Raw 28/03 *Spoilers*

Machismo Fan

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

that isn't happening... this sunday. Not saying it will def happen at some point but a lot of people are pointing out that the non wrestling Rock is the focus over the champ like yourself and below but tbh He (along with Snooki sadly) is whats going to draw the casual fans that could turn this from a low buy rate to a high one. As much as those who watch the show every week and would get/watch WM anyway would prefer to see the champ center stage, Cena hitting an AA on The Rock will make a lot more people buy mania simply to see how the Rock will respond at the Grandaddy of them all.

Speaking of comedy match, Santino & Kozlov being added to the tag match isnt what id do but tbh an 8 man tag at mania is never going to be a big draw for me (or anyone id say if its undercard) so why not add some fan favourites vs The heel faction.

Should you use your final go home appeal to set up a match that may or may not happen in the future (and make Miz look terrible (though then again Miz doesn't really matter, absolutely nobody has ever taken him seriously))? It'll be interesting to see if anything happens at the press conference.

It's amazing how much Santino and Koslov make a match less appealing. I have no idea why they're not using Kofi or Nash (who would make a ton of sense).

Bounty Hunter

parker kent wrote: »

Out of interest, why do you say so? Why exactly has he substance and what exactly do you mean when you say that? I genuinely don't understand this latest pro-Cena stuff. The Rock has numerous times in his via satellite promos given far better retorts to Cena than he did last night and they have let The Rock make legitimate points. You can't say that he has not made legitimate points over the past few weeks. The night of his return saw Boards full of complaints that The Rock was let make legitimate complaints on air about Cena. What has changed since then? Some shítty Cena homophobic jokes? One decent rap? That doesn't change that The Rock raised fair and legitimate points about Cena over the past few weeks.

I didn't think he was necessarily bad last night, but it was clearly booked to build Cena, which makes sense as I said in my first post about last nights Raw. So it is natural The Rock would come off second best. Thus, setting up the Mania excitement of what The Rock will do next. Each of the past few weeks has been an attempt to make one of Cena or The Miz look good.

Also, why is Cena being praised now when during his godawful response a few weeks back (the comedy one with the props etc) it was all the writers fault? Surely it is as I have said all along and both the writers and Cena play a part in what is said? So if you credit him for the stuff he does well, blame him for the terrible stuff. Or else share the credit and the blame amongst the writers, Vince and Cena.

Parker I obviously dont agree with you on many things as can be seen from my previous posts containing the same point as your 2nd paragraph but you satart the first by asking what exactly has substance, then neglect to yourself mention the substance you say the Rock deliverd in the via satelite bits you mentioned. pardon the pun but both your posts need more substance :pac:

flahavaj

stiffler123 wrote: »

Superficial catchphrases! You can't see me? Come on. Lets be fair here, Cena was very good last night on the mic, but 2 weeks ago he just gay bashed the Rock for 20 minutes and made jokes about his dick. The Rock is the best promo man in the world hands down. I notice nobody is praising the writers for Cenas material last night. Usually if Cena has a bad promo it is all the writers fault. But seeing as he had a good one last night, we are "now realising Cena at least has a little substance to his character". One good promo and a cheap heelish attack on The Rock does not change most peoples views on Cena very much.

Being the best promo man in the world hands down is no great victory at the moment tbh. The Rock has little or no depth. Now you may argue that neither does Cena, fair enough, I think he has come off better than Rock overall in this feud however.

I watched the Rock's DVD a while back and it was great fun for the first few promos, but after a while I had to turn it off as I was bored to tears. He undoubtedly has great energy, but he hasn't the ability to tell a story in the way the true greats like Dusty, Jake Roberts or Foley could. Give me a compilation of their stuff any day of the week over the Rock. There's only so many times you can listen to him banging on about "laying the smack down" befroe it gets tedious.

I'd also put CM Punk as better than him from the current bunch tbh. Maybe its personal preference but he has much better potential at telling an engrossing story than Rock.

