This is excellent sports entertainment

Welp, there's your setup for the WM main event.

Did they just officially turn Ronda heel, cause there is no way they are gonna get her cheered over Becky and Charloote.

Well you knew that was happening eventually.  

WAIT CAN ASUKA ACTUALLY WIN 

UNBEATEN STREAKS ARE FOR LOSERS

I don't smoke but I think I need a cigarette

I really hope that they just kill Asuka together before this goes off the air though.

EDIT: They do not. It's nice when they actually tell a story over a number of months for a change though.The Raw/Smackdown separation lets them do it here. They don't have to do it week by week so they're not going to screw it up by default. (And don't give me that the Reigns vs Brock set up over x years was any sort of storytelling at all. It wasn't).

To be fair you don't need a title for a Horsewoman vs Horsewoman feud.   So smart to put the belt on her.  

4 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

Yeah, I'm starting to buy that Charlotte is on the short list of best wrestlers in the world after these last couple months.

JESUS

This was the credited response during her 2016 heel run.  It just took a brief hiatus during her smiley babyface days.

If not for Ambrose and Rollins being Ambrose and Rollins, this would've been a major home run. 

But still, we got two great matches out of this, and the rest went from good to serviceable, where they booked around the wrestlers' limitations and got good reactions.

Overall, pretty good!

Looks like I was right. The agents focused on the women's match and left Seth and Dean to their own devices.

Great show to end the year. Seth-Dean shitshow was really the only negative 

I have to double back to Nia vs Ronda and Bryan vs Styles later.

6 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

 

 

Bryan's promo is threaded here.  His work since turning heel has him a a lock for Best on Interviews on my ballot.  Just blowing away everything else this year.

All in one link

 

That might be promo of the year, dear lord.

16 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

All in one link

 

That might be promo of the year, dear lord.

That was amazing 

I didn't watch the preshow. On the main show, Orton/Mysterio wasn't great but had a few cool spots. MMC was fine, whatever. The Braun stuff made the fans happy. Nattie stuff made the fans happy. Finn/Drew match was boring. Tag match was pretty good. Ronda/Jax was pretty good. Ronda did a step up knee that was super sick. Bryan/Styles was great. Ambrose/Seth was the worst match on the card & damn near killed the crowd. Main event women were awesome.

More bad than good, two great matches & laying the foundation for the future. Going in without any expectations, it was a thumbs up.

Announcing on RAW that Vince McMahon is coming back & there's a Finn/Dolph match cracked me up though.

Just caught Ronda vs Nia. There were some moments of hesitation or timing things (not all of them on Ronda) that felt just a little off, but in general, it was fun. I really love the facebreaker. I'm probably the only person in the world who thinks the heart punch is incredible. You can do so much built around one strike (or simple hold) that's a KO blow, be it the heart punch or maybe Mulligan's claw or what not. I love whenever Buddy Rose was in there against Stan Stasiak for instance, and how he was just terrified of the heart punch. I actually don't think they went to that well enough. They teased it at the beginning and it played into the finish but I would have liked a couple of other near misses. As always, probably my favorite thing about Rousey, past the fact that she's leaning into the tricked out holds instead of running from them like Angle, is how she reacts to things. She's one of the best on the roster already at reacting to getting only a two count. She could absolutely coast while being far less emotive but she just gives herself over completely to it instead. 

Drew/Finn on their way to beating Brock.

@SomethingSavage no doubt taking a victory lap this very moment.

38 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Drew/Finn on their way to beating Brock.

Hogan Vs Brock, nailed on

2 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

@SomethingSavage no doubt taking a victory lap this very moment.

Why sure!

Seth is absolute shit. And he has been for a long, long time. Even his portion of that gauntlet match at the start of the year was VASTLY overrated. Same goes for the Raw match with Finn a week or two removed from that.

Miz and Elias (of all people) were the only two people to drag Rollins to anything remotely "good" all year, and both instances were because they had guys operating & functioning as traditional heels there. They slowed him the fuck down and told a story (how about that?).

Left to his own devices, THIS match with Dean is the sort of horse shit he'll produce though. Mygoddamngod, it's truly fucking awful.

He hovers around & haunts us like the specter of every terrible Davey Richards trait imaginable, yet people are still somehow convinced he should be in main events again. People confuse a couple of crowd reactions for being over.

Seth Rollins is not over. Hell, he's barely a character or a personality at all. People don't connect or invest in anything to do with Seth Rollins. They cheer exciting moves and scream along at his entrance. That's it.

Seth Rollins can't convey emotion, stakes, drama, or hatred to save his fucking life. He showed that in the original Ambrose feud. And again in this one. And it was on FULL display in the Triple H program, for sure. He wrestled what should have been a heated grudge match like it was just another exhibition at the Rex Plex.

Dude just doesn't get it. He may be athletic as fuck. And maybe he can flip tires or Crossfit his heart out. But pro wrestling just ain't his jam, man.

I offer up that familiar long-winded rant, but it really all comes down to this: Seth Rollins is the ultimate example of a pro wrestler who is all motion & zero emotion. One is effective for killing time. The other is effective for drawing money, drawing interest, and sustaining both of those things.

In closing. Seth Rollins is absolute shit. I'd rest my case, but we all know next month will just provide more evidence to support the facts.

Good times!

Amazing.

Wish I could do something similar to Dean Ambrose, who despite looking like a million bucks upon his return, and having a good match with Dolph fucking Ziggler of all people, just... doesn't do it anymore. 

This all goes to show that CM Punk was so fucking wrong with his idea of the Shield.

To me, Seth is a good highspot guy and he's popular enough so it seems that his most logical position would be as the hot tag guy in a tag team act. If WWE actually took tag team wrestling seriously on a consistent basis, that wouldn't even be that much of a demotion. I've no idea why they can't just keep him and Ambrose together as a tag team and build those belts up because they're so much better when they're in that format than when they're trying to do the self-conscious epic main event stuff.

 

Seth Rollins as cosplay HHH in 2015 was abysmal. Him doing cosplay geriatric Shawn dramatics last night was just as bad. Just stick him in a damn tag team and don't push him above his station.

21 hours ago, Coffey said:

Bryan needs to get a more heel theme song. 

I agree with this. Even if it was just another version of Ride of the Valkyries, the version he has now sounds too exciting and is too linked to his dramatic face run from a few years ago.

The three womens matches were all pretty awesome. Main event was insane, Ronda and Nia seem to work well together, and Natalya/Ruby was great with a hot crowd.