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2012 Pro Wrestling Thread

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Rockbottom, Dec 26, 2011.

  1. btm

    btm Member

    1. Dolph Ziggler. From what I've seen of him (granted I don't watch religiously anymore) he reminds me of a young Hennig and bumps like crazy. He can work and talk.

    2. Hell, if they could survive the Victory Road debacle with Meth Hardy, I don't see why it would die just yet. Roode looks like he could be a good one.

    3. All that matters for the WWE is what's "trending" and merchandise sales. The buzz for Daniel Bryan will fade out because Vinny Mac doesn't like guys who aren't bodybuilders and that suck at wrestling. Sin Cara will vanish, who would have thought his style would work with most of the WWE roster.
     
  2. Gutter

    Gutter Well-Known Member

    I know there is more to this Jericho thing, but that truly was underwhelming. His videos were all dark and cryptic, but he comes out like Grinny McSmilerson with a lit-up coat and all.

    And again, I know there is more to this and this is only the start. Just a bit of a let down for his reintroduction to the WWE.
     
  3. KYSportsWriter

    KYSportsWriter Well-Known Member

    I was like that too, Gutter, until I thought more about it. He's making fun of Punk for pandering to the crowd. He'll soon be the full-on heel that we all know and love.
     
  4. Gutter

    Gutter Well-Known Member

    I didn't get the "Punk pandering to the crowd" angle. At all. Cena pandering to the crowd? Sure, I could see it.
     
  5. Mystery Meat II

    Mystery Meat II Well-Known Member

    I presume the videos are a spoof too, Jericho making fun of the dark mystery buildups or throwing everyone off the scent just to be a troll.

    The problem is that clever doesn't always translate to pro wrestling. It reminds me of how Foley and Flair tried to build a feud a few years ago in WWE over the remarks they made about each other in their books. At one point, Foley's angle was "I'm going to have an intentionally bad match because everyone thinks Flair can have great matches with broomsticks". So many obvious ways they could have made this a special, or at least compelling, feud, and it ended up convoluted and boring as hell.

    Jericho, as pointed out, looked like he was parodying Cena a lot more than Punk. Which would be fine, but Cena's dance ticket is punched for the next three-plus months. And as a standalone return promo, it might have been OK (except Memphis fans played it way too straight and just cheered him throughout until he left). But he was also the payoff to a much-hyped, well-produced reveal angle, one that appeared to have multiple mysteries (What does he want? Who or what does the ginger girl represent?). Instead it was "Here's the big moment! It's the guy you guessed it was! And he's going to pander to the fans for 10 increasingly boring/uncomfortable minutes! And ... that's it, time for a crappy handicap tag team match!" You don't have to answer all questions in one long promo, because that's cliche, but at least payoff with something to make us want to see what happens next. This fell short.
     
  6. Tommy_Dreamer

    Tommy_Dreamer Well-Known Member

    It almost seemed like an Andy Kaufman-esque rib to me. It was the kind of thing Kaufman would do just to confuse the hell out of you and to give himself a laugh.

    I found myself laughing at the uncomfortable ring laps and high-fiving. And when he had the crowd cheering at every point their way I cracked up.

    I think it was brilliant and left me wanting more.
     
  7. KYSportsWriter

    KYSportsWriter Well-Known Member

    Punk, IMO, has done an awful lot of pandering to the crowd since his turn some months ago. Go back and look at any of his matches of late. He never used to play up the crowd because he didn't need to.
     
  8. podunk press

    podunk press Active Member

    Punk's definitely been pandering.

    1. The internet marks loved his promo in June because he said everything they wanted him to say.
    2. The fans love it when he brings up the Ice Cream bars.

    I could continue.

    Regardless, I didn't really know what was going on while watching "Raw" live. Through the beauty of YouTube, I get it know: He was making fun of every face in WWE history. The posing with the crowd cracked me up. I think he's making fun of all the faces simultaneously. If so, that's awesome.
     
  9. sgreenwell

    sgreenwell Well-Known Member

    Yeah, I took it more like this. He's going to keep milking and mugging for crowd reaction until everyone hates him.
     
  10. Agreed. And it's what I hate about what WWE does to it's heel property's turned quasi-face. See Orton, Randy and Punk, CM. They were all very much over as heels, then people loved their "fuck everybody, heel and face" quality. But then they all end up pandering to the crowd. It's sad. Everybody doesn't have to fit into a nice, neat box WWE.
     
  11. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Orton, I've always thought they should have kept him in his heelish ways, even with the crowd cheering.

    Punk is a bit of a different matter. I'm somewhat thinking he's been going the Jericho route (or Jericho was going in the Punk route), of acting like a super- over-the-top babyface in a mocking sort of way. They couldn't really keep him in super-heel mode because the crowd wouldn't react as strongly to his "pipebombs". You want the crowd to cheer when Punk makes a Johnny Ace/skateboard reference. You don't want them to give off a mixed reaction.
     
  12. sgreenwell

    sgreenwell Well-Known Member

    With Punk, they've also shifted his rage, ineffectively to most of us, it seems. When he was still a tweener going against Cena, he was railing against the company as a whole, and its stodginess. That has now morphed into battles against management (Triple H and Johnny Ace) as opposed to crapping on the product, which I think most of us found much more compelling. If they wanted to keep the Punk gimmick up and have him retain his heat, they should have had him refusing to tag or ally with people at all, and eventually having that cost him the belt.
     
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