Bounty Hunter

Machismo Fan wrote: »

Should you use your final go home appeal to set up a match that may or may not happen in the future (and make Miz look terrible (though then again Miz doesn't really matter, absolutely nobody has ever taken him seriously))? It'll be interesting to see if anything happens at the press conference.

It's amazing how much Santino and Koslov make a match less appealing. I have no idea why they're not using Kofi or Nash (who would make a ton of sense).

personally i suggested Kofi as him not being on the card after just dropping his IC title to a member of the Core seems odd so im not going to argue the WWEs case on that one but i guess Santino/Kozlov are being rewarded with a place on the card cos they always seem to get a good response from the Live crowd and versus a heel group that can be emensly important.

on this point: Should you use your final go home appeal to set up a match that may or may not happen in the future

I did say that anyone who watches the shows regularily will not be a fan of this but that doing the angle with the Rock getting an AA at the end like they did will boost PPV sales far more than a Cena/Miz confrontation no matter how they worked it imo. Like or not The Rock is probably the biggest selling point of this mania and making everyone want to know what he will do at the PPV is the move the WWE have decided to take in order to sell it.

Bounty Hunter

flahavaj wrote: »

Being the best promo man in the world hands down is no great victory at the moment tbh. The Rock has little or no depth. Now you may argue that neither does Cena, fair enough, I think he has come off better than Rock overall in this feud however.

honestly Flah what did you expect?

Rock was never going to come back and damage the biggest name the WWE have's credability if they could do anything about it. There is a reason Cena was able to make Rock's grudges seem so trivial as Rock stayed on trivial matters like the colours of his shirt. It wasnt Rocky who brought up the gay bashing etc but he could have, but of course the WWE would never do that and The Rock himself would want to help the industry not hurt it by coming back and hurting its biggest star.

parker kent

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

Parker I obviously dont agree with you on many things as can be seen from my previous posts containing the same point as your 2nd paragraph but you satart the first by asking what exactly has substance, then neglect to yourself mention the substance you say the Rock deliverd in the via satelite bits you mentioned. pardon the pun but both your posts need more substance :pac:

But why bother turning this thread into a rehash of every Raw thread from the past few weeks discussing what The Rock did on those shows. Not every point really needs footnotes, we all know and remember what was said so just referring to them is enough in my view.

flahavaj wrote: »

I'd also put CM Punk as better than him from the current bunch tbh. Maybe its personal preference but he has much better potential at telling an engrossing story than Rock.

I'd have Punk in the top 5 promo men of all time. Better than The Rock and comfortably better than Cena.

Angron

parker kent wrote: »

Wow so he has not won the Hardcore or Smackdown tag titles. His career must be a non event....calm down whether he won 2 discontinued titles or not, does not mean he has not won every title that matters. Anyway, since he won the Unified tag titles he has actually won the Smackdown title. And if he won the IC title after it was unified with the Hardcore title, pedants could be content that he has technically won every available title. Everybody else can be satisfied that he has won every title that matters.




Cena is said to have caused that botch and not given Riley the opportunity to hook his arm around the ropes.

Calm down? I wasn't ripping on his career, I was just stating something. You seem to be taking it harder tbh.

stiffler123

flahavaj wrote: »

Being the best promo man in the world hands down is no great victory at the moment tbh. The Rock has little or no depth. Now you may argue that neither does Cena, fair enough, I think he has come off better than Rock overall in this feud however.

I watched the Rock's DVD a while back and it was great fun for the first few promos, but after a while I had to turn it off as I was bored to tears. He undoubtedly has great energy, but he hasn't the ability to tell a story in the way the true greats like Dusty, Jake Roberts or Foley could. Give me a compilation of their stuff any day of the week over the Rock. There's only so many times you can listen to him banging on about "laying the smack down" befroe it gets tedious.

I'd also put CM Punk as better than him from the current bunch tbh. Maybe its personal preference but he has much better potential at telling an engrossing story than Rock.

Some fair points made there in fairness. I respectfully disagree with the Rock having little depth though. His ability to charm, his charisma, confidence is second to none. The majority of his feuds, especially the ones with HHH and Austin, were gripping stuff the whole way through. When he made his return last month, I was on the edge of my seat for the entire 20 minute promo. I havn't experienced that watching wrestling in years.

