El-P

Indeed. Awful stuff. The burial was funny though. Where the fuck is Lana ? She's a vital part of Rusev's act. With this and the over patriotic stuff by Cena (which is to be expected, but boring nonetheless), this is the first week I didn't care about Rusev vs Cena. Well done guys. Rollins vs Orton is now surrounded by awful comedy stuff involving Kane, Big Show, Mercury and Knoble. Since we already saw Orton kicking Rollins ass, I guess you have to fill time with something instead of building heat. Let's throw Orton vs Bray Wyatt together already... That Brock interview. Just give this guy is money and keep him happy. Between Heyman week after week (not this week though) and Brock this time around, I actually want to see this match now. Well, I want to see Brock kill Reigns too, but… Anyway, good job here. Reigns on the other hand is just as dull as Orton at this point, you can see the script of the promo when he talks. So well, I'm not really interested in that match when I'm reminded who is Brock opponent... It's so sad to see Daniel Bryan in the middle of this stupid clusterfuck. The biggest career sabotage ever. Well. My interest dropped this week, thanks to a bad Rusev vs Cena segment (with no Lana, which may be related). The rest of the card is just dead (speaking of dead, they really don't even try with Bray vs Taker, do they ?).

This is absolutely terrific. (gotta love the Shockmaster showing up too)

Like pretty much every part of modern WWE production, I hate the fact "Mania moment" has became pretty much a trademark, so everything at Mania has to become a "Mania Moment"™. Nothing feels organic anymore, and everything is totally self-conscious, to the point of having a self-conscious trademarked name attached to it. The vaunted "Mania Moments"™ became annoying as soon as they became "Mania Moments"™ and not just stuff that you'd remember because it was actually special.

A few remarks about this. No need to say again how fucking stupid Simmons looked in that outfit, the fake helmet being the killer. The insistance on Vince part to not acknowledge who this guy was (Vince was repeating agin and again "Who is this guy ?", and even added "Whoever he is." when Lawler finally said that he looked like Ron Simmons) shows how far behind WCW he was at this point. Here's a former WCW star, from a few years back, but still, he's in a war with WCW, and he doesn't want to use it as a way to show that WCW guys are coming to the WWF. Hell, most of his new crew at this point were former WCW guys : Austin, Mero, Vader, Mankind, Goldust, Pillman and now Simmons. About racism in pro-wrestling, there's two interesting things here too. First, the fact they paired up the hot white girl everybody wants to fuck with Ron Simmons is not a random choice. It's playing on the old racist cliché of the black man with the white girl, which is supposed to get heat from white audiences. It's not like WCW didn't do the same thing with Harlem Heat and Sherri, but Sherri really wasn't projecting the same kind of image (although a few years back, Doom and Woman totally played on that aspect too). Here with Sunny, we clearly have the classic "big black guy is fucking this hot white girl" kinda racist heat seeker. More interesting to me is that Ahmed Johnson had been promoted as the first black IC champion ever. Ok. So who do we pick to be his first challenger ? Another black guy of course. Now, think of how many black guy challenging for the IC title during the last previous years ? As far as I can think : zero. The last one that had a true IC title feud that I can remember was JYD against Valentine. So yeah, now that Ahmed is the IC champ, of course we gonna get this about black guys fighting together. The whole thing would turned into a good angle that would actually incorporate the racial aspect when Simmons would eventually change his gimmick, but still, I though that was notable.

At this point, it was probably not the first time Sunny got some cream on her face courtesy of Shawn Micheals.

Yeah, pretty much. I always come back to Benoit vs Malenko from Hogg Wild 96. Part of me thinks that the same match happening in Korakuen Hall or ECW Arena (not that they are both equivalent) would get a much more postive appreciation from me. Then again, maybe not, as I really soured on those "classic" Malenko vs Guerrero matches from 95. But still, promotional style had nothing to do with it, setting and context had a lot to do with it. Another exemple is how NJ junior matches never translated in the Tokyo Dome, while they always got great reaction in the Sumo Hall. Again, setting plays a big part, but the promotional style is obviously the exact same in that case.

RAW 97/07/05 Vince : "Sex ?!! What does sex have to do with the WWF championship ??!!", in a really outraged voice. If you wonder, Lawler just refered to the Canadian swimming olympic team that had in their contract that they couldn't have sex during the Games. Mind you, it was during a (good) Shawn Micheals vs Billy Gunn match, with Sunny at ringside. I thought Vince's reaction was really funny, as he often was back in those days.

That's awesome.

The point is, pro-wrestling and ironic enjoyment don't go hand in hand. There's nothing worse than the product doing wink-wink to its audience in pro-wrestling. And it's not new either, ECW used to do that at points. Russo's WCW was doing that all the time. It just doesn't work. Comedy has a place in pro-wrestling, in small doses. But cattering to an audience who doesn't take anything seriously is just a no-no. The beauty of pro-wrestling is making you believe into something that you know is fake. Ironic pro-wrestling is about the worst thing imaginable to me. And we're indeed getting closer and closer actually with WWE getting all meta and shit and trolling its audience instead of trying to produce something good.

