Dylan Waco

The crowd was supposed to bury Reigns, because he's the victim of a political hit. The entire show was booked to the crowd. Everything. Up until the main event. It is impossible to believe that they booked that entire show and that main event without knowing what would happen in the main event. The crowd is supposed to shit on Roman. He's meant to be rejected.

I liked the divas match. The UFC v. Authority angle is going to be hilarious.

Is The Rock confirmed as being there?

Already moved on. Bigger issue is what the fuck is the WWE thinking having Saxton out there solo calling the matches standing up behind a still tipped over table? They couldn't give him Renee to work with?

Cena's new shirt is classy.

90 percent of your posts on this forum are sub-aceman trolls, an odd comment coming from you.

Fair enough. I'll keep my mouth shut about shit like this going forward, and you can quit playing keyboard warrior like you do in most of the threads you "contribute" to.

And I really don't buy it. But it's something getting kicked around by multiple people.

Tentative about saying too much but it's an alleged recent WWE signing.

Just heard an amusing rumor about Cena's open challenge opponent. If true people will mark out, but I don't buy it.

Who here argued that Cena WASN'T going to go over? I knew Cena would win, said so here, said so in every public forum. I don't know ANYONE who thought Rusev would win.

They were hurt by not being on IPPV for that show which I think was inexcusable to be honest. I can say that Koff is not to blame here. He pushed for more money and didn't get it. For Sinclair they see ROH as a way to fill tv time, with cheap in house programming. They don't try and grow ROH, because they don't care about building a wrestling company.

Wouldn't one expect more merchandise sales if his crowd reactions were more uniformly positive? I think this is a bad thing to point to as Cena has been a merchandise machine. Hard to imagine he would have been any more or less popular in that regard if he was getting full face reactions.

Since you completely disagree with me, can you explain how Cena is different from every other babyface ace in history? Do you think Bruno or Hogan could have taken three high profile losses in less than a year? Jumbo? JYD down in Mid-South? I don't see how or why people think that when it comes to Cena "losses don't matter". "Oh he's Cena, he can take it". Why? Auras fade when someone is jobbed out. Pedro Morales. He was un-beat-able. And an ace once upon a time. By 85 any aura he ever had is gone and buried. Why is Cena different and why don't the fundamental rules of wrestling booking 101 apply to him? Sell me on that, and you sell me on Rusev going over. EDIT: I actually wonder if this might be worth pulling out for its own topic. This is where not following wrestling or the modern product absolutely cripples you in these arguments. There was absolutely an argument for Cena to win, and the way the story was built coming into the show it was the "right" thing to do in the moment. But the number one problem with the modern WWE is the complete and utter failure to capitalize on an acts momentum and create new stars. I have been on record talking about the unselfishness of Cena before - there is no question that what he let Brock do to him is something no other ace would have done - but Cena beating Rusev, especially the way he beat Rusev, just continues the companies streak of not capitalizing on hot acts and creating new stars. Wins and losses do matter, which is why on the biggest show you should try and book based on who has the most to gain. Cena gained absolutely nothing at all from the win. Rusev would have been a made man. Now he's on the Bray Wyatt track, with no obvious next opponent (none of the over faces can really afford a loss right now), a potential split with his manager, and a probable continuation of a feud that he almost certainly isn't going to come back and win. In a world with talent rotating in and out of territories a Rusev loss absolutely would have been the right thing. In this world, with WWE's problems being what they are, it's just another star that wasn't created.

This is an aside, but I don't see any evidence to support the theory that Cena would have been a bigger draw with full on face reactions v. Mixed reactions.

