Professional wrestling thread

[Claws for Concern]

Survivor Series PPV results:

World Heavyweight Championship: Batista over King Booker
John Cena/Lashley/Kane/Sabu/Rob Van darn over Big Show/Finlay/Test/MVP/Umaga
First Blood Match: Ken Kennedy over Undertaker
Shawn Michaels/Triple H/CM Punk/Matt Hardy/Jeff Hardy over Randy Orton/Edge/Gregory Helms/Johnny Nitro/Mike Knox
Women's Championship: Mickie James over Lita
US Championship: Chris Benoit over Chavo Guerrero Jr.
Ric Flair/Dusty Rhodes/Sgt. Slaughter/Ron Simmons over Johnny/Kenny/Mikey/Nicky

I've heard a lot about the Undertaker-Kennedy match. Kennedy won, but UT absolutely worked him over after the match. That's what's called saving face right there. Undertaker needs to lose CLEAN and just do the freakin' job. The best part of his gimmick now is merely the entrance.

What a bad show this turned out to be. A long time ago I decided to only order the four major PPVs during the year, and occasionally ordering another two if I thought the matches were worth it. But this show was just crap. And why the heck isn't Shelton Benjamin and Carlito on this PPV. They are two of the best "wrestlers" RAW has, and you can throw in Super Crazy in the mix, who has been regulated to Heat after a small push when he came over to Smackdown. What a mess all three shows are in. So hard to watch at times.

I read that Carlito wrestled Benjamin in the dark match right before the PPV started.

 

[mannheimadler]

Anyone else here not think Umaga is worthy of a title push? I think he's fine as a midcarder, but I'm not into him enough to warrant a title push. I'd much rather see Cena go heel, and have Carlito get a title push against him.

The problem is the brand split. The rosters have thinned out so badly that they don't have anybody other than Triple H, HBK or Edge on Raw that really could headline a PPV.

They need to push some of the younger, more talented guys. But it won't happen anytime soon. Vince is still way too obsessed with big bodies and monster characters.

 

[mannheimadler]

In his latest news report, Meltzer is saying the plan is for Batista to face the Undertaker in the SD main event at Wrestlemania, "title vs. streak," with Batista scheduled to win.

Of all the guys to break UT's streak, this would pish me off the most.

Batista really is a terrible worker. The only thing he can do is clothesline people, pretty much.

That's shaping up to be a pretty bad main event for a WM.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

Umaga fits the role of monster who get a push to a second-tier PPV main event loss pretty well. Hogan had a lot of opponents like that. They aren't going to turn Cena, despite the crowd reaction, becuase his stuff still sells and he's their most prominent out-of-ring wrestler by a factor of 10. And they don't have much else for Cena at this point, with Orton and Edge tied up with DX and few viable heels at that level. Better Umaga, who has an interesting look, an entertaing manager and a few moves that look like they'd really hurt, than Chris Masters. Or Kevin Federline, Cena's opponent on the New Year's Day show.

Speaking of Chris Masters, isn't he Shawn Stasiak, Part II? Looks like a million bucks, couldn't wrestle or talk his way out of a wet paper bag.

It all goes back to Vince's big man fetish, though I was surprised they went as far as they did with him the first time. Then he got nicked for steriods and sent to rehab, and (surprise of surprises) lost most of his muscle definition while he was gone. Now he's doing quasi-comedy matches with Jerry Lawler, which is probably all he deserved in the first place.

 

[Gutter]

Speaking of 'roids, anyone else notice the Snitsky-size acne on horse-face's/Test's back last night?

 

[Mystery_Meat]

Anyone else here not think Umaga is worthy of a title push? I think he's fine as a midcarder, but I'm not into him enough to warrant a title push. I'd much rather see Cena go heel, and have Carlito get a title push against him.

The problem is the brand split. The rosters have thinned out so badly that they don't have anybody other than Triple H, HBK or Edge on Raw that really could headline a PPV.

They need to push some of the younger, more talented guys. But it won't happen anytime soon. Vince is still way too obsessed with big bodies and monster characters.

The brand split is so hopelessly watered down at this point I'm not sure why they're even bothering anymore. Look at ECW's PPV -- one Elimination Chamber match and one match involving four non-ECW guys. And the Hardy Boys Hardys wrestled on Raw against Edge and Orton, even though Matt was supposed to be banished from that show for losing a ladder match to Edge months ago (and why not bring up Lita one more time for the heck of it?). And (minor spoiler alert) MNM's "one night only" reunion is already a lie -- they wrestled at last night's Smackdown tapings.

