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Professional Wrestling: Smark I


Xray the Enforcer

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34 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

The women's rumble was way more entertaining than the men's rumble, it was good to see so many of the former female superstars.

I preferred the men's rumble, as the men are just more fluid athletes and don't botch their eliminations nearly as much as the women did.  Damn near every elimination looked botched in the women's rumble simply because most of them aren't big enough to properly go over the ropes, and one of the only ones that is (Charlotte) wasn't in the match.  I also wish they had just let Asuka destroy both Bellas at the end rather than have her win more by luck than anything.

The women's rumble benefited from more surprises, although that's more because there are less than twenty women on the main roster once you discount champs and injured women than because of anything else.  I was a little disappointed we didn't get a Nikki Cross appearance.  Could have axed Kelly Kelly to make that happen.  I also thought they missed an opportunity to let Lita and Trish have a moment together.  There were a few of those missed opportunities.  Kairi Sane not getting a moment against Asuka was another.

The best part of the entire women's rumble, though, was when Ember and Asuka were facing off.  It's abundantly clear that they are just in a class above most of the other women in the WWE.  

The men's rumble was almost equally well-booked, though.  Some nice surprises with Almas lasting half an hour, Cole showing up for a cup of coffee, and them actually pulling the trigger on Nakamura.  I also thought the ending was pretty brilliantly laid out, where you had the two fan favorites against the company yes men the crowd hates but WWE keeps pushing.  Drew a clear line in the sand and manipulated the crowd expertly.

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3 minutes ago, briantw said:

I preferred the men's rumble, as the men are just more fluid athletes and don't botch their eliminations nearly as much as the women did.  Damn near every elimination looked botched in the women's rumble simply because most of them aren't big enough to properly go over the ropes, and one of the only ones that is (Charlotte) wasn't in the match.  I also wish they had just let Asuka destroy both Bellas at the end rather than have her win more by luck than anything.

The women's rumble benefited from more surprises, although that's more because there are less than twenty women on the main roster once you discount champs and injured women than because of anything else.  I was a little disappointed we didn't get a Nikki Cross appearance.  Could have axed Kelly Kelly to make that happen.  I also thought they missed an opportunity to let Lita and Trish have a moment together.  There were a few of those missed opportunities.  Kairi Sane not getting a moment against Asuka was another.

The best part of the entire women's rumble, though, was when Ember and Asuka were facing off.  It's abundantly clear that they are just in a class above most of the other women in the WWE.  

The men's rumble was almost equally well-booked, though.  Some nice surprises with Almas lasting half an hour, Cole showing up for a cup of coffee, and them actually pulling the trigger on Nakamura.  I also thought the ending was pretty brilliantly laid out, where you had the two fan favorites against the company yes men the crowd hates but WWE keeps pushing.  Drew a clear line in the sand and manipulated the crowd expertly.

I don't watch that frequently so for my purposes it doesn't really matter if they're more fluid/ And I expected a lot of special guests just because the women's division isn't big enough to fill out a rumble. I was sad to see Sane not last longer.

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6 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I don't watch that frequently so for my purposes it doesn't really matter if they're more fluid/ And I expected a lot of special guests just because the women's division isn't big enough to fill out a rumble. I was sad to see Sane not last longer.

I thought they went a bit overboard with the women of the past.  A third of the women in the rumble were retirees.  I would have preferred at least one or two surprises in the form of modern indie women, like an Awesome Kong appearance.  

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49 minutes ago, briantw said:

I thought they went a bit overboard with the women of the past.  A third of the women in the rumble were retirees.  I would have preferred at least one or two surprises in the form of modern indie women, like an Awesome Kong appearance.  

But at least they all looked like they could still go.

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2 minutes ago, lessthanluke said:

Agreed! They looked sharper in ring than I remember them being in their peak. 

The only weird thing for me was seeing Molly Holly with short brown hair instead of bleached blond. And Lita look like she lost a couple steps due to injury but she still did really well.

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Gotta consider that even the best female wrestlers from the past mostly wrestled with shit tier workers like Torrie.  Contrast that with last night's match where at least 10 of the modern women are quite good workers, from the elites like Asuka, Ember, and Kairi to the pretty goods like Becky, Sasha, and Bayley.  It's a lot easier to look good when you're working with people who are good in the ring.  That why I think they should have replaced worthless workers like Tamina with NXT girls like Nikki Cross. 

