Mr.Showtime

I'm not a huge fan of overly-comical Strowman, but the quick segment with him, Angle and Nicholas was superb. Very funny stuff. The Jeff/Matt/Bray backstage seg was also fairly amusing, makes little sense but amusing. I was just surprised they even tied up Jeff's return with the Matt/Bray storyline.

Skipped through the first Thunder last night, that was the first time I'd seen the announcement of Goldberg/Hogan at the Georgia Dome. The fans were well pleased! And the announcers/interviewers punching the air and doing little jigs, heh. A decent way to announce it, although I'm saying that with no context of anything/everything else going on at the time.

NXT this week is just fantastic, I thought. Surprise announcements, new characters, impromptu backstage segments, a Lars squash, two other matches with stakes, two huge bouts made for the following week, and a "wow" moment in the very last seconds. Everything meant something and moved the stories ahead. Great stuff!

They're not good at getting WWE Hall of Fame inductee news though.

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

I said it at the time, but the shitness of the match when watching live actually made the finish even more impactful. It forced me to drop my guard. I wasn’t even paying attention in the final few minutes, playing on my phone, making a drink whilst it was on in the background. Then that ref’s hand hit the mat for the third time and it was like being unplugged from the fucking Matrix. It was mental.

That's exactly how it was with me and my mates in the arena. Our attention was gone, we were pretty drunk and just joking away, but I was watching out of the corner of my eye and nudged a couple of mates saying "Look, he's going for a third F-5", not in a million years thinking that would be the end of it. The reaction is just something you can't describe. It felt like 80,000 people went silent, except for the 3 buddies who still hadn't paid attention and were being drunkenly loud about something completely different from what was going on. It took a few more seconds for them to click! It felt like a massive, massive mistake for ages.

Do you think Jim Johnston will ever get into the Hall of Fame? Not sure if that warrants a new thread, maybe it's already been done.

Not fond of her finisher but everything else I'm happy with. The matches have not been great so far but, like above, hoping she progresses. Love the prancing about and the slow twirl!

I'd quite like to see Spike induct the Dudleys, that'd be nice. If not him then the Duchess of Dudleyville obviously

A fun show, I thought. I'm not a huge fan of chamber matches but the main event was entertaining. Braun Strowman was magnificent. Cena again made to feel like a nobody, like Kofi Kingston-level chamber participant. Despite dodgy line delivery I thought Kurt Angle was hilarious in the Ronda segment. Good stuff. The rest was forgettable.

EDIT: Cena was just on Raw Talk after the show being all down about possibly not contributing at Mania. Then he said "I may have a plan, it doesn't fall within the usual etiquette of what we do around here, but..." He said he'd figure it out and walked off.

I always loved his later WWF theme music too, when he was with Debra. WWE released the track on Spotify etc just a few months back, it's great. He's the sort of shock appearance Raw 25 needed.
 

The Guardian has a piece about the situation, saying an XFL revival at the current time "couldn't make more sense"...

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/dec/26/xfl-revival-nfl-player-safety-vince-mcmahon

Braun Strowman gets crushed inside a white/greeny-coloured truck - he then shows up more than a week later emerging from a red truck in a different city. What's he been playing at?

I think it was very polite of Cena to not say "You got your moment at WrestleMania earlier in the year, Miz - and I battered you in about 5 minutes."

This one is called "Not Finished".

I thought that, but why have you given him a massive beard?

The Dudley brothers, Kane and Taker, Eric Bischoff and his special nephew Eugene - it's weird how those "odd family" stories are much more outlandish but it's the one they've tried to make the most realistic so far - Kurt and Jordan - that everyone seems to be clamouring for a twist that it can't possibly be true.

15 hours ago, TheBurningRed said:

I wish Edge and Christian would stop getting those bloody kazoos out. Having recently rewatched the attitude era, they used them twice. Twice. And now it's become their thing somehow. 

