Coffey

In the audio that leaked, wasn't Alberto screaming to check her bags for cocaine while in an airport? That seems like something pretty serious to gloss over now on two people here on passports with how strict our drug laws are & how crazy airports have been.

Uh...what possible dream match would have involved HoHo Lun? HoHo vs. Xanta Claus? The Godfather vs. HoHo? Jesus, how far down does this rabbit hole go-go?

Regardless of the gimmick, my issue is that Mike Bennett sucks. He has always sucked. He will always suck. He wasn't good enough for WWE to bring in & I still have no idea why they did. Did they want Maria back that bad? It's like when TNA brought in Jeff Hardy but it meant they had to bring Shannon Moore too: he brings nothing to the table.He's boring, not a good promo & not a very good worker. He's also super bland & looks like your basic run-of-the-mill Indy Create-A-Wrestler. I just don't get it. WWE has released people, or let people leave or not brought in a lot of other people that are a helluva lot better than Bennett. What does Mike Bennett do that they couldn't get from Roderick Strong in NXT? And I don't think Roderick Strong is someone exactly lighting the world on fire either but he's better than Mike Bennett. Bennett just isn't entertaining. I don't want to watch him. I sure as fuck wouldn't pay money to watch him. He's not worth the time investment.

That's how I feel when I see Stan Hansen with the long blonde locks.

Same. I'm not going to watch any match that involves Fale, Yano, EVIL or other guys I'm not a fan of, unless something gets an abnormal amount of word-of-mouth. Even after cutting out all the matches I don't care about, I'm still around ~30 matches total. That's a lot of wrestling. I'll be watching the matches with my friend, whom is a fan of Goto, other wise I would skip a lot of his matches too. I find him kinda boring/lethargic but whatever. I would like to see Tama Tonga & SANADA both look better coming out of this tournament.

There's so many levels of slimy too. Lying to both your women's champ and her fiancé who also happens to be your world champion. Making up bullshit excuses and doubling down when called out. Making an announcement to the live crowd to bury the talent you lied to. The kicker of course is doing all that to bend over backwards for someone who already quit on your promotion just last year. First thing I thought was that Vampiro & Sexy Star are having relations. Maybe that's an incredulous idea to have, since she's married and both have children, etc. but that was what I thought. Pretty crazy drama all around though. That shit makes for better drama TV than the TV shows do. Even in Lucha Underground I always thought Sexy Star was booked way above where she should have been at. Vampiro claiming it was all a work that Taya didn't know about was funny though. Taya worked into a shoot, brother~! It's all just a headache.

I didn't know about this. When did Rock call out Dogg? This is also interesting because I thought there was also heat between NAO and Hunter for the longest time. There was, after they got released...big time. They gave shoot interviews to pretty much anybody who would listen where they buried Hunter relentlessly. (Along with a lot of other people.) Since Brian James cleaned up his act and got hired back, he has become a WWE apologist of Prichardian proportions. Check out his episode of Legends with JBL if you don't believe me. Yeah, he's quite the follow on Twitter. Don't you dare criticize anything they do, because you've never been there, paying dues, in the business, man. Sigh. What about people that have paid dues, been in WWE/the business & still criticize them, like Paul London?

I think this is where I'm at too. I don't watch the weekly shows anymore & that might be why I have such a disconnect with most of the roster. My buddy that I watched the show with felt the same as me but he also doesn't watch the weekly shows anymore. He was actually a lot more harsh on it than I was, I thought the women's title match was fine/watchable & I was really looking forward to Joe/Brock. I also didn't mind the post-match ambulance stuff of Reigns/Braun. We still get together for PPVs but when we want to watch wrestling nowadays, it's either old stuff on WWE Network (mostly late 80s-early 90's or PPVs or WCW Nitros), marathon sessions of Lucha Underground (we're halfway through season 3 now), or it's New Japan. We've just fallen out of favor with modern WWE. Nothing feels important. No one feels special. There's not any dream matches left or scenarios that I can think of that would get me hype. Too many people that I'm not going to care about are the focus of the TV.

Ehh, they made Rey Mysterio world champ at one time. Plus it's not like Finn Balor is that much bigger than Austin Aries. I agree he's a tiny dude & him against Brock would look like a man against a child but good workers can overcome that anyway, sometimes even thriving off of it, and it's not like David Vs. Goliath isn't a staple in pro-wrestling. Honestly, I don't even know why WWE tries to have a Cruiserweight division in this day & age. It used to stand out in the 90's when people weren't used to seeing that stuff. Now you got big dudes that do all the same things that the Cruisers can do though & a Hurricanrana is no longer a spectacle.

