DEAN Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 Ah cool! More Sami Zane! Shinsuke Nakamura is a Japanese version of Zane's Terry Funk so these matches are usually fun. I love how they battle it out to see who is the most over the top. Nakamura bumps big early and does more arty flourishes so I think he wins the Most Funk designation. Fun finish but I was hoping for a countout on Zane so they would have to wrestle again. Sammy Zane is awesome. Jesus, Drew Gulak takes an assbeating from Gunther. That wasn;t very long. Ricochet vs Gunther? That will be odd. Shotzi (Blackheart) is fed to Raquel Rodriguez. Shotzi is spunky! Raquel crushes her a couple of ways. That wasn't very long. Xavier Woods and Butch again. Butch is awesome in this, stepping on Woods head while procuring the armbar. Butch beats on Xavier and he lays it in. Woods with the FLASHPIN! This is definitely Smackdown Dark because I don;t think any match has made it to 5 minutes yet. The Usos and RKBro FOR ALL THE BELTS! Unbelievably, Matt Riddle is a Face in Peril! Unbelievably, Randy Orton is great on the apron. I think Riddle is realizing that this will be his last time to be Ricky Morton so he is leaning into it tonight. This will also be the last time Randy Orton gets to take a hot tag so he is feeling the moment. Great powerslams by Orton. I'm going to miss this when they are broken up. RK Bro were a good Rock and Roll Express. Fun nearfalls as Riddle kicks out after getting slaughtered by the Usos. Slight fuckery by Roman Reigns! And the Usos win! Awww, poor Matt Riddle. Nice Superfly Splash off the top through the table. Yes! Crying children! Kids gotta learn about the hardships of the world. I had Blackjack Mulligan bleeding at the Norfolk Scope, you, my child, get the destruction of Randy Orton and Matt Riddle. RIP RKBro. You were enjoyed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 11 minutes ago, Eivion said: So they are definitely going to be fired then so WWE can make an example? Kind of shocked they feel safe potentially pissing off the Usos and Roman with this stuff. Cole's words were "suspended".. they were gonna release them then why not just release them? Probably want to hurt they bonus money w/ the merch stuff.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 33 minutes ago, Blue Dragon said: WWE pulled all of Sasha Banks and Naomi's merch off WWEShop.com and removed them from the rosters on their website. euroshop.wwe.com as well. Just checked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 28 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said: Cole's words were "suspended".. they were gonna release them then why not just release them? Probably want to hurt they bonus money w/ the merch stuff.. Ah, I missed that part as I didn't want to hear whatever bullshit was going to be spouted. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 Wouldn't you pull their merch to make it more believable if it was actually an angle? I know it's not, but if it was, ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 Oh by the way, WWE NOW pretending to care about the women's tag titles when this whole situation in part came about because they don't care about those titles is typical WWE. Lol at a tournament when they have two teams left. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 (edited) Sasha's still on the roster page I'm looking at. Naomi is not. https://www.wwe.com/superstars EDIT: Actually, Naomi *IS* there, but her name is out of alphabetical order. Did their profiles get pulled and then hastily put back up? Edited May 21 by Dog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 1 hour ago, The Natural said: This reminds me of when I was 8 years old an Guerrilla Monsoon announced that the Ultimate Warrior was indefinitely suspended 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 I'm not so sure they're breaking up RK-Bro just yet. They sell a TON of merchandise. I don't think they're gonna have Orton turn on Riddle and have them feud. Not yet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVileOne Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 So separate tag team titles are gone. Separate world titles are gone. Virtually no women's tag teams in sight. Why does this brand extension still exist? Wrestlers are already going on both shows whenever they want. There is no draft. There is no brand extension save for a pretense of one. End it already. Kill it and put it out of its misery forever. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cristobal Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 I love how after a quarter-century of heel authority figures representing WWE and the McMahon family specifically, Vince himself certainly not least among them, Vince still thinks he can issue statements like this, shitting on popular talent, and be the babyface with fans. He learned absolutely nothing from Montreal. