Board 8 > All-Purpose Wrestling Topic 456: Nobody expects the Undertaker!

(+) Yeah! (+)

They're really hyping up HHH/Undertaker, that shit better deliver. They didn't do all this song and dance for HHH/Cena in Saudi Arabia. I guess this one isn't supposed to be a throwaway forgettable match >_>

Seeing Gulak on Raw messes with me everytime.
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HHH/Cena was to make sure it got some of them in the door.

ffmasterjose posted...

Seeing Gulak on Raw messes with me everytime.

Hey, 205L was linked with RAW before the changes (for the better, LBH) this year.
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This AJ/Joe feud is just fantastic.
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Someone remind me to never watch Smackdown before the PPV again please

I've been burned so many times
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IMO, It made me want to see HIAC more than RAW did.
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So final Hell in a Cell card goes as follows...

Reigns vs. Braun in Hell in a Cell for Universal title with Foley as guest referee
Styles vs. Joe for WWE title
Miz/Maryse vs. Bryan/Brie
Jeff vs. Orton in a Hell in a Cell match
Ziggler/McIntyre vs. Rollins/Ambrose for Raw Tag Titles
New Day vs. Rusev Day for SD Tag Titles
Charlotte vs. Becky for SD Women's title
Rousey vs. Bliss for Raw Women's title

Also one noteworthy streak is that Hell in a Cell is one of few ppvs where no one has won the main event twice since its inaugural ppv in 2009. Starting with 2009...

HHH/HBK
Kane
Del Rio
CM Punk
Orton
Rollins
Lesnar
Charlotte
Owens

Considering the main event is most likely Braun vs. Reigns, this streak will remain active. Also only two wrestlers have main evented Hell in a Cell more than once: Undertaker and CM Punk
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Wait, Foley is the guest referee?

Holy shit they are trying literally every smokescreen to try to keep Roman from getting booed. Lol why try so fucking hard?
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^ Because Vince is still High af on the guy.
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Hardcore_Adult posted...

IMO, It made me want to see HIAC more than RAW did.

It made me want to skip HIAC despite having an active network subscription

Maryse and Brie got heavy go away heat from me. Probably largely because we had Orton cause a DQ in a 20 minute Hardy/Nakamura match earlier in the show.
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fuckin hell guys

they brought in Madison after all this time JUST TO JOB HER OUT?

>:(
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Thats what you get for marrying Josh Matthews
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fair

I withdraw my criticism
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How is there not more praise for night night AJ

That may be my favorite promo of all time
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Also props to English for being a surprisingly better face than k would expect. The role seems better for a heel but he is doing it better as a face. Good stuff
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The latest development in the upcoming Okada/Tanahashi match is great, even if it doesn't end up happening. It was tweeted by the official NJPW account though!

Tanahashi suggesting Okada put something on the line opposite his Toyo Dome briefcase. That something? YOSHI-HASHI! #njdest

https://twitter.com/reasonjp/status/1039686169179480064
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https://twitter.com/katierosenberg/status/1039965439026192384?s=19

Stephanie McMahon doing stand up comedy.
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ScareChan posted...

Also props to English for being a surprisingly better face than k would expect. The role seems better for a heel but he is doing it better as a face. Good stuff

I don't really agree. I think people are just playing along cause they love Rusev. As someone who just casually likes Rusev English is annoying as hell though.

Also didn't really care for the Samoa Joe promo but it wasn't bad.
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There's nothing better than Wendy no-selling Samoa Joe. Wendy for best new Wrestling character in the APWT Awards. I want Wendy and AJ to be the new power couple in WWE. I want Wendy at Evolution. Screw Becky Lynch. Wendy should beat Charlotte at HiaC. Ronda vs. Wendy at Wrestlemania. I'm All In on Wendy.
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NXT was kind of pants this week, to be honest save for Cross/Belaire. Squash City but that Main Event (Fuck the finish) made up for it!

I want more of that. Big meets Crazy.

At first I found English's singing Tiresome but it grew on me after a while.
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Just going to have to disagree with you then lopen
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I think Lopen's just being stubborn because he said the current Rusev Day gig wouldn't work as an actual face and people would sour on it very quickly, but they haven't yet
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It's not a face gimmick and doesn't work as one.

It's the same way Roman keeps getting booed despite having a face gimmick, just in reverse. I'll admit on being wrong on the attention span of the fans (though I do think Rusev is much less over now than he was months ago) but that doesn't mean it "works" as a face gimmick
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Lopen posted...

It's the same way Roman keeps getting booed despite having a face gimmick, just in reverse.

Roman definitely didn't have a face gimmick, though.

