Coffey

Me too. He was hilarious. And right. These people are dumbfucks. This is right out of my WCW thread. WWE lately seems like they have been doing a lot of things that seem very similar to decisions that late WCW made. I think a lot of it is because they don't really care, since there's not any competition. They can just spin their wheels & continue to make money.

Dave Meltzer going off about Charlotte losing on RAW, during the Wrestling Observer Radio show, had me cracking up. NXT Women's Champion. A few days before the NXT PPV on the WWE Network. Daughter of Ric Flair. In the Carolinas. Loses in 2:29.

This appears to be the card for Wrestle Kingdom: Due to a combination of injuries and time constraints, this is the Tokyo Dome lineup for 1/4: New Japan Rumble - No names were announced. This is likely a preshow match to get everyone on the card Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish defend the IWGP jr. tag titles against Alex Shelley & Kushida, The Young Bucks and Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Tomoaki Honma vs. Yujiro Takahashi & Bad Luck Fale & Jeff Jarrett Toru Yano & mystery partner vs. two members of Suzuki-gun Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Minoru Suzuki in UWF rules Tomohiro Ishii vs. Togi Makabe for the Never Open weight title Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Kenny Omega for the IWGP jr. title Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson vs. Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata for the IWGP tag team titles A.J. Styles vs. Tetsuya Naito Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kota Ibushi for the IC title Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP heavyweight title ****************** Jr. Tag, Ishii/Makabe, Styles/Naito, Nakamura/Ibushi & Tanahashi/Okada all look good to me. With JR on PBP. Should be fun.

Is it possible, they have John Cena lose to Seth Rollins & lose his #1 Contendership, then he brings back The Authority to get it back to set-up Brock Lesnar Vs. John Cena for the WWE World Heavyweight Title anyway? Then have WWE Champ John Cena Vs. Roman Reigns (Rumble winner) for the belt at 'Mania. Don't want the crowd to turn on Reigns? Put him against Cena.

...but he does a FLIP on a SPEAR! There's nothing more Indy than that!!

Who comes up with the names for these categories? "LOL moment of the year?" "OMG moment of the year?" Seriously? It's super awkward to hear people verbally annunciate those acronyms. "el oh el moment of the year!" - Lilian Garcia.

What a silly argument.

Yeah, that seemed really counter productive to me. She seemed like a deer in headlights. Didn't really get to do anything to shine. Came out as NXT champ to hype the NXT PPV on Thursday. Then jobbed to Natalya in a nothing match. Just...I don't know. Doesn't make a lick of sense.

I popped for a spot in the title match main event, actually: Jay Briscoe is a great promo. I didn't think the show was great but it wasn't offensive. Just kind of forgettable for the most part. Felt more like a TV show than a PPV.

The trading stiff shots in the center of the ring trope will test your patience & be prepared to see it in pretty much every other match. The other thing that grates my nerves lately, which has been mentioned here a couple different times, is the use of one-counts late into a match. Call it "fighting spirit" or whatever you want, it's straight up no-selling to me & completely takes me out of a match. Thankfully, it's not used to the degree the trading blows is. Also, the majority of the undercard, so the first half of each show or so, are just awful. There's a lot of guys that get a lot of TV time that are the drizzling shits. Captain New Japan, Sakuraba, Lance Archer, Iizuka, Yano, Takahashi, Taichi... your mileage may vary.

I love Dr. Death & the more I watch, the more I enjoy him. Talked with Loss some about him on Twitter & he recommended the '96 Carnival match with Taue, so I need to watch that. Posting here so I remember. He doesn't impress me too much in the States but his Japan is SO strong. Just complete embodiment of what I love about Pro-Wrestling. Early-mid 90's AJPW is exactly what appeals to me. It really amazes me how much stamina some of the bigger guys seem to have too. It's not like guys like Big Van Vader, Steve Williams, Stan Hansen, etc. were small dudes! Just crazy.

