EVA

Agreed, baby faces should *only* ever make challenges for RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, LET’S DO THIS.

One key thing that’s probably getting overlooked with the way the weekly TV is being shot is that it’s a lot easier to do interesting and/or complex shot setups when the showrunner isn’t constantly rewriting the show up until showtime (and sometimes while the show is in progress). Past a certain threshold, all you can do is static setups and use a lot of editing (and other tricks) to cover up for the lack of dynamic shots because you just don’t have time. Knowing what you’re shooting with ample production time helps talented people use their talents!

I still think Gable over Gunther was the way to go at Mania, because Gable is an incredible underdog face, but I will accept Sami transitioning the belt to him as a heel as a substitute. BUT if Sami beats him and Gable ends up reset back to exactly where he was before Alpha Academy caught on…

Obviously that’s bad for Rhea, but it would be terrible for Raw moving forward. I don’t think Judgment Day works as a group without her as the dominant personality, and they’ve been the centerpiece of the program for a while now. She’s the fulcrum around which all those personalities spin in an interesting way.

I bet Jey is NOT looking forward to giving up or splitting the YEET merch royalties.

The “pretend Tama Tonga is good” era is gonna be a rough one. Imagine being so bad that you’re part of one of the hottest acts IN THE WORLD for *10 years*, and even after all of the actually good members of the group are gone, you still can’t get pushed higher than the 4th tier singles title. And bear in mind that this is happening in a promotion where seniority and hierarchy matter more than any other promotion in the world, where even the most nothing-happening guys will eventually get a big push just because it’s “their turn.” For 10 years, Gedo took a look at Tama and was like, “um, not yet, brother.”

That caught my attention the second time around. Bitch waited until Perry was in a position where he couldn’t defend himself before he threw the first strike.

The Rock seemed stoned tonight. Just 40 minutes of rambling nonsense. The bit with them exchanging belts was utterly bizarre.

Yeah, Twitter pushed that into my feed earlier, and I was just dumbfounded as to what that tweet is supposed to accomplish.

Obviously the Hardy’s reunion was a big flop for a host of reasons, but I maintain that Matt was a good midcard heel with the HFO. Very underrated part of the show during that era.

I must say, as great as the match was, I kinda hate Bayley’s new finish, though.

His theme song has a repeating three note motif that pretty much anybody can sing. That’s literally it! Its definitely strange that, out of all the Indie stars of his generation, Seth was the WWE’s chosen one, considering he’s not good at any of the things thatWWE has traditionally valued in a top star.

His meme is more culturally relevant than Seth Rollins.

Even better: Not only did Seth get chumped, but people were more disappointed that Moxley didn’t show up.

I am currently hating him!

This is a fair point: Seth sucks so bad that if he wasn’t really injured, he probably wouldn’t have bothered selling leg work from night 1 that the announcers were trying to put over for the whole match.

Seth sucks so bad. I thought the match with Drew was actively bad, mostly because of him having to sell the knee from night 1 but not being willing to fully commit to it, so he could get all his shit in.

The first 5 matches were just kinda there, but Bayley/Iyo was great and Cody/Roman was a fun dog-and-pony show, as expected and appropriate.

I imagine her style of shouting is tough to keep up over multiple nights in a row, especially out in the elements.

They never really figured out how to book Bianca outside of Mania. That they spent the last 3 years feeding her Sasha, Becky, and Asuka and now she’s in an undercard 6-man that was more about putting someone else over really says it all.

I thought Becky/Rhea was a good, strong match. A nice, Bret-esque subtle shift to being a bit of a dick by Becky when she realized the crowd was with Rhea. The electric chair spot was really neat and could’ve been the finish.

The main event was about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be. First half was super plodding—the crowd wasn’t wild enough to justify all the stalling and teasing at the beginning, the crowd brawling was mid, and the heat on Rollins was perfunctory.

I thought it was interesting that Cody seemed to be getting some boos during the main event. If this keeps up, he’ll bring in the flaming tables again.

But anyway Gunther/Sami was IMMENSE, and there was never a doubt about that one. Never thought I’d see the corner brainbuster in WWE. The perfect move at the perfect time to credibly end Gunther’s run. Very excited to see Gunther move up the card over the next year. Also very excited for Sami to make Chad Gable as a heel in the coming months.

I absolutely expected it to be bad. I don’t know if they’re getting bad advice or what, but it’s wild to me that neither of them have attempted to diversify their in-ring style as singles. They both just do their tag stuff but alone. Maybe they see Roman getting by with just spamming spears and Superman punches and think they can do it with superkicks and flying splashes, but they are clearly mistaken and somebody should tell them.