THE AFTERMATH - WWE TV - 4/3 - 4/9/2023

[Octopus]

[Raziel]

8 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

Not technically true. In past years if the RAW after WM was good, I'd keep watching it in future weeks. That's what WWE wants, to get people to watch the RAW after WM since its one of their bigger shows of the year and like what they see and keep watching. WWE doesn't have to book for Gregg, he's the one that will watch no matter what. He's WWE4Life. But if the majority of the 'well I'll watch and see what they are up to' think the show was bad, that's not our fault. Defensive WWE fans are weird, not everyone is going to like what you like.

I also think its funny that your ilk always turns it into WWE vs. AEW. They are on different nights, people will watch both if they think both are good. We have DVRs. Its not a war. AEW wrestlers watch WWE and WWE wrestlers watch AEW. Its weird online behavior to be so obsessed with that.

Yeah.i didn't turn it into one vs the other.   The hypocrites that screech bad, perform about fucking off to Wednesdays,  and go apoplectic over there if you say a bad thing are the ones that did, and the ones I'm calling out.  There's way too much wrestling and entertainment in existence to waste time on something one clearly hates.

[Octopus]

I like the different style of wrestling that both companies bring to the table. Both can have hits and misses.

[HumanChessgame]

At first I was thinking Bron Breaker would debut as Cody's partner, but then Paul made the statement about someone who wrestled last night. In theory I'd be ok with a Cody/Brock program to give Cody something to do to keep him away from Roman for a bit, but everything Brock has done in the past few years keeps me from being optimistic about an eventual match. Cody's going to eat 12 suplexes, get some hope spots in, then eat a few more suplexes and an F5 or two before losing. Who does Roman work with in the meantime?

I kept waiting for something to happen with the Rollins segment. Maybe something went wrong backstage?

With the next show being in Puerto Rico I guess they have to give Bad Bunny an active role again...

Was Bronson Reed on the main roster already or was that the only call up we got on this episode?

[Raziel]

Hey I watch everything, except NJPW and Stardom.  They're incredibly dull.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

This seemingly is one of the worst examples of wrestler logic ever.

Brock Lesnar, can't ever challenge Roman Reigns again, agrees to tag with Cody Rhodes, so he can get another title shot, and presumably give Brock a title shot when/if he wins.

Instead, he beats the dog shit out of Cody for about forty hours straight, while staying unable to obtain a title shot opportunity.

[Cobra Commander]

4 minutes ago, Octopus said:

pretty sure the only time I really used Tubedubber was to combine footage of the time Nexus debuted and destroyed everything with the audio from 30 Hornets vs 30,000 Bees (it syncs well!)...

so basically we're in the time of night where either Daniel Bryan Danielson chokes a guy with a tie or 30 admins take out 30,000 users to clean up the mess.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

But who will gate keep the gatekeepers?

[Death From Above]

I forgot how ridiculously soft WWE fans are when the product eats itself like an orobourus. Thanks for the laughs.

I'm not sure there's anyone I give less of a fuck about in wrestling at this point than Lesnar. At least Goldberg used to get piped in crowd chants.

[Kevin Wilson]

3 minutes ago, Raziel said:

Yeah.i didn't turn it into one vs the other.   The hypocrites that screech bad, perform about fucking off to Wednesdays,  and go apoplectic over there if you say a bad thing are the ones that did, and the ones I'm calling out.  There's way too much wrestling and entertainment in existence to waste time on something one clearly hates.

One person mentioned AEW in this thread before you, maybe you've been reading too much twitter. But if you do have twitter I'd recommend avoiding it as 97% of wrestling fans that watched RAW didn't like it either. It just wasn't a good show tonight. And its somewhat ironic that you are calling out AEW fans that 'go apoplectic' if you say something bad about the show when that's kinda what you and Gregg are doing here.... someone just saying "ugh I didn't like the ending" and going straight to 'DON'T WATCH IT THEN' or 'YOU AREN'T SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND' is odd, that's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, people can like what they like.

