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Please click through to enjoy The Bray and Worst of WWE Raw, July 8, 2013.
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It’s here! It’s here!
The Lipton Bomb didn’t get a pinfall because it wasn’t preceded by a Snapple Suplex
+Tetley
+1 for Teavana
Honest TeaDT
Bray Wyatt is too good a character for the WWE audience. Moving him to Smackdown is a good idea, though.
Anyone else amazed at how Bray and his family even know of Twitter’s existence let alone Tweet when they don’t even have electricity?
I like to think Bray has a prepaid cell phone and is using Luke Harper’s phone as a hotspot.
Bray learned about that kind of wordly garbage from Husky Harris….right before he killed him. Bray now uses Husky’s phone to continue to spread the word. See he is a backwards looking sociopath who is a genius and technically savvy to boot in a Cape Fear kinda way…..Awesome!
Thank you. Now it all makes sense to me.
I am really digging Bray and family right now. Please, please, please WWE don’t F this up. D=Bry has been the only thing keeping me tuned in….until NOW.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I teared up when Ryback hugged Vickie. It was such a small gesture but EVERYONE on the show is just needlessly cruel to her and she doesn’t act that overtly heelish.
I did too, that was the most wonderful moment of the night.
I miss Shane McMahon…
I needed that hug. It brought back some faith in the WWE and let me stay for the Wyatt Family appearance.
that whole sequence did seem overly cruel. Vince Mcmahon being the “sympathetic” one and all. Miss Heather I couldn’t agree with you more. Shane McMahon was the best.
Ryback hugging Vickie is legitimately one of my favorite little things the WWE has done in YEARS. I almost didn’t know how to process it, based on the 15-minute shitting-on-Vickie segment that preceded it.
Seriously, WWE, have more wrestlers acting like REAL PEOPLE. It won’t make you more like a soap opera; in fact, it will make you less.
I teared up too, then I go on the Net and see people writing stuff like, “Is that fat bitch going to do a romance angle with Ryback!? WWE suxs.” There are some really dumb people on the Internet.
I love that Xander Crewes is now in charge of Raw. And anyone who brings up Husky Harris now, in the face of such awesomeness, is out of touch. It was damn cool.
I hope he makes a decision and says “And if you don’t like it, there’s the big-ass door!”
(BOOSH!)
I kinda want him to get abducted by someone, and show up the next week with a wig glued to his head.
“Kozlov, is that your rape wig?”
“Da, is one of them”
One of my biggest laughs is from season two, when Xander cheerfully tells Wendell “Go kill that baby, buddy!”
That… might be too over-the-top for a wrestling show. Even in the Attitude Era.
It’s a shame Frisky Dingo can’t spark a long quote exchange the way Simpsons or Futurama might.
Well, not with that attitude.
Haha. Well played.
Okay, who here has read Flowers for Algernon?
I hope Sheamus loses a hair vs hair match now. He will be Killface.
When they inevitably fuck up Bray Wyatt, it will be a sad day.
Slow your roll. They haven’t fucked up B-Bry or The Shield. So there is hope they’ll manage the Wyatt Family properly / effectively.
You’re right. Listing a year old stable and a veteran who was given a 18-second title loss at Wrestlemania and then put into a comedy tag team totally reverses my opinion based on decades of watching WWE/WCW/TNA fuck-ups…well done, sir.
They fucked up D-Bry for a LONG time before they got it right. Do you not remember the year plus of the announcers harping on him for being a weird nerd who reads and doesn’t even have a TV and he DOESN’T EVEN EAT MEAT, WHAT A PUSSY!, because it happened and it was god awful.
Karate_Jesus, I realize that I’m not a super all the time regular poster on here, but I have made a habit of late of praising the work of WWE Creative. I know, it’s really only been the last couple of months where I’ve been saying “hey, they must have hired some actual decent writers to put this shit together” because I spent the past year or more absolutely tearing WWE Creative a new asshole every time I posted on here.
The fact of the matter is that the WWE has done an excellent job, more often than not, of doing the ‘right thing’ when it comes to their story lines and character development. Yes, they still do shit that is completely fucking retarded. Yes, we all know that. But they’ve been doing a lot of stuff lately that is really fucking awesome. And it’s all been happening at the same time (more or less). So if you want to be the kind of person who forms an opinion and never changes it then, okay, go ahead and be that guy.
Just to be clear, I tend to change my opinions often, but only based on available evidence. I responed to your comment because I felt you were dismissing my opinion based on very thin evidence. I responded in a snarky way, granted, but “slow your roll” is a phrase that automatically gets my dander up. So, I apologise, no harm intended. If you wish to list the things that WWE has produced recently that have been “really fucking awesome” I’d be happy to read and consider them. I share your hope that they will use Wyatt effectively; I just don’t share your enthusiasm.
I loved this paragraph, but I think you can take it one step further
“When he does things, they matter. Here, he’s taken out Kane. What does that mean? Well, he’s got a ready-made feud with Daniel Bryan, which would light the world on fire. He’s got an issue with the Undertaker, if they want to go the Taker/Bray route at the Louisiana WrestleMania. He’s also cleared up a spot in the WWE Championship Money In The Bank match. Who’s gonna take that? Wyatt himself, flanked by the Family? Somebody else? In four minutes Bray Wyatt appeared, made things happened and changed the direction of multiple stories. This is how characters should be created, and this is what characters should be doing with TV time. Making the show move. Making people talk.”
Bray Wyatt made all of those things happen, but he didn’t physically do any of them. The hold he has over Rowan and Harper (I’m pretty sure that was Rowan chanting Obey in the compound) is what makes the character terrifying. He didn’t attack Kane because he didn’t have to. Bray Wyatt only gets involved when it’s absolutely necessary.
WWE has done cult leaders before and they’ve always ended up as selfish frauds using their followers for their own personal gain. Bray seems different. He seems very much like real life cult leaders who honestly believe they’re messengers of a cosmic power sent to change the world.
I was worried WWE (with their habit of ripping off pop culture way too late to be relevant) was going to go with a riff on The Dark Knight Rises where the corrupt businessman (in this case Vince McMahon) brought in the ruthless cult leader to gain power but then couldn’t control said cult leader. I’m glad Bray isn’t caught up in that McMahon mess.
Ryback hugged a widow who’d just been fired and humiliated on national television.
His heel turn has been solidified.
Only HHH and Stephanie could make Heel Vince seem logical, compassionate, and forward thinking.
Some day I want to be rich enough to buy the WWE just to do a segment where Stephanie and HHH get humiliated and then Ryback walks up to them and says, “it doesn’t get better. You two are assholes” and walks away.
