Stiva

They're flying through them too. I guess they spend the first part of the month getting the old uploads ready and then fire them out in the last week as they're preparing for what comes next.

That's a hell of a lot of matches. The pre-show will be a PPV card to itself at that rate.

Pretty big night of Raw last night with the Bailey title win and Owens turning on Jericho. Does Charlotte do the usual thing of dropping the belt on TV and then gaining it back on PPV?

I'm happy that Miz and Maryse are getting a high profile Mania match as their act has been fantastic for about a year now. I'm expecting the Chamber to be a great match, Becky/Mickie to be a real solid affair and I'm hoping that The Usos are out first in the Tag Team Turmoil, dispatch everyone quickly and we get a real long AA/Usos tag match to finish it.

I'd love to see an Amazing Red WWE/NXT run from, say, 2013-onward though he may have been too small to even get signed now. Him bumping like a mad man for Sheamus sounds like a fun time to me.

They can't use NO ESCAPE because it's a WWE film starring Seth Rollins in 2018. Probably

Well, given the rumors of Nikki Bella retiring after Wrestlemania, who knows if hell will freeze over and Cena proposes to Nikki after their match. They would sell this as a wedding even bigger than Randy Savage & Miss Elizabeth at Summerslam 1991. Man, I'd love that just for it getting booed out of the building

At this point, I'm more interested in how the pre-show is going to look and just how long it's going to be.

I can see Styles retaining at the Rumble to build some kind of lead-in to Elimination Chamber. It's impressive how they've left a lot of threads dangling going into Mania but have booked themselves into a corner for a lot of their featured workers. Nobody knows who could win the Rumble but basically none of it is interesting. I'd laugh if Styles lost the belt before the Rumble match, entered the Rumble and won his title shot back though

Man, the world is weird. The last 2 years of WWE has played out like fan fiction

They tend to jump around with the uploads but I believe they've uploaded Punk's MITB win from 08 and that episode pretty much revolved around him.

For some reason, I'm incredibly excited to hear any potential titles for this.

Seems fitting to send off my subscription with TLBOA Awesome

I've just cancelled my subscription for the network (not out of protest or anything, I'm just in a position where I need to save some money) and it gives you reasons to click as to why you're cancelling. That's normal enough but when you click each one, it offers a reason for you to stay. So, one of them is "I can't find anything I like" to which it says something like "Do you know you can use our Collections feature?" etc which is fair enough but under "I don't enjoy the programming" (or similar), it says "WWE Network has drama, reality, comedy and family shows. Something for everyone! and under "I don't have the money" it says "Did you know: One year of WWE Network costs less than one month of cable?!" Like, yeah, I know all of those things but sorry that 'Holy Foley' isn't quite as engrossing as 'The Americans' Not a big deal and I understand why it's there (to try and valiantly tempt people back in, I guess) but Vince's "Why you watching Richard Pryor, we've got Santino!" line to Freddie Prinze Jr came to mind and made me laugh. Netflix? Stranger Things? Pah, there's some new episodes of Swerved to binge watch!

I'm checking these out now. I thought we got all the ECW we were going to get but I'm glad to be wrong. Yeah, I figured they'd just plough on with Smackdown uploads to mirror the mid-2000s Raws but to get late 80s NWA and now these early ECW shows is a pleasant surprise.

Man, Miz' push to the top came 4 years too early. If they were strapping the rocket to him now, he'd be incredible.

I can sort of see the Ziggler as challenger logic as a way for Ambrose to get a good solid first win as champ on Smackdown before moving to Styles/Cena but it happening at Summerslam is the weird bit.

Putrid DX reunion aside, I remember the ECW stuff around the time being really weird with Foley promos, Cena/Sabu matches and Flair trying to lose all the blood in his body wherever possible.

I predict that Smackdown, like it always did, will somehow make use of a depleted roster and still be the better show. Hyped to see long American Alpha/Uso matches

I could also see this and i'd be interested because there's one Uso who I think could be a good singles worker but I can't remember which one it is.

I actually think this kind of interview, in the intention that they were striving for, could work in this day and age. The idea of humanising a gimmick in an age where everyone knows the man behind it, seems like something you would try at least once. You can envision a well thought of worker getting a flamboyant gimmick and then, after a year, cutting a similar set of interviews as this where you get a good section of the crowd to get behind the "rejection" of the gimmick. It's interesting to see how something like a sit down interview has vastly different goals in 1997 than they do in 2016, but, fully understandable.

I can't remember who said it but the greatest quote about WWE TV I've ever heard is that it turned from a wrestling show to a show ABOUT someone running a wrestling show post Austin-McMahon

Why take the risk of disappointment in real sports when WWE can script the disappointment for you?

It's been a while since they've had someone put the MITB briefcase on the line too (I think). It would be fitting for Jericho to win it, brag on and on and then lose it when his ego gets the better of him.

These reviews are great and are making me want to dig out Chris Daniels' matches from this time as he's never been a guy I've been high on but if he's having good sub 10 minute tv matches here, thats my jam.