Unpopular Opinions (Wrestling Edition)

[NitroFan]

aside from the car crash stunt shows what was there?

 

[Corrosion]

Better tag team wrestling even without gimmicks. The tag division has been horrendous for a long time, with the occasional great tag match occuring.

Better tag teams

Better feuds

 

[nobbyiscool]

i think ambrose and rollins will have better wwe careers and become bigger than reigns. rollins especially.

if you include trios matches, the last 12 to 18 months has been the best in ring period for tag team wrestling in the history of the company.

I can't believe I missed one of the most stupidly outrageous comments I've read on the wrestling forum.

the only way this is true is if you've only been watching wwe for 3 years and believe that constitutes the history of the company.

come on man, we have access to the network now. you can go back to the mid 80s when the tag belts were a major title, the early 90s push of smaller guys as tag wrestlers, the TLC era of 99-01, the Smackdown 6 era of 02, then the smackdown tag revival of 05-06.

There's no excuse for demonstrating such ignorance of tag team wrestling, and even less excuse for trying to suggest that as fact.

 

[NitroFan]

im glad we have the network but i dont particularly need it. ive got everything you listed (with the exception of mid 00s smackdown) on some kind of physical media and have had since before widespread streaming video on demand was even a thing.

i find 80s/early 90s wwf tag team wrestling highly overrated. give me what was going on in the nwa/wcw at the time by a long way. not really sure what you mean by the pushing of smaller teams. there was the rockers of course, but waltman and jannetty (who only held the titles for a week but had a couple of good matches against the quebecers in the process...not sure if theyre on the network or not) are the only team i would label as small who even held the belts. unless the hart foundation count as small. in wwf land the heavenly bodies probably count as small and i love their match against the steiners at summerslam and rock n roll express at survivor series.

*edit* i realize i misread you there. i obviously read it as smaller teams, rather than smaller guys (i assume namely bret and michaels).

tlc era is exactly that. not a whole lot going on outside of those, certainly not on anything resembling a week to week basis (especially in 99 which is probably the worst in ring year, singles or tags, since at least the national expansion).

smackdown 6 i havent watched much of in a few years but do remember really liking. that was the main contender in my mind when i made my previous statement.

i will admit ignorance of the mid 00s smackdown. most of my recollections of good matches from that period are singles matches. any particular recommendations?

my statement wasnt so much based on select few big, great matches (although there are those) but the high week to week quality. and it probably counts more for the trios matches that occurred than regular tags. for a period of time (which ended right around the time i made that post) it was pretty much a weekly occurrence to get an at least very good tag match of some kind.

Better tag team wrestling even without gimmicks. The tag division has been horrendous for a long time, with the occasional great tag match occuring.

Better tag teams

Better feuds

well that doesnt really answer anything. care to provide some kind of list of the legions of great tag team matches i mustve missed when i rewatched the attitude era a couple of years ago?

 

[cheesedogg]

While everyone picks apart the second half of that NitroFan post about the tag teams, I'll revisit the first part re:Rollins/Ambrose vs Reigns.

Fair point given the time you posted it (back in March) and would definitely love to agree that is how it should be, but clearly the inevitable has already began. Sure both Ambrose and Rollins are superior to Reigns in so many ways and in many industries they would make it further based on that fact... It is the WWE afterall so it's only natural Reigns is the one of the 3 who will get the push to the moon

 

[NitroFan]

it was clear at the time i posted it (and had been for a long time) reigns was the chosen one of the group and would be getting a big push. that was why i posted it. it might seem strange now but those 6 short months ago most people where still well behind reigns. it wasnt until his singles push started that folks on the internet started to turn against him.

based on what has happened (especially with ambrose) over the last few months i believe it even more now than i did then (well, except the last two words). obviously theyre pushing reigns strong but, like then, i still really dont seem him being the next ace babyface. he is going to have to improve a lot to make the push stick.

i wouldnt be surprised to see a daniel bryan-esque scenario with ambrose where the reaction is so strong they cant ignore it, despite whatever other plans they mightve had.

its probably not all that clear but i was speaking in more of a long term sense rather than what it would be like just a few months after the split. reigns got the push everyone knew was coming, but if anything i think the last few months has taken a step toward proving me right

