The Wrestling Thread

[Raging Justice]

Damn, now I kind of wish I had ordered the Royal Rumble:

[Raging Justice]

I just got done reading some reports on the show

So other than Bayley winning and making a lot of people happy (seriously, I watched some clips on youtube and people in the crowd and others watching at a bar popped hard when she won), sounds like the PPV was trash and everything other than Bayley was typical, predictable WWE. CAWdy Rhodes of course won the men's rumble and of course him and Punk were the final two

Oh, and Jade Cargill was there. Who cares? They brought her into the Rumble late because they know how trash she is. They actually let her eliminate Becky Lynch, one of the top stars in the company and someone I'd imagine many people thought could win the Rumble.

Liv Morgan, Jade Cargill, and Bayley were the final three. I have no idea how no talent Liv keeps getting in these big spots all the time. Nobody actually buys into her as some main event star. Frankly, her and Cargill don't deserve this spot, but I digress. I'm just happy about who won.

Bayley eliminating Bianca Belair and the close up of Becky Lynch's disappointed face post match makes Bayley's win so much sweeter. Bayley came in at number 3, so she nearly went coast to coast on this one. If you believe what WWE has been saying, this was the only thing in her career she hadn't accomplished yet.

[RCBH928]

If the allegations are true, he should go to jail. If you haven’t read them, don’t. They’re stomach churning.

Even with no allegations, at 78 you should retire. You should retire at around 65 I think.

Everyone from Darby Allin to Matt Riddle, from Stone Cold to Ric Flair, from Chris Jericho to Tazz has some gross allegations against them that have been forgotten about.

Whats the dirt on Stone Cold?

either something wrong with pro-wrestling or its just the society we live in exposed. No way such small circle of a profession has so many illicit behaviour. Sex, drugs, back stabbing, fraud, death, racism...you name it. Saddest thing I have seen is Sunny going to jail. Going from young and vibrant to old, addict, and accidental murder of others....wow...

I guess being on the road for 365 days a year makes you looney after some time.

[RCBH928]

I absolutely am. Why would I want to watch people who can't wrestle for shit and whose matches are boring af? I would rather stick needles in my eyes than watch Hogan wrestle..

Yeah I know there are people out there like that I am just not one of them. I can't watch two unknowns in black trunks go at it. Sure the action can be awesome but for the most part I do not find it that way. I rather See Hogan music hitting and body slamming Yokozuna. There is a reason that Hogan is the pro-wrestling household name, and its not his in ring skills. In ring skills didn't get Dean Malenko too far.

If I want pure action I would watch UFC.

[Raging Justice]

I don't think RCBH928 knows how much wrestling has evolved over the years. A lot of wrestlers today can do some absolutely crazy things that you didn't see in the 80s and 90s. Even larger wrestlers defy expectations these days with some of the athletic things they can pull off. There are giant men who can do moon saults and leap frogs nowadays. It's crazy. As a result, I feel like smaller guys and lucha libre types have had to up the ante on the kind of insane stunts they can do.

You also have people like Zak Sabre Jr. doing crazy technical wrestling moves that are just mind boggling. The guy's like a frigging octopus. He can always find someway to coil around any part of your body and put you in a painful submission and he can do that at any time in a match from any position.

The physicality is off the charts these days too, particularly in Japan where wrestlers hit each other HARD. The fight may be fake, but a lot of the hits are REAL. Sometimes today you can see a person's chest literally start to bleed from all of the chops they've taken from their opponent.

It is entirely possible for two unknowns in black trunks to go out there in front of a big crowd and have them all standing on their feet cheering if they deliver a great match nowadays, especially if it's a crowd that really cares about the in ring action. AEW crowds, NXT crowds, indie crowds, and certain cities and countries that have very hardcore fans (like Canada, Chicago, Philadelphia, the UK, Japan, etc.) WILL cheer for those two unknowns. They may not remember who the two guys are when they go home but they WILL remember the match.

I'm not saying wrestling is better or worse than UFC, but there are amazing things wrestlers can do that you won't see in a UFC match, because at the end of the day, wrestling is a performance. Just like an action movie, they are trying to dazzle you with mind blowing action. UFC fighters are just trying to win a real life fight, it's not quite as exciting to watch in my opinion, but it is REAL and that appeals to some people more than fake pro wrestling. What I find fascinating however, is how UFC has borrowed so many elements from pro wrestling in terms of presentation, promos, title belts, etc. A lot of retired MMA fighters transition over into pro wrestling too, so the two businesses sometimes feel like siblings to me, even more so after the TKO/WWE merger.

@raging justice

-Why did Lucha Underground end? sounds good from what you talk about them.

