d-d-d-dAz

6 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

Not going to lie, it was my first time seeing the Final Testament at WrestleMania and I thought they looked cool in that entrance. 

Admittedly, as someone who reads video game novels you'd be better off wiping your arse with and still thinks Mudvayne were a pretty neat idea, I'm an absolute sucker for wafer-thin edgy tech goth shit. 

That's the great thing about them, visually they can look quite cool... but they're still ice, ice cold.

Karrion Kross is the problem. He has the opposite of aura. You know how some people are so charismatic they demand your attention and draw the eye, even in a still image? He's the opposite of whatever that is. His presence is completely overpowered by Ellering, Scarlett and the big lads.

You know that cliche about good wrestlers dragging a decent match out of a broom? If Karrion Kross wrestled a broom, the broom would get the credit.

Useless lump.

As I've said before, he looks like a bad drawing of CM Punk done by someone who doesn't like CM Punk.

Absolutely useless.

10 hours ago, IronSheik said:

...everything they touch is getting over.

18 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

You know what's maddening to me here, Jack was kept off TV for how many months after just *that*? Seven?

After seeing it, give him another seven.

No real reason, I just don't want to lose the one positive that came from this shite.

On balance, I think the Ospreay promo might be dumber.

"You know that lad that everyone in the sport just spent a weekend sucking off? ...yeah, yeah that one. The guy who's at the top of a company that's going through a near universally recognised purple patch in terms of their creative? ...that's him. Yep, the company that routinely smash financial and viewership records. Well that guy, the one that even our top lads like Adam Cole share misty eyed messages of love about, well get this... twenty years ago he shagged Stephanie McMahon. I know, what a loser..."

At least the Punk stuff is modern and tedious. Ospreay's joke would have died a death ten years ago.

I tell you what, this thread isn't doing anything to dispel the idea AEW isn't very fun at the minute.

Good grief. 

I should move on, but I have one last thought... Does it look any different to how anyone imagined it? Honestly, down to Punk's response on his Instagram Stories, suggesting he did it to get out of the company, it's all so boringly predictable too.

And, it hasn't made me care about Bucks/FTR.

All that said, Dynasty has the potential to be an absolute banger of a show from an in-ring perspective. Okada/Pac and Ospreay/Danielson on the same show is almost too exciting. One of those shows i'll book the Monday off (or at least the morning) to make sure I can watch spoiler free.

Just now, Supremo said:

Chris Hero nearly crying was the best part. Probably realised that filling out an incident report would delay him getting a Nando’s.

Genuinely laughed out loud at this.

Well, that's made it all worth it.

7 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I don’t think you realise how many AEW fans don’t like Tony Khan. Even here on the forum that’s the case. But it’s the internet wrestling community a place where many WWE fans openly support Vince despite the allegations so I shouldn’t be surprised.

Honestly, thought you had me with a cogent point but couldn't help yourself with the follow up right hook.

I just think it's all such a shame, and so tedious.

And the worst part is, the absolute worst part, is for all everyone's bickering I think the people who think everyone involved are goofballs is the majority of wrestlers. They're all fucking mates. They probably look at fans having these endless back and forths and think 'fucking idiots'.

The closest anyone's got to putting into words how I imagine most wrestlers actually think was my man Cope last week. Its all wrestling. Watch what you like, ignore what you don't. 

Swerve's getting a push. That's what I'm going to focus on. The rest is toxic waste off an old man's back.

10 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

AEW fans are like Trump fans. Tony Khan could shit on the entrance stage and they’d cheer them.

I think I'm just going to watch Adam Copeland matches in future and just enjoy the wrestling, like he dreamt it.

I, for one, am stunned that this has changed nobody's opinion and was a complete waste of time.

Still, Will Ospreay recycled a joke he heard 20 years ago so alls well.

I bet Edge is delighted he did that promo.

I thought everything else on the show was good, but all anyone will care about is the Punk footage and Ospreay promo and I thought they were both beyond shit. In a week where WWE reminded everyone how wrestling can be fun, AEW reminded me how fucking petty and pathetic it can be.

Yes, I know WWE are just as bad, but at least they didn't put it all over their actual product. Which, ironically, was the same opinion I held before Dynamite and it hasn't changed at all. Funny that.

At this point they'd be better off making Cody making the Champion across both shows, and the World Heavyweight Championship is just a recognised second title.

If you're just starting out as a singles star, you can go for either the US or IC title; if you're going to be breaking through to the next level you can chance your arm at being the Champion of the World; and if you climb that hurdle only then can you consider a crack at being the Champion of the Universe.

