John from Cincinnati

I didn't think his fall 2013 matches with Punk were anything to write home about either. Punk-Ryback was a bust with me either way you cut the face/heel dynamic and with a year between the feuds.

Aside from the TLC bout, I abhorred all of the Punk-Ryback matches. Yet I enjoyed Ryback's matches with Cena just enough to chalk the Punk stuff up to poor chemistry and call it an anomaly.

We at least got a pretty good match out of Cena and Rey. So yeah, WM9 was far worse.

Terrible as comedies? Blasphemy!

MoS hurt me to the extent that I've attributed anything good in his other movies to people who aren't David Goyer. I think I'll need a while before the healing can begin.

Surprising stance considering the running joke that is Goyer's writing.

Do we have any Rectify fans here?

Finding out what happened to Kevin's shirts is more than I ever expected. I'm a satisfied customer.

And Cena's been winding back his house show dates. I rest my case?

MRW:

Monster trucks would be just as miserable. How do you avoid burials with a brand like Grave Digger?!

Why do I care who closes the PPV? Punk had plenty of TV time, a lengthy title reign with strong booking, and fought guys the IWC would largely say were dream opponents. He also got to be the only man not named Cena to go one-on-one with the Great One. For a glass-half-full guy like me, it was a dream run. Nobody thinks Jericho-Trips was the main event of WM18 because it closed the show. Nobody thinks Edge-Taker was the drawing attraction of WM24 because it was the last match. But Cena headlining over Punk a few times while embroiled in major angles (yes, Johnny Ace getting his comeuppance was a major angle) is somehow a crime against humanity. I've never understood why people get so up in arms about how many times Punk got to close out a PPV. It's a non-issue to me. Yeah. Cena's never had to polish a turd before. It's all top shelf for the Champ. Poor Bryan. Cena's still bankable. Heating him up again to take another loss to Lesnar isn't the worst idea in the world. The story could be told in another way, but this is far from apocalyptic. I don't think anyone has an issue with the rematch happening. It'll be a great match, obvi, but the issue is the bigger one that the safe money is on Cena going over. Is that safe money? It's the usual Cena issues versus the prevailing wisdom that they want to ride Lesnar as champ till Mania. I think it's something that could go either way.

Noted. The notion that no effort has been put into building anyone except Cena is asinine to me. Punk, Edge, Orton, Batista, and Bryan have all become big wrestling stars during Cena's time as a headliner. Maybe Cena's just more bankable than those people because he's better -- because he's what the people want -- because he's inherently more marketable. Also, considering the pushes for performers like Wyatt, Bryan, the Shield, etc this year, I'd say hanging the Network numbers around the necks of Cena and the part-timers is absurd. Probably the same reason we saw a whole lot of Kane during Cena's year-long march toward Rock in Miami: They still see Kane as a guy worth pairing with a real star during an off month.

Yeah. Cena's never had to polish a turd before. It's all top shelf for the Champ. Poor Bryan. Cena's still bankable. Heating him up again to take another loss to Lesnar isn't the worst idea in the world. The story could be told in another way, but this is far from apocalyptic.

Well yeah. Weiner's a dick.

With a couple exceptions, WWE hasn't seen fit to book like that in a long time. As such, reading into every win and loss is a futile endeavour. You'll get more from watching a guy's placement on the program than from turning every loss to Jericho or beatdown from Cena into a capital offence.

Every main event? You must have missed Elimination Chamber, which was about Bryan. Or Mania, which was about Bryan. Or Extreme Rules, which was about Bryan, Evolution, and the Shield. Or Payback, which was about Evolution and the Shield. Or the following two PPV builds, which were as much about Reigns as they were about Cena. Or the SummerSlam build, were Steph vs Brie was often pushed as a bigger deal than Lesnar vs Cena. Not every main event is about pushing Cena. And even if Cena is in the last match of a show, doesn't mean he's the most important thing on the card. A lot of 2014 has been about people other than Cena. It's not 2007 any more.

Agreed. But I think the Powers That Be still see Jericho as a guy with some value. That feud, IMO, is a sign of their continued commitment to Bray. A misstep, yes. But not a conscious de-push.

That's not really a thing that happens a lot though, is it? Not as though Michael Hall or Hugh Laurie got "sorry we ignored you for so long" send-offs from the Emmy voters. Kyle Chandler situations are the exception rather than the rule. Last night was a result of BB and Cranston's usual awards momentum rather than "paying homage." I've resigned myself to the reality that Hamm will never win for this great role, but he will continue to win the lifetime Being Jon Hamm award. The bloom is long since off the Mad Men rose in the eyes of many voters. It lacks all the awards momentum BB built throughout its run. The dream is over, friend. Long since over. It was over a few years ago when Hamm lost in a Cranston-less year with the perfect submission episode.

I don't recall whether or not she's retained memories from the copies of herself dropped throughout the time stream. Damn. Now I'm going to have to watch that episode again. That's... absolutely awful. Just the sort of paradoxical manure I'd expect from Moffat. Really shitty stuff. I'll prepare myself for the likelihood that we end up seeing this played out on screen.

You were saying? One night doesn't break a guy. Besides, it's blessing that Wyatt is perceived to be credible enough to put Cena over like that. That wasn't a de-push.

