Weekly Wrasslin’ Wrouindup (5/21-23)

Goddamn, these two are great together in the ring, and hey, Sullivan is there too.

“Which show is better” discussions are always funny, because for every week where Raw is good and Smackdown’s bad, there’s a week like this one, where Raw is an upper-deck turd and Smackdown is interesting and exciting. EVENTS OF SIGNIFICANCE.

The Flash: “We Are The Flash”

Still not the dumbest-looking thing on Barry’s head over the course of the series. But it’s close.

I think I finially need to come to grips with the fact that The Flash is just a bad show. It was an OK show for one season and a bad show for three seasons, and I had to look up how many seasons it’s been because I’ve been pummeled into apathy.

Deadpool 2 (No Spoilers)

BREAKOUT STAR. There was a better picture but it was a spoiler.

For the first twenty minutes of Deadpool 2, I was... worried. Concerned, even. Oh, sure, there were moments of pure comedic insanity, but the overall tone seemed... sedate. At least compared to the original, which had its quiet, even serious moments, but it just seemed tonally... off a bit.

Agents of SHIELD:: “The End”

Magical

Even though Agents of SHIELD got picked up for 13 more episodes, next summer, after Infinity War II drops, the season finale could still be seen as the end of the show as we know it.

Arrow: “Life Sentence”

FWIENDSHIP1

The sixth season of Arrow is on the books, and it ended in a way that was satisfying to watch, but didn’t redeem an otherwise awful season.

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wrouindup (May 14-16)

More of this please. Lots more. For a title.

Ah, the periodic European tours. A chance for WWE to pre-tape Raw and SMackdown in front of smarky British crowds, make lots of royal wedding jokes, and estabilsh a few more Money IN The Bank challengers. EVENTS OF SIGNIFICANCE:

Jessica Jones: “Freak Accident / Sole Survivor”

Maybe not the stable one?

As much as Jessica Jones Season 2 appears to be about the main character coming to terms with her mysterious past, I’m starting to wonder if the other real story of the seasson isn’t about Trish, and how her ostensibly more stable and successful exterior isn’t hiding some deep dysfunction.

The Flash: “Think Fast”

Oh hey Diggle.

There’s a lot to dislike about the penultimate episode of Flash Season 4.

Summer Of Oldnerd: New Grill

Please ignore the gendered cultural connotations.

Last summer, nothing happened. Nothing happened because the summer was consumed with garage repair. The garage repair meant deck replacement, because the deck sits on top of the garage. Which is super cool most of the time except this one time when it wasn’t.

Jessica Jones: “AKA Start At The Beginning”

RECONTEXTUALIZED!

With the main series wrapping up their seasons and Luke Cage S2 incoming, it’s time to finally dip into Jessica Jones Season 2.

Agents of SHIELD: “The Force Of Gravity”

It’s funny, for an episode full of important, impressive, or iconic moments, all of the screencaps from this episode are awful and don’t show any of them.

Arrow: “The Ties That Bind“

The Gang’s All Here

Once again, solid execution tries to pull Arrow out of the deep structural flaws of its season, and almost succeeds.

The Flash: “Harry And The Harrisons”No

Oh, just fuck off with this already, Flash.

No, really. Fuck off. Three episodes away from the end of another awful season, and you decide to devote it to Bad Accent Theater.

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wrouindup (May 7-10)

Roman Reigns can’t catch a break?

The theme for the week, and probably the month, is Money In The Bank qualifying matches. We have eight entrants each in the men’s and women’s matches this year, presumably to even things out since they’re dual-brand. EVENTS OF SIGNIFICANCE:

Braun Strowman defeated Kevin Owens to qualify on Raw

Strowman is a lock for this kind of match, a large multiman match where he can lose without losing.

Finn Balor defeated Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn to qualify on Raw

That was a pleasant surprise. I don’t expect Balor to win the briefcase either, but there’s a chance, unlike Strowman. Jinder Mahal interfered and cost Roman Reigns the match sort of, so they’ll be boring the shit out of me at Money In The Bank, I presume.

The Miz defeated Jeff Hardy to qualify on Smackdown

That’s fine. The briefcase always works better on heels than on faces, so The Miz migh end up with it. Especially since I think it’s likely to end up on a Smackdown star. But...

Rusev defeated Daniel Bryan to qualify on Smackdown

I mean, obviously, nobody wants Daniel Bryan in a ladder match. Rusev could also take the briefcase, and I’d certainly love it if he did. And it’s gotta be sort of significant that he was the first person to defeat Bryan since his return, right?

Ember Moon defeated Sasha Banks and Ruby Riott to qualify on Raw

Another pleasant surprise, including a lovely double Eclipse to finish the match.

Charlotte defeated Peyton Royce to qualify on Smackdown

Charlotte’s status is up in the air, since she needs surgery to repair a breast implant (busted before Mania but being dealt with soon) and also got some teeth knocked out in Europe over the weekend. I can’t imagine they’d have had her qualify if she can’t compete, but maybe they have plans for something to get the IIconics in the match.

Seth Rollins is doing the Open Challenge thing with the Intercontinental Title

You know, the thing where he has long matches with deserving or undeserving lower midcarders in the hopes of elevating them despite beating them? This week was Mojo Rawley, so he was undeserving and it didn’t work, but what the hell.

War Raiders crushed Heavy Machinery

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Ricochet and Velveteen Dream will be feuding

YAAAAAAAAAAAY

BONUS KUDOS

Bonus kudo to Corey Graves for calling Aiden English “Spider Jerusalem” on Smackdown.

Bunos kudo to Tommasso Ciampa for being the single purest, most hated heel in all of WWE right now. His match with Kassius Ohno was fine, but man, did he get booed.

Backlash (2018)

Right before things go bad for AJ.

Oh, hey, this has been sitting in drafts for like a week. I is good at bloggings.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, WWE Backlash 2018. A largely mediocre pay per view, kicking off this year’s new era of co-branded PPV’s, but it is significant in one key aspect. My first ever 100% prediction PPV, including the pre-show.

Superhero Catch Up Post

OK, between getting sick and not caring, I’m a few eps behind on posting around the various hero shows. But nothing’s really changed. All three shows are sticking with their patterns.

Flash continues to be awful, with recent episodes really playing up the series’ frequent flirtations with awful gender dynamics and writing for women. There are ocasional flashes of not-awful in the righting, but they’re few and far between.

Arrow keeps trying to mine an awful season arc for the best stories it can tell under the circumstances, and sort of kind of succeeds but not really. I mean, yeah, OK< Human Target disguised as Tommy Merlynn is about the only way I’d accept the return of Merlynn, but didn’t Flash just have a show where someone impersonated a dead person to get the hero out of a trial?

Agents of SHIELD continues to be the standout, despite its clumsy attempts to pretend it’s still happening around the same time as Infinity War. The weird tragedy of Glen Talbot continues as he becomes Graviton and goes insane is a fun, unexpected (three episodes ago) twist, but mentioing “New York” last week and “Thanos” in this last episode is about to raise some questions I don’t think the show’s capable of answering to any degree of satisfaction.

PREDICTIONS: Backlash 2018

Only two of these people are wrestling each other.

Right. The last couple of weeks have been boring as fuuuuuck. Some decent matches, but nothing really in the way of character development or plot moves. We’re still in the post-Mania storylines as we head for Backlash and the end of single-brand PPV events.