2012 Pro Wrestling Thread

While he's no Kevin Eck, the Masked Wrestler over at Grantland does fill the void. He's got a good piece on Wrestlemania weekend: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7769020/jake-snake-roberts-rock-more-wrestlemania-xxviii-weekend-diary

 

Tensai might get over eventually, but it's going to take some adjustment and acceptance by the WWE fans, because they don't have any super strong Japanese-style strikers and haven't had any in some time (I guess you could count Steve Williams, but he never really went that route in the WWF). He reminds me of a super-sized white Samoa Joe (the running senton off the ropes comes to mind). CM Punk and Daniel Bryan helped pave the way for someone like him, because fans are starting to react to hard strikes. I think the gimmick and look will eventually evolve, but they probably wanted to get him away from the Prince Albert/A-Train look as much as they could, and writing the take-out menu from Tokyo Ocean takeout on his face is the easiest way to do that.

It'll be interesting to see how the Wrestlemania crowd reactions translate once they leave Florida next week. Funny how everyone is upset that Bryan lost in 18 seconds, but the real victim might be Sheamus, who was made to bear the brunt of the fans' frustrations last night. If that carries over, then they just killed their No. 3 face at a time they did major damage to their No. 1 face.

Cena was an absolute letdown last night, though I don't know if that was intentional or not. Part of that was his inability to convey any real emotion last night, and doing a low-key version of his goofy reaction when Lesnar came out really did not help at all. On the other hand, the writers really needed to book him a lot stronger than they did, especially a) coming off a surprising loss to Rock and b) heading into a feud with Lesnar. Do they want Lesnar to be a face? If so, that's fine. If they intended for him to be a more credible and buzzworthy version of Kane, then this was a horrible way to go about it. Perhaps the Florida crowds are another version of Canada/Philly/Chicago, where what happens doesn't carry over. If it does, then they're in a spot where two of their top faces are getting heel reactions (one quite unexpectedly), their bad boyfriend heel is suddenly Austin, and their imported part-time mega-heel draws Rock-level cheers.

Next week will be absolutely critical in the evolution of post-WM WWE. If this holds up, they're going to have to do a LOT of rewrite, or be stuck telling their fans to do the opposite of what they want. That never works out as well as they hope.

 

MMII, I definitely agree with you on the "heel" problem. To me, the WWE has two options:

1) Keep force-feeding the fans the vanilla faces and heels, and hope they eventually turn. They definitely haven't minded doing this in the past. It felt like they were trying to do this with Rock vs. Cena, eventually shifting it to the point where you thought they'd get an equal reaction heading into Mania... well, until the crowd killed any idea of Cena being a face. You can do this in the non-smart arenas, and you're only going to get burned in places like Canada, the Garden and Philly.

2) Much like they did to start the attitude era, just embrace the reactions that the people are getting. If Lesnar is sticking around for a year, or if The Rock is going to wrestle a couple more matches, have them be faces. Make Cena go heel by making him righteous and pandering to the crowd. And to get everyone involved, force guys like Punk to choose sides. (The only issue with going this way - They're already invested a ton of time into this Johnny Ace shit, and I'm not clear how you would work that in. Maybe Lesnar / Rock just tells him, "Stay out of my way," and he does based on a Board of Directors thing. Ace storylines get relegated to the second act, where they are anyway.)

 

There is a separate thread on the passing of Chief Jay Strongbow here: http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/89482/

 

They're sort of willing to let whoever faces Cena get the cheers or boos they get and leave it alone, chalking it up to Cena's "controversial reaction". They were smart enough to realize that there wasn't much point in forcing the issue with Cena when he was wrestling RVD in Hammerstein or Punk in Chicago. And obviously they weren't turning Rock. But the more you encourage or at least allow for negative reaction to your signature face by putting him up against popular guys in hot areas, the more your damage him long-term. Fine if this leads to a heel turn or at least a heel positioning, I guess, but they seem insistent that isn't going to happen. Then you get a neutered top face, and that's just not good for anything.

And now more than ever, you don't want your No. 1 guy compromised. Not with Orton being a less-than-compelling face, not with Sheamus's face status potentially in trouble after 18-secondGate, not with Mysterio being forever injured. If they ever do have Cena go heel, they absolutely must have a rock-solid No. 1 face to replace him, whether it's Punk, Sheamus, Orton, Bryan or someone we aren't thinking of. Otherwise, it's a mess in the making.

 

I'd like to know what WWE creative was hoping to accomplish with the 18 second squash at Wrestlemania. Did they expect that to really get Sheamus over more than he already is? It doesn't make him look particularly good because he caught him with a cheap shot/fluke victory. It's not like it was a little guy taking down Goliath. It was Goliath winning on a cheap shot over David. It's not like they were booking Daniel Bryan to be some sort of dominant beast.

If anything, Sheamus' victory was what Daniel Bryan could get over Mark Henry or the like. Maybe they thought Daniel Bryan was a disappointment as a champion and were wanting to bury him. But why? Why would you make the WHC look like crap at Wrestlemania? If not for such a unique situation, you end up making BOTH guys look like shit.

I had heard the rumors of a 2 minute squash match (nothing quite like this), but still held out hope that this could be a really fun match. A show stealer. I paid the $65 for 'Mania and I want to see good matches, especially for "World Championships." It doesn't have to be some spot-fest where each guy kicks out of the others' finisher 3 times. Just give me a old school wrestling match. There was room for it on the card last night.

I'd just like to hear ONE planned benefit to having that match last night. You can't tell me creative was sitting around going "this will be a great way to get Daniel Bryan over!" I know a couple of you have said that it didn't really bother you, but did you get goosebumps and say to yourself "Now, THAT'S why I watch wrestling! I'll pay $65 to see that classic again!"? This is WrestlefreakingMania, not Friday Night Smackdown.

 

"Chicken heel gets his comeuppance" is the benefit. It plays very well with the casual fans, and they keep going back to it.

 

No, it really isn't. There isn't a benefit at all to squashing your "world champion" like that. Unless he's really in Vince's doghouse, there's no need to do this.

 

It also gets the Brouge Kick over as a finisher so effective that it can take a fully healthy world champion down and out with no setup or beatdown leading into it. At least in theory. I don't think they were expecting Daniel Bryan to have as much support in the crowd as he did.

Smackdown spoilers are here: http://teamhellions.com/2012/04/03/wwe-smackdown-spoilers-for-4612/

 

A knockout blow at the start of the match isn't a squash. A five-minute match where one guy gets minimal offense is a squash.

 

An 18-second match where one guy gets absolutely no offense in is a squash.

 

I don't even really think it was a squash due to the fluke/distraction factor.