There's no point pretending Damian Priest and Jey Uso are competing for anything that someone like The Rock or Cody Rhodes would look twice at.

43 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Apparently they are not showing what had Tony 'fearing for his life' though.

How odd. 

What a horrible thought.

If true, essentially there's likely a bit of the video that makes Punk look silly or something, and they're going to try and show that. And then half the people who already hate him will say 'see, told you' and the other half who love him will say 'show the full video you cowards' and the Punk/AEW joyless drama will continue evermore.

I agree with @Supremo when he said earlier this is just a horrible time to be doing this. Not Just because of Copeland's 'just love the wrestling, lads' speech, but the amazing outpouring of wrestling joy that followed Mania and the fact that Cody, someone who is still very respectful of AEW and had his fellow EVPs in his Mania video, has just got his big moment.

I think there's a risk, in this new era, of ceding the ground of being 'the fun place to be' to WWE.

Just keep it fun, Tony.

2 minutes ago, mim731 said:

I saw someone on Twitter saying that it was simply that Taker was often (when it suited, so not when he was being a heel) presented as "the conscience" of the WWF/WWE so was helping to even the odds. 

In a wider sense, I assume it was to present the "40 years of WrestleMania" in a match without saying they are and with the legends that can still physically participate. 

This is where I got to with it, to the extent you need to intellectualise it. This is a guy who was the conscience of the WWE, a locker room leader through The Rock's era who will have known Cody as a child. He was defending the integrity of the Mania main event and of Wrestlemania, and was making sure a 52 year old from his era didn't come back and rob an opportunity from the new era.

I can live with that. Whether they meant it or not.

4 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

No, I said the same to my mate yesterday. What they gave us was nostalgia pops, which are seemingly bad in every other medium bar wrestling. But if all the people who had challenged Roman and got screwed of a win, were involved to help Cody win, that would have been a far better way for Cody to finish his, but also Romans, story. 

You can only really say this about Undertaker, to be fair.

Jey came out to tackle Jimmy, which is self explanatory.

Cena came out to tackle Solo, which makes sense as that's Solo's only serious singles rivalry since he's been on the main roster and the man he tried to kill.

Seth, again self explanatory.

Undertaker, yeah. I did some mental gymnastics on a previous page as to why it made sense, and others have explained it away by Undertaker getting one over on the people who caused his only Wrestlemania losses, but I accept that it was The Undertaker probably only because Austin couldn't do it for whatever reason.

Being misty eyed about Sami/KO forgets that it's a been over a year since they were seriously involved. I loved their stories with the Bloodline, but the role they eventually got as cheerleaders at the end probably suited their current proximity to Roman and the Bloodline.

But I think the people they used (again, let's ignore The Undertaker a second) gave The Bloodline agency beyond just Roman. And that's what this story ultimately was, the fall of an empire. They'd made too many enemies, they no longer had the numbers. Solo trying to kill Cena came back to bite him; Jimmy screwing his brother came back to bite him. Like all great empires, they'd got too big, made too many enemies, made too many missteps and it all collapsed on one night.

It's not about Roman. It's all about the Bloodline. They've been trying to tell us, to be fair.

*EDIT* The most salient point about The Undertaker might just be that actually in that moment an arena full of people made a noise so guttural, so full of emotion, that every wrestling promoter who's ever existed probably looked down (or up) approvingly. Sometimes you just got to make the people feel something, brother.

They'd done the common sense stuff, and then just as people expected Austin, they served Undertaker and shocked them to their core. There was no real reason for Austin beyond being Rock's rival of years gone by, but so was Taker to a lesser extent. So yeah, probably fine. Whatever. Will watch again and cry to check.

The problem is, what they consider to be embarrassing to Punk won't be.

As @Nick James said, it can only confirm what people already think. And to those people who love him, he's already selling them a 'I've changed, I'm a better man now narrative that won't be impacted.

Unless he gets sparked out by Jungle Boy, I don't see any way this changes anything for anyone.

Only watched bits through Instagram this morning, but Punk's cheeky little dickhead face is the best thing he does. That smile when he's on top of the announce table and doing Jey's dance really made me laugh.

Just now, wandshogun09 said:

Not a bad idea. I do dip into the threads on here for Raw and Smackdown from time to time anyway and it did help that Mania had all those pre-match video packages that kind of brought me up to speed on what was going on. Maybe I’ll ease myself in with the old ‘Big Four’ first. Maybe I’ll see you lot in the SummerSlam thread! 

Honestly, you can do the weekly shows through the WWE Instagram reels alone and then as @Devon Malcolm says the PPV's are pretty much always a high quality watch these days.

