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Aries looked particularly unimpressive in that 5 way. Maybe it's ring rust, but even his regular spots looked half speed or dodgy, he seemed tentative doing just about everything. I guess I haven't really seen much of him over the past 5 years or so, and I thought he looked not good on NXT, but he was noticeably worse on 205 Live. Maybe time is catching up to him, idk.

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My main issue with the angle was that Orton gave up his title shot, did other stuff, and then assumed that blowing up someone's house would magically get him that shot back because reasons.

 

...and he was right.

 

And Seth was definitely over as a face when he came out here...which is what made it all the more hilarious that Hunter couldn't let him actually be over for FIVE SECONDS before he turned around and beat the shit out of him again like he was a fucking dork.

 

I mean, literally ANY heel in human history, if the babyface makes a triumphant surprise return, makes the big reveal that he's healed, goes in and cleans house on said heel...ANY OTHER HEEL would just take it. Run away, head to the back. That's the whole fucking point of being the heel, to take the ass kicking. But not THE ALMIGHTY HUNTOR, he just gets straight back in the ring and beats the shit out of the face. Fucking howled.

 

I'm also really looking forward to Mick Foley vs Steph at Wrestlemania. I mean, that's what ALLLLLLLLLL this time and effort and build is all leading to, right? Something?

It's not like they couldn't have just done Hunter getting his heat back next week either. And Seth is meant to be one of his guys. Imagine what he'd be like working someone he doesn't like.

 

You mean like doing crotch chops to get the crowd to cheer him while he was supposed to be the heel in the feud with Roman?

 

Exactly like that. It's amazing that lots of the sort of fan who would have hated him 10 years ago for pulling that sort of shit idolise him now.

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It's interesting that the last time Triple H was actually game to playing a full on heel by showing ass for the fiery babyface was the guy that the WWE apparently never intended to push that hard was Daniel Bryan. But with Triple H's own guys he just refuses to do the same for with Reigns and Rollins. But it was pretty cool Triple H actually used his status as the beloved NXT visionary as a heel heat tactic on the main show in suggesting the people would be on his side of things. I didn't expect him to resort to that because he is obviously very protective of his legacy and the NXT thing was the thing that is getting him praise from the people who had always been on his case for the stuff he was doing in his career as a fully active wrestler. But here we are being told that he worked everyone into turning his reputation around and being respected instead of vilified.

 

The reason I agree that Wyatt/Orton's storyline sucks isn't that its hokey, but that it insults everyone's intelligence. Orton joined the Wyatts in the early fall. Like mentioned, Orton was always the bigger star in the WWE hierarchy so I always saw it as a slower paced version of the storyline they did in WWECW with the lower profile stable New Breed trying to recruit the ascending star who was always seen as a guy thousands of leagues above in CM Punk and an amused Punk getting a kick out of screwing with them as a result of it. But you are telling me that Orton had anticipated Wyatt winning the title months later and that he would win the Royal Rumble and that his mission was to take his title to embarrass him? Come on now. At least he should explain that he quickened the endgame of his master plan because the title happened to fall in their laps and what better time to turn than when the would be victim would win the belt along the way. It would help make sense of the timing of it all. Then he'd be more realistic as an opportunist rather than as a psychic. Still though I think this was ultimately the right Mania match to attach the title to out of all the planned Mania matches on Smackdown. What other feud should have had that? Cena vs Miz? Been there and done that. AJ vs Shane? Shane should be nowhere near a title match. Ambrose vs Corbin? Corbin isn't ready for it and Ambrose is obviously running out of steam as a top level main eventer at the time when they have to think of maximizing the prestige value of the show they want as many eyeballs to watch or attend in person as they could have. So again, who else should have been to tap for the spot featured as the title program?

