Professional Wrestling: Irish War Painting II

[The BlackBear]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Thanks.  The day I trust Meltzer will be a.....New Day.  

I don't say trust him, but taking in to account the extremely changeable mind of Vince, outside of the writers room he usually seems to have a relatively good idea what the plans are. You just need to remember he's a journalist, and sensationalist news sells.

Having said that: Ronda apparently is looking to have a family, so may be done with WWE after Wrestlemania, which would be pretty crazy, she's only been around a year. I wouldn't hate it if true, I'm not a fan of these big dominant champions coming in and just never losing.

[briantw]

I think the Rumble card is the best main roster card in a long while.  Of course, being the WWE, there's still a pretty good chance they fuck it all up.  But at least the quality of the card on paper is encouraging.

[briantw]

Dear god that Gargano/Ricochet match was incredible.  Ricochet bumps like a goddamn madman. 

[The BlackBear]

Pretty good show, didn't really feel Ohno / Riddle, and I'm still not sold on Belair. Got all my predictions right too, so that's fun. I'd actually have rated the Ciampa match over the Gargano one, the latter was certainly flashier, but I preferred the story telling between Ciampa and Black.

I think we're heading towards a split in Undisputed Era.

And just a minor peeve, but Dream should have had man on one arm and a woman on the other, two women? Yawn.

Looking forward to the Rumble tonight, hopefully the NXT graduates will do well.

[briantw]

57 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

Pretty good show, didn't really feel Ohno / Riddle, and I'm still not sold on Belair. Got all my predictions right too, so that's fun. I'd actually have rated the Ciampa match over the Gargano one, the latter was certainly flashier, but I preferred the story telling between Ciampa and Black.

I think we're heading towards a split in Undisputed Era.

And just a minor peeve, but Dream should have had man on one arm and a woman on the other, two women? Yawn.

Looking forward to the Rumble tonight, hopefully the NXT graduates will do well.

Yeah, I think the point of the Belair match was to give her a match on a big show to see how she did.  I thought she did all right.  She's not there yet, but she moves with that athletic fluidity that makes me think she'll get there with more experience.  Just look at the strides Baszler has taken since she joined NXT.  In the first MYC, she could barely even keep up with Kairi in the finals.  Since then, she's put on several way better matches with Kairi and has clearly worked on her cardio so she no longer gets noticeably winded in matches longer than five minutes.  Belair seems like she's got the ability.  Just needs experience.  

Agreed on Undisputed Era.  I think either they kick out Roddy or the guys turn on Cole and Strong leads.

[briantw]

Well, that Rumble was kind of a mixed bag.  Becky/Asuka was predictably awesome, as you'd expect from those two.  Ronda/Banks wasn't quite as good, but was the best Banks match in over a year.  She brought her A-game tonight and it was nice to see again, because she was incredible back in NXT and during her main roster feud with Charlotte.  A real shame they've never let her be a heel on the main roster.  Also really liked the cruiserweight match.  Those guys deserved an extra ten minutes.

The women's Rumble was largely terrible.  Very few surprises, no legends, terrible booking...the entire first half of the match featured exactly one woman the crowd cared about, and as fun as Nikki Cross is, she wasn't enough to carry it.  It started picking up a bit once women like Kairi, Charlotte, and Io entered, but there were just too few difference makers.  They made the right call with Lynch winning, because they made her their biggest star entirely by accident and now she's got a date with Rousey in the 'Mania main event, but man the road to get there was tedious.  

Imagine five years ago hearing that AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan would have a WWE world title match at the Royal Rumble...and that it would kind of suck.  That match was just utterly tone deaf.  It followed the hottest act in the company, and rather than try to work with some intensity to keep the crowd invested, they worked a slow-paced, methodical match.  I have no problem with matches like that, but the crowd just did not give a shit.  They wanted action, and that is not what they got.  And Rowan helping Bryan at the end was just random.  

Brock/Balor was pretty much the exact same match as Brock/Bryan, but I am totally okay with that.  Brock sells like a fucking champ and he made Balor look good in defeat.  The post-match antics makes me think that Balor is going to break out the demon paint at 'Mania and be the one to dethrone Brock, which would be a wonderful way for him to come full circle after being the first person to hold that title before having to drop it due to injury a day later.  Rollins can challenge Bryan.

The men's Rumble was, overall, better than the women's, but holy shit it was jobber central.  There were virtually no surprises here outside of Jeff Jarrett (which was fun) and Pete Dunne (who was awesome).  Sadly for the main roster, I'm pretty sure the two biggest pops went to Johnny Gargano and Aleister Black, both of whom put on clinics the night before.  The decision to include Nia was baffling.  You'd think that, if they were going to finally include a woman in the men's Royal Rumble, it would have been THE MAN, Becky Lynch.  Much like the women's Rumble, though, I largely found this one to be a very underwhelming road to the outcome we all saw coming from a mile away.  Predictable is fine if you make the match fun.  Less so if the match is tedious, and this whole card was way too long and tedious.  

NXT wins another weekend.

[DMC]

I didn't start watching til a little after the Woman's Rumble started.  And yeah, it was not entertaining.  Turned off the sound and paid attention to another screen.  Styles/Bryan was very disappointing too.  Never got into it, and a really random ending.  Actually liked Balor/Lesner, was much better than than the previous match in 15 less minutes.  The Rumble was fine.  Very average, but fine.  Think the right guy won, by everything I've read the past year Rollins has been the MVP of the main roster.  Now hopefully he can beat Lesner.  Someone has to, right?

