Crychon

Very overbooked main event, but it was overbooked very well. Pretty good show, with the exception of Enzo getting hurt. Get well soon, 'zo!

So this is kind of a spoiler, I guess, but it happened at a house show: http://www.cagesideseats.com/2016/4/21/11485252/samoa-joe-defeats-finn-balor-to-become-new-nxt-champ-at-lowell-house Strange way to end his reign.

I do think that as a whole, Roadblock was much stronger than Fastlane. The only slightly disappointing matches were the Tag Titles (Kofi was pretty botchy) and Lesnar vs. Harper (Bait and switch). The rest of the matches were really solid. It was much better than their last network special.

Usually I see people complaining about it on Twitter, and it's completely fine for me. Tonight it was just awful, and was especially was acting up toward the end of matches. For me, right when AJ hit the Styles Clash, it froze, and recovered as Jericho was tapping to the Calf Killer.

I thought the PPV as a whole was pretty lackluster. ADR vs. Kalisto - ADR set up his finisher what seemed like 30 times over the course of the match. Becky/Sasha vs. Naomi/Tamina - Not bad, nothing great. KO vs. Ziggler - Same, pretty much Titans vs. Wyatts - What the hell did this accomplish? What do Big Show/Kane/Ryback gain by winning? The match wasn't great either. Charlotte vs. Brie - Sloppy. Styles vs. Jericho - Another decent match, but nothing great. New Day Cutting Edge Peep Show - What do you do to make a semi-entertaining segment with two entertaining groups better? Call out the void of charisma known as the League of Nations, apparently. Axel vs. R-Truth - WTF is this doing on PPV? For a second I thought I somehow slept until Raw. Reigns vs. Ambrose vs. Lesnar - I thought the match was just starting to get kind of interesting with Ambrose introducing the chair, then Reigns abruptly won. I definitely would've preferred an Ambrose victory here, but meh, Roman's always going to be the choice, I guess. On top of that, the network was terrible. It was constantly freezing/stuttering/going to terrible quality. I really wish I watched the Walking Dead instead.

I only saw the first half of the speech *shakes fist at the internet gods*, but early on he said that another test was run last week that showed things not being as healthy as the other tests showed. I loved the guy as a performer, but I don't want to see anyone completely destroy their health for my amusement. If this means he gets to live a healthy life after wrestling, then good for him!

My cable cut out during the middle of the speech so now I have to wait until it's up on Hulu tomorrow to watch it.

I'm surprised the reaction for the ADR/Kalisto match has been mostly positive. I thought it was a total dud. Once they botched once it felt like they were botching everything for the rest of the match. Other than that, I enjoyed the rest of the show. Could've done without a retiree winning the Rumble, but disappointing winners are par for the course at this point. It was great to see AJ, I'm hoping his interaction with KO is the start of a feud between them.

He's going for the reverse Undertaker!

Triple H would continue a trend of disappointing Rumble winners, so that sounds about right.

My problem is the fact that NXT really seems to know how to book women. They give them interesting storylines, give them a chance to breathe with longer matches, and the coaches know how to give them meaningful matches that propel storylines and actually allow them to put their talents on display. Wheras, this is what I basically think the main roster booking/writing staff is like:

I know they're trying to push Roman as one of the top faces in the company, and I know I've said this before, but I think the way to get him over is to book him as a silent monster heel with a mouthpiece. Give him Heyman or something (if he's willing) have them talk him up, and most importantly, just don't have Roman talk. He tries to be cool or whatever when he speaks, and it just really doesn't work for him. If he does have to talk, make it short and sweet. Don't give him time to ramble on about tater tots or suffering succotash or whatever stupid thing they think will be funny this week. Starting with shorter promos and not trying to be the "cool" guy, he can gradually improve and maybe organically become actually cool. Trying to force him to be the cool guy when he clearly isn't there isn't helping him any. That said... I also love Bailey, but that quote from Paige makes me sad. Don't call her up yet. In fact, send Sasha and Becky back.

So, I just watched Smackdown. I know it's early, but I really like the addition of Mauro Ranallo to the commentary team. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and he was a breath of fresh air from the usually terrible WWE commentary. If they put him on events over Cole, I'd definitely be happy with that.

Well, this is interesting: http://411mania.com/wrestling/aj-styles-shisuke-nakamura-more-leaving-njpw/

I don't think Sheamus is the right person to put the belt on at this point either. His mic work is atrocious, and his matches are generally fairly boring. He just doesn't seem like someone who should hold the top belt to me. He's more suited for a US or IC title in my eyes. Seeing as how I don't really like Roman as the champ, with the number of injuries there are right now, it's tough to say who should have the world title. I think Kevin Owens is an obvious choice. The dude's in ring abilities are top notch, and he's great on the mic and getting heat. Bray Wyatt is a possibility, but he has generally been booked exceptionally weak as a singles wrestler, so I'm not sure if he'd be a great fit right now without some more build. They could bring Brock back and give him the belt, but I honestly hated his last title reign. The world champ shouldn't be disappearing for months at a time without so much as cutting a promo or defending the belt. Other people who could potentially hold the belt right now and hold it well are Daniel Bryan (if he's ever cleared again, which I heard he might never be cleared), Neville (would need build), maybe someone from New Day, but that might be a bit of a stretch at this point. Or... (and I can't believe I'm about to say this) John Cena. I generally don't really care for him, but his work with the US title was pretty impressive. He could be a good person to hold it or a bit until people recover from injuries, but he's also on vacation right now.

Well, they were definitely there when I watched it live! Not sure if they censored them out for replays.

Oh, absolutely. The women they've brought up (Sasha, Becky, Charlotte), Sasha in particular, are capable of great things in the ring if they're just allowed to. After seeing what Sasha has done in the ring in NXT this year, I think she might be the most talented wrestler, male or female, on the WWE roster right now. To see her squandered in a storyline with Tamina and Naomi is very disappointing. The character they're developing for Charlotte right now is terrible. The writing for the whole Paige/Charlotte (and Becky I guess) feud just hasn't done anything worthwhile. I wish they'd all just go back to NXT.

I thought the ending segment went on way too long. I think I'm ok with that if it ends up meaning that Reigns becomes more of a silent badass type and rarely touches a mic again.

I wanted Owens to retain too, though.

Woods on commentary, and his brief involvement were MVP worthy as well. Great way to start the show, but the momentum is going to be completely dead with this match next.

I'm really enjoying Breaking Ground so far. I'm not sure how I feel about them filming firings, but other than that, it's a nice series.

The key to a good show: Give Roman and Sheamus 15 minutes on the mic.

Life is Strange was great. I still haven't played the last episode of GoT yet, but I've generally felt that was ok, haven't been super impressed with it. If you don't have it yet, I'd definitely recommend Tales from the Borderlands, though. I'd say it's definitely one of Telltale's strongest. Even though I loved Walking Dead Season 1, it may be my new favorite of theirs.

Ugh, why do they keep on putting the NXT tag titles on the most generic teams? Blake and Murphy, though they've gotten better, are pretty generic. The Vaudevillians are interesting, but I don't think they wrestled at all when they had the titles, and were completely taken off the air. Dawson and Wilder... I just don't see it. They need to be ready willing and... Gable to put the belts on a tag team that's actually interesting. Or even Enzo and Cass. That'd work too.

Cesaro/Sheamus and Neville/Barrett are the only ones that could really go either way in the first round. But in either case one winner loses to Reigns and the other loses to Owens.