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shinneth · 4 years

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subject to future deletion

Normally I wouldn’t resort to that and I might end up being too lazy to do it anyway, but between getting sick again, dealing with some very intense verbal abuse every day irl, and the monthly burdens of the gender, I’m really not in a good place right now and I need to vent something.

It’s officially gotten bad enough to interfere with my ability to write, even though I’m at a point in my current story that I’ve been very eager to reach... and every step of the way I’m struggling to write it and I hate what I currently have and it’s taking everything in my current power to not just scrap it entirely.

Basically, I think I’m failing as a writer.

The irl stuff is actually not what I’m gonna get into because it’s really nothing new and it’ll probably resolve itself, but the side-effect of suffering that kind of negativity is that it enhances lingering negative feelings you’ve had about other things.

Namely, things you do to get away from the pains of the real world. The things you do to have fun and get some enjoyment out of life, no matter how challenging it is to be in this thing because it’s so wrongfully derided and demonized by the majority of your peers.

I try to keep telling myself it’s just because I’m still relatively very new to the fandom compared to my contemporaries, but as I’m typing this right now and listening to my favorite wrestler Shelton Benjamin in an interview, immediately I see the pit I’m starting to fall into.

Like, it’s uncanny. This is what he said as I started on the above paragraph:

“If I sit and constantly compare myself to other people’s successes, you would drive yourself crazy. Because no matter what, there’s always someone who’s gonna be more successful.”

“I need to remember where I come from; how far I’ve came.”

Basically, in the very small world of Stevidot (and to a lesser extent, SU’s fandom as a whole), despite my efforts, I feel very much like the Shelton Benjamin in a small, dedicated group of talented Stevidot content creators.

Which is to say, I’m basically a midcarder in the mix with a bunch of top-tier legends. Shelton graduated from the same group as some modern very well-known mainstream stars that I can easily associate with a very well-known and accomplished Stevidot contributor.

Shelton graduated with the likes of John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Dave Batista, and Randy Orton. At least half of those names should be at least vaguely familiar for my followers as most of them have had such great success that they’re known in avenues beyond wrestling (save for Randy Orton, but he’s well past outshined his father as a legendary wrestler who’ll never be forgotten).

I could easily say Watcher is the John Cena of Stevidot, while Platon’s probably the Brock Lesnar... sinderella0069′s the Batista. But I honestly don’t feel like I’ve done enough (or stood out enough) to even be a Randy Orton for this pairing. I’d at least give that honor to Ig just for being so active with it on Tumblr despite the wave of hatred thrown her way (even though she’s shifted focus onto Stevinel now).

Again, I keep trying to tell myself that it’s because I’m not even remotely as tenured in the fandom as any of them are.

Then I see this said in a review on a very recently-made Stevidot story...

And said reviewer has not once ever left a review on any Stevidot story of mine. Not even a follow or a favorite or a goddamned kudos. Considering I currently have an actively-updated Stevidot story going on (and a two-shot that I just did last month), I highly doubt my stuff was just overlooked.

Now, is it true that Stevidot is hard to come by? Of course it is. But this isn’t the first time I’ve seen a fellow Stevidot fan lament about the lack of Stevidot content while completely disregarding anything I contribute.

I know there’s one that outright doesn’t like my content based on personal taste (nothing to do with Stevidot itself, just how I execute it). There’s another big-name who shows no interest whatsoever in reading what I have to offer - and at this point I feel that’s for the best, because I have a feeling they’d hate my execution as well.

While I’ve always primarily written for myself, I also felt a great fulfillment for providing content for a niche crowd that really deserves more than what they have. I think Stevidot’s a fantastic pairing with tons of unexplored potential and should be much more readily available than it actually is. Even if I tend to not get many reviews, I keep track of the site traffic every day on my stories and I know for sure that there are people reading my stuff. Since I’m really bad at leaving reviews myself, I go out of my way not to whine about not having very many overall for my series since I’d be a huge-ass hypocrite to do so.

However.

Statements like the the aforementioned review and statements I’ve seen elsewhere by those who I know are at least aware of me are like stakes through the heart.

Because it can only mean one thing: my content doesn’t count.

I’m honestly not sure which is worse for me; being critically panned for the stuff I’ve put my all into over the past year, or being treated like my stuff doesn’t even exist.

I prided myself on contributing as much as I did for Stevidot over this past year. Quantity doesn’t = automatic quality, but I’ve got 20+ years of writing experience in, so even someone with a shit self-esteem like myself can’t just say I’m an objectively bad writer, because I’m not.

But apparently it doesn’t matter that I put in over half a million worlds in the name of Stevidot to a good chunk of the very tiny Stevidot fanbase; according to them, my contributions are irrelevant.

Is it my fault?

One thing I will admit is a detriment to my particular brand of Stevidot is that, save for one story (which happens to be by far my most successful Stevidot story in terms of recognition numbers), the rest of my series follows a continuous narrative that greatly deviates from canon as of Change Your Mind. I’m also notoriously a very verbose kind of writer - I have the tl;dr curse something fierce.

So all stories I’ve written since my main 3-act series (which ended up being nearly 200k in length on its own) have been direct sequels to that. Because of the heavy deviation from CYM, the environment of the following stories is very different and easy to get lost in if you skipped GA entirely.

Because there are so many dangling threads and new opportunities to be had after GA ended, I basically committed myself to my AU.

It’s not like anyone else is going to explore these possibilities.

Beyond that, honestly, I just don’t want to rewire my brain back to the canon status quo - not after the shitloads of character development I’ve not only given Steven and Peridot, but nearly everyone at this point has had a moment or two of really intense character growth.

I like having Peridot co-star with Steven. I like having her become a more competent and active teammate than she’s portrayed in canon (while still giving her comic relief moments). I like that I didn’t redeem the Diamonds and instead had them killed off to force our protagonists to deal with the fallout of the collapse of a mighty empire on a much grander scale than what’s going on in the actual show.

In a way, this AU of mine has helped me cope with the shortcomings of the show itself. I already went on a stupid tirade once about how the sadistic nature of my writing has basically made me no-sell whatever trauma Rebecca Sugar’s throwing on Steven and upsetting everyone else. I’m still fairly certain I’m still outdoing her in that department.

And because 100% of my passion for creating Stevidot is through this narrative I weaved, I have no desire to leave it.

So I’ll admit my stories aren’t exactly the most accessible to the average reader who hasn’t been following my work since Day 1.

Then again... I first got into Sinderella’s series completely ass-backwards at first. I eventually read it in the proper order, and like many of the great Stevidot epics, it’s canon divergent from a much earlier point in the series, so it was very easy to get confused about why certain things happened differently at first... but ultimately, I wasn’t that bothered by it because I just wanted some good Stevidot. I’d figure out the finer details later.

I really do owe this author more props than I’ve actually given - she’s one out of two readers I know for a fact have been following my series since the beginning without missing a beat. I’ll probably review her newest story sooner or later now that it’s complete.

Not gonna lie, though... when I saw our numbers side-by-side like this:

Considering they’re very similar stories (Stevidot smuts that were originally meant to be one-shots), mine is over a month old and hers is only a few days old and there’s already that big of a gap in our numbers?

It’s hard not to feel like a failure; like I did something horribly wrong to suck this bad by comparison.

I really should stress that I bear no ill will against Sinderella or any Stevidot author; this isn’t a competition, so this isn’t a matter of popularity. I knew coming into this that I wouldn’t get popular overnight; especially not with such an unpopular ship being the focus of my story.

But when other Stevidot stories get frequent reviewers that I’ve never seen once acknowledge my stories even passively, I can’t help but feel like I’ve massively fucked up somewhere. That despite all my efforts, I might as well be invisible. When they say “Oh, good thing your story is here! It’s been such a Stevidot drought around here until you came along!” to other authors after I’ve written half a million fucking words in under a year for this ship...

You know, is it unreasonable to feel that I utterly fucking failed in several ways?

I guess it’s no wonder why I’m struggling to keep writing. I still want to - like I said, I’m at a part I’ve been eager to write for a while now - but ever since I started it, I’ve just hated almost all of what I have so far (almost 8k words). And I’m really having trouble trying to salvage it.

I’m honestly not the type who’d scrap all my progress and start from scratch once I’ve gotten this far in. But maybe I’ll have to make an exception this time, because I think I finally made the mistake of trying to write while being mentally and emotionally distraught.

I thought I’d calm down once I wrote all this out, but honestly, I’m not really feeling it. Now I’m wondering if I should have just reached out to someone instead of making this, because now I’ll come off as a whiner with my pansy-ass first-world problems.

But then again, I’d be an asshole to subject anyone to my idiotic woes.

Maybe this’ll pass. I’m hoping it’ll pass. I really, really really really don’t want to lose my drive to write again. I was used to it coming and going in short and random spurts for almost all my life - then it finally came to me and stayed with me just a little under a year ago, and I’ve been desperate not to let it go because I’ve been more productive now than I’ve ever been in my 20+ tenure as a writer.

I don’t want this to go away. There’s still so much more I want to tell.

But then my logic goes... if you tell the story and no one’s there to hear it, is it ever really told?

#irl shit #stevidot #fanfiction #writing #self-esteem issues #self-worth issues #a cry for help #or therapy #or something #I probably shouldn't have made this #where did i go wrong

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emblem-333 · 4 years

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Rebooking WrestleMania 35

What stays the same:

Kofi beats Bryan

Whatever else I didn’t care enough about to mention.

Brock Lesnar retains vs Seth Rollins

Why: Is Brock a good champion? No. He works very few dates and his best in-ring days are long gone. But give me him over Rollins as a Babyface. Rollins is a fine wrestler, one of the best in the WWE. However, his microphone skills are nonexistent and his feuds subsequent winning the strap from Lesnar have either been uninspiring or downright pathetic.

Still, there was a groundswell of support from fans eager to see the Universal Championship around the waist of a full timer once more. The secondary WWE title has had many misadventures. It’s inaugural champion Finn Balor suffered a legitimate shoulder injury and relinquished the belt the day after winning it at SummerSlam. WWE held a fatal-4-way match on Raw a week later between Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns, Big Cass, and Seth Rollins - the winner being Owens. He went on to hold the belt for nearly 200 days, but his reign came to a screeching halt when Goldberg returned and steamrolled him.

Since Owens ate a Goldberg spear, the belt spent nearly two-years around the waists PF part-timers. Frankly, I’ve forgotten it’s existed at points. To be honest, I was glad to see Rollins win initially for these reasons alone. Then came the night after ‘Mania, Rollins is in the middle of the ring out comes Triple H, his former rival who tried to derail his career... and they hug. THEY HUG. Instantly I get this feeling Rollins is a corporate backed champion packaged as a Babyface. While every WWE champion is a corporate champion at the very least give me the veneer Rollins isn’t a suck up behind the scenes by making him one during the show.

But the WWE is infatuated with themselves. They were so satisfied to have pulled off the angle and believed to have gotten Rollins over as a Babyface they couldn’t help but rub it in for all of us to see.

Lesnar, in hindsight, needed to remain champion. Rollins simply wasn’t the guy. But Vince McMahon isn’t going to put over someone like Samoa Joe- and let’s be honest, neither is Triple H or Stephenie. Whoever beats Lesnar has to be a creation of the WWE laboratory. If not Rollins, then there’s nobody on the Raw roster worth giving a look at.

If I was booking the WWE, I’d have Kurt Angle’s last match be against Lesnar and call it a night.

Sasha Banks and Bayley retain vs The IIconics, Nia Jax & Tamina, Beth Phoenix and Natalya

Why: The Women’s Tag Titles are the offspring of Bayley and Sasha’s constant lobbying. It is odd the women’s division does not have a tag championship in the first place. For all this talk of a “Women’s Revolution” and the idiotic elevation of “The Four Horsewomen” as if on par with “The Four Horseman,” the whole thing proves to be a farce despite the wrestlers being insanely talented and effective.

Heading into the eight women tag match the “Boss ‘n Hug Connection,” the inaugural champs had held the belts for 49 days. While their defense wasn’t something to write home about the whole point of their run was supposed to add legitimacy and mystic to the strap. Yeah, the IIconics are solid heels, but after winning the titles their reign didn’t last long either ending in 120 days before dropping them to Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross, who later lost it to the current champions Asuka and Kairi Sane after their heel turn. (Why are the tag titles primarily held by heels?)

Just let Bayley and Sasha keep the belts. Since ‘Mania, Bayley’s won Money in the Bank, cashing in on Charlotte Flair and is still the champion today. Holding the belt for 197 of the last 202 days. The interim period occurred when Flair beat Bayley at Hell in a Cell. On the following Smackdown, Bayley returned for her rematch with a new look and a new attitude. The lovable hugger with a back bone became a chicken shit heel over night. Instantly undercutting months of booking. While she did get a main event slot at pay-per-view at Survivor Series, she was treated as an afterthought by many inside and out of the company. The morning after Shayna Baszler made Bayley submit, the WWE twitter account reminded fans that Baszler didn’t beat “The Man” a.k.a the champion they actually care about. (https://twitter.com/wwe/status/1198805122681147392?s=21)

It’s a damn shame how Bayley’s been booked. A complete waste of her character and even from the standpoint of solely caring about making money, WWE circumvented an avenue of revenue by turning her heel. Bayley’s whole character is designed to appeal to young kids, girls in particular. Changing her to someone who makes them cry is a fun thing to do on paper, but in actual practice is awful.

Batista def. Triple H

Why: Triple H is 46. He sucks as a Babyface and is a fraud. He should retire. He does the same goddamn thing every year where he wears a suit, acts as an authority figure and then takes the suit off because things have gotten serious. This happens every year. It’s beyond annoying.

Bobby Lashley retains vs “The Demon” Finn Balor

Why: Poor Finn. Never able to find his footing on the main roster. Such a big star at NXT putting on clinics against Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens. Ironically, neither of them have been properly booked since their NXT days came to a close. WWE has a habit of restraining their talent. Balor fell prey to this and his run as Intercontinental Champion wasn’t relevant and later would lose it to fellow roamer of purgatory Shinsuke Nakamura.

I don’t see a reality where Balor as I.C champion works out. He was a lukewarm, forgetful player on the main roster. It’s good he’s back at NXT. They let their talent express themselves a little more than WWE. Best thing for him.

The Main Event:

The main event between Ronda, Becky and Flair was.. okay. Nothing special. I was happy for Becky. Initially booked to turn heel after SummerSlam in 2018, her promo the night after Flair stole her title made her a star overnight and plans changed to have her turn Babyface and keep Flair heel. Despite numerous attempts by WWE to make Lynch a heel fans simply weren’t allowing it just so Flair could win another title. That didn’t stop them from giving Flair titles, but at least it won’t be at Becky’s expense anymore.

Why did this culmination of months long storytelling feel so underwhelming in its conclusion? Simply put, it wasn’t a good story. Every participant was an absolute fool and the WWE doesn't remember how to book Babyfaces anymore. Becky failed at the Royal Rumble losing to Asuka clean. Then hijacks the No. 30 spot in the rumble when there were more deserving candidates available. What makes matters worse is Asuka would have the rug pulled out from under her a week before WrestleMania losing the belt to Flair. So why bother having her retain against Lynch and making things more complicated?

Following the rumble, Flair and Lynch battled for the right to go to WrestleMania. Despite being cleared to compete weeks before the PPV she still entered the ring on crutches and got the crap beaten out of her before Rousey inexplicably crashed the party, got Flair DQ'd and doubled the chances of her losing her title making the match a triple-threat.

The main event of WrestleMania didn’t need to be a triple-threat. It didn’t need Charlotte. And most certainly didn’t need to have both belts on the line. You had an actual fighter in Ronda Rousey and someone from the wrestling world who took an actual punch to the face, broke her nose and suffered a concussion so both participants had credibility entering.

In my eyes, the WWE could’ve done the following, dominate the headlines for their inclusivity, make everyone who needed to look good look good, and not marginalize Asuka in the process:

Becky Lynch def. Asuka for Smackdown Women’s Title at the Royal Rumble, Flair wins the rumble:

Asuka submits to the “Dis-Arm-Her” and Lynch is once again on top of the world after being unceremoniously knocked off by Nia Jax. Flair wins the rumble, and demands both belts are on the line to prove she’s the “Queen.” Both parties oblige and volià! There’s your WrestleMania main event done without unnecessary detours.

Asuka retains vs Becky Lynch, faces Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville in a triple-threat for the title; Banks wins vs Rousey, Ronda is the one to enter No. 30 into the rumble and turning heel in the process.

Pushing Flair to the side here. She’s had enough moments in the spotlight and she’ll have tons more. Being omitted from me, WrestleMania isn’t the end or the world. This year belonged to Becky and Ronda. Let them have the spotlight.

I kind of think a Ronda heel turn would have worked if they paired her up with Paul Heyman. Would’ve made sense since she isn’t much of a talker and is from the ultimate fighting background as Lesnar. But that’s far too simple! And we can’t forget about The Queen. Heavens, no!

Sasha Banks wins vs Rousey; Flair wins the rumble. Lynch vs Rousey has no belt on the line. Banks vs Flair for ‘Mania:

Oooh, this is probably my worst take, but c’mon the Becky Two Belts story didn’t really lead to anything besides Bayley’s revival when a simple win over whoever was champion at the time would’ve done the trick.

