Iron Moose

Saraya or Harley and Zak Knight, Anna and Jack Perry, Mariah or Toni with Luther, Taya and Johnny, Adora and one of the Infantry, and that's before you fire up the RNG. You could probably get something fun out of likle... Starks or Wayne and Starkz, too.

Timeless Toni Storm is on a whole other level. Holy shit.

Meanwhile, on LVL UP Jazmyn Nyx d. Lainey Reid. There are a handful of little disfluencies to their presentation - a pause here, a movement out of step with the music there, Reid's black bow mostly lost over her hair color. That said, this has stuff to recommend it. Nyx has a way of getting to standing from lying on the ring apron that non-verbally communicates something to be wary of, and has a moment of expressing displeasure to the ref during Reid's entrance, which bodes well for immersion in the match. She declines the collar and elbow in favor of delivering the first of several nice kicks, but Reid catches the next, delivers a fine leg trip, and Nyx scoots back into the corner while Reid asks what she'll do without Jacy. Nyx catches a Reid kick, and Reid replies with another takedown before Nyx can act and leaps into a Majistral. We go into a bit of a lull with a headlock (Nyx has a good shoulderblock, but her rope-running seems a bit forced) and crossover into some armdrags, where the first looks fantastic and the second is very contrived. We get another instance of the legs-on-shoulders-in-the-corner pause as a transition, a pause with a figure-4 headscissor before Reid gets a brief control segment with a neckbreaker from a backslide position and back suplex-flapjack as standouts. Nyx stops a butterfly suplex from going rolling and wins with her Pele Kick. Both coming along well. Hank 'n' Tank perform an amusing and mildly incoherent promo. Big E / 3.0 vibes. Hank isn't medically cleared, and he struggles to explain to Tank that he will be "in the ring with him" in all ways but physically. The "Love Has No Labels" ad following this is tonally jarring because Hank has a moment of discomfort when he thinks Tank says Kale is attractive. Recap package of Bron Breakker pummeling Dixon on Raw. Main event is flagged by announcers as "previously recorded". Tank Ledger (w/Hank Walker) d. Kale Dixon. Hank's dash of gay panic is explained by the announcers swooning a bit over Dixon, and Dixon's gyrating, and Dixon's name splashed on the front panel of his tights with lips on his butt. This has good energy and a bit where Tank reaches out for a tag is interesting character work. Dixon takes over after a good-looking flying nothing, and his strikes and chops look good. I want to see this in front of a main roster crowd. Hank's cornerman work isn't quite in sync with the crowd, but they warm up to each other as it goes. Tank eventually does hit a flying shoulderblock that looks like the earlier flying nothing, so I'm thinking this would have benefitted from hitting it first, and THEN showing us Dixon's counter. Tank wins with a Bubba Bomb.

Aside from whatever incomprehensible artistry Sol and Kelani* pull off in the ladder match, the Mystery Opponent is the thing I am most curious about for this card. Roxanne is a safe bet to walk out with the title, and I feel like that caps us to the people from the main roster who can take both the presumption of losing as well as the loss. If it's not a pivot to Tatum, maybe they bring in someone entirely external (a la Mickie/Asuka), or put in someone who can lose to shenanigans from an intersecting storyline? Ariana Grace getting sabotaged by Gigi Dolin, Zoey losing from Sonya interference, or Candice/Indi miscommunicating wouldn't be bad, but on paper I'm not sure any of them are particularly compelling. *(not a spoiler, but I don't think Wren's getting through)

Meanwhile, on LVL Up: Tavion Heights d. Jasper Troy (debuting) - Troy has a bit of a Dijak / early SHIELD vibe to how he carries himself, and unlike some of the bigger NXT guys I can think of, he works big. "He says that every day is tax season, will Tavion Heights pay up?" - I have no idea why this is being said by the announcers. Was he once an accountant? Tavion does a good job getting thrown around a bit before winning with a big belly to belly. There was a fair bit of air on some of Troy's stuff (swinging missed clothesline, you know the one) but this was ok. Brinley Reece & Layla Diggs (debuting) d. Carlee Bright & Kendal Grey - Diggs is a former track and field athlete and, like Reese, personal trainer. She also looks a lot like Kelani Jordan? Bright and Grey are still putting it together and I'm not sure the hints of characterization from Grey from announcers come through so far with her attire or ringwork - she was apparently a very good amateur wrestler, but has mostly shown a black trunks (well, sparkly pink with garters) rookie moveset so far. Diggs gets out of an arm-wringer with a headscissors in a great little spot that miraculously doesn't look too collaborative, and later on gets out of a waistlock by doing a split and using that to pick a leg. Brinley brings out a flip clothesline that looks OK and a brief Giant Swing that looks good, but she's in a really challenging spot as far as finding a way to present Goofy Yet Flippy Power Face in ringwork. With that said, everyone here was surprisingly good at filling downtime, like making the stock WWE bit of slowly crawling to your tag partner seem like reasonable exertion of effort balanced with struggle. Brinley (finally) wins with a roundoff into a DDT on a kneeling Grey, after Diggs and Bright both tumble out of the ring.

