2015 Pro Wrestling Thread

Word for word what gutter said.....do a wrestling angle with a save by Charlotte and whichever other diva you want with Paige and let the crowd pop. Having Steph make some kind of political statement for PR brownie points is just stupid. It probably all goes back to her meaningless Tweet about that woman's Oscar thing and the blast AJ gave her. Bringing out Becky first was dumb...crowd seemed like it barely knew her.

If they're going to make this work they need to commit to actually booking Divas as faces and heels. Like Gutter said, they have the Bellas as "heels" smiling all the time, Steph (the biggest heel in the company before Kevin Owens showed up) getting face pops going at Nikki.....it makes no sense. Have to hope having Banks on the "other team" will just get us to a place where its Sasha vs Paige and Sasha vs Charlotte nonstop in a few months.

And Cody......God was that awful. At least the last segment was well done....it was cool to see Lesnar stand tall, leave and then have Seth stand tall too before the show ended. I honestly have no idea who walks out of Battleground champ, mostly because I figure its rematching at SummerSlam anyway.

 

They've constantly left the crowd confused as to whether to cheer or boo the Bellas, which makes it hard to care when something happens to them. A better way to have put them as faces would have been to do something to similar to the Nexus invasion, in which have a match with Paige and the Bellas, and then have the NXT women come down and beat on all of them.

Then, either do the usual formula of having Paige and the Bellas team up reluctantly, or have NXT help Paige and do a double-turn.

 

I for one loved the Divas segment. The fact the crowd popped for them just tells you how over NXT really is.

And that RAW overall was pretty damn good. That 3-way Cesaro/Owens/Rusev match was spectacular, even if you knew how it was going to end.

 

The only thing I didn't like about the segment was Stephanie being out there and introducing them all. It would have made much more sense to: A. Have Triple H or -- and this is a long shot -- Mick Foley out there with them, because those guys really have been two of the biggest NXT women's wrestling supporters, or B. Have Charlotte's music hit and have her and Becky walk out together, and then have The Boss come out solo.

Crowd would have popped either way, but having Steph introduce them just seemed force.

Good ending, though.

 

Rusev winning was a bit of a surprise to me, considering the push Cesaro has gotten in the last couple of weeks.
I wouldn't mind seeing Cesaro come out to cost Owens the title at Battleground, though, and we get an Owens-Cesaro-Cena triple threat at SummerFest.

 

I was referring to the fact of Owens coming back out and costing Rusev. The fact Rusev went clean over Cesaro was a surprise. I wouldn't mind a 3-way dance between Cesaro-Owens-Cena at SummerSlam tho.

 

That IC title sure is cursed. First Daniel Bryan, and now Ryback is out with a staph infection and will miss Battleground.

 

Finally got around to Raw. As nice as it was to see the Divas division shaken up, I didn't care for the execution. I would have preferred that Paige return to NXT to slowly build up her stable against the Bella stable. Instead of an organic build, a story told over weeks ... or at least a story that wasn't the same chapter over and over again every week: Paige gets the shit kicked out of her ... we get a thrown-together thing in which Steph makes this grand political statement about women in sports. Another reason it doesn't work is that you have a complete screwup of any character. The Bellas have implied for weeks that their good relationship with Steph allows them to stay protected (which goes against Steph vs. Brie from a year ago). But having Steph come out and say it's time for change is a huge babyface move. Why did she get tired of the Bellas? From the storyline, it's because she's an opportunist, jumping on the "women can compete hard and matter in sports, too" thing ... it's all the writers have given me to go on.

But if this is a statement, it's a little late to the party. The E could have led such a charge six months ago while Ronda Rousey was becoming a real household name. I'm not saying to bring all the NXT women up at once, or even one around the #GiveDivasAChance movement. The E could have immediately responded with matches that were better booked than what they were. Sure, there were some attempts, but mostly it was the same shit. Rousey showed up at WM for a cameo, but big deal. She can't come in and compete with a UFC contract. No way Dana White allows that.

Instead of putting themselves in front of Rousey's growing popularity and the feel-good story of the U.S. women's soccer team's World Cup championship, The E fell behind and reminded everyone of it by referencing such things. Basically, The E could have been on the forefront of a social trend (I can't think of a better phrase to describe what I'm thinking. Can you tell I'm a writer who's stuck with desk shifts for half his week and hardly writes?), but The E is playing catch up. Kind of typical these days.

Also, I don't understand the groupings. I understand Bellas vs. New Divas. But why does Naomi, Tamina and Sasha stand to gain by basically being a third party to siphon strength from the reform party? (Oh shit, I brought political ideas into the wrestling thread. Shameful. Ban me now.) Sure, I get that from the perspective of Naomi and Tamina, they want to reach the top without Paige. But why did Sasha throw in her support for them over NXT colleagues? Other than it's because the way the promo was set up, Steph lumped her with them. Because heels with heels and faces with faces. Would it be so bad to have some gray area in a story? Like any modern-day WWE story, there are faults in the logic or parts of the story just aren't explained well enough.

