Coffey

I thought the Small Package surprise finish to the Cesaro/Sheamus match was great & I usually hate roll-up finishes. Right after a 20-count Giant Swing where Cesaro would be disoriented though? It made perfect sense.

Great, great show. Highly exceeded my expectations. Best WWE PPV this year so far, in my opinion, with Elimination Chamber having the best WWE match so far. Top to bottom, this show was pretty above average. Even the "bad" was inoffensive, kept short or funny. The only thing I didn't really like was the Brie acting & Kane's random involvement for no reason. And of course, as always, the commentary is bad. The ring work was great though. Sheamus/Cesaro was good. Wyatt/Cena was good. Shield/Evolution was good. Alicia/Paige was in the deathslot & still wasn't terrible. The added Rhodes/RybAxel match was good. Hornswoggle/Torito was entertaining. Rusev/Big E was short & had two awesome spots. I'm a happy camper.

I have high expectations tonight for Sheamus Vs. Cesaro on the Payback PPV. Here's the entire card, by the way: The Shield Vs. Evolution - No holds barred Elimination Match John Cena Vs. Bray Wyatt - Last Man Standing Match Bad News Barrett Vs. Rob Van Dam - Intercontinental Title Match Sheamus Vs. Cesaro - U.S. Title Match Paige Vs. Alicia Fox - Divas Championship Hornswoggle Vs. El Torito - Hair Vs. Mask Rusev Vs. Big E

I feel like the only person on the planet at this point that wasn't impressed with Natalya Vs. Charlotte at all.

I'm interested for non-wrestling reasons, I suppose. Curious which direction they go with the World Title. Curious if anyone new (or returning) shows up. Curious what the crowd is going to be like. The matches though, I'm pretty apathetic towards. But, well, I mean, I already get it for free 'cause of the Network, so it's not like I won't watch it.

I liked Francine because I was a teenager and she wore really short skirts with really small thongs and would gratuitously bend over when entering the ring. It worked for Dawn Marie too. If fact, in my infinite wisdom & judgment I bought an XPW VHS tape from the mall once because it had "Sunny" (Tammy Sytch) and some new girl I had never seen before named Lizzie Borden. That was $20 I wish I could have back... Apparently when I was much younger I was really into fake boobs & blondes. Which is pretty much the polar opposite of what I grew up to like as a full grown man. ECW, to me, not just the women but all of ECW, was just a counter-culture that I felt like I "discovered" & even if I can look back on things now & say they sucked you couldn't have convinced me of that then. I thought New Jack was epic, I thought The Dudley Boys were the best team ever, of all-time...I was just a complete, 100% total mark. Up to & including saying the women of ECW were hotter than those from WCW or WWF. Miss Hancock? Pfft, amateur night! I look back on all of that now & laugh though. Wearing ECW t-shirts to high school & loaning out VHS tapes that I recorded the PPVs on...

Eva Marie & Cameron both proved that it doesn't matter how good you are. On the opposite end of the spectrum, so did Chris Hero/Kassius Ohno. Not just from NXT but in general. WWE march to the beat of their own drum. If they want to use you they can find something for you to do. They just have to want to use you. I do think that NXT is the WWE Developmental league but I don't think it's really about getting better, improving in the ring or getting better at promos. I think it's more about knowing where to look into the camera at all times, hitting your marks & things like that. Yoshi Tatsu can practice his promos & try to work to improve his English all he wants, they're not gonna use him on the main roster again. If WWE like you, they'll bring you up. If they don't, they won't. It seems to be a lot more about politics than it is about talent. You telling me Mojo Rawley deserves time on NXT? Or is it 'cause he's a big, dumb hoss that used to play football? Cause he sure as shit ain't any good. I have no doubt in my mind The Shield got called up 'cause they saw money in Roman Reigns. They slapped him with Ambrose/Rollins cause they're good workers that could protect him in matches. Without Reigns, I don't think Ambrose/Rollins are on the main roster. They've already teased dissension in The Shield a few times but then Reigns has a bad one-on-one performance & suddenly the split is swept under the rug. When The Shield breaks up, sink or swim for Reigns, I bet you can expect to see Rollins with the Justin Gabriel slot after awhile, despite how good he is. I hope I'm wrong but the pessimist in me doesn't think so. Does NXT create stars? No, not really. All they do is trot people out each week to the same crowd, like TNA used to do. Remember Lance Hoyt getting cheers? Eventually the crowd decides who they do or don't like...but even if someone does or doesn't get over with those crowds, WWE pretty much takes whomever they want, whenever they want for any reason...and I don't think that's ever really about talent. Bray Wyatt was called up again, admittedly. So was Bo Dallas. But isn't Rotunda a road agent for WWE? Bo & Wyatt had both been called up before & failed, then got repackaged. How many other guys in NXT get multiple shots like that? Remember fuckin' Manu? You telling me he was good enough to be on RAW, or was it cause he was related to Afa? But Hero wasn't good enough? C'mon. Prolly had more to do with not training like Triple H or something. I'm assuming Paige & Emma got called up because A.J. was leaving? No idea. I know they definitely waited until Paige was 21. I just don't look at NXT like it's a farm system in baseball. I don't think it's about finding the next big stars or the top talent. It feels more like a meat factory where guys at the top can pick someone out, get the WWE machine behind them & then gloat if they succeed or scapegoat them if they fail.

