Jimmy James

in the final twist, the political hit is a work

Maybe the Authority/HHH, will be babyface next year, systematically burying the entire WWE roster so his NXT guys can come in and save wrestling, or something.

HHH posting a selfie with Nakamura immediately after the main event puts this beyond parody. I can't believe this.

Sid, to me, had basically nothing going for him except charisma.

Ditto You guys will be cited as evidence of HHH's massive drawing power at some point. I've decided my personal hell will be the main event, with Roman's offense getting massive boos and HHH's offense getting "NXT!" chants.

It's nice that the whole Todd Martin/Filthy Tom swap worked out well for everyone.

Just wait until he's cutting babyface promos at Axxess and the network about Nakamura coming to NXT.

Well, hey, it's the first rumble for the title since 1992, so I'm excited about that one, at least.

Mahabali Shera has to be Most Overrated if you even vaguely consider TNA a significant promotion anymore.

I think that if the last 48 hours have showed me anything, it's that "rehabbing" someone in wrestling really does not take a very long time if you book it well enough.

Vince being in the arena also showed that having people act like the result of a match really, really matters will get a match over.

This Stampede footage is absolutely beautiful.

So if they can add all this great territory footage, why can't I relive the glory days of 1999 Nitro yet?

He's made similar "women are just kinda crazy" remarks in the past on unrelated things too.

Does HHH count? Hard to reconcile the lines of thought where he's an overpushed, overrated boring wrestler who buried more deserving workers, sunk ratings as top guy, and was a piece-of-shit backstage politician, and the one that casts him as the savior of modern wrestling who's going to make RAW just like NXT when Vince finally dies. Yet both these lines of thought seem to simultaneously exist in the greater community. I guess the latter line of thought isn't related to him as a wrestler, but even then, it's remarkable that the same group of people who will tell stories about backstabbing-piece-of-shit HHH who only pushes Sheamus because he's a workout buddy will also mention about how they can't wait until Vince dies so HHH can fix RAW.

The absolutely wretched run that Seth had with the belt can't have helped either. That finish looks awful in retrospect, and I wonder if WWE's ratings would have been so awful this year if there were simply a top babyface champion. By the way, what does everyone think of the two Taker/Lesnar matches this summer? There's actually a funny contrast with the finish to the first match, which I loved, and seemingly everyone else hated, which is basically the opposite of how I felt about the Rollins cash-in finish. (also, the spot where they start slugging the hell out of each other while sitting down is maybe my favorite single in-ring moment of the year)

I appreciated the length of the Lapsed Fan podcasts when I was on a cross-country flight to San Francisco last year, for whatever that's worth.

Most of the audience who doesn't post on wrestling boards, I think, like Roman at this point, but yeah, this is one of the only places where I've seen that match acknowledged for being as good as it was. Most other places, Roman Reigns matches devolve into contests for whoever can post that Roman is gassed first.

I don't know if there's any way to tell for sure, but at the time, I thought that the crowd absolutely was coming alive for Roman in his comeback at the end. This really was one time where the hostile crowd added to the match- Brock was booked as this completely unstoppable beast to the point where it felt like a crowd at the Colosseum cheering for the lions to go over the Christians clean. (that said, I have no idea how the hell the crowd popping huge for the heel run-in works in this bad analogy) I think people have mentioned this before, but WWE never really sold this match as an incredible classic, and this wasn't put together to be a self-conscious classic like your 30-minute HBK match, which makes me love it even more.

Anything for Rusev to do is nice, and I'm already liking the prospect of him and Reigns if they go with a "beat the authority goons" thing.

I loved Lil' Naitch being pissed off with Sheamus celebrating with one foot on Reigns, by the way.

God, screw MITB.

Well, at least this won't ruin the Mania main event again.

Pop for the HHH spear was nice, at least.

No turns yet, so, uh, Sheamus? Maybe they give him a cash-in match that isn't 90 seconds long?