Wrestling Thread 3: Dan vs. Cam • Page 71

Punishment/Will Ospreay was the match of the night at my show. Most credit might go to young William on that but Punishment held his own on the big spots they had.

 

i'll play debate club and take the other stance

- it's easy to think Asuka should come up and tear through everyone, but that's not what she did in nxt. most matches lasted an appropriate amount of time, and they were against greener wrestlers with less branding and experience. why should Emma get tapped out in two minutes when Nikki Cross can take Asuka to her limit? the increased challenge makes the main roster seem like an actual jump whereas if Emma tapped in a minute she would look worse than her nxt counterparts

- it's harder for the average fan to get invested in a match if the structure of the whole bout is a foregone conclusion. they'd get to a point where they ran out of women, and then next time Asuka gets paired against Emma down the road, Asuka has already destroyed her

 

They have booked all women like shit the past year, so you want nothing to change? Look at Bayley for fucks sake.

Also, jobbers.

 

well, that sure became things i didn't say very quickly. there are plenty examples of well-booked women, bayley is an obvious exception.

i don't think we've seen a local ham & egger on the main roster since Strowman's jobber genocide after the brand split, seems to be a concept they've moved away from altogether

 

Yeah! That wasn't a long time ago! And it got him over HUGE!!!!

 

Didn't Nia have some local jobbers too when she first came up?

 

Squash matches work with people like Braun and Nia because they have garbage movesets and usually can't go for that long. I'd much rather watch someone as talented as Asuka have good, competitive, 10 minute matches than a match that's over in a minute just for the sake of rehashing the same "monster" character build that wrestling has been doing for 50 years.

 

Yeah, but she was way too green when she got the call up.

 

I don't see how your moveset has anything to do with whether it works or not mang.

 

My problem isn't that Emma gave her a competitive match, it's that the first glimpse of Askua to a wide audience should've been with someone she should crush to establish the fact that, hey, she isn't like the rest of the women's roster.

 

Because if someone has 5 moves it's a little hard to put on an entertaining 10+ minute match?

 

yeah i totally agree lol i just really like arguing

clearly what the women's division needs is a Jane Ellsworth

 

Obviously. You just made it sound like it doesn't work with people who have move sets idk haha.

 

But also, of course you put on a long entertaining match in Asuka's case, but you first build up that she is a total monster and has been an unstoppable force.

 

Am I really the only one bored of that introduction to someone new to the roster? What did it do for Nia?

Sami lost on his debut. Owens had an amazing close match with Cena on his debut. AJ didn't dominate when he got to WWE, he had a back and forth series with Jericho.

Right, but what is stopping her from being an unstoppable force still? That was her exact character in NXT and she had plenty of great competitive matches.

 

Because something didn't work for Nia Jax doesn't mean it shouldn't be done with a significantly better wrestler

 

This makes no sense. Sami, KO and AJ never went a fucking 1.5 years without a loss and then get dubbed essentially the best women's wrestler in the world during the entire run and, when promoted to the new roster, we were all told over and over again about how she's a world beater.

Not everyone has to be introduced into the audience through squash matches -- it makes no sense for a character like Zayn, who is a perennial underdog.

If your argument is that she should've gotten the KO or AJ type treatment, that is all well and good minus the fact that there is not female equivalent to John Cena for Asuka to get the rub from putting on a great match with. Who should she have wrestled? Sasha can't keep a title, the rest of the women's division is a muddled mess. So you have the most impressive champion since CM Punk -- or even more impressive since Punk spent a lot of his reign towards the end as the chicken shit heel weaseling his way out of things -- and she gets a competitive match from someone who, to be fair, doesn't really matter much at all in the women's scene.

I guess the over-arching point is two-fold:

1) the women's division is booked so fucking terribly it's hard to book new debuts because there are very few women with credibility at this point on the roster
2) Not everyone has to debut with squash matches. People who get advertised as being probably the best in the world and are coming off a 500+ day reign as champion within your company probably should.

 

So her match with Emma wasn't boring to you??

Yeah I mean she can definitely come off as an unstoppable force still, but it's just killing her chance to connect with this new much larger crowd big time. I don't see this going well.

 

Bingo. And if you want to argue there shouldnt be squashes at PPVs, fine, give them that 8-10min match. But then follow it up with Asuka murdering Emma in 2-3mins on RAW to the larger audience.

Asuka's the only thing that could save the womens division on RAW, by completely resetting things...and now I honestly believe Alexa will beat her clean

 

Alexa might get herself disqualified in their first match but I don't think she's keeping that title too much longer

 

Or just have her do some squashes before the PPV and have her wrestle a solid match with someone besides EMMA who has been booked like a mega geek!

Unreal.

 

Speaking of Nia

The real reason behind Nia Jax's WWE walkout

Yikes.

 

Just a disclaimer, the Extra Mustard stuff is often stories that are never corroborated elsewhere. They ran a bit about Shinsuke having heat wkth Vince over his match with Cena that I didn’t see anywhere else.

 

Ah, it was top of SC so I thought it might be legit.

 

Not saying it isn’t, but it seems like more of a “contributor” piece than anything. Still a good roundup of stuff, often has some actually sourced things I haven’t heard