The women’s Elimination Chamber participants are announced, Jason Jordan screws up and upsets Seth Rollins again, Alexa Bliss thinks Kurt Angle’s matchmaking is sexist, Roman Reigns vs Bray Wyatt, Asuka vs Bayley, Braun Strowman competes with Elias and John Cena to enter last in the Elimination Chamber.
We also discuss Ring of Honor and All Japan ProWrestling’s new streaming services,Cody vs Kenny Omega at Supercard of Honor XII, what we want to see from wrestlers without matches at WrestleMania and more.
Man this show was hilarious, way more entertaining than the actual RAW. John recapping the Alexa/Kurt segment was comedy gold.
One note for your Mania game. If Samoa Joe is back I think something with him and Balor would be fantastic. Especially if you don’t do a 3 on 3 with the club.
Roman proves how great he is by actually making Bray Wyatt look passable/good where Bray is the bane of every other wrestlers career in recent years. Poor Matt…even if the woken gimmick were gold his matches would still be atrocious with Bray putting a stain on the feud.
Womans elimination chamber is weak.
Most of the participants have not been built up. Bayley is at one of the weakest points in her career and then we have Sasha…the only actual competitor.
Imagine if the mens match was the Mizterage, the Sighn brothers and Roman Reigns. Epic!
Get These Hands is a great catch phrase? Really?
Its a joke to me. His prior catch phrase of “I’m not finished with you!” while attacking someone whose crippled in an ambulance bed wasn’t any better mind you.
Mickey vs Deville was awful.
Deville as i all about the striking and having Mickey basically no sell it to get the pin just completely buries the entire character. We just saw Brock Lesnar almost knock out Braun on ppv with two quick punches to the face. That’s Deville’s whole character and here we have a Mickey just shrugging it off. Complete and utter burial. Hopefully they know better when Ronda delivers strikes during her run.
Regarding Elias:
I feel he has the same problem Miz has. He’s phenominal on the mic but nothing he does actually accomplishes what you want out of a promo. I have yet to look forward to an Elias match. I don’t want to watch Elias wrestle. Same can be said for the Miz. It’s a real shame that they have characters like these and even Enzo that have the charisma and personality but can’t put on an entertaining match.
Regarding Braun:
I’ve been pretty down on this character for months now and I’ve since tapped out on caring about him. Put simply. He’s in the wrong company or at least in the wrong era. Look at why persona’s like Bray, Kane, and Undertaker don’t work in 2018 and you have Braun. He’s a comic book character on a show that’s trying to viewed as a legitimate MMA style event.
Braun is more entertaining than a 2018 Kane or Bray Wyatt admittedly…but he doesn’t belong any more than the others. They dialed his superhero nature up to 11 and then had him lose 80% of his matches for months now. It doesn’t add up and since you can’t easily dial Braun up to 12 now he just looks stale.
This whole thing might have worked if Braun won the title from Brock last year on PPV and had been completely unstoppable literally squashing every legit top contender on PPV title defenses since then
Overall Thoughts:
Slightly below average show but nothing bad.
Injuries are really hurting the company. I’m most attached to Jason Jordan’s story by far and the injury has really killed the momentum he had coming off Raw 25’s thunderous boos.
I like the greater focus on the womans division in general and I hope this keeps up. You can already feel the impact of Ronda on this company as Raw could shift to a show that’s literally 50% men and woman rather than 85% men and your one womans segment/match.
Injury Thoughts:
We’ve seen this year after year leading into Wrestlemania in particular.
Why does the company refuse to learn?
Give your workers time off to stay rested and healthy.
Every single performer except Brock deserves to have their work dates cut in HALF.
You have a bloated roster and yet you put the same people on week to week making them over exposed. Focus on different characters and storylines from week to week. People won’t forget whats happening because your recap nature of the show combined with Kurt telling us all what happened won’t let people forget.
Work a safer style. Its been said many times but if we see suicide dives every match in every show then they are no longer special.
Create a work environment where wrestlers don’t feel pressured to go out and work while injured or hiding injuries in order to keep working.
