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July Wrasslin' |OT 2| Monday Night Raw and Thunder Live!

I've been following wrestling through this thread and YouTube recaps for the past few months, but yes, tonight was the first show I've seen aired in years.

I actually thought Smackdown was still on Thursdays

Tonight was your first show? Then you should definitely go back and watch Raw from last night. One of the best Raws ever. Super great show.
 
Shame the best woman in the Company, Becky Lynch, got screwed out of being Women's Champion while shitties like Sasha Bank and Charlotte have gotten runs.

She's basically the women's version of Daniel Bryan. :(
 
I think part of it is that SmackDown doesn't really have many ready-made feuds so they have to kind of rush to get something ready for SummerSlam. You got AJ/Cena and Becky/Natty. The latter of which needs to end sooner rather than later. SmackDown needs to start fresh with champions Dean and The Miz, and then they'll have to figure out a tag division.

If Nakamura and Joe get brought up any time soon I hope Joe goes to SmackDown, I think he'll be a big impact there.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
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Shame the best woman in the Company, Becky Lynch, got screwed out of being Women's Champion while shitties like Sasha Bank and Charlotte have gotten runs.

She's basically the women's version of Daniel Bryan. :(
Even as someone who has Becky as a fave, I think Sasha and Charlotte deserve and have earned their shots with the belt.
 
One of the things I noticed on SD but didn't see mentioned is that they seem to be doing less of the spastic zooming in and out with the camera on every impact. Still saw it a few times, but it's not as pronounced. At least not tonight.
 
Graves is good stuff, he just needs someone better than Cole or Saxton to bounce off.
I just don't get how Saxton is getting. He was great when he was commentary the early nXt years but now. Maybe he needs to be head commentary but won't be for a long while
 

GunBR

Member
I think the most obnoxious part of the "women's interference" segment was the fact that they weren't even introduced as wrestlers. It was "I have attitude" "No I have attitude" "No I do" "Excuse me folks but this red haired woman has attitude"

It was a diva's segment

I don't think Carmella is ready.....at all. Would love to be proven wrong
Well, Becky is the only wrestler
Trade her with Summer, make Nikki go to Smackdown when she return and bring back the Diva's title
 

ReiGun

Member
They really are going to have to address the fact that the women on SD have nothing to do. It's bad enough that there only six of them and some were called up from NXT before they were ready, but on top of that they're not fighting for anything. You'd figure that segment tonight would have ended with the announcement of a new secondary Women's title or some kind of cross brand title situation. Instead, it just made it all the more plain that the SD women are just...there.
 
There's definitely some alternate universe where Cesaro and Dolph were drafted in place of each other. Dolph cut a post-draft shoot and Cesaro is up against Dean for the title.

Sorry Fox
 
As bad as the women's segment was at least they got a segment. The tag team divsion got... jobbed out in the battle royale and an American Alpha video package.
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
Who were the other rumored returning wrestlers to WWE? MVP? Carlito? Smackdown about to get a few mid-carders to help out their roster?
 

Pro Wrestling Sheet broke the Mahal news and have teased Palumbo for weeks as being in discussions, MVP said he got contacted and couldn't do it for unknown reasons (aka failed test), Dave mentioned Carlito and Curt Hawkins (forgot that last part)

Dave and PWS also mentioned Shelton but I didn't think that was notable because lol abandoning Suzukigun is just smart at this point
 
Pro Wrestling Sheet broke the Mahal news and have teased Palumbo for weeks as being in discussions, MVP said he got contacted and couldn't do it for unknown reasons (aka failed test), Dave mentioned Carlito and Curt Hawkins (forgot that last part)

Dave and PWS also mentioned Shelton but I didn't think that was notable because lol abandoning Suzukigun is just smart at this point
I'll wait and see on Carlito & MVP. Believing is seeing.
 
I think the idea of these guys returning is a lot more exciting than the reality. Even Kurt. Most of them would be super exciting at the beginning, and then immediately would taper off and just become guys who have the same flaws they've always had. And they're just coming in to put over new guys, so it's not like any of them will get a lot of shine.

