2013 Pro Wrestling Thread

Save the Cowboys trolling for the NFL threads.

 

And like I said, they can still easily get to Punk-Taker.

 

This stuff has gotten way too predictable. I wish we could go back to the days when the E surprised us -- ya know, mixed it up -- once in a while. But no. They don't do that.

 

Royal Rumble musings ...

The show was way too predictible. Del Rio wasn't going to lose the belt so quickly. Team Hell No still has some gas in the tank as champs. SuperCena and The Schlock were inked to win long ago, and they'll have Twice in a Lifetime on April 7. No way anything different was going to happen. Sure, there are plenty of alternative routes that The E could have used but didn't.

Where does this put us? Elimination Chamber is up next, and I expect The Schlock to be well protected against injury. No high spots for him, the others are expendable. In fact, I'd dare to guess he's the last person admitted to the match to keep him rested and healthy. As far as Punk goes, EC will be his rematch. VKM isn't going to let Dwayne fight on free TV. Punk, again, is just another WM undercard match.

Is The Schlock going to appear at every single Raw between now and Wrestlemania? I don't know. I will be more surprised if he does make every show.

- Rhodes vs. Rhodes was good stuff.
- Kofi's RR save wasn't as good as last year's but it was funny.
- Bryan holding on to Kane and begging to be put back in the RR was hysterical.
- The Prime Time Players' promos are taken from any Internet meme featuring a black person. Ain't nobody got time for that.
- The Godfather's new hos are much classier than I remember.
- Jericho sure put on a performance, and he got ink. Name 10 active wrestlers without at least one large tattoo.
- I'm glad JBL is back for commentary. Cole/Lawler only would make me mute the TV.
- I still can't believe we got to see anyone hold the WWE title as long as Punk did. Now, I don't think everyone needs a year-long run, but in general I like the new policy of not hot-shotting titles. Even the tag titles, which saw some pretty dark days not long ago, mean something.

 

I'm betting Rock defends against Punk at Elimination Chamber and the Raw/WWE title Chamber match is for a shot at the title at WM instead of being for the title itself. They could actually put a twist on things by having Rock win the title defense, then have the Shield take someone out backstage and get Punk into the EC match. Since Cena still gets to name his opponent, he makes the WWE title match at WM a triple threat, which I'd rather see then Rock-Cena II.

 

It's the same type of situation whether you approve it or not. As long as the cash rolls in VKM will not roll the dice with something that leaves you guessing. He's playing it safe instead of playing it to win.

 

Did anyone do numbers tonight? Check these out...

4. Kofi Kingston
12. Tensai
23. The Great Khali
24. Kane

Anybody have any better?

 

Decent enough results for now on WWE.com (http://www.wwe.com/shows/royalrumble/2013/royal-rumble-match-26080784/page-5) and Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rumble_(2013)).

Also, per your question about tattoos, Bradley, there are more than you think without any, and I'll leave out some low mid-carders: Dean Ambrose, Big E Langston, Daniel Bryan, John Cena, Antonio Cesaro, Justin Gabriel, Mark Henry, Kane, Great Khali, Tyson Kidd, Jinder Mahal, Drew McIntyre, Miz, Cody Rhodes, Zack Ryder, Damien Sandow, Sheamus, Sin Cara, Jack Swagger, Triple H, Dolph Ziggler, Samoa Joe, Sting, Rob Van Dam ... You have to look a little more for them now, but there are still some.

 

Shit, apparently not. You just named 24.

 

My random thoughts on the Rumble and what not:

- It’s strange, we’re getting to a situation with the WWE and me, where I love pretty much all of the undercard but not most of the main event stuff. It’s kind of like WCW, except even when the WWE is stale and predictable, it’s still about 100 times better. (I might not like the booking of Cena and Rock as supermen, but they’re not Hogan, they can both still wrestle.)

- Team Hell No was awesome in their match and the rumble. I’m not sure where they go from here though, and the same with Rhodes Scholars. Their feud is pretty much done, right? It’s been going on for a couple months, IIRC, so if you’re not going to swap the belts then Hell No probably needs some new dance partners, and I doubt the Prime Time Players are it. They teased team dissension with the Rumble, so I’m guessing the goal is losing the belt at EC, with a singles match at Mania.

- From the Rumble itself, nice to see Jericho back, since I’m a mark for him. Outside of that though, there were absolutely no surprises, outside of the NXT guy lasting like 20 minutes. (Him eliminating Barrett, not so surprising, since once he was around for more than two minutes I figured he was going to push out someone.) Kofi’s spot was pretty neat, but since I expected him to do a big spot the entire time, the surprise element was lost.

- Weird finish to the Rumble kind of, in that they had three faces (Cena, Ryback and Sheamus) in there. I also thought Sheamus was a bit of an unsung hero of the match, since he came in at 11; that’s pretty early for a bigger dude, since they normally get those spots in the 20s or eliminated in the 20s, before they blow up.

- Punk vs. Rock was entertaining, but it was hard to get into the match since you figured Rock winning was a foregone conclusion. I’m also not a fan of the match going on last, over the Rumble, since you then knew the Rumble itself was going to end quicker as a result.

- Final note: JBL is so ridiculously good on the mic. And now, Cole has gone too far in the other direction for me, from ridiculous heel announcer to ridiculous face announcer. I don’t know if it’s him or just the direction he’s getting, but it’s amazing to think that he started in 1997 – about 15 to 16 years ago – and his body of work is so “meh.” I’d put him in the third tier of announcers, with guys like Tony Schiavone, in that they’re not actively bad most of the time, but they don’t really add much. (Second tier would be guys like JBL, Ventura, who were good but not around real long, and first tier would be the Jim Ross and Bobby Heenan class.)

 

That's actually a pretty good thought, Greenwell. Here are my ranks on the tiers of announcers:

First Tier (Can make a match involving a broom against a dirt floor sound exciting):
JR
Heenan
Gordon Solie
Lance Russell
Joey Styles

Second Tier (Excellent in general):
Gorilla
JBL
Ventura
Bill Mercer

Two and a half tiers (Very good at times, but can get annoying)
Mike Tenay
Vince

Third Tier (Decent enough, solid, but not consistently great):
Bischoff
Schiavone
Cole
Lawler
Zbyzsko
Larry Nelson
Matt Striker
Lord Alfred Hayes
Taz
Jim Cornette

Fourth Tier (Nothing wrong with them, just not distinguishable):
Josh Matthews
Scott Hudson
Ken Resnick

Fifth Tier (Ugh):
Steve McMichael
Motormouth Mike Morgan

 

Baron, with the caveat that I didn't hear a lot of the non-WWE and WCW guys on your list (I'm 28, so my knowledge goes back to mostly the early 90s), I agree with pretty much all of it. Gorilla might go into that first tier for me if you consider him a duo with Heenan, but on his own he probably belongs more in the second tier, since he played it mostly straight as a face announcer.

Mick Foley isn't on your list, but I think he only did it for (at most) six months - If he had had a longer run, he probably could have been a second tier guy, with a chance at the top tier. Then against, I thought Striker was great at first too, but then he toned down his act / ran out of interesting shit to say, and now he's solely a fill-in and backstage guy.