Coffey

I think Fastlane we're getting Roman/Triple H, Brock/Bray & Becky/Sasha/Charlotte. Then at Wrestlemania getting Roman/Brock 2, Triple H/Bray & Sasha/Paige. That's my assumption right now. And maybe I am underestimating the drawing power of WWE, with their record low ratings & Smackdown shows getting like 1,000 people... but 100k+ tickets is A LOT to sell (that aren't cheap)... and these mother-fuckers aren't Hogan/Andre.

Man, I dunno if Triple H main eventing Wrestlemania is gonna break their attendance record? I don't really mind Triple H winning but he definitely didn't look like he could go anymore to me. He looked... old and broken. There were some cool spots in that match though. Nice to see how over Styles was. They didn't really let him show much though. I assume he'll feud with Owens now? That could be fun.

My final guess for winner tonight is Brock Lesnar.

I feel like the worst possible outcome is Roman winning from Number 1, breaking records in the process, all the while the live crowd boos the entire match the whole time. I really hope their plan isn't to let a guy win it from #1 again, let alone Roman whom is already getting backlash.

Alberto Del Rio was awesome as Alberto El Patron pretty much everywhere he went outside of WWE. His run in Lucha Underground was a lot of fun & he felt like he actually wanted to be there. You could see it in his work. As soon as he went back to WWE, he started half-assing it again. He's there for a paycheck.

I guess it's never really been more than three at one time. Although I'll check out matches & whatnot from various promotions nowadays because of the power of the internet, I don't really follow more than three at a time. I watched WWF, WCW & ECW in the late 90's. Around 2005 or so, I was big into ROH, was still watching WWE & would occasionally check out some Japanese stuff or some TNA stuff. Nowadays, I follow WWE still, NXT (if that counts), an occasional ROH PPV and the NJPW PPVs. Waiting on Lucha Underground to start-up again next week. I would follow ROH more closely but their roster leaves a lot to be desired. At least to me. They have a couple guys that I enjoy, like Jay Briscoe, but for the most part, I'm not a fan of their roster or the people that they're using. I gave TNA another chance when they got the new POP TV show but I wasn't a fan of what I saw. New Japan I only check out the PPVs, I can't really follow them weekly, and after losing Nakamura & Styles, not sure what their future is going to look like. I've certainly had my fill of Okada & Tanahashi on top. And now I feel like NXT is to the point where I read the spoilers & wait for the next Takeover show. Lucha Underground, I don't even get the El Rey network, to my knowledge, so I'll have to watch the shows online. I wish they were on Netflix.

I'll second Sid. Him putting people on stretchers will never get old. Also gotta name-drop Goldberg. He pretty much got over by just squashing people. Up until that Steven Regal match, did any of his matches even go five minutes? You can look like a million bucks when you get to squash everyone, even if you're not a very good worker, and the whole match is just you getting your shit in. They protected the hell out of Goldberg, but it worked. In an era where due to the Monday Night Wars, there weren't any real jobbers anymore too. I don't think anyone would deny Goldberg's intensity either. I don't know how half of those people eating some of those Spears weren't legitimately injured. He was going THROUGH people. So sick.

All I remembered was Triple H saying what happens if someone uses Google to look-up Chyna. Now that same thing will happen with Sunny. Going into the details of the scene specifically seems like it should have never even got that far. "Well, we watched it and it would've been OK except they did that." The convo shouldn't go that deep, should it?

I feel like Lucha Underground is "Americanized" Lucha. I can watch it because it's presented more like WCW Cruiserweights than presented like CMLL or AAA, from what I've seen. There's a lot of talent in Lucha Libre but I'm always taken out of the matches by things like blown spots, no selling, "Legend" old workers that can barely move but still wrestling, or [my biggest pet peeve] the referees that count so slow that there's never any near-falls or pinfalls that I care about. Seriously, the refs take me out of every match I've tried to get into in Lucha. I just tried to watch an Arena Mexico Lucha show this week & shut it off again. I just can not get into it. I've even tried to look up some of the nominated top Lucha stars, it's just not my cup of tea at all. I tried, I can't do it. I've only seen Pentagon, Jr. in Lucha Underground and a few American Indy matches here & there. I liked his storyline where he was breaking people's arms & the build-up to the Vampiro match. There's actually quite a few guys in Lucha Underground that I enjoy. I watched every episode of it & look forward to season two. If all Lucha was like that I would have been a bigger fan sometime ago.

Were WWE themselves not the people that sent him to get the third opinion?

