Coffey

Really like Kota Ibushi's finish. I liked both of the matches this week. I hope TJ Perkins beats Rich Swann next week as I don't see a lot of potential in that dude - never have. Kendrick is still awesome. I don't like the Bully Choke though, it just looks like a headlock to me. This whole tournament has been a ton of fun & I'm really enjoying it. I assume the finals is going to be Zack Sabre, Jr. Vs. Kota Ibushi? I'm still not sold on Zack. To me, I had heard some buzz about him from the Indies, even here on PWO, but thus far he's yet to impress me. I actually thought that last week Drew Gulak looked better than him. So maybe I'll be wrong about him making it to the finals.

Slater was really enjoyable back when he was getting killed by a Legend each week leading up to the big RAW 1,000th episode show. Admittedly, part of it was nostalgia for seeing old wrestlers like Vader & Sid again, but WWE trusting Slater with those guys, I thought, was a pretty big signal that they at least had faith in him. Granted he was mostly bumping like a pinball & just taking their finish but still. He's entertaining in a lot of out-of-the-ring ways.

This would be a good topic of discussion on its own instead of being lost in a megathread.

The issue there is the same thing as the issue with Cena. All the people booing Roman now would cheer him as a heel. Just like they would if WWE turned Cena heel. The babyfaces get booed by half the crowd and those same fans cheer the heels. I don't know if we can have a heel anymore that is universally loathed. Not unless they suck on purpose & are willing to do things that you probably can't do in a corporate, publicly traded company without getting sued. It would take someone that doesn't have a social media account, that doesn't have merchandise, that wins even though they suck, without ever doing any sort of flashy moves.. and even after all that, they would just get told they had X-Pac heat. There's no winning in wrestling as a heel anymore.

When The Shield first showed up in WWE, my buddy John & I both thought that Roman was the best. Because he had the best look & was being protected the most. He looked like a beast in all the matches. Most of the people online were only talking about how great Tyler Black & Jon Moxley were. I tried to take the stance that what you did prior to WWE doesn't mean you'll still get to showcase that when you're actually on WWE TV. Seth Rollins is a good worker but he works like a babyface, even when he's heel. Dean Ambrose can be a good promo, but in WWE he's reciting scripted lines. Roman was manufactured from the beginning to be what WWE wanted & it's working out. He may never be a great promo but he still has physical charisma, looks like a million bucks & continues to improve in-ring, where he wasn't that bad to begin with. He's a helluva athlete (not to say Seth isn't too). I don't think it's just the Daniel Bryan thing, nor is it because people are rebelling against the WWE Machine pushing him. I think some of it has to do with him showing up at the same time as Seth & Dean, both of whom brought Indy credibility with them. Then you also had, I believe, C.M. Punk saying that the Shield initially was going to be Chris Hero instead of Roman Reigns & that WWE put the axe to that idea & Hero also has a lot of value from Independent fans. It's like a big storm cloud of bad timing & outstanding circumstances that add fuel to the fire for people to have a reason to dislike Roman, even when what they're seeing with their eyes on weekly television is telling them otherwise. Roman is great, will only get better & barring a terrible injury or something, is going to be around for a long time. I think Seth is good too but would work better as a babyface. I think Dean is fine but not a top guy & needs to be put into more gimmick matches so he can be the crazy character he's trying to portray. Roman I think can be heel or face, I could see him playing a corporate monster or an ass-kicking babyface. I just think there's more potential there.

The picture that they have for Stephanie McMahon is hilarious. It looks both old and photoshopped to high heaven.

I just want to see Rusev in the title picture. He's the most compelling wrestler for me. He's a good enough worker but I also find him genuinely entertaining.

I feel in the minority because I think Sheamus is better than Cesaro. I honestly don't think that the best-of-seven series is going to do either of them any favors though.

We're going to need an update on Jim Cornette, since he's probably on suicide watch right about now. I can only imagine what his @mentions on Twitter are going to look like.

We get a new champion on RAW tonight. I thought it was a tournament, not just a Fatal Four-Way match. Anyway, either Reigns, Rollins, Owens or random Cass is walking out with the belt tonight. I assume Cass is at less than 1% chance. I could see them trying Owens for awhile though. I want to see a double-turn with Roman & Seth.

