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

[captain red dog]

Raw was entertaining to say the least. I'll talk spoilers since WWE isn't as popular as it once was.

Karrion Kross debuted and lost his undefeated run to Jeff Hardy. Yep, Jeff Hardy who has been a jobber since Matt left.

Keith Lee returned to be buried by Lashley, when Kofi or Xavier could easily have taken that role.

Cena was great, Goldberg got cheered.

Bit of a weird ending though with Nikki cashing in. It felt to me like a cheap way to get Charlotte another stat for her title record as no way are they going to build to Becky vs Nikki or even Becky vs Ripley.

I don't see the point in NXT at all. As a development "territory" is completely useless as everytime someone is called up on the men's side, they are buried to oblivion.

[KK]

Seriously ridiculous you’d call up Kross (who appears to be also heading into a big match with Samoa Joe) and then job him out like that. Triple H surely has to be furious. His wife was also absent, despite being one of the major allures of his entire act.

It’s almost like NXT exists in a parallel universe to main WWE programming and has no correlation to RAW and SmackDown. It’s a developmental league like Florida Championship Wrestling was back in the day, but one broadcast to a worldwide audience. A two fingered salute to anyone who bothers to invest in the characters and storylines. Toni Storm is another one. Called up out of the blue, a heel on NXT, and seemingly going to be the opposite on SD.

[Miguel007]

Lots of folks reporting Daniel Bryan has went All Elite and signed a contract and also rumours of CM Punk on his way too.

MichaelJacksonPopcorn.gif

[Corazon de Leon]

Seriously ridiculous you’d call up Kross (who appears to be also heading into a big match with Samoa Joe) and then job him out like that. Triple H surely has to be furious. His wife was also absent, despite being one of the major allures of his entire act.

It’s almost like NXT exists in a parallel universe to main WWE programming and has no correlation to RAW and SmackDown. It’s a developmental league like Florida Championship Wrestling was back in the day, but one broadcast to a worldwide audience. A two fingered salute to anyone who bothers to invest in the characters and storylines. Toni Storm is another one. Called up out of the blue, a heel on NXT, and seemingly going to be the opposite on SD.

I get the impression that Vince views NXT as a rival company sometimes and feels the need to bury the odd star just to reassert his dominance over Hunter.

[captain red dog]

Absolutely baffling that AEW and Jericho think it's OK to work with Nick Gage. That guy shouldn't be allowed into any major promotion. For once I agree with Jim Cornette on some of AEWs booking decisions.

[coldspice]

nick gage would have me more interested in watching aew than 90% of what they usually have

[KK]

Well their programming this past month is beginning to resemble a 2000 era ECW PPV more than a WCW event, so may as well go for that authenticity and employee a New Jack-type figure while they're at it. I watched his Dark Side of the Ring special. Arrested in the mid 2000s for possession of stolen property, drug addict, and while homeless jailed for bank robbery in 2011, eventually released on parole and then jailed again for violating it.

In terms of his matches, I find the CZW/light tube gory stuff that Nick Gage engages in (as did David Arquette upon his return, bizarrely) to be complete horseshit that turns off more people than it will ever attract. As it's going out on TNT, I can't see Jericho and AEW doing anything that wild though.

Makes for unpredictable TV, which will always be compelling good or bad.

[KK]

NXT Champion Karrion Kross walked out to a live crowd at last night’s NXT tapings for the first time since his defeat to Jeff Hardy on Monday’s RAW and according to multiple fans that were in attendance at the Capitol Wrestling Center for the tapings, Kross was showered with chants of “Hardy” from the moment he entered the arena. The segment, which saw the NXT Champ cutting a promo on Samoa Joe before escaping the ring as Joe made a run-in, was so taken over by the “Hardy” Chants that NXT had to reshoot the entire segment at the end of the night.

I was wondering why they wouldn’t just edit the crowd noise like they normally do, but apparently Kross acknowledged the chants and said something to the crowd so maybe they didn’t think it would edit well.

I haven’t seen NXT this week so I don’t know if the commentators or Kross talked about Hardy during the show. They need to have Kross back on RAW and destroy Hardy in retaliation. They could do it on NXT but more than half of the WWE audience won’t see it. Unless of course they now have plans for Hardy, in which case it wouldn’t make much sense to beat him either. Just an all round ludicrous situation to find themselves in while heading in to Samoa Joe’s first return to the ring in months. Over a year, in fact.

[ITSMILNER]

Seeing a lot of buzz online that CM Punk and Daniel Bryan have signed for AEW but is there any truth to these?

[Corazon de Leon]

I get not wanting him in because of the bank robbery thing, but if we disqualified all wrestling bank robbers from competition there'd be a few surprising people dismissed(well, MVP and Booker T that I know of).

Nearly everyone in the bloody business seems to have some nasty secret at times, honestly.

