WWE TV 10/07 - 10/13 Mamma Mia Nigel! The crowd is turning on Seth much like [REDACTED COMPARISON]

[NotJayTabb]

The idea of Drew Gulak being a "stiff" when he's been one of the most consistently great wrestlers on the planet this year blows my mind

[El Dragon]

13 hours ago, C.S. said:

I guess no one is watching NXT tonight, or at least flipping back and forth.

Lio Rush over Drew "Tony Neese off steroids" Gulak was the right move. But as I said in the Dynamite: Week 2 thread, the opening match of AEW is what the WWE/NXT CW division has always needed to be. This match was a clash of styles and bore, even with the right result, but Jesus Christ Himself couldn't carry a stiff like Drew Gulak to anything decent.

Westley Blake's biker gimmick team, which will die an instant death on Raw or SD, over a fan favorite act like Breezango was the wrong move.

That Drew Gulak take is all time bad one, Jesus.

[Blehschmidt]

That Gulak take is actually worse than his Mauro take and Mauro was down right rotten during that match with his references!

[KawadaSmile]

15 hours ago, C.S. said:

I guess no one is watching NXT tonight, or at least flipping back and forth.

Lio Rush over Drew "Tony Neese off steroids" Gulak was the right move. But as I said in the Dynamite: Week 2 thread, the opening match of AEW is what the WWE/NXT CW division has always needed to be. This match was a clash of styles and bore, even with the right result, but Jesus Christ Himself couldn't carry a stiff like Drew Gulak to anything decent.

Westley Blake's biker gimmick team, which will die an instant death on Raw or SD, over a fan favorite act like Breezango was the wrong move.

You know C.S., I never get bored with your posts. There's always something amazing in them.

Sometimes I get SHOCKED or FLABBERGASTED, but I can admire the courage it takes to post things like that without even flinching. I mean that, too!

[NintendoLogic]

You know, saying that Jesus Christ can't get anything out of a Jewish wrestler is pretty problematic.

[Tenese Sarwieh]

Kushida/Walter was fantastic. This wasn't your standard david vs goliath match, both guys hung in there 50/50 and was a welcomed change. 

Also I can't get on board with this talk of Gulak being a dud. He's been one of if not the best performers during the entirety of 205 Live and now in NXT has been no different.

[Strummer]

According to Dave on WOR wwe is looking to go away from authority figures for the time being. Great news but I can't see them sticking to it long term.

reps from Fox and USA will make the draft picks Friday and Monday

[SirEdger]

Authority figures are quite frankly outdated. I mean, from WWE's standards, where it's for the most part crooked and biased. 

[Blehschmidt]

Watching NXT, and I am only about 90 minutes in, but this show going to 2 hours has made it seem like a drag. Not quite the 3 hour Raw or 37 hour WrestleMania drag, but....Ugh..... I miss the brisk, well paced, hour long Network NXT show already.

and can we please move The Undisputed Era to another show so that I don't have to see them anymore! So stale.....

[Mad Dog]

10 minutes ago, Blehschmidt said:

Watching NXT, and I am only about 90 minutes in, but this show going to 2 hours has made it seem like a drag. Not quite the 3 hour Raw or 37 hour WrestleMania drag, but....Ugh..... I miss the brisk, well paced, hour long Network NXT show already.

and can we please move The Undisputed Era to another show so that I don't have to see them anymore! So stale.....

I think it doesn't help that Undisputed Era and Baszler are played out and have all the belts. 

[FMKK]

I know they've been around for ages now and people have accepted it but Undisputed Era really is a godawful name. Wtf is it supposed to mean?

[Strummer]

Wwe just announced that Seth v Roman will open SD with the winner getting the first pick for their respective brand. Seth (Raw) and Roman (SD)

[Jmare007]

Would be amazing if the crowd cheers Roman and boos Seth. Though they'll probably just boo both and chant random bullshit throughout the match until a big spot happens.

[C.S.]

2 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

You know, saying that Jesus Christ can't get anything out of a Jewish wrestler is pretty problematic.

Wow, really?!

