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Go back and look on the board for what people thought of her NXT run and the gimmick and how Regal was reacting to it as an announcer, and then how frustrated they were when she was brought up as Santino's sidekick without any build. Take a look at the early Evil Emma stuff and how much people here were into it. You can probably find people really into her WM pre-show entrance/match too during the multi-woman tag. I think you'd see a lot of consistency here, to be honest. Not all of that is "great matches" but it's definitely enjoying what she was bringing to the table and thinking she was mis-used. It wouldn't be some level of crazy revisionism. People were critical of Cody too (I can't remember who or why though.)

Woo woo woo.... you know it.

Emma the evil cooking host would have been fab.

There didn't seem to any malice behind it. More of a case of telling a stupid joke at the worst possible time and then doubling down when he got called out for it. That Lio tagged Asuka in the original tweet indicates he was trying to be funny. But he lacked awareness, which he's going to have to learn fast going forward.

Hopefully Darren Young somehow turns up in Chikara so Quack can run a bizarro-Cena angle.

Wait, is Blossom a WWE fan too?

How are you all sleeping on Becky Lynch being hot as fire?!?

They just replace him with Sami Zayn.

Yeah, I'm not going to argue that Emma was an all-time wrestler, but I think the way she's been treated highlights a flaw in the NXT system. People get these characters that often develop a following in a quite natural way, over weeks of TV, if not months. And then they just get promoted and the extent of the character build is "it's X from NXT", which ignores that most people who watch Raw won't be an NXT viewer so the reason clumsy Emma or Boliever Bo are fun characters is totally lost and they are just another nondescript wrestler on a roster that is already huge. And it happens so often I'm left questioning if it's just deliberate negligence or if it's sheer inability to understand that NXT doesn't have the same audience as Raw.

Meanwhile, on the other side of things, this was really nice.

Cody's run teaming with Goldust before becoming Stardust was pretty great; especially the tag title match in late 2013 against The Shield. I believe we also got a fired up promo from Dustin, Cody, and Dusty out of it.

If you think WWE is actually planning ahead, I advise you see the booking of Finn Balor.

Great, more people to join the Bullet Club.

I thought it was where Hayes kept his coke.

....ahh geez.

Where Lio really messed up is with the 'sorry if you were offended' speech that never does anyone good. The joke was bad, but pretty easily forgiven with a frankly simpler apology. You're right about Enzo. Cheese on a cracker, was he coked/drunk/smoked out of his gourd in that TMZ video. That will do him no favors backstage, but he's the only thing keeping 205 Live on the radar for even most diehard fans. So he's clearly a case of value exceeding risk. At least for now. WWE apparently has access to all their talents' Twitter accounts, so I don't know how they're allowed to keep digging holes for themselves on that front. A potential problem I see happening is one alluded to already: what happens when something bad is said about someone and the locker room doesn't defend said person? It doesn't have to be an Enzo situation. Just someone who maybe keeps to themselves more but has a vocal fanbase online? Wrestling social media is crazier than wrestling itself, and that's saying something. I can see feathers being ruffled and lines being drawn over who's with the cool crowd inside the locker room. Seems like a problem that could be avoided with better etiquette. But wrestlers aren't known for being a polite bunch, present company excluded in DVDVR.

Probably someone getting her confused with Summer.

I mean, it's Texas, if you are cheering for them, that's your error.

Finished! IN YOUR FACE! IN YOUR FACE!

Okay - that's too freaky to delete

I suppose if a work colleague of mine lost their job due to no real fault of their own and then a new colleague fired off some corny jokes on social media I'd probably have a pop back at them as well - but pro wrestling is a dumbass business so. I'm disappointed Oney hasn't tweeted to give him Lio yet

No kidding.

Since the picture is from a Kane tribute shoot, it should be High on Fire.

"Uh oh JB, we know who that is.... It's Rio Lush! But what's he doing here in the Impact Zone!"

