Just finished raw finally... (been overloaded with wrestling this week haha) And holy ****! AJ Styles will be competing for the WWE Championship! I honestly never knew if that would actually happen. I'm so glad for AJ! Also love what they are doing with the women, no longer calling them divas... Calling them superstars and women instead. I think they have built of the legitimacy the women have been lacking for some time. Either way I think you saw a shift more towards the in the ring stuff on raw... Vince might be realizing that if you just put on badass matches people will get over.
Totally agree on Wreatlemania as I left I didn't see anybody pissed off... It was an awesome event and I felt like I got my moneys worth. My only complaint was of the organization of the event as a whole but I had a blast and was glad I made it. Just like everyone else there.
Haven't read the past 8 or 9 pages, but man, what a weekend that was for me! 5 straight days of live wrestling (NXT Friday, Evolve 59 Saturday, Mania, RAW, and Smackdown last night). Evolve 59 was amazing, but nothing tops Shinsuke vs Sami. I knew immediately after their match was over that it would be the best thing all weekend long. Also, I was stunned by this and still kinda am, but I got to Evolve a few minutes late and when we walked from the entrance to the main hall where the ring was at, there was a table against the right wall with someone just sitting there. That man just happened to be Kota Ibushi! I was wearing a Kenny Omega shirt that said "OMEGA" in the old Sega Genesis font. I walked up to Kota and he pointed at my shirt and said "O-me-ga, that's Kenny Omega, I know him!" I couldn't believe he was just sitting there doing photos/autographs with no one there. Lastly, I didn't do Axxess, we went to Wrestlecon instead. I felt so bad for Colt Cobana. The way the booths were set up, Pentagon Jr's line ran passed Colt's and a couple others and no one went to Colt's booth the whole time I was there waiting for Pentagon. Pentagon had the 2nd longest line while I was there, after Scott Hall. When I finally got up to Colt's booth he was jokingly saying out loud, "We get it, you love Lucha Underground and Pentagon Jr. Get the f out of here, I'm trying to make a living!" He took it well, but I still felt bad for him. Got to meet quite a few wrestlers, but I was most excited about meeting the Taeler Hendrix. She was 5 hours late due to a ROH thing, but I happened to go back to Wrestlecon after Evolve just to check if she showed up and she was barely getting to her table. I was the 1st person in her line and got to talk to her for a bit. This next part got me all kinds of butthurt though. When she was finally ready to take a pic with me, I got cut in line by Shelton freaking Benjamin. He stepped right in front of me, said hi to her and gave her a hug, then walked off lol. Overall, great weekend. Smarked out Raw was awesome as well as Smackdown last night at Toyota Center. Yall should definitely check out Smackdown tomorrow night, the main event was great. 1 more thing, check out WWE Superstars on the network. They film it before Raw. Bo-lieve it or not, Bo Dallas was the most over person all night long. The crowd turned on Kalisto lol.
Dallas is horrible. I bet if mania weekend happened in htown every booth gets a fair share of love I think. I definitely would have gotten colt and ibushi autographed.
I've met cabana on a couple of occasions and for the most part he was a dick. So don't feel bad for him
Bret Hart just roasted wrestlemania on his podcast. Said it was more glitz and glamor than it was wrestling,hahhaha.
