“‘The 87th Annual Academy Awards’? Nobody cares about that! It has a number in the name! That makes it sound old and uncool! It’s obviously rigged, anyway - they didn’t nominate Oculus, Leprechaun Origins, or See No Evil 2! The only award ceremony anyone cares about is the Slammies. Right, Hunter? Of course I am! Book a promo where Miz tells the fans he deserves Best Actor for having to pretend he likes them.”
I’m pretty sure the subset of rasslin’ fans and awards show fans is miniscule.
I mean, all you have to do is check a feed or twitter channel if you’re that curious.
Of course, they could always work an angle for Miz expecting to get a statue for “Best Z Movie lead actor” as a reason he’s not at the PPV, then show him lost backstage at some abandoned theatre.
I’m thinking more along the lines of younger viewers who won’t be able to watch because their parents will be watching the Oscars on the one TV in the house.
Surely they can watch it on their smartphone, tablet, or other smart device for only nine ninety nine, can’t they?
Or, rather, FREE during the month of February
I did watch part of one PPV on my iPad via my cell hotspot after my cable/internet went out (F You Comcast!) in the middle of it.
And these days, how many households have only ONE TV? My parents, who insisted on having only a single TV in the house when I was a child, have FIVE TVs for the two of them now.
They keep hyping an 8-man tag for my RAW in two weeks: Rollins, Kane, Big Show and Harper vs Cena, Ambrose, Reigns and…RKO.
Now I cant imagine that a match of this caliber would be a dark match, since it would mean either they aren’t on TV, or they’re wrestling twice…neither of which I can believe.
But this tells me that RKO is coming back this coming RAW, or at the latest, in two weeks when I’m there. So a face Randy vs a heel Rollins? At Fast Lane? Cuz it’s the go home show when I’m there and Rollins needs SOMETHING to do.
/lana: Vnimaniye, vnimaniye… In America, you have Black History Month. There is no Black History Month in Russia, because there are no blacks. The cold freezes the melatonin out of their skin pigments.
Roman loses on RAW? Usually when somebody loses on TV before a PPV, it means they’ll win their PPV match. Still, it takes some of the luster off his shine, and his gruff demeanor backstage could lead to a heel turn, a la Batista. What strikes me as a tad bit desperate was the way the Authority semi-gloated over manipulating Roman into accepting a match with the DB/SR winner. They didn’t manipulate shit. HHH just said the match would happen and that was that. The only manipulation they used was turning on the mike.
Why don’t they just say “Ha ha ha, our plan to make the fans reject Roman Reigns worked perfectly! We pushed him down their throats like we did Batista last year and now they hate him! We’re such geniuses.” The reason: It would acknowledge that Vince made a mistake, and Vince never makes mistakes.
Question is, can Roman have an awesome match with DB and make it look like he worked really hard to get the win? DB usually makes his opponent look invincible, and the audience won’t be satisfied with a dominant RR win. It’ll look like more undeserved pushing. Maybe they’ll diffuse that by arranging some kind of outside interference on Heyman & Brrrrock’s part to try to get RR to lose because they’d rather face a presumably weaker DB.
Anyhoo, on to other stuff: Bray Wyatt shows ring smarts as well as casual thuggery in his win over Ziggie. Will he be the 2 in Undertaker’s 22 & 2? Probably no way in hell, but UT did lose to Vladimir Koslov once. Now Koslov is Kosleft. Another example of a push that didn’t work.
I get that Erick Rowan is supposed to be a tamed beast, kind of like Lennie from Mice and Men, but his entrance music does nothing to excite the crowd. Banjo strumming to reflect his rustic roots, child’s keyboard to represent his childlike wonder at discovering the world outside of the Wyatt compound, it’s all very nice and symbolic. But the crowd just sits on their hands when he comes out, and having him show little to no offense vs the A-listers makes it hard to take him seriously, especially when he’s kissing John Cena’s ass. Luke Harper is hugely talented, but he’s an A-lister jobber too. He’s not feared like he should be. Reunite the Wyatts already! DEPP!
While I’m glad Damian Sandow is getting over, I miss the Intellectual Savior of the Masses. When I saw the live show last year, Sandow easily drew the most heat of any of the heels.
