Charlie M.

I listened to Mauro and Bas Rutten on Joe Rogan's podcast and they talked a lot about their PRIDE days. It certainly seemed like Mauro could take a good natured rib from friends. I think the big thing a lot of people are overlooking is that JBL and Mauro may have been coworkers but they certainly don't appear to have been friends in any way. JBL just comes off as this arrogant prick who thinks everything he does is hilarious and everyone else is just too damn sensitive! He messed with the wrong guy here because Mauro has options. He can go somewhere else where people act like professionals. Even if Mauro had no issues, he might have left anyway. Life's too short to put up with people like JBL if you don't have to.

Thought it was very necessary since it felt like they were trying to have Okada prove his toughness throughout the match. Like Roman/Brock but more competitive.

AAW is running Mil Muertes vs Hardcore Holly on 4/22. I gotta see this.

The E&C Pod had a really good interview with Beth Phoenix this week. She seemed pretty open to the idea of returning at some point and would like to work with Charlotte or Nia. They also covered Mania and the post-Mania shows a bit too. They filmed a bunch of stuff for the Network show during Mania.

I really liked Aiden English when he had a couple singles matches on the C-shows last year. He also did a good job on commentary one time.

He was looking for crackers in there.

It shouldn't happen for a long time but one day someone could get mega heat by beating up the violinist.

Oney Lorcan has had some really good showings in NXT and on the main roster. You'd never think he'd be a fit for WWE yet he has this weird charisma and energy about him that just works.

Equal low footing in stuff that no one in the audience really cared about when the bell rang. They can still have other feuds. That's on the writers. The Smackdown ones seem more comfortable filling time with a secondary women's feud. RAW's problem was a lack of depth and the decision to focus on Nia as a secondary heel and then getting cold feet about putting her in real programs. I don't get the issue here. Bringing someone of importance in both the fans and the company's eyes to Smackdown is what this division needs more than cutesy little segments that lead to mediocre heatless matches. That's pretty much the Smackdown women's division. They've gone close to a year without one great match. Naomi losing a great 15-20 minute featured semi-main event match to Charlotte on the next PPV will do more to establish her than any 4 minute divas level match against Nattie will.

Those were the only people in the division. Unless you wanted her doing jobs to Alicia Fox and Dana Brooke.

That's silly. We just saw Charlotte do all sorts of clean jobs and put everyone else over. She's also friends with all these people.

As opposed to this great run she'd go on defending against Nattie and Carmella? That's the alternative. This way she'll establish herself as the #2 face on Smackdown behind Becky unless she completely drops the ball in the feud.

Charlotte is Naomi's best chance to have good matches and a feud that people care about. I like Alexa's mic work but she's only adequate in the ring and doesn't get much of a reaction. Naomi even said on Talking Smack tonight that she wants to get in there against Charlotte and see how she measures up because they're on a different level athletically than everyone else. They'll get time and a prominent position on the card instead of being in the "cut for time" position.

205 Live has been on a pretty good run lately. Lots of quality work on that show.

Great surprise debut for Nakamura. Miz is a perfect first guy for him to go through. Seems like Alexa is heading to RAW. Match was OK. Naomi headed into that lame WWE territory of overselling your limb / needing to hit all your high flying stuff. Maybe she was practicing for having to sell against Charlotte? Bray getting the title back would be pointless but that seems to be where we're headed. You'd think if he had all this extra shit he would have broken out instead of the hologram worms at Mania.

Austin had a great breakdown of why the Rollins/HHH match didn't work on part 1 of his Mania review.

Mustafa Ali would have been so over as a WCW cruiserweight. I hope WWE doesn't just rotate him back into the pile of cruiserweights they do nothing with. I'd be excited about Charlotte going to Smackdown because it might allow Naomi to actually have a good feud instead of title defenses against the very limited Alexa, Nattie and Carmella. Angle sweats more than Shane.

Who gets the gold?

My direction for NXT would have been building to heel Strong vs. face Gargano. That's the type of feud the NXT audience would eat up if done right. Plus, they both have the added benefit of being former indie guys who aren't in their late 30's. I fear the direction for NXT will wind up being Roode vs. McIntyre in perfectly acceptable *** 1/2 wrestling matches.

They better have big plans for Roderick Strong because what they're doing is an absolute waste. I fear they may not understand what they have in him or he likely rubs people the wrong way backstage.

The fans chanted for Miz over the biggest star on the show so I can kinda understand why Vince and WWE have a warped perspective. Plus, they keep making a ton of money so they're gonna roll with the big good looking guy as the face of the company.

I think if you're going to go long and try to tell a story, you better be confident that the fans are invested in the wrestlers and the stories. It also has to make sense for the storyline to do a long drawn out match. HHH builds these big grudge matches for Mania but then wants to do his slow match so he can go 25-30 minutes. His match with Rollins should have been 10-15 minutes where Rollins goes nuts, gets all his shit in early before HHH attacks the knee, destroys it for a couple minutes and then they do the finish. That's all the people wanted out of that match. Another problem with long matches at Mania now is that I find myself always thinking, "this is going so long and there's still 'x' amount of matches left!" That's from the comfort of my own home where I could just turn off the show. I imagine the people there live are probably getting tired, hungry, thinking about traffic, etc. Maybe you want to front load Mania with the long matches and put the quick ones in the second half?

He needs a fresh start and he actually has personality unlike Crews.

I think Foley helped Taker a lot too, though. He helped give Taker that brawler edge and modernize the gimmick. Taker had started to become pretty dated in the mid-90's, IMO.

I need to go back and watch One Night Only '97 against Bret. I think it might still hold up as Taker's best pure wrestling match.