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I'm not saying anything about should or shouldn't. People are going to get judged on their appearances no matter what, Grimmas, and especially in a profession where people stand in their underwear in front of audiences. That's going to happen forever no matter how much you'd like it to not happen. Zack Sabre Jr. got way more guff about his body than Chris Hero in the last year.

Do you think they will add Braun to that and make it a 3 way? It seems that would be good way to protect Taker since he seems so limited at this point. I don't at all. I see Braun dominating the battle royal.

I think we can all be sure Bull James' lack of abs is not the reason ROH fans are not receptive to him. We can also all be sure that Chris Hero has been one of the most popular guys on the indies regardless of his weight gain, and while people might make jokes about it, they also buy tickets to see him and pop when he elbows dudes in the face. If anything, these days being a scrawny dude will get you more guff online than being overweight or muscle bound.

Fighters actually building up their opponent in promos is exceedingly rare in MMA. Every promo in a UFC package is exactly the same: I'm going to beat his ass, I'm going to hurt him, he can't compete with me, he's nothing (or she), he's afraid of me, while you have Dana and Rogan actually talk people up. MMA promos are almost exclusively burials.

Does Nick Diaz flipping people off and taking a nap in the cage, or Anderson Silva's Matrix moves count as character work in the octagon?

Oh christ not this shit again

Yeah. At this point with the size of roster they have they could have a 2 day WM event. Almost necessary to get all the important talent in anything meaty and meaningful.

Biggest takeaway from Raw is that Chris Jericho and Undertaker are the most over faces on Raw in 2017. Goldberg already getting crowds turning on him is hilarious but also so predictably WWE audiences at this point. It's all fun and games until you beat an indie fav. Not sure what to think of Braun backing down to Taker. It's probably preferable to having Taker beat his ass, but it was wildly out of character. They'll already leaning heavily into "you should be booing Roman this time", so I expect fans to have a good time with that and probably end up cheering him in the end. Sami appears to be battle royal bound, which is hilarious. When Cesaro has more planned than you, your career is as low as it gets. Raw's side of WM is shaping up to be Brock vs Goldberg Taker vs Roman Seth vs HHH KO vs Jericho Sasha vs Bayley vs Charlotte Cesaro/Sheamus vs Bullet Club I assume the cruiserweights will be in a big multi man scramble on the pre show, but that looks pretty top heavy. Taker/Roman and Seth/HHH alone will likely take up 40 mins each with entrances and whatnot. Meanwhile, SD is looking like: Bray vs Orton AJ vs Shane Cena/Nikki vs Miz/Maryse Alexa vs ??? (probably Naomi back in time to regain the title in her home town in a fairly short match) Usos vs American Alpha Ambrose vs Corbin There's still the returning Balor, Joe (and hopefully they don't get paired up ever again), presumably Tyler Bate defending the UK Championship, possible NXT call ups as well.

80% of the male roster gets stuck in battle royals or 8 man ladder matches every year. They're being treated like the men, which is what the revolution was about, was it not?

They figure it out every 3 months, where all you need is to have Roman be king bad ass and beat the shit out of someone while not saying much. It has worked literally every single time they've tried it. And then a week or two later they go back to lame promos that go much longer than they should for him, or he's given a title shot for no reason. Just have him beat people up and be quiet. That's how he got over in the first place. They just brought Goldberg back and can't figure out, "hey, this formula seems to work"?

This is basically what I'm saying. The sexism angle that people bring up as why women don't get a chance when they're now getting multiple matches per PPV, main events on Raw and PPV, gimmick matches, heavily pushed in advertising beyond hot women, etc, is ridiculous. The idea of Vince revealing his TRUE feelings on the women wrestlers he pays because Goldberg vs Brock and Undertaker vs Roman are bigger matches than Sasha vs Bayley to him is There are a number of reasons why they aren't there yet, and it's not because they are women or Vince doesn't think they are capable/should be headlining his shows.

