The Man in Blak

Jim Ross mentioned 9-0 after Undertaker won the first HHH match at WM X-Seven, so they were definitely acknowledging it, even if they weren't giving it top billing like they would later on.

Smackdown thoughts: - Hard to tell how much heat Rollins really had for his opening segment, since the Smackdown crowd mics seemed juiced in the mix, but he did well enough, considering the (lack of) storyline. His non-answer still sucks, but he presented that non-answer about as well as he could ("the only one he owes anything to is himself", etc.). Ziggler comes out to retort and, outside of a wink to the smarks about being pushed down the card, doesn't really add any value to the segment, outside of cueing up a "You Sold Out" chant. - Rollins/Ziggler was a'ight. As someone who's just came back to WWE, I feel like I'm missing something with Ziggler: terrible name, looks like Billy Gunn (not a positive), and doesn't really do much in the ring, other than sweet dropkicks. But he seems to be over, at least. Both guys do a decent job of dressing up a your-turn-my-turn brawl, even pulling the crowd into a couple of close falls near the end. Comments overheard from Triple H during the match: "You know the best thing about [Rollins]? He can ADAPT to anything!" Um, okay. Rollins still needs to find his voice in-ring as a heel but, as it was mentioned earlier, having him be the every-card workhorse for Evolution isn't the worst idea ever, even if the turn itself still continues to make no sense. - More awkwardness from Bad News Barrett on the mic, as he ends up delivering a subdued face-ish promo against Cesaro and RVD. Barrett has come across way too strongly as a jerk to earn any sort of sympathy, but that seems to be exactly what they're going for with this weird Cesaro/RVD/Barrett deal. I'm starting to feel like he's 1000% better when he can simply heel up his catchphrase, trash the face, and immediately get off the mic. - Rollins shakes hands with Orton for the first time, which leads to a confrontation with the Big Show. I defended Orton in the Microscope thread, but his delivery of "welcome to the dark side" here was just corny. Of course, Triple H is turning into a comic book villain who's obsessed with anything and everything that adapts, so maybe it's only fitting that the rest of Evolution deliver their lines like rejects from the Sinister Six. - The Usos beat Rybaxel (complete with jobber entrance, no intro) in a match that might have gone three minutes, tops. Rybaxel spends 75% of the match working double-team moves, then Axel takes a kick to the stomach while coming off the top, big splash, pin. Terrible layout, awful sequence to the finish, baffling booking decision. - Didn't Xavier Woods already get squashed by Rusev? I guess WWE is fresh out of black wrestlers to feed to him, so it's time for re-runs. - Cesaro/RVD/Barrett in a triple threat for the IC TItle seems like something that they could build towards on PPV, but here it is. There's some heat between Heyman and Cole that I don't have any history for, but it keeps Cole mostly quiet for the match, so that's a plus. Decent triple threat match that touches on a few of the usual triple threat novelty spots. - Bray Wyatt says he's reborn. Not an especially memorable promo. - Hey, a hype segment for Charlotte/Natalya on NXT! It leads into a Natalya/Alicia match, which starts to look like a good match until Alicia starts her mid-match freakout routine on the outside. Odd finish, as Alicia ends up tilt-a-whirling Natalya into a splash on top of herself for the pin, which leads directly into a post-match tantrum that feels like it goes on longer than the match. Pretty good showing for Natalya, on the whole. - Bo Dallas squashes Santino. Some good comedy at the start, though, as Santino does his own victory lap around the ring after a couple of arm drags. This, of course, triggers Bo's mean streak, which isn't as fun or interesting as his delusional streak, but whatever. - Orton/Big Show goes nowhere, outside of a funny spot where the draping DDT requires Big Show to be draped over the top rope. Rollins interferes and it looks like the crowd spends most of the beatdown looking up into the stands for a Shield run-in that doesn't happen. Kind of a blah finish.

I went back and watched some of Paige's previous work in NXT and she does tend to give away a lot of her matches there too, but nothing to the extent of her WWE run. And it's not like she doesn't have the offense to work with - her fisherman suplex looks solid and she can certainly lay in some decent kicks and dropkicks to the midsection. But, for whatever reason, she's leaving virtually all of it on the table right now. It's really weird.

