I Don't Get It

[FUM]

Not so much a wrestler but something fans do - reading spoilers. It's absolutely nuts, of course the show won't be as good if you know what's going to happen.

[Undefeated Steak]

Not so much a wrestler but something fans do - reading spoilers. It's absolutely nuts, of course the show won't be as good if you know what's going to happen.

 

I agree with this.

 

Also, I don't get why people who hate the WWE product continue to watch it. "I haven't enjoyed a single episode of Raw for the past 6 years. I know they're all shit because I haven't missed any." More fool you. There's plenty of other things out there to keep you entertained.

[Michael_3165]

I agree with Chris Jericho. He has had some amazing matches but barring the 'pineapple fuzz' stage in 2000 he has largely come off as a mid card player who gets put into main event matches. Saying that I thought his matches with Shawn Michaels were class, but then again who does Michaels have a bad match with?

He just comes off as 'short stumpy bloke' nowadays. The whole suit wearing Jericho was completely off the mark for me.

 

I am probably in a majority when I say this but Randy Orton. Good lord he bores me to tears. I don't buy into his gimmick, I don't buy into him being a main evener and I don't buy into the idea that he is a good worker. For me he makes me beyond apathetic. I look and think 'why should I care?'

 

Jeff Hardy is another that I don't quite understand. Why do people cheer for him when he often isn't interested and his matches are, at best, a series of spots. I think his mini series against Matt Hardy in 2000 (?) showed just how little talent he has. Sure he can throw himself around but it doesn't make you a good wrestler. How he got the World Title I have no idea (other than teenage girls going crazy over him). When you put Hogan, Rock, Austin, HBK, HHH and Bret Hart together the one person you wouldn't put in that list is Jeff Hardy.

 

Chris Benoit... again a solid wrestler and someone who you could say was one of the 'greats' when it came to pure wrestling ability but he was never up there as being someone I would go out of my way to see. His matches, however, were wonderful at times and he always has at least a few matches in my 'Top 20' list of great matches. That being said, other than his 2000 'Ruthless Aggression' stage, he was largely a dull super worker to me.

[air_raid]

I don't think I have any true examples of things I "don't get" that everyone else loves. It took a while to get why still-slow and lumbering Mark Henry was suddenly good and not shit, probably because he'd done some great work on SmackDown which I haven't regularly watched for years, but I finally came around in last year's Elimination Chamber when he exploded into life, every bit a scary monster from a horror film coming to feast on the flesh of Orton, Jericho and Swagger.

 

Since Vamp also asked for "answers" I'm going to bat for The Miz.

 

This goes back, I suppose, to character vs "wrestling ability" and the old adage of getting the people to make noise makes you a good worker. I started getting into Miz not during the first Cena feud of 2009 but later in the year when I realized I was developing genuine desire to see someone knock his block off. The vocal crowd reactions (of hate) to him as first United States champion and for a while Tag Team Champion as well made me think there was something special there ; the crowd didn't pop for the Hart Blandasty winning the tag belts because they were massively into Dullard Hart Smith and Tyzzzzzzon Kidd, but because they hated The Miz and were overjoyed that he had gotten beat. His campaign of belittlement against "NXT rookie" Daniel Bryan made me (and everyone else) hate him even more, and it wasn't the channel-changing effect for me, it was "this guy's a prick, I'm going to watch what he does." In the arenas it wasn't the dull groan of "Christ, this guy, I'm going for a piss and/or hot dog," it was rabid booing and wanting to see him get twatted.

 

By the time Money In The Bank came round for The Miz, I was convinced he was ready. Adding Alex Riley to the package was a masterstroke, and I thought the Miz/belt/briefcase/lackey presentation was great. Cena/Orton wasn't on the cards for the dozenth time as both were faces, Punk was treading water, Sheamus was being given a lucky escapes Honky Tonk reign, and Miz was the hottest heel they had in my eyes. Losing the United States title eventually was logical and again, I need to point out that though the live crowd in that match weren't that arsed when Daniel Bryan made his entrance for the match, they popped big for him winning, and I think that was far more to do with Miz losing. Miz still seemed ready for me and he lost nothing by dropping that belt to Bryan because he was on to bigger and better.

