The Wrestling Thread

[Raging Justice]

Wow. She made a money a.k.a. "Monet" reference



Toni Storm just isn't funny. I've seen classic movies too and I still think her gimmick sucks.

I do love me some Garcia dancing though. That shit IS hilarious.



It actually took him a while to really nail it too. It used to look like this



Nothing will ever top the dancing GOAT though

[Reprise]

Regarding the "former WWE Champion" due to show up on tonight's Raw:

The Rock has apparently been spotted

Pretty much.

[Raging Justice]

Regarding the "former WWE Champion" due to show up on tonight's Raw:

The Rock has apparently been spotted

Pretty much.

Yeah, I just read a recap of the show and it sounds like it was another meaningless, nothing, WWE show to start off the new year. I was actually predicting what happened as I was reading and each time my prediction turned out to be exactly what happened. I would see a match and know exactly how it would end before I actually read the match result.

The Rock segment was the typical useless cameo we see so often in WWE. THE ROCK IS HERE!!! To do nothing important. Yay? I guess? He literally did nothing. What a waste of people's time and quite frankly, a waste of The Rock's time. I'm sure he got a nice pay check though and we all know what a sell out The Rock is.

Agent - "Hey Rock, here's a script for another shitty movie"
Dwayne - "How much are they offering?"
Agent - "A lot"
Dwayne - "I'll do it"

At least Batista has been in some decent movies involving a team of space rogues protecting the galaxy, and a pretty cool martial arts movie too:



I'll even give Cena credit for being in the only live action Transformers movie that didn't suck. Anyway...

Sometimes I wish wrestling had actual seasons, like Lucha Underground did. That way we wouldn't have to see weeks of meaningless content while waiting for a pay per view where there is a slim chance of something meaningful actually happening. Even then a lot of times it's the same old shit. This is why you'll never catch me paying for a PPV before it first airs. I'm not paying for an unknown.

You could probably just watch a youtube recap video of Raw and Smackdown every week and you'd probably be all caught up. That's not good television. Imagine if every episode of Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad was filler episodes. That's pro wrestling these days.

[Reprise]

Why doesn't pro wrestling have seasons? I wonder where it came from that it must be on every damn week of the year, even when it falls during holiday periods. It's mad that Lucha Underground is the only major wrestling promotion I can think of that had seasons. I get that fit in with the kind of tone they went for

It would be a bold direction, but I agree, I can imagine it working really well. In theory they could map out proper compelling serialised storylines and arcs, with clear beginning, middle and ends, instead of this silly thing where they just keep stories going on forever with nonsensical swerves and twists (HHH: "the great thing about pro wrestling, is the story never ends") or they start stories and then randomly drop them.

[Raging Justice]

Why doesn't pro wrestling have seasons? I wonder where it came from that it must be on every damn week of the year, even when it falls during holiday periods. It's mad that Lucha Underground is the only major wrestling promotion I can think of that had seasons. I get that fit in with the kind of tone they went for

It would be a bold direction, but I agree, I can imagine it working really well. In theory they could map out proper compelling serialised storylines and arcs, with clear beginning, middle and ends, instead of this silly thing where they just keep stories going on forever with nonsensical swerves and twists (HHH: "the great thing about pro wrestling, is the story never ends") or they start stories and then randomly drop them.

Exactly. Story telling could be done so much better with proper beginning, middle points, and endings. Seasons create the structure for that. I get sad when the story telling sucks in wrestling because it's such a unique form of entertainment with a unique method of telling stories. I like how Becky Lynch once described pro wrestling. She said, "It's story telling through violence", which so beautifully encapsulates it.

I kind of want to vent about something else too. It's something that bothered me several weeks ago, and reading about the Rock's segment reminded me of it. Several weeks ago, Gunther was engaged in a promo battle with someone. I think it was the Miz. At one point, the crowd started doing a "USA,USA" chant. I remember thinking, "My god. Haven't we moved on from this in wrestling? Are we still doing the evil foreigner thing?". Don't get me wrong, we have had some great foreigner villains like The Iron Shiek and Yokozuna for example. I also remember how fun it was getting behind Sergeant Slaughter as our patriotic hero in the 80s. That stuff was classic, but times are different now and we've gotten used to having foreigners be a regular part of the roster and many of them being baby faces. What really bugged me is that I don't think Gunther even said anything against America. It's like this crowd just started doing a USA chant for no reason other than, "He's a foreigner!". I remember Gunther seemed caught off guard, I imagine the Miz was as well. Gunther was like, "Really? Really?". I can't remember what else he said, but he felt the need to acknowledge what the crowd was doing.

