The Smackers Thread

[Winston]

Debut for Gunther and one half of Imperium as Ludvig Kaiser. Hope they've got plans for Fabian Aichner as he's too talented to do nothing.

Good to see Madcap Moss break away from Corbin too, he could do well around IC level.

 

[Supremo]

How long has Gunther been skinny?! He looks rubbish now! Like Captain America before he has the Super Serum! Arguably NXT 2.0’s greatest crime, making Walter get into shape.

[TildeGuy~!]

17 minutes ago, Winston said:

Hope they've got plans for Fabian Aichner as he's too talented to do nothing.

He walked out on Kaizer during a tag match on NXT this week, probably end up with a repackage and singles push on NXT

[Fatty Facesitter]

Better than Raw earlier this week - actually quite a few good things to come from the show I thought, with a couple of exceptions - 

Rousey/Flair is a decent headliner for Wrestlemania Backlash. Ronda’s promos are proper eye-rollers, but the match itself should be decent. With the men’s world title picture not being any clearer, I’m fine with this featuring a bit more prominently and even main eventing Backlash. There’s the prospect of a title change and for lots of carnage with the I Quit stipulation once confirmed. 

Butch. Now then - I miss the Bruiserweight as much as the next person but fair play to Dunne here - he’s putting an absolute shit ton of energy into this to try and make it work. Apart from the nonsense promo exchange at the beginning, this was a great showcase for him - he essentially worked like the bruiserweight of old with the joint manipulation and the physicality element, which is encouraging. The finish then saw him inject more personality afterwards as his partners tried to control him. I think it’s great - there’s a touch of old school Sabu about it in terms of this totally unhinged fighter just longing for scraps and being difficult to contain. The new name is shit but he’s busting his bollocks to make it work, so fair play. 

I thought the Gunther showcase was excellent. Crowd were totally buying it. I even like the pimped up red gear. Quite happy for them to book him like this each week, killing scrubbers and building up his aura to a new audience, before you eventually let him loose on higher profile opponents and build from there. McAfee and Cole did a great job hyping him up on commentary, and the physicality speaks for itself. The Ludwig Kaiser name change screams “We need to make him sound more German!” 

Racquel Rodriguez. Another good call up and I’m actually fine with this new name as well - who doesn’t love a bit of alliteration? This will sound like a daft comment, but it’s the sort of name you could easily see in lights for a big time superstar or ahead of a big match. Lots of potential with her - hope the call up works out. 

Lacey Evans - Thought the promo was fantastic. I’d read a bit more about her backstory earlier in the day as rumours of her  return gathered pace, so to see them actually present it here - and to allow her to deliver it in a really natural way - I think worked really nicely. The live audience seemed to respond well too. They might just have stumbled across a great babyface act in waiting. 

The Bloodline bollocks. Absolute wank - the Raw promo was an excuse to promote Smackdown, all so he can say the Usos are going after the other set of tag titles. Also, pretty sure Roman fucked the numbers game and had to rescue it talking about the number of titles etc. Not having Brock around to terrorise him has turned Roman into Triple H of 2002-04 - rambling promos saying nothing, leading to nothing. All very odd. 

Apart from the above, and the waste of time McIntyre/Zayn match, I actually quite enjoyed Smackers this week. Lots of interesting developments, decent matches and interesting things to look forward to off the back of it. 
 

[WyattSheepMask]

34 minutes ago, Supremo said:

How long has Gunther been skinny?! He looks rubbish now! Like Captain America before he has the Super Serum! Arguably NXT 2.0’s greatest crime, making Walter get into shape.

He was getting into shape last year when he dropped the UK belt to Dragonov, but he still had a bit of meat on him. The last 6 months or so, pretty much since he left his wife and moved to the states, he’s lost a lot more.

Obviously it’s great for his all-round health, but he’s certainly lost his aura.

Edited April 9, 2022 by WyattSheepMask

[Duke]

Hate what they've done with WALTER. The new music is a massive downgrade, calling him Gunther and Bartel Ludwig Kaiser is proper 80s. May as well just call him Adolf Sauerkraut. Horrendous. I even hate the ring gear. WALTER was always about tradition and the understated black was part of that. NXT WALTER would consider bright red too flashy. And it doesn't make him look more German, it makes him look Russian. They'll make him dye his hair blond next.

Good to see the next challenger (coming off a loss) has already been punked out 

[Statto]

I'd been expecting a name change since I'd read Imperium were likely to come up as a tag team, but I was expecting Marcel to lose his surname to match Gunther.

