Yeah I agree with most of that but like I said I'd save Taker/Cena for WM30. I'd have Cena go over too if Taker was happy with it.

I think Brock would pose a big enough threat in the eyes of the casual fan. Bigger than HHH anyway.

Nobody's saying that it wouldn't sell, but it certainly wouldn't enhance my enjoyment of it any that others are blindly giving Lesnar a shot in it.

I have a hard time buying into saving matches for Taker for that long. The key reason of course is that there's no guarantee of him making it that far, but also that long of a period of time is enough time for a new megastar to emerge and credibly take him on at the following year's show. It's WrestleMania...shoot whatever wad you have here and now, and start worrying about next year's show afterward.

taker lesnar would see huge with casual fans

cena or lesnar would've been great until cena lost to the rock and lesnar lost to cena. either one will still be ok, those losses just blew what could've been a lot better.

Smackdown TR 7/31/12

Got to Banker's Life Fieldhouse about 15 minutes before the show. Very little wait to get to a box office window, and the lady quickly found me a seat at the lowest price level that I'm quite surprised was at the lowest price level. Had a very nice view the whole night.

Dark Match: Brodus Clay vs. local jobber
Mostly standard stuff, though they gave Brodus more time than usual for this squash and I have to say his offense was pretty entertaining. Liked his t-bone suplex. Obviously Brodus wins after a splash.

Superstars

Heath Slater vs. Tyson Kidd
Heath Slater gets the haters mad. Got some of the best heat of the night. His heat, as much as anything, causes a "Let's go Kidd" chant to start. I'm immediately more impressed with tonight's Indianapolis crowd than my last two experiences. And they were good all night...mostly the noise shouldn't be piped in on Friday's show, I don't think. Anyway, this was a good match. The two work well together, got plenty of entertaining offense in, and at least one believable false finish for Slater before Kidd pulls it off.
Winner: Tyson Kidd

Nattie Neidhart vs. Layla
Nattie came out to an underwhelming but universally positive reaction. Did she turn face again or something? I guess not, because she worked the match like a heel. The action here was decent, obviously these two work better than most divas. Layla goes over with a spin kick.
Winner: Layla

Cody Rhodes vs. Justin Gabriel
Cody gets a good reaction from the Indy crowd. The match is sloppy for quite a while, only redeemed near the end with a nice aerial sequence from Gabriel that brought the crowd back into it. Except...once they got back into it they start chanting for Cody. Cody hits the Cross Rhodes, crowd pops for his win.
Winner: Cody Rhodes

Smackdown

Lilian Garcia, who is hot, albeit not much better on the mic than Mike Adamle, introduces Vince McMahon. Vince cuts straight to the chase, and while his quick intro makes me think he's setting up to introduce a heel, the new GM is Booker T. I should have deduced something when Michael Cole and Josh Matthews came out for commentary but Booker never did. I was entirely underwhelmed by the choice, but as the show wore on it seemed like maybe he'll do okay in this role.

Booker begins addressing the crowd when ADR interrupts to pretty considerable heat. ADR tries to disingenuously butter up Booker T, but is then interrupted by Sheamus, who gets a MASSIVE pop. Wow. Orton got a great pop later, but I don't think it matched Sheamus's. As bored with his reign as I am, this crowd is loving him.

Sheamus says, "Seriously? You're not going to wrestle until your match with me at SummerSlam?" ADR confirms that's right, at which point Booker says "Oh hell no. Yes you're wrestling tonight." I immediately think, "Who are their tag team partners?" Booker says, "You two will both be getting singles matches tonight." Well then. He may or may not turn out to be a great GM, but he only took like five minutes to surpass Teddy Long.

He tells ADR that he'll be facing Orton tonight. ADR throws a fit, Booker sticks to his guns. ADR storms off. Then Booker tells Sheamus that he's next, and will be in a knock-down drag-out fight with...Tensai. And the crowd goes mild.

Sheamus v. Tensai
As far as match quality, this is a simple calculation. Sheamus usually works good-to-great matches with good-to-great workers. He always works garbage matches if he doesn't have a good worker across from him. The worker across from him tonight is Tensai. Therefore, this match is pretty sleepy and boring. Sheamus wins with a brogue kick.
Winner: Sheamus

Backstage segment. Eve is looking ****ing hot in a black dress. Booker comes in, she congratulates him and tries to schmooze her way into a spot in his administration. He says he'll think about it and get back to her. Then Teddy Long comes in and congratulates Booker. Booker says, "Teddy! I'd like to offer you a spot in my administration. How about senior adviser to the general manager?" Teddy gladly accepts. Eve is standing there going WTF. Booker turns to her and says, "Oh sorry Eve, all positions in my administration are now filled. Maybe we'll talk another time."

