Supremo

Someone has stolen Brandi Rhodes’ passport, meaning she can’t attend the Jericho Cruise, so won’t be on this week’s show. Not all heroes wear capes.

Why are people equating being booked to look like a prick with taking it easy and not smashing your body up? They’re two completely different things. From what I’ve seen Omega has booked himself to lose loads but he’s still been doing similar matches to what he used to do in Japan. Smashing his nose up in that first Jericho match, chucking himself into railings in the Pac match, doing fucking Phoenix Splashes onto the exposed wooden boards against Mox, landing face-first, this isn’t a case of Kenny, “taking it easy,” or preserving his body. It’s about him and his mates being geeks who were too scared to push themselves as the top stars out of fear of morons on Twitter accusing them of burying others.

Pretty unfair to say AEW’s Kenny Omega doesn’t have a character. He’s a gamer/internet/cosplay dork who loses more than he wins and isn’t as good as he supposedly was in Japan. He’s also a shit friend, where despite being a Vice President of the company he doesn’t really do anything whenever his mates are violently attacked. Frankly, I don’t blame Adam Page for choosing booze over him.

I was sad to see Shelley lose but then Gibson cut that brilliant heel promo afterwards and all was forgiven. Hopefully Gibson moves to the proper NXT brand full-time. He’s a great heel. Plus, Shelley strikes me as being similar to Samoa Joe. They’ll tell themselves he’s only coming in part-time, or that he’s NXT-exclusive and there’s no long-term plans, but then they’ll quickly realise how great he is and lock him down for good. He’s exactly what KUSHIDA needs, with the ability to carry the promo side of things. Dunne and Riddle made for a great team, too. Very excited by the idea of them winning the whole thing and then breaking up and feuding with each other. The quicker Dunne turns heel again the better.

Half the time I think people just say, "psychology," without even thinking or caring about what it means. They just know there's a certain type of wrestling they're not supposed to like because Meltzer or Cornette told them, so whilst pretending they don't like it and not really knowing how to articulate as much, they just attribute it to, " bad psychology." That opening four-way tag on this show was the perfect example of it. Everyone banging on about bad psychology and acrobatics, tagging Cornette on Twitter so they can go, "LOL It's just flips!" and feel all smug if he chucks them a like or retweet. It's not just flips though, is it? It's not like the lads are out there just doing somersaults onto crash-pads without rhyme or reason. They're attempting to win by hitting high-flying, acrobatic, impactful moves and counters that are completely in keeping with the accepted reality of pro-wrestling. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but that doesn't automatically mean, "bad psychology." Give me this type of match over a dead slow, boring match where everyone expertly works on a body part~! any day of the week. If anything, I thought they did a really good job in that match continuing to tease Adam Page's turn and building up the tension among The Elite, whilst still providing a fun sprint of a match with a fucking brilliant Orange Cassidy comedy spot in the middle. So glad they've started featuring Cassidy more on Dynamite rather than Dark. He's the best. I've no problem watching long matches on TV provided they're fun, exciting matches or involve characters I care about. That's why this Brandi thing sucks so bad. Shit characters, shit storylines, shit matches. Look at that Mel girl, for example. Who the fuck even is she? Has it ever been explained? At least most characters in pro-wrestling start with the default of, "this person is a professional wrestler," and then they build from there, but that hasn't even been the case with Mel! She was just a woman in the crowd who wanted a haircut and now she's having matches. I think JR sort of half mentioned, "it looks like she has wrestling skills," during the match, but come on! I know they've got a fetish for spooky and mysterious factions but there's no excuse when the Nightmare Collective's entire act is mostly built around promos and vignettes to not have characters more fleshed out than "Jericho's mate from the 90s," and, "woman who wanted a trim." The way Awesome Kong's aura has plummeted for being associated with this shit is really depressing, too. When she originally came in it felt like such a big deal. Her staredown with Ajar Kong was great. I know the rumours are that she's a physical wreck these days so can't really go, but still. A few power spots and squash matches is all she needed to continue her momentum. I'm sure Riho or one of the other small girls could've easily ran around her and bumped enough to get a good match out of her. Now though, she feels absolutely worthless.

It was a solid show. The only low point, as always, was the Brandi Rhodes stuff, but I've taken to just fast-forwarding the majority of stuff involving that lot. I was a bit disappointing we didn't see anyone messing around with the beach set, throwing giant beach balls or something at each other, but hopefully that's just because they're saving it for the cruise next week. I'm praying we see guys fighting in cabins or getting thrown overboard or whatever. Ideally, Moxley keeps the Metal Gear Solid eye patch for a while.He looked great in it!

Conor almost let it slip during the Ariel Helwani interview and then last night’s buddy cop-style press conference confirmed it. I’m absolutely convinced the reason Cowboy got this fight instead of someone like Justin Gaethje is because they could trust Cowboy to play ball and not mention the rapey elephant in the room. Everything felt super controlled and scripted and you could sense everyone panicking when that journalist brought it up.

Shout out to those fans at the press conference who booed a journalist out of the building for daring to bring up the multiple unresolved sexual assault cases against one half of the main event. Fucking hell. MMA, man.

