FourtyTwo

2 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

Lads. Lads. LADS.

Hear me out.

We've been thinking about this all wrong.

How about... Night 1 is Seth v Roman for all the marbles and Cody v Rock. 

Seth and Roman have been ripping strips off each other for weeks. Cody and Rock have this newfound beef.

Roman wins (obviously, Seth is shit) and Cody wins - at some point during Cody/Rock the Bloodline try and fuck about and the show ends with Cody/Rock fighting off Roman/Jimmy/Solo together (also planting the seeds for Rock/Roman down the line).

Night 2, Cody vs Roman. Everyone's happy. 

No, I don't really know why Cody's Night 1 isn't for a title when he won the Rumble. Shut up.

Honestly though, I'm genuinely fascinated how they unpick the pickle they've got themselves into. I watched Raw in full just now and I have zero idea what their direction is.

What a strange Mania.

Elimination Chamber ends with Sami Zayn in the ring, which then gets hit by a lightning bolt and then he’s gone.

Two weeks later he appears on stage with a DeLorean, and with the Undisputed title.

Turns out the lightning bolt turned the Chamber into a time machine which sent him back in time a year or so, he changed the events from last year and won the title, and now, even though none of the fans can remember it, he’s champion and has been for a year, which all the wrestlers acknowledge as being what happened.

WM is then easy enough - Rock v Roman for head of the table, and Sami v Cody for the belt.

Welcome to the WWE Multiverse of Madness. Simples!

Any chance of a big name to try and spike a load of PPV buys?

48-47 either way would’ve been fair. To score it 49-46 was bullshit.

Following the move to BT Sport, I’m gonna go for Robbie Savage, Chris Sutton and Jake Humphrey.

I also posted before that I thought Angle should have turned face the night after the Invasion finished.

My previous explanation was that there was probably mileage in keeping Austin heel and giving Angle a face run, as there was no real logic behind Austin turning face again either.  The "natural" outcome of the way the Invasion ended was heel Austin and face Angle, just due to the way the whole thing unfolded.  Not turning either would have given some different dynamics, and you could have played the two of them off against each other for a period as well, as well as doing something with Austin and HHH off the back of the two man power trip stuff pre invasion.

It just never seemed "logical" at the time to turn the winner heel, whilst having one of the losers, who betrayed WWE, come back as a face after it.

Sting should’ve beaten Rollins for the title. I know he suffered an injury in the match, but a different match with a different outcome could’ve meant that was avoided.

A title run for the Stinger would’ve been great, and you could’ve easily kept him out of the ring in between PPVs with smoke and mirrors in typical Sting style!

I wonder whether we might get a McGregor fight before he faces Khabib again?  In terms of booking, it will draw a good number, it would help sell the rematch and (to a small extent) protect McGregor when he inevitably loses and goes 0-2.  If he faces someone else in between, and puts in a good performance, it would likely boost the buys for the rematch as well as keeping some interest in him post-Khabib.

There's the obvious risk of him losing if he does fight beforehand, but I think there's more upside for both UFC and McGregor of doing it than the risk on the downside.

1 hour ago, David said:

My secret is to not watch him saying or doing anything except fighting. It makes it easier to stomach him, as he's a good fighter, but his patter is rank and his hair is ridiculous.

I may be way off, but I think Cerrone blew his nose on purpose at the end of that round. Someone if his experience doesn't make that mistake, not a fucking chance. He also seemed far too upbeat after the fight was called.

I think he knew he wasn't winning that fight.

I wondered about something similar, especially with the strike after the bell - takes himself out in debatable circumstances, leaves the door open for a rematch, either on a later PPV or headlining one of the smaller shows - another payday.

Doesn’t look like it’s been mentioned, but watching the 238 prelims and they had an ad break after the first fight, which had a BT advert saying UFC 239 is on their box office channel, rather than one of the normal ones 😞

If something like this doesn't happen now, I will be eternally disappointed.

The interesting dynamic that the 24/7 does bring is that it might reduce the number of midcard matches that go on for no reason other than to fill up space in a three hour card.  Until he loses it, there's no way Truth is wrestling a match, and you would assume other people will just spend their time looking for him.  Given one of the major issues is the lack of any "point" to a lot of matches and wins and losses not seeming to matter any more, bringing in a plot device to (a) give people a reason to fight (b) in different circumstances (c) where winning matters actually seems to make a lot of sense and could actually fill a decent chunk of time if done well.

Writing those last three words though does reveal the issue with it!

I'm surprised there's no suggestion being made that the winner of the Women's MITB match might cash in after Becky retains in her second match of the night.

I really did enjoy the first MEM run they did, and thought it was a shame when they were leading to it starting up again, only to have Booker T and Nash appear in the Rumble instead!

27 minutes ago, air_raid said:

At the time the babyface main event scene was Austin, Rock and an imminently returning Triple H. The latter especially needed a strong heel like Kurt to work before Mania. There's seldom been a worse time to shoehorn someone else in.

Unless you mean instead of Steve Austin turning back.

There was probably mileage in keeping Austin heel and giving Angle a face run, as there was no real logic behind Austin turning face again either.  The "natural" outcome of the way the Invasion ended was heel Austin and face Angle, just due to the way the whole thing unfolded.  Not turning either would have given some different dynamics, and you could have played the two of them off against each other for a period as well, as well as doing something with Austin and HHH off the back of the two man power trip stuff pre invasion.

