Go2Sleep

Kofi should've won MITB last year. Imagine how much better the last couple of months could've been if New Day was in the LON's spot (and the LON never existed).

Turns out the last 6 months where she hadn't made it was just a dream, now there's nothing dragging her down.

Between the Rock and HHH promos, I felt like it was 2003 again. The Rock's promo was pretty good even if it was super long, and the New Day definitely felt like they belonged with him on the mic. I actually didn't mind HHH's promo either. Unlike Vince and Steph, I feel like HHH actually has some self-awareness and knows how to play his character in 2016. I definitely didn't dig the AJ/Jericho match. Reminded me of Cesaro/RVD from a couple years ago where one guy was clearly moving at half speed so the other guy could pretend he could still do a back and forth sprint 10+ years past his prime. I like the way the women's title feud is shaping up. You can hear the reactions getting a little bit better each week and they're all getting more comfortable in their roles. I feel kinda bad for Paige coming in a couple years ago to change the face of women's wrestling, now she's slumming it the non-canon Total Divas tags. The ME choice for Fast Lane is interesting. It sounds decent on paper, even if "Wyatts attack Lesnar, Roman wins" is about as predictable as HHH at #30.

I think the MITB match is more of a replacement for KOTR in the sense that it's basically the company telling you "this midcarder is moving up." I do agree Survivor Series' stock has plummeted in the last 10 years, and it's only a Big 4 by reputation at this point. Sting debut notwithstanding, the last time it felt important was during the hard brand split with the Raw vs. SD tags.

Outside of the big 4 WWE shows, which filler ppv has consistently produced the best matches over the years? I'm leaning towards No Way Out, which due to its proximity to Mania, tended to get the best efforts from everyone involved and inspired storylines. There were at least 3 legitimate MOTDCs between the HHH/Austin 3 stages of hell, Angle/Taker, and Eddie/Lesnar. They pretty much all have at least one MOTYC and every show from 98-09 was solid at worst. The only bad one was when they brought the name back for the June 2012 show that was headlined by a Cena/Show cage match with Big Johnny's career on the line. ONS/Extreme Rules (I lump these two together because they're functionally the same thing with mostly/all hardcore matches) is a sleeper candidate. They usually run into something good on each show and have a couple MOTDCs to show (The 6-person intergender tag in 06, and Cena/Lesnar in 2012).

This was definitely hilarious. Dolph looked like a green-spirit going after someone in special.

My new year's resolution is to watch main roster WWE with a different perspective. I no longer expect, or even want, greatness. I just want the shows to not be abysmal. In that regard, the Rumble was satisfactory. Ambrose/Owens was a decent little hardcore match. Not great, as it was still the bland, homogeneous, indistinguishable formula we've grown accustomed to the last year and a half, but it was about as good as it was going to be in those constraints. The tag title match was fine. Wouldn't mind seeing New Day feud with Swagger/Henry. Would certainly be better than the Usos for the 100th time. Kalisto/ADR was botch city and easily the worst match they've had together and the worst match on the show. Kalisto losing the belt back looks very pointless in retrospect, as expected. The women's match was pretty good. I liked the play on the old trope with Charlotte using the helpless male as a shield. The finish was silly, but the post match made up for it. As much as I like Becky and was happy to see her over here, I didn't mind the stomp. It's Sasha's time and if she can keep an edge as a face, she's money in the bank. This is one WM feud that actually looks like it's headed in the right direction. The Rumble itself was fine, certainly a step up from the last two years. HHH winning is whatever, we all knew it was coming and once Roman woke up from his nap at #29, they might as well have put "HHH is #30 you dipshits" on the tron for the next minute. On the plus side, we got the equally predictable AJ debut and Zayn/Owens interactions which are things people actually wanted. Roman continued to look like a loser and Brock was pretty wasted in this all things considered. Not really sure about Mania. HHH/Roman is going to be boring and the crowd will definitely be behind HHH. I'm ok with Brock/Bray if Fast Lane has Brock vs. the other Wyatts in a gauntlet match with the bulk of it being Harper. Their match at Mania could go either way quality wise, and I guess if they wanted to try to re-build Bray so they can waste him later, this is their last chance. There are some clear potential positives, though, with Zayn/Owens and Charlotte/Sasha.

If WWE does anything to tease Bryan and not deliver this year, we'll know their new plan for the Rumble is to make how much the crowd shits on the match the main draw.

Joe's won most of his matches with the rear naked choke thus far (plus he used it to KO Finn 3 weeks in a row), so I'd say it's his primary, but otherwise I agree completely. He didn't use the muscle buster setup, and the other two just won with signature spots. I think Sami has a couple subs with the koji clutch, but Corbin's deep six was just a "big match two count" move. I thought Corbin/Swann was the best match of the three. Rich Swann made the most of his first appearance with some over-the-top bumping and got a couple good shots on Corbin that made him look competent, but didn't make Baron look weak. Pretty much an ideal enhancement match when you plan to use the jobber in a bigger role later. Not sure how I feel about the name "American Alpha," but at least it doesn't have the word Team in front of it. And the promo to set it up was good too. That Vaudevillains promo was strange. Guess they're dropping the gimmick and/or turning heel? Not that there's a lot left for them to do at this point.

Is it too much for that match to end in a no-contest? You're looking at it all wrong. 6 of those guys won't be in the Rumble. Glass is 3/4 full, man. (I actually think Henry should be in there)

The problem with a "Roman vanquishing the Authority" angle is that no one will believe it til it happens. Fucking Sting showed up in the surprise moment of the decade and had the blessing of Vince McMahon himself to ostensibly get rid of the Authority forever and they were back in power a month later. That ship has sailed. If "they" want HHH (and I assume it's him, not Steph or Kane that they care about) on tv every week, they should've just eased him back in as a true neutral authority figure after the Sting feud. He could come out and do promos and announce matches and shit, but still emphasize that it's the *superstars* who are settling things for themselves.

