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.)

I’d plug the website, but you’re already on it.
Leave a voicemail and let your voice be heard on the show at (646) 820-3332.
And if speaking doesn’t tickle your fancy, go ahead and email my two counterparts and hosts of the show at m2j@dtjwrestling.com or denny@dtjwrestling.com.

Or you can just go right here and find all this information, plus more.

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.

Way back on episode 53 from August 13th, 2013, Sean
Spurge’s ‘Buy or Sell’ featured a release list with an over/under 4.5 –
to be released within a year.

The list was: Aksana, Camacho, Curt Hawkins, Epico, Ezekial Jackson,
Hunico, JTG, Rosa Mendez, Yoshi Tatsu, Santino, Sin Cara, and Zack
Ryder.

Since then Aksana, Camacho, Curt Hawkins, Ezekial Jackson, JTG, and
Yoshi Tatsu have been released – five of those six just today (6/12/14)!

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

Sheamus has been heavily featured in the sheets over the past week.

The dreaded dirt sheets. Sources say this. Rumor has it about that. It’s like those cheesy gossip magazines for women that we just can’t get enough of, even if we know half of this crap is probably just something that some guy said somewhere, was passed along as “news”, and then spread like wild fire. But what the hell, we all read them, so let’s break down the recent dirt that is in these sheets.

I will attempt to post in this space every week or so about the current goings on in the world of internet wrestling gossip with my own thoughts and opinions on matters I deem important enough to discuss. Check back frequently for updates!

(Normally, in an attempt to be a reputable writer, I would post links or cite other websites with the research for this article, but these are dirt sheets we’re talking about here. You can find the same info on dozens of sites, and when it comes to them, I’m quite certain that credibility isn’t really a factor.)

THE DIRT: Despite recent reports that WWE’s higher-ups felt that the “Yes!” chant was over more than Daniel Bryan, they still plan to forge forward with him ranked as their number two star, behind John Cena.

MY TAKE: Considering that they just spent the better part of a year building and pushing this guy, culminating in him completely owning their biggest show in history, yeah, I’d hope they wouldn’t decide to just take the ball out of his hands. Besides, even if the chant is more over than him, who the hell is the one that got the damn thing over in the first place and continues to do so?? They’re like a tag team at this point, so what difference does it make as long as something is massively over? Don’t get cute, WWE.

(Editor’s Note: This article was written before Daniel Bryan’s announced neck surgery, which will keep him out for a month or so. When he comes back, I’d bet that both the “Yes!” chant and the superstar will be over enough to continue to push him as that number two.)

THE DIRT: Supposedly, Sheamus and Sin Cara (2: Electric Boogaloo) got into a backstage fight, in which it was reported that the former Hunico was victorious. Sheamus then took to Twitter to respond, “Don’t remember being beaten up by Sin Cara backstage… It’s just how Mexicans & we Irishmen hug it out fella.”

MY TAKE: Big deal. When you’re on a team, which is basically what WWE is, stuff like this is going to happen; you handle your business and move on. As far as Sin Cara getting the upper hand, however, if it is true…ouch.

THE DIRT: When Sheamus delivered the Brogue Kick to Dean Ambrose in the battle royal for the United States Championship, that was intended to be his heel turn, but fans didn’t catch on.

MY TAKE: I can’t fathom this is true. Kayfabe-wise, regardless of heel or face, the man is in a position to win a title, hit his finisher, didn’t cheat, won the title, and then celebrated all face-like up the ramp on both Raw and Smackdown. How can that possibly be interpreted as a heel turn??? I’m going to give WWE a little more credit than that, even if the plan is likely for Sheamus to turn sooner rather than later. Speaking of…

THE DIRT: There is talk of putting Sheamus in Evolution, possibly once Batista leaves to promote his movies.

MY TAKE: Props to your Doing the Job hosts for calling this one on last week’s episode of the pod diddly before this was publicly reported if this one comes to fruition. I can see that being a good fit.

THE DIRT: There has been renewed talks of unifying the IC and US titles with Sheamus and Bad News Barrett, which is a hot topic considering the upcoming tour of the United Kingdom.

MY TAKE: And props to M2J for calling this one (again, if it comes to light), on that same episode of your favorite weekly pro wrestling podcast.

THE DIRT: David Benoit, son of former World Champion, Chris, was scheduled to make his in-ring debut for a promotion being run by Smith Hart, brother of former WWE Champion, Bret. This came to an end when Chris Jericho intervened, pointing out that Benoit had not received proper training and was not ready for a match, protecting the kid.

MY TAKE: I hope I am wrong, but my gut tells me Smith was trying to make a buck on the Benoit name, and Jericho diplomatically called him out on it. Good for Y2J.

THE DIRT: WWE has been brainstorming ideas for new shows to air on the Network. Amongst those listed on the sheets, I read this verbatim: “Unscripted reality shows that explore the daily lives of Superstars, like seen on Total Divas…”

MY TAKE: Unscripted…LOL.

THE DIRT: It had already been reported that Batista is not in a program with Daniel Bryan for Payback because he did not want to look bad jobbing to the champ on his way out to promote his movie. Newer reports from a “source close to the situation” disagreed, basically saying that Vince is twisting the story and wants to public to believe that is real. This source claims that Batista has been screwed out of money, booking, and has had promises broken regarding his schedule and movie promotion, and that he would have no problem jobbing to Bryan otherwise.

MY TAKE: Honestly, I really want the story to be that Batista is a jerk. Maybe he is. But it’s not like Vince is any less of a shady character himself when it comes to this stuff. Who the hell knows who to believe, and who cares, as long as Batista is gone as soon as possible.

THE DIRT: Reports claim that John Cena wants to work with Big E at some point, perhaps after Summerslam.

MY TAKE: Ugh. Please, don’t make me sit through that.

THE DIRT: I will rarely give TNA the respect of even talking about their horrible company, but I found it humorous that, according to the sheets, there was nearly a walk out by their production crew in the middle of last week’s tapings, because they supposedly have been owed money. After the threats, checks were promptly issued.

MY TAKE: Good. Too bad they didn’t go through with it, though, for all of us. In my eyes, the crew sold out for the money, because now their show gets to run on television for another week.

THE DIRT: Apparently WWE has changed their minds on plans to break up The Shield and will not be going through with it any time soon.

MY TAKE: Yes! Yes! Yes!