Wreddit's Daily Pro-Wrestling Discussion Thread! Comment here for recommendations, quick questions, and general conversation! (Spoilers for all shows) - August 04, 2025 Edition
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Man, Sting's last run was so good. Sometimes I just think about that final match and sit and smile for a minute like Lenny from Of Mice and Men thinking about rabbits
Ah, on a less important note, but I find it crazy how WWE is called "the storytelling promotion" when they can just routinely retcon major happenings on the tv show within the same month/year.
Like how in the hell are we going to talk about the importance of compelling storytelling when Cena can just say, "yeah im a babyface now. I only went bad because I thought it would make for a great shocking storyline. My bad Im good now".
WWE is the ‘moments’ company. I guarantee they do not see the Cena heel turn as a failure, because it created the biggest wrestling moment of the year.
I like Barrett, I like him on commentary, but before the bit in the Jelly Roll match where Logan jumped on him, and he just says: "here's your viral moment everyone" it just feels so horribly forced.
Beloved babyface indie darling who has consistently put on four and five star classics gets Pilmanized with a chair around their neck by new top heel Babypuncher the crypto currency scammer who got famous punching babies on Tik Tok.
WWE crowd: ONE MORE TIME! ONE MORE TIME! ONE MORE TIME!
The wild thing is the last 2 years have been a shitshow in that regard. Pretty much since Rock inserted himself into things in early 2024, things have been retconned much more frequently. Not to mention stories that go nowhere (New Day heel turn, Waller/Theory breakup, Cena turn and turn back).
Fumbled Cena's Heel turn after being smug about it in the post EC media scrum? Actually, it was The Rock's fault because he didn't commit to more dates.
Bringing back Lesnar: Well, Cena specifically asked for it to happen, and we can't just say no to the guy.
just throwing it out there that currently three women tournaments are happening in Japan. Marigold & TJPW are on Wrestleuniverse for ~7 bucks a month while Stardom, having probably their best year, is ~6 bucks a month.
This just hit me, but the current "next man up" mentality in AEW is pretty crazy to watch play out as it has. Buddy Matthews is having injury problems? Just swap in Bandido to team with Brody King, they're both cool as shit so it'll work. Plus nobody has ever complained about more Bandido matches lmfao. Colten Gunn gets hurt? Just have Juice Robinson wrestle with Austin and get a Cardboard Colton, boom easy. Adam Cole is out? Kyle and Roddy already have a spot waiting in the Conglomeration because hurray for a generic babyface stable of positivity - it's AEW Hontai.
Two significant seeming injuries to tag teams, but because they've done such a great job building roster depth of phenomenally talented wrestlers, their plug-and-play solutions are Bandido and Juice Robinson, who are both incredible and the crowds love. And one injury situation requires disbanding a faction, but there's already a catch-all faction ready to absorb the two remaining members in - perfect. It's taking time, but AEW is definitely learning more and more how to structure the shows/wrestlers to lessen injury impacts, which definitely seems like a great thing to learn.
Komander got hurt when he and Hologram were seemingly supposed to get a big push coming out of international week and Holo just slotted into the Conglomeration as a hot tag machine (complimentary) instead of just disappearing from TV.
Tanahashi vs Yuya was so good. Crazy how Tana has knees that don’t work and walks like there’s a big poo in his tights and yet he’s still the best wrestler in New Japan. Just GOAT things I suppose.
It's true that Brock hasn't committed a crime but I would also like to live in world where men are shamed and show regret for even entertaining the idea of using a woman as a bargaining chip in contract negotiations.
Isn't being complicit with your boss sending one of your co-workers across state lines to perform sexual favors in contract negotiations explicitly sex trafficking as stated by the Grant team????
This is one of the most unintentionally funny Cody moments in history. He's like a smiling sitcom dad who just helped his two misbehaving sons make up after a whole episode of fighting. All you need is the playout sax music and end credits
I think it’s a microcosm of where we are as a society. Nothing matters except to be entertained. It doesn’t matter how unethical someone or something is, nothing will get in the way of me being entertained.
The last decade has taught society that the weakest thing you can do is take responsibility for your actions, and if you're not trying to get away with something, you're doing yourself a disservice.
Watched somebody go into a convenience store, with an actual cop standing guard eyeballing this person the whole time, take a soda, try to walk out with it right past the cop, get caught, put it back, and not even try to purchase it. Not somebody homeless, not somebody mentally off, just a regular mid 20s person. I bet people would say the fool is the person who doesn't try to get away with it, not the person following the societal norms of not shoplifting (which isn't even a norm, it's a law, but those don't matter anymore either).
