Rolling Chris and Kevin's Bogus Journey 2017

rusev should be tbh

Maybe he'll come back as Farmer Rusev AKA the modern day Hillbilly Jim.

I watched a few highlights of the smarked out RAW after Mania. Angle as the new GM might get me back into RAW, because his backstage skits and short stints as Smackdown GM all those years ago were tremendous. Any chance they get it right with Reigns this time and turn him into a prick heel who trolls the crowd every week with two line promos?

The "superstar shakeup" could be interesting, the tag scenes and women's divisions on each brand are burned out on fresh matchups.

I always want to hope it will lead to something great but man i kinda presume aj gets buried on raw as reigns bitch or something while smackdown is blandy boreton (c) v. seth or ambrose having the same bland match for 12 months.

Anyone remember american alpha?

im going to smackdown next tuesday, which i guess will be post-shakeup

The Mauro Ranallo/JBL bullying story is fucked up on so many different levels.

Did the WWE think that Stroman would become a megaheel by giving Reigns the mother of all beatdowns?

Shibata vs Okada was must see. I criticize Okada a lot for his selling and comebacks, but not this time. Awesome stuff, and totally different than any IWGP title match in recent memory that didn't involve Minoru Suzuki.

yeah the JBL thing is a mess alright.

figures more widely in the current cultural moment too, what with Trump approvingly retweeting praise from JBL the other day, JBL being the sort of "self-made" millionaire that should be aspired to according to that particular weltanschauung, that he has supposedly given Vince numerous stock tips over the years as they have bonded over their shared status as wild-west capitalist pioneers, the fact that Vince apparently wholeheartedly endorses and even encourages this bullying culture by offering protection to his enforcer, the McMahon-Trump connection, the fact that a guy who was sexually abused as a child is down for his personal muscle to be soaping up terrified young men in the showers, "GRAB EM BY THE PUSSY" etc. etc. etc. etc.

there is something very deeply wrong with these ppl, no doubt about it. unfortunately it seems like another one of those things that ppl don't really give a shit about because wrestling.

Idk it seems like its getting widespread coverage. JBL has always been a bully, a nasty piece of work but it was kinda assumed he, and the company, grew out of it. With these recent examples, it is obvious he is still a ghastly human being. Its a shame that Vince has final say though, cos the bully, his friend, stays while the one everyone else loves is basically out of a job.

If only he wasnt fox news royalty, and he could just get thrown the fuck out in shame, like demott was.

(I presume the "old school" culture dies with vince right? I cant see hhh siding with jbl over mauro.)

I think Justin Roberts wrote that HHH supported the bullying culture, although now that he's an exec and in charge of developmental he may have changed his tune. It's impossible to say what HHH merely tolerates because he works for Vince and what he really believes is right (i.e. what he'd be doing if he was in charge).

Meltzer has been calling out ESPN for shoddy journalism in ignoring the story, but it's obvious that ESPN's "coverage" of WWE is paid advertising (from WWE's perspective) or puff piece journalism (from ESPN's perspective), they never had any intention of covering it like a "real" sport and it's frankly kind of shocking that Meltzer doesn't understand that.

I'm really not trying to pick on Meltzer because he's just doing his job, but the MSM for the most part doesn't see a story here because it's "only" wrestling and this isn't a big enough scandal to get the attention of non-wrestling sports fans (unfortunately).

you seriously think meltzer doesn't understand the relationship between ESPN and WWE? it doesn't make his crusading any less valid, he's always hated this sort of thing and he'd love an opportunity to bring attention to how antijournalistic it is

and it probably wouldn't have become such a thing if coachman didn't speak a bunch of bullshit

He probably gets it, but he never explicitly calls out ESPN for being paid shills for WWE, perhaps for political reasons. I look at it as tabloid entertainment "journalism" -- when covering celebs, they can report whatever they like and ignore other things, depending on what kind of coverage (i.e. positive or negative) will make them the most money. It seems silly to call them out for not doing "real" journalism when they never claimed they were.

Shibata may have suffered a career ending brain injury in the match vs Okada. First Honma, and now this, fuck. Originally this was thought to be an elaborate angle to give Shibata some time off but now most news sites are reporting that it's real.

I wanted to bring up the shibata thing. I obviously dont follow njpw that much but okada has had like a perfect meltzer year? And someone may be braindead because of it? Where does it end? I watched wk11 and i LOVED naito-tanahashi working bodypartz, possibly one of the best matches ive seen in years, but I feel like too often these big hype matches* are just a mess at this point? 4 rainmakers and tokyo dome makes a 6 star match? Shibata nearly dying is a 5 star angle?

