SirSmUgly

Cesaro is entertaining in some of the videos he does where he interviews people. I don't buy that Cesaro isn't a great promo just yet...I think that his accent is going to discourage the company from giving him a chance in this area. Even so, I don't think you waste a guy that can clearly get over with just his work in meaningless midcard feud after meaningless midcard feud. He's a guy that should be stepping in and getting spot main events on B-PPVs at the very least to help the champ transition between feuds. We need more one-and-done month-long feuds where a guy is just the contender after earning it, gets his shot, and moves on afterward.

I don't even think that many people are just straight shitting on this show. There are some negative reviews, but most not-all-glowing reviews include some pretty clear criticisms of the structure of the HIAC and of Ambrose's booking, which I think are fair. Some people are really invested in shouting down the criticism, which is sort of odd to me. I think this show is like most WWE shows; generally solid wrestling and questionable booking. I don't know what WWE has done in the past ten years to make people have faith that they'll get the end result right. From the time they should have pulled the trigger on RVD back in 2001 on, they have been more likely to whiff on strapping a rocket to the guys on the cusp of getting over in a big way than not. The even-stevens booking also doesn't inspire confidence. I'm more than ready to be proven wrong, but I suspect that Bray Wyatt and Dean Ambrose trade wins back and forth for a few weeks. Speaking of Bray Wyatt, there was a moment - right after he beat Bryan cleanly on PPV at the Rumble - where they should have protected him from Cena and figured out a way to get the belt onto him in the summer. The crowd really believed in the Wyatts. Now, they're stuck rebuilding him after the Cena and Jericho feuds, and they have chosen to do it against a guy who badly needs to win his next feud or two to keep momentum. I think it's fair to question the company's choices when you take a long view of how the year has gone. The Bryan and Reigns injuries hurt, and you can't criticize the WWE for stuff that's out of their control, but what was in their control was having Cesaro and Bray protected enough to step into those spots. EDIT: Anyway, what hurt this show and made it probably the least effective PPV of the year from a match standpoint was giving Cena/Orton about ten minutes too long and lopping time off Cesaro/Ziggler and Paige/AJ. Re: The former, even if you think that having Ziggler win in two straight falls was a nice way to switch things up, that first fall was incredibly rushed and really hurt the match overall (even though I quite enjoyed it).

At least people here stopped posting his tweets like we should all know about how anti-funny the guy is. Jesus Christ, cheer up and say something positive about somebody. I'm begging you. I see Big Fresh hasn't been reading the tens of Ebbie posts about the awesomeness of Bad News Barrett and the Bella Twins. I see Ebbie kinda like Slappy Squirrel from Animaniacs. She'll praise what she likes, but she has a short fuse when it comes to foolishness. It's an endearing type of crabbiness.

Isn't that the point of wrestling, build up a menacing villain for the hero to eventually beat? Yeah, but I think JCM's issue is with the hero that will eventually beat this particular menacing villain. On a separate note, I can't take people who use the phrase "Hivemind" seriously. That's a cop-out, an easy way to dismiss a differing opinion uncritically. I expect better from DVDVR posters.