[Dolphman 3000]

1 minute ago, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

This seemingly is one of the worst examples of wrestler logic ever.

Brock Lesnar, can't ever challenge Roman Reigns again, agrees to tag with Cody Rhodes, so he can get another title shot, and presumably give Brock a title shot when/if he wins.

Instead, he beats the dog shit out of Cody for about forty hours straight, while staying unable to obtain a title shot opportunity.

When Heyman threw out that stipulation I though Sami would come out, and then they could have let Sami and Cody both get comeuppence on Roman in the tag match while removing themselves from the title picture

Crowd goes home happy with Roman flat on his back, life goes on

[John E. Dynamite]

1 hour ago, Greggulator said:

This feels like 2013-2014 WWE which was the last time the show was this hot and everyone hated it and crapped on people who said “wait and see how it plays out” and then it paid out with Daniel Bryan winning the big one. 

That time period didn't have an ownership change happen the night before Danielson's win.

I don't want to be a bad faith poster here, I acknowledge the fact that I am "not a New York guy" and haven't regularly posted about WWE programming in a long time. It's not my intent to hide in the bushes and jump out when the company I don't watch shoots themselves in the foot. With that said, a handful of my friends are semi-lapsed fans who were committed to watching and discussing Wrestlemania weekend with me so I took in a lot more WWE than I usually do. There's a too-human urge for me to pat myself on the back for avoiding the company and laugh at the screeching of certain online manchildren, but that kind of cynicism never got me anywhere and anything that bums a majority of wrestling fans out will always bum me out, regardless of anything.

It's not Roman over Cody. It's not Asuka jobbing or Brock beating up the babyface or anything like that. It's going no-commercials for the first hour so you can run <2 minutes of wrestling in front of the smarkiest crowd of the year. It's promising a title match during hour one and not even running it in hour three. It's the re-writes. That is troubling stuff and there is absolutely no reason to assume it isn't exactly what it looks like. There's no "wait-and-see" here beyond waiting and seeing if Vince has an allergic reaction to his new eyebrow dye and his head falls off. Arguably the best roster of professional wrestlers ever assembled had the better part of the year to, for the first time ever, operate under competent creative and the results were considered an overwhelming success. For that narrative to almost invert halfway through a Wrestlemania is tough to watch.

Edited April 4, 2023 by John E. Dynamite

[Raziel]

7 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

One person mentioned AEW in this thread before you, maybe you've been reading too much twitter. But if you do have twitter I'd recommend avoiding it as 97% of wrestling fans that watched RAW didn't like it either. It just wasn't a good show tonight. And its somewhat ironic that you are calling out AEW fans that 'go apoplectic' if you say something bad about the show when that's kinda what you and Gregg are doing here.... someone just saying "ugh I didn't like the ending" and going straight to 'DON'T WATCH IT THEN' or 'YOU AREN'T SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND' is odd, that's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, people can like what they like.

What board are you reading?  No one's been saying "oh, I didn't like it."  It's been full throated "THIS IS SHIT AND YOU'RE a RUBE FOR LIKING IT"  Gregg's usual behavior that gets used as an excuse to pile on aside, anything that's not "This is bullshit" is getting screamed at.

[username]

Mania was pretty swell, tonight's Raw wasn't though so I guess the company is dead, shame about that.

[Eivion]

Theory/Rey was solid. Dug the ending/post match segment and am kind of down for Rey/Bunny vs. Dom/Priest.

Sami/KO vs. Street Profits built into a nice match.

Skipped around much of Bianca and Rhea's segment, but I am happy to see them hinting towards that as a match down the line. Also dug the stare between Raquel and Rhea.

Raquel/Rhea vs. Io/Dakota was another solid match. I find the joy Liv has when being awesome bombed into people to strange and amusing. She and Raquel work well together so I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do with Lita and Becky.

