July 3, 20178 yr Author comment_5805980 They kind of have to though, it wouldn't make sense for them to have their homegrown talent all get run over. Maybe not final four level, but there's going to be a few indy women brought in just to make the PC crew look good.
July 14, 20178 yr comment_5807252 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShNK0GI6aEA So, after reading spoilers, it looks like they build the first night around Kairi Sane. She was that last woman to be introduce and was in the last match of the night. Serena Deeb looks like she's in the Brian Kendrick spot, although she might end up being better at it than Kendrick. Apparently, a couple of the PC girls, Xia Lee and Taynara Conti, impressed.
July 14, 20178 yr comment_5807266 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShNK0GI6aEA So, after reading spoilers, it looks like they build the first night around Kairi Sane. She was that last woman to be introduce and was in the last match of the night. Serena Deeb looks like she's in the Brian Kendrick spot, although she might end up being better at it than Kendrick. Apparently, a couple of the PC girls, Xia Lee and Taynara Conti, impressed. Sucks Lufisto isn't in it, really thought this would be her chance to finally get to be in a WWE ring. Also would've liked to have seen Havok in but she has baggage so it's more understandable.
July 15, 20178 yr comment_5807352 Your Mae Young Classic Final: Judging by the reaction on twitter, expect a lot of "corporate's choice vs. people's choice" talk leading up to the final Looking at the matchups, most of the second round should be good with pretty much every match in the quarters/semis might be really good, if not great. Tom Phillips, Nigel McGinness, and Beth Phoenix did some of the announcing. Also, it's awesome that Dave Prazak was backstage for this:
July 15, 20178 yr comment_5807358 MMA pandering bothers me way, way more than other celebrity pandering because it feels like it partially invalidates the false but consistent narrative of how pro wrestling works. Doing this tournament and using it to put over a MMA star (and broader potential program with the Horsewomen vs Horsewomen thing) instead of a bunch of more traditional female pro wrestlers (including the ones who have toiled for years, and the second generation ones, and the international ones, etc), kind of leaves a bad taste. Maybe that's just me though. It always makes WWE look bush league compared to REAL SPORTS. I'd be happier with Stacey's deranged Diva's Revenge angle than this.
July 15, 20178 yr comment_5807359 MMA pandering bothers me way, way more than other celebrity pandering because it feels like it partially invalidates the false but consistent narrative of how pro wrestling works. Doing this tournament and using it to put over a MMA star (and broader potential program with the Horsewomen vs Horsewomen thing) instead of a bunch of more traditional female pro wrestlers (including the ones who have toiled for years, and the second generation ones, and the international ones, etc), kind of leaves a bad taste. Maybe that's just me though. It always makes WWE look bush league compared to REAL SPORTS. I'd be happier with Stacey's deranged Diva's Revenge angle than this. Wrestling has scouted and borrowed athletes from sports since the dawn of time whether they be from college football, judo, amateur wrestling, sumo or baseball. It'd be weird if they didn't do the same for MMA. A strange thing to get upset over anyway since kayfabe is long dead. There's about million other things that make WWE look bush league.
July 15, 20178 yr comment_5807360 MMA pandering bothers me way, way more than other celebrity pandering because it feels like it partially invalidates the false but consistent narrative of how pro wrestling works. Doing this tournament and using it to put over a MMA star (and broader potential program with the Horsewomen vs Horsewomen thing) instead of a bunch of more traditional female pro wrestlers (including the ones who have toiled for years, and the second generation ones, and the international ones, etc), kind of leaves a bad taste. Maybe that's just me though. It always makes WWE look bush league compared to REAL SPORTS. I'd be happier with Stacey's deranged Diva's Revenge angle than this. Wrestling has scouted and borrowed athletes from sports since the dawn of time whether they be from college football, judo, amateur wrestling, sumo or baseball. It'd be weird if they didn't do the same for MMA. A strange thing to get upset over anyway since kayfabe is long dead. There's about million other things that make WWE look bush league. To be fair, I never quite liked it then either. I'm consistent on this one. Speaking of that, it's not kayfabe so much as consistency across a card (or, hate to use the word, but "universe") that's an issue. Brock is at least physically massive in a way that's not replicated with females.
July 15, 20178 yr comment_5807361 To be fair, I never quite liked it then either. So professional wrestling shouldn't take in athletes with prior athletic experience? Or that they could but they should never mention it if it exists?
