Any WWE fans in the audience? (Part 1)

The Game Room
1542

The Ascension were just really badly booked. Bad enough that you had to wonder about the conspiracy theories that were going on about Vince & Dunn deliberately sabotaging NXT guys.

Meanwhile, I’m watching WM 8–fun stuff. I’m currently at the 8 man tag, though, and it’s just… collection of bad early 90s occupational gimmicks. The Mountie, Repo Man, and Big Boss Man. Also Virgil is wearing some goofy face protector for some reason. Snake/Taker was great, though, as was Piper/Bret.

We might try doing a group watch here sometime–it’s fun to do that over on Cageside, though I could do without their habit of doing everything as if it were the time of the PPV. OTOH, the way the board works isn’t really conducive, as you’d have to keep refreshing to look for new comments.

1543

Wondering if they don’t need Neville, Zayn, Itami and Balor come in all at once as a faction, ala the Radicalz (Malenko, Guerrero, Saturn and Krispen Wah). Without ever mentioning that past group. Not counting KO in this group, as I think he comes in on his own as a heel.

1544

I got out of the Portland show about two hours ago. This one was a matinee that kicked off at 3 PM. I’ve always been impressed by the grueling schedule the wrestlers work, but the real hard workers on a schedule like this are the road crew - between when last night’s show ended and the doors opened for this one, they had just shy of 15 hours in which to break down the set and backstage, load everything on the truck, sleep, drive 170 miles (and that in a rainstorm which was torrential even by PNW standards - when I made the drive I had to keep the wipers on the rarely-used max speed and I hydroplaned several times on the freeway), unload everything, and set it up again.

My seat was closer to the ring, but farther from the ramp, so it all balanced out. I was seated next to a 12-13-year-old-ish boy who didn’t quite seem to know it was worked and whose father in the next seat over didn’t seem very interested. We struck up something of a rapport during the show and he was pretty amazed by my knowledge of who was and wasn’t going to appear and who would win, though I did my best not to ruin the magic for him.

I won’t do a full recap, because as I expected, almost all of the matches were the same, in the same order, with the same results, with almost all the same spots in the same order. Not that I’m complaining, because they were still all better than Raw. (It’s amazing the difference it makes when you get to take time to plan out a match and work it over and over to perfection, rather than just being told half an hour before bell time that you’re getting five minutes and to make Roman look strong.) So I’ll just note the things that were significantly different, and a few odd things I noticed;

  • For New Day vs. Ascension, Big E was in the match and Kofi was the cornerman. Kofi put over the Trailblazers for cheap pops, and they did a spot where they used Big E’s crotch hanky as a basketball and dribbled around the Ascension before dunking it between Big E’s arms.

  • For the IC title match, they first introduced Ambrose, then Barrett, then the third competitor… I’M HERE TO SHOW THE WORLD! I’M HERE TO SHOW THE WORRRRRRRRRLD! Surprise triple threat for the win! Great match, with Ziggler giving Barrett the Fameasser, Barrett giving Winds of Change to everyone, and an attempt by Ziggler to superplex Ambrose being foiled when Barrett powerbombed both of them. Barrett ended up winning clean by pinning Ziggler, after which the IC belt ended up getting tossed around again until R-Truth ran away with it so that we’re right back where we started in time for Raw.

  • Roman Reigns was way more over. In Seattle, he got a mixed reaction with about as many cheers as boos. Here, the entire crowd was hot for him, nearly as much as they were for Bryan. I don’t know if it was because this was a Sunday matinee or because Portland crowds are markier in general (which in my personal experience is true), but maybe there’s hope for the Usos’ cousin after all. If they can keep him away from TV tapings in the smark cities (Chicago, Philly, Boston, Seattle, etc.) and not have him talk about magic beans and making it rain, he might just do alright as champion.

  • Erick Rowan’s sheep mask has a whole lot of electrical tape holding it together. Has he been using the same mask the entire time since he joined the Wyatt family? Because if so, that actually works really well into his character as an idiot savant who’s used to being treated like an animal and is just learning to be human. There was much of the same in the spot they did in his match with Fandango; Rosa jumps up on the apron and starts wiggling seductively, which leads Rowan to stare at her in confusion. Fandango tries to use the distraction to clothesline Rowan, but he moves out of the way; Fandango stops himself so he doesn’t hit Rosa, and Erick uses that to roll him up for the win, and after the match, he puts on the sheep mask, climbs out of the ring towards Rosa, and she runs away in terror. Shades of Frankenstein’s monster discovering girls.

  • Even at house shows, where there’s no camera, the wrestlers still work towards the side of the ring where the hard cam would be. The hard cam is always placed so that the entry ramp is on the left, and if you ever go to a house show, you’ll notice they always work in that direction. (Similarly, Roman Reigns will always enter from the ramp to the right on the opposite side of the ring of the hard cam.)

