The Pipe Bomb: Uh, What is The Rock Doing and Giving Toni Storm Her Flowers

Welcome to The Pipe Bomb, where we discuss the latest news and events from the world of wrestling, both inside and outside the ring. This week we have The Rock turning heel, Swerve vs. Hangman heating up and Toni Storm getting her flowers.

Sooo…what is The Rock doing?

Can we quickly run through the lead-up to the Wrestlemania 40 main event?

Cody Rhodes wins the 2023 Royal Rumble.
He challenges Roman Reigns for the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship to win the belt in honor of his father Dusty Rhodes, who was never given the opportunity to hold the belt.
Rhodes loses at the Wrestlemania 39 main event.
Cody spends the year killing time with ~~Brock Lesnar~~, Judgement Day and Shinsuke Nakamura with hardly any mention of his desire to be champion while Roman Reigns sat at home and only popped up a couple times to bury LA Knight.
Cody Rhodes wins the 2024 Royal Rumble and points to Roman Reigns who was watching the event in a suite.
Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns finally face off on Smackdown where Cody awkwardly says he won’t be challenging Roman at Summerslam and instead, The Rock will be facing him.
The Rock goes on the Pat McAfee show mocking all the WWE fans who don’t understand why Cody gave up his one singular goal for a 51-year-old man who hasn’t wrestled in a decade.
At a press conference, The Rock gives a PowerPoint presentation on the Bloodline family tree for some reason. Then this happens:

The Rock getting ready for Power Slap.pic.twitter.com/0xg8E6wjyY

— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) February 9, 2024

A week after Cody says he won’t face Roman and the Rock will face him instead —the Rock suddenly decides he has to protect his family from Cody and slaps the shit out of him before Cody says he actually will be the one to face Roman at Wrestlemania all while Roman stands in the background like he’s The Rock’s shy son.

Ok.

It feels super clear what happened here.

The Rock agreed to face Roman after Cody won the Royal Rumble so WWE dropped EVERYTHING to shoehorn Rocky into the main event instead of Cody only for fans to universally hate the decision so The Rock turned heel. Then pivoted back to the original plans and mocked the fans by pretending it was the plan all along.

It’s 2024. Wrestling promotions can no longer pretend as if their fans are babies who don’t understand what’s happening behind the scenes. WWE has a habit of sacrificing the trust of their weekly viewers for the chance to get more eyes on their product—eyes who do not care about wrestling and often make fun of people who do so cool. More people are going to be watching because The Rock is involved even though its WRESTLEMANIA and casuals will be paying attention regardless.

Whatever. These are the final days of Triple H booking before the FBI raids the WWE offices for more evidence of Vince McMahon being Mr. Freaky McNasty and sex trafficking women.

Giving Toni Storm her flowers

It seems like Mercedes Mone will be making her AEW debut soon which means she’ll be rocketed to the main event and given the women’s world title as soon as possible because she’s the biggest name in the division like when Saraya won the title at Wembley despite Saraya’s inability to take a german suplex without leaving on a stretcher.

And if this is the end of the Timeless Toni Storm era, we all 1000% need to treat this title reign with the respect and reverence it deserves.

AEW’s women’s division turned to ash when Brit Baker and Thunder Rosa had a legendary feud and then both vanished due to injuries/weird backstage dynamics. So they strapped the rocket on Jamie Hayter—the best women’s wrestler on the planet.

Annnnd then Hayter also suffered an injury and hasn’t been seen since losing the title to Toni Storm in May 2023.

Then there were strange runs by Saraya and Hikaru Shida—who seemed like placeholders as we all waited for a woman to emerge and take the reigns of the division.

Enter Toni Storm—who transformed herself into a paranoid golden-age Hollywood starlet who surrounds herself with Yes men and speaks almost exclusively in puns and innuendo.

But this week in particular stands out.

In preparation for her title match against new AEW arrival, Deonna Purrazzo, who will absolutely be wrestling on Rampage once Mercedes Mone comes and buries everyone, Toni wrestled on both Dynamite and Collison.

First, a quick tune-up match against Red Velvet making her tap out in front of Deonna on commentary.

But it was her match against Queen Aminata that reminded me Toni is more than just a character—this woman is a REAL HOOPER.

Technically she’s as good as anyone and she’s figured out how to mix in enough of her character work to enhance her match as opposed to taking away from it like I felt was happening in the beginning of her title reign.

Let’s all enjoy what Toni Storm is doing for us every week before it becomes the Mercedes Mone show and Toni Storm gets into a feud with Taya Valkyrie on Youtube.

Swerve vs. Hangman

Yo, I don’t even have much to say about this rivalry other than I pray it never ends.

SWERVE GAVE HANGMAN A DEADEYE THROUGH THE TABLE THISNIS REAL MF HOOPS #AEW #AEWDynamite

pic.twitter.com/fur8oVM0HR

— CEO AO💰 (@KXNGAO) February 8, 2024

On Wednesday night Dynamite, Swerve and Hangman’s no. 1 contender’s match for the AEW World Title resulted in a 30-minute time limit draw so now both men will challenge Samoa Joe in a 3-way match at Revolution.

This is probably the most excited I’ve been about an AEW title match since MJF vs. Bryan Danielson and in hindsight, I should’ve known there was a 0% chance MJF was losing.

But as far as this Swerve/Hangman feud goes, I’m all in on any chance to get these two face-to-face with one another. Their in-ring chemistry is fascinating when you consider they have no real relationship with each other outside of the ring. They don’t appear to be friends. Swerve and Hangman are just two random co-workers. And somehow, together they are able to squeeze perfect matches from each other. And then they walk behind the curtain and quietly go their separate ways. Clock in. Be the most compelling story on television. Clock out.

Random Stray Thoughts:

Maybe I’ll write about this in full in next’s week Pipe Bomb but Tony Khan creating working relationships with other promotions so he can feed their wrestlers to his own guys is my favorite annual tradition. First Impact let Kenny Omega come and bury everyone than he used Forbidden Door PPVs to steal talent away from NJPW and now the CMLL guys are being spoonfed to the Blackpool Combat Club twice a week. Next week, Wardlow is going to be powerbombing those guys from the midget wrestling league.
I love Chris Jericho matches, man. At age 53, two years older than The Rock, Jericho has an uncanny ability to have no in-ring chemistry with anyone he competes against. There are awkward botches and mistimed spots because he’s tired and full of alcohol. I love the HUGE exhausted breath he takes when he hits the middle rope for his Lionsault. I love that he refuses to wear a shirt despite looking like a swollen corpse found in an abandoned warehouse. He rarely loses and when he does, it doesn’t matter. Cool, you beat up an elderly wino. Sick. Y2J the GOAT
Yes, I am super excited about the no. 1 cotender’s match for the World Heavyweight Championship in the Elimination Chamber following the last 10 days of The Rock and Roman Reigns making it loud and clear how irrelevant that title is. I’ve never seen a Wrestlemania build up for a world championship where they turned to the audience and said ‘this championship doesn’t matter”.
Ricky Starks and Big Bill did their best with a random tag team title they were given as a consultation price for bad booking decisions and CM Punk abandoning Starks to go blow his triceps in his first WWE match. Sky is the limit for both men. Let’s hope Tony doesn’t give them one of those vacations where they’re off TV for months without explanation.
I like that Edge has something to do on Saturday nights. That’s nice for him.

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