Category: Wrestling PPV Musings

WWE Blood Money III – Super Showdown 2019

The Phenom Versus The Phenom!
The Deadman Versus DA MAN!
The UNDERTAKER Versus GOLDBERG!
Both men PAST THEIR PRIME!
What could possibly go right?!

Yep, we’re looking at another WWE Blood Money show from Saudi Arabia because I hate watching good wrestling PPVs. This not only has the double whammy of not only being a WWE show from Saudi Arabia pre-COVID, but also being a WWE from 2019, which was when the product was the absolute drizzling shits. So yeah, we’re in for a fun time here.

I mean, we COULD be talking about what happened this past weekend in Toronto… I hear a big LEGENDARY event took place and my only reaction was… “Took them long enough.” So instead, we’re doing a bunch of pre-COVID WWE Blood Money shows from the benevolent and progressive kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is the only wrestling content you’re getting this month. (I promise we’ll do the Chamber first thing in April.)

Anyway, let’s bitch about some crappy WWE shows before we can start talking about some good ones.

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AEW All In 2024

For the second year in a row, All Elite Wrestling held their now annual All In event from Wembley Stadium in London and after the previous year’s record-setting attendance, we didn’t quite have that repeat performance here. No big surprise; something about diminishing returns. On the bright side, though; you still had a respectable 40-50K in attendance and they were given a largely entertaining show capped off with a show-closing moment that should have come sooner. Most importantly of all, there was no backstage drama to kill the mood and so people can talk about how this was a good show rather than some bullshit that happened in the back… but most people would rather talk about attendance being down since that’s the commonality with AEW these days.

Whatever. I don’t care. I finally got around to seeing both All In and All Out recently (via a loan of DVD recordings) and I have some quick thoughts for this show… as for the next show… well, that’s another story, but for now, All IN…

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TNA Bound For Glory 2024

Yeah, we’re doing this show.

So, I will be confess a bit here. I had a lot of this written down back in October when this show was taking place and I was mostly enjoying it until the main event finish that left me… well… so I canned this, held it off for later, and then something magical happened. Joe Hendry won the TNA World title at Genesis 2025 and then got the biggest pop of his career at the Royal Rumble. You know what? Good for Joe. He’s got a future in WWE once his TNA run is done.

So now we’re going back to this show when TNA had just one job and they bungled it. They eventually course-corrected because… well, let’s be honest. TNA World Champion DOLPH ZIGGLER wasn’t getting that big a pop. But we’re revisiting this show and we’re going to pretend that this show is still fresh in my mind… mostly because I’ve had emotion penned in and I don’t want to ruin that emotion just yet.

Anyhoo… here we go.

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Royal Ramble 2025

So let’s get this out of the way right off the bat, yeah?

TNA World Champion Joe Hendry came out at #15 to a massive pop and 70,000+ people in the George Lucas Oil arena in Indy were singing his song. He got a few licks in while Sheamus was in the corner entertained by the whole thing before Jacob Fatu came along and knocked Joe out, which upset Sheamus tremendously. And then Roman Reigns came along at #16 and eliminated a couple folks. Joe tries for a shot, but gets speared and tossed for his trouble, with some mild heckling from the audience… well, that went as well as I expected… but yes, Joe Hendry was at the Royal Rumble, he had his time in the sun, and people cheered him on. Nothing else on this show matters and we can all move on with our lives.

But… if you really want to know about the rest of the show, you can read about it after the break, but I’ve very little to say.

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TNA Genesis 2025

Congratulations, TNA. It took you a little while, but you finally believe in Joe Hendry.

Welcome to the rest of us.

Truth be told, I did not intend on watching this show because I was largely busy that weekend, but I did make a point to catch the replay if the above happened and sure enough, that’s what we got. And so here we are. I also plan on doing musings for the Bound For Glory show from months ago, but that’s for later down the road. Right now, we’ve got this show… which also featured some involvement from NXT talent thanks to the recent TNA/WWE deal that sees a talent exchange between both groups. Now if you were to tell me fifteen years ago that TNA and WWE would not only be on good terms with each other, but go so far as to have some limited form of talent exchange, I’d call you nuts. In fact, I still think this is nuts. Still, good on TNA. This is a good thing for them, along with the move to Sportsnet 360 up in Canada, which gives them slightly more visibility (as well as priority, since TNA being owned by Anthem – a Canadian company – makes them defacto CANADIAN CONTENT that must be showcased.)

