WWE TLC 2019

[HarmonicGenerator]

12 minutes ago, Grecian said:

Something that occurred to me during the New Day / Revival match:

What would happen if one member of the opposing teams grabbed a belt each - say, Big E and Dawson were on top of the ladder and each grabbed a belt? Would the match be declared a draw, restarted, Dawson and Big E made tag champs as unwilling partners? Has this ever been done?

It looked like the thing you were meant to grab was the big gold clothes hanger which had both belts on rather than the belts themselves - maybe to avoid that very possibility!

[The Dart]

53 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

 

* The visual of Murphy & Black sitting staring at eachother was great. But at the back of my mind all I could think was “they’re going to make them a Tag Team arn’t they?”

 

The Black Buddies ?

[Mr Butternut Squash]

It's a shame Roman doesn't have it in him to play the "that doesn't work for me, Brother" card, because they're dragging him right back to square one with this shit. Hero to zero. Billy No Mates, what a loser. And wow, we're still doing this Baron Corbin thing? He's so bad that even I've given up on Smackdown. It's Vince at his most mental. The fact that he see's main event money in him is bad enough, but then he repeatedly chops his balls off, humiliates him and sandbags him with the goofiest shit imaginable. And yet, he's pushed as the most credible heel in the company. It's mind-numbing.

On the plus side, Black vs Buddy was incredible and New Day vs Revival was great fun. Fucking stooopid, but great fun. And it was a nice little showcase for Kofi, who needed a scrap of something badly. Funhouse Bray Wyatt was cool to see too, nice way to avoid overexposing the Fiend. The match didn't work at all though and I still don't see this act having legs to it.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Mr Butternut Squash

[tiger_rick]

I'm devastated by how little I care about Roman. I've loved the guy since I set eyes on him. He's got an incredible look. He's handsome as fuck, he's built like a brick shit house and he's got a million dollar stare. He's uber talented. His work is great. He can work with anyone and it's good. He can talk even if he no John Cena or any of the other GOAT talkers. He's the coolest motherfuck on the planet too. And, as @Supremo is pained to point out regularly, the guy fucking survived cancer (again) and came back and gave us the feel good moment of our lifetimes.

And he's a nobody. He means less than a lump of shit to anyone. He has no good programs on the horizon. No dream matches. No runs with anything that matter. they've dropped the ball to such an extent that he could turn heel tomorrow - once a wet dream situation - and it wouldn't matter. There's no hope.

I hat feeling like that. He should be so special. Instead he's out there every week trying to carry this shit and meaning less and less. It's not even Corbin's doing. It was the same pre-Mania.

[Supremo]

Spot on.

That’s the real tragedy of Roman Reigns. Ignoring the dickheads online that don’t have a fucking clue, he is the guy. He does have it all. He should be pushed to the moon. They’re right to see him as the golden goose.

And yet this is the best they can do. Endlessly saying, “big dog,” and having him punch a cushion during his entrance. Christ. It’d never happen in a billion years, but if there was ever a guy who’d excel outside of WWE’s system, it’s Roman Reigns. Guy is the coolest, handsomest man in the business and a great talent in the ring. If I was making my own company he’d be the first guy I’d want.

I bet there are people in that company saying with a straight face that this year’s Wrestlemania will be his real coronation. Rinse and repeat every year until the end of time. He’ll pin The Fiend, unmask him, lift the belt to fireworks and then nothing will change. He’ll still be a fucking no-one forever.

I wish so much that Moxley would shoot him a text or something. 

[ColinBollocks]

They should have turned him heel a few years ago. It was the most obvious remedy to cure the situation they created. Instead Vince was stubborn and they've done nothing but harm since. All those Wrestlemania's, all that time protecting Brock, all the wrestlers they hindered because Roman was to be the man (and only him), and here they are.

Roman will be the example used for the rest of time for how creatively spent and out of touch Vince McMahon was towards the end.

[LaGoosh]

And people just don't talk enough about him as a wrestler. Outside of maybe Daniel Bryan he's been the best in ring performer they've got by some margin for ages. Far surpassed Rollins for sure. He's had countless excellent world class matches but we forget most of them because the booking has been so dire.

