DMJ

Just watched this for the first time.Pretty awful stuff. Someone posted, I think in the GWE forum, that Hall is a guy that's been in some good (even great) matches but never a match where you say, "That was great because of Scott Hall." This is a bad match that is only semi-decent because of Hall, though. He's over and his prat falls and selling are fun. I might have mentioned it on here or just in my blog but Dusty in the nWo was such a shit idea. Not just because he was WCWs biggest cheerleader. Not just because the nWo already had valet/manager types in Bischoff, Liz, and Vincent. But because Dusty Rhodes in 1998 was not cool. Hall and Nash were hip - they wore their bandanas like Tupac and winked at the camera and called Zybysko a dinosaur and it was that attitude that may them appeal to 14 year olds. Dusty was not cool to any 14 year old in 1998. They let Dad hang out at the high school beer bash with Hogan and it was funny because Dad/Hogan went over the top with his new gimmick, but the fat, lisping Grandpa wearing Wranglers made no sense. What did they kayfabe gain from having him around? Bischoff was the nerd they let in because he had power. Vincent they let hang around because he was the bagman. Ted DiBiase was the money. Nick Patrick could help them cheat. What could Dusty do for them except help them beat Zybysko? Just so stupid to me.

Not worth being on the list, but as long as we're veering off into other guys that had really good matches with Rey, I'd put Cody Rhodes up there. Its the only match from WM27 I think I'd ever want to rewatch, though, I'll admit to not watching anything from that show since it happened.

Damn. I'm sure all the Shawn haters would be against this and I'm not even the world's biggest HBK fan, but I'd definitely loved to see that match-up. I doubt it happens, though, just cuz if Michaels wasn't coming back to fight Daniel Bryan, I'm not sure what would entice him to come back and fight AJ.

Mick's right. Based on fan response, the fans sometimes decide a woman flashing her chest in Section 137B is the main event - which is as it should be?

https://www.facebook.com/RealMickFoley/photos/a.150133228350157.28288.126269440736536/1440544925975641/?type=3 (includes picture) They'll "main event" like Lesnar/Ambrose "main evented" Wrestlemania, I reckon.

Is Paige still on Total Divas? I think she is. I'm also thinking that there's probably contractual stuff with E! that prevents her from filming another show. I only mention this because, if I was Bravo or really any other reality-centric channel, I'd be all over this shit. A reality TV show about this couple, her family, his ex-wife, their relationship with the WWE...I mean, honestly, there is not a single aspect of this story that isn't ridiculous drama.

SDL being on a hamster wheel with AJ/Ambrose and Ziggler/Miz heading into third rounds seems a bit tedious to me. Ziggler really needed to lose on Sunday (and come back at Rumble) and, playing Monday morning QB, considering the big main event at Survivor Series, you really could've run AJ/Kane with Bryan using his "pull" to make his old partner the number one contender (Ofcourse, this would go against the idea that Kane kayfabe ended Bryan's title reign in 2014, but since when does storyline continuity ever come into play with Kane?). Miz fending off midcard challengers or heading up a mixed Survivors team with Maryse and Usos against Swagger, Lynch, and Hyoe Bros would've been okay with me and could've led to some easy booking (Miz vs. Ryder, Maryse vs. Lynch, etc. aren't MOTYs but they would be fine as fun TV filler)

Same world class care they gave Punk? This whole situation is a dumpster fire. What I don't get is what the WWE has to gain by keeping/lose by releasing Paige. She's been off TV so long that her absence means nothing to the casual viewers. Last I checked, TNA, ROH, and LU were not even competition. I know she was popular once, but I'm willing to bet that between Bayley, Becky, Sasha, and even Charlotte, the Divas Revolution talent has made her irrelevant in terms of revenue anyway. Just release her and call it a friggin day. The WWE just looks petty doing this shit.

