My biggest issue with the booking of this PPV was that three of the matches were built in a way that Raw should have lost, those being Seth vs. Shinsuke (due to the Dean Ambrose situation), and the men's and women's survivor series matches (due to the massive amounts of infighting in the Raw teams compared to the Smackdown teams). If one of these three matches had gone Raw's way, sure, that would be fine, but to have so many matches on one PPV built in such a way, just made everything feel worse. It would be one thing to see Smackdown swept by a united, focused force, but to have them be swept by a roster that was distracted, divided, and at times actively minimizing their own teams' chances of victory, just makes Smackdown look pathetic and unbelievably weak. The fact that we're going to inevitably have to endure Stephanie's further castration of the Smackdown roster just adds to the frustration.
In the Women's Survivor Series match, I was actually expecting Sasha or Bailey "accidentally" hurting Nia and Smackdown winning as a result. I'm also now afraid that we will not get Becky vs. Rhonda at Wrestlemania but rather, as we always feared, Charlotte vs. Rhonda.
Lol. I was thinking of another verse: Braun Strowman, Braun Strowman, Braun Strowman hates Universe Champ, they have a fight, Braun never wins, Braun Strowman.
Yea plus I think you need to watch 205 live to understand the story of the match which Brian knocked it for. As the story is Ali has been in brutal long matches taking crazy bumps week after week. Taking a toll on his body. Much like this match. And it just caught up to him.
I admit I was thinking "what's the point of this?" when Lesnar was just ragdolling Bryan but Jesus Christ, the rest of it blew me away. It's a match you like better when you watch it a second time because the first time, you spent the first half hating it. Now when you know where it's going, the whole thing is genius.
It would have been for me, without that dumb fake pin spot. Like, Bryan didn't have any master plan. He was being legitimately squashed by Brock. If Brock had wanted, he could have won without taking a punch. If it weren't for Brock's cockiness and pure randomness with the ref spot, Bryan would have been completely dominated. Then he comes back, cheats, hits Brock with everything he has, and still loses. I had no satisfaction at all watching that match.
The Men's Survivor Series Match (aside from the early Joe elimination) was the most "so bad it's good" match. I loved Miz getting Shane to basically kill himself over and over again, Corbin playing cheerleader on the outside, and then Shane's expression when he realizes he's got three monsters to fight all by himself. Ronda vs. Charlotte was really good though. It gave me Angle/Benoit RR03 vibes.
@@stingersplash he was getting the biggest babyface reaction at every event I attended. He was getting chants on shows that he wasn't even booked on. He was more over as a babyface than anyone else in the company. He may not have been booked as the biggest babyface, but neither was Becky until the last couple weeks. But whether he was the biggest face or not, they definitely squandered it.
@mak1239 In case you haven't noticed, the "smarks" are the only audience this company has left. They've driven everyone else away with their asinine booking decisions.
I think the crowd “turned” on Rousey in the spirit of the match and the believability in which flair just destroyed her. I, like the audience became invested and suspended my disbelief. Charlotte got over by putting on a bad ass performance and it just so happened Rhonda was the brunt of that reaction. This will make both of them way more valuable and bad ass in the future. Great job to both competitors!
the WWE could be onto a gold mine with ronnie, becky, and flair. becky and flair are finally the two people who could believably make ronnie look weak. charlotte's performance last night basically proved becky's statement that ronnie "hasn't had to work for her gold" correct. she was left in a heap by just the 2nd best on smackdown's roster. so now we have becky lynch who just fire right now, flair who is fed up with everything and everyone around her, and ronnie who finally met someone in the ring better than her and couldn't come out on top. all 3 are starting a brand new chapter and it should be very intertwined in the future.
Thomas Jenkins Total gold mine for sure. I generally take my breaks from watching during the women matches...that is changing especially after the performances last night. The facial expressions and total selling of their characters in that moment was epic.
@@thejokerstyle100 it's coming close to the time that the women are going to need their own show and more than just the main titles. their rosters are already getting huge, plus what they have ready to be called up in NXT. if they did it now, it would have the star power it needs to be successful. rousey is a household name and flair is just about there just by being a flair. lynch is enough to get the main WWE fanbase to at least give it a chance.
@@mychaeljones7526 she's popular enough to survive this. it just gives her a goal to work towards in the future. just being raw champ isn't much of a story.
The Cruiserweight match was WAY better than the men's Survivor Series match; men's tag should be 2/4 and cruiserweight 3/4. I would have given Seth and Nakamura a half star more (3.5/4). And personally DBD v Bork was everything I could've asked for, and I know you gave it the perfect score but I still think you're underselling it lol.
Incognito Enzo is the funniest thing lol also my sort of explanation of why Charlotte is cheered because first off she is way better as a heel, and second people always love to cheer the bad guy.
You don't think WWE is going to squander Becky? Have you forgotten about how red-hot Strowman was before they wasted his MITB, turned him heel for a cup of coffee that would make Big Show jealous, saddled him with Ziggler and MacIntyre, then finally fed him to Brock yet again?
Hey Brian! I was just about to suggest that you do a series review of WWE's The Marine movie franchise, though I've noticed that you already have done haha! Exited to watch them all 😊
Imagine if Enzo hoped the barricade during the cruiserweight championship match took the belt and ran off.....would have been more interesting than anything else on the show
I actually think Nia using what happened to her advantage is perfect and is good for all parties. Overall pretty decent show matches as you said were from good to great but the only gripe obviously is that I just really didn't like the way they made Smackdown look like chumps and had Raw get that clean sweep I felt SD needed some of those wins. So in my opinion I was disappointed with how they handle the whole SVR dynamic of the show. Other than that I really did enjoy the show and it has me interested as to how they're gonna follow up on it. Oh and one more thing Enzo just proved how much of a clown he is trying to hijack the show like that.
Good ppv but didn't like that they made Smackdown look like total shit. In my book that was just uncalled for. Not saying they needed to have SD win but damn why make them look that weak? I hope the storyline that comes from this is worth the total shit canning of the blue brand.
The result was only logical. WWE thinks that there are people that care for brand supremacy and other "bragging rights" shit. And they think they can counter the huge superiority of SmackDown by burying the blue show in a series of worked matches.
