Kev

Opener felt big time and delivered, while still feeling like they have a lot more in the tank. Liked Bryan pulling a couple moves out that weren’t really in his WWE moveset. Poison rana looked really good here, although Tony’s call about never seeing a counter like that was a bit stupid considering it’s one of the most overdone moves in AEW. Thought the booking was perfect, and AEW has enough goodwill that it didn’t feel like a copout as you can be confident they’ll deliver more. Calling time as they just slugged it out was a good call as well, rather than doing a cliched saved by the bell finish. MJF/Pillman was fine and I like the overall booking of it, but Pillman does nothing for me as a face. He feels miscast - bad look, doesn’t seem naturally likeable, and his instincts just feel off as a face, e.g. he lingered too long on the ‘I outsmarted him’ head point, so rather than being a cute heel comeuppance thing, it just made him seem like a dick. Cody/Black was most notable for the crowd reactions. I say you turn Cody without completely turning him, basically a bit more of an explicit version of what happened with Cena over the years. Don’t have him snap and turn on the fans, have him acknowledge the boos but do a ‘I might not be the hero you want, but I’m the one you need’ thing. Don’t have him start cheating or anything, have him be an overly traditional face in terms of actions, but make him a sanctimonious prick about it. Maybe some hints at abusing his power, have Brandi forcing herself into moments like she did here. Basically more of the same, but properly acknowledge it’s happening. I’m in the FTR should be winning camp, but Sting continues to look good. You can see he’s a bit slow on some of the rope running or counter spots, but he looks great when he’s just throwing hands. Main was fine, if a little disappointing. I preferred the Statlander defence. I like Ruby’s presentation, but she’s done nothing in her two singles matches to make me think she’s more than a good hand. Her offence feels a bit lacking in a big showcase like this - her kicks are generally weak, the top rope senton was ok, but otherwise there wasn’t much there to pop the crowd. By contrast, I think Britt has a tendency to do too many big spots for a heel. Here she had the slingblade, two variations on the fisherman neckbreaker, the curb stomp, and the avalanche air raid crash. It kinda feels like some of those big spots should be getting pops for the face and almost makes her look too strong, which maybe contributes to her being more over than all the faces.

