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.
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.
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)
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:
> It just would have looked too
> easy.
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.
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
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. 🤫
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So glad they finally pulled the trigger on the Bron Breakker heel turn. The NXT crowd was clearly getting bored with him (one of the downsides of filming in front of the same crowd every week), so I'm glad they weren't afraid to turn him heel like they were for the longest time with Roman Reigns and John Cena when crowds were sick of them.
He’s got time to win you over haha. He’s young and green. Something besides I’MA STEINER will come out eventually I hope. If he starts to cut math promos, I’m in immediately lol
Nah I want like full on math promos. Maybe add in some Sid stuff too, and you’d have the best promos ever.
Spoiler person would do the same thing as John ace a going to Impact: nothing. No one going there will help TNA. They’re in the same spot they’ve been in for years and will always continue to be. It’s unfortunate because the quality of the shows and the roster is amazing, but it’s not going to become the alternative they threatened to be in the first 7 years or so.
Wow, they let Roderick Strong go, and somehow it was kept a secret. It's clear they had no plans for him and I saw something a few weeks ago saying that his run in NXT lasted longer than WCW Nitro was on the air. Not sure what he brings to the table that AEW doesn't already have though. With all these hirings, maybe it is for the better to do a soft roster split when that new show starts.
He brings banger matches, that's what he brings. Fudgein Roddddyyyyy.
One of my favorite ROH matches is still Roderick Strong vs. Eddie Edwards, ROH title match from Manhattan Mayhem IV. Roddy's ROH title run is iconic imo.
Roddy will get lost in the shuffle. He will do the Adam Cole storyline and then go in the pack like everyone else in that crowd of thousands. I like Roddy a lot, but he won’t be occupying a ton of screen time after this story is done.
He’s also listed on wwe.com as still on the roster as of right now lol
AEW uses good wrestlers. He’ll do wonderfully there.
Tbh, I can’t name a top tier talent AEW has brought in who has actually been lost in the shuffle unless it was due to extraneous circumstances.
Miro - injured, then refuses the creative he’s offered. More power to him.
Andrade - injured, then doesn’t seem like he cares to be there and fist fights Guevara. Then injured again haha
Those are the two biggest flubs imo, and it’s not entirely AEW’s fault for either. I want more Andrade, he rules. I like Miro, but don’t FULLY grasp the obsession so many have with him.
All Roddy needs to do is have good wrestling matches to warrant his move to AEW and I betcha he does.
It took gosh darn forever (+ a Rhea Ripley title win) for it to happen, but I finally sorta dig the Judgment Day. That said, I cannot believe Finn Balor is the fourth wheel in a faction. Dude should legit be top of the card, I don’t understand how WWE can fumble somebody so hard, creatively.
I don’t get it either. He should be constantly at the top of the card and kicking all the ass, but he’s the least important member of a group that was dying before he got in there and they kicked Edge out. I have no idea what happened.
> I don’t get it either. He should be constantly at the top of the card and kicking
> all the ass, but he’s the least important member of a group that was dying before
> he got in there and they kicked Edge out. I have no idea what happened.
Not for nothing, even though I'm not a fan of his, Dom Mysterio got HUGE HEAT last night.. They were booing him so loudly you couldn't hear what he was saying AT ALL.. That's legit heat. When everyone else talked, the crowd was calm.. The SECOND he started to talk, it was BOO city.. insane..
> Not for nothing, even though I'm not a fan of his, Dom Mysterio got HUGE HEAT last
> night.. They were booing him so loudly you couldn't hear what he was saying AT ALL..
> That's legit heat. When everyone else talked, the crowd was calm.. The SECOND he
> started to talk, it was BOO city.. insane..
Don't get me wrong, Dom has been doing great with his character since a month or so before Mania, and WWE is doing great presenting him as a pissant heel, but it's confirmed that WWE uses piped in crowd noise. I think the first time the heat was insane was legit, right before or after Mania, but I'm fairly certain they're leaning into that using specifically-produced audio. Which is smart to be fair, it's definitely helping him finally get over. You'll notice that in most Dom promos, especially last night, he eggs the reaction on by pausing as if he's being interrupted. That's to help the illusion of nuclear heat and it comes across great on TV.