Lucha Underground suffered a lot from being on a network most people didn't have and had never heard of. They also suffered from not operating like a real wrestling company. They weren't doing tours or house shows, which brings in a lot of money. I think live shows are where the wrestling industry rakes in a big portion of its earnings, especially in big arenas. Lucha Underground was taping shows in a small building with small crowds, and usually had the very same people coming to every show.

Lucha Underground was a hybrid of a serialized TV series and a pro wrestling show, and it's hard to be successful when you're not committed to one or the other. I don't think it earned enough money to keep paying the wrestlers because they weren't touring or having shows in big arenas with lots of ticket sales.

They also got done in by very restrictive contracts that pissed off a lot of the wrestlers, which led to some law suits. Wrestlers wanted to work elsewhere to make more money, and Lucha Underground wouldn't let them.

I will say though, there is a lot of people in AEW and WWE today that might not have been there had they not gotten noticed by those companies during their time in Lucha Underground. There are people in AEW who are essentially using the same gimmicks they had in Lucha Underground, like Pentagon and Luchasaurus.

Lucha Underground to their credit, had Rey Mysterio there for a while, who is a WWE Hall of Famer and still one of their most well known stars today. That was a really big deal at the time. Rey brought them some real star power, wasn't enough to keep them from eventually going under though. Lucha Underground was a fantastic show, but from a business perspective, never had a strong enough foundation to sustain itself. It didn't help that their production values were so high. It was a gorgeous looking show, but that's expensive and in later seasons I think the production value went down a bit due to the budget.

[Reprise]

Just got done watching the Rumble.

RR thoughts:
Women's Rumble a massive snoozefest. Jade Cargill looked like a million bucks... until she started wrestling... I don't even know who half the women are and most seem to have cheesy and generic gimmicks. The involvement of Jodynne Grace from TNA was nice. Bayley winning was awesome! The only good thing about the women's Rumble.

Cheese drips off the screen of the product. Production is so overdone and still pretty lame.

Championship Fatal Four Way was meh. It was ok. The finish seemed anticlimactic though. And how fucking long are entrances in WWE? Jesus Christ. Sooooo boooooring.

US Championship match was meh. The screwy finish sucked.

WWE PPVs have so much padding.

Men's Rumble starts off well. Jey and Jimmy being #1 and #2 was so predictable, but a great start none the less. Then it just got boring.

Is every AEW reject "one of the hottest free agents in the game", Cole? Andrade returned. We already knew he was coming back.

Men's Rumble was average. Whilst I am glad the Women have their own Rumble and it feels like they are finally equals to the men, it does make getting through the PPV a bit of a slog. I think it means I can't get into the men's Rumble so easily, because I am already a bit fatigued. Things picked up once we got to the final 4. Punk's GTS still looks incredibly weak. Cody winning was predictable.

Overall, weak PPV. I am now looking forward to finally being able to hop onto social media where all the WWE drones will be banging on about what an amazing event it was.

[Reprise]

Lucha Underground suffered a lot from being on a network most people didn't have and had never heard of.

Yeah, I can't remember if it was flat out impossible to watch it in the UK or if it was on some random channel I couldn't even pay for easily, but I had to pirate it.

Eddie Kingston is literally the worst wrestler on AEW's roster. His matches are so boring because HE CAN'T FUCKING DO ANYTHING. His finisher is him basically hitting you with his flabby arm and this somehow knocks people out. For some reason, Tony Kahn thought it was a good idea to put three belts on this fucking joke. The guy is not athletic and has zero muscles on any part of his body. He looks like some average bum just came in from the street and stepped into a wrestling ring. There was a time when guys like him would be jobbers in WWE, people who got paid for no other reason than to get their asses kicked by the real stars.

His finisher looks so hilariously weak, I am not sure how anyone is supposed to buy it as a finisher.

[Reprise]

Whats the dirt on Stone Cold?

He was physically and emotionally abusive to his wife, Debra. He was arrested for beating her up. Since then, she has revealed the abuse she received, that he would basically force or try to force sex on her when she didn't want it

At least one other ex partner has made similar allegations. He pushed one of his exes out of a moving vehicle and would abuse her pets in order to hurt her. On one occasion he locked her pet cats in cupboard before he left for several days to travel on the road. The cats were found by a neighbour a few days later malnourished and surrounded by faeces and urine.

[Raging Justice]

Lucha Underground suffered a lot from being on a network most people didn't have and had never heard of.

Yeah, I can't remember if it was flat out impossible to watch it in the UK or if it was on some random channel I couldn't even pay for easily, but I had to pirate it.

