Rolling 2013 Moustache Thread

A week into his push. Top boy. Some sort of divine intervention at work here, surely? Alternatively swagger realised how badly he was going to bomb next month and has taken the easy way out via this act of self sabotage

RIP Paul Bearer. Just last night I for some reason wondered if he was still alive. As far as I could ascertain from the available information, he was.

He was only 59! I thought he was older than that

Either click on this link or fast-forward to 3:50 of this clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCL4g9k_UVM

When the lights go out and he's standing there, that's magic.

paul bearer in 97 = the best manager ever

which was the wrestlemania where the undertaker came back and it literally began with the lights going out and bearer's "OHHHH YESSSS" blasted over the intercom? that is one of my favorite things, and one of the last wrestling events i think i've seen in full.

wm20 i think

which was 9 years ago and ecw one night stand, money in the bank 2011 and extreme rules 2012 need viewing.

wrestlemania tomorrow.

wooo.

yup.

wooo

Yeaahhh, I'm on board for this. Not watched any wrestling for aaages, Cena, lesnar, taker, swagger, ziggler/langston for the big'uns. Is this even remotely otm?

honestly I'm just interested in Undertaker/CM Punk

and the hot wings that my friend is bringing to the viewing party

Is there even a remote chance of punk beating taker tho? I mean the impression I get is that the streak is pretty much inviolable at this point and they've had their fingers burnt with Brock lesnar re: unconditionally pushing phenomenal young talents early in their careers. Feels like the only people they'd trust to break the streak and not let them down are already established enough without that particular rub

Cena, lesnar, taker, swagger, ziggler/langston for the big'uns. Is this even remotely otm?

think the consensus is that Trips gets his win back, although I feel like with any situation where the Internet is sure he's putting himself over, there's at least a 20% chance that it ends with him tapping clean in the middle of the ring while flipping off the smart marks with his free hand

I suppose I'll watch this why not. What time does it start?

4pm pst I think

1 a.m. round these ends I think.

Just laid a £3 accumulator on:

Cena
Taker
Trips
Swagger
Fandango
Orton/Sheamus/Show
Ziggler / Big E
Rhodes Scholars
Ryback

pays out £650 but I'm not especially confident. It would help if I'd actually been watching and could make anything more than semi-educated guesses (e.g. Jericho will probably put over the new guy, if ADR beats Swagger here then that's Swagger's heat completely dead etc). Not expecting much but it adds a degree of interest

you can bet on wrestling? someone should let the bookies in on the secret...

that seems kinda insane

Spose they're working on the basis that not too many people outside of the WWE are gonna be privy to the booking plans for tonight. I agree though, it is a bit odd. Odds aren't great for a lot of it though, they at least recognise that certain things (Cena and Taker in particular) are basically sure things for tonight

This is on then. Got mah stream, but don't think i'll last long, got work in't morning. Hope they stick on a decent opener.

No one else in here tonight then? Fun opener, quite a few enjoyable spots in that. Sunk my fucking accumulator tho

Didn't expect the 6 man tag team first! Good opener, disappointed in Wade Barrett, idiot.

I believed you when you said 1am, Windsor!

Poor big bald guy, getting done in by Sexual Chocolate.

Aha shit sorry man! That always used to be the time I had to stay up till on school nights, assumed it hadn't changed. Might be an early start for WM tho. What's gone down w/ Barrett?

He let The Miz win. Idiot.

tag title match was fun enough. what's bryan's gimmick besides guy with big beard?

Fandango = comedy wrestling stereotype

dancer who's now also a wrestler for some reason is a nice early 90s atavism, better times.

^ otm

seems unusually progressive of wwe to have an anti-immigration heel.

I just started watching and it's goddamn Del Rio. Ugh.

Punk didn't quite get the needed distance for that elbow to the announce table. I grimaced when they showed the other angle on replay.

yeah I winced

good match tho

Brock's "MWAAHAAAH!" duck scream made me laugh.

it was super lol

Even with three quality announcers, Rock v. Cena II is dead air. 80,000 bored fans waiting for one of them to not kick out.

planet earth is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the only two creatures living are the rock and john cena, reversing each others finishers over and over into eternity.

Rock/Cens was sooooo boring. Punk/Undertaker should have been the main event

Cena

i stopped watching wrestling not long after he first emerged, but i get the impression that cena is shit and boring and has always been shit and boring. t/f? his ten years at the top seems completely inexplicable.

he is charismatic somewhat but def, def a boring wrestler

there's vague hints that he could turn heel, i dunno how likely that is though. i would start watching Raw again if that happened. but he's a *total* snooze as he is right now

Cena's a great wrestler and has had countless classic matches, but for anyone over the age of ten it's almost impossible to get invested in the character.

