DECEMBER WRESTLING CHIT CHAT

[RIPPA]

Oh yeah... totally forgot it was Dec 1

 

I probably should drop off my rent

[Ramsey]

So, the WWE quickly realized (or knew the entire time but planned around it) that Orton and Show was not "best of business" so they've re-directed toward Orton/Cena again. This leads me to ask a question of the more dedicated WWE watchers in the house. What is the appeal of Randy Orton. I myself can't see it. His character is always sort of based around "ooooo, he's dangerous...oooo, he's crazy" but he comes across (to me, at least) as a very bland "sports entertainment object." Lots of tattoos, "edgy" but shallow as a kiddie pool. I'm not trolling here. I am dead serious. Someone explain what I should be digging about this guy because, as of now, he is chasing me away from the WWE after a short Shield/Bryan/Punk/Paul E. fueled return.

 

(Edited for spelling, punctuation and a better interwebs experience.)

[Tromatagon]

He appeals to the Call of Duty kind of dude

[Ultimo Necro]

I often think Orton has suffered more than most during the PG era.  I quite liked him for a long time, he has a look that screams "arrogant douche" and he makes such a good heel.  Part of his appeal for me, was punting people in the head and other such vicious nonsense.  He had that down perfect.

 

The last time he was really relevant was right before he broke his arm punching the mat.  His face run killed all that was good about him.  He could be doing with a fresh fued with a younger guy insted of being cycled with Cena / Show / Sheamus / Del Rio for the billionth time.  He really has hung around the main event picture like a stale fart for the last 2-3 years.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Back to the topic from the Nov. thread...   Punk is boring to me also and I think it all comes down to character. He is a terrible face. While Cena's pandering becomes tiresome it also seems more genuine. Punk's pandering makes my skin crawl.

 

I have no issue with his ring work but I don't want to see him teaming up with the Rhodes brothers or Mysterio. He should be fighting them.

[LooseCannon]

Time to put together the New New Nexus,

[Coletti]

I often think Orton has suffered more than most during the PG era.  I quite liked him for a long time, he has a look that screams "arrogant douche" and he makes such a good heel.  Part of his appeal for me, was punting people in the head and other such vicious nonsense.  He had that down perfect.

 

Aye. Psycho-violent wife-DDT'ing-and-kissing sociopath Randy Orton was gold. Then he was smiley, sticking-his-tongue-out, leap-frogging-for-joy Randy Orton and that... THAT was brutal.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Time to put together the New New Nexus,

 

That was garbage but the SES was awesome..  or obviously him as a Heyman guy.

[jstout]

It's amazing to me that Orton feuds with Bryan and buyrates and ratings go down, so they drop Bryan to the midcard.

So Orton feuds with Big Show, and everything stays down, and Big Show gets sent to Siberia.

But they keep rewarding the constant in those two feuds. Maybe the thinking is if he screws up a program with the golden child, maybe he is toxic.

 

Orton's just Bland Heel 101. Oooh, he's a viper, he's a killer (cue C. Montgomery Burns: "Oooh, the big, bad Germans!"). He's got no real personality to speak of. WWE desperately needs new faces at the top, whether it's face or heel.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Its alright, they're just waiting for Mark Henry to decide he wants the belt. Proven draw too.

[greenbat]

anyone else see the WWE as DJ Request from that Jeremy Piven car sales movie?

"Daniel Bryan we love you! give him the belt!"

"You got it fans!"

!I HEAR VOICES!

"no one tells WWE what to book."

[ebbie]

Orton's problem isn't the PG thing. The PG thing has been around for 5 and half years.

 

Orton's problem is every guy who couldn't be a top tier guy had/has: His comfort zone is incredibly small. Once someone else comes around, they better not be better at something Orton does badly. Or you realize how much Orton can't do. Punk is the same way.

[The Green Meanie]

Time to put together the New New Nexus,

 

Fun fact: After watching weeks of the whole burial/"Best For Business" of Daniel Bryan, my girlfriend came up with the booking idea that during an Orton/Shield/Authority beat down on D-BRY the Nexus theme song should hit and former members should run down to the ring and make the save.

 

Keep in mind, the key to her genius idea is that former members would be in their current incarnation (i.e. Ryback, not Skip Sheffield, Bray Wyatt, not Husky Harris, etc.) I told her I absoutely love the idea but there's no way in hell WWE would book it.

[Tromatagon]

Tarver eating discarded sandwich crusts

[The Green Meanie]

Tarver eating discarded sandwich crusts

 

Ironic that he's the only former member no longer still with the company. I can remember back in the early days when everyone thought Otunga was going to be the weak link.

[Roman]

I've always thought psycho Orton could be a great heel, a bit like Jake Roberts but with psychotic violence instead of snakes. No cowardice, no douchebag arrogance, just a scary, cruel sadist. I think it's not too late to make that work, but then the WWE would have to go all in and not yank his chain again and again. Give him an unstoppable run and meanwhile build up a face to eventually face him. But it can't be Cena; it'd need to be a face everyone would get behind, and Cena's not that guy.