Anyway, besides the above, there’s a whole lot of show to cover here, so let’s dive in.

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Royal Ramble 2015

Has it really been a decade since this show took place?

Has it really been that long since we last touched this pile of shit?

So… today, we revisit the 2015 Royal Rumble show. The show that pretty much kicked off what was, at the time, the shove of Roman Reigns down the collective throats of the WWE Universe whether they liked it or not. The show that pretty much cemented that relationship for the next five years. The show that, in the long run, served as the beginning of this whole Bloodline thing that’s going on today.

I haven’t touched this show in a decade and yeah, it’s a bit interesting to go back to this one after all this time. Perhaps one of the most infamous shows in all of WWE history, but one that plays a pivotal roll in what would become the single most dominant saga for the next decade – that of Roman Reigns. All those years of the company pushing him as the next big star, only to get rejected by an audience who preferred one or others in that spot, their many attempts to garner sympathy for Roman and ultimately backfiring, all those supposed ascensions to the throne that would later be reversed and THIS TIME FOR SURE… and yet all it took was a sabbatical from the company for Roman to rethink his entire perspective and come back in late-2020 to begin a dominant run that would last damn near four years.

And yes, Roman’s run as the Tribal Chief – regardless of its actual content – is one for the ages. One of the most important and significant tales ever depicted on WWE television and perhaps the best work of Reigns’ career, as a result… and yet Roman’s story really began here. On this fateful night. Where he was to make his first step towards superstardom…

And also, there was a lot of other show here, too…

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AEW Double Or Nothing 2024

For anyone wondering why it’s taken me this long to post musings on this show, it’s because it’s taken me this long to WATCH said show.

Double Or Nothing 2024 is a near-five hour sloth. I’ve heard good things, but the one takeaway was “it’s too damn long.” And when I heard the runtime for this thing, I said, “No thanks. Not for me.” And even when my buddy loaned me his DVD recording of the show to watch some time afterwards, I simply didn’t have the stomach to sit through that entire show. Even on a card built on great wrestling, there comes a point where you can only watch so much before it becomes an afterthought. And that’s probably the big takeaway with this show. See it in one shot and by the end of the show, you’re mostly clockwatching. Watch it in bits and pieces and you can start to appreciate the individual pieces.

That was my approach with this show; watch a match or two a day and get back to the rest another time. That way, I have a greater appreciation for the quality of the matches and such, whereas even splitting it in a couple days worth of viewing, something would’ve been off. So bare in mind when reading this that I’m watching this show in bits and pieces because that’s the only way I could digest this thing. Trying to do this in one shot… eh, I don’t have that in me anymore, regardless of the actual quality.

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WWE Blood Money II – Crown Jewel 2018

In case you missed the State Of The Blog, I’ll be breaking the moratorium on the WWE Blood Money shows from Saudi Arabia next year. For those wondering why I refer to those shows as such… well, look up the details regarding .

Up until this point, the only Saudi show that I saw was the first one and I thought it was a largely house show-ish affair. Mind you, I had no real intention of watching the show (mostly due to lack of interest and less due to any moralistic reasoning), but I had bed-ridden and it was on, so I ended up watching it and never bothered with the rest. The murder was what prompted the Blood Money label (and for all intents and purposes, that moniker is sticking whether anyone likes it or not), but lack of interest (as well as word of mouth regarding the subpar quality of these shows) was what kept me from watching these shows… and given the years these early shows took place and how horrid a lot of the proper shows were, skipping these early showings didn’t require much effort on my part.

However, with recent Saudi shows actually being treated like proper PPVs or PLES and not glorified house shows, it goes without saying that sooner or later, I may give these Saudi shows the time of day. Not fully embracing the shows, but mostly case by case, like any of the shows. With that in mind, it’s only fitting that I open that particular Pandora’s Box a little early by diving into WWE’s second Saudi show, the inaugural Crown Jewel 2018 event.

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WCW Mayhem 2000

Before anyone asks, the black void in the banner isn’t a mistake. It’s intentional and sort of expresses my feelings on this show… but regardless… yeah, this is it… the last WCW 2000 PPV that I’ve yet to watch… and then it’s over.

No, I’m not watching any Nitros. I’m not watching any Thunders. Fuck off with that noise. This is the last word on WCW 2000.

For context, this would’ve been shortly after Vince Russo was turfed from creative and we’re left with a booking crew that’s mostly cruising along until the eventual demise of WCW.

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