Seth Rollins injured; WHC title vacated

This is a sad, sad day for Seth Rollins fan, myself recently included. Rollins reportedly sustained a leg injury at a house show in Dublin Wednesday night. It looked like Rollins' knee buckled when he tried to do a sunset flip. He finished his match against Kane but he had to be helped up to walk the ramp. The severity of the leg injury was revealed today and made official by WWE:

WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins has torn his right ACL, MCL and medial meniscus, and will not be able to defend the title against Roman Reigns at Survivor Series. A tournament to determine a new champion will instead take place at the event. 

As first reported on Twitter by ESPN, Rollins suffered the injury last night at a WWE Live Event in Dublin, Ireland, and is expected to miss six to nine months of action.

It fucking sucks that this had to happen to Rollins. Despite how inconsistent his character has been since his heel turn, and how crappy they book him, he still puts on the best god damn matches every single time. His injury came at the worst time, with Reigns finally targeting Rollins for taking away his opportunity at Wrestlemania this year. The ending of this past RAW had the former SHIELD members as the survivors of both teams, which was heavily hinting at a possible SHIELD Triple Threat match for Wrestlemania 32 next year. Those plans are now scrapped and the title was immediately vacated as of today.

Rollins' injury also means that The Authority lost their corporate champ. Currently, there are no heels that are associated with The Authority to fill his spot. Kevin Owens is the current IC Champ and he's reportedly going to start feuding with Ambrose for the next few months. The New Day are the current Tag Team Champs and they are getting ready to feud against the returning Usos. Sheamus is the MITB holder and he's currently teamed up with King Barrett. The Wyatt Family have their own program going on with Taker and Kane. Basically, there is a big hole to fill in the overarching narrative between the midcard underdogs and the Authority.

What is WWE planning? They've already announced a tournament at Survivor Series to crown a new World Heavyweight Champion. Reigns is the #1 contender and it looks like they'll be working out on who the contenders will be and how they'll be decided. Wonder what they'll do though. Will someone turn heel to be a champ? Will that heel join The Authority? Will they bring in another part-timer to win the title, like Del Rio did for the US Title? Are we going to see another NXT call up to the main roster? Now more than ever, the road to Survivor Series and Wrestlemania is changing.

Get well soon, Seth!

"ROMAN. REIGNS.": Monday Night RAW (11/2/15)

For the second week in a row, RAW put out another mostly enjoyable episode. In the spirit of the 29th Anniversary of Survivor Series, the main event was a "traditional Survivor Series five-on-five elimination tag team match", headed by team captains Rollins and Reigns.

Here are the match results:

• Kevin Owens defeated Dolph Ziggler
• Cesaro defeated The Miz by submission
• The Lucha Dragons defeated Sheamus and King Barrett
• Alberto Del Rio (w/Zeb Colter) defeated R-Truth
• Paige defeated Becky Lynch, Brie Bella, and Sasha Banks
• Team Reigns (Roman Reigns, Jimmy Uso, Jey Uso, Ryback, and Dean Ambrose) defeated Team Rollins (Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Big E, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods)

The Wyatt Family addressed the WWE Universe and basically said that they now have the souls of Undertaker and Demon Kane. Which meant Bray now had the power of Taker's cheesy purple lightning and Kane's turnbuckle pyros. While Vince cringed and face palmed at this segment, I was eating this shit up. I loved it, I seriously loved it. It's like a subtle passing of the torch to making the Wyatt Family a monstrous heel faction. I'm interested in seeing where they go with this.

It's almost as if WWE took note on how the #1 Contender's Matches did so well last week that they decided to repeat it for the Divas Championship. The best part is that the Divas segment featured all of them solo, with no respective team members being at ring side. Which meant we got to hear Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks' awesome entrance theme. It was a great match for all of the women, with Brie Bella being somewhat out of place. In the end, Paige came out victorious after she took out Becky. It was somewhat of a disappointment to see Becky and not Brie take the pin, and also for Sasha to be left out of the title picture again. This sets up the 2nd title match for Survivor Series.

The main event saw Team Rollins with his champion members, The New Day and Kevin Owens, eagerly waiting in the ring for Team Reigns' reveal. The big surprise was seeing the return of the Usos (both of them!) coming to Cousin Roman's aid. The third member was Ryback (which Owens was not happy to see). As if they have saved the best for last, the final member was revealed to be Dean Ambrose. It didn't matter how predictable the final choice was; Ambrose got a great big pop from the audience, with Reigns coming in second.

