cm funk

God that angle sucked. Every single thing about it. So cheesy and predictable topped off by a tepid "wild" brawl. It is so dumb to do that "WHEN WILL CENA SHOW UP" shit when everyone knows guys are at the arena hours before the show, and Cena is the company golden boy/model employee. Showing up whenever you feel like it only works for heels or rebellious anti-authority characters. Such a lukewarm way to end the hard sell show for the PPV.

Well, I totally agree that he should be in it, win it, and end WM with the title. But if that's not in the cards keeping him out completely is smart I think. At first I didn't like him challenging Bray and ignoring the Rumble Match, but after thinking about it it makes sense. Since the night after HIAC he's been distracted by and focused on the Wyatts, to the point of obsession now. He stopped chasing the title a while ago and has said as much in his promos where he said the Authority would never let him be champion fair and square and it was a game he couldn't win.

This is why it's smart to keep Bryan out of the match completely. If he was in and didn't win it would kill and/or royally piss off the crowd. Batista is super over, the crowd won't shit on him winning. I could actually see Bray beating him, which would be really dumb. Bray beats him in all the house show cage matches, but Bryan ends up standing tall. If they're really serious about putting The Wyatts in a big Mania match he has to win. And Bryan is basically bulletproof. I'm not totally ruling out the Cena/Bryan/Hogan vs. Wyatts possibility, with Hogan doing nothing in the match basically. If Hogan can't go I could see Warrior in that spot too.

Not to turn this into the sleaze thread... I never get where the "Randy was a predator who took advantage of an underage girl" angle people put on the rumor came from. Firstly, 16 is the age of consent in Connecticut. But she turned 18 in September 1994. His last appearance for the WWF was in October 94. So even if you go by the general all-purpose "18 is legal" definition, there was a window there where it could have happened. Plus, if it did happen, who's to say she didn't pursue Randy and not the other way around. Maybe she'd had a crush on him since she was a little girl and finally did something about it? And if you believe some of the stories about her, she wasn't exactly innocent in high school. I don't remember when I first read the rumor but it was definitely after Steph and HHH were an item. The timeline of it being rumored before Steph was a character and HHH being jealous/mad towards Savage doesn't make any sense because she was a character on tv for a while (early 99 she debuted) before even being put with Hunter....while Hunter was still an item with Chyna, and it wasn't for months after they'd been an on-screen couple that the rumors about them started. Anyway, none of this matters because unless Stephanie publicly admits it happened we're never going to know the truth

I think Vince should induct him, but I doubt Vince has it in him to give Warrior the tribute he deserves I like the Bryan idea. It should probably be someone who grew up watching WWF and was a huge Warrior mark. He seems to fit that bill. Bryan is almost the same age as me, and I know for people our age who grew up with the WWF in the 80's Ultimate Warrior was a big deal. I can't think of anyone on the current roster better than him to do it. I don't think Warrior will give the insane acceptance speech people are predicting either. He seems to have chilled out a lot since his "QUEERING DON'T MAKE THE WORLD WORK" days, and that was the same time frame where he was chasing faded glory and doing random matches. He's still a legitimately crazy and unpredictable man so you never know, but on the Sherri Martel/Bob Backlund scale he'll barely register, IMO. I think WWE believes that too or else this never be happening. He's at the point in his life where he's just happy to be remembered and celebrated It's a lock that Jake is going in this year, beyond that I don't know. Freebirds and Magnum make sense. Taker and Paul Bearer will be a a package deal but I assume they're holding off on Taker for a while. Savage obviously should already be in, but with Warrior as the headliner that means no Savage this year. Goldberg maybe. It's been long rumored, and will happen eventually. I do think they're going to want some big guns with it being WMXXX....so I can't rule anyone out really

This screams work to me, but at the same time, the high impact style that Bryan wrestles it's pretty much a given that he's going to get concussions. And he already has a history of them going back to the ROH days. I love watching his matches but some of the stuff he does is just tempting fate of injury and long term health problems I'd like this to be a work, I hope he didn't legit hurt his brain again. But I hated the worked concussion angle they did with HHH, so either way I don't like this

