lr10540

I'm 8 months in. Longest I've stuck with a single c-verse save. I haven't looked at the re render thread in a while. I went from start to finish in this thread over a few days. I guess I'll have to do the same to the re render thread at some point. Though may not be as important with 16 coming soon!

That's bad ass too. I like your renders! I need to split the plat blondes anyway. They have bad chemistry. I've just been using them as a jobber to the stars type team. That might get him a small push!

For me, between the ropes is where the money is. You use angles, whether it be brawls, attacks, promos or whatever to build the eventual match. Then the match is what draws. Very few people watch any sporting event for the "entertaining" points. You don't watch football for the half time show. You don't watch baseball for the 7th inning stretch. And very few people watch wrestling for a talking segment. Matches are super important for me. I know it's a work, but taking words from Steve Austin, I wanna believe. If a guy can't beat someone in the ring, why should he be taken seriously? That's how I look at it. I didn't realize I was in the minority there I like my in ring product to look as real as possible, and my angles to be serious. I hate comedy wrestling, and aside from Taker, I pretty much hate gimmicky characters. I guess that's why I compare it to mma!

I'll admit I have old school views on wrestling. I also look at things from what I feel is a realistic point of view. If a guy is just destroying low card talent, then he's crushing the "minor leagues" to put it in sports terms. Then when hese called up to the big leagues, or the main event scene in this case, and he's no longer displaying the same dominance, he can't hang. That makes me feel that he's not dominant. To me, a monster push is pretty much what you've described. They look unstoppable for a (usually) short period of time. Once they step up in competition, they get handled and almost instantly lose all credibility. Dominance is something that's built up over time. Jose Aldo was dominant. Anderson Silva was dominant. Georges St. Pierre was dominant. A guy like BJ Penn, who was outstanding for a period of time and then got handled in seemingly no time, is not someone I consider dominant. In wrestling terms, BJ Penn was given a monster push and built to look strong in order to give someone the rub of defeating him. I do, unfortunately remember the Punjabi Prison match. Horrible match. I feel about Khali how Warhawk feels about Reigns. As far as Big Show, he doesn't win often. I disagree with Blackman (if I'm understanding him correctly) that you don't have to win to be dominant. If all you're doing is getting "victories" outside the ring, or outside of a match in general, you're not very strong. If all you can do is beat somebody up when the bell hasn't been rung, you're just a b*tch. Matches are contested to have a winner, definite or otherwise. If you can't beat somebody in a match, I say you suck. Show has looked strong in battle royals. But he never wins, and those "dominant" appearances have led to nothing.

I completely forgot Goldberg. I was going for guys who had extended runs at the top. Ryback was pushed hard and heavy early, but fell from grace quickly I believe after losing to Punk. My memory on that period is sporadic, as I wasn't a weekly viewer then. Batista certainly won more than he lost, but I never viewed him as unstoppable. Maybe it was all the injuries he accumulated. I was also a huge fan from the Evolution days and his long awaited face turn, so I may be biased on him. What period was Big Show unstoppable? I can't recall him ever looking unstoppable for any period of time in the WWE. Perhaps in his days as The Giant? Rusev was booked to be unbeatable for a year as part of his initial push. He was never a main eventer, although right on the cusp at Mania. After being buried Cena (not a word I'll often throw around, but 4 straight? Cmon) and losing Lana, he's been practically irrelevant ever since. Brock. While he is booked as unstoppable, he's only part time and wrestles what, 4 times a year? You don't see him slaughter guys twice a week in angles or matches. That certainly makes it better as it takes a lot longer to get old. I still pop when he comes out and does any sort of damage still, so it hasn't gotten old yet for me. When he came up, I would certainly agree with you there. The early Taker feuds were so brutal too. The thing was, you had guys who could push him on Smackdown like Taker and Kurt, that it seemed like he had to work for it. Taker is part time as well. His gimmick since I wanna say around 09 is built on his streak. Everybody knew he was coming back to win, but it was still once a year. I wouldn't call that dominant. The years prior to that he was a fixture on smackdown going over some midcarder in the main event, as he should have, or in a program with a top guy. He has always looked strong. Kane was definitely dominant when he debuted and was so for a while after. I remember seeing Vader give him a piledriver and Kane got back up like instantly and started beating the hell out of Vader. That had 4 year old me scared to death of Kane. Another I forgot. He was dominant for a long time after his debut, including flirtations in the main event scene. When was Big E booked dominant? Not sarcastic. I just remember him with Dolph and AJ then my next memory of him was as IC champ. He never came across as dominant to me. Just another guy in the midcard. I never looked at Khali as dominant. He looked like a giant board. Come to think of it, I never really looked at Khali when he worked. He was trash. Don't know about Diesel. Before my time. Never been a fan of his in ring stuff, thus I've never cared to go back and watch any of it. Braun has had flashes of dominance. He's been in only 1 singles match that I can recall and it was against Reigns. It's hard to perceive someone as dominant unless its one on one for me. He's definitely looked like a world beater aside from Survivor Series where Taker and Kane cut his legs out from under him. I'm sure he'll be in the same boat as Rusev was with Reigns playing the part of Cena. Too soon yet. I think we have different opinions of dominant. Anybody to be taken seriously should be squashing midcard talent. What Brock is currently doing when he's actually working is dominance. He kills multiple guys at a time damn near without breaking a sweat and then dominates main event talent from Reigns to Cena to Taker. That's true dominance and he's been doing it a couple years now. However, he's part time and those dominating instances are so few and far between, it's not complete and utter dominance per se.

