Thursday, March 26, 2015

Wrestlemania XXXI Predictions

Here are my predictions for Sunday's WWE event of the year:

Tag title match
What Should Happen: Tyson Kidd and Cesaro are a fantastic team, and should hold the titles for six months before losing them, splitting, and feuding.

What Will Happen: The Usos are the current Smoking Gunns- the tag team the WWE can always rely on to provide good matches against a variety of opponents. They lose the belts one PPV, win them back the next. Lather, rinse, repeat.

What I am Terrified will Happen: I like Kofi Kingston, and think Big E is a fine power wrestler. But the New Day is an awful gimmick. So naturally, they win.


AJ Lee and Paige vs The Bella Twins
What Should Happen: AJ and Paige have a huge falling out and start a blood feud that dominates the women's division.

What Will Happen: The Bellas win, AJ retires, and Paige gets shuffled off to the side. THe next night, Nikki throws out an open challenge and Charlotte answers to win the title.

What I am Terrified will Happen: Same as the above scenario, only replace 'Charlotte' with 'Stephanie McMahon'


Andre The Giant battle royal
What Should Happen: Finn Balor makes his Wrestlemania debut, causing the entire audience to mark out at his entrance, and wins the battle royale as the announcers rave about his debut.

What Will Happen: Ryback wins.

What I am Terrified will Happen: Kane and the Big Show obliterate everyone, then argue over who should win, leading to a 'comedy' bit where both men claim to hold the trophy for nine months.


Intercontinental ladder match
What Should Happen: Match of the night. Daniel Bryan or Dolph Ziggler take the title and begin a six month reign defending it against a variety of opponents every RAW.

What Will Happen: Wade Barrett retains.

What I am Terrified will Happen: Shaemus attacks R-Truth and joins the match, winning the title and joining the Authority


Triple H vs Sting
What Should Happen: Ric Flair comes down to ringside with the new version of the Horsemen- Dolph Ziggler, Wade Barrett, Cody Rhodes, Miz- and they lay out both men. HHH for humiliating Flair, and Sting... "Just Because"

What Will Happen: HHH dominates the match, a face (guessing Ziggler) distracts him, Sting gets the pinfall.

What I am Terrified will Happen: HHH dominates, HHH pins, HHH stands tall for the WWE


US title match: Rusev defends vs John Cena
What Should Happen: Rusev wins cleanly as Lana returns and positions himself as the next #1 contender

What Will Happen: Back and forth match with Cena hitting a AA out of nowhere to win the title.

What I am Terrified will Happen: Cena dominates the match completely, Rusev bails to keep the title but looks like a coward


Bray Wyatt vs The Undertaker
What Should Happen: Wyatt wins as the announcers wonder if the baton has passed

What Will Happen: Wyatt dominates, but the Undertaker makes the comeback to pin him

What I am Terrified will Happen: Undertaker dominates, Wyatt gets next to no offense in


Randy Orton vs Seth Rollins
What Should Happen: Surprising match of the night. The Authority come down early, but Orton RKO's everyone to remove them from the equation. Back and forth 25 minute match that has Orton his a RKO that Rollins slides a foot under the rope at the last second, then hits a Curb Stomp for a win.

What Will Happen: If Rollins is cashing in the MitB within the next month to win, he loses to Orton. Otherwise, he wins with the help of the Authority

What I am Terrified will Happen: Big Show and Kane come down to ringside, turn on Rollins, and Orton is welcomed back to the Authority with a full embrace.


Main Event: Brock Lesnar defends vs Roman Reigns
What Should Happen: Lesnar and Reigns have a back and forth hard-hitting slobberknocker match with Reigns getting several close two counts. The announcers point out how worried Heyman is as the match goes on and on. At 15 minutes, Reigns hits the Superman punch and ALMOST gets the pin- but Lesnar hits the F5 for the three count.

Both men are laying on the match, exhausted from the match- and the Authority's music hits. Rollins comes down with the briefcase. The announcers don't notice, but the camera picks up Heyman whispering something to Roman Reigns as the Authority comes down. 

Rollins cashes in, enters the ring, the bell starts the match- and Roman Reigns delivers a Superman punch to Rollins to cost Rollins his MitB briefcase. Reigns walks out with Heyman and Lesnar.

Over the next weeks, Heyman says that Roman Reigns was the only man in the WWE that was even in the league of Lesnar- but the fans and the WWE made him weak. Heyman would bring out the killer in Reigns- and Reigns goes on a rampage of destruction over the next year. With Lesnar on a part-time schedule, Reigns becomes Heyman's weekly man, and we start getting the crowd wanting to see the rematch.



What Will Happen: OK- there are only two possibilities. Either Reigns wins the title- or he turns heel (or both). He CANNOT lose this match and still be a face. If the WWE really thinks Reigns is the guy- pull the trigger and push him, or have him lose and be forced to rebuild him.

You can rebuild him as a heel- joining the Authority to get another title match. And there's enough faces to have him as a heel.

But I think they are going all-in. I think Reigns beats Lesnar, and Rollins doesn't cash tonight. They'll have Reigns-Rollins and Reigns-Rusev matches until Summerslam and see if they can get the fans behind him.


What I am Terrified will Happen: Reigns beats Lesnar, Rollins cashes in to win the title, and we hear nothing for the next six months except how Reigns is the 'real' champion.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

A Waste of Time: House of Cards

I tend to go on long, extended rants about tv shows- partly because it's a topic that is safe to discuss and disagree with, and partly because I end up spending a lot of time watching a show.  So when it disappoints me, I feel like all of the time that I've spent watching the show has been wasted.

The king of rants for me is Battlestar Galactica (BSG), which was so brilliant the first year and a half, and then nosedived into a preachy, whiny self-righteous show that made no sense whatsoever.  They spent the first year proclaiming that the Cylons had a plan... and then decided to drop whatever that plan was.  I don't know what happened halfway through season 1, but whoever ran the show lost everything that made it so appealing.  And...

But, I digress.  This post is about House of Cards, on Netflix.  I finished season 3 today, and... it's not as awful as BSG.  The last episode isn't quite as frustrating as the final episode of the Sopranos.  But it was disappointing, to the point that I may not watch a season 4.

First, the good parts.  Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright are fantastic.  Michel Kelly has been great as Doug Stamper.  And finally, in season 3 they have competent foes, both at home (Heather Dunbar) and abroad (the Russian President).

But the season was disappointing, for the following reasons (spoilers after the jump break):