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 2 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said: I'm not so sure they're breaking up RK-Bro just yet. They sell a TON of merchandise. I don't think they're gonna have Orton turn on Riddle and have them feud. Not yet. Hope not. Be nice to see a tag team break up amicably when the time comes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolfan in NYC Posted May 21 Author Share Posted May 21 5 hours ago, TheVileOne said: So separate tag team titles are gone. Separate world titles are gone. Virtually no women's tag teams in sight. Why does this brand extension still exist? Wrestlers are already going on both shows whenever they want. There is no draft. There is no brand extension save for a pretense of one. End it already. Kill it and put it out of its misery forever. Everything you said is true. But in no way, shape, or form is brand extension ending. Fox and USA have both said they want "exclusive superstars". So, for that reason alone, it's not ending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoFistsJustFlips Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 As Dolfan said the networks are big on keeping the brand extension a thing. But you could still merge all the needless titles and have champions work both brands. They can still have exclusive rosters. But just let the only world champion appear on both shows. Let the only men's tag champs appear on both shows. Merge the women's titles and do the same. The women's tags are already dual branded. You can keep the IC & US the show exclusive titles if you want. But with how they have paired down the roster there is no need for multiple men's tag champs or multiple world champs or multiple women's champs. All of that said, I'm sure they have a date in mind for a draft and one of the "networks" will just strip The Bloodline of half of their titles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVileOne Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 5 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said: Everything you said is true. But in no way, shape, or form is brand extension ending. Fox and USA have both said they want "exclusive superstars". So, for that reason alone, it's not ending. Except no one is exclusive anymore. No one ever truly was. Look at Lacey Evans. First she's on SmackDown for her big return, now she's on Raw. There is no brand exclusivity. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramo2653 Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 Couple things: 1. The Sasha/Naomi stuff seems needlessly dumb from management's end to me. Why feed your tag champs to your singles champs at a one off show with no payoff if that was the plan? They'll get this figured out assuming both sides want to play ball. 2. Did anyone else's broadcast of SD bleep out the Cole and McAfee saying Chingona Bomb during the Raquel/Shotzi match? I thought that was odd. Also I see that Raquel took the "smile more" advice to heart. LOL 3. Main event was good, when the overuse of crowd reaction shots works, it really works. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Dragon Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 (edited) WWE filed to trademark Giovanni Vinci and for short name Gio Vinci. Bloody Brutes became the Brawling Brutes instead. Remains to be seen how the Men's tags will be booked going forward, if they're dual branded or mostly for Smackdown. If the undisputed titles are for Smackdown only, then Raw has no tags or top mens title. So for Raw then...U.S., Womens, 24/7 title. Both brands share the women tags. Edited May 21 by Blue Dragon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 2 hours ago, Ramo2653 said: Couple things: 1. The Sasha/Naomi stuff seems needlessly dumb from management's end to me. Why feed your tag champs to your singles champs at a one off show with no payoff if that was the plan? They'll get this figured out assuming both sides want to play ball. They've never valued tag team wrestling and have, at points over the last few decades, had tag champs lose in handicap matches to a singles champ, for instance. They also had Survivor Series where the tag champs were in a triple threat with the main champ. In the hierarchy, Sasha and Naomi were probably "worth" less individually after they won the belts than they were before they did. It was an easy way to lazily brand a PPV as the singles champions had to defend against the tag champs. Putting one over the other in a six-pack challenge and then having the other earn a shot to get redemption probably felt like a good few weeks of TV for them too. I'm not saying that they shouldn't value the tag champs but they haven't. They just blew the unification match for the tag belts off on a random Smackdown after making the singles belts' unification the center piece of Wrestlemania. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted May 21 Share Posted May 21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hammerva Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 The best part of the intro is the apprehension on the word "Now". Like there should be a question mark on it They are now putting the Cole announcement on their Youtube channel. So someone thought it was a great idea. Hopefully they crop our Pat's reaction for their sakes 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
username Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 Honestly WWE should probably take this opportunity to mothball the women's tag belts as while they in theory made a lot of sense in a world without a brand split and only one top belt, with the roster split and two singles titles neither show seems to have the depth for much of a tag division. I wish they worked better but aside from allowing some ladies to be on both shows they just have never really clicked. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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