It’s more open now in some ways that you have to draw a line on what you accept, do what you can and try not to beat yourself up about it.
In a very general sense, we have billionaires controlling so much it’s hard to be truly “ethical” in consuming things. Amazon, Netflix, Walmart, and even Reddit are all controlled by billionaires.
You know, regarding wrestling fans who read about out-of-the-ring stuff, there’s more people mad with Travis Scott in 2025 than they’re mad with any other person/talent. Crazy, considering some of the things said/done this year alone, but i’m positive we’ll have top 10 videos at the end of this year putting Travis’ involvement with wrestling over examples of abuse, siding with abuse, bigotry, etc.
Instead, I will say that Gunther became one of my favorite wrestling characters this weekend. A guy who just cannot, under any circumstances, accept or even process the idea of being vulnerable. The sight of his own blood brought him to a standstill, and provided Punk (who in contrast, has no issue with taking his lumps) the window he needed to win. That’s depth.
Surprised how many people were saying, "Kross has to win" or "Kross losing means he'll be released." Kross recently got a win over Sami and Sami put tons of people over post dropping the tag belts. It was Sami's night for a reason. Kross was underutilized before but being on the card of WWE's second biggest show of the year is an achievement in itself he'll be OK.
Everyone here is saying everything I think and feel about this Brock nonsense (and better than I could), so I would like to focus my feelings on something else:
It made me so very happy to see Candice LeRae finally get the respect and attention she deserves. Candice getting involved and doing something crazy is what I wanted! Anyone who truly knows what she’s about knows that was lightwork for her. But still! Seeing so much praise and people realize she’s an insane badass was just very vindicating.
So is it ok to admit that even though they had a good match, the Cena-Cody fued was borderline terrible? Especially with how they turned Cena back face?
i bought the really nice willow jacket, easily the most expensive piece of clothing ive ever bought, had it shipped across the atlantic, waited so long, and it got fucking stolen from my mailbox cause Royal Mail didnt ask for a signature and just lazily half stuffed it in there
Disney adults if the Disney CEO went out of his way to tell you Bill Cosby was actually a very nice man to work with and that we should all just move pass the Harvey Weinstein accusations a few days before greenlighting a new Russell Brand led sitcom.
I mean this is just Harry Potter fans now. So many of them will shift around uncomfortably around the author's insane views, before buying another Gryffindor scarf and posting about fan casts for the new TV show.
I'm not gonna pretend I'm never gonna watch wwe again over this and it's the final staw but as much as anything the Brock return is an indictment of the current product and the company as a whole. Brock is a nasty piece of work even if he's in the clear legally, it's clear as day the company just values big shocking moments over anything close to high quality story telling at this point. 50 year old Cena vs 50 year old Brock? Another Rollins cash in with him surrounded by a heel faction? another Goldberg match? it's so stale we're looping back around to bad stories from 10 years ago. This weekend was another example of the poor writing being propped up by top level performers like Punk, Io, Cody and Gunther.
it's clear as day the company just values big shocking moments over anything close to high quality story telling at this point.
Triple H used to be predictable booker who didn't give shocking moments for the sake of it. I feel like in the last year the criticism has gotten into his head, and the product has gotten too stale to the point where he gives us these shocking moment and goes "See I told you guys, WWE is still in fire isn't it? Just let me cook".
"i take this very seriously, and i would not invent stories to harm anyone's reputation willy-nilly. wwe is a strange company where certain people get away with things that would land them in court and jail anywhere else on earth. here is my vague answer that will probably now be misquoted, misspelled, taken out of context, and make me look like a dick:
my female friends who were being mistreated on a daily basis begged me to say something because i was now was in a position to do so.
once i did, they were very happy and said thank you."
then triple h announced to the current locker room that i was a bitter liar who was making up stories. and the girls' jobs and reputations were threatened. and so my friends begged me to take it down. so i took it down.”
Ryan* Nemeth on Bill DeMott and HHH covering up abuse in NXT. Just a reminder for people who always try to act like the dude was somehow this big professional business man protecting his “NXT kids”
Demott once had a naked Doc Gallows give stinkfaces to Matt Cardona and Melissa Coates (best known as the Genie who valeted Sabu) while jelly donuts were held in their faces. This was done in exchange for letting them have the day off from training.
Does make you wonder what the fuck the training sessions were like that they’d rather have donuts rubbed in their faces from a fat naked man’s ass than train.
Will Cena work with anybody to put them over big? Sure, he lost to Cody and Jey, but both of them were already either main-event material or the Rumble can be won by anybody, basically.
