Nobody loves Johnny Gargano.
Nobody loves Johnny Gargano.
I didn't even care for Gargano that much during his peak Black and Gold run but he's been a total dud since his return so far, albeit it with not a lot to work with.
He did have a decent showing in the Rumble though and looked great in the chamber.
Yeah, the finish was wank. Made Zayn look a bit weak. I was just assuming he was kicking out of the spear. Ah well
I didn't mind it as I think they were a bit stuck unless they were going to give Sami the belt and fuck Cody off but frankly once Sami wins I have no idea where you go from there anyway.
My only issue was the refs going full AEW from forgetting to do countouts to bumping all over the shop and then popping back up when needed. I've never understood the second ref thing because if that ref is legitimate why can he not just run in and DQ you for what he's seen before. It's not like there's a ref tag system.
I thought the Chamber match was very good considering it was filled with largely dorks. The Seth Rollins/Gargano moment on top of the pod was great. I would have had Rollins win it after the interference and have Paul v Rollins for the belt myself but it's not like they need the belt to help build to what's definitely going to be an absolute banger at Mania between those two.
Brock v Bray Wyatt is going to be an absolute mess. Brocks not going to put up with any of the spooky shit and I can seriously believe Brock going into business for himself.
Lesnar shooting on Wyatt would be the best Mania moment ever.
I know he’s chilled out a bit in recent years but no chance is he letting a fat guy in a top hat called Uncle Howdy make him look like a pussy.
Wyatt challenged the winner which explains why Lesnar got himself DQ'd, he didn't want any part of the Fanta Pineapple and Grapefruit Calypso Death Match.
They played this during the PLE and I'm not sure I could hate anything more.
He's such a pain in the arse these days. The cunt isn't even heel.
I noticed that alongside that they have started adding really long videos inbetween matches on PPVs, not even relevant stuff but like a three minute Miz video and that kind of thing. Is it that the US version on Peacock has ad breaks or something like that?
They get those videos too. It's for piss/food break for fans at the arena, no?
If you go back to even fairly recent ones they're not as many or as long as they seem to be now, something's definitely changed. Although who doesn't want a Miz career highlight reel?
This is what I assumed. WWE don't have the luxury of having Elite matches on their shows so fans have to go for refreshments between matches instead.Originally Posted by Sir Andy Mahowry
Just heard a thing on Wrestletalk and looked this up about Edge's matches vs. Judgement Day, because I remember when he first returned and made a big song and dance about how it wasn't about him winning all the time, it was about him being involved in good stories.
So after being fresh off beating AJ THREE TIMES in various forms:
- 22.08.2022 Edge defeats Damian Priest
- 03.09.2022 Edge & Rey Mysterio defeat The Judgment Day (Damian Priest & Finn Balor)
- 12.09.2022 Edge defeats Dominik Mysterio by DQ (15:10)
- 08.10.2022 I Quit: Finn Balor defeats Edge (29:39)
- 18.02.2023 Mixed: Beth Phoenix & Edge defeat The Judgment Day (Finn Balor & Rhea Ripley)
So one defeat, and that was just because Team Purple were threatening Beth.
And Edge will be beating Balor at 'Mania too. Great story lads.
It's shit, honestly. I only watch their segments because Dominik is a hilarious chickenshit heel and Rhea is the next superstar.
Also, WrestleTalk is still a thing?
Judgment Day were really rubbish at first with Edge rambling on but feels like they've hit on something great with Prison Dom in particular. Finn Balor's probably the least convincing part of it now, just whacks a Daft Punk helmet on and snarls a bit.
I do genuinely quite like Judgement Day now. There's enough there that I'm happy when they're on the show and as Ben says, Rhea is brilliant. But constantly jobbing to Edge... not so much.
Prison Dom is great too, though I don't really want to watch him wrestle.
I was stunned they didn't have Rhea pin Beth. Make her look as strong as possible going into Mania.
That would be the logical finish wouldn't it? But I don't think it matters either way for Rhea anyway, she's fucking winning and I'm ready for it (babyface Charlotte is trash).
Rhea should win, but I can never fully rule out a Charlottewinslol.
You appear to have forgotten their respective ages.
Last night's Raw sounds pretty poo. Lita now being a womens tag champ is a bit of silly nostalgia fun though, given those titles have never been made to feel important.
Brock vs. Omos and Lashley vs. Bray both seem to be going ahead though.
Outside of Cody vs. Roman and Charlotte vs. Rhea, it's shaping up to be proper shit. Even if it's a big ol' swerve to get back to Brock vs. Bobby again, fuck that.
I don't think I'll even care about the inevitable Zayn and Owens vs. Usos either but I'll give it a chance. Hopefully Logan Paul beats Franklin.
Fingers crossed that with Asuka Belair can have the best match of the weekend third year on the bounce.
I still think Rollins invariably has good matches and Paul is annoyingly good but I simply can't look forward to anything with him involved.
Charlotte vs. Rhea should be excellent, but then I'm struggling to remember the last proper great match Charlotte had. Doesn't help that there's always the fear she just wins even when she shouldn't. Like the last time they had a Mania match.
Nah she'll lose the title only to win it back within a few months to pad the amount of reigns she's had.
Has to beat Papa.
My biggest fear with the Charlotte match is that she's a much better heel, and that includes her ring work. Rhea is a tremendous heel out of the ring but she's a brilliant seller, a quality normally of a quintessential babyface. I have a sneaky suspicion that if Rhea is winning, Charlotte will make sure she dominates the match so if we are to enjoy it then we need to forget who is babyface and who is heel because a babyface dominating a heel only to then lose is arse about face. Obviously 99% of fans don't care about stuff like that but it'll get a scathing review from me.
