goc

Money in the Bank was a cool concept for a one-time match but now that it's an annual deal it's just SO played out. It's a sad state of affairs that so many people thought fucking the fans out of a finish to a WrestleMania main event was actually something cool just because it'd never been done before. And now I'm not sure we are ever even going to get the Reigns/Lesnar rematch that seemed inevitable after WM 31.

Is that true nowadays? There are still the overused tropes of endless near falls, finisher stealing, announce table spots etc but if anything main event workers in WWE are working the style of indie wrestling circa 2006 which itself is a more flippy floppy version of puro circa 1997, rather than anything resembling the old identifiable 'WWE style'. If anything, you get the worst of both worlds now, because none of them can build a solid foundation for a match and show some restraint and structure in the first half. So you just get a bit of aimless move trading and waiting around until they start doing the go-go-go indie spots and trading ever more ridiculous nearfalls. This pretty much hits the nail on the head and is why I'm less interested in WWE than ever before. Give me the "boring" WWE style from 8-10 years ago where guys might actually bother with selling and structure over the constant bombs and 2.9 "dramatic" kickouts that we have now. It's why I like Reigns more than the rest of the main event guys because selling is his biggest strength and while he does over use the Superman Punch he's at least kept the Spear pretty well protected. I knew things were getting bad when even Cena started doing that shit instead of making the new guys conform to his style. The Kevin Owens matches were pretty terrible especially viewed as a series when you see just how much of the first match they recycled move for move, sequence for sequence in the next 2 matches. Not to mention him agreeing to that idiotic Superplex/Falcon Arrow spot that Rollins did.

you can stop banging this drum now dude. we get it. Don't bother. This is a gimmick for him at this point. He's just trolling in a very uncreative way. Funniest part is that I've been using the term "indieriffic" as a super negative for years and really haven't pimped japanese stuff for ever it seems (apart from the occasionnal stuff for the GWE). So yeah, it's just a gimmick. Either that or he's just a bit…. well it's a gimmick probably. Please find all these times I've used "indieriffic as a super negative" because I'm not sure I've ever used the term at all and probably not more than once if I have. Not really caring for Japanese wrestling is not a "gimmick." I guess you're going to keep doing YOUR gimmick of 90s dude though and act like someone not seeing the inherent greatness of Japanese wrestling is some sort of heresy. If I was really going to do a gimmick I'd watch a bunch of Japanese wrestling and then complain about how bad it is like your gimmick of watching modern WWE and bitching about how the style sucks.

you can stop banging this drum now dude. we get it. That comment wasn't even about Reigns it was in response to El-P's shitpost about Cena.

Because obviously it's impossible for anyone that never worked in Japan or the indies to be a great worker no matter how many good matches they have.

Always been interested in the guy after seeing this picture, which might be my favorite wrestling pic ever.

Glad I wasn't the only one.

Dave says that the qualification is that the show must have at least 26 episodes in the voting period.

I've been reading Greg Oliver's book Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels lately and it's really good. I wasn't sure that a book that's nothing but short bios was really going to cut it for me but Greg Oliver does a great job of packing in a lot of good stuff in those short bios. It's especially interesting reading about the REALLY early heels from the 20s and 30s.

Thanks. I've always thought so myself but it's always nice to have confirmation.

That's some impressive mental gymnastics to try and explain away how Reigns manages to somehow get the best out of all his opponents.

The usual idiots say Roman is carried any time he has a good match. He could somehow pull a 4 star match out of Apollo Crews and people would say Crews carried Roman. "He worked for Dragon Gate and EVOLVE!"

Well to be fair, even the MLW announcer guy can't seem to get the title right as he announces it as "Something to wrestle" instead of "Something to wrestle WITH"

The argument about Roman Reigns is over now, he's #1 in this year's PWI 500. When a guy wins such a prestigious and meticulously researched award, there is no more reason to argue about his greatness. It's now a 100% scientific fact that Roman Reigns is better than whatever flippy doo indy midget is your favorite.

How many singles matches from Raw and Smackdown can you recall with any degree of specificity for ANYONE on the roster? Maybe 1 or 2 for each guy it's not really a great litmus test.

I liked Cesaro/Sheamus but man taking a back body drop into the ring post is one of the dumbest spots ever on Raw. Yes, I realized it looked cool and that it led to a logical finish but it's just a fucking stupid bump to take for a rather heatless mid-card feud.

I've been thinking about this too as the talking point that "guys are used up and broke down by the time they get to the main roster from NXT" has started to go around. Well if a year-18 months in NXT is too long and leads to guys being broken down isn't that an indication that the style in NXT is not sustainable? Or that the guys they are bringing in are too broken down in the first place to be someone the company should invest in long term?

Yea I've never thought that the mistake was not having Bryan win the Royal Rumble it was stupidly having him come back like 2 weeks prior to the Rumble instead of just holding it off until afterwards.

Well besides the idea that they just don't like each other, my take on it is that HHH has spent all this time building up this idea that he's the great savior of wrestling and doesn't want to have that get fucked up by Shane's return. HHH is the guy who has rescued the indy darlings from the tyranny of Vince McMahon's big guy fetish and given us the greatest thing that has ever or will ever be, the almighty NXT. And since before that Shane was the smark savior everyone kept hoping would return to WWE from exile, banish evil Stephanie and take over, HHH doesn't want Shane's comeback to steal away any of his new smark street cred.

Something that hasn't gotten mentioned yet about HHH's return is that it just happens to conveniently take place after the brand split removed any possibility of him having to share screen time (and smark savior status) with Shane McMahon.

Of course they are negative, it's a freaking comedy show about wrestling. For one thing wrestling is super serious and there should never be any comedy related to it whatsoever. Also, it's not even going to have matches and the only reason that any wrestling programming should exist is to give us 5 star matches.

I'm wondering when this big shift occurred for you because like 6 months ago you were arguing that Roman Reigns should just be let go because he wasn't getting over.

Honestly the only person I think you could put ahead of Reigns right now is AJ. At least when it comes down to both consistency and delivering in big matches.

Seems likely since they've opened the show with a replay of it.