Dead Crow

iTunes update: 27th has now become 16th. There's a very good chance that it may hit the top 40, and I believe Radio 1 has to play all new entries to the chart during the rundown on Sunday. What amuses me more is that it is soaring up the chart on the same week as "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" for Thatcher's death, which is now second. EDIT:

3.2-3.4ish (credit: WO). Around 600,000 less than last year, although I don't know if the three hours made a difference over two last year.

I've already set his theme as my ringtone. Genuinely.

I know that this is more Belty territory, but F4W has an interview with Dave Millican up right now, talking belts. Surprisingly interesting interview.

I watched Raw again, three times. It only gets better every time. Sadly, the TV rating doesn't reflect. What I love most is that, even though it would be hilarious to watch Vince and Steph have a mental breakdown over the audience, almost everyone in WWE seems to be ecstatic over how different and fun Raw was. In a way, that's better because it means that instead of being head-in-sand uppity knobs, they opened themselves up and decided to just enjoy it for what it was. When WWE just has fun, it can't be beaten.

[video=youtube;8rif1Bu8CD4]

That Raw the best Raw of all time. Ever. The booking was fine, and if the crowd were the usual cheers and boos where appropriate, this would have been a very good show. However, the crowd were the greatest crowd that have ever attended a professional wrestling show. Last year was just a warm up to tonight. Not only did they completely throw the Orton and Sheamus out and replace it with some amazing chants ("JBL", "We Are Awesome"), but the singing of Fandango's theme song just made a superstar out of the guy. Apparently, people will honking the theme song in the car park of the building. Better yet, the commentators sold it completely and didn't try to ignore it. Even the agents and Vince and everyone apparently loved the crowd so much. Even Cena, as he always does, got it and did the Fandango dance and had some fun. That's what wrestling should be - fun! Screw Orton and Sheamus being all serious. Just go out there and have a laugh and react to the atmosphere. If Wrestlemania made me reconsider whether Wrestlemania 30 was really worth going to, Raw just confirmed my tickets, flights and hotel bookings.

Well, sh*t is hitting the fan. Credit: Meltzer/Alvarez.

Liverpool fans. And wrestling fans who write this:

I'm gutted at how dull this Wrestlemania was. The build was garbage, but most years have some ridiculously bad build too and yet the show itself tends to delivers. Wrestlemania 24 was amazing, and then Wrestlemania 28 was incredible, so maybe we're going to have to wait until Wrestlemania 32, but we shouldn't have to wait so long for a good show. This had the potential and botched it. I mean, it LOOKED like a great Wrestlemania in the making. The pre-show was inspired - Dusty Rhodes, Jim Ross and Kofi Kingston doing the whole UFC on FOX deal was fantastic and really made it seem like this was going to be a big deal of a show. The lack of backstage stuff was actually a blessing - who needs segments at Wrestlemania? That's what Raw and SmackDown are for. Even the musical interlude was great on paper - I've argued for ever that Mania needs a halftime show. It's just a shame that they chose Diddy, who is terrible. That said, maybe he'd have been much better if the crowd wasn't dead, as it was all night. Really bad crowd, all throughout the show. I imagine it was due to coldness and rain, since hot cities tend to be loud and boisterous, but it's not like the show gave them loads to get excited about. It didn't help that many people had restrictive seats, but that's the nature of events like this sometimes. The production was great. The videos, great. The HHH intro (dry-ice aside) and the lighting of the stadium were ace. The Undertaker entrance was lacking without the druids intro, but the zombies were a really nice touch. Even some of the matches were fine - the opener, the Punk/Taker match, Jericho/Fandango, even bits of HHH/Lesnar and Rock/Cena. But it just felt like nothing. It felt like everything went into the Axxess stuff and the pre-show and the week of activities and not enough into the actual show. The main event fell really flat with the lack of big intros, the storylines all seemed to be lacking (not nearly enough was made of HHH's potential retirement), the fireworks seemed to be AWOL, and for all its predictability, it wasn't that everything didn't make sense because realistically it all did. It's just that everything felt like it was forced into the direction that WWE tried to impose, not necessarily the direction that it should have gone. The Cena/Rock circlejerk ultimately hurt both men instead of helping one of them, Lesnar got all but buried and made to look like not such a big deal (yes, he kicked some ass, but this dude is headlining Wrestlemania and needs to be strong next year), and even half of the Wrestlemania social media ambassadors seemed absent. It just ultimately fell falt. Lots of good ideas ultimately executed poorly.

Can't tell you how much I love this pre-show idea. The UFC on Fox vibe is inspired. This is WWE thinking outside of their bubble and I love it.