I'll try to offer up some unexpressed stuff from my experience, or my section (207). I kept off here and squaredcircle from Friday till just reading the last bunch of pages now. "Let us in" chants at a couple of entrances 30m after the gates were supposed to be open (5:00 pm). Uso's- Dudleys had the same exact finish as either the raw or smackdown one with the double super kick into the double splash. Their double super kick is just about the most boring thing to see from guys who are supposed to be wild wrestlers. IC match was hugely distracted by the booty-o's box, complete with bootrition facts. Zayn was probably my mvp, with his ladder dive and torpedo ddt. "where's rocky" chants during the new day match, glad to see those guys get swerved. It's like they purposely made the Lesnar/Dean match real crappy to make sure he didn't come out as the star of the event. Reigns/HHH to me was boring. Maybe I was giving zero heat as a protest, but I was coming into dallas looking forward to booing my face off. They did repeated back to back deadlift powerbombs and middle turnbuckle knee drops that were slow to setup and not impactful. No end of event PA prompt. I think Houston had a "thank you for coming to Night of Champions" or something that told you to leave. Just watched HHH struggle to get up then hug the family sitting ringside. Leaving ATT was just about the worst thing. An uber designated spot where it becomes impossible to enter/exit. Got in a car around midnight. Had a delicious chicken fried steak at a place called Babes, not a strip club, but a family main street styled restaurant that offers only 5 entrees. Better than any I've had in Houston, though I need to try Killens. Shane's custom jordans after wearing the fragments on raw The shops had a real limited amount of merch. I've seen people wearing 5 or 6 different wrestlemania texas shirts, but there's only 2 in the shop.
And if you heard anyone shout real loud "holy **** is that tatanka?" that was me. Good to see he's got something in the tank still.
My Top 10 Matches of 2016- post WM Shinsuke Nakamura vs Sami Zayn, NXT TakeOverallas Charlotte vs Becky Lynch vs Sasha Banks, Wrestlemania 32 Asuka vs Bayley, NXT TakeOver: Dallas Chris Jericho vs AJ Styles, SmackDown 1/11 Dean Ambrose vs Kevin Owens, Royal Rumble Samoa Joe vs Sami Zayn (2 out of 3 Falls), NXT 3/9 AJ Styles vs Chris Jericho, Fastlane Chad Gable & Jason Jordan vs Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder, NXT TakeOver: Dallas Finn Balor vs Samoa Joe, NXT TakeOver: Dallas Big E & Kofi Kingston vs Chris Jericho & AJ Styles, Raw 3/7 Just left off: Finn Balor vs Neville, NXT TV Triple H vs Dean Ambrose, Roadblock Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match, Wrestlemania Finn Balor vs Apollo Crews, NXT TV Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar vs Dean Ambrose, Fastlane
Great, great, weekend Got into Dallas late Friday night, left after work, I planned to go to NXT but stuff came up at work where I couldn't take Friday off. Went to Wrestlecon Saturday, was awesome seeing current and past stars. Got/paid pics for Torrie Wilson (still gorgeous to this day), RVD, Kurt Angle, Noelle Foley (she's at least 6ft tall), and Drew Galloway. Lucha Underground females are GOREGOUS in person, especially Catrina and Melissa Santos. Got me a Bullet Club shirt at the prowrestlingtees.com booth. Watched Various QAs alogn with pretty fun Wrestlemania trivia contests. Lines weren't bad, if you waited till the end of their session, with the likes of Angle, Hall, Nash, the wait would've been just a few mins. Wrestlemania itself isn't as bad as everybody said it was. We were able to get a parking spot in Lot 10, after tailgating for a bit, someone told us that they were letting anybody else in because they were at "capacity" which is BS. If they can fit 108,000 for the NBA Allstar Game, that shouldn't be an issue. Twitter posts then told us about the Wifi issue. The "dehydration" issue was overblown, weather we perfect, windy in the high 60s/low 70s, stupid media. Got in right in the middle of the 10 Woman Divas match, which still about 1/3rd empty. IC title match stood out for me, and surprised as hell that Ryder won it. New Days entrance through the cereal box was amazing, agreed it was a bit distracting when they brought it out the match before. The Attitude trio entrance was amazing with each one of them coming out and Austin of course had the biggest pop. Street fight was definitely disappointing, was hoping they'd go all around the stadium, but kept it in ring. Triple Threat was nice, Sasha's entrance was great, but the female singer wasn't her best. HIAC match was good for what it was, everybody