Supremo

Can’t stop watching it. Unbelievable. Appearing like a God from the darkness. The way Pat can be heard giggling with sheer joy. The way the lightning strikes slow down, “FINAL BOSS,” flashes on the screen and then the music slows down to his heel theme. One of the best entrances of all time.

Wade Keller reporting that Punk going, “Who chose you? Say his name!” was improvised. What did Drew ever do in this world to have an empty-headed dumb fuck like CM Punk to go out on national television and fucking go into business for himself.

Forget allowing people to say, “wrestling,” and, “belt.” Forget allowing continuous camera shots that last longer than a minute. The true test of Triple H as a booker is going to be if he can keep this Punk and Drew thing on the tracks without anyone’s head falling off. I swear half the reason they’re flying Punk in to do commentary at Wrestlemania is out of fear that if he just sits at home rehabbing he’ll work himself into a shoot and lose his mind again.

The way the camera kept getting it in shot, I refuse to believe it was an accident. Bloodline Rules on Night 2 needs to be the schmozziest schmozz of all time. Absolute bedlam. The whole roster out there. Brawls everywhere. Everyon’s covered in Cody’s blood. Eventually, the glass breaks and the trumpets roar. Stone Cold and John Cena do Avengers Assemble to help Cody overcome the odds, passing The Torch. Big win. Belt raised. Lift him on their shoulders. World record amount of pyro. Dogs kept at a safe distance.

Imagine that entrance at Mania, with the stadium, the big stage, the pyro, tens of thousands of fans, Rock in trunks, as big as humanly possible, just before all his muscles fall off. We’re talking the greatest Wrestlemania entrance of all time. Is it scientifically possible to create actual lightning from the sky? It was that night.

The exact same energy.

Rock’s got a bigger, weirder looking head though.

If we take as a given that the three hours will always be a killer, leaving Raw with a fixed ceiling of about 8.5 out of 10, I think that may have been an 8.5. The best episode of Raw in recent memory. Everything's a mess and the two biggest matches coming out of this show (Cody vs. Rock, Punk vs. Drew) aren't even on the Wrestlemania card, but fuck it. I simply cannot complain when we're suddenly thrown through a time portal and we get to see a chaotic, hot as fuck, 1997 version of current WWE. Most Raws ever since they went to three hours come and go and you remember none of it as soon as the credits come up. There's things on this episode I'll remember forever.

Quick thoughts;

They somehow managed to make The Rock's entrance even better! The way he walked out of the darkness in that opening segment as the lightning went off behind him is one of the coolest entrances they've ever done. Up there with Hangman and the Dark Order. Spectacular cinematography.

The Punk/Drew/Seth segment was absolutely wild. I've no idea how much was agreed beforehand, how much needed to be smoothed over afterwards, or if people ended up throwing chairs and biting each other once they got behind the curtain, but that was the best thing CM Punk has done since coming back by miles and miles. Absolutely bonkers. Felt completely off the rails, wild and chaotic. Like a completely different universe to most WWE promos. Making a joke out of not being able to say Vince's name? Punk seemingly exposing himself as an even bigger hypocrite than ever thought possible by revealing he listens to Jim Cornette (gross)? Punk becoming my spirit animal by falling to his knees at the sound of  Seth's music? Seth asking, "do you wanna know what I think?" only for Punk to deadpan respond, "no,"? This was off the chain. Through the looking glass. Look how good this company can be when everyone is allowed to tee off naturally! Good lord. Get that belt on Drew. Him vs. Punk at Summerslam is going to be the biggest thing in the world provided everyone keeps their heads on straight. Hopefully everyone had a lovely bit of muffin and hugged afterwards. There is so, so much money here.

Sami losing, not believing in himself, and them tying the Gable thing up by having him play the Mickey to Sami's Rocky? Inspired. You can do it Sami! If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!

Becky Lynch knocking Dirty Dom's chin into the third row was unbelievable.

Best Ricochet has ever looked in this company.

Incredible heat angle at the end. Again, similar to the Punk promo, something completely beyond anything you'd normally expect from this company in 2024. The rain, the blood, the massive trucks with Cena and Stone Cold's faces on, seemingly teasing their involvement at Mania. This was fantastic. People calling Roman's stuff cinema for the last few years and then Uncle Rock turns up and shows what cinema actually is. Levels. Ball's in Roman's court now. He needs a home run between now and Mania.

But yeah. Look at this fucking superstar. Fucking hell, Rock. You've made your point! Give everyone else a chance!

Cody Rhodes after Smackdown’s promo, admitting to himself that he just delivered a dud, realising he’s floundering, recognising that he needs to get this shit back on track.

”Get me…A RAZOR BLADE!”