I can remember them using the kazoos for Angle's theme, Triple H's, Chris Benoit's and for Crash Holly. So that's four times at least?

38 minutes ago, FUM said:

Did SmackDown Live just lose most of it's weekly show?

Well kinda, but then on SmackDown this week they'll get a bunch of guys and gals to make up for it.

I felt the show was really flat, but was very amused with superface Braun Strowman destroying Roman Reigns several times over to the sound of joyous cheers and chanting. Flipping the trolley over was enough, then he had to go and mess with the ambulance as well! Mental and hilarious.

I never watched Ohno in his first NXT run and never saw him in the indies. So I can only base my opinion on his current NXT run and yes, his look is terrible. I don't care if someone's putting on the pounds but you gotta make up for that with some bad-ass gear. Y'know, like Mabel.

I was hosting a pub quiz this evening and one of the questions, which I had absolutely no hand in writing, was "How did the wrestler Andrew Martin, better known as Test, die?".

 

How obscure is that? Of every dead wrestler they could have picked, they chose Test!

That is bizarre, I'm not even sure I know the answer, I mean how specific did it need to be?

In similar fashion, I was playing Jenga the other week and every block had a number on it, so you had to go round in turn saying something from a category. I picked "professional wrestlers", being pretty sure the rest of the guys and girls would only know the uber-famous. I started with Hulk Hogan, and from out of nowhere the next lad said Rikishi! Of all the names. That was as far as it went...

You could tell that Jericho and the staff had been thinking long term with his friendship stuff for months, when he threw out "I have the Friends of Jericho with me here tonight!" schtick. Like he'd been wanting to use the line for ages but couldn't because he was still heel. The Friends of Jericho will make an awesome t-shirt/exclusive club/social media page...

Yeah I don't understand why Triple H would go out of his way to hand Owens the title then, a few months later, tell him to basically ditch Jericho then sit back and watch Goldberg decimate him for the belt. Unless Owens himself already has a trick up his sleeve, or Trips knows in advance that Lesnar will come in and fuck up Goldberg, he should be having a hand in the outcome somehow. There are almost too many possibilities for this one.

The McMahon family with WWE Hall of Famer Donald Trump, from yesterday I believe. Apologies if already posted somewhere.

Meltz reckons Kelly Kelly has been contacted about making a WWE return, even if only for one night. Happy Valentine's Day, Bellend Steve.

The first three times I read this, I thought it said Kevin Kelly 

How odd is this Dolph stuff by the way, I wish he would just sod off with his epilepsy inducing tights and stupid face. I was listening to a podcast a while ago (can't recall who) and they were saying Dolph does not get the business, and I honestly don't think he does. He literally has wrestled the same way now for about 9 years, whether heel or face, no matter the gimmick, no matter the situation. He wrestles this way on PPV, he wrestles this way on TV in a 3 minute nothing match, he just wrestles, in his shit over the top way, nothing EVER changes, not his demeanor, his body language. Nothing. He still comes out even last week hot on the heels of a turn and is stood on the ramp doing that hip gyration and flicking his wet hair at the camera shouting his usual bollocks like "OH YEAH YOU KNOW IT'S ME". Yeah, piss off Dolph.

I agree with some of this, but (and I know this probably wasn't intentional or thought through) when Ziggler came out the week after his heel turn doing exactly the same stuff I was quite pleased. Why, the week after someone batters someone you wouldn't expect, should that person have completely new or slowed down theme music, a new entrance, totally different personality & ring gear, and stop doing all the quirky things he used to? (Neville being a fine recent example.) I'm sure some here & elsewhere have moaned about that in the past. In Ziggler's head he's just tipped over the edge of frustration and started to use weapons to take it out on people. I know it's TV and these things need to be shoved down your throat but it seemed more "realistic" to me and a massive change from normal to just be carrying on with his usual schtick. As crap as it is. I have no doubt as soon as they figure out what they're doing with him (or maybe leave it to Mania) he'll get some new music and attire etc.