Where has this Iyo been for the past 8 months? It feels like it was her first title defense. Has she defended it before? She's amazing. I'd basically written her off a long time ago as someone that was good at being a nothing champion.
Word is Giulia has now signed with WWE and will start in NXT shortly. She's another import I'm really not familiar with other than seeing her name in various ratings and dropped here and there. I guess I've got some youtubing to do when I get a few quiet minutes.
Disappointed Drew lost the title before tomorrow. Hopefully he's sticking around and not leaving. His work the past several months has been incredible.
Priest as WHC is ok, too, though. He's put in the clicks. I guess it's time for Imperium to get back to feuding with Judgment Day. Gunther vs Priest in Berlin?
Was interesting that the Bucks and Omega were featured during the Cody preamble for WM.
I'm wondering if this recent back and forth between AEW and WWE is a work and they're plotting something together. Plenty of mention of names such as Jericho, Banks, Edge, etc over and during Wrestlemania. Never would have happened with Vince around...CM Punk insults Tony by saying he's a nice guy. Stone has been thrown.
I don't know if Giulia has signed with WWE yet, but it's definitely happening. I know they brought her in for a try-out around 6 months ago, but since then Rossy got booted out of Stardom and last I heard is she will be sticking around to help him build up a name for his new promotion as a favor to him. The new promotion is expected to be up and running by this summer.
A lot of the broads from Stardom are loyal to Rossy, not to Stardom as a company, so by giving him the boot, that company is about to become the craps. 5 of the more known women (including Giulia) have left to go with Rossy and more have announced they will not be re-signing when their deals are up. It is looking very likely WWE and Rossy's promotion will form a partnership of some sort and I couldn't be more excited.
No fudgein crap. She pulled it out. Bayley/Iyo became the second best match of the show, right behind Gunther/Zayn. Her title reign was booked fudging terribly. Props to Iyo though, she did her best.
Predictions for RAW tonight? 1) Who debuts from NXT/Random signings? 2) Who does Gunther go after, Rhodes or Priest? Whichever he chooses (Probably Priest), who will face the latter? 3) Does Gable cash in on his favor? 4) First challengers for Raw tag titles? DIY/Pretty Deadly? 5) Will Reigns/Rollins/Drew/Rock/Drew come out and address crowd? 6) Will we get a new challenger for Ripley? 7) Any other big announcements?? New Belts (like woman's intercontinental belt or Cruiserweight belt comes back?) 8) Will woman's tag belts FINALLY be challenged by maybe Jade/Bianca/Naomi combo?
For the first time in a long time, I'm actually interested in the direction WWE is going...
1) Random signings...there's usually one anyway. I can't think of any free agents they'd be interested in...unless MJF actually made the jump, but I doubt it. I could see some people coming back who've been off for awhile like Strowman, etc. Possibly Tyler Rotunda.
2) They kinda already started some friction between Judgment Day and Imperium so I'd expect that to start up again. I've got nothing for Cody...probably do the open challenge crap for awhile until they figure it out....or someone turns heel.
3) Of course he does
4) Pretty Deadly being left off the card was a tragedy.
5) Maybe Drew, but I doubt it.
6) There's nobody left to challenge Ripley that could be taken seriously. Probably Liv Morgan, though.
7) Not yet
8) Are those still a thing? They haven't mattered in 2 years.
> That was a bad episode of Raw. Cody/Rock was fun though.
What was the point of the Cody/Rock thing anyhow?? It was pretty lame, and to be honest, cheesy as hell.. IT was 49 minutes long and quite honestly, could have been cut to like 15 minutes.. The best part of Raw was the Judgment Day part when R-Truth came out.. This was one of the worst post Wrestlemania Raws I've seen..
> Yup. That Bray doc fudging annihilated me. Life's too gosh darn short, fellas.
+1 to watching the Bray Wyatt documentary. Listening to his family/friends recount the day he passed was absolutely brutal. Highly recommended, but be prepared to shed at least a few tears.
On a happier note, The last 5 minutes of the Reigns vs Rhodes match was awesome. Felt like a little kid again.
