General

Rock/Roman would be fun... if it didn't derail the clear narrative WWE was setting up for 2 years. Just such a try hard move designed to gain good will back... but entirely backfired. Not fun and if Rock/Roman is the main event for WM40 -- woof.

As for twitter... a lot of it sucks, but there's still some fun crap on there. I'm on there & tbh have no idea what the Angle meme is lol. I dunno, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy keeping up with the day-to-day from time-to-time. I still don't know how the storylines are playing out or anything, I just see what the business is going through. I just think that Khan's posts are funny, and that WWE's known morally bankrupt practices are getting more and more difficult for them to cover up.

PWInsider did post about Ogawa though: https://pwinsider.com/article/180007/stardom-found...

Rock/TKO for sure have their work cut out for them. Off to a goofy start but let's hope it leads to some sort of culture shift.

I'd say re-shuffle the cards, we still have plenty of time before WrestleMania. They want the title off of Seth so he can heal his knee. Originally that was supposed to be CM Punk's job until he got hurt too, so just let Drew do it and have him finally get to be champ with real fans in the arenas until CM Punk returns and beats him.

Let Cody have his match with Roman back and if ol' Rocky must be involved, let him be the special guest ref, or make it a damn triple threat (I hope they don't go that route though). I'll be at SmackDown on Friday and I hope The Rock shows up and I hope the crowd boo's the heck out of him. The last time I was a fan of his was during his heel run back in 2003, so I would've been boo'ing him this week anyway, just now I hope I'm not alone.

I'll be honest though, I, like most people, did look at Seth's title as the "runner-up trophy" of the two brands' world titles since the day they revealed it. But Seth's promo on Raw last week kind of sold me on it. If I was Cody, I would take that match into consideration even though he wanted Roman's title last year.

I was just playing some RetroMania Wrestling for the first time in a while and have to say, it’s a great extension of the old 90s 2D wrestling games. I just with they stayed true to the promise of extending the roster. I think only Chris Bey was released and that was like… over a year ago.

Oh well, still a fun time to pick up and play once in a while.

dracula wrote:

Not showing up

I’ll try again

dracula wrote:

Still not showing up correctly, but also still pretty gross.

It’s only mud. This time

Oh crap, it's real!
https://shop.wwe.com/en/mens-fanatics-branded-blac...

lmao rare wrestling merch W

Ugh, fans clearly give zero craps about this match. Kairi with botch after botch... Just end it.

I'm sorry, I just cannot bring myself to care about Cody vs Drew. Just a pitstop before Cody vs Seth at Mania, which is still the incorrect direction to take.

Raw was a lot of nothing tonight.

I was watching Shrek the other day and now that's what I hear when McIntyre talks

theJaw wrote:


I'm kinda just learning to get over it. I think they're really pushing to have Roman Reigns surpass Hulk Hogan's title reign, so regardless if it's Cody or The Rock, Roman will not be getting beaten until SummerSlam at the earliest. If that is indeed the route they're going, I don't want to see Cody losing two years in a row. If it's not the route they're going, I also don't want to see The Rock win either way. If he was going to lose to make Roman look stronger it should have been last year. In fact, The Bloodline storyline was so hot last year I wouldn't have been surprised if there were a decent chunk of the crowd cheering on Roman and booing The Rock. That might still happen this year actually...or the Philly crowd just craps on them both like MSG did to Brock and Goldberg.

It for sure doesn't affect me on a personal level or anything haha, I just think it's awful storytelling and, once again, makes it difficult to care what WWE does. It's pro wrestling -- Mick Foley said it best: nobody cares about numbers or records, they care about moments. I don't care what records Roman beats, so arbitrarily keeping his run going for that reason alone just makes it even more obnoxious from my POV.

They told a (pretty okay) story for 2 years regarding Cody and his goal, and very blatantly set it up to climax at WM40 when they had Cody win the Rumble and vehemently call out Roman during his celebration. I understand the lawsuit/Punk injury changed things up -- but Roman and Cody are still right there. They could have easily built a card around that main event still happening... but, instead, we get The Rock. Which just won't be an interesting match to watch. On a "spectacle" level, it's not nearly the same as Hogan/Rock... it's not even on the same level as Rock/Cena. It's just that Rock and Roman are related. Take that with the fact that the actual WRESTLING will likely be tempered by the fact that Rock could barely make it through WM28 or 29 over a decade ago and... yah, just doesn't interest me in the slightest.

