Rolling 100% Organic Hemp Title 2019

so elimination chamber was... pretty good?! (at least, the elimination chamber matches)

who knows if it'll happen (hopefully it doesn't turn into a fastlane blowoff) but a kofi-daniel WM match would be incredible.

Kofi has me by the heart strings at the moment

I watched that Stephen Merchant film about Paige Knight yesterday and it reminded me of how much I enjoy wrestling and now I'm watching my first Monday night RAW in about 5 years. Most of the roster so far were in FCW or ROH last time I was watching, and it looks like all the big names have migrated to Smackdown. Excited to see how this unfolds!

What did you think of raw? Reigns saying he was in remission alone made it feel pretty special but it basically existed for that and the return on bluetista

I’m still watching it - it’s so long! It does feel like a good time to be dropping back in with that announcement and Ric Flair’s celebrations. When did Drew McIntyre become a big deal? When I was last watching he seemed like a doomed low mid-carder. Also, I am misremembering things or did the announcer’s table used to get shown a lot more? I am enjoying it a lot though.

the table got moved to near the entry ramp (only on raw) so the anchors sort of hover near it while standing up when they talk

i am so unpsyched about the weekend update turds appearing tonight. and the lacey evans rollout is incredibly irritating

I apologize for this huge post, but I've been feeling a lot of ways about RAW & Smackdown on this road to Wrestlemania 35.

RAW feels like a drag compared to Smackdown, honestly, but maybe I'm biased because most of my favorites are on the Smackdown roster. I feel like there are a lot of missed opportunities, but I guess it's all about priorities. A lot of things are reaching critical mass as far as how booked/overbooked they feel.

RAW has been existing solely for the Rousey-Flair-Lynch triple threat build, and The SHIELD (final?) reunion tour. The former has a lot of potential to be a great match and has done pretty well with storytelling to evoke strong emotions about all three of these women. It is a little much that they're really pushing Becky to be the next Stone Cold in this story. Charlotte works best as the condescending heel; I mean, she IS a Flair. I do like how she hasn't been engaging in the twitter feud, as that has been close to becoming oversaturating. Rousey, who just turned, will hopefully be able to win more people over, but I have no idea if she's working or shooting at this point. I could believe that it's a shoot, but she's worth so much money that the WWE just let it happen. She sure is getting heat, though. Whether or not it's heat that will keep people engaged remains to be seen.
This SHIELD reunion seems a little gratuitous. I get that Reigns just came back and maybe isn’t totally at 100%, so it would be good to have him with the SHIELD again just to protect him from taking too many bumps. However, with Ambrose seemingly leaving (though that might be a work too!), it just seems like one last hurrah before he rides off into CZW and picks up that Jon Moxley leather jacket again (which I selfishly hope for). It’s like they’re killing time before he leaves and splits them up again. Reigns doesn’t have a clear path for Wrestlemania, and the Rollins/Lesnar feud is so cold that I only now just remembered that they’re fighting for the Universal Championship. It’s good to see that winning the Royal Rumble still counts for this match, though, because it didn’t count for the women’s (though again, they needed to take something away from Becky to push her to become Stone Cold).
The tag champs are constantly losing (even though their tag work is great). Now Ricochet and Aleister Black are in the running for the RAW tag belts? I’m guessing this team is taking the place of Gargano and Ciampa since Ciampa needs neck surgery and is out of commission for the foreseeable future. It’s a weird choice, since they’ve only ever tagged together generically before. To have them beat a team that has been established as a team for a while does the tag division a disservice.
As far as the rest, Baron Corbin & friends, Balor, Lio Rush, Boss & Hug, etc. all seem to be taking a backseat and are booked as afterthoughts. I’m hoping that getting squashed by The SHIELD on Sunday finally breaks up this boring stable. I’m all about seeing Baron Corbin get stomped, but it’s holding all three of them back. I guess they all need a stable since all three have been stuck for a while, but it just isn’t engaging to me.

Smackdown isn’t without its share of problems, though. While the men’s title pictures are a bit more interesting (except for Miz o Mac clearly being built for a match between them at Wrestlemania), their women’s division was gutted by Flair and Lynch both jumping ship to challenge for the RAW Women’s championship. Who does that leave for Asuka? Mandy Rose at Fastlane. They’re trying to see this match the best they can, and I may be surprised to see that it is amazing, but right now, I can’t think of someone on Smackdown less interesting to see in a fight against Asuka right now. I would even rather see Lacey Evans or Nikki Cross in a match against her. We’ve seen that Cross and Asuka can put on compelling matches from their time together in NXT, and man, it would just be cool to finally see if Lacey Evans is really ready for the main roster.

Also, the recent batch of NXT callups (Ricochet, Aleister Black, & Johnny Gargano, maybe?) have been treated so much better than the last “advertised” group (Lacey Evans, Heavy Machinery, Lars Sullivan, EC3, & Nikki Cross). Perhaps it is a testament to the newer batch that they were able to wow crowds without the prior priming? Maybe they haven’t found anything meaningful to put the other in, yet, but that just seems lazy. Who knows? I just feel bad for them because, like everyone else, they’re just trying to make their mark...and it hasn’t been going so well for them so far.

kofimania!

