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SEPTEMBER 2017 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


The Natural

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On ‎9‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 12:34 PM, RIPPA said:

Not sure of the reasoning why the suddenly did this but the WWE put this up on their Youtube channel today

If I had to venture a guess, it's a bit of pre-emptive damage control. Between her being vocal on fans' approaching her in airports and the recent Flair book outlining professional difficulties with Charlotte prior to WM 32, they  want to cut off the "Sasha Banks is a (insert foul language here)" conversation that will inevitably arise. 

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51 minutes ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

If I had to venture a guess, it's a bit of pre-emptive damage control. Between her being vocal on fans' approaching her in airports and the recent Flair book outlining professional difficulties with Charlotte prior to WM 32, they  want to cut off the "Sasha Banks is a (insert foul language here)" conversation that will inevitably arise. 

I still need to pick up a copy, but I'm curious what professional difficulties they had prior to the match.  I figured they were close friends along with Bayley so this would be kind of a surprise.

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8 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I still need to pick up a copy, but I'm curious what professional difficulties they had prior to the match.  I figured they were close friends along with Bayley so this would be kind of a surprise.

Sasha's picking up a rep of being less than enthuiastic when she's not going over.

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No one has posted a screen cap of the page yet so I only see it via the sketchy wrestling sites who make up stuff and claim Meltzer said it but...

Apparently Sasha didn't like that Charlotte got the title (in the match against Nattie) and then when Sasha subtly started referencing her in promos and "defacing Charlotte's merch" without giving Charlotte the heads up first Charlotte got pissy.

Of course - they also had a match in NXT based on it.

AND unless someone who has read the book can verify - who knows if the book is more kayfabe or shoot (God I hate writing it that way but y'all know what I mean)

Again - SUPPOSEDLY - this isn't a new incident so take whatever you want from it

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I think the issue was decisions made to make Charlotte the focus of the Women's Revolution/4 Horsewomen from NXT and onto the main roster, though the consensus at that time was Sasha was a better wrestler/character.  Sasha appeared to sulk over perceived favoritism for Charlotte because of her lineage, and Charlotte hoped for more understanding from Sasha in choices being made out of her control.  The t-shirt flap @RIPPAmentioned was also a sore spot.

I think Charlotte was a bit sensitive to the praise Sasha was getting, and Sasha perhaps presuming because of that, she would get the stronger booking.  Everything seems good with them now and it never felt personal.  More along the lines of two competitive people wanting to be #1.

To @Raziel403's point, Sasha is getting something of a reputation as a prima donna.  Whether that's fair or right, who really knows. But perception equals reality, and even if zero of it is true, it gives Sasha's detractors ammunition to use against her.

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It would be pretty hard to blame Sasha for being upset with booking. There's pretty much a universal consensus that Charlotte is decent but Sasha is better at pretty much everything, worked harder for her spot, and took women's wrestling in WWE to previously unseen heights. She basically did everything to "grab the brass ring" Vince always talks about, but was constantly put on the back burner for someone with better connections and (I don't think it's unfair to speculate) a more WWE-standard look.

Add to that, she was only what, 23 when she came up? The harsh introduction to the "life's not fair" work force where you realize seniority and connections have way to more to do with your success than job performance at that age is hard for everyone, let alone someone who grew up with a huge chip on her shoulder.

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Sasha should be booked better, she's a competitive person, why shouldn't she believe in herself. Charlotte being booked strong as she was did look like favoritism to me. They had her going overy Sasha in all their big matches including in Boston. Now they are placing Alexa above her too. She's been treated poorly.

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The issue is that Sasha seemed to take her frustrations out with Charlotte, who at worst was the symptom and not the actual disease. Neither woman books herself.

And certainly Sasha works hard, but Charlotte is no bum.  She works hard, too, and has gotten really good.  Being the daughter of a legend carries its own burdens, especially with Ric's issues. It's a two-sided coin, and I suspect Charlotte was hoping Sasha would be more aware of that. 

No one is saying Sasha shouldn't believe in herself.  But so should Charlotte.  Everyone should.

