WWE Thread II

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#8,503
#8,503
however, it's been like three months and Rollins still has absolutely no idea on how to give a good Pedigree. Rollins could get lessons from Stephanie, his are so bad.
 
#8,504
#8,504
Man, they messed that up. Could have continued the two different Kanes charade. Demon Kane later tonight, no limp. Corporate Kane next week, on crutches "let bygones be bygones...."
 
#8,508
#8,508
UTK said:
Waste of TV time
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#8,512
#8,512
I actually missed last night due to watching Jamaal Charles win me my fantasy football matchup being down 21 points.

Was it really that good? Summary?
 
#8,513
#8,513
The show overall sucked but there was a good zinger from Paige and the last match/brawl between Reigns/Wyatt was good.
 
#8,518
#8,518
Why can't we just get the Shield Reunion VS the Old Wyatts (return of Rowan early as a surprise before the Rollins face turn as a super surprise, even if only for one night) with Braum Strowman outside the cell but eventually tearing it open only to get three man power bombed into a phoenix splash before we see missiles shoot as the Shield walks out and standing at the top waiting for them are the Dudleyz + Spike (Or Too Cool + an un retired Rikishi)

I may be amped on energy drinks right now and dreaming of my childhood meshing with today. But hey, up until the end the first half is possible.
 
#8,519
#8,519
Daloth said:
Why can't we just get the Shield Reunion VS the Old Wyatts (return of Rowan early as a surprise before the Rollins face turn as a super surprise, even if only for one night) with Braum Strowman outside the cell but eventually tearing it open only to get three man power bombed into a phoenix splash before we see missiles shoot as the Shield walks out and standing at the top waiting for them are the Dudleyz + Spike (Or Too Cool + an un retired Rikishi)

I may be amped on energy drinks right now and dreaming of my childhood meshing with today. But hey, up until the end the first half is possible.
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still think instead of Spike, they bring in Truth Dudley
 
#8,521
#8,521
With NXT, appearing Friday, the WWE attempts to atone for the damage it did to wrestling's regional talent pool
Who'll Be the NXT in Line?

With NXT, appearing Friday, the WWE attempts to atone for the damage it did to wrestling's regional talent pool
Who'll Be the NXT in Line?

In countless interviews over the years, Vince McMahon, owner and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, has always described the years before his company's national expansion as gloomy ones for professional wrestling. The image he paints of that era is of smoky barrooms with a dingy ring in the middle, two beer-bellied combatants killing the business one terrible match at a time.

Yet many promoters in today's indie wrestling world would be ecstatic to half-fill a pub. The landscape of current non-WWE wrestling is dotted with rookies trying to follow their dreams, paying dues in backyard shows scarcely better than the chairs-tables-and-light-tubes death matches portrayed in the film The Wrestler.

That's what NXT, the development branch of the WWE, attempts to correct. When NXT Live! sets up 7:30 p.m. Friday at War Memorial Auditorium, making its first Nashville stop ever, it'll offer local wrestling fans a glimpse of talents with a shot at working their way up to WWE glory. In the process, it'll try to undo some of the damage the 1980s rise of pro wrestling inadvertently did to the sport.

That was the environment that current NXT Women's Champion Bayley (born Pamela Rose Martinez) found herself in a few years back when she decided to make the progression from wrestling fan to wrestler. At 18, she started training at San Jose's Big Time Wrestling school. A fan of the "Attitude Era" of late 1990s professional wrestling — so-called due to its emphasis on sex and strong language — Bayley had been fascinated with the high-fliers of the era. A fan of such acts as Eddie Guerrero and the Hardy Boyz, Bayley soon found herself learning the ropes of the business, both inside the ring and out.

"On the indies you basically have to take what you can get when it comes to bookings," Bayley explains. "Sometimes I would drive six hours for a show, and a lot of times I wasn't really promised pay for travel, or pay at all, really. There was a lot more traveling involved working on the indies than there is working for NXT, for sure."

NXT is based out of Winter Park, Fla. Running all of its events and operations out of for-profit Full Sail University, the promotion was the brainchild of Paul Levesque, known as former champion Triple H. Levesque, executive vice president of the WWE, oversees talent relations and development for the wrestling powerhouse. In 2013 he was handed the keys to NXT.

An unforeseen consequence of the WWE's 1980s expansion was the decimation of the regional business model, the backbone of professional wrestling throughout its history. While McMahon was able to turn his company's brand into the face of the sport, it also destroyed the farm system that was in place for young wrestlers to gain experience before being signed by the WWE.