Eddie Kingston is literally the worst wrestler on AEW's roster. His matches are so boring because HE CAN'T FUCKING DO ANYTHING. His finisher is him basically hitting you with his flabby arm and this somehow knocks people out. For some reason, Tony Kahn thought it was a good idea to put three belts on this fucking joke. The guy is not athletic and has zero muscles on any part of his body. He looks like some average bum just came in from the street and stepped into a wrestling ring. There was a time when guys like him would be jobbers in WWE, people who got paid for no other reason than to get their asses kicked by the real stars.

His finisher looks so hilariously weak, I am not sure how anyone is supposed to buy it as a finisher.

AEW talks him up as some kind of striker. How can you be a striker when your arms and legs have literally NO muscles. His limbs look like MY limbs and I can guarantee you if I hit a pro wrestler as hard as I could they wouldn't feel a goddamn thing. Eddie looks like someone who could be my middle aged, out of shape, drinks a lot, married for several years and let himself go neighbor, he does NOT look like a wrestler. And don't even get me started again on his annoying, immature, rebellious teenager personality. Kingston is the guy who will never grow up. He acts like someone who hasn't changed since he was in high school with his petulant attitude. I guess refusing to go to a gym is just another part of his rebellious personality. I'll never understand how this guy is baby face.

The problem with the women getting to have their own variations of the men's matches is that it makes pay per views repetitive. There was a time when a Royal Rumble or a Money in the Bank ladder match was the highlight of a pay per view. Now we always get two of them. It also inevitably leads to fans comparing the two and one always comes out looking weaker than the other. I've also noticed that since they started having two rumbles, the number of cool, surprise entrants has gone down significantly. It's hard when you have to spread them out between two matches now

WWE has some of the worst commentary you'll ever hear. Corey Graves and Michael Cole are AWFUL, and some of the others aren't great either. Cole has been in WWE for what seems like forever though. Somebody in that company likes him, probably cause he's a submissive doormat I'd imagine. He has never been even close to what Jim Ross was in his prime.

I don't know why TNA keeps sending their women's title holders to Royal Rumble events, only for them to lose and remind everyone that TNA is full of B+ players. They did this with Mickie James too. It's just a bad look for your company. At the very least, she should have made it to the final three. SHE'S THE FUCKING WOMEN'S CHAMPION FOR GODSAKES. Sometimes wrestling makes my head hurt.

Logan Paul is a born natural at pro wrestling, maybe even a prodigy. That said, he's still that celebrity newcomer in my eyes and he should NOT be able to hang with the best guys in the company. It's a bad look for pro wrestling when any celeb can walk in the door and start kicking ass.

Why do people pay for pay per views featuring Roman Reigns? His matches have had the same result for over three years now. When people talk about wrestlers burying talent, Roman has been burying the roster for three years now

I've heard people say Punk didn't look great and people are speculating that he's injured again

Can we just trade in Punk for AJ Lee?

AEW had some bright spots on Collision. Deeb is back and had a fairly good promo, better than she's had in the past. She seemed confident with the mic in her hand too. The building blocks are there for a strong women's division especially if AEW does actually get Mercedes (and put Britt Baker back on TV). Purrazo has been a nice addition (kind of wish she was in better shape though but whatever). AEW has enough ladies they could make into stars right now if they really tried.

The main event was fun. Garcia is becoming a star. Frankly, he could replace Jack Perry as one of the pillars at this point.

Hangman and Swerve's rivalry is getting entertaining. I think these two are gonna be a tag team one day.

Cassidy is the hardest working man in AEW. Title defense after title defense after title defense and they're always entertaining. I don't know if Roderick Strong has ever been as entertaining as he's been in AEW.

I enjoyed seeing the Mack, too bad he was in a shitty Eddie Kingston match. 90% of Kingston's offense is weak looking strikes and chops that his poor opponents have to sell.

[Reprise]

The problem with the women getting to have their own variations of the men's matches is that it makes pay per views repetitive. There was a time when a Royal Rumble or a Money in the Bank ladder match was the highlight of a pay per view. Now we always get two of them

Yeah, that's true. It's a bit like having two world champions... It dilutes what is supposed to be the highlight.

WWE has some of the worst commentary you'll ever hear. Corey Graves and Michael Cole are AWFUL

Yeah, definitely. The thing I hate about Cole is he just comes out with all these meaningless catchphrases that he repeats constantly. It's so cliched and cheesy. Like I said, he called both Jade and Andrade "the hottest free agent in the business" twice.

I've heard people say Punk didn't look great and people are speculating that he's injured again

I missed him looking injured (I got a migraine in the final half an hour or so and had to come back to it, but kinda just had it on in the background). He didn't look good though. He was gassed after about 2 minutes. The rumour is still that he is going to win the Elimination Chamber and challenge Seth, but we'll see.

AEW had some bright spots on Collision.

I need to catch up on that. I am excited for the cage match. I forgot I was mid way through the recent Dynamite too, so will finish that up.