Board 8 > All-Purpose Wrestling Topic 420: Just Blayze

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hell In a Cell final card for tomorrow...

Owens vs Shane inside Hell in a Cell
Jinder vs Nakamura for WWE title
New Day vs Usos for Tag titles inside Hell in a Cell
Styles vs Corbin for US title
Natalya vs Charlotte for Women's title
Orton vs Rusev
Roode vs Ziggler
Gable/Benjamin vs Hype Bros (Pre Show)

And at some point, the Fashion Police have been advertised to appear at the ppv.

Anyway, my picks are...
Owens
Nakamura
New Day
Styles
Charlotte (THEN my bold pick, Carmella cashes in successfully)
Rusev (a stretch here, but I got too many faces winning and besides, Rusev needs/deserves this win more)
Roode
Gable/Benjamin, due to more disarray between Hype Bros
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Owens
Nakamura (Jinder regains it in India)
Usos (to feud with Gable/Benjamin)
Corbin
Charlotte -> Carmella
Want Rusev; picking Orton (because WWE is dumb)
Roode
Gable/Benjamin
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Really don't see Nakamura winning.
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So, I went to the house show for Raw last night in Arlington, and it was pretty fantastic.

Card:
- Finn Balor def. Karl Anderson
- Apollo Crews (pinner), Heath Slater, Rhyno, and R-Truth def. Elias, Goldust, Dash Wilder, and Darren Young
- Enzo Amore def. Mustafa Ali
- Rollins and Ambrose def. The Bar
- Alexa Bliss def. Sasha Banks (took the pin), Nia Jax, and Mickie James
- Matt Hardy and Jason Jordan def. The Miz and Curtis Axel
- Roman Reigns d. Braun Strowman in a Last Man Standing match

Here's some notes:
1. Enzo's crowd reaction was slightly mixed, but he still has a ton of fans. got cheered by all the kids and had a GIGANTIC pop on his entrance. A lot of the adults did not want Enzo to win. But for some reason, he's too charismatic with the youngins to get over as a heel. He's still a babyface to them.
2. Nia Jax was SO OVER. Like, Sasha got a good pop and Alexa got a pretty big one, but it surprised me when Nia's music hit that it sounded like 3/4ths of the arena popped for her. Really cool, actually.
3. The only screwy finishes of the night happened for the cruiserweights and the women. Enzo won by an eye poke into finisher, Alexa won by roll-up while grabbing the tights. I guess both make sense, and Enzo's finish was timed right, but the women's finish just kinda happened. Don't like that finish.
4. Sasha is HOT.
5. One asshole chanted "This is boring!" at basically the very start of the women's match. No one joined him. They had hardly even done like one or two things and he started chanting. I don't if he was just sexist or if he actually thought the match was boring 30 seconds in, but fuck that guy. The match was fine with a slightly disappointing sudden finish, not boring.
6. The Miz is a perfect cocky heel and Matt Hardy was WONDERFUL! (lots of delete chants and they were amazing)

And finally, the most interesting note I have:
7. Roman got massively over with the crowd.

As the night started, any mention of his name came with a pretty evenly divided mix of cheers and boos. Both groups were audible. Some people had signs for Roman, some kids had Roman merch, and a lot of the ladies around me liked Roman. As the last man standing match started, Braun came out first and got a pretty nice pop (I also saw a lot of people there with Braun shirts). But then Roman came out, and the mixed reaction started again, although I think the cheers were slightly louder that time.

So, someone in the crowd starts chanting "we want tables!" (might've been that same asshole who chanted this is boring during the women's match) and Roman grabbed a table from under the ring. But here comes Braun around the corner, runs over Roman, and puts the table away. This gets Braun some heat, understandably. Braun grabs the steel steps and starts whacking Roman around with them.

Braun eventually goes and gets a table himself, sets it up, and starts going after Roman. Tries to powerbomb Roman through the table, but he escapes. Superman Punch. Superman Punch. Samoan Drop through table. Pretty impressive. Roman gets a huge pop.

Match is getting close to ending, Roman gets ANOTHER table and sets it up in the corner. Braun looks like he's about to powerslam Roman through it, but Roman escapes. Sudden spear (not through the table). Braun gets back up, grabs steel steps and tries whacking Roman in the corner with it. He misses, and Roman spears him through the table. Huge pop. That ends the match.

The crowd was decidedly on Roman's side by the end of the match. I guess it's just that simple. Make his opponents do things that make us not want to cheer for them, have Roman do actually awesome things (not single spear into win or superman punch over and over again). But nothing works to get him over on TV. Seems strange.
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I've heard Dave talk about how Roman's reactions at house shows are better but I didn't expect that kind of reaction. I mean, practically the whole crowd was on Roman's side. I myself was booing Roman for most of the show (his name came up a few times over the course of the night) right up until Braun put away the table that Roman got out.

