Stiva

So, Jarrett has made his announcement.

I'd have to revisit it in the future and divorce any emotion from it but it was certainly the most surprising one. The way he worked in it was really refreshing, you can tell the dude was relishing a long match with Bryan. Did everyone else's stomach drop when Lesnar pinned Taker? I'm a grown man, that shouldn't be my reaction to wrestling!

You got to give mad props to HHH tonight and I'm not a guy that likes him. Great work in the opener, great stuff in the main. Almost every single one of his annoying tendencies have been curbed in the past month and the ones that haven't, have been used to get more heat.

This really felt like the first Mania in a while where major shit went down. Taker's streak is done and so is he (from the look of things), they finally christened Daniel Bryan as THE guy and Cesaro had his moment in the spotlight. Kane and The NAO were swiftly dispatched and things feel so different now. It's certainly not perfect but the future is bright.

On the plus side, Batista's heel outfits really do get better every week. On the negative side, this kind of microphone segments are now totally insufferable.

Man, now we've got Hunter working shit through with this video package.

I think Raw ends with Bryan looking strong to make people think he's gonna lose. Guy standing tall at Raw before PPV loses at the event and all that. They're doing everything possible to make people think they're not going to give him the belt.

I would love them to work a different match to everything since 09 but I think they're going to have Lesnar reverse the Hell's Gate, Taker is gonna kick out of a couple of F5s and it's all going to be very similar to the other Taker Mania matches. I'm more interested in how they're going to work the triple threat since the crowd is going to be ripe for working.

That entire segment was some kind of horrid deleted scene from the Guest Host Raws

Blackman's Bounties is proof positive that professional wrestling is the most beautiful art form there is. What a great wrestling world we live in.

The subtext is definitely there but Loss' point that it isn't explicitly explained is a salient one. Wyatt's promos are great fun to listen to but they haven't had a mission statement since they debuted. They took Kane out who eventually joined the Authority and Bryan has entered himself into the main event of Mania. If you take the Wyatts on those grounds, they've kinda failed since everyone they've attacked has improved on their position pre-Wyatts. The feud with Cena is interesting to me as its someone attacking Cena's status as de facto WWE hero but aside from Bray's initial promo a couple of weeks ago, he's got himself muddled in riddles. The rhetoric about taking apart the people's hero is a perfectly fine wrestling angle so I don't know why he feels he has to add things on top of it. Basically, you can read into the angle all you want but the majority of people won't. I think the subtext you're describing is great but it needs to be explained in a promo on Raw to really sink in. It sounds like I'm belittling wrestling fans all over the globe but you have to be transparent sometimes.

I feel the same way about Wyatt. His promos are tremendously fun to listen to but when you actually pick them apart, they're all over the place. It would be just fine if he talked about tearing the fan's heroes down and Cena is the symbol of everything he wants to destroy. He keeps on piling empty riddles on top of riddles and it's losing its luster somewhat.

Yeah, this absolutely has to be part of the endgame here. Steph is getting so much heat on herself that she needs to get SOME comeuppance and you can't really have Bryan kick her in the face. At least, I hope not.

The voice in the video he posted certainly sounds like him.

That was one of my favorite runs of TV and JBL and Cole were both awesome during it. Especially because JBL was a full on heel announcer. He'd also constantly throw out references like comparing L and K to the Simpson Brothers from World Class. It also helped that Cole was full-on babyface and still had the reputation of a kind-of shitty announcer (though he clearly wasn't) so he fed JBL plenty of things to pick up so they could get angles over and their bickering never overshadowed the match. Now, he's "the voice of the WWE" and spends most of his time putting over crappy nicknames in that awful micro-managed way and it seems that JBL doesn't know how to play a heel commentator in those trappings. Cole, being the senior announcer, fights back and always has an insult ready to throw back which completely derails things further whereas back in the day, he'd retreat a bit and move back to calling the action. Maybe it's Vince in their ear, maybe they've just let those dumb crowd chants go to their head, I can't imagine how Vince would be happy with the current Raw commentary considering he's binned guys for being much less obnoxious.

I think that TNA has felt this way for about 3 years.

The 360 getting shitty apps is nothing new as both Youtube and Netflix were awful for a long time on there. Sucks but it seems to be a common thing.

Has anyone kicked out of Bryan's running knee yet?

With a hearty "YOU'RE OUTTA HERE!" for good measure.

Main Event going live every week is definitely a good thing. I hope they start running some self-contained feuds on it. As for this show, I, too, thought Kane/Bryan was really good and if there was a PPV between now and Mania, it would have been a great fit on there. Kane always works really hard with Bryan and I thought all the hope spots were cut off in really neat ways. I really liked Road Dogg's promo and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if he stuck around as a manager for someone.

I'm totally blanking on a cruiser with the ring name 'Chris' in WWE around the time Everybody Hates Chris was on the air.

I also love how, the Wyatt stuff aside, he's been made to look like this unstoppable super wrestler for a while now. He's beat Cena clean, keeps beating Orton, had Batista on the ropes last night, had the better of Kane last night, looked like a wrecking ball in the Chamber and outsmarted HHH with the kick until they all had to put him down. I mean, I have no doubt that won't be reflected in the HHH match when Hunter wants to have his 10-15 minute control segment where he knees Bryan a lot but still, it's clear that he's being shown as a guy to fear. Not that HHH will show that fear. As an aside, they really are pushing Bray Wyatt as this unbeatable psychopath. I think he takes the belt off Bryan in the summer.

Because people who read news sites that crib all their info from Meltzer aren't a minority anymore.

Meltzer and Johnson were told 100% he'd be there by a "top WWE star". The crowd was always going to be hot for Punk but that set it over the top.

Oh, man. WWE worked everybody. Just a shame that their Mania card sucks.