WWE WrestleMania 39 Night One Live Blog 4/1/23

 

1. John Cena vs. Austin Theory

ER: Just once I want one of those Make A Wish kids to go into business for himself. Eventually, one of them has to realize that they have full diplomatic immunity, a Get Out of Jail Free card that has unlimited uses. One year we're going to get a MAW heel turn and that kid will burn out a legend. Cena and I have the same exact bald spot and he has the exact same Miller's Outpost jorts that I had in 6th grade, so clearly I'm pulling for him. Cena sells Theory's punches very generously but I like how Theory bit his way out of the STF. Theory throws stomps with the same physical movement as Randy Orton, but doesn't have the finishing strength of Orton's stomps. Cena's stumbling and staggering is what's making this. The way he staggered down to a knee when Theory jumped on him during the sleeper, but I'm not sure any of it was as good as his Namaste prayer hands before doing the five knuckle shuffle. The fistdrop itself was thrown better than he typically threw it over the last decade. 

2. Street Profits vs. Alpha Academy vs. Ricochet/Braun Strowman vs. Viking Raiders

ER: Otis looks fatter since last I saw him, which shows he's a man who truly understands the Grandest Stage of Them All. You want to play to the back row? Fatten up my boy. Ivar's dumb spin kick hit harder than I expected, Erik's knee lift looked good, and the fucking Doomsday clothesline was fucking murder. The tandem powerbomb on Ford looked great but goddamn replay that clothesline. They really should have built longer to Gable hitting the rolling German on Braun. I mean it looked cool, but how cool would his Dead End have looked towards the end of the match after already trying it a couple times? His missed splash is full commitment and so is Ivar's missed moonsault, and capping it with a treacherous shaky Braun top rope splash that hits was sweet sweet icing. Braun's splash looked like the kind of splash we don't get enough Today: messy, and performed by those who do not normally go to the top rope. The tower powerbomb spot was unnecessary and beneath what they had been building to, even if I liked the twist of Ricochet riding Ford down like Clark Griswold hanging onto his ladder. They had been doing a good job mixing up pairings and they took too long tying up every man. But Braun's long stretch of ringside shoulderblocks being blown up by Dawkins made this great again. Dawkins hit Braun as hard as he could too. That shoulderblock would have given me a lifetime injury. Then Ricochet hits the most gorgeous springboard shooting star press balls first into Dawkins' face. For a wrestling company who forgot how to film wrestling a couple decades ago and has seemingly got even worse at it, they set up and shot the shoulderblock and shooting star perfectly. Ford's pin breaking and match winning splash was good. This was good. 

3. Logan Paul vs. Seth Rollins 

ER: I haven't watched any WWE program since Elimination Chamber, but the hype video for this match has made me more excited than I've ever been to see a Seth Rollins singles match. I also know really next to nothing about Logan Paul, only that I've loved everything he's done in pro wrestling. I don't think I'm ever going to understand what Seth Rollins' vibe is supposed to be. Is he like if Willy Wonka was a farmer's market jock? A hipster mom who is obsessed with being the one in the friend group who keeps up with trends? Is he just a guy who misses a big stomp by about 7 feet while wearing attention pants? He's the kind of guy who wears big eyeglasses without needed eyeglasses?  

I like how Logan Paul uses his boxing sparingly. I bet most in his position would do feet shuffling Shane McMahon bullshit. Paul understands to use 1-2 punches to mean something, doesn't have enough of a Wrestler Brain to do unnecessary strike exchanges. He makes his punches into actual turning points of the match. Rollins' triple suicide dives look better than normal, because Paul walks into and towards each one. Usually Rollins' opponents just stand still waiting for contact, leaving Rollins to just lightly bounce off, looking like he was trying not to hit the guy he was trying to hit. Paul walked into these and took growing, appropriate bumps backward in reaction. Find me Rollins dives that look better than these and we'll see a pattern with the opponents' catches. The KO punch nearfall was great and Paul's high leap into the sitout powerbomb was like prime Juventud. 

Bye Bye Bitch is a line that can be pulled off by John Early, but it can't be pulled off by Seth Rollins. High end nearfall after the pedigree and Paul's missed splash through KSI, who I have heard referred to as Logan Paul's Business Partner. Michael Cole calling for YouTube Phenomenon KSI to Capture Another Viral Moment is a 0.6 on the Fallon/Hilton Scale of poor shilling. Literally every nearfall in the match worked great, and the only thing wrong with the match is the company's insistence on keeping the old tired stars at the top at the expense of the young hungry rising stars. I wonder what the actual percentage of WWE in-ring employees are actually pissed off about how much better Logan Paul understands wrestling than they do? Or do they not actually realize this, because they don't understand wrestling as well as he does? 

