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So Cena's promo tonight was really, really awful. Exactly the same sort of promo that he spits out every time he loses. Basically begging us to stop thinking that what happened at Summerslam was anything special or significant at all.

Is Henry the most underutilized guy in company history? Even with all his injuries, every moment he wasn't injured he should have been a top main eventer.

Am I the only one who liked this RAW more than Summerslam?

That match was absolutely incredible and Dean is a mega star waiting to happen. There is no answer to who should be the next GUY in the WWE other than him. Hopefully he is back soon. The idea of taking the hottest face and most interesting act in the company and shipping him off to film some dumb movie sounds like the most ridiculous decision in the world to me.

The reaction for Ryback is not only the highlight of this RAW, but of this week in WWE so far including Summerslam. THE BIG GUY.

WWE production is ugly, tasteless and obnoxious. It is viewed a low-brow and whenever WWE tries to actively do something to show it isn't they somehow emphasizes their most low-brow tendencies (eg, Bray promos). No one buys the spiel of "We're not 'wrestling,' we're main stream diversified sports entertainment!" and if they dropped that I think they'd actually have a BETTER chance of being taken seriously. So now, I don't see any main stream big awards like this in WWE's future.

Well, that was an interesting spectacle and an effective piece of booking. But am I the only one who was expecting a great match and is pretty disappointed?

I don't know, every match has been pretty good but I'm having a hard time getting into this show. Nothing but the main event and Brie/Steph feels like something I should care about.

Give me Nagata over Marufuji any day. AJ at least had a hell of a G1 to the point of knocking on being in my top 10 in the world. He seems to have gotten much, much more over with the crowd than he was beforehand, too. The Bullet Club stuff is still very, very lame for a main event act but I'll lift my negative judgment on AJ's being champion, which I had until now, to see if he can capitalize on that great G1 run and make the crowd care about him. Cena is just a very lame transitional champ.

This was actually another recent idea I had as well. Imagine Bryan were champ and show him as a guy from NXT visiting the main show and have him come across Triple H or something and Trips belittles him, implying that he can't make it with the "big boys," stuff like that. Bryan either intervenes or has a promo about it later, saying he knows that Sami is one of the most talented guys out there and that he won't stand to see another guy just like himself getting held down despite his talent, so he's gonna show the world how talented Sami is, and gives him a title match right that night. They have a hard fought match but Bryan wins decisively and gives Sami the hand-raise after the match. Obviously that is smark fantasy booking to the nth degree but I think it would be incredibly effective and special moment that would get Sami over big, no matter what they want to do with him afterward.

I thought the perfect way to debut Zayn was back when Ryback was going his backstage bully stuff, just going up and intimidating and messing with random backstage staff. Sami, being a "regular" looking guy, could've been one of those people who Ryback tried to mess with but Sami would take it for awhile and then clock him one, humiliating him and leading an impromptu match for the next segment, with the commentators explaining that he was an NXT guy up to visit the main show and Ryback didn't know. Give Sami the shocking win off a flash pin or something and there you go. Obviously that ship sailed a year ago but I thought it was the perfect moment.

So I don't know how things like this work. Why is it so hard just to let people with Canadian IP addresses register on their website? Or IPs from anywhere in the world?

If he's not done with wrestling, good. WWE made him the most boring thing in the world despite his ability. Let's see ADR vs. Rush.

Were there particularly highly regarded G1s back in the day? Which ones? I've tried to search for reviews of old G1s on google but all you get are this year's or last's.

It doesn't seem like an outrageous statement to me. Just an unexamined one. When was the last time anyone watched one of the G1s from the 90s in its entirely? A Champions Carnival? But this G1 was been consistent and had very high highs. If each of these 12 shows were a monthly big show and that was NJPW's PPV output for the year, I think we'd have a whole year of successful and rightfully well-regarded shows on our hands. But instead it's one tournament in a 2 week interval.

I don't think they are dumb enough to have Fale in the finals but I am worried that he finds his way into the secondary final. Shibata/Ishii did a lot of great stuff this match but the weak crowd and truly over the top one-count spamming took me out of the match a bit. Will have to give it a rewatch.

But could it be that "raising a society of pussies" is contributing to the dearth of good worked punches in pro wrestling???