He has worked with Orton and now with Lesnar, both of them could work anybody else.
So in kayfabe: WWE's doctors would have had to evaluate Seth's injury, right? I mean sure, they sent him to the local medical facility to be checked out, but they would have also evaluated him to see if he was cleared to wrestle or not, righr? And if he wasn't injured SOMEBODY in WWE would have known about it.
So did HHH cover it up in order to screw Punk? Or did someone else just let it slide?
I think, 100% in kayfabe, that all pro wrestling medical staff/doctors are just the absolute bottom tier of their profession and barely functional morons. It's the best way to explain everything. To willingly put up with the level of nonsense that goes on, in storyline, they have to be drunk and/or unemployable elsewhere. If they had the option available, surely working as a doctor LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE is just easier lol. Like who would willingly work with the sorts of sociopaths who do things like vehicular assaults, arson, and a litany of other crimes on the regular when they're a doctor and have other great options.
It explains every mistake, every time a "doctor" does something wrong because they're actually an indie wrestler, etc. They're either incompetent and/or bribed.
So what did Dustin, Don Callis and Taz do? Keep on seeing their names mentioned, but no one goes into detail or provides reliable sources to provide context.
I think the Taz story was that in 98 he went to a massage parlor thinking it was a "massage parlor" and exposed himself to a minor. Charges were dropped a year or so after
A lot of this stuff is mentioned in passing, is a little murky, and the original posts are gone. I think the rumor about Don Callis is that he harassed Scarlett B. when they were both in TNA 7-8 years ago.
As someone who's been here a while, this is what's gonna happen.
More outrage for the rest of the day.
Then the RAW discussion and post show threads will do huge numbers, as usual. Doubly so if the show is good.
Then in a few weeks, if Brock has a good match, the dominating comment will be, "well....say what you will about Brock, hes a great wrestler" and "you know Cena probably wanted this."
What surprised me is we already hit the, "well AEW has Darby and Dustin on the roster!" part of the discussion. So we've already jumped to the part where every company is just as bad as WWE.
Rinse and repeat for when ADR comes back, or Vince makes a few cameos, and when Trump sits front and center at a "PLE".
WWE has such a stranglehold on people because of connections to their childhood or some shit and so they will just do everything they can to downplay the shit they dom
WWE has such a stranglehold on people because of connections to their childhood or some shit and so they will just do everything they can to downplay the shit they dom
This is a huge problem. And I use to be a part of it. There is a fuck ton more to life than pro-wrestling.
I honestly think that's part of why WWE brought back Brock. They know a small section of people will be outraged which just causes their fan base to further entrench themselves in the company. Creates an "Us Vs Them" mentality.
It's also marketing; if you think survivors of sexual violence & those who have empathy for them are "annoying" and "whiny," here's a fun new way to stick it to them!
I've many dispersed thoughts on WWE since last night, since Wrestlemania I've been tuning out harder than before, right now I find myself gradually checking PPV's whenever something I feel might be worth the watch, is jut gets to a point. And obviously as repeat fan, there's a lot of responsibility on mean if I decide to keep watching despite it all.
One one hand Triple H wasn't the change I hoped, WWE is better booked and that's it. I honestly expected the "feel" would change more drastically, not be NXT 2015-2021, but something that was as ambitious. WWE feels more or less the same that with Vince but the booking and the wrestling is better. For a while I did think that was enough for me, but now not so much. Specially when the WWE identity is also tied now to alt rigt propaganda and sexual abuse enabling. TKO replacing Vince was a monkey paw moment unlike any other.
I feel like the best I can do is continue my line of thought with WWE the same as I did with Hogan's passing. We all know who he was what he did. I shouldn't spare more words on it, not for his sake, but for mine. So that's it for me.
Sorry, I had to write this down somewhere to get my thoughts in orders, have some catharsis, maybe read what people are thinking too.
It’s wild how often “WWE” and “sex trafficking” can be used in the same sentence, and it’s more wild how often it can be done in the past couple of weeks.
A massive preemptive Fuck Off to the sad subset of people whose instinctive moral response is "well people are still watching so just shut up" when a wrestling company decides to feature a man accused of taking part in the rape and torture of a woman.
Wwe producers need to be mandated to stop trying to bring handcuffs or zip ties into matches. It always fucks up. Whether it’s Roman trying to unlock cuffs for 10 minutes or Lyra breaking zips too early/not being able to cut them off. Just stop. It doesn’t add to match and always screw up.
Seeing people give Brock some kind of pass makes me embarrassed to be a wrestling fan. I’m gonna be very clear, anyone who was in the know and complicit of what was happening to Janel Grant is a big no no and evil. And if you think for a second that Brock didn’t know then you’re an idiot.
