dawho5

I read the comments that don't warrant a thread pretty often, but I can understand not wanting some 300+ page thread with pages of discussion on one topic somewhere in there. I think that this idea, as with most, has it's strengths and weaknesses that most are going to be on one side of or another. I would question this decision being some kind of deal breaker for posting at PWO though. Do those threads appeal to a certain set of the posters here? Absolutely or they wouldn't exist. But I thought the whole point of PWO was to discuss wrestling, no matter where it was produced or when it came from, with other people who love pro wrestling. My feeling is that the board is fully functional in that respect without the two megathreads. Those who loved that setup will have to adjust, sure. But it's a small thing in the bigger picture when you look at the way this community functions as a whole. Are there that many places out there you can find discussion on whatever wrestling you feel like talking/reading about on that particular day? And if you are one of those who really loved the megathreads, start pitching ideas outside of new megathreads that might fill that gap. Maybe have a catchall thread for the different territories where you could talk about the AWA or Mid South or WCCW or lucha or whatever if that's what you're watching and you have some random seeming post or a question. There's already a dedicated animated GIF thread. It does seem like it would be easier to locate the things you're looking for that way rather than a huge thread with everything.

I love any of the Fantastics matches I've found, especially if Kikuchi is involved. I won't say that they are going to blow you away in All Japan terms, but they are great midcard warmups for the more serious main event stuff. I think that's one thing that can wear you out real quick if you just go through all the Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi/Taue/Akiyama stuff is that it's all very heavy and emotionally charged after a certain point. There's no light fare that's still good wrestling to change things up a little. I don't necessarily think something like the Fantastics vs. Kobashi/Kikuchi or Kroffat vs. Kobashi is an all time classic or even something superbly memorable, but it's nice to have those smaller matches peppered in between all the tags, six mans and singles matches that the big 5 and Hansen/Gordy/Williams/Ace/Vader worked that ended up being so great. It's almost like a wrestling show itself then, where you're not just getting big emotional matches over and over. You get a ten, fifteen minute spotfest that's easy to watch with enough cool stuff to keep you interested while not burning you out for the Kobashi/Misawa vs. Taue/Kawada tag that goes forty minutes.

I'm 100% with Loss and Dylan on a lot of the booking being purposefully hurtful to the wrestlers. I've seen enough of how they book things that I'm sure they know how they are affecting things. Maybe it's actually beneficial to have a lot of the good workers in the midcard where they'll be left to have their good matches without all the screwy booking out of fear that Trips and Steph could be outshone.

So I was thinking about the last two cash-ins and had an odd thought. In addition to being a major booking crutch the last two years it also brought us the always beloved Authority. They realized that with the fan reactions Bryan was getting he needed to go somewhere. So they built him up to the Cena match at SS 2013 and had Orton cash in post-match, but with Triple H doing the dirty work in a double cross. Then Triple H and Stephanie come out and start messing with Bryan for two weeks straight, with Bryan the helpless victim of a beating and Big Show positioned as the big guy with a bigger heart. He's forced against his will to not help and/or hurt Bryan, begging us fans to love Big Show, Daniel Bryan's would-be protector. So they give Bryan his moment (and I do mean moment) and try their best to make us forget him before they realize that won't work. But Trips and Steph are still around on every show, doing the job of the GM for them while the GM is there. And then our favorite couple goes off on vacation for a week and the GM's apparently screw things up royally by booking a bunch of handicap matches for the faces. Something that Triple H and Stephanie have been doing all along, but they must be punished when the Authority returns. Because we can't be allowed to think that things can run smoothly without those two around to guide their peons. And then they stick Bryan in a feud with the Wyatts because going from feuding with Cena for the belt, to feuding with Orton for the belt, to feuding with the Wyatts is the obvious sequence. If you want Bryan out of the picture. But hey, we made us a hot (for as long as he's messing with Bryan) heel in Orton, managed to find a reason to put Steph and Trips on TV bi-weekly for large amounts of time AND got Bryan out of the picture (temporarily, only to come back in temporarily) with one cash-in. So basically, thanks to all you fans for playing, but we've got a get-out-of-jail-free card to play. And we can tack on some stuff you're going to love because hey, go fuck yourself. So when you combine that with the WM31 cash-in, I think we're starting to see how that is going to be used going forward.

