Brand shake up next week. Hope Braun goes to Smackdown. Hope miz leaves forever.

Could both Braun and McIntyre be going to Smackdown?  Interesting.  I find it hard to believe to Samoa Joe could bring Braun to his knees like that but it's for show lol.

 

Agreed. Wonder if Rhonda will get drafted too.

Kind of nice to shit all over a former champion, olympic gold medalist, and one of the best technical wrestlers of all time? He could have at least lost to someone like AJ Styles, or Shelton Benjamin and "pass the torch". At least have him lose to a good technical wrestler after a decent match...

People legitimately dislike Corbin, not sure this is going to help him either. 

I completely agree about the Kurt Angle "farewell" match with BA.  

It was so effing WEIRD and really nonsensical. I was on the Cena train.... But overall, I thought it was very very strange. Having him lose? Then not even have Corbin capitalize on it on Raw??? Very very confusing. 

Mania:

I liked it, but it really was far too long. 

If you watch the pre-show, which I did... I was watching wrestling from 3-10:30.... it was insane.

I fell asleep multiple times. 

And WWE killed the crowd by having so many babyfaces win. Darktone wondered how the hell they could have Seth, Kofi, AND Becky all win in one night.... well, they added Tony Nese, Major Brothers, AND Finn Balor (+ IIconics)... it was FAR FAR too much.

Should have had The Revival win and save that title change for Raw. Balor could have won on RAW too for that matter. I mean, the crowd was still into the main event, but they weren't biting on the false finishes or anything.

I think they were burnt out. 

But I rewatched it Monday morning (all three main title matches) and I enjoyed them all. Fuck, Becky is hot. Plus, she's been cutting incredible promo's and dominating EVERYONE on Twitter (which now counts because wrestlers get to be "on" 24/7). Looking forward to more from her, but I really wish WWE would step it up and not have her get in scuffles (unless she is the decisive winner) with "new" superstars randomly and start absolutely crushing everyone. But Becky has since taken the interaction to a whole new level on Twitter and now I care. 

Wrestlemania: Good god, a 2 hour pre-show really puts it out there, time-wise. How about a 1 hour pre-show and 4 hour PPV? 

5 hours? I never thought I'd see that as a compromise. 

When I was in highschool buying PPVs... did they not start at 8PM ET, and run until 11? And they were usually done at like 10:45....? Because they never could go over. 

Now that WWE has The NEtwork they can do whateverr the fuck they want. But damn... almost 8 hours. Yowza. 

I'm shocked. I'm trying to figure out how the hell it took so long. Joe vs. Rey was less than a minute, and The Universal title match was 8-10 minutes, including chaos? Whelp... I napped. 

Dang you are trooper Air.  That's an awful lot of Wrestling to binge at once.  XD

The pre-shows seem to be for the hardest of the hardcore only.  Too many talking heads and hype video packages (thought well done.)  Pre-show matches are mostly filler, unless it is the crusierweights or the occational hidden gem like that New Day vs Sanity tables match at some random B-PPV which was better than most of the main card.

3 hours for B-PPVs
4 hours for bigger shows (Royale Rumble, Summer Slam, Survivor Series)
5 hours for Mania

Doesn't really mater if you are watching on the Network, you can watch it over two days or a whole week on your schedule.

Dude.... I was ALL IN (pardon the AEW reference) for 'Mania. It was partly a challenge. Like, "Okay WWE, you want to start the pre-show at 3 just to test me??? Okay, I'm on it."

I wanted to see if I would still care about the main event. And I did. Just napped a bunch and missed parts.

I agree about the Pre-shows... 

I just wanted to be LIVE for 'Mania... And thought if I starteed the preshow too late, I couldn't watch the matches. But really... the two Andre Battle Royale's are skippable (to watch next day).

But I for sure wanted to watch the Cruiserweights. 

The panels are mostly inconsequential, but I like it when the wrestlers do stuff (or, I just don't want to miss the people who I like). 

Anyways, I'll have to reevaluate for next year. 

Also, I effing LOVE the video packages. I sometimes watch at a friends house and he skips them and the entrances. It kills my soul.

The opening video package for the PPV's themselves are (most of the time) ultra cool, too. This years 'Mania was awesome. 

Ps. I love Becky Lynch. 

Been to about a dozen house/other promotions shows this year alone, and each one makes WWE feel obsolete. Hell, even the local promotion down at the ice rink was more exciting than most modern WWE PPVs. WM35 was better than the last few for sure, though.

Erik, do you collect Funko Pops? I dont have any WWE ones. I have every Masters of the Universe Pop released as well as Attack on Titan. I really wish I wouldve "invested" in more pops back in the day. The appreciation of value on the MOTU ones is insane, so I'll take it! The WWE ones look great too... including your "Man"... https://www.bigapplecollectibles.com/products/wwe-funko-pop-...

 

My favorite WWF/WWE character gone forever.

Godspeed GOLDUST!!!

Only to debut his brand new character "yellow powder" in AEW XD

Wonder if he is going to have a final run as just Dustin and/or fued with Cody before retiring to a backstage role

Remember when he was Seven for a few minutes in WCW? That shoot promo was gold (no pun intended)!

