fakeplastictrees

Ronda getting put in a main singles program way too early reminds me of Angle in TNA. At the end of the day it really comes down to this, pull the trigger and don't pussyfoot unless you regret it. Even if Rousey/Jax is bad--WWE will make money. Merch, buyrates, potential new subs, and of course the media blitz will all make up for a bad match. In a few months WWE will 'recover' and Ronda will have better matches and it will be a blip in the Rousey legacy. The worse thing WWE can do is wait for the 'right' time and have Ronda blow out her knee or something (or even worse loos her drawing ability) until that perfect moment when everyone in the back knows she can now put on five star classics.

I am going to make a post in the next 24 hours or so that will kill this thread. Thats my assumption of course and not my intent. But yes, I have a feeling that the conversation is going to venture back into attractiveness and how we view pro wrestling through that particular lense.

I LOVE the Canadian Rules Hardcore match. I watched it sometime this year and it still holds up (in my view anyways). Heels being heels and ensuring the hometown guy wins because of obscure pro wrestling rules. Much like the Duchess of Queensbury match in WWE. I love it! You better not add this to the show Steven!!

I waited in the room for about 30 minutes or so. Once purchasing became 'available', all prices ranges were unavailable. I didn't think I would need to coordinate with anyone for this which is why I didn't tell anyone to get me a ticket and Venmo in return (regardless of the ticket price). Show is in Sept. I will check back in August to see if prices have gone down (dealing with Stubhub in the past, I know this to be true). As of right now, I am tentatively still #ALLIN. On another note, I am glad that people are actually taking the right cues from WWE. WrestleMania doesn't sellout every year because of the card or who is in the main event. It sales out every year because of WWE's call to action and appeal to the human condition of wanting to see magic, moments, and pageantry. The Bucks & Cody didn't go into this as marks and thing just announcing X vs. Y would do the trick. They sold a movement and a moment. WWE is all about history and 'making history', its good to see that Cody and company are smart enough to take notes and realize that its not the 80's anymore.

Saline or Silicone? Does anyone know if WWE has an internal ban on either one? I would assume Silicone would be the one frowned upon. Ultimately, there are no ABC regulations so this would be WWE's call going forward.

I believe this comes down to innocence. Elizabeth, I would say for my generation, wasn't sexualized as much as the ladies during the Attitude Era. Because of this, she will always be classy and sophisticated in my mind. A night with Miss Elizabeth circa 1988 would involve fancy cheese, good wine, coffee house jazz, and a whole lot of dancing.

Roderick/Danielson chopfest starts around 4 hours and 22 minutes into the show. 4:22:10 to be exact. Mahal being a fool happens around the 1 hour and 11 minutes into the show. 1:11:59 give or take.

It doesn't appear, from reports, that the arena is setup for 10,000K. Very close to it, but not exactly or over 10K. This makes me wonder if pro wrestling match will be at play and the amount of people in the building (vendors, ticket takers, etc.) will be counted in the overall attendance.

First episode was pretty good. Bischoff didn't sound like he was working. Hopefully as time goes on he will feel less and less pressure to defend his legacy.

I posted something a few months ago stating that Billy Kidman was a heart throb back-in-the-day, he responded and downplayed the whole thing. Only a true playa would do that. But yes, I agree, I knew women (girls at the time of course) who would NOT shut up about him.

I think we have figured out the bell curve of attractiveness in professional wrestling! I would love to see Brandon or Chris create a chart with various points representing Bobby, Ricky, Michaels, Billie Kay, Orton, etc. I will gladly become a 1 million dollar a month patreon subscriber at that point.