Sasha Banks and Ronda had a very nice battle for the Raw Women’s Title. Perhaps the best match of Ronda’s one year stint in the WWE. If anyone doubts Banks’ in-ring capabilities, tell them to look at how she guides the green Rousey through the match. Booking Banks to win the title is a risky proposition. Ronda built a mystic of being unbeatable. A real fighter. Not a fake entertainer pumping ‘roids. Beating her essentially undos all of that. I guess Banks’ could have turned heel here and used a chair when the referee is unconscious and smashed it over Ronda’s head knocking her out of commission for a couple of weeks.

Anyways, Banks defends the title versus Flair. Asuka defends vs Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose; Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey have an old fashioned grudge match settled at ‘Mania. How’s that for inclusivity? Why aren’t I working for the WWE? Is it because my ideas suck and have no basis in reality? Probably.

#wwe #wrestlemania #fantasy booking #becky lynch #bobby lashely #finn balor #brock lesnar #bayley #sasha banks #seth rollins #triple h #batista #charlotte flair #asuka

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easyobsession · 6 years

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A Vow

SQUEE!! I feel like I’ve been working on this for DECADES when in reality it’s only been a few weeks, but IT’S FINALLY DONE! So here you are! I proudly present my latest creation, inspired by all the time shit happens and WWE likes to pretend Seth and Roman have never met and wouldn’t run out to defend each other.

Enjoy.

It’s all because of a promise.

A stupid promise, actually. A goddamn piece of shit horse crap fucking dumb promise.

It happened the week after Elimination Chamber. Roman had waited until Raw ended and they’d both signed autographs and taken selfies with the fans; after they’d gotten something to eat, showered, and settled in to bed at the hotel, taking a few minutes to simply come down from the day’s craziness and enjoy being in each other’s arms.

“I need you to do something for me,”

Much to Seth’s disappointment, he could tell whatever was about to be discussed wasn’t at all sexual, which was perplexing because aside from something dirty Seth truly couldn’t imagine what his lover would need to talk about. He could tell it was important though, from the way Roman had pulled back enough from their embrace to look him in the eye.

Seth let out a slow breath, frowning a bit as he finally responded.

“Okay…”

“I know things are starting to pick up for both of us at work,” Roman began, “Especially after tonight, our paths for Mania are becoming clearer.”

Seth nodded. Ever since he’d won the Elimination Chamber Roman had been getting ready for his match against Brock Lesnar, calling the other man out for not being around and arguing with Paul Heyman while Seth was heading into a feud for the Intercontinental Championship with Finn Balor and the Miz. Of course a small part of him wished he was the one going for the Universal title, but he was also beyond proud of his man for winning a title shot at Wrestlemania. Plus, this way they could both leave the Grandest Stage of Them All as champions (and maybe indulge in a longtime fantasy of fucking with nothing but the belts on).

“There’s gonna be a lot of shit starting,” the Samoan continued, “You know as well as I do Lesnar isn’t gonna let that title go without a dog fight, and I wanna take as much pleasure as I can ripping it from his hands-” he let out a small laugh as his boyfriend surged forward, kissing him deeply.

“I like when you talk like that,” Seth murmured against his lips, clearly not the least bit sorry for interrupting, “It’s sexy as hell,”

“You’re sexy as hell,” Roman returned, dropping another quick kiss before pulling back and blurting, “You can’t help.”

“What?” Instantly Seth’s arms fell from their position around his shoulders while his face filled with confusion and a bit of hurt, “What the hell does that mean?”

“You can’t come out and back me up,” Roman elaborated, reaching for the other man’s hands as he tried to explain, “Look, we both know this thing is gonna get ugly- it already is. This is something that started over three years ago and never really got proper closure. Don’t,” he put a finger to Seth’s mouth as it began to open, already aware of what he was about to say and having no desire to go over it again. They’d had many discussions both in private and with Ambrose since Seth’s cash in at Mania 31, and the event and Seth’s betrayal in its entirety was a thing of the past. Hell, Roman and Dean had even admitted that, personal issues aside, the move was pretty fucking epic.

“You know what I mean. It’s only gonna get worse from here. You know how tired I am of having a champion that’s never around- I’m gonna do everything I can to make the rest of the locker room and the fans see it that way too.”

Seth nodded, still unsure of why this meant he needed to apparently not get involved. He was completely on board with everything Roman said. Shit, so was a good percentage of the locker room. Even if some of their coworkers weren’t Roman’s biggest fans and hadn’t wanted him to win the Elimination Chamber, they were ready for a champion that actually showed up on a regular basis.

“And you know I’m with you all the way,” Seth promised.

“I know, baby. And you know that means the world to me,” Roman pecked the smaller man’s nose before continuing, “But this has to be something I do on my own.”

“…alright,” Rollins let out a small sigh but relented with a nod. It made sense that Roman wanted to do this without help and Seth fully believed he could and would, so while it sucked it wasn’t too ridiculous to suggest. Plus, since Dean’s injury nearly two and a half months ago the reboot of The Shield had been placed on hold and he and Roman were doing the singles thing anyway. “I won’t come out for the match,”

Roman frowned. The other man wasn’t getting his meaning and it broke his heart to actually say it out loud.

“Seth, you can’t come out at all,” he corrected, “No promos, no matches, nothing. And you can’t come defend me if anything goes south. Even if I’m getting my ass handed to me.”

“Wait a minute, you’re saying if Lesnar gets the upper hand and starts beating the shit out of you, I can’t come out?” Seth demanded, pulling away to glare at the other man, “What if he has back-up, Roman? Or Heyman makes some sort of deal and he’s got people backstage? They’re both so far up Vince’s ass you know he’ll give them whatever they ask for. What, I’m just supposed to stay back and watch you get hurt? That’s bullshit.”

“I have to do this my way. This is a two-man game, Seth. Him and me- that’s it. Nobody else can be involved.”

Seth cocked an eyebrow, “What about Heyman?” he questioned, causing Roman to shake his head.

“Heyman might be an asset at times, but at the end of the day there’s only two people in the ring,” he replied, “When Lesnar gets taken out, it has to be by my hands alone.”

“So what, this is all for your pride?” Seth scoffed, unable to believe what he was hearing, “Roman, come on!”

“It’s more than just my pride, Seth! It’s my dignity, my livelihood; it’s everything I’ve ever stood for!” Roman exclaimed, “It’s about a rivalry that’s gone on for years and finally proving once and for all who’s top dog around here. This is for me, it’s for you, it’s for Dean, our families, the fans, and everyone in that locker room!” his volume lowered significantly, eyes pleading for the man before him to understand, “This is about what’s right and proving that title still has value and holding it stands for something bigger than just one person. This is what we do, Seth. We fight because it’s what we love and because it means something,” he reached forward, grateful when his boyfriend didn’t yank his hands away again, “I have to do this.”

Seth grimaced down at the bed sheets. “If Dean were here-” he began, only for Roman to cut him off.

“Nothing would change,” he interrupted calmly, “I plan on telling him the same thing when I talk to him next. Whether he comes by to visit or gets cleared early, nobody else can get involved. Not you, Dean, the twins, anybody,” Roman let out a small breath. “I know this is gonna be brutal,” he promised, “Lesnar wants to break Punk’s streak and putting an end to that isn’t gonna come without a little pain. But I’m ready.” He leaned forward, letting their foreheads rest together.

“I have to do this,” he whispered, “It’s time.”

The entire situation blows, basically. Especially because Seth knows he can’t fault him for a word he said and what’s more, if the roles were reversed, Roman would respect his wishes and stay back. Hell, he already did when Seth had been fighting with Finn Balor for the very same belt years prior.

“I fucking hate you, Roman Reigns,” he pouts, finally allowing their eyes to meet again and making the other man laugh.

“I know,” he promises fondly, “But you love me too.”

“Yeah,” Seth leans forward to meet him for another kiss, “I really do.”

…

As expected, the promise sucks.

At first it seems like maybe fulfilling Roman’s wishes won’t be too difficult since Brock is never around. There’s much less of a chance for something to go south when it’s just back and forth with Heyman on the mic. Seth does get heated after Vince suspends Roman from Raw the following week, but he holds his tongue when the Samoan assures him it’ll be fine.

“They’re not used to someone calling them out,” Roman says patiently while packing up his belongings in the locker room. “It’s understandable. Not acceptable, but understandable. They’ll figure it out, even if I have to force the point,” He leans forward to peck Seth’s lips twice. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel. See if I can get us an upgrade to something with a Jacuzzi tub to celebrate you kicking Finn’s ass.”

…

But when US Marshalls appear the week after and put Roman in handcuffs, Seth isn’t so comfortable anymore. And when Brock comes out and attacks him with his hands bound, things get ugly backstage as well.

“HE CAN’T USE HIS FUCKING HANDS!” Seth shouts, unable to understand why no one else is as upset as he is about the situation. “And they’ve got some second-rate security guards and a few refs out there? What the hell, man?!” His heart nearly breaks in two as the man he loves is put on a stretcher, a bit of comfort coming at the sight of the Beast Incarnate seemingly having his fill of unnecessary torture only to be ripped away when Lesnar apparently reconsiders and heads back towards the ring.

“Seth, try to calm down-” Sasha gives him a look of sympathy as she and a few others block the locker room door. While loving him with all his heart, Roman knew the likelihood of Seth losing his cool was high and had taken precaution and spread word to a handful of their friends in advance.

“He’s on a goddamn stretcher, dude! This isn’t okay!” the Architect exclaims, searching for some way to release his fury at the situation, “Let me out!”

Apollo frowns, “Sorry man, Roman made us promise,”

“Fuck promises! There was nothing about stretchers in the stupid promise!” Letting out another swear, Seth throws a kick against the locker’s wooden paneling. “He needs help!”

“Honey, he has to do this himself,” Nia says gently, quickly echoed by Matt Hardy.

“She speaks the truth! It is a quest indeed the Large Canine himself must complete without the aid of even his most beloved,” Matt places his hands together, tone full of serenity as he speaks with complete confidence, “Though fear not, he who seeks the Title of Intercontinents! I have foreseen this journey’s end and can guarantee that after the necessary trials and tribulations have been conquered your suitor will indeed emerge triumphant!”

For a moment the room is silent, everyone turning to stare at the self-proclaimed Woken Warrior until finally Seth snaps out of it and questions, “Who the hell even let you in here?”

(It’s once Roman is being wheeled out to the awaiting ambulance and demands Seth stay for the rest of the show that he manages to calm down a bit simply because the other man is able to speak. The only reason he doesn’t ignore the instructions and head to the hospital anyway is because Mike Kanellis agrees to go in his place and keep him updated and Roman threatens to ban Seth from his bedside.)

…

“I should never have agreed to this,” It’s the following week that Seth is once again watching chaos unfold on the locker room’s tiny television screen.

“You know as well as I do if you go out there he’d never forgive you,” Dean Ambrose’s voice barks from the cell phone speaker, “Once he makes up his mind there’s no changing it. He’s a hard head like you.”

Seth doesn’t even bother arguing. It’s a trait all three of them have in common and they know it. “Yeah well, his head is giving me an ulcer,”

“He can handle it, Uce. Look, he’s holding his own, see? Totally fine,” Rollins can almost hear his best friend grimace a minute later when Roman goes flying through the stairs. “Shit that looked painful,”

“You’re really a big help, man. I can’t say it enough,” he comments dryly.

“Suck it up, Princess. He’s taking a couple bumps, not being permanently confined to a wheelchair. Get him some ice and maybe a shot of whiskey for yourself and quit the crying.”

Seth sits forward in his folding chair and stares at the monitor intensely, his left leg bouncing with nerves, “Get up, Roman. Come on, sit up,” he murmurs, letting out a sigh of relief when the other man slowly begins to rise.

“See! What I tell ya?”

“Dean, shut the fuck up.”

…

There almost isn’t even time to panic at Wrestlemania simply because everything happens so fast.

After an endless (epic) week in New Orleans, Sunday is spent doing last minute press and getting ready until show time.

Fresh off his triple threat victory, when the finale comes Seth is beaming from ear to ear as he watches the love of his life walk out to thousands of screaming fans. It’s obvious the Big Dog isn’t super over at the moment, but to Seth it doesn’t matter if he gets the crowd reaction of Daniel Bryan or Tommaso Ciampa. Love him or hate him, Roman Reigns owns this yard and everyone watching live in Louisiana and around the world through the WWE Network is about to see why.

It isn’t easy to watch. Roman kicks ass obviously, but after the third F5 Seth can tell the battle is wearing on him. Which is expected, of course, however throughout the entire match he can’t shake the feeling that something is off. Roman is on fire as usual, but there’s something in the air Seth can’t quite describe that has him shifting the Intercontinental title over his shoulder uneasily as he watches among countless other Superstars just past gorilla position backstage.

“Fuck,” the word slips out of his mouth without warning when red begins to seep at the Samoan’s hairline, and he can’t even bring himself to care that countless higher ups are milling around to hear his profanity. It’s clear from the hushed murmur of his peers he isn’t the only one starting to get anxious.

“That’s… a lot of blood,” Bayley points out nervously, Natalya nodding in agreement from her place nearby.

“Was that spot planned?” she asks, glancing to Jimmy and Jey Uso, who both shrug, and then Seth for an answer. But the Architect can only shake his head. Everyone knows Roman isn’t the type to go for gore or special effects; he’s been raised to always showcase talent over anything else. Besides, Seth knows that every attempt to contact Brock to map out the match had gone unanswered by the self-proclaimed mayor of Suplex City.

“…he’s not moving,” Renee breaks the silence after a few more minutes when Lesnar lands another F5, this time through the announce table. Even Dean, who can be seen connected via FaceTime on the phone in her hand, is looking a bit paler than usual.

Xavior Woods shakes his head. “He’s good, he’s just taking a second to regroup,” the gamer attempts to reassure the room as well as himself, staring on.

“Yeah,” The twins force themselves to nod, backing up the sentiment, “He’s got this,”

…

To everyone’s shock, Seth doesn’t try to rush out when the ref finally counts to three. Instead he remains silent, feet slowly moving until his back hits a concrete wall, the gleaming white belt slipping as he stares ahead with a blank face.

He didn’t expect this. He was prepared for a lot of things to happen tonight, but never did the possibility even cross his mind that Roman would lose.

He wants to throw up. He wants to scream and cry and throw a fit like a child whose mother refuses to buy them candy in the grocery store. Not because he’s upset with Roman for losing, but because of the situation as a whole.

This shouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Lesnar was supposed to drop the title and go back to the UFC- that was what everyone heard. That was the plan. So something had to have changed. Except Roman would have told him if that had happened, there was no doubt in Seth’s mind. So what the hell happened out there?

The crowd of Superstars has spread out by the time the performers are arriving backstage, a handful giving Brock polite applause when he appears. The reigning champion barely spares anyone a look, shaking hands with Vince and a few other big wigs before making his way through the parted crowd, Heyman at his heels like that of an obedient Golden Retriever.

It takes a little longer for Roman to arrive, a towel in one hand soaked with blood and a look of pure defeat clear on his face. His gaze is locked on the floor, unable and unwilling to look anyone in the eye until Samoa Joe of all people slowly begins to applaud. One by one the rest of the roster joins in, as well as a large part of the crew, meeting his eyes as they shower him with respect.

Roman sucks in a breath, doing his best to hold back the tears already building. While Vince only offers a solemn nod of the head, Hunter steps forward and pulls the other man into a hug, quickly murmuring words no one else can hear before releasing him with a pat on the back and push towards his peers.

The Superstars keep it brief, offering a few words of encouragement or a clap on the shoulder as he passes. Everyone knows what it’s like to come off of a huge match on the opposite side of victory, so the rest of the talent quickly disperses to finish their own tasks and give Roman his space.

It’s Seth that meets him at the end of the line, of course, finally having snapped out of his revere when Roman reaches him. Rather than speak he simply turns to the concerned ref nearby and holds up a hand, silently asking for five minutes before having the wound examined at medical. Receiving a quick nod in response, he follows Roman to their shared locker room and twists the lock behind him, dropping the title onto his bag before letting out a breath as his back hits the door.

For a moment there’s nothing but heavy silence, a small groan slipping from Roman’s lips as he lowers himself to a plush sofa in the corner the only audible sound.

Naturally, because he’s Seth Rollins and it’s what he does, Seth speaks first.

“I love you,” he announces, taking no offense when he receives zero response from the other man’s bowed head, “There’s a lot more I want to say, and we both know I will eventually, but right now I’m just gonna say that I love you and I’m here and that’s never gonna change.”

A few beats pass before Roman opens his eyes, face rising as Seth crosses the room and crouches down in front of him. Rollins holds back a sob when their gazes connect. The other man’s face is the picture of a broken human being. A few tears have escaped and roll down his cheeks, devastation and frustration and humiliation just a few of the emotions radiating from his person.

“I didn’t know,” Roman’s voice is garbled, thick with physical and emotional exhaustion when he finally speaks, “They changed their mind and nobody told me. He was coming down the ramp when the ref pulled me aside.” He shakes his head, almost as if he himself can’t believe the situation. “I didn’t know,”

And because he isn’t sure what else can be done in this type of scenario, Seth just pulls him into his arms and lets him cry.

…

As much as he wants to believe the worst is over, Seth knows once Mania ends things aren’t going to ease up any time soon. The Greatest Royal Rumble is announced to be taking place in Saudi Arabia in just three weeks time, including a Wrestlemania rematch for the Universal Championship inside of a cell.

