AJ Styles needs a second banana. A Luke Harper to his Bray Wyatt. Somebody who’ll add to his heat, not steal from it, like the Bullet Club. His feud with Dean Ambrose and Myrtle the Turtle is fun, but AJ needs his own stooge(s) for balance. Maybe the Usos can trade places with Gallows & Anderson and unite with second cousin Roman Reigns so the Bullet Club can reform on SD.
Goldberg’s jobbing to Brock? That makes no sense given his motivation for returning, which was so his kid could see him be a superhero again. Having one match where he loses doesn’t accomplish that, unless we’re getting swerved and that one match is supposed to lead to a few more for Goldberg.
Goldberg vs. Cena would have made more sense though. If Goldberg beats Brock, then he leaves 2-0 against the supposedly unstoppable monster, which leaves the WWE with no Goldberg and a slightly diminished Brock. If Goldberg loses, what was the point of him coming back? At least with Goldberg/Cena, Cena’s a superhero in his own right, so it’s a little better if he beats Goldberg, and Cena’s brand isn’t diminished in the slightest by a loss to Goldberg because Cena’s lost clean several times this year.
Heck, if they just wanted Goldberg to do his superhero act one more time, feed him Braun Strowman or Rusev. 3 minutes, hurray, ride off into the sunset.
Dunno if we have any Arrow fans in the audience, but a co-worker just told me that they introduced a new villain who was played by Cody.
Wonder if it was part of the 'Mania deal?
I’m kind of liking Seth Rollins in his current role. Making him a face-ish anti-heel is providing some motivation for his style. His ranting directed against other heels makes more sense than directing it at the audience or the powers that be. It also provides a point to the athletic ability he likes to demonstrate. Real heels are lazy, don’t work hard in the ring, cheat first if they can. Now he’s got a character that works. The longer they keep the title from him the better.
And Paige and Del Rio? Way to waste talent. Can’t wait for their porn debut.
And he was a drug dealer, selling a drug called “Stardust.”
I actually watched a WWE show for the first time in 12 years to see Goldberg, and it was interesting how things have evolved.
- The fans seem to have a wider variety of chants and REALLY get into them. Maybe it was just that venue, but that crowd was hot.
- Less reliance on screwjob endings. Again, maybe just that one show, but I seem to recall that every match ended with a clean pinfall, or a pinfall with just a little bit of cheating.
- The characters are very interesting, I found myself liking about half of them and wanting to see more, and the fans seemed to be into them too: New Day and Bayley especially. I’m also digging the entrance music. More variety. In the attitude era and shortly afterwards it was almost all alt-rock and metal. Sami Zayn and Bayley had especially cool music.
- More African-American wrestlers. A lot more. That’s really awesome to see.
- Goldust is actually tolerable now.
- The women work STIFF now. That’s great to see. I never understood why female wrestlers had to suck. There’s nothing inherent about being a female that means you can’t work in the ring, WWE just wasn’t putting effort in. Now they are, and people seem to be buying into it.
- On the downside, while characters seem to be cooler, everyone seems to work the same style and has the same basic moveset other than their finisher.
- The fans seemed to dig Chris Jericho even though he was a heel. I guess being a legend means they’ll always love you no matter what now. Which is cool.
- I’d heard Roman Reigns was hated, but the local crowd was sure into him. Maybe because he was working against Rusev? Rusev, BTW, is the awesomest foreign heel I’ve ever seen.
- One thing that never changes is the desire to always have a monster heel available to put someone heroic over eventually. Braun Strowman seems to be filling that role right now and he’s good at it. I wonder who eventually beats him? It won’t be this Sami Zayn guy, I can be sure of that. Sami Zayn is to Braun Strowman as the Hardys were to Brock Lesnar.
I like your opinions and for the most part your observations are right.
They still do schmoz endings way more than they should, but other than that you’re mostly right. Glad to see you tuned in for Goldberg. Apparently the ratings were very high, so you weren’t the only one!
Welcome!
