Go2Sleep

You know, with HHH, Orton, and Vince likely forming a heel stable of some kind, would it be the worst idea in the world to turn the Shield face by having them save Bryan from a big beatdown? They've been floundering lately and this would be a big boost and it would clear up the heel stable clutter going on with Evolution 2.0 and the Wyatts. It seems like people want to cheer them too, not just based on the chants they get from smart crowds, but their entrance gets a good reaction everywhere. Storyline wise, it totally fits their injustice narrative, and I think the wrestling statute of limitations has expired on them feuding with Team Hell No. Plus I'm trying to think of ways out of this angle that don't involve Bryan and Cena respect-teaming to save WWE or Vince turning face and keeping the focus on him vs. HHH with Bryan and Orton as seconds.

They really should've just called this episode "Boobs." I mean there was Tyson/Nattie bullshit too, but I pretty much just watched an hour of WWE divas discussing the practical and moral implications of real and fake breasts while gratuitously groping one another. I need to re-evaluate my life.

Every wrestling fan gets an "achievement unlocked" when they correct someone on the usage of Air Raid Crash and Kryptonite Krunch.

That was a really great ppv, even if I'm not too high on the finish (could've been a lot worse, though). The top 3 matches were all MOTYC's for the company, and Punk/Lesnar might be the front-runner right now. Just really well-paced matches with some creative spots and good finishing spots. I'll reserve my judgment on the HHH turn until the angle plays out a bit more on Raw tomorrow. Underrated moment of the show was definitely Ryback's skit backstage. Holy shit, that was easily the funniest segment this year. "I knew that," "You made a mess, you look like a three year old," and of course "Feed me, moron" had me dying. This should've been his first gimmick. Hopefully a promising low-carder can get a decent rub by ending his reign of terror on backstage employees.

More Scott Steiner goodness. This time beating up Lenny Lane and Eugene.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXWbPAizEQg Vader demolishes Barry Houston: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPZe0Efo5c0 Here's 2 new guys to this thread. Beatdown plus trash talk. Also like that there's actually story in the match for why they kill Sandlin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDsJceo-q4U

Colt Cabana as Matt Classic: Everyone on WSX had funny characters, but Classic stood out among them all. Wish that promotion got an hour timeslot and stuck around.

The best Undertaker character is summer of 99 after the Corporate Ministry disbanded. The one who took Big Show out for a motorcycle ride in the desert with half a tank of gas, revoked Michael Cole's interviewing privileges weekly, and threatened to stab Jerry Lawler in the face. It was like halfway between the Deadman and Bikertaker and it was awesome. He got hurt a couple months into it, but even the way he left was great. Chris Jericho: Crusierweight/TV champion. Not only one of the best comedic runs of all time, but it was probably the most credible in-ring stretch he ever had too. Second run whiny heel Michaels: He spent all but a month of his second run as a face, but outside of the Jericho feud, his best stretch was the one month he went vintage HBK on Hogan. I don't care what anyone says, that match was freakin' hilarious. Best In The World Bryan Danielson: I love him as a babyface and it's much a more marketable character for him, but I still kinda miss him as a heel trolling ROH fans and dissecting guys with vicious mat-wrestling. Positively Kanyon: Needs no explanation, but the time WCW just had a wide shot of the arena from the outside and Kanyon delivered a Kanyon cutter to some guy off in the distance that wasn't even acknowledged was a shining moment from 2000 WCW. 5 Second Pose E&C: MITB/GF-stealing Edge and wily veteran Christian are both close, but nothing tops their ridiculous segments in 2000. 3I's Kurt Angle was a natural fit with the group (although I liked his fired up babyface run in 01 and his shooter phase in 06 better) Recently-unmasked Kane: Might have been the funniest guy on the roster from 2003 to 2005. The Shane feud, the Matt Hardy feud, and the Edge feud were all brilliant, and he was key player two of the best WWE weddings ever (him and Lita and Edge/Lita) I have a thing for comedic heels who play it totally straight, btw.

Plus last month they showed the match on the hype show, not just youtube. I think the PG inferno match is by far the weirdest thing on the undercard. "This is not intended to set anyone on fire, just to keep other people out of the ring." I'm fairly sure Show/Henry are accepting The Shield's open challenge. Christian/Del Rio is a great #3 match as both guys can work a solid tv-style match that will be good without overshadowing the main events. The McMahons getting all over the Cena/Bryan feud has brought it down somewhat, but I'm almost thinking they'll "swerve" everyone by running a totally clean match at this point. There's just so much emphasis on the outside forces, I don't know what else could possibly be surprising. Worst case scenario, there's still about 30 minutes of awesome wrestling before the fuck finish. And meanwhile, Punk/Lesnar has quietly turned into a very good feud. It was neck and neck with Cena/Bryan as far as my interest was concerned a month ago. Now, it's the clear number one. Both guys have been tearing it up on the mic and in their brawls. Should be a great match if the keep it around 15 minutes or less. No point letting Lesnar get blown up trying to work a WWE epic, just let those two sprint and work it like a Vader WCW or 99 AJ match.

This was the Raw of the great promo. Lesnar and The Shield had some great taped segments and the Cena/Bryan dueling promo in the ring was the best WWE has had in some time. Cena channelled everything good from his Rock feud and cut out the garbage, and Bryan held his own with one of the more believable " *real wrestler* with a chip on the shoulder" promos. Hopefully with all the gimmicks being added to Cena/Bryan, the big swerve ends up being the match goes off without a hitch. Almost seemed like they were angling for a Bryan heel turn, and I'm probably reading too much into it, but with the Shield talking about "leading a new generation" against the old guys a the top, maybe they end up teaming with Bryan. If they have to overbook it, The Shield and Bryan laying waste to Cena, Orton, Vince, and HHH and holding all the gold wouldn't be too bad (until the impending angle with the old guard going over played out). I'm really excited for Lesnar/Punk, though. That's just a top-notch pro-wrestling feud.

