Go2Sleep

He definitely has a "steady midcarder" vibe about him, but so did Bo Dallas. It's more of a problem with the writing than Breeze.

Couldn't agree more that Itami should be using the G2S. He's tried a couple different finishers now, and the crowd doesn't react to any of them. His new spin kick thing has the added problem of taking forever to set up. Axel was as bad as expected, guy just has zero personality. Mark Henry was rolling over in his grave with that weak trash talk game. Chad Gable looked good. Already showed more than similarly positioned guys like Dillinger, Jordan, and Dawkins. He needs to get his own gear instead of raiding Kurt Angle's TNA locker, though. Tyler Breeze is in a bad spot right now. He's got some talent and a great character, but there's no justification for pushing him over Zayn, Neville, Owens, Balor, or Itami. His character has probably gone as far it can on this show, and it seems like his ceiling is now the upper midcard gatekeeper, where he doesn't even compare to Tyson Kidd that favorably to be honest. Tough to imagine he'd gain any traction on the main roster, though. A feud with Marcus Louis can't be good for anyone. I can totally see Breeze getting lost in the fold this year.

So glad they're phasing Lawler out. Either he clearly doesn't care about being there anymore or he's gone completely senile. Totally agree with whoever said Booker is of the Dusty or Tazz mold of announcers who aren't technically good, but their legitimate enthusiasm and inane ramblings make them more enjoyable to listen to. During the ambulance match this week, Booker was in top form with "The worse off [Dean Ambrose] is, the better he is" and something about stand your ground laws that made even less sense than the other quote. If they had the balls to crush JBL's male ego and replace him with Renee Young, the commentary might actually be not un-listen-to-able for the first time in years.

I will say I'm really glad Rollins was added to the title match, which is what they should've been building towards since NOC anyway. Cena and Lesnar will never top their Extreme Rules match, and this is a good way to freshen it up. I can't wait to see Lesnar throw Rollins around. The Ascension going heel with a literal "Road Warrior knockoff" gimmick is actually some inspired on-the-fly booking. They need to drag out old-ass Animal and beat him up. If they can't do that, they can rag on the APA and beat up JBL. They can beat down local jobbers for most of their matches, then cheat like crazy against main roster opponents. I'm sure they won't follow this angle through to its full potential, and since it's just the Ascension, I really won't care, but it does have some promise. Aside from that, this show was bookended with essentially two 20-minute HHH promos, and screwing all of Cena's teammates then firing them at the end was a bit of overkill. Save us D-Bry.

Ambrose finally gets a win over Seth Rollins, sort of.

Not at all, but he's my least favorite guy on the roster by a lot if you couldn't tell. Since he hasn't been on tv lately, I forgot how much I hated him until he popped in on this weeks show.

Has anyone ever gotten a good match out of Axel? I mean good, not "nothing technically wrong, but still insanely boring." Maybe he's gonna be the future of the company. He's gonna be a big time player in this machine called NXT. He's the next big thing. He's the next generation. And starting this moment, from now... From this moment on... This'll be the moment, starting now, of the genisis of Curtis Axel. But really, I'd expect him to be more Brodus Clay and less Tyson Kidd as far as NXT rehab projects go.

September-December 2013 was a dire time for WWE shows, but I remember Night of Champions being way worse. At least Battleground had the Rhodes/Shield match everyone liked. NoC was nothing but heel wins, until Bryan got the obviously tainted fast-count win in the main.

Of all the WWE rejects they could use as enhancement talent... I don't know what to say. Him? HIM? You are going to go to NXT and have a match with Hideo Itami? You have got to be kidding me. That's gonna suck, I'll tell you that much.

When I saw Cesaro sitting in the corner like Raven, I got some serious Rob Conway vibes. In 06 or 07, he made a new year resolution that if he couldn't win his next match he'd quit, then lost to Jeff Hardy in about 30 seconds. So my supernatural wrestling senses are in good shape. Backstage segment with Christian bringing up Edge beating up Cena's dad was funny. I can't imagine after last year, they'd be stupid enough to tease Bryan in the Rumble and not deliver. The main event promo was way too long, but I liked Rollins' heel work towards the climax. Plus the line "You know me better than that, I'm gonna kill him anyway" cracked me up. Perfect B-movie villain delivery there. The authority already coming back is stupid. If they really wanted to make this segment work, they needed Sting to show up and clean house before Cena could say anything. The thing about a HHH/Sting match is you don't actually need either guy on tv that much to build it, although I doubt HHH sees it that way.