That main event was something like the best and worst of the overbooked, Attitude-Era style WWE match. Except for Ambrose's facial expressions and yelling at Rollins (especially that somewhat-chilling "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE TONIGHT") before the match even started, the whole thing felt less than organic. The beginning was obviously a Foley/Taker redux with a HBK-style double-bump, and Ambrose firing up off the stretcher. It worked for Ambrose getting a pop when he got off the stretcher and for the big pop when they finally got in the cell and the bell rang, but it all seemed somewhat contrived, and the lackey interference was so textbook. I don't even know how to rate it; even as I could tell exactly what they were going for when they were on top of the cell, I was still worried about someone taking a bad bump, so there was a weird sort of meta-tension there as I worried about another cage malfunction rather than worrying about the guy I was rooting for and whether he would win. I still am not sure what to think of that. Then the transition into Ambrose/Wyatt...that was less than thrilling on its own merit. The whole thing came off less like a hate-filled match where anything could happen, when it was all said and done, and more like a series of contrived spots that had an unsatisfying finish to a blood feud. I also think Cesaro/Ziggler was about ten more minutes away from being a potential MOTYC candidate. The whole thing was logical, with the chain wrestling leading into the arm work, which led to the final fall in particular. They actually struggled for holds in the first few minutes. The deadlift superplex was basically amazing. I just think the first fall was so poorly paced that it was a shame. Other than that, Rusev was really good tonight, the Bellas match was a nifty little match, and everything else was mediocre-to-terrible, especially Cena and Orton having a finisher kickout-fest where the first twenty minutes were pointless so the last six could be finisher finisher finisher finisher ad nauseam. I really hated it, actually.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Ziggler/Cesaro 2/3 falls will be the best match because the crowd will be into Ziggler, so Cesaro's nearfalls will get some good reactions, and because Ziggler might kill himself bouncing around for Cesaro's power moves and European uppercuts. I just hope they don't rush through the first two falls to get to the third like often happens in WWE-style matches of this type and that the first two falls set up a progression that leads to a logical finish in the third fall, like your typical 2/3 falls match from Portland.

Neville seems like a guy who would be a solid FIP and a very good hot tag who bounces around the ring landing kicks and flipping onto people. He screams "half of a fun-to-watch high-flying tag team."

It seems that the real animosity here isn't Punk fans being mad at Punk for retiring, but more animosity for Punk fans and Punk detractors depending on from what viewpoint the poster is coming.

Not for anything, but using "lots of four-star matches per Meltzer" does nothing as an argument for me. I'm pretty sure I have quite divergent preferences about what I like to see in wrestling compared to Meltzer, the best examples being his opinion of lots of WWF '80s wrestlers and their workrates, and his deep love of current-day NJPW, which I like quite a bit, but not nearly as much as he does. I do agree that Punk was the first of those early '00s indy darlings to get over, but I'm not sure that he's a prototype of anything in particular. The indy wrestlers that get over are going to be the ones that can do it working WWE style. It would be fair to give Punk credit for being able to adapt and work that style in a way that got him over, though.

Well, for the refs sake, I hope it was figurative, since he removed a piece of whatever it was from the ring... but if it wasn't an actual shitting, I want to know why I remember a green slimey wet spot on the back of his trunks... or maybe it was on the mat somewhere. Either way I definitely remember a green wet spot somewhere. If that's poop, I want to get Punk in touch with the woman who hosts that BBC show "You Are What You Eat," because that thing looks unhealthily flat.

I keep waiting for WWE to lose a lawsuit like this or the independent contractor one: http://portlandtribune.com/pt/9-news/238233-104497-billy-jack-haynes-wrestles-wwe-into-federal-court Here's a list of moves the lawsuit explicitly lists as leading to CTEs and concussions: How many of those moves that aren't already banned get reactively banned by WWE right now? Honestly, since flat-back bumping itself causes CTEs, Haynes's lawyers could have just pointed that out and been done with it right there.

Oh, you know he literally meant "figuratively" when he said that.

I just got Civilization: Beyond Earth today; I am still a huge fan and fairly regular player of Alpha Centauri, so I am pretty excited about this game, too. Has anyone played yet and got an idea of a good strategy for one's first time in? I did hear that finding techs from multiple trees to help you establish a foothold and be able to survive is much more important than immediately trying to specialize, which is not my typical play-style in 4X games like this, but which I'm looking forward to trying.