Could you post the individual pic of him?

I like the WMMA characters. Maybe he'll be my Cverse equivalent of BAAAAAAAAAAROCK UHHHHHHHHLESNARRRR! Or maybe someone even badder. Like "The Baddest Man On The Planet" Terron Cabal. Been a long time since I've booted up a game of WMMA, so the nickname might be wrong. I love the tag team pics. If I ever start a written diary here on the forums, I will likely request some. Very nice. I love the team logos inbetween the character renders. Also the Captain Atomic render is sweet. Never seen that one before.

From my watching history, the only baby faces who have been pretty much unstoppable is Cena. Looking in the past one would see Hogan and maybe Warrior. The babyface vs authority angle is the real issue. The three biggest guys to have done that the last 15 to 20 years have been Austin, Punk and Bryan. He's nowhere near any of those 3. He doesn't have Austin's charisma, he doesn't have Punk's realism/bravado, and he doesn't have Bryan's fan support. That's not even taking into consideration what those other 3 brought to the table in the ring and on the microphone. Reigns doesn't come close. I've said it forever, he needs to be booked like Batista where he doesn't say much outside of ll"I want my title and I'm gonna kick your ass to get it."

Just watched the Kalisto ADR match. Really nice. It's quite amazing how good it was when you remember the first match they had in the World Title tournament.

I see it in ladder matches to a lesser degree. Cage matches are another that drive me crazy. Not only is it anticlimatic most of the time (no near falls, you either eecape or not) but it's a dumb finish! What really had me hot was the Sheamus/Ambrose cage match that closed Raw a couple weeks back. They were both hanging on the OUTSIDE of the cage punching each other... JUST LET GO AND YOU'LL WIN THE MATCH!! That may be the worst thing I've seen in recent memory. Then when Ambrose fell, Sheamus gave this almost disgusted look. Idiot. All you have to do was let go.

Over last night and this morning I went back and watched the 06, 07 and 08 Rumbles and one thing I've never understood from a psychology standpoint is why people stop another guy from being eliminated. Unless you're tag partners with someone, why would you purposely go stop someone from eliminating someone else. The goal is to win the damn thing and main event Mania. For example, if HBK was in the process of eliminating Ric Flair, had him teetering on the top rope etc why would The Undertaker then come at HBK with a forearm to the back? It seems foolish and is one thing I've never been able to understand. Again, that wasn't a real scenario, just an example with names eveybody knows. It seems the only time this doesn't happen is when a guy like Big Show or Viscera used to come in. Damn near immediately everybody would stop what they were doing to eliminate the giant because the biggest guy realistically would pose the biggest threat. Anybody have any insight on that?

Those are phenomenal. No more teen heart throbs!

Really loved Mauro's commentary. I never watch Smackdown, but I was curious to see his style. I wasn't really paying attention until the women's match and man was he great. I heard moves called and Charlotte described as a heel and Becky as a face. It was beautiful. It turned a decent match into a really good match. Only thing I didn't like was when Owens took a powder when Ambrose tried to give him Dirty Deeds and Mauro described it as Owens was regrouping. That's a good guy term. When a heel takes a powder, it's getting too hot in the kitchen, Mauro!

