Fast Lane (memory lane under construction)

Roman Reigns vs Daniel Bryan - Winner faces Brock Lesnar
Cena vs Rusev - US Title
Triple H face to face with Sting
Paige vs Nikki Bella - Divas Title
Ambrose vs Bad News Barrett - IC Title

The opening six-man tag was pretty good, Orton return works well for the run in to Mania.

Would love to see Bryan win tonight, but I can't see it happening. Reigns  to win.

Kidd/Cesaro vs Usos for the tag titles now.

It was an alright show I guess.  Nothing bad, but nothing amazing either.  Just average.  There weren't any matches that stood out to me and made an impression.  I guess the most memorable parts were Triple H and Sting having their face to face and Bray Wyatt's promo.

I actually thought the Goldust vs Stardust was probably the second best match of the night... they were going for a good technical style back and forth and even a little mat wrestling there... was way way better then i was expecting...too bad the ref botched the ending.

bray's promo..

DB vs Reigns is about about the only other thing  i remember really... the sting showdown was cool... i was a little worried they would never let him use his baseball bat.

DB vs Reigns was a fantastic,  brutal match. Definitely the best match on an average PPV.

I just remembered what PPV this replaced... Bad move, I quite liked that PPV.

As for Fastlane, Sting has a sweet deal. Paid to not say a word.

Ref botch was funny in the Rhodes brothers match. Thought maybe that Dusty had paid the ref off, which I still think will be the case.

Did anyone hear Lilian's goofs?  Announced Nikki Bella as the Women's Champ and Cesaro and Tyson Kidd as "still the new WWE Tag Team Champions!".  She vanished then for a chunk of the show.  Hope she wasn't in trouble!

Yeah I noticed the Nikki bit haha.

I actually enjoyed the PPV. It wasn't the best PPV in the last five years, but it set up a lot for Wrestlemania.

The openeing six man tag match was just to get Orton/Rollins going for Wrestlemania, nothing great otherwise.
 
Goldust/Stardust was, as already said good except for the end. Rematch at Wrestlemania for sure.

Kidd/Cesaro vs The Usos was one of my favorites of the night, only because I'm a Cesaro/Kidd fan. Glad to see them win some gold.

Nikki vs Paige was a bit of a letdown. Though I have to say that Nikki has come a long way in the ring.

Barrett vs Ambrose was another letdown. Lets hope for something like a ladder match at Wrestlemania. Ambrose stealing the IC title was a nice touch though.

Russev vs Cena didn't end like I thought it would, and I'm ok with that. Russev looked strong against Cena, and won in somewhat of a clean fashion.

Bryan vs Reigns was the match of the night for me. It was a great back and forth, with both men coming out of the match looking very strong. Bryan kicking Reigns in the liver area, and the announcers touching on it was a very nice touch. So much so that one of my friends(who is quite smart, and knows that wrestling isn't real) texed me, asking if I thought Reigns was really hurt due to the way the announcers were touching on it. Also liked Bryan's response at the end: "You better kick his ass!"

I really was expecting Sting to catch a major beatdown from Triple H, and was surprised that he didn't. He's looked pretty weak so far against Sting(not that I'm complaining), and hasn't really had the upper hand yet. But I'm enjoying seeing Sting in WWE.

Bray Wyatt calling out The Undertaker was pretty cool. I think we all knew who Wyatt was talking about for the last few weeks, and for a minute, I really thought it was The Undertaker. Good promo from Bray as usual, and I can't wait to see them clash at Wrestlemania.

Overall, not a top PPV, but I thought they did what they had to do to set up Wrestlemania. Looking forward in five weeks to watch this with my friends.

Wasn't a big fan of this one, but there was my all time favourite sign. Except maybe that time someone brought a Chux McCool sign to SmackDown, but I can't find that now so it may not have happened. Pretty sure it did.

Anyway, during that cancelled Raw after the Rumble, I made a song for the Observer board using clips of the Observer radio shows.

http://tindeck.com/listen/ovuyn

It got over pretty well in that niche community, so I was happy with that. Well, apparently someone stole it and put it on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyU43PYPzCw

Still not that many views, but I guess it was enough for this to happen.

Just overall, meh for me. Nothing i loved or hated. Only thing i was a bit salty about was reigns kicking out of the running knee, but i suppose it was needed if hes going to face lesnar and seem like he can take the beating and still kick out. Its tough when lesnar is booked like a god. Id rather they hyped the runner ng knee and had brayn beat lesnar at mania but what evs... Im a bryan mark anyway im blinded.

Watched it as it was free on sky one. Nothing about the show made me want to watch wrestling again.

Cena should've tapped to rusev, I might've watched raw then...

They did the 'hero steals the belt' angle fir the millionth time...

Main event was ok, because bryan is good. Haven't seen reigns in months and he's still boring.

