Rolling Chris and Kevin's Bogus Journey 2017

WK11 and the Rumble look great. AJ Styles and Kevin Steen are world champions. British wrestling is popping like mad. Things are pretty good.

so i was theoretically planning on catching up on njpw real quick (i'm still going through G1 for the good matches) before wk, but instead i'm doing what i've done the past 2 years and getting way too curious at 3 AM and turning it on

i didn't even know what the matches were besides the main event. pissed elgin doesn't have a real match, now that i finally don't find him super boring anymore

also i still hate steve corino!!

I'm on my shitty phone so I can't link it but braun strowman on tinder needs to be here.

How was wk11? I think I have to wait till Monday

only watched the last four matches but all excellent. okada-omega was **********

oh and

https://i.redditmedia.com/VbnXF7EwQ9IQzl5eAqe7Bq6HlTZzxdJcovbVD0Puc0E.jpg?w=431&s=46cbfb25ff53e19c585bc0c3f2250ca3

I caught WK 11 from the heavyweight tag title match until the end.

Takahashi-KUSHIDA had some issues where they weren't always on the same page but I agreed with one commentator who said that it works to their advantage because Takahashi is believably insane in the ring so you don't expect everything to be crisp.

Shibata-Goto was what it needed to be, although Goto bores me these days.

Tanahashi-Naito came off like the real main event judging by the reaction in the dome. Tanahashi's new music is awful.

Omega and Okada will meet again this year, no doubt. The first third of the match was typical Okada where nothing really happens and he drags his opponent down to his level, but the match really picked up and Okada gave him a lot (the top rope dragon suplex was insane). I rewatched Naito vs Omega from the G1 recently and that's still the best match of 2016 for me -- no wasted moves, amazing selling and psychology throughout, crazy spots, and an amazing finish. Omega vs Okada felt like the director's cut of that match, but more definitely doesn't equal better and Naito is miles better than Okada right now.

I watched Tanahashi-Naito this morning. I always forget how far ahead Japanese wrestling is to what I usually see. Naito is fucking vicious. I need to see more of him. Plus I love that ref spot, never seen that before.

Omega and Okada will meet again this year, no doubt. The first third of the match was typical Okada where nothing really happens and he drags his opponent down to his level, but the match really picked up and Okada gave him a lot (the top rope dragon suplex was insane). I rewatched Naito vs Omega from the G1 recently and that's still the best match of 2016 for me -- no wasted moves, amazing selling and psychology throughout, crazy spots, and an amazing finish. Omega vs Okada felt like the director's cut of that match, but more definitely doesn't equal better and Naito is miles better than Okada right now.

This pretty much rings true for me, too. But it doesn't take away from that last 15 minutes or so being the best finish of a match I've seen in quite some time. The callback to the wrist grab from last year; the unfinished business with Omega not even hitting his finisher. What a showcase for Kenny. And the next one will hopefully be even better.

7 stars from dave?

cowardly of meltz to not follow me in giving it the full ten stars.

i love how amidst the obscene suicidal spots the most exciting thing in all of wrestling is one guy holding another guy's wrist.

Haha, alternately holding hands and one guy carrying the other guy around on his shoulders like a fun dad

Yeah I didn't quite like Okada-Omega as much as Omega-Naito either although sometimes a long match can just lose you a bit because it's at the end of a four hour show etc, so keen to rewatch it at the weekend, maybe with cardiac arrest-having Japanese commentary. With the Naito-Omega G1 match, the tension of the time limit nearly expiring and the possibility of the status quo getting shaken up a bit had me rooting pretty hard for Omega, and the finish was kind of awesomely violent and cathartic; didn't quite buy him as being as likely to unseat Okada here

Naito was seemingly dull as hell as a clean-shaven babyface but is a revelation as a casual scumbag heel. In the six man match he was in in London for RevPro in Nov he was fairly understandably in "not getting injured in front of 2000 people 6 weeks before Wrestle Kingdom" mode but it fit his character so well for him to have his LIJ goons do most of the work then get one of the biggest pops of the night doing his signature flop pose after the match. I probably marked out more for that than Chris Hero repeatedly punching Tomohiro Ishii in the forehead and making the most disgusting noise imaginable

Refusing to sleep on how good Smackdown is though, so weird to be watching WWE and being like "ah these two guys also have an issue now, they might fight next week I guess / ah, that basic comment by the broadly competent wrestling commentator David Otunga has explained the action straightforwardly and effectively". With Raw it's like "uneasily read the first paragraph of the recap and see what sewer of context-free bullshit was unleashed in the 20 minute opening segment this week"

https://i.redd.it/zde82tyz0x7y.gif

Naito might be going soft though idk

LIJ is for the children

jeepers creepers i was avoiding this thread for a while (because i hadn't watched wk11 yet) but now that i have, man-o-man, that omega-okada match was really good huh

i mean like the entire "stakes" of it (upholding njpw vs evolving njpw) seemed so silly to me at first and none of the wrestling really... referenced it? but i found myself increasingly buying it as these two guys went deeper and deeper into the match. all of the risky spots felt like risks that needed to be taken (unlike the wwe-style "and now our requisite tope whateverita" nonsense) and earned. which in turn makes the small stuff feel more important. merdeyeux otm about the wrist-holding spot, that was so thrilling. gosh i really need to get into new japan, this is the third year in a row where AT LEAST one match blew my mind (styles-nakamura laste yr, ibushi-nakamura the year before, and one of those years one of the tanahashi-okada matches was dynamite too).

also due to getting drunk a little too fast and it getting way too late, my friend and i skipped three matches near the end so i get to watch those soon too! matches... 6, 7, 8? maybe?

Idk if i can achieve it but im trying to watch the wk11 main event before my girlfriends free. So far i love the terminator intro.

I watched the first half of WK11 (skipping through most of the Rumble and the Cody vs Juice match) and rewatched most of the rest. I loved the six man tag gauntlet, it was easily the best thing on the show outside of the top four matches. I definitely underrated Kushida vs Takahashi the first time, it was crazy intense and they had much better chemistry than I originally gave them credit for. Tanahashi vs Naito was even better the second time (and it was awesome the first time).

The main event for me was worse on second viewing, and Meltzer et al who are calling it the greatest match ever are nuts and Meltzer in particular has been willfully blind to both Okada and Omega's faults for a while. Calling Omega the best big match wrestler in the world when he's had maybe four big matches in his career is just silly. The finishes to Okada's matches are so good that you forget that nothing important happens in the first half, which makes him the Japanese version of Edge -- a great worker in the right style of match with the right opponent, but not one of the best two or three wrestlers in the world.

I love the All Japan 90's main event style too with 45-minute main events, crazy escalating finisher kickouts and guys getting dropped on their heads (I like it less because of what we know now about concussions, but they were amazing matches), but those matches slowed down towards the end like a long grueling match should. Omega vs Okada kept speeding up, which is one of the many problems with doing that style of match for that length of time. Both guys are so athletic and have such great movesets that they can fool you into thinking they're having a great match when they aren't. I never got the feeling that there was a personal issue (the build for the match was super personal with Okada supposedly defending the values of New Japan against the evil foreigners, and Omega putting Okada through tables and trying to injure him), never felt that either guy had a strategy for winning the match. They're running through their arsenals and then heading to the finish, but doing it in twice the time of a typical NJPW main event. This is why Okada needed a guy like Tanahashi with great facial expressions and character work who could also attack the leg for fifteen minutes to give the matches a clear direction.

Omega looks like a huge threat when he's put in this type of match, but inbetween big matches he's goofing off with the Young Bucks and doing comedy which is NAGL for guy who's supposed to be the top heel in the company. His matches are way more over than the character is. Naito vs Tanahashi was the most heated match by far at WK11 because they're the most over characters in the company, which is what works in front of a dome crowd. People will buy tickets to a NJ show just to see Naito and buy his merch because the character is super over, but I don't think anyone buys tickets to see Kenny Omega the character, and Okada's character has been so watered down over the years that I think the same is true for him unless he's with the right opponent. Fortunately for him, over the past year he's had amazing opponents (Naito, Marafuji) who could raise his game to another level.

The main event for me was worse on second viewing, and Meltzer et al who are calling it the greatest match ever are nuts and Meltzer in particular has been willfully blind to both Okada and Omega's faults for a while. Calling Omega the best big match wrestler in the world when he's had maybe four big matches in his career is just silly. The finishes to Okada's matches are so good that you forget that nothing important happens in the first half, which makes him the Japanese version of Edge -- a great worker in the right style of match with the right opponent, but not one of the best two or three wrestlers in the world.

i'm glad u said this. i thought it was a fantastic match and i really like Omega but i didn't really get what distinguished it from other fantastic matches i've seen over the last couple years and it was probably 15 minutes too long. but yes the finish was tremendous even if the wrong guy won. like some of the spots were great but then bc i was prepped by all the meltzer ****** talk i kept thinking 'well yes this is great but is it better than that spot in grave consequences' etc which maybe i'm just spoiled for good wrestling but i think that it was njpw and it was wk11 and it was omega vs okada prepped the reception.

i was thinking that it would be much easier to watch wwe more consistently if instead of like 5 hours of programming btwn RAW and Smackdown they did some kind of best of show that maybe only featured the best 1 hour (or at most 2) from the shows that week. does this already exist and if not why not?

They used to do a version for sky tv for europe like that, idk if it still exists because i dont have sky and because it changed names every couple of years. It would have someone like todd phillips or joey styles i troduce clips that were relevant, and last an hour or two.

Last time i watched it, it was called WWE Experience

Yeah they don't do WWE Experience anymore to my knowledge. (First sighting of Renee Young in WWE on that show IIRC.)

There's This Week In WWE on the Network but that doesn't compare, it's only 30 minutes and only covers angles for half of that. An hour-long highlights show on the Network the weekend after that week's Raw and SD would be so good. Maybe they think everyone's watching clips on YouTube but I'm too passive a viewer for that makarley.

tbh just now i think smackdown is a resolutely entertaining show that i'm happy to spend two hours watching. but yes i could really be doing with some kind of raw digest. like, last week's show had the excellent braun - sami last man standing match and also a v good cesaro - karl anderson match along with some other innocuous-to-enjoyable things, but buried amidst a 1/2 wrestle kingdom's span of stuff who can be bothered.

anyone bothering with this UK tournament?

first match was pish, second one p. good actually. Finn Balor's weird-looking protege just kicked his opponent in the head and busted him open hardway it seems, really weird shooty ending to that match. then kicked the dude in the face again during the post-match handshake to complete a pretty fuckin effective heel turn. but the other guy, Burch, has been the best so far by a distance

He legit knocked him out which is some reckless bullshit IMHO.

