Alucard

I really enjoy what I've seen of RVD in shoots and I'll second Kevin Nash as a favorite. For a left field choice, I recently watched some of the Youshoot with ICP and thought they were very funny, real cool and had some great stories.

Really awesome segment that felt like something special, loved the crowd reaction. Not sure about turning AJ at this point but looking forward to the match(es) for sure.

I think they switched the champions' brand enough that the two champions usually felt on equal footing. the WWE title was SD from 02-05 then RAW from 05-08, SD from 08-09 with even HHH as the WWE Champ on Smackdown for most of 2008. I personally loved that run with stuff like the HHH/Hardy series and the shows were constantly feeling fresh. Looking back there's definitely a lot I loved about the split and it made the years stand out a lot more compared to the last couple years kind of blending together. It just seems like such a big change now since Raw is 3 hours and they've always needed most of the whole roster for that.

Ha I loved those, especially LOD 2k5 I marked for their title win. I want more legends/returning veterans in today's WWE midcard.

I always liked him as well and thought he would be a much bigger star than he ended up being. He was a regular for NWA Southwest in the years prior to TNA (99-02) and seemed to have a great look, good in the ring, solid on the mic, etc. Rodney Mack was a regular there as well and I thought when he moved on to ECW then WWE, that Northcutt wouldn't be far behind. Shame he never ended up doing much outside of his 9 reigns as NWA Texas champ.

TNA delivered the goods for two weeks straight at least! I haven't watched it since it aired but I remember loving the Juvi/Teddy Hart match at the time. I sense it probably wouldn't hold up on rewatch.

It was after the face turn against Miz in 2011 and he was being pushed then dropped off completely. Reports at the time said that Riley "didn't react well" to being ribbed by Cena in front of the boys or something, but Tyler Reks did a shoot last year where he talked about how Cena was always singling Riley out, ripping him in front of everyone for any little thing and felt that he was trying to get him fired. Personally I thought Riley was doing very good at that point could've been a top guy at least upper midcard but he got totally dropped. Even recently I felt he still showed some fire in his NXT work, though the booking didn't give him much of a chance in the ring, he was still delivering on the mic and in the build to the mini-feud with Owens last year. Always liked him and wished he got more of a shot. Good look, talker, solid in the ring, and pretty much always got a reaction from the crowd even when he was hardly used.

Tyler Breeze was also in that boat prior to this past Monday, having not won a match - televised or otherwise - since an early January episode of Main Event over Zack Ryder.

Agreed 100%. When she got put with Bryan and then became GM, I was beyond sick of her - and that was before she even won the title and had people pretending she was a great wrestler. Terrible acting with the forced psycho gimmick as well.

Yes and they aired a tribute video with various photos and RIP tweets attached along with some video clips later in the show.

And then Pop's response was to promptly drop Days of our Lives a few weeks later!

Agreed. Oct 2011 to Oct 2012 is my favorite TNA year.

Agreed, I definitely wanna watch it.

I always really enjoyed Chris Harris in singles, a shame his career ended up going nowhere in the end. the Viscera debut is a classic in those times of literally anyone can show up in TNA

The build to Jarrett/Raven was some of TNA's best stuff. The actual match is glorious.

Smackdown and Impact don't have people signing NDAs at the shows. Lucha Underground is definitely a show more fun to watch when you don't know what's going to happen. Last season had some excellent story based stuff. Not necessarily the Observer but I've always browsed wrestling news sites and never had an issue avoiding LU spoilers, rarely seeing a mention of them until just recently.

Sad to hear. One day after his birthday. Always liked his match with RVD from Anarchy Rulz 99. Enjoyed that he got that brief WWE run too, fun ONS match with Tanaka.

Agreed. I liked their match at Roadblock but the mic work makes me cringe.

This thread was a great read to catch up on, classic. Couple notes over the last few pages. On HHH/Reigns being no dq, I'm pretty sure commentary said that HHH would get DQed if he used the sledgehammer. So I guess that was a misprint since it was never officially announced as such. On the cues for the crowd to cheer thing, it only happened for New Day and Charlotte, where the big screen showing the action would suddenly change to a big "Wooooo" across the screen if Charlotte attempted the figure 8 or chops and a couple times along with New Day's "new day rocks" or "hey we want some new day" chants. A bit odd but nothing major.

Yes! Great to see this return, missed these reviews

I've always liked Aries as a face, especially in TNA. My favorite run of his was his TNA return in 2011 as a heel in to turning face and winning the world title in 2012. He did some of his best heel work then in the X Division but kept having such great matches with all kinds of opponents that he just naturally turned face with the crowd's growing support. Then the title win felt like a genuine star making moment at the time and his match with Roode remains one of my top favorites. He was a fantastic face in that series as well as his matches leading up to that with Joe and Bully Ray. I think Aries/Corbin was a solid start for him here and look forward to what he does next.

Loved it. Freebirds speech was perfect. Hayes performing Badstreet USA, incredible. Hansen's speech was really awesome too. Sad as well that Sting is officially retired, thought they'd try one more year to do Sting/Taker at 33.

Checking out NWA Parade of Champions Thursday, watching the NXT show on Fri then attending Mania on Sunday. I'd be more interested in the Shimmer show if it was a regular one of their events instead of a one night tournament.

Love it. Start suit and by the end of the night, Iron Fist tee and jeans, possibly with hands taped.

I don't think face New Day is going to be nearly as good, judging by that Raw segment and last week's Smackdown. Their act is far better as annoying heels rather than corny babyfaces imo.