The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

So, according to Sports Illustrated, WrestleMania 40 will feature:

CM Punk vs. Cody Rhodes

Rock vs Roman

Gunther vs. Seth Rollins.

[Raging Justice]

So, according to Sports Illustrated, WrestleMania 40 will feature:

CM Punk vs. Cody Rhodes

Rock vs Roman

Gunther vs. Seth Rollins.

AEW Rejects Match

Actor versus Part Timer Match - Place your bets on how long it takes before Dwayne gets sweaty and exhausted

Gunther vs. Seth - The only match of the three worth paying money for

[Reprise]

Yeah, Gunther vs Seth. I'd pay to see that (ha, maybe). Presumably that means Gunther is winning the Rumble (which would be kinda hilarious for Cody and Punk) and might finally win the title at Mania.

I am not sure I buy it though. I can't imagine WWE not having at least one of either Cody or Punk in a title match and main eventing night one.

Rock vs Roman I can sadly believe

[Raging Justice]

Yeah, Gunther vs Seth. I'd pay to see that (ha, maybe). Presumably that means Gunther is winning the Rumble (which would be kinda hilarious for Cody and Punk) and might finally win the title at Mania.

I am not sure I buy it though. I can't imagine WWE not having at least one of either Cody or Punk in a title match and main eventing night one.

Rock vs Roman I can sadly believe

I prefer it to Cody or Punk fighting Roman, just because I don't think they deserve it. In a perfect world where WWE cared about elevating hard working guys who got themselves over on their own, it'd be LA Knight in that spot. You could actually have had The Rock as a special referee (or in LA Knight's corner supporting him). Sometimes I wish I was doing the booking in WWE.

Anyway, I saw something hilarious someone posted on Twitter:

"Jack Perry showed up at one show and Okada peaced out."

[Raging Justice]

I don't know what the future will bring, but I believe that if Okada and Mercedes Monet go to WWE it will show that the hype surrounding AEW really and truly is gone and Tony Kahn truly is a failure. Those are the last truly big signings available for AEW, and maybe the only two signings that could realistically generate some buzz for the company again.

WWE getting those two going into Mania season after getting Punk would be like a death knell for AEW

[Reprise]

Yeah, pretty much.

Is there even a future for a wrestling promotion that isn't WWE?

It just feels like they are too big and that wrestlings fans represent a small niche that 90% of won't give any company outside the WWE the time of day.

Is there any other industry where one key player has such a gigantic monopoly?

Even at TNA's and AEW's absolute peaks in terms of quality and popularity, neither came even close to matching WWE's share of the market.

That said, I am also out of touch with what the average wrestling fan likes. The amount of love and popularity WWE has online with the wrestling nerds over the last year and a half or so is much greater than anything I have seen in probably over 10 years. Yet, I am not remotely interested in what WWE is doing or particularly excited about their build towards Wrestlemania. In the heights of the Bloodline story, not long after Triple H took over creative, I was really into WWE. They lost me over the last 8 months or so though since the last Mania.

But then I watch AEW and also aren't that interested in what they are doing. I like Joe as champion and am looking forward to his feud sith Swerve and Hangman, as they both fight for a title shot. But the company is pretty weak overall at the moment.

Ospreay will debut soon and the rumour is his first feud is with Moxley.

Copeland has been a massive flop tbh. Like it or hate it, WWE knows how to book their older legends and stars. They know putting Edge in random matches every week does nothing and it generates more intrigue if they book him only 10-12 times a year or whatever for special matches. Look at how WWE is dealing with Punk. He's been back over two months and hasn't had a single televised match yet. They know what they are doing.

I watched some recent TNA too and it was fun enough, but didn't exactly excite me or keep me on the edge of my seat.

Going back to WWE too, I hate how cheesy it is. It's so.... What's the word? Childish? Safe? Like the whole cookie cutter good guy and bad guy is so lame. The whole pathetic fawning over guys like John Cena and The Rock etc.

