Not sure who to blame, but geeeeeez please don’t let Charlotte and Banks wrestle anymore. Sasha is too young to die. One of the most entertaining matches of the night otherwise, though.
I fist pumped like a maniac for AJ winning.
I have no idea what they are doing with Nikki. Replaces Eva Marie (makes her a face), but lumped with the heel team and doesn’t object, but gets beaten down as a face on Smackdown… Business as usual, I guess.
They’ve pulled Bailey from the NXT Aus promo artwork.
Not sure I care enough about the rest of the roster outside of Nakamura…
They've pulled Bailey from the NXT Aus promo artwork.The fact she existed on the promo art possibly points to it being a late decision to call her up to RAW. Speaking of Bailey, I hate the Hogan-esque stuff she's now doing when her head hits a buckle - she's not a Samoan.
■■■■■■ Reddit dude getting everyone’s hopes up by leaking that a Takeover here was happening - still I’m sure the night will be GLORIOUS. They’ve also tossed in a Japan date in before the NZ portion of the trip, so I’m sure Shinsuke, Asuka and Hideo ought to be pleased.
Not sure who to blame, but geeeeeez please don’t let Charlotte and Banks wrestle anymore. Sasha is too young to die. One of the most entertaining matches of the night otherwise, though.I fist pumped like a maniac for AJ winning.
I have no idea what they are doing with Nikki. Replaces Eva Marie (makes her a face), but lumped with the heel team and doesn’t object, but gets beaten down as a face on Smackdown… Business as usual, I guess.
Charlotte’s more in control of whatever the hell they were meant to be doing in that spot so I think that was her fault, but both have a history of botching - I’m a big Sasha fan but I struggle to watch her matches these days without cringing at least once during the match - she needs to drop the suicide dive ASAP - every time I’ve seen her perform it she almost clips her feet, over rotates and damn near lands on her head.
Tough spot with the Nikki thing - they had to bring someone in to replace Eva which instantly puts them in the heel role, it’d be stupid to do a turn on the first night back, so you’ve got to play the PPV itself straight, but realigning things made sense, especially given Nikki’s return reaction and Carmella had sank like a stone as a face without the Enzo/Cass rub - I blame WWE for bringing her up early rather than her work on that one, unlike Alexa she hadn’t had many character beats outside of Enzo/Cass and her in-ring stuff is pretty average.
In excellent news, Akira Tozawa and Jack Gallagher have signed with WWE - which really just leaves Ibushi and Sabre Jr. as main CWC talent that at least for the time being want to pursue other things outside of WWE (unless they’ve been laying the groundwork for a swerve).
Speaking of cringing during matches - Ibushi vs. Kendrick - a fricken’ burning hammer in WWE? Never thought I’d see that - predictably looked brutal. Anybody else love the Sabre Jr - Gulak match from a few weeks back?
Ibushi-Kendrik was great and Danielson has been fantastic at putting the talent over (none of the snark that otherwise seems required of WWE callers). Sure, it’s mostly been ten minute matches, but there have been enough styles and freshness for it to work.
And it would be an interesting call to let the winner and runner-up walk away (I haven’t looked at taping spoilers but am assuming the favourites are indeed going to be there at the end). Sitting on the announcement(s), as per Jobe?
Canberra.
Oh boy did I get worked by Sasha Banks on Raw. They’re really leaning into this “is this real or not, oh wait it’s obviously not” lately.
Mark Henry got me, but not Banks, he’d been legit bringing it up in interviews for months before the promo. I didn’t think about it at the time that way, but I can see how some wrestlers backstage were ■■■■■■ (not at Banks but creative) about doing a fake injury-related retirement angle, as opposed to Henry’s “hey I’ve been doing this for close to 20 years, seeya” angle, as they saw that as disrespectful to Edge and Bryan and also Tyson Kidd who may never wrestle again due to a broken neck, and you’re also putting that doubt in the audience’s mind when the next person has to legit retire due to injury. The thing that really seemed asinine to me though is Sasha’s a face - the Henry thing was a cool angle to turn him heel - here what purpose did it serve? That she’s fit and coming after the belt again? That could’ve been done any manner of ways, instead you forced your top women’s babyface (maybe 2nd now after Bayley) to troll her own fans that you want investing in her into thinking she was retiring, and you’ll forget it even happened next week…but the kids you’re so intent on marketing to these days though may not. Vince logic.
Bonus match from the CWC tapings:
Anybody seen Delete vs. Decay?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4spj0z_delete-or-decay-director-s-cut_school
Thought the pre-match zoo stuff was amusing, particularly Brother Nero vs. the kangaroo (must be one incredibly trained/docile kangaroo not to go ape shit) and Matt’s cage of “spot” monkeys - “Brother Nero is a recovering spot monkey”.
The rest was rubbish, the first one was so bad it was entertaining, this one was just bad personally. They reused a lot of the same spots from the first one which probably didn’t help.
New #Gloriousbomb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkHqskszCb0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VEDLpD6VoM
Yeah, hard for fireworks-as-firearms (and the identical boat-as-shield move) to be as awesome second time around. Even spot monkeys know that.
Having said that, there were still a few brilliant moments.
(And Lashley was fantastic in the “press conference”. Suits the character, suits the times.)
Delete vs Decay is just the setup to a match so wasn’t going to be as good as Final Deletion. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was.
I think what Hardy is doing is absolutely genius and the best thing to happen to wrestling in decades. Its not perfect, but my goodness it is ambitious.
Go home, Wrestling 2016. You’re drunk.
And it’s phenomenal.
Smackdown is where it’s at atm. Styles as champ, Becky Lynch, Ambrose and Cena feuding and Miz getting some serious heel heat.
Clash of Champions no-spoiler comments:
The crowd cared about a Jax-Fox dark match. Huh.
Cruiserweights unsurprisingly very good.
Cesaro did a Sasha. Please don’t die.
Charlotte was freakin’ fantastic. Obviously a heel has to be the important part of a heel-face-face match (otherwise, why isn’t it just face-face?) but Sasha and Bayley were brooms in that match.
What happened to cesaro?
What happened to cesaro?Did the heel clip on a suicide dive, therefore didn’t rotate, piledrove himself into the ground.
Got up and went another five minutes.
Crowd still likes a “CM PUNK” chant. Ha.
What happened to cesaro?Did the heel clip on a suicide dive, therefore didn’t rotate, piledrove himself into the ground.Got up and went another five minutes.
Is it just st me or is wrestling and wrestlers just turning into a bunch of flips and spot monkeys so the crowd can chant this is awesome? I hate that chant so much
Cesaro doesnt need to be doing the that sort of stuff, his in ring stuff is fine
If you’re not King Cuerno, just admit your suicide dive sucks.
I honestly hate crap like that, you never saw Austin/Rock/Triple H/Foley have to resort to those stupid suicide moves for a cheap pop. Taker does a few but it’s done so sparingly it actually feels impactful, and not every single week.
The dive through the middle rope is probably the move i hate the most. It is just used so often, plus anyone can do it. You could get a guy off the street and he could perform that. Diving over the top rope can be cool if done in selected spots, not once every match.
Foley would do big spots, but every single time he did one it meant something.
Don’t even get me started of the amount of “super kicks” that are used in wrestling today