Slasher

I have a feeling if they do Cena/Taker it would come out of an angle where the Authority tries to get rid of Cena by forcing him into the match with the idea that the Authority fully expects the Taker Mania indomitable will thing works in their favor...so it is Career vs Career.

I can't see Triple H wrestling at the Rumble. I think it will be a match for Wrestlemania, which makes me wonder who will win the Rumble and who the champion would be headed into Wrestlemania...surely it can't be Sheamus.

Don't forget about Sheamus and his League of Nations.

It would be logical but there is a problem for either outcome- If Rollins retained, this hurts the potential of a big time Reigns run if you have him constantly failing to win the belt. If Reigns won- you are back to the issue that no one wanted to root for him, and that is a big pill to swallow for a babyface world champion. It worked with Cena because let's face it, Cena is an once in generation type talent. So I can understand why they tried to keep them apart. What they should have done instead of putting Reigns in with the Big Show is to have Brock/Reigns II nontitle, and put Reigns over there so he can become the shadow that haunts Rollins's nightmares.

I may be wrong but isn't the MITB contract good for up to a year? They could have given Reigns a clean finish and deal with Rollins stealing the belt over the summer or something. Wrestlemania was not his last chance. But I think the idea of someone cashing in at Wrestlemania was something they have been wanting to do ever since creating the concept. So this kills two birds with a stone (keeping the belt away from Reigns so they can try to rehabilitate his character and finally do the Mania cash in).

Things have gotten better for women wrestlers in the WWE lately- but I do think there is merit (very little though) to what rvd is saying. Consider: 1. The WWE has always had really bad issues with booking women, dating back to the Moolah championship era. 2. As a big part of the Attitude era, with how they were drawing serious money overall and seeing a sizable jump in public interest or appeal, they see the WWE having them roll around in the ring in ripped clothes exposing their undergarments or they see their world champion of women come to the ring with painted handprints on her chest. In other words, their only use for the women at the time is to push them based on T&A for the prepubescent boys to fulfill some thoughts on women that has nothing to do witb their ability in the ring. 3. Vince McMahon/Kevin Dunn's guideline: bitches be crazy. So I mean, you can't blame some people not being able to enjoy their matches when all those degrading ways to book them have shaped up how they view them. What was once exciting as a kid, no longer have that value or even any other values for those same guys 10 years later when they can grab Hustler magazines or internet porn that they now have guaranteed access to if desired. So the women's matches have generally been reduced to piss break matches. One excellent match does not, can not, will not reverse years of damage being taught wrong ideas about them, at least not overnight. It is going to take more than one match or one series/feud to get them to say "Well this is interesting and good work, I am a fan now" They have to keep fighting to change that perception but the divas I think are already to start fizzling out and people lose interest in that product. So they have essentially taken one huge step forward but then taking 2 back when the major player in the WWE is a girl who is pretty average as a wrestler and has no real good talking ability. Guess Ric Flair have not passed that skill of his to her. NXT is in better shape for now but once Bayley moves on and Asuka moves on, they are left with a diva ringer for Total Divas as one of their top heels. Dana Brooke might surprise people and getting over kinda like how they had Sasha as somewhat of an underling role before breaking the fuck out when she got a good opportunity as a standalone character. Maybe Nia Jaxx will improve but maybe not. So yeah we will see what happens next.

Diesel flopped but no one at the time thought he would. There is no way you can apply eventual circumstance as a driving force why something else should have happened. The only thing that is fair to speculate about is the strength and creativity of his run. Matching him wuth better opponents might have helped. Having the foresight to ensure Diesel is at least a tweener to capitalize on his unique presence might have helped. Having him drop the belt quickly does NOT help.

