WWE Royal Rumble

[briantw]

There's rumors that Ricochet (or Prince Puma, if you will) may be bound for the WWE (or probably NXT specifically).  That'd be a big get for them.  Dude is phenomenal in the ring.  Sadly, he'll probably end up like Neville on the main roster, but his time in NXT should be fantastic.

[Joe Pesci]

Gallows and Anderson attacking Reigns in the ring on Raw, is this the start of the Bullet Club in WWE? With AJ claiming after he had no idea they were going to do it either. I can get behind how they have started this, the slow play is the way to go here I think with this, it already has the heat and main event storyline to continue through and past Payback.

Also, Vaudevillans vs Enzo and Big Cass in the tag team tournament finals at Payback. Nice to see something fresh in the tag team scene.

[GrimTuesday]

Some rather sad news, It came out a couple hours ago that Chyna died. No cause of death has been given, but I'm curious to see how WWE handles it on Monday, because they have been so adamant in distancing themselves from her, and yet not acknowledging her will result in a whole fuckload of bad publicity.

[dbunting]

4 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Some rather sad news, It came out a couple hours ago that Chyna died. No cause of death has been given, but I'm curious to see how WWE handles it on Monday, because they have been so adamant in distancing themselves from her, and yet not acknowledging her will result in a whole fuckload of bad publicity.

Yeah this is sad. I am not a wrestling fan but I saw her on some show and some interviews and she had such a sad life and was really depressed for a ling time. Sucks when someone dies that young.

[Littlefingers In The Air]

Chyna will always be the 9th wonder of the world to me. 

[Joe Pesci]

Finn Balor dropped the NXT title to Samoa Joe last night, seems like this is his call up to the main roster. Really looking like the Bullet Club is gonna happen here soon. Should be interesting to see how it shakes out.

[Jack Bauer 24]

So...AJ's losing to Reigns I take it?

[GrimTuesday]

8 hours ago, Jack Bauer 24 said:

So...AJ's losing to Reigns I take it?

Oh yeah, not a chance he takes the belt off Reigns. I figure it will be the result of Gallows and Anderson either trying to help him, or Balor coming up to the main roster to lead a Bullet Club-esque stable with whom AJ will feud with next. Either way, I doubt it will be an ending that will hurt AJ, especially if they have a good match, which, considering AJ is involved, is a near certainty (say what you will about the Jericho feud being drawn out, those were some pretty sick matches). The company knows that AJ is one of the biggest draws they have right now, and there is no way that they are going to hamstring him.

 

Is anyone else excited for this card? I think Payback is gonna be a barnburner. Cesaro vs Miz will be AAAAAAAAwwwwwsome, I think the Women's title match should be pretty cool, (kind of bummed that there doesn't seem to be a secondary women's feud going) here's hoping Brett puts Rick in the Sharpshooter (doubt it, but it would be fun). I will say my biggest issue with the card is the fact that the US title is on the pre-show, and it is literally just Ryback vs Kalisto... again. Seriously, why the fuck do we have to do this all over again, especially considering Kalisto hasn't even been on Raw in like, a couple weeks it seems, and certainly not defending the belt. They either need to push Kalisto better, or get the belt off him. Excited to for Enzo and Cass vs the Vaudevillains, I love both of them but the fact that the Vaudevillains don't seem to be getting much of a reaction is kind of sad. Man, I'm even excited to see if we actually get the Brand split that I've been hoping for all year. Maybe separate the world titles somehow, or have Roman be on Raw, and who ever has Smackdown (I'd actually give it to Shane, it would help legitimize it with his whole, letting new talent have their shot thing) brings back the Big Gold belt or something like that.

[Jack Bauer 24]

What is even going on in Smackdown anymore? Haven't seen it in ages.

[GrimTuesday]

11 hours ago, Jack Bauer 24 said:

What is even going on in Smackdown anymore? Haven't seen it in ages.

Nothing much, I don't really watch it anymore anymore either, unless I'm super bored. I've heard that there are usually some really good matches, but pretty much zero story implications, so I'm not really interested in watching since story is the main attraction to me. Really hoping for a brand split so I have a reason to watch it regularly again. I have some good memories of the mid 2000's during the time when it was really good. My parents refused to get cable, so all we had was an antenna that picked up the local channels to varying degrees of quality, and Smackdown was on UPN.

[lessthanluke]

Smackdown has been better than Raw for months.