I'm making this thread because there was a recent thread regarding the common match style a promotion puts on and how matches that differ greatly from that style are looked at. It seems to me that Reigns vs. Lesnar is a highly atypical WWE match. I would go a little further to say that current Brock PPV matches tend to fall into that category. I'm not going to argue that it wasn't a great wrestling match, because it had me hooked and completely forgetting the Rollins cash in. I will question whether or not it may be somewhat overrated because so many WWE matches don't reach the level of realistic violence that we got from this match. There's something to be said for having matches like these in big settings that end up surpassing whatever expectations could have been in place beforehand. It's why shows like Mania and Summerslam are as big as they are, you can reasonably expect something far out of the ordinary to happen that will blow you away. I just question how much that big difference between the normal product and the Mania main event skews the way we view a match like that. I also question whether or not that is exactly the point of the whole thing. Is it actually the plan to set the bar so low during the majority of the year that when these anomaly matches happen they get an even bigger reaction? I find myself wondering if they are that smart about it or just lucky that Brock and Reigns were willing to do what they did. I've gone back and watched the Bret/Austin match that made Stone Cold a few times and wondered the same thing. I know the WWE is all about spectacle, but from what I've seen Vince has his own very clear views on how that spectacle ought to be presented. I'm curious to see what you guys think.

That was a fun listen and I tend to agree with Dylan on why he liked the matches and didn't like the booking. The actual finish to the podcast was far better than Will thought it was. Turns out Will is the curmudgeon, not Pete. Even if he's dead right about the IC champs congratulating Bryan.

Had a work day to let my mind digest things and sort them out. The finish to the Sting match was kind of an homage to his entire career in WCW. He breaks the sledgehammer but doesn't make sure the metal head of it is out of the ring while his foot is right next to it, then runs all the way back across the ring twice. Its the same old dumb Sting from WCW. I think that the finish to the Rusev/Cena match was right for the situation. The American face wins at Mania. But I also think that Cena taking Rusev's streak away was a total waste. You could have built up somebody like a Big E or Cesaro as an upper midcard face and had a program with the undefeated Rusev to launch them into the main event. Big E seems like enough of an athlete that he could physically match up with Rusev fairly well. But instead you booked yourself into the need to kill the streak. Just plain stupid. The Rousey stuff is certainly going to be an uptick for the WWE as far as exposure. I don't personally care for the idea, but that's what the fast forward button is for. I would agree that you keep her far, far away from the divas division. An amusing thought that was running through my head while that was going on was how Rousey could take out anybody in that ring with relative ease. Might be an interesting thing to do later on. I have to agree that Steph (as well as Triple H) will be all over WWE programming for as long as they can come up with reasons to be there. So basically forever. Wonderful idea that. As for the main event, my complaint is the same as the Rusev/Cena match. The only, only way to save the show was to do the ending they did. That means that on the way there they fucked up and could have avoided having to play the "cash in" card if they had been paying attention and/or willing to listen. I think the reason they keep MITB around is for this exact purpose. To get them out of shit they don't have other ways out of. Which means it will stay around forever. From a wrestling point of view there was a lot to like on the show. But it seemed mostly wasted by a bad build that called for some decisions to be made.

Something Parv said earlier just hit me. Orton got a pin over Rollins earlier in the night. Which means it's a really, really good chance that Orton is first in line for the title shot. Hoo fucking ray.

You're suggesting that there's going to be a rematch with that much on the line again? Only scenario I could see like that is Reigns getting another title shot against monster Brock at a WrestleMania to come. If they have that much attention span, which the WWE usually does not. I guess an alternative could have been that build to Rollins coming into the match and then helping Reigns get the win for a sort of Shield reunion. Not that it would have set things up any better than that did.

I'm not going to argue that it isn't smart booking Parv. It's the best possible result for the WWE going forward. It's still fucked that we didn't see a result to that match.

