Robert S

I am not an expert or fanatic for classical music, but I have been to the opera a couple of times and watched some more on TV. Mozart is a guy whose music is sometimes really hard for me to get into. I can see loving his concertos or symphonies and bits of his operas, but whole operas, which is what he is best known for, are for me a torture to get through. I think I would rather sit through a 7 hour Wrestlemania than through a 3+ hours Mozart opera. I was watching Le Nozze di Figaro (live) in school (which almost killed me) and a couple of years ago I tried to watch Die Zauberflöte a couple of years ago on TV (I had to resign half an hour in). Schubert is an interesting case to me. He is best known for his songs, especially his song cycles go into a direction that is not what you would usually think of by the term "classical music".

At least the title "Backlash" was quite fitting for this show.

Did they even do the MITB qualifying matches on Raw in 99 as that kinda annoyed me how Heat wasent available in the UK and we see odd clips of people qualifying. I suppose you mean KOTR? According to "The History of WWE" all 8 qualifying matches happened on Sunday Night Heat indeed (on May, 30th and on June, 6th).

Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I remember the finish was blown timing-wise. I think the idea was for the Rock to have some seconds left to pin HHH after the tombstone to even the score. If that's true than the WWF had two accidental title changes due to clock-missmanagement in three PPV shows (the other one being Hardcore Holly pinning Crash Holly at Wrestlemania after what was supposed to be the end of the 15 minutes hardcore batle royal).

The structure is fine and very un-Hit Squad, but the execution is really lacking. Even simple standard southern tag team spots like the hot-tag-that-the-referee-missed spots are blown (in this case partly by the referee and partly by the wrestlers themselves). I did not find a birthdate for the Metal Maniac, but KC Thunder was born in September 1965, so he was 34 here. If you would have asked me I would have guessed him to be 45 and the Metal Maniac being 50. Considering that the Metal Maniac started wrestling in 1991 and is still wrestling today he probably was in his early to mid 30ies as well.

Well, Hollywood ain't the real world either. But yeah, honestly, Randy Orton, with all the shitty tattoos, kinda looks likes some of the douchebags who do Survivor type TV shows. In all honesty, all the girls we're talking about aren't that special looking either. Some are really cute girls (although butchered by the makeup department), but plenty of them are just on the more normaly attractive side of the spectrum, really. Which is a good thing. The days of the lingerie models is over, thankfully. Alexa Bliss looks plays a part, but the fact is she's just really good at being a bitch heel. Personnality also plays a huge part into perception of attractiveness (not to state the obvious, but the same works IRL, I mean, look at Foley's wife for instance). Is Alexa Bliss pretty? She is usually wearing so much make-up that I have no idea what she really looks like (and I definitely don't feel like going on a google-pics search for private/non-work photos of her).

That Cena is faking being a nice guy which anybody over the age of 10 can should be able to see through. Or something along that lines.

I have learned in the meantime that Cena usually gets literally slimed at these awards shows. I really thought that was a sick burn by Mauro but it is just another lame reference.

I hope that Cena does not watch NXT. Mauro used the following great line about Adam Cole: "Cole may be slimier than John Cena at the Kids' Choice Awards, but (...)." That Dakota Kai segment was really weird. I get that they are working a classic "underdog overcoming the bully" story, but Kai acting like a 12-year-old who got pantsed in front of her whole class or like a full grown woman who was sexually assaulted seems to be too much.

All on your list except Dusty turned between heel and face at least once. Plus the above mentioned "not-staying-too-long-at-one-place" thing.

Finisher spamming at the beginning of a 6 h shows, these guys don't know how to work (well, rather they don't care if they burn out the crowd early).

After the Cena entrance I am curious about Angle entering for the Rumble. It will be really weird to hear Angle's entrance theme without "you suck" chants.

He is pretty good, but he is no Johnny Sorrow,

So there seem to be women in the crowd.

D'oh

From what I heard about air-conditioning in Saudi Arabia the temperature in the arena probably will be the lowest for a WWE show in quite some time.

Without knowing anything about this Nigel: (1) There are a lot of weird people. (2) There are a lot of people on the internet. (3) It is easy for weird people to express themselves (get heard) on the internet.

That kuppo-kick counter from Ki was insane. I doubt that if they repeated the spot 100 times that they would hit it as well as they done there more than 5 times at most. There were couple of minor issues with this match: there was some sloppy stuff, for example the mentioned flying headbutt or kicks missing by a mile and Ki threw too many big bombs too early in the match which lead to a lack of escalation of offense from his side until the Ki Crusher. But this is definitely a match that would have gotten over great in 2002 ROH (though Low Ki was definitely better in 02 than he was here, Homicide I am not so sure). Homicide is a guy I have often problems watching as in-ring he too often wrestles way too sloppy and does not seem to care that some of his stuff does not look very good, so you have no problems believing that he started out as a backyarder. But here he is spot-on. Except maybe a mafia kick that missed by a lost most of the sloppy stuff here was done by Low Ki.

That dive from Blade was something. Just flying from out-of-nowhere into the hard-camera view. If he would have jumped from a plane and landed in the ring it would not have looked much different.

With punch 1 I meant the women's stuff that was talked about here. Though at least the women could have gotten into the country, which I doubt Dar would have been able to (I don't know if he has a UK or an Israel passport, but for countries like Saudi Arabia it would have even been enough if there was a Israel stamp in Dar's passport for him not to be able to get into the country).

The 187 number (no, not Homicide) was all over the bio video on the network as well. That included a clip from the Hall of Fame where HHH was using the 187 number while talking to Bruno and Bruno did not object.

What a pity that Noam Dar is not a pushed wrestler because that could have been a really "fun" 1-2 punch.

I agree, the early parts with Big Show squashing Shane were quite enjoyable. Shane is what he is, but as the included him being a pretty decent athlete that means I have seen much worse backyarders than him. The cinder block that exploded on contact looked really silly, even worse than the exploding amplifier.

Z-Man and semen are almost homophones. I suppose that was done on purpose with someone finding it funny in a "see, he is a blowjob babyface" way.

I was watching this a week or so ago. I did not remember Austin having a knee brace that early in his career. By the way: how did the Z-Man name got by S&P?