[HumanChessgame]

Orton has always been bland as hell to me, both ringwork and personality-wise.  He comes across as some redneck mouthbreather who is about to drool on himself when he does his "psycho stare" and not some dangerous maniac.  I also don't get how his concussion punt is supposed to be some touch of death move, it doesn't look that painful and kicks/strikes to the head are regular enough moves most people do.

[Gonzalez]

Remember when the WWE was planning to push Billy Gunn? That's pretty much what Randy's run has been but there was no Rock to stop it at the time.

[Reed]

So is WWE turning into TNA these days, or what?

 

-WWE has been announcing several wrestlers, including Cena, Ziggler and Del Rio for two different house shows taking place at the exact same time. Either Cena can astral project or some fans are going to be very disappointment. 

 

-the whole deal with advertising Bryan for various European shows that he was never going to be on.

 

-Having to turn back Miz face within a week because they forgot he had a movie to promote.

 

-no one being sure if the match at TLC is a unification match

 

-no one being sure if Bryan is still held hostage or not

 

 

WCWesque.

[Niners Fan in CT]

My bland power rankings

 

1. CM Punk as a smiling face

 

2. Orton in The Authority 

 

3. Sheamus. He's been gone for weeks and I still do not want to see him return as a face.

 

4. Alberto Del Rio. They stripped him of his announcer and took his cars. What remains is a great worker with no character direction.

 

5. John Cena. He used to be the most bland dude on the roster but he's stayed about the same while others have gotten far worse. I'd rather watch ten Cena promos than any of the above.

[Brian Fowler]

Hey, maybe Cena is going to do the old Hogan thing and wrestle just before intermission, then hop a plane to the other show to main event it.

[JohnnyJ]

I may be in the minority but I think Orton is a fantastic wrestler. He has a clean effective move set that looks like it hurts.. He's got a million dollar look and tons of heel intensity. Ortons faults are that his mic work is below average and the WWE can't book a heel long term to save its life.

If Orton was booked the way Lesnar has been booked wed look at the guy much differently. Keep him quiet and always have him appear dangerous. It's that simple.

Instead we have to constantly hear him cut long promos. The moment he opens his mouth it takes something away from his persona.

We have to see him win with screwy finish after screwy finish with the aid of a villainous authority figure. This take away his credibility as a serious threat.

In the ucoming tlc match, has WWE given any reason for the viewer to think Orton will unify the titles in a fair fight? That's on creative, not Orton.

[Greggulator]

Orton was just tossing out really friggin' good matches on a weekly basis just a few months back. Heel Orton is great. Especially when he's the center of a fantastic, heated angle. He brought his working boots right after SummerSlam.

Face Orton is terrrrrrrrible. Especially when he's clearly just going through the motions because he doesn't have a main event push. Orton before SummerSlam was my least favorite wrestler. He was such a snooze and obviously did not care. I can't even imagine how bad he must have been during house shows. I'd imagine he would have just sat in a chin lock for about six minutes before hitting the RKO.

 

Didn't The Shield and him get into something over something that got screwed up in a house show tag match? I mean, who knows what happened, but I would put a lot of money on "Orton was dicking around when Roman was trying to set something up and someone almost got hurt because of it and then Orton pulled rank backstage" as the story.

But Orton had a hot streak of the past few months. His stuff against Show at the PPV sucked. I also haven't been able to watch Raw live lately so I've just watched the All The Awesome People In One Tag Division Division so I haven't seen any of his singles matches. But give the dude some credit -- he was maybe the best worker on the show during a stretch that included Daniel Bryan at the peak of his powers.

[Ramsey]

This is where I find my disconnect with Orton. In general, everything about him bores me. The character, the in-ring work, the look, all of it. It worries me that I'm so completely out of touch. I'd rather watch Dean Ambrose and Bryan HATE each other for two PPV's than see one Orton themed angle. Right now I see TONS of talent in the WWE and I don't count Orton even in the top ten. Meanwhile, I find that when Cena puts on his working shoes and is in an angle or match with someone who can hold up his end, he entertains the shit out of me. So, it's not like I'm some sort of elitist internet smark (ok, I am kinda,) I just think Orton falls well below B+ player. One thought I had was my age and demographic placement. I'm solidly middle class and 40 years old. I won't be using Axe body spray or seeing a monster truck show anytime soon. Orton may simply be aimed at a consumer half my age.

[Buy Me a Burrito]

So I went to WreslteCade and the Fanfest that went along with it yesterday. I had a pretty darn good time. It was the largest indie show I'd ever been to (this place had about 1500 people in attendance, and the largest indie I'd seen before that drew about 50 people).

 

I'm not much of an expert recapper, but I thought I'd share some thoughts that I joked my way through on Twitter last night.

