NintendoLogic

Yeah, this Raw was much better than the PPV. So much for WWE being a sports entertainment company that doesn't produce wrestling.

The implicit likening of current WWE to the Revolver/Sgt. Pepper's-era Beatles is almost as hilarious as that R-Truth gif.

Look at Ryback in 2012 for an example of how being repeatedly screwed over can kill a babyface's heat.

I really enjoyed most of the show, but the shitty main event and even shittier ending completely soured me on the whole thing.

Miz matches would be at least 50% more entertaining if the camera was on Mizdow the whole time.

OK, this finisher spamming is getting ridiculous.

Usos went for Samoan Drop on Dustin. Cody kicked the leg and Dustin hit his finish for the pin So the leg work paid off, I guess. Or was that a different Uso?

The Kid Rock one was better. Man, those are words I never imagined myself typing.

I thought Dolph/Cesaro was a borderline MOTYC. If it doesn't end up as the MOTN, this will be a super PPV.

It's in Dallas. Texas crowds are usually hot for everything.

I guess I can see that. But if the endgame is a Cena/Rusev match at Mania, there's really no need to involve the US title.

Why would they do that? Sticking Rusev in a feud with another non-American would probably cool him off greatly. Anyway, I live in Texas now, so I briefly considered attending until I saw the ticket prices, which were absolutely insane for a B-PPV.

I have no problem with watching Benoit matches, though I will admit that it took me a while to get to that point. The problem with drawing a line is that the wrestling business has been populated throughout its history almost exclusively by moral reprobates. In the wake of the Zumhofe trial, Dave made the point that sleeping with underage girls was as common among 80s wrestlers as steroid abuse.

If you're great when you want to be, you're great.

The list is more a reflection of the politics of the time than anything else. If it had come out a couple of years earlier, Flair almost certainly would have been #1. But since he was in TNA at the time, they couldn't put him over to any real degree. On the flip side, Bret would have gotten the mid-20s consolation prize as someone who was too big a deal to ignore but still had to be punished for disloyalty. But since he was back in WWE's good graces at that point, he was right at the top. As for Undertaker, I think his status in WWE can be chalked up mainly to two things. One, he's never been on the outs politically. Two, he's still technically active, so putting him over also puts over the modern product.

And if Sting was actually a great worker.

Another way Stephanie would try to play the cool heel is when she would put lesser heels like Miz in their place during backstage segments.

The finish to the Cena/Batista LMS match was fucking awful. The whole point of the stipulation is that you have to physically dominate your opponent, not fucking MacGyver your way to a fluke win. Completely killed the gimmick dead. Amazingly, the I Quit match had an even stupider spot. Batista passed out in the STF, but since he didn't say I quit, it didn't mean anything, so Cena splashed some water on him to revive him. It was positively Russo-esque.

Let's remember that the Invasion PPV did more buys than any non-Mania PPV in history, and that was with WCW's B-team. The idea of WWF vs. WCW was enough of a draw that it could've been the biggest money angle in history even with the guys they had.

He probably forgot to shake someone's hand backstage or something.

WWE hasn't broken 4 million total PPV buys since 2009. The big three still do good numbers, but business for B-shows has completely collapsed. WWE hasn't broken 2 million total worldwide attendance since 2010. Not quite. There will always be an audience that will watch and pay for wrestling in some form, and WWE has the advantage of being the only game in town. It would take TNA-level incompetence to drive those fans away en masse.

The discussion seems to have shifted from shortest great matches to greatest short matches.

Technically yes, but they were all slip-on-a-banana-peel fluke finishes.

Even assuming for the sake of argument a perfect correlation between strong booking and strong business (a highly dubious proposition), the numbers don't shake out in WWE's favor. It's easy to cherry-pick individual successes, but if you look at the big picture, the overall trend is down, down, down. It's not falling off a cliff like 2000 WCW, but it's a slow steady decline. Other than rights fees, what aspects of WWE's business are stronger now than they were five years ago? Not attendance. Not ratings. Not PPV buys even before they blew up the PPV model with the Network. When the business press is openly questioning whether the McMahons should still be running things, that's not a good sign.