Pro-wrestling Discussion

WrestleMania has taken an interesting turn - with Punk out, Seth maybe unable to go, and Brock persona non grata, they lost a lot of star power in about a 2 week stretch and I assume derailed a few matches. I admit, Punk getting hurt immediately was kind of humorous in a "you've got to be kidding" sort of way. I'm not convinced he brings too much to the table anymore.

I am baffled as to why you go with Cody to win the Rumble if the Rock vs Roman was a possible plan, when you could have held off and had Cody get his chance at Elimination Chamber - fans seem very displeased, mainly because it seems in stroryline like Cody is backing down. Now, maybe they are playing 4D chess and want fans to rally even more around Cody...so he has to be added to the main event? (I kind of like the idea that the Rock is actually working with Roman to block Cody, in terms of a story...which could play out in a triple threat with Rock turning on Cody)

I'm fine with the Rock vs Roman - to me, you have the storyline of Roman needing to be humbled and have the Bloodline collapse around him - and the Rock fits into that well, as Roman might be the big dog right now but he isn't the big dog in his own family. Now, my hope is that the match is not for the title, and the best-case scenario is Roman barely wins by cheating, but loses the war by alienating the family for embarrassing, beating up and cheating to beat the Rock who he should respect, so that he loses the Tribal Chief moniker.

That storyline is separate from Cody's story which doesn't need Roman to be the one he takes the title from, and part of me thinks they have realized this, which is that Cody finishing his story and also Roman's story ending at the same time is maybe too much of a climax for one match...

But what I could see is this scenario (which won't happen) - Rock vs Roman is for the Tribal Chief designation; Cody vs Seth is for that title. What if Seth can't go in real life, I could see Seth vs Cody being the first match on Night 1 - but Damien cashes in his MitB before the official Seth vs Cody match happens, taking the title off of Seth. So Cody is still entitled to a Main Event Championship at WM - does he get to demand a match against Roman, so Saturday night is Roman vs Rock non-title, then Sunday we get Cody vs Roman for the title, which Cody wins, and Roman's empire collapses? (This lets you put Roman on the shelf until Netflix when he comes back as a face...)

More likely though, they may know Seth can't go, so they want Cody to be the champ on Raw while Smackdown remains Roman's show. Cody as the new champ gives you Priest, Drew and eventually Gunther as ready to go feuds. 

Anyway, for you AEW fans, I will be curious how Mercedes does if she starts there soon as rumored. She is a huge draw for many, but the rest of the division seems out of her league, at least in Kayfabe. Unlike the men's side which has had a bunch of big names come in, Mercedes would be the first truly big name (I feel) to bolster the women's side. And no, Saraya, Ruby Soho, and Toni Storm are not the same as bringing in Danielson, Osperay, etc., and Britt Baker et al haven't done all that much. 

As for Okada, he'd be better in AEW - WWE, correctly or incorrectly, wants their top tier guys to be PR people as well - give the end of show closing speech to the fans, be on TV/media promoting - this to me is why you are not going to see someone who is not proficient in English get to the top in WWE. Asuka has been an exception. But they want to be able to roll out people like Roman, Seth, Cody, Becky, Charlotte to the Tonight Show or Good Morning America.

I don't think I've said it yet here, I know I have elsewhere, but I like this move. Roman is supposed to hang on to the belt till like Summer Slam. Why have Cody win the rumble to just lose to Roman again? That's stupid. So Cody faces Seth, takes that belt. Then Damian cashes in, maybe even the same night, but shortly after, and takes that belt from Cody. It lets Seth go out to heal. It let's Cody get *a* World Title after his back to back rumble wins, and in the meantime Roman hangs on to his by cheating and all that, and then when he passes Hogan, Cody is the one he loses that belt to, and Cody gets an actual run with the title he wanted. And if somehow, the Rock were to win, it really has no bearing in the grand scheme. Cause either way, it's a part time champ, and either way, Cody will probably be taking that belt at some point in the near future, most likely by SummerSlam or shortly thereafter, no matter who has it. Plus Roman vs Rock was supposed to happen last year at WM and didn't for whatever reason, so now they're just making up for it. So, I'd rather Cody get a conciliation prize, and hold off on his big big match, sonhe can actually win and get the belt he wants.

Honestly, the artist formerly known as Sasha Banks isn't even on my radar. The only small give a shits I had about her was her part in the Mandalorian. And even then I could've lived without her. Odds are she'll probably be like half the other girls they bring in. Big hype, do a small stint, go for a belt, lose, dissappear, reappear in mid card with little fan fair. That's probably what's gonna happen with Deanna. That's what happened with Taya, that's what happend to Ruby, and Saraya (albeit Saraya did have that very short run where she actually had the belt), and Mercedes Martinez, and Athena (who luckily found her way to the RoH belt instead and has been killing it on there).