I feel like this whole thing is just going to get fans of both WWE & UFC at each other's throats. I'm sure WWE will be right there doing goading of their own as well because they have certainly shown a history of being petty. If C.M. Punk loses, WWE (or people within WWE) will say that he's a has-been, a joke, took his ball & left, etc. If C.M. Punk wins, WWE will say he had to go to UFC because he couldn't cut in the WWE, or whatever. So in that regard, it'll be a no win situation. I'm not sure if UFC will ever say anything or not, I guess Joe Rogan might. I'm curious, admittedly, of if he's any good or not...but I don't foresee good things. Who knows how long it'll be until his fight though..."2015" could mean next December against a nobody. It will probably be best to attempt getting dragged into any sort of internet conversation about WWE Vs. UFC, pro-wrestling Vs. MMA, Punk as a fighter or wrestler, etc. I imagine it'll be ugly on both sides. Good for Punk though. It sounds like something that he has wanted to do for awhile & I hope he gets his money. I'm sure Dana White will get his too, off the buzz that will undoubtedly follow this.

This is insane to me but, meh, more power to him.

The first one that came to my mind was 1-2-3 Kid beating Razor Ramon.

Shibata (35) & Ishii (38) could both be moved up. Nakamura (34) is REAL close too. They're definitely not young anymore. Okada is only 27. Naito (32) looked to be on his way before he got hurt & I think they got cold feet about it. Of course, Minoru Suzuki is 46 & he can still go, so age doesn't always mean too much anyway. A couple new, young fresh faces that started building up their résumés certainly wouldn't hurt. They can't just keep running Tanahashi Vs. Okada.

I've read a lot of people say a lot of things about C.M. Punk. "Fake" is a new one to me though.

I use my television as my computer monitor & never watch TV. Anything I want to watch, including live sports, I can watch online. There's also the added bonus of not having to sit through ad breaks or having to pay for the channels you don't want because that's the only way to get the ones in the package that you do want. Yes, I would like TNT and ESPN so I can watch NBA...no, I don't want five Jesus channels that come with it for an additional $7/mo. Cable Companies will fuck you silly. Oh the best was when I had a cable package - internet, phone & TV. I called to address an issue and her solution was to reset the modem...no wait don't do...*dial tone* You know, cause resetting the modem also shuts off my phone. Fun times. Because no one is bright enough to have reset their modem as the jump before ever calling, right? "DID'JA TRY PLUGGIN' IT IN!?" I have both Netflix & WWE Network. I'm doing good on having something to watch if I want.

If that's how they feel, then the Chamber should not be in-between Rumble & 'Mania, in my opinion.

No, because I can't really be offended, certainly not by a television program. I would however stop watching if it got to the point where I thought it sucked so bad it wasn't worth the time investment. I stopped watching ROH for a few years & gave up completely on TNA in example.

I'm not sure if I have said this before here or not: I love Brock Lesnar. I think he's an awesome special attraction. Whenever his music hits, you know shit is about to go down. Him being protected & not being subjected to over-exposure is a good thing. Much like André the Giant to me. He's Godzilla. That's not someone that 1. needs the title or 2. should have the title. Especially when he appears so seldomly. Now, granted, I don't think that the champion needs to be on every show. Brock should not be on every RAW just because he's WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Just like Hulk Hogan wasn't. However, he should certainly be on the big shows. Not being there for Survivor Series is pretty unacceptable. If Brock is treated as this monster, of this caliber (pretty much the only guy on the roster that seems to be above John Cena) -- he should be above the belt. Much like, for awhile, The Undertaker at Wrestlemania was. Now Brock is even above The Undertaker at Wrestlemania. Brock could have been WWE's Bill Goldberg: just the unstoppable juggernaut that lower card guys and main eventers alike could not topple. I think WWE made some weird decisions with him since his comeback. Including his first match back, at Extreme Rules, where he lost to John Cena. That still doesn't make any sense. Then his feud with Triple H, which was pretty bad. Him going over The Undertaker & ending the Streak also didn't make any sense as the last person that needed that rub was him. It also pretty much killed, in my opinion, any interest in seeing The Undertaker at Wrestlemania anymore. Then Brock was gone pretty much the whole time after Wrestlemania, so they could not even capitalize on his win. So they blew a 20+ year streak on a guy that didn't need it that then didn't use it. Mind-boggling. There's two things I think WWE did pretty well with Brock: 1. when he came out & killed Vince McMahon when Vince was going to fire Paul Heyman. That seemed like a big deal. That whole segment was great to me. 2. When Brock Lesnar demolished John Cena. The 16 German Suplexes match. Dismantling the top dog in that fashion is going to make you seem like an enormous deal. If Brock didn't have the title & just every other month or every third month had his music hit for him to come out & kill someone, he would still feel special & it would always be an "oh shit!" moment. Now WWE seems like they're in a no-win situation.

