kjh

I preferred the Bucks/Omega vs. Time Splitters/Dorada trios match from Sendai to the triple threat tag, which, for me, had a more organic feel and the big spots were more impactful. I'm probably an outlying opinion on that, but I'm not the biggest fan of matches that seem overly choreographed and don't let moments breathe.

Lawler returned at WrestleMania X to announce the show, so he was gone for about four months. I don't think it would have been booked much differently. I think the plan was always for Lawler to get his ass kicked on the show.

Source? According to PWInsider.com Kevin Nash is one of the names that has at least been considered for this year's WWE Hall of Fame class. If true this would see him follow in the footsteps of his former Outsiders tag team partner Scott Hall, who was inducted last year. Is that a dirtsheet?

Russo was officially put on the writing staff a couple of weeks later when the show half taped in America, half taped in South Africa bombed in the ratings, although he had been sitting in on production meetings for over a year by that point.

Lawler was ribbed badly when he first went to the WWF for that reason.

Johnny Sorrow's quote missed the self obsessed part of his column from his headline "Can You Imagine If I Would Have Booked the Zayn/Owens Finish" to this portion of his rant: "But, regardless, all I can think about when it comes to that match is the reaction of the IWC if VINCE RUSSO had actually booked that finish. Could you imagine the lambasting I would be taking this morning? The IWP would be asking for my pencil, my head, my job, and my freakin’ draws—if in fact I wore any. All day they would be talking about my total lack of knowledge and incompetence when it comes to wrestling. There would be blogs, podcasts, telegraphs and maybe even carrier pigeons. One website that I know of would tag last night, “The Night Vince Russo Not Only Killed NXT—But, The Entire Wrestling Business”. Man, there would be parades with paper mache Vince Russo heads on sticks. Some would be looting, or even turning over burning cars in the middle of the street. But , , , that would be only if I booked it. Today? Today it will be all right because it was NXT." For someone who professes to be all about the talent, it's amusing to see him put himself over at their expense and get his shots in at Hunter.

It's clear that WWE wants to legitimately sellout Cowboys Stadium next year and that they don't have much confidence in their rising stars to do so. So Austin and Shawn will likely both get offers to do matches on the show. Even if they don't accept, the show will likely be built around Rock vs. Triple H and The Undertaker's retirement match, which will help no-one new get over.

I'm with Dylan here. The booking was atrocious (why make it no DQ, if they're going to do a tamer match than the main event and have no interference?), but I thought both worked hard and it was a serviceable match.

I'm not sure Vince would really get Finn Balor's character. I think in Vince's hands the gimmick could get too cartoonish. He'd might become a better working Boogeyman. But out of all the people in NXT, he's the most ready for the main roster. But really, let's not kid ourselves here, Vince would watch NXT Takeover: Rival and immediately want to fast track Baron Corbin to the main roster, whilst writing off Zayn as bland, Owens as short and fat, Neville as colourless, Kalisto as a second-rate Rey Mysterio imposter, Bayley as frumpy, Itami as needing a more stereotypical gimmick, etc, etc.

No-one asked him about the Seth Rollins incident directly on the NXT conference call, although it sounded like some of the journalists on the call had privately asked for an official WWE statement on the matter beforehand to their PR reps. He brought it up at the beginning of the call to get the subject out of the way and to make sure the call stayed on topic. That's smart PR.

Rollins should be alright, long term, given he's still got the briefcase, his connection to The Authority on TV, and the dearth of top heels at the moment.

According to Meltzer, behind the scenes he was "Being A Star" with a security guard too. So perfect timing for that PA!

Why are we giving credit to Triple H for losing to Daniel Bryan and The Shield when Vince McMahon has the final say? Shouldn't Vince get all the credit for that booking decision, like he got all the blame for the booking of the Royal Rumble match?

Isn't the problem more how they portray minorities than the exact percentages?

What Bix said, plus I think a lot of the heat was because of Vince McMahon's nepotism promoting his daughter to a position that she was clearly not ready for (as demonstrated by the deteriorating quality of WWE's programming under her watch).

Typically, all other athletic commissions respects the bans/suspensions in other states. That massively cuts down where they could hold a fight between Silva vs. Sonnen.

From what I understand you send Dave e-mails, have a podcast/article and get recommended by other voters are the key ingredients. Interesting….I thought maybe there was an approval process with certain people and interviews / applications... I think Dave has to consider you in a rather loose sense a historian or a reporter, given that he only gives ballots out to non-wrestlers who fit in those buckets, and respects you enough to send you one. Being recommended by other voters helps, but I don't think anyone recommended me. I'd emailed Dave once or twice when I had written a post on Cageside Seats that was newsworthy, also the occasional correction to things he had said or published.

