sek69

Another point to consider, without Hunter's match (assuming everything else goes about the same length) the show ends at about midnight and there's no post-show transit issues snarling everyone's attempt to get home.

Scott Hall was surprisingly great in this, I loved his line about how he'd do Randy if he was a chick.

April's classic content dump is set to be Mid South from 84-85.

Thinking back, if everything else was exactly the same, the show would have been so much better without the HHH-Dave match. You guys know how much I like me some BIG DAVE, but that was the most Hunter-est Hunter match in years. It's almost a work of art how it brings the show to a screeching halt.

JR basically outed they were starting a live 2 hour show on a "major network" in October, and TBS was rumored to be one of the two stations interested (returning to TBS would also fit the underlying them of Cody trying to reclaim as much of his father's legacy as possible with AEW) so it all fits. Also the first major competition in nearly 20 years airing on a Turner station might be enough to give Vince a coronary, so there's that too.

Basically wins and losses didn't matter with the Rock because he's the goddamn Rock and had more charisma than anyone in the history of the business and could overcome any loss. WWE took that to mean they can beat anyone and they can stay a top star because reasons. Just like the lesson they learned from Daniel Bryan was they feel the way to book a babyface is to make them lose constantly.

Yeah, Kenny's one of the few guys who clearly puts effort into his match layouts. They may not be everyone's cup of tea, but to say it's not there is the kind of blind troll stuff that Meltzer has to deal with on the regular. Like I wasn't the biggest fan of Hipster Dad Jericho in his NJPW run, but the guy clearly put a lot of effort into the psychology and character he was trying to build. Everything flowed together and made logical sense, so in the end it was pretty good stuff. It's just amazing to me how the narrative has changed from "the company is at fault for putting on a boring, uninspired product" to "fans are assholes for not just accepting what they are being given without question". I guess it's the result of it being almost an entire generation (oh god, I'm old) since we've had any meaningful competition, and no one is around to challenge the programming WWE is doing to their audience.

Roman wasn't getting boos though, all the reports I heard during Mania were the booing came from people trying to do the wave during the match.

Like I said before: when you train your fans not to care, don't get mad at them when they end up not caring.

Big E and Woods jamming out to Seth's music was the high point of Raw yesterday.

Maybe it's something only Sasha saw, who knows? My point is knowing how the business and particularly this company tend to be, she deserves a little more benefit of the doubt than assuming the default explanation is "bitches be tripping" when something goes on.

It would depend on the nature of the incident though, wouldn't it? If she flipped out over the wrong kind of bottled water in catering, then yes she's immature. If someone was backstage flopping their junk, then maybe it's not on her.

Maybe not putting talented cruiserweights on a lightly watched ghetto of a show so people will care when they are given a spot on a big show like that? You can't train people not to care then get mad when the people don't care.

It's really impressive how WWE has been able to flip the discussion completely. In the 90s, fans rejected the vision the company had for Blue Chipper Rocky and they used that as the motivation to make him a superstar. Now if the same thing happened today, we'd get people on the internet saying fans should just shut up and enjoy the show. The business used to be based on listening to the feedback from your paying customers and adjusting accordingly for maximum financial impact. Now WWE doesn't need to cater to the fans thanks to Fox Sports and MBS so now the fans are an annoyance who don't play their parts correctly.

Yeah, they got LARS showing up and Sami returning only for the main event run in to be The Bar. It seemed to be building up at the very least the start of a new program for one of the guys in the match, only to get a team the New Day has faced off with hundreds of times.

I think people were more happy Brock lost it than happy Seth won it. Plus folks tend to be negative on Sheamus since he's injured folks in the past (no one recently, but idk if there's a statute of limitation on being mad at someone about that). But somehow, he got over with the Burn It Down stuff, so I can't fault them for going with the guy. If history is any indication, once the afterglow of having a Universal champ that's actually around every week wears off I think crowds will tire of Seth.

I saw it as the crowd rejecting guys who are a mid card act on SD going above their pay grade interrupting a match between the two singles champs.

LOL @ everyone here being all "fuck wrestling fans". I'm sure they weren't expecting a title unification, but that doesn't mean they should be happy to have the fucking Bar be the ones to interrupt. It was a wet fart of an ending to what was one of the better Raws in recent memory.

Oh look, another "guy as Vince's mouthpiece" gimmick.

SAMI

They are promoting Kofi's celebration on Smackdown tomorrow.

Well I certainly didn't expect the payoff to all the Lacey stuff to be her punching Becky in the face.

Probably, they've already established Cena is immune to the Superstar Shakeup and just goes wherever he wants, so I assume he follows Lars.

Lars looks like a guy who would have had a big money program against Bruno in the 70s.

I doubt there will be a finish, someone's debuting/coming back/starting a program here.