36 replies to this topic

[☆RisaReinaSayu☆]

There are rumors that Charlotte and Sasha will be the first ever women to battle inside of the Hell in a Cell structure. I think the two are likely to kill each other if allowed to do that with how much they both botch (especially when it comes to big spots). It's too soon for such a thing and if they do hurt each other badly pushing through injuries to put on a great match it's going to be a massive detriment to RAW's Women's division. I really hope these rumors don't become reality. What do you all think of these rumors and do you think these two are ready for such a match?

Edit: The match is no longer a rumor. Not two hours after I posted the above the match was officially green-lit on RAW.

[JennyInTokyo]

I couldn't imagine Divas would ever be allowed to participate in a Hell in a Cell match. I've seen these kind of matches and the injuries from them are so awful! I think it would be too dangerous for them to participate in it but if WWE have green lit it I hope they don't take too much damage.

[Snipey]

Well Charlotte and Sasha aren't divas...they're women. I am so excited, even though they have fought many times their matches are awesome. Charlotte's athletism and Sasha with her strength.

Also Goldberg...what!? Please WWE do NOT make him lose against Lesnar, considering he demolished Brock and pretty much everyone back in the day.
Quite strange he is coming back, considering he left on bad terms and even mentioned it in many interviews how he didn't like the way WWE is going. Then again, a lot has happened in these recent years.

I've also noticed now that KO is champ, Sami has been put back fighting what they call jobbers. It's a shame for them all.

[akb48princess13]

i haven't seen raw or smackdown so i don't know much but i can't wait for hell in a cell   i love sasha so much and as for charlotte........ i like her

[☆RisaReinaSayu☆]

LOL, "Sasha and Charlotte aren't divas, they're women" Hahaha. Like no woman on earth has ever been called a diva before the creation of the WWE diva's title. I will never get the stigma of the word itself being used on the women, as even back in the days of the WWF Women's Championship they got called diva. Trish, Lita, Torrie, Stacy, Sable, Miss Kitty/The Kat the list goes on and on. The word, at least here in New York and its surrounding area, is such a common word to throw a woman's way for all sorts of reasons, but its usually never meant to demean them. I get the stigma towards the title after they chose to keep it over the women's title (what with all the history attached to the discarded title) and how they treated it, but the word diva itself - calling the/referring to the - women superstars as that - and the butterfly insignia on the belt, I don't get it. The butterfly in many cultures is a symbol of how something that looks fragile can actually be surprisingly strong and is a symbol of things like kindness and well wishes, and also a reference to certain blessings and the positive power of prayer as well as the importance of it.

[Snipey]

I know, lol was just kidding. Byt even with that said as a girl and now a woman it has always annoyed me they used such a title for them. No feminism involved here, but I mean they had a women's divison back in the day but the whole diva thing just irked me. Especially with the likes of Lita and Chyna(who competed against men) why degrade them into a bunch of show bunnies. Yes I know they did bra and panty matches during those days but because of of that it led to the diva's division in PG era WWE.

A diva isn't a wrestler though, I mean a diva is more like a singer say Beyonce or Maria Carey. Someone who carries themselves in a way, basically showing off. Bella twins = divas, Charlotte, Sasha, Natalya, Bailey...list could go on, are wortht for the women's championship.

[☆RisaReinaSayu☆]

^Yes, among that list the only "divas" are the Bella Twins, right...because Nikki Bella didn't have a great 300+ day reign as diva's champion and prove she was very much capable of wrestling well, because Brie Bella didn't put on a great feud with Stephanie McMahon in 2014 and do the same, because Charlotte's self entitled brat of a grown woman on air personality isn't diva-like, because Sasha's self absorbed "I'm all that and I know it and you all know it too" on air personality isn't diva-like. Because Natalya's behind the scene segments arguing over stupid stuff with her husband Tyson and her on air head cheerleader for him gimmick isn't diva-like. Trish and Lita just like Sasha and Charlotte now were very good in ring wrestlers, but that doesn't mean they weren't divas outside of the wrestling itself. Every woman in WWE past and present has already or will have her diva moments. All the bra and panties matches, the evening gown matches, the swimsuit competitions, etc they were all just gimmicks to make the women seem more interesting and spike ratings since eye candy sells and draws very well. It had nothing to do with the type of woman employed and naturally it went away with the change to a PG rating. There was nothing the women of old couldn't do that the ones now can they just never got the chance and in many cases they didn't even get afforded the training to put on a match the likes that the women today can. As for Chyna, she was an anomaly. It was made very clear with some of her storylines and matches that she could be on the same level as any of the men if allowed, but she also enjoyed a behind the scenes life of selling her body in perverse ways and spent the vast majority of her time in WWE like any other woman at the time, hanging off the arm of one or more of her male counterparts.
PS: I'm laughing really hard at that misspelling of Maria (miss the h much?) Carey.

