QUICKIE -- Cyborg 009: Call of Justice (Netflix)

A 2016 3D movie, based on the Cyborg 009 manga produced by Production I.G. and animated by OLM Digital and Signal MD and distributed by Toho, was released on November 25, 2016. The movie itself was divided into 3 parts, with Part 2 being released December 2, 2016 and Part 3 on December 9, 2016. Kenji Kamiyama was chief director of the project, and Kokai Kakimoto directed the film. Netflix acquired digital distribution rights to the movie, where the movie was shown first on Netflix Japan in Spring 2016, with other territories following later. The films, edited down into 12 episodes, were released worldwide on Netflix on February 10, 2017.

Voice Cast:

009: Keisuke Koumoto/Kyle McCarley
001: Misato Fukuen/Erica Mendez
002: Takuya Satō/Robbie Daymond
003: Risa Taneda/Cristina Vee
004: Satoshi Hino/Ray Chase
005: Kenji Nomura/Chris Tergliafera
006: Mitsuaki Madono
007: Setsuji Satō/Ben Diskin
008: Haruki Ishiya/Zeno Robinson
Katarina Canetti: Yui Makino/Cherami Leigh
Emperor: Kazuhiko Inoue/Patrick Seitz

Sypnosis: 

The Blessed, a group of people who possess superhuman powers and intellect, and have manipulated human history since ancient times. Their goals are unknown and they cast a dark shadow over the world.

Though few people believe in the Blessed's existence, one journalist named Lucy Davenport heads to Texas to contact a certain family, and she meets the cyborgs who escaped from the clutches of Black Ghost and have defended humanity from them and other threats. The cyborgs themselves have been freed from their duty of protecting humanity ever since the establishment of the UN Guardian troops, and they now live quiet lives of peace. However, Lucy's visit and the return of the Blessed draw Joe and the others once more unto the breach of a new battle.

The Verdict: 

I know that I've mentioned Cyborg 009 a LOT for those who follow my regular discussions and themes on Facebook. So you know I was excited to hear that Cyborg 009 got a new anime. At first glance, I wasn't too crazy about the new look and character designs, but by the end of the 2nd or 3rd episode I was fine with the changes. This is still the same team of 00 Cyborgs that I loved from the 2001 anime.

004 is still my favorite out of the 00 Cyborgs, even though I'm not crazy about how "old" he looks here.

Sadly, there's some things that still plague this anime that existed in the 2001 series that annoyed me about the 00 Cyborgs. 003 is always treated as the damsel in distress, despite her superior reconnaissance abilities. She does get a pretty bad ass motorcycle towards the finale but doesn't do much with it. 008 is limited to being the Aquaman of the group - since he's only useful underwater, despite being one of the only 00 Cyborgs with actual combat experience prior to being abducted by Black Ghost and made into a Cyborg. 006 is still a walking Chinese (at least his design isn't as cringe-worthy as it was in previous iterations) stereotype. And last but not least, they make sure to let 009 win just about every battle they find themselves in. I get that he has better performance specs than the other 00 Cyborgs, but damn, that's so annoying that he's always the only one who can take down the major baddie. I tend to like their battles where it's more of a teamwork effort, like the Fantastic Four would do to combine their abilities in various effects to subdue whoever or whatever they find themselves against. Here, it just seemed like almost every fight was "OK let's stay alive long enough for 009 to figure out what to do to win." It was either that or waiting for 001 to teleport everyone to safety. Speaking of which, I did appreciate that they focused a bit more on 005's Native American beliefs and culture this time around and they finally shed some light on the truth about 001's powers.

In terms of adversaries, I thought the Blessed were something new and fresh and a nice departure from the mad scientists and renegade Cyborgs they always seem to find themselves up against. I just found the plot twist and the "betrayal(s)" far too predictable and obvious. If the rumors are true about this getting another season, I just hope they put more attention into the narrative for the next go-round.

In terms of the voice actors, I don't have any complaints as the new cast for this anime seemed more appropriate than the cast in the Vs. Devilman OVA movie did as they sound closer to the voices from the English dub of the 2001 Cyborg 009 anime. 009 sounds more mature - as would be expected from their experiences to this point and they axed the stereotypes to the voice characterizations from the other Cyborgs' nationalities.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

Get used to a lot of 009 hogging the spotlight...

This catered towards fans who have seen most of the 2001 Cyborg 009 anime or even the Cyborg 009 vs. Devilman OVA movie a while back that was on Netflix. There's some references to the RE:Cyborg 009 movie, but that was regarded as commercial failure by the creators AND the fans, so this is best understood if you have some prior knowledge to the team from the 2001 series, even though this is a small revamp of sorts in terms of design and modernization to their narrative after the Cyborg 009 manga and original anime creator passed away back in 1998.

I think newcomers could enjoy this if they only seen the vs. Devilman movie or new to this anime as there's a minor recap on their previous adventures. If you have Netflix, you should check that out first prior to watching this for you'll know what you're getting into, but it's essentially the same idea that this anime is known for - questioning the value and meaning of humanity. Is it the best thing in terms of anime that you can check out on Netflix? Not really, but definitely worth a watch if you're a fan of Cyborg 009 and can stomach the new visual style.


My only complaint with this anime is that it's over as quickly as it begins and there's still some tropes and themes that still plague this anime that existed in the original anime, despite this modern take on these characters that I mentioned above.

In terms of the ending, I think a lot of that is going to go over most fans' heads as there's a bit of the explanation lost in translation, but fine folks on reddit explained it well below. Mind you, this is major SPOILERS for the ending:

due to some translation errors the ending may seem a little off also you need to know about the actual Accelerator device in 009 Joe. 

The accelerator device has no limits to its ability to wrap its user in a field of motion control, which can be used to manipulate the movement of space/time of the user. Its limit is that a human mind can't comprehend the environment, so a Cybernetic governor is needed to help the brain process which is called overclocking. Technically the accelerator would have no limits to how it manipulates the movement of space/time as long as the mind could comprehend what it was processing in the environment around it. 009 has on multiple occasion throughout the series as a whole broken this governing limited and moved beyond the speeds intended for accelerator. 

what isn't clear because of translation issues is if Joe was always a blessed (my gut feeling says yes because he's broken the accelerator barrier 3 times before) or if what Linker theorized Joe evolved through his overclocked brain enhancements. This is disputed by 2 things, Ivan who said that 009 had always been that way and the fact they kept showing Joe's brain making connections already existing in his mind. regardless of which origin he is, Joe's mind reached a point where it could now process a world of physical movement laws beyond our understanding, in the end he can now manipulate movement of space and time beyond the realm of normal thought processes which allows him to move beyond space, time, or even existence as a whole. 

What he gained and what Emperor could not copy was the ability to understand a level of existence beyond physical movement, Joe had been slowly evolving or unlocking this power for as Ivan put it, over 3000 years due to his usage of standard Accelerator. He is now able to move beyond existence and its law of time and space, which he used to move Emperor outside of existence where he will never age, never die, and never understand what, where, and how he exists. 

