Greggulator

Sami has acting chops. We saw it during The Bloodline stuff and even the comedy side with Knoxville. Would not surprise me if he ended up as a lovable goofball in a family comedy.

Oh man, the final segment on RW was absolutely epic. I love a good heel whipping babyfaces angle. Rock and Roman properly laid in the lashing. Good on Seth and Cody for taking the beating. Great touch by Cody keeping his shirt on, because that got some crowd “noooo” murmurs when The Bloodline ripped the shirt off. Roman talking smack on the floor to the camera with the carnage in the background was so good. Only note was this had the opportunity for fans to pelt the ring with garbage like 90s nWo or a father trying to hop the railing since his kid was crying. The Rock in 2024 just got a New York City crowd to chant “Rocky Suxks” less than a week from WrestleMania. So amazing.

Plus the comeuppance of Kim Mulkey!

I am watching Raw in bits and pieces tonight. I just finished Richochet vs. Ivar. How many weeks this year has Ivar been involved in the best match on Raw? Because it has been many weeks. He is this secret awesome worker.

Dear almighty were we treated to something tonight with Caitlyn Clark. What a great night for sports. My soon to be five-year-old son knows who she is and calls her Twenty Two and I am so glad that he gets to watch her during his formative sports fandom years.

He reminds me a lot of Zach Randolph. I have been wrong so many times before but I could absolutely see DJ Burns as a bench guy for a playoff team next year.

There have been a few stories around for the past few years about A-Rod and his partner not having the money. Considering A-Rod does "financial freedom" seminars with Pitbull and has licensed out his name and the like with the scumbag who wrote "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" -- all stuff where you try and get people to pay money for these worthless rip-off classes -- I'm of the belief that A-Rod doesn't quite have the amount of money you need to buy a controlling share of a NBA franchise.

Draymond just got ejected tonight. 3 minutes into the game for lipping off about a play he was not even involved in.

My one wish is that we could get RIOT from the original WOW there...

JJ and LeBron’s new podcast Mind The Game is incredible.

Incredibly funny scandal brewing. Massive betting on all the unders on his prop bets. Dude also has a subscription service to his Discord where you can get financial tips from him. Perfection.

Also: The bridge is going to really make supply chains on the east coast interesting. Baltimore is the biggest hub of auto imports and exports and parts in the country, one of the biggest two terminals for coal exports, a port where we ship liquified natural gas out of, and a big intake for sugar. (The Domino Sugar refinery is a Baltimore landmark.) One interesting thing about the Baltimore Port I did not know — it does not handle a lot of containers. It’s more of a “roll on and roll off” port. I read a few places that it’s going to be a messy few days to try and reroute everything, but the rest of the east coast ports are big enough to handle the loads, but they might have some logistical issues to figure out because they handle container ships more. Plus, there will also have to be a lot more trucks rerouted from Baltimore to those ports. An economist in an article I read said that the Baltimore bridge collapse meant America’s ocean shipping industry now essentially had no room for error in terms of capacity. Also interesting — shipping insurance might not change too much. The stuff in the Red Sea already jacked up those rates, and the shipping insurance industry is more of a collective pool than how homeowner’s insurance or something like that works just to handle things like this.

Making it better — I don’t know if this 100 percent true since I saw it on social media somewhere. But it was mentioned that it’s required for local harbor pilots to steer vessels in and out of the harbor directly. I used to write about oil tankers — Baltimore doesn’t have an oil refinery, so I never wrote about that port specifically. But other ports have those kinds of requirements or something similar logistically.

It’s a really important highway, too. I-95 is the big interstate along the east coast of America. It goes under Baltimore as a tunnel. There’s a “beltway” that is essentially a loop road around the city for vehicles too big for the tunnel/people who want to avoid city traffic and for locals in that area. That’s what the bridge is on. Going to be pretty disruptive for moving cargo around the US for a while. The video is absolutely wild.

Man, the Rock is a legitimate movie star being the single biggest asshole heel imaginable. Dude has absolutely nothing to gain from being in WrestleMania at all. It’s all downside risk for his career and real easy to see some studio exec taking a big role from him. The payday he’s getting from this is relatively nothing. Dwayne is just an artist and it is incredible.

Man, that ending tonight was so so so so awesome. I loved that just a bit ago they had Cody come off the bus and tap his dog he has painted on it. Great foreshadowing they set up with that. Absolutely perfect that is was in the rain. Rock looked twisted as hell throughout. All-time heel show ending. I was absolutely not into the Punk stuff. I love Drew in this current form. But it’s so corny when Punk reacts to comments like doing a three-count with his other hand. If you want played out shoot stuff to work, then everyone has to take the insults. Why do I care if Punk is going to do commentary for Rollins/Drew if he’s just going to be sarcastic and above it all? A bitter Punk calling a match between two of his biggest enemies is a good twist. Punk just no-selling insults like he’s Kevin Nash in the ring against La Parka in 1997 WCW is lame.

