HumanChessgame

Maybe you can. Just ask her how she's doin'.

It looks like he's holding a ventriloquist dummy.

I like ZSJ ok but he can go a bit overboard and convoluted sometimes. The crowd seemed pretty dead for him (I realize that long show fatigue could have something to do with that) but I'm not sure if his style will get over in this market or not. This was my first time seeing Dux wrestle and he was quite impressive. As much as he's been around he'd be a valuable asset to NXT. Gulak has always impressed me and I'm glad to see him get the win here. It's a shame he's probably going to lose in the second round, but hopefully he'll impress enough for them to keep him around. Neese looked good and I'm very surprised he made the weigh in as he always looked a lot bigger when I saw him in PWG. Bennett looked really green. It's odd to see Brian Kendrick playing the surly veteran role, but he did a damn good job of it here. Mendoza also looked impressive and I hope we see more of him at some point. Regardless of how Kendrick fares in the tournament, they really need to bring him back full time.

If they replaced Orton's godawful music with "Cold Slither" I would hate him slightly less. She looked completely dead inside when she walked out. All the other women cut mini promos and she just stood there which only added to her awkwardness. That entire segment was just off though. I figured Becky getting her win back would lead to a rubber match at the ppv with an I Quit stipulation or something. Then Eva comes out all dead-eyed and then it just ends with no kind of follow up from management? As far as the show ending a bit early, I'd rather have them end 3 minutes before the end of the hour than run over 15 minutes after the show has been going for 3 hours already.

I realize admitting to liking Ziggler is a banable offense around here, but I still think he's a great worker. Granted his finishers are basically meaningless at this point and he's never not been booked like absolute crap or not followed up on, but I'm still glad he's around. That being said I don't think he was the right guy to go over here. Shelton Benjamin coming back is a good thing. I've been hoping for a while that he'd return (preferably to reform the WGTT with Swagger, but he's on job duty on Raw) and hopefully they'll do something interesting with him. Rhyno showing up is also cool, but something tells me he'll do one match and be gone again. They managed to put Orton, who is one of my least favorite people on the roster, in the ring with someone I actually wanted to see him beat the shit out of. I don't know if that's good character work and booking, or if it means I just hate both Orton and Miz.

I went to Chikara's roster page hoping Warren Barksdale was going to be someone doing a McGruff the Crimedog or similar Dog In A Police Uniform gimmick, but sadly he just looks like your average cop.

It doesn't roll off the tongue like the ICW/ICWA Texarkana Television Championship did. So if Gallows & Anderson come out to align themselves with Balor, that would make him a heel by default and depending on the circumstances make Rollins a face?

I didn't realize that jamoke getting tuned up by Strowman wasn't Heath Slater until I read this thread. Once Graves develops a better raport with the other commentators he's going to make it the show infinitely more watchable. Getting put on jtts parole for a while will actually be good for Roman. People won't be as predisposed to assume he's going over all the time and he can have some time with fresh opponents and eventually be rebuilt.

So are the vignettes that air during the episodes not shown on the big screen or anything like that during the actual match tapings like they would during an episode of Raw and such? I've kind of gotten the impression that whatever is shown in those always happens outside the commentators' area of awareness as it seems like they never acknowledge any of those developments.

Really solid show from an in-ring standpoint, though aside from Bayley's debut there weren't a ton of moments that felt really "ppv big". I really enjoyed the lack of fuck finishes. Roman hasn't always had a full beard has he? Maybe that's a sign he's going heel.

Dario Cueto did an AMA on reddit

When was the last time Trish or Lita actually worked a match?

I was hoping all 4 would wind up on the same show so they could do this angle over a period of time with Balor joining them and he and Styles gradually developing a rivalry before Gallows and Anderson turn on Styles and spark a feud. That's too easy of an idea for creative to actually go through with it though.

So whose turn is it to get the win in the Owens/Zayn match this month? Since they're both on the same show it's pretty much a given that the feud will continue, so there's some gimmick match set up for SS? I'm guessing Nattie/Becky and the IC match get bumped to the preshow. Did they announce if the world title match was one fall or not? If so I'm going by my completely off the wall prediction that Rollins and Ambrose double-pin Reigns and thus we get two titles.

What were the other 3?

Maybe Funaki isn't available full time with his commitments to the Japanese commentary and wrestling school duties?

Definitely. I also just had the thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to bring back King of the Ring as a brand-specific PPV with the winner becoming the new Raw/Smackdown world champ.

Did they specify if the PPV match is elimination or one fall? Maybe Seth and Dean both pin Roman and the split goes from there?

Holly has debunked this multiple times-

This. Sometimes the sum is greater than the parts. There are wrestlers who have great chemistry and work exceptionally well as a team but don't have the tools to get over on their own. That's not bad, it just is what it is and finding a niche is very important. As far as keeping guys fresh goes, that's why it's important to build up new teams from time to time to give established teams fresh storylines. In most cases, they can turn face/heel at some point and move up and down the card. With the brand split this could potentially give more opportunity to keep people both in and out of teams fresh if it works out long term.

Frequently other threads segue into people asking for recommendations on further material about a specific wrestler, promotion, or time period. This is a catch-all thread for people to post in asking for matches or events to check out that will hopefully be seen by those who can provide suggestions. Anyways, I barely watched WWE from 2004-2011 or so. I've gone through a couple of the big PPVs in that time frame via the network but otherwise haven't seen much. What essential matches or shows from that span do I need to check out?

After ECW and WCW folded I pretty much quit caring about wrestling for a year or so before discovering the indies. Plus around that time ROH, IWA-MS, Chikara, CZW, and others were really starting to turn out great stuff so that was pretty much all I kept up with from there. After the end of 2003 I didn't have cable for about 7 years so I rarely watched anything WWE related unless I was staying at a hotel or I heard about something particularly noteworthy happening. Around 2009 I gradually lost interest in wrestling as a whole but started once again when ROH's weekly show began to air a year or so later. I randomly started getting cable for free in early 2011 and Punk's pipe bomb promo got me to start paying attention to WWE again.