EVA

Ibushi looking this good is a minor miracle considering how absolutely DONE done he looked as recently as a year ago. Hope his body holds up.

Yeah, I mean, if you’re seriously shopping for an undercard comedy act, Mr. Iguana is right there. He’s a very competent luchadore, and it’s easy to see where he could slot in at that Lucha House Party level.

Yeah, I don’t get the Santino comp at all. It’s easy to forget, but Santino was actually a decent worker who gradually evolved into being an increasingly absurd comedy character over time, and he was able to sustain that character on TV for so long because he was a pretty decent in-ring guy. He knew how to work it. Conversely, Danhausen stinks. It’s an indie-riffic act that does not translate outside of indie meme wrestling. He’s never had what WWE would consider even a passable match. A closer approximation would be the Boogeyman, but even he had the advantage of being tall and muscular so they could just book him to scare heels and squash wimpies once they realized he sucked. You can’t book Danhausen like that. I just don’t see where he fits in WWE at all.

If I was Private Party, I would try to follow the Mike Santana model—sign with a 3rd-tier promotion that will actually use you and hit the Indies hard, rebuild yourself the old fashioned way. They will 100% get lost in the shuffle in WWE developmental. Just be there forever like Wes Lee. Which would be a shame, because Zay in particular has a lot of potential.

WWE’s YouTube “highlights” clip job of Cena/Punk has exactly 40 seconds of them actually wrestling before it just goes right into the run-ins. That really sums the whole thing up.

Classic Gedo, wanting the belt on a white guy for a major show in a white market. Probably the correct call this time, though.

Seeing Punk, Bron, and Reed blow everything they tried immediately brought to mind Punk and Ryback for some reason.

Yeah, whatever spark was there between Cena and Punk in the closing stretch of Elimination Chamber did not show up in Riyadh. Big time Age in the Cage vibes from this one. Two guys just running through their old spots at 1/4 speed. And all of it was meaningless because it’s a 2020’s WWE main event, so nothing means anything until the run-ins start. I could not be any more tired of the Punk/Rollins issue.

Yes, because he badly needed the money! The whole “time heals all wounds” thing is how normal people think, not someone with the pathology of CM Punk, who has never let go of a grudge in his life.

This probably has something to do with the mythology Punk built around himself, but I feel like there has never been enough consideration given to the likelihood that, coming off a years-long protracted legal battle with a major corporation and a failed MMA career, Punk was in financial peril and needed to come back to wrestling for the money, rather than the love of the game (as he portrayed it). It would certainly explain why he was so quick to go groveling back to the hated WWE once things started going bad with AEW, and why he continues to endure this current humiliation ritual. The man has bills.

And they just made him get up in front of a crowd and apologize for the Blood $ tweet! They are making this dude eat unheard of amounts of shit lol.

To be fair, if this match had happened at MSG in 2019 like it was supposed to, I think they would’ve gone in a similar direction. Upping the violence and hatred was always the logical next step for their rivalry. You can’t just keep having The Best Wrestling Match Ever over and over again. In fact, it’s probably even more important that there be some additional layers to it now, considering that both guys physically aren’t what they were 7 years ago.

And then the bell rings.

Yeah, that was the gnarliest blood capsule spot in my recent memory. The blood definitely appeared more, um, visceral than capsules typically look, and Kenny sold the hell out of it, just spewing it everywhere while every vein in his face looked like they were gonna explode.

Yeah, um, you hate to give Vince credit for anything these days, but you gotta hand it to him: this Cena heel run has completely vindicated his decision to never pull the trigger on it.

I guess one new wrinkle to Rollins winning is that this is the first time we’ve seen a heel backed by a stable of killer heavies with MITB. Rollins was aligned with the Authority his first go-round, but Jamie Noble and Joey Matthews vs. Bron and Bronson is very coughing baby vs. nuclear bomb. Ostensibly, that should make this a rather short MITB run, as he should be able to press that button and easily win whenever he wants.

I tuned into this right when the Dangerous Alliance guys were doing their run, err, saunter-in. That closing stretch felt more like a series of segments stapled together that happened to end with a bell ringing than an actual wrestling match. No one projected any sense of urgency about getting the belt and winning the match. Can’t judge the whole match, but that ending was super anti-climactic. But not nearly as anti-climactic as the main event, which was one of the worst headlining tag matches that I can recall from recent history. The LONG heat on Jey was a total snooze, and it “built” (using that term loosely) to one of the worst hot tags I’ve ever seen. Like someone slowly letting all the air out of a balloon. If Truth hadn’t returned, I think more of the conversation would be centered on yet another absolute stinker main event from this Cena heel run.

Absolutely zero surprise to me that Mr. Iguana was the biggest AAA star coming out of this show. His act is exactly the sort of lowest common denominator silliness that WWE fans eat up with a spoon. Mark it down—he’ll wrestle on one of the main roster shows this week.

The fact that Cole spun a completely different narrative on commentary than what Truth tweeted should make it quite clear that this was not a work. I guess we’ll see if they actually re-upped him or if they’re just going to give him a more fitting send-off with whatever time is left on his contract. I kinda hope it’s the latter. Otherwise it’s a good news/bad news type of deal for whichever poor soul gets made redundant in his place. Main event was, unsurprisingly, pretty bad. Paul turning into CM Punk doing the Buckshot all the sudden really makes you appreciate how Hangman nails it flawlessly every time. Never a doubt.

I timed it perfectly and dropped in right at the start of Gable/Vikingo. I was pleased to see that WWE let them go for it, and they really delivered. Vikingo is clearly still struggling with his knee (and maybe hurt it again late in the match?) but did enough to impress the unfamiliar, I imagine. But GABLE, man. Not sure how anyone could watch this performance and think he should still be getting booked as just a good hand in the midcard. It’s insane behavior. He should be doing this shit in PLE main events.

Remember when Tay first jumped over from NXT and revealed herself to be a very raw but interesting worker? Doing a lot of Suzuki-influenced graps and striking? Really good babyface fire, too. All that kinda took a backseat when she got sucked into the Jericho Vortex, and of course she’s been away for a long time, so her early AEW run kinda feels like ancient history now. It would be cool if she could find that version of herself again.

Also, how did this 4+ hour show with TV commercial breaks feel like less of a slog to get through than a 3-hour WWE PLE lol

I really like a lot of what AEW is doing right now from a booking perspective. I’m really enjoying Ospreay as the pure, whitemeat Guy Who Cares SOOOO Much and how that’s putting him in natural conflict with, like, everybody else who are fixated on their own stuff. That’s a tough role to pull off without becoming cloying, but he’s nailing it. Probably helps that they’re booking him to be the aggressor with Swerve instead of a pacifist. Wrestling fans do ultimately pay to see people fight, not get along.

Sociopaths have a funny way of showing how much they care!

Normally, I’m 100% with you on that. But Miz is beyond wealthy between his 20-year WWE run and all his outside work. His family will not lack for food on the table. The college fund is secure. I feel comfortable joking about this!