SirSmUgly

I think that's what the dude is saying. They book Harper like a stiff, so the Wyatts mean nothing outside of Bray. Not that Harper is actually a stiff. He's probably the best worker they have right now on the main roster. It's too bad that they shot their wad on Reigns/Bray because the Wyatts were beating the previously unbeatable Shield at nearly every turn two years ago and Reigns vs. each individual Wyatt Family member could have meant so much more than it did. We could have gotten a Luke Harper/Roman Reigns feud in the fall when they were running Reigns/Wyatt and saved Reigns/Wyatt for WM. Plus Harper/Reigns sounds like a series of awesome matches.

Weird thing to say. They'd get twenty-to-thirty on specials or even fifteen-to-twenty on a NXT regular show. Most matches that are sub-seven minutes on NXT are squashes to build people up. Do you even watch NXT?

They can build up whatever they want as the most important thing to the majority of their audience and the audience will buy it. Just publicize the signing to prep the audience and then have the NJPW guys show up and wreck house. Boom, they're now important.

He wasn't. However, the storyline they ran is that he was held back by Vince and HHH, making them the heels in the feud. Then, they ran themselves as heels in the Bryan feud. Their meta-booked storylines about preferring their chosen one over the guys the hardcores wanted to be the champion sort of bit them in the ass when they conflated reality with fantasy enough that now the crowd rejects guys who they perceive as getting a push because the heel management wants to force that guy to the top. So when a vocal part of the crowd shits on Reigns for seemingly no reason, they're doing that because they perceive management as the heels and Reigns as heel-by-proxy, and it's hard to blame them since the company itself blurred the lines between what happens on-screen and what happens in a booking meeting.

I think the fanbase was far more petulant than WWE was in regards to Bryan. The fanbase went out of their way to shit on everything because WWE didn't want to put the company on Bryan's back again due to him getting injured a month into it the last time they did it...and then Bryan almost immediately gets put out of action as soon as he comes back. WWE clearly made the right call not putting Bryan back into the main events. It makes the fans look more like assholes for their behavior at the time. Honestly, nah. As a fan, I don't give a fuck about what the company is concerned about, I just want to see my guy win. However, if the company knew how to push dudes and didn't make themselves the biggest on-screen heels in the organization by conflating Vince McMahon, wrestling promoter with Vince McMahon, guy who hates the fans and holds people like CM Punk back, they wouldn't have this problem. Not that I love the fans who won't let Punk or even Bryan go at this point, but nope, it's on the company that got things to that point in the first place...and then instead of just bringing Bryan back after the Rumble, they brought him in, had him get unceremoniously dumped out of nowhere, and jobbed him to the guy that they know the audience knows they want to put on top. That's petulance. Petulance and stupidity.

Time to raid TNA and run Kurt Angle vs. Daniel Bryan at WM in a "who will kill himself in the ring first" death match!

Bayley/Eva Marie was a miracle match. They actually probably should have run that in London in retrospect, though I understand why they'd feel safer running it on a taping rather than a live show. Bayley and the booking both turned out to make that match really fun and legitimately harrowing for this Bayley fan.

Man, if only this company had built up a few other stars... ...though I admit that if they somehow convinced Michaels to come back and also somehow convinced The Rock to work with him, Rock/HBK would save this whole thing for me. They might have to bite the bullet and bring Bryan back. Actually, it's too bad that they already ran Reigns/Bryan because they need that matchup now. Of course, that's what they get for being petulant toward part of their fanbase.

Man, they should make Smackdown the "major WWE show for wrestling fans what like wrestling" and send all the NXT stars who have limited ceilings on RAW over to that show. Split the brands again, split the WWE WHC again, and let the wrestling fans have their major wrestling show while also allowing people on NXT to move up and go to WM/be World Champ/etc. In the meantime, Swagsuke vs. Zayn, please.

Way later than you guys, but I finally made it up to Cold Day in Hell the other day and thought two things: First, that Shamrock/Vader match was fucking awesome. I like UWF-i style works-that-look-like-shoots, especially when the workers beat the shit out of each other anyway. Vader finally getting Shamrock to ease up on the striking by hitting him with a clothesline so hard that the arena went "OHHHHHHHH" when they heard the impact was number one and the best. Second, the Austin/Undertaker match was the best match that they ever had together. Not that it was great, but it was solid. I thought that it was certainly better than any other match that I can remember them having.

