Wrestling Notepad

Nice to see all these NXT guys on Raw I guess, but WWE doesn’t have a clue what to do with three quarters of the people on the main roster as it is so I’m not sure just bringing a bunch of dudes up for no reason and with seemingly no purpose is the best use of talent.

The most surprising part about the Balor and Ricochet tag team is that one babyface selflessly came out to save another one. Being a good friend is usually something reserved for bad people.

DIY and the Revival had a pretty good match. Shame nobody alerted the audience.

No better way to get a guy over than having one of your backstage interviewers refer to him as “…your friend right here.” Jesus. Thank goodness Ricochet is an extremely spectacular wrestler, because with a start like that he’s going to need all the help he can get.


Fantastic to hear that Roman Reigns is well enough to make a comeback. I honestly didn’t know if we’d ever see him again, let alone see him wrestle. But this does raise an important question. When is it ok to boo him again? I kid, I kid. Fighting off leukemia has made the dude a babyface for life, no matter how hard WWE is going to eventually try to turn him heel. Come on, you know they will.

Sometimes I really wish I could watch WWE shows on mute. Times like when Michael Cole says “Braun Strowman says #GetOffTheTracksTheMonsterTrainIsComin’Through”, for example. Christ, he’s so bad.

No disrespect, but Torrie Wilson is in the WWE Hall of Fame and King Kong Bundy isn’t? That would be completely ridiculous even if Bundy was still alive.

I realize that some of the best characters start with a bit of the real person, but Vince McMahon’s new out of touch crazy old man who constantly changes his mind and fucks up planned matches gimmick may be a bridge too far.

Speaking of that, if Kevin Owens is supposed to be a babyface now, why did they bring him back in such a heelish manner? I mean nothing screams babyface like standing quietly by while the owner of the company robs a deserving coworker of a spot he earned and puts you in his place. And yes, this applies even if you say you feel bad about it, ask to team with him later and don’t screw him over.

Honky Tonk Man is also going into the Hall of Fame. That one I can get behind based on theme song alone.

Finally got around to watching the show from the Chris Jericho cruise. Man, that looked like fun. Good action, a match worked around a sunburn, a random bird swooping out of the sky…I’d love to go on one of those someday. The whole idea of a floating wrestling party sounds pretty cool to me.

WWE has missed the boat on a lot of talent over the years, but Juice Robinson really stands out. He’s seriously one of my favourite wrestlers right now. He’s got such an energy and charisma about him. If those were things he had while WWE had him playing CJ Parker the jobbing hippie, it’s criminal.

I think I might be more excited for Scarlett Bordeaux vs. Disco Inferno than I am for anything on Fastlane.

Disco has been super entertaining whenever he shows up on Impact. Some of it is inside stuff which I never quite know how to feel about, but we’re at a point with Impact right now where inside fans are pretty well all they have, so why not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2t0pl7rOUc

Impact has gotten a lot of things right since the management change, but one thing they still haven’t fixed is the term Knockouts. It’s so outdated. When even WWE is willing to get rid of bad old branding, it’s time for a change. For that matter, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if Ring of Honor dropped Women of Honor. Unless you’re going to call the guys Men of Honor, it’s silly. Just call them women and let them fight for a women’s title.

I’ve said this on Twitter a million times, but sitting here watching old episodes of Superstars on TV on a Saturday morning has me thinking again about how much WWE is misusing the live network channel. Yes, running the same episodes of NXT and 205 58 times in a row is easy, but it’s not the most consumer friendly especially in countries like Canada where online access to the Network is either secondary and tied to an online cable account or not available at all. I know they toss the occasional old thing on there (I am watching Superstars from 1992 after all), but there should be so much more of that stuff filling up the schedule. The library is huge and growing, but it’s mostly just sitting there. Running it wouldn’t only be a nice thing to do for those of us tethered to television. It would also be an easy reminder for everyone else that hey, all this stuff is on the website and you can watch as much of it as you want whenever you’d like.

Am I the only one who gets lost in something old on the network and then gets disappointed when it ends and a commercial for something current comes on and snaps me back to reality? I hate that feeling so much.

Really not liking this new trend of cutting away from kickoff matches to show interviews or people saying hello or anything else they could show at literally any other point during this near hour of wasted time. Please stop screwing up the one thing of value on these things.

Aside from the usual length and pacing issues, Fastlane was fine. Not spectacular, not horrific, just ok to pretty good.

I like that Shane turned on Miz instead of it being the other way around. What I do not like nearly as much is the thought of a Miz vs. Shane match. I’m sure Shane will fall off of something high and Miz is an entertaining character who isn’t completely terrible in the ring, but on paper that sounds hideous.

I thought they were setting up Mustafa Ali to be the next Roman Reigns once they threw him into the title match because he had the nerve not to be Kofi Kingston, but thankfully the booing never got quite that bad. They were even starting to get behind him a bit by the end, which speaks to how good he is.

By the way, in storyline, why does Kofi still want to work for Vince McMahon? They keep pushing that he’s been a loyal, hardworking independent contractor for over a decade, and now he’s getting fucked with for literally no good reason. Logically, after all this time he should have lots of money unless he’s yet another in the parade of dumb babyfaces, so why wouldn’t he just say fuck it, I hear AEW is hiring? I know they likely won’t bring that up, but it would be a good twist to the story.

But I should know better than to expect logic from these things. This whole thing started because Vince wanted a bigger draw than Kofi in a title match, completely ignoring that New Day has sold a shitload of merch.

With all those damn writers, why do we keep getting basically the same stories playing out on Raw and Smackdown? You guys realize that Becky and Kofi are almost identical, right? The only difference is that Becky is an executive hitting, suspension defying pain in the ass. Minus that, they’re both having to fight against the erratic boss to get a Mania match that everyone wants them to have.

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