MACHO MADNESS OH YEAH IT’S MACHO MADNESS
MACHO MADNESS IT’S MACHO FUCKING MADNESS
Hogan’s an odd choice to induct him, given the way Randy was always calling him out in later years. Seemed like legit bad blood between them. Did they reconcile before the car crash?
Yet another mediocre show with matches where there’s absolutely no suspense because the heels are blatantly going to win over and over again. It seems like they’re actively trying to bury anyone who’s getting more cheers than Roman Reigns so that he’ll end up being the top babyface purely by attrition. Daniel Bryan gets a great pop, and they send out Steph to kill the segment dead and set up yet another match against Kane. Ambrose gets a better pop than Reigns, and they completely bury him against Rusev in a match that just makes him look weak and helpless and good only for comic relief (“HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”)
And when you finally do have a chance to make Roman look strong, what do you do? You have him recite fairy tales and get beaten up by the Big Show, who honestly comes out of it looking stronger than Roman does.
The Triple H promos are exactly the same as they were last week. Hell, I could write a Triple H promo in my sleep at this point. The show ends on a contract signing, which never makes any sense anyway since half the time these things just end in a brawl without anyone actually signing the contract, and you don’t even need a contract to have a wrestling match since the Authority can just order anyone into a match with an unfair stipulation on absolutely no notice.
The Divas division continues to make absolutely no sense - you have Brie, a heel even though her husband is a babyface, against tweener Paige, who has Nattie (a face) and her husband Tyson Kidd (a heel) in her corner and loses due to interference by her own corner. You have Naomi being forced to wrestle with one arm tied behind her back in order to punish her husband for being unhappy with Triple H (which would get you sued if you did that to an employee in the real world).
I don’t know what they’re doing with the Ascension - as much as I love these guys, I don’t understand why they brought them up if all they’re going to do is squash jobbers and get shat on by the commentary team.
If it’s true that Vince has been personally rewriting the scripts lately, then this is proof positive that he needs to retire, because he’s ruining the product with his bizarre fetishes and insistence that he knows what the fans want and he’s the only person who knows how to get people over, and that anyone who gets over without his help is an aberration who needs to be buried.
Almost forgot.
The show ends with Lesnar having been AAed through a table and curbstomped, Cena on his back, and Seth Rollins, the man who has the right to challenge the world champion to a title match at any time under any circumstances, standing tall with the Authority.
Why didn’t he cash in?
Seth Rollins is dumb.
/lana: Vnimaniye, vnimaniye… In Russia, nobody blows up satirical publishers. If anybody wants to make fun of Vladuhmeer Pootin, they can… from Siberian exile!
The opening lumberjack match was a suspenseful void. If Cena won, it would have been another case of Super Cena uber alles. If Seth won, it would again mean that he can’t beat Cena on his own and has to have the deck stacked in his favor. Rollins is too talented to win so cheaply. Plus, it paled in comparison to the lumberjack match Rollins had with Dean Ambrose…
who has become a joke that’s been repeated so often, it stopped being funny. On top of that, he has to “sell” a leg injury and put over other talent. There’s only one explanation: Vince has taken over creative control of Dean, like he did Reigns. Dean’s going to be ranting about Little Jack Horner next. Vince is regressing back to pre-school levels.
Two seconds into Stephanie’s monologue and I already decided I’m sick of her. FF FF FF… Why is she still talking? FF FF FF… Kane’s coming out to beat up on Daniel Bryan AGAIN? FFX3 FFX3 FFX3…
I don’t have anything to add because you summed everything up perfectly.
I really can’t stand the people who watch the show ever week just to shit on it because they feel they’re so much smarter than everyone and blah blah blah, so I take every show as it is and generally find good things about it.
Not this show. Not this show at all.
I guess with Santino retired, and Sandow doing the stunt double thing they have no comic relief, so they send Ambrose to do it? Dumb. Can we just reignite the Ambrose Rollins feud?
