2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

Jim Ross does a podcast and booked a fantastic way for Wyatt to turn face. To listen to Ross, you'd think Wyatt is Stone Cold circa 1996 and poised to be the next big thing. That'd be great, but he's got to survive being booked as Cena's monster of the week (Umaga, Koslov, Khali, Tensai ...).

 

Did no backstage agent realize how three white men caning the one minority of the other group would look? Did Michael Hayes book this?

 

Did Cena have 3 PPV matches with any of the "monsters of the week"? You can't compare any of those guys to Wyatt. When was the last time Cena had 3 straight PPVs with the same guy? Edge? Maybe Miz I don't remember.

 

Damn. That was a strong match. I still think the Last Man Standing was better but, all in all, that was a great bout.
Can't believe HHH, Orton and Batista jobbed cleanly. That's respect right there.
So, is it time for us to talk about the Shield in terms of the great factions? I'm beginning to think so. They are awesome.

 

I compared the Shield before to the Freebirds. They might need another two years or so together as a faction, but yeah, they have an opportunity to be among the best factions ever.

Knowing the E, though, they'll break them up needlessly just for the heck of it.

Otherwise, great show. Really good psychology in the final match. They really could do a Wyatt double-turn with Cena and it would do plenty for both guys' careers. The only problem would be what to do with Rowan and Harper.

 

I think the last time Cena had three PPVs with the same opponent, it was his series with CM Punk in 2012. He lost at SummerSlam (Punk pinned Big Show in a triple threat), lost at Night of Champions (Dusty finish when he pinned Punk with his shoulders down), lost at Survivor Series after sitting out Hell in a Cell (Punk pinned Cena in a triple threat with Ryback). Punk obviously doesn't fit into the monster of the week.

I think maybe my point is more along the lines of this: guys who go against Cena don't always benefit from the rub. Edge did. Orton did. Punk did. Bryan did. Then there are the guys like Tensai, Khali, and Umaga. But Wyatt is a weird mixture of whacky gimmick and guy who could transcend it. I'm not sure where he ultimately ends up.

 

My only worry about Wyatt is he'll suffer the same fate Straightedge Punk did following the Straightedge Society angle. Punk was MONEY in that angle and it was easily the best thing going at the time but because the fans supported him, he got pushed into a face a little too quickly and it ruined the goodwill. Wyatt, in my opinion, is fantastic right now and I don't know how he could turn into a face. Maybe a tweener but not a full-on face. He'll have to go the Austin route and essentially stay true to the character he's created but do face-like actions.
Otherwise, I worry he'll drift back into Husky Harris mode.
But, yeah, Wyatt is awesome and between tonight, his Rumble match with Bryan and everything with Shield vs. Wyatts, I think he's a force to be reckoned with.

 

I just think Wyatt is more talented than Khali, Tensai, Umaga and even Ryback. I don't think those guys ever had a prayer. Wyatt is in a different class. I think it remains to be seen if he'll rise to Edge/Punk levels but it seems like he has a shot

 

It's all in how he's booked though. Remember, even he couldn't have saved the Husky Harris gimmick.
As for the others, Umaga wasn't booked too terribly. He just couldn't swing it talent-wise. And the jury is still out on Ryback. For a while there, he looked like he might get over with the crowd, when they weren't calling him a Goldberg rip-off. He could've had something interesting with the bully storyline but they abandoned it way too quickly. Right now he's in creative hell, just a few circles above Ziggler but he's young enough where he could, in theory at least, bounce back.
I doubt he will but, still, he could.

 

I think Bray Wyatt has more crowd support and he's a better worker than some of the other Cena Monsters of the Week, but yeah - More often than not, Cena is a supernova that inadvertently destroys everything he comes into contact with. It doesn't matter if it's a heel or a face - see Zach Ryder, or the Usos - most people are diminished after passing through the Cena vortex. However, I don't think it's something that's unique to him; it seems to be how the WWE usually books its top babyface. It's not like Big Boss Man and Brutus the Barber Beefcake ever parlayed being a Hogan crony into more than an IC title run.

I liked the finish last night with Cena putting Wyatt through the equipment case, and then slamming the heavy object on top of him, but I'm not sure why he ALWAYS has to be booked to win. If Wyatt wins that match, and wins it mostly clean, it makes Cena way more interesting the next few months - He can have doubt about his skills. He could show effects from the match, and maybe surprisingly lose a match clean to a chicken heel or someone like Wade Barrett, with the heel then refusing to give him a rematch. As is, he and the Wyatts had an awesome feud, and meh, nothing really came out of it. I expect they'll just move on to the Shield, since Evolution is gone.

Speaking of that match, I didn't think it was as good as the Extreme Rules one. There was too much obvious stalling and what not going on. I mean, after they brawled for the first 10 minutes, why bother going through the motions of having a normal tag match? Fuck, why were they even tagging? It's no holds barred, and the finish just had all three of the Shield and Evolution attacking each other all the time anyway.

Bradley, I also immediately caught that the three white dudes from Evolution were beating the crap out of Reigns with canes. Lawler even called it a caning, although they didn't go further than that on the commentary. I definitely thought it was done on Reigns as opposed to someone else because it would subconsciously evoke more of a heel reaction.

Re: Paige, I think she's impressive because she - and Alicia Fox, for the matter - are doing quite a few power moves like suplexs, even though they aren't Beth Phoenix size. Paige is billed as being 120 pounds, so she must be built like a brick shithouse to be that powerful, but it might not seem as impressive, like how Cesaro is super strong at 230 pounds. It would help if the commentators treated the match more seriously, as they spent most of it not calling the action.

That slap Stephanie took looked pretty legit, but I'm not sure where they go from here though. If it was me booking, I would have had Triple H waiting behind the curtain, and have him snap and beat the crap out of DB in a neck brace, and then grabbing the title. They're allegedly the authority figures for the company - Why are they letting a cripple and his girlfriend manipulate them?

The other stuff was mostly good to me - solid stuff, some good highspots, but kind of what I expected. Like, this was essentially a really good episode of Raw.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Bluetista has left the building.

 

I love Bryan, but a world champ can't miss two PPVs. If that's allowed, then you go more than three months without a title match, Extreme Rules in May to SummerSlam in August. If he can't compete at MitB, the title should be vacated. There is only one world title now, no IC title program strong enough to carry a main event, and the Shield/Evolution feud is apparently played out.

Vacate the title, get Brock to do a short deal and put the belt on him to get through SummerSlam, put Bryan over Brock if Brock wants to leave after SS.