rolling (non-millenials) grabbing the brass ring 2015

^^ so great

holy shit

And so ends the Roman Reigns experiment.

when brock was dazed and bleeding i was into the idea of reigns winning, obviously i am a much bigger mark than the 77k in the stadium

Well that main event was fucking dope.

Overall that was a really entertaining show. Nothing was bad, and nobody got stiffed for time unlike pretty much every other WM. The pacing was a bit off, the crowd seemed to peak for the Sting-HHH match but they followed it up with an hour worth of commercials/HOF stuff/divas match and lulled people to sleep somewhat. It must have been tough to be out there in the sun for five hours too.

The ladder match was kind of paint by numbers, but the right guy won and the backstage segment to put over Bryan and the title was great.

The finish to Orton-Rollins was insane.

The ending to HHH-Sting was telegraphed once it turned into WWE vs WCW. I still don't get the build up for this feud, first it was vigilante Sting vs the Authority, then it was WWE vs WCW with exactly opposite heel/face roles, why couldn't they just make up their damn minds about what they were fighting for. For me it hurt the match a lot and I didn't like this as much as most people seem to, but the spectacle was definitely something you'd only expect to see at Mania, and that justifies the match by itself. The post-match handshake was BS by any measure though. Sting's entrance was great.

The divas match was good time filler, but nothing was on the line and I still can't figure out who is supposed to hate who in this feud.

Rusev rode out in a Russian tank to the Russian national anthem waving the Russian flag and they STILL BOOED CENA!$@! I had no problem with Cena winning, but the finish didn't do anything for Rusev. The guy goes undefeated for a year and crushes everyone he gets in the ring with, and in the end he eats one AA and gets pinned just like any other jabroni.

I loved the Attitude era HHH-Rock feud, but they were staring each other down in the ring and I realized I didn't really care if I ever saw this match again, even though it would probably be really good. Then it turned into Rock and Rousey vs HHH and Steph and suddenly I was all like HELL YES GIVE ME THIS MATCH.

Taker vs Wyatt was about what I expected. Taker was jacked. I guess they'll do Taker vs Sting next year but Sting got buried against HHH and they definitively established that WCW has no chance against the WWE, so does anyone think Sting has a snowball's chance in hell against Taker in Texas?

Lesnar's performance in the main event might have been the best of his WWE career, he single handedly made it into a semi-legendary match. I think WWE thought that Reigns would get sympathy cheers, but that plan backfired because Brock throwing him around like he weighs 150 pounds was beyond awesome. I even bought into Reigns' comeback once Brock started bleeding and was sure he was going to win.

i did love that john cena was here representing and defending everything that is great about america, but eh fuck it, BOOOOOOOOOO.

it would be great if lesnar has more dates on his new contract and we get to see him spend a few months trying to catch rollins so he can murder him while cowardly slimebag rollins evades him

Only Sting could give a handshake to the guy who just hit him with a sledgehammer. It would have only been a better Sting performance if Flair came out to turn on him. And Luger too. And the nwo again.

Im over multi man ladder matches with no story but i love the bullhammer party and them taking ambrose out so he couldnt stop rollins for once.

Orton is so dull.

Cena Rusev was dope. Boo the guy with reagan and bush in his video! Cheer the guy in the tank with the hot chick! That stunner was fun too, i love cena. I love rusev.

Flair chopped Steamboat!

Rousey held Steph arm in arm so they could skip around together? Steph has been in matches before, was she really scared of 1 worked punch in the face?

Taker is so old and i kinda fell asleep during it.

Brock Lesnar is tge greatest professional wrestler of all time. Rollins and Reigns are both acceptable and enjoyable parts of the main event now but... fuck Brock is the greatest ever. Better than flair, savage, austin, funk, whoever. Still wish i had a time machine and could get him vs big poppa pump in his prime though.

