it. At one point Kofi lures Bryan into a kick off (to a huge reaction) and then does this wild leg lace into an inverted suplex counter. A lot of mat maneuvering in the final run, Bryan really stomps Kofi's face to get a third LeBell Lock but Kingston maneuvers out and returns the stomps. One carefully lined up Trouble in Paradise later and we got a new champ Pretty good match although they have some off moments when their timing doesn't quite line up and Bryan makes some odd choices when he's in control like an extended waistlock. Could be that they had a number of tricky sequences in mind and the early ones were a little rough so they had to slow it down to get their heads back in it. One issue with the match is that even though the audience is behind Kingston they really want to do the Yes chant because Bryan had just taken that away from them, Kofi doesn't want to play into it and sometimes there's a bit of disconnect as a result I wonder how history will remember Kofimania. His run never felt like it had the full weight of creative behind it and his reign was ended unceremoniously by Brock that fall in one of the many Fuck Yous the WWE would give fans on a regular basis

Fightful says Rock went more than 10 minutes over and other people had their time cut, notably Naomi and Tiff. The new boss is really ingratiating himself with the workers

This is why I think Seth has to get the pin on Rock on Night 1. Otherwise wow

I got caught up on the rest of Smackdown Stratton/Naomi was decent. I'm not a huge fan of Tiffany because I find her presentation to be boring and regressive but she's definitely taken to wrestling well Everyone could see the DmgCtrl turn coming on the horizon and they pulled it off great anyway. I love that they laugh maniacally like witches on a CW show. Bayley getting backed up by Jade Cargill is a good way to ease her into a storyline Wardlow should be watching how they book Breakker I didn't have the sound on for the Street Fight. It looked kind of silly tbh and Carlito won? Pass Never forget, Pete Dunne got a big ass head Main event was your standard TV crowd pleaser. I don't have much of an opinion about Theory but some people love him which leads me to believe he's the next Randy Orton. Kevin Owens was having a ball blaming a near botch on Theory's criminal amount of body oil and untying Waller's shoe. Fun stuff

God damn, Rock killed it in both promos. Roman is so going to turn on him and I hope we get a special board authorized blade job. Rock/Roman at Summerslam? More signs in the crowd too, that's a healthy augury (as they said one time in Deadwood and I never forgot)

There are other clips edited in like Dave LaGreca you can skip, not sure if that would save you much time. About 9 min in is when he sort of explains why Cody gave him the shot, around 14 min is when he starts to dig in on Seth but 18 min on is the final run. I like that he got in some old school live date promotion in at the end

Terrible shit, he should be embarrassed

Really?! Must have missed them

Carlito and Escobar disappeared for a month too, they're back and having a street fight tonight apparently

Not to belabor the point but to hopefully end with some positivity, I thought of a match that to me worked to AEW's booking strengths and that's Cassidy/Moxley from All Out 2023. As I said at the time, not a big fan of either guy but the investment in OC's reign with lingering injuries wearing him down and Mox's blood drinking character combined to make a great match. This made for some of Tony's most successful long-term booking along with the Page and Omega story

IIRC the only good thing heel Bret did was wearing a breastplate to counter Goldberg's spear and that was in Canada where he was a face

You're totally right, wrestling is a unique medium and that's why it's a combo for me. I think a match can only be so good without a story supporting it and a story can only succeed if it has a good match or series of matches to blow it off. Audiences will forgive weakness in one if there is a lot of strength in the other but ultimately they're inseparable. When both are firing, that's when you get transcendent matches that stand the test of time For me too. Maybe it's because I studied writing for so long but I can see through the Matrix on most movies and TV shows. Wrestling evokes the catharsis of sports and real life competition which is different from the emotional stakes usually found in films (although there's always things like Randy and Liz)

It was tough to watch WCW crumble in on itself in real time. Starrcade 97 is also when Bret came in which I was super hyped for but they couldn't build anything off the Screwjob and had him turn something like 5 times in a couple of years so the bloom was off the rose well before Goldberg kick him in the brain. Jericho leaving also hurt, he was one of the guys that made WCW's undercard so fun (although his debut on Raw is an all time great moment for me so it was worth it)