The Thread Killer

So Neville is going to end up facing either Tozawa again, or the other Davari brother at Summerslam? Ugh. The Cruiserweight division really needs some new blood, or they need to give Gallaher another shot at the title, stat. Johnny Sorrow suggested this... This needs to happen, ASAP.

I know you're all going to throw vegetables at me for saying this, but I liked the Wyatt Family, dammit. I don't like Bray on his own. He needs new followers, they should call all of Sanity up from NXT and make them his new Family. That's a reboot I could get behind. For a while there, it actually seemed like they were turning him face, but then they dropped it. Part of Wyatt's staleness is absolutely due to his being competent but unremarkable in the ring, but an even bigger part of it is the bizarre way they've booked him, pretty much from the git go.

Oh hell yeah, I loved that too. I assume this is leading to Ambrose turning on Rollins, but I'd much rather see them fight Sheamus and Cesaro. That's a Tag Title match I could get behind, and an actual good use of Ambrose and Rollins, too.

So I have been watching NXT pretty faithfully over the past few months, and this was actually my first exposure to Drew McIntyre. I was not watching WWE from 2009 - 2014 when he was previously there, although I think I may have seen him as part of 3MB. I did not see him in TNA, because I'd rather smash myself across the bridge of the nose with a hammer than watch TNA. So here is what I've seen from Drew McIntyre so far... He's big He's in good shape He is at least passable in the ring (this is where I am not 100% sure if I am getting the full picture) He can cut a decent promo He's marketable. By that I mean, he's tall, good looking, and combining that with his Scottish accent, I am sure he is quite popular with the ladies, while not being seen as purely a pretty boy to the men. He would look great on a poster. Hell, just watching him cut a promo in the ring, I find myself questioning my own personal preferences and I get a strange stirring in my area... Perhaps I've said too much. Anyhow, WWE seems to be getting behind McIntyre to a degree, since they are giving him the NXT title shot at Takeover Brooklyn III. So what I don't understand, and what I am hoping some of you will explain to me, or share your opinions about, is what went wrong with his first run? Was his ring work lousy? Were his promos too weak? How the hell did he end up in 3MB? Did WWE drop the ball, only now they realize it, or is he not all that good? Did they only bring him back because TNA made him World Champion, or do they actually think they made or mistake? Did he just need some time out of the WWE system to get some seasoning and improve, or was the mistake on WWE's part in letting him go in the first place? Did he just badly need a reboot? This guy seems to check every box and has a huge upside and a ton of potential, so I'm just very curious what went wrong with his initial run with WWE and am curious to get your opinions on who dropped the ball, him or WWE, or did he just need some time away? Opinions, please.

Works for me

Which probably means that he's off the juice, which probably means that he's going to submit to USDA testing, which probably means he's going to take the fight with Jones in December, which probably means the whole reason for the Fatal 4 Way at SummerSlam (aside from it being a good match-up) is so Brock can lose the title without getting pinned. Probably.

It's fun for about 5 seconds and then it's played out. The sussing, or the gimmick?

Boy you said that a hell of a lot more succinctly than I did. Brevity really is the soul of wit.

