The Wrestling Thread

[BurningDoom]

The Rock sounded a lot better on Raw last night than he did in most of his promos vs. Cena. It sounded like the old Rock. I loved it!

And the ladder match between Punk and Ryback was fantastic. If Ryback can keep performing like that with wrestlers other than Punk, then I might let up on him.

Other than those 2 shining moments, the rest of it was boring.

And BTW, I can't believe that a grown man actually enjoys Team Hell No. It's complete kiddie faire. Screaming no and yes at each other repeatedly is anything but entertaining, it's annoying. It's fast-forward worthy.

[Gamerforlife]

The Rock sounded a lot better on Raw last night than he did in most of his promos vs. Cena. It sounded like the old Rock. I loved it!

And the ladder match between Punk and Ryback was fantastic. If Ryback can keep performing like that with wrestlers other than Punk, then I might let up on him.

Other than those 2 shining moments, the rest of it was boring.

And BTW, I can't believe that a grown man actually enjoys Team Hell No. It's complete kiddie faire. Screaming no and yes at each other repeatedly is anything but entertaining, it's annoying. It's fast-forward worthy.

Right, just like grown men can't enjoy female wrestling right

Someone has a fragile male ego

You really think kids are the only ones getting into the yes/no chants? I'd do it if I was there live. Grown men don't worry so much about their male ego. And for the record, the yes/no thing predates Team Hell No. That's a Daniel Bryan thing, and it started out as a show of respect for him mostly by older, male serious wrestling fans than it caught fire and now everyone from kids to adults to men to women have gotten into it. The kids may love it, but it didn't start with them. They just hopped on the bandwagon

And nothing Daniel Bryan does is fast-forward worthy.

[BurningDoom]

It has nothing to do with ego. Team Hell No are childish.

You're right about Daniel Bryan being good. But he's not good because of Team Hell No. He's good because he's a good grappler, and instead of putting him in good matches, WWE decides he's there to make the kiddies giggle. What a waste.

[TheRev]

Am I the only one thinking "CM PUNK Listens to Nas?"

Look up You da man and you'll see what I mean.

[Razzmatazz]

Am I the only one thinking "CM PUNK Listens to Nas?"

Look up You da man and you'll see what I mean.

I thought the exact same thing. I knew a rapper had used that line but thought it was Gza. Glad you cleared that up as was bugging me.

As for Raw I found myself only watching the HORRIBLE Cena promo and the brilliant Punk/Rock promo. I enjoyed the ladder match but fast forwarded the rest. It's sad that I prefer seeing promos than matches these days. Although other than the hilarious "It doesn't matter if you matter" jibe, I thought Punk came off better than Rocky. I still love The Rock, but with his Hollywood status and incredible presence (he looked huge compared to Punk) I think he is too human for my liking. I want that cocky son of a bitch character that had promos so good the crowd fed off it, rather than having to start a chant. It's hard to explain, but it still feels like a watered down version of The Rock. Even if that is still good viewing.

[Gamerforlife]

Am I the only one thinking "CM PUNK Listens to Nas?"

Look up You da man and you'll see what I mean.

I thought the exact same thing. I knew a rapper had used that line but thought it was Gza. Glad you cleared that up as was bugging me.

As for Raw I found myself only watching the HORRIBLE Cena promo and the brilliant Punk/Rock promo. I enjoyed the ladder match but fast forwarded the rest. It's sad that I prefer seeing promos than matches these days. Although other than the hilarious "It doesn't matter if you matter" jibe, I thought Punk came off better than Rocky. I still love The Rock, but with his Hollywood status and incredible presence (he looked huge compared to Punk) I think he is too human for my liking. I want that cocky son of a bitch character that had promos so good the crowd fed off it, rather than having to start a chant. It's hard to explain, but it still feels like a watered down version of The Rock. Even if that is still good viewing.

I'm normally quick to defend the Rock, but I didn't love his promo on Raw. I thought the jokes were some of his weakest material and he just pandered to the crowd too much. I wanted a serious exchange between the two, no jokes. The thing is, Punk's promo was soooooo scathing, angry and mean that I thought it deserved a very serious response from the Rock. Punk just tore "the people" a new one. Rock should have been angry. There should have been no room for jokes. This is why we hate Cena so much, because he makes jokes about everything. The "it doesn't matter if you matter" line was stupid. That made no logical sense whatsoever.

Punk's promo I had mixed feelings on. It went on too long like he was stalling for time, and it seemed like he didn't know what his point was. He tells the crowd they don't matter, then he starts carrying on about how he's not letting them win, which means they obviously matter a lot if he's so obsessed with not letting them win. I don't know. I think a flaw with Punk's character is that it's not always clear what his motivations are. It's like how wishy washy he was in 2011 about leaving the WWE, then he came back a week later. And I don't get why he mentioned the glass ceiling, or Brodus Clay and Tyson Kid. In retrospect, that was all kind of pointless. That promo of his was just meandering and aimless

From what I hear, a lot of people liked the Rock/Punk promo so I guess I'm in the minority. Hulk Hogan himself said something about how impressed he was with Punk's promo on Raw. It's an odd thing for Hogan to praise or talk about someone that is not himself.

