rolling (non-millenials) grabbing the brass ring 2015

still have a nagging doubt this Ricochet-Nakamura match in London is gonna turn out to be a hoax
― Dadjokke (Sgt. Biscuits), Saturday, 11 April 2015 15:26 (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

YEP

Roderick Strong was a passable substitute tomato can to be kneed to pieces though

There is something intrinsically hilarious about rpw having now booked gedo/okada vs tanahashi/Liger in Bethnal Green for October

Been watching back some of the Shield stuff in the last day or two and I've just hit their match with the Wyatts at Elimination Chamber 2014 (man oh man but wasn't that just a great fuckin' match?! in retrospect it was a p. much perfect payoff to almost 18 months of superb booking), and now there is a little distance I kinda feel like, at that point, who the hell could blame them for putting their eggs in Roman Reigns' basket? I'm watching this match knowing full-well what comes next and I stillp feel like he is just the BEST and I could cheer this guy forever. God I wish they'd reform The Shield. I feel like so many sins could be undone just by sticking those 3 guys in 6 man tag matches against the entire roster week-in, week-out.

the bit early on where Rollins bails and Reigns steps in to take on Bray TOTALLY has the feel of two future mega-stars colliding for the first time

also triple-team moves are the best

the best of new japan go to bethnal green? interesting! i knew there was something around there as colt cabana used to pimp it on his podcast but to see actual stars 5 minutes away from work, im excited! anyone else go to these shows?

also poor colt cabana for the unintentional zing.

i'd like to go to the october rpw thing but it's a bit too close to deadlines, definitely hope to check it out at some point though.

i re-watched that shield - wyatts match a while back too and yeah it seems astonishing how much wwe managed to ruin two sure-things with reigns (though imo he's pretty much back on track now) and wyatt (oops maybe reigns isn't back on track after all).

though re rpw, i watch too many botch videos and now fear ever seeing independent wrestling live because it feels almost certain that i'll witness someone cracking their skull on concrete at a high velocity

I don't think there were any big obvious botches in the Sunday one, notably nobody really did any no-hands topes to the outside - there is definitely a more palpable sense of tension seeing high flying stuff live as opposed to on Botchamania, where you know if it's on there nobody got paralysed or died

The Matt Sydal 2/3 falls workrate match did have a reverse frankensteiner though, that one always makes me wince

If ricochet hadn't pulled out it probably would've been a significantly scarier show to watch

njpw people -- which are the 'biggest' PPVs aside from WK? there's so much craziness over dominion right now, and i caught some of it this morning and thought man i feel like i should be watching this front to back.

Dominion has been good the past few years. The midpoint between WK's is a good time to wrap up feuds, and the next event is the G1, which is great for starting new feuds. Speaking of which, the G1 is coming up later this month!

A Block:
Togi Makabe
Hiroshi Tenzan
Toru Yano
Doc Gallows
Bad Luck Fale
Tetsuya Naito
Katsuyori Shibata
Kota Ibushi
Hiroshi Tanahashi
AJ Styles

B Block:
Hirooki Goto
Satoshi Kojima
Yuji Nagata
Tomoaki Honma
Michael Elgin
Karl Anderson
Yujiro Takahashi
Tomohiro Ishii
Shinsuke Nakamura
Kazuchika Okada

beast in the east was great fun

It kind of sucks that they entered exactly the same participants as last year with the exception of Ibushi and Elgin. OTOH, we'll get to see Nak vs Okada, Ibushi vs Tanahashi, Shibata vs Styles, and at least one or two wins from Honma!

yeah tbh the weird lineup PWG threw out for BOLA this year is way more interesting than the G1

I watched the first half of Dominion '15 last night, the highlights were Sakuraba vs Shibata and Naito's heel act.

I've been missing so much wrestling lately; I only just watched one episode of Tough Enough and I couldn't get through the whole thing.

I am interested to see what they do with Steen now that they had him drop the belt.

I could really live with him as US champion just relentlessly heeling on every town he defends it in and somehow winning

I thought that he was in great heel form in Japan to contrast with Devitt. That being said, of course he was going to drop the belt. I selfishly would love him as US champ, but I'm scared that after he drops that belt, he'll fade into the background instead of dominating like I feel he should.

Getting the belt off of Cena to give him a bit of a break from the whole challenge thing would work out well right now if they were to turn the current situation into a Cesaro / Steen feud. Maybe have Steen go over Cena for the title via some foul play then have Cesaro chasing (with Cena's endorsement following their recent matches).

