Mr Butternut Squash

This one come out of the blue. I enjoyed what I've seen of Ever Rise in NXT, seemed like a fun act that were always coming up with different stuff to stand out. Them vs the team of Mox, Kingston and Darby Allin sounds like a riot. Looking forward to the show.

She's due even more now Vince has had it with his failure son-in-law and erased the NXT reign from her record. Awesome.

Apparently the Flair/Lacey Evans storyline was miserable for all involved, and if it wasn't for Lacey's pregnancy would have carried on into Wrestlemania. Good shit, pal!

So Ric Flair got his release because he couldn't reconcile with Vince and his shitty booking. What an 'Gratitude' era mark he is. Should've Manned Up and kicked Vince's door in. Or something.

Are you being thick on purpose?

The 'Gratitude Era' would be lucky to even get in direct contact with Vince. Listen to any interview from people that left the place in the last couple of years.

Yes, he definitely should go full on Dusty. I've thought that for years. With all the silly bollocks, it's easy to forget what an amazing promo he was too. And his ring work was actually decent when he was a babyface teaming with Matt Hardy.

Oh man. Genuinely gutted for the Hangman. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. If it's another bump in the road before Page gets crowned at All Out it's fucking brilliant. If it's a pivot to allow Punk/Bryan into the title picture? I'll be very cross. I don't think I can handle another rising babyface story crashing off the tracks.

Still, it's proper on the edge of my seat stuff. The potential rivalry's coming up are dream world. Everyman Page feuding with heel Corporate Cody? The Cowboy vs straight edge CM Punk? Get it in my veins. 

There was a lot of bad on this show. JR at his worst, pulling me out of the action during the opener by bringing attention to the gaps. The weird Brian Cage babyface push that nobody cares about. Andrade being boring and a bit rubbish. The insulting WWE style stubbornness of Britt's "you people at home are waiting for me to fail" line and current direction. Janky wrestling and an overreliance on dives and gore (please, no more death matches until at least six months).

But still. When you're hot you're hot. And it all falls to the wayside when the show is so mad, wild and electrifying. Fucking love it. Already itching to re-watch that opener.

Thunder Rosa is alive!

It's been a rocky road with Kenny but I can't get enough of his promo from a couple of weeks back. My line of the year . .

"I'll get an extra measure of pleasure when Cowboy Shit turns into . . . Belt Collector! Belt Collector! Belt Collector!"

Hilarious, and felt completely off the cuff, yet is was still lame enough to take the air out of the room and get a shit ton of boos. Loved it.

More like Nikki twats Charlotte. Charlotte doesn't sell it. Charlotte beats Nikki clean. Nikki grovels.

"I may be almost a super hero Charlotte, but you're the real thing! Woo!!"

I fucking hate Charlotte.

Dynamite's been a blast.

It's great to see wrestling again. Out of bloody Florida, proper crowds and proper arenas. A molten hot atmosphere with organic promos, a feeling that anything can happen and over babyfaces you don't feel like a for mug rooting for. All with that outlaw rebel vibe. Like proper wrestling. I love seeing things like Moxley spitting gum and shoving fans and Cody appearing in the booth and cutting promos down the camera. And Nick Jackson doing something exciting and different every week. And pop after pop after pop. It feels alive.

AEW's match quality is completely secondary to me at this point, it's everything else. It's the inverse of WWE to me actually. Their 'PPV' matches are practically the only chance their wrestlers get to drag themselves out of the dogshit they're in. Everything else is meaningless time filler. There's none of this energy and excitement that you get when you're actually invested in the characters and the storylines. Fucking hell. It shouldn't be that hard!

Even the fairly throwaway OC vs Blade match had a nice character building moment with Cassidy pocketing the brass knucks. I thought he was knackered after being heavily featured without fans but I love him as much as ever.

But, yeah, I'm really feeling the Hangman stuff now. For ages it felt like one of them things I'd have to watch the Youtube shows to really 'get it', but it's all clicking now. I've watched the last few Page/Omega segments countless times. Feels like bloody magic. A universally liked babyface on the rise against a detestable, uncool group of heels that need flattening. I've been wanting an AEW Survivor Series style match for ages so I can't fucking wait until the main event this week.

CM Punk AND Bryan Danielson coming in as well? Jesus. Talk about gaining momentum.

I think Dynamite has completely ruined it for me. Just two completely different worlds. WWE just continue moving further and further away from that vibrant outlaw energy that makes pro wrestling. After 30 minutes the novelty had already worn off and it was back to that uncanny, soulless and manufactured WWE world. Everyone still inside their little bubble hitting the same entrance poses and promo cadence. The crowds might as well not even be there.

Then I heard the piped in boos and EST chants. Fuck all the way off.

Roman Reigns, Roman vs Kevin Owens feud, Daniel Bryan's promos, Bayley, Riddle, Sheamus and Finn Balor having bangers, Pre-Fiend Randy Orton and Cameron Grimes new character all largely managed to transcend the constant shit tide. 

The destruction/deconstruction of Keith Lee, The Hurt Business, Shayna Baszler, Rhea Ripley, and Drew "Tricky Icky" McIntyre were easily the lows.

Dynamite was an exhilarating show that absolutely flew by. There were a couple of things I wish were given room to breath but it's a fairly minor quibble. My favourite thing was seeing little kids singing along to "Judas" and doing the Cassidy thumbs up. Really cool to see them invested like that. I hope AEW continue to expand and pick up the younger kids that WWE seem to be driving away. A bit of variety from the thousands of male neckbeard types that make it feel like a super indie show.