I only got to see the Last Woman Standing match and that was a damn good garbage match brawl. Thought they did a good job at going from spot to spot and plunder to plunder. Nia has become a really good bully and Becky is at her best selling and selling and selling and then firing up. Loved that Becky had to use her resiliency to get the win (as highlighted by the announcers) and find a way to put Nia down after the Manhandle Slam through the table didn’t work. The leg drop from the ladder was pretty gnarly. Fun match.

Nia has been so fucking good during this latest run. What an awesome bully cheapshot artist. She’s had a bunch of banger matches. (I actually didn’t see her against Ripley yet either.) Becky is always at her best when she gets to be defiant in her matches — I’m not a fan of Becky as the world beater best in the world, but she’s fantastic having to work from underneath. She’s been positioned this way during the past few months and it has really clicked for me. I think the match tonight is going to be a really fun brawl. Becky vs. Rhea absolutely could main event WM but understandably isn’t because of the absolute star power in the main events. I am also really intrigued by the Sami/Gunther/Gable angle. They have to get Gable involved. Sami getting the win was such a great and intriguing choice. What a great three years Sami has had with WrestleMania — the big (and pretty incredible) celebrity match, a Night One main event in the angle of the century (and just an all-time banger match, too), and now in the show stealing position against Gunther and very likely Chad Gable with him playing as “the other guy.”

My son has entered the Bluey age of entertainment. Bluey is absolutely fantastic. It’s awesome that a show this well-made is so popular. There are so many episodes that make me tear up. The episode about cricket Is the standout for me and generates a lot of allergies.

Dear god The Rock’s promo once we got past the concert was all-time despicable heeling, Nothing quite like referencing the kids movie you starred in when saying you are going to beat a man with a belt and then hand his mom said belt. Incredible.

I just watched the Iron Woman. It’s a perfect wrestling match. I don’t know what else can be said about it. Ironman matches are my favorite gimmick. One of the pet peeves with an Ironman is when and how a first fall comes. An Ironman always comes at the end of a feud, and by that time you’ve seen the participants have these long matches and then the first fall comes like six minutes into it. The Brooklyn classic went just about 20 minutes. The first fall in this one comes with nine minutes gone, but these two had so many NXT TV matches that went about that length, so it does not feel egregious. Another thing with Ironman matches is that the matches can get driven by when the falls come. But this match is driven by the characters and their motivations first — just like any good wrestling match or, frankly, any narrative in ant art form. This is an absolute masterpiece in character work in any kind of performance art. It is really transcendent. The big pivot of the story takes place before the first fall. Ahead of that, it’s a whole “these two women respect each other” vibe. Bayley goes to respectfully lift Sasha up out of the corner, and Sasha does this awesome “I really appreciate this and respect you too” face before snatching Bayley’s wig and throwing her onto the mat. That just starts Sasha putting on an all-time great hammy villainess performances. I say hammy as a compliment, because wrestling should always be over-the-top. It’s why we love it. And the motivation is clear. Sasha does not think she can beat Bayley without being even more despicable than the Brooklyn match, and she’s not wrong. The first fall comes soon after. There is a switcheroo that ends with Sasha in the corner blocking the ref’s vision, followed by an awesome looking eye poke (Bayley is the absolute best at selling those types of things) before a roll-up. Perfect — the villain takes the lead by being diabolical, and now our beloved hero has to fight from underneath. The whole rest of the match, Sasha either cheats or usually does something heinous but within the rules. One of my favorite spots — Bayley went to the well too often with her corner dropkick on the floor. Sasha caught her legs and then swung Bayley’s head and back into the steps (actually catching more of the corner, which I doubt was intentional, but it is NASTY.) This happens right in front of Bayley’s family and Bayley Superfan (and audience proxy Izzy.) Sasha of course has to taunt them. This leads to one of the truly iconic moments in wrestling heeldom. Sasha gets her second fall by marching Bayley (selling like she’s endured major head trauma) up to the ramp where she throws Bayley head first into the LED countdown clock that flickers in and off, which is such great wrestling nonsense. Sasha then on her way back snatches Izzy’s headband, crawls into the ring to beat the count, mocks Bayley, does a fake cry taunt, and then snaps the headband before whipping it back to a now sobbing Izzy. Sasha gets some massive heel heat for this and it is truly a chef’s kiss of wrestling. There are a lot of callbacks and reversals from the Brooklyn match. My favorite: Bayley goes for the top rope poison rana like in Brooklyn, but Sasha rolls through (the agility to do that is unreal) and then Bayley adjusts her ponytail as the visual cue for her finisher, only to eat the Belly to Bayley from Sasha for a great near fall. But the ultimate callback comes from Bayley realizing she has to fight fire with fire to win — like some kind of action movie hero who starts of innocent but then knows he/she has to do what the bad guys do to save the day. Bayley is on the floor and does some really good and nasty looking work on Sasha’s left hand, just like what Sasha did so viciously to Bayley in Brooklyn. Bayley smashes Sasha’s hands into the ringsteps, she does an arm breaker thing through the ropes, etc. This first leads to Sasha not being able to fully hook the Bank Statement (procured after a reversal of a reversal, another evolution from the Brooklyn match.) Bayley then reverses it into her own submission, wrenching on the fingers she attacked earlier, while stomping away on Sasha’s face with her boot like Sasha did to her in Brooklyn, And like all good villains, Sasha does not have the guts to hold on and reveals her ultimate cowardice and verbally taps out with just a few seconds left. (They also avoided the dumb ‘overtime’ Ironman gimmick that happens so much. I know Bryan/MJF’s Ironman was fantastic, but the overtime addendum and confusion from it was so bad.) Afterwards, the locker room pours out, and the other Horsewomen and HHH are there. They literally give them both their flowers. The emotion is absolutely real. And fully earned. Painting one masterpiece is hard enough. They then had to do so in one of the most anticipated matches in WWE history (it really was) and with a gimmick that can really get tripped up. They more than delivered. This is one of the best matches in WWE history. My all-time favorite match was the epic Shield/Wyatts from 2014… but man, I might need to change that. Mercedes absolutely friggin’ rules. I hope the rest of the division can get elevated because she is a generational talent. I just hope Tony does not get wonky with it and Sasha ends up like the BCC where they’re sometimes heels and sometimes badass faces and it never really makes sense. Face Sasha aligned with Willow to go after Julia and Sky Blue is fine enough. The two witches will get better by being in the ring with a maestro. But the real storytelling magic awaits when The CEO backstabs Willow because if anyone in AEW can be a breakout babyface once they have a proper evil foil to overcome, it’s Willow.

