SirSmUgly

Jim Cornette was being flippant to an insincere, condescending douchebag. When two old, out-of-touch wrestling bookers are having a slapfight over Twitter, there are no winners in the comparison really.

"...of dodging death panels in Obama's socialist nightmare."

Cena and Cesaro need to wrestle each other on every major show for the next three months until I get sick of it. Oh, who am I kidding, I'll never get sick of it.

I don't know. What's the point at which the losses that Panda has to eat to keep Dixie away from the real company are greater than the benefit the Carters get from letting Dixie run TNA? I would assume that at this point, if Spike isn't going to keep subsidizing the show, Daddy Carter might find it cheaper to bankroll Dixie's reality career and eventual appearance on some CMT reality show.

I have laughed all throughout reading this thread. The posts here have been tremendous. You know, I have been watching a ton of WCW through the Network lately, and it reminds me of how, even when WCW had its low points in the early and late '90s, it was a promotion that gave me genuine joy and entertainment at many times, and ultimately, I have quite fond memories of the promotion, Ding Dongs and Russo Swerves be damned. The fact that TNA has existed longer than WCW, on the other hand, has is truly awful. The promotion has one redeeming quality, the Dutch Mantell-booked Women's Division of the aughts, and that's about it. I absolutely love that it took Vince Russo CC'ing the wrong guy to probably kill the promotion, and I even kinda look forward to the Death of TNA book that RD Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez co-author. I won't read it, but the cover alone with pictures of Russo, Dixie, Jeff Jarrett, and I don't know, maybe just a picture of a laptop with its browser opened to GMail will justify its existence.

Man, fuck that NXT crowd this week. Summer Rae in control on offense sucks, but doing the wave? Then they started WHAT!-ing Lana. They were the worst. Charlotte sure isn't ready to carry someone of Summer Rae's caliber to a decent match. I do think they tried to do some nice stuff with all the verbalizing in the ring. What I liked the most was the spot where, while locked up on the ground, Summer yelled "OW, MY FACE" and then Charlotte immediately hooked Summer's nose and started pulling, huge smirk on her face. They were doing some decent character stuff that made it easier to put up with Summer Rae's control section. I also liked the Ascension no selling everything and the jobbers running scared. More of that, please. That was the first week that I enjoyed them in ring, and it was mostly predicated on how dickish they were about not selling the jobbers' offense and chasing the jobbers around and stuff. Tyler/Mojo was match of the night. I actually thought Rusev looked pretty good just relentlessly keeping Neville grounded. That match was exactly what it needed to be. That's probably the most I've enjoyed a Neville match so far. I give the Vaudevillains some credit for working a couple nice tag moves into their arsenal. That European uppercut/neckbreaker combo was nice. I love tag teams that actually do tag team moves, and that combo in particular looks like it could be a nice signature spot for them if they develop a good way to signal it to the crowd.

I know he's older and a bit broken down, but I am really excited about KENTA coming to WWE, NXT in particular. I still have hope that WWE will go further beyond just signing Devitt and KENTA and look to Japan to bring in guys who have primarily worked there more often. I've mentioned before how much I would love to see a WWE/NJPW working agreement, something like they send guys here to work primarily in NXT and get better at what is now basically the mainstream U.S. style of wrestling. They could also work on their English and promo cutting if they would like down there, and it would be a friendly place for them. WWE could send guys back to NJPW to get some flavor in their style. We were just talking about Roman Reigns, who I think could learn a lot working with Ishii or whoever for a little while.

I would enjoy that. Seriously though, pair him up with Becky Lynch and have Finlay be their on-screen manager, then have all three of them beat the piss out of people. I'm just assuming Devit'll get the "he's Irish" treatment in this idea.

And of course, they'll be renamed "Piper" and "Alex."

I like Jason Jordon/an and all, but Titus O'Neil is amazing and deserves a better spot.

