2016 Pro Wrestling Thread

Titus O'Neil UPDATE - Suspension reduced, WWE responds to NY Post -

 

60 days. Whoop de damn do. Still the same if he would have violated the Wellness policy a second time.

 

Observer from Feb. 15:

- There is a long retrospective and timeline on Daniel Bryan, with more detail on his injuries. He’s had 10 diagnosed concussions, and who knows how many total? At an unspecified time in the past year, he asked for his release, because WWE refused to clear him, even though he had two other doctors saying he was OK.

Because of the injury, he was in a long limbo. The injury meant that WWE could extend his contract, as long as they kept paying his guarantee. Rey Mysterio was in a similar limbo until he threatened to sue to get out of the contract.

The deadlock was finally broken by Bryan taking new testing from Evoke Neuroscience. It’s being used more in MMA now, and it’s more extensive than other testing. It revealed damage to the area of the brain that causes seizures, even eight months after Bryan’s most recent one. That convinced him to retire; there’s no indication he was forced out. Brie Bella is also likely to stop wrestling soon, because they do want kids. The testing could the tipping point for a bunch of contact sports, since they think they’ll be able to test for CTE in living tissue soon.

- Strowman is 99 percent out for the Taker match; instead, it’s likely he’ll win the Andre Battle Royal. Owens has pushed hard backstage for the Taker match, but he hasn’t gotten much support for it.

- WWE still hasn’t come up with an angle or plan for Austin at Mania.

- Christopher Daniels has signed an exclusive deal with ROH.

- TNA’s Davey Richards suffered a serious ACL injury. There’s no timetable for his return, but it’ll be several months at least.

- Payouts apparently are either slow or bad with AAA and Lucha Underground, so now, Mysterio is open to returning to the WWE on a part-time deal at some point.

- Nakamura received a three-year contract from WWE. It’s believe that Matt Bloom (Tensai) was the first WWE contact he had about a contract, in late 2014.

- WWE made five NXT cuts: Bull Dempsey, Oscar Vasquez, Sylvester Lefort, Peter Howard and Marcus Louis. Dempsey was the only one used regularly, with the others longshot developmental guys.

- WWE has hired Cathy Kelly, 27, as on-air talent.

 

Something must happened to Henry. Strange ending.

 

Sick match for the IC belt......Cody can really go when he's in there with guys like that

 

Strowman and Show is the main event? There's gotta be a catch.

 

Was that a ppv go home RAW ending or a random Smackdown finish? That was repug.

 

Holy shit. I can't believe THAT was the ending to Raw. That was brutal.
I mean, I get WHY they did it. They did it so they could get people to turn over to the Austin podcast featuring Big Show but that was just about the shittiest way they could have ended the show.

 

Made zero sense in having that be the go-home segment for an upcoming PPV, upcoming Austin interview or no.

The Reigns/Heyman/Ambrose segment should have been the final segment, especially with Dean teasing the Dirty Deeds to Roman. It even made sense for the Dudleys to get involved, not only for the Uso angle, but also with their ECW past with Heyman.

 

The main event will be entertaining, I'm looking forward to the two women's matches and I'm sure Owens and Ziggler will put on a show so it's hard to call this ppv a hot mess but.....it feels that way.

Del Rio and Kalisto on the preshow?? New day on a talk seg instead of in a match? Who the heck is fighting who amongst the Ryback Wyatt people?

Whatever. Everything can't be sunny I suppose. Power of positivity.

 

My guess is we get a Cass and Enzo debut in the Cutting Edge segment of the PPV. Perfect spot for it really. Then you've got a fresh tag spot for Mania and, I imagine, a compelling storyline that pays off with the New Day getting a well deserved big PPV win.

The Del Rio/Kalisto bullshit just shows the WWE only cares about the US title when it was on Cena. Shame really.

Speaking of Mr. Fruity Pebbles, I'm starting to think he's somehow going to find a way back to Mania to fight Taker. The timing of that injury just seems so odd to me. I would not have been surprised to see him put off that surgery until after Mania as he often does but news broke of the injury and he immediately went under the knife, storylines be damned. You only do that if there's an outside shot of him coming back in time for the big PPV right?

My gut tells me we're getting Cena-Taker but I'd prefer Owens-Taker. Hopefully this Mania card starts shaping up soon because right now it's pretty thin.

 

So what's the guess about this Vincent J. McMahon award? Would it be anything but Vince using his dad for an angle?