Tables, Ladders, and Chairs VII

[pipGofern]

If you want until Summerslam to finally pull the trigger on Reigns as a champion, you really to be extremely creative to keep him interesting in that 3 or 4 months between WM and Summerslam.   something I don't really trust with this company

 

Besides are we now assuming that the Rock isn't going to be at WM because the plan from the beginning was Triple H vs Rock this year.  Also if you want Cena to be the champion then now you are stuck with nothing for Taker because I thought the plan was Cena vs Taker

 

This idea that you can drag the Reigns title run forever and it won't kill him is just baffling to me.   

 

Taker is a nostalgia act at this point. Him vs Cena would've been money if the Streak was still a thing but now people just want to see him have a cool ass entrance, do his signature spots, and then Tombstone a mofo. Not saying him vs Cena wouldn't hold interest since it's a fresh match-up of two legends but you don't really have to "have something for him" because people will be excited to see him whether he's with Cena, Sting, Bray, Strohman or Owens.

 

The only reason Cena-Roman (or HHH-Roman) make the most sense is if you want this Mania to be the "passing of the torch" to the leader of the next generation, you don't want him booed out of the building which will happen against Brock. Roman will probably be cheered against Cena and will definitely be a huge face against Hunter.

 

I agree though that the idea of holding off Roman until next year's SS is crazy talk. He either wins the belt at Mania or has a successful defense against a legend. Strapping the rocket to him now is their only option because they literally have no other alternatives.

[Casey]

Kevin Owens versus The Undertaker is a thing I didn't know I wanted until just now.

[Phantom Lord]

Sasha/Becky was great. But oh my GOD...Who cuts to a commercial on a freeview broadcast but only the WWE. It ruined the flow of the match as if Cole not knowing anything about Sasha didn't help. Poor Becky being the dopey face needs to end.

 

Woods was constantly cracking me up. The best line was "This is no dq" and then he lawn darts the trombone into Kalisto's back (or was it Sin Cara...ehh). Anyway that right there was pure genius. A couple mins earlier the match I thought Kofi was KO'ed when he got drilled face first into the ladder. That match was really good.

 

Rusev won. Good.

 

Del Rio/Swagger with Chairs was a dumb match. The chair match it self is just a dumb match. Just match it a street fight or something. I was hoping Zeb would roll on out but that wasn't to be. I think Alberto tweeked his leg when he did the double stomp when he slipped after landing on those chairs. This whole PPV concept is ripe for disaster.

 

Team ECW vs. The Wyatts. Well, at least the Wyatts won. Can we finally let ECW finally die and stop reviving the corpse? Was fun to tease a fire spot on a show sponsored by kay jewlers and toys r us though.

 

Owens/Ambrose was great. I was kinda hoping Owens would pull it off but Ambrose should be a good champion. I just hope they keep them two feuding.

 

Charlotte/Paige was such a weird match. It's like they are trying to kill the division. It's great they want Charlotte to be a heel, but not cool that they want to her to be Ric Flair Jr. It sucks that Reid died. But that doesn't mean she has to fill his place in Ric's life. Charlotte is so much better as a heel though so this will be better for her in the long run. Just hate to see Becky be all "why you gotta cheat so much". Live the life up Becky. Go party with Charlotte and Nai'ch.

 

The TLC main event was a lot better than it had any right to be. They just beat the shit out of each other. I'll hand it to Roman. He was not over with this crowd. Roman is not suited for these high intensity matches though. He was gassed by the end. I figured the League would get involved. Poor Wade Barret. He can't even be part of a beatdown. Did he piss someone off? I'm glad Sheamus retained. I honestly didn't want to see Roman win (regardless of if he's pegged to go number one at the Rumble or not).

 

Post match went from okay let Roman have a moment to Jesus talk about overkill. Yeah it got the crowd back on his side, but it also felt like if he were a heel we would have been watching one of the Russian's beating down poor old Bill Watts. I'm sure at this point in Triple H's career he sees himself as Watts anyway. I wonder if he's pissed out of his window from Titan Tower. But yeah that beatdown on him started bordering on hard to watch. It was inching towards the one with Bret and Vince at Wrestlemania where Bret just kept beating the fuck out of him after he was all ready dead. There was a picture on WWE.com of Triple H being stretchered out in full neck brace and stuff so one would assume he probably will be at least off RAW tomorrow night.

 

It got the crowd back on Roman's side. Rumor has it they want to change Roman's look because the whole tatical gear thing is too controversial with all that's going on in the world. It wasn't a conincidence that they called Roman a savage beast more than a few times during this.

