2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

I'm still not convinced we've seen the end of this. This post show is a great way to still unveil "Plan C" and hype up the Network as "the only place you'll see big moments like this."

 

Same old shit.

 

People were really expecting Cena to lose when the Summerslam ads have leaked with Cena and Lesnar on them?

 

Meh. Shit PPV. Great opening match and then just a lot of blah. Felt more like a RAW than a pay per view.
And for what it's worth, the inside cover of the WWE Magazine has a Cena vs. Lesnar promo poster for Summerslam. I hope that's not the case but it looks inevitable.

 

Meh. I'm OK with it for all the reasons we talked about last month at Money in the Bank. It gets us where we gotta go to get to Summer Fest. It sets up Lesnar-Cena and maybe Orton-Reigns or Orton-Kane or Orton-Kane-Reigns. We also got a taste of Cena-Reigns, which is hanging out there whenever they want to go for it. And, if the plan is indeed for Lesnar to walk out of Summer Fest with the title, I'd rather see him win it from Cena than end a one-month championship run for Reigns.
This was a very functional PPV, but not bad for what it was.

 

Just me or were there a lot of botches tonight? The big ones came from Paige, but I know I saw a couple others.

 

I understand that CenaWinsLOL is the best way to get the belt on Lesnar without burying someone else, and I understand that Lesnar getting the belt will hopefully make someone a mega-star when Lesnar does the job (seeing as Lesnar go to end The Streak, something that can only be done once). I'm still sick to death of John fucking Cena. I just have to gut out another month or so, and he'll be out of the way, probably burying Rusev, which is fine by me.

Anyway, the rest of the card was fine. The tag match was my favorite of the night.

Paige/AJ isn't building into the epic Trish/Lita-esque thing a lot of people hoped for. And I just realized tonight how much taller Paige is.

The battle royal for the IC title was ho-hum, and Miz gets another ho-hum reign likely.

Rusev/Swagger went as I kinda thought: no definitive finish to derail Rusev's heel push. If Big E and Swagger can't do the job, who can? (CenaWinsLOL). Anyone else? Mr. America, maybe?

I don't get the big fuss over Golddust and Stardust. It's the same tag team, but Cody's acting like a goof and wearing face paint. It's not for me.

Jericho and Wyatt have a good thing going, and it's hard to tell how Wyatt's feuds play out. He's got the kind of character that withstand jobbing to his opponent, kind of like Undertaker or Austin. Even when he loses, it doesn't seem to diminish him. He can physically be beaten, but not mentally/emotionally broken, which makes him more dangerous. To me, Wyatt could have a character track like Undertaker: a guy who keeps playing the same character, no matter how he's booked. Face or heel, doesn't matter. He does his thing, just let the crowd react without pandering one way or the other. He'll need to evolve it over time, sure, but it can be done.

Ambrose/Rollins is definitely my favorite program right now, no question. I'm dying for these two to get in the ring and go. The anticipation could build for another month, and it'll be great. Years back, we could look back on this as the start of a great career-long, on-again, off-again feud. At least I hope so.

 

It was a bridge show to Summerslam and it pretty much accomplished everything in that regard. Was surprised at the relatively clean finish to Jericho's match and I'm a little curious where they go next with that program. Very impressed with the Usos/Wyatts, opening a PPV for the second month in a row and coming up with a match that was different from MITB and still excellent, seems like something that's harder than it looks so bravo to those guys.

A Dolph/Barrett feud when he comes back would've been cool, Miz/Barrett not as much. Maybe Miz will feud with Dolph for a while first? Who knows, seems like instead of actual feuds they've just been sticking everyone in that area of the card in the ring at once and hoping for the best. Andre battle royal, IC tourney, MITB, IC battle royal...I'd like to see them pair some of those guys off and get some rivalries going.

Cena's Cena, and again it wasn't his plan for Punk to quit and Bryan to break his back/neck, so with that in mind I don't know what other choice the E had. This was "supposed" to be Bryan/Lesnar at SSlam as of Wrestlemania IIRC.

 

Yeah, I almost can't blame them for Cena at this point. It's not like they weren't trying some new guys out and plans had to change because of unexpected things.

I also don't like how Paige has been booked. I couldn't tell last night if she was being a heel, or A.J was a face or what. They really shouldn't have had her drop the belt the same way that A.J did. A.J could get away with it because it was part of her heel,persona that she could be cocky and overconfident.

The storyline put Paige in a bad spot. Refuse the challenge and look cowardly, or accept it, lose, and look foolish. If anything, they should have had Paige win that one within 10 seconds, then A.J claim she wasn't ready and challenge her for the PPV to win the belt in an actual match. Poor booking and planning.

 

The problem with Paige is that she's far too green for the position she's in. Maybe it's just that she hasn't really wrestled any of these Divas before so she has no chemistry, I don't know, but she's very quickly approaching Original Sin Cara territory for me in that I expect her to screw up at least a couple times per match now.
I thought maybe it was a Divas-wide problem, and perhaps it is, but she just looks awkward in the ring and she has zero fluid motion for a good maybe third of her moves.
I commend her for being a lot tougher a wrestler than a lot of the girls, particularly if you saw her match against Naomi, but she's a liability in the ring right now and that's unfortunate because she's currently DREADFUL on the mic.
Her commentary the other night on RAW wasn't the worst I've ever heard but it was definitely at the bottom of the barrel. Or perhaps she just seems awful compared to AJ? I don't know. Either way, I hope she turns it around soon because I was really looking forward to her debut on the main roster and right now she's just not living up to those expectations.

 

Cena is the safety valve until they figure out that Bryan is gone for a very lengthy time. Then it's Reigns' to own.

 

Paige could be the shittiest skill person in the world. Just put her in the ring to look at.