BRM Reviews the 11/3/2014 Raw

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT-
Whoa! Vince is back on TV. He got a big pop.
And right away he’s plugging the Network. The Network is free for all of November, including Survivor Series. Vince’s attempt at humor was to reference McMahonism. Yeah. Because that’s the sort of thing you’d want to remind people about. If you’re going to do that, you might as well go all the way and turn to Hunter and ask “Hey, remember when you humped that mannequin in a casket?!”
So then Vince makes his big announcement: If Team Authority loses at Survivor Series, then they will no longer be in charge.
What? Just like that? If done competently, this could have been a HUGE angle. Instead they just announce that it’s happen one day. Also: Steph must assemble a Survivor Series team to wrestle a match that will determine who controls the WWE? #BRMBookedItFirst

Anyway, being me, I have a few questions about this.
1. On whose Authority is Vince making this decision? His own? He can’t do that. He isn’t supposed to have power. And even if he did, what’s to stop Hunter and Steph from taking over the way they did before and just get the Board of Directors to overturn Vince’s decision?
2. Why would Vince do this? From what I understand, the Authority has been doing a kayfabe good job. In fact, Vince himself later said that the product has been “damn good.” So why would he do something that would risk taking them out of power?

The worst part is… we all know what this is: hot-shotting. They’re worried about the Network numbers, so they do whatever they can to get buys RIGHT NOW, costing them a lot of money in the future, rather than doing RIGHT thing to do and ADDRESS PEOPLE’S COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE NETWORK!

And, of course, because of their Network panic hot-shotting, they are doing this match to get rid of the Authority at a time when two of their biggest stars who both just so happen to have major beef with the Authority (Roman Reigns & Daniel Bryan) are out of action, and when another star who has beef with the Authority, Dean Ambrose, just had a separate match announced for Survivor Series. As a result, Team Cena will almost certainly be Cena, Orton, and three random guys who had no prior beef with the Authority and will be forgotten the day after the PPV. Good planning, dumbasses!

JBL immediately asks “who would be in power if The Authority loses?” That a good question, JBL. Why would I want the Authority to lose if their replacement might be worse?

Dean Ambrose comes out and they go to a commercial, and as they are going to commercial, Cole tell us that Ambrose will be wrestling Cesaro right now. So when we get back form the commercial, they give us a segment with Hunter, Vince, and Steph backstage. Where’s Cesaro? The whole segment was pointless. It did nothing but tell us things that we had already figured out (and if you didn’t figure it out on your own, the announcers’ speculation surely got you thinking about it.
And for anyone who answered my above question with “stopping being snarky, BRM. Cesaro is doing his entrance, but they are showing us the backstage segment instead,” you are all dead wrong, because after the segment AND a video package, w cut to the ring, and Ambrose’s music was still playing.

DEAN AMBROSE vs. CESARO- 6.5/10
To set up the story for this match, they played a replay of last week’s Raw, where Ambrose went nuts and assaulted Cesaro with a microphone before a match they were supposed to have. They then showed us clips of a Street Fight they had on Smackdown, including Ambrose winning clean. SO WHY ARE THEY WRESTLING EACH OTHER AGAIN?!
You want to know one of the major reason why people haven’t bought the Network? Overexposure. The big draw of the Network is the cheap price on the PPVs. Rather than $50 each month, I’m only paying $10. The problem is that in order for this to be a draw, you have to build up matches that I am willing to PAY TO SEE… but if you just book the same guys against each other a million times on TV, then why the hell should I pay to see them wrestle on the PPV via the Network when I have already seen it for free a million times. And especially in this day and age where WWE has booked every belt aside from the world title into complete and total oblivion so that the idea of seeing a title change is no longer really a draw.
This is, of course, the result of two things: 1) Having no long-term direction (either from the start due to incompetence, or they are unable to have it due to meddling from the higher-ups), and 2) having writers who have absolutely NO IDEA HOW TO TELL A STORY. As a result of this, the only way creative ever comes up with to build feuds up is to have them wrestle a lot and trade either trade wins or trade distraction finishes to screw each other. As a result, everyone gets beat a bunch of times (which both stops people from getting over and kills titles), and the story (if there even is one beyond “we have a match) never evolves, and thus it becomes stale WAY before the time comes to ask for people to pay to see it.

