blitzkrieg

So basically just a running leaping headbutt.

Riddle and Rollins brawling after the show went off the air: https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1574633767787954176?s=20&t=gALADCQ9GHUDiaBa47o6bw

At this point pretty use to the "While the defense looks good for most of the game, the offense can't capitalize which leads to the 49ers ultimately losing" game script.

Oh, I don't have any issue with the system they have in place or think that it needs to be changed, I just had a problem with the timing of the original interview and when it was finally released and reported as news. I think NXT is best as developmental to allow (some) experienced talent hone things and stay busy before moving up to Raw and Smackdown while allowing less experienced talent to get experience and have a chance to potentially work with more experienced talent. I feel like the biggest problem with the early days of 2.0 was that you had a lot of fresh talent given a lot of ring time before they were probably ready for it and often against other fresh talent. With the Florida touring shows, Level Up, and then NXT I think they have a really good system set up to bring the talent along. And I think that letting that talent work with experienced talent that is going do a brief stint in NXT or main brand talent that isn't otherwise being used just benefits them more. The problem with the old NXT was NXT got to be the answer to "I'm being booked poorly" or "I'm not getting screen time" or "Vince is going to book me poorly." Hunter running everything should help to alleviate that.

Watching the actual interview it was recorded Summer Slam weekend and says the current method was implemented with the NXT 2.0 launch. So not to say that they might not keep that direction but seems like if Triple H does plan on changing anything this interview was done before those plans would have been made.

Since the main roster will be doing War Game matches, they should consider having NXT do the traditional elimination matches.

So they went ahead and dropped Street Profits, Los Lotharios, and Alpha Academy for Hit Row, Imperium, and Brutes. As much as I always enjoy Profits and Alpha Academy, it is nice for something a bit fresher. I am wondering where the Viking Raiders are though, they've seemingly been off the show since they beat New Day. Maybe getting retooled? Also announced:

I believe the theory is that they're taping next week's episode to allow for more significant changes to the PC. If they do change up the PC, I hope they change the entrance way because I fear for everyone that does a dive on that side of the arena because of how little open space there is. Actually, they could just move the crowd back a bit in general because I remember thinking of the potential for something to go wrong when Waller tried setting up a ladder in between the apron and the barricade a few months ago.

Johnny Wrestling vs Gable tonight. Should be fun.

It'd be great if next week Sami had heat with the Bloodline because they're questioning if he was in cahoots with Cross considering he had gone to the production truck and the production truck knew about Kross.

I wonder if the main event could have benefited from being basically a barbwire version of the Mimosa Mayhem Match. Have pins and submissions but also have being thrown in the spiderweb as a potential finish. This way Kingston still doesn't pin or submit Jericho but you have the spiderweb spot and probably a better crowd reaction. From a storytelling perspective you established Kingston doesn't care about getting the decision(Blood and Guts) and also just wanted to make Jericho bleed(Barbwire Everywhere), so I'm not sure what Kingston's motivation for future matches is? Really outside of a Loser Leaves Town match seems about it.

Honestly I think the most important thing is that there better be post-match comments recorded from at least the NJPW wrestlers.

I enjoy Clark Connors making into the Four Way after calling it the Mid-Atlantic Title or "Whatever AEW is calling it."

I feel like Cobb is a dark horse candidate from Block A. I have Tama or SANADA coming out of Block B. Block C is pretty much up for grabs. And in the "Call me crazy" pick, I think El P could win Block D.

Probably gets ranked second in my Steph/Klay/Draymond era championships after the first one. Look forward to an off-season of a lot of (well deserved) swaggering from the front office and players. Do feel bad for Tatum who is probably going spend an off-season being roasted just because he landed on Wiggins Island. Hopefully he uses it as motivation for next season.

"Playoff Wiggins" is officially a thing.

That's basically the Warriors team unless you are calling Wiggins a mega star.

All the people picking against us on the way combined with the "Anyone but the Warriors" final picks...

Still think we're winning it but god Boston is a horrible match-up for us. If Boston ever learns how to get easy shots, they'll be scary.

Don't worry, just part of the master plan of unleashing Game 6 Klay on the Finals.

Warriors in 5 6.

The tradition of wasting the "Steph Game" continues on. That said Gentleman's Sweep confirmed.

I feel like Boston's offense plays pretty well into what the Warriors want to do defensively. Tatum is going take a lot of difficult shots and he's going make some of them which works well with the Warriors tendency to single guard your best player and just try to make it difficult for them and applaud them if they make a shot. Also Boston is another team rolling out a bunch of guys that can make 3's but aren't 3 point shooters and putting up 30-40 of them and hoping enough go in. Feel like expecting that to consistently put up enough points against a good shooting team with an offensive identity is a dangerous game. Also hopefully Jaylen Brown remembers how to dribble because GP2 is coming for him. On the other end of the court I think the Celtics give the Warriors more defensive problems than the Mavs and the Nuggets but less than the Grizz. I feel like the Warriors have way too many options and move the ball too much for the Celtics defense to consistently slow the Warriors down. Ultimately I think the Celtics just aren't going be able to put enough points up offensively or slow the Warriors down enough defensively. Warriors in 5 with my preferred loss occurring either in game 2 or game 4.

I continue to try to give AEW a chance and I will say that I at the very least enjoyed everything starting with the pre-main event interview.

Yeah, I'm out. I was about to quit about halfway through the episode, when the show once again went with a mood breaking attempt(and failure) at humor, but at least finished the episode. I'll give it another shot maybe after it's done but at this point I can't imagine the back half being different enough to change my mind. It's not even about the (questionable) direction they went with the character and the plot, I just don't find this an enjoyable show to watch. It's just boring and stiff and you would think it could at least fall back on action choreography and even that hasn't been great. I'm glad some people are enjoying it but it just hasn't been for me.