It is weird to think Internet wrestling fans suck at understanding wrestling. There are plenty of people that get annoyed about excessive PDA or couples that are incredibly involved in themselves. This is an incredibly common trope in Sitcoms and common thing for people to BITCH about. Thus it is an easy way to get heat. This is NOT difficult to get There are two problems with your theory. Firstly, we all know there are two different kinds of "heat" in Pro Wrestling. There is the intended heat, kind of like New Day have with me. I hate them with a passion, and live to see them get beat up. They annoy the hell out of me with their stupid outfits and their butt shaking and their catch phrases and their 3 on 2 advantage and their stupid trombone, etc. etc. etc. However, I can readily admit that they are talented, good performers, and objectively admit when they have a good match - like they did at Battleground against the Usos. Plus I'd be an idiot to deny that they are popular with a large segment of the WWE audience. Most importantly, they seem to be popular with the demographic that the WWE is aiming for...the part that chants things and buys lots of merchandise. That's good heat. Mike Bennett and Maria have shitty heat, in my opinion. They weren't any good in ROH, I can only assume they weren't any good in TNA, and they really aren't any good in WWE. Yes, they are annoying as hell, but Mike Bennett has never shown me the ability to follow that up in the ring to any significant degree. They're annoying at best, and they have "change the channel" heat. When Bennett's match came on at Battleground, I got up to take my dog out into the yard so he could pee, I went to the washroom myself, and I got myself a refreshing beverage from the fridge. When I returned, I was happy to see the match was over. I really like Sami Zayn but not enough to watch Mike Bennett. Judging from what crowd reaction I heard, I am not alone in my feelings. Just because something is annoying on a sitcom or even in real life, doesn't mean it will work as a wrestling gimmick. Shane Douglas is very talented on the mic, and there is nothing more annoying than a know-it-all, but there is a reason Dean Douglas tanked. The second problem with your theory is that even if Mike and Maria do get over as heels, there is even more reason to hate this gimmick, because heels in this particular era of WWE never seem to get what they have coming to them. Yes, Mike Bennett smashed Sami Zayn over the head with a bottle and then beat him in a match on Smackdown, and Sami got a win back here...but I don't consider winning a wrestling match to be adequate payback for being knocked out and humiliated. If I was a betting man, I'd bet that in the long run Sami Zayn comes out on the losing end of this rivalry. The only way he doesn't is if WWE realizes that this gimmick is stupid and either changes it or decides not to get behind Bennett and Maria based on their crowd reactions. In the long run, I am worried we are going to have to look forward to lots of annoying bullshit from Bennett and Maria on TV with no face ever truly getting the better of them or humiliating them, which should be the payoff to this kind of gimmick, in my opinion. Unless they end up in there with Cena or somebody of his stature. Miz and Maryse managed to get a similar type of "power couple" gimmick over to a huge degree, but they were a lot more multi-faceted than Bennett and Maria. Miz had his whole "A-List" gimmick and the faux movie star thing going on, it wasn't just "I love you baby" all the time. If it had been, I am hoping the fans would have reacted to it with disinterest as well. And as I said, Miz can do a hell of a lot more on the mic to get the fans to hate him than Mike Bennett has ever been able to do. So I don't think Mike Bennett getting over as a heel just by swooning over his wife is a particularly good idea, nor do I think it will work in the long run.

My top two answers are going to seem hilarious, because they're both with guys who aren't considered great wrestlers by any stretch. I watched both of these shoots for different reasons and found them to be extremely compelling. Kayfabe Commentaries has a series of shoot interviews called "Breaking Kayfabe" where the idea is to not necessarily talk about particular territories, eras of wrestling, or even wrestling itself, but to get to know the guys behind the characters. The first one I saw was with . I was always fascinated by him because I am a big fan of his uncle, plus for many years he never broke kayfabe and refused to give any interviews of any kind - even in character. This is partially because he stutters, but also because he seems obsessed with carrying on his uncle's legacy and his uncle notoriously never gave interviews. It was only when Sabu hit tough financial times years back and needed the money that he consented to a shoot interview with RF video. Of course, that interview was a total shit show because Sabu was nervous as hell and gave brief answers. As anybody who has seen an RF shoot knows, Rob Feinstein is a dreadful interviewer. He has no idea how to draw his subject out, how to make them comfortable or to follow up on a comment which might lead to an interesting revelation. Feinstein reads questions off a piece of paper: "What are your memories of Barely Legal?" Sean Oliver of Kayfabe Commentaries is pretty much the total opposite of Feinstein, and it shows in this interview. Sabu is totally at ease with him (they had done two previous interviews by this point, an ECW timeline and a YouShoot) so there is a visible rapport. Sabu talks very candidly about his relationship with his uncle, and more interestingly, about his addictions and the death of his mother, his divorce and his stint in rehab. The thing that made this a must see for me was the conversation they had about how much longer Sabu is going to be able to abuse his body. Oliver asks him if he resents the fans for expecting him to almost kill himself in the ring every night, and Sabu's answers are extremely honest. He says that he dug that grave for himself, and he's trying to stay out of it, but he probably won't. It's extremely sad when he talks about Misawa dying in the ring and how he thinks that is the best way to go. Even sadder is when Oliver asks him if he'll know when it's time for him to quit, and Sabu gets teary eyed and admits that it's past that time already. Obviously, if you dislike Sabu or are unfamiliar with his work then this interview hold little interest for you. But even if you aren't a fan, but have seen his work, you might find it really interesting. I found it much more interesting than the standard "What was it like to work with so-and-so" shoot interview. The next Breaking Kayfabe shoot I saw was with . Anybody who has ever been on YouTube knows that New Jack has given multiple shoot interviews with just about anybody who will put a microphone in front of his face. His interviews are always entertaining because he's usually tuned up on something, and basically does the shoot in character, yelling, threatening and making wild claims and accusations. They usually aren't informative but they're pretty much always funny. This interview starts with the tag line: "Do we really need another New Jack interview? This is the first interview with Jerome Young." Don't get me wrong, Jack is his normal over the top self, but he is much more subdued at times. He discusses some amazing topics, like his childhood (his father was an abusive alcoholic who shot his mother. She retaliated by trying to poison him to death.) his criminal history including his incarceration, his substance abuse problems and yes...his reputation in the industry. Special attention is given to racism in wrestling and why Jack never went to WWE. Sean Oliver even revisits the Mass Transit incident to see if there is any remorse on the part of Jerome Young. Highlights of the interview are the revelations that he had never been in a gang in his life, and had never even been to South Central L.A. before he was billed from there. The gang signs he threw up on TV were all fake and he doesn't even listen to gangsta rap. One thing that struck me with this interview is that Jerome Young is not a likeable person. He talks about how he is alienated from his son and only talks to his daughter and how he probably has quite a few children that he's never even met from his days in ECW. Like Sabu, he also sheds some tears at one point, when he talks about everything he has put his wife through (alluding to the infamous affair he had with Terri Runnels) but that she never gave up on him and took him back even after everything he put her through. I'm not saying that this was a "good" interview but it certainly was fascinating to watch. I was more inclined to believe that Sabu was being truthful in his interview, whereas New Jack is notoriously full of shit. However, I appreciated the effort made by Sean Oliver and Kayfabe Commentaries to do something other than the standard Pro Wrestling shoot interview, and to go deeper into the personal lives of the people who portray these characters. They were both very compelling interviews, if nothing else. I don't know that they were informative or broke any new insider information, but they were memorable to me, and that was something.