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It's interesting that the last time Triple H was actually game to playing a full on heel by showing ass for the fiery babyface was the guy that the WWE apparently never intended to push that hard was Daniel Bryan. But with Triple H's own guys he just refuses to do the same for with Reigns and Rollins. But it was pretty cool Triple H actually used his status as the beloved NXT visionary as a heel heat tactic on the main show in suggesting the people would be on his side of things. I didn't expect him to resort to that because he is obviously very protective of his legacy and the NXT thing was the thing that is getting him praise from the people who had always been on his case for the stuff he was doing in his career as a fully active wrestler. But here we are being told that he worked everyone into turning his reputation around and being respected instead of vilified.

 

 

 

I've always thought Triple H did that for Bryan in large part because of what happened with CM Punk. Like a subtle "fuck you, look what I'm going to do for the indy darling" after Punk refused to work with him at Mania and quit the company.

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Still though I think this was ultimately the right Mania match to attach the title to out of all the planned Mania matches on Smackdown. What other feud should have had that? Cena vs Miz? Been there and done that. AJ vs Shane? Shane should be nowhere near a title match. Ambrose vs Corbin? Corbin isn't ready for it and Ambrose is obviously running out of steam as a top level main eventer at the time when they have to think of maximizing the prestige value of the show they want as many eyeballs to watch or attend in person as they could have. So again, who else should have been to tap for the spot featured as the title program?

 

I guess the simple answer to that question is: some other match. If there's no planned match that looks like a real title match for SD, maybe they should have planned different matches.

 

This is a curious phenomenon we get now since Meltzer gets pretty much the whole Mania card by the end of January. People like us know what the matches are before they're even hinted at on TV, so we see them as a fait accompli and just end up kind of questioning the build to those matches or their card placement, rather than questioning why we're having the matches themselves. We don't allow ourselves to criticise the card itself too much because hey, we've known how it was going to be for ages! What are you gonna do eh?

 

If your planning leads you to AJ Styles having the year he had and carrying the title he did only to be nowhere near the title picture at Mania, feuding with a non-wrestler GM, while Orton and Bray fight over the title in the middle of a cartoon supernatural feud and Cena is in a midcard mixed tag angle based around Total Divas...something went wrong somewhere.

 

A different match entirely, is the answer.

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Obviously they should have come up with better ideas in the first place so we get a better card, and I have to hope that their original plans were going to have led to better ideas (I mean, surely Cena was never going to have to fight the Miz in their original plans right?) but along the way something got messed up. Maybe Balor's injury? Triple H's refusal to show up during football season? Other reasons? Ultimately it all falls on Vince and the power brokers. We get reports that Vince works on the show plans in like June and yet this year it all felt scattershot and things only started to fall in place in late January and we're like "Huh?" at things like Orton winning the Rumble to signal that the obvious Orton/Wyatt was the match for the title (and signalling that Styles would be nowhere close to it) or that it'd be Reigns getting the Taker match. Just weird.

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Still though I think this was ultimately the right Mania match to attach the title to out of all the planned Mania matches on Smackdown. What other feud should have had that? Cena vs Miz? Been there and done that. AJ vs Shane? Shane should be nowhere near a title match. Ambrose vs Corbin? Corbin isn't ready for it and Ambrose is obviously running out of steam as a top level main eventer at the time when they have to think of maximizing the prestige value of the show they want as many eyeballs to watch or attend in person as they could have. So again, who else should have been to tap for the spot featured as the title program?

I guess the simple answer to that question is: some other match. If there's no planned match that looks like a real title match for SD, maybe they should have planned different matches.

 

This is a curious phenomenon we get now since Meltzer gets pretty much the whole Mania card by the end of January. People like us know what the matches are before they're even hinted at on TV, so we see them as a fait accompli and just end up kind of questioning the build to those matches or their card placement, rather than questioning why we're having the matches themselves. We don't allow ourselves to criticise the card itself too much because hey, we've known how it was going to be for ages! What are you gonna do eh?

 

If your planning leads you to AJ Styles having the year he had and carrying the title he did only to be nowhere near the title picture at Mania, feuding with a non-wrestler GM, while Orton and Bray fight over the title in the middle of a cartoon supernatural feud and Cena is in a midcard mixed tag angle based around Total Divas...something went wrong somewhere.

 

A different match entirely, is the answer.

