General

Rikishi is a rapper now apparently, and I think this is a diss track for Hulk Hogan (but more of a tribute to Iron Sheik)
https://twitter.com/TheREALRIKISHI/status/17864099...

Bunch of nxt releases

Gable Steveson was among the releases, and it was kind of a dick move because if they had released him a few weeks prior with those other releases he would've had time to make it to the Olympics again this year.

I expected Kabuki Warriors to lose here. What a shame. Jade has such a long way to go. She's all hype at this point. That spot towards the end was the only impressive thing I've seen from her since her debut, but I knew they were going to rush to put a title on her as quickly as possible.
Kairi did great this match, usually it's her I'm unimpressed with since her return.

Michael Cole forgot to fact check his lines during the main event. Cody was in the Bullet Club, but he was never leader of it.

No move against Steveson is a dick move considering that dude's past. Eff him.

I liked Jade's power moves in that match but boy, did it fall apart midway through. Was actually pretty awesome for the first half, but then I think the ref missed a tag or something and everything turned to crap. They spent 4 minutes getting to that "double armbar into powerbomb" spot and it was rough. Finishing sequence was pretty cool. Title change was to be expected.

Cody and AJ do not have great chemistry, that match is going to be very overrated despite being super sloppy in spots.

Overall, Backlash was a "the foreign audience will be appreciative regardless of what we put on" type card. It was fine, but not incredible other than the crowd atmosphere.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Feels like common WWE revisionist history. Although there was the Bullet Club civil war, where Cody claimed to be leader vs Kenny, who was the real leader at the time. But Cody even admitted in a promo in ROH after that storyline that he was never the leader. Silly Cole.

Did they botch the woman's tag ending? Who was legal? It was pretty confusing.

shadyfozzie wrote:

Yah that match was going pretty great for a while then they completely fudgeed it. I think the ref missed a tag or something. Became a mess.

theJaw wrote:

I wonder if they will use that as a way to get the belts back to Kabuki Warriors...

You could tell Kairi Sane's knee was bandaged up under her gear, I wonder if she's been working hurt and that's why they decided now was the time to have them drop the belts? They are still the longest reigning tag champs on the main roster because of their previous tag title reign, and last week this current tag title reign had only reached the halfway mark of their previous one. I feel like they had more planned for them, but they kinda gotta do something with Jade too while she still has that level of hype around her, and if Jade was going after singles gold I think it'd be easy to see her be exposed for being too green.

Kinda blah week of wrestling. Raw was blah. Dynamite was blah. Smackdown was blah. Backlash was blah. I guess I'll see what goes on with Raw tonight....but with it almost being summer and the weather being nicer, I won't be caring as much unless something more interesting starts happening.

Raw’s card is actually stacked for once with all the KOTR matches. If the matches get good time, it could be a great show.

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With the exception of Sheamus, Natalya and Kofi/Mysterio, this KotR is the era of NXT.


WWE let Jerry Lawler's contract expire. Just one more time I'd like to hear him and JR call a match together. Definitely don't need it on a weekly basis again, just once for nostalgia purposes.

Damn good match with Ricochet and Ilja Dragunov. It's been a couple years since I've enjoyed a Ricochet match for more than the one or two flippy dippy spots you know he'll always squeeze in.

Taking my boys to our first live wrestling show, this weeks AEW Dynamite. I haven't been watching as much AEW recently so not sure what is really going on but excited to see what it's like live. I forgot they tape live though so it's at 4:30 pacific, hopefully I can beat the traffic up to Everett.

Awesome. Hope you all have a great time. I thought about grabbing a ticket for it in Winnipeg a few weeks ago....but the ones I wanted to see weren't coming so I passed (Mercedes, Ospreay, etc).

Had a good time. Was interesting to see how it all plays out live. I’m not sure how it appeared on TV but the crowd was loud. Kind of expected though with local guys Danielson and Strikeland on the card and Darby Allen making an appearance. Like any live sports it lost a little from TV, namely during the promos. Where our seats were it made it hard to understand what was being said due to the acoustics. After the show went off Danielson gave a pretty good speech about the support he had had from Washington and how he felt like he was Washington’s wrestler but he thinks that mantle is now in the hands of Allen. Sounds like he won’t be around much longer.

Was funny to see my oldest sons face when Moné was put through the tables.

beavis wrote:


This happened when I saw SmackDown back in February. If you listened carefully enough you could understand most of what was being said in the in-ring promos, but I recall one specific backstage segment with R-Truth and Dirty Dom that aired on the TitanTron and was nearly impossible to hear in the arena. It made me think maybe those people that chant "What?" aren't just trying to troll but they really can't hear what's being said.

Heading out in a little bit to run some errands before heading to the Coliseum for Raw. Only three matches listed so far, but I'm looking forward to them. GUNTHER vs Jey could really go either way. I don't plan to watch KotR so I don't care who wins, I just expect to be entertained.

If Jey beats Gunther, burn the building down.

That main event, and the whole Yeet shtick with the entrance and all the signs in the crowd made me realize he's probably not winning before the bell rang. He's too over, KotR feels like it would be beneath him. If GUNTHER's IC title reign had to end, it should have been Jey to do it, not Sami. Put some singles gold on him now.