Raw 19/05/97 They’re teasing Bret’s surprise again after failing to deliver last week. Stonecold in-ring promo interrupted by HBK, looking particularly douchey wearing a 2Pac style bandana. They do a ‘we have common enemies but we’re not friends’ thing, which ends with them brawling. HF on the tron challenge them to a tag title match next week. KOTR qualifier. Supposed to be Vader vs. Crush but they say it’s not happening and tease a surprise. After the break, Crush is out but Vader hasn’t been cleared after suffering a broken nose in the Shamrock match at the ppv. The new opponent is HHH who was DQ’ed last week. Meh, why even bother trying to build that as a surprise, it’s another disappointment after failing to deliver last week. They come up with an excuse about HHH being given a 2nd chance as they said you could only advance by pinfall or submission (presumably that leaves DQ rules open to interpretation) and they want to avoid any legal action from him. It’s kind of stupid, but also kind of works for HHH’s character at this point. Anyway, this is a match that exists. The ending is at least somewhat creative, as both seconds try to cheat resulting in Savio accidentally kicking Crush, allowing HHH to win. They’re in Mobile, Alabama, so they play up the hometown hero thing for Bob Holly, making his first Raw appearance in months. He takes on Owen, it’s a fine little match, with the highlight being Holly pulling off a nice Frankensteiner. And he actually gets the wins off a small package. Mankind sit down interview. These are really good at humanising and bringing a bit more realism to some of the weirder characters, which was probably needed to really integrate them into the attitude era style. They replay RVD’s squash from last week with Lawler running down Heyman and saying he’s preventing RVD from appearing on Raw anymore. Young, mulleted Scotty 2 Hotty debuts, with Leif Cassidy attacking before the bell. This is quite good with Leif mostly dominating, but Taylor getting a roll up win. After Putski last week, these debuts seem to be building to the light heavy division, but it already seems completely uninteresting compared to the cruisers over on Nitro. They show last week’s ending again. I didn’t mention in the previous recap, but after HBK super kicks Bret and the Hart Foundation attack him, they do a bit where HBK’s trying to escape as the HF try to corner him, he almost gets away a couple of times before they eventually overwhelm him. It’s actually really well done and adds a sense of realism, it’s a nice contrast to the standard quick escape or immediate beat down. So Bret’s surprise is that he’s coming back at KOTR. He’s only been out a few weeks so this feels totally underwhelming, again seems stupid that they built this as a surprise. He challenges HBK and says he’ll not wrestle in the US again if he doesn’t beat him within 10 minutes. HBK on the tron for a bit back and forth, including the Sunny Days line. I’m pretty sure this match doesn’t happen at KOTR so not sure how this is going to play out. Goldust brings out his daughter for a cutesy bit, she doesn’t play along with the queues for her to talk though so it’s all a bit awkward. I liked the sit downs to explain his backstory and motivation behind the character, but switching that into him suddenly being this family man face is a bit jarring. Anyway he’s facing Rockabilly. For the few minutes it lasts this is good, but has a weak finish as Goldust is DQ’ed for hitting Honky with the guitar. Crowd is hot for Goldust, he’s throwing good strikes, and Billy is making everything look good. Billy seems to get a lot of shit, but I actually think he can be pretty good, at least in small doses. And this sort of goofy, stooging heel stuff may be his best role (notwithstanding the actual gimmick here being a total dud). Next up is a quick Ahmed interview, with Vince asking him about Faarooq ‘playing the race card last week’. This is interesting as Ahmed puts down Faarooq, but then says actually he was speaking the truth last week. I honestly don’t know where they’re trying to go with this as it was clearly Faarooq being played up as a heel last week, but Ahmed agreeing makes it feels a bit more nuanced. I’m probably overthinking it and giving them too much credit and this is just leading to an Ahmed turn (which I think briefly happens soon). They’ve done a couple bits throughout the show where HBK and Austin are each trying to find different tag partners. HBK quickly joins up with Shamrock. Austin clearly isn’t bothered about who his partner is so you see him walking in on Sable asking her, and then he’s talking to Harvey Whippleman and The Brawler (who he beats up). There’s always a certain beauty in Austin calling someone a piece of trash, particularly here as he’s ostensibly convincing Whippleman to be his partner while doing it. Rocky vs. Faarooq - it looks like PG13 have been written off after getting squashed by LOD. Quick match with Rocky looking pretty good (although the crowd is largely apathetic to him now). Faarooq hits a dominator to win. He then stops The Nation giving Rocky a beat down, which is some nice foreshadowing if they were already planning on Rocky joining The Nation. The Foundation beat up Bob Holly backstage. Taker in-ring interview - Taker even mentions Faarooq playing the race card. This all just feels like Vince forcing his shitty opinions on the audience, Taker really isn’t a character that needs to have an opinion on how racism may or may not effect one’s career prospects. Bearer ends up interrupting and gives Taker 7 days before he reveals his secret. Bearer is ridiculously hammy as always, but Taker’s conflicted acting is pretty good here. Anvil vs. Austin - this last like 2 minutes before The HF jump in and then HBK makes the save. It’s announced that Austin/HBK will indeed be teaming in a tag title match next week, leading to their protests and brawling with each other again. I’m not sure whether it’s the way this is edited for the network, but the only match that was announced in any way here was the KOTR qualifier and that was only because of the shitty surprise tease. Otherwise the matches just happened, it makes them all feel completely throwaway. Another two non-finishes here which doesn’t help.

Ah right, I get you now, it still took a good 5 minutes for me to work out what you meant. That’s me misunderstanding how the quote functionality works on here. Sloppy edit now in place to remove the misquoting.

Sorry, unclear wording by me. I was trying to signal that I agreed with your response (without quoting another block of text) as you basically made the point I wanted to and I just wanted to add to that.