Sorry if this should go in another forum. But Mercedes making her AEW debut has inspired me to rewatch the Sasha/Bayley match from NXT Takeover in Brooklyn. This is their first big PPV match. I've watched the Iron Woman match roughly 200000 times since that's my favorite type of match stipulation. First of all -- this match took place in 2015. WTF? I can't believe it was that long ago. I'm also watching this without the context of watching it in the middle of the serial drama of weekly NXT. The Four Horsewomen had been tearing down the house around NXT. The best NXT Women's match before this from my memory was Sasha vs. Becky Lynch from the Takeover before this, but they had up-and-down so many good matches. Steph is kicking off the match. Just a few weeks earlier, Steph announced the call-ups of Charlotte and Becky to side with Paige, along with the call-up of Sasha to join up with Naomi and Tamina to form Team BAD (they're there live for the match) so they could battle with the Bella Twins and I want to say Alicia Fox. It's wild, because in the intro, Steph is calling this "The Divas Revolution." They haven't done away with Divas as the branding yet. Ugh. Steph is also calling this the first of two main events of the night (some men's match is after this, I don't remember or even care.) The intro package for this is awesome. Bayley in 2015 might have been the best babyface of the century. It's either here or Sami or Yes Movement Daniel Bryan. There's this really funny moment in the video when they are playing Bayley's theme song with the wacky arms, and there's a distorted version of the song as the wacky arms are deflated. I completely forgot Bayley had to get past Charlotte and Becky before she could get to Sasha. Now I want to watch those matches. Bayley comes out to her wacky arms and the reaction is so huge. The pop for Sasha's theme is even bigger. She comes rolling out all blinged out in an Escalade, surrounded by a security team. Two of the guards hold the ropes for her. She summons the other two who lift her onto the apron. I remembered the Escalade but forgot about the security force. Sasha is also just the absolute best foil for the pure heartedness that is the version of Bayley. Sasha starts by mocking Bayley's playful outfit (complete with polka dots in tribute to Dusty.) It immediately starts with a cheapshot attempt from Sasha, but Bayley brawls back to get control. The crowd is DEAFENING with dueling chants. They start off hot -- Bayley gets Sasha in a tree of woe. She runs to the corner. I think she at the time did a sliding dropkick from this position. Sasha did a sit up while in the tree of woe to maybe counter that, only for Bayley do do a really awesome springboard elbow. There are so many good counters -- Bayley knows to protect herself against Sasha's knee smash in the corner, Sasha does some cheapshots to get Bayley back to the floor. Sasha does so many awesome taunts -- pretending to do the wacky arms before slapping Bayley across the face. There's a good control segment with Sasha working Bayley's neck, and then getting Bayley in a straigthjacket. Sasha does some trash talking but, most importantly, it's a great cue for the crowd to start to rally. Sasha goes for the double knees again, and there's a rad counter/counter headscissors between both of them. Sasha splays Bayley across the top rope, and the crowd murmurs because of the added danger... and then Sasha does the knees that way. Such an awesome moment for the match -- Sasha and Bayley have to heighten everything to go forward. Bayley's advantage comes after Sasha decides to verbally berate Bayley. But the berating really reveals Sasha's character -- "You think you're better than me because all of these people love you?" That was the magic of Sasha's character. She started off as an insecure "happy to be here" type like Bayley but then found her leggings by adapting The Boss presona... but there was always the insecurity and jealousy underneath. But Sasha regains control and gets Bayley to the floor. Sasha on the floor targets Bayley's hurt and bandaged wrist, taking off the protectve guard. There's a great spot where Sasha slams Bayley's hand on the ring steps, and then stomps in on the floor, and then wedges Bayley's hand between the ring steps and stomps. The crowd reacts like they've just seen an execution -- what a great testament to their character work and Bayley's selling. Then things GO UP another notch -- the ref is kneeling between the middle and top rope to check on Bayley, but then Sasha hurdles the ref with a sention to the floor! I don't think Sasha ever used that move before this match, and especially not with the ref decoy. Bayley tosses Sasha to the floor and the crowd is now fully behind Bayley. Sasha just being so vicious and mean really tilts a naturally heel leaning Brooklyn crowd firmly to Bayley's camp. Bayley hits an awesome Exploder Suplex kind of thing into the ropes. After some counters, Sasha gets on The Banks Statement (but without the backstabber.) Bayley crawls to the ropes, but Sasha stomps away with pure viciousness on the hurt hand. But then Bayley ends up reversing into the Banks Statement, and Sasha is screaming like it's pure death. Sasha is SO good at using her body to express pain and to reach the ropes. There's an awesome near fall when Bayley hoists Sasha onto her feet into a quick Belly-to-Bayley. The crowd is ELECTRIC with a deserved This Is Awesome chant. Bayley and Sasha end up on the top rope. Bayley goes for a hurucanrana from the top but Sasha avoids it. Bayley nearly ends her career as she spikes herself on the way down. It looks like she rung her bell real bad -- but don't fear, Sasha's going to hit a meteora off the top anyways for an epic near fall and a great "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!" reaction from Sasha. They're on the top rope again, and Bayley gets the advantage with some nasty elbows. THen WTF POISON RANA FROM THE TOP FROM BAYLEY!!! She pulls the heaband, and now has the Belly-to-Bayley and wins! There's the post-match celebration, with Charlotte and Becky joining in. Sasha comes in, too. They all flash the Four Horsewomen sign. It's maybe a bit too kayfabe breaking... but, screw it, they absolutely earned it. Nobody could have predicted what the hell The Horsewomen were going to do in NXT. Dear god was this match amazing. And while I forget the context of it happening then, we do have the context of what happened over the next decade after this match. Women's matches have headlined WrestleManias. Women closing out Raw or Smackdown doesn't even make me bat an eye anymore. This match felt special at the time and it was somehow more special that we could imagine -- it literally changed wrestling history, and for the better. Now I hope Mercedes gets to change it even more in AEW.