I'm not opposed to running Ziggler/Miz last, but it does seem a bit silly to open the show with the World Title match. Considering the ratings that the debate will draw and, according to Lance Storm's twitter (in another forum someone mentioned it, but i didn't check myself), Cena needing to make it somewhere on Monday morning, and the recent buzz around the Network changing into a tiered system, I actually think this is a fantastic opportunity for the WWE to really see if, promised what is likely to be the Match of the Night as your opener, more subscribers are actually gonna tune in live rather than watch later. I know I will be for the first time since Mania. (Of course, after the opener, I'll proceed to not watch the rest of the show and finish it Monday or Tuesday afternoon) I'd also add that this set-up will give Wyatt/Orton a better shot of getting a big reaction. Whenever Cena's been put in the middle of a show (like SummerSlam or the 2015 TLC&S), he's basically killed the crowd because nobody can really follow his act. Putting him on early might help because, even though I'm still guessing he'll get the biggest reaction of the show, the crowd will have more than enough time to get back into the show via Wyatt/Orton (I'm guessing that'll go on around 10:10) and Ziggler/Miz (which should go on around 10:30, right as the debate wraps up).

Anyone else hear the podcast with the blogger obsessed with Attitude Era? One of my least favorite eps, and I usually love Austin's show. I'm definitely jealous that this fan got to shoot the shit with Austin for 35 minutes, but it would sting less if he'd had any comments or questions that were actually thought provoking. His opinions weren't offensive or anything, just not interesting.

I'd agree. With Sheamus, you can look as recently as last year and say he was getting pushed above how over he was. With Miz, you have maybe the most consistent heat magnet in the company but the dude hasn't even sniffed a main event push since 2011. It's absurd that he wasn't at least put up against Ambrose during Ambrose's meh title reign this summer. Miz would have been a great opponent and would've made Ambrose seem more popular than he is, an area that was woefully exposed by how little anyone cared about Dean's SummerSlam match and how much AJ was cheered in their match last month.

I'm guessing/hoping that this will lead to Ziggler taken off TV till the Rumble. There's simply no reason for him to be around until then. Him being gone for good doesn't sound realistic, but 2 and a half months? Doable. I also plan on eventually writing a whole peice about how Ziggler has terrible luck when it comes to heel/face timing. For example, right now, AJ could really use another over babyface to feud with and there was a time when Ziggler could've been that guy...but he's not nearly as over as he once was and, based on his actions over the past year, he seemed to be inching towards a heel turn more than another hot babyface run. Of course, both RAW and SD are kind of chock full of heels right now so turning him won't help him a bit right now.

Just posted my review over on my blog. As others said - not a terrible show (in fact, I don't think there was an outright bad match on the card), but just not one I'd consider worth sitting through, especially if you're someone who likes their wrestling with clear winners and losers and clear heroes and villains.

I'm a bit of a Fox mark, but I also had this at slightly over 2-stars. With Fox, I just feel like, heel or face, she carries herself in the ring as if winning and losing matters and while she knows she's not the most "gifted" athlete, she's scrappy and capable. Her Scissors Kick is rarely pretty and her forearms don't always connect with the right part of a person's head - but that almost makes me love her more because, in a real life, not every jab connects with the jaw and not every kick to the gut hits the exact right spot of the midsection (for example, Fox's Scissors Kick doesn't always hit the intended back-of-the-neck target, but she hits the move with enough force that you know, wherever it lands, it doesn't feel good). Nia Jax, meanwhile, is as good in her role as one could ask, especially considering that according to Wiki, she's only been wrestling for 2-3 years. Good "monster" selling, more than sufficient offense, and seems to know the fundamentals well enough to hang with more experienced grapplers like Fox and Bayley.

I wouldn't be surprised if ADR edges him out on PPV main events (Rey's biggest main event run was probably his 06 reign during the brand split when Cena routinely headlined the co-brand shows like Mania 22), but there's also Reys feuds with Eddie in 05, Jericho in 09(?), his debut bout against Angle, his tag run with Edge, even his rivalries with Cody Rhodes and Kane that were treated as way, way, way bigger deals than anything ADR ever did with anyone not named Cena. So, yeah, if the argument is ADR is a bigger star than Rey because he got to wrestle John Cena more, then, well, yeah, Rey doesn't hold a candle to the greatness of Del Rio. And, honestly, Rey might not even be as kayfabe important as John Laurenaitis under that lens.

