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Alexa was absolute cringe there. Is she usually better than that?

Curious as to why there is a Slammy there.

While not completely wrestling related, find it really interesting and puzzled how Rock's recent film (Jumaji) not only crushed Cena's recent film (Ferdinand) but also made almost $1 billion in theaters.

Need to check the math but believe Jumaji also out-earned all of Cena's films combined as well.

Ferdinand was released around the same time as Star Wars, if I remember correctly. Surprised so many people are seeing Jumanji, because it looks like a pile of shit.

Jumanji looks better than Ferdinand, and The Rock, and probably Kevin Hart, are bigger Hollywood draws than John Cena is right now.

No way does Jumanji look better than Ferdinand. One looks like a harmless kids film and the other looks like a big, sloppy pile of remake. But you're right about The Rock being bigger in Hollywood. I wouldn't look too much into this like it's wrestlers drawing houses though. People are dumb enough to go and see Jumanji when it's released around nothing else.

Why does he have on gym teacher shorts??

Just had the realization that WrestleMania 34 marks 17 years since WrestleMania 17, arguably their greatest WrestleMania ever. It now sits, chronologically, right in the middle.

More so than looking forward to the Royal Rumble Match for any genuine reason, I'm looking forward to seeing what a shit-show it is. This is going to be...interesting.

I was thinking of matches they could do for Triple H that would genuinely get me interested in him being at WrestleMania. About the only thing I can think of is Luke Harper randomly attacking Triple H and making him bleed. The angle is, I guess, that Harper is a loose madman and Triple H, horrible babyface though he is, hobbles through life with random Harper attacks.

Trying to listen to a podcast talk about Raw 25 but there are none up yet.

The geniuses at "Pro Wrestling Torch" have a Raw 25 preshow podcast and an upload today where they talk MMA.

Smart.

MMA would be more interesting than that train wreck.

Yeah, I wanted to hear the hate.

I can't wait to hear what Bryan Alvarez says about it. He's one of my favorites to hear go off on onto a rant.

Occasionally, I wish Brian Last would sit down Cornette and get him to watch more modern wrestling too. Cornette would have a field day ripping apart that show.

what podcast is he on?

He does the Wrestling Observer ones with Dave Meltzer, Mike Sempervivi and Vinny. They've got a pay window, but snippets pop up on YouTube.

So this has probably been talked about before but surprisingly CM Punks 'pipe bomb' speech is number 2 on the Raw 100 top moments.

At the end of this speech he says he has a personal story about Vince, now I've read online that this was just a cue for backstage to know he had finished but this has been disputed.

Has it ever been mentioned what this story was ?

Pretty much nothing. If you want to hear some personal stories about CM Punk and Vince McMahon, listen to the podcast with Colt Cabana.

I'm sure it was just a cut-off point. If allowed to talk, Punk probably would have just gone into the well-known ironies of Vince McMahon being a bully whilst promoting an anti-bullying campaign.

Washing away the day of bad wrestling with some classic stuff. This time I've gone a bit more modern: Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle from SummerSlam 2001. I was a new wrestling fan when I first saw it, and I didn't appreciate the ring work perhaps as much as I should. I've always liked Angle, but the face/heel dynamics of this felt weird and like it played with credibility dynamics, and the Invasion angle, even to fresh eyes, was clearly a mess.

That being said, I've heard such good things about this match. I figured I should really revisit it, and I thought I must have sometime over my younger years. I think the one I've seen more of is Unforgiven, where Angle wins the belt, because I don't remember Angle's gear. This should be good.

Yeah, Punk said "You know how we do this whole bullying campaign-" and then he got cut off. Seemed as good a place as any to stop it.

Wow rewatching Warrior's speech at Raw after his induction to the Hall of Fame knowing that he will die just a day later. You can see how unwell he looks and out of breath.

