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

[JWeinCom]

Runa216 said:

JWeinCom said:

Don't mind WWE doing more international events... but it kind of seems like they tend to phone it in a lot for these, because they know they're going to sell out no matter what since they're in these places so rarely and haven't worn out the audience.

AJ Styles vs Cody Rhodes should obviously be great from an in ring perspective, but it's hard to get excited when you know there's no way Cody is losing the belt. It's hard to make a match engaging when there's no real stakes.

The Damien Priest Jey Uso match should be more interesting, because they could potentially take the belt off Priest. I'm not really sold on him or Uso as top guys, but maybe they could surprise me.

Bayley vs Tiffany vs Naomi is another one where it's predictable. Bayley wins by pinning Naomi, who is there to take the fall.

Jade and Bianca will beat the Kabuki Warriors for the title. Which makes all the sense in the world, but again, predictable.

And, the new Bloodline isn't losing so soon after forming, so they will beat KO and Randy Orton.

We'll see if this can somehow overdeliver, but a rather meh card. I'm guessing they add another match or so on Smackdown. This often happens after mania where you just had a lot of people have their big moment and you don't want to cheapen it, but I still feel like they could have made some more intriguing matches. For the life of me, I can't figure out why they didn't have a match for Rhea's title here. Seems like a triple threat between Becky, Liv, and Nia would have been a way better idea than just having Becky win it on Raw. But, again, it kind of feels like that's part of the deal with these international shows, where they're guaranteed a hot crowd so they don't want to like, waste good matches on them or whatever.

IT's so funny seeing your takes because they're always so cynical and negative...but everywhere else I've looked people were LOVING the crowd, the atmosphere, the experience. The outcomes being predictable didn't detract from the fun and that's honestly how it should be. 

Some times I swear you're just a hipster. 

Uhhhh... I'm sorry, are you criticizing me for not loving the crowd and atmosphere in a post that was made before the event happened? I can't like, see into the future dude. XD A lot of your posts trying to criticize me have been reaches, but you're reaching Dhalsim levels of reach with this reachy reachingess Christina Ricci. 

Don't think I'm always negative and cynical. And, as always, I have some evidence to back up my position. Lets see what I thought before the last ple...

JWeinCom said:

Super excited for Mania. Will be the first time attending one since Mania 20. I believe I managed to get some decent seats. As long as one of the pillars holding up the ring lighting isn't in my way.

Just for the hell of it gonna predict the winners of the card, and how good I expect the matches to be. We'll see if I get either right. Feel free to do your own!

Saturday

Cody Rhodes and Seth "Freakin" Rollins vs. The Rock and Roman Reigns- You can have the Rock and Reigns falling out on night one. Either with the Rock screwing over Reigns and revealing it was all a plot, or by having Roman turn on the Rock for trying to take the spotlight and declaring he doesn't need to Bloodline to beat Cody on night 2. But, the safer money is on Cody and Seth losing to stack the deck even further against Cody on night 2. 

As for match quality, I think this should be very good. This has been probably the best built story they've done in years, so I imagine they'll keep it up here. Anticipating a match full of shenanigans and run ins by the entire population of Samoa, and that's exactly what it should be. ****1/2

Women's World Championship Match: Becky Lynch vs. Rhea Ripley - I'm going to go with the underdog and say Becky wins here. Rhea is already super over and needs a catalyst to make her turn babyface and allow the crowd to cheer her like they want to. So, perhaps you have Rhea lose, possibly due to some botched interference by Dominic, which encourages her to leave the Judgment day and focus on her quest to regain her title. 

As for the match quality, this should be excellent. IMHO, the two best women's matches in Mania history have been Bianca vs Becky and Charlotte vs Rhea. So, it's hard to imagine this not being a high quality match despite the build being just ok. *****

Intercontinental Championship Match: Sami Zayn vs. Gunther - Speaking of just ok builds... this one just isn't doing it for me. People (of which I'm one) really wanted Gable in this spot, not because he's necessarily better than Sami, but because it was a more fitting conclusion to the story. You need a couple of heel wins on this card, and this seems like as good of a time as any. If Roman loses, Gunther has a legit claim of being the top champion in the WWE. You can set up him Gable and Sami for Backlash, or even have Gable screw Zayn over and turn heel here. 