I haven't actually listened to the show where they discussed who was and wasn't there, but in my mind I knew they would argue about that minutia. Who was there? HHH, HBK, Cena, Austin Other than Cena, the undisputed top guy for basically the last decade, who on the current roster was there? It was top guy and icons. Why wasn't Punk there? Why would Punk's character attend an event like that? Why wasn't Bryan there? He was in the midst of some weird TV angle with the Wyatt clan. Dave and Bryan probably would have complained if he was there I've been on the "don't jump to conclusions, let it all play out...." train when it comes to Bryan the entire time, and I'll gladly admit that WWE will often screw up pushes and fuck up all kinds of stuff along the way even when they meet the end goal....but the kvetching about Bryan has been worse than anything WWE has done in terms of booking him. They've booked some stuff poorly, but none of it with the intent to hurt Bryan. Some of this reminds me of CM Punk in '11 when certain circles of jaded fans were convinced that they were trying to kill Punk off.....then he gets the longest title reign in modern WWE and in 2014 he's #1a or b as a top guy. Yeah, you can really tell that HHH and Vince hate him

Of course Rock cared. They even introduced a new title belt for him which he proudly displayed all over the place.

Does anyone know the actual count on appearances Brock has already made on his current contract? I'm under the impression that the second one he signed called for more dates than the first, at a different $ amount. There was even rumors of a storyline/title run guarantee in that. I know Meltzer has always dismissed the idea of guaranteed title runs in contracts....but if you think The Rock for example when he signed his deal didn't have a guarantee that he was winning the belt and dropping it in the rematch with Cena....you're nuts. I can see Brock having the same type of thing in his deal, and they've already hinted at him going after the winner of Cena/Orton. I think it's completely logical that Cena beats Orton, drops the belt in the rematch with Brock @ EC, and Brock drops the belt at WM to Batista. That may not happen, but that's probably how I'd book things. Anyway, on the dates, he returned the night after WM in 2012 on a 1 yr contract, so I assume the new contract went into effect the night after WM last year. He wrestled 3 matches on the first one. On this one he's done the build up and cage match with Hunter. Then he did the build up and SS match with Punk. Now he's back in January with 2 appearances burned already, and a match against Big Show of all people at the Rumble. One has to assume he's a semi-regular up through WM. So he's having at least 4 matches this time, and I kind of expect him to wrestle at EC too. Rock last year wrestled at Rumble-EC-Mania.

Alvarez talked about this on one of his audio shows. His basic take was that the WWE Network and WO/F4W are completely different products with a crossover audience. He didn't completely dismiss the idea of it costing them a few subscribers, but I agree with his take on it. He talked about how around WM time, the most expensive PPV of the year, they get their biggest spike in subscriptions and the most traffic on the website. It's the same with big UFC shows. He and Dave talked about it briefly on another show and were basically in agreement with Dave kinda like, "eh, it's possible. I doubt it, but you know, we'll see!" I remember when Bryan raised the price from $9.95 or whatever it had been for a long time and so many people bitched loudly about it for a while....but it didn't seem to hurt their business at all. I think WWE priced themselves at $9.99 as an entry level price to attract people. I am 100% certain that once they've established a customer base that price will slowly increase and settle somewhere in the low teens. Bryan and Dave both had the same thought of they could have charged $14.99 and it would still be a good deal and the people who want it would get it, but were in agreement that this price point brings them the most customers while undercutting profit a bit. Dave always brings up re: ppv prices that higher prices have been more profitable to WWE and it never made sense for Vince to cut the price of shows rather than gradually increasing it.

That's a legitimate question and something I've wondered myself. I'm doubting it will be a problem, but streaming WM is a lot different from having 14 or 15 different streaming games based on one central hub. I don't know any sort of #'s on how many people watch games with mlb.tv, but I'm assuming with 30 teams it's a pretty substantial #. They've also worked on other major, high traffic events. These aren't amateurs. And really, how many people will be watching WM on the network, really? A lot of people are still going to buy it as a traditional PPV. A lot of the buys come from foreign markets that won't have access to the network. A lot of buys come from Canada, which won't have the Network. The actual # won't be something MLBAM hasn't dealt with before. I think the bigger potential technical issue is the launch date signup. I don't know why they made it a "sign up at 9 AM the day of the launch" type deal. Are they not ready to handle subscriptions right now? Is the infrastructure not fully implemented? That would be a little worrisome. I don't see the benefit to them of having everyone sign up the day of the launch at roughly the same time. wwe.com can handle the trafic for sure, but it seems a completely unnecesary burden on them. I would not be at all surprised to see sign up related issues