If I were answering today from the people that I have been entertained by in the last couple of weeks (which includes pretty much just RAW, WWE PPV, NXT & the ROH/NJPW War of the Worlds iPPV): 1. Seth Rollins 2. Luke Harper 3. Cesaro 4. Wade Barrett 5. Alicia Fox I know if we were doing a bottom five, Rob Van Dam would be in it.

I used to think that the "smart" crowds were just people having fun...until I heard a "we are awesome" chant & it all went out the window. I want loud, vocal, animated crowds...but I don't want them hijacking the show from the at-home viewing audience.

Wasn't a fan of the show & if I were to write about all the things I didn't like, I would be writing a book. Plus, I just don't think most people care to read the same negativity from the same people all the time, so I'll talk about what I liked instead. I liked The Usos coming out to save John Cena. Other than Cena, it never feels like the babyfaces come out to help the other good guys. So it was nice to see some of that. Lana is an attractive lady but I think it's hilarious that now when she comes out, she straight spins to point her ass to the camera. WWE know where their bread is buttered! :-) The Sheamus run-in on Cesaro made sense & was nice continuity because of him getting snubbed on the handshake the week before. The Sheamus/Del Rio match was good too with Sheamus doing a really good job of selling. Alicia Fox was great. Although it seemed to last a long time. That's a big segment to give a Diva, something WWE hasn't seemed to do over the last several years, so they must have faith in her. I missed Bo Dallas :-( but from seeing some pictures of the show afterward, the "Bo, Leave" sign in the crowd legit made me laugh. Eva Marie looked a lot better this week than she normally does. I don't think she made a single mistake, her front bumps were good & her roll-up was legit. Maybe she'll get better? Contract signing was cool for what it was & I guess Evolution had to get the upper hand going into the PPV.

More John Cena on top & having to help one of the new(er) non-John Cena acts is the exact opposite direction from where I would think they should go. I should have been more descriptive, admittedly, I meant a lot of fans in general, not those posting here. I forgot that was just a recent topic of conversation. My fault.

Just wanted to drop-in & say that Jim Ross, on his latest podcast (with Goldberg) had an idea for Wyatt to turn face with Harper/Rowan turning heel on him & having him (Wyatt) be saved by John Cena before RAW went off the air. Jake Roberts being the new manager of Harper/Rowan. That idea is fucking terrible & ideas like that are why RAW sucks to so many people.

One of the things I wish we saw WWE do was to expand more on the various different divisions. In example, I know there are different road agents assigned to different divisions. Is that also the same situation for any specific writers? I remember reading Court Bauer saying that he was working with a specific wrestler or two when he was in WWE. If you have road agents & writers assigned to specific parts of the show, then each of those different segments get their section of each RAW or Pay-Per-View, you can build multiple areas of the product at the same time. Have a Women's Division. Have a Tag Team Division. Have an Intercontinental Division. Have a WWE World Heavyweight Title Division. Each person in each division should have specifically stated goals, be it going after a title, getting revenge, whatever. Just basic pro-wrestling. Since now all the Pay-Per-Views are on the WWE Network, this could be a nice opportunity for WWE to try something different. Outside of the non-Big 4 PPVs (Summerslam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble & Wrestlemania) WWE could use their other 8 shows to showcase a different "division." Would it really be a bad thing if, for example, the main event of Extreme Rules was The Usos defending the tag titles against Rowan/Harper or whatever? It would be something different. Wade Barrett winning the IC title after winning the IC title #1 contendership tournament could have main evented a B-show PPV, no? It would make the win mean more, in my opinion. If every RAW is three hours long but each agent/writer has their own block of time to their their stories, I don't think the show would drag so much. Build up the characters, build up the matches, build up the titles & sell the feuds. That was one of the things about Nitro that I always liked: there was a lot of diversity in the matches. Especially when you compare like the Cruiserweights to the Goldberg stuff to the Raven stuff. In WWE, everything sort of feels the same, except for the women whom seem like a waste of time. I would like to see that change.

