Kev

Thanks. I watched these this afternoon. Payback - didn’t have the highlights of the Sasha matches, but solid and probably has less flaws. Bayley gets the early shine, with Alexa picking her spots and taking advantage of minor mistakes to take over. Her offence is solid, although nothing looks as good as against Sasha. She’s talking down to Bayley throughout and coming across like a real piece of shit. Bayley gets the comeback and ends up hitting a really good running knee, followed by the top rope elbow, which Alexa kicks out of (this’ll be my nitpick). Ending comes off a creative spot as Bayley gets kicked off a pin combination and goes head first, under the bottom buckle into the post, which makes a nasty thud. Bayley gets a last ditch small package but is countered into a ddt for the pin. I promised a nitpick and it’s that Alexa got a kick out off a big move combo, whereas Bayley gets pinned off the first really big move. It’s the heel getting a clean win, albeit off a bit of a banana peel moment, but she basically comes out looking tougher than the face as well. If she was losing I’d have no problem with that spot, but it just feels like there’s at least one choice in each match which positions her unnecessarily strong. Extreme Rules - the match doesn’t do much for me (I mean it’s an ‘on a pole’ match) but is fine for what it is. It’s pretty short and the story is whether Bayley has enough killer instinct to use the kendo stick. There’s a bit back and forth before the stick comes into play. Bayley ends up getting control but takes a bit too long allowing Alexa an opening, she takes control and there’s no hesitation as she lays in some shots. Bayley gets a quick comeback with the belly to belly but fails to cover due to the damage, Alexa gets control again and hits a ddt for a pretty comprehensive victory. I seem to remember a lot of complaints at the time about Bayley looking like an idiot, but it really isn’t that bad, I was expecting some bad ‘I’m conflicted’ acting but it’s just Bayley taking too long, almost playing to the crowd, before she gets the chance to use the kendo stick. Wiki says that Bayley was meant to face Alexa at Summerslam but was injured. I’m assuming the plan was for her to show a bit more killer instinct and regain the title, which would have been the logical payoff to these two matches. As it stands it’s a pretty unsatisfactory story, as was the Sasha series, and when Alexa finally does get some comeuppance it’s against Nia ffs.

