Krone

I'm riding with a buddy to the show and we won't be getting there til pretty close to bell time so I'll have to sit this one out. If we get there early by the grace of god I'll still try and swing over so I can say hello to the crew though!

I'm all for TK going in on any scrub that's trying to tear them down for no reason. They have a banger of a day with presales so someone has to try and curb the positivity by throwing out some bullshit. Funny how that guy then doesn't respond to the tweets at all and instead gets back to his regularly scheduled tweeting of boxing.

Hook is introduced as being from St. Marks Place which upon further review is a street in Brooklyn. So if you're ever looking for him you know where to find him.

Looks like we might be getting another smaller esque stage ala Arthur Ashe judging by that seating chart which is a little disappointing. I was envisioning a big WM X7 style stage. But that means you can cram more people in there so

Ah Double J, one of my newest guilty pleasures since he's joined AEW. I can't think of any wrestler that I had distaste for as long as him who turned it around just like that for me. One of the few people who having a podcast has benefited in my opinion.

For some odd reason I really want a Jay White/CM Punk feud with White going over. One can wish right?

I'm 32, so the height of the Monday Night Wars I was about 7-9 years old and wasn't really into wrestling the way I would be until about 2002. One of the first things that I was introduced to was rajah.com which led me to all the backstage rumors, gossip, etc and I loved reading about that stuff. Now a days, I don't have to go to any specific website to see it because it'll pop up in my Twitter feed relentlessly (without even following said people, thanks Musk) so I will just read it and graze over it. The problem I have with this backstage shooty stuff is that it seems like everyone is doing it which makes it seem less... cool? I can imagine seeing the fallout from Bret/HBK at SS '97 was interesting to some people, but now if you want to know the full story you got Sean Ross Sapp or someone else tweeting it out 5x a day. It's much more in your face than I can imagine it was back in the 90's when you really had to search for that stuff which I don't think makes me feel as much "in the know" as before. Everyone knows the backstage happenings now unless you aren't on the internet. YouTube will share backstage gossip, Facebook has the pages that'll randomly pop up and show you the backstage stuff, it's just so much easier to see now. I got to imagine it's like finding out how a magician does a trick. When you first figure it out, it's pretty cool; but by the 100th time it's just sort of like "yeah okay". Strictly speaking off the cuff, I think a big part of this was Something to Wrestle With - which was the first podcast I really listened to that broke down a lot of the backstage happenings and kind of uncovered the magic of the business somewhat. Maybe I'm being naïve, but Conrad Thompson and his litany of podcasts IMO really broke down that barrier to a broader audience of "exposing the business" if you will and it's just continued to grow with time. It started with Prichard, but now you can listen to Foley, Jarrett, Bischoff, Arn, you name it break down and go behind the scenes like you couldn't before. For instance, young me was enamored with the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD. Loved that shit. But I've tried to go back and watch it, and it's like if I really want to hear the unfiltered true story I can find a bunch of that stuff just on YouTube alone. Social media and the rise of technology has led to literally everything being way more available and it just makes the fun of being "in the know" not as... fun anymore? I mean how many wrestling "journalists" are there now compared to back in the 90s? Seems like there's one for every five fans. Couple that with wrestlers being a lot more accessible now and you kind of took the veil off of a previously pretty shrouded business. Everyone's exposed now. Imagine if Punk didn't have Instagram to keep everything going and we were just left in the dust wondering what was going to happen. Or Dax updating on a weekly basis.

I agree, but let's not forget Kenny has taken some sick bumps in his day. I'm thinking of that OWA to Sammy at Anarchy in the Arena back at DoN off of the stadium (what a wild sentence to write out).

If we have to do this (brand split), yes. This is 100000% the answer.

I really don't want an AEW brand split, mostly because I think that having two shows you can see "x wrestler" in primetime is better than one. Another probably because it feels to WWE-esque for my liking. Third, because in no way should they need to split brands because of 4 or 5 people who can't get along. That doesn't seem like a good enough reason to do a brand split. The other side of my brain says "well the appeal to wrestlers in AEW is the schedule and another day, on top of potentially more house shows could hinder that". But I think that's part of growing and at tops 3 days a week (which I doubt any wrestler would be doing) wouldn't be too over the top on select weeks. I wish the show started at 6:00pm on Saturdays - that would be awesome in my opinion and you could even use it as a lead in to some (should be all PPVs on Saturday but I digress) papes would be good.

I would love that. Ospreay beats Omega in Canada (on Omega's turf) leading to their 3rd and deciding match at All In on Ospreay's turf. Unless Dax gets that aforementioned match of CMFTR/Elite.

I'm so excited at the prospect of what matches we could get at Forbidden Door this year, so I'm feeling extra blessed to be able to attend Maybe an Ospreay sighting, but their roster is so deep that I'm more than happy to shell out the coin for the small road trip across the border. Very grateful they're running a PPV in Toronto of all places. Thank you Mr. TK!

I do think BotB would have benefited from FTR/Gunns being on that show, but do you really want to do a title change at 11:57pm on a Saturday night? I see both sides of the spectrum, but unless they got/get a better time slot - I understand the hesitancy to put a big time match like that on there. I do think the AEW roster is big enough to allow for some bigger matches than we get right now. Totally okay with Jade/Starkz, but maybe an OC vs. Kip rematch? Just something where the winner isn't a given. Lucha Bros were never gonna lose either after winning the belts so recently, but that's TK booking. I wouldn't mind maybe a few more title changes just for the surprise effect than what we have been given recently.

No love for a certain bastard on European soil?