How the fuck am I supposed to know that Drew Gulak is Jewish? (Don't waste my time pointing to some obscure promo I obviously didn't hear or obscure tweet I definitely didn't read.)

Seriously, I really hope this is a tongue-in-cheek post on your part, because Drew's religion never entered my mind for even a split second.

3 hours ago, Blehschmidt said:

That Gulak take is actually worse than his Mauro take and Mauro was down right rotten during that match with his references!

Rasslin' in a vacuum will never, ever impress me. I don't give a shit about Drew as a character. I don't give a shit about "Drew on steroids" Tony Nese as a character. Therefore, I can't get into anything they do.  

The only time I have been even remotely entertained by Drew's shtick is when he piggybacked off the Orton "...dive" stuff (which I found hysterical, even if I think Orton was the wrong person to be delivering that message and was never in a position where he felt he had to go overboard in the ring to get noticed).

With that said, even in a vacuum, I also haven't been impressed with what I have seen with Drew in-ring.

But maybe I haven't been watching the right matches? The few I've seen have been plodding, heatless affairs. The heatless part isn't his fault, but the plodding is. He's not Bret Hart and can't pull off "methodical."

I like Lio Rush.

But if we're talking about wrestling alone, the match stunk, and Mauro probably stunk during it too, because Mamma Mia, it was a bore. I don't necessarily blame Drew or Lio for it - WWE has neutered its cruiserweights into oblivion. The Young Bucks-Private Party match is what 205 Live and the Cruiserweight Division should have been all along. 

DAMN IT, MY REPLY TO KAWADA SOMEHOW GOT ERASED. I'LL TRY TO RE-CREATE IT.

[C.S.]

3 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

You know C.S., I never get bored with your posts. There's always something amazing in them.

Sometimes I get SHOCKED or FLABBERGASTED, but I can admire the courage it takes to post things like that without even flinching. I mean that, too!

Thank you, sir.

However, I do feel I've been unfairly consigned a rep as a "hot take" poster.

I don't think it holds up to any kind of scrutiny though.

Asuka: In WWE, doesn't draw and no one cares. I've been proven right on both counts. Granted, some of the blame is definitely on WWE's inconsistent booking. With that said, I can recognize that she would immediately be a draw and fan favorite in AEW's decidedly underwhelming (so far) women's division.

Brock: A colossal bore. I sounded the trumpet on this earlier than most, and I've been proven right. That wasn't always the case, of course, but it is now. People want to argue that he "feels special" and use that to justify the bullshit way Kofi's reign ended. No, he used to feel special. Not anymore. Suplex City = an excuse for him to have lazy, dull matches. Credit to Paul "accentuate the positives, hide the negatives" Heyman for perpetuating this fraud.

Drew Gulak: If he was future endeavored tomorrow, no one would notice and it would make zero difference to WWE's bottom line. Even AEW, which somehow managed to make Jake freakin' Hager seem special (for now) would struggle with Drew. He'd probably be a good fit for the NWA though (and this isn't a knock on the NWA - I genuinely feel guys like Drew would do well there).

Mauro Ranallo: C.S.'s "hot takes" are more sizzling than a steak dinner at the Sizzler! Mamma Mia!!!

[Stiva]

The draft being framed as two TV companies picking wrestlers is weird as hell. Or is that some form of regular occurrence in other sports that is being lost on me in the UK?

[Log]

2 hours ago, FMKK said:

I know they've been around for ages now and people have accepted it but Undisputed Era really is a godawful name. Wtf is it supposed to mean?

That's the new trend.  Just put some words together that sound "cool". 

How is a group of people an era? 

Are we living in the undisputed era? 

What, exactly, is not being disputed? 

Archer of Infamy? 

Are you an infamous archer? 

Do you shoot arrows at infamy?  

 

[NintendoLogic]

1 hour ago, Stiva said:

The draft being framed as two TV companies picking wrestlers is weird as hell. Or is that some form of regular occurrence in other sports that is being lost on me in the UK?

Drafts are an annual occurrence in each of the big four American sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL). It's the main way teams acquire young players since they don't operate youth academies.