[BomberPat]

21 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

And people just don't talk enough about him as a wrestler. Outside of maybe Daniel Bryan he's been the best in ring performer they've got by some margin for ages. Far surpassed Rollins for sure. He's had countless excellent world class matches but we forget most of them because the booking has been so dire.

There was a match with AJ Styles early in AJ's run that was absolutely incredible. The crowd were chanting "you can't wrestle" at Reigns, he hits a gorgeous sit-out Razor's Edge, and they start chanting "we still don't like you".

That felt like a pretty significant moment for me, that even when their criticisms are being disproved right in front of their eyes, a significant portion of the fanbase were still going to say "Nope, not him".

They should have capitalised on the heat from beating Undertaker to turn him heel, but it's not like WWE's track record for booking heels is any better than for booking babyfaces. He'd be doing comedy skits and hiding behind Triple H within a month.

They really fucked up when trying to capitulate to both sides. For a top guy, Roman Reigns was losing all the time. It seemed like they wanted to silence the fans saying that he won too much by having him lose more often - in 2017 he lost to Kevin Owens at Royal Rumble, and followed up beating the Undertaker at Wrestlemania by losing his next three PPV matches, and not winning on PPV again until his match with John Cena, following a programme where Cena routinely belittled him. The biggest win of his career, and it may as well have never happened. So he never felt as special as he should, and it never did enough to shut up the fans who felt he was over-pushed.

 

Aside from making him the world's biggest babyface when coming back from cancer, which is still mad that they've not managed to do, the opportunity to make him the star they wanted should have been the Triple H match at Wrestlemania. The build should have focused on making people hate Triple H more than on trying to convince people to like Roman, and the match should have been Roman destroying him in short order. But instead it was another interminably long Triple H Wrestlemania match that helped no one.

[Supremo]

It’s fun to think that for as much as Triple H is now considered the greatest thing to ever happen to WWE, and the undisputed hero and leader of the IWC, it was only a few short years ago that he was sabotaging guys like Roman and Seth in the build up to their respective Wrestlemania matches.

Two guys hand-picked to carry the company for the foreseeable further and instead of playing a proper heel and setting them up as all-conquering heroes Hunter is out there in his denim and leather, throwing crowd-popping crotch chops and making them look like inferior dickheads. Both guys, it didn’t matter by the time they got the three count at Mania. They were already confirmed chumps. 

I know it wasn’t the root cause for either of their downfalls, but I wonder if Hunter looks at what a mess both of them became and thinks maybe he could’ve done better. Let’s not forget, the Seth Rollins who’s had no choice but to turn back heel recently only became a babyface to begin with because Triple H made all his heel mates abandon him. What a piece of story-telling. Seth never stood a chance.

Funny that the first time Triple H was willing to play straight heel and show enough arse to make someone a proper star was for Ronda Rousey, who fucked off after a year anyway.

 

[BomberPat]

45 minutes ago, Supremo said:

Funny that the first time Triple H was willing to play straight heel and show enough arse to make someone a proper star was for Ronda Rousey, who fucked off after a year anyway.

I'd slightly disagree with that - he bumped his arse off for Daniel Bryan, sold for a baseball slide from Brie Bella, and basically channelled his inner Ric Flair for that match (and parts of that feud) by recognising that his role was to bump for the hero, not to be the cool bad-ass legend. It's frustrating because he's really fucking good at it, too. That's what Reigns needed.

[Supremo]

I’d forgotten that the Daniel Bryan match came before the Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns matches! Speaks volumes for how everything post-2008-ish all merges together. Even more infuriating that he proved how well he could do it only to seemingly bin everything off in favour of getting cheers a few years later. If you didn’t know better you’d think he didn’t want Roman and Seth to succeed. 

And that’s without even mentioning that mad Survivor Series match from a few years ago, filled with all of Triple H’s NXT workrate faves, only for each and every one of them to be smashed up in favour of Shane McMahon, Hunter and Kurt Angle standing tall at the end. Absolutely bonkers.