Wow. Fifteen minutes into Raw and already almost two pages of ranting. Maybe I’ll publish this one online as a novel. I think I’ll pay homage to Bryan Alvarez and R.D. Reynolds, but instead of calling it Death of WWE or or Death of Monday Night Raw or something like that, I’ll call it Death of BRM, because at this rate, I’ll surely have an aneurism.


CRASH!

That was tonight’s first remote throwing. That was in response to Bray Wyatt graphic magically taking over the screen before we cut to commercial. They might as well have written “THIS MATCH WILL NOT HAVE A SATISFYING FINISH” in big red letter across the screen.

Oh. Well then. I guess I was wrong… but that doesn’t mean that doing it didn’t still piss me off.


After the match, Ambrose went to go get Bray, but the lights went out and he took over the TV cameras and when the lights went back on, he disappeared like magic because… um… HOW DOES THIS BUILD TO ANYTHING?! I would be enjoying the Bray Watt character SO MUCH MORE if not for this stupid magic crap. If Bran can control the lights and teleport, why doesn’t he shut the lights off every time he is about to get pinned, or teleport out of a cage right away every time he is in a cage match?!
As I asked above, how does this build to anything? I already want to see Ambrose get his hands on Bray for screwing him out of the Hell in a Cell match against Rollins. What was the reason for Bray watching the match from his chair and then teleporting away? It’s because the writers don’t know how to tell a story, so they just throw people out there in segments together.


HUNTER & STEPH BACKSTAGE- Hunter wants to call Orton to be on their team. Steph is unsure. This was good.

JIMMY USO (w/Jey Uso) vs. THE MIZ (w/Damien Miz-Dow)- 5/10
Remember what I was saying about overexposure? Well apparently that Usos are dirty cheaters Twin Magic finish they did last week on Raw? They did THE SAME EXACT FINISH the next night on Main Event. Hell in a Cell was eight days ago. This is now the THIRD time we will see Miz and Jimmy wrestle each other in that length of time. We’ve already seen Ambrose and Cesaro three times.

SHEAMUS vs. TYSON KIDD (w/Natalya)- 6.25/10
Apparently Sheamus will be defending the US Title against Rusev immediately following Raw in a WWE Network exclusive match. Two questions:
1. Why would you do this with almost no hype?
2. If Sheamus is defending his title later tonight, why is he wrestling now? Wouldn’t it be a lot more productive to have him cut a promo hyping up the title defense? This way you would have more time for other matches, and one of these guys won’t have to lose a match.

This got a lot more time than I expected, and I really liked the finish (they are finally bringing the “marital problems” thing into a real angle- Tyson used Nattie as a human shield to allow himself to get a count-out win), but unless this is going to result in Tyson getting a US Title shot, Shemaus shouldn’t have been the guy to lose to that spot.
Sheamus Brogue-kicks Tyson after the match. I was actually okay with this.

DOLPH ZIGGLER & THE AUTHORITY SEGMENT
Is it bad that when I heard Hunter’s music, I got really excited because I thought we were about tosee Hunter vs. Dolph?
Anyway, Hunter tries to convince Dolph that Cena gets all of the credit for Dolph’s hard work, and he offered Dolph anything he wanted to not be on Cena’s team. Dolph said he wanted the Authority out of power, so Hunter booked a…
WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: HANDICAP MATCH: Dolph Ziggler(c) vs. Seth Rollins (w/Mercury & Noble)- 6.5/10
They had a good match. Rollins was about to win after a Curb Stomp, but Randy Orton showed up and RKOed him RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REFEREE. There was no DQ for this. Instead, the match just ended. Kane yelled at Orton.

THE AUTHORITY AND RANDY ORTON BACKSTAGE- GREAT!
Orton wants Rollins one-on-one tonight. The Authority obviously aren’t happy with him, so he threatens to be on Cena’s team. Hunter said he would make the match, but then told Orton that after the match, he expected Orton and Rollins to put their differences aside and work together for the good of the Authority.

ULTRA-CREEPY VIDEO PACKAGE WITH LOTS OF EYES ON THE SCREEN- REALLY F*CKING CREEPY! Also, this was another reason not to do crap with Bray’s magical light-control and graphics.

TITUS O’NEIL vs. RYBACK (right out of his time machine from 2012)- 3/10

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS THE BIG SHOW- great promo by Big Show. I liked the fact that he plugged the Survivor Series elimination match, too.

