overthetop2

Technically if it's called Battle OF the Belts, any edition that doesn't feature two belts fighting for the DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship is false advertising.

Whilst I understand that there is always an understandable motive for CM Punk's behaviour, I judge him more harshly in this situation because; A: The physical instigator is still assumed to be the primary guilty party in any altercation that turns violent. B: CM Punk is the far older and more experienced worker and is hence expected to be a cooler, more mature head. C : He also had a match immediately afterwards that he should've been getting ready for, and didn't need to confront Perry right there and then. Now if Perry is still ignoring smarter people backstage 3-5 years from now, then you can say he's no better than Punk.

That is a tame descriptor compared to what I could've called a man in his 40's whose cantankerous attitude towards everything in life make me look like a zen master by comparison.

In response to people who ridicule Khan's claim that he "feared for his life"... Tony Khan is NOT a fighter! If CM Punk, who has professional fight experience even if he lost those fights, starts beating up another worker and then makes a lunge for Khan, the latter has a right to feel vulnerable in that situation as Punk could have easily caused bodily harm had he not been dragged away. To ridicule Khan for that is toxic masculinity in my opinion.

Not sure why AEW is getting dogged online for this? The footage clearly shows that they were in the right to be fearful of Punk's continued presence in the locker room, because all I'm seeing is a nutjob sucker punching another worker after trying to play road agent instead of focusing on his own match.

I don't mind a good "heel gets more than they bargained for" angle if it's handled properly. The heels are usually those who cheated their way to the top rather than earn their spot legitimately, so it's easier to believe that a celebrity turned wannabe fighter could get the jump on their overconfident opponent. The caveat is that the heel should always eventually get their heat back and win clean, unless you want to run an angle where a face that has been tormented for weeks gets revenge by costing them the match. In the latter case, this has to be a particularly strong interference and not just a distraction, otherwise the heel still looks bad. Regarding your greater point, the best in the world in almost any sport work hard to reach and maintain a standard that no average person could match even with years of practice, and that should also be reflected in a wrestling promotion being presented as world level. So yes, it should take a while for someone who was a world beater to get back to that point if they've been out for a while. That means The Rock in WWE's case. And even though CM Punk started his AEW run fighting midcarders instead of going for the title right away, I agree that another loss or two on the way to the title would've made more sense from a realistic storytelling perspective.

Well I think the guy you're trying to push as the best wrestler in the company should not be getting pinned by someone who hasn't wrestled a proper match in 11 years and hasn't been a full time competitor in over 20. I don't care how big The Rock used to be, a wrestler losing to someone who is no longer a wrestler just makes them look bad.

I wouldn't have made a GDS account in the first place if I didn't like pro wrestling at one point. And I'd like to think I still do like pro wrestling, which is why I've grown to hate WWE's depiction of it over the last 10 years. This really has been a slow burn starting from Brock Lesnar's first title reign of the modern era in 2014; - Part time world champions whose sporadic appearances slow the title picture down to a crawl. This was every Lesnar reign that lasted more than a couple of months, then it was Roman's reign of terror. This leads into... - Overly long heel reigns that often end in underwhelming fashion. Between Lesnar and Rollins in 14-15, a heel held the WWE title for almost 15 months before the latter got injured. And if it wasn't injury, it would be a short and underwhelming match where Lesnar spams his finishers like it's HCTP before losing, or a Goldberg squash which disgusts me as someone who wants to see workrate be rewarded. And yet... - New stars blown up by Lesnar/Goldberg. Wrestlemania 35 was on the last good ones imo. Kofimania begun in a great match against Daniel Bryan and it looked like the WWE was moving on from their over-reliance on old names. So naturally, Kofi gets squashed by Lesnar on a random Smackdown with no build, and he's had few opportunities at the top of the card since. Bray Wyatt was also having a good reign as The Fiend just before COVID hit. Then they have him lose to Goldberg in 3 minutes, and if not for Cena putting him over in a big way at WM 36, that too would've turned into a burial. - Nonsensical match outcomes. Speaking of The Fiend, THEY ENDED A HIAC MATCH IN A DQ. The aforementioned Kofi losing in 7 seconds after being booked strong for 6 months also fits here, as does Seth Rollins losing to a one armed man, yet we're supposed to take him seriously as a potential world champion after that. And then there's almost every match in Roman's reign of terror from the 2 year mark onwards; the heel has to lose at some point and Drew McIntyre winning at Clash at the Castle '22 was as good a time as any in my book. - Which brings us to Roman Reigns. The problem from as far back as 2015 wasn't that he was a bad worker. It's that he was getting a rocket strapped onto him when there were more seasoned workers and interesting characters that deserved the shot more. His heel turn did not in my opinion fix the root problem of him being the only new star the WWE has actually nurtured in years. If anything it made things worse as they gave him a 1,316 day unbroken reign as a heel, when not even a face has held the title that long since Hulk Hogan. This loops back around to points 1 and 2, as Roman also became a part time worker after returning as a heel. And because Roman is the only new mega star they've managed to build in years, the WWE has to dip back into the well of old names to generate a buzz for Wrestlemania. Thus, Rock gets involved, and in exchange for being allowed to win the WWE title as an ex-AEW talent, Cody Rhodes has to job to The Rock and then get bailed out by Cena and Undertaker the following night. In summation, I understand booking and storytelling, I just hate WWE's approach to it. Maybe it's an inherent flaw in myself as I feel compelled to be caustic about everything in life. In high school I s--- all over Romeo and Juliet for having an unsatisfying conclusion that glorifies suicide. And I felt more at home in early '10's era IWC that would get vocally mad at the product over today's fanbase.

