DMJ

To defend the "Bryan Should Main Event Every WrestleMania!" fans, it was abundantly clear in 2014 and at the start of 2015 that Daniel Bryan was the most universally beloved babyface on the roster. Historically, the top babyface should be wrestling in the main event or at least the second-most promoted match on the card. The rumor going into WM30 was that he'd be feuding with Sheamus, who has never and probably will never be as over as Bryan was at the time. Going into WM31, Bryan had no storyline at all - he wrestled in a 6-man ladder match for a meaningless title. I'm not saying there's been a conspiracy to hold Bryan back, but I do think there have been some unfortunate, unforeseen circumstances that will make his aborted title reign and limited "comeback" a great "What if..." talking point for years to come. In the end, WrestleMania 31's main event exceeded expectations and Brock Lesnar surpassed Bryan as the most "must see performer" somewhere between ending the Streak and destroying Cena at SummerSlam last year, but to say that Bryan, if he were to return, should be used in NXT while RAW desperately needs stars is like saying Ric Flar should've been used as a trainer at the Power Plant instead of coming back to WCW in 98'.

I just watched his match against Ultimo Dragon at Hog Wild 96' and really, really liked it. Not as good as the Psychosis match from the previous month's Bash At The Beach, but in terms of show openers, I thought it was great. The unique setting (the ring is elevated off the ground and the padding around the makeshift stage/ring looks especially thin and unforgiving) adds to it and shows how fearless Mysterio was at the time. Again, not an all-time classic (there are some noticeable hiccups), but when things click, its a fun one.

Just throwing it out there because the idea sounds crazy in my head, but is there any chance that Taker is returning as a heel at Battleground? If he costs Lesnar the title, I think the audience is going to boo him. Sure, when the lights go out, the pop will be huge, but when Lesnar gets screwed a second time, I think there is going to be opposition from the audience. Granted, JR could get the angle over much better than Cole and Company will, but essentially, Lesnar beat Taker fair and square and now Undertaker is holding a grudge. The whole "He has a right to be angry, but NOT THIS WAY, Undertaker, bah gawd, NOT THIS WAY!" This enables Sting to return as the Vigilante, out to beat the Undertaker at WrestleMania 32 because the Undertaker has forgotten that he once fought for justice or whatever. There are all sorts of holes in this scenario, but if Taker does screw Lesnar, I don't think it is going to affect Lesnar. Hell, it probably won't even affect Taker all that much if the commentators ignore how heelish that would be (which is totally possible).

Just watched Pat Tanaka as "El Gato" in WCW at Great American Bash 96'. Pretty decent match considering the crowd is dead (at one point Konnan hits him with a powerbomb to the arena floor) and almost makes me wonder if the crowd would've been more enthused if they had just brought him out as Tanaka.

Look no further than No Way Out 2002 for how WWE would have botched the nWo. I just recently watched that show and it really counters any claim that WCW "got lucky" with the nWo storyline in 97-98. WCW was able to keep that angle red hot for a long stretch, while, in one night, WWE basically debuted it and destroyed it in a span of 3 hours. Here's some specifics - - Show starts with nWo coming out and cutting a promo that is remarkably similar to a John Cena speech of today. The crowd boos them at first, but then, they just ask the WWE Universe for a chance and say that they have come not to destroy the WWE, but to be a part of its awesomeness. This pandering is supposed to sarcastic, I think, but it comes off as genuine. - They outnumber Austin backstage. Offer him beer. He turns them down. They walk away (while the Charlie Brown Christmas theme plays ala George Michael on "Arrested Development"*). - They outnumber The Rock backstage and ask him for an autograph. The Rock agrees. Hogan mutters something under his breath and the Rock owns all three in a promo. Again, instead of jumping him, the nWo walks off without incident. - At the end of the show, the nWo helps Chris Jericho retain his title (eventhough Jericho has no link to the group). After spray-painting Austin, they run away, fearing that Austin will get up and whoop all three of them. Basically, everything that made the nWo cool (their defiant, cocky promos, their We're Above Everyone attitude, and their gang beatdowns on hapless babyfaces) are gone and, in their place, we have a triad of jobbers who come off as less intimidating than Too Cool (hell, they're less intimidating than X-Factor). * Okay, maybe the song doesn't play, but it easily could've.

