2018 Pro Wrestling thread

What a bizarre booking. Rusev isn't going over, but he's pretty damn over with the crowd. So you put him in a casket match with the Undertaker? Maybe Taker just really wanted to work with him.

 

Or like Roman they want the international reaction to erase the stateside anti establishment pop

 

More heel greatness from Cody. Love the thinly veiled dig at all the fans with the nepotism talk, with all who get on his case for just being Dusty's boy.

 

I'm curious about the story they are telling with her. Is it the same or similar to the one they told when Brock came back? They are not only acknowledging her past in two real sports (MMA and judo), the WWE seems to be leveraging it. So are they willingly breaking the "illusion" of wrasslin' to say that this woman kicked real ass in real sports, so certainly she will kick ass in this sport that isn't as "real"?

 

Funny you asked that because I saw a tweet from I think Maffew from Botchamania fame saying that all the guys on the stage were straight men that Finn turned gay (or something like that.)

Couldn't help but chuckle at the way it was worded.

 

As if Rusev wasn't getting buried enough

 

I know he's happy on the NXT schedule, considering the issues he's faced, but we need Mauro on the main shows.

 

I've watched that NA Ladder match 3 times now and it still amazes me some of the spots they pulled off.

Just an amazing match.

 

I think that's the case. Even in the past, they've generally acknowledged that a premiere athlete is a match for a wrestler, whether its been a combat sport (Ken Shamrock) or non-combat sport (Lawrence Taylor). With Rousey and Lesnar, they've been so famous and so good in MMA that it would be silly for them to be like, "Well this is shocking that they'd be good at wrestling!" Lesnar was also a hell of a college wrestler, which they've also acknowledged with some guys (Shelton Benjamin, Dolph Ziggler, IIRC).

 

Best in the business, and it’s not even close. In addition, he knows all the names of the moves, which is breath of fresh air.

 

They're not really pretending that they're a pretend sport. More like, they're treating their product as a real sport in a kayfabe context, and treating Rousey as a cross-over athlete. Pretty much saying, "She kicked ass in UFC, but the WWE is a different environment. How will she adjust?"