Main Event thoughts:

 

- Kofi, Big E, and Rybaxel deliver a solid, if somewhat unspectacular tag match. It's odd to see Big E play FIP, but Rybaxel were able to build up enough heat to get a little "We Want Ko-Fi" chant running for the hot tag anyway. Big E definitely seems like he could be the Jim Neidhart to Kofi's Owen Hart, if they want to keep rolling with this team. (Though drawing any comparison between Kofi and Owen makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.)

 

- Some more promo work for Miz, who's giving Bo Dallas some competition for the most delusional heel in the company. He even went for the same countout victory here vs. Sheamus as Bo did vs. Khali! The quiet, smug (but not over-the-top) hollywood act actually suits Miz pretty well; the Zbyszko routine that shaves off 2-3 minutes from the main with Sheamus, however, isn't quite as effective. Of course, once you see Miz attempt to mount an offense and control, the need to stall becomes clear. Sheamus wins with a re-run of the Raw finish; a rollup after Miz bails out from a Brogue Kick. If Sheamus doesn't send Miz flying out of the ring with a Brogue Kick to "the moneymaker" on Sunday, it will be a tragedy.

I'm wondering if WWE's going to kneejerk Rusev's push in response to Russia being linked to the airplane that was shot down in the Ukraine.

Rusev dedicated a match to Putin less than a week after the US and EU ramped up economic sanctions on Russia over the ongoing Ukraine conflict in April/May -- why stop now?

 

I mean, yes, tapping the brakes would probably be thd sensible thing to do, but so would taking a pass on a deliberately-political foreign heel character to begin with. In for a penny, in for a pound, even though it will probably end up being a pound of flesh when it's all said and done.

Sanctions and world wide outrage are two different things. Granted, sanctions hurt slowly and boring, like Dory Jr. But something like this that's more sudden and violent grabs the worlds attention and justifiable outrage faster.

 

 

The 1 hr run time is a big aspect too - that HHH match and the Main had to be pushing an hour combined. Not sure how'd you cut that stuff up to fit. If they wanted to feature him, maybe they could just recut that "Monster" video to include the title win and give people the full Bryan v. Authority synopsis in one nice video.

I know last year they showed the entire Rock-Cena match but don't they usually just mix up the highlights of some of the key matches into music videos like they used to do on Sunday Night Heat?

IIRC, they did that with one of Undertaker's matches, and set it to some Katy Perry song.

 

 

They did the music videos for 24 and 25 on the key matches which were awesome. 26 they just showed the full Taker/HBK with a musical finish to include HBK's farewell. 27 showed the full HHH/Taker with the as mentioned (and awesome) "ET" music entrance for Taker. 28 and 29 was just all of Cena/Rock.

 

 

That and especially the excellent HBK/Flair one were my personal favorites:

 

Rusev dedicated a match to Putin less than a week after the US and EU ramped up economic sanctions on Russia over the ongoing Ukraine conflict in April/May -- why stop now?

 

I mean, yes, tapping the brakes would probably be thd sensible thing to do, but so would taking a pass on a deliberately-political foreign heel character to begin with. In for a penny, in for a pound, even though it will probably end up being a pound of flesh when it's all said and done.

 

You don't see the difference between sanctions and blowing a plane out of the sky?

Let's try to stay Pro Wrestling Only if we can.

To try and stay as "PWO" as possible:

 

I already said that the political aspects of Rusev and Lana's act were awful and regressive a few pages back, but it's worth re-iterating: the pro-Putin crap is awful, regressive, and needlessly risky, specifically because of situations like this. The cheap heat isn't worth having the M80 blow up in the palm of your hand.

 

I didn't bring up the sanctions to try and declare some false equivalence with MH17 (which, yes, is obviously tragic and on a whole other level). I brought them up to illustrate that there have already been events in direct proximity to Rusev's push and that they've sent Rusev and Lana out there anyway. Maybe I should have just said to search for "kiev" and "february 20" instead, since that was a little over a month before Rusev's debut match on Raw.

 

The point wasn't that they should rethink or repackage Rusev NOW; the point was that they should have done it in the first place, long before MH17 became a question.

The highlight on an otherwise skippable Smackdown was the Sheamus/Dolph vs Fandango/Miz match, just for the Sheamus on the apron lifts his boot onto the top rope for his partner to smash their opponents head against it spot. I did a little mark out for that. When was the last time somebody did that? Does it happen all the time and I just overlook it?

 

Later, I was expecting a fake hot tag spot with the ref ushering out the fired up babyface after not seeing his tag.