Well, it was also a taped show, so people could read the spoilers ahead of time & see that nothing happened.

Triple H is going to take AT LEAST a dozen pot shots at "the internet" & "the dirtsheets." I bet we don't go five minutes before he mentions "fans living in their mother's basements."

Yes, I'm tired of a lot of the people they continually use as well: Kane, Rob Van Dam, Alberto Del Rio, Jack Swagger, Randy Orton... I like others though. I'm a fan of Axel & think he's improved a lot. I LOVE his leap frog. Not too high on Barrett though, he bores me. Cesaro was great but putting him with Heyman has hurt him. I like Fandango but liked him a lot more when he was with Summer. I would love to see Luke Harper as a singles wrestler. Sometimes it feels like WWE fucks with stuff that doesn't need fucking with & sometimes that makes something you used to enjoy be something that you don't enjoy so much anymore.

Michael Sam. Which explains why JBL was going nuts on commentary during it. I have no idea what you are referring to. What?? Michael Sam is a football player. The first openly gay football player, whom was drafting to the NFL this weekend in the 7th round. After he was selected, it showed him kiss his boyfriend in celebration & people on social media lost their minds. People were talking about boycotting ESPN & shit. It was ridiculous overreaction, which is what JBL was doing on RAW. Couple examples (from players):

Michael Sam. Which explains why JBL was going nuts on commentary during it.

I think, for me, in this era of being a wrestling fan, I still watch WWE because I enjoy the community more so than the programming. I do still get entertainment from WWE, especially good matches on PPV. Yet I seem to more enjoy discussing shows on forums, even if I'm always negative, or talking about wrestling with friends, reminiscing about old wrestlers or listening to podcasts. I watch non-WWE stuff too, especially a lot of New Japan, but there's not a lot of people that I know that watch or talk about that, or people on forums familiar with it or talking about it, or podcasts talking about it. If I watch RAW, I'm up-to-date. If I watch the last NJPW iPPV, I'm watching it alone & keeping my thoughts to myself for the most part. I guess wrestling to me at this point in my life is something social, which is sort of odd as wrestling isn't as popular now as it was when I was in high school. When I was in high school there wasn't social media though. Or hell, I didn't even have internet. I think that's part of the reason why I only care about RAW & WWE PPVs & not the B-shows (as I mentioned on the first page). Most fans or friends don't watch Smackdown, Main Event, TNA or whatever else. And yeah, a lack of time isn't something that's a problem for me. If time was an issue, I wouldn't be reading & replying on message forums.

I watch RAW & PPVs, that's it. I don't care about any of the B-shows. If something is important, they put it on RAW. So I guess it's not important to me at all to catch everything. I do still watch RAW live on Monday evening which makes it seem extra long since I don't have fast-forward to skip bad segments, replays or ad breaks. Until football starts, there's nothing else on Monday anyway.

Here's what I don't like: Brock Lesnar ended the twenty+ year undefeated Wrestlemania streak of The Undertaker at Wrestlemania. Since then, he's nowhere to be found. They didn't capitalize on it at all, which is a shame since it should have been a big, monumental deal. Cesaro gets put with Paul Heyman on TV & taken away from Jack Swagger & Zeb but Heyman is still trying to keep Brock relevant because he's not there, to the detriment of Cesaro. So when Cesaro is supposed to come out to work, Heyman spends the whole time talking about Brock. So Brock isn't there to capitalize on his big 'Mania win & him being gone has hurt Cesaro in the process. I don't care about what he gets paid but it's hurting the show that he's not there. A lot of that is on the booking but if you know he's not going to be there, why put yourself in this situation?

Feinstein posting in that Facebook comment thread to try to get people to stop calling him a pederast had me cracking the fuck up. Fuck that dude.

*slaps head* SIGH Poor Bryan. That was a really good match and Kane is a great worker. A great, great worker. No, no he's not. He's sucked for twenty years. All the way back to when he was a dentist in WWF and doing a shitty DDT for a finish. Or when he was teaming with Al Snow, Pre-WWE, & clowning the Rock 'N Roll Express. He's never been good. He's awkward & goofy & clumsy.

I feel like all the people that should have won did win but yet I still hated this show. I liked the second half of the Shield/Evolution match. I thought the pre-show WeeLC match was a lot of fun. I pretty much disliked everything else.

This cage match is the pits.