C.S.

Lawler's less of a host than he is, as someone else here suggested elsewhere, a master of ceremonies. He just introduced people, basically. The show is long enough, he or whoever hosts doesn't need monologues. This night isn't about cutting promos, it's about people's careers. That gets lost on the audience unfortunately. Oh, I agree. I'm just saying, Lawler seemed less spirited this year. Maybe it's just me? Regardless, I would never want to replace him - someone who obviously cares - with a celebrity who would be faking it, or worse, unable to hide his/her lack of interest. Meltzer's saying he heard Steamboat tell the same story about lifting a stack one-handed in the gym, but the first time it was about Lou Thesz Worker gonna work... BTW, the names Mando and Fando would be perfect for a lucha team.

Except, Jinder Mahal is not new. He's been around for years. So, pretending he's some wet-behind-the-ears newcomer to justify calling him "that Indian guy" is a really weak argument. I'm not going to get all PC about it - I don't care that much - but that's a pretty bad and unconvincing defense.

I've heard rumblings that Tom Phillips politicked his way into the Smackdown spot and is very political in general. I remember Rich Brennan's wife taking a shot at Phillips over just that after Brennan was fired. (Screencap because she erased the tweet eventually.) From Brennan himself: "Tom's a good announcer. He was competitive from day 1. He was in NXT before I was. Whatever the rumors are, I don't have any issues with Tom. There are politics involved in every business, and it's not something I got involved in. I went to work, did what I was told, did the best I could and tried to elevate people around me. I never tried to tie anybody down. As far as with Tom, I don't know if Tom has the power to determine if I was there. Maybe he does, I don't know." http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2016/0712/613509/rich-brennan-on-scripted-segments/ As for JBL, this all feels like wild speculation. His "Bring It to the Table" rant was kind of bizarre, but it didn't feel entirely serious to me. Who knows though. Obviously, it's hard to give him the benefit of the doubt considering his past history with Meanie, Styles, Lance Storm, etc. Anyway, there's a very easily solution to all of this: In the next draft, move Mauro over to Raw as Cole's replacement (since Cole has talked about wanting to step away from the booth and take on a behind-the-scenes role). Of course, I doubt Vince will ever "trust" Mauro to be the "face" of the announce table after missing WrestleMania because he was "too weak" to "conquer" his "pesky" mental health issues.

Man, tough crowd in here... I thought this was one of the best HOFs ever. I think you should watch it, El-P. Whoever suggested having someone like Dave Chappelle host the show...REALLY?! The last thing WWE needs is some disinterested celebrity pretending to give a shit. That would be a waste of everyone's time. At least Lawler cares, although I will admit he was more low key than I expected and I have to wonder if his heart was really into it this year. Still, he did an okay job. Did anyone really expect Cornette to shoot? This was obviously a "tryout" of sorts for when the Midnight Express and maybe even Cornette himself are inducted - no way was he going to screw that up. Speaking of "tryouts," I'm wondering if Beth Phoenix's induction will somehow set the stage for Chyna's - as odd as that sounds. Someone "acceptable" like Beth changing the focus of Chyna's legacy from drugs/porn back to how influential she was kind of plants some seeds for a future induction. Ricky Steamboat was terrible. The words of his speech were fine, but his delivery was sleep-inducing. Cena was an appropriate choice to induct Angle. If the shithead fans booed him, that's on them, not WWE or Cena. Ditto for anything with Reigns, even though showing him on camera so many times really did feel like deliberate trolling by WWE. Regardless, I personally think fans shouldn't be allowed to attend the HOF, because they add nothing to the proceedings and only slow down every speech with their chants (whether positive or negative). Bischoff, DDP, Nattie, and Beth had the best speeches of the night. Angle was fine and fun, but like Sting last year, it was a very surface-level speech. I wonder if he purposely kept it shorter than usual because it was so late. Either way, no one can accuse Kurt of lacking confidence in himself.

But it is on Hulu the next day (granted, Raw is in abbreviated form). It seems no one fully read my post. I never said they shouldn't be on Hulu, YouTube, etc. - of course they should - but content should not be missing from the WWE Network. It's a reasonable expectation for the WWE Network to be a one-stop shop for WWE content. Don't see how that's "greedy."

