goc

I wouldn't even assume there is some next big project planned once they finish Smackdown but they have prioritized Monday Night War era stuff so I would expect if they are going to upload anything it will be Thunder.

No way, Jack Gallgher trained in the Snake Pit and had two MMA fights so he could probably have beat up anyone in the Rumble not named Brock Lesnar.

I'm not sure who the small guys that are supposed to be getting pushed instead of Braun Strowman, Roman Reigns, Baron Corbin, etc are. They were clearly setting up a big push for 5'11 190 lb Finn Balor with him debuting and immediately winning the Universal Title but he got hurt. Not sure what other guys that size in the company are really worth getting a big main event push. Only one I'd argue they should be doing more with is Kalisto.

I guess I understand why they wanted to end on that segment but it would have been MUCH better to do that early in the show, possibly even the first segment. Doing a surprise debut at the end of Raw in front of a crowd that's been there almost 4 hours is not going to lead to the optimal crowd response.

Does Meltzer enjoy ANYTHING in WWE? Does he actually watch Smackdown & pay attention? If so, not sure how he could say Cena vs. Corbin is "not good news" especially since he's always complaining about WWE not using part timers to put over new guys at WrestleMania. Corbin just put on 2 great performances in December against Kalisto at TLC and in the 3-way title match on Smackdown, he's good. Even if Corbin loses to Cena just having him in that high profile of a match would be big for his career. Cena/Nikki vs. Miz/Maryse would also be good and reward 3 people who have been a big part in making Smackdown the better show since the split (and use Cena to make the match more important)

Yes, that was very very bad and I don't know how Seth is actually a face in all of this. I stopped watching Raw after the Braun/Owens match and the Lesnar segment because that was the only reason I was even watching, so I missed the Samoa Joe debut. But I am kind of amused at the reaction to it all because most of it is people marking out for Joe and it seems clear he's only getting set up to lose to Rollins in his first WWE match as a way to further set up HHH/Rollins at Mania. It just strikes me as odd how people are very positive about that when if it had been done last year & Reigns had to go through Samoa Joe to get his title match with HHH at WrestleMania people would have fallen all over themselves to be the first to say Joe was getting buried by having to lose to Roman.

So I'm pretty interested in Raw tonight to see where they go with Roman/Braun, if they do anything to follow up Roman eliminating Taker, whether they plant seeds of an Owens/Jericho match at Mania or go in another direction. Also hoping to see them NOT split up the awesome Cesaro/Sheamus team.

I think the Rumble match is probably in top 5 for me. I watched it this morning before I saw any reaction to it online and thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought the way they booked Braun in it was PERFECT he looked like the biggest beast in WWE & I liked Corbin eliminating him because it means Braun can feud with Roman & not get forced into a feud with the guy who eliminated him. Plus it gave Corbin a big moment that he was undoubtedly talk about in his upcoming promos. The second half of the Rumble fell into the new pattern they have of "fresh guy comes in while everyone in the ring sells like they're dying so he can just come in & hit big moves on 3-4 guys with no trouble" but then they got into the big boys coming out and I got hype for the Lesnar/Goldberg/Undertaker/Reigns stuff at the end. I actually thought since Owens retained they were going to have Jericho win so I was VERY happy when Reigns eliminated Jericho, was one of my favorite moments of the Rumble. As far as Orton winning, I have no idea what they are going to do with it. I know the rumor is Bray winning the title at the Chamber and then Orton/Bray at Mania but that just seems like a lot of hot shotting I'm not sold that's really the plan. I'd actually much rather see Cena/Orton. Yes I want to see that match, they have not wrestled each other in a long time & I'd like to see them go back to it one last time before both of them are gone. I'd have Orton win the title against Cena leading to Bray getting jealous about Orton out shining him. It feels like they'd just have to rush too much to set up an Orton/Bray title match at Mania when that would be much better as a post-Mania feud. People saying "no one cares about Orton" just aren't paying attention though because Orton is as over as he's been in YEARS. Go back and watch the American Alpha title switch, people were chanting for him all match and sitting on their hands for AA. The Wyatt Family stuff has done wonders for him.

