I’m pretty confident that the Authority angle is safely dead and buried. They went in the right direction in enlisting Foley and Bryan as GMs, and seem intent on keeping them as brand identities.
WWE has learned their lesson on trying to ram one of their own prodigies down everybody’s throats, and realize it’s “best for business” to let the cream rise to the top, whether they be from the indies or inside.
Slept through the ending last night, but read about it.
I’m assuming this is leading to a Trips/Rollins match at Wrestlemania?
I am interested as to how this is going to translate storyline wise, but I guess I’ll just find out huh?
(also, was it weird to anyone else that RAW was advertising the Smackdown PPV?)
Yeah, I dunno. I’m not even remotely interested in seeing Trips in any story line. Was NOT happy with the ending there last night in any way other than that Owens got the belt.
For that matter, even the whole Stephanie-Heyman thing was annoying and pointless. GTFO my screen.
Just when you thought the WWE couldn’t get any worse HHH returns.
Obviously Reigns wasn’t going to win, he may be beyond redemption after all the effort they put into him without a return. Big Cassowary has been really impressive in the short time he’s been there but he’s just not ready yet. I think KO was the best choice but I figured they’d give it back to Rollins as the known quantity. Could be they realize he’s a better contender than champion.
If Lesnar won’t be back for a while they don’t need Heyman. If they can find him some other talent to work with maybe, but nothing much makes sense as long he’s the avocado for Lesnar.
Maybe they’re punishing Rollins for hurting every freakin person he wrestles…himself included
He has a lot of outstanding receipts. In Finn’s case Finn did it to himself by looking back over his shoulder as Rollins ran toward the barrier, that’s what caused him to hit arm first. It might be that Finn wasn’t ready for a move like that, that’s the problem with promoting guys just out of the minor league that fast, but Rollins was driving forward pretty damn fast and that might not have been the way things were planned.
“Promoting guys just out of the minor league”? Did you just put Prince Devitt in the same category as, like, Apollo Crews and Baron Corbin?
Yes. I’m not knocking Finn. Just like in baseball the Hall of Famers started in the minor leagues, the same leagues as the guys who didn’t finish their rookie season in the big league. Just because he’s better and more experienced than most others doesn’t mean he was ready for that match against Rollins, who may have been taking liberties as well. He may have been talked into taking more risks than he should have with the chance to become the new champ, or he just assumed the risk himself. They play rough in the WWE, he’s not a big guy, and he was new there, I doubt anyone wanted to do him any favors. OTOH he may have been ready, but there’s no way to tell until he gets there. No matter what Rollins may have done he made a mistake, just like Rollins did working on an already damaged leg, just like Daniel Bryan did taking bumps on his head. Unlike a lot of guys who ended up in worse shape at least he’s got a chance to recover his career.
Hard to say… Tyson Kidd is still out from taking a Muscle Buster from Samoa Joe, whereas Finn took an elevated version before losing the NXT belt, and he kept going. I remember SCSA was almost paralyzed when Owen Hart gave him a Piledriver, and he’s been on IR several times. I’m surprised Dolph Ziggler hasn’t done any hospital time. The dude must be made of slinky springs.
Sometimes shit goes wrong, and by now the bookers have backup plans in case that happens. Either that, or they go apeshit 24/7 until the next show trying to figure out how to salvage the situation. I thought for sure Rollins was going to be champ again, but they decided to go with KO, and why not? He’s been hugely over since his first day at NXT.
I remember back in the NWA days, Magnum TA was the top face, and he got in a car wreck that ended his career. What did they do? They had his archenemy Nikita Koloff turn face and take his place. Feuds with Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen ensued, and Nikita was top face. That is, until he lost interest in wrestling a few years later and quietly left, but aside from that it was a good decision.
I think Finn will recover, it’s just an arm, he’s good enough to keep wrestling even if that arm never works right again. Randy Orton kept on going through a lot of shoulder and back injuries, a good wrestler with strong legs doesn’t need his arms that much. Anyway, I hope he can recover, he’s got a lot of potential. But there’s a lot of pressure on the smaller guys to go high risk, and now it’s on the bigger guys also, look at Cesaro who keeps on working with a shoulder problem, everybody in WWE is getting beat up these days. Wrestlers used to get by on style alone as their injuries piled up, now it’s pretty much in the job description that they have to put their career on the line in every match.