The match ran on for for more than half an hour and the eliminations happened in the following order:

• Xavier Woods was pinned by Jey Uso
• Kofi Kingston was pinned by Jimmy Uso
• Jey Uso was pinned by Big E
• Jimmy Uso was pinned by Kevin Owens
• Big E was pinned by Ryback
• Ryback was pinned by Seth Rollins
• Kevin Owens was pinned by Dean Ambrose
• Seth Rollins was disqualified
• Survivors: Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose

The main event event was great, especially when it came down to Reigns, Ambrose, Owens, and Rollins. Owens was noticeably mocking and badgering Ambrose and Rollins kept yelling, "WHY CAN'T YOU DIE DEAN?!" As usual, Ambrose takes the most punishment in the ring while Reigns rests outside for the hot tag. In the end, Reigns and Ambrose became the winners via DQ when Rollins used a chair to attack them. Yeah, that looked pretty familiar. Instead of making Rollins look strong in the end, Reigns no sells and pulls a Superman punch on Rollins, causing him to retreat out of the ring as he clutched his title.

Aside from that LOLREIGNSWIN ending, RAW wasted no time in setting up Survivor Series. They're doing a much better job with this than last month's Hell In A Cell. Of course, it probably might not translate well in ratings. I hope WWE can overlook that and focus on telling their stories and creating their stars for their established fanbase.

I think Owens just found his next opponent :D

Halloween Weekend Recap (10/30/15-11/1/15)

Hey! I brought the weekend recaps back! That means something good is happening :D

Friday (10/30):

Today, I am "Chell-a." The jumpsuit was so dang comfy! #portal2 #halloween2015 #welovefine #aperturelaboratories

A photo posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Oct 30, 2015 at 4:52pm PDT

Oh yes. I went there. And I'm done for the night!

A photo posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Oct 30, 2015 at 7:30pm PDT

• Pololu Halloween Contest! I never win at these things because I always talk myself down whenever I have to explain my costume. This year, I dressed up as Chell from Portal 2. Everything, from the Portal Gun, the orange jumpsuit, the Aperture Laboratories tank tops, and the longfall socks, were official Portal products. I was in costume for the whole day!
• I even went to Whole Foods dressed up as Chell. I avoided making eye contact with anyone. I was hungry.
• I played Diablo III with Dan and Vince, who should be driving back from California tomorrow morning. He had a great interview, so we're hoping we hear something soon by next week.
• I went and updated my resume since it seems highly likely that he'll get the job and we'll have to  move soon. Dammit, I already bought my Muse tickets for December 6 at Mandalay Bay :(
• Stupid side note: I'll no longer be in the same state as Dean Ambrose, even though it's damn near impossible to ever run into him on their day off. I already met Ambrose twice this year - at Wizard World  and Gamestop Expo - so I'm good. No not really.

Saturday (9/26):

Ridiculously last minute and low budget AJ Lee costume for Halloween. I couldn't find any black and white striped wristbands so I used black duct tape and sharpie markers O_O #ajlee #ajbrooks #halloween2015

A photo posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Nov 1, 2015 at 12:43am PDT

• I spent the morning trying to be somewhat productive. I went to the gym. I walked to KMart to buy a few things, including wristbands for a last minute costume as former WWE Divas Champion AJ Lee. I did the laundry.
• Vince came home :) He had to rest for a bit after a long drive from California. Vince was dressed as an Elite Yelper, which was in reference to this South Park episode (SO NSFW). Vince was doing this in response to Joanna becoming a recent Elite Yelper. 
• We ate a lot and played One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Cards Against Humanity. Since we had a large group, we briefly ended up using Christian's copy of Werewolf to accommodate it, which made it more confusing. Vince was not the King of CAH tonight; that honor went to Justin. Vince said he was just tired.
• I wasn't able to make it to my coworker's party, which was pretty obvious :/
• We went home, mostly because Vince was still pretty tired.

