Rusev Day OVERRATED? Reacting to Pro Wrestling HOT TAKES Vol. 5 

I'd argue Ilja breaking WALTER's UK title streak helped him quite a bit

Here's a hot take based on what has been said about Yes Movement DB: his injury and him relinquishing the title made us have a much better impression of that run. Because, as Steve said, it was all about the chase. Take Kofi's, Big E's and Rey's title reigns for example, they were also about the chase but the reigns themselves were all bad

Hearing you guys talk about the Vaudevillains and the eternal question really made me feel like it was 2015 ❤

That point about Judgement Day not ever being a serious threat is spot on. Bloodline always felt like a threat, even during the comedy stuff with Sami, they always felt like big bads.

The chant was more over than Rusev.

I’ve been watching since 98ish and I struggle going back to watch Golden Era wrestling.

Good point about only WWE pre 97. Wrestling from Japan pre-97 was insanely good. It still is, but it was also great back then. Especially women's wrestling. A huge amount of cool and innovative maneuvers came from Japanese Joshi from the 80s and 90s. They had to work way harder to earn respect and it showed. You don't have the crazy characters or weird story lines but in terms of sport, that era is second to none.

There should have been a storyline reason as to why Damien didn’t cash in on Seth when Seth was explaining his injury. It was kayfabe the perfect time.

Mr. Perfect wasn't a fumble. Since losing his IC title to Bret, his active in-ring time was very infrequent. I'm not sure in the decade after he had a run much more than a year where he wasn't injured and had to miss time. Razor Ramon wasn't a fumble either because of his drug issues. If Scott was a clean and sober guy behind the scenes, Vince would not have allowed him to ever go to WCW and given him what he wanted to stay including a World title run

They tried a Hogan-Perfect feud. It died at the box office. The WWF audience in 1990 didn't see Perfect as a tippy top guy.

I absolutely agree with the Darby take, mostly about the character. Everything about it screams try hard "welcome to my twisted mind" cringe shit. There were a TON of those loser dudes in my high school so I have a strong reaction of anger towards it lmao.

Hot take: There are more bad Royal Rumbles than good ones

the thing that makes Hulk VS Rock in Toronto a passing of the torch moment is Hogan hitting every spot and fighting full speed as Ichiban Hogan for a little while during the high speed Whatcha Gonna Do quiz section of the fight where he hit the sharpshooter, the boston crab, the manji hold, the cobra clutch, full nelson headlock, just every oldschool maneuver printed on the side of the arcade fighting game cabinet where inputting the code to play as old school Hogan but with the Hollywood long pants except red and yellow where if its made by Midway would be called an error macro or ermac because the color palate gets messed up and the moveset gets shuffled along with it so you're fighting against the entire career of Hulk Hogan like how Reptile can do Scorpion and Sub Zero moves freely

Sheamus is the only wrestler i can think of that has gone from being as bland and boring as can be until his late 30s/early 40s (since The Bar), and has got massively more entertaining with age. Is there anyone else that could fit the build? (Roman shouldnt count as there was intrigue in his early years)