ETA: And yeah, Ziggler must be made our of rubber or something. I always wanted to see him do more in the ring than take bumps, he was great amateur wrestler but most of his act has been taking instead of giving.
Wasn’t really impressed with throwing Ziggler out there to “confront” Miz, but what else are you going to do? DBD can’t wrestle anymore, as much as he very very clearly wants to, and someone needs to chain that heat. I just don’t think Ziggler was the right play.
Half wonder if at some point, DBD will become so frustrated with being around all this stuff and not being able to wrestle that he steps back and retires, at least for a few years. Once one or more little Satyr children are running around, I could see him coming back with a little bit of separation that he doesn’t currently have.
Heath Slater’s wife (or the actress playing her) is awesome. “Ah got yew the best Cheese Whiz for this!”
“Where are your kids?”
“They’re out back collecting bottles and cans.”
I would watch 30 minute episodes of “Meet the Slaters” on the network.
I loved the Slater bit. Hope they keep it going. Rhino was a riot there also, great minimalist sports/entertainment.
I, too, loved the Miz beginning, but hated that they brought out Ziggler to ruin it.
Is it just me, or does the 2-hour Smackdown really break down to 1.5 hours of promos/videos and only about a half hour of wrestling?
Holy crap I thought Smackdown was supposed to be the purists show, this just bores me to death and cements that I don’t need to pay attention.
Soooo I definitely worked out next to Tye Dillinger today.
What he’s doing in a Golds Gym by Seaworld versus just being at the performance center is beyond me. Maybe he lives up here?
Either way he looked familiar so I straight up asked him if that’s who he was. He said yes and we did a high- five thingy, but that was about it.
I wouldn’t say he wasn’t friendly, but he definitely was like “OK you know me, hey how are ya, now please let me work out”. Because of that I didn’t talk to him much further or ask for a picture or anything.
The perks of living in Orlando amirite?
3 posts in a row? Say whaaaaat?
So CWC happened yesterday, and I was very curious as to how they would play the Kendrick/Ibushi match because, guys, Kendrick actually won.
Here’s what happened.
When Kendrick did the neckbreaker outside on the turnbuckle, Ibushi was actually counted out. It was weird. The ref* did his count as normal and did everything he possibly could to give Ibushi a chance to get into the ring. He counted slow, he stayed at 9 for at least 3 full counts…he tried really, really hard.
But it was too long and he finally said “eff it” and called for the bell to ring with Kendrick winning.
Then all hell broke loose. The crowd had no idea whether to cheer or not. The ref even shook his head while he called for the bell and repeated “nope, nope” when he was doing it. Kendrick looked shocked as hell and tried to play it off but couldn’t stop being surprised. Bryan and Mauro were literally speechless. It was about 5 minutes of chaos.
Then the savior that is William Regal came out and got on a mic and said "You know that I have power in NXT, well I have that same power here and I’m not letting the match end on an illegal move. Restart the match! Kendrick immediately threw Ibushi out of the ring again, and that was the cut that the show went back to.
Never seen a botch that bad in person before, especially in a taped event. We also had a standing O for Kendrick for a good 10 minutes. And just seeing him look at all of us, crying, thanking us side-by-side? Heartbreaking. He knew it was over and so did we, but it was great what he did. And when Bryan came down? Tears abound.
Last but not least, we ended the night with a “please stop crying” chant at Kendrick. Head up buddy…
*Did you guys hear the story of the lady who was at Universal and talked about the “wonderfully nice man who won a stuffed dog and gave it to my son! It made his day and I just want to thank him!” That guy who won the toy was the ref for this match. I don’t know his name, but I call him the Divas ref cuz he always does the women’s matches.
Someone on another message board I go to suggested that Ibushi didn’t realize (or didn’t remember) that WWE has 10-counts, instead of the 20-counts that are common in Japan.
That was the prevailing theory from my section as well
I hope Kendrick will be back on RAM. He’s just too cool to keep off the air. He goes from being helpless looking to sinking in his claws like an owl raping Minnie Mouse.