Coffey

"THE DEMON," KANE!™ "THE FIEND," BRAY WYATT!™ "THE DEMON," KANE!™ "THE FIEND," BRAY WYATT!™ MANDIBLE CLAW™ BY "THE FIEND," BRAY WYATT™, ON "THE DEMON" KANE™! Just a friendly reminder that Michael Cole still sucks shit through a straw. There's been quite a bit of talk lately about commentators, like Corey Graves, Mauro Ranallo, Jim Ross & Alex Marvez, but let's not forget Michael Cole is still abysmal. Yes, including when he's doing NXT or not being "overproduced" or "micromanaged." Dude has been fucking awful since 1999. TWENTY YEARS OF MEDIOCRITY!

This Kofi/Orton match fucking sucks. And it will. not. end. Fuck.

That was a fun brawl but odd to do that on a show where a no DQ match is still to come.

This PPV theme song stinks but the ring posts are pretty cool.

I'm... blown away that Styles is on the preshow. Wow.

This match was pretty good but I didn't love the finish. I was unfamiliar with Humberto Carrillo before this match but he's really good & was definitely the star of the match. Fun opener.

Cruiserweight Title 3-way on the kickoff show. So I guessed right there.

The Countdown is starting right now. So, even the B-level PPVs are four hours long now? That seems... excessive.

I'm making this thread because, on paper, I actually think this looks like it could be a pretty good show. In addition, I'm also actually watching the Pay-Per-View tonight because I don't have to work & have not watched a lot of wrestling lately. I think the last show I watched was AEW All Out. So I have an itch that needs to be scratched. I also, miraculously, talked my girlfriend into watching with me. She's not watched a show with me since Asuka was still in NXT (she loved Asuka, so her not being used on the main roster is a big deal to her viewing interest). Despite the fact that Seth Rollins is wrestling twice on the show - meanwhile talent like Rusev can't even make a show - is a bit disheartening, but I'm still optimistic. Let's see if this thread can be more active & lively tonight! THE CARD: Universal Champion Seth Rollins vs. Braun Strowman Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks WWE Champion Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton Roman Reigns vs. Erick Rowan (No Disqualification Match) SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair Raw Tag Team Champions Seth Rollins & Braun Strowman vs. Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville SmackDown Tag Team Champions Big E & Xavier Woods vs. The Revival Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura vs. The Miz United States Champion AJ Styles vs. Cedric Alexander WWE Cruiserweight Champion Drew Gulak vs. Humberto Carrillo vs. Lince Dorado ===== ***** ===== I think that Nakamura/Miz will probably disappoint my expectations, as that's how I've felt about Shinsuke's entire WWE run. Styles/Alexander should be good. New Day/Revival will probably be pretty good. Both women's title matches could be good. The Cruiserweight match will probably end up being on the preshow but it could be decent. I do like Gulak. I think Rose/Deville have both improved lately, especially Sonya, but I don't expect anything from that match. I don't care about either Seth matches, especially the tag match which somehow managed to put four of the most boring motherfuckers on the entire goddamn roster into one match. Good lord. Still don't know why WWE ever signed Bobby Roode or re-signed Dolph Ziggler. Two Seth matches on one card is brutal, but it is what it is. I've liked what they've been doing with Rowan lately but I don't think that match will be anything. Just Rowan doing some no DQ stuff with chair/steps & then losing clean to a Spear most likely. The Kofi/Orton match is the biggest question mark to me. I don't know what to expect from that one. This Kofi reign has been boring & forgettable & I'm ready for it to be over. On the other hand, Randy Orton is boring & forgettable & the last thing he needs is another title run. The feud doesn't make sense of why it's even happening. They need to get the belt off of Kofi but they need to start making new guys, especially if they're going to try to hit FOX running when Smackdown moves over there. If they just try to go back to same old shit, Roman, Charlotte, etc. I don't think people are going to care. ...where's Brock?

I think ALL of those guys are good. Like, obviously, if I were to put them in order, I'd have Sheamus, Harper & Rusev above Corbin & Jinder but I liked Jinder's run & at least Cobin seems to get some legitimate heat. I'm all for WWE trying new things & just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. Especially for heels. Also, on the opposite side of the coin of what Sek said, there's also so much wrestling as a whole out there right now - which is more accessible than ever - people are quicker to label guys as trash & write them off before giving them a real chance. Imagine a guy like Dusty Rhodes trying to come up today.

The thing I found most interesting (or jarring depending on how you look at it) from tonight's show, at least from the parts of RAW that I saw: Sasha Banks just returned to WWE & is a heel. Bayley, last week, just turned heel to join Sasha Banks. Their entrances? Sasha got her theme song played for like about 10 seconds & then Bayley came out with the same old babyface entrance she used to have - same song, same blow up balloon men, everything. Then in the match, Sasha taps & Bayley - the champion - gets beat. I mean, I know they're doing the build to the PPV but that is some grade-A lazy-ass booking & bad writing. Instead of building tension & keeping people apart, they just slap 'em together & let them lose. Crazy. That kills any sort of potential for rebuilding a character or making them look strong right out of the gate.

Corbin has never been bad. He's just overexposed & was pushed beyond his means. But he's 34 years old so it makes sense to try to use him a lot now. Also he has a great finish & is decent on the mic. He's not as bad as some other guys that WWE has fallen in love with. I would definitely take Corbin over Dolph or Seth. I think I would take him over Ricochet too, honestly...

