POP TV Eternal Commercial Loop, I knew you’d come!
At least it didn’t last a full two hours this time before they fixed the outgoing feed.
Hardys won, I believe it was via escape if I remember the spoilers right.
From PWTorch:
I have ZERO desire to see Brock v Shane.
Frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck about Brock at all at this point.
I’m thinking the potential Brock/Goldberg match is just a marketing ploy to sell more video games. As long as there’s buzz, WWE will fan the flames to keep interest generated. Goldberg himself said he hasn’t spoken to Vince since 2004. Of course, he would love to make it happen, but that’s because he sees a huge paycheck danging at the end of a hook.
I have 0 interest in the pairing myself, but then again, I’m not part of the demographic that WWE merchandising is targeting. It’s not going to be long until all the wrestlers are replaced by programmable avatars anyway.
Alberto’s stabbing story isn’t adding up. One account says ADR’s car collided with another car, the two drivers got into a fight, and the guy pulled a knife. Another account says Paige was with him and they were attacked by a homeless drunk, and Paige got cut too. In addition, ADR’s cuts look sliced, side by side, not gouged from a random attack. How’d he get a cut on top of his head as well as his arm?
I’m thinking ADR really wanted to get out of his AAA gig and got out the cutlery. Either that, or he and Paige had a S&M session that got out of hand.
Who would have suspected that Alberto Del Rio would turn out to be a bigger flake than Scott Hall? At least Hall’s got the excuse that alcoholism is a disease.
They have 10 Mid-Souths, 10 AWAs, 10 Smoky Mountains, and 10 USWAs (under the GWF label). Didn’t the network have Ohio Valley at one point as well?
Then again, besides material for the DVDs, I forgot that WWE would also get the rights to the TNA PPVs - especially from the days when TNA was nothing but $10/week PPVs.
I think he looked at the wrong girl’s ass, and Paige went Paige on him.
Didn’t see them myself, but according to Ms. Cups, she and I were at Magic Kingdom at the same time as Remy Hardy and King Maxel!
So…I guess spoiler alert for the tail-end of Impact cuz they were there while Impact was taping.
It’s especially ironic for 2 reasons: 1. We were talking about wrestlers that we just can’t see at Disney (I said Baron Corbin), and he came up.
Second reason was that I used Broken Matt Hardy as my Space Mountain picture.
Oh, by the way, every time I go on Space Mountain I pose like a different wrestler every time. It’s fun.
House show review time!
Saw this at Moda Center in Portland. I’ve seen a few house shows and Smackdowns there, and I was seated pretty much exactly where I was the last house show I saw there - tenth row, on the floor, a few seats back from the entry ramp. There was some kind of Halloween show going on at the Veterans’ Coliseum next door, so the parking garages were already full when I got there an hour and a half early, and I had to park about six blocks away.
Greg Hamilton was the ring announcer, and they opened the show with a pre-taped Daniel Bryan promo to hype up the crowd. They actually had a cameraman taping the show, which I haven’t seen them do for house shows before. Maybe they’re planning to use some of the footage for the Network, or for the wrestlers to study their technique before tomorrow’s show.
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Opening match was Dolph Ziggler vs. the Miz. Miz cut a vicious heel promo at the beginning where he demanded a moment of silence for Dolph’s career, and then declared that, because it’s his birthday, he was making this a non-title match. Pretty solid opener - it went for about 15 minutes, whereas most of the time the opener is a light match that’s over in 5 minutes or so. Maryse got ejected after the ref caught her raking Ziggler across the face. Miz was absolutely crestfallen, and Dolph took advantage of the distraction to hit a Zig-Zag for the win.
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Up next was an eight-man tag; American Alpha and the Hype Bros vs. the Vaudevillians and the Ascension. Been awhile since I’ve seen the Ascension on TV, but they’re sporting a new look now - they don’t have the shoulderpads or the red hair anymore, and their makeup is now all silver and red stripes. They were dominant for most of the match, with Zack Ryder as the whipping boy, until he made a hot tag to Jason Jordan and an all-out brawl ensued. Chad Gable eventually got the win by suplexing Aiden English.
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Apollo Crews vs. Curt Hawkins was the next match. This one was more of a breather after the first two. Apollo was definitely the star of this match and was showing off his flips and tumbling as much as he could. Crews got the win off a powerbomb.
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Heath Slater and Rhyno defended the tag titles against the Usos. The Usos have new theme music now and have definitely adopted a more gangsta attitude. They jumped the champs before the match started and proceeded to double-team Slater. There was nearly a DQ when Rhyno grabbed the ring bell and went to attack them, but he thought better of it in spite of an E-C-DUB! chant. Rhyno eventually got the hot tag and gored Jimmy for the win.
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Last match before intermission was Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt. Randy was super-over with the crowd. He teased the RKO four or five times during the match but couldn’t manage to connect - at one point it got reversed into a Sister Abigail that he just barely survived. I yelled “YOUR DAD DOES MY TAXES!” at Bray, which got a laugh from some of the older fans near me. Eventually, Bray slithered out of the ring and made like he was going to take a countout loss when Kane’s music hit and he started approaching the ring. Bray fled back into the ring, which allowed Randy to hit an RKO OUTTA NOWHERE and win the match.
