Charlie Davis: I feel the anticipation setting in as we pack up our things and get ready for the long car trip that is going to be this coming week in wrestling. We have a two night NXT Takeover (Stand and Deliver), AEW Dynamite, and a TWO NIGHT WRESTLEMANIA. I am glad we’ll be in Florida for a week. More time to visit The World’s Largest Orange.
Thomas Cummins: Remember Charlie, you need to drop me off in Jacksonville on your way to Tampa so I donāt miss AEWās first house show: The House Always Wins. I have to see my boy Ethan Page with that Battle Royale and get a match with Darby.
Forrest Hollingsworth: Iām gonna find Walt Disneyās corpse!
Mikey Zee: I just want a Dole Whip and to see Kenny Omega get superkicked.
Monday
CD: I caught about 20 minutes of RAW in real time this week. It was mostly an accident when I turned the television on and it was still on USA from last week. I caught enough to see Drew backstage and angry about a bounty being put on his head (cool night long story) and The Hurt Business implode (extremely not cool). Watching a cool faction exist despite WWEās failing over the last year has been nice. MVP, Bobby, Cedric and Shelton all worked hard to make it work. I think The Hurt Businessā coolness was starting to get over on its own so of course Vince pulled the plug.
Ugh.
I guess there were also 2 and a half hours more of show? I heard AJ Styles was playing charades with Omos. You knowā¦ former IWGP Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles. Oh well!
FH: If thereās anyone on Raw that I trust to make sense of the Hurt Business implosion, itās MVP. That said, why would he even want to put forth the effort when it seems like something that was done entirely to get some (nonsensical) controversy headed into Mania? It must be exhausting!
Similarly exhausting? Shane McMahon and Braun Strowmanās feud. This week Shane bullied Braun by showing off Strowmanās report card (all Ds) and āembarrassingā pictures from earlier in his career. It was mean, narrow minded stuff that has me hoping during their steel cage match at Mania that Braun will just lay down on the commentary table so Shane does the stupid thing we all know heās going to do and he goes away for awhile. This is the show with Asuka! One of the greatest womenās wrestlers of all time on it! Can we talk about something else?
TC: AEW Dark Elevation continues, and they have an intro package and a theme song now! This goes a long way in terms of making Elevation feel like a separate, and more important, part of AEWās slate of programming. We already had a good idea of who this show would be featuring, but the new intro shows exactly who Elevation will be prominently featuring.
FH: I did like Elevation this week! While some of the matches like Mox and Bill Collierās felt surprisingly plodding for the calibre of the talent there, others with newer talent really impressed. Ethan Page literally threw Fuego Del Sol across the ring, Orange Cassidy and Chuck Taylor had a match that felt a lot more like having fun than their recent stuff, and Scorpio Sky made his heel turn interesting in a match with Mike Sydal. Thereās a lot to like, and I think as you mentioned Thomas, Elevationās voice and purpose is becoming much more coherent by the week.
TC: Elevationās whole deal is giving greener talent the time to shine, and that was most apparent in Thunder Rosaās match against Alex Gracia. Weāve seen Alex a few times before, but her charm and talent were on full display here. Sheās a little rough around the edges as far as technical skills go, but itās obvious how much potential she has. Hopefully this wonāt be the last we see of Alex.
FH: Good news! Alex has a match with Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D on the next Elevation. Itās a pretty stacked card elsewhere, too, with Colt Cabana, Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page, the Sydal brothers, and Ryo Mizunami. It should be a good opening to Mania week, and Iām sure AEW is cognizant of that pressure.
Tuesday
CD: How many times do we gotta keep doing this, Impact? I saw a small clip of Kenny and Don in a casino? But didnāt watch much other than whatever hellish gold jacket Kenny had on. It hurts my eyes to even think about.
TC: Charlie youāre in luck, this is the last time we have to do thisā¦ on Tuesdays. This was the final night of Impact on the night itās held for the past year and a half. Next week on April 8th, it will move to Thursday nights. Not a surprise with all the competition itās been getting from AEW Dark, but this is most likely this is due to NXT being moved to Tuesday nights.