The opening segment was long but generally solid with them still pushing Cody wanting to face Roman. The final segment it led was interesting. I hate it when an announced match doesn't go down, but Brock's murderous heel turn was done well. The crowd seemed shocked and pissed in a mostly good way. 

Full disclosure, I never have great expectations of the Raw after Wrestlemania. People talk about past ones being good, but that is semi bs. What was enjoyable about them was the debuts and for some the unpredictable crowd that smarks reveled in seeing shit on WWE's plans. Much of the time we got rematches or builds to rematches that no one really wanted in between a neat debut here and there. They have been doing what they can to move away from all of that for a few years now so I wasn't too surprised by what we got here sans the Brock turn.

As to whether or not this was a Vince show. We already know Vince is back in creative on some level. There is no question in that as he has admitted it. He also said that it would be more about the major stories than anything else, and that seemed somewhat reflective here with the booking. It felt like a mix of Vince and HHH and was a mixed bag generally speaking. We got less wrestling than HHH normally gave us, we also saw things moving forward a bit with some of the setups with the women's tag titles match, hints of Raquel/Rhea, Rhea/Bianca, Lashley/Reed, Rey/Bunny vs. Dom/Priest, and Brock/Cody. Not a fan of Riddle's return, but he is over so he as always going to be pushed to some degree when his rehab ended. I didn't think this was an especially good Raw but also a far cry from the worst, especially in terms of after Mania Raws.

[Thunder Down Under]

I think a lot of the online WWE/AEW discourse is just based on how objectively bad both companies are at putting on consistently good wrestling TV shows, which gives anybody that wants to criticise them a lot of ammo, with the diehards on both sides then feeling compelled to dig in for various reasons. Acknowledging that the WWE has struggled to put together an engaging, coherent Main Event angle from WM to WM for over 2 decades and botched one that basically fell into their laps does not mean you want the company to die. Acknowledging that AEW books to a very narrow segment of the wrestling community with no real attempts to grow it except hoping that the general population develops a taste for watching ***** matches also does not mean you want it to die. It is probably that lack of honesty within the power structures of those companies would explain why the 10 million people who used to watch wrestling on a Monday night has dwindled down to 2 million or so.

[BobbyWhioux]

1 hour ago, Red King said:

Another masterpiece show.

The show reportedly had some rewrites. And Bayley was written off. Vince is back baby!

pipe dreams of Davina Rose being All-Elite officially rekindling on my end

[The Natural]

9 minutes ago, BobbyWhioux said:

pipe dreams of Davina Rose being All-Elite officially rekindling on my end

Bayley's had bad booking since the Golden Role Models ended and coming back from the ACL tear.

Cody Rhodes went from Lex Luger at WrestleMania XXXIX losing the big one to Stupid trusting Sting here.

Edited April 4, 2023 by The Natural

[BobbyWhioux]

13 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Well, well... that's what happens when you don't acknowledge him!  Reigns is now 54 days away from entering the 1000 Club.  He's 81 days from passing Pedro Morales for 5th longest run ever.  He'd pass Bruno's 2nd reign right before Royal Rumble '24.

Time to board the ship to Puerto Rico! 

I've heard switchblades are really popular there...  I wonder if that'll have anything to do with tonight's show? 

80 year old Bob Backlund will turn up out of nowhere just in time to personally protect his mark.  LONG TERM BOOKING~!

[Dolphman 3000]

Just now, BobbyWhioux said:

80 year old Bob Backlund will turn up out of nowhere just in time to personally protect his mark.  LONG TERM BOOKING~!

Will Roman bust out a Bruno-Meter like Santino with the Honk-O-Meter?

[Gonzo]

1 hour ago, ChesterCopperpot said:

WTF was with that Rollins segment? 

 

Not a general statement - but tonight's specific one. 

Kind of reminded me of the segments from one of Jericho's comebacks where he'd go out to the ring and the crowd would scream for him for five minutes and then he'd leave without saying anything.