He said the same thing on his podcast a while back, might have even been the one with Dave, and I found it funny for a few reasons. Austin watches wrestling on youtube like a regular jerk. He could call up WWE and request a DVD of their best Ray Stevens matches and it would happen no sweat, lol. Heck, Dave probably has a ton of Ray Stevens matches buried somewhere in his tape library. Meanwhile....the WWE Network will not be featuring Ray Stevens in any capacity unless Austin or someone else demands it. Which actually gave me a great idea for the network and something I'd love to see.....get wrestlers to host specific wrestler related match/clip packages. Austin wants to see Ray Stevens.....give him a bunch of stuff to watch, and then let him pick his favorite stuff and talk about it. There is so much potential with something like that. So much talent on the roster and under the umbrella who are legitimate fans and students of the game. Heck, it could even be used as a learning tool for young talent. Find someone who you want to improve in certain areas and have him watch a bunch of footage of a guy who was great at that stuff, have him report on it, and record it for the network. On piracy....this won't cut down on sources of it, but will definitely cut down on end users. Personally, I don't have cable and I haven't spent on WWE in years other than a few DVDs....you can take a wild guess how I watch their product. I am absolutely subscribing to this Network, and I have a feeling that once I have it I'm not unsubscribing. That's just one person. But from reading this and other boards, heck even youtube comments, it sounds like there are a lot of people exactly like me. People are ready to throw money hand over fist at WWE for this. We love wrestling, but we ain't marks in the traditional meaning of the word, and we're not going to pay $60 for their tepid PPV offerings. It's been proven so many times that people will pay a reasonable price for content of any kind if they feel it offers value....and everyone wins....but when you try to screw your consumers the way say the record industry has...people won't take it lying down. I do find the streaming sources coming from the UK and other foreign countries a very interesting topic that I'd love to have more of a definitive answer/reason on. I rarely see USA Network streams of RAW....that vast majority are Sky Sports UK. I actually like that because the British commercials are way more interesting to me than US commercials. I'm a Yankees fan......a lot of the streams of their games come from Asia, but are English language broadcasts. I always found that bizarre. NBA streams are always right from the US...either NBA tv or whatever regional channel covers the games. Also, FWIW, you rarely see pirated content from MLB network, or people jacking dot TV stuff, and I think a big part of the reason for that is that the audience that would want that stuff would just as soon already be paying for the content. I've subscribed to mlb.tv in the past and it's a really great service and an extremely affordable price. My only problem is the regional blackouts, and that's the only reason I'm not a current subscriber. To the people asking about the viability of ripping stuff from the WWE Network....first of all I know people will do it but it seems like a waste of time when the Network is priced so affordably. Second....I assume MLBAM has some of the best copywrite protection on streaming content around. Plus....somebody might stream the WWE network live feed....but 95% of what people want to see is the archives

On the age topic....Dave still looks really good and in really good shape for a guy in his mid 50's. I know he's always been a gym guy and he talks on the radio shows about doing cardio, riding bikes, running etc. I also assume, well know based on how he talks, that he's extremely conscious of how he eats. He keeps up an insane work pace as well....in terms of how much he writes, watches, how much audio he does.....but I'm wondering how much of Dave at this pace do we have left? Will Dave still do all this work at 65? At some point he has to get burnt out, right? One other random thought I had about Dave.....will he go to WMXXXI? It's on his home turf and there's been some public thawing of the ice with him and WWE recently (a few pictures of him on the website, and invited to the Network announcement). I know the main reason he doesn't go to WWE shows is that they won't give him a press pass....while UFC does.....would they comp him for WMXXXI? Would he go without a press pass? For whatever people think about Dana White re: media....he handles the media the way other sports do. UFC is not stingy about giving out press passes to people in the so called "MMA media". Vince will give a press pass to anyone in the "mainstream media" but the wrestling media? No way. On that note.....I got reminded of why I dislike Wade Keller the other day. He mentioned on one of his blogtalk shows that he'd been invited to the WWE Network launch event a week before it happened. And he didn't go. What kind of self-respecting wrestling journalist wouldn't go to cover that? And then he does a 20 minute or so "recap" of it based on watching it on youtube.....and he butchers a ton of the facts while bragging about how "I've been on top of this story the whole time....PW Elite members....this is why you subscribe". He goes so far as to compare the WWE Network to PW Elite in terms of structure and content, while bragging about how he's been around since 1987. What a complete ass. Also, the audio on his podcasts is shit. Whatever beef people have with Alvarez, he strives to excellence when it comes to audio quality....Keller might as well be some kid podcasting in his bedroom. Some of his shows are downright unlistenable