- Some more promo work for Miz, who's giving Bo Dallas some competition for the most delusional heel in the company. He even went for the same countout victory here vs. Sheamus as Bo did vs. Khali! The quiet, smug (but not over-the-top) hollywood act actually suits Miz pretty well; the Zbyszko routine that shaves off 2-3 minutes from the main with Sheamus, however, isn't quite as effective. Of course, once you see Miz attempt to mount an offense and control, the need to stall becomes clear. Sheamus wins with a re-run of the Raw finish; a rollup after Miz bails out from a Brogue Kick. If Sheamus doesn't send Miz flying out of the ring with a Brogue Kick to "the moneymaker" on Sunday, it will be a tragedy.

 

Am I reading this correctly? Did Sheamus and Miz (i) wrestle on Raw; (ii) wrestle on Main Event; (iii) and are scheduled to wrestle on a ppv/network special the same week?

 

- Some more promo work for Miz, who's giving Bo Dallas some competition for the most delusional heel in the company. He even went for the same countout victory here vs. Sheamus as Bo did vs. Khali! The quiet, smug (but not over-the-top) hollywood act actually suits Miz pretty well; the Zbyszko routine that shaves off 2-3 minutes from the main with Sheamus, however, isn't quite as effective. Of course, once you see Miz attempt to mount an offense and control, the need to stall becomes clear. Sheamus wins with a re-run of the Raw finish; a rollup after Miz bails out from a Brogue Kick. If Sheamus doesn't send Miz flying out of the ring with a Brogue Kick to "the moneymaker" on Sunday, it will be a tragedy.

 

Am I reading this correctly? Did Sheamus and Miz (i) wrestle on Raw; (ii) wrestle on Main Event; (iii) and are scheduled to wrestle on a ppv/network special the same week?

 

Welcome to WWE's midcard!

Don't worry, Miz stalled enough in both matches that they might as well have been half-matches in terms of effort.

 

(Plus, they're in the battle royale on Sunday, so they'll have 18 other competitors to draw attention and give them a chance to breathe if they need it.)

 

Unless you're worried about over-exposure...if that's the case, then yeah, welcome to WWE.

The non-Raw shows should just be squash matches. Aren't Main Event and Superstars only an hour anyway?

They are, but they usually only have a couple of matches in that hour, with interviews and recaps taking up the rest of the time.

 

Main Event has actually had some great matches. The Brotherhood/Real Americans tag from March was one of the best tag matches of the year.

Titus O'Neil is the new Chris Masters, forcing me to watch Superstars or Main Event just to watch them have a good match that no one including their employer will care about.

The non-Raw shows should just be squash matches. Aren't Main Event and Superstars only an hour anyway?

 

They've been trying to push Main Event as a network draw.

So the live crowd apathy towards the Jericho/Wyatt program feels like a crowd that knows the old star is brought in only to "put over" the new guy and have seen it too many times to care any more. I'm sure this has happened before, but I can't really remember it. Maybe in Japan where "return matches" seemed to have been more common.

I will be surprised if - for better or worse - Jericho doesn't have this overwrought three-month program laid out. He seems aware of that perception because he's always defensive about it in interviews, which is why I think he might win tonight.

It was the issue I had when they brought back Foley for the Orton and Edge feuds. The matches were good (really good in Orton's case), but you knew he just had no shot.

Jericho winning tonight would be monumentally stupid

Yeah, he might do something similar to the feud with Ziggler. Were he won at Summerslam when everyone thought he was jobbing and then lost the next night on RAW. As long as Wyatt ends on top on their last match and wins the feud convincingly I don't mind a non finish tonight or even Jericho going over.

I think Jericho wins but by DQ

So the live crowd apathy towards the Jericho/Wyatt program feels like a crowd that knows the old star is brought in only to "put over" the new guy and have seen it too many times to care any more. I'm sure this has happened before, but I can't really remember it. Maybe in Japan where "return matches" seemed to have been more common.

 

To me the issue is a lack of stakes. With Cena there was some sense of the soul of the WWE being at stake. Bryan obviously had the whole joining thing. With Jericho, it doesn't really matter. You need stakes with a character like Wyatt.

Talk of Cena dropping the belt tonight. Stirrings about them pulling the trigger on Reigns. I still don't think it's the right time for him.

 

Put the title on Kane, it could work.

Talk of Cena dropping the belt tonight. Stirrings about them pulling the trigger on Reigns. I still don't think it's the right time for him.

 

Put the title on Kane, it could work.

 

That means you are turning Brock/Heyman face because Triple H doesn't need the "Plan C?"

 

Or turn the Authority face just to keep Brock/Heyman heel in a "YOU DOUBLE CROSSING NO GOOD SO-AND-SO" way?