It's wild that the ULTIMATE babyface's son is now WWE's ULTIMATE heel.
Either way, Dom getting over is sort of a non-factor in the conversation about Balor. Balor shouldn't even be in the Judgment Day, he should be a pillar of the singles main event scene along with guys like Reigns and Rollins. He's doing fine work in Judgement Day, but a dude of his in-ring caliber shouldn't be playing second, third, or fourth fiddle in a mid card faction.
>> Not for nothing, even though I'm not a fan of his, Dom Mysterio got HUGE HEAT
> last
>> night.. They were booing him so loudly you couldn't hear what he was saying AT
> ALL..
>> That's legit heat. When everyone else talked, the crowd was calm.. The SECOND
> he
>> started to talk, it was BOO city.. insane..
>
> Don't get me wrong, Dom has been doing great with his character since a month or
> so before Mania, and WWE is doing great presenting him as a pissant heel, but it's
> confirmed that WWE uses piped in crowd noise. I think the first time the heat was
> insane was legit, right before or after Mania, but I'm fairly certain they're leaning
> into that using specifically-produced audio. Which is smart to be fair, it's definitely
> helping him finally get over. You'll notice that in most Dom promos, especially last
> night, he eggs the reaction on by pausing as if he's being interrupted. That's to
> help the illusion of nuclear heat and it comes across great on TV.
>
> It's wild that the ULTIMATE babyface's son is now WWE's ULTIMATE heel.
>
> Either way, Dom getting over is sort of a non-factor in the conversation about Balor.
> Balor shouldn't even be in the Judgment Day, he should be a pillar of the singles
> main event scene along with guys like Reigns and Rollins. He's doing fine work in
> Judgement Day, but a dude of his in-ring caliber shouldn't be playing second, third,
> or fourth fiddle in a mid card faction.
Finn got derailed the day he got hurt after winning the 1st WWE championship a few years back. He was supposed to be big but the injury curtailed him and people forgot about him for a while.
For sure. Then he came back and remained a better wrestler than most on their roster. WWE did absolutely nothing with him for years except book his Demon gimmick to lose constantly until Judgement Day… and then booked his Demon gimmick to lose DURING Judgment Day. Now he’s the least over member of a mid-card faction. Just so goofy. He’s one of the best wrestlers on the planet.
I'm still not quite convinced that was piped-in. If it is, they're doing a better job of disguising it than compared to Trish's lame ass promo a couple weeks ago where it seemed pretty obvious because with all the Boos you were hearing, the crowd looked pretty dead and not interested in what she was saying. Becky is the far better heel, but in this particular storyline it made more sense for Trish to be the heel, so this is what we're stuck with.
> For sure. Then he came back and remained a better wrestler than most on their roster.
> WWE did absolutely nothing with him for years except book his Demon gimmick to lose
> constantly until Judgement Day… and then booked his Demon gimmick to lose DURING
> Judgment Day. Now he’s the least over member of a mid-card faction. Just so goofy.
> He’s one of the best wrestlers on the planet.
There are rumors that he will split from Judgement Day and join with AJ Styles.. Don't know how true that is but that would be cool to see them recreate the Bullet Club.
@PizzaTheHutt ehhh I dunno, looking at the crowd last night (and previous Dom outings), I’d probably bet a couple hundred on it being piped in. Which, again, I don’t feel is a negative. Makes for a better TV show.
That’s how you make blood matter. Not all the time, and it added to the match. I don’t think we need blood much at all anymore, but if it’s going to happen that’s how it’s done. Someone explain this to Mox.
Or to Flair, Bruiser Brody, Foley, Gage, Funk, Abdullah, etc etc. List goes on. That’s how blood is done in 2023 WWE: for shock factor, and that totally works for WWE given their style of wrestling… but that’s not inherently how blood needs to be done. Considering Rhodes/Lesnar was still a bit of a popcorn fart even with blood, I’ll take Mox bleeding every match as long as he continues having great matches. Like I’ve said before, it’s a non-factor to the quality of a match to me and plenty of other folks, it doesn’t necessarily need to “matter” any more than just “a guy started bleeding during a fight”. I just want the match to be good at the end of the day.