Sorry, @HarryArchieGus already addressed this but just to jump on the point @Technico Support made re Cage. Yes, lack of charisma/presence is definitely a massive issue. But his in-ring is also a big part of him not being good. The argument isn’t that he’s bad because he does certain moves, it’s that he doesn’t seem to understand when/why to do stuff to make it meaningful. It’s moves for the the sake of moves. He feels like the perfect example of a guy that just doesn’t get ‘it’. Plus, a lot of his spots don’t look very good anyway, he’s managed to make the Steiner Screwdriver completely unimpressive. I’m not sure whether you were being serious saying ‘guys are more talented and better now’. But there’s no way Brian Cage is better/more talented than Luger, Sid or whoever, because he does more moves.

Raw 12/05/97 Bret promo to start, now standard stuff for him - running down fans, Austin and Taker. He teases a surprise tonight. A reference to ‘my loveable brother Owen’ was the highlight. KOTR qualifier - HHH vs. Ahmed - Eh, Hunter typically boring on offence, Ahmed’s stuff not looking very good this week. A pretty quick DQ win for Ahmed after Chyna interference. An Austin in-ring interview with Vince. Like Bret, fairly standard fare for him here. He’s more obviously positioned as a face on this episode after a bit more ambiguity with the Taker feud. Scott Putski debuts vs Leif Cassidy. Putski looks part Joe Gomez and part The Renegade, and is equal parts as shitty. Felt like Leif was holding this together. Putski looked lost at times, hits a couple of decent suplexes though and wins with a slightly sloppy German, then fights off a post match attack. LOD vs PG13. They play it as the Nation forcing PG13 to take the match unbeknown to them during the entrance, except they’re already dressed in their gear for the first time. Decent little squash, other than Hawk letting their only offence be a spike piledriver for him to no-sell. Mankind promo leading to Bearer returning with a bandaged face and we get the first cryptic references to Kane. A good 5 months before his debut I think. Were they deliberately that patient or was Kane meant to debut earlier? Farooq in ring with Vince. He’s randomly no.1 contender after not competing for months then beating Ahmed who’d had to face 2 men before him. Farooq talks about how black men have never had the chance to be world champ, and never really says anything particularly heelish, Vince interjects to say it’s nothing to do with being black and accuses Farooq of being racist. It’s all a bit uncomfortable in 2021 and doesn’t reflect well on Vince as Faarooq basically talks about structural racism to Vince’s offhand dismissals and boos from the crowd. Taker vs Savio. Bone Street Krew explodes. This is fine, if completely forgettable. Savio works the leg a bit and hits some decent kicks in between Taker offence, Nation jump in for the beat down as Taker has it won. That’s another two fuck finishes this episode, gotta protect Savio. Out of nowhere, it’s young-ish RVD vs young Jeff Hardy. Lawler & RVD bad mouth ECW first. It’s a quick squash with RVD hitting the 5 star and a split legged moonsault for the win. Highlight is probably RVD recklessly catching his leg on the rails off a tope con hilo and almost landing right on his neck. This is pretty unremarkable today, but felt very different to everything else on the show. Was there rumours of them doing more with the ECW stuff or was it just the odd favour to hype their PPVs? Just feels like a bit of a missed opportunity (although maybe for the best). Another Dustin sit down. Didn’t think much of this one. Just more about being a family man and looking up to his dad. They’d already touched on this last time and this didn’t add much more. Seemed a bit pointless considering they didn’t have Dusty under contact to have any sort of payoff to this. Headbangers, Blackjacks, Furnas/LaFon, Bulldog/Owen in a random non-title 4-way elimination. F&L out quickly off a Windham clothesline. They then cost the Blackjacks against The Headbangers. This format is shit and is largely pointless here as the straight tag lasts twice as long anyway. That part isn’t very good either as The Headbangers suck. Champs win. Bret promo to finish. Such a weird segment, with no payoff the teased surprise. He sends the HF to the back and calls out HBK. Then he just runs down HBK to his face for 5 mins, eventually HBK super kicks him leading to a bit of a HF and Austin/Michaels brawl and that’s it. This episode was a bit of a dud. As good as Bret’s heel work is, the promos are getting a bit repetitive, even when I haven’t kept up with this for months. The format of regular non-finishes and over reliance on post-match beatdowns/brawls is also getting a bit tedious as there’s not a lot of interesting in-ring stuff mixed in.