The chants have basically become part of the fan culture these days. To an extent, it varies from city to city - in my own experience going to shows in both Seattle and Portland, Seattle crowds are much smarkier and prone to chanting, while Portland crowds tend to be calmer and cheer more reliably for the babyfaces. If the show’s in Chicago, Philly, or London, the crowds are likely to be completely off the rails.
It varies from show to show. This year, they’ve been tending more towards straight finishes as part of the whole “New Era” idea they’re pushing.
New Day went through a lot before they became what they are now. They were first formed in mid-2014 with the idea that they’d be black nationalists a la the Nation of Domination. Then #BlackLivesMatter happened and they got watered down into some happy clapping vaguely-Christian guys who ranted about positivity. The crowd hated it, they turned heel, and the heel incarnation became so popular that they sort of became de facto babyfaces.
The big change there happened over the past two years in NXT, WWE’s developmental promotion, mainly driven on by the “Four Horsewomen” (Bayley, Charlotte, Sasha Banks, and Becky Lynch) who were putting on technically solid matches miles ahead of what the main roster Divas were doing.
No disagreements there.
The big problem with Roman Reigns is that they tried to push him as the next Hulk Hogan/Sting/Rock/John Cena before he was ready, solely on the basis of his family connections (just look up the Anoa’i family on Wikipedia) and his having the look that Vince likes. As a mid-card babyface, with a good rival like Rusev, he works, but he really doesn’t have the technical ability, the mic skills, or the charisma to be world champion.
But as Scott Keith would say, he’s tall and he has good hair. Well, at least he’s better than the tall guy with good hair they were pushing around the time I tuned out: Test.
I guess that’s one improvement I really liked. There wasn’t a single segment where I was thinking that I’d really love it if they’d stop putting this person on TV. Everyone was at least tolerable. Back in the earlier days you had some greats(Rock, Austin, Goldberg, Lesnar, Angle), but also some people that were on TV every week and very few people wanted to see them(Test, Billy Gunn, Undertaker during his biker gimmick. I hear he got cool again later on.)
Heck, I even liked Michael Cole! He was a total dweeb 12 years ago but nowadays he seems to actually have some gravitas. Although the announcing team in general is not that good. Then again, I didn’t like the Lawler-Ross team either. Nothing beats Ventura-Monsoon, and I have to admit I had actually enjoyed Schiavone/Heenan/Tenay on Nitro.
Maggle’s OK. I’m more partial to Mauro Ranallo on the Smackdown commentary team - he has a long history calling boxing and MMA before WWE hired him, and it melds well with his technical/historical knowledge of pro wrestling in a way you just can’t script.
Cool. I haven’t seen the Smackdown brand yet.
Commentary is completely unwatchable (unlistenable?) to me for one reason and one reason only: Heel/Face commentators.
It drives me insane.
Just commentate the damn match like the boxing announcers you’re pretending to be! I hate hate hate haaaaaaate that there’s always “the face guy!” who champions the faces literally no matter what they do, “the heel guy!” who does the same with the heels 90% of the time and then spends the other 10% of the time childishly insulting the face guy, and then “the neutral guy!” who just calls the matches.
I don’t give a shit about history, or tradition or any of that. Get rid of the goddamn character commentators and just talk about the matches and the storylines as they happen.
RAW: Cole and (A NEUTRAL!!!) Graves
Smackdown: Mauro and Saxton? I guess? Can we just get D-bry to do it like they did in the CWC?
That’s it.
Fire the rest.
Well, I’m pretty sure Graves is working with Cole because they know he’s good and will be their next top announcer, so they want him to learn the whole job (the not actually speaking parts) from their top guy (Cole). I’m just really glad that they keep him doing NXT.
JBL is there on Smackdown to be Vince’s voice, being fed lines through his headset.
… And that’s why Jesse Ventura and Gorilla Monsoon were the best commentary duo of all time. I know that a lot of people have a soft spot in their hearts for Heenan/Monsoon, but Heenan was always too partisan and slap-sticky for my tastes. Ventura would generally give the faces a fair shake (unless it was Hogan), and wasn’t above criticizing the heels (unless they were Savage or Rude).
adaher, I strongly recommend you pick up WWE network to watch NXT. All us thread regulars watched WWE’s current top crop go through that stage, and it’s interesting to see how wrestler personalities evolve from developmental to prime time. Charlotte, Sasha, Bailey and Becky Lynch were known as the “Four Horsewomen” and were so awesome, they frequently headlined the shows.
