Matt D

I liked Parker's theme, but not necessarily for Parker. I would have liked it for Zayn. The best stuff he did was backstage with Dusty (or was it Regal?) and Breeze

La Résistance probably wore out their welcome but they were pretty over for a while. I think the heel to compare Rusev to is Umaga though.

On paper, this is pretty much like the Royal Rumble 3-way if Rollins came in with the belt.

Power of the Brass Ring? Wrestlemania adrenaline. He made Brock bleed?

Bubba Dudley?

I really think it's intentional though. Austin called him on it on his podcast and the response indicated that Cena is aware of what he's doing and is doing it on purpose, whether for the safety of kids at home who might try it or for the same reason that Bryan got fired for the tie-choke or whatever.

To be fair, I bet Ronda Rousey would too.

Yup, if Sting had gone over HHH, he could help to make Rusev bigger. Alas.

RVD

I hate myself but I'm honestly kind of looking forward to the eventual Steph MMA training videos.

Let's see what they do next week first. I think a lot of us thought that putting him over in the Main Event of Mania without a turn was a bad move. I think he came out of that match with Lesnar looking way stronger than he came in. I can't speak on last night since I didn't see the end of Raw but I could see them thinking that it would be a wash because of the Bizarro Crowd and that the fan base would see that crowd as goofballs and ignore them. I don't think they'll keep him away from Rollins for a few months but it'll be telling if they do. Bryan has said that the point of him wrestling those matches with Orton was to get Orton over so they could do the unification match. So if they have a few with Rollins vs Reigns now, then maybe it's to get Rollins over for the rematch vs babyface Brock. If not, and they're building to him legitimately challenging and winning it later in the year by putting him over Show and Kane or whatever, then that's probably their way of really building him (misguided or not). I think he came out of Mania stronger than he came in, though. I also think he should have never been in that spot in the first place. If they were going to have Rollins cash in anyway, then he could have done that in a Brock vs Cena match at Mania, they could have had the same sort of match they had with Reigns vs Brock at the Rumble with Reigns losing but looking strong, and Reigns could have beaten Rusev at Mania for the US title or something. Let's see what happens when we get away from the Raw after Mania though.

I think that Loss' theory gives WWE way too much credit. They just can't consistently make anyone look good with the amount of TV they have and the general TV crafting philosophy they have and the only ones with veto power are Triple H and Stephanie. So they get buried less, not built up more.

He could have a great indy run in five years. He's like the ideal Chris Masters opponent.

I think he was there experiencing it and had a really fun time. The funniest bit was how he just sort of dropped out in his live recap after the Rousey thing happened. The pleasure center in his brain exploded and he reached the greatest natural high of this stage of his life.

Renee was necessary so Stephanie could call Brock her bitch. They've got other C team announcers though. Tom Phillips is a pretty fine lateral replacement Josh Matthews.

i'm not sure if I'd call what Byron's doing "Shining" Also, I'm a little worried about Mizdow. Just doing Miz mannerisms isn't going to cut it. He's going to have to find some other way to interact with the crowd. The act needs to evolve.

I am exhausted. Am I really the only one?

There's no point in saying stuff like "Harper isn't at Bryan's level." Bryan's now said that he wants to elevate guys like Heath Slater.

The Back and to the Left bit on Brock blading was good too.

Dylan laying out the following (paraphrased): "Triple H got an hour on the show. He got to associate with Ahnold. He basically had his own terminator movie. He went over for no reason. He took the bump from the big time star in Rousey. He's now in the feud with Rock, so he's potentially in the biggest match next year at Mania, and his apprentice went over as champ." And then Johnny going. "Ehhhhhh, that's an interpretation, doc."

The Rousey talk mainly has me annoyed that they didn't bring Paige up with her NXT badass character.

The bigger problem was Cena breaking the Accolade, which they could have counterbalanced a bit more if they had built a story around Rusev's shoulder being hurt from Cena's first offensive flurry (which it looked like they started to but they decided to take things a different way).

It might be, in part, that on a show with so many finisher kickouts, to have Rusev be the one to not kick out means that he relatively looks quite weak, especially factoring in how many AA kickouts there have been in the last few years?

Is this some sort of "I will read any comic with Punisher in it with it no matter who is the creative team and no matter if it's any good," mentality?

It'll be really telling. If I was a grumpy anti Reigns fan, I'd cheer him after last night. It'll be very impressive for the WWE if he gets cheered in front of that crowd tonight.