For me, Cena is a good heel, because that's how I view him. I give him credit for good promos when he does them, but I really am sick of seeing the guy and the super Cena character. He's been the top face for too long. It's not entirely unlike when The Rock got a bit stale with the fans, and I think I will definitely like him more when he turns heel. Still though, he is not in the same league as The Rock.

Agree with your thoughts on CM Punk. The guy has all the tools to be great and I hope he gets a serious push soon. I will turn over from TNA more often if this happens.

Bounty Hunter

parker kent wrote: »

But why bother turning this thread into a rehash of every Raw thread from the past few weeks discussing what The Rock did on those shows. Not every point really needs footnotes, we all know and remember what was said so just referring to them is enough in my view.



I'd have Punk in the top 5 promo men of all time. Better than The Rock and comfortably better than Cena.

a I know twas just cos you started your point by asking for specific instances and then didnt make the same specific points when you make the same counter arguement. As I said in general I agree with you anyway so meh.

I dunno if id rate CM Punk higher than The Rock but i think Punk def has more of a range to him

parker kent

Denny M wrote: »

Calm down? I wasn't ripping on his career, I was just stating something. You seem to be taking it harder tbh.

I think you miss my point. It is a bit silly to bring up something trivial like whether he won 2 defunct titles. He obviously means he has won all the important titles he could have won. So bringing up the Hardcore or SD tag titles is a bit pedantic. Then to combat said pedantic posts, I mockingly got pedantic and showed how you could say he had actually won them.

Machismo Fan

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

I did say that anyone who watches the shows regularily will not be a fan of this but that doing the angle with the Rock getting an AA at the end like they did will boost PPV sales far more than a Cena/Miz confrontation no matter how they worked it imo. Like or not The Rock is probably the biggest selling point of this mania and making everyone want to know what he will do at the PPV is the move the WWE have decided to take in order to sell it.

I fully agree. Rock and HHH/'Taker are the only true selling points of this show. I'd just question they've put so little focus on Cena/Miz when it's the actual match. They should've found another way to sell this show on Rock without entirely neglecting their World Title match (and World Champion).

I can't believe people are arguing Rock vs. Cena in terms of promo skills. Both are absolutely fantastic, second to very, very few. The quality of their promos depends entirely on the material they are given and nothing else because their delivery is brilliant (and besides Cena's second rap, all Rock and Cena's promo's leading up to WrestleMania were awesome).

parker kent

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

I dunno if id rate CM Punk higher than The Rock but i think Punk def has more of a range to him

Depends what you are looking for in a promo I guess. The Rock is fantastic at one-off catchphrase heavy stuff. But Punk is better at getting matches and feuds over on the mic. The Rock is usually fun, Punk is just different.

Though I do think The Rock was pretty substantial in the 2 via satellite promos. He isn't normally like that in promos, and he sold the passion pretty well.

Bounty Hunter

parker kent wrote: »

I think you miss my point. It is a bit silly to bring up something trivial like whether he won 2 defunct titles. He obviously means he has won all the important titles he could have won. So bringing up the Hardcore or SD tag titles is a bit pedantic. Then to combat said pedantic posts, I mockingly got pedantic and showed how you could say he had actually won them.

also considering neither title exists atm in the WWE he has won everything that can be won.

parker kent

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

also considering neither title exists atm in the WWE he has won everything that can be won.

I guess since Wrestlemania X-7 is being written out of the history books, defunct titles definitely can be :pac:

SlickRic

BH has it nailed pretty much.

Cena has more substance during this feud, because that is how the WWE is purposely booking it.

Cena told his gay jokes, and yes, that was all very immature and tedious. but at the end of the day, when 'serious Cena' finally surfaced, he addressed each of the Rock's qualms about him directly and succinctly. again, that is how it was booked.

my main point in my original post is that it is actually verging on irresponsible of WWE at this stage to try and continue to push Cena as this character, as great as the character's moral code is, when everyone seems to keep hating him, for whatever reason - the variety of reasons that we've touched on a thousand times. i'd love Cena to be liked more, because i think the character has a lot of substance to it, and is one we should be able to get behind, but it's not, and WWE have to sort it one way or another. if this rub off Rock doesn't work, then turn him heel or something.

