air_raid

Terry & Jason Donovan >>> Dusty & Cody Rhodes. Who wants a story that finishes as opposed to one that runs five days a week to infinity, anyway???

I prefer bodyslams, side suplexes, clotheslines, dropkicks and powerslams.

Then he should go all the way and bring a clipboard with him so he can write down his 1004 holds. I just come here to segue into talking about the 90s any way I can. … … …. you weren’t talking to me, were ya.

In storyline terms he was from Death Valley so he should have helped Cody last year in California too!

The Texas Rattlesnake showing up to help the offspring of Austin TX’s favourite son facing insurmountable odds, helping repel the baddie who even in storyline terms had been acknowledged as a corporate suit, and who happens to have been his biggest rival of all time and who beat him in his first retirement match? No sense at all, utterly random, agreed.

Don't forget Triple H. I just rewatched his entrance from Sunday, mostly to hear a big stadium pop when his music started, and that particular piece of production reminded me a great deal of a "King of Kings" Mania entrance. @Loki"Speaking of... is it Undisputed WWE Championship, Universal Undisputed Champion or what? They've called it so many different names this weekend." .... just caught that actually, Samantha introduced Roman as "the Undisputed WWE Universal Heavyweight Champion." Blimey. And of course, I've watched the last few minutes again. Christ.... it was like Backlash 2000 for a new era, it really was. Jesus wept, the Silver Medal took a beating here, didn't it? Imagine watching Cody's big moment and trying to give a shit about the other belt now!

Horrible Matt Hardy in 2005 vibe here. I mean, horrible vibe all round, but you know.

Some might suggest he doesn't look like the makings of a monster, but when Strowman first showed up he looked like a baby-faced soft lad that had grown a beard, like Samwell Tarly on roids, so never say never.

🤣 You cold bastard! I'll remember that for "nominally a Christmas break in New York" if I ever do MSG on Boxing Day. Yeah... I go back and forth with how much I should mention from TV outside of dark matches. I try to limit it to title changes or what I think might be significant in terms of part timers showing up or what might impact "the roster" for the road. In Murphy's case here it was one of "look at the false dawn here for the guy that ends up going nowhere and released" situations that's depressingly frequent.

Sam Fatu being Tonga Kid/Islander Tama if people haven't read that thread. The one I always liked and surprised me, even thought there wasn't that many years in between, was that Matt Anoa'i was in the Samoan Gangster Party with (I think) cousin Samu and they were briefly the two mystery blokes that were showing up ringside for "making a difference" Fatu's matches... then years later Matt would be Rosey in 3MW with cousin Eddie/Umaga. And Matt's little brother, of course, is Roman Reigns.

It's all nonsense from a storyline point of view when we remember that the last on screen interaction between Reigns and Taker was, IIRC, Taker being Roman's partner against the combined menace of McIntyre and the invincible Shane McMahon. It's possible that it's more convenient to not look for a reason why Taker would cost The Bloodline than to go looking for story that the company hasn't given us. I don't mind when fans remind us of stuff that happened when WWE forgets to but sometimes it gets out of hand. I saw something on Twitter about Sami the other day which made my head spin in terms of "You might be the only human being that thought about this, including writers/agents and Zayn." Yeah. Plus, even just within an "anything goes" context, how logical is it that instead of Rocky, Uso and Solo just piling onto Cody within seconds of the opening bell so Roman can win and they all can go to Butlins, they each waited in turn for the opportune and most dramatic moment possible to show their faces? In reality, too, if you're Cody, you actually show up for the match with Seth, Jey and anyone else you can persuade in tow, already ringside to counteract the interference you know is going to come based on, well, Mania 39 for a start, and the fact The Bloodline have openly talked about it. But because its wrestling, he turned up on his tod.

