Go2Sleep

I can't imagine Charlotte vs. Nikki at Mania, since that would necessitate Nikki being a face. That's Sasha's spot if she's healthy. I have to admit the Rumble does interest me this year. Hopefully the Brock stuff is a red herring and an inspired mystery man will win it all, but Brock's presence alone adds a lot of intrigue. Kalisto/ADR was pretty good. I'd definitely like to see Kalisto amount to something, but he fits the profile of a guy WWE would forget about within weeks of a big win.

3 dorky friends.

Brock got hardwayed on brogue kick... I know the house show matches are pretty by-the-numbers, but I'd like to see an all-out slugfest with Brock against Sheamus or Del Rio.

Do people who think Dean's stuff hasn't aged well feel the same way about Rey? I think both of their work from the mid to late 90s has aged fine. For Dean, a lot of his movez were working a body part in an interesting way or crazy pinning combos (fitting that Bryan liked him so much) so his matches usually had some story and focus on trying to win. Plus he was good at being subtly cocky as a heel and fired up as a face so he usually had a good character touch in his matches as well. Rey would be more likely to suffer from everyone copying his style, but in addition to his size and natural babyface aura giving all his matches an easy story to build around, he still did moves back then that you don't see people doing today (or at least not as well). Also, it should be mentioned that the overkill style in the mid-late 90s was different than what you see in WWE today. It still benefited from the idea that guys could have multiple finishers and matches could end on other big non-fisher moves, as well as the idea that a match didn't have to be long to be good. It was fast-paced and had a lot of nearfalls, but very little if any time-padding and finisher kickouts (unless you're talking about AJPW) that make the style a drag today.

You're both right. It was starting not long after the Shield breakup when he was getting shoehorned into the multiman title matches while Rollins and Ambrose were put on the back burner (only temporarily in Rollins' case). Then he was hurt from September-December 2014 which allowed the heat to die down, otherwise he probably would've been in Dolph's spot at Survivor Series. The horribly-booked Rumble is what pushed everything over the edge, and is the main reason it's been an uphill struggle to book him ever since.

What? Vince has been acting on their behalf for the last two weeks, and Steph's been all over tv too. I'll give you that HHH hasn't been seen since TLC, but he was instrumental in the Sheamus cash-in as well as the genesis of the anti-Roman angle, and both he and Steph were always around when Rollins had the strap with their motivational speeches and whatnot. Even DoO Kane has only been gone since HIAC, and HHH/Steph were both in the middle of that feud too.

This was gonna be my unrealistic suggestion. Balor, Corbin, and AJ/Joe as the tag team. Have them show up and take all the titles and beat up HHH. Get the authority off tv and still have a top heel stable. I know the League of Nations is right there, but let's face it, that never had a chance as a top act. Just have the Balor club demolish them while they're at it, and maybe we could finally get a face run for Rusev.

I think they finally figured Joe's theme out, but for a couple months after his debut, he was a good candidate for best wrestler with the shittiest music. I guess currently, Cesaro would have that honor? In the other direction, I like Sheamus' theme, but I never want to see anything he does after he comes out. And Jack Swagger's theme definitely should've gone to Cesaro too. Gangrel and Riley are both good shouts for all time. Dennis Knight got the benefit of Taker's cool-ass Ministry theme for a bit. Mongo got the benefit of the 96/97 Horsemen music. Stevie Ray leeched off the Harlem Heat and original NWO themes. 98 Marc Mero and pre-Evolution Batista deserve mention too. Good wrestlers that got stuck with bad themes? I guess depending on you feel about ironically enjoying bad music, Regal's "man's man" theme and the Steiners WCW theme should be mentioned. Finlay getting the happy Hornswoggle music was pretty bad too. The X-Factor theme was so bad, it's still a huge gap from X-Pac and Albert (maybe not Justin Credible tho). Rey should've had better WCW music than the recycled Zodiac theme, and certainly better than what he had in the Filthy Animals days.

Moolah and Mae Young.

Neither did Owen for that matter, but I don't think that's the spirit of the question. Misawa probably did literally die in the ring even if he wasn't pronounced dead right away. His neck injury was one that causes death pretty quickly, if not instantly from what I recall.

I think all in-ring deaths are accidents. At least I hope. What about that guy that died in the ring with Khali? I think that was just in training, but it still gets brought up in urban legend/sleaze contexts many years later.