Why not return to the old survivor series match format where rival superstars assemble their teams from both brands and just slug it out... Best survivor series matches 1. Team wwe vs the alliance 2. Team austin vs team bischoff 3. Team raw vs team smackdown (2005) 4. Team raw vs team smackdown (2016)
Raw destroyed smackdown and Vince is making a billion from the smackdown deal lol To fans dismay I don't think Vince will book Ronda vs Becky Nia will get her come uppings and Becky revenge
aDg 2k18 You pretty much say what I said, 15 years = 2002/3, when HHH became the WHC, right up until 2005 where good guy Dave won the big gold, but oh boy, Cena going to Raw was the downfall. SD! was the superior brand from the beginning to pretty much shortly after Eddie passed away. I really didn’t liked God’s Reign of Terror, but man, that era seemed even better compared to the shit we have now.
if not for the return of brand warefare with the split I dont think we'd have gotten either of the last two WWE vs Universal champion matches..also not counting on seeing Rhonda vs Becky, we're more likely to get Sonya vs Rhonda...
Pretty sure Nia winning had more to do with the fact that she will be in line for a title shot and building her up take a loss to Roussey. Most likely at TLC.
People shit on Lesnar for phoning it in, but deep down he has respect for a chosen few. For Styles last year and Bryan this year, he has shown nothing but respect for those two.
The whole "WWE playing up Nia Jax's heel heat by botch punching Becky" thing reminded me on how Chris Benoit got "The Crippler" nickname by accidentally breaking Sabu's neck.
The insane Becky love is so extreme that they’re cheering for Charlotte during a heel turn because she’s beating up somebody who was booked to face Becky. Like getting booked against Becky in a match that didn’t even happen is enough to basically turn someone heel. Insanity.
As someone who doesn't really follow the current WWE, the lack of tension from the brand scorecard wasn't very noticeable. I can understand someone who follows the WWE would definitely feel that it lacked something because of the sweep. But the outsider perspective is that it wasn't that big of a deal. Just to throw that out there.
The reason they cheered Charlotte is because in terms of a lot of fans feelings Smackdown are the face underdogs and raw are the disgusting heels Which is why I think this show was so bad they squashed the face and didn't even give them one win that counted
So need to make that a finishing move for a caw on 2k, the gimmick is the guy hates pc culture so he pushes envelope with cursing every promo til he gets over and turns face
I think people are just getting tiered of UFC fighters getting pushed of the rest of the roster. The reaction to Rousey getting beat like a mule and the groans every time Leaner wins see me to say so at least
I doubt Vince was thinking about his favorite show when booking this show... The Raw Sweep feels like nothing more than setup for groan-inducing "Blue Wave?" jokes...
Reason Ronda gets booed is because the mma/wwe fans hate her. The wwe fans that don't watch mma just think shes a big deal from UFC, but she's hated by UFC fans. She was a bully, disrespectful, disrespected opponents after the match, then when she finally lost, she cried like a baby and went on oprah for sympathy.
Kwert if booked right they have a great story . I’m thinking Charlotte Ronda Becky to main event wrestlemania if they do it right but there’s a good chance wwe will ruin it because they didn’t create this . It kinda fell on their lap so they won’t know what to do.
@@TheOlympicHero1 Daniel Bryan and the Miz was a feud that also fell right into their laps. They had a chance to hold onto something great for Mania, but even DBry knew to be skeptical about their ability to actually do so. And guess what, now nobody gives a shit about the program he had with the Miz.
@@TheOlympicHero1 Yeah, only after months of "Boo-tista". And it very nearly didn't happen. Cause Vince doesn't give a shit what the fans want, aka Roman's eternal push at the expense of everyone else.
I don't understand why so many people are so baffled by the crowd reaction to Ronda/Charlotte. The crowd had been DYING to see Charlotte as a heel- its just where she belongs. She's a FLAIR! I think people just wanna cheer for Becky and we have all known that the WWE trying to get CF sympathy was never gonna work, because Charlotte is too good. She doesn't need that.
I think people were behind Charlotte because she was in a way a representative of Becky. "She did it for Becky" in a sense. Or maybe they were a lot of Smackdown fans and seeing that the brand was not getting any wins tonight, they at least welcomed this "win" of Charlotte.
@@dhenderson1810 Yeah. It's the problem with WWE nowadays.Angles are dropped faster than they are made. And even though making Becky heel and Charlotte face was a mistake, they could still reverse the roles without them becoming friends. But maybe it was a mistake by Becky, hugging her real life friend off script, ignoring that they are supposed to hate each other.
The crowd cheer because it's the attitude era style of balls to the wall and never backing down... that's why we cheer for what seems to be the bad guy but it's "WHAT'S BEST FOR BUSINESS"...GOT IT
I don't wanna see Becky get her revenge on Nia, I just don't want to see Nia ever again. Apart from being just extremely unsafe, she's also a horrible wrestler who's going over much more talented women, like Asuka for example.
I totally agree. She should've never had the opportunity to injure Becky, because she shouldn't be wrestling on this high a level at all. She's god awful at every part of pro wrestling. Her promos are like listening to a 7 year old on the playground, she uses being completely out of shape as a "gimmick," and she knows maybe 3 moves total. Hair biel, no-sell, hair biel, hair biel, shitty leg drop, samoan drop. I was sick of her as soon as she debuted. I can't wait until Becky wipes that stupid smile off her stupid face.
True but didn't Nia lose to Asuka a couple times earlier this year? She only beat Asuka once and that was at SS. They're only keeping Nia strong for this Women's title match at TLC.
You put Charlotte/Rhonda over big time and yes the main event was so much better than expected, but the former would have been perfect if Charlotte didn't get DQ'ed. But great video!
I honestly don’t care about anyone on 205 Live apart from the ones that appear on Raw, I know they are good wrestlers and all, but I need them to have characters and show them before I start caring
As for the lack of tension due to the Raw sweep, perhaps next year's Survivor Series could instead be based on a point system, rather than each match being counted only once. Then one brand could get the majority of matches but still have the final match be the final decider.
The La fans cheered the heel Charlotte for beating the hell out of the babyface Ronda and they call Canada bizarro world. They should turn Ronda hell and put her in a stable with Baszler, Duke and Shafir and have them run roughshod over Raw really make that women's title white hot because before Ronda got it that belt was a meaningless prop. Maybe even use that as the opportunity to create the women's tag team titles. Survivor Series was a solid B but Takeover was an A-.
ikr? I didn't get it either, fans have booing Charlotte for months now, NOW they love her? They even chanted "You deserve it!" to Ronda too. Ronda really did look taken aback by those chants too.
