July 2022 Wrestling Discussion

[Tarheel Moneghetti]

As much as I think Vince overrated Jinder Mahal, I don’t think kicking the tires on his main-event push was a bad idea.  Vince was wanting to make a serious push in the India market and he happened to have a huge, jacked guy of Punjabi descent who had a good look on the roster.  It makes a lot of sense to give him a run and see what happens.  It didn’t work because Jinder has some sizable shortcomings that creative wasn’t smart enough to get around.

it would be a different story if he undercut, say, Kofi to give Jinder a push, but Orton wasn’t harmed by the loss.  And Jinder’s main-event push wasn’t that long.  He slid back down the card pretty quickly.  If nothing else, we got the Bollywood Boys as Jinder’s flunkies and they were surprisingly entertaining as crash test dummies.

I really don’t get how Charlotte Flair’s name gets into this conversation.  The feud with Ripley was a neat idea undone by the pandemic and other factors.  The other examples getting thrown around seem more a matter of personal taste.  Saying Sasha should have been the first women’s champion instead of Ric Flair’s daughter feels like it comes down to people liking Sasha and disliking Charlotte.  Becky was nowhere over as Charlotte and Sasha at the time and you could have flipped a coin between those two.  Wouldn’t make my list of the worst couple hundred booking decisions of the past 20 years.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Tarheel Moneghetti

[Niners Fan in CT]

John Cena steamrolling The Nexus was pretty bad..  maybe it's a "you had to be there" moment but I remember most of us on here going holy shit! when they stormed the ring and beat everyone up, tore the ringside area up, Bryan choking out Justin Roberts and Tarver in the crowd with the face covering.. a haunting image. 

A lot of the juice was taken away when Bryan was fired but then booking Cena to demolish them was really awful too. 

Most of us felt that was a huge missed opportunity because it's one of those angles where it clicked so well and could have led to a memorable story.

[hammerva]

3 hours ago, DreamBroken said:

Ric Flair's Last Match has been revealed:

  Reveal hidden contents

Flair & Andrade vs. Jeff Jarrett & Jay Lethal, July 31

 

More proof that Jeff Jarrett is the smartest man in wrestling.  Nobody else is working a WWE PPV and a Ric Flair "retirement" match in a matter of days

The parking lot angle is just vintage retirement Flair.  Excessive bleeding taking an unnecessary ass kicking .  Jeff yelling to Crockett how his dad hated his guts

[L_W_P]

Breaking up the SHIELD and not following through with a proper match.

Seth turns in early June.

- MITB in late June. Rollins & Moxley are in the MITB match while Roman is in a multi man for the WWE Title.
- Battleground in July Roman is again in a multi man for the title while Seth is set to face Mox. Triple H ejects Mox from the arena before the match, handing Seth a forfeit victory.
- SummerSlam Rollins beats Mox in a Lumberjack Match. Reigns defeats Orton.
- Night of Champions Seth beats Roman by forfeit as he was out for surgery.
- Hell in a Cell Seth beats Moxley in the HIAC Match. The infamous "Ghost Wyatt" finish.
- TLC Rollins is losing to Cena and Moxley is beaten by Wyatt in the main event.

By the end of 2014 all 3 members of the Shield have moved on to other things without ever settling Rollins' turn.

Edited July 19, 2022 by L_W_P

[(BP)]

Nexus in and of itself was disappointing, but that storyline also took Sheamus from a Vader-level monster heel to a coward pleading for Cena’s help. Dude’s had a great career, but that felt like a pivotal moment that was detrimental to him long term. 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

37 minutes ago, L_W_P said:

Breaking up the SHIELD and not following through with a proper match.

Seth turns in early June.

- MITB in late June. Rollins & Moxley are in the MITB match while Roman is in a multi man for the WWE Title.
- Battleground in July Roman is again in a multi man for the title while Seth is set to face Mox. Triple H ejects Mox from the arena before the match, handing Seth a forfeit victory.
- SummerSlam Rollins beats Mox in a Lumberjack Match. Reigns defeats Orton.
- Night of Champions Seth beats Roman by forfeit as he was out for surgery.
- Hell in a Cell Seth beats Moxley in the HIAC Match. The infamous "Ghost Wyatt" finish.
- TLC Rollins is losing to Cena and Moxley is beaten by Wyatt in the main event.

