The Krusade. Let me tell you something kruse a maniacs, that big smelly giant the rusev thinks he is a tough dude but he has never encountered the force of 20 thousand screaming krusaders in the barclay center brother.

some thing like that, which I just posted and you just read, is what I could see happening with kevin owens, the current nxt champion who is out of action at this moment because of a knee injury requiring surgery.

@DR:

Lesnar was there last week.

Doesn't the third hour typically lose 000s of viewers? They're putting the Main angle in the middle of the show (end of the second hour) as that's when they have most viewers.

In that case the should have put Sting out there on the 10 o'clock hour.

I do agree that the third hours loses 000s of viewers. But does the overrun gain those back?

I wouldn't have thougt so. As big as the Sting appearance was, he's not the main event, he's not the thing WWE want most eyes on. He is the thing that might keep people watching though.

Yeup. It usually goes first hour is the lowest, 2nd hour is the highest, and third hour loses viewers but stays higher than the first.

Only gets really bad when the third hour drops below the first since it also has the overrun/main event segment.

At this point, all that matters is what starts and ends the hour since the WWE became way too predictable for when the big stuff happens. Its a big reason why their ratings barely improve since people tune in the most to those points and leave en masse afterwards.

if lestner is not going to resign, I would like to see samoa joe bypass nxt and be part of the screw job to take the belt from lestner. fans would like that better then a lestner Goldberg type end.

Lestner is more.

Yes, all 25 of them

I definitely think this went a ton better than first thought

Gertner is correct.

Credit where credit is due. This was a much better match than I thought it would be. It had little to do with Reigns actual skill and more to do with his ability to take a complete ass kicking. but still...credit where credit is due. It was a very entertaining match.

don't know if Reigns' smiling and laughing throughout made it better or not

It definitely did. Still not completely sold on Reigns as a singles guy who they want as the next big face, but his smiling at the ass-kicking he was taking made him seem like a total badass.

Was legit worried about halfway through the match that Reigns was just going to shit all over the match and no-sell everything and just refuse to lose kind of thing (based on how stiff the two appeared to be working) so I thought he was going to basically blackball himself and fuck up the biggest show of the year.

But in the end, yeah, it definitely ended up working out better than I expected it to. Still wish he had more of a moveset though.

I think the hard hitting style was a choice. What better way to get the IWC crowd to respect you than to take a beating from Lesnar?

The smiling was too much of a "no sell" to me.

Yeah the smiling was horrible

Credit where credit is due Roman Reigns sucks balls but the dude can take a beating and yes he could be the man some day but it's really gonna take time based on his smiling they could give him a masochist gimmick at least it's something.

I didn't mind the smiling. Made him seem kinda "badass"

But how? Just because he was getting his ass handed to him? I could see if he mounted some meaningful offense for more than 2 minutes after the smiling thing.... but yea.

Smiling was cool, made him look a bit crazy, with the blood between his teeth and all. Added some much needed personality to him, couple that with Brock looking like he didn't know how to finish him, and it helped him no end.

Roman isn't the greatest wrestler in the world by any means, and he still has work to do, but he "sold" me as an entertainer last night. His wrestling, while not great, was still very good by big man standards, and his psychology was terrific as well.


He played the underdog role beautifully, to the point where people flat out cheered him (in our theater at least) when he superman punched / speared Lesnar in the end.


p.s.______I'm not 100% sure as to what happened with Lesnar/Reigns at the beginning, but both guys were working stiff as fuck. And even I was wincing whenever Lesnar would suplex/clothesline Reigns. Lesnar came off as a massive badass last night.

Roman did fine last night and will have a huge career in the WWE. Now that he did not win the belt at Mania the crowd will not have a reason to boo the shit out of him and things will go back to normal. I imagine he will get the belt from Reigns at some point in the near future too.

The smiling is a mixed bag for me. I understand why the WWE did it. The only thing is that Reigns is a horrible actor, so he looked like he was getting cute letters from his girlfriend half the time.

Reigns earned stripes in that match last night, which is ideally what he would have done before the biggest show of the year. At some point I realize that I had bought into the stigma surrounding WrestleMania, however. If this were just like any other show, Lesnar vs. Reigns would have been great as a main event (I mean in theory and build, not just as it turned out). Even smarks get caught in the whirldwind that is the hype around Mania.

Brock Lesnar was the guy who came out of this looking like the biggest bad-ass on the planet however. The dude has got a legitimacy that Vince wishes he could manufacture at NXT. He's such a valuable asset to the WWE right now, and it's a good thing they've got him locked down for a few more years. That's three years to groom some younger guys to ultimately take the mantle from him. They're going to be tough shoes to fill.

I'm not sure if how real that shit between Lesnar and Reigns looked is good for wrestling or bad for wrestling overall, by the way.

I think it may be good, at least in the short term. Brings a little faux-legitimacy back to the squared circle. I mean WM highlights were on Sportscenter. I think they want the perception to change from them being closer to the entertainment side to closer to the actual fighting side. It's not like they want to be UFC, but they won't mind being compared a little, you know what I mean?

I guess as long as they don't go as far with it as Antonio Inoki did with New Japan it should all be good.

It does seem like a big time main event championship match is worthy of it. I'd actually be curious to see how Bryan and Barrett put their IC Title match together when he it eventually happens too.