How many apparently felt after watching WWE Battleground.

Regardless of whether you thought last night’s WWE’s Battleground pay-per-view was good, bad, exciting, disappointing, or somewhere in between, it’s safe to say that there were a few big moments and outcomes that led to controversy amongst fans. I, of course, spent my time watching this event with the DTJ Universe in our wonderful little Facebook community (facebook.com/groups/doingthejob) and watched the opinions fly back and forth like…crap…something that flies back and forth.

Before we get into anything, however, for the eight people that watch Tough Talk on the WWE Network, Daniel Bryan channeled his inner Jeremy Piven by calling the PPV “Battlefield”, and it was hilarious…

It is not necessary to review the entire show, so let’s get the small stuff out of the way first. An end was put to the Wade/Bad News/King Barrett and R-Truth feud, so that’s a good thing. Orton faced Sheamus for 387^th time and it was the same match we saw each time prior. All three members of The New Day are absolutely fantastic in their role, and as I’ve been saying, they’re this generation’s Edge and Christian. The Big Show may have turned face again, by shutting up and knockout out The Miz, but who really knows. And finally, it’s a shame that Cesaro and Rusev weren’t on this card considering their involvement in the United States title picture recently, but considering the Cena vs. Owens rubber match was already built in, I understand it. What I can’t understand how after main eventing last month’s PPV, they just flat out had nothing for Dean Ambrose whatsoever. It doesn’t matter if the Great Khali is in that position; how do you go from putting someone in your main event to not even on the next card? Anyway, onto important things that did happen last night.

Brie Bella Held Her Own

The match featuring Brie Bella, Charlotte, and Sasha Banks was really good. Anyone reading likely already knows what the two NXT ladies are capable of, so no need to discuss this. But I feel like Brie was unfairly bashed just because of who she is and the girls she was in the ring with. Look, based on track record and match quality, are Sasha and Charlotte better than either Bella? Of course. Do I personally want to see much more of the NXT women than the current main roster crop? Absolutely. Do I sound like the guy whose relationship Jerry and Elaine were trying to break up in that episode of Seinfeld that asked himself a question before promptly answering it? You betcha. But Brie got much better in that match from start to finish and hung with them the more it went on.

By the way, her back and forth Daniel Bryan-like kicks while her competitors were down were not bad, at least not enough to embarrass any fan of her husband that was watching and gave her the business for it. Simply put, anyone that spoke out against Brie on this particular night did so with a completely biased opinion and gave her no chance in that match against the other two more highly skilled girls. She did just fine, got out of the way when necessary, and did nothing to take away from that match.

What’s Next For Roman Reigns And Bray Wyatt?

The match itself was at worst, “above average”, and at best, “really good”. Fact is, it exceeded people’s expectations. (Side note: If one of our co-hosts, Denny Lugz, ever declares that Sheamus is somehow better than Roman Reigns in any capacity, after Reigns has had more quality matches in less than a year and draws way more crowd response than the non-existent one Sheamus garners, I’m going to lose my freaking mind.) As we saw, something involving Bray Wyatt ended in interference (shocker), as Luke Harper reunited with him and cost Reigns the match.

Now, the HOT RUMOR, as the aforementioned DTJ co-host would say, is that this is the storyline Sting is likely to get involved with, setting up a team of himself and Reigns vs. Wyatt and Harper. As much as I personally love Roman, this sounds like a big, overflowing bucket of fried meh. If it happens at all, we’ll have to see how they play it out, but I can’t imagine a good enough reasoning for this. The added rumor is that Erick Rowan was supposed to reunite the entire Wyatt Family, with Dean Ambrose added to the mix on the other side, but Rowan’s injury may scrap those plans, or allow a new member to be introduced by Bray. New blood is all well and good (not that anything Wyatt could do at this point would draw any interest for fans that have been paying attention for the past two years), but a temporary Shield 2.0 with Sting? To quote Booker T, what da hell?! That’s just…weird.

Kevin Owens Losing To John Cena Was Not The End Of The World

Everyone take a deep breath. Good? Good. The public outcry over John Cena defeating Kevin Owens in their third, fantastic rubber match, when everyone thought Owens would take the United States title was beyond hilarious. The “LOL Cena wins” mentality that this somehow makes Kevin look bad or demotes him…come on, now. Stop acting (warning, silly IWC word alert) butt-hurt and look at the big picture.

For starters we don’t even know if these two are finished with each other, and if not, then this loss is practically moot. But pretending that they are and that Cena won this feud, here’s the take away for Owens. He made his NXT, not main roster, but (bold, italics, underlined, all caps) NXT debut a mere seven months ago. Seven! What’s more, he made his main roster debut only three months ago. Within that miniscule amount of time, they’ve put the NXT title on him, turned him into Brock Lesnar lite, and fast-tracked him the most high profile superstar of the past 15 years to feud with in his first main roster angle. With that, he defeated said superstar in his first match and ultimately engaged in a series of matches that set the wrestling world ablaze, while kicking out of like eight AA’s, which included a trifecta in the finale, capped off by a top rope one right before he lasted 32 seconds in the STF and tapped out. Despite losing the war, I think his credibility is higher than just about anyone else’s.

An argument that I’ve heard, countering the belief that it won’t hurt Kevin Owens: “Look at guys like Rusev, Barrett, and Wyatt who have lost feuds with Cena; it certainly knocked them down a level.” With all due respect, none of those guys are Kevin Owens in the ring or on the mic, and not one of them had a match with Cena that was anywhere close to the worst of the recent three matches, let alone the best. None of them have the history, respect, and pre-WWE following, or will sell merchandise like he has and will, either. Also, he’s the only one to come up from NXT since it’s blown up, and as the top guy there, burying him would be like burying NXT. The dude will be just fine.

Finally, the best part of Raw each week is John Cena’s US Open Challenge. Now we get to continue to see that.

