Jimmy Redman

That Serena match was Umaga vs Jeff Hardy, where the little guy takes it to him and gets one too many hope spots before Umaga goes "Fuck this!" and just BAM-BAM-BAM-DEAD.

You guys should check out their February Raw match too. It's not quite as good as this one, but it's another fantastic TV main event.

Vs Hansen, 23/9/81

This is one of those matches that got worse each time I watched it, so eventually I stopped. I wonder what I'd think of it now. Cena-Angle never really clicked as a match up, in fact I think their best match together was Cena's debut. But apart from that my favourite one is No Way Out 2005.

Who can hate the Duds returning now, when it gives us The New Day: Protectors of Furniture Around the World?!

Nikki Bella FINALLY getting a Honk-A-Meter has improved her reign tenfold. Better late than never.

So I absolutely love this guy. I take my British wrestling cues from people like OJ, so with his somewhat mixed reputation he wasn't one of my priorities to dive into. But I have stumbled across him and I'm thoroughly hooked. He's a different kind of heel to say, Jim Breaks. There's something very unique about Breaks, something very...British. And you can say the same for heels of his ilk too, like a McManus. They are so very British. Whereas Rocco is a much more recognisable kind of worker, much more like a rudo or an American-style heel who will bump and stooge all over the place. He straddles that line for me between being spectacular (and skillful) and being a snivelling, cheating piece of shit. He can roll and grapple and dive as well as anyone, but when things start to go wrong or he blows a fuse, he will pull out every trick in the book, and in the end there's just really nothing likeable about him at all. He's also just a great bumper, I just watched a Jones/Rocco match and in the space of about 20 seconds Rocco took the Stevens bump on his head, and then took a backdrop from the ring to the floor flat on his back. This guy could kill himself with the best of them. The Rocco vs Jones matches are awesome. That match vs Steve McHoy that OJ recommended in the WoS thread is definitely worth a watch too. Honestly I could watch Rocco vs anyone. At this point he's my favourite WoS guy, behind only Breaks.

So I'm watching the Scooby Doo Wrestlemania Mystery (not even sorry) and I well and truly lost my shit about half an hour in. Everyone just had their ass kicked by The Bear, who is the big monster/ghost thing in the story, and then... Everyone else: "The Bear is super scary, we better stick together!" Hunter: "I-uh want to-uh run into-uh the woods-uh and rip-uh The Bear's head off!!!" THE ALMIGHTY HUNTOR CAN'T EVEN SHOW ASS TO A FUCKING GHOST BEAR IN A SCOOBY FUCKING DOO CARTOON. *dead*

Between you and Sleaze, I'm very much enjoying this trip down memory lane. It's making me want to eschew all the old stuff I'm "supposed" to be watching and watch some of this stuff again instead. If you're taking requests/suggestions, I'd like to see what you make of Sheamus vs Big Show, HIAC 2012. And I know you're done with Cena for the time being, but at some point you have to watch the Cena vs JBL I Quit.

Wait he gave Cena vs Rollins ****1/2 ?? Jesus fucking Christ. Go to bed.

I think the point is that it's not working, since he's still getting booed.

Jacqueline, Jazz, Alicia Fox and Layla have all had title runs. In terms of women of colour. Melina is Latina and she was on top for years. But "legit superstar" is a hard bar to clear since only a handful of women altogether have been pushed like that.

Everyone in WWE practices their matches now. It's not a girl thing, it's a company thing. Male wrestlers don't know what to do when things go awry either. See Orton and his many tantrums.

