0:32 dude it's such a small thing but these fish eye graphic shots of the TV and The Real World's title add so much to the overall aesthetic and production of the video. Like your graphics and channel assets for both wrestle juice and going in raw always on point and I love how you keep playing with small things like this over time. It's awesome and part of what makes watching your stuff so fun friendo, inspires me to keep trying new things in my own creative endeavors. That and you and Larson have fostered a pretty awesome corner of the IWC so I appreciate you!
I don't know how long you've been doing it for, but I love the questions coming in on the TV. I love the text appearing to be stretched over the rounded screen of the old CRT. It's just a little thing that I think enhances the video quality while also showing off your own personal creativity. It adds to the video and I wanted to shout that out. Good job, Steve!
Overall, I think Triple H's 1st year has been very good, my only complaint is that Bayley's Championship run should of been Way better, it seems like there was no long term plan....
Very underrating thing during Triple H run is the respect and acknowledgement of legends while they are still alive. He really tied history back into WWE and you see in the cold intro they released today
Speaking as a WWE fan who doesn't really like non-WWE wrestling, it's more a matter of style and presentation for me. I ADORE how WWE presents their wrestlers, how they produce video and audio to build matches, how the commentators act, and I've never seen a non-WWE show that hits that spot for me. The WWE wrestling style is somewhat hit or miss for me, but so is the more "indy"/AEW style of wrestling for me, I just have never *wanted* to keep up with non-WWE wrestling because of how much I love WWE's presentation. I try and watch the occasional AEW PPV match if its particularly well regarded (think my next watch will be Okada/Ospreay) but all in all WWE just gives me exactly what I want when I watch wrestling as fucking weird and stoogey as that sounds lmfao
I honestly don’t think he’s even talking about people like you who just prefer it for whatever reason. It’s those that HATE anything that isn’t WWE that’s bizarre to me. I prefer how WWE does things as well (I would prefer they generally let their matches go longer on TV by like 20% kinda like AEW) but I don’t get why there is a subset (again, not like you) who just HATE the competition. :)
I recommend Omega’s recent return match against Gabe Kidd. Emotional. Beautiful. Brutal. Intense. Everything I wanted it to be and more. THAT to me is the gold standard of indie wrestling, the almost punk style that’s almost a completely different genre. I almost compare it to movies, like WWE is the Marvel, big tentpole blockbuster style movie, AEW is a sort of mid budget sports drama (Think Rocky, Karate Kid etc), NJPW is more Shonen anime style wrestling with this kind of brutalist bloody style, and indie wrestling is the A24 small budget style films that can be experimental and weird and fun. None of them are “better” than the other so much (although man, as an AEW fan I really do want to see them beef the product up a bit), they’re just different styles for what you prefer.
This could almost get put under a video that would have to be called ‘The Last 12 Months of Nick Khan’, but, the TKO stock almost doubling over that span, plus all the big TV deals realised and all the record gates, the abundance of two-night stadium events, the Indianapolis deal, the Prime/wrestling mat advertising deal, the new Topps sports card deal etc. I feel like the story of the past 12 months is like imagining Vince split up into two new optimised versions of himself - Nick in business and Triple H in creative.
I think Wreslte Kingdom was good this year, twitter and the IWC will always make something seem worse then it was. I think the Maine vent yes went a bit long but the psychology and story was amazing. I recommend Shingo vs Takeshita, the opening Tokyo terror ladder, the IWGP women’s match AND TSUJI VS FINALY ITS THE BEST MATCH ON THE CARD AND BETTER THEN ANY WWE MATCH THAT U WILL SEE THIS YEAR THAT DOESNT HAVE IYO SKY IN IT
IMO El Phantasmo was the best part of Wrestle Kingdom. And I popped for Josh Barnett appearing (not much else of what he did though). But yes, the weekend fell pretty flat. I'm not a Mone fan, but her and Mina's match was decent.