IYH - A Cold Day in Hell There’s a mention of the Hart Foundation buying front row tickets and that feels like it’s telegraphing a fuck finish in the main immediately. Flash vs. HHH - this is a perfectly fine, but cold opener. HHH takes over after Chyna interference, the highlight of his offence is doing the high knee to the back sending Flash off the apron, generally HHH on offence is just a bit boring though and I don’t think he ever really changed it up over 20 years. HHH wins with the pedigree, Chyna picks up and crotches Flash post-match, she’s the best thing about HHH’s act at this point. Mankind vs. Rocky. Some standard back and forth stuff early before Mankind takes over and livens things up with a cannon ball dive from the apron. Rocky snapmares Mankind over the ropes to outside which I’ve never seen before, Foley then gets in his low-key ridiculous bump for the night, taking a Rock Bottom on the ramp. In-ring, Foley does the legs collapse under him thing on an Irish whip, I think that’s actually a pretty great low-risk bump to sell how much you’re hurt. Mankind wins after rolling through a (pretty good) cross body into the claw. Another cold match but made worthwhile by Foley’s commitment to dying for the cause and mixing it up with some interesting bumps. It feels like the ambivalence is starting to turn to negativity for Rocky as he’s getting some boos now. Ahmed runs the gauntlet. Starts with Crush. He tries to make a 5 minute Ahmed match boring by working a nerve hold and then a long sleeper spot. Ahmed counters the heart punch into a spin kick for the win, nice spot but they used it a couple weeks back on Raw so felt predictable as soon as it was setup. Savio next. Savio also works in a nerve hold ffs, this was decent enough though before Savio gets himself dq’ed beating him down with a chair. Farooq out last being cocky and toying with Ahmed, before getting caught with a spinebuster. For a non-spinning version I quite like Ahmed’s spinebuster, there’s a nice explosiveness to it, Farooq gets it over nicely with the convulsing leg sell. Ahmed hits his finish but his exhaustion delays the pin and Farooq barely kicks out before hitting the dominator to win. Overall this was ok, Savio and Crush could have done something more interesting with their heat segments, but it didn’t really drag and was built up quite well with Ahmed looking good in defeat. Vader vs. Shamrock - Shamrock doesn’t have a very good theme yet, he gets a good reaction though. This is submission/knockout only. Nice leg kicks from Ken to start. Goes back and forth a bit feeling each other out before Shamrock gets a big waist lock takedown, then a German. The story is Vader using his pro wrestling experience - using rope breaks and going to the outside - to frustrate Shamrock. Vader takes over and ends up dumping Shamrock over the top from a suplex in a cool spot. There’s a bit back and forth for the last few minutes before Vader hits a huge haymaker which I’m sure everyone’s seen the gif of. But that leads straight into an ankle lock and Shamrock wins. I liked this, some slight awkwardness but it had a different feel, some nice spots and some stiff strikes. Austin vs. Taker. Hart Foundation are out straight away to take their seats. There’s a good early spot where Austin seemingly bails from Taker offence, only to turn and drag Owen out of the crowd and start beating him, Taker then takes out Austin, only to turn and get his own shot in on Owen. Match is quite good from there with Austin taking advantage where he can to counter Taker’s power/size advantage. It’s fairly even with leg work and some submissions from both. Taker even pulls out an arm wrench heel kick (shades of Booker T, it didn’t look that good though). There’s some Hebner dreadfulness as he chastises, but fails to dq Austin for a low blow, Austin gives the middle fingers behind his back (to a pop), Hebner then does the same to Austin’s face in retaliation (to no reaction, and which also makes no sense as he didn’t see Austin do it to him). Was Hebner popular backstage? I don’t get how he was so prominent on tv, as a performer he’s got to be one of the worst high-profile refs ever. Austin hits a stunner but Pillman causes a distraction by ringing the bell, then Taker gets the tombstone for the win after a reversal sequence. Foundation attacks Taker after the match with Austin making the save, but he gets in another stunner on Taker for good measure. This was good but the Hart Foundation presence made it feel like more of an angle and it probably could have been done on Raw. That probably sums this up, all solid enough but generally felt a bit weak for a ppv.

I mean they literally had a team called Bums R Us on this week. And there’s guys like Ryzin with a record of something like 0-30, clearly some guys aren’t that elite.

Thanks for the recommendations. I went back and watched the Sasha series (I saw the ppv matches at the time but don’t remember much of them), I’ll try to watch the other stuff when I get a chance. I came out of it probably a bit more positive on Alexa - she’s definitely good at some stuff (mainly on offence) - but the criticisms I have are still there (some of it not aided by the booking). Great Balls of Fire - this had the best structure but was hurt by the finish. Sasha got shine early, with Alexa pulling the double jointed fake out to hit a great forearm and take over, really cool spot. From there her offence is good, some vicious looking stuff, including standing on her back and stomping on her head, a hair-pull backbreaker, and even the chokeslam/STO was good here. This is helped by Sasha’s flexibility and contorting her body, making everything look nasty. Alexa uses crafty, opportunistic stuff to cut Sasha off. Sasha comes back as we go into the finishing sequence, Alexa hits a nice code red out of the corner. Sasha gets the bank statement, with Alexa staying in this too long, going over half way across the ring to reach the ropes. This is the sort of little thing where I think Alexa is presented too strong, being craftier and more vicious than the face is good, but also being tough enough to survive their finisher in this way isn’t. It then ends on Alexa taking a count out loss to retain the title, fine with this as a heel move but really shouldn’t be done on ppv (that’s not on Alexa though). Summerslam - This is probably the best match, but I didn’t really like the layout. It starts with Alexa getting the better of Sasha in a strike exchange, she’s hits a really good forearm again here, but I don’t like this. I think, with some exceptions, the heel shouldn’t be looking tougher than the face in a strike exchange. Following this, I think Alexa just takes far too much, basically dominating for a good chunk with no real hope spots thrown in. Again, a lot of the offence is good and vicious looking, but the crafty, opportunistic stuff of the first match is gone and it’s just Alexa being better than Sasha, there’s a couple of cut offs with weak clotheslines which kind of highlights my issue, Alexa shouldn’t be dominating physically like that, it’s stuff like this where I think she misjudges her role sometimes. As Sasha starts to comeback there’s a nice call back to the last match as the code red is countered into a sort of Alabama slam in the corner, cool spot. Alexa gets back in control pulling out the apron to trip Sasha to the outside, much better cut off and it leads into some nice arm work as Sasha injured her shoulder. Sasha then comes back to get the bank statement, it gets briefly countered using the bad arm, but Alexa gets caught again and Sasha takes the title. Raw - This one felt the weakest, maybe not helped by the ad break in the middle. It’s worked as a lot more of a back and forth, throwing in some similar spots seen in the other matches. Alexa generally good on offence and there’s a nice superplex. Ending feels a bit out of nowhere, Alexa gets out of the bank statement, hits a ddt and thats it. This did nothing for Sasha, no cheating or anything to mitigate the loss, just the heel being better than her. So yeah, Alexa generally good on offence, selling is fine, but some of the choices of spots and general layout of matches position her too strongly. In a kayfabe sense I thought Alexa generally looked a lot better than Sasha and that’s probably why I don’t think I’d consider Alexa outright good. Sasha made Alexa look good with her selling, Alexa made herself look good but probably to the detriment of Sasha, given she’s playing crafty heel rather than dominant heel I think that’s an issue.

