Tag: wwe

The AEW All-Atlantic Championship hurts my brain

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As if AEW needed any more blets to clog up their roster of 189 men and women, they went ahead and introduced a new, not-an-intercontinental championship, called the AEW All-Atlantic Championship.  It’s first title holder will be crowned at the AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door show later in the month, by virtue of a tournament, which I’m sure will be decent, but Tony Khan just can’t stop dipping his fingers into the cake to make everything so convoluted.

The best part about the whole tournament is the fact that of all eight of the guys in it, only two of them, maybe four if you consider Mexico and the Netherlands as actual Atlantic-facing countries, with Rusev Miro, Buddy Murphy Matthews, and two TBD NJPW all coming from the very Atlantic Bulgaria, Australia and most likely Japan.

Interestingly, there are no Americans in this tournament, which is probably Tony Khan’s insistence, to really drive home the fact that this isn’t an intercontinental championship, as if there were something actually wrong with it, considering the IC champs in both WWE and NJPW are usually the best workers of the respective companies. 

But make no mistake, this is very much the AEW equivalent of an intercontinental championship, and it’s fitting that it showed up after Cody Rhodes left the company, because he was always so adamant that there would be no such things as “mid-card” titles in AEW, because they were all important, from the bullshit non-sanctioned FTW championship, and all of the Impact, ROH, IWGP and NWA titles that have gotten screen time on AEW programming.

And it will be vied for by mid-card talents, since the actual AEW World championship is really reserved for those willing to play ball with the Elite, which has remained a very tight-knit circle since the inception of the entire promotion.

As for the design of the blet itself, seeing as how I am an aficionado of professional wrestling blets, it’s pretty mediocre, at best.  The plates are too tall, and anyone who knows anything about blets knows that vertical plates are typically frowned upon, because it makes the blets very difficult to wear, most notably the old ROH Television championship being the prime example; the height of the center plate dug into the abdomen as well as the crotch of anyone who tried to wear it and do any sort of bending at the waist.

I’m very perplexed by the incorporation of the Chinese and Japanese flags, as they are so very much Pacific countries, and what they’re doing on a blet claiming to be All-Atlantic.  And then there’s not one, but two lions from the UK’s royal coat of arms, which is again confusing considering the true crest features one lion and one horse.

The font of “All-Atlantic Championship” is the exact same one used in the old WWE US championship, adding to the irony of how this isn’t supposed to be an intercontinental championship, considering the US championship basically was WCW’s equivalent to the IC title too.  The font selection is also funny, because the V2 of AEW’s Women’s championship used the same font as every IWGP championship blet, adding more fuel to AEW’s blet creator’s lack of imagination.

And speaking of the AEW Women’s championship, it’s hard to not notice that the All-Atlantic is kind of a larger scale of it, primarily because of the large four circles at the corners of the center plate, as well as the overly tall plates in general.  Granted, it’s a large improvement over the original Women’s championship, but now it’s starting to look like AEW’s blet maker has created a template in which all future AEW blets will be based on, so when they inevitably introduced the Trios championship they keep churning the rumor mill about, I’m sure it’ll be a derivative of these two.

Overall, everything about AEW’s All-Atlantic championship is about as sloppy and poorly thought out as much of the promotion’s general booking.  It’s kind of a perfect metaphor for the promotion itself; kind of borrowing a lot from rivals and predecessors while trying too hard to be unique but making a lot of embarrassing mistakes in the process.  But the blet is shiny and new, and much like Chris Jericho once said about Ultimate Warrior promos, it (looks) cool, so… yaaaayy will be the general feedback from casual fans and AEW diehards.

As for predicting the title’s first holder, of the eight men vying for it, I think it’s ultimately Neville Pac’s to lose, and he’ll defeat one of the mystery NJPW guys for it.  Although it would tickle me pink if an actual Japanese guy from NJPW were the first guy to hold a new AEW championship, and it’s not an outlandish outcome, considering the working relationship between the promotions, it would be a good time for AEW to scratch NJPW’s back for a change and let them walk off with one of their blets, considering how strong NJPW has been booking AEW talents over the years.  But it would be funny if a Japanese guy were to be the first holder of an All-Atlantic blet.

