Go2Sleep

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.

Isn't the whole match for the audience? I'm not sure I get that criticism. I prefer Brooklyn slightly since it was a little tighter with no wasted moves. Without the time constraints, there was zero filler and the one botch actually helped the match (Bayley landing on her head off the rana counter). The action escalated perfectly, there were quality nearfalls without crossing into overkill territory, and the pre and post match stuff just felt special in a way that can't be manufactured. Not that the ironman match wasn't extremely good (and the last two minutes was the the best finishing run in ironman history), but it wasn't quite the "perfect storm" that Brooklyn was.

I'd pay to see a Brock/ADR match, and I haven't been interested in Del Rio in years.

I really can't believe they didn't run the American Airlines Center after they sold out Barclays effortlessly 6 months ago. Maybe there was a conflict with the Mavs or Stars, but still. Not booking a huge venue for NXT when 100,000 die-hards are in town is just throwing money away.

It says a lot when the worst NXT special of the year is better than every main roster one. This show was well-written, but the execution was a bit lacking relative to other takeovers. The matches were all solid, but the show lacked a true MOTYC, which all the other Takeovers managed to produce. Asuka/Emma was good, but definitely had too much Emma offense. When Asuka was in control, she just hit this gear that Emma obviously doesn't have. That ass-based offense actually looks painful, and the way she snaps off her submissions, or that quick corner dropkick counter just shows that she's one of the most advanced wrestlers in the entire company. Emma tried hard and wasn't bad at all, but it's more of a testament to Asuka that having her sell so much for Emma looked silly. The finish was very well designed and got the right reactions from me, although the ref kinda looked like a goof. The tag title match was my favorite match on the show. I've been on the Dash/Dawson bandwagon since the Dusty classic and Enzo and Cass brought it. Not that there weren't a couple rough spots here, but the nearfalls were great, and the top-rope shatter machine was a killer big-match finish. Baron/Crews was pretty uninspiring. First dull match either man has had in a while, so I'm just gonna write it off as "not clicking on this night." I'm kinda glad Baron won since he was in danger of getting Breezed and there's no reason to saddle Crews with the undefeated streak baggage. Bayley/Nia was a fairly impressive carry, because holy shit did Nia look lost out there. I think she's got potential, but this moment appeared to be too much too fast in retrospect. Props to Bayley for salvaging what she could, although she destroyed Nia's finishers. The guillotine finish was nice, as was never even attempting a B2B. Ending the match on a different spot gives people something positive to remember and washes away some of the bad taste. Nia/Asuka looks like just a weekly main #1 contenders match now, but let Bayley Cena another couple of girls in the coming months and Bayley/Asuka is worth all the money in Dallas. Joe/Balor was definitely the most polished and well-executed match of the night, although it didn't seem to go above and beyond. I felt like a Kobashi/Sasaki style chop exchange would've bumped this match up considerably. With the roll he's on now, I really wanted Joe to win, but at the same time, it would be stupid to have "the demon" lose. There's serious money if they play that streak right. Hopefully Joe can rebound, but there aren't a lot of strong faces for him to go over. I'm torn if I want guaranteed good matches that he'd probably lose with Crews, Zayn, Itami, etc or take a gamble on him going to the main roster.

Titus O'Niell isn't a star. This would be the equivalent of losing to Mojo on NXT, which would never have happened. He's gone from JTTS to straight J.

Anecdote: My casual fan co-worker went out of his way to tell me how much he enjoyed this episode of Raw. They should've just had Roman run through HHH and Sheamus at Survivor Series, but now is obviously the time to see if he can be the man. Based on the reaction, they might still have a spark left even though it looked like they left him for dead since Mania 31. They need to get Sheamus out of the picture now, though. I think Rusev would be a good opponent at the Rumble. Roman's best Mania match up is Cena, but I hate the idea of Cena winning the Rumble.

Tyler Breeze :(

The worst part about the Roman pop at the end was that they got the exact same pop at Survivor Series with like 5% of the effort and Sheamus didn't have the title. It is also very likely that they will undercut him in the next couple of weeks and crowds will be indifferent/hostile to Roman again by the Rumble.

Joe/Zayn and Bayley/Asuka seems like a pretty viable card. If you wanna shoot bigger, do a Sasha/Asuka one-off special attraction match or a (I know I know) one-time Daniel Bryan match. They'll sell out American Airlines no matter what card they run, but Bryan/Zayn, Sasha/Asuka, and Joe/Itami could probably fill Globe Life.

I'm surprised anyone thinks Emma should win that match in any capacity. Asuka has two legit main events waiting to happen with Bayley and a built-up Nia Jax. There are no money matches that involve Emma. She's good in her role, but right now her role is "make Asuka look like a world beater" and that involves doing the job next Wednesday.