Hagan

Aligning Wade with Cesaro and Heyman would be incredible. I think they're onto something with Barrett finally. Everything seems to be clicking. Jesus, a Barrett/Lesnar/Cesaro six-man with The Shield or with Bryan and whomever would be gold.

Finished the show. Really enjoyable. Finishing stretch of Shield/Evolution was great. Bryan/Kane was nothing I really ever want to see again, but, hey, everyone wants Bryan to be booked like Stone Cold and that was certainly an Attitude Era-main event.

Not a bad show, per se but I think they've gone slightly askew on things that were effective pre-Mania. - I think Cesaro/Heyman WILL work eventually, but it's not working now. Maybe it's the fact that Cesaro went from a burgeoning babyface back to a heel. I don't think anyone wants to see him fight Swagger or, really, RVD, either. It's not that Paul shouldn't be hyping up the Brock thing and trying to get heat, but it just seems we've gone too many weeks from seeing the Cesaro that was uppercutting dudes from a billion angles and then swinging them to the moon. - I don't think the Kane stuff is dooming Bryan or is meant to make him look weak, but, due to a couple of real-life events, we've gone a bit from seeing Bryan kicking heads in to him having to emote and act, which isn't what got him over. First it was comedy, and then it was great ring-work and being a great babyface. And, while Steph has generally been great, the faux-babyface act just feels a bit played. Hunter has dropped the pretense so Stephanie should do the same. - I really, really like the opening segment, but, again...we need more Harper/Rowan mauling people. Now that I type this out I guess I realize that what's missing is that with all these new guys bumped up to de-facto main eventers that have to carry promos and angles after having plenty of time for matches when they were upper-midcard, now we have a mid-card filled up with a lot of stale acts. The dismantling of the tag division after it's brief, glorious resurrection has definitely hurt the match quality too (though I liked the Usos match fine). Oh...Paige and Brie was really good for the time it was given, not that the announcers gave a shit. And not sure what the problem was with Flair's promo. It was fine. It seems like every time like Hogan, Flair or Piper show up, people are convinced it's going to be embarrassing so they over-exaggerate everything.

Not a bad show, per se but I think they've gone slightly askew on things that were effective pre-Mania. - I think Cesaro/Heyman WILL work eventually, but it's not working now. Maybe it's the fact that Cesaro went from a burgeoning babyface back to a heel. I don't think anyone wants to see him fight Swagger or, really, RVD, either. It's not that Paul shouldn't be hyping up the Brock thing and trying to get heat, but it just seems we've gone too many weeks from seeing the Cesaro that was uppercutting dudes from a billion angles and then swinging them to the moon. - I don't think the Kane stuff is dooming Bryan or is meant to make him look weak, but, due to a couple of real-life events, we've gone a bit from seeing Bryan kicking heads in to him having to emote and act, which isn't what got him over. First it was comedy, and then it was great ring-work and being a great babyface. And, while Steph has generally been great, the faux-babyface act just feels a bit played. Hunter has dropped the pretense so Stephanie should do the same. - I really, really like the opening segment, but, again...we need more Harper/Rowan mauling people. Now that I type this out I guess I realize that what's missing is that with all these new guys bumped up to de-facto main eventers that have to carry promos and angles after having plenty of time for matches when they were upper-midcard, now we have a mid-card filled up with a lot of stale acts. The dismantling of the tag division after it's brief, glorious resurrection has definitely hurt the match quality too (though I liked the Usos match fine). Oh...Paige and Brie was really good for the time it was given, not that the announcers gave a shit.

First TNA show I've watched since the last PPV. I'll just say that Storm and Gunner was a good, violent, bloody brawl. Everything else ranged from awful to okay.

Cornette's interview with Honky Tonk was really, really cool. Some cool Southern wrestling stories. Check it out.

With all this Warrior talk, Meltzer really pushes the idea that Hogan sabotaged Warrior after 'Mania 6 with the kicking out after the three, the selling of the loss, and the handing the belt, and making the sad face and shit like that. Meltzer makes it sound like one of the all-time fucked up double-crosses. Am I wrong for not really seeing that? I mean, is this just general consensus or is it just Dave over-reacting for the last 20 years? Curious to what everyone thinks.

c'mon guys, Santino maintaining kayfabe is wonderful! I love that him and Undertaker are the only WWE dudes who never break. And good for Santino, dude has made a shit-ton of money and sold a shit-ton of merch while riding a comedy character for 7 years.

Who's Pitbull? Wade Barrett is great.

Apropos of nothing, but gotta say I'm finding the Uproxx.com wrestling reviews to be some of the more entertaining stuff around. Wasting time at work reading reviews of NXT season 1, which, needless to say, is fascinating on a lot of levels.

