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A wild idea...RAW IS BRYAN

So, there was an incident a couple of years ago on ESPN here in the US when, aware of how much criticism they were getting for a ridiculous amount of coverage of Tim Tebow (now-former NFL quarterback), they deliberately devoted an entire hour of Sportscenter to Tebow. Every story for an entire hour (except one breaking story), all on one guy.

Having D-Bry wrestle twice to start Raw tonight got me thinking...could they have him wrestle an entire Raw? Maybe after he wins the title, the Authority makes him wrestle one match after another for an entire show in a desperate attempt to unseat him. Or, if he doesn't win the title, they make him wrestle an entire show to get another shot.

Flair used to work Broadways...figure with a big long show-opening promo, commercials between matches, etc., Bryan would be in the ring two hours. Could he do it? And what would the reaction be like?

The blog would be like "I wish there was more Daniel Bryan on this show.  They should stop burying him!"

Comments

  1. I have to see this now just to see if he could pull it off. I think he could do an hour and a half before it got boring.

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  2. Hulk needs to play Mick to Bryan's Rocky against Brock's Clubber Lang.

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  3. The Great Cesaro would be a good choice for the save, methinks.

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  4. Am I the only one who wants DB to go heel again just so he can break out 'I have till 5!'?

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  5. "Why's he gotta wrestle different guys throughout the show? Dammit, they're not pushing him hard enough! He needs to just wrestle himself for three hours!"

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  6. He could still do that as a face. The crowd eats up EVERYTHING he does.

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  7. Way back when, Cactus Jack and Eddie Gilbert wrestled in three separate crazy stipulation matches. I'd like to see something like that.

    Or maybe Bryan in an hour long gauntlet against half the roster.

    Aw fuck, just have him wrestle the whole show. Against everybody.

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  8. Didn't they marathon him against the Shield, or was that Punk? Or Wyatts? He could work it no problem, we've all seen the 60 minute matches that were actually 75+

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  9. The current smark theory is that Hogan is here to give DB some love, yeah. But that seems a waste. Bryan doesn't need ANYTHING to get more over except for them to drop this authority storyline and put him in a proper program with Lesnar.

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  10. Someone needs to remind Vince that wrestling is fake and no one will care if Batista is a heel when his movie comes out. The mainstream attention heaped on Batista will be exactly the same by shows like a Entertainment Tonight (that can't tell the difference anyway).

    I mean, what's the logic here? That if a fan sees Batista's in this movie, they aren't going to go to the movie if Batisita is a heel? Or that if someone from the movie sees Batista is a wrestler and turns on Raw, they're going to be upset that the movie star is a bad guy? The former, Vince shouldn't care about; the latter.... Well if Batista is a stuck up movie star and Everyman Daniel Bryan is kneeing him in the face, that would probably go over well with a casual viewer.

    Of course I'd be shocked if Batista wasn't married to Cena for the summer to try and get ol Johninie boy the Hollywood rub.

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  11. HE'S A WRECKING MACHINE, BROTHER!! HE'LL KILL YOU DEAD DUDE!!

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  12. Yea I got the video of the Cactus/Gilbert triple header. Pretty cool actually

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  13. I'd wanna see him go ROH-style heel and force Lillian say hes the "best fucking wrestler in the world"

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  14. People, please, there's a tried-and-true method for getting guys over.

    On the next Raw you have Batista wearing red, white and blue. He then declares that he's American Made Big Dave, and thenceforth vignettes of him and Hulk Hogan palling around in hotdog eating contests and throwing the ol' pigskin to each other are run ad nauseam.

    People will go nuts over this. "Daniel who?" they'll say.

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  15. I bet half this blog has no idea about what you're talking about.

    I want Bryan to find the one guy in the crowd who says "boring" only to single him out and yell "what the fuck do you know about wrestling? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WRESTLING!?!?!"

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  16. He went against Swagger/Cesaro/Ryback in one night. One all three matches too.


    It was a 20 minute Cesaro/Bryan match too, that was one of the first "Wow this guy is getting pushed" moments they had for him.

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  17. He needs to pick up Bryan's sunglasses?

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  18. I'm starting to wonder if him working 2 matches to start Raw and Smackdown each (in addition to his gauntlets over the past few months) is possibly just WWE's way of trying to burn the audience out on him.


    *Ventura voice* it's a CONSPIRACY

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  19. HE'S MOIDERIZING YA, BROTHER!! GET UP!! CAUSE HULKIE LOVES YA, BROTHER!!

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  20. I'm almost positive he busted it out in early 2012. Either in that awesome Sheamus 2/3 falls match or in one of the CM Punk matches.

