Robert S

Orton is worse

A couple of examples when to use an apostrophe and when not: "This is Kerry von Erich's coke." "Fritz' fake heart attack did not win the WON year end award for 'Most disgusting promotional tactic'." "According to Michael PS Hayes the Freebirds' flat was destroyed when they got wild after getting drunk." "The von Erichs did a lot of drugs."

You weren't lying. I'd be wasted out of my mind by now. I counted 7 uses during the battle royal. That's it for me, time to go to bed. Have fun!

And before that he dropped him once straight on the head and once half on the head and half on the neck.

If you did a shot every time the term "Wrestlemania moment" is used you would already be pretty drunk.

HBK: "There has always been a bit of darkness in Randy Orton." - talking about a guy who spent a month in (military) prison and who was suspended in his career for a longer time than all WWE wrestlers together in the last two years

During the pre-match stuff I was wondering why you would book the Rock'n'Roll Express as heels but once I saw them standing next to Bad Attitude the (a?) reason became pretty clear: they were towering their opponents, no chance of them playing sympathetic babyfaces here. Bad Attitude using the MNX entrance theme left me laughing out loud.

Those 80ies shows did not go 7 hours (even thought some of them felt like that). I might watch a bit of the pre-show before I go to bed and the rest tomorrow and Tuesday evening after work. Though I will skip one or two matches (there is no way I will watch another Randy Orton match in my life, let alone against Bray Wyatt, Triple H vs. Rollins is also very high on my personal "will likely avoid"-list, as are post 2013 Chris Jericho single matches).

Has there ever been a more useless WWE announcer than Percy Watson? He is hardly saying anything (during matches he would literally shut-up for minutes) and when he is talking he is either mumbling unintelligibly or he is saying nothing of worth (either just agreeing with Phillips/Nigel or just playing captain obvious).

All in all I would say it was a pretty enjoyable show. Random thoughts: - Bischoff-DDP and Natalya-Phoenix were the highlights of the night. - Cornette was okay, even though his speech went on too long in the end (and he just cannot talk about any subject without going on a "everything was better in the old days" tanget). - Morton and Gibson started a bit rough with distributing all their notes on the desk and getting lost. - I am always impressed when they have a non-performer on the stage who can deliver a hell of a speech like Rude's son did. - I hope that APA introductions don't become a yearly thing now (as last year the introduced the Godfather) as the pre-scripted stuff they are doing (and I assume without hardly any input by them) is out-of-place for such an event. - Cena's speech was completely impersonal and cold. Angle afterwards felt a bit like what people accused Sting last year of: doing it as part of the job without really caring and going through the motions. At least the second half of his speech was entertaining with him going back to some of the sillier things he did in his WWE career. And the milk thing in the end with his tux was funny as hell. - All in all I wouldn't say that the show fell of the cliff in the second half though the first half was clearly better.

Watching early indy-darling Reckless Youth wrestle while Lance Russell is doing commentary is at least bizarre.

I somehow thought that Regal's match against Benoit at the Pillman memorial got him (re-)hired, it seems as if I was wrong.

The same as there being two Steve(n) Regals? Obviously one was the first (in this case Haystacks Calhoun) and the other (or rather promoters) copied the name. According to Wikipeda Giant Haystacks was at one point even called Haystacks Calhoun.

That's Giant Haystacks.

A match with a first half of this and a second half of the Royal Rumble match would be an easy ***** match. The stuff inside the cage is really great, though once they get outside the match becomes to gimmick-y for what the story behind this was. Some stuff on top of the cell looked dangerous as hell, especially the part where the cage roof was breaking unplanned (the thing where HHH's foot gets stuck). At least the big spot with Foley going through the cage again worked out fine. I did not remember that Foley got back up after that to get pedigreed one more time. The finish might have been a bit flat, but this match totally made HHH (disregarding of the retirement stipulation), more so than the Rumble match. My favorite spot of the match was the catapult from Foley that made Triple H's face smash hard into the cage.

It took me too long to watch all matches on disc two to give a complete ranking, but the top matches were (in approx. order): Invader I vs. Eric Embry (June 1986) Invader III vs. Eric Embry (1/6/86) Abdullah the Butcher v. Victor Jovica (Chain Match) (July 1986) Chicky Starr vs. Invader III (Scaffold Match) (May 1986) The tag team tournament stuff in the middle of the disc was not that great.

