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Wrestlemania XXXI - The Greatest Show Ever


Big Fresh

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Wrestling is a soap opera. And soap operas and serials throughout time have interlapping stories. One saga ends and immediately becomes another.

My favorite matches are the ones that do that interplay really well. One of the best examples of this is the Raven/Richards vs. Pitbulls match in ECW. Say what you want about how well ECW holds up, but the story of this match was just amazing. Raven and his flunky initially set out to defend the titles against the new bad asses. But then Raven tries to cheat his way to victory by knocking out the ref (with a poisoned rag!), and all hell breaks out. It ends with Tommy Dreamer coming out to settle the score, Big Dick Dudley using a chokeslam, Bill Alfonso lifting the ban on the chokeslam, and 911 finally spiking Alfonso's head off the mat and the Pitbulls taking the straps.

That's like four storylines told in one match.

One of my favorite matches of the past few years was the Raw where The Dust Brothers took the titles from The Shield. The Rhodes boys had been tormented by The Authority for months. So was The Big Show, who was forced to punch out one of his heroes in Dusty Rhodes to save his career. And The Authority's ultimate beef was with Daniel Bryan and the YES! Movement. This match ends with the recently freed Big Show slugging one of The Shield (I think Roman?), leading to Dustin and Cody winning the straps and the crowd all doing the YES! chant.

The Reigns/Lesnar match didn't have THAT many stories told at once. But that's what good run-ins do: They overlap different stories. The Beast Lesnar took on the insurgent new hero who everyone doubts. Roman made yet another comeback for the ages and the score was even.

But the story of the past few months was Seth Rollins' slow plot towards grabbing the title and power. He engineered The Shield's rise and cut their throats at the right opportunity. And he then wormed his way to becoming The Authority's man, jettisoned Orton from that position, and struck at the exact right time -- and like what someone said earlier, he tried the same sort of thing against Lesnar before but messed up the timing. This time, he figured out the puzzle and did it on the biggest possible stage.

So the Rollins story of FY 2015 (his ascent to the undeserved top position) was the one that was finished. And it was told really friggin' well over the course of the past year. It maybe wasn't the masterpiece of Daniel Bryan last year, but it's really close. It's sort of like Marlo in Season 3 of The Wire, doing everything he can to wear the crown.

It took a sleazy run-in to do that, but that's the point of the whole story.

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Has WWE always used the same archetypes for their wrestlers and I never noticed?

 

Rollins = Edge the opportunist who only wins when the odds are stacked super high in his favor

Reigns = Cena, the superman who almost never loses

Wyatt = Undertaker, the supernatural creepy dude who doesn't care about titles

Ambrose = Foley, the unstable wildman who is strangely loveable but loses more then he wins

Bryan = Steamboat, the superb technical wrestler who is just outside the top title picture

 

Those are all pretty basic character models that have been around forever. If you take any given year, you can probably find guys occupying those roles, or ones that are similar. In the last 10-15 years or so, several guys have been each role (also don't forget another common one, the monster).

 

Opportunist/Sleazebag: Rollins, Punk, Edge, JBL, HHH (early)

Superman: Cena, HHH (later), Lesnar, Rock, Austin

Supernatural: Wyatt, Kane, Taker, Boogeyman

Unstable: Ambrose, Jeff Hardy, Orton, Flair, Foley

Technical: Bryan, Michaels, Mysterio, Angle, Guerrero, Benoit

Monster: Lesnar, Show, Henry, Kane, Umaga, Khali

 

It's not just WWE either, you could probably pick any year out of the hat for any promotion and fill in the blanks, like let's say 1995 WCW

 

Opportunist/Sleazebag: Flair, DDP

Superman: Hogan, Sting

Supernatural: Sullivan and friends

Unstable: Savage, Pillman

Technical: Anderson, Guerrero

Monster: Vader, Giant

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Has WWE always used the same archetypes for their wrestlers and I never noticed?

 

Rollins = Edge the opportunist who only wins when the odds are stacked super high in his favor

= Heel Savage = Piper etc.

 

Reigns = Cena, the superman who almost never loses

Hogan, Warrior, Diesel

 

Wyatt = Undertaker, the supernatural creepy dude who doesn't care about titles

You could maybe throw in Papa Shango as a precursor, but really Taker's in kind of a class by himself, there.

 

Ambrose = Foley, the unstable wildman who is strangely loveable but loses more then he wins

Face Piper, Snuka...

 

Bryan = Steamboat, the superb technical wrestler who is just outside the top title picture

Backlund, Zbyzsko.

Nothing new under the sun.

EDIT: Beat me by seconds, you bastard. I find it funny that the only example we had in common was Hogan-as-superman, but yeah, that further proves the point.

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A match between two wrestlers is supposed to prove which of those two is the better wrestler.  We were going to see a Lesnar-Reigns match, and after that finish, we still don't know who would win a Lesnar-Reigns match.  That's why someone would have a problem with it IMO.

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A match between two wrestlers is supposed to prove which of those two is the better wrestler.  We were going to see a Lesnar-Reigns match, and after that finish, we still don't know who would win a Lesnar-Reigns match.  That's why someone would have a problem with it IMO.

