thatvinylgeek

Inspired by @BomberPat, this thread may die a very quiet death, but it gave me food for thought. If this year's mania was only a one night event such as it was in the past, would it have worked? Putting some very rough rules in place...you can't change or add any matches, only remove, the matches and outcomes took place exactly as they did, and assuming the main event tag from night one took place on the go home Smackdown, what would your perfect card look like? I have had a go, and I think it has made me realise that with the amount of belts they have now it is bloody hard to book it over a single night without leaving championships off the card. I have added timings and a rough running order to this, and I still can't get it below 4.5 hours. Timings are with entrances and victories, and it would mean no Snoop or other celeb shenanigans. I think the crowd would be completely burnt out by the end...but here's my card: WWE Women’s World championship: Rhea Ripley (c) vs. Becky Lynch - 40 mins WWE Undisputed Tag Team championships: 6-Pack Ladder match - 40 mins WWE Intercontinental championship: Gunther (c) vs. Sami Zayn - 40 mins WWE World Heavyweight championship: Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre - 30 mins WWE Women’s championship: IYO SKY vs. Bayley - 35 mins WWE United States championship: Logan Paul vs. Kevin Owens vs. Randy Orton - 35 mins Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill & Naomi vs. Damage CTRL (Asuka, Kairi Sane & Dakota Kai) - 20 mins Undisputed WWE Universal championship: Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes - Bloodline rules - 50 mins What do you think? Would you change anything? Does this just prove we need the two nights now?

Great minds 😉

I think a lot of this is that Cena is a product of his time, and the influences of the generation before him. We are getting to the point where him, The Rock, Sting and a few others are the last of the breed of the wrestlers with the "less is more" mindset, something Punk spoke about on his interview last week. I think a lot of matches nowadays no matter the heel face dynamic are very much 50/50 from a work-rate point of view and they share the burden for pretty much the entire match, whereas once upon a time it would be that the heel would do most of the heavy lifting and remain in control for the majority of the match with the babyface having a couple of comebacks and being cut off, before ultimately firing up for the win, hence Hogan's point and invulnerability sections, and Cena's five moves of doom. When they came you knew what it meant and what was going to happen next. In the current product there is much more of an element of surprise and false finishes to try to keep people on their toes and suspend the element of disbelief, people will win a lot more with other moves and roll ups then they ever did, even after hitting counter pining combos on each other, one may end up with a 3 count, that kind of thing never happened before. I think it's why matches like Hogan v Warrior were a bit off back in the day as noone was playing the heel role, and having the majority of the offence, back then this felt very different. Even back at WM18 Hogan knew that the match with Rock was not going to work unless that role was very clearly defined so they called the audible and it turned into a pure pantomime match which is exactly what it needed. I also think it's why a lot of people don't like LA Knight (but I may be wrong), because he tries to work in that style against people who work in a very different way and it's very jarring. I am not saying either is right or wrong, both are perfectly valid and have their fans, but I def think we are in a very different time where (for a lot of the midcard especially), no one particularly wrestles as a heel or face once the bell rings, and Cena def does.