Go2Sleep

I love Sasha and think she should be pushed heavily, but there are still times when you can see her missing a beat in the ring. Not many mind you, but she's just not as smooth and polished as Becky whose gimmick is mostly "good wrestler." I think it's also fair to say that Sasha not just got out of Charlotte's shadow, but actually turned the tables on Charlotte largely on the back of Becky Lynch.

There is no way Paige is worse than Summer Rae. No way. Anyway, here's my 2015 NXT women power rankings. 1. Becky Lynch - She's got the most experience by far, and it shows. No one's better at putting a match togehter and keeping it together. 2. Sasha Banks - Definitely her breakout year. She's got all the pieces, and is already super good without having all of them in place yet. 3. Charlotte - She's boom or bust, but definitely more boom over the past year or so which keeps her average output high. 4. Emma - Very steady, and seems to be better as a heel. Definitely on the right track after not working out the first time on the main shows. 5. Bayley - Somewhat overrated, but can still have good matches with good opponents. Also has her character down pat. 6. Alexa Bliss - Shown flashes in the ring, and appears to be solidifying her character as a heel. Blake and Murphy are a drain on her, though. 7. Blue Pants - The designated jobber is an important and underappreciated role, and she does it well. Probably shouldn't do more than that. 8. Dana Brooke - Still not there in the ring, but she shows glimpses of being a great heel. Should get better with experience. 9. Carmella - Easily the worst of the women with regular tv time. Not much improvement with her character or ring work. Gets booed while paired with Enzo... Jury's still out on Eva, Jessie, and Cassie. Just not enough material from them yet to make a fair assessment.

And at least one with AJ too. I'm sure she would've looked a lot better if she was in NXT all of last year with their fresh talent, focused booking, and fan support, but Paige has been making the most with what she had. I think Paige/Sasha was slightly better than the last Charlotte/Sasha match. Not as good as the Takeover classics, but well above the usual weekly matches. It was a smooth match where both girls got to show a lot without any finisher overkill, and Sasha got the clean win in a match that was booked 50/50 and could've gone either way. It was really sound structurally and in the context of the angle.

I'm a bit surprised people are down on any aspect of this show. I thought it was easily the best Raw of the year with a couple low-end MOTYC's and no x4 material outside of the recaps. Nobody has said a word about Ambrose/Show? I know it sounds skippable on paper, but this was really good. Ambrose just constantly moving forward, and Show not budging. Really good character work from both guys and the finish was different and cool. It's like they read my mind about wanting different match structures, and were like "Ok, how about a fading fighting spirit finish built around a count out?" Loved this match. Paige/Sasha was another top-shelf match, on par with what's been going on in NXT this year. The spots with Paige out-smarting Sasha were well done to the point I was actually a bit surprised Sasha got the clean win. Between the flash win, and Sasha doing most of the talking backstage, I'm glad they seem to be moving her to more of the leader role in her group. I hope Paige doesn't get lost in the shuffle because she's repeatedly shown that she can be great when she gets something to work with. Lucha Dragons vs. Matadores was fun. Liked Los Matadores working a little more heelish, but still hitting some crisp, flashy offense. Guessing we get a multi-team clusterfuck at Summer Slam. New Day and PTP both still rule, even in limited roles. The women's tag was fine. Alicia tried to kill herself on a simple back bump, but I liked the effort from her and Nikki. The predictable result of Becky over Alicia was fine, because it's 100% the right move. At least through 2 weeks, the "divas revolution" has been booked pretty well. Owens/Orton was just ok, but I always like matches where Orton works face but still gets a lot of offense. This was pretty close to 50/50 and I feel like they have a better match in them down the road. One problem here was that Orton dwarfed Owens who's been the big guy in most of his matches thus far, or at least close to the same size in Cena's case. You forget how big Orton is sometimes. I also have no idea why they couldn't let Cesaro get a little shine here. I liked his run-in where he brushed off Sheamus then went straight to Owens, but this probably would've been better with a ref pull apart neutral finish or the faces standing tall. Cena/Rollins was one of their better matches, and could've been really great if they played up the strategy of Rollins being super high-risk because he has nothing to lose. The finish fit that story arc perfectly. There were still some pretty smooth counter sequences in this match and of course the busted nose added a lot. Cena's STF was tight too. Obviously the WWE champ taking a fall isn't ideal, but they were booked into a corner. That's why I felt they should've played up the loss more as Rollins taking more risks than normal and getting caught. You also need a follow up match where Rollins controls more and outsmarts Cena for the win to set up the title vs. title rubber match. Hopefully they actually build a story here instead of a repeat of the Owens/Cena series.

Actually, Becky had a really good match with Bayley last December I think. It was a short match, but it was really smartly built around Becky going for a leg submission and getting closer and closer until Bayley ran out of counters. Becky strikes me as easily the most skilled woman on the roster, but hasn't gotten as many opportunities to shine.

Does doubling down with the ironic racism defense ever actually work when someone gets called out on their racism? Granted, here the person calling Vince out is Certfied Racist Hulk Hogan, so it might not be the same.