Okada, tanahashi, omega, naito, previously aj, nakamura, ibushi etc. - these guys are the epitomy of sports entertainment when they want to be! No-one needs to get eddie-ed and stevie richards-ed!

*this includes the ospreay-ricochet flippy shit too

Ps. I do wonder if the great *safe* worker exists? Is it Cena? Will a njpw guy ever do it? (And yes this is understanding thay njpw dojo guys are *better* than most workers) I really do occasionally wonder if the miz will ever have a 5 star match - almost certainly never.

I share your discomfort. I've enjoyed a lot of recent NJPW, but something like the top-rope dragon suplex in the Omega/Okada match, however dramatic and exciting, is just so stupid. It makes me think of the way that the escalating violence of the AJPW/NOAH style from the early 90s to the late-2000s culminated in Misawa's death.

Ric Flair managed to be hugely successful and beloved by at least two generations of hardcore fans while working a pretty safe style. Randy Savage, too, although I've heard that all those top-rope elbows caused a lot of damage to his hip. For a more recent example, Chris Jericho strikes me as relatively safe.

BTW I know it's obvious that there were great wrestlers of yesteryear who weren't all about landing on their necks--I only mean to point out that some of the same fans who love super-dangerous state of the art wrestling also appreciate people like Savage and Flair, so maybe there's hope.

I look at it as tabloid entertainment "journalism"

That's how I've always seen it. Even as an avid Power Slam reader for decades, I always took it as gossip first. Dirt sheets are to wrestling as gossip mags are to celebs, soaps, etc.

Also, I share the discomfort over this Shibata situation and the propensity for 'Strong Style' (or the equivalent) to mean taking unnecessary risks. Meltzer has a part to play in this; the impression I get is that he creamed his pants for years over the head and neck battering All Japan style that ultimately killed Misawa. There's been no road to Damascus moment as far as I can tell.

Dirt sheets are to wrestling as gossip mags are to celebs, soaps, etc.

Actually I was referring to ESPN's coverage of wrestling being like the gossip mags. Meltzer is probably the best"real" journalist when it comes to telling uncomfortable truths.

I don't think we can point fingers at anyone for praising All Japan in the 90's when nobody really understood the long term risks. When Benoit came back from neck surgery in 2002 and when right back to doing the diving headbutt every night, there was only a small contingent of people who pointed out that he might want to tone it down a bit. I'll admit that I was in the majority at the time -- obviously I could see that Misawa and Benoit would break down and shorten their careers, but I wasn't thinking about it in terms of guys turning into zombies in their 50's or dying in the ring. Obviously the Benoit murder/suicide in 2007 was a wake up call as to what these guys were really doing to themselves.

Meltzer has been unambiguously clear for years about the headbutt spots being stupid and unnecessary, but he still hands out the five star ratings so there's arguably a mixed message there.

The Rock and John Cena are safe workers, but that basically highlights the problem here doesn't it? You can work safe if you're a once in a generation talent in terms of charisma and connecting with a crowd. The 99.99% of guys who aren't that have to kill themselves to make up the difference.

The Rock and John Cena are safe workers, but that basically highlights the problem here doesn't it? You can work safe if you're a once in a generation talent in terms of charisma and connecting with a crowd. The 99.99% of guys who aren't that have to kill themselves to make up the difference.

that's a problem of presentation as much as anything. going hard af every time you hit the ring shouldn't be the only way for guys to get over. fans could be re-educated to enjoy slower-paced and less high-spot intensive matches, i'm absolutely sure of it. put more emphasis on what's happening on the mat, let the guys try and use the wrestling to tell stories rather than just throwing ever-bigger bombs in a sprint to the finish.

they've done this sort of thing before, in the immediately post-Attitude period when they tried to teach their fans to enjoy actual wrestling again and Lesnar, Angle, Benoit, Eddie, HBK, Jericho etc. were being pushed at or near the top of the cards.

obviously it isn't something that could happen overnight but i think it's something the WWE could start phasing in if they were inclined to do so. whether they actually have enough guys on the roster these days who can work that style to a decent level is obviously another matter entirely and presents a whole other set of problems. "working safe" in 2017 has unfortunately come to mean "working like The Miz and Randy Orton" but that isn't how it should be. Most of history's great workers were fundamentally "safe". the fact that so many of them ended up with career-ending injuries and broken down bodies should be taken as a sign that wrestling is quite dangerous enough without trying to kill yourself every time you get in the ring.