[briantw]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

I didn't start watching til a little after the Woman's Rumble started.  And yeah, it was not entertaining.  Turned off the sound and paid attention to another screen.  Styles/Bryan was very disappointing too.  Never got into it, and a really random ending.  Actually liked Balor/Lesner, was much better than than the previous match in 15 less minutes.  The Rumble was fine.  Very average, but fine.  Think the right guy won, by everything I've read the past year Rollins has been the MVP of the main roster.  Now hopefully he can beat Lesner.  Someone has to, right?

You should go back and watch Lynch/Asuka and Ronda/Banks.  Both were really good.  Also check out the cruiserweight match on the pre-show.  Those were three of the four best matches on the show, with Brock/Balor being the other one.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, briantw said:

You should go back and watch Lynch/Asuka and Ronda/Banks.

Can't.  Had no idea how the card was gonna be stacked but started watching around 9 cuz I just wanted to watch the last two hours.  Ended up watching 3, which back in long long ago was an entire show.  I don't get why they think these 6 hour shows help them in any way.  The crowd is always dead halfway through of what are supposed to be the biggest showcases of the year.  

[lessthanluke]

The women's rumble was farrr better than the men's. Started off a bit sloppy but from half way through onwards was excellent. The mens was just entirely predictable and the decision to have the biggest surprise in it being two men beating up a woman that has xpac heat was just baffling. 

Edited January 28, 2019 by lessthanluke

[DMC]

2 hours ago, lessthanluke said:

the decision to have the biggest surprise in it being two men beating up a woman that has xpac heat was just baffling. 

Classic Vince move.

[The BlackBear]

Huh, it was fairly by the numbers but all things considered I had a good time watching that. In the UK so was up until 5 and massively surprising to me I didn't feel it dragged. I liked both Rumbles and felt they had enough interplay between the individual storylines, sure there were oddities: Hornswaggle, Nia. But yes they were lacking a few big surprise entrants. I even liked Brock and Rondas matches, which I wasn't expecting to, you can really tell when Brock gives a shit about his opponent. Bryan and Styles were in a damn difficult position, and sadly they couldn't make it work, but I am kind of intrigued by him having allies. Maybe something like the Cruiserweight fourway should have gone here to just amp everyone up again.

 

6 hours ago, briantw said:

NXT wins another weekend.

I mean... was it ever not going to? But speaking of which Halftime Heat looks good, also WWE shooting hard on Maroon 5

 

12/14 for the weekend, (I thought Rusev would retain and picked McIntyre to win the MRR, didn't get the weird tag match because I didn't know that was happening.)

[lmanion]

Asuka/Becky was great just slightly suprised it was Asuka going over clean, thought Flair might have done something to cost Becky leading to Becky entering the rumble but it still worked. I really enjoyed the Ronda/Banks match and Balor/Lesnar match.

2 out of AJs last 3 big feuds have seemed to not work when they get in the ring, I think Joe was the exception but these were 'dream' matches with Bryan and Nakamora and just havent seemed to get going for me. 

I was pissed they put Nia in the rumble but happy to see her catch some of the more iconic finishing moves - superkick, 619 and RKO. If she was actually semi decent in the ring and didnt look like she was going to kill or maim someone everytime she does a move it would be a different story.

As usual takeover was great although the womens title match didnt do much for me. The 2 mens title matches were awesome and great to showcase different styles with one an amazing spotfest and the other telling a great story. The storytelling in general surrounding Gargano and Ciampa has been great and ongoing for what nearly 2 years now?

The Takeover card is a great showcase for what happens with fewer matches on a card that are allowed to tell a story. Riddle looks like he will be a big star but his opponent did nothing for me and looked a step off the pace Riddle wanted to work at.

Also of all the insane things ive watched shane mcmahon do that shooting star press might just have been the most impressive. It seems wwe may have cracked open the door for some previously 'banned' moves to be allowed to creep back in, if thats the case then more varied skillsets can really only be a good thing to add the sense of holy crap to some events but only if they are used sparingly and not just a cheap pop in basically every match.

[briantw]

Was the shooting star press banned?  Because I feel like I see people do it or similar moves all the time.  

[lmanion]

There were rumours they werent allowed to do it for years after Lesnar landed on his head. Ricochet was the first I had seen in the last couple of years that had done it from the top turnbuckle.

[KingintheNorth4]

Nice to see WWE strike while the iron is still hot by booking Becky and Seth to win their respective rumbles.

[briantw]

19 minutes ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

Nice to see WWE strike while the iron is still hot by booking Becky and Seth to win their respective rumbles.

Man, if anyone but Becky had won, the crowd would have rioted.

[lmanion]

Womens rumble should have been on last really.

[briantw]

4 minutes ago, lmanion said:

Womens rumble should have been on last really.

Literally the only reason it wasn't was so that stupid Nia Jax spot could happen.  

I still think it's hilarious how WWE turned Becky Lynch into their biggest star since Stone Cold entirely by fucking accident. 

[lmanion]

Its a very wwe thing to have happen and bloody Nia hurting Becky and her bleeding everywhere was about the best thing that could happen to her. Her mouthing off to Charlotte while hobbling on 1 leg was pretty great. Its great that wwe went with it when she accidentaly got over as a face when they tried to turn her heel. Its fun listening to stone cold and Jerichos podcasts when they talk about how these things work.