James F'n X

Agreed. My point is that the WCW relaunch was shit on not because it happened in Tacoma instead of Atlanta (and people think Atlanta would have reacted well to a McMahon-led WCW?) - it was shit on because the product that was given was bad (thanks, Buff!) and given the nWo Nitro treatment with way too much setup.

You're right, the DDP as the stalker bullshit was a month before Booker/Bagwell. Honestly, what they should have done was put an upper midcard WWE guy in the match with Booker, bill them as moving over to WCW, let Booker get the win to establish him, and not do the post-match stuff with Austin (which means not doing the Booker run in at the prior PPV.) There's so much that could have been done a lot better if Vince wanted to build another brand, not gut the corpse and embarrass it on national television.

I was in the building for Booker/Bagwell in Tacoma. If I remember correctly, they took a good 5 minutes changing out ring aprons, turnbuckles, and bringing in the new announce crew for the match. I think the match would have gone over fine if there hadn't been such a long break of nothing before the match, and if it hadn't been Bagwell. WCW had a successful PPV in that building a few years prior. Seattle/Tacoma wasn't a 'WWE' town, it was a market starved for professional wrestling in general. It wasn't a regular stop for either promotion. I think outside of the big money names that weren't making the jump, had they gotten DDP or Steiner from the start and run Booker/DDP or Booker/Steiner and hadn't killed the crowd with a lot of just waiting, the match probably goes over a lot better.

So, uh.... when does Ruby Riott ask to be released or sent to NXT or NXT UK to do some gimmick rehab? Her and her stable have done nothing since Evolution and she;s getting passed up on by Dana Brooke for MITB? Very nice career trajectory.

I've seen 3 top line title changes live: - Brock Lesnar d. Kurt Angle (WMXIX) - HHH wins the WWE Title in the Elimination Chamber (No Way Out 2009) - Edge wins the World Heavyweight Title in the Elimination Chamber (No Way Out 2009)

Is TARU still wrestling? Still alive?

Christopher Daniels is such a fucking nerd. I love him.

All this press conference needs is David McLane.

Sammy Guevara is incredibly awkward on the mic, wew.

I seem to remember them having done this finish once before. Can't remember where, though.

..oh....oh god, I just had a thought. What if WM is Charlotte/Ronda and Becky/Steph?

ESPN's reporting it now. Are they willing to work one of their major media and coverage partners?

Something needs to be done about show length at the big 5 events. Show time from first bell to the end of the men's Rumble was over 6 hours. It's really hard to judge people's reactions to things live at the end of a show that people had spent over half their day at already. I dropped in and out of the show - what I caught was mostly inoffensive outside of the first third to half of the women's Rumble (I'm sick to death of the parkour spots to avoid elimination, so I did enjoy Mandy Rose blasting Naomi into orbit after trying it) and enjoyed the closing stretch of the Rumble. Both women's title matches were great. It's incredible how much more believable and sincere this face Miz run is vs. the Flair-backed run... I still expect him to turn, but if he doesn't? I'd still buy it. Both men's title matches were pretty good. Styles and Bryan work a style together that is so Southern and different than the typical WWE presentation which is rough for crowd reactions and got no favors from being in a death spot after the Rumble. Brock and Balor had a very different Brock match than usual that played up to Balor's strengths as a face and brought intrigue to a match with a foregone conclusion. I was done after it, though, and don't really have interest in catching the men's Rumble. Good show, just about 41 hours too long.

So the Gargano/Ricochet match was pretty much everything I hate about modern wrestling. Tons of choreographed spots with no time to breathe. I will give them this - everything looked really good, which is hard for matches like this. If there's a slipup, it's usually really easy for folks to fall off script and make things look terrible. That style of match isn't for me though. Which is fine, because the rest of the card was right up my alley. It's kinda ridiculous what Hanson and Rowe can do in the ring and O'Reilly and Strong are perfect foils for it. Riddle/Ohno was really good. Baszler/Belair was incredible for the limited experience both women have. And Ciampa's just so ridiculously good right now.