Ahh I forgot about how Carmella ended that. Yeah, that was great.

Crews and Ziggler are the two dudes who need to heel turn the most, for sure.

In the case of someone like Carmella or Alexa (last week), it's also a great, low-stakes place for someone who doesn't get much mic time to practice. Like, Carmella's segment wasn't *great*, but it was the most I've heard her talk since NXT (and since her heel turn). It was good for that.

It's one thing for Mauro to occasionally drop a pop culture reference, but when it becomes something he does 4-5 times per match, it's exhausting (and I'm someone who's never had a Mauro reference go over my head). Compare what he's doing on SD Live with how he called the Cruiserweight Classic, and it's night and day,…

Yeah, he kind of got lost around (paraphrasing) "You don't win the WWE title with a low blow but I've won titles by doing the same a hundred times and I'll probably do it a hundred times more in the future, BUT…" He thankfully righted the ship but there were confusing parts to the promo.

I swear to god if the finale isn't a cruise episode with a bunch of animals, that will be the biggest letdown of this fall TV season.

I will say that I'm cautiously optimistic that the addition of the cruiserweight division will pull things better into focus for the whole show (or will lead to a cool visual where Reigns spears the whole division and everyone backflips out of the ring to sell it)

That is a good point about the titles, but I think Smackdown has done a better job re-focusing some characters (Usos) or giving others time to establish themselves (women's division). Carmella and Nikki Bella will probably not be feuding over the women's title too soon, I think (though I guess that prediction can kind…

WWE Logic also dictates that each segment exists in a vacuum, thus Sheamus and Cesaro busting their asses for a championship shot that 3-4 other guys have gotten by standing on a ramp.

Well, presumably the one in two weeks will be Big E/Kofi vs. The Club. Tonight was a forgettable rematch to a forgettable Summerslam match. Womp womp.

Corbin/Crews really showed how much Corbin had grown since their NXT match.

They don't have to set up Triple H's motivations before the PPV. He can waltz in whenever he wants to explain himself, maybe setting up a Team Rollins vs. Team Owens Survivor Series match, or immediately after Owens loses the title, or really any time. Or never!

They've loosened up about that kind of thing this year. It was more shocking to hear Michael Cole refer to "pro wrestling" a couple weeks back

I also had the same hope. Just the idea of Joe's aggressive No-BS character with Slater's hyper lack of self-awareness is a perfect mix.

I feel like I have seen Bo recently - maybe in a backstage segment on some preshow? Otherwise, no, he hasn't been around at all.

Throughout Summerslam, my roommate and I were joking that all of David's calls could be replaced with "…and I'm David Otunga!" and no one would notice the difference.

I remember early on when the New Day started gaining steam, their segments would be the first to go on the 90 minute cut. Really unfortunate but I'd say it's a fair trade for not having to see 30 minutes of Chrisley Knows Best ads.

Smackdown is available on Hulu the next day (from what I can tell, in full), so you can watch it there if you have that and don't have the Network. (RAW gets cut down into a much more digestible 90 minute version on Hulu as well.)

Turning Carmella heel also goes a long way in separating her from her history with Enzo and Cass. Once they got called up, her gimmick made less sense, and she was basically just spouting some of their catchphrases. Then she got called up, and she lost the catchphrases. Heel Carmella excites me.

Follow up to that: acknowledging that not only was he trying to get into Ziggler's head but also that it didn't work and that Ziggler fights even harder as an underdog was a similarly great character building moment.