goodhelmet

After looking at past WrestleMania cards ad nauseum for the last few days, tossing Bryan down the pile is actually the norm for Vince and wrestlers. Take into consideration these Mania headliners and the slot on their card the next year... Hulk Hogan & Mr. T vs. Paul Orndorff & Roddy Piper (WrestleMania) - WrestleMania 2 - Orndorff is curtain jerking with Muraco in a horrible match with a bad finish Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy (Wrestlemania 2) - WrestleMania 3 - Hillbilly Jim, Little Beaver, & Haiti Kid vs. King Kong Bundy, Lord Littlebrook, & Little Tokyo - Bundy in a comedy midcard match Randy Savage vs. Ted DIbiase (WrestleMania 4) - WrestleMania 5 - Ted Dibiase vs. Brutus Beefcake in third from the bottom Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage (WrestleMania 5) - WrestleMania 6 - Randy Savage & Sherri Martel vs. Dusty Rhodes & Sapphire - This feels midcard but it was heavily pushed at the time. Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt Slaughter (WrestleMania 7) - WrestleMania 8 - Big Boss Man, Virgil, Sgt Slaughter, & Jim Duggan vs.The Nasty Boys, Repoman, & The Mountie Bret Hart vs.Yokozuna (WrestleMania 10) WrestleMania 11 - Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund - How was this built up leading up to Mania? I don't really know the week to week booking. It just feels beneath Bret for a Mania WrestleMania 11 - Owen Hart & Yokozuna vs. The Smoking Gunns - Former world champ going for the tag titles Triple H vs. The Rock vs. Mick Foley vs. The Big Show (WrestleMania 2000) - WrestleMania 17 - The Big Show vs. Raven vs. Kane (Hardcore Title) - Big drop for Big Show. Triple H vs. Chris Jericho (WrestleMania 18) WrestleMania 19 - Chris Jericho vs. HBK feels like a big deal but not for one of the world titles or one of the matches the show was featuring as a main event Chris Benoit vs.Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels (WrestleMania 20) WrestleMania 21 - Chris Benoit in the Money in the Bank feels eerily like Bryan in in this ladder match except for a lower title and no shot at the world title. Triple H vs. Randy Orton (WrestleMania 25) WrestleMania 26 - Randy Orton vs. Ted Dibiase vs. Cody Rhodes - This doesn't feel special WrestleMania 26 - HHH vs. Sheamus - What are the takes on HHH working Sheamus? Too big of a drop down the card? Should have been a bigger deal? The Miz vs. John Cena (WrestleMania 27) Team Johnny vs. Team Teddy Long - This feels like quite a drop There are other examples when considering the secondary world title holders and challengers that were not Mania main events and their positions the next year. You can even look at co-main events and opening slots in meaningless matches that happens quite often.

Rollins beats Orton

Rusev is amazing... http://www.wwe.com/videos/preparing-for-war-rusevs-wrestlemania-workout-27209451

Am I just old or are those not really celebrities? I saw Chris Hero in there.

I think Meltzer said it was 15,000 for an appearance (autograph signings, meet & greets) and 20,000 for a match.

Top 50 for sure

This isn't quite the complete story. It is just that the things Bryan values were different than the things he was being asked about. He clarified this by saying that the test asked things like "Would you like to be a multi -millionaire?" Or "Do you want to own a rolls Royse someday?" According to those parameters, he wasn't very driven but that it had nothing do with drive or ambition to be the best performer on the roster.

Would it be easier to say "it was a good match that happened to take place in a WWF ring"? That's the way I look at it. I don't care what the promotion is but I do care about the style of wrestling. The promotion is just the conduit to release wrestling to the masses.

I have been in lines where signs being confiscated held up the flow of the line. I can't tell you what signs were being confiscated though. The worst line hold-up was at the 2013 TLC PPV where two guys were painted up as Crow Sting and Goldust. They were going to let the Goldust guy in but refused to let Sting guy in until he wiped off his makeup. It was completely absurd.

I'll bet WCW never even did that with their popular undercard wrestlers in the late 90s. After 30 years as a fan I'm really starting to despise this company. Seriously, fuck them Agreed. It confirms the worst fears we had of them actively trying to hurt somebody's drawing power. It's one thing not to give a guy a push. It is another to actively squash the one genuine thing this company had going for it.

No way. I just didn't like the comparison. Flair will e in my top 10. Bock will miss my Top Ten.

You probably haven't reached that point but Bock vs. Lawler is one of the all time great 80s feuds. Bock didn't need to work the angle like Flair because he comes in with his own kick ass Lawler angle.

I guess it depends on your socio-economic class. I grew up in the 80s and those videotapes looked cool but there was no way in hell my parents could afford them with too many mouths to feed. If I was lucky, some random kid on the bus may have had one or two that we could watch after school.

Well now, they need to dress the Authority members up in Sting masks and take out the entire roster to show that nobody else matters and that you shouldn't bother getting behind anyone. Oh wait....

