🥾 Official WWE Stomping Grounds Thread

[Celexa Bliss 54]

Nia and Alexa are my new friendship goals.

[Jedi-El of Tomorrow]

Can Nia join Nikki and Alexa's BFF group?

[Deleted]

Nia getting all teary eyed over her little friend, aww. I'm so glad that shit about them having a falling out was BS.

[adamclark52]

Overall I thought it was a pretty good show by today’s standards.

Bjecky verses Lacey was passable. Lacey isn’t as bad in the ring as everyone likes to make her out to be but she’s also not worth a mega push. She’s an upper-tier talent from the Divas era of WWE at best.

The first Tag Team Match between the New Day and Kevin Owens and whatshisname was really good. Too bad it was an afterthought on a show that was largely an afterthought.

I zoned out during Ricochette verses Samoa Joe but what I did pay attention to was good. I didn’t like Joe losing though.

The Tag team titles match with Bryant and Rowan verses Heavy Machinery was really good. I liked Otis. He’s in that “so f***ing horrible he’s good class”. It won’t be entertaining for long but I’ll enjoy it sporadically.

I don’t really remember Alexa Bliss verses Bayley.

Roman verses Drew was good. They have good matches. They just keep having matches and enough is enough. I hated f***ing McMahon getting involved at the end.

I don’t remember the Cage match.

The main event was something from the Attitude Era but with zero heat. Rollins was a bitch the entire time. And like I said; Lacey Evans doesn’t belong anywhere near a megapush of this magnitude. It was a laughably bad main event which was only entertaining to see how much more the crowd could shit on it.

It was nice to not even have to see Charlottes f***ing face.

[Deleted]

"I'm just trying to remember all of the promos and they keep changing."

And that's coming from one of their best talkers and most charismatic people.

[Celexa Bliss 54]

Say what you will about Nia the wrestler, but Nia the person is A-OK in my book. Between this and a video I saw the other day with her talking about her body image issues, I respect her as a human being.

[salz4life]

If they hadn’t mentioned her Mom as her Mom, I would’ve thought she was her sister.

[Deleted]

These WWE docs are so great. I'm an even bigger Bliss fan now after that.

[robferatu]

Jun 23, 2019 21:25:03 GMT -5 brettappedout (BLM) said:

Jun 23, 2019 21:23:03 GMT -5 robferatu said:

So, we're clearly getting Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch vs. Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans at "Extreme Rules" in some kind of stipulation match, possibly with both of their titles on the line... Right?

I rather have 1 rematch than 2. Plus have Seth and Becky pin both at the same time ending these feuds.

Solid point in bundling two rematches in one, but my reservation about having them tag up and putting the titles on the line in the process is it opens the door to put the Women's Championship on Lacey Evans in some type of screwy finish where maybe Corbin pushes Rollins into Lynch, and she's rolled up by Evans.

I just get the vibe that they would use that match as a way to take the championship off of the Man by still keeping her strong with it being some type of clusterf*** ending.

[cabbageboy]

You know what Lacey is? She is someone who would have been a money women's heel in like 1985 to throw at Wendi Richter. She wrestles that sort of way, that gangly 1980s women's style of wrestling. Just needs some hair tosses.

I'm baffled as to how anyone would find Roman/Drew a decent match. Much like the WM match Drew vowed all sorts of bloody violence against Reigns, wanted to disfigure him, end his career, don't watch because it'll be too vicious, etc. And they go out and have a house show match, working holds, doing boring stuff, etc. I thought it was probably the worst thing on the show to be honest, since the cage match at least had a creative finish.

[Chiral]

Oh my god. I just like. Straight up forgot about this and didn't watch. That's NEVER happened for a WWE PPV since I started watching.

[The Kevstaaa]

WWE Stomping Grounds
June 23rd, 2019 | Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington

WWE Cruiserweight Championship: Tony Nese [c] vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Drew Gulak
The cruiserweights were back to the Kickoff Show tonight. This was exactly what we’ve come to know from the cruiserweight division. Even when thrown onto the Kickoff Show, they put in the effort. I loved Drew Gulak’s aggression in this. It has been a pivotal part of his story over the past few months and he opened with a big dropkick at the bell. Tozawa and Nese handled the athletic stuff while Gulak grounded things. They build to some pretty great drama down the stretch and got the crowd involved. Nese was tossed to the outside, taking him out of the finish. Gulak avoided a kick from Tozawa and picked up the win to earn the title in 11:19. A well deserved victory. Really good match with lots of entertaining moments and good spots. I dig it. [***½]