4. Dakota Kai/Iyo Sky/Bayley vs. Becky Lynch/Trish Stratus/Lita

ER: "You gotta take the WWE Universe out of this early," is such a sucky commentary sentence. Becky Lynch is better as a heel because she's better at taking offense than doing offense, so the match being structured around Damage Control cutting her off from a low energy Lita was smart. She hung in for Sky's nice springboard dropkick. Lita always manages to look like she's never actually gone running in her life. Lita has the worst body language of anybody in the ring so it's a weird choice to keep such an extended heat segment on her. Trish is more explosive but also sells way better. Her reactions to Bayley kicking at her and talking shit would have had the right kind of glowering eyes reaction. Lita just kinda flops around like a fish, like she's trying to make a baby laugh. Trish's assisted handstand rana to the floor gets some set-up excuse because the finished product and Kai's crash into Sky looked good. Hats off to Trish for running face first into Bayley's baseball slide too. After praising the camera work in the tag scramble, I gotta wonder whose decision it was to keep the camera on Lita during this match's breakdown. Mae Young's stomach kicks never looked as bad as the kicks Lita threw here. If someone wants to volunteer their time to a Segunda Caida project that I personally do not want to do, your feature here can be documenting every single part-time model WWE ever employed who threw a better stomach kick than Lita. Remember all those Diva search competitions that I assume some people watched? How many of them were actually worse than Lita here? I can't imagine many were. Dawn Marie and heel Torrie Wilson only look like Fujiwara-level legends in comparison. 

5. Dominik Mysterio vs. Rey Mysterio

ER: Seth Rollins can wear all the try hard entrance jackets he wants, it will never be as good as Dominik's shitty spiked Hot Topic Alucard coat and his entrances will never be as good as Dominik wearing that coat out of an ambulance in his father's mask. Jeers, however, for Rey's American Made-era Hogan gear. That's like the second worst Hogan era next to the N-word era, or the Nick prison phone call era. I think those were the same Hogan eras. Rey goes to the belt whipping way too early. My mom used to use a wooden spoon, but you don't START with the wooden spoon. Even she knew that you throw a slipper or flip flop before you go to the wooden spoon. This isn't as good as it should be, and that's too bad. Seeing them doing armdrags and some of these other exchanges feels like them working some other match, where they were still tag partners but were forced to work 5 minutes of a gauntlet against each other. Dominik's mom held back too much on the slap, even the water thrown into Aaliyah's face didn't sting like it should have. It gets better when Dom really starts killing his father with a Michinoku driver, but there weirdly isn't any kind of father vs. son vibe. It just feels like a Finn Balor Smackdown match. The late match interference shouldn't be the thing adding energy to your match. Santos Escobar shouldn't be getting the big dive in your father/son match. This was a let down. 

6. Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte

ER: I think Charlotte is leaning more into her Drag Queen era and I hope she keeps leaning harder. Has that been the entire point of The Queen run and I've just missed it? I haven't watched for a long time. I love David Arquette's wrestling, and Charlotte could be a really good Alexis Arquette. Her puffer vest robe is incredible, like she's the Cruella de Vil of litigious Aspen ski slope house wives. The shoulderblock exchange looked good, and Charlotte full assed the lariat that sent Rhea to the floor. That's a good sign for this one. Charlotte's knife edge chops do read more like a drag routine strike than an actual knife edge chop. The wrist action is all wrong, which makes it either bad wrestling or too on-the-nose for a drag routine. Rhea is a strong body vice and I liked the way she fought up from her back out of it. Rhea working as poor man's Dump Matsumoto is really good. The Queen Smells Blood sounds like an incredible drag revue, and Charlotte's chops suddenly come to life during her comeback. I like how Rhea staggered and knee buckled to her feet to lift Charlotte, and the head spike DDT reversal looked awesome.  Their showdown strike exchange stunk, but Rhea's stomach kick and foot stomp to stop the nonsense was a good way to snap out of it. I think I like them doing a messy 2003 GHC Title match the longer they do it, but it started iffy. Once Rhea dropped Charlotte on her face with a suplex it looked like Rikio/Takayama. One of the biggest appeals of Takayama's brilliant early 2000s was that he understood the value of a horse faced weird body wrestler getting suplexed on their face. The big nearfalls worked even if the moonsault press is still going to be overshot. Middle buckle Riptide with a high folded pin is a good 2003 NOAH finish. I'm happy Rhea won this. The shot of her holding the belt with the Actually Cool WWE Babylon Oscars stage lording over her was a great visual. 

