What in the fuck? They made AJ change his hometown! He’s not from Atlanta, he’s from Gainesville, 60 miles away. They’re trying to recreate the Superbowl matchup and get cheapshit heat! Why not have Cena wear Kelly Anne Conway’s inauguration dress while they’re at it?
I fucking despise these John Cena promos. The heel comes out and makes generic heel complaints. Then Cena comes out and runs him down as not being worthy of John Cena. While the heel is forced to stand there silently and take it.
About as authentic and interesting as a Steven Segal movie. :rolleyes:
But I can do with a Ziggler-Crews feud if it gets Crews some TV time and ends up putting him over.
Cena is starting to remind me of a less cartoonish Hulk Hogan. That’s probably Vince’s intent, too.
Speaking of Cena, can we just comment on the fact that he has to have a world record for “Fastest time it takes for someone to take their shirt off.”
He is able to rip that thing off at an alarming rate and it’s really kind of awe-inspiring.
Time for PPV predictions!
I’ll start with Takeover 13: Just Take Over, Already.
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Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Bobby Roode for the NXT Championship. I’m thinking Roode wins here. He’s been massively over ever since his debut, and it’d kill his heat if he lost this match. Nakamura can weather a loss at this point, and it’s my personal wager that he’s gonna enter the Royal Rumble the day after this show - but even if he doesn’t, a Roode win here would make sense and be absolutely GLORIOUS.
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DIY vs. the Authors of Pain for the NXT tag championships. Gonna go with AoP here - they’ve had a rocket strapped to their butt ever since they debuted, and the trend in NXT has been to have a dominant heel team be tag champions in order to build up the next face team. (Cf. the Ascension, Blake & Murphy, the Revival).
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Fatal four-way for the women’s championship; Asuka vs. Nikki Cross, Billie Kay, & Peyton Royce. I don’t see how this match doesn’t end with Asuka retaining - she’s miles ahead of any of these other jabronis. Maybe Cross wins to build the Sanity angle, but I don’t really see it.
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Eric Young vs. Tye Dillinger. Tye has been the Designated Jobber for awhile now, but he’s been getting viral heat lately. (If the indy show I went to this month is any indication, you can’t do a countout spot anymore without the crowd shouting “TEN!” every time the referee counts.) It’d be beneficial for either of these guys to go over, and my gut is telling me it’s gonna be Young, but I think I’d personally prefer for it to be Tye.
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Roderick Strong vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas. Gotta be Strong. No questions asked.
I’ll get around to my Royal Rumble predictions in a day or two.
The Fatal 4 Way provides a way for Asuka to lose the title without actually losing. Also, Charlotte can beat Bailey, preserve her undefeated PPV record at the Rumble, then see Asuka’s leering multicolored face doing that predator smile at her while celebrating her win. I’m going to go with Cruella De’Ville (Billie Kay) becoming next NXT women’s champion.
I don’t think Nakamura is going to be called up just yet. There’s too much talent bloat in the main roster, and Samosa Joe is already sure to break the walls daaaaaaaown.
I actually love 3 and 4 way matches, but I hate when they are used for lazy booking. IMO, they should only be used for vacant titles, not for title defenses.
No way in hell Asuka loses. Her victory is the lockiest lock to ever lock.
I would put a Nakamura win just a hair under that too. I wouldn’t doubt at all that Joe makes his debut in the Rumble and goes away, which means they still need their star to remain in NXT. Roode is good, but he can’t carry the company like Nakamura can.
I counted the announced rumble entrants this morning and I’m pretty sure I ended at 22. which leaves 8 open spots. One for Joe and one for (hopefully) Tye, which leaves 6 surprises.
Who do we think the surprises are? Trips? Kenny Omega? Broken Matt? Cm Punk?
I dunno, I’m actually kind of happy that the winners of the matches aren’t blatantly obvious.
Unless they’re calling up Shinsuke, I don’t see him losing. I think the loser ends up in the Royal Rumble.
DIY/Authors of Pain. Hard to say. The AoP are still a bit green and injuring people. I’d like to see DIY win a hard fought match then continue the internet darling faces vs. Monster team feud for a bit.
4-Way. As I said elsewhere, Nikki Cross wins and Asuka shows up at the Royal Rumble to lay waste to the winner of either the Raw or Smackdown women’s champ after that match. Pufferfish takes the pin.
EY - Tye. Please let this be Dillinger’s time. 
