C.S.

Anyone catch the new Breaking Ground after the Survivor Series? Probably the best episode yet. It made me want to root for Mojo Rawley. His rapport with that one fan who got straight As on his report card was really touching. We also got to see a different side of both Dana Brooke and Zack Ryder through their interactions with Mojo. William Shatner narrating "Hype Bros" makes me smile. The stuff with Jason Jordan and Chad Gable was fantastic too. Gable: "Do you know what every great tag team has had in common?" Dramatic pause. "They were all best friends." Jordan's facial reactions were priceless. ZZ, not Josh, continues to be the "star" on this show out of the two Tough Enough contestants. Even though ZZ has cardio and maturity issues (in fairness, he is only 19), he recognizes what he has to work on, and he's nice and humble about it. He "quit" at the end of this week's show, but I hope he turns things around. Man Bun Josh does nothing for me. Unfortunately, I suspect ZZ was only hired to highlight the fact that some people "don't make it" (one of the taglines of this show).

Worst PPV of the year? I was pissed last night, but now I'm just laughing at how hard WWE trolled its "Universe." Sheamus was a dorky dweeb in a nothing match earlier on the show, and now he's the World Heavyweight Champion. His character is still ice cold either way. BTW, WTF was up with Reigns crying for several minutes at the end? Surprised no one mentioned that. I'd cry too in his position, but still. What's sad is that I went from rooting to Ambrose to rooting for Reigns as soon as Sheamus tried to cash in. I bet I wasn't alone. WWE coulda gotten their boy some genuine cheers if Sheamus's lame cash-in was thwarted by Reigns and his cheering Roman Empire.

Yeah, for all of the criticism Jericho gets now, he may have been the last great heel. He refused to have merchandise during his heel run, which is really old school and dedicated - and like you said, a bunch of copycats sprung out of Jericho's last big heel run. Hell, Miz's whole character, mannerisms, and cadence during that time were a cosplay of short-haired, suit-wearing heel Jericho.

He lost matches in the WWF, but he was still treated as a "name" of sorts. Big difference from a Damien Demento or Jim Brunzell type who was teaming with legitimate jobbers and was a jobber themselves. Roma got a far bigger push in WCW, which I'm sure was criticized at the time, but it didn't seem as out of place as it would if Kato and Tanaka had jumped to WCW and suddenly become a top team (which, in fairness, didn't happen).

This is the kind of revisionist thinking that sounds good today but would've had everyone scratching their heads back in 1995. Kato (Diamond) and Tanaka were jobbers by the end of their WWF runs. Not "name guys who lost to bigger names" but jobber-jobbers. Like Jim Brunzell, Blake Beverly, Damien Demento, and a few others, they were downgraded to true blue jabroni roles. They teamed with other jobbers (for example, I remember Demento and Brooklyn Brawler as partners in one match, and Brunzell and Glenn Ruth [before his push as a Headbanger] as partners in another match), never won, and didn't matter a lick. For WCW to bring these guys in and have them go over their established teams would've been a terrible idea, no matter how talented and/or underutilized they were in the WWF. That's probably the same reason Mike Enos (Blake Beverly) was also used as a pure job boy in WCW. (Of course, WCW being WCW, Enos somehow got a PPV match with Benoit at, I think, Souled Out. But make no mistake, he was still used as a jobber who didn't matter one iota to the product.)

Despite what I said about Ron Funches, this is a pretty good read (and probably an even better listen): http://www.pwpodcasts.com/2015/11/20/we-watch-wrestling-116-guest-comedian-ron-funches-nov-18-2015/

J.R. on foxsports.com: Ole Anderson felt The Undertaker "would never draw a dime." Actually, it's a great read on The Undertaker in general, especially his conduct and role behind-the-scenes.

Going to eat a lot of shit for this, but Greg Valentine. Awesome looking figure with the knee brace, but by this time, he was a slow, plodding, bland, uncharismatic bore who was way past his prime. As a kid, I never saw any appeal in him. Of course, I missed his "heyday" by a few years.

I definitely never saw him anywhere near that bulky when he was in the WWF. That doesn't mean he wasn't - just that I never personally witnessed it. It wasn't until WCW that I saw him look like a jacked up juice monster. What was the point? He wasn't pushed.

Since we're now including jobbers in this, what about Jim Powers? He seemingly roided up for WCW, years after doing that would've mattered or had any impact on his career, and yet he still remained a jobber.

He's on most of the ones I've seen. He may be a funny comedian (I have no idea), but as a talking head, he's about as effective as any random fan would be - not very.

I feel like I'm the only one who loved the J.R. heel turn speech. It led to the horrible fake Razor and Diesel angle, but the speech and turn itself was pure gold.

I watched the Best Vignettes episode of The WWE List. No surprises, other than Kharma (which was unexpected), but still a fun look back at all of the usual suspects - and some outtakes that were absolutely perfect. One thing I don't understand is why WWE uses d-list celebrities for this show. If most of us have never heard of them, they're not real celebrities. For example, who the fuck is Ron Funches? (Nothing against Ron - I'd also pick on the other quasi-celeb lady with the NY/NJ accent, but I can't remember her name.) The only real celeb they used was Melissa Joan Hart, and they should be on their hands and knees thankful she's a fan. This show would be so much better if they used more wrestlers and less/no celebs. The wrestlers they do use are an odd assortment of legends (Jake) and barely-on-TV-yet NXT wrestlers (Elias Samson), so they have the right idea there. There was one mildly surprising talking head appearance by an older wrestler you wouldn't necessarily have expected, but try as I might, I can't remember who it was now. Hopefully someone else watched the show and can jog my memory. If it comes to me, I'll edit the post. Edit: Virgil is probably who I was thinking of.

Really good. If anything, too short. But there will be a Part 2.

Yep. Had the same experience last night. What a joke!

I liked Sable better as a kid because I thought she was "hotter," but in retrospect, Sunny obviously runs away with this in every category - including looks. As an adult, I'll take her fresh-faced beauty (at the time) over Sable's overly "plastic" appearance.

Charlotte should never have come up as a babyface. She's the drizzling shits at it - at least right now. All of the stuff about her evolved DNA or superior genetics - or whatever her schtick was - is pure heel. With that said, Paige came across as totally obnoxious and unlikable on both Total Divas and Tough Enough, and she herself has said she prefers being a heel, so turning her into one wasn't the worst idea in the world.

The only role Bryan should come back for is to win the Royal Rumble as the surprise 30th entrant. Yes, I know it's "risky" because he might get injured again in the middle of his push, but fuck being cautious! The WWE has too many others down. They need a guaranteed crowd pleaser, and Bryan is it.

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.