MonteCarl

Verne?

Wife and I watched Mother! last night. What the fuck was that? I mean, the metaphor was obvious, but...... what the fuck was that?

Took awhile of racking my brain to figure it out without looking it up, but I believe this is the full card for Sunday, right? This is why a show between the Chamber and Mania is a bad idea. Can't throw away any big matches because Mania is right around the corner. No real time to build the matches because it's only been 3 weeks since the last show and it's only a month until Mania. So you end up with a card like this where several big names aren't on the show and everything is hastily thrown together. Bryan v Owens - WWE Title Asuka v Mandy - SDL Women's Title Usos v Miz/Shane - SDL Tag Titles Revival v Black/Ricochet v Glorious - RAW Tag Titles Bayley/Sasha v Tamina/Nia - Women's Tag Titles Shield v McIntyre/Corbin/Lashley Becky v Charlotte Rey v Andrade - Preshow

I'm guessing we get Joe/Ali for the US title at Mania, although during that match I kept hoping for either Rey or Andrade to win the title so they could do a title vs mask/hair match at Mania.

So just to recap Becky's story from the Rumble until now. Becky faces Asuka for the SDL Women's title and taps cleanly. She comes out later that night taking Lana's spot in the Rumble and ultimately wins the match and thus a title match at Mania. However, Becky's knee is"injured" so they tell her she has to go "get her knee checked out by WWE doctors" to be cleared for her Mania match. Becky doesn't want to as she's scared the McMahon's will screw her out of what she believes she deserves. She slaps HHH and beats up Stephanie to not have her knee looked at. However, Becky finally does get her knee looked at, apologizes to the McMahons, and is put in the main event match that she won at the Rumble. But then Vince takes her out of the match and replaces her with Charlotte and suspends Becky. Becky keeps coming out and interfering over the next couple of weeks and ultimately gets her knee re-injured. Instead of again needing her to be cleared, they now just say she needs to sign a "hold harmless agreement" and she's all good to go? Why go through 8 weeks of build around her knee to end up here? Seems like the underlying angle behind this is that Steph is still pissed at Becky, but brought her back (seemingly against her father's wishes) to save face with the company and fans, and to continue to look like she's trying to help and give the fans what they want, she puts Becky in a match with Charlotte so she can get BACK in the match at Mania. However, she knows Becky is injured and in a weakened state and does not expect Becky to be able to win her match with Charlotte, so the company gets Becky out of the way and they get the match they "really want" with Charlotte/Rousey at Mania. It sounded for a second like Cole was starting to explore this angle on commentary before getting drowned out by what was happening in the ring. But, either way, if you look at each beat of this "story" since the Rumble, it has been very convoluted and unnecessarily complex.

I thought that they were going to have either Kofi pin Bryan again or have Owens take the pinfall loss for his team to further play in to the angle that Kofi deserves his title shot against Bryan and Owens doesn't. But Owens pinned Bryan clean. So there goes that.

I liked it well enough. Are the three blonde NXT girls based on anybody in particular? Or are they just made up characters to move along the narrative of Paige being an "outsider" in NXT alongside all the tall, blonde, large breasted women?

Topher Grace made a trailer for the entirety of Star Wars using every single movie, and it's amazing

My guess is that they will go with the story that Batista has very publically been saying for the past several years that he wants one final run in the company against HHH but they haven't called him. He's been putting it out there and getting "no interest" from them, so he took it in to his own hands to really get HHH's attention, and now he has it. I don't know about making HHH the face in this though.

So the special announcement was just the return of the Dusty Classic, with the winners getting a shot at the titles at Takeover: NY. Kind of a let down with how they announced it. Really thought/was hoping it would be more combining of NXT with the main roster. They announced 4 NXT tag teams for the tourney, but left the other 4 as TBA, so perhaps there will be main roster tag teams involved? I can't think of many other NXT tag teams that weren't already announced in the 4 that were. Those, by the way, are: Undisputed Era Forgotten Sons Lorcan/Burch Street Prophets Other than that, the Gargano/Dream match was quite good and I'm a bit surprised Dream won the title there. Barely any mention of the 4 being on RAW/SD as the show as already taped, but they did show a short video package in between matches. It made the pretaped segment with Gargano/Ciampa a little awkward as they just teamed up the past two days.

That is exactly what I'm saying. That's why I said they have stumbled in to this. This is the match that nobody knew they wanted until it was right there. In two weeks, Kofi went from getting the typical "New Day pop and haha Ok New Day is so silly woo hoo" to being the most over guy on SDL. Not only do fans now realize they want this for a guy who has always been respected as a top performer for a decade, but he has major backstage support and people pulling for him there as well.