I'm interested in who Cena feuds with and who he puts over at Like SummerSlam. Bryan as Smackdown champ could actually make me watch SD again. Lesnar has a new fucking deal and will be chasing motherfuckers down. WM did the best thing ever, which is make me care again about what happens.

rousey murders people with armbars so a tiny little armbar-ish type thing should be expected

Yeah but that wasnt what took out cat zingano, that was best friends foreverz

Just finished watching this, bit too drained for coherent impressions right now, but that main event was basically as good as it could possibly have been

what are some sites with good thoughtful writing on wrestling? whenever i want to catch up on stuff i check 411mania (only coz it was the only one i remembered from years back), but their level of critical insight is sub-sub-av club

http://uproxx.com/author/brandon-stroud/
http://grantland.com/contributors/the-masked-man/
http://aubreysitterson.com

i stopped watching raw and started reading stroud's recaps instead because A) life's too short for 3h of raw per week and B) they are entertaining as hell

i knew brandon back when he was just B, i randomly decided to click on his fbook link to his survivor series recap which is 90% of the reason i got back into wrestling

we mostly argued

in case anyone is missing raw right now, brock lesnar just burst out laughing at the crowd's SUPLEX CITY chant, confirming he had no idea the mics even picked it up last night

kalisto just destroyed in front of a smarky af crowd

if yesterday hadn't happened in a huge outdoor park it would've been the best mania ever

ADRIAN NEVILLE PROMO

lol at JBL and Booker being completely taken out by the announce table being pushed on them but it taking another F5 to put Cole away

those things are really getting devalued

it really made the announce tables look weak

was hoping the rest of raw would be arty and completely announcer-less

NEVILLE IS BILLED AS NEVILLE AND HAS A CAPE

FUCK

still using his shit theme

that is...the stupidest arbitrary forename cull yet

IF ONLY AS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED HE'D IN FACT BEEN CALLED RIPLEY BISHOP ALL ALONG, HE WOULD'VE SOUNDED KIND OF BADASS WHEN HE DEBUTED ON THE MAIN ROSTER, BEING GUARANTEED TO HAVE THE NAME OF A CHARACTER FROM ALIEN WHICHEVER WAY VINCE'S WHIM WENT

The Neville Brother

he could steal the hulkamania theme from axel

ahaha mick foley just tweeted aaron neville by accident

Hehe

Cena making Ambrose look like $0.9 million in a cold title match

*kevin owens chant*

lawler: listen to the wwe universe, chanting "randy orton"

besides that main event and the usual wreddit mutant crowd tryna get themselves over, real good raw. most of the work was good, debuts that are def long overdue, sheamus turn that was WAY long overdue

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/03/31/cardboard-children-luchador-mexican-wrestling-dice/

3 hours is way too long. i started watching last night (without commercials even) and i still had to stop after the 6-woman tag and save the rest for later, TOO MUCH STUFF.

Oh yeah I'm fascinated that many still do it regularly. Or that so many used to for Nitro to see like Hugh Morris v. Alex Wright or whatever. And I fucking love wrestling.

3 hours is way too long. i started watching last night (without commercials even) and i still had to stop after the 6-woman tag and save the rest for later, TOO MUCH STUFF.

if you haven't already there is no need at all to watch past this point

I watch the 90 minute version on Hulu if I watch at all. 3 hours can fuck right off.

apparently the 90 min hulu cut off the debuts of kalisto and ~!NEVILLE!~ so they can fuck off, just use watchwrestling.ch and skip the obviously horrible shit

such great debuts. am i naive to hope they'll have good careers on the main roster? i know the last few call-ups haven't been spectacular but Rusev! Rollins! Reigns!

i worry about kalisto being tethered to sin cara, he could very easily be the ~next rey~ vince wants so bad, not gonna happen with anytime soon w/mr relative snoozefest

AJ Lee is retiring. Guess she came back for the Wrestlemania paycheck and nothing else. At least that's what her completely uninterested wrestling showed since her return.

yeah respect but she's been half assing it for quite some time--that AJ/Paige series of PPV matches from last year was outright bad tbh

neville vs rollins

not exactly cena/angle

Haven't caught much of Lucha underground since it started but I just finished watching the Grave Consequences casket match from the other week and it was totally really good as casket matches go, probably primarily because the casket actually had very little to do with anything except for the finish and a couple of big spots. Mainly it was just a damn fine brawl, another solid big monster / little underdog fight of a similar vibe to zayn / Owens (though Fenix got in a good amount of offence here).