Dean, you don’t want the IC title. It’s poison. You’ll be buried, and not just by the A-listers. You’ll lose to the likes of Bo Dallas, Adam Rose, and Curtis Axel, and you’ll purposely injure yourself so you won’t have to go through the manure mill any longer. Your crazy cannot overcome Vince’s vision.
DB vs SR was pretty good, but not awesome. It does open Seth for a feud with Randy Orton if he ever comes back, but this was a transition match, not worthy of their talents.
Interesting footnote from Austin’s interview with HHH: He acknowledges that the 3rd hour of RAW is really difficult to write, so they have to resort to filler in some cases. It sounds like a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation if they drop the third hour. It gives them more time to build up storylines and characters, but it means less time for creativity when you’ve also got splinter shows to absorb the entire roster. WWE has mostly managed to shed kayfabe, but the show is still a show that relies on the audience to suspend disbelief to some degree. Always interesting to hear the inside story, even if it is presented as part of an angle.
So, here’s the latest scuttlebutt from the “Vince McMahon is out of touch and should not be making booking decisions” file;
Apparently, Kallisto is pretty close to getting called up to the main roster.
And, since he’s been working as a masked luchador for eight years now and is internationally known as a masked luchador, they’ve decided to unmask him and have him work on a new gimmick.
Apparently, some recordings from the Performance Center leaked of him rehearsing this new gimmick, and though I haven’t seen them myself, people have apparently seen him and describe his new gimmick as, and I swear I am not making this up, a gay hairdresser.
Let’s hope that this goes over about as well as the “Adrian Neville is going to be Mighty Mouse” thing did once it leaked.
Whoa whoa hold on…
They’re pushing Sin Cara (he’s won three times in a row on TV now, 2 on RAW alone) they stripped the belts of Sin Cara and Kallisto to call up Kallisto and NOT bring over the Lucha Dragons? With how few tag teams are active the WWE is desperate for tag teams and there’s no way that they are calling up little Kallisto for a singles career after pushing Sin Cara and having a tag team vacuum
Well, it’s Vince and Kevin Dunn, so who knows. Maybe next week he’ll be the Delusional Giant, insisting that he’s 8’ tall and challenging Big Show and Mark Henry.
Or they’ll put Sami Zayn back under the mask as one half of the Lucha Dragons tag team, make Kalisto their mascot and have them in endless comedy matches with Los Matadores and El Torito.
Gotta be really frustrating for all of those NXT people to work so hard on a gimmick only to be completely shat on by Vince when they finally get a call-up.
FLEE Kallisto! FLEEEEEEEEEE!
Hey, there we go.
Los Matadores with El Torito.
Lucha Dragons with Kallisto.
New Day.
Then put, as I said earlier, Finn Balor and Becky Lynch as the Drunken Irish Stereotypes chasing Hornswaggle, and once they catch him we have the fourth three member ethnic stereotype team.
Vince and Kevin Dunn can laugh their asses off all day while the rest of the world fumes about their racism and insensitivity.
Hell, Funaki is still around, right? Maybe Yoshi Tatsu? Stick one of them with KENTA/Itami, hire a high voice Japanese girl, stick her in a school girl outfit and we cover that base too.
And they come out to Babymetal…actually scratch that cuz I kinda actually like that idea
Yoshi Tatsu, alas, was part of the mass layoff last year that also robbed us of Brodus Clay, Evan Bourne, two-thirds of 3MB, and, most tragically, JTG.
“Kallisto, eh? Wears a mask? Weighs a buck fifty? No way. Nobody wants another Rey Mysterio! Sounds like some kind of faggot. ‘HAIRTHTYLE BY KALLITHTO!’ Hey, that’s it! Undersized sassy spic faggot hairdresser! Just like the one Linda goes to! That’ll get heat! He’s a luchie, right? He can turn flips, so he can sashay those hips! Cocky walk, bent wrist, frilled shirt, solid plastic hairdo, leopard skin ascot, gay him up real good! You like that, right Kevin? You know all about the gay stuff. You LIVE the gay stuff! That’s a good bottom, Kevin! THI THENYOR! That’s hilarious! Hey, does he juggle? Like a circus monkey? I want my own circus monkey! HOW COME NONE OF YOU JABRONIES GIVE ME ANY CIRCUS MONKEYS?”
