TheDuke

I stopped watching completely for like 11 years when the Invasion angle ended with WCW losing and completely being written out of storylines, although them "merging" with ECW to become the "Alliance" I had already thought was really stupid. I did still kind of follow it up to Mania to see the NWO, but Hogan turning back to the yellow and red was were I completely stopped, a I knew it wasnt getting any better.

I actually enjoyed the War Machine/Young Bucks match. I thought it was clever having one of the Bucks injure himself flying out of the ring, getting some sympathy, and then brining in AJ for some excitement. Then at the end of the match showing he faked the whole injury to get an unfair advantage seemed so heelish to me in a really fun way that I hadn't seen before. I wonder now if this is an old heel trick that has been used in the past.

I just went and read through this whole topic from top to bottom tonight, and I must say I really loved reading it. I know with the GWE, 1983 fantasy booking project, and like 3 podcasts there is a lot on your plate, but I am hoping you can come back and do another review here soon.

Since this thread has become a little dead, and even though I'm in my 30's, I haven't seen a lot of wrestling outside of 90's WWF either, I thought it would be fun for me to also post some of my thoughts about some of these matches. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time, so I started with the most fun looking match to me: Freebirds vs Von Erichs July 4, 1983 I really had a lot of fun watching this match. I liked the Freebird's entrance to that Georgia song. I thought it was weird at first, then I realized "Oh wait they are in Texas." so I assume there is some kind of unspoken rivalry or issue between Texas and the south east. Man the crowd was really into the Von Erich boys. The crowd added a ton to the excitement of this match. A lot of great action. I wonder if they could do these best 2 out of 3 falls matches today, as nobody would buy that the match could end during the second fall since it never does. Also, I wonder how often this 6 man tag belt needed to be defended outside of a big feud like this. I doubt there were a lot of other official trios in the WCCW. I really liked the angle after the second fall and the promo by the ref. It was really cool that they had to bring in a second ref, and then both were in the ring. I would have expected a typical WWF-style "special enforcer outside the ring" deal, i've never seen the 2 ref deal before. Anyway, it made the third fall seem more important and more excited. Also, it led me to expect some heel trickery with the 2nd ref leading to the Von Erich's not winning, so I thought the finish was very surprising in a good way. Very fun good match.

Where I live RAW ends after midnight, so there were lots of times when I would fall asleep during the main event and wake up seeing it was over.

I'm new here, so I am not sure if this is the right format for this, but I just watched a Buddy Rose match and thought I would share my thoughts: March 4 1978 Buddy Rose vs Jimmy Snuka I really enjoyed this match. Buddy is great jawing with the crowd and stalling, and running out of the ring walking back toward the dressing room refusing to wrestle. It's so awesome seeing old people in the crowd in these matches. It makes wrestling look less nerdy I think. I hope I am going to shows when I'm old. I liked seeing Snuka hit his armdrags on Buddy's left arm, and the announce calling attention to that fact and bringing up Buddy being left handed. It gave the match a story which I liked. I liked Snuka's leapfrog over Buddy. I liked the time limit draw finish, and Buddy's partner coming to the ring along with Jesse Ventura to stand up for Snuka. If i was a fan in 78 it would make me want to see the house show. Definitely a good match.

Barrett vs R-Truth They didn't show this in the movie theater I was in, so I decided to watch it on YouTube. I like how R-Truth comes to the ring singing to the live audience. It must be great for the fans in attendance. I like his funny cape he is wearing too. It is really stupid to have commercials on a YouTube free pre-show interrupting matches. It's funny Cole talks about R-Truth having taken a tremendous amount of punishment, but it's only been a few minutes and I feel R-Truth has barely taken any punishment. I liked R-Truth's scissors kick. Not really a good match, just ok.

I just finished listening to this. I thought it was a great podcast. I really don't know a lot about Buddy Landell, but am now much more interested in watching him. I also watched that promo you mentioned he did on Shawn Michaels in SMW and did think it was a really great promo.