Random thought: One of the long standing traditions of pro-wrestling is to always have the monster fat dude. He's always booked as a threat, has little guys pinball off of him, does the falling tower spot & gets a push before being toppled by the big hero. Yokozuna, Big Boss Man, One Man Gang, Earthquake, Kamala, etc. More recently, WWE has done it with The Big Show and Mark Henry... but both of those guys are at the end of their runs. I don't really see anyone on the roster to fill that role when they're gone either. WWE has a lot of great wrestlers & young, athletic guys but who is going to be the next King Kong Bundy mold of wrestler for the guys like Finn Balòr, Sami Zayn & Seth Rollins to work with? I don't feel like Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe or Bray Wyatt exactly fit the mold. Not with their styles. I've always been a fan of those sort of feuds, even if they didn't always produce the best matches, because it's such an age old story. I can see that they're gearing up for a Braun Strowman push on RAW but he's not really a monster fat dude, he's just a big monster.

That's a weird thing to say. Especially since Kawada has worked against guys like Rob Van Dam & even was in HUSTLE.

I just caught up on the tournament & I must say, I'm really digging it. Several of the wrestlers I wasn't familiar with at all & I have been pleasantly surprised. It sort of feels like the old WCW Sunday b-show & that's really refreshing to me. I like T.J. Perkins & Jack Gallagher. Between the tag match at NXT Takeover & his match last night, I'm pretty high on Johnny Gargano right now too. Good stuff.

The Revival tag was really good. I like them a lot. That was MOTN for me. Nakamura is great, of course. Bobby Roode feels like a star and I imagine he'll be in the NXT title picture sooner than later. I'm curious if Samoa Joe will ever make the main roster. I feel like calling Bayley up now was the right move as I was kinda tired of her act in NXT. I love Asuka though. Ember Moon is gonna blow out her tailbone doing that finish. Still not sold on No Way Jose - feels like a jobber to me.

Miz has been good lately, even before that promo. He just gets slept on. Loss has sang his praises in the past before. I think part of the issue is because he was already World Champion, so now everything after that feels like it's "lesser" in the grand scheme of the pecking order but he's doing good work.

Dana Brooke is really, really bad. She was nowhere near ready for the main roster.

Nikki got a nice pop. Eva Marie's entrance cracked me up. So did JBL. "...I wish her the best." That was too much!

Thanks for this thread. I too didn't know the show started early, nor did I know it was 4-hours long. I'm really outta the loop. I have cable & internet again now though, so I can watch again.

Not only that but his promo in LU was awesome & him returning to WWE just made it all hollow words. Which might not really really matter, but to his fans it might. It was the first thing that I thought of when he went back to WWE anyway. Felt like Grade-A selling out to me. Which, I can't imagine myself in that scenario - mostly because I'm white & won't ever be offered that much money - but after the racist crap & how he was basically a hero to a lot of Latino fans, it felt odd to go back. Of course, that's just from my outside-looking-in perspective where I doubt I had all the facts anyway. I really liked him in Lucha Underground. In WWE he just gets lost in the shuffle.

Meh, he'd fit in NJPW just fine & they can probably use him. I remember him having a promo on top of an ambulance on a RAW that I thought was really strong. Thought that was going to be the turning point for him but nothing ever really came from it. He's a lot better than the big jacked strong guy NJPW uses in a lot of their undercard multiman matches anyway.

I still think that size in pro-wrestling should matter. I feel like that is my biggest stance that a lot of online fans would feel is antiquated. It's not believable to me, in a worked environment, when the little guy takes out the big guy in a straight up contest. Talk about David Vs. Goliath or MMA all you want, Rey Jr. or Austin Aries beating people like Kevin Nash or Big Show looks silly to me. Unless they cheat/use a weapon or something. I liked how Eddie beat Brock to win his title. That doesn't mean you should give people like The Great Khali, whom could barely walk, a job, let alone a push... but I do prefer seeing wrestlers that don't look like everyday people you would run into on the street. Also, don't think this is a very rare opinion anymore but I hate the term "workrate."

I've not had cable TV or internet for a couple of months at home now but I plan on watching a stream on the phone tonight just to see what happens with some of the draft stuff. So I guess they got my attention, at least somewhat. I haven't paid much attention to WWE since around Wrestlemania time.

I don't think that this Brand Split is going to help guys like John Cena, Roman Reigns or the already established vets like Brock or 'Taker. Whom is really going to shine here, IMO, is all the upper mid-carders currently trading wins with one-another. Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, Rusev and guys like that. So it could be pretty fun to see some of those guys actually presented as World Title contenders/holders. Really hope that Samoa Joe gets a shot on the main rosters. Even if his entrance theme is the drizzling shits.

I don't understand what you're getting so defensive about. I wasn't even dumping on Smackdown. No one is even arguing that Smackdown was the better show for a long time, nor trying to slight you for enjoying Smackdown.

I mean, it's a wrestling forum of hardcore wrestling fans. I'm sure a lot of us watched a ton of Smackdown during that era. You can't seriously deny that WWE themselves treat Smackdown as a secondary show to RAW though. It's always been apparent which show is the flagship. It's Vince's baby.