The fact that Vince used to punish people for the crowd's opinion of them is wild. Like how can you control what gets over or not and why in the fuck would somebody get punitive measures for doing their job? The older I get, the more I see that the whole fxcking world is "pro-wrestlified", from the top down. The entire soul, call it whatever one will - 'quintessence, aura, energy, aether' et al - of the forms which follow their functions is being entirely siphoned, sapped & sucked dry. Modern humanities in lieu of the arts is less & less merit-based; talent can be & is ignored if one such as myself has a nightmarishly difficult time in social situations against their own will no matter how hard one tries to make changes. Generational poverty compounded by a lifetime of incessant tragedy (SA, PTSD from undergoing the trauma of the death of *every single* loved one aside my very ailing mother & father, including only sibling, ex fiancée, at least nine of my very closest friends such that I no longer have a single close friend, too many acquaintances to count, band mates / label mates who spread false rumors that got out that I was too far away from to even know about but the circle it got around in has assassinated my entire character and persona to the point of non grata and just being by myself with no human contact hardly at all. Now I'm left a shell of the person I was and it's extremely difficult to find meaning in anything. Trust me, I'm trying to get back into therapy, they just give me bullshit SSRIs & antipsychotics rather than the actual treatment plan that took fifteen years to even land on, with substances I didn't choose to prescribe myself, having had to cold turkey from ketamine, Klonopin, and adderall (3, 8, & 22 YEARS respectively) because I lost insurance, now each time I've attempted to just get back on what I was has been met with "drug seeking behavior", like what the fuck am I supposed to do here. Yikes, never anticipated leaving this here or know how this even arose in my stream of consciousness watching this, but alas, here we are. God bless, folks. The struggle is soul destroying to the point that I'm losing myself against my will.

Austin passed the torch to The Rock at Mania. The Rock passed it to Cena at Mania. Cena passed it to Roman. Brock passed it to Cody with the hug.

The chant was over not Russev he tried to be a good guy in aew and no one cared and what did miro do he basically went back the character template Vince made for him 😂

I see you with the RSVLTS Bear on your bottle there Steven! Those shirts are top tier!

Here's where Rusev Day could/should have gone. Rusev beats Randy Orton for the WWE Championship, Aiden English says it's Rusev Day because Rusev is world champion. Or Rusev gets himself over with Rusev Day then he and Aiden English win the SmackDown Live tag titles.

Larson said about that stack pin and said “that doesn’t work for me brother”

Where do we submit our hot takes?

Going with JBL's reign making Cena, same could be said with Triple H and Batist. That particular reign wasn't that long but the title at that point had been largely been held only by Triple H (as in the first 9 reigns before Batista, 5 of those were Trips).

7:19 this exactly my problem with Seth's Current Gimmick (& most of them really). He gets this really cool concept and then keeps it on level 1 FOREVER. With someone as great and experienced as Rollins I never get why he is always so one-note.

Only thing i can think of for the "long reign ending" topic is when Daniel Bryan ended AJ's year-long reign by turning heel and giving us the Planets Champion character

Here’s a hot take…Vince McMahon was right. Sometimes fans don’t know what they want.

Hot take: Seth’s reign as champion should’ve ended with Finn Balor winning the belt.

The main reason the WWE World Heavyweight Championship exists is so that the Money In The Bank briefcase holder can cash in on an upper card title that doesn't belong to Roman Reigns

My hot take is Samoa Joe was the WWE’s biggest fumble of the past few years, he was a legit guy who could carry the company, he had the ring presence, the mic work, the back catalogue, the aura to be a legitimate world heavyweight champion.

Hot take: Cody is going to take the title from Roman, but Damien is going to immediately cash in and take it from him. I don't think even Trips can resist the ultimate Dusty Finish

My friend and I argued about the IC title strap colors changing in the early 90. I found it cool and he said it was dumb. Just wondering about other opinions. And in this video, someone said MITB hurts more than helps. I would say the same could be said for Tough Enough and NXT, when it was a competition type show, winners. Aside from John Morrison and maybe Wade Barrett, who else become a breakout star? If you even consider those two break out stars.

Hey Steve have you watched the Danhausen Unsolved Mysteries yet?

Jbl was a good wwe champion and did a lot better with the belt than i ever thought he could. Great promos..great heat..and a great finishing move and someone you love to hate.

I'm wih Larson on coffee temp; it has to be hot enough to enjoy and drink properly, not sip and risk third degree burns on the roof of your mouth.

The main takeaway from the MitB briefcase - The sooner they cash it in, the better, because Vince is a fickle cokehead.

