Alucard

I enjoyed Storm/Magnus but agreed that it should've been a bloodbath hate filled brawl more along the lines of Storm/Roode 3 years ago. Liked Aries/Davey a good bit, Robbie/Jessie, and the X Title match. Wish they did more with Bram/Morgan and use some more past guys like the build up to it did. I love the Dollhouse but find Brooke mostly awful. Surprised EC3 pinned Lashley relatively clean. Yeah the KOTM finish was never in doubt and was kind of dull overall. Some fine wrestling on a not terrible show overall, just not much for major happenings.

Vader and son worked an indy together last weekend in Texas which was the first I had heard of his son wrestling since NXT.

I agree. She looked fantastic and screams star to me. Really great look at her beginnings and makes me want to see her succeed even more. Her career comeback story is real cool to see her where she's at now.

AJ Lee. Got absolutely sick of her being all over TV on every show, getting thrown in with all the top guys at different times.. Bryan, Punk, Cena. Shoving her into the GM Role to get even more unneeded TV time. And that was all before taking over the entire divas division for 2 years. Never enjoyed her in any role. Terrible and unbearable.

Ha she is amazing, love Menounos.

Loving the reviews, great new project for you

I think if Taker really comes out to When The Man Comes Around, that could be an awesome spectacle WM entrance and totally fits with his whole "Last Outlaw" deal a few years ago. Never been big on Wyatt but I'm optimistic for Taker to deliver a pretty good match with him.

On the first part, to be fair - Bryan/Kane main evented Extreme Rules, Evolution/Shield was in the middle of the card. Then Evolution/Shield main evented Payback because of Bryan going down with injury when they had originally planned Bryan/Kane again in a stretcher match.

The Rock'n'Wrestling cartoon theme. It was mentioned right in the post above yours. The instrumental version of "Ravishing" by Bonnie Tyler, an absolutely awesome theme I've always loved! Underrated, while of course Real American would be one of the all time great themes.

Call me simple then, because that match was awful. Awful finish, not much going on and two guys trying to do an epic match and failing miserably. The match on RAW a month prior was much better. Holly v. Brock sucks too since no one took Holly seriously. Eddy v. Chavo is just odd This. Pretty sure it must be misguided revisionism that these matches are considered any good - they were slaughtered at the time and Hardcore Holly getting a title shot was widely derided as he was previously a borderline comedy jobber and was considered no threat to Brock. Indiciative of how far the day to day product has fallen if these are considered awesome matches. They didn't stand out at all at the time, not for any good reasons anyway. HHH/HBK was half an hour of overblown lying around if I remember. Eddie/Chavo was a massive disappointment. The match was nothing special but I thought the build for Holly/Lesnar was solid and did a good job making Holly come off somewhat credible even if he wasn't a threat necessarily. The build made for some fun TV on Smackdown that month.

I loved the build to Brock/Holly. Classic revenge story that worked really well at a time when Smackdown was super fun to watch. The match was decent, maybe nothing special and the result was never in doubt but I always thought it was a great use of Holly and a cool, rare use of continuity from something that happened over a year prior.

Taker killing himself on the dive is the main reason the WM25 match is great. This was during the period when he was still viewed as invincible, so the shock from watching it live and legit wondering if he might have seriously injured himself was incredible. The timing of the spot was also perfect, capping off the tension-building first half of the match and bridging into the finishing stretch. It created a sense that anything could happen, which carried over into every near fall afterwards and gave the match a sense of drama that few matches following its "self-conscious epic" formula achieve. Well said and agreed. The near falls in that match were some of the closest ever at that point to seeming like the Streak might really end. Plus they went 30 minutes which was Taker's longest Mania match at that point and it stood out a lot on that show. The drama added tons to the match.

I don't think it will be this year but I'm still hoping to see Lex Luger inducted. For this year I'll hope for Sid, always wanted to see him go in.

Has wrestling really gotten so far away from its true purpose that fans have no idea what they are talking about anymore. Wrestling is about making money, not just about making a smart ass fan at home happy. You announce Bryan is making his return at the Rumble to start his quest to regain the title he never lost, from the beast who has destroyed everybody. That is how you make money. Not by surprising them and hope that they buy the next show, because they don't want to miss future surprises. Making Bryan a surprise participant in the Rumble is FUCKING DUMB! The only scenario you would do that is if he wasn't cleared medical until a few days before the show. I'm fine with either way of going about it, but I think the surprise idea comes from Cena's 2008 return which was perfectly executed and a similar scenario of former champ vacating due to injury that everyone thought would keep him out much longer only to come back early and win the Rumble in a shocker.

I don't think it was a lack of confidence in Miz that led to the Lawler speculation, just that the matches were kind of awesome, the story was good, and the crowd was hot for it so it made it all seem possible that King could've got a title run briefly there, especially since they stretched that feud out over months. I thought Miz was great in the role and played it excellently. Aside from the PPV matches with Orton and the Lawler feud, he had the really good falls count anywhere with Morrison and some solid TV matches against Bryan, Rey, Kofi, etc. After the title run, I loved the Alex Riley feud as well.

I think both are really great. I've favored Charlotte more as the best in NXT but that may just be her having more opportunities with longer matches. Sasha certainly is the best character-wise. Though when I think best female in the world, Ivelisse Velez springs to mind as she's someone I wish they would've kept when they had her. She'd be great in there with this group of NXT women now. I agree that Charlotte/Sasha can hit that Trish/Lita level if allowed, if ever there's been two since it's them. Both seem to be on another level compared to the main roster divas of the last several years. Still looking forward to Becky Lynch breaking out as well. Hoping for a long Becky/Charlotte on one of these NXT specials.

I am not even sure why they went all 'Extreme Rules' with it this year. I don't seem to remember them making EVERY match a gimmick match on the TLC PPVs in the past. In 2010 they did all gimmick matches except one (Santino/Kozlov vs Gabriel/Slater), using two of the same stips as they had LayCool vs Beth & Natalya and Orton/Miz both tables matches, Morrison/Sheamus and Kofi/Swagger/Ziggler both ladder matches, then Edge/Kane/Alberto/Rey in the TLC and headlined with Cena/Barrett chairs match. While last year they did the opposite and didn't do any of the T, L, or C and just left the one TLC match for Cena/Orton.

Agreed 100% Decent show tonight but what a flat ending.

Gail vs Taryn in TNA for me as far as really looking forward to it, though Charlotte/Natalya and Charlotte/Sasha from the NXT specials had me feeling similarly afterwards

Loved LOD 2k5 and marked out for their title win. Wish WWE would do more one more run for legends like they did around 05-06 with Animal, Tatanka, Jannetty, etc.

Good job, this was a fun read with some interesting possibilities.

I laughed out loud at "caca" when Alberto used that last year, came off hilariously over the top being unusual to hear on WWE tv.

Agreed, the last one they did for the feud in '09 was spectacular. Really put it over as a 2-3 year long feud.

I love Dan Severn, if only for his match against Tarzan Goto in IWA Japan. Dan Severn was awesome. Loved both he and Shamrock's time in WWE, wish Severn's was longer.

Great to see the reviews back!