sek69

All the matches by themselves will probably be good to great depending how much time the women are given, but as ongoing storylines nothing is really grabbing me.

There was something floating around Twitter that claimed to be from WWE promoting some event featuring "the Hall of Famer Undertaker". I could see them really stacking the HOF this year to counter ROH running MSG.

The thing about WCW in that time period is there was so much Hogan/Nash fuckery going on, that anyone who was a decent wrestler stuck in the lower midcard got lumped in the "this guy deserves better" category.

He did a season of Tough Enough, and somehow that was sufficent for WWE to think "well that guy should be a full time trainer". Personally I think it a little of the old school mentality where you have a hard ass weed out the folks not cut out for this rasslin' stuff.

What's notable is most of the time CMLL guys get little to no reaction (except for Ultimo Guerrero who can get over literally everywhere in the world), but Rush got the "this is a big star doing big star things" treatment. To use a Dave-ism, if ROH drops the ball with him they should be sued for promotional malpractice.

Yes on TV they said he was "questionable" after hurting his ankle training, but in the Observer the plan was laid out where the idea was Cena was only brought back to do TV building the Rumble and Lars was going to kill him to take him out of the match. Also glad to see Roman doing well, but not looking forward to the truthers out there latching on to him doing a movie as some kind of proof that his illness was a work.

Lars was supposed to injure Cena on Raw prior to the Rumble, which would take him off the show and set up their program for Mania. Cena was only back this time to do TVs and not the PPV.

It's also pretty amazing that WWE blatantly false advertised not only Brock/Braun but also Cena in the Rumble (he was supposed to get taken out by Lars), but that it failed in what it was supposed to do with only 30,000 tickets sold for a stadium set up for 40,000.

I've long stated that ECW never died, it just moved to Mexico to become AAA (yes I know the timeline doesn't match for that, but it's the most apt comparison I can think of). It's also fun for the whole Konnan/Vamp power struggle that has both been a storyline and real life for seemingly forever. Plus it's always funny to see the sum of Konnan's creative ideas amount to "put everyone in a stable" until there's a thousand nWo B Teams running around. It's a Mexico thing to be fair. It's still very much like it was in the 70s and 80s US territories where everyone used popular songs and no one cared because wrestling.

She's done some NXT Florida loop shows, and everything I've heard puts her in the "I can't believe she's this good already" category. She probably should be in NXT for at least a short period to make sure she's got WWE TV Match Style down before going to the main roster, but if she comes out for the Rumble and puts on a show I can see her get fast tracked.

CMLL is the most staid, conservative, take-no-risks-in-booking company that ever existed and Rush got over huge there. He should be able to do the same in ROH and be a focal point to build around.

They announced the cards for the US shows, and it's mostly ROH talent + foreginers from NJPW. Apparently the reason was something to do with the government shutdown and not being able to get visas for the Japanese talent, so I'm sure the internet will be completely rational in their response.

It's still amazing we got to see Scott Hall cosplay as a coke dealer on early 90s WWF TV all because Vince apparently never saw the movie.

Yeah, I'm not saying Sasha wants to leave or has legit heat, just that she's coming off as trying way too hard to convince people of that on Twitter.

If it's Hunter vs Big Dave, I have no problem with that. Let him have his Wrestlemania Epic without having to wedge himself into someone else's storyline.

They signed the biggest TV deal ever in no small part due to having Ronda. Now if all the money goes in to the XFL, it's not her fault and it's still stupid to get mad at her about it.

So it seems like Sasha is trying hard on social media that there's legit heat between her and Ronda and/or dropping hints she wants to go to AEW. On the first point, yeah I can buy that there were some ruffled feathers that Ronda came in and was put ahead of everyone who built the foundation, but it's Ronda FFS. One thing the old timers got right is no one ever bitched that an attraction like Andre got top billing over the regular crew since it meant everyone made more money. Complaining about a big star wanting to work for your company makes you look dumb no matter if it's part of the storyline or not. The second point? I guess maybe she sees how making waves to get people to believe you want to jump is a good career move, but really? It's one thing for Zack Ryder and the Revival to want out, but Sasha joining in just comes across as trying too hard.

Also FFS give her normal wrestling gear. I get they want to keep the MMA look, but she looks like a fidgety child constantly pulling on her gear.

I get the impression Ronda would be a much better promo as a heel.

Zack getting TV time! Clearly teaming him back up with Hawkins is the one thing that will get the Revival to rethink asking for their releases.

Building up a feud via bodybuilding posedown is the most Vince thing possible.

They have over a million subs, so it's at least at the point where they are making money off of it. Not as much as they would be if they kept at least the Big Four on PPV, but it's making money. Does it need to? Not once the Fox money rolls in.

Usually a program leading to a big mask match will have a lot of foul and/or mask ripping DQs as part of the build. Cuartero/Forastero/Sanson are the New Generation Dinamitas and should be the next top stars (I say should because CMLL could CMLL at any time). Also I watched the AAA show on Twitch the other night. Wagner dyed his hair and beard black, and he's gone from looking like The Most Interesting Man in the World to looking like Rocky Romero's dad.

There's something to be said for confidence too. Becky's obviously got it in abundance now, and even when she's in a segment that's kind of a clunker (like the opening of SD) , she can pull it off better than most.

It was nice to see during the Rush/TK O'Ryan match that the commentary mentioned Rush and Matt Taven were on opposite sides of the CMLL Anniversary main event. Built some heat for the match and set up the post match angle. Also putting over that LIJ was an offshoot of a group Rush created, potentialy setting up a cross promotional angle since Terrible and Rush have made appearances in New Japan teaming with various LIJ groups.