Edit & General Speak: Monday Night RAW ended in a Goldberg return segment where he agreed to a match with Brock at Hell in A Cell. The reception for the man was amazing. The crowd was so alive for him even though it's been twelve years. Easily one of the most memorable returning wrestler receptions ever for the company. I really hope WWE books Goldberg to win this match rather than feed him to Brock like they have everyone else. It's high time Brock finally lost. Not to mention it goes perfectly with the idea Goldberg gave during his promo tonight that Brock's not only next, he's last.

[miyooooons]

omg I never thought I'd see a WWE thread here.

 

I haven't been suuuper into Wrestling since the 2000's but it's nice to see the Divas are actually getting awesome matches again like they used to.

[☆RisaReinaSayu☆]

^Been wanting to post this for days, but didn't want to just edit my last post to include it so thank you for posting here.

A bit of a rant about Hell in a Cell 2016.

Spoiler

I think the layout of this pay per view's card was perfect. It was set up in a way that allowed each match with the cell stipulation to feel special and important. At the same time I have to say that the action within the cell was disappointing. The lack of blood was meh, the lack of spots from the top of the cell was meh, the women never using kendo sticks to wack each other or incorporating more chair shots into their match, and Sasha ruining what could've been the spot of the night when she didn't let Charlotte moonsault her through the table that ended up never getting broken no matter what they tried after. There was just a lot of missed opportunity all over the card, but especially in the cell matches themselves. I was both right and wrong to worry about girls doing battle inside the cell.

They definitely put on a decent match, but there was A LOT of botching. I think a lot of the flaws and weaknesses of both women got exposed in this match. In the same vein as the last head to head PPVs battle I think there was a clear winner. No Mercy fell flat in that they let Becky keep the women's title and didn't take the chance to crown a new champ with a lengthy battle royal or something, instead giving us multiple lengthier than usual for the past five years, but nevertheless inconsequential womens matches. The men didn't put on any revolutionary matches either. Everything about No Mercy was just okay. Hell in a Cell had better action overall and it's a historic event for the company in that it featured women in the main event and furthermore featured them in a match within the cell, a first for not only WWE, but for most wrestling promotions around the world who've adopted the use of a structure resembling the cell.

Moving away from Hell in a Cell, let's talk Survivor Series. Aside from the Lesnar vs Goldberg match is there anything else you guys are looking forward to about this PPV? Smackdown doesn't even feel like it has a chance of winning against Raw in the brand vs brand matches. Such a one-sided card and the choppy action that comes with 5 on 5 matches ultimately makes Lesnar vs Goldberg the only worthwhile match.

[phoenix00]

^ exactly how I felt about HIAC.  Solid card, but yes you could smell the botches right through the TV in the ladies' match.  Highlight for me was Rusev/Reigns US Championship match, that set the bar at least in my mind.

 

Sure HIAC beat out NM but at the same time NM beat out Clash of Champions.  Take that however you may

 

As for SS, that's actually the match I'm least looking forward to.  Goldberg's done a nice job hyping it up, but I'm expecting Lesnar to walk all over him. 

 

As for the brand vs brand matches, Nia Jax is such a total ringer for the Raw women, as much as I like the personalities of the SD women (they've had some dope storylines, from Nikki Bella/Carmella, Becky/Alexa (and the two coming together in last week's SD!), now it looks like Natalya is gonna throw herself back into the mix), give that one to Raw no matter who they fill the team with.

 

Tag team is too soon to call, with only The New Day filled in on Raw's side.  The Men's match is the one I'm personally looking forward to.  The teams are evenly matched, there's friction on the SD side (AJ and Dean), Braun Strowman now on Raw facing his old buddy Bray Wyatt, now with new best bud Randy Orton, and this might be the PPV where Owens and Jericho blow their "friendship" onto The List!