This Version of Brock Lesnar Vs. Seth Rollins Does Not Work

Here is how WWE painted themselves into a no-win corner with this matchup. Brock Lesnar is a monster and the most dominant force in the company’s history, now working as a babyface. Seth Rollins is a smaller sniveling, weasely heel who can’t defeat anyone on his own in a legitimate match without outside help (remember, the one match he won by himself against Ambrose was a gimmick match). Alright, fine so far I suppose. Then they take away all his help. Uh oh. Where is my proper interest in this one particular match that WWE is trying to get across?

Scenario One: Lesnar defeats Rollins clean.
Great, watching the dominant face brutalize the smaller heel for 20 minutes. Fun. All that does is make us hope the heel mounts a comeback to keep the match interesting. “But we’re supposed to want to watch the piece of crap heel get his comeuppance.” If Rollins had kept getting one over on Brock every single week, sure, but Lesnar has gotten one up on Rollins just about every step of the way since the title loss. It’s not like they’ve made the fans clamor to finally see it. Plus, we’ve already seen three matches where someone gets German suplexed into oblivion. The bloom is off the rose on that one, I’m sorry.

Scenario Two: Rollins wins clean.
Obviously this can’t happen. It would make Rollins look like a hero to conquer the conqueror.

Scenario Three: Rollins cheats to win.
The most believable one. However, we’re still watching 20 straight minutes of a one-sided match, at which point the fact that Rollins has survived at all makes us give Rollins respect, which for Kevin Owens is fine, but for this particular type of heel is not. In addition, it makes not just Lesnar, but Paul Heyman, the mastermind look stupid, after all of their success to go down to something cheap. The only way this works is if Rollins introduces a new Authority member, or something monumental…not a distracted ref, pulling of the tights, etc. That would just spit on the whole mystique they’ve created around Brock to fall to something so insignificant.

Scenario Four: Regardless of outcome, Rollins doesn’t get dominated.
This would make for a much more interesting match, but the sacrifice is storytelling in that the slimy heel has done what other faces couldn’t do: he hung toe to toe with the Beast, looking strong which, again, goes against his character and, what’s more, gains our respect.

There will be a million rebuttals to the train of thought that has just been laid out, but the fact is that you can’t have a babyface as dominant, near unbeatable as Lesnar against a heel as weak as Rollins when he has no help, and make both the match we are watching interesting while keeping the story making sense without sacrificing one, the other, or both.

The Undertaker’s Polarizing Return

The argument can be made that WWE was trying to return The Undertaker as a heel. After all, he stopped the babyface from pinning the hated heel to take the title (it kind of reminded me of his return at Judgement Day 2000 in The Rock’s Iron Man match against Triple H), then kicked him in the balls for good measure. What?

But the fact is, people still love Taker. Clearly, it stinks that we got a no-contest not even far into a main event match to get a feel for. What’s worse, it sets up a rematch that no one wants to see, anyway. Furthermore, if Taker gets his win back, big deal, he already lost the streak. And if he loses, is that it?

In reality, we need to see how this story develops to really know how we’ll feel heading toward Summerslam. But as far as Battleground goes, a quizzical “huh?” is really what this event will be remembered for.

Suffice it to say, tune in this Tuesday night at 8PM or download to your heart’s content afterwards to hear yours truly along with M2J and Denny Lugz fully break down the show plus Raw, your emails, voicemails, Buy or Sell, and so much more!

(Oh and for real, go join our Facebook group and chime in on the discussion…for the low price of just $9.99! But sign up now and we’ll waive the fee and give you a lifetime subscription, absolutely free! Just use promo code “makeitreigninthisbitch” or “taylorswif4life”. Don’t delay!)

Hello, Wyatt!

A couple of weeks ago here in this space, I unveiled a piece on if Taylor Swift songs were WWE Superstars. In it, I said that anyone that listens to Doing The Job (still every Tuesday night at eight!) knows two things that I am passionate about are T-Swift and professional wrestling. Well, there is something else you’ve likely figured out as well; I love Seinfeld.

(Random analyst of analyzation fact: If I were to pick my all-time favorite “thing” in entertainment, whether that be from television, literature, film, music, gaming, pro wrestling, etc., Seinfeld would likely top the list. Seriously.)

Having said all of that, this week I would like to propose this: what if Seinfeld characters were WWE Superstars? As much as I would love to, I’m not going to list everyone in the Seinfeld universe, but here are at least a few. Let’s have some fun.

(But wow, before I do that, I am currently writing this in a public area, and the person two seats away from me just started talking about Seinfeld. You have to love life sometimes.)

Jerry Seinfeld – John Cena
The star of the show. The main character. The “normal” one in a crazy universe, if that’s what is considered normal. The obvious choice here.

George Costanza – Paul Heyman
Short, stocky, bald men. Loud and boisterous. Are prone to rants and deliver monologues better than anyone. Extremely bad with money. If there was a real Jerk Store, Paul Heyman would probably run it.

Elaine Benes – AJ Lee
The lead female. One of the guys. Has had a million boyfriends. Briefly dated the main character.

Cosmo Kramer – Dean Ambrose
The crazy one, the lunatic fringe. You never know what you are going to see next. The wildcard. Does and says kooky things. Both are oft remembered by their nicknames in reference to the female body…the Assman and the Titty Master.

Newman – Bray Wyatt
Pure evil. Has been the arch nemesis of our main character. At times we have no clue what he’s talking about, but what a great talker he is. A mystery, wrapped in a riddle (or a Twinkie). Has a diabolical laugh. Schemes plots.

George Steinbrenner – Vince McMahon
I mean, come on. Nutjob bosses. Will fire people over anything. Seemingly unapproachable. Everyone is scared of them. Again, seriously, come on.

Kenny Bania – Bo Dallas
Positively annoying.

Mickey Abbott – Hornswoggle
I just had to.

Jackie Chiles – David Otunga
The ridiculous lawyer that you just want to punch. Except not in the loveable way with Otunga.

Yev Kassem (The Soup Nazi) – Rusev
JOHN CENA, NO MATCH FOR YOU!!