My biggest disagreement withthe rant is that they should listen to the hardcores. That's extremely ignorant. The hardcores are such because they love you wrestling. Vince would have to run a real life Big Show/Bossman funeral angle just to get the IWC to turn away. Even then, they'll be back! The IWC will buy merchandise based on who they believe should get pushed, so that's a non point. The casual fans are what need to be catered to. They're the people you're trying to turn in to consumers for life. They're the ones that watch when their other show is running a commercial. You must find ways to get them engaged in your product. If women see a Roman Reigns instead of a Daniel Bryan, they're probably more likely to keep watching. As far as pushing those that "deserve" it. They usually have a decent idea of why they don't push someone. It seems with DB they felt his body couldn't hold up to the champion's schedule with all his indy career and his in ring style. Punk, I can only imagine it being his look and then his attitude. While he was major over, his post wwe interviews paint him as being a complete dick backstage. Why give someone like that all the leverage, even if his burial of backstage going ons was spot on?

That looks damn near just like Sean O'Haire! That's sick. Venom, Carnage and The Joker are my top 3 favorite super villians. Eddie Peak as Venom, Doug Peak as Carnage! Haha. The next great supervillian tag team!

Tickets for myself, my wife and my soon to be 5 year old daughter + parking. I'm super happy that my daughter loves it. My dad got me into it when I was 3 or 4. Some of the best memories I have involve wrestling. The Hogan/Rock staredown is probably my favorite I saw growing up. I took her to the Legends Edition of Raw that came through a few months back. She loved it. She was doing all the chants and cheers and such. It was cool! I don't think she'll appreciate having been at Wrestlemania until she's older, but I couldn't exclude her! As far as my wife, I've corrupted her to become a fan lol. Nope, I live in the Dallas area. 45 minutes from Jerry World (AT&T Stadium).

Further lessening the depth of the Mania card that I've spent 600 to be at live. Starting to become upsetting. I'm not the biggest Cena fan, but I was reaaaaaally looking forward to Cena v Taker. Ugh.

That's pretty neat. Still not good enough for me to use him in any role other than a job guy though. Something about his general look turns me off on booking him strong. The not good enough has nothing to do with the render btw, I just can't ever find a reason to book him strong. Maybe with that render he could be paired in a stable with Vengeance, Soul Taker and Scythe. Hmm... Have you done any other renders of Greed that made you want to book him strong?

Anybody have any idea on plans they have for Nakamura?

I'm most curious of how they use Nakamura. Due to his age he probably won't get a run at the top of the card. I think the best position for him would probably be to boost the WWE's version of the IC strap with a super long reign where he doesn't lose matches every week. The first thought I had with AJ, Doc and MG was Balor Club. They've been doing offhand promoting in a way. It seems every entrance now has the Balor Club graphic on the video biard, but they've never addressed it. To me that says that they've had this planned for a while but didn't start promoting it on tv tapings until they knew for sure that they'd sign. If they do go that route I'm very curious to see how they turn Finn heel and how they do that demon aspect of his character as a heel. Definitely a great way to start the new year. WWE appears to be picking up their tv booking going towards Mania like they do every year. I'm finally looking forward to a Raw episode for the first time in months. Love the twist on the Rumble, and I love me some Vinnie Mack!

Ohhh that first one is awesome. Definitely bad ass. Thanks!

I loved watching Owens kick Neville's and Ambrose's ass. The first segment went on too long (same old s*** at this point) but Vince's classic I own everything line gets me every time! Solid Raw. I'm glad Slater got tv time. I'd like to see him get more of a push. He's super entertaining. On a side note, the profanity seems to be on an uptick these last couple weeks. Surely they're not heading away from G rating?

That's really sweet! Now I've got a good way to break Spencer away from the commentators booth. Any chance you could give him blonde hair?

They have a history of booking them just to try to get a rating. There hadn't been one in a while on tv, but with every ppv being themed now, we have a waste of a gimmick match nearly every month on the main roster. I used to have a huge reaction when a wrestler or personality announced so and so would be fighting in a cage or hell in a cell or have a ladder match etc. Now it's just an, "oh we're having a cage match." In regards to NXT, I believe the only gimmick matches they've had since I started watching (a few weeks before Bo Dallas lost the title) are 3 gimmick matches, and all 3 were for the title on one of the ppvs (special events, whatever you wanna call them). Bo Dallas v Neville and Kevin Owens vs Balor in a ladder match for the title and the 30 min iron man match for the woman's title. They've kept it special so it means a lot.

I'm finally watching NXT from last week... Chad Gable is way too damn good in the ring. He's so awesome. He and Gotch were working that arm spot for a couple minutes with some chain wrestling inbetween grabbing the hold and had the crowd hooked on every move! He's definitely my favorite guy in NXT!