All in all Backlash was a fine show. Bunny/Priest was awesome and should’ve been the main event. Loved seeing Carlito and Savio show up. The trios tag match took a while to get going but got there in the end with some more good storytelling woven in. The Bloodline is finally getting interesting again with the teased dissension, but I still don’t care about Riddle being involved. Loved seeing Zelina Vega get that reception, she’s a far better wrestler than she’s allowed to show on a weekly basis. The rest of the card was standard imo.
Rhodes/Lesnar was just okay… I hated that Rhodes could attack Lesnar pre-bell, bust him open, hit him with two straight Crossrhodes, but still had to just barely eek out a win… then run away. For as well as WWE built him up pre-Mania, they’re flopping him post-Mania despite the crowd being behind him 100%. That won’t last if they don’t even make him look strong in victory.
Brock went hardway, so I'm not sure blood was even planned for the match. He probably knows he's in a spot much like Bret and Piper at WM8 were, where even though he knows Vince doesn't like it, he likely will only get a slap on the wrist for doing it (if they can prove it even was intentional).
I read a report recently that said WWE were looking to move back to a slightly more “edgy” product so who knows if they’re just letting this slide for PLEs or something of that sort. Either way, it was a masterful hard way if it was intentional.
I don’t feel the need to compare the two, personally. I like it both ways as long as I enjoy the match. Brock’s blood did add to the match to an extent, just wish the match was better with a better finish.
That said, fork spots absolutely don’t happen every week lol, Mox just gets busted open a lot. In my opinion, it adds to those matches too, despite it happening often. My opinion on a wrestling match isn’t dictated by blood or who decides to bleed, but to each their own obv.
So I thought the new World Heavyweight Championship was being introduced because Roman doesn’t show up consistently, but then it was announced that it was going to be Raw exclusive, which still keeps the Roman problem on Smackdown. But now they’re apparently having Raw and Smackdown talent in the tournament for the belt… weeks after the Draft. What the heck is going on here? Why not just have Raw talent in the tournament, or just hold off on the Draft until after a champion is crowned?
> I read a report recently that said WWE were looking to move back to a slightly more
> “edgy” product so who knows if they’re just letting this slide for PLEs or
> something of that sort. Either way, it was a masterful hard way if it was intentional.
I don't know if it was ever debunked or not, but right around the time Vince was outed last year, word got out that they were in talks with USA about going back to a TV-14 format. They ultimately ended up not doing it, but words like "ass" and "dog" started getting used in promos a lot more than they had in the previous decade since going PG.
@PizzaTheHutt Ah I gotcha, maybe that’s what I read but I feel like it was more recent and had to do with Nick Khan. Something about him wanting an edgier third hour of Raw. Like you said, it does seem like they’re getting a bit more lenient on certain things, so maybe it’s just as simple as that.
Little more regarding the blood situation specifically, in spoilers since I got a bit long winded as usual:
I will say that it feels all this modern blood discourse only exists because WWE changed the culture of mainstream US pro wrestling solely to get more family-oriented sponsors, which I find weird. I mean it makes sense for them if that’s the route they wanted to take with their company. It’s more profitable from a business standpoint, so more power to them, but you literally never heard arguments from the viewers themselves about when/how it was “right” to use blood until there was another major US promotion after WWE’s PG era began.
Bloodshed happened all the time, sometimes multiple times on one show, during the Attitude/Ruthless Aggression eras, when ECW still had a major influence on the US wrestling scene. No one seemed to mind and some people lapped it up (figuratively, gross). It happened a ton in the territory time period (nationally obv, but even more internationally) and never stopped happening in other countries or the US indies. Heck, even during WWF/E’s blood ban in the 90s and the early days of the current ban, the discourse was almost unanimously made up of people wanting it back.
To me, the sentiment really does seem to be born of a counter-AEW argument. Whether that’s intentional or not depends on the individual making the argument, but it really was never a heated discourse until AEW reintroduced it to mainstream audiences in the US. Like I said, I personally can take it or leave it, so it’s no worries either way. I just feel like there’s a reason as to why the conversation is so prominent in the internet wrestling world these days, and feel like that reason is more than just ring psychology.
