Damage CTRL Support Island: Return Of The King (Kota)

[Renslayer]

[mistery]

Feb 3, 2024 0:07:54 GMT -5 The Rick Jericho said:

So I hope they don't keep the Damage CTRL name anymore next week.

They need a badass new name.

But the Dakota factor is interesting. She wasn't seen.

I wonder if she's cleared but won't return until the match to help Bayley defeat Iyo?

Kabuki intefere, Dakota runs out to pretend she sides with them. She clears the ring for Bayley. Bayley with the suplex.

1-2-3!

I wouldn't be shocked if its the other way around, with Dakota turning on Bayley instead. Because it's pretty clear she knew that there was a lot of ire towards Bayley, and even encouraged it at times (don't forget before her injury where she was pissed off at Bayley as well).

[The Rick Jericho]

I'm guessing though in traditional WWE booking.

Along the way to heat her up, I guess she gets 1 on 1 wins over Asuka and Kairi and Dakota if cleared for momentum on the road to Wrestlemania?

[gl83]

Feb 3, 2024 0:09:33 GMT -5 ben:friendship frog said:

Dakota speaks Japanese and was translating for Iyo on screen to Bayley, so she knew all along it's just whether Bayley has realised that yet.

Dakota has basically been in the middle between IYO and Bayley for the past year. The 2 scenarios we had for the past few months were either Dakota was gaslighting and manipulating Bayley and stringing her all along, or she was the only one that was somewhat sympathetic to Bayley. And it is interesting how they had IYO and the others making the move to take out Bayley with Dakota not there.

[The Rick Jericho]

[clc]

Feb 3, 2024 0:16:32 GMT -5 The Rick Jericho said:

I'm guessing though in traditional WWE booking.

Along the way to heat her up, I guess she gets 1 on 1 wins over Asuka and Kairi and Dakota if cleared for momentum on the road to Wrestlemania?

IYO has been booked as such a weak champion. They should probably heat IYO up heading into Mania. Bayley winning the Rumble and being iron-woman gives her the momentum.

Really not digging how this is playing out. (Seems I'm in the minority since I'm not liking the Damage CTRL break up, but I'm prefect fine with the Cody step-aside)

[Renslayer]

Feb 3, 2024 0:16:32 GMT -5 The Rick Jericho said:

I'm guessing though in traditional WWE booking.

Along the way to heat her up, I guess she gets 1 on 1 wins over Asuka and Kairi and Dakota if cleared for momentum on the road to Wrestlemania?

Could see Bayley vs Asuka in Perth being a good time

[Sparvid]

Feb 2, 2024 21:30:08 GMT -5 gl83 said:

[Gus Richlen: Ruffian]

Feb 2, 2024 23:44:56 GMT -5 mistery said:

Predictably Iyo is catching a lot of racist garbage thrown at her on social media over this. Never change, wrestling fans (actually do change, its disgusting).

I hope Iyo wins just because it would also send a message that Japanese talents can absolutely win at Mania on the main card, because I don't think a Japanese talent has won on the main card in over 20 years. And WWE still very much has a problem with treating their Asian talents on the same level as their other wrestlers.

My only problem is it leaves Bayley in the lurch. Granted, she's constantly being called a very giving performer, but just in terms of story she should win. And this is nothing at all against IYO, who is legit one of my favorite women on the roster right now.

[theironyuppie]

Feb 3, 2024 1:54:20 GMT -5 Gus Richlen: Ruffian said:

Feb 2, 2024 23:44:56 GMT -5 mistery said:

Predictably Iyo is catching a lot of racist garbage thrown at her on social media over this. Never change, wrestling fans (actually do change, its disgusting).

I hope Iyo wins just because it would also send a message that Japanese talents can absolutely win at Mania on the main card, because I don't think a Japanese talent has won on the main card in over 20 years. And WWE still very much has a problem with treating their Asian talents on the same level as their other wrestlers.

