Yea, that was a bit unfair to Roman. It’s not his fault Vince is shoving him down everyone’s throat. He’s doing the best he can. His best just isn’t good enough.
I would love to see Vince’s reaction to that segment. “Enjoy your last Wrestlemania, PAL!”
So did Paul E. He knew ECW fans were “smart” and that he could use them to further ECW. He catered to them to spread the brand and it worked. Vince and Triple HHH don’t need the “smart” fans and it shows. They are as much to blame for the opening segment as anyone.
That Neville-Ali match was outstanding. Kudos to them for bringing the crowd back.
Anyone consider the possibility that Roman Reigns is being booked just correctly to be WWE’s Huge Mega-Heel? Or is that giving WWE way too much credit?
Earlier on, I believe it was just Vince’s stubbornness.
At this point they know what they’re doing. The point is to get a reaction. Cena’s reaction is mixed, but it is LOUD. Romans has just started reaching that same level.
They made them go back to being The Hardy Boyz? HAVE THEY NO SOULS???
Roman didn’t even to try to get heat. He milked the hate just by arching his eyebrows. Gentlemen, that’s power.
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG THE REVIVAL!!!
While I highly doubt ya’ll are on the edge of your seats wondering how the longest/quickest/craziest weekend went for me…here are the cliffsnotes:
Saturday: We started the day off early with DDP Yoga. Originally, this was a “first come, first served” kind of thing, but there were eventually online sign ups. Ms. Cups and I got on the list and filled out our T-shirt size as part of the sign up. “Neat.” we thought, “we’ll get a free shirt.” Oh no, it was much more than that. We ended up getting, each, a DDP Yoga t-shirt, a Tapout tank top and Tapout shorts for me, and capri/tights for her. We also got to keep our yoga mats when the session was done. The class itself was fun and way harder than you think. DDP is a fun, funny guy and we definitely were feeling it even on Sunday! Afterwards, we ended up getting a picture with Nattie, Titus O’Neal and Dana Warrior.
We went from that to the live taping of our favorite wrestling podcast. If you have the chance and need the entertainment, Ring Rust Radio is a lot of fun. Just sayin’
From there we took the drive up to Lakeland for Supercard of Honor. You all can look up the card (since I recognize barely anyone) but it was a fun card. Of the people I did recognize, Cody had a pretty bad match. It was some weird Texas rope match (or something like that) with Jay Lethal and it was sloppy and slow and the rope was super awkward. There was a title match with the defending champ going against Dalton Castle (and the boys) and this match just seemed…lacking. It didn’t feel like a world title defense at all. However, the Hardys and the Young Bucks made up for it. It was a very fun match that had everything you’d need. Hardys ended up losing for reasons that would become obvious in around 24 hours’ time. Side note for this match: The Young Bucks’ dad came into the stands where we were sitting so we said hi to him.
This ROH card leads me to ask ya’ll a question: What the hell is the Bullet Club? Like, I know what they are, but how many members do they have? I figured it was a handful at a time, but practically every match had at least 1 person who was a BC member. Do they have any rhyme or reason to their schtick? Do you just need a t-shirt to join? Is anyone here a member? Am I?
Sunday: Spend most of the day couch shopping (boy is THAT a shitty process…) but ended up eventually going downtown and parking in a garage then taking a shuttle to the stadium. I would venture to say we got there around 5. Our seats were off of the south side of the ring. Basically, if you were on the ramp, our seats were at around 11:00. Honestly the seats were great. We didn’t have any of the posts in our way and could see the action in the ring just fine (plus the entrances). Ya’ll watched the show, so I don’t need to delve into the card, but I can say the pop for the Hardys was HUGE. Beginning at the RAW women’s match, they turned on the lights around the ring to illuminate the crowd…unfortunately that meant blinding about 90% of us. Hence the “Turn the lights off…we can’t see!” chants. It kinda put a damper on the last half of the show because it was really hard to see the ring, but whaddyagonnado?
Personally, I didn’t feel the show felt as long as it was. The card was definitely moving, so I never completely felt I was looking at my watch. Any boredom I felt was because I didn’t care about the match (coughbrayandrandycough) and not because of the length. I was super scared it was going to rain because it was raining all around Orlando. Thankfully is barely/kinda-sorta spit for about 10 min in the beginning, but then cleared up. Taking into consideration construction and a trip to Taco Bell, we left our apartment at about 3:30P and rolled over to fall asleep at 2:40A.
