Iron Moose

At risk of sounding conspiratorial, I’m thinking it’s intentional that the first three folks to come forward are backstage women and a non-wrestling guy (who I first saw on the Jeff Hardy DUI Smackdown, speaking loudly in the center of a cluster of talent, a shot that will surely age poorly if it reflects a regular backstage occurrence. )

Tuned in about halfway through - Sasha really was working for four, eh?

I have plenty of faith in the editing crew. I don't have it in the final cut.

A secondary frustration with Charlotte is that based on her MMC and non-title picture CharLynch periods, she's capable of being charismatic and fun, and these extended periods of wooden dominance and offhand dismissal of competitors don't help anyone, including herself.

This is really interesting. I'm not sure if it's better for Rhea than it is ominous for Shayna, but I'm leaning to the former - having Shayna stay NXT Women's champion only to lose to Charlotte (on the spiritual heels of Asuka's streak) would probably have done the totality of the NXT Women's division fewer favors than where we're at now. In terms of match quality, how do we think Shayna/Charlotte would have compared to Rhea/Charlotte?

the Billie-Peyton bit was upsetting, and while I commend them both as performers for it, I really hope we don't go there again any time soon.

my no-prize is "practice"

Cathy left; Charly is also on ESPN.

That poor horse...

To the best of my knowledge, there's no clear statement about Almas being released? He has an ambiguous "pray" emoji on his twitter and Charlotte posted a broken heart emoji followed by a photo of her and Finlay. Is there a statement somewhere?

At risk of being told to settle down, I don't think Rhea or Shayna were done favours by their new attire. Rhea's was fine, but didn't connect to her televised persona or have a clear thematic counterpoint to Charlotte - it only makes sense because we know from social media that she's into DBZ. (I contrast this to the New Day's DBZ stuff, which was more in line with their canonical WWE positioning as nerds. ) Shayna's red just overpowered the cameras and washed her out -- I'd have gone with something more evocative of either Ronda's from last year (adding white or jagged orange to her usual palette), or something with callbacks to her previous victims.

This is something we gave her praise for in the second MYC - a seemingly-intuitive sense of how to scale her selling (off balance from some spinny Catanzaro stuff rather than completely loopy) and keep herself busy.

that main event was just ... astonishingly creatively bankrupt? also, shayna needs to not do the clutch standing. Makes everyone look bad.

That IS neat. It still sucks as a name.

I feel like, at this point, the writing is pointing at simultaneous mid-match submissions in the Chamber (one from the Asuka Lock and one from the Kirifuda Clutch) Becky interfering on Shayna’s behalf, and shenanigans leading to some combination of Nattie and Asuka at ‘mania.

I hope we get Sonya as the straight man (I know) to Mandy's increasingly histrionic and unkind antics.

I thought so too. Maybe they’ll do a pre-tape and replace him with Mansoor.

This would be a weird callback - passing out bloodied made Austin; Becky’s already been made, and there’s a non-zero possibility of a contrarian Mania crowd wholly turning on it or taking it the wrong way. It also puts a fairly low ceiling on Main Roster Shayna in terms of longevity.

It's really not a great look to have a newly-crowned black champ sit out black history month, particularly when it's almost a lock that Bianca doesn't go over Rhea.

Uncharacteristic sensitivity to racial undercurrents? Or they're keeping Sasha on ice until after the rumble.

these halfwits missed rusev coming out of the cake

I held my nose and tolerated the cuck stuff on Raw but this is the last straw for me. No more WWE in any way that they can monetize me.

This would probably make him look ... not smart.

My guess is sexism.

Dream, or maybe WALTER?