[Batman]

13 minutes ago, lessthanluke said:

Smackdown has been better than Raw for months.

Don't you find the piped in audience sounds irritating? I can't deal with it. 

[briantw]

1 minute ago, Batman said:

Don't you find the piped in audience sounds irritating? I can't deal with it. 

I mean, Vince has to keep deluding himself into thinking that the people love Roman Reigns, right?

[Batman]

1 minute ago, briantw said:

I mean, Vince has to keep deluding himself into thinking that the people love Roman Reigns, right?

 

I can forgive that. But he does it for the Miz and the other spuds that are getting the Rob Conway pop. 

[lessthanluke]

9 minutes ago, Batman said:

Don't you find the piped in audience sounds irritating? I can't deal with it. 

I do but the overall quality has been really good lately.

[Jack Bauer 24]

Hope Enzo is ok. That did not look good.

[briantw]

4 minutes ago, Jack Bauer 24 said:

Hope Enzo is ok. That did not look good.

Yeah that looked awful.  They said he was moving his arms and legs and talking in the ambulance, so hopefully he either just got knocked out or it was a bad stinger.

[GrimTuesday]

5 hours ago, briantw said:

Yeah that looked awful.  They said he was moving his arms and legs and talking in the ambulance, so hopefully he either just got knocked out or it was a bad stinger.

Sounds like it was just a concussion, he's already out of the hospital.

[GrimTuesday]

The more I think about it, the more I feel like Roman is miscast as a face. I mean, he is competent to good in the ring, and he has the look, but his ring gear, the way he wrestles, even the way he talks (the way he talks the best anyway), all those seem to scream heel to me.

A heel basically does boring moves that are meant to slow the match down and not allow the face to do his moves, which are normally much flashier, and then, when the the crowd is ready, the face does his shit that gets the big pop. To me, with exception of where he does the power up grunt, nothing he does really pops the crowd (I mean, the spear and, the stupid man punch get a pop, but they seem like they work better as heel moves). With his limited moveset, Reigns just doesn't wrestle like a babyface to me.

As for his ring gear, the mono-black nature of it just screams bad guy to me. I guess it would work for a cool anti-hero like character, but Reigns doesn't really have the charisma to pull it off. Reigns doesn't need to go full fruity pebbles, but ditch at least some of the black.

That ties in nicely to the talking thing, where Reigns really doesn't sound right as a babyface, everything feels like it is being fed to him by the writers. I feel like when he has been more heelish, it's come across better (the sort of arrogant thing they have been doing as of late is a prime example, that seems to work well for him).

[briantw]

The main problem for Reigns is that the crowd has now turned on him, and there's really no way he's winning them back at this point.  The crowd at Payback was firmly behind AJ Styles.  The crowd at Extreme Rules will firmly be behind AJ Styles.  Styles carried Roman in that match.  I think Roman did three moves the entire match, while Styles did what he could with Roman's limitations.  Still, I just don't see any way the crowd comes back to embrace Roman.  He's in desperate need of a heel turn if they hope to salvage his character, and sadly Vince just seems too stubborn to do it.

The other problem is that Reigns is just not cut out to wrestle twenty minute main events with no stipulations.  He's not good enough in the ring to keep the crowd into a match for that long unless the match itself is a total spectacle (like his match with Brock) or there is some sort of gimmick involved (like his Hell in a Cell with Bray).  The former match was really all about Lesnar, though, so you can't really credit Roman with making that one entertaining.  The latter worked because they were able to work around Roman's lack of wrestling ability by involving weapons and the cage itself.  

But when he tries to wrestle a straight wrestling match for twenty minutes, you really see how limited he is in the ring.  Triple H had to carry his ass for thirty minutes at Wrestlemania, and the match sucked because Triple H shouldn't be carrying anyone at his age.  It's a shame, too, because I think the originally planned Triple H versus Rollins match would have been pretty great.  

You can see the contrast in pure wrestling ability when you go back and watch the Owens/Zayn match.  That match was phenomenal from start to finish, and they somehow managed to get the crowd totally engaged just moments after they saw Enzo suffer what, at the time, looked like a pretty horrific and potentially career-ending injury.  Honestly, that factor alone shows that both Owens and Zayn should be in the main event picture instead of Roman Reigns, because you know Reigns wasn't bringing the crowd back after that.  

Also, Owens on commentary is basically the greatest thing ever.  I love how he makes Cole look like an absolute moron.