Timbo Slice

Well, if any of the other Divas were remotely over...

That, plus the Eddie/Rey storyline was done on SD! due to the high Latino viewing population the show had at the time (and carried forward because of it). With the two top Latin stars in the company working a program together, it pulled in some major rankings.

Cox is right. SmackDown! was a "toned down" show at first.

That was the Starrcade match, right? I remember liking it alright but they didn't want to give it nearly enough as the other matches in the series. It was almost a "throwaway" match. Plus, they basically missed Badd's somersault pescado after the DQ when they switched to the wide shot!

Body part work, like any other part of a wrestling match, is a story catalyst. If the story is around a weak body part, the match will be built around said body part. The trick is whether or not the guys in the ring want to make that body part matter or not. Everyone goes crazy about Kawada's selling in the 12/3/93 tag, but the thing isn't that he dragged a weak leg around the rest of the match the moment he got it attacked. It's that he made it part of the story and made the moves that happened after the initial attack make sense. It's not a cliche so much as it either represents the story a match is trying to tell or not. In NJPW juniors matches during the 90's, "body part work" was mainly an introductory period of some type of struggle that ended up meaning nothing at the end of the match because that wasn't the story they were trying to tell. Then Ohtani and Samurai turn that on its ass in their 1/21/96 match, where the ENTIRE match revolves around the body part work of both guys, and it looks to be brilliant in retrospect because they decided to make the body part a focal point of the match. Ric Flair worked thousands of matches where he went after the knee, slapped on the figure four and the leg work meant nothing in the long run because that wasn't the story he and the guy across from was trying to tell. Hell, we just saw Zayn and Cesaro have a match where the injured knee became a focal point, and very few people even elected to talk about the fact that he was jumping around doing the Toyota Roll and the top rope rana. The problem is when the people watching the match at home are left wondering how hurt the guy is because he got his knee worked on for five minutes and that because people sell "body part work" differently (some subtly like Kawada, some over the top like Zayn, tons of others in between) that there's a single way to sell the work. It's never been that way and it never will be.

If Punk is coming back, it won't be to work HHH. He left because he was going to work HHH at Mania and unless something drastically changed on his end (which from reports, it seems like this was Vince and Co. lowering their shields), Punk will be back to work the main event. This fulfills the idea that there's someone other than Orton or Batista working the main event, which, while it won't save the match, will save the crowd in some aspects. Bryan will face HHH, win, and then he'll be groomed for a title run either at Extreme Rules or Money in the Bank. I don't think there's as much of an overlap between Bryan and Punk fans as people think. Bryan is genuinely over in a way that Punk was really over in at MITB 2011 and he's been that way for months. It's a similar situation, oddly, and he'll get a hero's welcome in Chicago, but after tomorrow night, he's not gonna be as over as Bryan is.

Seems like the built in plan is him vs. HHH, because the better story for Bryan is him trying to win the title. So most likely, it'll be him qualifying to make it a triple threat match by trying to beat both guys in the same night or something. The funny part is that, of course, Punk didn't want to fight HHH at all. So it makes you wonder if Punk's desires are really going to make him a part of the main event. It's like Foley in 2000.

Not seeing the 2014 Rumble yet on Apple TV.

With Cena as a separate champ, you could have at least had him run on top for a bit, I guess. A unification match at WrestleMania doesn't mean much because WM itself is a draw. That's a good question. I think them unifying the belts the way they did looks like a bad idea in retrospect, and if I remember right, that decision was made to try and give Orton more of a rub to be accepted on top by going over Cena in a "historically significant" match. Now it looks like it all didn't matter at all.

It wasn't about the style, though. He was plenty over from a work standpoint. Del Rio was derided heavily when he came in because he wasn't exactly known as a good worker, yet he took off the mask and became one of WWE's top guys because he accepted his role and made the most of it. Mistico came in and basically had a big head, ran into the wrong people back stage, got injured, and now he's completely de-valued. The one thing I will say going forward that might render all this moot is that there have been plenty of rumblings about WWE wanting to become more of an international presence and that by doing that, they're focusing more on in-ring action, which would be beneficial for a guy like Okada, who has that natural charisma about him and can work well. He'll still have to talk, but it won't be as big a deal if he doesn't talk that much.

That, plus they didn't have an out plan for Orton on top. They basically accepted him as a flop but didn't want to devalue the title by having it jump around before WrestleMania. They seemed to be locked in with their plan (obvious due to Batista and him still being the title match with basically universal opposition from the fan base) and didn't want to deviate from it. Booked themselves into a corner.

At this point, there are restrictions on how to access the Network. It's a similar restriction rule to blackout policies in pro sports. Right now, it's I believe US and Canada only, so if you run off an international proxy, you will indeed get geoblocked.