Bob Sacamano – Brock Lesnar
The stories about him are great, but unfortunately, we never see him.

Got any other Seinfeld comparisons not listed here? Join our amazing Facebook group, or email me at sean.spurge@gmail.com and we will discuss it on the next week’s show.

Serenity now!

Whatcha gonna do brother, when Swiftamania runs wild on you?!

The internet has a just about every ridiculous thing under the sun on it, but I’d have a hard time believing that you will find this anywhere else. Anyone that listens to our Doing The Job podcast (which airs every Tuesday night at 8 P.M….cheap plug) knows two things I am passionate about: professional wrestling, obviously, and Taylor Swift.

For reasons that I can’t quite figure out, I was rocking to some T-Swizzie and thought to myself, “Self, if her songs could be personified into WWE Superstars, which ones would they be?” What follows is a short list of what I came up with.

“Shake It Off” – John Cena
It’s silly and doesn’t take itself too seriously, but years from now this song will still be played the same way Cena has been main-eventing over a dozen years now, for better or for worse. It’s definitely a track that little kiddies love and adults hate to admit that they do, too. But just as with the both of them, you may hate them for a while until you realize it’s futile to fight it any longer; they’re both awesome for what they bring to the table. Finally, this song is all about taking all the haters that are going to hate hate hate hate hate and, ummm, shaking it off…which is what John Cena does on a nightly basis. “Cena sucks? You can’t wrestle? Fruity pebbles?” Keep on shaking it off, John.

“You Belong With Me” – Daniel Bryan
If you’ll remember, this upbeat track is all about T-Swift trying to convey to a guy that he shouldn’t be with another girl that isn’t the right fit for him, and instead should be with her, a simpler girl who just happens to be the obvious, perfect fit. This is totally D-Bry after WWE decided to go with Roman Reigns over the past several months for that top spot rather than him, who most see as the clear choice for the role. Taylor, Bryan, and the fans alike are all “dreaming ‘bout the day when you wake up and find that what you’re looking for has been here the whole time.”

“We Are Never Getting Back Together” – CM Punk
This one is just too easy. Do I really even need to explain that this is clearly Punk’s song to WWE? Plus there’s this video that someone made that has Punk and the Authority’s history with this song over it, which cracks me up every single time. Do yourself a favor and watch it, too. I promise, it’s amazing. Whoever made this is a genius.

“Red” – Dolph Ziggler
The title track of Swift’s fourth album speaks of a love that was “faster that the wind, passionate as sin/ending so suddenly” and is basically about something that was so awesome and powerful in the brief period of time that it lasted. Cue up images of the times we thought that Dolph was about to become a main player for years to come (winning the World Heavyweight Championship the night after Wrestlemania 29 or ending the Authority’s reign as the sole survivor at Survivor Series ’14), only for injury or the creative team to stop his momentum on a dime and leave him nowhere. Also, just how “Red” is masterfully written but never gets the same credit that some of the other more well-known singles do, Ziggler shines in a similar way for WWE.

“Style” – Hulk Hogan
The third single off of Swift’s 1989 album is about a romance that, while sometimes they may stray apart, was once so good and is something that reignites time and time again because of it. What else is something that started great, only to leave, return, leave again, and finally return once more…something that certainly never goes out of style? That would be Hulkamania, brother! Regardless of if he’s with WCW or TNA, like Harry Styles “out and about with some other girls,” he knows where the real magic is. Also, when doing an album swap with M2J, he has been on record as saying he enjoys “Style”, and we all know he is a mega Hulkamaniac, so it just works. I’ll give him a “Yeah! Hulk Hogan!” for that.

“Blank Space” – Dean Ambrose
This is, as Taylor has documented in interviews, a satirical song that she wrote about the fictionalization of her life as others tend to perceive it; someone who is emotionally unstable that when scorned, goes to a dark, evil place to write songs about ex-lovers. Remind you of a certain WWE superstar that is labeled as “unstable”, has been scorned by someone that was supposed to be his brother and that we’ve seen go to scary, twisted places to take out his anger and frustration? Much like the fictionalized Swift in this song claims to her next victim, Dean Ambrose has a blank space baby, and he’ll write your name.

“Bad Blood” – Seth Rollins
And the Shield brethren that scorned Ambrose, the one that created the “bad blood”, Seth Rollins. This track is about a former friend (Katy Perry, FYI) that wronged her and caused irreversible damage between the two. (If you figured that out on your own, give yourself a cookie.) Rollins easily comes to mind when you hear, “Did you think we’d be fine? Still got scars on my back from your knife/So don’t think it’s in the past, these kinda wounds they last and they last now/Did you think it all through? All these things will catch up to you.” Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if this is more appropriate for what Rollins did to Ambrose and Reigns in The Shield or to his fiancé for sending Richard pics to another girl.

“Love Story” – Roman Reigns
One of T-Swizzle’s most recognizable hits from early in her career, this one is about two lovers that everyone tries to keep apart and claims should not be together; no one believes in them except for the two parties involved. My interpretation of this is how it seems the entire fanbase is telling WWE this is not the right fit and to find someone else. But dammit, I believe these two kids are going to make it work anyway, you just watch. Also, and I realized this totally after I picked this song for Reigns, but that one line, “See you make your way through the crowd and say hello.” Alright, so he doesn’t say hello, but he does enter through the crowd and make it rain superman punches up in that bitch! Believe THAT!

“Welcome To New York” – Zack Ryder
They’re both all about New York. The song is pretty much the black sheep of her catalog that everybody from NY hates (myself not included) and got a quick stint as a promotional song here before her 1989 album dropped. Ryder is clearly looked at by WWE brass as someone they have no interest in and gave a short-lived push before sending him to the bottom of the ranks. Both will ultimately be forgotten about in the grand scheme of things. Poor Zack Ryder.