In 1998, Wrestlemania 14 was exactly what you would have wanted in a show. It doesn't stand up now but at the time, it was fun and quick and exciting. No classics and a Rock promo wouldn't put it in my Top Ten. Wrestlemania 28 has its flaws but we revisited the show last year on the P2B and Jericho-Punk and Rock-Cena held up well. Cena-Rock I was not a video game match. They had the focused back work, a hot crowd and a memorable finish. The match the next year was horrible but 28 stood up on rewatch. HHH-Taker, live felt better than HHH-Taker I but I get the criticisms wit hthe melodrama when watching it on tape. Kane-Ortn feels better o ntape but in the stadium, people were dead and still pissed at the Daniel Bryan moment which feels like a Mania moment for all the wrong reasons. Last year's Mania felt like one of the best Manias with the fun tag pre-game, the battle royal, the 2 Daniel Bryan matches, the Cena-Bray match that was much better the 2nd time around than live and the streak being broken as a legit holy shit moment. Last time I watched 17, it underwhelmed me but I loved it watching live. I have seen matches from 19 but have not watched the entire show since it happened.

Ok who else was thinking... DDP surrounded by the NWO and then Sting comes down from the rafters.

Ok... props to those.guys for heating up the crowd but god forbid DB wins this cursed belt at Mania where the champ is not allowed to win a match.

It's been said before but the near career ending injury thing would hold more weight if he wasn't scheduled to be in a ladder match at Mania. I agree with the sentiment though. Anyway, a year ago, Bryan, Ambrose, Ziggler vs. Barrett, Harper, Cody would have been something we could see on a MOTY collection. Now it's just another heat less match in the death spot.

The nutty thing about the Brock promo is it reinforces the idea that wrestling isn't fucking rocket science. I am going to destroy you whether I stay or go. The end. Rusev - Cena works because of its simplicity... USA! Russia! Everything else is just fucking stupid.

Christ... if the crowd gave a shit about Roman Reigns then Brock Lesnar ' s promo would have sold me on the main event.

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

Really, part of the stuff that Parv craves is because people came together as a community and discussed the stuff as a community. The 80s sets and yearbooks created pockets of discussion that allowed us to talk about the same stuff at relatively the same time. You don't have that sense of community because smaller and smaller groups or pockets are watching their own thing. Those of us who watched the Mid South and Memphis sets almost a decade ago and argued about that stuff a decade ago don't always want to go back and have the same arguments with a different group of posters. The yearbooks have their threads, we have done podcasts, Loss is doing his project but it is up to those who have watched the yearbooks to post and keep those topics alive. As soon as another yearbook or 80s set gets released and distributed to more people then the type or discussion that Parv is looking for will come back around. Maybe it won't but that is what was driving the discussion he misses. With the GWE project, everyone is watching their own pocket of blind spots so the discussion isn't really community focused but individual focused. When the results come in or when ballots start to get posted, the arguments will flow, the blood will boil and we'll see a spark in interaction here. Unfortunately for Parv, there are a larger group of people focused on the Mania build and WWE product (its march), more of us are looking for current day alternatives (ROH, New Japan) and as long as that is what is people are watching, that is what people will talk about.

I just watched the Spud vs. ECIII match and loved it. I didn't like a few things like Spud's horrible punches but the atmosphere, the blood, the post-match was all good. As a spectacle, this was pretty great. I don't have it above the Rumble three way or the Nakamura match but it definitely deserves to be in the conversation.

If we ever do a favorite guy in Pro Wrestling, this is my guy.

This is a companion thread to the Success Stories thread and NXT Future thread. I went to the WWE website and typed out the roster they have featured on the website. I separated guys into a few categories. Help me figure out this roster. READY TO GO - all of these guys could go toe to toe on the main roster if called up tomorrow. Size issues means they would all probably have mediocre runs but not because they can't go. If you are going to an NXT house show, this is who you are going to see. For the divas, I have no hopes they would do any better than Emma or Paige but they aren't bad from what I have seen. I put Crowe in here because he was the best indy wrestler around just 2 years ago. Adrian Neville Finn Balor Kevin Owens Sami Zayn Solomon Crowe Tyler Breeze Becky Lynch Charlotte Sasha Banks Bayley NOT READY - None of these guys have impressed me on any of the NXT specials unless I forgot one of them which means they aren't memorable. Some like Sin Cara outright suck and someone like Itami should be ready but I haven't seen the killer NXT performance yet like I have with the other guys. Aiden English Baron Corbin Blake & Murphy Bull Dempsey CJ Parker Hideo Itami Kalisto Mojo Rawley Simon Gotch Sin Cara Sylvester LeFort NEVER SEEN Angelo Dawkins Cal Bishop Colin Cassady Dash Wilder Enzo Amore Jason Jordan Marcus Louis Sawyer Fulton Scott Dawson Tye Dillinger WOMEN - I don't know who they are Alexa Bliss Carmella Dana Brooke OLD GUYS Alex Riley Brian Kendrick Rhino