HumanChessgame

I almost always go to the movies alone, but on two times I ended up going with friends I went to 1998 Godzilla and Mission Impossible 2 and would have walked out of those had I been solo. Technically I walked out of the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie because the power went out. It hadn't really been thrilling me so I used the free pass they gave me to see Crank. There was a period of time after I got my license in 1997 I'd go to the movies whenever I got a chance, just because I lived almost 45 minutes from a theater and didn't get the chance that often beforehand. One afternoon I went to see Speed 2 and Batman and Robin back to back, yet was somehow compelled to sit through all of them.

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Sami and Owens have to fight eachother in the opening match, with the stipulation that the winner gets a shot against Roman in the main event but the loser can't challenge for the title ever again. Sami goes over, then Owens counters interference in the main event so he can win the belt.

I fully get this is a me problem, but the Orange Punch is a lame finisher for Cassidy. Even though the psychology of the match with Buddy revolving around his hand was well done I just don't buy it as a finisher from him. That's mainly due to my thought that in order for a wrestler to have a convincing "strike" finisher, they either need to be hoss-like in size or have some sort of martial arts background/their strikes being emphasized as especially vicious. I can buy Roman's superman punch because he's a big, powerful guy. I can buy Danielson or Malakai having kick/knee finishes because of how their striking ability is reinforced through the rest of their movesets. While I like OC as a wrestler, nothing in his size or regular offense makes me believe he could deliver a knockout punch to someone. See also small guys who use the spear as a big move (Edge, Starks). The mishmash of different factions, associations, and people coming in and out of the angle dropped any interest I might have had in the Private Party/Hardys/Ethan Page business. What's Marc Quen's injury status? I don't care how they try and spin it, the BCC are still the faces in this program with The Elite

Kind of the inverse, but if you're a face don't show up at a card without your theme music, otherwise you won't be able to run in to help your friends when the heels are beating them down.

In the pre-Mania promo Cody even told Roman that Heyman would "go back to being an advocate" when he lost. If this ends up being some 4D chess by Heyman to bring Brock in as a hired gun for The Bloodline that Roman has to co-exist with which leads to Heyman and Brock turning on Roman and winning the title back in their 438th match it will be the most WWE thing ever.

At first I was thinking Bron Breaker would debut as Cody's partner, but then Paul made the statement about someone who wrestled last night. In theory I'd be ok with a Cody/Brock program to give Cody something to do to keep him away from Roman for a bit, but everything Brock has done in the past few years keeps me from being optimistic about an eventual match. Cody's going to eat 12 suplexes, get some hope spots in, then eat a few more suplexes and an F5 or two before losing. Who does Roman work with in the meantime? I kept waiting for something to happen with the Rollins segment. Maybe something went wrong backstage? With the next show being in Puerto Rico I guess they have to give Bad Bunny an active role again... Was Bronson Reed on the main roster already or was that the only call up we got on this episode?

Just speaking for myself here, but I watch Raw live most weeks and will usually watch Smackdown the day after. Rarely is there anything on either show that I find compelling enough to comment on or that really makes me eager for more. Not that much of it is actively bad, just kinda there. Up until the Sami angle started heating up, all the Bloodline segments were an instant zone out/fast forward because of how dull and repetitive they were. I can't say if anyone else is in the same boat of watching the shows out of habit but not being terribly into them, but I don't know if the lack of comments alone speaks to low viewership.

The same company that had a geriatric Bill Goldberg who hadn't wrestled in over a decade win the world title in a squash match would 100% put the title on The Rock for a month or two if he agreed to come back for it. That isn't a matter of the fans thinking Rock has a shot or it making any kind of logical sense, it's something the company would do for what they view as potential ratings. I think it would be a dumb idea and probably a lousy match, but it's totally something the WWE would do.

That didn't stop them from keeping Roman on the top of the card after The Shield split. I don't disagree, but the thing is you can do pretty much the same storyline without Roman having the belt. As much as I'd like to see Jey finally stand up to Roman, I can't see him as world champ at all.

The opener was a typical Brock Lesnar match, though I was surprised at how much he sold in the first half. Of all the matches on Night 2 of Mania, the women's tag match was definitely the second. Did Rhonda do anything aside from get the fall. With how many recaps and adds there were after the second match, I thought the HIAC match was going on third and they needed all that time to set up the cage. I would much rather have seen Gunther against either Sheamus or Drew in a singles match, but what we got was just fine. All three guys beat the piss out of eachother and the right person won. Asuka/Bianca had the misfortune of following the brutal IC title match and the excellent Charlotte/Rhea match from last night. The Oni dancers for Asuka then the childrens' dance troupe for Bianca's entrance were nice touches. The match was fine but I felt like they never really kicked into high gear. With Bianca having a reality show coming out soon I guess they're keeping the belt on her a bit longer. When I heard Shane's music I almost went off to take a dump out of general principle, but getting to see Snoop Dog do a people's elbow was quality. The HIAC match was a standard WWE Hardcore match. The lack of the rest of The Brood showing up or any other type of interference from Judgement Day was surprising. The main event was your formulaic Roman match featuring tons of slow paced stalling before picking up in the finishing stretch where there are multiple finisher kickouts and usually some shenanigans from his entourage. Cap that off with a completely nonsensical finish and I was not sports entertained. Before the Sami storyline picked up and put some life into it, The Bloodline was way past its sell by date. Unless they've got some majorly interesting new angle set to go Monday I'm going to go back to skipping any Bloodline-related stuff on tv. The IC title match was the only memorable bout on night 2.