Thought that fenix was good as the sympathetic though kinda non-descript tecnico getting his ass kicked all over town, but more so I really enjoyed Mil Muertes, who actually didn't seem very Lucha-y in terms of his style, aside from the odd tope or two which seemed kinda obligatory just to prove that he could do it. He worked well as this big bruising asshole, his look and demeanour reminded me of The Spoiler or someone, one of those big and surprisingly athletic masked heels you might sometimes see watching old southern territories stuff. But old-school look or not, he worked a great pace here. I am also a fan of mask-ripping and bloody-forehead-biting as heat-seeking offence in these kind of matches. I'd certainly have been booing the dude if I'd been there, anyway.

Basically it is only a short match really and the pace is wicked fast from the outset so if you have a spare 15 mins at some point then I would definitely recommend this as a good watch.

On the down side, everyone there was chanting "holy shit" every time either dude in the ring moved a muscle while matt striker was sitting there going "lol right on guys" while also, and perhaps even more annoyingly, providing the most infuriatingly smug and self-satisfied meta commentary one can readily imagine I.e. At the climatic moment when the apparently conflicted valet is holding the casket open as the two dudes struggle on the apron and vampiro is doing an ok job of selling the "but which dude is she helping?!" tension, matt striker is literally sitting there saying "this is building tension" yes thank you you fucking goon we have read books and seen films before, we do not need you to signpost the fucking plot points for us, I mean one of these guys is carrying a magic stone from which he draws mystical occult powers, whyyyy would you want to draw attention to the artifice of this whole thing??? He wasn't totally terrible for WK9 imo and I do like that he calls the moves, but my god, trying to get over with the "internet crowd" by saying shit like "I'm markin out bro!!!!!" On a fuckin royal rumble ppv of all places or nodding along sagely for every superfluous overkill This is Awesome chant or w/e srsly fuck matt striker for always

But yeah matt striker and wrestling fans in general are the worst, check out that match

matt striker is only saved from being the worst commentator in history because mark madden exists

that Grave Consequences match is absolutely fantastic though, good shout, I've been hearing people recommend it but this is what finally got me to watch it

still have a nagging doubt this Ricochet-Nakamura match in London is gonna turn out to be a hoax

lol please come to watch Leo Messi and Harry Kane at this testimonial match my god but how i love wrestling. wish i was in the UK this summer

but my god, trying to get over with the "internet crowd" by saying shit like "I'm markin out bro!!!!!"

And that's not even his most annoying habit, which would be yelling "OOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!!!!" after literally every high spot or finishing move.

I might be passing through Toronto in May, I'm seriously thinking of tweaking my travel dates to be there for the ROH/NJPW show.

still not as bad as cole inserting one or two OH!!!s in the middle of a 15 minute conversation about hobbits

i've been without internet for the last few days so for the want of anything better i've been going back over a few things i had saved on my harddrive and it really is p. heartbreaking to watch how completely earth-shatteringly awesome Stone Cold Steve Austin was in 96-97; I mean when he comes down the ramp for his match with Bret Hart at Survivor Series 1996 he shoots the camera this look that communicates more than a million amazing promos ever could and you just believe (sorry Roman Reigns) in this guy and man as a guy who first tuned in to pro wrestling in late 2000 / early 2001, when Austin's time was most definitely past (aside from that one awesome 2/3 falls match he had with HHH), it is still completely fucking tragic to see how he went from this incredible harbinger of the new era of professional wrestling to this fucking goof in camo shorts driving SUVs or quad bikes or whatever down to the ring to do the same old beers'n'stunners routine.

Also it occured to me while watching some Attitude Era stuff that in addition to being pretty much the best pro wrestler that has ever existed c. 2000-2002, The Rock's legacy in this business is a despicable one bcuz due to his overwhelming awesomeness he clearly replaced Hulk Hogan as Vince McMahon's platonic ideal of what a wrestling champ should be at some point in the early 00s and therefore we have only him to blame for a great many things, potentially even Cena himself tho in particular one might pick out Miz's 2010-11 title run and that godwaful WM main event