And by the end of that match, I just had to applaud the match because it was pretty good and Roman was actually looking like a babyface. So why don't they do things like this on TV?
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Wwe has been like this since i got back into wrestling - the house shows with 0 plot are almost always better than their actual shows.
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Although this reminds me when edge was champion on Smackdown, he won a cage match with Kane and cut a promo but i enjoyed that he didny pretend to be a steelers fan but was more like "I appreciate you guys beating up on the Jets for my Bills "

I dunno i just liked how much more genuine it sounded.
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Heard a lot of hype surrounding Aleister Black's theme. After hearing it for the first time, I'm wondering if he's over IN SPITE of it. It sounds like that goofy Rage Against the Machine guy doing shit lyrics over stuff Saxon would do 50x times better. So many better WWE theme options, both old and new.

I mean, I've seen his finisher, and holy fuck, that's great...but get an actual metal singer on that crap.
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Every house show I went to was better than every tv/ppv I went to.
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I think I've been to like two house shows. The one I went to Edge was champ and took like ten minutes getting to the ring to fight Batista. During his entrance he was going around, individually checking and ripping up any signs that said anything bad about him
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The moral of the story here is that Edge was awesome.
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Yeah, the house show I went to was fantastic

Reigns was insanely over at that one, too

I assume that's the reason they haven't bailed on him yet
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I'm still a cheap ass (boo grad school...one year left), so I have to hold out for PPVs. The experience of the birth of BOO-TISTA at Elimination Chamber was worth it though. I haven't been to a Raw or SD in five years.
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I'm still kind of amazed at Batista's progression from a wrestler who could never really act, to guy doing a funny comedy act in the Guardians films, to dude acting his ass off in Blade Runner
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Solioxrz362 posted...

And by the end of that match, I just had to applaud the match because it was pretty good and Roman was actually looking like a babyface. So why don't they do things like this on TV?

Most WWE things not micromanaged by Vince >> Most WWE things micromanaged by Vince
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So what is it with Mickie James being thrown into these storylines where she's hazed with a stupid insult that barely even applies

First she's called piggie james because she gained like 5 lbs or something
Now she's called old when she's like... 38? Natalya is 35! Nia Jax is 33!

Dumb storylines this girl gets.
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Samoa Joe is the same age as her!
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Lopen posted...

So what is it with Mickie James being thrown into these storylines where she's hazed with a stupid insult that barely even applies

First she's called piggie james because she gained like 5 lbs or something
Now she's called old when she's like... 38? Natalya is 35! Nia Jax is 33!

Dumb storylines this girl gets.

To be fair, this one makes a bit more sense if you look at it as... She keeps going on about how she was a former champion, when that was like... 10 years ago? She's dating herself.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

Really don't see Nakamura winning.

At this point, something has to give, cause Jinder hasn't been a good world champion. The shock that occurred when he unexpectedly won the title was something to witness, but ever since then, 99% of his matches end in interference and his promos on Nakamura were total garbage. However, I'm in the same boat as Strife, that Jinder regains the belt either in India or at Starrcade.

Eddv posted...

the house shows with 0 plot are almost always better than their actual shows.

Also true. My only house show was in April 2000, which had the following...
- Godfather defeated Viscera in a Winner Takes the Hos match
- T&A defeated The Headbangers. Trish got a good pop, but no one could have cared less for the other 4.
- Crash Holly defeated Hardcore Holly to retain the Hardcore title. Saturn tried interfering under 24/7 rules and failed
- Scotty 2 Hotty defeated Dean Malenko to retain the Light Heavyweight title. I think this was Scotty's only successful defense as he lost the belt back to Dean two days later.
- Bradshaw defeated Road Dogg. Before the match, RD made the ref remove Faarooq from ringside, but then tried to forfeit when Bradshaw made the ref get rid of Tori.
- Terri defeated The Kat in an arm wrestling match. Kat hits a Bronco Buster afterwards
- The Rock/Jericho defeated HHH/Benoit. Afterwards, Rock and Jericho cut the usual promos to get the crowd going
- Eddie Guerrero beat Kurt Angle via Chyna interference to retain the European title. Before the match, Angle vowed to be North Carolina's hero since Michael Jordan left.
- Rikishi beat Big Show by DQ. Big Show eats a stinkface after.
- Main event: Edge/Christian beat the Dudleys and Hardys to retain the tag titles. Night ends with Jeff swanton bombing D'Von through a table.
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They're bringing Starrcade back or hilarious typo?
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Apparently, it's a SD-house show from Greensboro next month. Cody's pissed about it (as he should be), but it's not like it'll be anything more than a bonus for NC fans. That is unless they bill it as one of those Network exclusive house shows they rarely do.
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I think I'm the only one that has ever had bad luck with house shows. I don't think I've ever gone to one that was actually more than "Okay". I guess they've been better than the Raw and PPVs I've been too, but I've still never felt like they were that much better.

