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This is what WWE does, though. Every Wrestlemania season. This is not a "HHH problem," it's a "WWE problem." Maybe even a "fan problem," as, and it was just mentioned, but tickets to Mania were selling slowly until Shane/taker was signed. This. Without HHH, I'm convinced we'd have no AJ Styles, no Owens, no Zayn, no Balor, etc. Vince would still be living by his "nobody under 6'2" 245" edict that gave us such luminaries as Rob Conway, Renee Dupree, and any number of wastes of space we got in the early to mid 2000s. We very much have schizophrenic leadership at the top right now, where HHH signs talented men and women of all shapes and sizes from all over the world, but then Vince ruins them with bad booking because of whatever rationalizations he uses as code for "they're not handsome and jacked the way I like 'em." HHH signs the kind of wrestlers he likes or hears good things about, but Vince only pushes the kinds of wrestlers he likes, and the fans are left in the middle thinking "what the fuck is this shit?" It's ridiculous. Do any of us have any faith at this point that any NXT callup can be successful? The only people allowed to get consistent, good pushes are Vince guys. Braun is a giant. Reigns is handsome, muscular, and has good hair. Styles might be the sole "talent like this simply can't be held back" case, but maybe Vince likes him because he's a right wing hick like him. I don't know. But, back to HHH...he's doing more good than harm, and awful booking falls solely at the feet of the septuagenarian loon who probably still sings "Stand Back" in the mirror each morning. EDIT: rereading this, I saw I originally wrote: So I apparently flipped to full on Jamaican while writing that

Ruby comes off like more of a punk chick. I could picture Paige cutting herself while listening to Joy Division, while Ruby will get drunk; listen to Black Flag, The Misfits, The Circle Jerks, Bad Brains; and maybe get into a fight.

Fans about Survivor Series: "The mean age of the main event if over 40! Give us younger talent!" ALSO the fans about Survivor Series: "Jason Jordan sucks! We don't want the Jason Angle storyline anymore! We're not cheering him and YOU CAN'T MAKE US! ...wait, he's the only person in the Survivor Series match under the age of 30? Who cares, depush Jason Jordan now and give us anyone but him!" The big problem with claiming it's an age problem is that: There's "Real age" and "TV age". Yes, Randy Orton is chronologically the same age as Finn Balor or Shinsuke Nakamura, or John Cena is chronologically the same age as Bobby Roode- but claiming Balor, Nakamura, or Roode is part of the same problem as Orton or Cena is patently absurd. This is an important part of the Survivor Series storyline- since even if a lot of people are older in their "Real age", you have to also look at the TV Age and realize that half of the match was VERY young TV wise. Bobby Roode, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Samoa Joe are all members of the 2017 WWE rookie class, Finn Balor was in the 2016 WWE rookie class, and Braun Strowman was a 2015 rookie who started getting pushed seriously this year. 5/10 being people who debuted in the last three years and starting to get big pushes in the last two years is VERY GOOD for a promotion pushing new talent. The fact that "but indy wrestling is the hottest it's been in over a decade!" only serves to make it more of a reason to go against chronological order- because indy talents get older than they are when they started on the independent circuit. Time marches on, people get older, and capitalizing on the indy scene by and large means- unless you only bring in UK talents who started when they were 13-ish, by the time someone's an indy veteran and top indy star ready for the jump to WWE, you're probably going to be getting performers in their late-20s/early-30s anyway. And that's not an issue- traditionally it WAS in performers early to mid-30s when they start to PEAK and can wrestle into their forties and fifties, but somewhere along the line people decided to judge pro wrestling like they judge "real" sports, where people in their 20s are at their peak and people in their 30s are getting close to retirement age. What year they debuted in their promotion in, and what year they started main eventing in that promotion, is a FAR, FAR, FAR more important metric to judge "how old the roster is" than "how old are they".

I'm sure that's also Vince's logic once he loses interest in them. "Who the hell told Paige she could get those tattoos!?" "That's Ruby Riot, Vince." "Goddamnit! First Del Rio and now this! Tell Paige she's skating on thin ice, pal!"

