Jimmy Redman

I have never actually sat down and watched a Hall of Fame until now. I've never even seen Trish's or Lita's inductions. But there was nothing on tonight so I gave it a go. I even watched the red carpet. I'm probably the biggest sucker for a red carpet who actually has zero interest in fashion itself. I just like the interviews; in super scripted WWE red carpet interviews come off as incredibly real and genuine in comparison and it's nice to see these people as their real selves, well as real as we will ever get to see them. Alexa Bliss came off as such a sweetheart, between this and other non-kayfabe stuff she's put out it would almost be impossible to hate her if she wasn't such a good heel, and when she gets a run as a face she's going to be so fucking great, I can't wait. I popped for Maryse putting Cena on blast for disrespecting her and the Divas Era girls by saying she'd accomplished nothing in her career even though she is a two-time champion. I forgot about that part when I was ranting and raving about Cena but fucking yeah, he does not get to step to the Divas like that. I know this is kind of the narrative they're pushing now with the Revolution but blame it on the company and institutional sexism, don't blame the girls. Not cool. I am so ready for this match. I also popped for Renee, my sun and stars, moon of my life, interviewing Deano. He's walking around looking like Dean Ambrose and she's brushing crumbs or possibly dirt off him and trying to make him look nice for the camera and he's trying to work this ridiculous suave lady killer thing for no reason and she's just not having any of it and it's all the most adorable thing I've ever seen. I don't watch Total Divas so this may be an uninformed opinion but Renee and Dean seem like the cutest couple ever. If not me, then well done to you sir. Speaking of which, Bayley looked stunning. How fucking lucky is that dweeb she's marrying. I like that Byron and Corey had a moment there where, even though Corey still had to riff on him, they interacted in a way that shows you that they're cool in real life and it's all in good fun. Eve and Maria Menounos having their little reunion made my heart soar. More on that later. Maria Menounos flies under the radar as a celebrity wrestler since she's not a huge celebrity I guess, but honest to God from the couple matches she's had she's probably the most well trained and most enthusiastic non-wrestler they've ever had work a match. She could fair dinkum join the roster tomorrow. And Kelly Kelly! Be still my beating heart. I'm so glad she knows all about her vs Beth Phoenix, I assume she means the Summerslam match but I always preferred NoC, will have to revisit. The Stacey and Elliott Divas Invasion Army is slowly coming together. So, the show. I'm not sure what I expected would be the first thing I saw on this show, but I admit that Eric Bischoff walking out and giving a tearful, heartfelt tribute to Dream sure wasn't it. Bischoff with his tan and white hair looks simultaneously the oldest and yet healthiest he's ever been. DDP was fantastic. I live for impressions so him just having a ball riffing on Dream and Hayes and Savage was awesome. Page seems like the coolest dude on the planet. He was so cool and funny and sincere and humble. By the time he was done I immediately got the appeal of this whole gig and it made me want to watch every single HOF ceremony ever. The guys must live for this. It was cool and surreal to see Jim Cornette on WWE TV again, and the man sure can talk, but it also did feel like he went on for fucking ever. The Rock N Rolls, on the other hand, were AMAZING. Just incredible. Ricky and Robert are just immortal. They go from being Ricky and Robert doing their "we sold this sumbitch out" routine, to making heartfelt thanks to people, to being senile old men who lost their train of thought, then snapping back in and popping the crowd again...brilliant, loved it. Steamboat, God love him, was pretty boring but I did like the bit where he talked about the cage match and Rude coming up with that awesome highspot on the fly, that was badass. Rude's son did pretty well. AND SO. The moment I've all been waiting for, the main event of my evening. Womenfolk. Nattie is so insane and I love it. She seems like the most annoying person on earth but in a way that you'd still totally be best friends with her. You'd just have to learn how to tune her voice out, and probably develop a habit of ignoring the 78 texts she sends you every day until a moment where you're mentally prepared to deal with her onslaught. I have friends like that. She did great here, I loved their little tag team but I had no idea how close they actually were. Beth was magnificent. I lost it the moment she came