Until that mess-up, Birch or Burch or however WWE spells it was channeling Shibata for real. Hopefully just in-ring Shibata, considering his Twitter drama this weekend.

I always liked Danny Burch when he showed up in NXT. I had a bad feeling he would be first-round fodder for this tournament. He deserves better.

What's this about Shibata twitter drama?

I'm not absolutely certain Burch was supposed to lose. What is clear is that the match wasn't supposed to end the way it did.

As for Shibata... Allegedly, he broke up with a partner or lover around Xmas time, and said jilted person posted a bunch of illicit details on Twitter, including stuff about him being insulting to fans. Allegedly.

fuck Jimmy Snuka

yup.

but major props to tyler 'didn't have a wikipedia article until last week' bate and pete dunne and all the lads apart from budget balor

i was not at all into trent seven but the rest of them were great! better than i expected (i had low expectations tho fwiw)

Agreed! Night 2 was so much better, partly to do with everyone having more time, partly to do with the existence of actual storylines (kicking off with Gradwell and Dunne, Dunne himself just being the biggest bastard, Tyler Bate the teenage underdog).

I'm mesmerised by the size of Tyler Bate's thighs. He gives Big E a run for his money.

Was the tournament worth watching?

Will the uk champ be rumble fodder? They dont actually have a tv show lined up yet right?

first night was alright, it felt a bit amateurish but was generally decent with a v good main event. the second night was excellent start to finish. and yeah, they did a great job of very quickly building up characters and storylines. pete dunne is immediately more hateable than any main roster wwe heel.

agreed about trent seven, will, i'd heard good things about him but he left very little impression on me.

Kurt Angle was announced for the WWE HOF. I guess the question now is who will he face at Mania? Cena? Styles? Joe?

best news. god bless Kurt Angle

fuckin hate wrestling fans that haven't go

t time for Kurt Angle. i meaan the guy lost his way for a while there but from 99-03 Kurt Angle was simply fuckin astonishing on so many levels

Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle.

kurt angle "you suck" during theme song was the beginning of a terrible tradition but is still all kinds of lol imo

(not a zing on angle himself, plz don't put me in an angle lock windsor)

saw a vid clip fairly recently of Kurt Angle coming out to wrestle (I think) Zack Sabre at a Rev Pro show where they played out 'Medal' in full, bcuz clearly WWE is bigger than that kinda bullshit these days, and I tell you what, it was p. frickin special

hadn't realised until now that i has this whole "I MUST USE THE FULL NAME AT ALL TIMES" Edin Dzeko thing going on w. Kurt Angle but there we are

i think there is a cogent case to be made that Kurt Angle in 2001 is about as good as anyone ever got. the transition from weasel heel champ working The Rock to technically perfect ultimate submission master working Chris Benoit to all-time better-than-Atsushi-Onita garbage death match at King of the Ring to beloved babyface p. much revolutionising the WWE main event spectacular / WORKRATE hybrid that dominates to this day, all while being totally dope on the mic and also probably the best comedy character of the decade, ONLY 2 YEAR INTO HIS CAREER

idgaf what other shit ppl try and blame on him retrospectively ito the development of WWE main event trends, in those days he was untouchable. it's true, it's etc.

Angle seems to really have his life back on track after a bunch of really messed up years. I couldn't be happier that he's back in WWE. I'm assuming he gets the Taker/Lesnar treatment where he wrestles two or three matches per year, which has me stoked for all sorts of amazing matchups.

i think there is a cogent case to be made that Kurt Angle in 2001 is about as good as anyone ever got.

He's up there. Angle was WWE's last chance to save the Invasion angle, the Summerslam match vs Austin is one of my all-time favourites and I still wonder how big he could have gotten if they'd given him the belt there and let him carry the company for a few months. Instead they went all-in with Austin's second failed heel turn, Angle turned to the Alliance for no reason (and then back again) and was damaged goods until the Smackdown Six era picked up in late '02.

Kurt Angle > Benoit by an astronomical factor, in my view.

I see the board is as excited for Royal Rumble as I am.

i'm actually always excited about the rumble tbh, it's the funnest dumbest thing. i've actually been watching old rumbles over the past 2 weeks! it was the first thing i cared about as a "casual" because it had ALL OF THE DUDES and to this day i still love the glorious idiocy of it all

i'm excited bc it really does feel unpredictable this year, but i'm sure they'll find a way to disappoint

The Royal Rumble is the WrestleMania of wrestling.

That being said, it's always best to go into the things with low expectations. Even with the NXT show tonight, I'm not holding my breath. And I'm not staying up for it, either; one all-nighter for the Rumble is enough for me.

Im super excited. I think i could make a list of genuinely like 15 potential winners. I dont think it has ever been this unpredictable. The last one i can remember that even came close is the one where edge returned from injury. Even wildcards like joe, nakamura, zayn and balor dont seem out of the question (they also definitely wont happen).

On the other hand I can see them bursting such a bubble with something that will piss fans off like craaazy, like cena winning and orton winning and being like "omg they have never fought at wrestlemania (1 on 1) lets do itttttt" and it being worse than the mega sheamus push from a year or so ago.

way more psyched for the RR (the whole 14-hour event) than takeover

yeah for sure. Takeover was pretty flat on the whole I thought. i like the Authors of Pain and I thought that was the right result, and Nakamura / Roode was as enjoyable and competent as it was always gonna be without ever really being anything special. cba with Nakamura in NXT anymore really, but apparently there aren't any plans in the pipeline to bring him up yet. presumably they need him to anchor the WM-weekend show in his rematch against Roode. meh.

i like all the new women well enough - Asuka is just killing that division now. get her up on the main roster soon too plz

Tye Dillinger is so obviously the man. they're getting away with doing that Tyler Breeze thing to him at the moment but he's seriously the only guy on the whole roster (except for The Revival) who feels like he has that proper organic connection with the fans based on his character and NXT work rather than reputation (i.e. Nak, Roode) He'd make an awesome sympathetic babyface champ at some point. if he gets passed over for Austin Aries or Andrade Almas or (heaven fuckin help us) Roderick Strong this year it'll be a huge missed opportunity.

but yeah, all told a disappointing show.

majorly hyped for the Rumble, p. sure I will stay up to watch. honestly can't think of very many permutations which wouldn't be quite cool (unless it really is Cena / Reigns / Taker all winning in the three big matches, that would admittedly be pretty flat). this would be a good year for a dark horse outsider pick for the Rumble i reckon. although with that said, Jericho's never won it yet has he? I could see him winning, KO retains to set up their thing at WM for the title

lol i have nothing on tonight so i'm actually watching the pre-show shit, making for a grand total of 6 hrs of Royal Rumbling in the Davies household. fuckin A. HBK is on the pre-show panel, unexpected bonus early on.

loooove listening to HBK kayfabing about the 95-96 Rumbles. still to this day THE all-time prick.

wait what, Rosenberg is doing presenting for them now? at least he didnt bring the Masked Man with him i guess

man Jericho is selling the shit out of this shark cage gimmick. this latest run for him ended up being so good.

Roman Reigns, otoh, is still just such a fuckin goof. how is it possible that a guy with so many of the necessary raw materials sucks so much? can it really all be Vinnie Mac micro-management? I'm not the biggest fan of Kevin Owens as a wrestler tbh but the difference between Owens and Reigns in those little "intangible" character moments is like night and day

lol no wai they're actually doing Strowman vs Reigns at Wrestlemania, this is astonishing

tbf though that is a MOUNTAIN of a man jfc

it'll be fun to see everyone cheering for Strowman.

2 minute intervals tonight, sweet.

love both Cena and Styles unreservedly. gotta think Styles is winning here though, potentially with shenanigans. they've made nowhere near enough of a thing in the pre-match out of Cena breaking the world tile record for them to actually do it

fuck though Styles was gonna hit the BURNING HAMMER for a second there

didn't Brian Kendrick hit a Burning Hammer on someone recently? And it only got a 2? That sorta shit should lead to an automatic revocation of all pro-wrestling certificates and credentials for both parties imo

almost as bad as KO barely getting a two count on Reigns tonight off of a Stone Cold Stunner.

welp! shows what i know! totally burned out on these WWE finisher kickout epics now but that rolling AA to finish was flyyyyyyyy

k i would like one Kurt Angle appearance plz, give me that and i don't really gaf what else may happen.

So long as it isn't Randy Orton, who apparently is the overwhelming bookies favourite :S

ahhhhhh i'm excited this is the best hour or two of the wrestling year. let's dooooo it

fuck man they are properly giving Strowman the main-event push tonight. it's gonna have to be Lesnar to fuck his shit up isn't it

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh they did Tye Dillinger at 10, YES

so at #15 we haven't seen hide nor hair of Y2J for about half an hour, so he's gotta be hiding somewhere for a late return and victory

holy shit Kofi just nearly killed himself on the ring post

or not

My favorite Rumble prediction of those I've read is that this will finally be Kofi's year. As of this writing he's still in, so I hope that's what happens.

this has turned into a pretty shitty Rumble. damn. wouldn't have thought that the first half of it where it was all about Strowman would be the hot half but there it is.

ring all full of dudes now for one of/some combo of Lesnar / Goldberg / Taker to come in and clean house. meh.

Welp, there go Kofi and Cesaro, my sentimental favorites.

ugh is there a person a live that gives a fuck about Dolph Ziggler in 2017? shouldn't he be working second tier indy shows with Cody Rhodes by now?

pretty weird (for me at least, as someone that hasn't watched at all since last summer) that 14 years after his last prominent appearance Goldberg appears to be the most over guy on the roster

hahahaha Goldberg just banged Lesnar AGAIN. it's so crazy that they've taken one of the most historically hilarious main-event programmes of all time and turned into their 2017 Wrestlemania main-event feud

christ almighty i don't wish ill on any man but surely someday soon The Undertaker is gonna be too decrepit to stand up unaided, let alone dominate major annual WWE gimmick matches

tbf they are doing a decent job of setting up multiple WM programmes that would work tonight - Reigns / Taker, Taker / Goldberg, Goldberg / Lesnar, Reigns / Strowman

shit i just realised that i don't actually want to see ANY of those matches

Fatal five-way with all those clowns.

hahahahaha so it was Orton after all. and even now after everything, they felt that the best way to get that shit over was by having Reigns be the final elimination. so
Wyatt wins the belt off of Cena at Elimination Chamber then?

ugghhhhh i hate that after a brief moment of hope in which it seemed like they were setting up various surprising things for WM it really is just gonna be

Lesnar v Goldberg
Cena v Taker
Orton v Wyatt
HHH v Rollins
Reigns v Strowman

all matches which were called months ago

and which on reflection is a pretty fucking sucky card. again.

should have let Jericho win it and pay off the buddies storyline.

