DE.

As I said at HT, because the league has a massive amount of poor teams in it. If Boro were anything special, as Mowbray claimed, they'd be out of sight by now. As it is they've missed chance after chance (combined with Kaminski having a stormer and the ref and his assistants either being blind or unaware a boot to the face is a foul) and been punished for it.

Imagine we'd loaned Walton in for another season? Probably be battling it out in the relegation spots right about now.

I don't think Mowbray has "lost" the dressing room in terms of the players disliking him, but I do think most if not all of the players are losing or have lost belief in what Tony is asking them to do. We aren't getting thrashed in any matches so there is obviously some effort there, but without the belief to go with that it translates to the disjointed mess we are now witnessing match after match. I think it was @Gavlar Somerset Rover! who said this doesn't feel like one of the normal 'death spirals' and each match makes me think that more and more. This feels like the end of a manager's time at a club, except in our case 'the end' normally comes months after it becomes obvious things aren't working.

He really does need a loan out somewhere he can play regular first team football and work out how to influence and be properly involved in games. He looks like a boy lost playing a man's game the vast majority of the time he's with us. We've seen glimpses of his talent but it's not much good if he only shows it once or twice in a match,

Wait until SG is brought on to play right winger again.

It's baffling that we are still the Championship's leading scorers. Those early thrashings really boosted those stats, although it's also given non-Rovers fans the false belief that we're an attacking team scoring for fun.

Yeah. Is he going to bring it up with Mowbray post-match or just tweet about it?

We look like a team whose manager should have been sacked some time ago. No belief, no passion, no creativity and no will to win. As I think I said in the last match thread, by sheer virtue of the teams in this division being so poor we could still scrape a win or a draw from this match. Boro have had some chances and should have 100% had a pen, but a decent team would already be 2 or 3 up by now, at least. We're very fortunate there are so few genuinely good teams in this league, but that just makes our mid-table nothingness and horrific performances all the more miserable.

We going to have another half time 0-0?

We're going to struggle because we're a terrible team with a terrible manager. The ref is way down the list of reasons we're playing like shit again.

Imagine having the balls to complain about the ref when Branthwaite literally superkicked a player in the face, forcing him to be substituted a bloody mess, and it was totally ignored. Branthwaite having a very poor game so far. Looks every inch the 18 year old inexperienced kid he is. If that's what a "big favour" from India looks like we might as well forget what's left of this transfer window.

Better hope Lenihan and Branthwaite don't get injured, or we'll be moving Nyambe to CB and then Travis or Buckley will have to play RB.

Amazingly those involved still insist they were right.

Update, one way to do it on mobile is to open the top right hand menu, tap 'account', select the 'Ignored Users' option and enter their username into the provided field.

On desktop you just hover over the username, and you'll see the ignore feature as an option in the new box that pops up. Have to admit I'm not sure how to do it on mobile though.

A great example of a monster type character booked well is Kane in 1997-1998. An incredibly intimidating look, extremely powerful, crushed numerous members of the roster and was able to match one of the strongest wrestlers in the company in the Undertaker. Kane was often referred to as a 'demon', coming from hell, etc. He engaged in some minor 'supernatural' stuff like shooting lightning from the arena ceiling a couple of times, but the vast majority of what he did was realistic. The character wasn't realistic, but his actions were. He always felt like a huge threat and a force to be reckoned with, but he never resorted to teleporting, possessing people, bringing people to alternate dimensions and other assorted bullshit. More than anything I think WWE has lost that link between making superstars larger than life but still making them feel like real people doing realistic things. Often they manage to do neither which is even worse. As far as booking a wrestler who doesn't actually wrestle, look no further than Sting in late-1996 and almost all of 1997. Didn't wrestle a single match for over a year but was the most over wrestler in the entire company. He didn't always show up, but when he did it mattered. He didn't even need to cut promos. His presence and aura was enough to hook people in. He very rarely let anybody get the better of him, but he appeared infrequently enough that it never felt like he was burying anybody with his invincibility. Of course it all went to shit when they eventually did have him start wrestling again, but if WCW could hold back for over a year, why did WWE have to rush the Fiend into not only wrestling but winning the title? Sting Vs Hogan was such a huge deal BECAUSE Sting had built up such an incredible aura from not wrestling and not showing up every week. Sometimes less really is more.

Yep, the Fiend had no need for the belt and putting it on him only constrained and weakened the character. They also did their usual of going way, way over the top with the supernatural stuff. Look at the early firefly funhouse segments - did it really need to go into this silly, spooky shit? Couldn't Bray have just been a dude with a major personality disorder brought on by years of failure? The Fiend did not need to be booked with LITERAL superpowers. It would have been enough to just say Bray gets a physical and psychological boost from engaging the Fiend persona, not too dissimilar to Finn Balor and his 'demon' character. Why did it have to turn into parallel universes, possession, burning to death, etc? I'm not saying wrestling always has to be realistic, but at the same time when it goes this far I just find it too ridiculous to enjoy.

