HumanChessgame

I got into him in a similar way - seeing clips on random websites in the late 90s. Pretty much every tape of Japanese wrestling I bought was based on how many matches and how prominently featured he was. He's always been a favorite of mine and it really sucks his career ended when it did.

Omega's schtick is annoying, but he's a legit good wrestler and the entertaining stuff he does helps me overlook his obnoxious moments. Corbin still does nothing for me. I admit he's improved during his NXT tenure, but he's still a dime a dozen big guy and his segments on Breaking Ground made him seem like a legit douche. Time may prove me wrong, but I think he's going to be one of those guys I just don't get. He just reminds me of one of those oversize jobbers that would get a few wins on WCW Worldwide before getting beaten in the main event of Saturday Night.

Kinda ambivalent about Okada, but I've never gotten Sami at all. Most of his pre-NXT work I saw was the deathmatch stuff and he didn't stand out in any way there. His NXT work was uninspiring at best, but I'm not going to hold that limited body of work against him. The only post-NXT match I've seen of his was the match with Mike Bailey in CZW and that was good, but the good wasn't really on his end. From what I've seen, he's a guy trying to work a style he just can't pull off.

I've enjoyed what little of Shibata's work I've seen, but Castle is one of my favorite acts going right now. Dude just gets pro wrestling and how to be a character, plus he's highly underrated in terms of actual matwork ability. I hope he has a big year and has more chances to showcase his skills rather than just his character work.

This. I'm more of a Jericho apologist than most people and he's historically been one of my favorite wrestlers, but.... I don't think he's actively -bad- now, just as others have mentioned he's not tried to adapt his style to his decreasing abilities and just comes off as a half-assed version of his former self in-ring. Jericho still has a boatload of knowledge about the fundamentals and the character work aspects of the business, so I'm good with him being kept around to help newer people on the lower card and house show circuit and the like, I just don't want to see him taking up too much time with a major program. My only exposure to Pentagon is LU and his PWG appearances, but I really like what I've seen. He's a perfect example of how to protect and build up a finisher.

I'm really hoping they're going to blow off whatever AJ/Jericho are doing together or against eachother as well as Owens/Show and some of the other less interesting stuff and then start the final match buildup for mania.

I watched the whole thing this past weekend and liked it more than I would normally like something in this genre. The male lead has a habit of going from decent guy to Woody Allen-esque insufferable neurotic in the blink of an eye, but the female lead remains a pretty toxic person throughout. It's still a decent enough show with some good laughs.

Sadly, I think it will be more like this-

What happened to that New Day/LON feud that was apparently starting up? Neither faction even interacted with eachother tonight and the supposed face turn that New Day were slightly heading in was gone as they were acting like they always do. I was fine with the AJ/Jericho feud as a way to kick off AJ's WWE tenure. Even if he isn't exactly an upper card player, there are worse people than Jericho one can work their debut program with. All their matches were solid with the Fastlane match being legit good and AJ won cleanly and looked like someone important in the process. Instead of doing the sensible thing and moving him into a more higher profile singles program with another wrestler (and it looked like what wuold be an awesome program with Owens was next up based on Owens' tweet afterwards), they're sticking him in a tag team with Jericho? That's a complete waste of his abilities and it's probably going to end with Jericho turning on him and yet another match between the two at Mania.

Reigns' nose is pretty jacked up. Swollen fracture, deviated septum, dislocation of some other bones. Surgery like that requires 4-6 weeks of rest from heavy activity. He should be ready for WM in theory, but maybe they're covering with a contingency plan, which could turn into a Reigns heel turn? It's possible. Keeping Regins off tv for a week to sell the injury isn't the worst idea. If he got beaten up so bad he had to stay out of action, then it would stand to reason he'd be even more pissed and eager to get revenge on HHH. I had no idea he was banged up that badly. If he can't get cleared in time, I wonder what the backup plan is? A 3 way world title match between HHH, Lesnar, and Ambrose isn't the worst idea in the world. I really hope we aren't going to get Owens/Big Show at mania.

I remember Seth Delay being really impressive on the NWA Wildside tapes I had back in the day. Always figured he'd go on to do more. TNT (Todd Sexton and Tony Stradlin) were a pretty good team around that same era. I recall liking some matches they had with the Backseat Boys, though there's no telling how those matches have aged now by early 00 indy standards. Speaking of old Wildside guys, whatever happened to Jimmy Rave? He was all over the place 10 years or so ago and I can't recall hearing him do much in recent times.

This has been a favorite of mine for years and I got to see it in a theater on Friday night. The one-liners in there are great, too.

On this board, i presume 2 or 3 people have blaxploitation knowledge on their resume. Dolemite/Human Tornado is hardly an obscure reference in general.

The Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie needs a bit more recognition. You think Watchmen is that much better than V for Vendetta? V has issues, but I think overall it ended up a stronger piece on it's own. I think someone could watch V for Vendetta without knowing it's a comic and enjoy themselves. I think Watchmen undermines it's self in it's attempt to be so picture perfect, along with a bunch of other faults I've already mentioned. I had never read Watchmen before seeing the movie and I enjoyed it. A little later I read the comic and it didn't take away from my original thoughts on the movie very much, especially the full version. I'd never read the V for Vendetta comic either, but I thought the movie was so awful I turned it off about halfway through. While I've never had the desire to read the source material, just about everyone I know who's familiar with it says the movie totally bastardized it and changed it into a ham handed political statement that missed the original point. All the 15 year olds who just discovered 4chan and think the Guy Fawkes mask is somehow cool and rebellious probably have a bit to do with my dislike.

Did Jack Tunney actually have an executive position in the WWF or was he just some random actor/office guy they brought out when things needed to get serious?

That was almost intelligence-insultingly bad. I'm sticking to my theory this mini season was an elaborate effort to troll all the fans clamoring for the show to be brought back. Most of these episodes were like bad X Files fan fiction.

This whole Reigns debacle could have been avoided if they had just turned him instead of Rollins. Having the Authority do most of his talking and him just playing a swaggering, cocky heel would have worked so much better than whatever he's doing now. He could gradually turn face when he gets tired of taking shit from the Authority and then you have pretty much the same match setup as now, but I'd wager the fans would be a lot more on his side. I just had a thought - is the Shane (or whomever might replace him) vs Taker match going to be the main event? The HIAC must take a while to set up/tear down and I'm assuming the venue doesn't have a roof to lower it down from?

Given how Taker has looked in his past few outings and how out of practice Shane no doubt is, a gimmicky clusterfuck is the best thing to do with either of them. All that nonwithstanding, everything about this match comes off like something that wouldn't be seen outside a video game. Shane is obviously going to win, which means one of Taker's last Mania matches will be one of his few loses in what amounts to be a glorified authority angle. It also begs the question of why, from a kayfabe standpoint, would Taker agree to do Vince's bidding? Granted he just kind of appears around Mania time then goes away, but since when is he a heel in what amounts to a stooge for the authority? All in on Brock/Ambrose. Were they chanting "Gillberg" at Ryback? I really hope they aren't going to have him go over in the WM Battle Royale, but then again it hasn't exactly meant a lot to the careers of the past two winners.

Given how Taker has looked in his past few outings and how out of practice Shane no doubt is, a gimmicky clusterfuck is the best thing to do with either of them. All that nonwithstanding, everything about this match comes off like something that wouldn't be seen outside a video game. Shane is obviously going to win, which means one of Taker's last Mania matches will be one of his few loses in what amounts to be a glorified authority angle.

About the only "surprise" that I'd really pop for would be Enzo and Cass debuting.

I'm still hoping for a LON/Wyatts 8 man tag at Mania. It would be the best use of all involved, but it looks like they're trying to set up a New Day/LON feud or some such. Speaking of New Day, are they even heels? They come out and talk shit and clown on everyone, regardless of what side of the rulebook they're on and have always tried to cheat.

Fire and wind come from the sky, from the gods of the sky. But Brock is your god, Dean and he lives in the earth. Once, giants lived in the Earth, Dean. And in the darkness of chaos, they fooled Brock, and they took from him the enigma of steel. Brock was angered. And the Earth shook. Fire and wind struck down these giants, and they threw their bodies into the waters, but in their rage, the writers forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield. We who found it are just jobbers. Not main eventers. Not JTTSs. Just jobbers. The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Dean. You must learn its discipline. For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not faces, not heels, not part timers who just work one show a year. [Points to steel chair] This you can trust.

That was one of the more grabasstically thrown together PPVs I can remember. Only 6 matches announced up until days before the show? Let's throw one of the title matches on the preshow and throw in an angle and match with the JTTS crew out there before the main event! The tag champs? Let's stick them in a segment to plug a new network show! Who cares if it's something we could have done on Raw to set up a tag title match using a few other upper card guys, we've got original programming to plug! As much as midlife crisis Jericho has worn out his welcome, Styles/Jericho was a perfectly good match. It was rendered pretty moot by all the 50/50 booking and the pairing having been done to death on all the shows leading up to this evening though. Owens/Ziggler and Kalisto/Del Rio were hampered even moreso by this and even though both matches were quality (especially Owens/Ziggler), the outcomes meant pretty much squat. I don't know how or why we can be expected to care about the Wyatts at this point. Take an act that should have no problem getting over and repeatedly make them look like chumps, this time against three of the biggest pieces of dead weight on the roster featuring two guys who are due for retirement and another who has consistently sucked and shown a propensity for hurting people. The women's matches were ok. I'm glad Brie didn't win and there was nothing really especially bad or great about either match. The main event was a thing. I don't think it was particularly good or bad and even though I don't really want Reigns in the world title scene, I'm not terribly upset about the outcome. We're probably going to get Ambrose/Brock at mania out of this and I'm more interested in that than Brock taking on HHH or Reigns.

It's been running like ass for me most of the night, especially early on. I refreshed probably 3 times during Kalisto/Del rio alone.

I thought the characters in Resurrection were pretty good as a whole. The misfit crew collection of that one ship were all interesting in their own right and you had Brad Douriff at his creepy best.