[Hollywood Cibernetico]

Sheamus and Reigns are NOT the guys that should be upfront in WWE at this point-in-time. That whole fucking mainevent was HEATLESS. Even when Reigns speared 3 guys at once, there was barely any heat for THAT. This was not a good night for babyfaces, as Ryback looked like a dick yet again (falling for the same act for a 3rd time), Reigns was getting NO crowd support, and The Universe (oh god) couldn't really care about The Usos. The sad thing is all of this can be fixed so easily.

 

The one interesting thing about Reigns is that he always MAKES people care when he is being a bad ass. The Reigns/Lesnar match actually got people into Reigns once we saw he wasn't pussying out of his beating and was actually fighting it and standing toe-to-toe with Lesnar. The same thing happened tonight. Once Reigns began showing some edge, the crowd started warming up to him. However, how meta was the 'Thank You Roman' chants? We have to be careful and not assume that SMARK crowd Boston was cheering the heel and NOT cheering the fact that the character of HHH/The Authority will not be on TV for some time. Again, I have never booked pro-wrestling, but it seems so easy to fix all of this,but I guess Vince and company wants 100,000 people sitting on their hands while Reigns holds up the gold (after a quest no one was invested in) after his WM mainevent match.

[SirSmUgly]

My viewpoint on Reigns is just so weird. I think he's a good wrestler. I think that he is likable, generally speaking. However, I am completely ambivalent about him. I have pretty much no interest in him whatsoever. He comes down the stairs and hops the barricade and I don't care. Then he has a great match, but I don't care about the ending. He wins, I don't care. He loses, I don't care.

 

I feel like I should like him or love him or hate him, but I can't even gin up anything beyond "This guy has solid 3-4 star outings on PPV every time I see him" as a thought or feeling about him. 

 

Even guys like Diesel, who I think is his closest comp in terms of push-to-crowd-acceptance ratio, I could find a way to be interested in as a kid and again on my '95 WWE re-watch. And there was nothing compelling about face Diesel. 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Have him cheat to beat Taker at Mania, turn heel, spend the summer pointing out that this puts him on the same level as Lesnar/that Lesnar couldn't beat him at Mania. Re-do the Killer Khan/Andre angle with Lesnar somewhere in between Reigns running through everyone building up to Lesnar/Reigns 2 at Summerslam.

[Jenalysis]

I really can't see how Xavier Woods is not a WWE personality for another 20 years.   Even if his wrestling career fizzles out (which it shouldn't) he is so smart and witty that he can be a commentator, a writer for the company, or something else.  

 

I could see him ending up "graduating" from WWE the way Stacy Kiebler and the Rock did.   He's too good for this crappy company.

[goc]

Roman Reigns being the guy who finally gets rid of The Authority would go a long way to getting him where they want him to be. God forbid we lose our heel authority figure trope though, surely it's still got a lot of life left in it after the last 18 years.

[RIPPA]

I loved giving Big E power spots during the ladder match. 

 

Bad News Barrett as basically the preshow member of League of Nation makes me giggle

 

And I know they don't care about this but there are 8 working members of the Divas division right now and only one face and she is an idiot. (Heck - if you just expanded it to women on the roster - it's 12 and there is still only one face)

[Jamal]

I also enjoyed Paige/Charlotte but I do agree that the storyline is a mess. The best thing to come out of it is Charlotte going full heel as she plays that role much better than a face. Paige looked really good last night and that DDT she took looked nasty.

I must be in the minority because I like Team BAD and their antics. Poor Becky. At least she is starting to develop a personality even if it is screwed over babyface lol

That tag title match was insane. All men involved need raises lol

[Kyuubi]

I find it amusing that anyone cares enough to be angry anymore.

Me too. I just compensate by waiting for Lucha Underground and watching every recommended match on WWE and NJPW. Speaking of which, so what was a good match in this PPV?

[AxB]

Lawler & JBL were taking it in turns to ruin matches, except on the pre-show where Cole was doing a "Guy who's too cool to watch Wrestling" gimmick. Should have let New Day call the whole show.

 

They've never done the Heel Takeover gimmick on RAW, have they? They did NWO Nitro, they did Main Event Mafia takeover Impact (Black Snow and Chet Lemon were the best commentary team in promotion history), but they've never done a RAW where heel replaced the whole commentary team - closest thing is the alliance forcing JR to accept Paul E as co-commentator. 