Honma/Shibata, which I just rewatched, is must, must see imo. It goes 10:47 and I think it's my match of the year. Otherwise, the top-tier matches of the tournament for me: Honma/Shibata Honma/Ishii AJ/Suzuki Ishii/Nakamura Naito/Styles Tanahashi/Shibata With a bunch of matches just below this level. I don't know about best tournament ever because there's too much stuff that would need to be rewatched in full that people haven't for a long, long time, but I think this totally lives up to the hype. Check out reviews and I'd really recommend trying to see as many of the highly rated matches as you can.

Fun stuff. I really liked the beginning, fixing in the intense strike exchanges with hardcore stuff and weapons. The powerbomb through the table was nuts. In generally my attention wandered while Gannosuke was in control, didn't find it too compelling. Although Tanaka's first comeback was awesome, with him smashing the bit of table over Gannosuke's head and exploding it with the third jumping shot. The homestretch didn't really captivate me so much the whole way through, but the very last minute or so was really good with Tanaka busting out the elbows and Gannosuke counter one into a roll up for the win. I actually liked the first half or so of this more than the second. Good match.

I'm listening to this and am around the point where they're talking about advertising Summerslam 98 being shown on a Sunday at 8 and how that's the opposite of how the Network should be advertised. I agree with all the other alternate advertising suggestions and the problems they've had with their current pitch, but I actually think -- if done right -- things like airing Summerslam 98 at 8 on a Sunday and advertising it could be a draw: create enough buzz about it, maybe advertise it starting two weeks out, air some clips of big moments and angles from RAW that built to the show, and push them gimmick that it will be like experiencing what it was like to watch the event live back when it was live, try to get some twitter buzz going and try to make it feel to the fans like they're actually watching this as if it were a PPV today. Do that at intervals with a couple of really big, well-remembered and marketable shows. I don't know if it could be possible to stir up enough buzz to the point where a lot of fans would actually be excited about it, but if done right I actually think that could be a draw of the Network.

I actually liked Day 6 a lot, then again I seem to be easy to please with these shows. That first 3 match stretch really was dire though. I also seemed to like Ishii/Tanahashi more than most, it had nothing like the super-intense home stretch and satisfying ending of last year's match but was more consistently good the whole way through. Day 4, Day 7 and Day 1 really might be my top 3 shows of the year from a pure-wrestling standpoint, and in most other years they would be but it's hard this year because this was a year where Wrestlemania was really what WRESTLEMANIA should be and had those intangibles that make it hard to rank against cards that are just full of great work, as great as the work may be. As much as I loved last year's G1, this one takes it for me. Being able to watch every show live (since Day 4) also helps. Up to today's show I was thinking the very best matches of last year's were better (Ishii/Tanahashi, Ishii/Shibata, Nakamura/Ibushi) despite this year being MUCH more consistent, but after tonight and Ishii/Nakamura and Styles/Suzuki joining Ishii/Honma as the elite matches of this tournament, I think its best matches match up just fine. And this tournament has way more matches just below that level than last year did. The top shows are delivering just as well and the "B" shows are delivering MUCH better. What are some of the best G1s of the 90s? Is there anything that can stand up to this? A number of upcoming days look great too, and the final day should be awesome with the added secondary final. Hopefully some other cool stuff gets thrown on the card too, some multi-man tag involving the G1 participants or something.

I've seen this across the internet and I don't get it. Yeah, Cena's "look at me WRESTLING" spots didn't look gracefully .. were they supposed to? They looked fine, weren't awkward and had their place in the match that they were worked into well. It struck me as more gritty than sloppy. Never did I feel like the flow of the match was interrupted so I don't know what Meltzer means by Cena's timing. And of course on the home stretch everything was executed perfectly.

I loved the Cesaro promo and Cena's response. And the match was incredible. I really liked the G1 this morning but that was definitely the best match I saw today.

Ogawa throws Frye around before Frye punches him and chokes him out. Okay then. INOKIISM.

I was away on a trip last week so am catching up now. Just starting to watch Day 1. Really liked Ishii/Fale. Easily the best Fale match yet and it was all because of Ishii. Him sauntering up to Fale at the beginning was great as well. Seeing him adapt to a big man vs. little man match so well definitely solidified him as the best in the world for me.