WWE Raw Women's Championship: Becky Lynch [c] vs. Lacey Evans
A rematch from their **¾ encounter at Money in the Bank. Like that match, this one shined when Lacey Evans got to do her character work. Just the little things like the way she talked smack or responded to Becky’s offense was good. You can tell she still needs help as Becky was calling a lot of spots, on an almost John Cena level of loud. Evans made a big mistake when she stopped to try and us her handkerchief on the “nasty” champion. Becky turned it around of her and gave her a taste of her own medicine. It was back and forth after that, with Evans hitting a pretty lame looking springboard style Stunner. Becky survived and locked in the Dis-Arm-Her. Evans immediately tapped out at 11:24. Better than their MITB outing by a slight margin. Evans nails her character. [***]

Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn vs. The New Day
I had hopes that this would potentially steal the show. It didn’t quite do that, but they still delivered a very good tag team match. These are four guys who understand how to make something work. Kevin Owens taking out Big E and immediately running over Xavier Woods was a great way to start. It set him up as the face in peril that he excels at. They built and built to a very strong Big E hot tag. Things picked up from there and the final stretch was pretty great. A few close calls were teased late, before Owens bested Woods with a Stunner at 11:06. I really enjoyed this. Looking at my ratings, it was the best straight tag since Double or Nothing. [***¾]

WWE United States Championship: Samoa Joe [c] vs. Ricochet
An ideal battle of size against speed. Their styles should mesh for something special. Think about how well Samoa Joe worked with the X Division guys a decade ago. That was pretty much what happened here. Ricochet got his ass handed to him. Joe was a brutalizing enforcer who just bullied his smaller opponent. And yet, Ricochet refused to give up. He fought through a lot and climbed to the top, where he came down with the 630 splash to win his first main roster singles title in 12:19. Joe is almost always at his best when working against smaller guys. He’s the perfect bully and Ricochet was the perfect foil. Put those elements together in front of a hot crowd and you’ve got a recipe for success. A banger of a match. [****]

WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship: Daniel Bryan and Rowan vs. Heavy Machinery
No matter how hard Daniel Bryan tries, there was almost no way he was getting booed in Washington. The crowd was firmly behind his team, which could’ve made for a strange atmosphere. However, they were smart enough to kind of have Heavy Machinery work more of a heel style than usual. The match still did build to something of a hot tag for the babyfaces, but it didn’t entirely connect. The best bits of this were when Heavy Machinery acted like heels. Just when it seemed like the challengers might pull this one out, Daniel Bryan pulled Tucker Knight into a small package to retain in 14:17. I love that finish because it is how Bryan won several big matches last year. Heavy Machinery may have been the better team, but Bryan was smarter. Exceeded expectations. [***¼]

WWE Smackdown Women's Championship: Bayley [c] vs. Alexa Bliss w/ Nikki Cross
Big pop for Alexa. This feud has played well off their 2017 disaster (outside of that very good Payback match). We’re two years removed and Bayley has grown. She’s now a more aggressive wrestler and it’s part of why she won the Women’s Title at Money in the Bank. Cashing in when she did wasn’t a “nice girl” moment for her. Despite this, Bliss took control and showed that she’s still the meanest of them all. She neutralized Bayley’s arm, looking to take the Bayley to Belly out of play. You could see the training she did with Mike Quackenbush pay off with some of her offense in this one. A pivotal moment came when Bayley hit Nikki Cross with a tope suicida. It was intended for Bliss but she may have pulled Cross into harm’s way. Twisted Bliss was set up, but Cross tried to go after Bayley. The slight distraction allowed Bayley to get her knees up on the move and then she retained with the Bayley to Belly in 10:39. A hoot of a match. The arm work was solid and I loved the way that finish played into the storyline. [***¼]

Drew McIntyre w/ Shane McMahon vs. Roman Reigns
Their WrestleMania match was a disappointment. I wanted them to have a hard hitting sprint. I was hoping I’d get that here. It was hard hitting, but not really a sprint. Instead, they went on for a while. It got off to a promising start, but the longer it lasted, the less interested I was. That was especially true with all the near falls and such late. It felt like they were just doing big kickout spots for the sake of it. We also got a hefty dose of involvement from Shane McMahon to keep his feud with Roman Reigns alive. There were several points where it felt like Drew should’ve won, yet he didn’t. A Claymore was enough at Super Showdown but everything Drew threw at him here wasn’t? Reigns overcame the odds and won with the Spear in 17:25. [***]

