C.S.

I'm not outraged, but it was pointless and bad booking. 1. Breeze lost his Raw debut match. No two ways about it: that's fucking terrible. 2. Why was Breeze even in the tournament in the first place? There's no upside to that, either for him or anyone else. You can argue that it makes him "seem like a big deal" to be in a World Title tournament already, but considering some of the other people in it, it's obviously padded to begin with. Where's the prestige in that? This won't "harm" Breeze, per se - he'll still settle into whatever spot he's gonna get - but people understandably want him to be more than just the next Fandango, Adam Rose, or Bo Dallas (guys with talent who are drifting on the road to nowhere).

I thought Marc Mero was very good as Johnny B. Badd. He never quite found his footing in the WWF as Wildman/Marvelous Marc Mero, but I still liked him. "The boys" can all go fuck right off for "resenting" that he was a smart businessman who got guaranteed money for himself. I disliked Luger for the longest time. He was always overpushed. In retrospect though, he's kind of underrated. I still don't think he ever quite fit the push he had, but he was still a valuable member of any roster he was on. Sid was fun in short spurts, and Jeff Jarrett was fine as an upper midcard heel - anything more than that was too much. Randy Orton is my top pick for a list like this. Wrestlers rave about how good he is, and he is smooth between the ropes, but I find him to be a colossal bore.

I disagree. I thought they were very enthusiastic, just limited by jobber booking. Just out of curiosity, what more do you think they could have done? Also, you have to figure that Barry Darsow is a much better actor (cartoon-style) and more versatile performer than either Drew McIntyre or Jinder Mahal, who were fish out of water in the gimmick to begin with.

My thoughts exactly. How did Brock used to travel? He seems to have a similar personality - super ornery, not social, hates the human race. But Brock is Brock, and he was a beast even then. I don't see Corbin getting away with similar.

I didn't mind MIA at the time. It gave a spot to a bunch of people who had nothing else to do, and I really dug Hugh Morrus back then (not a popular sentiment nowadays, for obvious reasons).

Anyone watch Breaking Ground this week? It really seemed like a filler episode designed to brag about their Texas tour. Nothing much happened. They tried to make Josh a babyface family man, but his man bun is the most obnoxious shit ever. His first promo was brutal, but his second one wasn't bad. The "Yeti" gimmick is all sorts of awful and won't make it to TV. Sami Zayn's comment from the first or second episode - "don't get married to a certain vision" - is obviously foreshadowing Josh dropping the "Yeti" crap for something sustainable. The preview for next week shows Robbie Brookside seemingly going ballistic on ZZ, who was obviously only hired to fail for this show - something that really strikes me as evil. On another note: Carmella and Cass seem cool as hell, and Tyler Breeze is awesome, but Baron Corbin really does come across as an aloof dick uncomfortable with the spotlight. Part of me feels for him, but I don't see how that is going to work for him on the main roster when he is almost expected to be social and outgoing. But maybe that's one of the storylines they're trying to shape, and Corbin will be a social butterfly by the end of this? I wasted my time on The WWE List afterward because the topic "Failed Factions" sounded interesting. The list was horrible. No Union, no Corre, no Dungeon of Doom even, but plenty of decent-ish stuff like 3 Count, JOB Squad, bWo, and 3MB. Come on! When half the episode is spent defending the stables on this shitty list, you know it sucks. I was surprised The Cabinet wasn't on there, because they went out of their way to bury that on one of the Legends roundtables (I thought it was an okay stable myself).

I watched it last night. Seemingly no editing (outside of the normal editing that goes into any of these shows). Snuka was mentioned over and over. I suppose they could have removed the more flowery stuff about him, if there was anything, but we have no way of knowing that. Come to think of it, Snuka was mentioned more than Anvil. You'd think Anvil was the one in trouble with the law.

I hated Swagger at first, but he had two great periods IMO: - His re-emergence with Zeb Colter as the xenophobic "We the People" heel. (Of course, he fucked that up with a DUI or being busted with weed, or whatever it was - I can't remember now.) - His feud with Rusev where he more than delivered his end of it in the ring and got over as a proud American patriot (which even Lex Luger couldn't do). My thoughts on Episode 2 of Breaking Ground: - Does anyone else get the impression that ZZ was only brought back to fall on his face and fail for the sake of this show? After all, they keep harping on the theme that "not everyone will make it." That sucks if true, because he's just a kid and it seems unfair and almost malicious to set him up that way. Robbie Brookside is awesome though. I can tell he really cares about these kids. - Josh (the other idiot from Tough Enough who somehow won) looked like a complete dick when he was shown outside the ring openly laughing at ZZ. It made me hate him instantly, and not in a money-drawing "heel" way. What makes this moron think his shit doesn't stink? If ZZ can get it together, he has a far bigger upside as a character than Josh ever will. (After all, as Ziggler recently said, wrestling is the least important part of the wrestling business - and that's mostly true, at least in WWE, which has always emphasized characters, storylines, and being larger-than-life.) - The kid getting praised because he could do the Worm...WTF? If that's all it takes to get a key to the door of the Performance Center, I can do that too! Yeah, something was obviously lost in translation there. Bad editing? Not sure what happened, but that made no sense to me. Regal losing his shit over the roll and stance issue was funny though.