I think one thing WWE does very well consistently is creates anticipation for 'what's next'. A few things will be mentioned throughout the show, a few newish feuds may start up or continue since the Wrestlemania break, and people expect to see some new faces show up. I'm sure if MJF had sauntered out there, most everyone would have been, "OMG, best Raw EVERRRRRRRRR". Some would be, "Who's this guy? New manager?" The 47 minutes of the Rock being booed wouldn't have mattered anymore. The endless recaps of Wrestlemania wouldn't have been the talking point to anyone who saw it....but he didn't, nor did anyone else of interest so the talking point is The Rock abusing his power and privilege to hijack the first hour of the show....again.
So, what people found out...
Liv Morgan is next to go after Rhea
Sheamus is coming back soon
The Draft starts in a couple weeks. NXT is involved
Cody will continue to be on Smackdown, at least until after the draft is finalized
Punk is all better and will be feuding with McIntyre imminently
Shinsuke Nakamura might as well go back to NXT, Japan, TNA, or somewhere he might get over again. I'd normally say AEW....he'd be great there, too...but he wouldn't be winning anymore than he does now.
Chad Gable is turning heel. I don't think he'll be winning the belt next week in Montreal but expect Zayn/Gable at the next PLE, where he'll go over.
Also, if everyone keeps ramming sunshine up Cody's ass, the fans are going to turn on him hard. He suddenly desperately needs a new feud soon - before Rock comes back and continues his wasting of TV time....but who could harass him that would be believable after these past few months? Also, he does cry pretty much every week. I didn't notice so much until Rock said it. It needs to stop.
From there, they leave some unanswered questions so tune into Smackdown this Friday...and they will.
I was thinking about it. I think that may have been one of the only Wrestlemania's I've actually watched live while it happened. It's also the first year since Wrestlemania began that there is a possible way to do that in Rural Manitoba without going to some public place that 'might' be airing it. It's different watching this stuff this way, rather than by my usual alternative methods after the fact with slow internet and no TV provider. Watching it all go down after you already know what the results are isn't as fun.
I guess the Rock/Cody had some good callbacks to past events, which from a storytelling standpoint is great. It didn’t play out well real time though. Rock needs to move along the dialogue, too much posterizing for the crowd.
Cody needs to lose the awshucks aspect of his character and lean into being a face champion. While he was irritating to me at the time, looking back Cena was the best at that.
> Where was the part with Tony "fearing for his life"?
>
>
Probably when Punk was walking through a table screaming at him after they got pulled apart. EDIT: My question is where was the part that triggered Punk's Silva/Sonnen reference from the interview, where he suggested he pushed Perry because he "couldn't let him get close?" Punk got directly in his face then leapt on him.
Either way, Punk's original side of the story for sure wasn't what happened. He does come off as a punk though, that's for sure.
I haven't watched Dynamite yet. I watched their Youtube clips and whatever little vids they posted on X, but those seemed to show enough about this to form the start of an opinion.
To start with, I will finally give Tony Khan his flowers. He's FINALLY promoted something about his show to get people to watch and talk about it before and after. Based on what I saw from the ringside vids, it didn't sell a ticket, but it's a start. It's unfortunate that something wasn't his own amazing roster or current events. For next week, he can start promoting that they have the video of CM Punk orchestrating 9/11 and being the reason Putin invaded Ukraine.
So....Ospreay comes out and says he got permission from Tony to address the HHH comments from last week from some podcast interview thing but only a few minutes since TV time is expensive. He goes on to say what he said...words which have never been spoken before by anyone else heavily featured and advertised later in the show. K, so, I like his energy. No real harm done here. HHH isn't brittle and the feedback his promotion has gotten speaks for itself.
They go on to continue pushing that the Bucks are going to air footage.
The Bucks eventually proceed to spend 11 minutes talking and show the vid that lines up fairly well with what Punk said on the podcast last week when asked about the situation. X had several people post them simultaneously to compare before TK had them taken down. I have no idea what that thing up there is or who it's from, but the vid and Punk's interview were consistent with what he said.
