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Backlash XII


Dolfan in NYC

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13 hours ago, Greggulator said:

 But I think it's time people started to come back around on Ziggler. He's really great at selling and comebacks and making others look good in losing. 

 

Dolph Ziggler is great at exactly zero of the things you listed. 

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The monitors/gorilla/entrance change from Raw to Smackdown, and I was HOPING they'd change configurations for PPVs too.  The set up they had for Smackdown after Summerslam was great, with the really interesting split "bubble walls" on either side of the 3 sided "Titantron"

Raw's configuration, with the new "widescreen tron" is nice, and of course the Summerslam config was probably the best thing they've done the past 3-4 years )including WM sets)  Last week they brought back the old grey bar lighting rig that was on the 1st generation HD stage setup, and shrunk down Smackdown's overall stage configuration, while bringing in the multi monitor setup they use on Raw in place of the split bubble walls.  Very disappointing, but I can see how it helps with load-in/load-out times.

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Really dug the women's six pack thing. My wife started laughing her ass off when Carmella was just paint-brushing the shit out of Nikki. Naomi is a freak of nature. I dug the Harley Quinn look on Alexa. Becky Lynch deserves all the good things.

Thought Hype Bros/Usos was better than it should've been. Heel Usos are fantastic. 

Miz/Ziggler was the aces. I hate all this idiotic "Ziggler can't work" nonsense. Ziggler is fantastic, and I thought the Miz got a TON out of him. 

Usos/ Slater & Rhyno was REALLY fun. I can't say enough about how much I enjoy sleazy, angry Usos. The finishing stretch was as satisfying a payoff as WWE has had in 2016. Well, top 5. 

I like Ambrose more than most here, but I think his act had gotten beyond stale since he became champion. I was excited for him to win the title from Rollins, saving us from another endless run of "Captain Flippy-do", but I'm not sure his character as currently constituted is capable of carrying a brand. Also, I live 30 minutes from Gainesville, and a lot of people around here have only good things to say about AJ Styles, so I'm happy for him. I hope this gives Dean an opportunity to re-tool his character and come back strong.

 

All in all, really good show. Except the Bray thing. inexplicable.

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13 hours ago, Smelly McUgly said:

Also, the jumping superkick to the back of the knee is my favorite move in wrestling right now. It is nasty, and it should be death. I don't want to see some face fight out of a submission after being kicked with it. It either gets whiffed, or it gets the win. That's how that move should be treated. 

Dunno if I linked it right but the way the Usos hit that kick it reminds me of the dirty kick that took down Daniel at 0:09 in the best possible way.

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22 minutes ago, Overly Critical Man said:

The Miz does Daniel Bryan's moveset better than Daniel Bryan by virtue of not landing on his goddamn head anytime he leaves his feet.

 

In quite a few wrestling circles landing on your head when you leave your feet qualifies you as a great wrestler.

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1 hour ago, just drew said:

Thought Hype Bros/Usos was better than it should've been. Heel Usos are fantastic. 

I had the same thoughts last night.

Also, unrelated to that... something that irked me about Mauro's call last night.

Nattie goes for the sharpshooter, and Mauro's all "THE SHARPSHOOTER RIKI CHOSHU AEKJBDAFRAFFV~ .....Bret Hart".

I know it's nitpicky on my part. But I feel like if you're gonna namedrop somebody on a Sharphooter, in the WWE, shouldn't Bret come first?

 

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7 minutes ago, steve said:

I had the same thoughts last night.

Also, unrelated to that... something that irked me about Mauro's call last night.

Nattie goes for the sharpshooter, and Mauro's all "THE SHARPSHOOTER RIKI CHOSHU AEKJBDAFRAFFV~ .....Bret Hart".

I know it's nitpicky on my part. But I feel like if you're gonna namedrop somebody on a Sharphooter, in the WWE, shouldn't Bret come first?

 

I'm not sure they're "fantastic," but they seem to be fully embracing their heel roles, taking out of their act anything that would endear them to fans..

 

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The Miz has been one of WWE's best workers for the last seven years.  It shouldn't surprise anyone at this point.  Was The Miz a joke?  Yeah, early on he was.  But he actually learned how to work and got better at it.  Not to mention, he actually understands how to play a competent heel.

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I hope this doesn't derail the thread, but: For those arguing Miz has been an overlooked great in-ring talent for years now, what matches should I seek out? I'm not trying to argue the point exactly, but I can't recall a singles match of his I'd consider better than "pretty good", much less worth watching a second time. He was great against Ziggler--who I don't think is that bad--but I don't remember him being in anything significantly better, off the top of my head. (I've watched WWE for his entire run, so it's not for lack of viewing.)

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15 minutes ago, steve said:

I had the same thoughts last night.

Also, unrelated to that... something that irked me about Mauro's call last night.

Nattie goes for the sharpshooter, and Mauro's all "THE SHARPSHOOTER RIKI CHOSHU AEKJBDAFRAFFV~ .....Bret Hart".

I know it's nitpicky on my part. But I feel like if you're gonna namedrop somebody on a Sharphooter, in the WWE, shouldn't Bret come first?

 

To be fair - the WWE just did a video like two months ago pointing out that Choshu was doing it first and not Bret.

