Thunder Down Under

I have not watched any AEW and decided to order the show on a whim about 2/3rds thru and was thoroughly unimpressed, apart from the unintentional humour at the end. Hyping a major signing and delivering Christian in 2021 is right out of the TNA playbook (or maybe even WCW 1998 when hyping Rick Martel as a former World Champ). Live commentary during cinematic matches just makes the commentators sound like fools. Cena, Hardy and Takers (and to a lesser extent Wyatt) cinematic matches worked because they are larger than life characters/performers. Sting fits into that mold, but his character bei

Of all times for Matt Hardy’s contract to expire. They could have gone all in and had WrestleMania from House Hardy.

Jesus the thought of that 4-way with Corbin sounds horrible. That man needs to go away for along time, if not for good. i understand your point with blowing off The Fiend after 8 months, but is the reaction going to be that much bigger at 12/-8/24 months away compared to now? And that’s without worrying about the possible reaction Bryan would get for beating The Fiend being way greater than Reigns. And the reaction Reigns would get for beating him would be weaker 12 months from now imo, altho tbh I doubt there is much of a difference in reactions for Bryan be it now or later. I just thin

While watching and with how long it took for him to leave, I figured Brock was going to come back and somehow factor into Drew’s elimination, with Reigns winning to set him up with Bray at Mania. I guess they could still go with that direction, but with Bryan really being the only one built as the cause of The Fiend, it tells a better story to have him be the one to banish him after failing a couple times. The ending of their match kind of felt like a blow off tho, so that may not be the plan and the plan is for Roman to win the SD shot at EC.

The canned heat during this show was embarrassingly noticeable.

Knowing this company’s history with bait and switches I would only be half surprised if it’s a pre taped match just inserted into the show. But seriously, the timing of the announcement makes me think they hoped to announce it late enough so the conservatives locals don’t have enough tine to try and stop it from happening. Not passing judgment either way on that decision, but hard to not have that thought.

Not a surprise ratings for this show are down 25 percent from last week. Starting the show with the corny Rollins/Fiend angle (complete with one of the lighting guys being shown clearly in shot when the house lights came back on), a non finish in a match to determine who picks first in the draft, Stephanie just reading out the picks, corny War Rooms and King Corban all in the first 30 mins is not a recipe for ratings success I wouldn’t have thought.

I think there is a big difference between sloppy in ring work that puts people’s health/safety in danger, and being dissatisfied with the booking/theatrics.

As ridiculous as the match was, would it come anywhere near close to the top 5 dumbest Undertaker (and I guess also Kane) moments? He kidnapped the boss’s daughter to marry her in a satanic wedding (which ended up being revealed to be a plot his boss was in on), hung someone from Hell in a Cell, embalmed Mideon on air (those three all happening within 6 months or so and then not long after disappeared and returned 6 months later as a Biker without any of those powers for the next 3 or so years) has been buried alive and almost killed his manager/possible father by encasing him in a cement cry

I agree, but I think the reaction to him coming out showed he can be rehabbed as his legit credentials won’t ever get less impressive. I understand people like Ali and all, but for all of his bumps during that match, the crowd was dead for his ascent to the ladder and never once reacted like they thought he was a serious chance of winning even though it was clearly building to the end spot (which tbh I figured was going to be a Bray Wyatt run in). They then exploded for Lesnar, who got a much bigger pop and reaction than anybody else in that match simply by pushing someone off and climbing a l

I really was expecting HHH to say “Now you’re dealing with Paul”. But seriously that is probably the best use of Rousey since she’s been in, except she pretty much killed Becky dead with that beat down (and maybe not her heat, but certainly credibility, especially with the casuals or people they are hoping to stay on when Rhonda goes), and really should’ve been Charlotte instead. Because of her UFC background, Rousey comes across as way more credible than any normal pro wrestling promo could when she says she’d beat the piss out of them IRL, so by having her then do so right after saying

They may as well just have Rollins step aside to give Reigns his shot at Lesnar if he is going to be back full time from here on in given there is still 5-6 weeks until Mania. If they are going to basically forget about the Shield breakup, just go the next step and pretend Summerslam didn’t happen either. They tried so long to try and manufacture a favourable reaction to him beating Lesnar at Mania, and now they have the perfect opportunity to do so which requires no manufacturing at all. I doubt even the smarkiest if smarks would boo and would genuinely feel happy for the guy after what’s he’

It would’ve drawn over a legit 50k easy. About a 6th of the seating capacity was tarped off (so from maybe 100k down to around 60-70k in the grandstands), yet the only patchy spots in any of the grandstands where from the middle/back of the top deck and the last 5-10 rows of the bottom grandstand level.

Paid $300 for what I thought were pretty decent seas on level 2 only to have the centre of the ring obstructed due to the stupid marquee. A raised or more defined entrance way (or at least showing the entrances on one of the video boards) would’ve also added to the experience, but that is probably to be expected in a stadium that big. Apart from that the experience of going to a big show was pretty good. The crowd around me weren’t that vocal (and neither was I) but again I figure that is more due to the distance because the crowd on the ground seemed pretty enthusiastic, although as the show

Most massively traded public companies do not broadcast their core product live and direct from there, whilst at the same time professing to be such an inclusive and progressive company. By continuing to put themselves in situations where this can be an issue, they risk losing their new found credibility in the wider media world. Sami Zyan’s injury really bailed them out of what could’ve been an extremely uncomfortable situation