Rock should have definitely addressed the whole Hollywood thing, because that was the start of the feud really. and the fact that was ignored played into Cena's hands, and that is how the WWE purposely played it. they want Cena on the offensive, standing toe-to-toe with The Rock at the end of this.

i shouldn't have said Rocky had no substance through the feud, so i retract that specific comment; i'd just finished watching Raw, so i got carried away with that.

my purpose in my original post was not to insult the Rock in the slightest. but he did come off like a bit of douche, a bit stupid, and not the character in keeping with how we know him.

that is being done on purpose.

Exclamation Marc

Cenas promo was very good but it took the Rock to bring it out of him. It took The Rock accusing Cena of this and that (which Cena retorted very well to) to actually get a good response from Cena.

It really was an indication that Cena can be booked very well and he can pull of promos which pander to the kiddies yet aren't embarassingly childish.

I can understand the great reception to his promo but this was his first good promo of substance throughout this entire feud and people seem to be getting a bit carried away.

As others have said, The Rock could very easily have retorted himself to all of Cenas claims but its been booked to give Cena the rub and that makes sense seeing as he's the guy who's sticking around, but to claim that in general the Rock is subpar in ability to Cena or that this shows how much better Cena is than The Rock is promowise is utterly laughable.

Great promo by Cena, but lets not get carried away, it was one week.

cena

Was it me or did the rock look un easy last night. He seemed too be taking deep breathes

Mr.Nice Guy

I forgot to ask, what was with King's lame music? His theme is The Great Gate of Kiev which is a classical piece. I thought they didn't have to pay to use songs like that. I hope King doesn't come to the ring on his debut at Mania with the silly, whacky theme he had last night.

Exclamation Marc

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I forgot to ask, what was with King's lame music? His theme is The Great Gate of Kiev which is a classical piece. I thought they didn't have to pay to use songs like that. I hope King doesn't come to the ring on his debut at Mania with the silly, whacky theme he had last night.

Great point Mr. Nice Guy. Totally forgot about that considering everything else that went on.

It was awful music and I hope they don't change it to that new crap.

DM_7

cena wrote: »

Was it me or did the rock look un easy last night. He seemed too be taking deep breathes

The Rock always does that, he was showing he had pent up energy and waiting to explode.

Anyway - As regards the Rock Cena Showdown - Rock played his part brilliantly, he gave the people the catch phrases the people want to hear and as I say above looked ready to pop at any moment.

Rock could have responded to Cena's comments by running down Cena but there was no point - Rock did his bit creating interest the last few weeks and trying to make the face of the WWE title match look bad would make no sense 6 days before mania.

My favourite moments on RAW were the Punk Promo and the HHH promo. Excellent stuff.

Cianan2

cena wrote: »

trish isn't looking as good as back a few yrs ago.

I can't believe you said that, I feel sorrow for you if you feel that way...

On another note, I've a gut feeling that Triple H was expecting HBK to announce himself as the ref, hence the "Tell 'em why, Shawn!", but Taker's words got to Shawn and he doesn't want to help HHH, as he wants to break the streak himself (I see this leading to a match next year, being both mens last match and ending the streak as 20-0, maybe????)

Triple H will lose as he will have thought to have had the upper hand with HBK in his corner, but now realizing he is on his own... That is the feel I get from it, anyway... It'd be tough to play that feud out for another year though...

Also, just thinking - say Undertaker got badly injured during the match, bad enough not to be able to continue... Would he have to put HHH over and lose the streak?? How would they work it, being No Holds Barred (I would think have HBK SCM Trips and No DQ in any other form of matches, but I'm stumped as to how they could do it here...)