By now Roman is over his sad phase. He isn’t the type to feel sorry for himself anyway, but he has moments of weakness from time to time like anyone else because he’s human. Once those are over though, it’s back to protecting his yard and being the warrior everyone knows him to be.

And of course, now more fired up than ever, he’s also hellbent on Seth still staying out of it. Luckily Brock doesn’t show up (shocker) until the Raw before the Rumble, and even then somehow things manage not to get out of hand. So it isn’t as difficult.

Then they go to Saudi Arabia.

Don’t get him wrong, Seth totally loves the UAE. The cities are beautiful, the culture is incredible, and the people and the fans they meet are the best.

But some complete and total horse shit goes down at the Greatest Royal Rumble.

It’s not confusing. There’s not a debate. The rules announced before the match clearly state the first contestant’s feet to hit the floor is the winner.

Roman’s feet hit the floor first.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It’s on freaking film.

But of course, by sheer coincidence and one of the only recorded times in history, the ref makes the wrong call.

Naturally, Seth is livid. He manages to remain in the back, but the locker room is rather impressed with the extensive vocabulary of curse words he throws out. Titus O’Neal even quietly reminds him they are indeed in a foreign country as guests and trying to make a good impression not just as a company but as individuals, so he does lower his volume slightly, but his peers still wear masks of surprise at his vast collection of swears.

Roman doesn’t even know how to react. He’s so exhausted at this point, between the physicality of the match and the mental fatigue, not to mention their bodies are all thrown off by the time difference, all they can do when they return to the hotel is exchange a few tender kisses and pass out in bed.

…

The following day on Raw, when they make the announcement that they won’t be reversing the call, everyone expects an encore of the previous evening’s tirade but Seth can’t even muster up the energy. Like Roman, he’s tired. He’s very, very tired. Hell, by now he’s barely surprised.

He does get pissed off when Bobby Lashley and Braun Strowman of all people get to run out and help defend Roman, and that they get to tag with him against Owens, Zayn, and Jinder. Because yeah, Seth gets that he’s doing his thing with Miz and Finn and the IC title and it’s epic, but he hasn’t completely forgotten Roman exists. Like seriously, Braun Strowman? Didn’t Roman try to run him over with an ambulance a while back?

But of course Braun didn’t make a promise to stay in the back and the man adores any excuse to beat the shit out of someone, so when management calls for him to head out and assist the Big Dog he doesn’t have to think twice.

Damn semantics.

…

It’s clear by now Brock won’t be dropping the belt any time soon, no matter what happens. Not until he beats and seemingly erases Punk’s record from the history books, outcome of the matches be damned. Management won’t allow any other result as a possibility. It’s crap and it’s unfair, not just to Roman but to the entire locker room and the fans, but they can’t change anything. So really, they might as well not waste time crying about it.

All they can do is show up every day and do their best to put on an amazing show for the fans time and time again and have as much fun as possible in the process. That’s why they got into this business in the first place: because they love what they do. Not because of notoriety or fame or ugly red belts, but because it makes people happy, makes them feel alive, and because it’s so much fun every single time.

Every night they lay in bed, almost unable to tell whose limbs belong to whom in the tangled mess under hotel sheets, bodies pressed tight up against one another, they make sure to remember that.

When the time is right, Roman will get his turn with the Universal championship; whether that’s next week, next month, or ten years from now, it’ll happen. And it’ll be the ride of a lifetime and Seth will be the first one out to the ring to celebrate.

Until then, at the end of the day, they have each other.

And as it happens, compared to that, the glory of a title is practically insignificant.

fin.

#rolleigns #wwe fanfiction #oneshot #idk what else to tag i feel awkward #rolleigns fic #lo writes things #rolleigns fanfiction

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thecompostpile · 4 years

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Quarantine Chronicles 11

youtube

When I first started getting back into wrestling in 2015 I noticed that most people weren’t nostalgic for the same things I was. I wasn’t allowed to watch wrestling during the Attitude Era, which was probably for the best. I didn’t care about Stoned Cold or Mankind or Sable instead when I started sneak watching wrestling was in the 2004ish so the era I am most nostaolgic for is the Ruthless Aggression Era. The first storyline I could remember wasn’t Hulkamania but Hulk Hogan hiding under a mask as Mr. America and Vince McMahon trying to prove it was really Hulk. Before I knew what wrestling was fake was I watched in horror as Brock Lesnar beat the shit out of a man with one leg, Zack Gowen.

My all time favorite though was Rey Mysterio. I loved the way he moved. I loved his mask I loved everything about him. I remember watching Spike Dudely betray him and then Rey would beat him for the Cruiserweight Championship. The famous feud with Eddie over Dominic that ended in a ladder match. Or how he slowly worked his way up the card. Rey was by far my favorite.

If I was picking my all time favorite WWE wrestlers these two would certainly be on it. I think Brock is good. I honestly think Brock Lesnar is one of the best wrestlers in the history of WWE. His last title run was really good. I plan on working out my feelings about both these two latter on so let’s move on from it for now. I also liked Smackdown more because my bedtime was 10 and I could stay up and watch all of Smackdown while I had to go to bed before the second hour of RAW. (remember when RAW was only two hours?)

This match is so much fun. I don’t watch The Fed’s TV anymore but I feel like they haven’t been able to do anything like this in a long time. Even the last Mysterio vs Brock match at whatever big show, which I was excited for, wasn’t very good. This is great. I would love to know who agented this match and if I had to guess I would say that Paul Heyman had a lot to do with the pacing and layout.

Rey is the hometown hero and is getting a shot at Brock Lesnar’s WWE title. Every is very excited about that because EVERYONE loves Rey Mysterio here. Brock jesters to no one that Rey Mysterio is small, he pantomimes it a few times.

The match starts pretty regularly. They lock up trade holds. Lesnar quickly uses his size advantage to bully Rey around picking him up by his ankle. If this happened today I could see a lot of people whining on twitter about it but it is VERY cool. A great looking spot. Rey runs out of the ring and makes Lesnar chase him. At every single point in this match Rey does everything he can to knock Lesnar off his feet.

Rey is the perfect small guy wrestling a big guy here. He uses his style to keep Lesnar moving. Rey jumps off the ropes more times than I can count. He hits Lesnar with everything he has. A sunset flip into the barricade on the outside. A surprise 619. Jumping onto the ropes and onto Lesnar. There are a few close calls too. Rey looks like he could win the match. Adding to this is the fact that the crowd is losing it’s mind for Rey.

Lesnar of course wins tapping Rey out to a move I have never seen before that Tazz calls the Brock Lock. Rey’s knee is over the back of Lesnar’s neck and is being stretched too far. He taps. But it was still the most fun WWE TV match I have watched in a while.

#wwe #Rey Mysterio #smackdown #quarantine chronicles #am writing

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grizzlefur · 7 years

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WWEm - Back Like a Recurrent UTI

In response to a comment from a reader, which is frankly one comment more than I ever thought I’d get, I’m dropping the interline punctuation. Be aware I may be switching to Comic Sans next week though.

Transmission date: Monday 5/Tuesday 6 June 2017.

Coming at you off the back of Medium-Strength Rules, this is THURSDAY AFTERNOON RAW!

so yeah, extreme rules was kind of crap like, i don't need it to be all barbed wire rope exploding table deathmatches, but that was honestly tamer than a lot of episodes of raw it's like waiting a fortnight for a jalfrezi and getting a shitty mushroom dopiaza or something (that's the subtitle of the dvd release, btw) (Extreme Rules 2017: The Shitty Mushroom Dopiaza of Wrestling) kkb took the belts, though, so that's good at least in any case, i should probably stop using this blog to bitch about ppvs that we're not watching and actually watch the show just kidding, it's my blog, i can do whatever the fuck i want NEXT UP: THE HIGHLY EFFECTIVE HABITS OF SUCCESSFUL LEAFCUTTER ANTS (2017, 7hrs 41mins) *daniel starts raw* dang ah well we'll get back to that particular gem we kick off with a dramatic slideshow of an entirely undramatic two-chilli rules main event if you haven't been keeping up with the results, joe won by stealing a pin opportunity and choking finn to death i have genuinely no clue how they're going to build a joe/brock feud without turning one of them, which would make no sense and be bullshit were the hardyz in the title sequence before? i am very unobservant, so it's possible jesus fuck, guys, you don't need to keep weaponising the pyro to see what i say we're back in the mohegan sun later, joe talks about life but now, here comes a bray to chop off your head or possibly declaim some eschatological craziness could be both who knows i'm wearing a SanItY shirt, i don't give a shit aww, apparently he's here to fight roman disappointing can he chop roman's head off? booker's still on announce, which is weird given that otunga was around to be on the pico de gallo rules preshow panel ok, bray's got a mic so at least we get some preaching before roman gets here apparently sunday was the beginning of the end, because bray will not be there to slay the beast because he was stabbed through the eye with his own sword of salvation but he's fine, because he's still a god (i'm not even paraphrasing) he's here to pass judgment on the guilty which includes basically everybody who isn't him he mentions roman, the arena roof levitates on the cloud of boos he's vowed to personally punish everyone, starting with roman now oh, and here he is personally, i would not enter a room with a man who had just levelled that particular bit of demagoguery at me but hey, i'm not roman reigns loving the guy on hardcam with the I CAME TO BOO ROMAN sign so did everyone else, it seems apocalyptic cult leader and self-proclaimed god vs big taciturn punch man which way is the heel/face divide even meant to go in this situation enormous boos, roman takes bray's mic, boos redouble apparently this kind of public hate is why roman is the guy sure, why not better than proclaiming yourself the BIG FIGHT man cannot tweet roman coldcocks bray, start the match bray nearly lands sister abigail within about six seconds that would have been fucking hilarious although it kind of feels like maybe bray should have a new finisher to fit this whole bringing judgment upon the guilty thing or maybe that's just my overly-narrative booking instincts who can say (that is definitely what it is) fuck off, daniel i'll rescind your fruit bowl privileges bray avoids a samoan drop through the incredibly advanced tactic of punching roman in the head repeatedly that's the kind of tactical nous you only get by anointing yourself with the burnt grave earth of your diabolic mistress as the saying goes did we really need to cut to that enormously wide shot where the camera's on the other side of a lighting rig several astronomical units away from the ring? like, we get that the mohegan sun's big no need to prove this at the expense of beign able to see shit if i wanted to watch insects wrestle while i shine a torch into one of my eyes, i could do that at home i'm going off on tangents a lot here because this match is slow as fuck roman is still creeped out to the point of a nearfall by bray's spiderwalk goes for a pin off an uranage, then takes roman to the top rope we could be here a while he does a few punches, roman headbutts him for longer than would seem necessary before turning it into a powerbomb roman cocks his hand, takes a couple tries to hit bray what happens if he cocks his hand and doesn't do anything with it? does he have to punch something to get rid of it before it goes off accidentally? or can he rack his forearm to eject a loaded fist? enquiring minds want to know anyway, while that muse was visiting me, bray heard roman going oooooooo and rolled out, took a driveby but punched roman's head off so it seems my earlier proposal was correct huh i can call murders better than matches bray goes for sister abigail, roman reverses into a superman punch and a really slow spear for the pin so yeah that happened meanwhile, someone in the crowd has leveraged all their crafting skills to make a sign informing us that BROCK LESNAR IS TICKLISH corey invents the adjective 'slaughterous' yeah, ok bray deserves new words end segment later on, we have joe doing a thing but next, we talk about the shitshow that was the 'extreme' women's title match "But can Bayley get EXTREEEEEME?" "No." but now, we have charly interviewing enzo and cass enzo's conscious, which is a change charly asks enzo about their match tonight with enzo and cass, he responds by creeping on charly and insulting corey's hair cass is insulted by the rumours that he was attacking his bro, promises to watch his back at all times and then they leave, and enzo returns to creep on charly alone good backwatching, colin what if charly was the mystery assailant it makes so much sense anyway, now we have a dull slideshow of the dull women's title match and photos of the one welt on bayley's back, which has made her take the night off somebody send jericho to talk to her in his curtain room/office, kurt is confused by his phone and here is alexa to present terms she wants a celebration of her entire life tonight because the this is your life segment went down so well outstanding kurt immediately comes back like fuck no that's an awful idea this is your life was dreadful and anyway you owe nia a title shot tonight alexa is none too pleased and slightly shellshocked but here's dean, aka 33% of the best bit of semi-notable rules and now, here's a very large man on a stool dressed entirely in scarves and fragments of scarves, with a song he wrote after seeing a leaf fall on the side of the highway

