Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg II

Sometimes I wonder what they are thinking up north. I only say that because I think they believe that the fans have long term memory loss or something. Because if you watched wrestling when these two meet up at WM 20. You remember how bad that match was. It had all kinds of hype behind it and for good reason. Two Goliaths going at it on the biggest PPV of the year. It practically wrote itself. And then the match happened.
If you have the WWE network or YouTube watch it(again) and see what I am talking about. And then realize that those men were in their prime at that time and that's the best that they could do...or wanted to do.
Now fast forward to the present. What does the sequel have to offer? Both men or older, both have limited moves, and both are not the best wrestlers and never were. Brock was a better wrestler when he was younger, but why wrestle when you can get over with a suplex..?
It's not looking good for the sequel and it's not feeling like a good kind of sequel like The Dark Knight or Terminator 2. No, this feels more like Hangover 2 or Transformers 2 type sequel.

2016 Hell in a Cell review

Last night was RAW's PPV; Hell in a Cell. Which if you didn't know by now, had three different matches take place inside the cell. How was it? Pretty damn good, actually. I didn't know how exactly WWE was going to pull it off. It wasn't that hard of a concept, but they never have done it before, so there was room for failure. But they didn't. First off, titles changed hands. Which is great, but if your a Sasha fan (like myself) not so great. 

But overall the matches, even the pre show match were good to excellent. A few botches here and there, but nothing SO big that it took you out of the match. One odd thing to me is the crowd's reaction to the cruiser-weight matches on RAW and PPV. The matches themselves are very good, in my opinion, but the overall crowd doesn't seem to be interested. I don't know why exactly. It's usually the best part of the show, but maybe the style is so different people have mixed emotions about it...?

But I digress. Overall I grade Hell in a Cell a B+

Long title reigns a good thing....?

I've been pondering whether or not long title reigns are good or bad. How long is long? Well, too me 9 months- 12 months is long, especially now when wrestling is on nearly every night of the week. Whether it is WWE, TNA, ROH, or New Japan. Wrestling is nearly always on; and when you add the internet. It IS always on.

A long title reign does solidify the talent's spot in history, but is it good in the present? As of this post the NEW DAY in WWE, are champions and have been for over a year. Not that they don't deserve to be champions, but what about the rest of the division? Are THEY not worthy of a title run?
Same could be said for the WWE Women's division when Charlotte had her first reign. Or when Jay Lethal was ROH champion for more than a year. Does no one else get to hold the belt? Can no one else put asses in seats? I don't believe so.

After awhile it feels a little stale. The matches themselves can be great, but if I'm 90% sure what is going to be the outcome. I'm not really sucked in. It's not as interesting after a certain point.

Don't get me wrong; Playing hot potato with the titles is not good either. 1-2 days or 1-2 weeks title reigns...? Yeah, no thanks. IT would keep it exciting, but it doesn't make the talent look strong if the company had so little faith in him/her that they would give him/her a title "reign"for a short period of time. Injuries aside of course.

There should be a balance and for me, a good title reign should be 3-6 months. I think that keeps the product fresh and interesting and if the stars line up right. You could have 4 different champions in 1 year, instead of just one. 4 is great than 1, at least that's what they taught me in school :-)

2016 NXT Takeover and SummerSlam review

Let's rewind the clock and look back at the 2 big PPVs over the weekend. First Takeover, was very good show from beginning to the end. I wasn't looking forward to No Way Jose vs. Austin Ares. Why?
I don't like dancing gimmicks, and if Jose won, I would've been mad!!!! But he didn't, which was great and even better than that Hideo came out and did the GTS...what?!?! I guess WWE is letting him do that now, which is awesome. The women's matches were good, a few botches here and there, but overall good/great matches. The tag team and main event were possibly the best matches of the night. I do wish more than one title changed hands, but I guess that will happen another time. NXT Takeover grade? B+

