No Way Out 2012

[Kostka]

That was easily the worst Cena/Big Show match ever. Shows control seg was as flat as a pancake, and everything afterwards was as overbooked as overbooked main events get.

[Kostka]

Big Show vs. John Cena (Cage Match)

- The longer this match went, the more I realized one thing... I miss Mark Henry.

I agree. Big Show is actually a much better babyface than he is a heel IMO. I don't care for him in longer matches. He's not as good as Henry at working lengthy control segments.

[Strummer]

Show is a much better worker as a face and a much better character as a heel

[Chess Knight]

I was bored senseless for most of the show.

 

I actually thought as well they should definitely at least attempt to give Dolph a face run, and Cody.....eh. No clue how his father is Dusty Rhodes. Absolutely no clue. If they both didn't share the mega-lisp and those kind of eyes that looked like they've been punched, I'd swear there is no relation. Cody's the most boring thing I've ever seen. I can't fathom why anybody in the back looks at Cody, then looks at Drew McIntyre and think Rhodes is more deserving of a spot higher on the card.

 

thee-way was fine, but hopefully Punk and Bryan can do something....else. Without Kane. I kind of like AJ's involvement, but I'm giving this "Thinking Without Your Penis" thing a shot, so they can do without her as well.

[Coffey]

I was bored senseless for most of the show.

I was too. Honestly, I think I was really deflated by Sheamus retaining in the curtain jerk. I mean, I guess I knew that Sheamus was going to retain, especially since Dolph was added last minute, but I was still hoping for the swerve and Ziggler win. And maybe even a babyface turn.

 

Then we get things like the diva match and the 8-jobber tag and I just checked out mentally.

[Matt D]

Maybe with the third hour of raw they can actually build an undercard again?

[Coffey]

Maybe with the third hour of raw they can actually build an undercard again?

I don't think that you honestly believe this.

[NintendoLogic]

There isn't a thread up at DVDVR yet, so I'll post my thoughts here.

 

Like I said, Dolph was kind of exposed tonight. He's good at delivering fun TV matches, but it's tough to be a main event heel when your only tools for working a heat segment are chinlocks and facebusters. He'd certainly benefit from a face turn. I also don't like Sheamus' current hierarchy of finishers. Using White Noise to set up the Brogue Kick seems backwards.

 

Christian/Cody was my MOTN. Christian is basically what a babyface Dolph would look like. Cody was also much more effective at delivering a heel beatdown. It sucks that they've killed Cody's credibility, because I think he has the tools to be the top heel on Smackdown.

 

I expected the tag match to be a clusterfuck, but it ended up being a pleasant surprise. The WWE definitely has the personnel for a quality tag division, but they need to get behind more than one team so you don't end up with an Air Boom situation where losing one guy causes the whole division to fall apart. Also, the Prime Time Players are entertaining enough without AW. Are Epico and Primo faces now?

 

The triple threat had a few nice spots, but overall it was a waste of the talents of 2/3 of the guys in the match.

 

I continue to maintain that Ryback is only as entertaining as the jobbers he squashes.

 

Cena/Show was comically overbooked, but it wasn't like they were setting the world on fire before that point, so I didn't mind. I legit LOL'd at Cole immediately turning on Johnny after he got fired.

 

Overall, the show wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but not enough for a thumbs up.

[Kostka]

I actually thought as well they should definitely at least attempt to give Dolph a face run, and Cody.....eh. No clue how his father is Dusty Rhodes. Absolutely no clue. If they both didn't share the mega-lisp and those kind of eyes that looked like they've been punched, I'd swear there is no relation. Cody's the most boring thing I've ever seen. I can't fathom why anybody in the back looks at Cody, then looks at Drew McIntyre and think Rhodes is more deserving of a spot higher on the card.

The only thing Cody Rhodes has over Drew McIntyre is last name and WWEs insistence on pushing second/third generation guys. Drew is better in every way, and even had a better match with Christian recently with no storyline on the C Show.

[Chess Knight]

Maybe with the third hour of raw they can actually build an undercard again?