I liked Mania a lot more than most people seemed to, but it still amazes me that they have to rush through and cut matches on a four hour show.

Punk-Taker def stole the show, Rock-Cena was really good for what it was (a throwback to the Austin-Rock WM matches) and a lot better than last year's match. Nothing else really stood out but nothing was bad either.

The crowd sounded dead for most of the night though, I read that the cold was a factor and there were a lot of seats with obstructed views (which was my first reaction when I saw the set).

Yeah I always find it problematic when the crowd isn't making much noise for the rasslin. Crowd going berserk for every little thing kinda validates it, I think. When you can hear a pin drop it drives home exactly what it is you're watching (i.e. 2 nearly naked greased-up men pretending to fight each other). One of the many reasons I never got along with indy wrestling

I mean, wtf happened to pops like this? Is it really because the crowds are way younger these days and therefore less prone to yell themselves hoarse all night? Honestly don't see the point of going to these events unless you're gonna go mad for everything that happens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV3h34tUIcQ

the ryback: face in peril

nope

Windsor: Daniel Bryan has been getting INSANE crowd reaction for the past 18 months, Punk has been getting good reactions too. It's really blatant that Bryan is the only guy with a consistent character, catchphrases and crowd participation. The only one! Compare that to the attitude era where there was only like 4 guys without a personality, and even they had gimmicks to fall back on (lol lethal weapon steve blackman).

Oh and there was a streak where Santino was the most over guy in the company last year. In fact the face off between Santino and Bryan at Elimination Chamber 2012 was a) a really good match and b) the best pure crowd reaction of the past 5 years*.

*Punk in Chicago, for the title, on his last night doesn't count.

I've seen some decent pops for D-Bry when I've caught any of it in the last few years, but there were definitely times when it felt like his "YES" chants were getting more over than he was, kinda like "WHAT" about a decade ago, just getting yelled out indiscriminately for almost any situation.

Santino I find interesting because he's always seemed to be under-utilised, even in his comedy role. I'm not sure he could have ever made it to the top, but he definitely has something. I wouldn't term it "charisma", which is just the most nebulous concept in wrestling circles and is maddeningly unhelpful when you're trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes a guy entertaining, or good on the mic. Santino strikes me as being more intelligent than many of the guys on the roster, perhaps? Or maybe it'd be fairer to say that he's a better actor, at least in comedy roles. Whatever, I think that his delivery is absolutely impeccable. Better than looooooads of the top guys who are meant to be great on the mic. He comes across more like an actor in a bad comedy movie or tv show than a wrestler. I always felt kinda the same about The Rock.

This made me snort:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/63c76492eb5dfdea6f2f7a14dc65a7ad/tumblr_mvflct5cFF1qbsziao1_500.jpg

wait so they cut off bryan at the legs? of course that shit would happen

Eddie Guerrero vs Rey Mysterio Jr from Halloween Havoc '97 popped up on my youtube recommendations last night so I thought hey why not, and oh my that was a good match

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJSfVsKLD4Q

yeah that is soooooooo good.

tna is bankrupt supposedly, which is lol. maybe even funnier is that the internet thinks billy corgan might buy it.

Fantastic stuff!

Not 'really' watched WWE since..2010? What're the classic, 5* matches I need to catch up on?

lol

if you have a day free for youtube... in the past three years, 4 1/2 viewing:

CM Punk v. John Cena (Money in the Bank 2011, a Raw from this Feb)
CM Punk v. Daniel Bryan series from last year
P much all Shield PPV matches
Daniel Bryan guantlet from Raw this year
the Mark Henry title run
all of last years Extreme Rules
all of this years SummerSlam
Elimination Chamber 2012 (Smackdown one)
Punk v. Taker

all the Rumbles have been shit. the MITB matches for the past two years have been boring. HITC too. I only remember 2 matches from the past 3 Wrestlemanias and one of those is because it was 18 seconds long.

only memorable tna match afaik is the beer money no holds barred from bound for glory 2012

Daniel Bryan guantlet from Raw this year

^^ Cesaro portion of this features like 45 stiff uppercuts and the best small-package rollup in recent memory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORvyQDIfueo

I dunno, I'd rep for the all-heel MITB from this year. The very recent Rhodes/Goldust tag run is worth checking too if only because ol' Dustin is better than 90% of the roster.

http://i.imgur.com/oA1QxEp.gif

hours of fun.

the last bit of raw this week is essential viewing. if dbry is that over, cena is legit no longer #1

And yet I just can't see them following through on it. When they bumped him down in order to push fuckin' Big Show, Jeezus.

