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QOTD: Bringing It vs. Booing It

Last night's Royal Rumble was...how shall I put it....controversial? Polarizing? However you want to put it, it sure did create a stir on the internet and other media sources. I, personally, thought that the show as a whole was a mild thumbs up, with Daniel Bryan vs. Bray Wyatt giving us match of the night honors. It also stirred a question in my mind that I thought would make good blog conversation fodder.

Would we rather have a very high match quality, or would we rather have booking decisions that make sense? If you had just seen a ***** match where the wrong guy went over, are you more or less forgiving? Conversely, if you had seen a DUD where the right guy went over, are you still disappointed that the match stunk?

I'm a match quality guy, and that's all I want to see when I watch a show. It doesn't matter to me who goes over because in the end, I can rewatch an excellent match. But the Blog of Doom is filled with contradictory viewpoints, and I welcome yours here.

Comments

  1. It's still real to me, damnit!

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  2. Now, I know this is crazy, but I like both. It's pro wrestling, not rocket science. It's not that hard to put on a good match that makes sense.


    That this is even a question shows how fucking brutal the WWE has been for the past few years.

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  3. Easy -- booking decisions that make sense. Without it, pro-wrestling is just an athletic exhibition. The technical side of wrestling matters to me, not not nearly as much as story and character do. I have gotten that emotional response that I crave from plenty of DUDs in the past, but never from a 5-star affair between two guys I don't care a bit about.

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  4. Amsterdam_Adam_CurryJanuary 27, 2014 at 12:39 PM

    I'm kind of in the middle. That's a big part of why I'm an ROH guy, because their idea of a storyline is often simply "I'm the better wrestler and want to prove it in the ring", and in cases like that I don't really care who goes over either. I've totally lost all confidence in WWE's booking, and never had any confidence in TNA's to begin with.


    There has to be at least some context to a match though. That's why I've never been able to get into puro.

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  5. Here is a question:

    If the Batista returned wasnt spoiled by the WWE advertising him on a show before he was announced as returning and was a legitimate surprise entrant in the Rumble and won, how do you think he response would have been? Honestly, it would have been good if you ask me.
    His return hasn't been much so far and is not in ring shape yet so hopefully he improves before mania.

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  6. I rather have it both ways with my wrestling. Logical booking and great matches can very easily go hand in hand. For some reason, WWE just doesn't want to do it anymore.

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  7. Excellent question as we've certainly seen enough of both cases. I do prefer booking that made sense of course but sadly, that's quite often lacking in wrestling (not just talking WWE either, just look at TNA or WCW). I guess I'd go with giving the fans what they want as a great match can still be sunk by the wrong guy going over whereas if Bryan were to beat Orton in five minutes, the fandom would be overjoyed no matter what. Still, be great if we could get both at once, unlikely as that is.

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  8. Not only bury him as a nobody but minutes later is helped by him to win

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  9. Stranger in the Alps picked up the QOTD gimmick

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  10. Oh absolutely, Bryan being put in a match with Bray, plus him not joining the group, added to Batista making a surprise return would have made the outcome a little bit better.

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  11. Best times in wrestling is when the main event is the best match on the card.

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  12. Stranger vs Farva vs Meekin vs Caliber for QOTD supremacy at the BoD WM.
    Book it!

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  13. Does anyone know of a 5 star match where the wrong person went over just off the top of anyone's head? I can't think of anything at the moment.

    Irregardless of that, I think that if two guys go out and put on a phenomenal match, then the winner looks good and the loser looks good too. The last ROH show I went to was Chris Hero and Bryan Danielson having a great brawl. Chris Hero won (Bryan was on his way out). but I tend not to think about who won and instead just remember the match as a whole being amazing.

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  14. It's really interesting to watch. Obviously if they had some grand long term plan that ended with Bryan standing tall with the belt, they'd have shit themselves by now and hot shotted it onto him.



    At this point, it's down to seeing if Vince is willing to torpedo his business to avoid giving the fans what they want.


    Even now, he's done irrevocable harm to Orton by putting him in the middle of #YesMovement and HHH's authority circle jerk.



    Next up is Cena if Wyatt gets the majority of the crowd cheering him on.


    Botoxista looks fucked too unless they're willing to play into it and have Hollywood Batista return

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  15. When wrestling is at its BEST you are emotionally invested in 1 side. You deserve rather see a 3 star match where YOUR guy goes over rather then a 5 star match where your guy loses. Unfortunately wrestling is rarely at its best.

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  16. True, and welcome to the BOD!