The ending implied that 009 was able to also return and either saved 004 Heinrich and 002 Jet or 002 and 004 were saved by the other 009 cyborgs. I mean Ivan could technically locate and teleport 004 before he crashes into the sun, and we never really learned if 002 was killed fighting against Pyotr. 009 could easily just have learned to return from his infinite speed. 

hope this helps in making that ending make a little more sense

Thanks to ThaBlackReaper on reddit for clearing that one up. I got the idea that 009 was possibly one of the Blessed like 001 was understood as he's surpassed what his Accelerator has been set to do several times throughout the course of the 2001 anime, so the fact that it could "evolve" to this stage doesn't really surprise me. I just hope that this means that the other 00 Cyborgs' powers can evolve as well or at least get performance upgrades to compensate for they won't fall behind in battle. 

Impact Wrestling One Night Only: Victory Road 2017 (Knockouts Knockdown 2017 - April 14, 2017) -- Results & Afterthoughts

Impact Wrestling's Victory Road event for 2017 was held on April 14, 2017 and served as this year's Knockouts Knockdown all-female One Night Only Pay-Per-View special for 2017.

Also, despite being in the graphic above, Mia Yim/Jade is nowhere to be found on this show.

Introductions

Great to see Gail Kim acting as the "talent scout" and co-host for this event, even though she's still sidelined from her injury. I thought most of the girls, especially the newcomers and returning faces, didn't take the ball and run with it on their chance to cut a promo, except for Rebel who knocked it out of the park. She really surprised me on that one. In terms of personas, I think her and MJ Jenkins impressed me the most here.

When WWE does their Women's Tournament later this year, I hope they take a few subtle nods from this annual show where they take the opportunity to give these ladies a chance to show more personality. If they were smart, they'll fill up the brackets with ladies from the main roster who are struggling with getting over on the little time that they have on WWE programming and give them a bigger platform on that tournament to shine. Look at what it did for the bulk of CWC guys, especially for Gargano and Ciampa.

Angelina Love (w/ Davey Richards) def. Kayci Quinn

Quinn's pretty green, but showed promise by the time the match was over. I'm sure as one of Jay Lethal's students she'll get better with time as she gathers more experience underneath her belt. She's fairly new to wrestling on TV from what I've heard. It started off pretty bad (definitely that opening exchange between her and Love) as I think it was the nerves kicking in but her and Love found their chemistry for each other by the time this was over.

I was just disappointed at the finish was just a damn Clothesline/Forearm Smash by Love for the win. No Botox Injection or any of Angelina's other signatures? It just seemed like a lame way for the newbie to go out.

Can someone verify, but wasn't this Angelina Love's first "official" match back since coming back to Impact after her pregnancy?

Diamonte (w/ LAX) def. Amanda Carolina Rodriguez

To say that I follow AmandaxCR on Twitter, I'm surprised she's put on a bit of weight. That's not a bad thing, but I suggest changing her ring gear to accommodate that. If I can nit-pick here, I just can't stand seeing people (especially Mexican/Latino wrestlers doing this...) doing the Eddie Guerrero hip roll trifecta suplexes, but can't roll their hips. I'm glad Chavo stopped embarrassing himself doing it but you'll still see Rey Mysterio and even Sasha Banks bust it out from time to time. Here, you see Amanda doing it and it's not a pretty sight.

The more I see Diamonte (formerly Angel Rose) work, the more I'm becoming a fan of her work. At first, I was questioning why Konnan picked her for this iteration of LAX, but now I see that she definitely fits their unorthodox style.

Leva Bates def. Allie

The opening bits of this match was just freakin' adorable. Bayley could take notes here from Allie on how to be a bubbly, squeaky clean babyface. It's hard NOT to love Allie's innocence here. I found myself chuckling at Allie's remark of "You're pretty good!" at Leva's performance. Allie's selling herself short as she seems to be pretty deadset on not turning up her ring work up a notch until the inevitable feud between her and Rosemary at some point. I'm guessing that Impact Wrestling are saving that for Bound For Glory since those two killed it in their rivalry on the indies prior to joining the company. I'm glad that Leva Bates was able to show off more of her in-ring talents here other than being a comedy act here, even though that came to play by the end.

If I had anything to knock on this match is that it's the second match on this card with a distraction finish. I get they are trying to continue/play off the fallout of the Maria Kanellis-Alllie storyline, but these one-off iPPVs need to have some closure in my eyes, especially if you are going to sell these as stand-alone affairs.

Rosemary (w/ Crazzzy Steve) def. MJ Jenkins

The more I see of MJ Jenkins, the more I like her persona and her ring work. I like that she got a chance to cut a promo here to show that she wasn't afraid of the Decay. I just fear that she might fall into that tired "sassy black girl" trope that Sojo Bolt fell into and a ton of black female wrestlers find themselves trapped into in WWE.

Rosemary's awesome, simply put. From her persona, appearance, mannerisms, and in-ring ability, she's a force to be reckoned with and there's room for more growth too. Her and Jenkins had some great chemistry here and I would love to see them square off again later down the line. I hope Jenkins is a lock to be a mainstay for this new crop of Knockouts.

Alicia Edwards (Alexxis Neveah) def. Sienna

I haven't seen too much of Alicia's work prior to coming to Impact Wrestling as much as I should have but what I have seen here wasn't bad. It just seemed like your run of the mill Knockouts match. Alicia seemed a bit nervous to be working in front of the Impact Zone's fans but she managed to keep up with Sienna.

Much like my earlier complaint to the matches on this show, there was another distraction finish here, bringing the total count to 3 in one show. C'mon, TNA, don't be as bad as WWE with the roll-up being the strongest finisher in the company...

Santana Garrett (formerly Brittany) def. Brandi Rhodes

A strong candidate for the match of the night with Brandi surprising everyone by keeping up with Santana, move for move. Even I was pleasantly surprised here by Brandi's performance.

I get sick and tired of hearing WWE marks saying that WWE needs to sign Santana. They had MULTIPLE opportunities to do so and didn't jump on it. Besides, WWE has more than enough talent that they don't know what to do with 95% of them most of the time. I rather not see Santana go there and end up being a waste to her talents when she's lost in the shuffle. At least Impact Wrestling dropped her previous gimmick and is acknowledging her by the name that she's made for herself since leaving the promotion. She's one hell of a worker and a women's champion for roughly every promotion she's appeared in. She would be a solid talent to be a part of this new generation of Knockouts to build this division around.

She's got a great, marketable look and talented to boot. She's not bad on the mic either from the few indie promos I have seen her cut on YouTube for various promotions, so I don't see any downside on offering her a spot on the roster. If I were TNA, I'd jump at the chance to have her as a lock on my women's division.

