The Wrestling Thread

Put the world to rights here (off-topic discussion)
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Matty_the_Emo_Slayer
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Matty_the_Emo_Slayer » Mon Jan 06, 2014 11:32 pm

http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/10-best-mic-moments-of-2013/page-11

Great article, especially the section on Henry's retirement speech. It goes to show just how incredible it was that he could even work some of his closest friends and colleagues like Big Show with that promo.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Jobdone » Tue Jan 07, 2014 5:36 pm

Watching Payback as my first PPV for about 2 years because apparently the card was good.

Pretty good so far.

No idea why the fuck they've got Paul Heyman on CM Punk. Why does one of the best mic men of recent years need a manager?
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Matty_the_Emo_Slayer » Tue Jan 07, 2014 6:53 pm

Off-camera friendship is why they both pulled for it probably. Heyman idolises Punk just as much in real life so the chemistry was real, and it's not as though Punk stopped speaking. Some of his promo work ever was with Heyman beside him, like in the run-up to the Royal Rumble. Heyman was instrumental as a heater in Punk's feud with Undertaker in the run-up to 'Mania as well. On paper that match was a shoehorn, but Heyman and Punk crossed the line so many times concerning Paul Bearer's death that it became one of the most emotional rivalries in years.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby x-tempus » Tue Jan 07, 2014 8:12 pm

TOO COOL!

crowd were poor though
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Matty_the_Emo_Slayer » Wed Jan 08, 2014 1:11 am

Finally finished with Wrestle Kingdom VIII. The rest of the year is going to really have to impress to match up to that.

-Young Bucks vs Forever Hooligans vs Time Splitters vs Suzuki-gun

4 of the best high-flyer teams on the planet and a top match. TAKA Michinoku provides a veteran touch the same way Goldust has done to the tag division in WWE in the last few months, and Time Splitters' Back To The Future-style entrance was stupidly cool. The Bucks stole the show though- they can get heat from a 30-odd thousand seater dome full of people whose language they can't speak like it's an American Legion hall with 200 people in California. Perfect fit for the Bullet Club faction. With The American Wolves no longer going to WWE I severely hope they show up in NJPW.

-Bullet Club (Karl Anderson and DOC Gallows) vs Killer Elite Squad

3 of the 4 guys in this match (Gallows, Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer) never got their fair shake from WWE and now are on the biggest show in Japan. Great match- lots of pin cover saves and blocked finisher attempts and all round much smarter wrestling than you'd expect from 4 big guys. Nice to see the titles change hands from one team of brash Americans to another as well. K.E.S. appear to have turned face thanks to this which goes to show just how hated Bullet Club are. Twice as badass as Aces And Eights ever were and maybe even more than The Shield.

-Satoshi Kojima vs Rob Conway (NWA World title)

I thought this match should have been further up the card but it was absolutely solid. Conway is another guy who could've given more in WWE but at least he's delivered now late in his career. Hopefully Kojima will keep the belt for a while now in Japan. NJPW will help give some prestige back to the belt, and having the legendary Harley Race present it in this match did wonders for that.

-Yuji Nagata and Kazushi Sakuraba vs Daniel and Rolles Gracie

My opinion on MMA/wrestling crossovers softened earlier in the year when Don Frye put on a few decent wrestling matches with Yoshihiro Takayama in AJPW, and at least this wasn't a total washout. Both of the Gracies seemed a bit timid with their strikes though and it was clear they hadn't been given enough coaching by the NJPW dojo before this match. The feud looks set to continue though so hopefully they'll improve.

-Toru Yano and The Great Muta vs Minoru Suzuki and Shelton Benjamin

A surprising disappointment- probably would've worked better as a one on one match between Muta and Suzuki.

-Togi Makabe vs Bad Luck Fale

A real hard-hitting match and the first time I've started to warm to Fale. He's the dumb muscle of The Bullet Club but still, putting on a quality match against a former world champ like Makabe raises his profile. If there was a chance of Tensai coming back to NJPW as Giant Bernard and taking his place in Bullet Club though i don't think he'd be missed. Fale is from Tongo so still technically a gaijin, but a faction of brash, cocky and offensive white Americans led by a brash, cocky and offensive Irishman would look a lot stronger.

