The Gaming Den

I thought I'd make a thread to talk about wrestling. Possibly this will just be me and Koumei talking, I don't know how many pro wrestlers fans are here but there's probably some.

Logically my first post would be about Wrestlemania tonight but instead I'm going to ask is anybody else watching Lucha Underground? Lucha Underground made me have to stop watching wrestling because it's so fucking good week in week out I literally cannot enjoy WWE anymore. It's probably once every 2 weeks that I finish watchin Lucha saying "That may be the best wrestling match of all time". Everything they do defies logic and gravity and blows my fucking mind.

A selection

The matches are so high energy and explosive and never seem to stop. Before Lucha I thought that Pro Wrestlers needed the rest holds and panting and laying but Lucha says FUCK THAT and throws out 20 minute matches of nonstop backflips, outside dives, top ropes, and special moves. I don't understand what's wrong in WWE that this level of performance can come out of a company that's only existed for a few months.

Dean wrote:Logically my first post would be about Wrestlemania tonight

I think you mean YEStlemania.

It was a fairly predictable event - I was surprised Sting agreed to join WWE just to get beaten by Triple H at a PPV of that size, presumably they bought him his own country. But the ladder match, I figured it'd either be Ziggler or D-Bry, to avoid causing riots (and to pick one of those two and give them another push to match their potential). The women's match wasn't a title match so I predicted correctly. lolCenawins of course, and the Undertaker gets his redemption. I had no predictions for Rollins vs Orton, but I should mention that it was a decent match. Orton learned a new move for this, and Rollins carried the match pretty well.

And well, the title match finish was practically a given at this point (though I was expecting him to cash in after the match ended, but turning it into a triple threat right at the end is basically the same). It's not like they could keep Bork holding the title when he charges a trillion dollars per match.

And now I can end my subscription, because even NXT has gone to shit. This isn't that surprising, given it's run by Triple H.

but instead I'm going to ask is anybody else watching Lucha Underground?

I just use my PS3 to connect to WWE Network. We don't have any variety of cable TV in this house (and I'd never opt for it), and no form of wrestling airs on free TV. Other than that, the only option is really free matches shown on youtube, and that's always a bit of a pain.

In sad wrestling news, Act Yasukawa (of Stardom) was seriously injured in February. Now, she's a fan favourite, especially amongst the internet. She suffers from Graves' disease, has been depressed, and nearly killed herself in high school due to bullying. For quite a while she needed an eyepatch, so she sort of worked that into her costume, at least for the entrance - dressing like a sort of samurai pirate and gulping sake from the bottle, classy stuff.

Anyway, she's constantly in and out of hospital, but has still followed her dream. She's skilled, and most people backstage adore her as well. Well, she was booked to compete against the champion Yoshiko, and probably to take the title. Now, Yoshiko has been there from the start, and frankly, it shows, she is an old hag. Jealousy is the most likely reason for this, but she decided the match should actually be a shoot fight, and laid into Yasukawa's face with her elbows, bloodying her, breaking her left orbital bone and causing so much swelling that it was a few days before doctors were able to examine the right orbital bone (the eye that had been surgically repaired). The way the bone shifted and all that swelling, it was really horrible. I think this is an appropriate moment to say Act still looks prettier than Yoshiko.

The WWE wrestlers are probably just the biggest people they could find, which cuts down on stamina and acrobatic power. That Lucha stuff looks awesome though.

I have been thinking about getting back into wrestling, but I am not quite there yet. WWE's wrestle mania is supposed to have been pretty good, but for the most part RAW is supposed to a three hour block where entertainment goes to die. I also heard of Lucha Undergournd, but I am don't have cable, so unless it is somewhere on the internet I am not that interested.

I'm a ginormous Lucha Underground mark.

OgreBattle wrote:The WWE wrestlers are probably just the biggest people they could find, which cuts down on stamina and acrobatic power.

That's part of it, but people also really tend to underestimate the schedules WWE guys are on. House shows galore, RAW, Smackdown and WWE Main Event on the network. Fuckers are wrestling all the god damn time.

The best wrestling I've watched in.. fuck, I guess 10 years was "Kaiju Big Battel". Basically, people would dress up as monsters and other weird shit and have matches in wrestling rings along with cardboard and foam buildings.

