cm funk

Roman is already better than Nash in a lot of ways (definitely a much better athlete with better high spots) but you can't really compare them. Roman has only been in the business for a few years, entirely in the WWE system, and he's still pretty green. Nash's high end WWF matches were basically carry jobs by the best workers in the company, and all-time greats, Bret & Shawn. He could hold up his, limited, end of a match. And that isn't a knock on Nash at all, he had good timing and good spots and a good understanding of how to work.....but he was very limited. Which is kind of my point here with Roman and Batista. I like both of them a lot.....but a big singles match with them, even well laid out, could be a complete clusterfuck that the crowd would shit on, and it would hurt both of them. Batista is not a "carry a match/carry a green guy" kind of worker. Roman isn't good or experienced enough yet to compensate for that. It would be a roll of the dice. Which is why I'm glad they're pairing Roman with Orton on the road now and having him work singles matches. I know a lot of people don't care for Orton....but the guy is good, he's a total pro, and Roman will learn a lot working with him. Eventually Roman will be very good and ready for main event caliber singles matches.....but he isn't nearly ready yet, and that's not his fault. But the only good singles match I've seen from him on TV was with Bryan, the best worker in the company. Him and Orton had a match on RAW that was the drizzling shits and completely died with the crowd. And the Roman-Batista "match" wasn't even really a match.....it was a setup for a Shield-Evolution brawl and a show closing angle. It was a tease of a match. No harm done there.

It's funny that you're complaining about Batista vs. Roman when the match last night was Batista vs. Rollins I actually think they're doing a pretty good job with the Shield vs. Evolution stuff......and a proper Batista vs. Roman match would be a big deal still. At the same time.....I have no idea how long Batista is actually going to be around for....it was reported that he signed up for a couple years....but he's going to be off doing Guardians of the Galaxy promotion for quite a bit, and his contract allows him to pretty much come and go as he wants depending on what movie roles he's offered post-GotG (and that movie is looking like it's going to be pretty huge, so I expect him to have his choice of a lot of roles afterwards)......so.... Plus Roman isn't ready for main event level singles matches yet.....and even if he was.....Batista isn't the guy I'd put him in there with just yet. I think the best singles pairings at this point are Roman-Orton (which they've been doing on house shows), HHH-Ambrose and Batista-Rollins....at least at the first go through. But this is a 3 on 3 feud......did people complain that Gordy and David had their interactions too early in Freebirds-Von Erichs? I just find it hard to complain about this when Shield-Evolution is the hottest angle going and you can't exactly do it and do matches without Roman and Batista interacting physically....plus all the other variables I just outlined. The fact that Roman has landed the spear on Batista a few times, and pinned him once, can easily play into a story with Big Dave and lead to a big 1 on 1 match between them that won't be lacking for heat at all. The fact that Batista has had the fan backlash and has been eating pins can easily work for him if done right. After watching Batista over the years.....I have a lot of faith in him as a performer....he takes this stuff, works with it, and it generally turns out awesome in the end

To be fair....circumstances have really hurt Bryan's title run. Getting married/taking a bit of a vacation after WM.....which was long planned on the books and fine.....then his dad dies.....now he's had neck surgery and they might need to take the title off of him. Give them a break on this. He's barely been on TV since WM. I didn't mind the Kane feud at all as a blowoff to a long running story and 1 month thing. Carrying it out another month (after Bryan completely beat him clean) was a huge stretch and led to one of the lamest angles in recent memory. Cena-Bray......it's been highlighting everything I hate about Cena (and I'm not a Cena hater). The Shield and Evolution have been carrying the shows and it's the hottest thing going....but some people on the internet don't seem to buy it as a main event angle for some reason and complain about Bryan not being pushed right, as if that's by WWE's choice right now To me there's still a lot of good stuff on these shows. Some of it is hit and miss.....like it always is. But I've been enjoying the hell out of BNB, Alicia Fox, Heyman & Cesaro, Sheamus, Alicia Fox the last few weeks......lots of good stuff going on