I was also really surprised Candice Lerae wasn't in it, given that they just signed her and she was prominently featured in the main event of Takeover the night before.

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Taking me a while to get through all the wrestling, we had two days of New Japan, Takeover, The Rumble. It's just all a bit too much all at once.

I loved the rumble, I skipped through some of the non-rumble matches. But the Rumble themselves were great, I loved the mens (it had just enough stuff throughout, there was always a couple of elements being told, I really loved Heath Slater being beaten up by everyone on their way in) and liked the womens. That was a botched finish right? They didn't book it to end with Nikki falling off from a halfhearted kick did they?

Both had the right finish (and the Men's did a really good job of teasing the worst possible winners until the end. Though did it have to be Orton who eliminated Finn, this match confirmed it: Orton is my least favorite guy ever. Rousey should probably have come out on Raw, hearing the story about the Jacket after was nice, but at the time she looked like she was dressing up in her dad's clothes.

I Saw day one of New Beginnings, and I'm still not familiar enough with the guys to talk about stories and what the results mean should have been, I'm enjoying it immensely.

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I remember hating the WWF when it was all-gimmick wrestling... then I came back for the attitude era, and loved the monday night feuds... WCW started to suck when they let their stars book their own matches --they had HHH, Stone Cold, Chris Jericho, and Mick Foley, and did nothing with them-- and of course ECW in its day was awesome... But when Vince eliminated the competition, he went back to his inclination of pushing stupid gimmicks on his audience... granted, not as bad as in the 90's... and I realize that he's making more money by gearing his brand towards kids... but as a loooooong time fan (I used to watch the WWWF at Midnights on Sat night, when Bruno was champ, Vince was the only announcer, and was a skinny kid), watching more than a few minutes at a time gets rough...

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56 minutes ago, Martini Sigil said:

I remember hating the WWF when it was all-gimmick wrestling... then I came back for the attitude era, and loved the monday night feuds... WCW started to suck when they let their stars book their own matches --they had HHH, Stone Cold, Chris Jericho, and Mick Foley, and did nothing with them-- and of course ECW in its day was awesome..

The only one of those who was around in WCW's heydey was Jericho.  Don't forget the WWE mismanaged Steve Austin and HHH too, unless you think the Ringmaster and Lord Helmsley were good gimmicks.

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55 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

The only one of those who was around in WCW's heydey was Jericho.  Don't forget the WWE mismanaged Steve Austin and HHH too, unless you think the Ringmaster and Lord Helmsley were good gimmicks.

You make a valid point, But at least the WWF recognized that the two of them had talent... WCW was having NWO squash matches all night long, and every suck-up wearing a black t-shirt... Terror Rising and Stunning Steve barely got TV time

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I found Rousey's part at the end to be annoying.  The four women just stood there glaring at each other.  Was that scene supposed to create tension?  For me, it only highlighted that Rousey probably has no mic skills.

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1 hour ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

I found Rousey's part at the end to be annoying.  The four women just stood there glaring at each other.  Was that scene supposed to create tension?  For me, it only highlighted that Rousey probably has no mic skills.

She had to fly back to Colombia today to continue filming a movie, so I suspect the reason she wasn't allowed to do anything was due to liability regarding that.  Same reason that Rock hasn't been able to wrestle lately.

I'm guessing the only reason they had her out there at all, knowing that she wouldn't be able to appear in earnest for another month or so, is to begin to hype up Wrestlemania for those sweet, sweet ticket and PPV sales.

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Just now, briantw said:

She had to fly back to Colombia today to continue filming a movie, so I suspect the reason she wasn't allowed to do anything was due to liability regarding that.  Same reason that Rock hasn't been able to wrestle lately.

She had to make it to be the Designated Survivor! Premiering tomorrow at noonish!

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6 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

She had to make it to be the Designated Survivor! Premiering tomorrow at noonish!

If you want to watch some wrestling that doesn't suck, check out that NXT event from the weekend.  The Cole/Black hardcore match and the Almas/Gargano title match were both incredible.  Rest of the card was good as well.

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