FlammableD
Banned
Fair enough.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
July Wrasslin |OT| The Rings a Field, the Field of War, Thats Where We Lay the Law
- Thread starter BIONIC-ARRRMMM!!
- Start date
Fair enough.
Dick Justice
Banned
Cesaro is the new Rusev, they should team up and form a white supremacist group.
Skipped through the main event, didn't even care that Cena won because the other participants were Randy Orton (lol), Roman Reigns (double lol) and Kane (triple lol).
Skipped through the main event, didn't even care that Cena won because the other participants were Randy Orton (lol), Roman Reigns (double lol) and Kane (triple lol).
FlammableD
Banned
Watching the Fatal Fourway. Orton taking Lance Storm's move where he slides between the legs of his opponent, trips them up and locks on a single crab. Add that to his use of random Olympic Slam.
lol that ending sequence. King talking about The Authority having a stroke. Uh, ok.
lol that ending sequence. King talking about The Authority having a stroke. Uh, ok.
AJ/Paige really killed the crowd. Not that the crowd had much to work with after that match, but they were super hot for the opening tag and completely died during and after AJ/Paige.
The two "best" woman who were supposed to save the Divas division and have this great feud. They finally get a chance to have a real match on PPV instead of 2 minute surprise matches on Raw. And what do they do? They both choke and put on a slow, boring, extremely sloppy match that killed a crowd that moments before was ultra hot for a match that has been on TV no less than 6 times in the last 2 months.
I think I've joined the side of Paige being not ready for prime time. She was doing good work on NXT. She hasn't been booked at all to her strengths since being called up, but when she has had the chances to really get out there and wrestle and do what she's good at, she's dropped the ball almost every time.
As for AJ, she seems to have lost...everything she was good at during her time off. Or maybe she was never really that good to begin with. I'm not sure. What ever it is, she definitely needed a month or two of house shows to work off rust before being placed right back at the top of the division.
From that point on the crowd didn't care about much. The Swagger/Rusev thing that was molten hot on Raw for a debate between Lana and Zeb was mild and fans were generally not interested anymore. In my opinion, I think Lana should have gone all in on the MA plane, but even if she had, I really don't think many crowds in America are going to pay attention to or care much about that anyway. Unless the US starts sending troops or bombs to Russia, I don't think to many wrestling fans here are going to be paying attention to geopolitical issues on the other side of the world. On top of that, the match wasn't nearly as fun as the Rusev/Big E matches, which were booked as hosses throwing bombs the whole way through. This was not booked that way and suffered, plus Rusev is now the ultimate foreign heel since he does the dreaded NERVE HOLD OF DOOM now.
Battle Royal was a complete waste of time and everyone in it. There wasn't even an attempt to make it not seem like filler, especially giving all 20 guys entrances, which is something WWE never does on TV or PPV.
Rollins/Ambrose being turned into an angle would have been perfectly acceptable if it was a Raw match, but it wasn't. It was probably the most built up and hyped match for the show and do to bait in switches like that in 2014 is so cheap.
Jericho/Wyatt was not interesting in the least. A lot of miscommunications and Jericho in particular looked not so hot. Ruined some spots by really taking awkward bumps. They just didn't click. I didn't think they clicked very much in their match on NXT either. Jericho winning is fine, although 100% and with a delay in pin was kind of weird. Also kind of weird since Bray has lost on 4 of the last 5 PPVs. Obviously he's going to win the big matches in this feud, but still.
Main event was as boring and plodding as you'd imagine. Fans were pretty indifferent to everyone, only giving a half hearted Cena Sucks chants and a quick one for Roman. They did the "guy hits finisher, someone breaks the pin last second" spot 4 times in a row before ending the match. The match did no favors to anyone. Kane looked old and slow. Orton continues to look completely irrelevant, Roman is in the same spot he was coming into it, and there is really nothing to do with Cena that changes his spot or role.
The two "best" woman who were supposed to save the Divas division and have this great feud. They finally get a chance to have a real match on PPV instead of 2 minute surprise matches on Raw. And what do they do? They both choke and put on a slow, boring, extremely sloppy match that killed a crowd that moments before was ultra hot for a match that has been on TV no less than 6 times in the last 2 months.
