It’s why Roman Reigns has worked so well.

Roman Reigns won the Universal Title back in August and there is no reason to believe that he isn’t going to be losing the title anytime soon. It’s pretty clear that he is going to be champion for several months and that creates a problem: what is he supposed to do until then? Smackdown doesn’t have the deepest roster in the world and you have to have a big title defense every month…..at least in theory.

One of the best things that WWE has done in recent weeks is have Reigns defeat Jey Uso in a few pay per view matches which were designed to advance the story rather than have any challenge for the championship. That worked out so much better because there was no need to have Reigns devour someone as a token challenger. Was anyone needing to see Reigns vs. someone like Rey Mysterio in a match with no drama? Going with the completely different way of doing things is smart as well as a breath of fresh air, but it also saves their limited big matches for later.

Again: WWE knows how to fix problems, but they just don’t do it often enough. Do more of this kind of thinking and see how much better things get.

On the eve of Dynamite’s Debut, keep something in mind.April 6, 1995: Monday Nitro has not debuted.

April 6, 1996: Monday Nitro isn’t much of a show and WCW is kind of a mess.

April 6, 1997: Monday Nitro hasn’t lost a night in the Monday Night Wars in about eight months and the WWF looks more confused than anything else.

April 6, 1998: Monday Nitro has beaten Monday Night Raw 82/83/84 weeks in a row (the number is harder to nail down than Goldberg’s winning streak).

April 6, 1999: Monday Nitro is turning into a disaster and things aren’t getting better.

April 6, 2000: Monday Nitro is a dumpster fire and the second worst show of the week, only after Thunder.

April 6, 2001: Monday Nitro is canceled and WCW is out of business.

The show, which beat Monday Night Raw for over a year and a half straight, came and went in less than six years.  I have no idea what Dynamite is going to do tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter what they do in their first week.  What matters is their 50th week, their 100th week and their 572nd week, and all points in between.  Don’t get excited or discouraged after one show and see where this goes in the long term, because tomorrow night is a page in a story, not the whole book.

I wish I could take credit for this one so it’s not exactly my thought.Why did Lanny Poffo wear a cap and gown to the ring as the Genius but his brother came out to Pomp and Circumstance, the song played when you graduate in a cap and gown?  That has to be some kind of inside joke right?

There’s a good chance that you’re a fan of NXT. I mean, if you’re not, I don’t really know what else to tell you. It’s one of the best wrestling TV shows ever and can put on good shows in almost any way you ask. One of the key things is their diversity, which you can see in their main events, especially as of late. Here are the last four TV main events:

December 19 – Johnny Gargano vs. Aleister Black

December 12 – Ricochet vs. Tyler Breeze

December 5 – Shayna Baszler vs. Dakota Kai

November 28 – Lars Sullivan vs. Keith Lee

That’s a cage match with a brutal backstory, an athletic spectacle in the midcard, a hard hitting women’s match and two hosses hitting each other really hard. They’re four very different kinds of matches with eight different people instead of the same thing you see so often on Raw or Smackdown. There isn’t some main event group that dominates most of the shows and commentary treats whatever the main event of the week is as the most important thing in the world. It’s certainly not something unique to NXT, but no other company does it as often or as well.

I was reading a rather scathing review of Raw and got to thinking.

So this week’s Monday Night Raw was a disaster. I don’t think that’s exactly a secret, but there were several bad parts to the whole thing. In addition to the horrible Drake Maverick segment, there’s one thing that stands out as a problem, but not for the same reason you might be thinking. That would be Baron Corbin.

This week, Corbin was all over the show. He was in the opening segment, he did a bunch of stuff throughout the show, and then he was in the main event. That’s a lot of screen time for someone who isn’t exactly thrilling. He’s just the latest middle management villain, and that’s not a good role for him. Corbin is about 6’6 with a good look and a power offense. Why is his biggest weapon the threat of a phone call to Stephanie McMahon? A middle management lackey isn’t the place for someone like Corbin. That’s the kind of role someone like Curt Hawkins or Aiden English or someone not exactly intimidating.

Now, for the bigger thing though, and this is where a lot of people forget the problem: Corbin is still pretty new at this. Corbin made his debut back in October 2012. That’s about six years ago, and now he’s arguably the top heel on Raw. Keep in mind that’s not six yeas into his WWE career. That’s six years after he started training, a lot of which was spent down in NXT. To go from the very small atmosphere of NXT to the biggest wrestling TV show in the world is more than a jump. It’s a flying leap and Corbin hasn’t established himself as that kind of a star yet.