Anyways, I am rambling. What I am saying is wrestling sucks right now

[Reprise]

The Journalist who reported that Mania story for Sports Illustrated has come out and said their source has revealed the story is bogus, and WWE has also disputed it according to a report. So yeah, forget that "leak" I guess.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might think WWE is working the dirt sheets (not to mention getting the 2K24 and Netflix news out there) this week to distract us from the Vince McMahon news coming out...

[Raging Justice]

The Journalist who reported that Mania story for Sports Illustrated has come out and said their source has revealed the story is bogus, and WWE has also disputed it according to a report. So yeah, forget that "leak" I guess.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might think WWE is working the dirt sheets (not to mention getting the 2K24 and Netflix news out there) this week to distract us from the Vince McMahon news coming out...

It's possible I guess. i thought that Sports Illustrated story was sketchy

[RCBH928]

I stumbled upon this clip on youtube. Its from 21 years ago and looks like it was shot yesterday. Any one feels a bit uncomfortable with this? its like time have not moved.

1. This just shows my point on wrestling. 21 years ago same acting same everything. Just like watching the same movie over and over.
2. your average weekly tv show had Lesnar vs Mark Henry then Angle vs Hogan. This is like all time legendary matches card compared the joke that I see today on PPVs. This makes Uso vs Riegns in summer slam as main event sound like a joke imo at least in star names.

[Raging Justice]

I get what you're saying, but upon further reflection a LOT has changed. The culture has changed. There is a lot of things they can't say or do anymore which has watered down the product a lot. As tasteless as the Katie Vick angle was I kind of miss when WWE was that edgy

The in ring product has gone done a lot from what they were doing at that point in time. Most WWE matches today tend to be safe, short, and boring. During the Ruthless Aggression era we were actually get some great wrestling from Jericho, Guerrero, and others. Wrestling in other companies however improved SIGNIFCANTLY. It's crazy the stuff wrestlers do now compared to 21 years ago

Women's wrestling has changed SIGNIFICANTLY since that time as well. Although the biggest changes in that area are a bit more recent. Women's wrestling kind of exploded in recent years and WWE very quickly changed what the women are actually allowed to do in ways I didn't think would ever happen a few years ago. Not all of those changes are for the better though. I sort of miss characters like Sable, Sunny, Kelly Kelly, Stacy Kiebler. Today it's taboo to have ladies whose primary role is to be eye candy. I never understood why we can't just have an equal mix of bad ass fighters like Rhonda Rousey and sexy babes like Sunny and Sable used to be, or even have women who can fill both roles. Stardom doesn't seem to have a problem with this

I feel like MMA has also leaked into wrestling quite a bit with the rise in popularity of UFC. I even think UFC has been influenced by pro wrestling as well. Some will argue that MMA influencing wrestling goes all the way back to Japan, but I'm not an expert on the history of Japanese wrestling. Speaking of MMA, Lesnar's rise to prominence in WWE has been damn amazing to watch from the early days in that video you posted to him leaving WWE and coming back later as the most dominant man in that company not named The Undertaker

Also, John Cena happened and he drove away a LOT of people from pro wrestling, but WWE will never admit that because Vince is in love with Cena. Though now and days it's Roman Reigns that Vince has a hard on for. Cena's reign at the top was an embarrassment to pro wrestling as a whole and I stand by that. For every child he turned into a fan (and women as well if you believe some people) there are just as many adult males that he drove away from wrestling, either forever, or until AEW came into being.

WWE also got way more kid friendly over the years. I don't think it was quite like that 21 years ago. Cena himself got toned down a lot once WWE decided to start pushing him as their top guy. He dropped that gangster, rapper gimmick real quick. A lot of this is because of Chris Benoit, who brought a LOT of negative media attention to WWE. Maybe Linda McMahon's political aspirations played a bit of a role as well.