I think I've joined the side of Paige being not ready for prime time. She was doing good work on NXT. She hasn't been booked at all to her strengths since being called up, but when she has had the chances to really get out there and wrestle and do what she's good at, she's dropped the ball almost every time.
As for AJ, she seems to have lost...everything she was good at during her time off. Or maybe she was never really that good to begin with. I'm not sure. What ever it is, she definitely needed a month or two of house shows to work off rust before being placed right back at the top of the division.
From that point on the crowd didn't care about much. The Swagger/Rusev thing that was molten hot on Raw for a debate between Lana and Zeb was mild and fans were generally not interested anymore. In my opinion, I think Lana should have gone all in on the MA plane, but even if she had, I really don't think many crowds in America are going to pay attention to or care much about that anyway. Unless the US starts sending troops or bombs to Russia, I don't think to many wrestling fans here are going to be paying attention to geopolitical issues on the other side of the world. On top of that, the match wasn't nearly as fun as the Rusev/Big E matches, which were booked as hosses throwing bombs the whole way through. This was not booked that way and suffered, plus Rusev is now the ultimate foreign heel since he does the dreaded NERVE HOLD OF DOOM now.
Battle Royal was a complete waste of time and everyone in it. There wasn't even an attempt to make it not seem like filler, especially giving all 20 guys entrances, which is something WWE never does on TV or PPV.
Rollins/Ambrose being turned into an angle would have been perfectly acceptable if it was a Raw match, but it wasn't. It was probably the most built up and hyped match for the show and do to bait in switches like that in 2014 is so cheap.
Jericho/Wyatt was not interesting in the least. A lot of miscommunications and Jericho in particular looked not so hot. Ruined some spots by really taking awkward bumps. They just didn't click. I didn't think they clicked very much in their match on NXT either. Jericho winning is fine, although 100% and with a delay in pin was kind of weird. Also kind of weird since Bray has lost on 4 of the last 5 PPVs. Obviously he's going to win the big matches in this feud, but still.
Main event was as boring and plodding as you'd imagine. Fans were pretty indifferent to everyone, only giving a half hearted Cena Sucks chants and a quick one for Roman. They did the "guy hits finisher, someone breaks the pin last second" spot 4 times in a row before ending the match. The match did no favors to anyone. Kane looked old and slow. Orton continues to look completely irrelevant, Roman is in the same spot he was coming into it, and there is really nothing to do with Cena that changes his spot or role.
D
Deleted member 47027
Unconfirmed Member
Big block of another 12 SNMEs just popped on the Network!
Singularity42
Member
Battleground sucked...
Was the opening of the G1 good?
Was the opening of the G1 good?
Personally, this is where my interest checked out.
Actually, I think the fact that they killed off Ambrose vs. Rollins right before it is what killed the crowd. That's the match everyone wanted to see.
It also doesn't help that there was no turn, when you confuse the crowd to the point where you don't know who to root for and half-root for both sides it just doesn't work, countless examples of that in the past. The only face vs face matches that actually work is those with Cena, because the crowd will just root against Cena anyways. To be fair, the crowd did their best and sorta got back into it near the end though, so good on them.
As for AJ, I think there's two things working against her. For one, as you say, she hasn't been wrestling for two months and even now is hardly working aside from TV. So there is indeed quite some rust there. It's not like TV matches last longer than 2 or 3 minutes anyways, and she had to fucking work with Eva Marie twice. Have her work with Natalya or Naomi or whatever instead to work off that rust. Secondly she's not meshing well with Paige, they obviously miscommunicated or something on the turnbuckle spot, AJ held on too long. And the spear through the ropes was botched as far as I can tell because Paige tried to spear her through the middle rope, I don't see that spot working with AJ's size at any rate, since her middle is exactly at that point so she can't possible bend in a way to properly fall through the ropes. Should have had AJ on the apron and Paige launching through the ropes for that one (like Big E does his).