I wasn't a fan. I don't feel a connection to most of the characters on the show & outside of Roman/Braun & Brock/Joe, every match to me felt like filler. Roman/Braun was more about the post-match angle & Joe/Brock was too short & to me, felt like it was pointless. Joe dominates the angle leading into the match. Dominates the early parts of the match. Shows his aggression, then just loses to an F-5. It was very lackluster & disappointing. I don't get the love for the 30-min tag at all.

Bump time: GFW CHAMPION ALBERTO EL PATRON DETAINED FOLLOWING INCIDENT AT ORLANDO AIRPORT, UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BATTERY By Mike Johnson on 2017-07-10 12:46:00 A reader who was traveling into Orlando yesterday afternoon emailed PWInsider to inform us that he had seen Global Force Champion Alberto El Patron being detained by police in the airport. In seeking to confirm whether that story was correct, PWInsider.com reached out to the Orlando Police Department and was given the following statement: "There was an incident at Orlando International Airport at about 3 p.m. Sunday involving Jose Rodriguez (DOB 5/25/1977) The reported incident was a domestic violence battery, and it is still under investigation. No arrests have been made as of this time, but the case remains open. That is all the information we have for release at this time." On social media the day before, Patron's fiancee, WWE star Paige posted a photo of herself with members of Patron's family on social media at Universal Studios in Orlando. Patron missed an advertised independent booking yesterday in Texas. ===== Paige tweeted in response: "WE got the cops involved. I'm crying cuz I found out bad fam news & a lady tries take a pic. She gets angry throws a drink on @PrideOfMexico" https://twitter.com/RealPaigeWWE/status/884496020008251392

That was unfortunate.

I'm excited for Braun/Roman & Joe/Brock.

Crowd seems a helluva lot more into this first match than I am.

Excited for the show but not excited for The Hardy Boys Vs. Sheamus/Cesaro getting a guaranteed 30-minutes.

I remember thinking that Don Callis was pretty good back in the ECW on TNN days too. He surprises me in New Japan. I've liked him more than I initially thought I would. Wasn't he away from wrestling for a pretty lengthy tenure of time? I'm glad he's back.

If he went to New Japan, there's a lot of fresh match-ups that I would enjoy watching with him. If he goes to TNA or back to ROH, I don't think I'll care all that much. I would watch the hell outta Aries/Naito though.

A couple of times. I distinctly remember being overcome with emotion from the wave of nostalgia that hit me when Hulk Hogan "Hulked Up" against The Rock at Wrestlemania X-8. It immediately transported me back to when I was a kid. Mark Henry reading that damn poem on the Owen Hart Tribute Show got me too. That was so heartbreaking.

Here is my big question pertaining to why WWE broke them up: Why? I want to believe that they have ideas & directions for them both but I think we all know that isn't true. WWE doesn't exactly do a lot of long-term planning, thinking or booking anymore. So after Enzo/Cass feud with each other, then what? Cass gets fed to the top face and Enzo does nothing? It just seems exceptionally short-sighted to me. That being said, yeah, that Enzo promo was money. I watched it on YouTube and was like "this dude gets it." I always knew he was a good talker, I was just concerned that he was going to get shoehorned into just being repetitive catchphrases. Maybe that's why WWE pulled the trigger on splitting them up, because they were concerned that they would grow stale way too quickly? A lesson that they never seemingly learned from the New Age Outlaws. I still believe that Enzo's true calling in the world of professional wrestling is being a Jimmy Hart style swarmy, chickenshit heel manager that can take bumps when needed.

I really loved early 90's Dustin Rhodes ('90-'94ish) & late 80's to early 90's Ricky Steamboat ('88-'93). Bret Hart ('92-'97) is hard to go wrong with.

That seems like the worst possible pairing for commentary for this thing to me, honestly.

Watched the whole season in one sitting last night with my girlfriend. She enjoyed it quite a bit, I thought it was too hokey. Which was maybe the point, but it just embarrassed me for them in many of the scenes with Alison Brie. The fabricated drama & over-the-top acting I think was too much for me.

I read today that Tessa Blanchard is now in this. I'm not familiar with her work but I loved her father's work. Is she any good? There have to be some people around here familiar with what she has done so far. http://www.wwe.com/shows/maeyoungclassic/article/blanchard-gabert-laith-conti-devi-mae-young-classic?sf91036971=1

I feel like EVIL and Yoshi-Hashi are the only two in the whole thing that I don't like. I'm not a ZSJ fan either but he'll break out some cool shit every now & then. Pulling for my boy Naito but wouldn't be surprised to see Kenny win again to set-up Okada/Omega III at Wrestle Kingdom. Ibushi is certainly a wild card that will make things interesting. Overall, I'm really happy with the participants this year & look forward to seeing the block set-up.

Don't forget if a heel gets heat but it's someone they don't like, instead of admitting they're a good heel or have good heat, they'll just call it "X-Pac heat."