Go2Sleep

Rollins sounded like he was forgetting his lines. The Hollywood jab at Batista was good, and he has done a lot of good promo work lately, but this was not one of his better efforts. Honestly, none of them really delivered much here, and their "ultimatum" getting blown up by The Game 30 seconds later made it even worse. For the record, I'm not calling that a burial or anything, but the combination of a flat promo and the segment being designed to end with the heels escaping just made for a bad-looking segment.

I think he's passed Christian/Last Ride and has moved up to #3 behind Christian/RKO and Vince/Stunner for the "most of one finisher taken by the same guy" record.

Ryback was surprisingly good on commentary. I liked how Cole, JBL, and Lawler were openly admitting that they're terrible.

Sheamus/Barrett was really good, but the rest of this show was fast forward material. RVD is atrocious. I don't know how a 10 minute match with Cesaro (and a tiger driver 91) could end up being nearly unwatchable, but making Cesaro work at 25% speed so RVD can stumble through spots that were cool 15 years ago with the grace you'd expect from a 43-year-old is one way. Throw in an attempt to make Jack Swagger relevant again and you probably have Cesaro's worst match in WWE. And I'm totally in agreement with whoever said the Cesaro/Heyman pairing isn't working. Talk about two great tastes that don't taste great together. The Shield/Evolution segment didn't do it for me this week either. Still looking forward to the match at ER, but this felt like total filler. At least Batista and Orton are allowed to wear real clothes again. The Bryan segment was what it was. Kane still does nothing for me, and this feels exactly like the Kane/Cena feud a couple years back except without Zack Ryder. We'll see if Daniel Bryan can hold on to the "Being John Cena" title by getting his stretcher/ambulance match with Kane as the main event. Cena/Wyatt is another match I'm still looking forward to, but not due to anything that happened this week.

Finlay's kind of a weird case. He was nearly 40 when he started working in WCW, so he should have been well out of his athletic prime by the time most of us starting watching him. Admittedly, I haven't seen much of him pre-WCW (just the odd NJ match here and there), so I don't have a lot to compare his North American work to. When he went to SD, he had taken several years off prior, so while he may have been old, he had a lot less mileage on his body than you'd expect for someone that age.

Ending the gay gimmick once and for all would be a bigger contribution to wrestling than 95% of wrestlers will ever make.

This reminded me of Austin coming out to lead "boring" chants during Lance Storm matches.

I'd say Austin was definitely past his prime. He may not have been super old, but injuries had wrecked him by that point. It was his last match, after all. The Rock definitely carried it (although he was a bit past his heyday at this point too), but Austin doing the bare minimum would have been commendable. You can see him struggling to get up for the last rock bottom, and he really did leave it all in the ring as the old cliche goes. Another one worth watching is Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley (I Quit, Summer Slam 06). I think it was the last great match either guy had, and it's got a great story of two crazy old guys who know they can't compete for the top championships anymore, but still want to beat the hell out of one another for personal pride. Possibly the best match I've seen live.

How about Steve Austin vs. The Rock (WM 19)? That match always stood out to me as two legends finishing a story arc that began nearly 6 years prior despite neither being full time, and in Austin's case, very broken down. It's my favorite of their WM trilogy just for the storyline. The parallels to Misawa vs. Kobashi (3/1/03) which happened in the same month are rather striking. Each match features two legends, but one was always perceived as a step behind the other, and needed a big singles win to round out his legacy. Both of those matches would be worth a look for this type of project.

Shane Helms going from boy band member to superhero was pretty dramatic. For staying in one company, Glen Jacobs went from dentist to Kevin Nash impersonator to Undertaker's brother who is varying levels of deformed/handicapped/evil (to be fair, he has ridden that one for a while).

Zayn/Usos vs. Graves/Ascension sounds like an oddly intriguing match.

I don't think there's a universal answer, it's going to depend on a lot of different things. I'd say guys like Zack Ryder, and more recently, Damian Sandow are definitely hurt by being booked like losers for a prolonged period of time. Remember that time Ryder shared the ring with Bryan and Punk and they all had gold? Compare his reactions then to now. Sometimes booking can out-stubborn the fans and make them stop caring about guys they used to really like (also see: Nigel in TNA) I don't think MVP ever really recovered from his losing streak either. On the other hand, Daniel Bryan got booked like a massive loser on a show full of terrible wrestlers for 3 months then got fired right after his "break through moment" and look where he is now. Matt Hardy went on to have a very successful and acclaimed midcard run after looking like a chump in the Edge/Lita feud. Kane and Show have come back from god knows how many embarrassing angles/losses to have credible runs at the top.

I don't know if it was a product of not caring, but one example of him hurting a match that springs to mind was Bryan/Usos vs. The Shield from SD last year where he and Cole spent the first 2/3 of it having an agonizingly circular argument about the Scott Armstrong situation.

