So what happened to Bo Dallas? Injury of some sort? I realize he wasn't setting the world on fire but it's like he fell off the face of the Earth.

He wrestled on the show I went to in Abbotsford, BC last night. Teamed with Tyler Breeze against the Lucha Dragons and was super over with the crowd.

He works house shows just off TV

He had a foot injury and was supposed to be back by the Rumble, and now he's in creative limbo.

I remember reading somewhere that Jim Johnson is extremely reluctant to do anything on camera, some kind of stage fright/camera shy thing so I would think he'd be uncomfortable getting an award like that. I agree it's well deserved though. So many classic themes that really set the stage for a lot of guys. Something like theme music doesn't seem important at first but the right theme is like the icing on the cake to a great gimmick.

 

Random timing, but I was just watching a late 96 Raw where he appears on camera playing guitar with "The Real Double J" and he is speaking about how James has a bright career ahead of him. In the same episode Jim Ross on commentary goes on about how he doesn't report to Kevin Dunn quite a lot.

I think if Taker really comes out to When The Man Comes Around, that could be an awesome spectacle WM entrance and totally fits with his whole "Last Outlaw" deal a few years ago. Never been big on Wyatt but I'm optimistic for Taker to deliver a pretty good match with him.

Christ... if the crowd gave a shit about Roman Reigns then Brock Lesnar ' s promo would have sold me on the main event.

I just want Brock to keep the belt forever.

 

Erick Rowan has been getting the living shit kicked out of him by Big Show for the past three months. Rowan has been on offense for maybe a combined 45 seconds in said three months. What was the point of this turn?

It's understandable to limit Sting's appearances, but why isn't HHH here 2 weeks before WrestleMania?

First two hours of the show fly by when you keep in on mute while listening to Dylan on Shake Them Ropes.

 

I did hear the Cena, Rusev, and Brock promos. Cena was very solid rah-rah-patriotism take, on par with his others this month. Rusev has good delivery, but he shouldn't be this polysyllabic, cutting long scripted promos, to deliver the same bad lines as anyone else. Brock was by far the best of the three. He is clearly better on the mic than Heyman right now. Short and sweet sells fights.

The nutty thing about the Brock promo is it reinforces the idea that wrestling isn't fucking rocket science. I am going to destroy you whether I stay or go. The end. Rusev - Cena works because of its simplicity... USA! Russia! Everything else is just fucking stupid.

Was Mr Robot supposed to be Adrian Neville's new gimmick?

 

EDIT: Never mind it is a new show on USA.

Haha hammerva that's exactly what I thought.

That was actually a really good Reigns promo. Lots of confidence, made the match about whooping ass rather than the pussy-foot “prove my doubters wrong” theme they've been missing the mark on. He took a promo that had too much nerd verbiage and made it seem genuine and off-the-cuff. Short, effective, directed to Brock rather than the Penguin to his left. The “Dan-yul Bry-an” chants trying to drown him out honestly feel lame at this point. I like Bryan. It should be Bryan. But conflating Reigns with WWE's unwillingness to push Bryan (right now, on this one show, coming off a near-career ending injury) seems increasingly unfair.

Why is Heyman so pissed? He went from respecting and praising Reigns, telling him he was great but he had no chance against his beast to cutting angry ass promos about Brock out of nowhere

It's been said before but the near career ending injury thing would hold more weight if he wasn't scheduled to be in a ladder match at Mania. I agree with the sentiment though.

 

Anyway, a year ago, Bryan, Ambrose, Ziggler vs. Barrett, Harper, Cody would have been something we could see on a MOTY collection. Now it's just another heat less match in the death spot.

That Heyman worked shoot promo was awful. Russo-level "everything else is fake but this is real" bullshit.

Ok... props to those.guys for heating up the crowd but god forbid DB wins this cursed belt at Mania where the champ is not allowed to win a match.

Having Bryan in this six-man is a bad idea, healthwise and in almost all other ways. Hopefully he's the first to win a ladder match by ground-and-pounding his opponents, tapping all five with increasingly harsh submissions, then slowly and calmly climbing a ladder like he's out to clean gutters.

I'm hoping Dolph and Cody are in there to do the "holy shit" bumps (maybe Harper too), so Bryan won't have to hold up that end of the bargain. I am wondering how far they're gonna go with the "lawdy, i'z afraaaaid to climb this here ladder" stuff with Truth.

Ok who else was thinking... DDP surrounded by the NWO and then Sting comes down from the rafters.

Yeah it had a 1997 vibe no doubt

Not to be a broken record, but I think they should have gone even further a few months ago and done an Authority throws a party for Sting angle because they thought he'd be joining them.

Well now, they need to dress the Authority members up in Sting masks and take out the entire roster to show that nobody else matters and that you shouldn't bother getting behind anyone. Oh wait....

The stuff with Rusev's lawyer was something, did no one bother to see if that guy could pull off an accent before putting him on TV? I guess one good thing about it was how it caused one of the best Vince-via-JBL flip out burials.