 

[Damon_3388]

it was clear at the time i posted it (and had been for a long time) reigns was the chosen one of the group and would be getting a big push. that was why i posted it. it might seem strange now but those 6 short months ago most people where still well behind reigns. it wasnt until his singles push started that folks on the internet started to turn against him.

based on what has happened (especially with ambrose) over the last few months i believe it even more now than i did then (well, except the last two words). obviously theyre pushing reigns strong but, like then, i still really dont seem him being the next ace babyface. he is going to have to improve a lot to make the push stick.

i wouldnt be surprised to see a daniel bryan-esque scenario with ambrose where the reaction is so strong they cant ignore it, despite whatever other plans they mightve had.

its probably not all that clear but i was speaking in more of a long term sense rather than what it would be like just a few months after the split. reigns got the push everyone knew was coming, but if anything i think the last few months has taken a step toward proving me right

What I don't understand is why people think there is only one main event push available, for one guy, at one time in their career. The Shield guys, Bray Wyatt, etc. are all under 30. There's plenty of time for all of them to have solid main event runs at some point. They can all do it, and it doesn't have to be right now, and it doesn't have to be at the expense of each other, or anyone else on the roster.

 

[Damon_3388]

I love women's MMA, but women's pro wrestling bores the s**t out of me. I genuinely couldn't care less about any of the Divas on the roster (aside from looking at Layla). If they suddenly decided not to feature women's wrestling at all in WWE (and just use women as valets or sidekicks), I seriously wouldn't bat an eyelid.

 

[Damon_3388]

Feel like I'm the one keeping this thread alive here.

Anyway, I honestly don't want to see Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan or Sting in another match, and honestly wouldn't care less if I ever saw them appear on new wrestling programming (DVDs/WWE Network/historical interview spots accepted) again. They're all "done" in my eyes.

Further to that, I would have been totally happy had all of them not wrestled a match or made a televised wrestling appearance past the age of 40. For Hogan that would have been August 1993 (dropping the title to Yokozuna could have been his swansong), for Austin that would have been December 2004, and for Sting that would have been March 1999 (could he have jumped to WWE for a once-off final match with The Undertaker around this time, instead of that HIAC abortion with Big Boss Man at WrestleMania XV?). Obviously we wouldn't have gotten Hogan in WCW and the whole Hollywood Hogan deal, or 'The Icon' in TNA, but I could easily live with that. I don't feel Austin has added anything to his legacy or to the business with his occasional appearances in the past decade either, and I certainly don't long to see him in "one more match".

I get that crowds still pop for them, but they had their time, and were great in their time, and I've moved on.

 

[Chops18]

Apart from Rollins and Ambrose, Lana and Rusev are the best thing in WWE at the moment.

 

[TooUglyForFugly]

Apparently the opinion that TNA doesn't deserve to die a nasty death.

 

[nobbyiscool]

Apparently the opinion that TNA doesn't deserve to die a nasty death.

Damn your posts are hit and miss man.

Most of your posts seem so much more thoughtful and so much less "marky hysterical" than most of what I see on this board... but then you repeatedly carry yourself like a martyr because you apparently think you're the only one here that doesn't want to see the demise of TNA.

Go back and read some threads man, you're not the only one who wants them to survive, and you weren't the first one saying they wanted TNA to survive (I barely even watch the product, and yet I've maintained since the Spike s**t went down that they're important to the business in the US).

You're taking a stand against those hysterical marks that I alluded to, because they don't understand the employment, the opportunities and the competition* that a second company provides - good for you, I support this!

In fact, my support for this point of view is why posts like the quoted one s**t me... you're not being thoughtful, and you're not making the case for TNA or the people that work there - instead, I think you're behaving like the hysterical marks that you're trying to educate.

* No, of course TNA isn't competition to WWE in any measurable way. But I'm convinced that the writers and the wrestlers watch each other, they steal from each other, and in some cases they try and better each other. This is all good for business. As rubbish as WWE has been at times this year, it doesn't compare to lengthy down periods in the past - there is no doubt in my mind that the worst creative periods in company history (or at least the post-WM era) were 1993-1994 and 2003-2004. It can't be a coincidence that they had no real competition during either of these periods.

