Steventon

I thought the matches on the show were largely good but a few things to moan about: - Roddy as a heat machine is fun, calling his shot for a PPV 3 months away feels like a long way out though. That's a lot of time to fill between now and then - Adam Cole and Wardlow standing next to each other reminded me of Chester and Spike - Personally I hated the Bucks promo. Everything about it felt hokey and put on. - I'm into Joe as champ but could not care less about a three-way for the belt. If they could add in fourth guy, it'd be a bit more palatable, but I'm over Swerve vs Hangman and triple threats are a boring trope

Should have picked FTR instead

Cole treating Wardlow the same way MJF treated him has to be a rib right? How many times can guys ask Wardy to win a title for them? Dude would have to be the biggest geek in a faction full of geeks to go along with that. Not a fan of Hangman vs Swerve re-igniting so soon, though I did laugh at Hangman turning up the show suitcase in hand 20 minutes before the end. Where was he? This feels like a potential triple threat or fatal four-way brewing with these two, Joe and maybe Wardlow? The tease of a babyface Jay White was neat. Darby vs Takeshita was a banger. Darby is the best out there at matching around dudes crashing and burning and I am here for Takeshita - suplex machine.

Re Priest - would the logical option not be for him to cash in RAW after WM on Rollins or Punk?

Society at large still struggles with the nature of sexual crimes. We have some bright people here but I don't think we're going to find the answer to how to handle them on a wrestling message board.

If people pay for tickets for an event with it advertised - no chance. Imagine the reaction. Rock was bad in those Cena matches a decade ago. I dread how bad a match with Roman at this point would be unless they go Lesnar vs Goldberg bang and smash finisher-fest for 6 minutes. Personally I hope they stay the path with Cody but there's no accounting for taste in board rooms.

I guess you could flip this round a bit though. Why would the Australian tourism board or whoever need or want to spunk money on a Rock match when getting a PLE is a big win on it's own?

Could they do Cody vs Roman Night 1 and Rock vs Roman non-title Night 2? Seems unlikely. Cody getting cucked and going back to AEW would be a hell of a thing.

I somehow caught some of the pre-show and have to say - even though there were much bigger things on this show - Stat vs Willow was legit the sloppiest match I've seen between two properly trained workers in ages. That whole finishing sequence was a fucking shambles. Cole/Kingdom/Wardlow was the most predictable route, it just isn't very interesting. I became tired of Adam Cole, main event heel leading faction, like over a decade ago, and seeing him be paired with the same guys (and Wardlow) he's been associated too for large parts of his career already - I'll pass. That, and what was even the point? I am sure we'll get a typically long boring promo explaining it on Dynamite, but Cole hasn't got the world title and has lost the belt he did have. The explanation has to be really good for him not to be dumbest mastermind ever. Joe as champ is cool considering his career looked like it was done at one point. Kingston vs Mox was easy MOTN and a great moment. Considering they will almost certainly never treat Eddie like a real main event guy, he's been given as good of a consolation prize as you could ask for. I enjoyed Coleland vs Christian even though it was a pretty typical no DQ match and the fire spot was both forced and pointless. I've been a low voter on Edge for basically his whole career as a main event guy but I am low key enjoying this run just because of the effort he's bringing. Andrade vs Miro was aggressively mediocre. Andrade is going back to the WWE I assume, but all this to lead to Perry siding with Miro anyway - who could possibly give a shit about any of this. CC 8-man was a fun showcase and cool they gave Garcia the win.

Don’t let Tony see this

Damn. The fall of Keith Lee is sad to see. There was a point when he first broke out that he felt like the future and someone should strap a rocket to him. Feel bad that his body seems to have hit the wall before he could ever break that ceiling. Hope he takes the time needed to recover and can come back healthy.

As a guy who doesnt go on Reddit or x, is there so far anything more to this story than a hack “journalist” making some vague allusion on a podcast (literally called innuendo and rumour) and someone liking a tweet? If more comes out, more comes out, but so far that’s a low bar. If there’s more to it, can someone fill us in?

How do you do the reveal and MJF losing in his hometown without your new world champ being the third most important guy in the picture?

