Only a nauseating amount of "the ultimate thrill ride".

Has the Raw after Mania always been the same day as the NCAA title game?

Was it just my terrible video quality, or was Roman not wearing his contacts tonight?

It depends on the date of Mania. Title game seems to always be on first Monday of April. WM 31 was on 3/29/15 so it wasn't the same day.

It was last year too, I had tickets to it and was debating what to do if my alma mater, Oklahoma, made it into the title game. They made it moot by losing by 40 in the semis of course.

DISTRACT E ONE ROLLAAAAAPPUUUUUUU

at least we got a full goldberg match

Well that was ****ing pointless.

Wtf was heyman talking about Goldberg did something sting couldn't ?

Win the title since Sting lost at Summer Slam two years ago

In that case, Sting looks a lot like John Cena

True, but they also weren't at the top of the card as heels. IF, and that's a big if, they were to turn him, he would presumably be at the top of the card. If it turned out to work and the crowds took to him, then they could just roll with it and keep him at the top. Of course again, that is a lot of ifs

Sorry, I meant 1 year and 8 months ago

Perhaps your levels ahead of me. Sting didn't wrestle for the championship at SummerSlam. That title match was Cena/Seth.

Sorry, Night of Champions the following month. You are correct

Cliffs for those who don't feel like watching:

-It's been said before but man the nicknames, and more importantly the forced use of said nicknames into every sentence, are brutal. "The Boss" for Charlotte is terrible and completely nonsensical. It wouldn't be so bad if every now and then the heel announcer threw in a "that's why they call her The Boss" or something but I think between Charlotte, Cole, & Graves it was said over 20 times tonight.
-Why was Bayley ever over? She can't put sentences together and is terrible in the ring. I'm starting to think that every non-WWE wrestler who is hyped is just completely overrated (hello Samoa Joe) and all smarks are just hipsters.
-Oh great another angle about two BEST FRIENDS. Every time "friendship" is said in the ring adds another pile of dirt on the casket that is the Attitude Era.
-Holy God Nia Jax is enormous. And no one seems to give a single **** about her.
-This whole Sami Zayn seeing Mick Foley as a mentor thing is hilarious. Sort of reminds me how HHH ****ed Rollins then they forgot about it for 6 months and expected no one to notice. They really have so little respect for viewers.
-Get off my screen Steph
-Yikes cruiserweight stuff. This show sucks.
-Wait, why the **** are Rollins & HHH signing contracts? The contract thing is cool (see: No Way Out 2001) but not when you overdo it. They just had a contract signing last PPV. I guess, once again, they're expecting us to just forget.
-HHH crushing it on the mic per usual. Rollins ok, unfortunately his voice just doesn't lend itself to being the lead babyface of the company. Would make turning Roman so much easier if he could. Good ring stuff by the two as well.
-"The architect better device a master blueprint.." DIE
-So Big Show destroyed two guys I've never heard of and then it took like eleven guys I've barely heard of to throw him out of the ring. I must have missed something or done anything else for a few minutes bc I have no idea why any of that just happened.
-Not so fast my friends. Big Show just rolled back in the ring and took them all on by himself chokeslamming each one before Strowman came out and do some surprisingly decent mic work. LOL at building Strowman up for 6 months only to lose clean to Roman and then be sent down to this ****. Also lol at having so many jobbers on one roster with a ****ing brand split. This show really sucks.
-Awful interview by those bald guys who are tag champs. They had a funny doctor bit a few months ago. They should bring that back.
-Nothing interview with Roman followed by another nothing interview with Seamus and Cesaro where the bald guys jump them. It's been said before but the brand split really really crushed the tag division.
-More cruiserweight ****, this time that creepy looking british albino who fought a good match at the last ppv is doing stuff. why is this match happening the week before WM? Oh also, in case you didn't watch, the Brit flew from the top turnbuckle holding an open umbrella. I'm not joking. Not a bad match though.
-New Day with the worst segment of the night. Good for them.
-Roman gives a pretty decent promo assuming it's setting up a heel turn (although they shoehorned the whole it being 'his yard" bit again which was brutal). Undertaker basically admits he's gonna kill Roman and is cheered. Please ****ing turn him guys, this isn't hard. Taker looks old.
-Enzo/Cass give the same promo they've been giving for almost a year now. Then some match happens between them and the champs 6 days before they're gonna fight at WM. Smart.
-KO/Zayn match where Zayn is fired if he loses. Match of the night (not saying much), some decent spots although Zayn is not very believable and a couple times it's completely obvious he has no effect on KO who oversells a bit too much. Good booking- Joe interferes, Y2J saves Zayn who rolls up a distracted KO.
-Heyman/Lesnar come out and Heyman gives a good promo, albeit similar to what he usually does. Goldberg comes out and spears Lesnar easily...again. I get what they're doing, biggest surprise to me is how little anyone seems to care. Lesnar was being treated like a face/tweener and Goldberg got very little reaction.

So ya, that was awful.

I'm not so sure about the "always going to be rejected as top face" part. Seems there's a big contrarian streak in how the fans react to him. If the company ever set him aside in favor of a mega-push of someone else, especially if that person was worse at the craft, I can pretty easily see Smark Nation suddenly do the "discovered a Strange New Respect™" thing with Roman and then warming to him as they focus their hate on someone else.

Seems to me the one way to get an overwhelmingly positive reaction for him is to dupe the fans into believing that a renewed push was their idea. A heel turn would be part of that, because fans believe that they're being cool and rebellious when they cheer heels; they wouldn't just warm to him as a face who has been demoted down the card.

This is all theoretical though, since I don't really know who else they would reasonably turn to as top face right now. People agitating for a full turn right now are not going to get their wish.

1) The Boss isn't Charlotte, it's Sasha. Charlotte is the Queen.
2) Couldn't a returning (at some point) Finn Balor be the top face we're looking for?

Geoff's troll game is wrestlemania ready

That 2p2 is after? Probably not. He seems to be over with almost everyone else though so yeah he has a good shot. I might have been the biggest Roman hater on here at one point but I've changed my tune quite a bit on him as a performer. His booking is still terrible but I don't think anyone is completely DOA in wrestling if they have the talent and I believe he does. He's proved he can put on good matches and even decent promos when he's allowed to be himself. I think they can still turn it around with him and I don't think a heel turn would hurt, it works for most people. I mean everyone hated Braun and look at what a monster heel run has done to him.

With that said, the top face that everyone is looking for is Kenny Omega.

There will be no top face on Raw with the way the booking is currently.

I read a recap of Raw this morning. Apparently The ****ing Undertaker said "the ultimate thrill ride". WTF.

Wrestlemania: THE ULTIMATE TROLL RIDE

Noticed Rusev wasn't even involved in that ****fest ARMBAR segment, and found it strange. Just googled it and apparently hes out now with an injury...but like, the last time we saw him was getting buried (we really do use that term alot) pathetically by Big Show at that PPV and also basically losing out on a feud to...Jinder Mahal.

He's so unimportant now that his extended absence doesn't require any mention.

Two years ago he came into Wrestlemania on a ****ing TANK to face John Cena in a singles match.

There was also a time when the crowd chanted "We want Lana" at every possible opportunity. Does she exist anymore?

HHH is so much better on the mic than everyone else on Raw. He really is doing the best work of his career.

Why they didn't just announce this on RAW i have no idea, but it's official now. Seems like the perfect opportunity for a Hardyz appearance!

Rusev is injured