I dunno, nothing about it does anything for me. It doesn't upset me or anything, I don't even think about it when I'm not actively talking wrestling, but it just kinda stinks that I don't have an interesting main event to look forward to at the biggest show of the year -- and most likely solely because WWE wants to pivot focus from the McMahon situation. Ah well though, that's just how the cookie crumbles for a lifelong WWE fan haha

So I wonder if this Rock thing is a work. If it is then it is legit genius. If it isn’t, yea still sucks. If they reverse script and turn it to a work at least they are smart.

I’ve seen the “work” idea posted online, but I don’t even see how it being a work would be genius tbh. They bring the Rock in to detour from the established story for, what? A month tops? What good does that do?

If the story reverts back to Cody/Reigns, it’s course correction. When Rock showed up on Smackdown, that was 100% the direction they wanted to go.

I mean it does drive huge organic buy in to Cody. It also sets up something similar to Daniel Bryan back in 14 if they do a three way. I don’t know, maybe I’m just looking for the sense in all of it haha

Cody already has organic buy in from fans. He is right there and all he needed/needs is for the Roman match to happen and he wins at Mania. If Roman is going to break the Hogan record then Cody shouldn’t have won the Rumble and they shouldn’t have built to it with teases and staredowns. If literally anyone else won the Rumble this would be a moot point and we’d all probably not have as much dislike for Dwayne at this point. I appreciate looking for sense in a nonsensical situation though haha

I watched Alvarez and Meltzer discuss it, Meltzer does say it is a work and has been "for a while". In a separate video he said The Rock's WrestleMania match was part of his deal with TKO.

I'm not one to hate Meltzer like a lot of other folks -- I tend to enjoy seeing his star ratings even if I disagree with them a lot of the time. It's fun to see people with different opinions on matches as long as it's not weird like the Twitter folk. That said, I'm far more inclined to believe his reports on AEW than WWE. It seems he's always very wishy washy with WWE news these days -- likely from years of guys like Prichad getting mad that he used to learn stuff so easily.

Regardless, if it's a work just to get Cody back into the main event, it's super silly. Cody isn't benefiting from it one way or the other. He already had the ground swell of support and is easily the most over pure babyface WWE has produced in years -- with Sami Zayn being the runner-up. But in Sami's case, it was clear the story they were building for him was the "tragedy" in Roman's WWE title reign. He was the "Red Wedding" for that story, always meant to be the martyr in that scenario -- and it was played perfectly. Cody was legitimately groomed (for lack of a better term) to be Roman's downfall the second he showed back up at WM38 and even more so following Rumble 2023. So this isn't a Bryan Danielson situation, where Cody NEEDED to rely on a "movement" because the company didn't want to push him -- he was pushed as the ultimate babyface... then Rock showed back up. Tale as old as time. Manufacturing a goofy Cody movement would be redundant.

Unless they have Cody come out and look like a dork who just suddenly changed his mind, the route for him getting back to Roman would need to pan out one of two ways: 1) A triple threat to mirror WMXX and WMXXX. Roman/Rock/Cody, or 2) Rock vs Roman for Night 1, and Roman vs Cody for Night 2. Either situation would need to be initiated by our lord and savior Rock as to not make Cody look like an idiot, and either would only make the WHC/Rollins' great reign seem even MORE secondary. But they've already fudgeed the WWE title scenario up so ridiculously that they HAVE to be considering one of those two options. If it's Cody vs. Seth and Rock vs Roman... that's disappointing.

I've seen fans saying that for the icing on the cake of if Cody were to beat Roman, it should happen at Madison Square Garden. I have no idea if there are any PLEs taking place there in the near future. It's too small for a WreslteMania though, they'd probably have to make it a 7 night event to compare to the type of money they make from the huge stadiums they book it at now.

Scott D’Amore is out of TNA. Appears to be some sort of corporate reshuffle from what I’ve been reading. Nothing else really to report on that. It sucks too since TNA has had upward momentum for the first time in forever.

