The Wrestling Thread~
- Thread starter SLAB
- Start date
Wrestlemania 28 overall thoughts:
1. The WHC match should've been longer than 18 seconds. Glad to see Daniel Bryan lose but we should've seen an actual match. These 2 could've put on quite a show. The odd thing is that the Miami crowd it seems has actually turned Bryan face. "YES!" The other odd thing is that Sheamus was actually partially booed tonight on Raw.
2. Orton/Kane was actually the 4th most entertaining match of the night for me. Glad Kane won since he's supposed to be a completely dominant monster.
3. I'm glad Big Show won the IC. He deserves to have his Wrestlemania moment. I was expecting to see Rhodes move on to bigger and better things on Raw but it seems their continuing this feud which is disappointing.
4. Divas match was pointless, except I gained makor respect for Maria Menounos since she fought with major injuries.
5. Taker/HHH/HBK made my night. Pure classic. 20-0 was what needed to happen. We got something even better after seeing all 3 legends leave together.
6. Team Johnny needed to win. Teddy has worn out his welcome, IMO. Johnny will bring some interest back to Smackdown.
7. I didn't really mind whether Punk or Y2J won the WWE title match. Thought it was the 3rd best match of the night after HIAC and Rock/Cena. Loved seeing the feud taken to another level on Raw tonight.
8. I actually wanted Cena to win. I thought he needed the win more. Rock? well, his legacy was already set. However, I loved his promo tonight as he cast the vision for a future WWE Title reign in the future.
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Extra notes:
9. I wanted to see the tag team titles defended last night. Not on the preshow. Not on youtube. Actually on Wrestlemania. The division has died, and sadly it's mostly due to WWE Creative.
10. Brodus Clay actually became relevant tonight on Raw. It's about time. It's always a sad day when a dancing rookie has more airtime at Wrestlemania than your WHC and Tag champs.
1. The WHC match should've been longer than 18 seconds. Glad to see Daniel Bryan lose but we should've seen an actual match. These 2 could've put on quite a show. The odd thing is that the Miami crowd it seems has actually turned Bryan face. "YES!" The other odd thing is that Sheamus was actually partially booed tonight on Raw.
2. Orton/Kane was actually the 4th most entertaining match of the night for me. Glad Kane won since he's supposed to be a completely dominant monster.
3. I'm glad Big Show won the IC. He deserves to have his Wrestlemania moment. I was expecting to see Rhodes move on to bigger and better things on Raw but it seems their continuing this feud which is disappointing.
4. Divas match was pointless, except I gained makor respect for Maria Menounos since she fought with major injuries.
5. Taker/HHH/HBK made my night. Pure classic. 20-0 was what needed to happen. We got something even better after seeing all 3 legends leave together.
6. Team Johnny needed to win. Teddy has worn out his welcome, IMO. Johnny will bring some interest back to Smackdown.
7. I didn't really mind whether Punk or Y2J won the WWE title match. Thought it was the 3rd best match of the night after HIAC and Rock/Cena. Loved seeing the feud taken to another level on Raw tonight.
8. I actually wanted Cena to win. I thought he needed the win more. Rock? well, his legacy was already set. However, I loved his promo tonight as he cast the vision for a future WWE Title reign in the future.
--
Extra notes:
9. I wanted to see the tag team titles defended last night. Not on the preshow. Not on youtube. Actually on Wrestlemania. The division has died, and sadly it's mostly due to WWE Creative.
10. Brodus Clay actually became relevant tonight on Raw. It's about time. It's always a sad day when a dancing rookie has more airtime at Wrestlemania than your WHC and Tag champs.
You and I have drastically different definitions of "great," then. The RR match itself was pretty good, until the last ten minutes or so. Once it became obvious who was winning, it ruined the whole match. And, given some of the names that were rumored to be surprise entrants, who they ended up with was a let down. Same with the main event: decent match, worst possible (yet wholly expected) finish.
http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/sto...liquor-store-less/j-p5PlOXGUueP3cXb1ODXQ.cspx
Somebody page the "It's still real to me!" guy...
