HumanChessgame

Cynthia Rothrock could probably use a payday.

Aside from Joe, when was the last time anyone from the indies or elsewhere came into NXT/WWE and kept their name? I guess KENTA sort of did, but he publicly changed it pretty much immediately.

The Uso family vacation was like something out of a family comedy movie. A group of wrestlers and their family goes on a road trip and everything goes hilariously wrong. What's not to love there? Get Ice Cube to play an Uso. There should be a picture of the Bellas in the dictionary under the entry for "basic bitch". Yeah, he's such a schmuck it's hard to dislike him. You can tell he really wants to be "somebody" and is the type of desperate people pleaser who tries to be part of some D list celeb's entourage or hang out at the gym that actual athletes train at hoping to become friends with them.

The opening promo by Rollins wasn't that bad, but that's probably because so many shows being opened with even more tedious HHH or Cena promos have numbed me to all that. I feel secondhand embarrassment for everyone involved in the Russev/Ziggler angle.

The Narcissist was one of the better short-lived gimmicks of that era. Luger just fit the part so naturally and having Henan as a mouthpiece only made it better.

When they did the Mr. Robot being a ghost reveal, my interest dropped a bit as it somehow made things less interesting. Elliot just being over the top crazy and constantly going off the rails strained the plot a bit too much for me. I'm back on board after tonight though. In the scene where Angela was talking to the main boss guy and he mentioned the CEO's family, it got me wondering who Tyrell's wife is related to. She's clearly calling the shots in their relationship and has made mention of "family" numerous times which makes me think she's somehow related to the main boss or whatever Illuminati-type society they're part of.

Have they mentioned whether or not the tag titles are going to be on the line throughout the tournament?

Brawn is going to be a key player until the Decepticons hijack the shuttle he's on. One blast from Megatron and he's toast. I'd like to see him use a murderdeathkill variant of that standing choke where he holds a guy up until their arm drops twice, then pulls them over in some suplex/face first drop variation. Didn't some Japanese guy do a similar move with their usual submission?

That's why Vince Russo is the epitome of a person who belongs on a committee or at least reporting to someone. The best analogy I heard about Russo was from someone recapping the Monday night shows back when his WCW tenure was in the midst of falling on its face - they described him as the offensive coordinator that was part of a highly competent coaching staff of a winning team who was then hired to be the head coach of a losing team with none of the previous talented coworkers to help be part of the overall effort.

I'm assuming the Ziggler/Russev angle is going to end in a mixed tag match. If common sense were at all in play, the match would end with a double turn of Lana turning on Dolph and Russev ditching Summer. Of course that would make too much sense and end with things back the way they should be.

Sledgehammer would have been my choice. They'd be doing that if they were trying to serenade Cesaro.

context?

The final scene was more like some badly written Hannibal slash fiction culled from a tumblr fanpage than in keeping with the overall story. So we get some convoluted plot about them allowing Hannibal to escape in order to flush out Dollarhyde and are totally ok with a bunch of cops getting killed in the process? And Jack doesn't have any sort of surveillance on Will or a tracker on him or anything? I had really hoped it would end with Bedelia eating Hannibal.

It's weird how the general consensus about Ziggler has swung around on here. I remember him being quite over with the general populace when he was cashing in on Del Rio a while back, and now nobody seems that keen on him. The main problem with Ziggler (aside from the name that sounds like some indy Val Venis imitation) is that he's never had much of a character or motivation other than "underdog who tries his best". If he got some type of sustained personality and feud where he didn't look like a schmuck he could do quite well. That and whenever he is on a roll, it's never capitalized on. Last year's Survivor Series performance should have been career-defining for him, but he faded into obscurity shortly thereafter. This problem is more indicative of the WWE's booking in general as they've dropped the ball on multiple guys who were on hot streaks in recent years (ie. Cesaro after winning the battle royale).

The Young Bucks vs The Usos in a "First Team to Throw 50 Superkicks Wins" match.

I remember those guys working ROH before and thinking they were green as a Colorado pot dispensary, but could respect they were trying to at least have an actual gimmick. They reminded me of a non-self-aware Devastation Corporation. According to their facebook page, that looks to be accurate - https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Tate-Twins/293279017358012

Doesn't Funaki have his own school? I know he lives in the US somewhere and was helping KENTA acclimate to living in America. While I don't know how good he is as a trainer, I'm sure he'd be adequate, plus able to help those who needed assistance learning English and such.

