General

Yeah, I'd also like to see him get another run with the title with fans actually able to attend to see it this time. I'm not sure how he'd fit into the title picture now though. Roman is back to being a part-timer and isn't even booked for Backlash, and the fans seem way more behind Cody chasing after the title, not sure if they'd accept him being pushed aside for someone else right now. Even with the IC title, I don't want Gunther to drop it to Drew either.

I'm all for keeping both show's world titles unified into one (and they need to do it with the womens titles too, that division doesn't justify having two titles because it's always the same women challenging for them), but when you give it to part-timers like Brock or Roman it's hard to avoid crap like this where you get people unhappy.

Yah I wouldn't strap Drew up anytime soon, but I'd like him to stick around long enough for that happen. Can't blame him for being unhappy though.

Also, this sucks. Good vibes for Sabu:
https://twitter.com/wrestlelamia/status/1644763165...

How long do you think it'll take for Vince to realize there isn't a 24/7 title anymore?

Lol shh, don’t jinx it.

Apparently 50% of the Raw roster aren’t in Seattle yet due to traveling issues and rewrites had to happen. How tf does that happen unless they were all traveling together haha

Looks like AEW’s launching a new 2-hour Saturday night weekly show “AEW Collision”. Apparently the first episode will be June, and rumors suggest it’ll be CM Punk’s “home” show. This is accompanied by rumors that Tony Khan & AEW are considering a “soft roster split” in the coming months. Aka “both shows share the roster but Collision will focus on the folks who actually get along with CM Punk” haha. Just a joke/my guess of course, the Collision trademark was filed a while back to be fair, so this would have happened with or without the Punk of it all haha

I’m down to see how it pans out. Despite all the goofy drama, I still wanna see The Elite and Punk on AEW programming and if this is the safest way to do it, so be it.

You guys see this outrage over a pic Ric Flair had Tweeted and now deleted? That dude is so full of himself to even post something like that.

Yah I saw that. Flair seems fairly out of his mind these days. Poor Mongo, man.

I didn’t see it. What happened?

He posted a photo, all smiles, with Mongo McMichael’s wife. The issue being that they were standing right beside Mongo, laid out on his hospital-style bed, looking like a lifeless husk. In no way does he even somewhat resemble the Mongo of the 90s, and it was real sad to see. To be fair, Flair’s caption was calling Mongo strong and whatnot, but it’s just classless to post anybody in that state the way he did.

That sounds scummy as crap. I’m sure Conrad told him it would be a good idea to take it down or something. I don’t think he would think to take it down himself.

i sort of getting tired of the bloodline storyline all i am gonna say sooner or later the group is gonna have to be broken up. No one wants to see Reigns be champs forever.

As to bloodline and judgement day joining forces on RAW it is what it is. Would have been a good program to feud judgment day with bloodline.

As for the draft doubt it will change must creative (having bloodline beat up people evry week is getting way stale)

Anyway juts my opinion

The whole Riddle/Judgement Day aspect of the Bloodline angle just reeks of “spinning tires”. There’s nothing interesting there anymore, so they’re just throwing everything at the Bloodline hoping something sticks to fill time each week.

I might not be the biggest fan of Cody, but he does deserve a title run, and I do expect he will get one, but I don't know when. I would not have been disappointed if he had won at WrestleMania. I would expect something major for WrestleMania 40 (40th anniversary, and they should have that merger all settled up by then), and if Roman is going to drop the title, it should be at a WrestleMania, but I don't want he and Cody headlining two years in a row.

This past WrestleMania was maybe not the right time for Cody to get that match. Fans would have ate it up had he won, but obviously he didn't. Over the course of his career he accomplished a lot, but so far since returning to the company there's still a lot more story to tell. What he's done so far was have a few (really good) matches with Seth Rollins, then spent about 6 months on the injured list, came back to win the Royal Rumble and go straight to the world title. It just would have looked too easy.
It's also a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for the booker. Clearly people are upset he didn't win, but if he had won there'd be jabronis on Twitter whining that he had the match handed to him.

Those jabronis can take a hike and shouldn't be the ones catered to. I offer a disclaimer before this post: I enjoy Roman Reigns. I like his wrestling, I like his character, I dig his vibe. I acknowledge he's a great focal point for WWE, and I still like the faction of the Bloodline itself. So please know that this isn't some weird anti-WWE, "push my guy" stance haha

That said, I wouldn't have seen it as "damned if you do" if they had Cody win at WrestleMania 39. It would have been a satisfying pay off. It would have been putting the world title on a new, white hot face. They built the Bloodline for 3 years. At no point did it seem like any one was a true threat to Roman until WM39, and that was literally by design. WWE made sure that was the case. They placed all the pieces in their respective spots to finally pay off this exquisitely built angle because, yes, despite the common WWE creative direction, stories CAN end. And they literally built a perfect ending, to the point that "finish your story" was practically a catchphrase by the time the match came along. And then... they didn't pull the trigger. They let the expiration date run out, and with Reigns missing from weekly TV, they're now just letting the story get old.

