Didn't know if i should put this here or 'Sports and Fitness'; went with here because I thought "DID YOU KNOW IT'S ALL FAKE!?" replies would be less likely (please.) Big weekend coming up... AEW Rampage on Friday will see CM Punk return to wrestling after seven and a half years. Well, they haven't actually announced his return yet, but everyones knows it's happening. There would be a riot otherwise. Should be good! Saturday(!?) has SummerSlam with John Cena challenging Roman Reigns, and, for some reason, Goldberg challenging Bobby Lashley. NXT Takeover on Sunday has a rematch of one of 2020's best matches as Walter defends the NXT UK title against Ilja Dragunov. And Samoa Joe returns to the ring for the first time in nearly two years to face an unstoppable monster who lost to Jeff Hardy a few weeks ago. I'm not super enthusiastic about WWE but I generally like what AEW has been doing. Discuss!
CM PUNK CM PUNK CM PUNK Gave up on WWE years ago and of course they would turn Roman heel after I stopped watching. I started watching AEW but I fell burnt out on Wrestling + no crowd made it unwatchable. The return of CM Punk this Friday is bringing me back.
Well, it happened. 3.25 million views on Youtube in under 24 hours. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Dynamite is beating RAW in the ratings by the end of the year. With Daniel Bryan coming in too, AEW's ratings can only go up. But leaving all that aside, it was an amazing moment in wrestling history, the biggest thing to happen in the last few years. Wrestling is exciting again and I'm excited! Rumours are Sasha Banks is off SummerSlam tonight, guess we'll find out soon.
I haven't been watching in a while, like a couple of years or so but I caught some of WWE and AEW this week. I don't know if it's the right message in these covid times but it was great seeing Punk come out hugging and crowd jumping. I was suprised to see the dad bod Ambrose/Moxley has gotten since I last saw him. I think I was most impressed with Rhea Ripley though, what a look!
SummerSlam had some good wrestling, but some baffling booking. So pretty standard for WWE right now. Worst thing of all was jobbing Bianca Belair to a returning Becky Lynch in twenty sconds. Oh, and continuing to pretend that she was going to be wrestling Sasha Banks (who is out for mystery reasons) on the show, even to the point of showing a five minute video package for Bianca/Sasha right before the Becky surprise. It was all very strange. If Becky isn't ready to do a proper match yet, why put the title on her and sacrifice one of the few new stars they've made in recent years?
Caught up with Dragunov/Walter from Takeover...wow. So brutal. Amazing stuff, probably my favourite match of the year so far. Got to give the WWE some credit for allowing a match like this on one of their shows. Not sure we'll ever see its like again though.
I was watching the CM Punk stuff on Youtube and that pop in Chicago was the loudest I've heard since maybe a Monday after Wrestlmania in Chicago in the mid 2000s. That was Attitude worthy cheers. I also found out Becky Lynch returned at Summerslam so it was a big week for Returns. I really haven't followed WWE (And I don't watch AEW) in a long time, but it sounded like there was a lot of excitement in the last week.
AEW's Friday night show Rampage only lasts an hour, making it a very easy watch and possibly a gateway into following the company.
Dragunov vs Walter 2 was great. Samoa Joe vs Karrion Kross was awesome. I HATED the way that they jobbed Bianca Belair to a returning Becky Lynch. I hate the fact that WWE lied about Sasha Banks was going to face Bianca. I know "Card subject to change". All champions lose, there are VERY few people who never lose the belt in Pro Wrestling. But the way that Bianca lost, she got Kofi'd, literally. At least Kofi's excuse was he was going up against Brock Lesnar who's several times his size and Kofi was dumb and jumped at Brock which is the worst possible opening move since Brock's finisher is the F5 and his natural instinct was to catch Kofi in the Firemen's carry and F5 him. Bianca lost to a surprise palm strike upper cut and Very High Uranage (Man-Handle slam). That makes Bianca look amateurish and I don't think she should've gone out that way.
If the idea was to turn Becky heel, as it appears to have been, then surely she should have cheated rather than just winning clean in 20 seconds? At least pull the tights or something!
Becky should've done a hold that Bianca has never experienced and have her pass out. That would've been far more believable. Bianca wouldn't have looked that bad too.
Shannon Spruill, who wrestled as Daffney in WCW and TNA, very sadly took her own life. https://www.f4wonline.com/other-wrestling/former-wcw-and-tna-wrestler-daffney-passes-away-46-352186 It's the third suicide by a female wrestler in recent years, after Ashley Massaro and Hana Kimura.
All Out was the best ppv AEW has put on. Having big names like Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole actually choosing to leave WWE to jump to AEW really feels like a big deal!
All Out was very impressive and the ending was superb. I hear that Kevin Owens is set to leave WWE in January when his contract is up. WWE is starting to feel the pain of AEW's rise and that is good for the fans.
So Samoa Joe's NXT title reign is over already. Probably because of the new direction for NXT (which I haven't seen anything of.) Weirdly he said the injury that foced him to vacate the title won't keep him out for long. So why not just wait until he's ready to return and have him drop the belt then? I can't imagine he'll be wrestling much longer. Big E is the new WWE champion having cashed in his Money In The Bank on Bobby Lashley. I've always had mixed feelings about these kind of cash-ins by babyfaces. It just feels like a kind of cheap way to start a title reign? But it's an accepted part of the WWE landscape by now, so I think if the follow-up is good he could be a great champion. Just don't have him lose it back to Lashley in Saudi Arabia...
No interest in the no-name brands of today…the 70’s-90’s were what I remember. Austin Idol, Lord Humungous…there was a missed opportunity for cross-overs in the 90’s for charity…say. One storyline I was hoping for was a bikers vs mods deal with NWO vs Raven and his bunch of misfits with a Crow like Sting coming back for them. I had a concept of a tag team named Harlequin and Reaver in masque-wear with a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari trope of one a drunk and the other a mute.
Danielson/Suzuki was also really good. I did find dthat the strike exchanges maybe went on a bit too long, but that's just my personal preference (and at least they were really good looking strike exchanges.) It's on Youtube...