Professional Wrestling

Only one missing in the celebration is Goldust. Damnit Tony.

This point has been brought up. At the end, Roman could have hit Cody with the steel chair and won the match. However, despite being the top dog, he still couldn't get over Seth betraying him 10 years ago and decided to hit him instead in a mirror image of that betrayal. This need for revenge ultimately cost him everything. I feel like this moment covers several tropes all at once.

Edited by DS9guy on Apr 7th 2024 at 12:56:09 PM

Aside from Seth literally becoming Cody's Shield for that moment, Roman never getting over Seth's betrayal and it costing him his championship mirrors Drew's own inability to get over his obsession w/ CM Punk that also cost him his own championship.

As for the other matches, Seth vs Drew was a long finisher spamfest that wasn't as good as their earlier bouts but the result made sense storywise (Drew vs Punk and Rollins' accumulating injuries) and did lead to Damian Priest finally cashing in his Money in the Bank AND paying back Drew for those times he cost him cash-in opportunities. The Philly Street Fight was just fanservicey distraction given Bubba Ray's involvement, ECW nostalgia from Paul Heyman's HOF entry and the fact that this is Philadelphia. LA Knight vs AJ Styles was ok but nothing wow to write about. The Triple Threat Match was equally ok but nothing special and it was pretty much your usual Logan Paul shenanigans (brass knucks, interference from his cronies, etc). Bayley vs IYO SKY was great though and Bayley going back as a babyface but w/ her role model gimmick will be interesting.

Now for the Main Event. While it was chockfull of Attitude-era shenanigans near the end, it was still absolutely fun to watch and I can't remember the last time WWE made people really invested in a wrestling storyline as much as Cody Rhodes' story. The counters to the Bloodline run-ins were also great callbacks and while I expected Austin to be the one to counter The Rock given their own rivalry and Rock now being the evil authority figure, having Undertaker be the one to neutralize The Rock is also a nice touch if you view it in how Rock keeps calling himself The Final Boss but ultimately pales in comparison to The Phenom. You also get this feeling that given the new intro graphic debuting last night, Stephanie starting things off tonight by calling it the Triple H Era (w/c Triple H in the post-PLE press conference prefers to call "Our Era" while praising the new guy who replaced Kevin Dunn in production) and Cody winning and dethroning Roman, they're really hammering home how Vince McMahon's time is done and Roman hogging the championship was the last vestige of Vince's influence. Corey Graves capping it all off w/ "Pro Wrestling is back" is icing on the cake.

Edited by KRider on Apr 7th 2024 at 11:53:02 AM

If the Rock is the Final Boss, then the Undertaker is the Superboss.

Edited by DS9guy on Apr 8th 2024 at 2:00:19 PM

As Qui-Gon Jinn said "There's always a bigger fish"

Now that WWE’s stuck the landing, Tony really needs to find that lightning hot angle cause his last hope was WWE slipping on thr banana peel again. Outside of Undisputed Kingdom most of AEW’s current stories and angles are good, but nothing is MUST SEE and that’s not gonna be enough now.

Edited by The_Reptile_ on Apr 8th 2024 at 6:03:19 AM

We’ll have to see what Wednesday brings.

https://wrestlingheadlines.com/young-bucks-to-air-backstage-footage-from-aew-all-in-london-backstage-reports-on-it-showing-cm-punk-jack-perry-incident/

Oh no. Don't tell me Tony's big plan is airing the supposed backstage footage from AEW All In London as revenge for CM Punk's interview w/ Ariel Helwani.

Edited by KRider on Apr 8th 2024 at 7:22:37 AM

Like I said earlier, this better be the most damning thing in the universe exposing everything Punk said about the incident as humongous lies.

I'm like, 70% sure that the footage in question won't actually be about CM Punk, and it's just The Young Bucks working us. The backstage footage is probably Perry being evicted from the stadium. The Bucks have foreshadowed working with Perry several times recently.

Edited by Awesomekid42 on Apr 8th 2024 at 12:00:22 PM

Watching the beginning of Raw, and now I'm wondering....if it hadn't been Cody, who do you think would have ended Roman's reign?

Cause he seems kinda perfect for it. It's like they wanted it to be him specifically even before he showed up. Everything feels like it dovetailed together perfectly.

One thing that dawned on me regarding Undertaker showing up to stop The Rock. Back in Wrestlemania 14, Undertaker allegedly confronted Shawn Michaels backstage and told him that if he screws Austin over the same way they screwed Bret over at Montreal, he is going to kick HBK's ass for real. Guess him stopping The Rock from helping Roman can be seen as a reference to that alleged backstage incident.

Oh shit!

Ilya Dragunov is on Raw and is about to fight Shinsuke Nakamura!

That Cody and Rock promo man. They've already begun teasing their feud in the future. And it's also refreshing to see an evil authority figure who's a Graceful Loser. If it were Vince McMahon or Eric Bischoff we'd have definitely seen a screwjob. Worse if it was Vince Russo as not only would it have been a screwjob it would have been a swervejob.

Guess we’re starting with the TNT Championship.

Thanks Swerve for fucking on Dustin like that. Maybe it’ll happen later in the show.

Edited by omega2900 on Apr 10th 2024 at 7:10:08 AM

Well, they did it.

Punk started it. How am I not surprised?

I’m impressed they were able to weave it into a storyline between The Bucks and FTR.

Jack Perry return at Dynasty?

Edited by omega2900 on Apr 10th 2024 at 8:05:54 AM

It went down basically as Punk said it di. The problem is that once you actually take a minute to dwell on what Punk said you realize it's actually kinda fucking nuts and seeing it in action is kinda insane.

Also hope it was cathartic and you feel better Tony cause you're gonna have CM Punk chants follow the Bucks for the next three months now.

So what was the point of it all? It showed it went down exactly as Punk said it did in his interview.

Oh hi, Mina.

I mean the problem is it went down as Punk said it did. It's just that it going down the way Punk said it did does not actually make Punk look good, when he clearly thinks it does. :V

The last bit of the Mercedes segment has a different vibe with the fact the lights were off.

Especially since it raises the possibility that it was Willow who did it.

We did see her contemplate hitting Mercedes with that chair a few weeks back. She didn't go through with it, but something is clearly there.

And while the lights going off is a Julia (and House of Black) trademark, the fact that she was nowhere to be seen when they came back on is obviously meant to raise some doubt, and is a little off script for the Black Hart.

So how badly do you think airing the footage will harm AEW? It's pretty much nothing we haven't known already. I mean, AEW could just ignore Punk's rant about how much he hated his time was in AEW. And besides nothing AEW will say or do will ever change people's minds about CM Punk.

Edited by KRider on Apr 10th 2024 at 6:57:51 AM

This really felt like Tony just finally snapped at having to listen to so many people talk shit about him - with more than a few clearly doing it disingenuously - and clapped back in whatever way he had available to him. Ultimately what this just tells me is I probably would have hated living through the Monday Night War where shit like this was an almost weekly occurence.

Worst case scenario, though, is I foresee WBD cracking the whip and telling Tony to get over it now that he's had his little public fit if he wants to keep airing his product on their stations.

Edited by The_Reptile_ on Apr 10th 2024 at 7:16:54 AM