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Monday Night Open Mic

Howdy Blog O'Doomers!

Tough competition for the WWE tonight as two 3-0 teams are going at it on Monday Night Football and there is a baseball playoff game.

I was a little disappointed to hear a report that Ziggler isn't seen as a star (yeah it's from Meltzer...who's still predicting the Shield's de-push....I mean it has to happen eventually. Right?). But then I remember that JR was one of the those that was super high on Dolph long before he got real traction so it could simply be a situation where they are just going to shit on the people JR liked (sorry Jack Swagger).

Between this and watching all those old Heenan stuff made me think...you know we look at a manager type like Heyman and say he's there because so-and-so needs a mouthpiece. But that's not always the case. Sometimes they just need the association. Bobby Heenan managed the top heels. So when Rick Rude comes into the promotion and gets with Heenan, he's quickly identified as a top heel. Rude didn't need a mouthpiece, he was perfectly capable of cutting his own promo. Rude didn't need the additional charisma, the guy had plenty of that. We just needed to know that this is a top guy. Sherri was the same way. Be it Savage, DiBiase or HBK...when Sherri was involved with a guy he was identified as a top guy. The genius of Heenan was that he never had to try to get himself or his talent over. It just happened because he was who he was.

Guys like Dolph never got that rub. They never got that identification. He was able to get himself over organically but if the machine jobs you out enough you lose that support because no one ever wants to get behind a loser. Right now I'm excited about The Usos...they are being made to look very strong but there has to be a spot that it goes to the next level or they end up hitting a point and dying off.

Is it frustrating to see a lot of talent, guys like Dolph, Cesaro...hell Titus...guys that the fans really love, that could be stars and there just doesn't seem to be that vehicle to get over and take it to the next levele. As a board most of us just want Cesaro to get over and I thought when Deadspin spotlighted his ridiculous giant swing that it might get him a little extra boost by no dice...yet...I've been trying to get behind the Barrett barrage for two years and well it's a pretty ineffective barrage.

Am I'm wrong? Impatient? Will these guys' time come? How many of them can Paul Heyman save?

Anyway your thoughts are appreciated. Enjoy the show and come out swinging but please keep it clean!

Comments

  1. Its not a playoff game.

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  2. Riiiiiight, that's why they call it a one-game playoff. That's why the winner advances and the loser goes home for the rest of the season. Shore don't sound lahk no playoff ta me, Jethro!

    In other news, you aren't too bright there Douglas.

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  3. Yeah, it's Meltzer?


    Princess, can you explain your dislike of Dave Meltzer. We already went through The Shield de-push stuff before. They were clearly depushed and put on the backburner over the summer.

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  4. Actually, its not. Its a tie-breaker to get into the playoffs. Its the 163rd game of the regular season. If you don't win it, you didn't make the playoffs.
    Sorry to have to point out your ignorance.

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  5. DiBiase wasn't a top guy when he was with Sherri. He was with Sherri at the end of his singles career, when he was feuding with Virgil

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  6. Technically, Dougie is correct.

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  7. Yeah, they were really jobbing left and right. In other news, Ax can't wrestle because he had a heart attack in Japan and Butch Reed was totally scheduled to win the IC belt instead of Honkytonk Man.

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  8. Does that not sound like a "playoff" to you, Douglas? Win or go home? Sematics ain't yo strong suit, boah.

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  9. We went through this Dougie. I don't think the Butch Reed rumour came from Meltzer.

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  10. Dougie is correct.

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  11. Technically, Dougie should really have a ch in place of that g too, but you can't change the world overnight.

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  12. Technically he's right. Stats-wise it's a regular season game. Any player hits a homerun tonight, that's added to their regular season amount. Technically this is game 163 of the season for those teams.

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  13. Oh, Dougie's a troll. But he's correct

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  14. It's part booking, part fans making their own choices.


    For Dolph he was paired with AJ who before then had only been involved with top guys. Bryan when he was holding the world title, Punk, Bryan, Kane surrounding the WWE title then Cena, then Dolph. Maybe he would have been accepted as another top guy if he won some matches, but we'll never know.