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  21. I watched Punk/Bryan's 5-star match from Over the Limit and Punk actually broke it out. I hadn't caught it before (I think it's just the second time I've watched that match). Pretty funny.

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  22. Totally agree with this.

    I have a question: how big of a part is Dave even playing in this movie? I read a decently long article about it on Grantland this week after some trailer or teaser for it was released, and did not see his name mentioned.

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  23. They coated Bryan's push in THERMITE PAINT

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  24. Orton retains at EC. Hogan opens up the following night's RAW. Orton interrupts and threatens bodily harm. Batista makes the save.

    Done and done. And I mean done!

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  25. You could hear the explosions in his kickpads before he fell down!

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  26. I'm really curious what they think the problem is putting the belt on him is? Even Austin as a face never held the belt for more than four months in a row, of that. Why not give a once in a generation star a shot. Because I'm sorry but he's surpassed Punk.

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  27. Trust me, they tried it already a million times with John Cena and it never works.



    Can a brotha get an amen? Batista isn't even terribly booked. Matter of fact, he's barely been booked. He's just a Macintosh in an ipad world. He hasn't done anything wrong except be terribly out of place.

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  28. Two hours of him wrestling would be too much. The best way to push someone for an entire show is to have an over arching storyline like the Raw 10 man tag from Feb 2000. Not sure if Foley was all over the show but it seemed like it.

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  29. davidbonzaisaldanamontgomeryFebruary 21, 2014 at 11:03 PM

    Yeah, at this point, it would be like when they tried to turn Eddie by putting Tajiri through a windshield and cut a heel promo the next week on SD and the crowd ate it up, no canned pops needed, so they abandoned it.

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  30. ARRRRGH THE BARBARIANFebruary 21, 2014 at 11:07 PM

    I'd love to see Colt Cabana do the Tornado DDT through the ringpost

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  31. For the past two years I felt like Stewie at the end of the Surfin' Bird episode of Family Guy. Every time you think it's over, it hits you again and CRAAAAP! We're almost getting there with Bryan on the IWC.

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  32. ARRRRGH THE BARBARIANFebruary 21, 2014 at 11:18 PM

    So, it's one of THOSE movies

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  33. I'd argue that they've reach the perfect balance for Cena/Bryan to actually make Cena tolerable in terms of Cena actually doing shit for once whereas Punk (who should have been fighting for Bryan, not fight D-Listers because Brock Lesner is a worthless lazy fuck) didn't do a damn thing to help Bryan, storyline-wise.

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  34. ARRRRGH THE BARBARIANFebruary 21, 2014 at 11:20 PM

    All you need to do is find a stereotype that EVERYONE hates. Alberto Del Rio could become a personal injury lawyer, maybe that'll work.


    I don't think most people like Congress either, so um, repackage Curt Hawkins as Representative Curt Hawkins, they both can align with Bo Rotundo... who doesn't have to change anything.

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  35. Instead of having him wrestle in every match on the card, which is a might bit unrealistic, why not build to an episode where Bryan is scheduled for an Iron Man Match? You could build up to it as the main event starting around 10:00 PM and really get an idea of how he moves the ratings. They've done it before, why not again?

    If you wanted to get storyline-intensive with it, you could come up with a variant on the Iron Man Match in order to put the screws to him by making it an Iron Man Gauntlet: have Bryan run through a three-five man gauntlet within sixty minutes; he has to successfully beat all competitors in the time limit to win.

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  36. But does blood come out of your nose in this scenario?

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  37. Is that what Brock calls his penis?

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  38. Agree with that last sentence 100%. I'm sorry too.

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  39. Why is Brock Lesnar a worthless lazy fuck?

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  40. LOL and you're completely normal.

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  41. I'm pretty sure Daniel Bryan doesn't want to wrestle for two fucking hours in a row.

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  42. Or in 1999 when Triple H had to go through like 6 opponents.

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  43. You could make the case that Drax will end up being the fifth-most interesting of the five Guardians. Starlord and Gamora are being played by actual actors (Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana), not roided-up ex-wrestlers. Rocket Raccoon is a freakin' gun-toting CGI raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper, so yeah, he'll probably steal the whole movie. Groot is a giant CGI tree creature voiced (sort of) by Vin Diesel.


    Drax's gimmick (tm Steve Austin) is that he's out to kill Thanos, so he's basically on a straight-forward revenge kick and his role is a lot more serious than the obviously very light-hearted vibe of the rest of the characters.


    In an Avengers context, Drax is the Hawkeye.

