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Did everyone rightfully think the original version of Judgement Day was the absolute most DOA thing in years? Now Priest and Rhea are world champs. I think Judgment Day have been the past year or so the heart and soul of Raw — Rhea, tag champs, Dom’s awesomeness, etc. Well deserved for a stable that has clearly worked really hard with a lot of individual talent who know how to make each other shine as a group. Priest really looks like he’ll be a pretty good heel champ for a few months until they have a good face to put over. I loved the Rhea/Dom walk-and-talk last night. They set up a match for next week, Liv gets the jump, and then they go to the next match — all in one of those long take single shots.

Insane praise Tank has been wrestling for 25 years and has been going to shows since the 70s!!

This is such an important role to have, and I hope she embraces it because she's fantastic at it. Every division needs a random thorn in the side and I really enjoy her as being a nuisance that a newer wrestler pummels to establish themselves.

Nice of Rock to give Cody those photos of Dusty that Baby Doll was gonna use as blackmail material

Got an almost 15% raise yesterday and we booked a house in Door County for our anniversary next month. We're spending way too much, but we found a completely handicapped-accessible place that's right on the water and we had to jump at that.

I liked seeing Brandi

Now, I'm gonna wish the Rock came back looking like Col. Robert Parker.

The Door County talk takes me back. Years ago I went to a wedding in Sturgeon Bay... Gina Schock (ex-Go-Go's) was performing with her band across the street from the reception hall, and we were going so hard that they all came over and partied with us after their show wrapped.

I think that may have been the first time I heard a "THIS IS AWKWARD" chant, because yeah, that was awkward. I still liked the segment, but thought it would have been better if Cody said, sure, you can hold this title...when you beat me for it and pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

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

"Refs checking the wrestlers for foreign objects before the match" is something that faded away without us noticing. I really miss the heel shtick of facing the ref and letting them check their right leg, then facing the turnbuckle...and raising their right leg again, hoping the ref doesn't notice.

Maybe it's backstage footage of FTR rubbing ass cream on each other

Well, hopefully the state athletic commission sancions that match official for his failure to enforce the rules. The competitors should be checked for foreign objects before the bout transpires... how do you miss a solid metal ring on one of the participant's hand?

Podcast I listened to where Marty DeRosa, who was a friend of Punk and Cabana (still the latter, no longer the former, naturally) described talking to Punk about how helpful therapy had been for him. Punk told him he didn’t believe in it. Of course, that was a few years ago and people can change. But nothing about Punk says “introspective” to me.

I’m surprised to find that Dragunov has never worked any matches in Japan because he seems like a guy who would have fared very well there in several eras

A meal fit for an octopus

She loves the role. She is one of the few wrestlers around who just wants to be a character opposed to being the world champ.

It's such a shame that immediately after he won the AEW title his plane was shot down over the sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors.

They were obviously phoning it in on Rampage and Collision this week, but can I just say how much better it is that Jericho is using White Zombie instead of Judas now? Low-key killer theme.

Then. Now. Not Next Year.

Ok, I think my friend and I workshopped a way to make showing the ball In footage work. Like some folks here said, have the Bucks do commentary over the footage. Go one step further though. Have the Bucks talk about how they’ve seen a lot of stuff going on that’s against the rules and they’re really going to start laying the hammer down. Just so everyone can be on the same page, they’re going to show a mandatory workplace safety video for what not to do. Then they show the footage and do commentary over it. Once it’s done, Nick, the hothead of the group, talks about how disgusted he is to watch to coworkers endangering the lives of themselves and others, I mean, this is a wrestling company, who does that?!?! And Nick says he is forced to fine Phil Brooks and Jack Perry one million dollars each. Matt then is like, uh, we already fired one of them and the other one we exiled to Japan… I think that would be funny and clever enough to make showing the footage work in a way to prove Punk is full of shit while still making their characters look like dicks. Hell, work in a shot at FTR too.

Have you two considered going to couples' therapy so we can discuss pro wrestling without hearing about whatever this was?

