Latest PPV and weekly show discussion thread

There's a lot of russle going on over Taz's TNA contract expiring and Taz debuting at WWE's first Raw at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Pretty much confirmed by Taz saying some things on Twitter hinting at being in Brooklyn during the Raw show and then removing the comments.

Taz might not be the best at commentary, but him and Michael Cole made a great team in the early 2000's. Does this mean the end for Lawler?(Probably Not.)

Will TNA do the TNA thing where they hire Matt Striker? And how excruciating would a Mike Tenay/Matt Striker team be? (They would probably just try to one-up each other.)

Taz made Cole tolerable. Today's Cole is like a cross between Todd Pettingale, VKM, and Gorilla Monsoon, with JBL as confused as Lord Alfred, and Jerry with little to say at all. Anyone else miss viscous, cynical Lawler from the mid 90s?

I love the Taz bits in botchamania, so I see this as a positive.

Him getting mad hype over the lousy celebs at TNA is one of my favorite botchamania bits.

Who's on commentary on Smackdown these days? Is it just Mathews and JBL?

I'm not a big fan of the 3 man teams. I feel like JBL is so out of place on Raw these days like he just doesn't know what he is suppose to be doing there. I hope they can switch Raw to just Taz and Cole. I mean what I really want is Regal but I'm trying to be realistic here.

@papercut: Right now, the announce teams are:

Raw: Cole, Lawler and JBL

Main Event: Mathews and an active wrestler (usually Miz, but Cody Rhodes and Ricardo Rodriguez have also participated)

NXT: Regal and Tony Dawson or Brad Maddox and Todd Phillips and JR sometimes shows up

Superstars: Dawson and Alex Riley

Smackdown: Cole and JBL (after the Mathews/JBL experiment failed as the show just became JBL making fun of Josh for two hours, they added Cole and, when Josh started his heel turn, they just dropped him)

So, unless they do massive changes to the Smackdown and Raw announce teams or they fire some people, Tazz just doesn't have anywhere to go. It could also be possible that Tazz either signs a simple Legends deal, joins NXT as a trainer or becomes an agent.

I feel like WCW had a good grasp of how to do a 3 man team. Schavanni was a good enough play-by-play, Heenan was a great heel that provided color, and Tenay was a good person that could fill you in on a wrestlers back story and/or drop the line "I talked to (Insert Name) earlier backstage, and this is how he felt about the match he was in:"

What's with all the weird ringnames for people we know? Punchline = Colt Cabana Chris Hyde = Chris Hero, etc

RIP to one of the greatest(most memorable at least) gimmicks of all time, Matt Bourne aka Doink The Clown.

Taz & Cole & Lawler for Raw could be great and make way for eventual JKL retirement.

@turboman: Was he the original? Because there were multiples weren't there? I think I heard that even Brooklyn Brawler had a go at being Doink.

@demoskinos: Yeah, he's the original one before every indy show had their own Doink the Clown. He also toyed around with the gimmick in ECW.

Not the most glorious introduction in the world, but watching WM... (consults wiki) IX got me into WWF full time when I was a kid. I thought Doink, the Steiner Bros, and Money Inc were fucking awesome. I especially remember the Doink shenanigans in that match.

http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2013-06-24/daniel-bryan-randy-orton-fined-26127578

Bryan and Orton have both been fined for the chair shots to the head on Raw.

Here's something that will certainly get the internet all riled up. According to SHEETZZZZZZZZZZZ, Vince McMahon "doesn't see money" in Daniel Bryan. In a recent interview, Shawn Michaels said he was talking to Vince a couple weeks ago and he said that he didn't see money in a "certain individual", who Michaels didn't reveal. But according to "sources", he was talking about Daniel Bryan, which isn't all that hard to believe. For the record, Shawn's response was "you said the same thing about me."

If true, I find that absurd. Surely Daniel Bryan's crowd reactions and merchandise sales alone are enough to suggest he's 'money'? How else can it be proven? The guy sold the same t-shirt with 'Yes' and 'No' on it. Again, it's sheetz, so it should be taken with a few pinches of salt.. but still.

@gorillamopena: Yep. Soon as I saw Randy use the chair to the head I knew someone was getting fined. Crazy that It's both of them though. Although I wonder if it was a case where Bryan called to Orton to do it.

I think that is standard, but I only remember Triple H and Undertaker getting fined for it.

The "sources" were Dave Meltzer saying "he didn't tell me, but I'm sure it's Daniel Bryan."

Also, HBK has denied that they were talking about Bryan:

Hammerlock ‏@thevertebreaker 2h
@shawnmichaels Really? Can you tell me who you were talking about?

Shawn Michaels ‏@shawnmichaels
@thevertebreaker. No, but remarkably, he's 6'3 250, I made my point. Please be careful, what you read/assume is likely inaccurate.

wcw/wwf Fan ‏@wwf_WCW_Fan 45min
@shawnmichaels shawn vince is stupid if he doesn't think dbryan is the new face of wwe. Hes the most over guy in wwe right now.

Shawn Michaels ‏@shawnmichaels
@wwf_WCW_Fan. That isn't even who we were talking about. He's big on DB. Shame y'all let those folks work you like that. #thinkforyourself

Wrestling Observe keep talking up how this is suppose to be Bryan's summer and it seems to be going that way so at least someone if not Vince has got the right idea.

And speaking of D Bry merch I was a little disappointed when Bryan started coming out with the Yes! shirt again he didn't go further down the rabbit hole by having a Yes! shirt taped over to be a No! shirt taped over to be a Yes! shirt.