Levesque, one of the most popular wrestling stars of the past 20 years before he accepted his executive position within the company, saw from within the ring how this negatively affected the talent pool, as many young would-be stars were floundering once they hit the WWE's big leagues. Once retired, he was able to devote all of his attention to finding a solution. The result was the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Fla., host to both NXT headquarters as well as a 5,500-square-foot training room.

Bayley has been with NXT since the brand began. She says Levesque is the nurturing presence that was missing from her early years of barnstorming from one gig to the next.

"He's always very open about how proud he is of everyone and the brand, and he never takes credit for it," the young grappler says. "He's the one who gave us this great facility to train in, and is the one who puts out all of our matches on the WWE Network. But when we have our meetings after the shows, he's always the one who tells us that we are the one responsible for making the brand what it is. I know he has told me numerous times how proud he is of the work we have done for the women's division, and when he says something like that, we can really tell how much he cares."

The women's division of NXT has revolutionized ladies' wrestling. Though it was long treated as a "special attraction" — i.e., an excuse for guys to watch scantily clad women throw hair-pulling, catfighting slap parties — Levesque knew it needed to change with the times. He signed Sara Amato, a world-class female competitor known in the wrestling world by her stage name, Sara Del Ray, to train NXT's young upstarts to become what the next generation of female wrestling fans expects from their counterparts in the ring.

"Training with Sara Del Ray is such a treat," Bayley says. "Just coming from the indies, she is someone that I've always looked up to and someone that I wanted to reach their level. I remember even before she began working here, I emailed her to ask where she was living, just so I could move there to train with her; thankfully she was already living here in Florida, so I think it was just before she got signed to become a trainer. I just wanted to be around her and learn from her, and then by some odd coincidence we both got signed at the same time, so training with her has been awesome.

"The way I was originally trained was by learning with guys, because they were the only other people in my training class. Whatever the guys were learning, I was learning. I didn't have to change too much when Sara came on as a trainer, because she believed in training the women the same way as the men were trained, which was refreshing."

The next chapter in Bayley's career is no doubt a call-up to the WWE, where NXT's Nashville stop may come in handy. While competitors spend the majority of their time competing before the same Florida audiences each night out, the brand has begun holding house shows in areas outside its "home." While the promotion has fans around the world, there are also audience members in Nashville who will show up just because it says "wrestling" on the marquee, with no prior knowledge of the participants or characters.

Bayley acknowledges that it's tricky to introduce a character she has played for four years to someone who has never heard of her. But it's a skill she must hone before making the big leap to becoming a WWE superstar.

"With the road shows, like the one in Nashville, we have matches at the beginning of the show that are built around just getting the audience acclimated to the style of wrestling that they will be watching," she says. "I like to teach the audience who I am during my entrance and the first five minutes of my match, so hopefully they can just sit back and enjoy the rest of it.

"You would think it would get easier, because we're with the same people every night. But you have to try so hard to keep fans from getting bored and coming back every night."
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#8,522
#8,522
The day HHH is given control of the main roster (or to a much lesser extent, Stephanie, and Macho Man forbid they ever divorce) I believe we will see a rebirth of wrestling like we've not seen since the Attitude Era.

That's honestly part of the reason I still watch, and will continue watching into my middle ages, because I still find it entertaining now on a weekly basis, and find it amazing at moments (which is what any sport or live entertainment is about anyway, those moments you look back and say "Holy **** we saw that"), and I truly think he can still get better in so many ways, and HHH is one of the guys who can help do it.
 
#8,523
#8,523
If Shane ran the business side of it (which he won't), HHH ran the wrestling side of it, and Steph just stayed home, raised kids, and kept her nose out of it, it would be perfect.

Either way, Vince McDunn needs to go.
 
#8,524
#8,524
Daloth said:
The day HHH is given control of the main roster (or to a much lesser extent, Stephanie, and Macho Man forbid they ever divorce) I believe we will see a rebirth of wrestling like we've not seen since the Attitude Era.

That's honestly part of the reason I still watch, and will continue watching into my middle ages, because I still find it entertaining now on a weekly basis, and find it amazing at moments (which is what any sport or live entertainment is about anyway, those moments you look back and say "Holy **** we saw that"), and I truly think he can still get better in so many ways, and HHH is one of the guys who can help do it.
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?
 
#8,525
#8,525
Reigns and Wyatt in the cell has the potential to be an instant classic. If it lives up to it's potential, it could be one of the best matches in a very long time.
 
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