Russellmania

I think a Cena turn could work if they took a similar approach to the Bret Hart turn in 1997. Have Cena become entitled and self-righteous and start running down the fans who boo him. I mean that's something he's always taken the high road on...no matter how much he has been booed he has never lashed out at that portion of the audience. I think if he finally did then that would start to turn the other portion of the audience. I think the more fun short-term idea would be a shocking betrayal type of turn, but the more effective long-term idea would be the slow burn heel turn ala Bret.

Like when he and CM Punk went even further than the Brock deal with Punk & Austin doing this in the same room together pretty much just for the sake of it? well that was to promote a video game.

I think the difference between the main roster mainstays (Nikki, Paige, Natty, Fox, etc.) and the NXT girls is less of a talent gap and more of a difference in both booking and also in how the agents put together the matches. It helps that the NXT girls are given time to do their thing too. the main roster women's matches always seem really rushed and I think that accounts for a lot of the botches you see. Come to think of it, off the top of my head it seem really rare for a Divas match to get a commercial break on RAW. That's something I am going to pay attention to now that I think about it. I think if you had Sara Del Rey helping put together the main roster matches and gave them a little more time to work with (and better booking/stories) then I have no doubt that many of the current main-roster chicks could put out some really good matches.

yeah it's almost as if he was throwing him a bone because it was a special night in his home town. of course the kayfabe explanation is simply that guys are rising to the occasion every week because of their desire to win the US title.

what are you doing that you are getting constantly bombarded with Rousey/WWE news? Like...it's not hard to avoid things on the internet if you want to

man going back to the typical WWE portrayal of women on RAW after that NXT show is such a jarring transition.

Bayley too. She is neck and neck with Sami Zayn as the best natural babyface of this generation. I don't know if she's as much of a workrate type, but she just has so much fire and has an incredible ability to connect with the audience.

I wonder if he is planning to formally announce his retirement on the podcast....or maybe that WM 32 will be his last match or something.

I think Breeze is one of the best all-around talents in NXT and one of the best suited to the main roster actually.

the irony of this is astounding considering this is the guy who defended the blacklisting of Chyna for shooting porn yet he keeps endorsing a literal wife beater.

I watch a lot of hockey so I'm pretty familiar with concussion stuff. For those wrestling fans who don't really follow other sports it might not be well known that concussion recovery time is extremely hard to predict. And sometimes concussions caused by the smallest bumps can linger forever while concussions from a huge impact will go away within weeks. One guy's concussion recovery time really has no correlation to another guy's even if they were caused by similar events. The unfortunate thing is that the nature of concussions...the unpredictability of the recovery time and the intangible nature of the injury...probably conflicts pretty heavily with Vince and WWE's mentality expecting guys to rush back or work through injuries. Like I'm sure they follow some sort of concussion protocol at a basic level but I imagine that mentally they haven't really bought in to the importance of it in the same way that the NHL or NFL have.

but realistically how long can Rusev's heel act go on? The anti-American thing only has so much mileage especially when it has already reached its logical conclusion by having him go up against the ultimate American hero in Cena. He doesn't really cheat or do anything all that heelish aside from the anti-American rhetoric. Once that gimmick runs out of steam he'll have nothing left to do so turning him face might be the only option. People see him as a legit badass and would easily get behind him in the same way American MMA fans got behind guys like Cro Cop and Fedor.

I was thinking the same thing Cena winning at Mania was the right call. Cena as US Champ elevating it and elevating mid-card guys with competitive matches (which they've been doing with the open challenge) was the right call But the right call with Rusev was to end the program with Cena there at 1-1.....he proclaims he no longer cares about the US title, point him in a direction towards the world title.....and a rubber match with Cena miles down the line what they're doing now is awful and killing Rusev. Same thing they did with Cena and Wyatt last year. And Lana......it's so dumb to break her and Rusev up because the act is great and what shelf life does Lana have after the split? Lana and Rusev were starting to get cheered because the act is great and they're both great. That overpowered the jingoism of the act. Also, Lana is hot and sexy, so of course she's going to get "face pops". If anything, keep them together but tone down the "RUSSIA #1 PTWEEY USA BOO" aspect of it, and just let the reactions happen organically. The evil Russian heel act only has so much shelf life to it. They're dropping the ball hard with Rusev & Lana right now, just like they did with Bray and the Wyatt Family, just like they're doing now with Seth Rollins where they built up the Curb Stomp as the finisher of death for a year and then all of a sudden we're supposed to forget about it, forget about him curb stomping Brock and Roman, erase it from history, and some shitty ddt variation is his finisher now. The Curb Stomp as the out of nowhere killer finish is a huge part of Seth Rollins' act. It was specifically highlighted twice at WM with Orton reversing it into an RKO and Seth cashing in using it to steal the title. Now he just stops doing the move? It's absurd I enjoy watching WWE, but sometimes this stuff can be maddening In total agreement with this. THey should have turned Rusev face after ending the Cena program after WM. They easily could have spun it that Cena taught him respect (for Cena and America). His official face turn could have even been to have him make a save during a Cena beatdown or something and then have them tag on a PPV before Rusev moves on to challenge for the world title.

