For Great Justice

I think in-ring-wise you can hide everyone reasonably well enough in a big plunder 8 man blowoff that it would be ok. But storyline-wise I don’t see how you get there? Normally, “wrecking havoc on the promotion” is a heel angle that calls for the top babyfaces to band together to ward off the threat in Wargames or something. But there’s no way that works here, right? “Sorry your brother died, dude, and I get the promotion overlooked you for a decade, but you gotta stop murdering people” — who cheers that babyface? But at the same time, how do you book a group banded together to save a promotion, as heels? Curious to see where it goes but not sure how you get it the payoff, or what the payoff even is.

I’m here too. It feels like TK is leaning heavily into the “booking for the sickos” thing the last couple of weeks and, honestly, isn’t that the answer? To be a true alternative, just book crazy shit for DVDVR and let WWE do the epic glossy Marvel movie stuff Just go full bore with batshit insane WAR 6 mans we’ve always wanted to see. That’s the audience. Stuff like MJF and the Devil very clearly wasn’t the audience And now, with that said, give me Ishii / Jeff Jarrett you cowards

This is pretty clearly a gold watch run for Okada and it is just absolutely tremendous. I haven’t laughed like that at a wrestling bit in a long time.

I can’t think of an Existential Threat storyline that’s worked since the NWO. There’s that one, there’s Stop The Matsunaga, and that’s the list of good ones? It’s the sort of thing that plays well in comics but just doesn’t translate to the wrestling medium. Nexus, Retribution, … The O.G. Yokozuna push was kind of like this and that was awesome, so there’s another. I do agree the group needs a workhorse. Is Ciampa hurt? He’s a fit.

What a fun show. While the Grace reveal was awesome…not sure about Page. Especially after already getting Spears. Like who’s next, QT? But it’s all fun. I love how the rules/physics of WWE as we understand them are relaxed in NXT. It’s fun.

Yeah I’m here for The Learning Tree. Real life, podcast-hosting, cruise-planning, gee golly-lovin the business but not moving aside on TV Jericho turned up to 11 is hilarious.

Awesome! Made my day https://x.com/ringofhonor/status/1786173574056960039?s=46&t=JezDTqtGbK8qkBaDwTOzMw

I am and have been vehemently opposed to breaking up Best Friends. No one wants to see these guys fight. Now, that said, if you want to salvage this, then AEW’s version of Endgame to rescue the promotion from Elite tyranny later this year should have a reunited Best Friends - as the true heart and soul of the company from day one - neutralizing the Bucks while Omega deals with Okada.

Collision was excellent. Main event got the good kind of crowd silence where they were hyper engaged and following along

Props to Tony, that was a slick trade back in the first round and still getting his guy. His best booking of the week, obviously distracting him from Dynamite. The Bucks needed to pile drive some sense into him.

Yoooo I just realized that Tony wearing the brace to the draft and the NFL and ESPN being in on the gag would be fucking amazing. Imagine them kayfabing the shit out of it and Mel Kiper is talking about the projectability of the young kid Perry. Quick off the edge, real lunch pail kind of guy but has some off the field issues that have scared some federations away. Oh shit even better if they do it Naked Gun style where TK himself gets up there in full neck brace to announce some random 6th round pick on day 3 and the Bucks jump his ass AGAIN and put him through a table while there’s like mascots and shit freaking out on stage.

I think it’s sort of all true The babyface owner/matchmaker getting beat up by heels is a trope as old as pro wrestling itself: Watts did it, Jarrett did it, Von Erich did it, Vince did it… Said babyface then gathers all the top good guys and walks tall over the heels in the big blowoff. So in that sense this doesn’t make TK Jacksonville Dixie or whatever. This is the usual TK deal of revisiting classic territory angles. That’s generally perfectly ok. My thing though, is that I don’t want to see Tony Khan walking tall like Bill Watts. Actually I don’t think anyone wants to see that.

Did y’all see that selling? Shad Khan gets pro wrestling more than Jungle Boy does. This was all stupid though. The show reeked of TK having his eye off the ball being stressed to hell all week about which Big Ten offensive lineman to take in the fifth round, then just showed up to work and said “fine, let’s do that” to all of the talent’s shitty ideas.

Don’t hate on the mean streets of IKEA

Sheamus/Drew is sort of like Sami/KO. It’s never a wrong answer. I think Drew might be a the peak of his powers more than any other wrestler in the game right now. I didn’t have a clue that his all around ceiling was this high.

I believe the title Cody has now has the WWE, WWE World Heavyweight and Universal lineage. It’s all of them.

Yeah I’m concerned about Gable as a heel. he’s such a natural Mighty Mouse babyface. If they are going full blown killer wrestling machine, maybe he needs a manager. Angle would work, and he himself hasn’t worked heel in a while so that would be fresh.

Yeah that Jey->Sami->Crowd tracking shot was unbelievable. The thing we’ll remember from this show for a long time.

My gosh, what are we even doing with this show We’re this close to blood baths, “Iron Man” and comments about scissors This ain’t it

What was handed over, they ask? Follow the blue key Silencio

I don’t think the crowd will turn on Cody for the same reason they didn’t turn on Bryan: they witnessed the struggle, the departure, rebuilding himself and climbing back to the top. It’s the same reason the crowd never turned on Austin or Foley. With Roman, Cena, and eventually even Hogan, there was never that initial struggle for the fans to build their support behind. They got turned on. I don’t think they have to worry about it with Cody.

Is it weird that I’m actually far more captivated by what’s next for Roman than I am Cody? He’s Thanos after he’s retired and is now living as a farmer. He has to now know that the Shield breakup a decade ago is at the root of all of this and he has to get right with that, somehow, or he’ll never truly be at peace even though he has conquered it all. How does that happen? I’m fascinated by how his next stage translates to wrestling. There’s like an Old Man Logan arc in there. They have to figure out how it translates to the ring.

This is a great callout and something they have really struggled with in similar spots in the past (Bryan getting Kane immediately comes to mind, but there are other examples).

Roman/Sami is the best one It’s kind of interesting. The title run and Bloodline stuff ran from 2020 to 2024. I’d argue that Roman and the group were at peak powers at Wargames 2022, which is almost exactly halfway through. So it almost really was a four year long tale of the rise and fall. A nice bell curve there.

That’s who I thought it was at first when we saw the glimpse of the tattooed arm under the ring (looking back it was obviously Solo). But yeah not in the current situation. Waters are too hot. In an ideal world they do it and throw AEW a bone of getting a Ricochet/Ospreay match or something