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A friggin' piledriver on Raw

@joshthebear: That was honestly one of the best matches those two have had together and it's a shame knowing that Cena vs Rock 2 will be nowhere as good as that Raw main event.

Its amazing how times have changed that someone breaking out what was once considered a fairly standard move, is treated like the most amazing thing ever.

Supposedly Vince was pissed about it, but the thing I never understood about the ban was that the move that inspired it (Owen v Austin sitdown tombstone) was also a weird version I had never seen anyone do before, which seemed especially dangerous because the receiver's head had nowhere to go. I would have thought the regular kind, like the one last night, would still be fairly safe since the head can move to tuck in and the shoulders would take most of the impact

The rapist and the gambler are the only two that belong there.

The problem is is that it's an incredibly easy move to botch. And if you botch that move, it's very bad (especially in this day and age of concussion awareness and neck injuries.) The WWE is also a lot more family focused these days, and there's always paranoia about kids imitating the moves that they see on the shows (which most of the moves, if imitated, can already be bad enough, but, a piledriver is especially bad for untrained people to try and do.) I mean, look at it this way, with how easy it can be to for a piledriver to go wrong, imagine if last night Punk did something wrong, the move botched, Cena suffered a concussion and severe spinal damage. The WWE's biggest star would be gone. Now, yes, most any move can be botched, but there's a scale of generally how dangerous a move is or can be if it's botched and the piledriver is certainly high on that scale.

So catching up on Raw -

I was surprised to see Swagger there at all. I know that it means odds are he'll just lose to Del Rio at Mania and be suspended for punishment after the fact. Which is really disappointing considering the lengths they're going to to make this a feud instead of just going "these two guys fight so that's why they have a rivalry" like we seem to so often get these days. Also, I really want to get my hands on Swagger's music, that is awesome stuff.

Oh boy. Trips vs Brock. Again. Thrilling stuff. Least trips looked like he pissed his pants.

Why do they hate Ziggler? Why is he being fed to people and being made to look COMPLETELY incompetent? Not only is Ziggler bringing it, but he's bringing it with help from AJ and Big E, and he's still losing while looking like he never stood a chance to win in the first place. Is it just because he's so damn good that he makes everyone else look good by being in matches with them and they feel everyone else needs to win more than him? I mean fuck, he's not even involved in a storyline heading into Mania!

I don't get what's going on with this whole Barrett/Sheamus thing. Do they just have so few faces available to do something with Barrett that they have to spread Sheamus between two stories? And why did Cesaro lose to Orton? Also, if Orton is getting involved in the whole Shield thing, then is it 4 on 3? Or is this setting up Barrett + The Shield vs Orton, Ryback, Jericho, and Sheamus? Furthermore, why are three of the champs on the show involved in no story line to speak of? Barrett's thing isn't really a story or a feud yet. Cesaro is doing nothing at all. And then, you know, Divas. The hell is going on?

SONIC! EAT AT SONIC!

Did Bo Dallas just disappear because he was so bad? I hope so.

FAN DAN GOOOOOOOOO!

Other stars on the roster continue to make Cena's strength look pale by comparison. You have Mark Henry lifting up The Great Khali and walking around the ring with him. You have Sheamus able to white-noise Big Show smoothly. You have Cesaro who is mind blowing. You have Ryback who can lift two men up on his shoulders (as long as they're small men...) And then you have Cena.. who they still try to say has the most amazing feats of strength in the WWE.

Cole - The Crossface =/= STF

Punk and Cena can have seriously good matches. It's such a shame that the main event at Mania instead will be a Celebrity match (because that's all that the Rock is anymore. He's not a wrestler, he's a celebrity, and he fills that obligatory Wrestlemania celebrity match.) Maybe the Rock could have a halfway decent match if he had any cardio to speak of...

So far the road to Wrestlemania seems like a clusterfuck of them having no idea what stories to even pursue yet... paired with the already known matches, means this Mania is looking rather sad.

@fateofnever: Oh, I was never trying to imply it couldn't be dangerous. Hell all moves can screw up and hurt someone. It was more a comment on how a move can be made to feel special by its scarcity.

I understand all the reasons why it's been put on the shelf, but I always felt the catalyst was more of an extremely dangerous variation as opposed to the more mildly dangerous we saw last night. I think I've just seen to many indy idiots doing stupidly dangerous shit to each other that a vanilla piledriver doesn't really seem that bad.

I want to know this. I'm losing patience now. I was happy to wait for Ziggler to 'have his time', but it's actually starting to seem like it will never actually arrive. If it does, I'm worried that'll it'll be anti-climactic given we've had to wait this long. Seriously, as soon as I heard Ryback's opponent was Ziggler, I just fast forwarded. It's sad.

Other then that awesome match between Cena and Punk, and Triple H getting into it with Brock Raw this week was kinda plain.

With nearly a month and a half left until Wrestlemania we can safely bet two matches that we've known of for quite a while Cena Vs. The Rock, and Brock Lesner Vs. Triple H will be on the card. The feud so far between Del Rio and Swagger has been a little uncomfortable especially after last night's promo. With Swagger's recent DUI I think he will lose to Del Rio at Mania.