I don't know what was funnier: Playing off a hurricanrana as a shoot because Trinity and Jon were fighting or "Bitch, we're moving to Phoenix."

The finish to this match is quite literally a squash. The Quebecers had some nice offense. This should definitely be in the main post, along with that BPP vs. random cruisers match. The best part is after the match with Hansen stumbling around still trying to fight like he had just been kicked out of a bar.

I'd really hate to see The Shield become the grunts for a larger stable. Even though they haven't been featured as prominently recently, they've still been pretty protected. They have what, 5 total losses in the last 10 months or so? If they team up with Orton and Vince, guess who gets to start being the guys faces always beat up while the stable leaders run away... And what happened to Brad Maddox this week? I thought his gimmick where he was stuck between 3 different people telling him what to do was brilliant and he was pulling it off expertly. Now, it seems like they've just cut him out of the picture and are putting Vince and HHH front and center, which is lame.

Oh, did anyone else catch that the Funkadactyls were wearing their new gear from this episode on Raw this week?

It's the best thing since wrestling.

Going back a couple pages, but I think non-finishes can still be a part of great matches if it fits the story as part of a larger feud. All Japan had some quality time-limit draws with the big four when they were all evenly matched, but I think my favorite was from 1990 when Misawa and Kawada were teaming against Jumbo and Taue. Misawa and Kawada were on their way up the ladder, but Taue was a couple years from taking off, so the match was built around Jumbo bailing his ass out repeatedly and surviving a massive beating to the point where a draw felt like a good win for him. ROH used to run time-limit draws to great effect, most notably the Punk/Joe series and during Danielson's title run. The original NWO-forming match officially ended in a no contest. In WWE, the ones that come to mind are the Rock/Foley LMS with the double chair shot KO, Edge/Matt street fight on Raw where Hardy did the kamikaze side-effect off the stage, and the Show/Lesnar ring explosion match. While Austin/Angle was a wonderful piece of storytelling and a top match for both guys, I don't count it because Angle was the clear winner by DQ. Perfectly unsatisfying as intended, but not quite in the scope of the question.

Wasn't Fandango basically doing Ziggler's heel gimmick the entire show? Also, his dead pan "We're not doing it again" after the Eva tryout was pretty hilarious.

I really have no idea why they don't let Brock do his own promos. He's not as polished a speaker as Heyman, but he has this totally authentic vibe that is completely wasted by having the super-manufactured and gimmicked-up (though admittedly well-spoken) Heyman talk for him all the time. The way Lesnar always sounds like he's kinda joking around but really may snap and kill someone at any moment is some of the best subtle character work in WWE. Oh, and Brock just catching the chair that Punk swung at his face and throwing it off to the side was badass. Also, The Shield really has no direction anymore. I thought they were supposed to be feuding with Henry. I would've liked Henry issuing a 6-man challenge for Summer Slam with mystery partners and using that to bring back Kofi and Show. Kofi could even take the fall and maybe set up a heel turn, because when changing tights is the most interesting thing you've done in 3+ years, you've got problems.

I'm guessing there's an angle planned for Eva Marie once the show ends because it seems like the whole thing is a vehicle to get her over. I think it's kind of funny how this show tries to portray the Bellas as the biggest divas going today, even though they haven't really done anything since they've been back. Kind of disappointed we haven't even gotten a cameo from Kaitlyn or AJ. And as someone who doesn't watch a lot of reality tv, that hotel room proposal scene is what I imagine just about every reality show to look like.

Of course you're kind of revealing your own prejudices by assuming Kharma can't be considered attractive. That's why I said "looking like a model" instead of "being hot" or something like that.

I could've won so much money placing a bet on "casting against stereotype" appearing in your follow up post. Why do you assume someone like Kharma couldn't pull the gimmick off as you described (not that I'd want her to have to try)? Someone who could win fans over with her ability and really send the message that there's more to being a diva than looking like a model? One that reveals even more troubling underlying assumptions. Not that it would be too much better, but why wouldn't a feminist character suggest that the male-dominated power structure encourages/forces divas to sleep with them by blackmailing them with tv time?

Though unintentional I'm sure, this segment of your post reveals some critical flaws with your idea. "Needs to be attractive" is bad enough, but a "feminist" character whose primary motivation is slut-shaming? Uh...

After a bad few months where they lost 3 (nearly 4) big matches in a row together, Punk saw that it wasn't working with him and Heyman anymore and wanted to amicably go separate ways. Heyman had Lesnar attack Punk and lied about it, then cost him MITB by busting him open with a ladder. Then he had Lesnar injure Punk again. Heyman handles breakups worse than AJ.

This match needs to be seen on video in order to appreciate the sheer absurdity of Tony Schiavone talking about Nash and Steiner improvising a new finish. It's not good by any conventional measure, but it's so fucking weird you almost have to admire it on some level.

Brock Lesnar and John Cena definitely benefitted from being able to rise to the top of card without running into the HHH/Evolution show that was in full force at the time. Eddie and Rey were getting a ton of tv time and drawing latino viewers in pretty significant numbers before Eddie's untimely death. To a lesser extent, CM Punk and Jeff Hardy reaped the benefits of the soft split towards the end.

The best time for Sting to go to WWE would've been shortly after the invasion. He was a bit past his prime, but he still had enough in the tank for a solid run based mostly on nostalgia angles and dream matches. Best case scenario, he ends up with a run comparable to Michaels second run. Worst case scenario, Goldberg's WWE run.