@papercut: Oh God! That would be so amazingly dumb!

Dean Ambrose is starting his first singles feud with Christian and is starting to dig a bit deeper on his promos. http://www.wwe.com/videos/dean-ambrose-has-a-message-for-christian-wwecom-exclusive-june-28-2013-26127872

hopefully they show this promo on Raw.

I don't think Vince was talking about Bryan during his conversation with HBK, since Bryan is well into his push and is one of the most over guys in the business.

Regardless of who picks up the chair, both guys were involved in the spot, so they both get the fine.

This made me miss Heenan and Savage commentary so much

It's seems like it could very likely be Cesaro that Vince was talking about. Shawn says the guy is around 6'3 250 lbs and it would line up with how they've been booking him for a long while.

I was picturing Barrett or Cesaro.

Speaking of those two, how dumb is this WHC MiTB match? You've got Ambrose, who should be feuding with Christian instead. Also, he's already a champ, and could theoretically just have The Shield show up and hoist him up to victory. The Fandango bloom is fading, and he obviously isn't a main event guy, so there is no reason for him to be there. You've got TWO aligned factions against each other (Swag/Cesaro & Cody/Sandow). Somebody explain to me how in kayfabe Wade Barrett deserves a shot like this, after being the most limp IC champ in ages.

@roomrunner: I guess the best way to answer that is to have the slate wiped away clean by having the briefcase. Not to mention that if you've looked at how badly people with the Briefcase have been treated in the past (Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler always losing before cashing it in), then Barrett is the perfect candidate.

Okay serious question guys, if Emma were called up to the main roster does anyone trust Michael Cole, JBL, and Jerry to give her the love that she gets from Maddox, and William Regal? or do we get NXT season 3 Cole, and some terrible joke from Jerry about how she is mentally a 4 year old so it would be like doing a child?

Any way between the Emma match, which was admittedly poor but fuck you Emma's interview with Renee was worth it, and William Regal being all "fuck this I'm fighting" NXT was pretty enjoyable this week. I have no clue why Big E is still on NXT though.

Anyone else find it weird that the MiTB matches this year completely split up the faces and heels?

WWEC= 100% face
WHC = 100% heel

I'm not saying they won't be enjoyable matches, it just seems really weird to give the audience no face/heel tension during either match.

@riptheveins: I think everybody finds that weird, but interesting. Then again, it gives Orton the opportunity to finally start up that heel turn on Sheamus that's been rumored forever. I think there's enough animosity between everyone in the WWE MITB match to make it work (everybody should be fine going against Punk because he still believes in Heyman, Kane/Daniel Bryan/Orton should go after each other, and Christian and RVD are out there to take big risks).

The WHC MITB match should be interesting though... the dynamic between Swagger and Cesaro could be interesting, and seeing how Rhodes Scholars approaches the match could mean the break up of them.

@turboman: True.

And honestly I think the WHC MITB is extremely exciting since it consists almost entirely of people with a lot to prove and hopefully they're able to do something to get their name out there and prove they deserve a main event run when they've been buried for so long.

To me that's always been the point of MITB matches, to give a bunch of wrestlers the opportunity to show why people should pay attention to them and everyone but Swagger has a chance to cement themselves as mainstays in the roster.

@turboman: Wait...Swagger still has a job after all the shit he has pulled?

@riptheveins: With the PPV being in Philly, the crowd is just going to cheer and boo for whoever they want anyways, I'm sure that also factored into their decision.

@demoskinos: Wait. Randy Orton still has a job after all the shit he has pulled?

Can anyone name a worse PPV in wrestling history than Haloween Havoc 98 (no ending), Over the Edge 99 (Owen/shouldn't have had an ending), or botchamania stalwart Victory Road '09 (slap happy, slower than Hebner,taser Stevie, ref disassembled table, Morgan no sells dive catch, lots more)???

@boocreepyfootdoctor: Great American Bash 2006 has to rank as one of the worst PPVs in history because of Elevated Liver Enzymes (half of the booked roster was flagged for that and they had to rebook most of the matches on the fly.) Also, December to Dismember 2006.

Touche!

@boocreepyfootdoctor: Holy shit that's bad

With credit to Mr. Dan Ryckert on Twitter, here's a hot photo of Kane and Vince Vaughn at a Ron Paul barbecue. Glenn Jacobs 2016.

i missed last weeks raw due to other engagements (this weeks too) but is this a thing? it was on wwe2k14's facebook page

Hmmm funny that Kane of all wrestlers would be a racist, men's rights advocate, anti gay marriage, anti healthcare, survivalist looney.

Then again, his character would be a perfect fit for "Bury me with my money!"

Holy shit Kane looks so...normal

Happy Canada Day! Now letys watch raw pretend its the 4th of july? or will that be a smackdown thing.

@lord_canti: it was a gag cover that Vickie Guerrero made to suck up to the McMahons

MONDAY NIGHT CHAT

TONIGHT....some stuff.

Raw was plain bad tonight compared to the last few weeks. Nothing new really happened outside of Punk/Heyman drama.

Third time lucky getting this to post ?

The Mad Moxxi picture I mentioned. Also RAW now has a From The Vault post show on Sky Sports.

This is great, not even a day after showing footage of him on Raw, the SHEETZZZZZZZ (namely F4WOnline.com) are reporting that the reason Sting was included in the list of "Great World Champions" is because Sting is reportedly interested in joining WWE and, while only feelers have been sent out by Sting's camp (no contract negotiations have happened yet), WWE is confident that he'll sign a contract.