I'll say one positive thing though, that I heard on a podcast today. There was a sense that Rock and Punk were working together out there to try and get over their feud. People have pointed out how during the Rock/Cena feud it always seemed like Cena was LEGITIMATELY trying to make The Rock look bad in all of their promo exchanges, which just proves what I've always said that Cena is a dick, but I digress.

[TheRev]

So I understand TNA is scaling back on PPVs. 4 live ones a year and then Special Friday taped PPVs.

I'm not a huge TNA fan mostly because they make stupid dumb decisions and still continue to exist. But I don't know what to think here.

[BurningDoom]

@gamerforlife:
A Rock promo without jokes just isn't a Rock promo. Even when he's "pissed" at someone in a feud in the past, he's throw in insults that made you laugh.

@TheRev
The TNA move makes sense to me. As much as they'd like to be, they aren't the WWE and they aren't WCW. They don't bring in the viewers and the money that those companies do/did. I'd be willing to bet they were losing money with that many PPVs per year.

And, if they were smart, they'd make long-lasting, memorable feuds really build-up over time like in the old days, now.

[Gamerforlife]

No spoilers, but I heard something big is going down on Smackdown tonight

I've been thinking of stuff I'd love to see in the months leading up to Mania. I'm going to throw down some ideas, none of which I expect to see actually happen at all, but things that I would want to see in my own little fantasy universe.

1. A returning Triple H feuds with Ziggler, leading to a Mania match where Ziggler wins with the help of AJ and Big E Langston. The briefcase would be on the line, assuming Ziggler doesn't have to cash it in before Mania.

2. The Shield attacks a reunited DX on next week's anniversary episode of Raw, basically beating them down individually backstage. This would lead up to a Mania match between them and X-Pac and the New Age Outlaws. It would be a one time return to a WWE ring for those guys.

3. At the Royal Rumble, Brock Lesnar attacks Rybak, despite Brock not actually being in the rumble match itself. This leads to Rybak being eliminated after having thrown ten other guys out of the ring in epic fashion and clearly being the most dominating guy in the match. This builds up to a Brock/Rybak mania match. A similarly cool scenario would be Batista coming back and fueding with Rybak or Lesnar

4. Punk keeps his title til Mania for that streak vs streak match with Taker, with special referee Brad Maddox.

5. There's a massive three or four team Mania match for Kane and Bryan's tag titles, maybe a ladder match or something. This would be an awesome spot fest of a match. A new team debuts in WWE prior to this match and wins it. Maybe some awesome team from Ring of Honor, like a returning Haas and Benjamin. Barring that happening, I'd just have the Prime Time Players or the Usos win it. A tag team ladder match probably can't happen though if they do a Mania Money in the Bank match

6. Sara del Rey debuts as a face and goes after Eve, leading to a title match at Mania where Del Rey becomes the new face of the "womens" division. I'd build her up prior to this match as the anti-diva, who hates Eva's spoiled attitude and the way she poses for pictures all the time and walks out on matches like a spoiled pop star instead of being a real wrestler. I'd have Eve train like crazy with Sara to make their Mania match one that completely changes how WWE fans view women's wrestling

7. Cena goes heel and costs Rock the match against Punk at the Rumble. This leads us to Rock/Cena 2 at mania with no title on the line. It's a heel Cena, that's enough to get people interested in this rematch. Full on thug Cena would be back, with the chains and everything and maybe some edgy raps. After the year Cena had in 2012, and still stinging over his major loss to the Rock in their first match, a heel turn is easy to explain

8. Owen Hart's stupid wife allows him to be inducted into the Hall of Fame so that all his sacrifices for the WWF could actually fucking mean something.

9. I'd have Paul Heymen pulling double duty managing both Punk and Lesnar leading up to their respective Mania matches that I've mentioned above. You can't get enough of Heyman and I miss the days of managers having multiple top guys they were managing. Punk and Lesnar could make up his own little stable. The most dangerous man in the WWE and the best in the world, fifth or sixth longest reigning champion of all time! His ringside presence during Punk and Lesnar's Mania matches would add a lot to them

10. Jim Ross would be calling the Taker match with Punk and really selling what a historic match this is, streak versus streak

So those are my mostly crazy ideas that will never happen. What crazy stuff would you guys like to see?

On another note, does anybody else feel like The Rock should be in the next Expendables movie?

[retrosportsgamer]

Regarding the Monday promo:

My issues were - they put Punk out there too soon after his brutal stuntman show AND gave him way too much time. The promo was great, probably not delivered as well as he would have liked but the message was awesome. The Rock, to his credit, at least gave Punk credit a number of times and they both put over the match. The Cookie Puss, crackhead stuff is fine if limited. It could have been worse. I feared a "CM GAY" line or something for the crowd to chant.