 

When he won the WWE title, I genuinely believed in him as a lightening rod for hate and since I was convinced that we were getting Cena/Punk at WrestleMania, I was sure that the hatred for The Miz would garner much support for his logical challenger, Randy Orton, assuming they'd be kept apart for a bit after the turn of the year. The highlight of Miz on top for me, which I've talked about before, is the Slammys. When his music hit to interrupt "Angry Miz Girl" meekly attempting a speech in front of thousands, the place turns into a seething cauldron of hate... with just the tiniest hint of "pop" underneath, which is always the reaction that sends a shiver down my spine, when you hear the massive majority really giving the bad guy the boos he deserves but there's also that smarky undercurrent of "I love this guy because he's so good at being an arsehole" which in truth is how I felt about him, even though live in a venue I'd never cheer for a guy working hard to get booed, out of respect.

 

In short, it's easy to see why the wheels came off for Miz, as he was pathetically lucky to retain on two PPVs against Orton, doing so by fortune rather than "cheating bastard" cunning, and then the build-up for WrestleMania being about Rock VS Cena with him basically getting in the way. But I always look back at the Miz on top and think 1) superb heat at the Slammys, 2) quite fun defence against John Morrison on the 4th Jan Raw that made Morrison look a bigger threat than he had any right to look, 3) awesome production for his arrival at Mania that made him look the star that I perceived him to be at the time.... sadly followed by a match that Atlanta didn't give a shit about, because the build-up hadn't given them a reason to give a shit.

 

There you go, The Miz. For a while, he was my absolute favourite twat in wrestling. I don't expect anyone to agree, but maybe you might understand.

 

Not a wrestler, but a move; that convoluted short arm clothesline from some guy in Japan that was causing such a commotion a year or two ago. I checked out what the fuss was all about, even watched a short compilation of it. Anyways, turned out the answer was 'not very much'. It was shit.

 

The thing about the Rainmaker is that it's been protected. If he hits it, it's over. It's lethal. The show's the thing, so because it's lethal, there is real drama in the exchanges where he might hit it or the opponent's doing reversals to escape it. So the crowd make noise, so the match has excitement. I was out of my seat when he nailed Tana with it at last year's Invasion Attack, it was the highlight of WrestleMania day for me. In terms of the mechanics, I have no issue with him pushing his opponent off to yank them back in ; it's about the only way I'd buy a guy of Okada's size beating all these guys with a short clothesline, it's not like he's got 24-inch pythons.

 

That said, I think I know the waltzing sequence you refer to, and it did look a bit crap. A few over-exaggerated steps from both parties that were trying too hard to project to the audience what move they were meant to be going for. Shit happens. It's still big blokes doing ballet when we break it down, not everything's going to look great.

 

Also, I don't get why people who hate the WWE product continue to watch it. "I haven't enjoyed a single episode of Raw for the past 6 years. I know they're all shit because I haven't missed any." More fool you. There's plenty of other things out there to keep you entertained.

 

There's an even worse breed on my networks - people that consistently slam the product despite not even watching it. "Just read what happened on Raw, looks really boring, don't see why anyone would watch the PPV." - that's because you haven't been watching the TV for years and don't know who anybody is. Why bother commenting on something you don't watch??

 

"I've got no reason to watch the PPV."

- The Shield vs Evolution should be good, again.

"I'm not interested."

- Did you get round to watching the first one when I told you it was really good?

"No."

 

Then no fucking wonder you're not interested! Go back to watching Shimmer, Shine and Chikara and telling all your followers how much better they are than WWE, which you don't actually watch.

[Undefeated Steak]

Great post air_raid. Reading through that makes me think I'm remembering Miz's ascension more negatively than I should. Kind of the opposite of rose tinted glasses.

[C-Rock]

I would go for Hogan also, for me he was a guy who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Vince McMahon force fed the fans Hulkamania and it took off big time as we all know but I truly believe that he could have done the same thing with somebody else if necessary. Hogan came along he was big, young, handsome at a time when the business still had a lot of old timers knocking around, especially in the WWE. Neither Vince nor Hogan knew the impact, Hulkamania would have and like I say at that time the business was changing, old timers were moving off and a new breed of young fresh talent came along and Hogan just happened to be the bigger more impressive looking, he certainly wasn't the best wrestler and Vince took a gamble and it paid off. Fair enough it was Hogan who got the whole thing over but it wasn't really the hard to do when it was being force fed to fans and they had no real alternative face to get behind.

 

Same thing with John Cena, he is the most over-rated wrestler ever. He's a flash in the pan and the fans are now getting bored of him and want someone new to get behind and they have with Daniel Bryan. If John Cena were to leave WWE tomorrow, he wouldn't be missed, certainly not by me. His wrestling skills are embarrassing, he has no depth to his character and is being over shadowed by better wrestlers that WWE have brought in over the past few years. WWE have offered the fans a better alternative to John Cena by bringing in the likes of CM Punk, Daniel Bryan and the Shield, for years prior the these wrestlers coming in to WWE the fans were offered no real alternative and now that there's plenty of wrestlers to get behind....hopefully with this insurgence of actual talented wrestlers, Cena can now slowly fade away and over time from the minds and memories of wrestling fans over the age of 16.

