Board 8 > All-Purpose Wrestling Topic 438: Nicholas Lowers the Bar

(+) Yeah! (+)

Here's a weird question: are we sure Brock will defend the title in Saudi Arabia?
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Let's see... basically my lingering thoughts on Mania were.

Good matches-
Charlotte vs Asuka - ***1/2. Very fun match. I will say that Asuka throwing all those badass counter submissions that actually look credible I feel really exposes The Figure Eight as very "fake" looking. I'd rather Charlotte have won by pinfall here if she had to. Ideally I'd have Asuka have won with that amazing moonsault counter, perhaps placed later in the match as necessary. MotN in either case.
AJ vs Nakamura - ***. The finish was cool. I think it suffered a lot from being late on the show, but just being a by the numbers WWE match when we'd ideally want something more probably hurt too. Heel turn from Nak after the match was awesome, though.
Shane vs KO - **3/4. A nice feel good match in a vacuum, but Shane's offense is very ugly looking. Yes I know you know.
Triple H vs Ronda - **3/4. I kinda hated this in the moment but it was kinda fun. I think it's very easy to highlight reel away the fact that Stephanie looked way too credible against Ronda (if that happens), which removes most of my issues with the match long term (again, if that happens!), but I gotta say my immediate feel about Ronda is that she's just a random woman on the roster after seeing her struggle to dominate Stephanie. If anything I feel more like Triple H has lost a step than her beating him up putting her over terribly much.
IC Title Triple Threat - **1/2. I've kinda hated this feud, so my ability to really get into this match was lacking. I also think Rollins vs Balor involves too much "floaty" offense between them and hurts their matches.

Bad matches:
Taker vs Cena - *. Why bother? If you want to "restore Taker's legacy" putting him in a match that exposes how old he is isn't good. I pray there's no rematch coming here.
Nia vs Alexa - *. This wasn't awful, and I thought Alexa's offense was done in a way that was credible, but it went too long. The dialogue in the match was corny, too.
Tag Title Triple Threat - DUD. Bludgeon Brothers winning is fresh, but the crowd was dead and I don't think card placement is entirely to blame for that. BB just aren't very over. I also think there's more legs to this if you had Usos win the triple threat by pinning The New Day, keeping BB strong but not giving them the titles just yet.
Braun vs Bar - 1/2*. This was stupid and I don't care if that makes me not fun or whatever. If you must have Braun basically be stronger than all teams, Braun with a down on his luck superstar to actually sorta try and build a guy that isn't Braun a bit as well as Braun, would have been better.
Brock vs Roman - -*. At some point kicking out of a finish loses all meaning. This was boring as hell, got the chants to match, and it did Roman and Brock no favors really.

Booking problems on otherwise good or unoffensive matches -
Charlotte vs Asuka - I disagree Asuka's streak has reached the point where it's some sort of albatross that you can't cleanly end without it becoming the Undefeated Crimson part 2 though. I think if you think that you're not being very creative-- and keep in mind I do agree that Charlotte was the only one who could credibly end it right now on the roster.
Shane vs KO - I think this was kind of set up as a no win situation, but I think that having injured Shane in the match gives an easy out to have team KO win without hurting the new Bryan much.
Women's Battle Royal - People wanted Bayley to win so bad. Random Naomi is random.
US Four Way - Rusev's time was now. We can't see him.
IC Title Triple Threat - Too many grand slams. I'd rather Miz just win this clean and move on so we don't have to keep this feud going even longer, but Balor is better than Rollins too.

Overall there was some good on the PPV but I do think it was a bad PPV more than a good one. Maybe if it was the length of a normal PPV. Wall of text I am sorry.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWE_Greatest_Royal_Rumble

Braun Strowman & Nicholas (c) vs. The Hardy Boyz (Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy)

hype
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GTM posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWE_Greatest_Royal_Rumble

Braun Strowman & Nicholas (c) vs. The Hardy Boyz (Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy)

hype

You know I could see the Hardys making this a really entertaining comedy match.
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http://www.wwe.com/superstars/bobby-lashley

Hmm...
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Hey, you're not authorized to access that page!
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scarletspeed7 posted...

Here's a weird question: are we sure Brock will defend the title in Saudi Arabia?

All male titles will be defended

No gurlz allowed
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Last night like almost exactly after I got home and got in the elevator to my apartment, my buddy texted me saying that Roman lost.

I then proceeded to curl up in the corner of the elevator and I think I laughed like Walter White did in that one episode of Breaking Bad where he loses his mind.
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But the overwhelming opinion from the people who rarely watch wrestling who were at the party was that we have already seen Roman vs Brock before. And they have been shoving Roman in the main event spot as this unloved idiot for four years in hopes of him finally getting his opportunity to beat Brock. So nobody wanted to watch it or even cared. Roman is fucking dead with casuals. And he's even more dead with this.