I really hope HHH is #2, and the story with him and Roman is resolved about halfway through with both of them getting eliminated somehow. Then the finishing run can be Brock vs. The World with some fresh, inspiring challengers. That'll be fun to fantasize about for a few days.

The MLK video package where it said the "I have a dream" speech inspired many others then showed a bunch of people who lived/made their most notable civil rights contributions well before the dream speech was kind of head-scratching. And, oh yeah, it can't be said enough: LOL @ Neville as the centerpiece of the MLK day tribute team. Anyway, onto other stuff. The opening Jericho promo was so bad. Like I said in another thread, I give him a pass on tv for his podcast work, but it feels like he's trying to push the limits of my good will. Rusev's part in this was very good, however, and "Nice dinner jacket, did you eat the shirt?" was a rare well-written line that was ruined by atrocious delivery. I don't know why they keep putting Barrett on tv if he can't do anything physical and they won't let him cut promos. His uselessness sticks out like a sore thumb in every LON segment. Those Total Diva alternate reality matches are always so weird. Becky seems to have found some hidden promo talent in the last couple of weeks. She's not The Rock or anything, but she seems noticeably more comfortable compared to her really awkward stuff after she just got called up. The "Roman gets #1" segment was awful. At least Steph was aware enough to start ripping on it halfway through. The segment largely didn't work because, like many other segments in this angle, not enough people care about Roman as a top face. Rigged drawing, yawn. I want to hear a Raw announced by Kevin Owens and Titus O'Neil. The main event promo was so flat despite the swerves. Jericho trying to be pushed as a threat is laughable. Roman's first spear on Brock was hot, but then they did what they always do with Roman after he has a brief moment of looking special: Make him look like a loser and then wonder why he isn't over as much as they'd like. The only redeeming quality was that there appeared to be a glimmer of hope for Brock/Harper at some point.

I'd rather watch the yeti become the next Daniel Puder than anything involving ZZ.

They didn't. That's why they sold to the Carter family... there was something about a guy in the office who's job it was to report on PPV buys, and he kept lying and telling them they were selling a lot more than they were, so they thought they were making a profit instead of a huge loss... which somehow kept them alive longer than it should have. But weekly PPV was a doomed concept that failed completely. That sounds very... TNA-ish.

I'm really not sure how TNA survived on that $10 a week model. I ordered one with my buddies for an Ultimate X match, because this was pre-youtube so we couldn't really see what it was all about any other way. I didn't watch TNA again until they were on cable.

JBL is the wrestler I've probably done the biggest 180 on over the course of my wrestling life. I never thought anything of him as I was growing up and his title run fell super flat for me at the time, especially with Eddie not getting much of a run before hand. I think it was after he came back to the ring after his first stint announcing that I started to like him. Looking back, he was pretty much always good or at least had visible talent. Yeah, he had some super lame gimmicks in the mid 90s, but he was a poor man's Stan Hansen in the ring and usually good for a fired-up promo. He actually had some fun matches with the pre-DX Outlaws and Kai En Tai even before he settled into the Acolytes. That wasn't even a good gimmick for him, but the chemistry with Faarooq was so good, it kept him afloat for years. The title run was jarring due to how fast his gimmick changed and how fast he won the belt, but his match quality went way up as he got to work longer singles matches with high-end wrestlers. Even though he adopted some cowardly heel tactics, his matches were still mostly high-impact brawling. The length of his reign combined with his mostly cheap wins made him the ideal guy for Cena to crush and launch his main event run. Then he spent the rest of his career as the perfect upper midcard heel with his perfected character and polished in-ring skills.

I wouldn't bet against Owens being in the Rumble. I assume he'll lose to Ambrose since it appears he's headed for bigger things than the IC belt one way or another, and coming back to the Rumble is a good way to keep him strong after a loss. All he has to do is enter in the 20s and eliminate a couple guys while the announcers talk about how tough he is. I'd say they'd be stupid to not do some Zayn/Owens (and possibly other NXT involvement) in Orlando of all places with a typically smart crowd, but they've missed easier opportunities.

Bayley hit Murphy with the B2B a couple months ago and it looked pretty normal. Bayley's a good enough athlete that she can lift 200+ pounds off the ground from that position, so as long as her opponent can jump a little, the move is pretty easy.

Ciampa/Burch was surprisingly good. I love Ciampa's strikes bringing out the stiffness in everyone. That elevated flatliner was kind of silly, but his submission finisher was pretty smooth. The Ascension have to be prime candidates for the post-Mania cuts, right? The "wrestler goes out under the bottom rope and resurfaces at the very end of a battle royal" spot needs to go away forever.

My conspiracy theory is that Vince deep down believes he was the draw in Austin vs. Vince or perhaps that his creative genius was the draw and that the angle could've succeeded with any two people as long as he was overseeing it. That's why the heel authority figure has been a staple of WWE booking regardless of how uninteresting or unfitting the face counterpart is at the time. /half-joking

As much as I haven't cared about anything Jericho has done on tv in years, his podcast is a tremendous service to wrestling fans, so he gets a pass from me whenever he comes back.

A part of my soul dies every time I think about what could/should have been after WM 30.

I knew I was being too generous with "weeks." Also it's very impressive that WWE was able to make a team that feels more jobberific than the Social Outcasts.

I was wondering Paige had been lately. Hopefully Sasha just has a Ben Roethlisberger MCL injury and not a Le'Veon Bell MCL injury.