Professional wrestling thread

So one of my good friends went to three different places -- Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart -- today to find the Ric Flair and the Four Horseman DVD set. He finally found it at Wal-Mart. He said he got home and watched all of it. Guess I'll have to go over there and watch it some time.

 

You like wrestling?

This is good, very good.

 

I downloaded the Horsemen DVD last week off a torrent site. Excellent documentary. Covers pretty much everything ... the extras/matches could've been a lot better, but WWE has never done a good job at picking the right matches for their DVDs.

Watched ECW tonight and :::::::::::SPOILER ALERT!!!:::::::::::::::: they turned CM Punk heel, having him join the New Breed. I am very excited about this. Anyone who saw Punk in Ring of Honor knows he's a great heel. I think he'll really take off now, since he'll probably be the voice of the New Breed (no one else in that group is as good on the microphone as Punk is). My only worry is the scripting that Punk will have to read off of. In ROH, it's basically 80s style (save for The Rock, Austin and Foley) where the booker gives the wrestler bullet points to cover and they ad-lib the rest. Punk had some of the best interviews I'd seen in years. But, if you're reading crap, it's gonna sound like crap. If he's got good material, watch out.

 

I'm a bit uncertain about the Punk turn. Not that he's not a better heel, but the way he turned was underwhelming. I kept expecting the fake turn because the setup was begging for it, but it never happened. From a storyline standpoint, why would he join now and not before MITB, when he could have used their promised help? That could be explained the next week, though I tend to doubt it. If they give Punk the leader role, that'd be one thing, but they've been building Elijah Burke up in that spot for a while now, so unless this turns into Burke-Punk for control of the New Breed, he could get lost in the crowd (see also: Monty Brown Marquis Corvon). And ECW is too heel-heavy right now; Lashley isn't even interacting with ECW guys anymore, and with Punk's turn, I can't think of any consequential faces outside the Originals.

Fantasy booking, which could never happen: Punk attacks both groups with his own faction with new wrestlers (you'd have to do an ROH/CZW raid to pull this off), busting on the Originals for being old and the New Breed for being repackaged WWE losers and selling him and his guys as the true future of ECW. But then that'd require pointing out that guys like Matt Stryker and Kevin Thorn don't really embody the ECW spirit, and I don't think that's happened.

All this is a shame, because they've done a better job with building this feud than I thought (the Punk recruitment, Tazz and Styles slowly separating over which side to support, a fairly good weapons match last week).

 

Gimpyscribe -- Saw ECW last night and the Punk turn was awful. It had no excitement (the kind where you really feel like it's something major). The crowd seemed absolutely DEAD when he went into the ring and joined the New Breed. It had no juice whatsoever.

Guess they'll feed him to Lashley if this works out?

 

Yeah, that was one of the most obvious turns I've ever seen and there felt like there was no heat. Some "swerve."

As for the separate faction, maybe they could use Colt Cabana for it?

 

Re Punk heat: What I saw of the show (and what I read in the WO.com report) reminded me of why it makes little artistic sense to have ECW TV done on the same show as the Smackdown taping. By 10 p.m., they've seen a lot of wrestling, and Punk, RVD and the former Monty Brown aren't much to get excited about if you've seen Batista, Undertaker and those types. Had they been touring and taping in front of a consistent circuit of stops with fans who go for ECW-style wrestling, this could have gotten over big.

The other thing that bothers me with Punk is that his turn should have come because he became more and more zealously straight edge. At one point they had an angle in the works where Marty Jannetty comes to ECW and Punk doesn't accept him because he took drugs and drank, thus not having the moral fortitude to walk the straight edge. Then Jannetty got fired (for the 11th or 12th time, it's hard to keep track). I think they might have proposed a similar deal to Jeff Hardy too, but he wasn't interested.

ECW needs another face bad. Here's how it shakes out now:
Heels -- Punk (assuming this isn't some swerve itself and he flips back to face next week), Corvon, Burke, Snitsky, Stryker, Thorn, Richards (though he's pretty much on job duty now)
Face -- RVD, Sabu, Dreamer, Mahoney, Little Guide (see Richards)
Other -- Lashley (tied into feud with McMahons and Raw's Umaga), Holly (unsure of his status but not a player either way), Knox (in Deep South with no sign of him showing up)

And of those four faces, Mahoney has been rendered irrelevant, and Dreamer and Sandman are close. The earliest Lashley can get back into ECW angles is after Backlash, and it wouldn't surprise me if they shifted him to Raw or back to Smackdown anyway.

I'd say "kill the brand extension", but at this point with no more brand-exclusive PPVs and wrestlers popping up on other shows with no explaination or even surprise, why bother?

 

A revamped New Breed that would be better than the current group:

Punk, Carlito, Orton and Dykstra or Nitro

I also think New Breed should dump Stryker.
Originals should add Mahoney and/or Richards.

 

I haven't watched Extremely Crappy Wrestling in about five months.

Why the hell is Matt Stryker (lol) still on there? Why does he even have a job? And why is WWE rehashing the teacher character?

 

Dear Vincent Kennedy McMahon,

Please watch the episode of Lost that originally aired on April 11, 2007.

THAT, my friend, is how to effectively book a swerve, not that travesty that took place on ECW.

Please forward this note to Mr. Vince Russo.

Sincerely,

Mannheimadler

 

Yeah, when I was praising Punk being a heel, I didn't mean that to come off that I was praising the execution of it. It was crap.
I just think Punk is a far better heel and they'll be able to utilize his skills on the mic more ... IF they don't fuck it up.

 

IF they don't? Talk about your money in the bank!