Bierschwale

For what it's worth, even though it was probably unintentional, I loved that the ref in the Authority's pocket was Armstrong after the NAO came back, especially with the reference during the main of WM. What does Bullet Bob think of his sons conspiring to screw over a plucky young gentleman like Bryan?

It'd be kind of unfair to ask him about 2014, especially when we read things about Vince rewriting his stuff and the tension between the two of them. Besides, I'd rather hear him talk about the 1998-2004 or so period, anyway. There's nothing that can result from that that would be adverse to the current product, and it'd cover the time when Austin was actually there, so his takes to what Hunter has to say would have a lot more juice behind them.

I think that the answer is, somehow, to both make it more like a sport AND to embrace as much as possible that it's fake. For example, revive KotR as a much bigger tournament, basically using the full roster and even NXTers. Have it end at Mania. Have a bracket competition. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Make the most explicit gimmicks like Halloween costumes, letting the performers' actual personalities shine through. Isn't that almost the entire reason behind Foley's success? He was Mick Foley. But he was also Cactus Jack, and Dude Love, and Mankind, and whatever the hell he felt like being. You knew that there was a real guy from an upper middle class suburb in Long Island there, but it didn't matter. Asking everyone to be Foley is impossible, of course, but you don't need to be as good as him on the mic to make it work. Over-the-top CHIKARA-style comedy matches aren't the most beloved thing here, but I think that the view count on YouTube for "The Most Illegal Move in the History of Wrestling" speaks for itself. Do stuff that's just pure sugar rush fun. Don't go into the "Boy fuckin' howdy, does Vince Russo love puns or what?" zone, but just let the most farcical elements go wild. Something like the Henry-Sandow mini-feud at the end of December about Sandow trying to cancel Christmas is a good example of a milder version of that. USA promoted the hell out of it, an effectively meaningless match between two guys on the lower mid-card. The match itself should have gone even deeper into this idea, with explicit Seuss-style references and the like. There's a clip of a Shield interview on YT in which Ambrose and Reigns argue over whether or not Rowan's mask is a camel or a llama, with Rollins just standing there incredulously. I don't think that there's many people who'd see something like that and suddenly think that the most traditionally "badass" group that the company's had since the Road Warriors first debuted aren't just as enjoyable as they were before seeing it. It's really hard to verbalize this dichotomy that doesn't devolve into Vince's famous stupid "ACTION-ADVENTURE SHOW!" quote, but he missed how to do it. I have no idea what I'm talking about here.

Not sure what JTG does - all I know is he has a young child and the anniversary of his 7th year under contract comes next week. The "Still Employed" Twitter account is off by a good eight months. His WWE debut was in late September 2006. Anyway, people speculated that he was a member of Rose's party posse from Raw because there was a black guy (who didn't really look anything like him) in it.

Batista doesn't get to complain about his booking when he hits that shitty of a spinebuster. Also, Rollins hitting a standing SSP was fucking awesome. You forget how cool those are when you watch matches where you expect to see five of them.

It's funny that favorable comparisons to Kevin Sullivan were made for Bray earlier today, because that match was about as unfavorable of a comparison to Kevin Sullivan as you could make.

I would predict the lineup to be... Cesaro-Swagger-Van Dam. Barrett-Langston. Paige-Tamina. Cena-Wyatt. Killings/Woods-Rusev. Evolution-Shield. Bryan-Kane. The tag doesn't have a gimmick and leads into the title match better than the title match leads into the tag (and if ego is what is would drive up Evo-Shield, the fact that DB is feuding with Stephanie as much if not more than he is with Kane cancels it out). Wyatt HAS to go over Cena, so I think that that's more likely to be in the mid-card than at the top.

Why not? If you're going to make two terrible decisions, you might as well compound them.

Dustin-Savage never happened, but they did have a six-man with them teaming with Sting against the Studd Stable in early '95.

He was rumored to be Reigns's replacement in The Shield when they were expected to break up in January/February.

The classic "Whoever wins the brawl at the end of the go-home show loses at the supercard" (because I'm refusing to call them "specials") trope seemed to be invoked when the Shield ended up with the comeback at the end. BUT... they teased the triple powerbomb but didn't deliver. Hunter is eating the powerbomb at ER and the Shield go over.

Oh God Ric is so fucking trashed.

Agreed. Wrestling quote of the year.

Well, 3MB are chickenshit heel mercenaries, that was enough for them to pull out of the match. And the visual of Heath trying to beg off Reigns while Ambrose and Rollins went apeshit on Jinder/McIntyre was great. Then you got Fandango getting powerbombed off of the stage, an Attitude Era trademark. I was definitely pleased with that episode.