I disagree I think it was because she was wrestling *for* Becky. So the Nia Jax heat from earlier, carried into this match. And thanks to Twitter feud Rhonda has been de facto blamed for the injury as well. And how is takeover not an A+ 😂
I was laughing so hard at Paul Heyman when Brock was getting beat down. Particularly the end when Paul and Brock are walking up the ramp and Paul says “I don’t like him.... I don’t like him at all”
I don't know but i feel like the ending of the Charlotte/Ronda match wasn't changed after Becky Lynch was replaced. It would make more sense for Becky to snap like that than Charlotte. Especially since it came out of nowhere. But i guess we'll have to see how they explain it on Tuesday.
@@dhenderson1810 I'm pretty sure that is what they are going for in the long run. But if i remember correctly, Rondas friends, Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir were only signed to the performance center earlier this year. So they won't be ready for quiet some time. And considering the fact that they are all on different Brands at the moment, it's gonna be difficult to create a coherent storyline. Since they won't be able to interact with each other. So if that's what they were going for, it's a bit premature.
No, Brian. I believe the reason for the Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno segment was because they were supposed to tape a match in New York on Thursday for this week's TV and the show was canceled due to bad weather. Yes, they could have just pretaped it before War Games but to my knowledge, the next few weeks of TV were to be from Thursday's house shows in New York and San Jose.
Because they have to do something with survivor series and have no other options because they are bereft of ideas. But at least raw usually wins 4-3 or something.
I still prefer the survivor series two years ago where raw and smackdown trade wins back and forth, raw wins the women and tag team survivor series matches while smackdown wins the men's survivor series match and the interpromotional match between the miz and sami zayn
i am sad no one got their hands on Enzo and put him in a room with Lesnar for 5 minutes, Take care of it the oldschool way. The last two matches saved the show. Very enjoyable matches to watch. Ronda and Charlotte the MVP's of the night. So proud of both women. This leaves me with a dilemma tho. I want Becky vs Ronda @ mania,but after tonight. There is also a case to me made to do a rematch from last night. Everything else on the show was pretty lackluster.
@@darriongray2013 Maybe never say never i suppose,but personally i don't wanna see that. I am not a fan of Triple threat matches. At least not the way WWE books these multi person matches. it's always two in the ring and the other is sleeping for 10 minutes. That is not the format i like when it comes to multi men matches.
Can someone explain the crowd's reaction to Charlotte vs Ronda because I'm really lost. I expected people to boo Charlotte because she took Becky's spot but she got cheered when she entered ! I just don't understand why the crowd booed Ronda, especially in her homestate
Regarding your confusion about why the crowd cheered Charlotte, I think the crowd was just a blatantly pro-Smackdown crowd, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Ronda honestly isn't that bad. In the ring, or on the mic. People hating her the way they do is so absurd. Saying she's bad in the ring, comparing her to Shayna Baszler... (which is dumb.) They're both fantastic. :)
Only thing I disliked apart from having to suffer through 90 minutes of Brock Lesnar doing the same move (at least his Crown Jewel and Summerslam turds were short), is that Charlotte and Ronda didn't really throw each other enough. It was mostly a submission match, and I really like how both of these women throw; sure, Ronda did a few arm drags, but I'd to see Charlotte take a bunch of judo hip tosses from Rousey and her suplexing Ronda till tomorrow. Was also pleasantly surprised by cruiserweights since I am so used to luchas and their constant Botchamanias. Overall, a breath of fresh air after the Saudi disaster where the only good work were the Dolph Ziggler matches.
Honestly with just how good the matches were I didn't even notice Raw was winning em all till it was 3-1. Was fresh match ups and really made me feel they could maybe look into ending the brand split, or plan more PPVs where the brands fight. Cause with CJ and now this, it really was just fresh match ups with little to no build, but just on freshness alone it elevated every match.
The whole RAW sweeping things sure will have implications, but what the WWE is conditioning the audience to is that every single person on Smackdown are losers and not worth their time. Who cares if smackdown gets their proverbial shit together just to get squashed by someone like Drew or Braun. Look at what they did so far to get Braun over. Burring a whole tag division, so don't even pay attention to them, all of them combined is weaker than one guy. A large contingent of your other brands male talent. Its laughable that to get one guy over, that just gets to look like a chump against Lesnar time and time again, which in turn makes all those he squashed look even worse. to get one guy over they "sacrifice" 10+ other people.
I really wanna see Ronda vs Charlotte again, sure they’re on different shows but after their brutal match I wanna see more of it I stopped watching wwe for a bit and was hearing a lot about this PPV and I was never really a big fan of Charlotte but after this match with Ronda I just really wanted to see more, I hope they follow up on this
If your going to pay Brock Lesnar all this money why doesn’t he have matches like this all the time? Matches like this are what makes me want to pay to see him not one sided beat downs and F-5 only matches.
Nia needed to win in the fashion she did in order to increase her heat till her eventual match with Becky (if she lost, her heat would diminish rapidly); Rollins had to win in order to keep looking strong going into his feud with Dean (Nakamura isn't in a feud, so the loss doesn't hurt him); AOP needed to win in order to look like a legitimate threat, due to the way they won the titles (The Bar played the Face role, you can tell because Cesaro did The Swing and Sheamus did the 10 Beats of the Bodhran); Murphy needed to win because it was his first PPV title defense; Team RAW needed to win to play into Strowman's story with Corbin and Lesnar; Rousey needed to win because she has to stay undefeated until her match with Becky; and Lesnar had to win...well, because he's Lesnar. People can complain all they want about the "clean sweep", but ANY SmackDown victory would've done more harm than good. All the victories made sense. I thoroughly enjoyed SS. There were only 2 things I didn't care for (I didn't hate them), that was the aforementioned Drake Maverick spot (although I understand that it was to cause a distraction so AOP can get the victory) and Carmella's Dance Break, which would've made more sense if she had been attacked during it and eliminated that way.
To explain the crowd reaction to the Flair/Rousey finish: people appreciate it when WWE doesn't treat them like children. When they give us some Attitude Era shit we tend to like it.
I could imagine a few reasons for Charlottes Heel turn being cheered: 1) The crowd might not have necessarily liked Raws dominance in the Matches with them going clean sweep (aside the pre-show and seemingly smackdown winning there was a miscommunication), and seeing the Raw Women's Champion getting utterly destroyed might have helped to reduce that feeling a bit. 2) Heel Charlotte is better than face Charlotte.