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  17. Beware of the butterfly effect...you may have just imagined a world where Sabu is also married to Stephanie McMahon

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  18. Cena/Brock. Might not have been 5 stars but it was pretty close

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  19. Are you going to write an open letter about it?

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  20. as upset as I am at last night's results, I'm still quite interested to see what direction(s) this road takes us.

    and Tommy Dreamer rules.

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  21. RAW tonight should be a must-watch for psychology majors, no doubt providing a wonderful study of crowd reactions.

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  22. That's a good example. Except I forget how the match went. Long term booking wise, it didn't really have much of an effect if I recall right.

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  23. Too bad WWE is allergic to having actual wrestling guys on creative.

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  24. Depends, would have have time to hug HHH on the way down to the ring for a surprise rumble entry? That didn't help

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  25. Sheamus/Bryan Extreme Rules. Bryan was getting crazy over as a killer in that match then just jobbed to the Brogue Kick and turned back into a comedy heel.

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  26. Yea, I'd say that match would've probably gotten a universal ***** if Brock had gone over clean as a sheet. I bet a lot of people took off a 1/4 or 1/2 star just because Cena won.

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  27. pik was a great blogger he deserves to be brought back..R.I.P. pik
    .

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  28. I'll gladly give it to stranger if he wants it.

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  29. I'd also say that I prefer story over the match quality if done right. A great example is the Brock/Show match last night. In terms of an actual match, it was a horrible display of a wrestling match. However, in terms of leading up to that match, it works for me, and I'm glad it wasn't a long drawn out, boring "match".

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  30. That is the only match I have ever seen that legit gave me goosebumps. I was dumbfounded at the finish, especially since the rumors going around were that Cena was taking time off afterwards.

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  31. I'm trying to think of a great match that made up for terrible booking surrounding the match. Drawing a blank without looking anything up, but there has to be something.

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  32. What happened to pik?

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  33. Well Cena/Brock is an atleast debatable 5 star match and almost everyone can agree the wrong guy went over. The shit booking in my opinion overshadowed the match

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  34. #respectthebookerman

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  35. In a perfect world, good booking obviously goes hand in hand with a good match. But, if I had to choose, I'd prefer quality work to story.

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  36. Match quality is what I look for, had no problem with Bray going over with the match being as good as it was. But I can deal with the DUDs with the right guy getting pushed because of it. It's DUDs with the wrong guy going over, or decent matches with the wrong guys going over.

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  37. Brock/Cena just for the finish. I'm really trying to get this answer over. It's the only one I can think of

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  38. Yeah, that's the thing I don't get about Dreamer. He was Paul Heyman's protege and must have learned a lot from him, but all he took out of it was booking senseless hardcore matches.

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  39. For "one-off" shows (or seldom-seen shows), wrestling quality is the way to go. That's why Feds like PWG can put on awesome matches where the goal behind the match is simply "to win". (Though they do some excellent booking, as well -- the Candace Larae storyline from the end of last year shows that -- they just don't need to do as much of it).


    However, for any other Fed, especially televised feds, telling a coherent story is far more important (and needs to be bolstered by match quality). Think about how many crap matches Hogan had -- you sure weren't watching those for the match quality. But, at least for that era, the right guy was going over. Think about how WWF would have died if Andre had gone over Hogan for no real good reason. We saw crap like that -- it was called "Wrestlemania 9", and it led to a long stretch of horrible business for the WWF.


    Also think about how many amazing matches TNA has had. Not even the smarkiest TNA-hating smark has ever been able to say they don't have talented wrestlers. The problem is that they do a HORRIBLE job making you care about any of them, and do the least logical thing possible when it comes to giving fans what they want. (See "Brown, Monty" for an early example).


    I swear when I heard the ending to the Rumble, and the fact that Bryan wasn't even in it (good thing they had space for El Torito, though), I thought for a minute that maybe WWE was in horrible financial straits and had somehow gotten bought out by TNA.

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  40. I think last night's Bray/Bryan match is a good indication. You can have an amazing match and if it's great enough, it doesn't really matter who wins. The real winner is the audience, then.

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  41. Yeah I saw you post that. Good example. There has to be other matches, I think except for the extreme workrate-marks, storylines tend to live on longer in memory that match quality.

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  42. Stranger in the AlpsJanuary 27, 2014 at 1:06 PM

    Just had it burning in my brain and wanted more input. Plus, steering the QOTD back to wrestling or even something more accessible makes good booking sense.

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  43. I'm kinda going to Puro right now because of this.

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  44. Yea, it was a good question. I'm like Flair putting everyone over.

