General Wrestling Thread

[Ryinho]

Would of been better for Reigns to turn on Rock take the heat away, join the authority then set up for wrestlemania. Lesnar is the ultimate face at the moment would of set up for a angle. Be interesting to RAW tonight

 

[daveyboybluemoon]

There might not be a Raw tonight because of the weather in America.

Raw is in Hartford Connecuit & there is travel ban in place after 9pm local time, Raw is on 8pm - 11pm Eastern Time in America. The mayor says it should be cancelled & Smackdown set for recording on Tuesday is all but cancelled but they might go live on Thursday with that.....

Not the best 24 hours there having!

 

[Bluemoon115]

this is booked so badly, so predictable, Vince doesn't live on Earth, nutjob not listening to the fans.

Terrible, terrible rumble.

Not enough quality "surprise" entrants. The fucking Boogyman?

Bryan getting eliminated early? Always gonna kill the crowd, especially a Philly crowd.

Roman Reigns has become the new Cena. A great heel character turned soft, being forced down everyone's throat before he's ready.

Someone asked why Bryan's so popular, it's because the fans made him popular, instead of being told "You will cheer this next star". Also the fact he can actually wrestle helps.

And it's a shame, because for once they got the title match bang on the money.

Bryan is popular because the WWE marketed him and booked him to appeal to the the smark crowd unlike Cena.

I mean, having Miz as his NXT pro? Losing every match early on and having Cole absolutely bury him? His entire Rumble booking in 2014?

It seems to be working aswell. Every wrestling forum in the world is now full of marks who cannot see purposeful booking in front of them

Even if this is worked (I'm not 100% his entire career has been), as you point out, it's been much more subtle with Bryan, carefully built, where you're given chance to get on his side. Good story telling is exactly that, where you feel as though you've become a Bryan fan on your own. Rather than the last two years of a returning wrestler cutting crap promo's, having poor chemistry with both the audience and their Wrestlemania opponent. The rushed rivalry between Reigns and Lesnar is gonna be torture with Lesnar (who just got up from anything thrown at him at the Rumble) staying down for a jumpy punch.

Even last years "original" plan had the whole Evolution rivalry thing to use. As far as I can remember, Lesnar and Reins have never had any kind of on screen interaction.

 

[pudge]

Terrible, terrible rumble.

Not enough quality "surprise" entrants. The fucking Boogyman?

Bryan getting eliminated early? Always gonna kill the crowd, especially a Philly crowd.

Roman Reigns has become the new Cena. A great heel character turned soft, being forced down everyone's throat before he's ready.

Someone asked why Bryan's so popular, it's because the fans made him popular, instead of being told "You will cheer this next star". Also the fact he can actually wrestle helps.

And it's a shame, because for once they got the title match bang on the money.

Bryan is popular because the WWE marketed him and booked him to appeal to the the smark crowd unlike Cena.

I mean, having Miz as his NXT pro? Losing every match early on and having Cole absolutely bury him? His entire Rumble booking in 2014?

It seems to be working aswell. Every wrestling forum in the world is now full of marks who cannot see purposeful booking in front of them

Even if this is worked (I'm not 100% his entire career has been), as you point out, it's been much more subtle with Bryan, carefully built, where you're given chance to get on his side. Good story telling is exactly that, where you feel as though you've become a Bryan fan on your own. Rather than the last two years of a returning wrestler cutting crap promo's, having poor chemistry with both the audience and their Wrestlemania opponent. The rushed rivalry between Reigns and Lesnar is gonna be torture with Lesnar (who just got up from anything thrown at him at the Rumble) staying down for a jumpy punch.

Even last years "original" plan had the whole Evolution rivalry thing to use. As far as I can remember, Lesnar and Reins have never had any kind of on screen interaction.

Is he meant to stay down from 50 painfully slow shins to the chest instead, is that more "believable"?

