rolling Jericho calls The New Day trap queens 2016

Oh yeah, I agree completely, I'm absolutely not a workrate hound and I kinda don't get people who are. As you say, a technically great match in the service of entertainment is dandy, but not for its own sake. And bad wrestling isn't always (or even usually) a bad thing. The wrestlecrap is often most of the fun!

Meltzer's really good for his profiles and obituaries and for his general comments on the industry. I don't really get why people would sit down and trawl through his match reports though. The omnipresence of his star-ratings system across the net is also really pernicious and has kinda accidentally cut-off lots of potential alternative ways of looking at wrestling - "Yeah this was good but I'm gonna take off a quarter star for the blown tope" *farts*

Got a night to myself and ive so far watched the threeway from the rumble, ultima lucha 1 and now brock v roman from wm31.

Fuck me last yeat had the best matches. Ive not even done sasha banks or wk9 or whatever yet either.

Brock Lesnar really is the greatest pro wrestler ever. I could watch him slap Reigns a million times.

I think the rumble triple threat is in my top 3 matches ever though with punk-cena at mitb11 and idk austin-bret or something

Brock Lesnar vs Jumbo Tsuruta all-time #1 dream match

Jericho doesn't want Sheamus on his show because he's trying to keep it entertaining, but could have his mohawk on the show to explain why it makes Sheamus look so stupid. Del Rio takes the mic and brags on winning the biggest Rumble match in history. He says if someone deserves to be on The Highlight Reel, it's him. Jericho says Del Rio's name is Spanish for jackass. He's not having Del Rio on his show because he doesn't feel like it. Rusev calls Jericho an American reject. He says it's a Rumble every day in Bulgaria. Rusev goes on and gets the "what?" treatment. He's confident about one of them winning the Rumble. Jericho says he didn't understand a word Rusev said.

ten points to the first crowd that starts a MID-LIFE CRI-SIS chant

https://45.media.tumblr.com/46072f5ef3c555e29a8003cadd661ab2/tumblr_o16fcqCEi91rnjfjfo1_r1_400.gif

i can't work out if he's trolling the smart fans or if he's really drifted so far out of touch. as a heel turn it works! it's just a question of how they make it mean anything beyond him shitting on the usual guys

Jericho has to follow the same crappy script as everyone else. He could be out of touch or it could be the writers, there's no way to know.

Jericho on NXT could be awesome as the arrogant vet who wants to teach the young wrestlers about how he thinks things should be done, he understands NXT-style old school wrestling angles and could totally pull off that character. He also wouldn't mind putting young guys over.

Meltzer has always been partial to storyline and entertainment over spot by spot analysis of matches.

Half an hour of Masked Man saying over and over again "I thought it was fine"

Yeah, from what I've seen, he doesn't have anything interesting to say (no inspired rants etc.) asks terrible questions during interviews. His columns for Grantland read like a guy writing essays for a social science degree in wrestling, which wasn't interesting to me in the least and 90% of the time I completely disagreed with his premise.

i can't work out if he's trolling the smart fans or if he's really drifted so far out of touch.

this is the guy who brought us the list of 1004 holds and the ten-minute soaking-up-applause on his return last year (two years ago? i can't remember)... i have a feeling he knows exactly what he's doing. and it's wonderful

as much as i don't want kevin owens to team up with anyone because he shouldn't need to, jericho and owens in tandem might be magical. RAW IS JERICHOWENS.

side note

i like that a thread called "rolling Jericho calls The New Day trap queens 2016" now has a literally-rolling-Jericho-in-2016 gif

maybe i'm being worked but he seemed genuinely proud of rooty tooty booty on his podcast

+ he's spent the past however many centuries unironically dressing up like bon jovi, there has to be a PART of him that isn't self-aware or he's in it real deep

even if he is 100% self-aware, is his idea is to turn heel by taking a massive stinking shit all over an already unwatchable show every Monday night? i'm not sure that's any better tbh.

random unrelated thought: before he was kevin owens, kevin steen had a long and storied indie career and cycled through a few different finishers/signatures, including the Steenalizer (package fallaway powerbomb), the Steen Breaker (pumphandle neckbreaker), and the Package Piledriver, which he... did not call the Steendriver.

big hoos won the rights to that name in a czw light tube and barbed wire death match iirc

***crosses all fingers***

Plz god pat patterson sort it fucking out the past 2 years have been unacceptable and this has the potential to be the best rumble in over a decade

Do the new japan guys debut? Most likely just styles?

What happens with Reigns? Bray and fam? BORK MOYHERFUCKING LASER? HHH? Kofi has friends now, does he pogo on a trumpet? (Whisper it) Daniel Bryan? Any nxt call ups?

Id fucking love Reigns v. HhH to happen before the halfway mark, Brock v the Wyatt family and like a final four of Brock Aj Styles Daniel Bryan and fuck it one of new day.