Kofi is going to become or has already become Daniel Bryan from 2014 leading in to WM XXX. Fans will not accept it if Kofi doesn't go to Mania to face Bryan for the title and win it there. There will be "KOFI" chants all night long constantly and whatever Mania match Bryan has will be booed from beginning to end. They have stumbled in to a perfect WrestleMania storyline here with a great ending moment (tm) for Kofi at the big show, which they are always saying they're looking for. If Kofi loses at Fastlane, then what for him? He ends up in another tag match or the battle royal at Mania and the fans revolt? They HAVE to see what they have with this. Whatever they think they have planned for Bryan just will not work anymore and they have to call an audible like they did with Bryan for WM XXX. Fans will not accept anything but Kofi/Bryan at Mania for the title at this point.

I'm sticking to my guns that the NXT Announcement tomorrow is that NXT is going to officially become a full on 3rd brand rather than the "minor leagues", which basically means that NXT to "main roster" call-ups will still happen, but also "main roster" guys will also be showing up in NXT. WWE has their "minor league" indies like Progress and such now to fulfill what NXT used to, and putting NXT in the mix for talent swaps will certainly help keep all of the rosters fresh on all three shows.

I liked all the updated gear for all the women in the EC to make them all LOOK like they are tag teams, even the last minute thrown together "Fabulous Glow". Teams like Mandy/Sonja or the Iconics have been together for a long time, but their gear has not always matched. Seems like every team in the Chamber put forward the little extra effort to make sure they matched and looked like teams that should be competing for tag titles. I also really liked Sonja's updated look with the long tights over the shorts/skirt combo.

If/when the nWo goes in the HoF, I know it will likely only be the Hall/Nash/Hogan version, but I think an argument could be made to include Waltman in that group as well. Him jumping to WCW/nWo as Syxx really helped solidify the nWo in it's early stages. And then another argument could also be made for Sean Waltman going in on his own. X-Pac a three time HoF'er? Who'da thunk it?

Every time I see the Street Prophets I think about how naturally charismatic, athletic, and entertaining Montez Ford is and how much Angelo Dawkins is not. Angelo is like that guy at the party who hangs out next to that charismatic guy trying to siphon just a little bit of his attention for himself. Montez Ford just IS this guy. Angelo Dawkins is TRYING to be this guy. Hard. And it shows. Dawkins has some talent, but not near what Ford does. He's definitely the Stevie Ray to Ford's Booker T. I also have been noticing how puffy Ford's nipples have been getting, but that's one I'm not sure I want to unpack right now.

That's why the first month or so of Shotgun Saturday Night back in the day was pretty amazing. Did a show in a bar and in a subway concourse, among others, before it reverted to pre-tapes before RAW and becoming another forgotten C-Show. But man, those first few weeks were pretty great for the atmosphere alone.

If anybody is interested, I recorded the Revival v Gable/Roode match from the house show last night. It's not the 30-40 minute match they were having last weekend, but was still a really good, solid 23 minutes and was the match that got the crowd in to it more than any other match all night long. The definite match of the night.

Sending Gulak to NXT was fabulous. Was this a full time switch, or just a one off? He would be so much better off in NXT where his ground/grappling style would be much better showcased and appreciated rather than in front of dead crowds on 205. That match was great.

I thought this exact same thing after that segment last night, but then realized there are two PPVs between now and Mania. I think there will be a match to set up a new challenger for Ronda at Mania and that's how Charlotte gets in. Becky is "suspended" for the next few weeks. She keeps showing up and getting in Steph's face about it and they will do a match with Steph at Fastlane, where if Becky beats Steph she is reinstated and put back in to the Mania match, and that's how we get to the Triple Threat Match.

It's supposedly going to be near 50 degrees some point next week. That is a change of almost 100 degrees within a week. Crazy

We received an emergency notice on our phones last night telling everybody to turn down their thermostats to 65 degrees because of a possible gas shortage due to everybody cranking up the heat in this sub-antarctic weather

I have never wanted a replica title of any prior title more than this

Maybe it's a Pillman thing, where they will actually go through with not renewing his contract, thus they are not "working" anybody reporting that he's not re-signing, but with it agreed upon that he will come back to work an angle when he's "unsigned"

Aren't there TV tapings later this week? I'd assume they'll tape the match then.