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  45. Hey lets talk about abortion, god, and racism all at the same time?

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  46. It's a shame that all the money marks gravitate towards Hogan, I bet if someone like Cuban (money and willing to stay out of the way) offered Austin a check book, he'd take it

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  47. Steve Austin @steveaustinBSR
    Got a shit pile of emails regarding last nights #RoyalRumble. Y'all sound a little pissed off. Interesting development...Stay tuned. #WWE

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  48. Put it this way, i feel so nostalgic for the attitude era and how well most of it was booked (minus the russo stuff) everything had a point, characters were interesting and payoffs were somewhat satisfying, but I couldn't go back and tell you more than 10 matches that i would watch over matches i could pick from the badly booked PG era. Of course the dream is to have great booking and storylines as well as great matches, but end of the day I'd gladly take months and months of terrible storylines to get a magical night like money in the bank 11, extreme rules 12, summerslam 13. I'm in it ultimately for the ring product, if I wanted great story I'd read a book...not saying that i wouldn't mind some great angles once in a while.

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  49. This question of the day is far too situational. I enjoyed the hell out of the MOTY contenders from Japan. I was marking the fuck out for the match where Tanahashi takes a Steiner Screwdriver. At the same time nothing beats a good angle. WWE has gotten way too far away from wrestling to the point of not calling moves.

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  50. I brought up Age in the Cage yesterday, here is the match. If you missed it, both Hogan and Piper were younger here than Batista is now. (who says PEDs don't help?)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s6WcyaHhyo

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  51. Cena/Brock without a doubt. I'd defo go the full monty for that purely because stylistically that was a whole different kettle of fish than what we've been exposed to in the past couple of years. It felt fresh, special...surreal, the crowd was molten and for once i felt lke what i was watching wasn't just some boy fantasy I've not let go of, or some quirky passion I still partake in, but something genuinely badass that I could call up all my friends over to watch.

    The absolute wrong man went over, but that doesn't change how amazing the match was.

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  52. Am I the only person who didn't mind Torito in the Rumble? It was much better than the JBL spot at least.

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  53. The only good Piper match in WCW was against Flair at Bash at the Beach 97' and Flair is bumping like a maniac for his old buddy.

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  54. It was fine. They always have comedy spots like that and he didn't Sin Cara any of his moves.

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  55. Stranger in the AlpsJanuary 27, 2014 at 1:14 PM

    You see, I disagreed with a lot of the Attitude Era because the awesome matches were not all that common. I can think of Austin-Dude Love as one example of a both a good storyline and an awesome blowoff match at over The Edge 98. But the Attitude Era from 98-early 2000 had a lot of crap matches in the main event. Every one remembers the stories, sure. But there's a reason why a lot of the matches don't get DVD inclusion on Best Of comps.

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  56. It would have been a much better reaction than what he got, because the surprise would have made up for the fact the Bryan wasn't in the match.

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  57. Holy shit he was beating up the entire roster. I can see maybe a move to Fandango but former champions like CM Punk should not have sold for him. I said in a different thread imagine what Harley would have done to him.

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  58. It was fun for what it was and fortunately was short lived. It's just that his spot could've easily gone to a lot of other guys, like Jake.

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  59. Harley would have sold in that environment, most likely. He was the proto-Hennig.

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  60. Story telling is so much more important to me than match quality. A good story can make up for a bad match (I feel that's less true the other way around, but I can see an argument for match quality making up for lack of story).

    I've never cared much about the quality of a match. I can be amused by a dud and a 5-star classic.

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  61. I'm a match quality person as well. Even if I'm invested in one side, if the match is reaching that rare territory of being one of the best of the year, decade...whatever...I'm more into seeing if the finish works rather than worried if my favorite goes over.


    Like last night, Bray Wyatt won me over because he was busting his ass and showing the people that there's some serious substance behind the style. And for me that was a bigger win than if the guy I wanted to win (Bryan) went over.

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  62. Ultimately I'm a match quality guy. Poor booking like we're seeing at the moment still irks me, and they're really pushing their luck.

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  63. They were comedy spots

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  64. I know in hindsight, it's easy to say Daniel Bryan should of won, but given how Batista spiked the ratings last week, I understand WWE's mindset for doing what the did.

    If WWE were smart, they should have hedged their bets and only book the WMXXX main event once it was clear what fans wanted to see. WWE could have still booked Batista to win the Rumble, and Daniel Bryan could have been in the Rumble too, and you could do an angle where Bryan gets illegally eliminated or something so Bryan could still have an issue getting that WM title shot, as WWE would wait to see how the ratings would unfold (if Batista was truly bringing in new viewers on a regular basis or if it was just a one week abnormality).