WWE in 2010: Raw: Sheamus shockingly won the Raw Title in Dec 2009 months after his debut and held it until the belt merry-go-round at Elimination Chamber. Cena vs Batista was the top feud for Mania and the next few months. Dave left and Sheamus and Orton re-entered the title picture for the summer, but the Nexus also arrived and they became the top heels. Miz cashed in MITB in November and ended the year with the belt, while Nexus had been killed off. Smackdown: Undertaker defended against Rey at the Rumble, then lost the belt to Jericho in the Chamber switches, in order to work the Shawn re-match. Jericho vs Edge at Mania, then Swagger cashed in soon after. Swagger lost the belt to Rey, then Kane won MITB and cashed in the same night. Kane actually held the belt through that Undertaker feud, and then through that terrible Edge feud until Edge won it in December. So on the top of the cards we have the usual crew who had been maineventing for years prior (Cena, Dave, Orton, Undertaker, Kane, Edge, Jericho) along with the newer, younger crew who were given token main event runs with a MITB cash in or some such, only to move back into the midcard/upper-midcard when their run was over, having not been established as a real main eventer due to MITB and all the other problems I hardly need to go into (Sheamus, Miz, Barrett/Nexus, Swagger). Nothing has really changed in the interim, except for anomalies like Punk actually reaching that real main event level. I suppose you could include Bryan too, since his exit from the main event was due to injuries and not being de-pushed (even though you could argue they would have done so anyway). Arguably the Shield broke the cycle too for the duration of their run, although it's a lot harder to quantify with a team. With everyone else it's the same story. We have the same long-established guys always at the top of the card, always the first ones they plug back into the main event - Cena, Orton, Big Show, Kane, Jericho, HHH (one way or another). We have newer guys who have runs with the belt, or on top, but who always get moved back down the card at some stage, and never get properly established on the same level as the first crew for all the obvious reasons - since 2010 there's been Alberto, Dolph, Ryback, Wyatt, Reigns, Ambrose, Rollins (so far I guess). The third crew is the special attractions, old guys who can only work once a year, or outsiders from a past era brought back for star power: Undertaker, Rock, Brock, Batista. These guys are always put over at the expense of the second crew. And above all, while Hunter and Steph have replaced Vince as the TV presence, the McMahons are always the biggest stars. So unless things drastically change, it will be the same thing in five years, just plugging different names into the categories. Well-established main event stars who always hang around: Cena, Orton, whoever else is still well enough to work full-time. If we're lucky, one of the current stars-in-progress like Rollins, Ambrose, etc. will join this crew. Then there's the second crew who are the younger guys trying to move up but always headbutting the ceiling: Owens, Balor, Zayn, Uhaa, who knows. And then the special attraction crew who still get prime position on top of the cards: Brock, HHH, Kane, Show, Taker, anyone who is healthy enough. Punk could be back as one by then. The main thing is that we just don't know yet. Look at today's main event scene, minus the Class of 2005, look at the newer stars and think about what they were doing five years ago. Rollins: Was still ROH Champion. Ambrose: Working ultraviolent matches in CZW, along with other indies. Reigns: Learning how to work in FCW. Brock: Was mid-UFC Heavyweight Title reign. None of these guys were on the roster in 2010. Not even on the radar. So really, the guys who are having main events in 2020 could well be guys who haven't even signed yet. They could even be guys who haven't begun wrestling yet. Along with, of course, Cena, Orton and HHH.

The Snooki match counts as a piss break match, and I say that as a gigantic fan of every woman in that match, Snooki included. At WM25 the World Title match was used as a come down from Taker/Shawn, which was the more important match. Also, Mania is not the only PPV they run.

As long as they weren't in fact seriously injured, I don't see why not.

That would be amazing, cheers mate.

Quick question for you OJ, is the Marty Jones vs Mark Rocco title unification match from I think September '78 online anywhere?

At some point he took it a step further and decided he needed not just a buffer match but a buffer ninety minutes. I think the first time I noticed this was Wrestlemania 23 when Undertaker vs Batista went on not in the third-to-last position, but halfway down the card. It created this weird schizophrenic up-down-up-down card structure that goes (to borrow the above number analogy): 3 7 5 2 6 8 4 1 And I fucking hate it, because it kills any momentum a card could ever build. They put weird semi-main type matches on first (eg. Orton matches) that have no business being on first because they're not worked like an opener. They throw a "main event" out there halfway through the show which tells you immediately to not treat it as a main event, oh and it's probably going to have a shit finish too, because we couldn't end the show with this. Then they run like half the undercard AFTER this main event, where it's impossible to care about them because once you've seen one main event, it feels late in the show and you're just waiting for the (real) main event to come on. A card should progress. It should build momentum, so when you get to the business end it feels like the business end.

After the weekend and looking at the thread, I may be the highest on Undertaker.

Summerslam is basically Exhibit A for why Taker is going on my list. Dude hasn't been off the couch in months, he's a 187 year old invalid, but he goes "Fuck it, I ain't leaving things like that" and comes out here and just fucking brings it. He took some unbelievable bombs from Brock - he fucking ATE that announce table - and dished it out as well and looked great going toe to toe with Brock Lesnar. That sit up-ROFLcopter spot was amazing and hilarious and badass all at the same time. By the end of the match I seriously would have 100% bought Taker going over clean as a sheet. I was that convinced. The man is a force of nature.

That's one of the problems, Seth spends TV having 20 minute talking segments and losing clean to Cena instead of getting the clean wins he needs to earn the luxury of cheating to retain at the PPV.

Which I think fairly well explains why I don't like the idea of the perennial heel champion at all.

Maybe because all four of them were quick reigns with guys he was feuding with at the time to add juice to a feud. It's a shame he never had a real tag team run, because with the way he works the apron he's one of the lost great tag workers.

He's thinking about his nose.