  • The ring post blocked my view of some of the major spots, but I was in just the right position to get a full view of Natalya’s bottom while she was on the ring apron. Tyson Kidd is one lucky son of a bitch.

  • At the end of the show, I managed to work my way to the apron just in time to clasp hands with Daniel Bryan and shout “I LOVE YOU BRYAN!”, to which he responded “Thank you!” I believe this cancels out the otherwise-irreparable damage done to my hand when I slapped Roman Reigns’ overly-cologned bicep last year.

1545

Glad you could quit molesting Daniel Bryan enough to write this report, Smapti. :slight_smile:

I remember from Stave Austin’s podcast with Bray Wyatt, Bray said he found the sheep mask at a costume shop when he was looking for props and thought it’d be perfect for Rowan. The Rosa thing reminds me of the Beauty and Beast angle WWE did with Randy Savage, Miss Elizabeth, and George The Animal Steele. They had the King Kong deal where Steele would carry Elizabeth away while Savage was in a match.

I read in an interview with Steele that Savage really didn’t trust Elizabeth and Steele together and kept her away from him when they were backstage as much as possible. Steele told Savage he had a daughter as old as Elizabeth and had no interest in her, but Savage was still territorial. Great Og, how insecure was Savage to think he would lose Elizabeth to that man-gorilla? Granted, Steele had a tongue long enough to lick his own eyebrows, but still…

1546

Thanks x2 Smapti for your recaps!

It’s kinda cool to know that house shows are essentially the same, so if I ever have the opportunity to catch more than one I’ll know what to expect.

Did you touch DB with the same hand that you did RR? If you did that’s the most babyface hand in existence.

1547

Yes. Same hand that shook John Cena’s at Smackdown, even.

1548

So I was worn out from work and job searching so I went to bed after the IC shenanigans…did I miss anything?

In a related note, why were they treating this show like the go-home show? Announcing all of the matches that are happening on Mania, then doing those exact same matches later in the night? Why am I even wanting to watch Mania then? I’m seeing almost literally every match play out right in front of me for free. It’s so dumb. So what are they doing next week? Same matches? Because seeing RKO/Rollins, Bellas/Pai-jay, IC craziness, and some sort of battle royal thing this week, next week, AND at Mania is going to be so different?

1549

That was a really awkward and weak looking Skull Crushing Finale on Mizdow.

Before that I was seriously starting to think that this was all leading up to Mizdow betraying Miz in the AMBR and then going on to win it. I still think that may be the plan, and it wouldn’t be half bad other than the fear that Vince will pull a Cesaro on him and immediately turn him heel after Wrestlemania.

1550

FWIW, Geno Mrosko, owner of cagesideseats.com, thought quite highly of the show. I’m not sure how much stock I put in his opinion any more, but that may just be me–I have soured so far on main roster WWE product that I probably need to unplug from it entirely and just focus on NXT and Lucha Underground for a while, with occasional forays into classic PPVs from the 80s and 90s. Right now, it’s a coin flip on whether I bother to watch WM: Playbutton, but unless it is really surprisingly awesome, it’s likely to be my last PPV for a while.

Doesn’t help that I got back into it in a bit of a brief shining moment of awesome, w/ the Yes! movement, WM30, Bray Wyatt not having been completely irrelevized, and the Shield running roughshod over the roster. That set my expectations, and the shit we’re told we are supposed to like now is a bit hard to swallow as a result.

1551

So, Max Landis, son of director John Landis and relatively successful screenwriter himself, is apparently a wrestling geek too. He just released a short film on Youtube about the kayfabe history of Triple H, and if you have half an hour to kill, it’s pretty funny and insightful as well.

Just thought I’d throw that out there.

1552

Dis is R Troof. Lana is out makin’ a movie, know what I’m sayin’? I don’t speak no Russian. I be Russian off when de landlord shows up, know what I’m sayin’? I didn’t steal no IC belt. I gots a new tattoo and it looks like a belt, know what I’m sayin’? If dat walkin’ dead Luke Harper tinks I got a belt, he seein’ things, know what I’m sayin’? Anyway, dat wasn’t me dat stole no belt, know what I’m sayin’? So long, I be goin’ off to surfin’ college in Shawlot dat’s 200 miles from da ocean, know what I’m sayin’?

I will admit I fell for the Authority trick. To their credit, WWE does occasionally surprise me. It’s very credible that the Authority would get tired of Seth’s prima donna attitude and leave him high and dry. It served as a surprise entrance for Sting, and no body doubles this time. He looked a lot quicker on the uptake than he did in his previous appearances and actually left the ground when he did his Stinger Splash. Maybe the match with Hunter will be worth seeing.

I marked out for the six-man match too, which wasn’t a throw-away event like all the ones leading up to it (like the 2-minute battle royal). It was actually a lot of fun, and they put in some foreshadowing of the faces turning on each other.

