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At least the match was decent and Bianca got a great pop for getting her up on the finish. I still want to see then devote a whole segment to Bianca and Cesaro doing weirdly impressive feats of strength.

Also "wherewithal" is a great WWE-ism that has been around forever yet hasn't gotten on people's nerves nearly as much as nearly any other example of weird WWE terminology.

It's so hilarious yet so typically WWE that they keep that stupid name on Doudrop when she's completely doing the Viper heel gimmick now.

Smackdown this week is taped already, so Raw will likely be the only WWE TV that matters until 2022. So far announced for Raw (which means since they announced it on their official channels then some or all of it likely won't take place) : Lashley and MVP TALKING! Edge having Maryse on his show for TALKING and I'm sure this won't at all involve Miz somehow sneak attacking him! Bianca vs Doudrop in the ongoing "wow it's clear this was supposed to be Nia Jax in this feud so when we fired her we just slotted in the other big girl we have in there" battles they are having Austin Theory vs Finn Balor where WWE will show us they know how to create a new star by making sure the guy they've been trying to give the Vince Rub to gets made to look like a geek by a real star. Damian Priest vs Dolph Ziggler battle to see what the next stage of Damian's WHY AM I SO VIOLENT turn will be. (also I decided to put all this in the intiial post just so I can look back and see how much that was advertised actually happens).

Well yes, that was what I meant. At the time the impression I got was that we were supposed to believe Backlund did kinda get screwed and it warped his goody-two-shoes mind. I never watched the full match until now, and seeing it context of the match just made quite the contrast that I wasn't expecting.

Bunch of Old School shows added to the 'Cock today, so I was watching the 12/26/83 NS show where Sheik wins the title and I'm surprised how good the match is. The story going in was that Backlund got hit with a Persian Club and has a bad neck/arm and really shouldn't be in there but dadgummit he's a fightin champ! Makes Bob look kinda dumb but it worked in the 80s. Anyway, because of that Sheik ends up taking almost the entire match and actually gets to show off his legit wrestling background that I don't recall seeing him get to bust out very much in the WWF. Bob really only gets a few short hope spots and it's interesting to see how this match is laid out since at no point do you really think he's actually going to win since it's clear he's in no shape to be competing out there. Even odder is to hear the commentary (Gorilla and Pat Patterson) putting over the wisdom and helpfulness that Blassie is adding since Gorilla especially always went out of his way to point out how the heel managers were just greedy n'er do wells who just skim off their protoge's checks without offering anything of substance. You just don't see many WWF title matches in the 80s where the babyface champ is clearly in over their heads against the well managed foreign menace heel So after about 10 minutes of Sheik using his technical wrestling skill to tear apart the injuries Bob stupidly came into the match with, we get the famous spot where Sheik locks in the Camel Clutch and Arnold Skaaland throws in the towel to keep him from tearing Bob's head off because he knows he won't submit. Funny how the storyline later was "did Skaaland screw his Backlund" it was so clear here (and especially now after years of MMA) that this was clearly a "corner throws in the towel because their guy was done" moment.

Dave also pointed out the smart play (for anyone in wrestling) is to take the shortest contract you can get since both WWE and AEW are likely to see big increases in their next TV deals unless disaster strikes.

Figured that would be the case when KO re signed, those two have a tighter bond than most married couples.

Hey there's also NXT UK which apparently is still putting out great matches on the regular but nobody watches it.

I hate to defend WWE, but there wasn't much they could do if he didn't want to come to the US for more than a short trip.

It's almost unavoidable for Eddie to still be over considering how many people, fans and wrestlers alike, were inspired by him.

I would assume Thatcher saw the writing on the wall and decided his best chance to stay employed was to be a trainer. Hell, him teaching guys to do front rolls would still be a better use of him than being a jobber in NXT or a comedy gimmick on Raw chasing the 24/7 title.

They seem to be building to another Kingston/Garcia match so I was OK with it.

That final segment was fantastic, everyone was awesome in their roles. It's really a testament how great Roman has been when he gets massive heat for laying out a guy like Paul who's been consistently been portrayed as the biggest shitbag in wrestling since day one.

I love that Brock is getting more country each passing week.

Cody and Lambert was like pushing like ends of magnets together, lol. If you can't get cheered in that situation you really gotta rethink the whole babyface thing.

I guess we're about to seem if Dan Lambert can work his magic.

Man, Adam Cole just seems too popular to stay a heel much longer.

More fun times on Twitter, some random fan tweeted about Darby and Cora Jade from NXT doing a skateboard match, Darby replied (kind of condescendingly) that skating is a big part of his life and not a gimmick for TV.....then she responded by saying being a good person with no abuse allegations is a big part of *her* life and not a gimmick on TV.

WWE stans everywhere trying to trumpet a signing of some woman who did job duty on Dark as some kind of "hah, see! this proves the state of AEW's women's division" and wondering if they realize it isn't the own they think it is.

Probably the best card you could hope for given the state of the world,

Honestly I would think the last person with that kind of stroke would be Randy Orton. Still gets protected as a top guy and would probably pop a buy rate when he came back.

So I always wondered why Florida seemed to have so much footage in 7mm format as compared to other territories. Is it just a matter of there being more footage available as opposed to anywhere else or was Eddie Graham secretly some kind of amateur film maker?

I knew it would be a long match because it's Bryan and that's what he likes to do, but he had me believing they were going to do the 59.59 finish like Gedo would, which I suppose is a testament to how good a worker he is. Not doing time callouts and not having the announcers even mention the time limit until it was down to 5 minutes was smart since it kept you from focusing on the time and made it easier to believe maybe there would be a last minute fall.

Yeah it's no lose for him. Get the big money from Vince and if he gets buyer's remorse and cuts him he knows he has options.