Charlie M.

Lashley got me to watch TNA. He should probably win this whole thing if we're judging on degree of difficulty.

Cavernario is great and I probably would have voted for him against most people in the first round but Jericho's been one of the few things getting me to watch RAW most weeks. Yeah, sometimes he's sloppy in the ring but he's actually had a lot of really strong matches in the second half of the year. The storyline with AJ was actually great and gave AJ a chance to get comfortable in WWE with a veteran instead of floundering in midcard hell. I don't think it's a coincidence that he went from that feud to working with Roman. I do enjoy Matt D trying to shame people into voting his way, though. Great start to a fun time of the year!

The FUCKING Sharks better win the Cup this year.

Shane and Orton were in cahoots.

Closing segment was so over the top that I liked it.

Canucks got Jonathan Dahlen from the Sens. Yep, the son of Ulf Dahlen. We gotta stop with these second generation NHL'ers making me feel ancient.

Becky had a great year in terms of establishing herself as a major part of the company while Sasha had the better big matches. I'm a huge Becky supporter but her series with Alexa was very poor in the ring. It was kinda brushed aside because we all go into Smackdown wanting to like everything and go into RAW wanting to critique everything.

I prefer to spread fear and paranoia that the Oilers better win now before McDavid leaves. Tick tock.

Fastlane: Middle of the Road? Actually the card looks great.

Rusev and Lana are on the next episode. I may have to wake up early to listen to it before work.

The dirty secret is that they've never understood their audience. They just hit on some things and ran with a few guys. Whenever Vince has been convinced that he knows what his audience wants and tries to create a wrestler for them, he usually fails. I'm not sure I really hold it against him that much. Wrestling is fucking weird and you don't know what is going to hit. The problem now is that they think they've set up a system to create stars when no such system should exist. You need to set up an environment where all of Vince's BS lines about "grabbing the brass ring" and "cream rising to the top" can actually take place. But to do that, you'd need to give up a lot of control and be willing to live with some horrible promos and segments on your shows. They're not willing to do that because god damn pal we're making movies.

You'd need to compare the numbers with the various Charlotte vs Sasha Main Events to know for sure.

But if there normally isn't that significant of a drop in teenage girls, doesn't it say something? He probably wouldn't have brought it up unless it was something unusual.

Yeah but it's ended the whole Carmella as a serious wrestler push so that's a positive.

Main Event was great. I liked Orton backing out of the match with Bray to throw people off a little bit. It's a LONG time until WrestleMania so they've got to fill time somehow. The end game to the storyline is likely that Orton has been manipulating Bray the whole time so what if he "accidentally" helps Harper win the battle royal? A triple threat match is his only way to guarantee that Wyatt and Harper don't reconcile before WrestleMania. It all builds up to a big spot where they do the Sister Abigail into the RKO on Harper and then Randy finally RKO's Bray and wins the title. That would be a great spot.

This one was better than the last one. I don't think they were quite as drunk this time.

The Owens/Jericho segment was one of the best in a long time. Loved Jericho getting serious and talking about his feelings. You knew he was done for there but I was still surprised with the list reveal. Great stuff. Charlotte and Bayley had a very good Main Event. I wish they would have waited until WrestleMania but I'll wait and see what the storyline is. Maybe they do Sasha vs Bayley and Charlotte gets put in the first ever women's money in the bank match at Mania? They could do an interbrand match.

Only saw the Chamber match and Orton/Harper but both were very enjoyable. I'm digging Orton working with guys like Harper, Gable and Jordan during this Wyatt run. AJ's performance in the Elimination Chamber was as wild as expected. I don't know what he's going to do with Shane but he's going to find a way to make it great.

"Kiss this motherfucking trophy!"

When Seth was taking forever to get to the ring, I had a brief thought that maybe ROMAN was going to jump Hunter and the big Mania direction was going to be Roman and Seth vs Taker and HHH.

Meltzer's speculation is Cena vs Joe at Mania without it being a title match so it makes no sense for Joe to have debuted and lost in the Rumble. He'll probably show up on Tuesday or at the next PPV. Dave's predicted Mania card is looking pretty accurate after tonight so I gotta lean towards him having good info this year.

Not sure who was at fault but Bayley's attempts to "cover" were terrible. Like the thing she did in the corner. Yikes. Plus a lot of her execution was more off than usual.

Enjoyed the show a lot. It helps to separate the booking from the action. Charlotte put on a great performance against Bayley. She's so comfortable in the ring and good at reacting instead of acting. Bayley had a few nervous moments for sure. Reigns/Owens was a decent enough plunder brawl. Cena/Styles was as good as their SummerSlam match. I enjoyed Cena going into Prototype mode. I was surprised that Cena won here but I'm interested to see what his Mania direction is. Maybe have him lose it back to Styles and do some kind of stip match at Mania? The Rumble itself was very good early with the Braun stuff and I found the later stuff to be really intriguing too. I like Roman embracing his cocky side.

I'd probably move Nakamura up now and do Roode vs. Hero at WrestleMania weekend. Those are Hero's people.

I liked the build up promo where Shevchenko is talking about how she likes Denver because it reminds her of Kyrgyzstan except it doesn't have a nice lake. Great armbar. She almost had it once and Pena made the mistake of staying in the same position. Felt bad for Cerrone but I like Masvidal because he reminds me of all the non-UFC shows I used to watch. He fought in Sengoku, Bodog Fights, Strikeforce, early Bellator, etc. Good to see him get a big win.