 

But the best part: SS and NXT Takeover invade Canada!!!!

ETA: speaking of NXT Takeover Toronto, homecoming for Bobby Roode and Tye Dillinger!

[☆RisaReinaSayu☆]

^I enjoyed the Rusev/Roman cell match, but...

Spoiler

knowing that Roman would win took something away from what could've been an even better match. Additionally they're doing that thing again where the challenger doesn't feel like a threat to the champion by booking Rusev straight to hell. He's been nothing but a glorified jobber for most of the current brand split and even most of the part of the year before the brand split. Their feud could've been much more interesting had WWE made it look like Rusev had any chance of coming out on top by the end of it.

I'll refrain from evaluating the brand exclusive PPVs from any perspective beyond how they fared against each other and historically for the company. If I started comparing Backlash to Hell in a Cell or Clash of Champions to No Mercy or Backlash to No Mercy and Clash of Champions to Hell in a Cell I'd just give myself a headache. At the same time, maybe its because the PPV in question is No Mercy that I came out really disappointed by it. I know it's a PG Era, but man there was just nothing about this edition of No Mercy that felt like I was watching a No Mercy PPV.

I'm not so sure that WWE will have Lesnar win against Goldberg because there's legit nowhere they could take Lesnar from there and what would they do with him until his contract is up over a year down the line then. The alternative would be to have him do a feud with Goldberg reminiscent of the one with Undertaker and have him come out with 2 out of 3 wins. Someone has to beat him so they can make him seem like someone their top of the card full time workers could win against in a feud.

If it doesn't turn into a best of 3 style feud, then they still have the option of giving them a one time only narrative in which he'd be losing to someone who's already beaten him before and they can make him look very strong in the match despite coming out the loser. If they did the best out of 3 style feud they could then give him some down-time and bring him back in for his next feud with whoever is Universal Champion circa the build-up to Summerslam period.

As for the women vs women yeah, Raw will almost certainly come out on top there despite Smackdown doing more for their half of the women's division overall since the split. I think the tag teams will go to Raw as well purely because of The New Day going for a record breaking reign & having to look good coming out of every high profile match. They even had that promo on Monday that illustrated exactly what's wrong with this match though. Smackdown is a mess when it comes to tag teams.

From there it's the top 5 men from Raw and the top 5 men from Smackdown and that's about as exciting as cottage cheese to me. Yeah it has potential to be a great match, best of the night even, but would it be anything special? We don't even have a true feel of Smackdown establishing themselves as the top brand if they win because well for starters both shows are not even the same length in run-time & the competition between the brands has been superficial at best.

Regarding Owens & Jericho I have this feeling it's not going to happen unless Jericho is making his exit at the end of the year & they can squeeze that feud in for them throughout December. I really don't see the point of them booking Jericho into a feud where he'd come out the loser on his way out either, he should always be booked to leave on top in his last feud before his next break from the company so he can come back in on a good foundation if he returns. Unless he's never coming back again it'd just be foolish on WWE's part.

NXT Takeover, I might have to check that out. This might be the alternative for Survivor Series I need.

[Fall]

A bit of a rant on current events.  The Reigns/Cena promo was brilliant.  It was the best worked shoot that WWE has done in a long time.  It just seems unfortunate that the big payoff is going to be yet another attempt to get Reigns over by trying to make people empathize with him.  The last time that happened, they accidentally got Strowman over with most of the crowd cheering him (largely edited out for the uploaded clips), which was about the only way they were ever going to get him over.  If they let Cena win, this will be their way of trying to say, "see, Reigns isn't the chosen one, he lost to Cena!" If they change their mind and let him win, it just amplifies the strong negative opinions of him that many already have, particularly since they finally acknowledged it in that promo.  This would be a great feud for long-term booking, but with Cena about to step away to film a movie and the producers are already mad about the botch in his Shinsuke match, I doubt there's much long term booking they would do.  Unless they break old habits and just let them cut more promos on each other to intentionally keep them out of matches until Cena is done filming so that they can have a big payoff in a larger venue, I don't see this helping to get anyone over, especially Roman.  Even in the case of them attempting it, creative has a way of turning long-term booking into a disaster as well.

