The Official Professional Wrestling Thread

[Sativa Lung]

Claudio vs Buddy Matthews Full Gear pre show should be quite good

Buddy can work with a broomstick and make it look good so Ill definitely watch that. That fucker won me over purely on his in-ring (has he ever even cut a promo?) and despite being overrated in almost every other way Claudio is one of the best "bases" in the world so I would expect to see at least one WTF spot.

Watched some old stampede earlier and they had a few Rhonda Singh matches and I was pretty impressed. Power moves galore and she could move. She was definitely ahead of her time and it's a shame Vince turned her into a fat joke when he got ahold of her. He did the same thing with Mike Shaw who he turned into Bastion Booger/Friar Ferguson so maybe he really did secretly hate everything that came from stampede.

Ospreay is such a perfect fit for AEW so it was so obvious that everyone expected a swerve haha. This was all pretty much a done deal after the Wembley match with Jericho I'd imagine, they just had to wait for the legal side to get worked out. I fully expect him to be rocketed up and be facing Kenny for the belt at some point in the next year. If the intent is actually to run Wembley on bank holiday weekend (I really hope they don't because the attendance will almost certainly be lower and that's all anyone will talk about) then that would be the match I'd see as the only logical headliner.

Edit - just got home and watched Hangman Swerve. Holy shit. I knew they were going to bring the house down but that's on the level of War of Hell in my modern deathmatch ranking and I don't say that lightly. Good build and an amazing match.. please keep this feud going somehow I could watch those two all day. How the fuck is the handsome, chiseled, athletic Babyface cowboy with dreamy blue eyes secretly the best deathmatch wrestler in the company?

[Atiba Applebum]

Apparently AEW has an edge with these NJPW wrestlers bc of the agreement between the promotions means it isn’t tampering if AEW talks before their contract is up bc Osprey was done with NJ’s blessing

[Atiba Applebum]

Looks like Louie Lopez was there live (probably due to the signing at FA).   Wonder what he made of that Swerve/Page match.   Finally caught up to it today.   Jesus

[j....soy.....]

Why did they put Hogan and Mr. T in the Primitive collab…..

[SHAQUEEFA]

I saw some footage from the meet and greet at the FA store and it looked pretty fun, although I did see in the comments that it was $125 for the autograph and photo package deal. I guess that is pretty standard rates if you went to a convention and met them all separately though.

You could wait in a line and get chopped by Brody King as well and that looked pretty cool.

PPV was decent enough except for the main event booking which was just a mess. Like we believed Adam Cole was magically gonna be ready to wrestle..

Gotta shout out Kota Ibushi for that awful display on the bicycle on dynamite as well. That was comically bad.

Love Love Love Toni Storm and its pretty funny that Luther is now her butler.

[Bobby Peru]

Agreed the main event was silly but still fun. MJF selling a bad knee and still jumping over the top rope to diamond cutter Jay White to the floor didn’t quite add up, but was goofy enough to be funny. Also loved MJF saying “fuck it” to the botched table spot and elbow dropping straight to the floor.

Swerve/Hangman was NUTS. Started on an EXTREMELY high bar and stayed heavy the whole way through. It’s one of those matches I feel like I have to call my non-wrestling friends and tell them about.

[Atiba Applebum]

I saw some footage from the meet and greet at the FA store and it looked pretty fun, although I did see in the comments that it was $125 for the autograph and photo package deal. I guess that is pretty standard rates if you went to a convention and met them all separately though.

You could wait in a line and get chopped by Brody King as well and that looked pretty cool.

PPV was decent enough except for the main event booking which was just a mess. Like we believed Adam Cole was magically gonna be ready to wrestle..

Gotta shout out Kota Ibushi for that awful display on the bicycle on dynamite as well. That was comically bad.

Love Love Love Toni Storm and its pretty funny that Luther is now her butler.

Brody was in FA with Darby and in S1 of I Think You Should Leave - he’s really done all you can to be a peripheral skater besides get tacos with Atiba


Love Toni Storm too.   I like when a new gimmick comes up and just works so well as well as giving feeding naturally that new talent they signed as an All About Eve scenario.   


Read in some dirt sheets that the Fed doesn’t think they actually have a chance for MJF so they’re trying to get the word out to spoil his “biggest contract negotiation” bit.   


It just feels like AEW is on the rise for the first time since the CM Punk shenanigans

[PatrickSkateman]

https://primitiveskate.com/collections/wwe

Wayyy better than the Palace collab.

[Atiba Applebum]

Ronda popped up in ROH and had a pretty good showing in a tag match.  Seems like a one-off

[Billy Bitchcakes]

Why did they announce Ospreay so long before he's done with NJPW? Are they trying to get ahead of something or did TK just use it to try and push some more PPV buys? Seems it would've made more sense to announce at World's End. Maybe someone else will show up there

[Atiba Applebum]

Why did they announce Ospreay so long before he's done with NJPW? Are they trying to get ahead of something or did TK just use it to try and push some more PPV buys? Seems it would've made more sense to announce at World's End. Maybe someone else will show up there

I think as a pure PR move to show AEW is still the place premier free agents are choosing after recent speculation he could go to the Fed, but I don’t doubt it attracted eyes to the PPV   

[Atiba Applebum]

Working so hard to deny it, shouldn’t have been surprising

[Billy Bitchcakes]

Why did they announce Ospreay so long before he's done with NJPW? Are they trying to get ahead of something or did TK just use it to try and push some more PPV buys? Seems it would've made more sense to announce at World's End. Maybe someone else will show up there

NVM think I know the answer now

[Mr. Kamikazi]

CM Punk returns to WWE.

