Go2Sleep

This is one of the better main roster ppvs lately since at least the in-ring action was good, even if the writing was shit. I really liked the SD chamber, probably the best one I've seen in 7 (?) years. The key was Baron Corbin being used appropriately and not overstaying his welcome. Jey Uso also played his part nicely, and his elimination of KO was vicious. Cesaro winning would've been slightly better, but nothing wrong with Bryan. There was something wrong with him getting squashed immediately after, though. Given how the show ended, I don't see how a competitive Bryan/Roman match with

Same way your face doesn't get destroyed taking multiple bare-knuckle punches.

I wouldn't worry too much about Cole being in the title picture. The ending felt more like Cole vs. KoR with Roddy in the middle, and they've been planting seeds for Balor to face Kross. UE breaking up is also long overdue. I really like the way Finn has been working since he won the belt. He wrestles like a true ace and makes getting any offense on him look like a struggle. Night and day from his first run. Feels like the whole "demon" thing is completely unnecessary now.

NXT is as good now as it's been for most of its existence, it's just that its niche as the "big budget Indy" doesn't look as good against AEW's big-time modern wrestling as it did when lame-ass Raw/SD were the only other games in town. I was pleasantly surprised they went all-in with GYV out-teamworking Thatcher/Ciampa in decisive fashion. Probably the only time a true midcard team has done that against two top singles stars in the last 25 years of WWE (at least without the singles guys turning on each other). Low-key one of the biggest swerves WWE has pulled off in a while. Also Gri

Catching up on multiple weeks of NXT, I have to say how funny it was that Edge had to say that he would have shrugged off advice "10" years ago, so as not to sound too old, when 21 years would be far more accurate for his character. Like, dude, 10 years ago you were 3 months from retiring.

Roman/KO would've been really great if the Pillmanizer actually took Jey out. Or use the apron powerbomb which has lost some effectiveness since its NXT use, but I think is still good enough to keep someone out for the remainder of a show. KO is exactly the guy Roman should be beating on his own at this point in his heel run. The work between them was great, though. That fisherman suplex into the chair looked like an SvR WWE2k glitch where your regular move hits a stray weapon and the opponent just kind of freezes before doing the max sell on a random body part. Despite my general lack of

Thatcher/Ciampa was real nice, same spirit as Balor/KoR from a couple months back. Unfortunately the rest of the show was back to overkill city. The women's match was good in that regard, but the other three were worse off for it. They all had good finishes, but kept sputtering in the middle, and no one came out looking as good as they should have. Really nailing that modern day Regal/Finlay vibe he's going for.

Seemed like there were a lot of obvious whiffs on this show. Not sure if the main roster wrestlers are working lighter now or it was just a bad night for them/the camera crew. Matt Riddle losing half his name might be worse than "Tucker" and that men's elimination match was the worst of its kind in some time. New Day/Street Profits was a solid midcard tag and worked around Angelo Dawkins not being nearly as good as the other 3 nicely. Lashley/Sami was there. Good to see Sasha getting back to back ppv title match wins, 4 years overdue. Women's tag wasn't much better tha

Thanks, I'll make sure to check those out. I am interested to see heel Roman in full swing, so I'm glad that match is recommended. Edit: After watching, I'll have to do a hard disagree on both, and it's pretty easy to do direct comparisons. The dueling body part work in KoR/Finn was better than Bryan and AJ playing their greatest hits, and the underdog drama played out more consistently than in Jey/Roman. Felt like the latter would've been twice as effective with half the time (and some juice) because the finishing run was intense. Reminded me of Bret/Backlund in the sense that it was a d

So, is this the first time WWE just completely overhauled their entire face/heel dynamic and match structure formula, or has this been going on for a while? It was super refreshing and the most fun I've had watching a WWE show in years. The virtual audience got the noise level up to Full Sail level at least, and was the first post-pandemic show I've seen that wasn't overly disengaging due to lack of crowd noise. The Gargano/Priest match was something I wasn't excited about going in, but they pulled off a nice back and forth match that didn't go into super overkill. Seeing a Gargano match

Show was decent enough, but nothing could've been a bigger neon sign that said "quit watching crowdless wrestling" than Kross' fucking amazing entrance being followed by like 3 people golf clapping. That shit deserved 15,000 people chanting "fall and pray." Adam Cole is probably pretty glad there was no crowd, though, because a 2020 audience would've absolutely eaten up McAfee's Jeff Jarrett/Shelton Benjamin crossover act.