The only guy I'd be truly excited to see back is Jeff Hardy, but I will readily admit that's only because I'm such a fan of his and always have been. He falls into the same stuff as the rest of them though in terms of the idea being more appealing than the reality.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
Watched Shiga & Kobashi vs Takayama & Omori. Was a real fun match. Not the most 'giffable' thing and it felt a lot better paced than the big King's Road matches. Omori and Takayama working as the heels. Kobashi wearing a faceguard, Takayama & Omori constantly going for facerakes and grabbing his nose whenever Kobashi started to overpower them. Put over Kobashi as a big deal. Shiga was supposed to be the weak link but Kobashi's injury made him the beaten up babyface throughout the whole thing. Shiga keeps trying to get into the match and save Kobashi, but he's so small and they keep cutting him off. Eventually he does get in and hits a tornado DDT off the ropes and off the top turnbuckle. Gets some fire going but ultimately pays for it, protecting Kobashi from getting pinned.
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Fun for a 10 minute match. Felt more like an 80s AJPW or 90s NJPW match than the 1999 AJPW match that it was.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
SmackDown is the brand where you send old wrestlers to collect paychecks. Like the Champions Tour.
 
Smackdown really did feel like the "left overs" show, shit they didn't even get the new set. They got a couple extra LED boards on the ground and the ramp removed, lol.
 
I understand that he's salty.

But he has nothing better going on lol. Be cool and help out your cousins before they're fired.
Carlito gets a bigger paycheck than what they were offering earlier in the year who knows what they offered him this time. Carlito os living well and Vince won't fire The Colons anyway.
 
Not a great amount but I have kept track.

I'm a huge Benjamin mark tho, he can do no wrong in my eyes.

Team him up with American Alpha.

What is with people's obsession with turning AA into a nostalgia act? Between this and all the dumb Angle fantasy booking. Why can't they just be their own new cool guys?
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
"help" is one way to frame it

Sure. Let's keep the roster barebones and overwork the wrestlers without any concerns about injuries, lack of time away to see families, morale, etc.

Face it, no matter how fun it is to use the lame "[INSERT WRESTLER} in 2016" line, both rosters are in need of talent that can help put over the new blood WWE is trying to bring up from NXT. Local talent/jobbers will only go so far until people get bored. I am for local talent/jobbers, but I don't want to see Braun facing them for months. I'd rather see Braun face a returning Mark Jindrak for a short feud and help get Braun over, even if it's only a slight bump. I know I started to pay attention to Corbin more in NXT when he moved away from beating jobbers and facing off against Rhyno.

There are only so many times I want to see Ziggler vs. Corbin or Orton vs. Sheamus and the list goes on. Shelton against Kallisto sounds fun. Rhyno putting over Wyatt could be good. If the 37-year-old Samoa Joe gets called up and loses to Ambrose (Ambrose in 2016) in a feud, people will complain. If 36-year-old Shinsuke Nakamura comes up and faces off against Reigns and loses the feud, there will be riots by the "[INSERT WRESTLER} in 2016" crowd in here.

I want more match diversity and keeping the roster thin and only trying to have main event talent is fruitless. WWE needs to fill out the roster from top talent to enhancement talent, so I am all for "[INSERT WRESTLER} in 2016" being brought back to keep new talent having new matches while they work their way to the top.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
There were bigger problems with SD than Ziggler randomly going over AJ Styles.

The first segment of the show intentionally did not feature anyone relevant and did not really feature the guy who won very much.

The second segment was a 50-50 match.

The Miz TV segment started weird because why is there a Miz TV segment on the first episode of the supposedly "wrestling show"? The Orton-Miz match utterly buried the IC title to almost comical levels - first off, unlike on Raw, the IC title holder isn't even allowed into the battle royale for the WWE Championship, then Orton actively doesn't give a shit about the title and easily crushes the holder.

The main event has all of your big players, but is paced very strangely and has WAY TOO MANY COMMERCIALS through it. I mean, I get you have to run commercials, but this was pretty ridiculous. Ziggler's entire redemption storyline is a generic cut-away promo that takes all of 30 seconds and then he's main eventing SummerSlam by pinning AJ Styles (who was your 2nd overall pick).
 
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