Mr.Showtime

Many were keen to point out over the past year (before the injury) that Punk was happy, having fun, excited to be in front of crowds, working against young talent etc. There were of course inklings that it could have been a little disingenuous but that could have easily been subtle in-ring storyline things. But it stood out for me when he talked in this presser about the horrible rehab. He's been hurt badly, it was probably embarrassing for him, and at one of the worst times. He got angry, he was forced to be cooped up for weeks, he may have been depressed on some level - and he's just let it all out on his return, and especially so after that Colt question. He could totally be right that others have made it more difficult with some issues, and also not addressed things correctly, but he can't throw all this "I'm working with children" stuff while acting like this. At the end of the day it's unprofessional. If the boss doesn't get a grip on this problem, who's to stop others acting out of line in the future.

Anyway, fun show! And yes as said above, Dax Harwood and his kid was just the best thing. Also loved the Christian / Jungle Boy section, I'm glad they went down that route.

I'm 15 minutes into the full YouTube video of this and fucking hell he's still going, it's a must watch. Would love to read what you all think about it. It doesn't seem like anybody is dealing with their issues in the correct way at all.

I hadn't listened to any wrestling podcasts for a few years but I've given Foley's one a go this past week, it's a decent enough listen.  I've avoided whatever stories he tells at all those talking shows he does so, as long as it's not covered in his first book, most of it is new to me. Currently getting through the episode about feuding with Randy Orton, it's interesting to hear Vince's reservations and Orton's worries about spitting in Foley's face...

I'll also give the Nash one a go now thanks to the recommendation above

It was a shame so many people were getting over-excited for the title match, not keeping in mind the reason it was moved to TV was most likely because it wasn't going to be a "proper" match. The spectacle of it was still fun though, although yep it did feel a little flat when it seemed the fallout and new direction wasn't going to be answered right away. But Moxley is the man. His promo being aired in the past few days saying that Punk is full of shit and he's going to crush him, with a knowing gleam in his eye - he was absolutely correct and it made him come off even cooler, to me.

I've no idea what they're going to do at the PPV, and I'm not interested in trying to figure it out when it comes to an MJF return or a CM Punk rematch, etc. If Moxley's involved, it'll be grand.

The trios match was a lot of fun!

Thanks! You can tell I haven't gone back and watched every single Raw on the Network/Peacock like some of my mates have. I'd have remembered these otherwise!

Owen Hart v Ultimate Warrior and Party Marty getting World Title shots against HBK are super interesting to me. It's been great reading these as, although I've gone back and seen all the PPVs in 1994-1996, at the time as a 11-13 year old, that's when I forgot wrestling existed. As I'm sure was the same for others my age in the UK. I remember tapes in the local video shops completely drying up after around WrestleMania 9 and I didn't really see anything until my uncle told me about "this crazy Mankind bastard". Finding out about Sunny also accelerated my search for footage, I'm sure.

The ending was so much fun, it's always better when you aren't expecting something. The fans seemed to be having a great time the entire show

When it comes to the trios tournament, I don't know how they can get past the House of Black (Miro shenanigans I guess), but the fairytale attempt from the Dark Order to win the whole thing, up against the Bucks (and Omega?) in the final with a conflicted Hangman in their corner may be too much to take. It doesn't really work now with the Bucks seemingly faces, and Dark Order a shadow of their former selves. I can't quite see either Hangman or Dark Order turning heel yet to set something up - anyway, it's good I have no clue what's gonna happen. Most likely none of the above 😂

Along with what was said above, I was quite interested to see some of the graphics for upcoming matches. After plenty of complaints about AEW originals not getting on TV, we have Sonny Kiss on Rampage and then Kilynn King on the next Dynamite! The latter has been on the lower shows the entire time, has she ever actually had a match on Dynamite?

It didn't seem to be mentioned in this thread but Triple H had a lengthy chat with Logan Paul on the latter's YouTube channel the other day, it's worth checking out I think. Trips touched on the Attitude Era, the difference between working in stadiums and smaller venues, NXT, storytelling, using social media, his marriage etc. I especially enjoyed him talking about the Summerslam triple threat match with Kurt Angle and the Rock (the one where Kurt was taken backstage for much of it).

I've barely taken in any of Logan Paul's... career as a famous person, or whatever he did first, but he was on best behaviour here. Well, of course he was. Is he a real bad'un? Like, wrestling-level bad'un? Or just a knob?