 

Meanwhile on Smackdown, I just don't have the confidence in creative to try and make the Shinsuke/Jinder feud work, particularly with Vince wanting to keep the title on Jinder while he's trying to expand network viewership in India.  On the subject of Shinsuke, and since I already mentioned his match before with Cena, that's another thing that annoyed me about the lack of long-term booking.  If they were already planning on using Cena as a 'free agent" to keep RAW ratings up, that would have been an excellent way for them to try and keep Nakamura in the main event without having him immediately being fruitlessly tossed into the championship scene during a time when they have no intention of actually trying to do anything worthwhile with it.  They wouldn't have to have him on smackdown as much so that his entrances continue to be a treat, and it would make any interaction between Shinsuke and Cena all the more interesting as they built towards a big PPV match.  That would have given Jinder an opportunity to further develop his character during his championship run, they don't have to stop trying to push him for network growth in India, and had more working for his gimmick than just being the "foreign heel" before eventually being put up against Nakamura, who isn't even an American for Jinder's gimmick to make any sense.  If they waited until a time when they were willing to take the belt off of Jinder, they could have had Shinsuke as the answer to his assertion that people only hated him for being foreign, and then continued to book a longer feud between Jinder and Nakamura from there.

[☆RisaReinaSayu☆]

^I think I'm happy for the John Cena/Roman Reigns feud purely because we got that promo out of it. I really don't see the getting Roman to the position of top guy in the eyes of the fans problem being resolved with a mere feud or two. This is the kind of goal WWE will be working towards until at least 2020 and the hate for Roman will start to mellow out as his tenure with the company grows because fans will get tired of booing. John Cena is the prime example of someone with mixed crowd reaction in the top guy position that generates a mellow sound now and people chant John Cena sucks during his entrance now more for fun than genuine insults. In the same vein that doing that has gotten to be almost tradition for the fans whether they care about Cena or not, booing whenever Romance shows up has also become almost tradition.

And WWE's main goal of making Roman the most talked about superstar in the company besides John Cena has succeeded. People talk about Roman more than any other WWE wrestler and even those who are not interested in wrestling outside of a passing glance know who he is. In that regard he's already up there with Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold, and The Rock. So it becomes an issue of how much damage do they want to do to his credibility as the top guy or how much damage do they want to do to Cena's credibility. John taking the fall here would make the most sense given he isn't long for the company and probably not long for wrestling in general.

Regarding Shinsuke Nakamura and Jinder Mahal I don't think good writing from creative would save them from a bad feud. Until WWE is ready to have Jinder drop the title anyone they throw at him is going to suffer a drop in credibility because he's simply not meant to be where he is and wouldn't be there if WWE didn't have an agenda with India's population. Jinder is green enough in all areas that no amount of good handling from creative would save him from butchering the life out of any feud he's in and in typical fashion for people coming over from NJPW and NXT Shinsuke is green on the mic. I'm not surprised WWE moved Cena away from Nakamura after Nakamura almost killed Cena. Shinsuke clearly still has some adapting to the WWE in ring style to do. That was an incredibly scary botch. I'd like to see Shinsuke contesting for the US title when his feud with Jinder ends.

General Speak: Apparently Sasha Banks is upset that even though she's held the Raw Women's Championship 4 times now she's never been allowed to (more like able to let's be real she's injury prone as hell and if the reports on her attitude backstage are anything to go by she's not endearing any favors from the people in charge), stay champion for long. They've not even managed to keep the title on her for 60 days before she's had to drop it to someone due to either her bad attitude backstage or injuries. I can totally understand why she'd be upset her reigns have all been so short, but she needs to become wiser about what she does and doesn't do in the ring before they can trust her with a longer title reign and at this point I'm glad I'm not the only one who wants to see her far away from the title picture.

I knew the fans would start to cool down about her eventually and it seems like it finally happened. She's generated such a dry reaction over the past month it's astonishing. Girl shouldn't have let her own hype get to her head. She just started her run on the main roster so I guess she has to learn that it's not always gonna be about her and that being pushed to the moon and allowed to accomplish damn near everything in less than a year like she and Charlotte did during their hot potato with the raw women's title feud was actually detrimental because now people have seen all she could do and there's nowhere left to go but repeat achievements; not that Charlotte has fared much better, but Charlotte's better than Sasha on the mic, is a stunner to look at, and has clearly got better ring awareness nowadays than she did when feuding with Sasha which has led to less botching on her part.

