Board 8 > All-Purpose Wrestling Topic 509 - The Purge is Real

(+) Yeah! (+)

ZeroSignal posted...

I just don't see it. Theory has no appeal whatsoever.

At least Reigns had the look of a superstar when WWE began making him the center of attention.

A bloke like him appears to be old Vinnie's wet dream though...

I decided to write about dynamite

This episode of dynamite really felt like a throwback to WCW in so many ways.and here I thought I would break down my thoughts on a newsworthy and frustrating show. There are times this is good and there are times this is bad. Tonight it was mostly bad.

This show felt like 1999 WCW - over the top gimmicks on workers who would be better served just working. Brody King is a good worker and has a unique look. I dont really dig the thousands of tattooes aesthetic but some people do. Presented correctly this man would have fans. But not this might. Brody works like a horror monster - which was the entire basis of his partnership with PCO. Very slow and menacing and when the crowd buys him as a killer it can be very effective. Despite Darby Allin's best efforts, much of Kings offense was met with silence until we got toward the end of the match and the crowd started buying into the guy. The match was fine but hardly the lit fuse Dynamite typically leads off with.

Speaking of ways in which this show resembled throwback WCW - its Sting! He has a shmoz with Brody and gets caught in a 2 on 1 beat down with House of Black and takes a mist to the face. So here comes goth sting. Or maybe since he is already goth he will revert to surfer Sting? Miro comes down for the "Who's side is he on" nwo angle following up on his tease that he might join the House last week on Friday. Regardless this is the issue with the house of black. This feud which features 5 excellent wrestlers and sting is now probably gonna mainly be about whatever this black mist is gonna do to sting. Its like the old baseball adage - just throw strikes. You have a lot of talent here and the bells and whistles actually distract from that and turn what should be a hype feud into something dreadful

Fortunately from here we transition towards early 90s and late 80s WCW. This tag match between The Best Friends and The Blackpool Combat Club (Yuta and Moxley) was excellent - go out of your way for this one. This is the sort of thing I was talking about. There were a lot of threads going into this one. The BCC in general really went hard after Chuck Taylor and Orange Cassidy claiming they were soft in the lead up to Yuta leaving the Best Friends. This happens to them a lot. People see the Best Friends being goofy and happy and dressed in tye dye and tale them lightly - forgetting these fellas have the bonafides as tough gritty bastards when the time comes. These guys have a win over Miro. They won that nasty street fight with Ortiz and Santana. When they goings get tough the Best Friends buckle down and kick ass. Then they hug it out and head for the McDonald's.

Anyway, Chuck has mostly been a good sport about the student he calls his son jumping ship to another teacher. Trent on the other hand was always a bit surly when it came to Yuta. The BCC came out ready to do their usual routine and we had Regal and Orange at the commentary booth, Orange doing his routine where he doesn't say anything and generally being aloof about the whole situation.

This was immediately the dynamic of the match. Trent was wrestling with intensity that we do not usually see from him - with a chip on his shoulder for all the insinuations that he isn't gritty and tough clearly gnawing at him. Chuck on the other hand was very respectful and treating his wrestling Yuta as a sporting exhibition between teacher and student. Trent was going in pretty viciously on Yuta while he was tied up in the ropes and chuck saved him and tried to talk Trent out of being such a bastard - but then Yuta took a cheap shot on Chuck and from there it was on. Gloves were off. The real chuck was here and as he got more vicious it awoke moxleys protective side trying to counter Chucks new viciousness.
Everything here was tense and as the match heated up and Regal continued to insist Yutas improvements as a worker were because of Regal this finally set off Orange who began getting very protective of Chuck and Trent and was clearly bothered by this idea that they weren't real top level wrestlers just because they smile and like each other. Yuta ends up isolated for most of the match as Chuck hits Moxley with a nasty suplex combination. Wheeler kicked out of pair of back to back piledrivers and ended up stealing the win from Chuck with a SeatBelt pinning combination which a surprisingly salty Orange Cassidy said he learned from Chuck. This was excellent. An absolute epic told in the ring and this clearly isn't over. Yuta got the pin but they didn't beat the best friends and despite outward appearances prior to tonight The Best Friends really arent okay with being called soft dorks and I hope we dont have to wait another 2 months for follow up here.

