If you could change the finish to any Wrestlemania match which would it be?

[Brian Fowler]

Everything fell apart, but the booking was logical enough. Brock ends the streak to make him the biggest threat/heel ever. At SummerSlam he destroys the crowd's most beloved favorite Daniel Bryan to prove he really is the most unstoppable force ever. Somewhere in there he demolishes John Cena to avenge his only unanswered loss since coming back and further cement his run as the most dominant ever.

Then Roman beats him to kickstart a brand new era. On paper, it's all good stuff.

[Craig H]

I don't know what this "Stop the Matsunaga" angle is, but I'm curious about it. 

[Jiji]

12 minutes ago, Craig H said:

I don't know what this "Stop the Matsunaga" angle is, but I'm curious about it. 

The story (clips no longer work).

Some footage.

It's awesome. Matsunaga was such a bad ass, partaking in the first Japanese deathmatch in '89 and being surly for like 20 years. I hated the scorpion death matches but other than that, he's the man. Mr. Danger > Mr. Pogo by 1000.

[Tromatagon]

Basically in Zero One, a bunch of old dudes with karate gimmicks got pissed off at a group of prettyboy young dudes moving their way up the ranks.

So the karate dudes bring in Matsunaga, who yeah, he's a death match dude NOW but he was a karate dude first.  He has the karate spirit.  Let's bring him in to karate these motherfuckers with karate.

Little by little, death match Matsunaga comes out.  He starts throwing fireballs, starts stabbing motherfuckers with spikes, puts a dude's head in a vice wrapped in barbed wire and tightens it (this sounds way cooler than it actually looked though) and just carved some prettyboys up.  When they get the upperhand, he does something fucked up to beat them.  For example, one guy powerbombs him so he hits him with a huge goddamned fireball out of the pin cover.  A guy goes for a german suplex so Matsunaga takes out a spike and stabs him in the fucking arm and then starts carving it up with the spike.  He'll take the DQ loss, fuck it.  Motherfucker is crazy.

He eventually gets a death match against the toughest looking of the prettyboys, who has a MMA gimmick.  He lasts pretty long, even using a BARBED WIRE WRAPPED MMA GLOVE against Matsunaga, but Matsunaga wins, and then tries to murder the guy buy hanging him with a chain.

Matsunaga's old karate buddies freak out and try to stop this and he murders them too.  He's just fucking killing everyone and stabbing them and leaving blood all over the fucking place.

Here's a video recapping all that:

 

So this sets up a death match against Yoshihito Sasaki, this little prettyboy bitch that looks like he'll last about two seconds against a real man like Matsunaga.  He looks scared shitless to even be in there.  This is a barbed wire double hell deathmatch and Matsunaga carves the little fucker up, but he has fighting spirit.  He goes to German suplex Matsunaga, who pulls out a GIANT FUCKING SPIKE and tries to stab him in the arm, but the dude lets go and 

MATSUNAGA STABS HIMSELF IN THE GUTS

Sasaki then hits him with a spicy drop onto one of the piles of wood and barbed wire they had outside the ring, and pins him.  As he celebrates, Matsunaga wanders through the crowd holding his stomach as it gushes blood.

This is that match:

 

[Spritenaut 32]

Edit: Beaten to it.  Twice.

Anyway, Stop the Matsunaga was a great angle.  

[Jiji]

It's so weird looking back and seeing Kohei Sato being called a young pretty boy.

"What'd you call me?"

"That's what I thought."

It would appear Matsunaga really won in the end.

[Tromatagon]

Well Matsunaga basically did that to his face

[Craig H]

Jesus Christ.

[Jiji]

Japan, man.

[Jiji]

Reading Dean's review of this makes it seem like a take on the Godzilla arc in that he was a monster created haphazardly by man, set on a rampage of wanton destruction, only to more or less succumb to his own lust for destruction (falling into a volcano or some such banana slip they used in the later years when Godzilla was evil again). 

Also, I really do want to go to Mr. Danger's steakhouse. I will feel incomplete until the day that happens.

[Craig H]

That angle does sound cool as fuck and if anything would get Undertaker over, it's that. The problem with WWE is that Vince has largely killed the audience to the point where there's only a handful of dudes that anyone gives a shit about. Daniel Bryan was one of those guys. I guess the New Day fit that now. The idea of someone that the audience cares about needing the Undertaker's help sounds cool though.