Saw that earlier. That could prove to be one of the more tone-deaf decisions from Anthem regarding TNA. The guy who brought the brand back to prominence is ousted as soon as the rebrand takes place. I feel like something must have happened behind closed doors to lead to that decision, like an argument or creative differences or something.

Might be a triple threat at Mania:

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1755656070515548662...

Rock was on Pat McAfee saying something about "Cody crybabies". I guess it will be made official today whenever that press conference is. I don't really want to see a triple threat match, but it could be fun if Rock is in heel mode.

I've only ever enjoyed The Rock as a heel, but this is just one scenario where it doesn't make sense.

Well, nothing about The Rock challenging for the title at WM makes sense lol. Anyway, I thought Cody posted that after Rock said that, but it was apparently before. Maybe they're just trying to get people interested in seeing the press conference tonight. Guess we'll see.

With Cody Tweeting the other day telling his fans to "just wait", I'm ready to pump the brakes a little and see just how this all plays out and I am convinced they have something big planned in the long run and we just have to hope it all pays off in the end. The Rock wouldn't have been my first choice to shoehorn into this, but I'm not going to not watch because of it. I'm impressed the Cody crybabies are backing this guy so hard, with 5 out of the top 10 best selling merch in the WWE Shop right now being occupied by Cody shirts (R-Truth and LA Knight bumped completely off the list) I don't think they are that clueless to just abandon all plans for Cody just because TKO worked out a deal with The Rock.

If Rock's heeling it up, then I have to imagine Cody inserts himself into the Rock/Roman situation to make it a 3 way, or somehow forces his title match for Night 2 and the Rock/Roman match for Night 1.

I dunno, but Rock playing a heel does make the angle sit a little better as long as Cody gets back involved... even if it does feel like a gut reaction to appease how annoyed the fans got.

I guess we find out in about 10 minutes. Here's the link for the stream on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ7MzwRPFgY

Cody talks crap about Roman/Reigns family, takes the match from the Rock, Rock says he is still involved and will back his family as a special guest referee, match starts, great back and forth, couple of close finishes, Cody hits finisher, Rock slow counts, glass breaks, IT'S STONE COLD HES GOT A CHAIR/WHYs HE GOT A REFREE UNIFORM, hits Rock over head, Cody hits finish, Stone Cold fair counts, match's end, beer is thrown and drank.

My prediction

Had to end the press conference with some Jerry Springer crap. Probably going the triple threat route. How'd they get us to sit through an hour of that and still not give a definitive answer?

It did its job, though. I'm a heck of a lot more interested in this now than I was before.

I almost feel like it’s gonna result in a Rock/Roman vs Cody/Seth tag match to echo the first WrestleMania. Kind of a cool idea and would probably be a fun match, but still doesn’t “finish the story.”

But Cole just confirmed that Rhodes’ decision to choose Roman tonight makes Rhodes/Reigns official despite everyone having no idea what’s going on.

Rock then jaw jacked at Triple H backstage and it looked like Triple H was gonna rip his head off. If Triple H can get cleared for one more match, that’d be a fun route to take.

But yah I don’t know… I appreciated the promo work between the 4 tonight, but it’s still a mess and no real answers were delivered.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Same. I wonder who Seth will face now.

theJaw wrote:


Sounded like ol' Rocky forgot they're TV-PG now.

Haha, added a nice little sense of realism to the whole thing. Despite it all still being a mess, I do enjoy this temperamental, overly defensive Rock character. That's sorta what makes me feel like it's going to be more of a tag situation between Rock and Roman, if anything. They came off more united than adversarial, which doesn't make for a great 1 on 1 match.

Triple H said something about people going into business for themselves, and then Rock told him to fix it or he will. I guess they're going to use his position on the TKO board to make it seem more "real". (Someone on the panel mentioned it as well.)

Anyway, Triple H said it was official on Twitter... Reigns vs Cody at WM. We'll see what they actually end up doing, but it is intriguing.

Well it’s still wonky, but it’s better than it was. I’m intrigued.

With them actually mentioning The Rock being on the board (I don't think they had mentioned that on-air previously), I hope it could eventually lead to a Team Corporate-era Rocky return, showing up in expensive outfits again, instead of tank tops with whatever his current silly catchphrase of the week is, and forbidding the crowd to sing-along with the champ.

A hybrid of that and Hollywood Rock could kick ass.