I know it is ludicrous to dream but fuck it thinking about wrestling is well more fun than watching it these days

Like my fantasy booking daydream of wm32 main evented by Bork v. All of the New Day sometimes gets me through borinh days at work

Nakamura is still with NJPW until the end of the month. I still don't see the point in debuting Styles and having him get squashed by HHH or Reigns on his first night, but I'd say it's more likely to happen than not. Or maybe he does a run-in during the Owens/Ambrose match and it turns into a three way feud for the next couple of months? I could live with that.

yeah wasn't Nak wrestling for NJPW earlier today?

as has been noted, Reigns going out earlyish in the Rumble would be the best possible move here. Not through any fault of his own, it'd just be a very welcome sideways move that opens up a ton of exciting possibilities for the rest of the match. It won't happen though, there's no way they put all this build into the "One versus all" angle only to have Reigns fall at the first hurdle.

Don't really see any problem at all with debuting Styles here - it's TNA country so he ought to get a big superstar pop, always a good thing if you're introducing a new wrestler to the casual audience. Why does he have to get squashed by anyone? This is the Rumble, the best thing about it is that no one has to eat a pin or even get made to look weak, provided it's properly booked. It's not a zero-sum game between winning the thing outright and being made to look like a chump.

AJ comes in, gets his huge pop, has a long-ish run, does a bunch of cool moves, hits the Styles Clash a few times and gets a few big eliminations, eventually gets eliminated himself by someone semi-important (what's Sheamus doing right now?) to set up his first feud in the company - this is not rocket science.

I'm concerned that it's really gonna be as predictable as it looks on paper - the story is going to be all about Reigns going the distance and overcoming the odds. The League of Nations are going to make things difficult for him but he'll win through. The New Day will probably get a spot early on to do some comedy stuff. Lesnar will enter at some stage and fucking clean house, eventually to be eliminated by some combination of the Wyatt Family (probably all four of them). Triple H will return right at the death and get revenge on Reigns and take home the title. NXT guys will probably get a showing given they're in Orlando (AJ / Joe showdown would be cool but would Vince go for that? idk) This will probably all be totally watchable and fundamentally disappointing.

But whatever man, it's the fucking Rumble, it's up there with Mania as arguably the best and most exciting night of the wrestling year. I'm always gonna be hyped for a Royal Rumble. Prepared to be a little letdown by the booking of it, but I'm hoping that there's an unexpected injury return or two thrown in, there's a lot of confused information out there about who's out for how long.

Plz god pat patterson sort it fucking out the past 2 years have been unacceptable and this has the potential to be the best rumble in over a decade

THIS. I just want to be surprised and entertained. The last few years have been neither surprising (oh look multiple skin-the-cat spots and Kofi Kingston don't-step-on-the-lava jollies) nor entertaining (I feel like the crowd turned on at least the last two years, the mood's just been bad).

I'm not holding my breath for AJ to debut tonight. Nakamura's still working in New Japan till next weekend and he's due a physical at the Performance Center next month before anything happens there, as is standard. Let's relax and cheer for an NXTer like Finn Balor or someone like that if they deign to give them a spot.

As you said, there are plenty of things that could be done with Styles but in all likelihood the story of the Rumble will be Roman Reigns (and maybe HHH) grunting a lot and making everyone else in the ring (except for Lesnar) look like chumps. I think he's better off going the Kevin Owens route where he shows up on RAW, challenges a top guy, and gets to do all his stuff in a long match on PPV.

I don't see the purpose of eliminating Reigns early -- the longer he's in, the more the drama builds, it means more when he's eventually eliminated.

nah the early Reigns elimination is just some fantasy booking shit, it'll never happen. they've been very up front about the story they're going to tell here. don't agree that the drama will build the longer he's in though, that's exactly what everyone expects to happen. if he were to go out after 25 mins or so i think the intrigue levels as to what happens next go through the roof. but yeah w/e, not happening.

tbh i think the best way to make this "Reigns vs the world" story work would be to have Lesnar come out at #2 and stay with Reigns the whole way through. there's some fucking high stakes jeopardy for you, none of that artificial Kane / Big Show bullshit. actually give the guy some odds to overcome.

in other words, don't make "Reigns dominates" the story of a third consecutive Rumble. run with "Lesnar dominates and Reigns is barely surviving".

Eliminating reigns (and hhh) would create the most suspense because they are far and beyond the favourites to win. Then it gets opened WIDE UP. Not likely to happen though.

I really am not excited to watch Reigns hug a corner or bottom rope for 10 minuted at a time. In fact im really bored of the 'guy goes long' narrative for a while. Punk's last night was especially bad viewing, he was in for like an hour and only actually worked for about 3 minutes.

Does Taker turn up?

What the fuck is wm gonna be?

I think its the open question that excites me. Sure i know they can realky fuck it up with ease (only match more boring than taker-kane is taker-sheamus folks... fuck me that though just depressed me) but what if they actually did the bestest wm ever? No orton, so a brother can dream

all I want is a kofi win is that too much to ask

I was going to put a bet on the Rumble but then I saw the odds for Triple H and I was like, screw that.

