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There seemed to be a real point to everything at WrestleMania XXX. Cesaro was built to be a break-out star. The streak was over and we were in a new era. Daniel Bryan ascended the ranks. The Shield wiped out the Attitude era guys. To be honest, the only thing I really would have changed would have been putting Bray over Cena.
Cesaro has been so oddly handled since WrestleMania. It seemed as if they were going to present him as a "cool heel" going forward. He aligned with Paul Heyman and got cheers for it. His Cesaro Swing was meant to be over, and there was meant to be a "Cesaro Section." But then he stopped doing the swing, started acting like more of a coward, has changed his ring jacket/shirt/robe about every few weeks and has essentially become just another guy. Heyman hasn't even really hyped him up much on the mic. Weird. |
Like Jim Ross says on his podcasts, tweeners don't work. They hold interest for awhile, but the mixed signals lead to indifference. They committed to him as a heel, but being a chickenshit heel is the worst possible thing for his character following WrestleMania. I imagine he will turn face by getting frustrated with Heyman upon Brock's return.
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Heyman is becoming vastly over-rated. He adds nothing to the people he manages. I don't find Cesaro anymore interesting. He's become a crutch for Cesaro. Cesaro needs to talk for himself. I said the same things for Reigns, and Reigns is miles ahead of Cesaro. He added nothing to Punk, Axel or Ryback and I'dd really rather Lesnar be without Paul. His promos did zero for the Taker vs Lesnar match.
Love Heyman, but his latest run has been a dud IMO |
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Instead they dropped or went in a different direction for everything big. Andre statue was supposed to be a lot more important for status reasons, Heyman was supposed to play a bigger role in his face turn, and the swing/Cesaro section would have been Bryan-like in popularity. |
I dunno. Brock never needs to talk...ever.
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Dig Heyman but they definitely need to start giving Cesaro more mic time.
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I get the point about tweeners, but slow-burn face turns can work. Cesaro would have still been a heel. He would be beating up mainly good guys and aligned with a well known rat in Heyman. But he was getting over and people wanted to cheer him. The Swing at least got kids into his matches and such. As a "cool heel," Cesaro could have been that gate-way for kids who grow out of enjoying the John Cena/Kofi Kingston style face into becoming life-long fans of the bad guys. Cesaro could have been this generation's Roddy Piper or Mr. Perfect in role.
Everything with him just seems...odd now. How hard would it have been to have Cesaro vs. Swagger at Extreme Rules, with Paul Heyman and Zeb Colter in their charges' corners respectively. Cesaro would have won cleanly and Heyman would rant about how Cesaro just proved he was the better Real American and is destined for the World Title picture. Then at Payback, Cesaro vs. Sheamus without the US Title being involved (Sheamus' US Title win was odd too, in my opinion), with Cesaro being the bad guy, but probably getting cheered in Chicago. Cesaro would have won that match cleanly too, and begun mounting credibility as a tough heel. Money in the Bank could have seen Cesaro play essentially the role he played, but would have been his first PPV loss since aligning with Heyman. Something like this could have brought out the dark side in Cesaro, and he'd be heading towards a singles match at Battleground now, which he would have won in decisive fashion. It just feels like his build has been rather stop-start. |
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I think Triple H should have been more of a martyr for Axel to destroy in his re-branding. And I wish Axel had more personality to show off and make his push more sustainable. But what sabotaged the Axel/Heyman relationship was the feud with CM Punk. Axel was never going to win that, and he was the Intercontinental Champion at the time. It halted all Axel's momentum. Ryback was also never going to go over Punk, and as a result, that relationship was mired from the start. Heyman needed a main event guy not named Brock Lesnar to carry on the fight against Punk heading into Hell in a Cell. But I agree: Cesaro and Heyman have been underwhelming together. We've got mixed signals from them. Heyman needs to come out and explain why Cesaro is the next top tier talent in WWE, and not just tell us that he is. |
As a Real American, Cesaro also had sweet theme music and a catchphrase for people to get into.
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I like Heyman with Brock. He adds a lot to that mix.
