It sounds like there was a long-term plan for Shane to come back to the company in some way.

I wouldn't be shocked if several months ago the plan was something like Reigns-Lesnar for the title, Taker-Sting, Rollins-HHH with Shane possibly involved to turn it into a tag match, Cena vs whoever would provide a high-profile crowd-pleasing match, but injuries have completely blown their plans to hell and they've been scrambling to fit things together.

I wouldn't be shocked if they have a wild brawl that is more spectacle than match, ending with Taker giving Shane multiple Tombstones and pulling an unconscious Shane up at two, then saying FU to Vince and putting Shane on top of himself to take the intentional loss.

Sure looks like it. Pretty clear they're trying to sell a broken nose, and it didn't happen hardway.

That said, even though fake, I like the move to blood and the more aggressive brutality. Doesn't have to be over the top, or constant like ECW or even the AE, but it got the crowd into it. Red does equal green.

At this point a single good pop might be worse than never getting one. It could be a situation similar to a bad relationship, where just enough good things happen to convince them to stick with it.

Or it could be a situation where Vince truly doesn't care what the fans think; he wants Roman's face to be on 12 PPV posters a year, so here it is, like it or not.

He clearly cares what the fans think to the extent that he at least takes obvious steps to manipulate crowd reaction.

Some of them are obvious steps in the wrong direction though. Like HHH violently beating Reigns down in a fair fight, then pandering to the crowd with the crotch chops and such. It is clear that stuff like that is going to get HHH a face reaction these days, unless it is in Alabama or something.

This. Although the I could see them thinking that he would get a good reaction in Nashville, then think that Philly has become a Reigns city because of the pop he got last time he was there. Of we know what will happen if he shows up there.

I'd be shocked if that wasn't the case. Shane's matches have a pattern and especially against The Undertaker, they will adhere to him getting about 15% of the offense while he bumps like a madman. I like your idea at the end. It wouldn't shock me to see it, either.

was looking at wwe corporate numbers today and one thing surprised me, their merch sales pretty much doubled in 2015 after remaining pretty steady from 2010-14. what's the reason for that?

are kids buying the **** out of roman reigns ****?

The numbers I looked at said merch sales were up about 10% overall, not 100%. Meltzer says Reigns is second in merch sales behind Cena, but it isn't all that close. One thing I noticed is that nearly everybody in NXT has merch (Asuka had multiple shirts plus masks right away), and they have a small but rabid and quickly growing fan base.

my mistake, should've said that they've almost doubled since 2013 (with a little more than half of the growth occurring from '14 -> '15)

2013: 320k pieces of merch shifted
2014: 423k
2015: 589k

I was looking at a dollar amount figure; perhaps they lowered prices on average and/or came up with some popular but less expensive pieces of merch.

well i found the official explanation for 2013 -> 14 increase

looks like nothing to see here, was hoping to uncover some sort of grand we-must-get-roman-reigns-over-look-at-the-merch-numbers conspiracy

as an aside i was pretty surprised at the % of revenue which is comprised of merch sales: less than 5%

thought this was funny, from the '**** that could go wrong' section of the annual report

Is it possible that the Shane/UT is actually setting up two matches or a tag team? It seems likely that UT would refuse to fight Shane, leading to Shane and UT tagging or two separate matches. Each match is good guy versus Vince's thug.

Anything's possible just by judging the fact that they announced Shane vs. Taker in a HiaC match for control of RAW, none of which makes any sense.

Vince did say **** last night and there's an unedited video going around but WWE are going crazy getting it deleted from everywhere.

You can see it here - http://uproxx.com/prowrestling/vince...f-bomb-on-raw/

Perhaps Vince shouldn't have said any naughty words if he was going to be such a ****ing child about people hearing them.

That Reigns fake bleeding thing has to go viral with him being handed the packet and fans need to start bringing ketchup packets for him to shows.

I'd like to see them turn this into a 3 way fight for control.

Vince has his old school guys and a couple of the younger guys.

HHH/Steph have the NXT talent.

Shane gets the new/young talent already on the main roster.

If they don't completely "Shockmaster" this then it could be an angle that runs for 2yrs.

Maybe add in Linda with a few retired guys and make it a 4 way battle.

great idea then they could have a McMahon in every corner

I lol'ed pretty hard at this.

Linda is challenging Brock.

They've already got rid of it from here

Try this - https://vid.me/Tk4O

i cant find the post/what thread it was in, but there was a discussion the other day of if cole has ever made a good call. the answer imo is yes. both "the streak ... is over" and his "oh my god" when punk beat cena at mitb were both very good lines that highlighted the importance of the moment (not so much the lines themselves, but the delivery).

however my favorite call by anyone is probably JRs close to wrestlemania 20 where he goes off about benoit winning. And I know someone mentioned coles call of WM 30 but screaming THE MIRACLE KID over and over for 5 minutes didn't do anything for me.