caley

The Owens/Zayn team has reached a certain formula that works exceedingly well in-ring and out that makes you want to keep going like this forever but also feel kinda bad because both could/should be working World Title matches on the reg. too! I enjoy the Sami mouths off, challengers come out, Owens wants to fight, Sami tries to talk him down format. Indus Sher looked amazing here. The fact that Graves name-dropped them as potential tag title contenders, along with Oblivion, Imperium and teams from SD, should tell Viking Raiders all they need to know about their WWE immediate futures. Methinks, Excalibur might be shouting "War Machine!" before too long. I DEAN'ed this episode (fast-forwarding most of the promos and angles, rewinds; brings the show down to a brisk 40 minutes or so (Obviously exaggerating but it really does speed it up), so have no opinion on the lengthy Becky, Cody promos or the Seth Rollins interviews. Battle Royal was okay, even if there were like 4 guy-eliminates-guy-stares-at-him-til-someone-else-eliminates-him-while-he's-distracted spots in a row there. Was disappointed to see JD McDonagh go out so early, but his post-match attack and promo gives me hope they'll do something with him. The Domenick Mysterio stuff is really funny and really good, but gets harder and harder to watch with Corey Graves shouting "MAMI!" all the time. Genereally speakin, everything is a little harder to watch with Corey Graves. I wish he would go to Edge's doctor and go back to wrestling because I think there's a number of guys they could plug in to his spot on Raw that would make the commentary instantly better. I really do like Kevin Patrick, though. I think he should be the heir apparent to Micheal Cole.

I think the match I enjoyed the most this week was Bro Country-Hank/Tank from NXT

I'd forgotten that it was gone in the States! If it makes you feel any better, it is, on average, $4-10 higher than a place like WalMart.

I didn't read the whole thread, but the highlight of the night was Tony Schiavone saying something along the lines of "No spooky witches at ringside is a good idea...it would be a good idea all the time, no spooky witches...except then I never would have met my wife" then there's a beat and Tazz and Tony laugh, and Excalibur goes quiet as if he's had to mute his mic. I also laughed at Sting talking about Darby Alllin being a self-made man who had no ins to this business like the Stinger when he was young and I thought "Yeah, it must have been really hard for the bleached-blonde, 6'2" guy with the bodybuilder physique to get noticed by pro wrestling feds when there was a much shallower talent pool for people to draw from!" That said, Darby's vignette really made me want to watch him win the title. Sammy's vignette was like it was written for a different person then they just spliced Sammy's name in: "Follow your dreams, kids! I'm living proof." says the guy who sticks out his tongue, cheats to win and makes out with his girlfriend to anger the crowd. Julia Hart looked like a car-crash victim after that match, basically like she was holding her own hip in place. Anna JAS looked...I'll just settle myself down here and stop. The match was pretty fun with two wrestlers of so little experience. Cage match was a little more death match-y than I am really into. The image of Moxley holding that turnbuckle dealy at crotch-level and trying to push it into Kenny's mouth was a different type of hardcore that I'm also not really into.

I was in a Toys R Us recently and they had a Dusty Rhodes figure for $37 (Canadian)! Is that a typical price and who can afford that!?

I did watch some Smackdown and NXT on the weekend, that along with last week's Dynamite fully qualifies me to vote, so JD McDonagh-Dragon Lee for me because it was pretty damn fun, downer ending aside.