That said, the ending sequence was good enough, Paige powering out of the Black Widow and AJ kicking out of the Paige Turner was done well enough to sell the fact they were evenly matched and a rematch is in order. Especially Paige getting out of AJ's submission, so far I think only Kaitlyn actually managed that, so it's a pretty big deal. If commentary was worth a damn, they'd have sold the hell out of that. But alas, now only people that actually pay attention to Divas matches (I guess that's less than 0,1% of their viewership) will have noticed that fact. That said, all that was missing is the turn of Paige, which, I guess, will happen tonight instead. That should have been done yesterday, but whatever, WWE obviously stopped caring about putting on decent shows on PPV. It's not like they have a Network to sell or anything.
toddhunter
Member
Can I judge Paige yet?
Rafa=FedKilla
Banned
Nah, it was a disappointment. Just goes to show how thin NJPW roster is and they will do nothing to change it....
This Battleground proved one pf my worst fears about the Network. That PPVs now would mostly be pseudo-Raws. The filler and match fake out was definitely a testament to that, now in ring promo surprised me. Guess they'll save that for Summerslam....
It was pretty fun even if the main event was awful
I don't think you can blame Rollins/Ambrose for AJ/Paige not being good and the crowd not being into it. I don't think anyone really believed Rollins/Ambrose wasn't going to happen until later in the show when it didn't happen. The angle of guy gets thrown out, comes back and has match anyway has been a fairly common angle for WWE since 1997, and that's the general way of how Dean has been booked for everything lately. He was put in MITB because he kept running in, getting thrown out, and then Seth said just put him in the fucking match, boss guy. That match was just bad to begin with. Both women looked bad and they don't mesh at all. The match itself was boring and plodding, with botched spots from both through out the whole match. It was sloppy and bad and that wasn't because of Rollins and Ambrose.
Rafa=FedKilla
Banned
Yep. And which will ever get fixed first? Hard to tell at all. The roster is so big, its pointless to repeat matches in midcardfor months.....
D
Deleted member 47027
Unconfirmed Member
Battleground was a mess. Sad state of affairs when one of the best matches was Rusev winning via countout.
Usos/Wyatts was dope though.
AJ/Paige was the "that's a shame" of the night. Sucked royally.
Usos/Wyatts was dope though.
AJ/Paige was the "that's a shame" of the night. Sucked royally.
The Undertaker vs. Sting - Fantasy Match-Up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pan-AkqNE1o
Really not a lot of excuse for Paige to have been putting on better matches with other girls in TRAINING than in a decent length match with the supposed best woman wrestler on the roster. Both looked bad the whole way through. Can't blame booking and angles not involving them for both women looking bad at what they do in the ring. That's 100% on them.
Don't get me wrong, I never intended to say the match was bad because of Ambrose or Rollins. Didn't mean that at all.
But the crowd was dead from before the match even started. Which could be part "loldivas", part "Awww we were expecting Rollins and Ambrose now after that video package and aren't getting it now" and part "we don't know who to root for."
By the end the crowd was getting into the nearfall/submission and had some dueling chants, so I don't think they intended to be dead for the match, but the fact they did the Ambrose/Rollins video package, then the lame backstage deal and then just cold put out Paige/AJ without even preceding it with a videopackage, I think there was definitely some dissapointment killing the crowd.
Agreed. Don't think anyone disagrees with you on that.
As you said, they should be working house shows like crazy together. The girls in training work with each-other daily and even on the main roster they work house shows for months before going on TV. Really no excuse there, sort it out WWE.
Something to look forward to after the G1.
toddhunter
Member
Pretty much. It didn't even feel like he had a proper feud with Cena before his career got destroyed. But I guess those couple of matches was enough to do the job.
Incorrect.
I dunno, he once again was a major focus of the match and I think him and Kofi were the highlight of the match along with Ziggler and Sheamus.
I still think WWE is intend on making a big deal out of him, but are just holding off because they have too much going on. Problem is WWE changes their minds so often there's a good chance they'll cool him off so much that they'll give up on him anyways after the crowd stops caring.
It's just weird WWE being weird I believe. Not actual malice.
