DMJ

My unsubstantiated theory has always been that the plan was to turn Charlotte heel sometime (6-9 months) after she moved SmackDown and this would ultimately have led to Becky/Charlotte - but a number of things happened that put the kibosh in it: the fact that 2016/17 saw multiple "best friend break-up" angles that probably made them feel like it would be too "samey" to do pull the trigger on a Charlotte heel turn, the general fickleness of Creative , the success of Asuka in NXT leading to her being "pencilled in" to face Charlotte at Mania, and even the signing of Rousey (which, despite her being on RAW, seems to have made the booking of SmackDown's Women's Division also a bit screwy). I've just always been of the probably-false opinion that they see money in a Becky/Charlotte program, but keep pushing it off because other flashy, bright "toys" suddenly appear and take their attention away from it.

Don't mean to be flippant, but... - Dave's reviews are subjective and while I also had 3 matches at 3-or-more stars, I'd also add that not a single match went to 4 stars. I don't deal with quarter stars, but the key difference, to me, between a 3.5 and a 4-star match is that "must see" quality or "This could be a WWE MOTY" or "This match is worth recommending." I think AJ/Rusev was the closest, but to me, the lack of real heat, suspense, or heel/face dynamic kept it from being a "must see" match. If you paid $70+ to see a show, I think you have every right to expect at least one "must see" match. - That Rollins/Ziggler match was so flawed in so many ways. It left a real bad taste in fans' mouths. - Jeff Hardy is one of the most over acts the WWE has, warranted or not. The live crowds love the guy. I'm guessing there was a sizable part of that audience that, when they see one of their favorites advertised, want to see him wrestle - not take two nut shots. We might take Jeff Hardy for granted here, but imagine if Daniel Bryan was booked this way. People would be losing their shit. Hell, you don't even have to imagine that hard: it happened to Daniel Bryan at a WrestleMania when he was a much lesser star and people were still livid. - "The return of their biggest star in a hot angle"? I don't think you're referring to Orton, so you must be referring to Rousey - who was advertised. Its not like her return/involvement was this unexpected huge moment. It was fine, it was good, it delivered (though, I'd argue that having Mickie James in high heels really hurt how fluid their physical interactions were), and I haven't read too many complaints about that aspect of the show. Like the Owens bump, it was probably a highlight for most fans - but the peaks of this show just weren't high enough to cancel out the lows. Now, compare that to last year's B-PPV Great Balls of Fire, which ended up being one of the better shows of the year. On paper, the crowd wasn't that much better - but it delivered some things that this show didn't. It featured a 30-minute Ironman Match (Cesaro & Sheamus vs. The Hardys) that didn't really offer anything new, but because it stuck to a tried-and-true formula, it connected with the crowd and ended with a hot 5-6 minute stretch. Bliss and Banks had a good physical match. There was some filler (Wyatt/Rollins, Miz/Ambrose), sure, but there was also the incredibly fun Reigns/Strowman match. It was a "must see" because of the insanity of it all. There was still some unhappiness (the crowd chanted "We Want Balor!" during the impromptu Hawkins/Slater match), but overall, that match was really entertaining. Then, in the main, you had a match that was maybe too short to be called truly great, but was no less than good - I had it 3.5, borderline 4 stars just because of the crowd and physicality. What did Great Balls have that Extreme Rules didn't? Well-paced card, a healthy mix of crowd-pleasing finishes and storyline-furthering ones, all the advertised stars actually wrestling...I don't think the WWE fans are impossible to please, I think Extreme Rules was a show that felt irrelevant as it was happening and offered few reasons for fans, especially in attendance, to get up and cheer.