That would make more sense if Dreamer wasn't going to be on a tables match at the PPV and already got put through one on Smackdown. You can't say you want to take care of your wrestlers when you have broken down Dreamer doing something he shouldn't. Bryan doesn't know any better, neither does Dreamer. And again, Christian is always left out of this conversation but he didn't have a risky style at all and was forced to retired after he got a concussion. I didn't bring up Christian because he is a guy that I agree with you that the WWE is being hypocritical about the issue. However I should note that its just a very possible scenario that they are actually not that concerned about Christian's health, but that it was something they can make logkcal sounding excuse to 1. write out the guy that Vince actually never saw as a star and that he was an ugly looking guy who couldn't reach Vince's preferred note that the champion is a guy men wanted to hang out with or provide inspiration for themselves and that women wants to fuck him. Then 2. It gives them an easy example to provide when they try to convince people that they care about their wrestlers' health. Especially in the wake of CM Punk's shoot. Now the other thing is sure, Tommy Dreamer is going to risk himself going through tables but much like when they booked Shane McMahon as a fearless daredevil that would do incredible and incredibly stupid stunts. I remember the wrestlers being upset that Shane got to shine the few times he wrestled because he could afford to just go home whenever he felt like it to heal up all the possible injuries Shane may have suffered through. The others didn't have that luxury. They had to drive to the next town and continuing on without a break or a "bye week". So I see Dreamer in a similar situation. Dreamer isn't gonna wrestle again for a long while or however he feels like it. Two table spots are easier for the WWE to deal with than the guy who does have to drive to the next town for the next show if he comes back as a full time wrestler and does suicide dives night in and night out because the suicide dive isn't something he saves for special WWE network event. It is actually part of his everyday moveset and doing it as his signature move much like Flair's getting thrown off the top of the turnbuckle and never being smart enough to know that spot never succeeds but he still does it because goddamn it the fans expects that out of every Flair match. Also the suicide dive isn't all that he does frequently but should be scaling back and removing the diving headbutt from his everyday moveset. Harley Race warns people not to do the headbutt because its inherently a tough spot to recover from and then theres that theory surrounding the Chris Benoit situation that part of why he snapped was because his mental capacity was that of a 60 year old alzheimer's patient and tbe headbutt has been the popular assumption of what caused that much damage to his brain. Bryan will do headbutts when he comes back because he is stubborn and thinks thats part of what people like to see from him. So no, a guy with his injury history and proved to be capable of lying to the WWE and hiding his injuries. What can Vince do with that?

Not that it is much of a defense but I think the expected usage rate of Dreamer on their shows vs Daniel Bryan is obviously tilted. They don't want to clear Bryan theoretically because Bryan is a full time wrestler who won't change his style. He can't be counted on to be part of storylines due to his injury history but his star power is such that it is practically demanded he be featured some way whenever he is there in a full capacity. The chances of Bryan reinjuring himself is considerably higher than the chances Dreamer would purely based on usage.

So because things turned out a certain way, it is ok to undermine the spirit of his push? I don't get that. Diesel was booked as a big time force in the WWF up to his title reign. He was supposed to be the next big thing. Not Shawn Michaels. Not Bret Hart. Diesel. You admitted that the WWF booked their babyface aces as long term champions. You don't think deviating from their obvious formula for a 7 foot 300 pound badass and having him lose the belt in quick fashion isn't severely undercutting the nature of his push? That is like WCW booking Bill Goldberg to go undefeated and winning the belt only to lose it to someone like Lex Luger a month later. Bam Bam isn't the guy you want Diesel chasing. There is nothing inherently interesting about Bam Bam as something equal to a cowardly heel champion or whatever the hell you are suggesting here. Bam Bam is a Hogan era monster heel challenger of the month type guy. He's not the one you break from script to wreck Diesel's push for. In fact, the only dude that they could try that tack with is Shawn Michaels due to the nature of their relationship and Shawn being much better equipped to slide into the shithead heel champion that plays keepaway with the belt from Diesel. So no I guess it isn't sacrilegous to claim that its ok to take the belt off Diesel in quick fashion, but I can't see how it can possibly be a good thing to do either. Again, it doesn't matter that he ended up going to WCW or that the WWF would soon thereafter change how they booked guys on the top of the cards. That wasn't their plan in 1995. They fully intended for Diesel to break out and be the next Hogan. They intended for him to be involved with the championship and overall main events for the next however many years. It didn't work out. So they changed their thinking and made Shawn their guy. They saw Diesel walk out for a big money deal that they had no intention of anticipating the night they put the belt on him. Everything that happened was a result of their failure to get him over enough in a pitch perfect way. But giving the belt to Bam Bam would most absolutely not have been a better outcome for anybody at all except Bigelow himself. Bam Bam wasn't a guy they were going to buy tickets for. There is no need or reason to go against their deep rooted philosophy to try something different with Diesel the babyface ace for a contrived chase against Bam f'n Bam. Diesel is a guy who if he has to chase people, it is a big monster threat like Sid or an undead zombie like Undertaker or a conniving former best friend who is a coward and will resort to any tricks to stay alive like Shawn...not a guy someone here called a midcarder and a mid tier corporation guy who lost to Lawrence Taylor. And by the way, one last thing...Diesel is the world champion. People want to be the world champion. Hence he has to defend his title. That is all the motivation you need in the world to be compelling enough if his challenger is compelling enough to begin with and not 1/2 of a midcard tag team who won the KOTR in one of the poorest moves they would make in that era.

