2012 Pro Wrestling Thread

Either that, or a billionaire decides to start a wrestling company and put it on TV.

Then we'll be seeing bikini pillow fights again.

 

I miss the Attitude Era. All these clips they're showing from that time period make me long for the good days when "bitch" wasn't censored and Stone Cold could freely flip the crowd the bird.

 

Hopefully, Linda will lose again. I dare you to find me one wrestling fan who gives two shits about her political ambitions. No reason for the rest of us to suffer.

 

Linda's not why they went TV-PG. It's a grab for ad money. More accessible TV shows = more mainstream advertisers. They tried to play up the PG thing for her campaign, but it's not like Attitude Era footage and the image of Linda kicking Foley in the Dude Loves was washed from the record books.

 

Ad money, certainly, but don't underestimate the impact of He Who Shall Not Be Named had as well. The threat of Congress dropping the hammer on WWE in the wake of One Weekend in June certainly had to scare the hell out of them to dialing down the show.

Don't know how many of you listen to Busted Open on Sirius/XM, but someone made a damn good point today. How many homegrown top-tier/Main Event/Potential HOF performers have they produced in the last 5-7 years? They haven't produced anyone of that caliber since the Batista/Cena/Orton class of 2002. The talent is obviously there, but -- as we have talked about throughout this year -- WWE has shown little desire to produce anyone that could rival or exceed Cena.

 

I was thinking something similiar to that with the tag match on Raw this week. You had two guys who were WCW mainstays (Jericho, well kinda, and Show), a guy whose been a prominent member of the crew since around 1994 (Doc. Yankem/Fake Diesel/Kane), and the top star who has been with the company for 10 years.

Then you had Punk and Bryan, who aren't homegrown, and a mess of young guys who aren't seen as quite main-event caliber in the other MITB match (although Ziggler should be at that level by now).

In a few years, once Cena gets older, and the other guys wear out, WWE is really going to be hurting for credible top caliber guys.

 

The sad thing is, there's at least a few homegrown guys who are ready to break through or should have by now. Sheamus is right there. Ziggler is just waiting for the opportunity. Rhodes and Miz were there but have taken a step back.
It's one reason I don't want to see them merge the two titles. As much as the Heavyweight title has clearly become second-rate, it's still a way to build guys. With the Heavyweight title option, there's at least a chance for them to do something productive on a main event level. If everyone was chasing Punk, or Cena, for the WWE title, there's no chance they even get a sniff.

 

Please enlighten me to what the "One Weekend in June" was.

 

Ah. I was sitting there racking my brain over what that could've been referring to. Thanks.

 

NAME REDACTED didn't help, but the changes that triggered had more to do with the in-ring product -- no more chairshots to the head, fewer high-impact moves targeting the head/neck, new drug testing policy. I suspect they would have gone PG no matter what, unless the ratings came back up.

 

With all that has come out regarding concussions, I really can't fault them for banning the chair shots. But it sure was great watching E and C give someone a concerto ...

 

Well, a Conchairto was a lot safer than a standard chair shot in a lot of ways. Edge and Christian would actually make the bulk of the contact be with the top of the chairs, which made it incredibly loud and impressive seeming but actually cushioned much of the blow to the head of the person taking it. The bigger issue were straight, unprotected head shots. Watch the end of "Beyond the Mat" and the Rock vs. Mankind match for an example of that.