EDIT - And the follow-up: http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/sto...t-in-liquor-store/H96VuKn6B0KeddhkZf0Rtg.cspx
Somebody page the "It's still real to me!" guy...
EDIT - And the follow-up: http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/sto...t-in-liquor-store/H96VuKn6B0KeddhkZf0Rtg.cspx
Here are the problems I have with this, in no particular order:
- Wrestlemania sells itself. It doesn't need any build up.
- Likewise, after 25 years, the last 20 of which it has "officially" been the start of the Road to Wrestlemania, the Rumble has its own credibility. It's quite legitimate in its own right.
- Nobody needed the bump of winning the Royal Rumble less than John Cena. I mean, unlike SLAB, I actually like Cena, but we're talking about a guy who referred to a year in which he had an obscene amount of mainstream exposure as the face of the company (including a lucrative likeness contract with a breakfast cereal company), was allowed to go over a legit UFC star clean, had four high-profile title shots, main evented nine out of twelve PPV's (meanwhile, the guy who was the WWE Champion for the entire calendar year of 2012 only main-evented 3), won Money in the Bank, and was named Superstar of the Year as the worst of his career. Koko B. Ware accomplished significantly less than that in his entire career, and he's in the Hall of Fame.
- You don't waste a Royal Rumble win on somebody on the lower card, but you don't waste it on guys who don't need it, either. Rumble wins should be reserved for guys who have never been champion, and are right on the brink of breaking through (e.g., Yokozuna. Shawn Michaels), or guys who only had a brief run, and didn't really get a fair shot (e.g., Bret Hart, Brock Lesnar, Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio). And the Rumble didn't even go on last, so it's not like they had to "send them home happy" by putting a babyface over. I mean, we're not talking about putting Zack Ryder over, but they could have easily given the rub to someone in the upper midcard who could have actually used it, like Daniel Bryan, or Antonio Cesaro or, oh, I don't know, how about the guy they've spent the last five months putting over as an unstoppable monster, Ryback? There are at least six guys who would have made more sense, both storyline-wise and kayfabe-wise, as the choice to win the Rumble, than the guy who actually won it.
Wrestlemania doesn't totally sellitself. There have been a few Mania's with lower buyrates than expected.
Ryback, Jericho, Ziggler, and Orton are the only entrants that should have won it, had Cena not won.
I personally really like Bryan and Cesaro but they are not ready yet. WWE tried major hyping and force feedimg into a Mania title match and it BOMBED with The Miz. Give Bryan a year and Cesaro 1-2 and they can be stars. (Bryan for sure, Cesaro has the tools but I'm not sure he is getting over.
Ryback, Jericho, Ziggler, and Orton are the only entrants that should have won it, had Cena not won.
I personally really like Bryan and Cesaro but they are not ready yet. WWE tried major hyping and force feedimg into a Mania title match and it BOMBED with The Miz. Give Bryan a year and Cesaro 1-2 and they can be stars. (Bryan for sure, Cesaro has the tools but I'm not sure he is getting over.
Mania sold out within hours of tickets going on sale: that was some seven months before the show was scheduled. Mania sells itself. People don't order Wrestlemania because of who's going to be there: they order Wrestlemania because it's Wrestlemania. If anything, WWE sometimes goes out of their way to make Mania less watchable.
Cena should not have won the Rumble under any circumstances. Especially since they already knew a year ago that they wanted to do the rematch with Rock. They should have given the Rumble win to whomever is going to challenge for the WHC. Orton and Jericho are equally bad choices: not only does neither one of them need it, but Jericho is only signed through to Mania, and is likely going back on tour with his little rock band shortly after that.
