RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Sports and Wrestling WrestleMania 22 as it happens

I have no doubt that this crap ass gimmick is what they had planned for Samoa Joe if he had signed.

Thank Gob he stayed with TNA.

agreed, he's a mean sumbitch there, i'd hate to see the watered down wwe version

Just imagine what kinda gimmick they woulda gave Styles if he had signed...

Vince: "Alright, A.J., you're going to be a wrestling fireman!"
A.J.: "... You mean, like Firebreaker Chip from WCW?"
Vince: "No, no, no.... You're gonna be Joey Backdraft, and you'll have a dalmation!"
A.J.: "... Shit."

heh

haven't watched it. don't care.

give me One Night Stand. that's the only E show I give a damn about.

staunch hatred of the latest weekly programming aside... why so adamantly against this one?

the matches don't interest me. the angles don't interest me. 90 % of the people on the roster don't interest me. it's crap.
one of the crappiest Manias of all time

I have no desire to see Cockboy, Cena, or Cripple H in title matches.

I'm glad RVD and Rey Rey won their matches, but they're not matches I care to watch.

In fact, the only thing of interest I've really seen is the crotch grab finger lick from Alexis Laree on Trish Stratus. and I'm sure there'll be streaming videos online soon enough.

for the most part, i'd agree. on my way over to my pal's house to watch it, i was not only expecting crap, i was dreading it.

but, i just gotta say, it was a good show. not great, thats for sure. but it was actually really good and definitely worth watching.

This was without a doubt a far better PPV than it looked on paper!
It had its bad points, but overall was a solid show!

Ok, so the pillow fight was shit, as was the Booker T match, but the rest of the show was either briliant or passable!

The Taker match was saved by the Deadman, who made Henry look a bit better than he usually does, and then pulled off that fucking awesome suicide plancha where he not only cleared the ropes, but cleared the huge casket as well!
Nice to see it end with a tombstone again, which always helps make Taker look impressive with a man of Henrys size!

The JBL/Benoit match was passable but not bad by any means!
The only bullshit was the ending with JBL grabbing the ropes, as the angle is just the Booker T angle all over again!

The womens match was amazing!
I would say, despite the odd botched move, and a botched finish that they cobered really well, this is quite possibly the first womens match I have ever really enjoyed from start to finish!

Foley/Edge was not the best hardcore match ever, but it had some really good spots, and both guys went all out.
Foley of recent years has been little more than a jobber, appearing when he has something to sell, but on Sunday, this was the old Mick Foley, the hardcore legend, not Foley lite!

Tag title match was rather slow, but like the US title match, it was at least solid!
The only shitty point was the wrong team won.
Masters & Carlito were shaping up as a great tag team in the mold of Mankind/The Rock, with Carlito manipulating the "dumb" Masters, and the guy kept trusting him!
Carlito was able to cover for Masters lack of in ring skills, while Masters mic work had improved vastly!
So what do WWE do? They make them feud with eachother & give the title to the Gay Squad the next night on RAW!


Mahon/HBK was not a wrestling match, it was a squash!
There were some impressive spots from HBK & Mahon took some serious damage, but due to the lack of any real offence from Mahon, it was far less than it could have been.
Still it was more than I expected from this match!

The ladder match was good but suffered on two counts:
1) Finlay, Lashley & Flair were out of place
2) It couldnt live up to last years match
RVD & Hardy did exactly what you expect of them, with some good holy shit moments, and Banjamin is actually a real inovator when it comes to these ladder matches!
He stood out last year, and he did the same this year!
This match could have been so much better if they had just had it as a three way between Benjamin, Hardy & RVD!

Triple threat title match only clocked in at 9mins, which was pretty lousy, and was below the pillow fight on the card, which was pretty fucking ridiculous.
Rey & Angle made the most of those 9mins, and tried their best to make Orton look good.
Nice result, but this should have run longer & been the final match of the night, especially as no title changed hands in the other (that still doesnt sound right) heavyweight title match!

The Cena/HHH match was too long!
HHH for all his sins, is actually a good worker when the mood takes him, but he needs someone above average to work off!
Cena is little more than an average worker so this match for me was dull!
I dont hate either of the guys in this match, but they should not be working together!
Cena vs Angle is watchable!
HHH vs HBK is watchable!
HHH vs Cena is not!
Cenas entrance was crap, but at least it wasnt totally gay like HHH's!
Also, HHH should not be tapping out to a submission move from Cena.
That should be reserved for guys like Benoit & Angle!

Also, as me n Rob said in a PMs, there was nothing special at this WM.
No special guests, not surprise run ins, no heel/face turns, it was just a normal run of the mill PPV!
Still, at least it was better than last years shitfest!

I'd give it a solid 7.5 out of 10

The following article outlines the craptacularness of Sports Entertainment Mania and the E in general.


from insidepulse:

The "Art" of WrestleMania
Posted By Gordi Whitelaw on 04.06.2006

I seriously can't believe that anyone really liked that!
The "Art" of WrestleMania
Seriously... you enjoyed that?

Well, to be honest, I enjoyed WrestleMania too... probably not in the way the promoters intended, though.

To start with, Al Capone vs. Conan the Son in Law was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I legitimately needed to wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes to be able to follow the "action" on screen. Nothing is funnier than unintentional comedy, and this match pretty much set a new standard as far as pro wrestling is concerned. I felt a little badly for poor John Cena, though. Imagine living your lifelong dream of headlining at WrestleMania only to have the vast majority of the crowd crap all over you and your match. That must have hurt.

