Sym

I lapsed big time following WrestleMania 20 in 2004. A long term girlfriend who just didn’t get it and kept me super busy, as did finishing Uni and getting a full time job. I’d been watching since Royal Rumble 1994 and was pretty deep in the whole system, but went pretty much cold turky only keeping in touch through the video games and through my Grandad who continued to watch right the way through my lapse. In that time, life kind of happened, split up with the girlfriend, got a new job, met my future wife, went back to uni, had kids and then moved to Australia in 2013. Without the raging social life and two young children, spare time started to return. I heard about the WWE network and as an avid recorder and collector of PPV VHS I jumped on the free trial using WrestleMania 30 as my starting point and spent the next few months catching up to current TV by watching Raw and Smackdown each week. I went through a little spell recently of just watching YouTube highlights for Raw and Smackdown, but over the last few months have been back on Raw and Smackdown every week and the PPVs obviously. I think finding Somthing To Wrestle Podcast has helped reignite my fandom and I enjoy going back to watch classic stuff on the Network. So in short: I watched 10 years, took a 10 year gap and have now been watching for 5 years, so should burn out again sometime in 2024 I do sometimes wonder if I should go back and fill in the gaps!

I enjoyed Smackdown and quite liked the end. It beat the obvious: Kofi Wins scenario hands down. The only issue I have with it is what Vince McMahon’s motivation is to keep screwing Kofi? As far as I remember he hasn’t stated anything yet, which takes away from the story a little in my eyes.

This is what I was trying to say the other day, but you’ve put it much better. Ronda calling out the WWE for being “not real” is insulting the rest of the roster, and it won’t make her look good when she looses at Mania. It’s like the other week, when she called out Becky’s “illogical” arm bar. We’ve seen Rousy put down by that arm bar in the past and I assume we are going to see the same at Mania. This just makes her look like a fool. I’m enjoying the feud, but this aspect is really frustrating me.

Enjoyed this weeks show. The Roman concussion stuff at the end was well worked and the match with Ambrose has heated Drew back up in a big way. I was worried that they were just going to slot Roman back in at the top of the card and business as usual him, but this was a refreshing switch out. Dean Ambrose also looked great and I refuse to believe he’s actually leaving. Everything is starting to become clearer as we build towards Mania and this show made a lot of positive steps to get there. As great as Ronda was, and this is the way to build heat back into the feud (by keeping them away from each other for a few weeks), she needs to slow down. That promo was fire, but she rushed through it. Someone to help her pace things a little better would have sent that promo over the edge. I’ve never really gotten Batista, but HHH is one of my favourites. It will be refreshing to have him as a face in this feud. Need a couple of Big Dave cheap shots over the next few weeks and we’re set. I enjoyed the “i’ll Hurt everyone you love” line. Angle retiring and welling up got me. I hope they find a worthy opponent for him. How poetic would it be if they slot Cena in here.

I was so hyped for the Charlotte Becky match after their last man standing match was one of my favourite matches of last year but this one fell flat for me. I think they they booked themselves into a corner with Becky’s knee injury. She sold it well, but as a result it wasn’t believable for her to be able to compete with a ruthless Charlotte. When you have a match that one sided, it isn’t often fun. i get what they were going for with the finish, and it was quite a good idea for Ronda to force the issue, but the match prior to that didn’t quite push the story that Becky couldn’t win because of Charlottes ruthlessness, and thus Ronda comes out to save the match at Mania. The crowd sounded silent on it too, and Ronda just standing there in almost silence wasn’t a great visual. im confident they can pull this back but they need for Becky to get over her knee injury and firing on all cylinders to get the heat back

It’s a fair point, I’m more annoyed that she seems to be tarnishing the business. I love the Becky stuff though, and you kind of need both sides of it to see how good she is

I’m not familiar with this video series of hers. Is it usually a work? If so, that’s a funny work, which far from bluring the lines, has outright pointed the line out from way past it. Again, if it’s a work, why do they need to have Ronda rant, yet at the same time have some dude brushing her hair and another lady taking her make up off. This is supposed to be the toughest Woman in the roster. I love the feud, but Outaide of TV Ronda is messing it up for me. She comes across as someone with a short temper who types things before she thinks, which when played opposite Becky’s confidence and snide, on the money remarks makes Ronda look like a tool

How much Shit do we think Rene Young got in her ear piece over her Dean is “going to greener pastures” comment? Thats got to be an ear bashing if I ever heard one. I moved close to the TV to see if I could hear him in her ear!

I havent seen any mention of the biggest downer for me this week: The fact that Broken/Woken Matt Hardy has seemingly reverted back to normal Matt Hardy. They had an interview on WWE.com where he was talking normally and briefly mentioned that he’s learnt to control his brokenness.

I said this in the other thread, I’m enjoying, particularly the Beck side of the back and forth, but I worry, especially the route its going that Vonce is going to cool on them both due to the PG perspective and we’ll end up with a Charlotte win at Mania

Although I’m really enjoying the Becky and Ronda Twitter back and forth (particularly the Becky side: Ronda is breaking the illusion a little too much), I’m worried that they may be taking it too far and Vince is going to cool on them. Don’t want them to ruin the hottest angle in years!

Not sure if I’m imagining it but I thought that was a great show, well paced and went by really quickly. Pretty much everything that happened, had a reason for happening. Every match or segment mattered. It harked back to previous events and built some suspense. A couple of examples: - Corbin being called out on his previous Roman Reigns comments, only to then have his beat down of Ambrose stopped by Reigns later in the show. - Lio Rush getting himself into a match with Finn only to loose and then be told off by Lashley as to how that wasn’t the original plan - The way each segment seemed to flow into the next. - The Assesnsion/Heavy Machinary angle - Ronda leaving the title at Steph’s feet. Honestly, it felt like an Attitude era style Raw in terms of pacing, everyone having some sort of storyline and general amount of content. I’m sure some of this is Prichard’s influence (and i’m Likely imagining it) but if this is the kind of thing we can expect with him back i’m All for it.