Any WWE fans in the audience? (Part 1)

The Game Room
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Tonight’s Smackdown was meh, even by Smackdown standards, but…

MATCH OF THE NIGHT! Rusev vs. Swagger. Holy hell, apparently someone backstage has told people to sell, because this was the sellin’est match ever sold by a couple of selling soldiers. Rusev, still selling the hell out of his ankle from Summerslam. Swagger, still selling the hell out of his ribs from whenever they got hurt. As someone from the live thread over on my usual IWC hangout put it, it was a couple of wounded lions circling around a wildebeest carcass. Rusev, especially–nevermind his gimmick, the way he can sell is a total face move. I was cheering for him every time Swagger went for his ankle, and I kept yelling for Lana to interfere somehow and get him DQed. And yet–I was right there for Swagger when he got put into the Accolade–and fair play to him for being the first guy to break out of it. (Big E got close, but I think Swagger’s the first to actually get out of the hold.)

And I still think Lana should’ve interfered, but the finish for that match? Perfect. I actually thought it was Lana throwing in the towel to save Rusev the submission, but then… BO-LIEVE! With that, Bo put himself into contention with Steph for best heel on the roster–and hey, he can actually wrassle.

So Rusev, so far as I can tell, has got to wind up being a face, because the way he can sell is total face. Could’ve been different if he’d turned out to be faking it, but no, his ankle is still weak from summerslam. Swagger, who would’ve thought it–he’s actually getting over. And shit, he’s selling too–that rib injury from whenever he got it. So obviously the answer is: Rusev and Swagger stop in the middle of the ring, look at Bo being Bo–shake hands and beat the everloving crap out of Bo.

And that should tell you how great Bo can be as a heel. He can transcend nationalism; Putin and Obama can set aside their differences to agree that Bo Dallas needs to be taught a lesson.

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Well, Bo Dallas does have the second much punchable face in the WWE.

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Interesting that they’re making Bo a “does-heel-things” kind of heel. His attitude and overall character is what made him a good heel, not the fact he does stupid things like distract, so I am on the fence with this.

I’ll have to stay tuned

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I thought Bo threw the towel to distract the ref.

Swagger’s effectively been buried back to Zack Ryder level now. He’s going to keep wearing the stupid chest wraps during his feud with Bo so he’ll be vulnerable. I guess the Wyatts are all going to take turns jobbing to Roman Reigns, and Jericho will feud with Orton starting Monday.

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Nah, Bo’s always done heel things. Go have a look at his match w/ E for a title shot or leaving town. It’s part of the whole schtick–he’s a hypocrite.

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I negotiated working yesterday to get Sunday off for football, so I only saw the last hour of Raw, but from what I can gather it was tag-team night.

I was given text updates, but I honestly can’t remember much of what was told to me, so I think that means Raw was pretty whatever.

Speaking to the main event, another round of super Reigns and super Cena just being themselves, although the pop that Cena got when he was tagged in was one of the louder ones I can remember.

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Sir T-Cups, you missed more Divas drama, the shit I normally f-fwd through. Nikki had several segments where she whined about having to Bree’s rescue at the cost of her own integrity. There was a sicks (spelling intentional) divas match that lasted about a minute, long enough for Rosa Mendez to blow a spot and JBL to fumble around for a compliment for her, finally settling on “semi-athletic.”

Bo Dallas did a promo that had me laughing my maggle off. After Jack Swagger beat Curt Axel, Bo had three people from the audience sitting in high chairs on the entrance platform. He said they were among the 318 million Americans who suffered from Swagger’s loss to Rusev. The first one was a guy who lost the family farm because he bet all his money on Swagger, twice. The second one was an immigrant who was getting deported back to Italy because he failed his citizenship test, due to Swagger’s bad example. The third was a mother whose son had wanted to be Jack Swagger when he grew up, but now wants to be Vladimir Putin. Bo had them stand up, put their hands over the hearts, and pledge “All you have to do is Bo-Lieve!” I was gasping for air at that point.

