anarchistxx

It is quite a long card, so presumably they are separating the two longest matches out i.e. this and the main event. Hopefully AJ/Nicki gets some time but don't bank on it - more likely some pointless 'comedy' segment will be given fifteen minutes instead. Don't see this as overly weird. It has been the longest built match on the card, and has the titular stipulation.

Loved the finish. Match was a bit plodding but solid enough for the Hoss vs Hoss vibe. Wonder where they are going with Harper/Rowan now.

It won't be acknowledged. It was a placeholder feud. The stipulation for Cena/Rollins makes no sense. Why would Cena put his #1 Contendership on the line without making Rollins put up his Money In The Bank contract? There isn't even the authority still around making him do it.

WWE goes for the meta irony again. "What has acting have to do with a match? Triple-H, The Rock, Jerry Lawler - none of them were acting out roles in their matches."

Thank you, spokesman for the world. Just seemed something of a nothing match. No feud behind it, on a minor event, little structure to it, just going from spot to spot. A few violent bumps, but nothing that is going to be replayed continuously. Don't think we will be dissecting this match in two or three years time.

Usually garbage ladder match, enjoyable in a chaotic, loose type of way. Nothing anyone will remember. The right guy won at least.

They need to start establishing some kind of identity for Luke Harper and Erick Rowan - the latter has so little identity that I had to look him up, and now he is a face for some reason. Nobody is going to give a shit about them if you just put them in feuds without any character development or explanation. You will get away with it wrestling someone crazy over like Dolph Ziggler, but against your average face it will be tumbleweed. Edit: Harper looks loose as fuck also. Either that or great selling from Dolph.

New Day are fucking awful, and could even be contrued as kind of offensive given that it is three black guys put together in the stable for no other discernable reason than that they are all black. Backwards, lazy booking as always. Wonder if Wyatt/Ambrose goes on last. If so you would expect Ambrose to win, and where do they go from there - mega push towards winning the Royal Rumble would be the obvious endgame, but it seems like they have Reigns picked out for that. Maybe they are keeping their options open.

Divas battle royal wouldn't be great, the crowd would either be completely silent or shit on it. They have some good female characters and wrestlers now, it is more worthwhile having a well built match with Nicki/AJ/Paige/Brie/Naomi. Usos/Naomi vs Miz/Sandow/Paige & AJ vs Nicki vs Brie in a three way dance for the strap?

Have we got the full Kobashi/Kikuchi vs Can-Am's yet? Remember being talk of it airing in entirety a while back.

I think Rey is overrated as a draw. He shifted a ton of merchandise and was a huge television attraction in a lot of territories, but his run on top as champion didn't see any discernable increase in PPV sales.

The only competition where the winner is also a massive loser. There are no props for spending our lives watching wrestling, even though we sometimes enjoy it. Plus this is the sort of thing that can turn watching into a massive chore - I started to tune out when I had piles and piles of unwatched discs and started working through them just because I felt I had to since they had been bought. A month or so later and I stopped watching altogether. It is like drinking freshly squeezed orange juice - really enjoyable until you start forcing glass after glass down because you feel obligated to drink as much of it as humanely possible, and then you begun to hate it.

I remember Randy Orton had such a buzz online after he kicked Vince as well. People thought he was finally going to break out and become a megastar. If ever there was a time for the heel to win decisively at Wrestlemania, that was it.

Feels like a bit too late to me. They should have got him in 2005 when he was young and lithe and exciting and good looking. Suppose their direction was totally different back then in terms of smaller guys who could work, and also he was probably more of a novelty/star in Japan. What prompted the WWE deal? Are they paying him great money or did the lucrative dates in the east dry up?

Not got the time to write the long post that the topic justifies. But my journey is around this: 1999-2001: Wrestling is an insanely popular fad. I get into it at school like most of my friends. I don't even know WCW exists. Get so excited about WWF and talk about it every day with friends, watch Raw at sleepovers etc, stay up late watching the PPVs on Channel 4 that I can get in my room, having headphones on so my parents don't know. 2001-2003: Start to go on the internet, buy tons of old [official] WWF/E tapes, starting high school and my friends have all stopped watching. I am a huge superfan, eagerly reading about backstage stuff like Montreal and educating myself, but still confined to mainstream US wrestling. 2003-2006: It becomes something of an obsession, start posting on forums like Smarkschoice and finding out about Joshi and Puro, spend cash on tons of discs off traders because DVDs are suddenly this cheap format that is easy to post and you can acquire loads of footage. Follow ROH religiously, still a WWE fan, also watching a lot of 90s AJPW, NOAH, the classic Joshi shows and comps, buying big comps of WCW and basically whatever is pimped that I can get my hands on. Backyard wrestling with people becomes a big part of my life. Then suddenly in 2006/2007, I burn out. Probably for a lot of reasons. Footage overload being one - I still have stacks of unwatched discs, it probably became too much, I couldn't keep pace with my interests. Also I was growing up, 16-17 and going to parties and starting to go to clubs and drinking most weekends and still playing soccer and tennis and just hanging out, added to a part time job and college work. Wrestling had to take a back seat. ROH was going downhill and had lost all the talent I loved, WWE was fairly skippable, modern Puro wasn't amazing, the buzz had gone online and on the product. 2007-2011: Didn't watch anything, outside of maybe one or two sporadic attempts to rekindle the flame, buying Goodhelmet's MOTY set in 2009. Go traveling and live in Australia/Asia for a year where you don't even think about wrestling anymore, went to University, got really into music and film and those became my passions in terms of entertainment consumption. Got majorly into dance music and spent a lot of my spare time and money going to Tomorowland and Global Gathering and just general clubbing, especially in Europe. Most of my discs got thrown out, a few spindles remained in the attic at home. Didn't even check results. Occasionally read forums, just to keep up with the scene. Strangely went to a Dragon Gate event in 2010 after a friend who was into Puro asked me to go with him, we had a good time. 2011-2014: Randomly watched Money In The Bank 2011 after hearing about Punk's 'pipe bomb' promo. Marked out for the first time in a decade watching Danielson and Punk win. My interest soon lapsed as the product became stagnant. Got cable again in late 2012 so started watching again mainly out of habit as I Sky +'d Raw and would spin through it every Tuesday morning with breakfast. My interest is nowhere near what it was in 2005 - I would never dream of sitting down and putting a wrestling DVD on, or writing a review with star ratings or buying a thirty disc comp. But I love reading this forum, and all the knowledge here, and discussing stuff, and contributing with the perspective of a 2004-2006 smark. My opinions are probably a bit dated now - nobody talks about control segments or thinks having a huge moveset is important. So wrestling will never be an important part of my life again but I wouldn't rule out going to indy shows or buying discs of something that intrigues me. I'd quite like to watch the pimped Puro matches but never get round to it really - it is enough keeping up with the other art that I like and getting time for reading/listening/watching things in between having a social life and playing sport etc. Suppose I was your typical fan who grew out of it in his mid-late teens, although I've hung on to the extent where I still take an interest and watch some WWE and post here. I take much more of an analytical approach to the product now, from a standpoint of booking and merchandising and presentation. Edit: Yeah, famous last words - this is a pretty long ass post!

