Topic: Wrestling?

Wouldn't the whole "I beat Cancer" thing build more sympathy than ANYTHING they could do with him in the ring?

As for "letting him lose big ones", the dude loses more than people ever admit. He's basically the LEAST protected "top guy" WWE has ever had. Every feud he's had this year, even if he's won the actual feud, he still took losses along the way, losing to Shane, to Drew, to Rowan, even to Corbin. Sure they weren't all clean, but honestly, I never understood this idea people have that heels HAVE to win clean anyway, since they only seem to bring it up when its a face they dislike not losing clean.

I mean hell, we SAW Reigns lose clean to Strowman in 2017, Lesnar in a 4 way in 2017, and Lesnar in 2018, and it brought him ZERO sympathy. It made him look like a failure who choked.

I'm annoyed Buddy Murphy didn't get a bigger role in that feud. I'm not sure how WWE got the whole thing mixed up, but I honestly thought the reveal would be that Daniel WAS behind the whole thing and that Buddy, having earned Reigns respect after their AWESOME match on Smackdown and his own victory over D-Bry, would team up with Reigns to take on Daniel and Rowan. What we got instead was fine, and led to D-Bry as a face again, but still seems like a wasted opportunity for Murphy.

That being said, Murphy did spend that entire time being an absolute prick to Reigns, so its not like he was a totally innocent bystander.

I'm not really sure where the Dragonball Super reference is going, so I'll pass on that.

This is going to sound really weird, but I'm not a big fan of the "Well he paid his dues in the indies, so WWE should really push him" narrative that a lot of people seem to have.

Like, maybe I'm looking at it from a different perspective, but if I'm WWE, I'm thinking. "Ok, so you spent 15-20 years working in the indies making other people money, and now that your older and wanting to retire in a few years, you accepted our contract offer. You've made us no money, you're not planning on staying with us long...but your fans demand that we push you as hard as John Cena."

Like, I guess I don't get this idea that, if you work on the indies long enough, WWE is somehow required to reward you for your time put in with a sustained main event push at the top of the card.


OH, Lars Sullivan did gay porn.

Enjoy that image.

Lars is a bad man...a very bad man!

Old_Man_Tai wrote:

Wouldn't the whole "I beat Cancer" thing build more sympathy than ANYTHING they could do with him in the ring?

As for "letting him lose big ones", the dude loses more than people ever admit. He's basically the LEAST protected "top guy" WWE has ever had. Every feud he's had this year, even if he's won the actual feud, he still took losses along the way, losing to Shane, to Drew, to Rowan, even to Corbin. Sure they weren't all clean, but honestly, I never understood this idea people have that heels HAVE to win clean anyway, since they only seem to bring it up when its a face they dislike not losing clean.

I mean hell, we SAW Reigns lose clean to Strowman in 2017, Lesnar in a 4 way in 2017, and Lesnar in 2018, and it brought him ZERO sympathy. It made him look like a failure who choked.

I'm annoyed Buddy Murphy didn't get a bigger role in that feud. I'm not sure how WWE got the whole thing mixed up, but I honestly thought the reveal would be that Daniel WAS behind the whole thing and that Buddy, having earned Reigns respect after their AWESOME match on Smackdown and his own victory over D-Bry, would team up with Reigns to take on Daniel and Rowan. What we got instead was fine, and led to D-Bry as a face again, but still seems like a wasted opportunity for Murphy.

That being said, Murphy did spend that entire time being an absolute prick to Reigns, so its not like he was a totally innocent bystander.

I'm not really sure where the Dragonball Super reference is going, so I'll pass on that.

This is going to sound really weird, but I'm not a big fan of the "Well he paid his dues in the indies, so WWE should really push him" narrative that a lot of people seem to have.

Like, maybe I'm looking at it from a different perspective, but if I'm WWE, I'm thinking. "Ok, so you spent 15-20 years working in the indies making other people money, and now that your older and wanting to retire in a few years, you accepted our contract offer. You've made us no money, you're not planning on staying with us long...but your fans demand that we push you as hard as John Cena."

Like, I guess I don't get this idea that, if you work on the indies long enough, WWE is somehow required to reward you for your time put in with a sustained main event push at the top of the card.