Couldn't disagree more with your take on Nia. She's hurt to many people and we just don't want to see her at all. At the very least, there needs to be real life repercussions for being sloppy and putting other people at risk; slotting her into a high profile feud with the best of the women's division sends the absolutely wrong signal.
I’m sorry I disagree on Bryan vs lesnar, for me it got good at the end but to say the match as a whole was the match of the night is just not true,for me it was Ronda vs Charlotte because from beginning to end it was chaos unlike lesnar and Bryan
10 minutes of Brock screaming in his tinny voice while doing the same one throw he knows to Daniel Bryan who oversells it, does nothing, then kicks him in the balls... the only worse recent WWE matches I remember were "You All Suck" boo-fest of Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns at Summerslam (but at least it was short), and him doing his other move he learned from Sable to Braun Strowman (which is easily the worst WWE match of the decade) 125 times and nothing else. So, yes, compared to other Brock Lesnar matches this one was totally the best. But that's like picking the least smelling turd from the pile of creative control forced pushes. Compared to literally anything else at 2018 Survivor Series, from acrobatic cruiserweight performance to Shane Mac's insane jumps to even women's tag team, it was a waste of time. Brock Lesnar is the new Hulk Hogan, the way his matches go, the next Wrestlemania main event will be him doing the finger poke of doom.
Didn,t liked the Drake MAverick thing. I understand he's supposed to be kind of a coward but...he's not just a random person or someone with no autority, he's 205 Live General manager and AOP Manager. Why would AOP, two mosnter's and tag team champion would want a dude who's pissing himself as their managers? Why would the 205 Live roster have any kind of respect for him. I understand it's meant as a distraction for the heels to win and as a''wow that really happend'' thing but I just don't think you should be doing this with someone like Drake Maverick.
BADA BOOM, THEY THREW HIM OUTTA THE ROOM
Jordan Frost and YOU CAN TEACH THAT
No,you actually can
Lmao
They did?
Jordan Frost HOW YOU DOIN’?!
Oh right...
Lol
Enzo amore tried to do the 2k19 MyCareer invasion but failed
How original !
Nice bro
Hia SuS 😂😂😂😂
@Hey Zeus it's the most ridiculous one tho but it worked better than enzo's lol
He needed Cole Quinn! Can't do it without Black hole Cole.
That head piece Enzo is wearing reminds me of that thing Kurt Angle wore after that Shave Your Head match in 2002.
He stole it on his way out of wwe lol
Omg you're so right!!😂😂😂😂
what thing that kurt wore? that was his real hair. don't disrespect an olympic hero with false accusations.
lmaooo
@@darriongray2013 "Oh it's true, it's DAMN true!"
My biggest issue with the booking of this PPV was that three of the matches were built in a way that Raw should have lost, those being Seth vs. Shinsuke (due to the Dean Ambrose situation), and the men's and women's survivor series matches (due to the massive amounts of infighting in the Raw teams compared to the Smackdown teams). If one of these three matches had gone Raw's way, sure, that would be fine, but to have so many matches on one PPV built in such a way, just made everything feel worse.
It would be one thing to see Smackdown swept by a united, focused force, but to have them be swept by a roster that was distracted, divided, and at times actively minimizing their own teams' chances of victory, just makes Smackdown look pathetic and unbelievably weak.
The fact that we're going to inevitably have to endure Stephanie's further castration of the Smackdown roster just adds to the frustration.
Why would Stephanie talk to the Smackdown roster? She's the RAW authority figure. Shane is the Smackdown one. And Shane was in the damn match.
@@Ashannon888 "Why would Stephanie..." and who ever said she would talk to the Smackdown roster. She already emasculated them.
In the Women's Survivor Series match, I was actually expecting Sasha or Bailey "accidentally" hurting Nia and Smackdown winning as a result.
I'm also now afraid that we will not get Becky vs. Rhonda at Wrestlemania but rather, as we always feared, Charlotte vs. Rhonda.
I loved Daniel's smile in the ring at the very end. Brock looked like he was dying but Daniel was smiling. Perfect!
Somebody call Stone Cold Soap. Enzo needs a bath badly.
"WASH UP!!!"
“GUD DAMN, KID!”
Wash up son, cause Stone Cold said so
lmfaoo
You cant clean that
a wild enzo appeared, throws security ball, it fled
Use master ball next time.
11:06 Braun Strowman, Braun Strowman, Braun Strowman hates Shane Mcmahon. They have a fight, Strowman wins, Braun Strowman.
Lol. I was thinking of another verse:
Braun Strowman, Braun Strowman, Braun Strowman hates Universe Champ, they have a fight, Braun never wins, Braun Strowman.
Good job bro
They Might Be Giants!!!
The Cruiserweight Title Match was a good match
So did intergender match with enzo
great match i'm glad this match was not in the pre-show
Yea plus I think you need to watch 205 live to understand the story of the match which Brian knocked it for. As the story is Ali has been in brutal long matches taking crazy bumps week after week. Taking a toll on his body. Much like this match. And it just caught up to him.
@@wisewolftony I do watch 205 live
yeah Brian underscored it, even though I think he was right about Mustafa not being likely to win...
I admit I was thinking "what's the point of this?" when Lesnar was just ragdolling Bryan but Jesus Christ, the rest of it blew me away. It's a match you like better when you watch it a second time because the first time, you spent the first half hating it. Now when you know where it's going, the whole thing is genius.
It would have been for me, without that dumb fake pin spot. Like, Bryan didn't have any master plan. He was being legitimately squashed by Brock. If Brock had wanted, he could have won without taking a punch. If it weren't for Brock's cockiness and pure randomness with the ref spot, Bryan would have been completely dominated. Then he comes back, cheats, hits Brock with everything he has, and still loses. I had no satisfaction at all watching that match.
The Men's Survivor Series Match (aside from the early Joe elimination) was the most "so bad it's good" match. I loved Miz getting Shane to basically kill himself over and over again, Corbin playing cheerleader on the outside, and then Shane's expression when he realizes he's got three monsters to fight all by himself.
Ronda vs. Charlotte was really good though. It gave me Angle/Benoit RR03 vibes.