When did they turn Diesel face officially? In hindsight he probably would have been better off being a heel going into a title reign. They worked the Mania match as if Shawn was the babyface and Diesel was the unsympathetic figure. You could have had Shawn turn babyface officially first with the Sid angle, have Sid terrorize him a bit longer then finally have Diesel turn babyface in his save. This way you have a cleaner matchup at both the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania since Diesel wasn't gonna take the majority of the cheers anyways and still be able to run 6 months or so more of Diesel the babyface (if absolutely necessary) champion with a clearer rogue's gallery of heels to work with. Jeff Jarrett has done nothing to earn the status of a guy with a fairly large stable behind him. Plus wasn't the Million Dollar Corporation around too? Could be rather redundant to have two heel stables that size running around. If you absolutely must book Diesel vs Jarrett for the belt, you should just have the Million Dollar Corporation taking him on as a valued member who DiBiase has identified as the best chance of bringing the belt to his stable. It would tie in nicely with the corporation feuding with Diesel. I thought Bam Bam would have been a good challenger to Diesel but actually putting him over during the Diesel push? Not gonna work. Diesel really should have the belt for as long as he did. It was really only the best way to feature him as a top level main eventer. Cutting his long legs underneath him to put the belt on Bam Bam is a quick admission that Diesel isn't the guy. He either needs to win it when he did and have that run OR not even give him the belt until later on, perhaps during his tweener heel run taking it from Shawn instead of Sid but obviously he was gone to WCW by then anyways.

Thanks Yo Yo, I forgot about tennis. Certainly people like Serena, Sharapova, Evert, Graf, Hingis and Navrilotova (wrong spelling Im sure) plus girls like Monica Seles are/were as big if not bigger stars than their male counterparts. As for WNBA, clearly there is less of pure athleticism that NBA players possesses, but true basketball fans should have been all over WNBA at some point (not sure what the state of the league is now) in the past simply because women seem to work better in teams and have less of the ego to sabotage their teams' schemes and goals so they can get their numbers like plenty of male players do. Part of it is the underexposure making it difficult to build true mainstream stars. Their legends are still people that have gone relatively unnoticed by media and public for whatever reasons. The biggest story in basketball in recent history was Becky Hammon becoming an assistant coach for the NBA's Spurs. It was a big deal primarily because it was a woman crossing over and possessed a lot of the "unknown quality" factor/appeal. If it was a guy that retired like Kidd or Fisher, people just shrug because they know who they are and the transition from player to coach is easier. Anyways all I am saying is WNBA is not popular and I don't think that it is for any real good reason besides it being less established compared to NBA. But it doesn't get attention because there is still that deep seated feeling among more than not people who just don't care about women and what they have to offer. As for Sasha and Bayley as individual components, Sasha is just a rock star. She knows how to get her presence felt in the ring and in her segments. She has a very good understanding of translating her character work into her wrestling and vice versa. Bayley is more of a pure character type worker. She's not really that special in the ring. She is above average, sure, but compared to men, she's not that special. Where she succeeds is understanding how to make connections with the people she performs in front of with her character work. But to be honest, she is also rather boring of a character if you come down right to it. She has kinda an one dimensional note to the character. I don't think she can play heel without introducing unseen before elements in her character. She can't really be a dominant type babyface either. It isn't like Daniel Bryan who had been able to convert all that experience he has had and the global reputation he had developed to be a compelling offensive wrestlers who can work from the top as well as being the underdog whenever his storyline calls for it. And this is generally the underdog gimmick that he works so it is impressive how he doesn't look out of place destroying Triple H at ringside as he does being a guy who works stacked odds against him. Bayley doesn't have that ability. She can really only be a plunky fighting champion with known vulnerability. A true blue underdog, that's it. Sasha/Bayley is something where you had fresh ingredients and you could make magic happen in the ring, but it isn't really an indication of Bayley's skills or even Sasha's. That said, I do agree with the idea that dismissing the match out of hand without having really any idea of why it is so acclaimed-solely on the basis that its women wrestling is rather stupid, BUT I mean, no one really gave anybody a real chance to build goodwill with a women's division. It was treated like a joke for years and years. Even the fact that WWE pushes Trish Stratus and Lita as some kind of legendary (in scale to the division) retired workers while most people can only muster a "Ehhh for women they were okay I guess" sentiment, doesn't help anybody, least of all Sasha Banks and Bayley. Maybe in 5 years we can look back and say "Well the division is really good and a strong point of the shows, and we can thank the pioneers of that movement, Sasha and Bayley" but that's quite a leap of faith to believe that as an eventuality if you ask me. Gail Kim and Awesome Kong were producing really good stuff at some point for TNA, but where is that division now? (This ignores the fact TNA screwed themselves up in general, because the knockouts were kinda regressing before TNA really started to bottom out)

