rolling (non-millenials) grabbing the brass ring 2015

I haven't even watching Extreme Rules yet because I felt like it was going to be garbage and I chose sleep instead. I do like Rollins using the RKO since they banned his curb stomp.

The return of heel Bo Dallas is something I really appreciate and so is Sandow. I'm glad we're getting to see more of him.

Also: the return of King of the Ring. How much did people care?

extreme rules was solid enough for what it was. tag match and pre-show match both great, and reigns has figured out how to be a good big match worker. kind of terrible main event

re: king of the ring, they basically just kinda threw it out there and it was done by tuesday, so probably not much beyond the initial nostalgia pop. we got a real good neville/harper tv match out of it though

https://twitter.com/mountain_goats/status/595019376513949696

Worth checking out Sami Zayn's Raw debut against Cena last night. They let him kick out of the AA, promising start

It was about as perfect a debut he could have. He was allowed to stay in the ring as JOHN CENA backed away clapping and saying "tough kid" to the camera. He kicked out the AA and got out the STFU. He hit that diving through the ropes DDT, a blue thunder bomb and got Cena in the koji clutch. And Bret fucking Hart, in Montreal, introduced him in his home town, by hitting jobber Heath Sleater with the mic.

Raw in general was great. I've not seen much Raw recently, even clips of much. I guess I love the New Day and the Kidd/Cesaro team.

i really want to believe it's all a work but http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2015/0505/593997/sami-zayn-injured-on-last-night-wwe-raw/

i'd be more doubtful if the aggravation didn't visibly happen during his entrance, or maybe it's just a well-planned work

At Verne Gagne's funeral, Bob Backlund "started yelling out out what was described as a heel promo at Greg Gagne while Greg was delivering the eulogy

itami's hurt too after they were kinda building to him being the new #1 contender. nxt might have to undergo some panic booking soon

such a bummer. i have tickets for nxt philly next week and i was looking forward to seeing zayn + itami :(

yeah man, i'm going to the friday philly show and i'm really bummed about it

kevin owens tho!

wooo! live nxt tnite!

good news fad- they announced a championship match for tmmrw finn-Owens and Finn says he's bringing the demon

http://www.wwe.com/shows/wwenxt/nxt-takeover-unstoppable-2015-05-20/tyler-breeze-declaration-of-intent-27390265

how was nxt?

loved it. the crowd was great. mick foley came out to say hello, hhh came out to introduce the main event which was a sasha/charlotte title match, he got lots of "thank you, hunter" chants from the crowd. the crowd also gave tons of "E-C-W" chants, esp when rhino faced corbin. corbin won and then teased the crowd afterward about how he'd beat any ECW legends, and then rhino gored him. owens-breeze-balor triple threat for the title... whole thing was a blast.

Sounds like the best show. How was Owens? Does he show signs of his injury?

Sasha Banks is like my favourite current wrestler. Hope people appreciated her in the main event.

I was annoyed Corbin was getting boring chants after like 10 seconds On tv the other night. Was that match good? I presume it was a warm up for the rookie before takeover?

Owens looked great. For the first 1/3rd of the match he sat down outside the ring and watched and the crowd chanted: "Rest, Owens, rest!"

Corbin got boring chants too - hard for me to tell tho whether it was bc he was facing Rhino or bc people are generally cool to him. He was definitely in heel mode on the mic after the match. The Dempsy-Jason Jordan match was so bad, the crowd cleared out to hit the bar and bathrooms. People in both lines were joking that in NXT the Divas aren't the bathroom match, Bull Dempsy is.

the crowd at the last nxt episode was awful 100%

feel like sasha/charlotte are one of those pairings who are just going to be totally electric together for years ("wrestling soul mates" as ambrose has said)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsuWP7q-mQ

I'm sad they've decided to go back to making Sandow a joke. Ascension is such a waste. Has anyone watched the whole PPV?

yeah. best things: tag match was terrific, bray/ryback overdelivered, main event was a lot of fun albeit predictable finish

worst things: cena/rusev. i like both guys and think the us open challenge has been one of the best parts of raw, but christ this was unwatchable

i thought cena/rusev was fine apart from the obviously terrible ending, though maybe 80% of the credit goes to rusev's facial expressions.

i liked that rollins got a clean win (errrr or as clean as you can get having three guys interfere on your behalf, i guess) and the shield reunion bit was great. would be good if rollins spent another few months trying to settle on a new finisher.

yeah, tbf i think the ending really colored it for me. and i've probably just seen too many of these things, reusing spots from cena's older matches with umaga and orton stuck out. rusev worked hard as always, really hope this breakup doesn't leave him dead in the water.

man i love the shield

can't wait for MITB!

also uhhh elimination chamber

Uhhhhlimination Chamber

I am kind of fine with the idea of these short-notice mini-Ppv special provided they use them as an opportunity to let some of the mid card guys to go out there and tear it up in the ring without the pressure of a buyrate or whatever. The tag match elim chamber might be a total clusterfuck but it's certainly better than having a 4 minute thing on the preshow

i am really really deeply excited to watch kevin owens do anything. so i guess i will watch uhhlimination chamber

kevin owens is in uhhlimination chamber??? sold!