"harder, faster, more spots, bigger bombs" has been the trend in wrestling since forever but you've got to think we're fast approaching the limits of that. otoh i guess guys have been saying that since the 1980s at least and it just keeps on going. maybe in 2025 all wrestling will just be like Omega/Okada and Ricochet/Ospreay

Actually I was referring to ESPN's coverage of wrestling being like the gossip mags. Meltzer is probably the best"real" journalist when it comes to telling uncomfortable truths.

ALL wrestling media is best taken with a pinch of salt.

I don't think we can point fingers at anyone for praising All Japan in the 90's when nobody really understood the long term risks.

In the '90s, fair enough. But it's been fairly common knowledge for a decade now, and Meltz still doles out the five-stars for backdrop drivers. At least that's the impression I get, I've never subbed to the Observer.

When was the last time dave gave a wwe match 5 stars? Its not a new observation but his tokyo dome bias is... eh, awkward at best.

they've done this sort of thing before, in the immediately post-Attitude period when they tried to teach their fans to enjoy actual wrestling again and Lesnar, Angle, Benoit, Eddie, HBK, Jericho etc. were being pushed at or near the top of the cards.

Yeah, but look what happened to those guys! Lesnar got off the road before his body broke down (and he's a genetic freak), Jericho is a genetic freak of a different kind who never gets hurt, but the others ... yeah. At the time the shift away from garbage-y brawls and unprotected chair shots looked like a positive change, but in retrospect they replaced one dangerous style of working with another.

The business has always been built on guys who get and stay over on their charisma (and can work "safe"), and guys who don't have the it factor who get over based on their work and have to take more risks. The first category are the people you build your company around, and the second category contains a majority of the people making a steady living in wrestling. No matter how you shift the goalposts, most of them still have to take bumps 200 days per year.

yeah you're probably right. but again, i'd argue that after they reached a certain point of skill and credibility those guys listed above didn't need to work dumb in the way they so often did. lessons were not learned. similar arguments were made about Daniel Bryan when he came back after his long lay-off - good enough and smart enough to work as safe a style as you like while still putting on great matches, but chose instead to do legit-headbutt spots in bang average multi-man ladder matches and dared Sheamus to hit him in the face as hard as possible on nothing episodes of Smackdown in the name of "art" etc. etc.

but again, you're right that it basically doesn't matter what you do once you start factoring in the simple fact of decades of constant bumping. aside from total aberrations like Jericho and the Funk bros it seems most wrestlers are basically doomed no matter what style they work. it did occur to me in my previous post when i wrote that most of the greatest workers in history were fundamentally pretty "safe" that it never works out that way. i tried to put together a list of names - besides Flair and Savage, I was thinking of Bret, Steamboat, Austin, Owen - to a man, pretty disastrous ends to their careers, to one extent or another. and look at a guy like Hogan, who never took a dangerous bump in his career basically, certainly not between 1983 and 2003, and he still wound up a broken down old buffer due to too many leg drops.

that's the craziness i guess - that even the guys who worked pretty safe throughout their careers ended up dead or crippled, and yet the current style is what it is.

i do think that the style currently in vogue is probably an inevitable consequence of the way both fans and wrestlers have been "trained" over the years, and i don't just mean by the WWE or NJPW here (nor specifically Meltzer, tho I think he's played his part too). there's culpability on all sides. the wrestlers destroy their brains and bodies because they view that as their only viable route to get over, and the fans all cheer for it and the promoters encourage it.

there's culpability on all sides. the wrestlers destroy their brains and bodies because they view that as their only viable route to get over, and the fans all cheer for it and the promoters encourage it.

Yeah that's more what I was getting at, but you put it better.

It's the thing I feel like people only really started talking about, in the US context, with Daniel Bryan - a rift opened, to some degree, between those who realise 'oh shit, this really damaged his health' and others who call for 'one more match', perhaps in denial about how much he's sacrificed for entertainment, or a misguided sense of honour an accomplishment (as much as one can have those in a staged sport). At least people are talking about it, though.

Lana is... now a happy stripper or something?

Donald Trump get the order from Putin to repackage her and her husband?

v. interesting if it's true:

https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/sk-exclusive-how-did-cenas-marriage-proposal-change-the-face-wrestlemania-33

Essentially it would have meant AJ Styles as champ heading into Mania, Cena vs Taker, and Nakamura making his debut vs Miz.

On paper, it sounds 1000X better than what we got. But it probably means the Hardys don't come back for the ladder match (because you probably don't want to book two surprise debuts on the same show), Styles vs Shane ended up being pretty good, and Taker wasn't capable of doing much anyway.