Never have I said I dislike AEW or that it exists. I've always enjoyed the promotion and the opportunities it's created for discarded talent and for talent that wants other options to, what once was for a long time, an incoherent parody of professional wrestling, overly scripted and inconsistent mess calling itself sports entertainment. The amount of talent on that roster is insane and gets even more maniacal when you look at all the injured talent that hasn't been around for awhile (Omega, MJF, Hayter, etc). It's always been new and exciting.
What I have done is criticized AEW for having crapty promotion of their product, having weak or non-existent storylines, and pushing people too much who don't deserve it and sidelining people who do.
After this fiasco - and it was a fiasco, it doesn't even look like a competitive promotion. It really looks like some billionaire's hobby. I've seen people comment that when WWE puts down something AEWish, it's fine, but when AEW does it to WWE, then it's petty and lame. I don't see it like that. What I do see is some WWE people (Punk, HHH, Grayson Waller - recently...(if you take anything he says seriously) say things on some platform of social media and then get responded to by TK, The Bucks, Copeland, Ospreay, etc directly on their flagship TV show. When you hear someone on WWE say something that even acknowledges AEW, it's typically not done during TV time....and, if it is, it sure as hell isn't advertised for a week before the show that they're going to do it as if it's the main event.
Many are saying the question to be answered is 'Why?'. The real question is, where does AEW go from here? Indications are they're turtling from the backlash - deleting vids of it on X, and being mum, hoping people will forget about it in a week or two. They will forget. It wasn't memorable. They're probably better off leaning into it. The Bucks trying to spin it into their match with FTR is weak. FTR is also good friends with Copeland and many others. Is that their next feud? Thigh slapping the Ultimate Geriatric?
I mean, at the end of the day, showing the footage was only partially to set the record straight. Punk was the aggressor, got in Perry’s face and waited until the dude had his arms up to start attacking him. He contradicted himself not only in the interview, but also in what he said happened when Fightful reached out to his camp after it happened. It’s perfectly okay to acknowledge that.
Past that, in storyline, it was the obnoxious and petty heel Bucks showing the footage to further the storyline with FTR and reintroduce the “Scapegoat” Jack Perry character, which was made blatant right from the start. It was effective in that sense.
Was it an incredible idea? No. Was it as bad as all the Punk/WWE stans or inherently anti-AEW crowd are making it out? No.
I heard that people were chanting CM Punk in the arena while it aired in there.....but the only footage I've seen so far, you can only hear one or two people doing that. I think one thing that bugs me about watching smaller shows is that you can actually distinctly hear fan's voices as if they're on commentary. On larger shows, it seems to need a lot of people in unison to be coherent.
Back to the Perry thing. Not many people are mentioning what led to the altercation. Perry going against what he was told by his mini-bosses not to use real glass for a pre-show match and damaging a rental car. Sure, Punk went up to Perry. You can see they're exchanging words. Perry appears like he doesn't care what's being said, playing with his hair and looking away. This leads to Punk, clearly getting angry, pushing him and trying to grab a hold of him. I got a kick out of Hook just kinda standing there like he didn't know what to do.
Did it add anything useful to the FTR match? FTR's thing has been that the Bucks have been ducking them. I don't think FTR and the Bucks needs it anymore than FTR and the Briscoes needed much by the third match.
You don't have to love Punk/WWE or hate AEW to look at this and think 'what the hell?'
Ospreay's promo on HHH still confuses me. He literally said he chose AEW because the schedule was light and the pay was better. His only reply about the grind, other than the lame one, was flying back and forth to the UK every week....not how he used to do 5 nights in a row regularly overseas. The schedule works better for him. The money was better. It makes sense from the being there for your family standpoint. It doesn't need anything else. He chose that. HHH comes from a gen that worked the roads and grind driving town to town. TK didn't and his universe is vastly different. It's weird HHH lets it slide for guys like Logan Paul, though.
The Bucks are being heels and, with the match looming, are trying to get in FTR’s heads. Do we want storyline development or no storyline development? It always seems to shift in AEW’s case. If there was nothing, people would be criticizing the lack of story - so they took this route. This may not have been everybody’s cup of tea, but it did add heat to the match. And with Perry’s new “scapegoat” persona, the footage helps develop that before he even appears on AEW TV again.
