Views From The Turnbuckle: Roman Reigns’ Stupid Vest, Slapping In WWE, Member Berries And CoC Review

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of WrestlingInc or its staff

•The popularity of the absurd in wrestling has been an interesting development over the last couple years. In line with the hipster demographic that makes up a sizeable chunk of the wrestling audience, the rise of gimmicks that specialize in taking a sincere approach to comedic acts has become one of the biggest trends in wrestling. Promotions like DDT in Japan and CHIKARA have long been doing this, but it has really gotten over on another level this year, mainly with The New Day and Matt Hardy acts taking off. The fact that a cereal and a gardener are more over to wrestling fans than 90 percent of wrestlers is definitely indicative a unique time in wrestling history.

•I know this had been said a lot and at this point I should be over it; but the fact that Roman Reigns wears a freakin’ bullet proof vest is so f–king stupid it makes my head spin. There is no explanation for it; he just wears it because they think it looks cool. He didn’t wear it in NXT so it isn’t like he has some embarrassing tattoo or scar they are trying to hide. If he was using it as a heel weapon like D’lo Brown used to do then it would make sense, but nope, he just wears it as a reminder that Reigns was once a member of The Shield, a beloved group. Any time Reigns is getting beaten down, or someone is trying to hit him with a steel chair it makes no sense to Reigns sell for his opponent like a normal wrestler would, because he is wearing protective armor designed to stop bullets from penetrating flesh.

•I’ve always thought it would be a cool project for WWE to produce a massive collection featuring an all-time talent. I used to think something like a 10-disc DVD set that had every important match, title challenges or PPV main events on it for a guy like The Undertaker would be tremendous. Now with the WWE Network that idea is way more feasible. How about they produce a new show called “Superstar Collections” or something and each week they produce a three-hour collection of matches from someone’s career, until ten episodes are complete accurately summarizing their careers, from the beginning to the present day? They have plenty of video content and wrestlers (Flair, Hogan, ‘Taker, Michaels, Hart, Triple H, Sting, Cena, Austin, The Rock, etc.) to make it work and have multiple seasons.

•I don’t know how I feel about the continued use of slapping in the Women’s division. It happens all of the time and it seems like instead of doing traditional beat-down angles with the women WWE is apt to have someone smack the other woman with an open palm and walk away. I’m not against them designing storylines with angles that are unique to women, and outside of anything involving Stephanie McMahon the men are not going to be slapping each other, but it seems kind of like something that remains from the bygone era of crappy women’s wrestling. The idea of women slapping each other (along with hair pulling and scratching) comes from the stereotype that women don’t know how to fight properly; but that shouldn’t be the message they are trying to send with performers like Charlotte, Bayley and Sasha Banks. Why can’t they do normal beatdowns like the men and cut the slapping out?

•For any South Parks fans out there, I’m sure you are familiar with Member Berries. For those of you who are not familiar, Member Berries are talking berries that you eat to make you feel nostalgic about things from the past and the berries say …

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