Russellmania

the problem with Miz is that he's just so goddam...normal. There's nothing really "larger than life" about him. He has always come off (to me anyway) as a normal dude cosplaying as a pro wrestler. He's mechanically good, but just doesn't have that "it factor".

HHH and Stephanie showed a ton of ass for Bryan. I really don't get that talking point. Stephanie has her issues for sure, but HHH has actually been really good about making his opponents look great since he stopped being a full time wrestler.

I would love Brock/Reigns 2 to be Last Man Standing so long as they don't overbook it and pull some gimmicky "one guy gets buried under rubble so he can't get up" bullshit. With as physical as those two can be and what a slugfest the first match was I feel like the crowd would be hanging on every 9 count and it would help make Reigns look like a warrior. Just let them go out there and have the pro wrestling equivalent of a fight from a Rocky movie.

Have him win the title at the Rumble and continue to be an unstoppable force. Authority brings in Brock as the only man who can stop him and there's your Wrestlemania rematch. IMO the key with Reigns is not to have him be the underdog against the Authority but to have him run through them for a while until they get really desperate and go nuclear.

I can't feel bad for anyone who gets handed that script and doesn't have the self respect to tell Vince or whoever to fuck off. To go out there and recite that shit (poorly) word for word just doesn't garner any sympathy from me.

8 of the 9 women involved in the initial 3 "Divas Revolution" factions are now heels. I think Nattie and Becky are the only two clear babyface women on the whole main roster. The whole "WWE thinks all women are catty bitches" talking point is very real

if they knew how to book anything successfully, Bayley, Becky, Nattie, and Naomi are a pretty good group of natural babyfaces to build around with Sasha, Nikki, Paige, and Charlotte as heels. Fox, Emma, Brie, and the rest can go either way. Sasha if they just gave her the ball and let her run with it could be a cocky heel turned face ala the Rock someday but that would require way too much creative freedom and they don't do that.

the thing is, none of that has anything to do intrinsically with gender. people don't like the WNBA because it's an inferior league, not because it's full of women. Some sports have been developing female athletes for decades and so the quality of the games is on or nearly on par with the men (soccer), but other sports haven't done as good a job of that (basketball). But it's not that women are inherently worse at a given sport, just that the development of the athletes might favor one gender over the other historically. So I can understand looking at wrestling and saying that historically women's wrestling in North America has been inferior to men's wrestling due to lack of talent and development, but this guy has people telling him right now that there are at least a handful of female workers and matches in the US that are absolutely as good as the men if not better. To willfully dismiss them simply on the basis of being women at this point is bullshit.

Except, it was absolutely different in the WWE as of a year or two ago. At one point, the women were told not to hit as hard as the men, etc. Saying I don't like WWE divas wrestling during that time is one thing. Saying I don't like women's wrestling in general is just weird. yes, that's my point. This rvd guy is saying he doesn't like Sasha/Bayley purely b/c they are women. This is by all accounts one of the very best matches of the year and this guy is panning it solely because of gender. It's absurd.

saying "I don't like women's wrestling" has always struck me as so dumb because it's not like it's a different style of wrestling (in modern WWE anyway). It's just wrestling where they happen to be women. Some of the matches suck and some are good, just like the men. I don't see where personal preference comes in. It's not like we're comparing WWE style to FMW Deathmatch style or something. That's why people are calling you mysogynistic. You are saying right out of the gate that you consider Bayley/Sasha less valid than a men's match purely because they are women.

turning a guy heel only to let the fans gradually turn him face is the ultimate manipulation of the audience, though. it's like in their constant efforts to manipulate their audience they've completely lost the ability to manipulate their audience.

