rolling Jericho calls The New Day trap queens 2016

what an amazing RAW - can shane stay in charge forever plz?

yeah Raw was good again this week. so much good talent on the roster now, all they really need to do is point them at each other and try not to derail them with nonsensical bullshit storylines and the usual aimless booking.

and we have Bullet Club! cool, i guess. how long dya reckon before people work out that this isn't like bringing in Zayn or Styles or Nakamura or whoever and that these guys that we've been hearing so much about are essentially just a decent meat-and-potatoes tag-team who were part of a faction that wore cool t-shirts?

not trying to be a negative nancy or nuthin, these guys are more than capable of having decent 10-15 minute mid-card tag matches and i shall probably enjoy watching them do so over the next few months. but i do wonder how it'll work out for them, especially after the initial push they're presumably gonna get. it's becoming such a formality these days for WWE's big name signings to come in and immediately establish their superworker credentials and have everyone fawning over them. not sure how long Gallows and Anderson will maintain the buzz if they get stuck fighting the Usos or the Lucha Dragons every week for months.

in the interest of full disclosure i should note that while i like AJ Styles and what I saw of Devitt in NJPW, i pretty much loathe the Bullet Club gimmick and I don't understand how that (or this tag team) came to be such a massive thing. way too cute.

Joe vs Nakamura at NXT house shows ... o_o

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/t31.0-8/12973121_1684649408467942_1503345974181861140_o.jpg

exotic adrian tom. arn, uhhhhh.

it feels that the manager who was born 45 years old is a solid wrestling archetype but only cornette and heyman come immediately to mind, who else is there?

Percy Pringle/Paul Bearer?

Arnold Skaaland, Gary Hart

all good points.

also oops i meant to say 'exotic adrian otm'

considering actually watching the last 2 smackdowns. apparently they've been good and have had things happening on them? and enzo and cass have shown up and it feels weird missing out on them. (oh my god i'm being... drawn...)

ha, ikr? finding myself compelled to watch Raw each week for the first time in years atm

uuuhhhh RIP chyna??? wtf

jesus. that ended up being one of the saddest and most depressing stories in the history of the business, which is really saying something. RIP

Not so shocking, unfortunately, but that doesn't make it any less sad. I can't blame the wrestling business for this one, she'd been essentially retired for fifteen years and was hardly the first person to get screwed over by politics. She really seemed to believe that she was bigger than the business and that her WWE fame would automatically carry over into Hollywood. When that didn't happen, and the WWE remained successful without her (as they have always done when any major star left the company) it seemed she had no idea how to deal with it.

The story of Chyna is an unfortunate one, especially as she has had a great influence for positive reasons that often get forgotten because of the dirt. I wasnt a fan but i still feel sympathy.

In other news, TNA has turned into an episode of Breaking Bad and needs to come up with a loan repayment by the end of the day or Dixie has to hand the biz over to well known nazis the harris brothers.

JOE WON THE NXT TITLE ON A HOUSE SHOW

This is what they do to me for forgotting to watch the actual show for a couple weeks.

tbf NXT hasn't exactly been "can't miss tv" for a while now. the overall direction of the product is great and there's some stuff happening to keep things interesting (No Way Jose! i'm into it, guy could be a great comedy opener) but the tv show itself has become pretty uninspired.

they seem to be doing a lot less than they used to in terms of establishing character. Apollo Crews, Austin Aries, Tommasso Ciampa, Johnny Gargano - all these guys are being brought in as big names from the indy scene without really giving fans much to get their teeth into. At least Rich Swann dances, I suppose. better than nothing. Biff Busick is about to be brought in on tv as well i think, odds they do the same thing with him?

can't really get away with that shit when some of the most colourful and gimmicky guys on the NXT roster have just been called up to the main show. relying on indy guys getting over purely on pre-existing reputation might have been worked out ok if Corbin had stuck around working his "fuck these indy motherfuckers" schtick for a few more months but obviously that got nixed.

don't think it's a coincidence that the guy who's looked best coming out of the last few shows (aside from Shinsuke of course) is Perfect 10 Tye Dillinger, whose gimmick actually provided an opportunity to do a little bit of character work beyond "good at wrestling".

but yeah i'm pleased for Joe, that's dope. inevitable Joe vs Nakamura main-event at the next Takeover show is potential MOTY territory no doubt. Joe is on fire right now.

Dillinger was stellar on the vs Nakamura episode

i honestly have a hard time getting through most NXT episodes

str0ud nailed it a month ago tbh:

I’ve been trying to figure out why my enthusiasm for NXT has been waning this year, and I think I figured it out. They stopped showing their work.

