that would have been the best part of the show

But isn't Lesnar going to lose?

Not necessarily, but I don't know.

I can't imagine many people paying to watch Regins pull a Cena 2.0 and defeat Lesnar against all odds. But how many people want to see Lesnar kill Reigns in the middle of the ring? THATs the money angle.

THIS is why you have to turn Reigns and make him the corporate butt-boy. Holy crap can you imagine the heat, Reigns basically bragging that he's the chosen one and is destined to beat Lesnar at WM? Lesnar totally destroys Reigns at Mania, you can then have Rollins cash in that night or the next to take the tile away and let Lesnar go in peace.

Reigns is the chosen one. They haven't overpushed him beyond his popularity for the last year for him to lose at Wrestlemania. He's definitely winning.

And this is exactly why he's getting backlash right now. His push was not earned. It was given. He's not our guy, he's their guy.

I don't think the backlash on Sunday was just because of Daniel Bryan. It could have been Dolph Ziggler. It could have been CM Punk. But it is a clear indicator that no matter who you support, no matter how loud you cheer or how much merchandise you buy, it doesn't matter. This generation is all about doing what's NOT best for business.

Yeah I don't see how Reigns loses. They also didn't build up Lesnar to legendary proportions to have him lose on some crappy cash-in.

Lesnar was built to feed their new star Reigns.

(bolded above for emphasis)

As least into October, Reigns was the #2 selling merch at live events, trailing only Cena.

WWE POPS A HUGE AUDIENCE FOR RAW | PWInsider.com

Highest average total audience of any Raw since last July.

Maybe Vince is right, maybe the wrestling isn't a draw at all.

Well they did give away the Rumble for free.

Yep, but that was the least watched hour

Wasn't the Rumble in the first 2 hours? Didn't they do the interviews in the final hour?

I read it the other way around but you could be right for all I know.

k, that Raw segment with Bryanielson in the Reigns locker room ... either that was written stupidly or somebody botched a line & made it sound stupid.

Cause Reigns reaction to what was said bordered on nonsensical.

Would they really drop Reigns from WM main event? That Raw felt an awful lot like it was setting up a Bryan/Lesnar and Rollins/Reigns WM.

Well that'd be one way to address the "wwe doesn't listen to fans" argument.

And then Lesnar destroys Bryan, Reigns beats Rollins clean, Reigns then beats Lesnar at the next opportunity.

My guess is they'll feed Bryan to Reigns to try to make him look good. If we have to see Reigns vs Lesnar at Mania I would almost like to see is Reigns win the match in a controversial or undeserved way, go on to win the title at Mania. Then you have Bryan chasing after the hand picked Reigns and the title over the coming months. I think the heat for an angle like that would be crazy, plus a guy like Bryan is always better in a chasing the title type of role. It'd be a good big money feud.

NXT big event is coming Wednesday. This is the main event. This is a better feud and better promo than anything WWE has done in years.

NXT Champion Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens tell their history | WWE.com

And Neville vs. Balor should be off the charts. Tempted to get WWE Network for a month just for NXT.

It is free this month keep in mind. This card is going to be amazing. Balor vs Neville should tear the house down. Zayn vs KO is the most well booked feud going. I can not wait for this show.

Any catch to this free WWE Network trial? They make it difficult to unsubscribe or is this pretty legit?

Asking because I'm someone who really hasn't watched since probably '99 and has been out of wrestling overall. I had a spurt watching Ring of Honor, a little Chikara, PWG..and recently have watched and loved a few NJPW shows but that's been about it.

Thinking about catching up on a few WWE things to see what I think, seems like a good time. Is there a site that people find reliable for helping me find cream of the crop? Timewise I'll probably have to cut out a lot and just look for the top tier matches and skip around.

Not that I know of. It's pretty easy to unsubscribe from what I've seen.

They don't even require a 6 month commitment anymore, so you could watch in Feb for free and then watch Wrestlemania for ten bucks and then unsubscribe if you wanted to.

If you do pay, just use Paypal. That way you can login to your Paypal account and unsubscribe from there.

Meltzer says there was a big creative meeting and the plan right now is to do a 3-way with Reigns, Bryan, and Lesnar in the Mania main event.

And he didn't report this, but my speculation would be that Bryan wins by making the departing Lesnar tap out, and Rollins cashes in at the end of Mania to start a Rollins/Bryan title feud. Rollins wins that feud and retains, and then Reigns dethrones him later in the year, hopefully after Reigns has a few decent 1-on-1 PPV matches under his belt. (Or maybe Reigns wins at Mania and Rollins cashes in on him and they feud right away, but I think they'd rather save the Reigns title win for a scenario when it's all about him).

I might have to revise my Wrestlemania predictions after Rollins' interesting twitter night. Not sure how the WWE will view all that.

