The Pro Wrestling Thread Sponsored by Bob Ross.

[shenmue]

Backlash is on now, crowd in Puerto Rico is on fire, hopefully cody beats brocky.

[Dfc180]

Backlash is on now, crowd in Puerto Rico is on fire, hopefully cody beats brocky.

Looked to be a great crowd, good results and surprises. Makes a change

[Jimmi]

I saw that Carlito received a mega pop.

He’s literally their Hulk Hogan.

Shame his Dad is a piece of shit, though.

[Greipel]

Bye Cena. While I never liked him, he will be missed.

[Jimmi]

Bye Cena. While I never liked him, he will be missed.

Was always neutral with Cena.
Pissed me off with how he was always positioned at the top of the card for almost 10 years, when others should have gotten in ahead of him.

But I’d rather have him still there over Roman Reigns.

[sennafan24]

Cena has his flaws, but he was a very good draw.

Without the success of his push in the mid-2000s the industry could have been in serious bother. WWF's business was in the toilet until the Batista vs HHH feud and Cena's main event push.

[Jimmi]

I imagine they still did good business with Brock Lesnar and The Rock until they both fucked off in 2004.

But that was a period I didn’t keep up with.
2002-2004.

[sennafan24]

I imagine they still did good business with Brock Lesnar and The Rock until they both fucked off in 2004.

But that was a period I didn’t keep up with.
2002-2004.

Rock stopped appearing regularly in mid 2002. His return in early 2003 didn't prevent WM19 from performing poorly on PPV. Granted, this wasn't helped by the Iraq War or marketing the card around Vince vs Hogan. Rock's match at WM20 did probably help that event draw a strong number, but so did the Goldberg vs Brock match and the anniversary. After that, he made a few appearances on RAW and that was it until 2011.

Brock wasn't much of a draw during his first career. In fact, business when he was on top of the Smackdown brand between mid-2002 and early 2004 was pretty dreadful. It only became worse after he left IIRC. It wasn't just Smackdown though. RAW was drawing terribly in 2004 too.

Cena was shifting merchandise even in 2004. He switched to RAW in 2005 and was firmly the ace of the brand by 2006. The upshot was that WWE's business went up, especially house show numbers and merchandise. I'm not sure if anyone else at that time could have been as successful in the role. But I could name quite a few performers who would have bombed in it.

[Jimmi]

I imagine they still did good business with Brock Lesnar and The Rock until they both fucked off in 2004.

But that was a period I didn’t keep up with.
2002-2004.

Rock stopped appearing regularly in mid 2002. His return in early 2003 didn't prevent WM19 from performing poorly on PPV. Granted, this wasn't helped by the Iraq War or marketing the card around Vince vs Hogan. Rock's match at WM20 did probably help that event draw a strong number, but so did the Goldberg vs Brock match and the anniversary. After that, he made a few appearances on RAW and that was it until 2011.

Brock wasn't much of a draw during his first career. In fact, business when he was on top of the Smackdown brand between mid-2002 and early 2004 was pretty dreadful. It only became worse after he left IIRC. It wasn't just Smackdown though. RAW was drawing terribly in 2004 too.

Cena was shifting merchandise even in 2004. He switched to RAW in 2005 and was firmly the ace of the brand by 2006. The upshot was that WWE's business went up, especially house show numbers and merchandise. I'm not sure if anyone else at that time could have been as successful in the role. But I could name quite a few performers who would have bombed in it.

Raw 2003-2004 had the Triple H “reign of terror”, so I can see why.
Smackdown had the “Smackdown Six” for a period and I imagine Rey Mysterio helped Smackdown a fair bit, as did The Undertaker.

Cena was the guy though.
Only person who should have really replaced him at the top of the card was C.M Punk.
But WWE didn’t really want to build anyone else up into a new mega star, they were just happy with Cena all the time.

[sennafan24]

Raw 2003-2004 had the Triple H “reign of terror”, so I can see why.
Smackdown had the “Smackdown Six” for a period and I imagine Rey Mysterio helped Smackdown a fair bit, as did The Undertaker.

Cena was the guy though.
Only person who should have really replaced him at the top of the card was C.M Punk.
But WWE didn’t really want to build anyone else up into a new mega star, they were just happy with Cena all the time.

Agreed that HHH was a weak ace. He could draw well as the antagonist to the central character, but not as the central character.

Taker was solid as a number 2 babyface. Eddie and Rey drew strong TV numbers with Hispanics. Even so, none of those guys were capable of getting WWE out of its business slump.

I disagree about Punk. I would go into why, but it would take several paragraphs

[Jimmi]

Raw 2003-2004 had the Triple H “reign of terror”, so I can see why.
Smackdown had the “Smackdown Six” for a period and I imagine Rey Mysterio helped Smackdown a fair bit, as did The Undertaker.