Going to post my full review on my blog (Kwang The Blog), but was particularly interested in others' feelings about this match. Let's discuss! Seth Rollins vs. Dolph Ziggler in a 30-Minute Ironman Match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship. Going into this, critics and fans were somewhat split - on the one hand, Seth Rollins has been a roll, having great matches on TV and drawing the best crowd responses of his career. Ziggler, meanwhile, is almost his perfect physical foil and his partnership with Drew McIntyre has helped revitalized a very stale character (the less we say about the "music-less entrance" gimmick the better). On the other hand, Rollins and Ziggler have wrestled multiple times in the past month, including having a 25+ minute match on RAW not too long ago. Was the audience really clamoring for a third match? Rollins came out and scored two pinfalls in relatively rapid succession - which, in most cases, I would enjoy - but here, it was wholly inconsistent with the rest of their feud (where each guy has had to bust out increasingly risky and devastating moves to get even a single fall). Up 2-0, Rollins started playing to the crowd a bit, mocking Ziggler by stomping his foot and calling for a superkick (or another Curb Stomp?). When Rollins was a heel, his offense elicited babyface reactions, so now that he's actually getting some momentum as a babyface he figured he should heel it up a little? McIntyre came in at this point and, though he cost Ziggler another fall, he destroyed The Architect to the point that The Show Off was able to win back two of the falls. By this point, though, the story of the match became the crowd's general indifference. Early in the match, a vocal minority of the crowd was cracking each other up by counting down the seconds for each passing minute and making the buzzer sound ala the Royal Rumble. By minute 15, though, that was all that most of crowd seemed to care about. Was it insulting to the performers? Definitely...but to blame the fans for not getting into the match is to ignore the WWE's own role in making it happen (not to mention Rollins and Ziggler and the agents themselves, who clearly had an idea of the story they wanted to tell, but just as clearly didn't have the right idea of what match the crowd would want). 4+ hour shows are too long and the burnout factor is nothing new. There may have been fans expecting Hulk Hogan, disappointed that the B-show they bought tickets for ended up being the B-show they bought tickets for. There may have been fans expecting an actual US Title Match (Jeff Hardy has a fan base, folks). The crowd's patience for "non-moments" had worn thin by the end of the show to the point that a laborious RAW rematch just wasn't going to cut it. Rollins and Ziggler worked hard for 30 minutes, but there was a disconnect between the match they were selling and the match the majority of the crowd was hoping to see as the culmination of the show entitled "Extreme Rules." As anyone could've predicted, there was suspense in the final few minutes of the match, but the clock earned it - not the competitors. That's not to say there weren't individual moments of quality action (including McIntyre's impressive beatdown), but as a whole, it felt like a sampler of, not an improvement on, their other two televised matches from this summer. A disappointing, disjointed match that, on another show, in front of a different crowd, may have inspired "This is Awesome" chants, but wouldn't deserve that praise any more than it deserved the ire it received. (3/5)

This is the same line of thought that made someone think, "Seth Rollins is so over, we can have him face Dolph Ziggler in two 25+ minute matches within 3 weeks, one on cable and one on the Network, and they'll definitely be on the edge of their seat for all 1800 seconds!" The only guy I see getting cheered for pinning Brock at SummerSlam (that is also within the realm of possibility) would be Braun.

I don't follow MMA, but my thoughts/questions are this: - Is Cormier a draw the level of a McGregor, Rousey, or Lesnar? If not, is this potentially Dana White's attempt to make him that elusive star UFC needs right now by pushing him up against the more well-known Lesnar, who, by the little I've read, is perceived to be the lesser fighter in 2018? - On Vince's side, is it possible that he is taking the gamble that Lesnar somehow wins the UFC Championship and then he'd have not only the WWE Universal Champion but also the UFC Champion under contract? That he sees this, even if it is a longshot, to be a risk worth taking because of how much it could mean for a WrestleMania? For the company's big return to broadcast TV? It seems ludicrous to take that risk for a number of reasons, but its hard to deny that while everyone and their mother complain about Vince's "boner" for Roman Reigns, its been Brock Lesnar he's been unwilling to move out of the main event for the past 3 years. - Everyone's been talking about how Lesnar's involvement in UFC will preclude him from appearing/wrestling on WWE TV. Why? How long is your typical UFC training camp? 6 weeks? From what I read, the earliest he can fight in UFC is January. In 2017, Lesnar wrestled at both the Great Balls of Fire and No Mercy shows (not to mention multiple house shows), which suggests to me that while everyone is pointing to Lesnar only wrestling at major shows like SummerSlam or Survivor Series, its just as reasonable to think he could wrestle (and drop the title) in September or October. So, how much does him re-entering the USADA pool really effect his WWE career before, say, December (if he is in fact competing in UFC in January)?