Also, CM Punk and Daniel Bryan changed the landscape, allowing for a far greater diversity of wrestler types. Unfortunately, this means that we have to tolerate out of shape losers like Eddie Kingston in wrestling now. There are a LOT of people these days, both male and female, who really don't look like they belong in a wrestling ring and yet are allowed to be featured. Daniel Bryan's run in 2013-2014 was amazing. I don't think anyone in WWE has been that popular ever since. He inadvertently turned a LARGE part of WWE's audience against the company, with them going into business for themselves and hijacking every show DEMANDING that the company push Daniel Bryan. I have never in all my years as a wrestling fan ever seen anything like that. I actually miss those fans. WWE fans today are too docile and submissive.

New Japan and Ring of Honor have had significant influence. ROH gave WWE the likes of Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and others. NJPW inadvertently changed the landscape by giving birth to The Elite, who with a little help from ROH, gave birth to AEW. Even TNA has to be mentioned. Some big players really got their start there like AJ Styles, and TNA gave a lot of wrestlers a home when they had nowhere else to go. For a few years TNA was awesome and felt like a company that maybe had a chance to compete with WWE. They were first to do a lot of things in women's wrestling that WWE gets credit for now and I wonder how much influence stuff like The Cruiserweight Classic in WWE took from TNA's X Division. TNA and ROH both came into being at about the same time as that video you posted I think.

Lucha Underground happened, which didn't seem like a big deal at the time, but a LOT of those people are making money in AEW and other places now, and WWE grabbed some joshis from Stardom after seeing them in Lucha Underground, including the current Smackdown women's champion. I also feel like there is some Lucha Underground influence in a lot of "cinematic wrestling" we saw during the pandemic...and maybe even Matt Hardy's broken gimmick when he did that whole Final Deletion thing. Lucha Underground felt like the closest thing we had to an ECW-like wrestling alternative in many years. It was dark, edgy, and violent when WWE had become kid friendly and watered down. THEY LITERALLY KILLED WRESTLING CHARACTERS IN LUCHA UNDERGROUND. If a wrestler said he was gonna kill you, it might actually happen. Some of the best story telling I have ever seen in pro wrestling happened in Lucha Underground. I also admired the intergender wrestling as you just don't usually see that on national TV except at times in TNA and that one time in AEW that you only got to see on youtube. It's super common on the indie scene and in Japan though. It's what probably got Iyo Sky and Kairi jobs at WWE after their awesome Gauntlet match with Pentagon where Iyo dove off of a building and then pinned him with a Canadian Destroyer.

NXT happened. The Black and Gold era is arguably the best product we've gotten from WWE in like the past decade. We are still feeling NXT's influence now with a lot of those people getting featured on the main roster now, Triple H is using what he learned there as head of creative and booking on the main roster. NXT also inadvertently lead to this war with AEW. Last but not least, the big changes to women's wrestling in WWE arguably started in earnest with NXT. It sort of started with Paige and Emma but kicked into high gear with the four horsewomen, particularly Bayley and Sasha Banks who were once the best of the four before "The Man" Becky Lynch rose to prominence on the main roster. Charlotte, while talented, has always had nepotism on her side, so she always got pushed.

Bray Wyatt. He did some stuff in WWE I've never seen before. The closest thing we had to a true successor to the spooky Undertaker character. Speaking of which...

The streak ended. Yeah, that happened, cementing Brock Lesnar as "The Beast", a larger than life monster that few people in WWE can even hope to compete with. For several years he would be the scariest thing in that company and still carries a little bit of that aura to him even today

The WWE Network happened and very much changed the company's business model and maybe pushed some other companies to offer a streaming service, like Stardom and New Japan. Now we are coming full circle with WWE going to Netflix

Then there was the move to Fox which was a big deal at the time, and this TKO deal, the full ramifications of which we still don't fully know

Also, I can't stress enough how impossible it once seemed to imagine Vince McMahon NOT running WWE and now these allegations about him have not only returned but gotten worse. We'll see what comes of that.

And last but not least, though I touched on it a bit already, AEW. Possibly the biggest thing to happen in wrestling in years. Though right now they are a bit of a shadow of what they were. Several big moves have been made by WWE solely because of AEW's existence and AEW miraculously brought some people back into wrestling like CM Punk and even Owen Hart in a way, who we are allowed to talk about again after his wife swore off the world of wrestling due to his death