I know he was apparently an atrocious human being in real life, but he really was one of the best heels ever and one of the best British workers ever. Arguably the best of the whole World Of Sport era and that style. RIP a British wrestling icon.

Any reason why they couldn't bring him back? He's still on their roster page. Realistically Spears isn't a main event guy and wouldn't be a worthy challenger of MJF anyway so they'd have to appoint someone new as leader.

What are the odds the devil is Tully and the masked goons are all the ex-pinnacle guys coming back to haunt MJF? Would be a bit of dissonance with what FTR are doing and the guys tonight didn't look like them physique-wise, but personally think it would be a better choice than any of the obvious contenders.

I'm not a legal expert, and unless anyone has a copy they can share it's all going to be speculation, but there's probably a couple of assumptions we can make. If there's an NDA in all employee's contracts/handbook, it's probably very generic and boilerplate. Given the nature of Brawl Out, there 100% would have been a separate NDA specific to that as part of whatever was agreed. Given that Jericho was with the company from the start, there's also a strong chance there was no NDA or employee handbook when he started. That's the kind of thing that only gets introduced once you have a functional HR unit in a business.

Swerve already ate a pin to Moxley. Otherwise yeah I'd agree it feels more like him vs Lee on the way to the world title is the direction of travel.

While I don't love the triple threat booking of the Gold League with Tony being too protective of those 3 guys, the Blue League story of Kingston coming back from a bad start to win, going over Danielson and hopefully earning his respect to payoff the 'Eddie is a bum' moment, is potentially awesome. Kingston in the finals in New York will be fire, but who do you put him against? White would be good as a clean heel vs face match, but I can see them going with Swerve then having Hanger cost him the match (as alluded to in Page's promo where he said he's cost Swerve something he really cared about). As far as the matches go, all the CC stuff was good with Bryan vs Claudio being this week's highlight. Great use of the time limit draw and smartly done with Danielson working from beneath for most of the way. The catch into the Giant Swing was awesome.

That Jericho line was stinky stinky garbage but Omega may also have the lamest and least over catchphrase of all time. What a weeb. Main event was alright, though it was very paint by number 'big match template' stuff. A big fake epic star ratings match does not play the strengths or either Mox or Swerve.

Eddie vs Claudio was very good as expected and I dug the roll-up finish, that is something it feels like we haven't seen in any of the CC matches yet (unless I missed it). Working a match around Andrade attacking and busting open Bryan's legitimately injured eye socket was a fucking choice. Good gravy. That said, I actually thought the first match they had was better once they got past the initial horror of the injury. Hopefully this is a heel turn cemented for Andrade leading to him vs Miro, because if not, what was the point of all that.

I had a late one and managed to catch the main event. It is mental that Corbin has improved a lot, but is still a total chud in the ring. He did far more here than during his main roster run, but also this was a big spotlight main event against a guy who is maybe the best worker on the roster and it was totally forgettable and average. Ilja rules so happy to see him retain, and I did enjoy the first match with Trick a lot, but can't say I care about the rematch. Trick is still pretty green and average. Interesting to see if Hayes gets called up as he's one of the best guys in NXT but not sure he has the size or presence to be more than a flavour of the month on RAW or Smackdown.

Wrestlemania is still 2 nights next year right? So why would anyone buy this tension between Punk and Cody from Punk's return meaning Cody can't 'finish his story' when they can very clearly and 99% will go with both of them main eventing different nights.

The opener and main ruled. Kingston vs Danielson are 2 for 2 in bangers, what a war that was. You have to think they are going to do something with Eddie, you can't have a PPV in New York and have him do nothing. Seems unlikely he'll be in the finals but it would have been mega to see him be the first TC champ in New York.

Corporate Heel CM Punk is probably the best and most interesting thing they could do here with him bum-licking HHH and Vince. Although 2 problems: 1) Corporate Heels are one of the most played out, done to death tropes in WWE and 2) the top babyfaces, Seth & Cody, are also massive corporate bootlickers. He'd need someone authentically anti-establishment to be his foil, and that's pretty slim pickings outside Zayn and Owens