Strummer

Oh and apparently the Yes Movement was Brie Bella's idea and they liked it and went with it. She might have saved his push with that because they were able to use it for merchandise and branding him

I've seen a few bits online saying Bryan has already jumped the shark. Damn he hasn't even got the proper push yet and turned into the typical WWE babyface. I thought it would be at least till summer before we started hearing this stuff. And from SD it looks like Shield are turning babyface. Maybe they have decided to keep them together or just a swerve and they break up at Mania

The only other time hey showed ass like that was during the Big Show stuff. A little during the Rhodes Brothers stuff but that was forgotten pretty fast. They really need to make up for that mania and post mania

Just hit me that during her brief 2/3 months as Raw GM in late 08 Stephanie seemed to be trying to portray her current character but hadn't quite mastered it yet. She tried talking in the faux corporate monotone but couldn't quite get it then. And I don't know if it's a work but her voice now sounds as nasally as ever. Especially the last two weeks. I think she's amping that up for TV Hunter seems to have the corporate voice in the sitdowns with Cole but kinda loses it on TV. He's nailed it the last few shows though. So has Kane really. Kane has been a covert awesome talker during this last whole bit

Todd Martin returns to review RAW!!

According to Meltz before walk ups the Lockdown PPV sold 800-900 tickets. There was about 1500 in the building for the show

until verified I won't believe this was the plan from the beginning. No way.

hmm wasn't Benoit fighting for the US title during that time against Eddy, Rhyno, Tajiri types? Then he went into a program with Albert

People are saying she carried that segment but man I thought it was a team effort. Hunter and Bryan were great too. I did like how she reverted back to her old character with the screeching. she's been damn good on the mic but I don't knoiw if she is as good as Batista or Heyman as far as heels. The fact that she is in their league is a testament to how much she has improved though Still the best work of her career

http://camelclutchblog.com/former-wwe-writer-seth-mates/ pretty interesting read with him basically sounding like most of us since October

if Bryan does win the title at Mania they pretty much have to take Hunter and Stephanie off TV for awhile at least. If not it's just going to go in circles and we will be back where we started in August. They probably would be too tempted to keep screwing him over because they think it works in getting him more over. That's true to a degree but I wouldn't mess with that anymore. According to Meltz Vince is scheduled to come back in April so maybe they have something planned with that

"Go for it chubby" Man that killed me

Is it wrong that I preferred screechy Steph over corporate smarmy Steph? I know she is technically way better now but it brought back many memories of some fun segments and incredibly hot outfits on her

I would go as far to say that tonight was the first time in the whole angle where Bryan looked like a gigantic star. And you have to credit everyone involved there. Even the crowd and the plants

Why are people giving Punk credit for this? There is no way that the same scenario would happen to him. Sure he would have faced Triple H at WM but that was it. Bryan would have worked Sheamus. No matter what the crowd did I doubt they would have changed the Punk/Hunter match or title match

Agree. This was never the long term plan. But kudos to the company for calling an audible. Punk really did bring about change. If he didn't leave none of this happens

That was an incredible segment. Say what you want about him but Hunter was absolutely fantastic there. His first true great promo in this whole feud probably. Bryan showed some great fire there too. And we saw the return of screechy Steph!!

it will be interesting the next four weeks how they build up HHH/Bryan. The promos are basically repeating the same lines over and over. They have to change it up somehow, don't they? Hell it's the same promo they've been cutting since August just with slight variations. Part of me thinks Hogan could get involved here. I would also expect Bryan to get beat down several more times going into Mania

I think the company thinks he's popular because of the underdog aspect. I think that's part right but not the total reason why he's so over. They seemed to stop with the ugly, short stuff for awhile but it started back up last Monday. But yes I don't think the company understands why he's so over which obviously is affecting how he is scripted. I don't know if they will ever understand

I'm wondering when the deal was made to bring Batista back. Did it influence the booking from last fall? Just panic over the Summerslam number? Who had they planned for the title match spot if he hadn't signed? I do think a fair share of the Bryan stuff was due to bad timing. But the one sticking point is they never had the foresight to book his revenge on the heels for screwing him so I really have no idea what the time frame logistics were here

nothing has changed. Vince wants Punk back. HHH doesn't. PWI via 411:

and helped Christian

Dave also said that if Punk had not left they were still going to have Bryan face Sheamus at Mania. I had my doubts at first but Punk leaving definitely helped Bryan big time

with all the recent talk does anyone think that "Bryan doesn't sell merchandise so we can't push him" was a line fed to Dave by the company before the Rumble? I tend to think not and that it was legit and they really had no intention to push him but I guess it could be up for debate now

Bryan goes over again. Anyway else think they should be pointing out that Bryan is hanging with and sometimes beating the big guys? I guess they want it to speak for itself but with the way WWE usually presents its product the announcers should be hammering this home instead of focusing on the losses