Since the trend in all other avenues of media is to re-package older things as darker and more edgy, is Elias Samson a dark, edgy Honky Tonk Man?

When Rowan comes back, he should re-join the Wyatts. He had been improving quite a bit, but like a lot of guys who gain notoriety as part of a team, he was better as part of the whole than on his own. Of course that feud with Big Show didn't do him any favors either. Anyways, The Wyatts do a post-match beatdown on Ambrose and Reigns when Rowan comes out. It looks like he's going to come to their aide based on his position when he left, but then he goes back to where he came. Bray can cut a cryptic promo or two about using whatever voodoo magic it is he has to make Rowan see the light and whatnot. Ambrose and Reigns find themselves in a 4 on 2 beating a few weeks later when The Dudleys music hits. I know not everyone is looking forward to them going through their dated schtick, but you could do a lot worse when you need a team for some wild brawls and it makes for a great Survivor Series match. /or maybe I'm just imagining The Wyatts being in ECW back in the day

I've never looked closely enough, but are Castle's boys the same guys each week? Anyone know if they're trainees or just random people they get to play the roles?

I'm pleasantly surprised Josh won given how much of a work the show obviously is. He's got all the tools to do well, so hopefully the stigma of getting a contract via winning the show doesn't hinder him too much in developmental. I also wonder if they eliminated Mada and Patrick with the promise that they could get re-signed after they trained on their own, given they were the obvious choices from a workrate standpoint but they wanted someone with "character" or whatever in ZZ. Speaking of which, he can probably get indy bookings based on his noteriety for a bit, but I doubt he'll try to stay in the business after this. Sara had a completely ill-fitting gimmick and didn't do anything to show that she should still be there. That she made it this far shows there has to be some sort of fix in the voting because she was completely unremarkable in pretty much every way, yet still made it out each time. I still don't think Amanda should have been in the finals either, but she actually didn't look half bad out there.

Athletes and celebrities don't really need such a site if they want to get some strange. I'm sure finding a willing rat isn't too terribly hard to do without using the internet. There was also that kerfluffle with Rollin's dick pic on instagram or wherever a while back.

Well he did, but it didn't last long. I've already forgotten the name, and it just aired less than 6 months ago I believe Battle Creek. It was actually fairly good. Yeah, Winter is one of those guys I'd have liked to see make it big(ger). Speaking of which, did his brother ever do anything after Oz? They're always going to be the O'Reilly brothers to me.

Which poses an interesting question: Can even John Cena resist the urge to turn heel on Sting? I'd mentioned this before while we were prognosticating about what Sting would be doing at this past Wrestlemania in that a Sting/Cena team is a true unstoppable force vs immovable object situation - Sting's partners always turn on him, but Cena can't be a heel. Such a team will likely tear apart the space time continuum.

For better or worse, the WWE did a good job keeping a lid on the major surprises they had tonight. I've been completely indifferent towards the Dudleys for well over a decade, but for some reason I marked a bit when they came out. Was expecting Enzo and Cass, but I guess they're staying put for a while. There's not much info on the nu-Wyatt guy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braun_Stowman Makes me think there's a secret room in the Performance Center where they hide guys they're training and don't let them out or get any sort of exposure until they actually debut, kind of like the guy in the cage in Lucha Underground. At first I thought he was that guy whose name escapes me....was around 5 years or so ago and had a similar look and would cut promos talking about stuff from medical textbooks about ways he was going to hurt guys. Then for a second I thought it was Snitsky. In most cases I would rejoice in Jon Stewart getting beaten up, but am not sure what to think since it was Cena doing the beating and I like him even less. Doesn't that whole thing make Cena a heel? I kept hoping Flair would just low blow everyone and strut out of there. This crowd has been more awesome than not the whole weekend, but there was just so much obnoxious self-indulgent bullshit going on tonight The palpable disdain Paige has for the Miz on Tough Enough was really coming out here and I was hoping their whole crew would put the boots to him before the match started. So I guess we're going to get HHH/Rollins vs Cena/Sting in the near future. My network subscription is not going to make it past the end of the month.