In a moment eerily simular to the closing scene from Rocky III, Sunday's WWE Championship match ended prematurely, when Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles simultaneously killed each other's balls.  So what will happen next?  We may get some more details tonight.

Also, there is a trio of Money in the Bank Qualifiers tonight.  Two for the men, one for the women.

Jeff Hardy vs. The Miz
Daniel Bryan vs. Rusev
Charlotte Flair vs. Peyton Royce

Good match to open the show. MIZ WINS~!

I guess The Bar are wafflemen.

I don't like pancakes either.

Oooh Sanity. But I didn't see Nikki Cross mentioned.

May 9, 2018 0:38:40 GMT iron maiden said:

Oooh Sanity. But I didn't see Nikki Cross mentioned.

That's sad.  Maybe Vince doesn't like the idea of her mixing it up with men.

Well that would be short sighted so it makes sense.

I'm kind of looking forward to Iconic mixing it up with Absolution. I don't think it'll happen but it would be fun.

Miz cashing in right after title match at MITB, leading to Bryan challenging him for the title at SummerSlam, is so good the WWE surely won't do it.

We've never had a cash-in at the same event they won it in. I'd love it to happen this year.

May 9, 2018 1:15:12 GMT CM Punk'd said:

We've never had a cash-in at the same event they won it in. I'd love it to happen this year.

Ambrose did it in 2016.

There you go @cm Punk'd a little Becky Lynch for ya!

Can we get some different music for Mandy and a new entrance please?  Ick.

Punk'd don't like. Bad medicine.

BTW, sounds like Mandy's using Lana's theme.

I agree with you about Mandy's music sounding too much like Lana's.

May 9, 2018 1:10:10 GMT KJ said:

Miz cashing in right after title match at MITB, leading to Bryan challenging him for the title at SummerSlam, is so good the WWE surely won't do it.

Not bad but to get Miz more heat, i'd go the opposite way. Bryan wins the title off Styles or Nakamura and Miz cashes in after that.

Can't wait to see Almas debut next week.

Rusev vs DB. Great way to end the show.

Wow the crowd is pretty evenly split on this match.

I’m not watching, but I got a WWE App notification about the Bar/New Day Match for next week and it sounds awesome.

Is this the beginning of a split for one of the two teams?

May 9, 2018 1:39:15 GMT Call said:

May 9, 2018 1:10:10 GMT KJ said:

Miz cashing in right after title match at MITB, leading to Bryan challenging him for the title at SummerSlam, is so good the WWE surely won't do it.

Not bad but to get Miz more heat, i'd go the opposite way. Bryan wins the title off Styles or Nakamura and Miz cashes in after that.

It might ... but I don’t want to see Bryan cashed in on again.

I don’t think Miz needs to get that kind of heat. It’s cheap heat on DB. It’s genius, spontaneous take over Smackdown right away heat if he does it the night of on AJ/Nak. Plus, DB chasing the title would be better and would give Miz as champion enough heat trying to keep it away.

Miz will get his heat immediately if he wins the MITB match over Braun Strowman anyways.

HOLY SHIT!!! Rusev won?!

Wow big win for Rusev...finally!

Unexpected for sure but it's nice to See Rusev get a big win. He's been over for long enough.

I'm not necessarily upset at not having Bryan in a ladder match - but his booking since returning has been bizarre to say the least.

Buddy Murphy vs Mustafa Ali on 205. 👍

May 9, 2018 2:04:52 GMT @admin said:

I'm not necessarily upset at not having Bryan in a ladder match - but his booking since returning has been bizarre to say the least.

I don't think it's been bad in the sense that he's clearly treated as one of the biggest stars on the roster, and he's won both of his PPV matches so far in pretty decisive fashion.

He's over enough that a clean loss on SDL isn't going to mean anything next week. But I guess the thing is that people were probably expecting him to feel like a bigger deal so soon off his return, and I think the reality of being a full timer in WWE is that if you're on TV every week, there's a limit to how long that can last.

Really, it's probably for the best that he's not in that match, since the idea should be to keep him and Miz apart until they're ready to do the singles.

Also, that risk factor of competing in a match where there's serious danger involved.