Dana also emphatically stated that UFC would never work with EA Sports on a UFC game and then a couple years later it happened. I don't really trust anything that guy says. I have no doubt he believes what he's saying about Rousey/WWE, but I think given the right deal he'd let it happen.

man this card really does nothing for me. generally speaking I really hate how WWE runs gimmick matches so a whole show full of goofy WWE-style gimmick matches just sounds like trash to me

there is basically zero opportunity for that sort of thing in WWE, though. When a guy rolls that way (ala Ambrose) they turn it into his whole gimmick and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that because of Ambrose they don't see room for another guy with the same "gimmick".

looking forward to hearing more from all the armchair doctors out there about this for all we know he could be dealing with a totally unrelated injury. Maybe people should wait for the facts before they talk about how his medical choices were a "mistake".

I have seen lots of Science Fiction fans lament that Syfy has fallen from grace as a content provider and they often cite pro wrestling on the channel as evidence of that.

It's an episode of their regular podcast series that happens to be aired live and recorded for the Network. So it's fair to say that it is *both* a podcast and a TV interview. The two things aren't really mutually exclusive.

Haven't heard Austin's response to the rumors yet, but it seems weird to me that this caused so much controversy. It wasn't like either party ever claimed that Austin had exclusive rights to do live podcasts on the Network. I mean Austin and Jericho both have fairly successful wrestling-centric podcasts so I don't know why people assumed that Jericho wouldn't get a chance to do one of these eventually.

You could have it both ways regarding the issue of having him billed or not. Have Heyman announce on a RAW leading up to the PPV that he has managed to get his suspension lifted and that he intends to make an appearance at the PPV. But he doesn't have to say what the nature of that appearance will be.

It makes sense because it allows Brock to bypass all the red tape from the authority preventing him from using his rematch clause. If they can somehow spin it that Heyman found a loophole to get him into the MITB match then it gives him a more direct route to the title than his rematch clause.

Personally I think the MitB gimmick is really stale and could use a major twist to keep it interesting. With that said, here's a really crazy left-field idea...why not have Brock win it? Brock could win MitB and then in typical "Brock smash" fashion cash in the very same night, destroy the champ and take the title and then you can go into Summerslam with Brock as champ. A nice side effect is that we don't have to deal with goofy cash-in teases all year and it gives the MitB gimmick a rest until someone wins it next year.

I think a Rollins/Orton/Reigns triple threat would make more sense for this show. Both Orton and Reigns can argue that they deserve a shot at the title, and having 3 guys in the match gives them more options for who eats the fall. Assuming Rollins is going to keep the title, they could have him pin Orton after shenanigans and Reigns continues to look strong. And depending on your feelings about Rollins and Orton this potentially meets the criteria for giving Reigns good opponents to work with. (Though I can see smarks arguing that Reigns was carried anytime he has a good match). As for the IC title, I'd really like to see them put more effort into how they choose challengers for the title. I don't mind a random title defense on RAW once in a while, but I think it also helps to make a big deal out of guys trying to become number 1 contender. So i think at the PPV what I'd like to see is this: Bryan defends against Barrett (invoking his rematch clause) Ziggler vs. Sheamus (no. 1 contender match) I think the logical direction to go with Bryan's title run is Ziggler taking the title from him somewhere down the line. So I'd like to see them carefully build to that match. There are lots of ways to keep Ziggler hot on his heels without having them have a million singles matches. Make a big deal out of Ziggler trying to get another title shot but getting screwed out of it each time. In this case Sheamus could cheat to beat him and that would buy them another month. I hate the idea of a 4-way match already because I feel like it burns out all the possible angles with the 3 challengers in one match. I think it's a lot more compelling (and a better use of time) to have Bryan have to deal with all these challengers one by one.

wholeheartedly agree with this. And the worst part is that they have shows for their two biggest gimmicks (HIAC and TLC) and then Extreme Rules is a catch-all that covers everything else. There really is no gimmick match WWE can run these days that feels special because they are all seen at least once a year.