(BP)

Did anyone else scream at the TV, "Turn it into a Dragon Sleeper!" during the Tombstone botch? I know they did the best they could with it, but the collective oof noise from 75,000 people broke my heart.

If we don't get some version of Roman doing this I'll be disappointed.

Seriously, one of the best parts of the whole deal was the guys who who've wrestled Taker like Shawn and JBL and called his matches for decades like JR and Cole being in denial. Also, Taker towered over Roman, which really surprised me.

A problem with Roman's booking is it always has more than a vague feeling of being recycled bits from other wrestlers' careers (you could say this for all three Shield guys, with the most oblique being Seth/Hunter of course.) There's some Batista, some Cena, some Austin, Hogan, etc. It's normal because nothing under the sun is new and wrestling booking is largely the same as it used to be despite Vince's protests that he reinvented the wheel. But if you're already predisposed to not like the guy it's going to have the feeling of being artificial and forced. When they're clearly paralleling Flair/HBK and HBK/Taker toward the end of the match last night, it's not a narrative choice to people that hate Roman, it's Vince trying to feed Roman off of other wrestlers' legacies. It has more to do with perception and that weird lifelong fan animosity that WWE is mired in.

The initial Kane feud has a special place in my heart since it's when I started watching weekly even if the matches weren't too great. Every time he worked with Shawn it was magic for me. The Streak matches from Manias 21-29 were mostly showstealers, and I admit I still enjoyed old man Taker from the more recent Brock matches.

There's no point in overthinking Roman's booking here. It was a net gain of zero for him. He didn't gain or lose a following from it. Even in kayfabe the story of the match was really Taker vs the inevitable march of time. The follow up to build the Brock match is going to be much more important.

Well Matt's doing the gimmick still here...sort of.

Goldberg taking the three Germans then springing from off camera to spear Brock was a tremendous visual. That match seriously over performed and didn't overstay its welcome. Taker didn't have anything left, but the second half of that match being booked like a euthinization was appalling.

I don't care what anyone says, at least this year benefited from The Rock being too busy to do a 45 minute segment.

Why don't you ask him about his charity work brother.

I like this because I'm picturing Miz as Bryan shuffling on his knees all the way down that ramp.

It's Orlando. They could just put up a hazard sign and be completely liability-free.

Kurt's speech ruled because it was the Kurt Angle match of Hall of Fame speeches. He just literally chucked out high spots to get pops and each one was better than the last. Although oddly it was probably the one speech all night that didn't feel like it had twenty false finishes.

It's strange that the guy that dealt with being molested as a kid by bragging about it in a Playboy interview has weird baggage about addressing mental health.

Thinking about it today, the worst part about the Streak ending has definitely been Taker gravitating from being a mythical old gunslinger type to being a brittle guy in mascara who shows up once a year to be a petty bitch about something dumb. If this is his last year they certainly failed at making it feel special.

I know Vince had a thing about Flair wearing suits during his first run, but it's really weird to see him wearing the robe over dress clothes.

I feel like the only place for Nikki to go as a character from there would be for all of the other women to rally behind her and participate in one of those ceremonies where she marries herself at Summerslam.

Paige was about 19 or 20 at the time and Maddox is almost ten years older than her. It's worth noting that they were reluctant to call her up from NXT because of her age.

This may not surprise anyone given my avatar, but my only criticism of that trailer is Not Enough Keaton.

Milch will dictate the whole thing to Pizolatto while laying in a pile of old racetrack programs and it'll be infinitely better than season 2.

I have a lot of questions.

Shane's calling Great Sasuke's barrel guy right now. Yeah, he's got a guy.

They won't know what Hoodslam is and Bryan will end up working matches with Drugz Bunny while dressed like Chun-Li.