The version of NXT most of us fell in love with was a unique, singular thing. It wasn’t quite WWE, it wasn’t quite the indies. It was somewhere in-between, taking the best parts of every world and combining them in a show that applied WWE talent and production values to independent pride, fellowship and passion. It reminded us that shows from one building in front of one crowd could be important. See also: Lucha Underground. More than anything, the show made sure to tell us who these people were and why they were doing what they were doing before they did it.

There’s still a lot of that on the show, don’t get me wrong, but there’s way too much happening we’re just supposed to trust them on. Take the opening match of this week’s show for example. Here’s Elias Samson. What’s his character? You can say he’s “a drifter,” but still, what does that mean? It’s so ill-defined that the announce team’s been making fun of it for months. He plays guitar, but not really, and he wanders, but not really, and he’s … crazy? Kind of? His character, as far as I can tell, is “boring wrestler with hobbies.” He’s facing Johnny Gargano. Removing what you know about Gargano from other promotions, what’s his character? What’s his WWE character? That he’s good at wrestling, but from somewhere else? What’s Ciampa’s character? He’s good at wrestling, but from somewhere else. What’s Apollo Crews’ character? He’s good at wrestling, but from somewhere else. And he wants to be a champion? What’s Austin Aries’ character? He’s good at wrestling, but from somewhere else.

It’s honestly causing NXT to feel like an indie supplementary show, like I’ve ordered a Best Of compilation from Highspots and I’m watching good matches without any context. I miss the character development, whether it was good or bad, as it extended beyond how good guys are at wrestling. That’s why I’m not a huge Ring of Honor fan. So much of ROH is just built around guys proving they’re the best, and the stupid fun of wrestling gets kinda shuffled over to the side. That’s why guys like Dalton Castle are so great, because they drag it back to the center.

Think about what made feuds like Bayley vs. Sasha, or even Breeze vs. Neville work. They were characters, with observable histories and interpersonal relationships. Bayley wanted to be the best wrestler, sure, but she also had this and this and this and this. Sasha had a huge inferiority complex we could justify with two years of material. Breeze was one kind of person, Neville was another. And all of that was done on the show, in the NXT universe, on its own merits. Neville was PAC, but we were never asked to like and keep liking him because we remember how cool PAC was. Does that make sense?

I just want these guys to become actual WWE characters. I don’t want to sleep through another Elias Samson match, watch him get pinned by a guy who has zero in-house character development, be asked to care, and then try to relate to a bored Apollo Crews standing off with a Joker-faced Samson. It doesn’t work. It can, and it should, and I have faith that it probably eventually will, but I’m gonna need to see it.

yeah i read stroud's stuff less than i used to because after a while it starts feeling like you're just reading the same couple of articles over and over again (maybe more of a problem with the wrestling itself than with his writing?) and the burbling, effervescent "here are the reasons why i LOVE this" tone can be overwhelming at times but he is quite often otm in his analysis and he's otm up there.

i've complained about this on here before but i do quite frequently find myself wishing that there was some more interesting writing about wrestling out there. raven mack seemed like a guy with some unapologetically shitty attitudes some of the time but i'm way more inclined to go back and read one of his old tape reviews than i ever would be to check out a recapper writing about current wrestling, just cuz his way of watching and thinking about wrestling is interesting to me

I feel the same way about the last couple of months of NXT. They taped way too much ultimately meaningless stuff in Dallas, between the pre-TakeOver matches and the Axxess bouts, that the product we see on TV feels too far behind the current product. It's been really noticeable the last few weeks, seeing guys who've already moved up to the main roster weeks ago, though I'm sure someone could trace it back as a trend to when they started touring outside of Florida last year. I'm hopeful for an imminent reset, though, what with their pushing the house-show title change as a thing.

When NXT was strictly "developmental" they focused more on developing characters that could transfer over to the main roster and would build to important matches on NXT TV. All that has changed with the success of the Takeover specials and the house shows. Now they're part developmental, part well financed indie promotion competing with the likes of ROH, and I think they're kind of making things up as they go along in terms of defining themselves between those two semi-extremes. On one hand they're a "sports entertainment" company and that's what long time fans expect, but they're also catering to hardcore fans who know who these guys are and don't necessarily need Aries or Gargano to develop characters beyond what they've already shown.