Marcel & Gunther would then be repackaged as "Fringe F.R.I.E.N.D.S" in in about 6 months when Vince's pop culture awareness reaches the late 90s.

[Nick James]

The outrage for name changes genuinely makes me roll, Vince must piss himself laughing with each one. How anyone can say Marcel Barthel is a name that shouldn't have been changed is clearly just pissed off at the change to 'stick it to the man'. Walter was a shit name, Marcel Barthel was a shit name, the only one I agree with is Pete Dunne, but you can't really just one name someone called Pete.

Maybe it's because I do not see the hype for Gunther at all, ever since he came in so I couldn't give two shits what they call him.

I'm surprised more aren't angry about Gonzalez' name change, just because. 

Anyways, Kaiser is a handsome chap, isn't he? Shame for Aichner, but he is quite a short fellow so can see why Vince probably took one look at him stood next to Kaiser and Gunther and thought 'get rid of the short stack'.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Nick James

[Vamp]

7 hours ago, Duke said:

 May as well just call him Adolf Sauerkraut. 

Now that's a wrestling name. 

Wrestling names are proper shite these days. Not just in the WWE but the ones the guys use themselves. Laugh at Butch all you want but Pete Dunne is a shite wrestling name. He didn't even call his finisher the "Dunne In." 

Pretty obvious why they've gone for Gunther too. It's harsher sounding. Walter is a very soft sound, even if you capitalise it. 

I'd get if they were good names to begin with, but they're not. If WWE let then wrestle with those names it'd just show how little of a shit they give. Some people would have told Savage, Warrior and Dusty to use their real names. 

[Duke]

23 minutes ago, Vamp said:

Pretty obvious why they've gone for Gunther too. It's harsher sounding. Walter is a very soft sound, even if you capitalise it.

Strongly disagree. The emphasised V, the strength of the T vs the softer "th" and the Gu which should really have an umlaut on it. Walter is much stronger, and a lot more fun to say. They've changed it because Walter is actually his name. 

[Fatty Facesitter]

Enjoyed Smackers this week. Orton looks like he's having the time of his life with this RKBro/Usos business. 

There wasn't a bad match on the show this week. Naomi/Ripley was surprisingly really good, Moss looked the part against Umberto, Ricochet got a decent showcase, and the main event picked up from where they left off the coked up opening promos. Even Drew/Sami had more going on than their first match last week. Not a fan of using matches as a plot device to build up to inevitable rematches so quickly, but it was still done better than last week. 

EDIT - Forgot to mention the second Lacey Evans promo as well. This is brilliant work - the delivery is extremely natural and it plays off of her real-life backstory. Lots of potential with this new 'gimmick' if you can call it that. 

Edited April 16, 2022 by Fatty Facesitter

[d-d-d-dAz]

Orton does this.

He drops down the card a little bit, the office lose a bit of interest and don’t restrict him so much and so he has the time of his life.

They then realise how great he can be so give him a nudge up the card, only then they care what he does so they script and stage-manage the life out of him.

I like Orton. I’m hoping he gets a Brock type run where he can be on top, but also just have fun with it - no silly darkness/voices in his head, just star jumps and purple-faced promos.

[Tsurutagun]

8 hours ago, Fatty Facesitter said:

 

EDIT - Forgot to mention the second Lacey Evans promo as well. This is brilliant work - the delivery is extremely natural and it plays off of her real-life backstory. Lots of potential with this new 'gimmick' if you can call it that. 

It's insane that it took them three years to realise that this is the way they should go with Lacey. Yet she was dressing up like a bit character in a Cary Grant movie.

[Sheffbag]

On 4/9/2022 at 11:10 AM, Duke said:

Hate what they've done with WALTER. The new music is a massive downgrade, calling him Gunther and Bartel Ludwig Kaiser is proper 80s. May as well just call him Adolf Sauerkraut. Horrendous. I even hate the ring gear. WALTER was always about tradition and the understated black was part of that. NXT WALTER would consider bright red too flashy. And it doesn't make him look more German, it makes him look Russian. They'll make him dye his hair blond next.

Good to see the next challenger (coming off a loss) has already been punked out 

i went off to see if there was an Adolf Sauerkraut anywhere and this popped up. 

[Supremo]

Second week in a row they referred to Butch as a, “rabid wolverine,” on commentary. That’ll teach those who originally moaned about him being called, “Butch.” Think that’s bad? Wait for until we name him after a child murderer!

What a weird company.