Good shout. Unless I discount that as "no bell, no ref, no decision, no match" as people have done to me re: HHH vs Orton being not really Hunter's last match.... LOL. That and the first Boiler Room Brawl are the first two PPV matches I recall with a pre-recorded element (bell to bell, or not, so to speak) plus the car chase footage spliced into it. I'm not 100% but I think the Empty Arena match at Halftime Heat was the first time I noticed anything particularly "cinematic" in terms of the filming style - i.e. the visual of Rock's face as the forklift descends on him and worse, his POV of it lowering... like, there's a camera shot there that has no reason to exist. It's a wider conversation, but that was the first one that made me go "Ah, that's some bullshit." It's not "making movies" in the sense of cameras being invisible. It's a pretend sport, and it's a world in which the people doing the filming exist, are seen on screen and acknowledged, and have even been used in the match (as recently as Bad Blood/Hell In A Cell at the point of Halftime Heat). At the point you show me something filmed from an viewpoint where I just saw that there's no cameraman and then you immediately cut back to a shot where I see no cameraman, I'm no longer suspending my disbelief. Subconsciously I no longer can believe I'm watching a wrestling show, I'm fully aware that I'm watching what Max Landis called (and I'm paraphrasing) a TV show about a wrestling show. That's the key, isn't it? There's a pretty good chance the "ask" may have been lower given the tourism revenue coming in was in turn going to be lower, so they will have crunched the numbers on monies received - cost of rent + two nights ticket sales and decided it was worth it.

Not Minehead. It’s a holiday, not a house show (happening)!