They kid themselves into thinking it will get over by running NXT shows the night before Summerslam where they draw huge crowds. Those shows fool the main roster into thiking the talent can translate without a problem. It is like in hockey where some guys are groomed to be top six players and others bottom six. You can be a great scorer in the AHL yet your game is not tailored for a top six forward. You can be a great AHL player yet bound for the fourth line in the NHL. The main roster, like the NHL, exposes the flaws that a small roster, lesser talent, and small crowd can cover up. NXT creates too many bottom roster talents that are over in their more indy/arthouse format yet on the main roster they will be forever relegated to curtain jerkers.

I don't follow Lio Rush at all but I could make some pretty easy guesses. 1.) A lot of the developmental guys like to be active on social media and increase their Q-rating. I think, to a degree, they're encouraged by the office to talk about what's going on in the show. That develops their following and makes what's going on seem more important to a degree. I'm going to assume he's the sort of guy who comments on all sorts of things happening on Raw/Smackdown/Behind the scenes. I could be wrong. 2.) It's not like he tweeted "Emma's a shitty performer who wouldn't listen to management, had three gimmicks and couldn't get over, shoplifted, got injured all the time, and totally blew the Emmalina opportunity. One more spot for me! #grabbingthebrassring" The tweet was in character. It was "Oh, Evil Emma wanted to fight Asuka! She couldn't handle her even in two shots! Now she's gone." That's very much a "tweeting about the product" sort of statement. It's just moronic because Emma sure as heck seemingly didn't want to get cut. This isn't a case of Chris Jericho leaving to go on tour and getting humiliated and fired on his way out or Heenan's contact running out and having Gorilla toss him to the curb. I don't think there was any particular rancor or ill-will. It was just a guy lacking perspective and following the letter of what he's supposed to do instead of the meaning.

And he just threw another one to Earl Thomas. (who does not play for Houston)

TLC really brought home what we were talking about the other day re: the CW division. If AJ Styles vs Finn Balor is a heavyweight match, there is no way the CW is ever gonna be notable the way it was in WCW.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Enzo Amore is fist-pumping right now.

I feel like they're really wasting Ali. Well the whole CW division really but him in particular.

I have never understood how anyone could watch the Wyatt family act & not see that Harper was the real star.

Doesn't Rusev just troll people on twitter now? He's fucking around. I've been thinking about Rusev's in-ring work lately in that he doesn't have a great deal of high end matches but he works to both his character and the situation so well. He's such a throwback in that he doesn't just go out there and throw out a bunch of moves and hope to have the best match on the card every night. He works his ass off to make the babyface look like gold and tell a logical story. Out of the entire WWE roster, I feel like Rusev is the one guy that would fit like a glove with the '80s/territorial style of wrestling. Bray is similar to a much lesser extent. Excellent character work in the ring but he's not nearly as engaging or consistent as Rusev, nor does he do the small things in terms of selling and timing that Ru Ru does. I think it's possible to maintain most if not all of the character work and still put on more exciting matches though. Seeing Rusev in New Japan would be interesting because he could keep the character work that's more in important in Japan (stories are told in the ring for the most part, not on the mic or in angles) but he'd need to up his game a bit. Saying all that, If you were to put a list of Rusev's top 5 matches so far what would they be? I remember loving one of the Swagger PPV matches where Rusev basically was crying as he sold his ankle. He had another borderline great match with Big E IIRC during E's IC run. The Cena Mania match was really good. What else? Emma was pretty good/great relative to the rest of the women at the time in NXT but she's not as good mechanically or in terms of psychology as Cody. I say this as somebody who thinks Cody is not exceptional. Cody's best matches in WWE and outside of it smoke Emma's best from what I've seen of them, so I'm going to wholeheartedly disagree with the above hot take.

The Evil Emma run in NXT was better than anything Cody has ever done, so...

How long before people pull a Cody Rhodes with Emma and claim she's some wasted great talent who will now go to the indies where her talent can REALLY shine then proceeds to wrestle nothing but mediocre to slightly above averages everywhere?