Sunday (9/27):

Impulsively bought the new Nerf Rival Apollo Blasters. Vince modified so that it shoots 2 foam balls at once. At 70 MPH. And it hurts. #nerf #nerfrival

A photo posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Nov 2, 2015 at 1:42am PST

• Lazy Sunday. We went to Town Square to walk around a bit. Vince and I spotted new Nerf blasters and immediately bought it. I loved the look of it, it was like something out or Borderlands. He modified it so that it shoots 2 balls instead of 1.
• Went to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy smaller stuff, including a Kitty Shack.
• Watched The Walking Dead and saw the newest South Park episode about Yaoi O_O
• Starting next month, I'm going to try this Flat Tummy Tea thing. I saw Sasha Banks promoting this on her Instagram so I thought I would give it a shot.
• Somewhat not looking forward to Raw since November will be "Make Roman Look Strong" month leading to Survivor Series for the next 2 weeks. This past Smack Down was surprisingly Ambrose-heavy, which means he'll probably have another backstage segment or another pointless match as he takes a backseat to Reigns tonight.

Everybody wants Ambrose to turn heel

A few weeks ago, it was speculated that Ambrose would be getting a push to be the new top babyface while Cena was out. This was somewhat great news, considering the Reigns vs Wyatt program finally ended, which meant Ambrose would stop being Reigns' cheerleader. I say somewhat because it seems like Ambrose once again doesn't have anyone else to feud with. It was going to be with Randy Orton until he got sidelined with a major shoulder injury, and upcoming booking on the live events pointed to Kevin Owens for the IC Title. It looks like that's all changed when Reigns got consistently great reactions from the crowd following his victory at HIAC this week. Reigns is now Rollins' #1 contender for the World Heavyweight Championship.

And while everyone is hyped to see Rollins go against his former tag team and Shield brethren, something else seems to be developing as well. Ambrose was noticeably left out on RAW, save for a backstage segment with Reigns' before the main event. Those last few seconds where the camera lingered on Ambrose looking indifferent after Reigns' left did not go unnoticed, as evident in a slew of recent wrestling articles (all speculations of course):

From PWinsider:  

Simple foreshadowing or blatant "we know what you want, so we won't give it to you" but is Dean cryptically telling Roman, first it was Seth, then Bray, who next is going ruin your chances? Oh I know me! If this is the case who do you see put into the filler spot to challenge Seth until the ultimate Shield three way payoff? Do you see a Dean turn as to where this angle is headed? 

I talked about this a lot in the Elite section of PWInsider.com this week. They certainly left the camera sitting on Dean Ambrose long enough to make you wonder what was going through his head, although that doesn't mean he's 100% turning. The fact they teased it though, means they are trying to get the audience to wonder what could be going on...and that's a good thing. 

From Grantland:  

WWE seems complacent with Ambrose — it knows he’ll be there to step into the main event when it needs him, and that stifles him in the meantime. But the next four months will be key for Ambrose. There are rumors WWE is planning a Shield three-way match at WrestleMania, in which case Ambrose will be in a position to excel. There are also rumors his buddy-cop routine with Reigns is leading toward an Ambrose heel turn, in which case we can cross him off the Cena replacement list for the time being. 

From WhatCulture: 

There’s mounting speculation that Dean Ambrose is about to stab Roman Reigns in the back. The two have been pushed as extra friendly for months now, which is the traditional set-up for a betrayal angle. 

Furthermore, there’s seemingly nothing else for Ambrose to do on the babyface side. He didn’t feature at Hell In A Cell. He badly needs the turn to actually give him some exposure on WWE’s product. 

On both the HIAC and Raw show, he offered his support to Roman. The tease for viewers is, at Survivor Series when Reigns fights Rollins for the title, is Ambrose going to shockingly cost his friend?

Personally, I'm not looking forward to this. I would love to see him be a heel again, maybe see shades of Shield Ambrose, FCW Ambrose, or Jon Moxley. Then again, even when Ambrose is directionless and unused, there are still nice little moments that make him a great babyface. In one interview, he called himself "the loveable bad guy," and it really suits him. It all depends on how creative sets this up for it to happen as it leads to the slow build to the much anticipated (and not yet booked) Triple Threat match at Wrestlemania 32. His heel turn, should it happen, HAS to make sense.

Side note: Looks like Tonight's special Halloween edition of Smack Down is going to feature Ambrose for the main event! Even though the results were already posted, I'm still going to watch it. There was a funny end note from the F4W author who reviewed this episode:

A pretty normal Smackdown show that also had pumpkins. 

The main event was good but they should probably find something more productive for Dean Ambrose.