7. Sami Zayn/Kevin Owens vs. The Usos

ER: This starts real slow and I'm not sure Jey's side headlock was good enough for the slow start. Sami's big bump to the floor and Jey's elbow suicida kick it into gear though. Jimmy is better cast as the guy who cuts off the ring from the apron than the guy controlling the heat, so not all of the Uso control felt like it was working. Owens' hot tag was necessary, swan dive and frog splashes a nice kick back up. This had a tough act to follow but I'm surprised at what a Regular Match this feels like, even with Owens' dives. Sami's big splash felt a little anti-climactic after Owens had already done like 5 variations of that same thing, but this crowd loves Sami and that's cool. I just wish it didn't feel like such a major step down from where he was at Elimination Chamber. I didn't feel the drama of all the superkicks, and there was a mistimed Sami kickout that was supposed to be BIG but the crowd reacted dead silent. The reaction was there for the 1D kickout and Jey was good enough at the in-ring monologue portion of the evening. Some of it felt too I'm Sorry, I Love You and I knew they had the potential to hit there I'd rather them lean into more ass kicking. All of the Usos tandem superkicks were really well timed. They threw a half dozen of them and they all managed to connect at the same time. That's a really impressive consecutive success rate on that. This is easily Michael Cole's best call of the night, as his energy - which usually feels like an alien trying to blend in - actually captured the mood the more the crowd began to Believe. 

Best Matches: 

1. Logan Paul vs. Seth Rollins

2. Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte

3. Tag Scramble

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WWE Survivor Series 2020 Live Blog

This show looks like it has strong on paper potential, as all of these matches could be good. I'm most excited for Sasha/Asuka, but there is a lot that can go right on this card. Let's see!

Pre-Show Battle Royal

ER: I'm always going to be happy about a battle royal getting good time on TV or PPV, even when they don't really deliver what I want. This was a battle royal worked with modern style, which is not nearly as good as any battle royal from 1991. Guys don't know how to occupy battle royal time as well now, and there's a lack of vets from times when battle royals were more commonplace and can show people how to occupy time. Nobody ever took the flag from Lawler, or Funk, or Finlay, who knew ways to work shtick and stories through a battle royal. Here the older guys like Jeff Hardy were among the least visible or noteworthy performers in the match, and the time filling felt more modern and mapped out. There were a lot of apron duels and they all looked good enough while feeling rehearsed and soulless. Ricochet throwing Cedric Alexander onto the apron with a half nelson suplex should be a major thing - and feels bizarre seeing on WWE PPV - but looked safe (good!) but meaningless here. Rey Mysterio has probably the only exchange he's ever had with Kalisto, and we get a quick 2 second cool looking headscissor spot and then they separate for no reason. There felt like too much timing worked around Dominik, Carrillo and Garza looked like they had no clue how to work battle royals, felt like nobody was looking to stand out. Shelton Benjamin probably looked the best and like someone who knew the small increase in stiffness that can make a battle royal performance stand out. Nobody else felt like they were working with his intensity, nobody else felt in the moment, stuck remembering when their sequence came. 

AJ Styles/Matt Riddle/Keith Lee/Braun StrowmanSheamus vs. Jey Uso/Kevin Owens/Otis/Seth Rollins/King Corbin

ER: Pretty early on this does not seem like a good match. The Raw vs. Smackdown shirts are so dorky, and they're even worse with USA and Fox on the back. Fox Corporation vs. NBC Universal! It's like a match they were paid to do at a weekend corporate conference. And Seth Rollins is just the kind of guy that would cause a big dumb scene at that corporate retreat, and I could not care less about his sabotage or whatever weird Jesus stuff it was supposed to be. You can't not have good moments with good wrestlers in the ring, so there were cool things like AJ taking a really high backdrop bump, or Otis working shoulderblock exchanges with Keith Lee. But the Otis/Lee and Otis/Braun stuff should be better. Otis is someone who has been dropping more and more of his actual good in ring work in favor of more and more dumb guy Jake Milliman routine. I've been watching a lot of 1993 WWF lately, and Otis basically comes off like modern Bastion Booger. We could have a fat grappling tank and he keeps working further away from that. Braun's powerslam on Otis looks good, Lee's spirit bomb on Uso looks good, but I did not care about any of the consequences of this match. I don't think there WERE consequences to this match. Does the Raw clean sweep mean something? Is this PPV just Bragging Rights? 