    But the fans will still reject someone even with all the association in the world. Heyman was involved with Brock and then Punk with the title, basically top top guys. Then you put Axel with him and put him over HHH, Cena and Punk (even in weak finishes but still). He wrestles decently. But the fans just don't buy him because he doesn't have "it".


    There is no magic bullet left in WWE. Even bringing Vince into an angle which used to be the "hey, this is a big time angle you should pay attention" doesn't hold true every time anymore.

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  15. I really don't think you want to try and drag me into a flame war. You don't know what you're talking about. Now slink off back to the basement with your tail between your legs and finish that bowl of cheetos.

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  16. You came out swinging...but did you keep it clean?

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  17. In baseball, there are five playoff teams in each league. The three division winners and two wildcards. You may want to take a math class because 5 does not equal 6.

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  18. Its hard to keep your fingers clean when you're eating cheetos.

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  19. It's only a regular season game because they haven't had a 3 way playoff yet.


    If they did, they'd run into a little bit of a problem. The team that wins the second game would be 1/2 game up on the team that loses the second game, but that team would have a game in hand. They should smarten up and make it a playoff.

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  20. Oh no! NOT a... gasp... FLAME WAR! I feel scared. Wnyx, should I feel scared? I need a hug. Where's DOGAPEANDMAN when he's needed?

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  21. Watch out he'll insult your childern on a message board you're never going to read.

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  22. I was cheering for the 3 way playoff yesterday just to see how they resolved it.

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  23. It's hard to keep your fingers clean when they're busy working Douglas like a ventriloquist dummy.

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  24. Is there anything to legitimately look forward to tonight? Between the battle of the undefeateds on MNF and the one game playoff, I'm having a hard time finding a reason to watch Raw.

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  25. You were trying to get me to prove your ignorance? Well played.

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  26. Not really. WWE is destined to do a bad number tonight it looks like. It won't be as bad as when they went up against the Heat in game 7 but it's going to get ugly. Vince better be praying Brees blows out the Dolphins just to get people to switch over.

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  27. You should go to npp and point out how smart you are for correcting someone about a-baseball play in game.

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  28. Yea, im so uninterested in this game for some reason. Probably will be better then Raw tho

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  29. Hhh is gonna get 30 minutes of mic time...so theres that

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  30. I'm taking up time that you could be using to troll and ALMIGHTYFLAMEWAR at others. I consider that amusing for myself and wasting your time, therefore a success.

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  31. Aw, look at you backtrack. Its so adorable.

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  32. Even if MNF was a blowout, I'd probably switch to Baseball before Raw.


    So would 90 percent of the nation.

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  33. The team that loses the second game is eliminated, even if they played 163 and the others played 164. Even though if we're going with dorky baseball stat logic, the loser of the second game should go back and play the winner of the first game.


    One of those things where you can't have your cake and eat it too. It's a playoff.

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  34. I don't get this irrational hatred of Meltzer. Lots more of what he's said has been shown to be correct than incorrect. They guy is basically trying to break news in a business that's been shrouded in secrecy forever, and they're are probably people delibrately feeding him mis-information to try and embarass him.

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  35. Wow, that's a tough one. I'll go with Torito on top though, Brie second, Mr. Miz doing nothing third. King's outfit was bad, though.

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  36. It was terrible. Im really curious now on whether he gets 100% say on what he wears on tv, bc there is no excuse for that.

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  37. Nothing like winning a teaser to finish off the weekend

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  38. Yea man. Freaking awesome, you hit rays also so 2-0 is a good nightcap.

    Nice to rebound after getting violated by the falcons last night

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  39. So after watching raw tonight I've decided I am 100% on punk vs heyman being the best angle in all of wrestling for 2013. I think this has made punk into the crossover babyface so many people wanted in 2011. Personally I'd rather have him be a heel since I don't think you make jerry rice play cornerback. Either way this is my favorite thing going and has been since Paul e said punk was coming back to fight Jericho. It reminds me so much of the Bret hart vs Lawler feud from the early 90,s.