It all gets back to what the eventual plans are for these guys -- Gargano can do just fine working NXT and other indies on the side, but if they hypothetically called him up to the main roster tomorrow he'd have no chance. Corbin probably needed more time in NXT considering they trained him from scratch and he has no experience getting over anywhere other than in front of the same few hundred diehards in Florida, but they called him up anyway. OTOH, Finn Balor has wrestled all over the world and is obviously "ready" but he's still in NXT. I get it if they need a guy to anchor the NXT brand, but if the long term plan is to have him draw money on the main roster, it doesn't make sense to keep him there as long as they have. Sometimes NXT and WWE function like competing companies (HHH wants to keep "his" top guys in NXT as long as possible to grow his "brand") and sometimes they don't, IDGI and I'm not even sure HHH completely knows either.

samoa joe sticking around in nxt while the main roster has been so depleted is particularly baffling to me, but i suppose it's possible that ~someone~ in wwe management thinks they don't need a(nother) fat guy indie veteran stinking up raw with great matches

yeah there are so many potentially awesome matches on the table for Joe on the main roster. aren't Cena and Joe friends from way back in the day? i'd love to see them work together, at least once. there's a super-sized version of that famous Cena vs Umaga last man standing match that is just begging to happen on a major ppv.

when cena gets back they're going to have so many potential fresh feuds for him - i'm looking forward to it.

whoa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQwALrvIf20

I loved Essa Rios

Skinny Samoa Joe is quite the sight.

balor deserves a raise for all the fucking teasing he's done over the past... year

still [illegally streaming] raw after they blew all the reasons for watching in the first hour even though i know know know he's not showing up

honestly it doesn't need to be said but i'll say it again anyway, WWE's biggest problem is overexposure

sami zayn vs rusev is happening and i can't give a shit

we're all gonna be sick of enzo and cass by the end of the year because hey turns out enzo promos 2x a week every single week will eventually get old and now that they're main roster guys they have 5% of the flexibility they had at NXT. cass just does the catchphrase now. cass is funny! the best e+c promos were always the ones with a lot of interaction between the two. RIP everything. raw blows.

i've been thinking about my "bring back wcw" WM31 fantasy booking way too much it'll never stop at this point

holy fuck sami/rusev is still happening

raw is 3 hours long and this is what we get

i think sami just flipped off lana go grab that brass ring

holy fuck sami/rusev is still happening

Sami has to prove himself against 'WWE guys' because he doesn't look like he can hang (too skinny/indie/whatever). At least that's how I picture the old guard backstage seeing things. Funny that, too, seeing as Rusev himself came up from NXT, but howandever.

eh, come again? they give him a good length of time to put together a solid tv match and this indicates that they don't have faith in him? tbh i'd have been more pissed off if they jobbed out Rusev in 5 mins or whatever.

who is the "old guard" we're referring to here? i gather from interviews and the like that plenty of people on the roster are well aware of wrestling outside of the WWE bubble and aren't under any illusions about whether it would be easier to work with a guy like Zayn than with Titus O'Neill or Baron Corbin.

I'm talking about the broader point of Sami somehow being 'wasted' on the main roster (cf his match with Stardust a few weeks ago) and what I took to be a complaint about him being booked with Rusev on Raw - a match I haven't seen, so don't jump down my throat just yet.

I also think you may have taken me wrong - I don't believe Sami has to prove himself! I was writing in the voice of the older agents and whatnot in the back, the guys who said CM Punk didn't know how to work (and many of those guys are still there behind the curtain, come on now).

Look it, we know damn well there's a hierarchy in this company. Big fish come in from NXT as minnows in the big league in terms of backstage politics, and that more often than not gets reflected in the booking. Look how long it took for the company to get behind Sasha Banks et al? They all but killed their momentum because they weren't established 'Divas' or whatever political bullshit was likely at play.

ahhh ok i get you. i read it as qualx being surprised that Zayn/Rusev went as long as it did rather than a complaint that Zayn should somehow be above working with Rusev by now. god Rusev is so great. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone on the roster being more misused rn.

I don't know that I entirely agree with your point about the way NXT or former indy are booked as they hit the main roster though. It was obviously the case with Punk and then later with Bryan that politics and ignorance were holding them back but it's a brave new world now.

I think you can look at guys like Reigns, Rollins, Ambrose, Wyatt and Owens just for starters as having obviously had the backing of the company from day one. I'm pretty sure you'll shortly be able to add Sami Zayn to that list, I think they're doing all the right things with him at the moment. Rusev and Cesaro it's a bit more difficult to judge because the company tends to blow hot and cold on them but how much of that is to do with politics is impossible to say.

AJ Styles is probably the toughest to call here - the "Redneck Rookie" stuff, drawing attention to his accent and his height etc. is the kinda shit they used to pull on Bryan back in the day, and that stuff does come off like politics and ignorance. But on the other hand he's beating Sheamus on Raw and getting WWE title matches, so who knows?

anyway, i think it's clear that the people who matter want all these guys (and girls) over and i don't buy the idea that they're being held back, so much as that WWE's booking is so backwards and convoluted these days that it can look that way at times. they just have no idea how to book people to build and maintain momentum anymore. as qualx says, maybe it's not even possible with the amount of programming they have to fill

Rusev being misused atm but he got an unbeaten streak and cena wrestlemania out the gate. He could be turned into a main event monster again in a second.

AJ is #1 contender in under 4 months of being there.