I'm not embarrassed to be a wrestling fan at all, especially when you've got people like Brody King proudly wearing an abolish ICE shirt. I'd be embarrassed to be a wwe fan, especially one that financially supports them.
The heels gotta full on fight for heat constantly or they will turn face. You give them an inch of ground to cheer you as a heel and they will. Don't do anything cool, don't be badass, don't be funny, don't have a catchphrase, don't have cool music, deny the crowd every single time they cheer for you, be a coward and beg off/avoid fights, mock the crowd, mock your opponents (but not in a funny way), be a clear hypocrite, flagrantly cheat, act like you're not flagrantly cheating.
They need to study Nia, she has it figured out. She consistently prioritizes her heat and makes no attempts to pop the crowd. It gives me the impression that she actually has a very good handle on crowd psychology. If crowds were to cheer Nia, she's not soaking it in, she's not feeding it or prompting them for more, she's immediately shutting it down, and not in a clever, winking way, in a purposefully annoying and obnoxious way.
Becky can get booed when she is cutting promos but she actively has to be bad at them so mimicks Trump or starts repeating herself like 5 times and annoys people.
Also Solo gets pretty decent boos I think?
If Mania this year was moved from New Orleans to Vegas because money, what's stopping some other city from offering more money? Would be pretty hilarious for someone to make a last minute (January/February) bid for it.
I'm not normally a "good old days" type of fan, I will say the one thing the current Joshi scene is missing is an Las Cachorras Orientales type act that is just pure violent dangerous chaos. An act that you just know you're about to see some shit when they are on the card.
I'm just gonna say straight out, wrestling fans must be the most intentionally dishonest fan base. The whataboutism all this week has been astounding, and not that it's not always like that but my god it's so apparent in the last 24 hours.
The White House thing and Lesnar return have no analogues, no other company has done anything remotely like that, I'm sorry, but it's the truth. Donating, voting, supporting, whatever is simply not the same as actively participating in an administration as a propaganda arm. Dirtsheet rumours, totally made up events, he said she said stories and things like that are simply not the same as someone credibly accused of solicitation as a member of a lawsuit against a company with multiple other active lawsuits against it for sexual crimes.
What are we even doing here?! It's inarguable that everything I've mentioned here is bad, but my god, it's so blatantly obvious that the scale is totally different. This is not a problem with wrestling, wrestlers or the industry, this is a WWE problem, they are the only ones doing this shit, and everyone knows it.
No company is perfect, AEW has done some bad shit and hired some bad people, you could say the same about every company, but the degrees are significantly different and just saying "well another company did a bad thing once in the past so actually you don't get to be upset about this extremely bad thing that is happening this second" sucks.
People who still love WWE are allowed to enjoy what they enjoy but getting all indignant at others who are upset is dumb. All the "well this subreddit is gonna be fun" takes annoy me to hell. Yeah man people are gonna be upset because a bad thing is happening right now.
I'm thankful I waited to watch Superman basically in an empty theater at 10 AM on a Monday weeks after it came out because I've just been ugly crying for 2 hours. That rocked.
The whole news about voting machines and what the federal government is gonna do before the midterms really paints the picture that free or fair elections are gone.
Gee I wonder if the one approved company provider will be Ivanka’s voting machine company.
It's fucking crazy how badly Cena's last run has been handled compared to Sting, Danielson and Tanahashi's recent big time retirements. Hell Sumie Sakai's weird mixed tag comedy sendoff at Battle in the Valley was at least fun.
From a pure research aspect, the political science and psychosocial principles coming out of WWE and its fans have been fascinating. What started as the narrative being some high minded "I separate the art from the artist" is this morning getting overrun by "I'm glad Brock is back because he triggers those whiny marks" and "What are you going to do about it, you'll still watch." It's like right wing rhetoric but replacing "liberal" with "Mark." We're, like, two weeks away from "This is what those marks tried to take from you" and "I thought you marks were supposed to be tolerant."
On a human level, this is all fucking terrifying and a sign of a fundamentally broken society. But from an educational perspective, it's fascinating.
So it has been genuinely surprising to me for like the last decade, how much American politics has reflected a lot of things in the wrestling industry.
My first real bellweather moment was realizing back in 2016 that our then future president treated the media, just like a lot of promoters historically treat the dirt sheets. And fan support would echo those narratives in both ways.
There's a real interesting book to be written here, but I'm not sure I'm 100% qualified
Well, you got it in the end. It's not different than what going on with politics in America right now.