Austin's so good on the mic as a heel, but there is this undercurrent underneath everything that is just goofy. Austin feeling like Vince wants to replace him with Angle is perfect egocentric star shit. "A hug used to mean something" -- not so much.

The stare-down between Angle and Austin in the aisle to start the match is epic. Austin going into full bad-ass mode is just what this needed to sell Angle as a guy who can fight him. He's worth the skin off the back of the knuckles. JR's commentary is prime too. When Angle takes Austin down and starts pummeling him, JR simply states "Angle is trying to kick Austin's ass." That's some classic Mid-South choosing of terminology to position Angle in the viewers' minds as something to get behind.

Something I've noticed watching Bret Hart recently is how good he is at calling back to action earlier in the match. If the heel pulls him by the hair, he'll get that heel by the hair later in the match. Against Mr. Perfect at SummerSlam '91 is a great example of that. So is the Cage Match with Owen. I like how Austin chains together three suplexes, but then gets upped by Angle who rolls a billion Germans.

The Stunner out of nowhere is...an interesting touch. Modern eyes make it seem like just another spot where someone hits their finishing move randomly. From memory, the intention here seemed to be to make Angle look like a resilient son of a bitch for kicking out. His shoulder getting up just in time makes for a great near fall.

Austin hitting his second Stunner is bringing back memories, haha. Austin goes for the kill, and I remember as a kid thinking "C'mon, Kurt." Ha at Austin telling Earl Hebner to put Angle back in the ring. Angle's selling off the posting is great.

Oh, shit, that's right -- he goes into the post A LOT. Austin's heat in this match is vicious. Lots of cool spots and counters. Angle dragging Austin back into the ring is a thing of beauty. Austin looks good surviving as he does, and Angle takes so much punishment and keeps on fighting.

Great ending. The referees take better bumps than the guys today.

Paul London's face ( well I think it's Paul London) as Vince walks backstage before he gets blown up.

He was fired for that face.

It looked like the inspiration for 'Broken' Matt Hardy.

Roman is easily one of the best wrestlers WWE has had in the main event. His offense is AWESOME and his selling is quality, not that he's HBK or something but for his character he sells very well. It sucks he gets treated the way he does, but it is what it is. He's a great wrestler.

I concur with Fragile X. The Big Dog is a solid worker and worthy of the "locker room leader" moniker. The lad has had some bad luck with respect to his rise to main event status coinciding with the WWE Universe's innate desire to see Daniel Bryan back in the main event picture and possibly with the Heavyweight title around his waist. You can't necessarily blame them since we never got a proper title "reign".

Tye Dillinger has entered the Royal Rumble

I actually hope they don't make him #10 again.

Send out some random heel or Curt Hawkins at #10 and then have Dillinger enter at #11 and throw him out for taking "his number".

lol @ the thought of any plans outside of entrance order until the last 6 or so. They have barely cared.

I dunno, they pretty deliberately gave Tye #10 last year

Thought it was funny that Dean blurted out that Sami drew #8 in some backstage segment early in the show

Was 100% sure they'd have forgotten about it by the time they got to the actual match

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The best part of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/raw25?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#raw25</a> was when Vince McMahon deliberately poured beer all over his son on purpose, just to be a jerk. <a href="https://t.co/5CdX7AQxgq">pic.twitter.com/5CdX7AQxgq</a></p>&mdash; Matt Singer (@mattsinger) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattsinger/status/955870916474540033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2018</a></blockquote>
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They should have done something like this last year. Makes no sense for him to be #10. It also makes no sense for him to be in the Rumble given how much of a non-factor he has been.

It's weird because this year they've not even announced half the field yet but everyone that's been announced has "declared their entry."

Like...that's all you have to do? Shouldn't jobbers be signing up on day 1 because this is their only realistic chance to earn a Mania title match?

I miss when nearly everyone had to qualify.

Last year people just declared they were entering. And there was someone, I can't remember who, that had trouble declaring themselves for some reason. This is why the WWE is broken and not even the Rumble matters anymore.