I'm also left wondering if Sasha Banks can even wrestle a good match against someone besides Charlotte. She hasn't had any really good matches since Charlotte was moved to Smackdown despite having perfectly good opponents. There were plans in place for a Sasha/Bayley feud which I'm glad had to be scrapped so Bayley could heal because nothing exciting was to be found there. They'd have fallen out of their on screen friendly relationship into a less lighthearted and good natured feud than the one they had on NXT before Sasha Charlotte and Becky got called up to the main roster and it would've been a bore-fest which everyone who paid the slightest bit of attention to NXT would've heard about to death or seen once already.

The upcoming feud between Nia and Alexa will be much more fun and refreshing to watch after so much domination of the division from 3 quarters of the 4 horsewomen of NXT. I'm hoping to see WWE give Mickie James a run with the title before she leaves again. Even if it's just 80-100 days long. There's no point having her back if they don't grace her with even that. Natalya becoming Smackdown Women's Champion made me really happy, it was the single best moment of Summerslam 2017 for me and even though they haven't done much of anything to make it a memorable run it's hard to feel disappointed. I hope she gets to hold it for a while because this is likely her last run as a champion (her age and probable desire to want to be home more for Tyson's what I base this on).

[Fall]

Now is a dangerous time for Sasha or anyone to be risking their future in the company as well.  With the recent evidence that Vince is trying to buy GFW/Impact/TNA for their video library, that cuts out the most likely alternative employment path for a lot of talent.  There's still PWG and ROH (for now) to fall back on locally, but aside from NJPW, there just isn't another promotion with even a fraction of the exposure that many of these big name wrestlers thrive on in their careers.

 

It almost seems like the better alternative is for people on the current roster to occasionally take a step back to NXT to help put over new talent there until a time when they can make a major comeback on the main roster.  With Asuka's injury in NXT, that would give Sasha a great opportunity to come back and be a heel to antagonize NXT's roster as the entitled superstar, allowing her to really be "The Boss."  With Kairi Hojo (or Sane, as I guess she's known now) coming into the roster, Sasha would probably be a great feud to help get her over.  Injury prone though she may be and as wishy-washy as her in-ring performance can be, Sasha can sell a fake injury better than most of the roster.  It would be a great fit with Kairi's style.  If nothing else, if Sasha's not going to go back to being a heel in the main roster where she shines best, she needs to give people a reason to miss her for the next return.  As it's said, "how can I miss you if you won't go away."

 

Tangentially, it also seems like the WWE may be preparing for a Japanese coed stable at some point in the distant future.  Unless Shinsuke starts selling merchandise on the same level as Cena, it would likely be a heel stable, but Shinsuke is excellent as a heel.  He wouldn't have to do as much mic work in that situation as well, so it could work out.

[☆RisaReinaSayu☆]

^Yeah, pretty soon WWE won't have any competition at all that travels all over the world. I think it would probably be hurtful for Sasha's progress on the main roster to send her back to NXT and work a rehearsed style again. She should be used in singles matches outside of the title picture to get more used to the main roster's more improvisational style. I think the main reason a lot of NXT talents shine lies in the fact they rehearse their matches move for move before they have them. It works great for a taped show with tons of downtime between episodes (not completely sure but I think NXT episodes are usually taped two weeks prior to airing and if I'm not misinformed once upon a time it was three weeks). If Sasha can't adjust to the main roster style she's going to suffer a lot of time on the bench.

At least if they take a step back with her and give her singles matches its a win win, she's still present and can be showcased, plus she can grow in ring awareness and take time behind the scenes to better hone her mic skills so that when the time comes that she's been away from the title picture long enough for people to miss her being there they can give it another shot and she can maybe just maybe do a good enough job to be trusted with a longer title run. Regarding heels, I don't know if it would be such a good idea to turn Shinsuke heel. WWE has a serious face problem right now and the ratio of heels to faces has become awfully onesided towards the heels. They need faces more than they need heels right now, but first they have to figure out how to script faces again. That is the primary reason I can't bring myself to fully support the idea of a John Cena heel turn. He's the best face the company has right now and it could be disastrous to turn him heel before they have a replacement for face Cena.

