The Wrestling Thread

[Gamerforlife]

Taker needed medical attention after the match, but Hunter tapped out. So in the end, neither man really looked a loser. They both got put over in a huge way

Glad Levesque still does that once a year. But I'm actually more worried that the Dead Man legitimately needed medical assistance (considering his age, his high-flying, and the fact HHH's thighs are short stumps by now).

The thought crossed my mind, but it all seemed expected. No one looked genuinely shocked or surprised so I think it was just a work and that Taker is probably fine. Although I have heard that both men were a little banged up going into this match. Probably why it didn't go a bit longer as I seem to remember the last two years matches with Taker and HBK being a bit longer

Seeing Hunter pick up and drop the sledgehammer while he was in Taker's submission hold was a pretty cool visual. Damn, Hunter really sold that like a wild animal caught in a trap and desperately trying everything in its power to escape until it finally exhausted all of its energy

[Gamerforlife]

Stone Cold nearly running over Swagger and Cole in that vehicle of his,

MY bud and I seriously yelled out at that one! So close - we couldn't believe Swagger got off the ramp in time!

I thought the same thing! These guys don't mess around. On a related note, I am always amazed at how these guys kick out JUST before the ref's hand hits the mat the third time. It just seems like that must take PERFECT timing

[the King]

From what I read on the results, sounds like I didn't miss much. I like that The Rock ended up kicking both Miz and Cena's ass at the end, classic Rock! But other than that, it sounded pretty predictable and average, which Wrestlemania should be anything but.

To be fair for the most part the majority of Wrestlemania's have been pretty predictable. You knew who was going to win a lot of the matches going in, but how they would do it was what you watched for and the actual matches. I'll give them that you didn't know who was going to win the Miz/Cena match, but you knew the Rock was going to get involved somehow. But yeah, you really didn't miss much. I'm glad I didn't pay to watch it or else I'd be extremely dissapointed. A lot of the show seemed rushed, like it's a 4 hour pay per view and you can't give the WWE championship main event match more than 15 minutes? I think the Rock's opening monologue went longer. Why even have two world titles if one is regulated to being the opening match? Why have the IC/US/Tag titles if they don't even get defended? For the most part the entire pay per view (and I guess the month leading up to it) was all about the Rock and at the same time burying the biggest face in the company(who's also the face of the company) and bury the current champ. The Rock's awesome and all, but I don't see how that helps your current product. All it does it is point out that the product isn't as good as it was 10 years ago.

[Gamerforlife]

Well, I'm going to try and take a positive stance here as I enjoyed the show personally

It was kind of weird seeing The Smackdown title match open the show, but it was given just enough time to not seem like a joke and Del Rio got some good offense in and looked strong before Edge defeated him

The product is excellent right now I think. They have TONS of good talent, the ratings have been up and they haven't been embarrassing themselves the way TNA has been lately. Vince has also been doing a fairly good job of getting his product in the media for the past year or so. They are getting some good worldwide attention too and just look at the attendance at Mania. Sin Caro should makes things interesting too when he debuts tonight. It seems like he will get a massive push and all indications point to him being amazing in the ring. It's about damn time we got another luche libre style guy as Rey Mysterio is so god damn boring

I'm more than happy seeing Cena get buried personally. He doesn't really deserve to be the face of the company. The very fact that he has never been able to get a universal pop from the WWE universe the way guys like Rock, Hogan and Austin did means that he just isn't as good a "face of the company" as they were. Honestly, Jeff Hardy and RVD were better babyfaces than he is. Those Cena Sucks chants just never go away. He's not in their league and maybe it's time for them to find someone else and built him up to Cena's level as I don't think the Cena experiment has worked out

I don't think the Miz got buried at all. He was dominating Cena for most of the match, then he kicked out of an Attitude Adjustment(which makes him WWE champ material right there) then the match went outside and resulted in a double count out when both of them couldn't get back to the ring. Then Rock restarted the match, Miz fought out of yet another attitude adjustment attempt, then Rock dropped Cena with a Rock Bottom giving Miz the win. It's worth noting that Rock then took on the Miz head on, rather than attacking him from behind like he did with Cena which made the Miz not look like a total punk. Miz was gold last night. He entrance video was brilliant, showing his rise to the top and the camera focusing on his back as he watched those videos somehow just made him seem like some classic, megalomaniacal villain. Cena's entrance was just the usual, "look at me, I'm your role model kids!" nonsense. Does Cena think God himself is on his side now? Ridiculous

