Greggulator

I'm sure I'm reading in to deep with this, but the "cops" attacking Bryan part of it was so great. Bryan is essentially a community organizer leading non-violent acts of civil disobedience against the system. Police using excessive force against the protester is a time honored tradition. Of course, being wrestling, we actually get to see the person in power abuse the agitator as opposed to most cases when they hide behind a suit and a desk.

That was an all-time heel beatdown to end the segment. It was so disturbing. The best is Steph getting somewhat sexually excited seeing it happen. What a nasty, awful couple. Bray's promo was absolutely fantastic tonight. His best work yet. He managed to fill in a bit of his backstory without actually telling the backstory and let us know his motivation for hating Cena. Cena was great, too. Usos/Real Americans was great.

Bray has watched Total Divas. My explanation is this: This is a ay he can make a threat that his opponent and the audience will understand. (I had to look it up. I haven't watched True Detective yet. But I heard so many "Shouldn't Bray Wyatt be..." things that I imagine it's a natural fit. And Bray writes his own promos, per Meltzer.)

I kind of want to pull the trigger for Rollins on this. I love that dude so much and there were definitely times this year where I thought he was better than Cesaro. But the end comes down to this: Cesaro had that few weeks where he had a crazy match that we might not ever see again with Regal, the Randy match, the Cena match and then wrestled as an ace against Sami. And then he went seemless right back into a mid-card tag kinda comedy act right after all of that. I love Rollins and in another bracket he'd go a little further.

I like Cena and everything but Roman's been in a ton of OH F I HAVE TO WATCH WRESTLING RIGHT NOW! stuff this past year.

This was just an episode of NXT. This is why I love NXT. It doesn't NEED to be spectacular every week. It just needs to have matches and advance storylines. Sometimes Cesaro will attack a ring announcer in order to bait William Regal. Sometimes Bo Dallas will have a PowerPoint. But sometimes it's just slight bullying of Bailey. I'm totally fine with a low-key episode. I thought Paige/Sasha was a solid match. It wasn't anything great but it didn't need to be. I really like Paige adding that submission as her finisher, especially as her Paige Turner thing wasn't quite working. It's a little too complex to get on quickly, which will come in handy when she has really competitive matches. If it's hooked, you have to tap. But getting it 100% hooked is the thing. I really hope The Ascension get a rival and quickly. Those dudes are going to stagnate without someone else as foils. I'd love to see Sami and Neville team up to go against them. Pipe dream, perhaps. I thought the divas promo was really fun. I don't get the Charlotte hate. I think she's been pretty great the past two weeks as a spoiled, entitled brat. Nattie was good coming in as the older dude in the neighborhood who doesn't like the freshman football player bullying the grade school kid. Nattie's NXT run has made me come around to her. I used to think she was the worst but she's pretty decent. I loved Tyler Breeze selling out Xavier Woods like that. Lana's outfits are such great wrestling trash. Imagine if she went into an actual workplace dressed like that? "Uhm, you need a blouse... Go see HR." The Main Event was a bit slow. I still liked it, though. Both Bo and Big Cass are good when they have someone fast who can move around to up the pace of a match. They aren't those guys, and that's fine. The announcers during Bo matches kill me. They should really make it a point to get over that the dude uses every part of the ring to win a match and is super clever. That was what set up the ending tonight. He had Cassidy in the ropes and actually kicked the rope across his eye to shift momentum leading to the pin. The NXT announcers are usually so good but they haven't underlined that at all, but it's clearly there.

I also love how Michael Hayes looks pretty much the same then as he does now. The dye-blonde with dark-colored beard is so sleazy.

Watching Kerry Von Erich speak about the cage match with Ric Flair. Is dude selling a concussion or is he just this dim? I don't remember any KVE interviews beyond that.

Sabu vs. Pat Tanaka. Tanaka looks like he as at a nearby Bally's Fitness getting ready to go home after pilates and Paul E. ran into him and asked if he wanted to wrestle immediately. 911's multi-colored fringe leather jacket is awesome.

Watching some '94 ECW back when it was still REAL raw. The segments are hilarious in their terribleness. Jay Sulli... oh man. Sabu coming out in the Hannibal get-up is still so friggin' great, though. Dude will forever be my favorite wrestler.