Unless they're building Bryan for a Rumble win and a WM win over Cena for the unified title, in which case fair enough, it will probably have all been worth it in the end. The only other match I'd want to see Bryan in at WM would be against HBK.

Also of note - WWE sending out a survey with a list of guys from the main-event and upper mid-card asking fans who it is that they want to see maineventing next year. lol. Certainly speeds the process up a bit. Would be shocked if Bryan doesn't win it.

BIG DAVE IS BACK

i wasnt watching when evolution and whatevz were a thing, so i dunno why people hate him. all i know is "I THOUGHT YOU WAZ MY FRIEND REY REY" Batista and spotlight guy wanting to fuck up Cena Batista, so I love him.

Also what should next years thread title be?

Do people still hate him? For a while there everyone was fed up with him because for about 3 or 4 years he was a main-event given, big guy, rarely had a decent match, not a good promo guy, pretty much the epitome of a guy who's got "the look" but not a lot else. Feuding with The Great Khali, Big Show, Kane, Booker, JBL. It was pretty nightmarish.

Then he turned heel on Rey Mysterio and started doing the spotlight thing and just generally became by far and away the most enjoyable thing about Smackdown in late 2009. His initial rise with Evolution was also really good, if only cause HHH by that point was just totally unbearable. Batista still probably the most convincing argument for HHH making someone else a star.

In hindsight they probably should have saved their "Once In A Lifetime" dream-feud schtick that they pushed so hard for Cena / Orton throughout 2009 for Cena / Batista at WM in 2010. Their career trajectories were quite similar at that point. Odd to think that one point it looked like Batista was gonna be top banana with Cena beneath him

Its fascinating how much Vince has wanted to do big guy vs big guy in his career. Batista v. Great Khali? EURGH, Wrestlemania IX and SummerSlam 95 should have been enough punishment.

thinking it should either be Rolling 2014 EL TORITO Thread or Rolling 2014 Sheepmask Thread or Rolling 2014 The Battle of Many Earnest Millers Thread.

idk gimmicks are hard to come by these days.

Yeah the attempt to push Khali to the main event (didn't this happen twice?!) were sooooo wrongheaded. It really was like a return to the bad old days of Mabel as King of the Ring.

I'd be more help with the thread-naming if I actually watched the wrestling anymore rather than just checking in on the event reports while bored at work

Just checked, between 2006 and 2008 Khali was involved in high-level feuds with Undertaker, Batista, Cena, Triple H, Kane and Rey Mysterio. And he held the fucking Heavyweight Championship! Jesus, I forget these things. Amazed most of those guys agreed to work with him given that he once fucking killed a guy he was working with. Unbelievable.

Yeah I mostly just wait for the internet to tell what to watch each week. Solomon Crowe isn't on tv yet but he's a lock for the 2015 thread title. HE'S A HACKER WITH AN IPAD WOOOOO SCARRRY.

Did fans ever care? Or did they just get bored and find it kinda racist?

little of both really. (the cena/khali match surprisingly great btw, hero-level carry job.)

i stopped watching right around batista's rise but looking at the tail end of his run on youtube and stuff, it seems like he kinda figured it out (the batista/cena match from whatever wrestlemania it was--26?--was genuinely good!). interested to see how he is when he comes back.

the past couple months have been butters. however, i'm actually really excited about the rumble. potentially the 30 guys could include brock, taker, big dave, cena, bryan, punk, the usos (and kishi?), shield, wyatts, rey rey, hunter, big show, kane, mark henry, jake the fucking snake, cesaro, ziggler, goldust and cody, idk santino, swagger, miz and sandow. its the first time since like 2008 or something where legit 10 people could easily win it and another 10 you wouldn't feel cheated winning.

and even if its nothing like that, we can still easily see a bryan shawn/flair/rey/benoit long run win or reigns eliminating all other 29 or something awesome.

the first ever tna was on challange last night. jarrett beat up some country music guy and the ding dongs got jacked. start the way you want to go on imo.

i couldnt watch all of it, mainly because it was shit. again, start the way you want to go on.

Rolling 2014 Haunted Rocking Chair Thread