The New Day vs. Street Profits

ER: I love how Big E looks in his Gears of War cotton candy Lisa Frank armor. Kingston/Wood is the least interesting New Day combo, and these teams don't match up in ways I like. The match did snap my attention when Kofi hit one of the heaviest cannonballs I've seen into Montez Ford's stomach, crashing over the top rope and landing powerfully. They even work that into the match and do more body work on Ford, and that's a nice surprise. But I knew it wasn't going to mean much, and it didn't. We build to competent move chaining sequences, a missile dropkick bounces someone across the ring, the person delivering the dropkick stands up to take a big crossbody, it all looks fine. Street Profits are really forgettable to me, and I don't love writing that about a wrestler because that would really hurt to hear. But for guys who can do some impressive things, they are such an out of sight out of mind team for me. 

Sami Zayn vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: This didn't feel like it had the same kind of energy that the best Zayn IC champ stuff has had. And part of that is because most of the time Lashley works matches like he's half asleep. This was half asleep walking Lashley, and Zayn's energy and couple bits of big offense don't come off big or threatening when Lashley barely reacts to them. This did not work for me. 

Asuka vs. Sasha Banks

ER: This is easily the match I am most excited for, even if the face/heel dynamics are screwy. Sasha is the defiant babyface in her Bayley feud, but is default heel against Asuka. It could have been worked compellingly as face/face but Sasha shows that's not the plan with her body language so we'll see. And I'm not sure if it was the cold dynamics or that things took an inorganic turn, but this doesn't come off as well as it should. I liked when each were working arm locks on the mat, but once they got to their feet and Sasha was whiffing with full wind up elbow strikes, everything after felt like a 90% speed rehearsal. A lot of seams showing through signature spots, like Asuka missing a hip attack in the ropes but there being a missed beat before Sasha kicks her, or Sasha missing a shoulderblock through the ropes but there being a missed beat before Asuka kicked her. It's too mechanical for the heat to work. The backslide and roll up sequence to end the match felt like the way you go home when you're given your minute warning on a house show, and even though I liked how the sunset flips and roll throughs looked, liked how natural the lost shoulder leverage looked, it just didn't come tacked to a match that worked. 

Nia Jax/Shayna Baszler/Lacey Evans/Peyton Royce/Lana vs. Bayley/Biance Belair/Ruby Riott/Liv Morgan/Natalya 

ER: I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about this, honestly. We get a highlight package of Nia Jax putting Lana through the announce table in literally the exact same way 9 different times. They are really hammering the Lana as demoralized underdog who doesn't quit, and Byron Saxton is awful and phony trying to broadly hammer home the details. But Lana acts mopey and it comes off too grade school. The match is dry as hell, and feels loose. A lot of quick camera cutaways from moves that look messy or strikes that catch air, people staggering awkwardly around unsure how to sell a strike they know didn't land. The quick eliminations in the middle made it so none of them felt like an accomplishment. You had what could have been a huge moment where Peyton Royce of all people - someone whose specific charisma I really like - hits a huge superplex to the floor (after nearly every person in the match stood assembled for ages) and back in the ring finishes Bayley, only to be eliminated herself by freaking NATALYA of all people less than a minute later. And Natalya, who they still in 2020 pretend is a thing, gets eliminated by Lacey Evans not long after that, confirming that Natalya will never be a thing and they'll not figure out why that is. It's an awful layout that shows bland parity, nobody gaining or losing anything from their eliminations. Lana stands on the ring steps the whole time and it's the most predictable thing ever to have her become the sole survivor. Byron Saxton fake laughs his way through the whole thing, the man whose voice goes up a register when he's laying it on real thick. Baszler and Nia and Belair get eliminated in unconvincing ways that require them to be idiots, Lana stands on the steps with her weird smeared lipstick with a comically large frown on her face, and again I STILL have no idea how they exact people to be reacting to this. This was a bad match. 

Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: For a non-crowd modern WWE main event, this is probably as good as you can realistically hope for. This is the kind of match that didn't completely work for me, but likely would have worked incredibly well in front of a live crowd. Daniel Bryan knows how to work big matches with no crowd, but this kind of big build Marvel match needs a live crowd to really thrive, and really connect with me. I think they did all the right things, and I think this would have killed, so that's a shame. As it was, it was a strong way to not kill Drew and keep a couple different stories going into potentially interesting directions. The nearfalls played well the big finisher kickouts played well, the surprise Uso table spot played well. The match was probably the only match on this show that felt like it actually accomplished something when it was over, and as backhanded as that sounds I do mean that in a very good way. 