KO vs JC for USA strap!

so kinda like the zayn/cena match?

hope KO powerbombs JC into the ring apron multiple times

did anyone watch raw? i only watched that bit bc my friend was like "WATCH THAT PART ASAP"

owens goes out when the open challenge starts, he and cena shit talk each other, he says he doesn't even want to fight for the strap, then he kicks cena and pop up power bombs him and u cant see me's him in the face. then steps on the us belt and holds up the nxt belt. guys it was the best moment.

i love kevin owens so much

since the montreal one, the last couple raws have been shockingly solid tbh

Shit so wrestling is really pretty good right now, huh? Just finished watching Takeover - Unstoppable, lordy lordy lordy but I never thought we'd see this

yeah, that said, i have to commit to not watching smackdown now, and maybe raw, even though it's showing signs of life. it's taking up all my free time now and i'm close to burning out.

tbh i find myself increasingly taken aback at the very idea of actually watching an episode of Raw in this day and age, and Smackdown you gotta be fucking kidding me. i'm sure i'm not the only one feeling like this (honestly not trying to be a snarky little bitch about this but my god, who the fuck would watch 5 hours of contemporary WWE a week?!) surely the only sensible way to interact with this stuff in this day and age is to read the after-action reports while trying to remain as spoiler-free as possible and then checking out the potentially interesting stuff after the fact. sure you lose the element of surprise but on the other hand you avoid literally hours a week of total bullshit. i honestly can't imagine committing to watching a WWE TV show all the way through anymore, i can only just manage it with the PPVs, and this is during a period when the product and match quality is in a relatively good shape.

btw if anyone hasn't already seen it everyone should watch the Sasha Banks / Becky Lynch match from the other night, it was fucking next level good and more proof (as if any were necessary) that women's wrestling could totally be a major and important part of the show if anyone in a position of power were inclined to make that happen.

i can't think of a better match in 2015, period

you watch raw cause occasionally it's great. i'm glad i watched it a few weeks ago for the awesome sami (among other things) episode. it's been better lately, and there are inklings that NXT talent is on the rise. if enzo and cass are on the main roster how am i not supposed to watch come on. ideally, WWE goes back to giving the slightest shit about serialized storytelling and makes it actually feel like a tv show rather than a neverending buildup to PPVs. also back to 2 hours. i'll probably still watch :(

ONE thing that annoyed me about the sasha/becky match bc i guess i wanted it to go 100% perfect: there was a botch, apparently, where sasha took a suicide dive and becky was supposed to catch her, but becky got knocked over and quickly did a sort of awkward pickup to get in place. it wouldn't have been too bad if the announcer, whoever it was (brennan?) didn't call it like "uh... er... SHE CAUGHT HER!" and it just highlighted the botch instead like come on it's your job to not do that.

I was wondering about that. Still though, those sequences were so good and made sense and HOLY FUCK their arms bend far

yeah that bit where Sasha wrenched Becky's arm back and stepped on it looked unfathomably painful. in fact the match as a whole had some of the most interesting and visceral limb-based story-telling I can remember seeing in, erm..... god I can't even remember.

I really need to see unstoppable. People are lauding it as the best ever american womens match of all time.

keeping up with wrestling seems impossiblE. Ive heard lucha underground has had some excellent stuff recently (best casket match in forever? 7 man ladder match?) but jeez ive got no time. Wrestling needs to stop being so damn good everywhere atm.

i still like charlotte/sasha better, but it was a great match and it had the feeling of being a main event even if it technically wasn't.

i've probably said it here already but LU is my favorite show on TV right now and should be the #1 wrestling priority for everyone.

that's kind of my deal wrt to watching Raw I suppose. I can only justify spending a certain amount of time spent watching wrestling per week (let's say in two longish sessions a week, on average, max) and in general I find i'd rather just check out the highlights of the WWE shows in that time.

This enables me to watch other cool and interesting new things from NJPW (still going back over the 2013/2014 G1 Climax tournaments too) or Lucha Underground or Evolve or whatever that I find recommended on the internet. I also like watching old shit that I enjoy but haven't watched in a while or have never seen before (e.g. watched the Chris Benoit / Kevin Sullivan Falls Count Anywhere match for the first time the other day, man how influential did that end up being, weird), or sometimes just odd cool stuff that pops up on the internet - the other day there was a Shinsuke Nakamura / Zack Sabre Jr. match from a UK independent show that popped up on youtube, for example.

That was really my point upthread, I suppose. There's so much great wrestling happening around the world right now, and such ease of access to awesome old wrestling from the past, that I just don't get why people would tune in to watch Roman Reigns fighting Kane to a no-contest for the 12th time this year or whatever. The pleasurable surprise of seeing something like e.g. the Sami Zayn / Kevin Owens debuts in real time just don't justify it to me.

you watch raw cause occasionally it's great.

i basically used this comparison when trying to get a wrestling fan to understand why i haven't missed an episode of SNL in like 10 years

Going back to Unstoppable: as much as I've never really cared about Becky Lynch, I thought that her match with Sasha (who I love) really showcased her skill. I know Charlotte has often been billed as the powerhouse of the women's division in NXT, but Becky Lynch really proved herself. She earned those chants at the end.