I don't want to sell Brandi short here either. This was definitely her best performance out of her few matches on Impact Wrestling to date. I know people have been shitting on her talents so far, but give this girl some time. It's not like she had the chance to do this in WWE regularly. She's coming along in her growth better than a lot of the girls currently in NXT and some of the newer faces on the main roster to boot. Given some time, I'm sure she'll be as impressive as Taryn Terrell and Brooke Tessmacher at the height of their careers.

ODB def. Rebel

I remember seeing something similar to this when Rebel and ODB fought on Impact Wrestling's TV tapings a few weeks prior to this and there was a bit too much comedy here for my taste. It seems like these two love getting Earl Hebner involved into their "sexy" antics in their matches and it was pretty hit or miss here. I felt this was a wasted spot on this card as I was honestly looking forward to see how much Rebel has improved after cutting that promo earlier tonight and how she would bounce back from embarrassing herself during last year's Knockouts Knockdown event against Shelly Martinez/Salinas.

From what she did here was solid for the most part, but doesn't scream anything groundbreaking to blow away critics of her performance last year. If both of these ladies are looking to be taken seriously as mainstays of the Knockouts division, they might want to dial it back a bit with the comedy bits.

Laurel Van Ness def. Rachel Ellering

Now THIS is the Rachel Ellering I want to see as part of the Knockouts division. From the way that the commentary team was pointing out that TNA Management could sign anyone on the roster to the Knockouts division on the spot, I was thinking Rachel was going to get a spot from her hard work here, despite her shoulder injury. I dunno why she sold herself short on Impact Wrestling's TV tapings a few weeks ago, but she put on one hell of a performance here. I wouldn't mind seeing more from a full blown feud between her and Laurel Van Ness. Who knows, Impact might end up giving her the contract that NXT never offered her, despite her dad's brown-nosing over there and being forced to manage a shitty tag team.

Sucks that LVN came out with the win, but whatever. I hope Impact are wise to sign Rachel Ellering to a full-time contract after this because I would like to see what else she can do given a full-time deal.

Alicia Edwards, Santana Garrett, Leva Bates, and ODB def. Angelina Love, Rosemary, Diamonte, and Laurel Van Ness

By this point, I mentally kicked myself that they were going for a heels versus faces main event since they scrapped the usual battle royal finale for the previous Knockouts Knockdown events. This was a welcome change of pace, but it didn't really do much for everyone involved. It came down to be your run of the mill Knockouts match, with a few sweet spots thrown in. TNA seems to love that spot where all of the girls get their finishers in though until someone gets the win. Even the WWE girls are starting to recycle that one.

I wasn't too crazy about Alicia Edwards picking up the win here as I felt they should have let Santana Garrett or Leva Bates get the full-time contract, but I guess it can't be helped since roughly everyone in this match were already signed with the company anyway. Since they didn't let Leva or Santana pick up the win, I'm guessing that they didn't sign deals with the company (yet... I hope) so they went with the sure bet since they have to give Alicia a means to get payback on Angelina Love's assaults on her legally within kayfabe, so I can't complain in that aspect.

Karen Jarrett must be shopping in stores for that Stephanie McMahon authority figure collection, huh?

Closing Thoughts

I was taken back that Anthem abandoned the Knockouts Knockdown moniker for these annual Knockouts specials for Victory Road, but by the time it was said and done, it didn't bother me. This is still a Knockouts-themed event from top to bottom and I can't complain with what was offered here. The ladies - old and new - were given plenty of time to shine and show off their various personas and in-ring ability, while some were even able to cut a few promos to boot. I can only hope and pray that WWE takes some nods from these events (and possibly ChickFight) for their upcoming Women's Tournament later this year and for their three women's divisions as a whole.

Is this the best Knockouts themed event that Impact Wrestling has held to date? No, but they are still in this rebuilding/restructuring phase in the right direction. Showcasing these new Knockouts who will be staples to the division moving forward is the right way to go. I just wish Impact did a better job of promoting this event as I had NO idea that this was available until I saw the pirated upload of the entire show on my YouTube timeline over the weekend.

PREVIEW -- Thor: Ragnarok - Teaser Trailer

I finally had a chance to check this trailer out and I'm not really surprised as everyone else who were raving about it. I'm glad that Hela/Death's costume looks as close to her comic book counterpart as possible as I'm positive that she is going to be a major player with the Infinity War right around the corner. She was a character that the cancelled Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon merely scratched the surface of and I want to see how she is going to fit in the MCU more than anything else going for this film.

It seems like they are going to do a shorthand version of Planet Hulk here as Thor confronts the Hulk brandishing his Worldbreaker armor from that storyline. I'm honestly scratching my head at Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster and even more so at Valkyrie's casting (not why she's black but why does she look like she belongs in a live action adaptation of Horizon Zero Dawn) and costume design. Did they give any reason why Thor has a new haircut?

Why was everyone freaking out at Hela shattering Mjolnir? No one ever said the damn hammer was indestructible, so calm your tits. It's not like no one can't forge another hammer for Thor to wield anyway.

PREVIEW -- WONDER WOMAN - Official Origin Trailer

I'm going to be completely honest here. I don't see anything here that completely blows me away and makes me want to go out of my way to see this film. I still feel that Wonder Woman's inclusion in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was half-assed and a last second marketing ploy with little thought behind it. With this trailer, it just screams to me the same vibe of the first two Captain America films with a sprinkle of Thor thrown in for good measure. You have the warrior (this time a female) who comes from a mythical place and thrown into a war as a timeless relic from times long past in a modern(ish) era.

I'm sure there will be some fun to be had here from a woman's point of view, but I'm still not a fan of Gal Gadot being cast to play this character. If they are going to CGI the fuck out of this and make it look as fake as her scenes in BvS looked then I'm not really looking forward to this. To be fair, I wish Warner Brothers and DC Comics the best with their DC Extended Universe, but after BvS and Suicide Squad, I'm not getting my hopes up.

If they manage to fuck this up too, then WB/DC are going to have a tough sell with Justice League right around the corner later this year. On top of that, I would hate to be them with all of the angry women that they will potentially piss off with all of these

PREVIEW --- Justice League Official Trailer #2 (2017)

Here's the thing that I know most people are drooling about this trailer that I have a problem with that I had VERY same problem with during Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice... ALL OF THE FUCKING ACTION IS CLEARLY CGI!

Did they shoot everything in front of the green screen? Guardians of the Galaxy didn't even look this fucking fake. I saw Power Rangers a few weeks ago and I knew that was going to look like full CGI too but geez they didn't even try to make this look real here. Cyborg's face is just floating around computer-animations while everything else the rest of the League does here looks like a cutscene straight out of Injustice. Yes it looks fucking cool but damn, make an animated movie if you're just going to make everything look computer-generated anyway.

God, I'm glad I didn't fall into the hype train for all of those posters and teasers for this trailer all week. I knew this trailer was going to be a letdown.

