Coffey

Ronda is def not a good promo.

THE BIG DAWG

I wanted to make a thread about The Big Show, as he's coming to the end of his wrestling career & I feel like he's vastly underrated. Maybe not the best worker or talker there's ever been, but I think he's done really well for himself in wrestling, both in WWE & WCW, as a big man worker. There's not a lot of "giants" left in wrestling nowadays, certain that work as a big - with David Vs. Goliath feuds & the big man falling down spot & whatnot. When I was growing up, there were quite a few of those guys, like Akeem/One Man Gang, Kamala, Big Boss Man, André the Giant, etc. but they're few and far between anymore. Granted his run with Hogan & The Dungeon of Doom wasn't any good & produced some bad television like the monster truck sumo, Yeti, etc. but he's had plenty of memorable moments too. Him going up in Lex Luger's Torture Rack & Goldberg getting him up in The Jackhammer both come to mind. Kevin Nash Powerbombing him on his neck & getting the Jackknife banned. Also him taking multiple F-5's from Brock Lesnar over the years. He's great for the feat of strength spots. I also really enjoyed when he was the 1-man army against the nWo for awhile. There were some other non-nWo guys that would fight them off, like Luger, DDP & of course Sting, but there for awhile The Giant coming out was always a "holy shit!" moment. Has anyone ever turned heel/face more times than The Big Show in wrestling history? He's also done a lot of comedy over the years, which was hit-or-miss, but some it was (to me) quite funny. Like when The Big Boss Man was surfing him on the casket. He had the run where he was doing impersonations for awhile too: Showkishi, The Showster & all that stuff. I think his tag team run with Chris Jericho was pretty good. His tag team with The Miz was pretty good. I liked most of his WWE ECW run. His feud with Brock was decent, especially when Paul Heyman was on The Big Show's side. I remember liking his chairs match with Mark Henry. I liked when he changed his finish from The Chokeslam to the WMD punch because he never did The Chokeslam the same was as he used to do it in WCW when he would go down with them & spike them. Probably the highlight of his career though was his Wrestlemania feud with Floyd Mayweather. That moment on RAW when Floyd broke his nose was money. I'm up for some re-watching to get some more recent perspective on his career so I was curious what everyone thought his best matches were?

His best match, that I can recall, was against The Undertaker in a Ladder match on a RAW. Which was damn near a complete carry job by 'Taker, with Hardy dying a thousand deaths but continuing to keep getting up. Jim Ross going nuts on commentary & a lot of hardcore props as well. I just don't think Jeff Hardy is a very good worker. Which is fine because not everyone needs to be a great worker. Jeff had his role & was good at what he did/does... which is climb things & die. His body is broken from all he's done to entertain. He's like WWE's Sabu. Jeff Hardy is the kind of guy that thrives off of animated gifs going viral because he can have spectacular car crash moments. He just can't make me care about anything in-between when he's climbing shit & falling off. It's nice to see some people agreeing with me about the Women's Chamber a few days later now though. I thought I was taking crazy pills or something for a bit there. That match didn't do it for me at all. There were a lot of business exposing moments.

Prophet Coffey! I'm an ass man (♫DUNT DUNT! ♫) & I'm not a fan of cosmetic enhancement surgeries. I think Bayley has an incredible body. She has a ton of curves. Still think she has the best female body in WWE though. When she was doing those sit down interviews in that brown dress in NXT? Son... I actually kind of wish they would get away from the whole hugger kid character thing they have Bayley doing. I think she could do a lot more. Like give her character a reason to dress up. Have we seen her in non-gear on RAW at all? Probably but I don't remember it. Charly Caruso, although not a worker, is fucking stunning. She is drop dead beautiful. I think Liv Morgan is cute but I would prefer if she were a valet instead of a wrestler. I can't buy her matches at all. She's like 90 lbs. No denying she's pretty though. Same with Alexa. Sonya is also pretty. Mostly though WWE goes crazy with all of the make-up & stuff for on camera. It's really noticeable in HD. Especially fake tan. The dudes are especially guilty of that one big time.

Interesting. This is easily the worst women's match I can recall in recent WWE history. But whatever, do you. This shit sucks.

It's fucking terrible. It's horribly sloppy.

Woof.

I'm pulling for Nia Jax and Tamina Snuka.

Well, looks like women are going on first, not last.

I read that that match is going to go on last! Which, if true, is going to be a disaster. I'm looking forward to the Daniel Bryan Chamber though. That's about it. Pretty throwaway show.

All I can think of is Shawn Michaels, or someone like him (as I know he's been working down in NXT lately) saying to Vince: "he'd be better off trying to be his own guy, instead of trying to be someone else." Same shit he said to Tyler Breeze.

On the main roster he's going to come off as a dude cosplaying as Randy Savage/Rick Rude & it won't work. I guarantee it. If he's more Prince and less old school wrestlers, he'll be fine.

This is how I feel about Velveteen Dream.

