Cyber Monday Football: Browns – Ravens Preview
November 30, 2015A fantasy-like snake draft to see who will be the Browns Week 1 starter in 2016
November 30, 2015In this edition of WFNY on WWE: We don’t-quite-celebrate our new champion, realize that WWE and the Cleveland Browns are in comparably bad places, put the Undertaker over just a little bit more, try to find some silver linings, and look forward — sort of — to our next pay-per-view.
Derek: We’re coming to you live (about a week later) from Atlanta/Nashville, Fella! We have a new champion, which naturally made the entire tournament pointless. The Undertaker got a video tribute package with a match in between. Charlotte kept her family’s honor intact by defeating Paige. But chances are this is all news to you, because Raw ratings were the lowest they’ve been in almost 20 years. As such, we’re back to break down Sunday and Monday’s sports entertainment action with the ferocity of a surprise Brogue Kick from a mohawked Irishman.
Will: I invited a few friends over to watch Survivor Series — who have watched wrestling in the past but not much over the past several years — which I try to do for most every pay-per-view. I do this for a few reasons. It’s fun to get an outsider’s take on the state of modern wrestling. It provides an audience to which I can explain the storylines. Their reactions often act as a bellwether; exactly how silly is this? It’s sort of like bringing a lapsed NBA fan to a game and having him pick out the best player. Fresh perspective is a good thing.
I felt a bit guilty, then, when Survivor Series turned out to be one of the worst PPVs in recent memory. It had an odd mix of a short card and short matches; it felt like most every bout was a few minutes shy of being compelling. We looked up and down the projected card, wondering if there was a match we had overlooked. There was not. I’m afraid that WWE did not crack my top-100 list of things I was thankful for this past Thursday. Boy howdy, was it a rough weekend of wrasslin.
(One amusing anecdote including one of said lapsed wrestling fans: After watching a couple Reigns matches, my friend Brian asked something to the effect of, “What are Roman Reigns’ special moves?” I explained that the Superman punch and the spear were his signature attacks. “…That’s it?” he replied. As much as Roman has improved, his closers remain iffy.)
Who Looks Stupid?
Derek: Alright, let’s run through the finals and semifinals of this WWE World Heavyweight Championship tournament we talked about last week. Roman Reigns beat Alberto Del Rio — no surprise there. The real intrigue was in the Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose match, which had the potential to send the match with Roman Reigns in several different directions. Ambrose won clean, opening the “Ambrose heel turn” window that many fans have speculated on in the last couple of months. Alas, it was not to be. My fears that WWE wouldn’t have the guts to turn Ambrose or Reigns heel were confirmed, as the two had an unspectacular 10-minute match that ended in a bro hug and Reigns bathing in an ocean of confetti.
Will: The execution of the match bothers me way more than the result, which has been the case with a bunch of Reigns-related fare. Perhaps they had to cut it short due to time constraints, but shouldn’t this have been a 20-plus-minute slobberknocker? Ambrose and Reigns have battled alongside each other for years. They should know each other’s tactics as well as anyone. As quote-unquote blood brothers, each should want nothing more than to prove his superiority over the other. Nope. Just a garden variety match that would have fit in neatly in the second hour of Raw. Bleh.
I was, however, a fan of the absurd amount of confetti that rained down on the ring. Somebody added a few extra zeroes to a purchase order. You could have lost a toddler in there.
Derek:Â But wait! Sheamus decided to cash in his Money in the Bank contract and pinned Roman after a couple of Brogue Kicks. This was the same Sheamus who lost to Cesaro in the first round of the tournament and neglected to cash in his briefcase when the title was vacant.
So, a few things here. First, I understand that WWE was in a bad spot. They had big plans for Seth Rollins and losing him was than ideal. Through no fault of their own, WWE had to throw this together at the last minute. I get that. But Sheamus? I thought him winning Money in the Bank was odd at the time, and looked even worse as the months went on. In fact, when Sheamus cashed in, I still thought Roman would win. So I was somewhat surprised, which hasn’t happened very much lately in WWE programming. But Sheamus?
