JULY 2019 WRESTLING TALK.

[The Natural]

12 hours ago, Doc Townsend said:

Y'all need to explain to me what you see in Luke Harper.  I'm completely not getting it.

Big guy who moves well. Looks what the gimmick is, unhinged with eyes that stare through you. Dropkick and suicide dive look really good for a man that size. Give me him over Roman easily. I naively hoped we'd get Wyatt vs. Orton vs. Harper at WrestleMania XXXIII but instead it was a God awful Wyatt/Orton match with projections on the canvas of worms and other shit.

[Execproducer]

13 minutes ago, iowanole said:

I’m not going to lie, it took a while for me to spot her.  I kept thinking “I’m pretty sure that’s Booker T”!  Then I saw her.  Oops, my bad...

Weird because she was the first one my eye was drawn to. On the other hand, I was like "Someone fucked up and put Mean Gene on there. Oh wait, that's Coach."

[iowanole]

2 minutes ago, Execproducer said:

Weird because she was the first one my eye was drawn to. On the other hand, I was like "Someone fucked up and put Mean Gene on there. Oh wait, that's Coach."

First thing I noticed was HHH working his way in there...  I mean, it’s been forever since we’ve seen him

[Casey]

9 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I am positive @Casey already saw this but just in case

Meltzer confirmed that Liv Morgan is getting a new character (and new look)

This is so stupid. Splitting up the Riott Squad was even worse, but whatever. I don't watch WWE now anyway.

[Niners Fan in CT]

So,  in short,   both RAW and SDL will continue to be exactly the same as they were prior to the Heyman and Bischoff announcement? 

[Craig H]

5 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

They did Talk Show w/ Dave Coutts, Army of Anyone w/ Richard Patrick of Filter, one STP EP w/ Chester Bennington, and the new album w/ Scott clone Jeff Gutt. 

Sorry, thank you. Girl Talk is the mash up guy. Talk Show was what I meant to say. I still have that Talk Show album too because I liked the single off of it.

[The Natural]

4 hours ago, JonnyLaw said:

 

Thank you. This also crossed my mind:

 

[Brian Fowler]

I'm not surprised at all Reigns topped it. A combination of being pushed too high too soon and horrible timing with the crowd being so into Bryan, followed by a never ending attempt to book him as an underdog instead of a badass is what killed him, not anything to do with his talent.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

6 hours ago, Craig H said:

Sorry, thank you. Girl Talk is the mash up guy. Talk Show was what I meant to say. I still have that Talk Show album too because I liked the single off of it.

If you haven't, I recommend checking out Scott's first solo album, "12 Bar Blues".

[Zakk_Sabbath]

14 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Speaking of which, the series "Intervention" is doing another six-part series about the opioid epidemic. It may or may not be called "Smackville". I remember they did a series on the Boston area's epidemic. IIRC, the new one centers around Viriginia, West Virginia, and Ohio.

Off topic, but did you see any of the ones they shot in Canada? There was one with a trans woman named Robbie who was a bruuuutal alcoholic that was really fucked up. 

12 hours ago, BobbyWhioux said:

I wonder how much money it would take to get one last batch of knockoff classics out of Jimmy Hart.

well, it's not like Vince has heard of the "Old Town Road" song anyway

I was just thinking this last weekend during Fight for the Fallen. Dustin came out to what sounded like a Jimmy Hart version of Green Day's Brain Stew

[Nice Guy Eddie]

34 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Off topic, but did you see any of the ones they shot in Canada? There was one with a trans woman named Robbie who was a bruuuutal alcoholic that was really fucked up. 

I was just thinking this last weekend during Fight for the Fallen. Dustin came out to what sounded like a Jimmy Hart version of Green Day's Brain Stew

I did see the Canadian episodes. 

[Nice Guy Eddie]

12 hours ago, BobbyWhioux said:

Velvet Revolver have found a pretty good replacement for Scott, at least.