Orville is seriously good bro. Its more about the network interference decreasing each season. Season one the network really wanted family guy in space but seasons 2 and 3 they just let him make star trek.
Triple H's first year has been 50/50. Let's be honest, it was not perfect, barely even close because he's mad a lot of mistakes. I don't what is considered he's first year because I like to think it's mid 2022 to mid 2023 but the way Steve says it sounds more like maybe the end of 2023 to the end 2024, either way I can think of a few flaws during both times periods, some that were constant but I do also think the bad mixed in with the good makes Triple H comparable to Vince McMahon in his creative prime during Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression Era. CM Punk is more influential outside of the ring because of the Pipe Bomb but Bryan Danielson is more influential in the ring because of his wrestling style. A lot of WWE fans hate non WWE stuff because they were conditioned by Vince McMahon to believe anything that isn't WWE is bad or doesn't matter and unfortunately WWE has yet to correct that because they still take cheap shots at the competition and barely rarely go into detail about a wrestlers history in another promotion if it doesn't benefit them.
Honestly Triple H has gotten the interest in wwe back and while not everything has been golden, His creative has renewed my interest in the product and even rewards us fans for sticking with it unlike doing a storyline then it being stop and started again and again. One thing i will say though is Triple H does have some storylines go on a little too long like with this Rhea v Liv im ready to move on from this The storylines pay off to good matches which really makes me enjoy the product. When compared to AEW their matches can be fire but could be even better in my eyes if the story was there to go along with it and get me invested. Im invested in WWE but AEW i just cant enjoy as much as i want to
Apparently AEW couldnt promote Wrestle Dynasty because its not on MAX, as per WB. Also it was from NJPW brass that pulled Chris Charlton for going into business for himself. As for the Tokyo Dome weekend, most of the matches were pretty good to great. The only let down was Shota Umino not being the star, NJPW think that he is. Takeshita was crazy good this weekend. Kenny was classic Kenny. Gabe Kidd had a star making performance.
I always think it's funny how that started out as just a Star Trek parody and then it became its own story and a really nice homage to Star Trek instead
From my understanding on why AEW didn't advertise anything for Wrestle Dynasty on air, is Max wouldn't let them since the show was on a different streaming service. Which I 100% do not agree with
WWE was valued at 6 billion. If Vince McMahon had sold WWE for 6 billion his personal take-home would not have been a third of the company the stocks that he sold in TKO were worth over 2 billion. He would not of got 2 billion put in his personal bank account for selling WWE Instead of merging with TKO. The reason nobody is making more of that, is because it was literally a genius business move. Forget everything about the man and his personal life which disturbs us all. The actual business move itself, wasn't shooting himself in the foot. It was making sure he had all of his money if the shit hit the fan. And the shit did hit the fan, and he got his money. In the world does anybody look in their bank account see $2 billion, and say hey I got screwed.
Year one was pretty good. Some mistakes but mostly good but year two off two rocky start. Not even week in with Saudi getting rumble next year. That is big mistake that will haunt them
The reason tribalism exists is the same reason WWE became the biggest company, Vince🤦🏾♂️ The man bought up the territories, "put" WCW out of business appearing on the last nitro, he watched ECW drown so he could scoop up the tapes, and then had storylines making WWE look better than ECW/WCW. Vince has always wanted us to hate other companies and it's worked to perfection
Wrestle kingdom was alright with some good matches. The women's iwgp championship match was a fun 8 minute fast pace high speed match. Shingo vs takeshita was fantastic & I'm begging Tony khan to please present takeshita like how new Japan does, because takeshita's new Japan presentation is amazing. Hot take a lot of aew wrestle on new Japan shows are usually presented better there than on aew shows. Finley vs tsuji was better than I expected it to be & it made me wonder if tsuji should be the guy over shota. And I kinda enjoyed tanahashi vs evil for stupid reasons like the Karate chop spot😂. Douki vs desprado was unfortunately stopped very early because douki dislocated his arm. But douki still had a really cool entrance. And shota & Zack had a 40 minute main event borefest. Probably worst than that sanada & natio main event.
