Any WWE fans in the audience? (Part 1)

Rich Swann, who jobbed to Baron Corbin last night, turns out to have quite a tragic history. His father was murdered when he was 14, his mother died a couple of years later, and he was addicted to cocaine. Kudos to him for turning his life around.

I’m really digging Alexa Bliss. She really nailed that promo with Super Happy Fun Team.

Maybe some NXT personnel will be called up this weekend, but hopefully they won’t be retained on anonymous jobber status like Tyler Breeze.

Interesting article here on how Big Show almost became a boxer. Hulk Hogan talked him into trying out for it, because he thought “The Great Wight Hope” would make millions.

Every member of that team is too green for high profile matches but it doesn’t keep them from polluting wrestling shows.

I disagree. Luke Harper (John Huber) and Erick Rowan (Joseph Rudd) debuted about a month apart back in 2003. They both have over 12 years of experience.

Strowman’s wrestling debut was December 2014. He has just over a year of experience.

Winham/Wyatt has over 6 years of experience now.

I can’t argue with that. ‘Green’ is not the appropriate way to characterize them. I’ll rephrase to say all of them suck too much for high profile matches.

I would disagree with that too.

They wrestle a certain style based on their characters and being heels. They do more power moves and stay away from moves that will get them pops (except in certain cases - Luke Harper is pretty darned good at times).

Their bad booking has been the worst of it. Sure, heels, especially heel teams, are meant to look brutal, but be beat on a regular basis by our heroes. But their booking has been shoddy, inconsistent and full of a lot of false starts and dropped storylines that have done them no favors.

As I said elsewhere. If you’re watching WWE lately, you’d swear they only employed about 20 wrestlers and only viewed about 5 of them as ‘stars’. They have a deep bench of people who could put on stellar matches but are wandering around catering every show because Vince is a senile moron who doesn’t see the value of what he has in his hand, but keeps chasing after more (Styles, Bullet Club, etc, etc).

That he also won’t use appropriately.

If I was on the board of directors for WWE, I’d be telling Vince to stop all the acquisitions and make better use of the talent he already has.

We are totally in agreement on that part.

Point of order; Windham is Bray’s first name, not his last. He’s Windham Rotunda, son of Mike “Irwin R. Shyster” Rotunda, and is named after Barry Windham, Mike’s long-time tag team partner in the U.S. Express. (Fun fact; “Real American”, which eventually became better known as Hulk Hogan’s theme song, was originally written for the U.S. Express.)

Harper and Rowan were at least allowed solo careers to see how they’d stick. Harper could probably have had a lengthy midcard career, but Rowan not so much. They have better chemistry together as a tag team, and are better off letting Bray be their voice anyway. Maybe they’ll get the belts when New Day is no longer over.

Yeah, I admit I’m not so impressed with Rowan.

And I think Strowman’s career in WWE is very strictly tied to the Wyatts. I don’t see him having a lot of individual success with as green as he is. The group allows them to cover for his inexperience and just have him do power moves. He’s likely to come off looking utterly terrible once he’s on his own.

Which isn’t all bad for him. He goes somewhere else and gets real wrestling experience.

StrongBroman could always learn on the fly as well. Maybe he’s not as dumb as he looks and can slowly become a better wrestler little by little.

My issue with the Wyatts is that they’re booked like they’re the Cena of pops.

Vince: Well we don’t know what to do here…um…shove Wyatt in there, that always makes them cheer!

So they are stuck with weird two-week-at-a-time “rivalries” because they randomly decide to insert themselves in situations. I mean, the Wyatts became popular in 2014? Give or take? And Bray has been in a rivalry with (in no particular order):

Shield, Cena, Bryan, 'Taker, Roman, Ambrose, Kane, and Ryback kinda made appearances too.

Come on, give him a dude and stick with it.

It occurred to me, reading an article about dbd being cleared by yet more doctors, if WWE (read:Vince) didn’t really know what to do with him or was scared to use him or didn’t want to mess with planned storylines or just because it’s a really fucking cool idea…
Have Vince bring him back only to “demote” him to NXT for six months.

He could have some awesome matches with Balor, Joe, Gargano, Hideo Itami, Sami Zayn…

And it would totally blow up both the WWE Network and the Internet.

He is Barry’s nephew and Blackjack Mulligan’s grandson. Bray is a fantastic character and he deserves to get that rocket push to the top. Unfortunately he’s got too much of his uncle and grandfather in him, i.e. he’s a great Southern style heel. Bray reminds me a lot of Paul Jones or Kevin Sullivan. Put him in Memphis in the 80’s and Jerry Lawler is set for life.

Oh, his brother is also a WWE Superstar. Unfortunately it appears that Bray got all the talent.

Smackdown 1/21 Bit the Bullet report

Usos teamed with Dolph Ziggler, who wore a similar face paint design. Apparently they bonded while touring in India and The Rock considers Zig part of the family now. Uh, OK. Alabaman Bobby Eaton was an English Blueblood once. They take on NOO DAYEE, prelude to the title match at RR. At the end, the faces get off a cool looking triple superkick on Xavier and win, which means the Usos will lose this weekend.

Becky Lynch beat Alicia Fox with Ric Flair and Charlotte watching. Hoping their match will be NXT level and not some dumbed-down version of same-ol-shit Divas matches.