-Hirooki Goto vs Katsuyori Shibata

These guys have had an incredible series in the past few months, including a great double-knockout finish at King Of Pro Wrestling. This was an absolutely brutal hard-hitting near perfect conclusion to that- 2 potential future world champions for sure.

Prince Devitt vs Kota Ibushi (IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship)

Even in losing Devitt stole the show thanks to his body paint. The match worked mostly around the Bullet Club members interfering which made it seem like the win was a big overcoming for Ibushi, but still the attention now is on Devitt. He's got a loose end to tie up with a feud with his former tag partner Ryusuke Taguchi, but by the summer I reckon he'll be IWGP Heavyweight champ. Meanwhile a completely unknown white-masked luchador called El Desperado came to the ring in a black suit and presented Ibushi with a bunch of black roses from his guitar case. It was a pretty ominous entrance alright, it could turn out to be something special.

Kazuchika Okada vs Tetsuya Naito (IWGP Heavyweight Championship)

A strong showing from Naito but this is further proof that Okada may well be the #1 in the world right now. It was a bit short of the few 5 star matches he had with Tanahashi in the past 2 years, but it was a great match nonetheless. Some of Naito's headbutts in particular were brutal.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Shinsuke Nakamura (IWGP Intercontinental championship)

At first I felt they same way about this headlining over the world title as I do when the WWE title match isn't on top of the card, but with the 2 of the biggest names in puroresu in the past decade it is understandable, and it was the better match at the end of the night. Total 5 star action, and a proper spectacle too. The pyros, fireworks and pole dancers for Nakamura's entrance were cool but Marty fucking Friedman playing in Tanahashi was something else entirely. And that's before you had Stan Hansen presenting the belt. They don't call it Japan's answer to Wrestlemania for nothing like, this set the bar nearly impossibly high for the rest of the year in terms of spectacle and match quality.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Applecore » Wed Jan 08, 2014 12:28 pm

x-tempus wrote:TOO COOL!

crowd were poor though

When Scotty got that look on his face, I felt like I was 10 years old again. Awesome.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Matty_the_Emo_Slayer » Wed Jan 08, 2014 2:21 pm

I'm extra looking forward to the Rumble now. There's a cinema in Belfast showing classic matches and Rumble clips the night before and a bar showing the event itself on the Sunday night live. Going to be an incredible weekend. Just a shame that PWU are having a show the following Sunday not that night- that total wrestling overload would rule.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby herzeleid » Wed Jan 08, 2014 3:32 pm

Bad News Barrett was amazing this week, he was also kind of right.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Jobdone » Wed Jan 08, 2014 6:28 pm

Watching TLC.

watdafk.

There's a tag match happening. And it's actually okay. Do WWE actually give a shit about the tag division now?
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Matty_the_Emo_Slayer » Wed Jan 08, 2014 8:03 pm

So I decided to check out Juggalo Championship Wrestling (yes, Insane Clown Posse have a wrestling company) after some friends telling me it's not that bad. I figured Bloodymania (their Wrestlemania) would be the best place to start. Dear god, it was actually worse than I thought.

Half the people on the card were WWE rejects. Rikishi was the only really legit guy they had, though of course he's hardly in ring shape these days and they booked him in a squash match at the bottom of the card. Then there was a tag match with The Young Bucks vs some masked team who apparently were in CHIKARA a few years ago that was pretty good and everything just went downhill from there.

They had something called an "Island Of Death" match which is basically a no rope lumberjack match, between Necro Butcher (legit Hardcore legend) and JCW's own hardcore "legend" Rude Boy who is so shit he's never even been to CZW. All the lumberjacks weren't even mentioned by name so chances are they were from a local wrestling school, and they looked it too. Any time the action left the ring they would crowd round and wait to get hit in the face, or hold up a weapon like they're about to swing and wait to get disarmed. Rude Boy wasn't much better. His punches basically involve tapping the other guy on the head, and he looked like he was too high to even know where he was getting attacked. Necro would hit him with scissors in the neck and then he'd blade his face, then 2 minutes later realise his mistake and randomly blade his neck. One of the most hilarious and shit matches I've ever seen.

