2016 Pro Wrestling Thread

12-man tag: Too many headlocks! Uso heel turn? Heel-ish turn? I still can't be bothered to care.
Zayn/Neville vs. Dudleyz: What's Sami doing all the way down here after winning the feud with Owens? Don't care about the Dudleyz split.
Sheamus vs. Cesaro: Solid work by both, though I'm not sure how much storytelling they can do over 7 friggin matches. You're likely to see a bunch of matches that....look like this one.
JeriKO vs. Enzo/Big Cass: I know heels win at SummerSlam, but c'mon. Codebreaker finish sucked. You're old, Chris.
Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks: Brutal watch for the botches at the beginning, but...bad in an honorable way, I guess? Both competitors went nuts trying to put on a show. Sasha needs to dial it back or she'll have a short career. Angry Charlotte is the best heel on the roster.
The Miz vs. Apollo Crews: Didn't give us enough to care for. This should've been on the pre-show, belt or no.
AJ Styles vs. John Cena: It's not MOTY-worthy because it got too finisher-spammy at the end, but great work and storytelling as usual from these two. The look on Cena's face as he came to the realization that AJ just wouldn't go down was something else. I'm guessing Styles is pushed for a world title run next.
Gallows/Anderson vs. The New Day: Was Jon Stewart drunk? Vince-found-this-funny segments are always lousy. Pass.
Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler: Oh, well, way to make us care about the world title by putting it fifth from the end, guys. Not sure why Ziggler needed to be here; it was just the usual Ziggler Loss(TM). Heely Dean is fun.
Alexa Bliss/Natalya/Nikki Bella vs. Becky Lynch/Naomi/Carmella: Yeah, so Nikki's going to be the Smackdown women's champion for like a year now, eh? Fine for what it was, though. I like Nikki's new finisher.
Finn Balor vs. Seth Rollins: Why here? OK match, though Seth's moveset just doesn't make him enough of a heel. (His laugh is another story.) Crowd was lousy-smarky against it as only Brooklyn can be. Shaddup, guys, you aren't funny. I'll reserve judgment on the Balor mega-push; he's good in the ring and looks great, but...I don't really care about him, cool entrance aside.
Rusev not really vs. Roman Reigns: Why is Reigns the face in this story, again? Shame the show was so overstuffed, because I legit want to see these guys go at it.
Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Orton: So am I being worked by being tired of the Lesnar routine?

 

I'm not convinced Orton bladed before, or even during, that match last night.

Those elbow and forearm shots were vicious, and Orton rarely got his hands up to lessen the blows.

 

I saw a photo of his cut. It was quite jagged. If he'd bladed, it would have been pretty straight. The E said he needed 10 staples.

I also thought Orton got legitimately KOed at one point because he was just laying there for a few seconds.

 

Didn't see any of the pre-show matches, and it sounds like I didn't miss anything spectacular.

The first tag match was good, but not great. Looked like Jericho struggled getting the jump needed to hit that Codebreaker for the win, though.

Charlotte vs. Sasha -- I expected much more out of this match than they were able to give us, though I think that may be due to Sasha legit being injured. And that's a damn shame, because I was looking forward to her having a nice run with belt.

Miz vs. Crews -- Yawn.

Styles vs. Cena -- Despite the finisher-happy ending, this is definitely Match of the Year worthy. Those two stole the freaking show, and the crowd was completely into the match from bell to bell. Not quite sure what to make of Cena taking off the armband after the match, but I'm hoping -- yes, still -- that it leads to a heel turn.

New Day vs. The Club -- What the fuck was the point of Jon Stewart being there? Ruined the vibe for the match for me. Didn't really care for the match or the ending, though Big E's suplex to Gallows was pretty freaking sweet.

Ambrose vs. Ziggler -- Match wasn't really all that special, but I did like Ambrose's counter of what I think was going to a super face buster into the Dirty Deeds.

Six-woman tag match -- Surprised to see Bella return, even though I knew she was backstage earlier in the day. And surprised they let the heels win.

Balor vs. Rollins -- The crowd took too much away from this match with some of the chants. Shut up and let them work, and shut up about the belt. Hoping the rumors aren't true, that Balor got hurt during the match.

Rusev vs. Reigns -- I like this side of Reigns, I really do. But that was a clusterfuck.

Orton vs. Brock -- Seven Germans, two RKOs, two F-5s and a TKO. And lots and lots of blood. That's the most I've seen someone bleed since the PG era begun, and it was great to see. Brock again looked like a legit bad ass mother fucker, and Orton needs to be commended for taking that ass whipping.

 

I did too. He attempted to block the first few blows, but Brock hit one and then Orton wasn't moving for a bit.

 

Apparently, the rumors are true about Balor being injured. It's still unclear how serious it is and whether surgery is required.

Top WWE Star Reportedly Suffers Injury During WWE SummerSlam Match

Report is he suffered it when Rollins gave him his horizontal powerbomb into the barricade. After this and the Sting match, I think Rollins needs to take that move out of his arsenal immediately. He's talented enough that he can excel without it.

 

I took everything Bret Hart's been saying about Rollins with a grain of salt because he's so grumpy and he's basically angry old man yelling at clouds......but if Rollins hurt Balor now too.......maybe Bret's right. The E just can't have these guys going down all the time.

On Brooklyn.......watching on TV I couldn't make out what they were chanting during the universal title match. I turned it up once or twice to try to figure it out but couldn't, so it didn't really bother me.

My general view is they can chant whatever they want. It's the talents job to get the crowd back not the other way around. It was such a long show and it was a shitty spot in the night for those two to be in. It was all downhill after Cena/Styles.....crowd was feeling spent and restless by that point in the night. It's on Vince and Trips to book the matches in an order that helps prevent that, not on the crowd to "behave."

 

I'd agree with your sentiments. It was just a confusingly booked night, and with a smarter crowd, you have to know you can't get them to bite on as much stuff as you normally do.

Nikki Bella comes back, and you have her on the heel team? I realize she was a heel when she left, but still, it's now the second time WWE has done that in a couple months (Rollins), and both times they had to fight the crowd reaction immediately on it. At least they had Orton come back as a face.

The Reigns-Rusev stuff is just so hamfisted to me. I thinnkkk they're trying to do a double-turn here, but if that's the case, they probably should have done it on Raw. I realize Rusev is the foreign heel, but Reigns has always been the bullying heel in this feud to me. They really just need to put Reigns in a Lesnar Lite role and let him go. Let him do it for a couple months, and he'll naturally turn into the face they wanted all along, eventually. (I thought this was the plan a couple months ago, when they had him "snap" on Triple H with a chair, but then he was back to John Cena Lite within a few weeks.)

I thought Sasha vs. Charlotte was pretty good. I don't know if Sasha is injured or not, but either way, it made sense to have Charlotte go over to establish a best-of-3 booking.

Styles vs. Cena was some good shit. No idea where they're going with Cena, but I'd guess way more in the direction of when Hulk Hogan would leave for a few months and come back as a face, vs. this being the start of a heel turn.

 

Jesus Christ the Balor injury is legit. I feel like all the winds been let out of the sails for WWE now.

Legit really really bummed out. This is crushing.

 

Yep, he's giving up the belt tonight.

UPDATE: Finn Bálor to relinquish WWE Universal Championship

Sheesh. The show last night turned into a real mess.

 

SummerSlam seems to be making as much news out of the ring as in:

Chris Jericho And Brock Lesnar Reportedly Get Into Big Backstage Altercation Following Conclusion Of WWE Summerslam - Wrestlezone

 

Guy takes down Goldberg and all of a sudden thinks he can beat up anybody.