In other words, Corbin (and SO many others from NXT) need more time before they start getting this kind of a push. That’s not a knock on the talent in the slightest. These people (including Corbin) go from basically wrestling school and some very low level indies to NXT and then the main roster in the span of about three years (Corbin’s main roster debut was in April of 2016, less than four years after he debuted).

Six years into his career, Steve Austin was just debuting as the Ringmaster. Six years into his career, Shawn Michaels was part of the Rockers. Six years into his career, the Undertaker was Mean Mark Callous. Do any of these people sound like they were ready to be the focal point of the show and headlining a pay per view just yet? Of course not, because that takes a VERY special kind of wrestler and there aren’t many who are ready for that spot.

Corbin, and a lot of other people, have the physical skills to be in these spots. However, there’s a big, big difference between knowing what to do and knowing how to do it. Corbin has very little seasoning and experience at or even near this level. He’s learning on the job and that can make for a rough patch. It doesn’t help that he’s completely miscast in his role and is doing the best he can with some horrible booking choices.

In short: WWE is trying to build a house on a foundation where the cement isn’t dry yet and it’s collapsing (Note that I completely lifted that line from Tazz, who had an incredible rant about this week’s Raw which got me thinking about this. Check that out here.).

It shouldn’t be this complicated.

Why does almost any heel action have to be some kind of an angle? If someone puts their feet on the ropes, grabs the trunks or does anything of that nature, it’s some angle that has to be advanced to next week or some big moment that has to be replayed half a dozen times, often just on that night alone.

Back in the day, heels did those kinds of things because they’re heels. Ric Flair was famous for throwing his fee ton the ropes for a pin even when he didn’t need them because that’s the kind of guy he was. Why did he do that? In the words of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “When are you going to get it through your head? I’M EVIL!” Let the villains be villains for the sake of being villains and stop making every action be some big moment.

So I’ve been doing more of the 1999 Raw’s and EGADS the talent that came through around that time.I know we always talk about the Class of 2002 with Cena, Orton, Lesnar, Mysterio and Batista.  That’s very good, but consider who WWE brought in from February 1999-January 2000:

Big Show

Chris Jericho

Kurt Angle

Dudley Boyz

Chris Benoit

Eddie Guerrero

Five World Champions and the most decorated tag team of all time.  It might not have the marquee value of 2002, but this is one of the best years for talent acquisitions of all time and has to beat anything else for second place.

Somehow, it’s much more real than in the reality era.

Since we have the WWE Network (still the greatest thing for any wrestling fan), I’ll often throw on an old pay per view just for some background noise while I’m working on something else. The other day I threw on Survivor Series 1988 and heard the following discussion between Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura when Jacques Rougeau was tagged into the match:

Jesse: “Which Rougeau is that? Is that Jacques or Raymond?”

Gorilla: “That is Jacques. He’s a little bit taller than his brother.”

Jesse: “Oh that’s Jacques, ok. I get those two confused.”

And that’s it. No insults, no jokes about how Jesse is stupid, no laughing and ignoring the match and no stupid bickering between the two over some petty feud that only they care about while the match is ignored. This felt like a simple, realistic conversation between two people watching a wrestling match. The Rougeaus may not have been twins but it might have been difficult to remember at times (I couldn’t remember which Hardy was which until about 2001) and it’s not ridiculous for Jesse to be confused, or for Gorilla to say which one it is and give him a way to remember it.

Today, this would set off a minute long argument between Corey Graves and Byron Saxton because they have to fight every chance they get over whatever stupid thing is going on at the moment, all while the match is completely ignored. Then Cole will laugh about something and plug whatever is coming later in the night, ignoring the match even further.

It’s such a different world of commentary and shows just how forced and scripted things have become today. Let these people sound normal and see if it’s not way more effective.

So I’m working on the 5000th review (currently at 25 pages and I’m just over halfway done) and I picked up on something I hadn’t seen before.  I don’t know if this was intentional, but it’s such an amazing match that I can buy it being possible.As you’ve probably seen a million or so times, the theme song to Wrestlemania X7 is Limp Bizkit’s My Way.  One line of that song says “someday you’ll see things my way.”

After the main event, Austin shakes Vince’s hand and sides with him for the first time ever.  In other words, after three years of all out war, Austin sees things Vince’s way.  If that was the idea, I’m buying a hat to take it off to whoever’s idea that was.

Ok so this is actually trivia.Booker T. and Shawn Michaels never met in a singles match, including on house shows.  They wrestled in tag matches and against each other in the Elimination Chamber but they never wrestled one on one.  You really would have thought that would have happened at some point in their careers.