cm funk

If the stuff about Bryan hurting is true.....well.....that really sucks, but, it's also totally predictable. If you listen to him on the Jericho podcast.....and how much he was hurting and hid it until he couldn't.....and how he was thinking about ways to wrestle with one arm....... and then they bring the dude back from this serious injury and put him in a ladder match? I remember back when the neck/arm stuff was going on Bryan did an interview and said he was going to come back with a mat based chain grounded chain wrestling style, but nope, he comes back and is still doing the same high spots that led to his injury I love D-Bry, but he's his own worst enemy. I don't want to see him end up as another tragedy. The high spots and shit are cool, but he's better than that, he doesn't need that, and it actually lowers my opinion of him as a wrestler greatly less is more

His vocals are heavily processed and autotuned......Ozzy style. He's improved as a singer a lot IMO, but basically he's a charismatic David Lee Roth style frontman/showman (without the pipes DLR had). I actually like the processed/autotuned vocals......I'm not expecting to hear Sam Cooke......but I get why some people would hate it I'm not saying Fozzy is the best band ever, but calling them 'awful' isn't fair

a few things 1) Fozzy isn't awful 2) they play a lot of smaller clubs in the states, but they get bigger crowds in Europe, and they were just a supporting act for Slash's latest tour, and on the 'KISS Kruise'. They're also pretty well respected and liked in hard rock/metal circles, by other musicians and the fans. Their last 3 albums have gotten very good reviews, and I liked all 3 of them. 3) their last album was top 10 on the metal, hard rock and independent charts. I don't know how much that means these days in the digital music age, but it's something 4) You're totally right about Dancing With the Stars......it's amazing how many people watch that. My 86 yr old grandmother remembers Chris Jericho from the show and she hasn't watched wrestling since the days of Haystacks Calhoun and has surely never listened to anything remotely metal. To her he's the handsome/charismatic guy with nice hair from the dancing show

I think he's very good and has shown constant improvement. Big E, Swagger, Show, Henry and Sheamus matches were all good-very good. Ambrose matches were good. Cena matches were very, very good. I'm struggling to think of a match of his that wasn't at least good for what it was. Also, I think the Umaga comparison is the best one. There is a lot of similarities with the antiquated gimmicks but performed so well and with such good accompanying in-ring that the characters get over. Very similar in-ring as agile great working "big men" too

Whether I like the gimmick or not is irrelevant. 99% of people would agree that the evil foreign heel gimmick is at best dated and regressive, at worst xenophobic and cheap. The fact it makes for boring television makes it even worse. Actually, with this neo Cold War we're in with Russia the gimmick is sadly very relevant in 2015 xenophobic and cheap? sure. welcome to pro-wrestling

He's a bigger star and more likely to get network eyeballs with wrestling fans.....but let's not discount that Jericho and Fozzy have legitimately crossed over. Look at the outside of wrestling guest Jericho has had on his show....massive rock stars like Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Slash, Rob Zombie etc. He's been on the cover of Revolver and other big rock magazines.....hosts the Golden God awards.....plays huge rock festivals.....people know him from Dancing With the Stars......three best selling books........etc etc. Outside of the wrestling bubble don't discount how well known he is As far as podcasts go......Jericho is neck and neck with Austin in the charts. Jericho is higher in the sports category most weeks, but Austin's Family and Unleashed are listed separately and both are generally in the top 10 As far as it being a "Jericho vs. Austin" thing.......Jericho had mentioned he had things in the works with WWE for the Network before the HHH interview even happened, and we know he has a great relationship with the company (he just worked house shows a couple months ago and comes and goes as he pleases), while Austin is far more removed from it. I don't believe it's an either or thing, the Jericho thing was happening either way. I do believe that WWE and Austin have some heat right now, but what else is new? Their relationship has been up and down and all over the place for more than a decade. Austin doesn't need them and is happy to tell them to fuck off. I thought it was inevitable that something would happen again As for Jericho's podcast with Cena, I thought it was great. Some great stories there that I'd never heard before, and Cena came off great. I'm a much bigger fan of Jericho's conversational style than Steve's, and that held true here

I've rewatched Andre/Hogan and Rock/Hogan many times and they totally hold up for me. The atmosphere, the crowd, the "larger than life" characters, the energy........both those matches are really fun on replay too soon to rate Sting/HHH.....but I really liked it on first watch and suspect I will like it on replay

This

Good writeup I don't do star ratings, but I loved the match too

I kinda liked CJ Parker's gimmick, it was different, but other than that he didn't do anything that impressive to me

Yeah, that makes sense to me. HHH has been doing nothing but losing in his rare matches the last few years. Lost to Taker twice. Won against Brock in the first match but lost in convincing fashion in the next two. Lost to Bryan. He'd been on quite the losing streak........which is why him and Sting didn't really make sense because ideally Sting in his first WM match should win.....but HHH couldn't afford to lose.......quite the booking predicament they put themselves in there. But, Sting wanted to work with HHH....and credit where credit is due HHH is a great ring general and carried Sting to a really good match......and I wasn't even bothered that HHH won........but I don't know........maybe the smart thing to do was knowing this match was happening build up HHH for a match with whoever in Jan-Feb and give him a strong dominant win.....so him losing to Sting at WM wouldn't look so bad?

