SirSmUgly

This show had so much stuff going on. It felt packed in a good way. Owens comes out and justifies his actions in a way that is going to keep the crowd split on cheering for him. Man, that crowd was hot. They were chanting for everyone heatedly. Rhyno shows up and Tom Phillips says that though it's now called the Spear, the man who made that move popular is in the ring. I looked to see if Goldberg had also showed up, but nope. I don't like Rhyno or Finn that much, but I want to see that match because I can't imagine how their styles will go together at all. I loved that Enzo and Cass get the "sing-along" treatment, but when Enzo got to his spiel about Carmella, the crowd stopped singing along and booed mercilessly. Even better, after he stopped talking about Carmella, the crowd went right back to singing along with him. Captain Obvious would assert that they really need to get Carmella away from those two OR turn Enzo and Cass heel, and I think the former is a smarter idea right now than the latter. Blue Pants is charming as hell. Sasha Banks is still awesome. Double-knees in the corner is so vicious. Love that move. Oddly, I think women have my two favorite moves in the company right now (Banks's double-knees, Nikki Bella's forearm). I can't believe I'm saying that. Neville/Owens involved some pretty awesome bomb-throwing. Owens bumping around like a pinball was impressive. Neville's high-end offense is the best in the company (including the main shows; I know some people will say that Rollins does, but Neville is really, REALLY crisp on all his stuff).

I don't think Tyler Breeze is a future World Champ or anything, but he definitely scans better than "nothing-happening midcarder." I would use him with a bodyguard to get the bodyguard over on the main show. One could pair Breeze with Corbin as his smoldering bodyguard, for example, and use Breeze to get Corbin over when the latter eventually turns face.

Man, these food jokes about Joe are the wurst. I'll see myself out.

He was supposed to voice Killbane, but he ended up getting to voice Angel. Hogan voicing Killbane would have been magical, though.

If NXT in its current form existed about ten years ago, Joe would have eventually been at or near the top of the card on at least a handful of WrestleManias. I'm sure that he's thought about that at least a couple of times.

Now that is just the limit. Change "Moldova" to "Bulgaria," and I think we've got Rusev's new nickname!

Zayn will be WWE World Champ someday, even if only for awhile until Vince can get the gold back onto his favorite at the time. Zayn is Daniel Bryan with better stick work. He is going to be MEGA-over, even if they book him like garbage for awhile. I look forward to "Team Zayn and Kane," WWE Tag Champs in 2018.

I assume that those two groups of people are distinct from one another in a lot of ways. I can see why people would be annoyed by Enzo, which is why he really should be a heel when they call him up as the little shit-talking asshole who had to get his much bigger friend to bail him out of fights. They'll get over even though they aren't very good wrestlers just on their character work if they get booked to do a lot of sneak attacks and have Enzo be the little douchey guy that starts stuff all the time.

Are you seriously anti-HHH and NXT? When did your soul die? I really don't give a shit...<snip> Vinnie Ru, is that you posting here?!

Are you on PS4? The DLC should be added directly with your download. Once you're on the ship, go to the missions screen, and you should be able to access Enter the Dominatrix and How the Saints Saved Christmas at any time from that point on. They'll have little fleur-de-lets next to them to indicate that they are the extras. Same thing with DLC costumes and guns; those will be available in the shops and indicated as extras with fleur-de-lets next to them.

Vince Russo proclaiming not to like NXT, trolling or not, makes me more sure than ever that NXT is the best weekly show on U.S. television.

That second guy Cristobal mentioned did work a dark match at an NXT taping a couple months ago, IIRC, so that one isn't as surprising to me.

Apparently showed up at the next set of NXT tapings and stared down teasing a feud. I wasn't trying to find that information, so I'm sort of bummed that I saw it. The surprise would have been cool.

Can I say that I really liked the Solomon Crowe vignette last night? It was clearly modeled on the people who did the broadcast signal intrusion in the Chicago area and did a weird Max Headroom-type thing. Loved how they had a similar voice-over for it. That character has a ton of potential from a creative standpoint.

He was criticized by Alex Riley, the HEEL announcer. And the whole point of Sami's run was that he WOULDN'T ever compromise himself or take a shortcut to win. You'll have to forgive me for blocking out Alex Riley's heel commentary. However, I don't see how "pinning the guy you beat up" = "taking a shortcut." Zayn refusing to waffle Neville with the belt during the match where he won the gold was much better at getting that point across.

Embarrassing note: As a kid, I looked forward to Larry Zbyszko interviews in AWA because they would always have a cool theme park graphic of "Larryland" in the background that I loved to look at.