Honestly that segment might be #1 on my "Most Surprised They Actually Aired That" list. I mean a white guy dropping an N-bomb for comedy in 2005... To quote Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, "Here's the pulse, and here's your finger... Far from the pulse and jammed straight up your ass."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

There were plenty of AJ/NOAH tags that were great without a "true" hot tag, but then again, their face/heel dynamic tended to be more subtle. Of course, they did also have an even more annoying cliche: The Cold Tag... You know, where the vet on one team is rolling, then tags in the rookie while the other team still has a vet in the ring and you can hear the crowd deflate instantly because they know it's over and who's winning. In the US, I guess there will always be some degree of a hot tag because it's the most logical way for the face team switch momentum if the heels are going to have sustained offense, I just wish there was more variety in the length of the heat segments and some occasional role reversals with a heel just sneaking out of a danger and a fresh partner changing momentum. It's tough for me to get into regular 2 on 2 tags in WWE because there's just this 6th sense for how long the heat segment's gonna go, and there's no credible nearfalls before the hot tag. Also unrelated to tag teams, I did want to comment on 90s AJ earlier as it pertains to character work. What sticks out about those main event matches to me was how everyone had a clear character that was basically only established in their matches. They had few promos or backstage segments, and I'd guess that less than 1% of the posters here speak enough Japanese to gain any insight from the speaking time they did get. Still, everyone can tell you that Jumbo was the bitter legend struggling to hold onto his spot, Misawa was the class-act generational phenom, Kawada thought he should've been Misawa and had a chip on his shoulder, Kobashi was the ultimate competitor who fought with courage and honor, Taue was the guy who developed a little slower and needed to put all the pieces together, and Akiyama was the stud rookie who only fell short of the others due to lack of experience. All this just came across naturally in their matches with each other, and the occasional midcarder or big bad foreigner thrown in. They were truly telling stories with their characters in the form of matches. The use of body language in addition to the pace, selling, lack of selling, huge moves, etc made it easy to follow. The characters were simple ones that appear in all types of fiction, but being able to tell those stories so clearly through the lens of a professional wrestling match is why those guys should be and are regarded as all-time greats.

I think a big problem is that there's not enough emphasis on portraying one's character or angle through the lens of a match anymore. Everyone is just going out to have epics (which are great at times, don't get me wrong) whether or not it actually makes sense for a given angle. Like why was Orton/Sheamus at Battleground going so long and having finisher kickouts? A 50/50 brawl with a flash finisher (be it RKO or Brogue Kick) would work so much better there. It's getting to the point where the best WWE matches are the short, simple ones that end on one finisher. And don't even get me started on tag matches. When was the last non-squash that didn't feature a hot tag?

Well Piper was a part of this horrible promo... And just look who's in the follow-up interview!

I think this is a rare time where even steven booking has a little value, at least at the team level. All 3 factions need to look strong for a little bit until there's a big payoff. I'm fine with BAD going 1-1 this week, but with Sasha getting the decision in the win and Naomi taking the fall in the loss. That's the best way to do it.

Holy shit, Piper with the unironic "What about all the good things Hogan did?" defense... That's even better than the "freedom of speech" and "black friends" pro-Hogan arguments I was expecting from 80s wrestlers (that could still very well happen).

The best way for her to improve her confidence is to keep turning it decent performances and improving gradually so that she can actually *be* confident in what she's doing. It'll also help when she settles into a role, whether it be face, heel, or the John Cena style "Love it or hate it I'm me." Her match with Cassie showed me that she has enough of a foundation that I'm ok with letting her iron out her act on tv, similar to Dana Brooke.

I was joking about Eva using the Sliced Bread #2 as a finisher last weekend, and I'll be damned. I thought she looked pretty passable out there. Room for improvement, yes, but it was night and day from her brief and horrible appearances in those early Total Divas tags. Unfair though it may be, she'll have to work double hard to overcome her reputation (maybe she can ask Roman Reigns for some advice on that), but I think if a brand new woman turned in that same performance, it wouldn't be viewed nearly as negatively. I say give her a shot. Cassie looks like she could be really good too, hopefully they find some other jobbers so she doesn't get too much jobber stink on her. Lots of squashes on this show. Felt like an episode of Worldwide, but not in a bad way necessarily. Wesley Blake's haircut should be like Miz's outfits in that it's so awful, it should make him a heel instantly. Unfortunately you still need some personality to parlay that into actual heat. Dana and Emma had a nice heel promo. Does anyone else like Devin as an interviewer? She always has the best "God I hate my fucking job" expressions when heels treat her like shit.

The booking looks like trash, but I won't be too picky about how we get to Owens/Cesaro at Summer Slam.

The "Drive By" was definitely MVP most recently. It was a a bicycle kick to a kneeling opponent, and still a staple in the CAW moveset for the SVR/WWE2K series. Also forgotten amidst Rusev's comedy, was HHH's great line in one of the backstage segments. Steph said something like "I don't trust [Heyman] as far as I can throw him," and without missing a beat, HHH drops a completely deadpan "And that's not very far." The way he said it made me laugh so much I missed the rest of the segment.

