Kev

Raw April 21 Austin Bret promo starts, setting up a street fight later and they announce Austin vs Taker for the next ppv. Not a lot more to say on this, these two are nailing their character work each time out. Ahmed vs. Sultan. Some peak Vince ridiculousness as he says that Ahmed galvanised an entire nation last week in S. Africa, something even Nelson Mandela couldn’t do. This is decent while it lasts, Ahmed with a nice pump kick and axe kick early. Sultan pulls out another nice piledriver. Ahmed gets a couple of power spots before the inevitable NOD appearance. It ends on a dq as Ahmed uses the 2x4 on Sultan to scare them off. Outside of the obvious guys, Ahmed is the guy I’m most impressed with on these shows, and not in an ironic way. They air the Vader Kuwait talk show clip, it seems slightly strange that they frame it as him being held hostage as he awaits trial, were they not risking antagonising the Kuwaitis here? Shamrock does a promo setting up his Vader match and also challenges Mike Tyson. Were they already in talks with Tyson at this stage? Was there ever serious talk of him working a match? The street fight starts with a Owen/Bulldog ambush, leading to HBK coming out of the crowd with a chair to chase them off. It then seemingly settles into a match but it’s more of an extended angle. Austin takes over and works Bret’s leg with a chair then puts him in a sharpshooter. There’s no real ending as officials come out to get him off and they work an injury angle with Bret. Tiger Ali Singh vs Sal Sincere, this is Tiger’s Raw debut having won the Kuwaiti Cup. He gets the win but doesn’t look good and this feels totally unimportant as they cut to a split screen of Bret getting treatment three times. Austin attacks Bret in the ambulance. I like the contrast between Davey and Owen in the buildup, with Davey sort of encouragingly rushing everyone “c’mon, lets go guys”, while Owen shouts and calls everyone idiots. This angle feels very Attitude era, but it’s on the right side of wrestling ridiculous, still feels violent and gets across the hate between them. JJ vs Rockabilly again. Vince not understanding the meaning of literal as he mentions bombs going off both literally and figuratively. This gets a good 10 mins and is almost an extended squash for Billy, as he comfortably picks up the win with the Honky swinging neckbreaker. JJ attacks like a dick afterwards and gets a guitar shot for his trouble. Its strange how much time they’ve dedicated to this Honky angle, but at the same time it’s given no real importance. They do the WCW thing of subliminally burying the match by talking about the NWO throughout, just replace NWO with Stonecold. A quick Mankind promo where he talks of Bearer’s handsome face getting disfigured. Taker vs HHH, this is worked slightly strange with face Taker working in a chin lock and nerve hold at points, leading to heel HHH comebacks. As seems to be the theme for Raw main events of this time, it’s inevitably building to a non-finish, which happens as Mankind attacks with a blow torch. Taker fights back before he can burn him. Marlena and Dustin (without makeup) then attack HHH/Chyna from the crowd. The visual here is cool with Terri just hanging off Chyna’s back as she chokes her with a bag. They kind of spoiled this though by showing them sitting in the crowd a couple of minutes earlier. Austin back out and kind of heels it up a bit. Not sure whether this was a deliberate attempt to a set him up as the heel for the Taker match but a highlight of this stage in Austin’s run in that there’s just no compromise or pandering with his character. Owen/Bulldog attack, before HBK makes the save. Pillman then attacks Austin and sets him up for a pillmanizer before HBK saves again. It’s almost bittersweet seeing Pillman here as you inevitably think what could have been with him in a featured role as the attitude era grew.

Not to be a downer on this thread but this is a genuine question. What is the point of Main Event? It just seems to have been completely inconsequential for years, with maybe a couple of months pretending it was relevant after launching however many years ago. And I suppose the same goes for various C-level shows over the years - Velocity, Jakked, Metal, Superstars, etc. My understanding with a lot of these shows was that it was about fulfilling contracts for international markets. But in the era of 3 hour Raws, Smackdown, NXT, NXT UK, 205 live, plus the random Network content they could use, it’s seems strange that there’s still a need for producing this stuff. Is Main Event the only main roster C-show or is there still a Smackdown equivalent?

