The Gaming Den

I loved Shamrock, mostly because his titantron was so generic that it looped back around to being fucking amazing. It's got everything I want in a rasslin' intro: loud clanks, robes, bells tolling, generic guitar riffs, pec flexin' and crazy eyes.

I was holding out hope for Daniel Bryan to return someday. Now my hopes are dashed.

I know. He could have had a long time ahead, with a few more title reigns and main events and great rivalries. But that said, given the injuries and concussions, I'm glad he was smart and called it quits. Nobody wants another Chris Benoit Incident to happen, or even just the more standard "wrestler dies due to a history of head and neck injuries".

And he could do basically anything else in the WWE now: he could be a trainer (I hear there's an opening since they booted Demott for being "a shitty person"), or do commentary (ideally replacing the entire group of Maggle, JBL and the other guy), or be a booker. Heck, I like Adam's idea of him replacing Triple H (on-screen, I don't mean he should marry Steph and inherit the company) and become a competent-and-benevolent authority who doesn't make the audience switch channels.

And at least he has had some great moments - wrestlemania main events, title reigns, a heel run and multiple face runs, I mean he's won the big title at least three times (one was for around one minute, admittedly, and that started the fucking travesty that is The Authority, but that's Triple H's fault, not D-Bry's). He even went over Big Match John and Triple H, winning clean in both cases.

But it's a sad day for fans of watching the show. Now who is left that we actually want to see in the ring and hasn't been ruined? AJ Styles and the New Day and... that's it? KO might still have it if they stop booking him against midcarders, but it's possible Cena's burial of him has already taken effect. Sami Zayn and Finn Balor are solid, but they're not (yet) on the main roster. Same for Enzo Amore and Big Cass.

Daniel Bryan as GM would be fucking amazing. Doubly so if they stole Adam from WhatCulture. (Although I have to admit that while Adam's storywriting sounds great, I'm less certain of his ability to wrangle the participants exactly as he wants them.)

KO could be their top heel if they would stop dicking around with him. (It would save them some cash on Lesnar.) Beyond that, they really do have a skeleton crew keeping things together. I like Reigns, but I know he's not really ready for the Cena position despite being liked/hated like Cena. Dean could maybe step up, and I was certainly rooting for it at the Rumble ending.

The witch's curse has really highlighted that they haven't built anyone towards taking the lead positions for the past year. And that is an inexcusable shame.

I hate Reigns so very much. His interminable plot line has killed much of the little enjoyment that was left to me in the product. I officially reached the point where I was like "Fine, just make this dumb chucklefuck the champion already so we can at least have other plotlines" months ago yet they're still trying to make me give a shit about him. It's not going to happen. It's cool that he can jump really high when going over the ropes but otherwise I don't see the point of biggish guys who don't belly-to-belly suplex people into orbit or make me laugh. It's not even like his botches are funny/terrifying like Nash or the Steiners, either. I officially turned on him for good when they expected me to believe you only need a couple of superman punches to take out Rusev. Fuck you WWE, I love Rusev.

I LOLed in the literal sense of the phrase when he tried to suoerman punch Trips in the Rumble. It's not even that amazing of a move and watching Hunter throw himself away from Roman's fist was so painfully obvious.

That would be the other problem I have been having these past few weeks. The rampant botches, from Del Rio appearing to forget Kalisto is short to Rusev trying to spear the barricade. And poor Big E forgetting to stay in the ring. (I love me some New Day antics, but damn was that a shame.)

Apparently New Day mentioned slash fiction as a thing (not sure if this was a tweet or a thing they said in-ring), bringing up the fact that Ambrollins and Ambreigns and Ambregnollins are apparently very popular. And New Day are supposed to be heels.

WWE has gotten itself into an interesting spot with Dean Ambrose. On the one hand, his pops are actually kinda mediocre by top baby face standards, so I can understand why some people doubt that he can really carry a show. On the other hand, it's hard for me to blame those crowd reactions on Ambrose given that WWE has done so little to protect his character over the last year--he's continually flirted with the top sput but it's also pretty clear that Vince would ask Dean to blow goats on live television if he thought that would get Roman Reigns over. I mean, why should we bother cheering ourselves hoarse if we have so little faith that it will end well? Why should I believe Vince is going to give Dean a chance to steal Roman's thunder? They already have a Brock match scheduled to keep him busy anyway.

Also, there's an elephant in the room named Triple H involved.