Wanderlei Silva was given a lifetime ban by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for running from a drug test, and Sonnen is suspended until summer 2016 for failing drug tests for HGH, EPO, anastrozole and hCG, so promoting it as a sanctioned MMA fight between the two would be impossible. Maybe they could do it as a Brawl For All or submission grappling match on a WWE pay-per-view, but I'd imagine even that could prove problematic.

Also, people standards change the more they need fame and fortune.

I wouldn't be quite so confident Sting is going over this year. In fact, WWE's booking formula where outsiders often lose their debut match and retiring legends rarely go out with a win, points in the other direction. I'm not even sure that's the wrong decision, as there's not much mileage that you can get out of 56 year old Sting. It depends on the crowd.

Part of the problem is that Triple H is still an active television character and occasional wrestler. He's still protecting that position. He's still in the no. 2 program at WrestleMania, knocking Bryan one match down the pecking order in the original plans at least. Given that they've already teased Rock vs. Hunter, that's likely the big match for next year's Mania at Cowboys Stadium. Maybe he's not directly sabotaging people anymore, but that doesn't mean his overwhelming presence on WWE television can't hinder talent. Regarding Extreme Rules, Evolution vs. Shield was clearly pushed as the biggest match on the show, even though Bryan vs. Kane went on last. Plus, putting people over is a bit meaningless, if you're the one who laughs last.

Um, this is an odd story that's worth a thread. Yesterday, on Off The Record, Chael Sonnen claimed that he had gotten a call from WWE, where he was invited to their Hall Of Fame ceremony and WrestleMania weekend to talk to him about stuff, teasing that it could have to do with Wanderlei Silva, as he knew that he had been invited too. This is Chael, right, so most people were naturally sceptical. Then earlier today, WWE debunked the rumour to PWInsider.com with the following statement: "There has been no invitation from WWE for Chael Sonnen to attend WrestleMania." So this was Chael being full of it, as per usual. Apparently not. Dave Meltzer has doubled down on the story posting on his message board that "Chael [is] supposed to meet with Kevin Dunn" over WM weekend for a "more informal than formal" meeting. Meanwhile, Silva has tweeted: Plus, more in Portuguese which translates as follows: This to me sounds like a bad idea. The dynamic doesn't work. No-one wants to see them fake fight, and I'd be surprised WWE would throw so much money at them for a match, unless Vince feels the need to "steal" two UFC stars after losing Punk and maybe Brock to MMA. Plus how does Kevin Dunn fit into all this? I could see him being intrigued at using Chael as an announcer, so he could get rid of JBL and/or Lawler or wanting to use him on the new season of Tough Enough for ratings, but Silva vs. Sonnen in a wrestling match doesn't seem like an idea he would come up with.

I wouldn't call it "legitimately selfless", as Triple H has been milking that loss for all it's worth to get himself over as the babyface in WWE's creative hierarchy in recent weeks, with the propaganda initiative suspiciously coinciding with the company seemingly going out of their way to sabotage his return. Clearly you can credit Hunter for being a smart politician, but I don't think we can draw any stronger conclusions than that. Continuing on with the theme of a leopard doesn't really change his spots, 11 years ago HHH followed up a legitimately selfless loss to Chris Benoit at Mania (and Shawn doing the same in Chris' hometown) by main eventing a PPV against his best buddy in one of their most overblown epics ever, while Benoit was buried in the midcard against Kane, and then followed that up by having the hottest act in his heel stable beat Benoit for the belt, then turning on said hot heel the very next day for no good reason whatsoever other than he had to get the title back at the next pay-per-view. So Bryan got the Benoit treatment, except that his neck injury stopped him from being squashed by Lesnar for the title at SummerSlam, and the fans wouldn't go along with the company's attempt to slot him back in the midcard where he belonged after having his moment. But now it's all Vince's fault? Vince rightly bore the brunt of the criticism when the Royal Rumble happened, but Triple H's "golly gee, what could I do?" routine is hard to believe when he's better than most at getting the old man to change his mind, and there's little hard evidence that he values Bryan much more than Vince does.

I think the main reason that Triple H vs. Daniel Bryan wasn't his usual bloated epic was the match's position opening the show and the fact Bryan had to work the main event two hours later.

He's the Executive Vice President, Talent, Live Events & Creative. If we just assess Triple H based on NXT, then you're assessing him on only part of his job. By his very job title, we should be holding him accountable for WWE creative, as well as Vince McMahon! Triple H is the head of talent relations, so he should be compared with his predecessors JJ Dillon, Jim Ross and John Laurinaitis. He's also the number two guy in creative behind Vince McMahon, so he should also be compared with his former right-hand men in that department. People have worked very successfully under Vince in the past, even when he was out of touch before. If Triple H can't do that, then he's not fully succeeding in his position.