Superstars:
- Neville vs. Axel:
Neville can fly with the best of them. I imagine he'll be one of the top names in the Cruiserweight division.
I like Neville, but it's not like he's much different from the other 9,000 flippy guys out there.
That was fine for a preliminary match. I miss Axel as a tag team guy. He's a solid faction member.
- Dudleys vs. Swagger/Cara:
Pairing Swagger with Cara is pretty funny after the Real American gimmick.
The makeshift team isn't bad here. It's an interesting combination of styles.
The Dudleys are going to look REALLY bad if they job to a random teaming.
Nice backdrop spot.
This is pretty fun. The Dudleys keep doing the tag team thing well after all these years.
Mostly solid stuff so far.
The Dudleys actually won a match! We probably won't see that again until October or later.
WWE Network has begun adding NWA-era TV shows from 1987, 1988, and 1989. These years featured "Saturday 6:05 p.m." content from Jim Crockett Promotions and pre-Nitro WCW.
UFC's Connor McGregor buried WWE in a UFC conference call. Sounds like someone's a little insecure. I normally wouldn't give a hugpunch guy's fragility any coverage, but WWE names responded later, so it's officially newsworthy.
Big E's storyline injury has been officially labeled a contusion. It's possible this injury angle gives them an out for New Day to drop the belts to The Club, but they keep holding on to the gold despite all my predictions, so who's to say they won't overcome the odds again?
Sheamus and Titus O'Neil visited kids at a Boys & Girls Club in Tampa Bay. Slow news dayyyyyyy. It's good WWE kept Titus around given all his charity work and the positive image he presents as a father.
James Ellsworth discussed his work as an extra in WWE. I'm glad to see squash matches with local talent make a comeback on the main roster. Obviously you can do too many of those and turn off fans who just want to see "name vs. name" matches, but they can be good for building new or returning stars up.
For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. Reigns is staying as a prominent babyface. WWE's not giving up on plans for him to be a major player for the company anytime soon. I expect his current "de-push" is part punishment and part making him earn his way back to the top of the card, hopefully gaining fan support along the way since he's not "being shoved down our throats as the top guy." I expect it will work for some fans, but there are people who are going to boo him no matter what for being a Samoan former football player who's getting a push people like Cesaro aren't getting.
2. It's a "world title" in the sense of being Raw's top championship and really important and all that.
3. It could be a case of it not being seen as being popular enough to release in that format. A lot of people still have the "print-first" mentality in regard to things like books. If something's successful to whatever degree in print, THEN they think of electronic releases.
4. I'm sure Stephanie has a lot of say in how her character is presented and the lines she says.
5. A lot of it is a matter of pacing and timing. If they called up all the top NXT names at once, they could easily all run together and not stand out like they do in NXT. That's the "problem" of having so many talented names available and only so many spots. I don't think NXT would totally such without the top outside names, but it would definitely lose a lot of its appeal with fans already familiar with the likes of Joe, Aries, Roode, and Nakamura.
6. I can just imagine how maddening it would be to have to spend a lot of time trying to analyze the mind of someone like Russo or Cornette every time they say something off-the-wall.
More wrestling tomorrow.
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