I really wish they'd had the guts to turn Reigns heel and have Ambrose chase him. The whole company is just so stale and boring right now. They need to do something bold to heat things up again and Reigns as the corporate champ would have been a good jumping off point. Would have been a great way to hit the reset button on both guys too. People are just dying to boo Reigns and I think the fans would ultimately turn him face again within a year (and actually cheer him) and Ambrose could really use another psycho vengeance run. Then at least you'd have 2 guys that fans are hot for instead of two guys they're kind of lukewarm about.

the craziest thing about Vince is that he keeps making the same mistakes over and over decades after the fact even when he has shown self-awareness that he made those mistakes in the first place. like he'll admit to nearly missing the boat on Austin, or trying too hard to get Rocky over as a face or whatever *while he's doing the same thing with current wrestlers*

Rockstar Spud would be perfect in that role if he ever came over from TNA.

yeah this promo stood out as being especially poorly delivered. She even had one of those awkward moments where she clearly forgot her next line and just stared at Paige who was looking at her like "come on already"

I can't get over how upset people seem that Breeze lost to Ambrose on RAW. First of all when did people decide that every wrestler should win in their debut? Are people just spoiled now because of how Owens debuted? I like Breeze, but let's face it...he was never a top NXT guy. I can't think of one big win that he had during his run there and he was never the champ. Honestly I'm surprised he has been given as much of a push as he has given that he was basically a jobber to the stars in NXT. As for losing this match...he got to have a competitive match with one of the favorites to win the tourney and only lost due to a flash pin which you can easily write off in kayfabe as a rookie mistake. I saw a fan article on cageside seats that suggested he'd have been better off if they just left him out of the tourney altogether. I totally disagree with that. To me the fact that he was even in the discussion for this world title tourney gives him a nice little bit of credibility out of the gate. the loss was really inconsequential. If people want to be outraged about an NXT guy's treatment then they should be outraged about Bo Dallas, not Tyler Breeze.

yeah earlier I had started to say that it annoys me that they are apparently not doing it all in one night but gave up b/c i didn't really know how to articulate why. This is one reason for sure.

It's kind of a bummer that they killed the streak before they got around to doing Cena/Taker

It's an awful idea because it means the entire plans for the future of WWE is STILL to be based around the goddamn Authority. Whom should have been gone, what, two Survivor Series shows ago when they lost the match? if they turn Ambrose I'd rather see him align himself with the Wyatts (if he must be in a group) than the Authority. the Authority just needs to end altogether. it really undermines everything they do.

when have they teased an Ambrose turn? I actually think turning Reigns would be smarter than turning Ambrose. Ambrose has been established as valuing loyalty and brotherhood above all else so it would really make no sense for him to turn on Reigns. I also think Ambrose going back into vengeful asskicker mode is more likely to generate hot crowds than Reigns in that position. Plus I still think Reigns needs a heel run to really explore his character a bit. If they keep him face he'll just be stuck in that inescapable Cena babyface groove where he ends up doing the same schtick 10 years from now. but Reigns as face is the safe move so they'll stick with that as they are all about making safe choices these days.

what happens if Sheamus were to cash in while the title is vacant? a smart heel would at least try it. shouldn't he just be able to claim the title? In WWE logic it would make sense.

I feel pretty strongly that if the show (feuds, stories, etc.) were booked well then people would have no problem with getting multi-man matches regularly on TV. Think about how molten hot the crowd was for that 5-on-5 match on RAW back when the Radicalz first came over from WCW. Or how hot the Shield/Wyatts and Shield/Evolution feuds were. Or hell any of the Shield 6-mans when they were still heels. I'm not saying do a 6-man main even on RAW every week, but if people care about the participants and the feuds contained within the match then they won't complain about the matches themselves.

agreed big-time. I'm always confused when people shit on six-man matches in WWE. It's really the perfect format to get a bunch of top guys on TV without giving away too much of your plans and the matches are almost always fun. You'd think smarks would love it considering it's how All Japan ran things in the 90's. They had weeks of six-man matches while they toured around and then had the big singles and tag matches on their big shows. It's also a great way to give certain guys a main event rub. Throwing a guy like Neville in there with mostly main-event guys and letting him look like he belongs (even if he takes the fall) is a great way to assimilate mid-card guys into the upper card/main event scene.

this is a great point. I don't think they need to have traditional jobbers, but they have all these lower-card talents who can really work being wasted. let them be your jobbers. they can have more competitive matches than a squash but still lose on the regular to the mid-card and up guys in shorter TV matches and chances are everyone comes out of it looking good.

my least favorite internet message board trope is the guy who drops into a thread for no other reason than to tell everyone he doesn't care about the topic.