Both the endless one night format and the current two nighters were/are symptomatic of a few factors. Firstly, there’s the revived ideal of getting as many talents a Mania cheque as possible. Which was fine in the Hulkamania Era, when you could make several of a 14/15 match card can be short matches, a few guys won’t complain about being squashed as long as they’re paid, and the tag team division was presented as such that multiple tag matches could be presented as having stakes without feeling as much like obvious filler as (example) they did at Mania 16. But from 8 onwards, a smaller card was presented, and while it was fairly straightforward to do a “best of the best” card (and even then there were a few duds over the years) with fewer genuine stars on the payroll, it didn’t stay that way and the card grew bigger as we progressed into the Attitude Era and more and more wrestlers were regular part of TV that were either hugely over, very good in the ring or both. They assembled some reasonably tight 3.5-4 hour Manias between 17 (the peak) and 22 even if 20 pushed the “only on merit” idea to its limits with two four-ways for the two sets of tag belts AND a Cruiserweight Open, plus a MITB started happening, but the weaker ones were due to match quality rather than too long or too many. After this point things got out of hand with increasing numbers of Originals vs New Breed/Team Teddy vs Team Johnny clusterfucks, battle royals and multi-ways, outside of 30 which was the last great “everything here matters” one nighter, and 32 felt like it went on for days. The era of “you have to be part of something big to get on the Mania card” was truly over. And that’s saying nothing about having your full time roster to consider AND the extras that came with several Manias of dedicating air time to part time talent or returns - Triple H, John Cena, The Rock, Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker, Steve Austin, Batista, Kurt Angle, even Shane McMahon. Secondly, stakes. In combination with the gradual increase in the amount of talent deserving of a featured role, between the start of Attitude and today the amount of important telly on which to tell stories and give reason for feuds swelled from a 2 hour Raw to todays 5+ hours featuring two distinct rosters, and the amount of titles more than doubled. The last few years especially have seen this require more key matches with champion involvement as reinvigorating the men’s midcard titles has given both a shout at getting onto Mania (as both did this year) and the Women’s involvement has increased from originally one match for one belt to, for six Manias in a row now both two singles titles matches AND tag champions either defending or part of a featured six-woman tag - sometimes more still such as the NXT title match at 36 and a gauntlet at night one of 37 to determine challengers. I don’t think they’ve yet had to put on the full 10 matches to contest all the main roster titles that exist today, with two titles defended in the mains of 35 and 38, the women’s tag not defended last year or this, and a couple of years with a unified men’s tag title, but you can see how more belts would necessitate a bigger card. And even with time allocated to allow for more matches you still ended up with screw ups - matches getting dropped, Rey and Joe given a minute etc. Thirdly, the artistic and commercial benefits to two nights. There’s no secret that crowds were getting burned out on the longer Manias making some later matches on some of them awkward to watch, playing to little more than an indistinct murmur. Of course, the first to get split over two nights was PandeMania 36, where while they didn’t have to worry about knackering a live crowd, they also didn’t have to worry about if they could fill a stadium twice over by splitting it across two nights and furthermore there was the benefit of reasoning people were less likely to skip parts or get bored watching two shows on two nights than one mammoth one. Plus, if you’re going to put on TWO “movie” matches on one event (Firefly/Boneyard) then it makes sense to do them on separate broadcasts. No, they weren’t the first matches in company history to have been filmed this way. I think you’d have to go back to the first Boiler Room Brawl, then Halftime Heat and the Dungeon match. But these with the most overt “Yeah, we made this, you are not watching live” matches since that rubbish where Orton was inside Wyatt’s wanking shed and it kept cutting to angles where we saw no camera man a second earlier. Whether you like that kind of jazz or not (I’m on the fence) it would have been overkill to do both on the same show. A year later with reduced capacity, it made further sense to sell two nights’ worth of tickets, assuming the revenue would offset the cost of renting the stadium for two nights. When they saw how quickly those sold, I imagine the penny dropped quite quickly of “Christ, why have we been doing this for years?” It’s still a balancing act, creatively, even with two nights. Many times I’ve watched multiple clusterfucks on the same card and lament that none of the personal rivalries could have been settled in straight singles or tag matches because I was raised on scores being settled at “the granddaddy of them all.” Plus it’s hard to see through the transparency of “get this person a cheque” just because it’s WrestleMania for a marginal talent who’s been on one PLE since SummerSlam, but I think they might just get there. This year I think has been the best they’ve managed, even with cramming 12 men into one ladder match and finding a spot for The Final Testament. There have been proper rivalries contested in singles matches with Reigns vs Cody, Rollins vs McIntyre, Uso vs Uso, Knight vs Styles and Io vs Bayley, and still further “big time” feeling singles titles matches in Ripley vs Lynch and Gunther vs Zayn. And certain other wrestlers - Belair, Cargill, Rey, Lashley and the Profits especially, deserved to find their spot on the shows. You’re never going to please everyone, and I felt sorry for Liv Morgan, who’s previously been super over in pursuit of Becky’s belt, owes revenge for the demise of “Liv Brutally” and might have had some kind of comeback story, for Chad Gable who got red hot chasing Gunther, for other members of LWO shirts and LWO skins who might have actually got in the match, and possibly one or two eliminated from the ladder clusterfuck qualifiers. But maybe it’s time they should draw the line somewhere. TL:DR ; the two night format isn’t perfect but every year they manage it better and better. Apologies, I know that’s not the question the thread posed.

Butlins.

I think I acknowledged that…? Who forgot…..?

All the "ratings ploy" stuff is hilarious. I always subscribed to the alleged WWF line of thinking back in the day * which was "Why would we acknowledge the opposition? Can we focus on what we're doing? Looks small time if we care what they're doing." Using your own TV time to try and make the other side's worker look bad is such small dick energy. It reminds me of Eric Bischoff challenging Vince to a match for Slamboree 98. There's no end game, there's no benefit. It's just rubbing your own little nub at how much better you are than the other guy, while the people watching on go "Gee, I wish I could be watching something good." * Before Billionaire Ted's Rasslin War Room obviously, which exposed them as just as packing pine needles as anyone.