On a Cody note, having just caught up. In a wrestling landscape that’s full of finisher killing, he’s got to be one of the worst guys for it. He still ended up winning pretty decisively (which I think is totally the right call), but there’s no way QT should be kicking out of a tombstone and a Cross Rhodes. If a Cross Rhodes doesn’t finish QT, what level of guy can it even beat? Glad they seem to be pivoting that feud into more of a launching pad for Ogogo and Commorato. Keep QT as their coach but he really doesn’t need to be elevated as a wrestler. Although the announcement was a bit out of nowhere, now that OC vs Omega has been teased I’d be totally up for a short OC title run. Just do a big clusterfuck finish with Best Friends and Mox/Kingston playing spoilers on Bullet Club interference. Can easily have Omega win it back within a few weeks.

IYH: Revenge of the Taker 5 match ppv and 3 end on some-sort of non-finish. LOD vs Owen/Bulldog - this is kind of worked as a sprint (as much as a 97 LOD match could be), with no big heat segment. LOD get the win but it’s on the illegal man, restart for a couple of mins, Doomsday Device and Bret in for the DQ. Rocky vs Savio for the IC title, there’s a split screen with Farooq on commentary for most of the match and the match just comes across like an afterthought. Ends on a count out after Crush heart punches Rocky, they tease some NOD dissension before a beat down on Rocky and Ahmed save. Rocky really starting to look like a lame duck, after getting beat by Savio on Raw, now only keeping the title in this manner. Doesn’t do much for Savio either as he looks like an idiot not getting Rocky back in the ring. Jessie James vs Rockabilly. The Rockabilly gimmick is just DOA, Billy keeps spamming Honky’s taunts which is all the gimmick appears to consist of, then loses on a roll up. Taker vs Mankind, this is the best match on the show, typical sense of chaos with these two and some big bumps, most notably Foley going off the apron head first into a table. Taker throws a really shitty drop kick which I don’t think he ever tried again. This is almost worked no dq with various weapon shots right in front of the ref. Vince calls it out and wonders why there’s no dq but doesn’t offer any explanation. This is a bit of a recurring theme, with the hardcore elements starting to bleed in. Without any explanation for why it’s allowed it just makes the refs look incompetent. Austin vs Bret, decent match but not on the level of their previous stuff, ends on a dq with Owen/Bulldog run-in as Austin has Bret in the sharpshooter. The non-finishes are getting a bit much, it’s bad enough on Raw but there really shouldn’t be this many on PPV. A lot of feuds are being progressed quite well, but the lack of clean wins kind of makes it feel like the matches are secondary to the stories rather than what they’re built on.

Yeah, I made a similar point in an earlier post about Flash Funk and Honky. This still feels like a bit of a transition period, the presentation has changed enough that the more gimmicky stuff feels out of place, but there’s still a fair bit of it - Flash, Honky, Roadie, Godwins, Bearer, Truth Commission, Sultan - and not all of them are just holdovers from previous eras. I think late 97/early 98 is when they fully commit to ‘attitude’, which I think is when they first start using the branding. And by mid-98 all those gimmicks are gone, even Bearer drops the cartoony look in the build up to Kane.

I think there was good and bad examples of the slow-burn, roster rotation style of booking on the show. The Scorp stuff was good as you say. Well foreshadowed, without being completely obvious so the attack still had an element of surprise. Then there was the SCU thing, which was just a bit flat. The outline of the story is good - SCU announce the break-up stip, friendship/history with the Bucks established on screen, win streak leads to them becoming no.1 contenders, nicely aligning with the Bucks heel turn. The problem being that the win streak has pretty much all happened away from Dynamite, with the only meaningful SCU appearance I can remember in months being Kaz’s Christian match. In this case SCU have been out of the picture too long and they don’t feel like credible challengers, I was actually wondering recently whether they’d dropped the angle. Throw in a couple of Dynamite wins against the likes of Private Party and hype up their Dark win streak and I think this works better.

She was was established as a heel in the shitty Rhodes feud with backstage attacks on Brandi and Red Velvet, plus picking the fight with Cody for no real reason. But yeah, cocky athletic freak is potentially an easy pivot to face. If she continues to improve and does cool shit in the ring then the fans may turn her face at some point.

Yeah, it feels like going into the early Chyna role would already feel like a step back at this stage. But, I wonder if some sort of power couple thing would work (kind of like she was introduced as an associate of Shaq, but do it with an actual worker and have them on an equal footing rather than her just being his valet). On the one hand, you want her out there as much as possible to learn, but then you don’t want to risk overexposing her. So having her as muscle let’s her learn from the apron as suggested and keeps her relevant on tv while limiting her actual tv ring time. Plus you can throw in more mixed tags which saves her just running through the women’s division too quickly.