I guess Cena's comment on Smackdown about wanting to face Taker at Mania instead of wasting his time with Miz was a shoot.

this was overall a pretty ok ppv (house of horrors was fucking lol tho, god why)

Best of the Super Juniors has been pretty banging so far

I am not particularly on board for the further expansion of Marty Scurll's "an 8 year old's idea of a cool heel" act; I would say I am relatively on board for Taichi and TAKA having a ten minute long match with no physical contact whatsoever until the last ten seconds

Takahashi, Dragon Lee, Liger, Ricochet, Ospreay: yep

Yes to all of that (incl. Taichi vs TAKA, which I thought was clever).

I haven't watched NXT TV in months, and didn't watch the UK tournament, but I thought Bate vs Dunne was off the charts and the main event was an OK match but an awesome angle. It was so refreshing to see a championship match on a WWE show that was wrestled so differently from the in-house "WWE style" main event level match (referring to the UK championship bout).

Yeah, the execution (on some pretty advanced stuff) was incredible too, I needed the replay to even figure out what Bate had done with that mad torpedo rebound off the ropes. The corkscrew senton properly looked like it must have burst Dunne's nuts though, ouch

Mad to have two of the best young wrestlers in the world killing it on WWE TV and they're from Birmingham and Dudley

The Tomato Chomper turn was good but I really hope somebody seriously talked to AOP guy backstage because that ladder shot to Gargano was fucking awful, and imagine him taking that blow to the head knowing he's got to take an extended beatdown post match

DOMINION SPOILERS

At the risk of going on a big rant, that main event was mostly garbage. I could see the draw coming after about 25 minutes when it became clear that Okada was ignoring all the leg work to that point and there was nothing resembling a home stretch happening.

From then on, they were mostly biding their time and cycling through blatantly obvious callbacks to their first match. Okada hit the rainmaker (among other big moves) a bunch of times and would wander around the ring in a manner that's completely uncharacteristic of him. I guess we're supposed to want a third match now, but Okada had Omega beat a bunch of times, including at the end. More importantly, Okada has nothing to prove! He's the champ and he's already beaten Omega, he didn't need to win here and now has no reason to defend against him again.

In a time limit draw you're supposed to build towards the big moves at the end, making you believe that the match was about to end when time finally expired. Here they'd already hit all their stuff by 40 minutes in, so there was no drama and each comeback/delayed sell meant less and less as they messed around trying to fill the last 20 minutes with the same moves over and over.

Tanahashi (with one arm, bless him for gutting out the match but he's crazy and I fear for his career) and Naito stole the show again.

I mostly enjoyed it but the superman comebacks were getting pretty devalued for me, not sure how I'm supposed to believe one of these big moves are going to put one of you down when you keep popping up to hit another big move one second later

Okada's dropkick is meant to be a big deal, signal the beginning of the end etc: here are like four of them and nothing of any consequence happens

incredible as it is, I really have no idea where the current Jr Heavyweight style is supposed to go post Hiromu-KUSHIDA, short of guys putting people over by actually dying to their moves

I nearly bumped into Hiromu on the way out of the RevPro show in Bethnal Green a couple of months back. He was the same height as me but in better shape. I gave him a weird smile and he gave me a weird smile. Wish I'd done the LIJ fist bump

I loved Okada/Omega II, didn't see the draw coming until at least 80% of the way in. That rope break on the One-Winged Angel is my favorite rope break spot ever. There were definitely some overkill aspects to the match, which I really don't like in general, and at least there was no top-rope dragon suplex this time.

Okada's dropkick is meant to be a big deal, signal the beginning of the end etc: here are like four of them and nothing of any consequence happens

This was one of the reasons why the draw looked telegraphed for me. It was the same with Omega's V-trigger, he hit like ten of them and it never built to anything.

The OWA rope break spot was also obvious from where they were positioned, at least in WWE they can usually disguise it with clever camera angles.

I guess Omega now goes back to being a comedy midcarder with the Young Bucks until he decides whether to re-up with NJ. The kayfabe build up to this match also annoyed me -- Omega "earned" the match by going 1-1 vs Ishii, but Ishii has a singles win over Okada and never got a title shot, whereas Omega already had his chance and lost.

Overall it was a great card, everyone worked their asses off (Omega and Okada too -- the effort was obviously there, it was the match layout that sucked) but it all led a fairly disappointing reset for the promotion. Tanahashi won the IC title but is tough to root for when you know he's working hurt and might be jeopardizing his career, especially after the Honma and Shibata situations. Kushida is feuding with BUSHI again for the junior belt, and Cody vs Okada isn't exactly the match and feud to launch their move into the US.