So it could be they are still cranky with Bret for god knows what reasons.

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7 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

I hope this doesn't derail the thread, but: For those arguing Miz has been an overlooked great in-ring talent for years now, what matches should I seek out? I'm not trying to argue the point, but I can't recall a singles match of his I considered memorably good, much less worth watching a second time. He was great against Ziggler--who I don't think is that bad--but I can't recall either guy being in anything significantly better, off the top of my head.

vs Styles (SD 2/4), vs Cesaro (SD 5/26), vs Ambrose (SD 6/30)

It's mostly been on Smackdown this year that he's gotten time and quality opponents. Since Smackdown was a very overlooked show for most of the year, I imagine most people missed a lot of his best stuff.

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2 hours ago, just drew said:

All in all, really good show. Except the Bray thing. inexplicable.

Yeah, I can't figure out why Bray is still on TV either.

(I'm assuming that is what you meant).
 

Really dug the PPV.  Had low expectations going in, but the show over-delivered.  I'm even enjoying Mojo.  He's not good, but he is fun.

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35 minutes ago, steve said:

I had the same thoughts last night.

Also, unrelated to that... something that irked me about Mauro's call last night.

Nattie goes for the sharpshooter, and Mauro's all "THE SHARPSHOOTER RIKI CHOSHU AEKJBDAFRAFFV~ .....Bret Hart".

I know it's nitpicky on my part. But I feel like if you're gonna namedrop somebody on a Sharphooter, in the WWE, shouldn't Bret come first?

 

I thought that was less egregious than Otunga making his first ever good point about Miz doing the knee stomp out of the surfboard spot to mock Bryan and Mauro stepped all over him just to say more Japanese names. He is actively more interested in saying names than he is in people getting over a narrative.

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7 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Wasn't he talking about in WWE?

I am sure he was meaning WWE but that isn't what he said - but again if we are going to nitpick who Mauro said did the Sharpshooter, I am going to nitpick that.

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14 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

I hope this doesn't derail the thread, but: For those arguing Miz has been an overlooked great in-ring talent for years now, what matches should I seek out? I'm not trying to argue the point, but I can't recall a singles match of his I considered memorably good, much less worth watching a second time. He was great against Ziggler--who I don't think is that bad--but I can't recall either guy being in anything significantly better, off the top of my head.

Yeah, I think this pretty much shuts down the "Miz is an elite in-ring worker" argument. He's a great character/promo guy that fills a very important role, but I think beyond that, people are just trying to see something that isn't there. I can't see loving Miz, then hating Ziggler who essentially fills the same role on the babyface side (good promo/passable match guy who can keep himself over enough to continually elevate higher-ceiling wrestlers), especially when Ziggler has a handful of easily-identifiable great matches to his credit (ADR at Payback 2013, Cesaro matches in 2014, the Survivor Series tag). Miz's best in-ring work has been slightly above average WWE formula matches. Would anyone really have any Miz match in a WWE top 10 in any year?

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5 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

I am sure he was meaning WWE but that isn't what he said - but again if we are going to nitpick who Mauro said did the Sharpshooter, I am going to nitpick that.

Mauro's worst call of the night was when he tried to force in a reference to the iPhone headphone jack during one of the eliminations.

Otunga is absolutely awful but I do find myself laughing at him like I would laugh at a Lord Alfred Hayes. He chimes in with nonsense and then says nothing for long periods of time.

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I used to hate Mauro Ranallo as a commentator from his days in British Columbia (and on that show Renee Young did on the Score, and on the Fight Network, and...), but have enjoyed his WWE work thus far. I feel that his incessant  name-dropping of non-WWE guys to simply prove he's smart will eventually land him in Matt Striker territory.

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33 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

I hope this doesn't derail the thread, but: For those arguing Miz has been an overlooked great in-ring talent for years now, what matches should I seek out? I'm not trying to argue the point exactly, but I can't recall a singles match of his I'd consider better than "pretty good", much less worth watching a second time. He was great against Ziggler--who I don't think is that bad--but I don't remember him being in anything significantly better, off the top of my head. (I've watched WWE for his entire run, so it's not for lack of viewing.)

He's had a bunch of fun TV matches this year, but prior to that the best stuff was the Lawler match and a bunch of US Title stuff with Morrison and Bryan. They all had really good chemistry.

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I love Mauro and Bryan trying to one-up each other with obscure references in the CWC, but it does feel a bit out of place sometimes on SD. The good definitely outweighs the bad with him, though. I like how he puts over wrestler bios, uses accurate move names, and doesn't let himself get pushed around by JBL.

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I like Mauro but the puns and references feel so forced.  I prefer his Japanese wrestler name-dropping to the pop culture stuff.  

Otunga is growing on me.  He's so earnest and straightforward that you just sigh and say "yeah that's super obvious David...but good point." 

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If you want recent: Payback this year vs Cesaro (which one can't dismiss as just "Well if that was with Cesaro" if Go2Sleep is using Ziggler's match with Cesaro as Ziggler justification)

Plus it is far harder to do what Miz is doing as a heel (which is be the non-cool heel) than it is for Ziggler to be "babyface who gets his ass kicked"

 

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