sek69

This show was weird to me in the sense there was nothing wrong with the matches themselves, they were all OK to very good. The issue is I couldn't be bothered to give a shit about anything going on at all. They might as well have aired 3 hours of guys having practice matches at the Performance Center.

Hasn't it been stated by several former WWE writers already that Vince doesn't even pay much attention to things outside the main event level in WWE? The idea that he keeps tabs on NXT seemed silly to me. It's also the likely reason KD can sway him against NXT guys so easy if Vince has never seen them down there he only has Dunn's word that they don't have it.

Seems like Hunter, when parsing his corporate-speak, more or less echoed what Austin said in his interview with Vince that there's way too many people on the writing/creative team these days.

When Zayn won and the crowd was all on their feet it really reminded me of old school ECW crowds* where they would be really invested in seeing an angle pay off and showed respect to the guys involved. NXT crowds sometimes get shit for being to smart for their own good (not always undeserved), but last night was a real refreshing scene. *In which I mean "applaud for Eddie vs Malenko" and not the "vampires cheering for MOAR VIOLENCE* crowds.

From what I can tell when they add categories/descriptions it seems to happen all across the board at once. The actual videos seem to load in different times based on the platform.

LOL @ Hunter tweeting after the show "can someone help me? I'm missing a whole box of brass rings".

I know exactly what you mean, and it's pretty pathetic that shit like this ever crosses people's minds. Practically everyone is better off in NXT at this point as long as the people in charge at the top insist on lopping everyone off at the knees.

All the Corbin/Bull stuff made me wonder if a 911 gimmick would get over in WWE.

NXT is all Hunter and Raw/Smackdown is all Vince and KD. Between the booking and the near constant barf-inducing mega zooming camera, the top shows are nearly unwatchable.

I noticed the last three Raws from 1996 that were uploaded gave me errors on Roku until the next day, Seems like they are doing some kind of placeholder deal.

I'm not surprised that their own stuff is what they are uploading. Next in line is Prime Time according to the schedule. The TNT segment with Paul Orndorff insulting an overweight lady is tremendous. Is that the one in the Gym? In the UK in the 1980s which I didnt know at the time it was Orndorff he was ridiqueled on various compilation shows that looked at silly and funny stuff where he was berating someone at a gym. No idea where it was from though. That same one. It's hilarious. I saw it for the first time more than a decade ago in (I believe) one of those Best of WWF tapes. Shoe: A random ep of Prime Time Wrestling is on the network's schedule for Friday or Saturday. I scanned through it and saw a bunch of Rene Goulet, Mr Fuji, Iron Sheik, Volkoff... typical mid 80s WWF garbage, but I won't criticise them now that they are uploading stuff. Prime Time was never about the matches (at least it wasn't for me), it was all about Heenan and Monsoon interacting.

WWE has the advantage that they could create their own Rousey if they wanted to. They could easily take someone like Nattie and make her a submission bad ass. Would it work? Maybe, maybe not. The issue is they barely have the attention span to book beyond the next John Cena feud so the whole women's division would have to work hard just to be at the level of an afterthought.

Jay Briscoe and Adam Cole had the exact feud you were looking for in ROH. The culminating match wasn't in a cage, but it was bloody with a decisive babyface win.

I've always got the impression that Vince still harbors bad feelings over the Sable era where women dared to use the fame they got from being in the WWF/E, and that seemed to come to a head when Stacy Keibler became a bigger star by being on Dancing With The Stars. Ever since then it seems the women have been booked in a way that ensures they don't get to be bigger stars than WWE wants them to be.

I love how WWE seems to be trolling everyone since the biggest complaint was that there's a dearth of older content on the Network, the first thing they've uploaded in forever that was pre-90s was TNT shows that no one would watch more than once for the "lol, 80s" factor. Don't get me wrong, I like Fuji Vice and coked-out Hulkster yelling about Python Powder as much as the next guy, but it was way down the list of things I was waiting for them to upload.

His point was she never uses any of her father's signature moves in NXT in order to establish herself as her own character, and whoever put the match together on Raw had her go out there and do all his spots except the turnbuckle flip (which he half sarcastically noted would probably have got her over since it would showcase her athletic ability). It was stupid match layout, stupid booking, and didn't do anything to quiet the rumors Kevin Dunn has a hate boner towards anyone coming out of NXT.

Yeah the idea was to really ram home the idea that Andre was the most dangerous threat Hulk has ever faced, so killing the lovable jobber and busting him up in a way not seen in that era of WWF was the best way to do it. It's kind of amazing how well it worked. As a kid at the time, I thought Hulk was a dead man walking. Now I rewatch WM 3 and see a guy who can barely walk more than two steps away from the ropes without looking like he was going to crumble into dust.

Dr. D in full Jeff Lynne white guy afro mode is a sight to behold.

Briscoe-Cole was a blood feud, I'm not a huge fan of the type of match they had but it absolutely made sense given the lead in. The only odd part was that apparently ROH had a WWE style "plans change" moment and Cole was originally supposed to win, but once the decision was made not to have a ROH title match on the Tokyo Dome show they changed the finish. I thought the show was fine, Moose-Evans was more or less an Angle Advancement Match. Veda Scott's heel turn was Ray Charles level obvious, but it provided the line of the night over on the WON board when she was celebrating with Nana's crew: "three black guys and a white chick, that's how every good porno starts off".

The production people are going to collapse after this week, RAW has an extra half hour with the Slammys on the network, Smackdown/Troops show tomorrow, NXT Show on Thursday, NXT tapings Friday and then the PPV Sunday.

Everyone's doing their parts well but I can't help but thinking why would Miz (in storyline) want to suddenly start stealing someone's girl when everyone knows he has a hot wife at home. You can't even say it's not part of WWE canon since he mentioned her by name at least twice when he started doing his current gimmick (the one where he thanked his wife and dogs). I don't mind them doing shows like Total Divas, but it gets annoying when they established it exists in a different reality than WWE storylines and still try to mix them. Let's have a storyline based on the Naomi/Uso marriage but then have Nikki Bella cut a promo on AJ about how hard she worked to get to the top never mentioning who her boyfriend is. I mean, I know why they don't do it, but either stuff like Total Divas is part of the kayfabe "WWE Universe" or it isn't.

Paco should get at least a mention for being in charge of the oldest promotion located in one of the biggest cities, but has spent most of the last decade losing TV and not being able to get more than a quarter house in Arena Mexico unless it was a once-a-generation mask match.

They would do it in recent times to get people to watch Smackdown, not sure why they would have done it in 1984 unless it was just a screw up of some sort.

What has Paco actually done though? Not trying to be a troll or anything, but everything I've ever read indicated he couldn't give less than a shit about wrestling and seems to only be involved because it was his father's legacy.

As a video game fan, WWE sometimes reminds me of Nintendo in that they are constantly subject of stories filled with doom and gloom yet somehow still manage to keep on keeping on and make money. The difference of course is that Nintendo makes products geared toward their most loyal fanbase and each game is pretty much a license to print money. It's actually kind of impressive in a way how WWE keeps telling their fans that they don't know what they want, only WWE knows what they really want despite it getting rejected time and time again. As stated before, they've managed to build a thick wall of denial where any and all criticism of their booking is nothing but kids on the internet.