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Ah, so Vince was Thibs. No wonder he hated Meltzer so much.

Why am I so rarely happy after Wrestlemania?

Yeah - I don’t get the Charlotte hate. She’s been killing it all year, has a fantastic real life story that will be all over the New York and national media and her being in the match takes some of the pressure off Rousey to deliver and guarantees the match will work (albeit it’ll be tropey.) I mean, I get the push back against a three-way in general but the idea that Charlottle is ruining the main event just seems like hyperboleLike, it feels like copy and pasted Roman Reigns complaints from last year.

This build is going to be so much fun.

Vince McMahon to AEW.

RIP Pedro Morales. I’m half Puerto Rican and I remember my uncle who grew up in New York City in the 70s would always tell me stories about going to the Garden and seeing Bruno and Pedro. He joked about going to Italian pizzerias and seeing the same 3 pictures; the Pope, Frank Sinatra and Bruno Sammartino. But if you went to a Spanish restaurant or bodega, you’d see Pedro Morales.

If you need to rationalize why someone should be shoehorned into a match....they probably shouldn’t be in that match. I don’t know about y’all, but I just don’t want to see Charlotte. Period. Fuck all that other bullshit.

When the fuck has WWE ever booked a good face chases the champion angle? They used to never do it, and when they finally did, they fucked it up royally, and to this day they fuck it up every single time. And the HBK vs Triple H parts of the Mania 20 triple threat were dreadful, the best parts were Benoit/Trips, and Shawn never should've been let into that match to drag it the fuck down The XXX triple threat wasn't anything special, and the part where they tried to "work the crowd" with Bryan being hurt was just awful and they will do the exact same spot this year so we get stuck with a meaningless Ronda/Charlotte 6 minute stretch that just pulls focus away from Becky's eventual win. The match will be good, but it will do a less good job at what should be the only point of this match: exposing Becky to the largest possible audience, and showing that she's THE MAN.

This thread tells me all I need to know about what a great idea this triple threat is.

Man, fuck Ronda Rousey. I look at her not liking the boos and I'm thinking, well, you wanted to get into this business you fucking dummy. This is pro wrestling motherfucker. This ain't UFC where you can act like a piece of shit, have a fight, and then go into hiding for awhile. This shit is week to week. Honestly, who gives a shit what this fucking turd burglar thinks? Why does she need to be protected or coddled especially when she's just going to be part time after WM? Fuck her.

It's not that Charlotte is ruining the main event, it's that the main event with Ronda and Becky was perfect AS IS. It didn't need anything else. It didn't need Charlotte. It didn't need the McMahons. It needed two women who wanted to beat each other's ass to prove which is the best. That's the type of shit that works. I'm completely confident the match will be fine, but WWE once again takes the ball, has the easiest layup they could make, and they instead dropkick the ball into the fucking crowd because fuck you and fuck everyone else, it's Vince's show and he'll do whatever he wants.

Wrestlemania isn't just for diehards. It's the show to bring in fans who don't watch wrestling. It's the show to bring back fans who used to watch wrestling. And it's also for us. 1) Ronda brings in the fans who aren't WWE fans but know who she is. That's a selling point. 2) Charlotte is the athletic freak daughter of the most beloved wrestler of all-time. And she's now in her wheelhouse of the spoiled brat heel being gifted her spot. That's a selling point. 3) Becky Lynch is The Man to us... but she's not known to anyone outside of this bubble. The whole point of this match and feud is for her to win so she can become 1 or 2. Also: Charlotte's been in the mix of this feud since the beginning. And of the Top 30 matches in WWE/NXT history, how many has Charlotte been in? Maybe half of them? Charlotte rules. The match is going to rule. Becky's going to win.

Yes, but then he kicked Enzo's face off and everyone forgave him.

Loved this part.

Thread delivered. I mean, there's a damn side conversation about Eminem's Stan song and it's contribution to the American lexicon (yes, "stans" has been a thing for a long time now). Plus the DVDVR poster battle lines are drawn and defined on the upcoming Becky/Charlotte/Rhonda Wrestlemania debate. I love it. Reminded me of old green DVDVR. 10 pages plus and all.

Gravy

Ronda not liking being booed is certainly something I can believe, and the evidence seems to point to that being the case, but this idea that she's going to get so distracted by being booed that she'll accidentally break Becky's arm or something is one of the more ludicrous things I've read in this thread.

Specifically this: She sounded like a fucking shook fool.

This is killing me; is "stans" a filter for fans, or is it something some of you are doing on purpose? Eta: Apparently not a filter.

