Darren Young beat Alex Riley on a recent live event. I'm surprised to see Riley getting another chance to wrestle. I'm fine with it, though. I'm curious to see what they have in mind for Young, if anything. He could theoretically team with The New Day or R-Truth or something, but it should be for a reason beyond they're all black. Young's got the fundamentals down really well and would work well with someone less experienced who might be a better promo. That's what made PTP work so well.
Also on that live event, Sasha Banks worked a six-Diva tag match. She's good, but should they be trying to bring her up before Bayley? I'm surprised she's made such a big jump so quickly. There are definitely talented Divas working NXT. Keep an eye on them in 2015.
Tyler Breeze teamed with Titus O'Neil in a loss to Los Matadores on live events. I think he's just replacing Slater while his legal issues are sorted out. It's good for him to get more ring time, though. He's someone worth watching.
Everything else from yesterday is after the break.
Seth Rollins missed a live event this weekend. Bad News Barrett replaced him in a loss to John Cena. No surprise in that result. Glad BNB was trusted to be in the main event.
Update: Rollins had some kind of issue with his flight that night. It happens.
Emma blogged about her 2014. It was definitely a wild year for her.
Here's a piece on WWE being in Texas recently. It seems like wrestling goes there a lot.
Dixie Carter gave an update on TNA having PPVs in 2015. TNA hasn't had a live PPV since June. It could just be Slammiversary and BFG live this year. I wonder how many One Night Only PPVs there will be. I think they just do those because they have contracts to show PPVs in other countries, so they have to produce something to fill those slots. I think Lockdown might air on PPV outside the U.S. if it doesn't just replace some episodes of Impact.
Stephanie McMahon promoted the WWE Network coming to the UK and Ireland. I hope that's a big moneymaker for them.
A lot of WWE content has been removed from iTunes. No word as to why at this juncture. I hope that's remedied soon.
TNA has re-signed The Wolves. Their contracts were just about due. They had already announced the team for the upcoming tapings, so this isn't really a surprise. They're some of the best pure wrestlers in TNA, so it's good to have them remain in the company. They're a really great team as far as straight-up wrestling goes.
Update: Eric Young has also been re-signed. I could see him getting another good push in 2015, but I don't know if they'll try to make him champ again. I don't think it really worked out that well for them.
For those who missed Raw, Seth Rollins has been added to the main event of the 2015 Royal Rumble. Brock Lesnar will now defend against Cena and Rollins in a triple threat match. As far as I know, Rollins will still have his briefcase. This is his reward for bringing back The Authority. I wonder what Paul Heyman thinks of all this? One possible ending is Rollins letting Brock pin Cena, then cashing in immediately to win for himself. That'd be great, but I don't know if they should do it. I'd definitely like to see Rollins as champion, but that would be kind of a face turn. I'm not sold on that part of things.
TNA is teasing a major announcement from Kurt Angle on Wednesday's Impact Wrestling. I'm guessing it's that he's returning to the ring. Will they acknowledge 2015 could very well be his last year as a wrestler?
For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. I definitely think that would make a statement to Vince. It's possible he could try to write it off as one particularly terrible crowd or people trying to leave early to beat traffic unless walking out on Cena matches or whatever became a common occurrence, Cena stopped selling so much merch, etc.. I think we'd be in for "HE'S THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL CHAMPION IN WWE HISTORY, MAGGLE!", but I don't know how much it would change things if it was just a one-time thing. It's not like WWE doesn't know there's a big part of the audience who doesn't want to see Cena as the top guy. They just don't feel comfortable pushing someone else in his place.
2. NXT is an hour a week, with a special every few months. It's less easy to get burned out there, because you're not seeing those people but so often. On the main roster, we've already seen most of those guys fight quite a few times. NXT gets an edge for that reason.
3. It's the whole vicious cycle of people not getting over because Management isn't behind them, while Management won't get behind people because they're not over. It's ridiculous. So is still being upset about WWE calling their fans the WWE Universe, but that's not really here nor there.
4. It's OK every once in a while. Honestly, it can be a cheap way to increase drama when you're more about cool moves than storytelling. I'm glad NXT is more disciplined in that regard.
5. I think a lot of Raws are like that these days, as you-know-who keeps changing things at the last minute and going through so many rewrites. And yes, three hours is really long for a weekly show. I'm not really sure what that has to do with wrestling vs. sports entertainment, but whatever. I actually liked getting Ryback's back story, for the record. It added some dimension to him.
More wrestling tomorrow.
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