Ideas You Never Want To See In Wrestling Again

[A Screen Up]

Putting Taz behind the WWE announce desk. I've just been watching some clips from 2005 and, by fuck, he was awful.

[ThePhenom]

Putting Taz behind the WWE announce desk. I've just been watching some clips from 2005 and, by fuck, he was awful.

He seems to be even worse in TNA, the commentary is one of the things that often puts me off of staying on Impact when flicking through it. They need to bring back the heel 2009 Don West, and just get rid of Tazz.

[Cobra1000]

Putting Taz behind the WWE announce desk. I've just been watching some clips from 2005 and, by fuck, he was awful.

He seems to be even worse in TNA, the commentary is one of the things that often puts me off of staying on Impact when flicking through it. They need to bring back the heel 2009 Don West, and just get rid of Tazz.

 

totally agree. Used to love the Professor in WCW. Now him and Tazz stink it up on a weekly basis. They never let anything speak for itself. I imagine if they commentated on Raw they'd talk all through that HHH/ Undetaker confrontation.

[ShortOrderCook]

I liked those, I thought they were good fun, I'd happily see one again some where down the line

I didn't think it made much sense, and the way that they gave the winner of a certain pin fall the "current champion" graphic but then end up not being ever counted as a champion annoys me.

 

It annoys me how people (and so many of them) are annoyed by this. I agree they messed it up a bit by anyone being able to be pinned, i think it works a lot better having to pin the 'current champion'. I did enjoy the Scramble matches and the general concept and would happily see them pop up again every so often.

[Richie Freebird]

Evening gown matches.

 

Gay.

 

men competing in evening gown matches.

 

Sorry, my mistake.

[fye]

Natalya farting

[Doomsday Device]

The idea of Jack Swagger

[King Pitcos]

Beat the Clock Challenges: I used to hate these because they would have 4/5 guys and you knew they were all going to win because they put them against absolute jobbers. They'd also never acknowledge what COULD happen if the non-entrant won.

The hook of those matches isn't whether they win, it's whether they win faster than the other guys.

 

Elimination Chamber is a good one because it shows that you need some serious balls right before Wrestlemania. But it's kind of ruined by having another one the very same night. Now, of course, I'd prefer it if they did away with Gimmick PPVs entirely and only used these match types when a feud ALREADY CALLS FOR IT.

There are very few feuds that ALREADY CALL FOR an Elimination Chamber match.

 

It annoys me how people (and so many of them) are annoyed by this. I agree they messed it up a bit by anyone being able to be pinned, i think it works a lot better having to pin the 'current champion'.

It doesn't. The champion having to keep an eye on any other falls always works better.

[NEWM]

Blimey, Tazz has had both sides of it on the commentary front then hasn't he? I could have sworn from roughly 02-06 (or whenever it was they started fucking about with the commentators a bit more), he was generally considered the best colour commentator in the biz. West was despised then, Lawler has been an abortion since about 2000, and nobody else was coming close in their odd attempts. Even up until he left WWE, most people considered him the top guy in the field. I remember when him and JR were the regular pair on Smackdown, people were all about how finally they had been paired up together.

 

Fucking off to TNA must have really exposed him, or he's just completely given up. He is fucking atrocious there though. I'm not the biggest Tenay fan, but I always thought the him and West team was greater than the sum of its parts.

 

Back on topic, I would like to see the end of Eve's involvement in pretty much anything. As for specific concepts, I'm also not big on the gimmick PPVs. I miss the days when being a big nerd, it was easy to recall say, every Elimination Chamber or Hell in a Cell (making sure not to forget the Raw 98 matches, in the case of the latter). As I get older and the conflicts (and matches) become way less heated, I can't remember them.

 

The Chamber specifically gets on my tits, because I find it an over-obtrusive buffer between the Rumble and Mania, often undermining the Rumble match and/or the winner. And Pity, I actually disagree with you that a chamber can't be booked towards. Before the February PPVs started having them every year, each chamber match was obviously telegraphed to an extent, but done so in a way where the gimmick made sense. The first one had Bischoff keen to impress everybody and steal the show at the Survivor Series by "creating" a money match with all of Raw's top guys. 2003's was designed around Triple H's death grip on the title being compromised, particularly with the inclusions of Goldberg and Randy Orton as the human roadblock for Goldberg. And 05 was there to blow everybody in Puerto Rico away with a big Main Event for the vacant World Title. 06 was the start of the "qualify to be in this big match we've just decided to have for the fun of it", though if I could be arsed to check, it could be down to Bischoff's last ditch attempt to keep his job, if I've got the timeline right. And that had the greater purpose of Edge's cash-in.