MARK HENRY vs. THE BIG SHOW- 4.25/10
This really seems like it should have been saved for the PPV. Instead, we got to see a bit of the match, then Big Show won by DQ when Mark Henry hit him with the ring steps. Mark gave Big Show the World’s Strongest Slam on the steel steps, but it didn’t look good. If they turn this into an injury angle for show and then bring him back for the PPV, I’ll be fine with it.

THE AUTHORITY BACKSTAGE- they send Kane to recruit Mark Henry.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BRIE BELLA- Nikki shuts the interview down. Then Erick Rowan showed up and creepily stroked Renee’s hair.

EMMA vs. NIKKI BELLA (w/Brie Bella)- 0.5/10
AJ was on commentary and was acting a lot more like a babyface than she has in the past month, which is a good change. After the match, Nikki ordered Brie to slap AJ. She did, so AJ knocked her down, then chased after Nikki.

ZACK RYDER vs. RUSEV (w/Lana)- squash
I actually thought that this squash was a perfectly fine way to build up the Network-exclusive title match.

LANA & RUSEV PROMO- good. Too good, in fact. Lana said that Putin has ordered them to win the US Title and give it to him… and I REALLY want to see that skit. Sheamus came out and cut a great promo. The promo that he should have cut instead of wrestling his earlier match.


FINALLY! A F*CKING SCHEDULE FOR THE WWE NETWORK IS ADVERTISED ON RAW! They should have been doing this from the beginning.

STEPH TRIES TO RECRUIT RUEV FOR HER TEAM- Lana says they’ll ask Putin.
This is one of those things that makes perfect sense, but I just don’t like it.
STARDUST (w/Goldust) vs. FERNANDO (w/El Torito & Diego)- 1.25/10
Miz & Sandow were at ringside. Torito kicked Goldust into them.

They announce that Goldust and Stardust will defend the tag titles against the Usos in a steel cage match on Smackdown. WHY?! How does this make any sense?! All the Usos has done since the last time they lost a tag title match to the Dust Brothers was CHEAT. Los Matadores, on the other hand, have beaten the tag champs once, and now Fernando just pinned Goldust… but the Usos are the ones getting the tag title shot. And it’s in a steel cage because… um…. uh…

RANDY ORTON vs. SETH ROLLINS- 7/10
A good old-fashioned slugfest. These were two guys who really wanted to hit each other, and that’s just what they did. I LOVED the finish, which was Rollins countering an RKO into a backslide for the win. It was the perfect finish that robs Randy of the one thing he wanted: a release of his anger, and in completely clean way.

POST-MATCH ANGLE- Orton shakes hands with Mercury, Noble, and Kane… then RKOs Rollins and goes nuts on the others. He is about to punt Rollins when Hunter gets in the way and tries to talk him down… but Orton SLUGGED HIM to a HUGE POP! Orton went nuts on everyone, but as Kane was trying to restrain Orton, Rollins took the opportunity to give him a curb stomp on the announce table.
Steph and Hunter then ordered a curb stomp onto the ring steps. It looked SICK!

Overall, a good Raw, despite my reaction to the first half hour of the show. Don’t get me wrong: those complaints still stand... but as a whole, the show was much better than I feared it would be.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Michael Cole (about the Ambrose-Cesaro “Trick or Street Fight match on Smackdown)- “Cesaro would end up looking like the Headless Horseman.”
No, Michael. He wouldn’t. Do you know why? Because the two important descriptive characteristic of the Headless Horseman are that he doesn’t have a head, and that he is riding a horse. Was Cesaro decapitated on Smackdown? No. Did he ride a horse on Smackdown? No. SO HOW THE F*CK DID HE IN ANY WAY RESEMBLE THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN?!
I swear this must be one of the single dumbest things I have ever heard a wrestling announcer say.

2. Jerry Lawler talked about how “creepy” it was that Bray Wyatt magically appeared in his rocking chair on the stage and sat there, staring at the ring during a match.
HE’S BEEN DOING THIS FOR OVER A F*CKING YEAR NOW! It’s not “creepy” anymore. It’s DULL!

