sek69

It wasn't their offense, but their mocking of the Bucks that made the segment.

Nitros all the way up to July 1997 up now, as much as I've been waiting for these it's a little sad to watch things play out and see all the mistakes happen again.

I have no idea what that means, but I imagine it would either be hilarious or horrifying based on context.

I've been digging the build for Brock/Taker, but I don't know how a guy who's been on the verge of retirement with bad hips/knees since the mid 90s is going to be able to do anything with a guy who's gimmick is suplexing the shit out of his opponents in every match. A wild brawl would probably be best for Taker, but then doesn't that make opponents like Cena and Rollins look weak that they got destroyed but this old man is going toe to toe with him?

Other than his bizarre post production shills for the ROH Codeline (which isn't his fault) I don't see what the problem is with him.

I never realized there was such dislike for ROH commentary. Kevin Kelly is fine in his role, and while I get how Corino isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea it's not like they have any better options waiting in the wings.

Byron Saxton's face when that all went down was priceless, he looked like a guy who just saw a car crash take place right in front of him.

The only bare cupboard is on the women's side. The only male who's been called up is Owens and he's been on NXT just as much as before. Zayn and Itami out with injuries has been the big hangup more than anything else. I mean, there's no reason to keep someone like Balor in NXT other than as a ticket draw for house shows. Once he learned how to "make movies" WWE style there's nothing more he needs to do there from a developmental standpoint.

It seems WWE felt embarrassed that there was a Kevin Steen figure in ROH's upcoming line before they could market a Keven Owens one. It's not something a billion dollar company should be quite that upset about, but I get the impression it was an ego bruising that someone couldn't handle.

I think in the long run ROH can't really do much of anything until Sinclair shows any sign of considering them anything more than low cost programming for their stations. I'm not saying they should go full Bischoff and spend tons of money on stupid shit, but as many have pointed out Sinclair is a bigger company and should be able to step in and stop ROH from being locked out of buildings if they wanted to. It's been mentioned in several interviews with ROH employees that the frustration with Sinclair is probably the main issue right now. It was embarrassing how long it took to get their lighting situation sorted out, and the story of them going to management to ask for the budget to be increased even a little was something out of Charles Dickens tale.

They will either have a bonus 8 man match or be on the NXT taping after Takeover is over. Unless they are going to be debuting on the main roster on Raw, this seems like a huge missed opportunity. Blake and Murphy are a black hole of blandness who's act is only saved by Alexa Bliss being way better as a heel than anyone suspected, and the Vaudevillians went from being afterthoughts to suddenly #1 contenders. It's like what was even the point of the gimmick if you aren't going to put Enzo and Cass on a big show in Brooklyn?

I wonder if WWE knows they're using a song about an illicit lesbian fling ("Cool for the Summer") as an Official Song of Summerslam.

It's really kind of undersold how amazing it is that WWE has managed 3 straight sellouts for what amounts of 10 hours of programming. They're taping an episode of TV after Takeover so there's 3 hours there, 4 at Summerslam, and 3 at Raw. This is probably the closest we'll ever get to that 10 hour marathon Japan show Dave will periodically mention he sat through once.

Shortest answer I can come up with: it would be a Torch Passing match from one guy they tired of seeing in main events to a guy they didn't want to see in main events. WM crowds are tricky to predict but I would have to agree this would have all the signs of at worst being totally shit on or at least being met with indifference.

From what I can tell no one was actually announced as champion so I can see them being able to give themselves wiggle room in editing/post.

That's the weird thing, it's not clear what the point of all this is. Cena doesn't need the belt, and keeping him out of the world title hunt has quelled a lot of the "same old shit" bitching about him since he hasn't been the main focus. It's also too soon to take the title off Rollins, and I'm not sure they want to do the bit where the MITB winner comes in to make it a three way since they just did that at Mania.

I still don't get why they're doing the Cena-Rollins match as title vs title. After all the time they spent rehabbing the US belt with Cena, they'll either end up (if someone wins both belts) either doing a tournament likely won by some midcard guy doing nothing or have the winner of the match do the Jay Lethal double champion gimmick where they'll probably forget about the US belt in a couple of months. If they don't have a clean finish (and they probably won't) then they'll have Cena chasing Rollins and the US title still gets forgotten.

Is there anything as consistently reliable as WWE being taken by surprise when their fans don't accept someone they feel should be a top guy? They really truly feel they know what their fans want yet never seem to actually listen to them.

What about Vince? Starts off promoting shows in bumfuck Maine to prove his worth to his father, becomes on air announcer/foil for heel color guys, has a test run as a heel in the USWA, reveals being the owner of the WWF while becoming increasingly paranoid during the Monday Night Wars, plays his top stars against each other until the situation boils over and he feels he needs to double cross one of them on PPV. Turns all that into becoming the biggest heel in the history of wrestling and creates the Heel Authority Figure trope that the business is still married to today.

The NHL also made a deal recently for MLBAM to handle their out of market games, I think there's a question there to be asked how to they allocate bandwidth, do the companies they do business with buy it like a giant sized version of a smart phone data plan or are there hard ceilings?

I really don't understand why people want to see a guy who A: has multiple concussions on record and most likely several more off the record and B: shows no sign of being willing/able to tone his style down return to the ring. Yes it sucks if we never see him wrestle again but that should be preferable to him becoming a Junior Seau or worse a Chris Benoit one day.

So the SuperLuchas story on TripleMania here seems to suggest Villano III had a heart attack of some sort during the match (if my Spanish is correct). If so, that's pretty disturbing. Of course if it's some kind of kayfabe to explain why the match sucked so bad, that's almost worse in a way.

The idea of not having Heyman on shows when Brock isn't there is mind boggling. No one else in the company can sell a PPV like him, and if you want to make SummerSlam the clear #2 show after Mania why would you not want him out there every week? They'd rather have the announcers out there insulting people who pay full price for the PPV. It's like this company hates money sometimes.

Funny enough, I was reading the 1997 WONs leading up to Montreal and apparently the skit where Shawn was showing his bare ass while Chyna and HHH were trying-but-not-really to cover it with signs was the straw that broke the camel's back and made Bret decide to sign with WCW.

I usually don't bother with the PPV hype stuff on the network, but the one from tonight hyping Taker/Brock is really good.