I think The E messed up a bit by having the Brock/Seth contract signing this week. It should have happened last week, and the Caddy murder should have been Monday's go-home segment. But what do I know, I'm just a dumb mark. I'm most excited for this match. I have no idea what could happen. Will Seth really go against Lesnar alone? Does Sheamus cash in? (I forgot there was a MitB floating around. More on that later.) Will Paul Heyman turn on Brock? Was that fantasy booking given up after he didn't turn and endorse Roman at WM? There has to be some kind of screwy finish, right? Set up for SummerSlam, and Brock can win it there. Because we all know the only time a world title changes anymore is at WM or SS. C'mon, The E has to surprise me at some point, right?

Once again, The E has killed any build up of a feud, allowing a babyface to get his hands on a dastardly heel before the PPV. This time, it was Roman and Bray. I ... I just don't care about this feud. I hope Bray wins, because he is badly in need of a big win. He was one of the guys unceremoniously dumped in the Royal Rumble. No match at Fastlane, just his challenge to the Undertaker. That whole feud fell flat to me. All we got were a few of the same old, same old Bray promos, a pre-recorded Undertaker message (which was as generic as hell and probably stock audio from a show long ago). Bray had a decent WrestleMania match, but he lost. The scarecrow entrance as dusk was creepy as hell, but it's all I really recall about it. He was injured and kept of TV, it seems. Undertaker had nothing to do with The E after the match, so it's like we got an overblown house show match. It didn't mean shit in the long run. Bray skipped Extreme Rules. Bray beat Ryback at Payback, but nothing came of the feud. Ryback benefitted more from a loss from some luck of another Daniel Bryan injury. Bray interfered with Roman at Money in the Bank, but he wasn't on the card. If one goes back to 2014, Bray has won three PPV matches since SummerSlam: Jericho at SS, Ambrose at TLC, Ryback at Payback. Bray Wyatt, for whatever reason, is stuck in limbo more than Ambrose, who was cooled down this spring, heated up to be a placeholder feud for Rollins, then cooled again. These guys are the future of the company, folks.

Cena vs. Owens has become so drawn out with nothing new to add to the story that I don't care anymore. I want to care about Cesaro. They guy can flat out go. But I don't care about him. I know nothing about him, other than he's Swiss and he's good. The E has got to sell me on why I should care for this guy, and I get nothing. Who is he? What's his story? How did he get here? When did he fall in love with wrestling? Who trained him? Anything! Shit, it worked for Ryback, so why can't we know more about Cesaro?

Ryback has a staph infection in his knee, so the IC triple threat match is off. At least I don't have to suffer through a Miz match.

Prime Time Players vs. New Day for the tag titles seems ho-hum. Maybe it's just because I catch the Hulu Plus show, but I haven't seen shit of the tag scene since Kidd/Cesaro had to split for obvious reasons. With Kidd out and one of the Usos out, the tag division is New Day, PTP and Ascension. I think Los Matadores and Lucha Dragons are still around somewhere.

Sheamus vs. Orton. Might be a decent match, but I've seen it before. I forgot Sheamus won MitB. Seriously. I just can't get excited about the guy as a world title holder again. He's a midcard heel.

It's really late, and I'm really tired. Much of this may not have made sense.

 

Very Ragu-ian of you.

 

A pretty good summation. Also, what's not being said with the Tamina, Sasha, Naomi thing is that, well, three minorities are teaming up. They're becoming the New Day of the Divas. Heck, put Alicia with them, and you have the Divas of Domination. Can't they come up with anything better after all these decades?

And why does everything have to be 3 on 3? Heck, when the NWO began, it was just 3 guys, who took advantage of nobody else getting along to dominate.

 

And what's with Becky Lynch anyway? Isn't Bayley better than her, save her having one great match with Sasha? I don't want to run her down but has she really earned the call-up the way Charlotte and Sasha have? Meaning, why not let her carry the NXT division for a while rather than have the main roster thing wayyyy over-crowded with 9 people? (Is there even a match for this on the PPV? Really "giving them a chance" without one).

I also fear they're going to have Charlotte and Sasha keep a foot in both world the way Kevin Owens has, which will screw up the story. Mostly to sell tickets to NXT events, which is fine but unlike Owens I don't think they'll be able to keep this one up logically. (Also why didn't Sasha bring the NXT belt like Owens did?)

 

They did address that turn. Nikki was claiming she owns the division and runs things, and was obviously getting too big for her britches. Stephanie came out to put her in her place, just like the Authority has done to other wrestlers when they've made similar claims.
Now, the Steph/Nikki/Brie thing that was brewing last summer? Yeah, that just sort of disappeared into thin air with no rhyme or reason.