Kam

WOW...talk about a blast from the past! :eek: Hope you are keeping well! I remember catching some of WCW which I think used to air late night on ITV. Once Nitro got going they aired it on TNT over here, so I watched that every week. I never watched any of the PPVs though as they never showed them over here. I've got the WWE Network but I've never really felt like watching the PPVs now, I think I'll find it pretty depressing compared to these days.

Oops - I edited my post - ECW ended a LONG time ago! I meant AEW :oops2:

I think he'll be good for AEW...although I see him more similar to MJF character wise. Speaking of the WWE layoffs, I'd like to see Rusev show up too.

I like Taker and the deadman gimmick, he's had some great matches but his age has been showing more and more. Night #2 thoughts... ‪NXT Women’s Championship Rhea Ripley vs Charlotte Flair ‬ Charlotte ended Asuka's undefeated streak by making her tap out at WrestleMania and she never really recovered from it (maybe this year?). I hope Rhea doesn't end up in the same boat. Hopefully the plan is for them to do a rematch (when they can do normal shows again) and Rhea picks up her win then. The match was OK, I was a little disappointed with Charlotte making her tap. ‪Aleister Black vs Bobby Lashley ‬ It was alright, I wasn't that fussed about it. Dolph Ziggler vs Otis ‬ Match was OK for what it was. We've seen so many of these angles in the past where they have one of the divas fall for someone unexpected, I can't ever remember liking them. Although I had a look at WWE's Youtube channel and the most-watched clip from WrestleMania is the Otis/Mandy one with 1.3 million views (as of now). The majority of WrestleMania clips have under 500k views - so people are obviously interested. RAW Tag-Team Championships The Street Profits vs Angel Garza & Austin Theory This was ok, it felt more like a Raw match. A nice moment with Bianca running in but I was surprised they didn't mention that Ford was her husband. I guess that means this is just a one-off as I can't see her coming up to Raw yet. I'd like to see her have a run with the NXT Women's title first. ‪Last Man Standing Match Edge vs Randy Orton ‬ I liked what they did with this match but I thought it went on too long. It was almost 40 mins. It would have been better if they shortened it. There were so many moments where I thought it was about to finish but then it carried on..and on...and on. SmackDown Women’s Championship Fatal 5-Way Elimination Match Bayley vs Lacey Evans vs Sasha Banks vs Tamina vs Naomi ‬ For a moment I thought they were going to make Lacey win which would have been terrible. She's still not shown me anything that makes her a worthy titleholder. Nice little tease with Sasha and Baley but the right person won. ‪Firefly Fun House Match John Cena vs The Fiend Bray Wyatt I really enjoyed this, it was totally bonkers. It's not something I'd like to see all the time but as a one-off it was fun. WWE Championship Brock Lesnar vs Drew McIntyre ‬ This seemed just like the Universal title match with them just delivering finisher after finisher. There's not really much else to say about it as it was so short. When you look at the amount of time given to both the men's title matches (across both nights), it's less than 10 minutes combined in a 6.5 hour show! Overall, WrestleMania was okay, I had low expectations and they had a few good moments but it just didn't feel like WrestleMania without the crowd or the staging/entrances etc. ‬

