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

[KK]

How long was the whole event excluding the pre-show?

About 3 hours 45.

[Rog]

Well, thankfully that turned into a great event. Everyone should watch the event even at almost 4 hours runtime. Just avoid the preshow like the plague, that was absolute trash and hopefully the crickets in the arena told them to avoid that crap in the future. Only complaint I have about the last three matches is that the Judas effect is an awful unconvincing finish.

That final bump did not look like the usual WWE multiple crashmats job, ouch.

[KK]

The debut of Dean Ambrose and brawl afterwards definitely mitigated the finish of Jericho's match, because otherwise that would have been a rather flat end to the show.

The crowd loudly chanting "AEW" as they fought in the crowd was timed to perfection. I doubt it's coincidence that they've got a name that is easily chantable (like NXT) in a way WWE simply isn't. In fact ever since they changed from WWF to E it's been terrible, as it leads to many a "W-E" mispronunciations from everybody.

[HailToTheKingBaby!]

Apparently Bret Hart had a nasty fall off the stage as he walked to the back after unveiling the title. Sounds like he's ok. He's not having a good year so far between this and the Hall Of Fame attack.

[Dangerblade]

Not interested in watching AEW myself especially as NJPW is enough for me but glad to hear they had such a well-received show last night, bodes very well competition-wise. There's something about AEW that TNA never had that feels like a threat, despite the latter having Hogan and the Monday night spot (briefly)

[Rog]

Hopefully they will never try to compete. Just do what they initially said, be an alternative. They've pushed this message of something for everyone and being inclusive so try to go head to head and slag off WWE is a mixed message.

[captain red dog]

Ironically if they don't try and compete, they will probably compete quite well. Double or Nothing was great as it felt like a familiar wrestling show, but was completely fresh in the way the wrestling appeared on TV.

I've had a few hours to digest it now, and it was so refreshing to see an American wrestling show with such unique matches. When you watch a WWE event in comparison, you can see just how formulaic and safe their matches are.

I was blown away by Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros. I haven't seen that style of match before on a major US promotion. It was incredible, even if the constant false finishes at the end got a tad ridiculous!

[Mafro]

I was blown away by Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros. I haven't seen that style of match before on a major US promotion. It was incredible, even if the constant false finishes at the end got a tad ridiculous!

Yeah pretty much every Young Bucks match ends up having all those false finishes Starts to get a bit tedious after a while.

The Lucha Bros are one of the best tag teams I've ever seen in my life, could watch them all day. Love both brothers but Pentagon is a phenomenal singles wrestler too and is match with Kenny Omega at All-In is worth checking out as well.

[Corazon de Leon]

That was excellent. I haven't watched a full wrestling event in a long time and that held my interest all the way through. I'm also largely not up to date with the indie scene at all so this was my first introduction to guys like Kenny Omega, the Young Bucks and a few others. I thought it was genuinely excellent.

The only cons were that the camera work was a bit awry all the way through, but I chalk that up to the promotion still finding its feet and a lot of the production staff probably being quite new to the industry. A couple of the spots in some of the matches you could kind of see wrestlers waiting for their cue, but I thought on the whole everyone did really well.

Main pros:

- The Lucha Brothers. Holy gooseberry fool. I thought the Young Bucks were really good but the Lucha Brothers were absolutely magnificent. I'll need to catch some of their other matches.
- Fat Jericho's still a strong in-ring worker.
- The Rhodes-off was excellent. Genuinely a little bit emotional at the end as well. The match actually made me sad for Goldust's career; if he'd been given the chance to have a match like that in WWF/E he could've really gone places. He was bloody brilliant.
- The cult guy could be hilarious. Or he could be horrific. Let's see.
- Kenny Omega is absolutely great.
- Really good booking for the final match. If they go the right way and have Jericho win the title, put Omega in a feud with Dean Ambrose and then have him chase the title for a few months at the end of it, it could end up being one of the all-time great wrestling feuds. Wrestling has forgotten in the last few years that building up the chase is just as important as a good pay-off title win.

Just great stuff all round. Like a breath of fresh air from the WWE.

[Mafro]

twitter.com/njpwglobal/status/1132904612409880576

[Fade]

If Sasha banks moves to AEW I’d be fine never watching WWE again.

[Prototype]

I'm keeping my network sub for NXT and i'll no doubt still watch WWE PPVs as I like to torture myself

but what about mox. oh man.

What a time to be a wrestling fan

[KK]

Speculation that Double or Nothing did around 200,000 buys. Not sure if that’s just domestic or worldwide but extremely impressive nonetheless if correct.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Speculation that Double or Nothing did around 200,000 buys. Not sure if that’s just domestic or worldwide but extremely impressive nonetheless if correct.

Bloody hell that’s brilliant even if it’s worldwide. I like also that AEW are saying that they are not currently looking at monthly ppvs once they are properly off the ground with their tv show.

[Floex]

Fantastic night all round. Was blown away by the main tag match, first time seeing Fenix too, man what a talent. The three mains delivered in spades, think the crowd were abit more conservative for the main after the tag but what a great way to end the show. Exciting times ahead!

Love this NJPW promo they've put out for Mox

twitter.com/njpwglobal/status/1132945909816414208

[KK]

Kinda hoping AEW does end up going out Live on ITV1 as ITV4 isn’t in HD unless you have Sky and Virgin Media. I watched a couple of minutes of it on Saturday and the picture quality is absolutely terrible. I’ve noticed a lot of SD channels recently through satellite have had real downgrades, getting away with the absolute bear minimum (worse than DVD).

[Corazon de Leon]

Hate it when there aren’t enough bears on my ITV. Especially when they’re only in SD.

[KK]

twitter.com/kingnj90/status/1133201677144735750

I wonder if this was in reaction to the crowd chanting “AEW” and “This is awful” earlier in the night, or whether they’d already written it in and thought they may as well attempt to get in there first by acknowledging it.

[Mafro]

Hopefully they have AEW ITV's streaming player thing in HD because the ITV4 quality really is atrocious. I lasted about a minute watching the pre-show on it the other night before just using my Chromecast and YouTube.

[KK]

Currently watching RAW because I’m a masochist and there’s been no wrestling whatsoever in the opening hour. None. The first bell of the night is then a REALLY sweaty and winded Shane McMahon against a jobber in a non-match, the crowd beginning to break out into “AEW” and “this is awful” chants. And now there’s more talk, with Lesnar and Heyman out again for the second time.

Pro Wrestling Sheet...

Sami Zayn mentioning All Elite Wrestling on WWE TV may have seemed like an impromptu moment, but looks can be deceiving.

In case you missed it, Zayn took part in a segment on Raw called “The Electric Chair” with Corey Graves in which he answered questions from the crowd. As it came to an end, Sami got frustrated with the questions and gave the audience crap for not asking him about AEW.

Sources tell us the audience members were legit and not plants, but “The Critic of the Critics” was told to mention All Elite Wrestling ahead of time.

The name drop was ultimately cut from the clip on WWE’s YouTube channel.

PWinsider however saying the complete opposite...

Since Sami Zayn made reference to AEW last night during his Electric Chair segment on Monday Night Raw, the million dollar question that has been asked of PWInsider.com is whether that was a scripted line on the show.

PWInsider.com, in asking around, was told by several sources this morning that Zayn's AEW line was not something that was in the script for Raw and was likely something Zayn, who pitches his own verbiage, improvised.

There is no word yet on how WWE officials responded to All Elite Wrestling getting a plug on WWE's flagship program, but if they had an issue with it, WWE could have used their 15-second delay to bleep it.

The fact it has been left in on international airings should give you the real answer.