DM Hunk taking it to another level. What a man.

The muffins are in the enclosed pool area.

I’ll go to my grave arguing that the Spirit Squad had so much more to give. A wildly entertaining bunch of idiots. Huge potential tragically cut short so that Hunter and Shawn could go, “LOL this box says OVW.” Still reckon there was money in the way they’d incorporate the trampoline into high spots, too. You could have made an awesome gimmick match out of that.

I don’t know if the internet wrestling community is ready to hear it; but probably the best thing Dolph Ziggler ever did.

The zenith of the failed babyface push for Roman Reigns will always be that Summerslam when he faced Brock and they teased Strowman was going to cash in afterwards, in order to stop the fans from hijacking the match. Then the moment Roman won the belt, they cut the feed, rushing off air.  No cash in after all, suckers! Like a Montreal Screwjob only on your own audience. Vince probably ran and jumped in Earl Hebner’s car straight afterwards.

Weird time.

On the subject of people flying to the top of the card in record time, Bianca Belair made her main roster debut with a run-in at Wrestlemania 36, helping the Street Profits fight off Angel Garza, Austin Theory and Zelina. By Wrestlemania 37, she was main eventing with Sasha Banks.

The only other one I can think of with a similar trajectory is Brock. Debuted the night after Mania 18, main evented Mania 19 against Kurt Angle.

Saw clips from after Smackdown went off the air, with Cody giving away his shoes. If that man isn’t a babyface then I don’t know what is. He’s the fucking messiah.

I hope Roman sticks around. It took him so long to find a character that actually clicked with the audience, I’d like him to go long enough that we forget the blue contact lenses and dreadful Wrestlemania main events where the production crew had to turn the crowd volume down. The dark days.

The idea of continuing the Bloodline saga though? Fuck that. It’s already about six months to a year past its sell by date. nWo territory. We’ve already had the Bloodline Wolfpack vs. Bloodline Hollywood. Give it a natural, satisfying conclusion already.

On the reverse front, Becky Lynch went from not even winning the pre-show Battle Royale at Wrestlemania 34, to winning the main event at Wrestlemania 35.

Acknowledge her.

Good show.

Fun opener. I don’t know what physical rehab Rey did whilst out injured but he looked in great shape here. Five to ten years younger. Dirty Dom getting involved was a nice twist. Hopefully Santos goes full Christian Cage and becomes Dirty Dom’s new Dad.

You assume this means they’ll do a crazy Lucha multi-man at Wrestlemania. Could make for a great opener. Might finally give Andrade something to do. Remember the crazy chemistry he used to have with Rey? I’d be up for more of that. It’s got to be preferable to the whole lot of nothing Andrade’s done since the Rumble. Crazy that he went from doing fuck all, mumbling nonsense backstage on Rampage and Collision, to doing fuck all, mumbling nonsense backstage on Raw. Tony Khan should Tweet about this blatant plagiarism. I wonder if that was the pitch Matt Hardy gave on Monday. “If you think Andrade is good at mumbling nonsense backstage on his own, wait until you get us together! Wait until you get us in a stairwell! Wait until you get us negotiating contracts! We’ll take mumbling nonsense to a whole other level! We can fill hours of TV time with this shit! Months and months of it!”

Someone found Gallows and Anderson! Probably hiding under a table in catering. You assume whoever found them and booked them in this match also gave them a bollocking about being a complete waste of time, space and money because Anderson in particular was out there running and bumping like his job depended on it! Fucking Kenny Omega pace! I particularly liked when he massively over-committed to a somersault dive, completely overshot his opponents, and essentially gave the guard rail a 450 headbutt. Even Gallows looked shocked at how much Karl was suddenly trying. Fucking hell, mate. Who put 20p in you?

Kevin Owens did another Double Punch! Yes! I laughed out loud. Arguably even funnier than when he did it last time. Pretty Deadly sold it perfectly and I was howling at the way you could hear him gleefully running off like an excited kid, shouting, “Randy I did it! Randy I did it!” Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Pretty Deadly getting on the Wrestlemania card deserves the hijack treatment. Justice needs to be served. They rule. Get these (yes!) boys their flowers.

Fun home invasion angle with LA Knight. Superstar behaviour still shouting his catchphrase as he’s being thrown in a police car, handcuffed. “YUEAAH!” AJ was lucky the police left the scene so quickly though. Dodged a huge bullet. If they’d gone into his house they’d have probably found more steroids than they found in Chris Benoit’s gaff. Man looks like he’s going to explode.

Have we ever done a topic about the coldest acts in the hottest time periods? The Final Testament have got to have that sewn up. There is nothing there whatsoever. Ice cold. Nice to see The Street Profits back to wrestling as babyfaces. Montez Ford is the man. The future of this entire company.

