Impressions on Wrestling

This week's WWE Raw was a big deal. It was the first episode of the new era.  They needed to bring something different. They needed a good show to get the brand started off right.  They didn't deliver a good show... They delivered a great show.  To start off the new feel, they had a much improved opening video/song. They started the show with a talking segment to establish the evening, and then never looked back.  But the question isn't whether or not this show rocked, but why did it work so much better than the last year of RAW?  Well there are quite a few things that worked in this episode's favor, so I am going to break it down a bit. 1.) Making Stars Holy cow, this has to be the first thing I cover.  They made two stars tonight and also highlighted other talents effectively.  Finn Balor and Sasha Banks came out of this show looking like a trillion dollars.  The crowd was into Finn Balor, but I don't think they believed he w...

The dust has settled on Battleground.  Starting tomorrow, we enter a "New Era" in the WWE with the brand extension in full effect.  The show was very entertaining from top to bottom, and did a good job at setting up stars for this new era. This show had very few low points and held interest for over 3 hours, and that includes the Kickoff show.  They started setting a good foundation for the new era with Breezango beating the Usos on the Battleground Kickoff show. This sets them up nicely as a meaningful team in the Smackdown tag division. Bayley and Sasha celebrate The main card started off with a bang. We got the first appearance of Bayley on a WWE main roster card.  This was billed as a one night rental for Sasha Banks.  This may be an extremely smart move to introduce her, let her finish her NXT run, then bring her on after Summerslam.  Bayley received an enormous pop from the Washington D.C. crowd, and all the ladies gave a good performance...

The WWE Draft is done. The landscape has been set for the new "war" in WWE... Raw vs. Smackdown. On one side, we have Stephanie McMahon and Mick Foley running the "Flagship show" in RAW. On the other side, we have Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan running the "underdog" show in Smackdown. Let us look and see how the draft went down and then we will analyze the outcome. RAW Seth Rollins Charlotte - WWE Womens Champion Finn Balor (NXT Callup) Roman Reigns Brock Lesnar The New Day- WWE Tag Team Champions Sami Zayn Sasha Banks Chris Jericho Rusev w/ Lana - United States Champion Kevin Owens Enzo & Cass The Club (Gallows & Anderson) Big Show Nia Jax (NXT Callup) Neville Cesaro Sheamus Golden Truth Titus O'Neil Paige Darren Young Sin Cara Jack Swagger The Dudley Boys Summer Rae Mark Henry Braun Strowman Bo Dallas The Shining Stars Alicia Fox Dana Brooke Curtis Axel Smackdown Dean Ambrose-WWE Champion AJ Sty...

As a very passionate and dedicated wrestling fan, it has been hard to watch the main WWE product for some time now.  The writing was sloppy, nothing felt important, and they shoved the same thing down your throat for three hours.  Tonight felt different from that norm.  Coming off of a lackluster Wrestlemania and a decent RAW the week before, WWE came out swinging this week. The WWE announced that Shane McMahon was in charge for the second week in a row due to "social media" demands.  So in story, it still doesn't make a lot of sense... but no Vince or the Authority has been refreshing. Right away Shane laid out a solid show with a Women's Championship match as well as the start of the Tag Team Championship #1 Contenders tournament. He also announced a match between AJ Styles and Sami Zayn where Sami could add himself to the main event of Payback if he won.  This set up Kevin Owens coming out which started a fun confrontation.  This led to another good ...

I write this post almost an entire year after our last post.  I have lost plenty of interest in the WWE over the past year. I won't lie to you and say I stopped paying attention to it, but my care for it dipped to a point where I would skip shows for a few weeks and ask my Dad what was going on.  This is very much a change coming from a guy who used to clamor for every bit of wrestling he could find. During this time of bad Authority angles, bad Divas storylines, and lack of an interesting mid-card, there was only one thing that held any level of my attention.  That one thing was NXT.  NXT is based out of my hometown Orlando, Florida.  It provided an alternative to what the main shows were offering.  When I was unhappy with the Authority vs. Daniel Bryan/Cena/Reigns/Orton or watching Dolph Ziggler get another rug pulled out from under him, I had the Zayn, Neville, Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Finn Balor, and Kevin Owens.  NXT provided a haven of an old sc...

I am on cloud nine.  Last night was had a little bit of past, a good amount of present, and an enormous amount of future.  Before I get into my specific thoughts, I wanted to thank WWE for this show.  This show was a beacon of hope for all of the people that wanted something new and fresh.  This show was it. I would love to do a segment by segment breakdown in order, but I didn't want to take notes. I was enjoying the show way too much. Instead, I will post my thoughts on big moments throughout the night in no particular order. We had a hot opening segment with Daniel Bryan getting the praise he deserves.  "You deserve it" is the truest chant that has ever been given by a crowd. I am happy that Daniel Bryan got to the top of the mountain, because he does deserve it.  No matter what happens in the future, nobody can take April 6, 2104 away from Daniel Bryan, or the hero's welcome he received the next night.  Triple H came out and informed Bryan he had...