Sami is all over the show with a major fued and pulling his weight with the biggest names, he'll be ok.

if anyone didn't get to see the Zack Sabre / Will Ospreay match from Evolve the other week, this is the sequence I mentioned at the time where ZSJ counters a standing shooting star press into a submission. pretty good!

https://streamable.com/px9o

Ah, the old catching shitty triangle

anyway, i think it's clear that the people who matter want all these guys (and girls) over and i don't buy the idea that they're being held back, so much as that WWE's booking is so backwards and convoluted these days that it can look that way at times. they just have no idea how to book people to build and maintain momentum anymore. as qualx says, maybe it's not even possible with the amount of programming they have to fill

Yeah, I'll concede it's probably more that than anything else.

you people write too much too fast!

i was complaining that sami/rusev was, from the beginning:
a. meaningless
b. way too long for a meaningless nothing match

i mean it COULD have meaning if WWE announcers weren't allergic to talking about wrestling. there are a few easy ways you can spin it to force some meaning or weight into sami/rusev, but all we get is JBL screeching "WOW! LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE, IT'S SAMI ZAYN VS. RUSEV! YEAH" and that's it. if a match is meaningless, doesn't fit into anything larger than itself except for the post-post-post match attack from the meaningful opponent, and/or it doesn't attempt to tell an interesting story in its own right, then the longer it is the worse it is. this is WWE, the company that's actually supposed to be focused on the theatricality of it all, and these matches are meaningless bullshit that don't accomplish shit besides wasting time. they all end in fucking rollups anyway. who cares if the match goes 15 instead of 3 if it's just gonna end in a rollup? there's 12 minutes that could go towards getting literally anyone on the roster over, which will all probably get shuffled to youtube anyway. how does a 3 hour show feel so long and so understuffed at the same time? if creative can't fill the time with the roster they have, kick creative out.

and there is clearly some sort of directive making sure the announcers never talk about wrestling except in extreme cases. mauro's doing a good job of it so far so maybe it's just ingrained in everyone else. they're not allowed to say... things... about the wrestlers? and how they are? and what they do? mauro said that the ascension need to go their own way instead of taking after the road warriors if they're ever gonna succeed and it was like holy shit. he said a thing about the ascension. i'm worried he's gonna get in trouble. you're not supposed to editorialize about the fictional wrestlers because that might get in the way of the plans creative doesn't have for them.

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/479919/the-plight-of-the-female-lucha-libre-star/

just starting payback now because i hate sleep apparently but jfc that was the worst way to open a show

glad i'm not watching live and frantically checking for updates every 5 seconds, looked like enzo straight up died for a few seconds

The AJ/Reigns main event was a hell of a match. Excellent performances from both guys. Going slightly heelish has already done wonders for Reigns, right down to his body language and facial expressions. Matches like this make you understand exactly why the company sees so much potential in him, and also make you frustrated at how rarely they've been able to tap that potential effectively.

It does bother me that Styles lost even after interference from Gallows and Anderson. A finish like that sends one of two messages: (1) the Gallows/Anderson double-team finisher ("Boot of Doom", apparently, which is pretty uninspired) isn't all that powerful of a move, or (2) AJ Styles just isn't nearly as good as Roman Reigns. What they intended was no doubt closer to (2), but that cuts down on the intrigue for the rematch. People will look forward to it anyway because this match was so entertaining, but it would be nice to have the booking actually work with the wrestlers on this.

I would have liked to see the Usos pull off some interference on Reigns's behalf. That would have made sense of the finish, and it would be an interesting direction for the them character-wise, without amounting to a total heel turn (since they would've just been evening the odds). Plus something like that could plant the seeds for an Usos/Reigns storyline down the road.

Is it bad that im kinda annoyed cass didnt go on to fight the vv? I guess they lost by countout? Poor enzo. I really hope hes ok.

Owens calling himself the victim in the vignette though a+ trolling

i'm guessing it was a no contest. i was also wishing they would've done something to end the match but no one really seemed to know how serious the injury was and it would've had to have been organized on the spot. definitely can't blame cass and the villains for not calling a massive audible on their first PPV, can't blame the decision makers for playing it safe in light of ongoing concussion controversy. could've seen the villains heeling it up and cass chasing them up the ramp but w/e.

and if enzo/cass were booked to win it would've been some bullshit if cass beat them singlehandedly

main event was great except the heinous overbooking, i'm never into restarting matches tbh

also way not looking forward to the ongoing mcmahon drama. payback was generally yet another nothing-really-happened-did-it show.

Yeah i feel a bit bad about thinkinh that now.

Lol at punk chants still tbh.

Fun show so far but...

Why did lil naitch do a screwjob finish? Why would anyone agree to that 19 years later? Its fucking lame as shit, bret should have told them to go fuck themselves and book it properly.

Also byron saxton is the most cardboard human in history and anyone involved in giving him a major job should be ashamed.