Alucard

Strong/Itami was awesome and made 205 worth watching. Agreed considering they start it off with friggin Tye Dillinger at #10, who lost to Baron Corbin just last week, while Corbin is not ranked. And the fact that Tye has barely been on TV for months..

I'd recommend Velveteen vs Aleister Black from Takeover: War Games as his best performance and one of my favorites from last year.

For a moment I thought they were gonna set up a Alexa/Charlotte rematch for the show with their backstage seg on Raw 25 but then nothing. Really enjoyed their Survivor Series match. I'd say if Rousey was really going to be in then it would likely main event.

I assumed it would be the other way around, but I guess that is possible

He had reconstructive knee surgery so he wasn't able to travel

Personally I haven't cared for Braun since the Lesnar match. He was built up well to that one moment then Lesnar beat him clean with one F5 in under 10 minutes. Momentum killer. Things have felt a bit forced since then. Agreed, loving Sonya so far.

Lashley had some really good to great matches during his TNA Title run in 2016 against a variety of opponents. Also delivered his best ever mic work with some killer promos and character work.

This really sucks. After everything that has gone on the past year or so, I think she's looked really good since her return and has been a shot in the arm for the Women's division on RAW. Let's hope that it's not a long term issue and she will be back soon, but you have to fear with serious neck injuries that they never fully heal up. Really feel for her. On the plus side I see Molly Holly is returning to the Rumble match so hopefully Lita and Trish will wrestle too but I would have thought with all the girls in Raw, SD & NXT they could have easily filled 30 competitors? I think Meltzer said it's looking like 2-4 surprise legend types with the rest being filled with 6 or so from NXT. Minus Paige, there's currently 16 confirmed entrants. Excluding the champs, only Dana Brooke & Alicia Fox are not officially in from the active roster. With the Bellas announced for Raw 25, I guess they will be in as well.

Agreed been getting some 00-01 Angle vibes from him the last few weeks on the mic.

Last year didn't have any surprise returning legends so that was a massive disappointment that doesn't give me much hope for surprises which had always been my favorite part of the Rumble. But at least the women's one is guaranteed a few good surprises to get to 30. Right now for the men's I would guess Finn Balor for the win, moving over to SDL to challenge AJ after. Nakamura has kinda felt like an afterthought for the last few months. Rousey is filming a movie in Colombia this month, but if she was the winner I imagine they run her vs. Charlotte at WM. I hope they stick with Asuka/Alexa as I really liked their match last night, but doing it last night also gave me doubts about it happening again at WM. Jazzy was on Edge & Christian's podcast last week and said she went for her pre-signing medicals but they found 3 herniated discs in her neck so WWE wouldn't sign her and she's gonna have neck surgery that might end her career.

That'd be a surprise to me coming straight off a legit MOTYC with Black, where both guys were excellent in their roles and told a great story. It has been disappointing that he's been off TV ever since.

Agreed that SDL hasn't been the same since the Superstar Shakeup. Prior to that, the initial draft run was top notch. One thing that stood out on Raw this week is they used just about the entire roster. It was Christmas but still had all the top guys in addition to the lower guys like Hawkins, Slater & Rhyno, and a brief skit with Goldust.

Agreed it is very strange. Start of the year he looks like a total badass being the guy that wipes out Strowman in the Rumble then he's at Mania losing to Ambrose on the preshow. Wins MITB and we know how that turned out followed by being demolished in the Cena feud. Took a clean loss to Tye Dillinger for whatever reason. Wins the US title, retains against AJ clean in a solid main event then proceeds to start losing weekly to Sin Cara. Gets the big win over Miz only to drop the US immediately after. I had thought Corbin/Roode had a lot of potential as a feud. Sucks, I think Corbin could be a top star.. with his current theme music his presentation does come off like a star but the booking just won't follow.

A house show in 2002 was the only time.

Shelly Martinez a few days ago on Twitter "I almost got raped while on a over seas tour. Since then others have shared with me they were raped. So sad. I appreciate those who are concerned about me after I tweeted about almost being raped in WWE I’m totally fine. I’ve lived with all this since then so it’s nothing new. I was just chiming in on my experience to help raise awareness......This isn’t the 1st time I’ve mentioned it. I’ve done an audio diary on it before. Maybe people are paying attention this time due to what going on it Hollywood." It came up after Russo claimed on his podcast that a female wrestler told him she was raped by one of the male wrestlers while working in WWE.