This was a free ppv in the UK (well, free if u pay for sky/virgin), so I bet a few people who have switch off in the last few months tuned in. It was an opportunity to rehook people. I wanted to see balor,  and other nxt talent I've heard a lot about. But wwe served up the same old tired shit and I won't be watching raw.

Wonder how many others were on the same boat as me?

I thInk your being overly negative.  Sure it wasnt PPV of the decade but Bryan/Reigns was more than 'ok' they both left it all in the ring and Reigns had one of his best if not the best singles match of his career.

If you were expecting NXT talent, I don't know why. They weren't advertised, they get their own PPVs they dont need to invade the main ones.

But even when WWE give us a good show (this show was average), you always seem unsatisfied... are you sure you are still a wrestling fan? (Not being sarcastic, genuine question) .

I thInk your being overly negative.  Sure it wasnt PPV of the decade but Bryan/Reigns was more than 'ok' they both left it all in the ring and Reigns had one of his best if not the best singles match of his career.

If you were expecting NXT talent, I don't know why. They weren't advertised, they get their own PPVs they dont need to invade the main ones.

But even when WWE give us a good show (this show was average), you always seem unsatisfied... are you sure you are still a wrestling fan? (Not being sarcastic, genuine question) .

I haven't watched in ages mate. Wouldn't class myself as a fan, but I'm hoping to be again.

I was probably spoilt by the stone cold days when I watched properly...

My comment about NXT was more of an opportunity one. It was a free show in the UK so they should'vbe pushed the boat out and tried to grab the former fans (like me). If one or two of the NXT guys had been there and put on a match or two (like I've heard about recently) then it may have brought me back in. If cena had tapped, it would've been a big deal (hopefully he'll tap to rusev at mania now).

But for now I'mstill not watching RAW...

I really don't blame you if you don't watch raw.... it's too long and only about 15-25 mins or so is worth checking out...some weeks you'll be lucky to even find that much time.

It's a poor product with constant start stop angles and stuff.

i watch anyways because i have nothing better to do on a monday night.

I wouldnt say Raw is a poor product.  It needs work deinitely and some parts are terrible but overall its a decent enough show. I think it could be a great show if tweaked though.

That NXT roster will be a fantastic addition to the top stars WWE has now. Its been years since their roster was so packed with big stars and potential.

I cant wait to see the likes of Owens, Zayn, Neville, Itami and Balor mix it up with Wyatt, Bryan, Reigns, Ambrose, Rollins, Orton, Cena, Ziggler etc.

Raw is awful really, especially if you compare to what it has been before. So many matches end in a matter of minutes... on a three hour show there can be between 30-60 minutes of actual wrestling which is awful. I could deal with 60 if it mean that 5 matches got around 10 minutes, but they don't. Only the main match get's anything good most of the time, the rest are relegated to squash matches and short roll-up finish matches. Was better at 2 hours. The third hour just makes it too long as they just fill it with extra crap, not wrestling.

Not expecting the show to be just wrestling, but a 50-50 split of time would be good. If they can't advance stories in that time then the writers are clearly no good.

Well, when I stopped watching again (I didn't watch for years, then started watching bits of raw around January 2014 because I heard it had improved as a product.

I watched for a year, and probably found about 20 minutes of the 3 hour show to be interesting.  Since November/December there hasn't even been 20 minutes of decent stuff. So I stopped watching at the start of the year.

There just isn't any long term planning, except with reigns (and I hate reigns...) There is little, to no, character and story development. The actual storylines are just old, rehashed stuff that's happened before. Daniel bryans angle against the authority was just stone cold vs mcmahon reheated. The rusev storyline is just every foreigner in wwe rehashed. I had hope for that angle for a short time when I thought they might make rusev the face and the American people would be the racist heels, but wwe bottled it...

I see very little in the last year, and coming out of fast lane to be happy about. Cena is still superman. Reigns is still superman. Bryan has the hbk role of carrying lesser talents to good matches and putting them over (coincidence that Michaels trained danielson and they end up doing the same role...)

Does anyone actually watch the show live? I recorded it and just watched the interesting bits. I feel bad for anyone that sits thru 3 hours...

the rehashed storyline argument is weak. Every story is a rehash when they've been doing it for fifty years.

I sit through it and its boring sometimes but theres alot worse wrestling shows out there. 

Just cos they push someone you dislike doesn't mean the show is bad. Plenty of people do like Reigns.

I agree there should be more wrestling; but theres not as little wrestling as some people make out. Midcard matches do go over two/three segments quite often.

Last edited by rhys (Thu-26-Feb-2015 19:32:25)

If they've been rehashing storylines for 50 years, it's time to get some new writers. It's ok to redo something ten years later, but doing heel authority gimmicks for 17 straight years is too much.