Am I out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong. Either way, he looks far too sleazy to be an otherwise fairly vanilla up and coming, fiery babyface.

Yes! The actual intro to the song seems perfect for an entrance theme, even if you did a quick cut into the chorus after it, they need to add that intro in. Speaking of themes, Hayter’s is a banger. I’ve liked Ruby’s presentation but the match reminded me I was never high on her from what I saw in WWE, solid enough but not particularly interesting. A new finisher would be a start, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kick look very impactful. At least ditch the arm wringer and try to do it more Satomura-like I liked the quick women’s promo follow-up to the battle Royale, short and effective. Along with the aftermath of Ruby’s match it feels like the division is finally getting a bit of depth in stories/characters, rather than them spinning their wheels on Dark with rare Dynamite appearances thrown in. I’ve said it before, but Pillman needs to ditch the mullet, it’s such a bad look for a face. The Blondes whole look generally is so dated that it almost feels like it should be a heel thing.

Havoc is probably the highest profile release they’ve had as he was being featured pretty regularly. But, my understanding is that was on the back of speaking out stuff, so their hand was somewhat forced rather than them actively realising he didn’t have much to offer (he didn’t, he sucked). With Kong, it seems like there was a mutual realisation that she was too broken down to still go. Shanna and Mel are probably the closest examples to what I was thinking, but they were both so low profile that it didn’t really register. I suppose what I was trying to get at is there becomes a point where you realise that people you are featuring regularly maybe aren’t worth it. And will Tony be strong enough to make them calls. If it’s a case of quietly letting people’s contracts run out like Mel/Shanna then that seems like a pretty reasonable way to do things (assuming you’re not having people sit out contracts for years).

Just to jump onto this, because I really thought they nailed the whole presentation around Punk-Darby. And, at the risk of drawing the ire of @John from Cincinnati with the comparison, it was such a breath of fresh air to WWE’s style. On the face of it, they did what we often would criticise WWE for, legend returns and beats a current star straight away. Except it didn’t feel like a negative for Darby at all. Firstly, while Darby is one of their top stars, he’s not quite reached the top yet, he’s fell short when he’s faced top guys like Moxley. Contrast to WWE bringing in Goldberg and immediately going over the world champ, which screams ‘today’s stars aren’t as good as yesterday’s’. The loss for Darby here still feels like a step on his journey to the top. And, it’s obvious Punk is still a big deal, but they’ve clearly positioned him as a veteran and sown some doubt into it. You’ve got the question of whether Darby can beat Punk, but just as big is whether Punk can still hang with the likes of Darby. I think Punk winning was probably the right call, but they could just have easily had Darby win and had an interesting direction to go with Punk. Yeah, just really well and smartly booked, giving themselves a win-win scenario.

Yeah, I don’t get that Flair/‘can’t help himself’ vibe from HHH at all. I don’t think he’s worked more than a handful of matches per year going back to about 2013. Flair was far more active, far later into his career. At HHH’s current age, Flair was basically just coming back to WWE and that run (in-ring) lasted another 7 years.

I’m all for the roster rotation and think it’s largely being managed well. As it gets bigger though, I think it will necessitate some tough decisions and that maybe is a bit of an unknown for AEW. The general talk is that Tony is a good guy and locker room morale is high, so I wonder whether he has the ruthlessness to realise when talent have served their purpose/reached their ceiling and then cut them at the right time. I think the highest profile current example, as others mentioned, would be Brian Cage. I don’t see any upside in investing TV time in a face push for him and there are definitely examples (e.g the women’s division generally) where that time would be better served. Lower down the card it’s maybe less of an issue as they’re mostly there to take Ls, but QT gets too much TV time. Luther only really appears on YouTube but even that’s too much, I think he has 0 value (at least on-screen). If whatever Sabian’s new gimmick is doesn’t work then he feels very expendable. And there’s guys like Solo who I see very little upside in (I was gonna say Angels here as well, but looked him up and he’s surprisingly young so probably worth more development time). Unless I’m forgetting, I don’t think AEW have cut anyone yet, unless it was forced upon them through outside stuff (COVID, speaking out, etc.).