[Fall]

Heel Shinsuke is something that should be reserved for much later down the road, but I'm confident that when it happens, he'll do well with the part.  I don't think that they'll fix their face problem any time soon though.  They just don't believe that wins and losses matter anymore and the 50/50 booking is doing a lot of damage to their ability to keep things from going stale before they can really push someone.  The few times they do protect someone, it rarely comes to anything.  At most, I can say they've done a somewhat decent job protecting Shinsuke by keeping his Cena win fairly clean (though that wasn't the original plan) and his losses fairly dirty.  That would be fine if he were on the show as infrequently as Lesnar, but as it is, they're diluting his appeal quite a bit by having him there weekly for very little payoff.

 

I think a lot of the WWE's heel problem is just an inevitable consequence of how many hours of content they try to put out each week.  They end up cycling through both of their main rosters too quickly, putting out rehashes of the same matches with 50/50 booking, and by the time an angle reaches its conclusion, they've run out of ideas that don't involve a heel turn or an NXT call-up.  The company has always been fairly heel oriented simply because it allowed for better potential with long-term booking towards the big PPVs.  Now though, they've got the network and can put on as many PPVs as they want, have multiple rosters across different brands to deal with, and any given week with a PPV could have them pushing out more than a dozen hours of content just from the RAW and Smackdown rosters.  That's just too much wresting even for a wrestling promotion.  By the time you've cycled through everyone and done so many heel and face changes, people just stop getting invested and it gets harder to make those heels back into faces with any of the fans actually caring.

 

For current events

 

With all of the talk about concussions, recent injuries, medical lawsuit, and shareholders that are responsible for the strictness of current policies, I just can't believe Vince actually took that head butt with color.  Even if he didn't do it hardway and even if he pre-bladed, the amount of force needed for that headbutt to re-open a forehead cut is still enough to cause a concussion.  Let alone taking a bump from a superkick immediately after.  At least the frog splash was all on Kevin, but even that could have gone horribly wrong.  Dude is 72 years old.  No bueno.

[☆RisaReinaSayu☆]

^I so agree about the angle with Vince and Kevin Owens. Kudos to Vince for being ballsy enough to go through with something like that at his age, but man my heart was pounding through it all.

WWE needs to start using more of its RAW roster IMHO, and if they're going to keep it three hours they really need to start to better utilize those three hours. Their half of the women's division and the cruiser-weights are especially boring to watch since they always feature the same handful of wrestlers from those. I feel like if they simply stopped doing PPV rematches and had the women's champ and cruiser-weight champ defend against a wider variety of wrestlers RAW would feel rejuvenated for at least a few months.

There are only four to eight weeks of downtime between PPVs for each show depending on whom's turn it is to have one. In that time we could see title defenses at a solid 10-15 minutes from Alexa against Alicia Fox, Mickie James, Summer Rae (or has she still not been cleared for in ring action), and Dana Brooke. Ditto on the cruiser-weights end of things I understand the existence of 205 Live, but why can't we get more title defenses from the cruiser-weight champion on RAW when there's so much time to fill and so many PPV rematches going on just for laughs. There isn't even a need for storylines with this approach just have the commentators announce that the respective champion will be defending against this or that person and let the champion put on a nice match with a fresh opponent rather than the same two or three. And keep things surprising by having the titles switch hands on Raw every two or three PPVs as opposed to always at a PPV or always on Raw.

It's not all that different over on Smackdown either (for the women at least). I'd love to see Natalya defend against Charlotte, Becky, or Tamina now that Naomi's contractual rematch is out of the way. It'd give Carmella a chance to try cashing in and become progressively frustrated at failing setting up an angle where she succeeds on a PPV when Natalya defends in fatal four way for example. I doubt it'd happen though, and that is a shame since Smackdown right now has firm roots planted for its Tag Team, United States, and World title pictures. Them treating their half of the women's division like afterthoughts is keeping Smackdown from being perfection right now. Even though we see some rematches among the men it's not nearly as bad as on Raw thankfully.