rolling Jericho calls The New Day trap queens 2016

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

Mad challops: Ambrose suckz.

He used to be great. But fuck me he is way worse than Roman and the internet needs to belieee dat.

Naaahhh c'mon now - firstly, you are rong as can be!; secondly, I have seen this view espoused in numerous places recently, cannot allow the self-proclamation of challops in this instance.

I will make a concession - his offence suckz. The rebound "lariat" (it's not a lariat but fuck calling it a Wacky Line tbh), the diving push, even the Dirty Deeds - it is all basically terrible and that is something that he needs to work out before he can be a top guy. But that's fine y'know, I mean CM Punk had got some of the shittiest offence known to man and look how far he got.

But aside from that, most everything else that is wrong with the guy right now is the fault of the writing/booking team imo. He is one of the most interesting and naturally charismatic performers they have - he cuts great promos and, like Kevin Owens, he also has the "intangibles" in the ring - the mannerisms, the facial expressions (when he isn't doing that stupid gurning thing in aid of this stupid fckin character), the ability to tell a story through movement and selling.

They just aren't let him do any of this stuff properly because it's all being suborned right now in service of the fckin "Lunatic Fringe" wacky madman angle. Soooo dumb, if they booked him right (imo something more akin to early Stone Cold / Loose Cannon Brian Pillman would be right - craziness manifests as menace and aggression rather than fckin "hilarious" "pranks") I think he could go a loooong way for them.

As for "way worse than Roman" , well sure, but then so are most guys. I will refrain posting another lengthy screed about naturally talented dudes being shafted by "creative", whatever that means, but only because it's too early in the morning. Roman is great, his booking sucks, and on and on it goes

Also it's been mentioned before but is there a more pernicious spot in wrestling today than what they try and pass off as a suicide dive now - the aforementioned "diving push"?

Like, I'm not saying we need to go back to the days of Jericho plugging Benoit in the skull with an unprotected chair shot as he flew head-first out of the ring (this was an amazing spot btw and i wonder if the fact that i can watch it without the slightest queasiness is an indictment of my humanity? idk), but this diving push thing looks absolutely awful and they're using it in every single match now.

A suicide dive used to be up there with the shooting star press as the coolest spot in wrestling and you're ruining it, you fucks! It's not even a case of "if you're not going to do it properly, don't do it at all" (it's partly that), more just, like, stop doing the same shitty spots in every fckin match! jeez. thanks a lot Daniel Bryan.

suicide dive is still the coolest spot in wrestling when it's done in a temple and called the arrow from the depths of hell

yeh king cuerno looks like he could take down a brick wall with that thing.

i liked ambrose's old dirty deeds, a mystery why they changed it to a routine double-underhook ddt (maybe it was seen as too much of a neck bump?). i'm not sure that limp offence really matters in wwe (cena's done alright for someone whose entire moveset looks terrible), but what does annoy me is that offence that should have just been part of ambrose's unpredictable character has just become schtick. this guy did an elbow drop onto a standing opponent and a weird bounce off the middle rope into a clothesline, he's so crazy! oh, he's done that twice every match for the last year? hm.

the wacky line was terrible before it was called the wacky line. the only way to make it work is if he can figure out how to consistently do it "outta nowhere"

that fenix corkscrew splash to the outside of the ring in the first ep of this season was O_O i watched it over and over

I am bored of it being creative sucks. Kevin owens is booked by the same people, like sheamus was being booked by the same people as bryan. Anything i used to like about ambrose has been stripped away, hell the one thing i do like still sucks (cos of booking here i presume- that hes like romans drinking buddy but cant come help when hes outnumbered? Gr8 friend).

Also ziggler and the usos ruined all spots, not just the suicide dive. Why is any move bar lesnars suplexes worth any damn when THE guy of the past twenty years superkick finisher now gets used 17 times a minute?

I am bored of it being creative sucks. Kevin owens is booked by the same people, like sheamus was being booked by the same people as bryan.

ah here now, that's not any kind of argument at all. what are we saying then, that booking/writing one dude well leads to the logical end-point that they must also be booking/writing everyone else well? Kevin Owens is not awesome because he's booked to be awesome (this hasn't been the case since he initially burst onto the scene vs Cena imo), he's awesome because his talent is so extravagant that he overcomes the mediocre 50/50 booking that they continually attempt to level him with. it is easier for him to work around the writing than certain others, Ambrose amongst them, bcuz he is not lumbered with a ridiculous character that he then has to try and get over, they've pretty much just left him alone.

perhaps it is all invented dirt-sheet hack-rag bullshit but i am inclined to believe the recent stories stating that originally the Royal Rumble deal was gonna be for Ambrose to toss out Owens and Styles himself, and it was Owens that pushed to get this changed to what we eventually saw on the show. encouraging if true to know that he has the balls to stand up to whoever it is coming up with the original ideas (as did the Shield in days gone by, which by all accounts was essential to them getting over to the extent they did) and also that he has enough cachet now with the "powers that be" that they'll take his suggestions on board.

these are murky waters tbf, we need to be careful how words like "creative" and "booking" are thrown around (and i include myself in this). if by "booking" we mean how strong they are made to look then Ambrose rn is doing fine, he's winning matches and getting loads of tv and ppv time in important spots. but the way they are writing the character is hideous and is totally preventing him from hitting the heights that he could

Also ziggler and the usos ruined all spots

Ziggler is an interesting case. He was extremely over with a certain kind of fan for a very long time and it seems like that good-will has just evaporated. Is it a staleness thing, after nearly 7 years of the same act? Is it that the fans got bored of waiting for the company to pull the trigger on a guy who spent so long on the cusp of bigger things? Is it that he came through in a period where shit was actually p. fuckin dire for the fans from a smarky in-ring perspective and that the subsequent rise of NXT and the emergence of Bryan, Rollins, Owens, Neville, Balor etc. has made him obsolete?

idk, probably all of those. but possibly more than anyone i think Dolph would benefit from taking a year-long sabbatical to go and work some things out and let everyone forget about him for a while