out and seemed immediately overwhelmed by the reaction she got. What a sweetheart. I'm glad she told the story of Molly Holly paying her tuition because it's a darling story and Molly Holly is all that is light and good in this world. Molly losing it made me lose it again. I was so not prepared for Beth beginning to list the girls she'd worked with and starting with Gail Kim - someone whom she had one 5 minute singles match with on Superstars, but fuck me if Beth vs Gail wasn't my number one most wished for dream match in wrestling for like three years to no avail until they finally had a 5 minute singles match on Superstars and I lost ALL OF MY SHIT in a way that I have rarely ever lost it. I've been thinking about my top 33 moments in wrestling ever since I listened to the latest Supershow episode, and honestly finally getting my dream match out of the blue is probably one of them. So thank you Beth for popping me like that. Speaking of which, Glamarella. I haven't even thought about that stuff in YEARS but Holy Shit did I love Beth and Santino. I can still remember them getting together like it was yesterday, with the match and the waistlocks and the tension and the kiss and Santino biting her biceps and Beth picking him up and just everything, God damn I loved that angle. Finding out that it was actually Beth who came up with it is awesome. That story of Santino ribbing her in Italy was awesome. I popped huge for her name dropping Cherry, even though I have no recollection of them wrestling on the main roster. Maybe it was in development. Vickie Guerrero got a huge reaction, I thought this day might never come but she could probably be a babyface now. Trish...man, Trish coming back on that Raw in Toronto to face Glamarella was probably the most I have ever popped at anything in my life. I'm still mad that I never got a Trish vs Beth singles match. I think the only girl she forgot to mention was Tiffany. I love that she spent so much time in her speech not just talking about other girls and thanking them, but putting them over in their own right. I don't think Eve's own husband could have put her over as nicely and effusively as Beth did here. Eve losing it made me lose it all over again. She's 100% right about Candice Michelle by the way, she worked super hard to get as good as she did, and Beth walked into their feud as a green, clumsy stiff who didn't know what to do with herself, and she walked out of it as a confident, dangerous monster heel who knew exactly what to do. Candice carried Beth in that feud and helped her figure out how to work. LOST MY SHIT when Beth responded to a heckler with "Settle your tea kettle." SETTLE YOUR TEA KETTLE. IT'S MY FAVOURITE PHRASE AND I HAVE NO IDEA EVEN WHY BUT IT IS. Beth and Nattie are like my new favourite best friends, I absolutely loved their 2011 Divas of Doom tag team and now more than ever I wish they could have had a bigger run. I also remember them both looking stone cold fucking gorgeous every week during that run too, holy smokes. HOOOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT SHE BROUGHT OUT TONY CHIMEL JUST TO ANNOUNCE "THE RATED R SooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooooPERSTAR EDGE!" ONE MORE TIME AND GIVE HIM A MOMENT MY GOD DAMN SHE IS THE BIGGEST MARK IN THE WORLD OMG EDGE HAS LOST IT SO HARD HE'S CRYING HYSTERICALLY WITH LAUGHTER HE CAN'T EVEN SHUT UP I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING I DON'T EVEN LIKE EDGE WHY AM I CRYING I CAN'T STOP CRYING~~~ I howled all over again when she did the bit about the flaming table. That is exactly what a huge wrestling nerd WOULD think. She is totes a gigantic fucking mark and I love it. I love her. I knew I loved Beth in 2008, I knew I loved her in 2011, I knew I loved her when she left and I was sad, but I never truly knew how much I loved her until now. What a total sweetheart, I fucking dare anyone to not like her after that. She was sweet and humble and gracious and funny and charismatic, she had it all. What a great speech. Beth Phoenix will now be the leader of Stacey and Elliott's Divas Invasion Army, sorry Kelly. A small nucleus of it was congregated here: Beth, Kelly, Eve, Candice. Maria Menounos. Onward we march. I don't care if anyone has a problem with the Divas girls or their careers, if I can get moments like this in my life I want them ALL in the Hall of Fame. Put em all in one by one, and every year I can have this big circlejerk of love from the girls, by the girls, for the girls and cry tears of joy into my pillow while I rant and rave on the internet at 4am during Mania weekend like I'm doing right now. If I'm incoherent right now, it's because I'm so tired but I haven't slept and I can't feel my eyeballs. I love everything.