Santino Marella v. Antonio Cesaro
Cesaro is out first, and Lilian says he would like to say hello in five different languages. He does so. It doesn't get any real heat because it's incredibly ******ed. Then Santino comes out, and Lilian botches this introduction. She tries to introduce Antonio Cesaro again, and then catches herself. The intro comes out, "Antonio Ces-Santino!" She shakes her head, mutters, and keeps her head down as she leaves the ring. The guys in the row in front of me are entertaining. They're about 25, they both came with replica belts, they brought a sign dedicated to the Primetime Players and kept saying they wanted to see them tonight, and they're exclusively cheering for heels. They boo loudly when Santino tries to bring out the cobra. Santino successfully hits Cesaro with the cobra, and then before pinning him blatantly shoves him like five feet toward the ropes so that Cesaro can get a foot on the ropes to stop the pinfall attempt. (Okay, five feet is obviously an overstatement, but it was really damn obvious that Cesaro fell in the wrong place, and Santino did roll him a decent ways to save the planned sequence.) After this rope break, Cesaro is able to win. I think it was with the neckbreaker? Big win for Cesaro, though he still isn't getting much crowd reaction yet. Clearly they do have some commitment to pushing him.
Winner: Antonio Cesaro

Daniel Bryan promo
Striker begins to interview Bryan and then sends it to a video package. It's a recent highlight reel of D-Bry getting humiliated. No dnky, this is not the same as burial. They're solidifying the heel status that was in question. He cuts a promo after the video saying that the crowd has no right to steal his catchphrase, and that he'd better not hear them saying "YES!" anymore. He said, "In fact, you're going to be hearing the word 'no' a lot more." The camera lowers and reveals that Bryan is wearing a shirt of the same color as his last one, except this one says "NO! NO! NO!"

Bryan/Ziggler/Miz v. Jericho/Christian/Kane
Everyone gets an individual entrance. Jericho is out first and I'm not fully sure that the crowd is buying htis face turn yet, though there was a "Y2J" chant going on a couple of occasions during the match. Miz gets a decent mixed reaction. Vickie gets massive heat, which transfers to Ziggler. Bryan is out last and gets huge heat as well.

The lady behind me is the most insanely annoying human being I've ever come across. She had a shrill, awful voice. Pure nails on chalkboard. She's constantly screaming inane things and has a vocabulary of five words. She chants "USA! USA!" every time there's a heel foreigner in the ring. I'm just sad that she didn't think Tensai was really Japanese and start chanting it during his match with Sheamus. At one point, and I'm not kidding about this, they showed the "Be a Star" promo on the big screen. She did sing-along with the last person saying "be a star," and then proceeded to attempt to start a "BE A STAR! BE A STAR!" chant. These are the lemmings that WWE creative gets to mold into absolutely ****ing anything. I give her this lovely intro, because during this match she was absolutely obsessed with yelling, "Vickie shut up! You are so annoying! Nobody cares what you have to say! Just shut your mouth!" I was sincerely afraid that an irony meter was going to ****ing explode in my face and render me blind forever.

As to the match, it was decent, albeit not amazing given the talent involved. In the final sequence, Jericho got Bryan in the lion tamer (yes, the full-on lion tamer) and it looked like Bryan was going to tap. Vickie got up on the apron to distract the referee - not sure if Bryan was actually tapping at this time - and Ziggler came into the ring. This drew Jericho off of Bryan, and the distraction allowed Bryan to roll him up for the pin.
Winners; Bryan/Ziggler/Miz

Orton promo
Orton, not one who can cut good promos, says nothing of interest. Something about being good to be back.

Survivor Series announcement
Probably not for TV, but cool for us in the arena: they announce that Survivor Series will be in Indy this year, 3.5 months away.

(The) Ryback v. Jinder Mahal
Did the lady behind me instantly start into "USA! USA!"? Why yes, yes she did. I hope she skates into an AIDS tree. Jinder escapes to the outside of the ring at some point in this match, lures Ryback out, and then seemingly hits him with a microphone just based on the noise that made. Ref calls for a DQ. Jinder talks **** as he backs up the ramp.
Winner: Ryback via DQ

R-Truth v. Darren Young
The guys in front of me hilariously mark out huge for the Primetime Players. AW comes to the top of the ramp and does their introduction. He must have a regular routine for this, because these guys in front of me sing along with it word for word. As a final flourish, when AW says their name, these two guys each throw a fistful of play money in the air and yell "MILLIONS OF DOLLARS! MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!" I crack up. They look back at me, hearing me laughing, and I give them the thumbs up. As opposed to AIDS tree lady behind me, these guys enhanced my enjoyment of this match that I probably wouldn't have otherwise cared about.

