Official WWE/ECW/WCW/TNA talk, or whatever v2

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm really hoping that they run the full length show on sportsnet, not the cut down hour show like on Fox.

[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I think they're going to angle for a Nia and Shayna feud against Dakota Kai and Gonzales as well. Which could be a good wrestlemainia match. I still expect that there will be a Asuka match against a returning Ronda Rousey or Becky Lynch.


I like Miz as a mid card heel. I really do, I've been a fan of Miz for a while. He really though needs someone to elevate him, and a feud with Bad Bunny doesn't do it. Frankly I get tired of Celebrities coming in and kicking the crap out of professional wrestlers and showing no fear.


Just my two cents.



It was funny, last nights results really left quite a few wrestlers with nothing to do heading into wrestlemania, Kevin Owens being one of them.



You know what I would really like, because they've been doing a lot of talking about this one team on the network.


The Hurt Business against the APA. for a Vintage match.

I'm hoping for a return on the ladder match for either the IC or US titles which was used to open Mania for a few years.

I think the Elimination Chamber ppv sucked, Miz cashing in was a good thing, but the Elimination matches are way too long for this day and ages fan IMO. No women's Elimination Chamber match?

Nia Jax is so embarrassingly bad. Not athletic at all, does not deserve to be where she is. The choke slam on Belair was laughable. She looks green as grass in the ring and has no agility, just a rrain wreck.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I'm really hoping that they run the full length show on sportsnet, not the cut down hour show like on Fox.

It's going to be live.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

I'm hoping for a return on the ladder match for either the IC or US titles which was used to open Mania for a few years.

I think the Elimination Chamber ppv sucked, Miz cashing in was a good thing, but the Elimination matches are way too long for this day and ages fan IMO. No women's Elimination Chamber match?

Nia Jax is so embarrassingly bad. Not athletic at all, does not deserve to be where she is. The choke slam on Belair was laughable. She looks green as grass in the ring and has no agility, just a rrain wreck.

I wasn't a big fan of the PPV as a whole. It was pretty bland and cookie cutter. Matches like Reigns vs Bryan while proper from a story telling role, can kill an audience, We knew who was going to win, Daniel got one move it and it was over. While not the finger poke of doom, fans can feel slightly ripped off by it.


The no woman's chamber match was what it was. It just shows how much the Woman's movement has slid back in that they couldn't put it together, plus the Woman's title match was cancelled and the woman's tag match was a dogs breakfast.


Nia continues to show that she's not serious, her upper body strength for a bigger woman is underwhelming, she could barely get Belair up without serious help, and she was gassed 2 minutes into her part of the match. I'd say send her back to NXT, but the girls there would eat her for lunch. I'm hoping that they smartly book it that Gonzales rips her to shreds. The shame of it is that Shayna is tied to her, and does the heavy lifting in that team. When you watch the little things that she does, she's very Bret Hartish.


Outside of the Edge thing, and the Miz thing that fans are crapping all over there was nothing here. They had Orton eliminated early on, and no sign of the Fiend or Bliss, that would have made sense.


Elimination Chamber shouldn't be this boring.

[SuperMatt18]

They need to make the rosters more fluid.

I still think the brand split is a mistake and it leads to stale storylines when there should be endless fueds available to them.

Move back to "two" brands with Raw and Smackdown being one roster, and with NXT going back to being more of the developmental brand / introduction to WWE.

And collapse the titles as there are just too many right now.

WWE World Champion
Intercontinental Title
U.S. Title (Filling the role the European title used to fill)
World Tag Team Champions

Womens World Champion
Womens Tag Team Champion

NXT World Title
NXT North American Title
NXT Tag Team Champions
NXT Womens Champion

WWE/NXT Cruiserweight Champion

I don't care if they kind of want the midcards to have set brands, but the top superstars need to be able to move more freely between the brands to set up fueds.

I want to be able to see Drew vs Reigns. AJ Styles vs Finn Balor. Daniel Bryan vs. Andrade. Aleister Black vs The Fiend. Keith Lee vs Kevin Owens, and so on and so on.

But these fueds are limited or prevented because of the ridiculous brand split.