Frankly though, I feel like there is a possibility that MJF is walking out with the All-Atlantic.  As murky as they’re trying to make the waters with MJF’s nuclear promos, I still think it’s a work, and somehow and some way, MJF is walking out of Forbidden Door with a championship.  He’ll be “fired” by AEW for his recent worked shoot conduct, and then immediately “hired” by NJPW and enters the All-Atlantic tournament under their banner, and does his usual schtick of using the Dynamite Diamond ring to cheat to win the All-Atlantic blet, where he can rub it in AEW’s face for being the first holder of it.  He also strikes me as a guy who was probably fan of all the intercontinental champions of history, and would love nothing more than to build his own legacy with AEW’s own intercontinental blet.

Not a bad place to start while he bides time for his contract to end so that he can go be a jobber in New York.

Pretty sure the Hardy Boyz are the only thing keeping JNCO jeans alive

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Of the little bits of wrestling that I actually catch here and there, usually through what social media spoon feeds me, I know that the Hardy Boyz are back together, in AEW of course, where seemingly all older WWE talent seems to go to finish out.  Naturally they can’t use the Hardy Boyz name, but the point and brand is still fine, when they’re referred to as just The Hardys.

I admit that back in 1999, I was a fan of the Hardy Boyz, when they were repackaged and paired up with Gangrel.  I remember thinking, aren’t these those two jobbers who wore plaid?  But then Jeff Hardy is doing these picture perfect swanton bombs, and next thing they’re upsetting the Acolytes and they’re tag team champions, and I was kind of sold.

But that was 1999, and a few years after that, after the memorable and outstanding classics that they did with all the ladder and TLC matches.  Throughout the passage of time, they were broken up, reunited, repeat, numerous times, Matt left, Jeff left, Matt came back to feud with Edge over the Lita cheating scandal, Jeff showed up in TNA, Matt went to ROH, Matt went to TNA, both went to ROH, both came back to WWE, split up, Matt went to AEW, Jeff was relegated to 24/7 segments, left and then went to AEW and here we are.

I could also mention the 20+ times Jeff was busted for substance abuse in between all that, but all anyone has to do is Google the Jeff Hardy vs. Sting to get the big picture.

Anyway so the Hardys have been at it for well over 20 years at this point, and good on them to try and squeeze one last substantial run at a place like AEW where they’ll likely have a better shot at it than in the WWE.  That’s not the point of this post, to be one big retrospective on the Hardy Boyz, what served as the impetus of this post is the fact that over the last 20 years, and regardless of the fact that JNCO jeans basically died 20 years ago, it appears that the Hardy Brands® seem to be the only thing alive that’s keeping the clothing company intact, based on the fact that they still wear them or some knockoff variation of them, as their ring attire for the last two decades.

Sure, lots of long-time wrestlers establish a look and maintain them throughout the duration of their careers; the Rock ‘n Roll Express are both well into their 60’s and still bust out the tights and tassles, but the thing is, they’re still wrestling in wrestling gear.  The Hardy Boyz built their brand on pretty specific 1999, Avril Lavigne/emo boy street mallrat festival fashion, and for the last 20 years, they’ve stayed more or less the same, the whole time.

In one hand, good on them for consistency and really sticking to their guns, and establishing their brands.  But in the other hand, I just have this scenario in my mind, where I’m imagining Matt Hardy at his home, packing his rollaboard luggage for his next tour, hollering out to his wife, baby, have you seen my JNCOs??  With his heavy southern drawl and how he hangs on words like a real southern boy.  Matt Hardy is currently 47 years old, and is still going to work in JNCOs.  Jeff Hardy is 44 and is basically the creepy old guy at a My Chemical Romance concert.

I make myself laugh with this thought.

Anyway, good for the Hardys for always being fearless in the face of change, as far as their career directions go.  But from a branding standpoint, guys like Chris Jericho are immortalized for their creativity and ability to reinvent and repackage themselves.  Sticking with JNCOs for the last two decades seems more amusing than entertaining to me for some reason, and I have a hard time taking them serious as all-time greats as long as they continue to do so.  And I admit that I had, maybe two pairs of JNCOs myself; but that was in 1999, and by the time I started college, they were already relegated to the bottom of the closet, before quietly being thrown out when it was all but confirmed that the style was dead.

