Wrestling General

@CountSeartheMetalhead
 
That seems to be the plan heading into SummerSlam

This could probably be my speculations regarding Brock’s exteded Championship reign, when he comes back to UFC for a Heavyweight Championship bout and what if he wins, he would be holding two Championship belts from different Sports Universes at the same time.

I liked AJ vs Shin. I feel it’s main issue was being overhyped, on late, and not being as good as Charlotte vs Asuka, or the Authority vs Team Ronda.
 
Honestly it felt like what I’ve seen of NJPW, which made sense, but it was a really hard transition to make after just seeing the very best example of Vince’s WWE style.

@Philweasel  

 
AJ & Shinsuke definetly had a Good Match at WM 34, with the Heel Run for Nakamura now going forward & Bryan being involved it looks like, we could witness some delicious Triple Threat Matches right there! :)

@QuasarNova  
Universal & WWE Title don’t connect with each other, the Holders of the Universal One are Balor, Owens, Bill & Brock. Punk’s Reign kayfabewise wouldn’t be touched because he obviously was WWE Champion. :o

@CountSeartheMetalhead  
Lashley/Lesnar over Lesnar/Drains I take without any Question!

Wow…. they really don’t like Rusev. Doesn’t matter how Over he is for Months, but that’s typical Vince Logic I guess. #RusevDay #JusticeForRusev

@Background Pony #973E  
It was ‘good’, but in fairness you can’t put on a ‘good’ match at Wrestlemania. Especially if you’re AJ Styles and Nakamura. They got one of the longest matches as well, and it’s still considered one of the most disappointing of the night.
 
…says a lot about the quality of the wresting that it was still entertaining.
 
@Background Pony #973E  

 
Oh come on. Don’t just look at the result, look at the match. Rusev looked incredibly strong, where as Jinder spent the entire match getting booted in the face. If fact he showed his worth as a heel, as he was a frigging babyface factory. Every time someone beat the shit out of him the crowd went wild.
 
This is a perfect result going forward. Jinder isn’t a dominant, super strong champion, he’s a cowardly, douchebag heel who pretty much stole it from the deserving winner. Now it’s the race to see who can get the title off him, with Rusev and Roode as the babyfaces competing for that honor.
 
They want you to feel sorry for Rusev you know? Hell, he’s getting almost identical booking to Roman, which shows you something.

Oh, and minor thoughts…
 
I liked Nia vs Alexa more than a lot of people. But then I guess I’m a big Nia mark. I’m also sort of glad it wasn’t a straight out squash, as admittedly Alexa’s just too much of a survivor to go down that easy.
 
Charlotte’s spear was amazing. Frankly I’ve felt it’s looked a little limp in the past, “Edge” levels of “Hug you gently and you fall over”.
 
I’m wondering if Asuka’s experience with intergender matches helped. I feel a lot of the problems Charlotte has with putting on consistently great matches is she’s so fricking enormous. Not a lot of the women on the roster top out at nearly six foot, and as a result it can sometimes feel a little awkward.
 
…Nicholas was awesome. Sorry Austin. I’m normally down with all of Steve’s opinions, and he hated this, but I really kinda dug it.
 
I’m still a dirty, dirty Shane McMahon mark. I even love his stupid little rabbit punches!

I love that we are getting CHAOS era Nakamura back  
now if only we can get beer money inc era Bobby Rhodes back
 
maybe even “Another Me” Immortal Jeff Hardy

settle an argument
 
even wrestling fans use the term ‘jobbing’ incorrectly, yes or no?
 
must be experience from interacting with wrestling fans

@OptimusPrimevil  
even some rookies do that  
which mostly result in them getting bashed for it by veterans

@Broken Adam  
some terms get misused too much that it lost all meaning. jobbing may be subject to that now.
 
also “only a few people actually watch wrestling”
 
tone was like only hundreds world-wide

on light of Andrea not liking Randy Savage for “not respecting the business”
 
why do Smarks care about the “the boys” and backstage politics to the point of letting it decide if they like a wrestler or not
 
Reddit is cancerous for this, they literally want Enzo to be raped in prison because he “disrespected the business” by bragging of how much money he makes, I am pretty sure not even the guys he pissed off backstage hate him that much
 
it feels like these guys are just friendless losers who pretend to be “one of the boys” because their life’s suck

@Broken Adam  
sad but true (on fans caring more about backstage politics that it skews their perceptions). what if it was Punk who bragged how much money he makes, would they call him out on that?

