Hooker

bahlee dat

Wow. Roman just continues to swim further out to sea, huh?

Lesnar goes over Cena and proceeds on to Bryan or (God help me) Reigns. Cena wonders if he's as capable as Lesnar and so he tries to do what only Lesnar did: beat the Undertaker at Wrestlemania. This has numerous advantages: 1) Lesnar doesn't have to lose his heat before Wrestlemania by dropping the belt to Cena. 2) Provides a pretty safe match for Undertaker with the best main-event-style-match worker in the company if he wants one more go at Wrestlemania. 3) Gives people the Undertaker vs Cena match everyone had been asking about for ages now. 4) Keeps us away from the horrendous bullshit of Rusev vs Cena, a match that does nothing for either guy. 5) Frees up Lesnar to give the rub to someone that needs it. 6) Is actually a compelling story for Cena to tell (which of course they'll ruin as they did Rock vs Cena 1, Bret vs Vince, Lesnar-post-WM30 vs anyone, etc.) This depends on whether Undertaker wants to come back, of course. But if he does, Taker vs Cena is a massive match and a way better use of both of them than sticking Cena with Rusev and Taker with God knows who (unless it's Wyatt, which would actually be a nice transition from old-Taker to new-Taker).

Are you saying they didn't? The fans completely ruined a PPV and destroyed the WWE's Wrestlemania plans. I remember that serious people were implying POST-Rumble that Bryan not going over at the end would cause "ugly scenes". it's alarmist bullshit. If Bryan doesn't sufficiently go over, they'll just complain online and keep giving the WWE money. It's all bark, no bite. So your contention is that they always intended to book Wrestlemania 30 the way they did? my contention is that there is nothing that the WWE could do short of openly firing weapons into the crowd that would cause a riot at a wrestling show. It's almost 2015, not 1975. CM Punk leaving had more to do with changing the Wrestlemania plans than the Royal Rumble crowd. Oh. You're having a problem between literalism and figurativism. When people bring signs threatening to riot, they typically aren't being literal. Nobody is saying an actual riot will break out.

Are you saying they didn't? The fans completely ruined a PPV and destroyed the WWE's Wrestlemania plans. I remember that serious people were implying POST-Rumble that Bryan not going over at the end would cause "ugly scenes". it's alarmist bullshit. If Bryan doesn't sufficiently go over, they'll just complain online and keep giving the WWE money. It's all bark, no bite. So your contention is that they always intended to book Wrestlemania 30 the way they did?

They put one of the biggest action stars, a leading man, on top the year before. Are you a gimmick poster?

Are you saying they didn't? The fans completely ruined a PPV and destroyed the WWE's Wrestlemania plans.

It depends on how big a shit every audience between Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania takes on Reigns after he eliminates Bryan.

Does Punk know how to show ass or what?

Did I really just see someone post "serious business" with sincerity?

What an idiot, risking his career like that for some indy fed. Was this even a major show? I bet the other guy kicked out after that.

I don't watch RAW until the weekend. This blows my mind.

I had the thought, when AJ had her face-to-face with Stephanie during during the lead-up to Summerslam, what a massive shithead Punk is to threaten his wife's employer with a lawsuit over some stupid video game feature.

Building up a monstrous-looking guy only to have someone finally overcome him is the all-time most basic, fundamental booking in professional wrestling. Lesner should and probably will trample everyone until someone finally beats him. The only reason it's going to fail is because it's going to be Roman Reigns.

It's not so much a theory as a preference. I watch a lot of bad movies / TV with a friend of mine. When you enjoy that sort of thing, you quickly pick up on much of the background cynicism, and what you're watching tends to be enjoyable more when the creators are more genuine and sincere in their passion for making the thing, regardless of how well it turns out. It's how Man of Steel can bore you to tears despite all the talent and force behind it while something like Troll 2 can enthral you despite the total absence of talent. TNA in general and Dixie Carter in particular seem far more sincere and genuine in their attempt to put on an entertaining product than the WWE. Certainly nobody could claim Dixie is just trying to squeeze as much money out of TNA as possible. The WWE and particularly RAW, meanwhile, is the most insincere, passionless three hours of television I've ever had to skip through half of. I know that there are a lot of people here (the vast majority?) who are able to derive a lot of pleasure out of random, context-less, eight minute matches between two talented wrestlers on RAW, but that's just too clinical for me. I really enjoy truly great matches (for me, the last one that stood up despite having no broader context was Bryan vs Cesaro), but try as I might, I just can't behind pointless matches. TNA reminds me a lot of the last few years of WCW. Nobody's going to hold up 98-01 WCW as a template for how to book wrestling, but there were some really great things going on and it wasn't just an awful cash grab. I, and countless other fans judging by his debut in the WWF, fell in love with a guy named Chris Jericho because he could spread his wings in WCW. Meanwhile, in the WWE, I see a guy like R-Truth killing every segment he's on, Zack Ryder fermenting his own fan support with no TV time, and this massive Big E. Langston guy shows up and starts talking and acting with this weird and wonderful jive-ish attitude, and each one of them had the legs cut out from under them. Why bother getting behind any one? Meanwhile, while they've failed to capitalize on any of them, I've never felt punished for liking Austin Aries, Chris Daniels, Rockstar Spud, Joseph Park, or any other enjoyable character TNA has or had. So, yeah, fuck the WWE. I skip through half of it every week. I watch every Impact in full. I know NXT is supposed to be great and, clear of the influence of Vince, I imagine it's a distinct possibility. But I'm just too sick of the WWE at this point.

No it's not. People don't flock to something the exact moment something interesting happens. And now the goalposts have changed. Honestly, TNA is bad. I'm not arguing with that (I think it's less bad than RAW, and am willing to defend that point, if you want?). But people seem to refuse to give them credit for anything. Something on the last episode worked. It was something they were building towards. It was a distinct improvement over pretty much everything they've tried building between it and the Aries win. But, I guess it didn't also give me a blowjob, so how good is it really?

In other words, they had a hot angle and here's how negative you can be on it.

Crowds have been going apeshit booing Dixie during her promos over the last year. The crowd popped huge for the spot. This is not complicated, guys. He didn't give her a black eye or whipped her with his belt or anything. He performed a goofy powerbomb off the top rope. The things that happen to Catwoman / Black Widow / Megan Fox in Transformers / whatever the Hunger Games' character's name is are far more violent than the cartoonish spot Bully gave Dixie. Go ahead and dislike it, but let's ease up on the moralizing over professional wrestling, please. Are you people really this easily offended?

They can always bring back this guy. Gotta think the odds are stacked pretty heavy against that. You know who's great at defying the odds?

I'm really going to miss making Moonsault Sanada jokes.

Didn't they give The Hurricane [Helms] a shine moment? I tried to find anything like that on YouTube but came up empty. I want to believe it happened, but it could have just been me really wanting it to happen. I can easily imagine it not happening, because Vince loves endless setup with no punchline.

Ready for me to take away one of the few things you don't hate about TNA?

Who were all these people going around unabashedly admitting they watch wrestling before 1997/8 but suddenly stopped talking about it in the Attitude era?

We're also ignoring that they're both royalty.