Russellmania

that would actually be awesome and would be the best bit of storytelling they've done with women's wrestling since the Trish/Mickie feud. Like that would seriously be a brilliant move and I hope they do it but it's so good that I know they won't.

I've never heard anyone describe electronic/techno music as "too gay" or whatever. It honestly feels like some of you are projecting your own perceptions onto this topic. The reason electronic doesn't really work as entrance music IMO has nothing to do with how "effeminate" it may or may not be, but rather with just the overall mood....it's generally not "ass-kicking" music. hard rock and metal work as entrance music more often than not because it's easier to write a rock theme that gets you pumped up than it is to write a similar electronic theme. Anyway I do with WWE was a little more creative with its themes as they rely on the easiness of hard rock/generic hip hop way too much. There are only a handful of modern WWE themes that are as timeless as some of the 80's/90's themes. An example of how "inside the box" and safe they play it with music is the change from Cesaro's euro-rap music to his shitty siren/generic metal theme. I thought his old music fit him really well and stood out from the pack whereas his current music doesn't really seem special at all and could be given to probably a dozen other guys and no one would care. I agree that Zayn's music is great, though. Love the Blake & Murphy music too. As others have alluded to, it's not about liking themes that appeal to my personal taste, but rather that fit the wrestlers and evoke something. In general I think the NXT music is just another thing they do way better than the main roster.

lol is there any doubt that they will blame this on Kevin Owens being too fat to keep his balance?

to those arguing that he should be selling less and kicking ass more then what do you do when that inevitably leads the crowd to believe he's "being pushed down our throats?" People will just assume that he's getting the golden boy treatment again and will reject him if he starts dominating. I hate to say it, but I think there's really no option but to turn him heel for a while. Lately that seems like the only way these dipshit "smark" fans will accept anyone as a face: turn them heel and then let the fans think *they* chose to turn the guy face. (see New Day, The Shield, Cesaro, etc.) what sucks is that he was already a heel that the fans turned face as part of the Shield and they sabotaged his momentum by pitting him against Bryan in the fans' minds

that's not how that show works

i'm a little embarrassed to admit how absolutely furious it makes me that even when Reigns and Ambrose are teaming together, Reigns gets the Shield entrance through the crowd while Ambrose (who is supposed to be the unstable one) just gets a normal entrance on the ramp with his own music. And they keep telling us these guys are like brothers...then why don't they come out together?

jesus christ, that was really close to being extremely bad. I suspected that we didn't see much of Sasha on Sunday or Monday due to the beating she took at Takeover and this really supports that. I wouldn't be surprised if she gets "punished" for taking that bump too.

it was definitely pretty tone deaf of them to not put Sasha in a match on RAW. I mean it's nowhere near the top of the list of problems with that Divas segment/match, but it didn't help that the woman who that crowd just saw have a MOTYC 2 nights ago didn't even appear on RAW. On top of that her team was the first eliminated on Sunday. Now maybe they were just giving her a well deserved rest after that beating she took on Saturday, but I'm inclined to think it's more that they are just oblivious to the fact that she is far and away the biggest star out of all the women right now (especially in front of that crowd). Anyway, I don't know if it would have ultimately mattered, but IMO it seems like a much smarter booking move would have been to have Becky challenge for Nikki's title on RAW instead of doing yet another trios match. Becky got the deciding pinfall in the Summerslam match, right? Should have done a simple promo segment where Becky goads Nikki into a title defense. Let them go out there and have a solid, focused singles match and have Nikki retain via shenanigans and IMO that has a much better chance of satisfying that crowd than what we actually got.

the Lesnar/Taker blowoff should be at Hell in a Cell. Running that match at Mania seems like a mistake.

honestly I look at the post-match hugs and stuff as being out of canon. It's literally like a curtain call at the end of a play or whatever. It's not a part of the performance. I know that kind of kills kayfabe, but I totally get it in this context. I don't expect this to be something these girls are going to do throughout their entire careers, but I think they are genuinely part of something really special right now and at the end of the day savoring the moment takes precedence over trying to keep kayfabe in a situation where everyone in the crowd is already smart to what's going on anyway.

this signing is actually pretty smart because she'd make a great psycho heel challenger for Bayley in NXT. Hopefully that's the plan and they don't drag their feet too much with getting her involved.

Kana vs. Eva Marie is now my most wanted match

also I just watched the Bayley/Sasha contract signing from this week's NXT. Holy shit that was one of the best contract signing segments ever and was just such a textbook, smart way to sell a match. The way Sasha turned that crowd against her was fucking brilliant too.