Not a lot going on with the 6/5 episode of Superstars: - Paige beats Cameron in an increasingly typical nothing WWE match for Paige. Paige's entire offense consists of a slap and a hair toss but, once she ducks out of the way of a dive, she magically cinches in the scorpion crosslock for the submission win. The level of attention and care for the Divas (ugh) in WWE, inside the ring and out, is like night and day versus the NXT Women's division right now. - Titus O'Neil gets a backstage interview! It's typical cocky heel stuff, but Titus delivers it well enough. - Big E beats Titus O'Neil in a decent little TV match. Ninth or tenth time's a charm for these two, I guess, though it doesn't hurt that they got more than five minutes to work here. Nothing spectacular, but some solid heeling from Titus: begging for a clean break from the corner after a dirty break earlier, lots of chatter and disrespect for Big E throughout. Sensible finish too - Titus tries to go back to his corner-to-corner clothesline/splash spot, which worked twice earlier in the match, but Big E cuts it off with a spear and transitions it into the Big Ending. I really wish WWE would figure out something more substantial for both of them.

Like I said in the Payback thread, I'm probably lucky in that staying away from wrestling for so long has kept me from being overexposed to Orton and some of the other Same Old Names in WWE. Astonishingly enough, I actually think he's...pretty good? For me, he's a much better fit as an arrogant, aloof heel - his look and his history already makes it difficult to generate any sort of sympathy as a face. The mannerisms that he has are overblown, true, but they fit -- his signature "look at me" pose conveys arrogance just as effectively, if not more so, than most of Martel's schtick -- and subtlety isn't a virtue when you're trying to sell a moment to fans in the cheapest seats of the stadium. Plus, it's hard to fault Orton for bursting into an inane routine of "coiling viper" contortions to cue his finisher (and then patiently waiting for his opponent to get up) when 90% of the roster does their own variation of it; at this point, it might as well be a Modern WWE trope. What I've seen of his in-ring work is solid enough and his signature moves match his persona fairly well too. The ability to hit the RKO out of multiple situations plays well into the whole "Viper" thing and the draping DDT gives him a perfect opportunity to preen a bit. So, yeah, I guess I care. If you're only counting full-time guys on the roster (i.e. not Triple H), he's probably the most credible and capable pure heel that they've got.

Okay, after seeing that video, I had to go back and check out Charlotte/Natalya and I was very pleasantly surprised. Dat chain wrestling! That spot at the end where they're trading figure four "reversals", however, was ill-conceived and probably would have short-circuited the match if they had not ended it as soon as they did. Also, the tone of the ending and the video linked above seems a bit weird to me - Charlotte says that she's "genetically superior" to Natalya, disrespects her throughout the match, but then they hug at the end and Charlotte gets an inspirational video? Maybe I'm just missing some of the subtlety to the storyline by starting off cold with the Takeover match.

Oh man, do I disagree with this. I really, really dig the current dynamic and I'm a little bummed they're rushing Bray back to TV so quick. A month off would do wonders for all of them. You've got Harper and Rowan as basically lunatics with nobody to guide them and to me that's so much more interesting. You can put over how these guys were dangerous before, but they're even worse now that they're lost and have nobody telling them what to do. You're setting up more storyline opportunities because when Bray comes back, he has to try to steer the ship in the right direction again. Plus I think Harper showed Monday night that he can talk on his own. You know the story about The Brood; the first time Edge was given the opportunity to talk, he seized his opportunity and impressed everyone backstage. I think Harper was put in a similar situation for a reason. I do agree with you that keeping Bray Wyatt off of TV for a while is a good move -- I still feel like the Cena program did more harm than good to his viability as a character, so letting him slink away to lick his wounds for a while is a natural fit. The empty rocking chair, which is a great visual touch, always teases the possibility of a return, so why not let it linger for a bit? And, from a booking standpoint, I also agree that the idea of the Family becoming more unhinged with no one at the wheel to steer them is a good one. It builds in a possibility for some unrest when Wyatt comes back and either finds the Family succeeding in his absence or a struggling Family blaming him for abandoning them. But Harper's promo itself, while being a nice change of pace, also spewed out the same cryptic, biblical junk that you'd find in Bray Wyatt's mic work. It's probably just a matter of taste, but I feel like that sort of material needs Bray Wyatt's theatricality to make it sing - without Wyatt serving as the charismatic and unpredictable snake oil salesman, it comes across to me as second-rate and played out. By delivering it so earnestly and seriously, it treads too close to the Undertaker's Ministry of Darkness or the Dungeon of Doom for me. The real test for Harper, which apparently may not come since they're already racing to a Bray Wyatt comeback on Smackdown (why?), isn't the first promo without Bray at the helm -- it's the second one and the third one. It's the promos where he doesn't have the element of surprise that will show what kind of connection he can make with the fans.

