Jimmy James

I think you kind of have to cool it off on the surprises and nostalgia entrances every so often. At this point everyone's expecting like two or three old legends in the Rumble so cooling it off makes it more special when they do show up.

pretty sure they were heavily implying a Roman heel turn which kind of has to happen (I mean, you'd think) if he's actually going to feud with Undertaker

I thought that start to finish, that was a tremendous card, one of the best WWE's put out in a long time.

This is a misquoting, Road Dogg is continuing to be the effective co-writer of SmackDown with Ward, which has always been the case, but he's gotten a promotion and a raise.

from what i can tell, it's pretty much a gimmick for his podcast business.

The problem I see with pushing Cesaro really hard to main eventer status is that I don't see what he brings to the table outside of very good matches. That sounds like a silly criticism, but can you really see him pulling off the main event angles that WWE likes? What do you do with him after he has his big moment and wins the title? The guy can't talk, and having a good look isn't the same as being good at character work. Mid-to-high card guy who puts on very good matches is right where he should be, I think, and I love the guy.

I like Cesaro but I mostly think he's being used where he should. Maybe pushed a bit higher to the point where he gets the odd PPV main event, but the idea that he should be #1 babyface kinda reminds me of.... were there smart fans in 1996 who thought WCW should push Dean Malenko to the moon?

This is more a F4W thing than a Dave thing, but I'd really like to give a shout out to the guy on the F4W awards article who voted Cesaro as most underrated and Sheamus as most overrated. Cesaro and Sheamus are pushed at the exact same level and were in a program for most of the year. The only way giving two people pushed at the exact same level the "most overpushed" and "most underpushed" awards makes any kind of sense are if you think Cesaro is like, Misawa-level amazing and Sheamus is Van Hammer-level bad. Just completely absurd shit. I guess this is what happens when you have a shitload of great matches in the second half of the year with Cesaro and the only praise you get from Dave is "Sheamus was in position for Cesaro"

I feel like an idiot for caring about someone's subjective ratings but something about him doing a mea culpa for OVER-rating WWE matches makes me flip out

yeah if the idea of moving Roman to the US title scene was to placate the hardcore fans, it was dumb. Given the reaction, the only thing that would be acceptable to those people is if Roman Reigns were jobbing to Bo Dallas every week on Superstars.

RAW is nowhere near as bad as it gets a rap for sometime (where seemingly every show gets "Worst RAW ever!" reviews) but the stale, heatless main title scene is a huge flaw with the show, even when the main events are generally good.

How many times has Rusev been the only good thing about an awful segment? That horrible Rusev/Ziggler feud was all about that. I love Rusev, he's really a Boss Man-type guy where he can go anywhere on the card and improve it.

Main event wasn't bad, mainly due to good selling. I always love it when people sell moves like the Codebreaker by flopping dead like a sack of cannonballs, instead of doing the silly bounce in the air. Good stuff since the story was supposed to be Roman getting murdered 2-1.

The commentary for the table spot is so good. Vince screaming "OH NOOO" and the commentary just cutting out for like a solid minute. It's a shoot!

Rewatching some early 90s WCW since it's a WCW period I'm weak on (grew up with the received wisdom that Jim Herd/Bob Orton WCW was horrible). Clash XVII was such an entertaining show that now I'm looking for WCW Saturday Night shows around it. I want to see where the Sting/Rude program goes!

They need Stroman. Not even kidding here, when's the last time we had a "monster heel on top" run? Mark Henry? It's at least something different.

SmackDown actually was getting some scattered approval as a wrestling show in the first half of 2016, when they moved it from Friday.

1. Get into the non-NJ japanese promotions 2. Watch the yearbooks already

Is it being a mark to blame Hunter for this? Him gifting Owens the belt was unnecessary and ended up making everyone involved in the main title program look less by association. His in-ring stuff, too, is pretty poor.

No, but they are clearly engaging in anti-competitive practices.

It's kind of a stupid idea even if it was to get heat, people don't like Roman as a FIP even though his selling is mechanically pretty good.

I hate to agree with Bryan Alvarez but if Tye doesn't debut as #10 in the Rumble, I don't know what to say

and yet people went nuts when Mike Tyson did that shit

People legitimately do get excited about SmackDown in particular, not sure if there are very many RAW stans out there right now. SmackDown and the Goldberg program have been the bright spots in the last few months of WWE.

I rewatched Clash X (the show where the Horsemen turned heel midway through) before this show and I don't know which one had more perplexing booking.