Loss

I get that he's fairly new, but what is your response to the issue of needing strong heels post-Wrestlemania? They are very babyface-heavy right now.

I actually think they are setting up a Wrestlemania where with the exception of Undertaker, every single established star loses. They have been pushing that fans are ready for a change on commentary pretty hard. With Cena and Bryan as top babyfaces and Reigns and Cesaro soon to turn and join them, that pretty much leaves Batista and Bray Wyatt to carry the heel load by themselves. Yes, Orton will be featured to an extent. He always is. But there's literally nothing left for him to do after Wrestlemania. I have no idea what they'll do with him. I wonder if Ambrose is going to get a little more shove too.

Credibility is obtained through winning. If they had more strong heels, maybe I would think Cena going over would be more likely.

Important to remember that they are most likely still going to add a ton of new footage to the VOD archive. I don't think they consider their work done by any means. It's just that getting the library network ready takes a lot of time and resources.

There is no reason for Cena to win that match. They need more top heels, so I think Bray goes over.

Fun! I will work on it!

I want Matt D to sink his teeth into some UWF, UWFI, PWFG and RINGS and see if it changes his perspective on the sports aspect of pro wrestling. There's more than one way to do it right.

He should watch Midnight Express vs Fantastics (Bash '88) and Midnight Express vs Rock & Roll Express (Wrestle War '90). The highspots are there and it may also change his tune on the Southern style stuff.

It was fixed dates. The free trial was one week starting last Monday. If you signed up Tuesday, it was only a 6-day trial, and so on. If you sign up now, you missed the free trial.

They've managed to make their creative failures of the past and fan outrage work for them as a positive, which is a very good thing. They have people convinced that they are revolting when cheering Daniel Bryan and booing HHH. As has been said many times, WWE is scripting a revolution against itself. It's fascinating.

I might have thought HHH would win at one point, but now I think he will want to make the match as big as possible and put over Bryan as convincingly as possible simply because he'll want to throw it in Punk's face that he made a mistake. I don't think much of HHH's professionalism, but I don't underestimate his ability to be driven by something like that. The spot where Bryan kicked him in the face told me he's going to put him over, simply because a typical HHH beatdown would have him doing the promo without that little moment.

After watching the nuance and incredible manipulative skills they used to navigate the Chicago crowd tonight, I will never doubt them again on conditioning an audience, so I wouldn't worry too much about the Dome crowd. I think Pittsburgh and the Rumble was a wake-up call, subsequent towns proved the crowd reactions weren't a fluke and tonight proved that WWE is on the ball now. They are back to being the puppeteers, which is exactly how it should be.

Whoever came up with the plan to navigate Raw in Chicago is a genius. Huge credit to WWE on this one.

They just acknowledged the Punk chants on the pre-show. He's coming back all right.

I'm not Dylan, but I think his point is that Batista vs Bryan is a match that could headline a pay-per-view. They wouldn't have put it on TV in the past, at least not until after letting it run its course on PPV first. Wyatts vs Shield matching up again is also a big one. If you add in Punk returning and Hogan, Undertaker and Brock being there, this is a really loaded RAW. They don't have to hold very much, if anything, back now in hyping PPVs so maybe we should expect to see more marquee matches on television.

Well, there's your most heated match of 2014.

There's also the issue with the payoff for last year's Wrestlemania with Undertaker that has been rumored. We don't know if it's true that Punk had a problem with it, and if so we don't know if it's because he thought he was underpaid or because he was paid an amount less than he was promised. In short, we don't know enough about the situation to say if he's right or wrong to do what he did.

Backlash 2005: - The work was really good in the Chris Jericho vs Shelton Benjamin opener, but it was also sort of tone deaf. Shelton never really got over in a huge way, although he showed potential at one point the year before. Jericho was becoming more irrelevant by the day at this point. They put forth a really strong effort, but without the heat and a strong storyline hook, it felt lacking. Jericho really got over the idea that he wanted this win to revitalize his career and was suitably freaked out when he didn't get it. I'd go 3 1/4*. - Edge vs Benoit seemed to have some identity crisis going on. It was like they were trying to work a match getting over the hate and intensity through aggressive wrestling on one hand, but couldn't help themselves in staying away from ladders and garbage cans on the flip side. The crowd was chanting for weapons and Edge breaking out the ladder got a great pop, but it really felt like the fans were pulling the strings of their puppet wrestlers. We know that mindset can't go anywhere good, and it made me just not think much of this at all. This is probably better than I'm giving it credit for, but I couldn't get into it because it felt cheap. How dumbed down is a wrestling match when Edge uses a brick as a weapon to knock Benoit out and win? Blood was overdone to a point it was gratuitous in 2005 WWE, which makes it weird that they didn't go there in this match. - Christian doing raps to get babyface pops as a heel, presumably to build to a feud with John Cena. Cena didn't really have anyone out to play a real heel against him for ages. - HHH vs Batista was much better than at Wrestlemania. I don't have a ton to say about it but it was a good WWE main event with lots of overbooked referee bullshit that worked. HHH once again convincingly put Batista over while also making the result hard fought enough that the door is open to a rematch. I'd go 3 1/4* on it, but not something I feel the need to watch again.