“Last Kiss” – The Undertaker’s Streak
This powerful masterpiece reminisces about a love so great, that it is impossible ever seeing it come to an end and it blindsights you when it does, which is pretty much how all of us felt when it came to Taker’s undefeated streak at Wrestlemania before Brock Lesnar broke it. Just like Joe Jonas broke poor Taylor’s heart. If only Lesnar could have given three F5’s to that jerk instead.

“I Knew You Were Trouble” – Brock Lesnar
This.

This page is currently being updated by the senior lead analyst of wrestling analyzations, the Maple Meatball, the game master himself, Sean Spurge. When finished, it will list every Buy or Sell and Over/Under ever presented on the show, but for now, here is a list of all games from 2013. (**Denotes results that are still pending).

I imagine that this would be Vince’s reaction to all of the ideas in this article.

I’m not going to even sit here and lie to you: what you are about to read is complete fantasy, a topic that both “wrestling scholars” and countless dweebs have written about, and will likely never, ever happen. But damn it, this is the internet and I have a keyboard in front of me, so for once let me take a break from some of the more serious pieces I generally attempt to author on here and let’s all have a little fun.

I love the WWE, and whether you’d like to admit it or not, you either feel the same way or at least would like to. So I’m going to play Vince McMahon for a few minutes and change the landscape of the entire WWE. Let me channel my inner George Costanza and just say, “You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts!”

CREATE ANOTHER (ROCK SOLID) BRAND SPLIT; SMACKDOWN GOES LIVE
Personally, I was actually in favor of them doing away with the brand split at first when they made Smackdown important for a little while, but then that fell by the wayside. There is simply too much talent to be wasted and not seen on TV each week. Split the rosters back up, DO NOT cross them over, ever, unless for a super strong storyline, and allow each show to do its thing. Then, have Smackdown air live so it becomes (hopefully) must-see television and a place where you can only see certain superstars, rather than being an afterthought program. There are also multiple other reasons for the roster split, which I will get into more as we roll along here.

IMPLEMENTING AN OFFSEASON
Although I’m listing this second, my absolute first order of business would be to create an offseason. Yes, I get it, your initial reaction is to scoff because WWE will never have an offseason for the same reason that pro sports leagues do not want to eliminate games off of their schedule or from the playoffs: they don’t want to lose the ticket sales, merchandise money, and various other revenues that are generated from each show. Fair enough.

However, injuries and long-term disabilities are becoming a hot topic over the past few years, and it seems like the harder you ride the superstars out on the road, the more their bodies are breaking down. Wrestling needs an offseason for a few reasons, and protecting the talent is just one of them. It is also another way to keep the morale up in the locker room (would a guy like CM Punk and so many others have stayed if there was time off coming on the way? It’s possible), and from a “scumbag Vince” perspective, you might be able to get away with paying the wrestlers less for the reduced schedule, offsetting some of that missed profit from not running shows.

So where do we place this offseason? My idea is to push Summerslam up to the last Sunday of July and slap a month and a half rest period there, where we can return in the middle of September during sweeps, creating a true season premier for both Raw and Smackdown, which essentially will “reset” both shows (more on that in a moment). I feel like this would legitimately generate a buzz around the idea of wrestling returning, allowing the fans to recharge their batteries (let’s face it, we’ve seen some stretches of Raw be brutally boring at times and Smackdown utterly pointless to attempt to watch, with no end in sight) and get themselves excited for that initial Raw of the new season. You want your rating? There it is.

Additionally, and going back to locker room morale for a second here, you’d have to believe that everyone, after getting their rest, would be pumped to get back out there for the new season, and the mid to lower card guys would be especially so to see what’s in store for them coming up.

THE OFFSEASON DRAFT SPECIAL & TRADES; NXT’s TIME TO SHINE; PUSHING THE NETWORK
Of course, I am not saying that WWE should be completely turned off from the end of July to mid-September. That’s just crazy talk.

So those rosters that we split back up? The very next week is when we air the WWE draft special for the upcoming season in front of a smaller, more intimate venue like the Hammerstein Ballroom or something, live on the WWE Network (for just $9.99 [with six month commitment]). It’d be held very similar to drafts like the NFL and NBA have, except with the WWE flair and action, promos, backstabs, and everything else that they bring to the table. Who the hell wouldn’t want to watch someone get powerbombed through the draft podium? Plus, now is the time when NXT stars finally get chosen to make the main rosters. I’m a little torn on if I’d rather have a separate, exclusive NXT draft, or just allow the GMs to pick them in whichever round they’d like along with the main roster superstars, but either way they would be involved.

Speaking of NXT, this would be the only WWE in-ring show airing during the offseason, so they could really get some extra eyes on that program. Figuring that the champion would be drafted to either Raw or Smackdown, that would leave the title vacant, allowing for a tournament to take place, with a new champion being crowned at their pay-per-view/special event/whatever the hell they call it now right before the main shows go back on the air.

Circling back around to those two main rosters, the rest of the offseason would be the time where we would get trades leading up to September, and interview shows could be conducted for the Network, setting up a few early feuds leading up to that first week of programming.

Speaking of trades, I feel like that should be a thing we are cognizant of throughout the winter, with an actual trade deadline of the Royal Rumble. It would become a thing that fans would be very eager to hear about, knowing that trades are imminent at that time, and it would also be a good way to restructure the rosters if some of the feuds have become stagnant and need a little uplift before Wrestlemania time.

Yes, Raw and Smackdown would be gone for a little while, but I, for one, would be super pumped for the goings on of the WWE offseason.

THE IMPROVED PAY-PER-VIEW PICTURE
Right off the bat, we’ve eliminated one pointless special event (and effectively replaced it with the WWE draft, making for a much more important viewing experience), so that’s a plus. Here’s a look at the new format:

September is for Night of Champions, with the bonus that we are eliminating the Money in the Bank event and putting that match on this show, where the winner has until the end of the season to cash in the briefcase. Right off the bat we’re letting fans know a MAJOR storyline for the year ahead. Plus, this is our first look at the culminations of the initial angles of the season. The next few months play out like usual: October PPV, Survivor Series in November, December PPV, and Royal Rumble in January. (Also, as previously mentioned, this is the trade deadline. Can you imagine a frenzied Jim Ross announcing something like John Cena entering at number 30 only five minutes after he had just been traded from Raw to Smackdown? That’s gold right there.) Then we have the February PPV, Wrestlemania in March, followed by the April PPV.