To me it looked like Strowman vs Reigns will happen at Fastlane and Taker vs Reigns at Mania.

If they wanted Taker vs Cena then Taker would have/should have won the Rumble.

It's kind of sad that the Rumble has underachieved for so many years in a row. There was way too much laying around while one guy cleaned house or two guys worked in the center of the ring. Jericho seemed to get injured early in the match and didn't play much of a role (and didn't win) so I have no idea why he was in until almost the end. What was the point in having Reigns in there? There also wasn't a single surprise entry -- including no Balor and no Joe. Really disappointing Rumble overall.

Cena vs Styles was great though. I didn't catch Owens vs Reigns, will have to watch it later. Does this free up Styles for a match vs Joe at Mania?

i thought jericho was deviously playing the waiting game while e.g. braun wasted everybody, but i dunno why he gave up on that to then get wasted himself. also there was ONE surprise entry, tye dillinger, and sure fine that's nice for him. maybe jack gallagher counts too.

reigns at #30 and then eliminating undertaker is the most astonishing troll, unless they're finally turning him heel. why would he even be part of it, was his plan to hold both universal and world titles at the same time?

overall the rumble did v little to hold my interest. building it around three guys who then didn't arrive till the end and got what, fifteen minutes of ring time between them, low-key eliminations for a bunch of people who deserved more (e.g. ambrose, zayn), generally v little drama except for when the big lads decided to clear house. maybe i am too harsh, maybe the royal rumble has been ruined for me by aztec warfare.

was really hoping for a jericho win (i can't believe im saying this in 2017), to finish off the team chris and kevin storyline (or at least give it a proper build instead of having them split up every week for a month).

also he was the only person who seemed to have a chance that i can tolerate watching. they have a roster full of amazing workers but most of the wrestlemania matches will have at least one crap worker or be mutiman spotfests

why would he even be part of it, was his plan to hold both universal and world titles at the same time?

And why Reigns and not AJ Styles? Did Sheamus and Cesaro want to lose the tag titles so they could focus on winning the Rumble? I guess we're not supposed to use logic and stuff when thinking about this.

Thinking about it some more, it really was a boring Rumble. They didn't even bother with all the usual Rumble tropes -- guys fighting in groups near the ropes and trying to throw each other out, timing updates from the announcers ("Sami Zayn has been in the Rumble for over 26 minutes!" "Rusev has been in the Rumble for over 31 minutes!"). Two thirds of the match was literally guys lying around waiting for their cue to stand up and take somebody's finisher, and then lying around waiting for the next entrant.

On the other hand I can see them bursting such a bubble with something that will piss fans off like craaazy, like cena winning and orton winning and being like "omg they have never fought at wrestlemania (1 on 1) lets do itttttt" and it being worse than the mega sheamus push from a year or so ago.

― plums (a hoy hoy), Saturday, 28 January 2017 14:14 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Man this company knows how to make a great thing into a turd. Strowman was boss but... the Kofi spot was crap, the announcing was bad (notimebeforetime otm), the half hour or so of watching people lie on the floor was inane as hell, the "old guys are the only ones who can eliminate anyone" thing just sucks, especially when it makes guys they are trying to build as legitimate like corbin and ambrose and rusev etc. look like chumps, taker looks like my nan, the only surprise entrant was the least over guy on the roster who had already lost a match (when it could have been joe or angle or someone)...

But the worst part is fucking mr. headlock himself winning. How the fuck can a guy who can't cut a promo or wrestle an interesting match be main eventing again? If you count taker matches and title matches the guy has been in the main event 6 times in 12 years. Its fucking obscene. He's more boring than Ziggler. He's got some kane/big show PLEASE RETIRE *clapclapclapclapclap* heat over here but at least Big Show does shit. He's just the absolute opposite of what I want to see in a pro wrestler. He's fucking BLAND. I can't remember the last time he even had a character (and I don't think being wyatt or triple h's bitch boy counts) 2009? Legacy was 8 years ago. You had Zayn and Jericho sit on the floor for an hour for that?

That AJ-Cena match was legit tho. As good as any 6 star matches i've seen recently.

Wrestlemania could have been the greatest card, full of guys who had an excellent year and they could have easily built feuds built on passion and heat.

Instead guys like AJ Styles might have to hope they make it into the Andre Battle Royal I guess, so Lesnar can get his win back from a guy who debuted 20 years ago and Roman Reigns can be a fan favourite beating up a grandad who wrestled his first match 4 decades ago.

The rest of the show was really fun though. I liked Bayley-Charlotte, they are building this ppv streak thing so well. The finish on the side of the ring was great, its nice for them to use something thats always described as being more painful to actually win and not as a bridge before the real finisher. The shark cage thing was pointless and that was just a big mess, but I liked Owens just deciding to CZW it up anyway. And yeah, Cena-Styles was fucking excellent, Cena's best match since Bryan as SS13.

There's no way Orton main events Mania. Maybe Bray Wyatt wins the belt from Cena at Elimination Chamber and faces Orton in a match 4th from the top at Mania, but that's it. But I would bet on him losing the title shot at some point in the next month.

I still don't get why they won't do Taker vs Cena (with or without the belt on the line, it doesn't really matter). That match was set in stone last year before Cena got injured, but for some reason they've decided against doing it this year (although Vince may change his mind another ten times about it).

Man this company knows how to make a great thing into a turd. Strowman was boss but... the Kofi spot was crap, the announcing was bad (notimebeforetime otm), the half hour or so of watching people lie on the floor was inane as hell, the "old guys are the only ones who can eliminate anyone" thing just sucks, especially when it makes guys they are trying to build as legitimate like corbin and ambrose and rusev etc. look like chumps, taker looks like my nan, the only surprise entrant was the least over guy on the roster who had already lost a match (when it could have been joe or angle or someone)...

I pretty much agree with all of this. Definitely the bit about making most of the active roster look like chumps. I've been so tired of that since Brock came back last year. I don't care if he's over, it's too harmful to the long term health of the company. The message it sends is 'why give a shit about any of these guys when the old farts will rag doll them around as they please'. And then they wonder why they haven't repeated the Rock or Stone Cold magic. I've said this before but it bears repeating.

As for Orton winning: I've always found him bland and boring too. I've literally fallen asleep during his matches. The only good moment I can remember from his entire career is thanks to Seth Rollins. But he has his fans, inexplicably. And I popped too, as a reflex, but it was a relief pop. I would have cheered for anyone but Roman at that point as my cynicism took over as soon as he walked out.

One more thing: that teasing of a Rollins run-in from TakeOver and then only ever making reference to it on the Rumble preshow - I feel like there was a clip during the main PPV too but they more or less pretended it never happened. That's some WCW level 'let's pop the Monday rating' shit.

Oh and the Undertaker is an embarrassment to himself at this stage. Props to him for staying under the ring for however many hours (unless there's a trap door under the Alamodome floor) but he's so clearly not anywhere near in ring shape. He looks like when Jake the Snake was strung out on indie shows.

Two weird things about Randy Orton:

1) As a kid, I loved it when DDP would hit the Diamond Cutter from various angles. And yet Orton doing an even more varied and athletic version of the same bit has never been all that exciting to me.
2) Other wrestlers seem to love Orton. Karl Anderson, for example, who's worked with all of your main New Japan critical darlings, regularly cites Orton as one of his favorites. And he's far from the only one! Yet Orton remains mysteriously bland.

They hyped Stephanie coming to RAW on Monday to deal with the Rollins situation. But it was a bit strange that the supposed #2 face on Raw didn't appear at all on the #2 PPV event of the year.

Undertaker looked horribly immobile and out of shape, yes, and it was sad.

It's beyond ridiculous to even say it at this point, but I still can't understand the booking of Roman Reigns would make anyone want to cheer for him. He lost his championship match when Strowman interfered, fine. According to booking 101, he should get revenge on Strowman later and screw him during the Rumble. Did anything like that happen? Hell no! He was nowhere to be seen when Strowman was out there, and got a second chance for a title shot by entering the Rumble even after losing his match. Did he have to fight through hell to make it to the end? No, he had the biggest advantage of anyone in the match by getting to come in at #30! And then he lost anyway! To a glorified tag team wrestler!

undertaker's immobility and goldberg struggling to run the ropes does not bode well for wrestlemania's marquee matches

imo the worst thing is that the only real rumble storylines going in were based around part-timers, who were all introduced at the very end and did nothing of note before getting cheesed. and then randy orton, the guy who was blood sacrificed to make brock lesnar's return to a different company seem more important, wins, and who could possibly give a shit. the gulf between the part-timers and full-timers is so massive right now it's like they're not even in the same universe. and it's even worse when 2 of them are feuding with each other.

and this was the second year in a row there were no surprise entrants (excepting legitimate debuts) which is honestly 90% of the fun of the rumble

taking some insomniac time to note that on this week's raw and smackdown the respective primary, secondary, and women's title holders all lost, all but kevin owens by pinfall. can't say i have much of a grasp on the logic behind wwe booking

http://rumblemetrics.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/2017-royal-rumble.html

as per usual, yer man at Rumblemetrics is (rather wordily) otm. his stuff on AJ / Cena is spot on, nails exactly how I feel about that match / those sorts of matches

mad respect to anyone who can get through a paragraph of that

lol yeah the style gets less wieldy with each passing Rumble but I still enjoy the guy's approach to the subject matter

I unashamedly <3 rumblemetrics

http://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/18598469/wwe-seth-rollins-suffers-injury-monday-night-raw

Lol was just coming to say you know mania season has started, someone is seriously injured.

Thank god for no hhh-rollins. It was gonna be a terrible match. If they could spin it quickly to be hhh-joe i would like that so much more.

Even with three years of build I had no interest in seeing that match.

After EC, Cena won't have anything to do. HHH vs Cena hasn't happened in nine years, and the match would be a crazy heat machine.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1197735140342083&id=100003168241103

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/02/07/513883586/in-mexico-the-crowd-loves-to-hate-pro-wrestler-who-plays-trump-supporter

NJPW New Beginning(s) -- the second show was excellent, as expected, Dragon Lee vs Hiramu Takahashi was off the charts, Naito carried Elgin to probably his best match in NJ, Ospreay vs Shibata had a really cool chemistry and felt like the first chapter of a soon to be great feud. KUSHIDA is one of my favourite guys in NJ and I thought he did a great job of carrying the junior division, but Takahashi has a superstar presence that even most of the heavyweights can't touch.