Random shoutings of "Yeet" and "Yeeeah" were outnumbering the random "Wooo" throughout the crowd, both in the arena and waiting in line outside. This feels less like Flair Country these days, it's a new generation and I love to see it. Out with the old, especially when the "old" is a nasty, perverted, creep like Flair. How many NDAs do you think he's had to have women sign that keep him off the sex offender registry for so long? There's just way too many stories about him out there.

Anyway, kinda disappointed in the merch booth. I wanted a Yeet shirt, but they only had the white one. Wearing white goes against everything I believe in. There were only about a dozen t-shirts to pick from anyway, and 5 slots were taken up by people who had zero chance of showing up tonight (LA Knight, Cody, John Cena and The Rock). No merch for Drew, Damage CTRL, LWO or Judgment Day.

Oh yeah and Pat McAfee had the crowd sing Happy Birthday to Michael Cole. His birthday is in December, but apparently Pat does this every week during commercial break.

And I got to see an InSane Elbow in person, can check that one off the ol' bucket list.

Oh yeah I wanted to mention the match with Sami and Chad Gable, and the match with Iyo Sky and Lyra Valkyria, they seemed to be a good length. I don't know how many commercial breaks they went through, but under Vince they probably would've been lucky to be long enough to last through one break. It made it feel like the KotR matches actually matter for once. Maybe I was too easily dismissive of the KotR stuff by saying it was beneath Jey Uso, because it has been a long time since it felt like a big deal, and it didn't exactly do anything for the careers of Zelina Vega or Xavier Woods when they each won it.

Speaking of Xavier Woods, that reminds me there was no merch for The New Day either. And the pop they got when they appeared on the TitanTron, it wasn't as loud as I was expecting. Maybe they're going to finally let this thing die off, because that act has been stale for years.

I love the New Day, I’d just like them to get actual crap to do. It’s stale because the company doesn’t do anything substantial with them. Threw Kofi the pity title reign (that he desperately deserved, and that should have lasted longer), then it was right back to the status quo. I’d take them over friggin Bron Breakker any day of the week.

That dude is boring as lead paint.

Lyra/Iyo and Sami/Gable ruled very hard though. Happy that it looks like Gable is gonna start getting some recognition.

I was bored of Breakker for a bit in NXT, but pairing him up with Corbin got me interested in both of them again. He's only mid-20s, still plenty of time to learn and grow as he goes. Kofi and Xavier have both peaked imo, at least as far as what they can still do as a tag team. They had a good run throwing pancakes around, breaking Demolition's title reign, even got their own cereal out of it, but where else is there to go if they don't split up? Without Big E I view them currently the same as when The Rock went on to bigger and better things in late 1998 and The Nation disbanded but D'Lo Brown and Mark Henry just stuck around as a low mid-card act usually in the tag team division until finally splitting up and each being better off for it and having more success on their own.

It is a damn shame what happened to Kofi's title run. I'd like to think things wouldn't have played out that way if the people who are in charge now were in charge back then (unless any secretly owed a "favor" to Brock). I still want to know what the endgame was by bringing in Cain Velasquez. I know he and Brock did have that one match together which I still haven't seen, but surely they had more planned than just that.

So gosh darn badass.

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Am I missing much not watching aew. Since like company has no clear direction what it wants to after reading results after results.

@lazarro Not sure what you mean. What direction are you looking for? There are several ongoing stories and some pretty awesome character work happening right now (AEW vs the Elite, Trent/Cassidy, Willow/Mercedes, Copeland/Black, Christian/Swerve, BCG/Death Triangle etc). They’re about to re-up their TV deal with streaming content, so that seems like a good direction too. I’d say AEW has about as much direction as any other TV show and/or wrestling company, but I imagine it may come off differently if one relies on just results. AEW does feature wrestling matches for the sake of wrestling matches among their ongoing stories - I imagine this is why the results read as directionless. Lots of good wrestling matches on a wrestling show is a good thing imo.

AEW Dynamite is consistently the best pro wrestling show of the week, followed by Collision. I watch Raw/Smackdown but neither hit the spot like AEW - which of course is just a personal preference, not objective fact.

Story telling: WWE > AEW
Wreslting in ring: AEW > WWE

I prefer AEW’s storytelling to be honest. I know that’ll garner a neg from neggy magee but oh well. Sick of WWE’s spoonfed style of relaying their stories for the most part, and enjoy how AEW weaves feuds throughout different storylines.

I still enjoy my time watching WWE but overall, I don’t think they do anything better than AEW other than production. I’m not sure I’d even be watching regularly without ol’ Gunther kicking the piss out of people.

