Would be a big statement if Tama Tonga pinned Orton, or more likely Owens. But Solo hasn't won a match in six months.
Would be a big statement if Tama Tonga pinned Orton, or more likely Owens. But Solo hasn't won a match in six months.
Solo needs a win being the NEW Tribal Chief.
NXT are going to have a combine to determine 12 potential women for their new title, what?
They need to hit up Tony Khan. His specialty.
NXT is the only place with a worse womens division than AEW sadly. (Cue Mahow about to tell me how good Shawn Michaels parade of 'chicks that turned up in his Instagram Explore page are actually really good and he's definitely not horny')
Phonics in being wrong shocker.
AEW watcher Mahow about to put me in my place. You don't watch it so stop pretending to have an opinion on it.
Speaking of AEW and women's divisions, why does Tony keep putting women's matches in the main event?
You mean for Dynamite and such? Think it's a holdover from when the Womens division was so weak that Tony was getting a bunch of 'do you hate womens wrestling' so just shoved Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa in your face a bunch. I miss Jamie Hayter.
Is Hayter dead? She's excellent but it must have been nearly a year now.
Feels like nearly 18 months.
Meanwhile,
Mariah May being incredibly hot and dropping these tweets means I can't wait until her and Toni Storm turn on each other.
Starting on SD now (didn't know they were doing it live from France) and the crowd are HOT AS FUCK.
Is there a more perfect summary of Ricochets WWE career than 'First to hold the 2 minute match belt'
France loves wrestling. They love it so much that Baron Corbin is over in France.
I think one of the things WWE does best is put the belts on people who matter and I've just seen the Heavyweight Title match for Backlash is Damien Priest vs Jey Uso. What the fuck happened there?
It's like if the AEW title bout was Brian Cage vs Cash Wheeler.
The crowd will hopefully elevate a show with a card that otherwise looks deeply uninspiring.
Melo v Bobby? Yes please.
Drew won the title at Mania but was screwed after by Punk. Priest then won the title as he still held the MITB briefcase which he cashed in.
Jey Uso is now MAIN EVENT Jey Uso and they're really trying to push him in singles. He's not good enough but the crowd love him because of his shit YEET chant.
Priest isn't a bad champ but Jey is a horrific first challenger.
I have to assume McIntyre* is taking that off Priest soon. I like Priest and Jey in their own ways but after Rollins was already struggling to make that belt look a big deal it's a big ask for Priest/an Uso to do it.
* Or Punk? That feud is surely going to go on a while but could you have Punk beat Priest, McIntyre beats him in Glasgow and then you keep that ticking over until later in the year / Mania? I dunno. Either way, I imagine Priest ain't holding it long.
I wish Jade Cargill was as good at wrestling as she is good at looking like a top tier wrestler. It's been like 5 years and her best match is still 'Cody Rhodes & Red Velvet vs Jade Cargill & Shaquille O Neal'.
Randy & KO are great workers so hopefully they can rescue it. Cody v AJ would have been great like 8 years ago.
Seth Rollins has re-signed.
X more years of selling the knees
Seth Rollins is an absolutely fantastic wrestler, a generational talent, I do not understand the hate he gets from WWE fans. Although I don't have to watch his weekly segments but when he's wrasslin' there's very very few better.
I think he's great too but I hate the constant knee selling.
It seems you can't have a Rollins match without it.
We'll have to agree to disagree. He's not a top worker, and he's never gonna be a Top Guy but in my opinion they could have made him look enough of a threat to the main event scene that this run needn't have felt how it does before it's even started.
And you're right on Rollins and while he does a lot of WWE selling and The Cackle needs to get in the bin I think he's underappreciated in some quarters too.
Probably because his knee, as seen in the main event of wrestlemania, is absolutely destroyed and he needs to sell it so he can use a rest spot.
Oh it was destroyed by then but he's been doing it for years, it hasn't always been shot to fuck.
Yep. It's an obvious weak point and you'd be daft not to sell it. Hell, after a double knee replacement he can sell that as bionic super knees.
My issue isn't with his knee being an IRL issue used in kayfabe as a consistent weak spot, but he manages to fight through the pain so as to often look like it's fine when he's on offense which is the issue. Not a major issue though, because he's still reliably a good match.
I would like for his sake if he did get a properly sizeable bit of time off now to heal up the various injuries he's been carrying but I suspect he'll be back as soon as he can/they let him.
I actually think he's a very good worker. Similar to Miz, I think his strength is elevating bad wrestlers to his level. But unlike The Miz, his personality means he needs a group of people who are all more interesting than him to keep him relevant when he's not wrestling. How do you make him scary? While he might be 6'4 he has the build and swagger of a Cruiserweight.
I can't speak so much for elsewhere (I haven't seen it much in the occasional AEW match I dip into) but there are a lot of WWE guys who mistake bumping for selling (hello, Dolph) or just sell very selectively but it might be a wider/modern issue. And look, by all means sometimes have 'adrenaline' see a guy through but if you've got a glowing weakspot it should be an actual weakspot, and that in turn would give you opportunities to do other stuff in matches.
Sami / Gable on Raw last week I thought Sami did a great job of selling all the leg work Gable had done and his winning Helluva Kick he half ran, half hobbed to get across the ring to him.
Was always a big fan of RVD selling his own frog splash before covering.
I think 98% of Wrestlers selling an injury for a whole match only to overcome it/lose because of it means 'I'm doing ring psychology'. So it must be good. Sami is another stratosphere entirely, and I feel holding anyone to 'Yeah but Sami did it better' is cruel. Whether it's comedy/storytelling/high flying/hard hitting wrestling Sami can match the best in any of those genres of matches.
Oh, 100%, and I'm by no means suggesting it's realistic to hold everybody to that exact standard.
Speaking of I saw a clip of Sami / Nakamura from NXT the other day and now I'm back on the Network I really need to get that rewatched.
Tempted to just go through all the black and gold Takeovers again to be honest.
I did it a while back a couple Manias ago. It's good but it's very much 'what you see on AEW/The Indies every week' stuff now which lessens the impact.
You know what hasn't aged well? This t-shirt idea.
Everyone standing at the railing wearing it looks like they’re making an even more racist statement than your avaerage Cornette podcast listener.
The show that follows Wrestlemania is always a bit this'll do particularly if they have it before whatever draft kicks in so I don't mind Jey Uso as challenger for this. They really should send it round the world every year, like with the Puerto Rico show it's probably going to be that much better just because the crowd are bang up for it.
Phonics has been slamming the gear all night clearly.
No, I just actually like wrestling rather than following whatever Twitter tells me to.
Lads, no fighting in the wrestling thread.
For selling I always thought Christian was one of if not the best, I've not seen his AEW matches on the whole but I'm going to assume he's still right up there.
Instead of arguing about Punishment Martinez being bobbins instead we should all enjoy this song Rikishi made about Hulk Hogan.
I didn't know I needed that, but I needed that.