Yeah, Cena was a Bassman guy. As was The Miz.

 

Randy Orton was as well. Sheamus was Brtitish indies. Edge, Christian and the Hardy's were as well. Kane and Jericho as well.

 

Of course Punk and Bryan are *different* indy guys for some reason. One suspects because they made their name as Big Indy Stars for a decent amount of time before going to the WWE. In contrast, the Hardyz might have been known in small indy circles before going to the WWF, but weren't really Big Indy Stars before going.

 

Or some such nonsense.

 

Everyone is always looking for a First or a Game Changer. Similar to Bret and Shawn "opening the door" for "small guys on top" in the business in the US. When one looks closer at it, it tends to end up far less clear than people think.

 

John

Barring maybe one or two matches before OVW (and he may not have had any), Randy Orton is a 100% WWE product.

Barring maybe one or two matches before OVW (and he may not have had any), Randy Orton is a 100% WWE product.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080210042613/...hp?archive_id=6

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20070928191422/...hp?archive_id=2

 

Lord knows how many other matches he had. He went to OVW the following year.

 

Like I said: "indy" probably has a special meaning that doesn't really mean people who worked indy before going to the WWF/WWE, but instead something else. "Big Indy Star" seems to be the closest we can get to it, since it eliminated the people I mentioned while allowing Punk and Bryan to be trend setters.

Doesn't the entire premise of his argument not work because John Cena was an indy worker?

He's basically trying to say "Workrate Indy" which i guess is a thing?

The Hardyz were workrate indies. Well... that was indyz when ECW was all anything thought indies meant, so we can't count them.

 

It's really coming up with something to narrow it right down to Punk and Bryan.

Pro Wrestling Chaos Theory: WWE got crazy on the eve of the TLC pay-per-view, and it was glorious

 

Dear god...

 

John

Snowden will especially appreciate the Gold Dust Trio reference.

 

John

I liked "apogee."

Snowden will especially appreciate the Gold Dust Trio reference.

 

John

I'd given up on reading these things until one of those days when I desperately need something to direct my negative energy towards.

I go to Grantland all the time to read Lowe, so since I'm there and if one pops up, I'll scan it and drag it over.

John, if you missed this incredible lede, I wouldn't blame you.

 

"The Case for Randy Orton - Why the guy who was one the most boring man in WWE is now the champion we need"

 

Seriously? Grantland's trying to cater to "Smart" fans in some aspect and this is what they come up with?

Smarks are coming around on Orton because he's been lambasted so much. Similar how they did to Triple H a year or so ago... if so many smarks hate it, then we must in turn say it's good even though we said it was bad a year ago and say he's "IMPROVED" or that his character has evolved when anyone with a brain can tell you neither of those things are true.

Smarks are coming around on Orton because he's been lambasted so much. Similar how they did to Triple H a year or so ago... if so many smarks hate it, then we must in turn say it's good even though we said it was bad a year ago and say he's "IMPROVED" or that his character has evolved when anyone with a brain can tell you neither of those things are true.

Correct. Basically, this is the Post-Smark movement.

 

This is similar to the phenomenon of saying such and such a thing was "teased" or "hinted at", when something clearly was not. Usually this is in regards to a heel turn (by a person that a smark wants to cheer for, but cheering for heels is the only thing allowed).

John, if you missed this incredible lede, I wouldn't blame you.

 

"The Case for Randy Orton - Why the guy who was one the most boring man in WWE is now the champion we need"

 

Seriously? Grantland's trying to cater to "Smart" fans in some aspect and this is what they come up with?

It's funny because Bill Simmons totally trashed Orton on his podcast on Monday.

Well, my girlfriend bought me "The Squared Circle." I fucking knew that was going to happen. It's this year's "gift that someone who doesn't know anything about wrestling but knows you're a fan" buys you.

Smarks are coming around on Orton because he's been lambasted so much. Similar how they did to Triple H a year or so ago... if so many smarks hate it, then we must in turn say it's good even though we said it was bad a year ago and say he's "IMPROVED" or that his character has evolved when anyone with a brain can tell you neither of those things are true.

People came around on Tip a year or so ago? I thought that last a week or two, and then everyone realized:

 

"Oh... that's right... we hate this motherfucker who it total shit and books the WWE like it's his own personal blow up doll that he can go around the world with to fulfill all his personal fantasies."

 

As far as Masked Man, this should make people get their rocks off:

 

Daniel Bryan: Q&A With a Reluctant Hero

 

I bet there's a chunk of the WWE that can't believe they've found someone like Shoemaker to have fun with.

I just can't injure my brain cells like that anymore.

Is there something inherently wrong with that Q & A that I'm missing? It read like a decent interview.

It was a very dull interview for the most part, but I've read/listened to probably 90% of Bryan's interviews so there isn't much I'd like someone to ask him (besides his experience on working with Taker and kinda joking with him in that London show) so yeah, I don't see much wrong with it either.