Was watching some WCW 2000 as part of my review blog (Kwang The Blog) and I've noticed that Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli, considering his experience level, is not actually that terrible. I was curious about what people thought of his WWE run (01'-04') and saw some mentioning of him as a guy that was somewhat underrated as he had, synthetically or not, an impressive physique and at one point was even able to press slam Rikishi? On his wiki page, there's even mention that towards the end of his run when he was a Heat regular, he was turned face because the crowds were getting behind him. So, what's the deal with this cat? What's the general consensus on his Rellik stuff? Is this a guy who could've been a bigger star in the WWE?

Not to defend Cass, but did Bryan re-sign yet? I subscribe to the idea (hope) that the real reason they're not rushing into Bryan/Miz or Bryan/AJ is because he still hasn't signed a long-term deal. And, thus, when he does, they will push him to the top of SmackDown. That being said, I read elsewhere that Cass was upset about losing to Bryan at two PPVs in a row (they cited Bryan Alvarez but I don't know if that's accurate). There was also a somewhat silly rumor about Cass having heat with "the boys" because of Pro-Trump views. Of course, the most common reason being cited now goes back to him manhandling an extra when he was told not to twice by agents and supposedly Vince himself. The timing is certainly interesting and I'm curious if he'll be as eager to "burn the bridge" as Enzo was. Out of morbid curiosity, I'm hoping that he does because I'd really love to learn what the final straw was in his perspective (and then, when someone in the WWE ultimately tweets a response, learn what the company's final straw was). Maybe Corey Graves can weigh in?

I couldn't really figure anywhere else to post this thought (aside from "Comments That Don't Warrant A Thread"), but felt like it could belong here just as much... Curt Hennig is still really good in 99'-00'. Not good enough in those years for this give him the edge over Bret in my personal faves list, but enough to give him more consideration in the grand scheme of longevity and range. Now, when I mention "range," I'm not talking heel/face (I believe Bret was a better heel than Hennig was a face if we're just talking WWE & WCW, which is what I'm doing). The range I'm referring to is when it comes to positioning - from midcard to main to midcard again to lower midcard. Hennig, in 99'-00', is just the perfect vet - kinda like how Goldust quietly added to his legacy with his ECW run just by being so dependably good in getting a basic match over. The West Texas Rednecks gimmick isn't a main event-caliber gimmick, but damn if it wasn't entertaining. I'd also note that, of the three, Hennig was clearly the best worker of the group, even with Kendall being almost a decade younger. I just watched his match with Shawn Stasiak from Slamboree 2000 too, and, man, he just does every little thing right and the match gets over. The crowd is hotter for this straight-up, no-frills wrestling match than I thought any Russo & Bischoff Era WCW match would ever deserve, let alone one featuring Shawn Stasiak. I know WCW's roster was pretty depleted by mid-00, but even in such a limited role, I don't think it'd be too crazy to say 40-year old Curt Hennig was still a top 10 worker in the company.

Graves airing this dirty laundry on Twitter isn't a great look, but if this is a shoot, I can understand the feeling of betrayal. To put it in some context, Bret Hart had some pretty legit reasons to be upset with the WWE by 2000, but I never got the sense that he cut himself off of friendships with "the boys" (like Austin, for example) just because they continued to work with the WWE. I'm sure he had mixed feelings about Owen staying in the WWE in 98', but based on his book, it sounds like they remained close and probably just avoided talking about the business as much as they could. And I bring up Bret because he might be the poster boy, warranted or not, for being the "Bitter Ex-WWE Guy" (even years after returning to the fold). So, yeah, CM Punk getting upset with Colt Cabana about benign visits to the WWE locker room or refusing to remain cordial with anyone who works for the WWE is kinda lame. You can take the moral high ground and regard WWE as an evil company without necessarily painting every one of their employe - err, independent contractors - as equally guilty. Its the WWE, not the Nazi Party. I mean, I don't like what Jimmy Johns stands for, but if a close friend started working there because he loves sandwich-making, has a family to support, and is going to get paid there much better than he would making sandwiches for local/independent sandwich shops, I think I could separate our friendship from his employer's awful policies/politics.