Never saw the appeal. He couldn't even convincingly portray his Raven character IMO. I actually preferred him as Scotty Anthony/Flamingo and Johnny Polo. But credit to him, I guess, for carving out an entirely different niche for himself and getting the fans to go along with Raven. To be fair, there were some fun moments there. But I was never a fan.

I really hope the Dudleys aren't on Taker's Survivor Series team. That seems like such a bad fit. Ambrose would work. I would've said Reigns but he's obviously otherwise occupied. Randy Orton would be an ugh, but I can't think of another fourth. Ehhh, I guess Ryback would be okay...blech. Cody Rhodes (not Stardust) would be cool, just as a callback to Taker's debut with Dusty, but that won't happen. Is there anyone from NXT they could call up for the fourth spot?

That is even more bizarre. In what galaxy is it preferable to lose to Koko instead of Flair, unless there was already heat there and Dundee and Koko were buddies?

What's the story here? Why on earth would Flair have heat with Dundee, of all people?! Some mishap or perceived slight during the Flair-Regal matches, perhaps? Bizarre. Flair really comes across as an old, cranky, bitter, drunken, insecure dickhead sometimes.

It makes him look like he has fleas. I get it that his "thing" is to be grungy, but does he really have to look so damn dirty too? Then again, his move is called Dirty Deeds. Why wouldn't it? Tamina was still on Raw - and Total Divas - weeks after the Snuka controversy (she was even identified as "Tamina Snuka" on the latter), so I don't see that affecting Table for 3.

I caught up on a bunch of Table for 3 episodes last night. The ones I watched previously: - Piper/Orndorff/Okerlund: Aweosme and touching. Probably still the high water mark for this series. - New Day: ROCKS! Seriously, decent episode - LOVED their response to Vince's infamous "Brass Ring" comment. - Sting/DDP/Vader: I liked it a lot, but based on the glowing reviews and participants involved, I honestly expected more. That's just me though. The ones I watched last night: - Miz/Truth/Axel: Had its moments, but too much non-wrestling content. Notice how they were all planning for "life after WWE," which is interesting in its own way and says a lot about what it must be like to work there now. - Bryan/Ryback/Ziggler: This was a lot of fun. Tons of goofy road stories and ribs against Ryback. Panera bread does suck. - Ambrose/Owens/Cesaro: I barely remember it, but maybe I was just tired? A couple of interesting stories and a good point that the indy scene of five years ago is today's WWE roster. Ambrose looked like he could use a bath though - he kept scratching himself. I still need to watch the one with the women.

I never disliked Nikki. She's no Sasha Banks, but she tries hard and has worked hard to improve. Plus, a great character like others are saying. Brie seemed like the standout at first, so Nikki's ascension is all the more surprising, but good for her. As for Dolph, I like him just fine - I just think he needs to turn desperately. He's a homewrecking man-whore tool who throws around words like "millennial" seemingly unironically. How is that a babyface character? It's possible none of those things are his fault, but his storylines aren't serving his character right now. I never hated Dana Brooke like the rest of the internet seemingly does. She didn't blow me away or anything, but I never minded her. The cool thing about NXT is seeing these guys and gals blossom as characters and/or in the ring in the span of a few short months: Becky Lynch, Blake and Murphy, Baron Corbin, etc. If Charlotte had a giant wart on her face, she'd still in NXT (or not in NXT at all). I really hate that kind of comment, because it's lazy and illogical criticism IMO. Being Flair's daughter means nothing if she sucks, and she doesn't. You said it yourself: "She's better than most of the Divas roster." That alone is enough to warrant her being on the main stage. It doesn't matter if she's not as good as you want her to be or think she should be - that argument is ridiculous, quite frankly. Can she get better? Yes. And she will. Even you acknowledge that her "wrinkles" can be "ironed out," so what's the problem exactly?

