**World Soxtalk Championship Wrestling Thread VI**

[iWiN4PreP]

I've been enjoying Raw a little bit more as of late..

 

 It's nice to have a strong heel commish/general manager that is also active in the ring (unlike Angle/Foley)... I think Corbin is ideal for the spot. As long as he isn't toyed with by Stephanie, he's pure gold! Great idea to have Bliss head off the female division as well.

Ambrose has been hot fire recently and Rollins is pretty awesome as well. 

Drew Mc. is a f***ing beast and is quite awesome. I like the focus on Finn and Elias as well.

Tag division still is shit, but at least they got some story going with AOP and Gable/Roode. That's progress. 

Women's division isn't nowhere near as good as SD, but Rousey is always a sight to see... just wish they'd push Bayley/Banks.

[fathom]

Raw is BARELY watchable.  Renee Young as commentator is insulting to us fans.  

[Brian]

9 hours ago, fathom said:

Raw is BARELY watchable.  Renee Young as commentator is insulting to us fans.  

I usually just DVR Raw and read about it. If anything interesting happens, I'll go back to watch.

The little I saw of last night, I noticed a LOT of empty seats. Like A LOT. Outside of Ronda, they have star problem on Mondays. 

And I don't get their fascination with 3 person commentary. It's too much.

[fathom]

The E&C Show with The Moonies might be my favorite wrestling related thing this year.

[iWiN4PreP]

Looking at this Sundays TLC card I am actually really excited.

 

Note: December for WWE is historically the worst month for 'things to happen.' It's been said that WWE should consider giving the superstars an offseason in December.

With that being said, The TLC PPV has nice matchs:

 

Bryan vs. AJ: really excited for this heel vs. face showdown, should be a hell of a match.
TLC 3-way Asuka/Lynch/Charlotte: Hottest thing going on right now in WWE. SUPER excited for this. I think Asuka has a chance to win this so Lynch/Charlotte can move on towards RR for Ronda.
Corbin vs. Strowman: If the match happens, I'm excited due to the outcomes of the match. What shit will they pull here?
Balor vs. Mcintyre (sp): Ok, I like both stars so it should be a nice mid card match.
Ronda vs. Nia: Hate nia, but any Rousey match has buzz. We already know the outcome here, but will be worth watching just for Ronda.
Rollins vs. Ambrose: Really excited with how they've built it up. Wonder how this will go down... gotta imagine there are more matches in the future here so maybe some sort of trickery happening.
Bar vs. Usos vs. New Day: Seen 10000 times but they always put on a good match.
Natayla vs. Riot: Probably a pre-show match, but it's a tables match so that's cool.
Elias vs. Lashley Ladder Match: Weird match, I'm expecting it to suck, but any time there's a ladder involved something cool might happen.
MMC finals: The competitors in the end are very weird and don't have many implications for the #30 spot in the RR. I guess I hope Bayley wins, but she shouldn't be #30, she should be an underdog in the RR. Having her come out #30 only to lose looks silly for faces.

 

The only downside is the stupid stipulations they do with these PPVs. A ladder match should feel 'special' but instead we get a TLC ppv filled with ladders and tables matches that don't always fit the feud. It feels more like their like 'hell we got the TLC ppv coming up, let's make all these matches TLC" instead of it naturally making the feud better. 

[iWiN4PreP]

Per usual, shit storytelling hurts the overall event, but WWE TLC 2018 has a special card, I think! Some predictions:

 