Also, WWE at one point decided brand over individual. This might have been right around the time of Lesnar leaving. Of course John Cena would rise above the brand itself but there was an idea floating around that management didn't feel like they had to make the next Austin or Rock anymore. After this didn't work out, they went all in with Cena. Now they are going all in with Reigns who may or may not be the right guy. There's been a lot of shitty decisions that have led to the point where only the part timers are credible enough to be relied on to sell tickets. But the fans are also part of the bigger issue. You look at WrestleMania in Dallas and the tickets were selling slowly. That is until Shane vs. Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell was announced. Fans bought into the old guys. Then you look at the USA network. People say "ah fuck, why are Hunter and Steph on TV". Because USA says that ratings are better when they are on TV. It's easy to point to Hunter and say "oh, what an asshole" but what is he really responsible for? He runs developmental. He signs talent. He runs NXT. He's signed literally everyone in the world. Anyone who is good. The NXT program is booked like an 80's territory and makes for fantastic television. Once every few months they put on a big PPV show that leaves the audiences and the viewers satisfied. There are real stories and real payoffs. What he doesn't do is write for RAW or SDL. What he doesn't do is have the final say in what makes TV on USA. Think about that next time you want to rage.

I think the decision to put over all of HHH's good management and hiring decisions is very intentional, but not in the way people here are saying. WWE is a publicly traded company, and the market only believes that Vince is capable of steering this ship. Whenever there have been hints of Vince not doing that any longer the stock starts to tank. Whenever you see things out there hyping up the things Steph and Hunter are doing behind the scenes and what have you it is not done for their egos, it is done so that when in the not too distant future Vince legit has to step down and they take over the company doesn't lose 20% of its value overnight.

Cyborg faces will never go out of style.

I said it when she debuted in NXT, and it still rings true now, but man, it brings a tear to my eye to see our hometown girl, waitress, and wrestler Dori/Ruby get called up to SDL. She's living the fucking dream and that's AWESOME.

Good Place renewed for 3rd season.

Reminds me of Foley having the piano music to calm him after he kills his opponents with the Mandible Claw

Late-91 thru 1992 WCW was awesome, so no, you don't overvalue it.

I don't know what y'all are talking about, that is definitely Lucas Lee

Depending on who you ask, anywhere from 3 to 58 Marines touched Shawn Michaels.

Does she do a bad American accent in any of these? I'm not asking for any weird reasons. Just because it's 100% a fetish I have.

I'm now infinitely annoyed it wasn't Itami coming out on that one RAW as Angle's big addition to 205Live to confront Enzo instead of Kalisto.

Basically what I thought also. Alternative girl? Check. Blonde? Check. Third girl with bad tan? Check.

War Games '92 is a legit top twenty-five greatest matches I've ever seen.

Gulak is the best.

The Smackdown girls have very different gimmicks than the RAW girls, but, hey - same hair color so they’re automatically the same! Internet logic.

Guys just wait and see. I'm sure both Next Nexus and Nexter Next Nexus will be great.

The B-Show now has their very own B-Paige. Jesus Christ guys, did you have to have them stand in the same brunette/goth/blonde formation too?

I use to have this game with my baby nephew when he was nine months old. I would yell "BABY PUNCHES!!!!" and help him punch the air. Those looked better than whatever it is Shane does.

because WWE had better booking in 1992

Sadly, Morrissey is likely trying to grab the limelight by saying stupid shit. Something he's done for decades, in 2017, the sad fuck is about as relative as Soupy Sales and the Edsel. What's his name with the 250 awful jokes can have this one for free: Q: Hey, what's the one thing better about Charley Manson than Morrissey? A: Manson is quiet now.

And we somehow came back around to the original point after all the goalpost shifting. The claim that he doesn't put people over on TV is simply absurd. He puts people over every time he does a program in the last like six years. I mean, for fuck's sake, the main event Sunday was literally all about Braun. He eliminated 40% of the entire team, and then effortlessly beat down a fourteen time world champion who had launched a sneak attack on him. "That main event was terrible, they need to build younger stars" makes no sense when the entire match was about building up the youngest guy in the match who was also the only guy in it that has never been a world champion.

