NintendoLogic

He had a pretty good number of singles matches on Raw and Smackdown. http://www.profightdb.com/wrestlers/roman-reigns-6728.html?year=2014 How many of them can you recall with any degree of specificity? Exactly. Meltzer was an outlier on Reigns/Orton. Scott Keith's comments far more closely capture the general consensus: I dunno about this Reigns push, dude. This was a really slow-paced match and the fans were more into Orton’s comeback. I was certainly not particularly invested in the finish or anything. This was certainly not the star-making performance they were probably looking for. **1/2 And he came in second to Kane for Most Overrated in the 2014 WON awards.

The thing is, all of Roman's singles matches prior to the Rumble were pretty underwhelming, so it was easy to see him as a guy who looked good when he was protected in the Shield but had been exposed in singles. Once "smart" fans peg you as someone who can't work, that reputation is nearly impossible to overcome.

EDIT: Beaten to it For what it's worth, Kevin Owens is from the South Shore and not Montreal proper.

If the dog story is true, I hope he rots in hell.

I see what you're saying, but I have to disagree. Yes, Steph took the majority of the match, but, the heel is supposed to do that. Steph vs. Brie isn't exactly Ronnie Garvin vs. Jim Cornette in terms of a mismatch. And, Steph's win was due to Nikki turning heel on her sister, which should have theoretically transferred the heat from Brie/Steph to Brie/Nikki. But, it never really went anywhere, and, the Bellas just sort of kissed and made up without any explanation. Summerslam was her first match in over a decade, and she had never been portrayed as all that competent when she did wrestle semi-regularly. It would've been one thing if she had used her authority to stack the deck in her favor or something like that. But she just bulldozed Brie like she was Bull Nakano. If you compare it to how Cena/Laurinaitis was worked in 2012, it's like night and day. And Johnny Ace was actually an accomplished wrestler.

Stephanie has been tolerable in her current role. She's not really adding anything to the product, but she's also no longer making Raw literally unwatchable for me.

Honestly, Dylan is literally the only person I can recall who expressed a negative opinion about the ladder match. I haven't seen it, but I doubt I'd like it much due to my disdain for ladder matches in general. I did like all the other matches in their series, though.

I checked out Asuka/Bayley and Joe/Nakamura. Botch aside, the women's match was pretty solid, but Asuka having to respect Bayley's Diva-tier offense was kind of annoying. It'd be like if Toshiaki Kawada had to sell for Shawn Michaels. On the other hand, I absolutely loved the NXT title match. Maybe all the video game wrestling on display at Summerslam lowered my expectations, but seeing an actual wrestling match built around strikes and matwork felt like a breath of fresh air. At first blush, I'm prepared to call it the best singles match in the US this year. After seeing all the love the Revival tag is getting, I'll make sure and check it out as well. I really like what I've seen from them so far, so I'm sure it'll be right up my alley.

Folks at DVDVR are speculating that it'll lead to Bryan siccing Samoa Joe on Miz.

In fairness, he also said the following: That being said, is it stupid to ask senior citizen Sting to TAKE that bump on his neck? Yes. Is it stupid to ask Balor to take that bump into a guard rail? Yes. But it’s not technically Seth’s fault. That being said, yes, they need to stop doing that move. The way I read it, he's saying that the issue is with the move itself and not Rollins specifically. Of course, Rollins also broke Cena's nose and blew out his knee trying to do a sunset flip powerbomb. He wouldn't have to do all that high-risk stuff if he knew how to work.

It's not bad luck when it keeps happening with the same guy. Rollins needs to learn how to work.

Scott Keith gave Cena/Styles ****3/4. So there you go.

The problem with the modern WWE style is that everyone has a boatload of moves that can't finish a match and only exist to take up time. So we get AJPW/ROH-style big move overkill combined with the WWE tradition of only one or two legitimate finishers. It's the worst of both worlds.

I guess that explains why they had that long Reigns/Rusev match last Monday.

It reminds me of the WWWA belt.

We still have three marquee matches left. When is this show scheduled to end?

I think those were supposed to be biker patches on his tights. Why, I have no idea.

Cena is probably the worst worker in the company right now. It's only a matter of time before his matches consist of literally nothing but finisher kick-outs and laying around.

How does Vince having to abort a planned Hogan/Roberts program because too many fans cheered for Jake when they taped the initial angle play into his crowd mastery rating?

Verne turned Hogan babyface at the end of 1981. Hogan's first title shot against Bockwinkel came in February of 1982. Rocky III came out in May of 1982. So Verne pushing Hogan as a top babyface predates Rocky. Yes, Verne brought him in as a heel. But he saw the reactions he was getting and, quelle horreur, let the crowd dictate to him. Not to mention the fact that he got Hogan over by booking him the exact same way he had booked the Crusher in previous decades. This idea that Verne had nothing to do with Hogan becoming a star is completely ludicrous. Come on now.

For what it's worth, the "this is awesome" chant was originally intended to be sarcastic. The first one was during the Monster's Ball match at Victory Road 2004 (yes, it's another thing we can thank TNA for), and the guy who claims to have started the chant says he did it to mock Raven, who had been a dick to him at a previous show. He had no idea that it would metastasize into what it has become.

I'm not a fan of Magnum/Tully either, but that's mainly because I think the match gimmick sucks. Here's every I Quit match ever: "SAY IT!" "NOOOOOOOO~!" "SAY IT!" *THUNK* Repeat until it's time to go home.

Looks like Brother Gawker has been DELETED. http://gawker.com/gawker-com-to-end-operations-next-week-1785455712

How many wrestler deaths can be linked solely to steroids? Plenty of steroid abusers have died, of course, but just about all of them were also abusing other substances. Steroid abuse is/was far worse in bodybuilding, but the death rate among bodybuilders is nowhere near what it is among wrestlers. I don't dispute the health hazards of steroids, but it seems pretty clear that cocaine and painkillers are far bigger contributors to mortality.

If you combined the in-ring action of 1992 WCW with the booking of 1997 WWF, you'd have the perfect promotion.