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We publish a whole lot of content here at Cageside Seats. We’re also [looks around and whispers so the bosses can’t hear] not the only place producing wrestling content on the internet. So, as a service to you on the weekdays, we’ll be producing a wrestling newsletter, "Rude Awakening." Well, it will be a newsletter eventually: for now, it’ll just be part of your experience here at Cageside, collecting the news, recaps, and social moments from the greater wrestling universe daily so you won’t fall behind, with a newsletter format to come.
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At 479 days, the New Day are now the longest-reigning Tag Team Champions of all-time. New Day had to earn it, too, at least on Monday’s edition of RAW, as they won two triple threat matches in order to retain their titles. The "at least" in that last sentence is mostly because New Day hasn’t necessarily been earning these titles the last few months, as WWE has been holding the entire division in stasis while waiting for the record-breaking day to show up on the calendar.
That’s not to say New Day’s reign has been entirely without enjoyment, as they were on an incredible run for nearly a year that pushed them into this position in the first place. Besides making New Day wrestle and cheat like heels while still being faces on the mic and in coworker alignments, though, there wasn’t any real character development, as Chasing the Record was their entire motivation.
It slowed the progress of Sheamus and Cesaro joining forces in a non-reluctant fashion, it forced a whole lot of tell, not show with Gallows and Anderson, who were the most ineffectual most dominant team in recent memory, and it kept anything from moving forward in the entire division. That’s a whole lot of stale in a weekly three-hour show, but at least the t-shirts kept moving off the shelves. Luckily, the record is now secure, and maybe now RAW will move on and put the straps on someone else. It’s best for the division, it’s best for moving the New Day on to the next stage in their stable’s history, and it’ll help Monday’s show feel fresh and new in a way it hasn’t been allowed to for months.
- It’s your daily dose of rumors, with the CSS Rumor Roundup. Today: rumors on Paige and the sudden competition to sign women wrestlers.
- If you want the full rundown on what happened in this week’s RAW, we’ve got you covered.
- Matt Hardy spent the hours during RAW sending out Twitter invitations to Total Nonstop Deletion, and even sent one to New Day. Hey, Hardy wasn’t kidding when he said it was open to every tag team in existence.
- Kevin Owens made a seven-year-old cry and the kid’s mother complain about it on social media, and we’re here to say that actually, that’s good.
- Brandon Stroud does a series of retro recaps over at With Spandex, and on Monday, published his thoughts on the March 31, 1997 RAW is WAR, aka the one where Stone Cold tells Bret Hart what his tombstone is going to say.
- John Cena’s turn hosting Saturday Night Live drew better ratings than The Rock’s, so it looks like Cena won the third once in a lifetime match-up against Rocky, too.
- Sami Zayn is finally going to get the match he needs against Braun Strowman, and it’ll have a 10-minute time limit.
- Randy Orton says teaming with the Wyatts has "inspired" him, which is likely good news for those hoping the trio will stick together for a while.
- We knew there would be an NXT: TakeOver before WrestleMania, but now we have the official word.
- Matt Riddle will no longer work for AIW, with AIW going so far as to say that it’s because Riddle doesn’t like how he was booked. This, as Tom Holzerman writes, is an example of what happens when labor stands up to management without a union to back them up.
- There will not be a rematch of Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks following their Roadblock Iron Man bout, and this is great news. Their feud has been incredible, but it’s also time for a new one, for their sake as well as that of RAW’s women’s division.