That was a much better showcase for Statlander. I still think they should do something with her character, but just letting her do cool strength spots will help get her over. A couple more showings like that on the main shows, before they announced the title match, would have made it feel a bit hotter. In general, since Rampage started, it seems the women are getting more time/angles, so hopefully the division should really start to round out. With Garcia staring down Punk during the main, I was thinking it would be cool to do a ongoing thing where you have all these younger guys wanting to take down Punk. Let him get some reps in and build wins in slightly lower stakes matches, against guys who are at a level where the loss won’t hurt them and they’ll get some shine just from being in with Punk (Acclaimed, Angelico, Pillman Jr, etc.). You could run 1-2 months of different guys calling him out and then build to a slightly bigger name calling him out as his next proper feud.

I don’t think anyone’s mentioned OC actually getting the win during the pic-in-pic/ad break. I love that shit, if only so nerds like us can now point out that one time a match actually ended during the break. What’s with the DDT as Miro’s kryptonite thing? I like the general idea, but I don’t get the logic. Fuego hit a top rope tornado ddt (which presumably isn’t in Eddie’s arsenal anyway) and didn’t win with it. How does that represent his kryptonite?

NXT’s been in a bit of weird position, most obviously since 2019 with the TV deal, where they’ve kind of treated it as a 3rd brand, but it’s theoretically still developmental (while realistically it stopped being that years ago). I suppose they kind of tried to recreate their developmental structure with the likes of the Evolve deal, but that’s all fell apart (I don’t know whether that’s all on COVID or what). Basically, a re-think of the whole NXT/developmental structure was probably needed on a practical level, so boringly I don’t think this is the great political downfall of HHH that some are reading it to be.

Yeah, I’d back up what @Eivion and @Eoae are saying here. I think a couple of throwaway leaked comments about ‘no more vanilla midgets, only models now’, or whatever it was, have been taken way too literally. A quick google threw up recent comments from HHH and Samoa Joe where they talk about the ‘new’ policy and (while not denying it) they’re basically saying it doesn’t mean there’s suddenly some hard and fast rules about no Indy experience, nobody under 6ft or whatever.

Just to expand on this, I think Statlander has the same problem. Decent in-ring and I like the pairing with Best Friends, she has that same natural laid-back, goofy charsima that makes the group work (I’m not feeling the Yuta pairing by contrast, as he doesn’t have that natural like-ability). But she just hasn’t had any character development. The alien thing is strange in that it’s her whole character but it’s also largely insignificant. I mean it’s an ok look, but it’s kind of goofy. That’s fine, goofy can work but they’ve never actually done anything with it, it just feels kind of pointless.

I think the main issue with Red Velvet is character. In-ring she’s generally decent, her bumping is good and she really helped put Hayter over here. She does have a tendency to maybe try too much which leads to sloppiness, but I’d assume she’ll iron that out over time. But her presentation - named after a cake, ‘straight outta your mama’s kitchen’, ‘stir it up’ - is incredibly lame. And despite the ring work being fine for a smaller, fired up babyface, she doesn’t come across as likeable or sympathetic. It’s a similar issue for much of the women’s division and it’s kind of making Britt’s run a bit of a dud for me, because the characters underneath her are so underdeveloped. Its unsatisfying watching a heel do obvious heelish things to cheers and babyfaces being booed for making saves.