I actually enjoyed how the show captured just a little bit of the attitude era feel a few times. Austin nearly running over Cole and Swagger, then dropping stunners on two announcers, the Rock throwing the laptop to the ground after telling the general manager, "it doesn't matter what you think!", the tense Rock/Austin confrontation, Edge and Christian laying waste to Del Rio's car, Hunter's awesome entrance music, Snookie giving Ziggler a good ole Stephanie McMahon style slap, then Michelle McCool angrily shoving leyla because she wanted to start the match and get a piece of Trish. And of course, the Cena bashing smacktalk from Rock throughout the night.

Oh, and I loved Cody's match with Rey. He's such a great heel right now

[Gamerforlife]

So I was thinking to myself. Besides Rock, Austin and Hogan-who probably are the biggest stars the WWE has ever had-who else would you say were its biggest stars? Who got the biggest pops from the crowd? Who could get the audience hanging on every single word? You guys can go as far back as you want in making your choices

Who do you think COULD have been the top babyfaces in the WWE, but didn't get the opportunity for whatever reason

Also, if you guys could choose someone other than Cena to be the "face" of the company, who would it be? I have always found it odd that Cena cannot get an entire crowd behind him. I think that makes him lacking as the so called "face" of the company

Undertaker comes to my mind as possibly being the only guy nearly as iconic and over with fans over the course of his career as Rock, Austin and Hogan have been. Even moreso than HBK and Triple H I think. I am not a huge fan of his personally though

I think RVD and Jeff Hardy really could have been the faces of the company had things gone differently for them(in RVD's case the incident when he got pulled over and in Jeff's case his own immaturity). They could have been the WWE's top guys. Both of them were massively over as I recall and the funny thing is that Jeff was shit on the mic and yet during his last run in the WWE it still seemed like people hung on his every word and gave him the loudest pops. RVD had major ECW cred and the guy was just damn cool. Those RVD chants he got, not every babyface gets chants on a regular basis at pretty much every single match they are in. That's how over he was.

Of all the guys they have now, I would love to see a babyface Jericho as the face of the company if I had my way. He has tons of exposure from his non-wrestling projects, he is excellent in the ring and on the mic, he is versatile and he seems to be the only wrestler who is practically injury proof. On top of all that I have heard that Stephanie McMahon is a big Jericho supporter and based on his own interviews Jericho seems to have a good working relationship with Vince

[sevin0seven]

So I was thinking to myself. Besides Rock, Austin and Hogan-who probably are the biggest stars the WWE has ever had-who else would you say were its biggest stars? Who got the biggest pops from the crowd? Who could get the audience hanging on every single word? You guys can go as far back as you want in making your choices

Ultimate Warrior comes to mind if he didn't become crazy...and hard to work with it. in his prime the crowd was over him.

another wrestler that gets the crowd loud is Bill Goldberg during his streak in WCW. the prime Goldberg is so over with the crowd.

[BurningDoom]

So I was thinking to myself. Besides Rock, Austin and Hogan-who probably are the biggest stars the WWE has ever had-who else would you say were its biggest stars?

We're talking just WWE, right? Not WCW, NWA, or ECW, right?

If that's the case, these are my picks:





















I'd also say Ric Flair, but we all know his WWF run wasn't all that impressive. The great days of his career were with NWA and WCW.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

Who do you think COULD have been the top babyfaces in the WWE, but didn't get the opportunity for whatever reason

Warrior and Jeff Hardy both had the hype & the push, I feel! The opportunity for Legend status was practically gift-wrapped to them, but because of their own self-destructive personalities behind the scenes, they kind of shot themselves in the foot. A shame - both were phenomenal Superstars!
RVD definitely comes to mind as deserving of a good put-over, but over the course of history, nobody will ever be more overlooked, (IMHO,) as Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka. That dude had it all - charisma, great attitude, awesome Face, and supernatural agility! But because his body was too small, compared to the Heavyweights, he got swept under the rug...
Also, Ricky Steamboat's feud with Randy Savage was so legendary, and got so many people behind "The Dragon" and against "Macho Man" that you could have easily made a franchise out of Steamboat..

