Slasher

Depends on the pay per view model. If you have to purchase them on top of whatever the monthly fee is, probably not. If the pay per views outside of Mania was built in the monthly subscription fee and it was low in comparison to what you have to plunk down monthly on individual shows, definitely. In this day and age, I do have to wonder- how long is the traditional pay per view model sustainable? Obviously the whole way people watch events have changed from the 80s when the concept caught fire. Is it even wise to proceed with the Network plans with that model built in or should they look for different structures for which they market their shows? I know Mania is an event that will never go away but look at the sporting events. The NFL invests a buttload of money in the Super Bowl and they get crazy revenues from it...despite the said event being free. I know this goes back to the whole "Sports vs WWE" argument and it is another branch of the argument, but is this even doable?

Kinda makes you wish they could swap ages. Dustin was always a great worker but it is both awesome and shame that he is putting up what is his best stretch of week to week input at a point where he probably caught fire unintentionally and the real life "Authority" is passively looking for a way/reason to replace him with someone younger or someone they would feel more comfortable investing in long term.

Alright, I am sure Dustin is just a naturally better worker than Cody but let's not discount the... what is it, 15+ years advantage of working. Maybe Cody will be that crisp when he is 44 years old or however old Dustin is.

The thing I never liked about having heel women involved in men's angles like Trish Stratus turning on Chris Jericho is you run the very real danger of cultivating misogynistic feelings from your primary audience (men). Who sits there going "Grr I wish Lita came down to the ring and moonsaults Trish out of her boots!"? My guess is the typical male fan is rooting for Jericho to come down there and slap the taste out of her mouth or something. I enjoyed the angle from the beginning where Jericho and Trish had that budding romance, and I did like the idea of the heel turn but they never protected the storyline by installing the inherent layers of women for Trish to play off so the fans could effectively channel their desires at. Woman vs woman works just fine for me. Give me Gail Kim vs Awesome Kong and all that. Woman vs man? That gets dicey and once they go in that direction, I usually have to remove myself from it.

I saw it on tv. Liked it but thought the ending sucked a bit. I didn't care if the Real Americans won or not, but it felt like the Real Americans really mauled the Rhodes, only to lose completely clean after too short of a babyface comeback. It said to me Swagger is nearly worthless which may have been the point.

On a different note, could a worker turn the giant swing into a submission move? Like if sold as a kid shouting "Let me off this ride!" on the Gravitron?

Really? I have been able to cinch the sharpshooter on buddies that weren't entirely cooperative. The problem is they, and I by process, quickly found out how nonlethal it really could be if done right. It is just crossing your legs around and bending them over. If you elevate them, it hurts more but the way Bret does it sometimes and others do it, it is just like laying on a flat surface with your legs up in the air like girls do, reading magazines or whatever, but with a guy holding your legs and sitting on your back.

Do you mean the WWE version where it was an actual elevated crab or do you mean the WCW version (Liontamer) which had that vicious bend to it with the knee in the back/neck?

My favorites that I've seen in USA wrestling are: 1. Bret Hart's sharpshooter- as said, a classic and Bret always could cinch that baby in tight. 2. William Regal's Regal Stretch STF- Looked nasty as hell. 3. I won't exactly ever seek out his matches again and this move has obvious major black mark next to it, but when he was alive and not a monster, I loved Chris Benoit's Crippler Crossface for the same reason I dug Regal's STF.

Just came to me today out of the blue and wanted to ask the folks here- We all know the WWE structure is built for a takeover by Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, but we also all know that Triple H has had a career aided by... enhancements. So what happens to that plan if say... Triple H dropped dead of an enlarged heart or something, like next month? Do Stephanie proceed as a owner-in-waiting or does Vince McMahon make a play for Shane McMahon to return or what do you guys envision here?

I'm thinking this is just a set-up for a heel turn for Woods down the line, like in a month or two, after establishing the team. Maybe with Tyler Breeze attached to it.

I think this is exactly wrong. WWE is trying to, ironically enough considering the 1980's push to do the opposite, position itself alongside sports programming. What makes sports so valuable is that it isn't as likely to be DVR'ed. It is consumed live and in real time. WWE is the same way and is working to encourage that with their strong push towards social media integration during the shows. The last thing Vince and the WWE wants is to be DVR'ed or to let anyone think, even for a minute, about DVR'ing their show. Live and social is what makes them valuable. Is this working really? I guess maybe it could. People watch sports live because the whole point is they care what happens so much that they want to see it in real time. Sure a good game would be nice but they have their team and they want to know how it ends up. Wouldn't booking a product that makes people care about what happens go further in making people tune in live? Or is that just impossible to do. For me, I HATE watching football games and sports after the fact. It already happened. I missed it. What's the point? Sure, I'll catch the highlights or maybe even turn on CSS to watch a little bit of a game re-run but no way in hell am I going to be happy about missing it. Raw? I have missed it numerous times over the years. I've been annoyed at times and couldn't care less at others. I can catch it all on DVR or the internet. It is impossible. With sports games, you really have to dvr the games to catch it, because really, the sports leagues do not rebroadcast the games unless in special circumstances like flashback games or whatever but yes you lose the emotion of watching with the rest of the world. Wrestling? It is easier to watch a rebroadcast and the emotional connection or analytical connection has long ago been developed differently. Very rarely you get an excitement where you reach out to others "you gotta turn this on now!" Look at the NBA. You have certain guys designated as the "tune in now!" Heat checkers like Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant or Lebron James or whatever. Who do you got that with in wrestling?