The convenience of shopping instantaneously and on the move via apps is far more prevalent in 2014 than in previous years. 'Click & Collect' and shopping apps are what is being pushed at the minute in relation to online shopping.

I think the Undertaker loss was so shocking because it was a match with very little build and Lesnar didn't really need the rub. You would expect The Streak to end after a major build up and to have some real meaning in the future, either as a coronation for a new star or to kick start a major angle such as John Cena turning heel. Brock really didn't fit the description of the guy fans expected them to end the streak on. Austin Aries beating Samoa Joe for the ROH Title was a pretty major upset at the time. Aries wasn't considered in the top tier of ROH stars, even after the marathon match with Danielson, and the win came without too much build up, it wasn't part of a major feud. I think people thought that Joe dropping the strap after nearly two years would have been handled as a more major deal. Shelton Benjamin beating HHH on a random Raw was sold as a major upset, this being the period when Hunter didn't job to anyone, much less a former tag team wrestler on his first night of a singles push. Marufuji winning the GHC belt from Akiyama was a major shock at the time, especially if you were following NOAH casually and only watching the big shows. It was still the #1 promotion in Japan, at least from the perspective of western smarks - if any junior was going to move up it was expected to be KENTA, and even then it seemed hugely unlikely he would ever be elevated as far as the top title. *As a sideline to the above, just found out KENTA is now signed to WWE. Crazy. Do they plan to use him at all? Imagine if someone had told you in 2004 that one day Bryan Danielson vs KENTA could headline Raw, and how crazy it would have seemed.

This. The most offensive thing a promotion can be is boring.

What part specifically? Vince winning the Rumble or the Foley chair shot debacle? Or just the overall presentation and booking?

Wrestling is wrestling. Probably the most distasteful, base form of popular entertainment there is currently, both backstage and on television, even if it occasionally ascends to a higher level of art. If it was going to drive me [or most of us on here] away it would have done it before now. I actually get a buzz out of the more farcically offensive angles like Triple-H banging a Katie Vick doll or the hilariously ridiculous "I'm your Papi, Dominic!" angle with Rey and Eddie. Out of all the things WWE have done over the years, the toilet humor is the one that gets me to turn off straight away. A diva who has a medical problem meaning she farts all the time, John Cena reading those terrible scripted poop jokes all the time etc. Cringe worthy and horrendously embarrassing, you would curl up if anyone else was in the room. The reasons for me to stop watching have been sheer boredom with what is a repetitive form of entertainment with usual substandard writing. The EDDIE IS IN HELL stuff didn't bother me that much, mostly because I figured it wouldn't have bothered him too much, and the fact that they actually did the right thing by his family in having Vicki on the payroll for a decade after he died. Doubt he left a lot of money to look after them so it gave them a decent income.

Brock Lesnar should absolutely be kept as a special attraction. Even saying that, he has been kept off television far too much for a champion. Often he is barely mentioned. They could at least have vignettes and interviews and updates. And to think they are going to run Cena vs Lesnar for the FOURTH time since he returned is absurd. It is either that are they now regret getting themselves into this situation and are having Rollins win at TLC to save them doing the match again. The former is an amazingly narrow use of a wrestler who is only going to be around for a short time - they should be running every special match they have with him before he leaves. The latter just shows the awful short-termism of WWE booking. Agree that they should be elevating other guys by putting them in the ring with him. A competitive squash with Dolph Ziggler, a short, violent brawl with Dean Ambrose, a hoss vs hoss match against Sheamus. A match with Randy Orton would probably pop a decent buyrate, whatever that means in the era of the network.

A wrestling company that doesn't run shows? What is it, a highlight reel for wrestling around the world? Because that isn't what I described in my post at all.

Even funnier because he runs a raft of meaningless matches every single week on his television shows. Just about every match on Raw is meaningless, at least 50% are there just to fill time and it is usually the same stale combinations again and again.

Have Global Force even had a show yet?

Jesus, awful to think that is where we are at. True though, excellent post. 10,000 buys seems a very large amount for ROH to be coining in for a PPV.