Topic: Wrestling?

The whole affair just seemed pretty weird; they genuinely praised Usos and Lucha Dragons, no typical "you were good, but we were so much better" stuff right as they were leaving that I was sorta expecting.
Then they start celebrating and get beaten for it? Didn't help that the crowd booed the Usos when they did it.

That might have been the best Raw of the entire year.

Awesome show, top to bottom really.

It was great seeing Vince again and he played his part perfectly, giving Roman a great foil to work against, and even, at 70 years old, still took a bump, so kudos to him for that.

Reigns was on form tonight. His promo was short, too the point, and with no stupid bullshit in it. Smashing HHH must have been everything we were waiting for, because the crowd was 100 percent on Reigns side tonight, and they were in Philly, which is kinda infamous for chewing apart babyfaces they don't like.

Plus, when was the last time we saw a REAL WWE Title match on Raw where the belt changed hands?

Note: I don't mean a "titles been vacated, fight for it" match, or a "Cashes in Money in the Bank" match, I'm talking about a legit, 20 whatever minute main event of a champion defending against a challenger and getting pinned clean in the middle of the ring.

Toss in a great Ambrose/Ziggler match and an awesome 8 man tag match and a fun womens match and it was just a really good night.

Let's hope they keep this up and ratings go up as a result.

Wade's out with an injury. Poor guy can't catch a break.

also, viewership breakdown
Hour 1: 4.043m (prev week: 3.270m)
Hour 2: 3.786m (prev week: 3.042m)
Hour 3: 3.825m (prev week: 2.850m)
Avg: 3.884m (prev week: 3.054m)

See, when you book the guy you want to be the guy to his strengths, not his weaknesses, you get some results. No-one wants to see ROman talk, or even wrestle, they want to see him just come out and wreck shit. You know, like he was in The Shield.

http://shop.wwe.com/Asuka-%22Tomorrow-Brings-Danger%22-Authentic-T-Shirt/W10723,default,pd.html

Usually wrestling shirts are pretty fucking awful but this is really damn cool.

the Vaudevillains one isn't awful. It's manly!

So I caught the majority of Joe/Balor. Fucking hell that match ruled.

The whole show fucking ruled.

Asuka, of course, was awesome with Emma. What I loved about the match was how it played with the wrestling tropes - so many spots where you expected Emma to win with a screwjob finish, but Asuka found some way to turn it against her. It was a little sloppy in a couple of spots - the one where they were trading hammerlocks didn't quite work - but great stuff, and it's becoming more and more clear that she's finding her groove in the WWE. Asuka is just good at EVERYTHING wrestling, it's insane. She's even great at promos, and she barely speaks English.

The tag match was good stuff. Very tense, tight, hard-hitting stuff, and we saw what Enzo and Cass can really do at their best. I think this is gonna be their NXT curtain call, though - wouldn't be surprised to see them on Raw, soon. Probably as heels.

Corbin and Balor was pretty good, though it felt a wee bit sloppy at spots, like when Apollo was doing all that punchy brawling, though. Corbin seems to get better with every match. Probably the least good match of the night, but there was nothing really wrong with it.

Bailey and Nia was great stuff. Nia seemed to have a little trouble keeping up at spots when she was selling, but when she was in control, she was very good. She's really good at being a dominating monster, and Bailey's great at selling that, so it worked awesome.

Interested to see what becomes of the Nia/Asuka fued they teased. Intriguing.

And yeah, Joe and Balor rocked the house. Finn was on top of his game today. If I had any complaint, it was that he looked TOO awesome - I knew, when he came out with that crazy entrance, there was no way he was losing. And bringing the body paint back was an awesome surprise. When he didn't bring it out at Respect, I thought he'd just ditched the gimmick, but it's alive and well and he doesn't lose when he has it on.

Great stuff. As long as NXT is around, I will never cancel my WWE Network subscription.

And now i must sleep.

So Wrestle Kingdom 10 is coming up next month. Looks like a fun show.

Though...I really wonder where NJPW would be right now without Shinsuke Nakamura and Hiroshi Tanahashi in main events. This is the third time Wrestle Kingdom (one of, if not the biggest, NJPW shows) has had Tanahashi vs Okada as the main event, and Shinsuke Nakamura in the semi-main event and nearly every single Wrestle Kingdom has had either Tanahashi or Namakura in the main and semi main event positions.

Not too mention him holding the record for most IWGP World Heavyweight Title reigns, longest reign, and all that jazz. Tanahashi is the John Cena of Japan. I just wonder if there will ever be any backlash against him or Nakamura for being in the main event spots so much over and over again, like what we see here with our wrestlers.

Kane with no pyrotechnics is the biggest buzzkill of the night.

This has been a pretty lame Raw tonight, especially compared to how really good last weeks was, but given its the Slammys and nobody watches the Slammy's, its pretty much forgivable.


Though, I gotta say, really Neville? Big Bully Owens comes and tells you to shove off...and you just shove off? Do you have absolutely no balls?