The King of Old School Posted January 26 Posted January 26 (edited) 28 minutes ago, RedTwoster said: I’d be very surprised if Roman won - given that he was taken out by Reed and Rollins was taken out by Breakker/Reed, I fully expect a mini-Shield reunion at Wrestlemania, treated as the full thing much as the DX ‘reunion’ of HBK and HH was Yeah could see that, not a bad shout at all. I personally don't really want to see it, but could see why they would do it. Edited January 26 by The King of Old School Quote
Paid Members Supremo Posted January 26 Paid Members Posted January 26 Considering the Seth vs. Roman singles match was one of the few interesting things they could do with Seth post-boom*, it’ll annoy me no end if we get the reunion first. Perfect example of why you should pull the trigger when you can. Saving stuff for a rainy day usually means you never get around to it. *Hi @tiger_rick! 11 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said: Hopefully they can get Kurt Angle back for the full thing! We could be so lucky. Quote
Sheffbag Posted January 26 Posted January 26 (edited) So how is AJ going to get out of the stip on Saturday and still protect Gunther?. there is no way that after the hype on Cena they would let Styles go with a 1 week build to a retirement match. I'm going for Styles to force a tap out by grabbing Gunthers hand and making it tap out without the ref seeing its AJ doing it to payback the Raw loss OR Nakamura runs in and attacks AJ so Styles wins by DQ with Nakamura proclaiming that he "did it for the Rock", sorry, wrong angle, that he did it as AJ showed he was still phenomenal and too good to retire this early in the year. Gunther could then t**t Nakamura in a match as revenge Mind you, he could just lose and retire, but to do it over there??????? Edited January 26 by Sheffbag Quote
Paid Members Lion_of_the_Midlands Posted January 26 Paid Members Posted January 26 AJ came in at the Rumble, going out at the Rumble makes a certain sense. It would be a shame if he retired in Saudi though. Quote
Paid Members Supremo Posted January 26 Paid Members Posted January 26 America. Saudi. It’s all the same on the Flat Earth. Quote
simonworden Posted January 27 Posted January 27 Could it be that AJ's asked about his retirement year and they've responded, "no, yeah errr we did the retirement thingy last year and it was the bets one ever so yeah it will be you against mid-card blokes until you say bye halfway through a random Smackers in August" so he's decided to sack it off early? Quote
Paid Members JNLister Posted January 27 Paid Members Posted January 27 If Gunther's deal is "he retires people", surely the payoff is not "he loses a match" or "he loses a title" but rather "he fails to retire somebody". Surely by definition the person he fails to retire and thus gets the big benefit built up by Goldberg and Cena's losses is somebody who is old/established enough that people believe they might be about to retire. In which case, how much benefit/rub does that person really get? Quote
RedTwoster Posted January 27 Posted January 27 7 hours ago, JNLister said: If Gunther's deal is "he retires people", surely the payoff is not "he loses a match" or "he loses a title" but rather "he fails to retire somebody". Surely by definition the person he fails to retire and thus gets the big benefit built up by Goldberg and Cena's losses is somebody who is old/established enough that people believe they might be about to retire. In which case, how much benefit/rub does that person really get? Maybe it doesn’t matter so much, if it leads to an exciting/emotive story. Let’s say he faces CM Punk at a major show in Chicago with a retirement stipulation - it would be hard to call the outcome and would give Punk something to really sink his teeth into; the kind of scenario in which he’d potentially thrive from a story perspective. The main problem they have really is that if this is what they decide to do, the person who doesn’t retire has to be someone who plausibly would retire if they lost. Maybe they still do, but present it as being on their own terms rather than Gunther’s. Ultimately though, there’s only a small number of people who they could do this with in an effective way. Other than Punk, the only person who would be a believable candidate - unless they sign Jericho - would be Randy Orton as far as I can think. Rollins, Rhodes and Reigns wouldn’t be believable retirement candidates, while Lesnar would have a section of the crowd rooting against him. Maybe they nip the idea of this being a story in the bud by having Styles win at the Rumble, we’ll see. Quote
DavidB6937 Posted January 27 Posted January 27 I assumed they'd just play it the same as Randy Orton leaning into the Legend Killer stuff. The retirement bit can be used either directly in a feud or just referenced to. I'm not sure it ever has to be problematic unless they overplay it. Not everything has to have a retirement stipulation for it to work. Quote
RedTwoster Posted January 27 Posted January 27 24 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said: I assumed they'd just play it the same as Randy Orton leaning into the Legend Killer stuff. The retirement bit can be used either directly in a feud or just referenced to. I'm not sure it ever has to be problematic unless they overplay it. Not everything has to have a retirement stipulation for it to work. I suppose the difference with Orton’s gimmick is that it was used to establish him, whereas Gunther is already established. It also helped add an extra layer to his Wrestlemania match with Undertaker in that it felt plausible at the time that he might actually end the streak, even though he’d cooled off a little at that time. I think, if you’re doing the retirement gimmick, there needs to be a purpose. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a legend defeating Gunther, but that’s certainly an option. Quote
DavidB6937 Posted January 27 Posted January 27 7 minutes ago, RedTwoster said: I suppose the difference with Orton’s gimmick is that it was used to establish him, whereas Gunther is already established. It also helped add an extra layer to his Wrestlemania match with Undertaker in that it felt plausible at the time that he might actually end the streak, even though he’d cooled off a little at that time. I think, if you’re doing the retirement gimmick, there needs to be a purpose. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a legend defeating Gunther, but that’s certainly an option. I think it's done well to heat Gunther up again, which I assume was the purpose. That was always going to be the challenge when you've had such a dominant run and then you start losing. It's also a good way to build him up without a title. For me, the natural destination is Brock Lesnar (not saying I want that) and this is the best path to attempt to put Gunther on a level where people could believe it'll be a competitive match with a finish that could go either way. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted January 27 Paid Members Posted January 27 AJ's contract is up in February, isn't it? I wonder if it's become a very abrupt retirement run because they were holding off to see if he would extend it, and now he's made it clear he's definitely done, they've fast-tracked that story. I would have thought he'd sign a short-term extension through to Wrestlemania, but if he's done, he's done, and maybe they gave him the ultimatum that it's a retirement match with Gunther or nothing, and Gunther's already accounted for at Mania? Throwing in the "if AJ loses he retires" stip, rather than promoting it fully in advance as a retirement match gave me reason to think there's a non-finish or a DQ or even an AJ win to then set up a real retirement match in the future, but I don't see that happening now. Quote
TheScarlettChad Posted January 27 Posted January 27 He said WWE career, on RAW. I wonder if he intends to do a short indie run or even a AEW run before he retires. Quote
DavidB6937 Posted January 27 Posted January 27 He's not going to say anything else on Raw is he? "Hey guys! I'm done here but I thought I'd go travel the world with the Good Brothers and I'll see ya on TBS!" Quote
RedTwoster Posted January 27 Posted January 27 1 hour ago, TheScarlettChad said: He said WWE career, on RAW. I wonder if he intends to do a short indie run or even a AEW run before he retires. He’s said a few times that he’d like to wrestle for TNA once again before he retires, and I could see him doing exactly that - maybe even having his final run in that company. Quote
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