actual quote

it's a song about how dean sucks, basically

with a subtext about how elias deserves a title shot

dean's music interrupts it

it's an elias segment, so corey is SO ANGRY

dean does his hey dude hold on a second i just want to PUNCH thing

hits him until he goes away, and demands a title rematch but here's miz on the tron, like fuck no he's wearing a bow tie for the kickoff celebration of the ic title comeback tour and elias blindsides dean into his swinging neckbreaker and shouts at him, because sometimes you just gotta but up next, samoa joe the mohegan sun fans need something to cheer, or they're going to riot but first, dean storms backstage runs into kurt, asks for a ref in miz's dressing room kurt's like no, we've got a party planned and i'm scared of maryse, please go away no dean, don't go to miz's dressing room so kurt ejects him from the building it is just heel city so far oh hey, it's joe funny, that because the prevailing heel archetype at the moment is apparently 'large samoan man named joe' first shot of the match card graphics for great balls of fire, and it looks like shit if you're making a title graphic, maybe don't put a flashy effect around the word BALLS in the centre joe thinks brock ain't shit and wants to take everything he owns including his cushy non-wrestling schedule i think we all want brock's ability to draw a salary and have fans without doing shit joe also wants paul heyman, just for giggles oh hey, paul didn't see you there (largely because you were backstage and i don't have camera control) paul does his usual spiel, and still needs to check the definition of 'defending' does his usual thing of hi joe aren't you awesome can i come into your ring sir please don't hurt me but btw my client also thinks you yourself ain't shit does a soliloquy about worrying for a living, turns it into a jew joke sigh addresses the fact that brock/finn would have been a great story, while brock/joe is just going to be two large angry men trying to shoot kill each other paul does his usual great job of hyping both people in this match you're great, but my client's better paul shakes hands with joe, tries to leave, joe grabs him again and has an earnest face-to-face conversation he's so well-spoken he's like hey paul i understand you're just a legal representative but jsyk i'm about to choke the life out of you and this is exactly what it's going to feel like and then he does calm joe is the most intimidating joe refs get involved, but not until paul goes limp the crowd are unsure how to react to this assault joe shouts at the crowd some more, then leaves and we cut to ads on the sight of paul on the floor and we come back backstage, with kurt like THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO at joe who's like i don't know would you like me to demonstrate loooooooom but here comes seth to shout at joe and intervene also he has a new merch vest to show off kurt's like hey this sounds like a good match this booking shit is easy joe sidles off with a dark look, end thing but now we have slater and rhyno facing the kkb with the former's entrance being helpfully played under the announce team talking earnestly about joe the announcers and graphics team need to decide whether they're sheamus and cesaro or cesaro and sheamus dramatic slideshow of the cage match, making it make even less sense lovely closeup of jeff's post-dive 'holy fuck why do i still do this to myself' face bell rings, instead of getting out of the ring, cesaro creates an novel distraction by running across the ring and sliding out in the opponents' corner while sheamus commences to beating the piss out of heath slater knocks them both down, goes for a hot tag, cesaro pulls rhyno off the apron, brogue for the pin so that was a thing i'll be honest, i just love seeing them with the belts and they get mic spots awesome sheamus is like hey guys look like we know how to do this wrestling thing who knew are you all happy the hardyz came back well then you're all twats you know who isn't happy they came back? the hardyz, who basically ain't shit they reiterate their claim to be the bar, cue music and celebration but here's tjp backstage runs into neville oh so coincidentally like congrats, but where the fuck is my title shot neville does his usual patience, young one thing, tjp will no longer take this shit neville is a man of his word, and he'll give tj his shot if he takes care of mustafa next cut for ads, and here's that match tj's straight in with the slightly excessive aggression, tries to crush ali's face across the corner with his foot and then a bunch of cool spots happen faster than i can type about them but that should go without saying, really thanks for slowing things down with that really long rest headlock, tj mustafa does his lovely top rope twist torndo ddt, tries for the inverted 450, tj reverses into a detonation kick for the pin again with the really short matches mustafa deserves better tj swaggers up the ring, neville's crazy pyro hits, he basically shits himself, it's hilarious he's like i'm sorry my apprentice, i talked to kurt but we can't have a match tonight i tried tj shouts at him, storms off, so he blindsides him and beats the shit out of him on the stage and then says he can have his shot tomorrow on 205 i say 'says', more 'northernly rants' cut for ads, and we come back with another shattered dreams production goldust's like excuse you did you steal my format and my chair it is ON motherfucker promises to bring the whole movie industry into his coming golden age how this will interact with bray's prophesied apocalypse is unclear but now, in the women's locker room, mickie and dana congratulate sasha on her dance moves alexa comes in, sasha nopes out of the room and alexa's like hey girls what do you think about nia cutting in line for the title what a bitch right dana and mickie are like lol no we'll be at ringside laughing at you announce spot, and kurt appears to call corey away for urgent business involving gesturing at his phone and looking annoyed i have no clue what all this is building to if there's been foreshadowing, i've missed it cole tries to ask him what that's all about, corey's like OH WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT kalisto's here he's lost the aggressively sculpted dragon mask, back to more of an nxt-era lucha dragons thing back in mexican colours and everything whatever happened to el local ...okay, i totally did not know he was ricardo rodriguez i wouldn't have known who that was back when i started watching nxt, to be fair thanks, internet huh anyway, back on the show, ...mike? ambushes kurt backstage to ask what the fuck's going on with those emails or w/e he uses slightly more professional language, because he's talking to his boss while i'm screaming semi-informed obscenities into the formless void of the internet kurt's like nope, anonymous dude, this is private and walks out of the arena and dean sneaks in the door just before it closes dean ambrose: back like a recurrent uti (his disappointing third album) and as we watch him come in, the revival just happen to be in the back of the shot caught it that time i pay attention sometimes but now it's kalisto/titus or actually titus knocking kaliso down and then shouting at apollo also tozawa is watching because titus wants him on the brand kalisto gets a rollup holding titus' trunks, apollo's like welp guess you asked for that one boss does some light motivational slapping, end segment but here are miz and maryse, even more dapper than usual and pan over to big cass, collapsed under a bunch of girders and shit enzo comes running in like whoa what happened way to stay together, guys cass presents enzo with a tacky chain that he presumably took off his attacker, enzo hugs his bro as we cut to ads and we come back on enzo being like okay well this is clearly a frame job and btw we have a match so can cass wrestle or what the answer is no but now we're back in the ring, with carpet and champagne and balloons and maryse and a guy in a teddy bear suit with a sign says CONGRATULATIONS who is totally not dean ambrose no sir but seriously, miz must fucking love balloons this ring is at imminent risk of lifting off and here is the man himself and a dramatic slideshow of the actually-great match complete with the nicest ref ever but yes, miz and maryse both look fucking great tonight just saying surprising number of you deserve it chants miz is immediately like fuck off you chant that for everyone just reminding us he's still a heel and all but yes, i do deserve it and here's a speech about how i'm redeeming the ic belt a toast to me "Ladies and gentlemen, please raise a glass...or, if you're in this arena, a styrofoam cup..." delivered perfectly miz thanks maryse for all this stuff, mentions the bear, she's like um i thought you ordered the bear then who's flying the plane so miz attacks the bear on principle and finales him welp, that bear's dead dramatically unmasks him, revealing...some dude he's like ...um, well at least you had a brush with celebrity, get out of here *whips him out of the ring* and now here comes a big present down the ramp miz is like well isn't this nice what could this be grabs a chair, beats the shit out of the present while maryse shouts at him to stop and it's a very dead grandfather clock and a very sad maryse tells mike he ruined the party, throws the mic at him, storms off and we are left with a very dejected miz, blaming dean for all his problems and having a paranoid breakdown at the crowd and the steadicam guy who's been following miz throughout takes his headset and hat off and hits miz with dirty deeds lovely slow realisation as the camera feed went up on the tron dean swigs some champagne, takes the bottle and leaves okay, that was really well done but now, we see enzo wandering dejectedly backstage looking for a partner and now we see the family who have good seats because of pizza including the wonderfully-named Enzo Shirtz but yes gallows and anderson are in the ring and here comes enzo all on his onesie does his intro, but it's not the same without a large man gesticulating behind him does his 4G well-connected joke again get new material, dude but he's found himself a new seven-foot man it's a biiiiiig shooooooooow although it would have been amazing if it was braun big show stands in the middle of the ring like what is this tiny rodent enzo tries to give him a pep talk with some semi-coherent jokes mixed in show has progressed from 'bemused' to 'angered' this is the most awkward thing, and i could not do it justice without rubbing a buttered weasel on the keyboard and...now show is doing a joisey-accented monologue with an extended ice age reference before spelling it out for them? what the fuck is in this drink well, the match has started, so i guess the talking can stop bell rings, anderson kicks enzo's soul out of his body standard swift hot tag to show, who...does all the normal show stuff chokeslam to anderson, into badaboomshakalaka except in the form of show military pressing enzo and then just rhowing him straight at anderson well, that was a thing that happened? lasted about 90 seconds anyway next up, women's title match but here are zo and show backstage run into cass, who's like hey funny how show disappears for weeks and then he's back when you need a partner casts suspicion about show being the culprit, enzo wants to give him a ride, but cass takes him away and now let's have a terrible blaxploitation segment full of film references yup but now mike? interviews alexa in the curtain room he asks if she regrets giving nia this shot, she's like i regret this show fuck off faceless dude and back to the arena, here's nia

cut to ads, and...now a weird bit where every version of this i can find appears to have overwritten the entire women's match with the elias segment from earlier the fuck, internet apparently it was pretty much what you might have thought - nia stomped all over alexa, dana and mickie pointed and laughed, and then alexa went and started a fight with those two for a dq win i would have liked to watch that, but guess that's not happening back to the actual show just in time for a graphic for the cruiserweight title match thank fuck i didn't miss that and apparently brock will be here next week i repeat, the champion will be on the show he supposedly leads novel idea so yes, here's everyone's favourite towel-sporting middle-aged-man-strangler and also seth, who didn't try to murder a doughy guy in a suit today bell rings, joe just gets down to punching seth's face in before even taking off his towel seth goes for a suicide dive, joe roundhouse kicks him as he comes out of the ropes, because he is way more flexible than he really should be this match is 10% seth doing cool cruiserweighty shit and 90% joe's hundred flavours of NOPE seth does a sling blade into a suicide dive, and it actually works this time and into a blockbuster because why stop at one signature and as i type that, there goes another suicide dive and then into a falcon arrow, as seth goes fuck you i can do strength spots seth goes up to the top rope, wyatt cut because fuck you lights go back up, seth looks around for a bray who is very much not here, joe blindsides him and coquina clutch until death and we fade on seth bleeding, joe strutting, WOMP WOMPing, and an entirely unnecessary reminder that brock'll be here next week do you have to ruin everything, wwe (don't answer that) smackdown will probably follow tomorrow, after i've gone and been an instrument of democracy but in the meantime, let me tell you about these ants -------------------- And if you enjoyed that, we hope you'll be back next week for our seminar on Following Pheromone Trails In An Increasingly Odoriferous World. right, now that that's done, it's probably time for some FRIDAY AFTERNOON SMACKDOWN! (i apologise in advance for any political jokes that slip through) (it's been a tough few days) and we open on a dramatic retelling of the women's five-way last week so yeah, women's mitb is probably going to be the big story this week i've had some of this show spoiled, but i honestly can't remember what, so that's sorted itself out and we're back in the present, and here come the shaney and also the five contenders are in the ring already and one of them's brought their creeper charlotte is looking ridiculously overdressed in her black sequin robe seven words in, shane gets a cheap pop in shane starts introducing them all, calls tamina "a two-time superstar" the fuck does that even mean the crowd love charlotte, but they love becky more apparently we're having a six-woman tag match later because why not have the entire division in the ring *again* drumroll as shane reveals the case it's basically the same, except silver and with some extra detailing on the logo no pink, thank fuck shane has a monologue about how dangerous the mitb match is, like he totally does with the men claims whoever has won this in the past has become champion somewhere, damien sandow is crying ellsworth calls shane out for mansplaining the mitb match, carmella gets a monologue until charlotte shouts her down leans on the genetic superiority thing, offers the other four a chance at brushing against greatness somehow a face? nattie calls her out for ripping off her father, proceeds to do the same to her uncle becky calls her on this, promises to rip off everybody's arms should be worth watching tamina gets to say words, which is novel but here comes naomi gets to do her whole entrance, because fuck this argument i'm the champ hypes the match like dang i wish i was allowed to be in this INTERRUPTING TRASH SAX lana is actually here in person (why do i like this music what is wrong with me) struts down the ramp, everyone in the ring just standing there like um fuck the what shane's like um hi? btw i was trying to do a thing, why are you in my ring shit, she's still russian and weirdly propositioning shane while also asking for a spot in the mitb match naomi just bursts out laughing like do you even go here why do you get to be in this match when you've had like none ever lana claims she can beat naomi, i smell a match for later shane's like seriously this is not how this show works lana has a tantrum in russian, flounces off up the ramp a+ flounce the crowd are loving her shane's like RIGHT back to the actual show that i run let's have this tag match Pun Murderer, FluoroTwerk and Queen Bitch vs Wrestling Mom, Thug Girl (and Douchey), and Obligatory Samoan lots of spots happened while i was working that out, but the gist is it's pretty even so far currently becky is alligator rolling carmella around the ring with her legs there's my thing i haven't seen before for the week apparently carmella taking the briefcase would be "like moving from HD televisions back to nanotubes" i'm going to go out on a limb and say jbl doesn't understand how science works interference by nattie and ellsworth lets tamina hot tag in and grind becky to pulp nattie tags in so she can walk over becky and taunt her teammates she'd be a much more effective wrestler with more wrestling naomi and carmella both hot tag in, the champ commences to cleaning house including three short-arm leg lariats to tamina because hey, if you can manage those, why not throw a bunch in nattie and tamina both come in to interfere, and here's lana to loom on the ramp and knock naomi off the apron, letting tamina superkick her for the pin stands at ringside looking smug like yes i did do that the fuck you gonna do and we go backstage, where shane runs into the andre the giant trophy mid-phone call like the fuck is this horrible public art and here's mojo to address the fact that he won that match and then nothing else fucking ever and be like should i maybe have been in the mitb match being the only person that's beaten jinder on smackdown and all shane offhandedly mentions luke harper, the crowd go wild shane's giving mojo a match against jinder to qualify for the ladder match because as ever, shane books this shit about twenty seconds in advance later we have owens/nakamura but next, styles/ziggler again and weirdly, by 'next', we don't mean 'after someone from the last segment has an encounter backstage' for once here is aj now they still don't want none although by the sound of the crowd, rochester, NY don't not want none dolph enters, recap video of dolph going over aj last week which i had totally forgotten looking more closely at the men's briefcase, the logo detailing's the same so yeah, it's just the colour that's different bell rings, we start going old-school mat wrestling turns out dolph has amateur technical skills that aren't just assaults to the crotch and also, he can dropkick you in the face dolph goes for the most blatant dirty pin, gets caught just before 3 and then a famouser actually connects for a nearfall i tend to rag on them repeating matches, but hey, this is a good match slow superplex setup actually resolves in an interesting way dolph counters a phenomenal forearm into another dirty pin attempt, aj reverses into a styles clash with like no setup, gets the pin because we're actually respecting finishers for the moment and from that to more fashion files noir tyler has a gritty monologue about the connections between prison and the catwalk and narrates himself looking at their clue board fandango returns from taking the cologne to the boys in the lab, only to find out that there's no boys and no lab, so he just tasted it himself as you do

and then this leads into the two of them repeatedly saying a mixture of 'cologne', 'colón' and 'clone' at each other with an increasing sense of incredulity this is like a fucking two ronnies sketch and i love it tyler finally gets it or not nor does fandango, which obviously means they must be close tyler offers a hopeful "Colóse?" and we cut to the new day and their ice cream cart what is life but still with the noir saxophone soundtrack they've come to the fashion police office and are bemused by how they turn black and white as they enter the new day have a case for them, the police say they'll take it, except the new day can't hear them because they're still speaking in their shared noir internal monologue and i am falling apart here big e is uncomfortable with how they're just staring at him but he's got them both rompers carried in his singlet, obviously fandango is not impressed "Listen, Big E, if that's even your real initial..." line of the night right there fandango is offended because they don't take bribes pan over to tyler, who is already wearing his like hey they're fashionable screw you the new day want intel on the usos for mitb breezango hand them five file boxes pull out a hoodie, ask the new day what they know about day one and why it is h xavier is trying so hard not to corpse the fashion police take the case, sax sting, they freeze frame until the new day are like ummmmmmm we'll just go while their noir monologue starts a 'new case rocks' chant that was amazing and you have no idea how many times i had to pause it to type but back in normality...oh wait, it's mojo i still can't hear his music without my brain adding zack's parts and here's a video to tell us that cena's coming back on july 4th, because of course he fucking is i thought jinder's music was different to usual but it's the singhs doing ring announce for jinder in english and punjabi and there's the music i was expecting i really like the ramp graphics they do for his entrance and he remains jacked as fuck somewhere in america, heath slater is watching smackdown and nxt and developing an inferiority complex it's just occurred to me that jinder's and aj's entrances have basically the same beat and structure somebody make me that mashup maybe this entrance is just they don't want none in punjabi that would be amazing i love how they've given jinder a properly long entrance with some gravitas and just generally how seriously they're taking him as a champion mojo is getting the upper hand with the power of HYPE (always upper case) every time jinder rolls out of the ring, the singhs are like omg boss are you ok can i get you a drink and they just have long arguments in punjabi and don't even try and let the average american in on it a singh distracts mojo and lets jinder just jump on his head a bunch doesn't take, because that's never where mojo keeps his brain flurry of offence later, jinder gets an eye rake in and khalass for the pin decent match by two underrated performers jinder's veins seem to have calmed down a bit too, which is reassuring jinder has a mic, the population of rochester is not pleased oh, fuck off your usa chants promises to kill randy and crush his dreams at mitb, leans on the hometown angle again proclaims himself the antidote to randy orton, and by extension america and then does a promo in punjabi, pissing off americans because america another hype bit for owens/nakamura and a video about how cool shinsuke is and somebody painting a protrait of him this video is basically all showmanship, but that's totally appropriate he's great in the ring, but that's not why people love him but next, the new day actually fight and they keep saying it's owens/nakamura 'for the first time ever' i have gifs that disagree but now, randy is backstage renee comes in to ask what he thinks about jinder's promo apparently he's been getting calls from ric flair, harley race and his dad, telling him to let jinder talk and then fuck him up so that's what he's going to do sure, that's compelling interview work but actually now, it's the new day v the colóns they're still throwing boxes of cereal into the crowd and pouring them on fans, because fuck your health and safety it's xavier/e, because this isn't a serious match so naturally, jbl goes off on a tangent about operation overlord this is 90% the colóns taking all the new day spots you know and love xavier and e do the ab stretch/spank thing at the same time, xavier somehow gets francesca ii turbo despite having a match to wrestle in a side note, primo's gone and shaved, so now i have no clue which colón is which xavier does a huge missile dropkick on epico, double hot tag and big e proceeds to annihilate primo xavier does a casual tope con giro, primo tries for a pin from the distraction, fails because fuck you we're the new day, blind tag into midnight hour for the pin their post-match celebration is interrupted by the usos' aggressive music they're here to talk trash at the new day and do their prison thing, astonishingly and they have shitty misogynistic jokes about the new day and jimmy's paranoia monologue i do like that they're doing all this mic work, but can we maybe not be offensive to marginalised groups shot of kevin taping his wrists backstage, but here's dasha in the curtain room with sami asking how he's preparing for mitb he's been watching lots of matches, basically and he has no idea how to get a handle on shinsuke slippery bastard sami tries to do some of shinsuke's moves, it doesn't go well so he's going to be on announce for owens/nakamura for research purposes baron looms into the room, coldcocks sami then hits him with a ladder like stop thinking about shinsuke don't you love me and then pushes him into a convenient pile of ladders and says he's taking the announce spot cut to shane on the phone like i am literally watching the show what the shit was that why do i keep that enormous douchebag around man spends a lot of time in expository phone calls (says the woman narrating the entire show on the internet) but here's naomi to ask for a match with lana at mitb shane's like seriously you have no clue how busy i am right now naomi lobbies harder, puts the title on the line after saying lana doesn't deserve a title shot because she hasn't earned it? does the bald-snatching line, end segment and now main event time here's kevin good sweeping shot of the ring apron and floor, wrong steadicam guy #smackdownediting ad for talking smack, with aj, mojo, and lana and tjp telling us to watch 205 becuse he's awesome [citation needed] claims you can't stab someone in the back if they're standing in front of you tjp has clearly never heard of the concept of elbows baron's on announce great the two facts they put on shinsuke's sidebar are literally 'from kyoto' and 'former nxt superstar' fascinating but what do i care, i'm busy watching him in his studded tabard that everybody will be wearing in the future bell rings, shinsuke does his oh did you want a tieup i'm just going to kick you in the knees baron talks about his storied history of fucking sami up nobody cares, you balding twat kevin has briefly tried to take shinsuke on at the kicking game, failed, and returned to mastering headlocks shinsuke's kicked off a comeback with a lovely single leg dropkick nearfall off his knees to the corner baron acknowledges that shinsuke is dangerous, my no shit alarm is destroying my eardrums (daniel, can you please take the batteries out of that) baron's still trying to talk smack about kevin, but his particular brand of smack is just shite meanwhile, reverse exploder to kinshasa for the win a lightly underwhelming main event, tbh, but shinsuke's clearly been holding back on the in-ring stuff since moving up which makes perfect sense shinsuke does his poses, corbin runs in to end of days him so hard his stupid hat comes off crowd are not best pleased i'm mostly just concerned as to why he's dressed like the second-rate pot dealer at every college (baron, that is) (i would love it if people at my college dressed like shinsuke) and we fade on baron awkwardly posing at the top of the ramp and having no idea what do with his arms halfhearted shimmy as the show ends and now i'm off to watch talking smack and make shitty political jokes you can't stop me you're not my real dad (one of you reading this is my real dad and can stop me) (also possibly daniel's uncle, if he actually reads this) (memo to self: stop antagonising authority figures for literally no reason)

#WWE #WWE Raw #wwe smackdown #Wrestling

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wrestlingisfake · 5 years

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Evolution preview

Ronda Rousey vs. Nikki Bella - Rousey, a former UFC bantamweight champion best known for a 12-0 streak in mixed martial arts, is defending the Raw women’s title. Bella is a two-time WWE divas champion (once holding the belt for 301 days), and probably the best representative of the WWE women’s division from 2006-2015, after Trish Stratus and Lita retired but before the “divas revolution/women’s evolution” angle. Rousey is the latest effort to build upon the new era, and Nikki is the veteran of the previous era out to prove she’s still on top.