May is now host to the returning King of the Ring event (because why on earth did this ever go away?), where the winner receives a title shot at Summerslam like it is supposed to be, essentially making this a second Royal Rumble-esque show. Then we have the June PPV, followed by the last special event of the season, Summerslam, in July. And with the offseason coming up right after, that would give this show the importance of Wrestlemania status.

Summarizing this structure, now we have (counting the newly anointed Night of Champions) a major special event every other month, and have basically created two Royal Rumbles and two Wrestlemanias in terms of significance.

WILL WE EVER SEE ANY OF THIS?
The answer, of course, as I stated above, is highly unlikely (or in our terms, hell no). Granted, I am biasedly in favor of these ideas, since, you know, they’re mine and all…but I feel like this entire structure of the WWE is pretty awesome, and is something I would thoroughly enjoy watching all season long.

Due to a scheduling conflict, I will be unable to appear on this week’s episode of your (hopefully) favorite weekly pro wrestling podcast, Doing The Job. Being the senior lead wrestling analyst of analyzations that I am, I felt like it would be difficult for me to leave these, umm, anylyzations all to myself. Besides, there has to be some voice of reason, since you’ll only get to hear from M2J and Denny Lugz this week. Right? Right.

The actual notes out of my book.

Having said that, I figured I’d peel back the curtain a bit and let you into my notebook and the notes that I would have used for this week’s show. (And yes, I keep an actual notebook and write stuff with a pen like people used to do before the fall of civilization.) I generally just write bullet points, but for the sake of this article, I will expand where needed.

(Notes from Monday night are in bold, my expansion for this article is not.)

Heyman’s excuse that Brock was at only 50% in loss to Cena, and that now he’s at 100%
Loved this. Excellent heel logic in somewhat exonerating Lesnar from his 2012 defeat to John Cena.

– Paul Heyman’s rap – YES!!
Best line: “I’m just Brock’s advocating Jew.” I really feel like this was one of Heyman’s best promos ever, and that says a lot.

Corporate Kane is back again – ugh.

Remember when Ryback was the one beating up two guys at a time?
Now Ryback is one of the two getting beaten by one; it is kind of funny how careers play out over the course of a couple of years. Also, shouldn’t have Reigns just beaten Rybaxel outright, instead of them losing by DQ, if he was just going to squash them afterward anyway? It’s not like it protected them at all.

Seth Rollins has a nice little match with Rob Van Dam

– Ambrose breaks out of giant present after Rollins’ paranoia
Overall I enjoyed this and it got a laugh from me, but still, it would have been better if Rollins had not suspected Ambrose inside that huge gift in the first place since he had no reason to. I’m just nitpicking a little, though. It was great.

Well, this cheating angle is one way to keep Daniel Bryan in the storylines
Sloppy Yes Lock by Brie on Stephanie, but still, makes sense
So they brought out Daniel Bryan’s (kayfabe) physical therapist and Stephanie got a confession from her that this woman his having an affair with him. Clearly it’s going to come out that this isn’t true. It would be easy to dump all over this new wrinkle to the story, but I want to see where they take it first. Oh, yeah, if you aren’t a part of our Doing The Job Facebook group, then you missed M2J’s keen “research” on the lady in question, which you can see here. You won’t be sorry. And if you’re not part of the group…join!

Another nice match between Swagger and Cesaro; Cesaro loses again by submission
I know Swagger is the one in a feud here, however, the losses for Cesaro on TV lately are starting to pile up. I’m not concerned, but still, I’m at least raising an eyebrow.

Interesting dialogue between Wyatt and Jericho – felt like Y2J could have said more
Another topic of conversation in our Facebook group on Monday night. Bray Wyatt is a phenomenal speaker with the way he spits his verbiage. I respect the hell out of him, but I’m just not with it. I find myself drifting during his promos, and it’s certainly not from boredom, but because they rarely make sense and worse, they never get explained after some grand scheme. Like I’ve been saying since he first came up to the roster, he belongs more in movies than he does in wrestling.

AJ falling for the same distraction tactics that she did as a heel
I know it’s wrestling and you let some things slide, but you’d think her character would be privy to Paige’s tricks since they are right out of her own book.

“When does John Cena turn?…”
Knew well enough to not get sucked in to where this was going, but still, it is always cool when Cena acknowledges many of our longings for maybe not a heel Cena, but at least a different one.

– Whenever Cena pulls out a rap, it’s massively over with everyone in the crowd
Yeah, yeah, we are way too far removed from rapper Cena ever making a full-on comeback, but still…he’d be SO over!

Are they really doing this whole, “someone gets arrested thing” again, this time just with Brie Bella??
This segment REALLY bothered me. And not the fact that they played this card again, but how they played off Brie’s reaction. Considering how over with the crowd she has been as a massive face (who the hell would have ever thought) throughout this angle, she should have gone into “Austin 3:16” mode when getting taken out of the building in cuffs and been a total badass about it. NOW is the time to emphatically call Stephanie a bitch straight to her face on the way out. Instead, she cried like a little bitch with a skinned knee and lost practically all of her momentum and credibility going into the biggest match of her career on the go-home Raw to Summerslam, which, you know, is kind of a huge deal.

Furthermore, they had a chance to really boost the concept of the “powerful woman” after all these years since the Trish/Lita era, with a little Beth Phoenix sprinkled in afterward, and they basically showed us that all a woman is going to do when life punches her in the face is take the hit and cry about it. That was great for Steph when it happened to her a few weeks ago; she’s a heel who had it coming, and acted the realistic way that she did. Brie is the one we are supposed to live vicariously through to take down the evil baddie; this is where being a pro wrestler on TV, basically a near superhero, and bucking reality to act like it, comes into play. We should be fired up about Brie’s rage coming out of jail to kick the boss’s ass. Now we’re not. Whoever made the decision to have her react the way she did COMPLETELY dropped the ball.