Question #2 is stupid.

 

Question #3 is stupid, but Bryan saves it by working around the stupidity.

 

The 2K14 question is fanboy-o-rama.

 

We get three straight questions on the beard, which would be stupid on it's own, but is magnified by copping to beard questions being stupid in asking the very first one.

 

The Life on the Road question is stupid: we've heard that shit a dozen times, Bryan has nothing fresh to add to it, and it makes one wonder how bad the questions on the cutting room floor were if that made the cut.

 

The last one is a silly fanboy question, and Bryan's answer is a fanboy's hardon of a response.

 

There's a stunning lack of insight in the piece about how Bryan got from slogging around the indies for ages, to getting to the WWE, to the process getting over in the WWE, to suddenly being on top. It's not that the surfaces are slightly scratched, but that they're not delved into.

 

This basically is the quality of an interview that you'd find in USA Today. Perhaps Shoemaker was overly controlled by the WWE in what he could ask, or Bryan is a totally shitty / uninteresting / unenlightening interview where it's like pulling teeth to even get these keepers form him, and if we saw the rest of say a 30-45 minute interview Shoemaker had with him we'd get why this is the "good stuff". But... shit... the questions are mediocre, and the responses are a bit pedestrian.

 

Note: I don't dislike Bryan. I actually think his career story in the business is a pretty damn interesting one if fully mined, either with Bryan being open, candid and expressive... or if a decent writer ate up the topic at length. Much more so than Punk's career story.

 

So I actually wanted to get some interesting stuff out of this. Instead... this is weak shit, both in terms of questions, and in Bryan being terribly insightful.

It was a very dull interview for the most part, but I've read/listened to probably 90% of Bryan's interviews so there isn't much I'd like someone to ask him (besides his experience on working with Taker and kinda joking with him in that London show) so yeah, I don't see much wrong with it either.

Yep. Dull as hell would be one way to put it.

Hell, Danielson had a much better interview a couple of years back with Alvarez on the Figure Four website, so it's not as if he can't have a good interview. But, whatever his other faults, Bryan's a much better interview than Shoemaker seems to be.

DB was good on Colt's podcast. He's pretty funny. Shoemaker is really good at making the person he's interviewing seem dull as hell.

Question #2 is stupid.

 

Question #3 is stupid, but Bryan saves it by working around the stupidity.

 

The 2K14 question is fanboy-o-rama.

 

We get three straight questions on the beard, which would be stupid on it's own, but is magnified by copping to beard questions being stupid in asking the very first one.

 

The Life on the Road question is stupid: we've heard that shit a dozen times, Bryan has nothing fresh to add to it, and it makes one wonder how bad the questions on the cutting room floor were if that made the cut.

 

The last one is a silly fanboy question, and Bryan's answer is a fanboy's hardon of a response.

 

There's a stunning lack of insight in the piece about how Bryan got from slogging around the indies for ages, to getting to the WWE, to the process getting over in the WWE, to suddenly being on top. It's not that the surfaces are slightly scratched, but that they're not delved into.

 

This basically is the quality of an interview that you'd find in USA Today. Perhaps Shoemaker was overly controlled by the WWE in what he could ask, or Bryan is a totally shitty / uninteresting / unenlightening interview where it's like pulling teeth to even get these keepers form him, and if we saw the rest of say a 30-45 minute interview Shoemaker had with him we'd get why this is the "good stuff". But... shit... the questions are mediocre, and the responses are a bit pedestrian.

 

Note: I don't dislike Bryan. I actually think his career story in the business is a pretty damn interesting one if fully mined, either with Bryan being open, candid and expressive... or if a decent writer ate up the topic at length. Much more so than Punk's career story.

 

So I actually wanted to get some interesting stuff out of this. Instead... this is weak shit, both in terms of questions, and in Bryan being terribly insightful.

Well yes, but I don't think anyone out there except Wade Keller is capable of fleshing out an interview like this. I don't disagree with your points, but the bar is low for thoughtful questions in wrestler interviews. This isn't great or anything, but it's no worse than most wrestler interviews out there.

Others pointed out that it was dull as hell. Mad Dog and Jesse pointed out that Bryan was a good interview with Cabana and Alverez (holy shit?!?!).

 

Shoemaker is just a shitty interviewer. Like I say, there could be a lot on the cutting room floor. It's possible that Shoemaker tried, and Bryan wasn't going anywhere interesting with the responses. It's also possible that Shoemaker is a shitty interviewer (which has been the case in the past), and Bryan just checked out and slogged his way through the interview. The result was a Tiger Beat level piece.

 

Is the bar low in wrestling? Sure. But I don't think Wade is the only person who can get some interesting responses out of folks.

 

John