Late to the party, but I just watched Cesaro/Cena from this week's show (never got around to watching last week's). The truth is, it really does take me 2-3 days to get through RAW - an hour here, an hour there, a day between. Anyway - is anyone else of the mind that Cesaro/Cena, without the commercial breaks, may have been better than either of the Owens/Cena matches? I was a big Cesaro fan going in (but one whose fandom has cooled since it seemed there was little chance he'd ever get "The Push"), but somewhere around the 23-minute mark, I just realized if there is anyone capable of having a really great 60-Minute Ironman Match with Cena, it is Cesaro. I really enjoyed both Owens/Cena matches, but could pick out flaws here and there (the anticlimactic "outta nowhere" ending to the first, the early finisher spamming of the second), but this week's Cesaro/Cena just worked for me more. Lots and lots of impressive moves and I felt like, for whatever reason (maybe something as simple as comparable body types?), both guys submission moves looked pretty snug and realistic (something I never thought I'd say about the STFU). Even Cena complaining to the ref about the last nearfall made sense - Cesaro's shoulders were down, but Cena had an unclear, insufficient pin (JBL explained "Cena was caught in Cesaro's legs") so the ref's count was late in Cena's opinion, but justifiable to me, the viewer. Cena looked legitimately spent at the end, so I didn't see the purpose of the post-match AA to Owens, but it's not like that hurt the 30 minutes that preceded it. I'd give it 4 stars and, on a PPV with no commercial breaks (the fact they cut to a break in the first 2 minutes means we really have no clue what the first quarter of the match was), I could see that being a 4-and-a-half match. One could say "It needed 5 more minutes," but those 5 minutes were there for the live crowd and we just weren't privy to them.

I agree that this is not too surprising of a leak, but I do find it that funny that... a) It seemed a sizeable amount of these rules were broken blatantly during Michael Cole's heel run, especially when it came to running down Daniel Bryan every week Announcers can't say "Our industry" or "This industry," but there was about a decade where I could've sworn Triple H uttered that phrase in every one of his show-starting monologues on every episode of RAW he was on (which was all of them).

On the topic of the New Day's overness... I went to MITB a month or so back and, from the start of the show to even after, the "New Day Sucks" chant was BY FAR the biggest ongoing chant. The previous night, they ran an NXT show, so there were plenty of NXT chants ("Fight Owens Fight," for example) but the New Day stuff reminded me of going to random shows a few years ago and hearing "We The People" randomly shouted every 20 minutes or so. The New Day chant broke out pretty much anytime the cameras were off (pre-show, post-show, parking lot, on the line for merch - it was insane). I'm not going to say it was as omnipresent as Fandangoing, but I'd also say, the New Day gimmick and wrestlers involved can actually be a hot act for months to come, where as Fandango was a one-dimensional gimmick that only reminded me of how underrated Glenn Gilberti kinda was.

* First, this special really showed just how much WWE can benefit from producing something different than the usual. Different crowd. Different entranceway. Different announcers. Even different camera angles. It was just such a breath of fresh air that I would easily say it added at least a half-point to every match. * I really liked the opener. Probably my favorite Jericho match in years. Again, I'm not sure if that has to do mostly with the presentation, the crowd's involvement, or even the novelty of seeing Jericho after a long absence, but I also thought the pacing of the match and all the counters were great. Jericho seemed to be having fun and, maybe more than any match since the Cena "debut," Neville struck out to me as a guy that could actually last - maybe even in a role not dissimilar to when Jericho, Edge, and Christian were all long-running IC/European championship-level guys. * I'm a Nikki Bella fan but I must admit, she's been losing me these past few outings. This match was kinda like her title reign to me. It started out pretty sloppy, then eased into some respectable work and great effort, and then hit the wall with a real anti-climactic thud. (While she's still champion, I don't see anyone on the current main roster taking the title from her in an interesting way.) * The Lesnar squash was fun, reminiscent of watching Sid take out dudes back in the day. The post-match was the "bonus" for me because, before Big E and Woods came out, I must admit to being a bit disappointed that we didn't see them. * Balor/Owens was great fun and part of that fun was the "Japan-ness" to it. I'll be the first to admit I'm seriously ignorant and unknowledgable of Japanese wrestling beyond what I've read in books or seen bits and peices of - but the streamers and flowers, while probably not special to many on this board, come off as really cool and unique to a US-centric viewer like myself (and probably a majority of WWE fans). Then, you had the match, which continues Owens' streak of quality outings. I wasn't personally invested enough to call this a MOTYC but I'd assume the NXT die-hards and Balor fans enjoyed it more than I did - meaning, to me, it was a B+/A-, but I wouldn't doubt that those more invested in the storyline and Balor's progress wouldn't put it above that. * The "main event" was misplaced and featured two characters (Barrett/Kane) that are so cold, it is impossible to care. I would've loved Cena/Ziggler vs. New Day or Cena/Ziggler vs. Rollins & J&J Security or even Cena/Ziggler vs. Harper and Bray or, really, just about any two other than Kane and Barrett. Overall, a really good 2-hour show and one I'd easily recommend (save the main event) due to the watchability of most of it.