As far as WWE quality on the whole goes, the weekly shows aren't bad as much as they are uninteresting or just serve to set up further storylines. The PPVs tend to deliver more often than not. There are plenty of talented people on the roster and the production team is second to none, which results in a polished overall product. Sometimes everything can be -too- polished, especially with the way a lot of the promos come off as people reading off a script and not as organic.

Cena/Theory was about what I expected it to be. The 4 way tag match was going to be a trainwreck, but I ended up liking it better than I thought. Even though he's slimmed down, Gable hitting a chaos theory on Strowman was damned impressive. The tower of doom spot was even better than the norm in multi person matches. Street Profits winning wasn't exactly unprecedented, but the tag division is pretty damn shallow. In keeping with past years, the mania crowd sure does like to chant stuff. Once again I'd believe that Logan Paul had been wrestling for years. He's got a better physique than a lot of the roster, moves and sells well, annd has that natural asshole charisma you can't really teach. Granted Rollins can lead most people to something watchable, but Paul did plenty of heavy lifting on his own. I figured the guy in the bottle costume would factor in somehow and I have no idea who that guy is but it provided the prequisite amount of fuckery. Women's trios match had a few rough moments given the ring rust on Trish and Lita but wasn't bad. Rey/Dom was predictable but decent. Charlotte/Rhea started off slower and more methodical than I was expecting. The match didn't do that much for me at first, then around the time of that face first superplex it really started to kick in. The last third or so was compelling stuff with both women countering or kicking out and laying it in progressively heavier. That avalance riptide was an impressive as hell finish. Rhea deserves the title and I hope she gets out on her own now. Charlotte even kinda gave her the smile and nod of respect at the end. As obnoxious as Graves can often be on commentary, I got a chuckle out of him having it on the mic during the McAfee/Miz segment. The main event was everything it needed to be. For everyone saying Sami should have gotten his big moment by beating Roman, this came off as a much better end of the storyline. Sami and Kevin were both parts of the narrative, and by getting their win together here after patching things up it really tied everything together. Good show overall. There wasn't anything on there I can say was actively bad. As much as I liked the main event, I think Charlotte/Rhea was my favorite match of the night. I get for the biggest PPVs they need some sort of intermission for fans between matches, but even with Mania split into two nights the amount of recaps, commercials, and other bits in between the matches seemed incredibly long.

The main event was good. Melo has improved greatly and is deserving of the top spot in NXT. What midcard JTTS does Bron start a feud with on Monday? Ziggler? The US title match was pretty fun despite being the third multiperson match in a row. I would much rather have seen singles matches among any of the participants but it was still entertaining. Rest of the card was mediocre. Whatever angle team bro country has going on will no longer have the women's tag titles involved and I'm looking forward to seeing more of the witch team. I wasn't paying much attention to the women's title match and kept thinking it was one on one as they were really bad about the "two people fight while the rest lay around outside". After last night's ladder match at ROH I was hoping there wouldn't be anything absurd going on in here and aside from Tiffany landing almost between everyone else they kept it sane. Didn't care about Johnny/Grayson They honestly should have just done this last Tuesday as it didn't have that much of a big show feel, plus I can't imagine going to a show at 10am and also having tickets to night 1 of Mania.

Ah, I had no idea and just figured he lived in Japan. If he spends most of his time stateside then it makes sense, especially if this helps further the ROH/NJPW relationship.

