CastleVania Rey

I hear it's called "Shatter". It's by Code Orange. It's FANTASTIC. THAT is an epic entrance song, holy crap.

Pat finished Corbin the same way Drew Gulak finished Corbin on the Saturday Night Main Event show recently. And yes, Gulak somehow won a match, in fact two matches against Corbin recently. Gulak has been training the celebs for the ring. Maybe he helped Pat practice for this match too, and that move was included in that. Overall a great show. First two matches REALLY good. Second best Brock/Roman match easily. Rest of the matches all good too. Edge has the new "darker" thing I hoped for it seems (EDIT: Nope...). And maybe best of all, the return of my favorite, BAYLEY, along with the long deserved call-ups (and rehiring) of Io and Kai. Only bad thing is seeing the repulsive glen jacobs again, but at least it was just for a few seconds. And seeing Kid Rock and his wife (or girlfriend?) almost licking each other's faces was gross. But I hate Kid Rock, so seeing him at all was going to grind away at me. I admit bias. Not sure how WWE keep delivering so well on these PPVs/PLEs all year. Raw and Smackdown haven't been so good by comparison. Here's to the Steph/Hunter era going forward.

Great show. All matches were good to great. I love that NXT can still do this even after becoming 2.0. Though I do miss when they made every event out to be a HUGE DEAL during the "1.0" time, or whatever. I have to figure it's time for Cameron Grimes to jump to the main roster. But countdown to him becoming a male model in the Max Dupree stable. 5, 4, 3, 2...

Doudrop/Becky was the best match. No contest. And I actually enjoyed Bad Bunny's appearance. And certainly Ivory's. (I was actually an RTC mark back in the day entirely because of her and Stevie Richards) I predicted (to my dismay) the entire show's results days ago though. Including Roman costing Brock the title, then Brock being #30 in the Rumble. EXCEPT... I thought Reigns would pin Rollins and not get DQed. But close enough. And I predicted Gulak would enter the Rumble and be thrown out in three seconds. But he wasn't in. :( In fact, here's a list of every non-injured person on the main roster who they left off the card entirely (despite Shane doing nothing in the Rumble): Men: Akira Tozawa Angel Garza Apollo Crews Cedric Alexander Cesaro Commander Azeez Drew Gulak Elias Erik Finn Balor Humberto Carillo Ivar Jey Uso Jimmy Uso Jinder Mahal Mace Mansoor Mustafa Ali R-Truth Shanky Shelton Benjamin T-Bar Veer Women: Alexa Bliss Xia Li

The Simpsons character is named Uter (debuted 1993). So I'd assume Vince isn't basing Walter on him. But Gunther/Gunter is the name of the penguin on Adventure Time. Take that how you will, considering the nature of that character. Regardless, hate the Walter rename (though it does mean "warrior" in German, apparently). Nice match with Roddy, though.

Extra love to you for the refs. Hey, maybe Kross can avoid disaster in-place when Scarlet swaps him out and swaps in a clone of Kross they won at the local fair. Oh, I was so young when that game came out... ?

Ah, so that answers some important questions. 1: Was what Raw did behind Triple H's back? Yes, it kind of seems that way. Triple H needs to pay more attention to Raw maybe. Or not underestimate what (thoughtless?) bastards they can be there whenever they feel like it. 2: Did punking out Kross interrupt important NXT stories and and make NXT look bad? Yes, NXT crew certainly seems to think so. Whether they did immediately or because they read fan reaction after, we can't be sure. 3: How does NXT react? By pretending nothing happened on Raw and trying to distract the audience with Joe shouting and Kross not being in the building to avoid any audience chants on the matter. If you ignore it, it didn't happen, as WWE has taught us. We just need Jeff Goldblum to say, "Now you're Vince McMahon" to Triple H. Chilling. I think this is better than talking about how weak your champion is, especially before JOE wins the title. But I'm disappointed in this plain approach. I was looking forward to the explanation that there are two Karrion Krosses. That the one we saw on Raw was fresh out of Impact Wrestling, before he sided with Scarlet and when he was weaker. Eventually the Raw Kross would disappear when he time-traveled to the past with Scarlet, taking whatever monster experience he collected from some future event with him, and became NXT champion. "Ah, so THAT'S what tick-tock meant!"

I can't speak for everyone, but at least for me, I'm not worked up. I already know they don't think NXT matters. I'm only venting about it because it's honestly sometimes the best way I can get through the horseshit week after week. I enjoy a little rant now and then. It clears my mind, because I know I'm going to end up watching it again week after week because it's the primary social interaction I have with a family member. Most of the time I vent to that family member, but sometimes I feel like spilling it forward here. And is something wrong with that? The thread isn't supposed to only be for praising Raw, I'd hope? Though I think people wouldn't be as bothered about all the dumbass decisions if NXT didn't outperform WWE most of the time. It's my preferred wrestling show, even if the mainland WWE management thinks of it as a "closet".