Heath Slater is facing Dolph Ziggler – damn, I thought he was turning face

– Whoa, HUGE Slater chants at the start of the match and afterward at the end!

– Slater with another win! This is now an actual thing!
Was super stoked with how into Slater this crowd was, and I’d imagine it will be similar going forward. A telling sign of that was that this happened against Ziggler, too.

After the match, when the crowd was chanting for Slater before Ziggler dropped him with a Zig-Zag, I wonder if the cheap shot kick that Slater attempted on Dolph was improv and thrown in there so as to not draw heat on Dolph for being a sore sport in delivering his finisher without reason to the suddenly over-with-the-crowd Heath. If it was, that was absolutely brilliant. (These are the little things that a senior lead analyst of analyzations notices and why they get paid the big bucks, by the way. [And by big bucks, I mean zilch.])

Maybe this Orton/Sheamus match is good, I don’t know – I’ve seen it too many times
Admittedly, this was the one segment I didn’t watch much of. I said this in the group but I’ll repeat it: If you had to wager your life’s savings on an over/under of “Number of televised matches between Randy Orton and Sheamus,” with the total being 25, would anyone feel confident betting the under? Even at such a high number? I wouldn’t.

Hogan’s birthday celebration – I knew Hogan was going to shill the Network in here somehow

– Was hoping Hogan tearing off the red and yellow for the nWo shirt would be an actual heel turn
I was kind of hoping after Hogan tore off his shirt to reveal the nWo one, the three of them would have tossed the legends from the ring, but I obviously know that was wishful thinking.

– Lesnar! “Party’s over, grandpa!”

– After Raw is over, the rest of this celebration should be on the Network – ok good, it is
To me, this is a huge benefit of the Network: to be able to see when they have celebration nights like this. But also, rather than a postshow, if perhaps we flat out saw what went down on some other random Raws after the show, kind of like the DVD they recently put out.

*IT’S ALMOST THE END OF THE SHOWWWWW…..*

Alright, time for some nuggets to run down some smaller things I noticed from Raw:

• Roman Reigns not wearing the gear with the yellow lines going down it this week. Going back to all black gear he had before it? I hope so.
• On the topic of gear, Seth Rollins had a new t-shirt.
• Additionally, John Cena also has new merch to plug, this one being red and yellow (perhaps in honor of Hogan?)
• Somebody goofed and played the female bumper music to play off Dean Ambrose after he chased Rollins away. Clearly intended for Stephanie walking backstage to ring for next segment. Whoops.
• Umm, after winning her match against AJ and celebrating on the outside, when they cut back to Eva Marie two minutes later so AJ could administer the beatdown, why was she all of a sudden hunched over as if someone had just attacked her? Did the Titty Master strike when we weren’t looking? I am extremely confused.
• After this long string of great matches, especially at pay-per-views, how did the Usos, as the tag team champions, get lost in the shuffle heading towards Summerslam. That kind of, really sucks.
• Did any of the commentators mention a reason why Ziggler was wearing Miz’s “Haters Wanted” shirt to the ring for his match against Slater? Even though he’s feuding with The Miz, I feel that still should have at least been brought up.
• And finally, you guys know I like a good quote.
  The Miz on commentary, about bringing home a title: (Jim Brown) never brought a championship to Cleveland!”
  Rest of the commentators, and me at home: “Yeah, he did.”

And with that, nuggets are done and Owen Hart has left the building. And considering that this is the part where we generally end the show, I’m going to end this article.

Looking for Buy or Sell? Then don’t forget to catch Doing The Job later this week and every other week for just $9.9…just kidding, it’s free! (with six month commitment.)

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Peace out.

Editor’s note: This article was written by Doing The Job’s number one Irish fan, Shane Kelleher. Many thanks for his contributions.)

Hi I’m Shane Kelleher the fella who Denny Lugz reads the emails for from the Ireland. I’m a fan of WWE and I hate to say it a TNA fan. I will try not to talk about the current situation there. Being from Ireland. I’m a fan of Irish wrestlers and any European wrestlers.

Even though I’m 16. You probably presume I’m an internet smark. But when I was young I will admit I was john cena fan cheer all the good guys. But that I didn’t notice the boos cause I was enthralled by the nature of the stuff I was watching. I stopped watching after friends lost interest in it. I just followed the crowed

But when I came back cm punk dropped that pipe bomb. Then I started to find European wrestlers to cheer for. In the January of this year I went to my first wrestling event and that day found the Doing the Job podcast.

I feel being over here when wwe come into town. House shows and TV shows give them a chance to try new things like fandango as face and Some USA wrestlers as heels. It’s a different voice which can be help to creative not a problem you see. But there are problems with the system they have. Its two weeks long but only one live Raw. This can go unnoticed. This where I think TNA gets it right. But there tour is only five days long it put out seven weeks of TV from this side of the world. They did one house show and one PPV as well. But WWE can’t afford taping raw because the rating would drop badly and more loss money for Vince. I read on the sheets WWE changing its tour system. This would mean raw is still Monday. Main Event and Superstars on Tuesday. Wednesday live Smackdown   house shows Thursday and Friday. Then Saturday off. PPV on Sunday.

This way would suit European tour two weeks spread across 10 cities. This would be great and gives people like Barrett and Ceasro to be super over. New debuts would be better to get over like Adam Rose. I would love to see this gives new cities chance of live TV. This would be great. Way better to US audience to see what European cities are like.

European wrestlers are important to WWE because European style is stiffer which can make wrestling seem more ‘real’. This can be more enjoyable for me who has watched world of sport wrestling. Seamus has lost his stiff since he arrived in the wwe. I feel stiff work is good but I have one problem swagger and Del Rio are too stiff and cause too much problems.