Hopefully the next few weeks will put into perspective what other matches will come to light because it's pretty confusing right now.

Is there anyway that we can get Big E. some new ring attire? Particularly for his knees and foot area. His calves look smaller than my arms and are super odd compared to the block of muscle he is otherwise

So Fox's Vortex twitter account just tweeted this regarding Saturday Morning Slam:

Ziggler's master class selling is his own undoing. He's so good at getting beat up that the WWE just wants him to get beat up every week. He's like the greatest Barry Horowitz of all-time.

Ok we all gotta watch this...

Don't forget tomorrow on WNW the WarLoC tournament continues with @zombiesatemycereal vs @FateOfNever and @DrX25 vs @Demoskinos.

Updated bracket with the results from last week in the spoilers.

Saturday Morning Slam has always been awesome.

Also, the first ever GM of SMS was announced:

[Rips up WWE hierarchy chart]

@papercut said:

Don't forget tomorrow on WNW the WarLoC tournament continues with @zombiesatemycereal vs @FateOfNever and @DrX25 vs @Demoskinos.

Updated bracket with the results from last week in the spoilers.

Most likely way to excited to see what you did with my entrance.

Main Event Cliffsnotes:

Saturday Morning Slam Cliffsnotes:

@papercut said:

Don't forget tomorrow on WNW the WarLoC tournament continues with @zombiesatemycereal vs @FateOfNever and @DrX25 vs @Demoskinos.

Updated bracket with the results from last week in the spoilers.

Aw, I'm totally going to miss my debut because I work Thursday morning.

The hell is this SMS crap? Did they rebrand smackdown or something or is it just a one night event sort of thing?

Main Event Cliffsnotes:

I'M ALL IN FOR THIS.

SMS as in Saturday Morning Slam and not Social Media Smackdown.

The only real Smackdown spoiler you need to know:

I'd like to see that flowchart from hell.

Well that....sucks? =\

Damn you Striker!

FUCK

I told you guys that Matt Striker was a human piece of fucking garbage for the longest time. But nooo, no one wants to listen to me...

That Piledriver should have ended the match. It was a thing of beauty.

Haha-HAHhaHAHAH! That made my week so far. All because of that lol.

Jericho is my hero.

@gunslingerpanda: Welcome back partner.

WWE smartly decided the best move was to just put the entire Cena/Punk match on Youtube.

SHEETZ are now saying that CM Punk and/or Arn Anderson(producer for the match) nearly lost their job over the piledriver, and Cena was the one who talked Vince down...

Don't know if I believe that or not. Punk's too big to fire and Arn sounds like he's the best road agent of all time.

@papercut:

Also I have a question; why are piledrivers banned? I like them :(

@gunslingerpanda:

It's always been my understanding that A) that move is really easy to botch and really hurt someone (i.e. Austin) and B) They are more aware now in the PG era of kids replicating moves--see A.

For the longest time I feel like the piledriver and the shooting star press were both banned. With the SSP it was after Brock almost killed himself and Kidman almost curb stomped someone with it, but then Evan Bourne comes along and he's doing it every night. And I seem to remember another famous wrestler who uses the piledriver a lot around Wrestlemania...

Firing Arn would be extremely distasteful. If you have to fire anyone fire punk. I doubt punk would even really care considering how they still treat him.

Holy fucking shit! Look at Jake!

Well now I don't have to download the enitre show!

Bravo WWE!!!

Also, did I miss something, or was Jericho not on RAW this week?

@doesitoffendyou_yeah: He was not as far as I could tell then again I fell asleep for most of the 2nd hour. >_>

Oh Oh yeah... almost forgot welcome back @GunslingerPanda ! #PandaCut

@doesitoffendyou_yeah: He's gone for this week and next week as he's touring with Fozzy.

He was totally absent from Raw. It's furthermore why the whole Shield story heading into Mania seems like no one knows what they're doing. Cena abandons 'the good fight' because he has to go wrestle The Rock for the second time in a life time. Sheamus is dividing his attention between Barrett and The Shield. Ryback beat up Ziggler for some reason. Orton attacked the Shield from behind because Orton. Jericho unifies Sheamus and Ryback after Cena leaves just to lose a match and then miss the show the next week. I know we've still got plenty of time before Mania since they give it more time to build up than your average PPV, but, it all seems to directionless.

Stephanie McMahon got an intern to handle her opened a Twitter account.

#WhosTheREALBoss

Also a bit of news.

1) Wrestler Observer is reporting that, since Cara/Mysterio is off for Mania and, as a result, they're putting off the world record attempt for most masked people at the same time, they're thinking of doing the world record for largest Harlem Shake.

2) Maria Menounos' name has been thrown around as the person to induct Bob Backlund as she's good friends with him.

3) Social Media Smackdown will feature live polls, live Touts and Tweets from Superstars and Divas and live commentary from Josh Mathews, Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler.

@drx25:

1) Booooo

2) Weird but okay

3) Everyone is ripping off our live polls

Apparently the commentary for Smackdown will be live. Which is a weird thing.

Triple H and Stephanie McMahon on twitter blows my fucking mind.