Why would you leave Owen out for this question? He's the one people still talk about to this day. Once people put together that I live in Kansas City and like wrestling, I never fail to get asked if I was at that show (I wasn't thankfully). I guess Perro Jr is a distant second since his death got a little bit of coverage in the US thanks to Mysterio being associated with it.

They couldn't even show the full match. Guess I'll have to buy the DVD wait for someone to put it on youtube.

2 weeks with no NXT? Yuck.

Ziggler had the double turn match with Del Rio that's a top 5 match this decade in WWE. I don't dispute your subtext that Ziggler is generally boring, but that match deserves a shout.

I'm pretty sure it's because that's been Cena's preferred style for the last 6 years or so, not due to a guy who hasn't been with the company in nearly a decade.

The top 6 for the WWE list is actually pretty good. After that it gets kinda random, but it's way more inspired than most lists they generate. Even though Taker/Lesnar is a most undeserving #9, I thought for sure it would've been forced to #1 given how forced everything else was about that match.

They did a great job getting the Brooklyn police captain over in that first segment. Makes his debut and doesn't take any shit from Steph or Vince and goes over strong to end the segment. That's how you book a star. And the Sasha thing isn't too hard to figure out, it's just that no one wants to say it... Her work on the main roster hasn't been very good. Not that Sasha herself isn't good, mind you, just that there's a very obvious quality gap between her work in NXT and work on the main roster. I know it's tough for everyone here because we all love our NXT, but try if you can to imagine your only exposure to Sasha Banks was the last 5 months of Raw/SD/ppv, and ask yourself if you would be crazy about her, or even care about her at all. This is what the non-we-want-Sasha-chanting portion of the audience is experiencing.

Heel Cole by a lot. Madden was terrible, but his rep as an all-time bad announcer gets inflated because of the legendary awfulness of the rest of the product. Nobody goes back and re-watches 2011 WWE.

No doubt that summer of 99 was the worst of the worst. It was bad AND boring. At least when Russo came in, the memorable wrestlecrap picked up. Shows like Havoc 99, Slamboree 2000, and New Blood Rising are godsends when you're watching these shows, because at least you laugh and remember what happiness feels like for a few fleeting moments. 2000-01 was still really bad in the grand scheme of things, though. I don't think 01 was even as good as first 3 months of 99.

DDP/Flair strap match from Halloween Havoc and 3-way tag from Slamboree are the only truly good ppv matches from this time frame that I can recall from my efforts to watch all dying-days WCW ppvs on the network. Goldberg/Sid from Havoc was way better than it should've been too, and that counts for a lot during that time stretch. Watching 99-01 WCW is not a task for the faint of heart.

The problem with that move today is the tapout is a major visual for getting submission finishers over, especially in WWE.

Pro wrestling "lighter" weight classes are ridiculous because all their limits are well into heavyweight territory in any professional combat sport. Weight classes in pro wrestling are also ridiculous because no one's trying to hurt their opponent and you make your own results. If you book small guys strong, people will buy it. There's no reason to segregate guys by weight when the only criteria for featuring a guy is whether or not people like watching them. WWE's problem specifically with weight classes was that they always made the lighter guys work the same style as the heavier guys so they had no way to stand out. Combine that with never rotating which weight class gets the main event on big shows like UFC does, and over time fans can't help but associate lighter with less important.

Watching Raws and PPVs from 96, it's so easy to see how Austin got as big as he did. Just the perfect guy at the perfect time. Shawn, Taker, Foley, and Bret (when he was there) had nice years in-ring, but every time Austin was on screen post-KOTR, it just felt so different and exciting than everything else going on. Like you go from these over-the-top intense Austin promos then back to Freddie Joe Floyd vs. The Stalker or some shit. "Wait til Austin 3:16 meets Pillman 9 millimeter" would've blown away the OMG moment field if that was a Slammy in 96. Can't wait to get into 97 where the rest of the product starts to catch up. Also bitter heel JR was hilarious, even though fake Razor and Diesel stuck around way too long.

Well outside of the first couple of months, his raps were mostly juvenile poop/dick jokes that got progressively less complex in structure so it wasn't much of a leap. Modern Cena basically started in 2005, though. He had a brief stint as "the marine," which is when crowds started to sour on him. After some futile attempts to get crowds 100% back on his side, he settled into being "Just John Cena" the first half of 2006.