Touché

[cwoy2j]

16 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

A t-shirt tucked into tights is a really bad look. 

There's something wrong with you.

[Eivion]

7 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

I'm not surprised at all Reigns topped it. A combination of being pushed too high too soon and horrible timing with the crowd being so into Bryan, followed by a never ending attempt to book him as an underdog instead of a badass is what killed him, not anything to do with his talent.

People forget that before the Shield broke up Reigns was the most popular guy in the group by a decent bit. He was the clear star of the group. If things you mentioned never happened he would be biggest name in WWE right now. Fuck, really just treating him like a badass regularly likely would have been enough to push through all the other bs.

[Burgundy LaRue]

7 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

I'm not surprised at all Reigns topped it. A combination of being pushed too high too soon and horrible timing with the crowd being so into Bryan, followed by a never ending attempt to book him as an underdog instead of a badass is what killed him, not anything to do with his talent.

TBF, a lot of folks questioned his talent, however silly that may seem now. You can still find some calling him an average wrestler who somehow was carried by Braun in their feud.

What we as wrestling fans should take away from Dilbert's experiment is that the wrestling circle is miniscule compared to the general population. If someone breaks out of the bubble, our opinions mean less than nothing because they're not being judged by wrestling diehards.

The Top 5 vote getters connected to the non-wrestling fans because of how they lined up with pop culture. Braun is The Hulk, Bianca is an Ariana Grande-type pop star, Roman is a Superman/Aquaman hybrid. It's what WWE picks up on when they seem them, too. 

Maybe things go wrong with booking. Wrestling fans have shown they won't forgive that even knowing it's not the talent's fault. But if they bring something to the table, they always did and eventually, that shines through.

[Craig H]

13 minutes ago, Eivion said:

People forget that before the Shield broke up Reigns was the most popular guy in the group by a decent bit. He was the clear star of the group. If things you mentioned never happened he would be biggest name in WWE right now. Fuck, really just treating him like a badass regularly likely would have been enough to push through all the other bs.

That's all I've ever wanted with Reigns. Speak less, kick more ass. I like the guy, I just hate what they did with him. Dude should have been treated like Jacob Fatu this whole time and up until the last 6 months to a year he was treated like bootleg Rock.

[Technico Support]

I remember when the Shield was first running really hot and the general consensus was, when they broke up:

Reigns will have no trouble at all because he's the kind of guy Vince likes

Ambrose might be okay because he's got charisma and can talk

Rollins is flashy in the ring but not much else, so things might not work out for him

Funny how that all worked out.

[Craig H]

It's also funny to see how thoughts about each member of the Shield changed over time. At first, Ambrose was the clear leader and star. Everyone thought he was going to be a huge deal, but after about 6 months it started becoming clear that regardless of who was the best in the group, Roman was going to get Vince's backing. And then things shifted from Ambrose to Rollins being the best in the group. Meanwhile, Roman looked shaky in singles stuff, but shined in tag matches and the thought was that he wasn't going to be able to hang on his own. It all kept shifting around, but Roman did wind up learning the ropes for singles matches and he more than holds his own now.

I can't ever recall people complaining that Roman's matches suck, it's always been about how he was booked.

[RIPPA]

As with a lot of guys - Reigns also benefited from working with really good wrestlers at the beginning 

• Goldust
• Daniel Bryan
• John Cena
• Mark Henry

And that isn't even counting veteran big men like Kane and Big Show who clearly can pass along a vast wealth of knowledge of being an effective heavyweight

If you look through his match listing from when he showed up - it is one of those rare times now where they were really smartly intentional about a guy

[Burgundy LaRue]

I think many forget that Roman didn't wrestle until 2010. So of course Rollins and Ambrose were going to be way ahead of him. But at the same time, that meant he could be molded exactly how WWE wanted without the need of breaking any habits they didn't like. It was often mentioned that he learned quickly. So combine that with him being nearly a pro-level athlete, and him being really good shouldn't have been a surprise. But for some, it was and still is in spots.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Burgundy LaRue

[SirSmUgly]

It was kinda hard to tell who was good wrestling that house style by 2016, IMO. Like, people praised Reigns/Bryan from that year, but I thought it was just a decent enough near-ME-level match in the style.