We also don't have any sense of who, if anyone, Roxy is facing at the PPV, and the bit with Tatum lurking in Ava's office might be setting something up for that. I'm of two minds on this particular Snatcher variation. It was very well set up in the match, because Izzi was previously in the exact same position (having chased a buckle-facing Sol into the corner, with Sol's legs on Dame's shoulders) but before, she just chucked Sol over the ringpost -- but Sol's landing from this setup is much more restricted in terms of camera angles and the 'language' of the bump she takes initially looks more like she's getting powerslammed. Jaida - a more confident talker, and has the threat of Goons. Izzi's arc of figuring herself out without Kiana does less in a ladder match. On Henley/Hail, I think Fallon gets through - Jazmyn's going after Thea on behalf of Jacy, and that probably works better outside of the ladder as well.

I foresee Mia over Tatum, the ladder match needs at least one veteran presence in it and as much as I dig her Level Up work, Wren is probably not it.

Tatum tweeting "MY HOME" after Ivar and Oba smashed through the barricade was great. A bit unfortunate that she wasn't on the show after last week. Jacy was bleeding quite a bit after her match, I hope she's OK. Fallon's outburst makes sense given what she's been through the past months (taking Jazmyn's Pele for Thea, being on the outside of the Stand and Deliver celebration, regretting breaking up with Brooks and Jensen, getting upset by Jaida without anyone in her corner). It also feels more real than Jacy's one-dimensional (albeit delightful) contrarian villainy, and it's not out of left field to be exasperated with Chase U - but it'll be disappointing if it leads to a YOU FANS promo and slide towards cruelty for the sake of it. I really like Sol as a basically reasonable person that everyone is OK with, it lets her interact with a lot of Big Personalities and find a more sure footing as a character. Jaida was a bit nervous on the mic but ultimately delivered; Sol seemed to be rushing a bit to hit her marks. Both Sol and Jaida had good asides while Ariana was talking, and Mia is probably in the ladder match to steady it out. Ridge on the verge of being pulled into the Chase U vortex is intriguing. Him and Andre being reasonable to each other was really nice to see, somehow.

c'est étrange que ça se traduit comme contrecoup - je le lis plus comme 'recoil' que 'backlash' ... ça vient de google translate, ou un autre logiciel? Pour les Kabuki, on devrait mettre 'guerrières' sauf si i.elles cachent quelque chose ... Ours Meurtrier me fait MDR Pour le propre évènement, j'attendrais Sami, Corbin (la France lui adore, et je n'ai aucune idée pourquoi), Ricochet si Samantha est présente ...

this is in no way intended to be a gotcha! comment, but I think it's important to make allowances for the crowd steering alignments over the intent of the writers. That there's a distinction between rejecting the story while engaging with it (Io/Bianca in PR; refusing to accept Becky as a heel, leading to The Man era), versus disregarding the story (the MEAT chants for Miro/Hobbs when their respective alignments were ... unclear at the time?), but I'm not sure where or how clear that border is...

this is brilliant, and aligns well with how the hottest wwe AND aew stories over the past years have had the gloss of office politics behind them.

this is the kind of analysis I really dig. I do think the venue setup is uniquely unusual, but yeah, a lot of things felt a bit off.

Ava should draft Dwayne, be told he's not available, and then stare into the distance and mutter "... no, he never is. " And then everything continues as expected.

Roxanne, through no fault of her own, strikes me as a real challenge to pull up to the main roster. I think another few months in NXT to figure out a synthesis of her current edge with faceness would help her a lot. I think the struggle is in finding a balance between regressing her character to be easier for a big audience to get to like and follow, versus bringing her up with her current, snarkier outlook. Witness the main roster struggles of KC2, Candice and Indi and Team Kick - a big part of why I think they've had trouble connecting is that a lot of their character development (that situates their current personas in opposition to their previous selves) happened years ago, effectively offscreen.