AUGUST 19 Wow, what a short month! MAIN EVENTS - SMACKDOWN 17th in Houston a monster 10 match card is topped with Kofi Kingston vs Randy Orton for the WWE title, next night a rather more humble 7 matches in Omaha ends with Kofi, Big E and Xavier Woods beating Orton and The Revival (even though they only just got drafted to Raw). A South/Central American tour featuring identical cards has the Kofi vs Daniel Bryan rematch 23rd-25th in Bogota, Lima and Panama City. THE CARDS Big time matches before the tour have Roman Reigns vs Drew McIntyre in a streetfight and Kevin Owens vs Samoa Joe plus still Shinsuke Nakamura vs Mustafa Ali and Bayley vs Charlotte for the respective belts and Aleister Black vs Andrade plus a new three way of Asuka & Ember Moon vs The Iiconics vs Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville. Some great stuff in Colombia/Peru/Panama has Orton back with Rey Mysterio, Reigns with Joe in a streetfight, KO with eternal buddy/rival Sami Zayn, Asuke & Kairi Sane vs Fire & Ice, Andrade vs Matt Hardy, Charlotte losing to Ember and more of Nakamura vs Ali. VARIATIONS Unique to Houston are Big E & Xavier Woods vs The Revival (logically), a bonus ticket-seller in Becky Lynch vs Lacey Evans for Raw's Womens title, and R-Truth vs Drake Maverick which reads as a straight wrestling match but I bet there was some 24/7 title shenanigans. MAIN EVENTS - RAW 3rd/4th it's still the misery of a Seth Rollins vs Baron Corbin "streetfight" without the belt in Toledo and Erie, then after SummerSlam and Seth getting the title back it's a no DQ match (which is the same) 16th-18th in Bismarck, Grand Forks and Fargo. That's it. Poor Seth. THE CARDS Week 1 we still have AJ Styles vs Ricochet vs Cesaro and Becky Lynch vs Lacey Evans for title matches plus Braun Strowman vs Sami Zayn and No Way Jose vs Robert Roode (more baffling losses for Bobby), plus Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins vs The Revival (I think they're trying to push Dash & Dawson out the door already if they're losing these) and Dana Brooke vs Sarah Logan. After SummerSlam it's still Lynch/Evans but now Logan & Brooke tag to challenge new tag champs Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross, the tag title returns with Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows vs the former Edgeheads vs Viking Raiders, Ricochet vs Cesaro is now a one on one, Drew Gulak vs Tony Nese for the CWT gets added and there's Cedric Alexander & Titus O'Neil vs EC3 & Mojo Rawley. VARIATION - ONE Titus vs Mojo is a bonus match in Grand Forks to make up numbers because The Man is in Houston. MAIN EVENTS - NXT Only ever one crew at a time this month - 1st in St Petersburg Pete Dunne vs Roderick Strong goes on last, 2nd in Melbourne frequent meeting Tyler Breeze & Fandango vs Steve Cutler & Wesley Blake is a main, 3rd in Largo it's Velveteen Dream vs Pete vs Roddy for the North American belt. 8th in Albany Dream and Street Profits drop Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish, next night in Buffalo Dream vs Strong goes on last. 16th in Sebring many Brits are on hand, Dream teams with Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch to beat Kassius Ohno, Joe Coffey & Mark Coffey after Dream vs Ohno goes to a DQ. Next night in Daytona Beach Lorcan & Burch vs Blake & Cutler goes on last. 22nd in Venice Cole/O'Reilly/Strong beat Dio Maddin and the Profits, next night in Sanford its Dream vs Fish for the belt, 24th in Tampa its Cole vs Bronson Reed for the big one. Finally 29th in Seminole Dream completes the set of Cole's lieutenants and knocks off O'Reilly. THE CARDS Tyler Breeze & Fandango vs Steve Cutler & Wesley Blake recurs four times. Kona Reeves vs Bronson Reed repeats in Melbourne and Largo, Shayna Baszler vs Mia Yim for the belt repeats in Albany and Sanford, very similar cards in New York both feature Matt Riddle vs Pete Dunne, Damien Priest vs Isiah Scott, Jordan Myles vs Cameron Grimes and Kushida vs Jaxson Ryker (going 1-1). Priest vs Keith Lee repeats in Venice and Daytona, as does Taynara Conti vs Xia Li in Sanford and Tampa. VARIATIONS - SELECTED St Petersburg - Drew Gulak vs Kushida for the CWT, Breezango vs Dorian Mak & Riddick Moss, Dio Maddin & Isiah Scott vs Brendan Vink & Shane Thorne, Priest vs Cal Bloom, Grimes vs Mansoor, Rhea