When they made Fast Lane actually pointless by not adding any twists or swerves or plot developments, they pretty much wrote themselves into a corner for Wrestlemania: either they finally pull the trigger on a second Reigns title reign, accept the crowd will boo them out of the building, and sort of stagger on from there as they try to find an answer, or they keep the title on Triple H (the evil authority figure if anyone remembers that), a guy who is part of the old guard and also married into basically owning half the company.

If the mini PPV thing changes anything, then on the one hand, it makes Fast Lane even more of a joke, even more pointless (by overriding what it "decided"), but on the other hand, it gives them a way out. If Ambrose beats Triple H, we're probably looking at a Fatal Fourway main event at Wrestlemania, which means they have options for Ambrose to keep the title or for Bork Laser to suplex everyone into a volcano and walk out with the title.

Sheamus cashed in immediately so there wasn't much of a reign but technically it'd be Roman's third championship. Even when he gets screwed these fuckers find a way to pad his numbers.

Soon he will be a 17 time world champion. His total reign time won't even be a year.

I want Dean to walk in the champ at Wrestlemania or Seth to cost Roman the title again. These are my pipe dreams.

When Seth Returnings rolls, it might be time for him to turn face. Being a face suits his crazy high-flying style, and it's served him well pre-WWE, so the "it's been more than a month since we've seen him" could serve as a reset option for him to run in and do something the fans really want to see (embarrass Steph, attack Triple H, dropkick Reigns into a bath of cow shit, give Ambrose a handjob on live TV), instantly erasing any bad feelings over his run as a really weak, cowardly heel champ.

I thought it was interesting that the crowd was split between Trips and Ambrose for a while. Again though, WWE's main event scene is such a clusterfuck that I would argue that it was mostly simple smark complacency. People expected Triple H and the status quo to win out, and if that was going to happen you may as well start cheering for Hunter now if you don't plan on cheering Roman at Wrestlemania. To me that's the only thing that explains why the crowd went from passive aggressive to downright perky once WWE roped them into thinking Dean might have actually won the damn thing without even putting us through a Reigns run in.

I'm not even sure if Pepperidge Farms remembers when Bray Wyatt felt like a big deal but Luke Harper remains the champion of my heart.

Whipstitch wrote:I'm not even sure if Pepperidge Farms remember

That meme might be old enough to legally drink.

I'm partial to the Futurama version, so go even older.

Ambrose is now in the Ziggler Zone with me. His feud with Seth had a couple fun moments before going to shit but why should I give a crap about the guy if he's only there to keep people busy until Reigns gets around to beating them? If I wanted that kind of aggravation in my life I'd start rooting for Sandow.

New Day just came out of a cereal box in Saiyan battle armor

I hear that Wrestlemania 32 was the 30th best Wrestlemania.

Whipstitch wrote:Ambrose is now in the Ziggler Zone with me. His feud with Seth had a couple fun moments before going to shit but why should I give a crap about the guy if he's only there to keep people busy until Reigns gets around to beating them? If I wanted that kind of aggravation in my life I'd start rooting for Sandow.

Why do you root for any full time face that isn't Roman, then? Why do you root for any full timer, given all roads lead to Roman? There's a world of wrestling out there, a lot of it for free if you know where to look.

Although this Mania, I wasn't sure if Vince had dropped mescaline or I had. Shit was surreal.

If you agree not to care about the World Romanweight Title, you still have some people you can cheer for in WWE: AJ Styles, New Day (admittedly "totally not faces, they're heels, honest"), Becky Lynch, Paiiiiige~

And the Undertaker, except for the thing where he may have wrestled his last match at Mania, and even if he didn't, he's a feature wrestler and not a regular.

There were a few surprises, and a lot of same old shit. Takeover was the better show of the weekend.

OgreBattle wrote:New Day just came out of a cereal box in Saiyan battle armor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7E4ZsXOjpc

Around 0:24 you can see a couple of the members of TeamFourStar with Lani holding a their logo.

Mask_De_H wrote: Why do you root for any full timer, given all roads lead to Roman?

Currently? I don't. Dean was pretty much the last face I liked. Some of the heels are alright.

I'm a wrestling newbie, but apart from the "main event" which was by turns boring, baffling and rage-inducing I thought this was a great Mania.

The women's match triple threat was the best women's match ever I think (certainly the highlight of the night), Ambrose vs. Lesnar was a party and the ladder match in the beginning was a party and a half (and ZACK RYDER won!)

Even Undertaker vs. Shane, which was overlong and made Shane look ten times stronger than he had any right to, at least showed Taker's still got it and gave us the amazing leap-from-the-cage spot.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised, even if Styles vs Jericho was forgettable and the main event sucked. (We all knew the main event was going to suck anyway, even if I didn't expect it to be this awful.)