Looking back, it would've gotten a better reception if the build was consistent with the match. If they went with Brock laughing at Taker's "superpowers" and mind games the whole time, a match that was basically putting Taker out to pasture would've made a lot of sense. It still would've gotten the same WTF reaction because we've seen that story before too where Taker still wins. Actually, the build to Lesnar/Taker was really weird looking back on it. It started with an open contract, which is like right out of "beginning storylines for dummies" and should be well beneath two guys of this caliber. Then Taker shows up, stabs Brock with a pen and puts him through a table, but this is never mentioned again. Maybe the stabbing was a bit un-PG. Then they both go off tv for a while and the build is basically one Heyman promo at a time. Next time they meet, Taker does the old druid/casket routine, which Brock stooges around for like it's the early 90s. This is also never mentioned again. The last week before the show, they do a spot where Lesnar gets the best of Taker and all of a sudden he's the biggest threat ever to the streak. The WM video package consists of that segment and clips of Heyman talking, most of which was entirely new material, not stuff taken from the promos during the build.

NWO era Schiavone/Dusty, WWF Heenan and Ventura, WWECW era Tazz and Styles, heel Michael Cole, heel Jerry Lawler, TNA Tenay, and A&8 Tazz were all noticeably more biased just off the top of my head.

Doesn't get much harsher than this.

I was gonna say I can't recall a worse WWE announcing team this century than the current one, but earlier I was watching some shows from early 2012 with heel Michael Cole and Booker T... So the current crop, terrible as they may be, is actually an improvement on what they were trotting out previously.

Lawler and JBL are equally terrible these days, but if I had to pick, I'd actually keep Lawler. His senior moments and recycled jokes are still preferable to JBL vehemently trying to get himself over in every segment. Nothing's worse these days then trying to watch a good match while JBL is desperately trying to pick a fight with Michael Cole about something that may or may not be related to whoever is wrestling at the moment. Renee and Regal need to replace both of those goofs yesterday, though. Albert and Riley can hold down the fort on NXT. Move JBL to the pre/post show panel where he can troll all he wants, and just send Lawler home with a legends deal or something. Actually, I think the heel announcer concept is even worse than the heel authority figure concept as far as wrestling tropes go. Has anyone done it right since Ventura? The best wrestling announcers are the ones that play it straight and professional, or at least try to stay objective. Even JR (who really wore his heart on his sleeve) gave HHH respect back in the day. Could you imagine Skip Bayless calling NFL games? I'm not sure why wrestling hangs on to this backwards concept for live commentary.

Also led directly into this the next week... One of my favorite attitude segments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGrDfAVywL8

I love the little instructions and checklists at the end of that script. "Make sure talent looks sweaty if they just competed" "DOES THIS PROMO MAKE SENSE"

You know Daniel Bryan has moved up in the world now that they're building up a throwaway challenger for his belt. Can't say I'm excited for "Kane is an evil monster again" Round 86, but Bryan gets to keep the gold and The Shield get the best combination of the authority to feud with too. The Shield/Evolution thing was pretty good, but less impressive than it should have been due to the recent similar beatdown on SD and HHH's beatdown on Bryan. Guess we know the Shield's threshold is 5 on 3, once it gets past that, it's all over for them. Also would've thought "Believe in Evolution" would get major heat in Alabama. Cena's promo was definitely not one of his better efforts, but I can't believe everyone's forgotten his genius opening line "The last thing I need is another push, no one wants to see that."

Austin embarrasses Vince, who then tries to take it out on the Brothers of Destruction. Always loved the look on Vince's face when Taker catches him flipping the double bird. Even though the angle was written off abruptly, this moment will always stand out as one of Bryan's biggest in WWE. The Yes chant that gets faster and faster is epic face heat.

I admire how Nattie can talk in nothing but cliches. And her big (anachronistic) match featured a "restroom break" sign in the background. Also love AJ's role on this show. She is never mentioned except when she occasionally shows up to beat someone on the main cast. The Nikki house swerve really hammered home that this show is in fact the realization of Vince Russo's dream: Pro wrestling without the ring.

I don't think anyone holds creating new stars against the early brand split/ruthless aggression era. Lesnar, Cena, Orton, and Batista was a strong group to build around. It's that late brand split/PG era that really screwed the pooch creating new stars. CM Punk is about the only success story between that group and Bryan/whoever that's coming into shape now. I guess you could say Sheamus too.

He definitely left at the right time for himself, but WWE would've benefitted greatly from him sticking around. Even if they booked him to job a few times, he would still have been a top guy. Between him, Cena, and a potentially-not-ruined Orton, they could've pushed the old guard to the back burner a lot sooner. The flow of the talent would have been a lot more even and they probably wouldn't be relying on HHH to make guys well into the 2010s.