Also, if you guys could choose someone other than Cena to be the "face" of the company, who would it be? I have always found it odd that Cena cannot get an entire crowd behind him. I think that makes him lacking as the so called "face" of the company

Without question - John Morrison. And maybe because I'm going along with my above appreciation for high-flyers and acrobatic daredevils..

Morrison, as of this moment, has so many things going for him - Looks, fan-base, ability & agility, above average mic-skills (compared to so many of the current heated superstars), and his image is nothing short of the Macho Man.. I think this fiasco with Snooki was great exposure for him, and in the coming year, we're only going to see more heat built up for Morrison.
Honorable mention goes to CM Punk. Awesome crowd speaker, very athletic, and incredibly smart when it comes to the business! However, his association with New Nexus hurts him as an individual (not to mention the rest of the talent underneath him in Nexus) and if he just gets a face-run, I think he could give Cena a run for his money...

[Razzmatazz]

So I was thinking to myself. Besides Rock, Austin and Hogan-who probably are the biggest stars the WWE has ever had-who else would you say were its biggest stars? Who got the biggest pops from the crowd? Who could get the audience hanging on every single word? You guys can go as far back as you want in making your choices

Who do you think COULD have been the top babyfaces in the WWE, but didn't get the opportunity for whatever reason

Also, if you guys could choose someone other than Cena to be the "face" of the company, who would it be? I have always found it odd that Cena cannot get an entire crowd behind him. I think that makes him lacking as the so called "face" of the company

Biggest Stars: Triple H, John Cena, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Undertaker, Big Show, Brock Lesnar (names people have heard of who don't watch wrestling.

Biggest Pops: Triple H (when he returned), Christian (this guy gets a massive pop considering he isn't a main eventer), Goldberg (always got a big pop), Scott Steiner (when he returned in Survivor Series 2002, crowd was hype!!! WWE screwed him), Booker T this year at the Rumble got a great pop, another WCW guy who wasn't used properly. Also Tazz had an IMMENSE debut pop and never got used much.

Hanging on words: Triple H, Jericho, Steiner (probably because I'm a fan but he is so unpredictable on the mic), Ric Flair.

Face of the company: Morrison, Kofi

[pakopako]

So I was thinking to myself. Besides Rock, Austin and Hogan-who probably are the biggest stars the WWE has ever had-who else would you say were its biggest stars?

We're talking just WWE, right? Not WCW, NWA, or ECW, right?

Guys like Macho Man and Angle (YOU SUCK) would always get the crowd riled up. Cena, love him or hate him, never comes out to silence. Jericho always makes the crowd eat out of his hand (though his better work was in WCW where he could get someone heat by pointing at them).

I do think some of those listed only became immortalized after they left the WWF. Bret Hart, one of my favorite wrestlers, was a great face for the company... but he was somewhere above super-patriot Hacksaw and below show-stopper HBK. His only weakness, IMHO, were his promos -- before his stock soared after the Montreal Screwjob (as opposed to the Original WFF Screwjob over Wendy Richter, another big name back-in-the-day)... can you imagine a single time where he had to wait for the crowd to quiet down before speaking?

Another one who let time make him better was Missus Foley's baby-boy, the master of the cheap pop, Mick Foley. Like Flair, the more time passed, the more he got appreciated.

I also think that Rye Mysterio is... I don't know what he is. He's the ultimate underdog, he's still fairly fast, but you really can't take any of his promos seriously. Even after the rubs he's gotten from Eddy Guerrero.

And speaking of which: Eddie Guerrero. He lies, he cheats, he steals. He was also a kick-ass cruiserweight and TV champ back in WCW. That guy looked sick, but he moved like he was en fuego!

Some other crown-less kinds that need mentioning: Curt "Mr.Perfect" Hennig, "Million Dollar" Ted DiBiase (muahahahahahaaa!), and Bobby "the Brain" Heenan... just to get the ball rolling on non-wrestlers that control the crowd. (Like Joey Styles or Paul Heyman or even the current Michael Cole -- who I think is this generation's version of "the big boss"; the annoying troll.)