And in point of fact, Zayn himself was criticized by the announcers for not finishing off a seemingly-injured Neville in a title match and losing just months before. Now Owens makes sure that he's going to win in a similar situation, but that's a heelish act? It doesn't wash with how WWE typically presents Owens's actions. He didn't actually attack Zayn after the match either. Who cares if Regal describes himself as a villain? He's clearly a face right now. Of course the face will support other faces. Owens is another in a long line of "male who will do anything to protect/make a better life for my family"-style faces that are popular right now in media in general. He's more like Jack Bauer or Liam Neeson's character in those Taken movies. To be fair, I haven't seen the latter, but in the former, Bauer does some shit that is at best terribly unethical in order to protect his daughter. In 1985 NWA, sure, Owens is a heel with no honor who has to backstab to win, but in 2015 WWE, Owens is acting like their faces typically act -as anti-heroes who do some scummy or disreputable shit sometimes.

This is a poor analogy, in my humble opinion. Me powerbombing you to get to a sandwich my kid wants in real life =/= Owens trying to climb the ladder as quickly as possible to make a better life for his family in a profession where turning on one another just to get a title shot is the norm and "Every (wo)man for himself" is a motto parroted by PBP men and color commentators across a variety of match types and in a variety of situations." WWE has always been presented as a socially Darwinistic program where the ubermensch is typically pushed as the biggest face in the company. With that perspective, yeah, Owens is a face in the constructs of this program.

Sami pointing out that their relationship changed when Owens got married sounds like every relationship between friends ever. I have no idea how it makes Sami sound like a dick in any way. Owens being presented as that guy means that they can't run this feud where you have to have all the sympathy on the babyface, or it comes off poorly in some ways as Matt D pointed out. I like Owens, actually, because everything he does goes back to providing for his family. That makes him a face. An anti-hero, sure, but a face. So running essentially a face vs. face feud with a story that needs someone to be a clear HEEL to make it work is a poor idea. I can accept that Owens is a face, but they should present him like one on commentary/in video packages, then.

I disagree with both JohnnyJ and JCM, respectfully of course. Re: JohnnyJ: I think there might be an element of that on a small level, but as smart as these fans are, they still get sucked into the characters. See how they got sucked in to Zayn getting knocked out and badly hurt last night as an example. I am convinced that MOST of their cheering is because of how KO is presented to specifically appeal to them. Well, here's the problem. Heels can't be really shitty people anymore because it might mess with merch money. I wouldn't call being an unlikable dick "forced cliche heel work" either. If that's the case, then working the feud as "valiant babyface is brutalized by shifty, villainous heel" doesn't work since half the crowd is rooting for the heel, thus fucking up the whole dynamic.

I also agree with Gregg. The reason that so many fans (males, you could tell by the depth of the voices) cheer Owens is because "using my fists to feed my family" is a stereotypical masculine fantasy. Of course the dudes in the crowd will cheer for a guy who risks his body in violent confrontations to feed, clothe, and house his wife and kids. Owens being more of a sneering dick about that would really help. Him telling the men in the crowd not to live through him because they don't have the balls to get punched in the face, and besides, none of those basement-dwellers even have wives would go a long way in cutting off some of the cheers from the guys. Just watched this again, and the two ladies with their hands covering their faces and the dude in the GAP cap with his hands to his head both were amazing reaction shots to Zayn getting murdered.

I actually think a good solution is finally getting Tyler Breeze that bodyguard that he needs (and since they had the woman jump the guardrail last night, now he has a logical in-universe reason to have him get one). Dempsey can wear a suit and sunglasses and ditch the King Kong Bundy tribute attire. It continues to help freshen Breeze up (along with the selfie stick) and gives Dempsey a good spot to be in after the Corbin matches.

Re: Sasha Banks, I think she has awesome offense. I really like the double-knees in the corner, I think the Bank Statement looks pretty vicious. I think she's a level above every woman in the company not named Nikki Bella in terms of offense that looks vicious. Her character work is fantastic, too. She comes off as really hateful. I almost wish she'd stay off Twitter. Every time I see one of her tweets posted somewhere, it's nice and supportive and often kinda nerdy, so the exact opposite of her character.

Oh yeah, when the woman came over the guardrail to hug Tyler Breeze, I loved that he just had this great smirk that said, "This happens all the time. Can you believe it? Of course you can. I'm Tyler Breeze. Look at me." Glorious.

I haven't heard that, but I hope so. I would be glad to be wrong in this case.