rolling Jericho calls The New Day trap queens 2016

pretty entertaining show top to bottom even though the finish they were working towards was what everyone expected - the Rumble at least felt fun and smartly booked to elicit "good" sympathetic disappointment at the eliminations, rather than another triumphant return to Botchamania for King Boo

some of the interference logic was kind of screwy though yes, above all else I can't buy Rampaging Blood God Lesnar getting cheated out of the match and slowly shuffling away crestfallen while the sad Charlie Brown piano plays, surely he should have overturned the ring with everyone in it

Also Bray being too crazy to not try and take HHH down for fun is a far more interesting direction for him at this point than another feud where him and his buddies ruin the matches of a guy the crowd likes watching, before getting decisively beaten by him

speaking of interference: it got lost in the shuffle after he got taken out for the majority of the match, but for some reason roman kept attacking guys who were on the verge of taking someone else out?

yay wwe babyfaces

Best Rumble (and Rumble undercard) in years. Ambrose is the MAN for going 20 minutes in a war with Owens, and then lasting 30 minutes in the Rumble itself and almost winning.

They did a good job at setting up future matches, but yeah, so many storylines make no sense at all. Lesnar went apeshit and got "suspended" after getting screwed out of the title at the last WM, here he gets screwed out of the title again by the Wyatts and he just walks off like a sad panda? And Reigns taking a half hour break in the middle of the match made him an even bigger heel than he already was.

HOLY SHIT that pop for Styles' entrance. I seriously don't know how much longer they can keep pretending that Reigns is the guy to carry the company when guys like Ambrose and Styles are getting the reactions they're getting.

with the camera oddly focused on Roman's reaction I actually thought there was some atmospheric loud buzzing noise as part of the entrance theme and then it cut straight to him on the ramp like whoaahh

everyone knew it probably had to be tonight or tomorrow but even so, it's so weird/nice to see a 90s style Big Debut where the guy's reputation, name and the resultant surreal vibe of it all are intact

can they pull off a Nakamura debut that does him justice?

was hoping owens would take back the IC title so he'd have something to fight sami over at WM (darn), now that dean kept it i sincerely hope he keeps it for the majority of the year and defends it regularly, before finally going up to WHC tier. 90s style.

also at some point brock has to stop getting distracted by supernatural shit and demand a WHC match. they can only keep him from it for so long.

hhh unbuttoning his jacket to show the belt was boss

lot of good matches tnite. aj styles v jericho was great. becky v sasha was great. kevin owens v ziggler was great.

i feel like botchamania etc. is going to get a lot of mileage out of vince starting raw with saying "i confess i love that you are all miserable". is that why the show sucks so regularly?

can't argue with those heel tactics.

Reigns basically sat out all the difficult opponents - Show, Henry, BROCK

yeah it's amazing that after the buildup we didn't even get to see roman and brock in the ring together

can they pull off a Nakamura debut that does him justice?

Nobody knows who Shinsuke Nakamura is. I love him too, but come on, let's be realistic about this. He's going to NXT after his physical, if he really is WWE-bound, and getting the Balor treatment at best. And there's nothing wrong with that.

yeah it's amazing that after the buildup we didn't even get to see roman and brock in the ring together

I feel like that was deliberate, like their booking plans have either moved beyond their feud (so they didn't want them rekindling anything in the Rumble), or they have something sketched out for further down the line (so they didn't want to pull the trigger on Sunday). Either way, their execution of it sucked.

why would the authority spend all this time stripping roman of the belt only to put him in a qualifying match to face HHH for the championship? like i understand they want roman to be the heavyweight champion but surely there's a way to orchestrate it that doesn't require stephanie being an idiot?

Yeah that doesn't make any sense. There's a conflict between the 'we need to screw him' idea in the Austin-McMahon dynamic they're fixated on, and the 'oh shit he needs to be in title contention or the kids won't buy it' thing. Makes everyone involved look like a sap.

Also, disregard my theory above about keeping Reigns and Brock separate, 'cause they've only gone and booked them in a triple threat at Fastlane.

what could save reigns at this point? obv they want to, and obv they need to. only thing i can imagine working his him withdrawing from competition for a bit only to return in a sting-like role (possibly w/ sting)

reform The Shield. not kidding.

they should stop trying to make heavyweight champion reigns happen and give him some time fighting over one of the other belts. they have plenty of wrestlers who could realistically hold the heavyweight belt at the moment, it doesn't need to be the one guy the fans have turned on.

u may have missed this (i did):

https://youtu.be/4XUSva8muAU

There's a conflict between the 'we need to screw him' idea in the Austin-McMahon dynamic they're fixated on, and the 'oh shit he needs to be in title contention or the kids won't buy it' thing.

Both can be "best for business" at different times. See, it's simple!

A Shield reunion would be awesome, but Reigns needs a character makeover if he's going to be a top guy. Randy Orton needed four years to figure out the "viper" character after his first (failed) main event run with the title. Until he got there, he was tweaking his Evolution "legend killer" character and it wasn't working, at least not at the level that they wanted him to be at.

i think the character problem is he's just branded as the shield

No, Reigns' biggest character problem is that he's just not a natural babyface.

His charisma, as much as he has it, is kinda sleazy. Just look at him whenever he's interviewed by Renee Young or Jojo or whoever backstage: he can't help that bedroom eyes look, great for a heel but not for the virtuous hero he's being portrayed as.

It goes without saying that he's a terrible promo. He's just doing what he's told, but...

And yet, as I heard or read somewhere recently, I agree that he's quite charismatic in the ring. Limited moveset aside, he can hold his own and look like he belongs there, so it's easy to understand why people feel like they can get behind him. But then all the rest comes back to mind and...

fuck wwe it's lucha time

do u get the el ray network?