I just dislike the inherent elitist attitude that we bring to the table. Kofi Kingston is a fine not great midcarder who has shown the ability to get over when given the ball. To look down on him the way people have here is just stupid IMO. I don't really care but it isn't just Kofi either. I see names like The Truth bandied about too and it is almost like people don't understand how to run a whole wrestling company. You can't push everyone and those you don't push they have to have something going for them. There is a reason why the WWE has kept them around for so long. They actually contribute something, whether if we like what it is or not. I am sorry, clearly it is my own problem but I am questioning whether I am on the right board or not sometimes. This isn't meant to be an attack either by any means or anything, so don't take it the wrong way.

Wait, you are serious? So by this logic Davey Richards is better than Ric Flair, right? No. Obviously not. I dislike Flair but I know he is a guy who can connect in ways Richards could never. That is my point though. Kingston is not this unover guy that no one in the audience wants to see. There is a market for Kofi and what he brings to the table. I have to imagine if he gets teleported to the era of which Tito worked, he'd have more success as well because he is doing stuff that pops the crowds today and would pop the crowds back then. Again, I am not even backing Kofi. I just think it's disingenuous to sit there and act like it's a big insult to Tito F'N Santana for having Kofi compared to him, which I actually happen to think is an excellent comparison when you want to take your head out of your ass here. Davey Richards is a Benoit cosplayer and considering Benoit was basically a DK cosplayer himself, the fans have DK in the era and they clearly prefer Flair, so let's not twist anything here.

I see the problem here.

See this is where people lose the plot here. You are telling me if we went and dropped Kofi Kingston as presently constructed into Tito Santana's era (80s to early 90s) people would prefer Tito? Get the fuck out of here with that garbage. Kofi sucks in comparison to his contemporaries but let's not embarrass ourselves here. He would be taken over Tito in a heartbeat. Tito is more technically proficient but Kofi is clearly more flashier. Let's be real here.

I do wonder if having the Wyatts attack Axel and Ryback would lead somewhere relating to Punk and Bryan. I mean I just can't buy a straight up tag match between the SmarkPowers and the Wyatts just yet.

Not a question but tell him to knock off the Reality Era crap he keeps trying to push.

For the most part I agree but I don't think Bryan is bulletproof yet. Otherwise the WWE couldn't get away with deciding he is the reason for the declining numbers. Punk is moreso bulletproof though. I also don't think Jericho in his entire career was bulletproof. I think it was only after a certain point that fans accepted that he could lose all the time and they would still love him. But I doubt the fans would buy a sudden Jericho push as the invincible champion. I think Bryan still has more programs left with different workers to truly become bulletproof. Not that it really matters anyways because Triple H and co. has done a tremendous job telling us that Bryan is a glorified midcarder anyways so the Wyatts is an acceptable program for him.

Only problem I have with the Wyatts program is that either way you make the Smarkpowers look bad. You are going to have these guys win a program that handicaps them (2 vs 3) which proves that the Wyatts couldn't make the numbers advantage work and thus the babyfaces essentially beat jobbers OR if you job the babyfaces, they lose to midcarders. The only way to make it really work is if you even out the sides and put the Wyatts over as major threats who can stand their own ground man to man straight up.

He did it on Smackdown too, got a nearfall off it (losing eventually to John Cena). Maybe they are setting up a Ryback vs Goldberg match at Mania?

Khali has been positioned lately to serve as the babyface side's punishment for heels. Look at tonight, with Vickie charging Del Rio with a night's match against Khali. Maybe Bray Wyatt is the leader but Harper and Rowan aren't booked as some bumbling henchmen or anything. If anything, Bray is the wild card here, because these two guys do the bulk of the work and booked as credibly against the top names as possible. Ryback is still a major force. Just because he lost to the top two names in the WWE (Cena and Punk) doesn't make him any more a joke than anybody else. It's all in context, dude. So, no then? Khali hasn't won a non-comedy match in ages. I never said Rowan and Harper were bumbling henchmen, but they're still Wyatt's cronies. Bray hasn't lost yet while those two have some losses to their name (Harper specifically). As for Ryback, you can't say the guy hasn't been damaged. Sure, he beats mid-card guys like Miz and Kofi, but he hasn't won a big match in a long time. Maybe the match against Jericho in July, but if Chris wasn't leaving, he probably would have lost that too. I don't really know the answer to that, but they have seemed to just have decided to go big again. If the newsbits are true, I am certain we will see bigger people pushed more credibly than they have lately. Kane is a big man and he will likely be a huge factor in the main event angles moving forward. Obviously the Big Show is one. Roman Reigns is supposedly earmarked for a star turn as a big babyface hero in the vein of Hogan and Cena. Clearly Big E. has moved on up. It's only been two weeks or so since they concluded the Daniel Bryan push, and there's already a major upturn in emphasis on the bigger guys in the company. It's also not too hard to believe that WWE might favor that direction, seeing how they have looked for 20 plus years for a reason to do so.

Khali has been positioned lately to serve as the babyface side's punishment for heels. Look at tonight, with Vickie charging Del Rio with a night's match against Khali. Maybe Bray Wyatt is the leader but Harper and Rowan aren't booked as some bumbling henchmen or anything. If anything, Bray is the wild card here, because these two guys do the bulk of the work and booked as credibly against the top names as possible. Ryback is still a major force. Just because he lost to the top two names in the WWE (Cena and Punk) doesn't make him any more a joke than anybody else. It's all in context, dude.

Not to sound like a WWE apologist because god knows I wanted Daniel Bryan to succeed so badly on top, but the ratings did in fact decline from Summerslam onward, so really, what is the better explanation? You know the WWE would never blame their own booking for this one.

Bringing the big names in would have messed up the WWE's salary structure. It made sense to either offer reduced contracts that was in line with the push or lack thereof they were going to get and sit on the bigger contracts til expiration. The big names just simply wanted to get paid by Time Warner and sit at home. Once their contracts ended, they came to Vince with lower contractual demands.