Fork yes!

The way Rusev looks at English when he's singing is amazing. Lana maybe got that look from him once or twice when they were dating. New gimmick proposal: Rusev is a berzerking murder machine unless English is singing in which case Rusev just follows him happily. Rusev therefore must be led to the ring with English singing to him the whole time and then when the bell rings he stops singing and Rusev goes full on Orangutan blood-crazy and murders whoever is in the ring. After each match English carefully approaches singing again until Rusev calms down and follows him to the back. Then English gets accidentally bumped backstage and loses his voice....BOOM Best SMAKCKDOWN OF THE YEAR!!!!!

Wait, what?

Worked on that show. I️ have a special place in my heart for low budget magic like SAE, and I️ got to meet John McGinley, and he even asked me “what it is I️ do here,” so I’m glad you like it...

Becky is going to be the WILDCARD, BITCHES!

It's funny because 1991-92 is sort of the highest point of my WCW fandom as a kid and a huge part of that was Austin's TV title run. I probably overvalue it.

Dave (Clark) Five?

She was named after Tom Araya of Slayer in real life. But that's the metalhead in me being pedantic

Braun can survive being crushed in a garbage truck. He can survive having his throat crushed. This attack will have Braun Far Beyond Driven to give Kane his Fucking Hostile, Vulgar Display of Power, teaching him that Yesterday Don't Mean Shit. After 5 Minutes Alone with Braun, Kane will Walk on home, boy to the Cemetery Gates. I just wanted to see how many Pantera references I could work into one post. Corey Graves seems to have moved on from it, and I'm Broken over it.

In recent weeks I honestly want to say 205 Live has better storylines and character development than either main roster show. Probably because there are only a dozen or so people there and none of the higher ups are really paying it any attention.

NO.

She did get people to care about Blake and Murphy for a couple months, that's pretty impressive.

Ruby is so much better than Paige it's scary. She's also not, I guess, a nightmare behind the scenes. O it's likely this is them covering their bases. If Paige screws up, they can just say Ruby set the whole thing up and it's a dual brand invasion.

Has it really been four years since we did this? Guess so. Since we have a bunch of new people here, here's how this works. This is the reverse Baseball Hall of Fame. The idea is to nominate up to ten players and five non-players who should be bounced out on their ears for either not meriting inclusion due to performance or the often overlooked "character clause". So, yes, being a general asshat may be invoked. I'll tally up results and post the losers on 1/24/18. Feel free to try and defend someone that you feel is being unfairly maligned, but be aware, Rippa, Tabe, Kuetsar, and myself will likely have nominees and in addition to being grim and hateful bastards, we know our shit.

Joe Morgan is still an asshat. That is all.

Also in that time, in Lena Dunham fashion, Lena Dunham walked back saying something that was idiotic, racist, and/or incredibly bizarre and "took back" her joint (?) statement in support of the "Girls" writer/producer who is being accused of sexual assault. Also this: http://www.vulture.com/2017/11/writer-zinzi-clemmons-leaves-lenny-letter-citing-dunhams-known-racism.html I'm confused by the divest line since I don't know how much the Shea Butter feminists have invested in Lena Dunham of all people given that liberal white people barely give a shit about her now. Zinzi is feeling herself a bit since she has a book out and making the rounds to promote it (in her opinion, she "took down" a "major" celebrity), but I'm all for anyone putting Lena Dunham on front street.

Steph, sure. But Hunter put Reigns over at Mania, put Rollins over at Mania, abd just got utterly destroyed by Strowman Sunday. What exactly does he have to do before people stop acting like it's still 2003?

Sometime in the near future, a congressional intern is going to be reading the archive of the DVDVR sleaze thread. "The chair calls Mr Morton, Mr Gibson and Mr Valiant to the microphone." "Mr Valiant..." "Call me the Boogie Woogie Man, your honor..."

I like the idea of the NWA Heavyweight Champion gracing the various indies with his presence in lieu of the old NWA territory system being objectively defunct now that Corgan owns everything..

“Sharks don’t have hands, Saxon.” I legit LOL’ed.