Mark me down for "I'll believe when I see it." I don't think they release the figures, but I'd be super curious to see what the Network viewership for the Greatest Royal Rumble was. I'm going to wager that it under-performed - that while it was a hugely profitable live event, the actual number of Network views was considerably lesser than one would expect considering this was a supercard featuring a Reigns/Lesnar cage match, an Undertaker match, Cena vs. Triple H, and a Royal Rumble too. Its proximity to WrestleMania kept me from watching it (I was just too burned out to care about another 4+ hour show) and I don't think I was alone in that. Then again, if Lesnar/Reigns had been a fantastic match (and I thought the first 5-7 minutes were fantastic) with a better finish, I don't think I would've felt as indifferent. If they do go ahead with Lesnar/Reigns, I wouldn't discount Money In The Bank shenanigans to rear their head again. I'm also going to just throw this out there - with Rollins gaining steam and Ambrose potentially being ready for a return, I wouldn't be surprised they ran some sort of Lesnar vs. The Shield match (essentially a 4-way for the title) that would ultimately lead to The Shield feuding among themselves over the gold (with Ambrose probably playing the heel ultimately).

Dude, the pre-show started 2 hours ago. You're not tuned in to the Network yet? You're gonna miss the best friggin' match on the whole card (205 Live Guy vs. Some Other 205 Live Guy in a Quarter-Filled Stadium match)! Guess you're not a real wrestling fan.

I'm kind of in the dark here - what exactly is Rollins doing that the guys in developmental are being told not to do? Wasn't the common knock against Rollins that, as a heel, his offense was too flashy, but now that he's a face, its fine? As someone who only watches the PPVs (over the course of several days because who has time for these death marches?), I've definitely missed the Seth Rollins turnaround story. His match at Mania was okay - better than average even - but I thought it was more like when your lead-off hitter gets a single at the top of the 1st. They accomplished what they needed to. It was a good start to the show. The Rollins/Miz match at Backlash wasn't bad either, but maybe because I haven't been on board for Rollins' recent RAW run, I wasn't drawn in the way others were. Again, it was an above average match, but I think it sits squarely in that 3-3.5 star range (good not great) and I didn't really see anything new out of Rollins. Also, not to be too snarky, but as I don't watch RAW, I know I must've missed the episode where we learned what a Seth Rollins is. Is he still the Architect? What does "Monday Night Rollins" mean more than just being a pun? Does he have a new motivation? Just seems to me that Rollins being the top babyface on RAW has happened by default more than by anything he's done to expand his character based on the admittedly limited amount of the "new Rollins" I've seen. No kidding aside, what am I missing?

I just read the deal is 5 years of SmackDown for $1 Billion and that it will air on Fridays on Fox. Interestingly, Fox's Friday Night line-up has been the topic of some discussion recently as they announced they were reviving the cancelled ABC sitcom Last Man Standing to anchor their new Friday night comedy block. Somewhat odd about this decision is that, when the show initially started in 2011, Tim Allen was fairly outspoken about how Friday evening was a relative "death slot" compared to the prime real estate that Home Improvement and other sitcoms had in the "sitcom boom" era of the 90s. 20 years later, competition/reality shows and a handful of ultra-successful dramas have taken over the spaces that used to be held by forgettable sitcoms like Suddenly Susan. Tim Allen's right-leaning vehicle came off like a relic. But then Roseanne happened and TV execs realized there is still a market for family comedies. I wouldn't be surprised if, when SmackDown comes to Fox in 2019, they reshuffle where Last Man Standing resides - especially if it does Roseanne-like numbers and can actually challenge the "hipper" comedies that NBC offers. Another question remains, though - will SmackDown remain live or return to a taped format? And what happens when/if the ratings dip well below the 2.5 million weekly viewers they're averaging now?

The more that comes out about the Cena/Nikki Bella split, the more it feels like this is all a work. Anyone else getting that feeling?

I'm hoping that this segment won't be what the actual storyline is build up around and this is just the WWE doing "See, When The Cameras Are Off, We're All Actually Friends!" shit because it was at the NBC Upfronts (there's also a pic of her hugging Steph and Triple H from Ronda's Instagram out there). Now, to be sure, this sort of crap does and should bother fans, but I'd still be really surprised if they went out of their way to air this on RAW (unless they already have?) just because that would be going too, too far. I could see them doing something similar on RAW where Nia makes the challenge and Ronda hesitantly accepts, but I sincerely hope it will not end with the two of them skipping up the ramp like Laverne & Shirley the way this video did. They don't have to rush into a blood feud or anything and I'm not even sure you need someone to turn heel, but you have a month to build to this match and there's no reason it can't be good-to-great.

