Another week.

I am genuinely curious if WWE is going to try to do anything "special" for RAW tonight as an answer to their low & dwindling rating. Just bringing back Brock Lesnar would not feel any different. I will laugh my ass off if the show opens with an Authority or Seth Rollins 15-minute promo.

 

I don't think that it will happen anytime soon but Sin Cara is awful & I would like to see Kalisto get a single run for awhile on the main roster. A match between him & Adrian Neville would be really fun. I also think he could do cool things with the likes of Kevin Owens, Cesaro & even Sheamus.

 

I would certainly put Lana back with Rusev as well. They messed up a good thing there.

 

They need to kill this Seth Rollins/Kane crap as soon as possible.

NXT Takeover is this week, right ? Finally something I might watch, and enjoy.

From Daniel Bryan's interview with IGN:

 

 

 

"The WWE doctor Joe Maroon [is] amazing and highly respected in the concussion field, and if they send me to a third neurologist who's also highly respected in the concussion field and they say literally no...well, then is it really smart to go against two doctors? I get all fired up...and then I'm like, maybe that's not the best thing for me and my family going forward."

In that case, would he be willing to stay in the WWE in a managerial or commentary position? "I think I would really enjoy be a commentator," he told us. "One of the hard things for me though would be being around it without actually doing it. I mean, I would be under contract still, so it would be one of those things where I would do whatever they tell me; I'm a good employee! But it's one of those things where it's hard for me...the idea of being around it and seeing people do it and not being able to do it."

It's really pretty tragic that Daniel Bryan is seriously having to consider retirement, after only just reaching the pinnacle of his profession. What makes it worse is WWE has yet to truly give him a main event run that he's clearly earned. He's insanely over, he puts on top matches and works well with everybody he's put in the ring with. He has what it takes to be a top star, but WWE won't look past his size... At least, they haven't yet. And the worst part of all this is it's possible he might never have the chance to make them change their minds.

There's some really interesting stuff in that interview

 

 

"John Cena and I actually had this discussion. He said, 'if something were to happen to you and the WWE, would you go back to doing the indies?' Absolutely!"

 

His first stop? Mexico."I've gotten this sudden fascination with the lore of lucha," Bryan laughed. The idea of doing a mask vs. hair match is appealing to him, as is main eventing a CMLL anniversary show. Still, he realizes that continuing to wrestle when professionals advise him not to might not be the smartest idea.

RAW 20 Minute Opening Promo:

Byron: “Simply put, Brock Lesnar is an anomaly.”
JBL: “Plain and simple, the most decorated combat sports athlete of all time.”

 

Decent crowd reaction for Reigns. Not that loud, but people in the crowd were eager to bump that fist!

Came here to note the Reigns reaction as well. Its not exactly top star level, but he seems over as a babyface now without backlash. Big question is how much they can heat him up heading into Mania. I still think he'd be best served with a heel run before attaching the babyface rocket to him, but at least it seems like its trending in the right direction.

I was going to post about how much I enjoyed that six-man but here's yet another Rollins/Kane segment...

Shield/Orton vs. Wyatts: Good match that felt like it went 20-25 mins if you include the ad breaks. Strauman was clumsy at times, but nothing awful. Reigns seems over-ish, and the succinct post-match promo helped. For a minute during the finishing stretch, it felt like 2013 again.

Sheamus vs. Neville: 30 second match with two guys who seem dead in the water, in order to build to Barrett-Neville, a match that already made tape about seven times this spring. Sheamus carrying briefcase now feels like guy bringing past softball trophy to tonight's game.

Kane continues his streak of getting over one decent joke per promo. Steph cuts babyface spiel in the one city on earth where Tom Brady is a babyface, while openly referring to "Demon Kane" and "Corporate Kane" as separate entities under those names.

Stephanie a total babyface sucking up to the crowd but of course ends the promo as a heel. This is entering Vince Russo parody of wrasslin' tropes territory. Please end this crap

At the show live, awesome first hour! Standard Heymam promo which is fun live.

