Supremo

Did people not see him commentate on that first empty-arena Smackdown? Triple H is great.

Put me down as another who’s been conned into thinking all the Broken stuff was good. I wasn’t watching Impact at the time. The only thing I actually saw was the Final Deletion, which I thought was incredible in its creativity and daftness. Mid-card comedy, obviously, but bloody brilliant mid-card comedy. The warning signs were there. Whenever I caught Matt’s more recent YouTube stuff it seemed to have lost all the fun in favour of over-complicated, e-fed nonsense. And then listening to Matt on Jericho’s podcast you could tell he’d fallen down the rabbit hole of believing his own hype and thinking any old shit was good just because it’s, “creative,” or, “out of the box.” Waffling on about entities and vessels, you could hear the doubt in Jericho’s voice even before he went as far as to essentially admit, “I’ve no idea what you’re going on about, mate.” I think that bollocks they aired on Wednesday and the subsequent reports of the Impact stuff being a lot worse than people realised exposed how few people were actually watching him regularly at the time. The Final Deletion and the Delete chant getting so over has clearly earned Matt more goodwill than he perhaps deserves. It’s no wonder Jericho wasn’t happy with the segment. You’ve got one of the greatest minds for what works in the business in Jericho and then a lad in Matt who’s coming up with the type of shit you’d find written in the back of a teenage goth’s exercise book, with absolutely no consideration given to how it’s actually going to work within the accepted reality of pro-wrestling. I’ll let them off for now since they’ve clearly had to divert from their long-term plans and are just making it up as they go along, and coming up with the drone explanation is quite clever, but man. Not a good start. I’ve gone from being excited about Matt to quickly realising he’s the Nightmare Collective on steroids. There might be something there but it’s gonna need a patient editor to sift through all the shit. In retrospect, it’s no wonder Vince couldn’t be arsed. If fucking teleporting is the first thing Matt wants to do, suggesting it’s one of his better ideas, can you even imagine the shit he’s probably been pitching to Vince? Get out of my office whilst I eat my steak, you fucking geek.

Stick that video at the end of Raw and it’s easily the best Wrestlemania go-home segment in forever. The story of the last few years has been people like BT Sports and AEW doing WWE way better than WWE. Imagine if every Raw and Smackdown since it all kicked off had just been highlights, phone-recorded promos, video packages and vignettes like that one? I’d have been a million times more excited for Wrestlemania. They should’ve saved the empty arena concept for Wrestlemania rather than do weeks of showing how lifeless and shit it is. I can’t fathom anyone watching these shows on Monday and Friday being excited for the PPV. I’ve no idea whether these rumours about The Miz showing up sick at one of these tapings are true, but would anyone be surprised? He seems exactly the type of snivelling, brown-nosing jobsworth you’d expect to put company and his standing in it ahead of the health of him and his colleagues. He came to play, there was a price to pay, time for you to get down on your knees and pray. He came to play.

Just to keep with the theme of this being a fucking mess where everything that could go wrong has, someone should come out in a shit rubber dinghy.

There are no highlights of these empty arena shows.

My enthusiasm for a soul-less, creepy, haunting, empty-arena Wrestlemania remains at zero, but still. This is some good shit. If they don’t air this footage on Raw this week they’ve lost their minds even more than they already have even running this show.

WWE released the Ronda Rousey and Kurt Angle vs. Triple H and Stephanie McMahon Wrestlemania match on Facebook just now. I’ve just sat and watched the whole thing again. Still an absolute joy from start to finish. The bit where Ronda starts beating up Hunter is peak pro-wrestling. I don’t think I saw anyone mention this match when discussing the best of the decade, which is absolutely criminal in retrospect. So much fucking fun. The BEST.

I’ll take one.

I didn’t know how much I needed this until now. Big meaty men slappin’ meat! Get it booked!

Matt Riddle, your time has come.

Teleportin’ Matt was so shit. Similar to Moxley’s terrible match with Omega, it did the exact opposite of what they intended. I didn’t come away thinking, “wow, Vince and WWE dropped the ball not letting them do their own stuff.” I came away thinking, “no wonder they had to rein you in, you fucking dork.”

That Gronk lad’s quite the annoying twat, isn’t he? Looking forward to WWE realising and turning him heel about nine months to a year too late. Poor Mojo, too. You can sense his hope and belief that this is going to turn his career around, when everyone else on the planet knows it’s never going to happen. Daniel Bryan and Drew Gulak are the only act in this company that works in an empty building. They’re great together.