Then there was the "Rumble Royale" which tuned out to be only an 8-man Battle Royal. How many were ex-WWE rejects? 5. The Hurricane, Jimmy Wang Yang, Zach Gowen (the guy with one leg), Eugene (who got in the ring, waved a bit, then got eliminated) and Bobby Lashley. You might think Lashley was a star, but fuck me is he useless. Spent the entire match no-selling people and fucking up basic spots. In fairness 2 of the other guys in the match were top indie wrestlers, Kevin Steen and Matt Cross, but despite being booked by Insane Clown Posse who do commentary they had no clue who either of them were. They referred to Matt Cross as Matt Borne (i.e. Doink The Clown) and had no idea what was going on when Kevin Steen hit the package piledriver. They don't even keep up with other indie promotions and then wonder why none of them respect JCW?

I considered watching the next match as it had Paul London and Brian Kendrick in it, but I gave up. The main event I couldn't even fathom watching. A tag match, with Vampiro on one side (good) and the fucking Boogeyman on the other. Tragic.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Applecore » Thu Jan 09, 2014 11:37 am

Jobdone wrote:Watching TLC.

watdafk.

There's a tag match happening. And it's actually okay. Do WWE actually give a shit about the tag division now?

Seems it, I've enjoyed quite a few tag matches lately.

Also did anyone catch the "big announcement" last night? For some reason I couldn't sleep so watched it live. Bit disappointing that it's essentially a WWE-only version of Netflix.. Very cool that they're on about having a vault of all PPVs and (if I understood them right), old episodes of Raw, Smackdown, etc.
Unfortunately it's just not something I can afford at the moment, so as long as it doesn't have an impact on their broadcasting on Sky, etc (which they didn't actually seem to address) then it'll have to wait.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Jobdone » Thu Jan 09, 2014 11:47 am

Oh wow, that actually sounds really awesome, as long as the back catalog isn't too shitty. "HEY WE'VE GOT PPVS FROM 2011 TO NOW!"
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Bearstock » Thu Jan 09, 2014 2:04 pm

The concept of the Network does sound great.

If I understand it right it's effectively like an online accessible storage unit full of WWF/E, WCW, ECW back catalogues with whatever else they have the rights to from the likes of the NWA,SMW, Stampede etc etc.


My main queries with it have been how does payment etc work for it, how will it effect their DVD output and I hope the temptation to put current shows exclusive too it doesn't come to bear.

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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Applecore » Thu Jan 09, 2014 2:30 pm

Sounds like a subscription kinda thing like Netflix, so payment would likely be a Direct Debit. I think they said it's only launching in America for now but they're looking to bring it to the rest of the world soon. I'm just wondering how much they'll charge for it, as it's $9.99/month in America (with 6-month minimum contract, so is that $59.94 for the first six months, then a monthly Direct Debit of $9.99 when that's up?), so will it be the equivalent in GBP or will they just go for £9.99?

Either way, I think once I'm on a steady wage again I'll probably go for it, because it'll be awesome to re-live the Attitude era and see all the PPVs I missed as a kiddo. Not to mention have somewhere I can watch up-to-date Raw and Smackdown (and current PPVs) without the legal issue of torrenting.
I just hope it doesn't mean all of the awesome docs about certain wrestlers and the highlights shows on US Netflix don't disappear with its launch.
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Re: The Wrestling Thread

Postby Applecore » Thu Jan 09, 2014 2:32 pm

Jobdone wrote:Oh wow, that actually sounds really awesome, as long as the back catalog isn't too shitty. "HEY WE'VE GOT PPVS FROM 2011 TO NOW!"

By the looks of it they're doing ALL of the PPVs. Last night they showed a clip from (I think) Summer Slam back when DX were riding on tanks and being awesome.
Plus they're big on showing off Wrestlemania, and I'm fairly certain they said all Wrestlemanias to date will be on there, as well as a nostalgia show with backstage interviews, talking heads from current wrestlers who were watching it as kids back then, etc.

Actually the more I think about it the more excited I'm getting about it haha.
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