Open WWE/NXT/Pro Wrestling thread

[teeray]

Lol. I like Owens the wrestler.

I feel like him losing will propel him further in the long run.  Just a difference in opinion.  :)

No joke.  My wife used to be a pretty big wrestling fan.  She LOVES The Rock and Steve Austin both.  We used to watch every Monday and go PPVs when they were in NC.  We both kinda quit watching in 2003.

At first when Owens came to NXT I thought he was a bit overrated by the internet wrestling community.  I didn't ever see him as Kevin Steen.  But he grew on me fairly quickly and he has been great since called up to main roster.

Point being, my wife saw Owens the other night.  And after just seeing him once doing a promo she was said "I like him.  He is my new favorite.  He has charisma".  I wasn't goading her or anything.  She just bought into him after one time.  So obviously the guy has something.

[Mol3m4n]

No joke.  My wife used to be a pretty big wrestling fan.  She LOVES The Rock and Steve Austin both.  We used to watch every Monday and go PPVs when they were in NC.  We both kinda quit watching in 2003.

At first when Owens came to NXT I thought he was a bit overrated by the internet wrestling community.  I didn't ever see him as Kevin Steen.  But he grew on me fairly quickly and he has been great since called up to main roster.

Point being, my wife saw Owens the other night.  And after just seeing him once doing a promo she was said "I like him.  He is my new favorite.  He has charisma".  I wasn't goading her or anything.  She just bought into him after one time.  So obviously the guy has something.

My fiancé absolutely hates him, but the other night I was surprised when she admitted, "I hate to say it, but he's pretty good. "

[carpanfan96]

Lol. I like Owens the wrestler.

I feel like him losing will propel him further in the long run.  Just a difference in opinion.  :)

It will when they have him beat Cena for us championship.

[teeray]

The WWE Network has all of the RAWs from 1998 right now.  This covers the build to Wrestlemania 14 and the aftermath, and up until a few months before Wrestlemania 15.  Probably my favorite year in wrestling.

It is the sweet spot of the Attitude Era.  Before it got too over the top, but still had an edge.  Also HHH had taken over DX and they had New Age Outlaws with him (and X-Pac but that dude kinda sucks)

Rock was still heel and finding his voice, crowd still HATED him.  It was before cool Rock heel that everyone wanted to actually like and really kinda cheered for.

McMahon is absolute gold in his TV role.

But I want to talk about Steve Austin.  He is my favorite all-time character.  And after he beat Shawn Michaels he was white hot, and nobody in history of wrestling was more popular in my opinion.  When the glass broke it was literal pandemonium in the arena.  The entire mood shifted, the energy increased, and as JR would say business was about to pick up.  It was pretty damn amazing.

This isn't just about waxing poetic about Austin.  My question is who brings that type of energy these days?  Maybe Brock Lesnar?  I love Ambrose.  That is my boy.  And he is probably the most over babyface in WWE (besides Daniel Bryan who may never wrestle again).  But even when those two guys come out it isn't that feeling like "Oh poo, here we go!"

But is it the characters?  The wrestlers?  Do they not hold up against Austin and later The Rock?  Were those guys just THAT good?

 Or is it the fans?  Have the fans basically seen it all and have more information thanks to the internet so nothing surprises them anymore?  Or is it possibly just societal where people have become more cynical and jaded?

I don't know. It is just as I re-watch these old RAWs, and man the crowd was all in, and it makes the show so much more exciting.

[clark kent]

WWE just won't be the same to me as it was when I grew up watching DX, undertaker, HHH,batista, the rock and stone cold. It just isn't the same anymore.

[Mol3m4n]

The WWE Network has all of the RAWs from 1998 right now.  This covers the build to Wrestlemania 14 and the aftermath, and up until a few months before Wrestlemania 15.  Probably my favorite year in wrestling.