And that's why I'm just fucking floored by this. Four good damn years of nothing but Roman Reigns. Shoving Roman down our throats. Making Roman the focal point. All so he can finally beat Lesnar. And then they have him lose and, from what I understand, get booed as a bloody mess when they want him to have a standing ovation. I just can't feel that all these years they have tried to push Roman to the moon in sacrifice of so much and all this entertainment was the biggest waste of time ever.
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voltch posted...

How silly are you willing to get for some oil money?

look I realize you're not an American but the answer is "very"

scarletspeed7 posted...

GTM posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWE_Greatest_Royal_Rumble

Braun Strowman & Nicholas (c) vs. The Hardy Boyz (Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy)

hype

You know I could see the Hardys making this a really entertaining comedy match.

Nicholas v. KING MAXEL get hype

Weird realization: I enjoyed Roman/Brock more than Styles/Nakamura.
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

But the overwhelming opinion from the people who rarely watch wrestling who were at the party was that we have already seen Roman vs Brock before. And they have been shoving Roman in the main event spot as this unloved idiot for four years in hopes of him finally getting his opportunity to beat Brock. So nobody wanted to watch it or even cared. Roman is fucking dead with casuals. And he's even more dead with this.

And that's why I'm just fucking floored by this. Four good damn years of nothing but Roman Reigns. Shoving Roman down our throats. Making Roman the focal point. All so he can finally beat Lesnar. And then they have him lose and, from what I understand, get booed as a bloody mess when they want him to have a standing ovation. I just can't feel that all these years they have tried to push Roman to the moon in sacrifice of so much and all this entertainment was the biggest waste of time ever.

I'd like to think Vince finally realized that Roman isn't the future and he needs to be building around someone like Braun, Bryan, Styles, Rollins, Nakamura, Joe, etc but I'm guessing it was just a big swerve, and they were hoping he'd get the better reaction at the end, instead of indifference with a smattering of boos.
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Samoa Joe would have to stay healthy to be part of that conversation...
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eaedwards6400 posted...

Samoa Joe would have to stay healthy to be part of that conversation...

A guy can dream, can't he!
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Underrated: the way they used the Charlotte/Asuka aftermath to help make the Nakamura turn more shocking

They were very similar scenarios and looked like they would mirror each other, so when Nak veered off in another direction it was more surprising
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I said in this very topic a few weeks ago hat Braun should team with some Make-A-Wish kid. I was waaaay closer than I thought Id be.
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Oh my God, I listened to the Wrestling Observer recap of the main event and it went even worse than I imagined.

What in the hell do you even do with Roman now? He seems like he is beyond damaged goods now.
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Oh my God, I listened to the Wrestling Observer recap of the main event and it went even worse than I imagined.

What in the hell do you even do with Roman now? He seems like he is beyond damaged goods now.

This means that we continue to try and push him to the moon as the guy. The audience is the problem. Vince logic!

Honestly, I think the best thing would be for Roman to do the standard "the fans don't care about me, fuck them" heel promo, and just have Roman become a monster heel. Since Braun is a face now, Raw lacks a monster heel and just destroying people without talking (after the original promo) is where I think Roman can excel.

Either that or move him over to SD and bring Bryan to Raw, since he's the real face of the company. I doubt Roman leaves Raw though.
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What would've made the Roman vs. Brock match last night better:

- Brock realizes F5s aren't working, gives Roman a Kimura Lock and Roman manages to fight his way to the ropes
- Roman (not yet bloodied) counters Brock after this somehow and gets his two spears in, then the two trade some blows with Roman losing the exchange
- Then Brock tosses out some new awesome finisher (would say Shooting Star but that's not a good idea and he probably won't do it anyways) and finishes off Roman that way

Then Brock goes on to win a few more matches with the new finisher before someone kicks out of the F5 and the new finisher in the same match and beats Brock.
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If they make him go heel, sure. But we've been waiting for years for him to turn heel and they outright refused.

But anyway, now that I have a bit of time, the reason that Asuka and Rusev losing took the wind out of our sails is because people were excited for them. For Asuka, it was a new person who the casuals know is just a badass and Charlotte is just... Charlotte. Same old stuff. After the rumble, people really wanted to see Asuka kick ass and win the belt and nobody got that. They just got Ric Flair's daughter winning again. I like Charlotte but man. All of he title reigns just end up feeling so stale.

For Rusev it's that we all were doing the Rusev Day thing and everyone was into that. Then Aiden's rap really got people into it. And then nobody cared about Jinder really, so when Rusev ate the pin everybody was just bummed.

People really enjoyed the Mixed tag, but it went way too long and probably could have been cut down. Like, get rid of all of Stephanie's stuff and you have a faster and better match.

