December Wrasslin |OT| Shaking Hands, Jerking Knees, Eating Mistletoe, Feeling Energy

Status
Not open for further replies.
It's weird. It's like, Zack Ryder's push is based entirely on personality and how he relates to the fans, D-Bry is all about wrestling skill, and CM Punk is in the middle.
 
I don't remember anyone marking for Doug Williams when he was throwing those rolling Germans out last year.

Doug Williams >>> Daniel Bryan

D. Brine sold out.
 
oh jesus christ

we fucking get it

you hate the wwe, you love roh and other indie feds. you don't have to fucking shit on something and go "eeehhhh indies are better than that mainstream junk, now excuse me as I adjust my beret" every time somebody says something nice about someone in the wwe

it's played out

In fact, I was thinking of looking at the Ring of Honor stuff because it sounds good, and I've heard they make their stuff easy to find online, but you're being such an ass, I'm gonna skip it juuust to spite you. because i'm an idiot that way.
 
There was a comment in a withleather RAW best/worst a while back that was pretty accurate about the crowds. For a lot of the general audiences in the crowd nowadays, they don't want to see wrestling, they just want to see wrestlers. It's why they pop for when the wrestlers come out, and when they hit their finisher, and then are mostly quiet for the match.

It's not the only reason obviously, but I think it is a problem for a lot of the casual fans in the crowds.
 
Ithil said:
There was a comment in a withleather RAW best/worst a while back that was pretty accurate about the crowds. For a lot of the general audiences in the crowd nowadays, they don't want to see wrestling, they just want to see wrestlers. It's why they pop for when the wrestlers come out, and when they hit their finisher, and then are mostly quiet for the match.

It's not the only reason obviously, but I think it is a problem for a lot of the casual fans in the crowds.
Click to expand...

They just need to have shows in NY,Chicago,Toronto etc all the time. A good crowd makes a huge difference especially when cole wont shut up.
 
Ithil said:
There was a comment in a withleather RAW best/worst a while back that was pretty accurate about the crowds. For a lot of the general audiences in the crowd nowadays, they don't want to see wrestling, they just want to see wrestlers. It's why they pop for when the wrestlers come out, and when they hit their finisher, and then are mostly quiet for the match.

It's not the only reason obviously, but I think it is a problem for a lot of the casual fans in the crowds.
Click to expand...


http://fightnetwork.com/news/wrestling/mick-foley-dec-2011/

In this interview Foley talks about how TNA builds its product around market research that says their audience only likes Entrances and brawls.
 
I think the lack of excitement is due to a lot of things:

- Less backstage attacks
- Less McMahon on screen presence + anti-authority bastards kicking his arse.
- Bugger all match interferences
- Poor stables
- Lower amount of awesome spots
- Lack of dynamic talent.
 
So did last night's Punk/Bryan/Ziggler video package on Smackdown inspire anyone else to put those three in a team called The Dark Horses in WWE '12?
 
I can only compliment WWE 12's creation features, particularly the story creator. One day, someone at Yuke's looked at someone else and said, "I can't be bothered to do this any more - why don't we just put our tools in the game?"

Right now I'm making a story. I have Daniel Bryan, wearing his title belt, warming up backstage. He bumps into CM Punk, also wearing a title belt, in the hallway. A "C-M Punk!" chant starts up. Bryan and Punk talk, then hug, and Punk makes his way to the ring as his music hits. That's all I have. It's more polished than anything in the game and I'm incredibly proud of it.
 
Ahcs-ARCEAAufDV.jpg
 
Mr. Sam said:
I can only compliment WWE 12's creation features, particularly the story creator. One day, someone at Yuke's looked at someone else and said, "I can't be bothered to do this any more - why don't we just put our tools in the game?"

Right now I'm making a story. I have Daniel Bryan, wearing his title belt, warming up backstage. He bumps into CM Punk, also wearing a title belt, in the hallway. A "C-M Punk!" chant starts up. Bryan and Punk talk, then hug, and Punk makes his way to the ring as his music hits. That's all I have. It's more polished than anything in the game and I'm incredibly proud of it.
Click to expand...

I made a love story between Sin Cara and Kelly Kelly

Frankman confessing his true racism

oh and Steiner calling Kelly Kelly FAT
 
Galvanise_ said:
I think the lack of excitement is due to a lot of things:

- Less backstage attacks
- Less McMahon on screen presence + anti-authority bastards kicking his arse.
- Bugger all match interferences
- Poor stables
- Lower amount of awesome spots
- Lack of dynamic talent.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I think its just because the audience has been conditioned over so long to expect certain things

We know a match won't end unless its a finishing move so you don't really buy nearfalls as much.