The biggest mistake they made was hotshotting the world title onto the Fiend. I knew as soon as that happened that they were going to ruin him. As a character he does not need the belt and having it did nothing for him. He should have stayed away from the title picture for a significant amount of time, beating numerous credible challengers before finally coming for the top guy - not because he wanted to be the world champ, but just because he wanted to fuck with that person by taking away the thing that was most important to them. After that have him hold the belt for a long time before somebody finally takes him down at Wrestlemania. It really isn't that difficult to book, and I don't know why WWE has such a hard time just sticking to simple, effective storylines. As soon as they changed his music you knew there was trouble ahead. He started off strong but has lost so much momentum since then. Such a shame as the dude is a huge talent and unlike anybody else on the roster with his promos and in-ring ability relative to his size. The problem with NXT is that Vince just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand it and doesn't think any of that will translate to the main roster. Thus every NXT star is put through the main roster "filter" and stripped of practically everything that made them successful in NXT. The thing about NXT, in the past at least, is that they told simple storylines. You understand the character's motivations, you're invested in the stories because they are simple but realistic, and the wrestlers are given the freedom to express themselves creatively. Those who can handle that quickly rise to the top, whilst those that can't disappear. NXT rewards the most talented and interesting performers - Raw and to a lesser extent Smackdown punish those same performers if they don't conform to the "WWE way" and keep beating them down until they either get with the program and become just another guy/girl, or fail to adapt and get buried. Oh yeah, having them start off by feuding with heels made ZERO sense. Also from memory they didn't even win their first official match. I'm sure it was a DQ or something. I actually also forgot to mention the hilariously bad and childish names. T-Bar, Mace, Slapjack... then Lawler stating that T-Bar stands for "That Boy Ain't Right". It was like they were trying to turn them into a joke on purpose. I actually think Dio Madden/Mace has kind of a cool look and mannerisms. That chararcter could work as a singles competitor. As part of this group not so much. Problem with WWE is that they simply cannot do any kind of "invasion" storyline properly, going all the way back to the original invasion back in 2001. I won't even go into how they fucked up The Nexus. Retribution didn't quite have the same hot start but it was the same basic formula, followed by WWE doing their usual and turning the invaders into glorified jobbers who are quickly proven to be no real threat. It happens every time and I don't understand why they keep doing it. In fairness to Goldberg he's a lot better at promos now than he used to be. Still nothing amazing, but he seems a lot more comfortable behind a mic now than he was 15-20 years ago. Really though his character was never about talking. It was just about appearing, smashing through people and leaving. Not a character with much of a shelf life but a star that burned brightly for a while. That's all he needs to be in WWE. Show up, do a few spears and jackhammers, leave. Maybe every so often have him squash a small time heel to get their comeuppance over something. That's it. I think it's already costing them to some degree. You only have to look at their ratings and audience share as proof of that. They do well in the 50+ demographic but not so well in any of the others. I think Dynamite actually beat Raw in the 18-35 demo a few weeks back. They get ratings spikes when the legends come in because they've trained their audience to believe attitude era guys >>>> any modern talent. It's a really backwards way of thinking and it's not going to be a pit that is easy for them to crawl out of, especially considering how they have decimated their younger viewership over the past decade.

I just wouldn't have Goldberg in matches at all. I don't think it's helpful to anybody. As an enforcer backing someone up? Cool. Anything that stops him from being in an actual match. In fairness I didn't have a problem with his first run back in the company, but it should have ended there. Different topic but I watched The Resurrection of Jake the Snake for the first time yesterday. I highly, highly recommend it to anybody who hasn't seen it yet. Had me tearing up more than once which is very rare!

I'd go for the latter, if it was up to me. Goldberg is the type of character that will become worthless pretty quickly if he starts losing to mid-card talent. The only way he maintains his aura is by continuing to look extremely strong. He can get away with the occasional losses to people like Undertaker and McIntyre, but can you imagine if he was beaten by the likes of Xavier Woods, The Miz, Ricochet or Apollo? You might as well just retire him.