Anyway, to continue my stream of consciousness about the Cena thing, my other main thought about it is...what is this really leading to? Yes, the proposal. And we know in real life that the two of them have worked this out already and this is just a way of doing it publicly, but if you don't know any better and just follow along with the TV, it will look for all the world as though Cena is only proposing to his girlfriend because The Miz has goaded him into it. I think the idea of having this moment at Mania is nice, I guess, but in reality it will either come across as a boring foregone conclusion for those in the know, or as Cena being worn down into being tied down. The problem is that Cena and Nikki just aren't likeable as a couple, and there's really nothing they can do on TV to make them likeable, because we know from Total Divas that this is just how they are. Cena is a robot. Nikki is plastic. And together, their relationship is fascinating as reality show bait, but they're not a couple that you want to root for. They do nothing to help this on TV by having Cena hog the mic time, slap her ass and give her those weird head kisses. When he's treating her like an accessory while they're standing across from a clearly genuine couple in Miz and Maryse, it doesn't paint them in the best light. A part of me keeps thinking that the better pro wrestling angle would be for Cena to finally relent and propose only for Nikki to kick him in the balls and dump him and ride off into the sunset as a megaheel, Trish at WMXX style. But the problem with that (apart from them being a real couple with their own show and nobody would believe it) is that...would Nikki be the heel? The Mania crowd would sure as shit cheer the hell out of her turning on Cena. And I'm not far behind. I know feminist isn't a huge wrestling crowd demographic unless actual women's wrestling is involved, but like...Miz is right. From everything we've seen about their lives, Cena treats her super strangely. He made her sign a contract to move in on the off chance she turned into a gold digger, he makes her follow strict house rules like she's a tenant, he appears almost inhumanly indifferent when she flirts with other guys or talks about leaving him. He has always steadfastly refused to consider her dearest wishes of getting married and having kids. Nikki has given up or compromised her own goals and wishes to conform to his life at every turn, and at every turn he does all he can to protect himself and not have to move an inch in her direction. Again, it's a fascinating look at how a super rich famous guy approaches dating when his no. 1 priority is total self preservation, but it doesn't seem like the most healthy relationship. It's certainly not an equal one. And so the idea of Nikki kicking him to the curb really isn't all that unreasonable, come to think of it. If it was a pure pro wrestling angle and not a real life thing, it's exactly the finish I'd book, just totally redo Trish and Jericho. But alas, this is a real life thing, real life relationships are weird, and we're going to have our weird, unlikeable "babyface" couple getting engaged and probably getting booed out of the building. And I mean, they're not going to get any more likeable once they get engaged. I guess it's good that at least one match on this card is making me think, even if all I'm doing is judging these people's semi fake relationship.

Echoing Mando, this show was super fun and at a time like this totally reminded me why I love da biz, just from hearing guys sound so excited about wrestling, even though few of your favourite moments overlap with mine. Now all I can think about is trying to come up with my own list of 33 moments. On one point specifically, I think every fan under a certain age would have Punk's pipebomb promo somewhere up there. The more time has passed and the indy influence on WWE gets exponentially greater all the time, it's hard to remember just how ground breaking and monumental this felt at the time. I went on holiday to Melbourne on the weekend of MITB, and before the pipebomb I wasn't too fussed about missing the show and catching up with it when I got back. After the pipebomb, there was no fucking way on the earth I was missing seeing what would happen live so come that day, I left my friends and whatever we were doing to go to an internet cafe by myself and watch a shitty illegal stream of MITB. Never before or since have I been so talked into watching a PPV that I would have moved heaven and earth to see it exactly as it happened and not a moment after.