Really says something for how well-stocked the women wrestlers are in WWE that they can pluck 6 good-to-great women off the NXT roster (Starks, Indy, Isla, Fyre, Katana, Carter) and still run 3 perfectly solid women's matches on the show (Wait...was the Dani Palmer match on this week's show or last? I just watched last weeks show on Sunday so they're running a little together for me!). What is going on with the Von Wagner story?! I honestly can't understand what the child photo is supposed to show?! I'll concede I wasn't really watching either this week or last week's vignette but is the storyline that he had a huge head as a child!? I hate to be harsh, but Wagner might be the WORST actor WWE has hired in some time. I think he'd work better either under a hood as some sort of monster, or basically not talking at all, letting Stone talk for him. NXT's tag situation is really weird right now. Heel champs (Gallus) defating a heel team (Dyad), then being challenged by a pseudo-face team (Tony D & Stacks) whom the crowd really isn't sure how to react to yet. With the Creeds sort of part of the story but not directly. Fun show overall, lots of stiffness across the board. Well except for Duke Hudson who has basically turned into the Chase U Hulk Hogan (And it's totally working for him) with big goofy strikes and poses. And I have to give a shout-out to Ivy Nile and Thea Hail who were absolutely amazing in their tiny roles: Nile getting on the Creeds for fooling around and a short, intense attack on Raine; and Thea Hail who did not stop gesturing, reacting, stomping or otherwise movie for the entirety of Duke's promo or match. I'd really like to see both of them get a shot at doing something more in NXT, both could really play a Spike Dudley-esque underdog role that WWE rarely likes to do but always pops the crowd. I guess that spot is kinda occupied by Roxanne right now.

Whereas I actually really liked the promo because I didn't come off as scripted to me. Brock's never been the best talker, but the rambling, the talking into the mic that wasn't on, the repetition made it feel like someone losing his mind in the moment and becoming unhinged. If I still had friends who watched wrestling, ('d be texting and saying "Look at this face!" all day long. I laughed really hard at Natalya's walk-in, then laughed when Graves addressed it. I enjoyed Imperium-Sami/KO quite a bit. Was chuckling to myself at the WWE-edness of Imperium's time in WWE. Bring them to NXT together, push them as Imperium. Rename Walter, promote him with Kasier, renaming Vinci and splitting him off with his own NXT push, then putting him right back with Imperium with no explanation of why. Looking at the field for the NXT Women's tourney, there's a pretty easy path to the semis of Stratton-Perez and Jade-Lyra (seeing as they've been feuding this way too) but I can't help but feel none of them should be champ: Roxy just had it and her chase should be longer, Stratton, Lyra and Cora are close but don't feel quite ready for that level. I wish WWE had brought Meiko back to be champ and have the rest of the women beating each other up in order to be #1 contended for whenever she is able to stop in and wrestle.

I barely watched anything this week but I'm excited/hopeful that you can keep this going!

They could book QT Marshall in the main and AEW fans would go "Well, let's just see where this goes...looking forward to it!" That's what I've come to appreciate about them: "Keep Jeff Jarrett away from AEW...I love Jeff Jarrett now!"

DEAN is the best. Even as an old man now, if I post something - even it's a stupid joke or off-handed comment - and DEAN like it then I feel like I've done something right. Sometimes I'll watch something and be super-negative/nit-picky over it, come on here to post something and before I do, read DEAN's post about the same show that is almost, always positive and I go "Well if Dean liked it so much...I'm probably in the wrong." What I've really come to appreciate about his show reviews is that if there's something bad he'll write "A little rough" or "Good match before the bad ending" and move on, he doesn't stay and harp and hammer on about the negative, which is a lesson I definitely need to learn. All the best wishes to him and his family. I'm hoping he'll be back posting in ALL CAPS before I know it.

Weird to have Grayson Waller featured so heavily on NXT for the past half a year/year now then selected off-air as a supplemental pick.

I wonder if you couldn't hve run an angle where Roman Reigns "injures" an opponent (or opponents) so viciously (say a guy going away for some sort of surgery) outside the realm of a match (after being DQed or backstage or something) to get out of defending his title and have Adam Pearce/whoever "ban" him from Raw saying they don't have the Authority (***) to strip him of the title, so if Roman's not going to play by the rules, then he isn't welcome on Raw and we'll be naming a new champion, who is willing to defend the belt. Then the new champ is still a B-Champ but not a "Well no one can beat the other guy so we might as well make a new belt" and more of a "on Raw we actually defend the title!" champ. Then on Smackdown Roman can keep calling himself the undispusted champ and start billing himself as "the only superstar so dangerous he was banned from Raw". I mean, that's how I personally would have done it.

