Roadblock (March 12th, 2016)

[Scott Hall]

I had fun for what it was which was a televised House Show with half the roster...

My seats were crap behind the stage near the top but for $20 can't complain...

Interesting to hear some people say Zayn didn't get much of a pop because in person it seemed he did.
It was hard getting the crowd in sync for chants and some sections chanted some stuff and the other sections
would chant something different at the exact same time.

Here my notes...

- Interesting small little venue for Wrestling but it was pretty cool
- Seemed like a sell out didn't see any empty seats
- In the way in some guy was handing out flyers for an Indy show in April advertising Angle and Foley
- Looked it up online and Santino Marella has a new Iocal Indy promotion called "Destiny World Wrestling"
- The event is at Santinos new Gym/academy and down the street from where I grew up
- Also Moose from ROH not sure if he's Ezekiel Jackson from WWE is advertised
- Walked by Pat Patterson talking to some woman outside and said what's up

- On the way out saw a bunch of people waiting out by the parking lot looking for wrestlers to come out.
- Saw Cole and Saxton drive away and then JBL drive away.

As we were walking we decided to cross the street usually cars wait for pedestrians to go by first. I see this
car come speeding by my sixth sense tells me this dude isn't stopping so me and my friend hold back. Guy in
front of us keeps walking...

Dude was this close to getting run over by this car everyone is like woah! we look to see who this giant ****
is and it's the New Day with Big E driving with this giant evil grin on his face lol

So we keep walking towards the Street Car see these 3 guys in front of us with WWE jackets and wheeling down
some luggage and notice it's Ranjin Singh aka The Great Khalis manager, the bald short black guy that's one of
the head writers of NXT and had a cameo on RAW recently in a backstage skit with Vince and HHH and some
other guy who I didn't recognize. Ranjin Singh looked embarrassed/surprised that I knew him and it was awkward
trying to explain to people who he was that were asking me with him in front of us lol

[Spens1]

meh. outside the ic title and tag titles, most the card is already set.

also wouldnt be surprised if half the roster was elsewhere at another house show tonight

Yep, they had a show in Atlantic City that featured AJ vs Owens in a 30 minute Ironman match.

now why the hell wasn't this at roadblock

1. the match has build
2. it would have been amazing

should have had this at Roadblock and Sami vs Stardust at the random house show

jesus this company does things absolutely backwards a lot of the time

[studcrackers]

because they had to have something main event that show and putting that on tv w/0 build would be absolutely backwards

[Spens1]

because they had to have something main event that show and putting that on tv w/0 build would be absolutely backwards

will that match even see the light of day after mania anyway, they have at least something off the rumble, or at least equalish build as lesnar vs wyatt

[Ruzious]

If all you can do is complain about a show like tonight's, you should just stop watching. I haven't watched the main event yet but even so there's been plenty about the undercard to like. Regardless of outcome, the Enzo & Cass v. The Revival match was great. Charlotte v. Natalya was phenomenal. Zayn v. Stardust was a solid mid-card match. Jericho was on fire tonight. More good than bad without question.

Jericho himself was great but absolutely no hype at all. I'm loving Jericho but at least have some build up and not a smackdown level match at best. Should have given Jericho at least a smackdown or something to build a matchup between whoever he was facing tonight

Charlote and Natty was great but random as despite the history, should have at least run a backstage segment or something to hype it up, Zayn vs Stardust was also, dissapointed with no K.O though, if they're building that feud (which they should) he had every reason to be there since that feud needs as many times to build as possible cause that seems like the money feud in the mid card and for the IC title

Enzo & Cass just faced the revival i am pretty sure not too long ago and lost (dirty but still), so many teams that haven't feuded yet, that tag team division is stacked, why not make good use of all the teams. In saying that Enzo & Cass need to be called up now, they're probably the only team

the matches themselves where fine, its the booking that was completely off, like most of this was 'ok why is this a match exactly' in the same sense that you're watching smackdown. I know this happens once or twice per PPV but for the whole card minus the main event and a few other matches where completely random, all i want is a decent build for matches and not a completely random smackdown card for a supposed 'special'.

Gotta agree with the criticism about the booking. None of it really worked - with the possible exception of the NXT match - but only for people who don't watch NXT on a regular basis. Even with the Jericho match, the crowd couldn't be convinced to root for Swagger. I doubt people cared to see Harper go to Suplex City. Seeing Zayn was a treat - but against Stardust - no. Charlotte vs Natty was a fine womens match, but everyone knew how it would end, because of the Rasslemania match coming up. There was nothing big-time about the entire show and nothing about it that would make me want to tune in to Raw.

[Dunthreevy]

It.was.a.televised.house.show.

