February 9, 2019 - Evan Luebbe

“That’s All I’ve Got to Say About That”

May 17, 2019February 9, 2019 by Evan Luebbe

Two things really stood out to me from SmackDown Live. First of all, Triple H did an unbelievable job of significantly twisting the narrative of Becky Lynch’s Royal Rumble victory by claiming that she was afraid of what Ronda Rousey would do to her at WrestleMania. This makes total sense that WWE would elect to portray the story in this way because this is exactly the way Vince McMahon views the Millennial generation, as he told Steve Austin in 2014 on the Stone Cold podcast. He views Millennials as being too afraid of failure to reach up and grab the “brass ring,” and Triple H is doing a fantastic job of making Vince’s viewpoint come to life. The second thing has to do with Daniel Bryan and his intellectual peer Rowan. The new Daniel Bryan is excellent on the mic. Much of his message is fact, but he can be a jerk at times about the way he presents it. I also finally think I figured out why WWE decided to pair the planet’s champion with Rowan. I kind of forgot that, about four years ago, Bryan was a member of the Wyatt Family for a short time, and Rowan was in the Family. I am also very excited for WWE’s move of SmackDown Live to Fox in October of this year. This will be great for the growth of the company, as Fox Sports is rapidly gaining more and more traction as a credible sports network.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about Daniel Bryan’s promo from a couple weeks ago. He was discussing generational politics, and he’s right about a lot of it. He claimed that the baby boomers suck away the earth’s resources while giving nothing back. It was an excellent promo. I’m not going to get into politics (even though I do have my opinions), because that is not the primary goal of this blog. If it was, I would have gone the political route right from the beginning. I really don’t like to get into politics that much because it’s a muddy pool to swim in, so to quote Forrest Gump, “That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”

Establishing Himself as a Submission Specialist

May 17, 2019February 9, 2019 by Evan Luebbe

For NXT, there’s only two things to talk about. Wow! Drew Gulak could start seeing a lot more airtime if he keeps performing like he displayed this week on NXT TV. He’s really establishing himself as a submission specialist, kind of a Daniel Bryan type. Matt Riddle’s pretty good himself too. I feel the need to also say on at least one occasion how commendable Mauro Ranallo’s performance is on a weekly basis on commentary. He may be on NXT, but he is far and away the best announcer in all of WWE. No one is as animated as he is. He’s probably great calling Bellator too.

Brock Lesnar: Continued Thinking on his Possible Departure from WWE

May 17, 2019February 9, 2019 by Evan Luebbe

I want to talk a little about Brock Lesnar before he either winds up leaving the company for UFC or retiring. A lot of people hate on Lesnar for being a lazy part-timer or for leveraging his relationship with Dana White and the UFC to get more money out of WWE. But let’s be honest, if any of us were in the same position, we would probably do something very similar. Brock is just using his God-given physical abilities to further himself in life. He is also then using the resources he possesses, his relationship with the UFC in this case, to make a better living for himself. No one can really justifiably get angry with him for that – he is just playing the hand that he was dealt with. People are just angry with him because the hand that he happened to be dealt with was a good one. Not even he knows why he was born into such favorable circumstances. I view it as being unjustified for people to get angry with him because of that.

People also get on Brock Lesnar for not being a people person and not dealing with them because he doesn’t necessarily have to, but I totally get it because I’m not a people person either. I’ll still easily talk to people if I need to, but it’s not my favorite thing to do. I could easily live on a farm with just animals. I’m not a massive fan or detractor of Brock Lesnar, but I do feel the constant criticism of him is bit much.

WrestleMania Build-Ups & Curt Hawkins May Finally End His Losing Streak

May 17, 2019February 9, 2019 by Evan Luebbe

Becky Lynch did a good job opening up Raw with a confrontation with Stephanie McMahon. The storyline with her heading into WrestleMania is very reminiscent of Seth Rollins’ storyline heading into WrestleMania 33 versus Triple H, as he also had a knee injury and doctors wouldn’t clear him (an unsanctioned match ended up transpiring). Her WrestleMania opponent Ronda Rousey continues to receive a Reigns-like response from the crowd (this is probably at least partially due to the fact that she may be leaving WWE after WrestleMania). This would be a massive blow to the company if they were to lose Dean Ambrose and Rousey.

Curt Hawkins also may finally end his losing streak after all since he is teaming again with Zack Ryder. Now, this is the one piece of criticism that I have for this week: I hate to admit it, but Drew McIntyre may indeed be right when it comes to Kurt Angle. We probably should have seen the last of him at WrestleMania 33 when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. That’s tough for me to admit because I am a huge fan of his. Kurt is my favorite superstar of the Attitude Era. But lots of wrestlers have this issue of not knowing when it’s a good time to walk away. Take The Undertaker for example: he has had three great opportunities to walk away.

WrestleMania 28 (which I was at) – He could have retired at 20 – 0
WrestleMania 30 – He could have retired after the streak was ended
WrestleMania 33 – After putting Roman Reigns over, this would have been a perfect time to retire after losing his second WrestleMania match

Side Note: I was thrilled to see Lio Rush get a match on Monday Night Raw against none other than Finn Balor. It’s good to see him finally getting some exposure in front of a very large audience. Roman Reigns also may be very close to returning. This comes as no surprise to me as I had absolute faith that Roman would return sooner rather than later ever since he announced his diagnosis in October. Mojo Rawley has also cut some interesting promos of late talking to himself in a mirror.