Coffey

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.

Because even then, Smackdown was all about showing replays for RAW & whenever something important had to happen, like an announcement or debuting/returning wrestler they would do it on RAW. Smackdown was the better show for a long time but WWE themselves never presented it that way. Also, I wasn't saying that RAW was "can't-miss" or "must-watch" during THAT time period, I was saying at one time (which was during the Monday Night Wars) it was can't miss because everyone wanted to see what Austin or Rock were going to do. They need to find a way to rekindle that feeling.

Maybe WWE is going to call-up people like Finn Bàlor, Shinsuke Nakamura & Samoa Joe? They are obviously going to need more bodies for the main roster. Initially I didn't think that Joe or Nakamura would EVER hit the main roster but a brand split makes me think it could happen now. I don't really feel like the roster is as depleted as a lot of other people do either. Especially if WWE is planning on using even more NXT people. Plus, when you divide the divisions up onto each show, a lot of it sort of fills itself up time wise. If you have the Intercontinental Championship on RAW & make that belt the focal point, then the United States Championship on Smackdown (maybe with the return of the John Cena Open Challenge) and make that the vocal point - then you could have someone like the part-time Brock as the World Champion that only shows up for special events. Not that I think that will happen as I assume Roman keeps the belt on RAW for quite some time. But you have Tag Teams on RAW and Women's Championship on Smackdown, so that is something you can do each show. I guess we're in the "wait-and-see" camp now.

I would be OK with a brand split again, even though I wasn't a huge fan of it the first time around. They need to not do brand specific PPVs again. I do remember the draft shows always feeling like a lot of fun & being a big deal though. When John Cena was drafting to RAW and announced on Jericho's segment, that was huge. The biggest hurdle for me is making Smackdown ever feel equal. It always feels like the lesser show. Even when it has the better roster & better matches, like during the Smackdown Six era. WWE gotta make it feel like it's important & must-watch TV like they did with RAW for so long. Good luck doing that in this day & age though. People don't even tune-in for all of RAW anymore. The ratings are in the low 2's & third hour is always the worst.

Oh, I'm sure. Dude didn't do shit for years, just took up space, but because he's leaving now everyone will talk about all the "squandered potential" & all that bullshit. Cody was one of the more worthless characters on the roster IMO. I've been going off about him for a long time. He literally never improved. Stardust Cody today is not any better than Cody Rhodes that teamed with Hardcore Holly years ago, or the Cody that wore the wannabe Dr. Doom mask, or the Cody from Legacy. He's always just been a bland, boring dude.

I love the Dudley Death Drop - always have. First time I saw that move, I was hooked on ECW forever. Even now, today, when I'm totally over the Dudleys... I still pop for the finish. I like a good Camel Clutch, especially when it's a finish. Also the Crossface Chickenwing.

1. Stan Hansen 2. Mitsuharu Misawa 3. Kenta Kobashi 4. Toshiaki Kawada 5. Ric Flair 6. Terry Funk 7. Bret Hart 8. Jushin Liger 9. Eddie Guerrero 10. Jumbo Tsuruta 11. Big Van Vader 12. Ricky Steamboat 13. Arn Anderson 14. Tito Santana 15. Nick Bockwinkel 16. Ricky Morton 17. Rey Mysterio, Jr. 18. Ted DiBiase 19. Curt Hennig 20. Jerry Lawler 21. Steven Regal 22. Rick Rude 23. Shawn Michaels 24. Chris Benoit 25. Barry Windham 26. Rick Martel 27. Dustin Rhodes 28. Bobby Eaton 29. Shinya Hashimoto 30. The Undertaker 31. Jun Akiyama 32. Randy Savage 33. Genichiro Tenryu 34. Tajiri 35. Tully Blanchard 36. Daniel Bryan 37. Fit Finlay 38. The Great Muta 39. André the Giant 40. Steve Williams 41. Steve Austin 42. Mick Foley 43. Bob Backlund 44. Owen Hart 45. The Big Bossman 46. Greg Valentine 47. 2 Cold Scorpio 48. John Cena 49. CM Punk 50. Akira Taue 51. Michael Hayes 52. Samoa Joe 53. Harley Race 54. Batista 55. Sgt. Slaughter 56. Bam Bam Bigelow 57. Brock Lesnar 58. Hiroshi Tanahashi 59. Shinsuke Nakamura 60. Sting 61. Jim Duggan 62. Paul Orndorff 63. Sean Waltman 64. Haku/Meng 65. Brian Pillman 66. The Barbarian 67. Hulk Hogan 68. Dusty Rhodes 69. A.J. Styles 70. Austin Aries 71. Hiroshi Hase 72. Scott Norton 73. Minoru Suzuki 74. Riki Choshu 75. Lex Luger 76. The Destroyer 77. Kensuke Sasaki 78. Butch Reed 79. Jamie Noble 80. Kazuchika Okada 81. Chris Jericho 82. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 83. Don Muraco 84. Jimmy Snuka 85. Scott Hall 86. Jake Roberts 87. The Rock 88. One Man Gang 89. Sabu 90. Roddy Piper 91. Dick Murdoch 92. Jacques Rougeau 93. Jay Briscoe 94. Dick Slater 95. Nigel McGuinness 96. Kurt Angle 97. John Tenta 98. Yokozuna 99. Larry Zbyszko 100. Triple H