I found this video on Reddit of Enzo getting kicked off the plane and then someone saying ”How You Doin?”. Enzo just smiled and walked off
"Becky is the biggest Babyface in the company, I don't think they're gonna squander that."
Rusev Day anyone?
He was never the biggest babyface.
@@stingersplash he was getting the biggest babyface reaction at every event I attended. He was getting chants on shows that he wasn't even booked on. He was more over as a babyface than anyone else in the company. He may not have been booked as the biggest babyface, but neither was Becky until the last couple weeks. But whether he was the biggest face or not, they definitely squandered it.
@mak1239 In case you haven't noticed, the "smarks" are the only audience this company has left. They've driven everyone else away with their asinine booking decisions.
Bayley is a better example because
That thumbnail though. Sums up the whole ppv 😂
I think the crowd “turned” on Rousey in the spirit of the match and the believability in which flair just destroyed her. I, like the audience became invested and suspended my disbelief. Charlotte got over by putting on a bad ass performance and it just so happened Rhonda was the brunt of that reaction. This will make both of them way more valuable and bad ass in the future. Great job to both competitors!
the WWE could be onto a gold mine with ronnie, becky, and flair. becky and flair are finally the two people who could believably make ronnie look weak. charlotte's performance last night basically proved becky's statement that ronnie "hasn't had to work for her gold" correct. she was left in a heap by just the 2nd best on smackdown's roster. so now we have becky lynch who just fire right now, flair who is fed up with everything and everyone around her, and ronnie who finally met someone in the ring better than her and couldn't come out on top. all 3 are starting a brand new chapter and it should be very intertwined in the future.
Thomas Jenkins Total gold mine for sure. I generally take my breaks from watching during the women matches...that is changing especially after the performances last night. The facial expressions and total selling of their characters in that moment was epic.
@@thejokerstyle100 it's coming close to the time that the women are going to need their own show and more than just the main titles. their rosters are already getting huge, plus what they have ready to be called up in NXT. if they did it now, it would have the star power it needs to be successful. rousey is a household name and flair is just about there just by being a flair. lynch is enough to get the main WWE fanbase to at least give it a chance.
@@mychaeljones7526 she's popular enough to survive this. it just gives her a goal to work towards in the future. just being raw champ isn't much of a story.
@@mychaeljones7526 everyone came out of that match way more over...can't wait to see more!
The Cruiserweight match was WAY better than the men's Survivor Series match; men's tag should be 2/4 and cruiserweight 3/4. I would have given Seth and Nakamura a half star more (3.5/4). And personally DBD v Bork was everything I could've asked for, and I know you gave it the perfect score but I still think you're underselling it lol.
Incognito Enzo is the funniest thing lol also my sort of explanation of why Charlotte is cheered because first off she is way better as a heel, and second people always love to cheer the bad guy.
I’ve been waiting for your review all day long. Greetings from Belgium!
You don't think WWE is going to squander Becky? Have you forgotten about how red-hot Strowman was before they wasted his MITB, turned him heel for a cup of coffee that would make Big Show jealous, saddled him with Ziggler and MacIntyre, then finally fed him to Brock yet again?
Braun's case is very different..
Becky turned Rhonda heel without even being in the match.. She possessed Charlotte !
Hey Brian! I was just about to suggest that you do a series review of WWE's The Marine movie franchise, though I've noticed that you already have done haha! Exited to watch them all 😊
Imagine if Enzo hoped the barricade during the cruiserweight championship match took the belt and ran off.....would have been more interesting than anything else on the show
Antnony GableGate LMFAO
Buddy and Mustafa would have beat the fuck outta him 😂😂
He could of had fat ass cass help him lol
THAT would be great!!!😂
lol that would've been funny af xD
I actually think Nia using what happened to her advantage is perfect and is good for all parties. Overall pretty decent show matches as you said were from good to great but the only gripe obviously is that I just really didn't like the way they made Smackdown look like chumps and had Raw get that clean sweep I felt SD needed some of those wins. So in my opinion I was disappointed with how they handle the whole SVR dynamic of the show. Other than that I really did enjoy the show and it has me interested as to how they're gonna follow up on it.
Oh and one more thing Enzo just proved how much of a clown he is trying to hijack the show like that.
Good ppv but didn't like that they made Smackdown look like total shit. In my book that was just uncalled for. Not saying they needed to have SD win but damn why make them look that weak? I hope the storyline that comes from this is worth the total shit canning of the blue brand.
It's typical Vince trolling the fans of SDLive.
The result was only logical. WWE thinks that there are people that care for brand supremacy and other "bragging rights" shit. And they think they can counter the huge superiority of SmackDown by burying the blue show in a series of worked matches.
Why not return to the old survivor series match format where rival superstars assemble their teams from both brands and just slug it out...
Best survivor series matches
1. Team wwe vs the alliance
2. Team austin vs team bischoff
3. Team raw vs team smackdown (2005)
4. Team raw vs team smackdown (2016)
Raw destroyed smackdown and Vince is making a billion from the smackdown deal lol
To fans dismay I don't think Vince will book Ronda vs Becky
Nia will get her come uppings and Becky revenge
@aDg 2k18 SD! has been bad for over a decade or more, and RAW? Well, 15 years at least.
aDg 2k18 You pretty much say what I said, 15 years = 2002/3, when HHH became the WHC, right up until 2005 where good guy Dave won the big gold, but oh boy, Cena going to Raw was the downfall. SD! was the superior brand from the beginning to pretty much shortly after Eddie passed away. I really didn’t liked God’s Reign of Terror, but man, that era seemed even better compared to the shit we have now.
@Kelltron there was none given 😁
if not for the return of brand warefare with the split I dont think we'd have gotten either of the last two WWE vs Universal champion matches..also not counting on seeing Rhonda vs Becky, we're more likely to get Sonya vs Rhonda...
Pretty sure Nia winning had more to do with the fact that she will be in line for a title shot and building her up take a loss to Roussey. Most likely at TLC.
Digging the intro jingle, more of this please.
Heel Daniel Bryan is a breath of fresh air. I don't remember the last time I saw an entertaining match with Brock in it either.
A year ago against AJ. That was the last time.
I'm been saying Daniel needed to turn heel and it is great so far
Db was summoning his inner heel punk on the way to the ring
People shit on Lesnar for phoning it in, but deep down he has respect for a chosen few. For Styles last year and Bryan this year, he has shown nothing but respect for those two.
