The Thread Killer

That's the thing. The cruiserweight division is pretty much DOA anyhow. It's not like this is somehow going to make it worse or less interesting. It's boring as hell already. At least some fans give a crap about Enzo. For now.

You cannot kill that which has already died.

Enzo sucks no doubt, but Neville isn't going out of his way to make this match exciting either. I'd like to think he's capable of carrying Enzo to something more entertaining than this.

Is Enzo the ref for his own match?

It wasn't Cena's retirement match. Go listen to his interview on this past week's E & C Pod of Awesomeness. He's part time from here on out, basically.

Well, your question was answered. 2017 it is.

LOL at the "You Both Suck" sign. EDIT: Now there's a "You Both Suck" chant! Sweet!

Great, solid, hard hitting match. Yeah I like Rollins and Ambrose way more as a team than I ever did as singles acts...especially Rollins. Hopefully, this rivalry isn't over. Which considering the depth of the RAW tag division, it probably isn't.

OMG that Cesaro swing on Ambrose into the steel steps was awesome. EDIT: Is Cesaro legit bleeding from that slingshot into the corner? Did he really smash his mouth on the post? It looks that way...I think he really lost a tooth. Boy Cesaro and Seamus are a dentist's dream team. First Jeff Hardy, now Cesaro.

"We are da bar." These two have been teaming for how long, and "The Bar" is the team name they come up with Seamus and Cesaro?

Well, if nothing else, Finn Balor has now proven he can beat Bray Wyatt when he both is, and isn't wearing make-up.

You make a good point. I actually like a character who is a creepy cerebral cult leader type, but there is no reason he can't verbalize his motivations for his actions. Well, except because of shitty writing. I can't fault Wyatt for that. It reminds me of that quote which has been attributed to Michael Hayes, that a great heel will always have a reason for his actions so that in his mind, he's justified in whatever he's doing. I wish the WWE writers would keep that in mind when it comes to Bray Wyatt.

You said it. I'm still not clear on the reasons for the feud to start with. Sure, Balor is upset because Wyatt keeps attacking him, but Wyatt keeps attacking him because reasons.

A third Wyatt/Balor PPV match is not exactly a strong argument to keep me from changing channels and checking out the debut of the new Star Trek show. Here in Canada, it starts exactly at 8:30 pm EST, right as Wyatt enters the ring.

You know what Jason Jordan needs? Paul Heyman as his advocate.

You've got that right. Jordan has all the tools physically, and then some...but he is the proverbial "black hole of charisma." Giving him a storyline father who does actually have a personality hasn't helped. It seemed like the longer that match went, the more the fans got behind Miz and turned on Jordan. Not a terrible match though, all things considered. EDIT: LOL right as we're discussing this, JR tweets that Jordan has "it."

Were the fans just chanting "Let's Go Miz?"

The video packages hyping the big matches on tonight's show have been excellent. If I was on the fence about this show, that would have made me want to order. You have to give WWE credit, what they do well, they do really well.

You and everybody else there are in my thoughts and prayers.

Pretty damn good promo there by Neville on the pre-show. And Elias was right. That song did change my life.

He learned from the best shit person to work for. Maybe so, but a ton of the people who worked for Heyman (including those who he lied to, ripped off, and ended up owing thousands of dollars to) still speak glowingly of the guy and call him a genius. The amount of loyalty he still commands is amazing to me. I don't see Gabe anywhere near that. Sounds like Gabe may have emulated many of Heyman's bad qualities but not many of the good ones. Meaning, if you're going to be a full-of-shit carny conman, at least be charming and motivational about it.

Like him or not, Bruce Prichard's rise to prominence as a podcaster and his subsequent willingness to give shoot interviews over the past few years have given fans greater firsthand insight into the creative workings of the WWF/WWE than had ever been possible before. Prichard was part of McMahon's inner circle from 88-91 and then from 92-08. There may have been other people who were closer to Vince - Pat Patterson namely - but he's never going to spill the family secrets or admit where any of the bodies are buried. Prichard is a carny for McMahon, no doubt. But you can't argue that nobody (who is willing to go on record) knows more about the creative in WWF/WWE than he does. And based on things he has said, which has been pretty much confirmed by numerous other sources, I'd say hands down the greatest booker of all time is Vince McMahon. There is sometimes a talking point which I've heard before, (primarily from people who want to give Russo credit for the Attitude Era, but others have used it as well) that Vince McMahon wasn't really the "booker" for the WWF/WWE, he was the promoter. That talking point really needs to be put to bed, once and for all. Prichard has most thoroughly debunked it, but Cornette and a few others have also verified that it isn't true. Check out the interviews given by the multitude of former WWE writers over the years. Posters here have said this, and Prichard has said it out-and-out on his podcast: If you want to give Vince McMahon the blame for the crap his company has produced over the years (and Lord knows there has been a ton of it) then you have to give him the lion's share of the credit for whatever was good. Prichard has said it, as have others: nothing has ever made it onto WWF/WWE television that Vince McMahon wasn't significantly involved with in some way. At the very least he approved it going on the air. More commonly it sounds like he micromanaged, tinkered with it, and edited it. In a lot of cases he straight up created it. From where I sit, that's a "booker." Nobody has had more success than Vince McMahon has and it's highly likely nobody ever will. At least not in any of our lifetimes. Once again, the man has also produced a staggering amount of absolute garbage...but this is a guy who literally reshaped the entire sport of Pro Wrestling and turned it into Sports Entertainment in the process. No Vince McMahon, no Wrestlemania, no Hulkamania, no Monday Night War, no Attitude Era, the list goes on and on. I don't even really like the guy all that much and I wish he hadn't done a great many of those things. But he was heavily involved in booking pretty much every single major financially successful Pro Wrestling show in North America for the past 30 + years. To me, it's a question of who is #2.

Did anybody listen to the Jeff Jarrett episode? It was a very interesting listen, and he pretty much totally debunked the long standing theory that Jarrett's departure in 99 was due to Jim Ross dropping the ball. Prichard claims that JR was well aware that Jarrett's contract was up, and but had a verbal agreement to re-sign, so Vince okayed Jarrett still having the I/C title and being all over television. Jeff was represented by his father Jerry, who Prichard claims straight up lied to JR and the WWF about Jeff staying there.

So apparently, John Cena is the guest on tomorrow's show. I have mixed feelings about this. I'm impressed they managed to land him as a guest, and am mildly curious about what he'll say. However, I generally can't stand the guy and just the sound of his voice makes me want to change the channel. Also, Edge is on record as saying that he owes a large part of his success as a Main Event level guy to Cena being willing to put him over, so you know Edge isn't going to ask him any tough questions.