This matchup symbolizes a lot of the problems with the way WWE books women’s wrestling. Rousey runs down Bella for being promoted for her look and implies she benefited from dating John Cena, with the gist being that Nikki isn’t a “real” athlete because she’s too pretty and/or a slut. On the other hand, Nikki’s heel act involves whining that she isn’t given enough credit for building the platform Ronda just waltzed into (the implication being that Nikki actually deserves no credit) and making light of Rousey’s losses in UFC (which was a legitimate mental health issue for her, at one point). We’re expected to decide which side is more awful and root for the other, but the entire spectacle becomes revolting in a way that (for example) Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman would not be.

In general I think WWE has a very disturbing mentality about top women’s bouts, where the basic trash talking we’re accustomed to in pro wrestling has to be distorted into this hateful, passive-aggressive metacommentary on what is wrong with types of women. Rousey and Bella aren’t fighting each other so much as what they each allegedly represent--carpetbaggers and starfuckers, respectively--and it just feels like it’s less important which woman wins than which type of woman is deemed acceptable. This has been a creative problem within WWE for at least 20 years, and getting past it is the last great roadblock for gender parity in wrestling. Unfortunately it doesn’t feel like WWE even recognizes the problem, because this match could have been the division’s John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar but they’re determined to turn it into a Jerry Springer segment.

A title change could be interesting, as a way to legitimize Nikki and level-set Ronda, but I doubt either of those things are goals for WWE right now. Rousey’s role is to steamroll through everyone in her path, and Nikki’s role is to pass the torch. Rousey is going to retain, probably by tapout; the only real question is whether it’s a brtually one-sided squash or if Nikki gets to employ enough heel tactics to make a real fight of it.

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair - Lynch is defending the Smackdown women’s title under “last woman standing” rules, so anything goes but the first woman who fails to answer a ten count loses, and the woman left standing will be the champion.

So this program manages to be the opposite of what bugs me with Rousey vs. Bella. That may be because it’s a secondary concern, or because it’s on Smackdown where Vince McMahon is paying less attention, or both. The vibe here is very much Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin from 1996, when Bret was still technically the babyface, but Austin was catching fire, but Austin couldn’t just be a babyface without losing the edge that was getting him hot. There is far less of a sense that this feud is substantially different just because the combatants are women, because the feud isn’t about “which of these women is the right kind of woman?” but rather “these two wrestlers are gonna fucking kill each other.”

I’m sure there will continue to be hand-wringing about WWE mismanaging Lynch and the wisdom of her heel turn. But what’s done is done and at this point, they’re on to something with her and it would be foolish to alter course. I can’t even recommend booking Charlotte as a heel because right now her “I just don’t understand why my best friend would treat me like this!” act plays perfectly against Becky’s bad attitude. If Becky’s going to be Steve Austin, it’s not time for a Vince McMahon to screw her over; she needs a Bret Hart who is aghast and scandalized that she would tarnish the principles of good sportsmanship, and WWE is shitty at packaging that sentiment in a heel unless it’s transparently conniving.

Lynch ought to win. I don’t know where that leaves Charlotte in terms of her direction for Wrestlemania. It’s starting to look like whatever feature role they had in mind ought to go to Becky anyway. But the right thing for the business as a whole is to figure out how far they can take Lynch’s new act.

Trish Stratus & Lita vs. Alicia Fox & Mickie James - Trish and Lita dominated the WWE women’s division circa 2000-2006, and they’ve come to be regarded as the living legends of women’s wrestling. This started as a feud between Trish and Alexa Bliss (one of the top women in today’s division), with the intent of adding Lita to make it a tag match (that Alexa’s sidekick James happens to be a veteran from the tail end of theTrish/Lita era is a bonus), but Alexa couldn’t get medically cleared for this show so Fox is filling in for her. What had been designed to be a clash of then vs. now has become kind of then vs. then slightly later.

I would expect this match would have originally been about giving Alexa the rub against two legends, but now that she’s just cornering the heel team it’ll probably be an easy win for Trish and Lita.

Kairi Sane vs. Shayna Baszler - Sane won the NXT women’s championship from Baszler in August, so this is the rematch. Not much has changed in this feud because Baszler acts like the title loss was a fluke, so it’s still a battle of a big MMA bully and a little joshi underdog. They occasionally tease that Sane is going to hulk up (asuka up?) and bust out some epic strong style shit, but we may not be at that point in the story just yet.

Originally WWE acted like the entire NXT women’s roster would be on this show, but as of this writing the only NXT representation is this match. That, plus the fact that Baszler is one of the Four Horsewomen of MMA with Ronda Rousey, makes me think that there could be a reason they went out of their way to get Baszler on the show. Sooner or later WWE will want to do an angle based on that--if not now, when?

I could easily see this going either way, but Baszler really has nothing left to do in NXT, so a second title run feels pointless. She should probably just lose and pick a fight with the Raw or Smackdown women to build to her moving on up.

Io Shirai vs. Toni Storm - This is the final match to determine the winner of the second annual Mae Young Classic tournament. I haven’t heard of any particular stakes in the tournament; it stands to reason the winner will automatically be added to the NXT (or NXT UK) roster, but that’s probably true of the loser as well.

I honestly haven’t followed any of this tournament, so I don’t have any useful insight on the match. All I really know about Shirai is that she was the ace of World Wonder Ring Stardom and is frequently considered one of the best wrestlers in the world today, male or female. Storm was a semifinalist in last year’s tournament, and also the first women’s champion in Progress. This could go either way but it feels like WWE is more into pushing Shirai as a major acquisition, while Storm is earmarked for the fledgling NXT UK brand.

Sasha Banks & Bayley & Natalya vs. Ruby Riott & Liv Morgan & Sarah Logan - Banks, Bayley, and Natalya have been out of the title picture for months, leaving them with little to do but feud with Ruby’s Riott Squad stable. At one point it looked like losses to the Riott Squad were going to trigger a Banks/Bayley breakup, but apparently WWE couldn’t figure out what to do with that so they just made up like it never happened. Natalya has been playing the role of Ronda Rousey’s sidekick, so she’s handy to round out the babyface team.

Banks has only just been cleared to compete after being sidelined with a concussion, so this match will be a litmus test for where she’s headed. If she scores the winning fall, that suggests WWE is confident about putting her back in the mix at the top. If she’s pinned or submitted, I think that indicates that they’re still concerned about her durability and want to hold her back a while longer. Unfortunately I’m not all that confident in WWE’s confidence in Banks, so I’m picking the Riott Squad to win.

Battle royal - This will be a standard battle royal where all the participants will enter the ring at the start of the match, and the last one that isn’t eliminated will win. Eliminations will presumably occur when someone exits the ring to the floor over the top ring rope. (Historically many women’s battle royals have dispensed with the “over the top” part, making eliminations easier, but WWE seems to have moved away from that.) The winner is supposed to be awarded a future title match, presumably for either the Raw or Smackdown championship.

This is largely designed to make sure everyone who didn’t have a match on the card still got to wrestle on the show. For Raw that means Ember Moon, Nia Jax, Tamina, and Dana Brooke. For Smackdown that means, uh, basically everyone except Lynch and Flair: Asuka, Naomi, Carmella, Lana, Peyton Royce, Billie Kay, Mandy Rose, Sonya Deville, and Zelina Vega. Maria Kanellis is also involved, even though she’s on 205 Live now and has been doing a non-wrestling role since returning to WWE in 2017.

Returning to WWE for this match are Michelle McCool, Kelly Kelly, Torrie Wilson, Molly Holly, Ivory, and Alundra Blayze. Ivory was around during the Attitude Era, but her pre-WWE career goes all the way back to GLOW. Blayze is the only woman on this show who wrestled in WWE before the women’s division was reactivated in 1998. Interestingly, both Ivory and Blayze are a bit older today than the Fabulous Moolah was during her iconic feud with Wendy Richter in 1984.

It’s tough to guess who would win this match. If the winner goes after the Raw title, I would expect her to get squashed by Ronda Rousey at some point before the end of the year, and I don’t see any of the Raw names fitting into that narrative. If we’re setting up a Smackdown title match, Asuka would make sense, although you might want to keep Asuka and Lynch apart for a while to build to something bigger. Naomi vs. Lynch would be good, even if I wouldn’t give Naomi good odds of winning. None of the returning veterans strike me as being groomed for a “coming out of retirement for one last title shot” storyline, but you never know--maybe they think Blayze chasing the title could be big at the Royal Rumble or something.

If I gotta pick somebody, Asuka is a safe bet, but I don’t really think this match will be about safe bets.

#wwe #evolution #wwe evolution #ronda rousey #becky lynch #nikki bella #charlotte flair

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placetobenation · 4 years

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SmackDown on Fox Episode #5 SmackDown Episode # 1,054 Buffalo, NY – Keybank Arena 11/1/19 I have returned once again with another installment of the SmackDown Report after having to miss last week due to being in the hospital, thankfully I didn’t miss anything special during last week’s SmackDown that would’ve been worth writing about, unlike tonight. At least WWE (or more appropriately the plane that the guys over in Saudi Arabia were supposed to take) did throw me a bone and give me a really fun episode of SmackDown to review for my return to the SmackDown Report. The big non-kayfabe story hanging over this episode of SmackDown was that the majority of superstars and crew were still stuck in Saudi Arabia due to their plane having to undergo maintenance, so for this show they had to rely on the few that decided not to go over to Saudi Arabia to collect their share of the blood money (as well as the women and the NXT crew). The difference in this show would become apparent immediately as we hear the voice of Tom Phillips welcoming us to the show as he will be on commentary alongside Renee Young and for the time being Aiden English. The show opens with Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman coming to the ring and despite Lesnar beating Cain Velasquez at Crown Jewel in quick fashion (we are shown the entire match from Crown Jewel) Lesnar is still pissed due to the fact that Rey Mysterio attacked him after the match with a steel chair. Heyman lets us know that he went to Vince McMahon to inform him that Lesnar wants to get his hands on Mysterio, however, McMahon told him there was nothing he could do since Lesnar was contracted to SmackDown and Mysterio was contracted to Raw and the wild card rule was no longer in effect. Heyman states that as of now Lesnar has quit SmackDown on Fox and that he will be on Raw this Monday and he will find Rey Mysterio. We then see Lesnar and Heyman leaving the arena and as the camera pans back it shows that Triple H and Shawn Michaels are in the building, which would be an omen of what was to come tonight. This was a good promo as usual and more importantly, it gave a sensible explanation of how it will be possible for the USA Network to pick up Lesnar to be apart of the Raw roster as their world champion. I personally would have rather had Lesnar stay on SmackDown and Bray Wyatt go over to Raw as I feel there is less chance for the Fiend character to fail (more than it already has) if there is more creative input from someone like Paul Heyman who has a lot of pull over on Raw rather than Bruce Prichard who is the main guy in charge over on SmackDown. I also have to question Fox’s decision to allow WWE to put Lesnar back on Raw as I feel like they would want the guy with a more legit sports background and who has more of a chance to get mainstream attention as he is a far bigger star than Bray Wyatt is. I am bummed that Wyatt isn’t going over to Raw as it ruins my fantasy booking idea of having Liv Morgan as The Fiend’s version of Harley Quinn. Match #1: Bayley © w/ Sasha Banks vs Nikki Cross (SmackDown Women’s Championship) Bayley tries to take control early but Nikki rolls her up for a quick two count before Bayley slams her back down to the mat. Nikki hits a flying head scissors that takes Bayley out of the ring and then she follows up with a wrecking ball dropkick and a tornado DDT on the floor. Nikki rolls Bayley in the ring for a 2 count as we go to commercial. We come back to Nikki fighting her way out of a chin lock and getting a quick 2 count off a roll-up. Nikki hits a series of forearms that send Bayley out of the ring and then tries for another wrecking ball dropkick, but Bayley catches her and sends Nikki into the steps. Bayley rolls Nikki back in for a 2 count and then delivers a series of shoulder thrusts into the corner before Nikki is able to move sending Bayley crashing into the corner. Nikki blocks some forearms and delivers some of her own before taking Bayley down with a running crossbody. Nikki hits an avalanche in the corner followed by a bulldog, Nikki is fired up as she goes up top and delivers another crossbody that gets her a two count. Nikki tries to go for the twisting neckbreaker off the ropes, but Sasha gets on the apron to provide a distraction only to get knocked off by Nikki. Bayley knees Nikki in the head and then goes up top to hit the elbow which only gets a 2 count.

Bayley sets Nikki up in the corner looking for a superplex but Nikki fights her off and tries for a tornado DDT, but Bayley blocks it and sends Nikki down to the mat. Nikki rolls outside and Bayley tries for a baseball slide, but Nikki wraps her up in the ring apron and hits her with more forearms and even hits one on Sasha for good measure. Nikki goes back up top but this time Sasha pushes her off which allows Bayley to hit some kind of move that sends Nikki to the mat face-first to pick up the win. Winner: Bayley Match Rating: **¼ This match was fine but nothing to write home about as it was just an average TV match. I do like how Bayley is the main focus during this run while Sasha plays the role of the cheerleader as it has usually been the other way around. I didn’t care for whatever that move was that ended the match as it looked really weak and I hope it’s not Bayley’s new finisher. I wasn’t sure how well heel Bayley was going to play out as I always thought she would be someone who stays babyface her entire career like Ricky Steamboat, but so far I am enjoying it as it has really been refreshing and I thought last week she was really good on commentary in the heel role. I love how Sasha and Bayley are two heels that are teaming together, but yet they are completely different styles of heel as Bayley is the “woe is me” emo type of heel while Sasha is more flashy and all about money, fame, and luxuries, this is what it would’ve looked like if Raven and MVP had ever teamed together. After the match as Bayley is celebrating her win, NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler comes out of nowhere and sends Sasha into the ring post and then delivers a step-up knee to the face on Bayley. Shayna sends Bayley shoulder first into the ring post and then delivers a gut-wrench slam on Bayley. Shayna goes to put her jacket back on but sees Bayley trying to get to her feet so Shayna hits her with another knee and then leaves through the crowd as the fans chant NXT. This was a great way to properly start off the NXT invasion that would happen throughout the show and Shayna looked like a million bucks as she carried herself like a star and even if some people in the crowd didn’t know who she was they had to know that she was not someone you would want to mess with. As we come back from commercial we see that Aiden English has been replaced on commentary by “Mr. Casual Friday” Pat McAfee who is in all his casual wear glory with a cut off t-shirt and shorts. McAfee would call the rest of the show alongside Tom and Renee, he would serve as the head NXT cheerleader for the rest of the evening. Cathy Kelley is in the back interviewing Sami Zayn about everything that has happened tonight and he says that there seems to be a pattern happening and it looks like NXT has taken over, he then warns NXT to be careful with who they mess with. Keith Lee and Matt Riddle show up and Sami tries to talk his way out of what he just said and tries to plead with them even reminding them that he used to be called the heart and soul of NXT. Zayn then goes to reveal he has an NXT shirt on but turns out it’s just a plain black shirt, he says he left his NXT shirt in his car and he was going to go get it so Riddle and Lee follow him despite Zayn pleading for them to stay and he will be right back, eventually Zayn takes off running which leads Riddle and Lee to chase him throughout the arena and into the ring. Riddle hits Zayn with the Final Flash knee strike followed by the Bro Derrick and then Lee delivers a moonsault off the middle rope before both men pose over the prone body of Zayn.

This was a fun segment to introduce Riddle and Lee to the mainstream crowd that most likely don’t watch NXT. The only issue I had with the entire segment was the black t-shirt part as that just didn’t sit right after all the controversy earlier in the week with Jordan Myles putting WWE on blast for the shirt they had made for him, to me, it just felt like an unnecessary jab at Myles. I could be wrong and it’s just a harmless segment where those in charge gave no second thoughts on using a black t-shirt in the segment, I mean, after all, they didn’t give it a second, third, or fourth thought when they made the Myles shirt in the first place.

