When a villain/heel can do no wrong - especially 2:30
His reaction at 1:04 is also priceless, like he wasn't expecting that.

Speaking of Elias, I think he and Roode are going to be allies soon. Either that, or they'll tease it, make him a mega-heel with a vicious streak, and then turn him into a mega-babyface about 4-6 months later. He kind of has a 90s Rock/Jericho thing going where their heel personas got so loved by the crowd that they turned babyface. Jericho had a babyface turn in his feud with Chyna as they got involved with Bob Holly and Val in early 2000. The Rock began to get heavy cheers in summer 1998 (especially outside of the US where he got some thunderous chants) but rather than turning him babyface, they turned him monster-evil heel and he began beating up on people (mainly Foley) to make him look vicious and dangerous; and when he turned on the corporation later in 99, and became a babyface whose popularity was up in the stratosphere, reaching beyond just WWE fans.

Sorry for the shitty quality dailymotion video, but this match isn't anywhere on youtube - this is a match from Ontario Canada September 27 1998 when the Rock was the most hated person in WWE ("Roman Reigns heat" + regular heel heat): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl6dz - note what happens around the 4:20 mark.

What path will Elias walk?

Muhammad Hassan returned to Pro-wrestling this weekend after 13 years at a little indy show. He came out to his entrance and worked the match as a babyface... not bad considering he was such a hated heel in WWE that the backlash got him fired and practically ostracised from the industry for over a decade.

Meanwhile in Japan...

Is it just me, or is the guy at the end actually trying to talk in a German accent? =P

Backlash was the most generic PPV I can recall. It just left me feeling kind of empty inside.

I wonder how the perception would have been had the Seth Rollins vs. Miz match had been second from the end, and Shinsuke vs. AJ Styles No DQ match hadn't ended in a double count-out DQ? Seriously, did WWE just expect everyone would forget that there are NO count outs in "No DQ" matches?

I started off enjoying it. Then, Big Cass (whom I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt and tried to defend on Facebook) came in and sucked all of the air out of the room.

After seeing the friggin WWE CHAMPIONSHIP wasn't the main event and how that match finished, I fell asleep.

It was a very poorly put together show for getting interesting matches.

I also don't get what they are doing with Reigns. They keep booking him with guys who are terrible matchups stylistically. When you get two huge guys in the ring (Roman, Jinder, Joe, Brock, etc...) who like to use a lot of high-energy and power moves, it's going to gas out the two and slow down the match to levels that people don't like.

I also think Roman needs to turn heel for at least a year; if he does - Rollins and Balor are the obvious major opponents.

Kevin Owens seems to be a big guy that paradoxically can manage to keep match paces up with other big guys - it might be how he uses his weight. Maybe try having a program between him and Reigns? I don't know, it might work, and they look about the same size; Reigns may be a little heavier.

How long did people buy the fictional Cena/Nikki breakup for?

https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1001987779109228546

Ricochet is just ridiculous.

Yeah, last week's NXT show was overall fantastic.

Speaking of shows. RAW is their signature show, and yet... IMO, it's the least entertaining content WWE produces right now; NXT and Smackdown seem to pull out great shows all the time, from top to bottom, but RAW always seems to chug through large portions.

I'm just watching the beginning of Smackdown now, but it's good to see Asuka back. I love how she makes all her moves look like she's brutalizing her opponents.