This is a silly complaint. Some of the best feuds ever have started this way. I warned you guys in this very thread, when people were super high on WWE around Mania.......you won't stick around, because it won't always be like this. They always go into a post-WM lull. The product is what it is and I enjoy it for what it is. Last night's RAW was full of good stuff. But there's all these people like, "meh, I gave it a chance and now I'm done with it" which I totally saw coming. Expecting it to be pre and post-WM RAW every week is just unrealistic expectations

Charles Robinson is my current favorite and has been for a while. I personally barely even notice him, which is exactly what you want from a good ref, but when you do notice the little stuff he does (like those above GIFs) he's just fantastic Hildebrand and Pee Wee Anderson were both pretty great, and both sadly lost too soon to cancer. I always thought WCW had better refs. Those two, Robinson and Nick Patrick were all fantastic in my book.

I like this idea a lot. Cena can cut his "Brock's too much of a pussy to defend those titles" promo (and you probably need to explain that Paul Heyman in his weasely walrus ways snuck into the fine print that Brock doesn't have to defend his titles every 30 days) and Cena sets his sights on the IC title.....held by Cesaro. And this is going down post-SS in the fall....so you've got time from then to now to do a Barrett-Cesaro program for the IC title (and Barrett is basically a face now anyway) so Barrett would be there as a challenger against Cena. I personally want to see the US and IC titles merged, so Cena-Sheamus for unification of the belts is another program they could do.

WWE had every right to feel spurned. Look at the time they invested in Brock, how the pushed him out of the gate, they made a huge investment in him. Brock got special treatment from the second he walked into the company. But, he left in a professional manner, he did jobs on the way out with no fuss, he did a really good buildup to WMXX with Austin and Goldberg where he was totally selling and putting everything over and not sleepwalking or half-assing it. It's not like he pulled an Austin or a Punk who both walked out the day of a RAW show they were heavily scripted in (and even worse with Punk who was heavily scripted into WM plans and quit right when the WM build was about to go full throttle). And Brock probably would have stayed around longer....I'm just guessing here.....but Vince probably went into "WHO THE HELL DOES HE THINK HE IS?!!? I'M VINCE MCMAHON DAMMIT! I CREATED HIM!!" mode. Brock probably wanted less days on the road, better travel accommodations (I think it was reported he either wanted to fly on the private jet or have his own small private plane), better payoffs....not entirely unreasonable things, and Vince felt like he was being held hostage and forced to negotiate with a terrorist. They really tried to screw Brock afterwards with the no compete, which Brock rightfully was like "this is bullshit" and just went and did what he wanted (how could WWE reasonably argue that the Minnesota Vikings or NJPW was direct competition?) and beat them in court over it. This was also not too long after the relationship with Vince and Hogan went south and Hogan quit because he didn't like the creative and writers and his payoffs. Sound familiar? Vince was probably at his most tyrannical and hard to work with during the 02-04 time period where there was no real competition and his own business was sinking like a rock.

I actually thought WWE handled Darren Young coming out pefectly. They didn't make a big production out of it, they didn't have some over the top deal where a homophobic heel wrestler made an angle out of it. After the TMZ thing and the story broke or whatever, on the next RAW Darren & Titus had a tag match, the fans who were aware gave a nice respect pop and heat for the match, Darren won clean, and him and Titus celebrated. It was a cool moment. It was all so low key that I was shocked and impressed by WWE being so reserved when they usually go way over the top and bash you over the head with things. There was so mention at all about it on WWE tv....but they gave the Prime Time Players a nice little push for a few weeks and the crowd was behind them. Now.......they haven't done shit with either of them or capitalized on the growing crowd support they had for a bit.....and started flipping them from face to heel to face team depending on whatever way the wind was blowing that week.....then did the pointless breakup which was followed up by both being total jobbers and barely on tv anymore...anyway.....that's just a general criticism of bad booking