I think after the "press conference" that The Rock will, as a heel, force himself into the match, first as a triple threat, but ending up being Rock + Roman vs Cody + Seth - when Cody asks Seth to have his back. Having all four in the match lets the Rock and a potentially limited Seth not have to do too much heavy lifting and adds intrigue for swerves and backstabbing and so on, and any near fall would be huge.

One reason I think they end up with all four in the match is I don't think WWE focused on WM1 being headlined by a tag-team match if you are not planting the seeds (or leave Seth out on stage that to be on Cody's side at the end). And WM1 was also a main event where your World Champion wasn't defending the title...

But could it end up essentially or an actual tag match with Roman's title on the line, due to The Rock being arrogant? If the Rock gets pinned by Cody after Seth takes out Roman (taking the title off of Roman without him being pinned) it could lead to many stories for the rest of the year, like Seth vs Roman and Cody vs Rock, then Rock vs Roman (blaming each other), Seth vs Cody (maybe unify the titles again, if that doesn't become a stipulation for the WM40 match with both Seth's and Roman's titles on the line), etc. 

Anyway, I just like that I cannot really predict how it might go - I mentioned earlier that the flaw with the Rumble winner getting a match is that the titles are on standstill for 2 months...not this time...

WWE is a fucking trainwreck. Even with Vince gone, they can't see their own hand in front of their faces. It's amazing how often a billion dollar entertainment company can get blindsided by something as basic as 'the obvious thing fans wanted.'

Kind of agree with Trunks about Mone. I actually adore her, but AEW is doing FAMOUSLY poorly with their women's division (and kind of with their men's division, honestly) right now. I don't see what Mercedes adds to that besides just more confusion and bloat. I also worry that she's bought into her own hype and it's going to be a sort've Punk situation where she isn't NEARLY as good as she was because she hasn't wrestled full time basically since she left WWE.

Although on your list, Trunks, I would point out that Saraya has basically amounted to nothing because of a medical condition preventing her from regularly wrestling - not because Tony doesn't want to use her. And Ruby couldn't get over with fans if she gave everyone in the arena 50 bucks and a decent back massage.

I suspect Mercedes still has it in the ring and is still in her prime.

I also suspect she will be the center of gravity for the Women's Division upon arrival - which could be good if they lean into the somewhat lackluster history with her declaring "it is time for the women's division to show what it can do against a true star and talent", maybe give her a good run with the main title and use that to elevate people to main event status by going after her - and not quite getting there - but putting on great matches where she just barely survives a few times and they get to show their offense. To me she needs a Roman Reigns type run at the top she as the arrogant heel, who the fans like at the start but are then frothing to have someone beat her.

But if you build a debut show around her in her hometown, it seems to me you are asking her to be the face of the women's division, and for the fans to cheer her. Which is fine but who is the monster heel or villain for her to slay on the way up, or really challenge her? 

So I'm curious how they use her - because if you want to bring her fan base along that isn't already focused on AEW, she needs to be at the top from the start, but like I said before, not sure the rest of the division will be perceived to be at her level. 

Yea I know Saraya can't go full time. Which sucks, cause she used to be really good. I was just kind of including her in there cause she feels like the rest of the big names they brought in. She just came in all popular for a quick minute and now she's basically doing nothing.

yessss

Not having paid much attention to WCW for most of its existence, I don't have any real nostalgia for Sting, but I hope he gets the sendoff he wants tonight, maybe gets the better of Flair, etc. I don't think it has been brought up on TV that no matter what, Darby won't be champion after tonight presumably - I thought they might play into that to lay the groundwork for Sting/Darby winning against the Bucks, but Darby turns on him after the match as he has a new mentor in Flair and is mad that he will lose his title. So Sting gets to both end undefeated and go out on his back.

My personal booking choice would be for Danielson to beat Eddie, tell him he still sucks, that he only wanted to win to get the titles off of him, but he doesn't really care about the titles so he is just going to vacate on the spot. (I have always wanted someone to be such a heel that they only want to belittle and take things away from the face - just out of spite. Don't care about winning, don't care about titles, just don't want the other guy to have any nice things. This seems like it ought to be Danielson's character right now.)

Wondering if FTR goes away for a bit, can't see how they could book them too much longer as Cash has the trial ahead of him in May. Two months is a decent amount of time but why build them up at all at this point just in case.

I wonder if Toni Storm loses - her gimmick doesn't need the belt and she can feud with Mariah, and Purrazzo would be a good first feud for Mercedes.