I thought that it was Rowan in that room, listening to a tape of Bray saying “Obey!” to him on a loop. Heh.
I think I shared this story last night but it bears repeating in light of what Brandon said about chanting Husky Harris. When I was at Raw there was this kid who couldn’t have been older than ten who kept yelling “The Shield sucks!” So I decided to have a little fun with the kid, “No they don’t,” I said. He looked at me and was clearly surprised an adult he didn’t know was talking to him about wrestling. “Yes they do!” he insisted. “They’re undefeated! They’ve beaten John Cena and the Undertaker! You may not like them but they do not suck” I retorted. The kid sat for a second, thinking, and finally yelled, “I hate you, Shield!” and looked back at me for, I don’t know, validation? I just smiled and nodded.
I’m not saying you can’t be a smark or cheer for heels, but trying to show just how damn cool and smart you are is obnoxious. And it’s especially bad when it’s someone who you should be enjoying. Bray Wyatt is awesome, why don’t you chant RNN at Orton? Or Prototype at Cena?
I had a similar experience with a kid next to me at ‘Mania.
Kid: The Shield Sucks
Me: What? The Shield are good. They’re a good team.
Kid: Nuh-uh, they suck.
Me: They stand against Injustice. Are you telling me you support injustice?
Kid: (stares at me confused)
Me: (To his Dad) Your son supports injustice.
My wife watched all the Bray Wyatt segments with more interest than she’s shown in the product since the Summer of Punk. (Usually she sits in the living room on and dicks around on her laptop while half-watching with me.) That debut was very, very impressive.
Yeah, as Brandon mentioned in the Best / Worst, the way they used the light of the match and the lantern to illuminate the faces of the family standing in the darkness behind him was so awesome / evil / diabolical / frighting / did I mention awesome? it literally made me say “Fuck, that was awesome.” and I was watching Raw at home by myself.
I loved Michael Cole for trying to counteract the Bellas’ garbage. And I LOVED Ryback for being a decent person. I was SO afraid that Vickie was going to run into Punk, and he was going to say something “funny.” I like pretty much everything Punk does (yes, including the “clown shoes” stuff with Big Johnny, b/c it was harmless). But an interaction with Vickie would have made me cringe.
It pains me to say this, but everything about Ziggler seems so forced now. His celebration after he interrupted the fiesta felt ‘off’ somehow. Last week, I was live at the show, so I don’t know how his ‘climb the top rope to distract Del Rio’ thing played on TV, but I thought it was a total mistake. And last night, the commentary team *talked over* Ziggler while he did his dumb Ricardo impression. That’s *can’t* be how it was supposed to go.
But also a Worst to Michael Cole for calling Mark Henry’s attack a cheap shot. Cena drew a line, dared him to cross it and he did. How was that cheap?
Well, if we’re splitting hairs, Henry had already said he wasn’t interested in a fight, and then hit Cena when he took his eyes off of Henry to bend down and pick up his belt. So… it’s debatable as a cheap shot.
But sure, compared to a sledgehammer in the back, or something, it wasn’t that bad. Certainly not worth an indignant response from Cole and/or Lawler.
Kevin beat me too it. I don’t see it as a cheap shot when it is a 400lb man coming at you from all the way across the ring, your back is not even completely turned, and you dared said 400lb man to cross “a line”. Me, If I just made that challenge to someone like Mark Henry, I have my eyeballs fixed on him until he goes up the ramp and out the back….then I check around corners as I leave. Cole did make up for it by trying to shut up tweedle-fake-dee and tweedle-dumb. Boy how bad are you when that has to happen?
I’m so proud, i got a top comment and but it has a spelling error.
I blame it on the Wyatt’s “Ned Starking” Kane.
sorry but you do NOT mention Silva in the same BREATH AS THAT FUCKFACE!! (as you can see, it still hurts) But other than that, great writeup.
and by fuckface I mean Cena, not Weidman.
Cena should, from this day forward, be referred to as THE FUCKFACE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED.
I still believe from the Job Evaluation to Ryback Being The Cutest Thing In Wrestling As Of This Moment In Time was probably the darkest and the most needlessly cruel WWE’s been in a while. (Note after I saw The Bellas, King & Cole were sharing the Headset I knew to Mic it.) In other news who do you think will win? Sexual Chocolate or Prototype (It’s funny because Baltimore.)
Honestly, if I hadn’t been doing the live commentary thread I couldn’t have watched it without turning the channel. The Austin-McMahon stuff was just as humiliating to Vince as the Vince-JR stuff is to JR. But it’s not funny when it’s the powerless person being made fun of. Vince could always fire Austin, JR couldn’t fire Vince.
This is what drives me nuts, too. Let’s say that Cena, not Ryback, was the one who walks up to Vickie and delivers the same line (possibly prefaced by: “I know we’ve had our differences but…”) who is harmed by that? Cena looks like the bigger man, Vickie gets a moment of dignity, and the McMahons go back to their home planet, who’s unhappy?
And Cena would have been *gasp* A FACE CHARACTER DOING A GOOD DEED. H Christ, it’s not that hard to know what being a good person and a bad person is like?
No. This board would have been full of “Oh God, they’ll do anything to make Cena likeable!” posts. I agree with almost everything my fellow internet friends post on here, but the Cena hate (while mostly deserved) goes way over the top.
Pardon my french, Jessico, but that’s bullshit. Please consult any of the pre WrestleMania 28 Raw columns where I praised Cena and got shit on for it weekly. I say he sucks because he’s been mailing it in hard since his divorce.
To be honest, I’m a bit conflicted about the general reaction to the Husky Harris chants. We (the B/W open threaders) have a tendency to applaud crowds when they buck “Kayfabe” in causes we approve of (see either of the last two post-‘Mania crowds), but are quick to get annoyed when it’s something we don’t approve of, like last night.
Personally, I didn’t get all that chuffed about the “Albert” chants for Tensai or the “Goldberg” chants for Ryback, because in both cases I kind of suspected that what the audience was expressing was an overall level of disapproval of the general laziness of the “new” gimmick. “He’s a big star in Japan, so let’s make him a samurai!” doesn’t seem like a significant improvement over “he has piercings, so let’s name him after one!”, and the initial Ryback push certainly felt like a lazy rehash of the Goldberg “streak” storyline, so I guess I get it. The chants aren’t something I would do if I were in a live crowd, but I understand the sentiment.
That said, if you were in the small group of people chanting “Husky Harris” last night because you believe that Bray Wyatt ISN’T a significant improvement over “he’s kind of chubby so let’s make his first name ‘Husky'”, eat a dick. And if you were doing it to seem cool because you’re “in on the big secret” that EVERYBODY OVER THE AGE OF 9 has been in on for more than 20 years, eat two.