Also, when did we stop caring about Stardust? Is he not still one of the best in-ring performers in the company? I'm confused as to why I've seen multiple people complain about Sami Zayn wrestling Cody Rhodes. It's ok to just watch matches and enjoy the performances once in a while. Had they not televised this and we just heard about the card online, no one would be complaining about any of this. The only part of this show that was built to have any bearing on Mania was the main event. And that was just done to keep people on their toes and make us think that MAYBE they were thinking about switching up the main event at Mania. And it worked. Mission accomplished.

[Ruzious]

It.was.a.televised.house.show.

Also, when did we stop caring about Stardust? Is he not still one of the best in-ring performers in the company? I'm confused as to why I've seen multiple people complain about Sami Zayn wrestling Cody Rhodes. It's ok to just watch matches and enjoy the performances once in a while. Had they not televised this and we just heard about the card online, no one would be complaining about any of this. The only part of this show that was built to have any bearing on Mania was the main event. And that was just done to keep people on their toes and make us think that MAYBE they were thinking about switching up the main event at Mania. And it worked. Mission accomplished.

It was advertised as a major event#. Nothing particularly interesting happened in it. It did nothing to increase people's interest in Mania. Rhodes' character is tiresome to the point that it overshadows any good work that he does in the ring.

[Spens1]

If all you can do is complain about a show like tonight's, you should just stop watching. I haven't watched the main event yet but even so there's been plenty about the undercard to like. Regardless of outcome, the Enzo & Cass v. The Revival match was great. Charlotte v. Natalya was phenomenal. Zayn v. Stardust was a solid mid-card match. Jericho was on fire tonight. More good than bad without question.

Jericho himself was great but absolutely no hype at all. I'm loving Jericho but at least have some build up and not a smackdown level match at best. Should have given Jericho at least a smackdown or something to build a matchup between whoever he was facing tonight

Charlote and Natty was great but random as despite the history, should have at least run a backstage segment or something to hype it up, Zayn vs Stardust was also, dissapointed with no K.O though, if they're building that feud (which they should) he had every reason to be there since that feud needs as many times to build as possible cause that seems like the money feud in the mid card and for the IC title

Enzo & Cass just faced the revival i am pretty sure not too long ago and lost (dirty but still), so many teams that haven't feuded yet, that tag team division is stacked, why not make good use of all the teams. In saying that Enzo & Cass need to be called up now, they're probably the only team

the matches themselves where fine, its the booking that was completely off, like most of this was 'ok why is this a match exactly' in the same sense that you're watching smackdown. I know this happens once or twice per PPV but for the whole card minus the main event and a few other matches where completely random, all i want is a decent build for matches and not a completely random smackdown card for a supposed 'special'.

Gotta agree with the criticism about the booking. None of it really worked - with the possible exception of the NXT match - but only for people who don't watch NXT on a regular basis. Even with the Jericho match, the crowd couldn't be convinced to root for Swagger. I doubt people cared to see Harper go to Suplex City. Seeing Zayn was a treat - but against Stardust - no. Charlotte vs Natty was a fine womens match, but everyone knew how it would end, because of the Rasslemania match coming up. There was nothing big-time about the entire show and nothing about it that would make me want to tune in to Raw.

bless jericho but its swagger (and i like swagger but when was the last time he was on raw exactly)

[Mike Hunt]

I'm pretty much in agreement with most people, that the match quality was great, but the booking, not so much. I get that it's essentially a televised house show, but it sure wasn't promoted that way. If nothing ever happens during these specials, why are people going to keep tuning in? They're even more inconsequential than Smackdown.

My biggest issue with the WWE over the past few months is that coming out of both of their heavily promoted events: Roadblock and Fastlane (a PPV), fans were left with the sense that absolutely nothing had changed. If you really think about it, what were the "biggest" things to happen coming out of those events?

Roadblock had a close call for Dean which might set something up for he and HHH post-Wrestlemania, but I don't know how anxious people will be to see it. Aside from that, I think the only productive thing they did was test the WWE waters for Enzo and Cass (which we see did fine).

The only thing that changed coming out of Fastlane was the start of a feud between New Day and the League of Nations. Sadly, it was during the worst part of the entire PPV and came out of nowhere (and it's taken until this week to feel real-ish.

So, what has really changed since before Fastlane for those on the card?

-A sloppy, half-hearted heel turn for Ryback (occurred on TV after Fastlane)
-A slow, incomplete face turn for New Day (Monday was the first time the rivalry with LoN felt somewhat real)
-A well done heel turn for Chris Jericho, that the crowd has been slow to embrace

As a fan, more so during Fastlane than Roadblock, all I need is for the narrative to change a touch, coming out of larger events. Just swerve me once or twice. The biggest surprise result from Fastlane was the horrid booking decision of making the Wyatts lose. Everything else was entirely according to script.