As for the match, again, both are really good. There could be a style clash, but Gunther has managed to adapt and work with pretty much anyone. In terms of match quality, this could potentially steal the show. ****1/2

Jey Uso vs. Jimmy Uso- Wrestling 101 dictates that Jimmy wins here to set up a rematch. So lets go with that. Should be a good match. ****

6-Pack Ladder Match for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship: DIY vs. Awesome Truth vs. The New Day vs. New Catch Republic vs. Austin Theory and Grayson Waller vs. The Judgment Day - Wow, six teams in this match, and I don't care about any of them. Tag division is not in good shape. This should be a fun spot fest regardless. Seems like an excuse to split up the titles with R-Truth grabbing one set and celebrating like an idiot before someone else grabs the other. ***1/2

Jade Cargill, Naomi, and Bianca Belair vs. Damage CTRL- One of only three women's matches on the card, so could also be doing a better job with that division. This seems set up to be a showcase for Cargill, so I'm not expecting a ton out of it. Damage control cheats to get the edge on Bianca and Naomi, makes the tag to Jade who just squashes them. Should serve its purpose, but I'm not expecting much of a real contest. **

Rey Mysterio and Dragon Lee vs. Santos Escobar and Dominik Mysterio- Seriously though, why did Rey Mysterio choose Dragon Lee over one of the LWO members for this match? People keep turning on Rey because they don't think he's really loyal to them... and you know, they may have a point. I expect Carlito to be the latest to turn on Rey and join Legado Phantasma which will be promptly renamed the "He Man Rey Haters Club".

Sunday
Undisputed WWE Universal Championship Match: Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns - Can they really do anything else? I mean, we all thought Cody had to win at Mania 39 and they went "lol nope", but can they really do it again? I don't think so. Think the obvious will happen. As for match quality, it will be like Rock and Hogan. When the build is good enough and people are invested, it doesn't really matter what they do. They can decide they're going to settle this with a best out of 50 game of rock, paper, scissors and people will still be into it. Not saying they won't put on a great match, just saying it's pretty much a guaranteed ***** no matter what.

World Heavyweight Championship Match: Seth "Freakin" Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre- Drew McIntyre has been on a roll. You could have Seth wins to drive Drew even further into his heel mode, but I think letting him actually win and be a complete arrogant tool about it is the way to go. Hopefully Punk is ready by Clash in the Castle. As for match quality, it's hard to believe that Rollins and McIntyre won't put on a great match. ****1/2

WWE Women's Championship Match: Bayley vs. Iyo Sky - Another case where they just need to do the obvious and give Bayley the win. Bonus points if she comes out with the ponytail and inflatable tube guys. People would lose their shit. 

In terms of match quality... I keep waiting for Iyo Sky to wow me, and it hasn't happened yet. She's ok. Bayley is very good. So it should be a good match, but maybe not as good as the other title bouts on the card. ***1/2

Triple Threat Match for the United States Championship: Randy Orton vs. Kevin Owens vs. Logan Paul - Another match where the build is just not clicking. Gotta have some heels win, so I guess I'll pick Logan. The match quality should be good. Paul is great for where he's at, and KO and Orton can definitely cover his flaws. But the meh build will make it a bit less exciting. ***

LA Knight vs. AJ Styles- The main point of this match is to ensure LA Knight doesn't lose all of his momentum, so should pick up the win here. I think Knight is a great character, but not a superb worker from what I've seen. Maybe with AJ Styles he can prove me wrong. ***

Philadelphia Street Fight: Bobby Lashley and The Street Profits vs. The Final Testament- Why is this on the card exactly? I get they're really trying with the Profits and Karrion Cross, but it's just not clicking. So many better things that can be put here. And the Street Profits and Authors of Pain would have probably both been better off in the tag title ladder match. The Authors of Pain could have looked scary and dominant and not been hurt by a loss in that environment, and the Street Profits are better than any of the teams in the match. So this is weird. Going with the Profits, because I flipped a coin. **

So there are my thoughts on who will win and how good the matches will be. We'll see how I do. 

I actually did projected star ratings for that one... And of the 12 matches on the card, I predicted half of them would be 4 stars or more. That really doesn't seem cynical and negative. One might even say that I was pretty optimistic, which is exactly the opposite of cynical. 

I would ask you to to show some time where I said an upcoming show was going to suck or something like that, but at this point I'm pretty sure you're not going to actually back up anything you say. 

Just so happens that before your post, I had already given my thoughts on the show. Cynical guy that I am, I must have hated it and bashed it relentlessly. Let's see my venomous review. For convenience, I bolded the parts that are positive, and italicized the parts that are negative. With neutral stuff being neutral text.

JWeinCom said:

 That aside, pretty fun match. Crowd is crazy hot. Tanga didn't come out looking super strong. But we have more Samoans! I'm guessing the end game is Bloodline vs Bloodline feud. Roman, Jimmy, Jey, and Sami vs Solo, The two Tangas, and Jacob Fatu. And, that sounds pretty fun.

