Pro Wrestling Discussion Number IV

[jellydonut25]

The business is different in all the wrong ways compared to the 90s, when Stone Cold, The Rock, and Mankind all paved their own way and made their own name by connecting with the fans and building their popularity and persona via the fans and fan reaction.

Now, Vince wants you to like and cheer for who HE TELLS YOU TO.

Daniel Bryan? Dolph Ziggler? Not Vince McMahon guys. Since they're faces, he'll just bury them and make sure their signs don't sully his arenas.
Wade Barrett? Cody Rhodes? Miz? They're 'supposed to be heels' so Vince takes away the things they have that get them a connection to the fans. "I've got some bad news" became too popular a catchphrase, so now Barrett has to say, "I fear that I've got some news for you and it's not too good, in fact it's quite bad. It's news that is bad, and I have it for you."

The only reason the various Cena (even anti-Cena) chants are allowed is because he's "controversial". And you're allowed to "OOOOOOHHHHHH" for Roman Reigns as much as you want.
It's disgusting, and insulting. I feel like the core of what wrestling is is changing for the worse. Instead of being a show about entertaining its FANS and responding to fan reaction to drive the stories further, it's all about what some out-of-touch bitter old man thinks six-year-old kids want.

And it sucks because it feels like he's waging war against a portion of his FANS. The portion of his fanbase that recognizes John Cena is a damned villain, and a BULLY, and that cheers Brock Lesnar because Roman Reigns is just absolutely terrible and his prior opponent was the hated John Cena. Brock Lesnar should be the easiest villain to get over as a villain in the entire company: He's a mercenary monster who hurts people for fun and never appears on TV with the title because he thinks it's all beneath him. And yet at LEAST half the arena cheers this guy on, because his opponents are just miserable people.

It's a company predicated around pretending to listen to the fans while not caring what they think and in fact, telling them what to think. I mean, just look at this:


(*to the fans*) "We care what you think!"
(*behind closed doors*) "We don't give a rat's ass what these people think. Give them a bunch of options that are the same thing, so no matter what they vote for, we win."

[Henry88]

More Details on Why WWE Fans Had to Change Clothes at RAW, Pre-Show Photo, Letter Written to WWE
http://www.lordsofpain.net/news/wwe/Mor ... o_WWE.html

[jellydonut25]

Here's your WrestleMania 31 card and my thoughts on it as we are less than a week ago from the show:

Pre-Show Match: The Usos vs. Los Matadores vs. The New Day vs. The Swingin' Cats (c) in a Fatal Four-Way Tag Team Match for the WWE Tag Team Championship.
I'm sure this will be a fun match that will get the time it needs for everyone to shine since it's on the pre-show, and I'm sure there will be some good spots, but I just don't care. Let's be honest, New Day and Los Matadores are in this match because (a) there's apparently some new mandate that even the unworthy HAVE to be featured in WrestleMania these days and (b) everyone would be bored to tears with another Usos vs. somebody tag title match. Shame on WWE for burying The Ascension out of the gate and lacking the foresight to see that crowds would definitely support Cesaro and Kidd as faces in that feud. That's the match I want.
Anyway, your winners: The Usos because WWE hates me.

Sting vs. HHH. Just like HHH kicked off last year's Mania, I have a feeling he'll want to do that again. I waffle back and forth on my excitement for this one, but generally I think it's the right move because Sting vs. Undertaker would only have been interesting to me with the Streak on the line. So yeah, let's do WCW vs. WWE even though Sting just said he's not fighting for WCW as that would be stupid and the war is long over, he just wants to take HHH down. At least we're getting personal with it. This will have a lot of production value, but I can't see opponents with a combined age over 100 carrying an all-time great match. Hopefully Steph wears something sexy.
Winner: Sting because DUH.

Stardust vs Luke Harper vs Dean Ambrose vs R-Truth vs Dolph Ziggler vs Daniel Bryan vs Wade Barrett (c) in a Ladder Match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship
This match might as well carry the tag-line "All the guys you WANTED to have singles matches in one place!" Seriously WWE, I'm still mad at you for not giving me my Goldust/Stardust match, perhaps even moreso than I am at you for not giving me ANY Daniel Bryan feud. Oh well. Given the pure talent in this match, it should be a good one, as ladder matches tend to be. I predict that I'll be watching most of it through my fingers as Daniel Bryan's neck takes hit after hit and I cringe in fear at the potential that he just crumbles into a heap and dies.
Winner: Daniel Bryan in order to set up a Bryan vs. Ziggler feud for the IC title.

