Robert S

That "Are you ready? Let's go!" call might have been the loudest call in WWE history. I liked the announcers trying to save it, though.

Woods is one of the better workers on the roster and please give Big E a singles push before he kills himself or someone else trying to get noticed. Honestly all five people in that tag match are better workers than the two guys in the opener (though with Kofi and Rowan it might be close).

I am already ready to tap out. I will either go to bed (it's 1:30 am over here) or watch some 82 Mid-South because I don't think I am able to watch another 2018 pro wrestling match.

The pre-show is also shown on Youtube (and I suppose other formats). I should make a list of all the wrestlers (male and female) that did not make it on the Summerslam card while Lana did.

Welcome to wrestling in 2018. Some random thoughts: - On the one hand the crowd was relatively flat, on the other hand at least there was no constant "Undisputed vs. Moustache Mountain" duelling chant and stupid chants like "fight forever" were at least not that dominant. Even the 10 stuff in the main event was hardly there. - Nigel had the weirdest call all night saying in his analytic voice "this is what Ciampa is so great at: begging for mercy". - I hope that Velveteen Dream gets at least one more year in NXT. He has huge potential and is improving at a great speed, though he is not yet unvincible against bad booking and this is what he would face on the main roster. - Baszler losing here only makes sense if she is called up or if she completely destroys Sane in a rematch.

That botch by Aliyah where she forgot to bump for Kairi's headscissors was pretty funny. Strange that they did not bother to edit this one out. What's the chance that Gargano turns out to be the guy behind the attack on Black? I mean they are going for Gargano losing his mind / going over the top for a couple of months and in some twisted way I would make sense for him to take Black out befoer TakeOver (to have Ciampa 1 vs. 1 one more time). Furthermore Gargano passes by Regal when Regal is going to look at the layed-out Black. (of course so does the Undisputed Era)

What a moron. I can only assume (hope) that he is either not aware of the historical connotations of the word "parasite" as part of antisemitism and/or he does not realize that Meltzer is Jewish.

Finlay really used that wording? Wow. Over here that probably would classify as a violation to the Prohibition Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbotsgesetz_1947) and would have serious legal repercussions for Finlay.

I also doubt that scalpers were much into wrestling tickets in the mid 80ies.

At the same time WWE has a Network show glamorizing all the ribbing and heavy partying stuff. As I had enough of Story Time after the first episodes: did they ever go into the more "hilarious" stuff like Mr. Fuji serving fried dog or Curt Hennig roofying everybody under the sun or did they draw the line at "Ric Flair having an orgy with some stewardesses"?

I am catching up on NXT currently. EC3 does not look much better than Jinder in the "how-does-he-pass-drug-testing" territory. Was he that big in TNA as well?

To some degree yes, you could also phrase it differently that their format and booking is great in hiding weaknesses of wrestlers even from people responsible for the call-ups. But yes, the way NXT (and to a lesser degree previous development programs) is working, wrestlers with not so much pre-WWE experience will have certain holes in their game when being called up.

It's a big difference if you have to produce 1 h or (taped!) TV per week and do little touring or if you are producing 8 (or how many) h of TV per week, 3/4 of that live, and be on tour 4 days a week or so. They will never get the same time to produce a match on the main roster as they do in NXT. The only thing they can do against that is being more careful in who to call-up. If they don't do that they will have to live with stuff like Bailey stumbling around blowing stuff left and right or Ember Moon reacting with the deer-in-the-headlight look once things don't go as planned.

I don't know the US legal system but shouldn't Cabana sue Amann for the legal costs? Over here in Austria in civil law suits the losing side has to pay the costs of the winning side (which I assume should ensure that rich people cannot sue poor people and enforce settlements as the poor people cannot afford to go to court).

I hope that they won't make the same mistake as last year and instead only drop one or two episodes a week.

The story about his death is really rough: apparently Jerry Lawler decided not to post bail as he thought that is was time Brian to finally grow up and deal with the consequences of his doing himself. I don't event want to begin to think what might be going through Jerry's mind right now.

Somehow Brickhouse is the saddest among all three wrestlering deaths today. Finding out that you have cancer in an early stage and not having the money to treat it is just horrible. It's hard not getting political about things like that.

This. The main reason for not having more PC guys on the main roster is that NXT is not a development league but rather a TV show that has its main focus in producing great wrestling and is hiring the best talent on the market to reach that goal. So the development guys barely get any TV time and I suppose not enough ring time in front of a crowd.

For me it was the other way around. But it is true that Ronda either looks like she is suffering from Bell's palsy (maybe this is a hidden JR joke?) or like Data's having problems controlling his emotion chip. Of course I could be nice and comparing the facial expression with Harrison Ford's standard expression.

The evolution of bad make-up?

I thought that was a list Scott Keith made up (or came up with) for the rec.sport.pro-wrestling ("RSPW") FAQ.

There are quite a lot of such guys on the roster, e.g. Corbin, Ziggler, Lesnar, Jordan, Mojo, both guys of AOP, Titus, ... (I know that most were before the performance center days, but they did not start scouting college athletes and similar only when they opened the performance center)

WWE often amazes me how little they do with what they have but Almas in a pre-show match against Sin Caras might be a new high (low). Not watching any WWE TV leaves also a lot of other questions looking at that card: - Why are the worse Rotundo son (and for that matter the better yet still shitty one) & Michael McGillicutty on the main show? - Where are all the great tag teams they have? (the Usos, the Bar, the Revival ... hell, I would prefer the AOP above most of the tag teams on the main card) etc. Oh yes, and if the Kane appearence is not a one-off (i.e. it leads either to a DB vs. Kane feud or a title reign) then I am done with WWE until the next Mania season starts.

Doesn't Lesnar have to be in the USADA program for at least 6 months to be eligible to fight? If that's the case I would assume he will fight on the Superbowl weekend show (if he makes it that far, that is).

The way 205 works I just find it unwatchable. I mean taping a B show after the A show just cannot work. Do it the other way around, that way at least the fans that are already there will be hot instead of everyone who stays being burnt out. Though what they should do is producing it similar to NXT. I mean no one cares about the "live" part of the show anyway. (I hope that the part of it being taped after Smackdown is actually still true.)