Depends. Jericho going from Undisputed Champion in the main event of WrestleMania to missing Backlash to losing to a rookie at Vengeance and tapping to an elderly Ric Flair at SummerSlam seems pretty glaring. Booker coming in strong with a SummerSlam main event against Rock and then falling off the face of the earth after the Alliance is also worth consideration. Do we consider people who never passed the "test?" Surely DDP's sharp fall after his angle with Taker enters into the discussion.

I was starting to get pissed at Moffat's existence. Then he mentioned Gatiss, and it occurred to me that the Moff probably only keeps that bastion of mediocrity around to make himself look better. Brilliant!

Full disclose, seeing as I'm new here: I've gotten myself less and less invested in WWE's booking foibles over the last few years, taking the stance that very little of what they do matters or moves the needle. I suspect my apathy simply makes me look more positive in the face of the constant negativity. If I cared enough to really take an interest in WWE's booking and examined it like the perfectionist I can be in other areas of my life, I'd probably lose my mind. For me, it's the CM Punk problem: No reason caring about WWE if they don't care. Nothing wrong with hashing things out, obviously. Wrestling discussions can be fun. I simply know I enjoy wrestling more if I keep myself from travelling down certain rabbit holes. You're just fine. This is a me problem. I feel like I'll look at this post in the morning and feel like Kurt Angle after a night of vigorous tweeting...

Why is the story that WWE's hand got forced? They listened to the audience which is what we all wanted. They stuck the landing at Mania. Forget their record. Why do you need to frame the issue in a way that takes that victory away from them? They got that one right. And have been getting it right with the Shield. And in spite of how much the Wyatt's have cooled off, the amount of time they get and their placement on the card suggests that the Powers That Be still see great things for them. Cesaro petered out (a result of miscasting or a lower ceiling than most smarks see for him) and they continue to see nothing in Ziggler (a point of view I tend to share), but they've still been handling their business a lot better recently than you're giving them credit for here. They'll never win them all. But they're not as bad as you're making them out to be. The story is that WWE's hand got forced because typically, getting over with the crowd doesn't seem to matter if the office isn't interested in strongly pushing you. This has happened multiple times with guys in the past decade or so beginning with RVD in 2001. We can list a number of guys that they didn't really push very strongly when the crowd was ready for it (or worse, de-pushed when they got hot). Their odd de-pushes of hot wrestlers as some weird test for their wrestlers isn't made up by fans that just love to hate. They also tend to go in their own pre-conceived direction rather than paying attention to the audience, which is why the audience being particularly vocal by the beginning of January was so striking - this time, I guess fans weren't going to put up with a de-push for Bryan. In the end, do I care how WWE gets it right? Not particularly. However, the original conversation was sparked by Gregg, whose optimism I love but whose sometimes blind belief in WWE's approach to building wrestlers and feuds I find confusing, saying that fans just love to hate on WWE and that many fans think they could do better. Well, yeah, but that's only because fans actually pay attention to what other fans seem to want. You bring up Ziggler right now. I don't particularly like Ziggler either, but it's pretty clear that the guy should at least be in the Edge role of "upper-midcarder that works as a transitional champ in a handful of instances" because the crowd buys him as that and clearly wants to see him do well. I won't be interested in it, but a bunch of other people will. I also don't think WWE is getting it right with the Wyatts. In January, they were very clearly ready for primetime according to the crowd's response to them. What sense does it make to then have Bray lose a feud to John Cena and have the Usos kill Harper and Rowan each week? That sort of booking is just objectively awful no matter what one thinks of the Wyatts. We'll see how The Shield's singles booking turns out. They want to force Reigns as the future champ when the crowd seems to want Ambrose. If in February, they're pushing Reigns into the main event, but the crowd gets vocal again about wanting to see Ambrose in that spot, we'll see if they change course again. It might take the crowd getting ugly at multiple shows to do it, but even if that works in this hypothetical situation, it shouldn't have to get that far. It likewise shouldn't have had to get that far for them to clearly set Bryan up to stand alone at WM. I'm not a WWE-hater at all. The only reason I said anything is that Gregg got over-the-top in his defense of WWE booking, though I should have ignored it because that's what Gregg does occasionally and he's simply a good guy with a lively fandom 99.9% of the time. While Gregg might get OTT in his defence of WWE at times, I find you're still being a little too harsh. It's still a bit too soon to indict the push of Reigns. Nothing about the booking of Wyatt suggestions they're de-pushing him. This Jericho detour has been poorly handled and Jericho's nowhere near as hot as they'd like him to be. But it's still indicative of the Powers That Be's commitment to the act. They should push Ziggler (barf), but as I said they won't ever win them all (yay!). I also think your being too harsh in decrying Bryan original direction as a de-push when he was still getting as much airtime as anyone in the fed. If Gregg is too forgiving, I think you represent those who are too hasty to judge. Of course I'm not sure why I'm speaking up. This conversation has been going on forever, and I've largely resigned myself to keeping out of it. My voice makes no real difference. I'm going to back away from my keyboard now. Otherwise, I know I'll let myself lose a few hours of my life over pointless wrestling discussions I've had countless times already.