If they had planned to release Emma and laid out those matches with Asuka like that... That said, looking forward to Emma tearing it up with Toni Storm in Progress or some shit. Also, on a larger scale, the WWE would be well served in turning over the roster. There's about a million dead midcard acts and a shit ton of new faces in NXT that could bring freshness to the main shows.

Ah, bullshit, if that meant Rusev in NJPW you'd be all over it along with the rest of us

I mean, if you don't sell for The California Fashion Plate and the King of Men hitting you with a cane who the fuck do you sell for?

I am genuinely looking forward to seeing which stoner-metal band is going to be the first to trace over this photo for their next album cover.

The face Xavier is making, you could say it wouldn't be his first rodeo.

Schefter is basically reporting the Texans players are still livid. They will apparently protest what McNair said as a group. They are probably all going to kneel during the national anthem, they may also remove the Texans decal from their helmets, and/or raising their fists.

Shame this will never make it on tv.

So Mania has the likelihood to be Brock vs Roman - Universal Championship and Cena vs Mahal - WWE Championship. Yuck. We are getting Brock vs Roman I've accepted that. I don't like it but I've accepted it. I really don't wanna see Cena vs Mahal at Mania. I would like one of the World Championship matches at 'Mania to not be completely despised by the entire audience. At this point I think Cena is the only one beating Mahal for the Championship. I'd rather the match be at Clash of Champions in December. I mean I'd much rather have Nakamura beat Mahal for the Championship but that ship has sailed for the WWE Brass. But I just really want the Jinder Experience to be over. I think there would be something poetic in John Cena starting off 2017 winning his 16th World Championship and tieing Flair's record and ending 2017 winning his 17th World Championship and breaking Flair's record. Believe it or not I'd like to see Cena vs AJ vs Nakamura for the WWE Championship at Mania, even if Cena left as champion I'd be ok with it. That triple threat match would be really good and a great way to use AJ and Nak as anything involving Cena during Wrestlemania season is going to be treated like a big deal and get pushed heavy. When Cena's 17th reign happens (hopefully December) I think it's going to be a long one. If you're going to do a historic 17th reign go all out and have it be the longest reign of the "Modern Era" cuz you gotta stick it to CM Punk somehow. I wouldn't be too upset with Cena holding the WWE Championship from December '17 to Wrestlemania 36 in April '19. At least with Cena as opposed to Jinder I know that he can have a good match with anyone and can cut a promo and it actually interesting. I'd much rather have AJ or Nakamura hold the Championship for 15 months but that ain't happening. As for Jinder, where do you go after the Championship run is over? I think his schtick might work better as US champ but Idk if I or anyone for that matter wants to see Jinder with another Championship too soon after the current run is over. But I can see the argument of keeping Jinder as a focal point of SmackDown even if he's not WWE Champion as to still push him hard in India. If anything I think the best use of Jinder Mahal at Mania believe it or not would be to have him in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. The final two are Jinder and Mojo Rawley and this time, Mahal's buddyy Arjan Bhullar gets involved helps Mahal eliminate Rawley and Mahal wins the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.

The goose stepping dancer push was a good spot. Being with Santino meant she was guaranteed TV time every week. It was stupid, but most Santino stuff was stupid and he got it over. Because he was putting effort in, while Emma looked like she would rather be anywhere else.

Emma is an example of how Creative can just destroy a career. The forever return promos. No idea how to book or use a talent. Bayley is lucky to be liked or else she would be in the same useless spiral. Oh wait, she is in the same useless spiral.

In taxi going to Thor: Ragnarok!

This episode felt like early 2000's tape trading where someone sent me a comp with random indy, TNA, Lucha and Noah matches. Was a fun format and I wouldn't be disappointed if they used this format more often. Marufuji / Eddie looked great in clip form. Seemed like a real Noah throwback style match. Trevor Lee in TJ was a great segment "Nacho Libre? Yeah I seen that movie, good movie" Theres an upside to Impact buried away in amongst all the nonsense. If they could just manage 12 months where nothing stupid happens backstage they would be in such a better place.