The Thread Killer

Man, you guys must be seeing something I can't. I've always looked at him as a guy who is pretty much where he should be in his career, hovering on the fringes of the mid-card. I admittedly didn't see the match with Joe from last week, but I generally find O'Neil to be quite boring - his matches unremarkable at best, and his promos can be cringe-worthy. Some of that you can write off as WWE scripting promos, but still. I still don't know exactly what the mythical "it" is that wrestling insiders go on about, but whatever "it" is....Titus O'Neil doesn't have it, in my opinion.

I remember listening to a Prichard podcast (I can't remember which one, I want to say the Vader themed episode but I might be wrong) where he claimed Jim Johnston could be a bit of a pain to deal with sometimes. As I recall, Prichard claimed that Johnston would get criticized for his music sounding too "samey" and that he didn't take feedback particularly well when he was asked to go back and change something. Then again, this is Bruce Prichard. He himself freely admits that he had such a terrible relationship with all of the production people that it ended up getting him fired in 1991, so he might not be the best source.

I actually believe that within reason, Hogan and Flair have become friends (or the Pro Wrestling business equivalent of "friends") after years of highs and lows. I saw an interview with Flair where he said one of the first calls he got after Reid died was from Hogan. He didn't specify what Hogan said but he got choked up just talking about it. I don't doubt that Hogan and Flair have developed the ability to appreciate each other on a personal level after all these years, and respect what the other brought to the sport. And yes you're right, it does Hogan's legacy no good for him to deny his peers credit. I prefer him working people with effusive praise, over Bret Hart still whining and taking shots at people after all these years.

Incorrect. Please refer to the following photograph: Alexa looks hot. Mandy Rose looks incredibly hot. The other girl (whose name I forget) is trying to look look like a female UFC fighter. Paige looks like a painted corpse. Therefore, you are wrong. Again.

If Bryan stuffed Bix in a locker, then JR must have given him an atomic wedgie when he got out.

I thought Paige's makeup was pretty comical on Monday when I saw her. Normally I don't notice stuff like that (or care if I do notice) but I thought they were trying to introduce her as the long lost daughter of Paul Bearer or something.

I can't remember the date or even the opponent, but I remember one match I saw with Larry Zbyszko when he was AWA champ during the dying years of the promotion on ESPN. He stalled so damn much - bailed out of the ring and wandered around ringside jawing at the 17 fans in attendance, then rolled back into the ring, went to lock up, and then repeated the whole damn routine - that I just stopped watching the match. I don't know if it was a habitual thing for him, but if it was then he deserves the reputation he got. That was some boring-ass shit. Doing that for up to five minutes (which is what he is claiming in the interview clip posted above) is ridiculous. That's not ring psychology it's wasting time. It's another thing if the wrestler tries that and their opponent goes after them. I've seen Kevin Owens do that (although I still hated it.)

Does that mean there will be two MITB matches, one for each brand/championship, or does it mean the match will be for members of both brands, so whoever wins can cash in against either brand? I think that would be more interesting. More importantly, why do I care?

Based on his WWE career since his arrival in NXT, I think this is pretty much the best we could expect for him and from him. And 205 Live is in desperate need of some new faces. In other news, The Bludgeon Brothers made their debut. The name is goofy, their costumes are goofy, but they may have some legs as a big, ass kicking tag team. It's nice to see Luke Harper on TV in any capacity at this point, and Rowan won't be exposed as badly in a tag team, I think. If creative doesn't give up on them after two weeks (like SD tends to) then they might have a chance as a decent team. Or...they might end up like the Colons, who I had totally forgotten were even in WWE at all, until I saw them tonight as lumberjacks for the main event.

I'd be inclined to agree with you that it's the second option. I remember when Lawler was on Stone Cold's podcast a few years ago he talked about the problems he had with Carrey during the filming of the movie, and it didn't sound like any work to me. But then again, with something involving Andy Kaufman and pro wrestling on top of that, who could ever truly say?

The opener was good, but it wasn't great. I didn't hate it or anything, but there appeared to be some sloppiness.

This match is pretty good, but unfortunately Booker thinks he's being paid by the word, apparently.

FUCK! I really don't know how this is going to work. I'm sure Byron Saxton's input will be even more integral to the product than it usually is.

I'm here. Nice to be noticed! Glad you made it brother.

Oh wait a minute...is there going to be a FIVE man broadcast team?

Will the refs on this show be orange too, or is that just an NXT thing?

Where's Mad Dog, C.S., CM Funk, Ricky Jackson, WingedEagle and MoS? DAMMIT I'M NOT WATCHING THIS CRAP BY MYSELF. At least TG is here. EDIT: Oh, hammerva is here too. And FMKK. Good. We need the PWO WWE PPV thread crew for this show.

Those Raw/Shield shirts are ridiculous.

This is the first WWE PPV that I have watched with no buildup at all. I stopped watching Raw and Smackdown during the buildup to TLC, I just couldn't take it anymore. I read the wrestling news, I've seen a couple of highlights on YouTube, and I've had the pre-show on in the background this afternoon, but I've seen zero of the television leading up to this show. And based on the clips of that Stephanie promo I just saw, I made a very wise choice. Damn she's terrible. And I may actually tap out during this show. I have very little motivation to watch this. I guess I want to see The Shield vs. The New Day, The Bar vs. The Usos and I am mildly curious about AJ vs. Brock, but I don't think AJ has a prayer. The rest I couldn't care less about. I'm basically watching it because it's on.