Until recently, we haven't really had an unpredictable title scene. For the longest time, you knew Cena or Orton would retain or win it, so there wasn't as much drama.

I feel like the last 6 months, for better or worse, has created that air of unpredictably with the title since it has changed hands almost once a month since July.
 
BillRiccio said:
I'm going to watch Final Battle after the Browns game. I hope ROH can show me something to get me hooked on the product. I enjoy most of the in ring stuff although the main event sounds like overkill. I'm not a huge fan of finisher type move and kick outs time after time. It just get's ridiculous after awhile. The Steen storyline has had me interested for awhile but that's really it as far as storylines go. Their has always been just something with the promotion that makes me want to know what's going on but I don't watch any of the events.
Click to expand...

Try to hunt down Best in the World 2011 if you want to get a taste of the ROH product. While opinions are divided on final battle, best in the world gets damn near universal praise
 
Htown said:
oh jesus christ

we fucking get it

you hate the wwe, you love roh and other indie feds. you don't have to fucking shit on something and go "eeehhhh indies are better than that mainstream junk, now excuse me as I adjust my beret" every time somebody says something nice about someone in the wwe

it's played out

In fact, I was thinking of looking at the Ring of Honor stuff because it sounds good, and I've heard they make their stuff easy to find online, but you're being such an ass, I'm gonna skip it juuust to spite you. because i'm an idiot that way.
Click to expand...

:lol whoosh
 
Just finished watching Final Battle. Overall, I didn't really like it. :-/

First of all, their production is shit. I can take bad production values to a certain extent, the production of the TV show is pretty crappy but it gets the job done. And it certainly is more about the in-ring action than all the bells and whistles. But this was kind of embarrassing to watch, not even being able to get graphics and replays to work properly. The show would have been a lot better if they were able to incorporate things like the tale of the tape and replays that they have on the TV show. Instead we just got a bunch of screw ups and resulting awkwardness. They really need to get past that kind of stuff if they want to be taken more seriously.

Secondly, it was way too long. I actually enjoyed the first half of the show a lot, but the second half just felt flat. Maybe because it actually was, but it's just tiring watching that long of an event. I guess they wanted to get the whole roster on the card but they easily could have cut out a few of those matches and it would have come across as a better event.

Third, I didn't really like the main event. I just watched their match from Best in the World and I didn't feel like this one was much different. I really felt like I was watching the same match. What really disappointed me was that the whole Severn and Team Richards thing barely played into it. The House of Truth came out, they just them away and disappeared. Did Edwards even do a dragon sleeper? I kind of thought they would play that up more.

Finally, the style is just maybe a bit too "indy" for me. When you see this long of an event with guys constantly going from big spot to big spot, kick out after kick out, no selling. The main event was especially guilty of that. It was both of them just no selling each other for the majority of the match. As a whole ROH needs to tone down the way they just use big moves, sometimes in combinations, over and over throughout a match with easy and quick kick outs.

I did like Steen and think that Richards/Steen could be a cool feud for the next year. But I'm not sure ROH is for me. I just started watching with the new TV show and I like a lot that they do in terms of the build-up and everything, but when it comes down to it this PPV felt like a bush league indy show rather than something to really take seriously. Just my few cents. I'll probably stick with watching ROH in lieu of anything else out there but I guess there's really no wrestling out there that's for me anymore.
 
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7374363/wwe-underdogs-your-moment#footnote1


Unlikely stars CM Punk said:
March 14, 2004, was a day wrestling geeks will remember forever. It was WrestleMania XX at Madison Square Garden. Eddie Guerrero beat Kurt Angle to retain the WWE Championship*
*This match featured the infamous spot in which Eddie unlaced his own boot to allow him to slip out of Angle's dreaded ankle-lock finisher.
Click to expand...
and, in the last match of the night, Chris Benoit*
This and any further mention of Chris Benoit is for referential and wrestling-historical purposes only and does not reflect, or purport to reflect, the author's opinion on Benoit's subsequent suicide and murder of his wife and son in 2007.
Click to expand...
defeated Shawn Michaels and Triple H to win the World Heavyweight Championship. After Benoit's win, his real-life buddy Guerrero came out to the ring and the two champs celebrated together while confetti dropped from the rafters. It was a momentous night not only because Guerrero and Benoit were the good-guy underdogs, but because they were favorites of the wrestling egghead commentariat. These fans — the Internet intelligentsia — understand the backstage workings that average fans don't get. They treasure the qualities that mainstream wrestling's decision-makers frequently overlook: charisma over size, in-ring work rate over physique. And, of course, they all consider themselves smarter than Vince McMahon and the brain trust in charge of WWE. Sometimes, they have a point.

