Rambles about the wonderful world of wrestling.
I am fed up of moaning about WWE. The amount of wrestling I watch on a weekly basis fluctuates wildly and yet the amount of complaining I do about the WWE is consistently high. I’ve had enough. So from now on I’m not going to bother. With ICW and NXT, the two other shows I watch regularly, I have more than enough good things to critique. However, that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop talking about WWE. I love it too much to do that. So instead, it is time to focus on the positives.
As a general rule, I am all for being a bit controversial. I like art forms (be it music, wrestling, literature or film) that push the boat out and shock. However, I do think there is a line and I think WWE may have crossed it in the final segment on RAW this week.
Seth Rollins’ injury is the worst thing that could have happened to WWE. In the last six months, Rollins has upgraded from the workhorse of the SHIELD to the workhorse of the whole company. Whether it’s dragging decent matches out of guys whose best days were twenty years ago or putting on entertaining feuds with his former stablemates. Rollins has consistently strode above the bad booking With him now likely to miss Wrestlemania, months of preparation have fallen down around him and the company is left in a bit of a mess.
Continue reading “How Do You Solve a Problem Like a Seth Rollins’ Injury?”
Last Thursday I wrote in my Hell in a Cell Preview that you would be better off not bothering. Well, despite that advice here I am again, having put three hours of my life into a WWE PPV. I am indeed a glutton for punishment. My conclusion? Hell in a Cell once again proves that if WWE’s creative was half as good as their in-ring talent. This period of wrestling could be extraordinary. Here’s that, but in much more words.
Hell in a Cell. Once upon a time those four words meant something. A match retained for only the biggest of moments. The debut of Kane, the fall of Mick Foley and just a few years ago the end of an era when Undertaker and Triple H took to one at Wrestlemania. However, recent times has seen the cell devalued. Matches often flattering to deceive and a yearly PPV, stacked with feuds we don’t really care about.
NXT Takeover: Respect felt like a strange show going into it. It was lacking the hype of previous NXT shows. Despite on paper, looking like it could be fantastic. It featured two women main eventing an NXT Special for the first time and the conclusion of the Dusty Roads Classic. Throw in the debuting Asuka and this show should have felt huge. Thankfully what it lacked in hype, it more than made up for on the day.
This weekend WWE will bring us their second Live Network Special, this time airing from Madison Square Gardens. It’s a packed card of wrestling matches which looks like it will deliver in the ring, but the event as a whole just feels a bit… random. The last few weeks have been spent building up to it and yet does anyone truly believe that something monumental will happen here? Surely not even WWE thinks the fans believe that Big Show has a chance of pinning Brock Lesnar?
Night of Champions is a strange PPV this year. On one hand it feels like a big deal. Seth Rollins will compete twice and Sting is fighting for the WWE Title, something we never thought we’d see. However, the rest of the card is same old, same old. Rusev and Dolph Ziggler are still plodding away in their never-ending feud and Neville will probably beat Stardust again. As usual, WWE are approaching the end of the year stuck in a bit of a rut. Which is probably not the way to entice you into reading this preview.
Sting, despite a WWE record of 0-1, is going into Night of Champions against Seth Rollins for the WWE Title. He’s also seemingly slipping back into his Joker character, which made an appearance in TNA. The question is, is this the right way to use Sting? And is there any world in which him becoming WWE Champion is a good idea?
On Monday night the Raw crowd at the Brooklyn Center turned on the WWE Diva’s segment. They begun to perform the usual antics of a bored crowd, Mexican waves and unrelated chants. Yet, only 48 hours beforehand a similar crowd had come unhinged when Bayley pinned Sasha Banks to win the NXT Women’s Title. So did the crowd change in that 48 hours? Or does it point to all the ways that the WWE is failing the Diva’s Revolution? It’s hardly a spoiler to claim it’s the latter.
Ramblings About Wrestling 