And to tie it all together (God I am good) (Editor's note: No one got the name of the movie right. Not the person who reviewed it. Not the person who picked it.) THE BINGO LONG TRAVELING ALL STARS & MOTOR KINGS (Badham 1976) IMDB ROTTEN TOMATES (87% C/66% A) SELECTED BY: @odessasteps REVIEWED BY: @Brian Fowler The Bingo Long All Stars & Motor Kings Dir. John Badham I had never heard of this movie, so it's a completely new experience for me. It stars Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, and Richard Pryor, so it comes with a quality cast. A group of Negro League players leave their teams over their mistreatment by the owners, with star pitcher Bingo Long (Williams) leading the crew. The owners quickly try to squash the All Stars, which leads them to their only way out: playing small time white teams. They quickly realize the danger of black men whipping a white team in front of a white crowd, and, to put it simply, they become essentially the baseball Harlem Globetrotters. Keeping the audience laughing prevents them from getting mad about the score, ya see? The Negro League owners continue to try to crush them, as the money rolls in. It's got a light comedic tone that kinda undercuts the very real tension. Richard Pryor playing an All Star who pretends to be Cuban in hopes of making the white leagues is as entertaining as you could possibly ask for, in that "I don't think you could do that today" kind of way. It takes occasional really dark turns, but I won't spoil it further. Williams and Jones are, unsurprisingly, excellent, with Williams being the coolest and Jones bringing a level of calm education to the group. It's a really pleasant movie, if not something I'd personally watch a second time. But I don't regret the time spent.

Putting Charlotte officially in the match gave us this Everything else is gravy

I find the idea that the daughter of one of the greatest world champions to ever lace up boots and who has multiple title reigns herself somehow devalues this main event extremely hilarious.

Noooooooooo!! You were making so much sense...

Making the first all women's main event at WrestleMania Triple Threat is garbage. It should be one-on-one. You know what Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant needed? Ted DiBiase. Throw in Honkytonk Man into Ricky Steamboat vs. Macho Man. Charlotte is a third wheel here and everyone knows it.

Can't wait when Charlotte pins Ronda.

The bigger problem is just how much they gutted Becky's character. Fucking apologizing without any sort of a payback or receipt? I just re-watched that segment again and you can hear the air get sucked out of the arena. People want to watch someone beat the shit out of their boss because it's the one thing none of us can do. Most of us have to eat shit on a daily basis at work and do what we're told or miss out on a promotion because of whatever or get laid off or fired for dumb reasons and we can't do shit. Wrestling is the one outlet where it can provide the type of escape so many people want to see and apparently Vince believes we all just really want to see wrestlers in WWE behave just like how we would in our own jobs. Then you add Charlotte in on top of it and that's the overbooking I'm speaking to. It's unnecessary and it kills the product.

I fucking hate overbooking. I fucking hate how WWE creative just has to troll its audience. I fucking hate how the authority figures flip flop between heel and face. Whatever. We all knew this was coming, but I think many of us really wanted the 1 on 1 match. BTW, to what Gregg said, exactly what audience is Ronda bringing in? Viewership is down. Subscriptions aren't moving that much. The audience that is here is the audience that's been here and it's the audience that continues to erode week by week for the last however many years. They finally have an opportunity to do the straight forward and right thing. So what do they do? They have Becky Lynch apologize. They completely fucking gut her and her stand up take no bullshit character. Would Steve Austin apologize? Would the Rock apologize? If anything, this needed the 2019 equivalent of "YOU TREAT ME LIKE A DOG AND EXPECT ME TO SMILE? YOU REMIND ME OF A JACKASS!" But no... EVERYONE MUST BOW DOWN TO THE AUTHORITY And don't any one of you fucking tell me that "this is how it's supposed to be" or "they got you" or "let's see how this plays out" or any of that bullshit. What matters the most is what you do in that moment because there are no guarantees who is going to be watching next week or the week after. So seeing how this plays out is the dumbest fucking thing anyone can see because we just saw how it played out this week. Anyone watching saw how it played out. They saw that the person who shouldn't be taking bullshit from anyone took a big, steaming, heaping pile of it, swallowed it down, and there went any aura she had because...EVERYONE MUST BOW DOWN TO THE AUTHORITY. Maybe Becky comes back again next week even though she's been suspended again and maybe she kicks Steph's ass, but honestly, who fucking cares at this point. At least the Revival fucking killed it tonight.

Bad Luck Fale BREAKS FREE of the Bullet Club, wins the New Japan Cup, and challenges (and defeats) Jay White at Madison Square Garden. A new golden age of wrestling in NJPW follows.

