I dunno. How 'bout NBA BEING BACK, BITCHES

ROCKETS GET RID OF THAT BUM JAMES HARDEN HE'S ALL ABOUT STRIPCLUBS AND CHASING RAPPERS

JOHN WALL AND COUSINS BRINGING THAT RING TO HOUSTON BAYBEE

I tap out reading RAW recaps. Admittedly, there's very few (if any) good recappers out there, but it's not just the prose that puts me off. Anyway, I'm going to see if I've got three hours of masochism in me and try go the distance on a 2020 episode of RAW.

 

...and they're starting with attempted comedy and sub-Poffo poetry. Meanwhile, my Facebook feed is offering me Taue vs Akiyama CC 1999, and they're two workers I really need to see more of.

So of course AJ (who I like) and Seamus (who I don't dislike) get twenty minutes, but Taue/Akiyama is jip and clipped down to six minutes....
 

Has the average age of the WWE roster ever been higher? I don't expect anyone to quantify that, and I'm not even including Undi, Goldie, Big Show and part-timers, but here's MVP, Lashley and Shelton, following AJ and Seamus to further the impression.
*And here comes Jeff Hardy! Old-Timer's Appreciation Night!

Can't help but think Lana and Nia would be on AEW Dark having try-out matches and gaining experience if they were in the "pissant" company; certainly not part of a featured main-roster feud.

 

53 minutes ago, Dav'oh said:

Has the average age of the WWE roster ever been higher? I don't expect anyone to quantify that, and I'm not even including Undi, Goldie, Big Show and part-timers, but here's MVP, Lashley and Shelton, following AJ and Seamus to further the impression.
*And here comes Jeff Hardy! Old-Timer's Appreciation Night!

It could be just my recollection of the time, but it seems like the early/mid 80s had jobbers/midcarders who had been around forever by that point. Of course they weren't being featured either. 

Do Miz 'n Morrison fall under "Nostalgia Act" or "Creative Bankruptcy"?

Morrison looked to have horribly mistimed his bump offa the Pounce. Like he jumped too early and Lee barely grazed him.

4 minutes ago, sek69 said:

the early/mid 80s

That would been my guess, but I wasn't sure if your Strongbow, Jerry Valiant, Swede Hansen, Ray Stevens, Morales types shared a dressing room. Rene Goulet and Garea I know were there forever.

Boo, Elias's racist flunky gets to be  on Raw now.

I suppose at least it's a payoff to the "everyone always interrupts Elias" gimmick.

A backstage segment between Riddle and Ramblin' Rabbit is so 2020.

Who's the heel in this Orton/Wyatt program? 

That Randy/Bray segment was the first time this episode that I thought I should be doing something better with my time on this beautiful 30C/86F Tuesday afternoon (Melbourne time).

I love how Randy has tried to murder Bray multiple times now in WWE canon. 

Well that last half-hour was a whimper.

I guess they're going to go with Drew effectively beating four men at TLC.

jesus fucking christ

I sometimes find it hard to believe I cared about this company for so many years 

On one hand, that video is such a fever dream that I get a laugh out of it.

On the other hand, gotta imagine no one envied McIntyre for having to act alongside the Mucinex phlegm monster as voiced by Braun Strowman.

I've been listening to some old 2013 WORs following the WWE plot because so much of the last decade blends together to me.

They were talking about people like Miz and Ziggler being stale and damaged goods. 

In 2013

sigh

Meanwhile when talking NJPW they're putting over the rise of people like Okada, Naito, Ishii etc at the time......all of whom remain relevant seven years later.  And Devitt and Nakamura.....not so much

Sounds like an all time bad show. Pretty sure Bray Wyatt and Drew are the only pushed acts on Raw under 40 and both are like 35. 

1 hour ago, cm funk said:

Meanwhile when talking NJPW they're putting over the rise of people like Okada, Naito, Ishii etc at the time......all of whom remain relevant seven years later.  And Devitt and Nakamura.....not so much

Look at the Lucha Underground people in AEW : Lucha Brothers, Brian Cage, Thunder Rosa, Luchasaurus, (hell, Jake Hager). And now look at two guys who were main eventers in LU from the very first show : Johnny Mundo & Ricochet... Some guys signed the wrong contracts (I know, there was no AEW when Ricochet signed).

34 minutes ago, FMKK said:

Sounds like an all time bad show. Pretty sure Bray Wyatt and Drew are the only pushed acts on Raw under 40 and both are like 35. 

The boss is 75 years old. The average viewer in 50. From that point of view, they push "young talent".

Meanwhile, 50 years old Jericho is hot with the younger demo. Hell, Orange Cassidy is 37 or something. So, age is relative in a sense. But yes, of course, WWE is the retirement home of pro-wrestling.

Orange Cassidy is older than you think but he’s not overexposed on US television whereas Miz has been on every show doing the same gimmick for over ten years and has never been overly good at it. Age is relative and ideally you’d want a good mixture. AEW has some old guys, some guys in their mid-30s and lots of guys under 30. WWE has everyone between 35-45 and most have been constantly on TV doing the same act forever.

1 hour ago, El-P said:

Look at the Lucha Underground people in AEW : Lucha Brothers, Brian Cage, Thunder Rosa, Luchasaurus, (hell, Jake Hager). And now look at two guys who were main eventers in LU from the very first show : Johnny Mundo & Ricochet... Some guys signed the wrong contracts (I know, there was no AEW when Ricochet signed).

The boss is 75 years old. The average viewer in 50. From that point of view, they push "young talent".

Meanwhile, 50 years old Jericho is hot with the younger demo. Hell, Orange Cassidy is 37 or something. So, age is relative in a sense. But yes, of course, WWE is the retirement home of pro-wrestling.

Yeah.  It's been interesting looking back at 2013 and comparing where people were then to where they are now. 

Orton, Rey, Miz, Ziggler, Sheamus, Kofi, Big E, Cesaro, Usos and a handful of others in essentially the same spots give or take.  Reigns, Rollins and Wyatt were getting their first pushes.  Bryan was getting his push to the top.  McIntyre was a geek.  Swagger was doing the WE THE PEOPLE stuff with Zeb

Alberto Del Rio was a top guy

Punk was feuding with Heyman, Brock, Curtis Axel and Ryback.  I'd honestly forgotten about the Curtis Axel push, where he "beat" HHH due to HHH having a concussion or something in a pretty tasteless angle when at the same time Ziggler and Bryan were dealing with real concussion issues

Cody had a mustache, was a tag team with Sandow (Rhodes Scholars who I'd totally forgotten about).  They break up and feud over Sandow's MITB case.  Then Rhodes gets "fired" and it leads to the angle with Dusty and teaming with Goldust to beat The Shield for the titles.  Which leads to Stardust....which leads eventually to AEW of all things amazingly

Moxley and Jericho were in upper card spots and are obviously now top guys in AEW who've both reinvented themselves

NXT was in it's very early stages....talking about Ashley Flair and Paige as potential future stars etc. etc.

The rest of the wrestling landscape has evolved significantly around WWE.  While other than a vast improvement in women's wrestling (they were pushing everyone involved in the first season of Total Divas at the time, as well as Kaitlyn, AJ, Layla and a few others) WWE remains essentially unchanged except for people like Cena, Kane, Mark Henry and Big Show who were all heavily pushed at the time time no longer being there

And the wildest thing is Dave and Bryan talking about the audience being in it's 40's and slowly eroding.  In seven years it's only gotten older and smaller with no end to the trend in sight.....

I say this without hyperbole: whoever wrote this segment belongs in prison. The only redeeming factor is that Riddle is the one being ruined by this garbage and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.