I will always like the idea of Mania but you're right, I am super not excited about Mania, and the pre-show starts at 7am Monday for me so apathy and an early start is not a good combo. At this point I'm contemplating getting stoned at the crack of dawn in front of my folks just to make it more interesting to sit through. Ironically, the less I care about Mania as a show the more interested I get in possibly going to see Mania live. I guess because the less I'm worried about the card the more I can just treat it as a holiday and see America, experience Wrestlemania Weekend with all the shows and be in a big live crowd. One of my mates is going to Mania and I'm super jel, because I'm sure experiencing it live will be exponentially more fun than sitting through it at home.

The funny thing in all this is that in 2011, Miz and Cena had a Wrestlemania main event, where the build consisted of Cena and Rock cutting megastar promos on each other while Miz stood around looking like a child, and then they whiffed on the match. Now in 2017, Miz and Cena are having a midcard mixed tag match at Wrestlemania, where the build has consisted of Miz and Cena cutting main event level promos on each other and Miz looking like he belongs on top more than any point in his career up until now. Like, just from watching what's happening on SD, it just boggles the mind that all of this isn't building towards the SD main event WWE Title match at Mania. These promos are killer, straight up murderous, and it's all in aid of a midcard mixed tag that in itself is just window dressing for a post-match Wrestlemania Moment ™ proposal. When Miz got serious at the end of Total Bullshit I thought Cena was dead. Like, he had literally killed him remotely via a promo and Mania weekend became about John Cena's tragic passing. Miz and Maryse's whole deal has just annihilated Cena and Nikki, almost to the point of permanently damaging their characters I think. And then, Cena comes out and gets real and pours gasoline on Miz and Maryse, lights them on fire and burns them to a fucking crisp where they sit. He didn't just kill them he fucking immolated them. Holy fucking shit. That's the great thing about Cena, he's such a great promo when it counts that he's perfectly happy for heels to cut the most brutal promos possible on him in aid of a feud. He's an easy target and you watch the heel go nuts and think "man he just destroyed Cena with that promo" and just when you think that it's over, Cena makes his response and gets all serious and gangster and takes them to school, and you remember that he's John Fucking Cena. It's the promo equivalent of a wrestler being willing to sell and sell and sell his ass off during the heat because he knows once he makes his comeback he can give it all back and then some. So yeah. Why is this not the main event.

Sure. Just I don't know if that could be done the same way these days after HLA, Pudding fights and the whole character and behavior of Liz being extremely conservative compared to what we are used to nowadays. I get what you're saying, but I think hypothetically if Renee Young was a valet for someone today she would serve basically the same role. There have also been other women over the years - Stacy Keibler, early Maria, Cherry - who could pull off that kind of sweet character (as well as the other thing, granted). Oversexualisation makes it harder, I guess, but not impossible. Does Lita count as the Hardyz manager, since she would accompany them out and interfere in their matches?

Are we taking manager to mean strictly men? Because I can think of Miss Elizabeth off the top of my head.

"Overrated" is such a vague, nebulous term that it is almost meaningless. From the list I couldn't figure out if it meant "Overrated by smarks", "Overrated by WWE canon", "Underwhelming given the hype going in", "Better match on paper" or what. I mean, who the hell "rates" Shawn/Diesel for it to be that overrated? Or maybe I'm just mad because of all the Hunter/Takers. I disagree with things like Rollins cashing in and Brock beating Taker in the "best finishes" list since they both seem like the absolute worst finishes ever. The women's matches list was always a two horse race but I'm a little surprised that WM32 beat Trish/Mickie so soundly in first place votes. This is the world we live in now I guess. I have enjoyed following along with these, fun concept.