I love watching Cena right now but I'm not sure how viable it's gonnna be to keep sending him out there for hard-hitting 20 minute matches every week if they want him to stay healthy in the long term.

I still don't quite understand what's been holding Cesaro back, he's got all of the rings skills and hipster cachet of the other indy favs without any of the usual drawbacks. Guy's no worse on the mic than some of the other gubbers they've pushed to the main-event, and it seems like pretty much all his signature moves were made for the kind of "instant replay MOMENTS" vibe that the company is so into. His freakish strength and crisp technique alone should make him a constant presence in the upper-card, he'd be believable against absolutely anyone in any era except maybe current-Lesnar.

I'd be so down for cesaro lesnar

conventional dirtsheety knowledge is he got depushed bc he complained publicly about cena/orton booking

also because he doesn't connect

that's only half a joke, i do think he has serious character problems... it's not so much that he can't talk, he just can't ACT, which is important to me at least in the ring. i love the guy but i can never really believe him. he's always surrounded by this cloud of anxiety and his eyebrows are glued in place. that might be most of the problem. even when you stick heyman in front of him he just stands there with like negative presence. he's the anti-lesnar, and lesnar doesn't even act.

he just needs SOMETHING. he probably has less character than anyone else on the roster. someone mentioned a while ago that in every single tag team he's been in he's just absorbed the personality of his partner.

ofc this is WWE's problem, not his. a promotion's supposed to be creative enough to get the most of its roster, not leave the talent flopping around helplessly.

man it'd be awesome if he and kidd had had the belts when kidd got hurt, and cesaro just decided to defend the belts by himself for a few months

ignore the fact that i used "awesome" and "when kidd got hurt" in the same sentence, you know what i mean

I'm not sure whether Cena's long term health is a priority for WWE right now, they've been phasing him out of the main events since the Lesnar feud. I'm not saying that they don't care about his health, but they're not counting on him to carry main events for the next ten years.

In terms of having great matches with a variety of opponents, Cena might be the best in WWE history. How many people did Steve Austin ever bring up to his level and turn into stars?

I think the start/stop pushes are hurting him more than any character problems.

finally got round to sitting down and watching Beast In The East. It's totally amazing to me how much more enjoyable everything is when they don't pretend like they're the only game in town. From remarking on Jericho's history in FMW and correctly calling his use of the Lion Tamer to acknowledging Balor's achievements in Japan (Cole actually explained Balor's tweet from earlier in the day by explaining that in Japan they used to call him Prince Devitt!), they did a really great job of providing context for everything that was happening in the ring.

Would be entirely satisfied if they sacked off half of the annual PPVs and made these unique Network specials a regular thing. When there isn't the pressure of having to sell a PPV as a big-time event it really gives them freedom to divert from the usual routine. Which is totally fuckin awesome. How long has the monthly-PPV model been a thing now, 20 years? It's totally time to experiment with different models

xpost yeah Cena's recent run as the go-to-guy for bedding in these new indy-bred up-and-comers has totally transformed my perception of the dude's place in history. he was always better than people said but he's now having 4* matches on the regular with guys of completely contrasting styles. perhaps there will start to be diminishing returns the more people kick out of the AA or whatever, but right now he is putting these guys over fuckin strong and having amazing matches into the bargain.

and it's awesome because you know that he has requested this position out of a desire to prove to all the haters that he can go with the best of them, and whaddaya know, he can totally go with the best of them. if they really are happy to let him keep doing it in spite of potential injury risks at this stage in his career then long may it continue imo. John Cena vs Samoa Joe on a WWE supershow would definitely get my money

Owens running the ropes only to drop into a chinlock at Beast was a fuckin great heel spot

As someone who has never particularly liked Cena I have to say this US title challenge is selling me -- also has a perfect concept of who his character is (even if his character is, uh, basically him). During RAW in the triple threat, him on mic putting these guys all over but then every time there was a near fall he'd get up and stretch his legs/shadowbox/whatever, holy shit. Cena as the gatekeeper is perfect and I hope they can do it for a long time.

