She's also had 1 against Charlotte and 1 at the fatal 4-way where she initially won the title.

Five 4+ star matches in 2015. Not bad for someone who was born in 1992.

If we added or subtracted stars for the build/lack of build or how much we wanted to see each match beforehand, where would they rank? Because that's just as important to me. I'd rather watch a 2* match or maybe even less (think Hogan/Andre) that they got me emotionally invested in than the match of the year that they either just threw together or didn't do enough to make me care about.

EDIT: Did they just stick #5 in there to see if anybody was paying attention?

Philly chanted "Thank you, Roman" when he destroyed HHH. I think it's safe to say that Roman's getting cheered vs. HHH.

I did a double take when I saw the database listing that match also. But other sources confirm it. http://www.wrestlingforum.com/genera...es-2015-a.html

My biggest fear is Brock vs Reigns at RR. HHH screws Reigns out of championship and they fight at WM. But a returning Cena wins RR and we have Brock vs Cena for the 100th time at WM for the title.

Would rather see Wyatt win the title and Brock the RR. Then have Cena vs Taker at WM where Taker beats him and Cena has to retire.

Brock is facing Reigns at WM. I've assumed this since the match with Rollins at SS was announced. Back then I assumed it'd somehow be a triple threat match. However, it's happening without Rollings now.

This is my prediction:
Reigns beats Brock
Cena beats Taker

SummerSlam:
Reigns beats Cena with a 5% chance of Cena beating Reigns at SS and Reigns beating Cena at WM 33 after winning the Rumble again.

So I went to the wiki page for the WWE championship on my phone just now (wanted to see when the last time an actual title change happened on Raw, cliffs: it's been a while), and got fooled by the headings list wherein an entire section was named "Reigns". I thought to myself "damn, someone went overboard giving Roman an entire section there". Then I felt dumb.

You left us hanging, so I had to check for myself.

July 25, 2011. 1603 days before last Monday's Raw. 229 episodes.

If you don't want to count that because it was a tournament, you have to go back to November 22, 2010, when the Miz cashed in his briefcase.

For the Big Gold Belt, Dolph cashed in on April 8, 2013.


I wonder if they are going to do it more often. The reason it was always on PPV before was to encourage people to buy PPVs. But with a captive 1+ million network subscribers, they might want to increase the number of title changes on Raw to boost viewership.

Pure speculation but with the announcing change, the network change, going live, and the recent word out of WWE that they want to make it a priority including "significant changes", I'm thinking they are gonna take the NXT type model and try it on a larger scale (smackdown)?

regardless im interested but that would make sense. heres hoping

I'll spot you 2011, not because of the win which filled in a "vacated" belt (this was in the aftermath of Punk leaving after MITB... depressing that that's been 4.5 years now), but because of the Cena in the bank "rematch" cash in.

The last time a title was held by one person and won by another person via something other than a MITB or CITB cash in (though I admit those at least fulfill the "something could happen on Raw" category) was...

Funny another "old guy" and i were talking last week about how they used to keep you guessing in the 80s when once in a while when they'd announce on Saturday morning that the tag title or the IC title changed hands at some random house show. This was the Hogan era so nothing was happening with him off of a major card.

Being in a small town as a kid we had some hope of seeing something happen live. It never did, but it sold tickets. Substitute "Raw" for "house show" and you have a strategy to boost ratings today.

I had the opposite experience when I went to my first house show. We went there hoping to see Ric Flair. Not only was he on the card, we found out he was the brand new champion! That fact hadn't even been announced yet. He won on September 1, but it didn't air until September 14.

Out of curiosity, I decided to see what the card was for that show.

All that was taped the night you were there Gus? What was the pacing like? Seems like a lot going on even though many quick squashes in there.

I've only seen "C" house shows live. 6 or 7 matches or so. Maybe there was a time Scranton were "B" shows but biggest stars I recall I saw in the day were Andre (on the way down), Savage, Santana, Honky etc. They were still entertaining. My dad laughed hysterically at Steele v Adorable Adrian.

