i didn’t care for brock lesnar either until they paired him with paul heyman
I liked Brock when he used more than 3 moves
I’m going to watch like 12 hours of lucha instead of Wrestlemania. Lucha is fun and I’m sure it’s also anti-fascist.
I’m going to Sakura Genesis next week. And the Friday Dragon Gate show. And the IGF show so I can see Fujiwara. I’m kinda making a lotta dumb moves in my life but when I’m in debtor’s prison I’ll be able to say “I saw lots of cool wrestling.” I’m so glad I’m too big to fit in any Danshoku Dino merch, cuz I’d probably buy some.
I’m not rooting for Shibata. Shibata vs Ishii from the 2013 G1 is the match that got me back into wrestling, I will never tire of saying “chappin”, and I’m not a HUGE Okada guy but…I dunno, for some reason I don’t want Shibata to win! Maybe it’s cuz he’s so good looking.
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So man, there is a fuckin nerd at Mania, as we have already seen a ARE YOU OK? BUSTA WOLF! sign and a BRING BACK TURRICAN sign.
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WWE really should have adapted Japanese retirement convention and had a fuck-off huge generational 8-man tag match instead of that sad affair we just witnessed. Taker/Kane/HHH/Goldust vs. Cena/Roman/AJ/Orton could have only went better.
I haven’t seen Dustin in years but I’m gonna assume he’s still a superworker and would have made any match a billion times better.
Vince McMahon may be the best promoter of all times by certain metrics but his inability to see the value in tag matches is a huge fucking blindspot and I 100% agree with you, lasa.
(I didn’t watch WM, was it really bad?)
An okay show overall. Obscenely long, but mostly decent-good matches and logical booking decisions.
Mania was actually pretty good this year. The Orton match was the only one that really left me wondering what the fuck they were thinking going into it. Even the Taker match I got, and that Take got JR to call it was pretty special, especially given all the turmoil going on in JR’s life lately. WWE might probably should have adopted the generational giant tag match, but I also know Calloway is enough of a traditionalist that he would have only wanted to go out this way, and Vince basically just lets him do whatever he wants for the past 5 years at least. Now, if WWE can actually realize what an amazing heel they could have in Roman (especially after that win), this could even further his career, but I am betting they are gonna keep trying to babyface him because dammit, Vince.
Was hyped as heck by the Hardy return, and hoping they just let Matt keep the whole Broken Hardy thing going. The DELETE chants were in full effect last night.
Dustin remains a super worker, yeah @HOBO, though the past year or so he has been tag teaming with R. Truth, putting both the old dudes together to play off of each other, and they settled into it, but you know that team is never going anywhere near a belt. Dustin always seems down for whatever they want from him though, and seeing him show up out of makeup for the Dusty Tag Tournament they do in NXT is always a little weird.
I feel like the Bray Randy match was cut for time and that’s why we got the random and unsatisfied Randy and ending throughout the match. Now I wonder with Randy as champion, what is the Smackdown title picture going to look like?
Hopefully like getting the belt off of Orton ASAP because man, I do not want to watch more Orton matches. I was really looking forward to Bray winning, but you are right that it felt like that match was cut short. Also like why bother with the whole weird maggot projection thing to just have Randy win? Do we really need to make Randy look good at this point? Do we really need another ending pointing out that Bray isn’t as powerful as he says he is? That was just sloppy storytelling all around.
I feel like they don’t know what to do with Bray. Now what will he do that he has no family, no dead sister powers and now no title? Does he go monster heel with nothing left to lose?
I wish they would just let him go and do something, anything. He was so clearly the next version of the early Undertaker, but they seem unwilling to let him win a damn major thing for long ever.
Monster heel would be a good angle. Just let him tear shit up to get his sister powers back.
I really have no idea what they are going to do now on Smackdown with the title. Ambrose still has the IC title and needs to do something good with it. AJ, maybe the Miz, I really have no idea.
A stupid detail I love from the HHH Rollins match is that sledgehammers are catnip to HHH. He can’t resist them even when he is in an advantageous position.
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That match was genuinely enjoyable, and had goofy shit like that, yeah. Steph doing her annual HHH accompaniment was only disappointing in comparison to how awesome she was last year at being his evil hype woman. She still had a great “fuck y’all” face going on this year.
I also appreciate that she took that bump through the table.
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hhh and stephanie actually looked really cool on that giant mad max bike, but the whole thing was ruined by the cops, who were not only uncool because they were cops, but they just generally looked small and weedy compared to everything atround them. i saw someone on twitter say he was accompanied by paul blart mall cop, and it’s really true.
steph’s table bump was good and satisfying and crunchy, as was cesaro getting murdered at the end of the ladder match. i know it’s passe to say so nowadays, but i’d like to see (a little) more garbage in wwe, since they’re not bad at it.
i went to bed when pitbull came on, so i haven’t seen the last half of the show, but the only part i didn’t enjoy of what i saw was the mixed tag match. not just because i don’t like any of the participants, but also because wwe mixed tag matches are stupid and nonsensical. it’s more like two completely seperate matches happening in alternating segments.
i really wish they’d let bray wyatt be the new undertaker, as he’s clearly talented enough for it, as well as being different enough while still being a big guy with supernatural powers. (i would probably be a terrible promoter tbh. there’d be garbage and supernatural stuff and intergender wrestling and so on all over the place. i wouldn’t go full russo though, i’d still have proper finishes and i’d at least try to have things make sense)
(i guess what i’m saying is that if i had a wrestling promotion it’d be a western version of makai syojyokai)
I hope someone exposes HHH’s collection of Nazi memorabilia someday soon. You ever see that personalized tour bus he had made years ago? Thing is covered in iron crosses.
I think the last WWE PPV I sat down and watched from beginning to end was the Extreme Rules show with the Bray/Cena cage match. The one with the little kid. That was some WCW-level stupidity. Boy did that hurt Bray.
@loki what was the name of that pro-wrestling stage show in Tokyo that you recommended a few months ago? I can’t find it in my bookmarks!
that’s makai syojyoken!
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Thank you!!
Bray Wyatt shows how lucky Undertaker was that they turned him face within a year or so of his debut. Big scary heels have to lose at the big shows and if you do it enough times you run into trouble.