Russellmania

Orton took a match that nobody cared about in the worst spot on the card and managed to get the crowd into it. I genuinely have no idea what more you could ask of him there

are you kidding me will? Orton is the only reason that match got any heat at all.

I think that's definitely the case which is why I won't be at all surprised if Cena wins tomorrow.

from a promo/likeability perspective they are, but as a team in the ring I think they worked pretty well together actually. They had an ok spot where Sheamus hit the Finlay Roll and RVD followed up with Rolling Thunder for example. I'm not a big fan of throwing together two random upper midcard guys to challenge the tag champs, though. Also, it really sucks that they didn't have the Wyatts eventually win the titles. It kind of feels like there's nothing left for the Usos to do with this reign right now. I'm wondering now if the end-game of this open challenge angle is that they keep issuing open challenges and eventually the Ascension show up and win the titles.

i hate hobbies that just waste my time. Doing a commercial break and full entrance for Brie as if they were going to give away the match for free is such typical WWE time-wasting bullshit.

man how many times can they go to the "Cena must become a monster to defeat the monster" well? Every time they try to put over that idea, he invariably does nothing particularly violent and it's a big letdown.

I see people complaining a lot about "dull builds" or pointless mat work followed by hot finishing stretches and I gotta ask...is that really unique to current New Japan? I feel like if we're being totally honest with ourselves that could be said about a lot of japanese pro wrestling all the way back to the 80's, even a lot of the stuff that people consider all-time great matches. I mean I look back at early 90's All Japan and outside of a few matches where limb work played into the finish somehow, I can't really think of a lot of matches that had memorable early or middle parts or mat work that went anywhere. New Japan juniors in the 90's were pretty guilty of this as well.

is Brie back full time? I thought she was leaving to go start a family with Bryan and was under the impression she only came back for this match because it was such a slam dunk angle. If Brie is actually leaving or taking time off after this then I could see her leaving Total Divas as well and a Nikki turn on Brie wouldn't have to really even be acknowledged much on Total Divas.

there's also a guy on reddit who frequents r/squaredcircle under the name MetsFan4Ever who claims to be a former employee of WWE who has done AMA's and revealed a lot of backstage info from when he worked there (left in like 2011 I think). Normally "some guy on an internet forum" is not a good source, but the mods there have verified his claims but at his request cannot reveal his identity. Anyway he has talked about Kevin Dunn being arguably more feared by talent than Vince because he's a weird, unreasonable guy who is quick to bury people that cross him. I know a lot of smarts frequent r/squaredCircle so that might have helped fuel the recent anti-Dunn sentiment in the IWC as well.

is the paying up front thing going to be optional or mandatory? I was under the impression it would be mandatory or else what's the point? People who want to pay for just one month will just choose the monthly option and back out like they currently can.

which g1 had the really good muto/chono final? was it 91 or 92?

Reigns is not ready to be 'the guy' and is absolutely not going to be ready by Wrestlemania. If Bryan is able to return before Westlemania then they would be absolute fucking idiots to not go all-in with Bryan as long as they can. He's still the most over guy in the company without even being on TV. IMO if both guys are healthy, the WM main event should be Bryan/Brock, no question about it. I would save the Reigns/HHH match for WM and THEN start the Reigns push if they insist. Maybe have HHH cost Reigns the Rumble victory to set up that WM match. Or if they are that eager to do Reigns/HHH before WM, then maybe run Reigns/Cena at WM (although I think that would only serve to expose Reigns tbh)

wait so the bait and switch at battleground was just so they could do a fucking lumberjack match at summerslam? Jesus christ

I didn't really care who won or lost (rarely do nowadays tbh), but I was totally caught up in the story they were telling. Zayn trying to get his respect and hang with a guy who is in a different league at that point. The way Zayn would pull out all the stops but would eventually end up getting getting cut off by some brutal reversal from Cesaro. I thought Cesaro did a great job of being the guy who had to reluctantly decimate this plucky underdog. I mean I guess none of that counters your point that he hasn't grown as a heel, but I think he's definitely capable of being emotionally engaging. I haven't watched ROH in forever but I remember him being a decent heel back in like 2006.

speak for yourself

watch this video and tell me there's a legitimate reason this guy can't get over on TV: If they let him show half the personality he shows in this video on actual TV then they would have no problem getting this guy over. In fact this is a trend with WWE that keeps getting worse...in the last year all the best promos and vignettes I've seen have been either on the Network, Youtube, or even on a wrestler's personal instagram. All of this company's best material is ending up anywhere but on their stupid fucking TV shows. it's asinine. For all the shit everyone talks about how awful TNA is (and it *is* awful), WWE arguably squanders more talent than even TNA does.

Cesaro's decline has nothing to do with losing to Sheamus and everything to do with just generally being booked all wrong for much of his tenure in WWE. Losing to Sheamus after the swing doesn't even enter into the conversation IMO. Cesaro was losing heat way before Payback.

is this a real conversation about professional wrestling? a heel called a fan fat? is that really something we as wrestling fans cannot live with?

Outrage from who? If WWE ran a tourney where a bunch of midcard guys (Cesaro, Ziggler, etc.) beat a bunch of main event guys (Cena, Orton, etc.) most internet fans would be ecstatic.

honestly I think Cena would benefit more from a run like Sting had when he first turned into the Crow. Sting was another white meat babyface whose act was kind of stale. I think some kind of dark anti-hero turn for Cena would breathe new life into him and the company. The problem is you need something for him to rally against and there's not really a legitimate opportunity for an 'invasion' like we saw with the NWO because there aren't really any outsiders that would be perceived as a big enough threat to give it the weight it would need. The closest thing you could get to that 'invasion' feel of the early NWO would be a stable of MMA guys coming in and running roughshod over everyone, but there are a lot of reasons that wouldn't happen/couldn't work.

too low, that matchis a masterpiece

I was looking at Meltzer star ratings over the years last night and learned that he gave the Cena/Umaga Last Man Standing match 4 stars so I am of the mind that his opinion is total bullshit and has been for years

Cena's execution in the match was pretty sloppy, but it didn't ruin the match. I will say that their first match from February was better and the difference was probably just the overall sloppiness of the 2nd match, but this one was still a really good match.

that Bo segment was perfect. so glad they finally let him do his nxt shtick. he's been missing that violent edge since they called him up

well obviously someone told him to stop using it because he hasn't used it in several weeks and I can't imagine he just got rid of his most over spot voluntarily.