[CaptainCrunch]

Frankly right now, WWE doesn't have enough main event players to run two brands. They have a bunch of players that I would call mid or lower card guys. But frankly my main event guys are really limited to



Drew, Roman, Orton, Big E, Cesaro, Maybe Bryan, Maybe KO. Those last three I question because right now would people pay money to see them on a main event card.


For the Woman


Banks, Bayley, Asuka, Belair. Alexa Bliss used to make a case for it, but she's more a character then a worker right now.


The WWE has really failed to build young talent up. They're that aging hockey team with a bunch of 5 goal scorers after the top 3.

[SuperMatt18]

Agree that WWE has been struggling to make their own stars, but they still have a ton of talent.

I think any of these guys below could be main-event / upper card with the right booking and storylines. The talent is there, but would just be better all on one brand

Drew
Roman
Bryan
AJ
Seth Rollins
The Fiend / Bray
Adam Cole
Finn Balor
Kevin Owens
Keith Lee
Andrade
Big E
Braun
Cesaro
Karrion Kross
Ricochet
Sami Zayn
Nakamura
Walter

Use those names to carry your WWE title and Intercontinental title fields across Raw and Smackdown and you have a great variety of matchups.

[CaptainCrunch]

Honestly, WWE needs to re-merge the main rosters, do some cuts, and focus on a few key storylines.


Go back to NXT being pure developmental.

[trackercowe]

How does Lashley not make your list? I think he's been fantastic being mentored by MVP in recent months. I really want to see him get a shot with the belt. He is just such an imposing specimen, it was great seeing him go over Braun last night. I know he's not an indie darling, but not every wrestler needs to come from NXT or the Indies. I think Lashley has transitioned himself to a significant degree (same as Drew) since his first unsuccessful run in WWE.

[CaptainCrunch]

I kind of have him as a tweener, he's been fantastic with MVP, who I think has done an amazing job of mentoring. But I just look at his on own work, which was definately mid card forgettible.


I always ask the question, if X was in the main event would I pay money for a PPV featuring him or her, or go to the arena for a live event.

[trackercowe]

Fair he definitely needs MVP to aid by his side, but that's no different than current Brock Lesnar needing Heyman. I know Lashley isn't quite at that level, yet he is only progressing at his age. I think that could be a big money feud with Brock and Bob. Lashley has never been given much of a chance to be a main eventer; I think it's about time they give him that shot.

Don't forget Lashley was 5-0 in Bellator and 15-2 overall as an MMA fighter. He's a legit badass as well, I don't why they don't bring that up more often. He's probably the second most successful MMA fighter in the WWE (Baszler was an originator but had a poor record in the UFC).

[CaptainCrunch]

Have you seen some of Bazler's catch wrestling stuff, and even her teaching wrestling moves. We talk about Rhonda being scary. Bazler looks like someone who if she decided she didn't like you, she'd outright kill you 7 times before you hit the ground.


She does have some Bret Hart in her, when you watch her work. Her stuff does look real, but at the same time, you can see her protecting the crap out of workers like Lana. That match between her and Naomi was actually awesome on the minor details side of things.



On Bob, don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying his work. MVP has been a revelation to him. I would love to see a stiff Lesnar match where they beat the hell out of each other.

[CaptainCrunch]

I want to add on, one of my utter bright spots in AEW is Tay Conti. I always saw her as having huge talent in NXT, and its good to see her succeeding and getting attention. She's going to be a big star in that division.

[MacFlame]

I'll just add that I think part my problem with the Raw brand right now is that too many storylines are happening "in the back", instead of in the ring. There's something about an angle being played out "in the back" that just comes off as less real to me. Maybe its how I consumed wrestling in my youth, but, for example, even Orton spewing the black goo (while not a good angle) would have come across better if it happened in the ring for me.

Also, not everything needs to go directly to a brawl. Build up to it. That's what you're selling. Make it so that the combatants don't touch each other until the PPV. The Orton/Drew angle was literally a brawl in the first minute of the storyline. Build.up. to. it.

[CaptainCrunch]

You know, I get the reasoning for it, with the Pandemic and the lack of live audiences, both companies believe that whether its in ring, in the back, in a hollywood setting it doesn't matter. The problem now is that companies are seeing the entertainment factor as more important with the core system of wrestling.