Also, and I swear I'm not piling on you or trying to attack you or other wise be a dick, Aiii, but I think they should go in as hard as possible with the Lana/Rusev/MA flight thing. It is a terrible thing that happened. No doubt. It's terrible. At the same time, Lana and Rusev are playing characters where to not play into that right now would make no sense. Yes, she mentioned it in passing without directly mentioning it. Yes, it is offensive. It should be offensive. It makes sense to be offensive.
Muhammad Hassan was taken off TV because everyone is afraid of Islam. If 9/11 had been done by Russian nationalists and Muhammad Hassan was doing the same things, but as a Russian instead of Muslim, I guarantee his character wouldn't have been killed off so quickly. Heels are supposed to be offensive and bad people. Foreign nationalist heels are supposed to be the MOST offensive. WWE started this gimmick and then got something to really play off of, and I think they should go in full bore. This is a company that in the last PG era had the most patriotic guy on the roster become a sympathizer to a country the US was going to war with, burn the American flag on TV, spit on the flag, start wearing the Iraqi flag on his boots, and produced photos of himself with Saddam Husein. Fucking go in on it. This is not the time to pussy foot around.
Muhammad Hassan was taken off TV because everyone is afraid of Islam. If 9/11 had been done by Russian nationalists and Muhammad Hassan was doing the same things, but as a Russian instead of Muslim, I guarantee his character wouldn't have been killed off so quickly. Heels are supposed to be offensive and bad people. Foreign nationalist heels are supposed to be the MOST offensive. WWE started this gimmick and then got something to really play off of, and I think they should go in full bore. This is a company that in the last PG era had the most patriotic guy on the roster become a sympathizer to a country the US was going to war with, burn the American flag on TV, spit on the flag, start wearing the Iraqi flag on his boots, and produced photos of himself with Saddam Husein. Fucking go in on it. This is not the time to pussy foot around.
Spirit of Jazz
Banned
It's really difficult to say if them halting his momentum to advertise Brock for a couple of months then having his manager ditch him now Borck's coming back was malicious or ridiculously incompetent. Instead if he spent that time feuding with Swagger and came up as the real American and potentially had Swagger's spot now he could be nuclear and there would have been some build with turning Cesaro/Zeb face making that whole storyline seem somewhat less gross.
Heh, I understand Stro. It's different for US folk anyways, it's easier to distance yourselves and thus it's okay to keep the character going. Were it 200 US-folk dying it would be a different story no doubt and the character would be gone instantly. I like Rusev and Lana, I do and I understand they'll keep going with it.
It does however push some of the wrong buttons for me right now, so I skipped his stuff on the PPV.
It does however push some of the wrong buttons for me right now, so I skipped his stuff on the PPV.
¡HarlequinPanic!
Member
I was never quite a fan of his but having Ryder come out to zero reaction last night kind of made me feel some real pangs of sadness.
The dream is dead.
The dream is dead.
The thing that always bugged me about Muhammad Hassan was that HE WAS TOTALLY THE VICTIM, right? I mean, his entire fucking deal was that he didn't like being branded a terrorist because he happened to be middle eastern. He was completely in the right on that front.
Also, that whole thing that happened days before the London bombing wasn't his fault at all and WWE should've defended it more. It was just super poor timing.
He didn't even look like the fun-loving, goober ass Zack Ryder we all know and some love. He looked like Ryder's shitty twin brother that still hasn't paid back that 20$ you spotted him three years ago but still says "I'll get ya next time, boss!"
Also, that whole thing that happened days before the London bombing wasn't his fault at all and WWE should've defended it more. It was just super poor timing.
¡HarlequinPanic!;121969177 said:
He didn't even look like the fun-loving, goober ass Zack Ryder we all know and some love. He looked like Ryder's shitty twin brother that still hasn't paid back that 20$ you spotted him three years ago but still says "I'll get ya next time, boss!"
Dr Duncan Steel
Member
I know the world is completely different than it was in 1991 but wasn't this the tactic used for Wrestlemania 7 and it completely backfired at them with the amount of backlash it got? I mean I say this entirely based upon listening to Review a Wai of that very PPV. That's just something I wouldn't do if I was in the state WWE is in. But I guess any publicity is good publicity.