OH, Lars Sullivan did gay porn.

Enjoy that image.

*The I beat cancer stuff of course brought him sympathy. Wrestling fans are not all made of wood. But he returned very early, and the many, many nonsensical attempts of WWE to bring him over in he past made the people be paranoid. Throw in the ruthlessness Vince McMahon is supposed to have, and then you have a life threatening illness that could be a PR act in the eyes of some fans. I don´t share that opinion, but I see how you can think it.

*People like to see the payoff. Strowman got no payoff, Lesnar does not need a payoff because he already has everything. So it was a poor choice of opponents, as poor as Corbin is right now because everyone knows that Corbin is not main event material but a much, much too long drawn out filler feud. The times of dominators like Hogan and Cena is simply over. Beside, Both of these guys were sometimes booked horribly too. Hogan was a total asshole in his feuds against both Sid and Randy Savage, and Cena was a terrible opportunist against Rey Mysterio and Zack Ryder, but they always came back because of their innate ability to make fans like them. Maybe Reigns hasn´t that in him? It was not his fault, but he was the victim of bad booking.

*There has to be a circle of guys that can and will beat Roman if they are swimming on a wave of sympathy. So my advice would be if you want to make him a power ranger, don´t let him be the red one with the main story above all else but the green or black one. And if he adamantly has to be the main guy, make some stories where he steps aside in away that you can genuinely believe it. Something in which Cena always terribly failed because it was always an attempt to steal thunder from the other guy. If you can avoid that, you will get sympathy with even the hardcore crowd.
With the DBZ analogy, I exactly meant that. People were banking on Son Goku vs Jiren because the hero faces the villain in a one on one duel and prevails, but Goku was suddenly out and the only guys left were the reformed villain and a guy that wanted to kill Goku and rule his universe. It was refreshing, it was unexpected and it gave all participants character, something which WWE painfully misses to do for now decades.

*WWE misses such opportunities as with Buddy Murphy with regular precision. And people are angry with them because they steal them out of the opportunity to see the people they like elsewhere instead of as jobber material or not at all in the WWE. And yes, Murphy acted like a prick against Roman, therefore I wrote feisty bystander. But is Reigns now a role model or not and tries to press information out of someone who just does not want to cooperate? You could argue that as a type of hero, Batman would do that, but it is rather uncommon for Batman to attack people that are not criminals.

*I also don´t share that mindset of people who like indy guys only because they came from the indies. A good performer is a good performer, regardless where he learned it. Maybe if WWE did not make their home grown performers so boring inside and outside of the ring and ban people like Rollins or Randy Orton from using social media, this would not be so much of a problem. I am pretty sure that Roman Reigns could theoretically have a very good match against, lets say Rey Fenix. But there WWE would always be a company for shareholders first and a company for fans last, avoiding any spot that is complicated because the cash cow should not be stopped for only a short time.

*Regarding Lars Sullivan, I sincerely hope that the man finds some help with his mental issues. And I feel indeed a little bad for wishing that he retires from wrestling. Not because he performed in a gay porn, but because he is absolutely terrible and bland in the ring.

After some time as Monday Night Borellins, Seth Rollins is making a great job again at the helm of RAW. I am not really a fan of the theory that a heel turn makes the better superstar, but in this case it seems to be true.

BUDDY. FUCKING. MURPHY.

My Boi getting GOLD tonight!

THAT LADDER MATCH THOUGH.

First US Title Ladder match in WWE history, 17 years after introducing the belt to WWE, and the first US Title Ladder match at all since WCW 1999.

Actually, might just be the first gimmick match EVER for the US title in WWE, cause god knows I can't think of a single steel cage, table, or even hardcore match for it.

I also could not remember a gimmick match for the US title belt in WWE, but I found one:
Sheamus (C) vs Kofi Kingston Tables match at Extreme Rules 2011, with Kofi winning it from Sheamus.

Lol. Great work, WWE

Defending via Satelite incoming:

Ahem.

As the guy who likes and often defends WWE...I will say...

...Fuck this company.

DELETE, DELETE, DELETE!

Matt Hardy is a free agent again. I can´t even tell why I love this so much, I was always soso on Matt Hardy before he turned into Broken Matt Hardy.