Kenny Omega did make an appearance on Impact last night. Right at the top of the show, we got a video package about Kenny and Rich Sawnn’s feud for the Impact Heavyweight Championship. Kenny is still on the hunt for more belts, and he’s got his sights set on the top prize of Don’s home promotion. Rich took a One-Winged Angel at Hard to Kill, which leads into Don yelling about how no one has ever kicked out of it (even though we know that’s not true). It seems like Rich might be doing some training to help him on that front when he finally faces Kenny one-on-one in the ring. At one point commentary even calls Don and Kenny “a shadow that hangs over us,” and if that isn’t the most succinct description of what has been going on with these two over the last couple months, I don’t know what is.
Thatās not the only feud Kenny has his hands in at Impact. After watching footage of Impact Tag Team Champions FinnJuice in NJPW, Kenny, Don, and The Good Brothers play a little game of telephone. Kenny whispers a secret to Don, Don whispers that secret to Karl, and Karl whispers the secret to Doc. These four are up to something, and Iām sure it had to do with those Impact Tag Team belts that The Good Bros lost a while back.
FH: Iām glad Thomas was here to catch us up, I was playing Monster Hunter. The guy in the picture below basically looks like The Miz anyways.
Wednesday
CD: Whatās that? Youād like a very satisfying wrestling show with lots of emotion and catharsis? Weāll youāre in luck because this week’s edition of AEW Dynamite made me cry! Now honestly, itās not hard to make me cry, but sometimes when I watch a particularly potent episode of Dynamite, I remember exactly why I love wrestling so much. This week had some extremely killer segments and some very phenomenal wrestling. Christian and Kaz tore it up for about 20 minutes and reminded us all why Christian is just that damn good. Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky are now an official evil team and their small promo togther oozed charisma and what I like to call BVE or Big Venom Energy. The double speak POPPED ME. The Inner Circle beat down of The Pinnacle was phenomenal.
Don and Mattās segment CRUSHED ME. Iāve spoken about it before, but Matt seems to really never have gotten over what happened in 2018. One errant shove and heās been in emotional shambles ever since. Knowing the context of what happened in 2018 with Kenny and The Buckās is helpful here, but it is in no way required reading. The Buckās lost a little something special when AEW started. The Elite, but The Buckās especially, thrived on literally saying āSuck Itā to the world of big time american wrestling companies. Then they went and founded one. I think this is a story really worth telling and the added layer of heartache as a friendship dissolves was especially potent this week. The Buckās flanking Mox…a more beautiful sight I never did see.
FH: Christian looked great, huh? That was a really exceptional, kinetic match demonstrating the kind of stuff both he and Kaz are good at. I especially liked the attention to Christianās in-ring psychology which is highly lauded in the industry – multiple times they revisited the same spot (particularly Christian hanging over the ropes to the apron) and Cage would out maneuver it or turn it against Kaz on the repeat. It was natural, digestible storytelling that also made Christianās winning debut feel really earned.
On another note, Dax Harwood of FTR (or of the Pinnacle?) posted a photo of the head laceration that Santana from the Inner Circle gave him — with bloody stitches — and it made me think, man, would it be hard for me to not be mad about that. Even in an environment, an entire industry where youāre expected to get hurt, the adrenaline of the admittedly good moment there runs out after the show, right? Like, Dax just has a hole in his head now! I wouldnāt be able to feel good or cool about that. I guess that willingness is what separates the professionals from the fans.
CD: Oh and THEN. The Arcade Anarchy Match. Hell. What a beautiful thing. Not only did Kris Statlander make her return after more than a year away due to injury, so did Trent! And Sue! The Best Friends are a great example of a little found family in the heart of AEW. The needle drop to Orangeās new music The Pixies Where is My Mind, while they celebrated in the ring, was one of the happiest moments I’ve seen in wrestling in a long time.
TC: SUE IS BACK! My good friend Sue, who Iāve previously corresponded with over email, drove her son Trent into Dailyās Place for his big return, and I couldnāt think of a better way for him to do it. Cody and FTR might have done it first, but Sue OWNS the driving up to the ring gimmick itās herās and no one can take it away from her. Also, Kris Statlander being back from injury as well? I was all up in my feelings Wednesday night.