Who were under the Toxic Turtle, erm, shells? Pretty impressed with Vince that he jumped on it in 1993, only a couple of years after the peak of the first 2 movies and the cartoon. The third movie out in 1993 seemed to do fairly acceptably at the box office but according to 10-year-old Showtime it was pish.

The good thing coming out of the Christian segment is that it seems like we could be in for a long manipulation of Luchasaurus, and as long as it's not too similar to MJF/Wardlow, it could be great for the big man when he finally turns back.

I'm in the same boat as most of you with this show coming up. Every year I try to watch NJPW a couple of times and I can never ever get into it. I know the names and that's about it. And I've never seen any NJPW/RoH shows either. I'm sure the bouts will be fun enough and a loud crowd will help, but sometimes you need a good build to make a match reach the next level and I'm not sure we'll get that for any of it, except for maybe the main event.

All I'm hoping for is for Adam Cole to take the fall in his match... well, and for Orange Cassidy to beat Ospreay, heh.

I laughed out loud so much at this, especially as the questions got so ridiculous but then out of nowhere he calmly asked "Do you have any tattoos?" 😂

I wanna read alllll of the UKFF fantasy booking Vince's appearance tonight. Does he fire himself? Kill the character off? Does he just do a weird little sneeze and walk off? Shit on the canvas? Blabber on about a golden egg? I'm gonna go with screwing Roman out of the title and leaving the arena with the belt through the crowd 😂

Dynamite starts at 7am where I live, and this was the first time I can remember that I didn't sit through the whole thing before going to work. I watched up to the main event and left it for later. I knew it would be a decent standalone match but yep it wasn't the right match-up for this night. I was convinced Andrade was gonna win the battle royal when he came out last, and was far more intrested in seeing him against Moxley even if the result would have also been obvious.

I shook my head and said aloud "no no no no don't do this" when Christian was starting to challenge the Bucks and Hardys to the inevitable ladder match. Please don't do it Jeff.

Eddie Kingston was great though!

Is there any footage of a Taker v Mountie match somewhere? Those two and, just before this point, Mr.Perfect were my absolute faves in this era.

My word, MJF smashed it out of the park yet again. Watch it without reading spoilers first if you can

Expanding on what Supes said below, the 'drop people on their heads' line was the only bit I screwed my face up at, and didn't enjoy. But the whole performance and delivery etc was just another level, for me.

Loved the first half of the show, the last two matches were just re-hashes. Very happy to see big man Miro back and excited to see what he does! But now I'm starting to beg for Omega or someone, anyone, to stamp out the Undisputed Elite's reign of meh.

The only things that make me groan really are the interviews being interrupted in 5 seconds almost every time, and too many low blows in matches and angles. So, so lazy. With anything else for now, I always look on the bright side - I could be watching WWE, feeling sad for the likes of Ricochet as he waits in the ring for 17 minutes while other shit goes on, then has a 3-minute bout with a DQ finish.

There are a bunch of acts on the show I'm not interested in at all, but there's still enough good to keep tuning in, even down to the fun commentary and silly segments (like that Dark Side of the Ring parody, I missed the start but gotta go find it again!) At least with Adam Cole, I am begging to see him get his arse kicked, AND he didn't use a low blow, so at least that's something.

I liked Toni Storm v Jamie Hayter, it wasn't smooth towards the end but I think that somehow added to it. If it's not a Britt/Ruby final with the latter finally getting her big win, I'll be very surprised.

After Darby came off the ladder I didn't think he'd get up in time before the show ended, holy moly. And I could barely watch as Jeff went to the top for his Swanton to the outside. I'm a little baffled with the outcome (and it's happened to Darby before so I hope that plays into something) but I hope after this, Hardy winds things down a lot. Take it easy, man!

My highlight: Drew McIntyre starts taking apart the announce table.

McAfee: "My pencil's gone missing!"
Cole: "You haven't taken a note since you got here."

I only watched the opener, some of Charlotte/Ronda, and the main event, and yep they were fun. That was enough for me!

Wait, so is Eddie Kingston lying, or taking the piss, or it's just a huge continuity mess-up that should have been easily avoided? Seems a bit weird and AEW has usually been alright at continuity.

I skip all the ROH stuff and just check out the endings if I think Joe's gonna show up post-match, which he already has on a few occasions.

I enjoyed these interviews with FTR to build up their match. It's refreshing to have something so simple and realistic to build up a wrestling match. No faffing about or adding tension where it isn't needed. And they also keep it genuine by explaining why they wanted to face each other, and explaining that Cash hasn't had a singles match in two years so he's probably the underdog. The match might end up boring as hell, but I'm rooting for them to put on a good show.
 