Whines and cries about not getting opportunities
Complains when he does get opportunities
Teams up and plays the numbers game on (at the time) other faces

And so on

I'd argue the idea of a hype man isn't inherently face or heel, and entirely depends on who he's hyping up/putting down.
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Lopen posted...

It's not a face gimmick and doesn't work as one.

It's the same way Roman keeps getting booed despite having a face gimmick, just in reverse. I'll admit on being wrong on the attention span of the fans (though I do think Rusev is much less over now than he was months ago) but that doesn't mean it "works" as a face gimmick

Roman doesn't have a face gimmick and hasn't for a long time. It's the old Hogan thing where WWE TELLS you he's a good guy but in reality he's just a huge asshole.
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There are ways to pick apart various facets of Roman Reigns's character to make an argument that he has heelish tendencies, but much like Hulk Hogan in the late 90s/early 80s he's not an actual heel.

I agree a hype man isn't inherently face or heel but the method of English's hyping is inherently heelish because it's obnoxious as hell. There are probably less than 5 people on the roster he could sing about to promote that wouldn't get him booed out of the building. And I think Rusev would be more over without him, too (not removing him and replacing him with a total void, but replacing him with... most any other way to fill that time, including just having Rusev cut brief promos before his matches).
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I can't agree. It's obnoxious when he's specifically putting down faces/the crowd/etc., but I don't see how it's any different from the level of "obnoxious" of a Cena, Rock, and so on when they'd put down heels in an over the top manner. It seems more of a case of how heelish/obnoxious/etc. it comes off depends entirely on the situation/who he's doing it against.

The sing-along seems no different than, say, B Team getting the crowd to chant "B Team, B Team, go go go!" with them.
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I'm still waiting for Rusev to eventually turn and snap back to the Monster he was before that stupid momentum-killing High School Love Square that involved him, Lana, Dolph and Summer. Blech.
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I dunno Lopen. When you say that the way Aiden English hypes up Rusev when he does it specifically for a sing along is heelish is kind of absurd.

I think you just personally don't like it and it colors your perspective on it.
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Let's put it another way

Take uh... Jillian Hall. Remember her gimmick where she was a bad singer and got booed because her singing was bad and she wouldn't stop doing it? Does that typically become a face gimmick if she randomly starts doing that to put over a face? Or does the more logical booking become that the face wants her to stop and they start feuding?
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Like, another example is how Elias is with "What does WWE stand for?"

It's obnoxious now because he always puts the crowd/faces/etc. down and just puts himself over. But if he turned face and thus started playing off of the crowd when they yelled "Walk With Elias" in a more positive manner and started putting heels down, it's a lot less obnoxious.

The situation/how it's being used plays a huge part in how it appears on the face/heel spectrum.
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I personally don't like it, yes. As should most people who aren't super high on Rusev

Like if Matt Striker comes out and scratches on a chalkboard, but the chalkboard says RUSEV DAY HELL YEAH, does that make it a face gimmick?
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Lopen posted...

Let's put it another way

Take uh... Jillian Hall. Remember her gimmick where she was a bad singer and got booed because her singing was bad and she wouldn't stop doing it? Does that typically become a face gimmick if she randomly starts doing that to put over a face? Or does the more logical booking become that the face wants her to stop and they start feuding?

Well, if your analogy is "Bad self-absorbed pop-star gimmick = sing-along hype man," then... Yeah, we're definitely not gonna see eye to eye.
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Bad self-absorbed pop-star gimmick who is singing to put over a face is exactly what Aiden English is though, aside from being a pop-star. I mean he was literally doing these exact same songs as a heel but without "RUSEV DAYYYYYYYYY~" at the end.
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

I dunno Lopen. When you say that the way Aiden English hypes up Rusev when he does it specifically for a sing along is heelish is kind of absurd.

I think you just personally don't like it and it colors your perspective on it.

I mean I find it obnoxious but I also don't like Rusev much (all of his baggage with Lana and Aiden actively tempers my enjoyment of him) so there's a pattern here.
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Lopen posted...

Bad self-absorbed pop-star gimmick who is singing to put over a face is exactly what Aiden English is though, aside from being a pop-star. I mean he was literally doing these exact same songs as a heel but without "RUSEV DAYYYYYYYYY~" at the end.

"Bad singer" was never Aiden English's gimmick, though. Like, Jillian's gimmick specifically was that she COULDN'T sing. Aiden CAN sing, but what made him a heel was what he was singing about. The whole point was people booed him because they knew he was gonna be a jerk to them, not because his singing style was supposed to hurt their ears like Jillian.