I only realised watching this show that Raw and Smackdown were handling the ladder match qualifiers differently, with Raw just doing singular matches whereas Smackdown is holding a much deeper tournament. Never has it been clearer what a different era we’re in. They never would have done that five to ten years ago. Would’ve been scared of confusing their dumb-as-fuck fanbase. Nice to see them finally giving their audience a bit of credit. Treating their audience like seven year olds rather than four year olds.

The one positive about the main event segment was it at least ended with Cody looking smart. For a split second I thought the final nail in the coffin was going to be him looking like a moron for walking into a trap, coming alone. Again, five to ten years ago that’s exactly what a top babyface would have done, like an idiot. Glad we didn’t get that here. For what it’s worth, confidently sneaking in wearing that hoodie and shades was also the coolest Seth Rollins has looked in about a decade. Shame it won’t last. Least cool man alive. Nice little stand off at the end though. There’s a quality Backlash six-man tag to be made with this lot.

Other than that though, I thought the final segment massively underdelivered. Weird, understated promo that never got out of first gear. With a week off from The Rock, I was hoping for a wild, electric segment that elevated Roman and Cody, refocusing their rivalry and getting the magic back. It didn’t really happen. Cody in particular was lifeless out there. That female fan slagging off Roman had more babyface fire than the Wrestlemania Main Event Title Challenger!  Bonus negative points for how badly the Bullet Club reference died too. Give this stuff up already! Hopefully just an off night. Worst case scenario is that Cody’s been told he’s losing again, so his heart isn’t in it. Might have to get the rubber chicken out of storage.

But yeah. I’m sure when Kevin Owens retires he’ll list being in the main event of Wrestlemania with Stone Cold Steve Austin as his top moment. Second to that has got to be the Double Punches. So, so great. Long may they continue. This is art.

Saw this floating about online. Can’t think of a better way to end Wrestlemania.

Dustin runs in to even the odds, taking out the Bloodline. Cody drinks his vodka, which makes his arm go massive like Popeye. Cody punches Roman’s head off with his own version of the Smackdown Fist, wins the belt and everyone lives happily ever after.

Might as well cancel Wrestlemania. Story is finished. Random woman in the crowd has ended Roman’s title reign. She is the new Tribal Chief. She is the new Undisputed WWE Champion.

AJ Styles slowly morphing into Randy Savage playing Bone Saw in Spider-man. The size of him! Can only assume TKO tasked The Rock with writing up the new (non-existent) wellness policy.

Damning for Rampage that even when they air it immediately after Dynamite, with the main event of Dynamite overrunning into the show, it still has barely anyone commenting on it.

It was my first Rampage in a while. Fun show. As a rare occurrence, doing a three hour block on Wednesdays was fun. They absolutely should not consider doing it regularly through. Fuck that.

With Copeland’s win technically happening on this show, is that one of the first Title switches on Rampage? Nothing comes to mind when I try and think of another one.

Really good vignette with Bullet Club Gold. They’re instantly back to being wildly entertaining now they’re heels again. I laughed when the skeleton came down the water slide. “Oh look! Here’s Darby now!” There’s big money in the eventual feud when Darby returns. Hopefully Jay White keeps the stolen bat until then. When’s Juice back? 

By contrast, The Acclaimed are absolutely finished as an act. It was insane watching how little reaction they got here. Max waffling on to silence. Remember how over they once were? I can’t decide if it’s the lacklustre onscreen stuff, or Max Caster being a bit of an idiot on Twitter, but either way this felt like the last hurrah for a team destined for the bin. They’re done. Call it a day. Anthony Bowens could make something of himself as a singles. Sticking around with Caster at this point just feels like holding him back.

Great match with Rocky and Takeshita. Takeshita rules. He should go for the TNT Title against Copeland.

Fun tag with Best Friends. Still hoping for a big heel turn from Trent.

Considering they had to follow the I Quit match, that Main event was nothing short of a miracle. They managed to do a wild, weapon-based brawl in a way that still set it apart from what Christian and Cope had done forty minutes earlier, massively overdelivering. Willow and Skye in particular put on phenomenal performances. The women in AEW always deliver with these crazy hardcore matches. 

But yeah. Once again. Willow Nightingale. She’s the one. She’s always been the one. She always will be the one. If Tony Khan doesn’t have a spreadsheet that maps out a storyline that results in Willow being the Women’s Champion in the next six to twelve months then he’s lost his mind.

Seen a bit of chat recently about who would qualify if AEW did a Hall of Fame. I’d like to nominate the bloke who screamed, “RETIRE!” at Chris Jericho last night. A hero.