Some thoughts on Main Event: - I like Bad News Barrett, but they give him a five minute opening segment to build yet another IC Title defense against RVD and he gets virtually nothing out of it. It's a flat crowd, but that still can't be what they want to see from a test run of extended mic work from Barrett. - Goldust pulling off a hurricanrana never ceases to be amazing. - Kingston's appeals to the crowd are really awkward; I have no idea what that arm juggling thing is supposed to mean and that alternating hand clapping thing is useless, just like 90% of all pre-finisher taunts. I blame Shawn Michaels for this. - I know I'm probably in the minority here, but the Wyatts without Bray don't really do that much for me at all as personalities. - Amazingly, they also give RVD a response segment with Renee Young and you can probably imagine how well that goes. - The Barrett/RVD match here might actually be better than their Payback match, if it wasn't for the finish. - If Cesaro is going to continue to spin his wheels, is there any chance they can let him work out a new finisher in the process?

The Shield, as great as they are/were, didn't exactly turn in inspired heel work from what I've seen of their PPV matches, which is probably why they were already earning cheers as "cool heels" even before the turn. They've always been heels by association - they've relied on the "the numbers game" for beatdowns, but they've also taken that approach for their face work against the Authority. That's Wrestling Faction 101 stuff, no matter what side you're working on. More importantly, Rollins and Reigns spent most of their time in the tag division simply going toe-to-toe with their opponents. Outside of Rollins attacking Rey Mysterio after his elimination from the Survivor Series tag match, they didn't do a ton of deliberate heeling in the ring that I can recall. They yanked the Usos off of the apron to cutoff a Goldust tag attempt in their Hell in the Cell triple threat tag match, but that's not really heelish as much as it is smart. And Rollins' typical role within those tag matches was transitioning into and feeding the hot tag. His finisher is a nice spot but, outside of his middle turnbuckle stun gun spot, his control work in the PPV matches that I've seen consisted of rapid double-teams and pedestrian offense. More than once, he ate the opposing team's finisher to either end the match (Battleground, HitC) or open up the legal man to a spear from Reigns that would turn the tide or maybe even win the match (the six-man at WM29). Hell, he spent most of his time in the TLC handicap match giving Punk offense. Sure, part of Rollins' lack of opportunity to shine as a heel may be by design; Reigns was very clearly the guy they wanted to protect in the Shield, so that severely limited their options for structuring any kind of vulnerability into their tag matches that didn't compromise Rollins in the process. (The fact that Rollins is willing and able to take flashier bumps doesn't hurt either.) But Rollins never really stood out with what time he had as a heel anyway -- his stock only started to pick up once they started facing heels and he could open up with more aerial offense. Shawn Michaels was in a very similar situation when he turned -- even though his offense as a heel was laughable, he could bump like a fiend -- but he could also work around those limitations by being incredibly charismatic. Unless there's something amazing hidden in Rollins that we haven't seen, he doesn't have that same safety net. This whole angle started with them already working for the Authority as their enforcers -- they broke ranks once they found out that HHH had orchestrated the attack on them right before Wrestlemania XXX. Why would Rollins, only twenty-four hours after going to war with these guys, trust anything that HHH would offer him?