It was a long and exhausting day…but so, so much fun. Every match was at least entertaining, and most were actually quite good. Some of the endings were a bit abrupt, but overall they were good. The fireworks they used for certain entrances and exits were Disney-worthy. Charlotte’s entrance alone was amazing to see. Also, yes, the stage caught fire…but they solved that pretty quickly. Last but not least, It’s pretty cool to say I was there for 'Taker’s last match. IMO him leaving is truly and finally the end of that original heyday of wrestling.
Only thing left on the docket is Smackdown’s taping tonight. Hoping the crowd isn’t as horrible as yesterday’s since it’s Smackdown…but my hopes aren’t too high. I think someone went to a Smackdown taping recently…did you stay for 205 live? We’ve literally not watched a second of it, and are debating whether to stay. Unlike after 'Mania, we have to work tomorrow. So should we stay? Is it worth it?
Re: the Bullet Club - Here’s the wiki page for them, but from the top of my head, the Bullet Club started in New Japan, and its first incarnation included Finn and Gallows & Anderson. They eventually added more members and became the major heel stable of heel stables, kind of like the NWO. NJ has been partnering with RoH, so that’s how they spread their wings to the US. AJ Styles, the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, some other Japanese stars (Nakamura maybe?), both of Haku/Ming’s sons, Adam Cole, Adam Page, joined as others left.
At one point, he gestured to the palm of his hand and said… well, “I got you in the palm of my hand.”
He knows what he’s doing, and I’m not a fan of his, but I’m interested to see where it goes.
I loved Heyman’s bedtime story. He’s such a terrific gloater.
If the Hardyz ever get their Broken gimmick back, they can bring back The Waters from the Lake of Resurrection. That’d be fun to see current stars forced to recreate their old gimmicks.
Gallows would be reborn as Festus.
Cesario would return as one of the Ice Creams.
Golddust would transmogrify into 90s Golddust
Sami Zayn would change to El Generico.
Big Show would reconfigure into Captain Insano.
Darren Young would revert to Fred Sanford.
Tye Dillinger on Smackdown. 
Then Shinsuke Nakamura comes out to a thunderous welcome!
OOOOO HOOO HOHOHOHOHOHOHO
Nakamura iss on Smacka Down!
King of Strong Style going after the A Rister MiZ!
Perfect TEN is here as well!
Erick Rowan is back with a mutated sheep mask!
The absurd crowd and their exuberant counting!
mark mark mark mark mark mark mark mark mark mark mark mark
:dubious:
“its humbling”
Boss’s son after walking sideways into their biggest show of the year for a match with their hottest star.
:rolleyes:
Predictions for who’s going to switch shows, anyone?
There were rumors a while back AJ and Roman were going to switch places. That would potentially reunite AJ with G&A on RAM, and RR needs to have the other half of the WWE audience hate on him too.
They seem to be working on a Sami Zayn bonding angle with Kurt Angle (pun intended), contrary to his past desire to defect to SD, but that can easily be dropped. New Day stepped aside for the Hardyz, so they can bring their booty-o’s to SD. In return, RAM gets Luke Harper and American Alpha. Charlotte seems to have alienated herself from the other RAM heels, so she goes to SD in exchange for Carmella, reuniting her with Enzo & Cass. That would make some awkward heat with Ellsworth along for the ride.
Austin Aries is really too big a personality to be shoehorned into CW, so I can see him going to SD. Cedric Alexander may as well go too, since he hasn’t been active lately.
This made me absurdly happy. Having watched Tye down here for years, and knowing he’s been here for even longer, I couldn’t be happier for the guy. And Smackdown is perfect for him.
Our seats were way up where the smarks generally aren’t. So when the light shown on a violinist, and the crowd went nuts, I just wondered what the people who don’t watch wrestling think. “Wow, these guys are really into classical music!” I’ll definitely have to see how it translates on TV, but I found it super weird that he came out to do…nothing. I mean, he eventually wrestled a dark match against Zigs, but his TV appearance was nothing at all.
No way Reigns goes to Smackdown. He’s their biggest star (in Vince’s eyes) and therefore belongs on the biggest show (in Vince’s eyes). I’m assuming AJ jumps ship, but that would make me sad. I’d rather The Club come to Smackdown and make the BC there. They need the heel tag teams more than RAM does since The Revival debuted.
And the Post-Wrestlemania Massacre begins.
Simon Gotch released.
He was in the pre-Smackdown dark match against JJ and Bagels.
An interesting weekend…got to see two superstars’ farewell matches!
Wonder what that means for Aiden English? He was always the better wrestler, so hopefully he changes gimmicks and comes out better.
IIRC Gotch was the one involved in a couple backstage fights and other problems, so I don’t think this is all that unexpected.
I know Nakamura said he wanted to go to Smackdown at least in part because he wanted to compete against AJ Styles, so hopefully they don’t move AJ next week.
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