The joy of Shibata and Danielson trading stiff shots cross-legged was only increased by Nigel McGuinness’ deadpan delivery, describing Danielson as, “..sitting down on the job…lazy.” That’s going to end up being feud of the year the day Danielson pulls him up on all the burying. It’s a weekly delight hearing Nigel come up with new one ways to take the piss.

My first time seeing Zack Knight. Oof. Like an even shitter Karrion Kross! I hope Saraya is getting a high percentage. He owes her everything.

Up until the main event, this was probably one of the weaker episodes of the year. It goes to show what a roll they’re on though that the time still flew by and I’ve got very few complaints.

At least they got the worst stuff out of the way early. Unsurprisingly rough promo from Mercedes. Best I can say about it was that it wasn’t as bad as Saraya’s second week on AEW TV. The cracks are already starting to show though. She’s just not a good promo. It was tough to watch when she started stumbling over her words and getting names mixed up. She has all the star power in the world but stick to pre-tapes and turn her heel as soon as possible.

Don’t even tease turning Willow heel. Don’t you fucking dare.

Kingston vs. Okada didn’t rock my world, not really getting out of second gear, but it was the perfect result and The New Elite remain a fantastic act. I hope they bully Marvez every single week. Okada’s brilliant facials, combined with The Bucks in the truck, titting about, calling for replays and giving him the Cody pyro to celebrate? Chef’s kiss. Triforce of glorious pricks.

Will Ospreay continues to prove me wrong. Not in a million years did I think he’d become someone you could bank on to deliver an effective weekly US-style promo. Lad’s a star.

Quick one on the attendance; another brilliant crowd. I don’t know if it’s them booking smaller buildings, fresher markets, pricing their tickets better or if it’s a consequence of their overall product improvement in 2024. Whatever the cause, I hope they continue what they’re doing because it’s awesome seeing those wides shots of a packed house. I never want to go back to the tight, cramped camera angles, pitch black darkness and forced perspectives.

Between his promo and then the match, does Swerve feel a bit cold to anyone else? Like the moment may have passed now Ultra Superstars like Okada and Ospreay have arrived? Hopefully a wild match with Taleshita next week can re-heat him a bit. I need Swerve to win that belt. Not only for him, but to see Hangman’s reaction if he comes back from suspension and Swerve is World Champion. His head will fall off!

Main event was absolutely brilliant from start to finish. Proper smile on your face fun. From the crowd singing Copeland’s song, to the hockey fight in the jerseys, Christian hiding in the women’s toilets, the wild spots, to the hugely cathartic ending. AEW at its best. Two pros hitting a home run. Copeland should think about retiring on that match. I doubt he’ll have a better one. Match of the year contender.

What’s Beth Pheonix’s status? Is she under a WWE legends contract? Not that I particularly want to see any more of the Grit Couple, but it sure felt like a spot waiting to happen when Mother Wayne was screwing things up. I fully expected Beth to jump the rail to a huge pop.

But yeah. Huge stipulation matches delivering exactly what’s promised, where the heel finally gets their comeuppance. No wanky finish, where you try and be clever. The heel just gives up after getting his dick kicked in. Pro-wrestling at its finest.

Between AEW’s turnaround and WWE heading into what feels like one of the biggest, hottest Manias in years?

This is them.

A video package to explain who Sasha Banks is. Somewhere, Ice Cube’s son nods solemnly.

Love the Eddie Kingston character with all my heart.

Hoping Okada absolutely murders him tonight. Squash the living fuck out him. Raise that gold.

Discovered today that Lance Archer is 47 years old. Between him, and Orange Cassidy being 39, it’s the perfect example of how there’s a huge difference between real age and TV age. Unless you’ve been on national TV for years, you feel far younger than you actually are. I’d consider both of them fresh, young talent with a huge upside.

13 minutes ago, air_raid said:

@Supremo 

"Matt Hardy was in attendance last night for Monday night Raw"

Sure, but it looks like it was because he bought a ticket. It was in Raleigh. I'd like to think there's the same chance of him being on the cusp of a deal as there was for Su Pollard when she rocked up at the Docklands for Hogan vs Savage in 1989.

Oh yeah, I’m sure he was there on his own dime, but he’ll still be playing the game. Get his name out there. Build a bit of buzz. Try and get both companies to think there’s a return on investment and they’ll miss out if they let the other team sign him. You’d assume both Hunter and Tony are smart enough to know there’s nothing there, but honestly? Especially given WWE’s recent hires? I bet we see Matt Hardy vs. Karrion Kross before year’s end. 

I’m going to McDonalds later, but not before I go past Burger King and take some photographs of the attendance. The Big Mac will taste nicer if I know McDonalds had a bigger crowd. Didn’t even curtain off the hard cam!