The Okada worship is getting totally out of hand, I'm really not a psychology snob but when someone works on your knee for 40 straight minutes, including about 10 minutes in submission holds, and when it's time for your comeback you start throwing dropkicks like it's nothing, that's some bullshit. No, doing all your normal stuff at full effectiveness but grabbing the knee once in a while for a half a second isn't selling. Elgin vs Naito was a textbook example of how to have a long match focusing on a body part, while keeping the match within the realm of realism when it's time to build to the finish (and to have that work factor in to the finish).

jfc even with corino gone i can't listen to the english commentary

Kevin Kelly is awful, like wtf stop shouting destino all the time

Corino was useful because he could understand Japanese and would give live translation of promos. Callis doesn't add anything, but he doesn't take away anything either, unlike say Matt Striker who was the absolute worst. Kevin Kelly is OK, he comes off like a genuine fan of the product, but I think he'd be so much better even with a halfway decent colour commentator.

don't give two hoots what kind of knowledge they bring to the table if they're gonna remain dead set on calling exciting matches like they're calling the puppy bowl (and puppies make them sort of uncomfortable)

no lawler attitude era jokes please it took a while to come up with the right metaphor

"A new list! ... why is my name on this?" Wrestling is the best theater in the world sometimes.

bogus :(

i watched that segment again, so great

the gasp of horror from the crowd was incredible, Jericho probably felt such a warm glow of professional fulfilment at turning a comedy list into that payoff

It was Owens' genuine tears that made it. He didn't attack Jericho because he wanted to, he did it because he had to. I thought storytelling of that calibre was beyond WWE these days.

i think it kinda is? but fortunately for us all Chris Jericho is a mastermind and he's allowed to bring his own ideas to the table. what an amazing heel turn.

great episode top to bottom actually

I kind of feel bad for Owens now, it's reminding me of Kurt Angle's first title reign in 2000-1 where he was booked like a paper champion for months, then took his character to another level and became an awesome psycho killer just in time to get steamrolled by the guy main eventing Wrestlemania.

Man, I remember around this time last year, people all over the internet were saying Jericho was played out, couldn't make it happen in the ring anymore, and should basically get lost. For him to go from that to pulling off maybe his best character-reinvention yet, topped off with this instant classic TV segment, all in his mid-40s, is just fantastic.

the gasp of horror from the crowd was incredible

yes i loved this. it's impossible for wwe to get the fans invested in tough guys being mean to each other, but two jerks having a sweet friendship? this we care about

Bummer that George "The Animal" Steele and Ivan Koloff both died. Not enough love given to these two in recent years.

been watching the most recent WWE 24 documentary thing on the Network (the one about WM 32) and it got me to thinking about the wider presentation of the product today, particularly the whys and why nots of a realer, more "pure sports" approach to promoting their guys

for instance, i had never previously heard that Zack Ryder had suffered with multiple bouts of cancer as a kid, had tumors removed from his lungs and shit. they accompanied this info with a little highlights package of him talking about how all he ever wanted to be when growing up was a "WWE Superstar (TM)" replete w. pics of him as a nipper done up as Hulk Hogan / stripper-era HBK

like.... why the fuck would you NOT assume that this is something that I as a wrestling fan would respond? the fact that its cropping up in this documentary would suggest that Ryder isn't averse to its being used by the company to develop his character. i mean sure i lolled when Ryder won the IC title in the ladder match later that night (in order to facilitate a bad punchline in an advert later in the show), and I felt good for the guy seeing him celebrating with his dad immediately afterward, but I feel like there was actually way more of an emotional punch to that victory than the show itself let on, and that was probably a directorial / production choice, for reasons unknown

it is a truly terrifying look into vinces mind* that i read that and just immediately assumed its because vince hears cancer, he thinks weakness and disrespects and distrusts you... and ive sat on this comment for 5minutes to see whether i could think of another logical explanation, but no, i just presume vince is a psychopath.

*and i guess his team in washingtons mind

I really don't think it's anything twisted like that on Vince's part. He has a fixed idea of what is marketable and what isn't and he only changes his mind if it's unavoidable like with Daniel Bryan for WM30. He doesn't care about the character development of anyone besides a few hand picked main eventers, and doesn't pay attention to 95% of the content on his own network.

i vaguely recall seeing something about how zack ryder himself didn't want to make it a character point. tho i guess he's okay with making it a second-level character point for the character of zack-ryder-the-person-not-the-tv-character. uhhhh

but yeah, wwe's characterisation of its wrestlers remains baffling and feels 20 years out of step with what you'd think the brand direction should be. heck, just think about how much they managed to wring out of mick foley's irl boyhood dreams, yet as far as i recall they haven't remotely tried to replicate that success

Fastlane was sad. The bar was laying on the ground and they still managed to trip.

i think i need to give up on wwe yall

can't make it through fastlane, this has been torture, can't even press unpause on a braun strowman match. i can't even make it through a recap.

it's all just dead. i can't care anymore. the brand split has killed any desire to watch any of these matches or care about any of the performers in any way.

probably working 12 hour days isnt helping things. i could've spent these past 2 hours catching up with njpw though and it would've been time well spent

this is a total bizarro world bc the only wrestler i want to see wrestle anymore is john cena

People will miss Cena now that he's off to be a movie star. The Rock faced plenty of backlash when he was full time (fewer years than Cena, but still) but staying away did wonders for his legacy.

I spent some time yesterday catching up with NJPW, Day 1 of the New Japan Cup is skippable outside of Evil vs Tanahashi, the Day 2 tournament matches are worth seeing all the way through.

I spent some time yesterday catching up with NJPW, Day 1 of the New Japan Cup is skippable outside of Evil vs Tanahashi, the Day 2 tournament matches are worth seeing all the way through.

Thanks for that, I can compress both shows into one sit-down before the weekend.

Thoughts on Southpaw Regional Wrestling?

A++++: Farmer Rusev, the theme song
A: most of the rest

Sea creature reveal, rusev and what greg valentine did were my personal favs.

Also shame on the internet to its reaction to paige, although i am intrigued as to what it means for xavier and the new day.

Smash cut to Rusev screaming "IT IS A DEVIL" was magnificent

Jericho only has one schtick; Cena was sort of incredible

Also shame on the internet to its reaction to paige, although i am intrigued as to what it means for xavier and the new day.

It's all best forgotten. Draw a line under it and move on. As I read elsewhere, Seth Rollins set the precedent for this kind of thing. No punishment for Tom Phillips, by the way.

Paige should pursue the matter legally of course, if that's her call.

Speaking of shaming bullshit: all this speculation about Mauro Ranallo and his health needs to stop, too.

As for Southpaw, Tyler Breeze was my favourite. That sea creature bit was magnificent! Better than the references.

Cena's mid-80s Vince impression was glorious.

It's sad that Southpaw Regional Wrestling is the best thing they've done in years.

"Chad 2 Badd, It may be true that my right arm has gone dead because you somehow squandered up the money to send Gregg Valentine over to my trailer and put me in an armbar for two and a half hours..."

I feel like this entire thing wouldn't exist if Luke gallows hadn't demanded a way to resurrect Sex Ferguson for a WWE audience, and I am so glad he did.

It's not even sad that this is the best thing they've done in years. I hope an indie decides to roll with it and makes a really smart 80s throwback league inspired by this. TNA needs a new hook, right? Broken Matt was leading to this. Lean in, Impact.

"i feel like i can hear chad 2 badd in my right ear. we'll never be able to compete with vince if we don't up our production values."

ric flair playing a tired ric flair impersonator might be one of the most perfect moments in anything, ever, period. i might even buy kfc as thanks

With five minutes of promo time based on the goofy shit they do in their spare time, Gallows and Anderson got themselves more over than Vince's team of 35 comedy and soap opera writers has managed in almost a year. It's sad, really.

p sure this whole thing was written by parts of the creative staff too

I can't believe this, but.....this is my brother in this commercial w/ Bayley! it's supposed to air during Wrestlemania. so jealous of dude....

http://www.cagesideseats.com/2017/3/19/14975254/bayley-snickers-commercial-video-hug-yourself

awesome!

lol that is great stuff

The Greg Valentine line from Southpaw Wrestling was very cutely done. The "bounty on the head" was the one story you could guarantee that every territory everywhere would run at least a few times a year. Tbh it'd still make for more compelling storytelling than anything they've done recently

Love the Bayley commercial!

Speaking of shaming bullshit: all this speculation about Mauro Ranallo and his health needs to stop, too.

After missing Smackdown for a second straight week with no clear reason given, it is getting a bit worrying though ...

Call me crazy but the match I'm most looking forward to at Mania might be Cena/Nikki vs Miz/Maryse. They've all done an amazing job in building the match with the Total Bellas spoofs and fired up promos on Smackdown, and the match should be a Mania-worthy spectacle with plenty of smoke and mirrors. The payoff is obvious but in this case the obvious is exactly what this match and feud needs.

I agree.

But man the wm card is like they literally made a game in creative that was 'how to make wm as un-fun as possible'

so who else hasn't watched nxt since midway through the last takeover and is desperately trying to catch up in 20 minutes

god WM crowds are the worst

I haven't watched NXT much since Takeover Toronto. I don't know why I gave up on it exactly, but the slow turnover into a TNA alumni brand is certainly part of it. If the rumours are true and Nakamura gets called up to Smackdown this week then I may be done with NXT for a while.

The 3way tag from nxt was bundles of fun. My 2nd fav match of the year so far after aj-cena.

Yeah, those are my favourite guys left in NXT easily.

I'll definitely watch that match at some point.

Mania predictions?
ARMBAR: Stroman
Cruiserweight title: Neville
IC title: Corbin
SD women's title: who's even in this match?
RAW tag title: Enzo and Cass
US title: Owens (Jericho should win and get revenge based on storyline alone, but he's leaving again, so ...)
AJ vs Shane: AJ
Miz/Maryse vs Cena/Nikki: Cena/Nikki
RAW women's title: Charlotte
Universal title: Lesnar
SD title: Wyatt
HHH vs Rollins: going out on a limb and picking HHH
Reigns vs Undertaker: Reigns but goddamn will I be rooting for Taker like I never have before

Shamefully, except for neville - aries, i really really dont care about any of the matches. I will watch hoping they all turn it on for mania but wins and losses dont really matter to me cos none of the matches matter to me.

Asuka vs Ember Moon was great, people. Looking forward to the rematch already.

dont see myself even attempting to stay up for Mania this year. the Rumble is the only WWE show i've watched start to finish siiiiince, idk, the Cruiserweight Classic finals? and the Rumble felt like a let-down at the time. WM is usually where I try to drop back in but this is a terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE card. i don't see where the quality is coming from.