 

[quiet_riot]

XL CENTER POSTPONES RAW UNTIL THURSDAY

STAMFORD, Conn., January 26, 2015 – Due to the impending blizzard in the Northeast and statewide travel bans, WWE has postponed tonight’s live event in Hartford and cancelled tomorrow night’s live event in Boston; however, WWE will emanate live tonight at 8 p.m. ET from its studios in the Stamford world headquarters.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Bryan is popular because the WWE marketed him and booked him to appeal to the the smark crowd unlike Cena.

I mean, having Miz as his NXT pro? Losing every match early on and having Cole absolutely bury him? His entire Rumble booking in 2014?

It seems to be working aswell. Every wrestling forum in the world is now full of marks who cannot see purposeful booking in front of them

Even if this is worked (I'm not 100% his entire career has been), as you point out, it's been much more subtle with Bryan, carefully built, where you're given chance to get on his side. Good story telling is exactly that, where you feel as though you've become a Bryan fan on your own. Rather than the last two years of a returning wrestler cutting crap promo's, having poor chemistry with both the audience and their Wrestlemania opponent. The rushed rivalry between Reigns and Lesnar is gonna be torture with Lesnar (who just got up from anything thrown at him at the Rumble) staying down for a jumpy punch.

Even last years "original" plan had the whole Evolution rivalry thing to use. As far as I can remember, Lesnar and Reins have never had any kind of on screen interaction.

Is he meant to stay down from 50 painfully slow shins to the chest instead, is that more "believable"?

No, WWE should give him the money he wants and keep him, and he should keep the title.

People need to differentiate between the Bryan debate and the commentary on how last night was booked regardless. That being said, I just don't see how Vince can honestly see how Sheamus v Bryan is worthy of Mania, Sheamus is a complete irrelevance. Fine, Bryan doesn't need to be, or deserve on this year, a title shot, but he is over enough to warrant a proper main event calibre feud with someone.

Regardless, Reigns has been booked poorly in recent months, and it hurt him last night.

 

[pudge]

Even if this is worked (I'm not 100% his entire career has been), as you point out, it's been much more subtle with Bryan, carefully built, where you're given chance to get on his side. Good story telling is exactly that, where you feel as though you've become a Bryan fan on your own. Rather than the last two years of a returning wrestler cutting crap promo's, having poor chemistry with both the audience and their Wrestlemania opponent. The rushed rivalry between Reigns and Lesnar is gonna be torture with Lesnar (who just got up from anything thrown at him at the Rumble) staying down for a jumpy punch.

Even last years "original" plan had the whole Evolution rivalry thing to use. As far as I can remember, Lesnar and Reins have never had any kind of on screen interaction.

Is he meant to stay down from 50 painfully slow shins to the chest instead, is that more "believable"?

No, WWE should give him the money he wants and keep him, and he should keep the title.

People need to differentiate between the Bryan debate and the commentary on how last night was booked regardless. That being said, I just don't see how Vince can honestly see how Sheamus v Bryan is worthy of Mania, Sheamus is a complete irrelevance. Fine, Bryan doesn't need to be, or deserve on this year, a title shot, but he is over enough to warrant a proper main event calibre feud with someone.

Regardless, Reigns has been booked poorly in recent months, and it hurt him last night.

But if Bryan were to face Lesnar and lose wouldn't the boos echo for eternity?

Wouldn't it be yet another "burial"? You actually stated last night that Bryan, Ziggler etc were buried; utterly laughable. Do people still believe Vince, HHH et al were legitimately burying Bryan, is that still a thing people do?

No, the crowd last night were unable to differentiate or logically consume anything as they were perhaps blinded by their own hypocrisy and ignorance. Bryan will unfortunately be headlining every PPV once again, just like before, and people still won't be happy.

Bryan's been out, spanner in the works I'm sure to the plan's they had last year, now new story lines and personas have developed. Bryan will be worked into the picture just like he was before.

Fans think they're being "shit on" when in fact it's all a work, always, so in turn decide to "shit on" the company in return? That's logical.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Is he meant to stay down from 50 painfully slow shins to the chest instead, is that more "believable"?

No, WWE should give him the money he wants and keep him, and he should keep the title.