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After intermission, we got a 2-on-3 women’s tag match with Nikki Bella and Naomi vs. Natalya, Alexa Bliss, and Carmella. I think Becky Lynch was supposed to have been in this match, but there’s a rumor that she’s injured and has been pulled from the PPV. I mostly sorta tuned out during this match and stared at Nikki’s butt while she was standing on the apron. Nikki got the win by hitting Carmella with the Rack Attack.
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Up next was Jack Swagger vs. Baron Corbin. So-so match, felt like it should’ve been lower on the card. Corbin reversed a Patriot Lock into the End of Days for the win.
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Main event was the triple threat for the world title - AJ Styles vs. John Cena and Dean Ambrose. Cena got the biggest pop I’ve ever seen him get - but then again, Portland is definitely a “Let’s go Cena” town and house shows are markier than TV crowds, so it’s to be expected. There weren’t many “Cena sucks” chants to speak of. Ambrose also got a good pop. AJ had a lot of heat, but you could hear some of the smarkier fans cheering for him. Lots of good back and forth and close 2-counts in this match. At one point AJ hit Cena with an F5. AJ eventually went heel and grabbed a steel chair (triple threat rules, it’s all legal Maggle!) and took out Ambrose. Cena blocked his chair strike and went for an AA, but AJ low-blowed him and rolled him up to retain. Post-match, Ambrose hit him with a Dirty Deeds to send the crowd home happy.
Overall it was a pretty good card, and most of the matches they did are the exact same ones scheduled for No Mercy tomorrow, so I’m guessing this show was sort of a “dry run” for tomorrow night. It’ll be interesting to see if they end up using the same spots they did for these matches.
Sooooo Becky’s pregnant?
Was pretty darned happy to see AJ Styles being introduced as the champion and “The Face that runs the Place”. 
The SlaterRhyno/Usos match turned out pretty good. Slater got in some good offense, which helped invest me in the match and the outcome.
No word on the deal with Becky?
Eesh, that whole end sequence of the Alexa Bliss/Naomi match was super clumsy.
I ended up reading a text review rather than watching the replay, but overall it sounds like No Mercy was pretty much the same as the show I saw Saturday night aside from the weird double-tapout spot which we didn’t get, the Spirit Squad taking Maryse’s place, and Bray Wyatt actually winning a feud (ERROR, ERROR, DOES NOT COMPUTE, SYSTEM OVERLOAD). A little weird that they opened with the world title match, but it was a pragmatic choice - they had to realize everyone was going to tune into the presidential debate at 6, so may as well get the match people want to see out of the way early. I guess the show I saw was basically a dress rehearsal for tonight and they must have been using the cameraman to let the wrestlers review their work.
Becky has a “non-physical” health issue that prevented her from working this weekend, but supposedly they’re going to do the title match next month, so that rules out her being pregnant, and they haven’t announced a Wellness suspension for her. Maybe she has a problem she hasn’t tested hot for, she came out to management about it, and she’s gonna do a quickie rehab session?
We don’t get another Smackdown-exclusive PPV until December - Raw gets Hell in a Cell later this month, then in November we get Survivor Series which is a cross-brand show. TLC will be the Smackdown PPV in December, with Raw getting Roadblock (the second Roadblock in 2016, which is sure to confuse wrestling fans for ages to come) being the Raw PPV.
I was only half watching the matches because the Packers were on, but from what I saw, they were pretty good.
Color me surprised that Bray actually won on a PPV (good on Harper for being back) and that Ziggler won. I was most definitely in the camp that he was gone.
Glad to see Luke Harper back and with the Wyatts. They’re my favorite coalition. I made a shirt, that’s why.
One thing I was hoping would happen during the Wyatt/Orton match, since a previous scene showed Randy looking at his warping reflection in the mirror: have the BEE BOP A BOOP lights out thing with the regurgitating larva etc, with Bray’s voice speaking latin in echoes. When the lights come back on, Randy is laughing while Bray is looking really confused. He’s feeling his beard and hair as though it hadn’t been there before, while Orton is doing Bray’s madman chuckle. Bray goes bezerk, runs into Randy’s arms, who sets him up for what seems like will be the RKO, but maneuvers into Sister Abigail instead, and wins the match. Then the other Wyatt family members come out and embrace Orton. During the lights out, Bray cast a spell that switched his and Randy’s minds!
Becky Lynch’s FB page shows a picture of her in a hospital bed and gown, giving a thumbs up. So whatever it was (it isn’t specified), it involved a hospital visit.
And Paige has been suspended 60 days for her second wellness policy violation. I hope Del Rio is worth it.
Good Lord she didn’t even make it back before she is out again!
Wonder if she’ll blame this on a tardiness or whatever-the-hell issue
Now deleted tweets say medical prescription and doctor’s note.