Isn't this what we're talking about? That the women get put in their little box come WM season because Vince doesn't actually see them as stars since he won't put them at or near the top of a WM card (ignoring of course that they got placed over Brock on the card, were front and center in the adverts, had the biggest entrances, and was universally called the match of the night by fans and the announcers)? Not that it could possibly be that the women are not yet at the level where they can be trusted to headline such an event based on their weekly and PPV matches that have frequent flubs and awkward spots or blown finishes. Has to be Vince hates women, of course.

I'm not at all. What I am saying is that there is still a talent barrier reason why they won't get a main event at WM slot anytime soon that goes beyond "Vince/Dunn/whoever doesn't like women" nonsense. I'm saying the top four are very sloppy and get easily lost and have a hard time getting back on track, and that's nothing something I'd nor I presume Vince McMahon will be willing to actually headline WM. Just like I like Braun a lot, but I don't trust him in the main event of WM at this stage in his career. Some of my favorite WWE matches in the past couple of years have been with the Four Horsewomen, but I also have seen them all crash when the pressure is really on, and that's not the kind of talent you want in the main event at WM.

Bully vs Bull, of course. To give the fans an outlet to scream at fat people that they hate.

No I get that, and it's tough trying to fit everyone onto Mania, but it's about priorities. The top male wrestlers WILL get top singles matches/title matches/showcase matches at Mania. It's when you get down to the midcard or leftover guys where they'll get thrown into a random undercard match or the battle royal to get them on the show. Jobbers will struggle to make it on. But the top female wrestlers WILL get thrown into their random undercard matches to get them on the show. Everyone below them misses out. The women have kind of made it from the absolute bottom of that Midcard/Throw Them On Somewhere tier to the top of it. That's progress I guess. But they're still ways away from cracking the top tier. They flirted with it by having them main event a B PPV and Raw and stuff (and again I'm not complaining about that kind of progress) but when you get to Mania you see where their REAL priorities lie. And at Mania the clock strikes midnight and the women have to go back into their box. We need the time for the real stars. Like, the fact that the women have come so far in the last 12 months kind of makes it worse. During the year they can main event PPVs and TV and have 30 minute title matches and stuff. They've shown that they have the workers and the popularity to do it. But they won't even consider building two separate women's issues for Mania. They won't even consider building to some epic, 30 minute title match like the men get. The best they can do is shoehorn them into the same lone title match spot that they always get. But this time, they'll get 15 minutes to work instead of 3. While that sounds like a "WWE showing its true colors about the women", it's clear that none of the women WWE currently has employed saved for maybe Asuka are capable of handling what is needed for a WM main event match. The top four can't even finish a 10 minute TV match without it falling apart multiple times. And these are women that work with each other pretty much exclusively for the past 2-3 years. Do you really trust Bayley to end the show of shows in front of 100K people? The Divas Revolution worked, the Four Horsewomen are all decent-great workers, but every match any of them are involved in can still go completely off the rails any second regardless of opponent. You can't depend on them not to get completely lost and not know how to get back. Too bad Sasha-Bayley from Brooklyn was the best WWE match from the last decade. Okay, but what does that have to do with what I said? It was great. It was also extremely sloppy, Bayley got lost multiple times, and it wasn't headlining a 5 hour event in front of 100,000 people. The month after, Bayley/Sasha got to headline an even and it was also a sloppy mess. A few months back, Charlotte and Sasha got to headline an actual PPV and it was a sloppy mess. These Raw main events with Charlotte vs Sasha/Bayley have been sloppy messes that often fall apart completely multiple times per match and get by on pacing and big spots. The WM match last year was a sloppy mess with multiple blown spots. The last thing I'm wanting in the main event of WM is multiple talents who frequently get lost and don't know how to recover and get back on track. As of now, all of the women on the main roster are still those talents, as good as they may be overall or how many good matches they've had.