Yeah, there's always going to be hardcores/collectors who just have to own the deluxe blu ray with all the extras. I do think putting their entire home video library up is an admission that it's a slowly dying revenue stream, not that we didn't already know that. I had some gift cards for X-Mas and was surprised how cheap relatively recent deluxe WWE releases were going for. I got Best of IYH, Wargames and Best of Nitro Vol. I all for right around $10 give or take. And you always see WWE DVDs in the bargain bins at retail stores. I know that WWE gets the money upfront for their releases from retailers who then re-sell them at mark-up, but I take this as an indication that retailers are no longer willing to buy their product in substantial quantity. Between that and beginning the slow death of their PPV business they're taking some forward thinking calculated risks, but it will be really interesting to see how it all plays out. Also interesting with the negotiations for TV beginning. They're putting up RAW, SD and ME replays now while under existing contracts with Viacom and Ion, so I don't think that's going to be much of a hangup, for those entities at least. I really think TV is still the bread and butter of their product for the forseeable future, and the network will be used to drive people to the TV product, so I don't think it hurts them, but we'll see

I always liked Stevie Ray more than Booker T. I don't know why. Harlem Heat in 94-96ish was hands down my favorite tag team, and Booker was clearly the better wrestler of the two and you knew he'd eventually get the singles push, but I really enjoyed Stevie's style. They were a really strong tag team. I always liked Saggs better than Knobbs too. Kinda the same deal. Knobbs was more charismatic and a better talker, better worker overall, but Saggs was good in his own way, and underrated.

I'm not jumping to any conclusions because I have no idea what the direction with Bryan is. Months ago when they started the whole Authority angle and were screwing him out of the belt at every turn I assumed that he would win the Rumble and get a big Mania payoff. I have no idea if that was ever the plan, but it seemed logical. People who think he's "buried" are crazy, IMO. WWE booking and writing can be very spotty, but they've pushed the heck out of Bryan for the last year or so, and they go out of their way to protect him. He has Orton beat at every turn, he beats Cena clean, he's the first guy to beat The Shield......this is burial? I have a hard time predicting where this goes because there is nothing concrete about the WM lineup right now. Usually by now you have an idea of what the top matches will be. There have been so many conflicting rumors with the top matches. Cena-Wyatt seems like a horrible idea to me, but that's the latest idea floated around. They talked about Cena and Hogan teaming against the Wyatts. Now Bryan is involved with the Wyatts. Would they do a 6 man with those guys? As a WM main event? And they teased Bryan against HBK pretty hard, and for a bit it looked like they'd do Bryan/Punk against DX. They seem to have abandoned that idea now.....but they throw so many different things out there that I really have no idea what to expect at this point. I wouldn't be surprised to see Bryan against Kane at WM, honestly. It was a long running storyline which never had a blowoff match. There's something there with the Wyatts abducting Kane which never got paid off, and the Wyatts going after Bryan the same way. There's also the hint of the Wyatts working with The Authority, the way they attacked Bryan on RAW the first time, at the same time as Kane joining The Authority. They haven't really explored this angle at all and it may have been a total coincidence, and I don't really have faith in their writing putting this together, but it's at least out there as a general idea. If Bryan isn't going to be going for the title at WM, I think Kane is a nice distraction and it's an angle that has a ton of potential and would be a semi-main event type of match. Plus I assume that Kane will have a match @ WM30, and Bryan is the only matchup that really makes sense.