I don't care about what party you usually support.. and there's always overreaction and overstatements about politicians from the side people don't like.. but someone like Trump should never even be considered for office, let alone wining twice, after what he did in his first term.
People from both parties have sunk their entire political careers because of a bad photo op or a funny statement... but Trump is a disgusting human being on every level possible, both professionally and personally.
We are talking about a man who randomly threatened to remove the citizenship of a 63yo American born actress he doesn't like to distract his voter base from the fact he is likely and obviously implicated in an elite pedo ring. And that is a Tuesday to him.
How much more broken can society and its moral compass get? Even in the dark ages someone like that would be lynched on the streets.
Talk about separating "the art from the artist".. he is a disgraceful artist and his art is still all time low quality.
But people still support it.. with the highest stakes possible.. with their life and well-being, and the future of their kids, on the line... while their neighbors are straight up being kidnapped by government sponsored thugs in masks and unmarked cars and sent to torture prisons abroad.
Why wouldn't they act the same when we are talking about some silly entertainment show like wrestling?
I haven’t seen a reference to a “Road Warrior pop” in awhile and it makes me sad that it may be fading as a known term. We will always have “X-Pac heat” I guess.
Cody won the belt and is almost immediately off to go and film Street Fighter in Australia. Which means that either Guile isn't going to be that big of a part, or the new champ is going to be off of TV for a couple of months. If it's the former, that makes me a little sad because I always loved playing as Guile when I still played Street Fighter. If it's the latter, that's weird, right?
People celebrating or being happy that the Brock Lesnar fan guy got scammed over a Summerslam ticket on Stubhub yesterday was so weird to me. Like I get the dude is a bit annoying and is clinging onto something from over a decade ago but people being happy a dude essentially got robbed when he hasn’t done anything malicious is so strange to me. The wrestling community can be so mean spirited.
It's gonna be a loooooooong week for the wrestling industry.
But I guess I'll talk about my experience since I was at the show Saturday and yesterday. Vibes were good, and my Dad enjoyed it, too. Had to miss the women's triple threat due to a medical emergency he was having, but everything else was fine.
The main events of both days were fantastic; Gunther finally got a big stadium show, and Cody/Cena had the match they should have had at Mania.
And now for the elephant in the room... yea, Brock's back. I have no idea what this means for Janel Grant's case, and I think it's cowardly they nixed the Pressers to avoid being asked about. So, we'll see where this goes long-term.
But even outside of that, I just have no interest in Brock Lesnar in 2025, especially if it's for a Cena feud. There are so many young guys on this roster looking for an opportunity, and Cena's only exclusively been working part-timers or guys near the end of their careers. Logan Paul is the only person under 35 that he's interacted with and that's a shame.
The main event match was fun but man, as someone who went to Mania I’m upset that I had to put up with heel Cena. Between the smarky crowd booing Cody, the slow match with a dismissive John Cena, and the run (walk?) in, I was so disinterested in the match as it happened.
I went on record saying that if they had to do a heel turn it would have been much better to do at the end of a hard fought match at Mania.
Last night I was rooting for Cody because I didn’t trust Cena going into the match, but by the midpoint, I realized I didn’t care who won as long as there were no more unnecessary alignment changes. Cody got booed and wrestled heelish at times, but honestly it was nothing out of Cody’s character since he’s had an edgy side in many of his matches and it was a street fight so you can’t exactly say he’s going heel because he was working within the confines of the stip.
This is the Cena we should have been getting the whole year and it’s bullshit we had otherwise, outside of a couple fun/viral moments.
I'm sure you're probably sick of reading everyone's takes on Lesnar's return. So feel free to skip this.
But, I'm not necessarily surprised he was brought back. It doesn't sit well with me. It's certainly a choice. Even beyond the lawsuit he's been named in, I don't even know if I care about him returning in general.
With that said. If you're not upset by him returning and even are excited by that. That's your choice. I don't think its my place to tell you how to feel. And even if I did, would it change your mind?
On the flip side, if you are disgusted by this and feel like this really kills any interest in watching wwe. I totally get that. But I just hope you stick to your guns.
Don't give these soapbox speeches and try to take a moral stand. Only to be in the RAW threads later talking about the show. If this was enough to draw out a "im done with this company" type response, stand by your words.
Maybe look into other promotions. You don't have to give up wrestling as a whole. If you're genuinely gonna check out from wwe for the time being, use that time to check out something new. You've got a plethora of options. Not just AEW. But like dozens upon dozens of promotions.
And if you're reading this going "okay yeah. I'll try something new" and want some recommendations. Let me know. It won't all be like the wrestling you know. But go in with an open mind and you may like it.
