SirSmUgly

I don't know; with DB, I'm enjoying just being a fan like I was when I was a kid and desperately wanting Bret Hart or whoever to pull off a big win and become champ. Rooting for Bryan takes me back to those times when I treated it like it was real. He really gets me into it and caring about him. I'm not going to sit online dreaming up some grand scheme to cause a fan uprising if Bryan never wins the gold or anything like that, but I like that there's a guy that I really, really care about in terms of wins and losses. Other than Mark Henry, I cannot think of another person that actually gets me into wrestling in that way. It's nice. After Bryan lost the opener and then didn't get entered in the Rumble, I was legit deflated. After a day or two, I realized - holy shit, I was legit deflated! Kinda cool that a wrestler's fate can do that to cynical old me.

Also, I brought up the word "athleticism," in the first place, for which I am deeply sorry. I didn't express myself well enough, I suppose. Anyway, it is a dumb talking point and I'm an idiot. I should know better anyway; I have been watching quite a bit of AWA Rose and Somers lately and they are awesome without being necessarily athletic. I should know better than that, and I will try to be a better commenter in the future.

I know Ziggler is limited in what he's good at and is probably done, but would a tag team of Ryback and Ziggler as two douchebag jocks who make crude or mean jokes that only they laugh at be fun only to me? Plus I like big man/little man tag teams. Ziggler can do all the bumping, and Ryback can do all the piefacing other people and throwing them into things. Then, when it's time, spin Ryback off and give him another shot at making something of himself. He's got some personality and has the physique they like, so might as well try. Plus, if they hold off on breaking up the Rhodes Boys, wrestling Goldust every night for a few months will probably make Ryback pretty dang good as a wrestler.

Agree to disagree here. I always thought that Punk should have a more submission-based offense. It's odd that he would use the GTS because it's so hard to hit on a ton of guys, and his strikes look awful as well. He's the last guy that should have a strike-based offense centered around elbows, knees, and kicks. I do think that his in-ring work would be easier to buy for me if he were instead a counter-wrestler that worked limbs, baited wrestlers by playing dead or other psychological tricks that the announcers could point out (and that would fit with his character as he's a guy who clearly wants to be the cleverest guy ever in his promos). The points about the GTS are valid, but he needed a "wow!" finishing move and clearly, it pops the crowd and they've been able to market the move itself pretty well. I do agree the psychology of his in-ring offense really makes no sense, but it doesn't really have to in the WWE. I think his strikes and stuff are fine. Agree it doesn't really make sense for him to be a "striker", but the way he executes it, although sloppy at times, is fine with me. I mean, it looks awful sometimes, but fuck he's no Rob Van Dam out there throwing obvious ghost punches. I think this is a fair counterpoint. Randy Orton, for example, has no real offensive strategy. He should build every match around hitting the RKO from wherever he can like DDP would do for the Diamond Cutter. Instead, he's doing awkward looking counters and moving at the same pace no matter what type of match he's supposed to be working - and this is the champ right now.

Oh how far ye have fallen, "awesome". No love for Cena as a wrestler? Aw. I really enjoy his stuff. He's at his best in garbage matches and against guys smaller than him where he can work a power-vs-speed type of match. On the other hand, Cena/Henry from MITB last year is maybe my favorite Cena match, and there he had everything going to make that match work: facial expressions, pacing, etc. I would call Cena "awesome," but maybe we're just working on different standards for that term.

Agree to disagree here. I always thought that Punk should have a more submission-based offense. It's odd that he would use the GTS because it's so hard to hit on a ton of guys, and his strikes look awful as well. He's the last guy that should have a strike-based offense centered around elbows, knees, and kicks. I do think that his in-ring work would be easier to buy for me if he were instead a counter-wrestler that worked limbs, baited wrestlers by playing dead or other psychological tricks that the announcers could point out (and that would fit with his character as he's a guy who clearly wants to be the cleverest guy ever in his promos).

Well, athleticism doesn't matter if you look like a dude that goes to bars to start fights and fuck people up for the fun of it. Harley Race fits that bill. Also, fat guys are awesome if they know how to do cool fat man shit like splashes in the corner and powerslams that look amazing. They don't have to look or be athletic. I think CM Punk's moves look like shit, but not because he's unathletic. John Cena is awkward in a lot of ways, but he's awesome at wrestling.

I try not to be too negative here, and I lurked long enough to know that this is a sore spot, but I'm just going to say that Punk being gone makes the show instantly better and more watchable. I find Punk to be tiresome on the mic. He's what your typical Cageside Seats poster would be if they were a wrestler: cringe-worthy promos full of snark, terrible-looking offense and crappy athleticism, thinks he's a billion times better than he is. If they were going to use Punk, it should have been as a heel that still gets cheered by the depressing part of the crowd that thinks being a creepy-looking dude who complains incessantly while also doing a disservice to Randy Savage every time he drops an elbow is cool. Then they could put him in the ring with the faces that can help him do passable work (Bryan, Cena, and turn Cesaro because that dude is awesome). Otherwise, he's worthless as a character on the show. Now that he's gone, it leaves room in the fringe main event/upper-midcard for someone who is actually good at the pro graps.

I would totally believe WWE had planned this reaction except for the fact that they have been pretty terrible at planning anything for awhile now. They might change directions here, sure, but not because they planned this. Trying to put the pieces together for some convoluted "We'll get Bryan WAY over by only pretending to fail to push him and also trolling the crowd" does not work because the pieces don't fit. Heck, they took forever to just throw their hands up and acknowledge that a portion of the crowd actively hates on John Cena. They don't have the kind of patience or foresight to make a long-term plan to get people behind Bryan work.

"Man Called Sting" is an awesome theme, but it wasn't even the best new theme on Slam Jam. That honor would go to Rick Rude's theme: Then...I guess after Rude and Sting, all those new themes went straight downhill.