After watching Raw, there's no way they can do anything but Bryan/Lesnar. Who cares if it's two years in a row for Bryan? He's the most over guy in the company. They've done two WM ME wins in a row for Hogan, Austin, and Cena. I know he had bad luck with injuries last year, but Bryan's the only one who can carry that torch, so give it to him again. Besides, this year they can do it right from the beginning with a Rumble win, and the story writes itself. Guy with neck injury known for overcoming odds vs. guy known for hurting people and ending careers, plus the redemption angle. The match itself would be a blend of Lesnar/Eddie and Bryan/Morishima and even though the crowd will be smart to Lesnar leaving, they'll want Bryan to be the man, so the heat will still be like WM 30, not WM 20 (for Bryan and Brock respectively). It's too god damn perfect to even consider anything else.

I unironically love this idea. Even though it doesn't give any one guy the rub a one-on-one pin on Lesnar could give, a triple powerbomb is almost the perfect way to write him off. I can accept Reigns in the title match even though I don't think he's ready, just please, no Cena or non-Brock part-timers. The Shield name still has a lot of credibility, so I think the triple threat should be the goal here. It's the best combination of a good match, logical story, and showcasing the new generation guys assuming there's no miracle Daniel Bryan recovery for him to vanquish Lesnar. If it happened on a throwaway ppv, I'd expect this. Last year, though, they really smartened up around Mania. Whatever cosmic force that inspired the writers to put Bryan over literally everyone associated with HHH 100% clean and strong could probably inspire an elimination formula where Reigns goes first, and it's mostly a Rollins/Ambrose one on one. The other thing to remember is last year's Mania looked like it was gonna be total garbage until about 3 weeks before the show, then it was one of the best Manias ever. So I'm holding on to a little hope that they can do the right thing again.

Which is odd, because Charlotte/Sasha was the movesiest divas epic ever (which is a good thing, btw). It felt like a legit WWE main event match, whereas Charlotte/Nattie and Paige/Emma were more along the lines of a midcard mini-epic kind of like one of the better Sheamus/Barrett matches on the men's side. The latter two divas matches had some big moves, but felt more restrained overall. Charlotte and Sasha went full throttle from the opening bell, and the big spots were even bigger by the end.

Is there any reason the network wouldn't be working on firefox for me? I have the latest flash and it plays just fine on safari from the same computer.

Last add of the year (most likely): Cesaro/Kidd/Ziggler (SD 11/14) Only match I hadn't seen on WWE's list, plus a friend recommended it out of the blue a few days ago, so I went to check it out on the network and I'm glad I did. Really strong 3-way match that was fast paced and mostly stayed away from the old "2 in 1 out" formula. Each guy had a simple, distinct character (Ziggler the survivor, Kidd the egotist, Cesaro the wrecking ball) that they stuck to throughout which kept a coherent story underneath a mostly moves-y match. The timing and execution was great from all three guys, and the pace was perfect. Even after it got down to the one on one stage, Kidd and Ziggler kept it moving with high-impact spots and good counters. For what could've been a pretty routine match, everybody stepped it up and made the absolute most of it.

He was very well protected up to Survivor Series, but it's a time-honored tradition for the MITB winner to job to everyone. It probably means his cash-in moment is officially planned.

All of the McMahons sans Linda have had their share of fun matches. The Mania 17 family feud match was a really well-done attitude-style clusterfuck. The Vince/Austin cage match (St. Valentine's Day Massacre), Shane/Blackman (Summer Slam 2000), and Steph/Trish (No Way Out 2001) are my favorites of theirs respectively. Nick Patrick vs. Chris Jericho with one arm tied behind his back (WW3 96) was a lot better than it sounds on paper. Kevin Greene always seemed like he could've been really good if he wrestled full time. He had a ton of charisma and held his own in tag matches and had a decent quick singles match with The Giant too. Speaking of The Giant, he has to be the king of the non-wrestler match. The Greene match was solid, but not anywhere near his later work with Shane (Judgment Day 2000) and Mayweather (Mania 24).

Goldberg, Lesnar, The Shield The trick is the undeafeted guy has to go over established main eventers as part of the streak. If they only go over midcarders and lose the first time they step up in competition, that's when it's bad news (Ryback, Bray Wyatt, Joe in TNA)

Isn't Enzo's whole gimmick that he's a below-average wrestler who talks a lot of shit and relies on Cass to bail him out?

It's so well-booked right now, I'd hate to see them fall into the rematch clause trap. Zayn should be right behind Neville in the call-up department, and since his story arc was all about winning the big one, he doesn't need a long run especially coming off back-to-back 10-month champs. He should lose the belt to Owens at the next live special, and they can build Finn Balor to dethrone Owens in late summer or fall. A rematch with Neville doesn't really fit in, except maybe as a triple threat. Edit: Also, unrelated, but was there any mention of Neville surpassing Bo Dallas as longest reigning NXT champ? It certainly wasn't a big part of the last show, but I don't even remember any announcer tidbits about it.

