An Opinion of yours about Wrestling that 75%+ of the board wouldn't share

General
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Okay here’s another opinion which I don’t see expressed (or even talked about) a lot. I find the lack of diversity in WWE main event scene to be disturbing. WWE isn’t a sport. Just like the women, if they wanted to devote TV time and creative energy to creating a more diverse show there is nothing stopping them but themselves. And I think it would overall be a much better product with a wider variety of characters if they did put an effort into elevating guys like Big E, Apollo, Hunico (Kalisto), etc. Hopefully Almas is able to get to the same spot Alberto had in 2011.

WWE is benefiting massively on a generation of wrestlers who grew up watching Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio. But during Black History month they can only highlight the two or three african-american wrestlers who have ever won the WWE championship. Who are the wrestlers that young black or latino kids are watching today that are going to inspire them to start wrestling? Kalisto? New Day? They really want to be mid-carders when the grow up?

For the company’s future they need to do a better job of preparing and elevating guys and gals of different races and background. I’m sick of seeing the wrestlemania poster every year and all the title matches being the same white guys.

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Ciem De Almas is basically Alberto Del Rio with a sidekick with better boobs.

People who claim racism when naming champions in wrestling always seem to forget Latinos and Samoans because it kills the narrative.

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I liked Nakamura better before he became the “coke head” character.

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@theCobra I’m saying its wrong to mention MMA. It is said that it adds legitimacy. I believe it exposes the fakeness. It reminds me of what real fighting looks like. The announcers usually say it early while I’m watching Wrestler X sell a hip toss with their opponent 2 feet away positioned squarely against hard cam.

I’d rather hear about their accomplishments in other sports or the weight room to boost his/her credibility. Not about the sport that resembles pro wrestling so much that the answer to “What’s the difference between wrestling and MMA” is 1 is real 1 is fake. The same moves are allowed. Superman punch, Triangle choke, F-5, Pedigree.

I don’t feel so strongly about it that it will spoil Ronda Rousey’s run. I’m still going to enjoy Sunday’s match. I hope they emphasize the few differences between MMA and wrestling during that match. I would have Ronda hip-throw Stephanie. Grab the arm bar. Then Stephanie desperately kicks the ropes. Announcers can explain that in wrestling you’ve gotta be cautious of the ropes and keep it in the middle. Then Steph can lure Ronda outside and she almost counts herself out. Announcers explain the 10-count is something new Ronda has to consider. There’s a blind tag. HHH pulls her hair from behind. etc.

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agreed if only talking about main roster wwe and even his last few nxt matches with Joe and his Bobby Roode feud didnt do it for me, which is hard to admit since he was the wrestler that got me into new japan nearly 4 years ago. The one thing I think is the problem was that in a lot of the new japan multi mans he was in he didn’t do much in those matches either and waited for big singles matches/G1 matches to have great matches and its sentiment he could’ve taken with him to the main roster and hes never had a chance to have his Ibushi/Zayn style of match except against Jinder (and lets be honest, no one has good matches against Jinder) the rumble and fastlane has seemed the most motivated hes been since debuting on smackdown.

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I enjoyed the tail end of WCW (time period from when Vince Russo left WCW in the fall of 2000 to the time they closed the door in March 2001). I was only 10 at the time, but I actually switched allegiance during the Monday Night Wars after being a long time WWF fan. The Who Ran Over Austin storyline just didn’t grab my interest that much. The main event scene in WCW was also fresh with Steiner and Booker T in a lot of the main events.

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In my opinion, AJ Styles was able to get a good match out of Jinder. It wasnt a match I’d want to see again, but it proves to me that AJ is someone who can make his opponents look good. Nakamura needs someone to make him look good. If you look at the majority of Nakamuras best matches, they are against guys, who you are used to seeing have good matches with others. Even in NJPW.

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Me too! There was some good stuff right at the end. It’s a shame it wasn’t soon enough to turn the ship around after too many bad business decisions had already doomed the company.

But I really enjoyed the “Magnificent seven” storyline where so many of their top heels formed a stable and held funerals for the fan favorites they destroyed. It felt like the whole show was connected as the roster formed sides without being held down like in the NWO. And with so many big names injured or on leave like Hogan and Bret Hart they had a lot of TV time to devote to younger stars like the Natural Born Thrillers, Lance Storm, and the cruiserweight division.

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I cared more about Disco Inferno than I ever did about Cody Rhodes.

And Cody hasn’t done nothing different other than bleaching his hair and making a Ring pun that makes me think he’s nothing more than nepotism living off family legacy.

Atleast Disco Inferno knew his spot.

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  1. Undertaker almost always has the worst match at Wrestlemania. He had great ones between 2007-2013 against Shawn Michaels, HHH, Bastia, and Punk. The other 19 matches are skippable.

  2. The last 10 years of Wrestlemania have been really good, provided you did not watch any of the build up episodes of Raw and Smackdown. I have not watched TV since they moved Raw to 3 hours, but I have thought that the performances on Wrestlemania are consistently great. It seems like most of the complaints about those shows is related to the storyline leading into the show.

  3. Roman Reigns should have beaten the Undertaker with a tombstone and adopted the move as his new finisher when he wants to draw heat.

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Yesssss to all of this @Vanvoneer

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Fans who brag about a wrestlers income is some seriously vicarious and quite frankly creepy behavior.

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Both men were accomplished amateur wrestlers, and became pro wrestlers and received monster pushes before entering MMA.

