Yo-Yo's Roomie

He has Becky to do that for him now. Ba-dum-tshh.

It's kinda telling how this article lumps Seth Rollins in with the stale old guys (Orton, Show and Rey in this instance), while he's only been on the main roster a shade under 8 years. I mean, Seth sucks, so I get it, but I think it says a lot about how quickly people become completely overexposed in WWE. To put it into contrast, Bret was with the company for 7 years before winning his first world title. For Shawn it was closer to 8 years. Now, whole careers play out in the space of a couple of years, and guys just spend the rest of their careers simply existing.

This is not true, is it? I distinctly remember Bryan beating Punk the year of the pipe bomb. There was controversy I think when Punk beat Henry in the semi-final.

My friend and I were talking about Raven earlier, and about how perfect his look and character were for the mid-90's. That got me thinking, what are some of the most zeitgeist-defining looks or gimmicks in wrestling history. I suppose you'd have to mention Hogan in the 80's. When two of the biggest stars in Hollywood were Schwarzenegger and Stallone, the WWF had their very own version with Hulk. Nowadays, even though the gimmick is at least 6 years old at this point, I don't think anyone has a more contemporary look than Sasha Banks.

I was gonna say, they already did a foot fetish gimmick and had a guy use the n-word, so what more do you want? Tarantino sucks.

Bobby Heenan.

I'd love to see someone way more knowledgeable than me have a bash at a 'Greatest Wrestler at Every Age', going from like 16 to 60 or something.

Cesaro was so over during that time too. Dude got mega-over as a Swiss man in a Tea Party gimmick tag team with heatless Jack Swagger. And it still would have been so easy to turn him into a main event babyface by having him get tired of Heyman talking about Brock all the time. I remember a lot of people at the time being all 'not everyone needs to be a main eventer' with regards to Cesaro. Well, I'm sorry, but if you can get as over as he was, and you can go like fucking Cesaro can in the ring, then you at least deserve a shot.

I was gonna guess Corey Graves on the right.

What's going on with Sasha? She's the only thing keeping me semi-interested in WWE right now.

NXT Takeover: Toronto Bobby Roode Vs Tye Dillinger: Roode comes out with a choir singing his theme, which is pretty great. This match is pretty great actually. I knew they could have a really good match if given the time, but I wasn't expecting something this good. On another night, this would have stolen the show. They got 15 minutes plus, and just had a great action-packed match, which the crowd were totally along for the ride on. My favourite spot was actually a comedy spot they did early on. Roode is begging off, but it looks like he's holding up the 'ten', which Tye mocks. So Roode puts his hands down on the mat, and Tye stomps on them, and now Roode is flexing his fingers his pain, and now it really looks like he's doing the 'ten' thing. Funny spot. Then they just went balls out, and I had a blast watching it. Roode picked up the win with the DDT, but Dillinger got a post-match ovation. The Authors of Pain Vs TM61: Final of the Dusty Classic. These guys had a tough act to follow, but the match was well laid out. Paul Ellering was suspended above the ring in a shark cage, which I feel was a bit tacked on, but was due to Ellering's increasing interference in his charges' matches. Very early in the match, Shane Thorne does an insane dive off one of the beams suspending the cage, which brings the crowd into the match. This is just as good as the last time these two teams met. Ellering throws a chain into the ring, but TM61 manage to dispose of it. However, they end up falling victim to AOP anyway. Predictable result, but fun match. Dustin Rhodes and Triple H are out to present the trophy. I like how official this all is. DIY Vs The Revival: 2/3 falls for the tag titles. I have seen this match before, so knew going in what I was getting, that being an absolute classic, and strong contender for best NXT match ever. Just the work of these guys, Revival in particular- so crisp, so fluid, so creative, and with a high degree of difficulty. And the crowd is absolutely molten. I said Roode and Dillinger would have stolen the show on another night, but nothing was topping this. The first fall was Revival catching Gargano with the Shatter Machine as a counter to his springboard spear. DIY leveled up with their double strike combo on Dawson. Gargano got his redemption moment, surviving the Indian deathlock which he had tapped out to before. The finishing stretch was a frenzy of nearfalls, including DIY hitting a Shatter Machine of their own. In the end, DIY locked on a pair of submissions in the middle of the ring, and the Revival had no choice but to tap out, making DIY the new champs. Really, really high quality stuff. Asuka Vs Mickie James: Asuka had a great entrance here, as everyone in the front row had Asuka masks that they put on. Cheap but effective way to do a special entrance. But, man, this was a big disappointment. I was expecting something decent here, but this didn't deliver at all. The highlight was actually the post-match when Mickie offered Asuka her hand, and Asuka just put the belt in her face. Asuka getting more dickish is definitely something I can get behind. But the two just didn't really gel. The story for much of the match was that Mickie not only 'still had it', but was actually a step ahead of Asuka. Except she wasn't. Her performance seemed really off and that hurt the whole match. Asuka's win was presented really as just Mickie dominating the match but getting caught in the submission and having to tap out. Samoa Joe Vs Shinsuke Nakamura: Nakamura comes out with a bevy of violinists playing his theme this time. I don't know if they're actually playing though, because the actual theme is playing so loud. I wish they'd just go with the violinists. Joe gives no fucks about any of this. This took a while to get going, but ended up being really good, in a stiff and scrappy kind of way. I'm not convinced these two have great chemistry, but they seem to be able to will their matches into being good. I really like the finish, which saw Joe giving a low-blow to Nakamura on the outside, and then hitting the uranage on the steps, just as he had done to take him out of action weeks earlier, before rolling him into the ring and hitting the muscle buster to pick up the victory. I pretty much knew Joe was going to win this, but I imagine it was quite a shock at the time. Show rating: Three matches ranging from good to great, one very decent match, and one disappointing match. But just on that tag title match alone, this is a show well worth seeing. 4 stars. Show MVP: For the first time ever, I'm gonna call this a tie, and just give it to all four men in the tag title match. 3 1/4 star match: Samoa Joe Vs Shinsuke Nakamura 3 1/2 star match: Tye Dillinger Vs Bobby Roode 4 1/2 star match: DIY Vs The Revival

