WWE 2024: Give me The Big Meaty Men Invitational

No Raw after September?

RIP the Network? Watch your Spring Stampede 94s and Aharchy Rulz 99s this year because they are gonna soon disappear forever.

Next year moving to Netflix for such an obscene amount of money that this boom is just gonna keep getting bigger and bigger.

The Rock is a boss now and likely to be taking Cody’s spot at Mania.

Seth might be out for Mania if he doesn’t rehab in time.

50/50 chance Okada turns up.

NXT is supposedly as hot as it has been in years.

The roster is ridiculously good, before on the men’s and women’s side. If they could actually have some good storylines and change Rollins’s XPac Heat character, it might be worth watching. They even supposedly made a solo Uso into a star.

Idk though, I will most probably still just watch the 3 shows a year like always.

(Just to clarify Raw will be back in January 2025 on Netflix. Absolutely crazy that for the first time there will be a 4 month gap.)

https://www.wsj.com/business/vince-mcmahon-accused-of-sex-trafficking-by-wwe-staffer-he-paid-to-keep-quiet-0b19b21c

fuck the fed

Holy fuck that I started the thread just before the Vince news.

Genuinely one of the most horrific things I’ve ever read and I don’t think I’m ever going to watch ever again. I don’t care that I love the rumble, fuck it. Vince is evil in disgusting ways I didn’t want to know existed. I felt ill reading what he did.

Seriously, Vince is evil. But if you value your sanity, don’t read the details on what he did. Keep it to the blurbs. Because the details are just too stomach churning.

Rollins called the Rock Diarrhea Dwayne and the crowd started chanting it lmaooo #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/IlwIRkhKaw

— Roman Reigns SZN 💥 (@reigns_era) March 5, 2024

I’ve just looked back at the cards for WM30-39 and dear god, what a mess. How the hell this company is bigger than ever after all of that shite is just wrong! Daniel Bryan and the women did so much to keep any momentum. If there is a match worth saving in the past ten years, chances are it involved Bryan, Charlotte or Sasha. It’s like the first twelve years, where you could say the same about Macho and Bret.

But the bad stuff, omg. Dean Ambrose worst no holds barred match loss to Brock? Corbin retiring Angle? All those horrible HHH matches that lasted forever, including the Sting one that was hell, the Roman one that was up there with Yoko-Hogan for worst WM main event and the Rollins one that just wouldn’t end. This year will be the Rock’s first match since… Erik Rowan. The Taker-John Cena match. Pat McAfee had two matches in a row. The possibility of a 4 horsewomen match and they had Nia Jax instead of Becky. I could go on for days.

I don’t know whether I’m gonna watch this years. The Vince allegations are still fresh in my mind, although that doesn’t seem to have put off most people. And two days based around 3 star Cody, Reigns who clearly doesn’t give a shit anymore, Rollins doing a bad mid card model gimmick that has X Pac heat with me and the guy from Jumanji seems a bit much. A friend sent me a really cringe soap opera like training montage where Sami was training to fight Walter, that could be fun, maybe I’ll check that out. I presume Collision is basically an old repeat of Dark, maybe ill check that out too

Omg I just remembered last year with the super advertising and auschwitz. I wonder what dancing nazi cereal happens this year.

the roh ppv last night freaking cooked, i recommend watching that instead

WM has gotten much better since they split it over two nights. Those pre-2020 six hour shows were impossible to watch. And of course match quality and booking has improved in the HHH era.

Last night's show was a bit disappointing, the mid-card tag matches meant nothing but were fun I guess, the twelve man tag team ladder match was a confusing mess that should never be repeated. I thought Becky vs Rhea would have a better spot on the card, but the commentary team kept talking about how Becky was sick all week so that gets a pass. It was good that Sami got his moment, and I thought the main event way overdelivered. I expected a safe 15-20 match with a long post-match angle (since 3/4 of the participants have to work again tonight), but they really went all out to deliver an epic match. It didn't need to go 45 minutes, but the Rock is the most entertaining thing in wrestling these days and sits on the RKO board, so if he wants to be out there for 45 minutes then what the hey.

the Rock is the most entertaining thing in wrestling these days

depressing sentence

and sits on the RKO board hmmm ... RKO outta nowhere in that sentence. Should be TKO obv.

depressing sentence Austin came back for one match at WM38 and was the best thing on that show too. It's a combination of being an all-time great and not overexposed on TV every week. Seth Rollins broke up the Shield ten (!!!) years ago already and is really good but I almost never look forward to his matches. Rock came back and has presence that none of the current guys have, then he tweaked the Hollywood Rock character that hadn't been on TV since 2003 and was the biggest heel in the business in a matter of weeks.