Tiffany, Naomi, and Bayley had a fun match. There were a few sloppyish spots, but also some really great ones. Bayley I think almost lost the title buy mistake, with Naomi missing a pin break up. Tiffany Stratton looked great. As expected, Naomi was there to take the pin, which is too bad for her.

Damien Priest and Jey Uso exceeded my expectations. Despite all common sense, they sold me on the idea that Jey Uso may actually win the match. Whoever the agent was for this match planned it out incredibly well, and good excecution too. I still am not sure I buy Damien Priest as a top guy, but there were some flashes here where I kind of got it.

Jade Cargil and Bianca vs the Kabuki Warriors was... ok. It started off well, with Bianca doing most of the work. When Jade finally came in, she finally got to do more than a few moves, and she looked downright decent. He movements and transitions are still a bit too tentative, which is soemthing that's hopefully just due to a lack of experience. But, what she does, she does pretty cleanly. The way she powered Kairi Sane into the Glam Slam/Jaded was amazing. Jade Cargill is never gonna be the next Shawn Michaels, but she's getting good enough for the Warrior/Goldberg kind of character she is.

Problem is that the match got kind of messy towards the end. Kairi Sane had Jade Cargill in a pin, and the referree, rightly or wrongly, said that Kairi wasn't legal. The problem was that because of the language barrier, it didn't seem like the referee was able to property explain that Kairi wasn't legal. So, she just kind of awkwardly went through some spots. And then, tagged Asuka which the ref reacted to as a tag even though he thought Asuka was legal? Dunno whose fault this was, but it kind of ruined the momentum of the match.

Aj Styles vs Cody Rhodes was about as good as they could have done. Obviously, both guys are great, the crowd was super excited, and they worked a good old school pace to milk the crowd reaction. Both guys dug a little deeper into their repertoires, pulling out some stuff they don't usually do. The only real issue is that I did not for even a millisecond believe that Cody was going to lose. Of course, there's nothing that could have been done to avoid that, since Cody had to have a first major title defense, and he had to win it. But, it was what it was.

This was a pretty unambitious show, but each of the matches accomplished what they set out to do. The crowd helped make it seem more exciting than it probably was. There was nothing all that remarkable, or anything really worth going out of your way to see if you didn't watch it, but it was a perfectly fine way to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Perfectly fine way to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon. Oh man, such cynicism. Such negativity. Clearly the words of a man who hates the world and everything in it. Might as well be writing poetry in a graveyard, amirite? 

*Ahem* Actually, I think it's a fair balance of good and bad. I think the criticisms I did have were pretty reasonable. And of course, I mentioned several times how great the crowd was. I think a rational person who is not looking to start arguments on a message board for unfathomable reasons would have to agree that my post/review indicates that I overall enjoyed the event. Apparently I'm a cynical hipster for not liking something that I liked @_@...

But, for me, predictability does kind of make it less enjoyable. Wrestling is about storytelling. Sometimes a story has to end in a way that makes sense, but it's always more fun when you don't quite know what will happen. I mean, would you try to avoid spoilers for matches you're excited for? If so, you're doing so, because not knowing what will happen makes it more fun. So, I stand by my comment that they could have easily added a couple of matches where the the winner was in doubt, and the event would have been better for it. Don't think that's cynical. By the way, here is Simon Miller, a well known positive Pete, reviewing Backlash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF7YDSmLLeM He mentions several times that the matches suffered a little due to predictability. He also mentions that the card on paper did not look all that impressive. I guess he's a cynical person too. 

So, I think your opinion is hilariously off base, and as usual, I have provided evidence to show that. But, that's the last time I'm going to have a discussion with you over whether I'm cynical, angry, was a bad mod, am biased, am a hipster, wear sandals with socks, put the toilet paper roll the wrong way, sing off key, put pineapple on pizza, own too many mugs, or whatever other flaws you may think I have. 

The point of this topic, which is already dead enough, is to discuss wrestling, and I'm happy to do that, even with people I disagree with. Would be boring to only talk with people who share the same opinion. But, I'm not here to discuss my personality, because I genuinely could not care less about your opnion on that. And if I had to guess, I'd say nobody else is particularly interested in that either. 

So feel free to disagree with anything I say about wrestling. But, if you want to discuss my personality, nope, not interested. Next time you do so, I'll simply request that you stop responding to me, quoting me, etc. Really would rather not do that, because this topic is dead enough and we could potentially have productive conversations if you weren't always trying to make it about me personally, but if you're not mature enough to do that, then there's no point in any discussion. *shrug*

Last edited by JWeinCom - on 05 May 2024