Jmare007

A struggle indeed.

Man, they gotta give Reigns the Batista training system. No Flair and HHH to learn from and travel with but give Dustin 3 months with the guy and he'll do wonders.

Don't remember Austin saying that in the last 2 episodes. Did I miss it or it's just BS by lordsofpain? (wouldn't be the first time from them)

It's either that or Dave thinks most his readers/voters are morons who can't possibly evaluate old footage the right way. I get why he tends to not respond a lot on wrestling boards but is he always so dismissive in person? Do people actually talk about this kind of criticism when they talk to him? Just curious.

Has anybody tried contacting Shoemaker about the mistakes in his book? He seems like a nice guy and I would guess he'd welcome the chance to get shit right. Then again he might just be a gimmick? Oh well.

They really went for another fuck finish with this feud, I want to say I'm shocked but sadly I'm not. Fucking up promising angles has been a staple of WWE in the last 5 years (Jericho/Michaels, Jericho/Rey and Edge/Taker are the last big programs I remember having a long build and a satisfying ending). If Shawn was going to superkick D-Bry it should have been a full fledged heel turn, not a half ass "he hurt my frieeend" homotional crap. Yes, this could lead to something if Michaels really turns on RAW or in the coming weeks but like I said on other threads, unless he's willing to get in the ring and put Bryan over, then there's little to be gained with him turning. Now, if all of this was made to give Shawn an excuse to make Orton win and not turn, then stupidity really knows no limits.

So it seems Peter Rosenberg is joining TMM for the occasional podcast. Can't complain about this honestly, I like Rosenberg.

Interesting, I don't know why I thought Punk/Hardy was a lackluster program business wise. Maybe they drew 1 bad buyrate and that gave me that impression? I can't remember. Rey being gone hasn't meant much in the past 2 (?) years he's been mostly away due to injuries. There's no doubt there was a time when he was key for drawing good house shows numbers but at this point? I'm not so sure about that.

close to 350,000 I get what are you saying but he isn't doing it that well on the house show front either according to Meltzer (is there any other source to current HS business?), he's not doing bad, but with no Cena attendance has dropped. I mean, we can also blame that to the weird booking the Bryan vs Corporation feud has had, and to being paired with Orton's non drawing ass but we can find an excuse for a lot of people if we really try. I'd really like to know how well Jeff Hardy did in his short stint on top with his programs with HHH and CM Punk.

My exacts feelings. It made no sense but it was fun as fuck to watch.

It ain't looking very good And NOC probably did a terrible number too. A horrible build up, a non draw like Orton, Mayweather/Canelo and Niners/Seahawks didn't help but still...it seems Bryan is one of those "over but can't draw much" type of guys.

So on the post-RAW Wrestling Observer Radio podcast they were talking about the exchange between Stephanie and Orton, were Steph told him to go back to his psycho days or they would have to find another face for the company. Dave interrupted and said "I know who they are gonna find though". Then he revealed that Michaels is scheduled to appear in a few weeks. I'm not saying Michaels is the guy but that's two big news about the angle that should be revealed in the coming weeks. Could it be that WWE finally has a long term plan that they are willing to follow or am I just reading too much into things?

DLR dropping that knowledge was indeed awesome.

Hashimoto vs Tenryu 94' IWGP Title Hashimoto vs Hase 94' IWGP Title Hashimoto vs Takada 96' IWGP Title (Battle Formation)

Yep. Kinda surprised no one else in here brought it up. Flair told the exact same story on the HS shoot. No idea how or why but he's convinced himself he was there that night.

A lot has been said about how will the WWE be able to not fuck up D-Bry's momentum given how little success they've had with long term booking and big angles in the last few years. Here's my scenario for Bryan to keep his momentum and stretch his quest for the WWE Title until Mania. I think the main thing is trying to give him as many important matches as possible until Royal Rumble as after that the Road to Wrestlemania is quite simpler. To me, the biggest problem they have is that Orton and Triple H are not enough for Bryan to run through and get to Mania as a hot act. He needs more heels that are established and can generate real heat. So... The NOC title match has to end with some shenanigans. After that show, D-Bry shouldn't fight for the title until Wrestlemania so The Corporation 2.0 has to screw him out of the belt again. At "Battleground" I think the best scenario would be a big 8 man tag against The Shield/Orton. At that point there should be some faces willing to fight The Corporation and give more depth to the angle. Also, Shawn Michaels should be introduced as the guy who helps Bryan out, helping him assembling his team and not backing away from HHH's bullying ways... or something like that. Not having a WWE Title match is hard to picture, I know, but they could sell the "Battleground" gimmick as a big gimmicky tag match. Bryan takes a couple of Shield members out but in the end he falls short after HHH helps Orton connect the RKO and get the pin. At Hell In A Cell it should be either Bryan (with Michaels in his corner) vs HHH (Vince in his corner) or a tag match with Bryan/Shawn vs HHH/Orton. When D-Bry is about to give that running knee to La Nariz, he gets superkicked by Michaels and then pinned by Hunter. This is the most unrealistic scenario as we don't know if Shawn would be willing to work, but what the hell, if there's one guy he could come out of retirement of is his "protege" and his best friend. Survivor Series you build Bryan vs Michaels as a huge match and give DB his first big PPV win since Summerslam. TLC doesn't matter that much (at that point you can't lose that much momentum with The Royal Rumble just around the corner). Make him win a match to assure he enters The Rumble. In a perfect world he should defeat La Nariz (who then "screws" Bryan by making him enter #1 even though he fought so hard to make it to that match) but not even fantasy booking can be that delusional :heh: He wins the Rumble (duh). Elimination Chamber...if Orton is not the champ, make Bryan beat him there. If not, make him beat any member of The Corporation. It doesn't really matter at that stage, everything is already set up for him to have his big win at Wrestlemania.

He's looking like this

No they don't. HHH isn't crippled like Undertaker. They can and will put him in a PPV match just to show where the power lies. I don't disagree with your argument Will, but it's worth noting that HHH got his "I'm the Messiah, fuck the underlings" nut win Bryan took the fall off of his finisher, with Orton literally doing nothing Lets hope so but the Punk thing was such a "Know your place" match that I can see Bryan getting the same reinforcement. Also, when Punk beat Cena two years ago, it was HHH's buddy Nash who got to do the honors. I still see HHH-Bryan in the next couple of months. Well, if they really want the big payoff to be at Wrestlemania, Bryan is gonna need heels to feud with before the Rumble that take him away from the title picture. With Henry and Punk being faces, and no heel getting any decent amount of heat it seems La Nariz is the "only" choice they have. It's just too bad Hunter will do some idiotic shit and make D-Bry look like crap for the entirety of their feud. It's also worrisome that even if they get lucky and not fuck Bryan's momentum after 1 or 2 Triple H matches, there's not a lot of people he can work with that have enough heat to keep him rolling.

Read his Grantland Summerslam preview and the podcast and man, this guy just loves to overcomplicate things with "big words". It was funny how in the podcast he started doing the same weird analogies he does in his pieces and after both guests responded with silence the Masked Man just said "never mind" or something like that

That was a great article. Props, man.

I don't think that feud with Henry is over. I read that Mark beat The Shield up after the match.

Is Bryan's momentum comparable to Eddie or Jeff Hardy?

GREAT Mark Henry interview with Pete Rosenberg