Ambrose has the mean streak for it, sure, but he's so hilariously awesome at selling that he makes a perfect FIP. Rollins, on the other hand, strikes me as a guy that will really need to stretch out and show some a new side to work as a heel, since he served as the Shield's explosive, fan-pleasing spot machine...and he's got an uphill climb to sell his motivation for turning on a dime. Jealousy vs. Reigns, as mentioned above, is probably the one shot that they've got, but that reasoning looks incredibly silly when they're barely out of the afterglow of a PPV main event win. They're basically asking him to pull off the Rockers-era Shawn Michaels heel turn in a week without having the benefit of Jannetty lighting the fuse at Survivor Series. I haven't seen his pre-WWE work, though, so hopefully he's better suited for this role than he's shown. Because, right now, not only does this seem like poor timing for a quick betrayal in the Shield, but it seems like the worst possible guy of the three for it too.

Remember when I said in the Payback thread that last night's main event was full of fridge logic? Just consider this Rollins turn -- which is mostly playing to a mostly silent (stunned? or flat annoyed?) crowd -- a continuation of that. At least the commentary crew had the sense to shut up through most of it.

Would the Fall Brawl '95 match against Flair count as a canonizable "spotlight match?" I know there's some dispute over its quality, judging by the discussions in the '95 Yearbook, but I think it might be the best intersection you'll find of AA's ring work, his history with the Horsemen, and higher-profile storytelling.

It's a decent twist on the usual 10-count corner punch spot, if only because the strikes look better, but I'm not really a big fan of either one. Then again, sing-along moments are the easiest, albeit most shallow, way to provide the crowd with an illusion of agency in the match. (See also: Bray Wyatt's literal singalong from last night, with him conducting the crowd from the top of the ring stairs. Cool visual.) Booking-wise, I tend to agree, which is why I thought a 15-minute broadway made a ton of sense, as antiquated as the concept may be. They already fought to one double countout from their Main Event match - another non-conclusive finish on PPV provides a perfect excuse to escalate the program into something more substantial and, thus, something that potentially offers more ammunition for both guys. As it stands, they're probably going to re-run them again at Money in the Bank but, unless they're planning on Heyman abandoning Cesaro for Sheamus as a part of the MITB payoff, there's not a lot of heat to carry over into a rematch after a win like that. (Unless, of course, they oversteer and try to emphatically push that cradle pin as a total fluke on Raw, which does no favors for the Payback match either.) It just keeps them spinning their wheels, like the rest of the undercard.

Oddly enough, I actually like roll-up finishes in general. Bret Hart sticks out to me as someone who's used them effectively to cap off a longer match without making it seem cheap. As a conclusion to a 10-11 minute match, though -- even one as snug as Cesaro/Sheamus -- it doesn't quite have the same punch for me. Also, it probably would have helped if either: A. the inept, historically awful commentary team had actually driven the point home that the Giant Swing takes as much out of Cesaro as it does the victim. (Though, again, if that's the case, why do the move if you're in control at all?) B. Sheamus had bothered to sell any of the disorientation after the match, which he really didn't. It's interesting to compare it against their Main Event match, where both guys built a first half out of blasting each other with stiff uppercuts, but not really drawing the crowd into it until they started integrating some actual moves into the second half. (Something else that's interesting about that Main Event match: Cesaro pulled off a small package attempt of his own in that match, but it didn't get the pin.) At Payback, they trimmed down the brawling a little bit, punctuated those bursts of uppercuts more effectively with signature moves, and had a cleaner and more compelling build as a result. Short circuiting the payoff of that build with a flash pin off a cradle just seemed dissonant to the build itself; maybe I'd have a different opinion if it had come off of a bomb like a Brogue Kick counter.