A crowd chanting CM Punk means nothing to me these days, especially with the heels presenting the footage. It’s just a longer “what” chant - people do that anytime the dude is mentioned. It doesn’t change that the footage shows him being the aggressor and taking a cheap shot, nor do any of the Twitter accounts tripping over themselves to suggest otherwise.
It’s fair if one sees this and thinks “what the hell,” no doubt. But it simply isn’t as big of a deal as the internet is making it out to be. At the end of the day, it can be looked at as heels making excuses for themselves and their buddy Jack Perry. Just an added bonus that we, the audience, get to see footage of an altercation nobody can stop talking about and come to our own conclusions. WWE has molded this idea that transparency is a no-no when that doesn’t always need to be the case - especially in the age of Triple H saying it’s always “best to blur the lines.”
And Triple H was suggesting Ospreay was a grind runner… avoiding the grind of being on the road every day at “that early in his career.” Could totally see why Ospreay would take umbrage with that considering dude has spent a decade grinding his ass off - wrestling 150 shows a year and flying all over the world to do so. Triple H’s comments ultimately equated to saying “if you don’t sign with WWE when we ask you to, you don’t work hard enough.” That just isn’t the case, even if AEW has a lighter schedule. The work in the ring alone proves that well enough.
Also the videos getting deleted off X weren’t of the footage itself, but doctored footage to make it come off worse - like Helwani adding commentary or people chopping it up. There are plenty instances of the actual footage still floating around.
I dunno, just seems much ado about nothing and I felt that way when it was first announced that the footage would be shown. I think most folks are ready to just move on, but with Punk going in depth with a shill like Helwani, I truly can’t pretend like Khan/AEW were in the “wrong” to defend from their company being buried to such an extent on what is blatantly a WWE-adjacent podcast.
WWE spent much of their biggest weekend of the year taking little potshots at AEW during panels and whatnot, so fair’s fair.That said, hopefully Khan grows from all this and learns to manage issues of this extent better. But I’m personally for sure ready to move on from the AEW/Punk saga. He’s happy where he’s at now, good for him. Both parties should move on now.
Yeah, I'm sure HHH is certainly a bit bitter about not getting Sasha and Will for sure, especially since everyone knows he wanted them and they went to the competition...which he suspiciously says they don't have. Maybe AEW isn't a competitor for fans, shows, global standing, merch, etc, but absolutely a competitor for talent. He didn't seem to care about Okada that much.
In unrelated news, I got a few minutes yesterday afternoon to stalk some Giulia matches on Youtube. She's actually pretty good in the ring and has a real unique look. It doesn't hurt that she's a stunner. I couldn't find much of her talking, but I understand she's still learning English...the worst language to learn...so I look forward to that debut someday this year. Curious if they'll be lazy and toss her into Damage CTRL or do something interesting.
Back to the AEW thing, yeah, WWE definitely took a few jabs and a couple of uppercuts at AEW over the weekend during panels, podcasts, etc...but not much at all during the actual shows. That's kinda a big difference. I don't know how many people make a point of listening to every podcast or watch pre-show panel crap. I will if I'm bored, but I tend to have other stuff to do and get back in time for the actual show. I'm not sure if HHH's ego would ever get him on the phone with TK to do something more useful or vice versa.....but it would be cool to have one last Shield reunion at a multi-company PLE, see Ospreay vs Rollins (2 guys that can actually go in the ring), Hook vs Dom Dom, White vs Balor, Styles vs Omega, and more. Too bad WWE's tag scene still kinda sucks. They're getting more teams...but none of them stand out like the teams in AEW do. I still think Pretty Deadly is about the most interesting team they have.
If I'm reading this right, due to the All In PPV taking place in London and their laws being different, Tony apparently needed written permission of every person in that video before he broadcasted that footage. If CM Punk chose to, he could ring up his lawyer. I expect him to pay no mind to it, enough people are already saying how bad of a look it was to air it in the first place.
Anyway, skipping SmackDown tonight to watch NJPW Windy City Riot. So far though it is just meh. Womens match was alright I guess. Now preparing for a clusterfudge tag match.
