The Pro Wrasslin' Thread (WWE, WWF, WCW, TNA, ROH, NWA, NJPW, etc)

[Eagle367]

Runa216 said:

I watched Wrestlemania...then watched NXT and AEW from the previous week. Honestly, I felt NXT and AEW - which were just basic, everyday shows - were better than Wrestlemania. Better wrestling, better character work, more creativity in the ring, and somehow I didn't notice the lack of crowds as much.

I think it might be time for me to give up entirely on WWE's main roster. I love NXT, I love AEW, but man, even with some of the best talent in the world, the writing on Raw and Smackdown are so bad I just don't care. They regularly disrespect their talent, don't understand how to handle a payoff, and often 'subvert expectations' in all the wrong ways. As a writer myself, I think WWE's creative team is an absolute joke. The commentators are the worst by a wide margin (I used to love Corey Graves, but as soon as he went to the main roster his character became an argumentative dunce), the wrestling is generic and bland, the stories are inconsistent and poorly developed, and the wrong guy goes over so, so, SO often. it's just bad storytelling.

Edit - Oh, and the match between Trent and Omega? Better than anything on the Wrestlemania card by a pretty wide margin. Better action, better flow, better in-match character development, better comedy (Seriously, Orange Cassidy is just the best), and a better end. It was not a 5-star match by any means, but it was better than ANY one on one match from Wrestlemania. 

the Tag match between Cody and Darby allin vs Shawn Spears and Sammy Guevara was more creative and high energy than the Last Man Standing match between Edge and Orton. 

The triple threat between Keith Lee, Dominik Dijakovic, and Damian Priest was magnificent, high energy and creative and fun from beginning to its very fun end. I know this was supposed to be a TakeOver match, but it was outstanding. 

All three of those matches - two of which just random matches on a not-special episode of their respective shows - were better from an in-ring perspective than anything on Wrestlemania. I loved rollins-Owens, I loved the Ladder match, I thought the Firefly fun House and Boneyard matches were fun and creative and unique, I thought the women's matches were all varying levels of good to great (though the WRONG PERSON WENT OVER IN THE BECKY AND CHARLOTTE MATCHES!) Don't get me wrong, I liked or loved about half of Wrestlemania's matches, but even the good matches were often ruined in some way and the rest were garbage. ALL of the world title matches except one were terrible (Braun and Drew winning was the right choice, but the matches were utter, absolute trash; Becky and Charlotte winning was both a case of building up talent only to completely waste them, despite the matches otherwise being good). 

Like, I think what pisses me off most is those four matches. All four of them are emblematic of what's wrong with WWE today. Either allowing shitty wrestlers who don't care and can't wrestle to hold belts hostage, or completely wasting talent they spent the last year building up, disrespecting them in the process. 

The reason Charlotte won was because Rhea had a problem with her passport and had to go back on Monday. Rhea probably won't be back for a few months.