It's all about how they're packaged chief. Mick Foley was an overweight, ugly dude whose claim to fame was having half his ear ripped off. The Hardy Boyz were just two scrawny kids with southern drawls. The Dudleyz were/are just a black guy and a fat dude from New York. Hell, even Stone Cold was just a bald guy in black trunks. I bet there weren't many people pegging him as a star when he was "the Ringmaster". It's all about marketing and having the right gimmick. I have no doubt that the majority of the roster could be much more entertaining if they were let off the leash, but they never will be. WWE doesn't need to do that any more. What you've described doesn't sound like NXT to me pal, sorry. It sounds like ROH or TNA. It's funny you mention JR, one of the biggest problems WWE has is their announce team. Annoying, fake, boring and extremely uncool. JBL has his moments, but Saxton is bland and Cole is Cole. These guys really struggle to make anything seem important, and it's hard to take any of them particularly seriously.

I agree that the corporate stuff gets tiresome. WWE seems kind of soulless these days, which is a shame because there is legitimate talent across the brand. The likes of Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Bray Wyatt, Kevin Owens, CM Punk and Daniel Bryan could easily have fit into the Attitude Era and become every bit as successful as the guys Phil listed in the post above mine. It sucks in some ways that these guys are wrestling in such a stale era, but worth noting WWE and wrestling in general is probably as good as it's ever been when it comes to overall safety and workers' health. In that regard these guys have got it a lot better than those that came before them. I wouldn't call NXT like the independents. It's very much story based, with the big matches being saved for the PPV's. WWE use NXT to prepare their talent for Raw and Smackdown, so it would make no sense for the show to mirror the Independent scene and for matches to be spotfests. If that is what you think NXT is then I have to assume you haven't watched it much if at all. The women's division in NXT alone is absolutely phenomenal. They bring in a lot of independent workers to see if they're able to adapt to the WWE style. It is probably best likened to the popular times before the Attitude Era - simpler stories which still managed to get people interested, with big blowoff matches at the PPV events.

I'd rather he scored a winner for them. What a time to start losing their bottle.

It's a fair summation of some of the problems that exist. The biggest issue is the lack of competition. As soon as WCW folded, that was the beginning of the end. TNA put up a little bit of a fight (they even went head to head with Raw on Mondays for a few months in 2010) but ultimately WWE is simply too big to compete against. To most fans WWE is wrestling, and nothing else matters. The internet is where WWE is focusing now, so of course NXT being popular there is relevant. The Network is where WWE is placing a massive part of their future hopes, and there's no doubt NXT is a big draw to that. I read an article about six months ago which said NXT was either the most popular or second most popular feature on the WWE Network. It sounds like you haven't really given NXT a chance chief. Or perhaps you're more into the Attitude Era than pro wrestling itself? You wouldn't be alone, the 3-4 million missing viewers in the US alone from that time period were certainly more Attitude Era fans than wrestling fans.

WWE has its moments, but by and large it's a pretty poor product these days. I rarely watch it unless something big happens. NXT is the show to watch. Top talent and storylines that are much more grounded in the basics of what made pro wrestling worth watching. It's just a shame that when NXT talent get called up to the "big leagues" of Raw and Smackdown they inevitably get saddled with bad gimmicks or get jobbed out to the regulars.

There's a lot of fantastic talent coming through, some of whom will hopefully take Bryan's place. I still can't get over seeing AJ Styles in WWE. I watched TNA for a long time during their better years, so it's a little off putting seeing AJ on Raw. I hope they give him the respect he deserves.

Never really got the whole YES movement, but sad for DB nonetheless. Haven't seen somebody as over as he was since the days of Austin and The Rock. Thought his WWE career was patchy with some crazy highs but also long periods of lows. Pre-WWE he was one of if not the best performer out there.

Yes, I don't really count that as the modern game though! I mean more in the last twenty five years or so, after the influx of money and the massive advantage it's given the likes of Man United, and later Chelsea, Man City, etc.

Without question. We were considered genuine title challengers in 94/95, Leicester were being pegged for the drop and Ranieri as the first manager to get the sack at the start of the season. Not sure there's a precedent anywhere in the modern game.

Another loss for G Nev at Valencia. Deary me.

I didn't want Graham either, but as always hopes he proves me wrong. Get the feeling he's a busted flush but if so then we simply don't sign him in the summer I suppose.

Yet we always manage to concede, which is a problem. 7 league games without a clean sheet now.

The last half of this season was going to be a struggle with or without Jordan. Our pitiful performances have never been down to one man, the team as a collective are very poor and Lambert has not been able to improve the players Bowyer left for him. We have to trust that Graham, Watt, Bennett, Jackson, Gomez and Ward will bring a completely different element to the overall squad and improve the sad nature of our displays up until this point. I'm not sure we can expect too much from them, though. Most of them will have been sold to us because they weren't good enough for their previous clubs - though at least we can say a few of them have come from the league above, rather than teams around us.

Indeed. Has there been a transfer in recent times where part of the clause has been "but they can't play against us?" ... loans aside. It just doesn't happen. Rhodes will probably be on the bench today anyway.

Or perhaps Neville should be considered a reminder that talking about management and actually doing it are very different things.

Oh dear. Valencia's President finding out the hard way that hiring your mates isn't usually the best way to do business.

Bolton badly needed the cash, so bad news for them that they didn't sell anybody. I don't think any of the teams below us have really strengthened, and we will hopefully have enough about us to stay up.

Nintendo have always targeted younger gamers. SEGA managed to break into the untapped market of older gamers in the early 90's with the Mega Drive/Genesis, but the NES/SNES were always geared towards kids. The N64 deviated from that to an extent, but the Gamecube and especially the Wii went right back to Nintendo's roots of games for kids. With the Wii U flopping, they may make one last attempt at the older market with their new console, but that will be very difficult with the XBox One and PS4 having such a tight grip on the mature gaming scene. The Saturn was designed as a 2D console with 3D backgrounds, it was only when SEGA saw what Sony and Nintendo were up to with full 3D that they realised they had made a massive mistake and threw in a second processor to, in theory, enable full 3D on the Saturn too. Problem is, they never told the developers how to use that second processor to create 3D games. They probably didn't even know themselves. Most of the Saturn's best games are largely 2D based, as that was what the console was originally intended for. Funnily enough, despite bombing everywhere else, the Saturn was a relative success in Japan and support wasn't officially discontinued for it there until 2001! Hence most of the platform's best games were only ever released in Japan.

It was never likely to be Jose. Not right now. Still too many bad memories lingering from his last stint at Madrid.

Looks like Benitez is set to be sacked by Madrid. Zidane lined up to replace him if the media are to be believed...

Typical of Bowyer's Boys to be fair. Get close then utterly bottle it. Get rid of as many of these losers as possible, please, before they drag us back into a relegation fight.

RIP Lemmy. Shared a mosh pit with him about 10 years ago in a rock/metal club in Ipswich. Crazy bloke, but lived his life as he saw fit and nothing but respect for that.

A right back, two centre midfielders, a wide man and a striker are the very least we require to replace/challenge Henley, Guffrie, Akpan, Marshall, Koita, Brown and Rhodes. Ideally we'd get rid of at least 75% of those players in the process, but doubt there will be many takers.

Thought he retired years ago! What a player though. A huge part of our renaissance in the early 00's.

Sticking with FM15 for now. Probably won't get FM16, as I was still playing FM11 until I finally picked up FM15! Probably won't be such a long time before I get a newer one this time, but my next one will probably be 17 or 18. For anybody interested, Sony/Square released a short teaser for the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 remake: