Greggulator

I liked a lot of Raw last night. I thought the Vince/Bryan/Steph stuff had its moments. Bryant's makeover was good stuff. The barber shop segment with Wade coming down was great foreshadowing -- notice that Randy has a nicely groomed beard as well?The political machinations stuff is going to go on for a while. I'm just settling in getting used to it. As long as it's backstage machinations and not the focus of the entire show (re: 30-minute HHH mic-spots at the start of Raw), I'm fine with it. I loved Cena's mic spot a ton. I was watching on my laptop. Was he getting boring chants? As soon as that happened, he got the crowd right back into the mix. That dude can work a crowd like only a few others in history have been able to do so. I loved him breaking out his Marky Mark accent and his heel mic-drop. Great on how that built to Randy's interference and then The Shield coming down.The Punk/Axel match was really good. I love Punk's pure hatred for Heyman getting him in trouble. Punk has a great fighting spirit thing against Brock. Their stuff definitely feels like a high school fight between the smaller but completely fearless punk kid taking on the big bully football player jock. The jock wins (for now) but the kid in the Minor Threat shirts gets in a lot of blows along the way to everyone's shock. I wish they gave the main event 30 minutes. They could have cut out some nonsense (re: Fandango) and given that match 20-minutes. Another classic Shield 6-man with that ending is super hot. Last night it felt super rushed. Also, I'm super excited for some sort of Wyatt/Kane gimmick match. There hasn't been a supernatural thing in a while.

I really want this to somehow end up with Brie growing jealous of her sister's place and wealth and the like and it ends with her becoming Mr. McMahon's mistress.If we have to put up with Vince for the rest of the year, we might as well have Daniel in the Austin role.

I have some tape somewhere that had a bunch of Lightning vs. Lynn stuff from Minnesota before they moved to Global. GREAT stuff. They set up a hair vs. hair match wonderfully. Kid jumped Lynn and cut off a lot of his hair and then sold it in baggies during intermission.

Maybe we should be asking ourselves is what would have happened to Doug Gilbert if Eddie lived?

BTW, I am super excited for the Eva Marie/Jo-Jo split at some point. Their PPV match is going to be must-watch. What was the divas match with the Tough Enough people that was arguably the worst match in Raw history? I remember Trish was in it and I think stiffed the hell out of someone.It is kinda awesome though that the Divas who are actually worth something are kept far away from this. I completely forget if the Funkadactyl girls can work or not. Layla has reality TV chops but she also can perform. LayCool was one of my favorite acts, particularly when Layla said something like "My butt hurts!" after getting sunset flipped on some random Smackdown match. I can't see her having anything but the Nattie role of the moral center. But they actually like using Layla on screen so there she goes.I'm super glad that AJ is far away from this mess. She has zero reality TV potential. Her media appearances makes her come off as someone who grew up as an actual wrestling fan (unlike, oh, every other diva who were failed models whose pictures ended up on the right person's desk) who works very hard at her craft and is excellent at it.The great irony is, though, AJ's on-screen character of the unhinged ex-girlfriend who snaps whenever her fragile self-confidence is damaged would be the best reality TV persona.