AEW and the importance of storytelling

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that I probably come off as someone who hates AEW and and think WWE can do no wrong based on how much criticism I have for AEW, I don’t hate them at all.  It’s just that they do so much weird shit that makes me scratch my head, and if there’s anything at all about the promotion that I really don’t like, it would probably be Tony Khan, because he just comes off as this privileged mark with money and means to have created his own toy promotion, and is running it wackily but under the guise that it’s for the fans, and unfortunately a lot of people have gotten drunk off the Kool-aid.

In all fairness, I think WWE is pretty putrid these days, and I’m kind of the living embodiment of the popular meme that nobody hates professional wrestling more than professional wrestling fans, based on how it really does seem like I have nothing good to say.  However, I am willing to post about the shit that I do like, it’s just that there’s not a whole lot of it these days, unfortunately.

Anyway, mostly through scuttlebutt, I’ve been casually following AEW’s progress through the year, and aside from purchasing Ring of Honor, they are making some impactful moves and making a lot of noise in the industry.  The AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door show they’re going to have is going to be a pretty major deal for better or worse, and despite the fact that I will probably not see it seeing as how I have zero intentions of actually paying to watch a pay-per view anymore, I’ll still be very interested to see how the show shakes out.

The thing is though, as much as the internet seems to think it’s going to be the biggest show since the last Wrestlemania where they made up numbers to make it sound like the largest in history, there’s a ceiling to just how good Forbidden Door is going to be.  It’s going to be the same ceiling that hindered Double or Nothing, or pretty much any other AEW show since its inception: the sheer lack of comprehensive storytelling throughout the promotion.

This isn’t to say that there isn’t any storytelling at all, but rather it’s the fact that AEW doesn’t have much quality storytelling, save for a few exceptions where it’s clear that all available attribute points are put into a single arc; usually ones involving Kenny Omega or the Young Bucks, exhibiting nepotism at its most flagrant, seeing as how they’re still VPs of the company, no matter how much power Tony Khan has allegedly stripped them of.

Matt Hardy once was on record talking about how AEW doesn’t have any writers, and that much is very obvious considering how paper thin and lacking in any substance the vast majority of the promotion’s storylines end up being.  But it also verifies the weakness and validates the importance of quality storyline, because week after week, a promotion can’t slap together these repeatedly inane 5- or 6-man team matches full of big names in an attempt to give as many members of their horrifically bloated roster tv time, and actually expect anyone to care when there’s no story behind it.

Like CM Punk just won the AEW World championship from Hangman Adam Page.  How did that storyline materialize?  Punk got out of his feud with MJF and then one week after a match, he pantomimes he wants a belt.  Next thing you know he has a few face-to-face confrontations with Page, and a match is suddenly booked.  Seed planted, match had, title swapped, in less than three months.  Despite the rise of Hangman being one of the more interesting stories to have happened to the promotion, Tony Khan didn’t know what the fuck to do with him after he had reached the top of the mountain.  And unfortunately for Hangman, it’s his ass who has to do the job because of their lack of writing ability.

Taz’s son Hook, is a perfect example of the perils of not having writers, because here’s a guy that fans latched onto like gangbusters when he finally debuted, but instead of having him actually grow and make any progress in his character, or give him any meaningful storylines to embark on, AEW has paired him up with fucking Danhausen, whom I just don’t really see the appeal in because I’m old, but you’ve got this young silent killer paired up with basically a circus clown of a character, and somewhere it’s expected that Hook will actually grow from this?

To the fairness of AEW, they have demonstrated a legendary ability to open; talent debuts, seeds for stories, general ideas.  But that’s about all they can do, is start page 1.  I imagine Tony Khan is the kind of guy who has a folder on his desktop with like, at any given time, no less than 58 Untitled-1 (##) with ideas for storylines and bookings, but aren’t more than a paragraph.  But instead of actually hashing them out and trying to formulate some quality storylines out of them, he passes them onto the talent, tells them to start them up, and then wing it from there.  Last time I checked, professional wrestling and improv aren’t always mutually exclusive, but they also aren’t things that just anyone can do without experience.

Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland are good examples of guys who came in to a lot of buzz and impact for two seconds, but then absolutely jack shit was done with them since their debuts.  Worse off, they’re now paired as a tag team because the roster is so bloated, and now neither will really have any room to develop as singles guys.  Toni Storm and Ruby Soho are also good examples of acquisitions who came in to big pops, but are just treading water.