Is there any specific reason why he shouldn't just bleach his hair like his father and brother?

Stephanie's little "salute to our champion" as he was being wheeled off sort of invoked the death of his father to me. It was just so unnecessary and creepy.

To me, this is like them watching the E&C-Hardys match from No Mercy '99 and their takeaway being "WOW WE NEED TO PUT THE BELT ON EDGE BY NEXT SUMMER, HE'D BE A GREAT FACE AGAINST HUNTER". The reality is so far removed from your example it's not even funny. Roman has been strongly positioned on television for over a year and largely protected. Edge in late 1999 was a nobody on the roster. You're not about to see Roman win the IC title on a house show and lose it the next day as a last minute gimmick to enhance the storyline arc of a PPV... I detailed this in a post which you didn't see, I guess-- it's not about the booking, it's that he has only had NINE singles matches, counting TV and house shows, in a year and a half on the main roster. Only one of which wasn't a squash and had an actual finish. What is the evidence that he is going to be a main event-level singles guy (and if he's booked with Hunter at SummerSlam, that is exactly what they want him to be) by August? That's the problem.

Uh, yeah, because they knew that they weren't ready. Since his call-up with Ambrose and Rollins, he has worked a total of nine singles matches, only three of which have ended without a DQ, with the other two being squashes over Henry and the match with Punk at Old School Raw. They want him to be a top-shelf face by the end of the summer, and in the last year and a half, he's had a total of nine singles matches. There is no, no way that he is ready.

To me, this is like them watching the E&C-Hardys match from No Mercy '99 and their takeaway being "WOW WE NEED TO PUT THE BELT ON EDGE BY NEXT SUMMER, HE'D BE A GREAT FACE AGAINST HUNTER".

Yeah, I'm in the pro-two belts camp. It just seems more significant, and the unification was supposed to be THE MOST SIGNIFICANT EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT.

This. Why the fuck would John Cena want to help The Shield?!!? He doesn't even have any real beef with Evolution. Plus is was at the tail end of match where half the roster, heels and faces, teamed up against The Shield. It was eleven (plus three) on three. Roster solidarity against the Authority was one of the things that people most liked about the beginning of that storyline, and something people hated when they dropped it. This was a direct mirror of the 11-on-3 elimination match from September. The only person on both of the bigger sides was Titus because of his heel turn. This isn't about protecting The Shield because they've suddenly become your new BFFs; it's about showing how the faces will CONTINUE to stand up to the Authority, and it's not just that. The Usos have a feud with Batista/Orton, and they had just announced Batista-Sheamus as the SD main event. Ziggler had just lost to Barrett; the Rhodes Bros. had just lost to Rybaxel; R-Truth and Xavier had just been laid out by Rusev. Obviously we are supposed to have forgotten about the PTP split, but Darren has beef with Titus. Santino had just lost to Fandango. There are a lot of people backstage with something against those 14 guys. but nobody cares about getting their own revenge? That's what I specifically disliked about last night. The faces should never just let people get the life beaten out of them if they have even odds, especially when they have their own reasons to go out there and beat those guys down.

It was on F4WOnline.com that it can't happen because they do the set designs months in advance and they can't accommodate two rings. I had this thought myself, but uh, why can't they just put a second door on a Cell? It wouldn't be perfect, but you'd have to be a real shit to complain about an eight/ten-man HIAC that had the other two aspects of WarGames (staggered entry and submit/surrender) being called "WarGames" just because it only had one ring. Also, as always, I HATE a mass beatdown on faces without anyone coming in for the rescue. Was Cena too busy reading through the help menu on Photoshop to go do a run-in?

I thought that the best idea would be to announce a mini-tournament for that night and SmackDown (if they choose to acknowledge its existence) to determine the participants for a match at Extreme Rules unifying the IC and US titles, evoking Warrior's most famous moment (being the first man to hold the World and IC titles at the same time). A singles match for both titles and a four-way for a wild card spot in the ER match on each show. Gives you two good, weighty matches on Raw between the tribute stuff, 12 guys a legit match in the week, and a strong mid-card storyline that wouldn't get stale between now and the PPV. (Might as well make it a ladder match, too. For a company that used to find any excuse for a ladder gimmick, they've only had one since last year's MITB show.)

So it's in the right thread: I didn't really need any context for Magnum-Tully. It just felt so much more intense than the WWE I Quit stuff from over the years that it captured my heart immediately. It wasn't an EPIC, it was just as good as fictional pankratiastic hatred could be to me.