Any WWE fans in the audience? (Part 1)

Punk is getting mugged.

And Punk taps to a rear naked choke 2:14 into the first round.

This was a one-sided squash. Punk never had a chance.

Gall wins. Punk got, well, punked.

Punk is gracious in defeat, says he’ll fight again. Looks like he’s got a brand new cauliflower ear for his trouble.

Got lucky and some dude parascoped it online, so I was able to watch.

Wow, he never had a chance. Got schooled from the moment he walked in.

Wellp…on to next time I guess…

Good Gawd, he didn’t just get choked in the neck. His whole body got choked.

Alexa Bliss on the pre-show panel. Wow.

Was it good for you too?

Poor thing.

She’s so pretty but their insistence to make her like a damn pixie porn star is just…ugh

notsureifserious.jpg

Mauro is turning into JBL jr. and I am NOT liking it.

IMO JBL is the worst thing in all of wrestling, and I do not want him influencing the perfect commentary of Mauro

Plenty of time to screw things up, but the matches have been very good so far

Speak of the devil…

BECKY LYNCH IS CHAMP

I’m going to… belt… out a verse of “Soldier’s Song.”

I had to work tonight and didn’t get home until nearly 1 AM, so I only just now finished watching the replay.

Gotta say, this show was really good. Better than a lot of the main roster PPVs have been in a long time. There’s definitely been an improvement in production values, with the special set and the multiple tracking cameras - I don’t think I recall seeing a single shot from a traditional WWE hard cam angle. The post-match promos had a very UFC feel to them.

The matches were solid, with a minimum of BS. Miz vs. Ziggler was the only match that didn’t have a clean finish, and even then it made sense since they’re building Miz up as a coward who needs help to win a match. Not really sure where this feud with Bryan is going - it feels like they’re building towards Bryan coming out of retirement and challenging Miz for the IC title, but I can’t imagine them suddenly flip-flopping on the concussion matter like that.

Becky’s title win was well-deserved, as was AJ’s. (FUN FACT: AJ is now the first and only person to have held the world titles of WWE, TNA, ROH, and New Japan.) I was kinda surprised to see Heath and Rhyno win the titles considering that Rhyno’s running for office - but from a practical standpoint, Rhyno is a Republican running in Dearborn, MI, so he has no chance in hell of actually winning his race.

The thing that really surprised me about this show is that JBL is actually becoming a competent color commentator. It used to be that all he’d do is recite catch phrases, bicker with Maggle, and cheerlead for the heels regardless of how little sense it made (e.g. his cheering on the evil Russian Rusev over the all-American heroes Jack Swagger and Mark Henry.) I’m not sure if it’s Mauro rubbing off on him or if the Crazy Old Man isn’t yelling in his ear anymore, but suddenly he’s actually acknowledging it when the heels play dirty, giving credit to the faces when they pull off something impressive, and actually focusing on the match instead of arguing politics with the other commentators. It’s a change for the better. (David Otunga is still a third wheel, though.)

Your move, Raw.

Alexa Bliss could be the new AJ Lee.

She’s got that psycho ex-gf stalker look that leaves boiled bunnies on your stovetop.

Ok matches, until the end. AJ Styles is a decent journeyman wrestler, but he’s not champion material. It will all be storyline for him, and they’ve done bad for one of the best wrestlers they’ve had for years. Ambrose needs to no storyline, he’s the kind of genuine character they need. Even if he takes it back in an immediate rematch Tuesday night they’re just diluting their brand.

The Randy Orton game has to go somewhere. I suspect his multiple injuries make him difficult to plan for. He certainly owes some jobs to the WWE, but they could do better for him than this.

Becky is an interesting character, but she’s a dull performer, too programmed in her act and her wrestling. But maybe she’ll have the chance to develop now, she seems to have the talent, no she needs opponents. WTF is Carmella? She’s got nothing to go with her attitude. And yeah, pixie porn star is the best description for Alexa I’ve heard. Wrong character for her, but she’s just there now, time to let evolve.

Heath Slater and Rhyno both deserve their day in the sun. They can be long term jobbers if they want. Miz is at his peak, meaning it’s all down here from now. It would work much better if he wasn’t getting the obvious push, he’s got the classic heel style down in his wrestling, as the legendary Buddy Colt said, good guys move forward, bad guys move backward, he’s got that down in his wrestling, but his character doesn’t match the style.

This was Shane’s chance to show he can do something with his own show, I gotta give this one a C+ at best, and I’m grading on the curve.

I’m much more in the Smapti camp than the TriPolar camp.

The matches were long, they told good stories, the right people won…it was a very good show.

The women’s match definitely needs to be praised. It looked well wrestled, they ran with it for a long time, the women all had their moments and no body jobbed out in 2 seconds. Love that they’re setting up a Carmella/Nikki storyline and I love love love that Becky finally won.

I don’t know who it is yet, but Smackdown needs a good-ole-boy kind of face to challenge Miz for the belt. Miz is such a perfect smarmy heel that he almost needs a John Cena Jr. kind of guy to come up and be so friggin’ clean-cut that he HAS to win. The closest thing right now is Crews, and that may actually work, but we’ll have to see.

AJ/Ambrose if fine with me because Ambrose is just nothing now. I don’t know what happened, but he went from funny/stiff/will-do-anything to a vanilla cartoon of a character. Did WWE put some handcuffs on his style? Is he just working more “safe”? I’m not one to pick up on these things so I’m going to need some help. I don’t like that AJ ended on a low-blow, I think that was pretty stupid. But it’s not the worst thing in the world.

It’s dirt-sheets, so take it with mountains of salt, but I have heard that WWE hasn’t closed the door on a DB comeback, so it almost seems like that’s what is brewing. We shall see though.

Overall a great show. Need more of these, less of…everything else.

:eek:

Dude, you need to take a break from wrestling if you’re so down and negative that you think AJ Styles is a journeyman and Becky is dull.

I have seen too much wrestling. All the best and the worst for the past 50 years, and some from before then. I guess it’s become impossible for me to focus on the now. Sorry, not trying to bring everyone down, I’ll try to focus on the best parts here in the thread.

Actually, I was kind of underwhelmed too, but I attributed that to spending most of the day helping put up a greenhouse (actually, just holding plastic in place while everybody else stapled) and swimming while baked. Plus, first week of NFL.

The only match I had any measure of excitement for was Rhyno & Heath vs the Usos, mainly because of Rhyno’s GORE GORE GOOOOOORE! But they’re also using the Enzo & Cass formula where Heath gets beat up and Rhyno saves the day, and I’m already sick of Enzo & Cass.

I think AJ Styles makes a better face than heel. He acts cocky enough, but he’s nowhere near as infuriating as Miz or Seth Rollins. He’s more of a Happy Scrappy Hero Pup, to borrow from poster #4893.