I'm gonna leave this here. This is the only thing which has gotten me even slightly interested in WWE in the past fifteen years.

Yu-gi-oh Abridged creator makes parody wrestling recap. WWE and a British accent. Cognitive dissonance ho!

Maxus wrote:I'm gonna leave this here. This is the only thing which has gotten me even slightly interested in WWE in the past fifteen years.

Yu-gi-oh Abridged creator makes parody wrestling recap. WWE and a British accent. Cognitive dissonance ho!

I have no idea what that man is talking about, but listening to him talk about it is nonetheless oddly compelling.

That is amazing. Also, I would love to see an angle where the ring announcer goes rogue and just declares whatever, and everybody goes along with what they announce and it turns out they have all the power.

I'm pretty sure that one would be halfway original.

Fuck it, they need LittleKuriboh as a booker.

i just noticed that the undertaker appearantly made a return in 2015 after his streak had been broken in 2014 by lesnar, so i might be following that one a bit . .
And Sting.

shau wrote:I also heard of Lucha Undergournd, but I am don't have cable, so unless it is somewhere on the internet I am not that interested.

I've never watched the show on actual television and I've seen every episode. Here's two pages which both have every show. If any links don't work I'm sure you can get them with extremely minimal google-fu.

http://www.bollyrulez.tv/forums/2718-Lu ... 10cd8a707e

http://wrestlingreport.net/lucha-underground/

It's a goddamn amazing show. I hadn't cared about wrestling since I was 12 but I don't think any human could see the Triple Threat Match I saw first and not become a fan. If you want to see something truly incredible, and I'm not using that phrase lightly, genuinely incredible, check out the January 7th episode "Aztec Warfare". It's mind boggling. It may be the most impressive single match in wrestling history. From the standpoint of the difficulty of choreography, move mapping, and the strain on the athleticism of the performers I don't think anything more impressive has been done than the Aztec Warfare match.

Stahlseele wrote:i just noticed that the undertaker appearantly made a return in 2015 after his streak had been broken in 2014 by lesnar, so i might be following that one a bit . .

I like the Undertaker bus his return breaks the rules of storytelling. Undertaker suffered a single important defeat and that is at the hands of Brock Lesnar, therefore your only satisfying storytelling options are to end the story on the loss creating the end of an era or to have Undertaker return and defeat Lesnar. If the hero is defeated by a foe he must either die, or come back stronger to defeat that foe. He doesn't leave defeated and fight weaker foes from now on.

It's sad but like the Death of Superman storyline if you want to beat your hero you only have two options for them, death or victory. You can't go wishy washy and try to have a little of both or else people will hate it. Undertaker should have retired after losing to Lesnar or he should come back and beat Lesnar then retire.

Whipstitch wrote:Hey guys, want to guess who went over?

To be fair, since they didn't pull the trigger on Owens and the League of Nations never advanced beyond Midcard geeks, Haitch is the most logical person to put the belt on in an attempt to get Roman over. Granted, fuck trying to get Roman over but they are trying their damndest to make it work. Also, this is the first major match Trips has won in at least two years (Sting doesn't count because that was WWE vs WCW more than HHH vs. Sting)

And it looks like Blampied got every single prediction right and Pacciti will take/has taken a billiard pool to the groin. I hope he only throws it at the effigy.

Also holy shit that is a lot of drinking necessary with those rules. But you might need that much alcohol to get through the event.

The biggest thing in the night was probably the appearance of AJ Styles, which was not exactly unexpected but was still a big thing. Sasha Banks levelling Charlotte and Sami Zayn entering the Rumble were both noteworthy though.

Also should we mention Shinsuke "Kneeing your fucking face off" Nakamura is also signed on? Or that like half the fucking roster is out due to injury, and about half of those are because of shoulder injuries in weight training (thanks, Cena!)?

Speaking of Shinsuke Nakamura Nintendo Mitsubishi*, he clearly needs to debut at Fast Lane, which should be on Valentine's Day: Reigns vs Triple H for the title INSIDE A STEEL CAGE. Reigns will brutalise the old man, but then Nakamura will make a surprise entrance and attack Reigns, kneeing his face off but accidentally knocking him through the door and out of the cage, causing Reigns to win. This is the kind of stone-cold original idea that would fit perfectly with this new angle they're doing.