Here’s what I think is the difference – the B/Wers are cool with bucking kayfabe in the case of a not liking how something is presented i.e., “Why are the guys we’re supposed to cheer acting like sociopaths, while bad guys are being logical before being jumped from behind?” But we’re pretty strong about buying into the whole thing, and we generally hate when people try to ruin it for everyone else. (see: “You rent those cars, Alberto!”)
You can like who you like. Austin and Rock became Austin and Rock because people found the bad guys entertaining. But what if people chanted “Stunning Steve” while he was trying to fight Mike Tyson?
I think it’s been pretty consistent. People were, at best, neutral about the chants. If you’re going to chant at least give someone a chance to suck.
I don’t think the B/W-specific response is quite as cut and dried as you’re presenting it, 85. There are definitely situations where our complaints about face/heel dynamics are (subjectively) justified, but there are also just times when we’re glad when a crowd bucks Kayfabe just because we like the other guy better. Bryan/Sheamus at WM28 and the aftermath is a perfect example – that feud had been built pretty strongly along traditional face/heel dynamics. Sheamus was the legitimately bigger and stronger guy who was getting ducked by Bryan, the cowardly heel champion, who spent every other free moment treating his sweet GF like garbage, so seeing the heel get his comeuppance in an especially embarrassing way SHOULD have been the right result. But it was Daniel Bryan, so Brandon and a lot of the commenters here were pissed. I think the world of DB, but I think there’s some cognitive dissonance involved if you can celebrate the unabashed dickishness he had on display during his “King of the Rollup” days and still not accept that when somebody is an unabashed dick in pro wrestling, they’re SUPPOSED to get embarrassed every once in a while.
Like I said, I see absolutely no valid reason for anybody in that crowd to chant “Husky Harris” during what was otherwise a stellar debut. But I do think those of us who got up on our high horses about it need to recognize that there’s a tiny bit of hypocrisy involved.
The Bryan example you’re bringing up is an entirely different case for a few reasons.
1) People liked Bryan because he was a jerk, but a legitimately entertaining one – that stretch is where “Yes!” started, and it caught on because he was playing his character so well. Again, people hated The Rock UNTIL he started referring to himself in the third person. If you’re entertaining people will catch on.
2) I don’t think many people expected him to win at Wrestlemania. It was Wrestlemania, conclusions are what they build to, and that story should have ended with him losing. BUT-
3) Wrestlemania cost 70 bucks. People cross oceans to see it. Give us 15 minutes to watch the best guy do his thing.
Again, it’s all about the presentation. Give us a good show and we’ll eat it up.
But that’s only because your particular subjective definition of “good show” includes 15 fewer minutes of Rock/Cena rest holds and 15 more minutes of Bryan being awesome. I happen to agree, but that doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge that there are fans who got the same amount of entertainment out of seeing Bryan get chumped as you or I would have out of a great match between him and Sheamus. I can’t in good conscience devalue their opinion just because a lot of them happen to be children, any more than I’m allowed to get mad at my 4-year-old when she wants me to turn off the Eagles game and put on Caillou.
I guess the question here is whether we’re entitled to say that a crowd response is objectively constructive or destructive to the experience of the show. Brandon’s response will almost certainly be that he’s ALWAYS writing from his own subjective experience and that I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate to play Devil’s Advocate, which I should probably stop doing since it usually winds up with somebody I like and respect pissed off at me. So I’ll stop now.
Sure, children may have wanted Sheamus to win, so did most casual. But a lot of people over the age of 10, including people like us, paid to see that match and didn’t get it. That’s sort of beside the point we were originally arguing though. My main point is that people doing those chants are ruining the experience for the people around them and the people who hear it. Like the comment right below this said, it’s like pointing out the special effects in a movie. Even weirder, the people doing it ostensibly care about the product enough to figure out who the guy is and spend the cash on the ticket, then go out of their way to make sure they don’t enjoy the experience themselves. It’s “look at me” being yelled from off-stage. I don’t think cheering for the bad guy is the same thing.
If it wasn’t the Wyatts, none of yall would have any problem with the chanting.
Slow your rolls and stop acting all indignant about BREAKING KAYFABE.
I agree, but dude should be fine and pull through after a promo shuts them up.
If Ryback wasn’t such a crappy wrestler with no mic skills, the GOLDBERG chants would have stopped immediately.
@85 – But that’s exactly my point. Are we entitled to say that chanting an old gimmick name at Bray Wyatt is objectively “ruining the experience” for the people around them? There’s a comment somewhere downthread from somebody who was there suggesting that a group of the chanters immediately started talking about how great the segment was as soon as it was over. Isn’t possible that at least a few of these folks are doing it as some sort of weird gesture of recognition and respect? If a crowd started chanting “American Dragon” at Bryan during a match, would we take it personally and think it ruins the experience for everybody else?
Again, at this point I’m just arguing to argue because it’s fun thinking out loud. I think chanting old gimmick names is a pointless waste of time, but I just don’t have the energy to get super worked up about it.
@dhcguy – Cool story, bro. Thanks for your insightful input.
Nope, you’re totally wrong about that. They did it to Tensai the first night and we hated it then too. It’s stupid, and it doesn’t impress anyone, but it’s an easy way for stupid people to draw attention to themselves.
JBShakes has an interesting point I hadn’t thought of. If a crowd chanted “American Dragon,” it wouldn’t be disrespectful at all. At Smackdown in Omaha back in May, guys in my section followed an Ambrose chant with a “Jon Moxley” chant. That chant was WAY too “smart” for it’s own good; but it wasn’t meant disrespectfully.
So not every “I remember that guy’s former character” chant is automatically negative. But Husky Harris’ career wasn’t so storied that people would be remembering him fondly.
lol
It’s wayyyy more of a reach than I’m willing to make to buy that those guys were doing it as a tip of the cap. Whether it’s meant to disrespect the guys or not, it’s some dopes trying to draw attention to themselves in the only forum where anyone would listen to them pat themselves on the back like that without getting their underwear waistband pulled over their heads. It’s indy as hell in the worst possible way.
No way they were doing it cause they loved the explosion impression husky harris made on them.
But are you telling me you really have a problem with fans chanting, ANYTHING?
The fans who started the Fandango shit didn’t do it out of admiration for the character.
Did you all also hate the crowd after mania? what a bunch of insensitive kayfabe breaking assholes, right?
How dare they chant HBK or macho man during a randy orton match!
“explosion impression”
Good talk, champ.