I was worried it was never going to happen, but worry not lads. Finn Balor has challenged Edge for a match at Wrestlemania.
Is there a stipulation meaning Edge can grind out a GRITTY 30 minute plus match?
He's already had The Greatest Wrestling Match.
At this point though the Judgement Day has entirely existed to just have all 4 of them feud with Edge. There was that brief time they threatened to do a proper thing with AJ Styles, but yeah...
This Mania looks really, really, really shitty which is a shame. It's like they're legally not allowed to do more than one good one every 5 years.
https://wrestlingnews.co/wwe-news/re...e-wrestlemania
Vince does have pull it seems.
Also I lolled at: "I’m told the highly anticipated, very compelling".
Highly anticipated by whom?
Vince McMahon.
AEW Revolution on Sunday (I thought AEW normally did Saturdays?). Pretty stacked card which is to be expected with only four PPVs per year. Having said that, I'm not too hyped for this. Let's have a look shall we:
Chris Jericho vs. Ricky Starks - they've really cooled off my man Ricky. Fucking Jericho is turgid these days and even if Starks wins (I mean, that should be a given but you never know with Jericho) it'll do fuck all for him.
The Elite (Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) (c) vs. The House Of Black (Brody King, Buddy Matthews & Malakai Black) - oh man this will be awesome. I can't wait for the all action, no sell wrestling. The Elite are fresh off that basketball match on Rampage which really showed how awesome wrestling can be. Just like Dave, I've got 5 stars pencilled in for this bad boy already.
Jamie Hayter (c) vs. Saraya vs. Ruby Soho - speaking of cooling off folk, what are they doing to Jamie Hayter? They fumbled an easy money match versus a heel Britt Baker to do this wank feud with WWE "invaders" or whatever they are. Saraya is arguably Tony's biggest waste of money in AEW, and that list is as long as his lines of coke, so tough competition.
The Gunns (Austin Gunn & Colten Gunn) (c) vs. Jay Lethal & Jeff Jarrett vs. Danhausen & Orange Cassidy vs. The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) - hey there's a theme here! The Acclaimed are going down the tubes fast as well thanks to that shitty booking decision for the Gunns to win the titles. Nobody wants to watch this stupid four way match. It'll probably end up with The Acclaimed pinning one of the comedy idiots to win them back and nobody will care because all the heat is gone.
Jon Moxley vs. Adam Page - what a bizarre feud this is. We've seen it already twice in recent weeks and I still have no idea who is babyface and who is heel. Moxley will throw bad forearms and bleed everywhere, the crowd will chant "THIS IS AWESOME! FIGHT FOREVER!" and everyone will go home happy apart from me.
Samoa Joe (c) vs. Wardlow - another fucked feud. If they did this back at Full Gear it would have been amazing. Alas, Joe has already lost and regained the title since then and Wardlow looks like a right geek. Remember when this guy was over too?
MJF (c) vs. Bryan Danielson - Baz can't wait for this one. 60 minutes of Danielson.There's always a chance this could end up dragging but I have faith in MJF's heel tactics to make the stipulation work.
So yeah, now I've typed that out I've talked myself out of it. Tony has really fucked it recently.
Is he doing all the ROH stuff as well?
Apparently.
Unfortunately it's his pipe dream to play out EWR/TEW in real life so even though it's unsustainable he's just going to plough on. It wasn't any coincidence that the best storylines AEW had was when Punk was around because he had the pull to input creatively over Tony and he had a decent head for it unlike lunatics like Jericho.
Looking forward to Buddy Matthews vs Kenny Omega more than anything.
I'm a twit
Another AEW amateur hour in the ladder match last night: two and even three refs visibly holding the ladders so they could execute all their spots. Say what you want about Vince, but he wouldn’t allow such shit on his television.
It’s just sad. AEW could be great but they just keep fumbling the ball.
The pictures of that are fantastic.
Also, for someone who doesn't follow AEW. What the fuck was that golden ring/doughnut?
I would like to stress that this is not a joke. This is actually in canon.
To win an AEW ladder match you have to grab the brass ring, brother. A literal Vince McMahon reference.
It just looks like Cocaine Tony has been playing too much Sonic.
All that stuff makes them look incredibly small time.
Tony needs to decide if he wants a successful promotion or if he wants to die on his sword. If it’s the former, it’s an easy fix: hire a booker. Look at the Revolution card, I’d be hyped for all those matches (except the Elite cosplay session) had a logical booker written the storylines. Instead I care about just one match.
It doesn't need to be that huge.
Their last six months have been terrible, Dynamite has gone from the first wrestling show that I watch to one that I catch up with every few weeks. Hopefully NJ continues to pick up as everything else is a bit shit.
I completely fell off New Japan during the pandemic. The whole clapping only crowd thing was bad for them and their booking got lazy as a result (EVIL ffs). I only enjoyed Jay White, KENTA and ZSJ during that period. It’s not to say the pandemic should have even been an excuse, crowdless ROH was brilliant for instance.
WK this year hopefully is the beginning of the comeback for them.
It was the travel bans and quarantine periods that really fucked them too, the cards became very samey and like you say, Evil and the torture lads or whatever they called them were a real turn off.
I've read through Ben's takedown of the card and while I disagree with alot of it, AEWs ability to kill any heat someone gets would make Vince and his 'No-ones bigger than the brand, pal' mindset jealous with rage at their ability to do so.
On an unrelated note, a friend of mine who is the biggest AEW mark around is genuinely angry at the Mox promo from last night where once again he blades and blades HARD for no reason.
That Cody and Roman segment last night was absolutely phenomenal. Great babyface fire at the end from Cody but Roman was the star. He is just so good at this now.
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