sek69

Saw that he passed away today, IMO one of the biggest "could have been a huge star" guys of his time. A former Yokozuna, he was a big star in sumo only to get kicked out for attacking the stable boss's wife which ended up being a recurring theme of his (losing jobs due to unprofessional violence). Had a brief run in New Japan where he sold out the Dome, but feuded with the booker and got fired. Tenryu brought him in, but that led to the famous semi-shoot with John Tenta because Kitao didn't want to lose to a guy who was a sumo equivalent to a midcarder. After that he went to UWFI where again there were issues, he didn't want to lose to Takada who ended up legit KO'ing him with a shoot kick. Afer a brief MMA stint he ended up in WAR before retiring. He's probably known best to US fans for the seemingly random tag match with Tenryu against the Smash/Crush version of Demolition at the 1991 Wrestlemania, which was set up due to the SWS/WWF partnership at the time.

Why would he not hear the end of it? He's said Cena's been set to have a match on the card all along.

The elephant in the room is that WWE has always only been able to book one women's program at a time, and anything else gets lost in the shuffle. This time they have the tag belts to help allay that somewhat, but anyone not in the mix for those or in the WM main just gets left behind. Even someone like Lacey Evans, who they clearly like for probably the usual Vince reasons, has not been given anything to do as of yet.

So have we reached a consensus on if that tape is THE match or not? From the piece Bix wrote on Deadspin he made it seem it is the miracle match and the date on the label was when it was converted for Bret. TJ Wilson retweeted Mary Kate vouching for her since people on the internet were acting like people on the internet to her, but it doesn't seem 100% clear to me what's on the tape.

Charlotte was great as the full on heel poking at Becky, but then Ronda went complete batshit crazy shooty shoot heel and it kind of rendered Charlotte obsolete in the feud. It's hard to see Vince deciding to hotshot a belt on her hours before Smackdown as anything other than him trying to make Charlotte relevant again.

NXT UK still comes across as something that was rushed just so WWE could beat the WoS reboot to the punch, despite the wheels coming off that project a long time ago.

Ivelisse apparently has issues that have caused her to burn any bridge she's come across so her path isn't so clear. Kobra Moon has already been appearing in ROH fairly often in her non LU persona Thunder Rosa.

They clearly focus more on this time of year than any other, that being a good or bad thing is an exercise for the reader, but they are more invested in the Rumble to Mania stretch than they would be at any other time.

They totally want to reenact the one they did in NXT, only with everyone holding a belt.

Rowan really needs a shout out for his strong metal band t-shirt game. Also I'd be willing to wager good money Vince gave that "you were never really going to quit" speech to at least a couple of the folks who's requested their releases recently.

It absolutely would be, but it's a sign of how great he's been in his heel role that people would get legit mad over the idea of Bryan winning at Mania now.

You know Vince is salivating over doing a "Eddy's my real dad" angle with him.

Well there's only one Women's tag title so it makes sense for there to be one single's title.

I saw it mentioned on Twitter that Linda's boss will sure enjoy seeing some SNL guys get made fools of on Wrestlemania.

WM 3 was great too. You had several well built angles/feuds all paying off on one show: Andre turning heel and confont the unbeatable hero Hogan in what was a match no one thought would ever happen. Ricky Steamboat heroically coming back from having his throat crushed by the evil Macho Man (with the bonus of George Steele's unrequited love for Elizabeth) Former villian Roddy Piper embracing the fans while taking revenge on Adrian Adonis trying to steal his talk show segment Evil Ref Danny Davis facing off against the people he screwed out of their titles.

AAA just announced that Cain Velasquez will be on the card for Triplemania this year.

In happier news, the Hart Foundation got in the HOF so that was cool if not a little late.

They're making Drew look like quite the killer, so they have that going for them.

No one's saying they are going to be huge rating draws for WM, but to say they are nobodies is ridiculousness that needs to be pointed out.

Yeah, saying the guys who host the most popular segment on SNL are "nobodies" is some real inside the bubble thinking.

Jesus....WWE can't keep from constantly bringing up Roman's illness in wrestling angles.

Did anyone else see the video of Elias and Finn doing "Shallow" at a house show? Tremendous. http://www.prowrestlingsheet.com/elias-finn-balor-shallow-video/#.XJlzVyhKiUk

Not sure how them beating a group that normally loses every week is going to help any of them, but MOMENTUM MOMENTUM MOMENTUM!

It seemed to get worse when they added two PPVs between Rumble and WM, then made the Elimination Chamber the "whatever brand didn't win the Rumble" Mania Match Creator show. Other than the winner of the Rumble facing the champ, the rest of the Mania build doesn't even start until after the March PPV.

The whole Bollywood celebration he did after winning the title was excellent. I know the whole Indian expansion didn't work like they thought, but it seems like they blamed him entirely rather than how the fans there didn't bite on their obvious pandering attempt.