Little Debbie snacks at their worst are still better than Hostess at their best… but also, yeah the pre-97 thing really applies only to WWE… like the 90s super juniors stuff from Japan rival matches 15-20 years younger (not to mention the wicked good Kings Road bouts from All Japan and the bigger Joshi promotions ranging anywhere from mid-80s’ Real World Tag Leagues through Four Pillars and into NOAH’s golden days in the 2000s that are still some of the best matches I’ve ever seen)… hell, even stuff like SMW and aspects of Jim Herd WCW were better than pre-97 WWE

Tbf, Rhea is literally the only woman in Judgement Day, so if there WAS another Woman, they would have gotten in each other's way like the men do.

Warrior beating honky Tonk elevated him to an even more popular and headline act.

Rusev Day was NAPALM. It's not their fault that Vince didn't wanna pull the trigger.

Rusev was actually never really over without a mouth peice

Rusev day was fun and that sometimes is all we want tbh is to have fun and Vince didn’t even want that for us

The whole Sting thing is simple, dude doesn’t feel like he can go in a single match setting…I really don’t see what’s so hard to understand about that

Million Dollar man was the true fumble.

Darby hasn't changed at all since Episode 1 of Dynamite. How are we supposed to believe he basically kills himself every match and wins with a rollup, only to do it again next week. It makes any of his opponents look like chumps when they can't beat the wrestling version of the crackhead outside 7/11

WWE is low-key grooming Cody Rhodes and CM Punk to succeed Triple H and HBK as heads of creative/bookers. BONUS:If Hunter is fired for some reason in relation to the Vince Scandal, then Paul Heyman would get the keys to the kingdom. How Poetic would that be?!?!

As a 2000s kid I love the Golden era. The top stars of that era where my childhood more than the attitude era because all it is too be is funny moments and boobs. The golden era was all about wrestling and the wrestlers where superhero’s. Now wrestling is fake and the wrestlers are just actors.

I argue Kenny Omega benefited ending Kazuchika Okada 4th title reign

It’s bring your kid to work day- with sting and Darby Allan Yes papa Sting ,Sting should find a baby sitter in the back

WCW main event matches with Main Event players were very clunky and sloppy where the luchadores and mid Carters put on better matches.

i think priest is gonna cash in at mania when either punk wins or rollins retains the heavyweight champ. i really don’t wanna see this cash in fail

Okada was never New Japans best. Shinsuke, Naito, Kenny, and Ospreay were all more entertaining personalities, and most put on better matches

Hot Take: WCW wasn’t the catalyst for Vince to start the Attitude Era it was ECW

Monday Night Raw moving to Netflix will raise the bar for how wrestling media is distributed. Cable television will slowly become outdated for wrestling and that’s a good thing

Triple h killed austin theory

Batista ended the HHH reign of terror, would that count for success after ending a long title reign?

I like Rusev but he is a result of fans jumping from one guy to the next. He was just a flavor of the month. Fans would get behind anyone during that time because they were desperate to have any new top guy. Of course Vince is to blame for a lot of the reasons why fans would jump from one guy to another.

Oh it’s not just hot , it’s steamy hotttt takes a Larson

I’ve been tired of RTruth in the Judgment Day since he started working with them

All of the long title reigns before Roman were baby face reigns.

My hot take is I love RVD's TNA theme. It's so-bad-its-good, and perfect for a goofy old man whose gimmick is that he gets high. It sounds like it was written inside the van RVD gets his singlet designs from.

13:00 I don’t think that ending Roman’s reign is meant to “make” Cody Rhodes. I believe he’s already there. Think about the way he’s presented. He’s marketed as the second coming of John Cena, everything besides the world title. I believe Cody beating Roman is more of a passing of the torch. Cody is likely to be around for another 8-10 years and be the next “face of the company” and Roman is likely to have even fewer appearances (likely as a face) until he goes full Hollywood and leaves. This is Cody’s coronation and Roman’s send off as Tribal Chief.

How could Hilton stack you if he’s not real???

I know I'm late to this, fellow old guys, but johnny's take is wrong because of 1 breaking of a record breaking streak. Paige beating AJ Lee the night after Wrestlemania.