I’ve been over Brock Lesnar since his match with Ambrose, but: In his first run he was a great wrestler, he and his matches still have a different aura to them, he’s still the biggest name besides Cena and the attitude era guys, he’s a legitimate freak athlete that’s gotten to the top wherever he’s gone, he doesn’t need to talk because he has Heyman. Even the character development argument is debatable, since losing to Goldberg he’s acknowledged that his opponents could actually beat him, and he’s taken them more seriously (Look at his feud with Ambrose compared to his feuds after WM33). Plus once he beat the streak, he had to receive a monster push.

In the case of Lashley I’m genuinely curious on if you’ve watched any of his Impact stuff in the past 3-4 years. He’s a good talker, who can put on good matches, who was an effective top heel. He’s also definitely a different character now than when he first came to Impact.

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OTRSCentral has been saying this for years. It’s hard to justify essentially no black performers as top guys when sports in general and specifically in America are dominated by black athletes (Hello NBA and NFL!). I assume part of it could be Vince not seeing enough value in black markets, but it makes your ‘Sports Entertainment’ company look stupid.

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Both Brock and Lashley have gotten to the top wherever they’ve gone because they’re freakishly large men. I did watch TNA, and no he was not a good talker, Almost every promo was “I’m going to beat him because I can”.

I still stand by my original statement, I believe they are both mediocre wrestlers with no mic skills, along with every other MMA Fighter turned Wrestler

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Great answers! Blown away by these!

I did put ‘75% of the board’ in the title and ‘75% of wrestling fans’ in the rules. Not intentionally. My overall theme still applies that these are ‘minority opinions’. I think what we’re seeing is many of these opinions that would be in the minority of wrestling fans are opinions that are more shared among the Postmarks. Actually I finding myself nodding in agreement with many of yours.

Great explanation @zekey . I definitely see your side there. I think the ‘fakeness’ does get exposed on some of the MMA moves like the armbar as far as the length of time a wrestler is in the move and it’s often escaped in wrestling. I think I’m able to suspend my disbelief on most of the moves that it’s the ‘wrestling’ version of the move. A comparable example would be a punch. Often times a wrestler will get in several clean punches (heck, like every match sometimes). If a MMA fighter had those same ‘wide open’ punches, the opponent would be in La-La land fairly quickly so I think we’re conditioned to accept that isn’t the case in wrestling (save the Knockout Punch or sometimes the Superman Punch).

I think Brock gets a ton of credit among wrestling fans for being a legit MMA fighter (and Bayzler and Ronda will also) so that makes your opinion here a perfect answer to my question of this post! I actually don’t mind them saying the MMA background myself. I suppose actually I don’t really care on which wrestler could actually beat which wrestler in a real fight (so I guess I’m coming more to your side!). Heck Kyle O’Reilly probably could take most of the roster so he shouldn’t just be handed the top belt due to that. Good stuff by you though. Hopefully they’ll book the mixed tag as you’re saying.

@efuds That is a GREAT answer to this post. I’m hoping @PodFatherSOH and Brian keep going until the end there (a few months after keeping it 2000) just for the sake of closure and to see who was where in the company. My memory goes from razor sharp to zero on many various topics (quick example, I went to a PWG show around 9 years ago and have ZERO recollection of who was on the card … probably like 8 wrestlers we all know now!!) and its been a great refresher course (and with stuff I didn’t know) listening to their Pod

I think its funny in retrospect the thing people remember from the Grandtheftautoing (keep up with me spell check, I’m making my own words) of Austin is ‘I did it for the Rock’. Anyhow, great answer, you’d be in a pretty empty raft there among most fans! Check that @RedRaider07 is coming with ya!!

@Vanvoneer Thank you, thank you! I actually have a ‘hot take’ fairly similar to yours on point 1 there, but I was keeping it in my back pocket. I’m completely pumped you mentioned that one. I could probably write a book on that topic (of course going outside of Wrestlemanias also). At least the Big Dawg grabbed the ‘this is my yard’, but you’re right and your idea would have ramped it up tenfold. Plus the spear is already too far in the lead for number of wrestlers using it as a finisher over the years.

@GreenYellowDucky Your main point has good merits. Hell, I think Lashley would even agree with you during his first run (I think I recall him even mentioning this on a pod). I definitely think he has a good grasp of things these days. I’m interested to see him get another crack at the E. I’m certainly not a Brock guy. Mainly he’s a belt hijacker and not a fan of German suplexes. I would rather him be alone also as although he’s not a ‘wrestling promo’ guy, his (although) limited talking can be effective. I will give him some credit over the recent time period as they had a great game plan with the Goldberg thing and executed it well (except for the Orton smashing that was completely pointless). Good stuff!

I’ll add my third opinion for my post. I’m not sure if 75%+ of ALL fans would disagree with this one, but 75%+ of the board might.

I REALLY enjoy the Lunatic Lariat. His jeans put me on tilt, but I always get a kick out of that move.

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I enjoyed the Hogan v Andre match at Wrestlemania 3 more than I did the Savage v Steamboat match

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I was a huge fan of Ultimate Warrior in his heyday and don’t think he was as bad of a wrestler as most people think

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I’ve never understood the love for Brock, I don’t feel the same connection or draw to him as a WWE Superstar.

I feel like Seth Rollins is overrated, probably the least likable member of The Shield

Finn Balor deserves much more than he gets, and deserves another push at the Universal Title.

Hirooki Goto is under-rated and deserves to be in the picture for a more prestigious title than the Never Openweight title.

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I think Kyle O’Reilly looks like a dork when he play his belt like guitar.

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