rolling Jericho calls The New Day trap queens 2016

Im doing shit today, can a mod change that title to be tag title matches

Ive always wanted to go to mania but fuck me, whats the point when its in a stadium this big to be in the cheap seats? The hell in a cell cage looks fucking tihy

Wm32 set spoiler -https://m.imgur.com/a/JPgDD

Roman Reigns entrance is gonna last about fifty minutes.

My NXT predictions:

Aires/Corbin - Aires with a DQ win, so they can keep it hot for a regular show rematch
Revival/AA - American Alpha get the titles, but they'll have a rematch soon (maybe 2/3 falls?)
Sami/Shinsuke - Nakamura, it HAS to be
Bayley/Asuka - I think this one might go to a draw, a double countout maybe
Apollo/Drifter - I feel like they're gonna sacrifice Crews here; I didn't feel that way when he lost to Corbin in London
Finn/Joe - Balor wins, again; I kinda don't want this one to go on last, there's more anticipation for the rest of the card

And my WrestleMania guesses:

Kalisto/Ryback - Kalisto gets the pin after The Ryback does something stupid to himself
10-Divas tag - Brie gets the feel-good pin for her team, but Lana does something mean after
Usos/Dudleys - I think the Dudleys might get this one, if they're going to stick around
Battle Royal - If Beef Stroganoff's in it, he'll win it
New Day/The Lads - The Rock will team with New Day, People's Elbow with a Francesca 2 serenade
Styles/Jericho - Styles, but not with the Styles Clash
IC ladder match - The heart says Sami Zayn, but the head says KO
Divas triple threat - Charlotte keeps the belt; I hope this is a good match and I hope they give it 10+ minutes
Ambrose/Lesnar - Lesnar, but it'll be close; the look on Brock's face on Raw last week tells me he likes working with Dean
Shane/Taker - Shane, after a whole slew of shenanigans
Triple H/Roman - Trips keeps the title after Seth Rollins interferes on his behalf b/c it's 'best for business'

(Im actually super excited to properly see the set up and entrances and yes im just using this to hope reigns is not man of the people shield guy. And maybe even gets new gear.)

Combined ages of the likely main eventers at Mania this year (51 + 46 = 97) is not much less than Vince and Hogan at the time of their WM 19 match (which was promoted as if it was the main event, even though it wasn't on last) (57 + 49 = 106).

Thinking back over it, I wouldn't be surprised to see Nakamura/Zayn go to some kind of interference-based non-finish, to keep Zayn strong-ish for his move up to the main roster while setting up Nakamura's first (and possibly only) NXT feud.

nahh they've gotta put Shinsuke over here I think. it doesn't hurt Zayn at all to do the job here if they book him strong coming out of it, just like it didn't hurt Owens to lose to Balor (on a show that was way more main roster than NXT in fact) when he was on his way out of NXT.

Also, speaking of Nakamura..... MAJOR FUCKING SPOILERS FOR LATER TONIGHT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik8072ewnfY&app=desktop

so this sounds like a pretty dope theme! i am sooooooo ready for this

this thread has so many words in it aaaaahhhhh

FPing anyone who does that "ARMBAR" thing keep that sad reddit shit out of here

anyway i'm going all in on shane winning if i'm right everyone owes me a beer

nahh they've gotta put Shinsuke over here I think. it doesn't hurt Zayn at all to do the job here if they book him strong coming out of it, just like it didn't hurt Owens to lose to Balor (on a show that was way more main roster than NXT in fact) when he was on his way out of NXT.

Kevin Owens only lost two singles matches in his NXT run, and the other one was a DQ. By the time he lost that ladder match, he'd crushed Sami Zayn, racked up a bunch of title defenses, and beaten John Cena clean on Raw. He had a lot of momentum.

Zayn, on the other hand, is coming off of a major loss, and hasn't beaten anyone on TV other than Adam Rose and Tye Dillinger since he came back. So they might want to protect him a bit more here.

But you could be right. It may not matter, since most of the main roster audience doesn't care about this stuff and the NXT fans will love him regardless. That seems to be their thinking with Enzo and Cass.

network is shit for me right now but pretty good start so far

i am very pumped !!

i love that i have no idea how the rest of the show is gonna go !

ibushi in the takeover crowd!

fantastic tag match i thought

That tag team match was Rockers vs Brainbusters to a tee. Loved it.

