CM Punk; WWE Has Me Hooked Again (2012 Official Pro Wrestling Thread)

[brwrsfan]

Remember when PPV's used to have crazy things happen? Heel turns, a superstar returning, a McMahon re-emerging or something? Virtually nothing at all happened, no storylines ended, no storylines really moved at all. A couple of them stagnated, and now we have this Sheamus part. It was just awful. Not to mention as others said that the first 20 guys in the rumble were all pretty weak, so you really had no stars at all to watch until the last 15 minutes. Horrible PPV in my opinion, and that means a lot from me, as I love the Royal Rumble.

[PrinceEatMeat]

I honestly think the worst part of the actual Rumble match itself was that all the big stars were held until the end. Really took away from the match as a whole. Also, there were some wasted spots that could've been taken by people like Kane. I can see why Kane wasn't involved though, because he wasn't gonna win and they want him to stay indestructible. Either, it wasn't a very excited match. I'm really hoping Elimination Chamber will make up for the Rumble being pretty bad. It's usually a pretty good PPV, so I'm guessing it'll be better. I'll be there too, which makes it even more important, lol.

[ELCABALLO45]

Well that sucked.

 

I actually thought the crowd was juiced up for the most part but the WWE failed to produce again. Sigh.

 

Things I liked -

 

- Kane's character

- Kharma returning

- Kofi Kingston's handstand

- Road Dogg return

- Brotus Clay

 

Things I hated

 

- Cage Match finish and the fact that a freakin World Heavyweight Title match is first on the show. I also hate when the Champion comes out first.

- Punk-Ziggler match. Stupid finish, Ziggler got beat like 4 times, hope they don't bury him.

- Big Show being number 30. After Chris Jericho came out number 29 I really thought it was going to be a big surprise entrance at number 30. Nope.

- Sheamus winning the rumble.

[patrickgpe]

i don't know why they wasted 3 spots by having announcers in it either. kind of sad that the biggest surprise of the night was the return of kharma.

[radman12484]

I didn't hate Sheamus winning the Rumble. This gives at least the World Title match at Wrestlemania some hype. If we do get Jericho vs. Punk for the WWE Title, its a match wrestling fans all want to see, you don't need to add a Royal Rumble win for him to help hype the match. However, like the rest of you I didn't like how the Rumble was end loaded with stars and no big returns other then Kharma.

[PrinceEatMeat]

Yeah, I don't understand the gripe people have with Sheamus winning. I thought it was a well-deserved win for him, and helps out with the build for the WHC match at Mania. It also wasn't predictable, which was good. I'm guessing almost everyone though Jericho would win, especially when he got to the final 2. Sheamus deserves the push, and Jericho doesn't need that win. I thought the result was good, the match itself just wasn't.

[brwrsfan]

The result was fine, the match itself and basically the whole rest of the PPV was pretty medicore, if that.

 

I assume that they have Sheamus go after Daniel Bryan? I know Jericho has been around before, but him coming back and immediately being the #1 contender (if that happens) just bothers me. I also don't understand his "world will never be the same" and "she" returning...unless that's coming here in the next couple of weeks.

[patrickgpe]

The result was fine, the match itself and basically the whole rest of the PPV was pretty medicore, if that.

 

I assume that they have Sheamus go after Daniel Bryan? I know Jericho has been around before, but him coming back and immediately being the #1 contender (if that happens) just bothers me. I also don't understand his "world will never be the same" and "she" returning...unless that's coming here in the next couple of weeks.

Johnny Ace is getting his job evaluation tonight by triple H, maybe stephanie will appear tonight?

[PrinceEatMeat]

http://www.wwe.com/shows/...ion-chamber-2012-preview

 

Raw Chamber match announced. Punk is defending his title, and it isn't a #1 contender for Mania match. Interesting. I guess the Sheamus decision could be drawn out then. Anyways, Punk, Jericho, Miz, Truth, Ziggler, Kingston. Should be good. This confirms a few things to me. Laurinaitis will get fired, because I think he would've faced Punk at EC otherwise. Also, Cena and Kane will wrap-up their feud at EC.

[brettac1]

One thing that really struck me is that Jericho got pretty much zero heel heat for tossing Orton in his hometown. I would think that was the idea behind having him eliminate him, but it got nothing. Whatever Jericho is doing certainly doesn't seem to be getting over at this point. He needs to cut a promo tonight to get some focus on the situation.

[brettac1]

Also, I have had a change of opinion about a Foley/Ziggler match at Mania after watching the way Foley was hobbling around last night. It was painful.