I can't remember what that led to off the top of my head, either.

[Craig H]

1 hour ago, Raziel said:

What board are you reading?  No one's been saying "oh, I didn't like it."  It's been full throated "THIS IS SHIT AND YOU'RE a RUBE FOR LIKING IT"  Gregg's usual behavior that gets used as an excuse to pile on aside, anything that's not "This is bullshit" is getting screamed at.

I'm so sick of your gaslighting. You are by far the biggest bullshitter when it comes to this stuff. Just stop. Here, I went through the thread to find criticisms of Raw since you can't be bothered to provide evidence of your claims. Please point out the full throated "THIS IS SHIT AND YOU'RE A RUBE FOR LIKING IT"

2 hours ago, L_W_P said:

I like the idea of Cody v Brock but man, this setup was garbage.

Why not have Cody talk about how Roman ducked a fair fight, then Brock comes out and tells Cody to get to the back of the line. Boom, now we have conflict and a reason to fight with a formal "#1 Contendership" on the line at Backlash

Once again, the RAW after Mania is a waste of time because Vince knows we are all tuning in no matter what.

In hindsight, Hunter's opening promo was a warning lol

 

2 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

One of the flattest "post WrestleMania" RAWs I can remember. I usually only watch RAW a handful of times a year, and this is always one of them but what an uninteresting show with a bizarre ending. Nothing that makes me want to watch RAW again, but I'll watch Backlash anyway.

 

2 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

As someone who didn't have much of an issue with the booking at WrestleMania....   this RAW sucked.  It actually felt very much like a Vince show. 

 

2 hours ago, The Natural said:

One of the worst RAW after Mania shows ever. Feels like Vince McMahon is back...when he never ever left.

 

1 hour ago, Dudaroh said:

You honestly think they will let Brock lose to Cody?The whole Bloodline saga won’t end until they pay Rock enough to wrestle Roman.My 13 year old son who’s a diehard WWE fan since he was 5 was so upset last night and tonight,all he could say was how stupid it was and doesn’t even care to watch anymore.Great way to build longtime fans!

 

1 hour ago, w. josh said:

I guess I'll hazard the risk of being lectured or called dumb for not appreciating the clear genius of offering up the bold new story of...Brock Lesnar throwing around a hot babyface for a while. 

 

1 hour ago, SirFozzie said:

The way the feds treat their fans

That Other Place (TM): "We'll give the people what they want."

This Godforsaken Place: "Hahaha fuck you. No seriously. Fuck you. We get all our money from Peacock now, so go fuck yourselves. With a cactus. We'll do it our way"

 

edit: Now that I've gotten the worst of my bile out, let me try to explain it: The Brock turn was meant to be shocking yes, but there's a difference between shocking and "where the cinnamon toast FUCK did that come out of" Brock's turn was the second. Plus the same "Acknowledge" bullshit.

 

1 hour ago, SirFozzie said:

yeah. Here's the thing. as I said, I get the idea you want to get Cody away from Roman and move on to the next challenger (who will lose via Bloodline interference), but WWE pulled this out of their ass. The amount of times they've pulled this means I won't have the reaction "Gee, I'd better watch next week to see how/if Brock explains himself".. it's more like "Welp, they're fucking up by the numbers again, I'll watch again in a few months, maybe"

 

 

1 hour ago, John E. Dynamite said:

That time period didn't have an ownership change happen the night before Danielson's win.

I don't want to be a bad faith poster here, I acknowledge the fact that I am "not a New York guy" and haven't regularly posted about WWE programming in a long time. It's not my intent to hide in the bushes and jump out when the company I don't watch shoots themselves in the foot. With that said, a handful of my friends are semi-lapsed fans who were committed to watching and discussing Wrestlemania weekend with me so I took in a lot more WWE than I usually do. There's a too-human urge for me to pat myself on the back for avoiding the company and laugh at the screeching of certain online manchildren, but that kind of cynicism never got me anywhere and anything that bums a majority of wrestling fans out will always bum me out, regardless of anything.

