Against the grain wrestling opinions

[RedTwoster]

What opinions do you have about wrestlers or wrestling that you think go against the grain? 

Here are mine - Mark Briscoe as a character is shite. His promos are all the same, and he doesn’t have that next level of substance that would justify him being anything more than a lower card act - the MJF feud pretty much confirmed that to me. He’s started to grate on me quite a bit now.

And while I’m trashing forum favourites- Willow Nightingale and Harley Cameron have also become very irritating to me. They’re both talented enough to change that quickly, so unlike Briscoe I’m not viewing them as one-trick ponies, they’re absolutely not. They’re both perfectly capable of getting back on track. 

So yeah, what are your against-the-grain opinions? Maybe you’ll strike it lucky and find lots of people agree with you?!

[LaGoosh]

Nia Jax is not as bad as everyone says she is.

Kevin Owens is a pretty dull wrestler. As a character he's great but the vast majority of his matches are forgettable, repetitive, uninteresting and surface level stuff.

The "creative hot period" of 2023-2024 that WWE had was actually crap and when people look back on it in years to come they will see that it was completely over-hyped shite.

Edited October 31, 2025 by LaGoosh

[SuperBacon]

I hate dives through the ropes. They always, ALWAYS look absolutely shit.

Ooooh you jump through the ropes and then slightly push someone. Grow up.

[Chili]

It's not gay in the slightest.

[BomberPat]

25 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

I hate dives through the ropes. They always, ALWAYS look absolutely shit.

Ooooh you jump through the ropes and then slightly push someone. Grow up.

it's because nobody does them properly. 

[The Gaffer]

- Vince Russo was an absolutely indispensable force in the WWEs tonal change and gimmick maturing of almost all their midcard acts from 1996 - 1999. The retrospective idea that he sort of just showed up to McMahon's meetings, barfed on the table, and then Vince picked the good bits seems to severely undercut his role as head writer of Raw during its biggest ever period, regardless of what you think of the shite he put out in amongst it. 

- WCW's production was at its best in 2000 during the New Blood era. The roster and booking might have been better in the earlier periods of Nitro but the toy set entrance, minimal hype packages, no backstage cuts, Mean Gene everywhere and huge banks of dead air in the arena whilst the commentators talked for ages didn't do it for me. 

- Following on from that, they should have put the belt on Vampiro. Questions from vets about his attitude and reliability seem insane when you point to what's on the whiteboard. WCW 2000. David Arquette. Nothing to lose. Fans were popping for Vampiro and he had an awesome look!

- Occasional reports about his temper flaring up aside, I legitimately buy the sincerity of HBK's evangelical run and believe he was trying to make amends and do life right. 

- Big Show's from-the-off wonky booking never annoyed me. I think it's more or less his level, that a sort of dominant Andre type handling opposing Austin for ages wouldn't have caught on, The Giant was fucking boring and - boom bias - all his best stuff is in 99 splintering from Vince, getting into scraps with Kane and Hardcore Holly and chasing after coffins. 99 is 'Default Big Show' for me, and I've never wanted anything more from him. 

- I prefer Michael Cole's commentary when he first came in. There was a clean sheet naivety and sincerity to his calls when he took over from JR in 1999 that I'd take any day over his later stuff as Vince's ventriloquist dummy and - later - the starts-organic-and-becomes-too-self-referential "No, he's awesome now!" stuff. 

 

[JLM]

59 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

I hate dives through the ropes. They always, ALWAYS look absolutely shit.

Ooooh you jump through the ropes and then slightly push someone. Grow up.

Largely agree with this. Darby Allin is the only exception for me and that’s probably because he has such little regard for his own welfare. Also he’s small enough that his full pelt mad cannonball thing through the ropes can still be caught safely by the bigger lads. He also typically rotates or hits them with his whole body rather than doing the sort of limp flying shove manoeuvre you mentioned. He does it in his style and it totally makes sense. Against a larger opponent (which is almost everyone) his X factor is his willingness to hurl himself into the challenge without fear or regard for the consequences. 