I am posting this before reading the thread to say what I liked and didn't like about the show. As mentioned, I was watching it on the big screen in a movie theatre with a bunch of other wrestling fans, so I suppose in that respect it is almost like going to a live show, in that the fun and excitement of the moment makes the wrestling seem much better. I should say there wasn't many people in the theatre, so perhaps that shows WWE is doing something wrong, as I am sure the theatre would have made more money by having a regular move on that screen in that slot instead of a wrestling PPV. I should also mentioned the people who were there with me seemed to be die hard Cena fans, as they applauded or cheered at the end of the Cena match and some were wearing Cena merchandise. Orton vs Sheamus surprised me. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. I know I have read before that Sheamus was not that bad a wrestler, but never believed it until now. The announcers didn't talk about it as they were too busy making inane comments to discuss the match, but I assume Sheamus' Cloverleaf submission actually twists or puts pressure on the lower back as that is where Sheamus seemed to be attacking Orton earlier in the match. I didn't like the finish, I thought if Orton was going to win a better place would have been earlier when he did that DDT move through the ropes into the ring. I don't really like the RKO out of nowhere. I can understand they want to show that a finisher can come at any time and can get a pinfall, but it felt like it wasn't connected to the rest of the match. So the majority of the match was good, but for me, the finish brought it down to just OK territory. Prime Time Players vs New Day was a lot of fun, like I expected. I did not expect PTP to win, but am happy for them. O'Neil was amazing when he came in for the hot tag, he just kind of dominated the ring with a lot of energy. I am surprised during his singles run that WWE really did not do much with him, he seems like somebody the fans could get behind. I also really enjoyed Xavier Woods at ringside shouting out things during the match. He was much more interesting to listen to than the commentary. I thought the New Day promo before the match began was well done. I was only in a movie theatre and felt like like standing up and screaming for them to shut up, so I feel they know how to get the hate. I think this match may have been my favourite match of the night, nothing exceptional but a good match. Wyatt vs Reigns was not very interesting. I felt a little bored during it, and had trouble paying attention to what was going on. I like Wyatt as a character as he is so different from the other heels on the show right now, but as a wrestler he is not very exciting. This reminded me of Attitude era wrestling, a bunch of punches and stomps, and throwing the guy into the corner and brawling on the outside. It doesn't make a lot of sense as these guys are throwing these punches at each other and it doesn't seem to be really hurting each other. Then partway through Wyatt puts Reigns in a chin-lock or something, and I think "oh now must be time for the wrestling part of this match." Also, the ending wasn't very good, in light of the main event, they shouldn't have also had a run in here. And I am not really sure why Harper is now with Wyatt again, although I guess they will explain that on RAW. I do like Wyatt's senton and his clothesline though. Again, not a good match, kind of boring. Banks vs Charlotte vs Brie was a lot better than I was expecting, and went longer as well. This is probably my number 2 match of the night. I don't have a lot to say, it wasn't super amazing, but I enjoyed watching these women run around the ring putting these moves and stuff on each other. Probably a lot of the enjoyment is because usually the women's matches are bathroom and snack breaks for me, and this was interesting enough to get me to keep watching. Banks seems like a really good heel, and Charlotte seems good at getting the crowd behind her. Cena vs Owens started off not that great. It just seemed like a sting of moves without much of a story behind it, I have seen Owens work in ROH before and he seemed a lot better there than he does here. However, once they go into the section with all the near falls I really enjoyed it. I liked Cena's code red or whatever you call it move. I wish a move like that would have been used more towards the end of the match. I laughed out loud when Owens used the STF on Cena, I really enjoyed that little moment in the match. It was funny that we saw these guys use all these finishers against each other, but I was really thinking towards the end that it would be great if the match ended with a pinfall after like a simple clothesline or lariat. I think it would be a believable end to a story like that, but I'm no wrestler so what do I know. The finish was OK with the STF, so overall I thought this match was good. The Miz I though did an alright promo, but I think it should have been used to setup a match more than being used to setup the Big Show punching him. That was not a very good use of PPV time. Lesnar vs Rollins I also really enjoyed. I do realize that with all the suplexes, Rollins should not have been able to put up much of a fight. I loved seeing Rollins start kicking at Lesnar's legs to try to get him off his feet, it shows that he did kind of have some type of strategy to win the match. Also, his costume makes it looks like he has some type of foot or leg guards in the front of his boots, so I assume that could be put to use in hurting Lesnar in a heelish way. Also, I loved with Rollins rolled out of the ring, went and grabbed his belt, and tried to just run off through the crowd. I really appreciate the characters in wrestling, and that just so beautifully fit Rollins character. As for the Undertaker, yeah I marked out when he showed up. I thought it made a lot of sense that Rollins would have something up his sleeve to get out of losing the match, and I thought it really made sense from a storyline perspective for Undertaker to want to get revenge on Lesnar. It is continuing the storyline from a year ago when Lesnar ended the streak plus maybe he is also getting revenge for Lesnar attacking Undertaker's brother Kane with the steel ring steps. Lesnar is often shown being an uncontrollable animal, so it is good to show there are sometimes consequences to his actions from a storyline perspective. And now I am thinking about an Undertaker Lesnar rematch; would Lesnar manhandle Taker again, or has Taker better prepared himself to stand up to Lesnar before taking his final ride into the sunset. You have to understand I have been watching Undertaker since I was like 9 years old and he won his first title feuding with Hulk Hogan. He was a big part of my childhood wrestling fandom, and so just seeing him again like that when I wasn't expecting to just makes the young fan in me cheer. I don't think Undertaker is a heel now, I just think Lesnar is more of a tweener right now than a true face. I do understand it sucks that they never announced the finish of the match, I am assuming Lesnar won via disqualification. Anyway, I though this was also a good match and really enjoyed it.

