#it’s just more of ‘I think this era of cm punk is neat and I want to show him to people’ that’s all

[malewifehenrycooldown]

How much further can I push my followers into looking at images of cm punk for them to come into my askbox with furious anger and go ‘please for goodness sakes, talk about your blorbos for once and stop talking about this bastard.’

[fromtheringapron]

WWE SummerSlam 2013

Date: August 18, 2013

Location: Staples Center in Los Angeles, California

Attendance: 17,739

Commentary: Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield, and Jerry Lawler. 

Results:

1. Ring of Fire Match: Bray Wyatt (with Harper & Rowan) defeated Kane. 

2. Cody Rhodes defeated Damien Sandow. 

3. WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: Alberto Del Rio (champion) defeated Christian. 

4. Natalya (with Cameron and Naomi) defeated Brie Bella (with Nikki Bella and Eva Marie). 

5. No Disqualification Match: Brock Lesnar (with Paul Heyman) defeated CM Punk.

6. Dolph Ziggler and Kaitlyn defeated Big E. Langston and A.J. Lee. 

7. WWE Championship Match: Daniel Bryan defeated John Cena (champion) to win the title. Triple H was the special guest referee. 

8. Money in the Bank Cash-In WWE Championship Match: Randy Orton defeated Daniel Bryan (champion) to win the title. Triple H was the special guest referee. 

Analysis

SummerSlam 2013 is pretty damn good. I can’t really think of a more antiquated way to describe it other than that. WWE totally nailed it on this night. The average SummerSlam is lucky to have that one colossal showdown that delivers big time, but here’s the rare show that delivers two of them ⎯ the electric Punk vs. Lesnar and Cena vs. Bryan. Each have their own compelling story to tell, each showcase the men involved at their best, and each end with a result that gives us something to nibble on.

Punk/Lesnar will go down as one of the best matches in the history of the event. By positioning Punk as the scrappy underdog, Lesnar as the ultimate destroyer, and Paul Heyman as the sniveling coward who is always moments away from interfering, it creates a dynamic that’s ridiculously entertaining. It’s David vs. Goliath for sure, except that David really takes it to Goliath here until outside distractions lead to his downfall. While it’s certainly a highlight of Lesnar’s WWE career, it should perhaps be more remembered as the last truly great moment of Punk’s, who’ll walk out of the company a few months later in tumultuous fashion.

As for the other major match on this show, it’s impossible to watch Cena/Bryan now without thinking of how it shapes Bryan’s eventual journey to the main event of WrestleMania XXX. Of course, it’s a little depressing to watch the twist ending knowing that Bryan main eventing WrestleMania was never the original plan, leaving him forever vanquished and fated to the mid-card for the remainder of his days. But with the benefit of hindsight? It’s at least a great way to start the story that eventually unfolded.

As for the show as a whole, I just really like how it meshes together. Some shows make mistake of having one big match after another, leaving little room for fans to take a breather. Here, however, all the marquee matches are separated by filler matches, which serve as light entertainment that keep the action going without having to deliver any high drama. Imagine if Cena/Bryan went right after Punk/Lesnar, with no mixed tag match in between. That would’ve worn anyone out and diminished the impact of the WWE title match, so it’s to the show’s benefit that problem is avoided altogether.

I hate to drop a corny-as-fuck seasonal reference, but watching this show really does feel like consuming a glass of summertime sangria⎯light, refreshing, and before you know it, it’s got you buzzed. If only every SummerSlam felt that way.  

My Random Notes

Between Cody Rhodes’ mustache and Daniel Bryan’s beard, I swear it’s become a thing in the 2010s to have your entire personality defined by your facial hair.

As with any 2013 WWE show, we’re graced by the Miz as a bland, shapeless babyface, who seems to be met with complete apathy by everyone. It’s a miracle he later recovered. He looks good in a tux, I’ll give him that much.

Hey, remember during those few months in 2013 when Fandango was the most over person on the roster? Strange world.

And also remember in 2013 when Dolph Ziggler still seemed kinda cool? I know, right?

And, holy shit, I checked the pre-show results, and remember in 2013 when RVD was on the roster at the some point? Wow.