Mark Henry & Big Show vs Luke Harper & Erick Rowan ended in DQ when Rusev stepped in and mule kicked Henry while he had Harper ready for the World’s Strongest Slam. Prior to that, it was a pretty good match, in that there was no counters or missed attacks. All the participants were too big to do agile moves, so they just clobbered each other like cavemen.

Adam Rose beat Titus “Gator” O’Neil. Heath Slater and The Bunny tangled up at ringside, and O’Neil was so dumbfounded by the idiocy of it all, Rose rolled him up for the three count. JBL said The Bunny better not get near him, because he’s got one last Clothesline From Hell left. I hope The Bunny doesn’t turn out to be a way for introducing somebody from NXT to the main roster, like Sami Zayn. I still think Rose wants to torture people into being happy.

In yet another episode of the “face has injury that puts over heel” angle, an Uso has a bandaged leg so the Dust Brothers can win. Dean Ambrose wore the wrapping first, then passed it down to Swagger, who passed it on to Uso.

Miz and Cesaro took on Sheamus and Dolph Ziggler. Miz now has Damian Sandow and some chick accompany him to matches to keep his face freshly painted. He had Sandow step in and take a bump from Ziggler and then ambushed Ziggy with his finisher to win. I remember when Jimmy Garvin had his valet Precious accompany him to the ring, constantly brushing his mane and applying hair spray. Back in the day when I went to live NWA matches, she would usually go to the ring announcer and have him ask the audience not to smoke, because cigarette fumes would get in Jimmy’s hair. Maybe this gimmick will get Miz his groove back, who knows.

So that was what happened before the main event.

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Did anyone else find it interesting that the end of last night’s Lana anti-US promo ended with her searching for the proper words to use, and coming up with “You Suck”?

Coincidence? Foreshadowing? Vince trying to screw with the smarks? Will be interesting to see if she continues to use that choice of words.

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Oh man I forgot about the Cosmic Weirdos and the Usos match.

I think that (insert uso here) was screaming WAY too loudly, he was like…being stabbed.
Awesome recap Knowed…thanks!!
Hopefully that’s the last Monday that I have to work for a good long time

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Whose bright idea was it to pre-empt the post-RAW show on WWE Network again? Apparently, once again, it was to get as many people as possible to watch the debut of a “new” show, but at least this time it was worth watching - they’re starting to air WCW Monday Night ROW (er, Monday Nitro). I just hope they put back all of the Horsemen interviews that they edited out of the WWE 24/7 On Demand broadcasts. Okay, maybe not all of them…(better put this in a spoiler as it mentions Chris Benoit)

There’s one where Benoit uses the phrase, “Silent, but Violent”

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So, this week in “Vince McMahon’s Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ideas”…

My Monday night TV schedule just opened up for next week.

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That news is so boring and unappealing, I’m not even inspired to make snarky comments about it.

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The fact that this is actually one of the marquee storylines going right now baffles me. Is Total Divas really such a cash cow that they need to dedicate this much airtime on the flagship product to selling it? Is Vince Russo secretly working for WWE now too? The mind boggles.

Anyway, on brighter news, NXT’s next live special, Takeover 2, is a week from tomorrow night. To the best of my knowledge, there are five matches that have been announced for that show so far, so I thought I’d offer my projections;

Fatal 4-Way for the NXT championship; Adrian Neville vs. Tyler Breeze, Sami Zayn, and Tyson Kidd. Neville has had the title since February, and although I absolutely love him in the ring (and his Red Arrow finisher is just damn impressive), he unfortunately hasn’t had many solid storylines or much to do in recent months. Sami Zayn is IMO the best worker out of these four, but it seems like he always ends up jobbing whenever he’s in a big feud. Tyson Kidd is a decent wrestler as well, but his current character just annoys me and I don’t see him as champion. I’m gonna predict Breeze wins this one; they’ve been teasing him getting a title run for months now, and he’s doing the pretty-boy heel gimmick a lot better than, say, the Miz has been.

