I'm guessing he wants to be successful without his name attached to his family. Odd choice since most people seem to know about it anyway.

Haha one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

I’ll be at smackdown this Friday in MSG. I hope Triple Paul and Steph’s kids enjoy their college tuition that I just purchased for their asses with those ticket prices…

Seems like last Friday’s show was really stacked with having CM Punk get murdered by Drew McIntyre, AND god damn Jacob Fatu’s debut. I’d have to guess though that some shit is going to have to go down if they’re doing an MSG show. Maybe the reintroduction of the Rodney Mack 5-Minute White Boy Challenge complete with manager Teddy Long? Or Shane McMahon comes out and injures himself during a Mean Street Posse reunion?

WWE Raw on Netflix will be “uncensored”.

Could be a double-edged sword. I’ll pop big when Drew McIntyre calls CM Punk a cunt in a heated promo and gets punched in the mouth, but it’ll be diluted when the women’s segment is “bitch bitch BITCHHHHHHH!” for 10 minutes, or Otis v. R-Truth in a barbed-wire deathmatch. So far the new regime seems to realize that moderation is key without risking burning yourself or your audience out.

The big thing that you have to remember is that WWE has lots of sponsors to appease and that it wasn't just the TV networks making them reign things in. Companies like toy manufacturer Mattel aren't going to be cool if every WWE talent starts dropping curse words and slurs like they're in an episode of the Sopranos and they're certainly not going to love having their brand logos right next to endless garbage wrestling with weapons where people bleed like stuck pigs all of the time. I don't think HHH is going to jeopardize millions of dollars just to have a wrestler do a dirty joke about women and then punch a female in the mouth for one angle.

I think this is a move to be celebrated and I'm glad we're leaving that overly-sanitized product that dominated during a lot of John Cena's time as champion behind, but let's not act like Raw is going to start looking like 1998 ECW next year.

I doubt that WWE will go back to the Attitude Era excess when Raw goes to Netflix, partly due to the heavy amount of sponsorships and brand marketing they done over the years. Smackdown will mostly remain the same, but they are on Fox (and will return to USA network with their S&P) though SD was usually more about the wrestling anyway.

(That, and most Attitude Era gimmicks have been done to death by TNA and AEW to diminishing returns)

That said, if AEW can produce a relatively more adult product and still keep their sponsors, the WWE should be able to copy their homework and do a better presentation with it to boot.

Ha. Madison Square Garden damn near broke out into a riot after the Bloodline put Paul Heyman through the announce table.

Watching back something on TV is very helpful in realizing who has wrestling psychology. So Jaylen Brunson is getting ready to bash the head in of his arch-nemesis Tyrese Halliburton with a steel chair. In front of the home crowd in his own stadium. The Garden. So he slides the chair into the ring. In fact, he slides it right to his opponent. Ever aware of what is going on, LA Knight grabs the sliding chair to prevent the clumsy rescue attempt from going awry. Hell, even Halliburton, who I guess was just frozen in fear of seeing that upcoming chair attack, didn’t even reach for the weapon being offered to him by his enemy.

What a fortnight, with Forbidden Door last weekend and Money in the Bank this weekend! Also with Raw going to Netflix, is that just Raw? Will the PLE's, Smackdown, and NXT stick to Peacock and USA/Fox?

NXT moved to the CW channel so maybe but i have a strong feeling that Smackdown and NXT will stick with its main programming

PLEs also still on peacock

Other then that: I am gonna try catch money in the bank on peacock

last PLE I watched was royal rumble 2024

How many more botches is Damian Priest going to commit? Unless somehow they were supposed to hit Drew’s music during the count.

It felt to me like it was a timing issue where Drew's entrance music hitting was supposed to coincide with the three-count with the implication being that Seth WAS going to win cleanly until Drew distracted the referee with his blaring theme song. Clearly, they were WAY off and it just looked like the official did a heel maneuver where he stopped before counting the final three.

Botches happen in this line of work, unfortunately. Just stinks that this one was so crucial to how this match flowed.

Also, John Cena says that he is retiring for real in 2025. How we feeling about that?

I'm not surprised, but it still hurts to hear. I'm glad we can at least get a yearlong retirement tour. I'm quite curious about what it will entail.

Also, I think Heatwave may have been better than Money in The Bank.

Sounds like the talking point is he just forgot to kick out, but they even got ahead of the potential story that Damian was potentially knocked out. Seems weird that they are even acknowledging a botch, but maybe that’s to avoid accusations that someone competed with a concussion.