Sorry to be late on this, but I can't believe someone would argue that, even in "kayfabe" terms, Alberto Del Rio was a bigger star/better wrestler than Rey Mysterio based solely on World Title reigns. That means he's also four times the legend as Piper too? Than Andre the Giant? You have to look at length of main event runs AND, most tellingly, the "push" they received in terms of marketing and positioning. Yes, Mysterio's win/loss wasn't always great...but that was because he was so immensely over that the bookers viewed beating him as a way to elevate a talent. The fans viewed talents that beat him as being a big deal too. You could win or lose to Del Rio and it meant nothing either way. Plus - neither guy is on the best terms with the company, but there's only one that the WWE could make money on with a HoF induction, yet another DVD set, and a Legends Contract. There's only one that, even if he's on dicey terms with the company, warrants a continued presence on future video games and whatnot. Only one of them made the company any real money in merchandise sales. These may not be purely "kayfabe" metrics, but they are sports-entertainment metrics (and sports-entertainment is much more of what the WWE is than a "kayfabe" sport). In the kayfabe history of the WWE, one could be essentially written out and one never could and it has nothing to do with World Title reigns when determining who is who.

Hit up my own database for a few that I thought were particularly good, but not quite great... - Chris Benoit vs. Meng (Slamboree 97') - Bayley vs. Nia Jax (NXT Takeover: London) - Brock Lesnar vs. Test (King of the Ring 2002)* - Cobra vs. Sgt. Pittman (Fall Brawl 95')** - Austin vs. Steamboat (Clash of the Champions XXVIII) - Vader vs. Bossman (both 94' PPV matches)*** * I haven't watched enough Test nor do I want to watch enough Test to judge if this is the best match he's ever been a part of, but I'm going to go ahead and say its the best Test match I've ever seen. ** This is one of those matches that is so bad that it is tremendously entertaining. I mean, it is just batshit crazy to the point that one has to wonder who came up with the sequences involved. A desert island Wrestlecrap match. *** Great chemistry. Matches I strongly recommend to my friends because, though PWOers might be very familiar with Bossman and Vader, moderate-level fans don't necessarily know them aside from their respective "peak" years or top-shelf, most highly publicized matches.

Just finished the show. AJ Styles is the best worker in the company right now and I'm not sure there is anyone even close to second, especially if you consider "freshness." I mean, Cena can still be great and Cesaro is a beast and Rusev is awesome and I like Zayn and Joe and Owens and MIz, but they all have holes in their game or in their booking or what have you. Styles is just the man, straight up. If I were the WWE,I'd spend the next 6 months figuring out who Styles is going to drop the belt to. It might be Cena. It might be someone else. Till WrestleMania, though, Styles should remain champ and beat a cavelcade of challengers - Ambrose in a rematch, Orton, Kane, maybe a multi-man defense involving Wyatt and some of the aforementioned, and let his run last. Then, come April 2017, you can run Styles/Cena or Styles/Nakamura?

Here's hoping they put the title on Styles tonight. Seems like the only positive that could come out of this event. Also, would love them to tease an appearance by whoever the next NXT call-up is (I'm thinking its Joe). I'm not sure what kind of angle they'll run between Orton and Wyatt, but I'm not hopeful about it. The fact that they are even running this feud, when I believe they did it last fall or at least attempted to (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2574073-randy-orton-vs-bray-wyatt-feud-would-take-wwes-fall-season-by-storm), just shows how piss-poor they booked the return of Orton, literally not thinking beyond "Gets killed by Lesnar at SummerSlam." The loss Orton suffered from Lesnar was not going to easy to bounce back from, but to go into a bone-chillingly cold feud with Bray Wyatt, one of the most irrelevant characters in WWE programming in 2016, was bound to lead to fan disinterest. Miz/Ziggler Round 89,403 should be lame. This is what Miz gets for delivering a buzz-worthy promo on Daniel Bryan and being one of the company's top 2-3 true heat-getting heels (I'd put Rusev and Styles on that list too as Styles, to his credit, works hard to get heat even when he's getting cheered and Rusev does the same even when he's getting booked to look vulnerable and sympathetic). The Miz would've been a great, natural challenger for Ambrose at SummerSlam or even for this show (Styles could've wrestled in some sort of Number One Contender's match against Kane maybe?), but alas, Creative sees lemon, sugar, and water, and doesn't know what to do with it. American Alphas not being on the card makes sense storyline-wise or whatever, but one has to remember, you have a live crowd to please. Not putting your best tag team on the show (maybe they're on the pre-show?) is not going to make the people paying $50+ a ticket happy when you're already running a bit of a skeleton crew without Cena (and now Orton too).