What boggles my mind is that I've read -- all over the web -- dozens of posts and articles from dozens of wrestling fans praising this ridiculous burlesque as a decent main event match. It really wasn't and here's why:

I was always taught that Pro Wrestling is an extemporaneous form. What that means is that a genuinely good wrestler needs to be able to adapt to the audience's reaction and build his match accordingly. Neither Cena nor HHH did anything of the sort on Sunday. People have compared their match to Rock vs. Hogan in Toronto, or to the main event of IYH Canadian Stampede. Those are very poor comparisons. In Toronto, The Rock heard that the crowd was against him, and he started pulling out stuff from his bad guy bag of tricks to use against Hogan. They adapted what they were doing to fit with the crowd's reactions, and the result was a terrific match that people still talk about to this day. At SummerSlam 2002, The Rock made a similar adjustment when he was matched up against the newly popular Brock Lesnar. The resulting match is a big part of the reason why so many people have been fooled into thinking that Brock is a great wrestler. (He isn't. He's a great athlete with no real heart for wrestling). At Canadian Stampede, most of the wrestlers were wise enough to use subtleties of body language and facial expressions to play into the Bizarro World crowd reactions. Just look at Brian Pillman's gleeful smile as he heels it up against the American team. If Cena or HHH had been able to pull something like that off, the match would have been memorable for all the right reasons. As it is, I find myself ranking it alongside Goldberg vs. Lesnar from WM XX as one of the funniest displays of anti-WWE sentiment that's ever been captured on tape.

A lot of people disagree with me, though. Not only did people enjoy the match, there are people out there that enjoyed the entrances in a non-ironic way. To my absolute astonishment, I've read posts from people who think that the silly Barbarian outfit and the insulting and inaccurate Gangster references made a legitimately positive contribution to the atmosphere of the show . I guess that WWE have really found their target audience, and I guess that they've successfully educated them to accept damn near any kind of crap as good entertainment, as long as it's got their brand logo on it. Good for WWE. More power to them!

If you disagree (or not) feel free to tell me about it here (that's mr.gordi at gmail dot com). I'll most likely answer you. I might even do a mailbag column one day.

Still, even though I enjoyed WrestleMania, it didn't come close to making me want to watch their weekly programming again.

The Tag Titles are still being treated as an afterthought, and there was neither a Cruiserweight Title nor an Intercontinental Title match on the card at the biggest show of the year. I like Cruiserweight matches, and I love real tag team action. Neither Big Show & Kane nor Carlito & Masters strike me as what I'd consider to be a real tag team. Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd been watching the last several months of WWE TV, but I doubt it. Real tag teams have a distinctive name and look. Real tag teams work together. Real tag teams aren't just two singles guys thrown together to give them something to do until the inevitable break up and feud.


Tag team break-ups and feuds used to really mean something, because the teams themselves really used to mean something. WWE "creative" have totally lost sight of that, and until they figure it out again, I will remain less interested in their product than I should be.

I'm also an unabashed Benoit mark, and I'm more than fed up of seeing him used as enhancement talent.

I'm an Eddie mark, too, and it's pretty clear that WWE are going to keep on exploiting his death until everyone is sick of hearing about it. I'm glad I won't be watching as that happens.

Mickie vs. Trish was entertaining, and I was pleased to see them try and work a little old-fashioned body part psychology into their match. Anybody who thinks that this was one of the greatest women's matches of all time, however, is either delusional or ill informed. It was the best WWF/E women's match I've seen since the days of the Jumping Bomb Angels, but I could easily list a hundred Joshi matches that blow it out of the water as far as wrestling action and storytelling go... and I'm not even a particularly big Joshi fan. It might also just be that I'm getting too old to find faux lesbianism titillating any more. Still, it's nice to see the WWE women's division being given the benefit of an interesting story line. If you enjoyed the match, give AJW a try. I'd be happy to recommend some matches for you.

Mick vs. Edge and HBK vs. VKM were both good matches that used violence and stunts to tell interesting stories. I wouldn't consider either to be a garbage match, per se, because in my opinion a garbage match just strings together plunder spots with little to no psychology or narrative involved. Neither match will get me to watch RAW or SmackDown! though, because both were obviously special matches that were only going to be seen on Pay per View. That's good for WWE, since those matches only work if fans aren't over-exposed to them, and good for me because it frees up about four hours of my time each week.

Likewise, the MITB match gave us some cool spots and big bumps without really giving us any reason to tune in on Monday or Thursday. I am still scratching my head about why they faked a Flair injury if it wasn't going to lead anywhere, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

A few other thoughts:
- It was nice to see Lucha Taker pull off a tope suicida.
- I think that the new steroid policy has really affected JBL in a bad way. He looked awful, and he dragged Benoit to a boring match.
- The fans booing Cena made perfect sense, but I was surprised that they booed Trish, and absolutely stunned that they turned on Rey.
- I guess the Eddie backlash has started already. You can count me out of that.
- The audience wasn't rebelling. WWE has killed Cena's heat by neutering his character.

What the FUCK was that bulldog move she used to stun Trish? Was that a botched move...?

I just read the comments at the bottom of the page. Yes, it was.

that was Trish's Stratusfaction move.

everybody thinks it was botched, but if you watch the match; what actually happens is that the leg that Mickie works over throughout the match goes out on the move.

it's not a botched move. it's excellent match psychology.

Ah

You know who would like this thread?

ROY BATTY

I still say it was botched!
I think the bit about the knee giving out was a damn good cover, but the way they fell did not look at all controlled!

i never!

not even for me?

im not that kind of girl!

that's not what you said yesterday!