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That Paige promo was better than anything else I can remember her doing on the main roster.

I guess it depends on your booking philosophy for Wrestlemania. Vince has often been accused of booking Wrestlemania to get the most attention at the expense of the rest of the year, whereas most of us would probably prefer logical booking that uses Wrestlemania as the payoff for things that have been brewing all year, planting the seeds for the next round of storylines. If Brock loses to a part-time wrestler, then it throws the entire year of development into the trash. If he wins, it squanders the chance to elevate someone new for the coming year.

Judging from the clips of this show online, it's booked better than Raw.

Sad to see the end of this series of retrospectives. I really enjoyed it. It's pretty rare to hear about such a long period of time in detail from a single person who was there. That HHH burial was indeed pretty awesome.

She has good heel schtick, and on top of it she looks more physically impressive than the other women in NXT. I guess they're doing Sasha Banks as her next feud?

It seems pretty weird to bring someone out by their shoot name to have them introduce their gimmick name.

There was something missing in that tag match. Besides the obvious awkwardness of The Ascension trying to work with Kalisto's style, it didn't feel like a match worthy of ending a long title reign like that. Perhaps it just needed a bit more time, particularly in the heel control segment? I'm probably just spoiled from the long Usos / Wyatt Family matches on the last few PPVs.

That was a Magnum TA vs. the Mulkeys level squash. Nice finisher from Corbin.

I don't watch Mojo Rawley or Bull Dempsey when they're on the weekly NXT show, so they could be putting on 5-star classics and I wouldn't know any better. In all reality the match is going to be horrible.

With Sasha Banks and CJ Parker, they've been doing a pretty good job of having relevant interactions with wrestlers on the pre-show. Beats the usual "who do you think is going to win?" round-the-horn.

Yeah, and according to a tweet by Triple-H that won't be the only debut.

I figured I'd start a topic about this event. The lineup: Bull Dempsey vs. Mojo Rawley Enzo Amore vs. Sylvester Lefort [Hair vs. Hair Match] The Ascension (champions) vs. Lucha Dragons (Kalisto and Sin Cara) [NXT Tag-Team Championship Match] Charlotte (champion) vs. Bayley [NXT Women's Championship Match] Adrian Neville (champion) vs. Sami Zayn vs. Tyler Breeze vs. Tyson Kid [Fatal 4-Way match for the NXT Championship] I think this is gonna be a fun show. I'm curious to see what we get out of the main event that we haven't seen from those 4 before.

JR just about came in his pants when Stan Hansen started talking, completely unprovoked, about how heels need to get heat and not secretly want to be cheered.

My favorite discussion on the podcast was the one about Reigns / Orton. After the match (and based on sentiment from the Battleground main event), I felt like Reigns was showing weaknesses as a "video game wrestler" who just hits a handful of big offensive moves that are over, but isn't able to draw in the crowd in the connective tissue of a match. Orton was even getting some big face pops from the crowd in the middle of the match, and they usually don't care that much about Orton. Will made a good point that for the most part, this isn't a problem with Reigns; it's a problem with the layout of the match. There's nothing wrong with him being a total badass. His charisma, or the feeling that he is the "coolest guy in the room", during matches is not soley an intrinsic property of him as a human being. It has a lot to do with how he was booked as part of the Shield, and they aren't carrying that same philosophy into his singles matches.

I feel a bit guilty for being such a fan of the stupid stuff happening in the 90s: the unprotected chair shots, the stupid dives from the top of cages and balconies, head drops, etc. Looking back at what happened to some of the practitioners of the style, it's sad to see what happened to their lives afterwards, and you wonder how much of it could have been prevented had they worked a 'safer' style. Of course, there is a bit of a confounding factor in that the people who are doing questionable spots like that probably wouldn't be making sound life choices in the absence of the opportunity to do those things in wrestling matches. I have pondered if there is an economic model of the escalation of credibly vicious high spots over time, and how it is affected by the ability to easily watch clips of spots from wrestling matches, both past and present. I can search on YouTube and see clips of guys like Jun Kasai doing things that would probably kill or paralyze most people. In this world, how long does it take to rehabilitate a spot like going through an announce table to the point where it can finish a match again? It's especially interesting because the WWE has at least 4 PPVs based around gimmick matches (MITB, HIAC, TLC, and EC). If you keep doing them every year, then they eventually either get watered down or they have to come up with ways to make each year's match more spectacular than the ones in previous years. It would be better if they found a way to save them for truly heated feuds instead of bringing them out on a fixed schedule.

I'm so glad they didn't go with another distraction finish. Also, HHH selling for Brie is hilarious.

Who wore it better, Seth Rollins or Stephanie McMahon?

IIRC it was the August 4th Raw.

I like the irony of Rollins trying to leave a Lumberjack Match but Ambrose being the one to pull him back.

This is one of the best use of body part psychology in recent WWE.

Paige with a Bullet Club inspired cuddle after the match. This was a lot better than their Battleground match, and it really conveyed the chaotic nature of their feud. I wonder if passing the women's title back and forth will be a more regular thing, or if this is just because of Summer Slam.

Cena as the corporate champion is a great idea. They could even have Steph and HHH justify their decision to go with Cena over Brock by pointing out that Brock has never been a company man, left when they needed him the most, always asks to work a reduced schedule, whereas no one has sacrificed their outside life for the wellbeing of the WWE like John Cena. It's basically the same angle that Cena took at the end of his video package with Brock.