 

[TooUglyForFugly]

You haven't been the places I've been. It's not BigFooty I always refer to.

Anyway. Before the slippery slope gets a layer of jello applied ...

Bray Wyatt's promos, even before the so-called Cena burial, didn't grab any of my attention. Do not discuss.

 

[cheesedogg]

You haven't been the places I've been. It's not BigFooty I always refer to.

Anyway. Before the slippery slope gets a layer of jello applied ...

Bray Wyatt's promos, even before the so-called Cena burial, didn't grab any of my attention. Do not discuss.

Agree. Although Bray's delivery of promos is pretty good, it was really just a myriad of pointless words. Not elaborate, just genuine rambling.

 

[Partridge]

Anyway, I honestly don't want to see Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan or Sting in another match, and honestly wouldn't care less if I ever saw them appear on new wrestling programming (DVDs/WWE Network/historical interview spots accepted) again. They're all "done" in my eyes.

Spot on. Jim Cornette addressed this perfectly in 1997 or 1998 when he did his on camera rants for WWF. The one I'm thinking of he teed off on specifically Hogan and Piper. As he put is so eloquently to Hogan - "you are a household name, but so is garbage; and it stinks too when it gets old".

I'll say something far more 'unpopular' but sums up the industry to me at least: Pro-wrestling as we knew it is dead. And isn't coming back.

 

[Damon_3388]

Spot on. Jim Cornette addressed this perfectly in 1997 or 1998 when he did his on camera rants for WWF. The one I'm thinking of he teed off on specifically Hogan and Piper. As he put is so eloquently to Hogan - "you are a household name, but so is garbage; and it stinks too when it gets old".

In hindsight, it's pretty crazy that WCW was ever considered a "hip, cool" brand, considering the plethora of older guys they had in prominent spots at the time. I mean, consider that PPV that Cornette was referring to, Halloween Havoc 1997, and the top four matches on the card:

- 39-year-old Curt Hennig vs. 48-year-old Ric Flair for the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship
- 39-year-old Lex Luger vs. 39-year-old Scott Hall, with 45-year-old Larry Zbyszko (who had been a commentator for five years) as Special Guest Referee
- 44-year-old Randy Savage vs. 41-year-old Diamond Dallas Page in a Last Man Standing Match
- Main Event of 44-year old WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hollywood Hogan vs. 43-year-old post-hip replacement surgury (December 1995) Roddy Piper in a non-title Steel Cage Match

I mean, I'm not one for pushing the young guys to the moon just because they're young (when there's only one way to go after that - down), but it really was just an old boy's club in WCW after Hogan came in in 1994, right through that successful era. What was even more ridiculous during this time specifically was that Hogan won the World Heavyweight Championship in August 1997 at the Road Wild PPV, didn't even have a match at the next PPV, Fall Brawl, in September, had this non-title farce with Piper on PPV in October, and then didn't have a match again at the World War 3 PPV in November, before finally losing it at Starrcade in December against Sting, in an infamously poor match. The Hogan-Piper main event came after they'd already main-evented Starrcade 1996 in a non-title match (which Piper won), as well as had a title match at SuperBral VII in February 1997 (which Hogan won). It's like how many times do you want to milk the cow, years after it's already been milked dry?

I'll say something far more 'unpopular' but sums up the industry to me at least: Pro-wrestling as we knew it is dead. And isn't coming back.

Please elaborate. Do you just mean kayfabe, or that it'll never be as good as it once was?

 

[Partridge]

I mean, I'm not one for pushing the young guys to the moon just because they're young (when there's only one way to go after that - down), but it really was just an old boy's club in WCW after Hogan came in in 1994, right through that successful era. What was even more ridiculous during this time specifically was that Hogan won the World Heavyweight Championship in August at the Hog Wild PPV, didn't even have a match at the next PPV, Fall Brawl, in September, had this non-title farce with Piper on PPV in October, and then didn't have a match again at the World War 3 PPV in November, before finally losing it at Starrcade in December against Sting, in an infamously poor match. The Hogan-Piper main event came after they'd already main-evented Starrcade 1996 in a non-title match (which Piper won), as well as had a title match at SuperBral VII in February 1997 (which Hogan won). It's like how many times do you want to milk the cow, years after it's already been milked dry?

