Rolling 2013 Moustache Thread

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.

It came to mind that Jake the Snake's theme was pretty ominous but I couldn't remember it besides that, and checking it out

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

I hear that it's a p cool John Carpenter ripoff. Who else had good theme music before the nu-metal hegemony came into place?

Oh man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DII3OtgUlVo

And this one didn't pre-date the one-size-fits-all nu-metal craze, happened in parallel and stood out as being brilliant as a result. But what a great theme song for Kurt Angle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q41UvkovDTQ

Kurt's theme was the Patriot's first. And I think maybe Mark Henry might have had it for like two matches. Was their generic yay america theme for a while before Kurt made it his own.

I've been told I should watch the Post-WM Raw because the crowd was nuts over the dancer and Dolph cashed in but both of those things sound like a joke to me.

that Repo Man theme is all-time.

Repo Man 1st class ya. I forget what specifically it was I came across when I was looking last week but for some reason I always enjoyed when WWE would go cod-classical with their themes, especially when that involved somewhat cheesy synth string sections and such.

I think someone recently mentioned the current WWE crowd not being very into the action, and having watched a few WCW matches this past couple of weeks the difference is amazing, WCW crowds giving a lot more for lower-mid carders than the WWE headliners are getting now. Notably insanely-into-it crowds for Saturn beating Raven and Dean Malenko returning disguised as Ciclope to beat Chris Jericho.

thought i'd check out my first raw since punk/cena

how fucking stupid does the start make EVERYONE look? heyman and the announcers are all "oh hhh isnt here" and then he turns up... as if going to another continent is something you can just do on the sly without notice with the rest of his own company.

also hhh's head is way wrinkly, he needs to grow hair again

That stuff happens all the time, saying "X isn't here" is wrestling code for "he's here". It's up there with insulting the local sports teams to get people to boo -- it's a total cliche, but it always works.

You're right about HHH's head though, that was an ugly sight.

Seth Rollins v. Daniel Bryan on last weeks Raw was dope and essential viewing.

Dolph v. Del Rio at Payback is fucking amazing though. It's been a long while since I've heard someone genuinely BOOED like Del Rio there. Fucking brutal. Dolph's title reign was a fucking mess but if they cant work from that then the WWE needs to really sort its fucking shit out.

SummerSlam tonight. Looking forward to Bryan v. Cena

Introduction of HHH and the McMahons / Orton lurking with the MITB briefcase leads to fear that it could devolve into an overbooked mess, but yeah, I'm excited. Bryan winning would be huge

I tuned in but I suppose I'm a bit late. h8 u Cena c'mon Daniel. How's the rest of the card been?

I missed all the earlier matches, too. This is pretty solid so far.

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