Jimmy Redman

So this is the second PPV in a row where all the heels win and we all wallow in abject misery. Thanks for a fun time WWE.

That was Astonishingly good.

Me and Micro vs the world.

Well it popped the shit out of the crowd, so I'm guessing yes.

New Day brought a knife to a gun fight with that rap battle. The Usos are fire.

I don't understand why you'd suspend him when the real comeuppance - getting beat up by Becky Lunch - is right there.

Miz and Morrison did 15 minute ones, but other than that yeah.

Asuka should never lose.

All the time.

Natalya is somehow better and worse than she's given credit for.

Wait who is her dad?

Well backstage/non-performing stuff isn't supposed to count so I don't think that should come into it.

So that was kind of fucking great. Everyone looked good, lots of time, lots of cool spots, lots of hurty hurty, and a great drama filled finish. In some way I wish the men could get away with having a ladder match like that, where they stay mostly grounded, only climbing when they REALLY need to, and basing it around brawling and the perceived threat of falling or danger or death via ladder rather than actual falling and danger and death via ladder over and over again. I'm sure the boys would appreciate it. I am happy to admit that I was pissed as hell after the PPV but in the end they have actually nailed it. They have absolutely made Carmella with this, she has gone from getting literally zero reaction two weeks ago to being a HATED heel now. And the way they did it, she got the tainted win first to get her some heel heat and have her cut these righteous promos (promos which transferred some of the heat from Ellsworth to her), and this time she did climb up and grab the case so now she has won legitimately, allowing her to rub it in Bryan's, the girls' and everyone's faces that she was right and now she's won it twice. BUT there was enough bullshit involved in the finish that she's still a giant douche and Becky still has a perfectly valid gripe about being screwed. So going forward Becky can have grudge matches with both of them, while Carmella cashing in casts a shadow over whatever Naomi is doing, the Welcoming Committee continue to pick up key wins, Charlotte could snap and turn at any minute it seems, and etc. So much shit was accomplished here. I should never have doubted you Smackdown.

Chris Jericho has a bit in his first book about meeting Bischoff for the first time around this time and he was going to suggest "Philoshave Phil" and "Octane" as names for Hall and Nash.

WWE HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MY MOTHER TWO WEEKS IN A ROW.

It was the wrong move for the wrong time. It was too much. It's one thing for him to interfere - there's a long history of people getting involved in ladder matches, running in to push the ladder over just when someone is about to win. They've even done the spot where a valet climbs the ladder themselves to try to win the case for someone (Maryse for one example). But actually following through with it, and having someone do all the climbing to the top, grab the briefcase, and then just hand it to the person in the match they want to win is too much and makes everyone in the match kind of look like idiots. AND THEN when it is the first ever women's ladder match in WWE company history in the middle of a conscious Women's Revolution push and the finish is a man going up to get the case because all the women are dead...it's not a good look. I get the argument that there's heel heat in the idea of a man ruining a big feminist moment, but I don't think this was the right move, or the right match to try it with. We've been waiting a very long time for something like a women's ladder match. We finally have one, and they have a man win it. And now all anyone is going to talk about is the fact that WWE had a man win the first women's MITB. Like you've all said it's just tone deaf. And going forward until people's memories fade and WWE writes the history, we're going to look back on the first women's ladder match and go "yes, BUT..." I would have been fine with Ellsworth interfering. With him pushing a ladder over at a crucial moment. At taking someone out on the floor. Even him picking Carmella up and pushing her up the ladder. There are ways for him to interfere and give her a cheap win without giving the impression that a man had to go up and get the briefcase because the women couldn't. It just hit the entirely wrong note. Plus, it was worse by the end of the show because as it turned out it was only the first of many terrible or frustrating finishes on the show. Of course we can't always get what we want, but shows like this where every match has some kind of shitty deflating finish just beat you down. I want to enjoy watching PPVs, not regret that I ever bothered.

Cass turned on Enzo??? Thanks WWE, you just killed my mum.