My only problem is it leaves Bayley in the lurch. Granted, she's constantly being called a very giving performer, but just in terms of story she should win. And this is nothing at all against IYO, who is legit one of my favorite women on the roster right now.

Bayley turning face after all this, when crowds are genuinely behind more than in a long time, just to lose to Iyo (who's already had a pretty long reign even if she hasn't been presented as a central player on SD a lot of the time) doesn't feel like a rewarding ending. I'd only see it happening if they were to have Dakota betray Bayley at Mania, or else have plans for Bayley to move over to Raw.

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

The Rock can eat the biggest bag of shit for making everyone not talk about how awesome Bayley's promo was tonight.

[schma]

I'm wondering if Bayley takes the pin to put over Iyo at Wrestlemania and then gets the win back at Backlash. It still gives Iyo the rub of a mania win. I am curious to see where Dakota lands here, though her staying with damage ctrl would cement the Bayley face turn.

I just watched Bayley's segment a couple times though and it was fantastic. Just saying a few Japanese words turned the whole story of the past few months on its head. The hidden pipe was excellent and showed how smart she can be. Hell I think she was hoping Iyo would try to make amends right up until the Kabuki warriors attacked her. The interesting thing is that apart from the aborted belt shot, Iyo didn't put a hand on Bayley. There's still a lot of layers that can be explored in this story.

[mistery]

I think something that absolutely needs to be discussed is what happens to Iyo if she loses the title at Mania. Because I have a REALLY bad feeling that is what is happening (even though it shouldn't) and she ends up falling pretty far down the card, and she loses all of her momentum entirely. She isn't built up like a 4HW or Bianca. Because as much as people don't want to admit it, WWE has an absolutely TERRIBLE track record of pushing/keeping Japanese stars as faces of the company. And even that's underselling how bad they actually are at it.

And I know someone is gonna kramer on in and say "Well they don't speak English so of course they won't be pushed as faces of the company!". Problem is that pretty much every other entertainment medium (outside of NFL and Nascar) has no problem managing to portray ESL speakers as faces of their brands. Only pro wrestling (this applies to both WWE and AEW) seems to take exception to the idea that a Japanese talent like Iyo, Shinsuke, Asuka, Kairi, etc should/can be a face/ambassador to their company.

Hell, the biggest star in baseball right now is Shohei Ohtani. And he hasn't harmed the MLB at all (I would go as far to say he's done more to bring more eyes to it). There's no reason Iyo couldn't fit into a similar role in WWE. The only thing holding her back are outdated views from TKO/WWE management/creative.

[Deleted]

Let's be clear....whether Bayley wins or not she will be perfectly fine she is pretty much just capping off her career now because there is nothing left for her to do that isn't just dream scenarios at this point.

IYO on the other hand is a huge question mark.

Like what comes after for her? she will likely get a rematch and lose to Bayley as the usual of champions who lose at Mania but then slide down the card question is how far?

And also as said she has a contract up next year HHH is no doubt gonna wanna retain her if for no other reason than to help all these new women , I have pretty much assumed since she returned that IYO and KAIRI are gonna depart pretty much at the sametime to go back home to Japan to close out their careers together because KAIRI herself said before she returned to WWE she has maybe 3 or so years left in her...her current contract is only for 3 I believe which puts her at finishing a year after IYO's deal is done.

And IYO has a maddening ammount of dream matches waiting for her in STARDOM.

[Deleted]

Feb 3, 2024 4:57:02 GMT -5 schma said:

I'm wondering if Bayley takes the pin to put over Iyo at Wrestlemania and then gets the win back at Backlash. It still gives Iyo the rub of a mania win. I am curious to see where Dakota lands here, though her staying with damage ctrl would cement the Bayley face turn.