Not trying to be didactic but a lot of people talk about how "The Shield will be great as main-eventers." They ARE main eventers. Them and Bryan have essentially anchored TV for the last year and a half. I would imagine if you looked at the time Cena/Orton have gotten on TV and PPV and the time The Shield has gotten, that The Shield is way ahead. The future is now.

I may actually watch this. I've always loved EY and thought that them doing an angle as him being one of the last "original" TNA guys and going for the belt would be great. Of course, them bumblefucking it all up in one show is typical TNA, but whatever. He has had such an incredible and odd TNA career. Good for him.

What an awesome photo that is.

It's so weird. I mean, we're all pretty numb to wrestling deaths at this point. I think Eddy was the one that really bothered in the way that I didn't think I could watch wrestling anymore, or at least I couldn’t get emotionally involved anymore. Obviously, Benoit was just awful, but in a weird way it made me want to rally around wrestling because whatever the darkness of wrestling is, it isn't THAT. Not to that level. And Macho was tough, but Mach was out of sight for so long, and it was just sad that he died after seemingly finding happiness. This is more just...really since 2011 I've found myself really invested again. Whether it was Punk, or Bryan, The Shield, the Undertaker's streak, or the very unique run of Cena, or really the shift and emphasis back on the wrestling and the fact that we haven't had as many tragedies or sordid shit that ruins thing, but wrestling has been fun for a while now. Maybe it's just that wrestling is just better after being kind of up and down in the post-Attitude Era 2000s, but there’s so much to enjoy now. It went back to less being something I'll always watch because I've watched it since I was 5, but more that I’m excited to watch it. And this weekend was the culmination of that. One of my favorite cities in the world, a HOF-filled with a lot of inspirational stories and colorful characters, 80,000 just friendly, cool people so excited about being in New Orleans and seeing 'Mania, and a show that saw probably the last match of one of the greatest performers in history, and one of the truly-great blowoff feel-good moments in wrestling history. And then even Raw Monday and Main Event Tuesday were just fucking awesome. I watched the Shield match last night as I was grading papers and I was thinking about the weekend and I was just fucking pumped about all the shit coming up. And then this happened. And it reminds me that you should never care too much because this, particular to other forms of entertainment and sports, always has tragedy looming.

I'm a little ashamed of myself for suggesting this, but, after really not liking Sheamus for a while now, last night got me thinking that you could probably build up a pretty good 'Mania main event with a heel Sheamus against Bryan. Play up the history, play up the 18 seconds, and I think you have a way to fix Sheamus and they could have a very good match.

Whether or not it was natural causes or not, can we not get into a moral debate about suicide? We all have our opinions, but it really doesn't need to be hashed out on here.

this is unreal.

Just listened to the post-WM show. God, technical issues aside, so much asinine discussion over crowd heat for the show.

Yeah, I mean, Brie wasn't breaking down Ring of Honor footage or anything. She was telling the world how much she loved him and how good of a guy he is. I loved the scene of Cena and him talking, which was clearly completely staged.

I assume facing the hard camera during a pin is like a Kevin Dunn Golden Rule. Actually, the whole idea of "TV" wrestling versus house show wrestling or wrestling just for a crowd is pretty fascinating to discuss. Also, and I love Harper, but his moveset is so incongruous for his character. Not that I don't love it, but dude is busting out awesome superkicks, dives, Michinoku drivers etc. It's all awesome, but just somewhat odd.

Just came to post that. Yeah. This special is great.

Yeah, everyone needs to watch that. Holy cow. Not even gonna try to rank it with the other two but, man as three-match series go this is up there. The post-match interview is fucking awesome too.* *I know the live show thread rule. Sorry.

Smark crowds hating Rey is odd. So, I feel like death from NOLA but Saturday, Sunday and tonight are as good a three-day stretch as WWE has ever had. And we talked about how terrible WWE babyfaces were last year. Well that shit certainly changed.

Well, in the post-PPV era, the idea of needing the "draw" is somewhat by the wayside. And the idea is that Batista was supposed to be the big star draw (and, of course, Lesnar). I like the idea of 'Mania getting back to great matches up and down, rather than shoehorning celebrity matches or bringing back a shit-ton of older stars for quick shots. Hunter being in this spot is way more preferable than him randomly showing up during 'Mania season to start a program. This is at least the blowoff to an eight-month long angle. The Lesnar/UT thing has been underwhelming but I gather the fear is that Undertaker is so broken down he can't really take too many ass-kickings on TV.

But don't they know that Cesaro won March Madness?