It's on the DVD when Gene Okerlund says, as soon as you allow the talent to have guarantees in their contracts, it's only going to end badly. No one is going to give up a main event slot.

Please elaborate. Do you just mean kayfabe, or that it'll never be as good as it once was?

Both. It will never be as good as it once was. Rather than indulging in a subtle nod at the fans as in "we know you think it's fake, but you aren't completely sure, so you're happy to suspend your disbelief (how it existed for a long time, and that group of fans was far bigger than anyone realised)", they decided it was better to TELL THEM IT WAS FAKE OVER AND OVER AGAIN. So there's no emotion now. No believability. Promos across the board are utterly horrendous. There are no decent managers. No tag teams. No jobbers. No straight men as interviewers - an interviewer should be a middle aged dweeb, not a male or female model. No commentators who actually put over the match, and only the match. Barely any individuality among the talent, they're all cutouts of each other. And of course, worst of all by a long, long way, no glimmer of any kind of sane and sensible booking. Wrestler A feuds with Wrestler B over a title, an insult, or money etc. That's it. That's all you need.

 

[cheesedogg]

Both. It will never be as good as it once was. Rather than indulging in a subtle nod at the fans as in "we know you think it's fake, but you aren't completely sure, so you're happy to suspend your disbelief (how it existed for a long time, and that group of fans was far bigger than anyone realised)", they decided it was better to TELL THEM IT WAS FAKE OVER AND OVER AGAIN. So there's no emotion now. No believability. Promos across the board are utterly horrendous. There are no decent managers. No tag teams. No jobbers. No straight men as interviewers - an interviewer should be a middle aged dweeb, not a male or female model. No commentators who actually put over the match, and only the match. Barely any individuality among the talent, they're all cutouts of each other. And of course, worst of all by a long, long way, no glimmer of any kind of sane and sensible booking. Wrestler A feuds with Wrestler B over a title, an insult, or money etc. That's it. That's all you need.

Anyone who can disagree with that has the unpopular opinion.

 

[PVF]

The internet killed wrestling.

 

[TooUglyForFugly]

The internet killed wrestling.

Either the Internet or WWE's monopolisation in terms of domestic and international coverage.

 

[RedmanWasHere]

Apart from the Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania 21 and No Mercy, 2005 was a s**t year for PPV titantron's.

No Way Out and Backlash consistently produced s**t titantron's while Armageddon was always consistent and got it right most of the time.

Summerslam is hit and miss while Unforgiven (2006 aside) was always boring to look at.

FWIW, the best titantron for me is Wrestlemania 22.

 

[Partridge]

The internet killed wrestling.

It played a part sure. I'd blame hotshotting and bad booking a lot more.

 

[NitroFan]

i've had some rather unpopular opinions about the attitude era for a few years now (coincidentally from around the same time i went back and actually watched all of it) but i'll let mr. dean ambrose sum up my thoughts this time

A lot of people talk about the attitude era being so great but a lot of it was terrible crap, sex jokes and over-the-top terrible bad comedy. It was Jerry Springer-like. They made a joke about a woman's breasts. Hilarious, but where's the wrestling? I look back on a lot of stuff now, and I was a 13 year old kid and I was like 'they made a dick joke so its hilarious' but I look back on that stuff now and I'm like where's the wrestling? It's just a lot of crappy jokes.

 

[SugarShane]

Apart from the Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania 21 and No Mercy, 2005 was a s**t year for PPV titantron's.

No Way Out and Backlash consistently produced s**t titantron's while Armageddon was always consistent and got it right most of the time.

Summerslam is hit and miss while Unforgiven (2006 aside) was always boring to look at.

FWIW, the best titantron for me is Wrestlemania 22.

I assume you're talking about the sets? The Titantron is just the screen.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

i've had some rather unpopular opinions about the attitude era for a few years now (coincidentally from around the same time i went back and actually watched all of it) but i'll let mr. dean ambrose sum up my thoughts this time

Whereas now it's like Frasier haha... not.

They had Jerry Lawler doing "Vickie Guerrero is fat" jokes. Jerry ******* Lawler!