LOL at all of the silly posts about a Cena-H beef because of the way Nikki is being booked. Newsflash: No one outside this board thinks Nikki is better than Charlotte. You guys really are in a bubble if you think that's the consensus opinion anywhere other than here. It certainly isn't in the WWE. Come on now! With that said, Nikki has worked hard and has a great character, but I think Charlotte's ceiling is much higher if she keeps improving. In only a couple of years, she's already pretty good and more of a "natural" compared to Nikki's ten years doing this. It's easy to criticize Charlotte - and I've done it too (I don't think she's a good babyface at all) - but people seem to forget how new she is at all of this. Being Ric Flair's offspring isn't a magic elixir when it comes to wrestling ability, as we saw with David Flair. Also, it's ludicrous that there's any discussion of Nikki being "booked badly" when she just finished a record-breaking reign as Divas Champion. "Former champ gets a rematch and loses" is a standard - and boring - WWE trope, so I have no idea why people are suddenly acting like Nikki is being jobbed out.

- Blood really adds to a match. - The announcers need to never say "FOR THE WIN!" again because it takes away the illusion and impact of a possible win - no one ever wins after "FOR THE WIN!" - Get that fucking medic out of there. What the fuck.

I didn't think their match last month was good either.

New Day retains!!! Does this feud continue one more month? Sure seems like it.

Cena Open Challenge: AWESOME surprise with Zeb Colter and of course Del Rio. Average match, and that's being kind. Finish was weak. But it's as good a way as any for Del Rio to come back.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this will happen:

Crazy HiaC PPV predictions: - Ambrose answers the Cena challenge and wins the U.S. Title. - THEDEMONKANE becomes the WWE Champion and drops it to Lesnar at Survivor Series.

Excellent, excellent post, which I've truncated for the sake of space. You basically posted exactly what I was going to. Molly Holly, in particular, could wrestle circles around Lita and Trish, but Lita and Trish were better "stars" than any of the other women, and that's still what matters in pro wrestling. Trish had the "look" they wanted anyway, but her hard work combined with that probably put her way over the hump. It was an easy decision for WWE to push her. She fit all the boxes and worked her ass off to improve. She may not have been a "natural" in the ring the same way Molly was, but so what? That has never been what WWE has recognized and rewarded. With that said, I loved Molly, found her hot, and was always frustrated that she never got a bigger push. Still, in retrospect, she did well for herself. Smart young lady booking herself into that head-shaving angle and spot. It is possible to have a great relationship with a co-worker, but be resentful about how they get treated preferably compared to you, despite same work level, etc. As long as you percieve that your co-worker has little to nothing to do with the way the company treats them. Yes, but in public and on camera? It's one thing to have those views privately, or even share them with Trish, but to act that way in an official WWE-sanctioned documentary? Also, as thebrainfollower pointed out, Lita brought a lot of that on herself - some through no fault of her own (injuries) and others that were definitely her fault (fucking around with a married man and "betraying" a beloved underdog wrestler). Look, I'm not debating the morality, or lack thereof, of her actions - I'm just saying it wasn't a very smart business decision. We never heard anything like that about Trish, as follower also pointed out, which tells me she had a much better head on her shoulders than Lita.

I loved the JBL reign. Sure, I think everyone wanted a longer reign for Eddy, but it was what it was. Surprised no one has mentioned David Arquette and Vince Russo in this thread? Too obvious? Great Khali? Rob Van Dam certainly qualifies. Finally wins the big one, then gets busted for drugs (along with Sabu). Idiot! He pretty much pissed away his main event status for the rest of his career. Hard for me to have sympathy when someone is just that dumb. Am I being too judgmental? Maybe. But damn it was disappointing at the time.

I watched the Lita-Trish episode of Rivalries. Yes, I consciously picked that over the Steamboat-Flair episode. Why? Because we've been inundated with Steamboat-Flair for 20 years, and as great as it was and still is, there's little new to be learned from it at this point IMO. Lita-Trish is fresher and less traveled ground. (With that said, I'll eventually watch Steamboat-Flair, of course.) Not a bad episode, but I do think they may have exaggerated the impact Lita and Trish had. Well, okay, they both had an impact, but WWE didn't follow up on it whatsoever. If they had, no one would be going nuts about the "Diva Revolution" or Bayley-Banks main eventing a PPV in 2015. After Trish and Lita left, women in wrestling were still in the same meaningless marginalized position. If anything, their spots may have regressed. I may be reading into nothing because they kept harping on what "besties" both women were and are, but Lita seemed almost resentful at times of Trish's bigger push and picture perfect retirement. Lita's own final match - where she was treated like crap - was completely skipped over, for obvious reasons. A fun little hour, but perhaps more notable for what wasn't said and shown.