By the end of 2014 all 3 members of the Shield have moved on to other things without ever settling Rollins' turn.

They did do the triple threat in 2016 in fairness. Rollins injury did put paid to a few things there it seems.

[Eivion]

55 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

John Cena steamrolling The Nexus was pretty bad..  maybe it's a "you had to be there" moment but I remember most of us on here going holy shit! when they stormed the ring and beat everyone up, tore the ringside area up, Bryan choking out Justin Roberts and Tarver in the crowd with the face covering.. a haunting image. 

A lot of the juice was taken away when Bryan was fired but then booking Cena to demolish them was really awful too. 

Most of us felt that was a huge missed opportunity because it's one of those angles where it clicked so well and could have led to a memorable story.

The initial angle was amazing as it was completely unexpected and played out as a truly crazy moment. Bryan getting fired almost immediately, and the group sucking outside of Bryan in the first placed killed much of the momentum. It was still a solid angle and could have gone further had Cena not destroyed them, but it was never going to be able to live up tot he potential of that first night. I wouldn't say it was the biggest booking mistake, but its probably somewhere in the top 30, maybe 20.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Selfishly, I'm still bummed they never did Shield/Bryan vs Evolution/Kane in War Games straight after Mania 30.

I mean, yes, the Shield and Evolution 6 mans were really really good and some of the best stuff WWE has done in the last 20 years.

Kane/Bryan not so much.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Actually, that's probably the overall answer here. The steadfast refusal at any time to go along with something that catches on organically or by mistake, and instead insist on sabotaging it till they get back on track to where they wanted to go.

Zack Ryder being made to look like a total loser, Daniel Bryan and trying to give his Yes chants to the Big Show, before putting him in nowhere title programs with Kane, CM Punk and the HHH/Nash stuff, to a lesser extent, they attempted to derail Becky Lynch on several occasions after her initial turn on Charlotte to the three way at Mania (and subsequent nowhere program with Baron Corbin and Lacey after).

Plenty of NXT callups that meet this category too, where it's hammered home to the viewer that you're stupid for caring about this total loser before they disappear from TV.

 

 

[Niners Fan in CT]

This isn't really a 'booking decision' but I think that period of time between 2008-2011 where Vince was throwing absolute shit at the wall did irreparable damage to WWE. 

The guest host era of RAW was fucking atrocious. All of these mostly B and C-tier celebs promoting their bullshit that nobody cared about, fans sitting on their hands and most of the celebrities couldn't be pressed to care at all about the actual wrestling. 

Vince literally tried to bribe people to watch as well. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONAY.  Terrible programming. 

The Johnny Ace People Power or whatever the fuck they were calling it..  boring as hell. 

None of this shit had anything to do with wrestling. The mainstream era of everyone and their brother wearing nWo and Stone Cold shirts to school was long past gone. Vince really needed to cater to the rather large (at the time) hard-core fan base and try to build some new stars but instead he fed us 3+ years of absolute trash most weeks and then when he finally said 'fuck it" and let CM Punk cook he pretty quickly robbed fans of that potential as well. You can argue that things had gotten a lot better after this but to me that period of time was the nail in the coffin for a lot of people.

[matwarz]

No way around it, the parking lot angle for Flair’s last match was just tremendous work from all involved 

[username]

I think all these WWE ones are pretty bad booking decisions for the most part, but the fact no one even cares about TNA enough to mention their scores of awful booking decisions suggests that they were the ones that were actually the worst

[odessasteps]

Prob quicker to list TNA good booking decisions. 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

TNA was a good exercise in the difference between having guys who can move up and down the card seamlessly no matter what, and forcibly demoting guys as less than they were, until you need them in a more prominent role.

AJ Styles and Daniels routinely going from the main event to X-division filler in a matter of months on a few occasions is a fair example of this.