I’m pretty sure Cage actually does a variation on it, a tope caught into a vertical suplex.

Some smart booking on this show. Echoing others in thinking Cage over Page was a genuine surprise and a good next step in Page’s journey. I was fully expecting a kick out and ready to criticise for Cage for killing off his own finisher. Cage, as in the Darby match, is much better when he just dominates. Even the flashy shit worked well here, as he missed the standing moonsault leading to a brief Page comeback. If he’s going to insist on throwing in those kind of spots that’s exactly what they should be - his weakness. Win was clean enough that it put Cage over and dirty enough that it protected Page. Similarly, OC’s win was dirty enough that it protected Penta somewhat, but clean enough (in the sense that it was a heel comeuppance spot) that it made the faces look smart rather than like cheats. The Best Friends group are consistently the most likeable faces in AEW (what’s with Chuck being absent the last couple of Dynamites?). I thought that was the best Penta has looked in ages. The drawn out taunt-off actually was really fun here and I loved the press slam catch. Bucks have quickly done a complete 180 from being one of my least favourite things on the show. Just so much better as heels. Those last few seconds of the Miro beat down with him sort of gaslighting Kip made it great. I’ve got little interest in Kip and, like everyone, have been waiting on Miro breaking away. But I thought he actually came off sympathetic here and I now wouldn’t mind him sticking around Miro a bit and doing a variation on the Virgil turn (I’m blanking on a more accurate comparison for bully friend being a dick to littler guy).

Getting back to this. April 14 97, Raw is split between the US and South Africa. First match in the US is LOD vs Godwins. Hawk pulls out the piledriver no sell as a throwaway early spot. Godwins win after after interference from Bulldog. This just isn’t very interesting, kick/punch WWF heavyweight style. To SA, HHH vs Jessie James, real house show feel to this, which is compounded by no commentary due to technical issues. It’s fine but a bit dull, JJ is quite good in this, gimmick is a dead end obviously but he still shows charisma, gets the crowd behind him, and everything he does looks good. HHH wins after Honkytonk interference as he hypes a mystery protege for the ppv, I assume this was when Disco was rumoured to be coming in. Rocky vs. Savio in SA, again a house show feel as this goes quite long with nothing much interesting to fill it out. Savio works in a nerve hold 5 different times ffs. However he does take a nice bump missing a shoulder charge into the corner. Rock pulls out a Rock Bottom, possibly for the first time, for a near fall. Savio wins with a roll up, this is Rocky’s first defeat but it doesn’t feel notable at all, not helped by the lack of commentary. Savio must be on a fairly short list of guys who have wins over Austin and Rock. Quick Nation beat down followed by an Ahmed save, with young D’Lo in a comically oversized suit getting a 2x4 to the back. Austin in-ring interview with Vince, nothing spectacular here but it still feels effortlessly good, it’s only 2-3 minutes of tv time and does what’s needed, Austin is gonna kicks Bret’s ass and I believe him. Couple of minor flubs here by Austin but doesn’t hurt the promo at all and kind of adds to the authenticity, anger isn’t supposed to be well-spoken and polished. There’s a couple of minutes of Goldust vs Sultan in SA before HHH and Chyna run-in, Sultan hit a cool piledriver during the match with Dust going up almost ganso bomb style, the run-in then includes a spike piledriver which looks a lot less impressive in comparison. A mash-up of Bret promos, now from Kuwait, chastising the US fans and really cementing that he’s a face everywhere else as he praises international fans. I suppose this isn’t something that could be that easily recreated, but is there any other examples where someone has played heel to one section of fans but face elsewhere? Considering how good this was, it seems strange that (I don’t think) WWE has tried to recreate it. Headbangers vs Vader/Mankind tag which is a bit of a mess (by design) but not very interesting (which has been consistent for the Headbangers). Weirdly ends when Mosh spits “some kind of liquid” at Mankind causing a dq. It’s a clear liquid and there was no setup so there’s no visual impact to this, it blinds Mankind though causing him to put the claw on Vader as “he thinks that’s a Headbanger” (shades of ‘an Uso’). There’s a quick Promo from the Commandant again hyping the upcoming Truth Commission debut. I’m sure he throws in “white is right”, were they doing a pro-apartheid gimmick? Ahmed out and holds up a ‘Ahmed should be IC champ’ sign. Ahmed has no storyline beef with the IC champ that would make this relevant so it’s nice that the sign-making, Ahmed fan still only considers him IC level-worthy. Ahmed vs. Crush. This is decent but falls short of good as Crush is a bore on offence, he has a shitty piledriver and doesn’t move on a Ahmed missed elbow spot causing Ahmed to half hit/half overshoot and look like an idiot. I was gonna compare Ahmed to Brian Cage as a big powerhouse who insists on working in ‘athletic spots’, which just look slightly shitty and make me think he should stick to power spots. However, Ahmed turns it round here as he counters the heart punch into a nice spinning heel kick and then wins with a smooth running schoolboy. Kind of an nothing show overall, with technical issues killing the vibe a bit on the SA stuff. Interference and non-finishes are again a bit overdone. Ahmed still my favourite outside of the obvious Austin/Bret stuff.