I’m not necessarily advocating for a Becky turn in itself, but in story terms there’s better ways to achieve it. Regardless of it’s overall success, the build to Austin’s turn is generally seen as pretty good storytelling. You can still get a couple of months of Becky as face fighting back to the top after her long lay-off. Plant some seeds of doubt along the way (has she been overtaken while she’s been away?), which also potentially allows you to put over someone else (á la Triple H). Then when the turn comes, it’s actually paying off a story and you’re elevating Bianca in defeat because you’ve established she is on Becky’s level (or above) and Becky had to cheat to win. Playing it out over time also let’s them have a bit of a lay of the land, and try to get a feel for whether the turn is a good idea (e.g. would the fans be likely cheer Bianca over Becky).

I don’t even think the main issue is how it hurts Bianca (although I’m not disputing that it does), it’s that the storytelling is dogshit. It’s an illogical moment, which pays off nothing and undermines stories that preceded it. If the goal is Becky as heel, I’d suggest the blueprint would actually be the Austin turn. You could probably build to that over a couple of months at least, and hit multiple story beats along the way.

In my defence, I’m still fairly new here. I did lurk for years but, as I was alluding to in my post, I mostly find the stronger ‘fuck WWE’ type posts pretty worthless so I’ve probably glossed over that type of stuff in the past. But, yeah, we can probably agree that resorting to personal insults based on someone’s apparent preferences in pro wrestling/sports entertainment is fucking stupid.

I get the sentiment behind this but I’m not sure it really fits. The WWE thing could definitely apply to things over the years like Bryan at WM30 or Kofi’s title win. But, at this point, do WWE even know what people want anymore? It’s more like ‘we know what we want (although we may change our minds) and that’s what you’ll get’. And it might not have been what you meant, but the way it’s written here comes across to me as if AEW is throwing all their good stuff at the fans just to create moments. But what AEW has done well is tell logical, longer term stories (generally) and protect their big matches/moments.

I think the Becky thing could actually be just as damaging to her as it will be for Bianca. Assuming they don’t suddenly drop Bianca from the title scene, she might get a bit of ‘how could they do her like that’ sympathy from the smart crowd and, in story, they can sell it as her being caught off guard/with a cheap shot or use it as fuel towards a heel turn. For Becky, it feels like the kind of thing that will have segments of the crowd turn on her (see the ‘fuck Becky’ posts earlier) or just lose interest. It’s kind of a microcosm of the issue with modern WWE - no matter how over someone is/how much of a star WWE makes them out to be, they’ll ultimately be undermined by completely unsatisfying storytelling.

Yeah, I think people are mostly civil here, but I do feel like there’s been a bit more of a general anti-WWE sentiment the last couple of years. I don’t really mind as, like others, I’ve completely lost enthusiasm for WWE. Although I do find some of the throwaway ‘everything WWE is bad’ style posts pretty pointless and tedious (‘how did WWE fuck this person up’, etc.). And with that there can be a tendency towards revisionism, which has lead to some pretty ridiculous takes like ‘the PC hasn’t produced anyone good’ (I feel like the exaggerated improvement of Tay Conti is a spin-off of this). But yeah, when there’s actual discussion I think the board is still pretty balanced on WWE.

I’m on board with WWE booking being mostly shit, but putting the post-Impact flops of Broken/Woken Matt all on them isn’t really fair. Wasn’t there a legal dispute with Impact claiming the Broken Universe IP when the Hardys returned? If I remember right, that delayed them using the gimmick, which killed off a lot of the momentum. It wasn’t very good when they did pull the trigger, but it was relatively well featured until, I think, an injury to Wyatt or Hardy ended the run. And the Broken stuff in AEW was largely shit. As pointed out, I don’t think the lack of crowds was really an issue as it mostly got over based on cinematic stuff. Tonally, it just didn’t fit with what was going on around it. And I’d suggest that’s the issue with the gimmick. It got over by pretty much going viral during the Impact run. I’d guess a decent amount of people weren’t actually watching Impact, but caught the Broken stuff in a bit of a vacuum where it’s easier to digest. Honestly, I don’t think he wackiness of the gimmick works within a promotion which people actually watch and is otherwise a pretty straight-faced presentation.