People need to differentiate between the Bryan debate and the commentary on how last night was booked regardless. That being said, I just don't see how Vince can honestly see how Sheamus v Bryan is worthy of Mania, Sheamus is a complete irrelevance. Fine, Bryan doesn't need to be, or deserve on this year, a title shot, but he is over enough to warrant a proper main event calibre feud with someone.

Regardless, Reigns has been booked poorly in recent months, and it hurt him last night.

But if Bryan were to face Lesnar and lose wouldn't the boos echo for eternity?

Wouldn't it be yet another "burial"? You actually stated last night that Bryan, Ziggler etc were buried; utterly laughable. Do people still believe Vince, HHH et al were legitimately burying Bryan, is that still a thing people do?

No, the crowd last night were unable to differentiate or logically consume anything as they were perhaps blinded by their own hypocrisy and ignorance. Bryan will unfortunately be headlining every PPV once again, just like before, and people still won't be happy.

Bryan's been out, spanner in the works I'm sure to the plan's they had last year, now new story lines and personas have developed. Bryan will be worked into the picture just like he was before.

you don't dump one of your top main event guys out halfway through the Rumble, unless you're doing it to create a huge rivalry between two stars a la Michaels/Angle 2005. Ziggler came in #30 and was dumped out after 2 minutes, Wyatt went 45 minutes and was then just chucked out, and Rusev, who's meant to be practically unbeatable, spent half the match on the outside hiding and then was dumped out within 30 seconds of rejoining with hardly any offense. So burial in that sense, in terms of not dealing with these guys in a sensible, logical way during the match and thus yes, I stand by that assertion in the context of the match. It was booked poorly imo, they disregarded a lot of the strengths of their talent, a lot of their fan reaction to that talent and thus failed miserably to book an interesting match and ending.

Regarding Lesnar v Bryan, you're missing the simple point that Lesnar is a) a heel and b) beyond anything else in the WWE in such a way that he's now getting purely admiration from the fans for his performances. Plus, he did the Undertaker last year so beating Bryan is a walk in the park compared to the reaction from Taker, if that match were to happen.

Anyway, Pudge, with the talent available at the moment, how would you have booked last night and what would your Mania card be?

 

[Damocles]

Ok, if we take last year's Rumble as a given (I'm not sure on your account of Punk as his podcast with Colt gave a different impression to me) but just a few questions to you on this year's?

1) Do you think they intended to use Bryan in that way so that they would get that reaction?
2) Do you think they wanted Reigns to win, to get the reaction that he did, knowing they were in Philly and knowing what would likely happen?
3) Do you think the Rumble match itself was booked well and especially the ending?
4) Do you think they, as they are doing, are happy to damage Reigns to work the smarks like they did all last year, just to do the same as last year and put Bryan in the main event to win again, or do you think they just messed with Bryan last night to just stick two fingers up to the Smarks?
5) Do you think the WWE are happy for their 2nd biggest PPV to go off the air to serious boos two years running?

1. Yes.

2. I don't think they expected that strength of a reaction. This is why Bryan was in the middle of the entries. The Wyatt thing happened then they put Bryan out there as quickly as possible.

3. Wasn't the best Rumble I've seen, wasn't the worst. Pretty formulaic in that everything that needed to happen happened and that was about it.

4. It didn't hurt anybody. Worked smarks say things like this because they have lost sight of how wrestling works. They seem to think that losing someone "hurts" people or being on the butt of a joke "is killing people's heat". The problem is that they are using logic from the 1970s to try and describe today's wrestling and getting mad about it. Who thinks any less of Roman Reigns now? This hypothetical fan everybody is trying to book for doesn't exist apart from in the mind of smarks.

5. They have consistently shown that they don't give a crap about the reaction as long as there is one.

 

[pudge]

No, WWE should give him the money he wants and keep him, and he should keep the title.

People need to differentiate between the Bryan debate and the commentary on how last night was booked regardless. That being said, I just don't see how Vince can honestly see how Sheamus v Bryan is worthy of Mania, Sheamus is a complete irrelevance. Fine, Bryan doesn't need to be, or deserve on this year, a title shot, but he is over enough to warrant a proper main event calibre feud with someone.