Jarrett is honestly my favorite podcast going right now, and it's kind of even gotten me to like him in the ring. Bischoff's can be hot and cold too, but I also don't listen to anything outside the Conrad Thompson sphere. Had to quit listening to STWW a while back after Prichard came back to the WWE because it felt like he just wouldn't give away as much as he was prior. JR's is alright for passing the time, but second favorite behind Jarrett has to be Foley's. I love listening to him talk about almost anything.

LA Knight is a SmackDown guy. I even know that from half paying attention. So why would we be expecting him on RAW?

Isn't this a direct contradiction? I will admit that I'm one who watches WWE on my second monitor while doing something else so it's just there for me. I don't intently watch it as much as I might AEW, but I try and keep up with stuff just so I know what's going on. I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle of all the back and forth here. WWE is what it is and has been what it has been for the past decade plus or so now. We weren't going to tune in tonight and get TV-14, over the top wrestling but I do think the expected debut or call up of some talent gets people excited for some fresh faces on the roster. Bron Breakker, Roxanne Perez, the rumors of Jay White gets the people somewhat excited, but don't forget we still have a SmackDown after Mania so there's still hope for something "new" to happen on that show. I for one prefer face Brock to heel Brock, but that being the giant WOAH of the night was kind of a letdown. I see where they're going and I think this is Cody's path to another title shot down the road - but the question is what's the Bloodline storyline now? The major storyline saw nothing really to keep some of us coming back next week. There's no "a new challenger emerges" or anything like that. It was just no more title shot for you and that was it. I'm not expecting them to blow their load tonight, but maybe give us a little something something to bite into for the future. Is Cody/Lesnar that thing? Well, judging by social media the answer is no. And I know social media isn't the end all be all, but I will be damned if the WWE's twitter post about "What did you think of RAW after Mania" didn't have 2x more replies than likes at last check and that's a no bueno ratio for a company with 13.1 MILLION followers. That has to speak for something in the modern age. Would the show be A+ if there was a debut? No. Would the show be an A+ if a new challenger emerged for Roman? Maybe depending on the story that they decided to tell. But as others have said, the logic doesn't seem there - but maybe that's because we only have half of the story (finish it damn it!). We have to hear Lesnar's motives, why doesn't he want Cody to win the title or help him, because if Romans champ and he can't challenge him, wouldn't logic suggest he would want someone else to be champion as someone else mentioned?

Good LORD. No wonder they stopped the match. Finn is a damn trooper for finishing that out

Totally agree, and that's another reason why Chandler vs. McGregor is gonna sell a lot of PPVs. They'll have the TUF build up which is something they usually don't have (good build up + notable names [at least in McGregor, I know you know Chandler is legit, but I'd imagine most casuals just seem him as the dude that's 2-3 in UFC] = success). Would probably help if TUF was on like ESPN as opposed to ESPN+ like back in the day when it was on SpikeTV and easier to follow. I remember young me being stoked for Ortiz/Shamrock and that was without knowing too much of their history strictly because of that 3rd season of TUF.

Do WWE or UFC even need those recognizable names by this point (I say that kind of in jest)? I'm not arguing how a Conor can pop the numbers of a Pape, but I feel like it's the brand that sells the shows now on both ends of the spectrum. I have friends who have kids now (god I feel old) and I know for a fact those parents aren't watching WWE, but will gladly take their kids to a show. I'm talking people who will have a "WWE" themed party for their kids and you look at all the stuff and it's from like 2013. Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Kane, Undertaker, etc. people that aren't even on the roster anymore (with kids who are 6, 7 years old meaning they wouldn't even know some of these guys). You will always have your people that follow the product hardcore, but I do think a good chunk of them are just "hey WWE is coming to town!" or "you guys wanna go watch a UFC event?".

Can we at least acknowledge the absolute banger that was the IC Title triple threat match? That was probably the best hard hitting match in WWE history and the right man went over for sure. For all the talks of Roman losing the belt, etc. I wouldn't be sad at all to see Gunther be the guy to dethrone him. He has been built up as an absolute monster and is putting out some excellent matches. I wonder who challenges for the IC Title after this, because that belt most certainly has a strong style feel attached to it with Gunther holding it down. (I'm sure I'll get pushback on this) But I for one had almost hoped that was the main event of night one because I'll be damned if that title isn't getting elevated by the Austrian with each passing match.

Cody next year in Philadelphia again right? I'm not saying that's what I want, cause I don't; but doesn't Cody's whole gimmick scream "win the title in Philadelphia" with the Homelander stuff.

One of the most emotional video packages I have ever seen. That line about Briscoe having a lot of help "that ain't on Earth right now"... damn it.

Just parlaying off our good friend @The Natural thoughts from earlier. And for a more serious comments, Jamie Hayter really tried throwing that lariat. That's one of the reasons she's my favorite female wrestler going right now. She lays her shit in. Love her believability and fire. So glad Tony put the strap on her and are letting her do her thing. She's such a fantastic ass kicker.

Man, I love the BCC as just these total ass kickers. Running around causing havoc and beating the piss out of everyone, give me MORE MORE MORE. Especially with an unhinged Bryan Danielson in the mix. I am totally down for that. The Gunns have really grown on me lately and between them and the Acclaimed shows some good organic rising of homegrown tag teams. Speaking of the Acclaimed; them and 2.0 just screams great stuff. That's the type of skits I was talking about a few hours ago! Love that stuff. Cobb/Omega was really good and kudos to Kenny for getting Jeff up for the OWA. I was really hoping Danielson would look at the US Title and pick it up jussssst so we might have a chance of NJPW Bryan Danielson.