sydneybrown

That's the point. Orange doing his bit and the heels being all "what is he doing?" kinda expired awhile ago. Orange is awesome on the indies. It doesn't work when a heel acts like a...normal wrestler.

I might take some hatred from this but Pac not looking like a fucking idiot and destroying Orange with a kick makes him the top face in the company in my book.

Great start, great main event...but wow, if they thought RAW and Smackdown viewers were gonna check NXT out, this wasn't the show to do it. I LOVED Matt Riddle going right after AJ in the main event when it should have been Ciampa doing it. Never knew how much I wanted a Matt Riddle/AJ Styles match until tonight. But until they prove me wrong otherwise, they have no idea what to do with Finn Balor. He HAD to come out in the main event...and...that's...it?

Clearly you haven't been watching NXT since he's had the "guy who has done nothing in a year and is a total loser" gimmick up until about a month ago.

When you have everything, you need something for motivation.

The irony is that the only times Rollins ever got over where those times when WWE gave up on him and moved on. When he got moved down the card, THEN the fans organically took to him. And THEN he got cheered.

Nielsen struck a deal with DirecTV and I don't know if it is every market but at least in mine, if you have a DirecTV box, you are a Nielsen viewer. Our sample size went from 450 households to 100,000. I get the ratings every day and you guys won't like this, but the numbers we get have barely changed. And that's with 200 TIMES more data. What little change there was was to my station's benefit at least, but we are talking less than half a point. And that's all total viewers, not demos. Shit on their methods, Nielsen actually has the "statistics" shit down. And I will say, it is fucking insane how little a Nielsen viewer gets paid for their time and trouble. But I guess they fixed that, because it looks like no one is about to get paid but DirecTV now...

On the one hand, what possible positive endgame is there to make a shirt like that? People are going to notice and there is going to be backlash. The thing is, and this is what no one has noticed...there wasn't. For over a month now. Because this shirt has been around since September, there was a link to it and all the other NXT shirts ON THIS THREAD, and Jordan himself either JUST NOW apparently saw it or the anger has been building since it came out because no one stood up and did what he himself had to do. And I think it's got to be the latter. I'm in marketing, there is no way it takes you a month to know what your own merch looks like. Even if it doesn't end well for him, good on Jordan for telling WWE to go fuck themselves.

That's why I brought it up and that's why I loved it. The best angles are the ones you don't see coming and it makes total sense when it does. There was clearly a Strong/Cole feud at one point. Stuff might be happening in the background.

I've watched this at least a dozen times now and something dawned on me: in the world of WWE 20-minute promos and booking that has the subtlety of a sledgehammer, this entire angle said so much without a single word being spoken. Balor attacks Gargano. Kyle looks stunned as shit implying they didn't know this was going to happen. Era attacks Ciampa (interestingly Roddy, not Cole attacks first.) Balor doesn't join in, he just stands there. Cole gives him an uncertain look but turns his back on him anyway to attack Ciampa. Balor destroys Gargano on the floor. Era give him the U-E sign, Balor gives the pistol signs instead telling us he's not with them, he's on his own. I really hope we find out who booked this. It was pretty close to perfect. Now as long as Finn doesn't come out next week and tell us "I don't OWE YOU an EXPLANATION!"

Really fun. Belair is so much better than even a year ago. Even though you know who's winning, they did a great job convincing me otherwise.

His "shoot shoot" gestures suggest he isn't.

That was one of the best WWE heel turns in forever. "Cool...Ciampa...Gargano...Balor...who is the fourth person gonna...WHAT?!?!?!?" Balor was better in the last two minutes than his last two years.

Yeah, we both know better...

You guys are all missing the big picture here. Smackdown was doing 2 million-ish on USA. They go to FOX, market the hell out of it, get an additional 2 million plus new viewers to check out what WWE has been up to...and after three weeks, they have kept almost NONE of them. They are almost EXACTLY back to where they were on USA. Almost every single person who doesn't watch wrestling and checked out the Smackdown premiere...and came back last week...is gone.

Bischoff was clearly hired for his name value only. Eric took the job, took the money, didn't have a clue what was happening in the WWE, didn't give a shit and went home. Some guys in their later years want to prove themselves for past missteps. Some just want to cash in. Eric was the latter. You guys spending any more time discussing it past that are wasting more time than he has.

That's your loss. I saw them come out and I was kinda "THAT'S the main event?" but I thought they had arguably the best match of either show. Expected Dunne to play jobber but if anything he came out stronger which is a concept foreign to Vince. I enjoyed the AEW show but you knew who was winning every match. Priest/Dunne was the only one that made me doubt the finish.

Depends on which Doink you are talking about. The face Doink did that. The heel Doink was a joke character that came off as a guy who sucked but then had good matches you all still talk about today. Which is literally the opposite of The Fiend. The Fiend is a seemingly cool character who has matches so bad you'll still talk about them years later.

I guess I'll be in the minority and say it was good, but didn't think the story it told was really worth telling. Maybe it has been too long since I watched Breaking Bad. There will be a day when I watch the entire series again, and I'll probably skip this. That and of course "Fly." And I had the opposite reaction to Plemmons: "You couldn't prepare for your role a little bit?"

It's crazy that I just watched him in El Camino and was happy he was still around. Then this.

I've seen some of the most disturbing dumbass wrestling bump shit in indie wrestling that in retrospect I honestly don't even remember. Gigolo Jimmy Del Ray's gyrations are burned in my brain as some of the most disgusting ring gestures I have ever seen. It wasn't even a God damn bump. Ortiz needs to study Jimmy.

NXT was a great hour that went two hours. Drew/Lio, Rhea squash, Roddy/Swerve, and WALTER/Kushida would have been one of the better NXT shows period. They clearly blew their wad last week, and they either regroup or this is how it's going to be. It kinda sucks my favorite WWE show of the week is the least watched one.

The commentators being surprised that MJF didn't turn on Cody tells you the turn is not happening for a LONG TIME. Thought the show was great. Hopefully some of the guys can unlearn their WWE-speak because PAC demanding a "championship opportunity" was fucking NAILS on a CHALKBOARD.

I swear WCW once put Great Muta on commentary in Nitro's dying days and he got away with repeating the same random gibberish before screaming "FUCK YOU UP!"

I would hope they keep Asuka in the tag division and turn her and Kairi into unstoppable forces who have a stranglehold on the belt. I actually thought it was a cool visual seeing three credible tag teams in the ring when the belts have been pretty much an afterthought since Mania (and you can even add Sasha and Bayley as a fourth team wanting their titles back.)