The Wrestling Thread

[retrosportsgamer]

I cannot believe Cena didn't overcome MATH and take out the Shield tonight. Their heel defense is just fantastic. Great segment for them. Eventually these top guys need their "win" - which may be at EC. Would they do one EC for the #1 contender for the WC and the other EC Sheamus/Cena/Ryback vs the Shield? Assuming Orton is in the WC EC (although i guess Sheamus would be too).

[Gamerforlife]

I cannot believe Cena didn't overcome MATH and take out the Shield tonight. Their heel defense is just fantastic. Great segment for them. Eventually these top guys need their "win" - which may be at EC. Would they do one EC for the #1 contender for the WC and the other EC Sheamus/Cena/Ryback vs the Shield? Assuming Orton is in the WC EC (although i guess Sheamus would be too).

You wouldn't believe how much I marked out for The Shield taking out Cena, Sheamus, and Rybak. I especially liked how Roman Reigns put the breaks on Sheamus until his pals could get their hands on him. That guy looks seriously powerful. After seeing that segment, and the video tape with Heymen, there is no doubt that The Shield is not to be fucked with. Between them and Lesnar, I'd be scared to shit to go after Paul Heymen for ANY reason. I do hope The Shield get to do something awesome at Elimination Chamber. I still haven't seen their match against Rybak and Team Hell No at that one pay per view, but I heard people say it was amazing work by them.

The more I think about it, I think I really liked Raw tonight. There was some stupid stuff, but they did a absolutely AMAZING job putting people over tonight. Punk, Rock, Lesnar, and The Shield all got put over big time in some way or another. Jericho was put over nicely by the commentators too and the crowd was really into him.

Also, Heyman's promo was amazing. You knew he was lying, but the guy was so passionate in denying his involvement with the Shield that it was believable. His whole, "promoters lie" feels like a dig at Vince too.

[Razzmatazz]

Having heard Cena won the Rumble, I elected to save 3 hours of my life and ignore the PPV, although I did watch the Rock v Punk match on Youtube. I shall watch Raw tonight, as being a Brit it's just not possible to stay up at 1am to 4am in the week. And having read this thread it looks like a great watch.

I just wanted to comment on TNA, and the fact that they seem to show the UK a lot of respect. Hulk Hogan was on a daytime talk show last week talking about TNA, their reality show that has on-air where the winner gets a TNA contract, and also talked about Lance Armstrong and the whole drugs thing.

Link -

When he mentions that TNA is the biggest wrestling company in the UK, he isn't far wrong. The most popular tabloid newspaper "The Sun" has a wrestling section and regular interviews with TNA stars. The news section is mostly TNA stuff -

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/

There is a wrestling discussion show called Wrestle Talk straight after TNA Impact broadcast on Sunday evenings. This week they had a Bret Hart interview.

I would like to quote an article over at NoDQ.com which makes for interesting reading:

"Since the purchase of WCW by Vince McMahon, there has been no serious competition for the WWF/E in terms of ratings, house show attendances and merchandise sales. This domination was prominent throughout the world (barring Mexico and Japan), but in the past 12 months, WWE's domination in the UK has not only come under threat, but ended, and WWE programming viewing figures is now inferior to that of TNA.

For those in the US, WWE is aired on Sky Sports, a premium subscription sports service that on estimate has 6 million subscribers. Raw airs live early on Tuesday mornings, and repeated at a more conventional time of 5pm on the following Monday. Smackdown is first aired on Friday nights at 10pm, similar to the US, and is repeated various times throughout the week. The average viewing figures for the live airing of Raw is between 120k-150k and Smackdown attracts between 70k-130k. TNA programming, however, is aired on the free-to-air channel Challenge, which is accessible in just under 25 million homes. TNA programming debuted on Challenge a year ago after its previous British home, Bravo, was sold to Sky by its parent company. iMPACT's average viewing figures when on Bravo was around 60k-100k, but since airing on Challenge, has doubled to 200k, and has even attracted figures of up to 350k. TNA's PPVs are aired free on Challenge as well, and can attract up to 250k viewers"

Full article - http://nodq.com/columns/328155691.shtml

I'm not actually much of a TNA fan, I still feel their product is in need of more polish and more merchandise. The TNA video game sucked, but I'm glad that Silvervision (the former WWE Video & DVD distributor) has now got TNA rights. If they can get some great events and boxsets out on DVD, it would really help wrestling fans who aren't quite convinced of TNA to dip both feet in.