Flair could probably fill up a few spaces himself, I’d have the flop up there, plus he’s got the throw off the top. Rikishi’s inside out clothesline bump is a good one, that felt like a pretty crazy bump for a guy of his size.

Minor criticism but I sometimes think they should ask some of the jobbers they bring in to tone their looks down . I get that it’s indy guys/girls just trying to stand out, but occasionally the likes of Ryzin or whoever will look like a bigger, more interesting character than their squasher. I’d like some of these guys to embrace their jobber status and get some generic, ill-fitting singlets. Its been explained why and it’s a non-issue now with the young boy look but similarly, Cutler’s old gear with the face paint, dragon mask and entrance jacket felt like something that could have been saved for someone bigger as a special ppv look or something. Hobbs is someone who I think low-key made a big upgrade in his gear after moving to Team Taz. The singlet is a much better look for his body type and he looks pretty great now.

The Cage match versus Chandler Hopkins on Dark was interesting in that I was ready to hate it as Cage gave him far too much, with it being it worked ridiculously evenly. But then Taz started laying into him on commentary saying he was making things far too hard, so I’m kind of torn on it as I think that’s exactly how they should have been playing off Cage’s GMSI style. Ideally I would have had an angle where Taz coached that out of him so he improves, but the imminent face turn makes that seem unlikely. If they start to acknowledge that Cage is basically his own worst enemy because of his style then I think I’ll find him a lot more tolerable.

I’m not about getting into internet arguments and I’m not trying to be a dick but your original post was full of what are basically ‘contrarian’ cliches at this point. You did a variation on the ‘what next? Kids are gonna be identifying as *inanimate object*’ joke that has been going around for about a decade. Maybe a dissenting opinion isn't because they’re a homogeneous member of ‘the left’ but because, you know, the joke wasn’t very funny.

Yeah, I don’t remember around this period, but as his his career went on getting out-wrestled by a less experienced opponent was a pretty standard Angle opening sequence.