"those are my oranges......pass me the spoon" "I'M VINCE MCMAHON DAMMIT" they could also re-create Verne Gagne legit choking another old dude to death over a food fight

So next week Vince McMahon opens the show and HHH and Steph talk him into the old folks home? Eh, Flair in the loony bin was entertaining, I could enjoy crazy wacky old Vince in the old folks home skits

if that is the goal......after how good he looked at WM......that is retarded And I don't think that is the goal with Roman tbh.....I just think that whole RAW was a clusterfuck and exposed how badly out of touch they are with the audience

I don't blame the crowd, I blame whoever booked that show.... Roman should have and could have been accepted by that crowd........but nope, lets keep him off the show for 2.9 hours and stick him in a shitty 6 man tag WTF

putting Saxton out there alone on commentary.........that had to be a rib, right? If it was an inside joke/rib or something at least it makes sense knowing how WWE operates.....if not......what were they thinking? He was so channel changing bad......I start watching the show on mute. They finally sent Lawler out there who like him or not......he can talk and carried the show while Saxton was just bombing out there. They have Renee Young backstage......Corey Graves.......Jason Albert (maybe he was in Florida)....but lots of people they could have put there to work with Byron. Byron is perfectly acceptable to me on the roundtables and when he was doing NXT.......but he was put in a position to fail there and it was brutal. How many announcers all-time can carry a show by themselves with no colour man? I can count them on one hand. All in all......what a strange RAW. Steph killed the opening segment (not in the good killin' it way) and Brock coming out at 9 telegraphed that the match wasn't actually happening and they were writing Brock off. I was thinking about how they would write Brock off and I kind of figured they'd go the suspension route because no physical beatdown is believable at this point with this unkillable monster they've built.......but I don't know........I didn't really like it in execution. Killing the announcers and attacking a camera man was cool.....but he just walks to the back afterwards......something felt off with the whole angle from the very start of the show to me. Bryan and Ziggler had an excellent match, will enjoy them working with each other as long as they space it out and don't do it every single week. I guess with Wade and Sheamus involved they can do different matches and tags and a 4-way and throw in some other guys too. For Bryan's first match as IC Champ it was very strong I thought....loved the amateur and counter wrestling mat stuff.......Bryan maneuvering out of grappling into a headstand in Dolph's lap and Dolph giving him a short piledriver was a really cool spot I've never seen done before Ambrose and Cena was fun.....kinda paint by numbers for the body of it but after that fucked up sunset flip powerbomb spot it looked like Dean got legit pissed and just took the match over himself and was like "fuck you Cena, I'm in the drivers seat, let's get this crowd hot" and it led to a great finishing stretch. And Dean on his first attempt does a better STFU than Cena has ever done. Cena seemed kinda pissed after the match too. Would like to see a rematch. Kalisto was instantly over. Neville (just Neville, no first name, lol) looked good and I don't mind that he beat Axl because all Axl has to do is show up next week and rant about Axlmania running wild and he's still over. It's a comedy gimmick. Sandow didn't look good IMO. In the WM thread some people were saying he should have won the battle royale and I thought they were insane. I don't think he's going to float as a babyface without the Mizdow stuff. He's just not that great of a wrestler where I can buy him hanging with any of the top guys. He's best served in a comedy role or in a tag team. the Main Event was an abortion and WWE is insanely stupid for booking that match and thinking it wouldn't get anything but shit on by that crowd. After teasing them with Brock vs. Seth they main event with Kane, Big Show, Ryback and Roman Reigns. And like, are they actively trying to kill Roman Reigns? what terrible use of him on this show a few bright spots but all in all a bizarre and shitty RAW. After the home run they hit with WM this brought me back to earth and "yep, same ol shit" territory Oh, and if you watched the post-show with Sting on WWE Net........lol. Bo Dallas?!!? I hope that is Sting's last time in a WWE ring because after that I'd be like "fuck this company"

Actually, I can't remember the last time Wyatt was actually pinned in a match. He lost the first match with Jericho then beat him 2 or 3 times after. He won every single match with Dean Ambrose (which did Dean zero favors)......he's never lost to Bryan. Other than Cena and Jericho and now Taker who has he lost to? He's been insanely protected in a company where most guys are 50/50 and even the top guys do jobs