How DARE you, sir! Nikki Bella put on a reality show clinic last night. She turned to her sister's boyfriend, while on a private jet, and nonchalantly said to him, "and her dress was like *this*" while pulling down her dress strap and squeezing her boobs together. This worked on THREE different levels as she: *Showed Bryan something she knows he'll never have (inappropriate). *Believed that Bryan would actually want that over what he has, which is her own sister (delusions of grandeur/backstabber). *Did all of this in front of her boyfriend, John Cena - who was way too complicit in the matter (creepy). She then followed that up by rubbing her rich boyfriend's house/stuff in her sister's face, and went into a rage about overcast WA weather; the Danielson family war chest and goosesh*t. There isn't a woman on earth, watching this show, who will like her after that. Within half an episode she turned her sister face, Cena heel (if all of this isn't building to him dumping her) and established herself as the source for all viewer's rage. She did exactly what the producers would want her to do, which is why all of the advertisements featured them prominently. Good people don't do well on reality shows. That's why Nattie won't sniff a second of screen time until the wedding angle, and JoJo hasn't been seen doing much of note yet. Naomi is doing the same thing as Nikki, on a smaller scale (since her boyfriend isn't John Cena) and is doing just as good a job of turning her partner face in the process. Eva Marie is the epitome of someone who is willing to do anything to get ahead - including going along with every stupid planned/fake stunt that the producers suggest to her (pretending to dye her hair "the wrong color"; telling WWE she can dance when she can't). She even went along with a random on-camera proposal. She will be a star from this show - even if she never sees a minute of screen time from WWE. You are making a strong argument for Nikki being the lead villain of the show. I also forgot about the part where Cena said to Brie "Are you sure..." about the Aberdeen estate.However, everyone has completely no-sold Nikki being horrible! There's nothing from Brie at all about this. In fact, she fell under Nikki's sway! Unless Bryan bugs out at some point, it's a waste of a good angle.Eva Marie is a total waste of a good character. Imagine how much better the angle would have been if it was Emma from NXT claiming she can dance and then busting out her trademark move in front of everyone? That would have launched her to superstardom, especially since she and Summer Rae already have dance-off feuding experience. (On tape delay; the dance off is on Thursday's NXT.)

What about the mystery of THE DARK PATRIOT? And the Patriot? Johnny Polo being to Eddie Gilbert what Stevie Richards was to Raven? The angle where Eddie agreed to have fans check him at ringside for weapons and he had about 55,000 things stashed on his body?

Any CHAZ yet?

Great promo.There are so many other things this shows. 1) The Horseman really needed JJ to get their All-For-One stuff over. Ric talked so much trash on Tully. There's no way they mend fences unless you have a smooth operator like JJ figuring out how to engineer it (with his financial acumen, of course). JJ was still a while away from moving up from wearing goofy tuxedos and managing B-level dudes to wearing the slick suits befitting the corporate officer of Tully Blanchard Enterprises. 2) I bet Will Ferrell has a few thousand of those page views so he could get in character for Ashley Schaeffer. That was the most Ashley Schaeffer Motors thing ever.

This show is such a great train wreck.1) The Bella Twins are almost as boring on this show as they are on Raw! If they want to be the lead actresses on a slimy reality TV show, they have to really up the melodrama a lot. Whichever one is married to Daniel wanting to not live in Aberdeen -- well, yeah, I can't really blame her. And Cena's girl -- his thoughts on marriage are a little interesting but if it's not building up to a breakup or proposal, who cares? (And it'd have to be a proposal since Eva Marie is engaged.) They also should look to book Cena and Bryan better. Bryan going on and on about how wonderful his house is would have sold the angle. And it could have been a good arc that naturally ends with Bryan agreeing to move and getting him and his girl over as faces in the process. Poorly done. 2) The Eva Marie as dancer gimmick was a little interesting. She's good in the young troublemaker role. It's too bad she'll be signing autographs at car dealership openings in a few month. I don't get the WWE's character with this -- she's a great template for a character. I wish they gave the spot to one of the NXT girls since they could parlay this into an actual on-air Raw role with a built-in fanbase and/or audience. There's no way the new girls know how to work. Wasted opportunity. 3) Nattie's a great "voice of reason" but, like all things Nattie, they're not finding her any screen time. It sucks because she's the most likely to take her Total Divas exposure and run with it as a babyface. 4) The Funkadactyls are the best characters on the show. I like their dynamic a lot. It actually comes off as super believable. Their whole deal with the seamstress (the best character so far) was really great for people who like wrestling minutiae like how sparkly costumes get made. It also shows the politicking of the industry a bit, too -- those girls screwed over the seamstress and she told them to go screw themselves. And of course the one girl said she'd take the blame and didn't at all.

Either this was one of the great showing ass gimmicks or Ak just played off this absolutely perfectly.AK's one of my favorites of all-time. Great archetype of a heel. I liked him so much more than any of the other foreign Arab menaces of my youth.