Raw May 5, 97. Hart Foundation are now fully formed and start with a decent promo as they set their sights on HBK, after taking out Austin last week. Ahmed (randomly wearing long black pants rather than his gear) vs Rockabilly. Disappointing, Billy takes most of it, doing nothing interesting and Ahmed does no cool/reckless shit. Ends on a dq as Ahmed gets the guitar off Billy and kills him with a El Kabong. HF are looking for HBK backstage and this is the story running through the show. Another Shamrock video package, I quite like this, with them playing off him overcoming a tough upbringing to succeed and now being a family man. Vader vs. Goldust. What we get of this is decent but it’s broken up by a break and a Vader confrontation with Shamrock at ringside. Highlight is Dustin catching Vader on an Avalanche into the corner with a sweet running Powerslam. Vader wins with the Vader bomb. There’s then a brawl as Shamrock and Mankind get in the ring, Dustin gets a bit of shine making the save for Shamrock. That leads into a Dustin sit-down interview, with them acknowledging him as Dusty’s son and explaining why he started being Goldust. There’s a bit of a WCW dig as they reference Hall refusing to fight him. There’s some stuff that’s a bit awkward watching in 2021, like Dustin talking about ‘coming out of the closet’ in relation to revealing himself as Dusty’s son, plus a reference to ‘minorities, like the gays’, but I think the intentions were good and I liked this overall in adding depth to the character, although I’m not sure it ever really went anywhere and Goldust increasingly reverted to one dimensional over the years. Nice little bit where the HF jump an HBK lookalike backstage, realise it’s not him, but continue to beat him up anyway. Crush runs a gauntlet vs. 3 hand-picked jabronis building to Ahmed running the gauntlet against the Nation at the ppv. He beats the 1st with a gorilla-press gut buster, 2nd with the heart punch, but then the 3rd man is Ahmed with a stocking over his head, who wins with an immediate Pearl River Plunge. Simple, effective stuff. HF are now outside looking under cars. HBK comes out like normal with music, as if the HF stuff wasn’t happening. He announces his comeback at KOTR. Bret on the tron again gets in some causal homophobia, before challenging HBK to a match with Anvil, which turns into an ambush as Bulldog/Owen immediately jump him. LOD make the save. Furnas & LaFon vs LOD rematch from last week. They’re kind of doing a they’re good technicians but boring thing with F&L, which never works. LOD are wearing singlets with their tights, I don’t remember ever seeing this so they must have dumped it pretty quick, but I think it’s a good look and would have made sense as they got older and their guts grew. This starts out quite nicely with some hard-hitting stuff from both teams, but there’s a weak finish as Bulldog causes a distraction, leading to Owen interfering and kind of flubbing a neck snap over the ropes to give F&L the win. There’s a backstage pull apart with HBK/HF where Austin shows up after they’d previously questioned whether he’d make it tonight. Taker promo where they’re randomly doing a stolen belt angle and Taker promises to get revenge tonight on whoever stole the belt. Bulldog vs. Austin in the main, perfectly fine match which Austin wins. A big brawl ensues with everyone who’s been involved in the HF stuff tonight, which includes Owen bringing out the WWF belt. The ring is cleared ending with Austin holding the belt, leading to a brawl with Taker. The whole belt bit just seemed like an unnecessary and convoluted way to get Taker and Austin to brawl. I like the idea of the HF setting up Austin to build tension with Taker, but that didn’t come across at all. Another solid show, all the angles here were built well (minus the random belt shit), but the in-ring generally feels like an afterthought and the post-match mass brawls are overdone.

I think this is fair, and I’m not sure there’s a particularly strong argument for Alexa being outright good. She did feel overpushed early on, with her kind of coming up out of nowhere to win the title pretty quickly, having largely been a manger in NXT. She was then positioned pretty strongly as a fixture in the title scene for the next couple of years, while more hyped NXT call-ups floundered a bit (Sasha, Becky, Bayley, Asuka). This is a WWE criticism rather than an Alexa criticism (as an aside I’d argue you’re better off coming to the main roster without having had a strong NXT run). Character-wise she was generally decent-good, but I’d struggle to name anything particularly standout she did (other than some gif-worthy reaction shots), and I’m not sure there was any faces that came out stronger having feuded with her (again, that’s not all on Alexa though). In-ring, I’d say she’s mostly unremarkable. My main memory is her adopting that chokeslam/STO as a signature spot, which seemed massively misjudged and felt like it should have been a set-up to a comedy spot (a kind of Flair gets carried away and goes to the top rope thing). What are the standout Alexa matches or what even are her strengths? In terms of more recently, fair enough she’s went all in and is doing well with bad material but I feel like this is a slightly over-used talking point. Like it used to get used to praise Kane, but Kane still mostly sucked for 20 years.

