Arena Pro Wrestling Discussion

she says some can't wrestle. the same thing is said about some male wrestler's. then she bring's up nattie. why? is it storyline?

i do wish they'd give nattie a real title run

 

Maybe someone's going to bin the Divas belt and fish out a de-pinkified Women's Championship belt?

Or is that just wishful thinking?

 

Sasha Banks has gone on record saying she doesn't like the Diva's Championship. She said when asked on the subject "butterflies belong in gardens." and she may not be the only one in the division and among the higher ups who has that opinion.

 

Paige has said she wants to be women's champ on the Stone Cold show on WWE Network, with VKM breathing down Austin's ear at the time.

 

Been watching a lot of old NWA stuff lately. Even stuff from the 70's. Flair bleeds buckets. I think Harley Race goes on my list of greatest of all time. Those guys may have not been the best athletes, at least compared to today, but boy could they own a crowd. Love the old booking. Flair puts a bounty on Blackjack Mulligan. Even Harley Race(still champ) trys to collect and failed. Makes Blackjack appear even more a bad ass. Oh, and the selling. I see now why Ross says it's a dying art, and it is an art. Love watching Wahoo sell a knee to the stomach or head. Makes it look real. Not like to today where they take a knee to the gut an it barely registers.

Anyway, always interesting to see another week of Vince losing it over low ratings. Apparently he's giving the creative team big time ****. Hate to be those guys. To be fair, I can't even begin to think where'd you begin to fix things. Everyone knows what's wrong. Hell, although I have yet to watch it, Bradshaw even brought up the irony of WWE having the same problems now as WCW did then, in his part 2 interview with Bischoff.

But how to you fix it? How do you take the product as it is portrayed now and change it into something new or something like the old days, or a combo of new and old. It's not an over night process, and basically you'd have to train a whole new crowd. Everyone has ideas, good ones too, but you have to execute those ideas. That's easier said than done. WE all want wrestlers to be pushed to become stars, we want the belts to matter, good booking, better stories, some want that old NWA seriousness, and live sports portrayal.

We all point to NXT, and NXT has really come a long way, but even taking that and applying it to a wider audience is going to be hard.

Heard it brought up, and it was even discussed last year in WWE circles, about making NXT the 8 to 9 pre-Raw show. Thus making Raw 2 hours again, but still having 3 hours of WWE product. Whether that means just airing the Network show or the wrestlers themselves getting that hour block on Raw is the question?

I think one thing that could make Smackdown interesting is actually having it be a seperate show with the Intercontinental Title being the main belt.

 

i don't even watch smackdown. just not watching 5 hours a week, sorry

 

I haven't watched Smackdown in about 12 years. Basically all it is now is a Raw recap show.

 

way back when they did the brand -split i rebelled against it even more. during the whole JBL-Eddie Guerrero- early John Cena era i didn't watch it at all.

 

Smackdown was great in the beginning because they used it to highlight the tag team division and undercard while still having World title and big fight feel matches. Now it's just a small step from turning into Thunder.

 

my biggest early smackdown memory: shawn as the referee superkicking Rock to help HHH retain the title.

 

One the things I remember was Chris Jericho's in-ring debut against Road Dogg, and Jeff Hardy beating Triple H for the Intercontinental Title.

 

Never watched it then, but from what I understand Heymans year as booker is considered the high water mark. Apparently this is the much talked about Smackdown 6 era with Angle, Benoit, Eddie, Edge, chavo, and Rey. Also where Lesnar and Undertaker had their popular fued at the time, and also the only time in the history of WWE where the cruiserweight title actually meant something. Heyman talks about how at first he was supposed to have Jericho, but Vince pulled him, and thus Heyman said he's be okay with it if he could have Eddie and Benoit. From what I understand he was laughed at for wanting them. In the end everyone in the Smackdown 6 went on to become World Champ. Though technically all Chavo had was the ECW title.

So good that it beat Raw in the ratings for some time. This was during one of Raws bad years, where ratings were low, they had about 2 minutes of Wrestling, and HHH had a half hour promo every single episode.

Raw was the cartoon and Smackdown was the Wrestling show.

EDIT: I remember the first episode, the very first when it was just a try out. I remember it didn't air till Saturday, supposed to be Thursday, because of a Baseball game. Rock had just turned back into a face after breaking from the Corp. Aired in like early May I think. It was before Owen died. Other than that I remember the Shawn superkick on Rock on the first actual episode, and I think it was the second episode where the New Age Outlaws reunited and regain the Tag Titles.

 

half hour promo for hhh. was that around 2003? i remember around the time of Evolution i actually watched csi miami during RAW's first hour sometimes, so it must have been pretty mediocre.

 

I think so. I think Heyman was booking smackdown from 2002 to some time in 2003. So it was around that time.

 

I think so. I think Heyman was booking smackdown from 2002 to some time in 2003. So it was around that time.

 

Spoiler

Matt Hardy is the new TNA World Champion

 

BFG was a ****ing good show!

Spoiler

Quite a few hair raising moments, especially Uno's (legit?) arm injury, Angle's kayfabe bending match stoppage, Kong vs Kim had some incredible moments and the main event was spectacular. EC3 was protected, Fatt Lardy won by pinning Drew Galloway so Ethan keeps his undefeated record. That sounds like a predictable result but they handled it well enough to keep you guessing, imo.

Typical sound issues occurred, it will be interesting to see if they fix them for the UK broadcast on Wednesday night (yeah I'm actually going to watch it again).

 

Still lots of wasted time on Raw this week. However we got Sasha Banks on TV and a Main event that actually ended with THE NEW DAY looking super strong. Good booking there.

Will also add that I'm glad the Dudleys were used in a match with Rollins and Kane. They are pretty much alone and hell, they're a main event tag team with no tag teams around them with the experience or status they have. So better to book them in matches with top stars, even if it's every so often.

So glad another Takeover is on the way.

 

Hope Banks is okay. Looks like the drop on the shoulder hurt her pretty bad.

Great match though. Rank it a little below last Takeovers.

 

James Storm reportedly has signed or is close to signing a deal with WWE. He was backstage at Takeover last night, and rumor is he is being brought in as a "player/coach" for NXT. He has also started promoting Susan G. Komen foundation on his twitter as most to all WWE talent usually do this month(even mentioned WWE in the tweet) and his Twitter profile pic has the WWE logo on it, so he has some sort of working relationship with them it would seem.

 

I have never been a fan of Germ Sturm. The fake tan, the drawl, the redneck gimmick, the slow gibberish promos... He must do something right to earn all the respect he gets but his magic doesn't work on me.

What's happened to Joe in NXT btw? I never hear anything about him any more.

 

He just won the Dusty Rhodes Classic tag tournament with Finn Balor.

Also

Spoiler

confirmed Storm signing, he appeared at the NXT taping tonight.

 

Spoiler

Viva Del Rio!

 

Maybe this means we can hope that maybe one day, Punk will come back to the WWE too.

 

Double Post.

 

Never say never. So many have gone the "I'm never going back," route only to do it anyway. People like money.

Plus if Punk did return he's shoot right to the top and probably get the special limited schedule contract.