retrosportsgamer wrote:I was thrilled I didn't waste my time and money and go down to that RAW. I rarely miss them in Philly but with going to Mania in a week, didn't really have the urge.
i actually thought of you when i found out it was in Philly last night (wondering if you attended)...also out of topic. great first day stats on fantasy basketball playoffs so far.
BurningDoom wrote:A surprisingly good episode of Impact tonight.
TNA is getting better. I did get bored with it last night and Popped in Dead or Alive, watched the Knock outs cluster fuck while the updates downloaded then it was all kicking ass with Hitomi until 9:30 when I watched Anderson/Hardy which wasn't a bad match at all.
Weather is looking good for a nice afternoon of tailgating into Mania on Sunday night. Starting to get excited here.
Here are my scattered thoughts/predictions:
So they announced Miz/Barrett will be on the pre-show, I guess in an attempt to get more buys by showing, what should be, an actual quality match. I'd imagine they have Miz win the belt here. They've booked Barrett horribly with the title. At least Miz will put it over (as poor of a face as he is - he'll try at least).
I thought they may add a second match to the pre-show but they need that mixed tag to be filler before the main event. More likely they'll give Miz/Barrett 10-12 minutes and hope the "feel good" moment of Miz recapturing a secondary title he first won four years ago prompts some additional sales.
I like the corelation between Cena and Austin at WMx7 but wasn't Cena saying the same stuff to Rock last year? I know I was waiting for Cena to storm the ring after his loss and turn heel. It made sense given the stakes and all the banter before WM28. His character sucked post-loss, as per the usual shaking off the defeat the next night (and then beating Brock at the next PPV before teasing us that he was taking time off). I would love a heelish win for him but I think they play this one straight and just count their money after. I think the build has been worse this year also. Rock being signed on for Extreme Rules is intriguing though. There's no way they'd do the rubber match there, right?
I'm in the camp that Brock WINS and HHH does the long goodbye (again) that he tried at Summerslam before we have a three hour circle jerk celebrating his career on Monday Night. I'm not a HHH hater either, but it sure seems like he's trying to syphon the kind of nostalgic goodbye heat that HBK got. I just don't see people as invested in him or this angle. Adding Shawn to be in his corner plants (again for the second straight year) a possiblility of a heel turn and future Summerslam match. I did like once piece of Shawn's promo last night - contrasting the Undertaker and the respect they had for each other vs. Brock's recklessness. That was decent. I do think this will probably be my favorite match of the night given the stips.
Punk/Taker - no surprise here, at least they kicked this up a notch last night with the urn payoff. I did like that Taker was onto Punk being one of the Druids right away. Even though Punk still jumped him, at least he didn't look like an idiot.
Shields vs. Sheamus/Orton/Show - if Ryback was in this match I would have said he finally gets his win over the Shield to close out the storyline. Not sure where this one goes - potential heel turn by Orton, or do they do the same kind of ending they did at EC in this match?
Team Hell No vs. Dolph/Big - It's a small silver lining but I love that they held off on Big E's WWE ring debut until the ppv. Dolph and team should carry the belts around until they figure out a story to have him cash in.
Del Rio vs. Swagger - It would be foolish to kill off Swagger now and they've really booked this feud one-sided against Del Rio so far. A clean Swagger win really makes Del rio look weak (especially after the Ricardo stuff). I like Alberto as a face. I think we may get a cheap DQ here to extend things out.
Ryback vs. Henry - At first I thought the crowd may just shit all over this but Henry is pretty over with smarks and Ryback is still getting cheered (including a good chant last night). Henry should win and go on to better things but Ryback gets his big win, with a good probability of a couple botched moves from Ryback as well.
Fandango vs. Jericho - Jericho puts him over after an exciting 6-8 minutes.
I see lot people saying that it's bad for business if HHH wins against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania.
What I fail to understand is how is it good for business if Brock Lesnar wins? The guy has a track record of being in it only for himself, ridiculous demands, and not the most reliable behavior or work ethic. Having Brock Lesnar win would be bad for business, IMO.
I think there are plenty of ways HHH can get the win and have both guys come out looking great - and I think it will be a good match (although the rumored 30 minutes allocated to actual match time is too long imo). Brock's signed on for two years so conceivably he's a heel foil for Cena over the summer. HHH is not an active wrestler.
You are correct, he did abruptly quit back in 2004 and his new contract does allow him to walk away whenever so I think it would certainly be questionable putting the strap on him down the road.
retrosportsgamer wrote:
I'm in the camp that Brock WINS and HHH does the long goodbye (again) that he tried at Summerslam before we have a three hour circle jerk celebrating his career on Monday Night. I'm not a HHH hater either, but it sure seems like he's trying to syphon the kind of nostalgic goodbye heat that HBK got. I just don't see people as invested in him or this angle. Adding Shawn to be in his corner plants (again for the second straight year) a possiblility of a heel turn and future Summerslam match. I did like once piece of Shawn's promo last night - contrasting the Undertaker and the respect they had for each other vs. Brock's recklessness. That was decent. I do think this will probably be my favorite match of the night given the stips.
Of course this is wrestling and they can always un-retire HHH, but because of the stipulation I just don't see him losing. At some point they have to be thinking about using him in the Mr. McMahon role as the heel boss abusing his power which would lead to matches. Plus, I also don't see at this point him not wanting to have a match at Wrestlemania 30. Personally I think Shawn saved this angle with his promo and his involvement is going to put it over, much like last year and after this past Monday I'm more interested in what he's going to show up wearing than anything.
Am I the only one who feels this is the worst built Mania in a long time? I'm really not excited for it. I'm pretty much ordering it just on name value along. I mean, it's Mania.
A friend of mine says Ring of Honor has been great lately. I wonder what I've been missing as I haven't watched it in weeks.
I hope we are looking at all 4 star to 5 star matches, and maybe a surpise or two, because the story lines going into this have been mostly crap IMO. The Rock/Cena stuff was great, until last Monday. Cena's promo was kind of pointless and he was just rambling. The Henry/Rybak feud has been lame. These silly one upmanship games they've been doing is just silly kid stuff. Punk/Taker has been utter crap. The fact that they've been using Bearer to further this feud after his unexpected death tells you how much thought went into how they would built up the Punk/Taker match. Fandango/Jericho = lame. Jericho should NOT be fighting some nobody on the grandest stage of them all, I don't care how good their match ends up being. The Shield match has been built up fairly well at least. The Hunter/Lesnar feud has pretty much been carried by Heyman and, big surprise here, HBK. Have you noticed that HBK has had to come in and save Hunter's crap feuds for three years now? Jesus, that's how boring Triple H is on his own.
So yeah, I'm not high on Mania, and I know a lot of other people I've talked to or heard on various podcasts aren't either.
RyaNtheSlayA wrote:
Seriously. Screw you Shao Kahn I'm gonna play Animal Crossing.