The presentation of the show looked really nice. Ian, Caprice, and Nigel all had a great balance of passionate enthusiasm and expert knowledge throughout the evening. I only caught the end of the Preshow but it was good to see The Righteous back. I hope Bateman and Vita VonStar come back as well. Vikingo has gotten a lot of buzz as of late and I didn't see him wrestle until a few weeks ago. I've seen him about five times since and just don't see the hype everyone else does. Yes, he hits a lot of impressive, agile spots in an effortless manner but that's about it. Some people compared him to seeing Rey Jr. for the first time in the mid 90s but he reminded me of the first few times I saw Teddy Hart - hitting a bunch of impressive spots while his opponent just stands or lays there and not much in between. In the matches I saw he also hit the same ones (630 to the table outside, the imploding dragonrana, etc) and yes, everyone has their signature spots, but I didn't see him going with the flow and hitting his moves as counters or when he had the opportunity like Rey or other Lucha guys would. That's not to say I don't think he's good, I've just been more impressed by some of his contemporaries. Kommander especially I've dug in the past year or two seeing him hit all of his crazy rope walk moves. The match was a hot opener and really won the crowd over. The six man tag match was a nice blend of the smaller team hitting a lot of quick moves against much bigger opponents but not being able to keep them down. Kaun and Toa continue to look like beasts. Athena/Yuka was fine but I'd watched this week's ROH show right before seeing this and thought the Athena/Emi match was much better. Samoa Joe and Mark Briscoe told such an amazing story. This honestly could have been the main event with all the little things they did - Mark instinctively going for the tag, trying to hit his go-to moves on Joe but not quite being able to, Joe being his usual monster self, the family at ringside, etc. With the night and this match especially being a tribute to Jay I was genuinely stunned when Joe ended up choking Mark out. It made me wonder if he was going to make some kind of speech afterwards or if they've got bigger plans for Mark now. Then I also wonder if Mark didn't want to win in the spirit of Jay being such a giving guy and wanting to elevate others. Tanahashi/Garcia was good with a lot of great dickhead heel mannerisms by Garcia. I feel kind of weird praising the ladder match in hindsight. Ladder matches are a dime a dozen these days and guys are probably always feeling pressured to go out and top the one before. Sometimes it leads to really interesting spots getting pulled out that might look cool but are really dangerous and have unpleasant consequences and other times there are just clusterfucks where you can't keep up with anything. I was really enjoying this one with there being all kinds of wild stuff going on and wondering when Schrodinger's Pile of Tables would come into play and the destroyer through it looked pretty gnarly. They didn't include that in the replay and looking at a clip of it online...yikes, the Martin Brothers really can't catch a break, can they. I'm not sure about the Lucha Bros being champs. I guess they're somewhat of a name that might draw viewers, but there are plenty of other ROH Originals or younger teams that would benefit more from the rub. Even though the Pure Title rules have never appealed much to me, Youngboy Yuta and Shibata had a nice, snug match. Again the title change is a bit odd as it can't be cheap or easy to bring in someone from Japan just to defend it periodically. The world title match was the selling point of the show for me and it delivered most of what I'd hoped to see. You really felt like both guys were struggling to hit moves on eachother; not in a sandbagging type of way but in a manner that lead you to believe they were legit struggling at countering one another's strength and technical skill. Simple yet painful moves looked like they took effort to pull off and both guys sold as they needed to. That gut wrench off the apron looked especially painful. I was a bit surprised at the ending. They'd built Eddie up as someone who can't win when it counts which made me think he'd finally go over here, but once again he lost clean. Allying him with Shibata gives some more momentum to his beef with the BCC but I really think they had a shot at a great moment here and didn't go for it, especially after Mark lost. Afterwards we got the fired up "I may not believe wrestling but I believe -this guy-" type promo that makes him come off legit. Solid show overall. This combined with the really good weekly tv shows ROH has life left in it yet.

This is from May of 2022 and feelings may have very well changed with all that's happened since then, but here's a an article featuring various wrestlers talking about how helpful Punk was to the younger members of the roster - https://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/33988304/hero-cm-punk-transformation-mentor-trailblazer-aew

Drake Younger has been a regular competitor there since the company started back up as well. I'm sure Rob Black feels like catering to the "politically incorrect" segment of fans is somehow lucrative. I just checked their merch site and some of their shirts have slogans like "You can't cancel what was already cancelled".

Does it make sense to say that even though I'm not terribly interested in most of the card, I still think they've done a much better job building to most of the matches on Mania this year than in a while?

Not that I have any desire to see him back in the ring, but what is Randy Orton's status? I seem to recall he had a serious injury to rehab but he's been gone almost a year now.

Elias reminds me a lot of Damien Sandow, partially because of looks and physique but also in terms of his mannerisms and inconsistent booking. Sandow got really over with his intellectual savior gimmick and his team with Cody was doing well, then they made him Miz's stooge then a bumbling heel. Elias was doing well enough with his singing asshole gimmick (see the Seattle promo) and is competent in the ring, but they just made him a bigger and bigger goof. I always get LA Knight and Austin Theory mixed up as they both just strike me as guys Johnny Ace would have hired and been high on during his run - in shape, generically handsome wrestlers who can talk well enough but are totally uninteresting once the bell rings.

Lil Jon is going to make a comeback? Once they announced Miz was hosting I assumed he was going to eat a finish from some legend or HOF guy.

Were The Best Friends wrestling like straight up heels in this episode or was it just me? That makes the heel turn on Danhausen and OC all the more likely.

That Mario movie might as well just be a third Wreck It Ralph installment.