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  44. Iron Man matches are ratings death because it convinces the casuals that they can just tune out and check back in during the last 5-10 minutes. I like your idea for an iron man gauntlet, however, that'd be a cool twist on the concept, especially if we didn't know who Bryan's opponents would be.

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  45. This INFURIATES me.

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  46. Random, but I just watched Austin vs. Hart, and to be honest, I believe it would be a great lesson for some younger wrestlers out there. You don't have to abuse your finishing move(s) or kill yourself to get a reaction from the crowd.

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  47. Cant wait to see the Pipers Pit leading up to it.

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  48. They should just give Daniel Bryan his own spin=off series where he inherits a farm or runs a restaurant or moves to Hollywood or something. Richard Jenkins could play Bryan's estranged father and Sarah Chalke would be a great will they/won't they love interest. Maybe Bryan finds out he has a kid and tries to teach him to be a wrestler while he makes ends meet by substitute teaching. I don't know, what do you people want?

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  49. Hogan comes out Monday, doesnt even gets the shirt ripped off before HBK comes down and kicks his teeth in. Finishes with WHOS YOUR DADDY GREEN BAY.

    Rinse, lather, repeat in every single Hogan pre-mania promo.

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  50. He doesn't have to be heel for that. Hell, Punk used it in their OTL match. Cracked me up.

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  51. That's why Punk>Bryan.

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  52. davidbonzaisaldanamontgomeryFebruary 22, 2014 at 2:27 AM

    The best was when they hired him for studio analysis, and so all day, the Bottom Line ticker had an item reading, "ESPN HIRES TIM TEBOW FOR STUDIO COVERAGE".

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  53. Ahhh you're so right, Jesse.

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  54. Vince Russo's Guide to Killing Gimmick Matches: Having 1 guy work in 5 of them on a random, unadvertised episode of Smackdown.

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  55. First Mania main event was built around a celebrity wrestling. Mainia 2 had celebrities all over I. Its always been a show about hype and special attraction matches over quality.

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  56. Apparently WWE are now saying the Network's newest episodes of Raw and Smackdown from will be from 2012 and 2013 and won't replay the most recent shows.

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  57. The farm one, he coukd have the Wyatts as feuding Neighbours and have Jesse and Festus be the wacky farmhands.

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  58. Here is the problem.....Vince in his delusional mind thinks we can cheer for a guy WHOM WE LAST SAW bouncing in a wheelchair.....and quitting on the spot. (While acting like a pretty damn cool heel in the process). But wait, he cut a 92 second promo and won the rumble 4 years later, so now we have to cheer for him!!!


    It's clear sometime in the mid 80's, Vince saw the tragic episode where Pam found Bobby Ewing in the shower, making the previous entire season a dream that NEVER HAPPENED. And Vince determined at that very second, that he could just keep wiping out history every time the script demanded it.


    Didnt work to well for "Dallas". But their failures live on through WWE.

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  59. Having a character and well-developed feud would help those young wrestlers.

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  60. Will the UFC card affect Elimination Chamber's buyrate or is the UFC card shitty enough so that it won't matter?

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  61. Its not Bryan, WWE has made it so nothing matters on their shows. Who cares if he's champion? Titles mean nothing and he'll lose it in a few months until its his turn again. Who cares who he feuds with? Neither one will have a decisive win because they will both have different opponents almost immediately and you can't make either look bad. Who cares who he is wrestling at the PPV? They have hours of TV to fill so they will probably have a ton of unadvertised rematches over nothing throughout the year anyway.

    WWE has broken the format and structure of wrestling so it's like a shit drama about a corporate logo with no ending.

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  62. Yahits a wrap on Big Dave. Thebonly way he gets a face reaction is if he plays an ass-kicker whomwants to mash Cena. Otherwise I just don't think he'll get the support. They should slow-tease it. Batista is naturally a much better heel anyway, and in fact would probably be more popular as a heel. I don't mind the comeback, what's old is new again right?

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  63. davidbonzaisaldanamontgomeryFebruary 22, 2014 at 4:26 AM

    I still like my Ba-pizza idea.

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  64. That's really not that if they go up to the end of 2013, and keep then 2 or 3 months away from new. no way USA/NBC would let them re air the latest episodes.

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  65. Bryan/Triple H 180 minutes Iron Man......BOOK IT

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  66. First hour is a promo.

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  67. That is seriously a great point, Maybe even great wrestlers like Daniel Bryan, or the Malenko/Benoit/Eddie's of the 90's sometimes preferred to do a quick 5 minute match, then call it a night? Wrestling 25 minutes a night probably takes a hell of a toll on one's body.

