WWE

Looks like Enzo's a certified draw since the third hour of Raw held up pretty solid despite both football and a Yankees playoff game on last night. Probably helped that the football game was a shit fest, but I guess Enzo was able to do the impossible and get the cruiserweights over.

So this is tonight. Nobody seems all that hyped up about it, for reasons obvious. I will be watching, because I am already paying for the Network, so it's not costing me anything extra. If this was a traditional PPV, I wouldn't touch this show with the proverbial ten foot pole. Also, I've been bedridden for the last couple of weeks with a brutal illness, so at least it's something to watch on television. It beats laying here praying for the cold embrace of sweet merciful death. Maybe. WWE Championship Match: Jinder Mahal © vs. Shinsuke Nakamura I want this to be good, I really do. But I haven't seen anything out of Mahal yet which gives me any confidence…

Not sure if this has been brought up, but how will a potential Shields reunion gel with the planned Roman vs. Brock WM match?

As Dave put it, at least they didn't name it after Stephanie.

I'm hyped for the big two matches for sure. This should be a fun card. I've enjoyed most of the Raw shows from this year, and really most of the PPVs outside of the bloated major shows

The Twitter account for the Greensboro Coliseum just announced WWE would be bringing back Starrcade on 11/25. How about that.

What's up with the attendance decline at TV? Is house show attendance down too?

Jason Jordan shines again, that was a really good match with Roman. And that rolling northern lights suplex is damn impressive. After the third week of shooty-shoot promo battles I think we're hitting diminishing returns. Also, jorts enthusiast John Cena has no room to take a shot at Roman's cargo pants.

Cena Destroys Roman, Round 2 going on as we speak.

So in the latest Observer, Dave talks about Mauro's absence from TV and states it's due to his bipolar issues as most people figured it was. He also seemed to make it pretty clear the trigger for this episode was constant belittling from JBL that more or less wore him down. I was thinking about this when reading it, do you think WWE has any culpability here putting someone who has been open and honest about previous mental health issues with a known bully week in and week out? It seemed like it was just a bad situation waiting to happen, and eventually it did. Especially in the current environment where they want to have a million announcers per show, it doesn't seem …

Cena and Roman GETTIN REAL during the contract signing. Kinda weird having Roman essentially redoing Miz's promo from the Wrestlemania build, Cena demolishing him making new believers in the Political Hit Theory.

From WWE via PWInsider Not looking good. More surgery on the horizon? Even if he buys some time in his wrestling career via surgery, it seems like WWE may not be keen on running with him in any prominent position from here on out, given their usual perceptions in these scenarios that a performer is "fragile". I have to say that Bryan Danielson's luck after working his ass off to get to the top has been awful. Thoughts?

So no one here watched Season 2? Some good stuff like Seth Rollins channelling Randy Savage and Rhyno channeling Mick Foley as they look like Bruiser Brody. Natalya channeling Luna Vachon sans raspy, 50 packs a day voice and veins makeup. Why Chett is so broken back in Season 1 Big E and Woods channelling Papa Shango The beginnigs of the Tex-Chadd breakup Weird thing though, season 2 is sponsored by Old Spice. For some reason I conflated Old Spice and Right Guard, because I was waiting for a throwback to the "...anything else would be uncivilized" line from the Right Guard campaign from that era.

So I have been watching NXT pretty faithfully over the past few months, and this was actually my first exposure to Drew McIntyre. I was not watching WWE from 2009 - 2014 when he was previously there, although I think I may have seen him as part of 3MB. I did not see him in TNA, because I'd rather smash myself across the bridge of the nose with a hammer than watch TNA. So here is what I've seen from Drew McIntyre so far... He's big He's in good shape He is at least passable in the ring (this is where I am not 100% sure if I am getting the full picture) He can cut a decent promo He's marketable. By that I mean, he's tall, good looking, and combining that with his S…

Not watching Raw, but it sounds like Cass may have suffered a bad injury during his match with Enzo

Surprised there wasn't a thread for this already Blood Orange live performance was an awesome start to the show and got an already hyped up crowd even more pumped

Here we are in 2017, where the major WWE shows are more bloated than a mid-70s Yes album. Last night's Takeover was the punk rock alternative, five matches in less than 2 1/2 hours. That's a sensible length. To say the least, I haven't been a fan of the super long shows of the last few years. Looking at the card, a few matches should be very good, and the main should be great. But is the damage to the soul worth it to get there? Anyway, I'm watching with a buddy and have plenty of beer in the fridge, with a back up plan of watching old school wrestling on youtube if we lose interest. I'll be tuning in for the main and Jinder vs Nak at the very least

Saw Strummer post this, nosed around a couple of MMA news sites and apparently the scuttlebutt is that Lesnar has officially re-entered the USDA drug testing pool. It's unlikely he would do that unless he was pretty serious about going back to MMA. Lesnar's one year suspension for failing the drug test after his fight with Mark Hunt ended this past Saturday. TalkMMA is reporting that Lenar and Heyman recently met with the UFC and as a result of those discussions there is even a chance he could fight as soon as the November 4th show at Madison Square Garden. The speculation among some MMA reporters is that this means it's likely that Lesnar will drop the WWE titl…

Huge pop for the Ambrose and Rollins stuff this week. Amazing what some thought out weekly booking can do. Revitalised two stale characters, made the tag titles seem important and got a huge reaction. Hope they add Roman down the line

Figured it was time for a new weekly TV topic. Raw tonight has the next step in having every combination of the SS main event paired off somehow before the show, plus probably the next step in the Jason Jordan-Angle saga.

I'm at RAW in Boston and there's a Bray Wyatt VS Finn Baylor match about to happen so I figure I take this time to write something that has bothered me over the last year. Modern WWE will skip the babyface shine and go right to the heat segment and usually the heat segment is methodical with lots of dead space. In my opinion it suckd all the fun outta wrestling. I think you can only do this when the babyface is already established and over. If the babyface is NOT, this creates a negative feedback loop leading to a heat vacuum. Where the crowd can't invest in the babyface can't get over because no one likes a loser. They are letting Finn have a babyface shine and p…

The triple threat match on Raw should be god damn incredible.

Going into this one pretty cold. I haven't seen anything from Smackdown since the women's MITB rematch, whenever that was. Looking at the card it should be a good show, with a few possible standout matches. Tye Dillinger vs. Aiden English (pre-show) Jinder Mahal vs. Randy Orton Punjabi Prison match The Usos vs. The New Day John Cena vs. Rusev Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch vs. Natalya vs. Tamina vs. Lana Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Baron Corbin AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens Sami Zayn vs. Mike Kanellis

Raw's opening segment was great. Hopefully the dude who Braun tossed over the top rope to the floor is okay. Strange how the quality of the shows has flipped over the past few months. Raw's been great lately and Smackdown is bad.

If this report is true, I feel it sets an interesting precedent for WWE Superstars. "Want to be considered for the #1 Contender's spot? What you need to do is lose a big championship match when you do get your chance - or try to straight up murder your opponent on PPV. Either one will get you in the running." Also, Rollins vs. Wyatt II, the match nobody asked for, and nobody wanted. Yay.