Stiva

As mentioned, an absolutely ridiculous display of bomb throwing and no-selling. While entertaining enough in a vacuum, it's not something I'd actively seek out. Though, the suplex down the stairs was a nutcase spot and could easily be a hot angle if it ended a beatdown on Raw.

Yeah, I think they need to find some venues with more unique looks, even if it means less people through the doors on a weekly basis. The last thing they need is something that apes the WWE set-up. With regards to the TV, I understand why they'd go live but I was kind of hoping they'd lean into their video package and promo stuff so you're not inundated with matches every week. The weekly grind of constant WWE TV matches is getting tiresome, even if most of them are objectively pretty good.

205 Live will be fantastic compilation material in about 5 years, so there's that. But yeah, there's a huge amount of wasted potential on that show, as shown with Buddy Murphy getting nothing on the main shows after having an incredible 2018. What it needs is someone with knowledge and creativity booking it out of Vince's orbit, kind of like Dusty did with WWECW at its best but do they even have anyone there that can do that these days? And with all the time they have on Raw and Smackdown, there's absolutely no reason that they shouldn't be integrated more intelligently on those shows. Gallagher alone has the charisma to pull off the 24/7 Comedy stuff while still retaining the aura that he could headbutt a man to death at a moment's notice. Then again, the booking and hierarchies are all fucked anyway so maybe it's best to have your own little awesome wrestling show live in it's bubble.

G1 is going to be pretty stacked, this year if you consider Moxley, Ospreay, Shingo and KENTA are would-be replacements for Elgin, Omega and co. As much as KENTA is probably done, you've got to think he'll be working his ass off throughout it all.

Man, I can't imagine why nobody wants to pay silly money to watch this main event scene. Say what you will about Corbin, he's correctly cast as smarmy heel asshole and cuts promos that suit that. They've got the World Title (sorry, UNIVERSAL Title) on a babyface who doesn't know how to cut a babyface promo, who, when going into a match with an injury, barely chooses to sell it, instead opting to dive around the ring like an asshole because that's how all his matches work and has a voice like nails down a chalkboard. Owens and Zayn were two guys who always got responses and were two guys that people wanted to believe would get a good push but that's been blown to hell too. At some point, I want them to go full Hall of Pain with Lars Sullivan and see if that gets us anywhere. At the moment, this show is like someone has hamstrung themselves while playing EWR and decided to injure all their actual stars so they have to make do, except it's just raw incompetence in reality.

Wait, Shane beat Roman? Even with the caveat of interference, what the fuck are these people doing?

The World Heavyweight scene is some wild booking right now. From Tyson Fury’s babyface turn leading to a heat-filled time limit draw to the complacent champion getting pinned by the local favourite, we’re running forward with 4 top challengers who have all been kept strong. The Fury/Joshua Team is something we thought we’d never see.

Yeah, NXT really hit such a high watermark of delivering on big shows that is almost impossible to keep up. Takeovers have been pretty much universally excellent since their inception so it’s only natural they’d drop at some point. Looking at the card for the coming Takeover, I’m almost sure it’ll be excellent but people are losing interest in NXT, precisely because they know that once the wrestlers get called up, everything they loved about them in NXT, is going to get stripped away and ruined.

I’d argue that Vince isn’t stuck in an Attitude Era mindset these days like people claim but he’s further back in the 90s. Everything they do now is the similarly, hokey shit, either played for laughs or given the bare bones of a story to absent-mindedly get from show to show. Even then, Jeff Jarrett showed more character motivation in one in-screen promo than Elias has in the past year.

I’m interested in the UK numbers considering it was at a much more affordable price over here. Albeit on a box office provider that I didn’t know still existed.

On my phone so won’t go too in-depth or repeat what too many others have said but this really did feel like a huge deal and the matches that needed to deliver, did so. JR bringing his A-game back in the booth was arguably more impressive than Dustin’s performance since we know Dustin can still go but I was convinced JR was done a decade ago. My one minor gripe is that I’d say the tag division needs some variation, these lightning-fast, athletic dudes need a Demolition to work off and to break the pacing up. Moxley felt like the superstar that he always should have been in WWE and really, compare the vibrancy, energy and crowd-reactions to this show with the dead-ass, limp WWE shows of this year and it’s night and day. I’m fully behind AEW from here on in.

Now, I really want to see USAs list of ideas. As for the 24/7 title, I can only hope that it leads to the return of on-location vignettes. I'm not saying I want a carbon copy of Crash vs. The Headbangers in a soft play castle but that's what they should be aiming for.