NXT thoughts from the Tea Room…
A good episode over all, better than last week that’s for sure.
Show started off with Carmella (blue pants! blue pants!) against a returning Emma since blue pants is apparently “on the clearance rack”. I didn’t watch NXT when Emma and Paige were there and Emma never did much on the main roster but I was always told that despite her looks and character she was actually a good wrestler. I didn’t see it in this match. She looked slow, sloppy, and…well…like a divas match. Although a part of that could be Carmella too cuz she definitely sucks.
We followed that up with the next round of the contenders tournament: Adrian Neville vs. Baron Corbin. A good match, mostly because of Neville. It’s hard to really hone your skill when you’re a giant like Corbin and your job is to basically squash everyone in 20 seconds. The match ended stupid though because Bull came out and cheap shotted Corbin which lead to a Neville win. I didn’t think that was needed. I think Corbin can still remain strong by simply losing to a talent like Neville. This does set up Corbin-Dempsey 3: This Time It’s Serious at Takeover 4: You Wanted More.
Divas match between my girl and Becky Lynch. Bayley’s video package now has anime drawings and Becky’s music changed and it’s not as rockin anymore. I think Bayley is becoming a face with a mean-streak. She still gets a face pop (although really not as much since her return) but during the match she snaps and eventually just starts wailing on her opponent. I think that would be a neat thing to add to her character, the sweet girl who you don’t want to mess with. Either way it ended with a Bayley win with kinda-sorta $asha interference. Then Charlotte walked out and we had a 4 way stare down leading to next week.
Main Event was Finn vs Scorpion. Boy, Full Sail really freaks out when Itami teases that GTS huh? they both fought a good fight and Finn came out on top clean. Then did the “we’re still friends” shaking hands thing at the end. Setting up Neville and Finn which should be an awesome match.
Quick Hits: We had another Solomon video thing happen. Adrian Neville suuuuucks on commentary. Slow and boring. Tyler Breeze keeps getting his own mini video packages and I don’t know why he doesn’t just wrestle. Speaking of video, a great one after the show telling the Sami/Kevin Owens story. They show old pictures of them, talk about being friends and working around the world together. I gotta say, I love that WWE is 100% embracing these new guys’ past. I also am ready for Owens to win (I’ll do a predictions post come next week to tell you why)
*BOWANGAWANGAHHHHHH
BAANNNHHHHH*
More LU mystery, as we glean the purpose of Dario Cuerto’s key… The enigmatic woman from the Orient was looking for Matanza, and Cuerto mentions this to a shadowy cell occupant who grunts and snarls like an animal. So, is Matanza some kind of beast/demon/human hybrid? If Cuerto releases him, will he ravage the LU temple and all within it? Is he even nastier than Mil Muertes, whose valet is trying to seduce Fenix? She asks him “Do you have this emblem on your chest to safeguard your dreams?” This is some mystical shit, brother!
Angelico vs Son of Havoc was a fun match. Angelico loves to show off for the audience, and SoH keeps falling on his cula, especially when Ivelisse gets involved. She almost got bumped 4 times, but still wouldn’t come down from the ring apron until she got knocked off and Angelico got the pin. Are she and her masked bf going to settle their differences in the ring?
Good match between Johnny Mundo and Cage, as King Cuerno’s interference definitely cost Mundo the match, but it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Cuerto came out, said as Mundo’s friend, he’s going to RESTART THE MATCH! What a prick. It wasn’t an immediate win for Cage, either. Mundo fought long and hard with his hurt leg, but Cage’s brute force won at the end. No one is pushed to the point of being untouchable in LU. All the competitors meet defeat at some point.
And at the end, “I’m Alberto El Patron. But you already knew that.” SQUEEEE! Are he and Cuerto long-time adversaries, or not entirely willing business partners? In time, Alberto’s WWE tenure will be forgotten and irrelevant.