The reason Miz's push bombed was incompetent booking. His relative stature had nothing to do with it. In fact, a big part of why it bombed was because they waited too long: midway through 2010, Miz was one of the two or three most over guys in the business but, not only did they not pull the trigger then, they then spent the next six months making Miz stop doing everything that got him over in the first place. And, by the time they finally gave him the belt, the fans had moved on.
If you don't think that Bryan is over, you're insane: Bryan was over the day he showed up on NXT. He was the most over from the Nexus angle, and he was still the most over when he was rehired after Mattel pulled their hissy fit. He managed to turn the utter embarrassment of being humiliated by a curtain-jerking WHC loss at last year's Mania into becoming one of the most over guys on the roster. He's like Chris Benoit, with triple the charisma, and none of the psychoses. And, by the way, when the crowd is screaming for you to put a guy on, like they have been with Bryan, it's not force-feeding.
And much of the same holds true for Cesaro: this is a guy who has been booked strong against everybody he's been in the ring with, even in losses, has had very good-to-great matches with everybody he's been in the ring with (he's been in the ring with Khali twice, and dragged him to two of the five best matches in his career!), and gets great crowd reactions whenever he comes out.
Not only do I not agree that Cesaro isn't ready, I'm more worried that WWE is going to wait too long to pull the trigger on him (just like they did with Miz, as I stated above, just like they did with Jericho, over a decade ago, who should have gone over Triple H on Raw in 2000, just like they did with Kofi Kingston, who was WHITE HOT coming off of the feud with Orton in '09, just like they did with Barrett, who should have gotten a run at Summerslam '10). And that, by the time they do give him a run, that WWE will have gone out of their way to water down everything that makes Cesaro great.
Cena should not have won the Rumble under any circumstances. Especially since they already knew a year ago that they wanted to do the rematch with Rock. They should have given the Rumble win to whomever is going to challenge for the WHC. Orton and Jericho are equally bad choices: not only does neither one of them need it, but Jericho is only signed through to Mania, and is likely going back on tour with his little rock band shortly after that.
The reason Miz's push bombed was incompetent booking. His relative stature had nothing to do with it. In fact, a big part of why it bombed was because they waited too long: midway through 2010, Miz was one of the two or three most over guys in the business but, not only did they not pull the trigger then, they then spent the next six months making Miz stop doing everything that got him over in the first place. And, by the time they finally gave him the belt, the fans had moved on.
If you don't think that Bryan is over, you're insane: Bryan was over the day he showed up on NXT. He was the most over from the Nexus angle, and he was still the most over when he was rehired after Mattel pulled their hissy fit. He managed to turn the utter embarrassment of being humiliated by a curtain-jerking WHC loss at last year's Mania into becoming one of the most over guys on the roster. He's like Chris Benoit, with triple the charisma, and none of the psychoses. And, by the way, when the crowd is screaming for you to put a guy on, like they have been with Bryan, it's not force-feeding.
And much of the same holds true for Cesaro: this is a guy who has been booked strong against everybody he's been in the ring with, even in losses, has had very good-to-great matches with everybody he's been in the ring with (he's been in the ring with Khali twice, and dragged him to two of the five best matches in his career!), and gets great crowd reactions whenever he comes out.
Not only do I not agree that Cesaro isn't ready, I'm more worried that WWE is going to wait too long to pull the trigger on him (just like they did with Miz, as I stated above, just like they did with Jericho, over a decade ago, who should have gone over Triple H on Raw in 2000, just like they did with Kofi Kingston, who was WHITE HOT coming off of the feud with Orton in '09, just like they did with Barrett, who should have gotten a run at Summerslam '10). And that, by the time they do give him a run, that WWE will have gone out of their way to water down everything that makes Cesaro great.
WWE is reporting that William "Paul Bearer" Moody has died.
http://www.wwe.com/inside/paul-bearer-passes-26096670
http://www.wwe.com/inside/paul-bearer-passes-26096670
WWE has confirmed the passing of Mae Young, at age 90: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2013-12-30/mae-young-passes-at-90-26173408