Summerslam 2014

[MJH]

PS I agree that Reigns' push isn't inorganic. He was getting over w/ the Shield and I don't think many others would have survived Rumble with the Bryan thing as he did. But Randy did him tonight, absolutely.

[The Chief]

I would love to see Ryback or Mark Henry stand up to Lesnar.

[BoneSoldier]

It's not down to thinking Orton's a dick (though, by his own admission, he is). I actually got a kick out of it, as I did with Shawn, or Hogan against Warrior (and his commupence on Shawn too to show who's boss). But Orton completely undercut Reigns tonight. Shit, other than the finish, all the replays were Orton's spots, and the crowd were noticeably tepid towards him. That's not how you put a guy over.

 

The match did feel like more of an Orton showcase, but I can't imagine any other way for him to have gotten 16 minutes out of Reigns without it getting really bad.

[Guest Eduardo James]

I would love to see...Mark Henry stand up to Lesnar.

 

[Steenalized]

Reigns' push being inorganic is a matter of timing and degree. At this point, I think Ambrose clearly gets the bigger reactions, but it's Reigns who's the chosen one. Reigns was definitely over with the Shield, probably the most over, but he was also positioned to be the most over. The WWE wants him so badly to be their new top dog. He was/is getting over, but not to the degree they think he is or think he should be. And now with Bryan gone they're accelerating that.

[flyonthewall2983]

How would you book Lesnar's exit?

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

Who needs to go first? Randy Orton or the police chief in Ferguson, MO?

[thebrainfollower]

Daniel Bryan slays the dragon at Wrestlemania. That's about all I can see working at this point.

 

Cena has a CHANCE if he comes out and actually sells this correctly. But I cannot think of a time he's ever done that in his career to be honest.

[dexstar]

That main event was awesome, but I'm going to laugh so hard when HHH turns face in January and goes on to "defend the WWE" from the evil Brock, winning the title at Mania.

[fakeplastictrees]

 

Huge props to Cena not just for taking that beating, but also for putting Brock over like that. When has a promotion had their champ squashed on the second-biggest show of the year? (Not just a rhetorical question.)

 

Related question: have the heels ever dominated a WWE PPV so thoroughly before?

 

 

Backlash 2000. The heel won in every championship match.

[Paul Jacobi]

 

 

Huge props to Cena not just for taking that beating, but also for putting Brock over like that. When has a promotion had their champ squashed on the second-biggest show of the year? (Not just a rhetorical question.)

 

Related question: have the heels ever dominated a WWE PPV so thoroughly before?

Backlash 2000. The heel won in every championship match.

I'm pretty sure Rock beat Triple H in the biggest championship match on that one

[Bix]

 

 

 

 

Huge props to Cena not just for taking that beating, but also for putting Brock over like that. When has a promotion had their champ squashed on the second-biggest show of the year? (Not just a rhetorical question.)

Related question: have the heels ever dominated a WWE PPV so thoroughly before?

Backlash 2000. The heel won in every championship match.

Rock beat HHH in the main event.

[tigerpride]

Here's the real deal on Brock/Cena courtesy of some jabroni on Scott Keith's website:

 

According to David Bixenspan of the Figure Four Weekly Newsletter, he reported that even if Lesnar doesn't hold the title until WrestleMania, that does not mean he will not be going into WrestleMania as the champion and to not expect several months of the WWE Champion not being at house shows.

 

How is Brian Bayless a "jabroni?" He does consistently great work for Scott's website from daily news updates to reviews.

[Russellmania]

first of all, how on earth can any one argue that Reigns push has been 'organic'? I feel like anyone making that argument doesn't really understand what people mean when they use the term in a wrestling context. Reigns was extremely green and heavily protected in the Shield. He absolutely deserves some credit for having a great look and charisma, which helped him get big crowd reactions in the Shield, but so much of that was booking and positioning in the group. For 2 years Reigns basically got to be the cleanup hitter for that group and was very much enhanced by teaming with two superworkers. All Reigns really had to be was a great hot tag within the group. WWE deciding that because he shined in that context that he would be a sure thing as a singles star is a logical fallacy, and them handpicking him to be their next big singles star when he hadn't even had a significant singles match is the opposite of an organic push.

 

The fact that people are up in arms about Orton not giving him a ton of offense indicates just how protected he still needs to be to be over. That's not organic. Compare his push to Bryan who became the most over guy in the company in spite of being booked horribly for years and never really being protected at all outside of some specific instances. Bryan was a guy the *fans* picked to be *the guy* and they were going to make him *the guy* no matter what the bookers did to him. That's an organic push. Saying Reigns' current push is "inorganic" doesn't mean that he hasn't gotten an organic response from the crowd, it just means that WWE's current plans for him don't accurately reflect the strength of those crowd reactions or the reasons he's getting those reactions.