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  40. Honestly mizs entire career was worth it for me just to see his dad during the Orton angle

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  41. The shield have been having the best matches on TV for almost a year now. I think everyone knew moxley was going to be a big big deal in wwe but I never imagined his `rookie` year would be this successful. I wouldn't be surprised if he's in adrs spot this time next year

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  42. Given what a prima donna Alberto Del Rio is, I think we'd better get used to him in the main event for some time. There's a reason he's always around the title -- he threatens to go back to Mexico if he's ever not there.

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  43. The big show/cops thing makes no sense in wrestling logic. Like how could you threaten a wwe employee?

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  44. I cant tap the edit button on my phone but I wanted to say, I wonder if in kayfabe, Stephanie was worried the cops would explain big shows contract to him?

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  45. I love ADR. He plays a great heel, and he can really get over as a face too. He was blowing up before he got stuck with that awful swagger angle for his wrestlemania match. I have think he's been great this year and that sheamus feud is criminally underrated because sheamus has hhh stigma on him but I loved it. I just think ambrose is taking that highly protected main event heel spot sooner than later.

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  46. After all these years you've gotta give it up to orton. He plays a really great heel. Once again hhh is hogging up his heat up Orton is a 10/10 in this role.

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  47. It made perfect sense to me. Maddox told HHH and Stephanie about Big Show waiting for him. Stephanie then asked for cops to act like they would arrest Big Show before she showed up and called them off, just to remind Big Show that he's not ALLOWED to hit HHH. And it gave her a further chance to make Big Show look bad in front of strangers. It's pretty obvious what happened, and it shows Stephanie is really making Big Show's life awkward. That'll make it that much better when Show finally loses it.

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  48. Does anyone think Orton has been better in this latest heel run than Batista was during his epic heel run at the end of his career? I'm still saying big Dave had the better run but if you count his run where he punted vkm with this run its close imo

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  49. Ortons been great but I loved Daves heel run. He was just such a great dickhead. Ortons has him in longevity as a heel so I guess it just preference

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  50. Seems like Orton is still getting some cheers. I blame the storyline for not having him positioned as a heel correctly.

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  51. Yeah Batista's run at the end is up there with mid 80's flair, Hollywood rock, the Heenan/flair/perfect crew, 1997 hbk, 2012 punk, early Vader, canadian hero heel bret and stone cold version 1.0 for the best heel run of

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  52. We're all going to start calling him Minitaur right? We pretty much have to.

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  53. I think Orton's heel run in late 2008-2010 is still his best to date. But that might just be a preference thing, cause I've always had a thing for heels that put an emphasis on violent sociopathy.


    I get more invested when a heel's motivation is 'I want to dismantle the man who ruined my life years ago and take out his entire family before I take his title' as compared to 'I'm jealous of John Cena taking my spotlight'.



    This Orton heel run has been alright, but there hasn't really been any consistency to his character yet. He started out as the hand-picked corporate champion, and then they switched him back to psycho Orton when he lost the title. A little more time as the Viper 2.0 and this run might stack up, but I think he'll also have to increase the body count with some bigger names. Picking off Batista, Flair, VKM, Shane, Stephanie and HHH before warring with Cena just felt BIGGER than a few title changes with Bryan so far.


    So I would say Orton's 2008-2010 heel run > Batista's heel run > Orton 2013

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  54. How would you position him as a heel 'correctly' without completely changing the nature of his heel character?

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  55. He's very good at a particular kind of heel, it's true.


    He's a very limited performer as far as character range (you're never going to see him pull a switch like Jericho did from Y2J to the suit-and-tie Jericho, for example), but WWE clearly has something great when they put him in that violent, sadistic heel role and they'd be stupid to take him out of it again.


    They need to deal with the fact that so long as the faces in PG era WWE are fairly safe and vanilla, there will be strong cheering sections for the dangerous, effective heel characters. Orton is one of them.

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  56. I hate gimmicks like The Matadors.


