Exposer

Rey/Usos/Rhodes vs. Shield/Real Americans This was really good although some of the booking was bad. Ambrose's elimination was terrible. The Dustin FIP section was great though and Cesaro looked real good here. I didn't particularly like his elimination but it made sense as he was dizzy from the giant swings. The Usos were nuts in this and stiff as fuck. Both Reigns and Rollins were excellent in this and of course Dustin was awesome. Rey was good and still has tremendous timing. The last few eliminations were well done and the finish was great. This is the start of Reigns big push.

What a way to open up the show!!!!!!! I'm referencing the McMahons being "cool" heels. God, I hate The Game.

Miz vs. Kofi Not bad. The opening stuff was countery but it got the crowd going. Kofi's double stomp was cool. Miz won with the tights on the roll-up. The post-match was whatever.

What Will said. The two or three PPVs before this had much worse cards in my opinion.

Here's the card: Miz vs. Kofi (pre-show) Big E. Vs. Axel (IC Title) Roster Divas vs. Total Divas (SS Tag) Rey/Usos/Rhodes vs. Shield/Real Americans (SS Tag) Punk/Bryan vs. Wyatts Cena vs. Del Rio (WHC) Orton vs. Big Show (WWE Title) The top four matches have a chance to be good or better. Everything else is suspect or totally uninteresting. Big.E-Axel could be solid.

I would want it. That's because it would be nice to have something comprehensive of all WWE and old footage that the company owns. However, like Loss said, it might be wise to check the programming first.

I think this is exactly wrong. WWE is trying to, ironically enough considering the 1980's push to do the opposite, position itself alongside sports programming. What makes sports so valuable is that it isn't as likely to be DVR'ed. It is consumed live and in real time. WWE is the same way and is working to encourage that with their strong push towards social media integration during the shows. The last thing Vince and the WWE wants is to be DVR'ed or to let anyone think, even for a minute, about DVR'ing their show. Live and social is what makes them valuable. Is this working really? I guess maybe it could. People watch sports live because the whole point is they care what happens so much that they want to see it in real time. Sure a good game would be nice but they have their team and they want to know how it ends up. Wouldn't booking a product that makes people care about what happens go further in making people tune in live? Or is that just impossible to do. For me, I HATE watching football games and sports after the fact. It already happened. I missed it. What's the point? Sure, I'll catch the highlights or maybe even turn on CSS to watch a little bit of a game re-run but no way in hell am I going to be happy about missing it. Raw? I have missed it numerous times over the years. I've been annoyed at times and couldn't care less at others. I can catch it all on DVR or the internet.

Lizmark, Mil Mascaras y Valente Fernandez vs. Sangre Chicana, Angel Blanco y Angel Blanco Jr. (12/1/85) – This was a better version of the previous match with an even more hectic atmosphere. I loved Lizmark in this being a fucker and doing flippy floppy shit to mess with the heels. Valente has some good exchanges in this with the Blanco's. Chicana was sort of in the background for this but did have some fun exchanges with Mascaras. The mask pulling on Blanco Jr. is great in this too. But man this was hurt by the clipping for sure and it felt all over the place because of that. This had several great individual moments but nothing came together. This is probably right under three stars or maybe right at it.

El Hijo del Santo y Black Shadow Jr. vs. Espanto Jr. y Eskeletor (12/1/85) – The best way to sum up this match is "really fun." Santo-Espanto was a blast and their exchanges were seamless and pretty smooth in the first fall, then pretty heated and aggressive in the third fall. Eskeletor didn't do much for me here although I did like him stooging in the post-match. I wish we could have gotten more of the brawling on the floor in the start of the third because it looked great. That body press was crazy. The mask ripping was a blast and the chaos of the third fall and post-match was a lot of fun. However, the finish was abrupt and this didn't reach beyond "fun." I'll throw this just around two and a half stars or so.

Americo Rocca vs. El Talisman (3/29/85) – This was one of those "short, short, long" title matches. I generally like the "long, short, long" format more because it allows the first fall to be a more crucial part in building the match and that often includes a lot of mat work. The mat work was good here. I'm always a fan of small detailed work so when Talisman was kneeing Rocca in the midst of an arm bar I marked out. However, I really enjoyed the rope running exchanges here. They were given a little more weight here and I thought the fluidity and pacing was great. The finish of the first was well done too. I actually thought the second fall was going to end with Talisman hitting those two dropkicks but they went a few more minutes. I liked the transition into the crazy back breaking submission to end the fall. That hold was wacky as hell. The third fall was really good. The pacing was great here and everything was spread out very well. This wasn't much different from other title matches in the "short, short, long" format as far as what they did but how they did it was better than a lot of others. Rocca sold his back pretty well throughout and stuck with it. The diving sequence was simple but effective. I liked the last few minutes with the missed senton leading to the near fall and two submissions. The pop was nice at the end too. Overall, this was a pretty strong match. The pacing was excellent. Again, this would have built better I think in the "long, short, long" format but I thought it built fine. I might give this roughly three and half stars or so.

They do that on NFL Network too. I think it could be very similar to that.