Lol. It's because he's a NXT reject who doesn't fit in a workrate promotion (or whatever ROH tries to be these days) and clearly got booked just because he was an ex WWE guy they could roll out . That your first thought would be "is it because he's fat?" is hilarious. A company that books the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, and brings in Okada/Tanahashi fairly regularly. Weird that that audience doesn't give a shit about Bull Dempsey. Not hilarious . Fans of today hate wrestlers because they are overweight . That is a fact. You have to be a great worker to get past being overweight . I don't watch NXT so I have only seen a picture of James , never seen him work .Unless you are Samoa Joe or Steen , ROH fans boo fat guys out of building. Been that way since the Blue Meanie hit TV screens. Fans of today hate wrestlers who suck. If they're overweight and suck, and you think people hate them because they're overweight, you're projecting. People discussing the physical appearances of wrestlers is not the same thing as hating them for being overweight. This started with you not even knowing anything about Bull beyond seeing a picture of him, and you projected that ROH fans must not like him because he's overweight. If you had known anything about him, you'd know why the ROH crowds don't give a shit about him (he sucks and is out of place). Then you double down on "fans hate overweight guys" to bolster your original argument that was baseless speculation to begin with. Shit don't make no sense.

No I get that, and it's tough trying to fit everyone onto Mania, but it's about priorities. The top male wrestlers WILL get top singles matches/title matches/showcase matches at Mania. It's when you get down to the midcard or leftover guys where they'll get thrown into a random undercard match or the battle royal to get them on the show. Jobbers will struggle to make it on. But the top female wrestlers WILL get thrown into their random undercard matches to get them on the show. Everyone below them misses out. The women have kind of made it from the absolute bottom of that Midcard/Throw Them On Somewhere tier to the top of it. That's progress I guess. But they're still ways away from cracking the top tier. They flirted with it by having them main event a B PPV and Raw and stuff (and again I'm not complaining about that kind of progress) but when you get to Mania you see where their REAL priorities lie. And at Mania the clock strikes midnight and the women have to go back into their box. We need the time for the real stars. Like, the fact that the women have come so far in the last 12 months kind of makes it worse. During the year they can main event PPVs and TV and have 30 minute title matches and stuff. They've shown that they have the workers and the popularity to do it. But they won't even consider building two separate women's issues for Mania. They won't even consider building to some epic, 30 minute title match like the men get. The best they can do is shoehorn them into the same lone title match spot that they always get. But this time, they'll get 15 minutes to work instead of 3. While that sounds like a "WWE showing its true colors about the women", it's clear that none of the women WWE currently has employed saved for maybe Asuka are capable of handling what is needed for a WM main event match. The top four can't even finish a 10 minute TV match without it falling apart multiple times. And these are women that work with each other pretty much exclusively for the past 2-3 years. Do you really trust Bayley to end the show of shows in front of 100K people? The Divas Revolution worked, the Four Horsewomen are all decent-great workers, but every match any of them are involved in can still go completely off the rails any second regardless of opponent. You can't depend on them not to get completely lost and not know how to get back.

I don't think they do see KO as a major star for the future. He only got the title because Balor got hurt and his reign has clearly been a holding pattern until WM season. In the end, his match with Jericho has 6 months more build and will probably be literally 5x longer than Brock/Goldberg and be a match people remember a lot more than the title match. I don't think it hurts KO at all because he didn't have any credibility as a champion to begin with, only winning and being champion to set up the HHH/Rollins match to begin with. Before Balor got hurt, KO was feuding with Enzo and Cass

I love the idea that it took Goldberg more effort to beat guys like Glacier, Johnny Attitude, and Jerry Flynn in his physical prime than it does to beat Brock Lesnar and a WWE Champion after a 12 year lay off.

Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool Even more looooooooool, Bray vs Orton is going to headline over Brock/Goldberg for the title

WM is a month away and they've passed up two perfect opportunities for Sasha to turn on Bayley in a way that would actually get some heel heat, Charlotte lost her title/rematch/streak, and there's literally no other woman to challenge Bayley besides Sasha. The fuck are they doing?

This match is a fucking MESS. Jesus Christ.

A clean loss after two spears and Strowman missing a superfly splash and suffering a knee injury in the last 5 minutes of the match, yes.

I love Neville's attitude, look, and demeanor as a heel, but he's falling into the same issue that Kendrick had as heel champ where he is TOO grounded and doesn't have enough high spots for the division he's in. Still, this is a pretty good match even if it isn't as good as I had hoped. Jack took some ROUGH looking bumps on his head/neck area.

That was a weirdly decisive finish if Show/Shaq is off, because I'm sure they're not going to give Show anything to do beyond the battle royal if that match doesn't happen.