Manny's not that good on the mic, but guys like Ron Garvin or even Magnum at times are significantly worse to the point that Manny doesn't even make me cringe when he talks, at least during this watch-through. I'm at the point where they stuck Mannywith Valiant, who I cannot fucking stand on the mic (though I'm not saying that Valiant is ineffective; I just really hate everything about his act), so by that time, I was ready to hear him talk some more. On another note, Dusty Rhodes is the Poochiest Poochy to ever Poochy up a show in '85-'86 right up until HHH's Reign of Terror in '02-'03. My goodness, when Dusty's not out there, people are talking about what Dusty is doing or asking "Where's Dusty?" I watched '88 awhile ago and don't remember it being this bad. Hell, I enjoyed the Midnight Rider stuff...the James Boys stuff, not quite so much.

Dolfan forgot to add the word "twonk" in his list. Apparently, Dolfan doesn't watch It's Always Sunny. Segue: Roddy Piper (RIP) didn't do much for me whenever he'd return to wrestling after about 1992 or so, but his guest spots on It's Always Sunny are top-five all-time on my "Wrestler Guest Spot in TV or Movie" list.

stopmypeniscanonlygetsoerect.jpg

or a dentist that converted to Judaism just for the jokes Hey, watch yourself, anti-Dentite. I caught Nakamura/Styles and it was really great.

Yeah, he's one of my favorite squash match workers at this point. Between Garvin, Arn, and the Midnights, I have no problem with watching a bunch of squashes on these shows. Manny Fernandez is a pretty fun squash match worker too.

Garvin and Flair had fantastic chemistry. I do wish Garvin had someone to speak for him, though. I am guessing that French is his first language and English his second, so I don't want to bash him too bad, but he has a tendency to both stumble over colloquialisms in English and lose his train of thought, and some of the promos that he does turn straight into trainwreck territory. In the ring, he's fantastic, though. I was watching a World Championship Wrestling show from 5/86 where he had to sell his right hand being busted up by the Horsemen in a match against a jobber, and he went out of his way not to use it and to sell that it hurt, but in a subtle way rather than overselling pain or that he had to fight through it. One of my favorite star vs. jobber matches ever.

Watching '86 again reminds me that Jimmy Garvin doesn't get enough credit for being a really good, maybe great, heel. His work in the ring is fine, but his character work is excellent. He's a real scumbag p.o.s. I wonder where it comes from because he seems like such a nice dude on the legends roundtables that I wouldn't expect him to be able to channel being such a massive jerk on this level.

I see that they have DLC to open up an earlier start point + added kingdoms. What is so bad about it compared to typical DLC? Genuinely curious. I just got the game to carry out assassination plots, sire bastard children, and create Antipopes to piss off the Vatican, so I feel like I got my money's worth with the base game.

I figure that if I get three or four games that I would have paid twenty bucks to play, I got a really good return on the service. For me in 2015, that was Rocket League, Counterspy, Guacamelee: STCE, Rogue Legacy, and KZ: Mercenary. Those games were worth about a hundred bucks retail altogether. If there is a year where I don't get at least forty bucks worth of stuff via IGC that I enjoy, I will be more down on that part of the service, but so far, so good.

That's funny because I thought the shmup stuff in Undertale was a useful break from the shitty Earthbound-style RPG that I had to endure whenever combat ended. Different strokes and all that. I don't think I even got halfway through it, on reflection. I only have two more days before it's back to teaching for me, so in this time, I'm stuffing as many hours into strategy/tactics/4X games as possible. GalCiv, Breach & Clear, X-COM, Europa Universalis, Civ V + Brave New World, and Crusader Kings. These, along with WRPGs, are becoming my favorite genres.

Indeed, it does.

Which wrestler, in y'alls views, has the biggest gap between how awesome their entrance music is and how awesome they are in ring, both presently and all-time? Right now, it's Alberto del Rio, who has admittedly improved ever since Roman willed him to a good match at Survivor Series. Still, he has maybe the best entrance music in the company, and it's all ruined when it stops and now I have to watch him wrestle. All-time...I'd have to think about that one a bit longer, actually.

Oh, so the gentleman writing this blog has impeccable taste and holds opinions that should be dearly valued, I see. Well, let me read further!

I feel like the Siren in the first Borderlands was broken once you upgraded her special talent enough. Just stealth up to a group of enemies and gain massive explosion damage when you unstealth as well as the element of surprise. The battle is half-won by that point.

Breach and Clear is making a late run at my top games of 2015 list. I picked it up on a whim during the last week of this PSN holiday sale, and it is a very fun tactical shooter. Is this what X-COM is like, a tactical shooter where you level up squadmates? If so, I am totally getting Enemy Unknown when it comes out on Vita. It's only about two bucks or so, definitely worth snagging if you have a Vita. There are some technical issues, but for two bucks, they are manageable.