Turning the Ascension into faux-Road Warriors is probably the right idea. Unfortunately, between the fact that they aren't very good and the general worthlessness of the tag team division, they're pretty much locked into failure. They're one giant sunk cost fallacy at this point.

If it involves Reigns becoming the US champ and fine-tuning his singles act as a dominant upper midcarder so he can be ready for big ME run by Mania 32 instead of getting hot-shotted at 31, that would be perfect. In fact, if they did this at Mania 31 similar to Cena beating Show at WM 20, I might almost think creative had some damn sense.

Watching Becky and Bayley on NXT this week made me think of a little sub-category here. What's the best sub-5-minute match this year? My list: 1. Cesaro vs. Kofi (SD 5/30) 2. Bayley vs. Becky (NXT 12/18) 3. Lesnar vs. Show (Royal Rumble) 4. Shield vs. NAO/Kane (Wrestlemania)

I'll give it a few weeks to see if it doesn't fall apart, but Graves already sounds 100x better than A-Ry in the booth, even though they say pretty much the same things. Becky/Bayley was really, really good. The whole match was built around one move and it paid off perfectly. It felt like there was real strategy and planning involved. I was blown away by Charlotte and Sasha last week, but this was equally impressive given the constraints. While I still lament Samoa Joe not going to WWE when he was elite, I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of the best possible result vicariously through Kevin Owens. He's reminding a lot of Joe early in his TNA run, and a little bit of Cesaro later in NXT. Even with guys like Dempsey, Corbin, and The Ascension around, Owens easily feels like the biggest badass on the show, even though his personality is more multi-dimensional. We can only hope Owens/Zayn will be as good as Joe/Styles from Turning Point 05. Owens/Neville was a nice match with both guys showing their character versatility. Last week Neville was a cocky and of questionable integrity, this week he's a pure sympathetic babyface. Last week Owens was a full-speed-ahead wrecking ball, this week he's more calculating and spiteful. Each week they got the crowd right where they wanted them and still maintained a high level of action. Didn't dig the non-finish (might as well job Neville on his way out), but the post-match was perfect. The apron powerbomb can be the new punt.

This show just reeked of "trying too hard." Just a constant stream of meaningless spots and guys overcomepensating for not having any compelling stories. And the stories did not get more compelling via this show either. Harper/Ziggler was fine in a vacuum, but why exactly were these two having a super death match? The spots were violent and visually impressive, but it felt completely hollow since they've never gotten out of "standard wrestling feud." There's no storyline reason for these guys to want to kill themselves to take the other with them, and neither of them has a daredevil gimmick, so it's pretty much the epitome of a meaningless spotfest. Also, how does Ziggler go from savior of WWE to carrying the worthless IC belt in 3 weeks? You can tell they had some long-term planning on that one. I don't know if I've mentioned yet how much I really liked Rowan getting the spot to challenge Show. I was terrified we'd get more horrible Cena/Show matches, but Rowan stepping up was a good first singles program for him. It was the lone piece of inspired booking heading into the show. So naturally, we get the completely non-sensical result of Show going over clean and fairly dominant at that. I didn't have much faith the writers could keep Rowan relevant past February, but it looks like they're fast-tracking him to not even being worthwhile Rumble filler. When you try to push someone new, typically you're supposed to protect them by having them win most of their matches (or at least lose in ways that still keep them looking like a threat for future singles matchs). Jobbing clean to The Big Show in 2014 does not fit that bill. The tables match was cookie-cutter Cena. Is there any good reason Rollins couldn't lose a clusterfuck to Ambrose, but Cena gets to clown him? And a triple threat with Rollins/Cena/Lesnar would've been preferable to the diminishing returns Cena/Lesnar one-on-one series. Come January, Lesnar, who is one of their best wrestlers, will have had 10 matches in his second run with 7 of them being against 2 guys. Of course, when Reigns wins the Rumble to face Lesnar, I'll probably be lamenting that Cena couldn't be having a 5th match, so maybe there's no pleasing me. The rest of the show was completely forgettable, including the main aside from the memorable finish (though not for any good reasons). Why did Bray Wyatt need this win exactly? One might say because he's floundering at the moment and hasn't been too credible for a while, but maybe they should've thought of that before he got wrecked by Cena or went 50/50 with old man Jericho. What exactly does Ambrose do now coming off two losses in blood feuds with guys of similar standing?