I’m glad to see a new NXT diva Betty Lynch from Dublin. Hopefully they don’t use an Irish stereotype. Great win in her debut over Summer Rae. Different voices, ideas and new styles which is why the WWE is successful global company. Can the WWE survive without European wrestlers? Would they have tours over here? Would I care as much as ye do? I think if nxt continues to grow I feel the WWE would use one of these nxt special episodes over here first before another WWE big PPV.

WWE Network is set launch in August over here. This will give the network 1 million subscribers which will turn their profit on the network. Vince is left so long because they were trying to the network running smooth and no problems before it went Global. This is a smart business idea. So don’t be complaining

To wrap this up that’s what I opinion on the matter I hope ye liked what ye read and if you did I write another one for the DTJ website. And would also like to the doing the job happy 100^th birthday and long may the success continue. That’s big Shane Kelleher signing off goodbye.

Perhaps the most soul–crushing sight ever.

I felt sick to my stomach after my body regained feeling from becoming numb from shock. When Seth Rollins swung that chair into the back of Roman Reigns and then repeatedly to a stunned Dean Ambrose, guys that were practically his brothers, it felt as if by some strange voodoo that those chair shots were striking me down as well.

This couldn’t be real life, could it? No you idiot, of course not; it’s professional wrestling: a scripted show where good guys decide to throw morality out the window at the drop of a dime just as often as baddies see the light when you least expect it. But this one…this one hurt me down to my very soul.

Out of all the people I know, no one loved The Shield more than I did. Sure, I definitely knew some people that were even more excited about Rollins’ work as Tyler Black on the independent scene. Same goes for Ambrose as Jon Moxley. And…alright, I don’t think anyone really saw Roman Reigns coming. But the moment these guys burst onto the main roster as a trio, I became as big a mark for the group as it gets. I found that in this day and age of being an adult wrestling fan in the internet era, where we all know way too much, they became the first entity in the industry that I truly cared for on a kayfabe level in well over a decade. Sure, I love(d) CM Punk so much that he ultimately cracked my Mount Rushmore of all-time favorite performers, but even with him, my adulation was seemingly as much about how he was changing the company from a real life standpoint as it was for his role on air.

But The Shield made me feel like a kid again. They made me root for them to win every match, whether it made booking sense or not, because that’s the way you’re supposed to blindly support something that you love. You cheer for the guys you like, not for the writing team to get it right. As adults, we lose sight of that fact, and I so very much loved that The Shield made me remember what that feeling was all about.

The “Hounds of Justice” made a lot of noise and turned a lot of heads in the year and a half that they were around (which is an eternity in modern wrestling years), but just like everything else the business, at some point, it all had to come to an end.

Of the three members of the team, they were all great in their own way, but Seth Rollins was my guy from the beginning. And over the course of time, while The Shield was going from good, to great, to amazing, to arguably the greatest faction in the history of the business, Rollins surpassed everyone on the roster from a personal level and eventually became my pick for favorite overall, even ahead of Daniel Bryan during his historic rise to claim the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

So it would seem only fitting that when it came time for The Chair Shot Heard Around The World, of course Rollins was the one to deliver it and break the group up. This all, naturally, in the face of the fact that Ambrose or Reigns would have been much more obvious and rightful choices to be turncoats for their own reasons, and that Rollins was not only the least likely of the three, but damn near a non-factor in the discussion.

I actually did not get to see it until the next day, as I turned off Raw with an hour left to go and attempted to avoid spoilers all throughout the next day, although plenty of hints were out there that I knew something was up. (To hear the story of my day trying to piece together what exactly happened on Raw for the hours before I was able to watch, knowing full well something huge did go down, and most likely with The Shield, skip to the 7:30 mark of this past week’s episode of Doing the Job.) What my eyes saw when I finally got to witness that moment was something I was not ready for or willing to accept.

I couldn’t grasp it. I can’t grasp it. Despite Jim Ross no longer being in the company, I still can’t help but hear his voice in my head screaming, “Why Rollins?! For the love of God, tell me why!!” I felt so sick and betrayed by this act of fiction that I could not even stomach a real dinner that night, resorting to sadly eating brownies in order to merely comfort myself. It was bad enough that the group had to break up, but again, that was going to happen at some point anyway. But if that was going to happen, Rollins was the most obvious choice to remain good so as to get revenge, acting vengeance with exciting offense that the crowd could totally get behind. He was supposed to thwart off the evil, not be the one to embrace it. I’m not going to go all Star Wars, “You were the chosen one!!” here, but he would have been a main ingredient in the revenge being so sweet.

And now? I’m still wearing those childlike goggles in all of this, trying to figure out how I should proceed with my fandom. Seth Rollins is my favorite guy, but can I really back him after he broke up my favorite group and tore my heart out of my chest? Those are questions you ask yourself as a kid, not an all-knowing adult. To be honest, that’s what is sort of great about this. I’m someone that naturally enjoys heels over faces; when CM Punk switches alignment I not only had no issue with the move, I reveled in it.

But if you love something in pro wrestling as much as I loved The Shield, and you don’t feel this way anymore, emotionally torn and pained over a heinous action that your favorite good guy committed, then quite honestly, you shouldn’t be watching; the magic is gone.

As I reflect and go through the 12 steps of recovery from that tragic Monday Night, I feel like that is the light that shines through from this whole thing. After all these years and so many (non-intentionally) dreadful moments that have been endured, The Shield and a Seth Rollins betrayal has found a way, even in the face of disaster, to illustrate that there is a magic to all of this that is still possible no matter how old you get.

That is why I always have and always will believe in The Shield, and will never hesitate to display the Symbol of Excellence with someone that feels the same. Thank you Shield, for providing some of the fondest times I’ve ever had as a fan of this business, and for putting a smile on my face a mile wide every time you were featured. Extreme Rules 2014 will forever be on my short list of favorite moments, captured on camera by Denny Lugz as proof of the children’s butterflies we all are supposed to get every so often. Believe that.

(P.S. from author: But seriously, Rollins, how could you?!?!)

