Wrestlemania XXVII

[Victator]

They had Big Daddy V back in 2008. It sounded like they did not want to release him but had to for health reasons. He had pneumonia and was trying to work thru it.

[Victator]

I think Rey Mysterio vs Cena is a big money match with either Cena as heel or doing Warrior vs Hogan.

[BBscout]

If they listened to the crowd response, they'd have turned him after his Royal Rumble win in 2009. Instead they waited a year after his babyface momentum reached boiling point and the turn was poorly executed in a feud with damaged goods.

they waited too long but still as of past September he was getting enormous face reactions and was killing everybody. And in a rare occurrence in WWE booking actually went over in the PPV 6 way to get the title after dominating everyone on TV

 

True statement and I think it went to shit soon thereafter when they did Orton-Cena (during sweeps week was the reason for it I assume). I felt they had been apart from each other for a good while and people were looking for another face to cheer big besides Cena, but that there took some steam off Orton. Still maintain that will be a big time Mania match with Cena a heel though.

 

I really wish they would do an All-Stars tag with that video game they've got coming out or a faces-raise-hands show closing moment between past and present era top guys.

[BBscout]

Michaels didn't make anyone on the way out but did lose blow-offs with Cena, Batista, Jericho, and put Hardy over clean in their singles match during his push. Can't slight him for that.

Using the Online world of wrestling, which would be the blow-off?:

 

• March 26, 2007 - RAW: The Undertaker & Batista defeated Shawn Michaels & John Cena in a wild and crazy tag team match..

• ~~~~~~The Undertaker walked out on Batista and Shawn Michaels surprised John Cena with a superkick out of nowhere!

April 1, 2007 Wrestlemania: John Cena defeated Shawn Michaels by Submission to retain the WWE Championship..

• April 2, 2007--RAW: Shawn Michaels & John Cena won a 10-Team Battle Royal to retain their World Tag Team titles!

• ~~~Shawn Michaels & John Cena lost their tag team titles in a 2nd 10-Team Battle Royal when Michaels turned on Cena..

• April 16, 2007 - RAW (Italy): WWE Champion John Cena defeated Edge & Randy Orton in a Handicap match..

• ~~~Shawn Michaels ran down and tried to super-kick John Cena but accidentally knocked out Edge with the super-kick!

• April 23, 2007 - RAW (England): Shawn Michaels defeated WWE Champion John Cena in a Non-title match in nearly 60-minutes!

• April 29, 2007 - Backlash: John Cena defeated Randy Orton and Edge and Shawn Michaels to retain the WWE Championship..

• ~~~Thrilling "MOTY" contender -- Edge speared Orton, Cena FU'd Edge, HBK kicked Cena (Cena falls on Orton for 1-2-3)...

I was talking singles matches and for Cena I thought Michaels lost the UK one but he didn't. The win was mistaken for a loss because my memory of the match is that Cena went an hour with him. So three of four top guys if you go off standard wins and losses but I see that match as an exception.

[tomk]

March 26,07- Michaels suprprises Cena with superkick

April 1,07- Cena beats Michaels

April 2,07- Michaels turns on Cena costing Cena match

April 16,07-Michaels kicks wrong guy and Cena steals the win

April 23,07-Michaels beats Cena

April 29,07- Michaels knocks out Cena, but Cena lucks in to falling on top of Orton thus stealing the win

 

Who does this series put over?

 

1) That's pretty much the standard for Michaels this decade.

2) This is part of the point I am making about Cena and an extension of keith's point. Cena had been booked weak during a big chunk of that 2005-2007 peak too.

[Victator]

Cena won at Wrestlemania and that is the only one that matters.

[jdw]

Cena won at Wrestlemania and that is the only one that matters.

So Austin beat Rock at Mania in 2001, the crowd went insane over the heel turn... it's the only match and angle that mattered... so the heel turn worked perfectly.

 

I'm glad we sorted that out after all these years.

 

John

[Victator]

Not really the same though is it? Cena/Micheals was a match that was pretty much the nd of the feud. Cena won it cleanly. They did a few things afterward. But it was not like the Austin heel turn that needed to carry the company for the next year.

[El-P]

Not really the same though is it? Cena/Micheals was a match that was pretty much the nd of the feud. Cena won it cleanly. They did a few things afterward.

Yeah, they did a few things afterward, like Michaels beating Cena on RAW in an epic match everyone remembers because it was one of those Shawn Michaels "classic".

[jdw]

I think people's point is that the post-Mania end run of the feud made Cena look like shit, which impacted his ability to get over like Austin and Rock did before him. The story of the feud, and the impact upon Cena, didn't end with Mania.