If they came out to Bobby Womack, it would be the greatest entrance ever!

I generally dislike all the AEW (and WWE/NXT) themes that are basically remake/ripoffs of other popular songs/themes (FTR's Midnight Express tribute, Adam Page's Four Horsemen homage) but I really do enjoy Adam Cole's Rage Against the Machine/NXT mash-up. I also like Eddie Kingston's Castlevania-esque theme song which simultaneously makes no sense for him but also somehow completely suits him.

Oh, also "Bullet Club Gold" is taking over by facing a guy who's never held an "official" title in AEW is like the NWO invading WCW and going after Hacksaw Jim Duggan. I like Ricky Starks, he's great. But acting like they're taking over AEW by challenging him is some weird logic. Imagine if they had signed with WWE: "Bullet Club is taking over, look out Rick Boogz!"

Boy, for a group that had lenghty promo about sticking up for their friends (Callis), the Elite are pretty terrible friends to say in the back and watch their friends get MAULED for like ten minutes, just so they can surprise the BCC after their friends have been killed dead. "Hey Brandon, bet you didn't know we were gonna show up tonight and take out the BCC?!" "Could you not have come out five minutes earlier before I got murdered?" I'm quite surprised that out of this whole 4 pillars angle, Darby has delievered the best promo of the lot. I almost think he improvised because MJF's rebuttal didn't seem to address most of what he said. Darby needs to be on top sooner than later, he's ready now. Waiting too long and it's going to be like Braun Strowman winning the title, people had already moved on before he won it. There was a lot of stuff on this show that felt like it was booked like WWE, trying to create moments at the expense of storytelling: Hobbs' new car ("He loves that car!") clearly just there to be broken, the aforementioned Elite letting their friends get beat up so they can get the "surprise" pop, Hayter and Baker coming out separately for no other reason then the entrance pop (Baker is either a terrible friend, chronically tardy or just kind of lazy: "Jamie can handle them all...oh no she can't...cue up my music,I guess." Orange Cassidy is the best. Every week I keep expecting people to get bored with his title matches but he keeps the crowd engaged more than anyone.

I would guess (HOPE?!) that someone just thought it was prison footage. I mean, if I'd been in charge of adding stock prison footage to Mysterio's entrace, I wouldn't necessarily identify that as Auschwitz and just think it looked like a scary prison. That said, I WOULD like to think I'd look into it first before throwing it in there! As an aside, it's actually really funny that they refer to him as Dominik Mysterio seeing as Mysterio isn't really his or his dad's real last name and he's basically Dominik Mystery.

I've never understood (And WWE does the same thing so it's not a bash-AEW thing) why promoters promise a "Big announcement" then have it be a show elsewhere in front of a live crowd. Have the announcers announce it to the television audience, fine. But when you promise a major announcement It just always feels dumb and kinda falls flat when a company announces in front of Long Island that they're going to run a show in the UK: "Oh boy a show I won't be able to afford to go to in front of a place that's not here?! What a MAJOR announcement!" Maybe it's just me, but it's an annoyance right up there with a face in front of a hot crowd announcing "I'm going to face you...next week in Anaheim!" It works when a heel does it, because it can be played off like "I hate you rubes and want to wrestle elsewhere" but when a face does it, I can remember that feeling of "Oh! They're gonna wrestle finally...somewhere else...thanks...dick." This show didn't do much for me honestly (Thought the NXT show from Tuesday was the best episode so far this week...with Raw a distant third) but then again I'm the only wrestling fan of the world who is not an FTR fan so...

I read this title as "Go Home, WWE TV..." and was expecting the next two words to be "You're drunk!"