I don't have any beef against Punk at all. I do kinda hate his more stereotypical fans, who seem to fall into the archetype of jaded twenty-somethings that have to be sardonic about every little thing to show how much they "get it," and probably the worst thing about Punk's long championship reign is that those types of fans became louder and more obnoxious at shows, on message boards, and in many other places. I'm at the point where if I don't like something that much, or if I have that much to be jaded about regarding wrestling, I don't bother watching. I don't watch TNA because all I'd do is complain about it if I did. I don't watch RAW anymore because I really don't enjoy it at all, so what would be the point? The Punk fans of that type, on the other hand, seemed to shit on every non-Punk thing on RAW constantly. Maybe my perception is wrong and it's just from reading iffy wrestling websites Cageside Seats around that time, where every other article was snark about John Cena or whatever. Anyway, twenty-something stereotypical male Punk fans are probably the only people that I actually feel were ruining the fun of talking about and watching wrestling in a small, but important way with how they approached it. Punk himself, I didn't enjoy - I thought in regards to his long title reign, the Bryan matches were the only ones that were any good - but I mostly just tuned it out. I am glad he's gone, but that's because when he left, it definitively opened up a spot for someone I enjoy watching in Bryan at the top of the card. If he were still on the shows trawling the mid- to upper mid-card, I could live with it like I did before. I don't think Punk gets completely hated on around here, so I disagree with that one post that acts like there's "irrational" Punk hatred. It's more like Punk does something to be spiteful and ends up in a possibly worse place than if he had just acted reasonably, so people mock him a bit, at least with that Macho elbow anecdote. But then again, I just spent three paragraphs talking about someone I don't particularly like or enjoy so AAAAARGH that son of a bitch wins again.

I have. I'm content that he'll never wrestle again. That horrible Macho Elbow of his was destroying his hip. I'd rather the guy not need a new hip at 40 than come back and keep doing it. He's said he kept doing the elbow because smarky fans hated it. I kinda love that. I definitely love that. This moron destroyed his body to prove a non-existent point. Now he'll have to live with his hip pain, which was probably a factor in getting him to retire and thus not do anymore shitty Macho elbows. Out-spiting a spiteful dude? Today was a good day.

Yeah, Poor Itami needs Finn Balor to show up soon and save him from this rut he's already in with the crowd. I like Blake and Murphy, actually. Whichever one was getting his arm destroyed by English and Gotch was doing some pretty good shrieks of pain. I wonder if the neckbreaker combo is just an additional finish for the Villains, or if they're replacing the old one since they see the Senton Bomb as a maneuver that will keep them getting face cheers (which I think they will anyway because the gimmick is too charming to boo). Sasha's rope-to-rope slap was awesome. She is such a good heel with the cheap shots, shit-talking, and general cowardice. The match with Bayley was good, and man, did that Becky Lynch turn get a pop. Anyway, I look forward to Sasha Banks, NXT Women's Champion, and you should too. Tyler Breeze gave way too much offense to CJ Parker. I'd get if Parker got control once Mojo came out as a distraction, but Parker was killing him for most of that first part of that match. I typically find Neville to be technically proficient at his craft without being very interesting, but this was a good clash of styles as Titus played the slow, but dangerous bruiser role perfectly for Neville to alternately outwit/be caught and destroyed by. Good bumping from Neville in this match, and I also liked his ragdoll selling of the bearhug. The end of the match seemed kind of abrupt, though. Still, this was one of the better Neville matches I've seen.

I think the face divas are just fine in NXT. Bayley for young female fans is the equivalent of John Cena for young male fans. That gimmick is meant to appeal to girls in the crowd. I don't see how that is creepy in any way. I suspect that since HHH has young daughters, this affects the sort of gimmicks that some of the women in NXT - Bayley and Alexa Bliss specifically - have right now. To be totally fair, Becky Lynch is a face and is working a Lita tribute gimmick, which isn't focused on younger girls necessarily. I like the idea of wrestling as a big tent affair that has something for everyone, so I'm encouraged that NXT is actually acknowledging that young girls might have interests that they should represent through their characters. I think it's weird that Vince has this idea of WWE as a variety show, but there's very little variety really in terms of trying to attract different demographics.

