Hooker Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 I really hope Rusev wins so that, when March Madness 2016 rolls around, I can experience the bitter feud between the "what the hell were all of you thinking?" crowd and the "I'm doubling-down on Rusev even though we were clearly all wrong" crowd.
Matt D Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 There will be people who vote for Galloway. I like Galloway. There is an anti-Okada movement. It's been simmering. I don't know ... Galloway has TNA stank on him. What's TNA?
RIPPA Posted March 14, 2015 Author Posted March 14, 2015 One could also argue that there are 7 guys with WWE stank on them
Dewar Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 You guys all fucking suck for voting out Negro Casas. I have also discovered that tossing together your bracket five minutes before the deadline is a terrible idea.
JonnyLaw Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 My mission in life is to ensure AJ doesn't advance any further I have your back.
JonnyLaw Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 My mission in life is to ensure AJ doesn't advance any further I still have your back.
Matt D Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 I really like his backbreaker, but he was the worse guy in the Suzuki match i saw him in and I wouldn't vote for him over Cavernario.
Cristobal Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 I don't have an issue with Brock losing to Honma but holy crap some of the arguments made against Brock were nuts. We are full force into the madness. He had 4 matches. I enjoyed 2 of them. I enjoyed just about everything I saw from Honma. Higher batting average + more content. Someone said Brock without Heyman is Batista. Yeah, that was a little unfair. ...Batista can TALK
goc Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 I don't understand the Batista hatred anyway. Dude was a very good #2 babyface to Cena for years. The HHH matches were good, he had that great series with the Undertaker, the fun tag stuff with Rey vs. MNM, the bad ass heel run with the spotlight. Batista is under rated. 1
Jiji Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 I don't understand the Batista hatred anyway. Dude was a very good #2 babyface to Cena for years. The HHH matches were good, he had that great series with the Undertaker, the fun tag stuff with Rey vs. MNM, the bad ass heel run with the spotlight. Batista is under rated. So, what you're saying is he's better than Lesnar?
Cristobal Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 I don't understand the Batista hatred anyway. Dude was a very good #2 babyface to Cena for years. The HHH matches were good, he had that great series with the Undertaker, the fun tag stuff with Rey vs. MNM, the bad ass heel run with the spotlight. Batista is under rated. I don't hate him at all. His conditioning needed to be better for his 2014 run, but other than that, he killed it once he went full-on heel. The comparison wasn't meant to be insulting to Lesnar. The comparison is because I think their skillsets are similar. They're big guys who look great, especially in heat sections when working heel. You'll generally want either one to be in there with someone who can call the match on big shows, but in main events that's generally not an issue, (I suspect it will against Reigns.) People acting like it's some completely ludicrous comparison are either vastly underrating Batista or vastly overrating Brock.
Goodear Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 My mission in life is to ensure AJ doesn't advance any further I still have your back. And my axe. 1
goc Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 I don't understand the Batista hatred anyway. Dude was a very good #2 babyface to Cena for years. The HHH matches were good, he had that great series with the Undertaker, the fun tag stuff with Rey vs. MNM, the bad ass heel run with the spotlight. Batista is under rated. So, what you're saying is he's better than Lesnar? I am not going THAT far. I love Brock Lesnar and have since the very first day he showed up on Raw and murdered Spike Dudley. I just assumed that Cristobal was dogging on Batista because it's still somewhat prevalent.
Niners Fan in CT Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 No, it is ludicrous. Batista improved a lot and by the time he left was very good. Brock Lesnar is a once in a generation talent.
MORELOCK Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 They could have made Brock be Doink Jr. and jobbed him out for his entire career and he'd still be head and shoulders above Batista in the ring. And I like Batista. Fuck that shitty, awful comparison and the trolls that defend it. 2
Jiji Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 No, it is ludicrous. Batista improved a lot and by the time he left was very good. Brock Lesnar is a once in a generation talent. While I think Brock has more and different strengths than Big Dave and is generally much better at what he does, I can see quite a few similarities in terms of their deficiencies.