I remember having a couple of wrestlers in amongst my figures of superheroes, mutant turtles, etc. as a young kid. It was possibly Macho and Bulldog, but I think I must have just picked them up because they looked cool, I don’t remember watching wrestling until 98, when I was 9/10. Austin was an obvious early fave, the earliest thing I can remember actually seeing was the Raw segment where Austin faked out going corporate, and I loved that whole Summerslam build of ‘are Kane and Taker in cahoots’. As I got into it, X Pac became my proper favourite as he had the underdog thing going and was one of the few flyers to be featured around then, I used to love Taka against random cruisers but they were already losing interest in the division by then. In the UK, TNT would only come on at like 8-9 at night and I just thought of it as a channel that showed old films. I came across Nitro, presumably when flicking during Raw ads (Raw and Nitro used to get shown on a Friday back then) and, because it was the old film channel and I vaguely recognised the likes of Hogan as ‘old’ wrestlers, I genuinely thought it was a rerun of some old wrestling. But I remember seeing a Goldberg video package and being blown away by the spear in particular and telling a friend about this old wrestler I saw who would just dive across the ring to take out his opponents. Once I saw more I remember thinking the cruisers and DDP were great, but that early perception of WCW being where the old wrestlers went stuck with me for my first few years of fandom and WCW kind of lacked a bit street cred for me.

I thought the opener was fine as a novelty, like Hager getting the win in his environment. Generally liked the chaotic post-match, although the Sammy run-in, complete with theme song, was a bit off. I like the subtle teases of Wardlow as ‘actually a decent dude’ for when the inevitable face turn comes. Handicap was good and, again, nice logical booking, although like everyone else I’m wondering what’s the next step here, I suppose that’s a good thing though. OC vs. Bononi was fun. Perfect wrestling as variety show stuff. I can’t really put my finger on what it is, but Statlander has added something to the Best Friends act, and they continue to be the most likeable thing in AEW for me. I quite liked the goofy Kenny segment in the moment, but it feels misplaced for the heel world champ. See Miro for someone who can say goofy shit while still coming off totally legit as a character, but Kenny feels like he’s role-playing 80s comedy villain. Hardy’s act just comes off very minor league to me, just not believable. Bunny is dreadful also. In theory, I like that they’re playing off their history with this little feud for Christian, but Hardy is someone I don’t think offers much anymore (at least on screen). Thought Brock looked decent enough, that whole thing was fine, nothing more to really say on it. I hope the Andrade interview being solo signifies more of a loose association with Vickie (e.g. she doesn’t actually appear with him). Not keen on them teasing another surprise, just let the surprise be a surprise. Hart is very green but thought that match was solid. It probably shouldn’t be significant but I appreciate the simplicity of them booking the more experienced wrestlers to have advantages over the rookies so there’s a clear hierarchy being built. Nothing about this Nyla Brit setup is working for me. Transitioning Brit into a tweener role also feels increasingly like it could be a misstep. If your unlikeable heel is your most over face then you need better face characters. If Penta isn’t going to be heel then they should really ditch Abrahantes. With the new gimmick and him going for a grizzled vet, mercenary thing, Kazarian could do with dropping some of his more high-flying and convoluted stuff. He’s a weird one for me in that he always hits his ‘athletic spots’ perfectly well, but for some reason they never actually look good. I kind of feel the same way about Nick Jackson. Is it just me or is this a thing? I’d use something like ‘forced/false athleticism’ to describe it.

What’s happening here? Is this a botch or a comedy spot?

I think your points are right in a lot of ways but this bit kind of lets them off the hook. I think it’s probably true in the sense that it seems unlikely that they have any desire to do things differently. But I’d suggest if they were willing to change up their booking philosophy and rotate the roster more then they could be getting a lot more value out of a lot more of their talent. Like why do they need to book endless rematches to the point that most decent pairings get ran into the ground within a few months and become completely stale? Why do Roman and The Usos need to appear multiple times every Smackdown or why do they even need to appear every week at all? (In fairness they aren’t having Roman actually wrestle too much now) Its far from perfect but I think AEW is showing how a different booking philosophy can work. NXT of a few years ago was also really good in this sense.