Guerrero and Benoit were Internet darlings. They traveled through Japan and Mexico to hone their craft. They toiled in ECW to showcase their "real" wrestling styles as opposed to the hard-core brawls that ECW was known for. Back in those days, while the golden-tanned beefcakes of the WWF and WCW were broadcast to every cable TV household in America, Benoit and Guerrero were known only to the lucky few who stayed up late to watch ECW or to the guys who traded videocassettes of independent and foreign promotions. To name-check either of them was a sort of secret handshake for wrestling-fan purity, a gnostic cult growing in the shadow of the WWF's cartoonish product.

In hindsight, their fame was sort of a Pyrrhic victory. Benoit and Guerrero became legendary for precisely the same reason they hadn't yet become superstars: They didn't fit the mold. They were as highly skilled as they were undersized compared to most WWF wrestlers of the '90s (or most other decades, for that matter).*
*Both men were widely reported to have used steroids in an attempt to bulk up to TV-appropriate size.
Click to expand...
They were great conveyors of emotion during their matches but, particularly in the case of Benoit, they weren't compelling actors in prematch promos. Neither had a face that could grace the cover of Tiger Beat.

Both aspired to a kind of greatness particular to diminutive grapplers — Benoit idolized The Dynamite Kid of British Bulldogs fame, and Guerrero grew up in a family of accomplished luchadores. But more than pedigree or ambition, what seemed to make Benoit and Guerrero great was the fact that they weren't given an easy path to stardom. They were both hired by WCW when, during the Monday Night Wars, WCW expanded their flagship show to three hours and needed talent to fill the time. Guerrero and Benoit were poached by the WWF after they overachieved in WCW. Even then, their ascent to the top of the card was never assured, and the paths they took there were anything but linear. Despite the fanfare that accompanied their signings, the WWF didn't seem eager to bet the bank on either of them.

This, then, is the core of the "smart" wrestling fan's adoration for Benoit, Guerrero, and their ilk: In an unreal world of fake rivalries, fake villains, and fake odds to be overcome, Benoit and Guerrero were real-life heroes who deserved success but were held back by the most dastardly foe imaginable: the establishment, guardians of the pro-wrestling status quo. When both men were pushed to the top in early 2004, they were beloved by the average fan because they were scripted to be underdog heroes, overcoming great odds to achieve their lifelong dreams. But at the same time, they were even more beloved by the smart fans because this was so unlikely. Benoit and Guerrero were never supposed to be scripted as the big winners in the first place.

That night in New York was at the forefront of the minds of many wrestling fans this past Sunday when the Tables, Ladders, and Chairs pay-per-view ended with CM Punk retaining the WWE Championship (in a great match against The Miz and Alberto Del Rio) just after Daniel Bryan pilfered the World Heavyweight Championship from the Big Show.*
*Show had just won the title from Mark Henry, who, outraged at his loss, had taken out Show. Bryan, who held the Money In the Bank briefcase, which allowed him to challenge for the title anytime, anyplace, ran into the ring, cashed in his title shot, and pinned Show, who was still stricken from Henry's attack. Yes, WWE storylines get a tad convoluted from time to time.
Click to expand...
To top it off, Zack Ryder opened the show by beating Dolph Ziggler for the U.S. Championship.

All three champions are Internet darlings. Bryan*
*Known previous to his WWE employment, both in wrestling and in reality, as Bryan Danielson.
Click to expand...
is probably most like a modern Benoit or Guerrero. He has wrestled all over the world, he achieved great success in the American indie scene, and he was widely regarded as the best wrestler in the world before he got the call-up from WWE — this despite being 5-foot-8 and under 200 pounds. When he was signed, smart fans were quick to praise WWE for seeing potential in so unlikely a specimen; they also bitterly predicted that Bryan would be misused by WWE for years to come. When Bryan was pitched as a legitimate mid-tier competitor (even though announcer Michael Cole endlessly derides him as a "nerd"), fans who assumed he would lose every match still couldn't rest easy. When he won the Money in the Bank briefcase and said he'd cash it in at WrestleMania, many fans interpreted it as a tease before the huge letdown to come. It felt like the more WWE projected Bryan as a legitimate wrestler, the more "smart" fans disbelieved it. They know the script, and Bryan isn't part of it.