Corey Graves comes off like the absolute worst type of hardcore punk fan. He's a dude who is all about tattoos, fights and his roommate's crappy Hatebreed copycat band. (And he and his roommate live with six other dudes in a two-BR place in like West Philly or Sacramento or Allston.) And absolutely none of those dudes has felt any joy or laughed at anything since the time they had a party at their house and beat up a 19-year-old kid who threw up in the basement.I'm more of a Sami Zayn guy -- an Op Ivy fan who is shy but charming around Renee Young who also dresses up like a luchador and hates pretentious Eurotrash.

Dusty Rhodes was driving a convertible Benz when the Horseman rolled him in the parking lot.

I love both "Something to Believe In" and "Howlin' At The Moon." They're two of my favorite Ramones songs. My favorite Ramones song after the first four albums is Bonzo Goes To Bitburg.I read Mickey Leigh's (Joey's brother) autobiography a few months back. Those dudes wanted to be huge rock stars and were super pissed they never had a radio breakthrough. It wasn't their fault, though. It was radio's.If you like The Ramones (and every true American loves The Ramones) then you have to check out The Exploding Hearts. They're probably the most heartbreaking story in music history -- even past Chris Bell or D. Boon.

DEBATE: Antonio Cesaro would main event every PPV from here to the end of his career if he were to steal Alex Wright's armpit dance.

Philly has TWO local sports stations these days.The established one is WIP. The new-ish one (it's been on a few years now) is 97.5.97.5 has a weird mix. It has a few veterans of the industry in Tony Bruno and Mike Missanelli (local guy who did some national stuff). But it also has an absolute TON of people that have absolutely zero business being anywhere near a broadcast position. At the best, they're as mundane and average as your typical sports radio host. At their worst, it's beyond bad.They have a show called Talkin' Baseball that has some host and Phillies great Dutch Daulton. Dutch has a lot of great stories and talks outside of the usual cliches. However, the clown he co-hosts with CONSTANTLY talks over him. It's so irritating.My favorite moment was when some guy got promoted from occasional co-host duties to getting a full-time gig. He talked in his introduction about how he has plans on reinventing the sports radio wheel. His first topic on his show: Rate Michael Vick on a scale of 1-10. Because there's never enough Michael Vick talk in Philly.

Can somebody give me one reason, aside from being 35, that should keep me from buying the Wyatt Family Sheep Mask?

They should have interest, though.It's really far away, though. If they want to ape England, they'll need to have a lot of solid franchises.They have a lot of solid cities now but not enough to pull off promotion and regulation. The second division only has eight teams and was in the middle of a logistical nightmare a few years ago. (And has that weird split-schedule.) There's only a total of 41 pro teams in the US and Canada under the USSF right now. There's also a bunch of USL-Pro teams that are really shoestring and play in front of a few dozen people. But it's very possible. I think it's something US soccer fans would really like to see. And since it's the only league that would have relegation/promotion, it would definitely stand out among the other pro leagues.

What's the likelihood that he cleans up, goes on all those WWE roundtable shows, kills it on all those shows, parlays that to a NXT backstage role and then quits after trying to go over on Dusty when attempting to book himself into a power struggle angle?