Even I'll admit that this looks better than that first trailer they put out of this a few months ago, but I'm still skeptical. Remember BvS and Suicide Squad had great trailers and those flopped. I'm not getting my hopes up here.

If it ends up being great (not good/passable, I'm talking about amazing from start to finish) then I'll be more than happy to say that I was wrong.

REVIEW -- Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (2017)

Teen Titans: The Judas Contract is a direct-to-video animated superhero film directed by Sam Liu from a screenplay by Ernie Altbacker based on The Judas Contract by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. It is the twenty-eighth film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series and is the sequel to Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016). The film features the voices of Christina Ricci, Taissa Farmiga, Miguel Ferrer, Stuart Allan, Brandon Soo Hoo, Jake T. Austin, Kari Wahlgren, and Sean Maher.

This film marks Ferrer's final performance before his death from throat cancer at age 61. It had its world premiere at WonderCon on March 31, 2017. The film was released through digital download on April 4, 2017, and will be released through home media on April 18, 2017 by Warner Home Video.

Voice Cast:

Stuart Allan as Damian Wayne / Robin
Taissa Farmiga as Raven
Brandon Soo Hoo as Garfield Logan / Beast Boy
Jake T. Austin as Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle
Kari Wahlgren as Koriand'r / Starfire
Sean Maher as Dick Grayson / Robin / Nightwing
Christina Ricci as Tara Markov / Terra
Miguel Ferrer as Slade Wilson / Deathstroke
Gregg Henry as Sebastian Blood / Brother Blood
David Zayas as Alberto Reyes
Maria Canals-Barrera as Bianca Reyes
Jason Spisak as Wally West / Kid Flash
Masasa Moyo as Karen Beecher / Bumblebee
Crispin Freeman as Roy Harper / Speedy
Meg Foster as Mother Mayhem
Kevin Smith as himself

Plot: (FULL Spoilers)

Five years ago, the original Teen Titans (Dick Grayson as Robin, Speedy, Kid Flash, Beast Boy, and Bumblebee) rescue the Tamaran Princess Starfire from her captors sent by her evil sister, Blackfire. As she is no longer able to return to her planet, the Titans offer her a home on Earth.

In the present Dick Grayson (now Nightwing) rejoins the Titans to track down a terrorist cult led by Brother Blood, who plans on capturing the team to absorb their powers with a machine that he has tested on Jericho (whom his assistant, Mother Mayhem, quickly shoots afterwards). Blood hires the mercenary Deathstroke to deliver the Titans to him, which he obliges to do for both the money and the chance to get revenge on Damian Wayne. Deathstroke monitors the Titans through his double agent that joined the team a year prior, Terra, whom he rescued after her parents turned their whole village against her and tortured her. When Damian grows suspicious of Terra's behavior and starts tracking her, he is captured by her and Deathstroke.

Terra acts cold and distant towards the other Titans despite their welcoming attitude, but eventually warms up to them over time. During the night celebrating her one year anniversary with the Titans, she shares a tender moment with Beast Boy and kisses him. The next day, Deathstroke kidnaps Blue Beetle at the soup kitchen he works at, Beast Boy at a convention where he thought he would do a podcast with filmmaker Kevin Smith, and Starfire at the apartment shared by her and Nightwing. Dick discovers what happened to the other Titans and is attacked by Deathstroke at his apartment. He manages to escape by faking his own death, while Terra captures Raven.

Deathstroke and Terra bring the Titans to Brother Blood, but since the machine cannot operate properly without a sixth Titan (as Slade failed to capture Nightwing), Slade offers him Terra instead. Blood starts draining the Titans of their powers, but they are rescued by Nightwing. Nightwing and Robin fight Deathstroke while the rest take on Brother Blood (whom has absorbed all of their powers). The two villains are stopped by the intervention of Terra, who is enraged at Slade for his betrayal. Blood is depowered by Raven and killed by Mother Mayhem while Deathstroke is buried underneath multiple rocks thrown by Terra. Too ashamed to face her former friends/allies after betraying their trust, Terra decides to bring down the entire area. Beast Boy attempts to assist Terra in escaping the crumbling fortress, but Terra pushes him back and is buried underneath multiple layers of rubble. Beast Boy digs her up and she dies in his arms.

In the epilogue, Beast Boy goes on Kevin Smith's podcast and talks about the Titans with the host. He mentions that the team has a "wonderful" new member and that he will miss Terra. In a post-credits scene, Jericho is shown to have survived the bullet Mother Mayhem shot at him earlier.

The Verdict: 

Pretty awesome shot of this new team of Titans here, even though Cyborg is missing from the party.

Continuing the trend from their continuity established in Justice League vs. Teen Titans and everything going back from Justice League: WAR (Son of Batman, Batman vs. Robin, Batman: Bad Blood, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, and Justice League Dark), DC Comics and Warner Bros. brings us a mature adaptation of the popular Judas Contract storyline from DC Comics' Teen Titans comics. I thought it was pretty cool that they started off with a flashback to the young days of the Titans with Robin (pre-Nightwing Dick Grayson) and Beast Boy sporting their vintage costumes - who are joined by Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Bumblebee (Karen Beecher). If I may add, most of those previous members of the Titans are voiced by their respective voice actors from Young Justice. I thought that was a nice touch to say that the same animation studio is behind this stuff so that was a nice nod to that show.

Things fast forward to present day with the same team of Titans (sans Cyborg) are led by Nightwing and Starfire on a raid on Brother Blood's HIVE facility. What's jarring here is that they already have Terra on their team and have accepted her into their ranks without any questions. It just seems odd right off the bat - even more so that Terra's voice sounds a lot older than what she looks like, thanks to Christina Ricci providing her talents to that role, but we'll get back to that subject later. Between Terra's sarcastic remarks and Starfire and Nightwing's obvious flirting and sexual humor between each other makes this a joy to watch in these opening moments.

No lie, there were tons of moments like this in the film where I had to pause just from laughing so hard.

Don't worry Starfire and Nightwing's relationship becomes a recurring joke in this film - along with the recurring theme that somehow, someway that Nightwing gets his arm broken in ALL of these Bat-family-featured animated films in this continuity. Sadly, Damien (Robin) doesn't get as much dialogue as I was expecting here, but I guess a bit less of the kid being a dick was a good thing when we already had Terra filling that role with her sarcasm and attitude.

As much as the original Teen Titans cartoon is beloved for their adaptation of this story arc with Terra and Slade/Deathstroke, I felt that it was VERY rushed here. How did they expect audiences to care about Terra when it was clear cut from right off the bat that she didn't even like them or even tried to fit in? The partnership with Deathstroke was revealed a bit too early for my taste. Even though I knew it was coming but this film suffers greatly from its pacing. Damien is captured early into the film and the Titans don't really bat an eye about that (despite Slade's douchebag texts as filler) until they were reunited at the film's climax when they were all captured by Brother Blood.

Yeah... they went there in this film...