• WWE Championship: (C) Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles
  Going with Daniel Bryan winning via heel cheap shot.
  EXPECTATION: High. Really looking forward to this. I hope they don't let me down.
• SmackDown Women’s Championship – Triple Threat TLC Match: (C) Becky Lynch vs. Asuka vs. Charlotte Flair
  Going with Asuka as they decide to throw the curve here.
  EXPECTATION: Extremely high. This is perhaps the match I've most looked forward to all year. Love all three competitors AND it's a TLC match. 
• Raw Women’s Championship: (C) Ronda Rousey vs. Nia Jax
  Rousey.
  EXPECTATION: Absolute shit, but it's Rousey, so it's kinda cool.
• Intercontinental Championship: (C) Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose
  I'm going Ambrose here with heel tactics.
  EXPECTATION: Love Ambrose's heel turn. Love Rollins as a face. Hope this delivers, it's too bad they had to rush this storyline, but I think it's been delivering, so expectations: HIGH
• Chairs Match: Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton
  Meh. Hate seeing two old guys fight. There's no reason for this. Have them fight with the up and comers. Going with Mysterio, I guess.
  EXPECTATION: Boring, dud.
• Tables, Ladders and Chairs Match: Braun Strowman vs. Baron Corbin
  I hear Strowman is still hurt. I'm expecting him to show up and squash Corbin, which would be a shame.
  EXPECTATION: Unfortunately, very low. I was initially looking forward to this one, but since Strowman isn't ready to go, they can't do much here. I would have loved the heel GM to do everything in his power to screw over Strowman. They are going to squash this match, my guess.
• Finn Balor vs. Drew McIntyre
  McIntyre is winning this for his massive push.
  EXPECTATION: Love both wrestlers, but it's hard to get high expectations for a match that doesn't really have a story or feel to it. Middle level expectation.
• Ladder Match: Elias vs. Bobby Lashley
  Lashley is winning this
  EXPECTATION: Meh. Bobby Lashley might be the most boring wrestler on Earth. Elias as a face? Meh. 
• SmackDown Tag Team Championship – Triple Threat Match: (C) The Bar vs. The New Day vs. The Usos
  The Bar wins
  EXPECTATION: They always deliver good matches, but I've seen it 6000 times now. So middle ground.
• Tables Match: Natalya vs. Ruby Riott
  Lol, Riot wins this
  EXPECTATION: Trash. Why is this on the PPV while Bayley/Sasha are snubbed.
• Cruiserweight Championship: (C)Buddy Murphy vs. Cedric Alexander
  Don't care, but match should be good, always enjoy watching the cruiserweights. 
• Mixed Match Challenge Finals: Jinder Mahal and Alicia Fox vs. R-Truth and Carmella
  Lol this is dogshit. I'm guessing Jinder and Fox win this as they are the better #30 candidates in the Rumble. R-Truth shouldn't even be in the Rumble. 

[Brian]

I know someone here just watches WWE so he can complain but Ring of Honor Final Battle last night was fun and I'm not really a ROH fan. Hangman Page vs Jeff Cobb stole the show.

Wrestle Kingdom coming up as well.

[Buehrle>Wood]

1 hour ago, Brian said:

I know someone here just watches WWE so he can complain but Ring of Honor Final Battle last night was fun and I'm not really a ROH fan. Hangman Page vs Jeff Cobb stole the show.

Wrestle Kingdom coming up as well.

I got rid of cable but still have an antenna. Its been nice for watching Ring of Honor the last month or so for the first time. I still much prefer wwe but still enjoy it.

[Brian]

28 minutes ago, Buehrle>Wood said:

I got rid of cable but still have an antenna. Its been nice for watching Ring of Honor the last month or so for the first time. I still much prefer wwe but still enjoy it.

I’ll put the weekly show on from the fite app on my roku sometimes. Wonder how they’ll be with Elite gone now.

[iWiN4PreP]

So far TLC has been dull but all the great matches are in the last half.

Three way tag match was great wrestling-wise, but couldn't give a fuck since I've seen these three teams battle for hte past 2+ years.

MMC match sucked as predicted.

Rey/Orton, Finn/Drew, and Ruby/Natayla all were just *boring*. I'm not sure who cares about Orton, Rey, Ruby, Natayla anymore and there was no reason to care about Finn/Drew since they gave away the true PPV match (Dolph vs. Drew) on raw now... twice.

The cruiserweight match and Elias/Bobby match were all OK, meh. 

So far, it's a better PPV then the shit they've been putting out in the last few PPV's, but hopeful that these last few matches end up well. 

 

Oh yeah. almost forgot -- The Corbin/Strowman match went as I feared. It was a complete squash. sure, it was nice to see the gang gang up on the vile GM... but meh would have been a cool match if the heel had more heel control but ended up losing to Strowmans abilities. 

Edited December 17, 2018 by iWiN4PreP

[Brian]

Charlotte is insane. She's going to be sore tomorrow. Thought she was knocked out after that table spot from Asuka.

[iWiN4PreP]

Charlotte is the best women's wrestler of all time. Has the best matches, the best resume, and is the total package. She IS the women's revolution in the WWE.

McMahons message on raw: We have a new era (named WWE Forever apparently) and they want things to be 'fresh.'

 

I got goosebumps listening to their promo as it was finally some sort of truth. However, it's all bull shit. We don't need new faces or new matches we desperately need BOOKING and consistent storylines. That's it! The wrestling is often fantastic, it's the booking that is constantly dog shit! 