Thought I’d give the last two matches a go. HATED the finish to Zayn-Gunther. Made Gunther look like the biggest fucking idiot.

Now after like 30 mins of build and adverts… Cody has kissed the Prime logo. What a fucking geek. And Seth Rollins is dressed like Henry VIII. These are the faces of the biggest boom since x7????

Now the Rock has come out with a fake belt? Wtf is this shit? Seriously how is Homelander, a blackadder character and a cosplay belt holder the biggest main event ever? Roman doing a lot of heavy lifting for a guy that hasn’t really been around for a year

Pat McAfee saying The Rock wrestled in front of 50 people in the Attitude era to grow the company to what it is today.

It’s been about 40 minutes since the last match and it’s just all garbage. Ok a collar and elbow, maybe it can finally be on.

Face: Seth spits Prime drink at The Rock

Heel: The Rock spits water at Cody.

America!

Match turned out to be decent. If I cared about any of the wrestlers, I could see how I’d get invested. Nice to see Roman can now do a powerbomb without needing a couple fellas to lift them up for him.

Holy fuck the end of night two makes Cody look like a fucking geek. How does Triple H still end up going over?

I mean there was some decent matches and it was generally a good spectacle of a weekend. But this was just a long PR exercise, and that ain’t for me. Bringing out Pritchard seems odd too - if ever there is a guy who is presumably going to get named in the Vince stuff, it’s gonna be him. I’ll guess ill illegally stream next years, see ya then. I’ve even recently dropped my Netflix account.

Also one thing that annoyed me - do WWE wrestlers have moves that aren’t finishers? And then if you don’t finish someone with them, what’s the point? Drew v Seth was a million “stand in the corner, wait for them to stand up, try to hit the claymore/stomp” spots repeated, with their few other finishers like Drew’s ddt. If it was a five minute sprint like Brock-Goldberg then fine, but it felt like they were standing in the corner waiting, then, now, forever. I think the last time I tried to actually watch a modern WWE PPV, Seth and Roman had a similar match and it was just insipid (at a recent Rumble?). It is like watching a broken video game.

Now I think about it, so many WWE wrestlers do the same god damn spot. It’s just as bad as any complaint about super kicks or suicide dives imo. Randy, forever waiting to RKO. Sami, forever waiting for the helluva kick. Roman, forever waiting for the superman punch or the spear etc. (AEW are pretty bad with it too, loads of people wait around to do a spear or a punch or a kangaroo kick). Like somebody just go and deck them! You can’t all be HBK!

I agree that the finisher spamming in Drew vs Seth was overdone, but the Punk angle and the cash-in were great and set up six months (at least) of storylines and matches, so overall I enjoyed it.

Bayley vs IYO ruled, the US title match was solid, and the main event delivered the chaos that was promised.

Overall I think WM was a great show. The production, camera work, directing, etc. are so much better post-Kevin Dunn. I'm not a huge fan of slapping a brand name on everything like in UFC but it was inevitable once the TKO merger went through.

The HHH era really does feel a lot different. And unlike past years, where they'd blow their wad on Mania and tread water until Summerslam with endless rematches, HHH has months of fresh storylines ready to go. Cody has storyline reasons to face Sami, Drew (who beat him on RAW recently), Jey, Solo, and Rock. Gunther dropped the IC title and will presumably challenge for the top belt at the PLE in Berlin. He has 15+ years of history with Orton and presumably that match will happen at a major show too. And then there's the rubber match with Roman.

man wipes

45 minute promos

(the triple h era is so different!!! *everyone still fast forwards through raw*)

NTBT otm really. Not that I could watch anymore than 1 weekend a year.

I think the timing of the merger/hhh/vince stuff helps with the over-branding stuff too. People are busy noticing other stuff and its easily backdoored its way in.

https://www.josephmontecillo.com/2024/04/09/roman-reigns-vs-cody-rhodes-wwe-wrestlemania-xl-sunday-4-7-24/

Some things are so obviously improving that you can’t fail to notice it.

The commentary is better than it was (Cole is good, Graves still sucks, McAfee can go one way or the other). as is the camerawork, although they haven’t yet shaken off all their shitty habits. The presentation generally feels sharper and more modern.

The booking basically makes sense and is starting to reward fans for getting invested in characters, which is the striking change in terms of future outlook.

By their own admittedly low standards they’re in a very good place right now and there’s optimism that things will continue to get better.

I thought Zayn / Gunther and Iyo/ Bayley matches were very good, the US title triple threat was fun and good, the main events each did exactly what they needed to and everything else was inoffensive, in terms of in ring at least.