 

The story of Rock-Austin (i.e. Austin turning) didn't end with Mania. One could argue that it "worked" that night: really strong reaction. But the story of Austin's turn went on after it, and pretty much went off the cliff in the Maximize The Drawing Power of it the very next night. It certainly had plenty of fun stuff after that, and I enjoyed a hell of a lot of Heel Austin stuff. But I can't shut my mind off by just focusing on (i) loving Mania as a stand along and (ii) loving lots of individual things in that heel run in a vaccum, while ignoring (iii) all the shitty booked / writing that most importantly (iv) resulted in a Austin Heel Turn that wasn't exactly the business impact that the Hogan Heel Turn did.

 

Cena-Shawn at Mania wasn't a stand alone or in a box. There was more to it afterwards, and it was one of many poor/strange/destructive booking/writing decisions the WWE made in that era.

 

John

[shawmic]

Worth mentioning that Michaels/Cena was suppose to continue through June with Cena winning the blow-off at Night of Champions (which was even talked about as being an Iron Man match). They went to Cena/Khali and Michaels/Orton after Backlash as a way to drag the program out longer before the blow-off but Michaels got hurt in a match with Edge and was out until October. When he came back they couldn't continue the feud because Cena was out with the torn pec.

[tomk]

I agree that it's an apt comparison, but from my perspective it actually backs up Yohe's and tomk's point. Cena's momentum fell when he started being booked like Ric Flair in the late 80s, a guy so charismatic and great on the mic that he can job to anyone and retain his heat, while the focus was on having the show revolve around the jealous booker. In 2008, he jobbed to Orton on two consecutive PPV events, then eked a victory in a curtain jerker with JBL and then jobbed to Triple H, JBL and Batista in three straight PPVs, which killed his heat after his 2008 surprise win at the Rumble blew the roof off the Garden. If Cena's miscast as a bayface, then that's because he's done far to many meaningless jobs at the wrong time, since his 2005-2007 peak

I think people's point is that the post-Mania end run of the feud made Cena look like shit, which impacted his ability to get over like Austin and Rock did before him.

I think it's also worth mentioning that he wasn't booked particularly well during his05-07 peak. It wasn't just the post mania HBK feud that made Cena look like shit or the jobs in 08...but the build to Mania (which originally was supposed to be HHH getting his mania win back before he went down) didn't do Cena any favors. Then after HBK goes down , there is an Orton feud where the bookers have the difficulty of trying to figure out what to do since they have to "save Orton" for HBK's revenge comeback. The Lashley match; where Lashley started to earn his reputation as being back stage "uppity" since he asked to turn heel while the bookers wanted to keep it face v face, etc.

 

In theory Cena should be the easiest guy in the world to book: Build up a heel then feed him a heel. They've rarely done that, which is ridiculous.

[Matt D]

The Creative Recall guy claims that Taker vs HHH was on the books since last August. I am skeptical of that.

[Ditch]

The Creative Recall guy claims that Taker vs HHH was on the books since last August. I am skeptical of that.

As am I. Why do the burial and involve Nexus?

[rovert]

The Creative Recall guy claims that Taker vs HHH was on the books since last August. I am skeptical of that.

Did some shit stirring on F4W about that:

 

Re: HHH and Undertaker @ Wrestlemania

 

Reason #121 why you don’t believe everything you read in dirt sheets. They were reporting Undertaker vs. Wade Barrett, Undertaker and Kane vs. The Corre and other incarnations of WM matches for Taker but this match was planned since last August. Now that it’s out there I can reveal that.

 

http://creativerecall.wordpress.com/

 

 

Dave Scherer's douchey reaction:

 

I guess what Piermarini meant to say was you can only trust websites like this one.

http://www.pwinsider.com/ViewArticle.php?id=55512

 

Dave Meltzer's response to both:

If Undertaker vs. HHH was booked in August, why did Sheamus still talk about retiring HHH in promos long after August, why did Undertaker go to a taping in January and talk with Barrett to lay out their program and why did Vince McMahon personally talk with Dana White about Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar and have Undertaker shoot the angle in October? Why did Undertaker and Barrett also shoot an angle in October and set up Barrett moving to the Smackdown brand specifically to follow up that angle? And why would Barrett, who was getting a super push in October, shoot the angle, move brands, and then now as we're six weeks from Mania, have no angle in place with a top tier guy?

 

So many questions?

 

And as far as PW Insider, why did Mike Johnson himself report Undertaker going to a January taping to meet with Barrett about their angle?

 

And if they were trying to keep it a secret and swerve, how come I got told a few weeks before the angle how the main event of Mania had just been changed?

