what im saying is also like, even if you took these 3 and immediately threw them at the top, you STILL can't come up with a card thats very good. Is problem.

I don't think it's that huge a stretch to actually do though:

- Styles enters rumble late, wins. It's not a total burial of current roster or anything because it's the rumble.

- HHH plan backfires as some new guy comes in from some other company and wins the title when he's trying to get it off reigns. sends his boy sheamus at styles at fast lane, who loses handily

- HHH begrudgingly gives the WM main event to reigns to get the belt off styles because hey, i dont like you but at least youre home grown i can deal with you later.

- HHH wants to punish styles friend, match vs lesnar at WM

- Balor Ambrose is putting reigns' friend vs styles' friend to beat the **** out of each other and haitches is fine with that



I mean its not very good. dont get me wrong. its just, uh, nothing available is very good and at least that can be interesting/progress things/get some good matches (plus booking after can be a lot of fun if you put all 3 over, have them dominate for a while, and eventually reunite the shield to take them on, which also would help reigns which they want)

Ok, I see.

They should cancel Fastlane to not risk further injuries to whoever the hell they're planning on putting at the top of the WM card. (I'm actually serious about that, but I'm probably biased by the fact that I don't think any PPV should be between RR and WM.

+1 to that

the middle ppv has NEVER been good or necessary

I forgot about Shinsuke and AJ coming in. They could face each other. Or AJ could face ADR in a battle of who has the least charisma (I love AJ but he doesn't have any).

Shinsuke vs. Brock makes sense. Shinsuke has a legit MMA background as well . Give it to me WWE. I don't want it. I need it!

NWO 2001 though. Other than that, yeah.

Like I said it was just something I came up with off the top of my head, but since you brought it up, make Nakamura a heel and have him go up against Samy Zayn. My point was that the talent for a very good show is there

Shinsuke has stated that he wants to go through NXT to get used to the WWE style, fwiw. He's probably on the NXT special

I think we are very likely to see HHH in either the title match or another big non-title match.

There's a reason why we haven't seen him since the Reigns attack; he's going to pop up in the Rumble in some capacity. Either HHH enters at 30 himself and wins/lets someone else win or he's somehow involved in Reigns' elimination. So either HHH heads into WM as champion or faces off vs Reigns in a non title match (which could also end up being an exact repeat of Bryan's WM 30 too). I originally thought Rock could possibly challenge HHH here but someone said he isn't cleared.

I don't see any other way Reigns could be eliminated. He's not going to win, he's not getting knocked out in any traditional way and he's sort of a lock to be one of the last two or three guys in the ring so something has to happen and this is really all I can think of unless they abandon the Reigns push completely but we won't be so lucky.

What about the possibility Reigns doesn't even make it into the rumble? Something like league of nations jumps on him backstage or on his way to the ring. That way, if they still want to push Reigns, he doesn't look weak, and goes back to having the underdog status.

Just a little tidbit to chew on: Every wrestler that came out of WM 31 is currently injured and won't be in action this year.

not a bad way to go about it but i would be shocked if reigns doesnt participate

Apparently WWE has filed for a trademark thing for "Balor Club". Maybe an invasion type angle with the New Japan guys. Then they can add Balor from NXT. And how about Asuka as well? If, and it's a big if, it's done correctly that could make WM 32 a very good show

To run a good invasion angle, you sort of need something to invade. Almost none of WWE's mainstays are around to defend the company.

Bullet Club (to my knowledge...and I watch/stay up to date with NJPW and have for years (since BC was formed)) never set out to "take over" NJPW. Not in the same way that NEXUS or NWO did. They just set out to win belts. They were a faction much like The Four Horsemen were a faction. I can't imagine them being much more than that in WWE especially since there's only going to be one guy that has a chance at being a relevant champion and he's not American (Shinsuke, not Finn).

