sek69

So Dave just casually mentioned on last night's shows that the last tapings were it for Ryan Ward and he's being promoted to the main roster creative team to work on Smackdown. A lot of people seemed to be giving him the lion's share of credit for being the one behind NXT's success, might be interesting to see how things develop with someone else.

Having the angle end with Shane getting control of the B show the company barely pays attention to is only a slightly better outcome than a complete return to status quo.

I'm someone who listens to most of the audio on the WO site and I can't imagine listening to a 6 hour show on one Starrcade, Jesus....

You know what's odd about this whole Vince/Shane angle is both sides are kind of arguing the same point. Shane's side is that Vince doesn't give the fans what they want and everything sucks now. Vince's side is basically he does what he wants like taunt the fans by having Taker's bell hit then coming out to revel in the fans getting mad they thought they were going to see something cool. If the reports saying Shane's only in until WM are true, then they're building this up on the story that Shane's the one who's going to make things better. If he loses, it's the biggest middlefinger/cockslap to the face to the fans they could possibly do. The Authority keeping control of Raw after WM would only give storyline purpose to bury the NXT callups that are supposed to be starting on the roster soon, since otherwise they'd just be doing what Shane said he would do if he won. I mean, how is this angle supposed to end in a way that won't be a disaster? Either Shane beats the goddamned Undertaker at WM (which would be bullshit even with shenanigans), or this is just another rehash of SS 2014 where the Authority's power is in danger only to go right back to the status quo (which would only prove Shane right that Raw is nothing but boring crap under their rule).

Wasn't it stated somewhere that Vince took Nash and Hall leaving on a more personal level than anyone else's departure? I agree with the above post that you can pretty much pinpoint the exact time Bret was mulling over the WCW offer based on the booking. Knowing what was going on behind the scenes, you can probably assume Shawn and Hunter were burying Bret 24/7 to Vince, how dare he even consider leaving for the other guys at a time like this! Of course you had Shawn openly begging to get fired so he can go play with his friends, but whatevs.

Interesting, but there's probably a reason there was only one all-women show that ever caught on in history, and that was more to do with the Crush Gals becoming a pop culture phenomenon than anything else.

Is there any reason ROH seems to keep women around to work houseshows/dark matches but never puts them on TV? It made it look weird on TV this week when Veda came out in her wrestling gear to second Moose for his match.

Counterpoint: Ambrose has been pretty goddamn over as a babyface despite being booked like shit most of the last year (or two?).

The thing with NXT is no matter how successful it gets, it's still developmental. We've already seen the bloom off the rose to a degree since they have to actually pay guys to come in instead of just waving the carrot of future WWE exposure. I don't see them wanting to toss the money needed to lure the top level indy guys on a regular basis. You'll still see a few coming in, but I don't think we'll get the future dystopia some are predicting where everyone who gets any sort of buzz gets stashed away in NXT forever.

Funny how people always use the same fish-eye lens photo to doubt the 78k figure when the whole point of that pic was to make the crowd look larger and the ring look smaller.

He likely has more stock, and also he has more tenure than anyone at the top except Vince at this point.

Hope no one in a mainstream media outlet assigned to do a puff piece on the WWE HOF finds the photo of the 'birds with the Confederate flag face paint.

The "skinny fat" line was great, as of course that would be the sickest burn HHH could throw at someone not as obsessed with physique as he is.

I get what you're aiming at here, but a mic worker as shitty as HHH should never be considered the new Dusty regardless of the reason for comparison, He's the Buddy Landell to Dusty's Flair.

That reminds me on Shake Them Ropes, I think it was Jeff who said he would bet that at some point in the next few shows Dean Ambrose will be saying how he respects Triple H in the build to their match.

Hunter is smart in the sense that he knows what moves to make to ensure he comes out of any feud looking better than anyone else. He's making sure he gets the babyface reaction when he brawls with Roman, He makes sure he can get in lines no one else can say (like saying he thought Dean's craziness was just a gimmick) or no one is allowed to react to. His character never shows weakness that isn't immediately retconned the next day, and somehow this is the guy who's going to cement Roman as the new ace?

If i were being snarky I would say at least kids like Cena whereas no one likes Reigns, but I'm not so I won't.

It would be neat if they put up some Freebirds footage up on the Network to celebrate this occasion.

What makes the Roman deal slightly different is that now instead of being a delusional and or insecure rassler trying to keep his spot, he's office now (both kayfabe and real life) so those tactics come off even worse now. It's funny to see Dave argue "well they had to do the beatdown to cover for Roman's surgery", which is kind of beside the point since him needing surgery didn't mean Hunter had to pound his head to the table in a cadence the crowd to chant along to or do crotch chops. No one denies Hunter's smart business wise, are we really supposed to believe he doesn't know what he's doing here?

They've already done it. He's the evil heel authority figure on Raw and he's lovable ol' Dad on NXT.

So even if you accept at face value that Hunter is trying to get himself over to make it a bigger deal when Roman beats him, it's still worth pointing out that he only seems to do it against Reigns. I don't recall him do anything to get face pops when he was beating up Ambrose.

To me it was part genuine surprise, and also the result of not being on TV for nearly 7 years. He's a reminder to a lot of people of a time when wrestling was fun.

There's no reason someone like Summer Rae can't be the next Alexandria York.

Anyone watch the Stone Cold Podcast with Big Show? I thought it was one of the better ones they've ever done. Funny moments were Austin going into his famous Dusty impression to do a version of Hard Times when Show was describing his lack of money when he was in college, Show getting hit by a feelings avalanche when they showed a photo of his late father, and Show for some reason having to hide his face with a towel every time he drank a beer. He was very open with his opinions, told funny stories of how Vince and Austin got him to fire up as a giant, and had a pretty honest assessment of his career,

Wrestling Observer Live is free every day M-F with a two hour show on Saturday. Bryan and Mike Sempervive host, and they often have guests from ROH or LU. Dr. Lucha does a segment once a week and Dave calls in on Thursdays for a recap of the newest Observer. The only downside is they have callers that are reminiscent of Howard Stern's Wack Pack, but lately they've been roped in to their own segment that can be easily skipped since Bryan posts the shows with commercials edited to the WO site the same day.