Reigns is really reliant on his signature moves and his finisher. There's not much there in-ring for him between all those things. I know WWE style is very much predicated on hitting signature spots (or having them reversed so you can hit them later), but Reigns's reliance on those things is overkill even for the style. He needs to get an upper-midcard feud with a guy that can help him grow in the ring and learn to space his spots out better (and what to do in between going for those spots). The Wyatts have lost their mystique at this point, plus Bray Wyatt was protected a bit in those trios matches or being matched up against Bryan. Bray's best match was that Rumble match. He badly needs a feud with a D-Bryan type to help him along in the ring. I personally do not enjoy Punk at all and I think he's a mediocre guy in the ring overall, but he had a very good sense of how to pace a match the way WWE likes it. They could really very badly use him as a heel against Reigns or as a face against Bray Wyatt in an extended feud to really get those guys working closer to a main event level in the ring. Missing Bryan and Punk at the same time has turned out to be really bad for the development of some of the guys they want to push because both those guys could have been great partners to help those younger dudes gain experience. I'm just hoping that at this point, Luke Harper can get away from the sinking ship that is the Wyatt Family and get a big push of his own as a singles guy. He's going to be the guy that I get the most frustrated for over his stop-start pushing, even more than Cesaro, when he eventually breaks away.

I definitely haven't lost my love of wrestling, and at this point in my life, it will never happen, but watching tons of World Class and WCW/NWA on the Network makes me wish there were a stridently southern wrestling organization again. The South does three things better than everyone else: food, jazz, and pro wres.

While I get being irritated about a salary question on Taz's end, I think Keller was making a good point here. Trading on ECW nostalgia might have popped that particular crowd, but it will do next to nothing to grow the company. Plus, I'm pretty sure Keller was asking that rhetorically in order to make a point and didn't expect an actual response. Taz was losing that exchange, though, so it was smart of him to take offense and bow out right there.

They should save one-on-one main event matches for PPV and do lots of tags, trios, and even eight-man tags that team up multiple guys from different feuds. Bring back the Survivor Series style of four-on-four elimination and just do those on RAW and Smackdown. That would be much better than running the same one-on-one match a billion times.

FTFY I know you're not totally serious, but let's not downplay that Lana has the unique ability to make non-wrestling fans say "She's really good at that" and pay attention, or at least in my experience with the non-wrestling fans that are in the room when she's doing her schtick. My wife, who rolls her eyes at all non-Andy Kaufman wrestling stuff, actually enjoyed Lana last night.

The thing is, he already has had his day. It's like when people were clamoring for Bryan to FINALLY win the title when he had already won both the World and even WWE titles. The people don't want Ziggler to have his day, they want him booked exactly the way they want, which is an entirely different drive than wanting to see the underdog finally triumph. This isn't to say the way he's been booked has been good or interesting, but I think it's an important distinction to make. I don't even think they want "his day" necessarily. They just want to see him presented as a threat and as an important part of RAW. I wouldn't say that WWE fans don't know what they want at this point as the gentleman below you said because there was pretty much a mass uprising when D-Bry was getting shoved aside and Ziggler is still massively over after being booked into oblivion (remember his first WHC run where he never won the belt and then immediately lost it, see how he has been shoved way down the card). I don't particularly like Ziggler or dislike him, but I am impressed that the guy is just over no matter what. That counts for something.

Huh, he DID win. I had to go look that up because I could have sworn he lost. Oh yeah, the little kid showed up after Cena had destroyed the three Wyatt members. A Pyrrhic victory for Wyatt in terms of his long-term viability if there ever was one, but you are correct, and I should change my post.

You forgot to make WarGames fit in there somewhere. Call me a true believer, but I really do think once HHH is in control, we'll get WarGames back. Remember when we thought Evolution/Shield was going to be a WarGames match? That would have been amazing. Actually, I keep hoping they will at least do a trios match in the Elimination Chamber, but I guess that if they didn't do Wyatts/Shield in the Chamber back in February, they'll never do it. That match was perfectly set up for the Chamber (though what we got was awesome anyway, of course).

