Exposer

Yeah, Alexa's injury issues the last 18 months have pretty much blown the candle out on a big singles push for her. History shows that Vince & the WWE consistently depush wrestlers who consistently get hurt.

Mania was scheduled for 5 PM Eastern to 12:30 AM Eastern. The Network schedule usually covers up to a week. It might be wise for some folks to check the Network schedule. I thought it was bizarre that people were acting shocked that it was going on forever when they could of just looked up the schedule. Funny enough, they ended the show on time whether one thinks it was too long or not.

That's how I feel about the whole Roman-Brock ordeal as a huge Roman fan.

Because it's Daniel Bryan & beating Daniel Bryan is guaranteed heat (good or bad). WWE sees that as a positive regardless if we think that's a good thing or not. And to my original point, Bryan will always be over. He can afford to lose 100 matches straight to the Big Cass & Jinders of the world. Big Cass really can't afford to lose. It's better to give him a big win & see if anything sticks than just have Bryan slay him & move on.

Predictions: Ruby over Bayley AJ over Nak Rollins over Miz Hardy over Orton Carmella over Charlotte Nia over Alexa Cass over Bryan KO/Zayn over Braun/Lashley Reigns over Joe People will complain if Bryan loses, but the thing is he's bulletproof. Reigns is proof that beating Bryan is actually worse for one's career than losing to him. Cass is perfect because he's a big, tall guy who's supposed to be a heel so he'll get booed by every type of fan. So in this case, it's better to have a guy everyone hates beat him than risking a fan favorite receive insane backlash. Roman winning will be hilariously bad for tons of reasons not to mention it will severely hurt Joe. The booking of Reigns as a fake top guy who's actually a loser when it matters is so bad I can hardly watch RAW. Having him likely beat a hot act like Joe when he's a total jobber to Brock is just mind bogglingly terrible. I want to point out I'm a huge Roman Reigns fan, but there's no good way to book him at this point outside letting him take 6 months off.

I'm loving this. It's great that everyone who got a vote is getting some recognition.

I'm a little surprised people keep forgetting Elimination Chamber is a RAW PPV. I doubt Roman wins the Rumble. He will win the Chamber & move on into the Hogan vs Warrior build with Brock from there.

I'm thinking about it. I'll at least join in the discussion a bit. I've always thought ranking wrestlers is easier than matches. I'm more interested in the former as well. I agree with jetlag that it will get difficult when there's fifty five star matches or whatever & people end up grasping for straws to put the #44 five star match over the #45 one.

My top three guesses for the men's are Nakamura, Cena, & Miz in that order. Roman will win the Chamber match as the show is a RAW PPV this year. With the women I'm going with Asuka, Paige, & Ronda in that order. Becky will last the longest in the women's match & I think Miz will be the marathon guy in the men's. Surprise entrants are easier to predict for the women than the men this year. Ronda, Trish, Lita, Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, etc. are good ones. For the men, I don't have a clue which is kind of nice since it's possible I'll be legitimately surprised by at least one special entrant.

John Cena 2005 (vs JBL Judgment Day) 2006 (Elimination Chamber New Year's Revolution) 2007 (vs Umaga Royal Rumble) 2008 (vs Triple H Night of Champions) 2009 (vs Randy Orton Bragging Rights) 2010 (vs Batista Extreme Rules) 2011 (vs Punk MITB) 2012 (vs Lesnar Extreme Rules) 2013 (vs Bryan Summerslam) 2014 (vs Lesnar Summerslam) 2015 (vs Cesaro RAW 7/6) 2016 (vs Styles Summerslam) 2017 (vs Reigns No Mercy)

What would you say is the last time WWE did something as you would describe above? Quite honestly, I don't ask much when it comes to wrestling. If I enjoy myself & look forward to what's next it's working for me. And WWE satisfies those feelings as of now. I can watch a Mid South episode from the 80s & a 2017 WWE PPV main event & get the same level of enjoyment. It doesn't mean they're the same thing, but both are good in their own way.