Even though Terra and Beast Boy's relationship doesn't hit off as well as it did in the original Titans animated series, I still
felt like he said some deep, meaningful stuff to her that really hit home. 

I can't really fault them for trying to recapture the magic that was between Terra and Beast Boy like it was presented in the original Titans animated series on Cartoon Network, but it was lost here when they already established that Terra had a thing for Deathstroke. Without making it seem creepier than it was on paper, I think that's why DC/WB cast Ricci for the role here with an older/mature voice for Terra to give off the illusion that she's older than she actually looks, but it's hard to buy into that when she flat out says that she wants to have sex with Deathstroke before he turns her down. I know that DC/WB are going with a more mature direction with these films, but didn't they get enough people frowning on them about how they portrayed women in the animated adaptation of The Killing Joke? Yes, yes... I'm well aware that story isn't kind to women at all but the "extras" added to it didn't really do it any favors, so I'm just saying here.

Changing gears a bit here, let's talk about how flawed her, Deathstroke, AND Blood's plans were... Okay, Blood wants the powers of powered people and he just settled for the Titans when the Justice League exists in this continuity. If you're going to hire someone as expensive as Deathstroke on the mercenary market, why not go after the Justice League and get your money's worth? Instead, you're going to settle for a team of kids, mostly with 2 out of 5 projected members not even having fucking powers (Robin and Nightwing)? What was even more stupid was that the whole point of having Terra deceive everyone was lost when she really didn't deal with the Titans herself. She helped Slade take out Damien, but everyone else was taken out by Deathstroke himself after her recon and research on all of their powers and weaknesses. I felt like Slade was just too lazy to do his homework himself (something Batman would have had no problem doing...) and it came off that he was just using this girl (Terra) to do what he didn't want to do to fulfill his contract with Blood. To say Beast Boy is supposed to have the entire animal kingdom at his disposal, it seemed pretty stupid that he couldn't hear Terra calling Slade flat out during the middle of the Titans' meeting before they were all being targeted.

Don't even get me started on how the finale of the film tried to act like Blood's combined powers were beating the Titans no problem until Terra went apeshit. They are really downplaying how powerful Raven is - especially after the events of Justice League vs. Teen Titans, but I'm guessing the excuse they want to throw out there between the lines that her focus is divided between controlling her powers and making sure her father stays imprisoned. That being said, she still was able to tap into his powers to land the finishing blow on Blood, so I don't get why she didn't do that in the first place. Once again, it just comes off as rushed storytelling - same issue that Justice League Dark's finale had. I think we can all agree that Blood was just an afterthought when it came to a main villain here in this film. It could have came down to the Titans facing off against Terra and Deathstroke.

What was really missing here is that killer edge the Titans had against Terra after her deception in the original animated series.

I was left wondering why should they still care after all of this? She didn't like Beast Boy here since Day 1 here, even though she caved for that kiss as part of her "cover" but she managed to keep pushing the rest of the Titans away when they got close. That was apparent at the party when she was barely even into it. She saved the pictures on her phone, but it was obvious she was all in for Slade until it was too late. Call me ruthless, but she got what she had coming and I didn't see a reason for the Titans to pity her. Goddammit, they missed the golden opportunity for Damien to say something savage as fuck at that moment when Beast Boy dug her body out of the rubble. Damien let me down in that department.

One thing I'm left wondering at the end is that why did the film gloss over the fact that Jericho (the guy who Mother Mayhem killed after the experiment) is Deathstroke's son? Well, I only know that since I'm familiar with this storyline from the comics, but it just seemed odd not to mention that at all here. I guess whatever is the next Titans-themed animated film after this will address that then.

Gotta admit, I'm looking forward to Donna Troy/Wonder Girl on the team for the next go 'round.

Last but not least, what the hell at Kevin Smith being in this as a legitimate character? Who thought that was a good idea? I get that he's a fan of this storyline but the brown nosing for Kevin Smith has to end at some point. He's a cool dude, but damn, I don't want to see him involved with everything DC related.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

Much like the rest of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies in this continuity, it doesn't hurt to check this out if you have been keeping up since Justice League vs. Teen Titans or Justice League: WAR. I can recommend this if you have been a fan of the Titans since the Cartoon Network original cartoon or Young Justice, but don't expecting too much out of this in terms of a great story outside of a few good laughs. It's not a bad story, but I was a little let down that they didn't go all out with this adaptation, especially when they had so much to work with here in terms of material.

NXT TakeOver: Orlando (April 1, 2017) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: Orlando was a professional wrestling event in the NXT TakeOver series. It took place on April 1, 2017, at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, as part of the WrestleMania 33 weekend festivities. The event was produced by WWE for its NXT brand, the event was streamed live on the WWE Network.

Five matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Bobby Roode defeated Shinsuke Nakamura to retain the NXT Championship. On the undercard, Asuka retained the NXT Women's Championship against Ember Moon and Authors of Pain retained the NXT Tag Team Championship against #DIY (Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa) and The Revival (Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder). The event also saw the debut of Aleister Black. Also, all of the championships were given new belt designs.
Note: This article was posted AFTER my WrestleMania 33 write-up, so I'll be mentioning stuff from after the fact.

SAnitY def. Tye Dillinger, No Way Jose Kassius Ohno, Roderick Strong & Ruby Riot

You guys can go back to one of the earliest entries I've wrote about women's wrestling for here or for the archives from Let's Talk Wrestling, but DAYUM Heidi Lovelace/Ruby Riot isn't easy on the eyes. She's even uglier to me in HD. That being said, it was cool to see what she brought to the table against Nikki Cross. I still feel like she needs to change her ring gear as it looks like she belongs in Sanity instead of against them. Her and Cross didn't do much other than deliver their own unique brands of crazy while the guys did most of the work.

No Way Jose was written off in an injury angle during the preshow so Kassius Ohno was made to be his replacement. Thank god he changed up his ring gear to some more flattering colors to hide his fat. That white NBA jersey wasn't doing him any favors. Now you can focus on his offense instead of seeing his gut and cellulite jiggling around during everything that he does. Can someone tell Roderick Strong to SLOW THE FUCK DOWN? This isn't Ring of Honor anymore so he doesn't have to go a million miles per hour in his matches. I'm sure one of the coaches/road agents chewed him out about that post-match. A part of me hopes Dillinger gets called up just for he doesn't have to be burdened with this feud much longer. I rather see NXT go in a different direction with everyone involved here (except for Ruby and Cross) out of the guys as it just seems to be redundant at this point.

This wasn't a bad match at all and definitely got everyone hyped to kick off the show, but I rather see most of the guys on Dillinger's team in singles feuds than in a huge stable war against Sanity, who could be in the tag team division conversation, especially in a division that's going to be lacking bodies once Revival get called up.