Pretty much.

Because death metal and Slipknot really are relevant in 2015 pop culture. Really, some diva need to come out to some PC Music shit, like some GFOTY song. Hell, give that one to Paige :

What was good/fun about the Funkasaurus ? I mean really ? Apart from the two hot dancing chicks ? It was basically Rikishi 2.0, only with a shitty worker who borrowed the catchphrase from Ernest Miller, who was way better on about every level.

WWE doesn't really *need* to have a cool 20/30 audience. They would do just fine with kids and middle-class families. If anything, the product is already way too light-hearted, and with godawful comedy to boot. The Funkasaurus would have been a cool gimmick for a guy like, say, Scorpio, who could actually work. Just a shame they didn't realized that in 1996. I still don't know what the hell Adam Rose was all about, really. I guess I'm too old (pushing 40 soon). Or maybe the gimmick was just stupid. But anyway, it's neither here nor there, the fact is they give up with everyone, be it on the midcard or on the main event scene. Remember Fandango debuting at Mania against Jericho ? Yeah, me neither.

What the hell is Ahmed saying ? Sid comeback was not exactly exciting to me back then, but he was about to have his best stint ever, as a babyface (his best role anyway, his heel comeback in WCW in 99 was rotten). Corny's selling of the unveiling is great, as is his promo.

Rewachting 96 RAWs, Savio was easily one of the best TV worker in WWF.

Come on. Warrior beats the shit out of Owen for a good half of the match. Then he does give Owen more than you'd expect, but I'd say he was still on offense for more than half of the match. It does seem they were expecting Warrior to return at some point, because they really don't bury him on commentary. Last match ever for Warrior in WWF, and his comeback in WCW would be one of the worst stint ever by a big name in a big company.

Burial. There you go Warrior. Well, that really didn't work out.

I do too. I don't know if she's mentally ill or just suffering the ill-effects of a traumatic childhood and bad break up with H/split from WWE, but it's a sad story either way. Well, she was apparently treated like dirt by HHH/WWF at the time of their split. And although I'm by no mean a Chyna fan (she was fine for a while as a bodyguard, but when she began to "work", she became unbearable), it would be hard to argue against the fact she was one element that helped HHH to get over. The amazon bodyguard was pretty unique and that's when HHH kinda took off in the midcard, not to mention in DX. And yeah, abusive relationship with Waltman, who's a mess himself, probably didn't help either.

he's a victim of their robotic style/presentation. the guy is hilarious but you wouldn't know that just from watching WWE - he absolutely kills it on social media. they just can't or won't try to translate that to TV. I'm not sure I would take in account how funny a guy can be outside of the pro-wrestling realm. First, I don't think the main quality of a worker is to be hilarious. Second, guys like Dean Malenko and Brad Armstrong had this rep of being really funny in real life, but it never translated into anything in front of the cameras in term of work, character and/or promo ability. So yeah, people being hilarious in real life is something, but I'm not sure it necessarily means much.

I remember the French Stallion being such an awesome asshole in that Lance Storm reality TV stuff. He could get on the main roster tomorrow with the same act and get over, at lthe very east as a manager. The ridiculous Sylvester Lefort name wouldn't help though, unless you'd want this guy's gimmick to be that he comes straight from the 50's or something. (well, of course, they would not let him be himself and overscript everything, so what am I even talking about here…)

Never understood the appeal of Big E.. To me he's Ice Train 2.0.. And I kinda enjoyed Ice Train, but it's not like he was setting the world on fire. And yeah, since he's in the New Day, he's gone straight to failure anyway.

Quite funny. Back in the Austin era, this would have been the greatest set ever though.

I remember vividly this angle from Superstars, as we didn't get much memorable stuff there. Sunny is an awesome cunt here. Just perfect in her delivery and attitude. It's kinda sad that it's actually her highpoint in WWF, much like it's Dennis Knight's best thing he ever was a part of. I don't want to know what went into that particular bucket, knowing it was destined for Sunny. The way she sells it is great. Yep, memorable angle.

Agreed. Here we are in 96, and Jannetty has another terrific TV match. INteresting that he looks better than Shawn on offense too. Nice to see him work at the level he should always work.

Cuerno vs Mundo in a cage was kinda cool when Cuerno was beating the hell out of Mundo. Too spotty still, and Mundo really isn't good. I like Yvelisse (great outfit too), but really, those intergender matches have to go away, it's way too awkward. Those vignettes, again. Konnan looked like the baddest motherfucker ever this week. Get him at Mania instead of Sting or Taker already. Can't say I look forward a casket match, but I guess it's a way to change the pace a little bit, much like the cage match this week. Good little episode again, although they really should advance Pentagon Jr. 's storyline now and give him a proper feud.