I only watch the specials, but aren't they just going to make Corbin into NXT's Reigns, as far as crowd backlash, in the eyes of that fanbase? I like Corbin (and love Reigns) but the people who seem to be the hardest core NXT fans are the types that hold the most base smark opinions about pushing guys "down our throats!" Or is that the idea? That seems to be *exactly* the idea. Like instead of trying to force it like they did with Reigns, with Corbin they are taking advantage of that backlash and using it to make him one of the most hated heels on the roster. Basically every week he comes out and wins a squash and every week the fans boo him harder for it. Finally he got on the mic and complained that they were booing him and then Joe came out to give him a real challenge. Vince and co. seem to try so hard to go against the grain when the fans don't react how they want, but in NXT they seem to use it to their advantage and it's so simple yet so brilliant.

I'm wondering if Vince demanded that Enzo and Cass be transitioned to the main roster and so that derailed any NXT plans they might have had for them? I agree that it seems like a major missed opportunity that they're not a featured act on this show. This would be the perfect time for them to win the titles.

this card doesn't have the most insane lineup ever from a workrate standpoint or whatever, but I feel like every match on this show has a solid build and should be a lot of fun with a couple matches having the potential to be really great. I really wish they would put Sasha and Bayley on last as I think that's the match the crowd will be most invested in. Also I gotta say, I LOVE the Joe/Corbin matchup. They have booked Corbin perfectly. He gets legitimate heel heat from the NXT crowd and Joe is the perfect guy to help put him on the map.

My whole argument was that while NXT sort of offers that now it's not really sustainable if they keep losing their top wrestlers to the main roster. My whole post proposes that they'd be better off with two separate "main roster" brands and then let NXT focus on being developmental.

What boring booking though. I wish they would just ditch the MITB altogether. I advocated early this year for having Brock make his return from suspension as a surprise entrant at MITB, winning the contract and then cashing it in the same night. That would have put the whole gimmick on hiatus for a full year. I really wish they'd done it. The execution of the whole "guy teases cashing in" trope has gotten more and more stupid every year. I'm so over the whole thing.

That's not really true...Austin has been super critical of Vince on that very point, but I think he has a somewhat valid point that the wrestlers need to be less afraid of stepping on toes also.

A lot of people blame booking for Ziggler's inability to get to that next level, but IMO the problem is with Ziggler. I think whenever they consider giving him that last little bit of a push that he needs they end up backing off either because he gets injured or because they realize that he's not really a strong enough talker or presence to be a top guy. WWE really doesn't like to push guys based solely on ring-work and IMO that's all Ziggler really has going for him. He puts on a good show and that's why the fans will always be there for him, but I think he's missing that extra something that a main event guy needs. Going back to the Punk example...a massive difference between Punk and Ziggler is that Punk could cut a promo that would draw money and Ziggler has never shown that he can.

lol I guess not

Regarding Cena/Rollins, with everyone expecting a screwy finish or a Cena win, I really think the boldest thing they could do is have Rollins go over clean (or relatively clean). Rollins has been such a lame duck champ and they seem to think he's one of their future aces so why not actually make the guy look strong for once? Show us why he's "the architect". I think a story where Seth actually rises to the occasion and outruns/outthinks/outfights Cena is more compelling than any other option here. The Brooklyn crowd would eat it up too. The sad thing is that I know this will never happen since it would be a complete waste to have Rollins be the guy to end Cena's US title run. They have really painted themselves into a corner with this one. I still think they should have had Owens win the US title from Cena and then transition Cena back to the world title picture. I just don't see how Cena keeping the US title and then going after the World title on top of that helps anyone in the long run. It just really limits their options and I think Cesaro/Owens could have benefited from being for the US title. Austin on his podcast defended the idea by saying Cena's the top guy and they have to keep him strong but I think history has shown that Cena can absorb a loss no problem.

this logic seems so self-defeating. If you never take a chance on guys and have them step up and challenge for the title then you never have anyone looking strong enough to move up to main event status. I'm a firm believer that having a guy challenge for the title and lose a competitive match goes a long way towards making them seem like they belong, but WWE seems so risk averse when it comes to the world title. It's like sometime in the last 10 years they forgot how to give guys the rub from higher tiered guys.

Zayn would almost certainly have been called up by now if he wasn't injured. Itami is hard to predict b/c he's not a conventional WWE guy so who knows what they plan to do with him. But as for other top NXT guys: Bo Dallas was champ for almost a year and got called up after. Neville was the next champ and got called up. Zayn had a brief run but got hurt and then Owens got called up pretty quickly. Balor will almost certainly be called up after his title run ends. So yeah I kind of reject the idea that they haven't been calling up their top guys. They are steadily doing it one by one and aren't really backfilling those spots with equally marketable guys. The whole argument here is that they don't have enough "top" guys in the pipeline to support NXT as a full-time touring brand.

I don't think I'm "shooting" the messenger if that's what you're implying... I think my point is valid: They can say whatever they want about their designs on NXT being more than just developmental, but their actions tell a different story.