Yep, normally if there's one part of the year to rely on for WWE to have decent shows it's the period between January - April. Not necessarily all great but some interesting stuff happening at some levels at least. Raw has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that interests me. Not one thing. If people enjoy the whole Fiend/Bliss nonsense then I guess they can latch onto that, but I do not. What makes it worse is that this has been happening for years now. Anybody brought up from NXT is instantly devalued within the space of a few weeks and made to feel like just another guy on the roster. They've even achieved that with Keith Lee. It's amazing - like getting over is not the objective at all, and instead trying to bury every NXT callup in the goal. In the right storyline the Hurt Business could be a very cool faction. Retribution were DOA, pretty much. The stupid masks and promos, the child-level idea of 'anarchy', the nonsensical decision of WWE signing them to contracts, their lack of storyline direction or purpose... it just sucks on any and all metrics. Every member of that group is talented, they deserve much better than this. I found it weird when Goldberg stormed out to confront Drew and ranted about him disrespecting legends when nothing of the sort had been shown. It made no sense. Turns out they ran out of time and McIntyre never got to the part of the promo Goldberg was meant to be responding to. But Goldberg talked about it as if Drew had delivered the missing part of his promo. Amateur hour and sets the tone for everything else. Goldberg still has a great look and still works as a destroyer, but that's all he should be. A guy who shows up every so often to spear and jackhammer annoying heels like Miz and Morrison to put them in their place. He has no business being in title matches, and jobbing the Fiend out to him in early 2020 was one of the worst booking decisions I've ever seen. I think McIntyre will beat Goldberg, but it's not been much of a buildup considering Goldberg hasn't been around due to his part-time schedule. Even if Drew hadn't been out with COVID I don't think Goldberg would have shown up until next week anyway. Just a huge indictment on the company's inability to build new superstars. Encapsulated this week by having the modern version of AJ Styles in Ricochet be defeated by the 43 year old original who has said he's planning to retire in a couple of years anyway!

Smackdown is a decent show at the moment - helped by Roman Reigns' excellent heel turn and general storyline. I think it helps that it's only two hours. Raw's three hour run time makes it feel like a drag. With that said, even if you cut Raw to two hours it would still mostly be shit based on current storylines.If you look at this week's Raw... Orton begins the show with a ten minute promo that felt like ten hours. Should have been three of four minutes maximum. Also claims the Fiend and Bliss burned him to try and stop him winning the Rumble... right. Nothing to do with setting the Fiend on fire a few weeks back. Some strange logic going on there. Charlotte Vs Royce and the whole Lacey Evans/Ric Flair storyline... eh, it's fine I guess. I can't say I particularly care but it isn't horrible. Matt Riddle - for some reason turned into an insufferable douche. Woods Vs Mace - anything with Retribution involved instantly sucks. Awful group that should have been dissolved weeks ago. Actually, should have been dissolved at the creative meetings before the angle even started. Also Mace's finisher looked like shit. I assume he botched it. Alexa Bliss/Asuka stuff - painful to watch. Asuka comes out of this looking like a joke, and as I mentioned before the hokey nonsense surrounding Bliss is just stupid. So we're supposed to believe the Fiend is now possessing Bliss, assumedly from beyond the grave, and she becomes invincible when she's possessed. I mean... it's not really any worse than what we've seen previously from the Fiend, but I find all of that ridiculous too. Baszler/Jax/Mandy Rose/Dana Brooke stuff - who cares? How difficult is it to book Shana Baszler well? Why is she stuck in this boring odd-couple pairing with Nia Jax? AJ Styles Vs Ricochet - a good match, but WWE have buried Ricochet to the point of total irrelevency. The Dirt Sheet w/Miz, Morrison, Gillberg and fake McIntyre - Miz and Morrison are annoying. The bait and switch with Goldberg/Gillberg is a shitty move. Fake McIntyre wasn't funny. None of this was entertaining. Hurt Business/Riddle & Lucha House Party - The Hurt Business are a good faction but have nothing worthwhile going on storyline wise. I don't care about Lucha House Party and Riddle has been made into just another guy, albeit also a total bellend backstage. Seems way too early to be teasing friction and problems in the Hurt Business. Cedric hasn't even been in the group that long. Jeff Hardy/Elias/Jaxson Ryker... BORING. Terrible use of Hardy. So basically 13 minutes or so of good stuff with Styles & Ricochet, and that's it. I can understand not being able to hit a home run with every segment, but barely being able to produce anything entertaining in three hours in some achievement.

I think that's the key. We need a manager who can not only make the team better than the sum of its parts, but also somebody who can get these inconsistent players performing with a level of consistency. I think the raw talent exists in the team for a top six push, even with the defence as it is, but without a proper winner in the dugout demanding 100% week-in week-out we aren't going to get anywhere close. Not too dissimilar to how it was under Bowyer.

I tried to sit through Raw this week but it was really tough. How have they made it even worse than it was a couple of months ago? The Alexa Bliss stuff is so hokey and stupid. It's like the writers from Lucha Underground are in charge.