Yeah, about 2 years ago I actually started from after Rumble 96 but I quickly gave up and just did the ppvs. I started up on Raw again pre-Survivor Series 96. Watching from Bret’s return makes 97 and the heel turn a lot more satisfying as you see him go from respectful and largely unconcerned with Austin to pure hatred. Plus all the perceived slights build it up to the point that the turn, if not completely justified, is completely understandable. All the moving parts in the main event scene, possibly slightly accidentally given HBK’s absence, come together really well in that few months to Mania.

At the pace I’m watching these it’s gonna be around 2024 by the time I get through the 97 shows. Raw April 28 - Pillman promo to start, doing a sort of hypocritical religious thing. Austin interrupts, avoids a Davey/Owen ambush then comes back out to chase them off with a weapon. This is fairly simple but effective booking, Austin was outnumbered and ambushed a couple of times last week, this week he doesn’t fall for the same tricks, he doesn’t have to really get over on anyone but he walks tall and doesn’t look like an idiot. Contrast with how it felt like NWO were constantly beating down the faces on Nitro around this time. Flash vs Rockabilly - short, fine match, Flash with some dives, Billy kind of hits a jackhammer, plus a slightly lower impact fameasser. Funk wins with a rana roll up after a miscommunication spot with Billy and Honky. The gimmick is dead but I like Billy as big strong, athletic dude who has all the tools but is basically too much of a goof to really put it together. Guitar shot on Flash after the match. Bret does a promo in his wheelchair. Someone on the board recently described Bret as sort of a lame old man neighbour in terms of his insults, but you still wouldn’t mess with him cos it looks like he keeps in shape, and I like that. He comes across as lame but still believable, rather than falling into the goofy comedy heel trap. Plus he’s arrogant but good enough to back it up, without being a cool heel. I think his heel work here really was perfect for this era. LOD vs Furnas/LaFon - ends as Furnas breaks up a doomsday device only to eat the clothesline from Hawk, which looked a bit weak. Furnas/LaFon do a heel turn here with a pre-tape then post match promo, which is a bit muddled and isn’t helped by the announcers no selling that Hawk pinned the illegal man, which was one of their gripes. Owen vs Rocky in a solid match, Owen hits a great spin kick out of the corner to a charging Rocky. Owen with the roll up and takes the IC title, I hadn’t even realised this was for the title. Rocky had looked like a bit of a lame duck champ for a while now so losing in this sort of low key manner almost seemed fitting. It didn’t feel like the crowd had turned on him at this stage, just ambivalent. Austin hypes his title match with Taker, which is a bit of an afterthought to the Bret feud. I quite like that he has a heated feud with his main rival while also going for the title, again allows them to interweave stories which they were good at doing around this time. A Shamrock behind the scenes-type video package. Nothing particularly notable but I’m a sucker for this sort of thing, easy way to get across a character without exposing weaker promo guys. Roadie vs Vader - pretty much a squash, the Vader body attack thing looks great here. JR then does an in-ring interview, leading to Vader bullying him, playing off the Kuwait incident. It’s a bit awkward as I think Shamrock was a bit late but he eventually makes the save and hits a belly to belly which the crowd like, he then grabs the mic and says ‘it won’t be Vader time, it’ll be hard time’, there’s sort of a polite ‘ummm yeah ok then’ pop, not sure if this was an attempt at a catchphrase but it didn’t work (see earlier point about exposing weak promo guys). That probably sums up why Shamrock only had a certain ceiling in WWE, cool when he was throwing suplexes or whatever but kind of had negative charisma when talking. Goldust vs HHH - Dustin throws some nice strikes in this. It ends when Marlena throws powder in Chyna’s eyes, leading to Chyna choking HHH (mistaking him for Goldust) for a dq. As we know, powder to the eyes disables both vision and hearing. This feels like a bit of a never ending feud, the work is generally solid and the feud is fine but they have too many nothing matches with weak non-finishes. Quick Taker promo hyping his title match, even referencing Austin being distracted with Bret. There’s a couple of skits on the show, which I’d never seen before where you have actors playing a family, with the kid and grandpa kind of going crazy imitating different wrestlers. They’re labelled WWF reality check, was this their pre-Attitude attempt at branding this ‘era’? Taker vs Bulldog - total non-event, pretty much immediately to commercial, Owen then runs in soon after they come back. Austin out to chase them off, leads to an Austin/Taker confrontation, surprising amount of boos for Austin, Taker pretty clearly the face there, so Austin wasn’t that over yet. Austin then confronts Bret who is watching from the stage in his wheelchair, this leads to Anvil attacking Austin, I like how they’ve slowly unveiled the Hart Foundation over a number of weeks. Bret then knocks Austin off the stage with a crutch shot. It’s a bit weird seeing this through modern eyes as they don’t do a big set-piece bump and don’t actually shows the landing, it almost looks like Austin just steps off the stage and the camera angle gives no perspective on height, but then they sell it like it’s a big fall. They seem to be doing lots in the Austin Foundation feud, really building the shows around it, which I suppose sets the tone for the era. The positive though is that, despite dedicating a lot of time to it, they don’t burn through matches, which is one of their big flaws of today.