[Stiva]

5 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

Drafts are an annual occurrence in each of the big four American sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL). It's the main way teams acquire young players since they don't operate youth academies.

Yeah, I know all of that, it's just the idea that WWE are explicitly stating that the respective TV networks are the ones picking people for their shows. There isn't even the pretence of GMs at all.

[Strummer]

John Pollock reporting Stephanie will be announcing all the picks tomorrow. So much for no authority figures I guess

[DMJ]

It will also make certain picks seem ridiculous. Clearly, if this were not kayfabe, Seth Rollins would be the opposite of a good pick. He's a ratings killer and I doubt he even sells 3/4ths of the merch that The New Day do. Sure, he's the Universal Champion - but that title felt instantly less important than the WWE Championship the second Lesnar pinned Kofi. 

The top picks would like be Lesnar, Rousey (is she an option?), Becky Lynch, and Roman Reigns and then there'd probably be quite a big drop off. The Fiend is "hot" (or was?) so he'd be a reasonable pick. The Miz has longevity and his own spin-off. Daniel Bryan was really hot in 2014 so in that sense he should be a top 5-6 pick. Braun is a monster, he would/should get picked on size alone. But after that? If this were real, they'd probably just be bidding for the rights to John Cena's eventual comeback match. Everyone else is interchangeable or completely unknown.

Like, you can put 50 FOX executives in a room and I doubt any of them would know who Andrade is. Hell, I'd be surprised if even one could name Ricochet.  I doubt they could pick Kevin Owens out of a lineup. 

 

[PeteF3]

2 hours ago, Stiva said:

Yeah, I know all of that, it's just the idea that WWE are explicitly stating that the respective TV networks are the ones picking people for their shows. There isn't even the pretence of GMs at all.

As an avid American sports-follower I can assure you this makes no more sense to me than it does to you. I guess the closest parallel is how the NFL splits up its TV rights between its two conferences for the Sunday afternoon games, with one network getting the rights to one conference and one to another, which goes back to when there were two separate pro leagues.

[sek69]

It seems like they are trying to work Ronda back in by having her on Total Divas, and she's done videos on her YouTube where it seems she's getting the itch to come back again, but they've not come out and said she's 100% coming back yet. I wonder if her time away counted against her deal or not (it absolutely would have been frozen for anyone else other than Brock). 

[Alucard]

With Gulak dropping the title, I'm thinking he moves to Raw or SD.

The draft will have separate pools to draft from for each night of the draft. It's noted that tag teams can be one draft pick "unless they want to draft only one member of the team"

For Smackdown tomorrow, these superstars will be available to draft:
Becky Lynch, Roman Reigns, The O.C., Bray Wyatt, Drew McIntyre, Randy Orton, Sasha Banks, Ricochet, Braun Strowman, Bobby Lashley, Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross, Lacey Evans, The Viking Raiders, The Revival, Natalya, The Street Profits, Lucha House Party, Cesaro, Kevin Owens, Humberto Carrillo, Akira Tozawa, Sin Cara, Eric Young, EC3, Chad Gable, Heath Slater, Drew Gulak, The B-Team, and Tamina

The following Superstars will be available to draft this upcoming Monday on Raw:
Seth Rollins, Brock Lesnar, Charlotte Flair, Titus O’Neil, Shinsuke Nakamura (w/Sami Zayn), Aleister Black, The New Day, Daniel Bryan, Bayley, Luke Harper, Erick Rowan, The Miz, Ali, King Corbin, Elias, Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode, Samoa Joe, The Kabuki Warriors, Rusev, Cedric Alexander, Rey Mysterio, R-Truth, Carmella, AOP, Heavy Machinery, Apollo Crews, Andrade, Liv Morgan, Jinder Mahal, Buddy Murphy, Mojo Rawley, No Way Jose, Dana Brooke, Shelton Benjamin, Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder, The IIconics, Sarah Logan, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville, and Drake Maverick

[Edwin]

22 hours ago, Tim Evans said:

KUSHIDA vs WALTER was an awesome match. Best match Kushida has had in NXT and Walter is just amazing.

This. The Roddy Strong from Orlando Live earlier this year is his second favorite match.