 

Undertaker and Vince sure wasted a lot of time if this was the angle back in August.

 

Is it possible this was something discussed in August? Absolutely. It is possible in August they knew this was their main direction. No way, because the Lesnar negotiations were long after that point.

[rovert]

Most of you guys will probably want to punch Piermarini in the face over what he writes about Lawler in his newest blog too.

[Matt D]

Do we know if HBK is going to be the ref for this? I feel like that's the only way for it to have any real interest. If that's the case, then he only signed his contract a few months ago, right?

[Loss]

He did.

 

I think HHH retiring may also generate some interest.

 

I'm too lazy to look it up. Did he ever win 17 world titles like he wanted to do to beat Flair's record years ago?

[Kronos]

He did.

 

I think HHH retiring may also generate some interest.

 

I'm too lazy to look it up. Did he ever win 17 world titles like he wanted to do to beat Flair's record years ago?

From wiki:

 

World Wrestling Federation / World Wrestling Entertainment

World Heavyweight Championship (5 times)

WWF/E Championship (8 times)

WWF European Championship (2 times)[113]

WWF/E Intercontinental Championship (5 times)[114]

WWF/E World Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Steve Austin (1), and Shawn Michaels (1)[115][116]

WWE Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Shawn Michaels[117]

King of the Ring (1997)[3]

Royal Rumble (2002)[118]

Second Grand Slam Championship

Slammy Award for Best Hair (1997)

Seventh Triple Crown Champion

So that's 13 world titles.

[KrisZ]

I agree that it's an apt comparison, but from my perspective it actually backs up Yohe's and tomk's point. Cena's momentum fell when he started being booked like Ric Flair in the late 80s, a guy so charismatic and great on the mic that he can job to anyone and retain his heat, while the focus was on having the show revolve around the jealous booker. In 2008, he jobbed to Orton on two consecutive PPV events, then eked a victory in a curtain jerker with JBL and then jobbed to Triple H, JBL and Batista in three straight PPVs, which killed his heat after his 2008 surprise win at the Rumble blew the roof off the Garden. If Cena's miscast as a bayface, then that's because he's done far to many meaningless jobs at the wrong time, since his 2005-2007 peak

I think people's point is that the post-Mania end run of the feud made Cena look like shit, which impacted his ability to get over like Austin and Rock did before him.

I think it's also worth mentioning that he wasn't booked particularly well during his05-07 peak. It wasn't just the post mania HBK feud that made Cena look like shit or the jobs in 08...but the build to Mania (which originally was supposed to be HHH getting his mania win back before he went down) didn't do Cena any favors. Then after HBK goes down , there is an Orton feud where the bookers have the difficulty of trying to figure out what to do since they have to "save Orton" for HBK's revenge comeback. The Lashley match; where Lashley started to earn his reputation as being back stage "uppity" since he asked to turn heel while the bookers wanted to keep it face v face, etc.

 

In theory Cena should be the easiest guy in the world to book: Build up a heel then feed him a heel. They've rarely done that, which is ridiculous.

 

I can pinpoint the exact night that did John Cena in and that was the first One Night Stand PPV against RVD. That crowd exploded the anti-Cena stuff that was starting to bubble up.

[tomk]

There were a bunch of Edge matches after that as well as the Federline, Big Show, Umaga series after that where Cena was matched up against guys who actually worked heel well and the majority of crowd got behind Cena.

 

Cena has been amazingly resiliant in the face of shitty booking, but the shitty booking ontop of shitty booking has created accumulated damage.

 

If the fed actually cared about getting behind Cena and building RAW around him...it's possible that they could still undue the damage. But for some reason that doesn't seem to be much of a priority.

[Al]

I loved Cena's reaction at One Night Stand. To me it was the last vestige of the NWA champion defending his title on enemy territory.

[kjh]

Reason #121 why you don’t believe everything you read in dirt sheets. They were reporting Undertaker vs. Wade Barrett, Undertaker and Kane vs. The Corre and other incarnations of WM matches for Taker but this match was planned since last August. Now that it’s out there I can reveal that.

Yes, because Bryan Gerwirtz's poor, put upon, fired for over three months, coffee boy would know that the plans have been set in stone for so long and never tampered with. Next thing you know he'll be telling us that The Undertaker legitimately has heat with Brock Lesnar which led to their "shoot" UFC confrontation last year, oh wait, he already did that in his recent Torch Talk.

[flyonthewall2983]

Is HHH going to work at all between now and April 3rd?

[Guest kowking]

Is HHH going to work at all between now and April 3rd?

No.