I totally bit on the rope break. I noticed how close they were, but it didn't look like Okada was in position for it, since he was all folded up and upside-down. But Omega put him in exactly the right position and he got his foot on the rope at exactly the right moment. It was brilliant!

I loved the match, but I also accept all these criticisms as fair.

I didn't see the draw coming till after 50 minutes had passed, and that did take the wind out of my sails.

But you see, I'm not really an Okada fan; I watch his matches with better wrestlers like Kenny, and Tanahashi before him, because I can focus on their struggles against him. They swept me up in what they were doing. That counts more for me than 'workrate' or whatever ever will.

<i>Ishii has a singles win over Okada and never got a title shot, whereas Omega already had his chance and lost</i>

I don't know, Okada/Ishii is CHAOS business that they might have sorted out off-panel. It's not that big a plot hole for me.

I'm all for getting swept up in the drama of a match, but when the first 20 minutes is completely irrelevant to the story then it's not a great match in my book.

Ishii/Omega II was positioned as a #1 contender's match from what I recall. Maybe Ishii wouldn't have gone ahead with the challenge in the interest of keeping the peace in CHAOS, but Omega still didn't do anything to earn the title shot beyond what Ishii had already done. It's not that big a deal but it bother me a bit (although I'd still love to see an Ishii/Okada title match at some point).

i was just watching the marty the moth / killshot weapons of mass destruction match from the beginning of s3 of lucha underground and holy shit i must've audibly gasped like 4 times

warning tho matt stryker's commentary on it is exceptionally bad

Is it worth watching still? Ive been kinda tempted to do a poll about the sudden lack of giving a shit - which dropped off quicker, neville/breeze/ kidd/zayn nxt or prince puma/mil muertes season 1 lucha underground?

I guess since even posting that the highs werent any of those names, it was sasha/bayley or vampiro/pentagon but i feel like those other matches were 'peak' in a way that wasnt necessarily just match hype, more 'you must watch this' promotion hype

lucha underground? i still enjoy it. it's basically the only wrestling i still regularly watch. i'm totally burnt out on wwe.

it's certainly dipped and certainly seems less essential than it did in the first season, but it still has very high peaks and is fairly consistently enjoyable imo. mack and mundo going 'all night long' a few weeks back was pretty great. that said, i haven't bothered to watch the last couple of weeks, since dario's launched a 32-luchador tournament so we've had a momentum-killing run of overpowered monster vs chump glorified squashes.

Nakamura vs Cena is a thing that actually happened. I wish the WWE wouldn't beat everything into the ground by yelling "DREAM MATCH!!" over and over until it has no meaning, but it was awesome to see and Cena put Nak over huge.

Anyone watching the G1? A lot of guys are having amazing tournaments, it's hard to pick an MVP thus far. Ibushi vs Naito is my pick for the best match of the tournament (through Night 11), with Elgin vs Okada close behind. Don't sleep on any of Nagata or Tanahashi's matches though. Guilty pleasure: SANADA vs Yano.

That match was great (except for the big commercial break in the middle). Did you see at the end when Nakamura apologized for that hard bump and Cena told him not to be sorry?

Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xayP9ErP5Nw

after they did the x-files one i was praying for a twin peaks one, and i was richly rewarded.

i'm so far behind with the g1, i need time to freeze for a few days so i can catch up. even with the principle of only watching matches that people seem to think are ****+ it's an avalanche of content...

I didn't catch the "I'm sorry" when I watched live. Cena looked in rough shape during the post-match segment with Corbin, hopefully he's OK.

The spot looked brutal, how the hell can guys like Naito land on their neck like that (intentionally!) in every big match without dying?

Anyone watching the G1? A lot of guys are having amazing tournaments, it's hard to pick an MVP thus far. Ibushi vs Naito is my pick for the best match of the tournament (through Night 11), with Elgin vs Okada close behind. Don't sleep on any of Nagata or Tanahashi's matches though. Guilty pleasure: SANADA vs Yano.

Naito/Ibushi is probably my favorite too, though Omega/Suzuki was an awesome crazy brawl, and Elgin/Omega was just as great. My MVP, oddly, might just be Juice - he's had awesome matches with a bunch of guys you'd NEVER think he'd mesh with (EVIL, Suzuki) as well as the usual suspects, and his selling has come like a million miles in a year or so. The sky is the limit for that dude.