Sports Pro Wrestling Discussion Thread

I agree and the same thing can be said for Cesaro. Cesaro was so hot in early 2014 and his popularity was rising so rapidly until they gave up on him after Wrestlemania 30 because Vince didn't think he was connecting with the audience. After reading comments from many forums, I have found ZERO people who agrees with Vince.
Will never get WWE's logic on this. The crowd gets behind Cesaro organically and is cheering for the guy despite being a heel who they seem to have been teasing a face turn for with the tension at the time going with Jack Swagger. Let's keep him heel and pair him up with Paul Heyman because him becoming a face wasn't in our plans, and while we are at it let's do nothing really memorable with either Cesaro or Heyman in this role. To go on the subject of John Cena recently on Chris Jericho's podcast of taking "risks", what good does that do when the last guy who did and got himself over with fans via social media got buried to oblivion (Zack Ryder)?????
 
Lucha Underground is fantastic, it is a nice fresh air breeze alternative to what the WWE programming usually fillers with for 3 hours on Monday nights. I was genuinely surprised to see a male v. female contest be the opening match (Sexy Starr v. Pentagon Jr.), plus it wasn't a 2 min squash or male dominates the female contest either, it was actually...gasp...good! :o
 

Bologo

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John Cena just got pinned clean in the middle of the ring at Elimination Chamber by Kevin Owens, the NXT Champion who was wrestling his first match on the main roster. It wasn't even a flukey roll-up or anything; Cena got his ass kicked, though it wasn't like the Lesnar match at Summerslam 2014 where he got almost no offense in. Considering how much WWE goes out of their way to protect Cena, I'm actually amazed that this happened. I thought for sure that it would have some sort of dirty win, or Kevin Owens outright losing. Hopefully they continue to book Kevin Owens well. Though I haven't watched any of his ROH matches as Kevin Steen, I'm impressed by what I've seen so far with his NXT matches and this match that just happened.
 
Rest in Peace Virgil Riley Runnels Jr., aka Dusty Rhodes. No details on cause of death yet, but still, a tragic loss for the old fans of WWF.

Update: So his exact cause of death is still not released, but reports show that medical personal went to Dusty's house after a fall. Soon after arriving there, he passed away. It is said that Dusty was suffering 'other complications' throughout the night that proved fatal.

Update 2: So from TMZ, they report that Dusty's kidneys had shut down and he became dehydrated.
 
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Elimination Chamber was pretty meh, but WWE made sure to entertain with MITB.

Sheamus winning MITB is a surprise, since we all thought Roman was winning. But it is a welcome surprise, at least for me, as it shows WWE still sees the first irish-born WWE champion as a top superstar in the company. Sheamus has always been one of my favorite superstars, and seeing him being a mid-carder kinda put me off. But now as MITB holder, it shows he isn't done being in the main event just yet, though we will have to wait for that(unless WWE pulls a Sandow). As for the other competitors, it was a good match, plenty of spots, everyone got in their big moments, and even story telling was told with Bray Wyatt costing Roman the match. Hopefully Bray is here to stay, as he is just too good of talent to brush off to the side. (Also Neville's Red Arrow to Sheamus was fucking sick.)

Nikki vs. Paige. We have seen this match multiple times, and it just seems like we are watching the same match each PPV, except with a different dirty end. Paige is a great Diva yes, but there is plenty of other Diva talent that should be in the PPVs. Naomi was a good start, but they should definitely try something new and not include Paige in every Diva's title match. Plus Nikki being champ is also getting old.

Ryback vs. Big Show just didn't hold up. The Miz on commentary was okay, but the match was average at best. Big Show's character is getting old and he can't really put on the good matches we would like to see anymore. And Ryback's shown to be a good wrestler, but they need to put him against smaller wrestlers, as him doing shoulder blocks and punches to the Big Show just looks fake. When Ryback is facing someone like John Cena, Sheamus, or someone his own size or smaller, he has put on a good match. But whenever they try to do 'Big Guy vs. Big Guy', a.k.a. him vs. Mark Henry or Big Show, they just fell flat on their face. Hopefully when(or if) Miz faces Ryback, it's a singles match.