There would have been some commitments with sponsors but ultimately it would have been Vince's decision. Every other major sporting event has been cancelled, WrestleMania is the only one I'm aware of that went ahead. I'm sure everyone would have understood if the event was postponed to later in the year. I think it's probably more likely Vince thinking he might be able to get more people watching/paying for it as nothing else is on. It will be interesting to see how the buyrate does, it was about $59.99 on PPV (for both nights), I wonder how many people actually paid. I'm sure most fans would have watched via the WWE Network ($9.99) but I think they might have got some casual fans to watch. We get it live but most people would probably watch it the following morning as it beings around midnight here (for each night). My thoughts on Night #1: I was disappointed with the set. I know they were limited with space but I thought they'd try and do something special to make it stand out more, especially the stage area. The song by The Weekend (Blinding Lights) really grew on me during the show - I love the 80s inspired part that they used when the graphics appeared before each match. You could tell everyone was told to be more vocal to try and add some noise to the event :) ‪Women’s Tag-Team Championship Match Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs The Kabuki Warriors ‬ Match was okay, Nikki looked good. Asuka was very loud :) I still find the team of Nikki and Alexa odd, they don't seem to fit, for me anyway. Elias vs Baron Corbin ‬ I was surprised they didn't show Rob/Mojo during the match considering their connection to it. I thought at the every least they'd show Rob/Mojo celebrating when Corbin lost. Okay match. ‪RAW Women’s Championship Becky Lynch vs Shayna Baszler I was a little disappointed by this one, I was hoping for something more, was okay. I think if this went ahead in the stadium with a crowd, Shayna would have won. ‪Intercontinental Championship Sami Zayn vs Daniel Bryan ‬ Pretty much went how I expected. SmackDown Tag-Team Championships Triple Threat Ladder Match John Morrison vs. Jimmy Uso vs. Kofi Kingston This was good, although it makes it so noticeable there is no crowd when they did some of their big spots.I quite liked the finish with them all grabbing the titles and Morrison falling off with them. (I know we've seen similar stuff before). Seth Rollins vs Kevin Owens ‬ I liked Seth's outfit :) This was good, nice spot from Kevin at the end. WWE Universal Championship Goldberg vs Braun Strowman We all knew this would be quick, was fine for what it was. ‪Boneyard Match The Undertaker vs AJ Styles ‬ I was surprised by this match. I quite enjoyed it, despite the cheesy moments. I liked the entrances, use of music and pyro. Match seemed good, it's the best Undertaker has looked in AGES. There were quite a few moments that had me smiling (like when AJ was about to bury Taker). I thought we might see Michelle back considering they've mentioned her so much. I was even thinking she might have another run (after Mania) to go for one of the women's titles. Overall, it was okay. I would have preferred it if they tried to make some of earlier matches more special, it felt like it was only the main event and Rollins/Owens that had anything special to them. It was alright.

@Knox - I amended your post to include the poster/scheduled matches, we might as well make this the official discussion thread :) I know some of the matches have changed but I've left it to how WWE have it announced at the moment. This feels so surreal for me. I cannot believe we're going to get WrestleMania with no crowd, I just can't see it feeling special at all. I would have preferred it if they delayed it. They could have set something up in the storyline to say, all WrestleMania opponents had to stay away from each other until the event was rescheduled. In the meantime, they could have run some alternative feuds for a month or two. Rather than looking forward to the event I'm kinda dreading it. I hope I'm wrong and they put something great together but I can't see it happening.

I thought it was another good episode. I hadn't seen the trailer so was surprised to see a battle. In the past, they'd tend to hype it up over lots of episodes before we finally got to it. Since the mid-season break it's nice to see them speed up the pace. I'm enjoying the show again. I feel like Negan's plan was to infiltrate The Whisperers however it will probably be harder than he anticipated. I'm intrigued to see if Alpha might test his loyalty by asking him to kill one of the Hilltop community. I'm expecting him to turn on Alpha and co...I just don't know how long we're going to have to wait before that happens. I hope the Stephanie/Eugene plot doesn't end up in a scenario where things seem too good to be true - we've had that SO many times before!

I noticed Amell too but thought it can't have been him since he wasn't mentioned at all. Glad to see you enjoyed it as much as I did!

I watched Revolution - I thought it was excellent! Jake Hager / Dustin Rhodes - Good opener, did what it needed to do Darby Allin / Sammy Guevara - How over is Darby?! He's got a great look/presence, some nice moments in this one. I'm glad Darby one but I'd like to see Sammy pick up some more wins. Good match. Kenny Omega and Adam Page / The Young Bucks - Great match, my favourite from the night, I didn't have any idea who would win or if any of them would turn on each other, really enjoyed it. Nyla Rose / Kris Statlander - This was my least favourite match of the night, it was alright but nothing stood out for me. MJF / Cody - This was good, I was hoping for something a little bit more but I still enjoyed it. Pac / Orange Cassidy - This one surpassed expectations, really enjoyed it, was a fun match where both men came out looking good. Jon Moxley / Chris Jericho - Loved Jericho's choir! This was good too, I thought Jericho would retain but I'm OK with Moxley taking the title too. Overall, a fun show (helped by a very vocal crowd) with some great matches!