And yeah…only 3 more months of having a DQ/Interference/Countout/Ref-calling-it match for Rusev literally every. single. week.
That’s (at least) 15 matches. Enjoy that Rusev lovers
I can almost hear Vince’s thought process as he’s booking these shows…
"You mean to tell me that at this Takeover thing, the Ascension got beat by a hundred-and-fifty-pound (one-syllable slur for Japanese people)? That doesn’t make sense! I need you to find me the tiniest (slur) you can and have them toss him around like a rag doll for forty-five seconds! That’ll put some butts in the seats!
"Now, we need to make sure Roman Reigns is over with the kids. Kids love fairy tales, right? Have him talk about Jack and the Beanstalk! It’ll be funny because Big Show is abnormally tall due to a birth defect! What else do kids like? Kids like Snagglepuss, right? Of course they do! Make sure he says “Heavens to Murgatroyd!” during his promo on Smackdown! This is gold, Hunter, gold!
"What else we got? Dean Ambrose? That scrawny geek is getting more cheers than Roman Reigns? Bullhonkey! These people are obviously confused or they’d know they like Roman so much better. Have him call my daughter a prostitute and then forfeit a match against that Soviet guy because his knee hurts too much from the last time we tried to bury him. Once they see that he’s not an invicible musclebound Adonis like Roman Reigns they’re sure to get their heads back on straight!
"Wait a minute, they’re cheering for Daniel Bryan now? Who are these idiots! Stop this at once! Send my daughter out with a… how are sales on the workout DVD? That low? Make sure she brings a copy with her! We’ll sell millions! And set up a match with Kane that’ll end in Bryan getting beaten down so they stop cheering for him! Roman Reigns is sure to go over with the Philly crowd once we deal with these freaks!
Now get me another double-shot of espresso and Ico-Pro! But first, I need pictures! Pictures of Spider-Man!"
You made me cackle at work Smapti. My cubemates are wondering if I’m about to go all Kozscinsky on them.
Everybody: The topic is Things Vince Says Backstage.
“We can’t have Cena lose to that FCW guy cleanly! Sugar Smacks sales will go down and my cereal shares will go down the toilet! Get those two midgets out there! They keep kissing my ass for something to do!”
“Where the hell’s the fake tweets? Do I have to do everything myself?”
“JBL, get your shit together and rant about black helicopters some more! I love that shit! It reminds me of the times I won in court over those loonies who tried to sue me for doping! Guess what, roid freaks? You STILL work for me!”
“Hey, Hogan! Who’s your daddy? You still owe the ex 70 million, don’t you? Wanna pay some of it off? Wear that faggy boa and tell everybody NINE NINETY NINE!”
“Any new USA shows on? Get those bastards over here to guest host! Hey! What’s trending now? Diarrhea Donkey? GET HIM ON!”
“That Balrog… Baller… whatever guy is what, a buck ninety? People aren’t going to buy him as a legitimate contender for anything. And who the fuck allowed him to have that entrance? Get that paint off him, give him a disco themed entrance and maybe we can have him feud with Fandango on Superstars.”
“Oh wait, he’s Irish, you say?” Get him and Becky Lynch up here and we’ll make them a pair of typical Irish drunks and put them in a program chasing Hornswaggle around because he’s a Leprechaun. It’ll be hilarious."
“Hey guys, how long has it been since my daughter was called a slut? That long? We can’t have that! make the funny dude do it”
“I think we need something for the black guys to do, what do black people love? Jesus huh? Ok, we’ll make 'em baptist…make the smart black their leader, the big black a preacher, and the skinny black their little friend. And make em happy too, black people are usually happy right?”
“You know what the internet loves? Screaming women! Let’s make all our women wrestlers scream as much as possible! The guys think they’ll be getting laid and it’ll be great. Wait, they’re married? Well make their husbands abuse them or something, that’ll make 'em seem more attainable and sympathetic”
“We need more pictures! More pictures of Spiderman!”