Tag titles match; The Ascension vs. the winners of the tournament finals match to air tomorrow night. This, IMO, is going to be the match of the night. I cheated and looked up the winner, so I’ll put this part in spoilers for anyone who doesn’t want to know yet;

Kallisto and Sin Cara will be the challengers, and I expect them to win. The El Rey Network is going to start airing AAA wrestling in English next month, so WWE is probably going to be wanting more luchadors on their roster soon, and Kallisto definitely has the potential to have a great career on the main roster once he comes up. The current Sin Cara is also a big improvement over the original, and it’s a shame they relegated him to NXT since they apparently couldn’t find anything for him to do besides fight ADR every few weeks, but he’s got a future as well. (For the unaware, the original Sin Cara, Luis Urive, stopped wrestling for WWE last November; since then, the character has been played by Jorge Arias, formerly known as Hunico.) I can see this being a quality match all the way up to the wire, with Kallisto pulling some crazy flip to escape the Fall of Man and parlaying it into a pin, putting him and Sin Cara in a position to further develop their skills and allowing the Ascension to move up to the main roster.

Charlotte vs. Bayley for the Women’s championship. Rumor has it that WWE is looking to call Charlotte up soon so that they can make Ric Flair her manager and give him something to do for all the money they’re throwing at him, so I predict Bayley picks up the win here. She’s a pretty good wrestler, but I have to say I really dislike her character; the whole socially-awkward tween thing with the anime graphics and wacky-waving-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-men thing just grates on me, and the way she acts reminds me way too much of those godawful Mary Catherine Gallagher sketches SNL used to do in the '90s. WWE definitely needs more women who can actually wrestle as opposed to just look good in a bikini top and hot pants (IMO, the only credible female wrestlers on the main roster right now are Paige, Tamina, and Natalya), but if Bayley picks up the belt I hope they use the opportunity to make her character more bearable.

Enzo Amore vs. Sylvester Lafort, hair vs. hair match. Enzo may be a certified G and a bona fide stud (and ya can’t teach dat!), but he’s been looking pretty SAWFT lately. He needs this win in order to remain credible, especially since Lafort is basically just a jobber with an evil foreigner gimmick. I’m giving him an easy win on this one.

Mojo Rawley vs. Bull Dempsey. Bull is, as the commentators are fond of reminding us, very much a throwback character - between his rotund physique, his plain black singlet with nipples exposed, and his general ring style, he seems very much like the kind of heel you might have seen wrestling Dusty Rhodes or Jerry Lawler in some armory in Tennessee in the '70s. (Also, the “BULL! BULL! BULL!” thing in his theme song is kinda catchy.) I definitely get the feeling they want to establish him as a monster heel along the lines of Rusev or Ryback, and putting him over Mojo would be a good step in that direction.

Aside from that, it’s been rumored that Prince Devitt, Kevin Steen, and/or Kenta may make their in-ring debut at this show, but nothing’s been confirmed, and we probably won’t hear any more matches announced until the night of the show itself. NXT is 2-for-2 so far on its live specials, so I’ve got pretty high hopes for this one as well.

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Bull Dempsey looks like a big hairy toddler to me, with his big wobbly head. I could see him projectile vomiting like Mr. Creosote from The Meaning of Life, or becoming the next Duke “The Dumpster” Droesy, but I don’t think he’ll last long.

I’m not sure I want Neville, Zayn or Breeze in the main roster yet. I have a feeling Vince would suck out whatever integrity they’ve built up and toss them back to jobber hell. Tyson Kidd seems to have made a better career move by staying in NXT and avoiding Vince’s Hart Family shit list.

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I hate you for referencing that godawful Mary Catherine Gallagher skit when it comes to my beloved Bayley, and that you’re kinda right about it.
That being said. She is so damn cute and hot and attractive and I want a hug from her.

From her…well…you know

and on…you also know

mmmmmm

huuuuuuugs

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Combination of pushing Total Divas and giving Stephanie something to do to justify her large ‘Performer’ salary while they’re making cuts all around.

Keeping Ric Flair under control and not doing something stupid elsewhere that embarrasses the entire wrestling industry is worth every penny they pay him.

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I’m so much more looking forward to Takeover II: The Takening than anything going on on the main roster at the moment.