I don't know where to put this... but it certainly doesn't deserve it's own thread. Tammy Sytch, formerly Sunny in WWF, signed on to make a porn movie with Vivid Entertainment. I think that's the same company Chyna did hers for? Not sure. Anyway, in the past, WWE, namely Triple H, cited Chyna's adult work as a reasoning for not including her into the WWE Hall of Fame. So since "Sunny" is already in, what are WWE going to do? And this isn't a hypothetical thing... there's already an officially released XXX trailer for the movie. So it's not just speculation anymore. So will WWE now induct Chyna, remove Sunny, or act like it never happened? Also apparently this came about because Tammy wanted to hock her Hall of Fame ring or something.

I agree with this. If, for no other reason, because when a Legend comes back, you get the surprise pop. Half, maybe even more than half, of this Rumble is going to be jobbers. Every time someone like Heath Slater or Curtis Axel or Jey Uso come out, the crowd is going to groan with disappointment.

They had a better format for the 3-hours, I think. They had dedicated time for each "group" of wrestlers. You still started each Nitro with the 15-20 minute run-on dialogue, but you had time on the show for the Cruisers, the tag stuff, the U.S. title stuff (Raven's flock stuff or whatever), TV title stuff, some non-main event nWo stuff and then the ending with nWo/Sting or whatever. I don't know if just having the Cruisers gave them more options or what but the Nitro show never felt to me like it dragged as much as RAW does now. Granted I'm also a lot older & sitting & watching for three hours straight isn't as easy as it used to be. Especially if there was a PPV the night before.

EDIT : That's too harsh: lemme edit. I don't want anyone to not feel like they can partake & certainly don't feel like you shouldn't because of how someone else might perceive you. Don't let the worry about what someone else thinks of you hinder your enjoyment of something. Please. If you don't wanna submit a ballot just because you don't want to, cool. But don't absolve yourself because you're worried about ridicule or anything like that.

Man, we got a dude fighting to defend Trish Stratus, which I thought was a joke. I don't see how Daffney is any better or worse than Trish, honestly. A case can be made for damn near anyone. I mean, no one else will probably list some of the people on our lists, so it's not really that big of a deal. And kudos for that dude defending Trish too, because he wanted her on his list & he went above and beyond to make a case for her. I mean, let's be real, does it really matter who any of us have in the final ten spots? You could put The Human Tornado on there at 99 and Kurt Angle at 100 just so you have Tornado over Angle, it won't really change anything. I have Batista at #53 and not a single Lucha guy on my list... and I'm 100% content with that. I can't get into Lucha. What I don't want to see is people not submitting ballots or nominating the people that they want to include because of a fear of someone on the internet talking garbage to them. It's a message forum. This is supposed to be fun. It's not life and death, here. If you wanna nominate and list Nidia, go for it, ya know? So what if someone else rolls their eyes at your list? Some of the statements I've seen people make so far have me cracking up thinking they're joking. We're all fans in our own way and no two people will ever see eye-to-eye on everyone and everything.

I think the worst I remember RAW being was when Michael Cole was a heel, doing the "Cole Miner" crap and they had the anonymous GM (laptop) running the show. Right now would be better if so many people weren't hurt too. There's a lot of the roster right now that's out with injury, which makes the roster look a lot more thin than it really is. Cena & Rollins were two of their most used guys and they're out. Cesaro & Kidd are both out and Cesaro was in the "go give us twelve good minutes with anyone" slot, so that hurts the TV. Wade Barrett is always hurt, but he's usually a low card guy they throw out there to eat up some TV time. Orton was a guy, despite boring me personally, they could legitimately slot into the main event whenever they wanted because he's always credible. Bryan is out, of course, still. Sin Cara is hurt, which stopped the ability of using Lucha Dragons in the tag team spot. Sting will probably never wrestle again. Sasha & Nikki are both hurt, which stalls some women's development. How different is the current show if even half of those people are back? So due to all of the injuries, we have New Day getting more segments, Stardust & Titus O'Neil doing stuff that probably otherwise wouldn't make TV, the Alberto Del Rio Vs. Kalisto stuff, the Social Outcasts stuff, etc. Nikki & Sasha were two of my favorite female workers on the roster. Cena & Rollins always brought it. Cesaro always brought it. So yeah, the injuries make the show worse for me because a lot of my favorites are the people that went out.

Man, I gotta be tired because this cracked me the hell up.

I still enjoy NXT & really go out of my way to watch the Takeover shows but I have to admit, I have really fallen out of favor with the weekly show. It just feels so unimportant and... lateral.