In a quote that is too ridiculously hyperbolic to make up, Ted Cruz called the past 24 hours "some of the darkest hours in American history." This reminded me of Tony Schiavone calling every Nitro main event, no matter how terrible or inconsequential, "the biggest event in the history of our sport."

Just saw this for the first time as I'm watching Slamboree 96'. The poster above gave it 1.5 stars and I can totally see that when looking at this match out of context, but as someone watching the show from beginning-to-end, I'd notch it up to an 3-stars compared to the other Battlebowl matches (which are all really short and save for a move here or a move there or a short segment [for example, the Steiners facing eachother], mostly atrocious). This match, though, is interesting and engaging from even before the bell rings as Flair refuses to come out until Savage has already made his entrance (and been jumped by Double A). From there, the match just never slows down, contradicts itself, or betrays the blood feud that Savage and Flair were having at the time. So many little things executed properly and so few things to criticize aside from the match being very short (which makes total sense). When I rate matches, I tend to think anything 3.5-or-higher is something worth revisiting and while I won't put this match up at that level, it is, by a wide margin, the best thing on the show up to that point.

Billy Gunn in 1999. I'm not going to argue that winning the Intercontinental Championship or the King of the Ring at that time was still really meaningful, but Gunn's string of victories as a singles star that year just came across as such as an obvious attempt to get him over outside of DX and the New Age Outlaw team that I don't think ANYBODY, even the biggest DX supporters, were really rallying for. I won't go as far as to say he didn't deserve it - the guy put in his time and certainly deserved a chance based on the success of the Outlaws, his look, and his in-ring skill, which I don't remember loving but certainly wasn't offensive. Still, the push annoyed me because it was so forced and inorganic. Any time Prince Albert or Test was pushed too.

Depends on if you think the best player of his generation returning home to try to end one of the longest droughts in sports history for a fan base that has suffered through a ridiculous number of cursed moments is an example of "evil." Since when are underdogs evil too? Golden State was heavily favored going into the Finals. At no point, even when the Cavs were up 2-1, did Golden State become the underdog. Steve Kerr said it best in Game 4 when he reminded his team that the Cavs were just 7 players and that they would tire if Golden State outlasted them. That is pretty much what happened (mixed with JR Smith and Shumpert shooting terribly and Igoudala having the best series of games of his career). Golden State was relatively healthy throughout their entire run. The Cavs lost two All-Stars. I'm not sure how many Good vs. Evil fairytales you're familiar with but, typically, the hero is the one faced with insurmountable challenges on their quest for glory. This time around the challenges were so insurmountable that they weren't…uh…surmounted. With the odds stacked heavily against them, though, the Cavs fought valiantly and bravely, gave everything they could (Dellevedova needed to be hospitalized for dehydration/exhaustion after Game 3 for chrissakes), but couldn't reach the mountaintop. Their effort was inspiring, especially in the closing minutes as, despite having lost the game with minutes left, with the crowd chanting "Let's Go Cavs!" and "MVP," the team (particularly JR Smith) refused to go down without sinking one more shot. These guys are pros and they've played a lot of basketball and they knew it was hopeless, but they went down fighting till the last 10 seconds. Golden State is a fantastic team and I don't think they played dirty or cheated or anything of the sort. They won fair and square. But it wasn't a Cinderella story and it wasn't "Good triumphing over Evil." It was the expected outcome of a competition between a very healthy, very good, very motivated team and a bruised-and-battered, less skilled, but also highly motivated team.

MITB is a top 4 PPV of the year simply because the Money In The Bank, for better or worse, is such a key element in the WWE landscape. Before this year, the Survivor Series hasn't had any "stakes" attached to it for what? A decade? I won't check the numbers, but I'd be curious to see whether or not MITB outsold Survivor Series over the past few years too. Only SummerSlam has been presented as important and if pushed to list the reasons for it, "historical legacy" would rank near the bottom. I'm willing to call MITB a "B-show" if we can all agree that there are only two A shows (Rumble and Mania) left and that shows like Battleground and Fast Lane are C shows. If that's our guide, I'd rank MITB just under SummerSlam and I'm not sure I wouldn't put Extreme Rules or TLC above Survivor Series at this point.

