Death From Above

As a truly WWE inside joke/rebranding, AJ Styles should get a country trucker gimmick with "I've been everywhere" as his theme music. AJ Styles, (maybe) Daniel Bryan, and Samoa Joe in WWE in 2016. What a time to be alive.

I want Vader to shoot at his HOF speech about, you know, basically his entire WWF run. Then announce he's coming back to fight Brock at Summerslam. A man can have dreams, dammit.

I am actually really fine with the title being on the line at the Rumble because yeah, it's been millennia in wrestling time. Frankly it's probably a little overdue to replay the Royal Rumble title match gimmick. It wasn't a great crowd tonight but also it really wasn't much of a show to get them going either. They didn't even pop for the announcement. But honestly I felt like everything save the Neville/Owens/Ambrose segment was either flat out not good (That New Day sketch was the worst I've seen from them, and I generally like them a lot), to fine but not really noteworthy (Becky vs. Charlotte). I got a huge chortle that they edited together an Owens/Ambrose package and they left Ambrose botching that silly rebound lariat off the apron in, for some reason. Jericho's return was very flat and felt like going through the motions to me, and I haven't even seen several of his comebacks. Why does Stardust exist? What was the point of the Ryback/Show/Wyatts segment? Why did Lana come back, do a fake injury angle for a couple weeks, and seems to be off TV again with no explanation? I've used this reference many times to describe his character but it's never been more true: Vince is Muscular Mr. Burns. Nothing wrong with bein' 70, it works fine for him. People chirping him for looking pasty and old are kind of missing the great hubris of megalomaniac Vince not realizing megalomaniac Character Vince doesn't realize and/or give a shit that he's old. Overall I thought it was a very poor RAW. Again, praise to Owens and Neville. Everything else struggled to hold my attention fully.

I don't understand what the point of the Show/Ryback/Wyatts segment was. Crowd is asleep. Can't really blame them.

I love Ric Flair for all he's done in wrestling, but I'm really ready to never see him on TV ever again.

I'll say this for Neville, he takes some unbelievable highlight reel bumps. This has been a fun match with Owens. I'm starting to think Owens is the most consistent guy in the company (other than maybe Roman, who I have no real problem with once matches start).

Hansen vs. Flair would have been fucking awesome. I know that where they worked makes it seem unlikely, but what the hell we did get Hansen vs. Hogan. It was such a bizarro show but it would have been neat if they could have done more. Considering Flair did have title match tours in Japan, in a sense it's surprising to me they never seem to have crossed paths. Also, I would have been just fine with a Jumbo vs. Hogan match while we're on that theme. In a bizarro world with more to AJPW vs. WWF than the one big supershow it seems feasible.

I don't have the context of watching them recycle the same main event angle for basically 2 years that most of you do, but to me the main stuff isn't a problem so much as like half this show being basically directionless filler. 3 hours is just too much. But I think pretty much everyone (including Triple H) has agreed on this.

That's basically my thinking on it too. I mean, we know Triple H is going to wrestle. We know exactly what that match will be. Isn't it really the lesser possible evil to have that match be against Rock? Frankly I'd rather see Taker vs. Austin than anything else with Taker now too though I will take Austin at his word and say that seems awfully doubtful.

Also I find it interesting Cena is in the main event and they haven't had a single Cena segment in the first two hours.

So how long until Neville replaces Sin Cara as Kalisto's partner?

I agree with that which is why he should be working Brock again. The number of casual fans I know that love Undertaker while ripping on Brock for only working a part time schedule and hitting the same three moves is hilarious, but none the less real. There's a genuine dislike of the guy, and yet he is both one of the only guys that moves the needle AND can deliver on the big stage. I honestly find Brock/Roman to be a no-brainer. Undertaker is the white elephant in the WWE room now. There's nothing to do.

I'll just throw in some rambling ECW thoughts as they become relevant to the big picture at the end of this window. I have no real desire to revisit ECW's wrestling now, but in those halcyon VHS TAPE TRADING days when I was 16-20 or so, it did definitely appeal. I think people have become almost reluctant to give ECW credit for having a great 1995/96, but they really were presenting a product that was totally, completely different from the big two in tone and style, and as much as ECW was a mutant gongshow of "crazy things that would happen", it fit. Perfect company to take advantage of the early days of the internet going mainstream (and wrestling fans did seem to be one of the fangroups that really took huge advantage of early mainstream internet stuff like Geocities), perfect kind of show to appeal to the teenage male audience looking for an alternative to the Mabel's and Hulk Hogan's of the world. It's strange in that they had absolutely no "mainstream" impact in those years yet clearly among hardcore wrestling fans they were a known, and important, commodity. 95 and 96 are in my opinion two really good years where ECW, warts and all, was at the best of being what ECW was. There were a lot of factors that did help them, but they do deserve credit for taking advantage of it at least in the short term. -WWF and WCW both being down at the time - Emergence of the internet, and as a by-product entire "hobbyist" subcultures of people getting deeper into subjects than ever - The PG nature of mainstream wrestling allowing them to appeal to some fans through raw "Attitude" - Extension of the above by far the most successful company to market a product not always accepted even by local late night tv, using internet distribution/fan word of mouth online (a genuinely radical concept for the mid-1990's) I don't really think ECW could have been much bigger than it was, due to the violent/edgy nature that made them what they were, they were never going to be viable as some sort of mainstream TV product. Combined with by 1996 you start to really see the signs of the Big Two bleeding them for talent (Malenko, Beniot, Gurrero gone by then, 2 Cold Scorpio and Cactus Jack leave etc). '97 was a hot year for the company's popularity but really by then in hindsight the writing was on the wall with the cycle of them exposing new stars and losing them. But despite that I do think they deserve some credit for taking full advantage of the window they had at the end of this timeframe.

I actually enjoy UpUpDownDown, for the most part. Maybe I should have been more complimentary in that actually keeping someone off TV at all for an injury angle because it is so relatively rare these days. Bringing up Triple H's social media activity (and the company's social media approach in general) sort of muddied that point.

It's interesting that they are keeping Triple H off TV to sell the angle on TV which is good, while he tweets every day and took a pic at NXT London which is not so good. But shit, at least they are doing the TV part.

I find it weird that at least some of these must be shoot results because it's got to be a bit of a downer for the audience for back to back awards to go to Cena and Sting who aren't even there. Show has actually moved along pretty well considering it's alternating between awards show and filler wrestling.

Shame on you for making fun of god of all things Yolanka. Awesome outfit. Just like El Androide's. The strangest episode of Dr. Who ever.

Not really a hell of a lot to complain about on this show. I would prefer Crews/Corbin to work a more old school fistfight kind of match, but I get that's just not how shit works anymore. Everything here was at the very least fine, lots of high end action.

LOVE that they worked that without Joe actually using the Muscle Buster. Puts over it's doomsday move status and saves it for later.

The Great Irish Muta This entrance is fabulous pro wrestling nonsense at it's best.

Jax is still kind of raw but it's easy to see why they like her too. Love the struggle over a single hold at the finish. Pretty decent big vs. little match.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if in a few years as they keep looking for WWE Network programming if they end up spinning off an entire (for lack of a better name) NXT Women's show.

Jax getting a hell of a Godzilla hype video.

What a great opening match that was. Emma is really good as a heel and the crowd just loves everything Asuka does.

This is a great crowd. Going to be a fun night (afternoon for me).