Seth vs Jason Jordan: A natural conclusion to their existing storyline and both men can go. Jordan definitely needs the big win in this feud. He’s a genuine heel who also looks strong in the ring which is very rare for this company.
Kurt vs Braun: Another natural feud. Think of all the highlight packages that would feature our favorite moments including “oh god, those trucks cost 12 million dollars”. Braun goes over. Obviously.
Sasha vs Bayley: Not a great match because Bayley is nothing right now. But the story and importance is there. Either side could win this one as it could be a means to catapult Bayley into something new for her character. Sasha going over could help build her as a more of a true competitor against Ronda Rousey.
Finn (Balor Club) vs The Miz and Mizterage: They are building Miz to look strong right now and this can help him give the rub to Balor club as Miz eats the pin from Finn.
Bray: Keep him off the show. If had absolutely had to be on the show then it should be something that creates a shift in character. For example have a Fatal Fourway that includes Bray and Matt with two others…where the highlight is Bray and Matt join forces as part of the Woken family. This would be a pre-show match or a buzz kill match to bring down the audience WWE style.
Hulk Hogan: Not on the show…he should never appear on WWE tv again. Keep him on the network though.
Bobby Lashly: I agree that he seems perfect for a post-mania program. Running him against Brock would immediately push him into the top of the card and Bobby as a Lesnar replacement getting the rub seems like a great idea.
Sasha is no where near Roman levels of competitive.
Unfortunately this is a case of WWE wanting to ride the wave of “History Making” in the women’s division all the way to WrestleMania. You can see the logic; first women’s Rumble with the winner getting a title shot at 'Mania, trot out Ronda for that sweet, sweet mainstream press, announce the first ever women’s Elimination Chamber to bridge the gap between the Rumble and 'Mania and try to keep people’s attention on the division for as long as it takes for Rousey’s movie to wrap… they just didn’t bother to consider whether or not they had the numbers to do it. Without Asuka and without raiding other rosters (SDL or NXT) they just don’t have the amount of made women to do it. Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville should be no where near this in any instance and the others have all been subject to terrible booking over the last twelve months so they just don’t look strong.
It’d be a very different story if you removed Absolution and inserted Nikki Cross and either Baszler or Rousey… but that situation isn’t feasible right now, for obvious reasons.
WWE has a very strong womans division when you consider both rosters. Part of me wants to see them merge on to one show either to take up a dedicate hour of Raw every week (they could do multiple story lines that way).
Or if you really wanted to get nuts you could turn Smackdown into the all womans show (205 live post show still) and make 3 hour raws more entertaining by the influx of new male talent over there. That idea would drastically change the show and truly differentiate Raw and Smackdown shows though. Can’t have that!
Did John come up with the idea of a Fabulous Moolah Memorial Battle Royal? He mentioned the idea out of nowhere on the podcast and I literally laughed out loud. It totally sounds like something WWE would do.
I’ve been saying since before the Mae Young Classic that they should move 205 Live to Full Sail, turn NXT into a touring brand that only occasionally pops back to that venue and give the women an hour long show to themselves on the main roster. Either make the women’s division exclusively SmackDown’s or - perhaps the better version - have RAW trade the entire cruiserweight division to SmackDown for their women and promote it right; not like a lesser division (a la the cruisers) but as a way to maximise opportunities within the women’s ranks and help grow the division to include tag titles and even potentially a mid-card title. They have the talent to make it work, they’re just afraid of not being able to frame any way that doesn’t make it fail like they have for so long with 205 Live.
It’s funny but it won’t happen. The Mae Young Classic was called that regardless of the fact the Moolah had a far more extensive history with WWE and that was because if anyone wants to do their research for a minute Moolah’s past is not exactly a glowing one and they didn’t want to look like they were honouring someone who took advantage of so many women in the way she did.
I don’t want another Battle Royal at WrestleMania, but for years they did those SmackDown vs. RAW multi-woman tag matches. That’s a nice and easy way to tick that box without having to repeat the same match again later on the show - especially so soon after the Rumble with it fresh in everyone’s minds. A ten minute six, eight or ten woman tag match could be a lot fun if it was booked right.