I think Billie is beautiful. She leans more toward my 'type' than Peyton, but no amount of cuteness will prevent me from calling a spade a spade. I love Kim Kardashian and yet I don't follow any of her social media accounts and I have probably seen 5 episode of KUWTK. I think her personality is annoying and I can only deal with so much badly written superficial fake drama every week (after all Raw is 3 hours long). I realize I am in the minority here (not on this board per say but pro wrestling fans in general). People are usually more forgiving on those who are soft on the eyes. I am not going to pretend that the duo is over just because of their looks, but I think it plays a large part when you factor in the mediocre matches and subpar paint-by-numbers promos. I honestly feel that, while guys find them attractive, women like Becky, Sasha, Asuka, Bliss, Ember, Charlotte, etc. are over due to the matches, character work (when it happens), etc.. Looking good is just the cherry on the sundae. The IIconics are very paper thin to me as all around workers and right now I am firmly tucked in bed at Camp "I Don't Get It!".

FWIW, I'm #ALLIN.

Thank goodness somebody else finally sees what I was seeing. I totally don't get the praise for those two. Poorly acted and unnatural is a perfect description of the vibe I've gotten from those two since their debut in NXT. To me (and this is just my opinion) they've always come across like they're pretending to be Professional Wrestlers - just goofy and fake, and not genuine at all. I was really surprised they got called up as soon as they did, since I thought they probably needed another good 9 months to a year of promo training in NXT. Whenever they came on screen in NXT I always had the overwhelming urge to not watch them. If you look at the difference between them and somebody like Alexa Bliss it's like night and day. It's times like this that the loss of Dusty Rhodes and his promo classes in NXT are probably most evident. I don't think you can teach charisma, you either have it or you don't. But you can teach convincing promo delivery, and those two just don't have it yet, in my opinion. THIS. I've mentioned this a number of times on Twitter and other places. TK provided a really good summary. I honestly don't see the appeal of The IIconics unless the appeal is some un-ironic meta deconstruction of the post 2011 'inside baseball' heel archetype. The women are walking SNL sketch parodies of GLOW. It just doesn't work for me.

I feel like Bobby is at the beginning stages of his Batista-like 'spotlight' run. He has all the tools and has proven himself on the mic and in the ring in the past few years. If WWE goes all in on Lashley, WWE will have something really special at the top of the card. Everything that Brock Lesnar isn't. Does anyone know if Lashley/NJPW ever had any conversations? A 2018 Lashley run in NJPW would have been pretty awesome.

Did you purchase "Be A Man"? When it first came out, I remember reading that it only sold 500 copies. Are you one of those 500?Full disclosure, I may unknowingly have some WWE level revisionist history at play here. WWF Full Metal was my first wrestling related album purchase. During the late 90's boom anything related to wrestling was picked up. So all of the WWF released and even a knock off cd that I thought was a licensed combination of WCW, ECW, and WWF -- it was a long and disappointing lunch that afternoon. I have physical albums in my collections, but none of them pro wrestling related. I usually satisfy my pro wrestling sonic fix using Spotify. I find the majority of the new WWE songs to sound too much like ringtones, so I mainly lean old school.

I believe people continue to downplay the impact Russo still plays in WWE storytelling despite being out of the company for nearly 20 years. When "making history" becomes the narrative, everything else is secondary. Nothing else matter except for that moment. This hurts the product from top-to-bottom. It doesn't matter whether or not John Cena's last 2-3 title reigns should have happened--its all about "making history" and surpassing Flair. Raw 25 having truly memorable moments doesn't really matter, because the event itself is the moment worth remembering and its "making history" by just even occurring. Mandy Rose doesn't want to win the Royal Rumble, she is just happy to be part of something historic. What does this all produce? Wrestlers that are just happy to be there. Shows that are important because they are important. Title reigns occurring only to "make history" (i.e. Nikki Bella's long steak of doing nothing until she hit the milestone) and not advance story and/or character(s) in any real meaningful way. WWE has killed the curative fan as there is nothing to curate. This thus leaves most fans to be transformative fans and fill in the blanks. WWE's focus on 'making history' and nothing else has lead to political hit theories and such that are at worse fully believed and at best hard to shoot down due to WWE catering to the future historians and not the modern day critics. The sad, and interesting, thing is the intersectionality is being ignored while at the same time artificially addressed.