Ok, if anything dares to say Cena sucks after his performance, I will yell. Kevin Owens vs. Cena at EC was already a great match, but MITB they really showed how much chemistry the two have, and how they can tell a compelling story, while putting on an amazing match. Plus, he had more moves than just 5 that match, with a Hurricarana, Sunset Flip, and an Electric Chair Drop, plus him using the Diving Leg Drop and Tornado DDT is nice to see. Owens was also great in that match, WWE is doing a good job in pushing him as this sort of bully who also has a Never Give Up attitude in the ring, seeing as how he kicked out of two AAs and plenty of John's signature moves. Overall a fantastic match, and the tiebreaker at Summerslam is almost guaranteed to be awesome.

The tag match wasn't anything special, but a nice cool-off and had a title change. The Prime Time Players holding tag gold is something I thought I'd never see, as in their previous run they were just that kind of jobber tag team to put other teams over. But I'm glad they finally got the respect they deserve with the titles. And New Day is New Day.

Holy fuck that main event is amazing. Firstly, I am never a fan of limb targeting in matches, as most cases of it are just the match being that and/or boring submissions and stomps. But Seth Rollins made it look right, by not making the entire match surround Dean's leg, but targeting it enough and with plenty of brutal-ness it was great. Speaking of brutal, the fucking spots were amazing, 2 powerbombs into the barricade and then a sit-out one onto a pile of chairs and a ladder was sick. Ladders shots were aplenty, and the selling of them really sold how much the two hated each other and wanted to hurt each other. The tribute to Dusty Rhodes with a Bionic Elbow off of the ladder was both awesome and an amazing tribute, showing that Dean, while a lunatic, still has a heart and tributes to one of the greats. And speaking of Ambrose having heart, having him take so much punishment, but keep fighting really made him look strong. And finally Seth winning cleanly was just what WWE needed to do, after making him look weak by winning dirtily and losing to J&J security of all people(no offense I love them). He looked like an actual champion, and someone who didn't need back-up.

Overall, the PPV was great, 2 matches that were perfect and having a decent mid card made the show one of the best in a while, with plenty of story telling, surprises, and openings to new rivals and rematches make Money in the Bank so amazing.
 

Bologo

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Good to see someone else who enjoyed the PPV. People all over the internet seem to be crapping all over the PPV (with the exception of the Owens-Cena match, though they're crapping over the result). I thought it was pretty good, to be honest. I mean, the tag team match could've used a lot more time, same with the IC match, and I hate the current divas division, but the rest of the matches were good to great. Kevin Owens is amazing, and to be honest, John Cena has been churning out great matches on a weekly basis since becoming the US Champion at WrestleMania. Very few people get to kick out of 2 AAs, get out of 2 STFs, and then get to injure Cena post-match. All of this after beating Cena clean in their last match.

Maybe it's just me, but after seeing the NXT women's division in the NXT specials and such, the Divas division is unwatchable. I gave it a chance last night, but the Bellas are my least favourite wrestlers in the company right now, since they're obnoxious, botchy, and just generally overpushed. The referee didn't even DQ Nikki last night for using Twin Magic, which just furthers the point of WWE not actually caring about the division. :/ Not to mention there's the problem with a lack of defined faces and heels in the division, so they're usually greeted to complete silence in most of the matches. For example, for no apparent reason, the Bellas were treated as faces when they were feuding with Naomi, solely because Naomi is a heel, despite the Bellas being heels just a couple of weeks before. Then, when Paige came back, they were suddenly heels again, with no real turn or anything. I just don't understand...the NXT Women's division has been allowed to main event house shows and even a few episodes of NXT (from what I remember), and there are well-defined heels and faces. The two divisions are like night and day. It's kinda sad, to be honest.
 