They split in late 2011 and feuded into/throughout 2012. Oct 2011 - Oct 2012 would be my favorite run in company history. (Oct 2011 being the Beer Money split, Oct 2012 being the street fight Storm finally won in, plus the cage match in between was aces) Roode's title run to Aries big win until BFG 2012 was full of great stuff. Along with Aries, Roode, and Storm doing great stuff there was Bully Ray having his career year, Samoa Joe having excellent performances, the Angle/Styles vs Daniels/Kazarian series was awesome... along with the Daniels/Styles last man standing match being my favorite match of theirs. Definitely an exciting weekly TV run there.

There was that one time in that 2013 period when the crowd suddenly got hot for a Titus/Roman staredown, I think it was during one of those Shield vs the roster matches. For a moment at least, he came off like a big deal the people could get behind. I did enjoy his brief feud with Rusev before they turned him again and I generally dig the Titus Brand though found it odd that Tozawa just disappeared from it.

Agreed on the mentions of 2004 and 2007 for RAW. For 2004, I really liked the period around Survivor Series with Orton, Jericho, Benoit, and Maven as the top babyfaces opposing Evolution. Recently rewatched the Raw after on the Network where they build the show around Maven challenging for the title or joining Evolution, really fun stuff. In 2007, the Cena/Federline feud was so great, I wish K-Fed stuck around to do more. I'd also throw a mention to mid/late 2008 for RAW, there was some excitement there from when Punk cashed in MITB through to Jericho's reign having some solid big time TV matches.

Agreed 100%. That was a hell of a run until the Superstar Shakeup nuked SDL. Loved the Alexa/Becky and Miz/Ziggler feuds especially. That and the summer of 2009 Smackdown were two of the first that came to mind. Morrison, Punk, and Hardy were all killing it against one another with awesome matches.

Agreed. She's become my favorite performer in the company over the past 12 months, from the Becky feud to now with this being one of her best overall performances.

Agreed with most of the posts above. On a side note, regardless of her height, Alexa's knockout punch has always looked killer and was usually sold as such. I can't recall for sure but thought she won one match with it before.

In most cases, she's only winning the blowoffs, she isn't winning everything every week. Coming from SDL (where she put over Naomi three straight times on the way out), she comes to RAW and beats Bayley quick for the title to establish her on Raw. From there she went in to the Sasha feud, where she lost by countout at Great Balls of Fire, got pinned in a tag the next night, lost clean to Bayley the following week, and then lost the title to Sasha at Summerslam with no wins in between. Then she regains the title in the only time she ever beat Sasha. After that it was back to losing tags and a clean singles loss to Nia on Raw before No Mercy. Now she only looks strong because she retained in a four way and has two straight wins over Mickie James, who had basically been brought back as the veteran to put others over, which I believe is only being done to build her up some to feed to Asuka. The fact that when she does win, is usually a clean win, is actually refreshing to me. I think she's one of the best talkers in the company but as far as not losing promo battles, I feel like Mickie punked her out almost weekly in their feud including laying her out with her finish just last week. Personally, I'm a big Alexa fan and feel like a lot of some peoples resentment towards her push has been because it's finally pushed Bayley to the background somewhat. Everyone else in the division is kept pretty strong. Alexa beat Sasha one time ever, hasn't beat Nia, etc. Asuka's there now, Mickie got more usage in this feud than she has since returning and even Alicia Fox is getting used this month.

It would certainly have been the most logical choice, considering the Shield stopped Strowman from beating Matt up a couple weeks ago which led to Braun being in the match in the first place. But I am greatly looking forward to seeing Kurt in the mix.

The only babyface he wrestled but didn't actually beat; John Cena. During his recent media tour in India he did a Q&A where he said he'd want Cena at Mania. They've started building Jinder/AJ off AJ claiming Jinder's beat everyone but him, though Jinder did pin AJ back in May the week before he won the title.

I'm with you all the way on this one. This felt like the most heated rivalry in WWE this year. Not wrestling every week but 2-3 times a year makes him come off as a real special attraction and he goes all the way out to deliver every time. He was in my personal favorite match of 2017 (v Styles) and 2016 (Survivor Series) so I look forward to his matches every time. Didn't love the finish here but enjoyed the entire 35+ minute match as a wild spectacle.