Oh and I liked that Team Taz squash, it kind of demonstrated how much more effective Hobbs is than Cage. Hobbs only did a couple of simple things but they looked really good and he showed he can work a crowd, getting face then heel heat by spamming a body slam. Cage ran through a load of shit with nothing really standing out, other than accidentally dropping a dude on his head trying some convoluted setup. And the drillclaw sucks, it’s half way between a screwdriver and a falcon arrow but ends up not looking as good as either. I’m not advocating dropping dudes on their head but if you’re gonna make the screwdriver look that safe then just don’t bother doing it.

I don’t know if this happened ages ago and I missed it, but based on Elevation it looks like they got rid of Santana & Ortiz’s banger of a theme. The new one didn’t do much for me on first impression. Nice promo and squash by them though. Im quite liking the QT character now but I think the reason I can’t get on board with him in-ring is the constant re-adjusting his trunks. Is someone not pointing this out to him backstage? Get some gear that fits FFS.

To be fair, that was under 2 years into Foley’s run. Miro and Lee were both around longer than Foley (not including his various comebacks). Im not making any particular point here, but it’s interesting to think how some of the modern guys who we still think of as ‘new’ have had far longer runs than some of the legendary runs from the past.

With the talk of WWE going back to the big guy signings, my instinct is that it won’t work as the core audience simply doesn’t really want that. I feel like the modern fan tends to be a lot smarter (for a lack of a better term) than even 10 years ago and there’s a certain expectation of good wrestling (again definitions on this may vary). It seems to me that WWE going this route would just turn more of their current audience away and is another example of contempt for their audience rather than trying to cater to them (and the fans who’ve been tuning out). But I think it’s an interesting topic, similar to the WWE as Marvel talk in the purge thread. Is this just another Vince whim or is this driven more by the likes of Khan and the real business guys? Like is there a business model for this? Is there an example out there (in wrestling, sports, entertainment of whatever) where a company has pretty much actively turned off their existing fan base while successfully expanding by picking up a new audience?

I think this is fair and, when you frame it like that, it is maybe one of the better stories they could tell at the minute. I think I’m more bemoaning the overall booking of Nyla, I think if they’d handled her better since the start then a Nyla title challenge should still be a bigger deal than a foregone conclusion defence. For a company that generally develops their characters fairly slowly and let’s their stories play out (see Hangman), it feels like they’ve burned through Nyla pretty quickly. She’s a dominant monster heel but she never really got that dominant monster run (but did have a title run so at the same time it feels like she’s already reached her ceiling). I think she’s fine in a gatekeeper role, but I feel like there was more value in her before settling into that role. You mention her only losing 3 times in a year, but (without checking) I’m not sure that would even stand up as that impressive amongst the other women as they don’t tend to burn through big matches. And I think those 3 represent her losing every featured program she’s been in during that time (Shida x2 and the tournament final).