Hopefully, but I'm seeing a bunch of possible Be A Star promos and Santino/Ricardo Cobra Sock on a Pole matches. Honestly if they want to make guys even somewhat meaningful, they might want to reform a tag team division that consists of more than random dudes being paired up with a manager that has to do all the talking for them. Even the tag teams they have now, they've done literally nothing to build them; crowd were dead a shit when A.W. (A.W? the FUCK is A.W!?) turned on the Colons and went with the NXT guys. Ten years ago you had Booker T and Goldust doing amazing skits and the crowd loved them. I'm no defender of 2002 WWE, but even looking back THEN...kinda depressing that so much of these shows are filler. Gotta have squash matches on these PPVs to fill time, FFS.

 

If they couldn't hold my attention for a three hour PPV then there's less than 10% chance of them holding my attention for 3 hour Raws. Probably just do what I should always do and wait for people to say 'Henry and Punk was good tonight' and just watch that.

[Chess Knight]

I actually thought as well they should definitely at least attempt to give Dolph a face run, and Cody.....eh. No clue how his father is Dusty Rhodes. Absolutely no clue. If they both didn't share the mega-lisp and those kind of eyes that looked like they've been punched, I'd swear there is no relation. Cody's the most boring thing I've ever seen. I can't fathom why anybody in the back looks at Cody, then looks at Drew McIntyre and think Rhodes is more deserving of a spot higher on the card.

The only thing Cody Rhodes has over Drew McIntyre is last name and WWEs insistence on pushing second/third generation guys. Drew is better in every way, and even had a better match with Christian recently with no storyline on the C Show.

 

I think it was Dylan who said something about Cody one time that I realised applied to me as well- he's won me over a couple of times, but then just falls completely out of interest. Like I'm disappointed whenever he starts getting boring because there were multiple weeks I'd warm up to the guy. Drew is just fifteen stages of awesome all the time, and I thought the Christian match on Superstars was better than anything on this show.

[Matt D]

I will also say this: If the biggest complaint you have about a match was that it's not the match that you would have rather seen, you're not doing a great job expressing anything meaningful about the match.

[Johnny Sorrow]

PPV was fucking great. I'll have more comments in a bit, but...for those of you who hated the HHH promo? Substitute "fuck" for "fight" during that and it becomes awesome.

[Jingus]

control segments

When/why/how did this phrase get popular? I've never once heard a wrestler say it. Pretty much every worker in the country just says "getting the heat" or something similar when referring to the part in the middle of the match where the heel beats up the babyface for a while.

[Dylan Waco]

I don't give a flying fuck what workers call things.

[Cox]

I was at the PPV live, and honestly I didn't think there were that many problems with crowd heat. The crowd was definitely cold for the women's match, Hunico/Sin Cara, and the four way tag, but going in, those are the three matches you'd expect to be cold. The rest of the show, the crowd seemed fine. It wasn't molten hot, like the Sportatorium in the 80's for the Von Erichs or like MSG can get, but it was a solid crowd I thought. The Meadowlands is a hard building to maintain heat in, because it's so freaking huge, with the steep steps that seem to go on and on forever. I think the Meadowlands is just a hard building to get heat in.

 

Anyway, I enjoyed the show a lot. Most of the matches were at least good. Scattered thoughts:

 

-Man, Christian is just so much better off as a babyface, it's not even funny. They wasted a year of his career having him work as just another heel on the roster. That match was so good, and I'm predisposed not to like Cody Rhodes.

 

-Don't get why Meltzer is hating so much on the tuxedo match. It's kind of like picking on the developmentally disabled kid at school. Was the match good? No, but it was designed to make nine year olds laugh. The ceiling wasn't exactly high there. I thought they did a good job given the constraints.

 

-Three way was good stuff. It definitely would have been better as a singles, but they did about as good a job as you can do with the restraints of a three way match, especially when the focus was around AJ and nobody in the building bought the nearfalls before it because everybody knew AJ was going to get involved.

 

-I missed a good part of the main event, as the guy I went to the show with was looking for his friend so we were moving around a lot, but what I saw looked good enough. Show and Laurinaitis are good foils for Cena, because the crowd isn't going to be split for them - they are going with Cena all the way. I was surprised that Cena winning got as big of a pop as it did, because I didn't think anybody would actually believe Laurinaitis was going anywhere, but it sent the crowd home happy.

