There were a few big events over the weekend for pro-wrestling. I only caught a few of them as my general interest in the subject matter has dwindled considerably recently (not to mention being generally busy). But I managed to watch WWE Evolution, WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event and catch the following Raw on Monday. I might’ve briefly glanced at Smackdown but don’t recall anything. Also, there was an AEW PPV for which I mostly ignored except a few moments. Given the sheer amount of content available, I did not want to dissect everything little thing. Instead, I wanted to touch on the things I do recall and moments that were memorable.
WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event 07/12/2025
The WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event I watched in its entirety. I think the starting match was Randy Orton vs Drew McIntyre. Both were accompanied by celebrities with Randy and Jelly Roll while Drew had Logan Paul. The match itself wasn’t bad but I hate the stupid direction of the WWE putting more effort into getting celebrities involved in the matches themselves. Now, they’re going to do a stupid match where Jelly Roll will be involved in Summerslam. Argh. Wasn’t he just a fat slob until recently? Poor Drew. He’s got loads of talent and he just goes through the motions. Honestly, he should’ve been having a PPV match by this point against Cody Rhodes until Cena decided to retire and delay everything.
Jimmy Uso faced Solo Sikoa. Interference then Jacob Fatu made his return. This is painful because Jacob is wasting his time. He’s far more interesting when he’s climbing the ropes than being displaced in the midcard with these people. Bron looks like he’s getting close to being pushed further up the card but Jacob should be running parallel. I’m guessing he’s delayed for now so that the rest of the Solo bunch try to move up. It just doesn’t feel meaningful though since Jimmy without Yeetman and Reigns is purely a midcard guy and everyone from Solo’s side just feel like a numbers game than having any impact.
LA Knight and Seth Rollins had an interesting incident where Seth supposedly tweaked his knee. Whether that was real or not (because of shitty reporting) sucks just because Seth pretty much should be the top story in the WWE (and it feels like that’s falling quickly week by week). LA Knight got a pinfall surprisingly but I think that was an audible. That said, I don’t think I recall seeing Seth do those types of moves but I’m starting to really hate that Lionsault type of move. Too many people have gotten injured over it and it looks like shit most of the time.
Gunther vs Goldberg was my favorite match this entire weekend. Also, it proved to me that Gunther is the best wrestler in the world right now. No one could really buy Goldberg winning the title from Gunther but the real question was whether Gunther could pull a rabbit out of the hat and indeed he did. Goldberg actually sold in this match and everything made sense. It had a great aura because people knew it would be Goldberg’s last match. Of all the matches that happened over the weekend, this was the only one that looked like an actual match. I saw how some people online shit on this match but I think they have no clue what wrestling should look like. I think the WWE had been testing Gunther for a while in terms of how many people he could make look good and being able to create good matches. Right now, he’s the gold standard of pro-wrestling like a modern Bret Hart.
WWE Evolution 2025
Lynch vs Bayley vs the other generic Irish girl. Becky Lynch is still the best women’s wrestler around to me. She’s not on top anymore but I think she’s better than almost everyone in that division. Rhea might give her a run for her money but Rhea also has corny matches. I’m glad Becky won but apparently they’re having yet another fucking re-match between Lyra and Becky. Why? Yes, Becky doesn’t need the title but Lyra is being forced down our throats and I’m annoyed anytime I have to watch her. Worse yet I enjoy watching Becky but I don’t like how this is too obviously contrived to try to get Lyra over. Lyra probably is better off turning heel, losing that Summerslam match and switching to Smackdown and going after Giulia for the US title.
Fatal Four Way tag team match. Ugh. I really hate multi person matches. It’s beyond frustrating. It’s out of control and they’re all boring. That said, I do really enjoy watching Raquel and Roxanne. Charlotte and Alexa are cute to watch but I can’t take Alexa seriously. Roxanne might be small but she never was paired with a stupid doll (yes, I have a Giraffe but that’s different). Charlotte and Alexa had a very nice spot where Charlotte saved Alexa. I don’t want them to win the tag titles at this stage but I can see them being BookerDust v2.0.