12:16 I’m going to go the person AFTER Guilia. I think it’s now or never for Cora Jade’s NXT story. Within the kayfabes of her life and NXT, she enters in late 2021, as a smiling teenage skater girl babyface/CM Punk fan. Now, three and a bit years later, she’s had 2 long term injuries and her character feels more grown, and I think she can be a fun bitchy heel and a good tweener babyface down the road. Cora can say that she sat back as others won and lost that belt. Ideally, I’d like to see Cora go up against Roxanne Perez for the title, turn Perez back to a face and vanquish her from NXT (and up to the main roster) and then she herself joins the main roster in mid 2026. If they don’t, they can absolutely tell Jade/Perez on the main roster (‘You couldn’t beat me in NXT, you can’t beat me now, you will never beat me’)
Also, for the last question. I feel like a lot of it is WWE's own influence on their diehard fans as to what wrestling is. During the Vince Era, and now during the HHH Era (specifically when mentioning AEW) they would always depict other promotions as the "bush leagues" and how VKM brought wrestling out of the "smoke filled bingo halls" and all that garbage. Even if it's true to say that WWE is the "Big leagues" or "major league of wrestling" by virtue of it being the largest most successful wrestling company of all time, it still paints a combative relationship with all other promotions, and the comparison makes all other promotions look less than. Y'know? TL:DR WWE diehards don't like anything else because WWE tells them not to, and they probably don't watch other stuff anyway.
In a word, good. He's changed it up so much from the name redacted days. Consistency in story telling and character development has been a welcome change. Everything feels more important, more legit and genuinely wants to make you watch.
Overall it was good and a big improvement, but a lot of things didn’t change. NXT STARS, especially tag teams, are still getting called up and buried, certain storylines are still getting dragged long past expiration date, the bloodline and judgement day still made up 50-60% of weekly programming until very recently. Lots of the same problems as the old boss.
yeah once someone wins the belt bayley cody rhea and a few other belt runs been like.mehh like start strong with a 1st fued...rhea didn't need zelina one 1st bay had 3 way match in backlash ..but the piper nivan match was mehhhhhh... cody done better with AJ to be fair
In broad strokes, HHH's first year has been really solid. Great characters, talent has more freedom, and roster has been built up enough to not rely on part-time talent. He has 3 big flaws to me. Some stories take too long (Liv v Rhea, LA Knight's title win, Waller/Theory, Otis v Gable), women's division is booked pretty poor at times (surprisingly something Vince booked better), and his tag division booking could be better. Outside of those things, he has people invested, and I'm more interested than I've been since probably 2016.
People who should be Main Characters in 2025 Collision: Athena or Harley Cameron & Eddie Kingston or Ricky Starks Dynamite: Darby Allin or Daniel Garcia & Deonna Purrazzo or Kris Statlander ROH: Billie Starkz or Harley Cameron & Eddie Kingston or Sammy Guevara NXT: Oba Femi & Stephanie Vaquer Raw: Karrion Kross & Tiffany Stratton SmackDown: LA Knight & Rhea Ripley TNA: Joe Hendry & Tessa Blanchard
I only watch WWE occasionally, but the few times a year that I watch it now I no longer feel like I’ve wasted my time. It’s not great, but it’s good, it’s entertaining.
Stages getting smaller and smaller, the shows are starting to look like house shows. It's been shit from that side of things. If the show doesn't look good, I don't wanna watch it regardless of booking
Tri's first year has been solid overall imho. If there's more focus/spotlight on the tag and women's divisions then both Raw and SmackDown will be solid all round shows Edit: Takeshita/Ishii is another match worth checking out from Wrestle Dynasty. WK19 wasn't anything to write home about tbh, as someone who is not an active NJPW viewer it was a middling show. The co-main events were disappointing, especially ZSJ/Shota. That didn't need to be 43 minutes
I love both Bryan and Punk a lot. I they’re both all time greats. However, I think maybe the reason Punk is more influential is because he’s a bit easier to at least try to replicate. Bryan is so singular. It’s hard to describe what makes him so amazing, whereas Punk is a little easier to quantify.