Taker is sad to watch these days. he needs to hang it up, stopped being fun a long time ago. this match with Reigns is obviously just gonna be a finisher-spamming "epic" (depending on how long / hard Taker can go) and at this point idgaf who wins. I don't get annoyed about the Roman Reigns thing anymore. I just don't watch (tho tbf that is not solely due to Roman Reigns). depressingly i'm not even interested in the prospect of a potential Taker retirement here. he's been a ghost ever since they killed off the Streak.

Lesnar / Goldberg is sure to be a spectacle and i can see casual fans being extremely into the moment. otoh it's also a tremendous waste of everyone's time. i guess Goldberg is out after this so Lesnar wins and gets his heat back? can't imagine it'll be much of a match either way. and everyone's another year older and they still have no-one anywhere near being ready to carry things.

Jericho / Owens, ok fair cop this should be good and their segments have been the only thing i've gone out of my way to find on Raw this year. these two guys have somehow managed to turn this into one of the best stories of the decade in spite of every mechanism the company has in place now to stop that from happening. kudos to them for that.

HHH/Rollins ffs WHY is Triple H in a WM main match AGAIN?! dude just needs to let go. Rollins has some awesome attributes and some truly horrible ones. i like his matches ok without ever really loving any of them. would expect this to fall squarely in the "good-not-great" camp. they're running this story way too late in the day. gaf

WWE Champion Bray Wyatt vs Royal Rumble winner Randy Orton for the WWE title at Wrestlemania in 2017 lol are they fucking serious get to fuck

i can dig the mixed tag match, that should be a lot of fun, but it's not gonna tempt me into watching the show when i can catch it later.

same goes for AJ / Shane, which is a massive waste of AJ imo in that he should really be having 5* main-event classics at every WM he has left. but i guess they see Shane as a top draw now and this is probably some kind of compliment to AJ. no doubt both guys will try to kill each other and i'd expect it to be leagues better than either man's match from last year.

Corbin to flatten Ambrose plz.

i don't think the rest of the card really calls for comment? i guess i object to them filling out the women's matches and sacrificing any quality just so that everyone gets a payday, but then otoh good that they all get a payday.

Whole card is just one big fuckin MEH, basically. k negative rant over, i hope everyone enjoys the show :)

course there is always hope that they over-deliver on the card, as they did a couple of years ago (was that 31? i think so). NXT last night was better than the card would've suggested. we can but hope!

am frustrated, made this

https://s29.postimg.org/j76f43ymf/nxt.png

assuming the next one is roode vs ohno (one year older than nak) it's gonna keep going up

"it's a developmental brand" get outta town, it's the throw-a-bone-to-the-smark brand, has been for ages and it's entirely "our" own fault in that this is what the hardcore fanbase (straw man alert) wanted for the longest time and it emerges that actually it kinda sucks and the whole thing works waaaay better when you've got actual real life rookies on screen who over the course of months and years learn how to actually do the job properly.

couldn't be less interested in what they're presenting right now compared to how it was in 2015 (and yes obvs guys like Zayn and Neville weren't unknown quantities at the time but they were exceptions i think) because obviously Bobby Roode knows what he is about but if you're not gonna bother giving a guy a story to tell then what is the fuckin point?

in this NXT has basically become the smark-friendly version of Monday Night Raw in that it is crammed full of quite-good talent but no one in the hierarchy is the least bit interested in putting that to work in the service of entertaining tv. when they succeed, they succeed in spite of themselves.

i mean i agree with everything you said i just picked that title to be snarky

lol surprise demotion to the preshow for IC match

I am actually physically at wm atm ask me anything

This is my first time watching wrestling

Are you having a good time?

Kinda boring

I liked that guy in the beginning with the trombone

i'm a bit behind already but holy shit these raw women's entrances

Didn't know wrestling got so cuddlestein mountain

Weird match order thus far but this has been one of the best Mania undercards ever.

Crowd hates Cena so much

Didnt mean to start watching this atm but ive got toothache thats keeping me awake.

So JBL just said Shane O is the best at strikes, kinda like how they used to put over mmataker. All they do is go on about Shane.

I feel so embarrassed for the best wrestler in the world.

Shane: built like a nfl linebacker and ripped to the bone. Also getting most of the offence.

15 mins in and im so happy that shareholder and boss Shane Macmahon is making that annoying upstart AJ Styles look like a chump. Ive only watched a few Smackdowns this year, im sure AJ is some nobody who cant wrestle and this grey haired old dude is the wrestling bad ass who deserves to fucking dominate. Not sure AJ has had one move that hasnt been a counter to stop him losing the match.

Shane just went through a table and AJ tried to hit just 1 move... and was unsuccessful to Shane's impeccable ability to counter this chump.

Wait, the underdog won! How???

KO-Jericho was really good. Now i need to go back to bed.

will vince succeed in making the audience too tired to boo

nah

SPOILERS

The show peaked with the Hardys comeback and win, from then on it was a steady stream of "who booked this crap?" and in the end they were indeed too tired to boo. Five hours is too damn long. Taker's farewell was memorable though.

Wait a goddamn second...

MOJO RAWLEY WON THE ANDRE BATTLE ROYAL??????

with gronk interference

The new NXT title belts are made by a London-based company, who've also made new tag belts for PROGRESS (thank fuck for that, 'coz that styrofoam shield is cheap af).

My favourite part of wm so far - how The Miz is the biggest babyface in the company.

rusev should be tbh

Maybe he'll come back as Farmer Rusev AKA the modern day Hillbilly Jim.

I watched a few highlights of the smarked out RAW after Mania. Angle as the new GM might get me back into RAW, because his backstage skits and short stints as Smackdown GM all those years ago were tremendous. Any chance they get it right with Reigns this time and turn him into a prick heel who trolls the crowd every week with two line promos?

The "superstar shakeup" could be interesting, the tag scenes and women's divisions on each brand are burned out on fresh matchups.

I always want to hope it will lead to something great but man i kinda presume aj gets buried on raw as reigns bitch or something while smackdown is blandy boreton (c) v. seth or ambrose having the same bland match for 12 months.

Anyone remember american alpha?

im going to smackdown next tuesday, which i guess will be post-shakeup

The Mauro Ranallo/JBL bullying story is fucked up on so many different levels.

Did the WWE think that Stroman would become a megaheel by giving Reigns the mother of all beatdowns?

Shibata vs Okada was must see. I criticize Okada a lot for his selling and comebacks, but not this time. Awesome stuff, and totally different than any IWGP title match in recent memory that didn't involve Minoru Suzuki.

yeah the JBL thing is a mess alright.

figures more widely in the current cultural moment too, what with Trump approvingly retweeting praise from JBL the other day, JBL being the sort of "self-made" millionaire that should be aspired to according to that particular weltanschauung, that he has supposedly given Vince numerous stock tips over the years as they have bonded over their shared status as wild-west capitalist pioneers, the fact that Vince apparently wholeheartedly endorses and even encourages this bullying culture by offering protection to his enforcer, the McMahon-Trump connection, the fact that a guy who was sexually abused as a child is down for his personal muscle to be soaping up terrified young men in the showers, "GRAB EM BY THE PUSSY" etc. etc. etc. etc.

there is something very deeply wrong with these ppl, no doubt about it. unfortunately it seems like another one of those things that ppl don't really give a shit about because wrestling.

Idk it seems like its getting widespread coverage. JBL has always been a bully, a nasty piece of work but it was kinda assumed he, and the company, grew out of it. With these recent examples, it is obvious he is still a ghastly human being. Its a shame that Vince has final say though, cos the bully, his friend, stays while the one everyone else loves is basically out of a job.

If only he wasnt fox news royalty, and he could just get thrown the fuck out in shame, like demott was.

(I presume the "old school" culture dies with vince right? I cant see hhh siding with jbl over mauro.)

I think Justin Roberts wrote that HHH supported the bullying culture, although now that he's an exec and in charge of developmental he may have changed his tune. It's impossible to say what HHH merely tolerates because he works for Vince and what he really believes is right (i.e. what he'd be doing if he was in charge).

Meltzer has been calling out ESPN for shoddy journalism in ignoring the story, but it's obvious that ESPN's "coverage" of WWE is paid advertising (from WWE's perspective) or puff piece journalism (from ESPN's perspective), they never had any intention of covering it like a "real" sport and it's frankly kind of shocking that Meltzer doesn't understand that.

I'm really not trying to pick on Meltzer because he's just doing his job, but the MSM for the most part doesn't see a story here because it's "only" wrestling and this isn't a big enough scandal to get the attention of non-wrestling sports fans (unfortunately).

you seriously think meltzer doesn't understand the relationship between ESPN and WWE? it doesn't make his crusading any less valid, he's always hated this sort of thing and he'd love an opportunity to bring attention to how antijournalistic it is

and it probably wouldn't have become such a thing if coachman didn't speak a bunch of bullshit

He probably gets it, but he never explicitly calls out ESPN for being paid shills for WWE, perhaps for political reasons. I look at it as tabloid entertainment "journalism" -- when covering celebs, they can report whatever they like and ignore other things, depending on what kind of coverage (i.e. positive or negative) will make them the most money. It seems silly to call them out for not doing "real" journalism when they never claimed they were.

Shibata may have suffered a career ending brain injury in the match vs Okada. First Honma, and now this, fuck. Originally this was thought to be an elaborate angle to give Shibata some time off but now most news sites are reporting that it's real.

I wanted to bring up the shibata thing. I obviously dont follow njpw that much but okada has had like a perfect meltzer year? And someone may be braindead because of it? Where does it end? I watched wk11 and i LOVED naito-tanahashi working bodypartz, possibly one of the best matches ive seen in years, but I feel like too often these big hype matches* are just a mess at this point? 4 rainmakers and tokyo dome makes a 6 star match? Shibata nearly dying is a 5 star angle?

Okada, tanahashi, omega, naito, previously aj, nakamura, ibushi etc. - these guys are the epitomy of sports entertainment when they want to be! No-one needs to get eddie-ed and stevie richards-ed!

*this includes the ospreay-ricochet flippy shit too

Ps. I do wonder if the great *safe* worker exists? Is it Cena? Will a njpw guy ever do it? (And yes this is understanding thay njpw dojo guys are *better* than most workers) I really do occasionally wonder if the miz will ever have a 5 star match - almost certainly never.

I share your discomfort. I've enjoyed a lot of recent NJPW, but something like the top-rope dragon suplex in the Omega/Okada match, however dramatic and exciting, is just so stupid. It makes me think of the way that the escalating violence of the AJPW/NOAH style from the early 90s to the late-2000s culminated in Misawa's death.

Ric Flair managed to be hugely successful and beloved by at least two generations of hardcore fans while working a pretty safe style. Randy Savage, too, although I've heard that all those top-rope elbows caused a lot of damage to his hip. For a more recent example, Chris Jericho strikes me as relatively safe.