I know he's not really in the running for longest, but I'm curious to know how Dustin Rhodes would fare for those of you more knowledgable about exact dates of his really good/great matches.

In a funny way, that's one of the great ironies of this whole Reigns debacle. There have been times, even as recently as this past Sunday, where the booking seems to overcompensate based on what is expected to happen rather than what the reality is. Like, let's have Samoa Joe troll the crowd with submissions to make sure he doesn't get cheered over Reigns, when if you would've just let them go out there and have the kind of hard-hitting matches they've had on RAW a couple times, at least a third of the crowd is going to pop for Reigns. Instead, 100% of the crowd shat on both guys. At WM31, they expected Reigns to get booed, so they book Rollins as a "crowd-pleasing" spoiler. The reality was that Reigns came off great and at least half of the audience was cheering him on. And even if it was less than half, the audience noise evaporated in the dome anyway. This year, same thing. Reigns and Lesnar are putting on a great match for about 5-6 minutes - but, for some reason, they decided they couldn't just let Reigns win a competitive match cleanly, so they have Lesnar go Suplex City mode and hits a series of F-5s that Reigns still kicks out of. Then, its needless blood too. All of the nonsense to do what? Make Reigns look tough? He'd look tougher and earn more of the crowd's respect just winning a regular hard-fought match! I know there's even more examples out there too.

- I'm thinking Ruby Riot's match with Charlotte had an effect too. I know its not saying that much when you look at the rest of the card, but it was basically the Match of the Night at Fastlane. On my blog I gave that match and the main event (a 6-way involving Cena, AJ, and others) both 3.5 stars, but if you ask me today which match I'd rather go back and watch, I'm definitely going with Riot/Charlotte. The WWE has had a pretty solid run of multi-man matches over the past 2-3 years, so its almost not special anymore when they get the formula right again - but Charlotte's babyface run has had so few memorable matches that it makes the one with Riot stand out as maybe the best match she had pre-Asuka of her whole SmackDown career. - The first Lashley video definitely hypes him as a big deal and the amateur wrestling and MMA footage is 100% a nod to Lesnar. I think the plan is to heat Lashley up, its just typical WWE nonsense where Vince almost seems to want to bury a guy to see if they can overcome the bad booking instead of just, y'know, playing to a talent's strength. Like how they had Lesnar lose his first match back for no reason. Or, after investing months into Ryback, had him do a clean job for Mark Henry at WM29 for no reason. Or pretty much everything they did with Daniel Bryan between September 2013 and January 2014. I'm sure there's other examples too. That being said, its going to take work to make him a credible main eventer - but I predict he'll be steamrolling through guys soon enough and may even get a W over Reigns. The lingering question I have is where Braun fits in.

I went very high on Lesnar on my GWE list, but I must say, his last few years have really tarnished him to me. Which is kind of a weird stance to have too when you consider how high Flair, for example, ranked despite being in quite a few stinkers by the end of WCW. Maybe the difference is that Flair was at least trying and Lesnar almost seems to be actively not trying? In other words, with Flair post-96', you can see that he still desperately wants to put on consistently great performances but can't, while with Lesnar, he doesn't seem at all interested in being consistently great even though he still could be.

I feel like this has been lost in the conversation. While drawing houses and TV ratings are great metrics related to business, I don't think its a total slam dunk that more people knew/recognized Jeff Hardy in 2008 than Daniel Bryan in 2014. Hardy was over, sold a ton of merch (though there's also been discussion here and elsewhere regarding why Bryan's merch didn't fly off the shelves), and obviously, the Hardys as a team being a big deal from 99' through 01' gives him the edge of being more known by folks who stopped watching after the Attitude Era...but Daniel Bryan's Yes Chant crossed over into other sports during a time when pro-wrestling actually began to get respectable and respectful coverage by mainstream sports sites/companies. The ubiquitousness of both meme and nerd culture in 2014 compared to even 08' also leans things towards Daniel Bryan as he, at the peak of his popularity, was hip in a way that Hardy (and even Cena) never were. Sorry, JNCO pants, bright colored belts, and a tank top was never a cool look anywhere at any time in history. Throw in the "What's Real?/What's An Angle?" story bringing more buzz to the company than Hardy, for all his popularity, never did in any of his angles and I think the scales are much more even than some are suggesting. I mean, how many USA Today articles was Hardy the subject of?