First one that to mind was the Raw right after New Year's Revolution 07. The main things I remember were the god-awful "Rosie"/"Donald" match, and segments leading up to it. Also the main event was a sub 2-minute Cena/Khali match. From the results, it doesn't appear I forgot any hidden gems. http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/results/raw/070108.html

That Rusev segment was gold. "I must go to my match now." Overall a pretty fun show. I enjoyed it more than Battleground. Harper/Roman was a fun hard-hitting match, and PTP/Matadores was a great little under-the-radar match in the 5 or so minutes it got. The women's tag ended up being decent too. Paige and Sasha really stood out, I wish Becky got to show a little more on the offensive side of things, but there's plenty of time for that. If my math's right (and there's no guarantee on that at this hour), there are 54 different singles or tag match combinations they can run, and I'd be willing to bet we see most of them at some point in the next few months. They need to play Sasha's theme more and Naomi's theme less, though. Edit: Imagine an alternate universe where Rusev teams with Santino instead of Koslov...

I've been saying Barrett's a midcarder for life since 2012 or 13. He hit his ceiling super early in his career, which made him look like a phenom, but he never improved much after that, and the influx of talent that came in afterwards passed him easily. There are definitely 15+ guys on the roster who have at least been better at some point/are easily better when motivated and probably at least 10 who are unquestionably better right now. His current role of off/on again IC title guy is where he needs to be until he wants to hang 'em up and become an announcer.

I think they can get away with Rollins/Kane as a non-ME title match on a show with Taker/Lesnar. I don't care for either part of that equation, but it seems likely. I'll have to re-watch 3 obviously, but having seen the first one twice now, I disagree. It had a slower first half with a lot more control by Owens. It looked like he caught Cena off-guard, but played his side of believing that he was legitimately better very well (like yelling "you have something to prove to me" when he had Cena down). The finisher overkill in the second half fit better with Cena being desperate as well as Cena (and a good chunk of the crowd) not having any idea what Owens would throw at him next. The last two matches felt like they went straight to the finisher overkill, but everyone knew it was coming and they didn't up the stakes with any new moves.

I know no one wants to see this match and I don't blame everyone for coming up with anything else, but it's been brewing for months and makes perfect sense storyline wise: Rollins vs. Kane for the title. I was surprised how little I liked this show given how good the card looked going in. Orton/Sheamus felt mailed in and was way too long. Were it not for Sandow, I think Sheamus would feel like the most worthless MITB holder ever. The tag titles were easily the best match on the show. It's amazing what a little match structure can do. Bray/Roman was ok at times, but puzzling at others. The blood feud match opening with headlock exchanges was terrible. Some of the stuff at the end got decent, like Bray taking that clothesline counter that Sheamus did a couple weeks back. Harper's back which is something positive I guess. Bray has a knack for winning and losing all the wrong matches. The women's match was ok. I know Brie is getting shit on here, but Charlotte and Sasha didn't exactly turn in their finest work here either. They both didn't look comfortable with the triple threat setting and were doing counter spots to moves they hadn't established. Charlotte popping up and nailing Sasha after the mocking strut only works if Sasha gets the slow walk-up slap over the main show audiences first. They hit their big spots well enough and got good reactions which is the most important thing, and Charlotte went over strong. The crowds seem ready and willing to be patient for something special, so hopefully they get some opportunities that are more conducive to their skillsets. They also need to establish Sasha as the leader of her group (play her damn music) instead of Naomi. Cena/Owens was exactly the same match they had last month and this feud is getting some serious diminishing returns. The first match was the only one that had anything resembling structure or good pacing. For a board where Davey Richards' no-selling your-move-my-move style is a running joke, it's crazy to see these matches get so much praise. Owens work in NXT compared to this is night and day. The main event was exactly what it needed to be... for 5 minutes. Those 5 minutes were awesome and probably could make a good case for best match on the show (again character work and match structure, who knew?), though a far cry from the MOTYC I was hoping for. The way Brock sold Seth's early offense like you or I would sell a fly hovering around our plate at a picnic was perfect. The laughing and begging him to jump at him, and the sprint when he tried to run away were great spots. I was really digging it until the non-finish of course. Taker/Brock 2 does nothing for me. Their first match was Brock's worst in his second WWE run, save for the truly special finish which obviously can't be repeated. If he was just gonna come down and kick Brock in the nuts, he should've been Booger Red anyway. Rollins just disappearing during the whole thing was so stupid. Have him collect the cheap pin so he can brag about how he conquered the beast before someone interrupts him and he shits his pants again for god's sake.

It's hard not to think Angle when looking for a pro comp for Gable just because of the amateur background, but Angle was a self-depricating goofball when he debuted. Gable seems to have more confidence and flashiness about him while still being a little goofy, kind of like Jericho.

Pretty much everything involving the Ministry of Darkness. Oh, and Kane's run right after he lost the mask when he was setting JR on fire, electrocuting Shane's nuts, and the like.

Oh, I think it would work great for her. A constant stream of self-pity would only make the crowd boo even more. It worked for Gunner.