 

FanFest stuff:

 

Reby Sky is trashy, but smells so nice that it makes her hot.

 

Matt Hardy was a really nice dude. His eye creeps me out, though.

 

Tully Blanchard was a nice dude. 7 year old me was so pissed off for shaking that asshole's hand.

 

I asked Manny Fernandez about if dropping the knee on the Invader was a shoot or a work and he offered to knee drop me so I could find out.

 

DDP was amazing. Really cool guy and I told him that I did DDP Yoga. We talked for ten minutes about my workout and he was very genuine and real. It didn't feel carny, unlike...

 

The Rock and Roll Express (specifically Ricky Morton) are carny as fuck. I don't mean that in a negative way, I was flattered to be hustled out of $5 by one of the masters.

 

Cody Hall was a nice dude. He was HUGE. We talked for a minute or two about the Iron Claw and how he wants to bring it back. I wanted to ask him why he's wearing his dad's old gear, but I didn't get around to it.

 

I kept seeing the Boogie Woogie Man and every time I came up to him he was eating. I felt weird bothering that little old dude eating what looked to be a salad out of a ziplock bag, so I avoided him.

 

A LOT of people called me brother, brother.

 

I'm not used to large numbers of people around me that are into wrestling. I talk about it online, but in real life it's something I do alone. My wife will watch NXT with me because she hates Summer Rae, but that's about it. It was strange being at the fanfest because of this. During the intermission I ran over to a coffee shop where I saw a dude with a beard working. We talked about The Arcade Fire and that helped relax me. I guess I'm a self-loathing aging hipster.

 

The Matches:

 

Gunner defeated Robbie E (with Brooke Tessmacher). Before the matches started, I ran into Robbie and Miss Tessmacher coming i to the venue. Miss Tessmacher is so hot that I freaked out when I saw her and she smiled at me. I turned bright red and walked away.

 

Gunner has a great look but he's so goddamn bland. Does he do anything hurty on TV? I know these guys were working light, but still. Robbie E is boring and I couldn't figure out if his act was supposed to be a comedy thing or a serious thing.

 

Next up was a 5 way for the PWX title. Steve Corino, Sonjay Dutt, Hurricane Helms, Adam Page and Caleb Conely were all in this match together. It started out with a really funny Steve Corino promo. He lost immediately after putting up the mic. That's good, because Corino looks less imposing than my high school gym teacher. I've never understood his appeal. Sonjay Dutt was eliminated next. He is the most boring dude in the world. Hurricane was eliminated next. He was sort of there. Adam Page was sort of fun, but Caleb Conely came across well in the match and pulled out the win. I have no idea who the last two dudes were, but they were decent.

 

There was some sort of women's clusterfuck with Maria Kannelis and Gillian Hall, but I barely paid attention to it.

 

Hacksaw Dugan wrestled Davari, and I just feel bad for Hacksaw. His routine is just old and worn out. I will say that he was giving out Ho's during fanfest like Halloween Candy, meanwhile Tony Atlas wouldn't do his laugh for $5. Asshole. Davari was ripped to the gills.

 

The largest part of the card was a giant tag team guantlet match. The less said about the beginning the better. It was neat seeing the Rock and Rolls wrestle, and them coming out with Boogie was one of the best moments of my life, but Jesus Christ there was some bad workers in this match.

 

Buff Bagwell was shitty, and Rick Steiner managed to be even worse, and Demolition was hands down the most depressing thing that I've ever seen. Manny Fernandez was old and barely touching people, and George South played heel while wearing trunks with "I Love Jesus" on the back of them. An old dude sitting near me remarked that he couldn't cheer against him because of that. I laughed.

 

Two teams that I've never heard of, C&C Wrestle Factory and the Bravados, wrestled the last bit of the gauntlet match and it was pretty good. They put on a good match with lots of facial selling and some smartly worked spots. I like C&C a lot.

 

During the intervention I met Mr. Feinstein (or someone that looks just like him) from the video company. I didn't realize that it was him at first. Finally it all clicked. I was going to buy the Jim Crockett Promotions documentary from him when temptation got the best of me. I asked how much the DVD was, and he said $30. I replied back "lol, I'll pretend you said $18" and started laughing. He claimed to have not heard me. I walked away quickly and bought the DVD from Highspots.

 

The last two matches was a Tommy Dreamer/CW Anderson I Quit Match  and a Matt Hardy/Carlito ladder match.

 

The Dreamer match was guys that wanted to work light and have a hardcore match at the same time. Dreamer won, and after it was over and he left the ring the remaining guys tried to make the crowd give CW Anderson a standing ovation. They weren't having it. 

 

Matt Hardy is the new Ricky Morton. That lazy eyed psycho will be able to tour the Carolinas and make money off of lower-middle-class trailer park women until the day he dies. It's pretty incredible. With that being said, he is a boring as fuck worker. He throws a decent punch, but that's about it. The less said about Carlito the better.