goc

Cena was really NOT 50/50 until at least a good 2 years into his run as top guy. His very first year on Raw wasn't even close. Reigns is either the #2 or #3 merchandise seller in the company. The problem with Reigns isn't that they won't turn him it's that they took so long to just decide "fuck it, we're going with him" and did that stupid finish at Mania against Lesnar and then had him just waste time in the midcard while Rollins was having one of the worst WWE title runs of all time. They had actually finally figured out what to do with him before he got suspended for Adderall.

Chris Masters debuted at the last taping and they are using him as a face so I'm 100% going to be watching Impact now.

How could turning Roman heel possibly make him more hated with the people booing him now than he already is? It's not like it's stopped them from going to shows, if anything it's encouraged them to go so they can boo him and "stick it" to Vince or whatever. It's not like there wasn't a sizeable portion of that crowd that DID like him, he got dueling chants and his fans were cheering him throughout the match. It's just the Cena dynamic all over again.I was there live and it was definitely the Cena dynamic. The same guys that were chanting "Roman sucks" when he was hitting the corners after he won were engaged in the match the whole time. There was a dude in the front row in a Boston Red Sox jersey losing his mind yelling at Roman when he & Braun were fighting on the outside, it looked like something you'd see on NWAOnDemand and not 2017 WWE. You're not going to get that kind of engagement from a "conventional" heel. The best use of Roman was last year right after Mania when he was just The Guy and not pandering to the crowd and there's no way turning him to do "hey this is where you boo me" style mic work would be any better than that OR actually get the kind of negative reactions he's getting now.

How could turning Roman heel possibly make him more hated with the people booing him now than he already is? It's not like it's stopped them from going to shows, if anything it's encouraged them to go so they can boo him and "stick it" to Vince or whatever. It's not like there wasn't a sizeable portion of that crowd that DID like him, he got dueling chants and his fans were cheering him throughout the match. It's just the Cena dynamic all over again.

I don't hate ROH trying to use Bull to sell some extra tickets to NXT die hards when they used him for that show in Florida when they first brought him in. But there's no reason to still use him now. He's not very good & is not a dude that fits in a workrate promotion.

People still believe that whole "Royal Rumble winner headlines WrestleMania!" talking point even though there have been NUMEROUS times that's not been true?

According to PWMania.com he was advertised for Raw on WWE's Events page and was likely advertised locally although I don't know that for sure. http://www.pwmania.com/brock-lesnar-and-chris-jericho-appearing-on-mondays-wwe-raw

I'll be shocked if Brock plays any part in the Owens/Goldberg match. Before, during or after. I just don't see WWE paying what it costs for a date on him to have him show up at a PPV unannounced and not wrestle a match.

Twitter seems to think the idea that the Hardys "signed" with ROH is a work and they're just there for a month until after WrestleMania at which point they immediately go to WWE. I really don't think it's so cut & dry as "WWE can offer more money" because WWE could also offer more money than TNA but The Hardys were going to stay there until TNA started fucking around at the last minute. The Hardys would mean way more to ROH's business than they would to WWE's. I could see ROH giving Hardys pretty much whatever they wanted in a contract to get them to sign, including creative control, which I don't think WWE would ever offer. ROH also would allow the Hardys to keep making their own schedule and work for pretty much anyone else that is not on iPPV when they aren't working for ROH. Matt has gotten used to being around Maxel all the time and has another kid on the way, I don't think he has any desire to go back to working a full time WWE schedule.

ROH bringing in Bully Ray and The Hardys at the same time is kinda weird. I think people are going to assume that will lead to some type of 3 way Dudley/Bucks/Hardys match but D-Von is still under contract with WWE and works as a producer/agent. Bubba is 4 years older and probably about 30 pounds heavier than he was during that Bully Ray TNA run people kept saying was so good & I don't see this ROH run replicating that kind of positive response.

I can guarantee that regardless of match quality if this IS Taker's last WM there will be a large number of people next year saying that Taker should wrestle at WrestleMania 34 for "one last match"

I have no idea how Roman turning can be called an "nWo level changing the business type angle" especially since people WANT Roman to turn heel almost solely so they can start cheering him. WCW diehards hated Hogan and wanted him to get beat and go away. People just want Roman to turn because for some reason they're too insecure to cheer a babyface that Vince is behind and that women & kids like.

Huh? How is Roman getting booed out of the building and Undertaker, getting heavily cheered because people don't want Roman to beat him, not going to get the reaction of previous Taker matches? It's going to get bigger reactions than at least the last 3 Taker matches at Mania. People didn't really care about the Brock match because no one thought the Streak would ever end until the match was over & Brock had won, Bray match wasn't that hot because they put no effort into building it & crowd would have rather seen Bray win & the Shane match had people invested but suffered from people wanting Shane to win for storyline reasons & mostly just sitting around waiting for the big spot everyone knew was coming. The Roman match will have people doing the yay/boo thing the whole way through.