I attended the show, so I thought I'd share some live notes/thoughts... * I believe it was a legit sell-out. Crowd was hot at start of the show - some "Thank You Dusty" and "Dusty" chants even before the show began that got even louder once the whole roster came out for the 10-bell salute. * Reigns got a big reaction and was supported for his offense...but there were some questionable calls. Before Wyatt came out, I believe Reigns had tossed Ziggler or Neville off the ladder, which got booed. When you're plotting out a match, I'm not sure why you'd have Reigns' "last obstacle" be one of those two and it was that poor choice, way more than any real anti-Reigns vibe, that made the crowd erupt in "Yes!" chants when Wyatt screwed him. Similarly, once Reigns was knocked out of contention, the crowd was pretty unsure who to root for - partially because the best face choice seemed to be Neville as Orton and Ziggler seemed to spend 90% of the match on the floor taking naps. Again, more than anything, this seemed to leave the fans disappointed that Wyatt didn't retrieve the briefcase himself. Overall, the match got good responses for its bright moments (the RKO on Neville, for example), but like many, I think the general feeling was that Sheamus winning was the wrong choice. I like that Reigns still has mountains to climb, but if it wasn't going to be him, I'd have went with Orton, who not only has plenty of history with Rollins but, more importantly, is a big enough name to be an interesting challenger to Brock Lesnar. * Paige/Nikki started slow and the crowd was pretty disinterested, but as the match wore on, I think it won over people. Finally it seemed like Nikki was able to play the clear heel, though, who knows? With Total Divas returning soon, they'll probably try to make them faces again. * Lots of "New Day Rocks/Sucks" chants throughout the evening - before the show, during the show, after the show. People just love that damn chant/clap. * Cena/Owens was the peak of the show. Three separate "This is Awesome" chants. I'm not sure how it came across on screen but, while there was the traditional "Let's Go Cena/Cena Sucks" chants, there was also a sizeable portion of the audience that responded to "Let's Go Cena!" with "Fight Owens Fight!". To me, that is a really, really telling sign of just how over Owens is already - the fact is, fans weren't just booing Cena as they usually do, they were actively rooting for his opponent and there were loads and loads of KO shirts and sizes in the crowd. With all that these two brought to the match, the crowd was just completely sucked dry. I'm not sure how it felt at the last PPV, but at this one, there was a real sense that the best part of the night was over once the match and post-match angle ended. * Ambrose and Rollins worked really hard to revive a dead crowd. At one point, somewhere near our section, someone made an audible "Woo Woo Woo!" shout and I just turned to my friend and said, "It is not a good sign when you're hearing Zack Ryder noises during your main event ladder match." As the match went on, I think Rollins and Ambrose did succeed in bringing the audience back in to a respectable degree and, personally, I thought this was Ambrose's best showing in months (selling the knee all the way to end, not overusing the slingshot moves), but Cena/Owens was just too good of a match to be outshined.

Both are money to me. I also think Rusev's recent injury has hurt him way worse than the loss to Cena. He was penciled in to win the IC right? I think you can heat Rusev back up pretty easily: Have him beat Cena on a RAW. Clean or not, that would make him a viable number one contender to me instantly. Rusev/Reigns has potential. I'm going to MITB tomorrow and I'm hoping Owens wins tomorrow just because I really don't want to see a replica of the Rusev/Cena feud. I enjoyed it, but why not switch it up a bit? Have Owens beat him twice just for the sake of elongating their rivalry. If Cena wins, you're left with not just Owens in a somewhat directionless spot, but who's next for Cena exactly?

Legend. Visionary. Must-see performer. I'm glad someone posted the bit from 94' where he asks Dustin to make him his partner. What a great promo and overall feud (Dustin vs. Stud Stable). I wrote this in a Facebook group, but I'd like to repeat it here - Dusty had many, many great feuds, great promos, great rivalries and moments, but there was something so magical and emotionally powerful whenever he was in the ring with his sons. Whether it was the build to the 91' Rumble or even the more recent Rhodes Family vs. Authority angle, these storylines and Dusty's passionate promos during them were just on a whole other level than what pro-wrestling typically achieves.