Rob Bartlett makes these early RAWs unwatchable. Forget scrubbing Benoit out of matches, they should have started with scrubbing Bartlett's audio and moved on from there. Speaking of RAW, I wonder, if the Sting stuff is true, how much a Sting debut tonight would defuse any crowd determination to dislike or disrupt the show.

I was watching Sting destroy the nWo on a weekly basis in 1997 before this show. Even knowing how it turned out, it was enjoyable as fuck. I spend more time watching old wrestling on DailyMotion or YouTube than watching WWE shows, and it's because no matter how good the wrestling is (and it is consistently good), the shows outside of NXT are just so unsatisfying from a storyline perspective. I'd rather watch '85 NWA most times (and I do). I typically don't spend any money on WWE. I'm not a Nielsen family. Really, I am still hyped about the WWE Network, but that's for the old stuff, not their current programming (except for NXT, which I will be happy to get).

First of all, Zeb was MVP of the night for me. Until I saw what was written on the second sign he brought out with Cesaro, I totally forgot about the contents of the first sign. He had me laughing for a good two or three minutes. He's a racist dick, but at least he's a funny racist dick. I know people are probably posting stuff I'm going to say to some degree. I'm just going to preface this by saying that when I watch a show in real time, I'm in my personal fan zone; I have to go back later to enjoy the matches for what they are. On that note, I really hated this show, as did my family. I just wanted Bryan to win the Rumble and get his moment in the sun. It was totally deflating when Rey came out at thirty (and I forgot that he was in the damn thing or I would have realized more quickly that I would be disappointed). It also made it retroactively deflating that Bryan lost straight up to Bray Wyatt. There were cool spots and all and the match was well-paced, but that's not really what I was watching for live. The Rumble and EC are my two favorite PPVs, so it kinda sucks that this Rumble was so (from a personal preference perspective, not from a work perspective) disappointing and crappy.

King Booker speaking in high-toned English, then getting flustered and speaking like he normally does after something bad happened to him, was a pretty funny running gag.

Random observation: Roddy Piper in '96-'97 has the most cringe-inducing, terrible promos I have ever seen. I'm cool with randomness, but his terrible jokes, goofy insults, odd choices of pop cultural reference, and sometimes aimless ramblings are just painful. Even guys that are bad at promos ("And this will be the moment, starting now, from this moment on..."), usually I can at least appreciate the badness. These Piper promos are just somehow otherworldly awful to me. Maybe it's because Piper was a really great promo in the '80s so the decline here sucks to see or something. Anyway, this is just to open a random topic for discussion: What are some of the consistently most difficult promos for you to sit through or find any value in, even if that value is in enjoying the awfulness of them? Like, I have to fast-forward past Piper in '96-'97. Are there any fast-forward type guys because the promos bug you so much for you all?

I like the matchup for the Seahawks. The Broncos ran up yards on a bunch of awful defenses this year. The best defenses they beat are Baltimore (seventh in weighted DVOA on defense) and Kansas City (ninth in weighted DVOA). Looking at the list, the best team defense they beat after that is Houston at 17th, I think. On the flip side, the Broncos are 15th in defensive DVOA. The Seahawks are still a top ten team in offensive DVOA (seventh). Note that Denver has only played a couple of backs that can do the power game like Lynch, and both (McCoy, Morris) went over 4.5 YPC in their games. Other than that, the best backs they have played are Charles (amazing) and then guys like Blount, Matthews, Tate, the corpse of MJD, the corpse of Ray Rice. Which is not to say that the Broncos cannot or will not win, of course. Manning is awesome, they have a great WR/TE group, Ayers can play, Holliday is dangerous on ST. But just looking at it statswise, the matchup favors the Seahawks, I think.

It's hard for me to even fantasy book Bryan because I'm such a fan of the guy that it clouds my judgment. I want him to win the belt and hold it for a year, winning cleanly over whoever they throw at him. However, in my heart, I know that would be BAD FOR BUSINESS.

The second-best WWE-related thing that happens later on this month: The Royal Rumble. The BEST WWE-related thing that happens later on this month: We get a new Rumblemetrics post!

It's nice to know that the crowd, like me, really wants to see Bryan succeed. I get a real Bret Hart vibe from Bryan: Undersized fighting champion who can mat-wrestle you or outsmart you. As a kid, I totally loved Bret Hart (and still do), so Bryan is really working for me right now. I bet if I were nine years old again, I'd really be into him for that reason.

I can't be rational about DDP. I love the guy. Even the scum stuff seemed like something the actual DDP would say if he were disgusted with someone in real life. The corny insults and cliche sayings were part of the experience.

DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK ABOUT DDP THAT WAY DON'T YOU DARE

Enzo Amore is like the best thing on WWE-affiliated television right now. He's basically DDP except if DDP was off his meds.

Man, if I could go back in time and tell eight-year-old me, "So, in a few years, you will be able to see every show from WWF, WCW, and some wrestling companies that you haven't even heard of yet as often as you want for ten dollars a month," eight-year-old me would have flipped his shit. Sort of like I'm doing now. This is something I dreamed of as a kid. I hope they eventually just drop every NWA/WCW Worldwide on there because Worldwide from like '89-'94 is one of my one or two favorite weekly shows ever.

Everyone has already said it, but ten bucks a month for all that content...wow. Between that, Netflix, Crackle, PBS, and Nick Reboot, I pretty much have all the entertainment that I will ever need on my television. It's cutting out one lunch a month for me if I really want to make sure that I balance my budget. Total no-brainer. I am watching all 1997 RAWs as soon as I get this thing.

Rikishi was awesome and Too Cool was fun. I didn't even know this was a point of dispute.