We passed the point of "basic" storytelling and into the realms of a convoluted mess 2 months ago when they baited everyone into thinking Rock vs Roman was the Wrestlemania match, only to pretend that segment never happened a few days later. Had they simply made the match no-DQ in the first place I'd have no argument against how the title fight was booked, but Cody having the chance in story to prevent a glorified handicap match and failing just makes Cena and Undertaker's appearance stick out as a deus ex machina designed to save the hero from a problem he himself created.

If it's not the finish it doesn't truly count. Consider Summerslam 2002 where Heyman cheated on Lesnar's behalf 5 times (+1 backfire), and forced The Rock to expend extra energy to take him out of the match; But then the finish was a clean 1v1 which Lesnar won, and so it's widely remembered as Lesnar winning the title clean despite Heyman's influence. And that's why it's impossible for Cody to truly "win" now. Even if he scores the pinfall it will be because someone else saved him from a pummeling at the hands of the Bloodline. One that he could've avoided by simply winning the tag match in the first place. So now that someone else is the true hero who ended the Reign of Terror, not Cody.

The guy WWE is trying to sell as the one to finally beat Boredom Reigns just lost clean to a 51 year old who hasn't wrestled full time in 2 decades.

Smackdown vs Raw 2006 tribute match 😆

No I don't, because that doesn't reflect my personal feelings towards the product WWE puts out. I think Cody had his momentum killed yet again by a needless complication to the story, and pretending the Feb 2 segment never happened doesn't erase everyone's memory of it happening. Okay, let's actually remember that rather than cite it as "muh long term booking". The Daniel Bryan storyline lasted 8 months all up, which is already shorter than the 12 it will be between Cody Rhodes unexpectedly jobbing at WM 39 and him finally getting another chance at 40. Throughout those 8 months, the fans did not simply "let the story play out" but rather clearly voiced what they wanted, demanding a refund over a BS sports entertainment finish at Battleground, and rejecting the development of Bryan joining the Wyatt family to the point where he turned on them at the first sensible opportunity. I have not seen any of that vocal rebellion against how long it's taking for Cody to "finish the story", in spite of the WWE continuing to keep him away from the title picture after the Lesnar feud just to eke out the story to WM 40. So you get the confused emote because your comments of just sitting back and enjoying the show is completely alien to someone like me who first seriously got into wrestling in the 2010-15 era of the IWC. Implying that it's just one misstep that made me sick of the Roman reign of terror. No, this has been going on since at least Clash at the Castle 2022, when McIntyre should've won at home since Roman had already been champion for 2 years. He instead lost, and ever since I've grown increasingly frustrated every time I hear about an angle that's hinting towards Roman dropping the belt to freshen up the main event and give me a reason to watch more than just occasional highlights and results... only for Roman to retain anyway in the blow-off match. At this rate I'm not 100% certain they'll even let Cody win the rematch!