I love that in the span of a month the AEW Originals vs...Freelancers (Did I hear Tony say that last night?!) feud started with Toni/Saraya being subtly heel-ish and morphed into Yelling-at-the-crowd-tearing-up-signs-spraypainting Toni's ass...? Like there was no room for subtley there. I think a couple more weeks of Saraya doing promos that trashed the originals somewhat accidentally (Like what she basically did her first 3-4 months though not on purpose) with the odd cheap win would have made more sense than to go from "We love it in AEW! This is where competition is!" is to "Losers!" in the span of a couple weeks. Actually I think the whole feud is pretty stupid, because they can't say WWE or even really allude to WWE. And Toni's whole deal was underutilized in WWE to maximizing her potential as a world champ and now suddenly she's...anti...AEW?! I don't know why AEW can only run one women's angle at a time. NXT has 2 hours of TV time a week, but somehow still run 3-4 women's angles at a time with one less set of women's titles (Women's World/Tag Titles vs AEW World/TBS/ROH titles). Mark Briscoe looked great here. I was wondering if you could run an angle where one of his former opponents offers to be his partner to defend the titles. then turns on Mark after losing the match to what would be absolutely NUCLEAR heat or if that would be a "too soon" bit of booking. I actually think the ROH World Title should go Claudio -> Rush -> and then Mark Briscoe at Final Battle. Satam Singh's strut behind Jay Lethal was amazing but Lethal didn't seem to know he was doing it and cut him off too fast! Alas, the cringiest thing on the episode was that backstage Bucks/Omega promo. Just dreadful stuff.

I remember Bret saying much the same in his book and how the two were on the booking committee and came in to tell Bret he'd beat Rock clean with the Sharpshooter (I can't remember if it was for the IC title or not) and Bret thought it was pointless because he didnt need the win and it would hurt Rock (also, Bret was probably also opposed to it because it stuck it to HHH and HBK a bit!) so he went and got the ending changed to Bret getting DQed for doing the figure four around the post on Rock and how Rock thanked him and Bret warned him to watch his back. I don't watch Young Rock, do they put current WWE wrestlers/characters on the show? Maybe since Shawn is still very much a part of WWE they have an understanding with WWE not to portay current characters/wresters?!

I always get Tatum Paxley and Fallon Henley's names confused. Were i running NXT, I'd randomly switch their names one week, just to see if anyone notices. Actually, I'd just switch the wrestlers complete: put Paxley in the jean cut-offs and hanging out with Bro Country with Fallon teaming sporadically with Ivy Nile and see if it makes any discernible difference. I will say, I do like that one sort of diving backkick that...oh now I honestly have forgotten which one is which...the girl in the cut-offs does. And feel better, DEAN!

I think it was "buried" in the sense he was largely stuck in the cruiserweight purgatory (In one of his books, Jericho talked about how the cruisers were like "lepers" in WCW and Booker T (whom he said he'd later count as a friend) once remarked "I ain't no cruiserweight" when matched up with one of them); how the division was largely looked down upon. Outside the cruiser division, his biggest moments were over Hall (Who did it just to stick it to management) and the Goldberg "angle" (which Goldberg and all tried to scuttle). He did also say, to your point, that he was expecting Bischoff to crush him on the way out as he'd gone back on his word about re-signing (IIRC, he thought the "Loser wears a dress" stipulation with Saturn was going to be punishment for him before finding out it was because Saturn wanted to wear a dress for his new gimmick) but they were quite fair with him. So, I think the "buried" thing is that he was given top status, but it was in the division nobody cared about, so you never saw him in any Nitro or PPV main events.

I like to imagine Vince McMahon actually saying this: "Vince McMahon, WWE’s Founder and Executive Chairman said, “WWE’s upcoming media rights cycle will take place amid a rapidly evolving media and entertainment landscape, and we believe exploring our strategic alternatives at this critical juncture will enable WWE to fully capitalize on the significant value of our intellectual property. I am highly confident that our outstanding Directors, outside advisors and executive team will provide valuable expertise and counsel to help guide the Company through this important process while our management team and employee base continue to deliver results and content our fans love.” There is no way he actually said this without the words: 'Grapefruits', 'Testicular fortitude', 'whatamanoovurrr' or 'You're Fired' being involved. Seriously, read that paragraph and imagine it coming directly from Vince's mouth...you can't do it.