For once, the PTP were actually getting a reaction, getting decent heat from the crowd. AW still gets a live mic and everything. After a back-and-forth sequence at the end, Young takes advantage of a distraction and hits Truth with a codebreaker-like move for the win. He totally botched this move, but I was on the side across from the hard camera and I think it may look better on TV than it looked from my seat. I'm interested to see how this and the Santino shove-Cesaro-into-kickout-position situations look.
Winner: Darren Young

Randy Orton v. ADR
Orton is massively over here and the crowd pops for his every move. They really should put ADR over here dirty, but naturally they don't. As Orton is setting up for the RKO, Ricardo Rodriguez comes in and draws the DQ. Look, WWE: putting ADR over here would actually make it seem like he had SOME chance in the world title match at the next PPV. They don't have the confidence in him to put him over Orton? Okay fine, I would get that too, but in that case he shouldn't be in that match for the second straight month. To both put him in the match and make him look weaker than Orton is just brutally stupid.

After the match, ADR is heading for the back when Sheamus comes out, tosses him back in the ring, ADR runs into an RKO as expected, and Orton celebrates as Smackdown leaves the air.
Winner: Orton via DQ

Dark match: Cena v. Show/Ace
I await confirmation that this is indeed our main event for the night. Lilian says, "This will be a 2-on-1 match!" And then Cena's music hits. And then I get up and leave. **** watching a Cena dark match, it's pure fan service for the kiddies and provides zero entertainment. I walk without having to push through a crowd and head home.
---
All in all, a good show and I'm glad I went. Hopefully I can scrape a few bucks together to go to Survivor Series in a few months too.

"YES!" is definitely the new "YOU SUCK!", by the way. Crowd ate it up and I imagine most crowds will.

Awesome TR.

And thanks for the shout out. Lol

Oh and the crowd did start chanting "Kobe Bryant" during the PTP match, though I'm sure that the WWE won't allow that to come through on the broadcast at all.

I partially walked away from this show stoked just because of the fact that Indianapolis proved themselves to be capable of being a really good crowd. I was very down on this city as a wrestling city before, but now I'm hopeful that they do their part come Survivor Series.

Oh yeah, a few more things coming to mind:
*They showed a video package recapping CM Punk's recent actions, and this crowd who was mostly ABC when it came to cheering faces and booing heels (except for cheering for Cody during Superstars) was not booing Punk. I heard a few more cheers than boos, in fact. They're going to have to make the heel turn even more obvious for people in order to drive it home.

*Cody had a segment with Booker T backstage at some point in the show. I'm now forgetting when. It was just a hostile little confrontation where Cody passive-aggressively congratulated him while taking shots at him, and then Booker put him in a match next week against Sin Cara.

*They are teasing an ADR/Ricardo split, I think. It was based on stuff outside the ring though, so I have to see how they treat it on TV.

Nice trip report. As aids as wrestling may come across on TV from time to time, I always have a blast when I see it live. Watching it live really drives home the point of just how much damage Cole and Lawler do to the product.

That's awesome



Raw is coming to Dallas in two weeks as the go home to Summerslam. Thinking of going.

I think that's like 90% Lawler though, since Cole massively scaled down the bull**** of putting himself over throughout matches. He used to be nearly an equal offender, but now I think he's fine (not good, but fine). And it's no coincidence that his SD work is always far better than his Raw work.

They were still using Striker as an interviewer tonight, but I really do think they should give him a crack at filling Booker's spot at a three-man SD announce table. Obviously have to see how it is with just Matthews and Cole though.

SS is in Indy? Haven't been to a show since I went to a house show at Market Square Arena when I was like 9. Might be fun.

It is. The presale code right now is "series," though I think tomorrow it will change to "indyppv."

I'm going to have to wait to see how my finances are in November before I buy a ticket, but I hope to be there.

Awesome TR LKJ, enjoyed it.

this is unbelievably good

great tr

Wtf, when did it become Bankers Life Fieldhouse? Did they change anything or just the name?

It was Conseco until last year. I think it's just the name that changed.

MILLIONS OF DOLLAS!! MILLIONS OF DOLLAS!!

I hope those guys got on TV, they deserve to going to all that effort.

Wow, I hope this ends well for Punk as a character and as a main event player at the end of WM 29.

http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/ne...tpBCfCbPuxv.99

Lol, they are obsessed with having terrible ideas.

I still think Punk is a pretty big favorite to win at SummerSlam.

I think it's like 70% Punk/30% Cena/0% Big Show.

No way Rock goes over Cena twice.

this

Unless they turn Cena heel, which i cant see happening at this point.

How reliable is wrestling observer on this stuff?

My money is they kicked around alternate ideas but will just stick with the original plan of Punk holding through to the Rumble, Rock goes over then Cena takes title at WM.