The General Wrestling Thread

[Warner2BruceTD]

If Aries had gyrated or thrusted in her face I'd say fire him too. He didn't do anything like that. He took a goof up and went for some heel heat. I don't think his intent was to embarrass or intimidate in a sexual manner.

Wrist slap him and move on.

[JimLeavy59]

Funny thing about Madden is the fact that he spends all day tweeting porn.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Funny thing about Madden is the fact that he spends all day tweeting porn.

...and one of his best friends is Ric Flair. So taking the high moral ground on objectifying women is pretty rich coming from him.

[JimLeavy59]

...and one of his best friends is Ric Flair. So taking the high moral ground on objectifying women is pretty rich coming from him.

Shocked he's never called for Flair to be blackballed from wrestling for some of the stuff he's done.

[EmpireWF]

Aries is a well known asshole. On TV, he'll turn that up 1000x. Hemme obviously felt threatened while Aries was seemingly going for heat. He deserves some kind of punishment (fine or whatever) and that's that.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Aries is a well known asshole. On TV, he'll turn that up 1000x. Hemme obviously felt threatened while Aries was seemingly going for heat. He deserves some kind of punishment (fine or whatever) and that's that.

Agree with all of this.

Calling for his head and using a term like 'sexual assault' is where people lose me.

[Guest]

On Meltzer's new audio he says high ranking people in WWE think Cesaro is boring.

So there you go.

Same people who adore Randy Orton. Let that sink in.

If you keep changing their gimmick monthly, he's going to be boring to anyone. Fact is, like Danielson, Punk and Jericho, Cesaro is money against just about anyone. Who cares about his gimmick? Even if you think he's boring, putting him up against a stiff like Orton gets a good match out of him. That way, you put Orton over however you want, but Cesaro also goes over in a way because you've got a damn good match coming from it.

Oh well, I'm just about divorced from the WWE. I'll watch it when I'm home but I don't go out of my way for it.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I watched an insane amount of WWE the last three days, and the three best matches I saw were Cesaro vs Kofi, Cesaro vs Orton, and Bryan vs Ambrose.

[EmpireWF]

Story about Meltzer in the NYT. How random.

http://t.co/ziSVtpoSZv

[FedEx227]

Nice computer Dave. I had the same Compaq when I was in 7th grade.

[EmpireWF]

From a WWE.com interview with a bunch of people talking 'WHAT IF ECW didn't die...'

http://www.wwe.com/classics/ecw/what-if-ecw-didnt-close-26114690

WWECLASSICS.COM: Who were some of the young stars that could have emerged in the original ECW?

CORINO: Paul really liked to use guys that didn’t fit the mold. I would definitely say that Christopher Daniels and Low-Ki would have been the first two that Paul would have got.

HEYMAN: I held off on bringing in Low-Ki, because I was not convinced of the liability of the company and didn’t want to debut someone in our dying days. But Low-Ki would have been a major player.

STYLES: So all of those top stars from Ring of Honor — CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Samoa Joe — would have found their way to ECW.

LYNN: I wrestled CM Punk around that time on an IWA Mid-South show that Ian Rotten was running. He was great.

CORINO: Of course, CM Punk and Colt Cabana. But I would be totally surprised if Punk didn’t become the star that he became. The letters of ECW are gone, but the guys that would’ve shined in ECW are still shining now.


HEYMAN: If you look at who emerged on the horizon 12 to 18 months after ECW stopped running shows, I think it’s very reasonable to believe that we would have picked up CM Punk and several of the other young stars that emerged in the independent scene in the early part of that decade. Punk obviously is the one that I would hope I would have noticed.

MERCURY: I think Charlie and Russ Haas would’ve been great fits. I think Steve Bradley would have been great. He was an extraordinary talent. I could see [R-Truth] doing very well in ECW. He has it all. He’s talented in the ring, he’s a hell of athlete and he can talk, he has a great look. Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, Daniel Bryan, Antonio Cesaro — I could see those guys fitting in.

LYNN: In 2001, John Cena was down in developmental at Ohio Valley Wrestling in Louisville, Ky., and they sent Molly Holly, Dean Malenko and I out there to take a look at the guys. I wrestled a bit with Cena in the ring. He asked, “Do you have any constructive criticism for me?” And I said, “No, not really. You can wrestle.” On that same trip, I wrestled Randy Orton on their TV taping. Both of those guys could have ended up in ECW.

[Warner2BruceTD]

HEYMAN: I held off on bringing in Low-Ki, because I was not convinced of the liability of the company and didn’t want to debut someone in our dying days. But Low-Ki would have been a major player.

This is a very interesting statement, and one of the reasons I wish Heyman would do more media (he's way too smart for that, he's probably got a book planned and waiting for the right time - like when he's not making any money - to tell his tales). It also shows why the ECW roster was such shit at the end, because he didn't want to bring new guys in because he knew it was dead. The part he's leaving out, is he couldn't bring new guys in, because he wasn't paying anybody by that point.

Anyway, i've always said that I believe what ROH eventually became is what ECW would have naturally evolved into. Hardcore was no longer hot, workrate was. Heyman was always (and still is) ahead of the curve on things, plus Sapolsky if nothing else has always had a keen eye for talent and it's very likely Heyman would have liked the same group of people (such as Low Ki). I mean, who wouldn't like Punk, Low Ki, Christopher Daniels, Kendrick, Paul London, Colt Cabana, Samoa Joe, etc?

I think ECW in 2002 & 2003 would have been a mirror image of ROH 2002 & 2003. ROH would have never existed.

[Warner2BruceTD]

...and right in cue, as im reading the article, this:

HEYMAN: The content of the company was set to change anyway. The hardcore era was over.

WWECLASSICS.COM: What would that new style have been?

HEYMAN: We certainly would have gone toward incorporating more of a progressive, submission-based style, rather than relying on what had been hot from ’94 to ’99. We would have accepted the influence of mixed martial arts quicker than the others, but never lost sight of it still being pro wrestling. That’s where we were headed. The flaming tables and the barbed wire would’ve been saved for the big-time moments. Things were moving toward more of a hybrid style that nobody had found the niche for yet.

[Warner2BruceTD]

...and this, lol

STYLES: Would ECW still be in business today, 12 years later? I don’t know. But I do think there could’ve been a few more years had ECW hung on until after WCW went out of business. In a way, Ring of Honor really did fill the niche for ECW in terms of the scientific wrestling and the high-flying wrestling.

DREAMER: Ring of Honor would have never happened. The original owners of Ring of Honor came from ECW.

[Warner2BruceTD]

This is how WWE should handle a Cena turn if they ever decide to go down that road.

For those unfamiliar, Johnny Gargano was becoming a John Cena like superhero babyface in Dragon Gate USA. Overcoming ridiculous odds, holding the title forever (something like 600 days now), white meat babyface hero to the point it was on the verge of becoming annoying.

So he has this classic match at WrestleMania weekend with Shingo, one of the top stars of Dragon Gate in Japan, and a guy who hasn't been to America in like 3 or 4 years. Watch the video and see what happens.

Basically his heel antics ruined a great match with a special opponent, with the story being he couldn't put Shingo away to win otherwise, so now Gargano is doing a mock up/lack of self awareness white meat babyface deal as a heel. It's actually pretty brilliant and has pumped new life into what was becoming a pretty stale scene in DGUSA.

My point here, is Cena would be perfect in the "heel who has no idea he's a heel" wink wink role.