It's just a shame because they didn't let the story get old a single time for 3 years, which isn't common for modern WWE, and now they're just reverting back to the "same old same old" to get Reigns to 1,000 days. It's a big oof.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

This particular argument honestly annoys me, just because I've seen it a bunch lately. No offense of course, just a difference in opinion. It's just that winning the Rumble would have been MORE than enough to justify a title win at Mania in ANY other year, so I don't understand why it's being downplayed this year just to give WWE's booking a pass. Batista won the rumble in 2005, then won the title at WM21... did that look too easy? Mysterio in 2006. Austin in 98. Triple H in 2002. And so on, and so forth. It's happened countless times. In my opinion, it wouldn't have seemed "too easy" if Rhodes won the title after winning the Rumble.

But just on top of that, the whole "adversity" argument is so ridiculous. Rhodes has easily faced more adversity in his career than most dudes in his spot. Dusty's whole "hard times" promo was about overcoming REAL LIFE hard times, not just the hard times imposed on your character by a team of lackluster writers.

Cody's adversity:
-Is regulated to midcard for his entire initial WWE run.
-Is given a knockoff Goldust gimmick just to fill time.
-Leaves WWE to forge his own path and build his own name, a lot like his father.
-Travels the globe for years, winning world titles and building his "star" along the way.
-Helps found the second biggest wrestling company in the US, and build a genuine fanbase for that brand.
-Returns to WWE, to an all-time WrestleMania pop.
-Has 3 straight wins over one of WWE's top guys.
-Injures himself, battles through that, then rehabs that serious injury for months upon months.
-Returns, wins the Rumble (which, again, is commonly enough to justify a title win at Mania).
-Is the one guy to get Owens and Zayn to reconcile after years of being enemies, FINALLY GIVING US THE STEENERICO REUNION WE ALL WANTED! (Don't count WrestleMania 34 season pls).

Rhodes should have been booked to win at WrestleMania 39. It was the time to solidify a new top guy in WWE, it was time to end the Bloodline angle. Folks keep saying that Rhodes would have no story to tell if he had won, but he's literally feuded with ONE other guy other than Reigns (until now, with Brock), so just about ANY angle following his hypothetical title win at WM39 would have been fresh story to tell. Roman as champion is the dude with no story to tell unless they sack up and put him against Gunther. Otherwise, it's just spinning tires until he finally drops the belt to whoever. He's gone through any credible member of the roster already. Rhodes should have won at Mania.

Meanwhile, AEW needs to get out of this "pillars" feud between MJF, Jungle Boy, Darby Allin & Sammy Guevara. It doesn't hit for me at all, and it's rough that it's the current World title angle. It feels painfully like just a road bump for MJF's title reign... the other 3 guys don't touch him, over-wise.

Just on a surface level, the "pillars" label doesn't make sense. The whole “pillar” term is based off the “Four Pillars of Heaven” of All Japan: Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada, & Taue. 4 established, iconic dudes who came together to form something special. For as great as Darby, Perry & Sammy are... they're not even close to the pillars of AEW.

In my opinion, these are the 4 Pillars of AEW:

-Kenny Omega. The most over guy across the globe, and also in the US, who was never featured consistently on national wrestling TV.
-Chris Jericho. One of THE most over guys in the history of pro wrestling itself. A living legend before AEW was even conceived.
-Jon Moxley. The heart of AEW, and the spark who ignited it from his surprise debut at the first PPV and carried the company when they needed.
-Cody Rhodes. The "WWE guy" who brought star power and legitimacy to the promotion.

MJF can take Cody's spot if he's DQed now haha

I agree, if anyone should be calling themselves the pillars of the company it's the 4 you named. I don't think I'd even have Jungle Boy or Sammy in the discussion

i like AEW in some aspects

The MJF angle being champion is a bore reminds when brock was champion and rarely did any show appearnces

i like the idea of the blackpool club or whatever it is called gives the company a new heel group.

That being said what ever happened to dark order seems like they been buried not appearing much hopefully when the third show comes out they can be used more. I do like the idea of a third show as long as fans would watch the show.