We all knew WWE needed a new top heel with Rollins gone. Some people even saw this as a blessing in disguise, as this would give a younger guy the same shot Rollins got when he turned on the Shield. It could have been Ambrose. It could have been Cesaro (though he is also now injured, and will miss four to six months after shoulder surgery). It could have been Owens. Hell, it could have been Ryback. I’d much rather see Sheamus’ buddy Bad News King Wade Barrett as Roman’s foil. Sheamus hasn’t done a single interesting thing since his return, other than winning Money in the Bank. Now he’s the “young guy” getting the opportunity in Rollins’ place. And by “Rollins’ place,” I mean exactly that. He’s not even doing anything differently than Rollins did. He’s Triple H’s corporate boy, willing to do what’s best for business and all of that. Yawn.
Will:Â My one counterpoint is that Sheamus is so easy to dislike that it will make it that much better when he eventually drops the title. As vanilla as he has been, there’s something delightfully loathsome about him, especially when aligned with the Authority. My counter-counterpoint is that it seems preordained that Reigns will be the one to take it from him. Forget I said anything; carry on.
Derek:Â Look, I don’t enjoy being a Negative Nancy about this stuff. I want wrestling to be good. I’d rather come on here and talk about all the cool stuff we saw and fantasy book and toss wacky theories back and forth. I don’t look forward to sitting down to write about this stuff when I know I’m going to bitch about most of it. But what am I supposed to be excited about? What’s the most exciting feud on tap? How many wrestlers are there that I really want to see? Of those few wrestlers, how many of them have anything interesting to do? How much faith can anyone have that WWE is going to fix any of those problems after the way they’ve handled things recently? Why does WWE keep doing the same boring stuff over and over even when so few people are watching or taking an interest? Wrestling is dumb.
Will:Â That paragraph sums up life as a Cleveland Browns fan in 2015 better than I care to admit. Dammit, I watch wrestling to escape the dark reality of real sports, not amplify it.
A Celebratory Undertaking
Derek: The Undertaker and Kane took down Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper, but you’d be forgiven if you totally forgot it took place. I think more time was spent on Undertaker’s entrance and general hype than the actual match. Taker and Kane tossed all four Wyatts around as if they were local jobbers. The Wyatts decided to do other stuff the next night. The whole thing, like the championship tournament, seemed rather inconsequential. Some thought Kane would turn on Taker, leading to a Kane vs. Taker match at Mania. Nope. Taker appeared 25 years ago, and someone needed to be sacrificed, dammit! So, some people were sacrificed over the course of 10 minutes, and life went on.
Will: Maybe Bray Wyatt is supposed to be some kind of comedy act. Maybe the joke is that he makes a big show (not to be confused with The Big Show) of being a big, bad, scary foe, only to get his ass kicked every other week. Maybe he and his real-life brother Bo Dallas, the “inspirational” leader who says that all you have to do is Bo-lieve, aren’t so different. Maybe the Wyatt Family is like this year’s L.A. Lakers. They look like a legitimate opponent until the match starts, then they get destroyed as we wonder how it got so bad so fast.
If any of those were revealed to be the real story, I’d have less of a problem with it than what actually happened. Of all people, did Undertaker really need to be put over that cleanly in the name of an arbitrary landmark? Does he not get enough respect as it is? I get that they wanted to honor him, and he has more than earned it. But surely there was a way for he and Kane to win without making the Wyatts look like ineffectual nothings. Are we ever going to get a callback to the whole soul-snatching thing, or have we agreed that that never happened?
Taker’s a legend; no argument here. It’s just frustrating to see Bray lose all the time when he is so talented on the mic. Wins and losses are artificial currency, but for there to be no payoff, no evidence of Wyatt strength of any kind, after a promo like this leaves me confused.
