The Chief

I’m gonna get it for this, but this is where they need somebody like Todd Pettengill. Come up with some corny slogans and advertising and push the hell out of it. Show a bunch of different types of network viewers and show how fun and awesome it is, families eating popcorn on the couch watching the Axl vs. Ian Rotten fued (just kidding, Cena vs. Rock) . ‘There’s all sorts of ways to watch the WWE Network!” “You’re not COOL unless you have the WWE NETWORK! You want to be cool, RIGHT???” Then you could show goofy little snippets of different categories of network viewer: The classic viewer: An older guy showing his son some Flair vs. Steamboat, Hogan vs. Andre, etc. The ADD viewer (this is me): the viewer who can’t decide what to watch so keeps jumping around after two minutes of watching something. “Ooo, Nitro is up now! Ooo, new legends House! Ooo, that Raw with Pillman and the gun! Ooo, the ECW where Sabu comes back!” The comedy viewer: Some goofballs going through the Shockmaster, Mantaur, Ding Dongs etc. The episode viewer (spoofing the Netflix commercial): A couple watching old Raws in order. The guy accidently spoils how Flair is no longer with the WWF and his girlfriend is pissed because they haven’t gotten to that Raw yet in their viewing together. The obsessive viewer: Some guy who’s watching Raw on his TV while he has Legends House on his tablet and Clash of the Champions on his phone. “What kind of viewer ARE YOU???” “There’s no wrong way to watch the Network!” And so on. And show them watching on a TELEVISION so people understand that this CAN be done.

JTG on his cell phone: “Uh, sorry Hunter, I’m going through a tunnel, can you call ba….sccchch….click” I’ll give some quick thoughts on each: Aksana: She looked extremely dangerous in the ring every time I saw her, messing up a lot of routine things. That elbow to Naomi’s eye socket was amateur and I knew her days were numbered after that. I don’t know how someone can possibly mess up a move that simple, but Aksana managed to. Naomi is very lucky that she can still see. You can say that it’s dumb that WWE needs every girl to be trained as a wrestler, but Aksana wasn’t very good as a valet either. Oh well. Brodus Clay: The dude put a lot into his gimmick, I’ll give him that. He moved OK for a fat guy, but I never felt he put enough OOMPH into his offense, which he would have needed for a heel run. Somebody get this guy some John Tenta tapes. Camacho: I’ve seen very little from him so it’s hard to call this a loss, but I saw potential. He looked pretty good on offense. He’s a low-risk guy that Jarrett or TNA could use. Curt Hawkins: He wasn’t bad at anything but he wasn’t very good at anything either, extremely bland. You always need job guys on the roster, but there’s other guys on the roster who are better at that. Drew McIntyre: This is exactly the kind of guy TNA needs to pick up. Great worker and he’s not even 30 yet. Has the “future of the business” gimmick ever worked for anybody besides Randy Orton? His push came to a screaming halt after his wife went nuts, which is unfortunate for him. If you follow Drew’s Twitter, you can tell he’s been unhappy for a while. I hope Drew doesn’t call it quits and goes somewhere to get rejuvenated. I would be very excited for a Drew TNA or NJPW run. Evan Bourne: He debuted at the wrong time. If he came along five years later, he would probably have held a singles title. He came in during the Randy Orton clone phase, so he was at least decently over for being different. If he came in with the Cesaro’s and Rollins’ of the world, we would be remembering Bourne a lot differently. I thought he was really good at a lot of little things that most flyer types ignore. Too bad he couldn’t talk. Jinder Mahal: Jinder’s role in 3MB could have been filled by anybody, I don’t think he was anything special so I’ll use this space to talk about 3MB. I legitimately enjoyed them whenever they were on. The Hornswoggle stuff was great fun and breathed new life into a stale character. I think there was more potential with the group other than the guys the three faces team-up against to prepare for the Wyatts or the Shield. The initial vignette was well put together, sadly they stopped putting effort into them right away. This could work out well for Heath, I always thought he was too good for the gimmick. Teddy Long: I’m sure this wasn’t a firing as much as a retirement in disguise, Teddy’s getting up there in years. Dude was always fun when he was on TV and it was refreshing to have a face authority character. I enjoyed the hell out of his manager run. My dream of Teddy managing the PTP’s into the Zeb/Heyman fued will sadly never happen now. Yoshi Tatsu: WWE never knows what to do with Japanese guys outside of comedy and it’s unfortunate. The language barrier was always going to be a ceiling for him however I do believe he was taking English classes. Here’s hoping the next Japanese guy they bring in is treated seriously and no “me no speaka no Engwish” shit.

please keep Heath Slater, please keep Heath Slater, please keep Heath Slater....

That's horrible. Kelly Kelly was the quintessential Johnny Ace hire and contributed absolutely nothing for so long. Kaitlyn smoked her in every category. I'm struggling to think of anybody who was on the roster for as long as Kelly Kelly and was equally useless.

I love all the ECW November Rain videos.