It's also years and years of lowered expectations. Modern Wrestlemania is a burden that we have to endure as fans.

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Obviously they should have come up with better ideas in the first place so we get a better card, and I have to hope that their original plans were going to have led to better ideas (I mean, surely Cena was never going to have to fight the Miz in their original plans right?) but along the way something got messed up. Maybe Balor's injury? Triple H's refusal to show up during football season? Other reasons? Ultimately it all falls on Vince and the power brokers. We get reports that Vince works on the show plans in like June and yet this year it all felt scattershot and things only started to fall in place in late January and we're like "Huh?" at things like Orton winning the Rumble to signal that the obvious Orton/Wyatt was the match for the title (and signalling that Styles would be nowhere close to it) or that it'd be Reigns getting the Taker match. Just weird.

 

Cena-Taker was the original plan, hence the winky reference by Cena last week.

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Taker was drafted to Smackdown and it would have made Smackdown's side look equally (if not more) compelling than Raw's side. It wouldn't even have been hard to fine something for Reigns to do and with Cena/Taker on the card- 3 matches could have easily been taken off to avoid that WM burnout WWE loves its fans to reach come main event time every year.

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Still though I think this was ultimately the right Mania match to attach the title to out of all the planned Mania matches on Smackdown. What other feud should have had that? Cena vs Miz? Been there and done that. AJ vs Shane? Shane should be nowhere near a title match. Ambrose vs Corbin? Corbin isn't ready for it and Ambrose is obviously running out of steam as a top level main eventer at the time when they have to think of maximizing the prestige value of the show they want as many eyeballs to watch or attend in person as they could have. So again, who else should have been to tap for the spot featured as the title program?

I guess the simple answer to that question is: some other match. If there's no planned match that looks like a real title match for SD, maybe they should have planned different matches.

 

This is a curious phenomenon we get now since Meltzer gets pretty much the whole Mania card by the end of January. People like us know what the matches are before they're even hinted at on TV, so we see them as a fait accompli and just end up kind of questioning the build to those matches or their card placement, rather than questioning why we're having the matches themselves. We don't allow ourselves to criticise the card itself too much because hey, we've known how it was going to be for ages! What are you gonna do eh?

 

If your planning leads you to AJ Styles having the year he had and carrying the title he did only to be nowhere near the title picture at Mania, feuding with a non-wrestler GM, while Orton and Bray fight over the title in the middle of a cartoon supernatural feud and Cena is in a midcard mixed tag angle based around Total Divas...something went wrong somewhere.

 

A different match entirely, is the answer.

It's also years and years of lowered expectations. Modern Wrestlemania is a burden that we have to endure as fans.

 

That seems a little extreme. WM since 18 on has been pretty consistently good outside of a couple of duds. Even last year's show wasn't BAD, it was just weird. There have only been one or two actually bad WMs in about 15 years. That's a pretty good run.

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Mania should really scale back on a lot of things. Alexa Bliss walking to the ring should not be considered a WM moment and WWE itself should leave the 'moment' talk to the fans as it just comes off as eye-rolling. Also, not everyone should be at WM as it just comes off as a longer Raw in a lot of cases. I am not looking forward to the buzzword overload that will occur during the Sasha/Bayley/Charlotte match. Scaling back is really need.

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WM last year had good matches, but weird as fuck booking. The only genuinely 90% bad WMs in 15 years have been 27-29. 27 still had fun matches like Cody/Rey and Orton/Punk, plus HHH/Taker which was definitely not as ill received at the time as it is now. 28 and 29 are pretty indefensible, though. That's a pretty good track record considering the first 15 years of WM was dogshit outside of maybe 3-4 shows.

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Last years's Mania wasn't bad, it was godawful. Mania has become an overlong, boring show with self-conscious epics galore and masturbatory #Maniamoments. I can't remember one Mania that was actually fun to watch from the beginning to the end in forever.

30 and 31 were strong shows and Bryan winning the title finally was one of WWE's best genuine feelgood moments

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Taker was drafted to Smackdown and it would have made Smackdown's side look equally (if not more) compelling than Raw's side. It wouldn't even have been hard to fine something for Reigns to do and with Cena/Taker on the card- 3 matches could have easily been taken off to avoid that WM burnout WWE loves its fans to reach come main event time every year.