You’re missing the point, dhc. The “HBK”, “Macho Man”, “JBL”, etc. chants on the post-Mania Raw this year weren’t necessarily destructive to the match, just a crowd voicing their displeasure with a match they’d already repeatedly seen between two guys they’re not all that fond of. It was attention-seeking and stupid, but didn’t have the potentially destructive nature of the “Husky Harris” chants last night. The Bray Wyatt gimmick is based on the idea that the audience HAS to buy into this guy as a crazy cult leader, and reminding everybody that he’s really just a repackaged NXT guy doesn’t help that. I’m not arguing that people should be allowed to chant whatever they damn well please, just that the reactions we (the B&Wers) give should strive to be constructive instead of just making a blanket statement that everybody in Baltimore sucks.
Obviously, the solution here is to create teams of roving B&Wers who get free tickets to all future RAWs so that we can start “YOU’RE NOT HELPING” counter-chants any time the fans start smelling their own farts. Brandon, you can totally hook that up, right? We should apply for a grant or something.
I feel ya JB, it all just seems a little selective, is all.
And I’m positive that husky will be fine once he delivers his first promo.
this 85 dude can eat 2 tho.
A lot of people bring up the “why do you do x at this time and y at another” thing in an effort to “disprove” my points, but two major truths:
1. I am not “right,” I’m just telling people what I think about the show and am not gonna preface every sentence with “IMHO,” because it is obviously in my opinion
2. A lot of times people get the point, but ignore the context.
People will tell me I said something, but not reference the two-to-five paragraphs I wrote alongside it to establish context. That’s what makes certain things make sense in my brain, and certain things not. A lot of it has to do with the heel/face dynamic in WWE, a lot of it has to do with my disappointment in people for not having the capacity for abstract thought a la Ulysses Everett McGill, and a lot of it has to do with me being a wrestling fan who is not always right.
Yes, we all hated the post-Wrestlemania crowd because there is no such thing as context, and also we are but a hive-mind that thinks and opines as one.
Seriously though, if you can’t discern the difference in intent between the post-WM crowd chanting their non sequiturs and last night’s “Husky Harris” audible wanking motion, contextual awareness may be beyond you.
@dhc – Yeah, of course it’s selective. Context is definitive.
@Brandon – You know that I get all that. As it goes, I wasn’t really even all that bothered by your personal reaction to the chants, as much as I was a little bothered by the overwhelming level of anger and invective directed at the crowd in general from the community at large. What I love about this particular group is that we’ve crafted out a little community of (mostly) like-minded people who basically want to say, “We’re wrestling fans, and we’re not stupid. You don’t have to treat us like 12-year-olds, you don’t have to pander to our basest interests, and you don’t have program EVERYTHING towards the lowest common denominator.”
When that community responds to something they don’t like from another group of fans by basically writing them off as idiots and hurling invective, I think it’s less than totally constructive, that’s all. They’re not really listening and wouldn’t care if they were, but I think it’s important to try and bring other fans over to our side, not just say they’re stupid.
Overheard at the theatre during ‘Dracula’ :
“Look, you can see the wires when they’re flying around!”
Yeah, no shit, dumb fuck. If you’re Husky Harris!’ing or What!’ing, you don’t belong there. If you don’t understand what’s happening then leave. This isn’t for you.
Depends on what you’re what-ing. If you what Randy Orton that’s fine. But don’t do it because someone pauses.
I do feel the WWE audience needs to be “retrained” in that chanting stupid crap and/or What SHOULD get you tossed from an event. It’s less about disrespect for heels and more about disrespect for the performers at this point.
The Husky Harris stuff, no matter how faint, did frustrate me last night. There was no reason to chant it. None. It’s not a “sign of respect”. It is purposely shitting up a segment that was going absolutely wonderfully otherwise. These fans need to go away, as they clearly don’t care about making the product good for everyone but themselves.
Re: Husky Harris chants, I haven’t enjoyed a Tom Cruise movie since 1983 because everytime he comes on the screen I just chant “STEVIE RANDLE” non-stop until the movie ends.
+1
Someone help me understand what happened with that Vickie thing. Stephanie and Triple H were so awful, and Vince was so objectively level-headed, that it seems like it was supposed to come off that way. JBL wasn’t so much heeling as just sounding sad about what happened to her, and by the end Cole and Lawler were even moving that way. The Ryback segment, I mean, I think if it was meant to be meaningless they wouldn’t have done it at all. There wasn’t a punchline, it was just a sad, nice, sympathetic thing. Obviously, there’s something else coming for Vickie, it was all just so over the top and confusing.
We seem to be heading toward a Vince vs. HHH power struggle, with Steph in the middle (almost certainly siding with HHH. So… subtly positioning Vince as the face in that feud? It’s going to take gargantuan effort to get the crowd to boo HHH again, though.
As for Vickie… maybe also a Vickie-managed Ryback will face HHH sometime down the road?
I ask this a lot, but who was supposed to be the face and the heel and why in that segment?
It’s best not to ask why.
I’m actually almost intrigued with what’s going on with Vince. I can’t quite express it, so bear with me.
I have a theory that Vince was never happier than when, during the Attitude Era, they did the Austin-Bret Hart double turn and Bret formed the alliance with Owen, Anvil and Pillman. The result of this of course was that Bret’s group was worshiped by Canadian fans, who then booed American faces.
Now think about what McMahon’s done lately. He yells at fans for wanting HHH to wrestle when he was “concussed.” Then he supports Vickie and “punishes” fans by making Brad Maddox her replacement.
Right now Vince has this trolling thing going on with the fans, trying to get them to face the fact that they don’t really care about the well being of the wrestlers/performers the pay to watch. If it was one third the production of Bray Wyatt and the Family, it would actually be kind of interesting…
Great as the Wyatt entrance was, the electric lantern was the worst. Are you SERIOUSLY telling me no one could get one of those fake flame lanterns?
Of course they could, but this is the company that set the TitanTron on fire by accident and almost killed people with fire during Taker’s Mania 24 entrance. They also horribly burned Taker himself once. They are not to be trusted with fire, unless it comes out of a stationary tube.
Also, Triple H at this past WM. They can’t be trusted with dry ice, either…
Best: The Wyatt Fam just going in all in Kane’s face. Just the fact that those two are as big as Kane and thus make the beatdown all the more visceral and raw.
Best: Good Guy Ryback. I mean that in the actual sense, as that was kind of awesome of him to do that.
In a vacuum (I.E. – no idea if they’re going to have Vickie manage Ryback going forward) I wish it had been Dolph who said that to her. I mentioned Cena earlier but I think it would have given some depth to Dolph as a character and they have a history together.