So with Owens losing the NXT Championship to Finn Balor, I am 100% sure he is now going over Cena and winning the US title. Or at least that is what should happen. Kevin Owens wouldn't be a double champion, which he is too new to WWE to be holding two belts, but getting the US championship as a rookie isn't really an uncommon thing, especially since he has shown he has earned it. Cena and Owens will put on an amazing match as usual, and hopefully Owens wins the US title like how he won the NXT title. Makes him look like a dominant champion, throwing around a top dog like Cena, while making Cena look tough and never giving up with kicking out of many powerbombs.

But moving on, Beast from the East was decent. Wasn't expecting Jericho wrestling there, he and Neville put on a great show, though some of it felt sluggish. Nikki vs. Paige vs. Tamina was...meh. Again, it just feels like watching the same match over and over, with someone else getting in a few moves here and there. Plus the finish was weird, Nikki rarely finishes matches with her elbow anymore, I guess she can't lift Tamina or something. Owens vs. Balor was great, but strangely I still put Owens vs. Cena at MITB over it. Not to deny it wasn't a great match, as it was, though Kevin not getting in a pop-up powerbomb feels weird, as most big title matches each wrestler gets in at least one finisher, while Balor got in 3. And when I saw KO lift up Balor, I really thought he would do the Package Piledriver. It makes sense he wouldn't do it to Cena, as Vince doesn't want to risk his health and take him out of action, however Balor is an indy guy, and has taken plenty of piledrivers, so I thought this would be the time to actually do it, but apparantely not. Brock vs. Kofi was everything I expected, Kofi trying to take down the big man with high flying moves, only for him to barely budge and deadl tons of damage in very little time. Finally the main event was disappointing. The match-up made no sense, Cena and Ziggler are friends yeah, but Kane and Barrett? They have had no interaction in forever, and are just heels. Plus Barrett has in obscurity for a bit, why suddenly main event a show? Plus it wasn't even a good match, just a standard tag team match with no special spot or moment. To me just felt like a bad end to an otherwise decent show.
 
thread kinda died didn't it

Anyway I didn't get to watch Battleground last night, but I was following on B/R. Shame that WWE can't keep anything under wraps anymore or I would've been shocked at Taker coming back to take out Lesnar.

Now that the reports seemed confirmed, it'll be interesting to see if Taker vs. Brock does happen at SummerSlam and what role Sting will play. I'm really wanna see how WWE will explain Taker's action on Raw tonight
 
Hm, a Divas Match on a PPV, that doesn't feature Nikki Bella and Paige, and let other Divas/Women shine, and guess what, it was a good match. Sasha and Charolette wrestled really well as usual, and Brie seemed like a nice fit in the match, not seeming forced into it for the sake of being in a match. Hopefully WWE sees that these NXT Women is a key to unlocking what can be a fun title division.

Roman and Bray had high hopes, with the creepy build up, and it was pretty awesome. Roman has come a long way from being the most booed wrestler in WWE just months ago, and WWE definitely picked the right path for him. He has improved from his previous matches where it heavily mimicked Super-Cena, and he seems relaxed on the mic, and his lines seem natural, not forced. Onto the match, it was pretty brutal, the previous build-up added onto the match, as Roman's strikes and moves seemed more stiff, like he actually wanted to hurt Bray, while Bray did his usual offense of wanting to wear down Reigns throughout the match, using his larger body to his advantage with sentons and tackles, as well as powerful clothslines and ddts. The end coulda been better, Bray kinda needed a clean win, but WWE still wants to build Reigns up, so meh. A shame Rowan got injured, as the whole Wyatt Family reuniting would've been better and made the end more impactful.

The tag match was actually pretty good, both sides got in good offense, and didn't seem like a match you'd see on Raw, unlike MITB. Solid.

