How so?

It's not like they have a scheduled match at Mania yet.

Owens is a cowardly heel or a boss heel?

Despite the thoughts in this thread the crowd was hot all night.


Wins/losses only matter as to what you do with them after the fact. Someone loosing to the 2nd biggest draw in the company isnt a bad thing. Especially when its going to get you a fuck ton of heat too. When you slide an IWC darling over on Reigns its going to play really well later down the road. If done right you get sympathy from his fan base and you get upward momentum for *insert guy here.* Strowman isnt fired. That guy can work. He's absolutely going to be fine. Just a bunch of butt hurt coming from anything roman touches. It's amusing but really irrelevent.


Getting the belt off Steen was obviously a good move. He hasnt been doing much for any metric of success during his reign and the match will jericho will be the workrate darling match of the night (and should be very very good by all standards) going into mania. Everybody wins scenerio there. Goldberg squashes are clearly over, the crowd was hyped for a 10 min entrence and eating up 4 powders like it was crack.


Flair is just the best. Impossible not to praise her. Bayley bothced her own comeback but outside of that great match.


The "filler matches" were good. Being mad at thier existance is weird and illogical. Cards have to rise; have peaks and valleys. Same way you deliberately lul a crowd for the come back. These things are very important to climaxing a show right. Its a good structure.


The only downside to the opener is it had Joe in it. But as far as Joe matches go it wasnt the worst.

I thought they did. Had a whole segment on Raw about it before Owens turned on him. Still dumb even if they didn't, Goldberg already has his Mania match win or loose so that would leave KO without a opponent for Mania and Jericho could have inserted himself right in there.

That was Stupid!

At least Rock could wrestle longer than a minute/Way more popular than Goldberg.

Totally disagree that wins/losses don't matter. Like you say, it's key what happens after the fact, but I have seen it all before. What you said might be true of there were not examples going against that notion on this show. But there were enough examples even on last night's card of people who started to lose and never got back, including guys more talented than Strowman.

Rusev is a shorter term example of that, dismantled in Cena feud and he has never gotten back to what he was.

Big Show is a longer term example. Jobber to the stars that is worthless now for anything other than filler.

Don't care about Owens losing, but just question whether Goldberg is worth it. They obviously think he can't work a match anymore. It is sad that they need him to come in if that is indeed the case. The same with Taker at the Rumble...It was sad. He is over though, so whatever. Don't mind.

Love Flair too, already by favourite female of all time. She is a star.

Filler matches shouldn't be on a PPV, they have 3 hours a week to fully book a 3 hour special. Why have unannounced matches with guys like Jinder? This is not special event worthy and neither is Show demolishing Rusev. You can have ebb and flow without unannounced filler featuring job guys on "PPV"

No-one is right or wrong, if you enjoyed it, it is great for you, because I genuinely think they can do so much better.

The web fans never cease to have a moan. I don't know wtf they expected. Plus Jericho distracted Owens so he has that out. They paid a lot of money for Goldberg, why not maximize?

They'll get a longer match out of him at Mania, hopefully with plenty of bells and whistles to cover up his short comings. 8-10 minutes of physical brawling with Brock in a hard hitting match should be good.

Yeah, exactly. Biggest problem with arm chair bookers is they dont care about how the story ends, they want gratification and they want it last year. No long term vision.

The main event went as expected. I'm glad they at least had Jericho get involved.

Still, I just don't like the fact that five of the last six Manias will have featured a part timer in the main event. I'm leaving out WM30 because even though Batista came back for the main event spot, he was back full time for a few months before and after Mania whereas most of these guys just disappear the next night or the week after.

I'll never like that. But that's just the way Mania is now.

do you work for the WWE? What the hell do you care about part timers? I like guys that don't show up too often, I'd prefer they did that with the current cast of characters so I don't have to see Cesaro and Sheamus vs Bullet Club for the 87th time. (Well I don't watch THAT much for that exact reason).

They should have a rotation of certain guys that get featured every week/month. Rotate each set of guys per week. Too hard to do with 3 hour raws but IMO it would work so much better that way.