I watched Sasha Banks being interviewed by Stone Cold. Sasha does kind of take Kayfabe to another level. But when they talked about the Woman's tag titles, and her feud with Bayley in NXT and why it worked so well. She summed it up beautifully. Give people something to fight for, and simply build up to that fight.



Once in a while a outlandish silly angle does work. The last undertaker match worked. I originally loved a lot of the Alexa, Fiend against everyone that wronged Bray Wyatt thing. But they just basically rolled out the boogey man now.



Wrestling should always break down to you wronged me, lets fight. Or you have the belt I want lets fight. It shouldn't get more complex then that. In heel turns. I've been carrying you, you lied to me, whatever lets fight.


I remember thinking the other night, I really wanted to see the Kai, Gonazles vs Baszler and Jax tag team battle. But then an up up down down episode came up with Baszler and Kai joking and playing video games together.



In Hollywood in movies, its ok to see Actor A and Actor B interviewing and buddying with each other though they played hated rivals in a movie. But Wrestling is different because part of what made it work, is the suspension of disbelief. You want to when your watching the live event feel like your watching a real human rivalry, but now you're pulled out of that and feel foolish because they're play wrestling.


I like zany characters as well, but they eventually break down. For example, I kind of like Abadon and her Zombie dead girl gimmick. Why? Because she's zealous in protecting her character. You have to dig really hard to find out who she is, you rarely if ever see her without makeup buddying around backstage. She's fully engaged into that character. Its just too bad that after watching her a few times, I realized that she can't work worth a lick.


I think it would be better if WWE for example had very few storylines. Like a couple of upper and a few mid card stories and then the rest of the focus was just solid matches that make sense.

[CMPunk]

Paul Wight is #AllElite

https://twitter.com/user/status/1364606413482450945

[Ozy_Flame]

This is a big addition (no pun intended) to the roster. He brings a wealth of experience for the younger guys, and has the chops to play multiple roles (in-ring, commentator, backstage).

Gotta say though, there is some serious WCW vibes going on here (based in SE US, Cody Rhodes is a VP, and the personnel is peppered with former WCW guys like Arn Anderson, Dean Malenko, Sting, Chris Jericho, Tony Schiavone, The Giant, even Dustin Runnels, Tully Blanchard and Jake Roberts from the early 90's days - not to mention another Pillman on the roster).

[CaptainCrunch]

That's huge news, I hope he's not stepping into the ring though on more then a very part time basis. I would imagine they're throwing a whole briefcase full of money at him.

I can imagine they're going to reunite Jerishow, I don't know if I want to see two guys who right now I would generously call has beens fumbling around in the ring.

This is a huge WCW vibe for me, They're just spending money on geriatrics, and their roster is to me seriously bloated. I wonder what Vince's reaction is going to be. Will it be long before we see skits similar to the Nacho Man and the Hukster playing out on WWE TV. I hear Demolition is still working the independents. They're pretty young at 70.

[CMPunk]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

This is a big addition (no pun intended) to the roster. He brings a wealth of experience for the younger guys, and has the chops to play multiple roles (in-ring, commentator, backstage).

Gotta say though, there is some serious WCW vibes going on here (based in SE US, Cody Rhodes is a VP, and the personnel is peppered with former WCW guys like Arn Anderson, Dean Malenko, Sting, Chris Jericho, Tony Schiavone, The Giant, even Dustin Runnels, Tully Blanchard and Jake Roberts from the early 90's days - not to mention another Pillman on the roster).

Looks like he's starting off as a commentator on a new YouTube show.

To be fair, everyone of those guys was in WWE as well, but I get what you're saying. I think the problem with WCW was the booking and just them trying to beat what WWE was doing at the time, so they threw whatever they had at the wall hoping it would stick.

I know people are going to crap all over this, but why wouldn't you hire a guy with the kind of experience Wight has? As long as he's not main eventing week after week and squashing guys, then why not get a bit more main stream exposure by having him around?

[Ozy_Flame]

Oh I'm not crapping all over it, and to be clear I'm not referring to the "downfall" side of WCW. Most of those names were part of the golden age of WCW, and so they have a dearth of experience competing on primetime TV. I also forgot to include they have a working relationship with DDP as well.

Big Show is going to bring some much needed star power to that show - as well as credibility.

I'd be concerned if they were hiring Lash Leroux, 3 Count, or Disco Inferno - but so far so good