Shoutout to Brandon Hendrix, who I can only assume disappeared from the face of the earth immediately after this show, leaving only a trail of Dorito crumbs in his wake.

I know opinions on the WWE commentary scene circa 2018 vary wildly, but thank the fuck we no longer have to suffer through the Cole/JBL/Lawler triumvirate of annoying. Give me Corey Graves and Byron Saxton any day.

On the Ring of Fire match: Such a weird debut match for Bray Wyatt, whose character has taken several weird turns in the years since. Would it have killed them to give him a few squash matches beforehand? A wrestler’s debut match should give you a feel for their character, and that’s a little hard to do here because it’s essentially Kane’s match. Also, an inferno match doesn’t really work in the PG era, as you can’t really light anyone on fire in front of the kids. The fire just becomes a neat visual and nothing more.

This show is set at the beginning of the Total Divas era, which is definitely still a thing now, but at the time manifested into a lot of pointless storylines that would quickly dissolve into nothing. I mean, what the hell was even the issue between Natalya and the Bella twins here?

[mineofilms]

RAW Used To Be War…

It’s been a few weeks since I have last blogged. I am sure some of you want me to talk about your Politics or your Religion. Hell… I am sure some of you want me to talk about your Fitness Life, but I am not going to do that. No… I am going to about Sports Entertainment… UGH… Fuck that phrase. I hate that they now refer to PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING as “Sports Entertainment.” I have heavily criticized the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) for years since they went PG and started hiring Reality TV writers and production staff to make the programming more reality/soap based. Since they have done this the product has utterly sucked.

Let’s rewind to the late 90’s and very early 00’s. Professional Wrestling then was awesome. The characters were the extremes of most of our current personalities. The industry was more interested in talent than trying to make a star out of someone. All that would come if the fans were on board. Come back to the present. Is that what we see now? No. We see almost every week on both RAW and Smackdown (The B Show), the fans taking over the show with their chants and signs. The fans are speaking directly to WWE and WWE is not listening. They kind of sort of used to but now they take it personal and just continue with their bad ideas and push their talent, when it’s clear what fans want to see… 

One would think an industry that depends on the fans to make its profits would see the bigger picture. It’s clear they do not. Now the PG era officially started in 2006-2007, I believe. To me though about a year after WWE absorbed WCW it was changed to me. Once the brand splitting started and all the older WCW stars were WWE headliners it was killed off to me. Probably 2004ish is when I got really board by it. I’d watch Wrestlemania every year, but outside of that. I’d watch snippets of RAW and never watched “The B Show.” 

Once CM Punk started becoming, "the guy." I kind of got back into it and when the NXT people started becoming Every week talent that also sparked my interest. What really killed for me “AGAIN” was Wrestlemania XXX and 31… Both events seemed very forced on all fronts. The booking during these 24 months was so bad I had lost complete interest to a point that I was only willing to sit and watch the 4 main Pay Per View Events; SummerSlam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble & Wrestlemania. Now that we have the WWE Network that only costs $9.99 a month it’s easy to do this at little or no real cost. If we were still doing PPV buys for 2 events a month, every month at $60 a pop, do the math. Now this way, it’s cheaper to the fans and I am sure WWE pulls all the profits rather than having to pay the cable providers.  

I pretty much quit watching RAW all together. I just really didn’t care about any of the characters, like at all. The writing of these characters is so poor that the ring action, which is still very good, makes no sense to me at all. So I just quit watching.

So now we have Wrestlemania 33. The event, again, hyped all over the place, failed to deliver for at least the 4th year in a row. Some of the matches were rather good but the finishes were so poor I feel bad for the 75,000+ people that paid for their tickets. I watched from 5pm Sunday to 12:30am Monday…

Really do we really need all that? I remember when a mere 4 hour show was considered obscene. Did we really need an 80 yard ramp with all those effects? Was it cool, sure, but did we need it. I would have been fine with just Pro Wrestling at its badassery finest moment of WRESTLEMANIA. So much good talent didn’t make the card. Once we got to the final 4 matches, main card matches I was falling asleep. We get 2 heavyweight title matches. Then a woman’s match then I suppose the main event is Roman Reins vs The Undertaker??? Title matches are the main event, what changed? Taker’s retirement match wasn’t the worst but not really of main event quality. None of them were. Taker looses. Taker puts over Reins. We get a neat send off to the Undertaker. We get one glimpse of a Kayfabe moment when Taker kisses his wife before walking up the ramp. The End… Till Monday…

It’s been a thing for a few years now that the 1st RAW show after Wrestlemania is the best one of the year. Last night. I was very impressed from start to finish. It was the best RAW show I have seen since the attitude era and all I can say is…………….

