2013 Pro Wrestling Thread

Guess the Bellas are faces again, with Orton harassing them and that little vignette of Bri and Bryan.

 

Oooh, Orton said that Bri was sleeping next to a wild animal. Them's fightin' words.

Decent ending to the show, but otherwise, the whole show seemed a little flat. Best part was when Dusty stood toe-to-toe with Trips.

 

I just got around to SmackDown. I had thought of something to write, but the whole Santino/Khali/Jindar thing with the cobra and flutes rendered me incapable of rational thought.

 

Sighing that they're fighting breast cancer, or sighing that their far-and-away most well-known wrestler is front and center?

 

How dare they fight cancer?!?!?!

 

Apparently this is the guy in the bull costume. I hope they let him pull some of these moves.

http://youtu.be/brdEp5Gue94

 

Catching up with Raw. Los Matadores ... ugh. There's a way I could get behind this gimmick, but it would take a lot of moving parts:

1. Extremely snarky commentary from JBL.
2. Over-the-top, enthusiastic commentary from Cole (especially if he's screaming about the fans being on fire for the match when they're obviously sitting on their hands).
3. One Matador distracts the ref while the little bull kicks someone in the nuts. In every match.

 

While watching a match today from ECW pitting Cactus Jack vs Chris Jericho from 1996 or 1997.

It got me to thinking who had a better career.

In this case it is easy to make an argument for either wrestler.

Thoughts?

 

Like I've said plenty of times, I'm a Jericho mark, so I skew toward him. To me, Foley will always be more of a gimmick wrestler than a "pure" wrestler, like a Jericho, Flair, HBK, Bret Hart, etc. Foley might be the greatest one-trick pony of all-time, but I don't think you ever got a good in-ring performance from him unless there was a stunt involved. The storytelling aspect of his matches was still usually good, but they couldn't hide that the guy was there to absorb chair shots and thumbtacks.

One other thing - Maybe it's just me, but Foley seems to be doing his best to overstay his welcome. He's not quite as flagrant of a self-promoter as DDP, but jeebus, it's close. I'm reading his fourth (IIRC) biography now, which covers his time in TNA. I got it for $1, and it's appropriately priced. In contrast, while Jericho tours with his band and stuff, he's mostly on a part-time schedule, especially when it comes to wrestling.

 

It's pretty difficult to decide because they've both have had, in a weird way, similiar-type careers.

Both started out as guys who could have a great match, but were basically midcarders who nobody believed in to be big draws. Both busted their humps, both creatively and physically, to rise to main-event status. Both guys, while main eventers, are really more in the second tier when you think of the greatest of all time. Neither would be in the top 10 (In no order, Hogan, Flair, Bruno, Race, Austin, Rock, Cena, Trips, Rogers, HBK, Bockwinkel, maybe Andre and Dusty, or somebody else I'm forgetting). You could put each of them in the Top 20-25.

They both were pretty creative with their promos, both were capable of more than one character (4 faces of Foley, Jericho as a rocker, wimpy heel, Bockwinkel clone). Both of them have at least 1 signature moment (For Foley, it's HITC; for Jericho, it's being the first UN-DIS-PUTED!!! champion).

Out of the ring, they both have major accomplishments. I would say, all in all, that Foley had the better first half of a wrestling career, but Jericho has had a better second half. While Foley had some incredible moments the first 15 years of his career, the rest of his time, sans the Orton program in '04, was rather lackluster. Jericho, meanwhile, has kept it going and been fresh with the Punk feud, and that recent great Raw match with RVD.

So I'll give it to Jericho, on the slimmest of margins, because he can not only do the hardcore stuff, but he can deliver in the ring night after night.

 

Foley's fourth book was boring. Didn't finish it. I loved the first two. The third was okay. By then (the book detailed the build to the Edge WM match and ECW One Night Stand), he came off as a guy who got all grumpy that his brilliant ideas weren't being acknowledged by management. I don't think he could let go of the fact that he wasn't a main event draw anymore. By then, he was a one-off gimmick and not something to waste a ton of TV time over. To be fair to management, they were building Cena into the merchandizing machine, and selling T-shirts was what was best for business.

I enjoyed Jericho's first book more than the second. I like to read about the journey to the top more than what they did when they got there. The second book seems like you know it all because you got to see it unfold, but you get some details about the behind-the-scenes. I also didn't care for half of Jericho's book because I don't care for Fozzy's music, therefore didn't care about anything he wrote about it.

 

Having read both of Jericho's books, I think that's a fair assessment. I'm hoping he does a shoot or timeline video at some point, but he might be too big of a get and too close to the WWE to do that. Unlike some of the other guys who have done that - Scott Hall, 123 Kid, Ric Flair, Lex Luger - he doesn't seem desperate for cash.