Ryder, as much as he's lumped in with Bryan and Punk, is an entirely different animal. Ryder has been in WWE since 2006, first in a tag team with Curt Hawkins, then as the flamboyant, Jersey Shore-inspired Long Islander we know today. He made himself a home in the secondary realms of Smackdown, ECW (the WWE version), and Raw, before he was shunted aside into the netherworld of WWE Superstars.*
*The most low-rent of WWE programs, it aired on WGN until it was moved to wwe.com in April, and was then canceled in September.
Click to expand...
But Ryder took matters into his own hands, launching a wildly popular YouTube series and proclaiming himself the WWE's Internet Champion. The fans he earned eventually helped force him into television prominence. Once on TV, he was endorsed by John Cena, and, after Ryder began feuding with Ziggler, a mid-card match could rarely run to completion without the crowd chanting "We want Ryder!" Of course, that chant is semi-ironic; it's a critique of the WWE power structure as much as an endorsement of Ryder.

Punk, of course, is an outsider thrust into the unlikely role of messiah. He cemented his own ascendance in the past six months by demanding a spot at the top of the card and, once given it, proving that the implausible hero can succeed in a WWE that has always overvalued big muscles and outsize gimmickry. His feud with John Cena underscored the disparity between the former prototype*
*Probably not coincidentally, Cena's ring name in the WWE developmental territory was "The Prototype."
Click to expand...
and the new model that Punk represents. In a few short weeks, Punk made dissent to WWE's business as usual into a popular trend. The crowd went wild for Punk; "Cena sucks!" chants, which had been infiltrating WWE crowds for some time, suddenly became the norm — a measure of approval for Punk's new movement. Like the "We want Ryder!" chants, "Cena sucks!" isn't particularly literal so much as it is a rejection of the status quo.

Perhaps the most poignant aspect of Sunday's Tables, Ladders, and Chairs was the absence of John Cena. Even though Cena wasn't literally in the scene, however, his presence was felt. Cena had tried to interject himself into Sunday's title match, but he gave up his shot to give Ryder the fight with Ziggler. Even so, any savvy wrestling fan would have expected Cena to somehow butt into the championship match. But Sunday night came and went and Punk defeated two top-level baddies and Cena was nowhere to be found. It was the night of the underdog, not only because three unlikely stars won, but also because WWE's reigning comic book Übermensch had gone AWOL.

It's probably just coincidence, but last week, WWE started selling T-shirts that say — wait for it — CENA SUCKS. According to Cena, WWE had been interested in marketing them for some time now, and he finally agreed. The timing, however, suggests a broader movement toward reality — not the capital-R Reality of Punk's "Reality Era," but the real thing. It's an acknowledgement that there is a world bigger than the one WWE has constructed. WWE can't make something true simply by insisting upon it; they can't make Cena beloved by all any more than they can make it rain, or make a successful motion picture.

By keeping Cena off-screen during Sunday's PPV, WWE gave their rising underdogs a chance to shine. And lest it seem an anomaly, Monday's episode of Raw opened with Punk introducing himself, Ryder, and Bryan in the center of the ring. The sight of three celebrating champions was familiar, but these specific champions imbued the scene with freshness. When they entered the ring for their main event with Ziggler, Del Rio, and Miz, they came through the crowd. The show was in Philadelphia, and it was an obvious nod to ECW, but this was one nostalgic gesture from Punk that was so metaphorically loaded that it felt progressive instead of backward-looking. The meaning was simple: We are the counterculture; we are the new reality.

The biggest difference between 2004 and the present day is that the smart set of wrestling fans has outgrown the traditional mob of credulous marks (insomuch as those folks ever really existed). Thanks to the Internet and the shift toward "reality" that ECW pioneered in the 1990s, there is no more dividing line between the guileless fan who roots for scripted heroes and the know-it-all who roots for wrestling outsiders like Benoit, Guerrero, and Punk.

As a reader named Matt Malone wrote to me a couple of weeks ago: "At this point, 'smarter fans' are so in tune with what's going on backstage that we know that the real adversity in professional wrestling comes from superstars overcoming what's going on backstage, not beating the other guy in the ring. If Zack Ryder wins the U.S. Championship it won't be a triumph over Dolph Ziggler, it will be a triumph over the backstage powers that held him down for years." Their successes are no longer measures of what they've overcome, storyline-wise, but what they've overcome in reality. That WWE is now acknowledging this is reassuring and necessary, because what's really at stake is the nature of our viewing relationship with wrestling.

