Taz is joined on today’s show by his co-host, Seth.

Taz opens today’s show speaking about his decision to wear suits when he worked on Smackdown’s commentary team. All the other commentators at that time were were t-shirts or other outfits, so Taz wanted to wear a suit to be different. Vince McMahon loved the way Taz looked in a suit and soon mandated that all the announcers needed to wear a suit on air. He got ridiculed by Michael Cole and Jim Ross for a while after that because they were forced to wear a suit because of him.

Taz gets into his analysis of last night’s episode of NXT.

He points out that he liked the cold open of the show featuring The Undisputed Era. He likes that they stared into the camera while cutting their promo, but this was a bit too similar to how nWo would cut their promos during the attitude era for Taz’s liking. NXT even produced this to have a guitar riff in the background like the old nWo promos as well.

Taz urges Triple H to get together with his staff and come up with some original, creative ideas. He points out that this isn’t the 1980’s NWA or 1990’s WCW, this is 2018 NXT, and they have enough creative people there to come up with fresh, new concepts on their own.

Taz says that he’s just going to stop being critical of Mauro Ranallo’s commentary work on NXT programming. It’s obvious that nobody in WWE is going to help Ranallo get better or ask him to fix the things that he continues to do wrong, so it’s pointless to keep talking about it in Taz’s opinion. Instead, Taz simply muted the majority of last night’s broadcast.

The post The Taz Show Recap – NXT Analysis, Kassius Ohno Needs Work, Big Praise for Lars Sullivan, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Ryback opens today’s show speaking about WWE Superstars exposing the business, and WWE embracing it through shows like Total Divas. He says that the wrestling business has been exposed now and everyone knows it’s fake, but there’s no need for the Superstars to drive it down our throats by posting pictures with their ‘enemies’ on social media. It’s no secret that wrestling is for kids, but there’s no point in sacrificing more mature audiences by blatantly ignoring television storylines.

He points out that good characters and good stories will make people look past the fact that the wrestling is fake, but WWE has failed to provide either as of late. He doesn’t think shows like Total Divas are doing the business any favours, because that show goes into detail about everything happening behind the scenes at WWE.

Ryback talks about the process of memorizing promos in WWE. He recalls getting the script for one of his promos during his feud with John Cena very late in the day, but he was still able to memorize it pretty accurately. When he got to the building that evening, Vince McMahon had torn the script up and the writers were in the middle of re-writing his promo.

He was set to open the show that night and received the new script right before the show went on air. He hit the bullet points of the promo as best he could because it was impossible to recite the promo word for word with so little time before the show began. He delivered the promo and McMahon was fine with it.

The post Conversation With The Big Guy Recap – WWE Exposing the Business, Memorizing Promos in WWE, Bischoff Returning to Wrestling? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Block 1:

Taz opens today’s show speaking about WWE’s release of James Ellsworth. He says that nobody expected Ellsworth to make it to WWE, not to mention the fact that he picked up a win over A.J. Styles and had a great, extended run. Taz says it sucks that WWE released him because you never want to see someone lose their job, but Ellsworth appears to be a very smart guy and he’ll do great on the indie scene.

Taz points out that Mauro Ranallo made a huge error during his commentary on last night’s go-home episode of NXT. At one point he promoted NXT Takeover: War Games which will air this Saturday night, but when he promoted it he said it will air ‘A week from Saturday’. Since NXT’s shows are taped together weeks in advance, the dates for each show can become confusing for commentators, but there’s no way that this slip up should have made it to air last night.

He points out that this may not have even been Ranallo’s fault. He may have been incorrectly told that date was correct prior to the tapings, and since NXT is taped weeks in advance, some parts of the show that aired last night may have originally been intended to be a part of last week’s show. This would have made Ranallo’s comment factual.

In either event, this comment should have been edited in post production prior to last night’s show airing. This type of error should never make air on WWE’s programming, especially from a company that prides itself with perfection.

The post The Taz Show Recap – James Ellsworth’s Release, Ranallo’s Big Error, War Games & Survivor Series Preview, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Russo is joined on today’s show by Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno) and his co-host Jeff Lane.

Russo begins today’s show by discussing a recent quote from Dave Meltzer. This past week Meltzer was quoted saying that wrestling storylines are at their best when they’re predictable. When your storylines aren’t predictable you’re often weakening your product in Meltzer’s opinion.

Gilbertti points out that Meltzer’s only concern is the matches, and he couldn’t care less about the storylines. He recalls Meltzer’s analysis of shows during the attitude era when he consistently complained about the fact that the matches were too short, and this was during a period when storytelling was far from predictable.

Russo comments about the fact that A.J. Styles hasn’t been wrestling on Smackdown Live lately. According to Meltzer, WWE has been saving Styles for the dark matches so the live audience stays for 205 Live. Gilbertti says it doesn’t matter anyways because there’s no one showing up to these shows anymore. Russo can’t comprehend placing priority on the live audience especially when ratings continue to decline.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Brock Lesnar Working Live Events, Styles Being Saved for Dark Matches, Corgan’s NWA Purchase, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

WWE heads to the Pepsi Center in Denver for tonight’s episode of SmackDown Live. Here are the focus points for the show:

* The Usos plan to read The New Day their rights

* Shane McMahon and Kevin Owens to stand face-to-face

* Shinsuke Nakamura interview to kick off SmackDown Live

* The Lone Wolf to go back to war with Tye Dillinger

* The Fashion Police return in search of justice

Check back here at 8PM ET for our live play-by-play coverage of tonight’s show.