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA VS SAMI ZAYN AT NXT TAKEOVER DALLAS

Seriously WrestleMania could be a steaming pile and it wouldn't matter because the only show that matters is on two days before.

woooow <3 v excited

(Since they've booked the match, I assume he's already had his WWE physical.)

no but it'll show up on watchwrestling soon enough

or i'll just sign up for sling

xp

holy shit sling is so bad! 1

and a 2 and a

No, Reigns' biggest character problem is that he's just not a natural babyface.
― wronger than 100 geir posts (MacDara), Wednesday, January 27, 2016 5:27 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I recently saw this old NXT interview of his, which is stilted in a typical WWE way, but lends some support to what you're saying. This seems like a more natural role for him (at least promo-wise).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pbS7iCMxn0

That video is great, he just exudes heel. The kid-favourite thing just doesn't come naturally to him (those robotic pieces-to-camera he did for that Be A Star thing or whatever it was a few months ago are AWFUL).

Let's face it, if Dean Ambrose were more physically imposing, he'd be the top face and Reigns would be a solid upper-mid-card, flirting-with-the-main-event bully. He's an exciting, chaotic element; fans of all stripes are behind him. He is trying so hard, god bless him, but Vince and Dunn's biases are the singular barrier to his advancement.

Not that I can't see logic in the big-man thinking, but when I think about it, the triple threat at Fastlane will be interesting - how will Ambrose fare against Brock, impression-wise?

Lucha Undeground is back on tv and Shinsuke Nakamura AND Austin Aries are coming to NXT in a month or two. Makes it so much easier not to care about the whole Roman Reigns thing :)

I watched Nakamura's last match for NJPW. I expected that he'd get pinned on the way out or CHAOS would turn on him. Kenny Omega came out and Tanahashi officially challenged him to fight for the vacant IC championship, but otherwise there were no convoluted angles, just a simple, classy send off for Nak. Everyone in CHAOS came into the ring and posed for a group shot. Nak and Okada were openly crying, and Yano looked really shaken up.

btw Ishii pinned Shibata to set up their next match, Goto was the biggest heel in the building and everything he did got booed. Nakamura and Tanahashi didn't do too much, Ishii and Shibata did all the heavy lifting in the match. Goto is normally a charisma sinkhole, but he's gotten way more interesting by heeling it up over the past month.

hi guys

Hey!

Hello!

Whats a maura think about wrestling?

Zayn v. Nakamura has the potential to be the biggest match during Wrestlemania Weekend, though it makes me concerned that they won't put the NXT belt back on Sami (since I'm seriously hoping for him to be the first two-time NXT champ). Definitely will probably be the best match, considering I'm sure it'll be Trips v. Roman at Mania for the WWE Belt.
I was really excited for Mania until Rumble happened. At least NXT is about to blow up; Takeover: Dallas is probably going to be excellent in all the ways I was hoping Mania was going to be.

both of the other 2 possible wrestlemania main events - lesnar/hhh or ambrose/hhh - are more interesting to me

hi maura!

i'm much more casual in my fandom than probably anyone here but i really am hoping that ambrose will get his shot

Speaking of Ambrose--are they really calling his rebound lariat the "Wacky Line"? (Michael Cole called it that at the Rumble, and apparently at least once on Raw, too.) Where does that phrase even come from?

Omg pat patterson is releasing an autobiohraphy

Godd yeah the fuckin' Wacky Liner. Ambrose maybe the most egregious current example of the WWE taking a dude with tremendous upside and fucking them into oblivion with nonsense character shit designed to appeal to idiots. He's really good but he should be amazing. And get rid of those goddamn jeans ffs

Pat Patterson autobio should be fascinating, even with the obligatory WWE official censorship. I mean it'll obviously be missing all the juiciest shit but at the very least it ought to be really interesting when it comes to all of his booking insights

I love Ambrose too. How can you not? He's got an unmistakable ring presence, plus he's the chaotic face the company really needs for that Austin-McMahon dynamic they've been trying so hard to shoehorn Reigns into. Still, my casual fan SO doesn't buy him as a good guy, thinks he's a more natural heel (and I don't necessarily disagree, he was great as the mouthpiece of the Shield). I'm hoping we'll see things develop further when Rollins returns.

Really hate that 'wacky line' thing, though. Ambrose isn't wacky, he's not fuckin' Jerry Lewis!

Ambrose seems like one of those people whose face/heel alignment should be taken entirely case-by-case based on who he's feuding with. Like if you get on his bad side, he'll make sure you regret it, and anyone can get on his bad side at moment's notice because he's nuts.

So if he's feuding with a face you like then you hate him, but when he turns his attention to a heel you hate, you get excited to see how he's going to make the guy miserable. Meanwhile neither his essential character nor his tactics change.

In this hypothetical version of him, his tactics do not ever involved a briefcase rigged to shoot Nickelodeon slime.

Dirty Dean is great, and I totally agree with JRN; his face/heel status is pretty dependent on who he's currently against. He was a great heel "leader" of The SHIELD, he's a good anti-hero face against The Authority currently and he's great against Kevin Owens, who is probably my favorite heel on the main roster.

I was so sure they were calling his rebound lariat "the lunatic's fringe" or something like that. I swear I've heard it called that at least once. Wacky Line sounds like a move from Doink the Clown or Hornswoggle or some other comedy character. I don't know when they're going to pull the trigger and just let Dean off the chain, so to speak. There's so much that they could do with him that they're saving for, seemingly, everyone else.

maybe cole keeps calling it that in an attempt to get him to stop doing it