[cero2k]

OPENING SEGMENT-
Whoa! Vince is back on TV. He got a big pop.
And right away he’s plugging the Network. The Network is free for all of November, including Survivor Series. Vince’s attempt at humor was to reference McMahonism. Yeah. Because that’s the sort of thing you’d want to remind people about. If you’re going to do that, you might as well go all the way and turn to Hunter and ask “Hey, remember when you humped that mannequin in a casket?!”
So then Vince makes his big announcement: If Team Authority loses at Survivor Series, then they will no longer be in charge.
What? Just like that? If done competently, this could have been a HUGE angle. Instead they just announce that it’s happen one day. Also: Steph must assemble a Survivor Series team to wrestle a match that will determine who controls the WWE? #BRMBookedItFirst

Anyway, being me, I have a few questions about this.
1. On whose Authority is Vince making this decision? His own? He can’t do that. He isn’t supposed to have power. And even if he did, what’s to stop Hunter and Steph from taking over the way they did before and just get the Board of Directors to overturn Vince’s decision?
2. Why would Vince do this? From what I understand, the Authority has been doing a kayfabe good job. In fact, Vince himself later said that the product has been “damn good.” So why would he do something that would risk taking them out of power?
You know the answer is "Because I'm VINCE MCMAHON GOD DAMMIT!"


DOLPH ZIGGLER & THE AUTHORITY SEGMENT
Is it bad that when I heard Hunter’s music, I got really excited because I thought we were about tosee Hunter vs. Dolph?
Anyway, Hunter tries to convince Dolph that Cena gets all of the credit for Dolph’s hard work, and he offered Dolph anything he wanted to not be on Cena’s team. Dolph said he wanted the Authority out of power, so Hunter booked a…
WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: HANDICAP MATCH: Dolph Ziggler(c) vs. Seth Rollins (w/Mercury & Noble)- 6.5/10
They had a good match. Rollins was about to win after a Curb Stomp, but Randy Orton showed up and RKOed him RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REFEREE. There was no DQ for this. Instead, the match just ended. Kane yelled at Orton.
from all the crap fest, i like that they're treating Dolph as a bigger hero than he is usually shown as


RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BRIE BELLA- Nikki shuts the interview down. Then Erick Rowan showed up and creepily stroked Renee’s hair.
they broke up the wyatt family so Rowan could become a new version of Snitsky. facepalm. He's getting fired soon


POST-MATCH ANGLE- Orton shakes hands with Mercury, Noble, and Kane… then RKOs Rollins and goes nuts on the others. He is about to punt Rollins when Hunter gets in the way and tries to talk him down… but Orton SLUGGED HIM to a HUGE POP! Orton went nuts on everyone, but as Kane was trying to restrain Orton, Rollins took the opportunity to give him a curb stomp on the announce table.
Steph and Hunter then ordered a curb stomp onto the ring steps. It looked SICK!
if Orton doesn't RKO Cena within the next 7 days i'm gonna be pissed

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT-
Whoa! Vince is back on TV. He got a big pop.
And right away he’s plugging the Network. The Network is free for all of November, including Survivor Series. Vince’s attempt at humor was to reference McMahonism. Yeah. Because that’s the sort of thing you’d want to remind people about. If you’re going to do that, you might as well go all the way and turn to Hunter and ask “Hey, remember when you humped that mannequin in a casket?!”
So then Vince makes his big announcement: If Team Authority loses at Survivor Series, then they will no longer be in charge.
What? Just like that? If done competently, this could have been a HUGE angle. Instead they just announce that it’s happen one day. Also: Steph must assemble a Survivor Series team to wrestle a match that will determine who controls the WWE? #BRMBookedItFirst

Anyway, being me, I have a few questions about this.
1. On whose Authority is Vince making this decision? His own? He can’t do that. He isn’t supposed to have power. And even if he did, what’s to stop Hunter and Steph from taking over the way they did before and just get the Board of Directors to overturn Vince’s decision?
2. Why would Vince do this? From what I understand, the Authority has been doing a kayfabe good job. In fact, Vince himself later said that the product has been “damn good.” So why would he do something that would risk taking them out of power?
You know the answer is "Because I'm VINCE MCMAHON GOD DAMMIT!"
That doens't mean I won't scream about it. In fact, the last time he made decisions purely because he was VINCE MCMAHON, DAMMIT! the board took his power away and gave it to Triple H instead.