Poor Rod Zapata was also the ref for Becky Lynch pinning Ronda Rousey at Wrestlemania 35 (which he got fined for). Poor bastard probably thought “fuck me, not again!” Weirdly, that spared several storylines because the ref went into business for… well, the business.

To play Tony Khan message-board booker, I think a double-down situation where McIntyre then comes down to exploit the situation would’ve worked better than creating a situation where both wrestlers in the ring, the ref, and the music guy all have to coordinate (even though there’s a small army at Gorilla to coordinate all of that). It was a predictable ending; Drew announced he was going to interrupt the match if he won the briefcase, and obviously CM Punk was going to interfere. I will say that was a great touch that now Priest and Rollins have an issue with Punk to create more stories along with the ongoing feud with Drew.

Hopefully he does a hair v. hair match at some point…

Great way to sell some future tickets just like Sting’s retirement tour. Other than his run-in at the end of Wrestlemania 40, the last time I saw Cena live was around 2016 at Mohegan Sun (I kind of miss the “John Cena Sucksssss” chants during his entrance). Glad he’s finally somewhat organically over in the last few years rather than being forced down everyone’s throat, so he maybe won’t contend with the “mixed reaction crowds” on the end and might put some worthwhile heels over.

I will declare now though that he won’t break Flair’s title record (if you buy that Ric Flair only won 16 world titles) during his retirement run. I’m guessing someone at the top of WWE still has a soft spot for Ric to have that happen.

what happened to Nikkita Lyons? That was some quality TV, ha.

Wholeheartedly disagree on this.

John has been the PERFECT model employee for WWE over the last 20+ years with how he's carried himself in and out of the ring and, despite the mixed crowd reactions he always got, is regarded with a TON of respect amongst the locker room and office based on what I've heard from almost everyone that's worked with him.

Mix that with the fact that Ric Flair is currently signed with WWE's main rival in AEW and I think it's a given that the company will at least attempt the storyline where John seriously contends for the world championship. I'd go so far as to say that he's the favorite to win the 2025 Royal Rumble as of this moment.

You know, I slept on my comment, and regret I let the edit feature lapsing on it. But you’re 100% correct that Cena is pretty much right next to Taker in terms of company man. There’s tons more arguments against my original comment than some bullshit loyalty pledge between two guys who worked together for a few years.

Like you mentioned, Flair is working for their rival. And although they don’t directly try to bury their competition (see Punk’s promo last night where he slid in that comment about fans behind the hard cam), they are contrasting themselves with the competition a ton to build up their public perception, even if they commit a lot of the same sins as their rivals, or put extra effort into not appearing to bury the competition. Example: I’m guessing whoever wrote Gunther’s promo also last night listens to Cornette’s podcast. It was just missing Brian Last’s forced laughter.

Also Flair hasn’t had the best publicity in the past few articles. And while Triple Paul may have control over general storylines, if Cena breaking Flair’s record potentially signs more people up to Netflix, then Ric who? Also may be a way of relaying that your legacy will remain intact with the big brand, as long as you don’t fuck up…

I'm honestly torn on this. Giving John Cena one last world title and surpass Ric Flair will look great for the WWE lore and would send him out as the GOAT. (With one company compared to Ric Flair's constantly moving around different federations)

OTOH, giving a token world championship to Cena, who is a part-timer probably would put a sour taste in people's mouth after so many part-timers in the recent past. What rehabed John Cena's image in recent years was his ability to give more superstars a push instead of constantly burying them.(even if was more so the booking than anything else) Plus, most of his matches will be on PLEs anyway aside from some token appearances here or there on TV, so it wouldn't make sense to give him a world title.

Look for me tonight on Smackdown from Woooooostahhh Mass.

We’ll see if the event staff allows the other sign i stuffed in my pocket.

Hahaha, ha.

I was all over the show like I was related to Dwayne.

You absolute legend

Wait, why are they giving away MJF v. Will Osprey away on free TV instead of at a pay-per-view?

Do you fellas believe in Joe Hendry?

I love this guy lol

In Cleveland for Summerslam. Second go-home Smackdown before one of the big four where my sign to pop the boys (and 3 women) back at work was confiscated to not “block the camera”. I’m thinking I’ll just cram my signs all in my pocket tonight to avoid any of that bullshit.

actually catching summerslam on peacock

only 10 mins before the matches start

Other than the multiple injuries, great show tonight. Hope Jacob Fatu didn’t fuck himself up too badly.

I enjoyed this show heavily

very good

tho that Jacob injury did look scary