Yeah you're going to need to back this one up.

We were doing so well at ignoring that post.

lol, my bad

I know the smarks love technical wrestlers but big guys like Barrett, Ryback, Reigns have WWE champion written all over them, and it pisses me off a lot more when these guys get booked badly than wrestlers like Ziggler and Ryder.

Ryback very clearly does not have WWE Champion written all over him.

Is that your opinion now or always? When he first got repackaged I bet you think he would be champ and be a long term main eventer

LOL at grouping Ryback with Barrett and Reigns

Him being a future champion never occurred to me. I didn't think he would quite fall this badly to the wayside, so I thought he would be better than "thrown into ***an established tag team*** with a bust," but no I hadn't given much thought to him being some mega-star in the making.

I thought he was gonna win the belt off punk at one point

Neither. I prefer Cena beating Bryan questionably/illegitimately. John Cena not being happy with the way it went down and giving Daniel Bryan a rematch. Then Daniel Bryan could win the title back or better yet if hell froze over in an ideal world John Cena could retain the title by cheating and turning heel. That would make Daniel Bryan grow even more popular and would setup future matches.

In short, Daniel Bryan and John Cena are the biggest stars in the WWE right now by a mile and they should always be in the mix. Sure, throw in guys like Orton/Wyatt/Triple H/Lesnar/Whoever into the mix and even take Cena out of the mix for 1 PPV but to have John Cena out of the mix for any longer than that is unacceptable IMO.

Every time a new wrestler joins the WWE I'm a sucker for the vignettes and just assume that the wrestler is totally badass and will end up being a future title contender. Of course that means right now I'm all about Alexander Rusev. However, even I wasn't naive enough to think Ryback would be a true title contender. I must have missed his vignettes.

I don't think Ryback had vignettes, he just came out and beat legit jobbers every week in 2-on-1 handicap matches.

I also never entertained the thought that he might be a world champion one day, let alone be a long term main eventer. Not sure where wesrwood is getting that from.

WWE was pushing Ryback like he was the next big thing.

Doesn't really compute.

And anyway I'm not sure that they were. His first few PPV matches were vs. Aaron Relic/Jay Hatton, Camacho, Dan Delaney/Rob Grymes and Curt Hawkins/Tyler Reks, then was left off the card at Summerslam and Night of Champions before his two WWE title matches (which he never really had a chance of winning), and then was off the card again at the next PPV. Sure they gave him a push but it was hardly Lesnar standards.

Well, for starters, every time the thought "John Cena turning heel" comes to mind, take that as your cue to wake up and change the sheets. It just isn't happening so it isn't even worth fantasy booking.

Beyond that, I get your impulse, I really do, but I think you're too rigid and doctrinaire about it. With the limitations you've set forth, you would have a hell of a time booking an interesting 12 months of wrestling with a monthly PPV booking model. I'm willing to be proven wrong if you wanted to try to lay out 12 months of just the main events in a way that sounds watchable, but I don't think it would work.

Blood feuds are a thing that will and should happen in a worked fighting sport, and while I do think that the world title should be the ultimate goal of basically every wrestler, I also think there's plenty of room for realistically getting sidetracked and voluntarily focusing more on getting back at your sworn enemy as a temporary higher priority than being the champion.

Yeah, the initial Ryback push involved the booking team basically standing outside of every arena screaming through a megaphone, "WE'RE BOOKING AROUND HIS LIMITATIONS, FOLKS!" That's why it never occurred to me that the world title was anywhere close to happening, even as he climbed the ladder into facing more credible competition.

I'm just saying that they were pushing him hard but I never bought into the hype (but I can understand how some people did buy into it). I didn't expect them to push him as hard as they did nor did I expect him to fall as hard as he did.

Ah, fair enough.

None of this changes the fact that he should have beaten Henry at Wrestlemania 29, he should have spent 2013 beating credible opposition and the big guy should have been the one to conquer the streak. Right about now we should be seeing the groundwork being laid for a Bryan vs Ryback Summerslam extravegansa.

Yeah there is no way someone could possibly think that. Confirmed troll.

Ryback was going places though until his run was sabotaged and he was thrown in with the vastly untalented 3rd genner Axel.

Here's a few more:

WWE Y2J is vastly overrated and quite bland.

RVD's hair is awful and I can hardly watch his matches until he loses the 1987 ponytail.

ADR is a heck of a worker who's been burdened with a racial gimmick.

Cody Rhodes is incredibly bland and wouldn't have stood a cat in hells chance of making the big time were it not for who he's related to.

Heel lawyer David Otunga was very entertaining.

I was semi-entertained by Hornswoggle vs El Torito in recent weeks.

Kane has been awful for 95% of his career.

Flair vs Michaels at WM 24 was ruined by the broken ribs after 5 minutes, and isn't in the top 20 greatest Mania matches for that reason.

I just watched Bash at the Beach '97 and Dennis Rodman was a pretty good wrestler. Oh, and the inclusion of Dennis Rodman by itself should have earned this PPV a higher rating than the 0.0 that it received in it's review on 411mania. :-D

WCW handled Rodman/Malone/Leno pretty well IIRC.

Later on with Masta P and Arquette it went a bit wrong!


As a spectacle I enjoyed WMIXs finish even though I hate the behind the scenes shenanigans and effect it had on the business going forward.

I love watching WMII even though it's a complete clusterf*ck.

The Undertaker was really boring from 1991-2007 apart from summer '96 feud with Mankind through to the start of the Kane feud.

I don't think what Benoit subsequently did should be mentioned/used as a reason not to watch/show his wrestling career. I enjoy watching his matches bc he was an awesome wrestler, I have no idea why some people are so emotionally ******ed that they can't disengage from what happened and just enjoy his back catologue.

I think the WWE should scrap the IC and US titles.

LOL @ the Ryback praise itt.

He was never going to be a main eventer. He has trouble completing sentences and he's sloppy in the ring, all he has is his look. He has been in development since 2004, he was on the same Tough Enough as The Miz ffs. The current Ryback is a result of almost 10 years of WWE training.