Randy Orton vs. Seth Rollins. I think this might be the singles match on the show that excites me most. Rollins spits fire as a heel and Orton has a legitimate beef with him as a face. I'm on the side WWE actually wants me on because they just kept it simple and played to their strengths. I imagine there will be some interference screwiness here but I hope it's at least a decisive enough finish for Rollins to look like he's worthy of the win because...
Winner: Seth Rollins. I don't see the advantage in Orton winning aside from cheap fan pops but we'll already have those with Usos, Sting, and Daniel Bryan. The heels will get a notch in their belts at some point during the show and this will be it.

The Undertaker vs. Bray Wyatt. On paper, I should love this. It's an undead wizard with demonic powers he gets through some urn that contains the souls of children sacrificed to some evil entity in order to grant him supreme wrestling prowess vs. a teleporting cajun who gets his orders from some unknown female entity and can conjure up smoke and fog. That's too gloriously stupid not to be at least some fun. The problem is, Bray Wyatt's been asked to carry this entire feud and while I don't want to say he's failed (because that would be to undercut the difficulty of attempting to carry a feud by yourself), he's not quite hit the mark. Everything he's done would be GREAT in a traditional feud where he says some stuff, the other guy says some stuff, the interfere in each other's worlds, they stare at each other, etc...but this isn't that kind of feud. Bray Wyatt needed to be more duplicitous and sorta argue with himself and be good and bad and everything in between. Instead, he's basically just been extremely inflammatory and it's bizarre that it seems like Undertaker doesn't care. It's like Bray Wyatt is saying, "I'M the Undertaker now!" and 'Taker is just sitting at home with his hot wife like, "Yup."
Winner: The Undertaker because I don't know, WWE wants him to be able to go out with a win?

Andre the Giant Battle Royal. If this comes down to anyone other than Miz vs. Mizdow, I'm gonna hate it. Unfortunately, it seems like it's gonna be Mark Henry, Ryback, Kane, and Big Show left at the end because big guys. Blech. Also in this match is Goldust because he apparently doesn't care that his brother stomped his head in front of their father, and a whole SLEW of undercarders and WWE Superstars performers who have no earthly chance of winning. As a side note, Big Show should become a part-timer now who only shows up around Mania because he wants to be the Giant who puts himself on the trophy and he never gets the job done.
Winner: Ryback because Big Guy.

John Cena vs. Rusev (c). Singles Match for the WWE United States Championship. This match should be SO EASY to book, you could have a four-year old do it. Big Strong jerk Russian guy has been bullying people for months and sh*t-talking America whenever he can. WWE's resident Superman fights for truth, justice and the American way. Instead, this is the tale of a scrappy immigrant trying to scratch out a name for himself while the kingpin most high bullies him into accepting a match he doesn't want to have. Cena is the most despicable person in the entire company (as a character) and I'd love to see Rusev toss him around like Lesnar did and bump his ass further down the card.
Winner: John Cena because America and because this feud has been ALL RUSEV thus far.

Nikki and Brie Bella vs. AJ Lee and Paige in a Divas Tag-Team match. Get up, go pee, come back, and it'll be over. There's really no point in caring. It's not that I inherently don't care about women's wrestling in WWE, it's that WWE gives me literally no reason to do so.
Winners: AJ and Paige because Brie's turning face.

Roman Reigns vs. BROCK LESNAR (c). Singles Match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Want to know what happens when a company wants to protect two men so badly they can't ever have them actually trade blows before the PPV, not even in that fake "security gets in the way" style just to maybe make the match look heated because they're so scare one guy will appear to be stronger than the other? Watch the end of Raw. Instead of two genetic freaks ready to pound each other into dust because one is a monster and the other is a monster who likes his Samoan family, this is like two spoiled children fussy fighting over a shiny thing. It doesn't help that neither of these guys can work a full, great match on their own without it being either a triple threat or some kind of extreme rules stipulation.
Winner: BROCK LESNAR! What a swerve!!! Yeah, I think it's gonna swerve that way only for two reasons (a) the rest of this card seems just WILDLY predictable and I felt like I wanted to/had to predict at least one swerve and (b) I think the rub from the US and IC titles being in the hands of Bryan and Cena is potentially gonna make those seem more important and those titles could start headlining the show while the WWE WHC will start feeling like this ultra-special thing that's only around whenever Lesnar decides to condescend to show his face on WWE TV.