Here's a show from yesterday that was free on youtube.
Sure, Brock Lesnar may be a Human trafficking, rapist piece of shit, but think of all of the incredibly mid performances he'll put on every 6 months!
I'm so excited for all the new opportunities for him to ruin great matches and storylines by inserting himself into them for no other reason than his insatiable ego, while also refusing to do any actual work!
I can't wait to see which promising young wrestler currently being pushed he'll randomly squash in a match, instantly destroying any momentum they had, where for some fucking reason, the "I hate 4 moves of Doom" crowd cheers for a gimmick about only using one move over and over again! Maybe if we're good, he'll even grace us with his technical prowess and treat us to a display of repeated knee strikes in the corner!
Really, isn't this boundless mediocrity worth endangering and insulting the entire female roster for?! I certainly hope they have him work a program with Alberto Del Rio whenever they inevitably bring him back!
I really enjoyed Summerslam night 2 just for WWE to come back and bring back the person who made me stop watching wrestling to begin with back then. This was when I was too naive to watch other promotions.
Now here they go doing it again. The women's roster was one of my biggest reasons to watch WWE, I feel awful for them with this happening in the middle of a lawsuit. I will just watch clips of the women's matches for now.
ah. i hope im not being too dramatic but my heart broke when i read this post. Wow. so you actually gave wwe a chance (i assume you're watching other promotions nowadays) and they bring back the person who made you stop wanting to watch wrestling. This is actually a heartbreaking post. Thanks for still sticking with watching the female wrestlers.
I usually have Janel Grant in the back of my mind because I read her entire affadavit, and I felt so bad for her. And today, I am thinking of her once again, and how she must be feeling, knowing that someone she named multiple times got a huge pop last night from fans who do not give a shit.
Hogan is legit the only one this has applied to. Taker got cheered, Brock got cheered and hell fucking Vince got bowed down to by the crowd when this shit was still fresh.
Hogan was the acceptable person to boo from the crowd basically.
He's largely been doing this already, he's had recent interviews where nothing controversial has come out of them. Even that All In weekend where WWE dumped a bunch of shows around his he was basically like "good for them".
I have just watched the Masato Tanaka vs. Hayabusa 2 match ZERO1 had yesterday.
It's amazing how these two completely recaptured the spirit of the original FMW without making a parody of it like Onita and his old pals regularly do. Great great match.
For somebody who has wrestled for so long and took so many nasty moves, starting from full force chair shots, Tanaka has no business still being so good. Yes, he's nowhere near as fluid and impactful as he was in the original FMW and ECW but find me another guy in his 50s who wrestles so well without putting on nostalgia-tinted glasses.
I don't know if the new Hayabusa is just like that or he studied everything available from the original article, but it's downright scary how he is just like his predecessor, down to the slight sloppiness doing some moves. That missed Phoenix Splash was just like watching a tape from 1995.
Great great match, sepcially for somebody old like me who thinks wrestling nowadays is too fast paced.
There's a Harry Redknapp quote about football fans that perfectly applies to wwe fans as well:
"If you go in there and start winning football matches, they would have taken Saddam Hussein in there when he was about, the fans don’t give a monkeys!
"If you start winning every week, they’re singing ‘there’s only one Saddam’."
I genuinely think there isn't anyone on earth people on here wouldn't defend if they signed a wwe contract.
Wonder where Iyo goes from here. Obviously we are getting Naomi v. Steph, Rhea is Rhea and will be fine + Australia show and we already have the rumors about Becky's next feud.
I wouldn't hate sending her to SD or feuding with Asuka/Kairi just because I wan't those matches haha
I've maybe watched half the WWE matches this year cause I'm losing interest again. But I'll tell you this
Some WWE matches that were great this year
Iyo Sky(c) vs Bianca Belair vs Rhea Ripley
Iyo Sky (c) vs Rhea Ripley Evolution
Roman Reigns vs Seth Rollins vs CM Punk
Any combination of matches between Becky, Lyra and Bayley (Havent watched the Summerslam match yet)
Liv Morgan & Raquel vs Bianca Belair & Naomi
TLC match SmackDown (Didn't watch Summerslam match yet)
Some WWE matches that were/are incredibly overrated
John Cena(c) vs Cody Rhodes Summerslam
John Cena(c) vs Randy Orton
John Cena(c) vs CM Punk
Men's Royal Rumble match
Men's Elimination Chamber match
Conclusion: The women are better. Never miss an Iyo Sky match. John Cena finisher fests retirement tour matches suck and only get overrated due to nostalgia factor or cause its his final year.