And then everyone was ready to leave by the time AJ Styles and Nakamura started, they had a match that was just okay. But people wanted to see Nakamura win because, again, people love AJ but Nakamura is a new dude who looked really cool at the Rumble, so when he lost everyone was just beyond done.

Then Braun's match came about and people just wanted to see who his partner was and everyone had their jackets and shoes on already ready to leave. People were unimpressed though.

Also, everyone just wanted to see Daniel Bryan wrestle. We just joked about how dead Shane McMahon looked during the entire time DB was outside the ring. No idea what they were thinking with that match.
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Solioxrz362 posted...

Then Brock tosses out some new awesome finisher (would say Shooting Star but that's not a good idea and he probably won't do it anyways)

I was just thinking before I went to sleep that he should have done the SSP. lol
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Four years in a row Roman main events. That sucks, but we knew that.

Did you know there's another, lesser known troubling stat out there?

Seven of the last eight shows have seen HHH have the longest match on the card. (32 vs Reigns was beaten by a few minutes by Taker/Shane. Then you have to go back to 26 vs Sheamus for the next time ol' Trips didn't soak up the most showtime)


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To be fair, at 30 Bryan had more TOTAL match time
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Technically true. The best kind.

It does still seem like Trips continues to find a way to soak up screentime despite his semi-retirement though. Which WAS THE POINT JAKYL GOD.
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Hey, if his screentime is getting punched in the face by Rousey, I'm not against it. Yeah, that match went on way too long, but it was one of the more entertaining things on the card.
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RaidenZeroX posted...

Hey, if his screentime is getting punched in the face by Rousey, I'm not against it. Yeah, that match went on way too long, but it was one of the more entertaining things on the card.

After some time away from it, I would say the match was the best one one the card. I know, I sound crazy, but I thought it was that good.
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Its not crazy. It was my second-favorite after Charlotte vs Asuka
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BTW I like how Nicholas is ahead of the curve by only having one name

One step ahead of you, Vince!
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Bryan/Shane v KO/Sami = My MOTN.

Yeah, I'm crazy deal with it.

Not crazy about the main event even with the whole "What's this? What's this? It's dripping everywhere!"
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Oh my God, I listened to the Wrestling Observer recap of the main event and it went even worse than I imagined.

What in the hell do you even do with Roman now? He seems like he is beyond damaged goods now.

Vince: "It took five F5s to beat Roman unlike Braun and Joe who needed one! Rematch at the next ppv!"

Honestly, that was probably my only gripe about WrestleMania. Some outcomes were unpredictable, and that's w/e, but the show wasn't bad.
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So here are the 11 people who have won the modern WWE Grand Slam

Eddie Guerrero
Edge
The Miz
Kurt Angle
Big Show
Chris Jericho
Daniel Bryan
Randy Orton
Roman Reigns
Dean Ambrose
Seth Rollins

Trying to figure out who on the active roster is just one title away

Jeff Hardy (needs US)
John Cena (needs IC)
Kane (needs US)
Kevin Owens (needs either Tag)
Kofi Kingston (needs WWE/Universal)
Sheamus (needs IC)
Shelton Benjamin (needs WWE/Universal)
Triple H (needs US)
Zack Ryder (needs WWE/Universal)

I think thats everyone

EDIT: Added Owens, credit ZeroSignal

Some notes:
-Trips, Kane, and Jeff Hardy all won the classic Grand Slam which no longer exists. The only people on the roster who could still win that one are Goldust (needs WWE), Undertaker (needs IC), and Matt Hardy (needs IC and WWE).

-Dolph Ziggler and Chris Benoit are in a strange limbo where they both held a World title, a Tag Title, and two lower singles titles, but their specific combinations dont fit into either version of the Grand Slam. I personally consider them as having won it. Dolph could still win the required modern titles, obviously.

So who will be the next to join the list?
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Goldust could win the modern grand slam with the WWE title as well; Dustin Runnels won the WCW US title back in the day

Also, Owens gets the grand slam with the tag titles
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ZeroSignal620 posted...

Goldust could win the modern grand slam with the WWE title as well; Dustin Runnels won the WCW US title back in the day

Wouldnt he need one of the current Tag Titles too?
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Jakyl25 posted...

ZeroSignal620 posted...

Goldust could win the modern grand slam with the WWE title as well; Dustin Runnels won the WCW US title back in the day

Wouldnt he need one of the current Tag Titles too?

Won Raw tag titles with Cody
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According to fans near their seating, when Braun said he would pick a tag partner from the crowd, the New Japan guys all started pointing at Tanahashi, who raised his hand.

Is there a better anecdote from Mania than this?
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scarletspeed7 posted...

According to fans near their seating, when Braun said he would pick a tag partner from the crowd, the New Japan guys all started pointing at Tanahashi, who raised his hand.

Is there a better anecdote from Mania than this?

And if he was picked.... then what?