Jade Cargill vs Naomi. I hate overly stipulated matches because they happen in an overly fashion. That said, I kinda got a kick out of this one. I’m always fascinated watching Jade these days. I keep comparing her to a more athletic version of Sid Vicious (except obviously way hotter). Naomi can’t hit worth a jack but they did an interesting spot with the monitors exploding. I can’t tell if that was legit because Jade showed an image on Instagram that might’ve displayed the effects. But Jade didn’t do bad here. I think she’s getting more comfortable. The ending sucked because Naomi seemed to be overtly communicating that she was ready to go face first into the table, which is such a dumb spot.
I tried to watch Rhea vs Iyo but got bored. The most interesting thing that happened in the match was Naomi cashing in. That actually was a good spot. Now, I’m NOT a Naomi fan by far but I like that they actually did something with Naomi for once. WWE is so stale that I’m cheering boring people because at least something new happened. I honestly had no problem with Naomi winning because it either sets up Jade and/or Bianca down the road against Naomi for the title.
WWE Raw for 07/14/2025
Kabuki Warriors vs Raquel/Roxanne. I honestly think Kairi is awful. She might be the cutest Japanese female wrestler but she’s not good at all. I have never seen her involved in a single good match and she looks sloppy most of the time. Asuka grates on my nerves. I used to like her but she’s now a Baba (old woman). Her matches aren’t any good anymore and I don’t see anything new coming from her. I did enjoy that uraken to Dominik though. That was a nice heel manager bump type of spot. I’m glad Roxanne got the roll up pin on Asuka. I wish they made a bigger deal of it since Asuka used to be the top woman there. But you can see just how far she fell and the fact that they won’t be pushing her except to be a wall for talent moving forward.
The Gunther post-Goldberg segment was very good. Gunther is the all around best person in the WWE right now. Dare I say that he’s even better than Bret Hart on the mic at this point. Paul Heyman interrupting was interesting because I’m hoping to see Gunther vs Bron down the line. That’s one of the top matches for next year at the main event level. Originally, I wanted Gunther to be part of Seth’s group and now with Seth gone possibly due to injury, I’m wondering if he should join because that group is down one major person.
Gauntlet match with Bron vs Penta, vs LA Knight vs Jey Uso vs CM Punk was basically the test for Bron. I ignored the parts with Penta. I think that’s just gratuitous and guys like Bron wanting to work with Penta. The stuff with LA Knight probably was the best part of the gauntlet. They have very good chemistry. A shame LA Knight lost because he needs a major win. The CM Punk portion is another one of those situations where we need to see that in a 1v1 on a major show. Punk won this thing which gives him the title shot vs Gunther at Summerslam. I really want Punk to win that one so that Gunther can move forward. While Cody probably will take the belt from John Cena, I would’ve preferred Gunther because Cody doesn’t have chemistry with Cena at Cena’s ripe age. Also, Cena putting Gunther over would mean so much more than Cena putting over Cody at this point.
Big beat down at the end on Punk and later Jey Uso. But the big save occurs with Roman Reigns returning for a MONSTROUS pop. Reigns is my guy right now. I follow his diet and exercise plan (not to a T but the framework). It’s obvious Reigns is just doing the main shows but that puts him in a very special situation where every time he goes out there, he’s treated like a legend. Not sure where he’ll fall for Summerslam but I could see Reigns and Jey team up against Bron and Bronson. Unless Heyman has some trick up his sleeve with yet another member, that type of match would be one sided. But this is Heyman we’re talking about so I expect a possible debut/return if that match happens.