So going forward is Brock now a face trying to kill Rollins? Is Reigns actually over now? That's the only interesting story to come out of WM 31 for me. Show, Trips, Taker and Cena are moves backwards. I guess I should be happy that the main title is at least an interesting picture. Unless they blow it within two weeks. Parv's Bryan point is something I hadn't thought of.

I'm so torn on that finish. On the one hand Reigns was not going to be a great champ at this point. He wasn't over enough. On the other, he had just gone to WAR with Brock and it was just left hanging. Fuck you for not giving me either Reigns getting his win before the cash in or Lesnar finally putting reigns away. That match demands a real finish.

You mean the exhausted challenger, but I wholeheartedly agree. That match deserved a clean finish for Reigns fighting through as much as he did.

I hated the finish because I wanted to see if Roman could do it. I like Rollins as champ more than Reigns. I like not having Brock lose his title. But a match that hard fought needs a better finish.

GUSHER

The level of violence is incredible. But I have to question what they are going for. Sympathy for Roman?

Your face is getting his ass kicked and the crowd is chanting "this is awesome." Good stuff.

Okay what?

Thankfully you can skip through the Rousey/Steph shit by watching shows on the Network.

On a related note to that last match, I have to ask Parv this question. Did Undertaker look worse than Jumbo in his last few tours here? I say much, much worse.

The Orton match was way better than expected. The finish was actually pretty good, which shocked the Hell out of me. Sting vs. HHH was awful. Except for the Sting shine, which actually was pretty damn good. The divas match was better than I expected it to be. AJ doing the Jumbo sell on the elbow off the apron was cool. AJ seemed much improved from 2013, as did both Bellas. Paige seemed like an afterthought once the heat was done. Rusev is really, really good but I thought something was missing from the match. I can't put my finger on what, but it just didn't blow me away. I'm not saying it wasn't good, just not great. I think they squandered the undefeated streak of Rusev with this booking. Give it to somebody more in need like Reigns. The whole Rock segment was too long and I already don't care about next year's WM. Explain why Undertaker needed to beat Wyatt. That makes no sense at all.

I get the idea that wresting is not a minimalist art, but at the same time I understand what people mean when they use the term to describe a wrestler or a match that way. Is there a better way of describing a less-is-more approach to wrestling than minimalist?

Agreed on the Goldy situation for sure. In wrestling, you run with what's hot. Why is it that Hogan got that four year run again? Because he was fucking huge, like him or not, and that's where the money was. And they kept him hot by having him do relatively few jobs, which again makes sense with the business model at the time. So the only real reason for Goldberg having to lose to Nash was what? Nash wanted to beat Goldberg? Ridiculous. As for my answer to the original question, yes they matter but there are matters of tiers to think about. I recently watched Rollins vs. Cena from December of 2013 and I thought Rollins got over HUGE in that loss. But if he goes on to lose his next five singles matches that's a big waste of a great performance by both. That's where smart booking comes in. Book him against a guy who is more even with him and have him go over clean with no help from Reigns or Ambrose. And I would agree that where you are on the card has a lot to do with it. A midcard guy being pushed to the main event can't afford too many losses. In the present WWE it doesn't seem to matter how strong somebody's win/loss record is once they get to main event level. They are generally perceived as being there once they've been around that level for a while. That's one of the reasons Cena can afford to be so generous. The problem really ends up being that the WWE's even steven booking ends up keeping 95% of the roster endlessly stuck in the midcard.

I thought the layout was great and the execution was better. The only thing I didn't like was counting three times Rollins had Cena in perfect position for his finisher but trash talked until it wasn't viable any longer. Or maybe that was on purpose, hard to say.

I agree with the argument against the WWE podcast for the exact same reasons mentioned in the podcast. There's no way they are going to let their current guys get out of character for any amount of time on their programming. It's okay for the old school guys, but it's not going to happen for, since it was mentioned, Bray Wyatt. He would spend an hour talking about living in the Louisiana swamp. And they probably wouldn't have great stories about their current characters because they were handed to them in the first place.