Cristobal Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 No, it is ludicrous. Batista improved a lot and by the time he left was very good. Brock Lesnar is a once in a generation talent. They could have made Brock be Doink Jr. and jobbed him out for his entire career and he'd still be head and shoulders above Batista in the ring. And I like Batista. Fuck that shitty, awful comparison and the trolls that defend it. Are either of you actually going to elaborate on these assertions? What about Brock makes him a "once in a generation talent"? He's got amazing physical gifts, true, but how does that translate to him being better than, to Fowlerize this for an example, John Cena in wrestling matches? 1
goc Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 He has a special aura about him, that might partly be booking but it isn't ALL of it. He was special from the moment he showed up on Raw and they could have debuted a lot of guys in that same scenario, say Sean O'Haire, and it would have worked but it most likely wouldn't have felt SPECIAL. You could tell from the way he was man handling guys like Rikishi that he was a freak of nature. There has to be something special there for you to be able to book a guy to feel special in the first place. In that sense, he is a once in a generation kind of guy. I don't think he's a once in a generation TALENT in the ring though.
Cristobal Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 I wouldn't at all disagree that he's a once in a generation athlete. I've said through all of this that he has unique physical gifts. But those are the only thing special about Brock AS A WRESTLER. He doesn't pace a match to get the crowd as hot as they can, he doesn't really have the ability to tell a story at all, (unless you want to count "I'm a huge badass" as a story.) He would absolutely not be what he is without the booking and Heyman, and if you disagree, go watch Mania XX.
Niners Fan in CT Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 Before we get into discussions about story telling and Brock Lesnar, what is the story that Cena tells beyond comeback/overcome the odds? The background to Cena vs. Lesnar at Extreme Rules was that if Lesnar doesn't bolt WWE, there is no John Cena. Lesnar went away and wins the UFC title. Meanwhile, Cena is on a losing streak having lost to The Rock and then Tensai. Cena needs this win in the worst way, so we are told. We get to the match and it's apparent that Cena really doesn't have anything for Lesnar. 30 seconds into the match Cena is busted wide open. Lesnar continues to destroy him. He decides not to use the chain and drops it because he doesn't need it. Lesnar slips on a banana peel and Cena strikes him with the chain. Overcomes the odds, ends his losing streak, boom. If you are looking for either of them to tell a story around selling a limb or something similar I'm not sure what to tell you. Cena isn't a guy that learns from past mistakes, uses a lot of callbacks to previous matches... No, It doesn't happen often. They are both booked as indestructible beings. To hold Lesnar to this ridiculous standard while overlooking it for Cena is odd.. Both of them have their formula and it works for both of them so why change it.
Cristobal Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 Before we get into discussions about story telling and Brock Lesnar, what is the story that Cena tells beyond comeback/overcome the odds? I'm tempted to play your card of expressing shock and disbelief that someone would say this, but I'll answer with examples instead. First off, "comeback" is not a story any more than "heat segment" is. It's a basic element of a wrestling match. Complaining that all of Cena's matches have comebacks is like complaining about hot tags in tag team matches. Second, some of Cena's best matches in recent years have occurred when he could jettison the "overcoming the odds" trope. Against Punk on the Raw in February '13, the story puts Cena in the bigger/faster/stronger role, while Punk is the wilier, craftier one, but in both cases the two knew each other so well that they were countering all of their signature moves either the first or second time they use them. We go into finisher-overdrive ending sequence, with most of the attempts missing, and then Cena goes out of his comfort zone, hitting (not well, admittedly,) a hurricanrana which throws Punk off his game enough that an AA finishes the match. Against Bryan at SummerSlam, the overcoming the odds trope is reversed, as it's Bryan who has to overcome the size and strength of Cena. Again as against Punk, Bryan is credited with being the better technical wrestler, but the big equalizer here is that he's got all the heart Cena has shown in his comebacks, and moreover the fans are behind him. While he did have that one botch due to his arm, I would say that this was not intended as part of the story, so credit to Cena for that. To hold Lesnar to this ridiculous standard while overlooking it for Cena is odd For you to think Cena fails to live up to this standard when I'm specifically using him as a comparison suggests you don't know what the hell either of us is talking about. 1
Ryback Hates Bullies Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 Brock has an aura that Batista does not, but Batista's first babyface run was far superior to Brock's and good main-event babyfaces are more valuable than main-event heels. If Brock hadn't left for football, where were they really going to go with him? Running with him on top of Smackdown instead of JBL would probably have drawn more money I grant you, and it's not like I wouldn't want to have more Eddy-Brock matches, but I think his limited character range would have exposed him over a longer career.
Cristobal Posted March 14, 2015 Posted March 14, 2015 good main-event babyfaces are more valuable than main-event heels. Only thing I'd disagree with is this comment, with caveats-slash-hedges that if you're talking about merch that's different, and also they're arguably more valuable to WWE because it's traditionally booked around the babyface rather than heel-centered.
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