Having two world titles is just a bandaid for a bullet wound. The real issue is that they need to figure out how to book compelling midcard angles again. Adding another title for midcarders to trade wins over isn't going to help the underlying problem.

I didn't think the Alexa Bliss promo was actively bad. It was just ordinary. I do really enjoy Sasha Banks, though. She's solid in-ring, but everything about how she gets into that character works for me. She's kinda become a face for me because Charlotte and Summer Rae both really took/take her for granted. I really am hoping that she wins the NXT Women's Championship next.

Gregg, what would you say about how the Wyatts have been treated in their feuds since EC? Let's just look at Bray Wyatt on PPV: Lost to Cena, beat Cena (in a virtual 3 on 1 in his favor and only after creepy kid interference), lost to Cena, lost the MITB match, lost to Jericho. Even if we wait to critique the Jericho thing, would you say that after Wyatt was rung up by Cena three straight times, a loss to Jericho in the first match of the feud was probably not the best choice? How would you look at the Cena feud now that it is over? Finally, I think that Bray Wyatt was so over by the Rumble that he could have credibly feuded with Bryan over the big gold post-WM or could have held the gold himself. Do you think, like I do, that this is not true now and that how he was booked in the Cena feud is a big part of why this is not true, or do you disagree with my whole premise here?

When Sting blew out his knee at Clash X, they really panicked by turning Luger back face. If the plan was to wait for a title change until Sting was ready to wrestle again, they needed a strong heel that Sting could match up against that wasn't Luger. They pretty much did nothing to plan for that. Instead, they turned Luger face and phased Muta out. In an alternate universe where Muta could have stuck around and was booked stronger (like to earn at least a few points at the Starrcade round robin and as an upper-midcard killer otherwise), Sting/Muta in another short feud would work if you have to turn Luger face or Sting/Luger if they stay the course and keep him heel. Also, there's always just a Sting/Sid feud available there beyond just Halloween Havoc. Instead, we got this Black Scorpion thing which was just a mess and was a really bad way to have Sting start his first World Championship reign.

Every Fatal Fourway match feels structured exactly the same in WWE. They really should liven up the formula by making them elimination-style matches. That would really help the variety. As it is, I feel like I can just skip to the very end of every fourway they put out there.

This a million times over. What good does this do? I wasn't thrilled about it, but at least it was referenced somewhat obliquely and only to throw Afghanistan in the U.S.'s face. It wasn't a totally tasteless "THEY DESERVED TO BE SHOT DOWN" sort of thing, which honestly I half-expected. Not that "It wasn't as bad as it probably could have been" is much of a defense.

I loved the third fall of Usos/Wyatts, but the first two falls were so rushed that they were pointless. Lana is amazing. I didn't think Swagger/Rusev was very good, but I liked Rusev's little gestures and mannerisms in the ring. When Swagger was running up for a Swagger bomb, Rusev noticed and weakly put his hands up to half-guard himself, half-shake his hands to beg off before getting hit. I liked that. Also, he remembered to sell the ankle like a champ. Paige is totally lost up here on the big show. Her timing with AJ was off and her character work sucked. They should let her do the anti-Diva thing she was doing in NXT. Remember January, when Bray Wyatt beat D-Bry cleanly and the Wyatts seemed like an unstoppable machine? It feels like well over a year ago by now. I kind of want to see a Kofi/Cesaro series even though their spots were a bit awkward tonight. Titus Young was my favorite thing about that battle royal, and I wish they'd just stick him and Darren Young back together as heels to face the Usos next. I will say that I hope Miz and Ziggler wrestle over the Get Depushed and Lose a Ton of Matches title for awhile so no one else gets tagged with it. The Fatal 4-Way was average. I feel like it was so paint-by-numbers and they could have cut out the first fifteen minutes and gone straight to the finishing run. I thought Ambrose was coming out of the ambulance in a callback to Stone Cold Steve Austin on that last ambush. Ambrose rules, and Rollins is awesome too. Can't wait 'til they have their big PPV match.