Michael Morris exactly
Goldberg too. He really does sell well and by not doing it in every match, he makes it more effective.
The whole "WWE playing up Nia Jax's heel heat by botch punching Becky" thing reminded me on how Chris Benoit got "The Crippler" nickname by accidentally breaking Sabu's neck.
Chris who???
@@Ranuyasha Oh right. I mean unnamed wrestler who would beat Triple H and Shawn Michaels at WM 20.
only difference was that it wasn't all on Benoit, sabu took the move incorrectly
The insane Becky love is so extreme that they’re cheering for Charlotte during a heel turn because she’s beating up somebody who was booked to face Becky.
Like getting booked against Becky in a match that didn’t even happen is enough to basically turn someone heel. Insanity.
Great review Brian! I watched it all, great points about the matches and a great overall grade!
As someone who doesn't really follow the current WWE, the lack of tension from the brand scorecard wasn't very noticeable. I can understand someone who follows the WWE would definitely feel that it lacked something because of the sweep. But the outsider perspective is that it wasn't that big of a deal. Just to throw that out there.
I'm a WWE fan, and I didn't give a fuck, honestly.
The reason they cheered Charlotte is because in terms of a lot of fans feelings Smackdown are the face underdogs and raw are the disgusting heels
Which is why I think this show was so bad they squashed the face and didn't even give them one win that counted
13:02-13:06
*Another rare f bomb by Brian Zane*
Al's Variety He actually uses it quite frequently.
So need to make that a finishing move for a caw on 2k, the gimmick is the guy hates pc culture so he pushes envelope with cursing every promo til he gets over and turns face
Love your work Brian, thank you for doing what you do!
These Reviews are Very Good
I think people are just getting tiered of UFC fighters getting pushed of the rest of the roster. The reaction to Rousey getting beat like a mule and the groans every time Leaner wins see me to say so at least
I doubt Vince was thinking about his favorite show when booking this show...
The Raw Sweep feels like nothing more than setup for groan-inducing "Blue Wave?" jokes...
"Bada BOOM, Enzo's in the room HOW YOU DOIN?!?!?!?!", sorry but seeing him made my night lol.
BADA BAP BADADADA BOOM THEY SMOKED EM OUT OF THE ROOM
Reason Ronda gets booed is because the mma/wwe fans hate her. The wwe fans that don't watch mma just think shes a big deal from UFC, but she's hated by UFC fans. She was a bully, disrespectful, disrespected opponents after the match, then when she finally lost, she cried like a baby and went on oprah for sympathy.
You think WWE won't squander Becky's surge in popularity? You have a lot of faith in that company...
Kwert if booked right they have a great story . I’m thinking Charlotte Ronda Becky to main event wrestlemania if they do it right but there’s a good chance wwe will ruin it because they didn’t create this . It kinda fell on their lap so they won’t know what to do.
@@crazedmartinez to be fair, Daniel Bryan and the Yes Movement fell into their lap and they capitalized on that pretty well.
@@TheOlympicHero1 Daniel Bryan and the Miz was a feud that also fell right into their laps. They had a chance to hold onto something great for Mania, but even DBry knew to be skeptical about their ability to actually do so. And guess what, now nobody gives a shit about the program he had with the Miz.
@@TheOlympicHero1 They capitalized on it only after the fans forced them to.
@@TheOlympicHero1 Yeah, only after months of "Boo-tista". And it very nearly didn't happen. Cause Vince doesn't give a shit what the fans want, aka Roman's eternal push at the expense of everyone else.
I don't understand why so many people are so baffled by the crowd reaction to Ronda/Charlotte. The crowd had been DYING to see Charlotte as a heel- its just where she belongs. She's a FLAIR! I think people just wanna cheer for Becky and we have all known that the WWE trying to get CF sympathy was never gonna work, because Charlotte is too good. She doesn't need that.
I think people were behind Charlotte because she was in a way a representative of Becky. "She did it for Becky" in a sense. Or maybe they were a lot of Smackdown fans and seeing that the brand was not getting any wins tonight, they at least welcomed this "win" of Charlotte.
That was ridiculous as well, since Becky and Charlotte have hated each other over the last few months, now suddenly they are friends?
@@dhenderson1810 Yeah. It's the problem with WWE nowadays.Angles are dropped faster than they are made. And even though making Becky heel and Charlotte face was a mistake, they could still reverse the roles without them becoming friends. But maybe it was a mistake by Becky, hugging her real life friend off script, ignoring that they are supposed to hate each other.
The clean sweep ruined the show for me
That's laughable, never mind the fact that the show was mostly entertaining from beginning to end, but since Raw got a clean sweep, the show's awful.
Enzo turning up was hilarious 👍
The crowd cheer because it's the attitude era style of balls to the wall and never backing down... that's why we cheer for what seems to be the bad guy but it's "WHAT'S BEST FOR BUSINESS"...GOT IT
Wow... WWE really threw in our faces that Raw is the flagship brand, huh? 6-0, clean sweep (Although the Kickoff victory for SD should count, so 6-1)
Brian Zane you know the deal when it come down to whats going on with the storylines. I can follow u and make sense!
I don't wanna see Becky get her revenge on Nia, I just don't want to see Nia ever again. Apart from being just extremely unsafe, she's also a horrible wrestler who's going over much more talented women, like Asuka for example.
I totally agree. She should've never had the opportunity to injure Becky, because she shouldn't be wrestling on this high a level at all. She's god awful at every part of pro wrestling. Her promos are like listening to a 7 year old on the playground, she uses being completely out of shape as a "gimmick," and she knows maybe 3 moves total. Hair biel, no-sell, hair biel, hair biel, shitty leg drop, samoan drop. I was sick of her as soon as she debuted. I can't wait until Becky wipes that stupid smile off her stupid face.
True but didn't Nia lose to Asuka a couple times earlier this year? She only beat Asuka once and that was at SS. They're only keeping Nia strong for this Women's title match at TLC.
Salty, are we? If Becky had broken Nia's nose you would all be fucking cheering for her, get the hell out of here.
You put Charlotte/Rhonda over big time and yes the main event was so much better than expected, but the former would have been perfect if Charlotte didn't get DQ'ed. But great video!
One of the best intros
Maybe the fans were chanting "thank you Charlotte" because they were grateful that she finally did the right thing and turned heel? Lord knows...
ikr? i didn't get it either. they even chanted "You deserve it!" to Ronda too. Ronda really did look taken aback by those chants too.