I'm sure Khan's not worried if he has to pay out, or gather his army of lawyers. I'm sure it's not worth it for either side. Either way, the discourse over the Punk/AEW situation is fudging exhausting. It was petty, but it did also show that Punk wasn't being 100% truthful. Folks are taking it far too seriously but that's the internet. I'm retired from giving too much of a good gosh darn about it at this point.
Also watching Windy City Riot, the Punk-killer just arrived. But have Smackdown on underneath it. Potential big story line kicked off:
New Bloodline formed... Tama Tonga showed up and he and Solo kicked Jimmy out but kept Heyman. I bet Fatu joins them and we get New Bloodline v OG Bloodline (Reigns/Usos) at SummerSlam (Solo ripped Heyman's phone out of his hand when he was trying to talk to Reigns). I imagine that leads to a Reigns/Rock match down the line somehow. Totally fantasy booking obv but that's half the fun.
lmao Chicago is very much not as anti-Perry as I was expecting. Dueling "you got choked out" vs "no he didn't" chants of equal volume. There were some "real glass" chants earlier. Perry's benefiting greatly from that footage, career-wise... also became a top merch seller with his Scapegoat shirt selling out twice.
> I was always indifferent to Perry. Maybe it changes with this heel run, but he had
> a definite glass ceiling with that Jungle Boy shtick.
>
>
Oh I agree 100%. I loved the team with Luchasaurus at the start but was clamoring for a change of character toward the end of Jungle Boy... I'm just saying he's been consistently great, in-ring. He's definitely putting in good heel work in NJPW, and is catching major momentum since last Wednesday. Folks can think what they want about the dreaded footage, but it's definitely working to some extent, at least for Perry's character.
Who cares what the IWC thinks? Just like what you like and dislike what you dislike. Takahashi always does silly crap like that, I personally think he's fun. And WWE does plenty of goofy crap, cmahn now.
But Ali won and Kidd/KENTA/Conners/Finlay beat Kingston/TJP/Cobb/Homicide. 3 matches left.
Smackdown was alright. I'm suspecting Solo and Tama are reporting to the Rock now. Also figuring on Jey and Jimmy reuniting after the draft and being recruited by Reigns somewhere down the road. I don't see Rock/Cody happening at Wrestlemania.....seems more likely to be Reigns/Rock.
Tiffy time.....is going to turn into Titty time if she doesn't switch up her ring gear. She's one fantastic arm drag or sunset flip away from having a 'malfunction'. A bit surprised she took the L, but it's probably best for her character right now.
Ok....AEW fans....you can have Rey Mysterio now. There's a whole new locker room of Mexican wrestlers there to turn on him for being the way he is. Glad to see LA Knight and AJ Styles in the final for the title shot.....completely puzzled why Owens and Escobar were involved. Logan and Randy would have made it a bit more interesting.
Patiently awaiting Jade to turn heel on Belair. She's not as fun as a good guy....but WWE still needs a Tony first.
Finally watched Dynamite this afternoon....not a bad show.....not the best show compared to others they've done this year. I love Mercedes....but she needs to stop talking....would prefer she sticks with what she's good at....wrestling and wiggling to her weird theme song. As for who attacked her....looks like a toss up between Saraya and the Bucks over whose position is higher. I think she gets paid more than both of them combined. I'm hoping it was someone more interesting than Julia or Willow and they bring back the DMD or Hayter....but they'd both be fed to Mone. I think the rest of the matches were fairly forgettable. I'm still in shock that Dustin didn't beat Joe.
@y2k Mercedes was definitely attacked by either Willow (doubtful) or Statlander (probable). Mercedes and Willow have been beefing and Stat/Willow are a little group with Stokely lately. The lights going off was definitely supposed to suggest Julia Hart, but I think that's a red herring. Saraya's busy being her brother's valet on Rampage (as we speak actually) and the Bucks are obv doing their own thing.
> Who cares what the IWC thinks? Just like what you like and dislike what you dislike.
> Takahashi always does silly crap like that, I personally think he's fun. And WWE
> does plenty of goofy crap, cmahn now.
I know, and it's to be expected from WWE, but I feel NJPW would get a free pass because...Japan. Also re-reading my post, I don't mean I turned it off in protest or something, I just had something to do that I kept putting off and felt like that would be a good time to finally do it without missing anything important.
