Oh piffle. We understand the intent of the thread well enough.
Hunter has announced that the winners of King/Queen of the Ring will get a world title shot at Summerslam, meaning there’s now actually a point to the tournament aside from the winner wearing a toy crown for six weeks.
I won’t catch the show live but I’ll probably watch it after work tomorrow.
And now, courtesy of Youtube, here’s the coolest thing I’ve seen all week - pro wrestling in Uganda, in a bare mud ring surrounded by bamboo stakes and nylon rope, featuring former NXT UK wrestler Tate Mayfairs taking on hometown boy Anoa for the promotion’s inaugural championship. These guys are working their asses off with next to nothing and they’re making it work.
So King and Queen of the Ring happened in Saudi Arabia yesterday. I didn’t catch it live but I did watch the replay on streaming last night. I went one for two, the winners were Gunther, who I (and many others to be sure, didn’t exactly take Nostradamus to call that) predicted, and Nia Jax, who I did not.
Random thoughts:
Referees have names again! Maybe this is something that’s been happening and I just missed it, but I noticed last night that the commentators were actually naming the referees. The blonde female referee is named Jessica Carr. (Spelling might be wrong.) I did not know that before last night.
Liv Morgan beats Becky Lynch for the women’s championship. Liv still seems very sloppy to me. She’s been around long enough at this point I don’t know that that’s going to change. That said she obviously tries very hard and I give her credit for that. And she does have something from a character standpoint. Dom shows up to slide a chair in the ring, ostensibly to Lynch but Morgan uses it to hit a DDT picking up the victory. We seem to be angling for a Rhea Ripley Liv Morgan match when Rhea comes back. And she’s almost certainly going to be a baby face.
Good match between Gunther and Randy Orton. Some controversy at the end with Orton’s shoulder up while Gunther is pinning him. There seems to be some controversy among fans over whether this was intentional or not. For the record, I am 100% certain this was planned. Gunther is going to lose to Cody at SummerSlam if they actually go through with that, but this gives Gunther a built-in, long term, main event level feud going forward.
For the queen side, we got Lyra Valkyria versus Nia Jax. Jax wins (ugh). I have two thoughts about this match. First, we could have gotten Iyo Sky versus Valkyria in the finals, and we got this instead? (ugh) And second, I hope Lyra is okay after that banzai drop. That looked brutal.
Sami Zayn retains the Intercontinental Championship in a triple threat match with Chad Gable and Bronson Reed. Super feel good moment for Sami, and Gable and Reed both had standout moments where they were able to showcase their stuff. Quick question, can somebody give me a quick rundown on exactly what’s going on with the Sami Zayn/Saudi Arabia situation? I remember when they first started doing these Saudi shows a few years ago Sami refused to go, I know he’s a Muslim and that plays into it somehow. But he was welcomed like a home town hero here. Sami might be the most naturally built under dog baby face I’ve seen since a young Rey Mysterio. Big fan.
In the main event we get Cody versus Logan Paul. Solid match as expected between these two. Cody continues to build his legend while Logan continues to be a rookie standout. (I don’t actually know how long Paul’s been wrestling, but that’s how the show seems to be treating him.) No huge takeaways for me from this match, except note that they seem to be treating Cody the way Bret was treated in the early 90s when he won his first Intercontinental championship. They’re just putting him against as many opponents as possible to prove his drive and determination. This may be understandable as I’ve heard that there weren’t any concrete post WrestleMania plans for Cody due to the last minute booking changes. Still can’t wait for Cody’s next long-term feud.
Overall, very solid show with one very questionable booking decision. The one long-term take away from the show for me though was the controversy surrounding the Gunther vs. Orton match.
Zayn is of Syrian descent, and he spoke against their president Assad during their civil war. The Saudis didn’t want to deal with his political baggage at the time.
The referee tried to move so he couldn’t see Randy’s shoulder, so yeah. A way to keep Randy from looking like a jobber.
is it me or did most of womens matches the tag team titles and the one after had more actual moves and holds than the other 80 percent of the card ?
Sonething else I’ve seen in the last 2 events … they don’t separate the preshow from the event anymore I fast forwarded like the first 2 hours of it except for the womens tag title …before the card started
the only 2 surprises were the women title changing hands and the orton thing … and "refrigerator jax winning the crown like a consolation prize
Dang, the Roderick Strong vs Will Osprey match by itself was better than King/Queen of the Ring. Osprey is effing fantastic, and Roderick Strong is such an unappreciated talent.
hey maybe corny will give it praise …
TNT Champion Adam Copeland broke his leg jumping off the top of the cage against Malakai Black at Double or Nothing, and will require surgery. No word yet on whether the title will be vacated but one assumes so.
he needs top retire and manage , the fuck was he thinking ?..even foley knew when to quit usually
TNA Knockouts Champion Jordynne Grace came through the Forbidden Door again, and will challenge Roxanne Perez for the NXT Women’s Championship at Battleground.
That door isn’t Forbidden anymore. Hell, it’s rarely even locked in AEW, and WWE is fine with handing out day passes. Should Grace win, I might have to avoid wrestling talk for a few weeks until they all calm back down to their normal levels of hysteria and idiocy.
I’m digging this Dysfunctional Judgement Day storyline. I never had much of an opinion of Carlito before. He just seemed like their token Latino bone they’d throw for their Hispanic audience. When Judgement Day involved him, I thought he’d be another R-Truth knockoff, but he’s turning out to be more essential. All it took was “Found him” and Carlito pushing a cowering JD McDonough in front of a strongly displeased Damian Priest.
Then there was the curve ball at the end of RAW with Liv snogging Dom Dom. The announcers had been yelling about how stupid Dominick was, but just when I was saying “Shut up about fucking Dominick already,” the Liv kiss suggested she seduced him away from Mami. That’s going to add more heat to Ripley’s eventual return as they feud over their boytoy. Could it be that Dom Dom is ratings gold?
you know in wrestling theres always been a certain type of heel people have always loved to hate … the slightly above average looking whiny doofus that isn’t anything scary and that never does anything right so they see them as more “comedy relief” than a terry funk\stan hansen type
see eric embry in world class as the best example
I think of Dom as a classic “chicken shit heel”. To expand on @nightshadea’s post, that’s a heel that isn’t particularly threatening or even really a good wrestler, but he gets by on his personality and just the sheer irritation he can create in fans. It’s a fine line between this and legit “go away” heat but I think Dom is firmly on the correct side.
Other classic examples include Honky Tonk Man in the late 80s, even Ric Flair had a tendency to dip into this when going against legit main event faces. Think about facing someone like Sting, Flair would always do that spot where he drops down to both knees and begs off? That’s a classic chicken shit heel move.
Point of order: Carlito is Puerto Rican.
Puerto Ricans are still considered Hispanic.
Yes, but in my limited experience Puerto Ricans consider themselves to be very culturally distinct from Latinos and vice versa.
That is true. As I get to deal with plenty of both in NYC, some, if not much, of it deals with Puerto Ricans being citizens yet being treated as non-citizens. Still, WWE has used Puerto Ricans to appeal to the Hispanic community. Pedro Morales, a former WWWF champion and long, long time Intercontinental Champion was whom I grew up watching and that was 100% his role… I would have to dig into WWWF history to see who might pre-date Morales.