July 15, 20178 yr comment_5807362 They should mention it in a measured way. Hell they do that on Ninja Warrior. "Here's a football player. He's big and strong and explosive, but football players don't always transfer well into Ninja warrior because..." There's such an inferiority complex in wrestling that the idea of someone saying "Brock's been competing in MMA circles for the last few years but WWE is a different game with different rules and different needs (stamina in a non-round system, different things being legal, pressures of submissions different with rope breaks, I don't know)" would never, ever happen. Steph showing ass for the first time in a year to Ronda didn't do anyone a bit of good when the night was over.
July 16, 20178 yr comment_5807420 At this point, is Ronda Rousey just Cyndi Lauper? After TLC, I'm sure that when this airs more people will be upset that they ran an angle were a husband did a run in to save his wife from a post-match beat down than this.
July 16, 20178 yr comment_5807421 I'm not a big MMA fan but after Ronda lost last time Dave and many others said it wouldn't hurt her popularity because other big fighters had lost and still drew. Remember he used Tyson as an example. But it sure seems like she has fallen in at least the last year or so. Her working with WWE would still be big but I can't imagine it being as big as it would have been 2/3 years ago
July 16, 20178 yr comment_5807453 Yeah, but those other fighters lost without their aura getting shattered in the process. A lot of other MMA fighters haven't drawn in the U.S. with wrestling outside of Lesnar.
July 16, 20178 yr comment_5807454 Yeah, but those other fighters lost without their aura getting shattered in the process. A lot of other MMA fighters haven't drawn in the U.S. with wrestling outside of Lesnar. Did post comeback Brock even draw more than once?
July 16, 20178 yr comment_5807455 I think his first couple of big matches did okay. But he got stuck with HHH pretty quick and we all know how that goes.
July 22, 20178 yr comment_5808060 Not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, but I attended the second night of tapings and I'll just say it was far better than I expected it to be. It was actually very good. Tons of very good matches, although I'm not sure how they'll do after all of the editing.
July 22, 20178 yr Author comment_5808063 Listening to some non Observer wrestling podcasts and it seems like there's some chatter in the wrestlingverse that people in WWE (and you can probably guess who) were not happy at how many of the competitors were not the usual standard of WWE attractive.
July 23, 20178 yr comment_5808190 Listening to some non Observer wrestling podcasts and it seems like there's some chatter in the wrestlingverse that people in WWE (and you can probably guess who) were not happy at how many of the competitors were not the usual standard of WWE attractive. Fuck them. I'm so excited for this tournament. There was a lot of talent they didn't use that I know are awesome, and a lot of people in this tournament I don't know, so it could go either way. Would have really loved Deonna Purrazzo in it, as I think she's really under rated. Glad they used people like Mercedes and Mia Yim, who have been killing it on the indies for years.
July 24, 20178 yr comment_5808464 Geez, Grimmas. I thought you'd have no problem with that state of affairs whatsoever.
July 30, 20178 yr comment_5809138 If you need something like a program to what this, WWE.com has this.
August 1, 20178 yr comment_5809330 Uh oh... So, by my count, this is Sane's third concussion in less than two years.
August 20, 20178 yr comment_5811234 I just read that they are dumping the whole thing in two stages (the first on Monday, 28th, the second the week after). Doing it that way is a not a good way to build momentum. It's almost as if they are not happy with the taped stuff so far.
August 20, 20178 yr comment_5811235 I just read that they are dumping the whole thing in two stages (the first on Monday, 28th, the second the week after). Doing it that way is a not a good way to build momentum. It's almost as if they are not happy with the taped stuff so far. That's odd, because that is the exact way I'd want to watch it. One week to watch half of it, seems like a perfect amount of time. Doing an hour a week, is too slow for me in how much I want to see this.
August 28, 20178 yr comment_5812391 I think I have to quit one match in as the commentary is that bad. This makes me start believing Bix' claims about JR's sobriety (or rather lack of) while working. Either that or he does not give the slightest shit about that show. And Lita would be fine in the Percy Watson "1 sentence every 3 minutes" role.
August 28, 20178 yr comment_5812393 Ok, I don't like JR either and I have seen people hating the commentary. It's fine. It's not that shitty, it's not heel Michael Cole or anything. There are annoying parts, but it's fine.
Create an account or sign in to comment