Professional wrestling thread

I'm sure there must be enough people on here who watch WWE, ECW, TNA, etc., to start a professional wrestling thread. I know it's scripted, but still -- if you don't like it, don't read past the upcoming period.

I'll start: I'm tired of D/X. They're stale. I tend to TIVO Raw, and when they come on, I watch it on fast forward. I much preferred HHH and Shawn Michaels to D/X. Especially HHH's intro, which is the second best in wrestling, behind Undertaker's.

 

I haven't watched wrestling regularly in about 7-8 years. Can you catch me up?

 

See, I'm the opposite. DX brought some life back to the show. They might be stale now, but it's still better than most the rest of the show each week.

What I found curious was Edge teaming with Randy Orton to revolt against DX. For months, Edge was obsessed with the title and with beating John Cena. Then he loses the belt, has DX interfere once and now he's on a crusade to stop DX? Is this an NWO/Wolfpac thing the WWE is trying to start? And if so, who recruits Eugene?

 

WWE is starting to border on shit. They have one title holder who couldn't wrestle his way out of a paper bag, one who is a good work with a shit character and then there's Big Show.

DX is okay, but it's not what it was 10 years ago. But I understand what they're doing. DX is established, Orton and Edge are the future and need to be put over. It's just the business.

Also, gotta get Edge away from the title for a while. Vince put the title on Cena and has kept him a face (when he should be a heel) for the sake of promoting a more-than-likely mediocre movie. Now he's stuck with three so-so champions that he's putting in a match that will suck.

For the record, Benoit should be world champ.

I will say this: Angle jumping to TNA is the best thing that could happen to that promotion to make it primetime. I know I've started watching more since he jumped, and it's drawing me into the rest of the show. Sting, Double J, Samoa Joe, Christian Cage. Good wrestling that doesn't put an emphasis on entertainment, but wrestling.

 

I attended the Smackdown taping/ECW show in St. Louis Tuesday night. Yes, I skipped Game 3 of the Series for Smackdown and ECW.

I've been to plenty of ECW shows before Vince McMahon bought it out and dumbed it down. The St. Louis crowd, long considered one of the best crowds in professional wrestling (thanks to Wrestling at the Chase), was damn-near silent throughout ECW, and they should have been.

First of all, three matches? That's it? Pathetic.

And one of those matches is Hardcore Holly vs. Test? A couple of WWE retreads, and true ECW fans are supposed to believe this? A guy named 'Hardcore' who isn't doing anything hardcore? Go to Hell.

How does Paul Heyman walk out to the ring and continue this charade? Does he remember what his beloved ECW used to be?

Where's Tod Gordon when we need him?

As for Smackdown - good show. The Cena/Batista vs. Booker/Big Slow match had a nice ending to it. Anything involving Mr. Kennedy, my new favorite, I'm watching.

The bastardizing of Eddie Guerrero's memory needs to stop, and soon. That means Vickie Guerrero needs to get off television. I understand Eddie was a great heel character. I understand Chavo can't be anything but a heel. I understand he needs to get over. But this is just disgusting. Turning Eddie's widow heel and turning her against his best friends in the world? There's a line, fellas.

Crimson, I'll agree with you except for King Booker. First, he won't have the title much longer. I think it's obvious Dave Batista will hold the strap soon. Second, the benevolent-king look he gets on his face is fucking priceless. I laugh, and laugh hard, every time I see it.

 

Booker was missued as champ. He's a good worker who had a great best-of-7 with Benoit a few years back, and now that he finally got a world title, he's playing some dumbshit character.

As Ron Simmons said, "Damn!"

(However, it did lend itself to a great spot where the three champs compared their shit movie appearances.)

Batista will get the belt back because, like Goldberg, he's a big guy who can do three power moves and he's over with crowds.

 

For the hell of it ...

 

Now that's comedy!

 

I'll never get tired of seeing that, CI. ;D

 

Yeah, WWE is nearly unwatchable. Vince McMahon has made everything so cookie-cutter, it's not even funny. The wrestlers have zero personality because they're so heavily scripted by the same writers. Wrestling was best when they allowed the wrestler's some freedom when they cut promos on the mic. They were all given bullet points and ad-libbed their way through promos. Those that sucked on the mic were given managers (Bobby Heenan, Jim Cornette, etc.) to talk for them.
Now, if a wrestler isn't 6-foot-5, 275 lbs of chiseled muscle, WWE doesn't want anything to do with them.

The new ECW gave me a spark of hope early on, but McMahon is pushing Heyman aside backstage to implement his vision of what the product should be like. If anyone who watches the show regularly can't tell the difference in the ECW product the last couple of weeks, well, they're blind. The only bright spot in ECW is C.M. Punk. I've been a fan of Punk's for about 4 years now. The guy oozes charisma and is great on the microphone and in the ring. My fear is, though, that he won't be allowed to show off his talents since WWE (McMahon) doesn't like anyone deviating from his "vision."

Anyone else on the board a fan of Ring Of Honor? For those of you unfamiliar with ROH, it's an independent federation based mostly back east in the Philly/N.Y. area. They venture out to the midwest, as well, mainly Chicago and Detroit. I started buying their DVDs a couple of years ago and quickly fell in love with the product. The company was founded in 2002 and focuses on in-ring performance with believable storylines.

If anyone is interested, visit www.rohwrestling.com or www.rohvideos.com to check out their product.

Also, I'm excited as hell about the upcoming Kurt Angle-Samoa Joe matchup at the next TNA pay-per-view. If Angle is truly healthy, this could go down as perhaps the best match in the last 10-20 years. Both guys are great workers who are either looking to prove people wrong (Angle) or are trying to establish that they are the premiere young wrestler in the country (Samoa Joe). It's been a while since I've been excited about seeing two guys step in the ring and work with each other. It should be fun.

 

Where's that Chico Santana?! [/Jesse the Body Ventura]

 

The current WWE product does suck, for the most part. I still watch, though.

What I miss are the days of the original ECW. Now THAT was entertainment. I'll never forget standing literally two feet away as New Jack dove off a balcony onto Justin Credible, whom he duct-taped to a table about 20 feet below him. Or seeing RVD do a head-first flip from the top rope into the third row and onto his opponent. The fighting through the crowd, the Joey Styles "OH MY GOD!!!", all that. The current incarnation is OK, but a far cry from the original.

This might sound weird, but when I was a kid I videotaped literally all the wrestling that was on local TV from about 1985-'89. I still have those videotapes and I entertain myself and friends from time to time by breaking those tapes out. Nothing like hearing Jim Ross yelling, "Things are breaking down!!!" between the Freebirds and Ted DiBiase, Dr. Death Steve Williams and Hacksaw Jim Duggan from the old UWF, or Bill Mercer going crazy over Kerry Von Erich beating "Hot Stuff" Gino Hernandez in WCCW. The old Flair/Dusty days in the NWA were awesome as well as even the old WWF when Randy Savage was in his heyday and Jesse the Body was doing color with "Gino" Monsoon.

Ahhhh, the memories...