Then again RUSEV isnt in the main event when this is happening.
I don't blame him. Dude damn near kills himself to make others look good throughout his whole career. He's a slept on talker and could be more than just what the WWE thinks of him. I always said dude is the modern day Magnum TA. They could have made his gimmick rad as fuck but it's like creative fears wrestling being fun again. So we get a man with a lot of potential with a hot crowd behind him losing to the miz via bullshit.
I would have been chuck the peace sign a long time ago.
It wouldn't be different at all if it was 200 US people dying was the point I was making. The ONLY reason Muhammad Hassan got killed off was because of Islamaphobia, which was fostered huge during the Bush Administration and is still felt today. If it had been any group besides militant Muslims, that character could have done the same stuff and stayed around much much longer. People would be upset, but not in the way they were with Hassan. I 100% believe that. If WWE wasn't super cartoony for most of the New Generation, I have no doubt they would have ran with A Unabomber/Tim McVeigh type character.
They ran with the super neoconservative Don't Tread On Me racist worst of America gimmick and turned them face. Wrestling in America had evil Japanese/German wrestlers for DECADES after WWII. Fuck, into the 2000s. Kenzo Suzuki's original gimmick was to be either a direct descendent of or maybe Hirohito reincarnated. Heidenreich was originally planned to be a thawed out Nazi.
No. They gave the excuse of changing the venue due to Slaughter getting sniper death threats to cover terrible ticket sales. They were trying to sell out a 100K seat stadium as the business was starting its nose dive. Presales were really, really bad, so they changed to a 16K arena and I'm pretty sure didn't even sell that out.
D
Deleted member 47027
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, I've got a full plate at the moment. Really regretting my choice to watch Buttholeground live. I only have so much room for the Wrassles in my head.
BronsonLee
Member
Stro, you are out of your goddamn mind if you think WWE's going to do that in this era. That was never going to happen. I can't understand why the hell you would even suggest that to fucking Aiii of all people.
And Hassan was taken off of TV because of the London terrorist attacks.
And Hassan was taken off of TV because of the London terrorist attacks.
Are we talking about the same person? Ryder is a pretty dire talker, and an average wrestler. Even when he was popular, I don't think he should ever have been pushed to the top of the company. He should have been a midcard staple, sure, and didn't deserve the burial he got, but he isn't any kind of super talent.
HerbertFish
Member
Pretty much every ppv has been awesome this year. Royal Rumble maybe not but all the others have been top notch. Battleground had a lot to live up to and it flat out didn't.
Predictions for SS card?
Brock vs Cena
Dean vs Seth
Reigns vs HHH or Orton
Paige vs AJ
Bray vs Jericho
Rusev vs Swagger
Miz vs Ziggler
Brie vs Steph
8 matches already. Feels like that's leaving a lot of talent off as of now. Lot of 1 on 1s. Feel like Reigns should be a tag match vs Kane/Orton but can't think of a partner for him.
Cesaro, Usos, Sheamus, Rhodes Bros, Kane, HHH/Orton all off card.
Predictions for SS card?
Brock vs Cena
Dean vs Seth
Reigns vs HHH or Orton
Paige vs AJ
Bray vs Jericho
Rusev vs Swagger
Miz vs Ziggler
Brie vs Steph
8 matches already. Feels like that's leaving a lot of talent off as of now. Lot of 1 on 1s. Feel like Reigns should be a tag match vs Kane/Orton but can't think of a partner for him.
Cesaro, Usos, Sheamus, Rhodes Bros, Kane, HHH/Orton all off card.
I think you're mixing up this guy
with this guy
Holy shit 0_o my fault yall....I did mixed them up lmao. Same difference as Ryder though. Ryder can move the crowd and put on top matches but creative will creative.
Arrowgigantic
Member
Zack's a good guy, and he and Dolph are the best part of the JBL & Cole Show until BNB is back in the picture.
Dr Duncan Steel
Member
Bryan in Brie's corner. I can smell the renewals already.
the treatment of Zack Ryder is a living example of what's wrong with WWE's backstage mentality
wearing a Total Divas shirt
wearing a Total Divas shirt