Another day, another trolling Sorrow post that completely misses the point. Plenty of reasons to prefer content on the Network: The Network on Roku, my Smart TV, etc. has a much better UI than YouTube. If you stop in the middle of a show, you can't resume on the YouTube app. Search on the YouTube app is much more laborious. Tons of big and little reasons like that. On the web, it's probably a wash. But I don't watch anything on a laptop screen. As for the argument that WWE gets more revenue on YouTube...honestly, I don't care. I don't give a single shit about that. As a consumer, all I care about is the product I'm paying for, which is the Network. I get why Raw and Smackdown aren't live on the Network, but it should be next day (again, I don't care about Hulu). There's zero reason for the Network not to be a one-stop shop for everything WWE. The fact that it still isn't after all these years is a massive failure and missed opportunity. I would never suggest that WWE shouldn't be on YouTube, Hulu, etc., but I don't see why those deals have to come at the expense of the Network. This Is Us is on both the NBC app and Hulu, for example.

Pretty much how I feel about a lot of the YouTube-exclusive WWE content. So fucking silly and backward - and downright infuriating - for WWE not to have this shit on their own Network.

I came in here to post the aforementioned Triple-Rock Ladder Match from SummerSlam too. I have no idea how it holds up now, but at the time, it felt like such a star-making match for both men - and in retrospect, I think it was exactly that. I don't think it's the greatest IC match ever, but it belongs on a list of good ones. I still say HBK-Razor at WrestleMania X was better than their SummerSlam rematch. WM X was "the first time" (I realize there were previous ladder matches, but 99% of us - including me - hadn't seen them) and you can never top the first time. Some other good ones: - Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty: The whole setup for Marty's surprise return and win was awesome. Won PWI MOTY too (I know, I know...) - The Miz's most recent reigns: I'm not sure how many great matches there were, but I remember liking what he did with Dolph (of all people). That feud somehow worked and felt intense.

Facebook: Brad Maddox reacts Haven't watched this yet, so I don't know what he said.

Callahan/Crowe is absolute garbage, and it's refreshing to see that viewpoint expressed by someone else too. Most of the internet treats him like this amazing talent. I sure as hell didn't see any evidence of that in NXT. He reminded me of Jericho taking the worst excesses of his early heel midcard character and ramping it up x100 with horrible mugging, bad facials, etc. (and I liked and still like Jericho, but nothing about his character was subtle back then). The real reason Paige isn't getting fired is because she's currently out with an injured neck. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen. If she gets her shit together instead of constantly self-sabotaging her plum WWE dream job and overall career (and I don't mean the sex tape), all of this - including the tape - will be long forgotten by the time she's healthy and ready to come back.

Didn't she deny this and these end up being proven as fakes? Or have real pics leaked out since then? They did this with Solomon Crowe (Sami Callahan) in NXT, but it went nowhere and he wasn't a good fit at all. Surprising, because he's an indy darling, but he didn't impress me one bit in NXT.

This legit cracked me up. LOL. I meant re-design (just corrected my post), Hope that was obvious.

I keep coming back to this. I know Maddox is an AV geek. I'm pretty sure I remember hearing he was known for producing elaborate pitch videos on developmental. But to me, this is actually the most legitimately shocking part of the whole thing. Even the belt thing you know had to have been routine in some form with wrestlers forever. But professionally lighting the video and shooting it with multiple cameras is not exactly the norm for this kind of thing. Are you guys suggesting Maddox leaked the tape? I haven't seen the tape, but I'm guessing all of this is much ado about nothing. The worst I see happening, based on what others have posted here about the tape's contents, is an NXT Women's Title redesign.

Reby just flew the fuck OFF THE HANDLE at TNA. Too much to cut and paste here, but this link has all her tweets: http://www.cagesideseats.com/tna/2017/3/10/14889566/reby-hardy-twitter-rant-tna-suing-hardys On the one hand, TNA sucks and deserves every single criticism it's ever gotten. IMO, they're actively harming the wrestling business at this point. Imagine another, better company getting all of these opportunities, TV timeslots, second chances, etc. On the other hand, this is exactly why Reby has never been in a major wrestling company (no, I don't consider TNA or ROH major companies) and probably never will be.

Damn, I could look at that Big E-Bubba gif all day long. Jerry Lawler accused of making a fat joke about Nia Jax. I'll have to defend the King here: it didn't sound like a fat joke to me as much as really outdated humor.