I think this is fine in theory, plus they’ve got the ‘I already beat you’ thing, which is a simple story. I just think Nyla’s been beaten too many times to really be considered a major threat, along with her weak title run and lack of TV time it seems obvious they’re done with her as a major player in the division. So for Britt’s first defence it just seem like far too much of a foregone conclusion to be interesting. If they actually slow burn it over a few months, have Nyla pick up some momentum and have some dotted interactions with Britt along the way then it could work better. Otherwise it just comes across too much as a filler feud, like how WWE would always throw Kane out as a challenger to fill a ppv cycle. They really should get her away from Vickie though. I think giving her more of a coach who can improve her and bring out the beast (which is what they should have done instead of Vickie) might be something that could win her back some credibility and extend her usefulness a bit more.

I thought there was quite a lot of weak stuff here, even taking into account it being a bit of a cool down show. Opening tag did nothing for me. Heel Bucks have been an improvement but they’re still frustrating. Although they’re doing plenty of cheating it still feels like they’re presented overly strong. They’re running through too many teams, I don’t think they need to be wrestling as much, have them ducking matches and stuff. I liked Matt’s dive fakeout spot but the clothesline at the end was ridiculously weak, to the point it felt like Pac should have been no selling it. Andrade with Vickie is a bad move for me. Vickie’s act seems dated so putting her with a hot new act kind of brings him down by association, he looked cool though. Even going back to WWE, while she is a heat magnet, it pretty much all goes on her rather than the wrestler, so I don’t think she works as a manger. Andrade might need someone to do some talking for him but she’s not actually a good talker, she’s an annoying talker (hence the heat), I don’t think she does anything to build her acts. At least in WWE she was usually doing the GM abuse of power thing, but her act now is just her having an annoying voice. I don’t think it’ll overly hurt him but still a bad move. I like how they tried to explain Private Party’s attire as a douchey heel thing, problem is their original attire looked far douchier. T-shirt gesture was nice but intense face Jericho is shit. Giving Sammy, Santana and Ortiz more limelight is good but the weekly IC promos are a bit much. Although the quality in the women’s division has improved, the stuff featured here made me think that it’s still really lacking in terms of characters. Brit is essentially the top face now, while playing the role of an annoying heel, I quite like that they seem to be letting her just stick to the character while positioning her against heel Nyla, but I’m not sure how it’ll work in terms of building good stories longer term. I like Nyla but I think she’s been killed off as a major threat and see previous comments on Vickie. Red Velvet I like in-ring, but the ‘straight out of your momma’s kitchen’ intro and stirring the pot thing seem massively forced/lame. Feels like they need to do more to develop who she is. Bunny is ok but the ‘I’m Krazzy’ mannerisms are embarrassing. Sky really isn’t a good promo, I just don’t believe him, Page really comes across as a douche, but Sky screams ‘I’m playing a character’. I like him as a heel but he lacks the charisma to really be a featured act. Miro promo was probably best thing on the show. Dustin win makes sense as I like that they’re kind of establishing a hierarchy of the vets just overcoming some of the younger prospects. I think it gives the younger guys more room to grow longer term, gets some losses out of the way early so they don’t have to worry about a win streak becoming a booking burden and it’ll make it more meaningful when younger guys actually get those big wins.

Cody’s a weird case, even going back to WWE, I think when he’s bad he’s really bad. His WWE run was generally solid, if unspectacular. But then I thought the masked heel thing was really bad, just dreadful acting which I found hard to watch. And the Stardust character was fucking awful, that was an embarrassed to be watching thing for me, hissing at the crowd to try to get heat ffs. And I think he was pretty heavily credited with creative input on both of those. But he’s done enough good stuff, especially post-WWE, that I don’t think you can totally dismiss him in terms of creative, he’s maybe just someone who needs to be reined in and told to keep it simple.