 

Overall, I'm glad I went. I'd say that I definitely got more than my money's worth out of this show.

[Jingus]

I don't give a flying fuck what workers call things.

Well, that's... an incredibly grumpy response. Why not care? They're the ones who invented this jargon in the first place.

[MJH]

"Getting Heat" hardly applies to face-in-control though. And no one ever said the jargon has to match, I'd sooner call the basic shine/heat/comeback-finish "three part" (for many reasons) rather than "seven points", etc... and besides, "Control Segment" is a simple, easilly understood title for "the part of the match where one guy takes over on offense", so I don't see what the problem is with the term.

[MJH]

Like I said, Dolph was kind of exposed tonight. He's good at delivering fun TV matches, but it's tough to be a main event heel when your only tools for working a heat segment are chinlocks and facebusters. He'd certainly benefit from a face turn. I also don't like Sheamus' current hierarchy of finishers. Using White Noise to set up the Brogue Kick seems backwards.

I don't get the talk of Dolph turning heel, myself. For a start, his bumping, to take up something Will said, is absolutely best suited for a heel - it's right out of the old stooging playbook. His character is good, and much better suited to a heel. And with the bleached hair, etc, (and remember how generic he looked when he dropped it), it all screams heel to me.

 

But, I know what you mean about his (sorry, Jingus) control segment. There's a theory that the heel-control ought to be boring, and it then makes the crowd want the babyface to comeback even more because they're more exciting. I think that's bullshit, and a match should never be boring (Foley notwithstanding). The problem is, the WWE do seem to go along with this theory, at least to a point - even in short TV matches they'll have the heels work a g-up spot out of a 'resthold' when the workers hardly need to rest. I mean, that spot works, but that style of teaching doesn't lend itself to having heels develop ways of working an interesting (because it should be interesting, as you need to keep the people interested to keep them into the match) control. Now, I don't think Dolph was terribly exposed or anything, it was better than those First Heel Run Shawn Michaels heel controls where he'd lay in a chinlock for forever and a day (Dolph at least tries to keep them interesting with the headstands, etc), but it's something in his game that needs improving.

 

**

 

Add me to the 'Cody does nothing for me' crowd, too. His facials are beyond-forced, and take me out of it immediately. In the ring, technically, mechanically, whatever, he's fine, perfectly good, and can have solid matches with a good babyface worker (which Christian certainly is). But those facials are Kelly Kelly-level.

[Loss]

I think back to Cody inducting his father in the HOF a few years back, and wonder why they can't just capture that. He was awesome there. If he was that guy all the time, he'd be over.

[Matt D]

I can think of a lot of scenarios based around Flair's return where he turns face. I think either he or Ziggler need to and I think he'd benefit more from it. (with Ziggler benefiting more from ending up WITH Flair).

[El-P]

Add me to the 'Cody does nothing for me' crowd, too. His facials are beyond-forced, and take me out of it immediately. In the ring, technically, mechanically, whatever, he's fine, perfectly good, and can have solid matches with a good babyface worker (which Christian certainly is). But those facials are Kelly Kelly-level.

Agreed.

Does nothing for me. Beyond forced facials. Mechanically fine > see also / Orton, Randy

[Ricky Jackson]

I've been a bit out of the loop---is Flair's return to WWE imminent?

 

Also, looking ahead to MITB, who gets elevated this year? Off the top of my head it doesn't seem like they've been grooming anybody new recently. I could see Cena being in the Raw match, since I don't think he's ever been in a MITB before. Wouldn't be surprised if he won too.

 

Edit: I guess Tensai is a good candidate. Maybe Clay?

[Matt D]

I'd like them to run Cena vs Sheamus at Summerslam.

[Jingus]

Talking about Cody's bad facials, I wonder if that's another reason why the mask gimmick was such a boon for him.

 

There's a theory that the heel-control ought to be boring, and it then makes the crowd want the babyface to comeback even more because they're more exciting. I think that's bullshit, and a match should never be boring (Foley notwithstanding).

The problem with that is, it's easy for a heel to basically turn himself babyface if his moves are too good. That's something AJ Styles has run into several times in TNA when he was supposed to be a heel, the crowd often kept cheering him anyway. It's hard for a heel to stay hated if they keep doing cooler shit than the babyface does.