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If Meng/Barbarian collision was so disastrous, I don't even want to imagine what happend after this:

It was actually suplexiglass

YEEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!! I fixed that for you...

Sort of funny, but most of the problems that have been brought up regarding WWE can be easily solved, and not by the wrestlers or even the writers... I've always said that wrestling is "theatre of the extreme", well, what does every character need? Motivation. Plain and simple. There must be a reason for an action to be taken (and I'm not drifting into FSW territory and saying "it's just wrestlers having wrestling matches"), but motivations are not given the attention that they deserve and the blame falls squarely on the announcers. Remind me that the Intercontinental Title holder is automatically the #1 contender for the World title. I do think it time to split the belts again, that way you have the NA title the #1 contender for the WWE Heavyweight. Or rename one of them the TV title and explain where that puts the belt holder in the pecking order. The wrestlers for the most part do a decent job of getting their talking points across, but the announcers are far too busy shilling the network or making inane jokes to do what they're supposed to be doing. We can make fun of Tony Schiavone all day but he did an exemplary job of getting the motivations across. Not every wrestler need be motivated by a belt either, it's actually more interesting if there are a variety of purposes at work... Bray Wyatt shouldn't be worried about a belt, he has bigger fish to fry. Hideo Itomi should be concerned with proving his superiority over NA wrestlers, no belt required. It's too late now, but they should have made a big deal of Cesaro wanting to prove himself without Heyman's help. Dean Ambrose is being booked perfectly with revenge as his motive, he doesn't care about a belt and is hugely over without any mention being made of where he is in the title picture. Like Rowdy Roddy Piper before him, Ambrose doesn't need a belt to be interesting. Showing Cena as being obsessed with the title was good writing, but the same care needs to extend up and down the card. It hasn't been shown yet, but it will turn out that the Bunny has tremendous motivation for screwing with Titus O'Neill. If they can pay that much attention to the Bunny, why not the rest of the roster? But the bottom line is that it's all up to the announcers to remind us what the motivations are. When they fail to do that it hurts the whole show from top to bottom. I marvel at how well NXT does these little things that should be second nature on the main show. (Let's put it this way, do to one thing and another I had not been able to watch NXT until two months ago when I finally got around to getting the network. Within two weeks of current shows I knew who everyone was, why they were doing what they were doing, and I could deduce where storylines were likely to go. That's two one hour programs and a special (I went back and watched Takeover). NXT doesn't fool around with a whole lot of backstage nonsense, they don't have the luxury of a three-hour show so most of this knowledge was imparted by the announcers. And guess what? They advertise the network on NXT too, it's just that the announcers do their damn job instead of making themselves the center of attention.

Been in the hospital for almost 3 weeks. Last couple days they found one of the causes of when my heart goes scary fast and were able to fix it. Just got an internal defibrillator put in that will save my life should something bad go down, plus I won't have to wear a life vest, which I fucking hated. The plan is to send me home Monday on meds to see how far they can get me before deciding on an internal pump or transplant.

But, even if you take the Commish at his word (and why the fuck would you?) his exact line was "ignorance is not an excuse." So, you know, fuck him.

No Gregg, you don't get to tell us what to do. We're gonna complain. And we're gonna complain hard. And whatever happens at the next PPV, you have the right to compose a 1300 word post about how great it was. That's how this relationship works.

It was the kayfabe name Bobby Fulton used when working as a physics teacher.

I imagine if Bruno were on tv for 3-5 hours every week (besides a PPV every month) folks probably would've gotten sick of him too.

RE: Cruise Sorry for the 'WELL HERE'S A STORY ABOUT LIVING IN LA I AM THAT GUY' but I really love this story. My wife and I both work on the Warner Lot, but I work in an office where VIPs rarely tread and she usually works in Building 1, which is where they all come for meetings. She is the lobby receptionist, so she greets VIPs and calls who ever it is they are meeting with, and that person comes down to get them. It's that way for everyone. Will Ferrell came in on her first day and sat and waited. The producers of Game of Thrones came in and waited. At the end of her first week, a motorcycle pulls up to the door because of course it does, and the helmet comes off and it's Tom Cruise, who just swings in, flashes the Cruise smile and says 'Just here to see Barry' and just goes upstairs. And then he pauses at the top of the stairs, points at her, and says "You're new, right? Never seen you." She just sort of nods and he smiles real big and vanishes upstairs. Wife is horrified. She has not done her job but also, do you just tell Tom Cruise to hold the fuck up? How does that even work? A little while later, Cruise comes back down, this time flanked by like, most of our executives and their people. He comes to a completely halt on the stairs, stopping everyone, points at Torlin (wife. Norwegian.) and says to Barry Meyer, the CEO "She's new. Fantastic, though. What's your name again?" She stammers out a 'Torlin.' and he snaps his finger and goes 'that's right. Great name. Great work. She's doing great work, you guys.' And then he leads the hurricane down a random hallway. She does not blink for an hour. I have no real clue what that story says about his personality, but I like to think that he knew he had screwed her a bit and to prevent some shitty executive assistant from being like YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED HIM AND MADE HIM WAIT, he turned the tide for her.