[TheRev]

Anybody that says TNA has over come WWE in the UK is fooling themselves. TNA does better numbers in the UK Because it's on Free TV while WWE is pay TV and Raitings don't measure downloaded shows.

One of the reasons I can't stand TNA is the fans. I had a a near year long battle with TNA on Dixie Carter's fanpage. Which resulting in attempts to have my personal info stolen.

YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT MY PERSONAL INFO ATTEMPTED TO BE STOLEN because I wasn't a TNA fan. My address was found and posted there even I never let on that that was my actual address since my name is common.

But yeah TNA fans be cray cray.

[Menegrothx]

One of the reasons I can't stand TNA is the fans. I had a a near year long battle with TNA on Dixie Carter's fanpage. Which resulting in attempts to have my personal info stolen.

Well there's your problem. As if the more immature WWE fans, which there are a lot more due to the mainstream popularity and PG-era (sheer number of fans, not percentage of the total fanbase), wouldn't get just as pissy if you went to argue with them on the fanpage of John Cena or some other similiar figure.

[TheRev]

One of the reasons I can't stand TNA is the fans. I had a a near year long battle with TNA on Dixie Carter's fanpage. Which resulting in attempts to have my personal info stolen.

Well there's your problem. As if the more immature WWE fans, which there are a lot more due to the mainstream popularity and PG-era (sheer number of fans, not percentage of the total fanbase), wouldn't get just as pissy if you went to argue with them on the fanpage of John Cena or some other similiar figure.

Well there's Crazy and there's Retarded. WWE fans can just be retarded. TNA fans are either Crazy OR Retarded. Sometimes both.

ROH fans are the worst of the lot. I thought for the longest time Ring of Honor had no soul or personality and was just anemic though the in ring product was good. They Didn't want want to hear it common argument from an ROH fan (or retarded TNA fan) is that I must be a fan of John Cena.

[sevin0seven]

what the?!?, there's actually a ESPN WWE Power Rankings: http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/fandom ... s-top-spot

[Gamerforlife]

what the?!?, there's actually a ESPN WWE Power Rankings: http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/fandom ... s-top-spot

8. The Shield

"Brutalized Cena, Ryback and Sheamus in one vicious Raw sequence. Dream Survivor Series match would pit Heyman's Guys versus Vince's Guys, with Lesnar, Punk and The Shield vs. Cena, Rock, Ryback, Sheamus and Triple H."

Amen to that. I'd order that pay per view. It'd be a perfect time to turn Cena, Sheamus, or Rybak heel too.

[BurningDoom]

What's sad about TNA, is right before Hogan and Bischoff came in and stunk up the place (and they really did, I mean I'm a HUGE WCW mark, and I'm saying that), TNA was having incredible matches and was presenting possibly the best wrestling product they ever had up until that point. What if Hogan and Bischoff never came? Would we be looking at a different wrestling landscape today?

[sevin0seven]

What's sad about TNA, is right before Hogan and Bischoff came in and stunk up the place (and they really did, I mean I'm a HUGE WCW mark, and I'm saying that), TNA was having incredible matches and was presenting possibly the best wrestling product they ever had up until that point. What if Hogan and Bischoff never came? Would we be looking at a different wrestling landscape today?

i remember the night when they went head to head against Raw, and Hogan and Bischoff was all talking about "changes" for TNA. The ring, hours, name, etc......looks like the same WCW crap to me.