Other than Bryan, who I remember wrestling matches that felt different even in that stifling style (Bryan giving HHH maybe his best match ever at WM 30 might be the biggest example of this), Reigns didn't do that as a singles by the time I stopped watching. He did in trios matches - those Shield/Wyatt Family matches felt genuinely chaotic and dangerous in a way that WWE matches haven't felt since Austin and Foley stopped wrestling ME matches at the end of the Attitude Era), but I didn't see it from him in singles matches.

Really, I don't think any of the Shield members were able to push the boundaries of the house style in ME matches. What I'd really like to see is Reigns to wrestle in almost any other company, where I think he'd be excellent. Someone mentioned that they should have had him wrestle like Jacob Fatu does for, say, MLW, and that is dead honest truth. Can you imagine Reigns if he were this totally violent athlete with the blend of speed and power that he possesses? He'd absolutely be mega-over like he probably should be. 

[SorceressKnight]

On 7/18/2019 at 11:58 AM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I've been a fan since his indy days, but WWE had two chances to have him break away from Bray, turn face, and didn't capitalize. The fans were getting behind him when he was skeptical of Randy in the Wyatt Family. Much like Claudio, he works great as a base for small wrestlers. I said very early on that if he and Cesaro were given 20 minutes on ppv and held nothing back, they'd both be instantly over.

The problem with Harper though is that ultimately, they did try him away from Bray. Twice. He was even given the IC Title in one of them and good matches with Ziggler, and ultimately...Luke Harper just isn't interesting.

Harper's a good wrestler- but I don't even think it's that surprising Rowan is where he is and Harper isn't (Harper may be the better worker as the "big angry bodyguard" type, but Rowan is a better personality even while being that guy.)

22 hours ago, AxB said:

Growing the beard killed him. He wanted to look older, tougher and hide his weak chin. But looking young and weak was his main asset.

Also the breaking of the size barrier meant suddenly he went from being the WWF's best movez~! guy* in 1993/94 (before the Monday Night Wars, anyway) to being a mediocre skinny guy after the InVasion. And that Cornette RAW promo where he said Waltman was the only guy in the war who was allowed to leave one side and join the other no problem, a few months before Syxx-Pac was allowed to leave the other side and rejoin the first one No problem.

* Except Owen Hart.

Even with Waltman, it was hard to say the beard alone killed him, since Billy Kidman looked enough like "young and weak" that he basically took Waltman's place as the "young and weak movez~! guy in wrestling.

Waltman seemed to be a good case of the same problem a lot of people have in wrestling where it just boils down to "how can I miss you if you won't go away?" 

 

[AxB]

He had a strange ability to exhaust people's patience with him very quickly though. Even in his TNA run people got bored of him, and he was only there for like three weeks.

Has Jon Moxley done the rebound Lariat since he left WWE? Because he seems to have taken the nervous, hesitant, tentative Tope out of his moveset and replaced it with a faster and more committed version.

[Burgundy LaRue]

No longer needed

Edited July 20, 2019 by Burgundy LaRue

[Brian Fowler]

I think what really killed his booking was the way they kept having Bryan get beat down, and get more over.

They tried to book Roman in that exact role, fighting The Authority, getting beaten to a pulp on a near weekly basis, getting screwed over... But he's just not a natural underdog, or a sympathetic figure (well, pre-leukemia announcement, anyway) 

He's a good looking, charismatic, huge dude. The crowd doesn't feel sorry for him, and that won't ever work. Everytime that they actually let him just show up and whip ass, the crowd suddenly forgot they "hate" him and lose their minds.