Fucking Tanahashi gets in the ring?

Vince should have told him before he went out

If any of those damn Asians from Japan wrestling want in, you pick them, and then they lose to Sheamus by Broque kick...

UInstinctGogeta posted...

If any of those damn Asians from Japan wrestling want in, you pick them, and then they lose to Sheamus by Broque kick...

what if they shoot and beat him
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SmartMuffin posted...

UInstinctGogeta posted...

If any of those damn Asians from Japan wrestling want in, you pick them, and then they lose to Sheamus by Broque kick...

what if they shoot and beat him

They are escorted to the back by Braun where Lesnar is waiting in the gorilla position.
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ZeroSignal620 posted...

Jakyl25 posted...

ZeroSignal620 posted...

Goldust could win the modern grand slam with the WWE title as well; Dustin Runnels won the WCW US title back in the day

Wouldnt he need one of the current Tag Titles too?

Won Raw tag titles with Cody

Oh thats right. And with Stardust!
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Just walked upstairs and found my wife watching Charlotte/Asuka. She watched the Bryan match and Nia/Confirmed Backstage Awesomeness and seemed interested. That might explain why she asked me what the best match was last night!
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SmartMuffin posted...

UInstinctGogeta posted...

If any of those damn Asians from Japan wrestling want in, you pick them, and then they lose to Sheamus by Broque kick...

what if they shoot and beat him

Vince is racist.

No way he believes anyone from new Japan
Could beat the chosen (whitest of the white) like Sheamus in a shoot...

RaidenZeroX posted...

Just walked upstairs and found my wife watching Charlotte/Asuka. She watched the Bryan match and Nia/Confirmed Backstage Awesomeness and seemed interested. That might explain why she asked me what the best match was last night!

She has indeed been confirmed to be "awesome" backstage by NXT higher ups, as well as at least Vince and Dunn now, probably Hayes as well. Explaining her undeserved push for the untalented eating disorder...

UInstinctGogeta posted...

SmartMuffin posted...

UInstinctGogeta posted...

If any of those damn Asians from Japan wrestling want in, you pick them, and then they lose to Sheamus by Broque kick...

what if they shoot and beat him

Vince is racist.

No way he believes anyone from new Japan
Could beat the chosen (whitest of the white) like Sheamus in a shoot...

I mean, Yoshi Tatsu did
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The Yoshi Tatsu myth.

So going by Dana wanting Brock vs the winner of Stipe/DC, who has faith in Brock beating Stipe?
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UInstinctGogeta posted...

She has indeed been confirmed to be "awesome" backstage by NXT higher ups, as well as at least Vince and Dunn now, probably Hayes as well. Explaining her undeserved push for the untalented eating disorder...

Care to provide some real, solid proof of this? Since you're the only one that talks about this happening I can only assume this is more of you talking out of your ass as always.

Just repeating "Confirmed backstage rat" over and over again doesn't qualify as solid proof to rational people.
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voltch posted...

The Yoshi Tatsu myth.

So going by Dana wanting Brock vs the winner of Stipe/DC, who has faith in Brock beating Stipe?

Not in his current condition

looked bloated and relatively out of shape last night
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Stipe's beaten what, everyone except for Cain?

He could lose via uh....was Stipe's college wrestling career good?
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RaidenZeroX posted...

UInstinctGogeta posted...

She has indeed been confirmed to be "awesome" backstage by NXT higher ups, as well as at least Vince and Dunn now, probably Hayes as well. Explaining her undeserved push for the untalented eating disorder...

Care to provide some real, solid proof of this? Since you're the only one that talks about this happening I can only assume this is more of you talking out of your ass.

Just repeating "Confirmed backstage rat" over and over again doesn't qualify as solid proof to rational people.

different peers from NXT said this, and mind you this was all when she was a low card IN NXT.... so it wasn't jealously or such.

But I'm sure they all lied about when it was about a no talent also ran....
It was just obvious what she was trying to do.

Confirmed whore (by definition). Have a nice day.

Jakyl25 posted...

voltch posted...

The Yoshi Tatsu myth.

So going by Dana wanting Brock vs the winner of Stipe/DC, who has faith in Brock beating Stipe?

Not in his current condition

looked bloated and relatively out of shape last night

Motherfucker!
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UInstinctGogeta posted...

different peers from NXT said this, and mind you this was all when she was a low card IN NXT.... so it wasn't jealously or such.

It was just obvious what she was trying to do.

Confirmed whore (by definition). Have a nice day.

Who said it? Where are some links to them saying it? Where are the videos of her doing the things you claim? Your "evidence" is vague and lacks any detail that would lead to it seeming credible. All you're giving is useless speculation and is in no way solid proof. Looks like your new account can be added to my ignore list too!
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Does anyone know what happened with Alicia Fox last night? I keep hearing rumors about a fight.
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