This sure was an interesting RAW after Mania. I did not expect them to dedicate most of the commercial free hour to a Rock promo that went absolutely nowhere. The Rock came off as someone who was defeated more than Roman was the night before. "Can I just hold the title" was so lame. Cody looked like a idiot by not saying fuck no (or something more pg). The whole segment just came off weird. It would have been better if The Rock just didn't show up tonight. On the flip side when Judgement Day were out and posing the with belts and R-Truth materialized from thin air to pose with them, I couldn't stop laughing. We got a usual Judgement Day match which is neither good nor bad. All three guys are good at what they do so I really can't say anything bad about them. I'm just not sold on Priest being a world champion. The match though was fun and I loved Cena's run in and hot tag and everyone doing the five knuckle shuffle and AA. That was a fun moment. Poor Chelsea. No one takes a squash quite like she does. I thought Jade was on Smackdown though. Ehh, when has that ever mattered. Main event was all right. By process of elimination I knew Bronson wasn't winning. Also neither was Richochet. Then half way through the match I remembered this was for Priest's title...not Cody. So there went Drew's chances. CM Punk screwing Drew was funny though. Let them have a meme war to end all meme wars. Jey Uso wins by default.

We would have all been better off if CM Punk never came back.

Props to Damien Priest for hustling and getting to where he’s at. I thought he looked soft as fuck coming from ROH to NXT, he had some shit gimmicks, I really doubted how much Judgment Day would work, and he made the very most of it all. And he did it all with a major transition in leadership at NXT and even more changes in leadership and ownership on the main roster.

That's what the DVDVR has always advocated for: Good punches.

I don't think I realized how much I needed the simple joy of that DEAN show. Just a bunch of good fucking pro wrestling with good people. Soul food.

At least the wwe has tag ropes again

If you say you don't believe in therapy, you definitely need therapy

I've only been once when I was 15/16 and I was bored that there wasn't much to do but sit by the water. Now I'm 42 and cannot wait to go and not do much but sit by the water.

Probably whatever ring Superman wore in some storyline where he married Lois

A Hardy Compound match with these 4 would've been phenomenal. Whoever said Matt (and to a lesser extent Jeff) overvalues himself too much in 2024 is dead on. You can see the difference in the approach between the work of the Hardys and Cope/Christian in AEW. The Hardys (in addition to being more broken down physically) always seemed like they expected everyone to work their match and kind of projected that "play the hits and leave" mindset. Cope and Christian have both adapted their styles to what the rest of the roster brings and find places to integrate their strengths on top of that. No surprise that the latter two have had much better output on TV. It might be more accurate to say the Hardys overvalue their WWE experience specifically. While I'm sure they'd have plenty of useful advice, they don't possess the secret for turning AEW into a second WWE. For most guys on the roster, picking the brains of Daniels and Sydal would be far more fruitful (to say nothing of having Danielson, Joe, Claudio, etc around). Those guys are much more in tune with what AEW is going for and most of them can incorporate the WWE perspective in their teachings as well.

The Red Sox 2004 World Series video was set to the noted upbeat celebratory song “American Pie” by Don McLean For when you need an 8 minute song about the day the music died for your celebration.

Even though he's no longer champ, a guy like Sean Strickland was like weird before he was champ. It's just like Colby Covington, where nobody noticed until he became someone. The counter to that is a Derrick Lewis, who has the freedom to talk about his balls being hot. Still a top 5 UFC moment *non fighting*. I dunno how many fights Derrick Lewis has in the UFC. It's a lot cause he has been around ten years plus and been surprisingly active. However, if he has two dozen UFC fights, he has as many "you can't say that on TV" (or even PPV) moments. He will never be champion, but deserves a job for life.

Wrestling twitter has been calling Damien Priest "Cuntertaker" for months. Gigi Dolin even called him that (on twitter). WWE is just PGing that.

Mark Ragin: Another wrestler rendered absolutely useless by the WWE Network/Peacock. If you want to talk about the influence of Thriller on sports/entertainment, there was also a guy by the name of Alvin "Too Sweet" Hayes in boxing around the time Ragin was in wrestling. It was the exact same bit except Hayes would do the whole routine and take like six minutes. He was also 6'1" fighting at 135 pounds (lightweight in boxing), which was amazing back then. Just like Ragin though, his career didn't last past being a huge Michael Jackson fan. There is a clip he is most infamous for where he fights on the undercard of Tommy Hearns vs. Roberto Duran, does the whole Michael Jackson bit in a pink Zorro mask for some reason, and then gets absolutely flambéed by longtime contender Jimmy Paul. Probably one of the most embarrassing (and brutal) moments in boxing history.

It's a tossup as to who took longer to take off their entrance attire, Terry Daniels or Mark Ragin.

Also: Sami and Gable is going to be awesome next week. The Montreal crowd and those two who already have great chemistry? Give that a few final hour segments and end it with Sami winning and a sore loser Gable trying to snap Sami’s ankle right in front of his crying wife and you could end up with a riot.

