Mr.Showtime

For me, Seth Rollins really stepped up this week. He treated Brock Lesnar like any other superstar - he didn't play scared or try to run at any point, unlike Big Show earlier. When you look at it, Triple H's plan way back to get Rollins on board and break up the Shield is still paying off today.

And then you have Dean Ambrose, who was made to look like a chump throughout, topped off by that awful match finish with Rusev.

And Roman Reigns told a fairytale.

Because Seth Rollins was going to break Edge's neck if he didn't.

What a waste of time the show was. Shame.

Not a great show really - you'd think after the big Survivor Series result and the "end of an era" stuff they'd have more up their sleeve for the first Raw than weekly guest General Managers. Apparently not. Quite enjoyed Harper and Ambrose battering each other, but that was about it. Was enjoying Rusev's conundrum too, until it emerged he could just refuse to choose and get away with it.

Gah, the one time since Mania where I've read the results rather than skip through the show, and all that unpredictable stuff happens. Sounds fun. Gah.

I'm sure they beaten them another time on telly too. I'm sure they 2-1 vs the wyatts.

 

They've lost at least 3 times to the Wyatts. At Elimination Chamber, the rematch where Rollins walked out, the one where Evolution interfered en route to Payback.

Yeah those are the bouts I was thinking of. I did think there was a Main Event-level one I had missed though.

I wasn't sure about the Rollins turn but it was worth it for Ambrose/Reigns promo. They really made me want to see them get their hands on ol' Sethy. I may be wrong but didn't the Shield fail to beat the Wyatts on TV and PPV? I know they wanted to paint the Shield as one of the best ever but it would have been a nice addition to the plot for Ambrose/Reigns to point out they couldn't beat the Wyatts until they replaced Seth.

Sheamus and Bad News pulled off another entertaining bout, perhaps helped by having a title shot on the line and the fact I had no clue who was going to win. Good stuff.

It seems the simplest reason for a turn now would be that Trips can offer Rollins the world. But if that were the case, wouldn't Orton quickly get more jealous than he already is if he doesn't get the same treatment? He seems weirdly content with his spot right now but he should be wanting the top spot as badly as Batista did.

Who's carrying out Kane's corporate duties while he dicks about on the full-time roster again?

Yup, the last segment was dull, dull, dull. The rest of the show was decent enough - three good matches in the opener, Cena/Harper and Shield/Real Americans. They've fairly managed to pack everyone onto the Mania card - even Rosa Mendes is getting a bash!

I know some will have different favourites but if you've not heard previous Austin podcasts, I really liked the ones with Brother Love and Tim White. Something different from regular wrestler stories and real interesting stuff too involving refereeing/production. I think the X-Pac ones were great too.

It was great. I was sitting with three people who had no idea who he was. I just said "his stand-up isn't like the usual suspects on the telly, just watch" and left the man to do the rest. I didn't think they'd get it, but you can feel a switch flick inside their head when he leads back to something mentioned at the start. They weren't quite sold on the lengthy "phone call" at points, they were more amazed he was getting away with it on television at all!

It says spoilers in the topic headings.

It was announced on SmackDown that next week's Raw (from Chicago) will have Brock Lesnar confronting the Undertaker...and The Shield v Wyatts II.

Good stuff

The standard chat thing does not work for me. I have downloaded mIRC as per the opening post. How do I access UKFF chat using the "irc.worldirc.org / port 6667 / #theukff" bit posted earlier?

EDIT: No bother, figured it out!

Weird, just the other day I found myself watching a YouTube review of WrestleMania 9, and in the build-up to Doink v Crush they show the Boss Man wire thing. If you google OSW review Wrestlemania 9 you'll find it.

I couldn't stand Batista for a long time in his last run, before he turned heel. For what felt like a decade, Batista was getting title shots and getting screwed over and over, not once gaining any intelligence to try and avoid being screwed the next time. But he was a riot as a heel. So I was looking forward to him returning, but I couldn't pick out one superstar I'd actually like to see him up against. Sheamus or Bryan at a push, but then he'd have to be heel. Not interested in Batista v Lesnar, Orton, Del Rio, the Shield, Taker again... It just feels like he's here because the Rock did it.

Poor, poor show. I gather they sat around all week wondering how to counter the CM Punk chants. They came up with 1) ignore them, and 2) Stick Bryan in the main event and have him beat the champion even though the champion has help. The rest will just work itself out.

It all just felt rather flat. The Shield/Wyatt spat clearly feels shoe-horned in, the cage match should have felt like a bigger event, and it felt weird seeing Kane attack Bryan with no reference to their past (maybe I missed it). There could have been a decent spot of Sheamus and Ryback going face-to-face but instead Ryback just stayed on the outside like a chump.

Umm, and that's it. Oh, Emma's theme music is hypnotic. I can imagine it being a comedy robot's theme tune.

Hello. I've not watched any NXT since it moved from "seasons" to what seems to be a regular weekly show (apart from 3 or 4 Divas bouts). I'm keen to see episodes featuring the Wyatts, anyone from the Shield, etc. Which month/year would be best to start searching from, and are the shows easily available on YouTube or elsewhere?

The Tag Title rematch between Goldy Rhodes & the Outlaws was brilliant, if only for the commentary both in the ring and out. Road Dogg was hilarious talking through the match ("Billy...he's too fast for me!") and the guys at the announce desk just started taking the piss out of each other.

I agree with the above about Bray maybe being the unfortunate one with show re-writes and what not. Cena looked like he didn't care about what happened at the Rumble, there was no real reason for him to come down at the start and attack the Shield, and it didn't make sense for the Wyatts to basically help Cena qualify for a title shot.

Overjoyed that Jake is entering the Hall of Fame

Couldn't get java to work, following the advice above, now using Mibbit app and I seem to be in some sort of chatroom (used #theukf details). Will stay in during Raw for a bit, see what happens.

You'd have thought by now Kofi Kingston would realise the only way for him to get ahead is to do something evil. Even R-Truth managed it a few years back and got a PPV main event title shot out of it, and a tag match against The Rock. Kofi should have lured Cena in, doing what he did, then push Orton out the way and kick Cena right in the mush. Give Kofi a decent Rumble showing and keep him simmering past Mania and there you go, a brand new heel for the future. Just something different would be nice. Even the kids must realise "bloody hell, he really doesn't have much ambition does he?"

Anyway, we have the next big storyline to last us the summer - who gave Randy Orton a lift home?

When you're doing online missions, races, deathmatches etc to get ranked up, it doesn't matter what somebody has or doesn't have. That only applies if you join a free session with randoms who go about the map just killing each other over and over. I don't do that because it's boring. You can set up a free session with just people you know (or even yourself), and have fun that way, and it's obviously more fun with mates than strangers anyway. But there's a great amount of races etc to do that are definitely worth getting involved in.

Hot crowd, top ending. Now if only they'd just held on two weeks and did that at the end of the Rumble match instead...

After leaving the shower, I slick my wet hair back behind the ears before flicking my hands out like Dolph Ziggler.

Somebody else must do that, surely...

It's given me leprosy.