[captain red dog]

I get not wanting him in because of the bank robbery thing, but if we disqualified all wrestling bank robbers from competition there'd be a few surprising people dismissed(well, MVP and Booker T that I know of).

Nearly everyone in the bloody business seems to have some nasty secret at times, honestly.

That's true, but Nick Gage is an extremely unsafe worker and I don't believe he has put his drug use to bed or even really shown remorse for his crimes.

I wouldn't trust him on a national TV show in prime time not to go into bat for himself, get controversy by doing something insane. And to put him in the ring with Jericho is just totally weird.

AEW was supposed to be sports based wrestling, but they seem to be edging ever closer to ECW/CZW shite but on a massive platform.

Plus it has never gone well for AEW. More often than not, when they try and do something hardcore it ends up in massive embarrassment.

[Corazon de Leon]

I get not wanting him in because of the bank robbery thing, but if we disqualified all wrestling bank robbers from competition there'd be a few surprising people dismissed(well, MVP and Booker T that I know of).

Nearly everyone in the bloody business seems to have some nasty secret at times, honestly.

That's true, but Nick Gage is an extremely unsafe worker and I don't believe he has put his drug use to bed or even really shown remorse for his crimes.

I wouldn't trust him on a national TV show in prime time not to go into bat for himself, get controversy by doing something insane. And to put him in the ring with Jericho is just totally weird.

AEW was supposed to be sports based wrestling, but they seem to be edging ever closer to ECW/CZW shite but on a massive platform.

Plus it has never gone well for AEW. More often than not, when they try and do something hardcore it ends up in massive embarrassment.

Oh please don't get me wrong, I wasn't defending the guy as I think he's a strawberry floating bellend. Haven't seen many matches to know how unsafe a worker he is but I'll take your word for it - I certainly wouldn't trust him with my body, especially not if I were 50 years old.

I'm more just voicing my own displeasure with the politics of the industry really. I love wrestling, always have and always will, but it gets harder to watch, e.g., WWE knowing how invested the McMahon family are in Trumpian politics, or how many superstars are just wildly problematic.

Total aside here, but I found out there's an edition of a popular academic journal coming out on wrestling responses to the pandemic, and I'm thinking about doing a bit of research into WWE's reaction to Twitch for it. That was a clusterfuck of the highest proportion. It's a bit of a dream to write professionally about pro-wrestling!

[Prototype]

Ngl I popped big time for nick gage… probably a mixture of delight at seeing him in AEW and them having the balls to sign him. MDK.

[KK]

Working with Mike Tyson was another dubious decision by AEW.

The line in the sand for AEW appears to be not wanting to work with people that have made racist remarks (Hulk Hogan, Willie Urbina)...and paedophiles. Not that WWE probably wants the latter either (ignoring the rumours about many others within the industry), but look how long it took them to act on Velveteen Dream. Far too slow.

Wrestling is a mass of contradictions, which is why the best thing Tony Khan can do is strive to be better than WWE but not go around making a big song and dance about it in interviews or on social media because you'll just end up looking silly when you then go and employ people that are ultimately far worse than those it were you were refusing to work with to begin with.

Watching Dynamite this week, I laughed my arse off when MJF on commentary said Chris Jericho looked like he was in labour.

Over on the WWE front, I've noticed the term "belt" has been reintroduced to programming, having been used multiple times at Money in the Bank and RAW. Either their new(ish) announce teams haven't got the memo or Vince McMahon has changed his mind again.

[captain red dog]

That's part of my problem with AEW, they are courting the more progressive audience that has replaced the old beer drinking yeehaw kind of audience from the 80s and 90s, but then they are a mess of contradictions.

I'd forgotten they'd gone heavy on Tyson.

I think Brian and Punk would be great additions, hopefully to counter some of those clearly anti-progressive moves AEW make from time to time.

Plus I just want to see Punk vs Brian for 30 mins at some point.

[Slimgrady]

Funny how back in 94 Hogan and Savage were deemed to be too old to be joining WCW, but Punk and Bryan are pretty much the same ages as Hogan and Savage were then and are seen as great signings by AEW
Can’t wait for WWE to do Billionaire Tony sketches

[KK]

Every time I see him I’m convinced Robert Stone on NXT is a piss take of Tony Khan.

[captain red dog]

I guess the big difference between Punk and Brian and Hogan and Savage are years of steroid abuse. And also a lack of a proper push.

Age should never matter really. If stars are healthy and have a passion for the business, they should always be considered. AEW will do much better with Punk and Brian than WWE ever would.

[Prototype]

Every time I see him I’m convinced Robert Stone on NXT is a piss take of Tony Khan.

Im sure that was reported right from the off with that character?

The irony of a 700k viewed show taking the piss out of an upstart pulling 1.1mil

[Corazon de Leon]

That is absolutely peak WWE hubris to be fair.