 

That's why it's so brilliant. You split one match no one was really excited about into at least two matches that have intrigue down the road. And all the heat for the delay falls on the top heel(s) in the company, as it should.

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Bray should have went over for reasons that have little to do with Bray (even though I still love him).

 

 

Why? What are the reasons? I'm only recently back into this but Bray doesn't seem that interesting to me.  And his matches don't seem to flow that well either for me personally. 

 

 

I don't think Bray should have won because I don't know what the plan for Taker is at 32 (though I would have loved a "losing streak at Mania" angle), but Bray could have gone over in a different way.  The whole thing was amped as a Bray taking the mantle of head honcho supernatural wrestler dude from Taker.  He could have lost the match and then, say, handed Bray the urn or drawn the symbol on Bray's foreheard with dust from it.  Or done some really silly shit where for Taker to beat him, he had to somehow give over to Bray the ability to, uh...walk really slow to the ring and occasionally summon lightning by kneeling before the rocking chair.  Or something.  It wasn't a very good match, and I don't think it would have hurt the quality of it too much if a little hammy comic book stuff was thrown in at the end. 

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A match between two wrestlers is supposed to prove which of those two is the better wrestler.  We were going to see a Lesnar-Reigns match, and after that finish, we still don't know who would win a Lesnar-Reigns match.  That's why someone would have a problem with it IMO.

 

That's why it's so brilliant. You split one match no one was really excited about into at least two matches that have intrigue down the road. And all the heat for the delay falls on the top heel(s) in the company, as it should.

This. If the match "proved Reigns was the better wrestler", everyone would reject said proof and boo the shit out of it. If Lesnar won, then that big push for Reigns was at least half-wasted. Rollins cashing in was a much better option.

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Sure, it puts them in a better spot for long-term booking, but it made that match worse.  Agree to disagree, I guess.  The replies sound like people weren't interested in the match or thought it was such a lose-lose situation that they wished it wasn't happening.  If the idea of the match turned you off, then I can understand why you'd be fine with that finish.

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Bray should have went over for reasons that have little to do with Bray (even though I still love him).

Why? What are the reasons? I'm only recently back into this but Bray doesn't seem that interesting to me. And his matches don't seem to flow that well either for me personally.

Because I love his promos and I love his matches. No reason to overcomplicate things.

Though they fucked up big time by getting rid of the Family.

 

I feel like Big Fresh and I are a serious minority around these parts. I dig the shit out of Bray. I think the issues I've had with him have been more the fault of the booking and less some sort of deficiency on his part.

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Sure, it puts them in a better spot for long-term booking, but it made that match worse.  Agree to disagree, I guess.  The replies sound like people weren't interested in the match or thought it was such a lose-lose situation that they wished it wasn't happening.  If the idea of the match turned you off, then I can understand why you'd be fine with that finish.

 

That's what it comes down to.  Many assumed it would be a bad match, that Lesnar and Reigns wouldn't find a way to build it and add the right amount of psychology.  Several tried to say that the match would likely be very good as long both men stuck to their strengths.  But the naysayers weren't having it.  Well, what do we know--it wasn't just a good match.  It was a great match.

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Sure, it puts them in a better spot for long-term booking, but it made that match worse.  Agree to disagree, I guess.  The replies sound like people weren't interested in the match or thought it was such a lose-lose situation that they wished it wasn't happening.  If the idea of the match turned you off, then I can understand why you'd be fine with that finish.

 

That's what it comes down to.  Many assumed it would be a bad match, that Lesnar and Reigns wouldn't find a way to build it and add the right amount of psychology.  Several tried to say that the match would likely be very good as long both men stuck to their strengths.  But the naysayers weren't having it.  Well, what do we know--it wasn't just a good match.  It was a great match.

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Speaking of Bray, I absolutely loved the zombie scarecrow entrance.

 

All other entrances were destined to be overshadowed by Rusev on a motherfucking TANK~! but yeah I really liked it too.

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Sure, it puts them in a better spot for long-term booking, but it made that match worse.  Agree to disagree, I guess.  The replies sound like people weren't interested in the match or thought it was such a lose-lose situation that they wished it wasn't happening.  If the idea of the match turned you off, then I can understand why you'd be fine with that finish.

 

That's what it comes down to.  Many assumed it would be a bad match, that Lesnar and Reigns wouldn't find a way to build it and add the right amount of psychology.  Several tried to say that the match would likely be very good as long both men stuck to their strengths.  But the naysayers weren't having it.  Well, what do we know--it wasn't just a good match.  It was a great match.

 

 

yes

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If Brock had 5'ed and pinned Rollins, it would be the best finish ever. As it is that was a really stupid plan. 

He could have easily been crushed by Brock or Reigns and lost his shot. I think Rollins is more Peggy Hill than Edge.

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I think this highlighted for me the need for Cena to get another finisher. The AA nee FU was a response to Brock fucking MC Cena up, what, 10 years ago or some shit, and Cena coming back with a move similar to the F-5, that he named after a rap lyric?

I miss heel rapper Cena.

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