Sami Zayn was NXT champ and pretty much everybody’s favorite in NXT. When KO first came to NXT, he and Sami were touted as BFFs who grew up and trained together, and the first thing KO did after Zayn won the title was turn on him. That elevated KO to the top tier immediately. Their feud didn’t translate to RAM too well, but KO was in the right place at the right time when Finn had to give up the RAM title. Zayn is kind of cursed with making his opponents look *too *good, but KO is a great snarky heel and truly broke Vince’s mold.
Other NXT alums like Tyler Breeze, Bo Dallas and Neville aren’t doing as well in prime time as they did in NXT, but somebody’s got to fill those midcarder slots.
I think I preferred Heenan over Ventura as Gorilla’s calling partner, because Jesse was too cool to be Gorilla’s foil, while Heenan was so decidedly uncool. Heenan was more like a naughty child with a sassy mouth, and Gorilla sold exasperation better with him. Gorilla would call a move using technical words like “external occipital protuberance” and Heenan would snark “Dumb it down for the humanoids.” Gorilla had the perfect topper with “Will you stop?” If not for Heenan, Gorilla might never have come up with “Regular fountain of misinformation.” The two had excellent chemistry and were best friends offscreen.
The funny thing about me not watching wrestling for 12 years is that I have actually followed it in the news so to speak, and NXT really excites me. I think after seeing Raw that I’m going to start being a regular watcher of Raw, Smackdown, and NXT. Plus I’ve had the WWE Network for 2 years, I probably should watch something other than 2002 Raw replays and Wrestlemania 1-20. I’ve missed a lot of great stuff that I really want to see but have only heard about. Such as Shawn Michaels and John Cena having a 1 hour match on Raw, or any of Lesnar’s matches since his return, or all the new great female wrestlers. I’ve also heard about this thing between the Shield and the Authority that was supposed to be pretty good.
I actually just finished watching the entire Monday Night Wars from 1996-2001 only a couple of months ago. Doesn’t hold up that well the 2nd time around when you know what’s going to happen.
If I may recommend a number of highly memorable matches from the last few years that are worth looking up on the Network;
- Daniel Bryan, Kane, and Ryback vs. the Shield (TLC 2012)
- John Cena vs. Daniel Bryan (Summerslam 2013)
- The Shield vs. Goldust & Cody Rhodes (Battleground 2013)
- Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H AND Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton vs. Batista (WrestleMania 30)
- The Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar (WrestleMania 30)
- Sami Zayn vs. Cesaro (NXT Arrival)
- Charlotte vs. Natalya (NXT Takeover)
- John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar (Summerslam 2014)
- Adrian Neville vs. Sami Zayn vs. Tyson Kidd vs. Tyler Breeze (Takeover: Fatal 4-Way)
- Team Cena vs. Team Authority (Survivor Series 2014)
- Adrian Neville vs. Sami Zayn (Takeover: R Evolution)
- Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens (Takeover: Rival)
- John Cena vs. Rusev (WrestleMania 31)
- John Cena vs. Kevin Owens (Elimination Chamber 2015)
- Finn Balor vs. Kevin Owens (Beast From the East)
- Bayley vs. Sasha Banks (Takeover: Respect)
- Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe (Takeover: London)
- The Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon (WrestleMania 32)
- Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (Takeover: Dallas)
- Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins (Money in the Bank 2016)
- Jack Gallagher vs. Akira Tozawa (Cruiserweight Classic, episode 6)
- Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Samoa Joe (Takeover: Brooklyn II)
- John Cena vs. AJ Styles (Summerslam 2016)
But I still haven’t seen Undertaker vs. Yokozuna!
I’ll go back a year farther and add to the excellent match list:
John Cena vs. CM Punk, Money in the Bank 2011