“Rusev is a what? My God, we’ve been chasing the wrong angle this entire time! Get this guy a ski mask and an ISIS flag! We’re gonna need a burqa for Lana… make sure it’s a sexy burqa, though. Just because she’s the concubine of a jihadist doesn’t mean she can’t show some leg, right?”
“Alright, make sure we run the Be A Star package with Sheamus and Big Show talking to the troubled inner-city youths after the promo where Paul calls Daniel Bryan a weakling and a failure with a stupid beard and has five or six guys beat him up while he watches.”
“The people believe a little guy can win? You know who else believed a little guy could win? Gordon Solie. You know where he is now? DEAD. How ya doin’ down there, Gordy, huh? I use your film library for toilet paper!”
“What? Yes boy is back? I thought he was getting neutered or something! We’re pushing Reigns now, what the hell we gonna do with that gnome? Hey Kane, get over here!”
“Hey, Hunter! My oldest granddaughter got pubes yet? I just found out teens like watching movies about girls who shoot arrows for food! You remember she works for me when she turns 12, right? Steph’s getting too saggy! We’re gonna set up Bray for a kidnap/rape angle! Get me a mockup going! Tight leather, make her look really subjugated!”
“Quick, find me a tax write-off! They cure AIDS yet? How about leukemia? Devote the 9-9:30 slot to whatever it is and find a bunch of sickees to parade! Get Cena over there for a photo-op pronto!”
Don’t forget that NXT is on tonight, moved over from <Ryback>THURSDAYS!!!</Ryback> to account for the new Smackdown night
The big draw here is, obviously, according to her instagram BAYLEY IS BACK!
And Sami and Neville might be there? Or whatever…but BAYLEY!!
Just as a heads-up to anyone who might be in the general vicinity of Columbus, OH, NXT is going to be doing a house show there in March in its first ever outside-of-Florida show.
I’m in Cincinnati, and I am so going.
I hope this isn’t a trend since I’m planning a Florida move in the next 6 months and want NXT ALL TO MYSELF.
Speaking of NXT house shows…that’s basically what last night was/felt like.
A Finn/Tyson match that looked pretty decent, but didn’t tell much of a story and just kinda happened. Can we PLEASE get Balor a new finisher? I hate his so much. Did he have one in his indy days?
Bull Dempsy/Baron Corbin: Finally the two titans meet! One against one! To do battle in an epi…oh wait is that the end of days? Are they done already? Yup, that just happened. A short match that showed little-to-nothing of either guy and ended the same if Corbin was facing CJ Parker or Mojo Rawley.
**Charlotte/Nattie vs Becky Lynch/Sasha Bank$: ** Well it looks like we need a divas match and a tag match in this show, so lets just combine them! It wasn’t a terrible match since NXT treats women’s matches like regular matches (notice no constant goddamn screaming), but it was still kind of whatever. Sasha gets the pin over Charlotte.
Sami vs Neville: A slow match that was nothing like their previous ones. As soon as the heat started being poured on, someone would run away or ask for a rest, or there was a kayfabe concussion break twice. Sami Wins, then KO comes from outta nowhere(c) and hits him, the audience boos and we go home.
No promos, no storyline progression, just a very house-show feel.
oh
also
NO BAYLEY! :mad:
*BOWANGAWANNNNNGGGGG
BWAAAAAANNNNNHHH*
LU does minimal promo work, as they let action speaks for itself. They did a few vignettes for Cage in the past couple weeks, and worked him into an impressive debut 4-way elimination match. Not just impressive for him, but for the three other new luchas. I already forgot the names of two of them (Smapti, help me out here!), but fucking Angelico did a fucking diagonal leap over the fucking turnbuckle and fucking took out the other three dudes on the fucking floor!!! Consider my mind blown. I thought Cage was going to be another Mason Ryan, too massive to work with considerably faster talent, but he held his own and got off some good stunt work.
Then he gets on the mike and says “I’m called Cage because I’m not human. I’m a machine!” Yes, I keep my parakeet in a bird machine. The factory makes widgets with its cages.