well, not shaking Tate's hand was a heel move. If you want to be specific she "turned heel" over the course of TUF by coming off like such an unlikable person. If anything that moment cemented her as a heel in the eyes of the fans who already disliked her based on that show and the Rousey-Tate build up

The Jones title shot was total out of nowhere "we want to pop a buyrate" UFC matchmaking. Chael hadn't even fought at that weight class in years and was handed a title shot coming off a PED suspension. It was ridiculous. I heard a commentator on an NBA game last week say "he's turned heel!" or "he's gone heel!" or something like that. Yes, heels and faces is wrestling terminology, but they exist in the lexicon to the degree that a random NBA commentator can make a comment in that regard, or a random Yahoo writer can write that headline, and to pretend like it's a 100% only applicable to wrestling turn of phrase is silly. Wrestling may exist in a bubble, but that doesn't mean that "outsiders" aren't acute to the sport. This is not "Dave Meltzer thinks everything is rasslin"

I didn't like the end of the show angle, and here's why I didn't believe any of it. I love Bryan, but acting is not his biggest strength, and he didn't sell me on this huge moment. You can see it coming from a mile away that this is a swerve and Bryan is pretending to join the Wyatts only to turn on them. Which I guess is the point, they made it obvious so that people would look forward to that, but to me, for it to really work, I need to think, "oh shit, Bryan has turned" which I never thought once during the angle. So, whatever they were going for there, it didn't work for me Also, there's the whole Total Divas thing, where WWE is walking this line between the reality show and the reality of their universe, and are totally inconsistent on. They've acknowledged that Bryan and Brie Bella are engaged on tv, and they took the Cena-Bryan real life friendship/dating the twins and made it part of their tv. But Bryan joins the Wyatt clan? Please. And where is his best bud John Cena when all this is going down, the guy who stands up for him/leaches off his heat at every turn? The writing is way too spotty and inconsistent for me to get invested here I also suspect that Bryan's heat is waning at this point. It feels like crowds have a pavlovian respense to his act, but these months and months of bad booking and being shunted down at the expense of other people's pushes are going to catch up. This is totally not Bryan's fault, he does the best with what he's given to work with, but he's been given a lot of shit. And I'm not at all on the Bryan burial train, I 100% believe that they are pushing him as hard and as best as they know how, a guy doesn't beat the top star clean and then beat Orton fair and square every single time and be "buried", the problem is they generally suck at booking. Bryan will be fine in the long run, but they really aren't doing him favors the way they've handled this push

Sinking ship My understanding was that JJ did a lot of work for the company in terms of partnerships and in foreign markets. He's been given credit for their working with AAA and NJPW for example, and spearheading the Ring Ka King deal, being a point man with Spike etc. With the past few years of news out of TNA nothing really surprises me anymore

I agree with what you're saying, but you can't include Punk in that, the guy is made now. He is like Bret Hart in 1995, he can afford to be feuding with dentists and Japanese men with marker pen down their body. the works remaining consistent, the fan base is hot and you know sooner or later he will be holding the title again and producing quality, top line work. Essentially yes but the crowd still wants to see Punk in the main event mix. One of the reasons why Bret Hart isn't regarded higher as a draw is because of this shit with Yankem and Hakushi and Lafitte. I know Bret wasn't that popular as a champion but you still hurt his value long term if you book him like a guy you value but always have an eye on the door for someone better to walk through. It is an interesting comparison because I see Reigns as a guy they definitely pushed Bret to the side for only to see he bombs so Bret/Punk gets another go round with the belt til the next guy up materializes. I like Reigns but his is a character that benefits from a slow burn. Look at Batista. He came in as a demonic associate of Reverend D'von Dudley then he got a bigger but subdued push as the monster of Evolution. He was in a position to be dominant within the confines of the stable. The fans finally received him as a smart badass in a suit who knew what his evil and hated mentor Triple H was up to and he called him out on it in a hot segment where he powerbombed Triple H through a table. At this point is when Reigns should be established as a viable singles threat without the obvious spectre of title matches hanging over him. Reallly? I think that strengthened Bret's case as a draw if anything. They made him a special attraction because he was bulletproof and they needed to try and make other stars. Bret was the go to guy, and he didn't need the title. Even as a mark kid and huge Bret fan I recognized this. Booking him like that was a compliment to Bret really. If you watched all the WWF tv, which I did, Bret got as much screen time as anyone and whatever he was doing was treated like it was a huge deal. The feud with Lawler ran forever in various forms and Bret didn't even have to be on screen because Lawler would just randomly diss him on commentary. And Bret gave credibility to all of his opponents. Isaac Yankem may have been an ill fated idea, but where is Glenn Jacobs now? He's been a top guy for like 15 years. Jinsei Shinzaki? Amazing wrestler, and Hakushi was a cool ass gimmick. Lafitte....underrated wrestler, and his feud with Bret was actually really cool. I actually really liked his gimmick too, but WWE was a little too cartoony at the time for it to not come off as cheesy when they ran out of ideas for him. I feel like Bret probably handpicked all 3 of them to work with, and no coincidence their programs with him were the only really good stuff "creative" produced