So basically someone knows the risks when summoning the Undertaker, but they do so anyway. Undertaker comes in and becomes more and more of a handful until he starts fucking up the dude who brought the Undertaker back. Something like that?

[Tromatagon]

Yeah, and everyone else.  I guess the key is the person responsible for bringing him in is NOT the one that gets redemption in the end and just gets extremely fucked up.  Yoshihito Sasaki was the perfect final girl in a slasher movie sense.  

Problem with Taker is you'd need him around for months actually fucking people up.

I'd rather go to Mr. Danger's Steakhouse than Ribera, but there's three of them; you gotta figure out which one he's actually working in, because he does legit work in one of them and you can meet him if you go there.

[Uncle Coaster]

9 hours ago, Marty Sugar said:

Muraco wins the WM4 Tournament. Fuck all the haters.

No joke I was going to come out of lurking just to post the exact same thing (except I’m not a potty mouth). 

 

[Curt McGirt]

STOP THE MATSUNAGA was written up so well by Dean and Raven that the matches almost couldn't compare. Then I watched them. DAMN. When you realize Matsunaga is actually wearing fangs...

[PetrolCB]

Bossman beats Perfect at VII and wins the IC belt. And yeah, I know that could rob us of Bret/Curt at The SummerSlam, but he could’ve easily dropped it back before. 

[Curt McGirt]

16 hours ago, Victator said:

I once had a dream I was watching Wrestlemania 3 and Savage did hit Steamboat with the bell and win. George Steele goes berserk and breaks Savage's neck and goes on a rampage. 

I'd settle for just having no George Steele and letting Steamboat win clean as a sheet. It wasn't that hard but no, we gotta give the gimmick guy a payday

[PetrolCB]

55 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

I'd settle for just having no George Steele and letting Steamboat win clean as a sheet. It wasn't that hard but no, we gotta give the gimmick guy a payday

Thank you. I fucking hate that Steele was there for this. I know, I know. But come on......Steele!? Goddamn it. 

[Craig H]

1 hour ago, PetrolCB said:

Bossman beats Perfect at VII and wins the IC belt. And yeah, I know that could rob us of Bret/Curt at The SummerSlam, but he could’ve easily dropped it back before. 

Or we could have had Bossman vs Bret. Shit, did they ever meet up in singles action? They surely didn't have a program. They obviously did the Twin Towers vs Hart Foundation, but I just don't ever recall Bossman vs Bret.

[cwoy2j]

multiple post

[cwoy2j]

multiple post please delete.

[cwoy2j]

multiple post please delete.

[cwoy2j]

4 hours ago, MORELOCK said:

I know it's fun around these parts to revise history, but calling the end of the streak underwhelming is ridiculous - it stunned the entire fanbase. The angle was fine, they just didn't bother to have anyone beat Brock to capitalize on it. 

It was shocking that it happened but the manner in which it happened was pretty underwhelming. It wasn't the culmination of a heated feud or an epic match. It was in a throwaway midcard match. It was a stunning result but I'm guessing a lot of people felt it should've happened in more grandiose fashion.

[MORELOCK]

22 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

It was shocking that it happened but the manner in which it happened was pretty underwhelming. It wasn't the culmination of a heated feud or an epic match. It was in a throwaway midcard match. It was a stunning result but I'm guessing a lot of people felt it should've happened in more grandiose fashion.

It was in the semi-main event of WrestleMania. The only way to have made it more high profile would have been to make it the main event, which would have telegraphed the finish. The whole point was that it was supposed to be shocking, and it was very successful in that regard. If you don't like how it went down, fine, but saying "a lot of people" think it was underwhelming is inaccurate.

[cwoy2j]

3 minutes ago, MORELOCK said:

It was in the semi-main event of WrestleMania. The only way to have made it more high profile would have been to make it the main event, which would have telegraphed the finish. The whole point was that it was supposed to be shocking, and it was very successful in that regard. If you don't like how it went down, fine, but saying "a lot of people" think it was underwhelming is inaccurate.

I guess maybe I'm just talking anecdotally b/c people I watched it with and know were all pretty much like, "huh? That's how they ended The Streak? That's it?"

[Beech27]

I wouldn’t call it underwhelming, but leaving the arena that night, and walking around/attending Raw the next day, people were celebrating Bryan’s win way, way more than lamenting the streak’s demise. Maybe that was the point—send the fans home happy, etc.—but I can see how someone might conclude it should have been THE biggest thing on whatever show it was on.