bradhindsight

I feel like this is them trolling people. It's so deliberate, and I also can't see a scenario where they'd let her in the ring if that were the case.

The wrestling business has been cyclical for the past 100 years. There has been key indicators from a United States perspective as to why the wrestling business has boomed. The 1950s saw television become a household item for much of America. The last half of the 1990s provided the same sensation with the World Wide Web. The 1980s Rock N Wrestling boom period is a little more ambiguous without one key indicator overriding all others. The WWE narrative would say that this is the time that Vince brought wrestling out of smoky arenas and into the mainstream. This an obtuse, extreme description of the events but there is no doubt that the overall presentation of professional wrestling combined with the national expansion of Titan Sports was a huge catalyst for the notoriety of the promotion as a whole. One of the biggest forefront changes was the addition of theme music for every wrestler entrance. Entrance themes had been used effectively in the peak of World Class Championship Wrestling in the early 1980s as well as the music videos used to present young talent in Memphis. It became the norm with WWF for every wrestler to have a distinguishable theme song. This change in culture can’t be understated where by 1990, it seemed odd that Andre the Giant didn’t have any theme music. Theme music to this day remains one of the thriving identifiers of any professional wrestling event from WrestleMania to the smallest local indy. Other presentation aspects have come and gone and theme music has been updated with the ever-changing genres of mainstream music, but the lifeblood and purpose of the theme song remain the same. A great theme song acts as a sense of comfort that we know who this person about to come out is about and what is coming next inside the squared circle. – Chad Campbell The Place to Be Nation staff has come together to choose and rank 292 of the greatest pro wrestling theme songs of all time. The bottom 48 songs have been entered into groups of four for the play-in round. Please select just one song from each group to advance to round one. From there, 256 songs go into battle as we determine the single greatest wresting theme ever! Play-in rounds to get us to 256 songs and the main tournament: http://placetobenation.com/ptbns-greatest-wrestling-theme-song-tournament-play-in-round-pool-1-6/ http://placetobenation.com/ptbns-greatest-wrestling-theme-song-tournament-play-in-round-pool-7-12/

Who took the fall in the main?

So is this new Divas search what Vince meant by "Stay tuned" after the AJ/Steph thing? That wouldn't surprise me at all.

Not-so-subtle heeling: Kelly shouting out the right answers to the questions Dylan got incorrect in the final round.

Enjoyable O'Reilly/Joe match on TV this week. The consistent arm work and selling was nice. As much as I dislike Whitmer, I was entertained with his "new water boy" bit this week (no spoilers, yet).

I'll go in with little expectation (hoping for a singles match), but I am excited to see him live on night 2 in Philly.

Dave Musgrave watched a lot of wrestling over Mania weekend and PTBN has his reviews. First up - King of Indies Night 1 & 2 http://placetobenation.com/wrestlemania-weekend-recap-king-of-indies-2015-night-1-2

I'm honestly surprised, and it is kind of refreshing, that they aren't going to burn out Rollins/Reigns for the next four months - especially after Rollins pinned him on RAW before Mania.

Honest ask, why should she kayfabe show fear to Lesnar, her employee? He's not going to attack her.

You couldn't wait the three minutes? Would have been awesome if it was Joe, Dylan. Alas...

I'm with Childs (and Loss mentioned this too), the aura of the Undertaker was just gone. It's probably a combination of the streak being over, him not appearing on TV until now, and (as weird as it sounds) having his entrance in daylight. Was very pedestrian and didn't feel special at all.

They played a commercial for the new Terminator movie so I'm guessing there was some trade-offs to using their license.

I'm in the only one AA being weak camp but Fantastic brings up some solid points. He certainly no sold it after the pin and it was on par with a flash pin in that sense. I would have liked to see Rusev kick out AFTER that AA, but Cena get him again moments later. But then you factor in that Orton/Rollins already did the kicking out of finisher thing.

Doesn't matter - move on.

I'll say this about the main event, agree with Charles and Soup in how great it was - and somehow the commentary....helped? Such a foreign topic but all three guys were really good at putting over the small things Reigns was doing. Even Kevin Dunn with the replays (like the knee to Brock's face) did well.

One Jay singles match I did watch the other day was his title win against Kevin Steen in 2013. Shoe, I think you'll like this a good bit given the shoulder story that they did a good job being consistent with (and Jay sold the entire match). Steen worked almost like his current NXT style, very deliberate - this was not a go-go-go affair. I didn't love it, but the angle and overall booking was fine. ***

I thought last week's TV was great. I love that Dalton Castle can be a babyface in ROH, such a stark contract to how an act like that would be treated in WWE. I thought Lethal was near perfect in their match in helping Castle get over. Dijak in the House of Truth is interesting. I'm guessing they'll build that up with him eventually turning face against them. With Moose maybe they didn't want another guy fast-tracking on the same side of the ledger. I haven't seen a ton of singles Jay matches but similar to the 13th anniversary show, I thought he gave a ton to Jacobs instead of them telling the story about how resilient Jacobs is.

Kevin Kelly noted on his show this past week that he and Steve are voicing over commentary on Monday, so best case is Tuesday. For whatever reason (budget or what not), there isn't a commentary team there live.

Enjoying the Starrcade/Mania comparison show - about an hour in so far. Will - your work this week has been exemplary and is very much appreciated. GWW (which has it's own twitter!) is rocking.

It's a gigantic WrestleMania weekend preview in the newest Wrestling Culture podcast. Dave and Dylan cover Mania, Ring of Honor, WrestleCon, King of the Indies, the WWNlive shows and more: http://placetobenation.com/wrestling-culture-podcast-64-th…/

Weird how this happens when you record during normal human being activity hours

I finished up the Atlanta show last weekend. Really can't put over enough the wrestling you get for $11 there. Really fun show. I'm in the AJ/Fish boat over AJ/ACH. Even the Whitmer/Page bullying tag match to open was great. Heckuva a card. Definitely seek it out. I will note, I'm a little more down on Caprice doing commentary during the AJ match than Shoe. It was certainly different as KK tends to sit out (by design) and let the action speak for itself. Thought CC was a bit much but didn't take away any enjoyment from the match.

I'm honestly surprised both of them could pass the WWE physical. I'm happy for them but figured concussions, etc would hold them back.

Where? How? Is it on PS3/4, Roku, etc.? If not, you can't compare them to WWE Network or WWE's presence on Hulu. The latter gives mainstream audiences and casual fans access to WWE. TNA and ROH absolutely need a presence on Hulu or Netflix. The fact that they seemingly haven't pursued such an avenue is mind-boggling to me. My comment was in regards to their exposure; while only 40% of markets show their TV - everyone can stream it for free on their site. I don't know the requirements or contracts involved with Hulu, and I don't disagree - seems like there is no downside. I don't know if Sinclair has an issue there. Is Lucha Underground on Hulu? Is anyone outside NXT?