Sheamus vs. Orton, we've seen this some times already, but not every month repetitive, so that didn't really ruin the match for me. I'd say it was probably the worst match on the card, not that it was really bad, just didn't really hold up when compared to Reigns vs Wyatt and Cena vs Owens. Plus some of the moves just seemed sluggish, contradicting what the announcers had said to hype the match with it being 'brutal'.

Ok with Cena vs Owens, not to say it wasn't a great match, but I think it's gotten old.. I don't know, like if you hadn't seen their previous match, it would be Match of the Year, but after seeing it two times in a row, it seemed...sorta repetitive. I'm not going to comment on it anymore, as I'm pretty confused to what to think about it. Plus the finish was meh, Owens shoulda gone over, but if more US Open title matches, and if the superstars who accept said challenge perform like Cesaro or Rusev in their matches, I'm good with it(plz no bury owens D;)

Lesnar vs Rollins was...ok. Like I got what I expected out of the match, Suplex City and that, and Lesnar needs to seem invincible, but this match just adds to how bad Rollins' title reign has been. He most of the time won via outside interference, and only one title defense did he win clean, and it was a fucking great match. Maybe it would've became better if it hadn't been less than 10 minutes, but Undertaker returning and I think becoming heel is pretty cool. WM 30 rematch at Summerslam could be cool, hopefully no concussions.
 
I gotta say battleground was really underwhelming overall but Cena vs Owens was bland compared to the previous two, not to mention making Owens tap to the STF completely undermines the survival that he had shown throughout the entire match. Like a lot of people, I expected Owens to win the title, but as Cena does he does not put people over :( Hopefully Owens will keep relevency for a while
Divas match was also good for a change so that was a thing
 

Bologo

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Yup, Sasha Banks vs. Bayley was pretty awesome, and I actually haven't seen many of Bayley's matches, so it was certainly a pleasant surprise. This had a great built-up storyline, and the match told a great story too.

It's a shame that Summerslam had to follow the day after, because Summerslam was honestly very poor in comparison to Takeover: Brooklyn. Sure, the matches all got a decent amount of time, given that Summerslam was 4 hours long, but there were too many lame finishes, considering this was supposed to be like the WrestleMania of the summer. Not to mention, I was so impressed with the women's match at Takeover: Brooklyn, that the women's match at Summerslam just seemed horrendously boring, even if it did get 15 minutes on PPV, especially cause there were too many people in the match. Having a storyline and actual characters makes a huge difference.
 
Bayley and Sasha sure know how to put on a good match I have to tell ya. Not only is this the first time(iirc) a Divas Match has main evented a PPV in WWE/NXT history, it also was the first Iron Divas(or Man) match, and it was amazing. The action was nice, they didn't take the lazy way out with pinfalls like having signatures result in falls, there were plenty of spots, and even story telling. If you want the fans to be against you, yelling at a kid and making her cry is sure one hell of a way to do it, and no long-term damage as the kid was soon cheering again as Bayley got her victory.
Vince, learn from this, and make the Divas matches longer, not even 20-30 minutes, 15 would be good, being able to show off plenty of the Divas wrestling skills, while not taking away from the main attraction of male wrestling.
 
January 1, 2004 - March 11, 2004 Smackdown episodes are now up on the WWE Network. To those that didn't get to witness this 11 years ago when it first happened, you're in for a treat. This covers all the Smackdowns (Paul Heyman's Smackdown!) from the beginning of 2004 to the final one before WrestleMania XX.
 
I want this thread to be active lets get it

WWE has (reportedly, WWE.com ran an article on it though which is near confirmation) signed 4 big stars: Aj Styles, Doc Gallows, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Karl Anderson. On top of this, AJ and Nakamura did NOT sign as NXT talent, meaning that when the time of their debut comes, they'll be on the main WWE roster. This is a HUGE aquisition for WWE, as they've basically managed to nab the biggest Amerian and Japanese Free agents all at once, on top of two stellar guys in Gallows and Anderson. The possibilities for the debuts are endless as well, altho all but AJ are expected to work NJPW events throughout February. AJ, however, could debut Monday if he wanted to. Or, perhaps at a certain upcoming PPV...