Obviously Raw and Smackdown will continue to be unwatchable on principle but who needs to watch the show when you can just catch the highlights on YouTube?

ivy, that link puts it a lot better than I ever could. im still recoiling in horror. could you imagine hogan at wm3, or warrior at wm6, shawn at wm12, STEVE AUSTIN AND TYSON AT 14 etc. etc. having to cut off celebrations to bring Vince out and make it all about him? It would have been instant death.

agreed, feel like Cody self-sabotaged everything great he'd done for AEW, and then just trots on back for an undeserved title run that more of the talent that actually stayed with WWE and didn't bail ship earned. like... does Andrade think he's going to be getting this treatment in the near future?

Cody is (somehow) the most popular wrestler in the world right now so i don't think that's quite right tbh

Cody bailing on WWE is certainly ... one take on it.

I think Cody may have gone a bit off script with calling our Pritchard and HHH the way he did. A lot of this "new era" stuff is a form of rebranding to distance themselves from the Vince lawsuits. But that's not really the point I want to make.

The writer of the piece ivy linked to fundamentally doesn't understand pro wrestling, he's conflating gimmicks with characters. A gimmick is an idea on paper, people buy tickets to wrestling shows to see characters in action. Once the character gets over (I'm not a big Cody fan but there's no denying that he's the biggest star in the company now) then nitpicking the gimmick on paper is pointless and obtuse.

On paper, Cody's gimmick might have contradictions but he just drew $35M in two nights, and fans clearly wanted him in the main event instead of the Rock. Whatever he's doing is working, that's a fact. Whether the gimmick makes sense or not (working class hero turned self-made millionaire who cries about his mom and dad on TV every week) is irrelevant now. Similarly, it made no sense that Shawn Michaels danced to "Sexy Boy" when everyone knew he was a born again Christian, and it makes no sense that Undertaker can still get away with doing spooky magic when kayfabe died decades ago. The gimmick is just an idea, the person gets the character over playing the gimmick, and once people are willing to pay money to see the character wrestle, then the game is won.

It may be delusional of me, but I've got high hopes here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QP5agTawMM

Watching SummerSlam.

5 mins of a very large gentleman performing a god awful song of some sort.

Rhea Ripley doing the spot Will Ospreay did a week ago popping the shoulder back in. Commentary acting like it’s never been done before.

Dom has a great moustache, enough to make him a face in my eyes.

Maybe I spoke too soon re: Dom.

There is an advert about a Wrestlemania documentary where they seemingly talk about it like it is the greatest story ever told. Has WWE ever had some pretentiousness? Vince goes and suddenly it’s art house cinema? I remember podcast Taker turning up to make it a slightly different bloodline match to the same match they had for 3 years.

Bron Breakker’s name is still terrible. He does sound and look like a budget Steiner brother so I’m still excited to watch him fight Sami.

The Vince documentary was a waste of time. It’s just the same regurgitation that’s been done a million times. He says something very awkward and it’s revealed he recently settled out of court with Rita Chatterton, the first female ref who tried to take him to court in the 80s for raping her. Hogan finally admits to ratting out Jesse’s attempt to unionise. Phil Muschnick is hilarious. Meltzer is even more awkward than usual - basically weighing up being a good promoter vs being an abuser, as the most absurd case of apples v oranges. Vince is guilty, he’s a horrible horrible deviant. Netflix threw Brock under the bus but tried to keep WWE clear, as they have a deal together. Others need to go down with Vince and Brock though, you don’t have 40 years of scandal without others being complicit.

It did further sour me on WWE and I can’t imagine watching again any time soon. Such a shame to have one of my favourite childhood memories and past times ruined and thank god there are current alternatives.

I thought it was OK in that it wasn't meant to have loads of revelatory new info for hardcore wrestling fans who've been following it for years

It was definitely some kind of insight into how deeply weird Vince is, including him confirming that he wanted to do a storyline where he'd got his daughter pregnant, and a bizarrely matter of fact and unexpanded on reference to there being a lot of incest in his family growing up

Shane was the only McMahon coming across as having any redeeming features, they're obviously all mega-rich Trump-pilled lunatics, but he could probably have grown up to be a decent human being with a different start in life

Bruce Prichard just the worst snivelling sack of dignity-free shit in existence, truly wretched

With you AHH about having no interest in the product, can't imagine ever wanting to watch it again and it feels weird and cultlike that so many people still do tbh, like hardcore Michael Jackson fans that won't hear a word against him or whatever

As soon as they mentioned Ashley Massaro's name I started losing it a bit, they didn't go full deep dive on it but what happened to her might be the single most despicable thing out of the whole list of shit they covered

The Vince doc was OK, not a hitjob but not too critical either, obviously it was meant to be a completely different kind of project before the hush money scandal and the lawsuit but for whatever reason they decided to salvage it rather than shelve it forever. Maybe it's all about having some WWE-themed content on Netflix leading into the streaming deal.