There's a pic floating around of Triple H smirking with CM Punk getting his eye worked on in the background on a TV screen. Not sure if it's real or fake, but if it's real, Triple H really is an absolute carny genius because his smile makes my skin crawl and I really loathe how self-satisfied he is. He's also a total moron for this sort of shit because for every time he posts something like this that makes me want to boo him, he does something on-screen to make himself come off as a smark babyface saving the company from a "dreaded Roman Reigns championship run" or positioning himself as the mastermind behind NXT.

I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but I think what Johnny Sorrow might've been trying to point out is that there is a certain portion of the internet that is still "butt hurt" that CM Punk left pro-wrestling and "quit on them." These fans are so eager to enjoy his failure last night that they see it as a personal victory (schadenfreude). Obviously, there are sensible people criticizing Punk too. I totally agree that Punk used his name to benefit himself and put himself in an undeserved position. I also think he has every right to and that he shouldn't necessarily be criticized for using that advantage to land himself a big money deal. I look at it this way - people complain about teachers having summers off all the time. They complain about this despite the fact that they themselves could've been teachers, that they themselves chose *not* to be teachers, even knowing, from first grade, that teachers have summers off, that this vacation time is just part of the average teacher's yearly schedule. In Punk's case, you can say he didn't "pay his dues in UFC," but he *did* pay his dues in the world of sports/entertainment and he took a route that is and was open to everyone (in fact, it's not even that rare of a route if you look back at MMA history). He earned celebrity status first through hard work as a pro-wrestler. He may have cut in line, but that's because more people wanted to see him cut in line than wanted to see some guy with no name compete. If you want summers off, go back to school, get your teaching license, get your master's degree, go seek a position as a teacher. If you want to get a huge pay day for your first UFC fight, go become a major star in pro-wrestling, go become known as one of the best self-promoters in sports-entertainment, sell a ton of merchandise, you'll get your pay day. If there's anything to criticize, it might be Dana White's willingness to tarnish his own league's standards by promoting what was not an evenly matched professional-level fight. To continue my analogy, don't blame teachers - blame the educational system that has maintained a 9-month school year despite an abundance of research that tells us we should have year-round school.

sounds horrendous. I think there is a "right way" to attempt this, but it would be somewhat experimental, maybe Gus Van Sant-ish/early Linklater for it to work? Like, have it really just stick to the last 3 days, with flashback but not overemphasize on the "WWEness" of his career. Like, really boil it down to the very core of a guy with post-concussion issues causing dementia and homicidal urges, not anything close to a typical biopic. Edit - also, no real names. Inspired by true events but abstract enough to not bother attempting to tell a factual story. I guess the movie I'm thinking of is "let's talk about Kevin" (or whatever it was called). Bummer of a movie but really, really gripping.

They're bringing back Braden Walker for an AMW reunion?

I can't believe how much praise this match got from not only Meltzer but from Wade Keller and Austin on his podcast. I found it overwrought. Sure, they busted out all sorts of fancy moves and AJ got the clean win, but nothing seemed effective or impactful until the final quarter, when Cena's facial expressions became the focal point of the match. I don't think the match was actively bad - nothing with this many good sequences and quality execution could be - but calling it even "great" seems like too high of praise. It was above average, but not that much above average.

Hated this one. Boring Suplex City stuff out of Brock. More finisher kickouts (just in case you hadn't had your full with Styles/Cena). Nothing new or fresh out of Orton, just signature stuff, which may make sense psychology-wise, but certainly didn't make for any suspense or drama. Non-finish "finish." Possible lead-up to a Shane/Brock match because he can't help himself. Taker/Shane at Mania was probably my least favorite match of the decade, but Shane/Brock may end up topping it. Gave it 1 star on my blog.