Well, Jon Jones called out Lesnar tonight after he won his fight, so I guess this goes from a rumor to a possibility. Thing is, if Lesnar really is interested in fighting Jones, he is going to have to resubmit to USDA testing, and finish out his suspension very soon. They're saying that UFC would want this fight to happen in December, and for that to happen, Lesnar would have to re-enter the testing pool in the next couple of weeks, and he'd probably need at least 8-10 weeks of serious training in order to be ready to fight Jones - which means no more WWE after September. Which means supersonic is right, no Lesnar at Survivor Series, if WWE would allow that. We don't know the conditions of his WWE contract, of course. It would also mean that as far as I'm concerned, Jones vs. Lesnar might go down in history as the biggest fight between two people who appear to be genuinely unpleasant human beings. I'm not sure who I'd pull for in that fight, I don't care for either guy one bit. Kind of reminds me of Nate Diaz vs. Conor McGreggor.

IIRC, Real American wasn't even meant to be Hogan's theme, it was meant for the U.S. Express, but after Windham left the WWF, they gave it to Hogan. THIS was on the same album as Real American, and was supposedly meant to be Hogan's new theme after Eye of the Tiger. It's kind of a pseudo-Rocky training montage music rip-off.

Bischoff talked about that on his podcast, it was really interesting. He said that he got a really good deal from the Hendrix estate for using Voodoo Chile, but that if you were to try and use the same music now, it would cost millions because of all the different platforms that the song would be heard on - he basically said it would be impossible. Of course, there was the way Paul Heyman got around that, he just used music without permission.

I am no Reigns fan, but he has a good look and can more than carry his share in the ring. Fans being that pissed off about him need to find a new target, dammit. I find the fact that Randy Orton is continually at the top of the card to be way more insulting to my fandom than Roman Reigns.

How do you make a comeback when you were FORCED to retire in the first place? Unless he's gonna wrestle somewhere else and I don't get the sense he would want to go slum it in GFW or ROH, especially considering how unhappy he looked when he got inducted into TNA's Hall of Fame. I thought he was pissed because WWE forced him to go there, in exchange for TNA allowing Ric Flair to go to the WWE Hall of Fame and be inducted as part of the Four Horsemen? Basically, I thought Dixie Carter made the deal with WWE that if they wanted Flair, they had to give her Christian - despite the fact Christian apparently had no interest in being there. (Even more humorous was when Flair came out and said he didn't give a shit what Dixie Carter allowed or didn't allow - the Horsemen weren't getting inducted without him being there, and if she sued him for going, then she sued. We all know Naitch isn't afraid of a lawsuit.)