I still think of gimmick ppvs as a new concept, but not that long ago, I realized Hell in a Cell and Money in the Bank are longer running ppvs than King of the Ring. WWECW feels like a flash in the pan now, but it ran on tv for almost 4 years.

So this is like the first WWE I've watched since Mania. Tag title match was pretty good. Surprised WWE let Kofi go out there with the "Breonna" armband, but good for him. Cesaro's still pretty great, I see. Bayley's entrance where she pelvic thrusts her belt at each individual "fan" is some quality heeling. Always knew she had a good heel run in her, and the 2-woman power trip makes me feel bad that crowdless wrestling is so unwatchable, because Bayley and Sasha as a heel team with all the belts is totally my jam. So does Apollo have the 'rona? MVP using his same music from 13 y

The problem is he never had all of these things going at the same time. His WCW debut look with the multicolor singlet and the K shaved into his head was definitely not cool and his babyface work looked real bad especially when Eddie Guerrero was working the "Mexican blue chipper" gimmick concurrently. He did have a nice in-house theme, though. His Dungeon of Doom run was his best stretch in the ring mainly because he could take liberties with all the AAA guys he was getting in the door, and the cholo look was a good precursor to the attitude era, a bit ahead of its time. If you ignore how lit

Who's the likeliest candidate to be even up the teams for Bryan/Gulak vs. Sami/Cesaro/Nak? In a normal timeline, this would be the ideal spot for an NXT call up. It would probably be Gargano or Ciampa. It would be the perfect spot for Riddle or Dunne if they weren't tag champs. Roddy or Oney would be cool too.

1. Charlotte wouldn't move that needle in the slightest in normal times. 2. Who thinks a ratings war *right now* of all times is remotely legitimate or worth anything? They just want Charlotte to get to 16+ title reigns and this is their way to keep it somewhat fresh.

I think Charlotte won because she's Charlotte and she always wins.

I think my all-time "why is this still going on" match is Sting/Booker T vs. Road Warriors at Uncensored 96, but that's a bit obscure and I definitely don't encourage anyone to watch it to find out what I mean. I just immediately thought HHH/Vince because of all the slow walking around with no exciting payoff spots for 30 minutes.

Night 2 was more along the lines of what I expected from the show after the overachieving Night 1. Charlotte/Rhea was really good, I just accepted that Charlotte was winning before the match to make the finish easier. Everything else was blah to awful. Edge/Orton reminded me of HHH/Vince from Armageddon 99 except without the then-interesting moment of Steph turning. So much walking and laying around for match that's supposed to be super-heated. After you ask yourself "why is this match not in the finishing stretch yet," it goes on for another 20 minutes. The FFH was as bizarre as adv

Yeah, but they did quite a few extended fight scenes backstage that advanced stories. The fans were seeing matches way out of context a lot of times.

Thought the show picked up at Bryan/Sami and was better than it had any right to be. Those two were the first ones that didn't seem lost not having a crowd. Other than the intros, they worked to each other and didn't reflexively play to a non-existent audience. Super stiff too, even Sami's chickenshit offense landed hard. The ladder match was fine from a technical perspective, but doing all that without a live audience to react is pointless. Rollins/Owens was good too. Similar to Bryan/Sami where they did a good job keeping the focus entirely on each other, and Rollins doing his full

I forgot like half of these things and I was at the show. It also had Shane jumping off the cell. Regarding Studio-Mania, I wonder if they'll ever show highlights from it, or if it gets memory-holed. Sucks for McIntyre and Baszler who were lined up for the "Mania Moments" this year.

In some ways, I'm not surprised WWE hasn't cancelled yet (Owen, post 9/11 SD), but the board has to see the writing on the wall at this point. I'm a bit more surprised they haven't intervened despite the massive money loss it will be for them. Just rip the wax strip off already. Empty stadium Mania would make for some amazing dystopian pics that would live forever, though.

As lame as "escape through the door" is, they actually had two pretty good uses of it here. The women's match finish reminded me of when Jericho crotched X-Pac on the door in 2000 (the last good door finish I can remember), and the men's match finish at least served the purpose of getting Dream back on track after his questionable angle with Strong.

Scheduled gimmick matches only work when there's a main title shot on the line. Rumble and MITB work, although much like the Chamber, MITB lost some steam when they started doing multiple ones on the same show.