Anyone complaining about Samoa Joe/Nakamura not debuting the Rumble would have also complained about them getting eliminated by Braun/Goldberg/Taker/Lesnar/whoever so not like there would have been some big outpouring of positivity if they WOULD have debuted.

Why have people worked themselves into a shoot that everything WWE does with Roman is an attempt to get him 100% cheers. It's clearly not. They wanted him to get booed & they wanted people to work themselves into thinking Roman would win so they would pop for Orton winning it at the end. It was brilliant. They don't care if people boo Reigns as long as he's still a top merchandise seller in the company. The Cena era proved mixed reactions are not bad & probably make more money as the Reigns haters buy the merchandise of his opponent in some foolish attempt to "show the company they are wrong. I'm sure KO sold more merchandise during his feud with Reigns for exactly that reason.

I actually think they're gonna do some kind of DQ or countout finish where Cena wins but AJ retains.

If Tye Dillinger isn't going to be in the Rumble then I hope they have Sami Zayn come out at #10. I would be very amused at the crowd having a moment of crisis trying to decide if crying about Dillinger not coming out at #10 is worth booing Sami Zayn. And laugh even harder if they decide that, yes it is worth it, and Zayn gets booed.

Big Show had such crappy gear here, it took them forever to find a good way of presenting him. I thought the match was fine, HHH & Big Show have always matched up fairly well together but like everyone said, the crowd kind of didn't care. I'm surprised that HHH hasn't brought back the thing they had here with pictures of him beside the entrance for NXT to let you know "This is the HHH show"

This was pretty much your Raw Hardcore Title defense, a very short but fun garbage match. Trailer Park Trash is a guy I've never seen before but immediately like. He looks like Kenny Powers who ended up as a wrestler instead of a baseball player. Pretty enjoyable match although I also kind of laughed at Cornette right in the middle of this helping set up a goofy table spot that he'd rant about if he were reviewing the match on his podcast.

It seems like wrestling in Chile must be doing pretty well considering one of the promotions down there has been bringing in guys like The Hardys, The Young Bucks & Kenny Omega.

I enjoyed the first part of this match and everything after Carly made his comeback (which popped me big time as I've never seen his early work in PR and didn't know he did his Dad's cartwheel comeback deal) but the middle of this match just about put me to sleep. I'm glad I stuck with it though because the finish was a very good usage of overbooked double ref shenanigans and watching the crowd lose it's mind after the finish was great.

I'm 100% on board with an Armstrong gaining power in WWE.

The Bullet & The Stud - Bob Armstrong comes back to Southeastern after a serious injury where weights got dropped on his face and wants to make amends for the things he did during his last run as a heel, namely screwing Ron Fuller over during a World Title match with Ric Flair. Bob Armstrong offers to be Ron's partner in his feud with Arn Anderson & Jerry Stubbs but Ron doesn't trust him & doesn't want his help leading to some great promos from both of them.

Mojo (6'4, 265) & Sheamus (6'4, 267) should both qualify as hosses. The rest probably not.

Just uploaded all 47 episodes of 1991 USWA that I had. Missing 5 episodes throughout months of February, March, April but otherwise it's a complete set. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB8FXHmaF-0pRTKgzOZY9Q0O-19ltvLAc

I haven't seen all of the matches in the poll but from what I've seen I'm definitely going with Carlos Colon vs Stan Hansen

Picked this match to watch at random and holy shit this was nasty: Anyone know how badly he was injured?

As far as I could tell the only thing Satanico had in his hand was Rey Bucanero's do-rag after it came off.

This was about as good of a match as you could have in the very short amount of time they were given. Crowd totally did not give a shit though which was disappointing. Had Barbarian been out with an injury of did they just pay him to sit at home for most of 1999 since Scott Hudson said Barb had been gone for 8 months?

JYD & Duggan vs. Krusher Darsow & Nikolai Volkoff Texas Tornado match is also highly recommended by me.