WWE has been a bit more lenient on content being available online and I think that had to do with the Network opening. If they're going for more of that Hulu Plus mentally where it becomes On Demand the day after it runs live, it would make sense. Matt hit on an idea that I think has to be done at some point. If you can build up a big rivalry over a long period of time and you have a big-time blowoff match, putting up all their matches in one spot to watch in chronological order is almost a no-brainer. Hell, some type of wrap-up of everything leading up to any PPV-level match would be great, but that's a hell of a production job to do that for every match on PPV.

Sin Cara was the biggest drawing wrestler in Mexico for a few years and couldn't figure it out. My point isn't that they wouldn't acknowledge his past accomplishments. My point is that the WWE sees all wrestlers on an equal playing field and only care about what you can do to help them make money, regardless of what you've done before from a work or drawing perspective. It's a setting issue, not a resume issue.

Well, it's not about him being Japanese. It's about WWE thinking he can make them money. Japan isn't that big of a market for WWE. They don't have much to pull from there, so he'd have to have an intangible that gets him over more than, "Top guy from Japan's top company."

It's like any series of matches: The more of the series you see, the better the matches at the end of the series become. I think it's really hard to craft a match completely based on previous matches. The wrestlers will have their winks and nods to those who have followed it, but that's just more icing on top of the cake. You could go into that match having never seen those two guys wrestled before and it doesn't take away the fact it was a good match. It's just that piecing together certain parts from their other matches makes it better. I don't think matches are catered to a specific audience in that way.

I remember hearing something about him being able to speak it, but when the whole "Okada to WWE" talk came up at the beginning of last year, reports said that Okada was multi-lingual (I think it was 4 languages) and English was one of them. That's why I went that way. Good lord. Nak's current gimmick with his "YAAAOWWW!" scream while cutting English promos...I kinda want to see that now.

Liked the Dandy/Satanico match, especially the opening mat work. I'm not sure I can put it ahead of Cena/Cesaro or even Cesaro/Bryan, but it was fun, nonetheless.

It's also important to note that the only time Zayn beat Cesaro WAS on a fluke. And he's spent the last year trying to prove it wasn't. Even in the 2/3 falls match, his only fall came on a flash pin off that boot in the corner. Cesaro's confidence was totally warranted, as was Zayn's faith that he could beat Cesaro because he technically had two pinfalls over Cesaro, albeit after Cesaro had already wrestled and with Cesaro caught off-guard to start the 2/3 falls match. They really know how to make Zayn look good and look like "an equal" to Cesaro while Cesaro is still clearly the more dominant wrestler. I'm not saying the quality is like Misawa/Kawada, but the booking style makes me think of it right away, where Zayn can only get the wins that don't matter that much in the big picture and Cesaro is still the better man.

It's mainly used as a bridge or litmus test of sorts. Since the weekly NXT shows began, they've sent wrestlers down to NXT to give shine to guys they like. While guys like Cesaro can do it well with Zayn, you also get stinkers like Kofi going down to work Rusev a few weeks ago. It's not necessarily a showcase for the main roster guys. It's to show that the NXT guys can hang with those on the roster already, which, to the fans who watch both the main shows and NXT, makes them feel like when they get called up, they deserved it.

Okada speaks English, and I don't think any of the other four do, which makes him almost a de facto choice. Problem is that his gimmick wouldn't translate to the United States that well. He could definitely work, and I think he would benefit a lot working in the WWE style, but it's still a long shot.

The Sheamus match was on Raw but it was mid-show. When looking through his matches for the WC end of year podcast, I saw that the main event matches were mainly tags. He hadn't gotten a chance with much singles stuff.

It's not shocking they opened with the match, as WWE's old standby has been that the most important spots are the opening and ending matches.

Opener was good, but I'm not sure I'd say it's better than the Cena match. It was definitely exciting, but there were a couple moves in there that I think were done just for the sake of doing them to get near falls. That being said, there were some great moments and it did the best thing a match could do in putting the losing wrestler over, as well. Zayn is a made guy at this point. The showcase matches weren't that great, as Rawley should be running dudes over in less than 2 minutes. For whatever reason, he takes punishment for too long before making a comeback. I get the Rusev beatdown, but it wasn't really impressive. Divas match was good, but I really wish they would figure out a way to work more uptempo. I'm not saying they have to be Manami Toyota, but they're being taught to work a similar style to the guys and picking up the tempo would help the good workers like Emma and Paige really shine. Main was a good match but I wonder how much faith they have going forward with Bo Dallas if they're talking more about becoming action-oriented. His personality is what got him over as a heel and while he's good in the ring, there are a lot of guys on the roster who can do laps around him. Happy to see Neville as the champ, as he'll get some exciting matches out of whoever they put him against.

I think that had more to do with Page having to lay out everything, though. That Pillman match was obviously called as it happened because they just started throwing bombs after the 10 minute mark. I wouldn't put that on Mero.