2018 Pro Wrestling thread

Have never been a fan but watched because wanted a new way to connect with my son (who does not watch sports) so we set up family night with him, my wife and me.

Was on a roadtrip to colleges with my son this past week and we touched upon WWE, etc. and its history and he enlightened me on the subtleties of the sport, the story lines, the moves, and the back stories. Even though I loved pro wrestling in th 60's/70s growing up, I had moved on to "real" sports.

After watching with a new lense and being more open minded, I better understand what this is all about and kinda get it.

The match with the kid was hilarious; the way he looked so out of water and timid was a great pairing for Braun. We were laughing out loud the whole time.

Lesner does look like a beast and there needs to be someone to break through, Reigns was not the guy. Maybe AJ Styles?

 

To piggyback on these two points - I was also pleasantly surprised by Bliss-Jax. Maybe I'm just too much of a mark for Bliss, but they told a really good story in what seemed like it was just going to be a stupid squash match at first. (I enjoyed Jax beating the crap out of Mickie James at the start of the match, though.) Bliss is going to be the most over female face the second she turns. Although, maybe WWE will manage to fuck that up too, since I forgot to mention in my previous post that having Naomi throw out Bayley, after she turned on Sasha, made her look way worse.

re: Reigns vs. Lesnar, the whole thing is even odder now that I think about it more. Like, not sure if you saw the video package for it, but it was basically 5 minutes of how Lesnar has been beating the shit out of Reigns for months. And then in the match, he bloodies him up and controls most of the action, and he wins. Maybe they did it that way because they realized how negative the crowd was on Reigns, but it's not like that was some god damn secret people didn't know a month out. Maybe the plan was, "Hey, the crowd will eventually soften on him because of these odds and these beatdowns!" But, they never really did, and once you get to Mania you have to choose from one of two shitty options.

But, hell, if it was me, I probably would have just went off the board and thrown a third person in, or had a DQ finish followed by another match, or anything else than what they did. Like to me, they should have just re-used the script from the past Mania, when they weren't sold on Bret Hart or Yokozuna and instead had Hulk beat him in 90 seconds after the main event. I would have had Lesnar squash Reigns, to lead to a future Reigns heel turn, and then have Lesnar cocky and over-confident, and Heyman calling out for anyone from the back to step up. Then, have Bryan or Cena or someone else come out and win.

 

Could they have Brock drop the belt overseas?

 

Lesnar and Styles had a match at Survivor Series in November. Styles was booked as a huge underdog and held his own, but ultimately lost, so I'm not sure if they could revisit that or not.
That's another problem with Lesnar. They've had a couple of guys built up as worthy contenders in the past year -- Strowman, Samoa Joe and Reigns -- and then still kept the belt on Lesnar. Strowman and Joe, especially, could have easily won those matches and not made Lesnar look any worse for it. Instead, they've kept on this path for whatever reason. Now Lesnar has essentially cleaned out the division, so what the hell is left to do with him?
At the very least, they ought to start bringing back the 30-day clause to make him defend the title on every PPV.
Or they can have him pull a reverse Strowman, pull a kid out of the crowd, and then offer him a championship match before suplexing the kid 20 times.

 

Ah. So instead of having a smarky Wrestlemania crowd, they're counting on the Saudis cheering Reigns for his coronation.

 

Corey Graves: "Where are these kids' parents?!?"

About 4 feet to his left.

 

The Undertaker gets a Wrestlemania Moment™

 

Braun and Nicholas made a valiant push at New Day and Demolition for the tag title reign marks, but they fell just short.

 

Paige's speech was just heartbreaking.

And here's Bobby Lashley.

 

Was that WWE's first-ever direct reference to TNA?

 

Angle to Owens and Zayn: "I hear TNA is hiring!"

Wow, they just got mentioned.

 

Pretty sure, although Styles and Roode made a quick mention of them on Ride Along.