There was a recap of the absolute shit match that was Braun Strowman vs Tyson Fury that made me hope that Fury doesn’t step into a wrestling ring ever again because everything he did in that match looked like shit and the fact that he popped right up after getting hit with Strowman’s Powerslam was the cherry on top of that shit sundae. It’s time for Miz TV and The Miz plans on interviewing himself since his original guest Bray Wyatt was still stuck in Saudi Arabia. We get a recap of The Fiend vs Seth Rollins match at Crown Jewel that saw The Fiend walk out as new Universal Champion. The Miz then turns his focus on what has happened so far on SmackDown with the NXT invasion and this leads to him being interrupted by Tommaso Ciampa. Ciampa says that Miz is everything that is wrong with Raw and SmackDown and also says that while Miz plays the part he is the part. Miz talks about how good Ciampa is but says that if NXT wants to make a statement then they need to stop sitting back and make one, this leads to a match between Ciampa and The Miz. Match #2: The Miz vs Tommaso Ciampa They trade headlocks to start out with Miz getting the advantage briefly before Ciampa turns it around and throws Miz out onto the apron. Miz slides under the legs of Ciampa and then returns the favor by throwing him over the top to the floor. Ciampa moves out of the way of a wrecking ball dropkick and sends Miz into the barricade and the steps before giving himself a round of applause and a pat on the back. Ciampa rolls Miz back into the ring and locks in a chin lock that Miz tries to fight out of but Ciampa forces him back down to the mat. Miz finally makes a comeback and hits Ciampa with a kitchen sink, a knee lift, and then his backbreaker into a neckbreaker combo that gets a 2 count. Miz kicks Ciampa repeatedly in the corner and then hits him with a couple of flying knees in the corner, just as Miz has all the momentum behind him he is taken down with a discus clothesline out of nowhere followed by a running knee strike that gets a 2 count. Ciampa goes for the Fairy Tale Ending but Miz counters and tries for the Figure Four only to be kicked off, both men are countering each other until The Miz connects with a chop block on the knee that Ciampa has had trouble with in the past, Miz looks to go to work on the leg, but Ciampa kicks him off and tries for a powerbomb, but can’t lift Miz due to the bad knee and this allows Miz to kick the leg and hit his snap DDT for a 2 count. Miz finally locks in the Figure Four but after struggling for a while Ciampa reverses the pressure which allows him to finally get to the ropes. Miz goes for the Figure Four again but Ciampa rolls him up only for Miz to kick out and try for a PK but Ciampa ducks and goes for another rollup but Miz kicks out so Ciampa transitions into a half crab. Miz then rolls up Ciampa but Ciampa kicks out this time. Miz and Ciampa exchange chops until Miz hits his clothesline in the corner and then goes up top, Miz comes off with an axe handle but Ciampa catches him with a knee and then hits the Fairy Tale Ending to pick up the win. Winner: Tommaso Ciampa via Pinfall Rating: **¾ Not too much to say about this match other than it was pretty good. I thought the Miz TV segment was also really good and showed that Ciampa can hang on the mic with one of the best talkers in WWE. We go to the back where Bryan walks up to confront Triple H and Shawn Michaels about what has happened tonight and then challenges Triple H which leads to a staredown, but Triple H isn’t prepared to compete but he does have someone else Bryan can face which leads to Michaels teasing that it’s going to be him by taking off his jacket but then puts it right back on, Triple H says that he is talking about Adam Cole (Bay! Bay!). Bryan is fine with facing Cole, but he wants the NXT Title on the line, Cole and Triple H agree and we have a dream match set for tonight’s main event. Fire & Desire come to the ring for the next match but their opponents never come out, we cut to the back and see that Bianca Belair has single-handedly laid out both Carmella and Dana Brooke, she presses Carmella above her head and throws her over a stack of equipment cases which looked quite impressive. Although I have been watching Bianca for over two years now it still surprises me at times just how strong she is. I love Carmella to death but the way she sold the initial beating that was unaired was terrible, the way she was sitting looked less like someone who had just gotten the crap beaten out of them and more like someone who was just stressed out after having a bad day and even after Bianca lifts her up she doesn’t sell it at all. Match #3: Fire & Desire vs Rhea Ripley & Tegan Nox Rhea and Tegan attack Fire & Desire right as the bell rings. Tegan and Sonya are fighting on the outside until Sonya sends Tegan into the barricade. Mandy tries to make a comeback on Rhea but is cut off with a dropkick, meanwhile back on the outside Tegan sends Sonya over the announce desk and in the process Sonya’s foot hit Renee Young square in the face and gave her a bloody nose. Tegan in the ring and hits Mandy with the Shiniest Wizard and then Rhea gets the win for her team by making Mandy tap out to the inverted Cloverleaf lock. Winners: Rhea Ripley & Tegan Nox via Submission Rating: *¾

This was a great squash by the NXT women and just like earlier, it showed the mainstream audience that the women down in NXT can definitely hang with the women on Raw or SmackDown and they are not to be taken lightly in this “war” against Raw and SmackDown. It was nice to see a new heelish side of Tegan as up until now she had only been the cute white meat babyface. It’s interesting that both tonight and in the upcoming WarGames match she will be teaming with Rhea who just happens to be the woman she was facing when she suffered her most recent knee injury during the second annual Mae Young Classic, in that match Rhea showed her no pity after she got injured, so if we look at this from a kayfabe standpoint why would Tegan even want to team with Rhea? Triple H and Shawn Michaels come out to ringside for our main event match which is coming up next, but first Stephanie McMahon comes out and talks about Natalya and Lacey Evans making history by having the first-ever women’s match in Saudi Arabia before cutting to a video package that showed highlights of the match as well as Twitter reactions to the match. Match #4: Adam Cole © vs Daniel Bryan (NXT Championship) There is some nice chain wrestling early on neither man gaining an advantage. Bryan backs Cole into the corner and cleanly backs away from Cole before smacking him on the chest and then giving him an arrogant slap to the face, this fires Cole up as he comes out of the corner with some forearms only to be taken down again by Bryan. Bryan delivers a couple of chops in the corner before Cole makes a comeback and takes Bryan down with a headlock takeover. Bryan makes his way back to his feet and we get a drop-down and leapfrog spot that ends with Cole going down courtesy of a big kick to the chest by Bryan. Bryan yells to Triple H that Cole doesn’t belong in the ring with him. Bryan stomps on the back of Cole’s arm and then locks him in a Mexican Surfboard which he transitions into a Dragon Sleeper. Bryan is on a roll until Cole stops Bryan’s momentum with one big boot to the face that gets him a 2 count. Cole keeps trying for a suplex on Bryan but Bryan blocks it and then delivers one of his own which sends both men tumbling over the top rope and to the floor as we go to commercial.

As we come back from commercial both men are trying to get a backslide on the other until Cole hits a jumping neckbreaker on Bryan for 2. Cole hits some elbow and knee drops that get him a 2 count before locking in a head scissors on the mat which Bryan gets out of by easily rolling to the ropes. Cole and Bryan trade strikes which Bryan gets the best of and then Cole sends Bryan into the corner only for Bryan to backflip off the top and connect with a running clothesline. Bryan backdrops Cole to the floor and then dives off the apron with a flying knee. Bryan rolls Cole back in the ring and hits a missile dropkick off the top. Bryan hits a running dropkick in the corner and then looks to hit a top rope hurricanrana but Cole rolls through into a pin which gets a 2 count. Bryan delivers some uppercuts only to once again be taken down with a big boot. Both men are spent as the crowd is chanting for both men. Bryan and Cole trade waist locks before Bryan sends Cole out of the ring, Bryan hits Cole with a tope suicida and then tries for another one but this time he is caught with a kick to the head as both men are laid out at ringside as we go to commercial. Back from commercial and Cole has Bryan up on the top looking for a superplex, but Bryan slips out the back and crotches Cole before delivering a spider suplex off the top. Triple H is looking on with a worried look on his face as Bryan goes for the diving headbutt, but Cole moves and Bryan hits nothing but canvas. Cole hits his signature brainbuster onto the knee which only gets him a 2 count. Cole pulls down the knee pad as he looks to hit the Last Shot but Bryan turns it into a half crab only to transition it into the heel hook before Cole is able to get to the ropes. Bryan delivers kicks to the back of Cole’s leg and then picks him up looking for some kind of slam but before he can pull it off Cole counters into a backstabber for 2. Bryan locks in the LeBelle lock, Cole looks like he is going to get out of the hold but when he does Bryan grabs Cole’s arms and repeatedly stomps and the head and face of Cole. Bryan locks in the LeBelle lock once again and this time when Cole tries to reach the ropes Bryan grabs his arm and bends it back but thankfully Cole is able to get his foot on the rope. Bryan hits the Yes Kicks but as he goes for the kick to the head Cole ducks and they then trade O’Connor Roll pinfall attempts until Bryan connects with the Buzzsaw Kick. Bryan goes for the flying knee, but gets caught with a superkick and Cole immediately follows that up with the Panama Sunrise and the Last Shot to pick up a clean win on Daniel Bryan. Winner: Adam Cole via Pinfall Match Rating: **** Adam Cole vs Daniel Bryan wasn’t a match that immediately came to mind when I think of dream matches that could be really great, but now that I have just watched this match I want to see more are these two put on a great match. After the match members of the NXT roster came out and got in the ring along with Shawn Michaels and Triple H. Triple H stated that this was his army for Survivor Series and he considers them family, NXT has fired the first shot and look forward to what Raw and SmackDown have in store for them. The addition of NXT to Survivor Series has definitely got me intrigued. According to Triple H at the end of the show he made it seem like it’s going to be Raw & SmackDown vs NXT instead of all three brands battling it out on their own and I think that would be the best way to go since it’s hard enough to make people care about the Raw vs SmackDown brand warfare, to begin with, so the fact that they have only been separate brands for only a month would make it near impossible to get the fans to care, having them team up to take on NXT would at least bring a different element into the show that we haven’t seen before. It will be interesting to see how NXT balances the fact that they have NXT Takeover: WarGames the night before Survivor Series, how do they build the feuds between members of the NXT roster for Takeover, while at the same time building somewhat of a sense of unity for Survivor Series? I think the first thing they need to do is have Triple H come out and say that they better get all of their frustrations and anger with each other out on Saturday because if one of them turns on their fellow NXT brother or sister at Survivor Series they are looking at a suspension without pay and furthermore if NXT is successful at Survivor Series they can all expect a significant raise in pay. One last thing I want to mention about NXT at Survivor Series is the fact that it was announced that NXT UK talent will be featured on 205 Live next week which hopefully means that NXT UK roster members will also be involved on Team NXT, this would help even out the sides because NXT on their own would be severely outnumbered by Raw and SmackDown talent. This episode of SmackDown was really good and a lot of fun and was a very quick two hours to watch. The show had two good matches and one great match and also did a good job of explaining how and why Brock Lesnar is jumping back over to Raw. I wish all weeks of SmackDown were as fun as this one was.

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

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ryanonwrasslin-blog · 7 years

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The Wrestling Optimist - March 16, 2017

Welcome to my weekly, mostly optimistic, look at the wonderful world of professional wrestling. This came about because I’m working my hardest to stop being such a miserable smark, and this column is my best effort at both keeping myself honest and funneling out the various thoughts I have on wrestling. For the most part, this will be a WWE-themed piece every week, and it’s still evolving, but for now I think I’ve found a solid format. I urge you to join me in being a happier wrestling fan, whatever that may mean to you!

Theme of the Week All of the authority figures on the main roster are TERRIBLE at their jobs

In some ways, this is all Vince McMahon's fault. The standard for manipulative, overbearing authority figures was set with Vince vs. Stone Cold, and ever since then WWE has been trying to recapture that magic, forever sticking to the idea of pitting the authority figure against one or more of the top wrestlers on the show, and usually shuffling them around the card like they do with other feuding superstars. They even go so far as to feud face authority figures against heel wrestlers, which is SUPER tricky to do and rarely ever works well except to make the heel look like the face.

But let's stick to kayfabe for a moment. On Raw this week, Stephanie McMahon, rather than devote her time and energy toward building to Wrestlemania and making sure that Raw actually, you know, is watchable for a change, tells Mick Foley that he has to fire one superstar. Mick, rightfully, is like, "Da Fuck?" and points out that, again, THEY ARE THREE WEEKS FROM WRESTLEMANIA and this is not an ideal time to fire anyone. She insists and he wanders around backstage in a daze for the next two and a half hours. And at the end of the night, after reviewing a roster that includes Curtis Axel, R-Truth, Primo, Epico, Sin Cara, Titus O'Neil, and like 4 cruiserweights I wouldn't recognize if they hit me with their finisher, tells Steph that SHE'S the one who he's firing.

Homie, if you were gonna go the self-sabotage route, why not fire like Cesaro or Sami Zayn so that Smackdown could sign one of them and they'd be free from the plodding march toward permanent mid-card status that is their career on Raw? That actually would have popped me and gotten me interested in the direction they were going with a story. But no, Foley "fires" Steph, which shortly summons Triple H, who does all but fire Mick, which was whatever, eats a Sock-O for his trouble and then "re-injures" or whatever a returning Seth Rollins, you know, one of their biggest superstars, THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE MANIA OF WRESTLING.

Alright, everyone calm? No? Well, at least I can skip the Let The Smark Out segment this week, because Smackdown Live, incredibly enough, was possibly even worse in terms of terrible authority figures, even if they at least serve a purpose beyond "Gotta get Steph and Hunter over."

So, there are two feuds on Smackdown Live that touch on Shane O'Mac and Daniel Bryan. The first, obviously, is AJ Styles vs. Shane. I'm going to skip the part about the build because it's covered below in my best moments of the week. But again, in kayfabe, AJ Styles absolutely has a point. That opening promo was like a fired-up babyface, pointing out all the ways he was wronged, and none of them are actually false or embellished or delusional, like you'd hope they'd be from a heel. Instead, he gets the crowd on his side and then goes to the back to wait for Shane O'Mac because he blames him for the conspiracy against AJ. And Shane, for some reason, on a two hour show that presumably required significant time preparing for in advance, doesn't arrive until we're like an hour in. Huh? Was dude just concerned about the non-title tag match and 205 Live (of which he's not an authority figure) going off without a hitch? Wrestling doesn't always have to hold up to intense scrutiny, but you should be able to at least think through the basics of a plotline without furrowing your brow. And if the story was, "Shane's a McMahon and doesn't have to give a shit about this job," then maybe they'd be onto something. But it's not, so they're not.

But I digress. Shane shows up, AJ beats his ass something fierce, to which the crowd cheers, Daniel Bryan fires AJ, to which the crowd boos, and then Shane gets the Monday Nitro NWO backstage cutaway during the "main event" which basically screams "we don't care about this match at all," and then puts himself against AJ in a match at Mania.

Now, maybe this could be mostly fine, and I'm not gonna pretend like I'm not way more hyped for this match now then I was a month agao, except for one other thing: We've seen countless wrestlers do terrible things backstage on Smackdown Live in recent months and not even get fined or suspended, let alone fired. Baron Corbin attacked Ambrose with a fucking forklift, Maryse beat Nikki Bella with a pipe or something, Dolph Ziggler was wailing on dudes with chairs, AND RANDY ORTON BURNED DOWN A MAN'S HOUSE. Corbin, Maryse, and Orton get matches at Mania, and AJ gets fired. Guys, we all know it’s one big scripted show, but consistency in the story has to matter at least a little bit or we’re just staging wrestling matches for no reason.. And also, no way does AJ get fired without Steph calling that dude in like .2 seconds and offering him a big old contract for Raw.

Alright, let's just move onto Daniel Bryan's role in Cena/ Nikki vs. Miz/ Maryse. Again, the build to this is mostly a lot of fun, but the authority figure, if you really think about it, is the worst. Miz has been rightfully murking Bryan on the mic for months ever since Bryan openly admitting during the draft that he didn't want Miz and then called him a coward a few weeks later on Talking Smack. Regardless of if you like Miz, Daniel, you deserve every bit of that verbal ethering you've gotten. And then on SDL, Bryan, as biased as they come in a feud that involves his sister-in-law and her boyfriend, books the match for Mania apparently against Miz's wishes after talking about how much he wants to punch Miz in the face. NOT IDEAL MANAGEMENT TALK, DANIEL.

Look, at the end of the day, much of this is done in the service of building feuds, and for the most part, I understand it (though not that Foley/ Steph stuff), but when you think about wrestling like it's a real show, and not with a winking nod at it being fake, the logic behind it falls apart, and that's just not good enough. But I guess what I’m really saying is, can we just get William Regal to take charge of both brands?

10 Best Moments of the Week

Shane O’Mac takes a bigger beating for a Smackdown Live backstage segment then Brock Lesnar took in his entire Mania match last year Shane continues to be a lunatic. That looked like a hell of a stiff whoopin’ he took from AJ, and as “meh” as I’ve felt about seeing the best wrestler in the world selling for Shane’s baby jabs, I can’t deny that this popped me.

That Austin Aries rolling elbow I mostly dislike that spinning lariat/ clothesline or elbow thing that a few different people do because they usually do it like Natalya where they spin, then have to step forward and throw the thing, thereby neutering the momentum of the move. Even Luke Harper doesn't do it very well. But Aries has the best one I've ever seen. When he comes out of the spin he is ON TOP of you and that elbow looks like it has extra oomph on it because of it.

Bringing back the Mick Foley/ Triple H blood feud It wasn't Rock/ Austin in terms of box office and hype, but the Foley/ Triple H feud, peaking with Cactus Jack's return, is probably my favorite feud for both men, and so I was getting a little worried when Trips was giving every appearance of absolutely neutering Mick, but I can't deny that there was a huge pop in my living room when the camera cut away from Mick apparently cowering in the corner of the ring but discreetly reaching for something in his pants. That was a good moment, though I felt less so about Trips getting to stand tall over Rollins at the end of the night, though at least that match is clearly on for Mania now.