The thing is-and this is a legitimate question, how many people who are NBA fans are also WNBA fans? What about MLB vs the various women's softball unions? It really seems to me that the only entity that really works is women's soccer and maybe UFC when Rousey is the centerpiece. I mean, is it really so weird if people have a tougher time embracing women in sports? Especially on a mainstream level? You can call the society misogynistic I guess if you want to, but that is the way the world spins unfortunately. The matriarchs may dominate on a small scale, like women in families, businesses, etc but it has always been patriarchal on a societal level.

I was typing a long response after Johnny Sorrow's post about how asking rvd why he didn't like women's wrestling wasn't necessarily an implicit accusation of misogyny but I was afraid it would descend into a misogynistic thing and boy am I glad I stayed out of that one LOL

Jeff Jarrett is a guy who the KOTR designation would have meant corniness or cheese in his character. Adding royal colors to his gaudy get up wouldn't have helped at all. Also, this may be odd to say but Jarrett was a credible challenger to Shawn Michaels only because Shawn was a big bumping heel/high selling babyface. He was never booked on the strength of his offense or ability to beat people. The name of the game for him was to survive onslaughts by big faces and heels and hit his spots at the right time for close victories. He only became marketed as a winning type wrestler when he started his world title push in 1996. You just can't book Diesel the same way as you did Shawn Michaels against Jeff Jarrett. Diesel has always been booked as a guy who was a heavy hitter and probably a big reason why Shawn won anything as his second. He was booked at the Royal Rumble to be one of the biggest offensive threats in the WWF. What can Jeff Jarrett even possibly do against that? A simpler way to look at it is- is Jeff Jarrett a credible challenger to the Undertaker? Sid? World champion era Yokozuna? The answer is no-and Diesel was being pushed as a guy on that level.

It is as true as the idea that Big Show's biggest match would be the one against Mayweather as he managed to morph into some kind of avatar of all the good things that a pro wrestler offered to the mainstream fan compared to the unbelievably heel-like persona that Mayweather was becoming in his rise in fame. It doesn't mean it did anything good for him besides finding a reason to develop his knockout punch finish. Just because being put up against LT in a celebrity match gave him exposure doesn't mean it was a positive for him going forward. The loss being used as a catalyst for a babyface turn involving him getting rejected by the evil stable for being a loser and having Diesel have to save his ass effectively put an end to Bam Bam, period. There is a difference between Bam Bam and the Brooklyn Brawler who was never put in a position to be taken seriously like ever. Sure, Mabel was scrapping the bottom of the barrel as far as finding world title challengers but Bam Bam would have definitely gone much further in a title program if you even just plug him in Mabel's booking trajectory from February (before the LT feud) to Summerslam when Mabel got his title shot. I am not saying he would have been a world champion caliber guy or anything but if they were gonna slum for a summer challenger, Bam Bam really wouldn't have been a bad choice at all. Though personally I think they should have had Owen Hart or Undertaker or DB Smith in the role anyways.

Just to clarify-the match definitely deserve all its acclaim, even I know that, with me not being the optimal audience for that, I still recognize that. I just still think its a match that would end up being swept up in time with how badly the WWE is handling the division on the main roster and how much longer the division have left in NXT before Bayley and maybe Asura leaves and its Eva Marie as the crown jewel of the division. I think if Roman Reigns becomes the man finally, his match with Brock Lesnar will be put into history along with other matches that showed hints of their aces before they became aces officially. Men are something that the WWE are going to always take better care of, period. So it is just when I see terms tossed around like transcendental, for Sasha vs Bayley, I have zero faith in the WWE to actually make it so. Transcendence requires cooperation between not just the audience that accepts it but the makers that have to enforce it in history. It happened for DK and Tiger Mask. Will it for this? I don't know but I would guess that I don't think so.

