General WWE Discussion: Roman Weeps, Taker Retires, MNK/SAM/RDM LFP

**Zealot** · 2017-01-25 10:55

Originally Posted by Anoat

Linda McMahon's Senate confirmation went off yesterday seemingly with nary a mention of WWE, so it looks like she is going to be confirmed.

Best way to grow a small business is to defy government regulation, steal all your competition's ideas and talent until you can buy them out for a song, skirt criminal laws repeatedly, and refuse to acknowledge the people working for you as employees.

**Nitsuki** · 2017-01-25 13:19

Take this with a grain of salt but something that my fiance stumbled upon on tumblr:

Spoiler: show

**Melena** · 2017-01-25 13:38

Originally Posted by Zealot

Best way to grow a small business is to defy government regulation, steal all your competition's ideas and talent until you can buy them out for a song, skirt criminal laws repeatedly, and refuse to acknowledge the people working for you as employees.

Ehh, WCW tried to do the steal all your competition's talent and ideas first. They just over extended themselves among many other things that let WWE raid their talent for a fraction of the cost. Everyone was saying the WWF/WWE was done for when WCW signed Hall, Nash, Hogan, Savage, Hart, Waltman, etc.

**Zealot** · 2017-01-25 13:41

I'm talking way back, early days of when Vince first took over from his dad.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

**Anoat** · 2017-01-25 13:42

Vince and Linda were putting people out of business looooong before WCW was even a thing. They pretty much destroyed every regional New England territory in the late 70s/early 80s and by the time they went national, really only the AWA and NWA were left. To be fair, by all accounts Vince would always offer to buy them out for a fair sum first, but if they refused he went fucking ruthless running them out of business

**Melena** · 2017-01-25 14:10

Yup, and it was that route that nearly turned them into WCW before WCW said hold my beer and bankrupted itself.

Hell, i'm old enough to remember when Monday Night Raw would get pre-empted for the Westminster Dog Show.

**Xno Kappa** · 2017-01-25 14:27

Originally Posted by Melena

Yup, and it was that route that nearly turned them into WCW before WCW said hold my beer and bankrupted itself.

Hell, i'm old enough to remember when Monday Night Raw would get pre-empted for the Westminster Dog Show.

I hated those damn dog shows lol.

**Krandor** · 2017-01-25 14:44

I actually like watching Westminster, but it was annoying to have it interrupt my weekly dose of Attitude Era Raw.

**Vagrant** · 2017-01-25 14:56

Originally Posted by Nitsuki

Take this with a grain of salt but something that my fiance stumbled upon on tumblr:

Spoiler: show

**Delirium** · 2017-01-26 14:56

Rumored WM card from Meltzer(not finalized)

Spoiler: show

Goldberg vs. Lesnar
Undertaker vs. Roman Reigns
HHH vs. Seth Rollins
Jericho vs. Owens
Wyatt vs. Orton
Show vs. Shaquille O’Neal
Charlotte vs. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax

The plans at this point are that neither Kevin Owens nor A.J. Styles will be champions going into WrestleMania. Smackdown has an Elimination Chamber match, meaning six guys will be in, so if John Cena wins the title at the Rumble, and that’s being teased (although they did downplay the tying of the Ric Flair record this past week), that doesn’t mean he’ll retain it in the Chamber match.

The Mania lineup at this point is looking like Goldberg vs. Lesnar, Undertaker vs. Roman Reigns, HHH vs. Seth Rollins, Jericho vs. Owens, Wyatt vs. Orton, Show vs. Shaquille O’Neal and Charlotte vs. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax as the Raw women’s title match. The key is the Rumble winner is likely, although they could swerve, to be the person who will challenge for either the Universal title or WWE title.

The only Smackdown match on that list is Orton vs. Wyatt, and it’s not a secret that Wyatt was scheduled for a title run in 2017. That immediately puts both of them in contention, and if one wins, the other would be favored to win the Chamber match. There’s a story that just started going around about Orton winning the Rumble and Wyatt winning the Chamber match. If that doesn’t happen, it would be because plans changed. Even though historically the booking before Mania always gets out and it almost never changed (it changes for other reasons, such as injuries or guys quitting, but that’s usually known as well), with the increase in social media, my feeling is nothing is a lock until it happens. I doubt we’ll see major destination changes, in the sense the top of the card will probably be pretty close to as is slated now, but how to get there could change.

On the Raw side, Goldberg vs. Lesnar, Undertaker vs. Reigns or Jericho vs. Owens would likely be the title match. Goldberg’s storyline explicitly mentions coming after the title. Owens vs. Jericho would make more sense as the U.S. title match since Owens would figure to win if Jericho is still going to tour over the summer.

Coming off the Rumble, or at least when the Fast Lane main event is announced, that should make the Raw title direction obvious, unless it’s Reigns vs. Goldberg at Fast Lane and Owens isn’t figured in, at which point it won’t be as clear.