 

I also agree with @LaGoosh on Nia Jax! I only dip in sporadically these days but I think she offers something different, she brings a sense of danger and super heavyweight threat. She can also draw heel heat effectively and isn’t afraid to make a tit of herself. I grant that the sense of danger might be too real at times, but regardless, there have been rumble settings and matches against the right sympathetic babyface where she has looked every bit the part of the monster heel. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen the awful, but there have been enough times where I’ve enjoyed her way more than I expected to, to the point that I have had to raise those expectations. 
 

 

Edited October 31, 2025 by JLM

[SuperBacon]

8 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

it's because nobody does them properly. 

Yeah that looks sick as he's going so fast, but my point stands. Gets through the ropes and pushes him. 

[gmoney]

9 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

- WCW's production was at its best in 2000 during the New Blood era. The roster and booking might have been better in the earlier periods of Nitro but the toy set entrance, minimal hype packages, no backstage cuts, Mean Gene everywhere and huge banks of dead air in the arena whilst the commentators talked for ages didn't do it for me. 

 

Fair play, this one's mental. 

[LaGoosh]

The odd dive out the ring can work but nowadays they are so relentless and commonplace they just have no effect on me at all. I pretty much blank them out. Any wow factor was lost years ago. This week alone Speedball did two springboard moonsaults to the floor in the same match!

The only ones I like are Cash Wheeler's because he dives like a fucking madman who actually looks like he's trying to kill his opponent when he does them.

Back on topic:

John Cena squashing the Nexus at Summerslam was, long term, the right decision.

Edited October 31, 2025 by LaGoosh

[HarmonicGenerator]

25 minutes ago, JLM said:

Largely agree with this. Darby Allin is the only exception for me and that’s probably because he has such little regard for his own welfare. Also he’s small enough that his full pelt mad cannonball thing through the ropes can still be caught safely by the bigger lads. He also typically rotates or hits them with his whole body rather than doing the sort of limp flying shove manoeuvre you mentioned. He does it in his style and it totally makes sense. Against a larger opponent (which is almost everyone) his X factor is his willingness to hurl himself into the challenge without fear or regard for the consequences. 

I can't find a better clip of it than this, but Allin did one of my favourite dives ever on Daddy Magic back in the pandemic times:

 

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

 

Nia Jax is not as bad as everyone says she is.

 

I’m with you on this one, she’s also one of the more over heel wrestlers on the WWE roster, so she definitely has her place. 

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Kevin Owens is a pretty dull wrestler. As a character he's great but the vast majority of his matches are forgettable, repetitive, uninteresting and surface level stuff.

I’m also with you on this one, but the other way around. I feel like his character has remained much the same for the duration of his WWE run, and he’s become very, very boring. If he’s a heel you know what you’re getting and the same goes for his babyface character. As a wrestler, I think he’s very watchable, though. 

[Chili]

Cody Rhodes is extremely unlikeable. For all the good stuff he does where he gives his weightlifting belt to fans etc and I'm sure actually is an alright bloke (for a wrestler), I just find his general presentation incredibly insincere. He's absolutely everything Dusty Rhodes wasn't. Clean, corporate, not in the slightest bit rebellious etc. Just this extremely corporate bloke who looks almost amusingly Aryan. When he 'finished the story' it was wonderful nuts booking, but it wasn't like somebody like sat Sami Zayn doing it, or Hangman, or Danielson. You know where you live or die for them. I think because he's exactly what a grubby corporation would want as their champion, he puts me right off. Probably being very American in portrayal doesn't help me relate either. Cena was like that with his marine shagger periods.

And after that, I cannot stress enough that I do actually really enjoy Cody as a worker watching him (back in AEW) and everything. Just, I guess the vibes is opposite of what I'd support.

Edited October 31, 2025 by Chili

[SuperBacon]

2 minutes ago, Chili said:

Just this extremely corporate bloke who looks almost amusingly Aryan.

Christ.

[Chili]

4 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Christ.

He does, I stupidly can't find a better description of it, but that's what pops in my head. Just this clean cut blonde uber athlete in a suit. He looks like an experiment to create the perfect athletic corporate talking head but like crossed with some deceptive comic book villain who dapper dresses. I just don't trust him, Atlanta Nazis. I hate Atlanta Nazis! 

Edited October 31, 2025 by Chili