LMAO still lol'ing at that description about Enzo lol.
To quote Simon Gotch's legendary Enzo rants "He broke his own leg trying to counter a wrist-lock."
Really wish all the Enzo thing happened during the Cruiserweight title match. It would have made it a whole lot more interesting
If Enzo was smart enough, he possibly could have made money from it. Instead he was just seeking attention. Right place wrong time.
No it wouldn't have. It just would have distracted the fans from a great match.
@@wisewolftony agreed, that was by far the best pure wrestling match of the whole card. But because it was 205 Live, people automatically overlook it.
I honestly don’t care about anyone on 205 Live apart from the ones that appear on Raw, I know they are good wrestlers and all, but I need them to have characters and show them before I start caring
@@EdgarGarcia-jo1se They have the most consistent and developed characters on main roster. You just don't know it because you don't watch their show.
As for the lack of tension due to the Raw sweep, perhaps next year's Survivor Series could instead be based on a point system, rather than each match being counted only once. Then one brand could get the majority of matches but still have the final match be the final decider.
The La fans cheered the heel Charlotte for beating the hell out of the babyface Ronda and they call Canada bizarro world.
They should turn Ronda hell and put her in a stable with Baszler, Duke and Shafir and have them run roughshod over Raw really make that women's title white hot because before Ronda got it that belt was a meaningless prop.
Maybe even use that as the opportunity to create the women's tag team titles. Survivor Series was a solid B but Takeover was an A-.
@AlwaysLookCool 729 WG 2 gets an A- from me
ikr? I didn't get it either, fans have booing Charlotte for months now, NOW they love her? They even chanted "You deserve it!" to Ronda too. Ronda really did look taken aback by those chants too.
It's called bandwagoning, marks do this a lot
I disagree I think it was because she was wrestling *for* Becky. So the Nia Jax heat from earlier, carried into this match. And thanks to Twitter feud Rhonda has been de facto blamed for the injury as well.
And how is takeover not an A+ 😂
I was laughing so hard at Paul Heyman when Brock was getting beat down. Particularly the end when Paul and Brock are walking up the ramp and Paul says “I don’t like him.... I don’t like him at all”
I don't know but i feel like the ending of the Charlotte/Ronda match wasn't changed after Becky Lynch was replaced. It would make more sense for Becky to snap like that than Charlotte. Especially since it came out of nowhere. But i guess we'll have to see how they explain it on Tuesday.
ikr? that's what I was thinking too. now that charlotte is heel, I wonder how she and Becky will get along now.
I wonder if they are ultimately doing this to have down a track a Four Horsewomen vs New Four Horsewomen feud.
@@dhenderson1810 I'm pretty sure that is what they are going for in the long run. But if i remember correctly, Rondas friends, Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir were only signed to the performance center earlier this year. So they won't be ready for quiet some time. And considering the fact that they are all on different Brands at the moment, it's gonna be difficult to create a coherent storyline. Since they won't be able to interact with each other. So if that's what they were going for, it's a bit premature.
My name is Enzo Amoron.
No, Brian. I believe the reason for the Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno segment was because they were supposed to tape a match in New York on Thursday for this week's TV and the show was canceled due to bad weather. Yes, they could have just pretaped it before War Games but to my knowledge, the next few weeks of TV were to be from Thursday's house shows in New York and San Jose.
8:20
I like how you edited sheamus' mohawk out of that picture
What's the point of Raw vs SD every Survivor Series if Raw always wins every damn year
Because they have to do something with survivor series and have no other options because they are bereft of ideas. But at least raw usually wins 4-3 or something.
Because Raw is better Becky not withstanding
@@donalddiedrich1974 ok vince
Didn't Smackdown win the first year?
I still prefer the survivor series two years ago where raw and smackdown trade wins back and forth, raw wins the women and tag team survivor series matches while smackdown wins the men's survivor series match and the interpromotional match between the miz and sami zayn
i am sad no one got their hands on Enzo and put him in a room with Lesnar for 5 minutes,
Take care of it the oldschool way.
The last two matches saved the show.
Very enjoyable matches to watch.
Ronda and Charlotte the MVP's of the night.
So proud of both women.
This leaves me with a dilemma tho.
I want Becky vs Ronda @ mania,but after tonight.
There is also a case to me made to do a rematch from last night.
Everything else on the show was pretty lackluster.
@@darriongray2013 Maybe never say never i suppose,but personally i don't wanna see that.
I am not a fan of Triple threat matches.
At least not the way WWE books these multi person matches.
it's always two in the ring and the other is sleeping for 10 minutes.
That is not the format i like when it comes to multi men matches.
@AlwaysLookCool 729 that could work.
But a part of me is hoping The Man wins the RR
Can someone explain the crowd's reaction to Charlotte vs Ronda because I'm really lost. I expected people to boo Charlotte because she took Becky's spot but she got cheered when she entered ! I just don't understand why the crowd booed Ronda, especially in her homestate
My favorite match was Lesner/Bryans. Have you ever thought about doing reviews of the NXT PPV separately? I think it would be good!!!
Shinsuke pressing right C on the controller lol had to buy those pants from Smackdown Mall.
This might be the start of the 4 Horsewomen vs the 4 Horsewomen for either the Royal Rumble or WrestleMaina
Regarding your confusion about why the crowd cheered Charlotte, I think the crowd was just a blatantly pro-Smackdown crowd, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Baby faces are boring in the modern wwe, only heels have personality and "attitude" that keeps the crowd attention and the viewers
Ronda honestly isn't that bad. In the ring, or on the mic. People hating her the way they do is so absurd. Saying she's bad in the ring, comparing her to Shayna Baszler... (which is dumb.)
They're both fantastic. :)
Only thing I disliked apart from having to suffer through 90 minutes of Brock Lesnar doing the same move (at least his Crown Jewel and Summerslam turds were short), is that Charlotte and Ronda didn't really throw each other enough. It was mostly a submission match, and I really like how both of these women throw; sure, Ronda did a few arm drags, but I'd to see Charlotte take a bunch of judo hip tosses from Rousey and her suplexing Ronda till tomorrow. Was also pleasantly surprised by cruiserweights since I am so used to luchas and their constant Botchamanias. Overall, a breath of fresh air after the Saudi disaster where the only good work were the Dolph Ziggler matches.
