2011 Pro Wrestling Thread

TNA's self-proclaimed signature PPV of the year, Bound for Glory, came and went without a whisper in this thread. That's telling, and not about us.

In case anyone cares:

Hogan (with Ric Flair's help) kicked Sting's ass, but Sting came back at the end, Hogan actually took a bump and Sting made him tap to the Scorption to win the company back for Dixie Carter. God help them, they tried. Immortal came down to beat the piss out of Sting with chairs. Sting begged Hogan for help ... who Hulked Up and turned on Immortal. So Hogan is a face again (whatever that means, since he almost certainly won't wrestle again), Dixie is back in charge and Immortal is probably done as a faction (with Jarrett and Bully Ray doing their own things more often that not, it was headed in this direction anyway).

TNA built up Bobby Roode in a way they haven't done with anyone in years, with decisive wins against strong talent and great video segments showing how much the TNA World Title means to him. Naturally, he jobbed to Kurt Angle in the main event. Hogan was allegedly behind the decision to not have Roode win, and he got into it with Styles on Twitter.

Speak of, they managed to make a Styles-Daniels match suck. Daniels rode the drama llama midway through the match, cutting a promo telling Styles' wife to turn of the TV so she wouldn't witness her husband's murder. Then he yelled "I quit" at the end of the match to avoid a screwdriver attack (yes, a screwdriver).

Bully Ray-Mr. Anderson wasn't a bad match. Some stupid bumps, though, particularly Ray piledriving Anderson on the concrete. That's cause for a war crimes tribunal in Memphis. And on top of that, Anderson kicked out. Finish was Anderson hitting a senton splash from the top turnbuckle onto Ray through a table on the floor ... well, it would have been had Anderson not completely overshot Ray. Lucky he didn't kill himself. They audibled and Anderson hit a Mic Check through the table to win.

Van Dam beat Lynn, Lynn shows respect afterward, rendering the feud's entire build worthless.

Velvet Sky won the Knockouts title. Something involving special referee Karen Jarrett getting blinded and Traci Brooks counting the pin. The less I have to think about this, the better.

Austin Aries beat Brian Kendrick to retain the X Division title. Philly fans loved Aries to death and hated Kendrick to life.

So to recap: Hogan dominates Sting, gives 30 seconds of offense to lose, then turns face to save Sting from a beatdown. Then he went behind the scenes to kill Bobby Roode's push. LOLTNA. Of course, Hogan got the biggest pop in Philly, so it made it look *almost* palatable. Almost.

 

Also, Heath Slater got hit with a Wellness Violation and is out the next 30 days. Forget the Raw GM drama and the walkout and JR getting fired -- how the hell can WWE survive a month without the One Man Southern Rock Band? I submit that they cannot.

And if last week's Raw killed your will to watch tonight, or you found something better to watch (Monday Night Football, Dancing With The Stars, CBS comedy block, QVC, the public access channel with the two homeless dudes debating health care reform vis-a-vis its impact on Thunderbird sales), they taped Raw on Saturday and Smackdown on Sunday in Mexico City, so spoilers abound.

 

Haven't watched in years -- but anyone remember when they had a clip of Ric Flair in a mental hospital and Scott Hall was in the background for no apparent reason (I think that his hair may have even been blonde)

 

Yeah, I vaguely remember that. If I recall right, it was mostly a sight gag.

 

That cracked me up. I used to wonder if that was a legitimate law in Tennessee.

As a kid, I once saw some article from the 1940s that said that brawling outside the ring was illegal in Pennsylvania. Pretty ironic, when you think about it.

 

Since the WWE is in Mexico, will the American announcer's table be destroyed?

 

Immigration issue with Triple H? Seriously? That's the best they can come up with?

And they need to stop having Laurinitis stop matches. Once in a while it's fine. Three times in two weeks is too much.

 

Really a nothing Raw, other than apparently, Jim Ross is back already after, supposedly, an awful lot of fans were ripping on WWE, and rightfully so, for firing him, so they backtracked.

Found it amusing that they reduced the fan sound a lot. You could hear a good amount of Del Rio chants if you listened closely.

 

Del Rio was essentially the face in that match, even though Cena was wrestling with Jim Ross.

Meh episode of Raw.

 

This HHH angle is just terrible. Who cares if HHH retains his COO job or not? It’s not like things are any different with him in charge. It’s not like he’s had the role for any real period of time. It’s not like he seems to care much about having the job. It’s not like he’s going to leave the show if they remove him from the job. And yet we have to listen to the announcers go on and on and on about it all two hours.

What’s even more annoying is it all feels so fake and contrived. HHH has only been in his role a few months and things are the same as they always are. They were doing tons of angles at a breakneck pace before HHH was in charge. A few angles with Miz and Truth don’t feel like anything out of the ordinary. Yet now the story is things are out of control and so everyone talks about that even though it doesn’t remotely feel that way. It’s just the directive, like everyone must say “WWE Universe” over and over again even though nobody in the real world would be caught dead using that asinine expression.

It’s fine if the heels say that things are out of control. They are after all heels, out to get rid of HHH the babyface. But when all the face wrestlers, announcers and cameramen seem to agree, it just feels ridiculous. It’s not that it inspires anger at the faces for doing that, although they certainly don’t come off well. It’s simply unbelievable that those characters are acting that way.

We’ve seen cars blowing up, vehicular attacks, gang beatdowns, big injury angles to top stars and a cavalcade of hotshot angles and now the cameramen are walking off the job because they’re terrified of a Miz run-in? The wrestlers are unanimous in turning on HHH as an authority figure because of a Miz run-in? It’s just bad storytelling. They haven’t made the stakes feel important or the actions feel believable, and by acting like it’s this huge deal it will be even harder next month when they try to hotshot another big angle.

 

In case anyone was worried that TNA might not make the focus of Impact Hogan and friends going forward; PWTorch says the next two shows will feature Hogan/Sting/Dixie vs. Bischoff and Immortal, and most of the rest of the roster will not be used. And the Wrestling Observer is reporting that Gail Kim is returning to TNA.

 

While I understand that Kim probably just wants to wrestle, geez, given the chaos in TNA I'd rather sit around and collect that WWE paycheck at this point. TNA is manic depressive in its character swings. I can't even relish the good matches they have here and there, because you're always cringing, anticipating the next horrible angle.

If I ran TNA, here is my game plan - Throw myself on the mercy of Paul Heyman, or see how much it would take Jim Ross to do the unthinkable and leave WWE. At this point, they just need someone to come in there with a plan and blow everything up. I don't have faith in anyone there to do it - Cornette (if he's still there) is too caustic, Russo and Jarrett are effing horrible, Bischoff and Hogan only care about Bischoff and Hogan, Flair is absolutely insane, etc. They have all the talent on-hand that they need to hurt the WWE, they just have absolutely no one steering the ship well.