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  68. Final result: Bryan 18, HHH 2. (Which means Bryan got buried, because he jobbed twice in 1 night)

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  69. Hogan's on Mount Perpetually Over... until he actually wrestles more than one match. And since he's (LITERALLY) physically incapable of any in-ring action past a few punches, I doubt he'll go "stale"


    Hell, if WWE uses him like TNA did, just minus the GM part, he'll probably get the same face pops anywhere.

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  70. It still popped one hell of a number, so that wound up not being such a mistake after all.

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  71. Early Hogan in TNA was God-awful... but GM Hogan the last year was acceptable. Not great, but not channel-changing awful either.


    I'd take that Hogan on my TV over Dixie any day, any time.

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  72. My turn to throw up... and I already knew about the footage.

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  73. So you have to be a basketball?

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  74. And even then the success was short-lived.

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  75. Lets break it down:


    Worthless: Um, no. He's actually sort of rich, in the "hermit" fashion. Lotta money, doesn't spend too much of it.
    Lazy: Um, no. Even as a part-timer, he's done some crazy shit (vs. Cena at Extreme Rules, the Show tossing him out spot prior to the Rumble). Any laziness should be blamed on HHH, for those three matches that are now the accepted cure for insomnia.
    Fuck: Ask Sable. I have no desire to do ANY research on this part of the equation.


    So 2 or 3 out of 3 wrong... That's our Jesse. Well, that and Cena getting cornholed involuntarily.

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  76. I'd go for Bryan as Rocky, Hulk as Duke, and Brock as DRAGO. Hell, you even have Heyman as that older Russian guy.


    But who is Apollo then...? Too bad Punk/Lesnar couldn't be at Rumble.

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  77. Fuck it, you made me laugh there. You've definitely improved.

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  78. I bet Doc's perfectly happy in Japan. Bryan needs Hillbilly Jim as his farmhand.

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  79. Once he hugged Triple H, any chance of him being a face disappeared.


    Heel Batista would get a lot more cheers than face Batista anyway.

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  80. Glad I have all the Clashes on DVD. Nothing really on the network makes me interested. Have all the PPVs, RAW/SD, Nitro, etc. Hell, I got such a backlog it would take me over a decade to watch everything I have. Although for someone who may not have a huge collection this would be worthwhile. I'm sure someone has already figured out how to rip the shows from the network for torrent sites.

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  81. Just call me the Erik Rowan of the blog.

    *run....*

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  82. I'm not sure that's true. Nobody bought WM27 thinking The Rock was going to open the show by rambling for 20 minutes. I'm sure they thought he was going to talk, but not do a terrible job.


    Plus, how many people purchased it is pretty much beside the point. Nobody evaluates if they like something or not based on how much money it makes.

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  83. I will gladly watch anything with Sarah Chalke in it.

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  84. Does it seem to anyone else that Scott kind of hates the BoD any more and just keeps it going for the $$$?

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  85. He's not doing this to kiss babies and hug fat girls.

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  86. Let's also not forget the awesomeness that was The Bobby Heenan Show.

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  87. This joke seems to ave gone over about as well as one of Hogan's opponents in the 1980's

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  88. Well, rousey is fighting and she's a bit of a draw...

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  89. One of my favourite matches of all-time. Just loved the intensity of it.

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  90. If anyone could, it would be him.

    I think they overwork him, though. Too many gauntlet matches, bouts against hosses and tag team matches where he does all the work. I think that's what happened to punk as well.

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  91. Hosting generally means talking. At least that's what it means most times in WWE. Rock's role in that PPV was exactly what I thought it would be. He talked a lot in the beginning and came down to rock bottom both Cena and the miz in the main event. If someone would have asked me what Rock was going to do on that PPV the day before it happened, that's exactly what I said would have happened. I'm not saying that was good use of the Rock, It was a terrible PPV. But I suspected it was gonna be a terrible PPV, and didn't even bother watching it live. But why would people ordering the PPV think it was gonna be any different? He was advertised as "host" not "wrestler." To me, the show was pretty damn close to what was advertised, and got a big buyrate, so someone must have wanted to see that.

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  92. Or make him a lunatic and call him InZayn

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  93. The name is fine--the spelling/styling is flat-out awful.

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  94. From what I've heard about the sex tape, about 5 years ago, both were in equally bad shape!

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  95. Yeah Hogan will forever be over!

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  96. Was that the ppv where (wrestler whose name we can't mention....well I guess now we can with a parental advisory label) did the ultimate no show?

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