What Bryan Danielson more amazing than CM Punk is his believability as a true underdog. From his rise to WWE World Champion to his rise to AEW World Champion, and his failure to recapture the World Heavyweight Championship from Sheamus in 2012 he always made it seem like it was not only possible for him to win but there's a good chance that he won't and that's what makes it more satisfying when he does. With CM Punk we all know he's going to win, there's rarely any doubt (except for his match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania 29), and when he does lose it's not as surprising as if Bryan Danielson loses.
I saw Kenny Omega win an Indie Title in Yonkers NY, We didn't know who he was so we just chanted Sammy Hagar at him. Same show Jack Evens vs Teddy Heart, MDawg and Jerry Lynn. Really good show.
His first year has been okay. He has major blind spots in story, booking the women, baby faces, tag teams, and black male wrestlers. He needs to quit trying to get some camera time, get to the back, and work on these pain points and he will be fine. He gets a pass year one because he's still getting his footing but I expect better in the coming years.
Title: Good. He's got a TON of room to improve though. Raw is a 6/10 watchable show most weeks and SD is a 4/10 unwatchable show most weeks. I stopped watching SD a couple months after Mania and tried giving AEW a chance instead because of how bad the show was. While this might sound pretty negative these show scores are up from Vince's last couple of years where both programs were like 3/10 unwatchable. So props to HHH. Doing better doesn't mean you've nailed it. I feel like the IWC is WAY too positive about WWE just because of the stuff that's working. They seemingly ignore the lack of storytelling and character development in the womens divisions and all tag divisions. As though half of the tv lacking adequate attention is acceptable because there are a couple of banger stories playing out or a feud you're interested in. No one was built up to face Liv for 7 months and now we have a secondary womens belt from a tournament full of the nobodies HHH built up in 7 months. I don't care how great the matches were that's completely unacceptable. Assuming Rhea wins the belt tonight then great...she can go on to face the nobody whose been built up aside from Liv I guess. Good job. When New Day inevitably win the titles who will they face? Who do we care about in the tag division? Who are we excited to see dethrone Jade and Naomi in that tag division? Can you even name your 3 favorite womens tag teams and describe their character and motivations as a team? Year one under HHH felt great because of the contrast against Vince. Now the question is if you can make a good tv show on both Raw and SD in year two through more than just your top of the card big stories. Your shows are 3 hours long...most of those 3 hours need to be good. You're lucky if 1/3 of those three hours are truly good.
Similar product... different captain. Nothing memorable beyond the opinion of it's loyal watchers. It's still unwatchable for the casual fan, but AEW's existence makes WWE look better by mere comparison.
Got 20 minutes left on the treadmill this is a blessing lmao
0:32 dude it's such a small thing but these fish eye graphic shots of the TV and The Real World's title add so much to the overall aesthetic and production of the video. Like your graphics and channel assets for both wrestle juice and going in raw always on point and I love how you keep playing with small things like this over time. It's awesome and part of what makes watching your stuff so fun friendo, inspires me to keep trying new things in my own creative endeavors. That and you and Larson have fostered a pretty awesome corner of the IWC so I appreciate you!
I don't know how long you've been doing it for, but I love the questions coming in on the TV. I love the text appearing to be stretched over the rounded screen of the old CRT. It's just a little thing that I think enhances the video quality while also showing off your own personal creativity. It adds to the video and I wanted to shout that out. Good job, Steve!
Overall, I think Triple H's 1st year has been very good, my only complaint is that Bayley's Championship run should of been Way better, it seems like there was no long term plan....
