Bierschwale

Making fans forget about that match being incredible before the cash-in is part of the political hit.

It's a triple threat by the history books even if it was ad hoc by kayfabe. There's not two separate matches, just one match won by Rollins.

Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns is not a match that has ever officially happened. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins is, however. It's as simple as that. Calling Lesnar-Reigns the MOTY is like calling the best brawl within an angle the MOTY.

Homicide-Necro is the best pure spectacle.

I'm not going to try to explain something that you probably already know because it's patronizing but this is the story of the match and its context: Necro, the king of modern death matches, going "legit" to face the biggest monster that the indies had to offer, taking everything that he had to offer, losing but still somehow surviving, is what it's about. Everyone knew that he'd lose, but how much could he take? How much punishment is he going to invite upon himself and how much will Joe oblige him? What can he do to Joe that Joe's never really experienced before? Necro's just a dirty hillbilly who'll put himself on death's door to win but this is his chance. Maybe the only chance he'll ever get. It's a self-aware match in this respect, but it's a very authentic and sincere story. I can understand "Something to Prove" not being the context that you like, there's been a lot of variations on that theme that I don't like, but this was the originator for the modern American scene and I think that it's maintained its power.

Running it in my head, I'm imagining Ahmed-Austin for the title at WM XIV. '97 is such a weird year that it can be rearranged in a lot of ways.

Can Roman do a superplex into a Falcon Arrow? Yeah, that's what I thought, Goc. END OF ARGUMENT.

Finally, the true main eventers have arrived.

Ahmed Johnson as Big T with the Harlem Heat 2000 angle was pretty pointless.

The Miz and R-Truth main evented a PPV against Cena and The Rock. Vince seems to be fine with top-level heels not really being major stars because it's usually been a fluid position in the company.

But the booking of it would make just enough sense were it for the IC title, which is why I think that they'd do it. They wouldn't have to put much thought into anything.

To keep with the original tone of the thread, Sheamus. I love Sheamus, but holy shit do so many people genuinely hate him for no good reason at all. He worked out with Triple H that one time! Never mind that "Triple H is down on the Johnny Ace-era guys like Barrett/Sheamus/Ziggler" is a sheet line that comes out every few months.

In that scenario, I'd imagine that they'd go with Bryan-Owens.

Ambrose-Rollins had a ton of "ladder as weapon" and more technical work than an average ladder match. I think that people hate cage matches that are escaping contests and not fights, so ladder matches almost always come off as climbing contests. There's not enough of the sense that it's a fight and that one man is truly DEFEATED. How about a ladder match with Texas death-style rules? Get a pin, and then you have until the opponent can touch the "main" ladder (whichever ladder that the guy who got the fall is climbing) to retrieve the belt. Maybe it's too much like a King of the Mountain match even if it is obviously much less complicated.

This was my first thought, but I don't really know what to expect with her and the main roster. If any woman seems like an NXT-exclusive, it's her.

That's the long-term plan with Nia Jax, I presume.

Just... just watch Hechicero-Lucero.

I was going to address Jingus, but yeah, exactly. There's so many problems with it-- and frankly the first is that there was no demand for Rollins as champ. He wasn't over enough to be your lead heel worker before winning the title. But the MITB gimmick made it an inevitability. It was also never addressed during his reign as "Mr. Money in the Bank" (since it is a de facto title), when it was pushed that his title win would be inevitable, that anyone might want to win it from him, even though matches where the briefcase was put up regularly happened for previous winners. Ambrose got screwed in the original match for it, but the actual MITB contract never came up and they never had a match for it. Ziggler pinned him to win the Survivor Series match and they never brought up the prospect that he would get a shot at it. Reigns never went after him for it. Bryan never went after him. Orton didn't go after it. So he had spent nine months as an insufferable chump where they could gauge whether or not he should get the title except that he was just "MR. MONEY IN THE BANK" and that was that. Everything after WM is just a rehash of that, except that he actually has to defend that title. Hell, the Cena feud with the tables match at TLC (where Cena could lose his #1 contendership, but Rollins couldn't lose the briefcase) was just a preview of their actual title feud.

I think that GM flunkies are underappreciated as being annoying. With The Authority storyline... HHH, Stephanie, Kane, Brad Maddox, Vickie Guerrero, and I even think Big Show have all had Authority-endorsed matchmaking powers. It's ridiculous.

I think 2015 was worse, because they were stupid enough to do the same thing again. Big difference. They handled Reigns well enough in the WM build to where the fans were elated to see Reigns get destroyed by Brock. They screwed the pooch bad enough in 2014 to get the fans so riled up that a change in plans was 100% necessary. There's something for there to be said in that "Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns" is not a match that has ever officially happened, though. Are people still defending the WM 31 finish? Like, "well, it's the booking AFTER winning the title that has killed Rollins"? No, it's been bad from day 1 and that cash-in. And the win of that MITB match in the first place.

Vince's most recent meaningful appearances were about setting the stip for the Authority-Team Cena match at last year's Survivor Series.

I actually thought that one of the matches from a few months ago with the PTP on guest commentary that had Darren trying to get over his new signature commentary line and Titus asking the others what theirs were and Cole blurting out that his was "vintage" was hilarious. Things I no longer want to see: The PTP not being on every PPV and RAW episode.

"One of the principal owners of WWE". For a month or so last year after WM, she was just "THE principal owner of WWE", which was odd. I suppose that it's because Triple H was split off into the Shield feud and she was still feuding with DB & Brie, so they needed her to have more "power" even if it was just based on semantics.

The main event for Clash X.

I can't take any thread that says "get rid of El Torito" seriously.