Russellmania

If they try and do mental gymnastics to come up with some viable scenario for the main event that doesn't include Daniel Bryan then this company deserves to go out of business

I've never understood people trying to make sense of the various pathologies that prompt this company to make any of the decisions it makes

I think Rollins is there to eat the fall. They (hopefully) have decided to stick with Brock until 'mania but don't have the balls to put him over Cena clean to "win the war". It would be some bullshit retarded-ass booking to hotshot the title onto Rollins now, that's for sure. If they're smart they'll go with the simplest plan and have Bryan win the Rumble, beat Brock for the title and then in contrast to last year's celebration have Rollins cash in immediately on Bryan. *that* would get him the heel heat they're looking for and set up a nice program for a while.

so do people who still subscribe to a television service not have the ability to stream things over the internet? I'm really confused by this notion that people had to drop their cable provider in order to stream a free PPV.

they blew so many opportunities with Lesnar. The Summerslam booking was so brilliant and really set the table for them to capitalize by having new guys step up and challenge him after that. Guys like Wyatt, Ambrose, Ziggler, etc. could have gotten a huge rub by having a competitive loss against Brock in the wake of Cena being absolutely destroyed by him. You could have kept Brock undefeated all the way to Mania while still making several guys look strong just by being able to hang with him. Then it would have meant so much more when someone finally beats Brock and given them a much stronger booking platform following WM. Their willingness to take even the smallest of risks (like putting someone "unproven" in a match with Brock) is just totally killing them. I mean think about a guy like Wyatt. A match in which he takes everything Brock can dish out and keeps on coming because he's so nuts could have made him in the same way that the HBK/Mankind match made Mankind in many fans' eyes. Same could apply to Ambrose.

I'd much rather see Bryan challenge Brock for the title, but I have zero faith in them to do it even if Bryan is 100% healthy. They are going to go all in with Reigns. They won't wise up like they did last year because with Reigns being the golden boy for so long now I don't think anyone will have the heart to tell them he's not ready.

man imagine if Bryan were definitely good to go for Wrestlemania and they had the balls to turn Cena heel. They could swerve everybody by having Cena "join" the Authority out of desperation, knowing that he can't beat Brock himself. Then Bryan could win the Rumble and challenge heel Cena for the title at WM.

what a piece of shit show. some really good work from a few guys, but once again the talent is totally undermined by shit booking.

on r/SquaredCircle some fans had the idea to send HHH a fruit basket thanking him for the NXT show last night. Someone actually took up the challenge and sent him one and HHH just tweeted this: https://twitter.com/TripleH/status/543537698439704576

maybe this is a conversation for another thread, but I don't understand why the guy in charge of the creative direction of the company has to also be in charge of the business operations of the company. Seems like they should be separate duties altogether, but Vince seems to insist on controlling both and seems to be grooming HHH to do the same. When the time comes for Vince to step down, why can't HHH just take over creative and let Steph take over the business side of things? Seems like that would play to both their strengths.

as for Vince, I think a lot of their success over the last 10 years can be attributed to the machine they built prior to that. When you have enough success to build a company that sort of "runs itself" in some ways, you can afford to make a lot of mistakes without realizing a massive impact to your business. I just think it can be misleading to look at their numbers in the last decade and say that they're doing a great job because they've generated revenue and had some big gates. Something they've done a lot of in the last decade is cultivate the brand moreso than individuals, which has resulted in more steady business despite the lack of huge individual draws. I think the discussion about Vince as a businessman should be somewhat independent of the discussion about Vince as a booker. I think as a booker he has been terrible for years, but it's much harder to quantify that than it is to quantify his business moves. I don't think he misses a lot of business opportunities, but he does miss a lot of creative opportunities which could in turn be costing him business. Yes they have mode some pretty big money in the last decade, but who's to say they couldn't have made a lot more money if they had been more willing to let upcoming talent flourish. A big element is risk IMO. Vince has very little incentive to take risks anymore. If he knows Wrestlemania at worst is going to do X buys and make him Y dollars with a "safe" card and he's ok with that, then it's hard to justify shaking things up. WCW as competition forced him to take risks and it ended up working for him, but I think he is afraid or at least unwilling to take risks nowadays. I mean the Summer of Punk stuff was probably the most risky creative move they've made in the last several years and they didn't even go all-in with that like some would have preferred.

that's not the point. It's not new, but it is new to *some people*, hence the growth in revenue in online sales for just about every retailer year over year. Growth doesn't always just happen suddenly when something is new.

do you not know what the word "debut" means?