No doubt Charlotte gets a lot based on her dad and her "traditional" looks, but that's life for you.  It's a lesson everyone learns. And, as mentioned, it's clearly not exclusive to Charlotte. Sasha isn't the first person to not get the right booking, won't be the last. Just ask her good friend Bayley. Or any supposedly non-traditionally attractive women in WWE. 

That isn't to say she shouldn't voice concerns about it, but it's not on the other talent even if they are benefitting from it.  It's the system.  But blaming the system too much gets one in trouble,  so I understand why most of us don't go there often.

I don't think either woman is wrong. They just couldn't see things from the other's perspective at the time.

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I wouldn't be so quick to make the case that Charlotte benefited from better booking.  Yeah she got to have the belt, but she also got saddled with the Seth Rollins style endless heel title run where she is working the same opponents to death month after month and somehow I'm not sick to death of her like I am Rollins.  A lot of that has to do with the simple thing that her matches are better than his psychologically and is a way better/subtler heel during matches. She deserves a lot of credit for surviving that.

 

Meanwhile I will probably never get over my disdain of Rollins from his heel title run. And I have no particular reason to think that Sasha would have survived a similar endless repeated feud run better than Charlotte did.

 

 

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The other night I rewatched Royal Rumble 92 as a tribute to Bobby Heenan.  Last night, I was looking for something to watch on Youtube and because of that, it recommended Royal Rumble 97, so I watched it.  Is it the worst Royal Rumble match ever?

It starts off with Crush and Ahmed Johnson and the crowd is fairly into it, then they proceed to bring out Fake Razor Ramon and they just die, and then Ahmed pointlessly jumps OVER the ropes to the floor to chase Faarooq away the crowd is left with this a bunch of heatless faces (Phinneas Godwinn, Bart Gunn, Jake Roberts), and an endless assortment of heels.  Also the clock doesn't work for the first 8-10 selections which totally takes the crowd out of being able to count it down.  There are so many terrible gimmicks/wrestlers (Sultan, Pierroth, Mil Mascaras), culminating in Mascaras eliminating himself by diving onto some AAA wrestlers the crowd clearly doesn't know or care about.  They plant the seeds for Owen and British Bulldog's feud, but miss Owen eliminating his brother-in-law, cutting away as it happens, then having to show the replay.  Ahmed comes back with a ten foot long board that he tries to beat up Faarooq with but the board is so comically large that it looks silly.  Then the ending kinda falls flat because you have Austin coming back in and eliminating everyone almost at once before the audience can really figure out what happened.  It's just poorly put-together, has some of the worst talent of any Rumble (the AAA guys come out to the worst WWE generic Mexican music ever and the crowd has no interest in them whatsoever), you've got so many good guys hampered with terrible gimmicks (Fatu as the Sultan, Scorpio as Flash Funk, blue-chipper Rocky Maivia, Fake Diesel, The Real Double J Jesse James), Austin just eats the first 20 guys up too, and it really doesn't get going until Hart, Terry Funk (for no reason!), Vader and Undertaker show up in the last 10.  Also, they miss A LOT of eliminations, even for WWE.  Is there a worse Rumble match?

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1999 is the worst Rumble ever.  Austin and McMahon starting out the match and then spending the vast majority of it nowhere near the ring made the whole thing a fucking joke.  The entire hour was almost complete filler.

At least 95 knew it was going to suck and they just got the whole thing over with.

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Lots of examples of worse Rumbles than 97. The AAA stuff definitely didn't work but the whole "heatless undercard people fighting randomly/terrible gimmicks everywhere/poorly done feud-building eliminations" stuff happens in basically every Rumble.

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1 hour ago, Victator said:

99 also had terrible placement, just running thru the thing from lower rung guys to main eventers. If someone was not Austin, DX or the Corporation they were a non factor. 

99 also had two or three dead spots where a guy would come in and not have anyone to fight for a minute or so. Plus you also had Michael Cole channeling Gorilla Monsoon and calling nearly 40 year old Steve Blackman a young superstar and proclaiming that Blackman had been in there a long time when he'd only been in the ring for 5 minutes.

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On 9/21/2017 at 3:46 PM, Zartan said:

I'm pretty sure Ziggler's stand up career died a mega death before it ever got started. 

That was the moment where my growing disinterest in Dolph became disdain instead

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