Ultimate Pre-Show Hype for WrestleMania: C-.
I haven't cared this little about a Mania in a rather long time. I'm hopeful that it will outshine certain recent stinkers (like WM27 which basically just served as a setup to WM28), but this is the second time in the past three WrestleManias that the MAIN EVENT has been the least exciting bout on the card that really feels the most predictable (I say Lesnar's gonna win because I'm hoping against hope but if Reigns loses, I'll be legitimately shocked).

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

I don't think the Usos are in that match any more Jelly Jey got injured recently.

As for the main event I think Lensar with a MitB cash in for Reigns unless of course Lesnar signed a new deal with WWE. My guess is the recent news of Lesnar walking out on WWE is just to get people to get the network.

[Reaper G]

I think Rollins-Orton will start the show, since that will give Rollins plenty of time to rest up and cash in his Money in the Bank contract and close the show as the new champ, thus giving us a title holder we actually want to see with the title.

Lesnar has chosen to remain with WWE, which would be fine if he wasn't a part-time champion. Reinstate the 30-day title defense rule, and I can live with him.

[Henry88]

[jellydonut25]

[Mysterio]

Anyone know, if I get the network, can you watch the PPV delayed or only live? I'm considering getting it, but wouldn't be able to tune in until after my 4 year old little girl goes to bed...

[jellydonut25]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

I've been able to watch PPVs when ever you don't have to start them live.

[jellydonut25]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

Maybe that it. As far as I know you can start them mid stream from the beginning at least you could for SummerSlam.

[Mysterio]

Thanks guys. Haven't signed up yet, still milling it over. $9.99 a month is cheap but I just don't have time to watch much TV anymore, so I'm still on the fence.

Anyone watching the WWE network through a Roku box? Is the interface pretty nice, easy to find what you want? My TV has an amazon widget built into it but the interface is terrible, I like the Roku Amazon channel a thousand times more.

Saw that the Andre battle royal has been moved to the pre-show and they might have to bump back the starting time of the event to allow for that...

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

I believe the interface is standardized no matter what device you're watching it on. Sort of like Netflix and Hulu have all become standardized.

[jellydonut25]

I almost made it through the Warrior Award ceremony without crying and then Connor's brother came out...and I lost it.

[Henry88]

http://gfycat.com/BoldWelcomeDowitcher
Best RKO in a long time.

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

WM 31 is in the books and I was suprised with a few of the outcomes mainly the Triple H vs Sting and I was ok with my predictions

For the tag match I predicted Cesaro and Kidd would retian so I was right on that one.

For the Battle Royale I predicted Ryback, not right on that one

For Orton vs Rollins I picked Rollins again wrong

For the ladder match I predicted Bryan or Ziggler so there's another one

For Sting vs Triple H I picked Sting, guess I was wrong

The Bellas vs AJ and Page I picked Aj/Paige. Another right

Rusev vs Cena I picked Cena. Another one right

For Bray vs Taker I picked Taker. Another right.

For the main event which I was kind of surprised about the finish I predicted a clean finish for Brock but immediate cash out for Rollins thus him leaving with the prize. I was half right on that though to be fair near the end of the match when Reigns and Brock where throwing finishers left and right I told my friend I was watching it there wasn't going to be a clean finish and bam I was right.

[Russzilla]

Well, Wrestlemania 31 has come and gone. What's your opinions?

[jellydonut25]

Overall, I think this was a really solid Mania. This was the WORST lead-in to a Mani I can remember in a long, long time. Probably since the early-mid 2000s when I fell out of it for a while (I didn't get back into it until Shawn Michaels v Undertaker 1). Taking that into consideration, being able to put on a show that I have so few complaints about is an accomplishment.

[*]Tag Title Fatal Four Way - pretty much what I though it would be in terms of a match. Fast paced, lots of high flying moves. Surprised and pleased the Swingin' Cats won. They probably won't be losing these titles for a while with the tag division the way it is.

[*]Andre the Giant Battle Royal - One of the two worst finishes of the night. It does nothing for Big Show for him to win, it does nothing for Miz/Mizdow to have one of them not win, it does nothing for anyone and it continues to bury the best feud in the company right now. Blech. This match left me "ready" for what I assumed would be a night chock-full of colossal disappointments. I was already beginning to predict various doomsday scenarios: Sheamus returning mid ladder match and killing Daniel Bryan, giving R-Truth the win, Cena tapping Rusev out, Undertaker literally dying, Roman Reigns beating Lesnar and no-selling his moves like crazy. My heart was in the wrong place.