CMpunked

Completely agree with Trips hinting that HBK was going to be named as referee.
Ultimately i think shawn will get into the ring at some point and superkick taker laying him out. Trips will look delighted and go to pin taker (as its NHB, the ref will be alive and kicking) HBK will pull trips off him.
he stands up to argue with Shawn, shawn superkicks him.
Shawn rolls out of the ring and taker hits HHH with the tombstone.


As for taker being injured, i think unless it was a bone breaking, undertaker wont quit.
Was it last year or the year before when he done snake eyes to shawn and landed funny on his ankle, looking like he really hurt his knee?
He was hobbling around for the rest of the match, which was about 20 minutes!

JP Liz V1

Just watched Raw there now and I enjoyed it and omg the way Punk says Randall Keith Orton is so damn sexy , Punk's opening promo was great. Is Orton's injury kayfabe? I hope Punk gets the win at Mania. E&C reunion on Raw was another great part though Christian's feud with Del Rio is way better than Edge's feud with him imo. Taker and HHH's face to face confrontation worked well mainly because of HBK's presence. I got goosebumps seeing Cena and Rock in the ring together and then of course Miz and Riley comes out and interrupts, would liked to have seen Rock and Cena team up to take out Miz (Jericho wannabe) and Riley but I guess Cena taking out Rock sets up nicely for Mania and one of the biggest feuds ever in WWE history. Rock seemed rusty performing his moves but I guess it has been a while. Anyways I'm excited for Mania now.

flahavaj

CMpunked wrote: »

Completely agree with Trips hinting that HBK was going to be named as referee.
Ultimately i think shawn will get into the ring at some point and superkick taker laying him out. Trips will look delighted and go to pin taker (as its NHB, the ref will be alive and kicking) HBK will pull trips off him.
he stands up to argue with Shawn, shawn superkicks him.
Shawn rolls out of the ring and taker hits HHH with the tombstone.

I would hate that ending.

12gauge dave

just watched cena and rock ending to raw there was good:D

ya rock looked well rusty but it has been a while:)

getting a bit bored of rocks poo talk already though to be honest still suprised how much cena is hated:eek:

wonder will cena slowly become heel now after sneaking the attitude adjustment on rock???

rock is way too popular with fans imo for someone who left for 7years and will be gone april 4th again prob:rolleyes:

gimmick

More promos than action as well, so lets rate the promos

Punks promo was outstanding. I love his cold, hateful, superior attitude. I really do not like Orton. However, a these things go, Punk had the upper hand in the go home show, so will lose at Mania.

The HHH/Taker promo was ok, but Trippers almost bored me to tears, so I fast forwarded quite a bit of it. I hate "respect" promos. Tommy Dreamer levels of cringe. I liked how HBK got involved, especially his heelish comment at HHH.

The Rock/ Cena interaction was really good. I actually thought The Miz' promo was brilliant as well, but he really is a footnote to the whole thing. Cenas promo was brilliant. It seemed he was on the verge of tears such was the emotion.

I have got to say though, the only matches given a good WM build up have been Cole/Lawler and Orton/Punk.

jaykhunter

I dunno if someone said it here, but yeah, this week's RAW was the night of ass-kissing.

Whether is was Tripper or Taker and their undying love/respect for each other, or Cena telling us how much of a Rock mark he is, the promos had a certain "you're the best, no you're the best!" vibe to them

parker kent

gimmick wrote: »

The HHH/Taker promo was ok, but Trippers almost bored me to tears, so I fast forwarded quite a bit of it. I hate "respect" promos. Tommy Dreamer levels of cringe. I liked how HBK got involved, especially his heelish comment at HHH.

To quote The Miz, really? I thought it was excellent. Little details about the pain Taker has wrestled through many matches in and the "you're time is up" (not a direct quote, but was the jist) really sold the match for me.

jaykhunter

gimmick wrote: »

I hate "respect" promos. Tommy Dreamer levels of cringe.

jaykhunter wrote: »

this week's RAW was the night of ass-kissing. [...] "you're the best, no you're the best!" vibe to them

lol Taker & Trips just wear and get it over with

johnn

The Rock says......"ONLY THE GOOD LORD CAN JUDGE YOU"




can't wait to buy the t-shirt