DOLPH ZIGGLER & THE AUTHORITY SEGMENT
Is it bad that when I heard Hunter’s music, I got really excited because I thought we were about tosee Hunter vs. Dolph?
Anyway, Hunter tries to convince Dolph that Cena gets all of the credit for Dolph’s hard work, and he offered Dolph anything he wanted to not be on Cena’s team. Dolph said he wanted the Authority out of power, so Hunter booked a…
WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: HANDICAP MATCH: Dolph Ziggler(c) vs. Seth Rollins (w/Mercury & Noble)- 6.5/10
They had a good match. Rollins was about to win after a Curb Stomp, but Randy Orton showed up and RKOed him RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REFEREE. There was no DQ for this. Instead, the match just ended. Kane yelled at Orton.
from all the crap fest, i like that they're treating Dolph as a bigger hero than he is usually shown as
Not really. If he was a hero, he would be winning.
But yes. This feud with the Authority comes out of nowhere for him, and will be forgotten afterwards. Like I said elsewhere: in reality, Team Cena will be Cena, Orton, and three other guys who will immediately be forgotten and right back down to the midcard after this is over.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BRIE BELLA- Nikki shuts the interview down. Then Erick Rowan showed up and creepily stroked Renee’s hair.
they broke up the wyatt family so Rowan could become a new version of Snitsky. facepalm. He's getting fired soon
I have actually hear dpeolpe say that this (and some stuff he did with Kane on Smackdown) are supposed to be comedy, so maybe they'll team him with Salter as "the Red-Headed Comedy Jobbers.

POST-MATCH ANGLE- Orton shakes hands with Mercury, Noble, and Kane… then RKOs Rollins and goes nuts on the others. He is about to punt Rollins when Hunter gets in the way and tries to talk him down… but Orton SLUGGED HIM to a HUGE POP! Orton went nuts on everyone, but as Kane was trying to restrain Orton, Rollins took the opportunity to give him a curb stomp on the announce table.
Steph and Hunter then ordered a curb stomp onto the ring steps. It looked SICK!
if Orton doesn't RKO Cena within the next 7 days i'm gonna be pissed
What? WHY? They have done a perfectly good job of making Orton's opposition to thee Authority feel natural. Why have him randomly attack Cena now when he could just randomly attack Cena AFTER they've dealt with the Authority?

[cero2k]

DOLPH ZIGGLER & THE AUTHORITY SEGMENT
Is it bad that when I heard Hunter’s music, I got really excited because I thought we were about tosee Hunter vs. Dolph?
Anyway, Hunter tries to convince Dolph that Cena gets all of the credit for Dolph’s hard work, and he offered Dolph anything he wanted to not be on Cena’s team. Dolph said he wanted the Authority out of power, so Hunter booked a…
WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: HANDICAP MATCH: Dolph Ziggler(c) vs. Seth Rollins (w/Mercury & Noble)- 6.5/10
They had a good match. Rollins was about to win after a Curb Stomp, but Randy Orton showed up and RKOed him RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REFEREE. There was no DQ for this. Instead, the match just ended. Kane yelled at Orton.
from all the crap fest, i like that they're treating Dolph as a bigger hero than he is usually shown as
Not really. If he was a hero, he would be winning.
But yes. This feud with the Authority comes out of nowhere for him, and will be forgotten afterwards. Like I said elsewhere: in reality, Team Cena will be Cena, Orton, and three other guys who will immediately be forgotten and right back down to the midcard after this is over.

indeed, unfortunately he'll just move to whatever new IC feud comes next, or worse, he'll feud with Kane. But i kinda disagree with the Team Cena thing, I initially thought the same thing that they would just add the usos there because Uso-Crazy and shit, but now it seems they'll add Show, Ziggler, and Sheamus to cena's team and rusev, henry to authority. If this happens i see Rusev and Orton being the MVPs of the match, so i'm ok with this, especially because this could easily catapult Rusev over to a main event status vs Cena.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BRIE BELLA- Nikki shuts the interview down. Then Erick Rowan showed up and creepily stroked Renee’s hair.
they broke up the wyatt family so Rowan could become a new version of Snitsky. facepalm. He's getting fired soon
I have actually hear dpeolpe say that this (and some stuff he did with Kane on Smackdown) are supposed to be comedy, so maybe they'll team him with Salter as "the Red-Headed Comedy Jobbers.
this makes me sad in so many ways

POST-MATCH ANGLE- Orton shakes hands with Mercury, Noble, and Kane… then RKOs Rollins and goes nuts on the others. He is about to punt Rollins when Hunter gets in the way and tries to talk him down… but Orton SLUGGED HIM to a HUGE POP! Orton went nuts on everyone, but as Kane was trying to restrain Orton, Rollins took the opportunity to give him a curb stomp on the announce table.
Steph and Hunter then ordered a curb stomp onto the ring steps. It looked SICK!
if Orton doesn't RKO Cena within the next 7 days i'm gonna be pissed
What? WHY? They have done a perfectly good job of making Orton's opposition to thee Authority feel natural. Why have him randomly attack Cena now when he could just randomly attack Cena AFTER they've dealt with the Authority?