[*]Intercontinental Ladder Match - A solid match with lots of high spots. I guess the right guy won? I dunno. We'll have to see where they go from here because if this signifies Daniel Bryan becoming the next Wade Barrett, Cody Rhodes, Miz, Kofi Kingston, I'm gonna be really sad. If it's a dawn of a new IC era, with Bryan putting on all-time matches with the likes of Ziggler, Ambrose, Luke Harper, possibly Randy Orton, etc etc, then HUZZAH for the title and Bryan.

[*]HHH-Sting - I was in love with every stupid ridiculous second of this match...until Sting took the pinfall. I mean, if you're gonna do a match where one opponent is a 45 year-old man who became famous by glomming onto a more famous guy in an anti-authority movement and then cemented his all-time fame by marrying the daughter of the company and becoming a part of the authority vs. a 56 year-old guy who has no reason to be in the ring with his opponent since this company vs. company feud is long-dead and this 56 year-old guy is also having the parts of his career ignored (like where he was a bad guy and joined the other company's big heel faction AND all his time not spent within companies that you own)....then go FULL-ON STUPID with it, which this match DID. HHH comes out to Terminator. Alright, that's DUMB. Announcers are building it up like it's this great mind-game...because Sting must apparently think HHH actually killed 6 terminators? Sweet, we're getting DUMBER. DX comes out on the pro-Authority side? Yes, stupidity is reach maximum heights. nWo is a face faction now? MAXIMUM STUPIDITY WARNING. Two of HHHs best friends EVER are helping Sting? We've reached max stupidity. Old guys flopping around like a Life Alert commercial is just icing on the cake. This went full-on. I loved it for that.
Then Sting lost. I was dumbfounded. I still don't quite know how to properly express how bad a move this finish was, but it's probably the worst of the show.

[*]Orton-Rollins. A middling match for a mid-card feud. It was fine for what it was. A solid finish made us all feel a little better about it being just a so-so match.

[*]Divas Match. Better than a typical Divas match. They should have flipped this script though. The championship match from Monday shoulda been the match here to really give the women a chance to show something. Oh well. That's the current state of women's wrestling under Vince.

[*]Rusev-Cena. This was a good match, with a lot of good back-and-forth. It had the unfortunate effect of being really predictable and I have no idea why they felt it had to end with Rusev bumping Lana off the apron. Something about that just didn't sit right with me. A match for the kiddies, I guess and easily forgiven for that reason.

[*]Wyatt-Undertaker. I had a lot of problems with this match. First, the tone. Bray Wyatt comes out and it's all scarecrows and magic and I'm like "YES! We're gonna get as dumb-fun as we should in a match where a man with magical lamp teleport ghost powers is claiming to be the new demon in the company whilst calling out and fighting an undead man-creature with thunder and lightning powers who got his powers from a magical urn with powers bestowed unto it via ancient rituals!" And then Undertaker comes out, with just his music. No Druids. No lightning. No flames. Nothing. And then the match isn't about out-demoning the other guy, it's about just slowly and methodically working through Undertaker's moveset. He can't go anymore, and for me there are only two ways this is anything other than the worst match of the night (which it will always be no matter what; it just has the potential to still wind up being acceptable): 1 - That's it for Undertaker. This whole thing was about Vince allowing Taker to go out with a win. OR 2 - Undertaker appears semi-regularly over the next few weeks and months and continues this feud with Bray, until it leads to him taking Bray under his wing to learn about "true" fear. If this is just the start of Undertaker showing up literally only once a year to win a meaningless match at WrestleMania and make that 1 in 22, 22, 24, 25 and 1 stand out bigger and bolder, then BLECH...because Taker quite simply can't DO IT anymore.

[*]WWE World Heavyweight Championship. What a match. What a finish. What an everything. Lesnar does his Lesnar-iest. He's brutal, he's violent, he's...kinda sloppy but in a way that just WORKS, and Reigns is just being thrown along for the ride. He had a couple flairs of making me wish I was in Lesnar's shoes throwing him around when I felt he was totally gonna go full-on John Cena and start smiling and no-selling and just ruin the whole night, but then Lesnar would just toss him. And even him sort of evening the score felt okay because Lesnar kept kicking out of it. So Lesnar got to retain this image of himself as pretty much unbeatable...and we got the title back on the show regularly by Seth Rollins coming in and saving the day. AND Lesnar didn't eat the pinfall. AND it was unexpected. Awesome stuff. I even thought, when Rollins cashed, that he was the one who was gonna get pinned, but WWE did good here.

Overall, I'm pleased several guys have a "what's next?" thing on the horizon for themselves, which I love. I think as many PPVs as possible should end with as many "what's next?"s as possible. When a PPV ends and I'm asking "what's next?" it means that whatever story the guy was involved in prior to the show is over and he can sorta go anywhere from here. Lots of guys on the roster can right now. That's a good thing, especially for WrestleMania, which is supposed to feel like an end of a road and the start of a new year in a lot of ways.