I've done the mental gymnastics so you don't have to, and I can confirm that it actually made more sense that The Undertaker came out to face down The Rock rather than Austin.

Austin was Rock's biggest rival, sure, but we've seen them be friendly since then and what's his motivation here? He's got no skin in the game. There's no reason for him to care.

Undertaker, however, was the locker room leader during The Rock's peak. He kept these guys in check, and made sure they lived by a code. This sort of behaviour from The Rock, abusing his position as a member of the Board and trying to steal this moment from a member of the younger generation, one who Undertaker would have known through Dusty as Cody was growing up, would be beyond the pale to The Undertaker and the principles he taught his locker room to live by.

I'm sure that's exactly what they were going for too. Exactly.

Prefer my 'Kinky Auntie Undertaker', that absolutely didn't catch on. But whatever. I'm not bitter.

54 minutes ago, Supremo said:

One of my biggest pet peeves - especially back when WWE was shit - was people posting stuff like this, finding logic, sense and through-lines where you knew for a fact WWE never intended. All those Twitter threads and YouTube videos about how Bray Wyatt’s Cinematic Universe made perfect sense and was full of clever references and foreshadowing that would definitely pay off satisfactorily, rather than just a pile of nonsense.

This Seth one actually works though. It got me. You can believe the same amount of thought has been put into it as to what the viewer has interpreted. Great stuff.

Honestly, it might be the biggest achievement of the weekend. I actually felt something for Seth Rollins! My least favourite wrestler, my least favourite character, but in the space of a weekend he had some actual development and a proper arc! I was rooting for the annoying dickhead. He sacrificed everything for the greater good. He did outsmart Roman by playing on his everlasting bitterness for how The Shield split up. Good grief. Amazing.

Seeing Seth cry* as he watched Drew raise gold, you almost believed it was an amazing reign that had come to a tragic end, rather than a bunch of bad, cackle-filled promos and average matches with Nakamura. I’m sure loads of people will claim Seth was buried this weekend, and especially that bit where Roman immediately chinned him during his run in, but genuinely it’s the best thing Seth has done in forever. I’m actually interested in how this affects him. He’s got serious justification of a heel turn here if they so desire. Cody owes him the world.

But yeah. No greater example of the mind-blowing euphoria that main event managed to reach that I honestly expected fucking Dean Ambrose to come out with Seth when The Shield’s music hit. Tony should have allowed it. He doesn’t deserve pro-wrestling.

*Not yet confirmed if Seth's tears were real. If confirmed fake, this obviously invalidates everything I've just said and makes everything rubbish.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5ghAxKgNIO/?igsh=MXEyMWZpbHY4aWN6YQ==

Amazing. 

3 minutes ago, Loki said:

There was an interesting look that passed between Drew and Seth after the match, a mutual respect and understanding.  They're the workhorses, CM Punk and now Damien Priest have waltzed in.  Wonder if there's some sort of storyline brewing here.

I thought Drew - who I'm on record as having been iffy with in the past - was spectacular in that segment.

Upon winning the title the frustrations and anxieties and resentments of the past few months washed away, and he was able to feel appreciated and recognised and like he was where he belonged. For 2 minutes he was the archetypal babyface, a nod of respect to the opponent, the handing of the title to his wife... but, then, it just wasn't enough. How could he be properly appreciated or recognised whilst CM Punk was sat at ringside? And then all the bitterness came back, and he needed to rub it in Punks face before he could feel like a true winner.

He's a superb character. He can't clear the chips from his own shoulders, can't get out of his own way and he's on a spiral down to full madness.

Again, it's great stuff.

I love seeing pictures of people like QT Marshall and Ricky Starks backstage with Cody.

I hope they cried, too.

1 minute ago, SuperBacon said:

Quality.

 

I came here to post the same thing. Incredible stuff.

Lord only knows where they go from here.

That 'what do you want to talk about?' might bring the roof down..

Just now, Supremo said:

As long as we can all agree this is the funniest thing of all time. The most ridiculous man alive reaches his final form. Like at the end of a video game, when they tell you it’s the final boss and you can’t return, so you just spend all your loot on the stupidest item.

Imagine how happy they were when, just as they thought they'd squeezed every Paul 'Triple H' Levesque homage in they could to the weekend, someone came up with spiky Americana Skeletor.

Brandi should have taken her wedding ring off to cap it off.

Lads, lads. Let us not fall for the temptation of cynicism.

Whether you want Samantha Irvin crying or not, Cody is champion, The Rock is back, Cena's hair is clinging on and Michael Cole is my spirit animal.

It's a good day.