There is photographic evidence that the Bruise Cruise happened (google it - well worth your time), but I'd really love to read/hear an interview with someone who attended. People have requested the same on reddit, and so far, no one has responded. C'mon, PWOers, one of us nerds must know somebody who got drunk with Bobby Eaton in the tropics!

I'd have to re-listen to it, but it now makes his interview with Chris Hardwick even more interesting. Towards the end he talked about the decision of whether or not to have kids and, at the time, I interpreted what he said as being that he was leaning towards having kids, but now that I recall, it was kind of an open-ended response.

I liked the segment and thought it was one of a handful of really smart production/booking decisions that helped the show. The show didn't need a big return between Nak's heel turn and the main event. It needed a palate cleanser and Braun going into the crowd provided that. The match was what was it was and I understand why some, like Austin on his podcast, criticized the treatment of The Bar. Obviously, it didn't help that Braun just handed over the titles the next night either. But on WrestleMania night, that segment was designed to provide lighthearted entertainment and I thought it did it well. Long-term, this is not the type of stuff I want to see Braun do every week and I certainly don't want to watch entire PPVs where every segment is treated with cartoonish/"Anything Can Happen!" zaniness, but on a 5-hour show? It has its place. Similarly, I really respected the execution of the SmackDown Tag Titles Match (and I'm sure The Bar would've preferred to be in the Usos role for that too). Now, it wasn't a "good" match at all, but boy did it accomplish what it needed to. The New Day got their entrance (which is really all the "WrestleMania moment" they need), the Bludgeon Brothers got to look dominant, and the Usos dropped the titles without really dropping the titles because the match was so brief and positioned as such a bathroom break that nobody is going to remember that loss. It was practically a phantom title loss so The Usos didn't suffer anything from it. Plus, if you were paying attention and not using the opportunity to use the restroom or grab another plate of snacks, you actually got a decent 4-5 minutes of action. It was far better than the US Title Match where somehow all 4 guys came out of it looking worse for having been involved.

On my review blog, I'm going to have to preface this entire show with a brief blurb about how formative this show was for me as a kid. I was 7-and-a-1/2 when this aired and my older brother taped it on our family VCR. Over the next 5-6 years, I would put this show on countless times, often when I was playing with my toys (GI Joes that I used as wrestlers in my original WWF ring with only one rope [the top and bottom long gone] in a fantasy fed that I kept track of in a notebook and built up with PPVs and everything). By the time I was 15, I was well aware that I was too old to be doing this, but how could I drop my fed when The Scavenger [the Zangief figure from the Street Fighter line] had finally earned the right to face Colonel Kill for the title at MegaBrawl? Anyway, even watching this back today, I couldn't help but enjoy it. Is Nikita great? Nope, but, man, Sting is. His selling, as overwrought as it may be to some, brought me back to being that 7 year old kid. They stretch maybe 4 minutes of action to twice that and I love how Sting continuously sells but never "dies" as Steve Austin might describe it. Its this kind of performance that makes it possible to draw a line from what Sting did in the early 90s to what Cena did in the 00s, letting everything register but constantly looking like all he needs is a chance to catch a breath and he'll be right back into this match. Of the other matches I watched dozens of times between the ages of 7 and 13, matches that I watched and re-watched on self-recorded VHS tapes (WrestleMania VII, Havoc 91', SummerSlam 91'), this one is probably in the upper tier of that very limited and admittedly weak set. Compared to the entirety of wrestling, its shit - but when you're a kid and a Sting fan, this match was awesome.

With Ronda on the roster, I think its a real possibility. In the past, I could see there being some hesitation about filling an 8,000+ venue, but now, in a big marketplace with the right card (I'm thinking Asuka vs. Rousey, Charlotte vs. Becky, Nia vs. Bliss, Sasha vs. Bayley, IIConics vs. Naomi & Nikki just to spitball), those tickets will sell just fine.