I have heard before in wrestling, that after a seven year period (I think it was Jim Cornette that said that time table), that everything old is new again. Go back seven years in WWE. What has really changed in that time? Not really much of anything... I miss when pro-wrestling was about two people that hated each other beating the hell out of one another. Whether is was because the babyface was jumped in the street, or was protecting his valet, or was cheated out of his title by nefarious means, whatever. I want to see the heels cheat and the faces want redemption. I have no problem with the babyface winning the blowoff match in a definitive fashion, as they should. What WWE seems to lack right now, in my opinion, is the stuff leading up to the big, final match with the babyface triumph. Outside of Brock Lesnar, the heels never really dominate. Look at the John Cena Vs. Bray Wyatt feud. At no point did it ever really feel like John Cena was in trouble. Or when John Cena was in a 2-vs-1 handicap match against The Miz & Alex Riley. Or when John Cena was against the entirety of the Nexus. Superman has to look weak so that the final scene has any meaning. That's why he has the krytopnite weakness. I guess a lot of the things in pro-wrestling that I have enjoyed all seem to be relics of the past. In the modern era, we're not really going to get blood feuds, with guys that hate each other, settling their beef in a case match until one of them can't stand anymore. Not in a publicly traded company with a TV-PG rating that probably cares more about a Mattel toyline than they do with their "flagship" show. Good versus Evil, with Good prevailing in the end but Evil making you hate them along the way so that you want to see them get their comeuppance. We don't get that anymore. Instead, we get good guys that half the crowd boos, bad guys that are more over (sometimes even sarcastically), and three PPVs in a row of rematches where none of the wins, losses or titles matter. Pro-wrestling, to me, is at its best when you not only want to see the good guy win and get his revenge, but you also want to see the bad guy lose and get what is coming to him. I just don't think that's really possible anymore. Not with the death of kayfabe.

Commentary micro-management. That's something I would have asked since I think it hurts the on-air product a lot.

This show was surreal to me. I think I've said that like a dozen times in the last hour. Vince McMahon sitting there with Steve Austin letting all the insider terms fly, calling Undertaker by his real name, saying Cesaro didn't have any charisma, saying the wrestlers of today aren't as ambitious as the ones of past eras...there was a helluva lot of stuff in that hour. I was legit shocked that CM Punk was mentioned at all. Then Vince apologized for Punk getting fired on his wedding day. Just crazy. If WWE Network had more stuff like that, I would certainly watch it more. I said this on Twitter but this last week of pro-wrestling has been crazy & surreal...and none of it involved any actual wrestling. Instead it was podcasts, social media, people replying to audio comments, etc. It's a weird time to be a wrestling fan.

Not sure of the validity of it, as I'm just guessing after all, but I would imagine he would give some line about having to be able to plan out the time of the promos down to the minute, needing to take a character/story in a certain direction or some else similar. Which, that stuff could be true but when each RAW opens with a 15-20 minute promo that basically says nothing, instead of just doing it in like 2 minutes, it would be hard to believe/take seriously. It is certainly an interesting question though. Everything about WWE feels so overly scripted & micromanaged, to me, that is a big part of why the show doesn't feel as fun as it should anymore. It all sort of feels the same. Even when it's vastly different wrestlers with different styles in different matches telling different stories...it some how still feels way too similar. Also, I think this is going to be kayfabed...we'll see though.

Just listened to the podcast. I'm curious if WWE will try to take any petty potshots at CM Punk on RAW tonight. I fully expect a skit with Triple H or Ryback picking on a whining quitter or something. As was stated earlier in the thread, nothing was really said that I think any of us didn't foresee coming. It was still pretty surreal to hear it from the horse's mouth though. Punk seems to buy into a lot of his own hype but I guess in pro-wrestling, you have to have that sort of mindset to be successful at the top level. I would think as a wrestler, wrestling The Undertaker at Wrestlemania would be a pretty big deal. Punk was aiming even higher than that. I didn't expect to hear the parts about Ryback. The medical issues are scary but sadly not overly surprising. Even in 2014 pro-wrestling seems like just a meat locker.