2017 Pro Wrestling Thread

Reigns turn heel. Enough already with this failed babyface push.

 

I love SmackDown, but now that Cena's back I realize how much I didn't miss him. He's booked for a world title match just because he's John Fuckin' Cena. That's it. No No. 1 contender's match, nothing. And it's not like there's not enough time between jow and the Rumble to do that and still have a few weeks of build. And I know the E wants him to break Flair's record, but I'd rather see Kwee Wee as champ than another Cena title run. But really, I don't see why AJ can't turn face and feud with Miz, who will never be cheered, for the world title.

If there's any veteran talent that should have another title run, it's Jericho. The guy has put in a solid year since coming back inlate 2015. They should have at least put the US title on him so he and Owens coild be best bud champs. Wouldn't that be an obnoxious heel thing? It woild be great, and Reigns could have chased after dropping it. It would at least be better than having it sit on his shoulder as an afterthought.

Whatever happened to tue Undertaker being more of a presence? Yeah.

 

Speaking of 2017, what does tonight do for the oft-rumored Rousey at Wrestlemania? She's still got the name recognition, but in a span of two flights, it's like she's gone from John Cena to James Ellsworth.

Can she believed to still annihilate whatever woman (Sasha?) is placed in front of her?

 

I think at this point if the machine feeds Sasha to Rousey you'd be looking at a Reigns-Philly or Lesnar-Goldberg-WM20 type reaction from the crowd.

They're going to throw a ton of money at her and maybe she'll take it. I guess she can go over Charlotte and Char can no sell it after Rousey's gone but it's really going to screw up what should be Bayley's coronation at Mania.

 

The only person the crowd will want to see Rousey beat up is Steph. Anyone else, and it screws up the wrestler and the crowd shits on it.

 

Throw me in the camp of not interested in seeing Rousey run over the women's division. Lesnar did enough damage to the men's roster, making everyone look average. How does a company build stars when everyone can get squashed by one guy?

And for Bayley's coronation at Mania? Didn't we all think the same about Sasha for 32? Didn't happen. So I'm not holding my breath.

 

At least Lesnar started in wrestling and was a legit bad ass. Ronda's a heel that cant even back it up. Especially a hardcore fan Mania type crowd would kill her vs a horsewoman.

Maybe they can bring back the Rocky/Ronda vs Mr Mrs HHH idea, free up Seth Rollins to do something that matters.

I think with the brand split Bayleys inevitable. They have nothing else. Last year Becky got hot and had to be in that match so it was harder to have the traditional story. And it was still one of the best 2-3 matches in the show even with Flair winning and no "moment."

 

How "washed up" for lack of a better term was Tyson when he was hired by WWE? I don't have the time to look it up now, but I was under the impression it was after at least one of his comebacks had petered out. I think Rousey would still be credible, but only if she came in as a bullying, cheating sort of heel. She -is- a real fighter and an Olympic champion, even if she has gotten knocked out in her last two fights. Since it's WWE, I don't think they'd be able to resist throwing her on Raw, but I also think she'd work better on Smackdown opposite Becky Lynch.

 

Hopefully, this character appears in the Royal Rumble in 2017. He would get a major pop:

Spoiler

;-)

 

Tyson at Mania was after he bit off Hollyfield's ear but before he came back again and eventually had the losses to Lennox.

I think Rousey as a vehicle in another feud as Tyson was to Michaels/Austin would work. All the rumors seem to indicate theyre looking for more of a match/Mayweather type of appearance, which I think against one of the NXT girls would not get over with the smarks. There's def. possibilities with Steph, she seems to have a relationship wth Nattie, you could try to swing it with the Bellas somehow.....I think putting Rousey over Banks or Flair would lead to a ton of backlash from the fanbase.

 

They actually were going to use Tyson on live Main Event episode in 1990 as a guest ref for another Hogan/Savage bout. However, he lost to Douglas, and they quickly put Douglas in the match instead. It was, for its time, a pretty quick turnaround of using current events as a WWF storyline, as Douglas had only won the title on Feb. 11, and less than two weeks later, appeared on the live show.

I found this, which is an interesting look at some rumored plans for Tyson had he beaten Douglas, which would have included a Tyson/Hogan match.

Scribblings: How Buster Douglas changed the history of pro wrestling

As far as 1998 goes, Tyson wasn't really "washed up", but, as Jimmy noted, it was after he lost to Holyfield twice, so his boxing dominance aura was pretty much gone, although he still had that reputation for being crazy, which helped. It worked in the sense that he was a good wild card in the HBK/Austin match, although it was a bit anticlimatic. The big scene was Austin flipping Tyson off, which got the mainstream coverage all around the country.

I said part of this on the Rousey thread, so I'll repeat it here. They pretty much can only have her as a dominant babyface if she destroys Steph. Otherwise, they'll need to have her as a Mayweather heel type where she gets help from others if she's to go over one of the established wrestlers. Otherwise, the fans would shit on it.

In a way, the E kinda screwed themselves by having Rousey face off with Steph already. They could have had a woman's wrestler revolt against Steph, who brings Rousey in as her bodyguard to take care of the wrestler. Wrestler and Rousey have their WM match, and Rousey dominates, but nearly loses to the wrestler before Steph interferes and gets Rousey the win. Rousey then doesn't like how Steph cheated, turns on her, and beats her down after the match. Rousey gets the win, the wrestler looks good by hanging with her until the cheating, fans boo Rousey because of Steph, and then cheer her for beating Steph.

 

Another danger of having her roll through the women's division, and maybe Baron touched on this somewhere, is that it risks undoing a year's worth of hard work that they've put in legitimizing it. The whole point of the Sasha-Charlotte feud was to bring the women closer to the men in terms of work rate, match types, making them plausible main eventers, etc. Now the second string of Bayley, Nia Jaxx and the others can push it forward.
Having Rousey come in and destroy them all, right as fans are starting to buy into the idea that they can do just as much as the men, could set the women's division back a decade.