Pearce said he & Aldis made an agreement to use a smackdown talent tonight because they both wanted to see Chelsea get squashed after she sent emails to their bosses after the Slammy incident.

Opening segment was a solid 15-20 talking segment that somehow went twice as long as it needed to. I didn't hate it, but fuck was a it way way too damn long to basically leave us with "To be Continued." Ilja/Shinsuke was random but solid as a showcase for Dragunov. The Judgement Day segment was made fun with Truth getting involved. It worked out well as a lead into the 6-man tag and eventual Cena appearance as Awesome Truth's partner. Dug how it came together and turned out by the end. Rhea pushing Dom to fight Andrade next week and the subsequent sneak attack by Liv was good to see. There was no need to talk about anything. This has already been a long time coming. I'm curious to see if Liv can stay a face in this feud with Rhea and if we get a stip match out of it. Roxanne/Indi was short but decent and another addition to the continued Candice heel turn mixed with an Indi who still rather be good. Sami/Gable vs. Imperium was pretty solid as expected. Looking forward to Sami/Gable. I don't really want a Gable heel turn, but it will probably be impossible to not happen with the defense happening in Sami's hometown. The setup to Jade/Chelsea was fun. The actual squash was super quick and a bit of a non-factor as a result. Kind of wish Chelsea got stooge a bit and rag things out a minute or two. Drew/Ricochet/Bronson/Jey was good though it felt weird to see Ricochet here with no big achievement compared to the other 3. Loved Drew's promo at the beginning and his reaction to getting cut off by by Jey. The finish was perfect and another nice extra moment of Punk giving Drew the finger. I thought was decent in terms of moving forward a bit and showing what is to come in some of the bigger areas. Ilja & Roxanne were nice surprises. Their appearance here feel like confirmation of both being on their last year as NXT regulars. Now its just a matter of when both come up. Could have used less drinking in the moment of such a big Wrestlemania. I get why they do it, but it always feels like they go overboard about it.

Yup.

'nuff said.

It was a fun and enjoyable Raw for me. It really flowed well for me which isn't something that's always the case. It was a nice surprise to see Ilja and Roxanne get feature matches tonight. Did feel like both of them were emoting a little bit more than usual as if to give the audience an idea of who they are. Was nice to see that Cole even dropped that Ilja was the last person to pin Gunther prior to Sami. Thought they did a good job of continuing storylines with Candice's heel turn/Indi's hesitance, Liv wanting revenge, R-Truth thinking that he's still in Judgment Day, and Gable's IC quest. Not a whole lot of new ground was broken but I don't think they really needed to, plus it's kinda not that surprising with both the impending draft and the quick turnaround for Backlash. Jey winning the 4-way seemed to be the logical pick and CM Punk costing Drew the match also seemed pretty predictable but it was still fun getting to it. With the short build and how over Jey is, he seems like a good first challenger for Priest. Tonight's production note: I liked the one continuous shot of Dom/Rhea talking going into Liv attacking Rhea into Dom telling the camera to get out of there which led to the camera going out to ringside for a match. I look forward to Gable finally snapping after losing to Sami.

But not as neck strong as Roderick Strong

Bill Simmons knows basketball pretty well I'd say and seems to have a pretty good knowledge of....movies? Probably nothing on Sean Fennessey, though. That's all I got. It hurts to listen to him talk about anything else.

For a moment I wanted the DVD to end the match. But then he punched him in the fucking ear for the win and that was better.

"This Sunday at Some Saudi Prince Throwing Away Gobs of Cash King of Summerfest Mania, I am coming for you Seth... And by the way, nobody out pizzas the Hut!"

My thoughts on the weekends events. Night 1 was mid, not good, not bad, but mid. Night 2 was much better, especially with Bayley/Iyo. Cody winning had me acting like I was 12 instead of 42. We need snoop rif tracking our favorite fun brawls. I'm thinking atown down under drop the tag belts to rko. Truth must be protected at all costs coz the man has managed to elevate everyone he interacts with through comedy. Taker showing up to choke slam the rock snd drag him away(off screen) made more sense than Austin even though he would of been the bigger pop. Austin brawling to the back with the rock might of taken away to much focus from the ring. Seth looked like a goof but a main event goof who finally got his comeuppance for starting Roman on this path. Now the next story begins. The fall of Roman, and the build to Rock/Roman. Plus whatever Cody is gonna do before he loses the title to hopefully Gunther

I thought Samantha Irvin was fucking great.