ER: It was fun to see the Godwinns again, and it's cruel that no handhelds have ever shown up of the 2007 WWE house show matches Henry had with Gordy's son against Regal and Dave Taylor. I really wanted that 2007 comeback for Godwinn, when they were bringing back guys like Animal, Tatanka, and Duggan, HOG would have been a cool mid 40s addition to C shows. 

This show was not very good. Both elimination matches felt consequence free and mechanical, and "mechanical" is the overall best description for this show as a whole. For a show with nothing but the traditional elimination matches and title matches, this was not a show filled with excited/exciting performances. Vince looks like shit, and that rules. Good night. 

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 7/7-7/12

We are going to do this a bit early, because Eric is reviewing the EVOLVE show Saturday (With Big 3 member Drew Gulak doing his thing). We get some really fun Lorcan this week and are going to get some dope Gulak this weekend.

205 Live 7/9

Jack Gallagher vs. Devin Justin

PAS: Fun to see Gallagher work a squash match. He really works brutally against this kid, more of a Regal style beatdown then Johnny Saint. Even the move where he ties Justin up in the ropes was less whimsical and more brutal as he ends up leaping and dropkicking him right in the cheekbone. The Mike Kanelis thing was pretty lame, and I will be very happy if he ends up on RAW fulltime and I never have to see him again. Gallagher had this killer match with Chad Gable last month, and instead of following up on that, Gable vanished and they side drained Gallagher into this Kanellis thing. Wrap it up so I can watch my man do cooler things.

ER: I thought this was great. It wasn't the same kind of great as a match on our MOTY list, but it was great because it reminded me of something that would have happened on Wrestling Challenge 25 years ago. It was a squash, but followed a nice 3 minute formula from those days, with Gallagher showing off a new trick or two while laying in a beating. Justin is a northeast indy guy who I don't think I've seen before, and he got some respect from me for drawing some damn tough job duty. I watched him get crushed the night before by a couple Vikings, then here he gets twisted and pummeled by Gallagher. Gallagher does cool stuff here (duh) like a nice muscled over vertical suplex, and ties Justin around the bottom rope in a kind of Nieblina before hitting a mean delayed dropkick. I agree with Phil that I'd rather see Gallagher feuding with a couple dozen non-Kanellis guys, but I like one thing his interruption added here: Kanellis comes out, throws trash around, causes a scene, and suddenly we get a believable nearfall from Justin. Gallagher was distracted, and then Justin schoolboyed him. Now, WWE has ended so many damn matches the past 20 years with "distracted doofus gets schoolboyed" that my brain immediately thought they were giving this kid an upset victory that would never get followed up on. So as lazy as those finishes can be they've definitely conditioned me to think of them as finishes, and convinced me a guy who got crushed by Vikings and tied into the ropes by Gallagher was actually going to win. And while I was still surprised by the well done nearfall, Gallagher absolutely cracked Justin with a headbutt for the actual win. That was awesome.

Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Davari

PAS: What a world we live in, where one of my main complaints is “The WWE gives these juniors way too much TV time.” This was nearly 25 minutes long, which is really too long for this kind of plunder brawl. There was some cool stuff, I really loved Davari wrapping the chain around Lorcan’s mouth and smashing his head into the turnbuckle, and using the chair for the camel clutch was nasty too. Lorcan had a nice crazy dive and took some nasty bumps including taking a backdrop into a chair sofa. Still this was mostly a by the numbers WWE garbage match, table shots, ladder shots, chairs to the back, long set ups of props to fly through, and having it go this long with so many big bumps shrugged off didn’t really work to either guys strengths. Cool that it exists, pretty crazy that Lorcan was in two straight 20+ main event matches, but I think this was a miss.

NXT 7/10 (Taped 6/12)

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Street Profits

PAS: Fun tag team match, which starts with a handshake and slowly breaks down, which is match structure I have always liked. Some of the Profits offense was a bit too SATish, but this broke down really well with a longish Angelo Dawkins beatdown. Ford is a great hot tag, it fits his skill set really well, and the out of nowhere flip dive was the highlight of the match. I think this was a step below an MOTY list match, but still a great example of the tag team match structure and how you can plug any four guys in a match and if they work the formula, something good will happen.

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