Beautiful to see.

Great match too

got a little choked up at this. excited for his match against cody next month

Goodbye. #ThankYouGoldust #KeepSteppin ❤️🤘🏼 pic.twitter.com/LjO89QrUFG

— Dustin Rhodes (@dustinrhodes) April 21, 2019

"The Backlash pay-per-view WWE had scheduled for San Diego on June 16, 2019, has been canceled. The reason for the cancellation is due to the promotion’s next Saudi Arabia event being moved to June 7, 2019, and not wanting to have pay-per-view events nine days apart according to a source in WWE.

"It was also mentioned to us that some people didn’t think the optics of having a pay-per-view called Backlash immediately following what is likely to be another controversial event in Saudi Arabia would be good."

http://socaluncensored.com/2019/04/20/wwe-backlash-pay-per-view-scheduled-for-san-diego-has-been-canceled/

is there really no one watching double or nothing tonight? or are we just not talking about it? the night is young but it's all slapped so far, not been this excited for rasslin since i dont kniw when

I was gonna watch it tomorrow but I have had to fire my only 2 staff members for stealing, so instead I have to work infinite days until I hire someone new. By the time I get a day off, it'll be the weekly tv show.

#fucklife

ah man i’m sorry :(

it was a really really fun show. mjf is sooooo good on the mic. and jungle boy! and MOX

the cody/dustin match was beautifully structured, and the women’s matches were a lot of fun to watch. i definitely popped for awesome kong

I've just seen someone online say this we now have the possibility of moxley v Pentagon and that is one match I need to have in my life

i ended up hosting a sunday morning aew/brunch at my house bc none of my regular crew could watch saturday night. what a show!!! my one friend who has stayed a lifelong fan (while the others of us were in as kids, out for a while, and all back in lately) showed up late, caught the end of the cody/dustin match, and apparently was sold on AEW immediately by our marked-out-ass faces when he showed up, lol. whata great shoqw!

<3 Dustin

mox is on the new talk is jericho podcast and it’s really eye opening in a “wholly unsurprising” way

https://omny.fm/shows/talk-is-jericho/the-emancipation-of-jon-moxley

Any interest in Dominion? Seen quite a lot of people complaining about the main event finish, all a little bit 'WWE' etc which I kinda get, it did feel a bit weird. But personally I'm very much enjoying Jericho as the shithead heel with stupid makeup and a terrible body. The audible disgust from the crowd when he rubbed the money on his sweaty ballsack and then shoved it in the camera was so good. Also good: "Bakahashi!!" "Chris G1-icho"

Not so good: Ibushi and Naito deciding that the shortest route to a classic match would be to try and shoot kill themselves for our entertainment. I'm too young to have ever watched any of the really daft AJPW/NOAH shit from back in the day so I think this was probably the first time I've ever watched a match in real time, as it were, where I was just absolutely dreading what would come next. I mean seriously

https://streamable.com/hqdqy
FUCK OFF WITH THAT STUPID BULLSHIT CTE IS NOT FUCKING COOL YOU IDIOTS

stupid match, not an enjoyable watch, someone have a word with Kota Ibushi please

Looking on the bright side though - everything Jon Moxley has done since leaving WWE has been Classic with a capital C, whether that be tearing at Juice Robinson's face with his teeth, mockingly applauding the Japanese crowds, introducing the super-powered new version of Dirty Deeds or, most recently, CAPTURING AND ABDUCTING A YOUNG LION to act as driver / skivvy / tag partner for the G1 undercards! lol this whole thing is just such a great bit, it's cool to see how much fun Moxley's having

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL1-mg00s1c

WTF

snap into a Slim Jim! pic.twitter.com/yjTZnB3yZM

— Brandon Stroud (@MrBrandonStroud) August 12, 2019

the fiend is so good

legit giddy for orange cassidy taking up screentime on TNT

enjoyed the first half of nxt. network crapped out so i couldn’t watch the back 60.

interesting that so many people who were on the shelf for much of 2019 are flooding back now, just in time for WEDNESDAY NIGHT WARS to heat up

The full show only appeared on the Network this morning, but I watched the first half last night by, um, other means. As my SO pointed out, if they're looking to find a new audience, they could do a better job at introducing characters people may not know.

https://mobile.twitter.com/_StarDESTROYER

Oney Lorcan's twitter account continues to be the best thing in the business imo

two episodes in and AEW is killing it. the briefest of brief smiles hager showed when le champion called out the ex creative really tipped the segment.

i was at the show last night!! the crowd was electric for that

also darby allin forever

1996: dangerously rappelling from the rafters with a baseball bat for a shock run in
2019: skateboard really fast

really enjoying aew and its extended universe 10 weeks in

END OF AN ERA

The final Raw on Sky Sports airs tonight at 1am, bringing to an end a 30-year partnership between the two brands.

To all of the loyal WWE fans who have followed the product on our platforms over the past three decades - thank you! pic.twitter.com/G9ZOuqDzPu

— Sky Sports WWE (@SkySportsWWE) December 30, 2019

THIRTY YEARS, and they give him a watch, kick him in the butt and say "hey, a [BT Sport] took your place, daddeh." That's hard times.