No
@paddy1451 YES BAYLEY DESERVED BETTER
Bayley has the same problem bret had. She's not flashey with her moves. And in this era flash sells. Brett would never have gotten over in this era.
@deathmauler181 Regarding Bayley I disagree with you 100%!!!!
HHH isn't great at booking babyfaces
He books very very good heels and builds around them.
Very underrating thing during Triple H run is the respect and acknowledgement of legends while they are still alive. He really tied history back into WWE and you see in the cold intro they released today
Speaking as a WWE fan who doesn't really like non-WWE wrestling, it's more a matter of style and presentation for me. I ADORE how WWE presents their wrestlers, how they produce video and audio to build matches, how the commentators act, and I've never seen a non-WWE show that hits that spot for me. The WWE wrestling style is somewhat hit or miss for me, but so is the more "indy"/AEW style of wrestling for me, I just have never *wanted* to keep up with non-WWE wrestling because of how much I love WWE's presentation. I try and watch the occasional AEW PPV match if its particularly well regarded (think my next watch will be Okada/Ospreay) but all in all WWE just gives me exactly what I want when I watch wrestling as fucking weird and stoogey as that sounds lmfao
I honestly don’t think he’s even talking about people like you who just prefer it for whatever reason. It’s those that HATE anything that isn’t WWE that’s bizarre to me. I prefer how WWE does things as well (I would prefer they generally let their matches go longer on TV by like 20% kinda like AEW) but I don’t get why there is a subset (again, not like you) who just HATE the competition. :)
I recommend Omega’s recent return match against Gabe Kidd. Emotional. Beautiful. Brutal. Intense. Everything I wanted it to be and more. THAT to me is the gold standard of indie wrestling, the almost punk style that’s almost a completely different genre. I almost compare it to movies, like WWE is the Marvel, big tentpole blockbuster style movie, AEW is a sort of mid budget sports drama (Think Rocky, Karate Kid etc), NJPW is more Shonen anime style wrestling with this kind of brutalist bloody style, and indie wrestling is the A24 small budget style films that can be experimental and weird and fun. None of them are “better” than the other so much (although man, as an AEW fan I really do want to see them beef the product up a bit), they’re just different styles for what you prefer.
This could almost get put under a video that would have to be called ‘The Last 12 Months of Nick Khan’, but, the TKO stock almost doubling over that span, plus all the big TV deals realised and all the record gates, the abundance of two-night stadium events, the Indianapolis deal, the Prime/wrestling mat advertising deal, the new Topps sports card deal etc.
I feel like the story of the past 12 months is like imagining Vince split up into two new optimised versions of himself - Nick in business and Triple H in creative.
AZM vs Mayu Iwatami (spelling?) from Wrestle Kingdom is a must watch. Phenomenal women's match!
I’m almost certain the Theory and Waller thing is going to involve Cena, hence we why haven’t seen it fully fleshed out yet.
As a big Star Trek fan that put off watching the Orville until 2024...watch it. Holy shit is it good.
I think Wreslte Kingdom was good this year, twitter and the IWC will always make something seem worse then it was. I think the Maine vent yes went a bit long but the psychology and story was amazing. I recommend Shingo vs Takeshita, the opening Tokyo terror ladder, the IWGP women’s match AND TSUJI VS FINALY ITS THE BEST MATCH ON THE CARD AND BETTER THEN ANY WWE MATCH THAT U WILL SEE THIS YEAR THAT DOESNT HAVE IYO SKY IN IT
IMO El Phantasmo was the best part of Wrestle Kingdom. And I popped for Josh Barnett appearing (not much else of what he did though). But yes, the weekend fell pretty flat. I'm not a Mone fan, but her and Mina's match was decent.
Glad Gabe Kidd is getting the respect he deserves
Orville is seriously good bro. Its more about the network interference decreasing each season. Season one the network really wanted family guy in space but seasons 2 and 3 they just let him make star trek.