Daniel Bryan has had a tough go of it since winning the title at Wrestlemania 30.

For nearly eight months, we watched one of the biggest underdog stories, perhaps both on screen and off, play out in front of our eyes. As time passed, we anxiously anticipated the seemingly inevitable, grew quizzical when the screwy finishes kept mounting up, spewed fire-like vitriol when it seemed the powers that be were going in another direction, and whipped ourselves into a gleeful frenzy when things got back on track in the final weeks.

Suffice it to say, the build to Daniel Bryan’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship win at Wrestlemania XXX was legendary. As was the moment he won it. Finally, our guy had reached the mountain top, and it was glorious. Sure, often times in life the chase is most thrilling than the catch, but the rewards of the title reign itself was something that was going to be epic as well.

To this point, tragedy and errors have befallen nearly every moment of this run since Wrestlemania. In fairness, most of what has transpired cannot be blamed on Bryan himself, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Right off the bat, Daniel Bryan gets married to Brie Bella and misses the second Raw after the big title win to go on his honeymoon. This is the one aspect out of all of these problems that could have been avoided. I am not trying to sound heartless; I understand how important the honeymoon is right after the wedding. And to ordinary people with ordinary jobs, by all means, go enjoy yourself. But Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella are not ordinary people with ordinary jobs. When it became known to them that he was going to have the most important moment of his career and become the face of the company, a company in which any time off could bury a star’s momentum, their plans for the honeymoon should have been postponed. And Brie, working in the same business, surely could have understood that.

When you become the most important person in the business, missing even a single Raw is a huge detriment and sets plans back more than just the one week; who knows what they could have done if he were there to build a story. Maybe we would have even avoided the feud he ended up having, but let’s not jump ahead. The fact of the matter is, aside from a birth or a death, that was the last possible time to take time off.

And of course, when he comes back for the following week, that’s when the tragic news hits that Bryan’s father suddenly passed away. How could you not feel absolutely horrible for him? You have to give him all of the respect in the world for even showing up to the building that night. But speaking strictly in terms pertaining to work here, the timing couldn’t have been worse, since it used up another Raw essentially without him. Yes, he came out for the opening segment and was brutally assaulted by Kane, which made perfect sense for why he didn’t appear the rest of the night, but had this real life tragedy not happened, he likely would have played a much bigger factor on this show, especially having already missed an entire episode prior to this.

If you’re counting, this is basically two of the first three Raws that Bryan missed right out of the gate from winning the title at Wrestlemania. As we all know, wrestling fans are as fickle as they come. When coming down from a high such as that night in New Orleans provided, something like this is like a freefall for people to hop off the bandwagon.

Then there is the storyline with Kane itself. If it would have been a one-off for Extreme Rules, this would have been absolutely fine. But that wasn’t the case, and not only has the story been cheesy, and Brie’s acting even worse, but most importantly, Bryan has looked super weak throughout this whole process. With all of that momentum from ‘Mania, this was the time to ramp up Bryan’s toughness from a ten to an 11. He proved his fighting spirit going for the gold, now we needed to see his ferocity with the belt(s) on him. In general, considering how over he was, this is when we needed to see his credibility be built in the badass, take no prisoners department. This is not to say he needed to be Steve Austin, but surely he needed to be someone we could believe that could put down all comers…someone who was truly the best.

As M2J stated on episode 90 of our Doing the Job podcast leading up to Extreme Rules, Daniel Bryan should have eviscerated Kane to really make a statement. Sure, he ultimately defeated him in the main event, but the show closed completely opposite of how Bryan needed to be booked: with Kane taking every shot Bryan had, plus going through a flaming table…and sitting up to close the show as his music played to an arena filled with red lighting. I completely get what WWE was doing, but they got it backwards. Instead of building up Daniel Bryan, they built up Kane. Can I get a Stone Cold “What?!” please?

Then, to double down on backwards storytelling, they continue the feud, and for God only knows what reason, make Bryan look even weaker by having him COWARDLY RUN AWAY from Kane. Of course, the story they are trying to convey is that his wife is in harm’s way because of the Devil’s favorite demon and he needs to get her out of there. But that makes him look bad in the process. The way this should have been booked was to have Bryan’s actions tell of the story of: “You want to assault my wife and I? I am the mother effing WWE World Heavyweight Champion so in order to defend both of those things, the two most important things to me, I am not going to run, but I am going to stand here, fight, and kick your big red ass straight back to hell.” Can you imagine the crowd reaction to this? And the shot of credibility that you give to your champion?! I am old enough now to not armchair book every little thing, but this one seemed painfully obvious to go with, and even if it didn’t, what played out was just as obvious to avoid. And again, Kane’s character is there to build Daniel Bryan, not make him look like a wimp who is lucky to scrape by.

That takes us to this past week’s Raw where Bryan came out to the ring and awkwardly told the fans that he needed neck surgery and had no idea when he would be back. Was this kayfabe or real? It seemed like no one knew until it was later confirmed online because of how out of completely left field it was. Yet another unfortunate break in this saga. As of this writing, the news was just released that he underwent successful surgery and that typical recovery time for this is 2-3 months, which would place his return right around Summerslam.

WWE released a statement that they will make an announcement on this upcoming Raw for the future of the title, but we would have to imagine that it will be stripped and likely vacated, and in all honesty, rightfully so if the champ has to miss that much time.

The concern here is that first impressions are everything. Not counting the few moments from Summerslam (nor his World Heavyweight Championship run from 2011-12 in which the title played second fiddle to the WWE Championship), this was Daniel Bryan’s first title run as “the man”. We can only hope that the sour taste that this left doesn’t stay in the mouths of the WWE higher ups, causing them to lose faith for another go ‘round sometime after he comes back healthy. We’ve all seen how the company can act in that regard.

But for now, if Daniel Bryan is to be stripped of the title, it seems only fitting considering how unfortunate the run with the gold was for the brief time that he had it.

This is how the WWE World Heavyweight Championship reign ends
Not with a bang, but with a whimper