Aleister Black def. Andrade “Cien” Almas

I had no idea who this guy was supposed to be from the vignettes until I read up on message boards and social media to find out that this is the debut of Tommy (FUCKING) End in NXT. The guy definitely lived up to his reputation and I appreciated that NXT presented him like a megastar right off the bat. That's something I'm still shaking my head at how they failed to do with Roderick Strong. That guy was a fucking main eventer for Ring of Honor (which you can pretty much call an unofficial feeder system for WWE nowadays) and they just brought him in like a regular guy with little to no fanfare. Some of the Full Sail folks knew who he was but it wasn't made into a big deal like End's debut here. I've seen Almas work matches at NXT house shows, so he was the perfect opponent to put End over in his TakeOver debut.

If memory serves, isn't this the same guy who had that stellar exhibition match against Neville during the UK Championship Tournament?

NXT would be crazy not to push this guy to the moon. Then again... this is the same company that's deadset on doing NOTHING with guys like Sami Zayn, Cesaro, Dolph Ziggler, etc. at a main event level...

NXT Tag Team Champions The Authors of Pain def. #DIY and The Revival

I've been hearing people call this a MOTY candidate all weekend and I don't know about that. I'm usually biased towards the Revival's matches because they are that damn good at tag team wrestling, but at the same time, this wasn't as flawless as Revival's last few TakeOver outings. Don't get me wrong, Revival and DIY made the Authors of Pain look like a million bucks by enduring their arsenal of moves being laid on them, but the second DIY got eliminated this match went to shits. The Authors of Pain went back to being sloppy and green as grass. You could see that in how sloppy they finished off the Revival for the win here. Everything up to that point was superb though from DIY and Revival.

I was personally pulling for Revival as three time NXT Tag Team Champions but whatever, if they want to keep pushing AoP, I hope they learn something from Paul Ellering in the long haul as they got a LOT to learn about tag team wrestling.

I'm sad that we didn't get a special one night only appearance of Jim Cornette managing The Revival since he raves about them so much on his podcast.

NXT Women’s Champion Asuka def. Ember Moon

This was a great back and forth match with Ember Moon matching and one-upping Asuka move for move and counter for counter. They have fought each other previously prior to signing with WWE, so this was a highly anticipated rematch of sorts for fans who have followed both the former Kana (Asuka) and Athena's (Ember Moon) careers up to this point. I was ready to call this the match of the night until the finish.

I get that NXT are toying with the idea of making Asuka a heel but it really doesn't work when everyone is going to cheer for her anyway when she's beating the shit out of everyone thrown her way. Besides, it doesn't make much sense that she has to cheat when her whole gimmick to this point has been she's been an unstoppable striking machine. The whole referee bump spot just seemed like a cop out since they want to milk this feud until the next TakeOver event or even longer. I seriously doubt they are calling up Asuka to the main roster any time soon anyway. From the way it looks currently, I wouldn't be surprised if they call up Ember Moon before they call up Asuka.

That being said, NXT needs to do something drastic to pull this women's division out of being on life support. I was hoping that this Ember/Asuka feud was going to be the shot in the arm that it has needed since all of the Four Horsewomen left, but I was kinda let down here. Sure, Ember was the first opponent in a long time where she could go all out against instead of holding back (looking at all of you - Eva Marie, Aliyah, Liv Morgan, Billie Kay, and Peyton Royce), but it seemed like they were told to not play all of their cards at once. I don't know what it is about NXT and wanting to wear out something good (the Joe/Balor feud, any feud involving Revival, etc.). Start doing some one-off feuds and a rematch tops after a title change. No need to force feuds to go on and on to bore people to no end. Besides, NXT has a TON of talent that hasn't even debuted on TV yet, so you would think they would be trying to cycle in as many people as possible to get them TV ready for the main roster before they raped clean like last year's draft again.

NXT Champion Bobby Roode def. Shinsuke Nakamura

I'm going to be in the minority here and I'm starting to get bored by these bouts between Nakamura and Roode. They are both amazing wrestlers, but this is getting stale to watch. It's starting to bore me as much as the Nakamura/Joe and Balor/Joe feuds where they blew their load on everything that you can expect them to do. This match felt like the Asuka match before it whereas it's starting to become a chore to watch these repetitive rematches since audiences have become used to what to expect from these two. At least Ember Moon/Asuka was something new, but this was the exact same thing that we saw at the previous TakeOver event without the whole injury angle at the end. I'm honestly ready for both Roode and Nakamura to move onto other things. Wouldn't be surprised if Nakamura gets called up to SmackDown! tonight. At the same time, I don't see why they wouldn't call up Roode for either brand. You got an instant main eventer here that can talk and work solid bouts, so why keep him in NXT? He's not getting any younger.

I forget which podcaster said it best, but WWE need to start worrying about how many guys they have on their roster that are mostly "entrance props" and that's it. The more it carries on, I fear that Roode's music will be more over than he actually is in the eyes of WWE fans. Wrestling fans that have seen him elsewhere in TNA and GFW know better, but I'm skeptical that he's just over because his music is freakin' awesome.

I have to ask at the end of this NXT TakeOver review, but where do we go from here? Solid show as usual that we've come to expect from these events, but what's next for this brand in terms of storylines? It just seems like a lot of feuds have stagnated.

WrestleMania 33 (April 2, 2017) -- Results & Afterthoughts

WrestleMania 33 was the thirty-third annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE. In addition to standard PPV outlets, it was broadcast simultaneously on the WWE Network. It took place on April 2, 2017 at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida. WrestleMania 33 was a joint-promotion event for the Raw and SmackDown brands, the first since WrestleMania XXVII in 2011 as the brand split ended that year, but was reintroduced in July 2016.

Thirteen matches were contested at the event, including three on the pre-show. This was the first WrestleMania since WrestleMania 29 in 2013 to feature two world championships: Raw's WWE Universal Championship, defended for the first time at WrestleMania, and SmackDown's WWE Championship. In the main event, Roman Reigns defeated The Undertaker in a No Holds Barred match, giving Undertaker his second loss at WrestleMania. In addition, Brock Lesnar defeated Goldberg to become the new WWE Universal Champion and Randy Orton defeated Bray Wyatt to win his ninth WWE Championship. The event also marked the unannounced return of The Hardy Boyz, who won the Raw Tag Team Championship. It was also the first WrestleMania to be on the air past midnight Eastern time, resulting in a two-day broadcast for a single event.

WWE claimed an attendance of 75,245 for WrestleMania 33. This number has been disputed, as The A.V. Club wrote that it was "almost certainly a fake number" as WWE "has had a reputation for wildly inflating the attendance figure—as Vince McMahon once said on an investor’s call, the fake number is for entertainment purposes", while wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer described it as "a total worked number even more than usual".