Haven't seen the RR98' match in a long while, but I remember liking it when I was a kid. I still think HIAC 1 is great and, at the time, being 13 and not having seen all the stuff I've seen since, I was convinced that it was the greatest cage match that ever happened. (I think Foley even called it that in his first book, so, it's not like it was a bizarre opinion then or now). To answer the poster above's question about why Austin won this by such a landslide, I voted Austin based on my gut and I think many others did too. I know that part of my gut reaction was based on things that almost have nothing to do with Austin and Michaels' actual resumes - for example, when it comes to watching previously unseen matches from these guys, I'd watch 10 Austin matches I'd never seen before from ANY point his career before I'd be curious in seeing a single one from Shawn's career. Again, this is a gut instinct based on what I can recall from memory, but I feel like a lot of Michaels' singles matches only get good in the final 3-4 minutes, while Austin's matches, in WCW or WWE, typically start great with some real urgency, either lag a little in the middle or get a bit tedious, but then get really hot again for their finishes (whether that finish is a sprint with a ticking clock as was often the case in WCW or an overuse of run-ins like his WWE main event run).

Just watched this for the first time and, as El-P says, it is too long. There are a couple moments that I did like, though - Sting flying into a spinning powerslam from Animal, Booker T leveling Hawk with a particularly stiff Scissors Kick, the aforementioned Luger cameo, and the second round of chairshots that happens towards the end of the match - but there are also some pretty boring stretches and highly questionable production/execution decisions that really make this one hard to enjoy (Sting's lengthy search for a weapon only to return with two 99 cent brooms, Booker T "quitting" the match rather randomly when his team is not in trouble and after he has withstood at least 15 minutes of Road Warrior beatdown, the tedium of watching Hawk no-sell piledrivers and Sting miss Stinger Splashes multiple times in the same match, the commentary team sounding audibly exhausted). Compared to Finlay/Regal from the same night, it isn't violent enough and, without the drama of traditional tag rules, it has no form or suspense because there is no escalation or urgency at any point. If Sting wasn't still darn over, this match would probably be an even bigger turd - but the audience pops for the big hits, so, it's not like its a total dud (the same defense can be applied for Booty Man vs. DDP from earlier in the night, which, while certainly not worth viewing, will make you question how a just God could create a world where there are so many Ed Leslie fans this late in his career).

To me, the problem isn't that he does the slingshot clothesline every match...it's that he does it 4-5 times every match. If he kept it to just once a match, it'd be way more effective.

This is that killer Miz promo that Parties mentioned. It is probably one of my favorite promos of any WWE guy in the past 5 years.

Definitely had pretty different view of the show than many on here... * I really enjoyed the tag chamber match. To me, the good outweighed the bad. I liked how the first half of the match featured the Luchas and Los Matadores doing their big high-flying stuff, but that the match noticeably shifted in its second half. I liked Kalisto getting caught up by New Day and the crowd responded by chanting "New Day Sucks!". To me, that's a smart way to get heat. The Ascension are awful (no argument there), but Cole was right - last night was the best they've looked and giving them two eliminations at least gives them some credibility. Cesaro and Kidd were great as usual, but Prime Time Players really shined. That was easily the best work I've seen out of Darren Young, whose offense looked more energetic and natural to me than it had in the team's first run. I've liked Titus for awhile, so, no surprise I dug his work here. Then you got the New Day - they're a great act. To me, the bad was Cesaro bumping for Torito and Kalisto dropping from the top of the cage, but all in all, I was entertained and felt like all the teams came out of it looking better than they went into it. I get the criticism that it was "messy," but, aside from getting rid of the 2-3 really questionable spots, I enjoyed it quite a bit. People calling that match garbage seems a bit heavyhanded. * Similarly, the divas match was certainly not as good as Lynch/Banks from the NXT show (or maybe any womens' match from any NXT special), but I'm going to give some credit to the participants. No one executed well (the Tower of Doom spot and the half-Canadian Destroyer thing Naomi did to Paige both looked sloppy), but they were given a set number of minutes and obviously tried to jam pack it full of high-risk, impactful moves. I respect the effort. Put that same match on WWE programming anytime in the 90s or the early 00s (when womens' wrestling meant Bra and Panty matches and hair tosses as finishers) and it would blow people away, not necessarily for the execution, but for the ambition. * The worst matches of the night were the IC Chamber and meaningful Neville/Dallas match. I'm not sure if I don't like Bo Dallas as a wrestler or I just don't care about Bo Dallas in his current role or if the writers have dropped the ball on Bo Dallas, but the result is the same - I want to fast forward or change the channel whenever he's on screen. * Loved Owens/Cena, but wouldn't call it a MOTYC. Very cool "big match feel" considering Owens is a relative unknown. Didn't adore either guy kicking out of eachother's finish, which also hurt the actual finish for me because it just seemed to come out of nowhere rather than being the result of a true "knockout blow." * Liked Ambrose/Rollins more than most it seems. Not a MOTYC or anything, but I enjoyed it quite a bit more than their Hell in a Cell match from 2014. I liked how this one was different than their Lumberjack Match too, which was much heavier on the brawling. The Dusty Finish is obviously something that those of us on this board have seen dozens of times over, but I know that my students (middle schoolers) probably lost their shit watching that (the same way I did when I was their age watching Jericho get screwed by Triple H). I thought these two delivered a good hard-hitting match that did not overrely on outside interference (one of my gripes about the Orton/Rollins and Cena/Rollins matches). Ambrose does repeat his signature moves too much and I'm amazed no agent has got in his ear about it, but I'm not giving up on him just yet. Similarly, I think Rollins is fantastic, at times a "Shawn Michaels with Better Offense," but he's still not as despicable or as crafty as he should be? I don't know what it is, but I do think he'll get there. Tonight's match was, like the opener, more good than bad, with easily the most dramatic nearfalls on a show jam-packed with 2-and-three-quarter counts. As a whole, this was my favorite Network Special in quite some time.

