Day 362: Random Musings About Beef [Wrasslin’ For Lunch]

– I’m having a blocky day, which is a sad thing to admit considering that I only have 7 days of the project to go. You’d think I’d be chomping at the bit to get some shelved ideas out there into the universe and well, it’s just not happening today. So instead, here’s some random thoughts I’ve had about wrestling lately. You can close out of this now, Mom.

NXT:

– I genuinely don’t know what to feel about the NXT production rebranding. While I think we can all agree that a change was needed, this just felt a little…drastic. For starters, it moved too goddamn much. We already have to deal with enough jump cuts in WWE editing, but now the wrestlers also have to compete for our attention with an ever-moving logo in the background. On top of that, the “hard cam” was seemingly on a zip line, going back and forth perpetually. I felt like I was watching a Seattle Mariners game, which is never a good thing. The camera seemingly never stopped moving. I’ve only been a camera op for a few weeks and even I know that sometimes you have to stop moving and let the action breathe. The studio lighting makes it look like a between a 90’s Daytime Talk Show and Nickelodeon Game Show. At one point, I thought Phil Donahue was going to come out, but it was just William Regal. I was waiting for somebody to be slimed, but then I remembered that already happened to Braun Stroman.

– In speaking of Braun Stroman, he’s still fired from the WWE. They also recently fired Bronson Reed. Not fired, but hired, is Bronson Rechsteiner, who made his NXT debut last night. But because they didn’t want to confuse him with Bronson Reed, they changed his first name to Bron, pronounced Braun. And even though he’s Rick Steiner’s son [which is pretty fucking obvious because he looks just like him], they didn’t feel like explaining that, so they changed his last name to Breakker. Bronson Steiner, a totally badass name, is now Bron Breakker, which definitely sounds like a protein-heavy breakfast sandwich. The extra K is for Kcal. I know that Vince wanted more beef for NXT, but I guess he also wanted sausage, bacon, eggs and a buttery croissant.

– But how did the sandwich do? He had a pretty competent match against LA Knight, which made no sense because Knight had a match in the main event Fatal 4 Way for the vacant NXT Title. So my assumption was going to be that LA Knight would be too gassed to compete, and Sando Steiner would take his place. Nope. SWERVE. Kylo Reilly got attacked backstage, because that’s literally the only thing that happens to him these days and he was replaced by…Von Wagner?!? His last televised match was on an April 2020 episode of Main Event, where he jobbed out to R-Truth. So obviously this guy deserves a title shot, because he was a football player. Tomasso Ciampa ended up winning the match and is now immediately going into a feud with…Sando Steiner.

What the fuck kind of booking is this?!?

If they didn’t want LA Knight to be champ, they could’ve had Steiner defeat Ciampa in the opening match. That would create a logical storyline, because he already beat the guy but then he becomes champ 90 minutes later. That makes a lot of sense. What they did made none. We just faded to black with two guys staring at each other and breathing laboriously.

– I am tickled that I can now call Tomasso Ciampa, “Tomasso Champa”. Because he’s the champ. Get it? It’s funny.

– The In-Dex wedding was one of the best wrestling weddings that I’ve seen. Probably because the swerve was that there was no swerve. Which makes it even more ridiculous because Dexter and Indi are clearly not together, nor are they comfortable with affection. Between Dexter threatening the guests with a hatchet, Beth Phoenix [the #1 In-Dex stan] taking over as minister and Austin Theory going full Perry Saturn, you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if you tried.

– I find it to be tacky that they were adamant about calling it NXT 2.0, even though it’s definitely the third major change to the brand. Also, I wonder if the former Ever-Rise guys knew ahead of time that NXT would be branding 2.0. That would explain why they decided to call their AEW tag team, 2Point0. While it seemed like a dumb name at first, it’s not turned into a 4D Troll Job. Bully.

– A majority of last night’s episode was just introducing us to the new cast members. And they all have one thing in common: beef. They were all ex-football players and all-american amateur wrestlers. Even Ivy Nile was jacked as hell. It’s become clear what NXT is going to become and it was what we all feared. Instead of embracing the Indy style of wrestling, we’re going to just have a bunch of green hosses spearing each other. Which just makes me sad. If that’s going to be the case, then whats going to happen to Gargano, Kylo, Kushida and the likes? Are they going to be able to be relevant in the land of giants? I guess we’ll have to find out next time on The Afternoon Show with Mike O’Malley!

AEW:

– A couple of weeks ago on Rampage, Jericho referred to Miro as “a cigarette machine with a head attached”. I have not been able to get that image out of my head, so I decided to create it so can’t, either!

You’re welcome.

– I’ll be attending the taping for DynaPage Elevation tonight and frankly, I’m not as excited as I thought I’d be. Even though it’ll be a full 4 hours of live wrestling action, I just feel like today’s going to be an appetizer. I’m definitely psyched for Moxley & Kingston vs 2Point0 and seeing Adam Cole in action, but I feel like it’s just going to be a lot of buildup for next week. There’s been hardly anything announced for Grand Slam and you know it’s gonna be huge, so today just kinda feels like a go-home episode. A whole lot of talking and making people sad that they’re not at the event that’s being hyped, but the hype event instead. But lucky for me, I’m also going to Grand Slam next week, because I’m spoiled fucking rotten. I guess I’m only complaining about tonight because I really don’t wanna go to the dystopian hellscape that is Newark. I’m going to pay up the ass for parking, just so I can be closest to the arena and I’ll spend the least amount of time possible breathing in the toxic fumes.

– I really wanted to make signs for the shows, but I don’t even know what the protocol is or the unwritten rules behind them. But if I were to make signs, they’d be video game related, as that’s what the kids are doing these days. Here’s the Top 5 Video Game Signs I would make:

5) Shenmue III deserved to be better

4) Remaster Jet Grind Radio, you cowards!

3) MJF still plays Cyberpunk

2) MJF bought an NGage

1) Skies of Arcadia > FF7

WWE:

– I’m still not comfortable with the fact that Alexa gave Charlotte a doll named Charlie. Charlie = Charles = Chucky. Charlotte could easily come back next week after making “improvements” to the doll and my worst case scenario would come true.

– Literally the biggest news in wrestling this week was Big E cashing in his Money In The Bank contract to become WWE Champion. While it was a wonderful moment that will forever be etched in our memories, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. This was telegraphed so fucking hard. From the first minute of the show, it was made known that he would be cashing in no matter what. It was drilled into our faces so hard that by the time that it actually happened, some of the magic had already worn off. If it would’ve been more of a surprise, the moment would’ve moved me a lot more. I understand that it was a ploy to steal ratings from Monday Night Football, but it didn’t even work. The ratings for Raw were at a 2 month low. I guess they might’ve been historically low if it wasn’t for the title change hype, but something something hindsight whatever.

– Karrion Kross actually cut a good promo on Raw and now I’m just plain confused about how I’m supposed to feel about him. I guess he’s…okay? Meh.

– I have a lot more to say but little to no time. I have to get pumped up, dust the dandruff off my Evil Uno shirt and mentally prepare myself to drive into the seventh layer of hell.

– TeeCoZee