They're not even bothering trying to explain this; why not just scrap the split at this point, perhaps keeping ECW as their sanitized extreme outlet where all the weapons and cruiserweight matches go, and be done with it?

 

[Mystery_Meat]

Of all the guys to break UT's streak, this would pish me off the most.

Batista really is a terrible worker. The only thing he can do is clothesline people, pretty much.

That's shaping up to be a pretty bad main event for a WM.

Batista is an older Goldberg -- he has two moves he can hit with great velocity and sweetness (spinebuster, Demon Bomb), but there's not much to him outside that. And you can only milk it for so long. Batista can never hope to be as interesting as he was when he was the quietly disapproving muscle in Evolution's last days, slowly showing his distaste and distrust of Triple H until it exploded at the end of a Raw where he finally made the turn. It was as well constructed and well built up as anything WWE has done in the last three years. But once he got the belt, he was a lot more boring as the hunted than he was the hunter, and even a switch to Smackdown didn't do anything to revitalize him. And all the time he spent on the shelf with his quad injury amplified it.

But Smackdown is so hurting for upper-card workers that they don't have any real choice but to give him the belt, even if Booker T did a lot more with it in his King Booker gimmick. JBL's retired, Rey's injured, Undertaker's a special-occasion wrestler, Lashley's in ECW, Angle's in TNA, Eddy's dead. Right now the main event picture is Batista, Booker and Finlay. Perhaps they'll push Mr. Kennedy into that spot after his Undertaker feud, but he's really not that great a worker, he just has a good introduction gimmick. Eventually Benoit will be back there, but he's kind of tied up with Chavo and that horrifically stupid angle with Eddy's estate. Monty Brown is in, but apparently he's going to Raw. It's not pretty on Smackdown, no.

Kennedy

 

[Claws for Concern]

Smackdown has the next PPV. Wonder how many Raw and ECW people will perform on that to counter the losses it has right now.

 

[Claws for Concern]

And, since it appears that anyone who has posted on this thread actually knows what should make for a better PPV than anyone at WWE does, what do you do with the ECW PPV this weekend? There's only two matches announced (Chamber - RVD, Sabu, Test, CM Punk, Big Show, Lashley and then the Hardyz-MNM tag match) with only a few days to go.

How about this?

Hardcore Holly vs. Lashley (Heyman makes this match to weaken Lashley, but the plan backfires and he wins the Chamber and the title later that night)
Sandman vs. Kevin Thorn w/Ariel
Tommy Dreamer/Balls Mahoney vs. Stevie Richards/Mike Knox w/Kelly Kelly
Davari/Khali vs. FBI
Shannon Moore vs. Matt Striker
Interview w/Terry Funk, Mick Foley comes out and challenges him to a retirement match at Wrestlemania 23 in Detroit? Both guys can also be entered in the Royal Rumble.

 

[Norman Stansfield]

Speaking of 'roids, anyone else notice the Snitsky-size acne on horse-face's/Test's back last night?

WHAT?!?! Test's on roids? Christ, now I suppose you'll tell me there is no Santa Claus, too.

 

[Claws for Concern]

And, since it appears that anyone who has posted on this thread actually knows what should make for a better PPV than anyone at WWE does, what do you do with the ECW PPV this weekend? There's only two matches announced (Chamber - RVD, Sabu, Test, CM Punk, Big Show, Lashley and then the Hardyz-MNM tag match) with only a few days to go.

How about this?

Hardcore Holly vs. Lashley (Heyman makes this match to weaken Lashley, but the plan backfires and he wins the Chamber and the title later that night)
Sandman vs. Kevin Thorn w/Ariel
Tommy Dreamer/Balls Mahoney vs. Stevie Richards/Mike Knox w/Kelly Kelly
Davari/Khali vs. FBI
Shannon Moore vs. Matt Striker
Interview w/Terry Funk, Mick Foley comes out and challenges him to a retirement match at Wrestlemania 23 in Detroit? Both guys can also be entered in the Royal Rumble.

Update: Meltzer reporting that Sandman vs. Holly is officially on the ECW PPV

 

[KYSportsWriter]

They need to push some of the younger, more talented guys. But it won't happen anytime soon. Vince is still way too obsessed with big bodies and monster characters.

Umaga is not a talented wrestler. He's like Batista and only has two or three good moves.

He's a watered-down version of Rikishi (Phatu) and Samu.