SLAY MARYSE Wrestling feuds based on shootin’ are super tricky, but this Miz/ Maryse vs. Cena/ Bella feud continues to do the best job I’ve seen a feud do with “shooting” since, like, CM Punk. I have no idea how bad Maryse’s ring rust might be, but that genuinely seemed like a woman who is just going to punch Nikki in the face at Mania.

Dana Brooke, white bread baby face They stopped and started with this moment too much on the way there, but I'll be damned if Dana's goofy energy in the ring didn't get that crowd cheering for her. The timing seems odd to me given that we're a few weeks from Mania and Charlotte has much bigger fish to fry, but I'll allow the string to play out on this one and hope that they build on it and make her into the sort of mid-card babyface that isn't really present on either main roster.

Roman Reigns: Shithead heel I have no idea if they're actually doing this heel thing with Roman or if they're really content to let him wither and die in the middle, but R-double as a cocky, entitled dick throwing shade at Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker at once was a fascinating decision. Given that Undie has shown his own Bobby Hill-inspired heel tendencies as recently as the Lesnar follow-up feud, I wondered if maybe they were going to try and make the Dead Man play something of a bad guy here, but right now they are setting Roman up to get booed out of the goddamn building in Orlando.

Bray Wyatt... ewww I’m no big fan of any of the spooky stuff WWE does with Bray Wyatt because too often they half-ass it, and you can’t half-ass the mystical/ magical shit. It’s either real or it’s not. But Bray bathing in Sister Abigail’s ashes or what the fuck ever happened there was a billion times more memorable than the countless gaspy promos he’s done before about being the Eater of Worlds or something.

Sasha planting seeds I hope it happens, and I'm glad they're planting the seeds, but I hope they wait until after Mania for Sasha to even hint at hostilities towards Bayley. The night after Mania for a Sasha turn would cause just obscene levels of reaction.

William Regal, my dude That triple threat tag match at NXT: Orlando is now by far the odds-on favorite to be the match of Mania weekend. Adding that elimination stip is a fascinating stroke. It’s very unclear if any of these six guys are headed for the main roster anytime soon, so I could really see anyone coming out of there with the title, but I’d say the elimination piece makes AOP far more likely to retain. Still, that match should get 30 minutes if I have the say, and just be ten kinds of awesome.

Asuka stylin’ and profilin’ Asuka hanging by the pool, saying her catchphrases, and that entire segment, was a really good one for the champ. She’s never been more arrogant or looked better. I didn’t think they’d beat Ember on the way to the top, but I’m definitely starting to feel more like Asuka will retain and maybe go a little extra heel afterwards.

Let the Smark Out

I went overboard in the Theme of the Week on my smarky side, so I’m just going to list my two problems this week and not go too far in-depth about them here.

LOL Ziggler should be a meme at this point. I can’t believe how bad this heel turn has been.

The Club's self-inflicted words - Hey, Gallows and Anderson, in the words of CM Punk, "You need to watch the show." I'm actually debating making this into a weekly segment because I feel like WWE's characters way too often do the dumbest shit with the most obvious, self-inflicted outcome. And that's exactly what happened with Gallows and Anderson guaranteeing that Foley would put them in a Triple Threat match at Mania after interfering in the Sheamus/ Cesaro vs. Cass/ Enzo #1 Contender's match.

Let’s Rank Stuff

Two weeks to Mania and we’re so close that it’s pretty clear, with a couple possible exceptions, what the card will look like. So this week we’re ranking how long I expect the Mania matches to go, from longest to shortest. And keep in mind this is my prediction for how long the matches will actually last, not how long I want them to last.

Reigns vs. Undertaker (22 minutes)

John Cena and Nikki Bella vs. The Miz and Maryse (19 Minutes)

Triple H vs. Rollins (18 Minutes if Seth can go)

Corbin vs. Ambrose (17 Minutes because they go backstage and do goofy shit)

Jericho vs. Owens (16 Minutes)

Wyatt vs. Orton (15 Minutes)

AJ vs. Shane (15 Minutes because it takes time to set up a crazy Shane spot)

Charlotte vs. Bayley vs. Sasha (14 Minutes)

Sheamus/ Cesaro vs. The Club vs. Enzo and Cass (13 Minutes on the Pre-Show)

Neville vs. Aries (10 Minutes)

AMBAR (10 Minutes, longer if it goes to the Pre-Show)

Smackdown Women's Free For All (9 Minutes)

Lesnar vs. Goldberg (6 Minutes)

Match of the Week

Bobby Roode vs. Kassius Ohno for the NXT Championship - I was really torn between this and the 5-Way on 205 Live, but I have more to say about Ohno/ Roode, so I picked this one. I liked that they made Ohno look pretty good even as you knew there was no way he was winning. His offense looked and sounded stiff as hell, which I always appreciate out of a big dude. And Roode continues to just be smarter and survive by the skin of his teeth. But I also needed to talk about the elephant in the room: Ohno’s gear. That tightie-whitie and basketball jersey look was horrific. I have no problem with guys that aren’t as physically fit being really good at wrestling. I like the different body types. But the ring gear here is actively distracting and it’s going to hurt him.

Either put him in a pair of full-sized trunks that come up past the waist (think old school Dusty Rhodes) and let him wrestle shirtless, or get him pants and an actual shirt. Either option is fine, this option is atrocious.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Mania. Obviously, we’re headed towards Mania. But post-Mania, I’m nervous about how WWE might treat Smackdown Live. It’s been their best show for months, but change is a-comin’. Cena is reportedly taking time off, Nikki might be retiring, and word is the AJ Styles could be traded to Raw. That leaves an enormous gap at the top of the Smackdown card that I don’t see how they can fill without getting an enormous asset from Raw.

The top of the Raw card post-Mania would be: Brock, R-Double, BRAUN, KO, Finn, Styles, Rollins, SmoJo. And that’s without mentioning Sami, Cesaro, Sheamus, and Handsome Rusev. That roster is fuckin’ STACKED.

The top of the Smackdown card without Cena would be: Orton, Wyatt, Miz, Ambrose, and I guess Baron Corbin??? Yikes. If AJ goes to Raw and SDL doesn’t get like Seth and New Day in return (because let’s be honest, the rosters are already uneven), then they are completely setting Smackdown Live up for massive failure.

Do the right thing, WWE.

Hitting The Finisher

We saw the first concrete glimpse of a Sasha Banks heel turn on Raw this week. It was as fleeting as they come, an off-handed remark about "haters" intended to sew doubt in Bayley's mind, but NXT fans the world over had to be relishing it, dreaming of the inevitable moment on a future Raw when Sasha and Bayley are in the ring, perhaps yelling at a retreating Charlotte or Nia, when Bayley drifts a little ahead of Sasha, just far enough for Sasha to give her a quick stink eye and then... BAM! Backstabber into the Banks Statement. Even if WWE does its usual main roster, half-assed, telegraphing in the lead-up to such a moment, it will pop the hell out of the crowd and change the face of the Raw women's division for the better.

And yet I'm here to tell you that I hope they wait a while before they pull the trigger. Bayley seems incredibly likely to retain the title at Mania despite being the third best performer in the Triple Threat, and my guess is the night after Mania they pull the trigger on the Sasha turn. That crowd will eat it the fuck up.

But I hope they wait. If you want Bayley to retain the title, let Sasha hang at her side for a while, let her stay Bayley's friend out mutual respect. Maybe she helps Bayley survive a Nia feud post-Mania, while also feuding with Emma or someone from Smackdown that gets traded. The point is, let us get comfortable with Sasha and Bayley as friends, even as we all know that Sasha ultimately wants the title. Give Sasha multiple opportunities to turn, but never take it. Really build up the respect these two have for each other. Let Charlotte recruit a few others into a stable and let Sasha and Bayley withstand them, and then, pull the damned trigger after you're 110% sure you've earned it.

The Boss turning on Bayley should be heartbreaking. Right now it would just be predictable. Fun, yes, but emotional, no.

#wwe #wrestling

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wrestlingisfake · 7 years

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Extreme Rules preview

Roman Reigns vs. Finn Balor vs. Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt vs. Samoa Joe - This is to determine the #1 contender for the universal championship, who will challenge Brock Lesnar in July. It’s a fatal five-way match, so everybody can be in the ring at the same time, there can be no disqualifications or count-outs, and whoever scores the first fall on any other participant will win the match.

Originally the card for this show was to feature Reigns vs. Braun Strowman for the title shot, with Joe vs. Rollins and Balor vs. Wyatt in the undercard. Strowman was expected to win and go on to face Brock, but that went out the window (or at least got pushed back) when he needed elbow surgery. Caught in a creative pinch, WWE just took the top three matches and balled them up into this one. With Braun out, it is legitimately unclear whom WWE wants to step up into his spot, and with five possible choices it will be really hard to guess.

It’s apparent that WWE would really like to do a long build towards Lesnar vs. Reigns, probably at Wrestlemania and definitely at a major show. That would seem to rule out Roman winning here, but WWE has become notorious for sudden short-term swerves in their long-term plans for Roman. For anybody who thinks Brock/Roman has to happen at Mania, I want to point out that Summerslam 2015 was built around a Brock/Taker match that had to happen at Mania, until Vince McMahon decided otherwise. It’s not inconceivable that Roman gets the shot in July to set up a rematch in August.

Balor looks to be a favorite, given how his name comes up when Paul Heyman talks about future opponents for Lesnar. It’s obvious Reigns and Strowman are the tentpole programs for Brock, but Balor is consistently the third name that comes up in the conversation. That could be a conscious effort to get people to buy Finn as a credible threat to a man nearly twice his size. On the other hand, why do that kind of build just for Brock to squash Finn in July and move on?

Wyatt’s promos lately suggest he’s looking past the match completely and is focusing on the idea that he is uniquely qualified to beat Lesnar. It’s somewhat unusual to have a guy do that in WWE unless he’s going to actually get the match he’s looking ahead to. That doesn’t mean Bray has to win here, but it does make me think a Wyatt/Lesnar match is in the cards this year.

Joe is my pick for the most interesting Lesnar opponent right now, but I’m not counting on him winning here. He’s only been on the main roster for a few months and he hasn’t fully established himself as the wrecking ball he was in NXT, TNA, and ROH. To get the most out of Brock vs. Joe, you’re gonna want Joe at peak badass, and we aren’t there yet.

There’s no reason Rollins can’t win, but I’d call him a dark horse since there’s no particular hook to pairing him with Lesnar. (At least, not beyond “Seth really wants to be champion again,” but that’s been his gimmick for a year and a half.) Anything is possible, but I think if Rollins wins we’ll hear a lot about how plans have been shifting around backstage.

The safest bet is Finn, so that’s who I’m going with. But really, literally anything could happen, which should make the match an entertaining clusterfuck.

Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley - Bliss defeated Bayley for the Raw women’s title in April, so this is the rematch. This is a “kendo stick on a pole” match, because Bliss has been attacking Bayley with a shinai for weeks to prove she isn’t egggstreeeeam, so this will potentially give Bayley a chance for some retribution. The weapon will be hung from a pole attached to one of the ring posts, and the first participant to climb up and retrieve it can legally use it for the rest of the match.

The shinai is essentially a Japanese practice sword, made of bamboo so people could practice swordfighting without getting hurt. It is singularly designed to minimize injury. In pro wrestling, though, it was introduced as the dreaded “Singapore cane” (amid the Michael Fay caning controversy), and although now it is more commonly called a “kendo stick” it retains an aura of cruel and unusual punishment. Alexa could frankly hurt Bayley far worse with a leather strap or a length of rebar, but wrestling fans just instinctively know the kendo stick is somehow less merciful.

I think it’s safe to say Bayley will get to use the kendo stick on Bliss, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s going to win. Personally, I’m tired of the women’s titles getting hotshotted every month, so I’d rather not see yet another title switch. So I’m expecting Bliss to pull some shenanigans to get out of this one with just a couple of welts.

Dean Ambrose vs. The Miz

- Ambrose is defending the intercontinental championship. Normally the challenger cannot win the championship if he beats the champion by a count-out or disqualification, but for this match if Ambrose is disqualified, the Miz will be awarded the championship.

The whole “title can changes hands on a DQ” stipulation is a classic gimmick, where fans fantasize that it would be used to put a stop to rule-breaking heels. But occasionally the tables get turned and a conniving heel convinces the powers that be that the babyface is the one who is recklessly flaunting the rules. The idea is that we’re all supposed to be worried that our favorite brawler is fucked because he can’t stop himself from taking cheap shots, and the heel is trying to goad him into a DQ for the easy title win. Win or lose, though, the heel gets comeuppance when the match is over and the face can do whatever he damn well pleases.

The problem with these matches, though, is that they end up being pretty dull, as the babyface ends up second-guessing every move and the heel reduces his offense to merely taunting and baiting the face. The only way I expect this to be entertaining is if Ambrose outwits Miz with some novel approach to the scenario, like maybe beating him half to death with a chair before the match starts, or taking a count-out loss to end the match and get on with a fight.

I guess Miz could win the title, but this is really an “is Ambrose stupid?” match, and WWE tends to want to book him as being deceptively intelligent. I’m picking Dean to retain.

Matt Hardy & Jeff Hardy vs. Sheamus & Cesaro - The Hardys are defending the Raw tag team title. Sheamus and Cesaro turned heel right after their last shot, so this is a grudge match. The Hardys earned the right to name the stipulation and chose a cage match, so cyclone fencing will be erected around the ring posts.

A standard cage match can only be won by being the first to a) exit the cage and/or b) score a pinfall/submission. In a tag team cage match, it’s not always clear if both members of the team have to exit the cage or not. A common scenario is that one of the babyfaces climbs out of the cage, leaving the other babyface in a two-on-one scenario that ends with a pin or submission. In a Hardys cage match, I can almost guarantee that:

Matt will exit the cage

Jeff will get double-teamed for a while

Jeff will mount a comeback and leave the heels laying

Jeff will start to climb out and then stop at the top

Jeff will suddenly decide to do a flip onto his downed opponents

The announcers will wonder if this is a good idea

Jeff will hit it and win the match OR miss and get pinned.

I would hazard a guess that Jeff is about .167 when it comes to winning cage matches, so this looks like trouble for the Hardys. On the other hand, they’re riding high right now and I feel like the Sheamus/Cesaro feud is almost over, so maybe this time he’ll actually hit the damn flip.

Neville vs. Austin Aries - This is for Neville’s cruiserweight championship. It’s a submission match, so pinfalls won’t be counted. I don’t think anybody has spelled out whether the match can end by count-out or disqualification, but usually a submission match keeps the action on the mat so it never becomes an issue. Aries has recently beaten Neville by submission in a tag team match, so the angle is that, after months of chasing the title, he’s got the champion on the defensive. I’m pulling for a title change because that would at least create the hope of seeing a different fucking match next month, but I don’t really believe it. I am resigned to seeing Neville/Aries IV in a blindfold match or something.

Sasha Banks & Rich Swann vs. Alicia Fox vs. Noam Dar - This is a mixed tag team match, so if one side tags the other has to tag as well, to ensure that no man vs. woman scenarios occur. Fox has barely wrestled at all in the last six months as she’s been wrapped up in a cruiserweight storyline where she broke up with Cedric Alexander and Noam Dar caught her on the rebound and Rich Swann is mad on Cedric’s behalf or something. So she finally gets back into action on Raw and she and Sasha are beating the shit out of each other, which leads to Banks and Swann forming an alliance.

I like how Fox projects intensity in her matches, but it’s really easy to forget how much fun that is because she doesn’t get to wrestle on TV all that much. On the other hand, WWE and romance go together about as well as nachos and steak sauce, so I’m not looking forward to more with Fox and Dar. Which probably means Fox and Dar will win.

Apollo Crews vs. Kalisto - This is scheduled for the pre-show. They’ve been doing this endless angle where Titus O’Neil wants to be Titus’s mentor, and Kalisto thinks that’s a load of crap, and Apollo waffles on it. I don’t know where this is going but I’m damn sure the next story beat won’t happen on a pre-show. Apollo wins, I guess?

#wwe #extreme rules #roman reigns #finn balor #bray wyatt #seth rollins #samoa joe

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ryanonwrasslin-blog · 7 years

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The Wrestling Optimist - March 9, 2017

For those newbies, this is my first in what I anticipate becoming roughly a weekly edition of my thoughts, from a mostly optimistic viewpoint, on the wonderful world of professional wrestling. I'm working my hardest to stop being such a miserable smark, and this column is my best effort at both keeping myself honest and funneling out the various thoughts I have on wrestling. For the most part, this will be a WWE-themed piece every week, and it's still evolving, but for now I think I've found a solid format. Also, I typically intend for this to be a weekly column, but I was excited to try it out after Fast Lane (and really put my efforts at optimism to their most extreme test), so this particular column will only cover Raw, Smackdown Live, Talking Smack, 205 Live, and NXT.

Theme of the Week: We really are in the fast lane to Mania. The PPV may have left a lot of people a little displeased, but I think Raw and SDL did a nice job this week of building to the Jaws-like creature lurking in our midst, the reportedly 6.5 hour Wrestlemania now less than a month away. On Raw we got Y2J vs. KO, and the Women's Triple Threat officially booked, set up a possible Cruiserweight title match, while also getting Lesnar vs. Goldberg hyped, and Reigns vs. Taker hinted at with the subtlety of one of the Big Dog's Superman Punches. And the inevitable pre-show Tag title match will get clarity next week. That's an awful lot of productivity even for 3 hours.