Have Adam Page issue an open challenge to any top-tier cruiserweight as a replacement, Jack Evans answers, he bends his ass back over to put Page over in a squash. Page takes the mic, bullshits somewhat, issues another challenge that is answered by John Moxley. The "match" is a total washout as Page takes a powder while Moxley stands tall in the ring but it means you retain the Hangman Page match as a major moment on the card, you retain Page going over and, with Moxley debuting in his orbit, you ensure Hangman Page is a serious contender going forward and you have another hook for the first TV show with a former WWE star showing up where the big boys play.

Yeah, Sami has to have the briefcase since it seems like the natural progression of his character and the promos he's been cutting. As for the women, I can see Becky beating Lacey in the opening match but succumbing to Charlotte later on in the evening. You would hope that Lacey Evans would cost Becky the title in order to keep her strong but I'll bet pounds to pennies that Charlotte gets a visual pinfall. Other than those two matches, the card seems as haphazard and slapdash as usual.

I'm glad we've got away from the trivial business of Ric Flair being hospitalised to go through the important business of dick waving.

I think the reveal on screen should have probably coincided with him being there live. He reveals himself on screen, the lights come up and he's standing behind whoever it is he's working with. That all depends on them having someone lined up for him of course.

Kennedy was the rare combo of being absolutely awful to watch and, by all accounts, absolutely awful to work with. He would kick his legs on suplexes in an attempt to make things look "real" which gave his opponent twice as much work to do in terms of lifting his useless ass over.

Having now watched (most of) Raw, there was one small detail that really jumped out at me as a real issue. It was during Wyatt's Firefly Fun House which, I do believe, does a genuinely good job of being vaguely unsettling, even if there appears to be no wrestling pay-off to it. So, you have this laser-focused segment that should absolutely exist to be a distraction from the main show and to be something out of left field in the 3 hours you're giving them. So, what do WWE do? Halfway through the segment, they switch to a camera in the arena that is filming the Titan Tron so that the entire point of the skit is done and everyone who was momentarily distracted from the idea that this is a live show, oh my god honest, 1200 episodes pal, is swiftly reminded that it's just that. I'm assuming Bray's idea is that these segments are supposed to be alien, strange and divorced from the general tone and feel of a regular WWE broadcast. So what do they do? They switch camera angles IN A PRE-RECORDED SEGMENT to make sure it feels as identical as everything else. I'm no Wyatt fan but at some point, this is just self-sabotage.

12 years ago, Cody Rhodes debuted on WWE TV and now he's heralding a competitor to WWE with a hugely appealing creative direction. My question is; which "superstar" who has debuted in WWE/NXT since January is going to be massively influential 10 years down the line and we don't even realise yet? I'm plumping for Eric Bugenhagen

I fully agree. For as much as Jericho is beat up in the ring, his mind for wrestling is clearly vibrant and creative. He was booking his own WWE feuds from Michaels onward and, while he had a few misses in there, you can't deny that he had the most over angles/programs in the company whenever he put his mind to it. When you plug his mind into Cody's unperturbed vision and Janela's rampant creativity, you're going to end up with something that you're not going to see from WWE. Before this year is out, there's going to be one AEW program that has everyone talking and hyped, you can see it coming a mile away.

Fuck, this is absolutely awful news. Shocking and tragic all at once.

Hard-hitting match that was nothing more, nothing less. Everyone is not kidding about the chops; Benoit was hitting those like he wanted people in the concession stands to hear them.

Back into PWO2K with some of the matches I missed on last watch. I really dug this, even if it was largely anchored by Ohtani being ridiculously charismatic and filling his performance with so many fantastic little touches. That's a bit harsh on Tanaka as his work was good as he laid stiff shots and kept on finding quick, smooth reversals into the armbreaker which made up the meat of the in-ring story. This escalated nicely and even with the miscommunication at the end, had a hot finishing stretch, in which they didn't neglect the main focus of the match to that point. Good stuff.

300 million dollars down the drain so their President buddy has some American Football he can watch without being triggered. Amazing

Also, the pre-show is airing on free TV. It's ITV4, which isn't the most-watched channel in the country but it's a foothold on terrestrial TV in the UK so that may well be where the AEW TV show ends up. I actually wouldn't be surprised to see it end up on BT Sport where they can market it against WWE in their battle with Sky.