Strangely enough, Payback was the first PPV I've ever caught live on the Network, even though I signed up before Wrestlemania 30. There were a few moments of sketchy image quality during the opening match and Paige/Alicia, but the overall stream was solid for me on PS3. Anyway, I liked Cesaro/Sheamus a lot, especially as an opener, but I do feel like it was undermined by the booking and *especially* the finish and post-match. I do like Sheamus's small package as a desperation / hope spot after the swing, but having it actually get the flash pin and, even worse, having Sheamus pop right up after the pin like nothing happened both makes Cesaro look like a chump and makes his Giant Swing kind of look like a waste of time. If there was ever a time to take advantage of a 15-minute time limit for a broadway, this was probably it, but I realize that asking for that in modern WWE is probably foolish. No idea where they go with Cesaro -- the pairing with Heyman seemed like a really interesting jumping point for him at the time, but they haven't really capitalized on it and, with a couple of months in the rear view mirror, it's looking less like a vehicle for Cesaro and more like an excuse to keep Heyman on TV so he can keep saying the name "BROCK LESNAR" as much as possible. Despite that, this probably would have been my favorite match of the night if it had put together a better finish. It's been great to have the Brotherhood around to run the southern tag formula in perpetuum on the undercard but, if they weren't actually going to push them as championship contenders, then I think they made the right call in splitting the team and doing it without turning either character (though maybe there will be more to come on that). Having Cody walk out on Goldust was a nice mirror image to the Booker T / Goldust split. Also: has Curtis Axel ever not been a complete waste of time? I was pleasantly surprised by Rusev and Big E. If you're going to sprint, you could do a lot worse, spot-wise, than a Big E spear to the outside and that NASTY Rusev kick. Oddly enough, I think that chinlock can work as a finisher for Rusev, as long as he continues to snug it up and wrench that thing back - the guy is so huge and stocky that it would seem impossible for most guys to have any shot of getting out of it. The pre-match Putin stuff never ceases to be awful and overly gimmicky, though, no matter how great Lana looks. The Bo Dallas segment was cute for what it was, though seeing Kane play his demon character in 2014 still borders on embarrassing. (Of course, this is the same company that let a voice-modulated kid scare Cena at Extreme Rules, so maybe WWE Creative is obsessed with horror movie banality.) Bo's pre-match grab for cheap sports heat didn't work so well with me, especially since Heyman already went to that well earlier in the night, but his post-attack speech for Kofi sounded like it might have hooked a part of the Chicago crowd. Out of all the recent NXT imports, Bo Dallas is the only one that's leaving me wanting more. The jabs at RVD's age during the intro to the IC Title Match were a bit surprising to hear. In a WWE where they let guys like Bryan and Sheamus unload with stiff strikes, you'd think that RVD would be right at home, but he does seem one half-step slower and one half-step looser...and he really couldn't afford to lose anything in either department. I think this match with Barrett might have been the best of his comeback -- the slingshot into a DDT at the end was a nice moment -- but I'm not sure where they go with him after this. His past history and skillset means he's a decent fit to play a "wily veteran" role in the upcoming Money in the Bank matchup, but losing an IC title shot doesn't make sense toward that build. As for Barrett, he's got a long road ahead if they're going to use him to rebuild the credibility of the IC title, but a clean win over RVD certainly doesn't hurt. Bryan's post-WM run has been a mess, though there's little that he or WWE could have done to work around his family tragedies and his neck injury. Having said that, it's a credit to how over he is that they can book him in another soap opera segment on the PPV and still have the crowd stay behind him. Brie can't act at all, but she got her money's worth out of that slap. One possibility for Money in the Bank would be to advertise that title shot as being close to a guaranteed title win for whoever wins the MITB ladder match, thanks to Bryan's injury; if Bryan could actually go in a limited capacity, they could protect him by having a heel (Orton or HHH?) win and cash in immediately after the MITB match, only to find out that Bryan is actually capable of wrestling. A clearly hobbled Bryan could gut out a fluke win, setting up an easy rematch at the next PPV. Cena/Wyatt had the right idea and the right spots, but never connected the dots all the way for me. A lot of that has to do with Cena getting the Hulk Hogan treatment - having him get up from a clean Sister Abigail and immediately cut loose with an AA stuck out as a particularly silly moment. The finish was straight out of the Attitude era and not necessarily in a good way. Still, this was probably the best match of the night, just by virtue of having the flashiest spots. If this was Cena finally overcoming the Wyatt Family