Smackdown Live, not to be outdone, settled on Wyatt vs. Orton officially, made an intriguing Women's Championship free-for-all, kept the build on for the Mixed Tag, set conspiracy theory AJ Styles loose on Shane O'Mac, and hinted that we're going to get a hardcore type of Intercontinental Title match between Corbin and Ambrose.

The Mania card is now starkly visible, with the unknowns being whatever is happening with the Triple H/ Seth Rollins/ Samoa Joe/ Sami Zayn/ maybe Finn Balor storyline, whether Big Show vs. Shaq happens, how the poor SDL Tag division will be handled, which undercard guys will fill out the AMBAR, and then designating a few of these as pre-show.

For my own druthers, I mostly don't care how the card order stacks up, but I'm going to lose it if the Smackdown women end up on the Pre-Show as I fear they might. My girls Becky and Alexa deserve better than that.

10 Best Moments of the Week

Teasing the Phenomenal Forearm into the RKO Some day they are going to have Orton hit him with the RKO when going for either the forearm or the 450 and it's going to be the coolest thing since the Curb Stomp RKO, and I'm glad they clearly know how cool that is.

Heyman rushing out to address the CM Punk chants and halt whatever ill-fated improv Goldberg was about to attempt I'm not positive that Heyman was rushed out there early to cut off the Punk chants and prevent Goldberg from saying something that would only make the chants worse, but it certainly looked that way and it was another hilarious reminder of how little WWE can trust Goldberg to do pretty much anything.

The Miz motherfuckin' ETHERS John Cena I have nothing to add to his masterpiece. Go watch the SDL and Talking Smack segments.

FORK YOU! - I loved Baron Corbin pinning Dean Ambrose under a forklift. I'm always in for goofy prop fights, and there's always a place on the card for something like this at Mania. I hope this is how the match goes at Mania, a sometimes goofy, sometimes brutal street fight sort of affair. We know that Ambrose wanted the Mania match with Lesnar to go way too far last year but was rebuffed. Let him try this year with someone young and hungry like the Lone Wolf.

Austin Aries, the hero the Cruiserweight division needs Running Aries as the apparent face against Neville could be a weird fit in the long run, but I was all in for this segment on Raw. Aries is the outsized character the division needs right now to complement all the work Neville is doing and the better ring-work we've started seeing from guys like Tozawa and Swann.

The SAnitY and Dillinger story really comes together I don’t know about everyone else, but seeing Roddy get dragged out beaten half to death by the rest of the group, and seeing Tye and Jose get fired up about it, worked like hell for me. That awkward trio coming together against the heels was lacking something and this helped fill in the storyline, as did EY yelling “YOU DID THIS” at Tye. Good stuff.

As the Smackdown Women's Division Turns Becky gets turned on by a tag partner again (at this point I’m surprised Luke Sanders hasn’t turned on her), and Mickie at last turns on Alexa. Sometimes the easy story is the right one. If Naomi makes it back, she's pretty clearly going to win the title, but if not I really hope they have Becky overcome a whole Rogues gallery of heels to win (throw in Eva Marie and Carmella to really put it over the top). She's been turned on so many times that she needs the perseverance story.

For a night, the Part-Timers were booked well I'm as deeply skeptical as anyone that Raw can get me fully invested in a Lesnar/ Goldberg feud or an Undie/ Strong Roman feud, but credit where it's due, they did an excellent job on Raw this week. Goldberg eating an F5 was long overdue and I honestly wanted to see the whooping get worse.

TJP and Shinsuke dab on each other WWE spent a few headscratching months booking TJP after the Cruiserweight classic, but this was a fun match and felt like the right way to handle him, as a cocky, shitty, sorta heel who also does some seriously cool shit in the ring.

The way AJ Styles says, "Randy Orton burns down a man's house and gets rewarded for it!" I knew AJ was among the best in the ring prior to his WWE run, but his promos have been a wonderful surprise to me. He is a natural on the mic and has a goofy charisma, and for whatever reason I chuckled for a long time after he said this particular line.

Let the Smark Out

For as much as I’m trying to be an optimist, wrestling is not a perfect product. Far from it, really, and when you have problems with something, it’s healthy to let that sort of thing out. So, in the hopes of keeping a 5:1 ratio tilted toward the good side, here are my two complaints of the week:

Are we seriously doing this with Emma again? She was in such a good place as Evil Emma with the half-gloves and the shoulder pads. Given how shallow the Raw Women’s division is, why did they feel the need to screw around with something that was working????

I’ve known for weeks that the Styles/ Shane O’Mac feud was coming, but now that it’s here, it hurts even more. There is obvious proof on the roster in multiple forms that you only get so many Wrestlemania’s out of your top workers (like Balor and Rollins both being potentially on the shelf for this year after not being on last year’s card either). To use up one of those years for Styles, unquestionably the best in-ring performer in the company, and probably the world, is asinine. I know there is no bigger honor in WWE eyes than to fight against a McMahon (and I strongly suspect we’re heading toward either a Bayley or Sasha vs. Stephanie program in the next year), but I have no interest in seeing AJ selling for ol’ Baby Jabs McMahon.

Let’s Rank Stuff!

One of the best things to do as a wrestling fan is to compare things. Who's on the Mount Rushmore of wrestling? Who was the most over with the crowd? Who's the best in-ring worker? What's the most uncomfortable Attitude Era storyline in retrospect? That's what I'm going to do here every week, pick a topic and rank it as I see it. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts! I'd love to hear them.

This week's ranking: The Status of the Championship Belts

It's been almost 8 months since the Brand Split, which saw WWE add a whopping 4 title belts to their company (and a fifth in the UK Title even more recently) and with Wrestlemania approaching, I thought now would be a fun time to rank those titles in terms of their current level of prestige. Keep in mind the old adage about the wrestler making the belt, not the other way around. So without further ado, in reverse order:

13. UK Championship - Too young to be any higher. If Pete Dunne gets it, though, this thing could rocket up the list. That dude has incredible potential.

12 US Championship - Man what a precipitous fall. A short 18 months ago, Cena had made this thing into probably the second best belt in the company. But more recently it's been seen being dragged around by a disinterested Roman Reigns like he was worried that touching too much of it might infect him with some terrible disease. The good news is that I can see KO winning this at 'Mania and proudly defending it, not because it represents America or anything, but because KO is convinced anything he has is just the best.

11 Smackdown Tag Team Championships - Another letdown since the brand split. Slater/ Rhyno was fun, but American Alpha is surprisingly struggling right now.

10 Raw Tag Team Championships - The shenanigans required to get New Day to the tag title record didn't help anyone, and now I can't help but view The Club as utterly inconsequential. Tag team wrestling on the main roster is in a bad way right now. Thankfully, there's hope on the horizon if WWE is smart enough to realize it.

9 Cruiserweight Championship - Talk about the wrestler making the belt. Putting this thing on Neville was the step that was badly needed to salvage this belt and the entire division.

8 Smackdown Women's Championship - This division has done wonders in terms of drawing out depth and giving its characters chances, but it's in need of some excellent, or rather Bex-cellent, wrestling and something memorable. I think maybe they missed an opportunity not having Becky and Nikki fight for this at some point. Face vs. Face can be tricky, but these two could have done it, it would have given more prestige to the belt and now rumors are Nikki may be on her way out. That’s a seriously missed opportunity if so.

7 WWE Universal Championship - Yikes. I was closer to putting this thing 8th than moving it higher. It's impressively ugly, KO's title run was consistently neutered, and now Dadberg is drenching it in sweat for the next few weeks before Lesnar takes it from him at Mania and promptly disappears for a few months. If we do this ranking again in June, this belt might be 13th.

6 NXT Women's Championship - Asuka is obviously great and the coming feud with Ember should be a lot of fun, as should Nikki Cross' pursuit, but the belt hasn't kept up with some of the others under the WWE umbrella. From where it was during Sasha/ Bayley, things have slipped a bit in part because no one legitimate has come for Asuka. Yet.

5 NXT Tag Team Championships - Several of the best matches of 2016 were contested for this belt, and honestly I feel like it should be higher. I just couldn't quite bring myself to pull the trigger. That said, there's no shame in being 5th and the sole beacon of light for tag team wrestling in WWE.

4 Raw Women's Championship - I didn't love the hot potato of the belt, same as most people, and I loathe it when WWE starts talking about "making history," but this title is a very important one right now.

3 Intercontinental Championship - This likely would have been number 2 if I'd done this ranking in the fall thanks almost entirely to the Miz. Ambrose has been fine as champ since then thanks to his pedigree as a former WWE Champ, and if they are setting up Baron Corbin to win the title at Mania, that could be a great step toward both making a star and helping keep the belt relevant.

2 NXT Championship - One of the most impressive lineages of any championship belt in wrestling history right now. At times, it probably has surpassed even the WWE Championship itself. I'm curious to see how they handle Bobby Roode's reign after having one indy giant after another hold it for years on end. Obviously Roode is no slouch, but this does feel like an interesting point for the title.

1 WWE Championship - I'm glad they're back to just calling it the WWE Championship. That just sounds so much better than adding any sort of "world" modifier to it. It's the franchise, the belt with all the history behind it, and that WWE itself even clearly tries to pay respect to, and this past year or so has only added to the legacy. Getting AJ Styles' name on the belt was great for everyone, Cena tied the record with it, and now Bray Wyatt, a character that WWE has always viewed as a long-term face of the company, is battling another all-time legend in Randy Orton at Wrestlemania for it. That's great stuff.

Match of the Week

This was supposed to be a column that covered everything after Fast Lane, but I have to give it up one more time for Neville vs. Jack Gallagher. That’s unquestionably the match of the week.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I sketched out a rough idea of the Mania card earlier in the column, but for the next few weeks I’m excited for the build. That’s where these matches are set up for memorable moments and big crowd pops or destined for failure. I covered the Triple H saga in this segment in the Fast Lane column, but I was surprised to see it not get a ton of attention on Raw this week. It’s starting to feel like WWE doesn’t even quite know what to do with it at this point.

If we get through this week’s Raw without some kind of stakes for Mania set for those two and the various other players in their drama, I’m going to start doubting whether the match is actually happening, and if maybe we’ll only get some kind of confrontation only at the show.

The Finisher

Big Show vs. Shaq would be kinda cool if it happens, but if it doesn’t, I hope they do Strowman vs. Show II. Strowman is ready for something more than winning the AMBAR, and Show deserves a reward for getting into such ridiculous shape. Plus, those two had low-key the most surprisingly fun match of 2017 so far, and you could do a lot worse than a ten minute hoss fight at Mania. Make it happen, WWE.

#WWE #wrestling

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wrestlingisfake · 7 years

Text

Rrrrrroyal Rrrrummmblllle preview

30-man Royal Rumble match - This is a gauntlet match where the wrestlers enter at 90-second intervals, and can only be eliminated under battle royal rules. Elimination occurs when a wrestler exits the ring over the top rope, and both of his feet touch the floor before he can re-enter the ring. The match ends when all but one wrestler has been eliminated; the last one in the ring is declared the winner. This year’s winner will receive a title match at Wrestlemania in April, either for Raw’s WWE universal championship or Smackdown’s WWE world heavyweight championship.

So far 22 of the 30 participants have been named: Baron Corbin, Big Cass, Big E, Big Show, Bill Goldberg, Braun Strowman, Bray Wyatt, Brock Lesnar, Cesaro, Chris Jericho, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler, Kofi Kingston, Luke Harper, The Miz, Mojo Rawley, Randy Orton, Rusev, Sami Zayn, Sheamus, The Undertaker, and Xavier Woods. That leaves eight slots for surprise entrants, although I figure at least five of those will just be curtain jerkers.

The big story for this year’s Rumble is the continuation of the Brock Lesnar/Bill Goldberg feud. After spanking Lesnar in under 90 seconds at Survivor Series, Goldberg decided to press his luck and enter the Rumble. Lesnar, humiliated by the loss, entered the Rumble to seek revenge. A lot of the hype going into the match is what might happen if these two end up in the ring at the same time. However, since the logical Wrestlemania match for these two is against each other, it’s a safe bet that neither will actually win the Rumble. They’re both going to lose, so the only real question is who they’ll take down with them.

The Undertaker is entering the Royal Rumble match for the first time since 2009, which has fueled speculation that he’s going to be in a title match with John Cena or Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania. I think it’s at least as likely that Taker will be eliminated in this match under circumstances that set up some other Mania program. If you’re thinking they wouldn’t even put him in this match except to have him win, bear in mind that Taker has been in ten Rumble matches, and the 1 in 1-9 was ten years ago. It’s not his specialty.

One of the big traditions of modern Rumbles has been expecting someone to show up that wasn’t supposed to be in the building, or even cleared to wrestle. Finn Balor is supposed to be set to return in March, but I would not put it past WWE to overstate his recovery time or rush him back too early for a shocking return here. Don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen, though, because many a Rumble match has had the air sucked out of it when people anticipate a surprise that wasn’t even planned. Similarly, the chances of Kenny Omega jumping from New Japan to WWE on this show are not zero, but not very good either.

The winner of this year’s Rumble is hard to predict, since it depends on so many factors that are up in the air. If I knew the winner was going to face John Cena at the top of the card, I’d go with Undertaker. If I knew the winner was going up against AJ Styles or Kevin Owens in the midcard, I’d expect an effort to push some up-and-coming star, like Baron Corbin or Sami Zayn. If I knew the winner could challenge the champion from the opposite brand, I might think Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns was an intriguing possibility. But there’s just too much up in the air right now, and that should make the match more fun.

Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns - This is for Owens’s universal championship. Chris Jericho interfered the last time these two fought for the title, so this time he will spend the duration of the match locked inside a shark cage that will be lifted above the ring with some kind of crane gizmo. Surely this will prevent Jericho and Owens from cheating!

So basically all you need to know is that around 15 minutes into the match Jericho will drop something through the bars of the cage down to the mat, and Owens will hit Reigns with it to retain the title. Then everyone will act like Jericho is super-clever and devious for thinking of it.

AJ Styles vs. John Cena - Styles is defending the world championship. This is, like, the third time Cena has come back from a long absence to immediately jump into a feud with AJ, and it hasn’t worked out very well for him.

I wouldn’t say this is the most pivotal match on the show, but the outcome will tell us a lot about where WWE is headed in 2017. If AJ beats Cena again, that would seem to cement the “new era” direction of pushing fresher faces and phasing out the stars from five years ago. It also suggests that, paradoxically, Cena will be in a high-profile non-title match at Wrestlemania, while AJ and the world title will be shuffled further down the Mania card. If Cena wins, though, he will probably take the championship to a key Mania match, while AJ sinks down into the Mania undercard. Either guy can recover from a loss here, but the loss would still be pretty symbolic.

I think I have to go with Styles this time, because WWE has a track record in the past few years of keeping the title off of it’s “legend”-class stars, even when it seems counter-productive.

Charlotte Flair vs. Bayley - Charlotte puts the Raw women’s title on the line. They actually started setting this feud up at Survivor Series, but then they detoured to blow off the Sasha/Charlotte feud once and for all, so now we’re back on track. I really don’t know why you’d have Bayley’s first title win be at this show, when you could do a longer chase to a bigger show like Wrestlemania. I figure Charlotte retains.

Rich Swann vs. Neville - Swann’s cruiserweight title is at stake. Neville turned heel a while back and to be honest I just haven’t been paying attention to the cruiserweights because none of it feels important. I like that WWE is trying to do this but they’re not doing a particularly smashing job of it. I kinda don’t care who wins.

Cesaro & Sheamus vs. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows - Cesaro and Sheamus are defending the Raw tag team championship in the pre-show. In order for the New Day to have that record-breaking title reign, they had to win all their matches, so now that they’re no longer champions we’re left with the Battle of Teams the New Day Beat Over and Over. It’s tough to get worked up about this, especially since whichever team wins really won’t have anywhere to go except another match with New Day. If we’re lucky the wrestling should be good, but it’s in service to a nothing direction. Kudos to WWE for managing to make Cesaro versus Sheamus a tired feud, and then combine them to produce the “Cesaro versus Sheamus” of tag teams.

Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax - This is scheduled for the pre-show. Nia is a tol and Sasha is a smol, so it’s very dramatic when Nia beats the ever-loving crap out of Sasha. I would think this could be really fun, so I can’t believe it’s on the pre-show, as if whatever they’re going to do with, say, the Usos will be more interesting. I’d like to see Sasha win, but Nia’s been hanging around doing nothing for a long time and she really needs to hurry up and kill somebody. I’m gonna pick Sasha but Nia has a strongly-worded note to clubber some fools at Fast Lane or whatever.

Alexa Bliss & Mickie James & Natalya vs. Becky Lynch & Nikki Bella & Naomi - This is also for the pre-show, so I guess they think four matches can fill a two-hour undercard. Mickie recently returned to help Alexa make Becky’s life hell. Nikki and Natalya have been feuding over...look, at this point I think we can assume every Nikki Bella feud is about the other woman saying “U SUK CENA DIK LOLOL” and leave it at that. Naomi’s rounding out the match because she hasn’t had shit to do for months. I’d like to see Naomi kick some ass in this one, but I kinda feel like it’ll be the Becky and Nikki show for now.

#wwe #royal rumble

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