I voted Miz because I don't think he's nearly as terrible as people say. In the build to WM27, I thought he did a great job as a heel. I think he's had 3 decent-to-great tag runs (with Morrison, Big Show, and Sandow) and that this is his strength. Outside the ring, I think he is excellent as a spokesman for the company. His work as a singles is very inconsistent, but I'd say the same thing about nearly every midcard worker with comparable years on the roster - Kofi, Ziggler, R-Truth, Barrett, and Cody Rhodes, for example, have been around for quite awhile and, while they're all better athletes than Miz and have had individual matches better than his best, it's not like any have spotless records. I'm also not sure any have ever been as over as Miz was in late 2010/2011. Miz's staleness as a character is hurting him more than the small improvements he's made as a worker have helped him. Miz is also from Cleveland (Parma to be specific), so, that gets extra points from me. Charlotte is a great talent and there are plenty of other men on the roster that she is more valuable than (Darren Young, Fandango, The Ascension), but The Miz is an established act with proven value. If I'm starting a company tomorrow, I'd take the Miz based on his track record, experience, marketability, and age. At 34, he's still young enough and relatively healthy enough to give me 5-6 more very good years (plus, we've seen plenty of guys actually get better as they reach 40).

So, so pumped for this. I've heard great things about RoH's TV from friends, podcasts, etc., but I'm just not the type to watch shows online on a computer or iPad. I've seen some matches here or there, but I'm excited to watch things episodically. Sinclair did not have a channel here in Cleveland (at least not on Cox Cable - maybe Time Warner?), but I *think* I get Destination America. To be honest, I haven't looked in awhile mostly because I gave up on getting into TNA probably sometime around 2011 - starting in 05' or so, I'd watch a show or two, try to get into it, but lose interest and this would happen over and over through the years, TNA never getting good enough to keep me interested for anything longer than a month or two. RoH, on the other hand, has a reputation of being for "real fans," a bit of the original ECW mystique in its humble roots and being the "birthplace" of guys like Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, and CM Punk (accurate or not), and is a legitimately NEW promotion to millions of eyes. Save a handful of matches each year, it is brand new to me. I expect RoH to outdraw TNA, maybe handily. The "buzz" is there. Last thought: The news of today reminds of the most recent twist on one of my favorite current shows, Silicon Valley on HBO. On Silicon Valley, the main character (CEO of the data-crunching Pied Piper app) recently bested a rival company that stole his algorithm by sabotaging their deal with an industry-leading internet porn company. They did this by illegally hacking into their competitor's files, seeing their deal with said porn company, and then approaching the porn site with "We can do what our competitor does - but we can do it cheaper and produce a better product." I'm guessing RoH snaked its way into DA's good graces with similar promises and I don't think their claim is at all wrong.

I liked this match. There's the aforementioned Vaderbomb and Vadersault, but Bulldog also impresses with a vertical suplex on the "Baby Bull." Also, a pretty hot crowd that absolutely loved Sting (with sizable chunks of the audience also cheering Vader) helped keep the match moving.