NintendoLogic

The thing about NXT is that while it may be a great standalone promotion, I question its value as a developmental territory. The goal of a developmental system should be to train wrestlers and make them as well-rounded as possible, not get them over locally by hiding their weaknesses.

Wait...Goldust/Stardust is tonight?

Cornette's run in ROH obviously wasn't his finest hour, but the MMA talking point is ridiculously overblown. People were acting like Cornette was trying to turn ROH into UWFi when it was literally only Richards and O'Reilly doing the MMA stuff. It's as bad as the people complaining about Smoky Mountain of Honor because he booked a finish with an ether-soaked rag.

So I finally sat down and watched this. In fact, this is the first NXT show I've seen in its entirety. Time to see what all the fuss is about. Itami/Breeze: You'll never see me complain about a match where a worked-over body part is a factor throughout. Itami probably could have sold the leg more, but it's not like he completely blew it off. Not a home run by any means, but a solid base hit. Corbin/Dempsey: I thought this was a good hoss fight. After all the WWE hardcore matches with contrived spots and millions of weapons, I found the minimalism of this match quite refreshing. Lucha Dragons/Dubstep Cowboys: Yeah, this was pretty bad. You can't even call this a spotfest because the spots weren't even that good. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened until the finish. Balor/Neville: First of all, does anyone else think that Balor's entrance with the dreadlocks and Carnage body paint and him crawling around and lunging at the camera and shit is goofy as hell? Anyway, I'd describe this as a WWE workrate match. I'm not a fan of either guy's offense, so this fell flat for me. The nearfall where Balor countered the Red Arrow and did a small package was really good, though. Women's championship match: I'm opposed to multi-person singles matches on principle. Other than the finish, nothing in this match left enough of an impression for me to remember it five minutes later. Owens/Zayn: Owen's offense was a bit too chinlock-heavy for my tastes, but I thought this was an outstanding performance by Zayn. His bumping was absolutely insane, and his hope spots were really well-timed. I also really liked his punch-drunk comeback. The best part about the ending was the "Z-Pak" chant when Dr. Amann came out. Good show overall. Nothing knocked my socks off, but I never felt the urge to fast-forward through anything. Thumbs up.

Just to be clear, defamation per se doesn't shift the burden of proof on any of the other elements. It just means that Amann doesn't have to show that he was damaged by Punk's statements. He does have to show that Punk either knew his statements were false or, if he believed them to be true, didn't have reasonable grounds for that belief.

The WHC was the top title when it was the featured belt on Raw. It became secondary after Batista took it to Smackdown after John Cena brought the WWE title to Raw.

Figured this was worth a bump now that Joe and TNA have officially parted ways. I can't wait for him to start busting out MOTYCs in the indies and/or Japan while we all shake our heads over what could have been if he had spent the prime of his career in even a marginally competent company. Basically, AJ Styles redux.

If All Japan didn't have Mutoh, it wouldn't even exist today. Motoko Baba was going to pull the plug before he stepped in and bought the company.

Is Vince really so out of touch that he doesn't realize how this comes across to the average person?

I recall being met with disbelief when I suggested that the plan was to build Rusev up to feed to Cena. Also, Reigns no-selling the chairshot in that brawl was pretty bad.

They brought in Dusty just to do some pretaped backstage segments? That'll show him for going off script by cutting off Stephanie.

The closest thing I can think of is no-showing dates while AWA champion because Verne was stiffing him on pay.

Dynamite is a guy I find myself liking more the more I see of him. It's funny, he's largely thought of as this great technician, but if you watch his matches, he mainly just beat the crap out of his opponents. But there are few things I love more than a guy who can beat the crap out of others in an entertaining manner. In fact, I'll go so far as to call Dynamite one of the greatest offensive wrestlers of all time. He's pretty much a lock for my top 100, and I wouldn't be shocked if he ended up in my top 50.

I think Arn takes this easily, but come on. He wasn't even the best worker in his company in 1992.

You'd think that by now, these guys would be smart enough to realize that getting involved with other people in the business only leads to trouble. Um...unless you're HHH.

They have to release him now, obviously. What would happen if some kid did a Google image search of Seth and came across those pics?

Except Rusev is a much better worker and promo.

"Where deceased bodies go to decompose"? Who writes this crap?

That's the thing, though. They're not giving the fans what they want, at least not fully. It's certain to backfire for that reason. If the fans know that they can force the company to cave in, are they going to be satisfied with a few crumbs or are they going to demand the whole loaf?

Once you've established the precedent that fans revolting can force you to change the direction of your booking, thinking that token half measures will appease them is sheer lunacy.

It's pretty clear they've got a good cop/bad cop thing going where everything hardcore fans don't like is attributed to Vince and everything they do like is attributed to HHH.

For the record, Summerslam in 1990 didn't outdraw WM6. It was close, though. WM5 did more PPV buys, but WM6's gate was more than double that of 5's. In fact, it was the biggest gate in wrestling history at the time.

HHH's current on-screen persona has been good about showing ass and putting people over. Stephanie is a far worse offender in that regard.

It should be noted that WWE no longer receives any cut of the ad revenue. And even if it did, I'm willing to bet that ad rates for Raw were higher in 1999, when the trashiness was at its peak, than they are today.

I thought the consensus was that he had significantly regressed after coming back from his quad injury. That's what I remember Scott Keith saying in his contemporaneous rants. Also, I've seen quite a few people point to the crappy payoff to the 2000 HHH-Angle feud as a jump-the-shark moment. That might be more in retrospect, though.