Well... Sure they don't care (except for their own petty amusement). I'm not questioning that. But isn't that why we have these forums? To talk about wrestling? Or maybe we should talk about non-WWE and not bother talking about WWE stuff at all? I mean, why are any of us here then? I suppose not watching Raw also works (the current ratings suggest this is a good solution). But then the champion from the show I like jobs to make the show I like look bad. So the solution becomes to watch nothing under WWE's umbrella I suppose.

That people are defending such horrible booking decisions is baffling to me. Were people defending that time Brock beat Kofi in mere seconds as well? I didn't check too far back then, but I bet so. I think fans have become desensitized from years of shit booking. The "consensus" (I like him) that Kross is bad is irrelevant here and I don't see how it justifies this. This isn't like calling up someone random from NXT (No Way Jose, EC3, etc) and crushing them. That's dumb enough as it is (Why even call them up if you don't like them?). This was the champion who represented NXT. A wrestler who has crushed the rest of the roster there. Did NXT put too many of their eggs in one basket? Maybe. But WWE does the same, albeit with wrestlers who wrestling geeks prefer to watch, I guess. But if they tried to spread the eggs around more the fans would just complain anyway that nobody is special and they're only trading wins. Now the point to anyone who has been paying attention is that NXT's roster is full of losers and everything they did to build a monster champion was seemingly for nothing. Veteran Jeff Hardy (though he's someone who has lost to everyone but Cedric Alexander for months now) beating Kross isn't inherently bad. I get it, Kross sucks so people think it's funny. But it sure as heck shouldn't have happened before Kross put over SOMEONE in NXT first. ANYONE. Even if Kross gets a revenge win next week (Jeff Hardy has his solo music back, so maybe not?), I feel NXT looks bad in this decision. But let's say it doesn't matter. That they and the fans will forget about it. Okay, I'll pretend that argument works for a moment. Why do it anyway? Jeff Hardy could have beaten anyone else. He's probably not going to challenge for the NXT championship. It just looks petty and spiteful. And if they didn't mean to crush Kross here, then they're more incompetent than I thought. They stripped him of everything about his presentation but his music to make him just an ordinary guy. It's like they wanted to hammer home how much they think he sucks. I get it. It's what WWE does to most NXT call-ups to make them seem unimportant. But they seriously couldn't wait till he was no longer the NXT champion for that? I'd go on about Keith Lee's treatment in another giant paragraph, but at least they're trying to make Lashley look as as strong as possible for *sigh* Goldberg. Well, that and I feel they buried Keith Lee a long time ago anyway. Glad for Nikki Cross, though. At least unless she loses it in her first defense in a week or so. Not sure if I should bother hoping for better.

"Sadistic prizefighting juggernaut". I like Kross, I admit. But I don't think he's supposed to be that complicated. He comes in for a fight, he hurts people, and he's huge. The Roman stuff is because he's like a gladiator. He wants to fight and hurt people and be recognized as the best. For better or worse, that's his act. And the suits are probably just because WWE sees no problem with giant menaces wearing them. See Mark Henry.

Well... This Raw was much better than usual. Despite WWE's long-time standard flaws popping up (tag title match is this weekend, so why are the challengers facing the tag champs in a six-man NOW?), this show was not a chore to watch. I even mostly liked it. But seriously, stop treating Asuka like an afterthought, even if the match was good. She should be treated like the mega-star she properly is. Glad to see Piper Niven too, and definitely glad to not see Eva in a match. And good to see Charlotte and Rhea finally throwing down. Heck, even Alexa Bliss looked good. I don't know if they'll KEEP it this way, but this demon-possessed Alexa form is far superior to the crap we got last week. I know, "Alexa has no business doing so and so to Nia Jax, they're so different in size" and so on. But Alexa's performance was strong. She looked like a proper menace this time. And NO stupid doll claiming credit for anything. I might not even much mind if Alexa can zombify Reginald to assist her later. Might, I said. But I'd rather they stay far away from the goofy stuff right now. So I hope that was a one-off thing. Also, I hope they don't try to make that first-grade insult "trashley" thing stick. Drew's name rhymes with "spew" after all. But oops, maybe I just gave WWE an idea. ;P

Holy shit. That main event was awesome. Definitely and absolutely. I deny any criticism... I mean, yes, it was a scramble city match, but it was a super good one. I also really liked MSK and Bronson vs. Legado. Good show in general. Your move, Hell in a Cell.

I'm pretty sure I heard piped-in booing sounds when Shayna stepped on Lily. And when she gave the fake apology, too. So WWE already thinks the doll is the babyface I'd guess. ?