Coffey

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?

That tag match was awesome.

Underrated comment tbh. I like Velveteen Dream but he has to stop doing the cosplay stuff. It's going to hurt him come main roster time. When you gotta sink or swim, you need to be able to stand on your own, as your own unique individual. He already comes off as a dude just trying to be Rick Rude and Randy Savage. I like Ciampa, Black & Gargano each individually but I too am ready for their feud to be over. I think all three could be on the main roster already truthfully. I think Black will be a star. I think Shayna will too. Here's the full card for reference by the way: NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa vs. Aleister Black NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler vs. Bianca Belair NXT North American Champion Ricochet vs. Johnny Gargano NXT Tag Team Champions The Undisputed ERA vs. The War Raiders Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno

I don't know who is going to win the Royal Rumble but right now my speculation is either Seth Rollins or Drew McIntyre. Maybe an outside chance for Bobby Lashley? I would love to see Elias win it but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense heading into Wrestlemania.

The beginning of each show, they try so damn hard to get as many puns in for whatever the subject is, that it's downright mind-blowing.

He also doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's quoting the movie verbatim.