SummerSlam this year was LONG, not necessarily in a bad way, just something to get used to I guess.
This was a really strong card and was delivering some good, entertaining matches. The order seemed weird to me. I guess Brock/Orton would be the main event...it was advertised the most so that makes since.
But I wasn't sure why Roman/Rusev was 2nd to the main event. Especially the way both matches went down. As I stated, the PPV was really good, with good strong/entertaining matches....and then the last 2 matches ended in a no contest and stoppage....That's not a good way to end the PPV, just not at all.
Ok, Shane got F5ed (verb?). Is that going to lead to something? Even if it does, is Shane REALLY going to beat Brock in a match? I don't think so.
I would've given SummerSlam a grade of "A" but those last 2 matches really ruined it for me. Oh and before I forget. The Universal Champion belt..? I knew they weren't going to have a new design. It looks like the Women's belt, which looks like the WWE belt. So people, may call the Universal belt ugly, but really it's just lazy. Copy/Paste, There. There's your "new" belt.
So with the last 2 matches being less than desirable, I'm going to have to give SummerSlam a grade of "B-"
   

Chyna's Death and how WWE should respond

I'm writing this after learning that Chyna has passed away. Very sad, and a great loss to the wrestling world, especially dying at such a young age. Obviously WWE will pay tribute to Chyna before RAW and SM start next week. But is that all that they should do to honor her memory? Should they do more? I think so. How will they do that? Well, many fans including myself feel that she should have been in the HOF years ago. But "politics" and "personal feelings" between the 2 parties got in the way of that. Now Chyna is gone, so it would stand to reason that she would be inducted in the HOF soon (1-3years). BUT, I feel that isn't enough.
To REALLY honor Chyna. I feel that WWE should have another female intercontinental champion or their first female US champion.
I know this the PG era and there is no female/male "violence" But this is a great opportunity to do 2 things.
1) Honor Chyna's memory and 2) propel the female revolution to the next level.
Will WWE do this? Probably not. Should they do this? Absolutely!

Wrestlemania 32 Preview

Let's look at the WM32 card. Is it good? Is it WM worthy? I only ask those questions because just looking at the card and the build up to each individual match. I can't say that I'm really excited about 1 particular match. I like AJ vs. Y2J, which has good build up, but we've seen them wrestle before so what more can they do?
Undertaker vs. Shane; Solid build up and alot on the line, but it's just odd that the Undertaker would "side" with Vince, and this could be Takers last match....against Shane? Not the Rock or some other big name star..?
We'll see if HHH will be champ after tonight. People may not like Roman, but I think he'd be a better champ than HHH. People will be divided either way, no matter who wins.

The only match that I'm looking forward to the most and the match that could potentially be the match of the night. Would be the Divas three way for the title. It has the build and the workers to make it a great match.

WM32 Live predictions on twitter @wrestlewthis @wrestlingobscurity

NXT Takeover Dallas Quick Review

It's a great way to start Wrestlemania weekend with NXT Takeover. I won't go into great detail about Takeover. It was a solid card with great matches. The crowd was insane. I thought they would run out of energy by the time the main event came around. NOPE! If anything, the crowd had more energy at the end than the beginning!

I can't say anything bad about the overall PPV. There were a few botches here and there, and stopping the match to patch up Joe did suck and you can tell it changed the order of the match and the pacing. 

Overall NXT Takeover Dallas, I give it an "A"

Wrestling in 2015

Now that 2016 is here. Let's look back at 2015. Like alot of things there were highs and lows.

A big high of this year, which I touched on earlier, was the different wrestling companies on TV. If you are able to get all those different networks. There was ALOT of variety this past year. NXT, ROH, Lucha Underground, TNA, and WWE (RAW/SM). Which is great for a wrestling fan and it looks like all will have a home somewhere (looking at you TNA) on TV in 2016.

Disappointments of the past year, besides all the injuries in WWE/NXT. Would be the Diva's Revolution, TNA (as a whole), Wrestlemania, Undertaker's 25th.  

Highlights of the year (sure I'll leave some out): The NEW DAY,  Kevin Owens vs. Cena matches, NXT woman's championship matches, Rodrick Strong vs. Jay Lethal matches, Davy Richards vs. Eddie Edwards, and the Trios championship matches.

I won't go into great details about each of these matches/rivalries or wrestlers, cause it would make this blog WAY too long. But all of these are great examples of pro wrestling done right.

Even with the highs and lows of the year. I'd say that 2015 was a very good year for wrestling. Despite injuries and disappointments. 2015 had great female wrestling and "indy" stars that were able to showcase their talent in multiple wrestling companies on TV.  Which will hopefully make those stars household names. As they say "history was made" and I think the history of 2015 will be talked about for a long time.