The funny thing is that in the case of Bayley, I think they actually could have re-done a lot of stuff from NXT on the main roster. Not in terms of resetting her wrestling ability to zero and starting again, but certainly in terms of her character. Like, think back to early Bayley and what she was like. Young, happy, eager. She's a grown woman but with the heart and soul and spirit of a little girl, living her dream. One thing I noticed above all else with that Graves interview last week was how tired Bayley looked. Whether it's the writing or the road has owned her, or both, but she came off as really worn down and...not happy. I know she was supposed to be upset about losing the title, but like this was more than that. It was like she's not the same girl anymore. NXT Bayley was also, in a word, a gigantic mark. She'd run around like a little kid, hugging everyone in sight, geeking out when she met anyone remotely famous, just looking super happy to be there all the time. I still remember back in the beginning when she faced AJ when she was still champ, and she came up to her all like "I'm sorry to interrupt you, I was just following you from your car..." But like it wasn't even creepy, it was just pure and innocent and joyful. The shit they tried to pull with Bayley last week was just 100% creepy and weird. Look at all the stuff she was doing with Finn Balor on houseshows, where they'd do each others' entrances and be cute and adorable. I can't imagine main roster Bayley and main roster Finn even being in the same room on Raw. I can't imagine today's main roster Bayley having the mental energy to mark out over anyone. She lost a lot of that naivety by the end of her NXT run, sure. She got better in the ring and got a little wiser and a little more serious. She'd been turned on, betrayed by her friends, went through winning the title then losing it and not being able to regain it, she got injured, etc. She came out the end of all that having grown a lot but on the inside she was still that happy little kid. I think her being called up to the main roster should have been a kind of reset button for her character's...mood, I guess. Getting to Raw was fulfilling a lifelong dream for the girlhood dream poster child. She could leave behind all the baggage from NXT and be truly happy again, living her dream all over again. Plus, she's on Raw! If Bayley the ubermark was excited about meeting AJ Lee and shit in development, how much should she have freaked now she's suddenly surrounded by all the Raw Superstars?? Mick Foley personally recruited her! She should have hugged him for about 5 years straight! The God damn Hardy Boyz of her little teenage girl dreams just came back! She should STILL be marking out about that! (The only time they come close to capturing it is when her and Sasha do those buddy-buddy interviews arguing about who loves Shinsuke Nakamura the most and shit. But those are mostly on Youtube, not TV.) Instead, she came to Raw and got her will to live browbeaten out of her by Steph every week. She's less than a year into her Raw career and she's already giving world-weary, "I don't know if I can do this" character in crisis interviews (along with apparently a weird creepy character change to make her more "interesting"?). She's already won the title, broken Charlotte's streak and had her WM Moment. They blew through all that shit in like 3 months. There's no underdog story there, she's already done all the things that an underdog is supposed to work towards. Is it really going to feel the same next year when we're rooting Bayley on to overcome the odds and win her...third or fourth Raw women's championship? Because THIS time it's for real? But really my point is, she just doesn't appear to be happy anymore. How fucking hard is it to write BAYLEY as A HAPPY PERSON?

So in less than three hours we got: - the historic, never before seen, first time ever female Money in the Bank Ladder Match ends with a man climbing up to get the case and handing it to his girlfriend. - some sort of fuck finish with the Usos I missed. - Maria and Mike Bennett debuting to the delight of no one. - Jinder Fucking Mahal. - Jinder beating Orton THE EXACT SAME WAY AS THE LAST PPV IS ORTON SOME KIND OF IDIOT WAY TO GO PAL - The Ascension. - the most popular guy immediately being taken out of MITB - He then makes a glorious comeback only to be screwed again by the same dude. - Who is Baron Corbin. Who isn't interesting or over. There's your next world champion folks. The SD roster consists of AJ, Nakamura, Orton, Cena, Owens, Sami...but the title will be held in 2017 by Jinder Mahal and Baron Corbin instead.

This is quite the troll job.

Randy Orton on Twitter: drags Indy wrestlers who take crazy uneccesary risks. Randy Orton on SD: Gets all his heat by recklessly throwing Indy wrestlers on top of their heads.

They might want to do another girls MITB on TV where more people will see it. Well that was a piece of shit.

The idea of Jinder being able to survive an RKO, even with two goons helping him, is so ridiculous to me so as to ruin all my suspension of disbelief.

I think they're happy to use "St Louis" as a synonym for "old timey wrasslin'" thinking nobody will know the difference. So I haven't seen a single thing Maria has done since leaving WWE, so to go from that to coming out here doing this lame heel promo is super weird. Are they supposed to be good? Bennett has always seemed like the blandest wrestler on earth to me. I feel like they'll come off as a second rate Miz and Maryse here. Does Maria wrestle? I like how happy Orton was to be over for once.

I think I already said this, but again I think what the Alphas have shown - along with Bayley, Sami Zayn, even Tye - is that they really don't know what to do with simple white meat babyfaces on the main roster. They work like magic in NXT because NXT is old school wrestling and simple. There is a good guy, they have a quest to complete, they overcome obstacles along the way, they triumph. AND the crowd understands this and appreciates it and cheers them along. The main roster is different. There are never beginnings, middles and ends. Just a never ending cycle of weekly TV where they try to find things for them to do. You can't get behind a hero on a mission because they have no mission. They're just doing whatever is written for them this week. The things that get babyfaces over on the main roster are catchphrases, coolness and perceived work rate. It's about personalities, not stories. There's nothing really TO the Alphas' characters. They're just nice guys who wrestle good. They weren't any more complex or cool in NXT either. BUT you saw the journey, you saw Gable slowly get Jordan on board with his goofy shtick, you saw them slowly make their way up the tag ranks, and you saw Jordan burst into tears when they won the titles because it was the culmination of a lifelong quest for a championship. We all went through it with them, and it all made sense and flowed as a story, so it mattered. Nothing matters on the main roster. On SD Alphas came in, did stuff, and a few months later won the tag titles off the Usos, on a random SD, with no warning, and it wasn't the culmination of anything except what they happened to have the Alphas doing that week. It's easier for heels and people with catchphrases and shit to adapt to main roster life. Eventually. But for babyfaces that you're supposed to really root for, the main roster is a cold, cruel world. Because there's nothing to root for, really.