 

Contradicting myself a bit, I could tolerate the Scramble concept getting further airings, especially for a show between Backlash-Summerslam, where the angles tend to have gotten the most stagnant. Fully agreed that 3 was too many at Unforgiven that year, but I could easily see both Titles defended that way. They're easy to book in principle. Faces and heels can revert to type for easy drama (heels cheating and pinching pins, faces having hard-fought long stint in the match), and you can experiment with mid-carders in what appears to be a "Main Event" match to get a free glimpse of how they would hang about with the big boys. Triple H and Jeff Hardy with the little'uns in the Smackdown Scramble was a terrific example of this.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I dont think he's been exposed. I just think he doesnt care for what he's commentating on. Most of Impact and PPV he's either laughing or pointing out logic flaws. Tenay's like a bullied lad who finally has someone in the class who'll stick up for him, because when Tazz says something to rip the piss out of a storyline on Impact, Tenay laughs his tits off. The commentary team doesn't believe in the product. There's been a huge change in Tenay since he was taken off the booking committee. Tenay was considered really good in 2004/05. And Tazz is there for shits and giggles. I dont think Tazz understands whats going on have the time, and doesnt care to learn enough to explain it to the viewer. He'd rather just laugh at it. A bit like Lawler has been the last few years.

 

But Tazz and Michael Cole were brilliant together. They seemed to really like each other as well, and there was a sense of fun when they were together. Like a less funny version of Heenan and Monsoon. Cole was awesome on Smackdown. People forget that Cole had a good couple of years. Cole and JBL were great as well.

[Surf Digby]

Taz would have been under the scrutiny of Vince when in WWE, so would have had prompts to stop him running out of things to say, what to emphasis, what not to emphasise. Left to his own devices, he just isn't the man for the job.

[ColinBollocks]

Taz would have been under the scrutiny of Vince when in WWE, so would have had prompts to stop him running out of things to say, what to emphasis, what not to emphasise. Left to his own devices, he just isn't the man for the job.

He's still given direction in TNA though. The reason Taz and Tenay talk over everything is because they're told too. Ian summed it up; Taz is good when he's arsed (and he was doing good at the very start of his TNA career) but he's clearly there to pick up a wage now.

[zylya]

The hook of those matches isn't whether they win, it's whether they win faster than the other guys.

 

I get what they're trying to do, and I'm saying it doesn't work for me. For a start, everyone's against someone else so it's not a good race. It'd be like having a sprint where everyone has to run a different distance.

 

There are very few feuds that ALREADY CALL FOR an Elimination Chamber match.

 

That's exactly my point. The fact there are very few feuds that call for an Elimination Chamber match is a good thing because it means that they're kept special.

[King Pitcos]

And Pity, I actually disagree with you that a chamber can't be booked towards. Before the February PPVs started having them every year, each chamber match was obviously telegraphed to an extent, but done so in a way where the gimmick made sense. The first one had Bischoff keen to impress everybody and steal the show at the Survivor Series by "creating" a money match with all of Raw's top guys. 2003's was designed around Triple H's death grip on the title being compromised, particularly with the inclusions of Goldberg and Randy Orton as the human roadblock for Goldberg. And 05 was there to blow everybody in Puerto Rico away with a big Main Event for the vacant World Title. 06 was the start of the "qualify to be in this big match we've just decided to have for the fun of it", though if I could be arsed to check, it could be down to Bischoff's last ditch attempt to keep his job, if I've got the timeline right. And that had the greater purpose of Edge's cash-in.

A lot of those are just as spurious as the "go through hell on the road to WrestleMania" premise for them now, though. Besides, look at Royal Rumble and King of the Ring. People are always demanding the return of the latter and would strop like mad if WWE scrapped the former. And rightly so. And those two events were never necessitated by storylines, they were always just created from on high.

 

Still, they should be able to book properly to a gimmick match, particularly the one on ones. It's a tricky thing though, now. Because we see the advertising stuff months in advance, it's hard for them to ever make it look organic. The biggest example of that isn't even a gimmick match, it was the Survivor Series main event. Because they'd been advertising that match for months, it made the "I choose... The Rock! Will he accept?" cliffhanger look absolutely absurd. I prefer the "you're having a TLC match because it's TLC" system if that Survivor Series mess is the alternative. There's probably some middle ground in there somewhere, like.

 

Anyway, within the context of a wrestling storyline, a GM planning the calendar with an eye to treating the fans and trying to sell pay-per-views with the popular gimmick bouts makes sense. As long as the match sells itself, and I think a lot of them have lost that appeal now anyway. Exactly the same as yourself, the earlier Cell matches were unforgettable and lately they're not at all. I have no recollection of the Cena vs Orton one (though I do remember them fighting on top of the cell on the Raw before the event). My memories of their matches in 2009 are the kendo stick battering in an I Quit match, and an attempted pyro-murder in the Iron Man match. This is sort of continuing on from a similar discussion in another thread, but I've only just realised that Rock and Mankind in 1998-99 fought at the September, November, December, January and February pay-per-views. And yet it never felt old and I still vividly recall it more than I do the Cena-Orton feud that happened ten years more recently. I don't know what my point is, I'm tired now. Something about how they have fucked the prestige of gimmick matches, but not necessarily the Elimination Chamber because that one's pretty perfectly placed as is.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Its like when people say "bring back War Games", forgetting that after 1992, War Games was mostly rotten. 1995 and 1998 were especially piss poor. People want things to return as they were, not how they would be if you actually brought them back. It'll be the same with the Elimination Chamber. Once that dies a death and everyone demands it goes, people will want it back. People clammer for the oddest things.