2012 Pro Wrestling Thread

Orton will get the Jericho treatment tonight ... lose a rematch to Ziggler (with a storyline injury) to send him off to film the umpteenth sequel to The Marine.

 

Is he supposed to be leaving again?

 

Orton has had roid issues? I didn't know about him having two strikes though. I know when he returned a month or so back he looked a hell of a lot slimmer. At one point he was big-time sculpted.

 

Not steroids. Other drugs. His most recent absence was a 60-day suspension.

 

Yes ... that's what he's leaving for. And he didn't leave last time ... he was suspended.

 

I know he got suspended the last time. Just didn't know he was leaving for a film.

 

So no one had any thoughts on Raw.

Interesting.

 

Some Raw thoughts:

1. Glad King is home in Memphis, although their relentless promotions of an exclusive King interview next week made me queasy. That being said, I am looking forward to said interview.

2. Love JR. Love JBL. But with Cole there too it felt like they were talking over each other a bit. Either way, they both did a great job. I'm guessing Josh Mathews steps in next week, and I'm fine with that. He does a very, very good job.

3. Dolph is so good he makes even a match with Santino compelling.

4. Kane and Daniel Bryan are hilarious. This is an effective angle.

5. The Miz's new show was a bit of a mess. Didn't care for it. He's a bit overrated on the mic. He's good, not great.

6. Star of the night (and I can't believe I'm typing this): Ryback. When he threw random furniture at The Miz, it was unintentionally funny. I'm interested to see what a Miz-Ryback match would look like. And when Ryback barked "FEED! ME! MORE!" at Jared from Subway and then stole a footlong, I laughed for two minutes. He gets a zero for charisma and a 10 for intensity, and that's a delightful combination.

 

Ryback is oddly compelling, I must say. Like the intensity is an odd mix of interesting and exciting to watch, even if he is just Goldberg 2.0 or Ultimate Warrior 3.0.

 

Raw, from what I saw, was actually pretty good from a wrestling standpoint. Kane and Bryan were funny as hell, and they had a good match with Kofi/Truth. The main event was also very well worked, although the ending has been done a million times. I'm half-wondering if they're trying to spoof the NFL replacement refs or something like that.

And I hope they keep JBL on the mic. It was funny listening to him lambaste Cole for his response to Sandow's words of the day.

 

JBL is a heck of an announcer. He's come a long way from the days of being Justin Hawk Bradshaw and one half of the new Blackjacks. I won't demean his time in the APA (though the Corporate Ministry stuff was bad) due to the fact it was a funny gimmick and out of it, we got the best one-word catchphrase in the history of pro wrestling (or the best one I can remember).....

 

Will be interesting to see what comes of the Ryback/Miz thing. Oddly, that was the part of the show that interested me most. Will Ryback just squash Miz or will he actually get some competition? Even if Miz wins in some weasely way, I'm curious to see if they are pushing Ryback to the moon or just into the sky.