Interference in matches and weapon usage were extremely uncommon in New Japan prior to the Bullet Club and the vast, vast majority of matches had clean finishes. Just being western style heels made them outsiders, undermining the sense that wrestling is a legitimate competition/sport which was much stronger in Japan than in the US.

Obviously in WWE this wouldn't have the same feel because WWE has more unclean finishes in a week then New Japan used to have in a year, and always has had western style heel factions. So who knows what they will do.

They've been selling the Balor Club shirts since about a month after he debuted. Some NXT fan made it up himself and wore it to a show, then the WWE just started selling them. Like the others said though, Bullet Club was more about domination rather than invading and taking over. If the report that WWE have the rights to use Bullet Club are true though then I'd say it's almost a lock that they're joining up with Balor.

It'd be weird to see AJ and Finn together. Who would be the leader? Finn's been in the WWE longer and has/had more hype to him. AJ and Finn were never together in NJPW. AJ was a replacement after Finn left. Hopefully, AJ either doesn't join or they tease dissension for a couple of months before there's a leader and break off like in NWO/NWO Black and Red but not done as badly/corny and not always feuding with each other.

To think, nWo Wolfpack and nWo Black and White was done even far worse years later.

Was thinking this myself. I guess it depends on whether the WWE want to keep Japan's kayfabe going(which is unlikely) since the day the rumours broke, AJ was kicked out of Bullet Club and a lot of non NJPW fans saw it getting reported. It would be kind of weird to bring him back with KA/Doc. Maybe they do an angle where he and Finn are buddies then KA/Doc debut and Finn turns on AJ and joins up with them. 2 BC leaders in a match at WM. Again, I think WWE even referencing past NJPW storylines is unlikely though.

Having Nakamura be part of Bullet Club would just be insane.

I can kind of understand the New Nexus because Punk was doing his cult leader gimmick at the time but how did multiple people think The Corre was a good idea.

There are a lot of conflicting reports about this stuff, so I don't know what to believe anymore. I heard somewhere that the WWE only has permission to use the term Bullet Club but New Japan still hold the rights, so who knows.

Also I have almost zero knowledge of the trademark laws in this country, I just know that the WWE filed something in that office with regards to the "Balor Club" term.

Balor Club: We win clean! Revolutionize the business.

I read a report this afternoon that WWE is trying to promote Fast Lane as an A ppv going forward so we can expect it to be huge. Big problem with that as that should be the last ppv that's an "A" ppv since it's on the "road to WM" and it takes a lot of luster away if feuds are blown off the month before WM.

Given this news, I'm predicting the following:
Brock wins the Rumble due to HHH costing Roman
A match between HHH and Roman to see who will face Brock at WM
Roman wins
Roman vs. Brock II - Roman wins.

A dirtsheet came out and said Roman vs. HHH to headline WM but I don't see how they get to that point. HHH just comes in (nbd) and wins. Brock vs. Roman at FL to determine the #1 contender? Awful.

Also, with Roman attacking HHH for no reason at TLC, and HHH still out selling his injuries. How the **** is HHH not the face in this story?!?!?! His return will probably get a pop instead of a groan....especially if he ends up eliminating Roman in the Rumble. What the **** were these people thinking?

edit: I think a triple threat for the belt is a non-zero possibility as well.

With Roman it seems like they have done a lot of "this worked with someone else, let us try it with him". They tried to make him like the Rock and Cena. Didn't work. They tried to make him like Daniel Bryan. Didn't work. So now they have added a bit of Stone Cold just beating people up for no reason. Honestly this has worked a bit better with the crowd in general but I'd rather just have a top face that I genuinely can believe is a nice guy like Daniel Bryan or at least somebody principled like a Bret Hart type at this point. Seems like that would work better with WWE's family friendly image they are trying to push as well.

Either that or they expect people to think HHH has been a bad guy in the past so a preemptive strike is justified. Which is stupid for many reasons. For one, because the WWE themselves often treat things that happened a week or even a day ago as ancient history that is no longer relevant, so they can't expect people to think long term like that when they don't.