WWE Championship Steel Cage Match: Kofi Kingston [c] vs. Dolph Ziggler
I don’t like Steel Cage matches anymore. It’s rare that one comes along and is great. Most are either bad or cap out at pretty good. I’d say this one is hard to call flat out bad. The stuff they did wasn’t exactly bad. It was just unbelievably boring. That’s disappointing because of how great Kofi Kingston has been this year. There’s just something about Dolph Ziggler that drags everyone down. It followed the Steel Cage tropes we’ve come to expect and nothing about this stood out. Until the finish. When it looked like all hope was lost for Kofi and Dolph was escaping out the door, Kofi dove over the top rope and over Dolph to the floor, winning in 19:56. I’ve never seen that ending to a cage match and it was perfect for Kofi. Honestly, that helped bump the score up. [**¼]

WWE Universal Championship: Seth Rollins [c] vs. Baron Corbin
So the big reveal of the special referee turned out to be Lacey Evans. The fans dumped all over this, but it made sense. They’ve been pushing the Seth Rollins/Becky Lynch relationship on TV and Seth has been beating up all the candidates. So get someone who he won’t hit and who has an issue with Lynch. The crowd didn’t care about this at all, chanting a ton of stuff that had nothing to do with the match. Evans was a good choice from a storyline perspective, but not from a real perspective as she had no clue what she was doing. She paced around like a deer in the headlights. She did change stipulations a few times to stack the odds against Seth. Becky made the save and a new ref arrived to count the three after Seth hit the Blackout in 18:46. Another boring match. It felt long, nobody cared, and the overbooking was too much. [*¾]

Overall: 7/10. I came into this with zero expectations. Though I’m higher on the WWE product than a lot of people on the internet, I wasn’t enthused about this show. The build wasn’t there. But then it started and they were rolling. The first seven matches all got at least ***, which is a strong level of consistency. The last two matches fell off a cliff, causing this to drop in quality. A good show that you can consider damn near great if you turn it off before the major title matches.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

Brollins. That's just not even remotely clever.

[robferatu]

The show was forgettable, but watchable.

Rollins and Corbin ending a quarter about ten o'clock had me convinced that either Lesnar was going to cash-in or Drew McIntyre was going to beat down Seth, leading to Shane McMahon sanctioning an impromptu match between himself and the Beast Slayer for the WWE Universal Championship.

I actually predicted both Ricochet would win the WWE United States Championship and Lacey Evans would be the special guest referee in Wrestle League for WrestleTalk so that may have pulled me to the top of the standings there.

As for the rest of the card, Reigns and McIntyre II was world's better than their "Wrestlemania" match, the Smackdown Tag Team Championship match was enjoyable if only for how the crowd was so into Bryan and his interactions with Otis Dozovic, I really couldn't get into either women's match nor could I muster up the energy to care about Dolph Ziggler attempting to dethrone Kofi Kingston.

However, all and all, the shorter length of show definitely helped it and it ended up being better than I expected it to be.

[Deleted]

Jun 23, 2019 22:27:06 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

Brollins. That's just not even remotely clever.

Their on screen pairing is so awkward, because Becky has already said she wants her love life to be private and neither needs the other to get more over or anything.

[Gus Richlen Was Wrong]

Jun 23, 2019 22:27:06 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

Brollins. That's just not even remotely clever.

I mean, I'm laughing. More from derision than anything else, but I'm still laughing.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

Jun 23, 2019 22:27:06 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

Brollins. That's just not even remotely clever.

Those are impossible names to do this with. You do surname plus surname and you end up with "Rynch" or "Lollins". Or first names and you end up with "Secky" or "Beth".

[adamclark52]

Jun 23, 2019 22:41:51 GMT -5 EoE: Well There's Your Problem said:

Jun 23, 2019 22:27:06 GMT -5 Oh Cry Me a Screwball said:

Brollins. That's just not even remotely clever.

Those are impossible names to do this with. You do surname plus surname and you end up with "Rynch" or "Lollins". Or first names and you end up with "Secky" or "Beth".

How about you just don’t do it because from Bennifer to present it’s always been stupid?

[häšhtå.gdālėÿ]

I’m off-Network for now, at least until the Kofi experiment is over, but I decided to watch a good portion of Watch Along, and it was actually pretty damn fun. Cathy Kelly is the greatest, Dana Brooke getting so into everything was adorable, and Ryder seems like kind of an annoyance to hang around. Lol

[This Player Hating Mothman]

I didn't even know it was today until a friend I was hanging out with at a party mentioned it. That led to the question of 'Should we put it on to riff on it?' which turned instead into someone who bought it on FITE putting on Double or Nothing which the whole place loved and now the viewing party for Fyter Fest next week is going to be several people larger. ANd honestly for as social as my WWE-adjacency and incidental viewing has been that felt like another nail in the coffin to an interest waned so hard I'm just hovering around waiting for it to somehow warm up.

Judging by what I heard, sounds like I didn't miss much I would have been interested in anyway