@OptimusPrimevil  
the same people who called Del Rio a bitch when he left because of racist managers and call any former wwe workers that shoot on the company “bitter jealous hasbeens” even Bret Hart are the same people who think Punk was right to leave and talk shit about the WWE because they didn’t give him a wrestlemania main event

@OptimusPrimevil
 
@Broken Adam
 
>inb4 punk was screwed over so he’s free of guilt/he deserves to brag cause x or y reason
 
Jobbing has always been “a guy who does the favors to an already establish talent in order to build them up”
 
The operating word here is that the jobber, is usually a low card talent who is not supposed to get over with the crowd.
 
When someone says “what the fuck, they just had X job to Y, when X is the more over guy”, that’s not what I would consider jobbing, that’s outright burial, why? slap, slap, slap Here’s why! Cause a job in wrestling is mostly one sided, e.g. Braun when he first started, those matches were made to put him over and him alone, hence why they used local wrestlers and low card talent.
 
Now you talk about Rusev, he’s not jobbing to the likes of Jinder and Orton, he’s the most over guy, so when you give the latter two the shots, that’s burying the momentum Rusev has in favor of someone else.

Reigns bladed himself.

@CountSeartheMetalhead
 
And it did
 

@QuasarNova  
It’s not always burial to lose a match either. Like the classic ‘babyface in peril’, sometimes someone loses for storyline purposes, or to make a later win seem more important.
 
Rusev has hinted he’s changing brands, so you can’t put him in the title picture. Given that, letting Jinder pin him gives Jinder that heel heat, and continues Rusev’s ‘disrespected and under appreciated’ persona (which is what got him over).

@Philweasel
 
The first can always get botched via bad booking, for instance, if the bay face never gets their comeuppance at the end or they make the heel look too dominant and thus condition the crowd into cheering them instead of the face
 
I don’t think Jinder is getting heat so much as “meh” receptions at this point.
 
As for Rusev… Yeah I don’t think that was the intention going with him. He just wins the crowd naturally, and how dare he get over and sell merch

@QuasarNova  
Rusev was super active in all his matches though. As I said before, Jinder did very little save get his ass kicked, and visibly wet his pants when Orton won the right to face him for the title. I’m not sure this is strong booking. Rusev on the other hand always looks strong, with his losses tending to occur from being unlucky or overconfident.
 

 
Well that’s why they had him pin Rusev. As I said, heel heat.
 
Rusev’s problem I think was that he got super over unexpectedly, and it’s hard to change plans so soon before Wrestlemania. With that done, and the superstar shakeup now going down, I figure he’ll get a storyline he’s not awkwardly shoved into.
 
He’s been getting a lot of screentime lately, with the Royal Rumble, Mixed Match Challenge, and his role in the US Title picture. That kind of scattershot booking always smells to me of the company testing him out, to see what works best for him.

@QuasarNova  
even buried gets used improperly imo.
 
mostly if your iwc fave wrestler loses to someone they think is inferior.

@OptimusPrimevil  
The irony being they’re using shoot terminology, while looking at it from a work perspective.
 
It’s not an actual competition. Your best wrestlers are normally heels who rarely win, because it suits the nature of their job (to control the offense and get the babyfaces over). Your charismatic guys who can’t wrestle that well are normally faces, and are the people that the vast majority of fans come to see.
 
Steve Austin noted the danger of a wrestler buying into their own character, and pointed out that the job of a superstar is to put on a great show and entertain the fans, and that is what they get paid for. If that can be achieved by ‘losing’ matches, then that’s what you do, because you’re not losing the match, you’re acting out losing the match.
 
Rusev’s character at the moment is the endearing, disrespected, kept down by the company lovable midcard guy. All his booking over the last few months has furthered this character. The fans are all marking out over this character. They’re selling loads of merchandise of this character.
 
You put a belt on him, you get a big pop and feel good moment… and he’s not that character anymore. If I was management, I would be very wary of doing that incautiously.

@Philweasel  
i can’t recall names at the moment but how many wrestler’s momentum changed for the worse after they got a/the belt?
 
they were better at gunning for the belt rather than winning and defending it, especially as a heel (heel challenger = entertaining, as a heel champion = formulaic)