Personal post

I haven't done any weekend recap posts because I didn't feel anything exciting happened or is worth talking about. Then again, all of my recent posts where WWE-related so it's still a weak explanation. I feel better talking about wrestling because it's a nice escape. Anyways, I stopped doing the recaps because I was feeling a bit depressed. There's Vince's job situation and then there's my general frustration with my work and family life. I won't go into details about it but I will say that it's getting harder to stay positive.

That was, until yesterday, when Vince got some great news: He got his job back.

He's a contractor so he wasn't exactly fired or let go, they just didn't have any projects for him. This went on for 5 months and he's applied at several positions in and out Nevada with very little luck. He's a bit sad that during those 5 months, he never really got any big offers or callbacks, despite the work he put in. It greatly affected his integrity and confidence and I can't blame him. He finally gets a callback and it's from the same job that said we have nothing for you. He was the first person to be called back and he starts in 2 weeks. I assured him that it's still better than nothing. It's better than wondering what he has to do in the next few weeks. He's relieved that he has a job again but at the same time a little sad about it.

And then something else happened; he got a job interview at California for a studio that does movie props. He has to drive there for the interview this Friday, which is a 4-5 hour drive from Vegas. We talked about it and Vince said he wants to go for it. This is a job where he can do 3D modeling, his top skill, whereas as his other job, he was interviewed as a 3D artist but brought in as a Flash 2D artist (it's some messed up thing that corporate does when hiring for a specific job positions and then putting them in an entirely different position).

So we went from being assured that he was going back to work in 2 weeks to now being excited for a job interview this week. Vince worked out with Dan and he'll be staying there for a day to get a bit of rest before driving out for the interview, which is about an hour away from where he's staying. This is an exciting opportunity for him.

Now I'm face with a reality check: Either Vince gets the job and we finally get out of Vegas or Vince sticks with his old job and stays in Vegas. There are obvious pros and cons here and it all depends on how this interview turns out. When Vince and I first started going out, he talked about the possibility of us leaving Vegas. I felt I wasn't ready for it, just like how I wasn't ready to leave Guam before moving here. Of course, times changed. Most of my immediate family isn't here in Vegas anymore, I graduated college and am stuck with student loan debt for the rest of my life, and I've gained enough work experience to make a hopefully decent resume. I'm pretty settled here but if we need to move, I would be excited for it.

I'm ready for surprises. Ehhh probably.

"ROMANWINSLOL": Monday Night RAW (10/26/15)

Now this was an enjoyable episode of RAW. It had direction, it had storyline progression, and best of all, it had so much wrestling. The main objective for the show was to find a #1 contender for Rollins' World Heavyweight Championship, which was way better than Rollins getting a random monthly opponent like John Cena, Sting and Demon/Corporate Kane. The winners from last night's HIAC would enter in a small tournament and the winners from those matches would face each other in the main event. Although it was damn obvious who win and get the title shot against Rollins' , it doesn't take away that a majority of the matches were refreshingly entertaining. Here are the math results:

• Roman Reigns defeated Kofi Kingston (w/Big E)
• Kevin Owens defeated Cesaro
• Team Bella defeated Team PCB
• Alberto Del Rio (w/Zeb Colter) defeated Neville
• Sheamus, Rusev, and King Barrett defeated Ryback and The Dudley Boyz
• Dolph Ziggler defeated Big E (w/Kofi Kingston)
• Roman Reigns defeated Kevin Owens, Alberto Del Rio, and Dolph Ziggler

There were 2 things I was not happy with. First was the only Divas segment that saw a reunited Team PCB vs Team Bella. It wasn't the match that was bad, it was the writing for Charlotte and Becky. They suspect Paige was the one who hurt Natalya, who hasn't been seen since the attack, but they still take her back. Team Bella won the match (Becky took the pin) and then Paige made her heel turn official by beating up Charlotte and Becky. Now that Nikki's no longer after the title, it makes sense for Paige to be Charlotte's next opponent. As much as I dislike the Bellas, Nikki has somehow come out looking great in this Divas Revolution, while Charlotte is quickly showing how much limited and sloppier she is outside of NXT. Sasha Banks, Tamina, and Naomi were not even present ringside; they only showed up for the Susan G. Komen segment. All these women need to go solo. Grouping them weekly is like Teddy Long levels of nightmare booking.