Swerve and Hangman should have ended after the last PPV, or at least been put on a shelf to revisit later in the year, as you could heat that up again but not have be so fresh off a match that seemed like it should have been a feud ender - with people being stapled and drinking blood and so on. Tony needs to let there be a cool down more often. 

As always, $50 is more than I care to spend for a PPV - and I have to wonder if AEW fans will support 9 PPVs a year as Tony has been speculating about - so will follow along and look for highlights. Maybe if Tony had more PPVs he wouldn't be booking 5-hour cards (with pre-show) and once again trying to fit in about 20 performers (8-man match, 12-man tag match) for no good reason. If your top stars deliver in the main events, is anyone going to care they saw that 12-man? That's a perfect TV match to build an episode around.

And just about all of my semi-predictions were wrong! Which is par for the course for me. 

5 1/2 hours from the pre-show to the end. I am always amazed the crowd is still into it by the end. I know I am skewing older than the crowd but that's a long night. Glad Sting got his win.

Saw a lot of the highlights. (I will note that AEW gives away a lot of action for free for a $50 show, which baffles me.) As always, AEW does have some impressive visuals and some great talent but man do I question if the wrestlers can actually protect themselves for some of it. Cassidy backdropped on the top rope and flipped around wildly, Ospreay looked like he was nearly dumped straight on his head when he got caught in the ropes in the corner on that brain-buster.

That Darby stunt through the glass. So many ways that goes wrong, especially if he over-rotates. As it is he bounced off of a chair - I mean if his head hit on the chair seats while his body was still falling I think that could have easily snapped his neck and killed him. Plus the glass exploding into the crowd - both his spot and the one when Sting went through the glass in the corner shot pieces towards the crowd. I just don't get it.

The glass is fake. It's meant to explode. At least most of the time. I think it's the same shit they use in movies to make it smash through easier. That's why Jack Perry and Punk had that fight. Perry wanted to use real glass, not the breakaway stuff. It can cut sure, look at Darbys back. But it's not as sharp. And I think people in the front row kinda know what they're getting into with that stuff. How could you not? Also, I always say Darbys gonna die in one of his matches. I don't know how he hasn't yet. He just goes so hard, and does crazy shit most people wouldn't even consider. If he doesn't die I expect him to be paralyzed by the time he's like 40. I hope I'm wrong, but dude is nuts. It's fun to watch, but it worries me sometimes lol.

Revolution was by far the best ppv I've seen in a long while. Maybe ever. The worst match was Toni and Deonna and it was still pretty good as matches go. I watched Elimination Chamber and it wasn't even half as good. There were some moments, but it wasn't anything special. I don't know how aew doesn't get more viewers and ticket sales. It baffles me. At least WWE is worth watching for the moment, cause the rock. And I'm starting to like Jey Uso more. I'm also unhappy with their treatment of Shinesuke. He is the total package and they use him as a stepping stone for everyone. But he's fantastic to watch. Presentation, skill, body language. Just fun as hell.

No, I don't think it wasn't sugar-glass - that is what was used in films as it is clear and shatters like glass with jagged edges but really isn't sharp. It was the safety glass designed to break apart in small pieces, to avoid the jagged edges that can lacerate someone. As noted, it is designed to avoid serious injury, but it isn't really safe per se. I will have to disagree that front-row fans might expect broken piece of glass being sent their way.

I doubt the glass absorbed/distributed the energy the way a table does from a fall - to me that was the biggest risk, he essentially did a back bump from 20 feet or so almost directly onto the solid floor. Very hard to protect yourself. Granted, it was a high-profile match, and he is leaving for Mt Everest soon so I'm sure he was possibly thinking this might be his biggest stage, but... (I kind of wonder why you don't just write him off immediately assuming he departs soon anyway, why start and angle with him - have him say with Sting gone, he needs to regroup...)

Anyway, Ospreay and Okada and presumably Mone definitely adding some star power for AEW. In terms of just the people jumping (more or less) from WWE to AEW, Mone might be the biggest in many ways - many prime years left, was always in the Top 3-5 women/main event scene for WWE. Guys like Moxley, Miro, Claudio, etc were not in that top 3-5 range consistently, and guys like Danielson, Punk, Jericho, Copeland were clearly past their peak (not done, but getting that nostalgia act feel) so not someone you thought the WWE might build around for a long stretch. I say this more as an observation as I am not a Mone mark, but as I think I mentioned a bit ago, she jumps to the top of the line in AEW.

Also, really enjoying the current heeling of Drew Mac. Just the right level of trolling and amusing.