Nope, don’t care. I will continue to cheer for Dolph even if the WWE wants me to cheer for him which I almost never do.
ADR is such a shitty one dimensional character that I can let it go that Dolph is acting more heelish here. Remember, ADR won cleanly but he then turned around and rubbed it in Ziggy’s face by having a fucking fiesta for himself on SmackDown.
Right, but there was nothing “cowardly” about that. The guy who cashed in a briefcase on a guy with a nearly broken ankle did something cowardly. Del Rio was just being an asshole.
So it’s heel vs. heel then?
Yeah, I gotta go with MSol here. In the past when a babyface won and cashed in, they did so on a heel, and it was dismissed away with “those are the rules, they were just smart.” Heels weren’t called “cowardly,” but opportunistic, and even vanquished champions went, “yeah, I would have done the same thing in your shoes.”
But as he always did, Cena ruined everything and threw all that continuity into the fucking garbage because RESPECT!
The thing is on last week’s Smackdown they did a great job of making Dolph a genuinely likable face. He does his usual awesome selling and makes Drew McIntyre look better than he pretty much ever has, and wins convincingly and cleanly. Then when the rest of 3MB jump in and attack Dolph he out-maneuvers all of them and looks cocky and awesome. And because he is the show-off he dives back in the ring with the three of them and outsmarts them a second time. A showboating face who can back it up by being smart and actually enjoyable to watch wrestle is perfect. Hopefully after MITB there’ll be more of that rather than the mess with Del Rio and Jericho.
“In the past when a babyface won and cashed in, they did so on a heel, and it was dismissed away with ‘those are the rules, they were just smart.'”
What? No. RVD, Jeff Hardy, and Cena are the only faces to cash in, and RVD and Cena barely even count since they didn’t cash in on a wounded champ, those matches were more or less “earn a shot at the champ at the next pay-per-view.” Hardy is the only one to cash it in on a heel champ after he had already had a match, and the WWE had to spend [i]forever[/i], not just during the match, but for weeks afterwards, trying to assure the audience that there wasn’t anything wrong with Hardy cashing in that way, when quite clearly there was.
The whole premise really only works for heels, and you see this play out each and every time it happens; heel looks like an opportunistic jerk who takes any shortcut to win (like he’s supposed to), heel commentator acts all indignant at any suggestion it’s less manly to win the strap this way and looks like a dick (like he’s supposed to), and the face gets sympathy for gutting it out (like he’s supposed to), and it’s an inventive way to get the strap off the face without making him look weaker.
This is why I despise the Money-in-the-Bank concept – sure, the matches themselves work well enough based on the high-risk aspect of it, but you’re basically locked into one storyline possibility. This gimmick was better back when it was a heel with some history with the champ goading him into a match “anytime, anywhere” and then calling it when the champ didn’t expect it.
Except Jeff Hardy never won the case. So there’s that…
Face Punk cashed in on heel Edge, and it worked because it was the opportunistic heel getting his comeuppance for the two times he’d done it before.
Face D-Bry cashed it in on face Big Show, and no one called him a coward because (1) they were calling him a liar for not waiting until WM like he promised, and (2) it was Show, the guy he cashed in on, who encouraged him to just do it, because these chances don’t come around often, etc.
He ultimately became a cowardly character, but that wasn’t due to his cash-in.
It’s a great concept, and a sound one to help create new stars with main event cred. The problem is the shallow and formulaic booking and response that has been conditioned into fans.
Psssh, Del Rio’s a great character. He’s pretty boring when he’s a face but when he’s a heel he’s great. How deep do you have to go do have two dimensions to you? He does great promo work talking about how he’s tired of his culture being made fun and degraded by other people, while being mad for the same reason that Punk was mad in 09. He won the match fair and square and people still bitched about it. Del Rio really is a great complex character, or can be anyway if he wants to be, and he’s just so great at wrestling. What fucking dimensions does Dolph have? “Oh, I can stand on my head and I want to be better than everyone.”
I just wanna say first that I am a fan of this column and some of the followers that post. You guys are awesome. This is my first post so bare with me.
Cena/Henry better turn out better than it did the last time they fought (Day after WM) when they had Cena win with the C.C.V. (Cheap Countout Victory). If they have Cena win I would expect him to lose it at SummerSlam to somebody…..anybody really.
The Wyatt Family, IMHO, could go on to be one of the greatest Anti-Hero factions in WWE. Will they be bad guys for the time being? Sure. But they also got one of the biggest pops of the night. You know these guys are gonna come in and cause chaos, and people like it. They could easily take out a face like Sheamus, and come back a week later and take out The Shield, and everything would be cool with me.
If (god forbid) they don’t go with Cena/Bryan, the next step at SummerSlam, the next best thing would be Bryan/Punk. Without a title on the line it would still be a main event.
And finally, I personally don’t want Face Ziggler. I want Heel Ziggler that I can cheer for. Its one of lifes guilty pleasures :)
So they were coming, now they came?
My roommate and I drove up to Baltimore last night solely for the Wyatt debut. The people sitting behind us were awful. They chanted Husky Harris during the segment, then as soon as the show went to break they started talking about how great the segment was. The lady was also the most excited about the job evaluation. She was literally screaming everytime they mentioned Stephanie.
But doesn’t that at least raise the possibility that at least some of the crowd was chanting “Husky Harris” as a way of showing approval for the spot? I’m not saying it’s right or smart, just throwing it out there.
It’s definitely possible, but if I had to guess it would be that they are chanting what the are told to chant. They were also “What?”-ing all night.
It seemed like the loudest the Baltimore crowd got was during a commercial when they showed the “Raw 20th Anniversary” clip that is just a collection of catch phrases and the fans got to yell along.
There’s no better illustration of Mark Henry’s “Y’all are sheep!” line than listening to everyone around you say the catchphrases along with that video package. It’s embarrassing.
@Pencil-Necked Geek:
Henry says we’re puppets, Bray says we’re sheep.
Another layer of frustration that gets added to the Husky Harris chant is that WWE themselves are training their audience to act like that.
Their good guys, their John Cenas and their Triple Hs, the people they spend millions of dollars trying to convince us are the coolest and toughest and best, are absolutely the kind of people that would greet that Wyatt Family debut with a dismissive wanking motion and a Husky Harris chant. Alberto Del Rio doesn’t own those cars! *pause for applause*
It’s so stupid and self-destructive and ass-backwards and they absolutely do not even realise they’re doing anything wrong.
+All of the numbers. I hope that Bray Wyatt says something like, “Husky Harris was just a man, and now he’s dead. I’m Bray Wyatt: eater of worlds.”