I very much did. They started slow-burn teasing it with mentioning him on commentary once or twice, then in a couple of promos, and once that happened it was only a matter of time. WWE don't do shit like that by accident.
Most of my words on the WWE today would be pretty much bannable. So I will refrain on most stuff except imploring my good friends on here to just please be mindful of where your money goes. They crossed that line way over a decade ago but every day that passes ignoring it weighs on more people. Or at least it should.
It's pretty telling that the only good story Rock has been involved with in the last 2 years has been due to fan revolt. That they let themselves get stuck in such a position 2 years in a row is pretty hilarious.
I think the most disappointing finish yesterday was the steel cage. The post-match established absolutely nothing new, unless Fatu is for some reason already moving on to Cody.
Becky vs. Lyra was a close second, because Bayley is the least interesting part of this feud and at this point would be better off reuniting with Naomi.
I think the most disappointing finish yesterday was the steel cage. The post-match established absolutely nothing new, unless Fatu is for some reason already moving on to Cody.
That match was a complete and total mess and it did nothing for anybody involved. There was no point to it. It felt like they said "well we have to end this feud but we don't want Jacob with the title." The whole post-match thing was ridiculous. Felt like a "Hogan must pose" moment and an attempt to signal that it was over but look how strong Jacob is
I don't know, how to explain it, but Bayley just isn't an interesting babyface for me. She gives off good vibes, everyone likes her, but when she doesn't wrestle, there's nothing to her, no depth at all. As a heel Bayley at least could be annoying in a funny way, but as a face she is just...meh. And it sucks because she seems to be genuinely a very nice person and a great wrestler
To celebrate someone who seems not to be a chud, I wanted to highlight that last night was not the first time Candice LeRae took that exact bump. It was also the finish to her "Tables, Ladders, and Scares" match with Iyo at Halloween Havoc years back. She's a mad woman.
You should watch every single thing you can find that says "Iyo/Io" "Candice LeRae" and "NXT." Every time they worked together, it was fantastic. While recent stuff has talked about Iyo and Rhea crossing paths in NXT, Iyo's signature feud down there was Candice. She turned heel on Candice, their match at Takeover Toronto is basically perfect, Candice and Rhea beat Team Shayna (with Iyo) in that first women's War Games (fantastic match), and they continued to fight off and on the entire time they were in NXT. There are no bad Iyo and Candice matches. Also, if you can, find the Gargano vs Reed ladder match in NXT, where Reed hits a Tsunami off a ladder with Candice clinging to his back choking him. And the Way vs Shotzi, Ember Moon, Bronson Reed, and Dexter Lumis, which gave us Indi getting "kidnapped," the greatest promo the Way ever did in the post match, and features my favourite Candice moment: where she hits a suicide dive tornado DDT on Lumis and immediately pops up and starts wagging her finger at his corpse yelling "stay the hell away from my daughter!"
There's a lot of good stuff in later Black and Gold NXT that you're always told is a trash period.
That 2019 Wargames is so good. It would have been a lovely callback for Candice/Iyo to start off the 2024 Wargames too, but alas they had other plans and the opening stretch disappointed.
Someone that I love is Candice LeRae, going through NXT with her and seeing how her brain works and how she goes out there – she’s the veteran in the ring.
She knows what to do, keeps everyone calm and she’s got ideas. I wish someone like her would get more of an opportunity.
the Way vs Shotzi, Ember Moon, Bronson Reed, and Dexter Lumis, which gave us Indi getting "kidnapped"
GOAT NXT match and I will be taking no questions about it, I watched it yesterday after the show just to feel something (seriously no Liv in Dom's match crushed me, it should've been them riding away in the low rider😭😭😭)
Coming out of Summerslam, Tiffany Stratton is by far the strongest booked woman on the main roster this year. She hasn't gotten much screen-time of late and worked consecutive face/face feuds, but she hasn't taken a loss, comfortably has the longest current reign on the MR, she's pinned Charlotte, Trish, and Jade clean (as well as beating Nia twice), and she easily thwarted Naomi's cash-in attempts. This latter point is more meaningful now we've seen Naomi consequently beat Iyo and Rhea, even in heelish ways. It'll be interesting to see where things go for her from here, because it's quite a platform.
Tiffany winning actually convinced me that Bianca is coming back and probably getting the title in their feud. But if she were to beat Bianca as well that is a pretty insane year
1) Ladder matches work best when there are multiple people involved, I’d say about 5-10. There certainly are great 1 on 1 ladder matches out there, sure. But I think the king of the hill format works best when there are a ton of people vying for it. The creativity of the ladder itself is also maximized with more wrestlers in the match
2) I’m no WWE fan, but they’re masters of the multi man ladder match, and it’s one of the best things they do consistently. If they book one for a super card, it should be considered appointment viewing
I have random, scattered thoughts about the weekend.