I was actually hoping to run a new season in time for 'Mania' season...however I don't think I'll have things ready in time. I've been spending most of my time upgrading the COW site...which is almost finished. Once that's done, the next step was to upgrade TWO. It's more background/coding stuff, so no real visible changes but I wanted that out the way before launching another season. I've started keeping tabs on WWE shows again...so that's the first big step out the way :p

It wasn't a great episode last week, the one segment I had to mention is THE BLADE...AND THE BUTCHER...AND THE BUNNY! I was seriously thinking I must have missed something with Excalibur constantly repeating their names as if we're meant to know who they are. I'm glad Ross asked that question because I thought I'd missed something somwhere :p They had a good look, it's a shame their introduction wasn't better thought out. I'm not sure about attacking Cody either. If it's because Allie has a beef with Brandi, it's a weak link. I guess it could lead to Cody teaming with Dustin but that wouldn't be great for BBB as I can't see them beating the Rhodes Bros.

Some random notes from this week's show: I laughed at the thought of Seth telling the roster to be better when he's not even the champ :) Matt Hardy looked great in the retro attire. I worry for Murphy, I'm not sure why they're giving him to Black rather than someone else. Murphy deserves a decent push but it doesn't look like he's going to get it. I can't see anything other than Black beating him. The 4-way match was good and Rey was awesome once again. I wasn't expecting him to win the title so that was a nice surprise. Charlotte/Asuka felt like it went on forever, it was alright but I hate that it took Sane's interference and the mist for Asuka to defeat her. I know she's a heel...but I still get annoyed seeing Asuka's downfall since the NXT reign. The current run with Sane has so much potential, I hope WWE can get behind it. So...AOP to be Seth's new backup?

Great review @Zack T I've not watched any of the pre-show but I did watch all the main show. Going from the excellent women's wargames match to the Survivor Series elimination match was a comedown! I was surprised to see who the NXT team was after seeing some of them try to kill each other the night before :) It felt so strange seeing them all pally pally with each other so soon after. I also don't get why some of the women were making the saves when a member of the other brand was going to be eliminated. As Zack already pointed out, what was the point of LeRay and Shirai feigning injury when they knew their team would be at a disadvantage. Silly booking. IC title match was good, all 3 looked strong. Cole/Dunn was great but having a quiet crowd didn't help. Fiend/Bryan was OK, I've said it before but I HATE the red light. I thought Bryan did well to get the crowd on side, loudest reaction of the night. I totally forgot Mysterio/Lesnar was happening, it was pretty much what I expected. It was nice to see Dominic get involved, it felt like the crowd thought Mysterio might win it at one point. The men's elimination match was better than the womens match but still had some silly moments. WALTER eliminated first? Thankfully the crowd spoke for us all. Keith Lee pulled out some impressive moves on both nights, I've not seen much of him but I can see why Vince would like him :) I had high hopes for the women's triple threat and it was just kinda meh. Part of that could be from me being tired watching the show, but I was pretty bored by it. It felt like it was a pretty flat ending. Overall, it was OK, nothing special.

I haven't seen much NXT lately but caught Takeover... I thought the women's war games match was excellent. Everyone looked great in it, some really cool moments, the crowd was totally invested. Kai's heel turn was fantastic, she went absolutely nuts and the crowd reaction couldn't have been better. This was my favourite match of the night. The triple threat was OK, I expected Dunn to win, so no real surprise. Riddle/Balor was good. The men's wargames match was great too, but I did prefer the women's match more. The crowd was hot all night, shame we didn't get that same atmosphere at Survivor Series.

This was the first week of Dynamite where I thought it was just OK. It started off great with Fenix/Nick Jackson, I had high expectations and it delivered. Glad Fenix won too. The women's match was OK. I didn't like the Dynamite Dozen Battle Royal. Lots of good talent in there but Billy Gunn looked bigger than all of them. I'm not sure why he was made to look so strong too, they really should be pushing their own talent more. MJF/Page should be good next week, although I thought it was strange not having the match on the same night. I can't imagine the fans were happy that they didn't actually get a winner on the night. I LOVED Jericho's walk from the back to the ring, some nice moments there. I didn't think the in-ring promo was as good as some of his previous work. I didn't like the whole SCU baiting Jericho for a title shot, it was so obvious, it just made Jericho look silly making it a title match. P&P/Private Party was alright. Moxley/Allin had its moments but nothing really stood out to end the night for me. They've had some great finishes over the past few weeks but this episode felt a little more subdued than most.