I just noticed Vickie Guerrero was on Raw, wasn't WrestleMania supposed to be it for her? I feel like this is the third or fourth time she's been reported as finishing up only to appear a couple weeks later...

A Savage documentary that will address the Stephanie rumors.....uh, where does Scott get this stuff from?

When did you think Jericho put all the pieces together and became a complete performer? Was Jericho the wrong guy to use as the first Undisputed Champion? Are there any Jericho matchups you would have liked to have seen over the years that didn't happen for whatever reason?

Taker isn't getting booed at this stage of his career.

Yes, for sure. It probably won't happen, but can you imagine Taker making his grand return, only to turn heel and destroy a fan fave like Daniel Bryan? Pretty sure there was talk from the Observer that Taker was hoping to face DB at some point. It might actually work, the idea that the streak ending caused Taker to descend into evil Ministry'esque madness. That sounds horrible, no way Taker works heel if he works at all.

I have no clue who they could put the belt on if it has to be a babyface. Ziggler actually just lost a qualifying match clean to Del Rio, so I don't think he's in the equation. Below Bryan, it's a big step down on the babyface side. Ambrose and Reigns are probably the most important after Bryan, but they're tied up in other things right now. After that, it's guys like Big E, Big Show, Cody/Dustin, RVD and Sheamus. I can't realistically see any of those guys as champ right now. So it will probably have to be Cena.

I'm an artist and a huge music fan, I actually think that's why I'm so drawn to wrestling.

Kozlov was built up for HHH in the fall of 2008, I don't think the Michaels match came until 2009.

Yes. Not to mention, better draw too. It's funny because if you travel out into the "regular" wrestling internet, most fans would immediately laugh at this and say Sting was better in every way because that is how they've been conditioned to think. Despite overwhelming evidence that Luger was much better in a lot of areas in a lot of timeframes. That's what's so cool about PWO.

Ron Simmons left ECW after the Hostile City Showdown in 1995, where was he until he signed with Vince? And the race overtones were definitely implied with Sunny and Faarooq, Sunny actually said that it is one of the only angles she flat out refused to do. I gues it was another attempt by Vince to create heat by playing up the OJ thing. And I'm still waiting for an all purpose Samoan portraying an Irish wrestler.

I'm not seeing Booker T. I just don't think his ringwork was ever up to that level. I'm aware there were plenty of guys who were given the chance that probably had less ability than Booker. I'm not really sure how to word it, but I always felt that you knew exactly what you were going to get with Booker T, there was a certain ceiling to his work. And I'm seeing a lot of guys mentioned here who were simply underrated. Wasn't the point of the thread guys who could have been THE guy?

Oh man, do I disagree with this. I really, really dig the current dynamic and I'm a little bummed they're rushing Bray back to TV so quick. A month off would do wonders for all of them. You've got Harper and Rowan as basically lunatics with nobody to guide them and to me that's so much more interesting. You can put over how these guys were dangerous before, but they're even worse now that they're lost and have nobody telling them what to do. You're setting up more storyline opportunities because when Bray comes back, he has to try to steer the ship in the right direction again. Plus I think Harper showed Monday night that he can talk on his own. You know the story about The Brood; the first time Edge was given the opportunity to talk, he seized his opportunity and impressed everyone backstage. I think Harper was put in a similar situation for a reason.

The simplest way I look at it is this: The saying goes "if you can't beat em, join em" not "if you can beat em, join em." Why would he want to join the losing team?

Really dumb swerve. The Shield kicked their assess at every opportunity, don't see what Rollins has to gain by joining HHH. Batista leaving put them into panic mode. They could have used another guy in that spot if they felt the need to.

Harper seems so much more natural then Wyatt, I liked his delivery a lot. Didn't feel manufactured at all. Got a feeling that was a test for him. Keep Bray away for a month, I wanna see these guys on their own.

Bo is so awkward in ring. I wish they could have given this gimmick to a better wrestler. I will say this, Bo has the weirdest looking face in the history of wrestling. I want to punch him every time I see him.

She's doing the exact same shtick, it just needs to be tweaked for a large crowd instead of the same fans at Full Sail. She hasn't been "terrible,"she hasn't really been anything. Giving her a fued would be a good start.

Why? I would want Emma to fued with someone to give her something to do.

Binge watching some 94-95 ECW TV on the network. I'm really digging how organically a lot of these angles flow together, it's something I don't think ECW gets enough credit for. It also highlights how awful Joey Styles was. For example, I've seen a lot of these matches in isolation on various compilations. I never realized how much backstory a lot of these matches have because Styles is so busy calling the moves he never bothers to tell the story. I've seen a few Cactus vs Sandman matches, but I never knew the fued started because Cactus pissed off Nancy by talking shit about Kevin Sullivan. ECW really benefits by watching the stuff in context, especially since most of the matches are not very good in isolation.

Curious where the Shield goes from here? They pretty much smoked Evolution in every possible way now. I do not think they should do individual pairings of these six.