TheVileOne

Everyone said Omos was going to show up at the Rumble, and he did not. He claimed he was going back to WWE. I doubt we ever see him there again. Dude should've stayed in Japan where he was having success. Relinquishing his GHC tag title was idiocy.

I hope John Cena continues losing big matches and that makes him crack and finally turn heel. Cena's final year should be about him turning heel and then he finally turns babyface again right before he calls it quits. His so-called statement after Royal Rumble had all the makings of a perfect heel turn. Do it, Paul.

I'm glad Jey Uso won. It was a genuinely surprising and unpredictable finish. It just goes to show how fickle and unreliable wrestling fans and the IWC are. They actually give the Rumble victory to a surprising winner and people lose their shit and complain, rant, rage, and rave. Is Jey Uso an elite competitor in the ring? No, he's not. But he's legit one of the most over guys on the roster, and he's the most over babyface on Raw. The dude broke off from Jimmy Uso and the Bloodline and became a legit singles act on his own. It's nice to see WWE reward that for once and do something surprising because no one was predicting Jey Uso. The gambling websites spamming my email were all saying Punk or Cena. The only issue I see is how they follow through with it. If you give Jey Uso the win, you have to follow through with it and not get buyer's remorse later. The women's Rumble was good for the most part besides Charlotte Flair winning in a predictably garbage ending. Chelsea Green stole the show once again. She is a true star. I'm glad she's finally getting a push. Every minute she was in there was gold. I was happy to see Joe Hendry make it into the Rumble and get such a big reaction. Happy for that guy to get a moment like that for his career. It was also nice to see the broadcasters putting over a TNA World Champion on commentary. I feel like this wouldn't be the case 10-15 years ago. That said outside of a few reactions, the crowd felt very muted and dead most of the night. It's possible it could've been bad sound acoustics at the stadium, but they sounded largely unenthused through most of the show. Kind of surreal to see Sabin and Shelley wrestling for a WWE title on a Royal Rumble considering they were two guys I was very excited about 20 years ago when I was a big TNA and ROH fan. That said, the WWE fans largely seem enthusiastic and apathetic about the Motor City Machine Guns since they came in. They just didn't have much time to really establish themselves. Not to mention both guys came in after turning 40 and a lot of miles and wear and tear on their bodies. All that aside, considering they are in their 40s, they are still moving and working really well for their age and still look to be in great shape. I hope they can make good money from this run and will have some decent nest eggs when it comes time to retire, especially with all the hardships Shelley has gone through over the last 10 years. Owens/Cody was a decent ladder match, but I think they went too far and took too many scary bumps and unnecessary risks. I also felt the match could've been about five minutes shorter. I think they went for too many ladder bumps and taking time to set up ladder bumps over trying to set up the ladder and retrieve the belts. My problem with this match is that Kevin Owens is 40 and Cody Rhodes is 39. They were taking bumps in the match like 22 years old and like this was a PWG ladder death match. I commend their willingness to give the crowd a good show, but I'm concerned it was just too much especially so close to WrestleMania. That back drop onto the top end of the ladder bump by Owens was filthy. It looked even worse than the Alabama slam to me. I hope all the stuff about Cody being injured is just an angle and he's actually ok. Again my thing is that Cody should be limiting the type of bumps he's taking at 39 especially when he's finally got his title run and he's so close to WrestleMania time. Just for example, Roman Reigns started working a lot smarter during his epic title run.

Did Bianca Belair have a huge indy background pre-WWE? She's possibly another one.

Randomly booking Yuka Sakazaki as a contender for Mercedes Mone on Dynamite and making that match a predictably heatless main event is a perfect example of how clueless Tony Khan is at booking his weekly TV shows right now. Dynamite wasn't terrible this week, but it generally felt dull and lifeless, which is the biggest problem with AEW right now.

It's pretty simple. The guy to unseat Jon Moxley is Powerhouse Hobbs. It ain't Darby Allin. Darby Allin is not him.

Omos relinquishing his GHC tag title was absolute idiocy. Dude finally gets some momentum in his career again and flushes it down the toilet. What's he going to do? Appear for a one-off Royal Rumble spot and return to oblivion? WWE did nothing with him for almost a year. The Netflix Era is not going to do anything with Omos. Frankly, WWE should be sending more wrestlers to Japan who they aren't using right now if they aren't going to cut them. IE Giovanni Vinci.

The return of Toni Storm has been handled pretty well.

My main problem with the Private Party loss. Their mini-feud with the Bucks was a chance to finally do something with Private Party and try to get them over and make good on that first Dynamite where they beat the Bucks but then subsequently floundered in mid-card hell for years. They did get that one win on PPV, but after that, it felt like they languished and were just put on TV as the guys who Hurt Syndicate were going to beat. It felt like this was Private Party finally getting their shot, and they were abandoned for Tony Khan's latest shiny new toys. I like Lashley and Benjamin and all but Lashley is 48, and Shelton Benjamin turns 50 in six months. Don't get me wrong, they are both in ridiculous shape for their age, but it does feel like a case of forsaking your homegrown talent to make the new guys happy they signed with you. But I'm not Tony Khan. It's not my decision. Also there's still potentially ways Private Party can turn around from this, it just depends on the follow-up. They apparently campaigned for that return feud with the Bucks and to finally get that title run, so they got to continue advocating for themselves.