It also had more viewers than RAW at the time, I think. That may have been later though.

Oh, and I think the ultimate takeaway from Bill Watts' WCW run was that he was like a doctor who stopped practicing years before who was still great at accurately diagnosing but hadn't kept up with the latest advances in treatment. I do think by the end of his run, he was starting to get it and had a much better feel for who the best players were, but it was too little too late. And even if he was spot on from the beginning, the Watts mentality in a corporate environment like TBS was never going to last.

Good stuff, as always. What stands out to me more about 1993 than anything else is that this was the year the gap in match quality between the U.S. and Japan just got really huge. I think the best stuff in the U.S. wasn't too far behind the best Japanese stuff from 1990-1992, but in 1993, Japan took a giant leap forward and American wrestling did not. I think you'll enjoy 1994 more than 1993, even if there is no business turnaround in sight. Other than 1997, it's my favorite year that we have covered.

"I'm untouchable but I'm forcing you to feel me" was such an awesome line. Cena was such a great talker during that time. Pretty cool how he was probably on the verge of being released and turned things around enough to become the top star in the company.

Watching some old stuff I'd forgotten how fun John Cena was a midcard heel during the "Basic Thuganomics" period. That music was so good too. WHY was it replaced?

I won't go through every match at Wrestlemania XXI, but here are some highlights: - Eddy vs Rey was good. I still think Rey is excellent, but he was much more spry in 2005 than he is now and that stood out watching this. Rey's mask problems seemed to hamper them a little, plus this was the first chapter in Eddie's heel turn more than it was the peak of a rivalry, so I don't think it was really designed to be a great match, nor did it need to be. Three-star match. - I really enjoyed Money In The Bank. One thing I am trying to do as a wrestling fan - which is admittedly hard - is table every single bias I have. And I do have a bias against multi-man gimmick matches. So I think you have to look at what they can accomplish within that framework and judge them based on that instead of comparing it to Flair vs Steamboat or whatever. The dive train with Kane joining in was tremendous and I liked how they put some thought behind the flash too. Edge didn't do much in the match. He largely waited around for others to take each other out, then jumped on the opportunity when it arose. I thought that fit his character and was a nice touch. Also, I really enjoyed Tyson Tomko's interference. He seems like someone who deserved better in WWE so far. Literally putting Christian on his shoulders and trying to carry him up the ladder was great. I'd go 4* for this. - Angle vs Shawn had really good moments, especially the opening matwork with the short-arm scissors. But Angle can't sell anything for shit and Shawn wasn't interested. Shawn sitting in the anklelock as long as he did just went against the psychology of a move that requires a quick tapout to avoid a snap in every way. I'd probably go 3 1/2* overall. Very good match, but this is what you get when neither guy wants to make the other look good. - Orton vs Undertaker was very good. Undertaker was in a giving mood, and I loved dad's interference with the cast. Despite the streak already being built up as something special at this point, some of those nearfalls were pretty convincing all the same. I'd go 3 1/4* here. - JBL vs Cena was not a match befitting of a guy being set up for the top spot. I think JBL tried, but he just wasn't a very over champion, and he was a limited wrestler anyway. Cena was still coming into his own at this point also. When you look at all the guys who either tried to guzzle Cena or just weren't capable of giving him what he needed, it's kind of a wonder he got over at all. - HHH vs Batista was okay. Being sort of emotionally removed from HHH stalling the careers of so many of my favorite wrestlers makes it much easier to look at his matches objectively. After the Chamber performance of HHH and the way others were able to make Batista look good, I was thinking this may surprise me. There's nothing really wrong with the match. I just think Batista wasn't good enough yet to have a strong one-on-one main event match with no gimmicks or booking tricks. The catapult that led to HHH's bladejob looked awful, but I hate that move as a rule anyway because I don't buy whatever laws of momentum I'm supposed to buy to make that move work, but maybe that's because I've never really seen the move executed very well. Solid match, but not at the level I think a Wrestlemania main event should be. Still, it was an effective way to kick off Batista's first big run on top.

It's amazing because as Dave has said, creative has scripted a revolution against themselves.