I also enjoyed Heyman with CM Punk. Punk obviously didn't need someone to talk for him, but Heyman was an excellent hype man. With Axel/Ryback, he was not very good at hyping them up.... but very good at hyping up a feud between himself and CM Punk that just so happened to have other people tangentially involved. Now with Cesaro, he spends most of the time talking about Brock Lesnar. Should be busy hyping up Cesaro and treating him like the biggest star in the company. Hyping him up a lot more. Heyman is a tremendous hype man, so that is what he should be doing for Cesaro. |
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As for Cesaro, Axel and Ryback, I'd put that mainly on WWE not knowing what the fuck they're doing with long term booking. Guys getting a quick push and then getting forgotten about immediately and wasting any momentum right out of the gate has been the norm for years. Heyman can't really do anything without the guy being booked to be remotely interesting. There's only so much you can say about the guy when he's doing nothing of note. Of course, it also doesn't help that Axel should never have gotten such a push to begin with because he's horribly bland. |
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Flair will always look out of place on an early episode of Raw to me.
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Bad News Barrett hurt Bad News Barrett. |
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I thought 23 was pretty underwhelming too. Especially in hindsight since the main event was done much better weeks later on free TV.
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AJ looked great on smackdown against the invisible opponent
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great match here!
Fit Finlay vs British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith <object width="640" height="360"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/2oIRRY02nL8?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/2oIRRY02nL8?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object> |
Still working my way through the "Attitude Era", just moved into '98. Doesn't take long to notice the differences to today's presentation. In '98 you get the full opening credits followed by the pyro and JR's incredibly excited intro setting the tone for the show. Today you go from the WWE ident into a cold open with The Authority coming to the ring to talk for 10 minutes most weeks whilst Cole calmly introduces the show.
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I'm watching this week's TNA. Kinda hate the name The Wolves. Preferred them as The American Wolves.
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I may have to rethink my claim of what was the last bad WrestleMania now. |
I would love to see someone with a total douche bag gimmick from "Bagadouse, Florida."
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Thinking about it all now, I feel like Cole has really gotten worse since his heel run abruptly ended. When he was on SmackDown, he was actually pretty good, then he went to Raw and continued with that until his heel turn. His heel turn was really great and entertaining, but because of what happened with Lawler and his heart attack, the heel run had to end, which I understand. Since then though, he's just gotten worse and worse. These days, your average Michael Cole commentary consists of "OH!", "OH MY!", "*Wrestler's Name* with a *adjective* move!", complaining to JBL & Lawler that their references aren't "current" and just general bickering with JBL. He doesn't call moves unless they're finishing moves or signature moves. If they're not, then he just refers to them as a "move" or a "hold". Also, I've noticed (especially recently) that when Cole is calling a match featuring the males, you can sometimes see him in the background leaning forward and looking at his monitor, but whenever there's a Diva's match happening, he's always just sitting back in his chair and not paying any attention to his monitor or the ring, and he looks so uninterested and bored. He doesn't even talk about the match that's happening. He just usually stays quiet or talks about the main event. I don't want to be one of "those guys", but you would never see JR doing that. |
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I'm currently listening to the Day of Reckoning 2 soundtrack and I forgot how good the music was.
It so different from what was usually used for WWE games back then. It's a refreshing change. As a game though, I thought Day of Reckoning 2 was a pretty good game that was slightly underrated/overlooked. |
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<font color=goldenrod>Apparently Santino announced at the house show that his in-ring career is over. Suffered a third neck injury.
That really sucks. I grew tired of his character years ago, but not being able to retire on your own terms is always a really shitty situation. I imagine he'll continue to be on TV in comedy skits for years to come.</font> |
Santino is fucking stellar at what he does. It's too bad they never did something with his character that could give him a legit run because he's pretty awesome in every way and can look like a badass in the ring if need be.
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Damn, that sucks.
He most likely waited until he was back in Canada to announce that, as there was a house show in Toronto today. I get the feeling he'll stick around for comedy purposes and that he'll be Emma's manager. |
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Probably my biggest wrestling mark out moment as an adult. SO CLOSE! |
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