Re: Punk, actually now that I think about it for a sec, I'm sure that part of what he's using this free time for is to try and figure out how to alter his IP address to get around his banning from DVDVR as FSW. Re: Bayley, I have a lot of dumb ideas, so this may well be one of them, but I am convinced they can make some good money with her on the main roster if they just run her as the really nice, slightly naive girl who gets bullied by the mean girls of the locker. Maybe Nikki Bella and Charlotte form a clique that tortures her, and then they have a hair-vs-hair match that Bayley loses through hijinks. The rage of crying pre-teen girls in the crowd that would occur when Charlotte and Nikki forcibly hold Bayley down and shave her head would create a giant vortex of anger in the arena. Plus, Paige could go back to being the Anti-Diva again and take Bayley under her wing and help her regain her confidence and vanquish her enemies. I'm pretty sure this angle would be a massive success, but I'm probably wrong.

I still have Punk fatigue. I never thought he was that good in the first place, and now that's he's gone, I'm enjoying the break from him even more than he's enjoying the break from us. I guess Jericho thought they were buds, but they weren't really. Meh, whatever. I can't think of a person that would probably be less fun to hang out with than Punk anyway, dude. Make more friends. In the meantime, Punk is probably watching hockey games and playing PS4 all day. Wish I could do that for a month or two. I'd get bored at some point, but until then...yeah.

True. They are showcasing the old school grappler-style guys now like Thatcher and Busick, right? Poor example on my part, though my point about why that sort of deathmatch wrestling has an audience still stands.

One of the things that I'm watching right now the Clash in January of 1996, and Brian Pillman grabbing an irate Bobby Heenan, who drops a "THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" as he tries to protect his surgically-repaired neck, was pretty great television. Poor Heenan. That one moment, where you could see Heenan was utterly pissed, actually convinced me in the moment that Pillman might do just about anything. Then, Schiavone goes on to say that Benoit, the other new member of the Horsemen, would never do anything as crazy as Pillman. Harsh in hindsight indeed. I had to stop watching after that, but I do note that Pillman came down to the ring with a pimp cane for his match with Eddie Guerrero, and he hid it under the ring apron before wrestling Guerrero and scaring the crap out of Heenan. I was waiting for it to be used for the finish, but that didn't happen, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it gets used as a Chekhov's Gun later in the show.

That's what deathmatch wrestling is like for me now. We all know it's a con. We know all the spots are contrived. So when I sit here and watch these guys put needles through their cheeks or Takeda take that ridiculous over the top rope power bomb through glass onto the floor it's like... why? Because there's a market for torture porn, which explains something like CZW still existing.

Yeah, Bo Dallas getting confused and looping back around in a circle right to where the guards already were was some great physical comedy. I wrongfully forgot about that one.

Tyson Kidd is my worker of the year, but honestly, I don't think I'd put any of his matches in my top ten. That Zayn/Kidd match Gregg just mentioned that I don't remember the date of is really quite good and would probably be the best Kidd match I've seen in 2014. Kidd was just consistently awesome in every way and has come into his own as a overconfident heel. Plus, his celebration after winning a tag match by pushing Zayn into Nattie followed by his abrupt switch to a totally bullshit concerned face was maybe the funniest thing I've seen on WWE television this year. That and him leaving the Fatal Fourway interview before Takeover II by saying that he was going to check on his cats and then telling everyone "God Bless" angrily as they tried to fire back at him were the best. RE: That lumberjack match, I really hated it on the first viewing. I might watch it again at some point, but as someone who believes that the point of a lumberjack match is sullied when half the match takes place outside of the ring, I'll probably not be too big a fan of it. I know, the point was that not even lumberjacks could contain Ambrose's special brand of combined hatred and craziness, but it didn't work at all for me.

I agree in principle, but I think they might be moving that way on NXT, where it doesn't hurt to see how she works as a face. She comes off as naturally snotty, though, so she definitely makes a better tweener or heel. I guess since we're talking about the women coming up through NXT and wrestling on the main shows right now, I'll ask as a side question which women's matches of the year, if any, would make all y'alls top tens for WWE matches in 2014