Cuerno vs Drago part IV was kept short, but they worked in a belly flop from the office ceiling. If there’s a shortage on cable time, make it count!
Chavo takes little time to transition to shameless prick on the mike in a hilarious promo. Blue Demon doesn’t have to say anything. This segment may have been filmed a couple extra times. At one point, Chavo is bringing out very large and conspicuous brass knuckles while the ref is holding BD back, but BD gets the jump on him with a kind of wimpy chair shot. Chavo is then languishing on the canvas in pain, but the knucks are nowhere to be seen. Oh well, it happened in the last James Bond movie too.
Prince Puma vs Fenix was amazing of course. Cage runs in afterwards to do a bounce power bomb with a secondary shock wave. I’m actually worried about Puma. He has taken the most abuse by far on LU, and he wrestles without the mask as Ricochet in about 15 other promotions. All his disks are going to be herniated by the time he’s 30. I just hope he doesn’t OD on painkillers like other wrestlers who left this earth before their time.
*BOWANGAWANNNNNGGGGG
BWAAAAAANNNNNHHH*
Pretty much agree with T-Cups on his NXT recap. I’m really in to Finn, but I agree his finisher looks stupid. I otherwise like the way he lets his ring entrance speaks for itself and keeps his promos abridged.
The Corbin/Dempsey match at least lasted for more than a minute, but made the feud anticlimactic. Corbin needs some comeuppance. Even Undertaker took his share of beatdowns. I do like the way they shine the bright spot light on him so that only his outline and pupils are visible, like he’s not of this world. I hope the feud with Dempsey continues and the former Baby Huey gets some heat back. Corbin shouldn’t be Goldberged all the way to the NXT title.
Of course the Zayn/Neville rematch couldn’t compare to ®Evolution, but I liked the boot-to-the-face counter to Zayn’s jump through the corner. They’re also chipping away at Zayn’s “always play fair” attitude and conditioning him for his eventual showdown with that mean ol’ Kevin Owens. Zayn isn’t the sickly sweet babyface and evolves his stage presence with every match. He’s fun to watch and interesting to observe.
“What’s wrong with this ‘Bally’ girl? All she does is run around hugging people and talking about how the other Divas are her friends! That’s not how real women behave! Here’s what we do - swap out the tights for some hot pants, have her pad that bra to at least a C cup, and dye her hair blonde, and we’ll put her in a love triangle program with Natalya and Tyson Kidd. Call the E! Network and see if they’re OK with a lesbian angle for season 4 of Total Divas.”
Seriously, though, I’m watching the NXT and LU shows now and will have my opinions to share later.
This episode of NXT was just alright. Nothing we haven’t really seen before. The Zayn/Neville rematch had some great spots, but you really knew Zayn was going to win from the beginning anyway. The Bull/Corbin match could have gone longer with as long as they’ve been building up this feud for. Finn/Tyson was pretty good.
The main thing that bugged me was that the camera work for this episode seemed clumsy, like they’d just replaced the cameraman and it was the new guy’s first day - the shot for Finn’s diving foot-stomp onto Tyson was so out-of-frame it was hard to tell whether he’d connected or not, and the angle for the shot of Zayn’s jumping dropkick to Neville made it obvious that his feet never came anywhere near Neville’s chest. This is one of the places where NXT being live-to-tape and using so few cameras hurts them in comparison to, say, Lucha Underground, where they’ve got cameras all over the place and the luxury of time to pick and choose the best angle for any given spot.
PS: You can always tell when Alexa Bliss has wrestled in an earlier episode from the same batch of tapings because there’s still bits of glitter stuck to the ring mat. 
Thoughts on Lucha Underground later.
According to Wikipedia, he used a few finishers during his time in New Japan, including the Bloody Sunday (lifting underhook DDT, which I think he’s popped out once or twice for NXT so far), the brainbuster, the Prince’s Throne (a variation on the AA/F5/Go-To-Sleep family of fireman’s carry drops), and an armbar submission hold.