 

As for the Reigns/Orton match, I see people saying Orton undercut Reigns. First of all, Orton doesn't get to choose how long their segment is. They were told to go out there and work a 15 minute match. Reigns right now has literally 5 spots in his arsenal (diving clothesline, apron kick, samoan drop, superman punch, spear) and because of the way he worked in the Shield for 2 years, he only knows how to hit those spots in one sequence. The rest of his offense is basically punches. I see people arguing that this match made him look weak. Well the only alternative is for him to do the Goldberg routine and kill Orton in under 10 minutes. But the match was booked for 15...not Orton's fault. It's also neither guy's fault that it was booked in the buffer spot between two hot matches. Also because of how shitty WWE's booking is, nobody really cared about this match going into it. So that's what Orton has to work with. He has to guide this guy through a 15+ minute match without blowing all of Reigns' big spots too early and also has to get the crowd into it against all odds. I can understand people thinking Reigns didn't get enough offense, but he literally utilized ALL OF THE OFFENSE HE KNOWS. And for what it's worth I don't think enough of the crowd buys Reigns as a destroyer of worlds to book him as a Goldberg-like force anyway.

 

I guess my point is that, Orton's slow build style of match actually worked here because the crowd didn't care enough to eat up Reigns winning in a sprint. I mean the crowd was really hot by the end of the match and I don't think the crowd would have cared nearly as much if Reigns had just come out and squashed Orton.

[Timbo Slice]

People don't connect with Reigns that much. Not as much as they do Ambrose. Reigns had his strengths highlighted in The Shield. Now? He's having to work a different style altogether. Not something you do in a couple months. Pulling the trigger now would kill him dead.

[Strummer]

http://31.media.tumblr.com/0b3c565c269e64b1d4ef27905c2d642e/tumblr_nahc0wMUHI1srbyoyo1_1280.png

 

 

 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvSykotCcAAyx8R.jpg

 

15 years later

[tigerpride]

TLC 2012 was a heel dominated show.

[The Man in Blak]

The fact that people are up in arms about Orton not giving him a ton of offense indicates just how protected he still needs to be to be over. That's not organic.

 

...

 

First of all, Orton doesn't get to choose how long their segment is. They were told to go out there and work a 15 minute match.

I agree with you that the booking did them no favors. And I strongly agree with you on Reigns in general; this was a test to see if he had "another gear" for a high profile singles match and, regardless of who was ultimately in the driver's seat, he didn't pass.

 

That said, I don't think the issue for Orton is the amount of offense he had, as much as the quality of it. If he had completely emptied out the bag of tricks instead of settling for chinlocks (plural) and standing around, they could have established a narrative for Reigns being incredibly tough: "he took everything Orton could dish out." But grinding things to a halt with restholds made it feel like a mediocre TV match, like they were trying to work around commercial breaks that weren't there.

[goodhelmet]

TLC 2012 was a heel dominated show.

 

I forgot all about that show.

[Johnny Sorrow]

They told the story that Reigns isn't a total domination machine as a singles, and Orton is a top level guy who isn't gonna just get killed by a guy like that. No matter how much some online fans hate Orton, in the WWE he's a top guy who isn't getting squashed as a heel. And blaming Orton for how the match was laid out is another example of blind hatred. You REALLY think he decided on the fly to be that much of an ass kicker ? He didn't book the fucking match.

[Timbo Slice]

God, really? Layout and execution are two different things. Ambrose and Rollins had a LUMBERJACK MATCH and did what they did tonight. That wasn't booked that way. They had ideas and did them.

[sek69]

Reigns was the most over when the Shield was together, but the crowd has got behind Dean and Seth more since they've all gone separately. Reigns in singles matches hasn't lit the world on fire, and the more that goes on and he still gets the Next Big Star push the crowd will start to react negatively. That seems to be what's happening to a small degree.

[Fantastic]

 

 

It was uncomfortable watching.

Yes, Cena was probably quite foolish to take those brutal German suplexes with his neck history.

That's what made this match work, though; they basically laid it out like a shoot fight, with some theatrics in the middle. And, in a shoot fight, why wouldn't Lesnar try to blow up Cena's bad neck with a dozen German suplexes?

 

 

Yeah, it's just there comes a point where you start to get reminders of all those AJPW guys who can barely move thanks to the abundance of head drops and German Suplexes in the 1990's. Cena took far too many awkward bumps on those German's last night.

 

Asides from that, that was probably Cena's best sell job in his entire career, he really fucking brought it last night and sold the hell out of Lesnar's beating. It's incredible just how good Cena can be when he wants to.

[bradhindsight]

re: Cena coming out a broken man tonight -- every other big loss he's ever had he's shrugged off the next night as no big deal. Rock I, even the damage from the first Lesnar match - he just reboots himself the next day.

 

If he puts it over on RAW (or isn't on RAW), it makes the story telling even better but not holding my breath.

[Dylan Waco]

Cena shouldn't even be on Raw