My last WWF show I went to in the early 90s I guess had Bret v Owen "no holds barred". After that nothing live until ECWs heyday, and nothing since.

Aside: I love how we get an exact time on Max Moon vs Duane Gill but Ultimate Warrior wins in "about two minutes". Even the guy doing the recaps couldn't be bothered with a ****ty Warrior match.

It's been a long time so I really don't remember much about it. The only reason I even remember the date is because of the Ric Flair title change. IIRC, it was long and some of the people in our group ended up leaving early because it was so long. At the time, I had stopped watching wrestling for a few years and stayed to get the whole experience. The only reason I remember staying the whole time is because I remember Kamala running through the crowd, which apparently happened at the end of the card.

I know some people complain about the lack of squash matches these days, but I'm sure house shows are much more entertaining now than squash after squash like that show.

Vince heard the we want Cena chants at tlc and Cena is due for a royal rumble win or wwe title reign....

Unlikely. Cena's coming back for the Rumble and maybe a couple of RAWs but he's not advertised for any shows after RR.

Idk this is the season when they need to get hot and build feuds so bringing back Cena sooner would be better than later.

Two more 4 star matches at the TLC PPV. Here are Meltzer's complete ratings:

Sasha Banks vs Becky Lynch - 2.75
New Day vs Usos vs Lucha Dragons - 4.25
Rusev vs Ryback - 2.75
Alberto Del Rio vs Jack Swagger - 3.25
Wyatt Family vs Team Extreme - 2.5
Dean Ambrose vs Kevin Owens - 3.5
Charlotte vs Paige - 3
Sheamus vs Roman Reigns - 4

The updated list I posted earlier of 4+ star PPV matches in 2015:

1. Lesnar/Rollins/Cena at RR 4.75
2. Reigns/Bryan 4.5
3. Bryan wins IC ladder match 4.25
4. Rollins/Reigns/Lesnar 4.5
5. Reigns/Big Show 4
6. Owens/Cena Elimination Chamber 4.5
7. Ambrose/Rollins Elimination Chamber 4
8. Cena/Owens MitB 4.5
9. Rollins/Ambrose ladder MitB 4
10. Cena/Owens Battleground 4.25
11. Rollins/Cena SummerSlam 4.5
12. Taker/Lesnar SummerSlam 4
13. Wyatts vs RR/Ambrose/Jericho 4
14. Cena/Rollins Night of Champions 4
15. Lesnar/Taker HiaC 4.25
16. New Day/Usos/Lucha Dragons 4.25
17. Sheamus/Roman Reigns TLC 4

I swear that Meltzer watches some of these matches on mute with the crowd blurred out. To me it's basically impossible for a match to reach four stars while the crowd openly dumps all over it, even if objectively the workers did four-star work (which I don't know about for that main event, I think I joined it in progress).

Crowd didn't dump all over Reigns/Sheamus. They were chanting Cena's name and not into it in the beginning. But they were into it at the end, and very into it when he destroyed HHH.

Destruction of HHH wasn't part of the match. I distinctly remember posting about how I could sympathize with these guys taking a bunch of nasty bumps and the crowd completely crapping on it and seemingly not appreciating the match at all. They may have gotten into it for the endgame sequence, but mostly the crowd was very negative on it.

Main event was god awful with chants from "We want Cena" to "CM Punk". Terrible. I'm with you on the crowd thing as I've stated numerous times. I loved the NXT crowd, especially in the opener where there weren't obnoxious chants but boos for Emma/Dana and chants for "Askah".

Continuity error: Roman said they haven't seen HHH since he speared him. Apparently missed the NXT special.

The NXT universe is apparently a different universe than the WWE Universe. HHH is a man whose wife's social media accounts say "I play a bad guy on TV." Doubt he cares much for kayfabe.