sek69

At the NXT house show tonight, they did a dirty dancing tribute dance. It was glorious. I don't know where it's leading to but I approve Tonight's show was interesting because it felt like the changing of the guard. It seem obvious that Enzo/Cass/Carmella and Sami are headed to the main roster probably after Mania.I thought Bayley might be too but I think they will hold off on that till they get a new top babyface woman that isn't Asuka. The two women that could fill that role are Liv Morgan and Adrienne Reese. Adrienne had a cast on her hand so she might be injured. Liv has a lot of potential. She even does the Matrix move.. It seems they are setting up Asuka to be the one who wins the belt, since she's been mowing everyone down and they did the angle where she was petting the belt after saving Baymella.

I do think he went above and beyond what he was asked to do. Was he asked to be rough with the newbies? I'm sure he was. I doubt there was any directives to do naked wrestling though.

That reminds me, the Jim Cornette/Jimmy Hart "heel manager with a prop he hits the faces with" rasslin' trope is one of the few that hasn't shown up in NXT yet.

I doubt we'll ever see Kurt Angle back in anything but a non wrestling role.

Sounds like scalpers must have grabbed a lot of the available tickets and are probably going to take a bath like they did on NXT.

Little of column A, little of column B I would guess? Either way I'm sure they'll make it rain with comps to make sure the place is filled up.

I'm sure it had everything to do with India being a large market of a billion+ people where folks give a shit about WWE (as opposed to China) rather than being concerned for any actual offense. Like the wise man says, it's what's best for business.

Finn Bayley might be the greatest thing ever.

It always cracks me up (in all wrestling, not just WWE) when the All-American babyface stands up for America being the land of free speech by telling the foreign heel to shut up.

That's why Vince's famous brass ring comments were so infuriating, as if it was all the fault of those damn lazy millennials not being able to get over rather than their slavish devotion to 50-50 booking. Also how funny was it to read Friend of Hunter Road Dogg getting into a Twitter spat basically saying you're a dumb mark for still thinking wins and losses matter? As if HBK didn't make a career of doing his god-diddly-damnedest never to lose.

Shane wins control of Raw, HHH brings in the NXT Army to invade?

So according to today's WOL show, the stuff with Roman and the blood is an example of a new edgier format that is supposed to last at least until Mania.

If anything, this reminds me of the angle where Vince was bossing around Taker and Kane, got too cocky, and they broke his leg leading to that wacky "Vince in a wheelchair" era.

Also it looks like the winners of the hair matches are going to be in the main event of the Anniversary show.

Not sure why people think it has to be one extreme or another, though. Clearly they aren't completely incompetent but there's also a significant level of tone-deafness from the company in terms of thinking they know what the audience wants.

Vader vs. Sting? Austin vs. Savio? Forgot about Vader/Sting, but Austin/Savio never did much for me.

Not that misogyny didn't play any part, but it shouldn't be forgotten that Shane was universally loved by everyone and it was a real morale blow to the people he worked with when he left. By most accounts Steph is seen as Female Vince with all the personality quirks that entails. Plus there was a feeling at the time (if I'm remembering the Internet Vibe of the time correctly) that Steph was in over her head, and was like the Junior Executive put at the head of the table because Daddy said so. Also her filling the creative team with soap opera writers turned opinion against her as well.

Absolutely subscribe to this. We give people much too much credit for things that just occur in the course of folks going about their business and looking out for themselves. Keep in mind Hunter's the guy who made Montreal happen by getting in Shawn's ear about not jobbing to a guy leaving the company after Vince already brokered an agreement to keep everyone happy. To say it's out of the question he could be doing some more Machiavellian shit today is kind of silly.

There seems to be several moving parts here. HHH/Steph clearly dislike Dunn, Dunn knows NXT is Hunter's baby and seems to be trying to bury anyone who gets called up right out of the box. This only feeds the fire with Hunter, and he seems to be going out of his way to undermine any attempt to establish Roman as the top guy because he's a Vince Guy and not a Hunter Guy. It's no mistake the only time he ever got cheered at the level they wanted was when Vince was out there taking bumps for him.

I have a theory that might be a corollary to the "hit", I truly believe Vince (or Dunn, or someone else in the inner circle) thinks the only reason Roman didn't get over is because the fans were still hoping Daniel Bryan was coming back. I think it's why they gave 30+ minutes on Raw to a guy Vince clearly never saw anything special in just to make it clear to the fans he's gone and now it's okay to get behind Reigns. I also think it's clear HHH is going out of his way to sandbag Roman, and last night should have removed any doubts. He was out there supposedly the dastardly heel while doing things designs to get face pops like banging Roman's head in a cadence designed to get the crowd to chant and doing DX chops. It's kind of brilliant, because now either Vince has to stay on a failed course and have Mania end with his handpicked babyface get booed out of Texas by 80,000+ people, or change plans that would lead to either HHH retaining to adding a third guy who would almost certainly be a Hunter Guy.

In a weird way their plan is working, since I feel sympathetic towards Roman for how badly he's been booked.

It's getting difficult not to buy into that theory, they can't possibly think WM is going to be some feel good moment when Roman wins.

Wonder how Vince's brain is processing this.

Pretty sure Ric had one facelift too many. Like you said he looked 40 for about a decade, and now he looks like a burn victim who's had skin grafts.

What are the odds the Shane stuff is a swerve to oust Vince in storyline and HHH/Steph stay in power? After all, The Authority Always Wins.