Raw is really, really bad. I'd like to be optimistic about the NXT guys, but as soon as they hit the main roster they'll be killed. Having talent doesn't mean anything in WWE, guys like Daniel Bryan and Dean Ambrose will never be where they deserve to be, why should we assume Sami Zayn and Finn Balor will be any different?

It's a Vince problem. The sooner he "goes," the better. Triple H isn't perfect either, but he's proven he's willing to be a little looser on promos and allow matches to tell stories.

the rehashed storyline argument is weak. Every story is a rehash when they've been doing it for fifty years.

I sit through it and its boring sometimes but theres alot worse wrestling shows out there. 

Just cos they push someone you dislike doesn't mean the show is bad. Plenty of people do like Reigns.

I agree there should be more wrestling; but theres not as little wrestling as some people make out. Midcard matches do go over two/three segments quite often.

It's not weak at all. They're the biggest company, and make the most money. Therefore they should product quality product. They should bring in top writers, and top performers to product their product.

In 10 years of 4CW we had fresh, innovative ideas. Now, obviously there are massive differences, but there are ideas out there To freshen up WWE. 

My point about reigns is simple, he's the same old type of wrestler vince always pushes. I liked him in the shield, and then vince made him superman. They don't care about reigns ability to sell a promo, or perform in a match, it's all about the look and his ability to push merchandise.

At the minute, wwe is failing. Buy rates are down, revenue is down, arena attendance is down. The casual fan has switched off. What they've always done isn't bringing new fans in, and trying to do what they previously did tobring in fans (stone cold vs the evil boss) isn't working either.

So they need to do something different.

It looks like they tried with cm punks year long rein (altho he still wasn't the top guy) and pushing people like Daniel bryan and the shield, but they didn't overhaul it enough. 

Wwe is savable,  and could be watchable,  but not right now. 

And chux point about the nxt guys getting fucked is very true. Just look at the ascension...

I really agree with Hilds' point that WWE, as a big multi-million $/£ company, should be able to hire amongst the best of the best when it comes to creative.  There isn't much of an excuse for not having awesome storylines and awesome wrestling.  There has to be a reason why the WWE isn't attracting talented writers and creative minds, and creating a writing team that can produce quality stories that are fresh and imaginative, but are respectful towards the pro-wrestling industry and its history.

I think a big element in this is what chux mentioned: ol' Vinny Mac.  You hear so many stories about creative guys leaving after falling out with Vince and Steph, about wrestlers not getting a decent push or their dues because they don't fit Vince's idea of a "superstar" and Vince changing things because he thinks they're too old fashioned, integral terms like pro-wrestling, wrestlers and championship belt.  Is it time for Vince to leave, and to hand over the reins to a younger generation to run the company? 

NXT doesn't have anything to do with Vince apparently, it's all ran by Triple H and Dusty Rhodes.  And it produces some great television with awesome matches and kick-ass stories.  Looking at NXT's success, it is tempting to say that yes, it is time for Vince to go.

Does anyone actually watch the show live? I recorded it and just watched the interesting bits. I feel bad for anyone that sits thru 3 hours...

I appreciate your sympathy..... i tend to flip over to the simpsons since they have like a 5 hour block of episodes on monday nights as well.

In the end some people are going to enjoy wwe and others won't. I've become quite unsure if WWE will ever rise up and enter another boom period because for last year i felt kinda like i'm in one of the rescue boats sailing away from the sinking titanic.

They really, really, have to start letting these young guys shine more... Rollins, Ambrose, everyone in nxt... where the hell has Luke Harper been? he is a guy they could have put into the authority and work on his look over time and take show or kanes place...i love those two.. but retire already.

Chux points out the authority angle going on for nearly 20 years... let it go... it was fun with mcmahon and austin, and 2000 HHH/Steph authority run was good... but how long has  this shit been going on?

I was excited to see the Ascension come up... but they looked but with the promos they had to do and then have the announcers continue to bury them all together.... i liked Bo Dallas too.

does anyone watch smackdown at all? i haven't watched an episode of that in like 6 years now.

I really agree with Hilds' point that WWE, as a big multi-million $/£ company, should be able to hire amongst the best of the best when it comes to creative.  There isn't much of an excuse for not having awesome storylines and awesome wrestling.  There has to be a reason why the WWE isn't attracting talented writers and creative minds, and creating a writing team that can produce quality stories that are fresh and imaginative, but are respectful towards the pro-wrestling industry and its history.

Your average US TV drama will do 13, 1 hour episodes for a yearly season. WWE does 20 hours of new TV a month for RAW & Smackdown. That's 240 hours of new content a year. Add on top of that all of the smaller shows & web content. There's no way you can keep generating good material in that time-frame. Also with pro-wrestling what sort of writer do you need? A comedy writer for the funny bits, a storyteller for the dramatic bits, an entertainer for all of the variety bits. A booker to put the matches together. Its such an odd business and the way WWE want to take it, you're never going to find a group who will fit it exactly.