Austin looks like he still got a match in the tank. AJ's line of "Why don't you shut up, Steve?" cracked me up. Braun looked like a star. Seth looked like a dork.

So what was the big, giant, industry changing news that Alvarez was alluding too? Because I've seen nothing really important come out lately. No way he was talking about the AXS purchase, right?

I think MJF will be a star but I also think Luchasaurus could be a big deal. Every time I have seen him so far, he's been impressive & gotten the crowd around him. I don't know how far the tag team thing will carry him but he seems to feel like a big deal by himself so far.

When isn't Jericho drunk nowadays? Dude never looks sober. This is a bad beat though. Like losing to a draw on the river.

I'll take "old" guys on commentary like Tony Schiavone if the "new" guys on commentary are shit sandwiches like Mauro.

It's alarming to me that the game has looked the exact same for like a decade now.

It's depressing how dead this thread is.

Damn, PAC Vs. Omega second match!?

The Luchasaurus entrance video with the shaking camera and the Jurassic Park style water in the glass cracked me up.

I'm not going to say that I've never cared about anything that Randy Orton has ever done because I don't think that's true. I thought he was really entertaining when he was doing the RNN updates. I was interested in his title match against Benoit to see if they would put the world title on him. I liked his hardcore match with Foley where he took the big thumbtack bump. I liked the crazy Orton that hit the DDT on Steph & then kissed her unconscious body while a handcuffed Triple H had to watch on. Legend Killer Orton was fun & he hit the CarKO on Hogan. He's had good matches with Undertaker, Mysterio, Shawn Michaels, Edge, Christian, Cena, etc. He did Evolution, Rated RKO, Legacy. I definitely remember popping when he hit the RKO on Seth during the Authority angle. Is he overexposed at this point? Yeah, for sure... but so is 90% of the WWE roster. Orton is like a 15 time World Champion and been prominently featured on TV every week for like twenty years. But let's not act like he's never done anything. Honestly, you could make an entire thread on just Orton & have a ton of material. Just like Cena, or Batista, or Edge.

You & me both, brother.

Jordynne Grace is actually one of my least favorite going right now - although it's entirely based off of the things that she says, not the things that she does. Maybe unfairly, but I lump her in with the Joey Ryan's & Orange Cassidy's of the world. They have their niche audiences but I think they do more damage to pro-wrestling overall. Grace is actually a perfectly serviceable worker & I like the idea behind the books she wrote, calling out the creepers from social media. But I pretty much disagree with almost everything she says about wrestling. It's the entire new generation of social media workers. Of course, she's also only fucking twenty-three years old, so, welp. That's without even bringing up the debate/debacle that came from wrestlers using their real names on Twitter. Which was an entirely different headache altogether. Maybe I am in the old guard mentality. I've been watching wrestling longer than a lot of the current wrestlers have been alive. Admittedly, I'm tired of Jim Cornette as well, as I think all of his bullshit rants just come off as being ridiculously over-the-top & melodramatic just for attention seeking purposes. I do however buy into the theory that less is more, wrestling was healthier when they treated it like it was legit, and there was less fourth wall breaking & insider winking. Just because the fans know it's a work doesn't mean you have to keep telling them so. So when it's presented as more sports oriented, it usually comes with the territory that that also includes having less comedy & being booked more based around realism & outcomes. Which, in turn, leads to wins, losses & titles meaning more. Which to me should be the entire point. Wrestling being all inclusive? Great. Wrestling being all about Likes on Twitter, animated .gifs of spots, shock value stupidity & "This is awesome!" chants? Not so great. As much as he is loved, I actually think Kenny Omega is a big culprit of a lot of the things I loathe in wrestling right now too. Despite how much Meltzer puts him over. He's the definition of overindulgence & I hate when people try to bring the sort of comedy into wrestling that he seems to favor. I feel like the fans are too close to the show. The fans need to be pushed back to the crowd, back to being fans of the show & fans of the wrestlers. Everyone now is an insider, with intimate product knowledge, talking about the business workings of the companies & their booking decisions but no one feels like they're ever just watching the shows as they unfold anymore. Like, in example, a babyface turns heel. That used to be met with people gasping & being shocked & being angry. Now it's met with people saying "Why did they turn him heel? He'll make less money on merch. Didn't he just have a baby?" It's not the same. I know you can't forget what you saw once the curtain was pulled back on The Wizard of Oz but that doesn't mean you have to leave the curtain open afterward either. We don't consume content in the same way anymore. Now when a show is over, we're not talking about the stories or angles that they're doing, we're talking about if the show was any good based on match quality & discussing star ratings of matches. It's not an insult to the fans' intelligence when you treat the show as a show & have all of the wrestlers in character for the show. Is it asking too much for them to maintain kayfabe outside of the shows in this day & age as well? Perhaps, but I bet heels would get more heat & faces would draw more money if they did. It's the whole suspension of disbelief can of worms. Of course, this all makes me a hypocrite as I am personally guilty of everything I am condemning in this post as well. So it goes.

They should push Keith Lee. Just physical presence alone he feels like a bigger star than guys like Gargano or Cole. Dude is a truck.