One Fall!

This week we recap Money In the Bank, the most recent Raw and review the documentary on the Hardy's. Brian won the Money In the Bank prediction contest. We also review our Mt Rushmore of post 2010 female wrestlers. The discussion on the Hardy's moves into how the WWE and the wrestling industry as a whole deals with mental health, physical health care and substance abuse, and as usual, we conclude it is lacking. 

CM Punk stepped back into the octagon, and stepped out for the last time. Dana White has said as much and Punk should realize as well he has no business being an MMA fighter. The question is does he hate wrestling so much that he will never return?

We also discuss ROH and AAA potentially booking MSG - the home of the WWE in 2019 and how Vince will respond. The WWE needs a true competitor and TNA is not cutting it, ROH might be the best potential option. 

We recap Raw and Smackdown as well as make Money In the Bank Predictions. We also hit this weeks Rushmore - the best announcers in wrestling history. 

This week on One Fall! after a recap of Raw and Smackdown we dive deep into the conspiracy theory that Kevin Sullivan committed the horrific murder of Chris Benoit's family and murdered Benoit. We systematically debunk this nonsense.  A tragedy occurred. It was committed by Chris Benoit. The WWE should have been doing more then with the mental health of its athletes and it should be doing more today. 

We move from Benoit to CM Punk winning his court case and being cleared of defamation of character. This opens up a broader discussion of concussions in sports and what should or should not be done about it. 

Enzo probably didn't help himself get back into the WWE's good graces by releasing a rap going after his accuser. Even though he will not be convicted of assault the best action for Enzo was probably to lay low and let time pass. Enzo however had other ideas with an insane and absurd rap single. Good luck in Ring of Honor, New Japan or local circuits, assuming the rap doesn't make you too toxic for them to hire you. 

We also review the upcoming Money in the Bank PPV and have some thoughts on possibly making the Universal Title the "Super Heavy Weight title" to solve the problem of legitimate contenders for the HeavyWeight title. It is almost already that, with Rollins and the IC Strap being the focal point of Raw and an Lesnar and absentee champ, why not make it official and solve a problem? 

This week we discuss how the superstar shakeup is playing out, what is going with the tag team division, the potential breakup of The New Day, Smackdown moving to Fox, Raw no longer being the flagship show and the possibility of one unified roster across all WWE brands. 

This weeks MT. Rushmore is the greatest Hardcore wrestlers of all time. See if you catch all the edits in this weeks podcast. 

This week we discuss how SmackDown is, in our opinion, the clear victor in the Superstar Shakeup. We also discuss the reality of the IC Belt being "THE" title on Raw and how this is the first time ever in WWE history that the heavyweight title is not the most marketable belt in the WWE. The face of Raw currently is Seth Rollins, not the Heavyweight Champ. 

We also had our Mount Rushmore of best and worst matches and looked ahead to the Money In the Bank PPV. 

Well, Backlash happened.  Bron and Bobby Lashley are banished to tag team fights, Bayley and Sasha are still in the slowest developing feud ever and nothing in the WWE makes sense. A no DQ match ended without a victor in a double count out, Alexa Bliss is hurt, Brock is no where to be found and Roman is still being pushed. The WWE is in a bad spell right now. We discuss this, plus our dream stable for John Cena to form as a heel. 

Rushmore and the wrestler who wants to die in the ring return next week. 

 We recorded this podcast about an hour before Backlash aired. Our discussion was mixed over whether this was a good card or not. Many of the matches/feuds are being recycled for the third time in less than 30 days. Some of the matches, Stroman and Lashley vs Sami and Kevin, or Bayley and Ruby Riott- felt silly and tossed in to fill out a card. 

Clearly the WWE must have heard us complaining about the lack of The New Day, Elias and Bobby Roode as all made appearances in possibly the best segment of the night, although Seth and the Miz had a great match. 

We wil review Backlash in next week's episode but overall this pay per view fell flat. We also did not do very well on our match predictions. 

We also get to our Mount Rushmore of Cruiserweights - and for the first time ever the crew is unanimous in its choices. 

The Greatest Royal Rumble gave us the greatest entrance since The Shockmaster. Titus O'Neil came sprinting down the runway and did a head first dive/slide completely under the ring. It will live forever. Aside from that moment The Greatest Royal Rumble was....good, but not great. 

While this even was certainly better than WrestleMania in all regards and felt like the special, grand, important even WrestleMania just didn't this year, it was still just above average. None of the matches were epic, non of the matches were anything that will be talked about even a month from now. The best match of the night was between Kalisto and Cedric Alexander and while it was excellent, it is not memorable in the annals of cruiserweight history. 

And that is kind of where wrestling is right now. It just kind of is. Sometimes the product in the ring approaches above average, but usually its just average because the WWE has become risk averse. It has a corporate image to protect and it is paying wrestlers more money than ever and they need to be kept relatively safe so they can be headlining shows. The result is a more sterile and safe product with less excitement. Also hampering things is that there are no compelling storylines and in some cases, just no story lines. Why was the Undertaker fighting Rusev in a casket match? Anyone? Exactly. Why was Cena fighting HHH? Angle would have made much more sense. What happens with Roman Reigns now? That ending solves nothing the ongoing storyline and can only set up a third match on one really wants to see. 

WWE is lost right now in a see of blandness, but that is what they are going for because it allows them to expand in worldwide markets. Welcome fans to not the PG era, but the bland and safe era. 

We also finally discuss the Andre The Giant documentary as well give our Mt. Rushmore of Intercontinental Champions. 

WrestleMania has come and gone. The Raw after Mania has passed. On the horizon is The Greatest Royal Rumble. Currently, the superstar shakeup happened this week. We give our thoughts on the talent moves and whether the blue or red brand won (spoiler - blue brand won).  

Smackdown is now the place to be for tag team wrestling, it also arguably has the best women's talent. If you like the classic heavyweights, Raw is your destination. 

We also get into a theory that the reason Mania was subpar and the storylines have been lackluster, as well as the in ring wrestling is that WWE was spending all its time and energy making sure that The Greatest Royal Rumble would be a smashing success. They made sure to keep wrestlers safe and were probably devoting a lot of time creatively to this event. If done right it can open a whole new market to the WWE. It makes sense. 

Finally we do our MT Rushmore of tag teams and tease our review next week of the Andre the Giant special.