Most WWE fans aren't even familiar with the characters from NXT. They would not really know who Nakamura is at all. Even the smarkier NXT crowd was pretty mild for the announcement of Jushin Thunder Liger. The commentators sure as hell aren't going to get them over. Michael Cole is horrendous at his job. I know Wrestlemania and to an extent Royal Rumble have pretty smart crowds but it would still be a big risk. And if you debut in the Rumble & then don't win, it's hard to not look like just another guy. At this point, to me, Brock Lesnar feels like an André the Giant style commodity. He's above everyone & I just don't think he should lose which is an awkward spot to be in. I wouldn't put him in title matches, I'd just let him kill people on big shows. Just like I don't think it does any good to bring back The Rock and have him lose either. If you're going to use guys that aren't on the full time roster, I certainly wouldn't feed them people that will be working again the next night on RAW. If you have the full-timer go over though, you have to see the push through. Don't then put them in a feud right after and have them go 50/50 and don't put them in a feud that's a step down. Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania beat Triple H, Randy Orton & Batista all in the same night and won the top prize in the company, then the best thing they had for him to do after that (before he got injured) was slotting him into a feud with Kane? Who the hell was that supposed to help? What WWE does is bring in part-timers, have the part-timers beat the main roster guys, then wonder why the main roster guys are looked at like they're nobodies. Then they bring back other part-timers to beat the first part-timers & then the next night you're left without either one of them & have three hours to kill. So great, The Undertaker & Brock Lesnar look strong, but Bray Wyatt looks like a chump and you have to build the next three months using him. WWE needs to bring back video packages & hype videos. They need to bring back mouthpieces for the wrestlers that aren't good promos. They need to hide weaknesses and emphasize strengths to try to get everyone over. Instead, if someone sucks at talking, they're like "go out there and talk for fifteen minutes live with this shitty script and let's see what happens" then wonder why the crowd turns on it. I always think back to Matt Morgan. Dude looked like a million bucks and was a good talker, so they gave him a stutter. I guess to see if he could overcome adversity or some shit... but that's just counter-productive. It's like WWE doesn't even try to maximize their potential profits because they don't care. Doing *this* would make more money but doing *that* would give Vince McMahon a hearty chuckle... so let's go with *that.* I can't remember who said it but I read someone say that if you have more than one top guy, you have to pay more than one guy top guy money. I've always had that in the back of my mind when I see people trading wins on free TV. We had John Cena as the top guy. Now we're getting Roman Reigns as the top guy. In the past we had Hulk Hogan and Austin as the top guys. It's like WWE doesn't want too many top guys at the same time. Then if someone gets hurt, they're in panic mode.

Triple H doesn't have to win. He can just eliminate Roman. He doesn't even have to be in the match itself. He can just come out with his angry face and they can brawl over the top rope and into the crowd or whatever. Even better if Triple H is #2 and Roman is #1 and they're both eliminated before #3 comes out. So then the entire rest of the Rumble the crowd knows they're getting a new champion.

I'll have to catch RAW later, or the highlights of it, but I am curious about a few things. Namely if the show will open with Roman & Steph/Vince doing dueling in-ring promos again. The last week, I have seen that same picture shared about the last five openings of RAW starting the same way at least a dozen times. I imagine the main event ends in a donnybrook featuring a plethora of wrestlers flying over the top rope & making both Brock and Roman look strong for the Rumble. On Twitter today, Alex Riley made a comment that he "misses real rap music" & posted that he was listening to Eminem. So of course, there was some backlash. One of which was from Kevin Owens that said he misses real rock and roll & posted Avril Lavigne.

I did actually check out the new show that was the debut show on POP. I saw Mike Bennett & Maria debut & I said "why?" I saw a bloated Matt Hardy in the main event & it just felt like he shouldn't be there. James Storm went back & they reunited Beer Money & it felt like a reset. Even Eric Young looks worse. I think they have some talent. I like EC3 & Rockstar Spud. As for an entire show though, it's tough to sit through.

I've always really liked the Jesse/Ross combination & until this thread had never even noticed Ross "no-selling" him at all before, honestly. Never even crossed my mind.

If Eva could work, she never would have got the heat that she has.

During the Monday Night Wars, whenever D-X came on RAW, I would change the channel back to Nitro. To me, nWo was cool, D-X was corny. It wasn't D-X that made me more interested in RAW, it was Austin, Rock & Mankind. Admittedly later on New Age Outlaws were megaover though. I remember going to a Buffalo Wild Wings to watch a WWF PPV and when Road Dogg came out to do the intro spiel, the entire bar chanting along with him. It was pretty surreal. I think my big thing was about finishers watching back then. Like I used to love when Kevin Nash would Powerbomb someone on Nitro. Even if it was the expense of an undercard guy getting his match interrupted so Nash could have some microphone time. That's a big reason why I was an Austin fan... cause he just stunned the shit out of everyone. D-X just did skits. And most of them I didn't think were funny. I think that's why I liked Goldberg too. Because his squash matches were so fast, it was pretty much like just doing a run-in & finish anyway. Spear/Jackhammer, thanks for coming. Everyone got what they wanted to see and it was less than five minutes. Usually a lot less. The comeback with Shawn Michaels kicking "Stan" backstage had some funny moments. Most of it was super cringe-worthy though. Little People's Court comes to mind.