[L_W_P]

46 minutes ago, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

TNA was a good exercise in the difference between having guys who can move up and down the card seamlessly no matter what, and forcibly demoting guys as less than they were, until you need them in a more prominent role.

AJ Styles and Daniels routinely going from the main event to X-division filler in a matter of months on a few occasions is a fair example of this.

AJ Styles: Up & Comer, was his gimmick for basically his entire TNA/Impact run!

[The Natural]

3 hours ago, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

Actually, that's probably the overall answer here. The steadfast refusal at any time to go along with something that catches on organically or by mistake, and instead insist on sabotaging it till they get back on track to where they wanted to go.

Zack Ryder being made to look like a total loser, Daniel Bryan and trying to give his Yes chants to the Big Show, before putting him in nowhere title programs with Kane, CM Punk and the HHH/Nash stuff, to a lesser extent, they attempted to derail Becky Lynch on several occasions after her initial turn on Charlotte to the three way at Mania (and subsequent nowhere program with Baron Corbin and Lacey after).

Plenty of NXT callups that meet this category too, where it's hammered home to the viewer that you're stupid for caring about this total loser before they disappear from TV.

 

 

To add to those, Rusev.

[Ace]

If you extend it to 21 years, it's the Invasion. It killed the business. 

In TNA, it was the hiring of Hogan and Bischoff.

 

[Ultimo Necro]

Companion piece to “Vince McMahon is a horny old man”, is “Jim Ross is a horny old man…. On Twitter”.

Wont post it as it’s possibly NSFW but his comment on Nattie’s latest sister/bikini post is something else.

 

[L_W_P]

4 hours ago, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

They did do the triple threat in 2016 in fairness. Rollins injury did put paid to a few things there it seems.

SummerSlam should have been Rollins/Triple H v Reigns/Ambrose.

[Kropotkin's Beard]

4 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Prob quicker to list TNA good booking decisions. 

Samoa Joe from when he came in until his first loss about 18 months later was on the whole well booked. And then after he lost to Angle he slowly dissolved into just another TNA guy, which was a hell of a choice.

That's the first example that comes to mind

[Shartnado]

17 minutes ago, Kropotkin's Beard said:

Samoa Joe from when he came in until his first loss about 18 months later was on the whole well booked. And then after he lost to Angle he slowly dissolved into just another TNA guy, which was a hell of a choice.

That's the first example that comes to mind

This combined with the fact (?) that the first loss match was cut short by a good bit due to an injury to Angle during the match. An epic match, followed by a very tough loss would possibly slowed the dissolution down a little bit.

[Infinit]

4 hours ago, Ultimo Necro said:

Companion piece to “Vince McMahon is a horny old man”, is “Jim Ross is a horny old man…. On Twitter”.

Wont post it as it’s possibly NSFW but his comment on Nattie’s latest sister/bikini post is something else.

 

JR beat cancer, he can be horny on Twitter as much as he wants.

[Shartnado]

1 hour ago, Infinit said:

JR beat cancer, he can be horny on Twitter as much as he wants.

Is that a rule? Hopefully, I won't ever need to invoke it, but good to know in advance.

[vicious&delicious]

19 hours ago, The Comedian said:

Booking the 2015 Royal Rumble as a giant fuck you to the fans, while simultaneously trying to use it as the beginning of Roman's mega-push...

Out of curiosity, are there any instances where a wrestling promotion actively went against the wishes of the fanbase and it actually worked out for the better? It seems like WWE is always moving towards a grand vision that never materializes. 

 

[Technico Support]

Hey, I finished watching Mania 4 last night and I'm going to write some words about it.  I'm writing in non-chronological order because I don't want to go super long.  Enjoy or skip if you weel.

IC Title - HTM vs Beefcake: Watching this as a 13 year old, I swore Beefcake would be winning the belt here.  Serviceable enough match with heel shenanigans on a show back-ended by tons of interference.  Beefcake has Honky out so Jimmy hits the ref for a DQ.  Jimmy ostensibly gets a bonus for letting Brutus trim his glorious mane.  Points to the incomparable Sherri Martel who is excellent in her role here.