If Jeter was on the Indians, he wouldn't have five rings.

You will not stop me from farming Bungie! Treasure Cave 2.0!

I had no interest in Shadows of Mordor before, but the Polygon review makes it sound absolutely amazing. Like, that is exactly what I want from next-gen games. Time to start saving my pennies for a PS4.

I miss Puppet H.

I thought that was every babyface on the roster.

Bash the 500 all you want, but it was the biggest tool for me as a younger guy in learning about wrestlers outside of the big 3. I would have never known guys like Daniels, or Reckless Youth, or Misawa, etc if not for the PWI 500. I've never made a fuss over the rankings either since A) It's mostly kayfabed and 2), if you look at it from that perspective, it's mostly spot on.

I'm 40 and I grew up on the WWF and NWA, as they were called back in my day when you tied an onion to your belt, as was the style. Today, I DVR Raw and maybe watch matches or segments that get positive reviews but, more often than not, I just delete it sight unseen. The problem is there's so much TV to fill that nothing means anything anymore. When I was young, just getting to see two midcarders wrestle each other on Saturday Night's Main Event was a huge deal and a treat, because you never saw that unless you paid money to do so on PPV or a house show. Today, every match is done to death on TV and all these guys are so overexposed that there's no reason to care about anything. Why sit through 3 hours of Raw this week when there's going to be 3 more hours next week and the next, leading up to a 3 hour PPV, when you'll just see permutations of the same guys working each other, with the same style, each week? And why watch the PPV when you'll get rematches the next week on TV and the next month at the next PPV? It's not just recycling the same guys and matches. It's the booking, too. There are no consequences to anything. Cesaro is wrestling Shamus? Great. Whoever wins will not move up the card and next month both will be the same spot so who cares? Say what you want about indies but PWG is pretty much all I watch with any regularity. They're once a month (if that) so every show is special. Wrestlers have distinct and different styles, and the commentary, while funny at times, doesn't make a mockery of anything. And their titles are booked as meaningful. I'm hoping the lack of competition and the lessened need to "sell PPVs" because of the network will cause WWE to dial it back a notch. There's no need to burn through big matches on TV anymore. They could use PPVs in a more innovative way now since there are no worries over "buyrate." Shit, do old school KotR and Survivor Series. Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent. I'll just say that, as an older dude, I don't enjoy WWE because nothing they do means anything.

I've had this theory for a while that THE SHIELD was analogous to the 1985 Transformers Seekers (the conehead ones). Ambrose is Dirge. He's the brains of the group. He's creepy, he's twisted, and he often dies BUT THAT'S OKAY because he'll be back in no time because he's never satisfied. He's brave unless someone is trying to cut his face off with a skill-saw (Energon saw?), in which case he hauls ass. After all, he prefers to be the hunter rather than the hunted, and he loves inflicting fear and pain on others. He secretly wants to be normal and fit in, be SOMEBODY, but he knows THEY will always be there to kick dirt on him and hold him down. He creeps Ramjet/Reigns out. Reigns is Ramjet. He doesn't need brains because he's a super tough juggernaut who crashes into everything. That's his thing. He crashes into everything and everyone. He's courageous and something of a loner. Believes himself to be the king of his realm. He also sometimes travels back in time to the middle ages. I don't know. May like toast (hope he doesn't set fire to Ambrose's apartment like Tozawa supposedly did). And, of course, Rollins is Thrust. He's dumb and cowardly, but he constantly talks about how he's superior to others. He's talented, but totally full of himself and gets in over his head constantly. He can usually be heard bragging, trash-talking, and announcing his victories before he's won. He'd possibly be the one of the trio people would remember least if not for his really cool-looking wing fans. You know those fans are cool. Now if the coneheads ever actually WON anything the way SHIELD did, it would be perfect.

Honestly, I think damn near the entire modern indie scene. And this is new. The mid-00's American indy scene was either amazing, or I hadn't outgrown it yet. But every once in awhile I watch something with, say, the Young Bucks or whoever and I just don't fucking get it.

