Also jellyrolls chokeslam to Austin theory was actually beautiful

I’m rewatching on peacock now (since Cleveland is filled with assholes who need to rev their engines at 2am outside my hotel). I just saw where Rhea Ripley actually dislocated her shoulder, and then fucking popped it back in running into the announce table. Buddy Murphy is the biggest heel in my book (and a lucky dude). I may skip to the final match and see exactly what happened to Jacob. I couldn’t tell if it was his ankle or knee.

Unfortunately I can’t take screenshots on their stupid app on my iPad. I really wanted to get a shot of my “Logan Eats Corn The Long Way” sign. He actually reacted to it during his entrance.

I haven’t seen the playback on peacock, but dude was sitting in the corner of the ring for like 45-60 seconds with a steel chair before R-Truth and Miz finally hit their cue for him. I understand he obviously can’t slip in and make a sneak attack, but maybe book a better run-in for the benefit of the live crowd and the tv audience?

And I could imagine an old-school wrestling booker yelling “PUT YOUR OTHER HAND ON HIS BACK DAMMIT!” during the chokeslam. Granted I could probably see someone the size of Jelly Roll picking up a small person like Austin Theory (granted he’s 2 inches taller than me and about the same weight, but I don’t have pecs and abs like that in fairness). All in all, it popped the crowd. That’s all you gotta do.

Also happy to see the photos of Jacob Fatu wearing a compression shoe after summerslam, so hopefully he didn’t fuck himself up too badly, and thankfully it wasn’t his knee. Wonder if they’re going to tell him to relax with the flippy shit and just be a beast? I like the unpredictability of him that he can eat your eyeballs, and still run up the turnbuckles and moonsault on people. I wonder if he and Roman Reigns were supposed to interact originally?

Another interesting thing that came from summerslam is that Liv Morgan and Cody Rhodes were the only champs who retained. Almost everything developed or continued a storyline.

Liv Morgan helped with the dissolution of the Judgment Day and extends her story between Rhea and Dom (as long as they create a new gimmick for Rhea where she becomes a Road Warrior so she can wear shoulder pads to protect that damn right shoulder).

Bron Breakker should hopefully have a similar run as Gunther as IC champ. It may not have helped that he won in Cleveland where fans are prone to barking to know if he’ll be a heel or face.

LA Knight could wrestle as much as Logan Paul and probably still be over as long as they trot him out to cut promos. That might wear out over time though, so hopefully that is used to elevate others during his reign. In the meantime, get Carmelo Hayes a Tinder Platinum account so he can get laid, gain some confidence and personality, and then he could be a decent program with Knight. Or convince MJF to headlock someone in front of Tony Khan so he can get released and sign while Knight is still champ. That promo will be Rock v. Austin right before Wrestlemania 17.

Nia Jax… we’ll get to see Tiffany Stratton I guess?

Drew McIntyre, CM Punk, and Seth Rollins are putting people’s great-grandchildren through college. Over a god damn return and a friendship bracelet.

I hate saying this, but Gunther is holding the secondary title in the company (it’s the new IC title in a way). Let him do a long run with it and put some guys over along the way, then give him the real title in time. Unless a bunch of other people end up with caved in chests like Kofi Kingston, I don’t see his gimmick going away anytime soon. People around me in the crowd were calling his match “real man shit” watching him and Priest fuck each other up for real. That visual of Gunther’s chest bleeding too was *chef’s kiss*. Also can’t wait to see Priest and Balor in the near future to push Priest some more. Hopefully he sustains it.

And the main event is the longest of all long-term storytelling that they finally got Roman over after 10 years. I’m guessing like everyone else is predicting, this storyline will reintroduce Brock Lesnar after a while and people will forgive or forget that he was subscribed to McMahon’s and Laurinaitis‘s onlyfans. I’m guessing they’ve hired 87 more Pacific Islanders too, and maybe Tonga Loa will finally get his shit together before he’s future endeavored. And Cody will probably wrestle some folks. Honestly though, I heard conversations in the crowd that they’re growing bored of him. That would suck if he ends up like the end of his AEW run where he’s despised but persists. That work in the long term I guess since everyone is jacking off to John Cena’s upcoming retirement tour.

He reminds me of this goofy dude at my job. That’s quite an art where your self-confidence can surpass being brutally annoying and ends up being charming.

I’m just now finding out he’s from Scotland, which is probably why I immediately like him. Scotland was probably hands down the best place I ever visited based solely on the people and their wit, although I learned quickly that I indeed do not have a drinking problem. I am an amateur compared to those pros.

Would anyone else say that Michael Cole is finally tolerable without Vince barking stupid shit in his ear, and the commentary team just being allowed to tell the story of the match like humans?

Maybe bring back Tazz? They had a bit of chemistry back in the day.

This is one example of many of how Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn leaving the WWE has been a great thing for the television product. The camera work is infinitely more appealing, too.

Would love to see the company try to bring Mauro Ranallo back, too. He was dynamite behind the mic when he was allowed to be more of himself.