 

Should have gone as black reign.

Anybody watch Dark Side of the Ring yet? The Screwjob story tied it up for me as a fan. Really good stuff there. The Bruiser Brody episode on his death was a true gut punch and I didn't watch many of his matches. Can't wait to see more. I'll probably go with the one on Macho/Miss Elizabeth next.

Spoiler:





The way Cornette and Russo described what was happening behind the scenes in production meetings. Not having a clue. Scott Halls take on it by the end that everyone was in on it, saying never talked about it with HBK was an absolute lie. The 2 were basically road mates from city to city. Bret saying that after the match Shawn came into his dressing room, him taking a shower while Vince waited for him to get done then blasting Vince with a punch after coming out. Lots and lots to unpack here

^^^ Yeah, that's been pretty good so far. The Von Erich episode last night was nice and I'm looking forward to the Fabulous Moolah episode. I'd like to see one about Dino Bravo down the road.

You have links to it

I don't have a link unfortunately. It's a show on Viceland network so I was able to stream the on demand episodes through directv

Thanks, just watched them

.............................So how about that whole Lars thing, huh?

What happened? I haven't seen the dirt sheets or get to watch last weeks shows

THis whole superstar shakeup had turned intoa big cluster fuck because of the "wild card' rule.

I would love to know what in the hell actually happened for them to decide this....?

WWE couldn't have ACTUALLY planned it....?? I mean... they couldn't have said "okay, we're going to do the superstar shakeup, keep moving people around, and THEN... GET THIS... we'll have the "wild card rule" where superstars STILL jump to whatever brand they want." 

Ummmm..... what? 

SO... After the Shakeup, were they like "oh fuck... we can't have Roman ONLY on SDLive, NNNNOOOOOO!!!!!" and made some whacky storyline to get him back onto RAW....?

The whole thing (including the shakeup and how they moved guys BACK after moving them Andrade???) has been strangely executed. 


Sami Zayn is great. 
 


I was curious about this.

All I saw was a tweet from Big E, responding to a fan asking him about it. E basically said if (references next) it's true, he'll have to live with being in a lockerroom full of minorities.

The tweet linked screen shots of terrible things someone (supposedly Lars from a while back) said on a forum. He was saying bad things about a range of sensitive subjects.

I haven't logged into any wrestling forums recently to see "what the deal is".

 

Years ago, Lars was a member on a forum, and wrote some nasty shit about gays and minorities (mainly blacks). He also said Styles was old and slow.

Someone dug these up and shared them. Then someone asked the WWE if they knew about this. Big E replied "Yeah..... we knew". Just like Triple H cheating on Chyna, Vince knew of this early and stayed silent until it got out. Lars publicly said sorry. To those thinking 'he was young when he said that shit' he was in his 20s.

Regarding the Sullivan stuff, reminds me of Josh Hader in baseball. Some really dumb shit he said when he was younger was unearthed and he and his team had to go into damage control while the backlash was coming in. He's doing alright now.

In response to AirVillain, basically Fox Sports/USA network are putting pressure on WWE to end the brand split. Fox wants all the top talent available for the transition to their programming. USA wants them all available as well, as Raw is going to hurt again for ratings when Monday Night Football comes back in a few months. It's the perfect storm of 2 networks wanting the company's talent to be able to appear on their networks shows.

I'm sure the networks will win and kind of have already. It happened so quickly with the wild card rule you knew something was up. And the timing for WWE was bad with the shake up which they normally do things like that to refresh/reset after WrestleMania. Fox also wants to see more violence aka blood in matches again because they want it to seem realistic for their programming to compete with UFC which is basically ESPNs at this point, and UFC is violent and brutal where WWE has become more kicks and flips and on the surface not believable as a combat sport despite the physicality that is real.

Will be interesting to watch it unfold.

Also read that Silver King (a Luchadore wrestler) collapsed and passed away in Ring at a show. He was in WCW awhile. Sad.

Seth Rollins tweeted a pic of him and Becky Lynch confirming the 2 are in a relationship. Becky does nothing but talk shit in interviews and on Twitter. Whether it's a work or not you can't really tell. Her disdain for Rousey seems real with all her stuff just slamming Ronda when Ronda would tap her ass out for real in seconds.

I really can't stand Becky Lynch anymore. She's an asshole on social media and during shows you can see how arrogant and cocky she is. Probably just part of the show but she's supposed to be a face, not an insufferable dick bag. Add in her social media attacks at Rousey and she seems more like a heel to me. They're trying to make her female Stone Cole but it just doesn't work for me as a fan.

She plays up to the character on social media. In real life she loves Charlotte and dislikes Ronda, but gives them both the same level of sass on Twitter.

NOW. Why is Brock back?

I just finished watching the Men's match. Real shock to see him appear, but I loved it. Sounds like his UFC deal wasn't going to work? And he basically can command anything from WWE and get it. He must have signed a longer term deal. Assuming that he ends up cashing in for Fox on Smackdown.