Well, at 57 I'm definitely not the audience that WWE is shooting for (which is sort of goofy on their part, as I can throw money around like a drunken sailor if I want to). Anyway, I miss squash matches, there was a whole art to putting over the main guy that people like Johnny Rodz, Pete Doherty and the great Barry Horowitz practiced to perfection. I wonder how many guys would rather have a Horowitz-like career than the fifteen minutes of being pushed and then discarded for the next big thing as seems to be the mode of operation now? Things I can do without: Cobra Commander speaks truth... There is no reason for the "invisible cameraman". A slight loss of visuals in favor of the more believable "security camera" does wonders for not taking the viewer out of the story that you're trying to tell. Announcers talking about ANYTHING but what is going on in the ring RIGHT NOW. There's no excuse for this, none whatsoever. There's plenty of time between matches to sell the network, John Cena shirts or whatever bullshit needs selling. Don't do it during the match. If you can't think of anything to say about the in-ring action just shut the fuck up. (And yes, Jerry Lawler I'm looking at you... If someone did that to you in Memphis, they'd have been out of a job and you know it. For that matter, so does JBL. Cole is paid to chatter like a monkey, but you guys owe some respect to your colleagues that are out there busting their asses to put on a show. Of course, I miss the territories and even though I didn't get to see them, I loved reading about the wrestlers in different areas and it made for a total special occasion when someone that you had read about working the Midwest came to the Northwest for a short stint. By that same token I miss the idea of the travelling champion. It was great fun to look over the rosters of various territories and try and figure who would have the best match with the champ. We'll never have the mystique of the territories again, but the other stuff is the sort of thing that I would expect someone as detail-oriented as HHH to focus on to some extent.

The joke is I HOPE IT'S FLATBREAD.

Stolen from twitter: Cousins should be.....twice removed.

Its nice to watch a Giants game when the QB throws 5 picks .... and the QB not be Eli

I've started to think one of the keys to Eli's durability is that you can't tell if he is concussed or not, because he always looks like that and even when he is playing great it doesn't rule out him doing something completely bonkers.

"Fat Andy Capp" Tazz is basically square at this point. His height and width are the same.

The '08 Rambo is fucking awesome dude...

Congrats to Dave Brown on not aging

1300 words? What about the second match and rest of the card?

Let's complain AFTER this happens and not before?

So the only correct answer here is 'no Dre, you're right. I wouldn't be shocked because look at the arguments we have on our side, anything else would be shit.' This is gonna be a great conversation, I guess? If it's not up for discussion, why post it on a discussion board? Just say it out loud to a mirror and call it a day.

The world needs more funny assholes.

Consider these your only warning on the matter If you are asked by an admin/mod to do something... do so. Don't act surprised when you are suspended/banned for not listening. This website and message board have been around for 15+ years and has been through several incarnations. Many of us are way older and we have attracted a newer auidence (somehow). If you can not accept things have changed - find somewhere else to post. We have a standing policy that if you post "goodbye" posts we would help you stick to your guns and ban you. The same now applies if you bitch about how much you hate it here. It definitely is you... not us. There is a new wonderful bit where people love to say amazingly douchey things to me on places like Twitter and Facebook. If I figure out what your board name is - you are banned. (Not to mention blocked on said social media.)

I ended up getting my PS4 through Best Buy. No fucking interest for 12 months.

On top of that, Sylvia and Kharitonov did have rather more reach than Hunt enjoys. Hunt has shown that he's good at getting inside, but that's not the same as being 6'8 like Sylvia. And on the Mitrione-Schaub tip, I'm in complete agreement. Don't see why Mitrione would be anything other than a Justin Eilers character back then.

Ladies shoes and hot coffee were like kryptonite to WCW babyfaces.

This is pretty specific, but when wrestlers are posing with one at the top of the ramp and one in the ring, it's fucking terrible every time. The announcers babble too long with obviously scripted stuff, the wrestlers look REALLY stupid just standing there huffing and puffing for over a minute, someone's music that has already played five or six times will be played to "dramatic" effect. It just comes off very poorly, whereas I don't remember it coming off that poorly when it started back in the Attitude Era.

Speaking of the Young Bucks, good lord people...give your thighs a break. Not every single kick has to have a snappy sound to it. You're wrestling. You're not in a Z-level kung-fu movie with a foley artist on speed. Actually, not acting like you're in a kung-fu movie covers a whole lot of things.

Rippa will go full buck naked tomorrow.

It's all done with wires.

I'm more impressed that Terry is doing push-ups while being held aloft by Doc.

Everybody should see AWK live at least once. I saw him inexplicably open for Flogging Molly and it was ridiculously fun.