 

In TNA, Team 3-D were the most dominant Tag Team in Wrestling history. In WWE, they're just the most dominant Tag Team in ECW history. And they actually aren't, if you think about it. They weren't as significant in company history as Public Enemy, and they were in WWF by the time ECW was at it's most visible and the Impact Players were the top tag act.

[The Nature Boy]

Lawler & JBL were taking it in turns to ruin matches, except on the pre-show where Cole was doing a "Guy who's too cool to watch Wrestling" gimmick. Should have let New Day call the whole show.

 

They've never done the Heel Takeover gimmick on RAW, have they? They did NWO Nitro, they did Main Event Mafia takeover Impact (Black Snow and Chet Lemon were the best commentary team in promotion history), but they've never done a RAW where heel replaced the whole commentary team - closest thing is the alliance forcing JR to accept Paul E as co-commentator. 

 

In TNA, Team 3-D were the most dominant Tag Team in Wrestling history. In WWE, they're just the most dominant Tag Team in ECW history. And they actually aren't, if you think about it. They weren't as significant in company history as Public Enemy, and they were in WWF by the time ECW was at it's most visible and the Impact Players were the top tag act.

 

The Dudleys were 8 time ECW World Tag Team Champions and the company died a year and a half after they left. Were they around when ECW was at its most visible? No, but it doesn't negate the point about their dominance. 

[AxB]

You can't be that dominant if you keep losing your titles and having to win them back.

[The Nature Boy]

You can't be that dominant if you keep losing your titles and having to win them back.

 

Ric Flair says hi

 

The Public Enemy were more dominant sure, but the Dudleys were still pretty significant.

[goc]

 

You can't be that dominant if you keep losing your titles and having to win them back.

 

Ric Flair says hi

 

The Public Enemy were more dominant sure, but the Dudleys were still pretty significant.

 

And 15 time champ John Cena.

[AxB]

Dudley's 8 ECW title runs in three years is repeatedly losing the title. Flair holding a belt for over two years is dominance... and that's not the reign with the phantom switches in them. And Cena was the champion even when he didn't have the belt.

[nate]

I loathe the Dudleys' act at this point. It's almost like they're the "most dominant tag team" only because we're told they are. I'd even make the statement that Sabu and RVD were more dominant in ECW. "Most decorated," I'll give 'em that.

Apropos of nothing, I realized that I'd love to see the Briscoes vs. The Dudleys. "Terry Funk ain't wear no glasses!"

[peterien]

Every time Big E does his "Awwwwwwwwww *insert city name* dont you daaare" it instantly puts me in a good mood.

Always gets a good pop too.

[Craig H]

Alvarez on everything wrong with last night and he isn't wrong.

https://youtu.be/52Pc4Ywlb-c

I find him to be annoying and overly negative too, and perhaps this would carry more weight if he weren't always pissed about everything, but he nails this and echoes what a bunch of us were saying on here and Twitter last night.

[AxB]

I loathe the Dudleys' act at this point. It's almost like they're the "most dominant tag team" only because we're told they are. I'd even make the statement that Sabu and RVD were more dominant in ECW. "Most decorated," I'll give 'em that.

 

The way the WWE is using the Dudleys right now is probably the best they've ever been used. They're over as faces, so feed them to heels, then... feed them to more heels. Perfect.

[peterien]

Romans last words before they went off air were "Its all gonna change now", that ending and the reaction it got was something else.

Could be wrong but Sheamus keeping the title looks like Vinces idea and the beatdown then was H's.

[CSC]

They need to just go full Austin McMahon with this.  

 

We need a beer truck and Roman beating HHH with a bedpan as he recovers from his injuries in the next couple weeks.

[Patrick B.]

I was shocked that HHH fell on his sword to that extent.  That was a one-sided and (essentially) unprovoked beatdown in the name of getting Reigns over as a megaface.

[MonteCarl]

Reigns v HHH at the Rumble. HHH "punishes" Reigns by keeping him out of the Rumble itself, and thus away from a title shot at Mania. Reigns agrees with the stip that if HHH loses, The Authority is done. Reigns wins. No more Authority or heel in charge of RAW and we go back to the good old days of an invisible behind the scenes authority running the show.

 

Sheamus retains the title again at the Rumble against whomever he's put up against. Ambrose? Ziggler? Bob Holly? Whatever. The title match at the Rumble has almost always been secondary to the Rumble itself.

 

At the Feb PPV, Reigns gets another title match against Sheamus and finally wins the title and goes in to Mania as the defending champion, defending against the Rumble winner Brock Lesnar.