I skipped today's event like I do with all the Saudi shows (I might watch them...someday) but I watched a few clips and this crowd was fire. Once again putting most North America crowds to shame. These overseas fans blow the roof off the damn place, while all we got going for us is trolling during promos with "What?" or "This Is Awesome!" for any simple little move.

edit: Oh yeah and also saw a clip of Triple H addressing what they called a "controversial" (so, I'm guessing botched) finish to the Randy Orton and GUNTHER match. Sounds like a setup to a pointless rematch. Only GUNTHER has something to gain from it, because regardless if Randy Orton wins the rematch he still won't be KotR as Triple H said the ref's decision is final. If GUNTHER wins the rematch he'll be KotR and now have bragging rights that he has two wins over Randy Orton. That said, I guess it's good that they're addressing it if it was something not planned (I haven't seen it), because I feel like in the past they would have ignored it and moved on.

Truthfully didn't even realize King and Queen of the Ring was yesterday, let alone that it was a Saudi show.

It's nice that King/Queen of the Ring actually means something now with a title match at Summerslam....which is apparently upgrading to 2 nights someday. Much better than just getting a stupid crown and a lame gimmick for a year. Too bad Nia Jax won. She's less interesting than watching paint dry. Her only thing is being fat.

It kinda feels like the 'Horsewomen' have transitioned into transitional champions. I'm not sure when the last time one of them had a successful defense, other than Bayley. Charlotte and Becky seem to take it long enough for someone to take it away.

Liv winning was a good decision. Becky No belts is drab. She should hold onto it til Rhea comes back for sure.

Onto AEW....seems they have a big event tonight. Not sure how I feel about what happens other than the things that aren't a promoted part of the show. Mercedes and Will winning their matches seems like a done deal....but they're mid titles.....so......who really cares?? Neither of them needs those belts to sell tickets. Willow and Strong aren't much without them.

Serena winning the belt is a must. The chunky chick with it now is boring.

I think there are some other 'Who cares what happens?" matches going on tonight, too. Pockets McGhee against the guy who can't win a match no matter what, the guy who lost to Adam "I should have stayed retired 15 years ago" Copeland gets a world title match for some reason (Rankings system FTW), and the grungy old fart, Copeland sending Malakai back to WWE match so he can run the House of Meh. They'll turn on him faster than Judgment Day did.

The Team AEW (not the lineup that's going to beat the Bucks and Okada)....need to wait for Omega to come back for this to matter.

Other things.....

Mariah May should be doing something to make herself stand out. She has the most generic look in wrestling and I doubt anyone would recognize her if she wandered past them in a mall. Her mat work is top notch...but her look is forgettable. Anna Jay should be getting a crazy push but she needs to start liking Canada.

Jay White needs a real stable. The Gunns suck. Even that guy with the weird hair was better.

Pac might be the most talented guy on the roster but they seem to like him to lose for some reason.

AEW needs a punch in the nuts. Hoping the 'multitude of surprises' TK is yipping about includes some important returns such as Baker, Cole, Lee, MJF, Hayter, and Guevara.

Card looks great, can't wait for the show. Buy-In is on now.

MJF back with a wonderful promo.

No great option to watch live up here so following on X off and on. Lots of trolls on there whining about the Deeb/Storm match. Depressing. Storm is very capable, if a bit dull. Deeb is awesome.

MJF is back, Cole is back, and the guy with the weird hair is back....TK is making some headway. Needs to put the belt on Serena tonight.

Deeb/Storm was awesome but Toni looked to get legit rocked midway through and looked a little out of it for a minute or so. Of course people will whine about it. That's wrestling fandom for ya.

Watched both today -- Double or Nothing was better than Saudi show.

lmao somebody really hates when somebody likes AEW in this thread. Sorry brother!

AEW International Title Match
Roderick Strong (w/Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) (c) vs. Will Ospreay
.75

(MJF return - )

AEW World Trios Title / ROH World Six Man Tag Team Title Match
Bang Bang Gang (Austin Gunn, Colten Gunn & Jay White) (c) vs. Death Triangle (PAC, Penta El Zero Miedo & Rey Fenix) (w/Alex Abrahantes)
.5

AEW Women's World Title Match
Toni Storm (w/Luther & Mariah May) (c) vs. Serena Deeb


Singles Match
Orange Cassidy vs. Trent Beretta


FTW Title Three Way Match
Chris Jericho (c) vs. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hook
.5

IWGP World Heavyweight Title Eliminator Match
Jon Moxley vs. Konosuke Takecrapa (w/Don Callis)


AEW TNT Title Barbed Wire Steel Cage Match
Adam Copeland (c) vs. Malakai Black
.5

AEW TBS Title Match
Willow Nightingale (w/Kris Statlander & Stokely Hathaway) (c) vs. Mercedes Mone
.25

AEW World Title Match
Swerve Strickland (w/Prince Nana) (c) vs. Christian Cage (w/Killswitch, Nick Wayne & Shayna Wayne)


Anarchy In The Arena Match
FTR (Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood), Bryan Danielson & Darby Allin vs. The Elite (Jack Perry, Kazuchika Okada, Matthew Jackson & Nicholas Jackson)
.25

While I don't regret getting Fight Forever, I do regret getting the most expensive version. Now that it is the PS Plus game of the month for June, it puts a little more salt in the wound. Hopefully that will get a few more eyes on the game so they can put some effort into the CAW, but I'm not buying any of the DLC till it goes on sale.

Didn't see that coming.
edit: used spoiler tags just in case because the show hasn't even ended yet.