Professional wrestling thread

After the first 10 or 15 minutes, with all of the headlocks and rest holds, I figured it might go an hour. Seemed like they were pacing themselves early. Great match, though, and it picked up in the second half. When was the last time RAW (or any non-PPV show, for that matter) has had an hour-long match?
One thing I would've liked to have seen is HBK lock in the sharpshooter for a bit or even win with it. Would've been cool, and kind of played off of Cena's two finishers.
And one thing I was dreading would come to pass, but thankfully didn't, was a run-in ending. Thank you for having some decency, WWE.

 

The last intentionally long match on free TV I can remember WWE doing was the Angle-Brock Iron Man match on Smackdown a few years ago. I liked it enough, but there was something like nine falls/submissions (I think Lesnar won 5-4), so it felt gimmicky.

 

Excellent point.

 

Yeah, I enjoyed that match, but I know what you mean. Plus, the problem with Iron Man matches is there's hardly any suspense until the very end, because you know the match HAS to go 60 minutes. So, near falls mean nothing.

 

Damn. My TV is down and I missed it. I've never been a big Michaels fan (probably stems from him being an AWA guy and his attitude once established in WWF/WWE) but if he can make Cena look this good, then that is something. As for the broomstick comment (with Flair and now HBK), lets see HBK make Khali look good!!!! ;D

 

And even if you let a guy go up three or four falls, you know he's not going to win 6-0 or something, so you wait for the inevitable comeback. That's also why, despite how well-received they are when they happen, I don't like the best-of-7 series concept, because there's no way in hell it's not going seven matches (the exception being Nikita Koloff-Magnum T.A., but it was the first time it was done and I was a kid who didn't know better, plus it was such an awesome feud that anything they did together would rock).

 

From WWE.com on explanation for no Orton-Edge match:

Although other matches were scheduled for the night, including a contest pitting Edge against Randy Orton, the length of the main event left no room for other battles.

From Claws' perspective:

Can WWE take this logic to heart and explain:

Sorry ECW fans, C.M. Punk's match with RVD lasted 60 minutes and thus we were unable to show anything regarding buildup for Lashley vs. Umaga and the McMahons or the lame wrestler that is Snitsky.

or

It really was too bad that we were unable to give you your weekly dose of the Boogeyman and Hornswoggle so that we could bring you a TV show featuring only these matches: James Gibson vs. Rey Mysterio, the Hardy Boys vs. London/Kendrick and William Regal vs. Chris Benoit.

or

Sorry fans, we wanted to take this opportunity, instead of feature guys on the RAW/ECW/Smackdown roster, to give you an example what real wrestling is by inviting a host of top indie guys to have a special three-hour international spotlight on USA network. We have guys from ROH, PWG and other top indie federations who will actually wrestle tonight. As an added bonus, we also have a TNA main event as Samoa Joe will battle Low Ki in a 30-minute match. Oh, and we don't know who will win either as we've stopped our policy of taking anything not created by WWE and turning them into squat.

 

They did a pretty good job killing a handful of birds with the way they handled the Cena-HBK match. Instead of coming up with some convoluted explaination (or worse, rushing into a storyline) for Orton's absence, they just didn't have time for the match. Edge-Orton would have been a good match (or a good plot point), and it was believable as a main event, but not so much that people were going to riot for getting more Cena-HBK. And the combination of the alleged Orton-Edge match in the on-deck circle and the lack of a gimmick that let you zone out until the end meant that people would be watching the whole way through and getting surprised at the nearfalls (particularly the finisher kickouts, which are almost unprecedented between two evenly-paired wrestlers on a TV show match).

Good job turning shit into shinola.

 

Read: "F*ck Randy Orton"

 

Most of Raw sucked, but the lengthy Cena-HBK match was excellent.

Love him or hate him, Cena deserves respect. It's "cool" to boo him, but he has improved so much in the ring in the past few years. He really knows how to tell a story in there.

 

Midnight Rockers RULE!!!

When I was a kid I always had a hard time believing they were really having a hard time beating 'Pretty Boy' Doug Somers' and 'Playboy' Buddy Rose's asses. Nonetheless it was a great feud, and put both Michaels and Jannety on the map.

Speaking of Rose, he was hilarious. How about him always grabbing the mic and correcting the announcer...'Two-hundred and SEVENTEEN pounds!'

 

I'm old enough to remember when the matches looked like this:

1st Preliminary-XXX vs. XXX
1 Fall 15 min. Time Limit
2nd Preliminary-XXX vs. XXX
1 Fall 15 min. Time Limit
3rd Preliminary-XXX vs. XXX
1 Fall 15 min. Time Limit
Top Preliminar-XXX vs. XXX
1 Fall 20 min. Time Limit
Special Added Attraction-XXX vs. XXX
1 Fall 30 min. Time Limit
Semi-Final-XXX vs. XXX
2 0ut Of 3 Falls 60 min. Time Limit
Main Event -XXX vs. XXX
2 0ut Of 3 Falls 90 min. Time Limit

The matches began promptly at 8:30 PM and ended at mindnight +/-. And all the 2-3 fall matches had a 15 minute break between falls. They cleaned up on concessions, but then, hot dogs were only 25 cents.
I twice saw the late Lou Thesz go the full 90 minutes without a fall being scored. Talk about stamina! That would kill most of the woosies in the ring today.