The Wrestling Thread: WWE WrestleMania XL - 6/7 April 2024

[Mafro]

This is hypnotic.

[KK]

WWE Starrcade available for free on YouTube:



May have something to do with the WWE Network being down/shoddy for a lot of people tonight.

[NBK]

Anyone here listening to the Wrestling Daft podcast?

It's hosted by Grado and Rab Florence and is pretty much how you'd expect a wrestling podcast done by Grado and Rab Florence to be. I'll let you decide whether that's a good thing or not

I really enjoy it and have been listening to it each week. It's more talking about wrestling, who Grado lost to this week and interviews, rather than dissecting the latest episode of AEW Dark or whatever, and they've had some really good guests on to interview. First episode had Chris Jericho, and they've also had Al Snow, Dave Lagana (while being driven by Billy Corgan), Doug Williams and Mark Dallas.

It's become a bit of a highlight of my week, check it out.

[Mafro]

Grado

Didn't know Rab Florence had a wrestling podcast so I might check it out.

[NBK]

Grado

I thought that might have been your response

[Mafro]

WWE interest seems to be at an all time low on here.

[KK]

RAW was great last week, but because WWE is incapable of building any momentum was then back to pure stupidity this week. Apart from uncensored swearing now featuring on the show (because of AEW, no doubt) the rest was mostly forgettable shite. At the start of the show Rusev broke his restraining order against Lana and Bobby Lashley, but the police did nothing and said ‘because we do things differently here in Tennessee,’ then went and arrested Bobby Lashley instead. Lana then slapped one of the officers and was promptly arrested as well. Samoa Joe was on commentary again though, which has been an improvement.

AEW had its first average show last week but was quality again on Wednesday. There was a hair cutting segment with Brandi, Kong and some other woman that really died on its arse. And then died again when the budget hair clippers failed to cut through the hair. So they just all walked to the back having failed to shave this random woman’s head.

[KK]

Currently watching “IMPACT PROVINCIAL WRESTLING FEDERATION” On My5 and it’s IMPACT WRESTLING basically taking the piss out of NWA Power and Southern 80s regional wrestling promotions (like WWE did with Southpaw Regional Wrestling). It’s so wacky! There’s a manager clutching a squash racket, a thoroughly out of shape D’Lo Brown, and a tag team knocking off The Freebirds.

[Zellery]

I love AEW but some things are not working on the show.

Brandi and Awesome Kong for one. None of it has gotten over - hell I'm not convinced they even get a reaction.

The Blade and The Butcher and The Bunny made one of the worst debuts of all time. I am willing to give this group a chance, though.

And The Dark Order. Just too many spooky groups that don't work.

Everything else on the show is awesome. Moxley is feeling more and more like Austin every week, which is a good thing.

I think their next PPV is going to be Moxley/Jericho and Cody/MJF which is such a great starting point to build momentum on.

[Mafro]

The Dark Order's initial introduction was awful and they came off like a bunch of local indie geeks but the cult videos on Dynamite recently have made them much more interesting. Getting rid of all the little gimps that accompany them to the ring will do them wonders.

The butcher and the blade stuff feels like a faction led by Marty Scurll so I dunno what's going on there.

Moxley is great, he should definitely be the one to take the title off of Jericho.

[KK]

I'm thinking at least two of these dark factions are eventually going to morph into one and be connected in some way.

[KomandaHeck]

The Dark Order video packages have been good recently and I don't think they've appeared on the show since they started running them. If the crowd isn't enthusiastic about them the next time they appear then they'll probably need to start thinking about a more drastic rework. I hope those promos did the trick though because the idea of them recruiting losers would tie in nicely with AEW's win/loss ranking stuff.

They posted a MJF promo online where he admitted to being behind the BBB attack on Cody so I guess they're either new additions to his own faction or meant to be some sort of mercenary team. I prefer the latter idea for the moment.

[Zellery]

The Dark Order's initial introduction was awful and they came off like a bunch of local indie geeks but the cult videos on Dynamite recently have made them much more interesting. Getting rid of all the little gimps that accompany them to the ring will do them wonders.

The butcher and the blade stuff feels like a faction led by Marty Scurll so I dunno what's going on there.

Moxley is great, he should definitely be the one to take the title off of Jericho.

Agree with everything you've said.

I'm thinking at least two of these dark factions are eventually going to morph into one and be connected in some way.

I originally saw a photo of The Butcher and The Blade on Twitter and just assumed they were new recruits of The Dark Order.

[SerialCeler]

I'm thinking at least two of these dark factions are eventually going to morph into one and be connected in some way.

Corporate ministry?

[JChalmers]

There was a big theory that all these “dark” groups in AEW are going to be merged with Marty Scurll coming in and bringing them all together to bring down the Elite. Think it was more fantasy booking than anything but would be cool.

[Rawrgna]

Sad to see the lastest releases by wwe but I'm Hoping Harper can go to Either AEW or back to the Indies and be a huge star again after the injuries and non start pushes he had lately same with the Ascension they were never used properly after their disasterous debut to the Main roster when they got buried by the New Age Outlaws if i recall

[Slimgrady]

So John Morrison’s big WWE return was on......The Bump! Thats a shitty minor studio show on the network. The super fine Kayla Braxton hosts it though so it gets a pass. The Royal Rumble is like a month away, they couldn’t have waited?!

[Zellery]

Still waiting for Dynamite...

[KK]

11:35pm start for it on ITV4 in case they still don’t have it up.

ITV may give AEW Dynamite their biggest possible audience, but they really have treated it poorly. When it comes to promoting their PPVs though they’re great.

[KK]

WWE Network completely broken on the PS4, and has been for the past 2 days. It just won’t load beyond the initial circle. Thankfully I have an Xbox to switch to for TLC, but since this new update it’s been nothing but problems (to the point they had to give away Starrcade for free on YouTube because the Network didn’t work for many people).