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  65. I lean toward booking, mostly because I think I rate match quality differently from many people here. A good match goes hand-in-hand with the booking; I want timing and working the crowd more than big moves and slick counters. Those are awesome to have and they add to a match but I'll take someone who involves the crowd over a bland mechanic.

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  66. Your_Favourite_LoserJanuary 27, 2014 at 1:20 PM

    since this is the most recent thread at the moment, i'll post this here; i *really* hope it's fake...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvXRoe3vui0#t=66

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  67. Thats my point, I'd bet you ask most fans what was the better match "KOTR 98 Taker v Mankind Hell in a Cell" or "WM28 HHH v Taker HIaC" and a large potion would swear up and down the former was a better match. The truth is, it wasn't even a good match, it was terrible...botched spots and all. It just happens to be one of the most seminal moments in WWE history wrapped inside a bad match. Thats as perfect a point as you can get on the matter, Attitude was just great storytelling and great moments surrounded by mostly bad in ring product.

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  68. Not to discredit Batista for the ratings, because he probably WAS the reason, but it was also the first chance to see Bryan's explanation and welcome him back to facedom

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  69. Your_Favourite_LoserJanuary 27, 2014 at 1:23 PM

    yeah, reading comments on 411, apparently he did the same thing after rock beat punk for the title last year


    but the thing thing, the fact that for a moment we could entertain the idea that its real is pretty tell about the common perception of the stereotypical wrestling fan

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  70. I guess we can agree to disagree on that.

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  71. "which I like to ascribe to the difficulty of judging aesthetics"

    Does this mean you are into ugly women?

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  72. Well, I'm guessing Batista was the main reason for the ratings spike, just because history has shown that big returns always draw ratings, but of course it's also shown that the ratings quickly die out afterwards, so it's really something WWE shouldn't base their long term plans on.

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  73. Yet you probably shit all over cena orton which was a great match as well. You can't have it both ways.

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  74. LOL, cannot like that enough.

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  75. If they weren't comedy spots, then what were they?

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  76. Looks like this guy got banned also

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  77. I posted that exact scenario on last night's live thread, ergo, Tommy Dreamer reads the Blog of Doom.

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  78. I swear you and I are the only ones that understand that concept here.

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  79. You sound like Obama... without the charisma.

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  80. When you assume...............

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  81. Didn't he job to Cena on Velocity once?

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  82. Rey Misterio takes El Torito's spot earlier, number 30 comes out and...I've got some Bad News! Crowd shits all over Wade Barrett but then Daniel Bryan comes storming out attacking Wade mid-promo and takes his spot in the Rumble to deafening cheers and Yes Chants!


    He then gets eliminated by Batista 10 minutes later because even fantasy booking can only go so far.

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  83. Well, of course not, but then that raises the question of, "Is someone ugly if everyone else finds them ugly but you find them attractive." To wit: I find tattoos repulsive, but many have no problem saying that a woman tattooed is aesthetically pleasing, even sexier than they would have been without being inked. Are they wrong? Well, no, they are not wrong: the issue is what I find pleasing and making sure to worry about that, not concern myself with what others' preference is.


    In short, everything is subjective! Except for excluding Bryan from the Rumble, that is objectively bad all around. .

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  84. Poor, poor humorless man.

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  85. JBL's spot could have went to Jake and should have went to someone else to give them one last pop

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  86. I didn't think Cena-Orton was a great match but I didn't shit on it. It was very much in line with every match they have had with a couple of exceptions. Neither guy was at their best and I don't think they can get the best out of each other.

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  87. Porn-Peddling Jef VinsonJanuary 27, 2014 at 1:57 PM

    He got pik'ed off.

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  88. Yes. All publicity is good publicity. As Your_Favorite_Loser might say:


    "Well now you never did see such a terrible thing
    as we seen last night on the TV.
    Maybe if we're lucky they will show it again,
    such a terrible thing to see."

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  89. How do you know that he wasn't dressed as Oklahoma?

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  90. It would be terrible!


    75000 fans sceraming, yelling, hurling their collector cups and $8 hot dogs towards the ring, swearing that the direction of this company better change by Extreme Rules or they are NEVER WATCHING AGAIN!

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  91. You don't remember that cold night in 99 too well.

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  92. Same here dude! Look at that, shitty WWE booking brings people together.

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  93. I'm sure it was all scripted. Blame the writers, not Orton

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