Brodus was actually quite good as a heel monster squashing folk, both before and after that, and not a bad promo to boot. But that's not what they went with for that run.

It is kind of awkward in hindsight for the catalogue that they have two shows called NXT that are completely different things.

I think it's pretty obvious that the reason they haven't fired her already is the Rock's movie. We'll see how amenable they are towards her after it comes out.

Alright I've got these matches on file: Truth/Morrison vs Drew Mac/Jericho - SD, 22nd January 2010 R-Truth vs Miz - Raw, 24th May 2010 John Cena vs R-Truth - Capitol Punishment 2011 Rey vs Alberto vs Truth - Raw, 4th July 2011 Rey Mysterio vs R-Truth - Raw, 18th July 2011 Rey/Morrison vs Miz/Truth - Raw, 1st August 2011 R-Truth vs John Morrison (Falls Count Anywhere) - Raw, 15th August 2011 R-Truth vs John Morrison - Superstars, 1st September 2011 Cena/Rock vs Miz/Truth - Survivor Series 2011 Kofi/Truth vs Dolph/Swagger - SD, 21st Feb 2012 Kofi/Truth vs Dolph/Swagger vs Colons - Raw, 27th Feb 2012 Kofi/Truth vs Colons - Raw, 30th April 2012 Kofi/Truth vs Dolph/Swagger - Over the Limit 2012 Cesaro vs Barrett vs Kofi vs Truth - Raw, 3rd December 2012 That's all I can find. Slim pickings. So basically the two best in-ring periods of his career were when he turned heel in 2011, and his tag team with Kofi. I'd take a guess that the match vs Morrison on Superstars is his best straight up, no gimmick singles match. The triple threat with Rey and Alberto is my favourite match that he's in though, that's a really good match. I know we've talked before about how it's nigh on impossible to be in WWE these days for any length of time without accumulating at least some good matches. Truth does a lot to test that theory, he's been around since 2008 - plus 5 years in TNA and a short WWF stint before that - and only has a handful of good matches to show for it, and nothing remotely high end. Luckily for him he's entertaining enough outside of the ring.

I'm sure he has. When I get home later I can, ahem, consult my notes *adjusts spectacles* and say for sure.

Some hero found all the Southpaw Regional Wrestling tapes in his garage and uploaded them to Youtube!

I can't see him keeping the title for 12 straight months when he's so part time, and knowing how long a year is on Raw, but on the other hand, Brock dropping a fall to someone would negate the point of having Roman be the one to dethrone him at Mania. Maybe they have him lose in some big multi-man thing to get it off him for a month or so. Dragging this Roman stuff out for another year is some bullshit though. Summerslam would have been adequate.

I guess the simple answer to that question is: some other match. If there's no planned match that looks like a real title match for SD, maybe they should have planned different matches. This is a curious phenomenon we get now since Meltzer gets pretty much the whole Mania card by the end of January. People like us know what the matches are before they're even hinted at on TV, so we see them as a fait accompli and just end up kind of questioning the build to those matches or their card placement, rather than questioning why we're having the matches themselves. We don't allow ourselves to criticise the card itself too much because hey, we've known how it was going to be for ages! What are you gonna do eh? If your planning leads you to AJ Styles having the year he had and carrying the title he did only to be nowhere near the title picture at Mania, feuding with a non-wrestler GM, while Orton and Bray fight over the title in the middle of a cartoon supernatural feud and Cena is in a midcard mixed tag angle based around Total Divas...something went wrong somewhere. A different match entirely, is the answer.

That looks like everybody's new favourite wrestling show.

