Thinking about the timeline, I'm really liking my bet of Nakamura to win the Royal Rumble at 30/1

After Joe rolled out of the ring, the ref threw up the "X" twice

Somehow I posted in this very thread at 6:30 and completely spaced out on the fact that this was tonight. lolme

Okay, missed that. The way I heard the ref yell to Nakamura that they were continuing sounded like it may have been an indicator too. I dunno. Hope Joe is alright.

the concern i keep hearing about the main roster for him is that hes too stiff, and if he busted up joes jaw like it looks like i dont think the higher ups will be thrilled

When he grabbed at his teeth after the first knee, I thought he was really hurt. I've never seen someone sell teeth like that before

X was definitely a work. Joe was selling from the first pin forward. It's called story telling peeps

Also not sure why people get so upset at the send offs people get. We all know that's everyone if these guys goals. When it finally comes what's wrong with the winner paying respect.

Give a hug. Walk out of the ring and give the person moving on the minute to say thank you and good bye

it's something that's possibly acceptable after the main event of wrestlemania after a long feud and buildup as a sign of mutual respect or something. the problem is that these women are basically glorified midcarders and think every single match is worthy of some sort of post match celebration/event. i just find it impossible to take them seriously when they don't even take it serious enough to stay within character until they get back to the dressing room. there's a reason why you never see the men do this and even kliq was smart enough to do it at an untelevised house show.

it's nice for bayley but i think it hurts asuka's character quite a bit.

i'n having a hard time thinking of a male equivalent character to asuka but for argument's sake let's replace charlotte and sasha with ric flair and ted dibiase. if ric or ted ever did that after a match they would be a complete joke. that's just how i see it.

When actors leave shows for better opportunities, they get written out of the show however they get written out of the show. In presumably every case, writers at least attempt to make the departure make sense with whatever the show is going to do next. If you suddenly do a lovefest between that character and a character they never got along with, audiences would correctly go, "WTF?" (Example: if, at the end of season 5 - or whatever it was - of Cheers, it would be very strange if Carla suddenly had a tender moment with Diane because the two actresses behind the characters got along or some such thing.)

But in WWE and NXT, there's an increasing obsession with knocking down the fourth wall to remind the audience as often as possible that they're watching fiction. Other fictional shows don't feel the need to do such a weird thing, but my working theory is that it's an insecure reaction to the common mindless and irrational refrain of, "lolz don't you know that stuff is all fake?" It's like the performers and fans alike feel unnecessarily weird about the wrestler/actor just playing the character the whole time the live cameras are rolling.

It doesn't easily compare to the Kliq thing, because the Kliq committed (at the time) a cardinal sin and HHH got jobbed out for six months over it.

In this era it's almost certainly endorsed by the powers that be. I doubt it's to do with gender even though I don't know of an immediate example of guys doing it so far.

i wonder what's next for JOE

joe vs brock would be pretty awesome

The performers and the company spend all this time in the promos and in the matches telling a story about a conflict, and then when the performers hug and cry afterwards, that tells us that the previous story wasn't the real story and isn't important. The real story is they are going to the main roster, or worked hard to have a good match, etc.

I actually see this as similar to what they sometimes do on the main roster, where somebody loses and loses, then cuts a promo about being held down by the company, then gets to be in a big title match (Ziggler as a recent example). The real story was the company holding him down, not all those matches and feuds that he lost that apparently we shouldn't have cared about (or perhaps we should be happy that our favorite lost?). In wrestling, your number one storytelling tool and building block is wins and losses. But these metastories tell us that wins and losses don't matter. I mean, Bayley is going to the main roster likes she wants and is going to make way, way more money. She lost the match, but she's the winner. Or at the very least she is a winner since they had a good match so they are both winners. And they go out of their way to rub that in our face right after she lost.

I guess that would be a good segue to present something I read last week about 50/50 booking:

http://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/1...rformances-wwe

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense and explains why HHH got pinned in half his matches.

Also explains why HHH played politics so often to try and get wins, and never went in pushing so hard to get losses. He wanted to even out his record at 50/50.

Anyway, HHH is going after a straw man because nobody says 50/50 booking never works or has no place. And because usually when people criticize 50/50 booking they are criticizing the "You win on Raw, then I win the next Raw" laziness, not some grand long term underdog story.

To add to this, if there's any promotion where wins and losses should matter the most, it's NXT. The entire point of NXT is to show that you belong on Raw and Smackdown.

Honestly, there really shouldn't even be an NXT title. I'd much prefer it if the Takeover main events were battles for main roster promotion.

I see what you're saying, but I'd hate for them to do away with their titles. The NXT Title and NXT Women's Title are the belts under the company's umbrella that actually get consistently respected the way the pre-Road Dogg Intercontinental Title did.

At least she wasn't sitting with Sasha and Becky.

But yes, it is an alternate reality. HHH was a heel being injured by "babyface Roman Reigns" and then showing up uninjured as a babyface GM on NXT the same week.

She's a genuine fan. But her parents and WWE have pushed her to be an integral part of the Bayley character.

Both Asuka and Bayley are babyfaces. It doesn't break kayfabe to show they still respect each other. It's not as if Joe and Nakamura did that.

The difference is that wrestling is a live show. Carla and Diane probably had a "tender moment" in front of the studio audience, but they wouldn't show it on screen.

In UFC, Conor and Diaz "hate" each other. Diaz even gave Conor the finger in the middle of the match.

What did they do as soon as the match was over? They hugged each other.

The fact that people like Sasha (didn't lose for an entire year, and even then, it was a handicap match), Roman, Asuka, and Nakamura (both of whom are undefeated) exist shows that HHH is full of **** when he says they don't keep track of wins and losses.

Yeah, they're established titles at this point. I'll amend what I was saying to "a large part of me wishes that they had never introduced the titles and tried a system where promotion was determined by a main event win."

I just really hate this trope where the guy/girl getting promoted has a high profile loss in their last NXT match. It makes no sense for all the reasons mentioned earlier.