1) Joe just randomly kicking an already downed security guard like the piece of trash he no doubt is might be my favorite single moment in AEW. I was dying. What a great character note. 2) Mercedes is such a star. I’ve been a fan of hers since she was initially corrupted by Summer Rae’s evil mirror in NXT and spent the next year of her life tormenting Bayley and scheming her way through the WWE. What an arc for her career — Women’s wrestling in America looks completely different if she didn’t break out. She’s so far above everyone else in AEW Women’s division in terms of presence. I am so eager for her heel turn on Willow because Willow definitely has the personality to be AEW’s Bayley. She just hasn’t had the foil to get there yet, and the CEO conning her way into Willow’s friendship before stabbing her in the back on a future Collision is going to rule. 3) The Bruv rules. 4) The corporate synergies of the New Elite rule. Man, what a great character change for The Bucks and Okada comes off like such a dickhead.

That gauntlet match was beautiful. I was expecting we'd get either Chad or Sami at the start ala KofiMania and go from there. I love how they went with things instead. Not every gauntlet match should follow the same pattern. The final leg between Sami and Chad was very special professional wrestling between two of the best. I want to see those guys have a 30-minute one-on-one match now.

Wow. This is absolutely fantastic. Crying while reading it at a hotel breakfast buffet restaurant while wearing a lanyard. https://theathletic.com/5279301/2024/03/06/tom-meschery-nba-warriors-cancer-poet/?source=user_shared_article