No doubt there's a lot of mediocrity and terrible is me over exaggerating. She's mega over and has a few decent matches so she can't be that bad. I just don't think she's even near the same level as the top females like a lot of people seem to think she is.

It seems everyone eventually turns on the NXT women (and men, really). People seem to always say that they get to work matches out in the performance center for a bunch of time prior to special matches. In reality, house shows are the things that people who are about to feud do (or did back in the day) so they can have good tv matches. I don't get how people are so quick to **** on the main roster newcomers after they were so good-great in NXT. Clearly there's something wrong with RAW in particular. I'm not trying to say Bayley's special either, just that her weaknesses are more exposed on RAW.

Speaking of house shows. They held one at MSG opposite of RAW:

Amazing picture. Main event was John Cena's return (vs. AJ and Ambrose) and of course the argument on another forum is "Was it the arena that drew the crowd or Cena returning?".....

Video from it of a sick RKO:

How many straight weeks can they do some variation of Reigns/Owens and expect us to still care? It's getting ridiculous how bad they are at writing storylines.

The Main Event scene is the dregs aside from (I can't believe I'm saying this) Braun Strowman. Absolutely sick of Kevin Owens/Reigns/Rollins in this current iteration.

On the plus side, ShaSaro is fantastic and so is Neville DARK and Jack Gallagher.

It's a speed thing. Charlotte is insanely quick to the lengths WWE women have never seen and she's huge. Sasha can match her in that department but Charlotte is like 9 inches taller. But match pace works.

Hayley looks like she's moving in slow motion against Charlotte while also giving up size. I have the same problem with Becky Lynch when comparing her to Charlotte. It creates this weird dynamic that is hard to watch similar to the Mundo/Star matches in LU.

Save us Io Shirai

Pretty excited for Smackdown tonight. Looking at the card it's basically PPV caliber.

It's also not helping as a whole that Charlotte is the best promo in the division who is miles better than everyone else not named Alexa Bliss

Thought Orton killed him with that RKO.

Not much else from that show other than Miz's fantastic promo before his cage match with Ziggler, which he ended by asking all the inner city sweat hogs to be quiet while his wife removed his sunglasses.

Watching through the eyes of my friend's five year old was much different. I was forced to root for the good guys because she was. Although, even a five year old wondered why the good guys won almost every match and then got up and beat up the bad guys the two they lost (bad sportsmanship?).

Only heels she rooted for were Orton and Wyatt, who basically played as the faces through most of their match (they faced the Usos too) and even went around ringside shaking hands after the match.

I'm guessing that after the KO fiasco last week, they're telling everyone to be more friendly because even many of the heels were interacting with fans at ringside.

There was also a kid two boxes over that screamed that he wanted real wrestling every time the girls were in the ring. Hoping the parents were pretty embarrassed.

Edit: One other semi-interesting thing I just remembered. After Curt Hawkins lost a 6-man tag, he demanded an additional match. Ellsworth came out in a neck-brace.
Bell - No Chin Music - 1,2,3 - Bell
Ellsworth was probably the thing that the non-wrestling fans I was with were most confused about last night.

A few things:

1. Apparently from the MSG reports, American Alpha were getting little to no response. And I can't remember huge pops for them on Smackdown thus far either. They were huge in NXT, they can wrestle great (Jason Jordan's dropkick is a thing of beauty), and they fill the hole of only top level face team on the roster. So I wonder why it's not clicking.

2. I think a lot of the reason people turn on the NXT people is booking differences. I don't mean straight match booking nor making things seem like they matter. I mean that in NXT peoples characters evolved. You followed their path to the top through all the ups and downs, saw the frustration/despair/hope that come from those ups and downs, and saw how these things changed them. Bayley is a perfect example of that of course, but so are most of them. Sami finally getting there. KO coming in and doing things for the money for his family. American Alpha finally beating the revival. And that type of thing doesn't really happen on the main roster. The characters are who they are. They remain static except for face/heel turns and even then a lot of the time they play the same character except they get paired with the other side instead. So you're seeing these nxt people go from complex characters to the most cookie cutter/streamlined version possible, and they get rejected.

Thats like, just my opinion tho? idk if its right?

3. It's such a shame they had a good line to shut down cm punk chants and gave it to steph. Letting KO yell that might like, you know, get some actual heat for once on your champion viewed as a joke right now. I would have also accepted "I can't believe you people have the gall to chant his name".

4. Idk how it happened, but strowman is awesome. IM MULTITASKING was the line of the night. Its probably BECAUSE hes multitasking that hes doing so well right now.

5. Cant wait for smackdown tonight. Should be great.

6. Apparently Cody wasn't happy about people ripping the head off of something representing his father the day after christmas. Always hate when WWE does **** like that. The Flair stuff Paige used, Ric telling Natalya to kill herself, things like that. Not needed people. Stop making talent do stuff like that.

I think this was mostly because it was a very kid heavy audience (cheaper for dad to take kids to house shows) and they were facing Orton (who might have been the most over person of the entire night). Everyone just wanted to see that RKO. Few of the kids even knew who the Alphas were. These didn't seem like NXT watchers and it's one of the few things SD hasn't done right. They've made Ellsworth a bigger deal than they've made the Alphas.

That makes a lot of sense.

Glad Ortons getting so over again. A motivated Orton is one of my absolute favorites.

Have they really done anything to build the characters of AA on Smackdown other than them briefly feuding with The Usos?

They had them win a tag gauntlet only to lose to Orton in the bank

I'll tell you exactly how Strowman became a great attraction. Squash matches. They were able to build him properly without having to have him trade wins with someone on the roster. Imagine if they actually did that with other people on the roster

Ive surprisingly missed how Cena can take over a crowd. Great opening segment imo. Also shocked that his challenge is at the rumble. Will they do #16 at the rumble or wait til mania? I have no idea and thats exciting.


I also cant believe ive reached the point where i hear brays music and get excited too. here we are tho

I know we've said this before but there was some serious heel turn seeds planted in that promo

the ending made it seem like it, but i think it's just him embracing where his character is right now

looool i missed the gallagher duel challenge. amazing

hope Slater didn't mess up his knee too badly there, thought he just ****ed up the jump off the corner but he was holding it after like something was wrong

im on board with that

match was quite good too. orton + alpha looked so smooth in there

Just tuned in. Didn't expect to see that.

if the whole wyatt family thing ends up with orton getting bray to kick harper out and then orton capitalizing on bray being alone finally by beating the crap out of him, i think ill enjoy that

CERO MIEDO

tuning into SD for the first time

baron corbin is a thing?