Last night, Jinder Mahal came out and basically did a whole rant on how the US sucks now and is divided. Granted he's not entirely wrong, but you could have had anyone rant about the state of the country, but they picked a guy who looks and sounds like a foreigner. I hate that they still do this sort of thing. The Rock of course came out and did a whole patriotic shpiel about how great America is and then made fun of Jinder. This is what leads to dumb crowds randomly doing USA chants when a heel who happens to look and sound like a foreigner (a.k.a Gunther) does a heel promo. They plant that seed in people's mind that, "foreigners are bad people who hate our country"

[Reprise]

Ohh that makes sense now. I saw a post talking about that in a wrestling Facebook group and I wasn't sure exactly what they were referring to, because they didn't explain it as clearly as you did. Now I see they were talking about the exact same thing with Gunther and then Jinder last night.

Yeah, that sucks. That kind of outdated "Americans = the good guys, foreigners = the bad guys" nonsense is just so lame. Wrestling has moved on, or at least I thought it had.

[Reprise]

God, I am such a stereotypical AEW fan, but how do so many people online get excited about the Rock returning all the time? The dude hasn't had a good match in over two decades. The dude is old as fuck. The dude has nothing interesting that he can offer pro wrestling. Wrestling is the one thing I really don't need nostalgia bait. I'd rather watch the Young Bucks do "flips and gymnastics", as the WWE fans call it, and bangers with the likes of Orange Cassidy, Darby Allin and other AEW guys.

I have no interest in seeing The Rock wrestle again. I felt the same when Stone Cold came back and took a main event spot at Mania 38, but at least I suppose Steve had actually not wrestled in two decades, unlike The Rock who came back for two Manias and a few other PPVs, like his Royal Rumble match with Punk.

I think it's sad that the WWE is always wheeling out guys like Cena and The Rock tbh.

[Raging Justice]

[Raging Justice]

I'm tired, so I gonna try to be brief

Darby vs Konosuke was fucking awesome

There may be some hope for the women's division. I think Mariah May will shine once she gets away from Toni Storm and we're already seeing signs of that. The Virtuosa is a nice signing for AEW. I've seen some of her work in Impact. I believe her and Britt Baker are friends in real life too so I imagine that will work in her favor. The two of them and Chelsea Green are BFFs I believe. I honestly wish Chelsea Green were in AEW too. Chelsea's got it all from looks, in ring, and promos. The quality of women that Tony Kahn is signing is improving.



No Mercedes though, which I wasn't expecting but you never know.

Glad Hangman is back

Swerve is money and his stock is definitely rising

Daniel Garcia will be a star in AEW one day, it's not his time now though. He's starting to feel like a 'fifth' pillar if you know what I mean.

Samoa Joe is a badass. People say he's a transitional champ, but I don't think AEW needs to do that quite honestly. I don't see any reason not to keep the belt on him so long as you can get some good feuds going.

Cassidy is Cassidy. He was awesome as always. Dante Martin is a nice spot monkey but I don't see a meaningful future for him in AEW. He'll eventually go to WWE or somewhere else and just be a mid carder for life, if even that. I think he'd get lost in the shuffle in WWE especially when they already have guys like Ricochet who can do what he does but with more charisma.

Brian Cage's ring gear seems very fitting given recent announcements in gamer land



Kind of nice to see Private Party again. Those guys were hot in 2019 then fell off a cliff

Bullet Club vs Undisputed Era...I mean Undisputed "Kingdom" feels fitting. I remember back when Jay and Adam were pretending to be friends back before the First Forbidden Door but I always knew that their two egos could not co exist. Those two live for three things. Leading factions, winning world titles, and being backstabbing heels

No Jericho on the show

I honestly think that whole thing will blow over. There's little of any substance that's been coming out regarding these so called allegations. It's already starting to feel like a lot of fuss over nothing.

[Reprise]

Sounds like a solid episode then. Bullet Club vs Undisputed Kingdom is something I want to see.

Edit: Just watched the segment on Youtube. That was great. Adam Cole is always such a great heel, but the best heel turns are always when you sit there listening to them speak and think "yeah, he's got a point" and it feels real rather than forced.

No Jericho on the show

I honestly think that whole thing will blow over. There's little of any substance that's been coming out regarding these so called allegations. It's already starting to feel like a lot of fuss over nothing.

Hausman already started backtracking over his comments.

To be honest, wrestling fans have memories like goldfish, so it wouldn't surprise me if it blows over unless serious allegations actually come to light and there is substance to the claims. You mentioned Ric Flair and Vince McMahon and those demonstrate the short memories wrestling fans have. Well them and the other mountain of worshipped wrestlers who have a history of problematic behaviour that people rarely bring up.