The bottom line is that AEW’s lack of storytelling is always going to be a hinderance, and isn’t helped by the sheer volume of the roster that needs some creative direction.  But good storytelling is capable of making diamonds out of one guy, or fifty guys, if it’s done well.  But seeing as how AEW has no writers, and the whole show seems to hinge on Tony Khan’s visions, the promotion will always have a ceiling that they’ll struggle to crack through, if they want to have any chance in the future of actually sustaining themselves in the battle to combat the WWE.

Sasha & Naomi: if this isn’t a work, then Sasha’s kind of screwed

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As much as I wanted to just yell my two cents into the void and call it a day, the wrestling community has been incapable of letting go of the story of Sasha Banks and Naomi, the then-current WWE women’s tag team champions, turning in their belts to management, citing a lack of respect for them, the championships they held, other grievances, and then walking out of the company, during the middle of an episode of RAW in which they were already booked and advertised for.

My knee-jerk reaction to this whole story was it’s a work (wrestling lingo for scripted), primarily because it was acknowledged on television, and has been repeatedly acknowledged on television since it occurred.  Although professional wrestling is an always moving, always evolving entity that has shown great ability to adapt, typically throughout history if something has been genuinely legitimate along this kind of nature, it’s usually not acknowledged on television, to such in-depth detail.

Usually if something genuinely controversial happens, then suddenly it’s an injury angle, or the offender was assaulted off-camera, leading to them having been rushed to the local hospital, or some kind of hokey excuse to justify why someone isn’t showing.  The WWE acknowledging and naming Sasha Banks and Naomi and the specific things they did, doesn’t exactly sound the alarm of legitimate controversy, but more like an elaborate storyline is being executed instead.

Furthermore, it sets up some future storytelling opportunities, like Naomi having an excuse to break away from the tag team scene to where she can ultimately join the Samoan Bloodline group, since she’s the real-life wife to Jimmy Uso, and would make an excellent addition to the team and give them a designated female member to start collecting women’s titles.  But instead of a vanilla breakup storyline with Sasha Banks, she can instead vanish from television outright, before being unveiled at a later date, when people might actually have begun to believe she was indefinitely removed from the company.

For Sasha Banks however, I’m not really sure how this benefits her, other than the fact that it gets her out of tag team purgatory and capable of vying for a women’s championship sooner rather than later, without having to eat a loss in order to drop the tag titles.

And frankly, it’s only because Sasha Banks is involved in this at all, is the only think that clouds up the waters that it might not be a work, even though I maintain that it is, solely because of the fact that Sasha Banks has already walked out on the company before, and if the reported reasons for this one are true, then it’s basically history repeating itself, and she probably just needs a minute to chill and come back to earth before ultimately coming back from yet another self-centered hiatus.

The thing is though, if this isn’t a work, then I have to think that Sasha Banks is kind of screwed.  Her wrestling career won’t be over, because she can always jump to AEW, and there’s no doubt the WWE would bring her back, because I’ve always said that Vince McMahon would hire the murderer of his wife if he thought there was money to be made with them, and Sasha Banks would be no exception.

The difference would more likely be the reception she gets from her peers in the industry, because if legitimate, this would be the second time that Sasha has walked out on the company because more or less, she didn’t want to eat a shit sandwich of not being in a prominent, championship-caliber program for a few minutes.  The problem is, there is nobody in the entire history of the industry where a shit sandwich or fifty were not on their menu at varying points in their careers, and I’d guess that her peers would be less than enthused with her sense of entitlement and unwillingness to go through the grind as everyone has to in their careers. 

In wrestling speak, if this is a legitimate situation, then there’s bound to be a lot of the mythical, heat, on both of them, but more on Sasha Banks.  It might not sound like such a big deal, but heat has been known to have derailed even the most promising of careers throughout the history of the business.

By now, I’ve heard all sorts of arguments from the endless rabbling scuttlebutt of the internet community, as well as random discussions with my circle of bros that I like to bullshit about wrestling with.  Real or not, it’s good that the perception is that both Sasha and Naomi both know their worth, which makes flexing on the company remotely possible, but when the day is over, if this really isn’t a work, then Naomi is probably more critical to retain than Sasha is. 

Being an Anoa’I by law as well as a good worker means she has influential backing within the company as well as a role in a storyline that will eventually require her.  But as for Sasha, as much of a fan of the worker I am, if this is legitimate, then I kind of lose some respect for her, because I’m feeling like she thinks she’s a little too good for the business to not solely be in championship storylines. 