The highlight for me this time around was the graphic shown for about a thousandth of a second - next week, Cash Wheeler vs Dax Harwood, eeeeek!!

I'm fine with just letting things play out and being rewarded over time, but for me Danhausen is currently just replacing Kris Statlander. They never explained her schtick properly either. I really liked her on screen and some of her bouts but I didn't quite get the "why" of her quirkyness and she was barely given any promo time or backstage bits that explained anything, even down to why she hangs out with Best Friends. Or maybe I missed it, I don't know. Dan the Man is just doing the same.

On a side note, I assume it's a slooooow build to something, but Trent is taking an awful long time to do something about being in a gang he clearly has little time for. He'll maybe see the good it did Wheeler Yuta, getting out. Danhausen is hanging around now and he's just kinda letting it go, still. I'm interested to see if he and Chuck move away from the group, if they turn on OC, or if Trent goes it alone, hopefully sooner rather than later. But then yeah, as said above, they've done teleporting and stuff, so fuck it.

Just throwing in my 2 cents a couple of days after skimming through the Mania shows, here's what has stuck:

Becky v Bianca was bloody brilliant. To me, it was one of those bouts where you feel something could go horribly wrong at some point because of how manic it was. That ramped up the tension and the fans in the stadium were behind behind it all the way. I don't watch the weekly shows, just round-up videos etc., and this was still great to me, despite the awkwardness of Becky being a heel.

As said in posts above, Stone Cold v Kevin Owens was great for fans of a certain age. It wasn't amazing but it did the job, although the transition from talk show into official bout was much flatter than it should have been. They can be proud of it though, I'm sure.

And so can Sami Zayn (again, as mentioned before me). I've met a few friends in the past couple of days that used to watch WWE and when they asked if I saw Mania, this was the only match I would talk about. Ridiculous, but everyone did their bit! It totally helps when the people in the crowd are so behind someone or something, and suspend their disbelief etc and not shit on something.

That also goes for the Pat McAfee match. Forget the crap with Vince, but the stuff with Theory was a spectacle. Again, I don't watch the weekly shows but when I dip into round-ups here and there, I am completely content with McAfee's enthusiasm in small doses. More on-screen talent should be as buzzing as he is to be on television. Don't care a jot about Austin Theory but what can you do, eh. Vince deciding to have a match truly was stupendous.... for a few seconds, then it just ruined everything that went before it.

I did not watch the Logan Paul tag match but I may check it out at some point after the positive reaction he seems to have received.

I always remember WrestleMania 21 being the most disappointing and boring to me at the time because Cena/JBL and HHH/Batista featured about 5 wrestling 'moves' in total (I know it's not all about moves) and a whole load of punch/kick and bags of obviousness. And I just didn't like any of them at the time. Orton v Trips at Mania 25 was much more boring for other reasons. Reigns v Lesnar unfortunately is up there with them, for me. There was possibly a slight doubt about the outcome but everything was so by-the-numbers it was depressing. What a chance to throw out even ONE wild spot or a twist to make it memorable. What a waste.

As suggested earlier, trimming the fat and having all this on one night would be perfect. But either way, going from these shows to a 3-hour Raw with adverts upon adverts upon video packages upon backstage interviews - all while someone is ALREADY in the ring waiting to have a match - will always just be too bizarre to me.

47 minutes ago, Winston said:

Apologies if I missed it, watched it on a stream earlier. Caught Undertaker lavishing praise on Vince, Michaels and HHH but didn't hear a mention of Kane or Mick Foley which I think is really poor considering how pivotal they were to his career.

He did talk about Kane for a bit in the middle somewhere. Very good speech I thought - in terms of the character and wrestler he's been my fave since I was 8 years old when he started in WWE, so I was very happy to see him get such a warm response.

Triple H looked so sad though. And Vince should have threatened to shut the whole show down with those fucking 'what' chants during his bit. I only sat through that and the Steiners speech, happy for them too.

An interesting Scottish take on the sad news, with a Dundee newspaper documenting the time Razor faced Bill Dundee (I had no idea he was actually from the area, or Scotland at all...) in 1995.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/past-times/3105572/scott-hall-razor-ramon-bill-dundee/?utm_source=twitter

Even my mum messaged me today and asked if I knew about Razor's passing. She never did that for Piper or Warrior or Macho. She must have fancied him.