Taker wasn't drafted to Smackdown, he wasn't drafted at all.

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Last years's Mania wasn't bad, it was godawful. Mania has become an overlong, boring show with self-conscious epics galore and masturbatory #Maniamoments. I can't remember one Mania that was actually fun to watch from the beginning to the end in forever.

30 and 31 were strong shows and Bryan winning the title finally was one of WWE's best genuine feelgood moments

 

HHH vs Bryan was a great match (one of the best Mania match ever and HHH's best without a doubt, with the one time I really liked Stephy too) and Bryan winning the title was an awesome moment, but the rest of the card was a complete nothing (a boring Cena vs Bray and the ultimate flops of flops in Taker vs Lesnar took forever)

 

What was 31 already ? Oh, shit that atrocious HHH vs Sting match and yet another Taker flop against Bray Wyatt. Best part of the show was Rusev showing up on a tank for the Cena match. And the main event was very good indeed (that was before Lesnar had turned into a complete gimmick worker). Still, way too much long-ass nothing matches to amount to "decent" in my book.

 

Last year was the pits. The only enjoyable match was Charlotte vs Lynch vs Banks. Oh, and apparently, the all mighty all-time record of 100.000 + is about 80.000 actually.

 

Mania's lenght and scale, with the usual WWE drawn out production, makes it a complete chore to watch to me. Best part is usually the settings and intros when they do stupid shit like the tank or HHH's usual barbarian stuff.

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I thought Rock-Cena I at Wrestlemania 28 was a pretty good match that hasn't really gotten its due. Not a great one, but it accomplished what it needed to accomplish, even if I hated the result. Jericho-Punk completely did not live up to the hype and was full of try-hard stuff ("What about your SISTER?"), but it wasn't actively bad. No, actively bad -- that was HHH-Undertaker.

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I thought Rock-Cena I at Wrestlemania 28 was a pretty good match that hasn't really gotten its due. Not a great one, but it accomplished what it needed to accomplish, even if I hated the result.

 

Pretty good is right. But pretty good for the Ultimate Dream Match doesn't really cut it, does it ? Hell, Rock vs Hogan far exceeded its expectation (although it's way overrated) while Rock vs Cena ended up underwhelming (and thus is underrated). Actually, maybe the fact they re-did it the next year is what hurts the first match, which may be better than pretty good actually. But the second being just there hurts the perspective of the whole deal I think.

 

 

No, actively bad -- that was HHH-Undertaker.

 

Like most Taker matches at Mania. It's funny because the streak had this incredible, legendary aura, but people seem to forget most of it consists of really shitty matches. And I don't mean only in the formative years, I mean during the vaunted Streak years too. And the ones who weren't shitty were overrated as all hell (yeah, I'm looking at you, self-conscious epic Shawn matches).

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WM last year had good matches, but weird as fuck booking. The only genuinely 90% bad WMs in 15 years have been 27-29. 27 still had fun matches like Cody/Rey and Orton/Punk, plus HHH/Taker which was definitely not as ill received at the time as it is now. 28 and 29 are pretty indefensible, though. That's a pretty good track record considering the first 15 years of WM was dogshit outside of maybe 3-4 shows.

I thought last year's show was just boring and only the women's triple threat was in the four star territory. Taker-Shane and Triple H-Roman were awful long and boring, plus add The Rock and the show was hard to get through.

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I'd say that will make Raw really heel heavy, but Smackdown is too, so I guess they don't have any full-time babyfaces other than Ambrose that can headline anyway. Jericho will likely be gone soon, I'm expecting Reigns to turn, the ship has sailed with Cesaro and they hate Sami Zayn. What are their options? Orton? Returning Hardys? Nakamura? If no one is coming in, someone has gotta turn, I guess. Are they thinking they can finally pull the trigger on Big Cass?

 

EDIT: Laughing that I completely forgot Seth Rollins existed.

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