WWE accomplished something powerful on Monday. Raw ended with Punk, Ryder, and Bryan — three atypical heroes — standing tall in the ring, belts held high. Without resorting to a worked shoot to shoehorn the real world into its product, WWE took real-life adversity and allowed it to play out within the context of wrestling's bizarre unreality. This isn't "Reality" — it's pro wrestling as postmodern art. And it's exactly what we need.

Here's a little postmodern irony: Those CENA SUCKS shirts I mentioned before? Despite the fact that Punk cemented the audience's anti-Cena sentiment, Cena is the one who'll be collecting the royalties from their sales. Talk about commodifying dissent. And really, that's fine. If the rich are going to get richer, at least the poor are getting camera time.
Click to expand...
Sorry if already posted. Wait, what am I apologizing for? That you have to scroll further to get to Heavy's next shitty post? F that, I take back that apology.
 
Htown said:
oh jesus christ

we fucking get it

you hate the wwe, you love roh and other indie feds. you don't have to fucking shit on something and go "eeehhhh indies are better than that mainstream junk, now excuse me as I adjust my beret" every time somebody says something nice about someone in the wwe

it's played out

In fact, I was thinking of looking at the Ring of Honor stuff because it sounds good, and I've heard they make their stuff easy to find online, but you're being such an ass, I'm gonna skip it juuust to spite you. because i'm an idiot that way.
Click to expand...

D. Bry, Ziggler and Rey Mysterio Jr. are better than anyone in roh, don't sweat it.
 
I guess I'm not the only one who tought the rise of Punk and Bryan was similar to Eddie and Benoit.


But lets not forget after that wrestlemania Eddie and Beniot where back in the midcard by Summerslam and replaced by people people who fit the "wwe mold" better.


Will be fun to see what happens between now and Mania.


Im already ready for Bryan not making it past his first PPV with that title.

Punk is probably gonna lose it between now and mania. maybe he loses it to Y2J and he enters mania and the challenger.



Also for the first time in ages I havent a clue who is gonna win the rumble.

Ziggler seems ready but I dont know who his opponent would be. Ziggler vs Bryan could be legendary lower main event card match for the SD title in the same way Savage vs Steamboat was the but like I said... I dont see Bryan havent the belt by then.

Plus Ziggler vs Bryan isnt exactly gonna bring the PPV buys... Would be great if they had that kind of awesome no nonsense wrestling match on the card though.
 
Htown said:
oh jesus christ

we fucking get it

you hate the wwe, you love roh and other indie feds. you don't have to fucking shit on something and go "eeehhhh indies are better than that mainstream junk, now excuse me as I adjust my beret" every time somebody says something nice about someone in the wwe

it's played out

In fact, I was thinking of looking at the Ring of Honor stuff because it sounds good, and I've heard they make their stuff easy to find online, but you're being such an ass, I'm gonna skip it juuust to spite you. because i'm an idiot that way.
Click to expand...

Actually, yes, he does.

Just like somebody, like you for example, has to say something positive about WWE or something negative about Net_Wrecker's post, or both. Don't you see? That's what makes this one of the greatest threads on NeoGaf! And I will fight to defend both of your rights to post whatever you want in WrassleGaf.

What he can't do, is post two or more animated gifs within the space of 100 posts or quote several gifs or pics. And that, my friend, is what makes WrassleGaf so shitty! And I will fight until we have the same rules and guidelines that every other sports thread has in the OT. Why do I compare WrassleGaf to sports threads, you ask? Because it's still real to me, damn it!
 
they didnt make punk and bryan abuse steroids and wrestle the best matches in the company for 8 years before putting the titles on them so i dont see the connection
 
bean breath said:
Actually, yes, he does.

Just like somebody, like you for example, has to say something positive about WWE or something negative about Net_Wrecker's post, or both. Don't you see? That's what makes this one of the greatest threads on NeoGaf! And I will fight to defend both of your rights to post whatever you want in WrassleGaf.

What he can't do, is post two or more animated gifs within the space of 100 posts or quote several gifs or pics. And that, my friend, is what makes WrassleGaf so shitty! And I will fight until we have the same rules and guidelines that every other sports thread has in the OT. Why do I compare WrassleGaf to sports threads, you ask? Because it's still real to me, damn it!
Click to expand...

0JG0q.gif
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Robotic Hands
13
409
Miyazaki’s Slave replied
What Are You Eating?
2
53
2K
ForAcademicPurposes replied
What kind of videos you watch while eating?
2
67
2K
Dr. Suchong replied
Dark Energy experiment challenges Einstein's theory of universe
14
1K
Hookshot replied
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
33
2K
Sticks replied
Top Bottom