I loved that Charlotte promo so much. Charlotte came off like such an awful, entitled brat. She had such a great condescending tone about her. I loved her justification at being fine with being hand-picked for the match while the truly deserving Becky gets shunted aside. It's a business decision. Charlotte also did a great job with some improvisational moments. I loved how she WHATTED the crowd. And she also used the great "SHUT YOUR MOUTH" line her old man used to toss out to people. She had heat to start and it became a pretty epic promo by the end. This is why she's in this match. Ronda brings the real life credibility. She's awesome in the ring. But she's pretty bad on the microphone, especially not in front of a live audience. Becky's great on the mic with badass WWE face fire. It's going to be hard to just do Becky vs. Ronda because Ronda's so limited as a public speaker and actress. (Also: Not a knock, she's really new to live performance art.) Charlotte is so friggin' great in this role.

Samoan, Tongan, Fijian...it's all the same to the white people running the company.

I swear when I first looked at the Usos shirt - I thought it said "Jesus" and I was like "Boy the WWE is making some bold marketing decisions now"

There's a lot to unpack, but I think we're getting ahead of ourselves as to the fans any of these women are bringing in. Raw is losing female viewers in droves, despite Becky/Ronda/Charlotte being the hottest angle in the company. @RIShaneis right on so many wanting Becky to run roughshod on Ronda for the next two months, then win the belt at WM in a squash. That serves no good purpose and doesn't get Becky over to where her fans want her to be. Charlotte isn't being shoehorned in. She was always going to be in a WM match with Ronda. The adjustment was to include Becky once she got hot. WWE's thinking is likely that if they're trying to make one star in connection to Ronda, go for two. Because TBH, it's not clear when the women will headline WM in the near future. Get Becky and Charlotte in there now and along with Roman, they'll have three NXT-associated stars who can main event the biggest PPVs.

He will be waiting a long long time

I was going for the “Kid of a legend, who has more title reigns then they probably should” thing. How about tossing Diesel into Shawn/Hart. Or Undertaker into Austin/Michaels? Or let’s toss Dusty Rhodes into Race/Flair from the first Starcade. Sometimes a match should just be a singles match.

I doubt that and the card would have suffered as a result considering that would mean not getting Bret vs Owen.

People getting "worked" is fucking annoying. It's trolling your fanbase. It's the same shit they've been doing for years now and viewership continues to drop. Maybe, oh, I don't know, stop trying to work over your fanbase so much.

By the way, something that hasn't been mentioned is how they completely threw Ruby Riott under the bus tonight. I'm thrilled that Dori is going to get a title shot at a PPV because that is fucking awesome, I'm a big baby and I'll probably have tears in my eyes for that match, but Vince, HHH, Steph, the announcers, and hell, let's just thrown in the rest of creative basically made it a completely foregone conclusion that it's still going to be Ronda vs Charlotte or Ronda vs Becky or however you want to look at it at WM. Way to train your audience to think someone has any sort of a chance. Fucking idiots.

It's like Sanada's beard is growing a beard of its own.

Woahwoahwoahwoahwoah...I'm a little fuzzy on this whole "protect Ronda" thing JT is proposing. Ronda needs to eat a pin or submit and it needs to be to Becky and it needs to be at WM.

All of this plus if you want Charlotte to be the top person the Smackdown title is right there and Asuka/Charlotte II writes itself.

It struck me watching the end of Raw unfold that Charlotte is basically added in to ideally function as an actual heat magnet, and I can follow the logic. I think any thoughts that WWE are bothered by Becky being incredibly popular are misplaced, but her being popular in a way that damages the popularity of the people they match her up against is something they are definitely concerned with. While I think they could live with Rousey being booed at Mania I don't think they want her to be ruined as a face going forward because of this... and this is exactly where Charlotte enters. They seem to be laying this out that both Becky and Rousey feel like this is BS, which ideally lets the crowd love Becky and hopefully results in them hating Charlotte more than Rousey. Will it work? That I can't say and there are so many ways things can be screwed up but I can't argue against the logic in trying to protect Rousey in this way. She'll drop the belt at Mania and likely take the fall and the crowd will be into it and people will forget about it in several years when another Mania main event ends up as a 3 way dance that doesn't ruin the moment in the least.

Let me explain something to you. Becky has already defeated Charlotte. Many, many times. Another win over her does nothing. Now, if Becky hands Ronda her first loss in singles competition that is something.. but if you are going to do that finish then why not have it be one on one in the first place? All this talk about the wrestling "bubble".. Yes, you're right but you are wrong about Charlotte. She is not a bigger name than Becky. Someone will shit on me for this but look at their instagram followers. ? Charlotte isn't "needed" for this and just keeping with kayfabe, it makes zero sense also.

Hahhah marked out when Vince trolled.