Impact loves looking low rent. Not sure why. I honestly don't get the WWE obsession. It doesn't matter who is in charge--they all just want WWE to acknowledge its existence. Impact continues to act like a woman with super model good looks and very low self esteem.

What if Reigns was never suppose to be the follow up to Thriller? What if Reigns is just suppose to be some filler/transitional star until WWE finds a Daniel Bryan (who doesn't have the same medical history) to follow Cena? Everything until then is just a show to keep the hardcores satisfied and the fair weather fans someone content (if not fully engaged). Roman Reigns is the "Music & Me" follow up to "Thriller" and its not working. WWE is still waiting for "Bad" and doesn't want to convey that.

Aren't the vacant Raw Tag Team Titles being decided in Saudi Arabia? Yeah and if that somehow fills the mandate...this thread will be revisited with even more questions if Roman were to lose. I really don't want to think about it right now.

What if Roman loses in Saudi Arabia? I haven't seen that possibility discussed. Sure, there is the rumor that there needs to be a title change at the event, but that can be any title. I almost wouldn't put it past WWE to ensure 2-3 titles changes hands and that Lesnar holds on to the strap because of 'reasons'.

I don't mind Ember's look. Its the mannerisms that really get me. It all comes off as cosplay and is far from organic. I feel like I am watching a really bad episode of My Babysitter's a Vampire. The Undertaker, even at his early 90's hokiness, came off as a guy who might have honestly believes he was dead/undead. It worked and got over so huge because despite the cartoony aspect of it all, it all somehow came off legit. It didn't appear Undertaker was actively thinking how he should portray himself or being too conscious in his movements. Undertaker's inspirations might have been worn on his sleeve in some respects, but its more of a generic and entirely fleshed out concept vs. Ember's extremely specific tapestry of inspirations. The over-the-top facial expressions is usually saved for 10 dollar Haunted Horrors where for one-night-only a typical soccer mom because a blood sucking vampire. Now of course baking snickerdoodle and wiping the smudge of her five year old son's face will not prepare her to be a Vampire. So what does she do? She binges season 1 of Darks Shadows and works on her best Bela Lugosi impression while he kids are asleep. The end result if a get-what-you-pay-for 10 dollar haunted house experience that is less scary and more in the vein of typical Middle-American main stream horror that is based more on half baked tropes than actual feeling. Its about tapping into the psychology. But what is the psychology of a vampire goddess warrior? I don't know and neither does Ember. Less is more. Less is always more in my book. When Ember sticks out her tongue and bugs out her eyes I think she is, at the moment, thinking about what a generic demon in The Originals would do. Not a main character, but some random demon encountered on the side of the road. Ember is using side characters as main inspiration for her forward mannerisms. There is no rhyme or reason. Its just being done because 'that's what they do'. Much like Finn Balor's "Demon", as noted earlier, its presentation and nothing more. I can understand if someone wants to use Port Charles as a launch pad to a gimmick, but at some point in time that person will need to actually leave the pad. Hopefully a move to the main roster will shoot her into the stars because she does have the in-ring talent and by all accounts she seems like a nice person.

I do more reading than posting. As mentioned earlier in the thread, don't read too far into it. Very few people here practice actively blocking posters, etc. Alternatively, take it as a compliment. You are giving people something to chew on that doesn't have an easy retort.

I am not sure even Alex Jones can explain what's going on with Roman. Roman Reigns as WWE's Harold Crick will make for a frustratingly wonderful angle in the most Russoific way.

Where did you cancel the membership on the site? I can't find that option anywhere and I'd damn sure like to use it. I had to send an email to [email protected] and that took care of it. As far as Marty is considered, the guy is the Alberto Del Rio of indie wrestling as far as I am concerned. Marty is theme music and entrance presentation. Nothing more. Nothing less. If he losses those two things, he will be right in the boat of "Why Is This a Thing?" Flip Gordon. I can't think of one Scrull match that pulled me in.