I’m trying really really really hard not to, but I’m beginning to get frustrated over how boring RAW has become. It was always a “lol it’s the same matches!” argument that I could deal with, but after watching last night I realized that it’s literally just the same things over and over again. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Bobby Roode was facing [del]Rockstar Spud[/del] Drake Maverick for the [del]X-division championship[/del] right to face AOP and thought “oh cool! We’ll see Maverick in the ring!”…only for it to last 2 seconds before it’s the same damn match for the last month.
Sigh…one of these days we’ll see new things, right?
Oooooohhhhh… Now I get it. When Jeff Hardy was in TNA, he showed up completely drunk and doped off his ass in his match vs Sting. He lost in 10 seconds.
TNA had real egg on their face as a result. Actually, that was par for the course with TNA.
Daniel Bryan is back to his preachy liberal activist angle. I like how they had Miz take credit for his attitude change and try to get Bryan to admit it, and then have Bryan partially agree, and then go on to rant about how he was proud to kick AJ Styles in the groin. Then he gets on commentary during Miz’s match with AJ, and eternal do-gooder Byron Saxton asks him what’s Birdie going to think about his actions, and Bryan replies “I hope my daughter kicks every man she sees in the groin.”
I seriously hope there’s a Total Bellas episode where a toddler Birdie kicks little boys in their pee pees.
*
and viewers thought they were sick of Nakamura’s ball shots…*
The MizTV segment was fantastic, the rest was just fine.
I heard a good analogy today: The WWE treats its shows like concerts instead of a TV show. Bands always play the same set from show to show to give the audience what they want to hear because they didn’t see the last city’s show. So the WWE repeats matches over and over to give each new city that match. Unfortunatley for them, it’s a TV show and we all see it all the time
Tommy ‘Dynamite Kid’ Billington passed away on his 60th birthday. Fantastic, innovative performer, not a fantastic person (not that I knew him, but from what I’ve read).
That working theory should have died with the advent of cable TV, especially when cable became the prime income source instead of just a vehicle to sell house show tickets. The next town has already seen the match, and they’re not doing anything different. WWE needs to relearn how to elevate the mid-card, and how to protect performers they are envisioning for top card. Give people a reason to care about Lucha House Party versus The Revival, AND give us a reason why Lucha House rules make sense.
I liked the Smackdown opening, and I think Lynch/Flair/Asuka can steal TLC. It would be great if that closed the show.
yeah foley fought the bulldogs as a jobber team when wwe used wrestling schools for squash talent and kid stiffed him with a painful move and described him as ok but was someone who had a mean streak ……
The Network has Becky Lynch hosting a Superstar Picks segment of a match between Dynamite Kid and Tiger Mask. You can see how much those two influenced today’s high flyers.
Larry “The Axe” Hennig, father or Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig and grandfather of Curtis Axel (Joe Hennig), has passed away at 82. Only ever saw him on AWA TV, and maybe some early WWWF TV, towards the end of his active career. Mostly I remember him teaming with Curt after Curt had finished his initial jobber tour in WWWF.
Breaking news tonight: Big Cass, who was supposed to wrestle at House of Hardcore tonight, has been rushed to the hospital after having an abrupt seizure backstage.
He hadn’t taken any bumps yet in the evening, and Tommy Dreamer says it wasn’t drug-related, but nothing else is known yet.
Remembering a line from Mick Foley’s autobiography Have a Nice Day, I checked out the Halftime Heat show from 1999 for the first time, watching the WWF Title match between The Rock and Mankind; it was an Empty Arena match, Falls Count Anywhere.
I can certainly see the point of the guy Mick talked to when it first aired: Those cinematic camera angles when Mankind lowered the forklift pallet down onto The Rock, completely took away my suspension of disbelief.
Dreamer says Cass is doing better. Word is that he was already coherent when they loaded him into an ambulance, but no one was taking chances. 20 years ago, he’d have insisted on wrestling and everyone would have been OK with it. Things have improved.
WWE knew Roman Reigns had suffered from leukemia. Until they (hopefully) figure out the cause, I’d call it 50/50.