I don't wanna see Orton join Cena just because, I want Cena to need Orton more than Orton needs Cena. So I want Cena to ask Orton to join, Orton saves Cena from a beat down, they stand tall, and Orton RKOs Cena. I'm liking the pissed off Orton we're getting that just gives no fucks. Attacking Cena after the SS match will only cause Cena/Orton 639, attcking him now creates the 'can we trust Orton' story, which is overused, but not as much as Cena/Orton

[WrestlingJoker]

Anyone notice when Kane tripped near the end of the show?

[cero2k]

Anyone notice when Kane tripped near the end of the show?

did I!?

phpBB [video]

[Big Red Machine]

Anyone notice when Kane tripped near the end of the show?

It was clearly done on purpose. They really weren't going to do the Curb Stomp into the stairs part, but then Orton tripped Kane like a jerk, so Rollins gave him the Curb Stomp onto the stairs. Orton totally deserved it.

[Big Red Machine]

I don't wanna see Orton join Cena just because, I want Cena to need Orton more than Orton needs Cena. So I want Cena to ask Orton to join, Orton saves Cena from a beat down, they stand tall, and Orton RKOs Cena. I'm liking the pissed off Orton we're getting that just gives no fucks. Attacking Cena after the SS match will only cause Cena/Orton 639, attcking him now creates the 'can we trust Orton' story, which is overused, but not as much as Cena/Orton

Orton has a reason to help Cena. The Authority hates him now.

[cero2k]

I don't wanna see Orton join Cena just because, I want Cena to need Orton more than Orton needs Cena. So I want Cena to ask Orton to join, Orton saves Cena from a beat down, they stand tall, and Orton RKOs Cena. I'm liking the pissed off Orton we're getting that just gives no fucks. Attacking Cena after the SS match will only cause Cena/Orton 639, attcking him now creates the 'can we trust Orton' story, which is overused, but not as much as Cena/Orton

Orton has a reason to help Cena. The Authority hates him now.

yes, but he needs to make sure Cena understands that he is doing it for his own reasons and not because he needs Cena. I just don't want face Orton back, face Orton is freaking boring and annoying

[Big Red Machine]

I don't wanna see Orton join Cena just because, I want Cena to need Orton more than Orton needs Cena. So I want Cena to ask Orton to join, Orton saves Cena from a beat down, they stand tall, and Orton RKOs Cena. I'm liking the pissed off Orton we're getting that just gives no fucks. Attacking Cena after the SS match will only cause Cena/Orton 639, attcking him now creates the 'can we trust Orton' story, which is overused, but not as much as Cena/Orton

Orton has a reason to help Cena. The Authority hates him now.

yes, but he needs to make sure Cena understands that he is doing it for his own reasons and not because he needs Cena. I just don't want face Orton back, face Orton is freaking boring and annoying

I agree. The best role for Randy Orton has always been as a "looking out for number one" tweener. I've been trying to turn him heel for over a year in my fantasy booking, but I wanted it to be a natural, slow turn... but he just works so damn well as a tweener that every time I try to start up the turn, the story just writes itself for him to be a tweener.

Randy Orton fighting the Authority for supposedly "moral" reasons like Cena and Dolph are just wouldn't work. Orton fighting the Authority because he is pissed at Seth Rollins is working perfectly.

[WrestlingJoker]

Anyone notice when Kane tripped near the end of the show?

did I!?

phpBB [video]

Thank you so much for these.

Anyone notice when Kane tripped near the end of the show?

It was clearly done on purpose. They really weren't going to do the Curb Stomp into the stairs part, but then Orton tripped Kane like a jerk, so Rollins gave him the Curb Stomp onto the stairs. Orton totally deserved it.

Should have curb stomped him twice for good measure.

[KILLdozer]

Triple H said "shit" on the air too during all that.

The stair Stomp was horrible in my opinion because I saw him land right on his shoulder. Horribly telegraphed.

[Big Red Machine]

Just watched Sheamus vs. Rusev. It was like a 6/10.