It just never seemed "logical" at the time to turn the winner heel, whilst having one of the losers, who betrayed WWE, come back as a face after it.

2 minutes ago, air_raid said:

If Edge is the given example with his number of title runs and going on last with Taker at a WrestleMania then Kurt definitely counts. The top guy while Kurt was around was Steve Austin, then The Rock, then after a few misfires eventually John Cena, it was never him. Kurt's the definitive answer for me for how the question has been framed. The body of work he achieved was absolutely incredible comparing his not quite 7 years in the company to plenty of other wrestlers who were there for far longer and produced a fraction of the number of top quality matches he did with a variety of opponents. He was better as a heel but during the Austin run he was also dynamite as a face then later on in the Smackdown exclusive part of his career he was just too good to stay heel for long, people refused to boo him. The company never built around him but you could certainly build your show on him - somebody else's name was on the marquee but Kurt was vital to the foundations.

I always thought the biggest mistake with Kurt Angle was not trying him as a face straight after the Invasion finished.  The pop when he "turned" at the end of the match was huge IIRC, and always thought that a face run for him at that point would have been good.

Admittedly a lot of his best work was as a heel, but they should have at least tried it IMO, and then may have been able to build the company more around him with time.

15 minutes ago, mim731 said:

But then what do you do with Lesnar? or would Seth be doing double duty?

Put Kurt in with the Shield again? 

1 hour ago, AdamTH17 said:

I'm struggling to think of someone so shit, who has been pushed so prominently, for so long. He isn't even vaguely over. There isn't a single redeeming factor about the useless twonk.

How long was Jinder champion for?

58 minutes ago, Accident Prone said:

How long until Nia Jax is added to the match and we get a Mcmahon In Every Corner?

You say that in jest, but what if they added Asuka, had both titles up for grabs (not sure how it would work if Becky pinned Asuka in that instance, unless it was a unification), and then end up with Shane and Steph behind their respective brand champions, bring back Ric Flair and have him behind Charlotte and then get someone in Becky's corner - not sure who, as I don't know if you could shoe-horn Vince in there.

Yeah, having read it back, that sounds woeful!

12 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

EC3 has to be the biggest victim of NXT's, "you know this guy, right?" booking.

He's never been given any kind of character development, no real introduction beyond "it's EC3! And he's here now!", and because he got the "hey, we recognise him!" pop on his debut he ended up booked as a babyface when everything about him screams heel.

I watched TNA back when EC3 was at the upper echelons and despite him being heel at the time, thought they were doing some brilliant work in terms of planting the seeds of a face turn when Magnus won the title.  Because TNA, they never followed through on it, but there were bits with him at that time that were suggesting a face turn would work given the right circumstances.

But there's no way he should ever be introduced as a face - it would only work turning him organically as and when the right situation arose (if at all).  He'll probably never break out of the mid-card 50/50 anyway, but would have more of a chance as a heel to begin with.

On 12/6/2018 at 12:32 PM, Philjax said:

Godfather Vs Val Venis sounds pretty good right now.....

You know it ends up with both of them leaving with the ho train!

1 hour ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

100% agree with you watching her ring enterence. I haven't seen anyone trying so hard to be sexy and failing in years. Her movement seems so awkward 

Did you not see Theresa May dancing her way on stage at the Tory conference yesterday? 

My wife works at Asda's head office, so we have a discount card - hard to justify going anywhere else for a full shop.

38 minutes ago, Scott Malbranque said:

That's TNA Russo stuff, there. Reigns would look more of a clown than he already does, and any steam Heyman would have by siding with Reigns is immediately shited down the pot.

Reigns doesn't necessarily need to be in on the initial interference by Heyman, he could just benefit from it - then let the crowd assume Heyman has sided with Reigns, only to have him switch straight away to Strowman.

Given the crowd reactions to Reigns, it probably would result in the opposite reactions to what they would be looking for, but they've got to be doing something with Heyman that plays into this, surely?  I know he's been central to it all because Lesnar hasn't been around, but the way in which they are doing it almost telegraphs that something is going to happen with Heyman.  And I don't think it would be a simple as a switch to Reigns or Strowman with no added twist - it's almost too choreographed for that, that they need a bit "more".

That said, @HarmonicGenerator is probably correct, in that it is all just going to go straight down the middle!

Fantasy booking here - could you see a situation where Reigns is getting destroyed, Heyman steps in and helps Reigns to win, only to call Strowman down the ramp to cash in and win the title off a beaten down Reigns?

No matter how much sense it would make, I just can't see them turning Roman heel - on the basis that they have so many opportunities to do so, and haven't.

It's pretty much a replica of the situation we saw with Cena for years, and that never happened despite it making "storyline" sense on more than one occasion - albeit nowhere near as much as it would with Roman.

But I just feel that they would have done it by now if they were going to, and they'll probably go for sympathy with him losing it to a cash in after winning, or use him to protect Lesnar by taking the fall in a three-way, and then have him chase Braun through to WM.

Edit - in fact, you can see it now, that he loses a "final" title shot, due to something screwy, then wins the Rumble to main event WM!  Nailed on IMO!