Reigns needs a lengthy heel run before he will ever be accepted by the fans as a face. Still can't get over how great Owens was last night... looking forward to an Owens/Styles program, but I want a Owens/Zayn program (those two for the IC title at WM could be this generation's Savage/Steamboat) and frankly, I don't want the Owens/Ambrose feud to end. And oh yeah... how about that huge pop for Sandow during the kick off show.
Claudio is one of the boys that makes me do a slow burn. Why, Why WHY, did they insist on making him a weak heel? This is one of the friggin KINGS OF WRESTLING! And don't even get me started on what they did to Chris Hero, his partner. What they did to Brian Danielson pisses me off. Why did they keep putting in position to be hurt? Using him to jerk off the fans? At least he had two legs. Zak Gowen is a friend I have known since he was a kid in the business. He worked ring crews on a prosthetic leg and learned the ropes from Truth Martini. NOBODY ever paid the dues he did. I called him the one legged man in an ass kicking contest. And what did Vince and company do TO him? I know nobody liked him backstage, except for the guys who came from our area(Rhyno,Edge, Christian, Rob Van Dam), and they kept putting him in dangerous situations. He could have had a real hot program with Matt Hardy, maybe with a title involved. But NO! Remember the last time you saw Zak on WWE TV? Brock Lesnar threw him DOWN A STAIRCASE!!!. Zak took it because he thought that was what was expected. Guess what? HE GOT HURT BAD! There was no way for him to protect himself when Brock EJECTED him from his chair. He was out for over a year, but ya'll never heard about that.
Remember the days when only Canada was "Bizarro World" and the announcers had to explain why certain faces got booed and certain heels got cheered? It was finny to hear the announcers essentially read a disclaimer before the Rumble last night to try to explain why Reigns is about to get booed so much - there are now "Bizarro World"s all over the globe. Re; Sandow's pop - makes you wonder if someone in power puts anything into it, or if they just write it off as an anomaly from a smark-heavy crowd ... and he's off TV for a few more months. Besides being a terrific in-ring performer, Owens is so good at bringing "reality", for a lack of a better term, to his feuds. The double table bump was great, but my favorite moment of his for the night was waving goodbye to Styles when he eliminated him - not afraid to REALLY play the heel and earn boos the old-fashioned way!
Owens is such a breath of fresh air. Back when I first got into rasslin, sh!thead heels were the exception, not the rule. Once in a while I hit up YouTube for some flashback '80s NWA promo entertainment. Hard to beat a ranting and raving promo from Flair and the Horseman (or Macho Man on the WWF side). Not that there haven't been scripted promos all along, but a lot of what we get stuck with today in terms of promos, mannerisms, etc. makes it hard to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the show. Truly entertaining personalities are scarce.
I'd love to see Sandow back. I thought they missed an opportunity with him when he failed in his MITB cash-in against (injured, storylinewise, IIRC) Cena. He was funny in the MizDow gimmick, but that kinda dragged on too long without a satisfying payoff. He's too entertaining not to be on my TV.
I think he definitely needs a "screw you guys" snapping promo on the fans to kinda hit the reset button.
Not watching the Royal Rumble but only reading the results, happy to see Charlotte win and a Wrestlemania feud with Sasha set up. My guess is Ric is somehow responsible for Sasha winning the title.
Ric did a little "kiss stealin'" with Becky Lynch, mid-match. I hope they have an AED installed at Space Mountain, just in case.
The last time I saw an Honest reaction when a face gets booed hard like the old days was Cena /Van Dam at One Night Stand II. Like the old Territories when Flair was a face in the Carolinas and a heel everywhere else. Or even my boy David Von Erich heeling in Florida(If you never have look it up on Youtube). The days when they could run the exact show 5 nights in a row with the exact booking in towns a few hundred miles apart.
Regarding Chris Hero - I have seen very very little ROH, but I followed FCW religiously before it morphed into NXT. In fact I went to a house show a short time before the transition where there maybe 100 people (a big injured wrestler named Leakee was the ticket taker - he was still a ways away from becoming Roman Reigns, Rollins defended the FCW belt vs. Big E, Ambrose wrestled Luke Harper, Husky Harris had just become Bray Wyatt). Anyway, I thought Hero/Ohno could do some amazing stuff, but the first thing that always jumped out at me was the belly. I probably have a major prejudice because I take my own fitness very seriously, but it seemed like the guy just never cared enough to get in the gym (surely Claudio was there to go with him!) I overlook it for Owens because he is so talented (and has the decency to wear a shirt), but it just seemed like Hero pulled a "ZZ" in FCW.
Chris cardio was fine. It wasn't so much his gut was the problem. It didn't matter how good he was they expected him to bulk up and that was not going to happen. They made out like he was personally letting the company down, but they didn't want to work with his body shape. A lot of his work was based on the way he is built. His body is like a whip. Him and Claudio once did a spot where they were both literally standing on their heads and punching each other to a stand off(seen THAT spot lately?). They were the CZW tag champs right then. My personal opinion is the only reason they signed Chris in the first place was to skim one of the best indy tag teams and the first thing they did was split them up. Claudio was more what they were looking for, and he has bulked and defined nicely. Hasn't done him a lot of good, but at least he's getting paid.
I respect that you know a lot more about the guy than I do. That being said, I don't think anyone is "incapable" of getting leaner and appearing more muscular (except Kofi Kingston's pecs, which seem beyond help for some reason ). It seems in the time since Hero left FCW, WWE has become a bit more open-minded about developing guys who don't look super athletic but can still go. But that didn't seem to be the case much back then (unless your last name was Rotunda).
Wow... RAW kinda sucks tonight, with the exception of Bo-ryda Gonna guess Ambrose v Reigns is gonna main event Fast Lane... maybe that Reigns heel turn is gonna happen after all.
Solid Raw debut for AJ. He and Jericho had a coupla clunky chemistry moments in the beginning, but the match got pretty good by the end. The crowd's definitely into the guy, and the announcers were putting him over, too. That match and HHH's excellent promo were the highlights of the show for me, plus of course the Rock's electric segment.
I appreciate Jericho once again stepping up to put the younger talent over. That being said, I can't recall ever seeing a match where the spots were so blatantly called. Jericho seemed to almost forget that he was in front of an arena full of people and not alone with AJ in a gym. At one point it got so bad that they hit the dead air button to "bleep out" one of Jericho's calls in the corner. I just thought it was odd, and sloppy, in that regard.
The guy's just got a coked-up energy that nobody on the current roster can seem to muster on the regular. My $0.02. I also got a kick out of Big Show's comedic timing in his interaction with Rocky.
I agree he adds to the show with an appearance. But, I want him there for a reason like challenging Triple H for the title and not to spike a rating for a quarter hour. I thought what the New Day said was spot on and I'm somewhat surprised they were allowed to say it.
Funny how the whole PG-era thing goes out the window whenever the Rock shows up. Mustache rides, chocolate cornholes...
Yep I heard that dead-air bleep, also Jericho actually won the match at one point but the ref didn't do the third slap.
On the positive side, I was happy to see the New Day hang with Rock in a promo without looking totally outclassed in terms of entertainment value.
The Rock showing up reminded me of just how much most of the roster lacks in the charisma dept. I wish Hulu plus didn't cut out the part of his promo where he went off script and interacted with the guys in the crowd that were dressed like Undertaker, Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan.
The first episode of season 2 aired last night. For any who are interested, I think the El Rey network replays the episodes fairly frequently. I really enjoy this as an alternative to the stale WWE programming. The storylines can be a little (OK, a lot) out there, but that's part of the fun, and the hour flies by.