Modern WWE, if you just watch a few of the Big PPVs a year, is easily digestible. When you try to follow the TV though, it's impossible. I never watch RAW or Smackdown anymore, not even the condensed Hulu version. There's no need to. When you watch a PPV, they'll run down everything that happened on TV before the match anyway. WWE have a fucking replay fetish. If you took the three hour RAW & removed the replays & commercials from it, it would be like an hour & fifteen minutes long. Not to mention feuds never die, so if you see a PPV one month & then skip a couple of monthly shows, when you turn it on again, odds are that match will still be on the card you return to. I watch the NXT TakeOver shows. I watched Royal Rumble. I'll probably watch Elimination Chamber on Sunday & I know I'll watch Wrestlemania but the days of me watching all of the shows are gone. Even a lot of the PPVs I skip. New Japan Wrestle Kingdom was super good. And I plan on following AEW. Hell, I'm only about a third of the way through the third season of Lucha Underground. At this point I don't know if I'll ever get back to it. I get my wrestling fix nowadays from the WWE Network & watching old stuff. I've been working my way through 1992 WWF SuperStars right now. Before that, I was watching WCW Saturday Night. After SuperStars, I might switch over to WCW Thunder. Even if I've seen it all before, it's been so long that I don't remember most of it. Even with most of the matches being jobber squashes, it's just so much more interesting & compelling to me. It feels fresh. The characters feel larger-than-life. The wrestlers themselves don't just seem like normal people off of the street. Finishers actually finish matches! It's crazy. No one in modern WWE feels like a star. Back in the early 90s, most of them felt like stars. It's not just rose-colored glasses or nostalgia, either. They were just presented better. Of course, not all of them are good. Virgil is trash. I'm not convinced Nailz was ever even trained. Shit like that. But at least their matches don't go 15 minutes with a commercial break & give their opponent 50% of the match, like they do on RAW. I only really have one buddy anymore to watch wrestling with & he's pretty busy so I only see him about once every two weeks. When we comes over, we watch wrestling together & just sit around & joke about old shows & shit. That's still fun to me, at thirty-seven years old. My girlfriend isn't really a wrestling fan but sometimes she'll watch with me just to humor me, but she loses interest pretty quickly. She was a big fan of Asuka when she was still down in NXT but she never really watches the main show stuff. I'll never "outgrow" professional wrestling. It's been a big part of my life for thirty years. Outside of video games & pizza, it's one of the only constants that remains in my life. I myself however, have quite a bit of free time. So when I have an itch that only wrestling can scratch, I live tweet random shows because it helps me enjoy them more. Taking & posting screenshots & talking about the random angles & stuff of the time. It makes it feel... I don't know, not as lonely? Because I would go crazy if I were just sitting & watching wrestling alone just to pass time. At that point, I would rather just Netflix a new show or something. Modern WWE, like you acknowledged, just doesn't have the draw. Like I hinted at, they don't really have any stars. When someone does start to organically get over, WWE usually tends to ignore their audience. Now they're doing troll booking & using social media to try to get heat & it just all feels so silly. Yeah, they have some guys that can go out there & do a bunch of spots until the crowd chants "this is awesome" but do they have anyone that captivates the audience to where they want to buy a ticket or a t-shirt because of that person? Do they have anyone that they want to watch win or watch lose? No. It's just a bunch of interchangeable, faceless people. The crowd pops for the first few notes of their theme song because "Oh, I know this one!" and then the match starts & the crowd dies until the finish when they can pop for the next entrance theme.

I wonder if the swerve pre-Wrestlemania will be getting Charlotte back OUT of the match & not making it a three-way match.

Feels like a really bad decision to me. Is February usually a down time for them, after the Wrestle Kingdom shows? I just don't think Jay White is very good at all, so it feels really peculiar to me.

Even going back way before Austin was hitting the Stunner, what about when Sherri would take an Atomic Drop from someone like Hogan? Used to pop my mom huge. Also the crowd went totally banana when Jake the Snake hit the DDT on Dark Journey. Although that can be played off as Jake was blinded so he didn't know it was her.

Man, there is a night & day difference between wrestlers when it comes to squash matches. Razor Ramon & Bret Hart are great at it. Kamala & Repo Man are not. Tatanka & Berserker have also been quite entertaining. I'm waiting on Yoko to show up now.

Not as bad as non-ironically using "toxic pro wrestling masculinity trope" with a straight face. This thread is wild.

I love Rusev. He's pretty much been my favorite guy in WWE for a couple of years now. Back to when we were still doing those Fav Five in that thread (that I can't find anymore, loved that thread). Maybe Lana is drama backstage & that hinders him? Who knows. He's a great performer & no matter what shit they saddle him with, he seems to always get over. I was just tweeting about him yesterday, actually. Also realized I was sad because I can never see Rusev Vs. Umaga. That match would have banged.

He comes off like he's a 15-year-old trying to impress classmates. It's really pathetic. "My dad works for Nintendo!"

Yeah, Bret Hart was bitching about this over twenty years ago. Wrestling is supposed to be a work & chops hurt. He didn't like to take chops, especially on house shows. Even Flair said Bret was probably right, but it was all he had.

Asuka doing the... Chicken Mutilation? for a finish was pretty fucking sweet & got me to pop. Never seen the bridge off of a crossface chickenwing before. Fuckin' owned.

No doubt. I said as much on Twitter. I love smash mouth wrestling. I hate wrestling when it looks like over-choreographed gymnastics. Just feels too fake. I mean, I know Ricochet & Gargano aren't going to work like Harley & Terry Funk but there's a line, ya know?