cm funk

Yeah, at least with the first class. It sounds like Michaels was fairly involved day to day, but Rudy Gonzalez was his proxy doing the actual in ring interactions with guys teaching them hands on. After that early period Michaels was looking to go back to WWE (which was oft delayed while he was having various incidents and cleaning up) and Rudy Boy took over the school full time and they changed the name to Texas Wrestling Academy, while still using Shawn's name as a selling point

Yeah, there's been stories for years about Patterson being very comfortable and open about his sexuality, to the point where he joked about it and ribbed guys in the lockeroom. By all accounts he had a great sense of humor about it. Calling the on screen jokes and ribbing about it "gay bashing" is such a huge leap and really reading into something that isn't there. I don't want to get into a big discussion of it, just pointing out that people who actually know Patterson would shoot this down

Also, I get why they're rushing Roman, with the Punk and Bryan situations, and Cena not being long for the ring most likely......but it feels too soon and I wish they'd take the slower route with him, as they did with Cena back in 03-05

Meltzer was talking about Reigns on the last audio show and pretty much echoed my thoughts. Something isn't clicking, something is missing, he doesn't seem quite ready, and it feels a bit forced. The crowds seem somewhat aware of this, and I think there's a big risk that if they shove him down the audience's throat there could be a backlash against him and the push. It hasn't felt organic. Not like we haven't seen that happen many times over with WWE's handpicked guys. Reigns has the look, he has the cool crowd popping spots, he's got charisma......but he feels to me like a work in progress that WWE has chosen to be the next guy rather than the crowd choosing him. He doesn't have the experience working singles matches yet to be rushed into this spot, and his promos need work too. There's a huge difference between being protected as part of The Shield and having to go out and carry promo segments and main event level matches. I like Reigns, but I've been lukewarm towards him since he's gone single, and I haven't loved the way they've booked him. Meltzer used the term "photo finish" as to if he gets all the way there by WM where the expectation is he main events with Brock.....and I have to agree

SummerSlam 98 was like the biggest show of the Attitude era.....the AC/DC HIGHWAY TO HELL video.....damn son.....

I'm guessing you didn't watch this stuff as it happened. Taker there totally made sense.

In retrospect it's really bad, but at the time, that product was cool and it drew a lot of $. It's kind of "you had to be there" to appreciate it. I was in high school at that time and EVERYONE was into rasslin. Only time in my life that everybody was a rasslin fan. Girls loved Rocky. Everyone loved Stone Cold. Mr. McMahon was super over. DX was crazy over. It was nuts. When I go back and rewatch that stuff I don't like it much, but it was huge at the time

Get an Observer/F4W sub. Personal bias, but I can't listen to Keller, he annoys the hell out of me, and the audio quality of his podcasts are ridiculously poor for something he expects people to pay money for. Say what you will about Alvarez, but the quality of audio on his pods is good, and he strives to deliver a clear and listenable product. Keller's pods are worse than amatuer level. Also, Keller and Bruce Mitchell's opinions and whiny talk just really annoys me. I enjoy listening to Dave, I enjoy listening to Bryan despite how out there and whacky he is sometimes......I can not listen to Keller or Mitchell without wanting to cut my ears off

I think they should do a non-finish, but I'm expecting them to do the same thing in Ambrose-Rollins, and you don't want to have multiple scmozzes on the same show If it was me, I have Ambrose win clean, and the Jericho match turn into a brawl where they're beating the crap out of each other and it falls into the stands, and Harper and Rowan get involved.....and the Usos get involved too (who have lost the tag belts to the Wyatts earlier in the show). Just make it a wild out of control situation that pulls the 6 of them together and sets up a big 6 man at the next show. I think that would be best for all involved

It's wrestling. It's fake. If smart people are writing/booking they'll tone down their act for a bit, but the act is good. Of course they shouldn't go out on the next show and salute Putin and troll America, give it some breathing room, but it's not like they need to scrap the act I could go into more specific political talk, but it's pwo, and as a wrestling angle/act Lana & Rusev are perfectly fine. I would recommend treading lightly on it for now though

To be fair, that was last minute storyline improv. Cena was the champ, in a hot feud with Orton and they were about to have their blowoff match, then legit tore a pec the week before the PPV. The hook for the PPV became "there will be a new champ". Orton was awarded the belt, HHH challenged him on the spot and won the belt in the opening match. HHH then had to face his originally booked opponent, Umaga, which became a WWE title defense. HHH retained. Then McMahon booked him against Orton in a Last Man Standing for the main event (Orton v Cena LMS was the original main), and Orton won the belt It was total ad hoc hotshot booking, but understandable under the circumstances, and it got a lot of people talking pre and post PPV at the time And of course part man part machine Cena was back 3 months later as #30 in the Rumble