Triple H's first year has been 50/50. Let's be honest, it was not perfect, barely even close because he's mad a lot of mistakes. I don't what is considered he's first year because I like to think it's mid 2022 to mid 2023 but the way Steve says it sounds more like maybe the end of 2023 to the end 2024, either way I can think of a few flaws during both times periods, some that were constant but I do also think the bad mixed in with the good makes Triple H comparable to Vince McMahon in his creative prime during Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression Era.
CM Punk is more influential outside of the ring because of the Pipe Bomb but Bryan Danielson is more influential in the ring because of his wrestling style.
A lot of WWE fans hate non WWE stuff because they were conditioned by Vince McMahon to believe anything that isn't WWE is bad or doesn't matter and unfortunately WWE has yet to correct that because they still take cheap shots at the competition and barely rarely go into detail about a wrestlers history in another promotion if it doesn't benefit them.
Honestly Triple H has gotten the interest in wwe back and while not everything has been golden, His creative has renewed my interest in the product and even rewards us fans for sticking with it unlike doing a storyline then it being stop and started again and again. One thing i will say though is Triple H does have some storylines go on a little too long like with this Rhea v Liv im ready to move on from this
The storylines pay off to good matches which really makes me enjoy the product. When compared to AEW their matches can be fire but could be even better in my eyes if the story was there to go along with it and get me invested. Im invested in WWE but AEW i just cant enjoy as much as i want to
Christopher Daniels wouldn't have made sense but, might have made a new star.
Apparently AEW couldnt promote Wrestle Dynasty because its not on MAX, as per WB. Also it was from NJPW brass that pulled Chris Charlton for going into business for himself. As for the Tokyo Dome weekend, most of the matches were pretty good to great. The only let down was Shota Umino not being the star, NJPW think that he is. Takeshita was crazy good this weekend. Kenny was classic Kenny. Gabe Kidd had a star making performance.
Wait... you haven't watched the Orville? It takes like 3-4 episodes before it grows its beard though.
I always think it's funny how that started out as just a Star Trek parody and then it became its own story and a really nice homage to Star Trek instead
From my understanding on why AEW didn't advertise anything for Wrestle Dynasty on air, is Max wouldn't let them since the show was on a different streaming service. Which I 100% do not agree with
Awful if true
6:50 Khan's in HHH's game?? Double pun!!
WWE was valued at 6 billion. If Vince McMahon had sold WWE for 6 billion his personal take-home would not have been a third of the company the stocks that he sold in TKO were worth over 2 billion. He would not of got 2 billion put in his personal bank account for selling WWE Instead of merging with TKO. The reason nobody is making more of that, is because it was literally a genius business move. Forget everything about the man and his personal life which disturbs us all. The actual business move itself, wasn't shooting himself in the foot. It was making sure he had all of his money if the shit hit the fan. And the shit did hit the fan, and he got his money. In the world does anybody look in their bank account see $2 billion, and say hey I got screwed.
Hey Steve
lol this is so ominous, check ur IG DMs
Year one was pretty good. Some mistakes but mostly good but year two off two rocky start. Not even week in with Saudi getting rumble next year. That is big mistake that will haunt them
WK was okay this year. Takeshita the real winner of the weekend
Waiting for year one review for Triple H in 2035
The reason tribalism exists is the same reason WWE became the biggest company, Vince🤦🏾♂️
The man bought up the territories, "put" WCW out of business appearing on the last nitro, he watched ECW drown so he could scoop up the tapes, and then had storylines making WWE look better than ECW/WCW. Vince has always wanted us to hate other companies and it's worked to perfection
Wrestle kingdom was alright with some good matches. The women's iwgp championship match was a fun 8 minute fast pace high speed match. Shingo vs takeshita was fantastic & I'm begging Tony khan to please present takeshita like how new Japan does, because takeshita's new Japan presentation is amazing. Hot take a lot of aew wrestle on new Japan shows are usually presented better there than on aew shows. Finley vs tsuji was better than I expected it to be & it made me wonder if tsuji should be the guy over shota. And I kinda enjoyed tanahashi vs evil for stupid reasons like the Karate chop spot😂. Douki vs desprado was unfortunately stopped very early because douki dislocated his arm. But douki still had a really cool entrance. And shota & Zack had a 40 minute main event borefest. Probably worst than that sanada & natio main event.