Oyaji's post reminded me of a wrestling dream I had a couple of night's ago. I know other people's dreams are boring, but this was weird enough to share, and I had no idea why I had it, as neither one of these guys has really been on my radar lately. So basically, there was a rumour going around (in the dream) that Teddy Hart punched out Hulk Hogan at an indie show, as revenge for something or other that Hogan had done to the Hart family. And then video actually came out of it, and basically Teddy sucker punched the Hulkster, knocking him on his back, but then mounted him and was just sort of riding him, amateur-stylie for ages, while trash talking him. And I remember watching it feeling pretty bad for Hogan that he'd been humiliated so badly by a relative nobody like Teddy. But then, I don't know how all of this was captured on video, or maybe I was magically just there now, but Hogan was chatting with Teddy afterwards, trying to patch things up, but making out that it was basically a 50/50 fight, and since they'd both kinda dealt with their issues with men, they were cool now. I don't remember if Teddy was having any of that or not, but it was typical Hulk trying to bullshit things. And that was it.

I think that at least 90% of all commentators for all sports ever are terrible. Jesse Ventura is the GOAT. Heenan is overrated. Gorilla outright sucked. Tony is awesome. Lance Russell is better than almost everyone ever. Frank Bonnema is the most underrated/unheralded. Just my opinion, obviously.

So at what point do you feel the Nation of Domination jumped the shark?

11/16/16 This was mostly video packages to hype up Takeover. There was a nice one for the Tye Dillinger/Bobby Roode match that talked about Dillinger's first stint in WWE, as part of the ECW brand. Liv Morgan Vs Peyton Royce: Billie Kay is, of course, flanking Royce. Royce has a nice rope-assisted submission spot which I haven't seen her do on the main roster. Morgan looks like she's closing in on the win, but Kay interferes for the DQ. The two beat her down a bit, while the fans chant for Aliyah, which must be a first. Aliyah, who is my new fave, by the way, comes in for the save, but takes a beating too. Finally, Ember Moon's music hits, and Moon comes in for the save. Moon and Morgan celebrate in the ring, and that ingrate Morgan never once goes to check on Aliyah on the outside. Finally, Aliyah drags her poor beaten body in the ring, and the three of them celebrate together. We get a vignette promising 'the return' is next. It turns out to be for Elias Samson. Elias Samson Vs Nathan Cruz: Graves picks up where he left off in talking endless shit about Elias, who picks up a quick win here. I can't say I've really missed Elias, but it's not like I dislike him either. There's a backstage interview with Moon, Morgan and Aliyah in which they challenge Kay and Royce to find a partner for a 6-man tag. Andrade 'Cien' Almas Vs Cedric Alexander: It seems like weeks ago that Almas attacked Cedric. Well, it was weeks ago, but you know what I mean. There really hasn't been any follow-up on it at all, and since we got an ad for the soon-to-be-debuting 205-Live during this show, I guess Cedric is done with NXT after this match anyway. This one took a while to get going, but once Almas starting ratcheting up the aggression, it got pretty good. Almas picked up the win with the hammerlock DDT. He already works much better as a heel. Episode MVP: Andrade 'Cien' Almas. 3 star match: Andrade 'Cien' Almas Vs Cedric Alexander.