Honestly with just how good the matches were I didn't even notice Raw was winning em all till it was 3-1. Was fresh match ups and really made me feel they could maybe look into ending the brand split, or plan more PPVs where the brands fight. Cause with CJ and now this, it really was just fresh match ups with little to no build, but just on freshness alone it elevated every match.
The cruiserweight match was fantastic! You crazy? Match of the night. One of them.
The whole RAW sweeping things sure will have implications, but what the WWE is conditioning the audience to is that every single person on Smackdown are losers and not worth their time. Who cares if smackdown gets their proverbial shit together just to get squashed by someone like Drew or Braun.
Look at what they did so far to get Braun over. Burring a whole tag division, so don't even pay attention to them, all of them combined is weaker than one guy. A large contingent of your other brands male talent. Its laughable that to get one guy over, that just gets to look like a chump against Lesnar time and time again, which in turn makes all those he squashed look even worse. to get one guy over they "sacrifice" 10+ other people.
I feel like there is a new era coming to WWE where everyone is a badass heel.
6:32. You're welcome.
I really wanna see Ronda vs Charlotte again, sure they’re on different shows but after their brutal match I wanna see more of it
I stopped watching wwe for a bit and was hearing a lot about this PPV and I was never really a big fan of Charlotte but after this match with Ronda I just really wanted to see more, I hope they follow up on this
If your going to pay Brock Lesnar all this money why doesn’t he have matches like this all the time?
Matches like this are what makes me want to pay to see him not one sided beat downs and F-5 only matches.
JC Holmanation do you honestly think him and braun for 15-20 minutes would be a good match?
Jay Harv28 oh evidently....
Where's the top of Shemus's mohawk? Lol. Love the Macho Man shirt.
Digging that shirt, Brian!!
14:37-14:41
LOL considering the recent classic pay-per-view review.
wow I just searched this and it came up forty seconds ago!
Nia needed to win in the fashion she did in order to increase her heat till her eventual match with Becky (if she lost, her heat would diminish rapidly); Rollins had to win in order to keep looking strong going into his feud with Dean (Nakamura isn't in a feud, so the loss doesn't hurt him); AOP needed to win in order to look like a legitimate threat, due to the way they won the titles (The Bar played the Face role, you can tell because Cesaro did The Swing and Sheamus did the 10 Beats of the Bodhran); Murphy needed to win because it was his first PPV title defense; Team RAW needed to win to play into Strowman's story with Corbin and Lesnar; Rousey needed to win because she has to stay undefeated until her match with Becky; and Lesnar had to win...well, because he's Lesnar.
People can complain all they want about the "clean sweep", but ANY SmackDown victory would've done more harm than good. All the victories made sense.
I thoroughly enjoyed SS. There were only 2 things I didn't care for (I didn't hate them), that was the aforementioned Drake Maverick spot (although I understand that it was to cause a distraction so AOP can get the victory) and Carmella's Dance Break, which would've made more sense if she had been attacked during it and eliminated that way.
To explain the crowd reaction to the Flair/Rousey finish: people appreciate it when WWE doesn't treat them like children. When they give us some Attitude Era shit we tend to like it.
8:23 "Now Drake. That is not very dignifying of the general manager of 205 Live." Is what I when that happened.
I love how WWE pushes unsafe workers and rewards them for injuring other workers.
She is not being rewarded. They played it smart and turned it into an angle.
@@Ranuyasha An angle where she will probably win a title and injure more women along the way.
Rousey is like Lesnar, natural heel, bringing her in a babyface (to protect her in-ring ability) just exposes her lack of charisma
I could imagine a few reasons for Charlottes Heel turn being cheered:
1) The crowd might not have necessarily liked Raws dominance in the Matches with them going clean sweep (aside the pre-show and seemingly smackdown winning there was a miscommunication), and seeing the Raw Women's Champion getting utterly destroyed might have helped to reduce that feeling a bit.
2) Heel Charlotte is better than face Charlotte.
Yes I want Becky to get vengeance, not at the expense of her momentum however . Make it a one minute squash match
Couldn't disagree more with your take on Nia. She's hurt to many people and we just don't want to see her at all. At the very least, there needs to be real life repercussions for being sloppy and putting other people at risk; slotting her into a high profile feud with the best of the women's division sends the absolutely wrong signal.
enzo in the thumbnail looks like howard from the big bang theory. lol
lmao he kinda does lol
Braving the elements and in-laws! Doing it for the content!
This review video got a like just for Brian's cool Macho shirt! A good review. Sounds like the show is worth checking out.
I’m sorry I disagree on Bryan vs lesnar, for me it got good at the end but to say the match as a whole was the match of the night is just not true,for me it was Ronda vs Charlotte because from beginning to end it was chaos unlike lesnar and Bryan
Zane loves Lesnar, that's why he said that.
And because it was the best match
DynastyKit we all have our own opinions but it was a descent match but not the best
10 minutes of Brock screaming in his tinny voice while doing the same one throw he knows to Daniel Bryan who oversells it, does nothing, then kicks him in the balls... the only worse recent WWE matches I remember were "You All Suck" boo-fest of Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns at Summerslam (but at least it was short), and him doing his other move he learned from Sable to Braun Strowman (which is easily the worst WWE match of the decade) 125 times and nothing else. So, yes, compared to other Brock Lesnar matches this one was totally the best. But that's like picking the least smelling turd from the pile of creative control forced pushes. Compared to literally anything else at 2018 Survivor Series, from acrobatic cruiserweight performance to Shane Mac's insane jumps to even women's tag team, it was a waste of time. Brock Lesnar is the new Hulk Hogan, the way his matches go, the next Wrestlemania main event will be him doing the finger poke of doom.
Didn,t liked the Drake MAverick thing. I understand he's supposed to be kind of a coward but...he's not just a random person or someone with no autority, he's 205 Live General manager and AOP Manager. Why would AOP, two mosnter's and tag team champion would want a dude who's pissing himself as their managers? Why would the 205 Live roster have any kind of respect for him. I understand it's meant as a distraction for the heels to win and as a''wow that really happend'' thing but I just don't think you should be doing this with someone like Drake Maverick.
shikafans you should of seen the shit tna did with him, no doubt, he got booked to lose to a two year old
I think the SD story going into those Tuesday is going to be pretty awesome
JUST finished watching this on WWE Network
Love the shirt choose Brian Zane