Because professional wrestlers want to win their professional wrestling matches. Why would the wrestlers not want to be on the winning team? Regardless of if they're going to switch teams once the next draft/shake up happens. It's not like free agency makes pro athletes not care about winning the games they play. Athletes care about winning games with something real on the line. Raw vs. Smackdown is more akin to a preseason or All-Star game. Maybe but it's worked so far. SD last week did a really surprisingly good number after the big Raw angle. Crowds are hot for it. The product seems to have momentum and purpose. We can very fairly poke holes in the logic but WWE to me had a hot week of TV and I'm looking forward to SS. They can do the things that work (the surprises for instance) without being lazy. Why is it wrong to want basic competence and coherency? The Kane vs Rollins 2015 feud was competent & coherent. It also sucked & took up lots of TV time. I'm not really a fan of suddenly doing RAW vs SD for 4 weeks out of the year & then going back to normal. There needs to be build & teases throughout the year to at least set up matches & stories down the line for S. Series every year. This company isn't going to bother doing that though & I don't blame them. The important thing is this is working & the crowds are responding. I'm enjoying it even if I think some of the segments have been overly campy. Most importantly, it's crucial to understand what WWE wants. They're looking for stories & characters to get over by any means necessary & less so about things making sense or being logical. They've actually gotten better with logic over the last two years or so even as it's not too present in this case. There's an argument to be made that logic & coherence get wrestlers more over, but I'm not sure WWE cares about how over someone is. They simply care if someone or something is over or not & go from there.

Yes. Essentially what Johnny said. There were several backstage segments with Sami trying to talk sense into both Owens & Shane. It's also worth noting that on SmackDown two weeks ago Zayn & Owens had a match. Owens did the apron powerbomb on Zayn & then tried to break his neck by wrapping a chair around his head. Shane came out to help Zayn, but Owens pushed the hurt Sami into a charging Shane with the chair going into Sami's throat. We'll have to wait & see, but that seemed to be a case of foreshadowing of Zayn getting involved.

Yeah, I'm digging the idea of Heat & Thunder being uploaded. Lots of potential gems on those shows.

Tonight's RAW via Wrestling News link on Twitter & announcements from WWE: Bayley's injury is confirmed bad enough for her to miss Summerslam. There are reports that a #1 Contender's tournament will start tonight with two triple threat matches: Emma vs Sasha vs Alicia & Nia vs Dana vs Mickie. Brock Lesnar & Paul Heyman are at the show & rumored to be on Miz TV. Roman Reigns vs Braun Strowman in a Last Man Standing match. Scott Dawson is reportedly injured with a ruptured bicep & with that it looks The Revival will be removed from the current secondary tag team program also involving the Hardyz & The Club.

I thought it was a great show. I'd probably give it a 7 or 8 out of 10. I'll try & give the most objective thoughts I can on it since I'm a big WWE fan. Neville-Tozawa wasn't as good as some of Neville's Title defenses on 205 Live to be honest, but it was very good & Tozawa got over with the Dallas crowd. Wyatt-Rollins exceeded my expectations & ended up being a decent match. I really liked Bray's cut offs of Seth's offense like when he hammered him in the back after Rollins did his twisted landing on his feet thing from the ropes. Rollins is terrible on offense so there were bad moments, but the match was worked fine. Bray winning is just a set up for him to lose later, but big deal cause I don't care about him. This is a match & feud I care nothing about with two guys I actively dislike 90% of the time so it was nice to get it out of the way. Enzo-Cass had the right guy win & there were some impressive spots like the gorilla press slam to the floor, but I do have some criticisms. Enzo cutting a five minute promo only to get his ass beat with no hope spot seemed like a waste of time. I think he should have gotten at least one big hope spot before getting his ass beat for good. I also think this break-up will end up being a bad decision & hurt both guys careers. Enzo is pretty much screwed on his own & Cass isn't even as good in-ring as 99-02 Test. Iron Man Tag Title I loved. There were slow parts, but I was pretty much engrossed the whole way through. The crowd got totally into the match & I did too. I thought they paced the match really well, had some great psychology with The Hardyz trying to make the comeback, & the final 10 minutes were incredibly dramatic. Fantastic match. I'm not sure I'd call it a MOTYC, but it's definitely a top 10 WWE match this year. Bliss-Sasha is really good. Sasha bumped tremendously for Bliss & I liked Bliss targeting the back. The count-out finish is fine, but a bit questionable when considering they've done that finish a lot in title matches on PPV this year. The post-match is awesome & I'm looking forward to a continuation of their feud. Miz-Ambrose is the least of their matches so far this year. It was kind of there for the first half, but picked up in the final stretch & had the crowd rocking. I'm tiring of this feud though & think it needs to end soon. Roman-BRAUN Ambulance isn't quite as good as their Payback encounter, but still a really good brawl. I'm a huge fan of Reign's selling. His rib selling is top notch & BRAUN's no selling of the chairshots was amazing. The brawling on the stage ruled. Great finish. The post-match angle is over the top & straight out of the Attitude Era, but I've never hated that stuff as much as others. I find it ridiculous, but still very entertaining. Kurt Angle's reactions & facial expressions had me howling. I actually loved how they threw on Slater-Hawkins as an impromptu match with them acting like they weren't scheduled to wrestle. Reigns & BRAUN were also both protected very well in the end with BRAUN winning & looking like an unstoppable force. Reigns sort of lost on a fluke & got his revenge (which that's what it was) for BRAUN literally trying to murder him over the last few months. I enjoyed this. Brock-Joe is good, but being overrated & underrated by most people. The first few minutes are awesome, but then Joe kept trying for the Coquina Clutch without even attempting a grapevine & I was getting pissed. He also had no believable false finish which I believe hurt the match. Brock winning with one F5 isn't a big deal & I'm all for protecting finishers & making them feel special again instead of a million kick outs. Overall, I'd probably give the show a strong 7 out of 10. Right around great level. 6 good to great matches. No bad match. A hot angle. A fun main event. An awesome tag title match. A great women's match. A great Cruiser match. I can't complain.