Cruiserweight Championship Match - Neville (c) def. Austin Aries to retain

I went into this show with this match being the only match I was really hyped to see. It was great - no doubt about that, but I didn't like the finish. The referee CLEARLY saw Neville raking Aries' injured eye and didn't disqualify him. He just flailed his arms around like he was thinking about it and just said fuck it. That alone was just a piss poor call on his behalf and left a sour taste in my mouth to kick off this show. There wouldn't have been nothing wrong with Aries getting the win here via DQ while at the same time, Neville retains. It's still win-win for both guys involved and gives them a better excuse to keep this feud going than having Neville pin him clean afterwards anyway.

If TNA made the same referee blunder there, I know most WWE marks would rip them a new one on blasting them about it so don't get on my case about pointing out stupidity here.

Mojo Rawley wins the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

This match was just simply horrible. When Braun Strowman and The Big Show were put out of it within the first five minutes, I knew we had a stinker on our hands. It was cool that we got two NXT rising stars in the match, but that really didn't amount to anything when they were treated like the rest of the jobbers and midcarders who were in this match as mere filler.

I had Strowman or Big Show down in my predictions pegged to win this but the second I noticed Mojo was hanging around in the back not doing much (WWE talent are sticklers for giving away winners of matches like this when the guy who is more likely going to win is the one who does the least amount of action or plays possum for 80% of said match in the corner or hides at ringside) I KNEW he was going to win.

Someone needs to explain to me why guys like Dolph Ziggler, Kalisto, Apollo Crews, and Sami Zayn are in this battle royal but don't have matches? That goes double for the ENTIRE SmackDown! Tag Team Division (along with the current champions, the Usos) were in this match as filler. I can understand trying to fit in their entire roster into the card for WM payday, but they are ultimately selling a lot of folks short too.

Intercontinental Championship Match - Dean Ambrose (c) def. Baron Corbin to retain

First bathroom break of the night right here. Ambrose was fighting Brock Lesnar last year and now he's reduced to carrying Baron Corbin through a WrestleMania match? Then again, they haven't been really doing much with Ambrose's character after he lost the WWE Championship anyway, so I can't be surprised to see him reduced to being filler as the Cesaro of SmackDown! Live. You know they wouldn't do this to Roman and Seth - EVER.

I was sold on thinking that Corbin was going to garner his first single title win here, but nope to my surprise. I guess they are saving that for maybe Backlash (or whatever the first post-WM SD exclusive PPV is)?

AJ Styles def. Shane McMahon

This was a REALLY surprise treat on this card. To say it started off a bit boring with AJ Styles actually selling Shane's lame ass punches and half-assed submissions, they ultimately brought it together by the end with Shane pulling out all of the stops. Who the hell knew that Shane could bust out a Shooting Star Press?? Shane definitely earned the respect of many tonight and can add another classic to his list of top matches. This one is up there with his feuds with The Big Show and Kurt Angle out of my favorite Shane O'Mac matches.

There shouldn't be ANY doubt in anyone's minds about AJ Styles being called the best wrestler ever to grace a WWE ring after tonight. He carried Shane through an amazing match which could have been a complete dud on paper if it was anyone else in the driver's seat.

United States Championship Match - Kevin Owens def. Chris Jericho (c)

I didn't care about this feud after the "Festival of Friendship" and I really didn't care when Jericho cost Owens the Universal title against Goldberg about two months ago at Fastlane. Jericho and Owens are both stellar workers and they know how to put on a good show, so I knew the match wasn't going to be chore to watch like Corbin/Ambrose earlier tonight. At the same time, it still didn't do anything to make me care about this feud. I loved that Pop-Up Codebreaker counter to the Pop-Up Powerbomb and the fact that Owens got the win after Powerbombing Jericho on the ring apron at ringside though. I had to applaud Owens for being one of the few people who does a spot like that and immediately pins their opponent in the ring instead of waiting around.

I'm glad to see Jericho put Owens over here when it was criminal that he couldn't put over AJ Styles last year.

Sure, Owens is US champion again, but isn't this back where he started in WWE about two years ago? Seems like he's going backwards instead of moving up the ladder...

Besides, if memory serves, my idea for a WrestleMania moment for Kevin Owens was closing the book on the Sami Zayn versus Kevin Owens feud once and for all in a WrestleMania bout for the Universal Championship, but WWE blew their load on most of those matches before 'Mania last year AND the fact that they let Zayn fall so far down the totem pole, it wouldn't make much sense for him to get a title shot anyway. Oh well, I hope they get a moment to showcase that feud on a WM stage sometime in the future.

RAW Women's Championship Fatal 4 Way Elimination Match - Bayley (c) def. Nia Jax, Sasha Banks, and Charlotte to retain

It wasn't a surprise to see the three Horsewomen gang up on the inexperienced Nia Jax to get her out of the mix early on. That was the same dynamic that the Revival and DIY used against the Authors of Pain the night before at NXT Takeover. I was shocked to see Sasha eliminated second (and so fast if I may add) that left the match down to Charlotte against Bayley for what seemed like the same finale for the last few RAW Women's Championship matches. I was thinking that Sasha and Bayley would have worked together to get Charlotte out, leaving it down to Sasha and Bayley. Then they end it by confirming Charlotte's warnings about Sasha's deception being true and have her go full heel and cheat to win over Bayley to win the title. Instead, we got a VERY rushed (and very sloppy) finale between Charlotte and Bayley for what feels like the millionth time to the same tired result.

I have to admit I was interested in that confrontation between Charlotte and Nia Jax. That's something new and fresh that we haven't seen done before. I think those two could make some magic if they were given a program together.

Ladder Match for RAW Tag Team Championships - The Hardys (Matt & Jeff) def. Gallows & Anderson (c), Cesaro & Sheamus, and Enzo & Cass

I won't even lie. I marked the FUCK out when the Hardys' music hit and they came out. I was relieved that the New Day weren't adding themselves to this match. For those wondering why Jeff Hardy was looking like he was out of it from the start, it's because the Hardys faced the Young Bucks in a Ladder Match less than 24 hours prior to this match for the ROH Tag Team Championships and he was pretty banged up from that match. I still need to check that show out for myself as I was hearing good things about it on social media.

The Hardys didn't disappoint, same goes for all three teams involved here. After the nostalgia wore off, I couldn't help but think it was a bad idea to have the Hardys go over the three tag teams that have been struggling to pull this division out of the hole it has been since the New Day ruined it during their record-breaking tag title reign. Cool, the Hardys are back home where they belong, but what is the long-term plan here? If you didn't see the WWE.com interviews following this match, there's no sign of Matt and Jeff doing the whole "Broken" gimmick here - despite the DELETE chants from the WWE Universe.

John Cena & Nikki Bella def. The Miz & Maryse; John Cena proposes post-match

I was REALLY disappointed in this match. While I enjoyed that the live crowd were eating out of The Miz's hands, I thought it was fucking stupid that they were acting like Maryse isn't a trained wrestler. This match was the same as the mixed tag team matches that they were having on SmackDown! the last few weeks where Cena sells for the first few minutes until the hot tag to Nikki and they hit double finishers for the win.