Islanders and Bobby Heenan vs Bulldogs and Koko: man, it's tough watching animal-related gimmicks all these years later and considering what those animals went through.  I mean, fuck, the Bulldogs were legit bad people to other humans.  I don't even wanna know about Matilda, don't @ me.  Bobby is the best here, no surprise.  Heels win to (say it with me!) probably keep this going for the houses, then the Bulldogs let Matilda "attack" Heenan.  Ugh.

Tag titles - Strikeforce vs Demolition: Young me was the biggest Demolition mark and LOVED them winning the belts here.  Real nothing match in retrospect, though.  Short, formula match.  Maybe time was cut because the show was LOOOOOONG.  Martel's hot tag is tremendous.  Tito won't stop going after Fuji because of his FIERY LATIN TEMPER.  I need to talk to my super chill Salvadoran coworker about this.  Ax takes the opportunity to glom Martel with the cane and we have new champs.  Remember this dastardly heel finish when the babyfaces do it in the main.

Macho man's run to the title vs Valentine, OMG, & DiBiase.  First off, Valentine is not as bad as I remembered him.  He was above average dominating Macho with forearms, elbows, and suplexes.  Savage wins with a small package and I'm all set to write about how they're building Savage as a sympathetic babyface, overcoming all the odds to win the belt while DiBaise cheats his way in and also gets a bye.  Then Savage beats OMG on a really dumb DQ where OMG decides to use Slick's cane while he's on offense and is not in danger.  My god.  Savage overcoming the big man and getting the pin would have been so much more effective.  The main sees Andre in DiBiase's corner and interfering a tiny bit.  Two leg trips and then he stands over DiBiase to keep Savage from hitting the axhandle on the floor.  That's all.  But it's enough for Savage to tell Liz to get Hogan to even the odds.  Kinda lame.  Fans knew what was up from the start, chanting for Hogan the first time Andre tried anything.  This, plus Savage fellating Hogan on an earlier promo, plus the finish, were probably concessions to the Hulkster to get him to go along with all this.  It all makes Savage look weak as fuck.  Speaking of, DiBiase hits the Million Dollar Dream, Andre tries to interfere or something (?????), and Hogan runs in and smacks DiBiase with a chair to give Macho the win.  Same finish where the heels won tag titles in the match right before this.  Honestly, what the everloving fuck?  I mean this was the 80s and fans were always just happy to see the babyface win, but this was terrible from a "get a new babyface over" standpoint.  But whatever, it all worked out in the end and, like I said, no way was Hogan letting another babyface take over, even if just for a few months, without making sure EVERYONE knew who the real top guy was.  Still, just a big, illogical mess if the story is "this is our new top guy.  Please get behind him."  I know in retrospect the whole deal was Savage was driven mad by insecurity so all this played into that, but you still needed the guy to be the top face for a bit before the Hogan angle picks back up.  BUT Randy was a draw at house shows regardless, so it didn't matter in the end.  You can see I'm torn here with all the "buts" and "stills," because on one hand I saw illogical booking but on the other hand, the fans didn't care, so it's all good I guess. 

Watching all these shows in order, it's wild how Savage was protected.  I don't know how early they knew he'd be the world champion, but it was obvious they knew a babyface run was coming.  The Wrestling Classic was booked like Savage was the babyface, where he worked four straight matches, but lost to a fresh man who'd gotten a bye.  JYD's booking was definitely not the way a babyface wins a tournament.  Mania 3's finish was booked like Steamboat was the heel -- ref bump, Savage gets a visual pin, Steamboat wins via interference.  Then the face turn comes before Survivor Series and away we go.

Ooooof, what an overlong, not too great show.  Nostalgia really is memory without the pain.  Up next, Summerslam 88!  Megapowers vs Megabucks plus a bunch of other meaningless matches in what was the last PPV before I started high school!  LOOOOL I accidentally typed "maga" powers the first time and why has nobody picked up that gimmick yet?