The thing with Daniel Bryan is that fans are still pining for that WWE Championship run that was cut short 4 years ago. A lot of fans haven't let that go and after having the rug pulled out from underneath them with the retirement, fans just wanted to see Bryan perform.

So far, that's been cut off at every turn. At Mania they do the stretcher job. In his dream match against AJ Styles, they had Nakamura interfere. At Backlash he won in 7 minutes and tonight he had to do the favours for Rusev who's been booked like a goof for the better part of 3 years. The only match we got to see Bryan perform was a match where he shared the ring with 49 other competitors and in the end, more people remember Titus' slip-up than Bryan's 76 minute performance.

When Shawn Michaels returned after a four-year lay-off, they didn't muck around and made sure his first in-ring program was against one of the top stars of the company. Could you imagine a scenario where Shawn Michaels returned and was put in a program with Nathan Jones and had to put over pre-JBL Bradshaw in a match?

I actually sniggered at Mandy's brand new entrance. I actually have a soft spot for these really cheesy themes and the blurred camera work looked really well. She just has to do something on the stage because the slow steps forward were very awkward. I'm not so shocked at seeing her win against Becky because it was Becky, but you'd think the fact that Sonya wasn't there, they'd at least give Becky a win.

Charlotte vs. Peyton was a good match, with Peyton again showing she's the in-ring workhorse of the Iiconics. But Billie has definitely been stealing the spotlight on the microphone. Her delivery during the pre-match promo was topnotch. I wanted Charlotte to lose because I just wanted her to go after Carmella. She didn't really need to be in the ladder match. I do see Naomi qualifying, and hopefully Billie gets the third slot so we can have someone new in there. Of course, the third slot will likely be Asuka unless they have her gun directly for Carmella during next week's Mellabration.

May 9, 2018 4:57:22 GMT Big Pete said:

The thing with Daniel Bryan is that fans are still pining for that WWE Championship run that was cut short 4 years ago. A lot of fans haven't let that go and after having the rug pulled out from underneath them with the retirement, fans just wanted to see Bryan perform.

So far, that's been cut off at every turn. At Mania they do the stretcher job. In his dream match against AJ Styles, they had Nakamura interfere. At Backlash he won in 7 minutes and tonight he had to do the favours for Rusev who's been booked like a goof for the better part of 3 years. The only match we got to see Bryan perform was a match where he shared the ring with 49 other competitors and in the end, more people remember Titus' slip-up than Bryan's 76 minute performance.

When Shawn Michaels returned after a four-year lay-off, they didn't muck around and made sure his first in-ring program was against one of the top stars of the company. Could you imagine a scenario where Shawn Michaels returned and was put in a program with Nathan Jones and had to put over pre-JBL Bradshaw in a match?

Well when HBK first came back, he was only doing big PPVs. It took him a while to go full time again, and once he did, he was definitely doing programs with some talents who weren't at the very top.

Bryan probably would have benefited from easing back into things in a similar way, but he obviously wants to be full time and that's fine. But this is the time of year when they do B-side programs, it's no different from anyone else. Roman Reigns is feuding with Jinder Mahal. Sasha Banks vs. Bayley is probably on autopilot until SummerSlam. Most of the other big names are wrapped up in ladder matches. I get that people want to see the guy fight Miz and Nakamura and all these guys, but it's not the right time to do any of that.

If anything, I think the fact that a guy Bryan's size disposed of a 7 footer in 7 minutes is evidence that the company doesn't see him as a midcarder. And as far as the WWE Championship goes, I think Bryan needs to prove over a long period of time that he's not going to get hurt again before they do that. I think WrestleMania 35 would be the time to do it if he stays healthy between now and then.

It isn't necessarily good or bad booking, just strange.

If you asked any fan what they'd want to see in a Daniel Bryan return, I'd imagine the last thing would be a feud with Big Cass. Despite being 7 foot tall, nobody buys into Cass as a star and although he's trying, he just isn't on that level. So instead of being able to play to Bryan's strengths, we've found ourselves in another situation where he's got to make somebody look better than what they are. As long as Cass is safe in the ring, I doubt anything bad will happen to Bryan, but it doesn't help SD which has lost a lot of steam ever since Ryan Ward left. Bryan could be the catalyst to draw interest to the show, saddling him up with stiffs isn't going to draw interest.