*This is probably the name WWE will give him because he's "one of them crazy foreigners! Watch him dance there with Santino Marella! AH LOVE IT MAGGLE!"

Mask_De_H wrote:(Sting doesn't count because that was WWE vs WCW more than HHH vs. Sting)

That's how they presented it, but it still counts since it's pro wrestling and they control the presentation. It's the same reason I wasn't particularly thrilled by the Roman Rumble. The match more or less reached its potential given the circumstances, but that's faint praise because aside from injury the WWE is responsible for the circumstances that limited its potential.

So, which one was your favourite Sting?

I'm not really a fan of wrestling, but I found Wrestling Isn't Wrestling to be very entertaining. It's Max Landis' rather... unique retelling of HHH's career. Worth watching.

Stahlseele wrote:So, which one was your favourite Sting?

Crow Sting when he didn't talk and Joker Sting from loltna.

...I'm not really that big of a Sting fan, tbh. As a general rule, if you don't talk, I probably don't care about you very much. It's part of why I've never really given a crap about Reigns or Goldberg, either. The other part being that I don't really give a shit about the spear. It's one of those funny things where ironically the move looks athletic because you actually can do it more or less for real without hurting people too badly, whereas shoulder blocks look like shit in wrestling primarily because you can't really do them "right" without concussing people. It's a stupid reason to be bored, but I can't help it.

Joker Sting/The Insane Icon basically talked non stop O.o

I didn't watch early TNA (too busy with college) and all but quit watching wrestling entirely around the time Eddie died and it became clear that Cena was utterly inescapable. I don't hate Sting or anything but as a rule the few times I watched TNA it was just to get a quick Kurt Angle fix.

Whipstitch wrote:The other part being that I don't really give a shit about the spear. It's one of those funny things where ironically the move looks athletic because you actually can do it more or less for real without hurting people too badly,

Only when the other person knows it's coming and works with you in receiving it. It's banned from any game that is called football in any part of the world due to the whole "Broken necks slow the game down for the viewers" thing, what with those not being scripted. Well, sometimes they ARE scripted, but that's not how it's SUPPOSED to be, and I suppose some of the advanced strategies coaches form are almost scripts but they don't get together with the opposition to make sure everyone's on board.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see someone do a spear in gridiron, with the receiver jumping and rolling into the move so it looks awesome while doing little damage, while Good Old JR shouts "BAH GAWD ALMIGHTY, HE TURNED HIM INSIDE OUT!"

...I may be off-topic at this point.

I barely paid attention to the storylines of the Rumble because I was too busy getting pulled out of suspension of disbelief by all the botches. Kalisto's was particularly egregious, but I straight laughed out loud when Roman pretended to punch Trips.

Most of the matches had at least one really sloppy point, and it made me sad to see it.

Koumei wrote:
Only when the other person knows it's coming and works with you in receiving it.

It's all relative. I've played NA style football and dabbled a bit in rugby. Getting form tackled for real can seriously hurt but it's not nearly as bad as a running shoulder block delivered with bad intent. One can typically can be handled without pads and the other is often considered headhunting even in leagues where you're geared up.

Anyway, let me put it this way: I have a hard time giving a fuck about wrestlers where the gimmick is that they're "legit" athletes. Basically, if I have to pretend it's real in order to give a shit then you've probably already lost me. For example, I love Kurt Angle but mostly because I find him hilarious, not because he was an Olympian. Likewise the Rock is great and he's basically a comedy wrestler but huge. I make an exception for Brock because he's clearly some kind of mutant.

Whipstitch wrote:I make an exception for Brock because he's clearly some kind of mutant.

Surely you mean Bork Laser.

I agree that "I am a REAL ATHLETE" is pretty boring. Ken Shamrock managed it as the "World's Most Dangerous Man" because they made him a maniac who would flip out and just attack people due to being so unhinged.

But given the best gimmick ever was "An undead demonic sorcerer who performs human sacrifice (and also really likes motorbikes)", yeah, it's just hard to make "Remember the real world? Yeah, that's shit, isn't it?" interesting.