Survivor series last night was grand.

Gunther vs the Miz was a golden match with Miz really testing Gunther & actually making you believe for a second he may win. Gunther retains with a modified Boston crab submission.

Dragon Lee & Santos Escobar also kept me glued to the tv set & I'm actually stoked Escobar dominated & won as we are getting to see him shine a bit. Also stoked Lee is getting a push on Smackdown.

[Dante Bichette]

Mad props to WWE for how well they kept the Punk return under wraps.

[Atiba Applebum]

Mad props to WWE for how well they kept the Punk return under wraps.

A lot of people are saying this, but did they really keep it a secret?   It was a known possibility that was denied seemingly every day this week, but I think most people thought it was far-fetched enough considering Punks bad history with a lot of people involved (plus, the honeymoon after that initial pop gets shorter and shorter) and would need visual proof before they believed it anyways

[Dante Bichette]

Expand Quote

Mad props to WWE for how well they kept the Punk return under wraps.

[close]

A lot of people are saying this, but did they really keep it a secret?   It was a known possibility that was denied seemingly every day this week, but I think most people thought it was far-fetched enough considering Punks bad history with a lot of people involved (plus, the honeymoon after that initial pop gets shorter and shorter) and would need visual proof before they believed it anyways

Maybe I just spent too much time on the SquaredCircle subreddit but everyone including me seemed to think it was no way this was happening mostly due to every reputable wrestling reporter saying it flat out won’t happen.

[Atiba Applebum]

Expand Quote

Expand Quote

Mad props to WWE for how well they kept the Punk return under wraps.

[close]

A lot of people are saying this, but did they really keep it a secret?   It was a known possibility that was denied seemingly every day this week, but I think most people thought it was far-fetched enough considering Punks bad history with a lot of people involved (plus, the honeymoon after that initial pop gets shorter and shorter) and would need visual proof before they believed it anyways

[close]

Maybe I just spent too much time on the SquaredCircle subreddit but everyone including me seemed to think it was no way this was happening mostly due to every reputable wrestling reporter saying it flat out won’t happen.

Right I’m with you on that … I just think to praise the Fed for keeping it a secret, there wouldn’t have even been the rampant speculation.   It got to the point where they were denying it a little too much in retrospect

[Mr. Kamikazi]

Pretty well kept in the sense that it was not announced to anyone internally until a few hours before. Sounds like a lot of people are disgruntled including Drew McIntyre.



Hoping Seth Rollins & Punk have a mania match. While I'm not a huge Priest fan, I’d love for him to cash in on Rollins the way he did when he first won gold against Lesnar & Reigns.

[Atiba Applebum]

On the positive side, they made Survivor Series finally feel like one of the Big Four PPVs


Negative side, we’re now in Royal Rumble season which means the utterly pointless “declare for the Rumble” promos as if there isn’t more than enough room for everyone

[blurst_of_times]

Been a bit since I've posted in here.

Survivor Series was great, women's War Games match was exceptional from first entrance to final bell. Iyo, Bayley and Charlotte all really shined.

I went to Dynamite last night, my first live AEW event. It was good, better than what some people make it out to be. Top Flight and Julia Hart are from the Twin Cities, so they had matches and got big pops. Swerve Strickland is also extremely over, it seems - probably the biggest pop of the night. We stayed for the Rampage taping and got to see Sting and Ric Flair speak for a bit - Ric talked a little bit about working for Verne Gagne, which was fun as well. Biggest critique of the night for me is that they hardly promoted any of the women's division. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but there were only 2 women's matches over three hours, and there was little to no presence of them in promo packages throughout the night.

[SHAQUEEFA]

Actually enjoyed an entire episode of Dynamite which hasn't happened in awhile.

Loving the MJF/Joe angle with Joe being the savior to protect Max and make sure he gets to their match as healthy as possible.

They really DID NOT need to replay the dante Martin injury though. Why would they highlight that the guys take really risky bumps and are constantly getting hurt.

Swerve and Jay White was awesome.

I really like RUSH.

I also really like that Julia Hart didn't die her hair black when she joined HOB.

[Atiba Applebum]

Yeah the blonde suits the look too.  If she went too goth she’s look like mini Rhea Ripley.   (Saying this made me realize she’s not far from female Darby)


Speaking of Darby, saw people speculating that he could be the final opponent for Sting at the Greensboro Colosseum

[PatrickSkateman]

I think I might get Punk - Rollins for my Wrestlemania night 2 draw. So glad I got my ticket.

[SHAQUEEFA]

Gotta say that the no storyline and just good match edition of Dynamite last night was pretty good.

I really like Rush.

Swerve should be fighting for a title at some point in 2024.

I hope Joe wins the title and somehow we get a heel MJF back, this babyface shit aint working for me.

Dolph Ziggler to AEW?

[SHAQUEEFA]

Damn.

Diverticulitus for Kenny Omega.

Another ripple in AEW booking that Tony isn't ready for or creative enough to book around.

I could see Sammy coming back to fill the spot but they are supposed to be the faces and everybody hates sammy.

Maybe a lengthy and meaningless tournament to determine Jericho's new partner? HA!

[PatrickSkateman]

Sasha Banks Rumble return?

[PatrickSkateman]

Anyone see The Iron Claw yet? I’m planning to catch it this week since I’m off.

[Atiba Applebum]

Anyone see The Iron Claw yet? I’m planning to catch it this week since I’m off.

Nah.  I watched the Cassandro El Exotico movie instead bc it wasn’t going to be a mega-bummer

[Atiba Applebum]

Scotty 2 Hotty huh