The things Cena does that occasionally annoy me are what HHH does every time the camera is on him. There’s an awful part of me that hopes he and Stephanie have a bitter divorce just so he’s forced to be treated the way he’s treated others.
WCW *did* eventually have to say something like, Oh my gosh, that’s Ray Traylor!!” after their every attempt at a play on “Big Bossman” failed, didn’t they?
That just sounded *so* odd.
So was there some kind of audio snafu during the pre recorded Wyatt vignettes last night? There were a couple of moments where I’m pretty sure we were supposed to be hearing the unnamed “reporter” saying something or asking questions where all we got was really awkward silence.
As great as the idea was, I thought it fell a bit on its face with the silence, although after a while it did seem like a silent protagonist in a first person video game, which felt sorta nifty.
RVD’s first feud is gonna be with the Wellness Program, isn’t it?
Or a treadmill.
The worst people on this show continue to be those who are either completely irrelevant and just NEED to grasp the spotlight or those who never liked wrestling to begin with and are there to further their “careers”.
Anyone McMahon is the first group. What a soulless, out-of-touch shitstorm the Vickie segment was. Vickie has done effectively NOTHING wrong these past few weeks except just be “fat” and loud and she gets “fired” by people who don’t care about you, the fans or anyone else. WHY ARE PEOPLE ROOTING FOR THE MCMAHONS?
As someone who recently just got employed again after searching a long time for work, watching a segment in which a poor woman is ridiculed and dumped on until she is finally “fired” by a fan vote is one of the most insulting things I’ve ever watched. It is tone-deaf and absolutely does not understand the very, very difficult job market out there. Oh, it’s funny to embarrass/fire people on fake TV, says terrible people.
The second group are the Bellas. I was already not happy with RAW after the Vickie segment, then these two talentless wastes of space show up, YAWN at the idea of a women’s tag team match and then shittalk the entire segment until MICHAEL COLE has to tell them to clam it. Do you wonder why no one cares about Divas matches, WWE? Fire these two idiots after your stupid E! show ends, because they aren’t here to appreciate the wrestling business and are damaging to the product.
The difference is that the Bellas are being told to act like idiots
The Bellas also need to be told to stick to a script (and that script needs to be written by someone who isn’t an idiot). Because going out there and declaring that everyone in the ring is “boring,” and that Kaitlyn is “fat” is just counter-productive.
I’m sure I’m the wrong demographic here, but the Bellas are awful, no matter how pretty they are. They are just bad at their job and need some NXT training or a coach or a manager or something to bring them at least up to speed.
I like Maria’s face :(
But that Wyatt stuff was so good. His “brothers” were legit terrifying looking.
So HHH though Vicki should be fired for doing a “terrible job”. When you’re the guy who got a vote of “no confidence” as COO and had the whole f’n roster walk out on you then you don’t get to have a job performance opinion.
Completely agree on the Harris chants. It’s like going to a movie and chanting the name of a different character an actor in that movie played. Only disappointment about the Wyatt Family debut, after they hit Kane with the steel steps, Harper didn’t say “yeah Yeah YEah YEAh YEAH”.
An even better example is the people who yelled “Ten points for Gryffindor!” at Daniel Radcliffe during “How to Succeed in Business…” on Broadway. Because it’s worse than just yelling at a screen. This is yelling at people whose performance is being disrupted by an asshole in the crowd.
Bray Wyatt v. Sami Zayn: Obey v. Ole! Coming in 2014, probably.
Yeah, I know, done in NXT, I believe. I meant for WWE.
So, I’m the only one who liked the McMahon seg? Brad Maddox became GM, Vickie was given a new direction and basically all they said was “This lady was pretend bad at her pretend job” while the most important guy, the guy in charge said (and Brandon mentioned this) “Her job is to be pretend bad at her pretend job!”.
Are we ignoring how storylines work because we don’t like the people involved? (again)
I can admit that the segment was partially redeemed by Vince saying the things he said. He was the voice of reason. But Vickie on her knees begging for her job back? Or before that, Stephanie telling Vickie to sit down, for no reason?
No, this was too much like a Paul Heyman segment– where the characters treat him like shit because the people behind the characters legit don’t like him– to be enjoyable viewing.
I think most people would agree the general outcomes of Brad Maddox being the new GM and Vickie maybe getting to be Ryback’s manager or something were good.
It was just the 20 minutes of insulting someone about doing what they are paid to do that got frustrating. It also doesn’t help that the 70% of the segment was about Vince McMahon and HHH more than it was Vickie or Brad or even the GM spot
Even as a storyline thing, it felt backwards. Vince went from “what are you doing, why are you putting champion vs. champion on free tv” to “what is wrong with you people, she is super entertaining”. Hell, wasn’t he kind of warming up to Brad Maddox before deciding that his hiring represents some horrible punishment for the fans? And wasn’t Triple H at least sympathizing with her for having to deal with Vince?
The results of Maddox in power and Vickie managing Ryback probably are great, but I still don’t like how they got there.
Sorry, too long and too humiliating. Brought me right back to the Trish-Stratus-Bark-Like-A-Dog years only more depressing because it was framed as an actual performance review.
The thing is, Vince, the only one who treated Vickie like a human being in that segment, is the HEEL. Look at how he says if it were up to him Vickie would be made permanent GM. They played it like he was Right To Censor, wanting to cover up the “puppies” that Triple H and Stephanie wanted the crowd to see. Just like the only person who comforted Vickie backstage was The Ryback, a cowardly heel character.
And even putting that aside, what are they doing having a segment where three multi-millionaires humiliate their employee – a middle-aged, vulnerable, widow – on internationally broadcast television, in front of a hostile crowd of thousands, before firing her for max LOLz?
But, yeah, ignoring how storylines work. That must be it.
I think you’d be proving my “are we forgetting how storylines work” point with your own words:
“What are they doing having a segment where three multi-millionaires humiliate their employee – a middle-aged, vulnerable, widow – on internationally broadcast television, in front of a hostile crowd of thousands, before firing her for max LOLz?”
First of all, she’s a heel who the crowd *empirically* hates that has not actually been fired in real life — though I will say, if she actually has been future endeavored, my feelings are COMPLETELY different, because then they would just be monsters — so I’m not sure how “being publicly humiliated” isn’t in her job description as character on the TV show she’s starring on as the most hated person on the show. It’s wrestling, you literally pay money to see wrestlers/managers/authority figures get “what’s coming to them”, and have done so since Ed “The Strangler” Lewis. That’s the whole effing point.