SID!!!!🗣🔥💪
More hits than misses.
12:16 I’m going to go the person AFTER Guilia.
I think it’s now or never for Cora Jade’s NXT story.
Within the kayfabes of her life and NXT, she enters in late 2021, as a smiling teenage skater girl babyface/CM Punk fan. Now, three and a bit years later, she’s had 2 long term injuries and her character feels more grown, and I think she can be a fun bitchy heel and a good tweener babyface down the road. Cora can say that she sat back as others won and lost that belt. Ideally, I’d like to see Cora go up against Roxanne Perez for the title, turn Perez back to a face and vanquish her from NXT (and up to the main roster) and then she herself joins the main roster in mid 2026. If they don’t, they can absolutely tell Jade/Perez on the main roster (‘You couldn’t beat me in NXT, you can’t beat me now, you will never beat me’)
Also, for the last question. I feel like a lot of it is WWE's own influence on their diehard fans as to what wrestling is. During the Vince Era, and now during the HHH Era (specifically when mentioning AEW) they would always depict other promotions as the "bush leagues" and how VKM brought wrestling out of the "smoke filled bingo halls" and all that garbage. Even if it's true to say that WWE is the "Big leagues" or "major league of wrestling" by virtue of it being the largest most successful wrestling company of all time, it still paints a combative relationship with all other promotions, and the comparison makes all other promotions look less than. Y'know?
TL:DR WWE diehards don't like anything else because WWE tells them not to, and they probably don't watch other stuff anyway.
In a word, good.
He's changed it up so much from the name redacted days.
Consistency in story telling and character development has been a welcome change.
Everything feels more important, more legit and genuinely wants to make you watch.
Overall it was good and a big improvement, but a lot of things didn’t change. NXT STARS, especially tag teams, are still getting called up and buried, certain storylines are still getting dragged long past expiration date, the bloodline and judgement day still made up 50-60% of weekly programming until very recently. Lots of the same problems as the old boss.
i think the higher power should have been owen heart or brain pillmean if they had never passed on but yeah kane would have made more sense
Iyo can't be the main character when there's a trash can around. Iykyk
yeah once someone wins the belt bayley cody rhea and a few other belt runs been like.mehh like start strong with a 1st fued...rhea didn't need zelina one 1st bay had 3 way match in backlash ..but the piper nivan match was mehhhhhh... cody done better with AJ to be fair
Hhh first year? Didn't he took over SummerSlam 2022?
Vince was still being in the background
In broad strokes, HHH's first year has been really solid. Great characters, talent has more freedom, and roster has been built up enough to not rely on part-time talent. He has 3 big flaws to me. Some stories take too long (Liv v Rhea, LA Knight's title win, Waller/Theory, Otis v Gable), women's division is booked pretty poor at times (surprisingly something Vince booked better), and his tag division booking could be better. Outside of those things, he has people invested, and I'm more interested than I've been since probably 2016.
People who should be Main Characters in 2025
Collision: Athena or Harley Cameron & Eddie Kingston or Ricky Starks
Dynamite: Darby Allin or Daniel Garcia & Deonna Purrazzo or Kris Statlander
ROH: Billie Starkz or Harley Cameron & Eddie Kingston or Sammy Guevara
NXT: Oba Femi & Stephanie Vaquer
Raw: Karrion Kross & Tiffany Stratton
SmackDown: LA Knight & Rhea Ripley
TNA: Joe Hendry & Tessa Blanchard
I only watch WWE occasionally, but the few times a year that I watch it now I no longer feel like I’ve wasted my time. It’s not great, but it’s good, it’s entertaining.
