Matt D

Hits keep coming:

This is a thing you missed:

See I half think that’s ROH instead. Rampage is more of a Worldwide.

Danielson, Claudio, FTR, Garcia, Shibata? Or maybe Christian in there. Brody King? Eddie? I don't know. Give it some time. They run a lot of six-man tags on Collision. But it's really Danielson's show in a lot of ways now that Punk is gone.

Dynamite is Triple H led Raw with more workrate. Collision is Smackdown Six era Smackdown. Rampage is Heat. ROH is FCW/OVW/Deep South.

I didn't. I saw it once, with commercials, so it's hard to judge structurally and I don't want to go back for it. It went two breaks, which was a lot. At times, I thought Copeland felt like he was wrestling "random luchador" for the first time and he was doing stuff that would have made more sense against Fenix, but then because of the size differential, that wouldn't have worked, so it was kind of awkward and performative but also still just snuck into the "What worked" category when they ran those spots. You could buy Adam Copeland, the character, trying to pull this stuff given the opportunity. It's funny how Excalibur has no idea what to call most of Copeland's moveset. Not calling the Edgucator is fine (though not being familiar with it isn't), I get that, but call the Electric Chair Drop! That was almost nostalgia seeing him pull that out, and it's weird to have Edge nostalia but it's probably more Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain nostalgia, you know? The apron powerslam was neat but there's just too much apron offense in general. It's every match almost. That's not their fault here. I think it overachieved but it overachieved against a lower baseline given the pairing. It's definitely a positive check in the "Copeland stretches outside the WWE system" column.

There are weeks with almost nothing I want to see. There are weeks where I want to see almost everything. Usually it's a Dynamite/Collision split with Rampage in the middle though. The next few TVs are looking pretty fun though.

3/29 fin 4/4 start

Rating was good enough to be a bump but not so good that it means they're going to completely change how they operate and become Crash TV. I don't think they capitalized on it well enough though. I am really looking forward to matches on Collision and Dynamite. None of those were announced on the show itself. They didn't use the Dustin match to hook people for next week. That sort of thing. But still, maybe we can just move on now because those matches are good and that's the point.

On top of what people have added, I'd say the 2/5/23 ROH match with Athena. I like that better than the Owen or the PPV match between them.

Super excited for Willow for this. Imagine telling her she'd be in this match three years ago:

Believe it or not, I do feel like Bucks vs FTR is hotter than it was coming into this. That was a super cold match. There were better ways to capitalize on the extra eyes on this show. They needed a hot angle or three. They should have maybe stretched out the TRENT turn. Letting Dustin win (with more help from Swerve) to set up a title match next Wednesday would have been good. They still announced about five matches I want to see in the next week which is why the comparisons to 99 WCW are silly. The money match out of all of this?

I will say this. I’m a lot more concerned about a good rating than a bad one.

Also HOOK vs Taylor and Danielson/Claudio vs Fletcher/Hobbs, so that’s a whole lot of wrestling I want to watch in the next week.

And here’s the collision match:

You guys were no help: Rampage: TBS Championship Match: Julia Hart vs. Leyla Hirsch * Jay White vs. Matt Sydal * Orange Cassidy vs. Alex Reynolds * Cool Hand Ang vs. Zak Knight Solid Worldwide stuff there.

I missed the last hour. What did they announce for Rampage/Collision/BOTB? That’s what’s really important.

3/29 con't. I will get through this stuff.

3/29 con't. Good stretch here.

Mania weekend got in the way but i did catch some. 2/25/89 con't And the start of 3/29

Here's the Andretti image. I captured it myself, dammit.

As for Samantha Irvin, it says far more about the WWE culture than it does her in general. Having an announcer who will adapt their cadence and style depending on the wrestler in the ring is great. I'm not convinced that Irvin is particularly better or worse at this than anyone else that might have been given the opportunity in Vince-less/Dunn-less world to do it. There's not exactly a huge baseline. I remember announcers getting handslapped for trying it (even on house shows) in the past. I can't tell if she's genuine or working a good chunk of the time because it comes off as a little hokey but it's wrestling so that's not a bad thing necessarily. It's a tough balance. If she's getting so choked up that her voice is going there are pros and cons to it. Overall, things like the Gunther and Chelsea Green intros add more than subtract, but then I also don't watch this stuff on a weekly basis; I barely watch it at all! So maybe I'd feel differently if I was.

I've seen enough clips of the main event's last few minutes to piece together what happened and, from this perspective, and using Gregg's HHHyperBowl, the stuff with Rollins is legitimately the funniest thing they've done since Heenan left in the early 90s. Rollins being so self aware that he realized he was a pathetic shadow of the actual stars of years' past that were running out and that the only way he could make a real impact on history was to come out in the Shield gear with the world's most punchable face and distract Reigns by giving him something that he simply had to hit.. hilarious. That's ultimate rat boy stuff right now. If Rollins had been working like Ogawa for the last decade, he'd probably be on my GWE 100 list.

Here’s my quick review of Kingston versus Briscoe plus some Danielson/Archer talk: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/04/aew-five-fingers-of-death-41-47-part-2.html?m=1

They should throw some money at Joel Hodgson.