The post What to Expect on the October 3rd Episode of SmackDown Live appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Block 1:

Taz opens today’s show by discussing last night’s episode of Monday Night RAW.

He says that the first segment of RAW was certainly designed to get Braun Strowman over, and Lesnar did a great job of making Strowman look like a monster yet again. The only thing that bothered him about that first segment was that neither Strowman or Lesnar were taped up, showing the battle scars from the war they went through on Sunday night.

Taz goes on to say that WWE really needed to have these two warriors look fatigued from Sunday night, and some tape would have been a great, visual way to get that point across to fans. He also points out that from a commentating perspective, it’s hard to logically explain how someone can be stretched out of an arena and then appear the next night with no battle wounds.

Taz felt like Enzo Amore and Big Cass had a plethora of chemistry as a tag team, but they have absolutely none as opponents. This was proven again in last night’s street fight, which wasn’t ever going to be a competitive match in the first place. Unfortunately it appeared as if Big Cass suffered a legitimate injury during the bout and Taz hopes he’s okay.

The post The Taz Show Recap – RAW Analysis, Jason Jordan Means Nothing, Cena Cuts Promo on Rowdy Brooklyn Crowd, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

A beast incarnate, a Samoan machine, a big dog and a monster among men – a.k.a the Summerslam main event. Excitement for this match is understandably through the roof. At any rate these men will hopefully – and likely will – tear the roof off of the Barclays Centre.

The most intriguing part of this match-up is Brock Lesnar possibly leaving WWE. In the event that Lesnar loses his championship this Sunday, Heyman is promising the pair will leave WWE. With the rumours of Lesnar returning to UFC to face Jon Jones this is a massive stipulation. However the expectation is for Lesnar to retain his title this Sunday and remain with WWE until at least Wrestlemania. Furthering the intrigue though is the revelation that WWE is keeping the finish of the match completely under wraps. That itself leaves many possibilities in place. It also adds an aspect of doubt to whether or not Lesnar will actually retain his belt. For me that only makes this match that little bit more exciting.

With that this article looks at a few bold potential finishes to that very match. As a disclaimer these are not predictions just some bold possibilities. For my Summerslam 2017 match predictions check out my article below!

http://www.ringsidenews.com/2017/08/17/predicting-winners-match-summerslam/

The post Bold Potential Finishes To The Summerslam Main Event appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Blocks 1 & 2:

Taz opens today’s show by speaking about the second of four straight press conferences, promoting the upcoming boxing match between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather. He calls these press conferences riveting entertainment, but if they continue to do the exact same thing it’s going to get old rather quickly. He believes that these two are going to have to get physical at the last press conference, just to give the fans something to hold onto as they build towards the fight in August.

A listener calls into the show and says that he wishes WWE would just turn Roman Reigns heel, and he believes that even Reigns wants to turn heel at this point. Taz agrees with the caller, and says that for the longest time he thought Reigns was determined to get over as a babyface, but as of late it sure seems like Reigns has embraced the heel overtones of his character.

Taz wonders if we’ve seen the last of Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns, because if WWE wanted to keep Strowman off television for a while they wouldn’t have shown him walking out of ambulance at Great Balls of Fire. The caller says that he has heard rumours that WWE if preparing for a Fatal 4-way match at SummerSlam for Universal Title between Strowman, Reigns, Samoa Joe and Brock Lesnar. Taz says he’ll be surprised if that happens.

Taz expects we’ll see Strowman back on RAW by next Monday, and then we should get some answers as to where WWE is heading with him creatively moving forward.

The post The Taz Show Recap – NXT Analysis, Kurt Angle Documentary, Where Does Strowman Go From Here? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

WWE heads to the AT&T Center in San Antonio, TX for tonight’s episode of SmackDown Live. Here are the focus points for tonight’s show:

• What will be the fallout of AJ Styles capturing the United States Title?
• Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Baron Corbin

Check back here at 8PM ET for our live play-by-play coverage of SmackDown Live.

The post What to Expect on the July 11th Episode of SmackDown Live appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Block 1:

Taz opens today’s show speaking about the online fan criticism directed at Jinder Mahal after he captured the WWE Championship at Backlash last night. A lot of fans seem to be angry at Mahal’s meteoric rise to the top of the WWE roster, along with claiming that he must be taking steroids to have a body like he does.

Taz points out that steroids don’t make you a better professional wrestler, and he says PED use means nothing to him in professional sports. He’s not suggesting that people start using PEDs, but he couldn’t care less if people do choose to use them at a professional level.

He says that he doesn’t know Jinder Mahal at all, but he’ll defend any wrestler who has paid his/her dues over the years, and Mahal has certainly done that. After dealing with a plethora of terrible gimmicks and then eventually getting released, Mahal worked his ass off and made it all the way back to the top and he deserves a lot of credit for that.

As far as fans’ criticisms that Mahal came out of nowhere to win this Title, Taz says that’s not the case at all. Mahal has been wrestling for many years, starting in Canada before getting signed by WWE initially many years ago. He was released from WWE in 2014 and worked around the world at indie events before being resigned by WWE. His hard work paid off, and this win certainly didn’t out of nowhere.

The post The Taz Show Recap – Backlash Analysis, Don’t Hinder Jinder, Difference Between 205Live & UK Wrestlers, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.