Totally thrown off by the audio issues at the top of the show. I thought I had the wrong channel on for a minute. Tonight was overall a good show, albeit nothing really surprising. A good way to book the main players on TV who don't have matches at the Royal Rumble. Tonight's show was paced very well. I like that they went straight from the women's title match to the IC title match. Felt like I was watching a New Japan show for a second. It's nice when WWE shows aren't so overstuffed with various backstage or interview segments. The main thing I like about these new SNME shows is that there's very little in the way of filler. Props to Nia Jax because she has dramatically improved in the ring from her first run. I feel like's emphasized her strengths more and she wrestles a more sensible style now. She's always had good chemistry with Rhea Ripley as well. Tonight was no exception. I wish they did more with the Breakker/Sheamus feud. It was more about how the IC title has always eluded Sheamus though. I'm glad this was the match Ventura did commentary work for. I enjoyed his little rivalry with McAfee and Ventura getting his little digs in. That said the match came off very good. Loved Breakker hitting the spear out of mid-air. I think Breakker winning was the right call. They can certainly do something with Sheamus' disappointment with the loss, but it depends on the follow-up. https://x.com/WWE/status/1883367604279992418 I almost wish Jey Uso could've gotten his gratitude transitional title run by beating Gunther tonight, but it's probably not the right time to beat Gunther just yet. My feeling was Uso could've gotten a quick and short reign with the title just to give the fans a cool moment on TV. Nonetheless, it was a good matchup.

Skye did date Dante Martin before she started dating Kyle Fletcher. And the match between Rush and Blake Christian took place on Dark in August 2022. https://youtu.be/8rU_YWbCvNI Rewatching the match (59:11), nothing seems out of the ordinary here. And Rush does bump and feed for Christian during the match. So to say Rush was outright shooting on Blake Christian here seems like a gross exaggeration. But dunno. Either way, the discord thing does seem like a lot of gossip column nonsense. Ibou made it sound like Rush beat the life out of Christian for dishonoring his buddy Dante Martin when it looks like a pretty average Dark match.

This very much sounds like the 2025 equivalent of the Gene Okerlund Hotline.

Montreal happened over 25 years ago and people still haven't let it go and documentaries still get made about it. Brawl Out happened less than three years ago. Wrestling fans are never going to let go of this. People are going to be litigating this as long as the Earth continues to spin.

Ibou also claimed on his Discord that MJF and CM Punk got into a drag-out fight backstage at a TV taping of AEW Collision after Punk allegedly told MJF not to come to TV. He also claimed that Rush shot on Blake Christian in the ring on AEW Dark because Blake Christian had an affair with Skye Blue who was seeing Dante Martin at the time. He also perpetuated the rumors the Britt Baker cheating rumors.

If WWE wants to continue using the transfer window, WWE needs to give it an actual deadline and establish its rules and how it works. They are supposed to have a WWE Draft in a few months, but it seems they are just moving guys whenever they want. Another sign that it's time to end the brand split. WWE clearly is hindered by the brand split but they are also still heavily reliant upon it and don't know how to get rid of it. I don't get why you move Bayley to Raw only to face a SmackDown star. If you need Nia Jax on Raw to face Rhea Ripley, then why not move Nia Jax to Raw as well? The Wyatt Sicks after all that get moved to SmackDown and have all but vanished without a trace. Triple H isn't good at the hokey 1980s and 1990s wrestling gimmicks.

Tony Khan has totally lost control of AEW.

If we're going to critique AEW having too many titles, having an International title, a world title, and a continental title make no sense. Plus all the extra useless ROH titles.

No idea what the sitch is with Corey Graves. If this does turn out to be some elaborate work to set up Graves vs. McAfee at WrestleMania then bravo. It looks like Triple H and co. have already lost interest in the Wyatt Sicks. Once you beat them there was nowhere for them to go. That stable had no long-term staying power. They were a glorified cover band. They never seriously tried to do anything with any of those guys. Giving Bo Dallas his brother's old gimmick was putting him in a corner. And it basically suffered the same fate as Bray Wyatt/The Fiend. They made a big deal out of their debut but after that, it was all downhill.

Malakai Black should go to New Japan. They could certainly use him right now, and it would be a fresh change in scenery.

As a name and concept, I like them. In terms of their execution, I do not.

Wrestlers are liars. It's literally part of their job. Plus it's smart to deny things like that because look what happened to the Lucha Brothers.

I'm glad Malakai Black is leaving and he's done with all this cryptic BS and Tony Khan's shiny new toy syndrome. I guess all that stuff about being under contract for five years was a load of BS that Tony Khan perpetuated.

Sure it was. Then suspend Gabe Kidd and Dave Finlay as well.

https://x.com/davemeltzerWON/status/1876312262845374523 Utter BS. Tony Khan, the guy who goes on Twitter and says sickos and calls Shawn Michaels a bald asshole and then releases the CM Punk security footage where he says he never feared for his life at a threatening show. Despicable, disgusting, and pathetic.

Sammy Guevara is still doing his vlogs, but now he's an AEW jobber and an ROH tag team champion, so...a jobber. As an AEW wrestler and so-called pillar, he's lost all his momentum. I do miss Control Center a lot. That was a good way to keep up with things.