Should be a great show Neville over Tozawa (Cruiser Title) Cesaro/Sheamus over Hardyz (3-2) (30 Min Iron Man, RAW Tag Title) Miz over Ambrose (IC Title) Big Cass over Enzo Rollins over Wyatt Bliss over Sasha (RAW Women's Title) Strowman over Reigns (Ambulance) (based off the betting lines I read about recently) Brock over Joe (Universal Title)

Awesome promo. This is one of Austin's best. He talks some amazing trash about Tyson & challenges him to meet him at No Way Out in Texas. Great way to close the show.

Don King is a great promo. Nevada is barred Tyson from fighting at WM, but King assures the fans that something will be done to have Austin & Tyson collide at WM. Great segment.

Lots of news coverage for the Tyson-Austin confrontation. I imagine this was pretty exciting stuff at the time. They've done a really great job of hyping up Austin & Tyson's possible collision at WM.

Pretty good TV match. Both guys worked hard. I might even give it 3 stars if I rated it. Goldust hit a Helmsley knee in this which is funny. Luna does a good Chyna impression. Owen wins with the sharpshooter. DX come on the tron & laugh about how they've fooled everyone again. Sarge comes out & awards the European Title to Owen anyways since Goldust worked as HHH & the Title was supposed to be on the line. Good comeuppance for DX in that one of their tricks finally backfired on them, but Owen not beating Hunter is stupid. I liked the match though.

The Funk/Foley conversation is fun. NAO come out in catcher's gear as protection for this match. Funny. Fun brawl that gets crazy after Cactus & Chainsaw go nuts. They beat up the NAO with chairs & Chainsaw hits a moonsault off the top onto Road Dogg & a pile of chairs to a big pop. Later on, DX confront Cactus & Chainsaw & poke fun. This is a set up as the NAO push the interview fench on top of them & they beat them up along with DX. I really like how they've booked this tag feud. It feels like a main event program.

Hunter tries to be funny & feigns pain as Chyna wraps his bad knee up. Shawn goes on & on eventually saying he'd love to Austin vs Tyson at WrestleMania & offers to be special referee while wearing ref shirt as the joke. This took too long, but I like Shawn being scared to face Austin.

I must have skipped over this. They don't typically edit out tributes.

Classic segment. A top 5 WWF segment of all-time. Austin confronts Tyson. I loved Tyson offering to shake his hand. Tyson's shove is one of the most pivotal moments in WWE history. The chaos after it is incredible with Vince having to held back & one of Tyson's bodyguards laying motionless in the ring. Intense scene.