March 29, 2017

Mania Weekend of the Heart

For the past two months, the front page of SCW has featured a snarky, sarcastic, bitter, jaded column which I wrote because I was frustrated with myself for being excited (in my heart) for a WWE PPV which I believed (in my brain) would be a waste of time.  I'm not saying it wasn't funny (I'm hilarious), but for it to be the most recent post for so long has given a tinge of negativity to SCW, and that ain't right.  With this post, I'd like to shine a light on some of the things I'm looking forward to watching this weekend.  Obviously, there will be more shows than I'll be able to watch, including shows from promotions I like but don't follow closely, like Evolve, Chikara and WWE.  :)

ROH Supercard of Honor 11

This is the overall card I'm most looking forward to.  Largely because Silas Young is on it.  Headlined by tag champs the Young Bucks defending against the Broken Hardys, which could be argued is as much of a dream match for smarks as Goldberg vs Lesnar is for marks.  Chris Daniel's World title being challenged by Dalton Castle, and Marty Scurll's TV title being challenged by Adam Cole are great secondary main-event-level matches, the rest of the show looks to be reliably solid.  The Briscoes/Bully vs GOD/Hangman match is the only one that doesn't make sense to me on paper, but it'll probably have its moments.  I'll be looking for Ospreay/Volador vs Lee/White to steal the early half of the show, and the Kingdom vs Young/Bruiser match to deliver huge entertainment value.  I'm curious with that one whether the Kingdom will be finding a third member (assuming that TK ORyan is still injured) so that they can continue to defend their 3-man tag titles.  Silas and Beer City Bruiser cut a promo on ROH tv saying they'd found the perfect guy to join them to challenge for the 3-man belts, so of course I'm very curious who they're looking at.  They did the same promo once before, and Bull James came out, they wrestled a 3-man match together, everything seemed fine, and then they jumped him.  I wouldn't hate it if they worked the same kind of gimmick on somebody else.  I've been thinking about doing another Fave Five list so that I could put Silas Young on it.  Okada, Naito, Styles, Ishii, Young... yeah I dunno something like that.

NXT Takeover Orlando

Right now the wikipedia page for this event only lists 5 matches.  I want to watch all of them.  I don't understand why the team of crazy people are called Sanity, but then again, how much better would the Social Outcasts have been if they were called the Cool Kids?  Nakamura and Asuka could steal this show, and possibly the entire weekend, but DIY and the Revival have stolen shows before, especially when sharing the ring, so that will be another one to watch.  Tommy End will debut as Aleister Black.  Killian Big Damo Dain and Roddy Strong will share a ring.  Heidi Lovelace has a cool new name.  Nikki Cross is my tv crush.

Wrestlemania 33

Neville vs Aries is a world-class badass match.  Wyatt/Orton could be an interesting character thing.  Styles/McMahon will be interesting from the standpoint of being a fan who tends to heavily favor the "workers" (as exemplified by AJ).  Owens/Jericho should be fun, though I would really like to see them be friends forever (hug it out?  hug it out?)  The tag three-way should also be fun, there's a lot of greatness that could come out of that.  The Raw women's match has potential, and they'll be gunning to try and steal the show.  For me, Rollins/HHH has had the most compelling build, and is also the most compelling match-up wrestling-wise, so this will be my most anticipated story to be told on Sunday.  I wish they'd bring in YoshiTatsu to do color commentary for that one, so he could monosyllabically explain how devastating the pedigree is.  The other matches on the card could be good as well, but that's what I'm excited about.

TV shows after Mania

Will Smackdown Live be the new Raw after Raw after Wrestlemania?  I wonder.  I'll be watching both shows and waiting for Finn to come back, and for Nakamura to show up.  If I had my drothers, Shinsuke would be a Raw guy, and Finn would be Smackdown, thought I wouldn't complain unless they just both went to Raw.  Just so long as one of them can wrestle AJ, I'll be happy and at least marginally reinvested in WWE tv.

Another thing I'll be looking forward to is hearing about what shows get a buzz, because that will get me to watch new things that I hadn't planned on or possibly even heard of before.  

Long live wrestling.  Long live friendship.  Long live SCW.