Secondly, in order to get the Vince character over as a heel in that segment, he needed to support her explicitly, while he explains VERY CLEARLY, IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS, that “her job is to be someone who we boo and hate, so why are we firing her being someone we boo and hate”. He’s explaining her value, as she shows her value (as an amazing, over-the-top television actress crying on a table, because SHE’S A F**KING CHARACTER on a TV SHOW), which, is, you know, how storylines work.
The reason she was comforted by Ryback, is because he, like her, is a heel. By comforting her (like Vince McMahon did), any association with her in terms of support is going to be perceived by the crowd as being a heel thing to do.
Because, again, that’s how storylines work:
You create personas for people, put them in situations, and then try to sell tickets based on the crowd’s reaction to their handling of those situations. They aren’t trying to make Vickie into a face or actually firing her, they are trying to use the fact that she’s the modern Bobby Heenan to their advantage. Do you think it’s a coincidence that the vote for her was the most they had ever had in the history of the WWE app? She’s an ENORMOUS star who has been helping them make money for years, and has been likely compensated accordingly.
Finally, there are people complaining about how Triple H shouldn’t be saying anything because there was a full-roster walk out when he was in charge, ignoring that it was orchestrated by his enemy at the time, Johnny Ace, and his merry band of heels. Not to mention, IT WASN’T A REAL THING THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, BECAUSE WRESTLING IS A SERIES OF INTERCONNECTED FABRICATED STORYLINES.
So yes, this is a clear example of people not understanding how storylines work.
This is just clear case of people not liking the McMahons as characters or people, which is fine, understandable, and certainly justified on some level. But let’s not act like all of the people involved didn’t plan for this to happen this way, or that Vickie was somehow forced into this.
My big picture issue is complaining about the segment because “they were mean to Vickie”, who is the most powerful heel on the show, and was as over as she had ever been at the end of the segment, and even had the commentators feeling bad for her after.
The crowd was as hot for that as it was for anything from where I was watching, and the notion that this isn’t what wrestling has always been is just silly and insane. Whether or not you like it is a completely different thing. But let’s not act like this was a travesty.
I really liked the wyatts segment. It was beyond incredible. I also think that fueling with Kane is a good idea because he’s a built in recognizable commodity and he’s ding what he should at this stage which is being a vanguard for new talent. He took d bry higher than he’s ever been teaming with him. I hope this feud last long into winter leading to the undertaker and a passing of the torch. If that happens does Wyatt have the staying power as far as keeping the gimmick fresh for the next so and so many years. Also after reading c.m. Punks old live blogs how has wwe not done an angle with him and hero? The history is built in there! And it’s interesting to.
Don’t mind the autocorrect spelling errors
AMEN on everything you said about the Husky Harris chants. All it does it hurt Bray’s chances of becoming a big deal in WWE. Here’s hoping it doesn’t stick. Oh and yeah, the performance evaluation was BRUTAL :( still not over it.
Pretty sure one of the promos last night for the RAW in Brooklyn the night after MITB says “John Cena defends his title against Mark Henry”. So looks like Cena def wins Sunday and rematch the following night.
as always, Card Subject To Change
Hate to say it, but Bray Wyatt is too good/deep of a character for todays wrestling audience. He’s great on the mic, but crowds are gonna ‘what’ him like crazy. Great in the ring, but crowds WILL continue to ‘hus-ky harr-is’ him. Dude has such high potential, but even if creative doesnt screw him up, the idiots that go to WWE shows will. Well, at least the promo videos were good.
I think some fans just see going to live, televised show as a chance to be famous trolls. Shitheads who want to impress other shitheads with their general apathy towards wrestling because FAKE AND GAY. And yet they like going to live shows, paying for expensive-ass seats and shit? That’s another one; entitlement. They probably feel entitled to be dicks because they paid a handsome sum for their seats. Well fuck you. You’re not entitled to be assholes simply because you paid to do so. In your mind it works out that way, but honestly, it just serves a selfish, narcissistic purpose that is incredibly destructive. I know a lot of people believe they had valid criticisms of Lord Tensai (and maybe some did), but ultimately, a lot of it was just “LOL A-TRAIN.” It’s arrogant and it’s petty. And I can’t see how that can be fun. It’s like trolls in online servers who set every player on fire or make it incredibly difficult to kill them (if it’s a multiplayer fight). Like, how is that fun? You can’t enjoy a challenge? Challenge yourselves to lose yourselves in an escapist world. Yes, there’s a time and place for incredulity, but for the sake of stroking an ego that probably belongs to someone who finds joy in making others miserable? I just… I can’t.
They fucked up D-Bry for a LONG time before they got it right. Do you not remember the year plus of the announcers harping on him for being a weird nerd who reads and doesn’t even have a TV and he DOESN’T EVEN EAT MEAT, WHAT A PUSSY!, because it happened and it was god awful.
Wow, that ended up in the WAY wrong spot, it was meant to be in response to how they haven’t fucked up D-Bry.
Yeah I remember that. I’m not absolving the WWE of any wrongdoing; they often encourage (whether they know it or not) that sort of shitheaded behavior. I’m one of the biggest critics (at least, by my own admission, so take it as you will) of their penchant for making fun of their own product in order to appeal to the crowd who only get any semblance of joy from shallow and empty mockery rather than enjoying something for what it is (a play, theater, whatever you’d like to refer to it as). I’m not saying everyone has to be super posi or whatever; enlightened criticism is a good thing. Sexism, homophobia, jingoism, xenophobia, etc., are all problems that deserve loud and arrogant chants against them. But we don’t see that. Instead we see bros being all like, “Brah, brah, check this out, GOLDBERG.”
I know you and I are probably on the same page, so forgive me for being cynical about cynicism, but it’s just something that irks me greatly.
Oh. Well… still. Good talk, at least?
The “what?” from the crowds just need to STAHP!!! It doesn’t even make sense in the context of what is being said. I am SOOO tired of HHH. Vince is Vince and I am cool with that but it seems like HHH exists just to piss on everyone else. Wade Barrett punching Fandango..YES!!!! Bella twins…just bad. By the way with the exception of AJ and Natalya I am worried that Kaitlyn is going to hurt one of the Divas or herself doing the spear. It looks like she is pulling up short or they are completely out of position when she hits it. Tons of Funk..please stop ….seriously.
Heels or faces, Bella commentary has always been to shit all over everyone other than the Bellas. It was interesting to see Cole try to muzzle them in vain because they were the catalyst for the heel Cole character.
Don’t remember that? The big story from NXT season 3 that everyone remembers is Vickie’s original rookie was replaced by Kaitlyn at the last minute because there were some bawdy fetish photos of Isis the Amazon online (there are racy modeling photos of Kaitlyn too, but I digress). But the other big story was that of the 6 rookies, one was eliminated almost immediately – Jamie. Her pros were the Bella’s, who instead got a lot of matches against the rooks and tons of commentary time.