FH: Sigh, you guys got all the fun of the Arcade match so Iāll be the one to talk about Cody. Namely, that the Cody and QT led implosion of the Nightmare Family was by far the worst part of this weekās otherwise impeccable Dynamite. Iām not sure if it was the hamfisted betrayal of Caesar story, the incomprehensible number of the people in and around the ring, or the fact that QT played the entire thing like he was surprised it was happening, but it didnāt work visually or narratively.
Itās hard for me to make sense of where theyāre going from here, to give Cody some paternity time off, to salvage a Dark Order vs. Nightmare story they scrapped, to make stars of the Nightmare Factory roster, or something else but the number of possibilities there makes it feel both incoherent and untenable. Hopefully they make some sense of it next week because the audience will need to be caught up on Nightmare beats from Dark and Elevation, but for now itās hard to see a path out of it and I was actively distracted by it, like licking a battery. Hilariously, Christian and Kazās match felt like more of an Exhibition.
CD: I do want to make note of something that I cannot stop thinking about since Dynamite this week. Kenny was kind of bullied not only by FTR last summer, but even his well meaning friends who poked fun at him for losing his edge. Kenny spent his summer of 2020 trying to make his tag team work and literally getting humiliated by dudes who mocked his wrestling for years. I know Kenny is a nerd, but Hangman could have said something, anything, other than stand and watch it happen. Which he did. I am not absolving Kenny of any of his sins, those are his to own, but honestly…I can see how we got here. Am I wrong? Also, I didnāt watch NXT this week. I am pumped for Takeover though.
FH: Well, if it makes Kenny feel better, Dax has a hole in his head now.
Thursday
TC: Watch this space. Like I mentioned earlier, Impact is moving to Thursdays!
FH: I just think the Pukei-Pukei is neat.
Friday
CD: Smackdown! It was! Okay! WWE is making a bunch of baffling decisions going into Mania this year, but luckily the main players, Edge, Roman and Dbry have managed to dodge all the weird bad stuff that seems to be happening to everyone else. Daniel has got this.
Logan Paul got thrown into the feud between Kevin and Sami when what should be making that match is those menās immense history with each other. They both love and hate each other and the story should simply be that Kevin wants to save Sami from himself. Anyway. I hope Logan Paul takes a package piledriver on the apron. The womanās stuff on this show is in shambles and centered around A SOMMELIER FOR HECKS SAKE. I think Reginald is a fun character, but heās eaten all the time for the women and I just…I cannot with him.
FH: Daniel Bryan just beating the shit out of everyone in the arena is a great way to book him headed into Mania, honestly. Also, as you noted CD, the real conspiracy against Sami Zayn is clearly WWE trying to punish him for being outspoken and genuine on social media and in real life by shackling someone like Paul to him. Oh well, Kevin Owens is going to jump off that boat and goddammit Iām proud of him.
Also! Hey! NJPW Strong is getting a title! I have been enjoying Strong a lot lately, and I think that if NJPW intends to treat it like their NXT, which it increasingly seems to be, having a genuine title there makes sense. I also happen to think it looks a hell of a lot better than the, uh, other belt they debuted this week.
Sunday
CD: So Sakura Genesis happened and the vibes in NJPW are absolutely off the charts rancid right now. I absolutely do not have the mental energy to really express how I am feeling about Kota Ibushi, after an exhausting unification, losing the belt. Maybe Iāll have more next week about it. But for now. Goodbye NJPW. Maybe…just Goodbye.
Stuff We’re Excited About
CD: This match is gonna kill me!
Iāve also gotten really into trying Monster Energy drinks. There might be someone to blame for that.
FH: HONK HOOOOOOOOOOOOONK! Letās RIDE THIS THING INTO MANIA WEEK.
CD: How much do you think itās gonna cost to park that?
FH: I will pay any amount to see Asuka and Rhea.
TC: Itās OK Forrest, you wonāt have to pay. Iāll take it off your hands and drive that thing right up to Dailyās Place Sue-style.
Charlie Davis is the worldās premier Shatterstarologist, writer and co-host of The Match Club.
Forrest is an experimental AI that writes and podcasts about comic books and wrestling coming to your area soon.