Feel like "smashing through the barricade into the timekeeper's area" spots are a little passe but that bowling ball from Owens was tight

Francesca II!!

one of those pretty damn good usos matches

yeah this has been a great show so far. i can't decide who i love more out of Xavier and Big E

i am not usually at all into that spot where a guy wrestler grabs a girl wrestler and kisses her against her will, but all the same, god bless you Ric Flair you crazy old bastard

oh shit that pop for THE BOSS

face Becky, heel Charlotte, TWEENER Sasha, all with reasons for fighting each other, fighting over a title belt, getting PPV time and promo packages, awesome awesome awesome awesome why haven't they been doing this all along?

ok the finish to that match was dumb as shit, i will forgive it because post-match shenanigans were the best

this PPV is one good Rumble match away from being a very very good show indeed imo

this Edge and Christian show looks awful

pretty savage boos for Roman right out the gate. this is gonna be FUN!

we have a Styles sighting! and that was a MEGA POP!

clever having KO eliminate styles.

yeah, they used Owens very well tonight.

i could watch Brock Lesnar run around hitting jumping knee strikes on bigass dudes forever

good job Lesnar's in this, it's gone a bit flat, you can see the last few guys coming a mile away, Wyatt and Sheamus will be here soon

ha so yeah

the story is going to be all about Reigns going the distance and overcoming the odds. The League of Nations are going to make things difficult for him but he'll win through. The New Day will probably get a spot early on to do some comedy stuff. Lesnar will enter at some stage and fucking clean house, eventually to be eliminated by some combination of the Wyatt Family (probably all four of them). Triple H will return right at the death and get revenge on Reigns and take home the title. NXT guys will probably get a showing given they're in Orlando

they've actually done everything that everyone's been predicted for weeks.

it's been a really great Rumble! just a shitty main story. how on earth does taking Reigns to the back for the majority of the match make him look like a deserving good-guy champ?! Kevin Owens could barely walk and he stumbled out to give it his best

Hunter got his eyes on those 16 title reigns

Behold the King, the King of Kings!

Thanks for coming, everyone.

aside from kalisto consuming the soul of sin cara the undercard was great, rumble was fun until the wyatts eliminated everybody and grim inevitability set in. maybe picking holes in wrestling logic is a fool's errand, but the two determining factors for the rumble matchup were pretty annoying - if it's been established that you can hang around outside the ring for as long as you want, why not do that? and if it's been established that you can help your buddies beat up and eliminate their enemies whether you're (still) in the match or not, why not do that?

that was exciting at the end there, but fuck

i know wrestling is dumb but vince mcmahon should probably know to tell his lackeys to actually formally eliminate roman from the match

also they need to stop calling him the boss, that's gimmick infringement

xp

tbh there should be countouts in battle royals

that was booked a zillion times better than last year though, except yeah the main story

Yeah, the Rumble had lots of fun stuff in it (Lesnar had a great run of suplexes on huge guys, not to mention those awesomely scary flying knees on Strowman), but the main angle didn't make sense either in or out of storyline.

In-storyline, it makes no sense that the League of Nations didn't eliminate Reigns after they beat him up, and that none of the other participants in the match dragged him in to throw him out either. And it's also weird that Reigns didn't just get back into the ring after HHH eliminated him to help his friend Dean Ambrose win the title. Why play fair against the guy who abused his power to take you out of the match, and put himself in it at the easiest possible position? Why not get in there with your ex-Shield comrade and do some teamwork, which is what you made your name on in the first place?

They could have still had the same result, even--just have Reigns come back in, which brings the LoN back in, so now it's 4-on-2 (5 if Barrett is back there somewhere) and HHH still wins. But that way at least Roman tried! Sometimes WWE seems to have this strange idea that, outside of tag matches, only heels should help each other.

Out of storyline, it's odd that they had Reigns sit out so much of the match in the back. That seems counterproductive if they're really trying to get the crowd on his side. I could see that sort of approach working with an underdog type, but Reigns is not Sami Zayn.

have p. much 100% checked out of wrestling for now. whole thing just feels like a colossal and unconscionable waste of time. enjoy checking in on whatever Miz and Styles are doing on SD very occasionally. has James Ellsworth won the world title yet? everything about Raw is just terrible. every single fucking part of it.

the Lesnar / Goldberg match was the kinda thing I would've got worked up about once upon a time and is symptomatic of many of the problems with the way they run things today, but I lolled when i read the report. i don't think that's a good thing necessarily, when formerly devoted fans start feeling that way.

i'll check back in for the Rumble and Mania I'm sure, but short of something truly magical happening (hasn't there been talk of Styles getting a match against Taker / a returning HBK(?!)?) i think i'm out for the foreseeable. had enough of their bullshit

Rolling Chris and Kevin's Bogus Journey 2017

Bug in that link: I had to add the 'www.' to make it work for me.