Main Event Reax - 7/29/17, Asuka passes another big milestone, assorted WWE+GFW press, Bring it to the Table update, Owens DVD on-demand, Goldberg in new ad, Cena vs. Joe booked, WWE honors the Joe, WWE-UK notes, NXT live event note, and Questions on next year's HoF, determining the GOAT, fake pyro, why the MYC is being released the way it is, and why NXT success doesn't translate to main roster success

-- Main Event:
-  Cedric vs. Nese:
Nice basic start. I love some mat work to get things started.

Both men are very gifted athletes.

Nese working out his abs is hilarious.

It would have been funny if Alexander caught him with the inside cradle after all that taunting.

I'm liking the work here.

Good work all around.

Pretty solid ending sequence. These two work together well.

- Apollo vs. Kalisto:
I'm glad Crews has the power advantage. He's been really underutilized.

I've missed seeing Apollo show what he can do. I'd be fine with him going back to NXT for a while so he can return and get the push he's capable of.

Good work here. They're playing off each other well.

NICE enzuigiri counter.

Apollo just going all out here!

This is solid. Wow.

I'm liking the story they're telling.

Yeah, Kalisto probably didn't have Crews dazed enough to hit that moonsault.

That was a really nice ending. Can we get more lower-card people on this show, since we've already got a whole show of cruiserweights?

Asuka has now been NXT Women's Champion longer than New Day held their tag team championships, which was a record-setting 483 days. Asuka is the longest-reigning female champion in WWE since 1990. If she holds the championship until Takeover:Brooklyn, as expected, she'll be the longest-reigning champion since The Fabulous Moolah's years-long reigns in the pre-Wrestlemania days. That's a really, really big milestone.

GFW stars got press for a children's charity event in Orlando. This kind of thing builds goodwill for the brand in the public eye, and gets the name out there for people who might be willing to attend events. 

"Bring it to the Table" Monday night will discuss Brock Lesnar potentially going back to UFC and John Cena possibly feuding with Roman Reigns. It will be interesting to see what the company's stance will be on Brock. He's in a really big negotiating position if he's able to return to that company after WM34.

Kevin Owens' WWE DVD is now available on-demand from Amazon. It's apparently a pretty big deal.

MLB.com covered Ric Flair's recent appearance. The Nature Boy's still going, which I don't think is a surprise to anyone.

Goldberg is part of an AT&T commercial. Who would have called Goldberg being Universal Champion in WWE in 2017?

John Cena vs. Samoa Joe is booked for a live event on August 27. It's possible that's a big feud after Summerslam. That would definitely be a big deal.

WWE released a video tribute to the Joe Louis Arena. That's really cool. I'm glad they gave it a sendoff.

- After the main event of the live event there, John Cena put over the building's history. The arena is where he had his first PPV match back in 2002. 

Pete Dunne successfully retained his UK Championship at ICW's recent live event. I assume they'll save title changes for the WWE Network, but who knows? The UK project is kind of in limbo right now.

- Also on that show, Noam Dar's team was victorious in the main event.

Johnny Gargano has returned to working NXT shows regularly. I'm interested to see how he does as a singles star and what he does while Ciampa is recovering. I really look forward to them feuding.

For my take on yesterday's PWInsider.com questions:
1. That will be up to Vince and the others who make the decisions. There's no telling whom they'll pick and for what reasons. I do expect Taker to go in there, though.

2. I agree it would be difficult to compare someone was on top in one era for one company vs. someone on top in different circumstances. How does one compare HBK in WWF/WWE vs. Jushin Liger in Japan, for instance. One of my personal ideas for what makes someone great is being able to be a success in different markets in different generations, etc. For whatever it's worth, cagematch.net has Shawn Michaels rated as the greatest of all time, but like every site it's going to be biased toward workers the users grew up with, etc.

3. They're lyin' to you, MAN! It's all an illusion, etc.

4. WWE is jumping on the "binge-watching" bandwagon to see if that will be more successful than a weekly episodic series. The original plan was to do it in February or so, but the UK series ended up getting precedence. So, they ended up in an odd situation of when to put it out. It will be an interesting experiment.

5.a. There are a number of reasons. One of the major ones is the amazingly complex task of booking that many characters on that many hours of TV on a week-by-week basis and potentially having to change a lot of it on the fly. Furthermore, a lot of times HHH will cultivate a talent one way and the main roster people might not have the same vision for them. That will happen pretty much any time you go from one booker to another. HHH is more familiar with a lot of the people coming in from outside WWE and often sees them in ways Vince might not. Also worth noting, when someone "graduates" from NXT, they go from being a top name in developmental to having to fit in with a lot of other talented people, some of whom have been in big positions for a decade or more. It's really tough to persuade someone to stop the direction they've been going on in favor of something else. "Why should I push this new guy when I already have all these other wrestlers here?" The new talents have to prove themselves, etc.

Specifically:
b. Tye was called up because he had gone as far as he could go in NXT. He wasn't going to be moved into the title picture and he'd been in developmental for quite some time. It was time to move him up to pay off how long they'd had him "in training." It wasn't reasonable to expect him to get a big push; his strengths are generally in getting others over and being a good hand.

c. The Kanellises at this point seem like they were signed because they were a fairly big deal in GFW and HHH wanted them to be part of his promotion instead. There probably wasn't as big of a demand for them in GFW or ROH to justify them being a big deal right out of the gate.

d. Revival had the injury to deal with. They've being used pretty well now. They just have to "prove they can hang with" the likes of Sheamus/Cesaro, the Hardys, and the Club before WWE will be confident in using them more.

e. American Alpha were brought up because of last year's draft. Smackdown needed them to boost their tag division. They did pretty well for themselves until Mania season. I think WWE was considering having the Hardys face the Usos for the Smackdown tag team titles, and that shot the face team in the foot. They were having to compete with New Day, Breezango, and the Hype Bros as face teams recently, so they didn't have much of a chance of getting much traction. So, WWE split them in the hopes they'll do more as singles wrestler.

f. Apollo was brought up almost solely to get a pop for another NXT talent coming to the main roster the night after WM32. They didn't have much of a plan for him beyond that, and it shows. He definitely could have done more in NXT before being called up, but they wanted an influx of new stars at that time.

g. They're still kind of testing the waters with Nakamura. It's a matter of whether they'll push him, Styles, Orton, or Cena as faces. That's tough competition. Someone's got to be at his place on that list, and all are talented. 

More wrestling tomorrow.