2025 Wrestling Thread - AEW, NPJW, WWE, Indies…

Feel like one rolling thread may be better than one for each company.

Really though I just want a place to complain that Copeland’s tshirt is spelt LEDGEND and yes it took me too long to see L-EDGE-ND but shame on anything who buys it.

Tbh my interest in anything has been mute for a couple months now. Okada-Ospreay and Mone-Statlander at Worlds End were worth getting back involved tho.

Also Wrestle Kingdom was a bit rubbish. ZSJ is great but Umino looks like a bit of a geek. ZSJ wrestles like a heel but he’s a face seemingly just because he’s so respected; Umino wrestles kinda like a face but seemingly no one likes him, so he’s the heel. It was such an odd dynamic. (I’m sure a NJPW enthusiast will tell me I’m wrong but whatever)

Toni Storm’s new lucky newcomer gimmick is hilarious and honestly she’s just the best.

WWE exists. Idk I don’t pay for Netflix and I still hate them for everything Vince related.

The indies seem to just be different types of Kane - Gayne, Blue Kane, Co-Kane etc

The first RAW on Netflix was ... slow. I *love* the post-Kevin Dunn production (best decision Triple H ever made) but the matches didn't really deliver. I never subscribed to the WWE Network, but the archived content on Netflix is good. I took a trip down memory lane this week with the main event of Backlash 2000 and Royal Rumble 2007. Overall I'm fairly happy with the Triple H era of WWE.

I don't watch NJPW anymore but I watched the Omega vs Kidd match to see what all the fuss is about. Great performances from both guys, and Kenny looked in fantastic shape for a guy who nearly died one year ago. Buy MOTY? Seemed like a generic brawl to me.

Call me an old fart, but the hyperbole around certain performers these days is way out of proportion. I'm sure there are younger fans looking at profiles of Bret Hart and Steve Austin on Cagematch and thinking "these guys only had about 20 four-star matches in their entire careers, so what's the big deal with them?"

worlds end was a pretty amazing ppv. i'd fallen off of watching aew regularly just bc of general life shit but that brought me back in. helps that the max deal completely overcomes all the struggles i had watching it on cable

wwe sucks, hogan on raw, rumble in saudi arabia next year wow so much to look forward to

I watched the Rumble.

Dom Mysterio gets wrestling in a way I haven't experienced since TNA Scott Steiner. Hitting a frog splash on Cena and then giving the fans the gun show was glorious. Its a shame I don't watch WWE because I feel like he could be my favourite wrestler.

Nothing happened in either Rumble. Not really. They were still fun. Bianca Belair did a thing in the corner with flips. That was nice. Logan Paul did the Kofi spot because Kofi wasn't in it. Someone from NXT was the runner up in the womens rumble, because the winner was so obvious that they didn't seem to care about the drama of whether someone could beat her. I was fascinated how over the winner of the mens was, I thought he was a mid carder and the last time I watched, he had the worst match at wrestlemania.

Cody and KO killed themselves, that was fun. 20/30 minutes between each match with adverts and showing random ass 'celebrities' was not. How do people watch this stuff regularly? I don't care how good Gunther is, I can't watch a 4 hour show with nearly 2 hours of adverts and filler.

RAW has been good since moving to Netflix. The 2.5 hour run time feels about right. It's long enough that matches don't get shortchanged on time, each week there are multiple matches over ten minutes, and we get to actually see them without poorly timed commercial breaks. And it's short enough to avoid useless filler.

Dynamite last week was boss, with Ricochet v Swerve. Grand Slam Australia this week - it seems like it’s been a shit show behind the scenes, but the card looks like a must see.

intrigued if there are going to be some batshit creative narrative for wwe/tna for the dolph ziggler/etc. characters

What’s dolph up to these days? Last time I saw anything, people were annoyed jbl was doing something with him but I didn’t care enough to look into it

Revolution has a card that looks like it could be an all timer. Dynamite has been EXCELLENT recently.

Oh and Cena turned Babyface by attacking Homelander.

But more importantly, the Netflix deal has killed the Network and WWE have launched the WWE Vault and WCW channels on YouTube. I just turned on the WCW channel to see it showing Vader v Flair at Starrcade (1993?) - how can you not love a channel randomly showing this stuff?

toni vs mariah, holy shit

YUP!

jesus christ what a ppv

I won’t get to watch it until Tuesday night, sad face emoji

yikes at that mox/copeland match.

i thought it was fine and then the finish made it a little better than fine

there were very few ways they could escalate from toni/mariah -> omega/takeshita -> ospreay/fletcher, so they punched each other a lot? fine, whatever. christian appearing out of nowhere just to be a total shithead ruining it for everyone including himself, perfect

i'm sure ppl are arguing that toni/mariah should've main evented but i'm kinda glad they placed it mid-show at peak crowd engagement

lol, i did not have "MJF once drove MVP to a documentary on Bad Brains' H.R." on my wrestling bingo card.

I know ilx has a lot of American politics on it, but I’m not interested in wading into those crazy waters. Just wanted to say fuck Linda McMahon today as it seems like after decades of being unelectable, she still seems to have found her way close enough to the top to dismantle y’all Department of Education. Vince and Linda gotta be up there, in consideration as one of the worst couples in history.