Why The Fuck Can’t EVERY RAW be that good??? It’s obvious that the people in WWE Creative have the ability to make great shows, but it only happens a few times a year. That is a huge problem for me. If RAW was good like that every week. I’d watch. We got a great Cruiserweight Match. 3 respectable tag team matches. Great (funny) promos. The ladies were sharp. FYI… I’d like to ad that the Ladies are killing it on both shows. A few years back it was terrible to watch. They simply couldn’t wrestle and all the Lady Professional Wrestlers were leaving so they wouldn’t get hurt from the Diva’s. Notice they hardly even use the word Diva anymore when describing the Lady Performers. I think that is a huge step in the right direction. Vince Showed Up and at first had a nice, “Real,” moment with the fans before he stepped back into character. It was just a stellar show from beginning to end. I will watch again next week but if they go back to usual format I will probably vanish again.

Smackdown is tonight and I will watch it on TiVo after the RAY’s game. I am not happy at all with Smackdown. It’s totally a B-Rated Show. The writing even more dummied down. I used to be a real Shane fan, but I think he is part of the problem. I just think as a behind the scenes boss he doesn’t get it. He just does what Vince says. I think Triple H is just a yes man and we might see changes when Vince actually passes away, but until then you won’t see much.  Hunter will not take any real chances. He has in the last 2 years come into Wrestlemania looking rock hard in shape though. He looks great. Even his legs looked good, but his ability to run the WWE in a way fans love the product. Yeah… Noooooo.... Big… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO on that one.  

Anyways… One more thing I wanna touch on… The Fans… I hate the term WWE Universe to describe ALL PRO WRESTLING Fans. That is complete horse shit. To US it will always be Professional Wrestling. Not Sports Entertainment. To US it will always be the WWF not the WWE. To US we are Wrestling Fans, not the WWE Universe. FK right off with that Shit...

The fans have been dictating what they want and WWE keeps under-delivering to a point its almost sick. Last night it was nice to see the fans COMPLETELY take over the show. I mean did anyone else notice the FK U Roman Chants that were clearly heard and not bleeped out or drowned out with fake audio? They were ruthless last night and not cause it was the Raw after Mania show. The fans had just had enough of the terrible storytelling, poor character development and horrible booking calls from Creative. If fans are saying this sucks. WWE should listen. I guess as long as they make money, which they are, even though the RAW ratings continue to drop; will the USA Network even resign with WWE in 2019?

It just shows that no matter what Creative pushes on us, the fans will not submit to it. The fans decide, not the company. I think that is why in the early years of TNA that product worked so well. I remember in the middle 00’s watching TNA and being blown away with the product they had and new talent they were developing. Then they hired Nash/Hogan and they ran that right into the ground just like they did WCW. Not an accident that TNA is really struggling these days. The fans just want super talented people wrestling other talented people.

The Family of Wrestling Fans do not care about the WWE’s Creative Political Process of who gets “over,” who’s a “face” or “heel” or “The Champ.” How many championships there are? WWE has overcomplicated itself with Vince allowing Shane & Stephanie trying to outdo one another and Vince over the years. Back when things were simple the product was much better. You can even see Paul, the advocate, not believing him when he was talking about Reins. But the crowd went ape shit when Broan came out and went face to face with Brock. That’s the kind of shit people wanna see, every week… Not just one Monday after Wrestlemania. Let’s face it. RAW on this day was better than any of the last 3 Wrestlemania’s put together. Like I said… The inside ring action makes no sense with the kind of stories and pushes they keep trying to tell. Something needs to change. Granted on the outside the product looks successful but I think they are losing their audience and it could get ugly before it gets better… “It’s True… It’s Damn True…” 

RAW Used To Be War… By David-Angelo Mineo 4/4/2017 1,637 Words