90% of it won't be new for longtime fans, but I knew that going in. The second episode covering 1985-1994 (WM III, Hulk-Ventura, steroid trial) was the most revealing. The Attitude era episode wasn't about Vince at all, it felt like a WWE doc.

The final episode left me feeling sad more than anything, not because it "revealed" that Vince is basically a sack of garbage as a human (which we knew about for decades) but because it blitzed you with so many clips of Vince acting out his sick fantasies on screen (making out with basically every hot diva who worked for him, repeatedly embarrassing wrestlers and even his own family just to amuse himself). It was all compressed into endless video clips of the same shitty behaviour, emphatically showing that a healthy percentage of WWE content was produced for the amusement of a psychopath, and I felt sad and even a bit guilty for watching so much of it over the years.

Then again, wrestling has always been about feuds taking place in the moment (you book what the audience wants now, not what they might still like ten years from now), it's never been like movie/TV/music making where many practitioners want to make timeless art, wrestling usually isn't rewatchable in that way. In that sense, pro wrestling is like sports -- I won't sit for three hours to watch a great baseball game from twenty years from start to finish, in the same way that I won't watch an entire episode of RAW from 1998. But I'll watch the clips or extended highlights from my favourite games over and over, or in the case of wrestling, the best matches. A lot of the Austin-McMahon stuff still holds up and I still get a kick out of it. I can ignore the offensive, Vince as egomaniacal womanizer stuff now by simply not watching it, I didn't have that choice watching RAW live all those years.

Meltzer came off really well (as Meltzer with extensive editing usually does), Shane came across like a real human being (sharing a hug with Vince after the Dallas WM match actually got me in the feels), most of the rest did their usual lying and scheming (Pritchard, Hogan) or just didn't add much at all (Trish, Linda, Shoemaker).

that's to say:

I won't sit for three hours to watch a great baseball game from twenty years AGO from start to finish, in the same way that I won't watch an entire episode of RAW from 1998.

On a brighter note, Punk vs McIntire HIAC was incredible, an instant classic match that finally reestablishes the Cell after they ran the gimmick into the ground with the yearly HIAC-themed PPV's.

Meltzer's final sum-up of Vince did seem a bit like his usual tunnel vision wrestling bubble analysis and came across like equivocating iirc, but he was one of the people most consistently willing to be straight in the interviews that were filmed before the more recent allegations came out; Trish Stratus' cheerfully toeing the party line didn't age so well

It seemed like they had more Rock material and then they barely showed anything other than him doing some usual "I got goosebumps just talking about it" WWE documentary shit about WM18, wonder if they cut some gushing pro-Vince material to make him not look terrible tbh

Yeah, that final question "what is Vince's legacy?" where everyone hemmed and hawed in response was clearly an editing trick. I'm sure they were all trying to phrase their responses carefully (filmed in 2021 or 2022) and sum up his importance to the business with a quick soundbite. I don't think any of them, at that time, would have said a bad word while he was still (at that time) in full control of WWE.

Trish has always kept her private life completely private. During her entire run there were never any wild rumours about her, and she always remained loyal to the company. She went home in 2006 and married her high school boyfriend, having never even acknowledged their relationship in public. She didn't come off good in the doc by essentially sanitizing all the humiliating things the women did on TV as "just doing their job" but she didn't come off bad either because she didn't defend or endorse it either. Trish is too smart, she made her money and quickly got out of the business when she was still young and could lead a normal life, more wrestlers should aspire to this. She can write her ticket and return when she wants, much like the Rock, and during her last run vs Becky she completely outclassed nearly the entire roster (also like the Rock).

Re: "Steve Austin doesn't believe in CTE", I think they edited his response in some strange way or phrased the question wrong or Austin simply doesn't know what CTE is (all are possible). I think Austin was trying to say that bad workers are sloppy and that's why they get too many concussions, and since he wasn't a bad worker, then he's not concerned about concussions or CTE (says the guy who took chair shots to the head on TV for years). Or he might be totally misinformed in thinking that CTE is a thing that causes concussions, so he needed to go on the record as saying "no, bad workers are responsible for being bad workers and giving themselves concussions". The whole thing was weird.