My main issue with the angle was that Orton gave up his title shot, did other stuff, and then assumed that blowing up someone's house would magically get him that shot back because reasons. ...and he was right. And Seth was definitely over as a face when he came out here...which is what made it all the more hilarious that Hunter couldn't let him actually be over for FIVE SECONDS before he turned around and beat the shit out of him again like he was a fucking dork. I mean, literally ANY heel in human history, if the babyface makes a triumphant surprise return, makes the big reveal that he's healed, goes in and cleans house on said heel...ANY OTHER HEEL would just take it. Run away, head to the back. That's the whole fucking point of being the heel, to take the ass kicking. But not THE ALMIGHTY HUNTOR, he just gets straight back in the ring and beats the shit out of the face. Fucking howled. I'm also really looking forward to Mick Foley vs Steph at Wrestlemania. I mean, that's what ALLLLLLLLLL this time and effort and build is all leading to, right? Something?

MA. RYSE. OU. ELLET. It was amazing watching her go from Miz having to coach her through the story line by line to "THIS IS A SHOOT BROTHER~!"

I'm on the other side. Honestly I think Roode is one of the most boring in-ring dudes who has ever got as much main event time as he has. He sucks the life out of so many matches when it's time for him to go on offense. He's got all the tools to be a good heel - bumps well, stooges, has the cocky thing, some cool moves...but it just doesn't come together in reality when he's so...damn...boring in the ring. Like that AJ match that Marty loved, I thought AJ was excellent but the match itself no more than decent because Roode dragged it down. One of the Aries matches I like, but the other one I found really underwhelming thanks to Roode. His whole title reign was good on paper but the matches never got above a certain level. I remember really liking one of the Roode/Storm matches, maybe the cage match, but like...they had a lot of matches. I only found one memorable. Roode just isn't a guy who can hold my interest in the ring. I think that's why I was so impressed with Roode/Nak, because I was expecting it to max out at the standard Roode level, but somehow they kept going and the finish was so great and everything that they lifted it well above that threshold and he had a genuinely great singles match. But hey, everything looks better in NXT. Roode is so lucky, just SO lucky that he has Glorious Domination.

Really? Interesting, well I guess I take it back if it is consistent with his character.

The thing about Cody is that his strengths are far better suited to WWE than to the indies. He's not a workrate guy, he's not going to go on an indy tour and give you a bunch of awesome matches. He's good, not great in the ring. That wasn't why he was perceived as held down in WWE. It was more his out of the ring work. He was a strong character worker and strong promo, and with that along with the Rhodes pedigree, it always seemed like he was destined for bigger things than they ever got around to doing with him. There were missed opportunities during Legacy, during the Rhodes Bros/Authority stuff, during his Dr. Doom run on SD. Not everyone who is "held down" in WWE is suddenly going to become a super worker on the indies, because it's not always about ring work.

Yeah I guess that would be my question too. A monster heel showing respect to a guy who just interrupted him isn't a common play to make. And besides, even if they are trying to play him that way, I don't particularly WANT to see him played that way. Whatever way they want to frame it, Braun Strowman The Monster Among Men was in the ring, Taker made a point of butting in and going face to face with him, and Braun...backs away from him. Who wants to see him do that? Who thinks that's what Braun Strowman should be doing? Lame. But I mean, this is why I try not to watch Raw anymore. Things like this irritate me and I'm no longer invested enough to overlook things that irritate me.

I can't think of a single one for real referees off-hand, I guess because of the obvious. The cliche about the best referee being one you don't notice is there still holds true. In terms of guest referees, of all people I think Triple H did a really good job refereeing Cena vs Punk II at Summerslam 2011, for much the same reason; you completely forgot he was even there until the finish. Plus part of the build was that everyone thought Hunter was making a mistake taking it upon himself to referee such an important title match, since he's not an experienced ref and could screw it up, and that was paid off with the finish where Hunter did, in fact, make a simple mistake and screw it up. That's why you need professional referees.

The finish with the fakeout and then RKO completion was outstanding. It reminded me so much of the Orton/Punk Mania match, where Punk feinted and thought he'd avoided the springboard RKO, only to get hit with it just after since his guard was down. Classic heel hubris.