I'm not betting things change here, unfortunately. 

[iWiN4PreP]

Womens tag team titles are going to suck. Here's my thoughts why:

 

This is an awful idea.
I am a huge fan of women wrestling, I actually prefer it to men wrestling and my favorite current wrestler is Bayley who would, I assume, be in line for a push with these titles. 

However, what in the actual fuck WWE? 
We have 2 Heavyweight titles, 2 mid-card, 2 men tag team titles, 1 cruiser-weight, 2 women main titles already. With just that a lone we have a watered down product and the inability to get all the stories across on a PPV. Just look at smackdown and see how everything revolves around the titles in their 2 hour program. 
Now we are adding 1-2 women's tag team titles to the mix? Yeah, that's going to work... Not.

Just by sheer time available that means some title(s) are going to take a major hit. Also it means we will see less story lines and more of the same title-hunting garbage. 

Further, the division just isn't built for this. 
As others mentioned, there's like 3 main roster 'teams' and I'd struggle to really call Bayley/Sasha a team since everybody and their mothers have been waiting for them to split up for the past year. 

This means we are going to be seeing more fake-make shift teams created which adds nothing to the drama/product thus ensuring more shit story lines to come out of it. We already see this bull shit with Dana / Alicia / whomever that goes from face to heel on a semi-weekly basis just to fill in a role. What the fuck was that 3on3 last week with Ember/Bayley/Sasha vs. Mickie/Alicia/Dana?? Like seriously? Just give us some one on ones and keep the mess out of it.

 

---

Edited December 27, 2018 by iWiN4PreP

[Rowand44]

On 12/15/2018 at 9:55 PM, Brian said:

I’ll put the weekly show on from the fite app on my roku sometimes. Wonder how they’ll be with Elite gone now.

But you hate The Elite so...

18 hours ago, iWiN4PreP said:

Womens tag team titles are going to suck. Here's my thoughts why:

 

This is an awful idea.
I am a huge fan of women wrestling, I actually prefer it to men wrestling and my favorite current wrestler is Bayley who would, I assume, be in line for a push with these titles. 

However, what in the actual fuck WWE? 
We have 2 Heavyweight titles, 2 mid-card, 2 men tag team titles, 1 cruiser-weight, 2 women main titles already. With just that a lone we have a watered down product and the inability to get all the stories across on a PPV. Just look at smackdown and see how everything revolves around the titles in their 2 hour program. 
Now we are adding 1-2 women's tag team titles to the mix? Yeah, that's going to work... Not.

Just by sheer time available that means some title(s) are going to take a major hit. Also it means we will see less story lines and more of the same title-hunting garbage. 

Further, the division just isn't built for this. 
As others mentioned, there's like 3 main roster 'teams' and I'd struggle to really call Bayley/Sasha a team since everybody and their mothers have been waiting for them to split up for the past year. 

This means we are going to be seeing more fake-make shift teams created which adds nothing to the drama/product thus ensuring more shit story lines to come out of it. We already see this bull shit with Dana / Alicia / whomever that goes from face to heel on a semi-weekly basis just to fill in a role. What the fuck was that 3on3 last week with Ember/Bayley/Sasha vs. Mickie/Alicia/Dana?? Like seriously? Just give us some one on ones and keep the mess out of it.

 

---

You can literally say the same thing about the Men's tag division.  It's a long time coming for the Women's belts, you're complaining to complain...go fuckin figure.

[iWiN4PreP]

12 minutes ago, Rowand44 said:

But you hate The Elite so...

You can literally say the same thing about the Men's tag division.  It's a long time coming for the Women's belts, you're complaining to complain...go fuckin figure.

You don't have a disagreement about the Men's Tag division here. What they've done to tag divisions has sucked.

And no, I'm not complaining to complain... I watch the product and can foresee a terrible failure with these belts. 

They introduce them to spur momentum and ratings in the short run, but in the long run it decreases the credibility of the product. It's the equivalent of giving yourself a shot to boost your productivity in the short run but with the knowledge that it'll end up hurting you in the long run. 

If they wanted to truly increase ratings and buzz, they'd fix their storylines/booking. That's all I'm asking in 95% of my complaints. 

I assume you think the women's tag titles are a good addition? based on your comment.

[Brian]

1 hour ago, Rowand44 said:

But you hate The Elite so...

You can literally say the same thing about the Men's tag division.  It's a long time coming for the Women's belts, you're complaining to complain...go fuckin figure.