Because as a fan, it's pretty difficult to invest in most of the full time talent when every year around Mania time WWE is telling you that they aren't anywhere near as important as the generation of wrestlers that came before them.

That's not the fault of the part timers. I'd take the spot too if offered to me. But that doesn't excuse WWE for being shit at making their full time talent credible enough to headline the biggest show of the year.

I absolutely love that rotation idea by the way, if such a thing were feasible I'd be all for it. The guys and gals on the road all year get beat to shit, giving them any sort of a built in break would be good by me.

Gonna be awkward when the part timers are actually done for good and there are no part timers to replace them that anyone would car about because an entire generation was made to look second rate to the Attitude Era.

I mean that's nice and all but I'm talking about entertainment value and not thinking about it like I'm in the "know". I don't take into account guys "being beaten to shit" I care about having to see the same guys do the same thing wrestling the same guys week after week.

Well its the workers job to get over enough to warrent the push

I feel like wins don't matter, but losses obviously do.

For example Dean Ambrose beat John Cena clean but never really brought it up after doing so.

I never said they dont matter for the record. I said it's what you do with them. You can rebound from a loss in 2 seconds if the booking backs you right. Watching a loss and raging is silly. Like getting made at the 2nd act of a movie. Wait till the 3rd act is over before you start fires.

Fuck that, burn it down

I always loved the idea of having an actual off-season after Mania.

You do Mania, then the Raw and SmackDown ever as a teaser for the next "season". Announce a few call ups as they normally do around that time, lay the groundwork for possible programs, etc.

Then take two months off or so. Maybe run some original Network content in the interim, do a draft special since drafts should happen in the offseason, etc. Maybe give NXT a bigger focus during the offseason or run one of those tourneys they've been doing.

Then come back and everyone's gotten a breather, both the talent and the fans.

I know that would never happen in a billion years because it'd lead to a loss in terms of ticket sales and losing 2 months of TV revenue, but fuck - that'd be such a nice breath of fresh air instead of just going right to the next PPV with the same programs that were featured at Mania.

If house show ticket sales are good it wouldn't make a difference

I think you would lose the people who purely watch out of habit.

The appearance of the part time guys is part of what makes Mania standout from the other events of the year. Surely you understand that.

If that happens, you can tell everyone I told you so.

Or when John Cena and Randy Orton are the new part timers who come in for Mania, and Mania is more popular than ever, you'll just pretend you never made that comment.

Why do people like you act like it's your job to watch WWE? If you're burned out, take a break. Shut off the product post Mania, come back for the lead up to SummerSlam, and you'll have a more positive outlook.

It's not a sustainable business model. How many older full timers could become part time draws? Cena certainly...and...then...I can't think of anybody who isn't medically retired.

Who is the next part time headliner?

This. You also have to look at why the part timers are needed. And dont kid yourself: they are needed. The current crop can tell fabulous stories between the bells but they are not translating to new eyeballs. It's like the baby boomer leaving the job market. If no one replaces them you're going to have a talent vacuum.

CM Punk had enough outside cred to have become a great part timer. Too bad they fucked it up.

Racking my brain here to come up with a legit name.

Bray Wyatt has potential.

Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns don't.

Zack Ryder?

lmfao I dunno why but I loved this question.

I think Reigns will. Cena won everyone eventually, no reason to think history wont repeat itself.


Rollins is going to burn out fast I think...

Do kids like Roman Reigns?

You forget that Cena had quite a few years of good will before he was public enemy #1. Roman did not have that benefit. They liked him in the shield, then he got hurt shortly after some BRIEF momentum in his singles push, and when he came back he was kind of dead in the water.

YOU BEING THAT MOTHERFUCKER DESTOR :rant:

He's the no.2 merch mover by a comfortable margin (but wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy behind Cena.)


He's over as a baby with his target audience.

He's pretty good tbh. Just a bit bland. If they stop Diesel pushing him and let the shackles off he'll be a motherfucker and a half IMO

I think the descision to push him was justified. He was getting hot...until the office got behind him anyways...
:fu:

PS. I loved Big Daddy Cool

Who can be the next Rock?

Nobody. They have to be the first "whoever the fuck they are".

Austin nor Rock was the "next" Hogan. They were entirely themselves.