And ask yourself this -- how do you get one over physically on Steph? Dudes should never, ever hit a woman, no matter how reprehensible she acts. So you have to humiliate her in another way. Show made her show ass when she slapped the crap out of him and he just stood there and smiled right in her face and didn't kowtow. She looked like an awful person who was completely ineffectual in her attempt to make Show do her bidding. He broke free of her grasp and she looked pretty pathetic trying to get him back into the fold.

If you're crapping on HHH/Steph not selling, then you can't say anything about the WWE not having strong heels later. Not saying anyone will, but IWC folks have long complained about the WWE not booking strong heels. Well, here are two really strong heels. HHH and Steph showed a ton of ass on Monday during the protest. It worked in a huge way. Why? Because they finally melted down under pressure. If they get humiliated regularly, then segments like that -- and/or HHH losing his match -- don't have any importance if the comeuppance is regular.

NXT Arrival was NXT's Clash of Champions. They built to all of the matches. A lucha dude named Aerostar does a reverse headbutt thing but to the floor but after bouncing off the top rope like Sabu or Ultimo Dragon. One of the most insane moves in history.

Is Rey the best babyface in the post-Steamboat era? I think he might be. Don't hold Rey's "Ken Griffey Jr. on the Reds" era against him. The guy's WWE run was fantastic. He really adjusted to that style of wrestling pretty perfectly and was in some legendary matches and feuds. Also, the ladder match with him and Eddie fighting for custody of a child is maybe my favorite single gimmick match of all-time. I wish every custody dispute was settled in that fashion. We also forget how revolutionary Rey was to wrestling. I really don't think the timeline of US wrestling gets to where it is now without Paul E. bringing in Rey and Psychosis and then Rey ending up in WCW. Rey put so many eyeballs onto the cruiserweights when he was breaking out stuff no one in the US had ever seen before. There's certainly no Chikara without Rey. On another note: Watching that match and other Eddie stuff, I think he's sort of the WWE's platonic ideal for the dudes coming up through training. Eddie's WWE stuff is really what they're going after with these dudes.

Well, who would plan such an audacious attack on China? The Uighurs? They're more of a "random maniacs stab people at remote train station" types than planning some sort of crazy attack. I'm not sure if they're ready to crash a jumbo jet into Beijing yet.

Yo when does my main man Skandar Akbar come into WCCW to take it from those scumbag Von Erichs?

I might owe some money on a remaining air bill... that's my biggest concern.

Does Roman Reigns saying "HALFTIME ADJUSTMENTS PUNK!" at a fan during the break of a Shield match on Smackdown beat any of Mark Henry's best trash talk? Just opening that up for debate. Tough vote since Henry's an all-time great going up against a true breakout star. I might sit this one out.

Kabuki is still one of the coolest mofos in wrestling history. Muta was a bit cooler in terms of Japanese foreign menace because of his variety of misting techniques and smeared facepaint. I sorta hate that the last great US-based Japanese wrestler is Tajiri. Tajiri absolutely ruled, especially when he did his satanic crazy person deal in ECW. But I miss the days of some manager bringing in a secret of the orient to wreak havoc on the poor Americans.

I've met The Queen Of Wrestling a few times. She defines "nice." She's just a really nice and normal person.

Checking out DVDVR hero CHECKMATE for the first time. He's tagging with The Magic Dragon, the protege of childhood hero The Great Kabuke. Taking on Bugsy McGraw and someone else. I'm guessing The Magic Dragon name is a wink-wink at the dude's outside-the-ring interests. It's a cool nickname either way.

Also, I'm getting the sense from the photos and video from this dark match that The Shield and The Wyatts really love working with each other and are having a total blast. Can you imagine if there's some sort of rematch or something along the lines with The Shield getting the upper hand and gloating with the lantern and sheep mask like that? That would seriously blow minds.

That battle royal is such a good call and might be awesome depending on how it's built. They've got a lot of guys they absolutely need to get on the show. But it's really hard to put them all together in a three hour window. With Bray taking on Cena, how do you put in Harper and Rowan? With a triple threat main event looming, you can't really have a triple threat before that, so where do you put The Shield? Then there are guys like Henry and Kane and The Rhodes Boys and Dolph and Show who really should get on the card, too. There are so many really fun angles they can tie in together now. Shield vs. Harper/Rowan showdown? Kane trying to take out Reigns? Rusev going on a big run? Etc.

Yo where is this photo from and are there any tattoo artists on here willing to work for cheap?

Cody really doesn't deserve this much of an ass-beating.