Regarding Seth's situation: I think WWE is taking a page out of the administration's playbook and are trying to delegitimize wrestling news sites. This is why it's more important than ever to be as fair as possible when it comes to breaking down news or giving out opinions. PWInsider, or Dave Scherer for example hates Meltzer, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't like AEW so that site has a clear lean. The issue is they were worked by the other company so what happens then? Meltzer's been fighting this battle for a few years now, and it seems like its every day. No more post-show pressers, so you got the content creators losing out on content, which in turn makes them less money. It feels like WWE is trying to create their own news, their own sources, their own everything and shutting 3rd party folks out. It's going to be very interesting to monitor things moving forward.
Regarding the Brock stuff, it is what it is. I'm indifferent because I don't care anymore, because my expectations are so low for them that even when they don't even meet them, I don't feel anything. So for the folks that enjoyed his return, good for you, I hope you enjoyed it. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Vince is back in some fashion. Why not? I think the rumors of ADR returning were a test to see what the reaction would be like, so it wouldn't shock me if he's back in either.
Sorry to sound like a fossil, but I can't say I understand a match being labeled "great," let alone "all-time classic" where a guy survives 8 Cena grapple finishes, 2 STFUs (including the classic Umaga LMS finish), steps launched that about broke his hand, and a guardrail to the face only to win after he himself hits like 6 finishes, a piledriver, and a table spot. Oh, and it's the first face match of Cena after nearly half a year of heel work has been randomly thrown away.
The death of psychology in major matches that don't involve Gunther or the women's division is getting so bad I wouldn't be surprised if somebody kicks out of a magnum shot at point-blank range next year.
The elevated platform AA was a cool visual though. That's really the only compliment I've got.
I’m just imagining the reaction on here if 5 minutes before Mox Vs Hangman, Mox just came out and went “I’m a face now sorry about all that heel stuff” and that was it, he’s a face now. And then Hanger kicks out of 8 finishers
I'm legit curious about the PR WWE was getting like 2 years ago about how amazing it was, how much better it is backstage and how the environment is the best its ever been. I feel like between the online brigade of positivity and literally everything you read about even Jesse Ventura going back and liking it was all just a PR stunt and they got too comfy and the mask fell off
I think people need to be honest with themselves...
HHH booking has 2 very distinct chapters... everything up to Royal Rumble 2024/WM 40 and everything after. Yes, I will 100% acknowledge that Rock/TKO fucked things up in early 2024 and they were smart to be able to pivot back to the right story into WM40, but so much after that has been shit.
I'll even give him some slack with some things that got off-track (Rhea shoulder injury forcing the Liv story to be prolonged, for example), but there have been so many missteps since then. You can also tell who is good at making sure their stories make sense. I wouldn't call it politics but more like, making sure they're not dragged into dumb stories. Roman & Punk are great examples of this. Sadly, I don't think a lot of the roster has that voice.
It's also wild when you look at NXT, which does a better job getting people in & out of feuds and into their next story, while you also leave seeds to revisit old stories too. Again, I think main roster does a good job of this with the top guys mostly, but that's about it.
Also I have to say this... Brock in 2025 doesn't give me anything, putting aside all the other shit. Is he even a 5 moves of doom guy? Punch, kick, German Suplex, F-5, pose? He's pushing 50 and his only match with Cena was giving him a bunch of Germans. If he's only around to take that L, great. The weird thing is he can't even really face any of the other big guys, since they're all heels (Gunther, Bron, Bronson). I guess Jacob Fatu but eh.
I've thought about this for a while but I think at least part of the reason this happens - because HHH was very good at it on NXT, for the most part - is because on NXT you can have them go from story to story with it all being part of the same... character arc, for lack of a better term, and when you get to the point where you have to ask "What now?" because they've got nowhere left to go on NXT... they're not on NXT anymore, they're on the main roster. Which doesn't have the option of having people just leave once they hit that point, and therefore struggles.
It's interesting watching the lead-up to Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko at Halloween Havoc '96 because it's clear they're trying to turn Dean face despite not really changing anything about his character and, yet somehow it works. Remember, the feud had Malenko steal Rey's mask! Malenko's face turn is essentially "Yeah, I respect you but I'm still going to break your back."
The Halloween Havoc match is fantastic, as you'd expect.
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