He sang when Vaudevillains were face, too.
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Aiden English was never put over as a good singer. People would boo him long before he started ripping into them. It's just a slightly different execution of the Jillian gimmick.

Elias is not put over as a good musical talent either, btw.
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Lopen posted...

Aiden English was never put over as a good singer. People would boo him long before he started ripping into them. It's just a slightly different execution of the Jillian gimmick.

Elias is not put over as a good musical talent either, btw.

If thats true, then theyre both being directed horribly because theyre both good
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Lopen posted...

Aiden English was never put over as a good singer. People would boo him long before he started ripping into them.

People cheered him when he did it as a face before, is the point. He's not put over as a good singer, but he's not put over as a bad singer like Jillian was, either.

It's literally the situation, like I said. People booed him when he did it as a heel because they knew he was gonna be a jerk to them. They cheered when he did it as a face in NXT because they knew he was gonna rip into the opponent
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I think rusev isn't into being face. I was talking specifically about aiden. He does want to be a face, but pretty sure his dream is being an Eddie style face
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NXT fans play along like, really hard, so they're not really a good counter-argument to anything in terms of organic fan reaction.

WWE fans are kinda sketchy on that too in some ways, but it's done in more of a smarky way than a "just go along with what you're fed" way. I don't think WWE fans would cheer a face booked Vaudevillains, straight up. They'd cheer them if they were latching onto Daniel Bryan or Rusev though.
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WWE fans just want to cheer. That's all they want to do. And the only thing they can cheer for are gimmicks that are marginally interesting. This is why Rusev Day gets cheered.

It gets cheered because it's not Carmella.
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But I do not get lack of love for night night aj. It was creative, it sold the whole story, told exactly what kind of character Joe is, and that ending was so good. Like if this was the attitude era it would have been a picture of him and wendy in bed, but it got the same point across
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Who cares about Joe?

It's. About. Wendy.
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Turning carmela face right after getting the she is a diva thing over is a poor decision
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I think the point is saying Aiden and Jillian were the same is pretty off base

Jillian's whole gimmick was "Horrible, ear-damaging singer." She specifically tried to sound as bad as possible, you regularly had other wrestlers putting that fact over, commentary, etc.

Aiden and English are not treated as bad singers. They are not directed to sound bad, commentary does not go "Oh my god my ears!" like with Jillian, and so on. What makes/made them heel is that they used the singing to insult the fans/faces/such. With them, you can change what they sing about and make it face, since unlike Jillian, the point isn't "Hear how bad they are?!"
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I do believe Aiden English has the vocal talents to be face gimmick if he really wanted to, though it would be tricky to slot him in a way that makes sense. Like he's not, objectively speaking, bad at singing, but he is still singing with a style that makes it inherently heelish. Most people do not want to hear singing of that style during a wrestling show, even if it's technically proficient. They give it a pass because it's Rusev. Without Rusev carrying it it would not be given nearly as long a leash even if he was trying to get the fans to sing along with him (handicap #2 working for him though, as scarlet pointed out, because current day fans love singing along with things).

Even if not actively called bad you had announcers groaning that he was going to be singing again, and it would inherently be heel even without the cheap heat added on, which is just to drive the point home.
It's just a more subtle version of Jillian. The fact that he is not getting booed for it and instead you just have people slowly getting more tepid on Rusev over time speaks to the strength of Rusev going in.
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I like how he actually gets cheered for it now and yet you have to describe it as "not getting booed" to try and keep your point

People getting tepid on Rusev isn't because of Aiden English. It's because Rusev never wins anything.
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I think my stance is ultimately, trying to use things like "Well NXT crowds cheer anything/WWE fans just like sing-alongs" to disprove something is sort of silly.

There is no objective wrestling supreme court that rules what's face and what isn't

If somebody is doing something that the desired outcome is to be cheered and they get cheered, it "works as a face."

There's obviously argument for when something is supposed to be cheered but gets booed, or when something is supposed to be booed but gets cheered

But if the desire is to be cheered, and it gets cheered, then I don't see how it can be said "This doesn't work for a face" because it's... Working for a face. Trying to say things like "Well, WWE crowds are weird" doesn't matter because the whole point is to be cheered by the WWE crowd, so... That's exactly who it should be appealing to.
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Okay but when TNA fans cheer something that's utterly stupid and wouldn't work anywhere but the Impact Zone we still get to scoff at it and blame it on So Cal Val right.
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Lopen posted...

Okay but when TNA fans cheer something that's utterly stupid and wouldn't work anywhere but the Impact Zone we still get to scoff at it and blame it on So Cal Val right.

Well yes

And if So Cal Val was getting the crowd to cheer for Aiden then I would agree with you more
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