Although maybe I can convince my buddies to go to the one coming up and see if that changes.
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ffmasterjose posted...

They're bringing Starrcade back or hilarious typo?

One night only in NC on November 25th. Card's always subject to change, but for now they have the following advertised...

- Jinder vs Nakamura in a cage match for the WWE title
- Styles vs Corbin vs Rusev for the US title
- New Day vs Usos for the tag titles
- Natalya vs Charlotte for the Women's title
- Roode vs Ziggler
- Fashion Police vs English/Kannelis
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I was like...man, what a boring, underwhelming card for an event named Starrcade.

Then I realized its basically the exact same card as tonight's PPV
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Yup. And hell, the Fashion Police match might happen tonight too, despite it not being on the card; they are at least advertised to appear tonight
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ZeroSignal620 posted...

At this point, something has to give

I feel like wwe doesn't realize this often and as a result "something has to give" doesn't mean anything to them
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WWE has gone to a "low risk/low reward" type business model. Between this and Vince not giving a crap what anyone says, he doesn't have to do jack. The drawback is it is very rare to see actual effort in the product.
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Tonight's PPV is going to be the first one I don't watch in over 2 years. I just don't care about any of it at all.
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I'll just have it on in the background while I play something else
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davidponte posted...

Tonight's PPV is going to be the first one I don't watch in over 2 years. I just don't care about any of it at all.

I live overseas, meaning the ppv's gonna come on at 2 AM here, and I have tomorrow off work thanks to it being Columbus Day. I've been fortunate to have 4 day weekends on the same weekends as Money in the Bank 2016, SummerSlam 2016, No Mercy 2016, and WrestleMania 33, and I watched a reasonable amount of all of those live. You can also add Clash of Champions to that list, though I was on 24 hour duty and was using it to keep me awake.

That being said, even with tomorrow off work, I'm still skipping this ppv.
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I have a rare slow weekend from school, so I'll watch it. I bet the Cell matches alone will be worth it.
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Jinder retains.
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I think so, sadly.
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Wait what does reverse momentum say
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Usos and New day in the cell should be good
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I think both cell matches will wind up good. Usos/New Day have not disappointed in their feud at all, and Owens/Shane should tell a good story, even if most of the match will be Shane killing himself trying to elbow drop Owens from the top of the cell, and then Owens probably powerbombing him on the Cell wall instead of the apron (or both for good measure).
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I hope they are good cell matches, not just normal regular good matches.
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LOL Falls Count Anywhere Hell in a Cell
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Jakyl25 posted...

LOL Falls Count Anywhere Hell in a Cell

Shane found someone to go Full Attitude Era with him.
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Jakyl25 posted...

LOL Falls Count Anywhere Hell in a Cell

I get annoyed when WWE acts like things are shocking when they happen pretty often and aren't that surprising if you have a decent memory. So it seems hypocritical of me to be mad about this - they are fully acknowledging that this might (or that it will) spill out of the cell, because a massive amount of them fucking have, including the first.

Maybe it gives away the game a bit and maybe it betrays the stipulation, but the stipulation (two guys locked in a cell together until they settle their differences) has already been betrayed multiple times over.
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*beats on trashcan with a chain*

I dunno how to feel about HIAC right now... I think the two matches I wanna see are Usos/New Day and Kev/Shane but... I dunno about everything else.
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eaedwards6400 posted...

Jinder retains.

Jinder retains or Jinder loses and then wins the title back in the India tour soon.
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Corbin beats AJ and Jinder beats Styles, but that's okay because the crowd will be sent home happy after Shane beats KO.
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

eaedwards6400 posted...

Jinder retains.

Jinder retains or Jinder loses and then wins the title back in the India tour soon.

when you flip a coin, it's either heads or tails
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GTM posted...

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

eaedwards6400 posted...

Jinder retains.

Jinder retains or Jinder loses and then wins the title back in the India tour soon.

when you flip a coin, it's either heads or tails

Right. I'm just saying if Jinder retains, we're not freed from WWE Champion Jinder Mahal at all for a long time.
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hype bros soon
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Re-watching AJ's debut never gets old. I love how they had to put an "Unseen" version to make up for the flub of zooming in on Roman's constipated face for 45 seconds.
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Push Fandango
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push Tyler Breeze
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