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The Official UKFF RAW Thread...


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13 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Has a Wrestler ever looked so disinterested at coming down the ramp for a match then Matt Hardy did last night? Dressed like early 00's Hardys, throwing up the V3 hand and doing the delete motion as well, but he looked almost pissed off for having to come out. I bet the 1st March cannot happen soon enough for him 

How long ago was that red hot Hardy's return at Mania? Couple of years? Had that delete gimmick, which, love it or not, was over with lots of the crowd. Now he's utterly irrelevant and they are busy destroying any worth he has ahead of him leaving. I get that his brother is the real star but still, that's some fall.

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3 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

And has potentially 2 PPVs and a Saudi Show to get through* before getting to Wrestlemania. That’s a hell of a lot to get through before the payoff. Even if Brock’s not there all the time, what do you do with Drew in the meantime?

* Not confirmed yet whether or not Saudi Show has replaced Fastlane or not

Well, not that this sets the world on fire, but they're setting up this Orton thing on the side as well, so I can see that being the time killer.

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That ladder match was cack. I nearly feel bad for saying it, because they busted their arses for it and hey, gimmick match on Raw, but it was all over the shop. Just weird pace and positioning. A lot of stuff that looked like those moments when you'd get your mate to stop fighting you on Smackdown so you could take his controller and sort of guide him to setting up an impressive looking spot (which, fair enough, is every ladder match since about 2005). I'm not sure did the botches throw off the rhythm or did the lack of rhythm to begin with precipitate them, but it was an odd one. Best part was Zelina standing up top of the ladder. She owned the screen. 

Decent show, though. Seth's so much better as a heel, and he's doing it different to the corporate run he had last time around. There's a lot of Punk's Straight Edge Society in there, and it suits him brilliantly. Can't wait until everyone starts cheering him so much that they gut him into being a bland face again and then have a shit attack when that doesn't work. 

 

Edited by Gay as FOOK
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2 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

How long ago was that red hot Hardy's return at Mania? Couple of years? Had that delete gimmick, which, love it or not, was over with lots of the crowd. Now he's utterly irrelevant and they are busy destroying any worth he has ahead of him leaving. I get that his brother is the real star but still, that's some fall.

Even past the return, The Final Deletion episode of Raw did really well, despite them not warning to go ahead. They dropped the ball with him, he was over. Allegedly the issue with his status is over creative not money. Hopefully he has made enough, or knows he can make enough elsewhere, to venture outside. Jeff's contract would be up as well, but due to the injuries and court cases, his contract still has a while left. But he can still go alone pretty well

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So strange to see the difference in career paths for Matt and Bray Wyatt. The latter being allowed to create to a point where he's become a champion. The former simply left to slowly rot away off-screen, unhappy on social media and then brought back for sporadic losses. Admittedly out of the two you can see why they'd be more invested in Bray as a future prospect, but it doesn't take much for Matt to get over with the crowds. It's a real shame to just let all his momentum die.

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At one point they were looking at doing a Network series from the Hardy Compound, and did a Halloween pilot episode. Presumably it was shelved either due to lack of interest or budget, but that probably would have been the best way of channelling Matt's creative energies in that direction.

I do wonder where he goes next, if he does end up leaving. Impact would likely give him the freedom to do whatever he likes, and have tried to emulate the Final Deletion format before, but I doubt they have the budget or the platform to support him as much as they once did. AEW is obviously talked about a lot, but honestly the last thing they need is either the TNA-like reputation for picking up WWE cast-offs, or another wrestler with creative control looking to manage their own content. ROH will probably be prepared to throw huge money at him.

I wonder if it would be at all viable for him to hook up with a smaller promotion and just run sporadic streaming/iPPV shows from the "Compound"...

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I wouldn't be against him doing another run around lots of different companies like he did before. If AEW were up for working with him on a non-exclusive basis, that could be a fun one to dip into, but you are right. They already have a lot of people to focus on and they seem to be trying to cut back on the creative control.

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I thought Raw felt a bit old school with the pyro and the scanning of signs in the crowd, of which there were a good number. Possibly been that way for a while but I'm just noticing it having been watching highlights if anything.

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7 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

I wouldn't be against him doing another run around lots of different companies like he did before. If AEW were up for working with him on a non-exclusive basis, that could be a fun one to dip into, but you are right. They already have a lot of people to focus on and they seem to be trying to cut back on the creative control.

I’d genuinely worry that AEW would either have him start a new dark faction or join the Dark Order or Nightmare Collective.

Arguably his best solo work came while working with/for Billy Corgan and Dave Lagana so I’d love to see him join the Powerrr roster. True, the Hardy compound craziness doesn’t fit well with what they’re doing there, but Matt has proven himself to be adaptable in the past and I feel fairly sure that they’d be able to come up with either a new version of that character or a completely new character that would work in the NWA setting.

I definitely think Hardy is the kind of person who would perform brilliantly in front of that audience with that style of promo and close-quarter audience interaction.

Edited by RedRooster
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Broken Hardy isn’t that odd a fit for an 80s studio wrestling homage show. It’s not a million miles away from finding Kamala in your back garden. I think he could be great fun in that context. Scott Steiner going in the lake of reincarnation!

In terms of Brock and the Rumble, surely whoever eliminates him will feud with him for the Saudi Show before Brock moves on to Mania to defend the title against the Rumble (or Elimination Chamber) winner. I could see it being Cain Velasquez eliminating Lesnar, but someone else winning the match.

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Rey and Andrade this time didn't live up to quite the high standards most of us will have set for it, however as soon as it was over I was hoping that it would still be leading to a big blow off match at a PPV, mask Vs title.

With Carillo turning up at the end it looks like they are really only using Rey as the hook to put more shine on Humberto. Which is fine usually, but Rey has been more consistently great since his comeback than anyone else on the roster. Despite his age, the WWE should be taking advantage of a Rey Mysterio that can still work rings around the majority of the roster and has developed into one of the best promo's in the company. The fact that he wears a mask and moves better than he did ten years ago should be preventing him from this 'twilight of my career, I'm not sure what I have left' storyline. 

Really though, I'm just glad we have him back. When his knees were held together by superglue in 2009, I never expected he'd still be around ten years later, never mind being better than he was at the time. I hope Rey has discovered some kind of secret to reversing the effects of age, and becomes the Benjamin Button of the wrestling world, still looking about fifteen when his wee fella Dominic is thinking about hanging them up. That may be the only thing that'll ever convince Vince he's doting and that he could do with going to bed more than once a week. 

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I largely get it. It's being stupidly misconstrued on Twitter, but basically it comes down to, what do you gain by saying, "the following match is a women's division match..."?

They don't do it for the men. Other than the Cruiserweights (which itself is ill-defined as hell), no other match is announced as taking place in a specific division. I've only once heard WWE (on an old NXT show) announce something as a match "in the men's division". All it's doing is psychologically siloing women's matches as being separate, something different.

No problem as far as I'm concerned with just saying, "the following match is scheduled for one fall, introducing first, Becky Lynch", and crediting the audience with enough intelligence to understand that a women's wrestling match is happening without having to foreground it as such.

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