Yeah, I don't think that glass was fake. The glass Sting went through looked fake. Broke in a totally different way and to a totally different result. The glass Darby went through was absolutely not sugar. It wasn't like.. regular window glass from your house or anything, but it was still glass. And we can put the 'they expect this to happen' argument to rest since right after the show it was announced that the woman in the front area was suing AEW because flying glass cut her face.
I'm having trouble finding anything about it now, so I'm guessing this was quickly silenced and AEW wrote a check. Because they would 100% lose that lawsuit. Because people don't expect to be hit with broken glass at a wrestling show. This isn't the bad old days of ECW, where maybe you could argue that anyone going to the front few rows of one of those shows kind of has it coming to them if they get hurt.

I know I'm in the minority here but that being Sting's last match is a disappointment. I really didn't want his career finale sullied by Darby being a fucking idiot. That glass spot did -NOTHING- for the match. It added no value or even excitement. It was just Darby being a moron like always. You could see what was going to happen from 25 miles away. There wasn't even a storyline or 'in-universe' explanation for why it was being done. It literally just read like 'Darby wants to jump through glass, so this is happening right now.' Totally takes you out of the moment and defeats any attempt at actual story-telling-through-violence that wrestling makes claims toward. Dumb. Dumb, dangerous, unnecessary, and lame.

Rest of the show was pretty good. Not really sure I'm seeing 'greatest PPV event of all time' like some are touting on socials. I'm sure maybe that has something to do with the Sting hype and the first official Ospreay match and all that. But is this really a better show than -every- AEW show before it? No.

I'm disappointed Julia didn't get a singles match, and was relegated to the opener. They should have dumped the 8-man scramble for a second women's match anyway, as AEW currently has a huge problem with what appears to be blatant misogyny that they need to get a handle on sooner than later. Also, Wardlow sucks and him winning a match for no good reason can definitely be a Rampage problem instead of a PPV problem.

Also, I'm worried Darby is going to beat Jay White and I think that's the wrong decision for a whole host of reasons, but this post is already kind of long and I'm not sure anyone really cares too much about the specifics. But I do think it's wrong for both guys and shows that people running AEW creative right now aren't actually that good at their jobs.

Huh, I thought it was special safety glass. Good to know it wasn't. It was definitely in the top 3 PPVs AEW has done. And that match with Takeshita and Osprey is match of the year contender and he's only getting started. Even the Kingston match was good, but that's more on Bryan than Eddie. Bryan is like Kenny. He could carried a blow up doll through a match and make it look good. He's probably one of, if not, my fave wrestler. He's just so good. I'm gonna miss him when he leaves or retires of goes part time or whatever he does. But at least Osrey is there now, and that dude can go. I like how in the scrum after the show you could see his real personality and how excited he is to be in AEW. He seems like a genuinely good dude. He may end up being up there with some of my faves eventually.

I quit WWE when Mone started, so I didn't see much of her. I enjoyed her small part in Mandalorian. And I think she's cute. I'll have to watch her wrestle to actually tell whether I care about her or not honestly.

Posted by: @trunks3540

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HI quit WWE when Mone started, so I didn't see much of her. I enjoyed her small part in Mandalorian. And I think she's cute. I'll have to watch her wrestle to actually tell whether I care about her or not honestly.

Track down the match from NXT Takeover Brooklyn between Sasha and Bayley. One of best women's matches of the last 10 years.

Nevermind, here you go. NXT match

Saw a story that there was a "plan b" for the end of the Sting match if Darby couldn't continue for the "plan a" finish. Not sure if that is true, but seems to me if you have enough of a concern your talent may be too injured due a planned spot to continue a match, then you shouldn't be doing that spot.

Sasha, Bailey, Becky and Charlotte really did change women's wrestling in the US during their NXT days.

As an aside, ECW is mainly remembered now for the hardcore matches, but in the first few years the hardcore/bloodbaths were not that common - you had some great storylines that were longer term and intense, you had legit great in-ring folks like Malenko and Guererro and Benoit and so on, fun teams like the Dudleys and characters like Sandman, Raven, Taz, and you had brawls that had some blading and stiff shots but still it was not overly excessive - it was more extreme for the time period as it was more common for ECW than WWF or WCW, but not every match, every show. As it added more to the hardcore/garbage matches I lost interest as the main draw for me was the faster pace and mix of match styles - at a time when access to Lucha and Japan styles was hard unless you traded tapes, it was a great change of pace to see it in the US. But I also lost a lot of respect for the promotion over things like New Jack and the kid in MD, or the Rotten Bros death match stuff - as much as I like the Paul Heyman character, as a booker did not protect his performers enough as ECW evolved and allowed it to be too much spectacle - but he was also not yet 30 when he started booking, and I think that is an age when you think traditional stuff is boring and want to push the envelope to make a name for yourself - which is why I brought this up, as you need the booker to protect the performers from feeling they need to get "noticed" at all costs. I'd like to hear a real interview with him now about whether he looks back at any of the ECW stuff as being something he'd do differently.