Stages getting smaller and smaller, the shows are starting to look like house shows. It's been shit from that side of things. If the show doesn't look good, I don't wanna watch it regardless of booking
Tri's first year has been solid overall imho. If there's more focus/spotlight on the tag and women's divisions then both Raw and SmackDown will be solid all round shows
Edit: Takeshita/Ishii is another match worth checking out from Wrestle Dynasty. WK19 wasn't anything to write home about tbh, as someone who is not an active NJPW viewer it was a middling show. The co-main events were disappointing, especially ZSJ/Shota. That didn't need to be 43 minutes
Give the whole first season of Orville a chance, Steve. It is great 🙂
Friendo
I love both Bryan and Punk a lot. I they’re both all time greats. However, I think maybe the reason Punk is more influential is because he’s a bit easier to at least try to replicate. Bryan is so singular. It’s hard to describe what makes him so amazing, whereas Punk is a little easier to quantify.
What Bryan Danielson more amazing than CM Punk is his believability as a true underdog. From his rise to WWE World Champion to his rise to AEW World Champion, and his failure to recapture the World Heavyweight Championship from Sheamus in 2012 he always made it seem like it was not only possible for him to win but there's a good chance that he won't and that's what makes it more satisfying when he does. With CM Punk we all know he's going to win, there's rarely any doubt (except for his match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania 29), and when he does lose it's not as surprising as if Bryan Danielson loses.
I saw Kenny Omega win an Indie Title in Yonkers NY, We didn't know who he was so we just chanted Sammy Hagar at him. Same show Jack Evens vs Teddy Heart, MDawg and Jerry Lynn. Really good show.
Orville is good especially the later seasons
0:43 Got kicked out of his own company is Crazy 😂😂
Andor? I thought you liked Star Trek and hated Star Wars. Steve heel turn?
His first year has been okay. He has major blind spots in story, booking the women, baby faces, tag teams, and black male wrestlers. He needs to quit trying to get some camera time, get to the back, and work on these pain points and he will be fine. He gets a pass year one because he's still getting his footing but I expect better in the coming years.
Triple H’s first year has been…. HIGHLY OVERRATED.
Title: Good.
He's got a TON of room to improve though. Raw is a 6/10 watchable show most weeks and SD is a 4/10 unwatchable show most weeks. I stopped watching SD a couple months after Mania and tried giving AEW a chance instead because of how bad the show was.
While this might sound pretty negative these show scores are up from Vince's last couple of years where both programs were like 3/10 unwatchable. So props to HHH.
Doing better doesn't mean you've nailed it. I feel like the IWC is WAY too positive about WWE just because of the stuff that's working. They seemingly ignore the lack of storytelling and character development in the womens divisions and all tag divisions. As though half of the tv lacking adequate attention is acceptable because there are a couple of banger stories playing out or a feud you're interested in.
No one was built up to face Liv for 7 months and now we have a secondary womens belt from a tournament full of the nobodies HHH built up in 7 months. I don't care how great the matches were that's completely unacceptable. Assuming Rhea wins the belt tonight then great...she can go on to face the nobody whose been built up aside from Liv I guess. Good job.
When New Day inevitably win the titles who will they face? Who do we care about in the tag division? Who are we excited to see dethrone Jade and Naomi in that tag division? Can you even name your 3 favorite womens tag teams and describe their character and motivations as a team?
Year one under HHH felt great because of the contrast against Vince. Now the question is if you can make a good tv show on both Raw and SD in year two through more than just your top of the card big stories. Your shows are 3 hours long...most of those 3 hours need to be good. You're lucky if 1/3 of those three hours are truly good.
Triple H’s first year overall was good. Average at best. I am enjoying alot of it though.
Similar product... different captain. Nothing memorable beyond the opinion of it's loyal watchers. It's still unwatchable for the casual fan, but AEW's existence makes WWE look better by mere comparison.