yeah various people have remarked on it already but the way that he kinda-sorta nearly-but-not-quite botches all these new moves that he's whipping out in this run of matches fits in perfectly with where his character is right now in a way that having him just perfectly execute a load of new moves just wouldn't be. it engenders this positively electric atmosphere of Cena being pushed absolutely to the limit as a worker, like they're just starting to get to the pay-off of having treated him as another species from the rest of the roster for so long

guys guys guys

BROCK BEAT UP A CAR

also

rusev v. cesaro v. owens was incredible

WRESTLING IS THE BEST

i now really want to buy like a 3 disc john cena dvd, as long as it has no orton, del rio or kane matches on it. (i like the big show one at wm20.) umaga at the rumble, hhh @ wm22, winning the rumble in 08, the michaels raw match, batista at wm26, jericho & christian from whenever that was, like every match with punk, bryan at ss13, brock at extreme rules 2012 and all the ones from last year, rusev at fast lane, all of this current run, cena & hell no v. the shield, cena had a great match with cesaro last year, that mark henry one from his fake retirement... fuck me john cena is the 4th greatest wrestler of all time.

I've just started getting into Tuesday Night Titans, it might be the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. The "At Home With Dr. Schultz" stuff from the first episode is just fucking staggering.

man why does no one ever talk about Dr. David Schultz? I mean I know it's because he punched that photographer or whatever so that's what people remember, but Jesus, the guy was fucking magnetic! I thought he was just an average hick, I didn't realise his charisma was so off the charts?

xpost can't forget about Cena vs Edge (my favourite was the TLC match at Unforgiven '06 in Edge's hometown, which was like the precursor to the more famous match vs Punk), at least one match vs Eddie Guerrero, the triple threat vs DX, the first Rock match mainly for the spectacle ...

It's true that the monthly PPV model is played out, especially in the era of monthly themed PPV. The storylines are timed around the PPV, when it should be the other way around. Two guys fight inside Hell in a Cell not because they hate each other and want to settle their long running feud, but because it's the gimmick of the month. Cena's "fighting champion" storyline avoids all that crap, people are dying for something different.

Guys the Prime Time Players have been sneakily getting really very good while I was looking the other way. Helps no doubt that the New Day are really good (everyone should check out Xavier Woods doing his hype-man thing in this match - "Worst. Legdrop. Ever.") but yeah, Prime Time Players have somehow turned into a thrilling big-man little man combo, Darren Young was doing actual good wrestling and took a couple of vicious bumps. Titus O'Neill could get very over indeed if they keep protecting him like this.

Orton / Sheamus was completely fine, rescued by the hometown crowd going mad for everything Orton did (also because Randy Orton is AWESOME), Reigns / Wyatt going on third. Maybe I'm riding a pleasant buzz off the previous match but I am cautiously optimistic, I feel like both these guys but especially Reigns are starting to know where it's at in PPV matches.

woods crawling on the floor to taunt young and then clapping like a baby is the best wrestling match of 2015

Haha, so yeah that was misguided optimism, they're not doing very well here

had this one pinned as a possible mini-show-stealer but yeah it's just standard roman match vs standard bray wyatt match

i guess roman matches are only good when he's a serious underdog (brock) or when he can be dominant and cocky (big show)

those seem to be the only times he loosens up

It got better to be fair. there were a couple of cool moves (they did a reversal spot off that Roman Reigns apron dropkick that was nice) but I'd hoped for more.

Ah Luke Harper, thank fuck for that

Man Sasha/Charlotte/Nikki triple threat getting 15 mins here would be a fucking TREAT, I'm not used to feeling this way about divas matches

YES this makes me happy right now, I think I am enjoying this PPV... oh wait it's Brie, sure that'll do i suppose

oh wait yeah i remember Brie Bella is the one that sucks

lol I quite like the Bellas as personalities but Brie just isn't from the same planet as these two, it's actually pretty interesting, kinda like past vs future of the divas division

eurgghh what did Charlotte just do to Brie Bella?!! so many great submissions in the divas division right now

i honestly can't remember the last time they ran the same match 3 times in less than 2 months and still had such an electric atmosphere by the third match. I am very excited for this

looooooool that springboard-stunner attempt from Cena was outrageous, dude just did a backwards starjump across 3/4 of the ring, what did he expect to happen?!

oh man that was such a bullshit ending. Match itself was fine, just all the same moves from their MITB fight but whyyyyyyyyy the fuck would you end it like that??? things aren't changing quite as quickly as people hoped i guess

Brock Lesnar though you guys

so many issues with the booking of that ending