JR and Kota Ibushi in attendance! !!

That was incredible. Jordan & Gable are possibly the guys in nxt i'm the most excited aboutfor the future.

Ibushi!

Corbin's gear is actually badass.

Baron Corbin's jacket is badass

xpost!

lol there is a guy in the crowd with one of those jericho light up arms jackets. he had to get that custom made.

well there you go. this weekend just peaked. that was brutal.

That was everything I could have expected. At times it felt like Nak was a bit too preoccupied with getting his signature stuff in, but the finishing stretch was awesome and he already came off looking like the biggest star in NXT.

that was a very pleasant blend of wwe/njpw. that was so good. i honestly saw more in nak there than i have in njpw (but maybe i'm just conditioned). for a match with 0 build that was perfect.

You could feel at the start of the women's title match that the crowd was burned out from Zayn and Nak. The submission counters were awesome. I smell a rematch.

Balor is infringing on Dean Ambrose's gimmick!

demon entrances getting worse and worse imo

can the dreads at least

amazing wrestlemania guys. i doubt the rookies will be able to top it on sunday.

Odd match. The first ten minutes were a chaotic war, it was exactly what was missing from their previous match. The finish was out of nowhere. No clue what they do with Joe now.

On second thought, they'll probably have a Nakamura vs Joe #1 contenders match, with Nak going on to face Balor. I'm there for all of that.

what's joe done to deserve another #1 contenders match?

http://s10.postimg.org/dla236p7d/finn.jpg

officially starting the "finn pooped" rumor you heard it here first

Really fun show. Zayn/Nakamura was match of the night.

I'm a little deflated by the finish to the main event. I'm not much of a Finn Balor fan, whereas I think Samoa Joe may be the best wrestler in the world right now, and winning the title here seemed like such a natural arc for him. I was having visions of a Joe/Nakamura title match, and then mall goth Balor won with a flash pin. Bummer.

One other thing that struck me during the show was that Zayn/Nakamura and Bayley/Asuka were both cases of a humble hometown hero against an eccentric killer from Japan, and in both matches the latter wrestler won. And they were back to back!

i'm guessing they didn't want all three belts changing hands. i think joe's face getting busted might've made that match weirder than it was supposed to be. would've been a great time for bullet club to show up for a double turn, joe was already basically a babyface for the first 10 minutes and finn was MIA

asuka/bayley was good but i hate how often they do face-passes-out-slowly finishes. that should be rare. fast passouts are fine. but bayley passing out wasn't the right move.

I'm inclined to agree, especially since they just did that finish with the Joe vs. Zayn 2/3 falls match. Also, the Asuka Lock doesn't look like it should make anyone pass out. And I wish she would stop crossing her feet when she does it, that's a rookie grappler's mistake. (It was a good match, though!)

Watching it live, I thought the dueling submissions in Bayley vs Asuka was the setup to the finishing stretch of the match. That's why I think they're doing a rematch. If so I'm fine with Bayley passing out -- it gets the submissions over more as viable finishers and the story leading into the rematch writes itself.

what's joe done to deserve another #1 contenders match?

Nothing, but beating him still means something and they might as well use that to build someone else to challenge Balor.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDrmmL_gFCh/

i agree there'll be a rematch, but doesn't bayley tapping out also get the submission over? not every babyface needs to be a mini-cena NGUer

WWE's fault for always equating tapping out with yellowbelliedness, but still. bayley doesn't need "never taps out" to be a part of her character right now and she doesn't need to be protected from looking like the loser of a match after losing (same with sami). save it for dean on sunday.

I meant that they helped get over submissions as holds that could end the match at any time. They're mostly treated like crowd participation spots in WWE -- you see a babyface in a sleeper hold and you know it's not the finish, you know you'll see the arm drop twice and on the third time the babyface starts a comeback and gets the crowd charged up.

Basically no submission gets taken seriously in WWE unless they've already done a hot stretch with trading finishers and a bunch of near falls. I guess that's why the crowd was in shock at the finish to Bayley vs Asuka, they were expecting a comeback and another five minutes of the match (and so was I).

what a fuckin great show. Zayn / Nakamura match of the night, fans really took it to the next level. Sami brought excess levels of fire though so kudos to him, he really went step-for-step the whole way through.

tag match was basically perfect except for that one fuck-up by the Revival and even that wouldn't have been a problem whatsoever if it wasn't for the crowd chanting "you fucked up" and "botchamania" at them, probably the shittiest and most negative of all possible crowd reactions, especially during such a balls-out amazing match. But yeah, this was like the best possible version of the Steiners vs the Brainbusters fantasy match, the Revival's heeling was A++++++, they really brought it last night.