Cena was the guy though.
Only person who should have really replaced him at the top of the card was C.M Punk.
But WWE didn’t really want to build anyone else up into a new mega star, they were just happy with Cena all the time.

Agreed that HHH was a weak ace. He could draw well as the antagonist to the central character, but not as the central character.

Taker was solid as a number 2 babyface. Eddie and Rey drew strong TV numbers with Hispanics. Even so, none of those guys were capable of getting WWE out of its business slump.

I disagree about Punk. I would go into why, but it would take several paragraphs

HHH was always a great heel.
He just didn’t like losing.

Eddie might have got them out of a slump, it’s difficult to say because he passed away so soon.

Punk was a huge draw in the early 2010’s.
Okay, he has an abrasive personality backstage and rubbed certain people the wrong way.
The Pipe-bomb Promo was massive at the time too.
But again, WWE just wanted to cling onto Cena and play it safe.

[sennafan24]

HHH was always a great heel.
He just didn’t like losing.

Eddie might have got them out of a slump, it’s difficult to say because he passed away so soon.

Punk was a huge draw in the early 2010’s.
Okay, he has an abrasive personality backstage and rubbed certain people the wrong way.
The Pipe-bomb Promo was massive at the time too.
But again, WWE just wanted to cling onto Cena and play it safe.

Eddie is in my top 10 all-time favourites and at his best (04-05) he was as good as anyone in the ring. Even so, by the time he passed he'd reached his career ceiling. He was a fringe main-eventer and was destined to stay there. The Cena era was underway or about to be underway, depends on how you view it.

Punk's drawing power was nothing special in 2011 IIRC. One of the issues was that for an underdog babyface he wasn't especially sympathetic or likeable. Another was that the content of his promos took a lot of the audience for granted. A lot of his shtick, in particular the insider references, went over the audience's heads. For example, during the "Pipe-Bomb" he mentioned Colt Cabana, a wrestler that very few watching RAW that night even knew, and even fewer gave a shit about.

[Jimmi]

HHH was always a great heel.
He just didn’t like losing.

Eddie might have got them out of a slump, it’s difficult to say because he passed away so soon.

Punk was a huge draw in the early 2010’s.
Okay, he has an abrasive personality backstage and rubbed certain people the wrong way.
The Pipe-bomb Promo was massive at the time too.
But again, WWE just wanted to cling onto Cena and play it safe.

Eddie is in my top 10 all-time favourites and at his best (04-05) he was as good as anyone in the ring. Even so, by the time he passed he'd reached his career ceiling. He was a fringe main-eventer and was destined to stay there. The Cena era was underway or about to be underway, depends on how you view it.

Punk's drawing power was nothing special in 2011 IIRC. One of the issues was that for an underdog babyface he wasn't especially sympathetic or likeable. Another was that the content of his promos took a lot of the audience for granted. A lot of his shtick, in particular the insider references, went over the audience's heads. For example, during the "Pipe-Bomb" he mentioned Colt Cabana, a wrestler that very few watching RAW that night even knew, and even fewer gave a shit about.

Eddie could have still done bits on Smackdown around that time and could have been the #1 baby face or even heel.
A case of what could have been because he was really popular in 2004.

Punk’s insider references would have only gone over the casual fans heads.
WCW in the 2000 Vince Russo era is more akin to using insider references that perhaps even the smarkiest of fans weren’t aware of.

He is a much better heel than face, his feud with Jeff Hardy was great when he was a heel.
Wasn’t overly keen on the Straight Edge Society Stuff but it worked well into his real life beliefs and ethics.

When he feuded with Cena, he was the anti-hero that the fans wanted to win and best Cena because they were so sick of him.
Then they fucked the whole angle up by only having him off TV for two weeks when he “left” with the WWE Title. Then he lost pointlessly to Triple H not long after that.

And don’t worry, Colt Cabana is as irrelevant today, as he was in 2011.

[Ross, Bob]

Gay thread.

[Jimmi]

Gay thread.

[sennafan24]

Bob Ross reminds me of ECW.

[Jimmi]

Bob Ross reminds me of ECW.

Edgy but not really that good?

[sennafan24]

Bob Ross reminds me of ECW.

Edgy but not really that good?

He's also a bit like Flair in the 90s and 00s.

[Jimmi]

Bob Ross reminds me of ECW.

Edgy but not really that good?

He's also a bit like Flair in the 90s and 00s.

Old, can’t do it like he used to and needs to retire?

[sennafan24]

Bob Ross reminds me of ECW.

Edgy but not really that good?

He's also a bit like Flair in the 90s and 00s.

Old, can’t do it like he used to and needs to retire?

And same tired routine.