 

Best Wyatts/Shield match this year. Loved the Sheamus promo and asskickery. Kane promo was hilarious. I think based on promos and character work that is slam funk feud of the year. Really fun stuff all year out of those two.

The Cerebral Assassin’s sage wisdom: “Do unto others before they would do unto you.”

Paige-Natalya: Amount of clothing Natalya’s required to wear hits new high. She will be wrestling in Rocky Balboa's sweatsuit by year’s end. Crowd was nearly silent during match. My irrational fanboy love of Paige’s heel turn continues.

Ha now Stephanie heels on New Day. Just after dancing with them a few weeks ago. Yup this Vince Russo meta parody crap

I like booking matches like Owens vs Sin Cara. All we've been seeing these past few months are the same guys fighting each other in tags and singles over and over again, mix things up a bit. Nitro used to be good about doing that.

Owens-Sin Cara: “A twelve year old has no business at ringside.” For people who think there should be more squash matches on TV, this was it. Heel smashes lower-ranked babyfaces, heel’s next opponent makes the save to crowd chants. Competence!

Then Stephanie castrated New Day for some reason.

 

The Komen segment tells you what you need to know about how they view Reigns: starting the transition into becoming the next Cena "face of company". Everyone who still thinks he should turn heel may note how unlikely that is when he's being positioned like this.

Yeah that's exactly what I thought. The fact that Reigns was out there solidifies that they still view him as the heir apparent top babyface.

 

And I do like the semi squash matches lately. Very Nitro like or something like Bret v Blake Beverly from Superstars in 1992. Always liked when they did stuff like that

Second hour dragged. It was Steph cut off New Days balls but God are New Day are entertaining.

 

Did We Want Sasha make it on air during last match?

Dudleys-Rollins/Kane: Dudleys are #1 contenders getting a shot at New Day. Rollins and Kane are wrestling each other. What are they fighting for, and from a kayfabe perspective, why book this? But then: Cole served a purpose. He reminded us right after the match ended that Kane attacked the Dudleys last week on SD. Thus: motive. But then I remembered that the match was originally Big Show teaming with Rollins until Brock took him out? Anyway, everything about this was horrible, including a moment in which a guy was handcuffed, only to have said handcuffs break in half the moment a different dude gently bumped into them.

So any chance Cena gets written off TV tonight? The fact that they've named all of the usual challengers as possibilities might mean something different is going to happen...

Balor, Bryan, Angle, or BIFF

Tremendous hero's welcome hometown Sasha promo. Impressive that the highlight of the Divas Revolution has already become the build to Nikki-Banks. Plus: Alicia Fox hit the best suplex of anyone in a while, Brock included.

 

Open Challenger will be... Big E? I know they did Xavier already, but New Day seem to be main eventing nowadays and haven't appeared before the crowd yet.

Her Northern Lights is always reeeally nice.

Huge Yankees Suck chant! I feel like they are playing more to Boston than any other crowd recently. I thought Yankees Suck was that hottest chant.

 

That was the longest fucking heat segment ever holy shit. I think that killed off some of Sasha's heat. The crowd was pretty patient though no boring and JBL chants, but thought We want Sasha got more half-hearted.

 

I love Sasha, but if she is going to work face she needs more crowd pleasing spots.

 

There's some really interesting stuff in that interview

 

 

"John Cena and I actually had this discussion. He said, 'if something were to happen to you and the WWE, would you go back to doing the indies?' Absolutely!"

 

His first stop? Mexico."I've gotten this sudden fascination with the lore of lucha," Bryan laughed. The idea of doing a mask vs. hair match is appealing to him, as is main eventing a CMLL anniversary show. Still, he realizes that continuing to wrestle when professionals advise him not to might not be the smartest idea.

 

 

Imagine how interested he would be in lucha if he had the DVDVR 80s set.

Says the man who hasn't finished his ballot yet tsk tsk tsk

 

But yea the DVDVR 80s Lucha set is one of the best comps you'll ever be able to procure. That's my favorite 80s set and I'm still butthurt about how many of you slackers didn't finish it.