The worst was still to come in between the good matches (though the main event was (a) overbooked - three ref bumps for example and ( started with a ten minute arena brawl, which is not something I enjoy watching in 2017): Undertaker vs. Big Bossman Hell in a Cell. The match was not particularly good to say the least, they had so little heat that you could have heard a pin drop, the finish came completely out of nowhere (I assume they went home early as someone called an audible), the post-match angle was so revolting that everbody who was creatively involved with this should have been fired (somehow this did not make it into the top five of the WON awards for "most distgusting promotional tactic", though the match was number three in "worst match of the year") and Michael Cole shouting "COULD THIS BE A SIGN? COULD THIS BE A SIGN? COULD THIS BE A SIGN?" while Bossman is (literally) hanging above the ring is just (rotten) icing on the (disgusting) cake.

There is still a "celebrity wing" inductee missing.

They have begun uploading older NXT shows from 2012 and 2013 (Full Sail stuff only so far, i.e. only the "new" format).

I agree with Matt and Dylon, so far by far the best Abdullah match on the set.

I am currently watching Wrestlemania XV which I have not seen since 1999. I have three more matches to go but so far it is everything everyone says about it and worse. - On commentary you have 99 Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler. Anybody who complains about today's announcing has to listen to this. I think I would prefer Byron Saxton, David Otunga and Tom Phillips to that atrocity. - The opener hardcore title match (Billy Gunn vs. Hardcore Holly vs. Al Snow) is a fine 7 minute WWF-garbage match, nothing wrong with it. - The tag team title match (Owen Hart & Jeff Jarrett vs. Test & D-Lo Brown) is a complete nothing match. The only reason for it being on the card is presumably for Debra to be on the show and appear almost naked. In addition there is a stupid partners-that-hate-each-other Russo thing going on on the challenger side. - Butterbean vs. Bart Gunn was fun for what it was. - Mankind vs. Big Show is another nothing match, with a blown screwjob finish followed by the first of many Big Show turns. - The IC title match (Road Dogg vs. Val Venis vs. Ken Shamrock vs. Goldust) is a 10 minute match that feels like a 60 minute broadway. In theory you have enough talent here for a decent match, in praxis this sucked pretty bad. Plus there is some stupid thing going on with Ryan Shamrock deciding the match. I don't even want to know the specifics why she is with Goldust and Meanie here. - Kane vs. Triple H is what you expect from a Kane vs. 99 face Triple H match. Nothing offensive, but nothing really positive either. Another screwjob with Chyna running in and turning babyface at the end. - Sable vs. Tori is a 99 divas match. Things would get even worse in the early post-Stratus era, but not by far. Match ends with another female interference (this time by the recently deceased Nicole Bass). The whole psychology of this seems strange. The story of this (Tori being Sable's stalker) seems to indicate that Sable is the face and Tori the heel, but (a) the crowd is doing reverse reactions (okay, it's Philly, Hat Guy is even sitting the in the second row) and ( Tori gets screwed by a run-in.

They were on the way to have a pretty good match until Bayley took over offense and blew everything (or maybe Charlotte was out of position half of the time, I don't know). That thing that Bayley wanted to do while Charlotte was in the tree-of-woe looked especially horrible. First Bayley stopped the spot, I guess as Charlotte was not in position. And then she did it anyway and only caught Charlotte's hand for a spot that was clearly meant to hit the head or the body. Booking-wise Charlotte's taking her first PPV loss a month before Wrestlemania seems worse than Owens jobbing to Goldberg after a 5-minute-Larry-Z-special. The was a classic case where they booked themselves into a corner. There was no good way to book this match. The best of the bad choices might have been a non-match after Lesnar attacks Goldberg at the bell.

I firmly believe that wrestlers and fighters have roughly the same goals when it comes to the categories they're voted on together: best on interviews, biggest draw, most charismatic. There are separate awards for Fighter/Wrestler of the year, most outstanding and best match because when they step into the ring/cage they have totally different jobs. The job they have outside of that are largely very similar. Would a fighter really play a character in the middle of a fight? Have you ever seen the Stalker Ichikawa MMA fight?

The last missing episode was uploaded today.

I guess it was another year full of UFC dominating pro wrestling categories?