w. josh

Time to pool our resources and start a fed.

The fact that a company with a system that produced The Revival, American Alpha, The Street Profits, and Heavy Machinery is still running "singles guys with nothing to do right now" tag teams on top is...something.

This fucking company.

So how many people with credible sexual assault allegations got kept on while three women that everyone seemed to love and respect got cut, exactly?

If we no longer have to call a large adult man "T-Bar" anymore I'll consider this PPV a rousing success.

As someone who doesn't watch NXT UK, my big takeaway from this was "Holy shit, when did Pete Dunne get so jacked?"

Randy Orton doing a Rust Cohle gimmick MIGHT be an acceptable use of him in 2020.

There is absolutely no excuse for Randy Orton winning a World Title at this stage of his career, especially if the plan is for him to keep it until Edge can come back and beat him.

Paul Ellering outlived both members of the LOD.

The worst thing about Retribution (well, after the names, the look, and T-Jakovic's voice) is that an easier sell is RIGHT THERE. Some NXT workers got tired of waiting around for their opportunity while watching others catch breaks, so they took matters into their own hands. No need to give them stupid Prison Break names or pretend no one has ever seen them on WWE programming before. Just acknowledge who they are and make them look like bad-asses for taking initiative.

Yeah, I think they want to avoid a situation where Adam Cole is regularly shown standing next to Dominic Dijakovic.

It's in Hamsterdam.

I guarantee he's used that exact argument to try to explain to a woman why he shouldn't have to wear a condom.

The Freebirds also used this in the UWF, with Gordy delivering the slam.

As someone who has no interest in the generic hard rock/nu-metal that WWE traffics in, that entrance was pretty interminable to me, although I did really like the fog lingering in the ring. I'm also not all that stoked about another rear naked choke finisher. Dude definitely has an aura, though.

I just can't imagine any justification for the LMS match being that long. Edit it down by fifteen minutes (and mute 2/3 of Orton's uncomfortably-close-to-porn sounds) and you'd have a thoroughly decent brawl with a couple of great spots that proved Edge can still handle big bumps.

Theory feels like a heel Lance Storm with more charisma. I'm still not sure what the ceiling for that is.

The good news is they can just hire a stunt Undertaker for the actual match.

Seriously - you've got a guy who everyone knows is going to lose, but who could do a whole bunch of ridiculously athletic crazy flippy stuff in a sub-five minute match before eating a couple of F5s. There's absolutely no reason not to give him a couple of impressive spots before putting him down. I don't know whether these Lesnar matches are Brock refusing to give dudes that he thinks are beneath him any offense, Heyman trying to build up some MMA style "any matchup can be over in seconds" vibe, Vince being Vince, or some combination of all three.

Who is this company building up for the future? Drew McIntyre and...? Ricochet earned a title shot and then got no offense in the match. Montez Ford and Aleister Black spent months barely wrestling (which, it could be argued, has at least kept them fairly protected). Andrade just got pinned by R-Truth. Braun Strowman was working midcard comedy matches until he won a title with no build. Bray Wyatt has resurrected himself from terrible booking twice now and is going to have to do it a third time. Multiple NXT guys have allegedly asked not to be moved because they want to maintain some sense of importance. The two heavyweight champions wrestled each other in a WrestleMania match 16 years ago. Seriously, who are the top guys supposed to be 3-5 years from now?

He really needs to be someone's sniveling underling. He's got a dorky creep energy similar to Kyle O' Reilly - I don't buy him as a mastermind or evil boss at all, but they could have gotten some mileage out of him as the second-in-command who's too dumb to know he's being used by the top guy. Too late for that now, though - we're stuck with him doing this bad Evolution hybrid cosplay for the long haul.

At this point, I assume Dream runs through UE with the Broserweights as backup and takes the title from Cole, then they run Dream/Balor in the summer. They've got a few other guys at this point that could use the validation of a title reign - Lee, Riddle, Dunne - but no one other than Dream with an obvious path to get there. I understand the logic behind the long title reigns, but having Cole and Shayna (and Asuka before that) beat everybody really hurt a lot of folks who have ended up on the midcard treadmill.

So, it's 2020, Adam Cole is the champ, and Gargano and Ciampa are feuding. Huh.

I could see Strong and Fish transitioning to player-coach types in Orlando. I wouldn't mind O'Reilly sticking with Cole when they decide to move him to RAW or Smackdown - he's got such a goofy heel charisma that I'd hate to see him get lost in the shuffle as a solo act in NXT, and I assume the company's still high enough on Cole that he'll be a big deal wherever they put him.

I'd just be happy to know that Rhea was movin' on up. It would be great to see her finally get a piece of the pie.