What do you guys think this wave of performers will do in WWE? Will they be used well?
 
When I heard about them being signed, I immediately thought AJ would possibly debut in the Royal Rumble rather than through NXT. Anyway I have high hopes (how could I not), but I guess it makes me sad that NJPW is losing all that talent? I rarely watch non-WWE stuff but Wrestle Kingdom blows my mind every time I see it.
 
When I heard about them being signed, I immediately thought AJ would possibly debut in the Royal Rumble rather than through NXT. Anyway I have high hopes (how could I not), but I guess it makes me sad that NJPW is losing all that talent? I rarely watch non-WWE stuff but Wrestle Kingdom blows my mind every time I see it.
While the aforementioned losses of Styles, Nakamura, Gallows and Anderson are decent sized blows to the promotion, NJPW is on no shortage of talent, at least from what I've seen. Im not the guy for this though, so I'll tag resident NJPW Guy Quote
 

Camden

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NJPW does take a decent blow but is not hurt too much by this. If anything Bullet Club were senselessly hoarding titles (Not as bad as Suzuki-Gun mind you) so it's nice that the Heavyweight Tag titles will actually rotate around Japanese talent. In terms of top talent, Okada is young and still going strong. Tanahashi, while older, will still hang around for a bit. Naito's heel gimmick is fantastic and will be an easy fit at the top. Once Ibushi returns from injury he'll also be expected to skyrocket, especially after the amazing 2015 he had. Kenny Omega is expected to win the IC title from Nakamura and will absolutely do well with it. Along with that, there's Goto, Shibata, and Ishii, and that's just top-level talent. There's a lot of lower and mid-card talent to go around, and this doesn't even factor in talents from other promotions that may come over. They'll be fine.
 
Not sure how Gallows is going to do, as his Festus gimmick went nowhere, and Luke Gallows barely had a chance to showcase what he could in singles competition in WWE, so I'm not sure if WWE is going to give him a big push. Probably going to stay with Anderson, but I don't think WWE will have them stay 'The Bullet Club', but either way will be good, as the Tag Division is really just surrounded by four teams, three of which are face, so adding another heel team in there would be good.
AJ Styles has been one of the most wanted wrestlers in WWE, so WWE would be dumb to not take advantage of that, and putting him in the IC title picture may not be ideal because fans would want him in the main title picture, but it's honestly the most believable thing for WWE to do, plus him wrestling great workers like Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler, and Neville would be very entertaining.
 
Not sure how Gallows is going to do, as his Festus gimmick went nowhere, and Luke Gallows barely had a chance to showcase what he could in singles competition in WWE, so I'm not sure if WWE is going to give him a big push. Probably going to stay with Anderson, but I don't think WWE will have them stay 'The Bullet Club', but either way will be good, as the Tag Division is really just surrounded by four teams, three of which are face, so adding another heel team in there would be good.
AJ Styles has been one of the most wanted wrestlers in WWE, so WWE would be dumb to not take advantage of that, and putting him in the IC title picture may not be ideal because fans would want him in the main title picture, but it's honestly the most believable thing for WWE to do, plus him wrestling great workers like Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler, and Neville would be very entertaining.
With all the "Balor Club" stuff they've had going on with Finn recently and they're willingness to talk about NJPW & the Bullet Club, I'd be surprised if they didn't try to recreate it in a sense in the WWE. Could be wrong, but it's just how I see things going
 
I remember Daniel Bryan really wanted to elevate the IC title prior to his injury, so having guys like Styles/Owens/Ambrose feud over it sounds pretty cool, even though a lot of people are probably salivating for most of those guys to be in the world title picture
 

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