It is the sweet spot of the Attitude Era.  Before it got too over the top, but still had an edge.  Also HHH had taken over DX and they had New Age Outlaws with him (and X-Pac but that dude kinda sucks)

Rock was still heel and finding his voice, crowd still HATED him.  It was before cool Rock heel that everyone wanted to actually like and really kinda cheered for.

McMahon is absolute gold in his TV role.

But I want to talk about Steve Austin.  He is my favorite all-time character.  And after he beat Shawn Michaels he was white hot, and nobody in history of wrestling was more popular in my opinion.  When the glass broke it was literal pandemonium in the arena.  The entire mood shifted, the energy increased, and as JR would say business was about to pick up.  It was pretty damn amazing.

This isn't just about waxing poetic about Austin.  My question is who brings that type of energy these days?  Maybe Brock Lesnar?  I love Ambrose.  That is my boy.  And he is probably the most over babyface in WWE (besides Daniel Bryan who may never wrestle again).  But even when those two guys come out it isn't that feeling like "Oh poo, here we go!"

But is it the characters?  The wrestlers?  Do they not hold up against Austin and later The Rock?  Were those guys just THAT good?

 Or is it the fans?  Have the fans basically seen it all and have more information thanks to the internet so nothing surprises them anymore?  Or is it possibly just societal where people have become more cynical and jaded?

I don't know. It is just as I re-watch these old RAWs, and man the crowd was all in, and it makes the show so much more exciting.

The crowd can't chant "you suck dick" anymore. There's the problem.

[teeray]

The crowd can't chant "you suck dick" anymore. There's the problem.

Yeach and they used to chant "AAASSHOOLE"  Whenever Vince was around.  And it would crack me up when Austin would say "I don't know how good your hearing is, but you got 15,000 people calling you an asshole"

There was one episode I watched recently where the crowd started chanting "Vince is gay!" which was pretty distasteful.  But they haven't been that bad overall (I am watching them in order and I am up to summer time.  Last night I watched the King of the Ring in 1998 (which had the Undertaker v Mick Foley Hell in a Cell match)

I just wonder if part of it is us the fans, or if these modern wrestlers just aren't as compelling as The Rock, Undertaker, and Austin

[rodeo]

Yeach and they used to chant "AAASSHOOLE"  Whenever Vince was around.  And it would crack me up when Austin would say "I don't know how good your hearing is, but you got 15,000 people calling you an asshole"

There was one episode I watched recently where the crowd started chanting "Vince is gay!" which was pretty distasteful.  But they haven't been that bad overall (I am watching them in order and I am up to summer time.  Last night I watched the King of the Ring in 1998 (which had the Undertaker v Mick Foley Hell in a Cell match)

I just wonder if part of it is us the fans, or if these modern wrestlers just aren't as compelling as The Rock, Undertaker, and Austin

It's a completely different fanbase now. Back then they were catering to hardcore fans. Now they're chasing the coveted 11pm children's show demographic. Their main marketable guy literally dresses like a toddler to fill the stands with them. They don't tend to chant as loud as Attitude Era fans lol

[Kramerica]

Teeray, I thought about this exact thing this past week when Triple H was announcing Seth's next opponent. It was very similar to one of those Austin glass break moments. The crowd kinda knew what was coming, but you still built tension with a 10 second or so pause...then the music hits.

Lesnar's pop was okay, but I immediately thought about those classic Austin or Rock pops after building that same tension, and Lesnar's paled in comparison. And Lesnar is the closest thing to "oh poo, here we go!" that WWE has right now. His rampage the night after Wrestlemania was definitely rooted in Attitude Era action, so there's that, but it's not like he dropped Steph or HHH with an F5 the way Austin would stun Vince.

Like rodeo said...it's just a different crowd these days with different expectations. In 1998, I thought anything could happen on RAW. These days...not so much. With tempered expectations and weaker writing,  (compared to 1998), that leads to a shortage of those raw, exciting, pandemonium-filled pops.