[Devon Malcolm]

Same thing with John Cena, he is the most over-rated wrestler ever. He's a flash in the pan

 

You don't know what 'flash in the pan' means, do you?

[IANdrewDiceClay]

C-Rock, thats just typically farting in the wind from you, love. Hogan was already a big star before 1984. He wasn't "in the right place at the right time". He was pushed almost from the moment he had his first match. Like a Brock Lesnar. He was a monster who everyone saw as a cash cow years before and his ability to self promote put the other regional stars to shame. He was getting shoved to the moon as early as 1980. All this shite that he turned up and suddenly got the marketing machine put on him is so false its shocking. He got over it every territory he worked in from a heel bodyslamming Andre through tables in New York to making $20,000 a week in Japan to outdoing everyone in Minneapolis. The WWF were in the right place to be there when they were getting ready to grow to have a guy who had previous been on Johnny Carson and Rocky III and was already the biggest name in North America to be the head of their national expansion. And he wasn't even a good wrestler back then. If it was that easy to create a Hulk Hogan, why didn't Vince create 5 of them and Crockett create someone to combat him? Because they couldn't.

[Carbomb]

C-Rock, thats just typically farting in the wind from you, love. Hogan was already a big star before 1984. He wasn't "in the right place at the right time". He was pushed almost from the moment he had his first match. Like a Brock Lesnar. He was getting shoved to the moon as early as 1980. All this shite that he turned up and suddenly got the marketing machine put on him is so false its shocking. He got over it every territory he worked in from a heel bodyslamming Andre through tables in New York to making $20,000 a week in Japan to outdoing everyone in Minneapolis. The WWF were in the right place to be there when they were getting ready to grow to have a guy who had previous been on Johnny Carson and Rocky III and was already the business name in North America to be the head of their national expansion.

 

I'd actually argue that it worked the opposite to how C-Rock is saying: Hogan helped make the WWF. Sure, McMahon put all his weight behind Hogan, but I reckon there's a good chance that WWE wouldn't exist today, without Hogan - it would've been bought up by WCW.

[King Pitcos]

Same thing with John Cena, he is the most over-rated wrestler ever. He's a flash in the pan

 

You don't know what 'flash in the pan' means, do you?

You've embarrassed yourself there. C-Rock's in the biz, so he was using the insider lingo, where 'flash in the pan' means 'anything less than thirty years main-evening the biggest wrestling company' -- well, that or he's just being a moron again.

[Devon Malcolm]

People keep mentioning that C-Rock's in the business. I hope this is just a forum gag that I've somehow missed.

[Vamp]

I think he once said he's in the business and thats how he knows Cena isn't any good.

[ColinBollocks]

Touching on C-Rock's posts, something I've never got since I started watching again in 2008 is this absurd "Cena can't wrestle" thing. Fair enough if you don't like his awesome good guy character, or some of his poor comedy in between the times he's making the likes of The Rock look inferior on the mic, but I honestly have no idea what people are on about when they say he can't put on a good match. He's constantly dragging all sorts to great matches. Since I've started watching again he's been in some of the best matches I've ever watched, including the likes of the Punk series, that Lesnar match, Bryan at Summer Slam etc.

 

Where did the "Cena can't wrestle" stuff come from? Did it exist pre-WWE title run?

[freaky]

Where did the "Cena can't wrestle" stuff come from? Did it exist pre-WWE title run?

Not really. His first WWE Title reign generated the "right" reactions when he was against guys like JBL, but started going into a negative sphere when he was transferred to Raw and was wrestling guys like Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle.

[Reznor]

Touching on C-Rock's posts, something I've never got since I started watching again in 2008 is this absurd "Cena can't wrestle" thing. Fair enough if you don't like his awesome good guy character, or some of his poor comedy in between the times he's making the likes of The Rock look inferior on the mic, but I honestly have no idea what people are on about when they say he can't put on a good match. He's constantly dragging all sorts to great matches. Since I've started watching again he's been in some of the best matches I've ever watched, including the likes of the Punk series, that Lesnar match, Bryan at Summer Slam etc.

 

Where did the "Cena can't wrestle" stuff come from? Did it exist pre-WWE title run?

What they really mean is he doesn't do moves crisply. To some, that's the most important thing.

 

That one usually went hand in hand with the old 'only does 5 moves' favourite, which no one's daft enough to utter any more, thankfully