Agreed. I actually *like* that he's not wrestling much, but I think they should still be airing video packages, "live via satellite" interviews, and such to remind people who the champ is and why he's important. It's so lazy of them that since they can't book him for shows they just don't acknowledge him at all. It also really annoys me that they didn't expend one or two of his contracted dates to have him defend against someone up-and-coming. If his current run ends with him only having matches against Cena, Taker, and HHH then they'll have really missed an opportunity to have him elevate some guys. Guys like Ambrose, Rollins, and Wyatt could really benefit from a PPV match with him even if they lose. Just hanging with Brock in a match will make a guy look like a big deal IMO.

this is something i see all the time and it continues to amaze me. For a lot of people it has to do with the layout of their house/furniture, but I think for some it is genuinely just a mental block.

here's a direct link to the audio file itself if anyone's still having trouble getting to it: http://tsmradio.com/coltcabana/podpress_trac/feed/714/0/show226.mp3 holy shit this was a good listen. What a crazy fucked up company that is. Is Vince McMahon the dumbest guy to ever make a billion dollars?

did I just watch a segment in which 2 immigrants were humiliated and forced to recite the pledge of allegiance?

seriously, what a stupid fucking company

I was hoping he'd take out HHH with the knee last night. The place would have gone totally apeshit. I know he's still got the arm thing going on but surely he can still bump and do the knee.

who said she was making them bigger?

Except why would Brock burn that bridge when there's a very good chance they could bring him back in the future? In fact if pro sports have shown us anything it's that there's actually *more* incentive to perform at the end of a contract because you want to maximize your value on future contracts. Brock easily could have taken the deal they gave him and phoned it in throughout the duration, but he has actually put on some really great performances and done everything they've asked.

yes but I'm not saying it should be Reigns at all. In a perfect world it would be Bryan but who knows if he'll be back by then. If Bryan is healthy he should be the guy. Fans will have no problem getting behind him against Brock and the match would probably be extremely good. Reigns is going to have an uphill battle no matter who the opponent is. Personally I think the best use of the Shield guys would be a triple threat to blow off the Shield thing once and for all. Although I saw a suggestion somewhere that a fatal 4-way elimination match with the 3 Shield guys and Brock would be really cool. Imagine the 3 forming an alliance to triple powerbomb Brock and eliminate him first. The crowd would be so hot for the rest of the match after that.

Brock has done nothing but good, honest business for WWE since his return, including some pretty questionable jobs a couple years ago when most people thought he should have been not losing to anyone. I genuinely don't think you have to worry about him doing the job for someone at WM.

Brock is signed *through* Mania, right? Why can't he just drop it then? Someone trying to be the one to finally slay the beast at WM is the biggest storyline they could run with right now so I hope they aren't dumb enough to bail on that idea before WM.

I don't really like the comparison to the Owen death in this case. It's two totally different circumstances. The Owen thing was purely an accident during a stunt that in theory had minimal risk associated with it. People do stuff like that when mountain climbing all the time. If all the precautions are taken then that should have been a very safe stunt. Compare that to Foley getting tossed off the cage...even if everything goes perfectly, at it's core it's still a guy getting thrown to the floor from 16+ feet in the air. Even the safest version of that bump is still an inherently dangerous stunt. So yeah, with the Owen thing, while there was certainly some negligence there they can rightfully argue that it was a relatively safe activity that went horribly wrong. With Foley, if he had died from either of those bumps there's no way they could have spun it as "just an accident" when even in the best circumstances those bumps had a serious chance of injury.