Apparently, Rollins' present or former fiance or girlfriend found a naked photo of an new female NXT signee on one of Rollins' accounts and posted it on twitter, which automatically put it out on WWE's twitter. After that avenue was cleaned up and secured, she upped the ante and put some graphic Rollins photos on her own facebook account.

The WWE office is giving him a pass - the evidence that he's been "hacked" is strong as the pics were reposted twice after Rollins deleted them

Just a reminder NXT Takeover is in 15 minutes. This is going to be a great one!

That Divas match was better than anything WWE has put on in the women's division in over a decade.

I mean if the main roster wasn't just an infomercial for Total Divas I'd be scared shitless of the talent behind me

Yeah the NXT divas matches are definitely not a built in poop break, like a lot of the WWE ones. Those women go all out. Owens looked like a monster tonight.

That was a really good show. Maybe the best promotion going right now.

The promos and video package leading up to the main event were far and above what we see on the main roster. They felt so natural, and not forced or scripted. The main roster just doesn't have that organic feeling to it.

I think HHH has put to rest any trepidation about how WWE is going to survive after Vince kicks the can. NXT is nothing short of fantastic professional wrestling.

Should be interesting to see how bad fans crap on Reigns if he's put over tonight.

Memphis is a mark city. Reigns will be over.

Looked to me like Bryan completely carried Reigns through that match..

Guess they're going to go through with it. Should be interesting to see how a WM crowd handles Reigns.

I predict the main event is going to be a train wreck. Brock can't carry Reigns the way Bryan did tonight. Oh well should be interesting as you say. It was predictable but I did love Wyatt tonight!

The problem with WWE brass is that they'll be giving Roman Reigns kudos for putting on such a good match tonight, when in reality Bryan was carrying him.

Unfortunately he won't get to go against Daniel Bryan or Randy Orton every match, when he's on his 4th straight PPV against Kane let's see how he does.

Overall I thought the PPV was mediocre. It didn't inspire the same anger that Royal Rumble did, but it also didn't inspire much in the crowd at all, judging by how dead the audience was.

The last 2 matches were pretty good, but the rest of the show was pretty much just filler.

Good news if you like Japan wrestling, Josh Barnett (the color commentator for AXS TV's NJPW show) says that AXS TV has renewed the show for at least two more seasons.

And the other big news in Japan right now is a wrestling match in STARDOM (one of the wave of Joshi Puroresu feds, one of the top ones) between HOSHIKO and Act Yasukawa turned into a shoot and basically ended up as a brutal, brutal assault., including deliberate punches to the bad eye of Yasukawa (she recently had surgery to correct a problem in the eye that caused blindness).

They finally stopped the match because if it went any further it wouldn't be assault, it would be intent to kill.

Yasukawa's face afterwards

Edit: OK, I've hxxp'd the link because yes, it's that graphic)

hxxp://i.imgur.com/aFjazR9.jpg

More pictures (top ones are from the assault, with the rest being from other matches) http://sportsnavi.yahoo.co.jp/photo/fight/all/dtl/1207/

Act had to be rushed to a Tokyo hospital where she still is. She's going to need surgery for a broken orbital bone

YOSHIKO, who was Stardom's champion has already been stripped of the title, and is likely to be fired (and some backstage are blaming Stardom's management because "they knew that if they put the two of them together, something like this was going to happen")

There will be a 16 minute short story film about the Von Erichs on the 6pm Eastern/5pm Central edition of SportsCenter on Friday.

Kevin Von Erich talks about ‘Wrestling the Curse,’ which finally airs Friday on ESPN | Dallas Morning News

Well worth the watch. I would have loved to see a full documentary.

If you haven't seen them, there's two really good WCCW documentaries that obviously spend a ton of time on the Von Erichs. One's called Heroes of World Class Wrestling, and the other is the WWE-produced Triumph and Tragedy of World Class. I think you can find both on youtube.

Good to know. I am already down the WCCW Youtube rabbit hole after the short film.

WCCW was awesome back in the day. I remember watching them on Channel 39, at "the world famous Sportatorium"

I saw the WCCW one WWE produed. It's on the Network and I thought was great (and really sad).

Here's a link to the 30 for 30 short on the Von Erichs.

30 for 30 Shorts: Wrestling The Curse - ESPN Video - ESPN

About hafway through ROH from last night. Really good show so dar, much better than the last ppv which was a spotfest that wore me out two matches in.

Finished up the ROH show and it was easily my 2nd favorite show of the year right behind Wrestle Kingdom 9. All the matches were solid ranging from good to awesome. Only the main event was a letdown as it was just too much of a cluster with Hanson and Ciampa not really belonging and all the run ins and shit. Oh well, still well worth the money.

Heyman's promo tonight was unreal.