I'm not a huge football fan but I love expansion talk.I like the MLS expansion plans.I think soccer has worked in the USA (there's more soccer on TV than any other sport, along with a domestic league that outdraws a lot of NBA and NHL teams). And it's worked because soccer fans are soccer fans -- there aren't a lot of casual soccer fans, but there's enough hardcore fans to have made MLS what is it today. MLS games aren't like traditional pro sports. The crowds do a great job imitating European clubs. It has more of a college basketball vibe than it does a NBA feel. It's really a differentiated product.That differentiation is really getting people who are casual soccer fans (like me) interested in going to Union games here in Philly. I haven't been yet but my friends who have gone swear that it's ridiculously fun and a great atmosphere. The quality of play is sort of besides the point, I think. People go to games knowing the on-field product isn't like the Premiership or La Liga but chanting and the like is a lot of fun.I think the MLS next step is to get to a big enough league where they could have a viable promotion/relegation system. People who don't know how European team sports work bug out when they hear about promotion and relegation. In order to make it work, you need a really big top division plus a really solid minor league system, obviously. You need flagship teams (a version of the Arsenal/ManU/ManC/Spurs/Chelsea but obviously not as good) plus franchises that won't see their attendance figures plummet if they relegate. And the second and third division leagues also have to be strong enough to have some meaning to fans in bigger cities who got relegated.They're really getting to that point. They're essentially promoting teams already -- the Sounders, Timbers, Impact and maybe Orlando next. The NASL is expanding to some major league-type cities like Sacramento. There's also a NASL team in the Cosmos that will get more attention than the two MLS teams (Red Bulls and whatever the other NYC team is) based on name recognition alone; they'll get promoted if attendance is any good and if the owners don't run the franchise into the ground.It's super impressive to see the league develop in this manner.

Bo's a natural heel. NXT, though, works pretty well with a face champion. He's stuck in a bad spot. As soon as he turns, he'll be mega over. They started showing glances of him being an insincere heel (I loved his smarmy toolness when he went to Disney) but kept him face for a bit. They need a good face for him to heel up against and no one's in that spot quite yet. I bet Sami gets that spot after the next round of tapings.

I skipped past the Tons of Funk stuff (although I do like S-A-W-F-T a lot) to the Dusty dance-off segment. That was nice and goofy. Summer Rae is such a good catty pain-in-the-ass. The scene needed Paige doing a dismissive eye roll to really work, though. Sasha Banks did some great heeling. I loved her "SMILE!" when she had Charlotte in the Camel Clutch and pulled on her mouth. Charlotte's got the potential to be awesome. She has great athleticism and they're using her gymnastics background really well in her moveset. She still has a lot of work left in making her stuff look really crisp but she's going to get there. I really hope they stop the "From Charlotte, North Carolina... CHARLOTTE!" introduction. Also, Charlotte's super tall. Are we sure her mom's not Baby Doll? Tyler Breeze is wrestling. Pretty boy heels of his magnitude are an archetype that we should always have in wrestling. I loved that we're having a feud based around goofy photobombing segments. That's perfect since a total douche like Tyler Breeze would totally hate his phone polluted with filth. The Wyatt Family -- This is the best act in the world. This is the best act in years. Luke Harper just absolutely crushes it in the ring. Rowan's still green in the ring but the dude just needs to wear a sheep's mask and tilt his head and he's the most Old Testament frightening person since Michael Tarver hopped the railing wearing his handkerchief. And that promo from Bray -- wow. I guess we know what his face interviews are going to be like, since it's damn near inevitable he's going to be a main event character in a not very long time. I love that he threatens WORLD LEADERS and not just other wrestlers. "TODAY IS THE DAY WHEN HELL FROZE! TODAY IS THE DAY WHEN PIGS FLEW!" Thank you, Bray. Indeed.I barely watched that Corey Graves match. Dude puts me to sleep. The big leagues are REALLY missing out not having The Shield talk more. I'm really impressed with Rollins' development on the mic. He's such a good little prick. I loved him tapping the belt with a smirk when Ambrose was talking. Roman's Scott Hall "OOOOH" was also good stuff.

I had this piece on NASCAR published on The Classical last week. It was also picked up by Salon.I went to Dover to see the Nationwide race a few months ago.My general thoughts on NASCAR: I really like it a lot on TV. There's so much more nuance and strategy and the like than any lay person would ever guess. It's such a fun sport that has a lot of really great personalities. It's awful in person. It's cool to see how fast the cars move in person. However, you can't hear a thing (and may need protective hearing devices) and you just sit out in the roasting sun.

Who is that in your signature? Because, uhm, I like your signature a lot.

Your guys write-up of the Anticristo interview was what lured me into this sordid world all those years ago. I've somehow never seen this until now. It's well worth the three-decade wait. NOT GOD BUT MEEEE! # 1 and the best