I just finished watching it. I hope to post more later, but I really enjoyed myself. The end was a pleasant surprise for me.

I'm sitting in the movie theater waiting for the show to start. I don't know if you have this in the USA but we can watch some PPV's in the theater in Canada. I am most excited for Cena vs Owens, but Lesnar vs Rollins is exciting me as well. New Day should be fun.

Hi. You can call me Duke. I'm 33 years old, and from the maritime provinces of Canada. I grew up watching WWF. My father was in the military, and one of my favourite memories is from when I was 12 years old and him taking me to some kind of Officer's club to watch Wrestlemania X on a big screen TV, and them him having to take me home halfway through because I had school the next day. I never watched WCW until halfway through the Monday night wars, and never saw ECW until it was on TNN. I stopped watching wrestling after the Hogan vs Rock Wrestlemania up until a couple years ago when I saw Wrestlemania 29 as I was curious to see The Rock wrestle again. I watched wrestling off and on since then, and sometime in 2013 was looking around online for a place to read about wrestling, and found this place. I have been lurking for a couple years and thought it was time I signed up so I could show my support more for this great forum I have enjoyed reading so much. I don't know how much I will have time to post as I have a wife and new baby that keeps me very busy, and I am the only one working currently at a call centre so money is kind of tight, but I am hoping to contribute to the discussion in some way. I plan to see Battleground tonight so hopefully I can start from there. I really enjoy reading this forum as there is such a focus on having a true discussion and not just flaming each other or posting unfunny internet memes, and there is a lot of thought put into the match reviews that it seems better than the majority of the internet message boards I have seen, including non-wrestling boards. I'll try to add to the intellectual discussion rather than posting internet stupidity, but I know I am not as much an expert as most of you on here, so please forgive me if I speak in ignorance. I find in the past I have been much more a fan of angles, promos, and characters over workrate or matches as I have been raised on WWF, but I have enjoyed a lot of the 80's territory stuff I have, which I now realize did often have amazing angles, promos, and characters anyway. Anyway, I'm glad to contribute to the conversation, even just a minor bit.