Atlantis vs. El Faraón (3/22/85) – This was damn good. This match had some nice variables to it. On one hand it was a match between an underdog and the veteran. Technically, it was a match built around body part work and selling which I love. I’m not a big fan of Atlantis’s full body selling of moves. I think one squirm is enough instead of thirty eight. He got better at it as the match went along though. The first fall is the traditional mat based opening fall of a title match. There’s a really nice flow to it and the transitions are pretty seamless. The ending of it was great with Faraon focusing on the neck. The second fall was really good also. This is in reverse with Atlantis working on Faraon’s arm and shoulder. Faraon was awesome at selling his right arm and his forearm clotheslines were tremendous. That submission to end the fall was great and Faraon’s selling and facial expressions during it were great. The third fall lets loose some and we get some great dives from Atlantis. I loved that Faraon kept going after Atlantis’s neck. His submission sitting down on his neck looked painful. The finish is awesome. Faraon thinks he’s won by count-out after seemingly riding the storm of Atlantis’s last comeback. And then bam, he gets hit with the victory roll from behind for the pin. Faraon is livid post-match but Atlantis isn’t shedding a tear. Great match with an excellent build. This is over four stars. I’d call it an A-. Great stuff. La Fiera, El Faraón y El Egipico vs. MS-1, Satanico y Pirata Morgan (3/29/85) - This started out just there for me. It got better and better as the match went on. The beating down on Fauron in the first fall was becoming boring a little bit but the action picked up in the second. I loved Fauron kicking at Satanico when he had his arms locked. Egipcio-Morgan was tremendous. I loved the visual of Morgan flying across the floor just barely on screen. It was a total "what the fuck" moment. The best part of this was Egipcio throwing Morgan THROUGH the Corona apron and then beating him with pieces of it. La Fiera was just there in this and didn't seem to add anything at all which is disappointing. He just wandered around and didn't do much at all. The punching exchanges, postings, and brawling in the third fall was great. Morgan's posting was particularly brutal. That back and forth punching exchange in the center of the ring between Egipcio-Morgan was off the charts. The closing minutes were fun and Fiera fucks up horribly on a dive and nearly spikes himself on his head. Fauron's dive was awesome as hell and he collided big time with MS-I. The finish was good too. I liked this a good bit. It was hurt by a middling start but the last five to eight minutes were tremendous. I don't know where this would rank right now. I will probably give this just short of four stars. It could have been better in my opinion.

It depends on who the audience is or would be at a given time. For kids, early morning programming on the weekends. During the week, maybe early morning programs would be something like "Raw Recap" at 8 AM Tuesdays. The primetime shows could be something like documentaries of wrestlers, big cards, tag teams, or companies/territories. It would be similar to NFL Network's "A Football Life" series. Really, I think they could do a good amount of similar type shows like NFL Network. I could possibly envision something like "WWE Total Access" with special interviews, vignettes, and maybe a match from Superstars.

I think about crowd reaction the same way Loss does. However, I'm a little more strict. For example, Starrcage 85 is a match that is tremendous but bothered me some with a suspect crowd reaction. The crowd wasn't sitting on their hands but they didn't seem as invested as I wanted them to be. It frustrated me a little and took some energy out of watching the match. That said, I still had it ranked number five but with a hotter crowd I probably would have slipped it to 2 or 3.

I enjoyed Cena-Sandow as a match until the finish. The Shield 6-man was fun. Rhodes Brothers-Real Americans was solid. Stephanie mocking the crowd with the Shield was funny. The pop for Big Show was fun. I loved David Otunga's reading of Big Show's lawsuit. The rest of the show? Well, it was WWE booking.

Went a little longer than that. Fine tag match. Cesaro's "holy shit, we won?" reaction was great! I was wrong. Which is a good thing. I'm looking forward to more matches between these teams. It was a solid tag but these guys have better stuff in them.

The four minutes this will be on my TV will be worth it.

OMG. This is literally a troll on the internet.

What symbolism there from Kane. Beautiful writing.

The Wyatts look like a crew at a used car garage. Harper and Rowan are the mechanics and Bray is the salesman.

Anybody who tries to care about WWE storylines now is wasting their time. People say it's sad that Goldust is loved? Not really. He's a great worker. I like his offense. It's real sharp. He bumps really well. His transitions are good. He's excellent at selling. His punches are tremendous. That's good enough for me. If I want to worry about storylines or plot twist I'll read Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire or watch an upset in college football. Wrestling angles died about fifteen years ago. Go back to watching yearbooks and 80s wrestling with good storylines (but man those 80s matches have shitty finishes don't they?)

WWE does a really good job of telling a story of unconditional love. Shawn and Hunter had a tough argument a week ago but in the end Shawn defended the love of his life even under difficult circumstances. Furthermore, I'm proud of WWE's boldness for giving fans a story of homosexual love. It's a controversial topic but they've really nailed it out of the park the last seventeen years.

I've been able to do that for awhile now. The "whole picture" thing sort of sailed away a long time ago for me. I watch current wrestling for good matches. Yeah, I watch Raw every week but I hardly pay attention. I flip channels too. It's football season, maybe a good game's on. Then, I see the Shield is coming up or Goldust or Bryan. I watch the match for the match itself. The angle? Pffftt. I could give a shit. And yeah a lot of that probably has to do with WWE fucking things up for quite some time.

I haven't cared about angles and all that nonsense in at least two years. College has done me wrong in that department. I just want to catch the latest Goldust match.

Great post concrete. I have some stories of my own of fans getting a little too involved and crazy shit happening. By all means, continue with these big write-ups. I'm enjoying them.