Micheal Cole was always my guy and I loved tazz on commentary

my dream return is Jim Ross

Ik he’s already resigned with AEW but it would be awesome

and again on Micheal Cole, I love his chemistry with pat mcafee, pat is a great addition to the commentary team especially with Cole

And we might get a Jesse Ventura return with Vince gone

maybe he’ll talk about his time when he was down at the Baja

Joe Hendry wins the NXT Title tomorrow at No Mercy or we riot.

He’s down to picking and choosing his own matches right now (I guess he did the main event for All In) due to health issues. I can’t imagine he has an unhealthy Fabergé egg addiction that he blew all his money on, and I do know his wife passed away a bit ago. I’m thinking like a mark to hope maybe he calls Punk v. Rollins at Wrestlemania. Really I just hope he enjoys what time he has left and knows that he will be regarded as legendary.

McAfee is like an enjoyable JBL. Weird though how many people from the sports-adjacent world, just like the entertainment-adjacent world are now coming to pro wrestling, which I guess is also sports-adjacent and entertainment-adjacent (I wonder if there’s a term for that they use?).

Also I'm hearing stories about Ricochet being terminally online and getting into it with a fan that really sounded like they were saying “I’ve never watched AEW, but now I’ll watch because I enjoy watching Ricochet”. He seemed to be criticizing his “fan” for maybe not being interested in something until something they took joy in (and honestly brought some of the whole indie wrestling to wrestling’s McDonalds) was a part of it.

Just a couple weekend notes for local wrestling if you're in the greater Philly area for wrestling:

CZW will be debuting in the Quakertown Farmer's market in Quakertown PA this saturday, bell time at 6. Planning to attend this one as a fan.

Phantom Six will be running their FIRST SHOW EVER! Sunday in Bethlehem PA at Bethlehem Brewing and they will be bringing in the TNA Tag Champions ABC for this one as well as an amazing card with all proceeds to suicide prevention. Will be working that one in whatever capacity promoter Dylan Quinn sees fit. Check out FB for more details! Tons of local wrestling out there that needs your dollar way more then WWE does this weekend and every other.

it sucks, but these pleas are what is keeping wrestling going on the small scale. Funny enough a site like this should be a gold mine for independent forms of entertainment to flourish, but alas.

And sadly this is at the point where the Amazon on rasslin’ is blowing away the metrics. Keep in mind; Triple H will have bad ideas (he fucked a mannequin after all), and wrestling will suck again. Shad Khan eventually will get an alert from his bank account, and the social experiment of TNA will eventually come to an end.

Hopefully, small-scale wrestling that is feasible can flourish in today’s society.

So… did this year’s Survivor Series hopefully put an end to WWE’s bullshit-ass variant of Wargames? I only look forward to whoever they have yell the name of the match for the cheap pop, but every match has been shit (and I was front-row for the 2022 event).

The women’s match really fit the narrative of “hey the guys have a match, so the women should get one too”. It blows my mind that those who are usually excellent workers (Bayley, Bianca Belair, Naomi) even looked like shit. Thankfully Nia Jax’s chairshots looked like garbage and nobody is potentially suffering traumatic brain injury, but god damn that looked like AIDS. And it’s unfortunate that Iyo Sky feels compelled to do a blind trust-fall into her co-workers (with a metal object wrapped around her). It’s shitty to think that 20ish years ago, women in this company would’ve been obligated to parade their tits and asses out in public view, but now they feel obligated to try to hurt themselves and others for a match that will really be forgotten.

And when 30% of your main event injure themselves, including Bronson Reed killing his popular run so he could be a fat guy jumping down 15 feet to break a table, and Tonga Loa sadly not doing his current run any favors, why do this shit? I was looking forward to Bronson Reed in the next few months being a menace, but at least CM Punk and Jacob Fatu seemed to escape unscathed so there’s at least some potential angles that can be forwarded for the next few months.

I have a weird proposition. Maybe, we can do a thing once a year where 5 folks have a conflict with 5 other folks, and to settle the score, they do a 5-on-5 match where they fight one another, and they eliminate members one by one until there’s one team left standing? Or, if we have to add the suspense of a cage to make it seem more dangerous, don’t waste the time of the competitors running down the aisle, and have them directly at ringside making noise and surrounding the cage menacingly, although they’ll want to quickly make their way into the cage instead of spending valuable time bringing the Home Depot into the ring (that is surrounded by hard, sharp metal mesh). And if you can get disqualified because you climb out the cage, then we should put a roof on it (and weirdly enough, people can’t jump off it if that matters).

I even have a good idea for the name of the match. For a 5-on-5 elimination match, the winners will be the team that survives a series of eliminations. We can call it… Paulie L’s Thanksgiving WrestleFest.

I have an inside scoop that someone is getting color next week on Smackdown.

I’m at Saturday Night Main Event tonight. They’re really playing up the nostalgia for this show.

What a pussy. Cody Rhodes takes one piledriver and gets stretchered out. He didn’t even take four of them on the ring apron or the steel steps. No wonder he wasn’t All Elite. 

Negative 5 stars. It would be negative 15 stars if it was in the Tokyo Dome.