Sasha might know her worth, but it’s not like she isn’t still ultimately replaceable; Charlotte and Becky Lynch are still the faces of the women’s division.  Bianca Bel Air is the present and future.   Bayley, Asuka and Rhea Ripley are strong workers, Alexa Bliss is still wildly popular, and there’s a ton of women’s talent out there that could be poached or developed, and no one talent will ever be bigger than the industry.

The bottom line is that I still think this is a work, and it’s only a matter of time in which both of them come back, with Naomi joining the Bloodline, and Sasha probably being a masked assailant of Ronda Rousey or something, after she decimates the division because she’ll seemingly always booked to the moon.  But if it isn’t a work, then this’ll probably be the beginning of the end for Sasha Banks, and hopefully Mercedes Varnado has made enough friends or can get hooked up through Snoop Dogg, to transition into a performing career.

Completing the blet wall: time to get a new house

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

What we have here, are the newest additions to my collection: blet #24 – the 2014 PG-era WWE World Heavyweight Championship, and #25 – the John Cena Spinner US Championship.

As has been the case with the last nine blets I’ve purchased, these have been primarily financed by money earned through doing online surveys.  Which is great in the sense that I haven’t used any of my earned income in order to purchase such frivolities, but when I write out that I’ve basically bought 11 blets, I’m trying not to add up the dollar amount and not wince at what maybe a little more productive or substantiative things I might’ve been able to have done with such a slice of coin but whatever no regrets

The thing is with #24, I never really thought about getting another WWE World Championship blet, since I had the Attitude-era winged eagle blet, but whether it’s just random blet itch scratching, or when I was happy when Big E won the championship, the idea of getting one didn’t seem that unappealing.  That’s sometimes all it really takes for me to want to get a blet; acceptance of a current holder, a good deal, or just plain wanting a new blet for the sake of getting a new one.

Also, I was sitting on a small cache of Amazon gift card and gift card codes, and instead of putting myself through the rigors of I don’t know what to spend this onnnnn, once I learned that WWE actually sells some things through Amazon, including blets, and makes them subject to Prime benefits, I knew what I would be saving up towards, instead of bullshit consumables like soaps and socks.  So once I hit the price threshold for a 2014 WWE World, I pulled the trigger and here we are.

The bigger story though, would be the John Cena US Spinner that I had long been waiting out.  For years, friends would “troll” me and tell me that my collection would never be complete if I didn’t have this blet, and truth be it, when it was actually on TV way back when, I wasn’t a fan of it.  I didn’t think it was cool for John Cena to be above everyone else and have his own edition of the historic United States championship, and I was up on a purist high-horse scoffing down on a spinner blet in the first place.

Continue reading “Completing the blet wall: time to get a new house” →

You’ve got to fucking be kidding me

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ever since the WWEShop re-released the John Cena US Spinner blet, I’ve had this tab open on my laptop.  WWEShop’s prices fluctuate on a dime, and it’s always just a waiting game before any and every blet ends up going on sale at some point.

During the Royal Rumble, the blet went down to $379, and I was very tempted to pull the trigger, but then I thought that it might be even better by the time Wrestlemania rolls around.  But then Wrestlemania comes and goes, and I check the site judiciously the whole weekend, and it doesn’t dip beneath $399, much to my disappointment.

It just fucking figures that the Monday after the biggest show of the year, is just some random sale, where the Cena US Spinner not only drops to a lowest-ever $359, but by the time I check it and see it at that cost, it’s already completely sold out.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with the tab open checking on a daily basis.

So now, I get no blet, I have no idea if and when these will ever come back again, and if and when they do, it’ll be starting all over from scratch playing the waiting game all over again.  I’m quite agitated by this.  I also feel like the WWEShop’s association with a buy now, pay in installments company like Klarna really doesn’t help financially capable people like myself, because they’ll sell to anyone willing to pay in installments like a layaway schlub, but they’re able to hoover up inventory before me, in spite of the fact that I am willing and capable of paying for things outright.

Either way, I’m just mega salty that I missed out.  I literally check this shit every single day, and the one day in which I’m too busy to check until the evening, just so happens to be the day when the price drop bottoms out, and every single person who wanted this blet has beaten me to the punch.  Fuckin’ pissed.

