WWE TV from November 15th to 21th

[Grimmas]

Survivor Series hype and a tournament.

[MarcMadness]

If nothing else. Reigns-Cesaro should be a really good match. I'm curious to see how heavily in favor of Cesaro over Reigns the crowd is.

[DMJ]

So is Cesaro/Reigns tonight then?

 

If so, I am really, really hoping for a Cesaro upset. More than that, I'm wondering why they didn't finagle the tourney so that Cesaro/Reigns would happen at Survivor Series? To me, that's a match that one could reasonably expect to fill a solid 15 minutes on the card and actually get Reigns over a bit. Like against Bryan at FastLane, I think fans would begrudgingly cheer the guy if they saw him put on a great match and win. Cesaro has the skills to get him there.

[Coffey]

I'm giving up on WWE until Royal Rumble. I just can't do this anymore.

[goodhelmet]

I feel bad for this six man tag. The crowd is just dead.

[Jmare007]

Cesaro vs Reigns was awesome, as expected. Fuck that crowd though.

[Parties]

Good match. I was impressed by Cesaro's near falls at the end: felt like he had a chance when he stood no chance at all.

 

Announcers giving their Nick Bockwinkel tributes, then immediately cutting away to close shot of the Ascension as Cole says, "Meanwhile..." was quite a transition.

[Blehschmidt]

Del Rio blew the handspring into the lungblower spot, then accidently tore Kallisto's mask clear off attempting a reverse superplex.

 

Not a good sequence there!

[Blehschmidt]

Wow. Charlotte was terrible in that segment, and bringing Reid's death into things was totally unnecessary.

[Strummer]

Using dead people to build heat again. Fantastic. I thought we were through with this stuff. Now it makes sense why this got the main event segment

[Parties]

Ah, but who can deny that remarkable crowd heat it got? Deafening.

[Strummer]

There no way that segment gets the main event if it doesn't include the exploitation of Reid's death. The fact that got greenlit shows Vince hasn't evolved a lick

[Strummer]

Have to love being pissed after a wrestling show ended. Oh well should be used to it with this company. Jeff Hamlin had it right on the Observer site. A disgusting segment

[Loss]

Lots of outrage about Paige's line on Twitter. I won't call it misplaced, because it was tasteless. But on a spectrum, I think it's less offensive than exploiting a dead kid to build their brand or treating the Paris attack like the Ultimate Warrior died. The show is much easier to watch when they are open about who they are.

[The Chief]

Well, they've established that Charlotte got into wrestling for her dad and her brother, so I don't think it's exploitative or as disgusting as some. But I really don't think Charlotte is the person to be cutting these types of promos yet. Real emotion is great but that segment felt like it was going to completely unravel at any second. It was a little too real. Paige played her part fine but they probably could have used Cole to help move things along just in case.

 

Just an uncomfortable segment, probably one of the strangest Raw segments I've ever seen.

[hammerva]

I am just glad that we don't have another RAW before Survivor Series because if thought the angle was offensive (which is debatable) imagine JBL and Byron Saxton talking about non stop. Then you would really get pissed off about it

 

Charlotte can't have a conversation about Reid without tearing up uncontrollably. While it is completely understandable in the Vince and Kevin Dunn world of sticking to the script it just makes for terrible timing.

[cm funk]

I figured it got the main event spot because the third hour has been death in recent months, and they wanted the real main event (Roman and Cesaro) at 10 to try and retain some audience into hour 3. They also opened the show with Undertaker, because they've learned that nothing keeps people hooked for 3 hours.

 

As for the angle: I didn't find it tasteless so much as weird because Reid's death is not something really established on WWE tv. Most people watching wouldn't have any clue. That said, of course it was tasteless, but what else is new? I'm not going to get all worked up over it, but I did feel bad for Charlotte having to do this scripted angle when clearly just talking about Reid or thinking about him (like when she's won her titles) causes the Flair tears to flow uncontrollably

 

That said, when she cut her promo about how "we grew up watching our parents on TV and in WWE" I wanted Paige to heel on her something fierce

 

I missed the beginning of the show. Did they do a "Paris Tribute" video package to open the show? Someone mentioned them treating it like Warrior dying. All I saw was The Usos with the red, white and blue which I thought was subtle and cool and looked to be a personal choice on their parts.

 

Cesaro-Reigns was really good and I liked the 6 man, hoping those 6 and 4 others are in a SS tag. Owens-Neville and Del Rio-Kalisto were good but not great. Didn't care much for Ambrose-Ziggler at all.