Forget JR, Jake the Snake was the one that shocked me. The shit he’s put his body through, the health problems he’s had, and they still fly him in? Insane.

I haven’t seen all of it but from what I did see they did a far better job than WWE. Them both doing shows without crowds further exposed the difference between the products. WWE felt shallower and more one-note than ever, like there was nothing behind the razzmatazz, whereas even in a mostly empty building there were still cute interactions and fun moments to be had in AEW, whether it’s Big Tone having a cheeky bet on the matches, Colt Cabana slapping Kip Sabian or Orange Cassidy sleeping at the commentary desk. The only problem with the Matt Hardy thing is knowing what a thunderous reaction that would’ve received in front of AEW fans. Still, Matt Hardy back in a company where he can come up with his own stuff? Brilliant. Fuck yeah Brodie Lee. So happy it was him. Could’ve done without the bush league WWE bashing about old men not understanding his potential or whatever, but still. I’m thrilled. Him being the leader of the Dark Order immediately elevates them. So yeah, given the circumstances, if you must do a live show, this was not bad at all. Ultimately though, it’s really not necessary and felt like a huge risk having so many people out there at once. This company especially wouldn’t suffer one bit from just doing a two hour promo, interview and vignette-filled show for however long this goes on for. Thankfully, the ambiguous way they kept saying, “the next Dynamite,” rather than, “next week,” suggests they realise this too. Sammy fucking Guevara though. My word. What a talent. There’s no joy in wrestling right now greater than Chris Jericho constantly trying not to laugh at what a fantastic, hilarious prick Sammy is. He’s like a proud dad.

I can completely buy that Vince thinks he’s doing the right thing. He’ll be absolutely certain that it’s their duty to, “put smiles on faces,” and offer a distraction for people stuck at home. Him and Steph are probably already talking about how running Wrestlemania is going to save the Planet or some shit. I think the longer they do these deathly episodes of Raw and Smackdown the more chance there is of him changing his mind though. It just doesn’t work. You aren’t distracting people. You’ve taken something they enjoy and rammed it through this weird, haunting, creepy filter. I think I read the analogy on Twitter or Facebook, but it’s spot on regardless. Doing these shows in front of zero fans would be like if your nan died and your parents took you to Disney Land to distract you...but then brought your nan’s corpse with them.

They should rip DDT off and just do Wrestlemania at a local swimming baths. I'd watch the shit out of that.

Further evidence that Montez Ford is a cant miss gem. Look at how this lad sold the Stunner. Superb.

I'm with @tiger_rick. Doing what they usually do in an empty warehouse is fucking weird and doesn't allow for even the slightest bit of escapism. They'll continue to do it until forced not to because Vince is a maniac, but they'd be better off just airing, "Best Of," specials on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It's not like they haven't got the footage. We thought Drew was fucked beforehand. Wait until the poor bastard has to raise the belt aloft in front of nobody, shitty indoor fireworks going off behind him.

Santino salutes in mid-air to sell the Stone Cold Stunner. Fantastic.

So, with it looking extremely unlikely that this is happening in its current form, how do people think they go about it? Would they do all the Wrestlemania matches in an empty Performance Center? I don't know how they could really address a postponement in storylines otherwise. Everyone has all these storylines ready to peak in three weeks. Is Vince just going to suddenly wake up and pretend everything was a dream until things have calmed down? Can they even pause the entire company and not deliver TV shows to USA and Fox for a month or so?

We had tickets for this. Frankly, I’m glad they’ve moved it and I don’t have to weigh up going or not anymore. Dana’s insistence that these fights will still happen isn’t the greatest look when everything else is shutting down for the foreseeable future.

Yep. There are two things I want from this company right now. Firstly, a WWE 24 Documentary following Vince losing his mind at the prospect of cancelling Wrestlemania. And more importantly, a new Network option where I can switch the commentary track on every show to a grumpy, sarcastic Triple H in Gorilla just slagging everyone off.

I bet it’ll help the shows massively in the short term. Something different. Forced to get creative, like that time Raw was snowed in. NXT already felt fresh as fuck with them messing around in the gym and the conference room.

A whole episode being recorded at the Hardy Compound is a cracking idea given the current climate.

I almost want then to hold off on the inevitable debuts of Matt Hardy and Luke Harper until this (hopefully!) dies down and they can run in front of proper crowds again. One of the best things about AEW is how enthusiastic the crowds are and it’ll be a real shame if these big debuts don’t get the reactions they would’ve gotten otherwise. The way it’s been set-up, I was expecting a huge DDP-IS-THE-STALKER pop when Matt presumably whipped a mask off this Wednesday.