Wrestlemania weekend, and such a thing as too much wrestling

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A few months ago, I got an email from Ring of Honor wrestling, advertising a show that would be their return show after a four-month hiatus.  It was set to take place in Dallas, and my eyes lit up at the thought of going to visit my brother, and going to a show that was likely going to be a banger of an event.

But then, it was brought to my attention that this was going to be taking place the same weekend of Wrestlemania, which was also in Dallas, and suddenly the idea of going to a show that was more than likely going to be attended by other mouthbreathing marks from all over who were on their way to watching Wrestlemania really took the wind out of my sails, and the idea was dead in the water just like that.

Over the last few years prior to coronavirus, a thing that been happening was that whatever city was hosting Wrestlemania, promotions and events that weren’t even WWE, would start booking shit in the same city, around Wrestlemania’s dates, all with the obvious intent to try and leech off of the droves of people who would already be coming into town to watch Wrestlemania, and entice them into these giant weekends of wrestle-everything.

One notable example was when Wrestlemania was in Brooklyn, New York, New Japan Pro Wrestling booked Madison Square Garden two nights prior.  Over the last few years, there’ve been what’s been dubbed WrestleCon, which is exactly what it sounds like, something of a convention for wrestling fans, with the primary thing being all sorts of meet and greets with current and former wrestlers.

However, this year’s Wrestlemania weekend in Dallas, would turn into this week-long affair, where numerous events and promotions started staking claim to times and venues all around the Dallas area, and I thought to myself, man, there really can be such a thing as too much wrestling.

There was one year where Wrestlemania ended up being like five hours long, and I was completely toast by the end of it.  They’ve since moved to the two-night model which I greatly prefer, and I’m sure all involved parties do too, since there’s two nights worth of gate, merch, parking and revenues to be made instead of one.

But Wrestlemania being two nights, on the Saturday and Sunday meant that even their own in-house Saturday show, the usually outstanding NXT TakeOver, got relegated to Saturday afternoon status.  In addition to the WWE’s presence in Dallas, there was the aforementioned ROH show that took place on Friday night, and earlier in the week were events booked by GCW, and even one venue that had MLW and the upstart Control Your Narrative promotion at the same time.

And of course, WrestleCon took place too, to help fill in the time in between actual wrestling shows.  Except that WrestleCon had their own mini-show at it too, with Impact Wrestling running an interesting event with a multiverse theme, which flexed just how many companies Impact had working relationships with.

All in all though, this is a good example of how there really could be such a thing as too much wrestling.  Now obviously, I love the business, and I’d definitely love to have been able to go to the ROH show, and maybe the NXT show.  But as I’ve said numerous times, I don’t really have that much desire to go to a Wrestlemania again, seeing as how I’ve been to two.  They’re just too large, and frankly, the quality of them aren’t really as good as they used to be when they’d have cards full of actual wrestling matches and not these spectacle/moment-maker matches where Johnny Knoxville and Logan Paul get on the show while the current US and Intercontinental champions don’t.

And because I don’t have the time, nor desire to pay to watch any special events, the only thing I ended up watching was Wrestlemania, which I have to say was pretty below average as a whole.  The matches that I was expecting to be good weren’t necessarily terrible, but they could’ve been better.  I had high hopes for Edge vs. AJ Styles, but it was average at best.  I had hoped the Roman vs. Brock match would’ve been as hard hitting and Japanese strong style as some of their earlier matches have been, but a supposed injury to Roman seemed to take the steam out of it, and make it seem very abrupt.

The best match of the show was probably Seth Rollins vs. the mystery opponent who turned out to be the return of Cody Rhodes which I called within the first month of AEW’s launch.  And it’s not like it was a Macho Man vs. Steamboat-caliber classic, it’s just it was the best match on a widely mediocre card otherwise.

Regardless, I was pleased to see Roman Reigns end the show with the double belts, because I still do believe Roman is still the best thing going in the WWE now, and he’s not just cutting promos about being in god mode, because he really is performing like he is.

All things considered though, I caught much of the ROH show’s primary matches after the fact, and to no surprise, everything they did was leaps and bounds better than Wrestlemania, as far as actual wrestling talent is concerned.  But frankly, actual wrestling is hardly what Wrestlemania’s been about over the last few years, and they’ve gotten content at just being an entertainment spectacle above all else.  But 150,000 attendees over two days doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s not the wrong call either.