[Loss]

They did start off with a Paris tribute. The moment was actually perfectly pleasant, but I think it's interesting that they have a Tragedy Template that they just plug whatever into, be it a wrestler death or national/global tragedy. And as expected, Undertaker didn't participate in that because he was protecting the gimmick.

 

So I guess I thought the Paige line was the second most offensive thing on the show at best.

[Loss]

 

Charlotte can't have a conversation about Reid without tearing up uncontrollably. While it is completely understandable in the Vince and Kevin Dunn world of sticking to the script it just makes for terrible timing.

 

Who knows what's true and what isn't, but it seemed like the tearing up was coached, like she was told to pause for effect and show some emotion.

[hammerva]

 

 

Charlotte can't have a conversation about Reid without tearing up uncontrollably. While it is completely understandable in the Vince and Kevin Dunn world of sticking to the script it just makes for terrible timing.

 

Who knows what's true and what isn't, but it seemed like the tearing up was coached, like she was told to pause for effect and show some emotion.

 

 

Well if it was coached it was coached a long time ago because she had the same reaction talking about Reid on that Divas Table for 3 show and at once that I can remember during his NXT days

[Parties]

Aside from being dismal for all of empathic humanity, it also flopped even as the cheapest of heat. Before it started, crowd hates on getting a Divas contract signing as their main event. Followed by the worst promo delivery yet in a feud built on truly bad promos. Then they take the most tasteless approach possible on the go-home show, where you don't even then have time to tell the story (herein a blessing in disguise).

 

How many people in that crowd even know about Reid? Maybe 1/3rd saw the TMZ story, tops? I would think less than that, even? They're exploiting his death while avoiding everything about the cause/history/etc.

 

It's likewise staggering when that's the bookend capper to your Paris and Bockwinkel memoriams. Even if by some impossible idiocy that angle was planned well in advance: no one calls an audible this week. Moreover, none of us are surprised.

[Tim Evans]

I'm more offended by ADR/Kalisto than the diva thing. You make this big deal about Kalisto beating Ryback and then he has that match on Raw where ADR gets all the offense and that painful looking finish. Just totally useless and makes Kalisto look even more weak than he already was. Also doesn't do much for Ryback either.

 

Charlotte is the worst divas champion since probably Kaitlyn. She can't talk, can't really wrestle except when she's in the ring with a really good worker like Sasha or Natalya and can't get a pop worth a damn.

[artDDP]

I thought Neville and Owens had a hell of a match. It was nice to see two guys in a world title tournament wrestling like the world title meant something and pulling out all the stops. I don't think they needed to kill the reverse 'rana for a quick near-fall, though.

 

The R-Truth match made it obvious how much WWE needs squash matches with enhancement talent on TV weekly. I doubt Truth moved ratings up or down any more than some unknown indy guy would have. It would allow Tyler time to get his moves over and it's another 60-90 seconds of TV time not spent on another ring intro for the jobber. If there were regular squash matches it would make something like Ambrose vs. Ziggler seem more important, since we wouldn't have already seen it a few dozen times on TV this year.

 

Also, Tyler spent way too long laying there on his back while Truth went through all his theatrics for a shitty leg drop. That and JBL burying the character on commentary really didn't help Tyler. I wonder if that was Vince talking through JBL?

 

And that angle at the end... completely unnecessary and tasteless. They spend weeks trying to create a convoluted storyline with Paige vacillating between being friends/enemies with Charlotte and when they can't figure out how to advance the story they just dig up that Charlotte's brother died of a drug overdose. I can't imagine how the conversation went backstage with whoever presented the idea to her and had to convince her to go along with it.

 

Does this mean at Survivor Series we're going to get a video package recapping this terrible angle with cutaways of photos of the Flair children when Reid was alive? I hope not.

[kjh]

They did start off with a Paris tribute. The moment was actually perfectly pleasant, but I think it's interesting that they have a Tragedy Template that they just plug whatever into, be it a wrestler death or national/global tragedy. And as expected, Undertaker didn't participate in that because he was protecting the gimmick.

 

So I guess I thought the Paige line was the second most offensive thing on the show at best.

 

Probably not wise to do a death exploitation angle on the same show they did the Paris tribute. I mean we all know it was shameless PR, but to reveal their true colours three hours later is quite the juxtaposition.

[Loss]

I'd rather them reveal their true colors, if only because it's actually genuine.