Everyone and their grandma saw the marriage proposal coming a mile away, but I can't hate on Cena and Nikki wanting to have that moment in front of the WWE Universe. Savage and Miss Elizabeth did the same thing decades ago and it's not bad to have a real love story in the middle of all of this guys and girls hating each other all the time. Seems like that was lost in recent years.

Just like people tend to rub it in my face that people aren't fans of WWE just for the in-ring product, I want to remind people that people aren't fans of WWE for the goofy comedy shit either. They want some of that reality TV drama that you see on Total Divas and Total Bellas. WWE has to cater to all of these masters and provide something for everyone.

Non-Sanctioned Match - Seth Rollins def. Triple H (w/ Stephanie McMahon)

I happened to step out for a food run/break so I missed the first ten minutes of this match, but got back in time for the last half. I'll update this article with my thoughts later this week when I have a chance to check that out.

From what I did see though, HHH and Rollins did a great job of selling the knee and crafting a narrative here of it being all or nothing in Seth's road to redemption. He took everything that HHH had to dish out of his bag of tricks and still managed to find a way to win. I have to admit that I was surprised at two things in this match. One being that Stephanie McMahon took a table bump. Was that her first one ever? That being said, it was pretty lame on how she fell through the table anyway. It felt like that Stephanie wanted to steal some of Shane's thunder for taking bumps tonight. Just screamed like something petty the McMahon family would do to one up each other. The second thing that surprised me was that Triple H didn't go over. I was thinking that they were going to justify it with HHH going over for they could build to a rematch (with a much better narrative and less milking) if they dragged this out to Payback or even Summerslam for a rematch. If it's just one and done here, then I'm completely fine with that. Let Rollins rest up properly for his knee's sake and give him a new program afterwards.

WWE Championship Match - Randy Orton def. Bray Wyatt (c)

I still don't even know what to make of this match to be quite honest. While I was into the projections/mindgames by Bray Wyatt, but I don't see what was the point of that when Orton still got the win anyway. That just made Bray come off as an idiot after it was all said and done. I don't see how anyone benefits from this feud. Orton still comes off as an idiot as he GAVE UP his WrestleMania spot as part his plot to earn Wyatt's trust, only to have to win it back in a match against AJ Styles, when he could have just easily challenged Bray for the title in the first place to avoid any other unnecessary outcomes to his so-called master plan. Bray tried to bounce back from being fooled by Orton's deception here, but it still fell flat. This match wasn't bad - just felt like your run of the mill weekly SmackDown! main event, not a WrestleMania match at all.

The only reason I can see them doing this title change is that someone is going debut on SmackDown! on Tuesday and Orton immediately loses the title to that night.  Well either that or we get that AJ Styles/Randy Orton feud they have been avoiding for the past few months.

WWE Universal Championship Match - Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman) def. Goldberg (c)

I joked about it on social media during the fact, but Goldberg had this coming for months now. From the look on his face as he walked down to the ring, you knew he was going to pretty much pull his pants down and drop the soap for Lesnar tonight. The action was good enough that it definitely made up for these last few squash matches and the embarrassment that those two put on at WrestleMania XX. It wasn't too long and it wasn't too short, but they got the point across. Goldberg and Brock didn't overstay their welcome and I'm happy with what I saw here.

My only question for both Goldberg and Brock is what's next?

Six Pack Challenge for SmackDown! Women's Championship - Naomi def. Alexa Bliss, Carmella, Natalya, Becky Lynch, and Mickie James

To say that people bitched and moaned all week for this match to be removed from the kick-off/preshow to the main show, it didn't deliver to say that it was the co-main event of the evening. Most of the girls (outside of Naomi and Bliss) got their entrances cut, while it seemed like a lot of this match was rushed even more than the RAW Women's match. Mickie and Becky barely did ANYTHING here, even less by Bliss and she was the damn champion. I was thinking that she would pull an AJ Lee and do mostly nothing and still retain, but I was glad that they put the gold back on Naomi. I hope SmackDown! really give her a chance to see what she can do. If they can put up with Becky Lynch as champion for what felt like an eternity before Alexa Bliss won it from her, then I think we can handle a few months of Naomi feeling it out as champion in this role. Even Bliss had growing pains too, so the haters don't even need to start in that regard when Bliss still has a lot of work in the in-ring department.

You deserve it, Naomi. I still say you shouldn't have lost it in the first damn place...

I'm glad for Naomi to get the gold back and in her hometown no less. She didn't do much here, but I was pleased with her performance here. That roll-up into the submission finish was stylishly done and hope to see more of that from Naomi as her reign continues. A part of me feels like Mickie James is going to be the one who ends up dethroning her though.

No Holds Barred - Roman Reigns def. The Undertaker

I know most people don't want to hear this, but I'm glad that The Undertaker called it quits here. Ever since Brock Lesnar ended the Streak at WrestleMania 30, I felt that they should have ended his career there. All of these matches since the Streak ended to somehow give Taker his dignity back has done nothing but expose how battered and beaten he is. If I'm perfectly honest, he has been on borrowed time since his feuds with Shawn Michaels and Triple H anyway. It's been a blessing in disguise that he has been around this long. I'm glad that Taker can walk away on his own terms before having to call it quits when his body forces him to stop for good (Sting, Edge, etc.).

That being said, Roman Reigns was the WRONG opponent to carry the Deadman through his last match. Reigns isn't a bad wrestler, but he's no ring general. This honor should have been given to John Cena to put him down for good if they wanted to have someone carry him throughout his last match. I give mad props to Reigns for trying, but this just gave fans more reason to hate him as the guy who put The Undertaker down for good. Who knows, maybe this is the trigger that Vince wanted to pull to turn Reigns into a heel?

They tried to tell the same story here with how Taker wouldn't give up, much like Shawn Michaels in his retirement match. There was a point where I was expecting Reigns to start shouting, "STAY DOWN!" like Taker did to HBK during their match, but from how Taker was writhing around in pain on his back and barely being able to move around, I was more than ready for Reigns to put him out of his misery.

Thank You Taker, for everything that you've sacrificed and gave to us fans to entertain us
for the many, many decades that you have been synonymous with WrestleMania and the WWE as a whole.

One thing I have to mention is that I noticed a lot of my friends, especially fellow e-fedders and long-time fans, comment that they are sad that all of their favorite wrestlers are gone. Why are you sad for them? Be happy that they get to quit/retire on their own terms and treasure the memories that you have them in their prime at the top of their game. At the same time, reading that makes me fucking sick as it's that same mindset is why most of the current generation of talent can't get over as people are expecting the old school legends to hang around forever. Give the new generation a chance and let the golden oldies have a reason to rest and watch from the sidelines for they won't have to continue to torment themselves to keep this business alive. There's a LOT of great talent in the business today. People just need to keep an open mind and give them a chance instead of hanging onto memories of the past to continue to be these temporary band-aids that WWE religiously cling to as their lifelines.