I'd love the idea without caveats... except for me still believing that it's better for wrestlers to go out on their back so as to not make the next generation look weak. Maybe I could make an exception this one time, as it's not like the Bucks need the rub after the career they've already had. Then again, losing without getting pinned might work out for Darby if they want to book him as a singles competitor again. In summation, I could see Sting's last match going either way.

I don't buy it. Repeatedly getting people's hopes up only to dash them is not the type of feeling any storyteller should be aiming for. Dashed hopes turns to apathy, and apathy turns to people not watching your product anymore. And the simple story was there to be told way back at WM 39: the prodigal son returns to save the federation from Roman's reign of terror. Instead the WWE had to complicate it by having him lose to interference he should've seen coming, get made to look like fodder the following night by Brock Lesnar, and then do nothing interesting after conquering Lesnar until the right time to "complete the story" that should've already been completed came around. Then they had to complicate the conclusion even further by adding The Rock to the mix! All of this contributes to why I haven't watched the 'E in at least a couple of years; the lack of payoffs and over reliance on part time stars was depressing to watch. And clearly I'm still interested in what happens if I'm still posting here, but they've jaded me so badly that I'm not sure I can put myself in the right mindset to enjoy the WWE even after Reigns finally drops the belt.

Still makes Cody look like a chump for turning down his chance to face Roman again on-camera. I don't see how this Russo-esque attempt to recreate the Yes movement helps him or adds to the match that was already going to take place.

We can only conclude that Triple H is still playing TEW 2005, where one does not need to worry about time decline, momentum or storyline heat, instead getting an automatic A* every time you mash two of your most over workers together.

https://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2024/2/2/24059953/roman-reigns-vs-the-rock-wwe-wrestlemania-40 So is it now fashionable to say what I've said before in this thread? By which I mean that the WWE no longer knows how to book, and Cody will never be allowed to hold the companies top title or have as much heat as he did at Wrestlemania 39 where he should've won in the first place.

Definitely not how I would book a show, as I would fear losing the crowd due to depressing viewing and lack of chances to pop. The placement of this PPV right after a bigger PPV may be the culprit, as I guess AEW felt the need for the heels to get their heat back after All In was booked to have the faces win almost every match (which is how a season finale typically goes).

Good riddance. No one man is bigger than the company, and CM Punk especially was supposed to be the veteran setting an example of how to behave to all the underneath guys in the back, not be the common thread in almost every backstage incident AEW has. The one drawback is that All Out will now be a hard show for AEW to get through, because the Chicago crowd is extremely homer when it comes to CM Punk in particular.

You do not get to project your personal opinions onto my own. I believe Cody was buried because if the plan actually was to develop his character for another year before winning, he should never have been hotshotted into the Wrestlemania program in the first place. And once again that's assuming the WWE will even accept an ex-AEW guy as their top champion.

I don't care. WWE should give me a reason to want to watch again, and "Roman destroys everyone for 3 years" is not that because I've seen that already when he was a face and even what I'm doing here is more entertaining than watching a rerun.

I missed the part where I'm forced to do that. I'm calling out the WWE on terrible booking because I'm still interested in wrestling and want them to offer something different that might actually sway me to come back. Meanwhile I see the fanbase becoming increasingly unwilling to call out the product for long standing problems like not pushing new stars, boring heel stables that get dragged out over years (before the bloodline it was the authority), and part time champions with excessively long reigns. If no-one else is bringing up these issues, I have to instead. Improve the product and I'll stop "trolling" the thread.

You want Roman to retain for HOW LONG!? It's already the most stale storyline I've ever seen in wrestling and yet everyone here is still content to just let it drag out instead of doing literally anything else. This is why I don't watch WWE anymore, I just check the results, see Roman has retained again for some ungodly reason, and complain online. Turning Roman heel didn't fix anything, the problem was him being overpushed and this current run has seen it fit to push him even harder than he was ever pushed as a face. I don't want to watch a product where Roman is the centre of the universe at the expense of every other wrestler on the roster. I wanted to start watching again this year when they finally found a guy to win the belt off of him but that never happened. Besides, saying that Cody will just win at WM40 is making a huge assumption that the WWE will even let an ex-AEW guy win their main belt. The WWE I know would be petty enough to job him out again.

I know full well what the word means, unless you've got a better way to describe Jey now being 0-3 in world title matches and Cody jobbing out to interference he should've seen coming from worlds away?