Meanwhile, on LVL UP: Riley Osborne d Kale Dixon - I will assume this was flippy and competent but I'm too tired for it right now. Karmen Petrovic d. Wren Sinclair, in another really solid base performance from Wren, possibly the best Petrovic has looked outside of her very chippy series with Lola. I think this suffered a bit from being face-face and I'm not sure what Petrovic is going for with her makeup, but she has some great kicks and counters. The commentary re Wren's Harry Potter fandom was off-putting and infantilizing, which seems to be happening more and more as the NXT Women's division skews younger, but that's a concern for another time. Hank & Tank d Javier Bernal and Drake Morreaux in a very big, dumb, fun display of horseplay.

Last time she was concussed she was out of action for quite a while, and shortly after she won the Rumble she had an interview where she spoke about her knees being in really bad shape. Last week, during the Liv backstage attack, she had her other forearm in a brace of some sort. It could be a lot of things, I guess. Anyway, they also announced that next week there's a battle royale to name the next women's champion. Not sure who they go with, but given the impending draft I'm hoping NXT gets a few people in the mix.

This also applies to Jacy's sudden re-heeling, turning away from Thea (when they were a genuinely fun team against Chelsea and Piper) and towards Jazmyn, and what seems like the plug being pulled on Thea/Riley.

it's also paternalistic, and a big part of Thea's character since the towel was thrown in has been asserting her independence.

Ruca/Davenport ended up being a very able Face Guts It Out performance, but I am a bit disappointed because I think the story called for Fired Up Face Loses Because They Stop Themselves From Going To A Dark Place. Blair shoved nine months of Sol's life into rehab and physio - I feel like starting mad or starting cold would have been preferable to the slower build we got. Wren continues to do lots of little things right; Grace's character work continues to delight. I hope Dolin's OK.

Solid episode overall. Nyx held up her end and it looks like we're building to a big tag with Kiana/Izzy/Jacy and Kelani/Fallon/Thea. If they pull in Nyx I guess the faces can bring in Brinley or Wren? Trick has IT. For the sake of Sol's character development I really hope she doesn't come out smiling next week and do her entire entrance routine. The story calls for anger. Stacks' match essentially being a kamikaze mission to hurt Ilja's chopping hand was smart.

Guest Ref Punk was an intriguing part of the journey, such that feels like it undermined the eventual Special Guest On Commentary destination. it was like the sound chip on the talking The Rock doll got stuck between "look at you now" and "MAMArhodes" Also if Mama Rhodes doesn't slap The Rock real hard during 'mania (or I guess whip him with the belt?) what are we even doing here

Shayna tries to get involved: And Punk enters the conversation (well, at least two conversations at once)

Meanwhile, on LVL UP WATCH THIS MATCH: Tavion Heights d. a debuting Saquon Shugars. Both look amazing here. They make a waist-lock takedown look DEVASTATING. Shugars actually makes a bit during a drop-down exchange look good, does some unusual diving elbows and legdrops, takes an incredible high back body drop and Heights does like nine straight gutwrenches and his throws look superb. Jaida Parker d. a debuting Lainey Reid. Lainey is described as a former hurdler with rodeo experience, "polite, respectful, and charming" and has some low-energy country twanging as entrance music, so I'm a little wary. Reid does Michaels' turnbuckle flip pretty well, and has a nice recovery from a diving sunset flip that goes a bit awry. This picks up a bit once Parker starts trash-talking; her striking is uneven but buoyed by her crowd work. Reid's small package is tighter than Carlee Bright's, but not as nice as Gigi Dolin's. It looks like she tries to finish with a kneebreaker out of the corner, but Parker seems to counter it and hits a... jumping leg lariat? running Famous-er? to win. OK overall. Eddy Thorpe d. Uriah Connors. Uriah, formerly Brogan Finlay, has a weird combination of high ponytail, cutoff jacket and tiny pants, making him seem somewhat unlikable. This is worked with a surprising level of parity until a successful Connors dive... after which Thorpe regains control for a bit, which seemed odd. Connors has some brief runs of nice offense before Thorpe puts him down with an elevated DDT. This was also fine! Doesn't feel likely that whoever Connors hits next gives him as much as Thorpe did here.

pre-Mania, he beat Sami after a bunch of bloodline melodrama at Elimination Chamber. pre-Elimination Chamber, he beat Owens at the Rumble with some distractions from Sami, and then we got some bloodline melodrama after. pre-Rumble, the bloodline won war games at Survivor Series. pre-Survivor Series, he beat Logan Paul after Bloodline interference at Crown Jewel. pre-Crown Jewel, he beat Drew at Clash at the Castle when Solo debuted. pre-Clash at the Castle, he beat Lesnar at Summerslam after a whole lot of interference (Bloodline and Theory) Very much same old same old.

With apologies for putting this into the universe: what if he cashes in during the tag?