BTW I know it's obvious that there were great wrestlers of yesteryear who weren't all about landing on their necks--I only mean to point out that some of the same fans who love super-dangerous state of the art wrestling also appreciate people like Savage and Flair, so maybe there's hope.

I look at it as tabloid entertainment "journalism"

That's how I've always seen it. Even as an avid Power Slam reader for decades, I always took it as gossip first. Dirt sheets are to wrestling as gossip mags are to celebs, soaps, etc.

Also, I share the discomfort over this Shibata situation and the propensity for 'Strong Style' (or the equivalent) to mean taking unnecessary risks. Meltzer has a part to play in this; the impression I get is that he creamed his pants for years over the head and neck battering All Japan style that ultimately killed Misawa. There's been no road to Damascus moment as far as I can tell.

Dirt sheets are to wrestling as gossip mags are to celebs, soaps, etc.

Actually I was referring to ESPN's coverage of wrestling being like the gossip mags. Meltzer is probably the best"real" journalist when it comes to telling uncomfortable truths.

I don't think we can point fingers at anyone for praising All Japan in the 90's when nobody really understood the long term risks. When Benoit came back from neck surgery in 2002 and when right back to doing the diving headbutt every night, there was only a small contingent of people who pointed out that he might want to tone it down a bit. I'll admit that I was in the majority at the time -- obviously I could see that Misawa and Benoit would break down and shorten their careers, but I wasn't thinking about it in terms of guys turning into zombies in their 50's or dying in the ring. Obviously the Benoit murder/suicide in 2007 was a wake up call as to what these guys were really doing to themselves.

Meltzer has been unambiguously clear for years about the headbutt spots being stupid and unnecessary, but he still hands out the five star ratings so there's arguably a mixed message there.

The Rock and John Cena are safe workers, but that basically highlights the problem here doesn't it? You can work safe if you're a once in a generation talent in terms of charisma and connecting with a crowd. The 99.99% of guys who aren't that have to kill themselves to make up the difference.

The Rock and John Cena are safe workers, but that basically highlights the problem here doesn't it? You can work safe if you're a once in a generation talent in terms of charisma and connecting with a crowd. The 99.99% of guys who aren't that have to kill themselves to make up the difference.

that's a problem of presentation as much as anything. going hard af every time you hit the ring shouldn't be the only way for guys to get over. fans could be re-educated to enjoy slower-paced and less high-spot intensive matches, i'm absolutely sure of it. put more emphasis on what's happening on the mat, let the guys try and use the wrestling to tell stories rather than just throwing ever-bigger bombs in a sprint to the finish.

they've done this sort of thing before, in the immediately post-Attitude period when they tried to teach their fans to enjoy actual wrestling again and Lesnar, Angle, Benoit, Eddie, HBK, Jericho etc. were being pushed at or near the top of the cards.

obviously it isn't something that could happen overnight but i think it's something the WWE could start phasing in if they were inclined to do so. whether they actually have enough guys on the roster these days who can work that style to a decent level is obviously another matter entirely and presents a whole other set of problems. "working safe" in 2017 has unfortunately come to mean "working like The Miz and Randy Orton" but that isn't how it should be. Most of history's great workers were fundamentally "safe". the fact that so many of them ended up with career-ending injuries and broken down bodies should be taken as a sign that wrestling is quite dangerous enough without trying to kill yourself every time you get in the ring.

"harder, faster, more spots, bigger bombs" has been the trend in wrestling since forever but you've got to think we're fast approaching the limits of that. otoh i guess guys have been saying that since the 1980s at least and it just keeps on going. maybe in 2025 all wrestling will just be like Omega/Okada and Ricochet/Ospreay

Actually I was referring to ESPN's coverage of wrestling being like the gossip mags. Meltzer is probably the best"real" journalist when it comes to telling uncomfortable truths.

ALL wrestling media is best taken with a pinch of salt.

I don't think we can point fingers at anyone for praising All Japan in the 90's when nobody really understood the long term risks.

In the '90s, fair enough. But it's been fairly common knowledge for a decade now, and Meltz still doles out the five-stars for backdrop drivers. At least that's the impression I get, I've never subbed to the Observer.

When was the last time dave gave a wwe match 5 stars? Its not a new observation but his tokyo dome bias is... eh, awkward at best.

they've done this sort of thing before, in the immediately post-Attitude period when they tried to teach their fans to enjoy actual wrestling again and Lesnar, Angle, Benoit, Eddie, HBK, Jericho etc. were being pushed at or near the top of the cards.

Yeah, but look what happened to those guys! Lesnar got off the road before his body broke down (and he's a genetic freak), Jericho is a genetic freak of a different kind who never gets hurt, but the others ... yeah. At the time the shift away from garbage-y brawls and unprotected chair shots looked like a positive change, but in retrospect they replaced one dangerous style of working with another.

The business has always been built on guys who get and stay over on their charisma (and can work "safe"), and guys who don't have the it factor who get over based on their work and have to take more risks. The first category are the people you build your company around, and the second category contains a majority of the people making a steady living in wrestling. No matter how you shift the goalposts, most of them still have to take bumps 200 days per year.

yeah you're probably right. but again, i'd argue that after they reached a certain point of skill and credibility those guys listed above didn't need to work dumb in the way they so often did. lessons were not learned. similar arguments were made about Daniel Bryan when he came back after his long lay-off - good enough and smart enough to work as safe a style as you like while still putting on great matches, but chose instead to do legit-headbutt spots in bang average multi-man ladder matches and dared Sheamus to hit him in the face as hard as possible on nothing episodes of Smackdown in the name of "art" etc. etc.

but again, you're right that it basically doesn't matter what you do once you start factoring in the simple fact of decades of constant bumping. aside from total aberrations like Jericho and the Funk bros it seems most wrestlers are basically doomed no matter what style they work. it did occur to me in my previous post when i wrote that most of the greatest workers in history were fundamentally pretty "safe" that it never works out that way. i tried to put together a list of names - besides Flair and Savage, I was thinking of Bret, Steamboat, Austin, Owen - to a man, pretty disastrous ends to their careers, to one extent or another. and look at a guy like Hogan, who never took a dangerous bump in his career basically, certainly not between 1983 and 2003, and he still wound up a broken down old buffer due to too many leg drops.

that's the craziness i guess - that even the guys who worked pretty safe throughout their careers ended up dead or crippled, and yet the current style is what it is.

i do think that the style currently in vogue is probably an inevitable consequence of the way both fans and wrestlers have been "trained" over the years, and i don't just mean by the WWE or NJPW here (nor specifically Meltzer, tho I think he's played his part too). there's culpability on all sides. the wrestlers destroy their brains and bodies because they view that as their only viable route to get over, and the fans all cheer for it and the promoters encourage it.

there's culpability on all sides. the wrestlers destroy their brains and bodies because they view that as their only viable route to get over, and the fans all cheer for it and the promoters encourage it.

Yeah that's more what I was getting at, but you put it better.

It's the thing I feel like people only really started talking about, in the US context, with Daniel Bryan - a rift opened, to some degree, between those who realise 'oh shit, this really damaged his health' and others who call for 'one more match', perhaps in denial about how much he's sacrificed for entertainment, or a misguided sense of honour an accomplishment (as much as one can have those in a staged sport). At least people are talking about it, though.

Lana is... now a happy stripper or something?

Donald Trump get the order from Putin to repackage her and her husband?

v. interesting if it's true:

https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/sk-exclusive-how-did-cenas-marriage-proposal-change-the-face-wrestlemania-33

Essentially it would have meant AJ Styles as champ heading into Mania, Cena vs Taker, and Nakamura making his debut vs Miz.

On paper, it sounds 1000X better than what we got. But it probably means the Hardys don't come back for the ladder match (because you probably don't want to book two surprise debuts on the same show), Styles vs Shane ended up being pretty good, and Taker wasn't capable of doing much anyway.

I guess Cena's comment on Smackdown about wanting to face Taker at Mania instead of wasting his time with Miz was a shoot.

this was overall a pretty ok ppv (house of horrors was fucking lol tho, god why)

Best of the Super Juniors has been pretty banging so far

I am not particularly on board for the further expansion of Marty Scurll's "an 8 year old's idea of a cool heel" act; I would say I am relatively on board for Taichi and TAKA having a ten minute long match with no physical contact whatsoever until the last ten seconds

Takahashi, Dragon Lee, Liger, Ricochet, Ospreay: yep

Yes to all of that (incl. Taichi vs TAKA, which I thought was clever).

I haven't watched NXT TV in months, and didn't watch the UK tournament, but I thought Bate vs Dunne was off the charts and the main event was an OK match but an awesome angle. It was so refreshing to see a championship match on a WWE show that was wrestled so differently from the in-house "WWE style" main event level match (referring to the UK championship bout).

Yeah, the execution (on some pretty advanced stuff) was incredible too, I needed the replay to even figure out what Bate had done with that mad torpedo rebound off the ropes. The corkscrew senton properly looked like it must have burst Dunne's nuts though, ouch

Mad to have two of the best young wrestlers in the world killing it on WWE TV and they're from Birmingham and Dudley

The Tomato Chomper turn was good but I really hope somebody seriously talked to AOP guy backstage because that ladder shot to Gargano was fucking awful, and imagine him taking that blow to the head knowing he's got to take an extended beatdown post match

DOMINION SPOILERS

At the risk of going on a big rant, that main event was mostly garbage. I could see the draw coming after about 25 minutes when it became clear that Okada was ignoring all the leg work to that point and there was nothing resembling a home stretch happening.

From then on, they were mostly biding their time and cycling through blatantly obvious callbacks to their first match. Okada hit the rainmaker (among other big moves) a bunch of times and would wander around the ring in a manner that's completely uncharacteristic of him. I guess we're supposed to want a third match now, but Okada had Omega beat a bunch of times, including at the end. More importantly, Okada has nothing to prove! He's the champ and he's already beaten Omega, he didn't need to win here and now has no reason to defend against him again.

In a time limit draw you're supposed to build towards the big moves at the end, making you believe that the match was about to end when time finally expired. Here they'd already hit all their stuff by 40 minutes in, so there was no drama and each comeback/delayed sell meant less and less as they messed around trying to fill the last 20 minutes with the same moves over and over.

Tanahashi (with one arm, bless him for gutting out the match but he's crazy and I fear for his career) and Naito stole the show again.