I just watched Bayley's segment a couple times though and it was fantastic. Just saying a few Japanese words turned the whole story of the past few months on its head. The hidden pipe was excellent and showed how smart she can be. Hell I think she was hoping Iyo would try to make amends right up until the Kabuki warriors attacked her. The interesting thing is that apart from the aborted belt shot, Iyo didn't put a hand on Bayley. There's still a lot of layers that can be explored in this story.

Someone brought it up which I think would be a clever way to spin it.

That Dakota got IYO to bring back KAIRI to basically use that to turn IYO against Bayley and Asuka joining was just pure circumstances due to KAIRI's return.

Because IYO prior didn't really hate Bayley I mean she clearly had her little issues with her but still considered her a friend...she only really got cold towards her when her actual real friend showed up.

Like you can really spin this to where Dakota manipulated everyone to turn against Bayley because Dakota wanted to usurp Bayley's position as leader.

[Deleted]

And this moment took me back to a previous thought I had months ago that if this match did happen...I can absoloutley see  a Hogan Vs Rock kinda moment.

Because despite the betrayl it honestly feels like Bayley genuinely does not want to do what she knows she has to....I can see Bayley winning and her and IYO hugging only for Asuka and KAIRI and Dakota to attack IYO post match and Bayley then saves her.

I think alot of the promos ahead of their match are gonna be Bayley trying to get IYO to come to her senses because she legit see's IYO as her friend.

[Alice Syndrome]

Another plan foiled by someone downloading Duolingo

[schma]

Bayley went back and watched the show where they have what the ladies have been saying in subtitles. Excellent genre savvy

[clc]

I really don't like how this played out at all.

1. This may not have been the intention, but it really stinks of, "You can't trust those sneaky foreigners" "Listen to them always talking in other languages conspiring!" They really should have had Dakota there when the turn happened. Last night was not a good look.

2. They Bring back IYO and Dakota, and the endgame is make Bianca look strong and push Bayley? I love Bayley. She deserves the big spot. How they got her there is the problem.

3. Bayley coming out of this as the sympathetic one is certainly a choice. Now they could fix this if they give IYO a promo, but they don't do that. IYO's side should be, "Bayley, you are a bad person. You turned me into a bad person". Because in order for this to work, we have to put aside the fact that Bayley's character has been an insufferable bad girl for the past what 5 years? IYO might be evil too, but since they don't let her talk how do we know? Again we have to infer she is being bad only because she talks to her friends in Japanese. I said it before, not a good look.

4. Booking Damage CTRL as losers for their entire run doesn't help. IYO has been booked as such an irrelevant champ, she needs the win, but given the story presented that is an unsatisfying end. Given the story as presented, Bayley should win. Its fine if they don't view IYO as one of their main event players, but if they want to slide her into that Asuka spot of "dependable enough to put the belt on in a pinch" she doesn't have the strong booking Asuka had to back that up. They can always build her up after, but they really wasted just 2 years of a meandering story to make 3 new jobbers (IYO, Kota, and Kairi).

5. I'm guessing IYO having the belt was an accident. She was probably supposed to drop it to Charlotte or Bianca come Mania. That was probably going to be the trigger to turn on Bayley. The premeditated turn on Bayley last night was dumb. There was no reason to do it last night. Having characters act stupid to push the plot forward is usually considered bad writing. Unless, IYO is playing some 5-D chess and wanted Bayley to pick her to avoid having to potentially face Bianca at Wrestlemania. (Which could backfire because Bianca's story has been I still want revenge on IYO...I'd hate another Bianca wins lol story but given the pieces, that does make the most narrative sense)


So my thoughts are still a bit all over the place, but I know as of right now I don't like it lol.
At the least, I hope Bayley vs IYO is a great match. They are both aces so if they get the time I think it will be.

[The Rick Jericho]

The Warriors really don't have anyone lined up for Mania.

I can actually see WWE not even having them on the card sadly.

Unless they do some fatal 4 way tag team title match so they can get 8 talents on the Mania card?