Did you screengrab sad, red eyed Vince from the Ultimate Warrior piece on the Network? That's poor form

especially for an indy wrestler/contractor ....TNA isn't covering travel expenses, they aren't paying for health care or insurance, TNA guys don't get a per diem for basic shit like food....you factor all that stuff in.....that 30k is a lot less when you factor that stuff in. For a job like pro-wrestling, on a national level.....it's laughable. You could make the same money working at McDonalds and not risking permanent injury every night

I don't know how relevant this is to this conversation, but I was a kid in the 80's and played soccer from like age 4 all the way through high school. I also played baseball and basketball. My parents encouraged me to play those 3 sports, but they wouldn't let me play Pop Warner when I wanted to go out for it. Soccer is very popular in terms of youth leagues and camps and as a high school sport. It's also one of the easiest/least expensive sports to play. All you need is a foot and a ball to kick around, and you can play it anywhere on any sort of surface. My parents wouldn't let me play organized football because, mostly my mom, thought it was too violent. But I think there were also economics in play. So I'm not gonna be surprised at all if football loses popularity due to injury risk and economics. It's still going to be huge, there's a massive football culture from youth leagues to high school to college to the pros and that will always be huge, but there's definitely a big opening for soccer in this country I also noticed the NFL has started running commercials regarding youth football and promoting that every coach needs to pass some sort of testing in regards to head/neck injuries and needs to be certified. I thought that was interesting.

I think Bray having a short reign would go a long way to putting him over and could further the whole angle of how dangerous it is for him to have a platform to "get his message out". They could sell it as a big, scary deal that the most dangerous man in the WWE is now the face of the WWE and it would feel like a big deal when Bryan comes back to win back the title IMO. That would be pretty cool. I know some people on the board find Bray Wyatt cheesy, but I don't, and clearly the audience doesn't either. He's at that level now where you could put the belt on him in this situation and it would get over like gangbusters, and it would be huge for Bryan as well. Something like the Deadly Games tournament booking wise would be awesome. That might be one of my favorite pieces of "attitude era" booking. They used it to turn Mankind into a huge babyface, turn Rock into the most hated guy in the company at a time when he was really getting over for being a "cool heel".....and mad the crowd that much hotter for Austin to just open up a can on everyone. If they booked a tournament like that, stripped Bryan of the title and made him compete in the tournament.....it would actually help Bryan's heat and get some other guys over in the process All that said, I've been expecting Brock to get the belt this year, pretty much all year. If you go back to his booking early in the year......he's been built now as this guy who, if he decides to, will easily take the title. But he doesn't even care about it. He'll take it just because he can. I think there is huge $ to be made in Brock winning the title and going home. The argument Meltzer made for a while was "they can't unify the titles because they need a champion headlining both house shows" and that was reverb of what people in the company thought. Has house show business been hurt by unifying the titles? No, it hasn't. Would it be hurt by the belt being on Brock who comes and goes as he pleases and doesn't work house shows? No, it wouldn't. Was business hurt when Rock had the belt for a few months and only did TV? No. Build some hot angles, push the IC/US belt like they matter......Brock can hold the belt from August to April. Personally, if I were booking right now, I'd do the tournament gimmick to take the belt off of Bryan, then put it back on him, then put it on Brock......then build to Bryan against Brock at WM. In the interim you could do Bryan-Cesaro for a few months......hell, I'd have Heyman carrying around the WWE belts while Brock is sitting at home......then you've got Cesaro gradually getting kind of pissed off.....and there'd be a huge babyface turn for Cesaro at the end of the road and you've got Cesaro against Brock post-WM plus Cesaro against Bryan for the title I know that none of this will happen because they don't long-term book like that plus they're going to put the belt on Batista/Cena/Orton etc at some point and they'll probably force Reigns into the huge push before he's quite ready, but I can dream

I got the sense that they let the Main Event/ION deal run out on purpose. I don't think they made much $ off of that deal and ION hasn't shown the growth as a network that they expected when they made the deal. ME got the best ratings on ION for the most part, but putting it on the Network now is a much better strategy long term

WWE (pro-wrestling) having a lower voter turnout than MONSTER TRUCKS is disheartening, but I take these surveys/polls with several grains of salt

Compared to what though? NFL has some of the most violent, angry, biggotted etc. etc. choose your label fans. NBA fanbase isn't anything to sneeze at on that level either. MLB's demo *according to surveys* is mostly older people. It wouldn't surprise me that in comparison WWE's audience, which enjoys watching half naked guys fighting, is considered more liberal.