Ripley vs Lacey Lane and Io Shirai vs Xia. Melbourne - Kassius Ohno vs Raul Mendoza, Riddle vs Ridge Holland, Xia & Tegan Nox vs Aliyah & Vanessa Borne, Marina Shafir vs Conti. Largo - Shayna & Marina vs Rhea & Reina Gonzalez, Kushi vs Angel Garza, Priest vs Myles, Lacey vs Deonna Purrazzo. Albany - Candice LeRae & Nox vs Io & Bianca Belair. Buffalo - Shirai vs Nox, Yim vs Belair. Sebring - Breezango vs Fabian Aichner & Marcel Barthel, Kay Lee Ray (Alba Fyre) vs Nox, Reeves vs Ilja Dragunov, Grimes & Reina vs Xia & Boa. Daytona - Kushida vs El Ligero, Grimes vs Travis Banks, Rik Bugez vs Vink, Joe Coffey & Mark Coffey vs Imperium vs Maddin & Scott, Aliya/Borne vs Jessi Kamea & Piper Niven, Lane vs Conti. Venice - Riddle vs Ohno, Garza & Mendoza vs Mak & Moss, Jessi vs Marina, Xia vs Reina. Sanford - Myles & Kushida vs Imperium, Keith vs Vink, Dominik Dijakovic vs Mansoor, Mia & Rhea (LOL) vs Baszler & Shafir. Tampa - Street Profits vs Outliers, Jordan Omogbehin (Omos) wins a battle royal, Lacey & Tegan vs Rhea & Reina, Belair vs Chelsea Green. Seminole - Myles & Kushida vs Outliers, Shafir vs Gonzalez, Priest vs Burch, Belair vs Conti. TVs 5th Raw in Pittsburgh Trish Stratus apparently comes out to retirement to tag with loser Natalya against (SmackDown's) hated Charlotte and wildly popular Lynch... a match which Trish doesn't actually tag into and ends in DQ when Nattie refuses to break a Sharpshooter on "The Man" in a failed attempt to get her over as credible champion for SummerSlam. What a pointless bit of TV that was? Also, Dolph Ziggler accidentally signs himself to wrestle Bill Goldberg at SummerSlam and Nikki & Lexi win the tag belts in a four-way. Next night on SmackDown... fuck, didn't we get enough of these last month? It's Heavy Machinery vs Curtis Axel & Bo Dallas before the show and Bayley vs Charlotte after it. 10th in Toronto near 14,000 attend TakeOver, on last Cole vs Johnny Gargano for the belt 2/3 falls goes 50 minutes and just typing that tires me out so I'm glad I didn't watch it. Next night near 17,000 come to SummerSlam for Trish blowing everyone's minds opposite Charlotte in a match I didn't recall until this project, The Fiend debuts beating Finn Balor in the latter's last match before heading back to NXT, KO goes over the almighty Shane McMahon, Goldberg does an amusing squash of Ziggler and Brock Lesnar loses the U belt back to Rollins in a powerful match - that Seth failed as a top babyface after this match is frankly a failure by WWE. Between Lesnar, Goldberg, Shane and Trish, this was yet another big PPV so heavy on legends or part timers in big spots that you wonder why they had no faith in the full timers. Two nights later Ali vs Andrade is the dark match before SmackDown then Machinery beat Daniel Bryan & Erick Rowan by DQ after it. 15th at Full Sail Burch & Lorcan beat “The Outliers” dark, Cami Fields (Holidead) tapes a loss to Io and the Profits drop the tag belts to reDRagon. 19th Raw Rollins & Braun relieve Doc n Karl of the tag belts and dark Becky beats Evans yet again, next night Joe beats Ali for a curtain jerker, Buddy Murphy upsets Bryan on TV in a forgotten belter, and Kofi/Big E/Roman beat Orton and Revival at show close. 27th SmackDown Asuka & Kairi beat Fire & Desire and Reigns beats Joe either side of SmackDown, finally 31st in Cardiff a TakeOver for NXT:UK sees Mark Andrews & Morgan Webster win the virtally forgotten NXT:UK tag belts, a main of Walter vs Tyler Bate near exactly 11 months to the day that they went on last for Progress at Wembley Arena, and KLR wins the UK Womens title from Toni Storm in the only one of Storm's matches in the whole of August that was actually hosted by WWE. Today she's Timeless but at the time she seemed wholly forgettable in the office! DEPARTURE The tour features the last road matches for Matt Hardy. He'll work all of four more matches for WWE between now and January, all on TV, then in February he'll get beaten up by Randy Orton as part of Orton's latest feud with Jeff. In March he'll get his release because of creative differences between him and WWE - I imagine they center around Matt believing his ideas and himself to have more value than WWE does. This kind person has 5 matches up from Bogota. Here's one of the endless Bayley vs Charlotte dark matches