Bam Bam might have only been a guy with midcard as a ceiling but you cannot deny that he was a guy who was hurt by a nonsensical babyface turn. I don't think he would have had a good run as a heel if he was going to lose to Lawrence Taylor, but that was something that definitely hurt his potential ceiling as a heel, doing those things back to back. If Bam Bam wasn't booked to face LT and he was allowed to be the monster he was earlier on, I think his place in the WWF at the time would have been more valuable than what it ended up being and he most definitely could have been a viable Diesel challenger...at least better him than MABEL.

Nah I am not accusing people of having an agenda with this. I am wondering if it is something that helps its case subconsciously because well it isn't something that is often seen in its division. Something similar to how well regarded DK vs Tiger Mask was at its time because well not many people were seeing that elsewhere even if people have argued for other superior workers at the time or in retrospect.

Also, on the one hand, you say to tone down the goofy country music aspect of Jarrett's character, but on the other hand, that would only be replaced by the midcard goof "King" gimmick, which every heel played up to maximum silliness. Only face KOTRs (Bret, Austin, etc.) were allowed to avoid the silly costume and "royal" trappings. Austin wasn't a face when he won the KOTR. In fact he proves the argument wrong that you couldn't have a serious heel KOTR winner. It is just how you book them. Owen was an egomaniac with comedic undertones so he was silly with his win. Mabel, I don't know what they were thinking with that but I doubt he was meant to be a joke really. About Diesel, his problem besides being booked like a total babyface, was that he essentially took the belt from a guy the fans respected a lot in Bret Hart. Yes he actually beat Bob Backlund for it but it was right after Bob won it from Bret and I don't think he had a fair enough opportunity to win it back from Backlund before Diesel swooped in. Its not a big deal in the grand scope of things but all those little things counts. Having to face Bret and then a Shawn Michael hellbent on turning himself babyface against the intention of the gameplan so early in his reign did not help. His first real decent feud since winning was against Sid, which was the spring-a good 6 to 7 months into his reign. Then Mabel? Not good at all.

I hate to be that guy but I do wonder if Sasha/Bayley is so highly rated because the US women wrestling bar is so low? I know people here have talked about it as a wrestling match period and not just a womens match, but I do think it stands out more because its women and because the story that it told...which...is women centric in terms of the emotions it draws from people and how it unfolds. I mean this is not a story to be told using two burly guys at all. Even a match like Zayn/Cesaro which draws some similar elements still had a different feel to it. Maybe the postmatch thing with the Four Horsewomen and then the Ironman with the fan girl really paints a different color for me than intended.

Part of the aura of the deadman gimmick is that he could get away with no selling to the length that he would never been able to get away with doing while doing the Mean Mark gimmick, so no the impact would have been nowhere close to what it was.

I suppose, but you can turn off Sasha/Bayley when the final bell rings and have a complete experience, which obviously you can't do with Lesnar/Reigns when Rollins' music hits. But who does that? Most just about everyone that watches wrestling watches til the WWE logo fades to black. I get what you are saying, the cash in is much more permeated into the match and there is no way to separate the two events. I am just answering the question Grimmas posed in that I can see how it affects people even if it was a post match deal. With pro wrestling the totality is the experience of wrestling. It is like, people can and do judge Flair/Steamboat separately but the deal with Funk piledriving Flair on a table after the match added to the experience and added some juice to the Funk feud. If it happened in an interview segment the next night, it probably doesn't carry the same impact. You gotta go both ways here.

I disagree. I think it is easier to foster an atmosphere in which was necessary to do the Sasha/Bayley match in NXT than it would have been in WWE. Even though NXT is produced by WWE with better than average production values and bigger budget probably than the average indy promotion, it still has more of an intimate connection with the fans and has limited exposure compared to the main roster television shows. It is easier to build a longer term arc with one one hour show a week and building the level of drama that Sasha and Bayley achieved. It would have been something Sami Zayn and Cesaro probably would have achieved if given that much time or Sami Zayn and Neville or Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. Which I guess speaks to how good Sami Zayn and Bayley are as character driven babyfaces when paired with compelling heels or foils.

Reminds me of how Kevin Nash was a guy who told people what they wanted to hear and then buried them behind their backs before charming them again when they confronted him. Another lesson that was taught by the Kliq during their car rides?