WWE has kind of become a stopover for corporate pros in the entertainment/sports arena. They get paid really well and WWE is high profile enough, but it's a cool-off period or launching pad for the people from "outside the biz" who go to work there. Just look at the guy they had spearheading a lot of the network stuff, who skipped town to a better job with the NFL almost immediately after the WWEN launched. I do think WWE has really evolved a lot in terms of corporate structure and advancing themselves as a brand, and making themselves more mainstream.....the whole "PG era" is a testament to that.....but it's still far from perfectly executed. And it is a herculean task in a lot of ways getting wrestling to be accepted mainstream. I'm happy that they've made a lot of positive strides in that direction.

True WWE also seems way more mainstream acceptable in recent years. Maybe it's the hidden hand of NBCU involved on some of it.....but WWE stuff is covered on TMZ, lots of athletes and celebs are admitted fans on twitter and all that jazz, ESPN is peppered with rasslin references, lots of people in the hip hop community are open fans of the sport.......it feels way more mainstream right now than it has in the past, to me anyway The demographic argument about advertisers re: wrestling has always rubbed me the wrong way. It seems self-fulfilling as much as anything. Personally, the adverts during your average episode of RAW are shit that I would never buy or have interest in. I'm not the only 'rasslin' fan who feels that way either. I don't need high-brow adverts, but the whole idea of treating wrestling fans like they're the lowest common denominator has always bothered me, because it simply isn't true. There is still that stereotype that all rasslin fans are slack jawed inbreds with no purchase power or whatever the heck people think

That isn't news, and the slant of that article is pretty ridiculous. In what world is he a "former WWE superstar"?! The seedy underbelly of pro-wrestling is one thing, not sure how this can be construed in a way where WWE is thrown under the bus

That doesn't bother me. That was Foley's character at that point, the guy who could take insane ungodly amounts of pain and punishment and you had to murder him in the ring to keep him down. That was a huge part of the buildup to the match too.......HHH thought he had killed Foley for good and then.....Cactus Jack shows up! Bang bang! you don't want to mess with Cactus Jack

The PPV match with Rhodes and DiBiase was excellent. I remember being surprised by how strong they were able to get over......but it's completely forgotten now.....and it didn't lead to anything. There was a point in the whole Legacy deal where they could have turned DiBiase into a red hot babyface.....and they didn't. And we ended up with a lame breakup and a lame 3 way match at WM

also, supposedly Batista was supposed to be a huge surprise at the Rumble but someone leaked it and it was out there so they had to put him on RAW for his return, which didn't exactly do him any favors

I'm kinda up in the air when it comes to the Batista booking at the moment. He would be the logical opponent for Bryan...so why did he take the pin an WM? Why hasn't Orton demanded his rematch for his title? Why is Batista losing clean to Roman Reigns? It's been spotty booking, and I can't blame Dave if he's just like "pin me. pay me. I've got better things to do." Dave has been a total pro, but the WWE braintrust should have seen it coming that people would shit on him winning the Rumble and main eventing WM. To their credit they went with it and turned him heel, but they booked him into a horrible position

now that I think of it, the tag with Austin against Jericho and Benoit might be the best match. It sucks that he tore his quad and Benoit needed to go under the knife for neck surgery almost immediately after that, because that could have been a really hot program. They improvised when HHH went down, but still

I loved the Summerslam match with HBK because I was a huge HBK mark and it was cool seeing him in the ring again, and they built a great story with it, but on rewatch it's really shiity. Not HHH's fault, but that match hasn't aged well imo

I guess what I'm saying there is when HHH bumps and shows ass he's fantastic at it. But a time and a place for all things. He's often way overcompensated and been selfish in matches, which, as a watcher.....that isn't entertaining, it's just bad wrestling