Welp. That's never happening. Can't see it in a million years. 

I'd be pleasantly surprised if they did anything creative with it.

Sounds like a car crash.

The man.

Bit of an underrated match this.The list is long but Morton might be my favourite Flair opponent. Either him or Garvin. Always liked how he'd change up the formula against smaller guys.

Was it boring though? There's shit, then there's boring. All I get reading Smackdown results is boredom. I swear I've been reading the exact same recap for three months straight.

Agreed on MJF. He's class and I'll never get people thinking he ain't it.

The Trinidad thing is a strange one. Were AEW just not interested? It'll be even weirder if the rumoured Tommy End shows up.

Very much looking forward to Brian Cage vs Ricky Starks. It will be Stark's return from injury in his hometown. Any chance there's a SWERVE and they end up turning him babyface instead? I know he played a good baby in NWA. Cage turning just doesn't sound all that interesting.

Rewatching that DON entrance again made me realise how much I miss Jon Moxley. Says a lot about him and that Top Babyface aura he brings when he's only been gone for about three weeks and I'm already wanting him back. Penta and Kingston are cool and all but I really hope they go back to the Moxley/King team when he returns. They're the best good guys on Earth and there's so much more to be squeezed from it . Saying that though, you could put anybody against The Young Bucks right now and I'd be on the edge of my seat to see it. They're on incredible form. If Mox/Kingston are perfect babyfaces, then the Bucks are perfect dickhead foils, even when Nick is mostly carrying it. 

I'm always back and forth on the Dark Order/Page stuff, but that segment right there was magic. Chills as they realised what was going on and the 'Hangman' chants began to ring out. Even Omega cut a decent heel promo this week. Can't wait to see Page get the confidence to smash through him. I'll never get why they hardly let Colt Cabana speak though. Very odd.

They need a curator yesterday, but dumb tombstone spot aside, the main event was electric. It's so exciting to see young, fresh stars on the rise, two "homegrown" guys getting incredibly over and delivering in the main event slots. As good as Sammy is I don't think he's even near his full potential yet, and MJF once again reminding me of what a good, underrated worker he is. As rocky as the Pinnacle/Inner Circle feud has been, it's undoubtedly been a boost for these two. Now I just hope Jericho puts MJF over clean, no silly bollocks mate.

The Britt Baker match was instant fast-forward and the only low point. Unreal that they've finally made her the centrepiece of the division and managed to kill all my interest in her dead. I don't think you could book her worse if you were screwing it up on purpose. They're clearly still not arsed with it. Zero follow up to that class Deeb/Riho match. Tay Conti and Red Velvet back on milk cartons. And where the fuck is Thunder Rosa?

Jungle Boy has flaws just like Darby does, but the exciting thing about AEW is that you feel they can capitalise on him anyway. It's not like everyone has to 'adapt' to some rigid, increasingly fussy system or otherwise be written off. They seemingly have the ability to work around it. They could probably even make Ricochet feel like a star.

10 hours ago, Joe Blog said:

I do think The Bucks are a tremendous team but Nick is the star. 

It's funny because they were indistinguishable for the longest time to me. The only difference being that Nick did flips and Matt liked a German. Since the heel turn though they've really pulled apart in my mind. Nick has turned into one of the best heels in wrestling. I can't take my eyes off him during their entrances - one of my favourite things in the world right now is watching him swaggering to the ring in their expensive clobber, the facials and mannerisms of a dickhead I love to hate. I even like his low-key, dry sense of humour coming to the surface in some of their promos. He's really come out of his shell recently.

Matt on the other hand tries too hard and is generally a eye-roller. 

I cannot wait until next week when things get back on schedule and return to some normalcy. I think AEW were really onto something before the world went tits up. It's easy to forget how nicely things were coming together pre-pandemic. Those early 2020 shows in the build to Revolution were some of the best wrestling TV in decades. If they can get back to something near that then we're all good. I'm so fucking excited to hear them electric crowds again.

What the hell happened to Trent then? Has he been hurting since he returned at Arcade Anarchy? I've shat on them for ages but even I've come round on Best Friends a bit. I don't know if it's the addition of Pixies or if it's just Statlander, but I was just starting to warm to them. Just good mates having fun.

Seth is so so fucking awful it beggars belief. I'll never get their obsession with him. I mean, even with Baron Corbin, they've found a role for him. He's a perfectly solid, effective midcard heel. Seth's is just utterly toxic. Draining the life out of absolutely everything he's involved with, with his whiney, phoney, clueless dork energy. Every time he's pushed beyond a midcard/tag team and has to start cutting promos, he bombs. His matches devoid of any heat or emotion. 

They're slinging shit at the wall and nothing sticks. Cesaro, Edge, Roman, Bayley. You can't link him to anyone and make him interesting. If/When Becky Lynch returns, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they just bypass their waste of a women's division, and stick her straight into some storyline with Seth. In their 4000th attempt to give him some character.

Wow. If this sticks then surely Mero'd in record time.

I had no idea Scarlett wrestled too. Like a broken clock, maybe Vince is right on this one.

Bronson Reed apparently had a try out on Main Event. Let's hope he had his dancing shoes on.

All I've seen is how they've RUINED Nikki Cross, despite her doing the same thing as before but in a mask.