The Chief

When was the last time they ran a huge angle at Mania? Seems like they usually save that stuff for the night after. I can't picture Rollins cashing in on PPV but I could totally see it the next night on Raw.

Mick Foley said in his book, and I'm paraphrasing, something about an older guy that Mick didn't think was worth anything that Vince was was paying generously. He mentioned it to Terry Funk and Funk said "Mick, sometimes Vince just likes to be nice." Was it ever confirmed who that was? Seems like that description could fit Sheik.

Honestly, I think Vince just has a soft spot for certain guys for reasons we will never fully understand. Look at Regal and how bad he fucked up his first run. Most guys like that would never get more than one chance. WCW ties, not a proven draw in the states, not a typical WWF look, serious drug issues. It's been well documented how much Vince helped him out. Maybe he just thought Sheiky Baby was just a funny guy to have around?

This Aubrey person is annoying as all hell, I had to turn it off halfway through. Sorry Will!

Cesaro & Kidd I feel is a safe bet. Bella win furthering Paige/AJ split Bryan wins, don't care NXT guy wins Battle Royal, thinking Neville. If not, Ryback. Realistically, Kane or Big Show. Rusev, but Cena is always a wild card at Mania so not sure Rollins seems like a safe bet Taker in an awful match Sting, match will be ok Brock wins and Reigns is booed out of the building.

I have had the same problem with on demand content for weeks now. For some reason it's much worse for older content, anything shot in HD doesn't stop nearly as much. The live stream is also fine, it's only content pre 2008 that skips, it's to the point where it's completely unwatchable. I've been back and forth with their customer service and they tell me they can't find the problem so I guess I'm fucked.

I dunno, I was in the prime of my viewing as a kid with this stuff so a lot of this is through rose colored glasses but I totally believed Owen could take Bret's belt since he was such a cheating sleazebag. Does Owen as a serious contender really bump business that much? I really don't think there was much they could do to pump up numbers in 1994.

Great show! Regarding the Owen situation at X, I’ve got a different opinion than you guys. I actually think it works much better for Owen’s character that they didn’t build him up going into this. Bret unintentionally buries Owen by not wanting to wrestle him. Bret’s reasoning was that he would never go to war with flesh and blood, but Owen took it as Bret didn’t want to stoop down to Owen’s level. Owen needed to be portrayed as a beneath guy for the angle to work. If they had Owen plowing through guys leading into this, you lose that context. Owen makes himself during the match by keeping up with Bret. Owen was always portrayed as a talented guy, but he was lacking the mean streak to be a top guy. Bret ignited that spark in Owen. He needed to debut that mean streak at Mania, Bret was the guy he hated. I don’t think it works as well if he debuts his mean streak on Savage or Tatanka or whoever. I’m not sure if all of that was done intentionally but I always dug it and thought it worked out perfect.

sorry, double post

I don't either, but I don't expect someone as green as Corbin getting a call up. Whoever it is will be a guy who is at least at the Itami level. I still think whoever it is gets cheered just due to the fact that the smarts think NXT is the best thing to happen to wrestling in years and even if it is Breeze he would be seen as a representation of that.

It's been officially announced that NXT is going to have a tournament to put somebody in the Andre Battle royal, don't think you guys touched on that. Curious as to your thoughts? I think whoever they send in, even if it's somebody like a Tyler Breeze, is going to have the smarts behind them 100%. I actually don't think it's the worst idea in the world to call a guy up that way as long as they look strong. Neville's story doesn't really have anywhere else to go in NXT so he's my pick to fill the spot. Is there any possibility that Joe shows up in that tournament and steamrolls his way through everyone to the trophy? That would definitely get the Monday morning people talking.

Has Triple H ever come up in the discussion when talking dream matches? Like, any dream match? Ever?

Always loved those airport quotes, I'm a mark for anything that makes wrestling seem bigger than it really is. I'm also a fan of people at the water cooler talking about having Viscera in their Royal Rumble office pool. Shit I've never seen in real life. It's ridiculous and I love it.

I hope they keep Rock as far away from him as humanly possible.

Link doesn't seem to be working for me? Edit, P2B link works. Thanks guys, looking forward to this

When was the last time Bray Wyatt even wrestled? I feel like he hasn't done anything in-ring on Raw since the Ambrose feud. Shouldn't he be killing guys left and right? Doesn't anybody booking this crap see a problem? You've got a guy whose biggest claim to fame is losing to John Cena and going 50/50 with washed up Chris Jericho going up against a guy who has been portrayed as an invincible legend for over 20 years. Shouldn't you be doing SOMETHING to at least create the illusion of a level playing field? It's like they have the end game all planned but have no clue how to get there so they just jump from start to finish without doing any of the necessary steps in between.

Rusev should just come out in a tank.

Foley was always seen as somehwat of a placeholder for Austin when he got the belt. That year's Mania he was involved in a midcard match with Big Show, but it did have main event implications. The winner got to referee the main event between Rock/Austin. He was retired in 2000, but got pulled out of retirement to do the Fatal 4-Way main event. Everything after that was booked as a special attraction. Chris Jericho never had a babyface run with the title. When he main evented against HHH in 2002 he was a heel. The next year he got a high-profile match with Michaels. Never occured to me that he never had a babyface run until you brought that up, kind of surprising in retrospect. They're booking Bryan pretty much exactly the same way they booked Benoit.

For fucks sake, WCW no longer exists...who cares if they get attention...they own fucking WCW!! If this is true, the issues run way deeper than I ever imagined. That guy is full of shit. Raw was really good in 1997 too, I wouldn't put any stock in that.

Bryan also said on that network special that when he was barely being used and left off the Mania card around 2011, he was miserable. So he does care to some extent.

I'm learning so much here, this is such a cool topic. Developmental has always fascinated me going back to reading PWI as a kid and wondering why WWF guys were working in other companies. Seriously, this is great. EDIT: wow, totally remember HWA as the WCW dumping ground. You would always hear about OVW online and in publications, but you almost never heard about what was going on in Heartland. Wasn't Kronik also assigned to Heartland after their PPV disaster?

I dressed as 1992 Shawn Michaels at a Halloween party and got laid after. Then I sold the costume on eBay for 400 dollars. It was awesome.

I don't think it's very smart keeping Lana away from Rusev, regardless of what she's doing. There were audible "We want Lana" chants last night. I was getting a Jeff Jarrett and Debra vibe, the crowd interpreted it as if Rusev was keeping her away. Lana has been great in her role, I would hate for WWE to get ideas and turn her face.

I just want Brock to keep the belt forever. Erick Rowan has been getting the living shit kicked out of him by Big Show for the past three months. Rowan has been on offense for maybe a combined 45 seconds in said three months. What was the point of this turn?

Anybody catch SmackDown? Clearly Mark Henry is the only one who can save WrestleMania at this stage. He injures Reigns and takes his spot against Brock. Everyone wins