The second thing I wasn't happy with was seeing a bored-looking Ambrose in yet another backstage segment with Reigns. Ambrose gives him a pretty good pep talk, telling him to forget all the times he was this close to winning in Wrestlemania and Money in The Bank and focus on taking the World Heavyweight Championship, which is now right in front of him. One small difference between his brief segment from HIAC and last night's promo was that Ambrose was looking noticeably indifferent right after Reigns left. Was this some type of foreshadowing? Or him appearing annoyed at being flown out for another quick backstage segment? Ambrose's only in-ring appearance was for the Susan G. Komen segment, where he appeared along with a portion of the roster and the breast cancer survivors, led by Titus O' Neil. And boy, you could tell that he really didn't want to be there. I guess that rumor about Ambrose getting a push is not happening after all because they're strapping that rocket on Reigns instead.

The main event with Owens, Del Rio, Ziggler and Reigns was pure wrestling with great spots and sequences. Just as Owens was setting up Reigns for a pop-up powerbomb, Reigns executed his Superman punch in mid-air, knocked him out, and pinned Owens. The San Diego crowd was eating it all up. Reigns has definitely earned the title shot, and it only took him nearly half a year to get better on the mic, work on his stamina, and finally connect with the fans. The only thing that I didn't like about this was that Reigns looked strong, like Super-Cena strong, throughout the night. It was obvious that he would win but at least they made it look like he earned it.

Tonights' taping for Smack Down! will have a Halloween theme and no matches have been announced yet. It might be a good thing to make it a surprise, just like the #1 contender tournament match was announced less than 2 hours before the show started. This was the first time in a long while that a post PPV RAW was actually good and I hope they keep this level of unpredictability for the next 3 weeks.

For fuck's sakes, give Ambrose something to do.

WWE Hell In A Cell 2015 PPV

Just like last month's NOC PPV, I also watched this PPV with low expectations and avoiding the dirtsheets. I also ended up enjoying it! Here are the results:

• Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro and Neville defeated Rusev, Sheamus and King Barrett|
• Alberto Del Rio (w/ Zeb Colter) defeated John Cena
• Roman Reigns defeated Bray Wyatt
• The New Day defeated The Dudley Boyz
• Charlotte defeated Nikki Bella
• Seth Rollins defeated Kane
• Kevin Owens defeated Ryback
• Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman) defeated The Undertaker
  

You know what made all these matches good? There was no screwy finish, no win via DQ, no last minute shenanigans. They all had clean wins. And best of all, they were all conclusions to these feuds, which means we're now going to see new feuds and storylines as they head towards Survivor Series on November 22.

The biggest surprise of the night happened at Cena's US Open Challenge. The Real Americans theme played, which made everyone think that Jack Swagger was answering the challenge. Instead, we got Swagger's manager, Zeb Colter making an appearance! Colter, who was a heel manager and a parody of Fox New's extreme right wing attitude, came out and talked about equality for all. He then introduced the one man who could take Cena down... ALBERTO EL PATRON ALBERTO DEL RIO. And he won against Cena clean in a somewhat lackluster finish. Is Del Rio back with WWE as a full-time performer? Is he a heel or a face? Is AAA ok with him being a champ for 2 different promotions now? We might get some answers for the next few weeks.

Reigns and Wyatt put on an all right match. It got a few brutal spots that was nowhere near the same level as Ambrose and Rollins's HIAC match last year but it was expected that Reigns was going to win this one. Speaking of which, WWE strangely went out of their way to include a very short backstage segment of an exhausted Reigns getting congratulated by drinking buddy Ambrose (who noticeably got a huge pop when he appeared on screen). They briefly talked about something that's going to happen next and they'll talk about it on RAW. Yay! Storyline progress AND random Ambrose appearance!

The second biggest surprise came at the conclusion of Lesnar and Taker's match. Lesnar was victorious against Taker, and they both were battered and bruised. The PPV seemed like it was going to end early again, as the crowd cheered for an exhausted Taker standing in the middle of the ring, until the lights went out. The Wyatt Family - all 4 members - emerged and cornered a helpless Undertaker. It didn't matter that Wyatt lost against Reigns earlier; the whole Wyatt Family looked terrifying and powerful as they beat down and abducted Undertaker from the ring. That was a great ending and an interesting cliffhanger that will make everyone tune into RAW tonight. Or at least I hope it does. Then again, this was the same thing I said after NOC, and the build after that was horrendous because they had to quickly build the MSG event. October was Brock's month. November is now Undertaker's month. Let's hope WWE stop worrying about TV ratings and focus on their storylines and superstars that will draw more attention to it.