We kept the good times rolling with and FTR promo. FTR hair gives this nothing WWE ass promo about the Briscoes and that's fine but the real main event here was Dax Harwood or as I might start calling him Magnum DH. He gives this promo about his daughter and how hard she had to fight to mend the hole in her heart to live a good life. And that metaphor is such a good one. A hole in your heart. Something missing and the notion that you can work your ass off and become whole - this got me emotional between that and how much this mans daughter clearly means to him. And he says he needs to retain these titles to create a legacy she can be proud of. These promos always get me because its clear this guy loves his kid and shes gonna be proud of him no matter what but the idea of it is so simple and plays on emotions we all feel. This would've gone great in 1980s JCP, you can just imagine Magnum saying all this as he prepared to take on Flair. Dax is gonna fuck around and become a main event level singles star at this rate. Anyway I loved everything about this.

What I did not love was anything about the Ricky Starks and Swerve in our Glory segments. Its around this time that they bring out a Shark Mascot for Discoverys Shark Week - everyone thought we were being shown Chekovs Shark Mascot but as it turns out no it was just corporate synergy. Swerve and Lee come out and the sheer order of magnitude that Swerve is cooler than Lee continues to amuse me. This whole segment was spent getting over some rapper and what I am assuming is going to be some kind of Swerve/Tony Nese match with this petition to fire Swerve they were passing around. How the fuck does this happen? I was really disappointed that the bucks lost the titles but I was told getting them to Swerve and Lee was always the plan. I hope that wasnt the case because they clearly have no plans for these guys and this segment was dreadful. They've got a week or two to right the ship but the tag scene looks ready to get stuck in the mud here. Where was team taz? The Bucks didn't even get pinned to lose those titles they didn't wanna come out and say something? I get that FTR are busy for another week but I really dont get why they even had this segment.

Speaking of pointless, oh boy this FTW title match. Tony Two Dimes from NXT 2.0 was here looking like a job guy. But he got promo time and then took the lions share of the offense in this FTW title match. Ricky is an excellent worker and oozes charisma. He ended up doing the peoples elbow during picture in picture while the rock was on screen and its starting to not feel like a ridiculous comparison. Ricky dispatches this fool in like 7 minutes and says he is feeling good and calls out anyone else. Danhausen comes out and the eyes begin rolling but I assume this is gonna be a squash to set up Hook vs Ricky. But no - instead Ricky appears to be afraid of Danhausen. As in "got squashed by Tony Nese in less than a minute" Danhausen. I dont get it. This was just poorly put together start to finish - very 2000 wcw with our guy Ricky playing the role of AJ Styles.

There were women. It was Quarter 7. Lets move on.

Barbed Wire Everywhere. Kingston. Jericho. Both these guys usually deliver in these plunder heavy matches and the issue between them has been HOT. So naturally this was the biggest turd AEW has laid in over a year. Eddie and Jericho couldn't get onto the same page at all. The plunder and wire spots were pretty sloppy and just weren't...intense. This was all just very ginger. It did not feel like Kingston wanted to murder this man.

The match was built around the JAS being in a shark cage and an Anna Jay heel turn where she helped Tay Conti free the Jericho Appreciation Society from the cage by beating a one armed Ruby Soho who I guess is meant to be Eddies romantic partner? and if things were off the rails before this about the point where the train headed the opposite direction appeared. Tay Conti could not figure out how a padlock worked and the match ground to a halt for close to 2 minutes. Fortunately the bars are wide enough that Garcia and Parker could eventually squeeze through and try to keep things going breaking up the least convincing 2.9 count ever for Kingston. The BCC and Ortiz showed off to run off the JAS and Eddie once again locks Jericho into the stretch plum where Sammy Guevara comes back and helps Jericho do an assisted Judas Effect. I guess Sammy was supposed to have been a big return but I didnt even notice he was gone and we had already seen Tay so I dont know why they thought this would be a surprise.

Why on earth did Jericho need to win here? Eddie immediately tosses Jericho into a barbed wire box to get his heat back and make sure we all knew this match was 100% pointless. Very post goldberg wcw.

This was a rare miss for Dynamite featuring some decent ideas that just didn't work and some bad ideas that were never gonna work. But it also featured a near Match of the Year contender tag match and that excellent FTR promo so on the whole...good show?

Eddv posted...

People see the Best Friends being goofy and happy and dressed in tye dye and tale them lightly - forgetting these fellas have the bonafides as tough gritty bastards when the time comes. These guys have a win over Miro. They won that nasty street fight with Ortiz and Santana. When they goings get tough the Best Friends buckle down and kick ass. Then they hug it out and head for the McDonald's

Excellent description.