The Bucks are so much more tolerable when they’re being deliberately intolerable. Honestly, don’t see how there was ever any debate over whether they should be heel or not. Thought that match was fun and enjoyed their heeling. It still went a bit overkill towards the end, I can’t stand cutesy shit like that double poison rana spot. But, to be fair, it didn’t go into kickout overkill and had a nice heel spot for the finish. Jade/Red Velvet was fun. When I saw it was going through a break I thought they might expose Jade a bit by going too long but I thought that was really smartly worked. I like that they’re emphasising that she’s still a rookie, along with her cockiness, it adds a vulnerability which I think makes it more believable that she doesn’t totally steamroll someone like Velvet. I hope they take their time still, and please don’t have her working forced epic stuff, but I think Jade could become really good. I think they fucked up the booking of Nyla as the monster of the division so hopefully they don’t make similar mistakes.

I know it’s a stupid thing to complain about, but what’s the point of that womens champs bit? NXT is the 3rd brand/main roster feeder system, it seems completely unremarkable that all the current champs are from NXT, that’s the norm now. I know they’ve had rivalries but they’re not really associated with each other in a a 4 horsewomen sort of way. And it’s not like they’ve moved up together from working tiny indies so it hardly seems like a ‘started from the bottom, now we’re here’ thing. I don’t know, it just feels empty and self-congratulatory, plus it’s basically out of character for all of them.

I think this is a bit of a false equivalence. Even shows like BB tend to have recaps at the start, plus wrestling has a lot more room for exposition (promos, commentary) which wouldn’t work in other shows. I think filling in plot points is perfectly reasonable and can easily be done in a way which doesn’t beat you over the head and go all recap overkill like WWE. If I’m understanding @Goodear’s point correctly, it’s that the Dynamite viewer shouldn’t need knowledge of BTE, etc. to understand key plot point/character motivations. I think it’s good to have stuff on the main show that references and gives little Easter eggs to the hardcores that watch all this stuff, but I think you can do that alongside recaps or commentary to fill in any important plot points, which have happened elsewhere. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

It’s strange because I think Nick is usually fine in the backstage bits, although maybe it’s because he just sinks into the background with Matt hamming it up. Matt is pretty objectively terrible at the acting stuff. So if you’ve got one guy who is presumably not that comfortable doing this stuff and one who isn’t good at it, why do they continue to force them into these roles? Fair enough if it was one or two times, but the conflicted Bucks shit feels like it’s been a recurring storyline for a year+. With the overarching Callis and Omega story there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between what actually happens and how it’s presented. e.g. The Bucks turn was sold by Callis as a big swerve (with commentary sort of going that route as well), but the Bucks were still playing conflicted. It reminded me of Omega’s title win which was sold by Callis (and on commentary) as a big screw job, when in reality it just looked like a slightly opportunistic bit of cheating. BTW, I thought this show, although an obvious step below last week, was fine outside of the Bucks stuff and Jericho’s standup routine (complete with awkward we’re faces now shtick). JD Drake’s new attire takes a bit away from his old school big boi look. I think Best Friends may be the best faces in the company.

I think you could be right. I don’t watch regularly so I’m not sure how heel-ish she is generally but, although she was obviously in the dominant heel role, she didn’t do anything too heel-ish during the match. During her celebration I was thinking she seemed very smiley and genuine looking, which seemed odd for a monster heel. Kai noticeably didn’t come back out to celebrate either. Dominant ass-kicker, who can work, seems like a fairly easy sell to get over as a face, especially with Ripely now gone from that spot.