GDPR

Ziggler smartened up. Good man.

Yeah, just looks like Brock is posing with Paul for his kids. Probably to take to school to to show the other kids that "if you bully me, Uncle Brock is going to ransack your home and pillage your entire family." Definitely Heyman's daughter. I recognise her from the picture with Layla. Seems like Layla has taken her under her wing a little bit, which is sweet.

Bret is a weird one. You get the impression in his writings and some of his interviews that he has a very high opinion of himself, low opinion of others, and is extremely bitter in everything that has happened in his life. Yet, the guy has moments of fun stories (especially any that involve Owen) and his memory - unlike the Hogans and Flairs and others who either can't remember or embellish (or flatout lie) - is insanely good; like, Rainman good. The Michaels/Hart sit-down interview is fantastic and half of it is Bret remembering vivid details and dates and venues and everything in crystal clear light, as it happened, as close to real facts as you can get, whilst Michaels just nods and agrees that it probably happened. If you can get Bret on the line with both of those qualities, you end up with some really great material from him.

Has anyone been watching the AJ videos on WWE.com? They have turned a dastardly heel psycho into the most down-to-Earth likable babyface girl on the planet. Her entire story is "we had no home, I worked young to help the family, Dad scraped money together to get me Wrestlemania XX tickets and was so deflated when they turned out to be at the back but I didn't care because it meant so much to be there and inspired me to eventually make it into that ring to give my Dad the best tickets in the house." As is the case with wrestling sometimes, the real character is so much more interesting than the one on TV.

So the big news is: Trish is pregnant. And Bob Backlund is insane.

They're Heyman's kids, no?

http://www.wwe.com/f/styles/photo_large/public/photo/image/2013/04/24_PrimeTime_04032013lg0372.jpg If I wasn't a man of my word, I'd change my avatar to this in a heartbeat.

Is Kaitlyn the one who makes a very good Ultimate Warrior?

[video=youtube;fAglSncw8Vw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAglSncw8Vw 97/98 Raw was the best ever. Raw should be nothing but Austin driving pickup trucks into the crowd whilst AC/DC weaves in and out of being played.

I've ordered DGUSA, but I'm not opposed to ordering Shimmer if I do it now (price goes up $5 if I order tomorrow, and screw that noise!). Some good matches on there, but I don't know if I can sit through so much women's wrestling. Especially if it's not the show where Molly Holly is dressing up as a nun. DGUK did some great great shows recently, so I hope that the DGUSA workers are on form. Different production and booking and all, but you'd expect the apples that Vince McMahon asked about don't all fall far from the proverbial tree. What I may do is skip Shimmer, watch DGUSA, and then maybe buy either the Sunday DGUSA show or, if I've won anything on the Grand National, stump up for the NJPW show on Sunday morning. Sure, $25 is a lot, but Rob Conway defends his NWA title and I'll be damned if that's not the slightest bit exciting.

Pro Wrestling Syndicate is on a brief intermission. So far, it has been the indy supershow you would expect. A bunch of old guys, a bunch of young guys not good enough for ROH or TNA, and John Morrison v Jushin Liger to be f*cking AWESOME later on, followed by New Jack killing himself in his final match. For £7 or so, I can't complain much. Now, do I buy Shimmer and/or Dragon Gate USA tomorrow? Both could be very good, but Evolve was shambolic from all accounts, iPPV-wise. So I don't know if I trust them to do it properly. If I have to do one, it'll be DGUSA, but I'm in the mood for wrestling now!

Sorry for all of the updates. Also, f*ck you, I'm not sorry. Vince McMahon just tweeted this: [video=youtube;pOPWbpPdtxc] Don't watch if you don't want the set spoiled for you. For me, it looks really great. I'm genuinely impressed by it. And NOTHING beats Vince McMahon going into his Royal Rumble "IT'S THE BARBARIAN" voice. I love the idea of someone in WWE being hired to tell Vince that, with all this social media stuff, people really love to hear him being Vince McMahon. I love Vince being Vince.

If you're bored by iPPVs (and PWS is currently rolling out the Rock n' Roll Express to face the new Heavenly Bodies), WWE.com is currently showing the live WWE '13 challenge where all of the black wrestlers beat all of the white wrestlers at video games. http://www.wwe.com/inside/2k/2ks-wwe-13/2ks-superstar-challenge-live-from-wrestlemania-axxess-right-now-26104657 EDIT: And the winner is... Hornswoggle! Genuinely. Big E Langston hit him with 3 finishers in a row, Hornswoggle kicked out of every single one and then locked in the Anaconda Vice to win.