I had no idea that Bryan actually said "I don't believe in cheating in wrestling" while in developmental and I feel like that alone makes his release at the time justified.

When guys do radio interviews and get asked who they want to face at Mania the answer is always either Undertaker or Brock Lesnar. If you really think a few minutes of Undertaker showing his age in the Rumble undoes the 10+ years of him being presented as THE guy you want to face at WrestleMania you're crazy. The crowds are still going to be super invested in the buildup to his WM match with Roman Reigns and it will likely get the loudest reactions of any match on the show.

Based on Chris Masters' latest tweet it seems like he's coming in which means I'm fully on board with watching the 'new' Impact Wrestling and am prepared to call Jeff Jarrett smarter than every other wrestling promoter who wasn't smart enough to book Masters somewhere he could actually be seen.

If no one was subbing to the WO for MMA stuff then MMA fighters wouldn't be getting a bunch of votes for the year end awards.

Why do you say that "everyone else hearing him say this" see The Undertaker as just some broken down old guy when that's pretty much just what the smarkiest of smarks would think? He's the fucking Undertaker & he's been the most coveted WrestleMania opponent for years.

Well that shouldn't really be surprising that setting something on fire and doing your wrestling pose in front of it would get cheered. It was a cool visual. The real issue with the angle is that for all the stuff people have written about how Bray's character is so cool, it's fucking vague as shit and has never been fleshed out. Who is Sister Abigail? Why is she important to Bray? Why is it so devastating to him that Randy burned down the shack she was buried in? This is all shit that Bray is going to have to ACTUALLY explain, in clear terms and not couched in vague supernatural mumbo jumbo to take this from a cool moment into a viable feud. So next Tuesday Bray is going to have actually live up to all the (misplaced imo) hype about him being this great pro wrestling promo because he has a lot of shit to explain to make people understand why he's actually the hero in this story.

Bray is going to come out of this Orton feud as a face not a monster heel.

He gained Bray's confidence while also destroying the Wyatt Family by having Bray turn against Luke Harper, used their help to win the Rumble, turned down the title match to fully ingratiate himself with Bray which led to Bray giving him the "keys to the kingdom" and then used those keys to destroy the base of Bray's stupid dumb ass "powers" that will hopefully end that goofy shit forever. He's still going to get the Mania title match because he won the Rumble which has more import than a promo saying you're giving up the match. The promo did a fine job of explaining it, he joined them because he couldn't beat them and waited for the right time to fully destroy them. Luke Harper was gone & Bray was completely fooled by Randy and gave him the "keys to the kingdom" aka the keys to and location of that shack. Said it way back when they first started teasing a Rusev and Lana split during the Cena program, but yeah. There's some serious bank to be made in a Liz/Randy style relationship with Rusev and Lana. As fun as it was to watch Rusev grow a bit through the breakup, I always thought there was major money in switching them both babyface. It's so easy. It could be done overnight. Rusev packs a certain spark and charm. Just have a more menacing heel physically threaten Lana, let Rusev come to her rescue, and boom. Off to the races. The problem with this idea is that Lana showed the last time they tried to turn her that she is an awful babyface.

Jack Swagger was on Chael Sonnen's podcast to say he asked for and received his release from WWE. Not really surprised he's done because he hasn't been on Smackdown TV in months and when they didn't even have him outside the ring during the recent lumberjack match I knew they weren't going to use him again.

I know it's a bit out of the box, but I could actually see a Rusev babyface turn working. He has a certain charm about him. Maybe he and Seth should flip spots on the card. No disagreements from me there, Rusev is better at Seth Rollins at pretty much every aspect of wresting except shit that doesn't matter like ability to do a Phoenix Splash. I think he could definitely have a strong babyface run but I'm not sure the Raw writers are smart enough or ambitious enough to do that.

What is Rollins actually good at that WWE needs to jump through hoops to protect him? He can't cut promos as a heel or a babyface. He can't really generate heat as a heel in the ring without giving him a whole bunch of help like The Authority, J&J Security, etc. He can't generate sympathy as a babyface through selling. He is way over rated in the ring and generally drags down better opponents to his level. He's a guy who should have a fraction of the TV time he gets because he should only be working workrate midcard matches where his insistence on doing moves above actually trying to work a crowd & build a match won't be so glaring and out of place. They should be treating him like they treat Cesaro.