Good call, that’d be a nice end to that angle. Although I don’t have much interest in SCU, it’d be nice to have them get a couple of higher profile wins on Dynamite to build the angle a bit more. It feels a bit dead having been tucked away on Dark, other than that one 8 man with The Bucks which feels ages ago.

I wouldn’t discredit Brock too much, although I partially agree. Part of the appeal was that those matches broke the formula. Of course, they then became overly formulaic themselves. I associate the finisher spam shit with Goldberg more than Brock (although Brock was guilty as well). Again, part of the reason the Goldberg/Brock Mania match worked was because it broke the formula. Making that it’s own formula is stupid and only works if you have a sense of escalation (which itself is a bad idea), but WWE never did that so it was just the same couple moves on repeat. The two title matches at last year’s Mania without a crowd were particularly dreadful. I think the suplex city formula had more potential for deviation and when they did mix it up there were some good matches (1st Reigns, Styles, Bryan). I can’t criticise Brock too much as it’s sort of accepted that he doesn’t really give a shit, but Brock not giving a shit can still be really fun and he pretty much goes with what he’s given. He doesn’t seem to have an issue putting anyone over, he’ll occasionally bump big, and he’s a good seller. I kind of put the blame on WWE for those narrative-less matches, surely an agent should have been laying out different little stories (e.g. the Joe match I remember being fun) rather than just letting him do suplex city until the finish.

That JD Drake/Baron Black match on Dark was really good. I’ve been quite impressed with Black the last few times I’ve seen him. His gear does nothing for him though. So was the end game of Sky’s ladder match win and subsequent heel turn just a pivot into another team? Feels underwhelming. I actually like the combo though, I’m preferring Sky’s heel work and tag guy feels like the right position for him. Plus, I think it’s a better slot to build Page from, as I don’t think he’s worth a featured solo slot yet. Not a bad end result really but a bit of a strange way to get there, particularly as an SCU split and Kaz turn seems to be in the works, which is a logical story for Sky to fit into.

They don’t seem to have an appearance lined up, so hopefully I’m not too late getting this suggestion in and TK will see it in time. QT’s boys need to be called The Dream Factory.

Brock as an absent champion from 2014 onwards was a good thing (albeit mostly badly executed) and should have been used as a sort of reset for the WWE’s presentation/booking style. Also, despite the diminishing returns, Brock matches were generally the most interesting thing about any given card during that time.

It’s weird because I think some of these are perfectly reasonable/sensible and, although I don’t agree with some, I can at least see the thinking behind them (belt/strap presumably is part of Vince’s we don’t want to be too rasslin’ thing). But then some really are just bizarre, like the aforementioned interesting and the medical centre thing. I wonder whether anyone ever questions any of this shit.

Disclaimer first, this is only really based on ppv stuff as I haven’t followed main roster tv in years, plus I haven’t watched much WWE at all during the pandemic. AJ’s WWE run has been underwhelming and his title runs, in particular, were pretty bad. Ambrose matches were unremarkable. Cena matches were my turn-your turn finishing runs stretched out to full matches. Owens, Nakamura and Joe series’ were disappointing. Even the Bryan matches were a bit forgettable. Plus he looks like such a fucking dork with that stupid hair and chin strap beard (I don’t think this bit is a hot take though).

I had no issue with this, partly because I’ve got no interest in QT being presented as any kind of major threat, but it also plays into the story being told. QT is a ‘never was’ who’s not on Cody’s level and is only in this position because he’s his right hand man. Now he’s jealous but he can’t beat Cody, so he uses the advantage he does have - he’s a good coach with loyal students - and uses it against Cody. It’s actually a good setup for a heel manager and he could even bring in more guys down the line.

I don’t think this would be an issue, the same argument could pretty much apply to Omega and they’ve made him their lead heel. I think as long as they’re positioned against likeable/over faces then their opponents will get cheered. Plus, with Cody’s talk of foregoing traditional face/heel dynamics I wouldn’t expect split crowd reactions to concern them. Yeah, I think their booking has been a bit of a mess for about a year and that’s partly because they didn’t commit to a heel turn, they’ve spent a lot of time being not very likeable and there hasn’t really been a payoff/redemption to justify that. The Bucks stay face again and go up against The Good Brothers feels like a really underwhelming direction to go in.