You didn’t like Becky when she was first called up so we can all change. ?

How dare you accuse Ron of complaining to just complain even though he complains about everything yet still watches and doesn’t seek alternative programming that he would also probably complain about.

[Rowand44]

14 minutes ago, Brian said:

You didn’t like Becky when she was first called up so we can all change. ?

How dare you accuse Ron of complaining to just complain even though he complains about everything yet still watches and doesn’t seek alternative programming that he would also probably complain about.

Well this is 100 percent a lie.

[iWiN4PreP]

11 minutes ago, Rowand44 said:

Well this is 100 percent a lie.

You didn't answer my question. 

 

Do you think the women's tag belts are a good addition to the product? 

[Rowand44]

20 minutes ago, iWiN4PreP said:

You didn't answer my question. 

 

Do you think the women's tag belts are a good addition to the product? 

Do I think it's a good thing to have Sasha/Bayley, Peyton/Billie on tv more and actually doing something?  Ya, it's a no freakin brainer.  Your thrown together tag team argument is silly cause most teams are thrown together.  Of course creative is going to have to make it work but giving some of the really talented women something to actually feud for is absolutely a good thing.  And lol at you not complaining just to complain, I wonder if there's 1 person who reads this thread that would agree with that.

[iWiN4PreP]

10 minutes ago, Rowand44 said:

Do I think it's a good thing to have Sasha/Bayley, Peyton/Billie on tv more and actually doing something?  Ya, it's a no freakin brainer.  Your thrown together tag team argument is silly cause most teams are thrown together.  Of course creative is going to have to make it work but giving some of the really talented women something to actually feud for is absolutely a good thing.  And lol at you not complaining just to complain, I wonder if there's 1 person who reads this thread that would agree with that.

Sometimes I forget that I am on a sports website that isn't for the intellectuals. My apologies, I'll try to post more simpleton material in this thread  . 

 I think it's a very limited scope to require tag titles to get Sasha/Bayley etc. more time. For one, who do you think is going to be losing time to get these girls some time? 

Also, almost every storyline in WWE revolves around titles these days. That's a problem in of itself. Requiring a title to make talented performers available more often shows how limited the bookers are.  

[Brian]

If you’re In a room full of people in which only 1 is an idiot, but you look around and can’t find the idiot...

Edited December 28, 2018 by Brian

[GGajewski18]

Color me shocked that Prep is complaining about women's belts.  I would love to watch Sasha/Baley more.  Deville/Rose, yes please.  There are options that can make this good.  Of course they have to book them  right, but it's definitely a positive and we have to give it a chance.  The booking in general is pretty poor in all aspects of the WWE.  We'll see what happens

[iWiN4PreP]

2 minutes ago, GGajewski18 said:

Color me shocked that Prep is complaining about women's belts.  I would love to watch Sasha/Baley more.  Deville/Rose, yes please.  There are options that can make this good.  Of course they have to book them  right, but it's definitely a positive and we have to give it a chance.  The booking in general is pretty poor in all aspects of the WWE.  We'll see what happens

The fail here is that you guys are using the additional titles as an excuse to get more time for our favorites for how poorly they've been booked. 

1. The booking isn't going to get better from this, as I've alluded to, there's a strong chance that it'll get worse with the way WWE handles tag teams.
2. Who's going to be losing time now? The US Title on PPVs? Intercontinental? Other tag titles? They have no time for another title!
3. They still can not perform a storyline without a title belt. 

[iWiN4PreP]

Royal Rumble prediction for male:

 

Seems like the picks are AJ Styles, Seth Rollins, Drew McIntyre, or the field.

My wish is that it is AJ Styles and he goes on to face Lesnar and beats him at WM in a great match.
I'd be OK with Rollins as well, but he has been hurt with his feud with Ambrose.
Drew came on strong, but is now getting no crowd reaction. He might need some time to build up. Also a heel vs. heel (Lesnar) doesn't really work well. A heel Drew vs. a face Braun doesn't appeal to me. And a heel Drew vs. Heel bryan doesn't work either. Not a lot of good choices there.
Finn Balor is interesting, but come on -- he's not going to face off against Lesnar. There's no way that size difference goes over at WM. 

I guess I'd put my probabilities at: 40% Rollins, 30% AJ Styles, 10% Drew, 5% Finn, 15% Field

[GGajewski18]

I've heard Rollins is going to get a major push leading to WM