    Well... hate is a strong word. Feel as though they are destined to fail or at best languish in irrelevance might be more accurate.


    They just remind me of the shitty product that WWE was pushing out in the early 90s. Save a few legitimate characters like HBK, it was just a pool of random, pointless, colorful gimmicks that felt completely out of place in a fictional universe governed by organized violence and motivated by competition and dominance.


    "Why are a couple of Matadors wrestling for a living? Why do they care about winning wrestling titles?"


    I could have just as easily asked that question in the early 90s, replacing matadors with 'hockey player' or 'clown' or 'plumber' or any other random occupation.


    Gimmicks will help people sit up and take notice of a worker. They're flash and flair that separate them from the pack. But if that's all they are - then they're no better off than Fandango. Moderate pop for the chance to dance like idiots for 2 minutes, then nobody gives a shit.

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  57. Your_Favourite_LoserOctober 1, 2013 at 12:52 AM

    if you think about it, the thing with punks knee was really weird on a deep meta level that we've never seen before. heres why:

    1st of all, punk was counting on being able to reach the ring to grab the kendo stick. and imagine that, he was able to! no interference by the heels! but thats ok cause we've seen these kind of plot holes before and accept them as a necessary evil for the sake of the moment

    but heres where it gets weird, in terms of "no interference": ryback *should* have attacked once punk was down, right? but by not attacking, and moreso with him and heyman looking concerned and confused (even jbl in the background looked confused and pointed to his headphones), the moment was sold as legit. the deep weird meta thing is that they had punk/heyman *shooting* (being concerned, not attacking), and punk still carrying the angle (playing possum and working his way to the kendo stick), cause honestly theres no kayfabe reason why ryback and heyman would just stand there, let alone actually look like the segment was blown (especially heyman, who loked to be figuring out how to improvise).

    its almost like they wanted to take us out of the moment in order us to reel us back in, but in a way theyve never done before. which like i said is really meta and weird on some other level, like they wanted punk to be able to catch heyman and ryback by surprise by making them think it was a shoot and they should be concerned, only for punk to like "surprise, it's still an angle!" and like i said, it hinges on the fact that kayfabe wise, ryback and heyman would be all over punk

    that said, punk did a tremendously believable job selling the knee. going into the
    segment i'd already pegged heyman's proposal as being for ryback to be a
    heyman guy. i love how the longing looks that heyman was giving ryback these last few weeks was paid off

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  58. Your_Favourite_LoserOctober 1, 2013 at 12:55 AM

    little things:


    heath slater screaming like a girl when getting double irish whipped by not-the-colons. very quick and easy to miss but funny as hell.


    also, at some pint when jbl and cle were arguing over who the PBP guy was, jbl actually made reference to telling stories.

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  59. Your_Favourite_LoserOctober 1, 2013 at 12:56 AM

    hi randy!

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  60. Your_Favourite_LoserOctober 1, 2013 at 12:57 AM

    goldust in gimmick and a suit, hands down

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  61. It took some effort for me not to type: "Goldust is in facepaint and a suit. Your argument is invalid."

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  62. Um, he's very clearly the heel in all of this. I can't see how any of his actions have been non-heelish.


    Ok, we don't like MIz, so destroying him is funny, but Miz is still a face!

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  63. I agree. I was asking the poster who claimed he was being cheered by some as evidence he hadn't been positioned correctly.

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  64. So, that was just makeup? Or did she dive into method acting like Ricky Steamboat?

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  65. Yeah it's from 1988 and I'm watching in 2013, and even though you know it's coming. It's still so awesome. I really gotta say that she played the role pretty damn good with her shuddering and constant repetition.

    Sad he was saddled with TL Hopper and Uncle Cletus...

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  66. Also with Debra, kind of, with Jeff Jarrett, when she SHOCKING SWERVED D-Lo at SummerSlam, even though she got nothing but maybe a figure four, though that may have come after this? And WCW even did it around this time with Randy Savage and Gorgeous George after the infamous "send for the man" skit.

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  67. Didn't Eddie Gilbert book this particular angle?

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