Toni v Mariah was great fun but I’ve still not mustered up the enthusiasm to finish the PPV. I feel quite disconnected at the moment, even though I’ve been enjoying what I’ve seen. The Dynamites leading up to Revolution were great! I have no idea why I feel so blasé. I don’t think I’ll watch Mania either because a) fuck wwe and b) absolutely nothing on the card seems to appeal to me, other than maybe wondering what Rhea is up to.

I had a bit of a gap mid-PPV too but I finally caught up on Ospreay vs Fletcher this week and really enjoyed it.

Sounds like Dynamite was good this week too

I was a week and a bit late to Revolution but I liked it a lot, even as I’ve realised my tolerance for blood in matches is a lot lower now than it was when I were a lad.

The first two matches kind of stole the show for me, though. Mercedes especially looked really good out there; I feel like she’s properly dedicated herself to stepping up in every match, bettering her promo game as well.

update: yup dynamite great

The 3 way at Dynasty is worth going out of your way to watch. Also the show has one ridiculously petty heel turn that was glorious.

The show ends with the weirdest inverse of the WM40 finish. I just don’t really know what they are trying to do and sometimes it’s good to wait and see but idk.

Wheeler Yuta has turned into the biggest heel in wrestling?

The TNT title needs to be put in the bin. I can’t remember the last time it felt relevant.

this week's dynamite was fucking insane

It was a thing of beauty. I like that it came out of pettiness.

Wm seems like a damp squib huh? No one seems particularly interested, every match seems to have lacked build and seems predictable. I wonder if the hot period is going to start dwindling down.

Dynamite really good, loved how that arena looked

WWE bought AAA?

I know it’s been a shit show for years but that seems like it’s going to change Lucha forever.

WM night one was just a decent episode of Raw. I don’t care for a lot of the WWE style - I think the only two wrestlers I remember standing out were Reigns and Punk. Roman fights like it’s a fight - pretty much everyone else just looked like it was another night on the job. Maybe Fatu too. One thing I hated was matches having near identical tights - the womens title match was impossible to tell who was who if they turned up the pace or used a far away camera.

I miss WM entrances. Ten years ago was robots and tanks. Tonight was just video packages and maybe a rubber mask.

Starting WM night two and holy fuck the 3 way women’s is worth watching. Rhea, Iyo and Bianca have all had the best matches over the past couple years and tonight seems to continue that tradition. I can’t see anything topping that. Also putting that on first, I’m not sure I really care for anything else coming after. But I’ve got the day off work and a decent illegal stream.

Finn Balor going from the crazy monster to a fella with a pillow case on his head after two minutes of talking about wiping your arse. Has there ever been such a lame drop in coolness in wrestling?

Lmao that the man event starts with Cena saying “I will ruin wrestling for everyone” - like bruv you already did 15-20 years ago

Crowd… almost silent for most of his entrance?

The 4 way for the intercontinental was also great. That’s 2 matches from all weekend worth seeing. I don’t have much faith in this main event

Imagine being champion and in the main event and... waiting 5 minutes for travis scott to walk. What a geek Cody Rhodes looks like. Just beat up your opponent, someone who hasnt wrestled in a decade, and win, ye fucking loser.

It didn't give us the surprises that we were expecting, but there's still time tonight on RAW.

but I am mostly here to YEET! I know a lot of people weren't happy about it, but Main Event Jey Uso won in the first match of Wrestlemania 41 and nobody can take that away

Combine the best matches from the two nights and it's an all-time great Mania. What the hell happened in Cena vs Cody? Last year Cody overcame all the odds and beat the most dominant champion in decades. This year, he has to lie around selling for five minutes while a stoned off his gourd Travis Scott does a walk-in? Cody looked like the dumbest babyface loser on two legs. And he got booed before the match even started! I guess the crowd really wanted to see Cena get the record.

Combine the best matches and you get 1 5 star match and a couple 3 star matches imo. Which, fair, would still be like the 15th best wm. But unfortunately it was 9 hours long or something with a million adverts and some bad matches too. Personally I didn’t care for the yeeter, as they wrestled like a computer game simulation was going slow to show you how to moves. Gunther looked like a chump.

Haven't seen everything yet (watching on delay is great for skipping through all the downtime between matches), but Rollins-Reigns-Punk and Belair-Ripley-Sky were classics. The IC 4-way and Gunther-Jay were good and had memorable finishes. Priest-McIntire was a fun, Attitude-era style brawl. Those five matches, plus the Becky Lynch return, plus Jacob Fatu going nova would make for an all-time great 4.5 hour Wrestlemania IMO.

Cena-Cody was too weird and two days later I still have no idea what they were trying to accomplish. I guess Rock bailed on the angle but they should have been able to pivot to anything better than what we got. I guess we're getting Orton vs Cena for the title in St. Louis at the next PPV, that seems cool at least.

wwe: a company for straight people who respect trump’s whole thing

I haven't watched NJPW regularly in years, but Tetsuya Naito wrestled possibly his last match for the company yesterday. This feels like it should be a bigger deal. Then again, Naito is beat up and probably not headed to the US like Okada and Nakamura did. I'm guessing he takes time off and freelances around Japan for a while.