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Roman / Brock vs. Sasha / Bayley


JerryvonKramer

Which match was better?  

88 members have voted

  1. 1. Well?

    • Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar, Wrestlemania 31
    • Sasha Banks vs. Bayley, NXT Takeover: Brooklyn


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And since when did we all turn on the finish? At the time of the show, the entire internet was raving about how brilliant the Rollins cash-in was and how it saved the match (if not the whole show). This is literally the first time I've seen a bunch of people complaining about it.

Go back and look at the Mania thread at the time it was happening. I know there were people who didn't like the finish because I was one of them and I was not alone.
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The absolutely wretched run that Seth had with the belt can't have helped either. That finish looks awful in retrospect, and I wonder if WWE's ratings would have been so awful this year if there were simply a top babyface champion.

 

By the way, what does everyone think of the two Taker/Lesnar matches this summer? There's actually a funny contrast with the finish to the first match, which I loved, and seemingly everyone else hated, which is basically the opposite of how I felt about the Rollins cash-in finish.

 

(also, the spot where they start slugging the hell out of each other while sitting down is maybe my favorite single in-ring moment of the year)

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Dylan's thoughts echo mine in a lot of ways, but I push Brooklyn over the top because it was a unique atmosphere that added something that's hard to quantify to the match. I totally get why people pick that over Brooklyn, though.

 

The first thing I thought about in trying to compare the two matches was the first two Jumbo/Misawa matches, where the first one had something the second one could never, ever duplicate. The second match was phenomenal due to how the character work between the two had been added to in the three months leading up to the rematch, and it led to people thinking the second match was better in many ways (an argument that's got just as much on either side as this one does).

 

Now I can't wait for the Year End Wrestling Culture show because when we do our Top 10 matches, I'm gonna be very interested to see how Dylan and I match up with those four matches.

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I thought the booking was smart and don't particularly care about it because match was at ***** before Rollins showed up.

 

Matches can end in a draw or screw finish and still get full five from me. I think fans put too much emphasis on clean pitfalls in general. I guess as evidenced by reactions to Roman vs. Brock.

 

Same here. Some of my favorite matches of all-time have screw finishes or non-finishes. My favorite HBK-Undertaker match is Ground Zero 1997 and one of my favorite HBK matches period, which had no finish, which set up Hell In a Cell, which set up Kane, and which set up the Rumble casket match.......

 

I totally get why people would look at Rollins cashing in, and the current situation with Roman on the verge of being Lex Luger'd if they don't play their cards right, and it tainting that match for them. I don't agree with them, but I get it. I, personally, loved the booking, and I loved Seth Rollins' run on top as a cocky chickenshit heel who could really go when he wanted to. Seth Rollins was one of the standout highlights of 2015 WWE for me. But I understand that not everyone feels that way.....don't like his promos.....think he wrestles too much like a babyface (which is a complaint I never got because you can be flashy and cocky as a heel), etc etc

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Also, neither here nor there, but if I'm booking the belt is on Roman sooner than later......I guess at Royal Rumble......and Brock enters the Rumble and wins it.....setting up the rematch and your WM main event. That's a great story.

 

Meltzer has speculated Roman-Cena at WM, which I think is bad idea jeans at this point. I think Cena-Taker is the money match, that's a match I've wanted to see at WM for years now, and it's special because they've so rarely crossed paths since back in 03 when Cena was still a young hip hopper heel. If this is Taker's last WM, in Texas at Cowboy Stadium, I can't think of a better match to go out with.

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Me in the Brock GWE thread back in July:

 

 

His post-2012 run has been hit or miss, but the hits have contained three of the best matches in company history, including one that main evented Mania and is one of the 2-3 best matches in WM history.

 

I'd forgotten about Bret-Austin and would wanna watch it again, but if memory serves it is better. I buy the story of it enough to think it is still the changing of the guard moment from New Generation to Attitude and Austin's rise. Savage/Steamboat hasn't been all that great the last couple times I've watched it: kind of a banana peel finish too. I don't much like Austin-Rock from 17 as Heyman telegraphs it hard when he's on color - great atmosphere, but I don't think much of the match aside from being a big angle. I like their match from 19 more as it has more of a Jurassic Park vibe in the two Attitude Era titans at the end of their real runs.

 

Sasha/Bailey Iron Man has Banks heeling on the kid, which particularly stands out at a time when no one in WWE works heel.

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The thing about the Sasha/Bayley matches is that I can't suspend my disbelief for them. It's one of the basic requirements I have for rating a wrestling match highly. The heeling on the kid isn't really that impressive when you have Sasha apologizing to her ASAP and the kid befriending her on twitter hours after the match.

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The thing about the Sasha/Bayley matches is that I can't suspend my disbelief for them. It's one of the basic requirements I have for rating a wrestling match highly. The heeling on the kid isn't really that impressive when you have Sasha apologizing to her ASAP and the kid befriending her on twitter hours after the match.

 

But that really happened, and was real. It wasn't a planned spot. Sasha did it in the moment, and really made that girl cry. And it was great.

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The thing about the Sasha/Bayley matches is that I can't suspend my disbelief for them. It's one of the basic requirements I have for rating a wrestling match highly. The heeling on the kid isn't really that impressive when you have Sasha apologizing to her ASAP and the kid befriending her on twitter hours after the match.

 

But that really happened, and was real. It wasn't a planned spot. Sasha did it in the moment, and really made that girl cry. And it was great.

 

It didn't matter in my viewing experience. The first match and the build up to the Iron(wo)man match ruined any chances of me caring about a face/heel dynamic in the rematch. You also have the little girl basically being presented as a character of her own on NXT shows so her being inserted into the match isn't that surprising.

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I remember all the times where a heel actually heeled on fans and stood by those actions. Like Owen Hart pretending to give out the Hart glasses only to rip them up in a kid's face. Didn't see Owen befriending that guy on TV afterwards. So for someone to say Sasha heeled like nobody heeled anymore is silly when we see otherwise. Although I will grant that things are different overall so I don't know if it would have been good for Sasha not to come back for that kid.

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I voted for Lesnar/Reigns. I didn't think either match was transcendent or a clear cut MOTY, but I do feel Reigns/Lesnar was a lower end MOTYC and Bailey/Banks fell just outside that realm. Both matches were dramatic. Both did a good job in getting over an underdog, but I thought Reigns/Lesnar was more effective to that end. Not only were they less heavy-handed about it but Bailey was largely over as an underdog based on the build up while work alone in the WM match moved crowd reaction towards Reigns from dislike/apathetic to a sympathetic figure. Didn't have an issue with the finish. They built the match in a manner that made me want to see a winner (ideally Reigns) and then pulled the rug out at the peak point. That's a good non-conclusive finish. The problem was Rollins was a shitty heel and they waited way too long to pay off the angle, but on that night the finish fit the match really well.

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