I mostly enjoyed it but the superman comebacks were getting pretty devalued for me, not sure how I'm supposed to believe one of these big moves are going to put one of you down when you keep popping up to hit another big move one second later

Okada's dropkick is meant to be a big deal, signal the beginning of the end etc: here are like four of them and nothing of any consequence happens

incredible as it is, I really have no idea where the current Jr Heavyweight style is supposed to go post Hiromu-KUSHIDA, short of guys putting people over by actually dying to their moves

I nearly bumped into Hiromu on the way out of the RevPro show in Bethnal Green a couple of months back. He was the same height as me but in better shape. I gave him a weird smile and he gave me a weird smile. Wish I'd done the LIJ fist bump

I loved Okada/Omega II, didn't see the draw coming until at least 80% of the way in. That rope break on the One-Winged Angel is my favorite rope break spot ever. There were definitely some overkill aspects to the match, which I really don't like in general, and at least there was no top-rope dragon suplex this time.

Okada's dropkick is meant to be a big deal, signal the beginning of the end etc: here are like four of them and nothing of any consequence happens

This was one of the reasons why the draw looked telegraphed for me. It was the same with Omega's V-trigger, he hit like ten of them and it never built to anything.

The OWA rope break spot was also obvious from where they were positioned, at least in WWE they can usually disguise it with clever camera angles.

I guess Omega now goes back to being a comedy midcarder with the Young Bucks until he decides whether to re-up with NJ. The kayfabe build up to this match also annoyed me -- Omega "earned" the match by going 1-1 vs Ishii, but Ishii has a singles win over Okada and never got a title shot, whereas Omega already had his chance and lost.

Overall it was a great card, everyone worked their asses off (Omega and Okada too -- the effort was obviously there, it was the match layout that sucked) but it all led a fairly disappointing reset for the promotion. Tanahashi won the IC title but is tough to root for when you know he's working hurt and might be jeopardizing his career, especially after the Honma and Shibata situations. Kushida is feuding with BUSHI again for the junior belt, and Cody vs Okada isn't exactly the match and feud to launch their move into the US.

I totally bit on the rope break. I noticed how close they were, but it didn't look like Okada was in position for it, since he was all folded up and upside-down. But Omega put him in exactly the right position and he got his foot on the rope at exactly the right moment. It was brilliant!

I loved the match, but I also accept all these criticisms as fair.

I didn't see the draw coming till after 50 minutes had passed, and that did take the wind out of my sails.

But you see, I'm not really an Okada fan; I watch his matches with better wrestlers like Kenny, and Tanahashi before him, because I can focus on their struggles against him. They swept me up in what they were doing. That counts more for me than 'workrate' or whatever ever will.

<i>Ishii has a singles win over Okada and never got a title shot, whereas Omega already had his chance and lost</i>

I don't know, Okada/Ishii is CHAOS business that they might have sorted out off-panel. It's not that big a plot hole for me.

I'm all for getting swept up in the drama of a match, but when the first 20 minutes is completely irrelevant to the story then it's not a great match in my book.

Ishii/Omega II was positioned as a #1 contender's match from what I recall. Maybe Ishii wouldn't have gone ahead with the challenge in the interest of keeping the peace in CHAOS, but Omega still didn't do anything to earn the title shot beyond what Ishii had already done. It's not that big a deal but it bother me a bit (although I'd still love to see an Ishii/Okada title match at some point).

i was just watching the marty the moth / killshot weapons of mass destruction match from the beginning of s3 of lucha underground and holy shit i must've audibly gasped like 4 times

warning tho matt stryker's commentary on it is exceptionally bad

Is it worth watching still? Ive been kinda tempted to do a poll about the sudden lack of giving a shit - which dropped off quicker, neville/breeze/ kidd/zayn nxt or prince puma/mil muertes season 1 lucha underground?

I guess since even posting that the highs werent any of those names, it was sasha/bayley or vampiro/pentagon but i feel like those other matches were 'peak' in a way that wasnt necessarily just match hype, more 'you must watch this' promotion hype

lucha underground? i still enjoy it. it's basically the only wrestling i still regularly watch. i'm totally burnt out on wwe.

it's certainly dipped and certainly seems less essential than it did in the first season, but it still has very high peaks and is fairly consistently enjoyable imo. mack and mundo going 'all night long' a few weeks back was pretty great. that said, i haven't bothered to watch the last couple of weeks, since dario's launched a 32-luchador tournament so we've had a momentum-killing run of overpowered monster vs chump glorified squashes.

Nakamura vs Cena is a thing that actually happened. I wish the WWE wouldn't beat everything into the ground by yelling "DREAM MATCH!!" over and over until it has no meaning, but it was awesome to see and Cena put Nak over huge.

Anyone watching the G1? A lot of guys are having amazing tournaments, it's hard to pick an MVP thus far. Ibushi vs Naito is my pick for the best match of the tournament (through Night 11), with Elgin vs Okada close behind. Don't sleep on any of Nagata or Tanahashi's matches though. Guilty pleasure: SANADA vs Yano.

That match was great (except for the big commercial break in the middle). Did you see at the end when Nakamura apologized for that hard bump and Cena told him not to be sorry?

Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xayP9ErP5Nw

after they did the x-files one i was praying for a twin peaks one, and i was richly rewarded.

i'm so far behind with the g1, i need time to freeze for a few days so i can catch up. even with the principle of only watching matches that people seem to think are ****+ it's an avalanche of content...

I didn't catch the "I'm sorry" when I watched live. Cena looked in rough shape during the post-match segment with Corbin, hopefully he's OK.

The spot looked brutal, how the hell can guys like Naito land on their neck like that (intentionally!) in every big match without dying?

Anyone watching the G1? A lot of guys are having amazing tournaments, it's hard to pick an MVP thus far. Ibushi vs Naito is my pick for the best match of the tournament (through Night 11), with Elgin vs Okada close behind. Don't sleep on any of Nagata or Tanahashi's matches though. Guilty pleasure: SANADA vs Yano.

Naito/Ibushi is probably my favorite too, though Omega/Suzuki was an awesome crazy brawl, and Elgin/Omega was just as great. My MVP, oddly, might just be Juice - he's had awesome matches with a bunch of guys you'd NEVER think he'd mesh with (EVIL, Suzuki) as well as the usual suspects, and his selling has come like a million miles in a year or so. The sky is the limit for that dude.

I'm still not sure about Juice, he's improved a ton since starting in NJ, but I can't see him as a future superstar. It's too soon to know whether he's this year's YOSHI HASHI (lovable jobber turned great underdog babyface who wins the occasional match against a top guy, but that's his ceiling) or something more. His main event matches with Okada and Naito were really basic, but they were exactly what they needed to be, which is perfectly fine (Juice gets dominated, sells his ass off, gets in just enough offense to make you think he has a chance, and loses clean).

Ibushi is looking like the clear MVP now, having completely different but great matches with every opponent. Either him or Nagata, who's still going out in a blaze of glory every night.

MAJOR G1 SPOILERS

The Osaka show usually overdelivers and Night 14 was no exception. All the underdogs went over, which happens once in every G1 of the past few years. After Omega's loss, Okada losing was kind of telegraphed in order to keep some suspense in the block. But that helped the EVIL vs Okada match -- the crowd wanted the upset and was ready for it. EVIL's performance was almost unreal after getting knocked out by Omega just three days ago. Finally Okada's dickish insistence on putting an exclamation point on his matches with multiple rainmakers came back to bite him in the ass. I think he's only been pinned once in the past year, by Omega in a tag match to set up WK.

I'm still betting on Naito vs Omega for the finals though.

I've fallen way behind on the G1, but I heard some buzz about last night and guessed EVIL might have gotten the upset. Sure enough, he did, and it was a really great match.

SANADA has the look of a future champion, but EVIL might be the best wrestler in LIJ after Naito, and they've given him singles wins over both Okada and Tanahashi (although the latter was via interference and mist). So maybe now they'll finally give him a scythe that doesn't look like it came from one of those pop-up Halloween stores.

I think he's only been pinned once in the past year, by Omega in a tag match to set up WK.

I'm not sure if he lost as part of the build to Omega/Okada at WK, but Okada had been pinned once this year, by Bad Luck Fale (teaming with Omega) prior to Fale's title shot in May.

I loved Suzuki vs Okada, it blew away their IWGP title match from earlier in the year. It was one of Okada's best career performances in terms of storytelling. From the start he looked tired and less sharp than usual, no doubt worn down (both in storyline and real life) by the grueling tournament and the huge loss to EVIL. By the end he was running on fumes, losing confidence in himself, not knowing how to finish. His facial expressions were incredible, compare this with one of the more overrated "great" matches in recent memory, the WK 10 main event vs Tanahashi, where he looked bored for the first half of the match against his top rival.

Totally agree. Their IWGP match was a spectacle, but it leaned way too heavily on those never-ending leglock segments. This match was much more fun. I'm thoroughly tired of my-turn-your-turn strike sequences (which appear in just about every NJPW singles match not featuring Toru Yano), but the battle of the slaps worked here. Okada's ability to go from cocky bastard to completely sympathetic from one match to the next is impressive, and yeah, it has a lot to do with his facial expressions. And Suzuki's got some great ones too.

The slap battles work in Suzuki's matches because he loves hurting people for fun and embarrassing them. They were also exhausted at that point in the match so it made sense. I think Tanahashi is still tops in NJPW when it comes to playing subtle heel or virtuous babyface from one match to the next, but Okada's almost there. I honestly didn't think he had it in him.

Okada vs Omega III was easily the best of their series so far. The 30 minute time limit meant they couldn't waste meander around for the first 20-25 minutes like in their previous two matches, so they had to pick up the pace and try to kill each other from the opening bell, and that's exactly what they did. The pacing and storytelling was perfect, with Okada's injured neck, his wearing down during tournament, and his inability to put guys away when he has the chance all playing into his loss. Omega looked fresher and more determined to win, Okada looked like he was just trying to survive. And now Naito vs Omega tomorrow (last year's G1 meeting was favourite match of 2016)!!

The atmosphere in the finishing run of the 2016 Naito Omega match was incredible, it's amazing what a time limit can do for a match

Not onto today's matches yet but enjoyed the end of Nagata's magnificently violent run and another v good Tanahashi Naito match

I think the G1 final wasn't quite as good as the main events from the past two nights (too much finisher overload, and it peaked about five minutes before the finish) but was still off the charts amazing. I seriously feared for their lives at a couple of points. The Jr. tag match delivered and then some, and the rest of the card set up the next few months of main events as expected.

yeah if i had a problem with the final it would be that they both took an implausible amount of punishment, but it would only be nitpicking over what in many other years would have been match of the year.

striking to leave behind the g1, feeling that wrestling is good and worthwhile and maybe somehow even valuable, and tune into smackdown to see the crowd aggressively booing a woman singing the indian national anthem. ffs

striking to leave behind the g1, feeling that wrestling is good and worthwhile and maybe somehow even valuable, and tune into smackdown to see the crowd aggressively booing a woman singing the indian national anthem. ffs Corbin chump himself and ruin any chance to be anything other than jobber for the rest of his contract and LOOOOOOL.

― lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living (Merdeyeux), Wednesday, 16 August 2017 13:34 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Corbin chump himself

You know it's fake, right?

I do, yes.

However, his recent terrible promos and week of being made to look like a complete prat on Twitter to Meltzer (of all people) aren't fake. It's been about 2 months since he won the suitcase to showcase enough to Vince that his booking was a mistake. And this is on a show where Jinder fucking Mahal is somehow holding the belt still.

There have been MANY versions throughout the years of Vince fucking with a guy as punishment or relishing them before. A couple that come to mind straight away is brock losing in his first match back and triple h having to eat a Godwin slop bucket for months after the curtain call.

I can't think of many as embarrassing as losing yr guaranteed title push to JINDER MAHAL in 6 seconds.

They have no idea what to do with MITB anymore, every cash-in plays out exactly the same and every MITB winner goes on a jobbing spree before winning the title (guaranteeing they look like a weak, loser champion) because that's post-2010 WWE booking logic. Corbin might be better off without the briefcase, it was doing him no favours.

I'm no Corbin fan, but he was picked to win MITB – when he so clearly wasn't ready, so the fault goes with the one who picked Corbin more than Corbin himself. But of course *cough*Vince*cough* won't accept that responsibility.

Like, what are you supposed to do? The boss comes along and picks you for a major push and you say 'sorry Vince, I don't think I'm ready'? That's a shortcut to future endeavorment right there.

I watched rasslin religiously from like 1985-2005 but had to peace out after shit got brutal (the hhh-kane feud over necrophilia was a bridge too far) but now apparently I am going to No Mercy this Sunday. Not sure what to expect..

There's nothing as brutal as Katie Vick anymore, thankfully. The tag title match looks like the best thing on the card. The women's match has great talent involved though it's a five-way so likely not much room to shine. The rest is... well it's a brand PPV between bigger shows, you'll remember what that's like before you lapsed. Enjoy what's good and try to ignore the shit bits!

Lesnar v Strowman will probably be quite a spectacle in the flesh. Two big dudes

No Mercy has a freaking wrestlemania card, it's gonna be great. Wrestlemania maybe not so much

Yeah, this is the biggest non-big 4 PPV in some time.

yeah i don't really get that tbh. why are they bothering? have they even put a big promotional push behind the two main-events here? seems like a bit of a waste of two of their money matches

leaving aside the on-paper lineup, would anyone actually advocate tuning in for this show? is there a single hot angle? i saw that Cena had been chatting breeze about Roman Reigns on tv in a sufficiently "ooooohh is he kayfabing or is he FOR REAL?!!!!" sort of a way to get the internet all excited. anything to it?

can't front, the only WWE show i've watched in the last, idk, 18 months or so was the Royal Rumble (because no matter how much i disengage over the course of the year, i will always watch a Royal Rumble) and before that it was probably an NXT special? Or the bizarro-world Wrestlemania from hell in 2016. and nothing i read about anything that they're doing makes me want to check back in. which is horrifying really because i love wrestling and they've got so many potentially awesome guys and girls on the roster, and i just do not gaf about any of it. the presentation of everything they do is terrible

WWE is like the pro-wrestling Saturday Night Live. It gets a bunch of talented performers, gives them the highest production value of any show in their genre, and uses it all to churn out mediocrity and worse. But people watch it because it's the big leagues for that kind of entertainment, and every once in a while there's something brilliant. (And fans are always nostalgic for an earlier era that mostly sucked too.)

Impact/TNA is MadTV in this analogy.

yeah maybe. tho i do wonder how much blame should fall at the feet of the wrestlers? lots of "top guys" on this roster who are fundamentally bang average at lots of the important bell-to-bell stuff (Rollins, Ambrose, Owens, there are others). it's like they spent their whole life watching really good and special wrestling but totally failed to identify what it was that made it good and special. or is this style being imposed upon them from above? idk, i feel like if i ever have to watch another 30 minute WWE main-event with finisher trades and hundreds of kickouts etc. ever again then it'll be too soon. i don't really want to watch Cena vs Reigns this weekend, but more importantly i don't really think i need to, i already know exactly what that match is gonna be like, whoever wins

That SNL analogy is so OTM.

lots of "top guys" on this roster who are fundamentally bang average at lots of the important bell-to-bell stuff (Rollins, Ambrose, Owens, there are others). it's like they spent their whole life watching really good and special wrestling but totally failed to identify what it was that made it good and special.

I think that's too harsh; Owens really gets what it means to be a live performer with a nuanced character. Maybe it doesn't translate as well on TV but that's not necessarily his fault. Commentary, for one, does an exceptionally poor job of explaining WHY we should, as viewers, be invested in any particular match.

Well sure, Owens has an excellent line in mannerisms and trash talk during his matches which admittedly does add a whole lot to the overall effect, but I'm still not convinced that he has the least idea how to put together a match that I want to sit down and watch

And that's OK too. I can't pin down exactly why I enjoy his matches, I've never sat down to analyse it in any depth, but I do. On the same note I also cannot understand how anyone can rate Randy Orton when he puts me to sleep (only exception being his Mania match with Rollins).

I think this card and other ppv cards (as well as the apparent return of starrcade in november) are being used to prop up network subs, which the higher ups have been thinking will sag in q3

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cagesideseats.com/platform/amp/wwe/2017/7/27/16050802/wwe-network-subscriber-count-down

not sure if the hoo ha over jinder's clumsy "you hated me because you're racist and you secretly hate nakamura too because you're racist" promise these last two weeks will help on that front either

"If you hate the ethnic heel then you're a racist too" is like the modern day "shades of grey" character profile in WWE-universe Land.

the wwe style where every single match is structured the same boring way is absolutely an imposition on the wrestlers, evident via 1. every single match being that way, and 2. it not corresponding to how those wrestlers wrestled in the indies (and often even in nxt). i'm not as anti-wwe style as a lot of people are, but it's nevertheless probably no coincidence that my favourite wwe match of 2017 is the bate-dunne takeover match that seemed unrestrained by that standard format.

had a great time last night.. crowd was really into it and very generous with the 'this is awesome' chant. show kinda lost steam at the end, and the main event finish seemed kinda out of nowhere. womens match was amazing!

It did seem like a great crowd at No Mercy (judging from TV). The women's match, tag title match, and Cena vs Reigns really delivered. The main event was an all-time stink bomb in terms of expectations.

cracking up at how michael cole was dancing around saying "bullet club" to intro this finn/aj match

watched Lesnar - Styles last night, my first match in god knows how long. it was very good. AJ Styles seems to be fast approaching the Flair / Funk / HBK / Hart god-tier status and WWE are unexpectedly acknowledging it and playing to it. and Lesnar still sells better than just about anyone else has in the past 20 years when he can be bothered.

seriously, if you missed this match, seek it out. 15 mins or so, one of those ones where they actually let Lesnar's opponent look competitive. rock solid storytelling, totally comprehensible strategy from both men and some fantastic near falls that made sense in context, not just the usual finisher kick-out bullshit.

seriously seriously. there's a bit where AJ gets Brock caught in the Calf Crusher and Brock is forced to use an unorthodox counter. it's unbelievable. shocking. a moment of visceral brutality that no one other than Brock could make work. best spot i can remember in WWE

That was a good match for sure

didn't bother with the rest of the show, apparently the main event was a stinker? lol at the idea of putting together a match with all that talent involved and turning it into a story about Triple H punking Kurt Angle. Shane McMahon top babyface in 2017, jfc

one of those ones where they actually let Lesnar's opponent look competitive

Except for that first half where Brock completely rag-dolls SD's top superstar.

'Rock solid storytelling'? What are you on?!

I really liked it but Yeah, brock should have just pinned him after 5 mins.

I also watched velveteen dream v Alistair black on recommendation. They both seem like guys with a lot of potential. I cant believe noone has tried to be modern rick rude before. That he has also tried to make him a strong face character instead of vince's awkward attempts at queerer cowardly heel types made it even more interesting. The guy has a lot of potential, especially as he has cena's physique.

Were any other matches from this weekend worth watching? I dont think I will ever be so down on life that I would watch that main event.

Lol agree to disagree. If you don't think lesnar should be ragdolling styles then I don't know what to tell you. He's like 5 times the size of him!

And the storytelling was rock solid! Lesnar obviously has too much if you try and go toe to toe, take out the leg, take away his base, hit every big move you've got in your arsenal while he's grounded, pray like hell you keep him down for 3. It was bang on!

Anyway, dope match.

Oh I get it on principle, but it falls apart when I consider the whole thing holistically: Brock being an older part-timer who hasn't actually *wrestled* a match in years, and who got obviously blown up in minutes, versus the (slightly) younger, better conditioned and more highly skilled WRESTLER. One can't be all graps-mad one minute then change the tune just 'cause it's Brock. It's bullshit.

Idk, I kind of take the point but brock is a special case, no? Through virtue of his sheer size, athleticism and legit fighting skills. I don't think it'll ever be believable NOT to have him toss around any given opponent like a sack of straw in his matches, certainly not during the early exchanges. Maybe once he's considerably older and more broken down.

Besides, I still love that aura that he has and the fact that they protect it. Obviously too often these days they go too far the other way (ambrose squash lol) to the detriment of his matches. But I thought that they got it about right this time

Brock as a special case - that's where we differ. For me it just breaks my suspension of disbelief to make exceptions for this one man, whose big fight aura is completely blown out of proportion in my estimation. And a man whose presence never fails to undermine the active roster, too. He's just one aspect of many, but the way he's booked is not unconnected with the worrying decline in house show attendance, I'd argue. But hey, that's really a blend of my objective and emotional reading of it all. If you or anyone else gets a kick out of him, then fair enough.

To be fair I've not actually seen him recently - missed the Goldberg, Samoa Joe, strowman stuff - and I gather he's been consistently phoning it in harder than ever this year while still being the super protected end-game boss baddie the whole time, which certainly isn't great from an entertainment perspective.

WWE house show attendance / business health generally is pretty high on the list of things I don't gaf about, makes no odds to me if they wilfully tank their own company

Anyone watch the njpw big shows? Is there anything actually interesting enough going on in wrestling for a rolling 2018 thread title? "Rolling Samoa joe is the only really interesting wrestler in 2018"? "Rolling young bucks sell all the merch to people who have never watched them wrestle 2018"?

i'm excited about the mixed tag challenge, but i'm more excited about rusev day

http://www.wwe.com/shows/wwe-mixed-match-challenge/article/rusev-to-team-with-lana-at-wwe-mmc

Rolling 2018: Where Every Day is Rusev Day