Eddv posted...

by beating a one armed Ruby Soho who I guess is meant to be Eddies romantic partner?

Jericho has made multiple references to Eddie's actual girlfriend so no. I think it's supposed to be more of a protective big brother/little sister dynamic.

Also how do you blow off Kingston and Jericho now? They have done blood and guts and barbed wire. You can't end it with a normal match and even a street fight or LMS would seem tame compared to those.

actual explosions?

Maniac64 posted...

Also how do you blow off Kingston and Jericho now? They have done blood and guts and barbed wire. You can't end it with a normal match and even a street fight or LMS would seem tame compared to those.

My guess is theyre building it to an I Quit match which makes sense thematically. But I dunno how we do it so JAS doesnt run in all the time

oh
https://twitter.com/BustedOpenRadio/status/1550143960022224899?s=20&t=70Y4HvCWVTOmkZqAWqbwSA

It actually happened.

Bye bye Vince

Brock apparently walked out on Smackdown upon hearing about Vince's retirement, saying something to the effect of "If he's gone, I'm gone."

Imagine carrying that much water for Vince.

And now theyre backed into an even bigger corner because they wouldnt build up anyone that isnt Roman or Brock. They deserve this

They are fine if they just reverse course lol. No one will have trouble buying any one of like 8 guys as the guy if booked that way.

Yeah Chris is right.

The talent is still there being tragically misapplied. The fans WILL get behind people like Owens or Zayn or Nakamura if they are pushed correctly.

And they still have Cody as an ace in the hole. They can be fine. For the first time int ages that is a possibility

Sweet a new sig.

And yeah Cody just won an espy and is super hype

Roman had a fantastic match with Buddy Murphy of all people once upon a time and made him look like a star, so I imagine he isn't unwilling to put somebody else over. Hopefully this becomes a thing.

It appears they got Brock back, which returns me to zero hope for the future.

I mean Brock is barely around and is just here to job to Roman at Summerslam.

Maniac64 posted...

I mean Brock is barely around and is just here to job to Roman at Summerslam.

Yeah but wasn't that the case the last like two times. They just have other people job in between The Brock Times.

I mean we wouldn't have Brock back if Cody or Randy was healthy, hence why the "LAST TIME EVAR" pitch. Cause then we move onto DREW MAC who fills out PPV matches until likely Survivor Series.

The big question is what do they do at Survivor Series this year? One person has both World titles and one team has both tag belts.

Bianca vs Liv and Lashley vs Gunther could happen though, pending any changes.

ZeroSignal posted...

The big question is what do they do at Survivor Series this year? One person has both World titles and one team has both tag belts.

Bianca vs Liv and Lashley vs Gunther could happen though, pending any changes.

.Maybe we get storylines?

With HHH back as head of creative, anything's possible

Final Summerslam card
Reigns vs Lesnar in a Last Man Standing match for the Undisputed WWE Universal title
Corbin vs McAfee
Usos vs Profits for the Undisputed Tag titles
Liv vs Ronda for the SD Women's title
Bianca vs Becky for the Raw Women's title
Lashley vs Theory for the US title
Miz vs Logan Paul
Mysterios vs Judgment Day

HHH effect already being felt with the opening match of Summerslam

https://twitter.com/brandonthurston/status/1553538613295648773?s=21&t=FeWAAMchOLA8AAR0qK0n_w

What happened?

UltimaterializerX posted...

So glad that piece of crap Vince is gone. He was holding the company back for way too long.

What a fucking AMAZING show.

didn't fix the camera cuts, but overall it was a pretty good show

https://twitter.com/BulletClubIta/status/1553583571578884099

oh ya

Reigns/Lesnar may just be the best Last Man Standing match of all time. The match was just so fucking entertaining from start to finish. Only other LMS match I remember being of the same quality is HHH/HBK.

The two are booked like they are two tiers above everyone else on the roster. I am not sure whether that is a good or bad thing anymore. The match really felt like a clash of two titans.

I forgot to mention however that one spot was particularly bad and unbelievable in the match. When Lesnar counters Reigns' Guillotine into his own and literally makes him unconscious to the point where the referee forces Lesnar to release the hold. The referee then proceeds to count and Reigns just gets up before the 10 count like Cena-at-his-worst kinda goofiness level of 'kick-out'.

Other than that. It was a fantastic Last Man Standing match and the match that they should have had at Mania. Lesnar uprooting the ring with the tractor and Reigns falling and flailing across the ring in his lifeless body is arguably the most memorable spot since Undertaker tossed Mankind's body from the top of the cell.