Totally agree, but when was the last time they had the patience to slow burn a push like they did with Cena? They decided Cena was going to be a top guy, and they basically spent two years building to it. For this company that's nuts. And it was also 10 years ago. I think I've said it before here, I really like Reigns, but I don't think he's anywhere near ready for this huge push, and with WWE's track record and the way the crowds are now they could easily blow it with him. I've seen them screw up these kind of things too many times to have faith in their execution. I'm already feeling like they're being too blatant with it. And I think the point about the fans not choosing him for this and it not feeling organic is pretty valid I think it's cool that Batista is coming back. I don't necessarily want to see him do a whole run, but for Mania it will be cool. They've already got Hogan locked up it seems, Warrior and Goldberg for the HOF seems to be what's happening, I'd expect Austin and Rock to be involved in some capacity, looks like a strong chance of HBK wrestling.....I like to see them pull out all the stops for this show. Still have no idea what the actual card will look like, so many directions they could go if they wanted to

The two handicapped matches are so strange..... I have an idea/theory about what they might do: Bryan vs. The Wyatts goes on first. Punk gets involved helping Bryan. The Shield run in and attack Punk. One of the various authority figures makes it a 2 on 6 handicap match (this is a booking trope they love) They teased a brawl between the Wyatts and Shield before Survivor Series. There's miscommunication between the two groups allowing Bryan/Punk to score the upset. Brawl between the trios after the match, and you've got your program between the two going forward with Bryan and Punk free to focus towards Rumble/WM Season. Could also play into the Reigns turn. Thoughts?

I don't even see the need to put current/recent eps of RAW/SD on the network, especially if it would upset their corporate partners. "You can watch RAW/SD on the network a week after they air!" isn't any sort of selling it point. It doesn't really make sense for WWE either way. They'll have their pre-game/post-game stuff with highlights and video packages, but they want people watching the shows live on USA/SyFy, because tv is still the bread and butter. As Slasher noted, NBCUniversal has a large stake in Hulu and is actually one of the ground floor partners on it. I figure the resistance to put WWE product on Hulu + until recently was probably from the WWE end.

I wasn't talking about as a single, but as a character. Ambrose is simply a much stronger performer personality and talking wise. The more Reigns has to talk and do "subtle" character work the worse he looks to me. He doesn't come off as believable, whereas I can totally believe Ambrose Ambrose hasn't had any great singles matches, but he hasn't been put in a position to do so really. He's had good but not great matches. I really enjoyed his PPV match with Big E for example. If Reigns was put in "big" singles matches he'd probably be pretty exposed right now. He could have a good match with like Bryan or Cena, but against the average guy? I really think they're rushing the Reigns push, and it could backfire if they aren't careful. One thing you can say for the WWE audience is when they feel like they're being forcefed bs they will turn on it. Look at the Ryback career arc. Or Sheamus. Or Del Rio. All "chosen ones" that they wanted to push hard but couldn't get out of their own way. I think the odds of them pulling off the Reigns turn/push the right way are 50/50, and I'm not impressed so far