He's never addressed that rumor that I'm aware, and I highly doubt that rumor was true. You should check out the documentary "Jim & Andy" that just came out on Netflix this past Friday. The basic idea is that Jim Carrey was doing the whole "method acting" deal while filming that movie and thought he actually was Andy Kaufman. There is a ton of backstage footage of Carrey harassing and taunting Lawler during the filming. (Ironically, that wouldn't be what Andy actually would have done, since he and Lawler were actually friends.) Of course, the whole thing could all be a work. Who knows. The only certain thing you can say after seeing that film is that Jim Carrey needs to be seeing an entire team of psychiatrists.

I think Mauro is getting worse. I swear, during War Games he was screaming so much I thought he was either on speed or off his medication and going into a manic cycle live on the air. He's fucking terrible.

As opposed to the method WCW used in 1999, which was telling people there was a PPV, but not bothering to mention any of the matches that were going to be on the show. Or in a couple of hilarious cases...advertising the show after it had already happened.

I think they were kind of forced into the live commentary format because Tony has proven he doesn't have the ability to do recap style "looking back" shows like Conrad does with Bruce. From where I sit, this can be attributed to the following reasons: 1 ) As a commentator, Tony didn't have the same level of involvement backstage in WCW that Prichard did in his role in the WWF. Prichard can provide way more details about the backstage machinations and creative processes due to the difference in their roles. 2 ) Tony appears to have a pretty terrible memory and seems to be unable to recall a lot of things. (Unlike Bruce, who at times is unwilling to recall a lot of things.) If you look back, I think it was the Steve Austin episode where Conrad pretty much lost his shit because he was basically reading results and Tony couldn't remember a damn thing or add anything to the episode. (I'm not going back to find out which show it was, because it was brutal if not slightly humorous.) I think Tony's memory might be attributable to the fact that... 3) Tony didn't give a shit a lot of the time in WCW. Say what you want about him, but working for Vince and the wrestling business in general was Bruce Prichard's life, pretty much 24/7 from what it sounds like. As a result, he generally remembers a lot of details and has a lot of interesting stories. But even he has a lot of times where he has to admit he can't remember stuff. JCP and to a much greater extent WCW was a job for Tony. It wasn't his passion (I think that was baseball) and especially in the last few years of WCW I think Tony really didn't give a crap what the hell was going on around him, so he just didn't pay attention. (And I am not saying I blame him for that,) If Conrad tries to use the "Something to Wrestle" format with this show in the long term, it's going to tank. It's just not viable. I don't think anybody could have predicted how successful Something to Wrestle was going to be, (including Bruce and Conrad) and I don't think anybody could expect Tony and Conrad to duplicate that kind of success, but even on a smaller scale, that format isn't going to work for them. I think these commentary shows are going to be what you get from this point forward from this show. I know Conrad is getting a lot of positive feedback about them on Twitter etc., but of course he isn't going to re-tweet all the negative feedback either.

I'm still only about halfway through the NAO episode, and I haven't really found it all that great so far. I want to finish listening to that one before I tackle the Bret Hart episode. That one might take a while to get through, it looks like it is almost 5 hours long. Not sure what to expect when it comes to Bruce's perspective on Bret either, based on past history I don't get the impression that Prichard cared all that much for Bret Hart, whereas he seemed to be a big Shawn Michaels fan. I know they covered the Screwjob in depth during an earlier episode, and Bruce didn't seem to have any sympathy for Bret's position at all. (Not that I do either, really.)

I think it's become evident that if Brock likes you and thinks you have something (whatever that might be to him) he'll sell for you and make you look good, even if he beats you in the end. If you look at the way he let Goldberg and even Samoa Joe get the upper hand on him at times when they worked together, it's seems pretty clear. Conversely, if he doesn't like you or thinks you're beneath him, he pulls a Bruiser Brody and doesn't give you shit. There are matches to support this theory, but the biggest proof of this theory is that Dean Ambrose whined about it on Steve Austin's podcast, when he complained Brock was lazy and didn't want to do anything interesting in their match. (Aside from beat him, apparently.) I didn't see Jinder Mahal being the kind of guy Brock Lesnar would be particularly anxious to make look good, if for no other reason than the fact that up until recently, Mahal was viewed as a scrub. I figured that Brock might think if he gave Mahal too much, it might make him look bad. As a result, I was perversely looking forward to seeing Lesnar no-sell and basically beat the crap out of Jinder Mahal. The problem is, this would have totally reinforced the Raw>Smackdown narrative. You probably shouldn't have one brand looking clearly superior to the other by having one champion destroy his "equal" from the other brand. With AJ Styles holding the title now, there is a much greater chance we get a competitive and compelling match. At least a million times more likely than it was with Mahal involved. Any chance they took the belt off Jinder temporarily because Brock didn't want to give him a competitive match, or am I overthinking this?