The Bella commentary burials apparently struck a chord with someone upstairs because shortly Cole was chiming in and then doing it of his own accord. A few shows later and Cole was beating gongs and eating popcorn during the rookie matches, which was the proto-Cole Mine character which eventually made its way to RAW.
After reading this, I feel like I just witnessed a whistle-blowing documentary about some nefarious dealings meant to undermine something we’re supposed to relate to and/or like. Kudos.
P.s. Yes, they were faces at the time, this was during the “hang all over celebrity guest hosts” phase of their careers.
On the Dolph/AJ issue:
I know you were speaking for WWE there at least in part, Brandon, but there is a definite way to make teenage girls lust after a guy while he has an on-screen girlfriend. You just need to make said teenage girls identify with the girlfriend. If they feel like they are that character, in some small part, then that character being with the guy just makes their attraction stronger.
I once read a story from James Marsters that illuminates the point for me. Back when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was still a big thing and had one of the most active fandoms in the world, a lot of the female fans were naturally attracted to Spike and wanted him to get together with Buffy before that was even a reasonable option in the story. They loved to see him at conventions but they were fairly respectful. Once the characters got together on the show, the fans’ attitudes changed. They were still totally into him, but they were more intimate at fan interactions. Many more of them touched him, or told him more personal details when they were able to talk to him. In essence, they treated him more like THEY were in an intimate relationship because Buffy was.
I think you’d get the same thing with AJ if fans were allowed to like and support her right now. If female fans were able to BE AJ, and lord knows she’s the biggest fangirl in wrestling history, Dolph having an on-screen girlfriend would only help him.
No, you wouldn’t, because you’re talking about two completely different dynamics. Female fans identify with the female character in the one scenario *because* the female is the lead, it’s her perspective the audience sees the world through, and the female fans are supposed to identify with her. The male is the supporting character in those stories (even if only nominally so), and so you get teenage girl seeing herself as the lead with this amazing boyfriend.
The dynamic is completely different when you’re selling a male lead as sex symbol to young girls: the girls can’t have the identification with the male lead (because if they did, then you’re not selling the lead as the sex symbol, but as the hero to emulate), and they can’t identify with the girlfriend either (she’s necessarily a secondary character in the lead’s story); your dynamic here is no longer that “teenage girl fantasizes about being female hero with awesome boyfriend” but instead “teenage girl fantasizes about being girlfriend to male hero.”
In order for that to work, you don’t just have to turn AJ face and make her into a character girls want to be (which note is not necessarily the character you want young girls to want to be. Quite frequently not, actually.), you also have to rewrite Dolph as being a supporting character to AJ. Not going to happen.
Both characters can be the leads of their own stories. WWE doesn’t have one main character. AJ can be the lead character in the Divas division story, since I doubt they’d have more than one for that division, and Dolph can be the lead character of whatever story he happens to be involved in at the time. This would necessitate them appearing in separate segments a lot, but hey, they’re doing that anyway. Have them “crossover” for couple moments where one or the other is the more prominent figure in that particular segment, or put them on equal footing when they’re on screen together.
Since they can both exist on their own in addition to existing as a couple, this issue is not.
Then you don’t have the necessary relationships in place to start with. This isn’t some newfangled idea writers haven’t tried; people actually know how to sell attractive young men to girls, been doing it for ages, it’s basically down to a science by now. Your way simply doesn’t work, at all. If Dolph is equal to or more important in the overall WWE picture to AJ, then the girls you want to sell Dolph as a sex object to will see AJ as a competitor, not a hero to emulate. You will get some girls to identify with AJ, but those aren’t the ones you’re trying to sell Dolph to, and won’t view him in that way.
You see the same sort of thing play out with women marketed principally as sex objects for men – media oriented for their male fans generally goes out of the way to avoid mentioning any current boyfriends, and it’s not uncommon to see models who will *never* mention their significant others in any public capacity or on social media. Same dynamic – you can either have the hero that men can fantasize they are, and by extension get the hot girls; or you can have the hot girl, and any other men in the picture are competition.
In lieu of educating the idiot fans who chant “Husky Harris”, “What?!” and other stuff like that, I propose that every fan puts on a collar with a microphone and a shocker. Whenever they chant something that defeats kayfabe for the benefit of being a d-bag, they get shocked.
New Jersey footnote: If at least 25% of the crowd chants the same thing, it is acceptable and allowed to flourish.
I just wanted to reiterate that Stephanie McMahon is worthless and the worst person in the world.
HEY! ITS ENRICO PALLAZZO!
Brandon, solely based on your smark-wiping rant, this is my most favorite article you’ve ever done. If we’re being honest, we’ve all had ‘smark-y’ moments. And the WL community obviously knows better than to take part in something like what happened last night… But the fact is, Bray Wyatt looks pretty fucking unstoppable.
Last night was glorious for me. I kind of wished they’d teased some Bray mannerisms to end the segment. Maybe a kiss on Kane’s forehead before Sister Abigail’ing him to end it all. But it was solid. It was open-ended. The Wyatt Family is free to fuck with whomever they want, instead of being in a feud right away.
But thank you for typing out exactly what I was thinking. I was about to pull a Jay & SIlent Bob, finding out who these internet fucks are, and go door-to-door to personally beat their fucking smarky faces in.
for halloween, im dressing as bray, my 3yr old is going to be Rowan and my 7yr old will be Harper. no one will know wtf we are including the wife, but who cares.
You should reverse yourself and the 3 year old. Bray is, after all, the smallest of the trio.
I’ve been dressing like Bray on weekends. Just because that shit looks cool.
Thanks for the column Brandon, always a blast to read. I don’t think the result of Henry vs Cena is as unavoidable as you seem to think, because Cena has absolutely done nothing more with the title than without it and, more than anything else, Henry is on such a fantastic roll. To be sure those are two reasons WWE usually ignores proudly, but who knows.
That’s two very enjoyable Orton matches in a short period of time now. This is helped by the fact that he wrestled Bryan and Punk in those, but I don’t think that’s the only reason. There is a way to use Orton right (see summer 2011’s Orton/Christian matches) and I really hope it keeps going in that direction. And he loses! Just showing that he is not invincible makes people care even more about those matches! Gee, I wonder who should take notes.
Excellent work, Stroud.
My favourite part of the Maddox GM extravaganza was not his face dot gif, but Michael Cole exclaiming “Who?!” after Vince announced it. It was, dare I say, vintage Cole. I’m also sure Maddox’s reign will last about two weeks, tops.