*BOWANGAWANGAHHHHHH
BAANNNHHHHH*
OLAY OLAYOLAYOLAY OLAYYYYY OLAYYYY
For this programming block, the NXT theme is friends vs friends. More on Zane vs KO, whose shirt is now a hot merchandise item. Very nice touch at the end of the show, when the vignette on the longtime Zayn/Owens friendship added more personality to the feud. THIS is how you do a fast push, Vince.
More friends vs friends: Finn vs Hideo Atami, who Alex Riley kept saying “grew up together.” Yeah, Japan and Ireland are practically neighbors. Clean win for Finn, but eventually the honeymoon will be over. Bayley has already punked out Charlotte, and Sasha and hair-tossing Becky Lynch came to blows this week. Nasty hair-pulling nail-gouging cat fight in store for us at (Ar)Rival.
Adrian Neville vs Baron Corbin definitely demonstrated the vast gulf between experienced veteran and plucky upstart. Neville countered the Corbin attacks which always worked on the jobbers. Corbin got in a blow that rocked Neville’s world, but jealous fat kid Bull Dempsey got a little measure of revenge which he’s definitely going to answer for next week. I’m going to look into my crystal eight-ball and make a prediction: Since it’s a no-DQ match, Dempsey will call in everybody who lost to Corbin and they’ll gang up on him. Corbin will hulk up and throw them off* en masse* and take out Dempsey Dumpster in 20 seconds.
No career-destroying antics on behalf of Enzo, Cass and Carmella this week, but the fuse is still lit and getting closer to the powderkeg.
I finally caught the GTS tease! And I saw the Solomon Crowe hack too! I’m so proud of myself.
For the first few weeks of the Wednesday Night Wars, I’ve been alternating between which show I watched first. I’ve come to the conclusion at this point that I need to watch NXT first; it’s too jarring going from the dark and seamy environs of the Temple to the bright and shiny NXT Arena (and did they always have a Titantron on the ceiling? I never noticed that before.)
Thoughts on NXT;
- It’s good to see Emma back. She got a raw deal on the main roster, getting turned into Santino Marella’s sidekick, and then nearly getting fired after the shoplifting kerfuffle. Hopefully she’s not just back to be a jobber.
PS: We want Blue Pants.
-
Apparently, Wesley Blake and Buddy Murphy don’t have first names anymore. Why does WWE hate first names?
-
The size difference between Adrian Neville and Baron Corbin is massive. It looked like Rey Mysterio trying to wrestle the Big Show. This was the first Corbin match we’ve seen that wasn’t a squash, and it really played to his strengths, making him look like an unstoppable giant who can just shove his opponent around with impunity. Having Bull Dempsey (who I’m apparently the only person who actually likes him) interfere leading to the win was kinda cheap, but at least they let Neville hit his finisher instead of just rolling him up or winning by countout.
-
They’ve changed Becky Lynch’s gear and theme song again, and it’s for the worse. She’s a rough-and-tumble Irish bitch; she needs to be wearing plaid with patches and safety pins and coming out to Dropkick Murphys, not wearing… whatever that was. Not sure whether her attacking Sasha in the post-match showdown was meant to be a face turn or just more of the shades of gray we’ve been seeing lately, but putting the belt on her next week at Takeover 4: Oh Crap We Forgot To Come Up With A Subtitle For This One might be a good way to develop her further.
-
Hideo vs. Finn Balor was destined to steal this show from the minute they set it up, and it did. The crowd was red-hot for this one (“BETTER THAN RAW!” “WE’RE NOT WORTHY!” “MARKING OUT!”) and these guys have worked together as partners and opponents for so many years, and it shows. You’d never see a match this psychological on a show Vince is booking, that’s for sure.
Once again Hideo teases the GTS and doesn’t deliver. He’s gotta deliver sooner than later at this rate. Finn wins, setting up him vs. Neville next week, which ought to be a great match.
(Fantasy booking: Finn wins next week, and Owens beats Sami Zayn for the title. Open WrestleMania with Owens vs. Finn for the NXT title. Finn comes out in his demon paint, and boom - you have this generation’s Undertaker.)
Hell of a show. Thoughts on LU in a little while.