It's one thing to be a chickensh%t heel, it's another to be a chickensh%t heel who never wins. The wins on PPV aren't there. But I suppose this isn't specific to Rollins. Every guy who wins MITB gets to do jobs until he cashes in. I get the idea in building interest in future match-ups, but I could do without guys being figuratively neutered before they get their title run. well yeah, I agree 100% on that, he's done way too many jobs......but you can say that about practically everyone on the roster. Hell, Roman Reigns was doing jobs on TV going into Mania. Other than Rusev the only other guy who didn't do a job on TV this year so far was Bray F'n Wyatt who beat Bryan in Bryan's first match back (so stupid) tossed Bryan from the Rumble (again, so stupid) because he was being protected for Undertaker.

well, it looked like Roman was wearing Kevlar....so not sure if shotgun shells would put him down

Seth has been presented as a guy who can hang with anyone (including Brock Lesnar) and beat anyone at any given time......but he's chosen to take the sleazy eazy HEEL side of doing things. He's constantly put over as an amazing athlete, amazing wrestler....who shouldn't have to resort to such cheap tactics.....who doesn't need to cozy up to The Authority.......that's the whole character right now. Shades of Owen Hart kinda......where it was always "this guy is so talented......he doesn't need to be such a heel" and it was like.....because he can, and because he enjoys it. The announcers and the talking heads constantly put this over......which one would assume is laying ground for an eventual babyface run

That's a nice idea.......but that plotline was ditched a while back. Seth has teased cashing in several times and Dean was nowhere to be seen. I don't disagree, though the last time that I remember it being a case where Rollins actually attempted it in the ring was NoC and Ambrose had been thrown out of the building after he had the great return. I can't remember Rollins handing the briefcase over or anything since then, and the last legitimate chance that he had had before last night was on the RAW ep with the contract signing for the Rumble match when he curbstomped Brock but he didn't attempt a cash-in. So Ambrose HASN'T ever let him go ahead with it, even if Seth has yammered about doing it. It probably is just serendipitous for the story, but it does work out. Yeah, he was the one who first brought it up on the snow day RAW after the Rumble, about wanting to get his picture on the "Wall of Champions" with all the greats, which makes the segment that Bryan had with the legendary champs kind of ironic. He now is the most logical choice to win MITB this year, though, and to use it to make a Shield triple threat as the SummerSlam main. Yeah.....a Shield triple threat headlining a major PPV has to happen......and Dean winning MITB and cashing it when Reigns vs. Rollins is booked for SS before the match even happens would be perfect

I was in complete agreement with every word of your post

Rock & Rousey v. HHH & Steph has such HUGE box office potential........I really really really hope it happens UFC was obviously ok with Rousey doing this angle.......which is kind of crazy because nothing like this has ever happened before......she's got a big fight in Brazil coming up and then a possible fight with Cyborg later in the year if Santos can make weight. I feel like if the Cyborg fight actually happens (and I expect Ronda to destroy that woman) that that would be her "retirement" fight and she would go have a pro-wrestling match and then go off and do movies or whatever she wants to do after MMA I'm a huge MMA fan and a huge Rousey fan and (obv) a huge wrestling fan......so the idea of this actually happening is super cool to me On the WM pre-show they sorta teased Lita&Trish v. The Bellas.....which would also be awesome Obviously Taker will have his last match at this show and I hope it's against Cena. It kinda has to be Cena. That's a big time dream match that we've never really seen before. I think it might have happened in the 02-03 era on a random SD.....but nobody remembers it and Cena wasn't Cena then. I've been wanting to see this as a WM match for years and this is the last chance for it Way too early to predict anything for the meat of the roster. No idea what to predict for Brock either. Could they hold off on the Brock-Roman rematch for an entire year? If so....that match would be huge

a couple pages back somebody asked about how much $ it cost for the Terminator stuff it's quid pro quo. They're going to be promoting the hell out of that movie on their television, the network, the whole entrance itself was movie promotion. we the audience are the ones who will pay for having RAW full of Terminator stuff for months. And I'm someone who loves or at least likes every Terminator movie.....but the trailers for this one make it look ungodly bad and it has bomb written all over it.....which is probably why Arnold and the producers reached out to WWE who will pimp the hell out of it and a lot of their audience will go see it

That's a nice idea.......but that plotline was ditched a while back. Seth has teased cashing in several times and Dean was nowhere to be seen. They have so badly dropped the ball with Ambrose. He's still over.....but man, they had a white hot dude and just cooled him down to being "just another guy" as Alvarez likes to say. They didn't strike while the iron was hot with him......and now he's the guy killing himself in garbage matches (see: last night, the entire Wyatt program in which he lost every single match)