Cum cushion? For when a wank sock isn't enough. I bet Mick knows where they will sublimation print an image of (the Diva of) your choice onto a cushion cover. Sounds like a lovely pillow to me.

Ah, the old "WWE Champion" vs "World Heavyweight Champion" question rears it's ugly head again. What's better, being champion of the WHOLE COMPANY which does events all over the World, or being champion of the WHOLE WORLD in which the company operates? I remember fondly prior to 2001 taking the piss out of old WCW... "How can you pretend Vader is WCW champ if Ric Flair is the "World Heavyweight Champion" too? It makes no sense." I wouldn't have minded "Undisputed Universal Champion" as the idea anyone wanted to dispute the original Silver Medal belt compared to trying to win THE title is a bit laughable. But since they combined the two titles for all of 12 months... yes, that would make it disputed. Anyway, fuck "Universal" anyway. It was effectively dissolved when Reigns won THE title from Brock and assimilated it. Yes, I'm going to die on this hill - nobody should give a toss about Roman being "near 4 years" with the title that doesn't really exist any more, or got dragged out of a retirement with a new name and hat belt and given to Seth, in very real terms. Reigns was WWE Champion for 2 years, then he lost it to Cody. ENDUT, HOCH HECH

There is a difference between pulling in and pulling off.

I think I've written enough about Ambrose/Moxley in multiple threads lately. It was more about a very general "how things are done" from a creative sense that made him check out, on top of his voice not being heard when he pushed back or got made to do/say things he thought were stupid. He'd already decided to leave before The Shield split up, he didn't change his mind when they were reformed the final time. Draw your own conclusions. That's twice in 48 hours I've read this in this context... is the new "people getting flowers"? If I still allowed myself into the Minor Annoyances thread, that one's getting up there. Everyone speaking in the same voice is really grating in general, but words like props/credit are hardly forgettable. Plus everyone wants to say "discourse" instead of discussion/conversation/debate/argument like it makes them sound smarter. It's the new "revert." Maybe we're all reading too much into him bringing Cody flowers congratulating Cody on his win and saying how much he idolized his dad. Could be smarm, could be the "Hogan shaking Rock's hand" that eventually gets him beaten up and thrown out of the Bloodline.

Missing from my previous comment - I like Jaded as an exclamation point but I think Jade could do with wasting her victim with a powerbomb or something similar first. And by which I mean, a powerbomb. When you're that physically imposing over your opponents, there's no excuse for it not to a powerbomb. Either way, she can be a real star if they keep going like they've started. This is visible from the car on my way to work every day ; Always makes me smile. No, not in an "erection" way, get your minds out of the gutter.

Plus The Islanders were Haku & Tama (Sam Fatu). There's storyline kinship between the families dating back to the Coliseum Video days.