Why? And why have a gauntlet match and give it away to the last entrant?
And all it took was three months from when they announced it and for all the people responsible for the championship being vacant in the first place to be forced out of the company.
I’m hoping that Sasha and Naomi come back and win the final.
Shayna was one of Ronda’s Four Horsewomen of MMA. She’s a fitting choice to be Liv’s next contender now that Ronda is seemingly out of the picture.
Well, that’s no way to talk about Killer Kross and Scarlett.
(ba-dum-tish)
Because Shayna is much, much better than Vince had been booking her.
That would be interesting to see. Looks like she has a chance. Maybe she’ll learn some wrestling moves now.
The gauntlet match was booked great. Rodriguez looked great, and unless Morgan can’t recover her babyface status, elevating Bayzler is great. Plus, now SmackDown had 4 weeks to establish Bayzler as a real threat (unlike Neidhart, who no one ever believed had a chance). Plus, should Morgan not recover and has to go heel, they can gamble the title shot in a match between Bayzler and Rodriguez so that it is still heel vs face.
I think it was a great match, but still stupid to have the last entrant win. It makes it overly obvious the match was intended to put Bayzler through.
Yeah, gauntlet matches only ever go one of two ways. Babyface goes through multiple opponents to beat the odds, or heel steals the win against babyface who had to battle through multiple opponents. But given how often the Women’s division has used the “next challenger slaps champion to get title shot” trope despite zero build, this is much better.
How come the fans booed Liv Morgan, anyway? Because she tapped out? Is the referee supposed to have a third eye in the middle of his forehead?
I don’t know what happened there, I think Liv is over pretty well. I pointed out before that the ref started counting the pin, he had no reason to look for that tap up in the air, or even pay attention to it. Once the count starts he has to finish it. That’s in the rules of professional wrestling, go look it up if you don’t believe me.
Since when has professional wrestling had rules?
The narrative around the double pin made Liv look weak. The narrative the announcers were selling is that Rhonda was the rightful winner and Liv the loser. That works for a heel, not a babyface. It certainly didn’t help with the narrative Liv tried to sell on Smackdown. This was a clear storytelling fail. They need to make Liv look strong over the next few weeks (as opposed to her usual underdog babyface role) OR lean into the reaction. Unfortunately, Liv is not a strong talker (she’d be top tier in AEW though, but WWE has a higher standard). This will make recovery harder. I really think they should lean into it.
@Smapti Wrestling has always had rules. What it has never had is consistently-applied rules.
Personally, the idea of one referee whose decision in the moment is final and unalterable doesn’t hold up in 2022 - it’s an artifact of a time when there was no such thing as jnstant replay and matches were rarely committed to film, there were no close-ups and multiple angles, and the referee was reaponsible for calling the match in the ring rather than getting instructions through an earpierce. It wouldn’t fly in any legitimate sport today, and just because that’s the way wrestling was done in the '40s doesn’t mean we need to keep doing it that way today, no matter what Jim Cornette has to say about it.
IMO, it would really refresh the way wrestling is presented and introduce some new narrative opportunities to have a second referee outside the ring who can overrule or assist the ring official (or take over when a bump happens), or for replays to play a part in decisions, or for pinfalls to be counted automatically by a timeleeper instead of by the ref slapping the mat so the yokels in the back of the barn can hear.
Agree wholeheartedly. I’ve been saying the same thing for at least 5 years, maybe 10. Wrestling is a work as-is; you can work instant replay into the story. They’ve allowed it to matter on rare occasions. The referee will see something on the big screen and restart the match.
Also, the tag team distraction. This is so overused. You would think that after 80 years, referees would have been trained to handle this. This may have worked in the past, because people weren’t inundated with 12 hours of wrestling per week. Now we are, and it happens every hour. It needs to evolve and be more innovative.
These old match gimmicks are tiresome. Of course they can use instant replay. And the referees don’t have to look so stupid, they’re not even good at it anymore. Referees are starting to wait for point in the script to act just like wrestlers standing around waiting for the other guy to do his move. These gimmicks don’t need to disappear forever, but they have to cut back.
Exactly. If every single tag team match doesn’t feature the ref-distraction/double-team, then when special guest ref Jeff Jarrett gets distracted because he’s not a full-time ref, it will be fresh.
some neds to send AEW a memo …
While we’re at it: Referee bumps are getting tiresome, too. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen it as bad as it was in Triple H and Undertaker’s match at WrestleMania X-7 back in 2001, in which the referee was knocked out for, without embellishment, at least 10 minutes while Trips and Taker fought in the crowd.
“He didn’t hook the leg.”
WWE’s board has found another $5 million in hush money payouts from Vince.