AEW Related Stuff
I didn’t watch the AEW PPV because AEW is god awful. But there were a few things I did catch:
- Adam Cole’s announcement. It was as close as you could get to a retirement speech. Apparently, he’s got another concussion that apparently he suffered in a trios match where Kyle Fletcher hit him with a clothesline. Kyle has been getting dogged recently for a few sloppy things like an apron power bomb that could’ve gone sideways fast with Adam Cole. But with regards to the clothesline, I watched that part and all things considered, it’s one of those situations where it probably was worse than it looked. The power bomb on the apron looked far worse than this thing but I’m guessing that Cole’s history of concussions might be catching up. I do recall the one he had in that match where Adam Page gave him one. But he also had one in RoH ages ago. Given Cole’s health, he really should retire. He’s still young but not young enough where he should be continuing in this capacity. I saw someone mention he should probably just stick with Twitch and I honestly agree. I mean he probably could continue as a manager (the irony) but the whole Undisputed Era thing won’t be happening at this point. I feel bad for the guy because he seems like a legitimately nice guy from all accounts but he needs to prioritize his health. Since he was one of the bigger acquisitions by AEW during its height, his situation should put everyone there on high alert. They can’t have more of these things happening and need to change things up massively to protect the wrestlers and their longevity in the business.
- Mercedes Mone vs Toni Storm where Storm beat Mone and gave Mone her first loss. Finally. I haven’t really followed the Mone fiasco outside of podcasts but it seemed like the right move. I’m not a fan of Toni going nuts on this bizarre character but at least the crowd had a good moment where the two people that probably mean anything in the women’s division got to go against each other and has a reasonably satisfying conclusion.
- The Old B(f)ucks vs Osprey/Swerve. I don’t care for any of these guys at this stage. The right team won but I wish IRL that they fire the Old Bucks. I came up with an analogy for modern wrestling where it’s like the 80s and early 90s where you had all these guitar shredders that tried to outdo each other in terms of speed, etc. By far the worst was Vinnie Vincent and if you ever had the misfortune of enduring any of his uncontrolled solos, you’d realize that this guy was fired from KISS for a very good reason. Anyway, the Old Bucks are like Vinnie Vincent in that they have no self restraint, no psychology and are a detriment to the business. Even if Osprey and Swerve lack the mental capacity as wrestlers, the Old Bucks just need to go away permanently. Take their over payment and retire for everyone’s good. Oh and btw eventually all those shredders just went away because Grunge came out with a vengeance in simplifying music. I think that’s going to be the next trend in wrestling. Mark my words.
- Kenny vs Okada. I don’t care for either guy. I tried watching some older Okada matches but never saw anything special. I wouldn’t mind if someone pointed out an actual good Okada match but I have a feeling that I’ll just be disappointed
- Moxley vs Adam Page. Ugh. This was a lose-lose situation no matter how you cut it. Someone mentioned that they tried to re-create the WM40 main event with Cody vs Roman but fucked up. Honestly, Cody vs Roman was a good match up until the ending. The ending was overbooked but worked just because they had all the top stars showing up in cameos. AEW doesn’t have the Undertaker, John Cena, etc. to create that kind of atmosphere. More importantly they don’t have a smart booker nor the creative genius to do anything like that, which I don’t think really involves much creativity. It just worked because the audience got to see all their favorites for a big number (40). I saw part of the ending with the nail board and just turned off this match. It made me really hate this promotion. I don’t know why they decided to re-push Page. That guy is disaster walking. The only way I’d watch AEW ever again is if Bobby Lashley confronts Page and powerbombs Page to beat him in 3 seconds for the title then forces everyone else to try and take him in a real fight. Otherwise, this promotion is offensive and not worth my time.
Final Thoughts
Some people liked this stuff. I found myself mostly frustrated. There were a few good moments like Roman Reigns’ return, Punk going on to face Gunther at SS, Naomi’s shocking win (again I have to admit liking it even if I don’t care for her as a pro-wrestler), seeing the growth of Raquel, etc. But the downsides stunk more than the upsides. Also, I tried to watch a few NXT clips tonight but it’s so unbearably painful. Just not good. I can only bear to watch like 2 seconds before wanting to vomit. People say NXT is great (probably the same people that like Impact) but I find the bulk of it to be silly and bad. I’m just waiting for Ricky Saints to move to the main roster.
At any rate, I like this format better than going through every little segment. It’s less painful and I can talk about the things that seemed important to me where I had a thought.
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