I have a hot take Tony Khan isn't a good boss in AEW he comes across to me as more of a fan boy.

I started viewing wrestling by watching cassettes of the days of using people with dwarfism, women as a way to draw people in and early battle royals/Rumbles as a very young kid. That era IMO is just about unwatchable now. Feels too exploitive and the mens matches were just bear hugs and sleeper holds for 30 minutes. I’ll take wrestling clowns, trash men and dentists over that any day.

Don't know if this is as much as a hot take or a tepid take. As much as Jim Cornette and Vince Russo hate eachother, them being on WWF creative with Vince McMahon at the same time made the attitude era what it was. Both Cornette and Russo floundered when they had the power by themselves. See ROH for Cornette and WCW and TNA for Russo

I think some of these are just bad booking. Rusev Day was over but they never capitalised on it. MITB winners constantly lose so they don't seem like credible threats and they often go right back to the midcard. I like Darby but I see the point. Planet's Champion Bryan was absolutely the best WWE Bryan. I think Nexus was fine. The idea that they needed each other was good but it wasn't used to elevate anyone (probably Ryback or Barrett). They were just fed to Cena and made to look stupid.

Damien Priest would have cashed in by now if Punk never returned.

The Rock ending CM Punk's ling title reign was the best option. You weren't going to put the belt on Ryback, Cena winning it off of Punk would have gotten thd samd reaction as Rock, maybe worse. Daniel Bryan wasn't ready. Rock, a legend, was a good choice to step up and beat this all time champion.

I didn't really care about rusev day. Eh

I agree with the coffee thing, boiling hot coffee is a maniac's drink but a good iced coffee is superior to all

Hilton isn't real though

Andre to hogan

Rusev Day was not overrated imo, it was a fun gimmick and the calendars was an inspired piece of merchandise imho. How dare you say it was overrated, especially on Rusev Day no less!

NXT IS FIRE!!!

This might be conspiracy theory but my friend told me that Razor Ramon would refuse to win the world title and decline, because he felt like he didn't deserve it or felt others deserved it more

Rusev day was fucking overrated ASF!!! He only went along to try and get his wife over. So trash.

😅I just don't know if Judgement Day, is supposed to be taken as a _SERIOUS_ threat. The try hard Hot Topic aesthetic... Any angle with "Dirty Dom" or JD... I think people forgot they're supposed to be kind of lame, just because we all started really liking the faction. Like, R Truth is more of a joke than Dirty Dom doing time? Truth doesn't hurt them.

Seth still has no character

To be honest i was a bit meh when it came to rusev day. I didnt hate it nor did i tune in every week to see what they were doing. I Actually completely forgot rusev day was a thing until i came across this video 😂

Little Debbie products are better.

Perfect was just always poisoned by Hogan standing in his way. Didn't want to sell for him, didn't want to put him over, he just peaked right at the time of Hogan's stranglehold and by the time that was over, his back was fucked.

My hot take is Bayley is the best of the Four Horsewomen

Hot take: Canadian Destroyers kill my immersion. There are plenty of moves that require the victim to work with the aggressor in order to pull them off. Moves like the chokeslam, which you could only perform as a shoot if you had super strength. But even if someone had super strength, how would they perform a shoot Destroyer? What are we supposed to be seeing when someone performs one? Because it only ever looks to me like the victim does a backflip and takes a bump. I don't even know what fantasy narrative the move is trying to sell.

my thing with seths character is what is seths character? like the song isnt as cool as people think it is and it seems people just sing that song and thats his gimmick?

Hot take if aew fired Orange Cassidy they’d be a watchable show

"Rusev Day was overrated" might be the worst wrestling take I've ever seen. They were anything BUT overrated.

Hot Take: Charlotte being added to the main event of WM 35 was a good move. Becky was already running out of gas by Mania time and Charlotte added a dimension to that match.

Rusev day was super overrated and so was he