[frash.exe]

The WWE Network has all of the RAWs from 1998 right now.  This covers the build to Wrestlemania 14 and the aftermath, and up until a few months before Wrestlemania 15.  Probably my favorite year in wrestling.

It is the sweet spot of the Attitude Era.  Before it got too over the top, but still had an edge.  Also HHH had taken over DX and they had New Age Outlaws with him (and X-Pac but that dude kinda sucks)

Rock was still heel and finding his voice, crowd still HATED him.  It was before cool Rock heel that everyone wanted to actually like and really kinda cheered for.

McMahon is absolute gold in his TV role.

But I want to talk about Steve Austin.  He is my favorite all-time character.  And after he beat Shawn Michaels he was white hot, and nobody in history of wrestling was more popular in my opinion.  When the glass broke it was literal pandemonium in the arena.  The entire mood shifted, the energy increased, and as JR would say business was about to pick up.  It was pretty damn amazing.

This isn't just about waxing poetic about Austin.  My question is who brings that type of energy these days?  Maybe Brock Lesnar?  I love Ambrose.  That is my boy.  And he is probably the most over babyface in WWE (besides Daniel Bryan who may never wrestle again).  But even when those two guys come out it isn't that feeling like "Oh poo, here we go!"

But is it the characters?  The wrestlers?  Do they not hold up against Austin and later The Rock?  Were those guys just THAT good?

 Or is it the fans?  Have the fans basically seen it all and have more information thanks to the internet so nothing surprises them anymore?  Or is it possibly just societal where people have become more cynical and jaded?

I don't know. It is just as I re-watch these old RAWs, and man the crowd was all in, and it makes the show so much more exciting.

that match would've been even more awesome if it wasn't for Shawn's shattered back and a post neck injury SCSA. I still cringe when I watch it because it wasn't a great match, mostly because Shawn was hopped on painkillers just so he can manage and Austin's move set was limited by then. Still a great time in general though. 

 

I think it's pretty noticeable that the star power isn't as good as it used to be but I think that's because I watched it when I was little, which is by far the main reason people get interested in this. I would find it challenging as an adult to find anything interesting about wrestling if I'd never really been exposed to it until then. When I was little guys like Bret and Shawn were the main attractions and nobody is ever going to top them to me. But I could definitely see how a little kid would feel the same way about Daniel Bryan or John Cena because 1992-1996 is ancient history to them and those guys will be their original reference point no matter what.

 

I will say this, though. Anybody who thinks the attitude era was horribly overrated has never watched any of the material, or they're just trying to be wwe hipsters. Raw crowds used to go apeshit and the monthly PPVs had much better, more heated build ups.

[frash.exe]

I also hate the way gimmick matches started having their own annual PPVs. Maybe you do that with money in the bank because that was an annual thing anyway, but it dilutes the value of a hell in a cell match. Kevin Nash said something like this in a shoot and I totally agree with him. The cell match you watched with Taker and Mankind was like the only frontier they had left at that point. They'd been feuding for over two years by then and they were still neck and neck. The fact that you had that context helped make the match. And after it was over the Taker/Mankind feud had tapered and then it was done with. Now it's like "oh you won a no. 1 contendership match, you get to face the champion at the next PPV. Oh it just so happens that it's a hell in a cell match too because that's the PPV. Imagine that."

[teeray]

Rumors abound that two of these four will be making their WWE main roster debut very, very soon

Charlotte is pretty much a lock.  Other one could be Bayley or Sasha Banks

 

[Mol3m4n]

How about that Finn Balor win?

[teeray]

How about that Finn Balor win?

I was pretty awesome.  Almost as awesome as Kevin Owens winning the US title from Cena next weekend. ;)

Seriously though, Cena hs been best thing on RAW all summer.  His US Champ open challenge and feud with KO has been great.

I think we are getting to a point where the authority almost has to turn on Seth Rollins right?  Hopefully Battleground sets the stage for SummerSlam, because even with return of Lesnar RAW has been kinda weak last couple of weeks.