with the help of the Usos after two straight losses to them on PPV, it would have had a much better ring to it, but Cena's win at WM30 still stands out as the crucial mistake in this feud. Once Bray lost that first PPV match, all of the potential drama out of John Cena having to "become a monster" to win (which, again, never really came up as an in-ring story here) had already stalled on the launch pad. The Alicia/Paige match was weird. Alicia's work as a heel in the ring continues to be great, but the booking for her continues to make no sense -- having her pin Paige clean in her hometown in a non-title match, but lose clean both here and on the go-home show was bizarre. I'm actually not a fan of her post-match schtick, but she deserves a lot better than what she's getting here. Their approach to Paige so far isn't working for me either. The WCW-era Randy Savage template -- having her spend 90% of the match eating offense, only to pop up with a miracle elbow, er, finisher -- might work for her if she actually managed to sell convincingly during or after the match, but she's doing neither and her comeback here felt particularly contrived. I haven't seen her work in NXT, but I'm inclined to think that she's better suited as a heel; her ring mannerisms and her Bull Nakano crosslock finisher seems better suited for heelwork, with the latter serving as a prime control/escape spot. Finally, the main event, which was a hot mess that somehow managed to be both ten minutes too short and ten minutes too long. Tons of fun in the moment, but full of fridge logic once the match was over. There's got to be a fascinating backstage story about Batista's ring attire. As cm funk mentioned, the standard six-man tag structure made absolutely no sense here, though I guess they didn't want to seem too same-y after the Cena/Wyatt match turned into an arena-sprawling brawl. I suppose the Reigns/HHH segment early on here was supposed to play as foreshadowing of some epic showdown, like the Hogan/Warrior confrontation at RR '90, but I'd much rather see Ambrose get that shot; the sequence where HHH hit him with the knee, only to have Ambrose tease a fall to the outside and bounce back to blast him with a clothesline was beautiful. I'm all for giving the Shield a rocket push, but having them come back and win in a clean sweep, especially after having Reigns get "caned" in the ring for an eternity, is over the top. Still, even if the execution is off, the end result is the right call; now that they've established the Shield as being unstoppable as a group, book all three of them in the MITB match (or maybe even a three-way dance for a right to be in MITB?) to try and sow dissension in the ranks. On the whole, I didn't think Payback was too bad, though virtually all of its undercard was still mired in the one-step-forward-one-step-back limbo that WWE has been stuck in after Wrestlemania. As someone who's been away from wrestling for ten years, I'm probably lucky that guys like Cena, Sheamus and Orton (who, in particular, seems like he's being wasted in Evolution) haven't been over-exposed for me. However, none of the in-ring work really hit me as being revolutionary. Most of what I've seen since I came back has comfortably fit into the WWE Style of brawling that the company was doing back when I watched regularly ten years ago; match structures are still overly contrived to create specific Moments, rather than interesting Matches that actually build and flow from end to end. The spots that punctuate all that brawling, though, are flashier. I'm actually more interested in the follow-up than I was in the in-ring action at Payback. (And I guess, by some measure, that means that Payback is ultimately a success.) There are a LOT of booking dead ends to sort out, as the extended post-WM programs have clearly run their course. I'm not convinced that Bray Wyatt has really been elevated by having Cena clown on him for the last three months. On a different wavelength, the Shield don't really have anybody else left to trample, now that they've decisively beaten the Acting CEO of the Company and his pet stable for two PPVs in a row.

So...some of the long-term members of the community might remember me, but my name is Steve and I was a founding admin of NMB, which was the message board that served as the initial "home" for the community that would eventually become PWO. Even at the time when NMB was active, I wasn't actually following wrestling at all -- I had mostly been turned off of wrestling by the Katie Vick angle, among other things. With the introduction of the WWE Network, though, I've jumped back into wrestling for the first time in around ten years. I got into wrestling as a kid in the mid-80s, renting every Coliseum Video release I could find for early WWF PPVs. I jumped into online fandom for wrestling in the mid-90s, bouncing around a couple of different communities before settling into the Rantsylvania/Smarks/TSM group, which ended up spinning off the crew that eventually ended up here. My exposure to Puro is a bit limited and it's one of the things I'm interested in potentially fleshing out here. Beyond that, I'm looking forward to revisiting some of these classic North America matches through the Network and other means and bringing a new (and older) pair of eyes to them.