just waited for the huge Shane bump and we got it. I did geek out with I noticed Tatanka was in the Battle Royal. Last match, Reigns was booed everytime the crowd could. Traffic wasn't too bad on the way out since we waiting till it died down and I parked near the exit. Raw was great, smart crowd, booed every time they showed Reigns, even in the Tapout promos, and visit to the troops. I was a bit surprised they announced Crews debut, along with the Vaudevillians Smackdown debut, would rather have had the surprise with a crowd reaction with their intro music hits. But we did get that with Enzo/Big Cass, that was freaking awesome, 90% of the crowd joining in while the rest are like "who the hell are these guys". During the New Day and League of Nations match, crowd was shouting "Ninja Turtle" and "Rocksteady" to Sheamus, good stuff. During the Corbin/Ziggler match, the section next to me had someone blowing up beach balls and throwing it down to the 100 section, they did it about 3 times while starting chants for it every time, everything from "Beach Ball Rocks", "We Want Beach Ball", etc.... It was funny at first, but just got annoying. Fatal 4 match was amazing, great spots, bumps and Cesaro's return was great, glad Vince is giving him the spotlight to shine. Was surprise about AJ's win, pretty hefty push so soon. I'm hoping this leads to Gallows/Anderson debut with AJ along with Shield reunion turning them heel. Smackdown was almost identical to Raw, but few differences here and there. last match was great as stated, definitely worth watch for the lesser show. Got tickets for Raw on 8/29, I might be going to Brooklyn for NXT/Summerslam/Raw. Raw had a presale yesterday and got a pair. If I am able to get NXT tickets, I'm going to NY and just wing it on the Summerslam tickets since they are sold out and starting at $150 on Stubhub. Overall fun weekend, WM was what it was, card was decent, but did best they can other than a few matches here and there. Cameos from the Attitude Area blew the Stadium away. Hopefully they'll have another Wrestlemania at NRG soon, I'm guessing in the next 5 years since we seem to be in rotation with 17 and 25.
^^ I was in one of the lines that hardly moved was pretty close to the front of the line but didn't get into the door until 5 pm (gates didn't open till 350). I was fine because I had a hat but where we were standing in line with the sun hitting directly on top of us with everyone sardined in pushing forward I definitely saw a few cases of dehydration and people running to cops to get some water with people passed out by the trees. It was a pretty miserable entrance (GHJ EF entrance I believe it was). Guys around us seemed to not have as much trouble getting in through other entrances.
I wish yall could have seen Evolve 59. Apparently people who ordered it on iPPV couldn't access the stream or it kept cutting out or something. I keep looking for a gif or video of Ethan Page's Package Piledriver. It looked more like a Package Powerbomb mixed with a piledriver. It was brutal. Anyone going to the ROH show in San Antonio in 2 weeks? Still quite a few seats left.
Ah, that would make sense, I was one of the lucky ones that was walking up towards the entrance and they opened a spot and people just walked right in
What do you guys think the chances are of the bullet club showing up with AJ instead of Finn? Only reason I bring it up is AJ kinda hinted at it on the Sam Roberts podcast. (he asked AJ what he thought about tagging and he said, well I've got some friends coming over soon so we will see) also he hinted towards a possible heel turn. I think they could build a awesome storyline around this whole thing have the bullet club show up with AJ... Dominate for awhile than a new challenger emerges, Finn Balor the former leader ready to reclaim his position.
Probably AJ on the main roster. They want Balor as a face and in NXT. Plus he's stronger than AJ on the mic, AJ can benefit in a heel stable. Big issue for me is Anderson & Gallows and the Revival. They are so similar in styles but both so excellent at it. Don't know if both work on the same show
Richochet has WWE material written all over him... As long as they don't give him a mid carder gimmick he should thrive! He is the top guy outside of the company right now in my opinion. And I really wish they could work out some kind of deal with NJPW to actually get the bullet club name, probably will never happen since its NJPW biggest brand. But I think a bad ass idea would be a bullet club worldwide and have the club both here and in Japan. I think a cross promotion could really be exciting just both companies would have to check their egos which would be hard.
