Bierschwale

She'll introduce Bayley as part of the Divas Revolution and have her become the she-Wyatt.

It's a tournament series-- you don't need to have decisive win after decisive win and the "toss them a win here" mindset if you actually have draws, and draws actually add to the drama and story of a tournament, AND THEY ALMOST NEVER EVEN GET CLOSE TO THE TIME LIMIT ANYWAY! I think that Honma-Okada with the same result would have been a better match if they only had 20 minutes because if nothing else, you can buy that Honma might get a draw off of the champ. It's just way better for booking. I don't really see an argument for why a 30 minute time limit is better when they never, ever run draws.

What's the point of having a 30-minute time limit when only six matches have gone past 20 since 2010?

It was September '99 from some random looking around. It's worth pointing out that the "Stewart Pain" thing was dropped way before Payne Stewart actually died and that Darsow only worked like two more matches after that, so he was already into the DID gimmick. I figure that it was just a cease-and-desist that forced a name change. So JT gave WCW undue credit for having basic decency there. I really want a "take my money" segment where random matches that actually did happen and seem kind of insane get submitted and are then judged by the patented "just take my money" system.

That just makes me think that they'll do even more of a double-down on milking the past and forsaking the future.

I think that I'd agree. They were definitely teasing it with Roman borrowing the "throw a shitload of chairs into the ring" move from Ambrose (who did have the babyface DQ match with Wyatt at SS last year, which was a good DQ but certainly not Eddie-level). I actually wonder if it was a direct reference to that match now, though, which would have been more meta than learned psych to me (tag partners against the same opponent in the same building).

What was the last really good babyface DQ loss of theirs, Judgment Day '04?

The Authority have been on-screen for over a half-hour now and haven't acknowledged Rollins once.

Ziggler and Harper were having some superkick duels but that was almost all before the "you YOUNG BUCKS" controversy.

Just didn't feel that at all.

A fine way to start the G1 even with the Bullet Club interference by Harper. Expected more out of Red Shoes, though.

But how else can we ever see Kane take on Rollins for the title, or HHH booking himself to get one last title win? The people demand these programs!

Plus Jacobs, Mercury, and Noble from the road agent pool.

Velocity superstar Frankie Kazarian.

Sidebar on Lesnar matches; does anyone else see Cesaro-Lesnar get thrown around as a dream match and not understand how it'd work in practice at all? People love Cesaro because he's a tremendous offensive wrestler, but nobody gives a damn about him selling. I'm not sure that there's anyone on the roster who people actually want to see sell less than Cesaro. What kind of amazing offense is he going to pull out when Brock will get 85% of the match and won't take significant bumps anymore?

With all of these names, there's a lot that you can do with this card, and almost all of it is a "fuck you".

I don't particularly love the Divas belt, but I do think that it was really funny that people speculated that Sasha Banks didn't bring the NXT belt with her because of how much better-looking it is than the Divas'. Nope, it's ridiculous, too. All of the NXT title designs are dreadful, especially the main belt.

And both of his first two feuds (Orton and Ambrose) were derived from personal issues that started over six months before he won the belt. Even the PTPs and Ryback are doing better jobs getting their reigns over than Rollins has. I think that it's probably an easier job as faces, but I definitely feel like that it really matters to them that they're champs. What the title means for his relationship with the Authority is treated as being much more important than Rollins being the WORLD CHAMPION, and Rollins acts exactly the same as the WWEWHC as he did when he was "Mr. Money in the Bank" (add that to the list of reasons why it needs to go).

The most recent free TV title match was Bryan-HHH the night after WM XXX, which never actually took place because of the Shield turn. The last RAW match for a World title was Sandow's failed cash-in on Cena for the WHC. Having looked it up, the last for the WWE title was Punk-Ryback in January 2013. I was saying a few weeks ago that I thought they should do a title change on Raw to spark interest. Reading this only makes me double down on that. Agreed. You don't need a World title match every other week, but once in a while, say every four months? Far from a bad thing. Even PPV title matches have become stupidly routine. The last meaningful WWE title change at a B-tier PPV was really Punk at MITB 2011. Everything else has been hot potato stuff like Del Rio's wins/the Bryan-Orton stretch, or at a major.

The most recent free TV title match was Bryan-HHH the night after WM XXX, which never actually took place because of the Shield turn. The last RAW match for a World title was Sandow's failed cash-in on Cena for the WHC. Having looked it up, the last for the WWE title was Punk-Ryback in January 2013.

The ridiculous Rollins segment from last week's RAW with him buying J&J the Caddy and the Apple watches and the Hawaiian vacation for Kane was supposed to be "Look at me, I'm the champ, I'm rich now!". It's almost as if Seth Rollins is a shitty promo.

Microscope poll: More handsome, Rusev or Triple H?

Starrcades '89-'92. Four straight gimmick shows for your biggest PPV of the year, especially when the only "gimmick show" WrestleMania in '88 was perceived as kind of a flop and was STILL a tournament for the World title.

The finishing run doesn't kill it for me or anything, but Sting not getting to the fourth corner because of a banana-peel ref bump and Vader then winning because Sting just pretty much accidentally kicks him into the corner which should have broken his count is too much to me. I love the work of it, incredible bomb-throwing, LOVE Sting's inertia bump into the rail, the back-blading really is brutal, can never complain about Vader's right hands. I'd go GAB, SuperBrawl, Starrcade. I'd call GAB the most "Cena-Lesnar"-like. I kind of feel like that the matches get less decisive as they go on, too.

Buzz had the Anderson Look, though. Buddy was just on a bad paper rout.