Basically with your picks, Smapti, with the following variations and details:

There’s a real possibility we’re getting a double-turn with Tyler Breeze and Sami Zayn; they teased it last week. Tyler’s character is a heel character, but he’s so damned over at Full Sail that I can see them working it face for a while to let him get used to having that role. Any way you slice it, though, I suspect Adrian is going up to main roster and we’re going to have an ongoing feud between Tyler, Sami and Tyson for the title.

Enzo, IMO, is in the promised land where he is so incredibly over that he can eat losses and not come out any weaker for it. Besides that, he’s got the scrappy character that works nicely as an underdog. I expect them to put him over in the hair vs. hair match, but I kinda hope they don’t–this could be a great slow-burn feud.

I cannot stand Bull and wish he’d go away–though at least they adjusted the cut of that singlet so that it doesn’t look quite so much like–as Brandon Stroud over on Uproxx put it–Jesus polishing his bowling ball any more. That said, I’m going to be solidly on Team Bull for the night of Takeover II: Takeoverer, and I will be sitting on my couch chanting “THANK YOU, BULL!” when he absolutely demolishes Mojo, because I like Mojo and his ass-based offense even less than I like Bull. This will not make Bull over with me; I’ll be back to my original feelings about him in time for the fallout show.

Also, stop being mean to Bayley. Don’t make her come over there and hug-plex you.

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Some nice booking tonight on NXT. You say you’ve got a go home show? You say there’s a fatal four way for the title? Well, how about making ALL of the contenders look strong with victories over (more or less, kayfabe) credible challengers? (Parenthetical because a) while we don’t like Adam Rose, he doesn’t lose a lot of matches and b) while we don’t like CJ Parker… well, he didn’t come out looking SAWFT in that match, anyway.)

That’s actually a positive for NXT booking in general: Rarely do people get buried by the booking. Usually, even if you lose, you don’t look like a complete punk in the process. I suppose it helps that they’ve got what I understand to be a more “old-school WWF” approach–when you need someone to get their ass beat to make somebody look strong, you’ve go to the “local talent” rather than hurting one of your own properties. (And the “local” guy gets a chance to be on TV, a fat paycheck–who knows, maybe even a shot to impress somebody and move up himself.) (All of this does make me wonder if there is some indy promotion in Orlando, with its own storylines, championship belts, feuds, etc. made up entirely of guys who job in NXT. Anyway.)

The big surprise of the night, of course, was

ad hoc Latino tag team going over The Vaudevillains. I guess it kinda made sense–the VVs clearly need some more work. But it doesn’t make much sense to put the belts on an ad hoc team made up of one guy who is (technically still) on the main roster and another guy who probably could stand to be called up right away. I guess this gives us a little bit of suspense for Takeover II: Bride of Takeover.

Tangent: I noticed tonight that absolutely EVERYONE* looked so much more at ease, relaxed and natural with their promos than pretty much anyone on the main roster did on Monday. Now, we’ve had a leaked script for Monday that let us know just how strictly promos are getting scripted these days, at least on the main shows. So my question is: Are they ad libbing them down at Full Sail, or are the acting lessons that I hear they get paying off? Either way, fair play to them for (yet again) making the “big leaguers” look like they’re playing triple-A ball.

  • Except Bayley; it’s one of my few quibbles w/ her. Nothing wrong, just her promos come off as more stiff and scripted. Also, I wish she’d make more eye contact and be a little bit more assertive.
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You got a point LawMonkey. Enzo and Cass’s segment was flawless. It had a storyline and plot, but the participants acted like it was a normal day for them. Enzo and Cass insult each others’ mothers, goof around with the salon chick, and somehow pull off making it look like they stripped hair off a poodle. They have a natural talent and ya can’t teach dat. I’m thinking the hair vs hair match is going to result in all four guys getting soaked in hair removal cream.

Adrian Neville has so much upper body strength, it’s like his legs hang off his chest and shoulders and he walks on air. The dude is a genetic freak, but in a good way. I’m psyched for next week.

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The ad-hoc latino team that you’re talking about is my favorite part of NXT (from a wrestling standpoint).

They’re high flying, technically great, entertaining as hell, and they remind me of the latino division in WCW which was my favorite.

If they keep this up they could go far