Regardless, Reigns has been booked poorly in recent months, and it hurt him last night.

But if Bryan were to face Lesnar and lose wouldn't the boos echo for eternity?

Wouldn't it be yet another "burial"? You actually stated last night that Bryan, Ziggler etc were buried; utterly laughable. Do people still believe Vince, HHH et al were legitimately burying Bryan, is that still a thing people do?

No, the crowd last night were unable to differentiate or logically consume anything as they were perhaps blinded by their own hypocrisy and ignorance. Bryan will unfortunately be headlining every PPV once again, just like before, and people still won't be happy.

Bryan's been out, spanner in the works I'm sure to the plan's they had last year, now new story lines and personas have developed. Bryan will be worked into the picture just like he was before.

you don't dump one of your top main event guys out halfway through the Rumble, unless you're doing it to create a huge rivalry between two stars a la Michaels/Angle 2005. Ziggler came in #30 and was dumped out after 2 minutes, Wyatt went 45 minutes and was then just chucked out, and Rusev, who's meant to be practically unbeatable, spent half the match on the outside hiding and then was dumped out within 30 seconds of rejoining with hardly any offense. So burial in that sense, in terms of not dealing with these guys in a sensible, logical way during the match and thus yes, I stand by that assertion in the context of the match. It was booked poorly imo, they disregarded a lot of the strengths of their talent, a lot of their fan reaction to that talent and thus failed miserably to book an interesting match and ending.

Regarding Lesnar v Bryan, you're missing the simple point that Lesnar is a) a heel and b) beyond anything else in the WWE in such a way that he's now getting purely admiration from the fans for his performances. Plus, he did the Undertaker last year so beating Bryan is a walk in the park compared to the reaction from Taker, if that match were to happen.

Anyway, Pudge, with the talent available at the moment, how would you have booked last night and what would your Mania card be?

Can't agree with any of that.

The 6 man tag would not have been a thing; A New Day and Adam Rose would be sitting at home, forever. I'd have had the IC belt on the line. Perhaps Barrett/Ziggler/Harper in a triple threat. They had that on a house show just a few days ago I believe, wasted in that spot.

The Ascension wouldn't have been called up; Enzo and Big Cass would have been my choice. Having Road Dogg and Enzo square off on the microphone? With their introductions, are you kidding me?! It would be magical.

The Uso's wouldn't be champs, rather, unashamedly, I'd never have split Rybaxel up and given a heel tag team the belts; I think the tag belts are the perfect title for (a) heel(s) to hold. I wouldn't have had MIzdow compete in anything other than the rumble and have them seemingly split during that match perhaps. The tag team division is weak, there's no sustained rivalry between any pair. This apparent Uso/Mizdow feud won't work for a number of reasons the main one being Mizdow isn't sustainable.

The current Divas are just pick your poison, my hands would be tied there with the lack of quality.

The title match play out as it did (or even just the result to simplify it).

With the Rumble, assuming I'm allowed to use the "guests" as well, I'd have had Bubba come down in at least the 20's create a sense of the ultimate twist for nostalgia's sake more than anything. The Big Show would have been sitting at home, or in a retirement home. I wouldn't have had Bryan return at all (I'd have used the next month or so to book him a feud to carry out on a PPV). Who would I have booked to win it? Fuck knows, once again it's pick your poison but as last year showed you don't need to win the Rumble to headline Wrestlemania so there would be plenty of time for development there. Rollins vs Lesnar is certainly WM worthy, if he wasn't Mr. Money in the Bank or had cashed it in I could even have been tempted to have him win the rumble and just have it have been Lesnar vs Cena with the aim of playing the long game for the sake of one match, which isn't really the main event of it's PPV anyway.

Picking a complete Mania card as of right now is impossible tbf

But that's me, I'm not Vince. He knows the business, he doesn't care if it's badly received or well received so long as it's being spoken about that's just it. I wouldn't book anything differently to promote anyone or appease anyone or to bury/not bury anyone. I'd just try and utilize the talent with regards to in ring ability etc not fan demands.