Yeah, this, surprised by people getting so upset about it. Bryan was the star of WM.....but I'm working under the assumption right now that he may never wrestle again. WWE doesn't know....Bryan doesn't know....but it's going to be a while either way Austin/Rock/Hogan is the biggest casual hook and has to be on the special. Taker/Lesnar was the most talked about/most trending moment of the show and a historic moment. Has to be featured. Cena is Cena and I'm sure NBC demands Cena featured on their specials. Plus Cena and Wyatt are around still. And it's only a 1 hr special. I'd be disappointed if Bryan is ignored completely on it, but I don't have a problem with those being the 3 featured things. If we didn't have this huge uncertainty about Bryan right now it would be different

mergers and acquisitions

Abby definitely shouldn't count as Dungeon trained. He started in the late 50's in Montreal and I don't believe he went to Stampede before the late 60's/early 70's Why wouldn't you include the Denucci guys? Foley and Douglas trained and debuted in the early 80's. If you're counting Waltman for Boris Malenko (and he was actually trained by Joe mostly I believe)..... Add Manny Fernandez to the Funks You should add Jose Lothario: Gino Hernandez, Tully Blanchard, Shawn Michaels OTTH, and I'm sure a number of other guy who started in Southwest

I think that's a long shot, lol

If they HAD to do babyface Horsemen Steamer and Dustin are the best picks. Nothing to sell them as babyfaces like teaming with one of Flair's oldest rivals and the son of one of the Horsemen's most hated enemy. Neither fits the Horsemen image.....but the image was mostly Flair and to a lesser extent Tully. Arn, Ole, Barry Windham hardly scream jet set playboys If they were heels it absolutely should have been Austin and Pillman. They looked the part, had the attitude, and it gives a huge rub to younger guys. The other guy who'd be a great fit is Steven Regal.

That was so weird. The commentators were like, "we heard that Paul Heyman got fired, or quit, on WWE's recent tour of Japan" and then.....nothing. Never mentioned again. What the hell? Cesaro fired him? Heyman quit? Did they do an angle on one of the Japan shows, and if so, they didn't tape it? Why isn't Cesaro delivering this news? It was very odd. Then Cesaro loses to Kofi of all people, and the announcers didn't sell that Cesaro might have lost due to Heyman not being there (not that it matters because Cesaro was losing regularly with Heyman there)....so that isn't the angle I guess I don't know, it was really strange Heyman was on the show. He had a segment with HHH/Steph discussing "Plan C" for the title, obviously meaning Brock. And then he disappeared for Cesaro's match, and it was just bizarre. The weirdest, dumbest thing of all is that that should normally indicate the beginning of a face turn for AC, but he was then a bigger asshole than ever to Big E and Kofi. I must have gone to the kitchen because I totally missed that segment. Where in the show was it? That makes the Cesaro thing make even less sense

Cena has a role in an upcoming Judd Apatow movie and an Amy Poehler/Tina Fey vehicle which.....that's as A-list in the comedy scene as there is. He's definitely gonna be a wrestling lifer, but he's probably ready to wind it down and become more of a part timer. I think that was probably in the plans earlier this year and then the Punk and Bryan situations happened, they have no headliners, and they asked him to take the ball and he's doing what he always does. But with the promos he was cutting earlier in the year about young guys stepping up and passing the torch and based on who he's worked with and who he's put over......it seems clear he knows he doesn't have a lot of time left as a full time wrestler

That was so weird. The commentators were like, "we heard that Paul Heyman got fired, or quit, on WWE's recent tour of Japan" and then.....nothing. Never mentioned again. What the hell? Cesaro fired him? Heyman quit? Did they do an angle on one of the Japan shows, and if so, they didn't tape it? Why isn't Cesaro delivering this news? It was very odd. Then Cesaro loses to Kofi of all people, and the announcers didn't sell that Cesaro might have lost due to Heyman not being there (not that it matters because Cesaro was losing regularly with Heyman there)....so that isn't the angle I guess I don't know, it was really strange

Pretty much this, so it's inevitable he'll see the belt a few more times It's their own fault due to their booking. They should always have a handful of guys being slow built and semi-protected and ready to take the ball at a moment's notice but they never do. They treat the mid card like shit with meaningless wins and loss trading, treat the secondary belts like shit, and now they find themselves in this present situation, again I don't even mind Cena having the belt right now, when they have this Brock main eventing SummerSlam plan in stone, Cena is literally the only guy worthy/ready to main event it with Bryan on the shelf. It's just indicative of their lack of long term planning that they have so few options, and how badly they've screwed up some of their main event potential level talent, Cesaro and Wyatt being prime recent examples. Ziggler and Sheamus have rebounded from it recently, after some downright horrible booking, and it's a testament to their talent. Wade Barrett recovered from years of shitty aimless booking and was getting really hot. I'm not the biggest Kofi fan but you can't deny that he's got something and crowds react whenever they give him something interesting to do or some direction. It's not impossible to recover from bad booking, but they don't make it easy on guys