As for CM Punk coming back and elite not wanting to wrestle or be around him, ill leave that alone. I do like the fact The elite are faces now though.

RIP to Xavier Woods' 2 year undefeated streak, courtesy of GUNTHER. I'm mostly watching tonight with the volume off, so I don't know if they acknowledged his streak at all or if they worried it might detract from Roman's so they chose not to make a big deal about it.
Granted, the streak wasn't a big deal at all as he's only had 12 singles matches since 2021. 🤫

getting tired of bloodline beating down people

im gonna have to go back on not watching wwe for awhile or just watch nxt

this repeated crap serves nothing but draw their dominance out longer storywise than it should.

Finally caught up on this week's NXT. I'm really hoping Regal's kid has a bright future ahead of him. I also hope he has even half the charisma of his old man. I don't think he has gotten to show much of that yet.

Lol jesus

image

So...apparently CM Punk is backstage at Raw tonight. Did Hell freeze over?

He was backstage. Allegedly, he and Miz cleared the air and he also saw Trips for a couple. He was asked to leave, which he did.

All from PWInsider. Well, the Elite section/behind the paywall.

Well if he's gonna bury the hatchet with The Miz, maybe there is still hope he and Colt Cabana can kiss and make up someday and become BFFs again like the old days.

I hope this ain't some "finding Jesus" thing, but good on him for trying to patch things up. Hopefully Corey Graves was on that list of people he talked with too.

Recent reports have suggested that Tony Khan may not be 100% into bringing Punk back, so a visit to Raw could be the exact seed that needed planting for an eventual WWE return once his AEW contract expires. I’d rather an AEW return, where he could wrestle his style match with more guys who have a style that meshes, but nothing would surprise me at this point.

I don’t know why Tony wouldn’t be salivating at the idea of bringing Punk back. He moves merch and makes them money and brings in ratings. Unless he’s not into it because of the whole Brawl Out thing still, in which case everyone needs to get in a room and hash it out to the point of being able to work together. He also needs something big for Wembley and he has no bigger star than Punk.

Not sure how I feel about another title. Sorry, but I'm still going to view Roman's title as the "real" world title and this one is just going to feel secondary.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I missed whatever you’re referencing. What happened?

Ohhhh I just saw. 1) Becoming a world champion without defeating Reigns is fudging pointless. A consolation prize. 2) Plastering the usual WWE advertisement on top of the classic Big Gold belt design is aaaaawwwful.

Talk about a stupid move on so many levels. It’s also fudging hideous.

They have 2 world titles already, yet refuse to take them off Reigns (even when they set up the perfect opportunity to). So… let’s just introduce a new world title…?

So friggin goofy. The awful design is just the piss-flavored cherry on top.

I didn't like the design at first, but it's already growing on me the more I'm seeing pics of it. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction at least, because the current ones they have (women's titles too) look like cheap toys rather than championship titles that should be taken seriously.

They should let whoever designed the NXT UK titles have a crack at it, because those titles looked way more "professional" and important than any current NA promotion's titles.

But beyond the design of it, it's still going to feel like a secondary title, imo. They spent far too long building up Roman Reigns as this unstoppable force, so this new guy winning a title without having to beat him for it, who cares? It's not going to feel like the titles are equal to each other, Roman's is the "real" title.

Yeah it’s a good way to make a World Champion inferior to the real champion. It’s going to be the same as it was when they used Big Gold as a separate World title. Roman is on last and the real main event for the real title, and the World title will be held by fudging Mansoor or something.

Whatever they're doing to crown the new champ (I hope it's more than a tournament or battle royal) it had better not be Cody that wins it because it's going to feel like his "story" was wasted. My first thought when Triple H unveiled the title was "I hope this wasn't meant for Cody."

That would be a terrible way to make him a champion. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did it, especially if they’re going down that Jey Uso road I still think they’re headed toward.

I would hate Cody to win the “world” title that way. Failing against the actual, defending world champion only to win the Intercontinental V2 as a consolation. No thanks… but yah I could also see that happening.

They are still having scenes between jey and Sammi. Hopefully a good payoff comes soon.

WWE seems like a train wreck. We have 2 world titles but we put them on one guy and don't want to split them. Let's make a 3rd world title!

Put the new championship on Gunther.. let him bring legitimacy to it.. or have him beat Reigns for his.. he deserves it..
Should we start taking bets on who wins the new championship??

I think it'd be better to bet on how many years before they just unify this new one with the others to make the Undisputed Unified WWE World Heavyweight Championship that they'll then need to have exist alongside ANOTHER new world title for the folks they don't want to have beat the real world champion.