Among the key guys, the obvious guys not on the list of matches are Cena, Styles, Balor, Dean Ambrose and Strowman of guys that will likely be in key matches. Cena vs. Samoa Joe was definitely an idea that was pitched, and made sense based on a few things we’ve heard, but we’ve never heard a confirmation on that. There are rumors of Styles vs. Shane McMahon, and Styles did complain about the idea of the Elimination Chamber match to Shane and neither have anything going. As noted before, Goldberg agreeing to stay past one match may have saved Lesnar from this year’s Shane program and Shane pitched for that idea and they had started in that direction before it was dropped cold.

Strowman is harder to figure, as he’s clearly being pushed for something big. They’ve teased the idea of doing spots with him with Undertaker and Show at the Rumble. But all the guys you’d think they are building him up for, Goldberg, Lesnar, Undertaker, Reigns or Show, are all taken at this point. He could be put in there for the Andre Battle Royal, and perhaps take that one (at one point that was the idea last year but the feeling at the time is he wasn’t ready), and then work with one of the aforementioned names after Mania in a top program. One would think he’ll play monster in the Rumble, and there will be a story built from his elimination to take him to his next destiny.

I could see the Smackdown women’s title in a multiple person match, except you don’t want both women’s titles up in the same type of match. Nikki Bella and Becky Lynch are the most over of the women on the brand, but both are faces. Nikki has been kept away from the title ever since the brand split, and they’ve been feeding her heels to fill her time staying out of that picture, so her chasing would be new.

Undertaker vs. Reigns is notable because Vince McMahon made the call to go from the original Undertaker vs. Cena direction to this match. On paper, this would make it a lock that nobody is coming close to the boos Reigns will be getting on this show. Regardless of the outcome, this to me only makes sense if the plan is an all-out Reigns heel turn and use this as the springboard. Otherwise, the idea of Undertaker beating him and then endorsing him won’t work, because Daniel Bryan and Rock endorsed him and it didn’t work. Undertaker losing to him unless the match is dramatically perfect will only get him more heel heat.

With Balor returning, they do have someone who perhaps can be a top face, since Seth Rollins, even though he’s in a great position the next few months, seems to have been botched as far as being the top of the brand face. Then again, Smackdown had Ambrose in that spot when Cena was gone and everything was fine.

The problem the past few months, is for full-time on the road, they only had two they had in that top slot, Reigns and Rollins, and Jericho and Owens couldn’t be turned early or it would kill the timing of their angle. Still, we’ve heard nothing about a Reigns turn and it’s always the idea that he gets cheered on the house shows and it’s only the vocal minority that boo him. Plus, they’re comfortable since the years of Cena being booed and also being the biggest arena draw and merchandise seller have taught them not to overreact to the television the PPV crowd responses.

So that build all starts this weekend.

**Tyrath** · 2017-01-26 15:02

Roman vs Taker in potentially Taker's last match. Ugh.

**Delirium** · 2017-01-26 15:14

Originally Posted by Tyrath

Roman vs Taker in potentially Taker's last match. Ugh.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! You might be the deadman, but I am the guy! BLEE DAT!

**Tyrath** · 2017-01-26 15:29

I might be okay with it if they pull the trigger on that heel turn. But if they don't, fuck that noise.

**Krandor** · 2017-01-26 17:36

Kenny Omega finally stopped working everyone and says he's headed back to Japan in February to negotiate a new contract with NJPW, plans to stay for at least one more year.

**Delirium** · 2017-01-26 17:49

More importantly, hinted that he might be doing stuff with Kota Ibushi!

**Anoat** · 2017-01-26 19:45

The Alamo Dome seats around 60k, Meltzer is reporting that close to 40k tickets have been sold as of today. That being said, due to the increase of ticket prices over the years, this looks to be the biggest non-WrestleMania gate in the company's history.

**Tyrath** · 2017-01-27 12:13

Despite some of the potentials being awful, I will say this is the first rumble in many years where there isn't one obvious winner beforehand.

**Anoat** · 2017-01-27 12:44

Originally Posted by Tyrath

Despite some of the potentials being awful, I will say this is the first rumble in many years where there isn't one obvious winner beforehand.

For whatever it's worth, a lot of U.K. based betting sites have taken a big swing in the last week for

Spoiler: show

**Krandor** · 2017-01-27 12:48

My only worry about the PPV as a whole is that we're probably about to see Owens and Styles get tossed to the side for some part timers to main event Mania after anchoring both brands for months.

**Tyrath** · 2017-01-27 13:13

Originally Posted by Anoat

For whatever it's worth, a lot of U.K. based betting sites have taken a big swing in the last week for

Spoiler: show

True but he's not the only top option this year.

Originally Posted by Krandor

My only worry about the PPV as a whole is that we're probably about to see Owens and Styles get tossed to the side for some part timers to main event Mania after anchoring both brands for months.

It's likely

And then WWE wonders why they can't make new stars.

Thread: General WWE Discussion: Roman Weeps, Taker Retires, MNK/SAM/RDM LFP

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