Women's match was a cool change of pace. the Nak/Zayn match didn't burn the fans out so much as torch the whole fucking arena and scorch the ground it stands on, so it was always gonna be tough for Bayley and Asuka. but the shift in focus onto submission work and counter-wrestling was great, brought the crowd back in really well i thought. agreed on them going to that particular well a bit too often with the finish, but it sets up a rematch that i'm excited to see so that's fine.

The main event was fucking nuts for a while there. a shame really because by the end it had kind of reverted to just your bog-standard "good wrestlers doing good wrestling" kind of a match, but that opening stretch with Joe getting busted open and then just hauling off and kicking Finn's ass from pillar to post was so thrilling.

Agreed that when he gets into full-on beast mode like that there's pretty much no one better in the world than Joe. You could see that the fans were feeling it too, it seems like he might have actually turned face last night. Was convinced while watching that he was gonna continue beasting Finn right the way through to the end and the Bullet Club were gonna show up to save Balor and instigate the double turn. I'd have preferred this finish I think but then I suppose we dont know what they're doing with the Bullet Club dudes just yet.

Anwyay this was fuckin great man who could've predicted this, Nakamura / Joe when it happens will be all-time and teasing us with fucking Kota Ibushi, gaaaaaah <3 u NXT

I'm sure Ibushi will do the Global Cruiserweight tournament and wants to continue freelancing, but we've seen that NXT will bring in guys for one shot deals in the past (Liger), and therefore I've realized that IBUSHI VS NAKAMURA III IS A THING THAT MIGHT HAPPEN IN WWE.

what's joe done to deserve another #1 contenders match?

The finish was Hart/Piper at WMVIII, or a twist on it anyway. Joe has legitimate grievance to take up with Regal should they intend to continue with the feud.

Speaking of classic finishes, Bayley/Asuka was a pretty obvious twist on Hart/Austin from WM13. You'd think a crowd of smarks would get that but no, what a cold reaction to Asuka. Yeah, I get it, you wanted Bayley to win, but aren't these kinds of expectations killing the surprise, and ultimately the enjoyment, of the show?

Also, I haven't seen any news about the event staffer who got laid out when Bálor went over the railing near the start of the main event. I assume it was a shoot because the camera cut away as soon as you saw the guy out cold face down on the floor, and the direction was weird for a few seconds as they couldn't exactly cut back to Joe gushing blood (and they had a tight zoom on Bálor when he came up over the guardrail a minute later).

I am so happy i got up to watch it live at 3am this morning but i really wanna rewatch takeover dallas again tonight, i def dozed off during the womens match and the title match a bit. One rewatch and i think i'd rate it as highly as mitb2011, wrestlemania 30, wk9 and ultima lucha as one of the best 5 shows ive seen this decade.

The only negative I can come up with is the constant stoppages during Joe vs Balor that prevented them from hitting that extra gear. Otherwise this show accomplished *everything* it set out to do. I haven't seen Ultima Lucha, but other than the three shows you mentions, I'm hard pressed to think of another major PPV like that and with this type of match quality up and down the card.

extreme rules 2012 is my other go to

The match quality was great at Extreme Rules 2012, but Brock losing in his first match back? In terms of booking, it doesn't compare with the other three (or Takeover Dallas).

So WHOSE EXCITED FOR WRESTLEMANIA WOOOOOOOOOO

Ok yeah but last year was a good un after a shit build

Yeah lookit people can whinge about the build and go on about nxt takeover as much as they like but if anyone thinks that this is gonna be anything other than fuxking dope well then they are dumb imo because this is wrestlemania and they're gonna be pulling out all possible stops.

Maybe less potential than usual for stone cold classic 'wrestling matches' than usual, but the clusterfuck / spectacle potential for all the main matches is massive

What time does it start over here? 2am? Im gonna get shit fucking faced tonight (best week ever at my business and i only know the one way to celebrate) and get like 2 hours sleep? I may need a sick bowl of nachos.

Nahh midnight start, 3 hour pre show starting at 9.think 7 hours might be a bit much all told but I'll probably stick it on before / after motd 2