It’s not a huge deal but when watching the shows on catch up via Desktop, Is there a way to get rid of the match chapters at the bottom of the screen? I keep finding it distracting, like I’m watching early TNA with that news ticket at the bottom.

Let’s just hope another show on national TV doesn’t mean even longer matches now that they haven’t got to squeeze everything into two hours. They could do far worse than to fill the extra time with all the great recap and montage videos they put online. I’m already sick of the knobheads on Twitter trying to use this news to suggest AEW is some huge success that’s without fault. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good news and overall I usually enjoy Dynamite, but you’d have to be either blind or married to Brandi Rhodes to not see some of the major problems they continue to have and desperately need to address.

Saudi show in February, you say?

I feel bad for future historians if they have to listen to Dave’s chuckling audio recaps of Being The Elite. The most interminable listen there is.

I just hope Marty isn’t as stupid as his mates, thinking he needs to bury himself to prove he’s not John Cena or whatever. Chuck the World Title on yourself ASAP, like a real star would do.

I think Smackdown being such a bland, nothing-happening, directionless show helps elevate Raw in that you can at least see where they’re going, what they’re trying to achieve and who their chosen ones are. The stuff with Aleister Black and Buddy Murphy in particular is a million miles away from when both guys just existed on the Blue Brand last year. There’s a conscious effort to truly get them over and I applaud the way they’ve gone about it. Black has won decisively every time to position him as the man, and now they’ve created a great offshoot to keep Murphy in the mix and give him the rub with Seth’s great heel act. Good stuff. The three hours remains an absolute killer though. Even the best show stretched over such a long period of time is going to be a chore to watch. Even for as fun as the main event was, I can’t imagine many people sticking around when fucking Eric Rowan’s music hit at the two and a half hour mark. Highlight of the show was Kevin Owens doing Parkour on the ramp. What an amazing spot. Hopefully they replay that until the end of time. Surely they’re not going to have Charlotte win the Rumble? Watching this show the last few weeks, it feels like an inevitability despite how fucking boring and shit she’s been for the longest time. I’m hoping Heyman’s already bagsied Shayna Bazler for the main roster, with the plan of giving her the Rumble win to set her up as a big deal on Raw. Biggest missed opportunity was not putting the 24/7 belt on Brock during that Truth segment. I know it’s a joke belt that most would think is below Brock, but just for a few weeks whilst he’s around? I’d love everyone being too scared to even chase him. Or him just F5ing everyone with ease, Heyman not even stopping his promo to take a breath. Have him just throw it in a bin after a while or whatever. Brock proved with the boombox that there’s more entertainment to be had than him just standing there looking big.

Fun show. Enjoyed Bate/Devlin, the women's match and the ladder match. Put me down as another one who thought they made a mistake not putting Devlin over. This felt like his coming out party and the big win would've solidified him. Only downside was Joe Coffey, who just doesn't feel good enough for the spot they seem insistent on putting him in. Both against Pete Dunne and now WALTER he's been exposed as not a main event guy. Still though, this is easily the best wrestling photo of 2020 so far.

I just think there's only so many main events involving Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler you can watch before it feels like a shitarse Groundhog Day. Other than The Usos coming back the other week, it otherwise feels like every Smackdown for the past few months has ended the exact same way, with Corbin and Ziggler beating up Roman Reigns to little to no reaction.

Marty running the gaff is a million times more interesting than if he was just staying with ROH, doing the same thing, and they continued to just exist, with no buzz whatsoever. Hopefully he can turn things around. It beggars belief something hadn’t been done sooner. The day after Madison Square Garden heads should’ve rolled.

It wasn’t as good as the spectacular Tyler Bate vs. Walter one, but the Prime Target special for today’s Takeover was still really good. The amount of national television time they have to fill on a weekly basis, I’ll never understand why Jeremy Borash is being wasted making stuff this good for a brand hardly anyone is watching regularly.

I loved that Matt Riddle promo on this show. Stupid, daft, but completely fresh, different and in keeping with Riddle’s character. That and Bianca Belair’s “she doesn't even go here!” both made me laugh.

Sammy Guevara was the one saving grace during that awkward, badly timed closing angle. He’s such a fantastic little prick. He does everything perfectly. I don’t think anyone has ever taken Dirty Deeds better, either. Looked like Mox straight up murdered him.

Almost as interesting as the fight itself is how you even do a Conor McGregor press conference in 2020. I can’t fathom how he can be anywhere near as cocky or brash with the promo ammo he’s given his opponents. Admittedly, Cowboy is probably too classy to throw shit at him, but fucking hell. How can you even insult your opponent when you've spent the last year coked out of your mind, punching pensioners, fighting paternity tests and being investigated for multiple sexual assaults?

Made up with the Alex Shelley announcement. I’ve not seen much of his ROH stuff but hopefully he can still go and this leads to a full-time gig. Always been a favourite.

Brandi Rhodes has worse go-away heat than anyone in the business. Even Baron Corbin feels like an effective heel compared to her. Also absolutely hated how Dean Ambrose-y Mox felt in that main event segment. After such a great show last week, this felt like a massive step backwards again. Three factions doing the same recruitment storyline on a two hour show. Fuck me.

Maybe that Punk vs. Seth Wrestlemania match isn't as likely as most thought.

I love him so much. Future Wrestlemania main eventer.