That's really dumb

I just feel like they don't really have the right narrative going. I'm a fan of both guys, but Wyatt is swinging and missing by mocking the "save us" Jericho stuff, and Jericho is swinging and missing with the quiet-and-serious "along came a spider" junk. (It doesn't help that Jericho looks like garbage in the ring, though age and rust will do that to you.) It's a fantasy booking angle where they wrote "Jericho/Wyatt" on the blackboard, told both guys to rock it on the mic to build the feud, and walked away...without realizing that they've left both guys without any real ammunition to build it. For Wyatt, all of it feels like a second-rate rerun of his Cena promos, which went absolutely nowhere. Meanwhile, Jericho is doing a fine job of boosting himself and getting some of those precious Y2J chants -- which I'll admit is important since he has to "rebuild" his history for new fans --- but he's falling flat once he leaves the Y2J schtick to connect back to Wyatt, partly because he can't find the right note, partly because he has so little to work with. Wyatt attacked him...because? And then, whenever Jericho tries to return the favor, the rest of the Family shows up - rinse, repeat. It's a crappy storyline and, on paper, Jericho and Wyatt might normally be good enough to salvage it. In reality, though, neither guy is apparently up to the task. And I'd say Wyatt's heat has been damaged much more by his booking vs. Cena than anything that Jericho is doing. The mystique is long gone. On Jericho in ring....really? I think he's been pretty good so far. ring rust is expected, but his tv matches with Miz and Orton have been a lot of fun, IMO, and he's far from being rusty and sloppy and gassed out quick like RVD and Batista were early on in their comebacks this year On this Wyatt feud......I don't know. It started out hot.....but last night it felt lame. I really think they've botched Wyatt with the booking and the Cena program, and he needs some sort of change or something to freshen him up. I'm a huge Jericho fan and I'm a Wyatt and Harper and Rowan fan....I liked the idea of this....but it doesn't seem to be clicking....and I think it's largely due to them botching things with the Wyatts. Earlier this year he was red hot....and it's not like this is a gimmick that has a short shelf life....but they've marginalized him and made him uninteresting and killed the mystique. He never should have lost to Cena. He never should have been treated like a quasi face and been leading the crowd in sing-a-longs. He's been de-fanged. This isn't Jericho's fault. I also have no idea what they are doing with Harper and Rowan right now. They had this endless feud with the Usos where they beat them clean on tv several times.....yet somehow never took the tag belts. What did that accomplish for either team? I thought they had a perfect opportunity to put "all of the gold" in the Wyatt camp so to speak at MITB, and could do a month of the crazy Wyatt clan holding the belts hostage with Bray treating them like some sort of voodoo token Honestly, the program with Cena killed Wyatt's heat. Other than putting over Bryan, when has Cena not derailed someone by working with them? It's reaching Hogan levels now. Cena programs are the drizzling shits. He desperately needs a change from this same ol' routine. Yeah, I'm sure he'll put Roman Reigns over clean at some point, and they'll do a respect dap afterwards or whatever, but other than getting murdered by Brock Lesnar I can't think of anything else interesting to do with Cena. It'll probably never happen for all the reasons we hear (merch, charity work, etc.) but he needs to turn heel/change his character and look up/freshen it up. It sure worked for Hogan in 96 and only made him more popular at a time when fans were actively sick of him. With all the smart people in that company I can't believe they don't see this

I'd dig a CM Punk podcast and I'd like it if it wasn't wrestling centric. Sports....music.....punk culture....pizza....tv stuff.....whatever......it could be a really fun listen. I really enjoy the Jericho podcasts with metal guests and whatnot more than I do the ones with wrestlers. Same with Austin. Going a little more out there, I'm a fan of Joe Rogan's podcast, but I skip the ones where it's gonna be 2-3 hours of MMA talk. When he has scientists/nutritionists/journalists/political pundits etc on it's way more interesting I think Punk as a podcast host has strong potential As far as where he goes (if this is indeed happening).....I'd put even money on Nerdist. Him and Hardwick have gotten kinda tight due to him being on Talking Dead

It's weird that he left off Ultimate Warrior, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao For arguments sake, it's Rousey-Undertaker 1-2, right?