I think all the bitching about the booking of the main event and Rusev v. Cena really misses the bigger point, which is that the real problem with the booking is macro not micro. I completely disagree with Jerry and cm funk on the Rusev thing, but I get that the presentation of the feud made a Cena win almost a given, and I can see their argument. I get the anger over the finish to the main event involving a third party who wasn't even in the "official" match, even if I thought it was absolutely the right thing to do. I can see arguments for Orton and Show going over in their matches. I can even see an argument for Taker going over if the theory is they are building to a retirement match next year in Dallas, even if I think it is clear that he's done as a star with any real value barring something miraculous. The HHH thing is indefensibly stupid, but they clearly never had any intention of getting any returns out of Sting any way, as the whole angle was about illustrating a fifteen year old point via live action role playing. Anyhow the point here is that all of the individual decisions are defensible in one form or another. But then when you pull back and you look at the show you see this: Show, Orton, HHH, Cena and Taker all won their matches, and all basically won clean. The opener was four new blood teams, so of course a new blood act won. The ladder match was all new blood guys, barring comedy old guard worker R-Truth who was to a large degree the focus of the build to the match. A new blood act won, but it was the opener, and the match was basically the equivalent of Boise State beating TCU in a secondary BCS bowl game. I guess you could argue the new blood won the Divas match, but that meant nothing. A new blood act did win in the main event to win his first title, but ONLY after losing to an old guard act clean early in the show, and ONLY by pinning another new blood act. The old guard guy in the main event didn't even take the fall, despite being put in a position where he would not really have looked weak if he had. This show was a show filled with part timers, retirees, and other old guard players (Cena, Orton, Show) in key matches. The old guard either won every match they were in, or didn't job in the match they were in. This happened in every single case unless you are counting R-Truth of all people and the Divas tag which was just a space filler. On top of this, the hot angle coming out of the show involved two old guard players, an old guard character (Steph) and a MMA fighter (Rousey). This was a show where you could argue that the five most over babyfaces (Mizdow, Ryback, Ambrose, Bryan, and Ziggler) were all involved in multi-man undercard matches, that were over less than thirty minutes into the "main" card - everyone of them is a new blood performer. On top of this the new blood performer who did get the big main event push took the fall in the match he was in, and his push was so badly mishandled that this was actually the BEST thing that could have been done for him. And the new blood guy who beat him is a sniveling heel opportunist, doing an Edge/HHH 2000 tribute act, who effectively "stole the win." (again I agreed with that decision, but let's not pretend Rollins has been presented as a top level guy on par with the old guard). Mania was a great, great show. But the key messages coming out of the show were that HHH is the top star and centerpiece of the promotion, the most pushed new blood acts barring one exception (Rollins) are all chokers (Rusev, Wyatt, Reigns), and the best liked new blood acts aren't even worthy of being put in meaningful matches (Cesaro/Kidd, Usos, Dolph, Ambrose, Ryback, Mizdow, Bryan, Barrett, Harper).

They actually spent one whole episode of Raw built around the idea of Rollins cashing in and making it a Triple Threat. It was heavily teased.

Great Mania despite a the old guard all winning. Main event was a MOTY level match. Hope Reigns gets the credit he deserves there because he was right with Lesnar. Just finished the reaction show where my thoughts are more defined.

To recap Show, Orton, Cena, Taker and HHH have all won

Didn't think it was disjointed at all. Decent match

Orton v Seth was fine, but they struggled to fill the limited time in engaging ways. Novel finish

Ladder match was fun, but I liked it better the first time when it was called the opening tag match

Show winning makes sense, except he's not over and the crowd was ripe for 2 other guys who need it more. That said both pre-show matches were good

About to call my brothers and Dad for the annual Hales family Mania pick em. Dustin won last year so fuck him. I've had the Network on in the background for hours but I haven't been paying much attention. Been loading up on obscure YouTube indie matches instead.

That said, if we are taking everything into account I have to go with John Cena. The knock on him is that a lot of his big matches at Mania weren't good, and in many cases weren't even positioned that well on the cards. Having said that John Cena's became the most important "wrestler" in modern wrestling history and so central to WrestleMania that it was almost an impediment. There is a reason his Rock matches were such a massive success. Going further still I think Cena's rise as the man is to a large degree the reason we have the current Mania model (large stadium shows, built around matches involving part time "attractions"). We can argue about whether or not that is a good thing, and correlation isn't causation, but I don't think the changes starting right around the time he became champ are a coincidence. If you look at the last ten Mania's Cena has been in some shockingly inconsequential Mania matches. Taker has been in maybe one (the Henry match). Even during the Cena era when it comes to Mania season I think Taker has been pushed as being more pivotal to the shows than Cena.