If Wikipedia is correct, today should be Reigns' 700th day as Universal Champion.

Only 5 world title runs in WWE history have lasted longer: Both of Sammartino's, Pedro's, Backlund's, and Hogan's

Also Reigns has been both The Man and the holder of Dominic's custody since November 2020

In other parts, while it's on my mind, here's the Grand Slam champs we know of in the current format: Angle, Edge, Miz, Big Show, Bryan, Eddie, Jericho, Reigns, Ambrose, Rollins, Jeff Hardy, Rey, Orton, Kofi, Styles

The following active/employed superstars need one more belt to join them:

Big E (US)
Sheamus (IC)
Owens (Tag)
Ziggler (WWE or Universal)
McIntyre (US)
Lashley (Tag)
Nakamura (WWE or Universal)
Balor (Tag)

Realistically, I think he holds it until Wrestlemania next year, which would end it around 935 days.

And then we prepare for the inevitable Theory cash in the moment Roman drops it because WWE insists on shoving him down our throats despite him spending the last month getting his ass kicked every time he appears on TV.

At least Cena and Reigns had either the look of a superstar or a solid gimmick. Theory has neither.

I hope Triple H brings back Karrion Kross and Scarlet. From all the releases (even including the Fiend, Strowman and Keith Lee), that one stung the most for me because I truly think Kross can easily become a main event level monster heel capable of headlining Wrestlemanias.

ZeroSignal posted...

Realistically, I think he holds it until Wrestlemania next year, which would end it around 935 days.

If he doesn't drop it to Drew at Clash at the Castle (90% chance he won't but with Triple H in charge, his chances of retaining are a bit lower). He won't drop it till Mania to presumably Cody. If he faces The Rock at Mania, then he retains and goes on to hold the title for 1000+ days until eventually Cody dethrones him or *wince* Theory cashes in successfully.

There's only two guys who should take the title from Reigns and they are Drew and Cody.

Wikipedia says we are officially in the Triple H era

Goodbye....New Era? I guess they never came around on a better name for that after the Reality era

Of course you could say those were all still just part of the PG era just re branded slightly

bah gawd that's Karrion Kross

Amazing how Triple H has fixed one of the biggest debacles Vince McMahon and his batch of ass kissing yesmen have made within the span of weeks.

Welcome fucking back Kross and Scarlet.

Bring Sasha back into the fold dammit

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

Amazing how Triple H has fixed one of the biggest debacles Vince McMahon and his batch of ass kissing yesmen have made within the span of weeks.

Welcome fucking back Kross and Scarlet.

am i missing the sarcasm here? kross, the guy who got the most ludicrous push in the history of NXT and couldn't get over? burying that guy was vince's best call in years

How the fuck did Kross not get over when literally everyone was buying into him as the Brock Lesnar of NXT before Vince buried him by jobbing him out to Samoa Joe, just to bring him to the main roster and have him job to Jeff Hardy?

His entrance itself has more charisma than half the current roster.

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/kevin-owens-apparently-sends-ezekiel-heaven-elias-88-wwe-raw

RIP

Wonder what the 3rd brother's name will be

Maniac64 posted...

Wonder what the 3rd brother's name will be

You mean 4th after Elrod

I didn't even know about Elrod. Is he dead?

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

His entrance itself has more charisma than half the current roster.

Not the last time I saw it.

just wondering, and it's just fine if there no real explanation

how did we go from WALTER/Io Shirai to Gunther/Iyo Sky??

Those aren't even the weirdest name changes.

Kacy Catanzaro is now Katana Chance

Maniac64 posted...

Kacy Catanzaro is now Katana Chance

did they bring in MDickie

Took a few minutes to update my spreadsheet, but with Roman Reigns collecting double the days by holding two world titles, he's the 25th wrestler in history to have over 1000 days as world champion*

*titles include WWE, Universal, AEW, WHC (WWE), WCW, NWA, Impact, ROH, AWA, IWGP, and IWGP World

The list from 1st to 25th in order of days:

Gagne
Sammartino
Flair
Thesz
Hogan
Bockwinkel
Lesnar
Backlund
Aldis
Okada
Race
Dory Funk
Severn
Cena
Tanahashi
Great Muta
Styles
Angle
HHH
Kiniski
Hashimoto
Adam Pearce
Jarrett
Morales
Reigns

By the time Clash at the Castle airs, he'll pass Morales and Jarrett