It's not Roman over Cody. It's not Asuka jobbing or Brock beating up the babyface or anything like that. It's going no-commercials for the first hour so you can run <2 minutes of wrestling in front of the smarkiest crowd of the year. It's promising a title match during hour one and not even running it in hour three. It's the re-writes. That is troubling stuff and there is absolutely no reason to assume it isn't exactly what it looks like. There's no "wait-and-see" here beyond waiting and seeing if Vince has an allergic reaction to his new eyebrow dye and his head falls off. Arguably the best roster of professional wrestlers ever assembled had the better part of the year to, for the first time ever, operate under competent creative and the results were considered an overwhelming success. For that narrative to almost invert halfway through a Wrestlemania is tough to watch.

Really, really, really weird because, amazingly, what you're claim isn't there. And speaking of Gregg, maybe, just maybe, if he didn't quickly jump to being passive aggressive in the pursuit of defending Raw then no one would have given a shit. It's a weird concept to just let people dislike shit and talk about what you yourself like, like Dean for example, but it works better than this approach, which is just designed to antagonize people and get into arguments:

2 hours ago, Greggulator said:

I mean please go but what in god’s name are you talking about? 

 

2 hours ago, Greggulator said:

Okay since people who never post about WWE are now posting about how much they hated an episode of Raw:

1) Cody gets to now have a hot feud against Brock. That is a main event level match depending on whatever Roman is doing that PPV. It is also a new matchup. 

2) It frees Roman up for the next part of The Bloodline saga. And they already teased his disappointment with The Usos. 

 

2 hours ago, Greggulator said:

 

So go watch something else then. Plenty of wrestling options for you. 

 

2 hours ago, Greggulator said:

They got a shocking unexpected heel turn? And that is wrestling? 

It's annoying to take the few minutes to go and actually pull these quotes, but it's necessary to at least highlight that what you're describing isn't happening.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Craig H

[Ace]

[Niners Fan in CT]

1 hour ago, Kevin Wilson said:

One person mentioned AEW in this thread before you, maybe you've been reading too much twitter. 

I mean there was at least one guy who said "the other company gives us exactly what we want!" I have to assume he meant AEW and for me... that's certainly not always the case.  For example, The Acclaimed were a hot act.  They lost to the Gunns out of nowhere.  The Gunns aren't interesting at all.  I wouldn't say that's giving the people what they want.  

There shouldn't be a stan war about these things.  AEW sucks some weeks.  WWE sucks some weeks.  If you said to me.. "ok, you can only watch one of these!" from 2019 through 2021 I definitely would have said "goodbye" to WWE because AEW in my view was leaps and bounds the better show.  But if you asked me about the last year or so,  I'd definitely choose WWE.  I've been far more captivated by what they're doing.  

But that's not to say AEW hasn't been good at times.  Their last PPV was fucking awesome.  Money well spent.  Nobody's perfect. 

 

[Craig H]

The last time AEW produced something as compelling as the Bloodline it was the drama with Kenny, Hangman, and the Bucks. A lot of AEW storylines are way too drawn out or they’re not really storylines, but rather relationships built between so many different wrestlers and it can be hard to remember that one match two wrestlers had against each other 3 years ago and that’s why they’re feuding now. Other times stories get started and then get dumped after one or two weeks. Or it may seem like a story gets dumped, like Adam Page telling Renee he has some friends, ie the Bucks, to apologize to, and then that doesn’t get revisited again for a whole month. And then you do have some feuds which are just great, but then you get others who are stuck in the Jericho Booking Vortex and can’t escape.

 At least for what I watched, WWE certainly delivered the bigger hits by making each episode about the Bloodline while I found the actually matches in AEW consistently more enjoyable. I can’t say that for WWE outside of PPV matches and whenever Sheamus and Drew are allowed to kill each other.