[radman12484]

I don't expect Bryan vs. Sheamus to be a singles match anymore. I gave it sometime to soak in and it will probably turn into a triple threat (bryan vs. sheamus vs. orton or barrett) or fatal 4 way with the same 4 guys. I know its not suppose to be a top 3 match on the card, but its got a World Title on the line so it will need some star power or interest other then one on one.

[brettac1]

If Stephanie comes back, I would be cool with this:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDgQPj7rlg

[MillerParkSouth]

that Raw EC match looks good, but doesn't it pretty much guarantee a Punk win?

[Raw Biz]

that Raw EC match looks good, but doesn't it pretty much guarantee a Punk win?

Jericho could win and Punk gets a rematch at WM.

[brettac1]

I'd rather just they keep it on Punk.

[PrinceEatMeat]

Idk about anyone else, but I thought Raw was pretty awesome tonight. First time in awhile. Fantastic match between Punk and Bryan, ending with Jericho starting his feud with Punk. The beginning 20 minutes were great. The Ziggler/Orton match was pretty good except that Ziggler is seemingly getting buried at the moment. I like that Kingston is getting a push again, but I don't like Miz jobbing to him. The Kane/Cena stuff was pretty good again. Also, I think a Beth Phoenix/Kharma match at Mania would actually be a decent divas match for once. The ending was obviously fantastic with the JL/HHH stuff and then Taker returning. The thing that doesn't make sense is why would Taker basically challenge HHH? He just beat him last year, and has beaten him twice now at Mania. Although, they kind of played it off that HHH doesn't want the rematch. It'll inevitably happen though. Not a fan of Taker/HHH 3, but we all know it will happen, and Taker returns are always fun to watch. The match though, not sure that'll be fun to watch. On a side note, Taker's hair looked fake. Not sure if it was or not, but maybe he hasn't grown it back yet.

[Invader3K]

Yeah, I don't get what's really compelling about another Undertake/HHH match at this point.

[MillerParkSouth]

I liked the Punk/Bryan/Jericho stuff as well. Basically anything to get Bryan more heat is something i'm in favor of since I think he's great as a heel. Pretty indifferent to Taker at this point, but I'm glad that he seemingly saved Big Johnny from getting fired, which I think would be a huge mistake since he seems to be one of the few heels that the crowd actually hates. Seems like my fears of Ziggler getting burried might be coming true, not sure who he's going to feud with now that Punk is out of the picture, but I hope they give him some mic time and decent matches and then push him again after WM.

[patrickgpe]

also, not sure if triple h will be returning to raw full time since taker came out just in time to interrupt laurenitis getting fired. i would not be a fan of this, since i have really warmed up to johnny running raw.

[PrinceEatMeat]

Anyone catch Punk and Bryan doing the "Code of Honor" handshake before their match? I thought that was pretty cool. Not sure if Vince would be happy if he knew what it was though.

[brettac1]

MillerParkSouth wrote:

Seems like my fears of Ziggler getting burried might be coming true, not sure who he's going to feud with now that Punk is out of the picture, but I hope they give him some mic time and decent matches and then push him again after WM.

Exactly. They really hurt him at the Rumble. I was really hoping they would give him a clean win over Orton last night, but of course they let him hit his finish and have Orton kick out of it instead. Now, they can shoehorn a 40 year old part-timer who has never drawn money at the top of the card into a feud with the champion, but not push Ziggler to the moon. Pretty standard WWE, really. I don't get how they don't realize that all bringing back the old guys does is show how crappy the current product is. I mean, they couldn't even have a real Royal Rumble. It's because they cut guys off at the knees or abort their pushes.

[MillerParkSouth]

it's funny because I get the same annoyed, frustrating feeling watching what they're doing to Ziggler as I got when Jericho first came to WWF and got booked in that ridiculous Chyna feud.

[brettac1]

Oh, definitely. I was watching some 2000 PPV's recently and that stuff was so annoying. The big difference is that they had Steve Austin and The Rock on the top of the card.

[thablingster]

It annoys me in general that they seem to bury everybody except the same 5 or so guys, then wonder why no one gets over. They just spent like three months building up Ziggler only to job him twice in two nights. The RAW chamber match shows this to a tee.

 

Kofi's been tag teaming putting over Primo and Epico and now he gets a title match? Okay then. Miz and Truth have been putting each other over and have been no where near the title chase, and Jericho's been back for a month. If only they'd have put Jack Swagger in there for even more laughs, considering he'll probably put over Santino at some point.

 

Having four faces (Jericho is technically a heel, but in the "the crowd still likes you even if you do heel things" sense) in the final four at the Rumble was boring.

 

I used to rib on Triple H vs. the Rock match 1,346, but the way they jump through feuds and pushes these days really does hurt the credibility of these guys in the long term.