Granted, WWE has to do some degree of promotion for WM (31), but judging from the amount of FFing I did, maybe 20 minutes of air time prior to the 6-man was actual matches.

So the mike cutting out on Heyman is really a thing? Maybe they’ll have a segment where Heyman finally loses his shit and goes to the audio control booth with cameras following. We see somebody from behind wearing headphones, and Heyman storms up to him/her and starts chewing them out, and the technician turns around and it’s somebody from Heyman’s past whom he definitely does not want to encounter again. Can’t be CM Punk, Curtis Axle is doing Axlemania, Cesaro is a tag champ and has no reason to… Maybe it’s Bubba Ray Dudley, who appeared in the RR but hasn’t been seen since. Maybe it’s the return of RVD, but he’s not that hot anymore, and ECW folded half a generation ago. Maybe the angle will be quietly abandoned. Whatever the case may be, I devoted more keystrokes to it because the angle’s a lot more interesting than WWE’s usual crap.

Read where Kevin Owens is out 4-6 weeks to recover from knee surgery and will miss the NXT WM show. Dang! That would have been a perfect time for his rematch with Sami Zayn. I’m sure they’ll think of something.

1553

I’m waiting for the weekend replay of RAW on Universal network so I can catch the last bit that I missed, but was the “Authority against Rollins” angle really a work? Like did everyone come out to help with a “lolol we were just kidding!” or did they come out as normal (if that makes any sense)

1554

After Orton’s entrance, Seth came out by himself, took the mike and started laughing. “Did you really think I would come out by myself?” Everybody in the Authority emerged and accompanied Seth. Orton got a chair. They surrounded Orton and started entering the ring, when the lights went out and the crow call sounded. When the lights came back on, Sting was in the ring with Orton, armed with his black bat. The two fought the Authority off, Sting splashed the security munchkins, and there was much rejoicing.

1555

Well, the “rumor” (which may well be a swerve) is that Brock is re-signing with WWE and that he will retain at Wrestlemania. Then both Cena and DBD will win their matches so that they carry the US and IC titles respectively to elevate those titles and use them as the top titles going forward with only the usual special appearances by Brock with the WWE Heavyweight Title.

Take that with a minor ocean of salt.

1556

From what I’ve read, the recovery time for the knee surgery he had can be anywhere from 6 weeks to 8 months, so it could end up being a Daniel Bryan-esque situation where he winds up having to surrender the title. The next TV taping isn’t until April 23rd (when, so it’s rumored, Samoa Joe will be making his first WWE appearance) so presumably they’ll know by then. If KO ends up having to drop the belt, I can definitely see them doing Zayn vs. Finn Balor for the vacant title, since Finn won a shot at it, and Zayn’s still entitled to his rematch.

There’s another rumor on the internets this week that comes from a pretty reliable source, a guy on Reddit who’s worked backstage for WWE in the past, has contacts on the inside, and has broken stories in the past that turned out to be true (like Sting debuting at Survivor Series). Apparently, Brock has either already signed a new deal or is about to sign one, and Triple H is now lobbying for him to go over Reigns at WrestleMania instead of putting the belt on him at this time. If Brock holds onto the belt, he would continue to defend it sporadically until at least Summerslam, and Daniel Bryan and John Cena (as the IC and US champions) would be the ones headlining the lesser PPVs.

I, for one, certainly hope that’s the direction they end up going - Roman Reigns will be world champion someday, but I just don’t think he’s ready yet, and it’s pretty clear that he’s not going to get the babyface pop that Vince wants at WrestleMania.

1557

How’d KO get hurt? In ring or otherwise?

And where does the Lesnar Retaining leave Seth Rollins and his MITB? Was that always WWEs plan B in case things went wrong, but they never did (kinda sorta) so they’re just gonna have him lose his challenge?

1558

I don’t think they’ve actually said how he got injured. From what I’ve read, he just sort of posted on Twitter that he’d just gotten out of knee surgery.

Honestly, I don’t think they’ve ever had a plan for what Rollins was going to do with the briefcase. They gave it to him because it made sense from a story perspective for the Authority to rig the match and let him win it and figured they’d come up with something later, much like they did with Damien Sandow last year. It wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up not cashing in at all and goes into the next MITB having to defend the briefcase, or they do some sort of thing where whoever wins that match has to fight him for the unified briefcase. (If he holds it past the night after WrestleMania, he’ll have held it for longer than anyone in the history of MITB.)

1559

In other news; ThinkProgress, of all sites, just ran a review of an indie lucha libre show in Mexico which is worth a read.

Cliff’s notes version; It’s visceral, it’s problematically hypermasculine and surprisingly feminist at the same time, it’s politically incorrect, and it’s fun as all get-out.

1560

So, LawMonkey, did you see yourself on screen in last night’s episode?

1561

Actually haven’t seen it yet–I was watching City get knocked out of the Champions League. Will give it a look tonight.