EY can get his heat back when all of Sanity comes out for the post-match beat down.
Royal Rumble predictions, guaranteed to be at least half right. Or half-assed at any rate.
Kevin Owens © vs. Roman Reigns - Paul Ellering dropped a chain from the cage in NXT, so of course Jericho will do something similar. Since RR lost the US title, he’ll get the heroic comeback script and win the Universal Title.
AJ Styles © vs. John Cena - Will they have two polarizing figures win the respective world belts? Those who think balance matters would say no. I’m thinking that having combined rosters allows Gallows & Anderson to do a run-in on AJ’s behalf, and it would taint AJ’s win enough to build towards a WM showdown. There’s still the Break Flair’s streak tease, but I’m thinking it would be more monumental at WM, so AJ wins this one.
Charlotte Flair © vs. Bayley - As I speculated before, Asuka loses the NXT belt without actually losing the match so she can ascend to the main roster and be Charlotte’s next threat. Charlotte wins.
Rich Swann © vs. Neville - Neville is the Devil. Swann takes a dive and the CW belt takes another shuffle.
Becky Lynch, Nikki Bella, Naomi vs. Alexa Bliss, Mickie James, Natalya - this match will last 2 minutes and Becky will get pinned.
Cesaro & Sheamus © vs. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson - We keep expecting G&A to win the belts and they never do. They’ve been winning the singles matches on TV, so that means they’ll lose the PPV match. CeSheamus retains because faces never lose on kickoff shows.
Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax - Sasha gets the underdog victory because same reason as above.
Who will fill the remaining 8 RR spots? Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe for sure. I think Kenny Omega would somehow steal SJ’s heat, so not just yet. James Ellsworth will appear for comic relief. Kane will be there. He’s always there. Big Cass is listed, but Enzo isn’t, so he’ll get a big surprise pop then get thrown right back out. Finn Balor, returning from injury hopefully. Erick Rowan also returns from injury, but Curtis Axle gets his revenge from two years ago and takes his place. That leaves one spot, so I’ll say Tye Dillinger. Not as a permanent call-up just yet, but to test the waters.
As for RR itself, I’ll stay with my earlier prediction that Sami Zayn will eliminate Brawny Strongman, after the behemoth eliminates Big Show. RKOrton will eliminate Bray, because everybody knows it was his master plan all along to dissemble the Wyatts. Goldberg and Brock will co-eliminate each other so they can finalize their feud at WM. Biggest name left is the Undertaker, who’s never won a RR iirc, so why not? UT wins the RR and takes on the RAM champ at WM.
Closet pro wrestling fan, but have not watched regularly in years. Have no idea what is going on currently, other than when news of a wrestler’s death goes mainstream, although I do know some names/characters from dipping in and out over the years.
Child of the '80s and '90s who snuck in viewings and readings of “WWF Magazine” when and where I could. Watched “Raw” weekly in the summer of 1996 through 'til the end of 1999, and then again around 2003-2006.
Welcome to the thread sms339. You could try out the WWE Network and catch up. It’s free for the first month, just like drugs.
I would wait and make sure your 30 day free trial includes Wrestlemania. Episodes of Smackdown, Raw, and NXT are available on HuluPlus, if you have that.
Thanks for the welcome. Busy lately, but yes, I should get back into wrestling when I get some spare time.
My friend brought me some sweet 1980’s WWF action figures (Million Dollar Man, Big Boss Man and Jake “The Snake”) a few months ago.
I consider the network worthwhile just for NXT alone. There’s other programs that are nice for nostalgia value, like Legends with JBL, Dinner for Three, and Stories From the Road.
Yay new blood!
Let’s bury him at first, but then eventually let the rest of the board get behind him so that we can reluctantly make him our champ
Can anyone here give me an explanation as to why RAW is booked for 3 hours, yet always takes an extra 15-20 minutes longer every. single. week. Yet, on the other hand, Smackdown is booked at 2 hours and ends on time every week?
I’m assuming their contract allows them to take the extra time whenever they want to, but they literally always do it for RAW and literally never do it for Smackdown. Is it a Mon/Tues thing? Does USA just not care? Is it strategic?
They’ve had an agreement for a very long time that RAW does an 8-12 minute overrun every week. They don’t have the same for any other show.
If this is referring to me; thank you.
But I’d be the WOMEN’S champ. 
For you then, Sasha Banks vs Bayley at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn in August 2015