Mick Foley Blogs On Last Night’s WWE Payback PPV, More

Things are different now. We expect not only several good, competitive wrestling matches a week, but coherent story-lines, and character development that is seldom accomplished with just a string of lopsided victories. I really think that we have gotten so used to good wrestling on such a regular basis – in WWE, NXT, TNA, ROH, NJPW, the Indys. etc., that we’ve just kind of become jaded.

I watched much of ‪#‎WWEPayback‬ like the jaded fan I’m sometimes guilty of being. I wished Ziggler and Sheamus had gone longer, and I wished ‪#‎WWE‬ had shown some extreme close-ups of the nasty gash on the Zig-Zag man’s head. I even caught myself using the phrase “back in my day” in front of my son. I chose not to focus on how John Cena – WWE Universe and Rusev were working their butts off, and instead focused on why referee Mike Chioda (not sure if I spelled that right…I’ve only known him for 19 years) was asking “do you wanna quit” instead of allowing the wrestlers to control the microphone as they/we had in every classic ‪#‎Iquit‬ match I can remember – from Flair/Funk to Magnum/Tully to Cena/JBL, to a couple of the ones that I was involved with. Like so many of us, tweeting about the matches we kinda/sorta watch has become just as important as actually watching.

I really wonder if trends went down during the ‪#‎Fatal4Way‬. If so, I hope it’s not interpreted as a sign of disinterest, but instead as a sign that guys like me realized that something special was materializing in that ring, and chose to put down their phones and actually enjoy the hard work, sacrifice and dedication that guys like Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Randy Orton and Dean Ambrose put forward in an awesome match.

As I’ve often mentioned, great moments are what manke great matches – or at least great memories – and that that moment where Reigns told Ambrose that “loser buys the beers” gave me legitimate goosebumps. It was also a match that served notice that Ambrose belongs in these type of main event matches, and that the ‪#‎WWEUniverse‬ absolutely buys him as a main-event performer.