Derek:Â What’s next for these two teams? Who knows! Just wait till we get to the barren wasteland that is our early preview of TLC.
Cheating With Flair
Derek: Paige and Charlotte had a decent match on Sunday and another on Monday. They might even be the best part of those two days, though that’s more of a reflection on the rest of the card than our esteemed Divas. Charlotte retained, though Paige claimed that her victory was due to cheating. I will say, I’m enjoying Paige’s heel run so far. Dead relative comments aside, she does a great job of being angry and venomous all the time. Now if we can get her off Total Divas…
Will: Agreed on all counts. I haven’t fallen in love with their feud yet, but Paige is decidedly better heeling it up and amplifying her most unsavory attributes. I’ve taken issue with her performing her PTO submission maneuver on top of the announce table — the table in no way affects the move’s execution — but the wrestling internet has rightly pointed out that the table element isn’t about additional pain. It’s about humiliation. The announce table is lower than the ring in terms of height, but it’s higher in terms of oh man this is embarrassing, I’m getting my ass kicked on a surface made for people to talk at. Mind games, it seems, are essential.
TLC
Derek: The headlining match: Roman Reigns vs. Sheamus in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match for Sheamus’ new belt. I can’t remember the last time Sheamus was in a match that really mattered, and now he’s headlining a pay-per-view. Granted, it’s TLC, which might be the pay-per-view WWE cares about the least. It only gets three episodes of Raw for buildup while the following Royal Rumble gets six. We just have to get a December pay-per-view for some reason but it can’t be anywhere around the holidays so it’ll be a total throwaway. Boy, if WWE could ever use an offseason, it’s right now.
Will:Â Odds of Sheamus retaining via shenanigans opened on the board in my head at roughly 500:1. That might seem odd given the inevitably of Reigns winning the belt at some point, but it isn’t likely to be done on such an afterthought of a stage. What else we got?
Derek:Â The only other match on the TLC card for now (SmackDown spoilers follow) is Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose for the Intercontinental Championship. Their tournament match on Sunday was ultimately meaningless, so I’ll be excited to see that. Assuming, of course, that the folks at WWE Creative (and/or Vince) don’t completely botch it. I’m sure there’s no danger of that happening.
Will:Â Hey, I like those two! We like those two! Most people seem to like those two! What could possibly go wrong?
Derek:Â Other than that, I honestly have no idea what the other matches will be. I’m guessing the usual suspects will have something to do, but I can’t say I’m really looking forward to it at this point. At least it will be a surprise.
8 Comments
Wrastlin’ ain’t what it used to be!
I can get behind giving Sheamus the belt. He was the best of the viable options (I’m making the safe assumption that K.O. hasn’t proven himself enough to Vince yet). But for the life of me, I don’t get why they didn’t use this opportunity to revamp his character. Retire the silly hair and over-the-top Celtic nonsense. Clean him up, put him in a suit, and make him the proper corporate champ that the Authority has always been waiting for. It makes kayfabe sense, parallels his real world friendship with HHH, and would give him more to work with than the mid-card “I’m Irish” shtick. But nope, WWE is still going to try to get him over with his hairstyle and ethnicity.
I like hearing the random stuff Owens says during his matches. Other than that, WWE is terrible.
Yes and yes and yes and yes and…
WM 32 is starting to look like it’ll be a dumpster fire too. And I don’t think there’s any aces left up their sleeve.
To be fair, we were all thinking the same thing going in WM 31. But yeah, I dont have much faith in Creative coming up with a compelling story line. I think they are gonna try to rehash last year’s plan with Reign winning the Rumble and getting the belt at WM 32
True. I was thinking about how injury has decimated the roster, that Taker’s novelty is wearing off thanks to being semi-regular, Sting getting messed up, etc…. Plenty of time to save things, but I worry it’ll mostly be nostalgia and same old same old.
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