StretchMediatedHypertrophy

Oh FFS. Titus and the one second elimination is the stupidest thing I ever heard. Where do you go from there? That's like fucking peeing your pants to stay warm in Winter.

Otunga was/is generally a bit under-rated, Not a natural wrestler, but natural heel. And if you can bump and feed, and stomp - the rest is icing really. As I recall, Otunga bumping for empty cardboard boxes carried that match. Orton had nothing to do with it. Agreed, no carry job. They wisely avoid an Otunga control segment, but he bumps really well here and he's a natural heel. Orton says 'ho ho ho', giggles when he (accidentally, well maybe) hits Otunga in the head with his present throw and eats a Xmas treat - he's good here too. Goofy psycho tag-team Orton and Ambrose could actually work pretty well.

One doesn't want to assume, but I figure quite a lot of them check out the board at this point. We knew about Punk. I think it's a safe bet that Batista knows about Fashion Watch as well.

Other than an appearance at a Paris house show, that was it for him in WWF, yeah. He did a bunch of house shows in Europe, where they reprised the same finish of Andre helping Bulldog defeat Earthquake. I wonder if any of those were filmed, because I'm pretty sure Quake never ate a pinfall on TV, at least not during that run (he passed out in the Million Dollar Dream and got counted out against Hulk, but that's about it).

That's a fair point, but I think The Rock has never received enough credit for that carryjob.

Rock vs Austin, Wrestlemania 19.

This isn't the first time. I guess he somehow needs to differentiate his shuck n jive gimmick from that of The New Day. Speaking of which, I think their match with Kidd/Cesaro was pretty great. Eep. I dunno. I feel that I too am in the 'we need to see other people' stage with WWE, but I'm past the anger stage.

I actually rewatched Tough Enough Series 1 recently. Maven had something, but was really hurt by the 'Tough Enough Winner' gimmick. He also lacked weight for the time period. Chris Nowinski may well have been a World Champ if not for the concussions.

Probably jumping ahead of a Summer contract release; retains more indy cred by requesting the release himself. Maybe he can finally be Stefan Holywood.

My recollection was that he'd do the top rope Sunset Flip, and release it because he wanted to finish with the hook. As a cocky heel it made some sense.

Well Main Event is now essentially dead. WWE.com has stripped it from their list of shows - it will probably still be out there for Sky and whoever else, but it's essentially non-canon. With Smackdown 'relaunching' on Thursdays, this is probably a good thing as 5 hours of TV is quite enough (Superstars is listed below NXT as a WWE show and barely counts). Maybe Main Event will get wacky *fingers crossed*

I don't think the 'B' Title was remotely a problem. Edge made a Hall of Fame career out of that title, the Mark Henry Title reign was awesome in a way that 'Mark Henry: IC Champ' would not have been. I've made my point about this before, I won't labour it any further than to say that the World Heavyweight Title has generally been pretty awesome. Oh yeah, and Eddy (who was WWE Champ, but only because the WHT was on RAW). The Smackdown PPVs didn't work so I'm not in favour of bringing those back. But RAW vs Smackdown stuff often did feel special when it happened. Remember King Booker: Champion of Champions? And yes, it protected match ups. As someone else said, the split brands allowed a deeper roster to be utilised. WWE without undercard gimmicks is missing something - if NXT has proved anything it has proved this. There are guys like the VaudeVillains who would have been awesome on the Smackdown undercard but really have no place to go in the current set up.

I agree; they need to split the show somehow, someway. Also bring back the roster split.

To be fair, he did have a little smile in his early squashes that he was obviously told to lose.

I believe there are yeasts which are a bit more temperature tolerant......that isn't to say it won't affect the taste, but that some yeasts have a bigger margin of error. You probably don't need to refrigerate a lager in some parts of the world right now (including UK), outside/garage will be fine fine; certainly for fermentation. Lagering is not fermentation of course. Also, if you haven't looked - Boil In A Bag method has pretty much revolutionised homebrewing and made an all-grain much easier. I definitely plan to do this at some point.

I speedwatched most of NXT Season 1 over the last couple of days. It was surprisingly fun. Big surprise for me were how great Otunga was - he really needed another 6-12 months in FCW to learn to work but they really missed something there with him; I believe he's back on live shows now and I'll be curious to see him. Work generally was clunky from all, but there was an element of unpredictability in the matches at times which was a change of pace. Heath Slater trying to be a babyface is pretty funny. You also see the beginnings of Punk's pipebomb character, plus his issues with Darren Young's 'lifestyle' have an amusing retrospective subtext. Michael Cole is actually quite relaxed and funny here, the heel turn begins but doesn't fully complete. Striker wears some really awful clothes (the DB waistcoat with the notch lapel in particular), and is by far the most annoying guy on the show. YEP YEP YEP, WHAT IT DO?!

When I think about Jericho's 2010, I recall the Evan Bourne matches and not much else. The few weeks he has the WHC in 2010 he's pretty money, and he was pretty great as Wade Barrett's mentor on NXT.

Some of the Y2J schtick has not aged well, but it was effective at the time and he's amassed a pretty damn good collection of matches. As noted the feud with Michaels in 2008 is untouchable, the stuff with the legends was great too, then the feud with Mysterio, followed by Jerishow. 2010 stuff a bit patchier, but that was more crappy babyface Edge and general bad booking than anything else. In retrospect, the return in early-2012 was pretty great too. The babyface turn hasn't been all that, but people were starting to cheer the Bockwinkel schtick so it had a sell-by date.

Celebrating the fact that every episode of old NXT is on YouTube.

It has been long said that Robbie is NXT-worthy; maybe Zack Ryder will join him there for a while.

It's up on Hulu Plus as Season 5 of NXT. From what I can see, *every* episode of NXT 1-Redemption is on YouTube via WWE.

Great interview. Jericho has been delivering - I am almost wondering if he has a bigger gig than the podcast in him.

I didn't realise Maxine was in Lucha Underground - another reason for me to fuck this RAW shit off for a bit and watch something new. But anyway, my spreadsheet says NXT Redemption was awesome.