Oh plenty of people dislike Bubba as a wrestler. Dude was a liberty taking sack of shit with younger talent and was still trying it in the recent WWE run until Big E fucked his world up one match. Bully Ray was (initially) a pretty great character, but he certainly didn't have any great matches with the gimmick. Fair enough... Hadn't heard about those incidents, but it makes sense that Bubba Ray is a classless sack of trash inside the ring too. As for Chris Hero, I don't think him getting rehired at his current weight somehow disproves that he got fired for his weight before. All it indicates is that WWE's priorities have shifted. I'm generally happy that WWE is finally open to showcasing more body types. The cookie cutter muscle factory look that we got for ten years sucked, limited the product, limited the types of wrestlers we got, and limited the types of matches we got. With that said, I still think people need to be cast properly. Joe as a "killer" doesn't work for me at all. Joe as a confident asshole bully who has bitten off more than he can chew makes more sense to me. That doesn't mean I think heavier people can't ever be "killers." Vader was a convincing wrecking machine, and he's bigger than Joe, Hero, etc.

Nobody dislikes Bubba as a wrestler - we just think he's a bad representative for wrestling based on his ridiculous Twitter behavior.

I don't follow ROH, but am I wrong in assuming that Bull is probably a better wrestler than 90% of the ROH roster because actually has big league experience (NXT) instead of just bingo hall experience? Bubba Ray is a piece of shit who is an absolute embarrassment and albatross when it comes to representing the wrestling business, and that has nothing to do with his weight. I'm proud that he's one of only two wrestlers who have blocked me on Twitter (the other being Ryback, and I'm still scratching my head as to why - I was only ever complimentary toward him, so who knows).

CM Punk would certainly qualify.

The Jimmy Hart episode of Legends With JBL was okay - easily the weakest one though - with way too much talk about Elvis/music. It's a shame the show is ending with such a whimper.

Its like the Razzies - those aren't really the worst movies, just the most high-profile. With that said, I don't think Fuji was that bad. He was never one of my favorites or anything, but he did okay in his role. Then again, I didn't mind Harvey Wippleman either. His only crime was being too indy and Southern in a down period for the WWF. Speaking of which, Kamala's book claimed that Wippleman's Mississipi origins - and accent - were both fake. Odd.

So, Josh Matthews thinks this about himself: "I'm the best play-by-play announcer in the world."

I watched it last night. Fun as always, but I'm not sure there's any new information contained in the interview - and I say that as someone who is far from an expert on Stan Hansen's career.

Speaking of wrestling fans on other sites, it makes me sad to see people referring to Jack Gallagher as a midget and joke. In reality, he could wrestle circles around most of the people that were in the Rumble. Then again, it doesn't help that WWE treated him the exact same way by having him be the first wrestler eliminated. He was the only Cruiser in the match though, so that's something, I guess.

Possibly the worst TakeOver yet? It still had its moments though. Tye Dillinger vs. Eric Young: Took forever to get decent, but the final few minutes were okay. Young's current character is not an act with any legs, but Tye is under-utilized. His charisma and facials seem a bit limited, but he's worked this "Perfect 10" gimmick to the hilt. Andrade Cien Almas vs. Roderick Strong: Strong is the definition of a "vanilla midget." He is someone who has zero chance of succeeding on the main roster, and I think he'll end up fizzling out in NXT before long too, a la Solomon Crowe. Put some paint or a mask on this kid - because he's as bland as can be. I don't care about what he did in the bingo halls and armories of ROH - it means nothing now and doesn't translate at all to NXT/WWE. Almas is slowly growing on me, but his stint so far definitely has to be considered a disappointment considering the hype and positive projections he came in with. Tag Team Title Match: Authors of Pain are still rough and raw, but they have a cool look at least? Was hoping for a #DIY breakup, but maybe we'll get that eventually? The glory days of Revival matches stealing the show seem to be over for now. AoP are far from that level. Maybe #DIY will regain the titles at the next PPV and split down the road? I doubt it though. I think this AoP push is going to last a while. Seth Rollins: A cool idea, I guess, but the execution was lacking. I actually forgot all about it until I read the thread. Having Triple H come out only to leave and unleash nameless security goons was really anticlimactic. It might help if I cared about this feud in the first place, but I don't. This Seth segment should have been much hotter and felt a lot more historical (he was the first NXT Champion), but it kind of fizzled out IMO. Women's Title Match: Match of the night, even though I do recognize it involved a lot of shortcuts and garbage wrestling. Still, it worked. This is the most interesting Asuka has been. Main Event: Roode's character is glorious - his in-ring work is anything but. J.R. would call him "methodical" between the ropes - I just call him boring. Nakamura's "injury" and selling fooled me at the end though, because Nak has been really inconsistent about selling. Not a great match, but a nice finishing stretch. The bloom is really off the rose for NXT, and this thread is proof of it. Previous TakeOver threads have gotten 6, 7, 8, 9 pages. This one barely has 3.