This re-purposed .gif is like the greatest thing:

Caption: "YOU'RE WrestleMania moment, eh????"

[Mysterio]

I don't really get the Sting loss either unless it was just to swerve what everyone considered the most predictable match of the evening. Apparently Sting said recently something like "this is probably it for me, unless maybe they want to do another one at a Summerslam or something and everything feels right... but this is probably it..." So to me the door is open there, maybe all along his deal has been for TWO matches and they had him lose just to swerve the fans. If this really is his last match, I would have of course preferred a win.

I thought the Taker match was "ok"... time is a "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!", and I'm an old-school fan myself, so I like seeing some of the guys like Taker still put on matches, but yeah it ain't like the old days anymore. I actually had a similar thought, that Taker could have a protégé and perhaps Bray could fill that role.

In the main event, I liked the match, but I guess I dislike Reigns so much that it just seemed infeasible for him to stage as much of a comeback as he did after the early heavy beatdown by Brock. I guess if I liked the guy and was behind him then I could suspend my disbelief more. I don't watch nearly as much as I used to... When Rollins cashed in like that, I was surprised that they turned it into a three-way dance and that he didn't have to beat Brock. Is there precedence for that? I thought generally whoever held the money-In-the-bank briefcase would just cash it in after the champion had just got his ass kicked...

[Reaper G]

Not a bad WM at all. The IC and U.S. titles got elevated, Sting-HHH turned into nWo-DX which was great for those of us who experienced the Monday Night Wars (though Sting should have won), Undertaker looked better than he did last year, Lesnar-Reigns was better than I thought it would be, and with the right guy leaving with the title (I really need to post my predictions online) though I think Rollins should have defeated Orton so he could go into this looking stronger.

Remove the rap concert and speed up the Rock & Rousey segment, and you could have put in the battle royal or tag title match on the main show.

[jellydonut25]

There's no precedent for the MitB cash-in to turn into a Triple Threat match, but for me, that was what was so great about it, and actually made sense. Rollins thinks if he waits and cashes in on just one, the guy will have gained back enough momentum to be able to beat him, so he figures, cash in on BOTH while they're unconscious, and hope that if they're both dumb enough to get back up, they'll fight each other and he can win. Reigns spears Lesnar for him, he curb stomps Reigns, new champ. It's really creative.

[Mysterio]

Well, I can't say it bothered me, and it was definitely interesting, but it seemed odd... when he did it I was like "wait, does it work like that?" If there's no precedent for it that makes things interesting, because now Heyman can make a stink about it, which could lead to some interesting things.

I think Rollins had to lose the match with Orton just because someone thought up that spot at the end. I really liked that. And if you're gonna throw in a spot like that you may as well end on it, would be hard to waste it on a kickout.

I'm glad Sting had a wrestlemania match (though I wish he'd won), but he seemed a bit awkward at times, especially with the Scorpion Death Lock, like he just couldn't get it on really well. At one point I think he slipped, and accidentally sat down on HHH's back (which in reality probably would have hurt more, but I don't think it was intended). Trips pressed up out of it, which read like an attempt to break the hold, but I think he was really helping Sting out, to lift him up and get him back in proper position. At least that's how I read it. But, I'm hopeful he does agree to at least one more match at some point, because I really think he deserves at least one WWE win.

Did that look like a huge purple deep tissue bruise on HHH's left outer thigh? At one point during the match I noticed something like that, I thought it may have been Sting's makeup rubbing off on him but the color didn't look right.

[jellydonut25]

I loved everything about how gloriously stupid the HHH-Sting match was except Sting losing. I don't really want to see Sting in another WWE match, as it's obvious he's just too old, but now I feel like they have to because you can't bring in one of the all-time greats for his only match ever and have him LOSE, can you???

Trips definitely had huge bruise working through his leg. No idea what it was from as it seemed to come in fairly early and I didn't really see him take any huge lump that would have led to that giant a bruise.

I think/hope Heyman is furious tonight and challenges Rollins at Extreme Rules and we leave Reigns by the wayside just for a month, while Lesnar goes after Rollins. Then Lesnar can lose at Extreme Rules when the Authority orders every person in the locker room to beat him to death or be fired, and Lesnar fights off almost all of them, but is so exhausted after the herculean effort that he goes into hibernation.

[Henry88]

i hope we see more of Bray Wyatt's living scarecrows for other big match's he might have.