Miz TV segment - Miz is to interview Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens. Dean comes out first, jumps into his drunken sailor drawl, and Miz interrupts him with My Hand Goes Up, Your Mouth Goes Shut. That doesn’t work, of course. Dean says “Waddahell, I’ll innerview Owens myshelf, you go sit inna corner, bitch. HEY OWENS, howzit gonna feel when I drag you and pound you and put you through the walls, tables, chairs, and <jumps out the ring> THIS ANNOUNCER TABLE TOO!” The announcers skitter like sandpipers from a beach wave, muttering “My my, Dean’s in lunatic mode again.”

KO comes out with a mike, snarks back at Dean, then Miz jumps Dean from behind. He beats Dean down and gestures for KO to come to the ring. KO does so, looks over Dean’s prone body, and grabs Miz and bounces him off the ropes into a Popup Power Bomb. Miz is so annoying, sworn enemies will scrot him first before attacking each other. Dean has now recovered, and reverses KO’s PUPB attempt into Dirty Deeds, but KO slithers out and runs away. So, Dean applies Dirty Deeds to Miz. He then screams a 10 count in KO’s direction.

At RR, I expect lots of moments where Dean will grimace in pain during his match with KO, using all his crazy facial expressions, and stumble around while relying on pure hatred to keep going. KO will try to convince him to stay down to no avail, then throw him through a stack of flaming tables or something. If only this match could take place in LU, where blood flows freely to sate the gods…

Bray Wyatt took on Ryback, with the rest of the family leering nearby. Pretty solid match between the two. Ryback had Bray in Shell Shock, but Rowan pulled him off while Harper distracted the referee. Bray kisses the forehead and pins Ryback with Sister Abigail. Afterwards, as the Wyatts retreat to the stands, Bray fires off more apocalyptic prophecies and follows the buzzards. DEPP!

Stardust takes on Titus O’Neil next, enabling many rest room breaks. Another one bites the stardust.

WWE god Roman Reigns takes on all four members of the League of Nations in a handicap match. Well, three since Sad News Barrett is still injured but not wanting to disappear into obscurity. After about 5 minutes, everybody runs in and DQ the match. The Usos run in to rescue RR, but get beat down. RR comes back with Superman punches and clears out the heels, then BEE BOPP VROOOM DEPP! The darkness clears, and the Wyatts surround the ring. Harper and Rowan charge in, but get tossed out. Stroman climbs in, grabs Roman by the ears, and tosses him out. Harper gives Roman a superkick, and Rowan follows with a roundhouse kick. Stroman plants Roman with his weird backbreaker-body-flip and Bray kisses the forehead. So, look for Roman to eliminate the entire Wyatt family this weekend.

DEPP!

I’m sure they’re thinking of Brown Strongman as a replacement for Big Slow.

Just a reminder, sports fans - the season premiere of the single greatest wrestling program on TV in this or any other era, Lucha freakin’ Underground, is this Wednesday on the El Rey Network. Set those DVRs now.

Leaving to go to the UCF show which, I believe, is a taping.

Carmella/Bayley for the title and Finn/Neville because why not?

Also apparently a super-duper special appearance by someone is happening as well. I’ll let you guys know who it is tomorrow

Sorry STC, I’m gonna scoop you.

The newest NXT signee is…

Austin Aries, the Greatest Man Who Ever Lived!

Predictions for RR

New Day vs Usos: New Day

Charlotte vs Becky Lynch: Charlotte

Kallisto vs ADR: Hard to pick. I can see Kallisto getting pushed because he’s exciting and family friendly, but ADR would make a good feud with Cena when he comes back. If Sin Cara returns soon enough, Lucha Dragons can reunite and make a run for the tag titles. Kallisto has a more standout personality though, and can succeed without Sin Cara. I’ll go with Kallisto.

KO vs DA: These guys will steal the show. I want KO to win because he’s such a great heel and this will allow him many opportunities for gloating. I also want Ambrose to win because, Ambrose. There’s also a whole slew of face opponents for KO on the horizon, including AJ Styles, Nakamura, and Daniel Bryan if the concussion gods are willing. Since the likelihood of more than one title changing hands is small, and I already picked the US title to do so, I’ll go with Dean.

RR: I know, this will be more ramming of Roman down our throats, and he will break records for most men thrown out, longest lasting participant, nicest smelling jock strap, whatever. But, I also think a long-term struggle leading to WM will pay off the most, and that’s best served by Roman losing the title this weekend and recovering it at the biggest PPV of them all. So, I’ll go with Brrrrrock, providing Vince doesn’t follow through with bringing back Goldberg.

I think my last success ratio was 50%, so flipping a coin would probably work better for me, but there you go.

Apparently, TNA wants very much to remind everyone that they still exist and somehow haven’t gone bankrupt yet, because they sent out an extremely whiny press release last night about how Bullet Club was totally about to sign a deal with them until Mean Ol’ Mr. McMahon got AJ Styles to turn to the Dark Side and welsh on the deal.

AJ’s agent says not so much.

This is “Eric Bischoff challenging Vince McMahon to a shoot fight in a WCW ring” levels of desperation on the part of Dixie and company to grab some attention right when all their biggest names are jumping ship.

As far as Rumble match predictions go, I’m just going to consult the Magic Smark Ball I got in this month’s Pro Wrestling Crate and see what it thinks will happen;

Usos vs. New Day; FACE TURN

Ambrose vs. Owens; LOSE SMILE

Kallisto vs. Alberto; BLAME VINCE

Becky vs. Charlotte; REST HOLD

Royal Rumble match; BAH GAWD!