I know you're joking, but in reality Edge and Christian are pretty far off the WWE reservation at this point. On their podcast they make no bones about criticizing WWE if they feel it's warranted - they took great delight in mocking the Great Balls of Fire name, for example. They still have a lot of friends in WWE and are complimentary on occasion, but they don't usually just blindly praise the organization, or avoid criticizing it like some others do. The weird thing is, I remember Edge giving a couple of interviews here in Toronto after the first season of their TV show wrapped. He talked about how much insider stuff they got away with joking about, and he said that he is pretty sure Vince never actually watched an entire episode of the show. He also mentioned that it was incredibly time consuming to write and act in, and he honestly didn't think there would be a second season, and at that time he himself was ambivalent about the idea. Then a few months later, I saw/heard him talking about how they had assembled a writing team and were working on ideas for the second season. He has even joked with guests on the Podcast about being on the second season, and gave the impression at times that it was definitely a go. So if it is really cancelled, I would assume that it is for the same reason as Legends with JBL and Talking Smack, that the network is getting away from original programming. Which I hope means that there will be no second season of Holy Foley. Because if that show gets another season after Legends, Talking Smack and Unfiltered got cancelled - I shall be pissed. UPDATED: Some sites are even reporting that half of the second season has already been filmed?! As far as Christian goes, I am pretty sure he was in the same boat as Daniel Bryan. He was under contract and had several concussions, and the WWE basically told him that they were not going to allow him to wrestle, but he was still under contract until some time last year, I think. I don't know if Edge and Christian are under those so-called "Legends" deals, but as far as I know both of them are not under contract and are free to do what they want. Edge can't and won't wrestle again, nor does he apparently want to. Christian is a different story, I think he still wouldn't mind wrestling now and then. He's only 43 which isn't really all that old in wrestling years, depending. A Christian comeback could happen, just not in WWE. Hell, he and Jarrett are friends, I guess it is conceivable that he could end up in Global Force, although it's unlikely. It's possible the only thing that kept Christian from wrestling elsewhere was his off and on relationship with WWE. If the show really is cancelled, we may yet see him wrestle.

See, now that makes sense and that is an angle I can get behind - in the sense that I don't give a shit about either guy and can totally ignore it. Owens is a perfect guy to wrestle Shane. They can both take stupid pointless bumps together.

Wouldn't you think that Karen Jarrett would have said who she was when she introduced herself? Or is the idea that Strowman blew her off because she was married to Jeff Jarrett, before he knew she used to be married to Angle? Either way...weird story.

I forgot about Graham. Boy, there was a guy who was crazy bitter about practically everybody and everything, too. Sadly, I wasn't surprised how he met his end. He seemed so damn angry and unhappy every time I saw him interviewed. Tragic story, that family. His dad commits suicide, his son commits suicide and he ends up committing suicide. Very sad.

Of all the notoriously full of shit shoot interviews I have ever seen, I think Manny Fernandez, Greg Gagne and Black Bart (of all people) win the awards for most ridiculous nonsense spouted per minute.

You take that back. That's Canada's Greatest Athlete you're talking about there, pal.

One of the things (perhaps the only thing, actually) I think WWE has done right with the Cruiserweight Division is how they have booked Neville. He went from being an afterthought on Raw, to an absolute killer who has been pretty much unbeatable. How they have booked his title reign has a lot to do with that, IMO.

If you do that EVERY time with EVERY title it'd be pretty damn boring. I disagree, but I readily admit that my tastes when it comes to things like that are pretty conventional (if there is such a thing.) I'd just much rather see a championship "chase" with long reigns and even multiple title shots by one contender, than the title switching back and forth like a pendulum. I think they could have easily booked this entire angle between Owens and Styles and made it just as effective with only one title change. In fact, I feel the title change would have been a lot more effective if Owens had thwarted Styles at every turn only to have Styles win the title once and for all in the triple threat with Jericho. Owens could have whined and bitched that he got cheated and never really lost the title, and Styles would have been champ with a title that hadn't been all over the map recently. But YMMV.

I couldn't agree with you more. The quicker this angle ends, the better. I strongly dislike seeing one of my favorite wrestlers being wasted in a stupid angle with one of my least favorite. I usually skip anything involving Kevin Owens, but when it's AJ Styles, I end up being compelled to watch.

I don't hate title changes at all, but they lose their significance if they happen eight times in seven months...especially when most titles are defended monthly. Having something happen that often makes it seem far less special or eventful. Also, it's hard to get excited about a title change or be happy when one of your favorite wins a title, when you assume they're going to drop it in their next match. Building up a successful title reign and defending the title on multiple occasions helps make the champion more popular and adds to their mystique, as well. That way, when somebody finally does beat them, it makes whoever did it look more impressive. If you just randomly trade the title back and forth, why should anybody care that you have it at all?