Wrestling Quotables: Roderick Strong, the legend

Watching Roderick Strong and Kyle O’Reilly as a tag team was something of a revelation for me. I was new to NXT at the time. I was watching in the first place on a recommendation to see the work of these two and the rest of the Undisputed Era.

Each match built a story, typically one within a larger story of the conflict between them and the other team. The action culminated with at least one sequence of crisp, non-stop action, and that sequence included at least one dramatic breakup of a near pinfall.

Strong and O’Reilly were an awesome tag team. They seemed to deliver a classic tag team match on every single NXT Takeover. If you asked me to list off the images that I associate with those glory days of NXT, that team would be the near the top.

From that, I knew that Roddy Strong was an excellent wrestler. What I didn’t appreciate until recently, however, was how funny he can be on the character side of things.

I appreciate that now. Let’s get to the quotes.

Roddy was on commentary for Will Ospreay’s match on Saturday night against Shane Taylor. He offered the insights above in response to Tony Schiavone praising the way that Ospreay has earned the immediate adoration of AEW fans.

Be the most confident person in the room. In so many professional settings, the one who carries that confidence has an advantage. Roderick Strong knows what he has accomplished, he is in the middle of a nice winning streak, and he continues to do an admirable job of leading his faction while its founder is on the shelf.

Look at this man. Why shouldn’t he be confident going into his Double or Nothing title defense against everyone’s favorite bruv?

Sami was firing up on the road to the King and Queen of the Ring PLE this weekend, where he will face Bronson Reed and Chad Gable. In the aforementioned fight, Gable is the mind, Reed is the body, and Zayn is the soul.

Just like we had Roderick Strong leaning into a classic trope as the delusional heel, we’ve got Sami Zayn leaning into a classic baby face angle ahead of his triple threat match this weekend. He might not be the smartest or the strongest or the fastest. But he still finds a way because of his heart and soul.

I’m fully onboard with Sami as the soul of any wrestling show he is on. As for his ongoing battle with Gable, it appears that their story will continue past this weekend after Gable scored the win on Monday, courtesy of reluctant help from Otis.

One of the off chutes of the King of the Ring tournament appeared to emerge when Knight crossed paths with the young and cocky Carmelo Hayes. As the elder statesman between the two, Knight was dismissive. They both lost in the tournament and then took their frustrations out on each other.

Sometimes a feud starts because a history already exists between the two players. Sometimes you need to create that history. A tournament is a great way to kick off some different angles and directions for people. Between his spat with Hayes and the teases for a United States championship chase, LA Knight is going to be busy.

The Ring General appears to be on his way to wearing the King of the Ring crown. That seemed to be the case the moment he announced his intentions to add that title to his resume.

The main event of Raw continued the story of Gunther and Jey Uso. Fun versus business. The party time entrance versus the sanctity of the ring.

The tale between these two has progressed to Main Event Jey earning Gunther’s respect. The big man acknowledges the way the Uso rallies the crowd and creates a sense of hope.

But hope still isn’t enough. At least not yet.

Is this what happens when you put classic lines from The Wire into Chat GPT and ask it to rewrite them?

How does one “shoot hard?” I guess you can shoot hard if you’re really digging in as you break kayfabe. But presumably Danielson wasn’t going for meta-commentary on pro wrestling here. I assume he meant the kind of shooting one does with a gun, or maybe with a bow and arrow.

Shoot straight, shoot true. I don’t do any shooting myself, of one variety or another, but I don’t associate it with being something you do “hard” or “soft.”

Then again, Bryan Danielson can do no wrong these days. I’ll just assume he knows something about shooting that I don’t.

As for the hard shot that the Elite are taking, Bryan Danielson will face Satnam Singh on Wednesday night’s Dynamite. That should certainly be an interesting test of Danielson’s ability to make everything outstanding during his final run.