This Or That: 6/24/2014

Everybody loves binary decisions, especially wrestling fans! In This Or That, we’ve forced ourselves to choose between two options that relate to wrestling.

Over four questions, @TimWelcomed, @JoeySplashwater and @TomBlackett will have to choose one of two options and give their reasoning on each of their choices. You can then vote on which one you’d choose, giving you the false impression that you’re somehow involved and we care about your opinion chance to join the conversation!

Before we start, here’s last week’s results:

Who will have more WWE World Championship reigns in the next 3 years?

John Cena – 61%, Roman Reigns – 39%

Better place-holder heel to win MITB?

Alberto Del Rio – 74%, Randy Orton – 26%

Stardust.

Yay – 76%, Nay – 24%

Better sport?

Hockey – 63%, Soccer – 27%

Which ladder match are you more excited for: WWE Championship match or MITB briefcase match?

One’s for the title, one’s for the briefcase, but which do you care about most?

Tim:

I think the real Money In The Bank briefcase match is going to be a lot more fun to watch strictly from a wrestling perspective and seeing who will win. You’ll have Kofi Kingston who can deliver some fun spots, Dolph Ziggler who will go all out, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose in the ring together, and Wade Barrett throwin’ some ‘bows. Sounds great to me!

The six-man ladder match for the title has a lot of potential to tell some interesting stories and be a hotbed for future feuds, however they haven’t made me care about it. I don’t care too much about any wrestler in that match outside of Cesaro. I’m already dreading the upcoming year full of Roman Reigns Is Almighty. Added to all of this was the Kane nonsense so I completely checked out. Kane has the power to make me not care about anything. But here’s to hoping it is an interesting match.

MITB briefcase match 

Joey:

The ascension of Roman Reigns, the potential of Cesaro, the star power of John Cena and the fact that the actual title was on the line would have made the WWE Championship ladder match the clear choice but the corny go home segment of Kane attacking everyone just took so much out of it for me. At least the briefcase match has enough talented guys who can utilize the ladders more than the main eventers plus there’s an actual reason to care about Rollins vs. Ambrose as opposed to any interaction of the main event.

MITB briefcase match

Tom:

I think the show on Sunday should be a really fun time, not that the announcements and additions last night did much to get me excited for it, the worst of those being Kane being placed as such a key part of the WWE Championship. Fuck you, Kane! Go home! We don’t want you anymore! The match should still be fantastic, but now I can almost imagine Kane winning the bloody thing, just so Bryan can get his revenge and win the title from him at Summerslam.

As for the MITB briefcase match, while I think the Rollins / Ambrose dynamic will be tremendous, the rest of the guys in that match really do seem like a lot of filler. I guess that’s typical for a MITB match though, so having guys like Ziggler and Kofi go crashing around as they get caught between Sexy Seth and Dangerous Dean, Troubled Teen should be a good time.

MITB briefcase match

Which rising babyface will fans turn on first: Roman Reigns or Michael Elgin?

Both are big, powerful dudes with limited speaking ability who seem set to be their respective company’s new golden boys, but which will the fans get sick of first? Question inspired by an @itswilltime‘s tweet.

Tim:

It’s going to happen to both but I’m going with Elgin here solely because that’s how it goes for face ROH champions. The fans will always turn on them at a ridiculously fast speed. Reigns will get the boos during his first run with the title.

Michael Elgin

Joey:

It’s clearly gonna be Elgin. Much better babyfaces get turned on when winning the ROH title by Ring of Honor faithful and this time, it’s a dude who is not good on the mic nor as dynamic a performer as those past champs. Roman Reigns will be resented far more for being the new face of WWE when it does happen but I don’t see that happening until he wins the title, which I expect to be Wrestlemania. Reigns get turned on next Spring but Elgin gets turned on by August.

Michael Elgin

Tom:

While Reigns being portrayed as a puke-inducing prankster isn’t going to help him, I think he’ll still be safe from fan backlash for a while. He’s a good-looking guy with a natural intensity and a limited but explosive move-set which I think should be enough for him to get by until he’s a couple of months into his first title reign. After that, he’s in trouble unless he learns to talk and carves a less generic persona out for himself, but he’s got time.

As for Michael Elgin, ROH champs are under much greater scrutiny from the fans right from the moment they get the belt, and I’m not convinced that Elgin will be able to deal with it. If we’re comparing him to recent champions, he seems to be much more of a Davey Richards than a Kevin Steen, in terms of self-awareness, adaptability and being able to manage backlash. Of course, I say that as someone that Elgin called “ignorant” on Twitter dot com when I teased him, so my opinion must be biased, right?

Honestly, I do enjoy Elgin’s matches and I think he could have a great run as champion, but I think it’ll take a real personality shift on his part for it to work out.

Michael Elgin

Who do you side with in their Twitter beef: Taz or Lance Storm?

Shots have been fired from both parties, but which will you side with?

Tim:

I think Lance Storm was completely right but I’m going to have to agree with Taz that Lance Storm needs to shut up. Taz’s arguments on Twitter usually always make him look bad and Lance Storm thinks very highly of himself. I want to see more of this feud.

Taz 

Joey:

In general, I agree with Lance Storm. The ring shape is the least of TNA’s problems as the moment. However, Storm is ALWAYS on a high horse and has talked down to fans for being negative or critical of things in the past so it was fantastic to see Taz call him out for doing the same. At the end of the day, both have their ways on Twitter and it was hilarious seeing them bicker. The tiebreaker goes to Taz for flat out going after Lance. New Jack should find them both and break keyboards over their heads.

Taz New Jack

Tom:

Taz, my oldest foe! As insufferable as Lance T. Storm can be, he’s absolutely right in the number of sides of TNA’s ring being pretty much inconsequential in the grand scheme of things (regardless of what certain vegan grapplers might have you think), and Taz completely over-reacted in an amazing way. Could the Human Suplex Machine be wrestling’s most passive-aggressive man? It’s possible!

Anyway, in a perfect world, Joey’s scenario would come true and we’d be enjoying the sweet sounds of Natural Born Killaz while keys go shattering all over the place but that’s sadly not the case. I’ll go with Lance, just to further my feud with wrestling’s worst t-shirt designer.

Lance Storm

Which would you rather do: see Transformers: Age of Extinction or go to the dentist to have a cavity filled?

Which would you find more painful and unpleasant?

Tim:

I have an irrational fear of the dentist and while I do go regularly, I still can’t stand the whole ordeal. I’ve had a cavity filled when I was a child and it was very traumatizing. BUT I will NEVER EEEEEEEEEEEEEEVER go sit through a Transformer’s film while Michael Bay still makes them. I watched the first one and it made me feel so bad about myself. How can a movie about alien robots make a person feel that way?

Cavity filling

Joey:

One of my most painful memories as a child was having to get a cavity filled on two occasions so I was going to take Transformers but then I found out that Transformers is THREE GOD DAMN HOURS LONG! I actually enjoyed the first Transformers film but I was a dumb teen at the time.

I tried watching the 3rd film of the franchise and it was among the worst things I’ve ever seen in my life. I felt shame for being this generation’s American given the success of the franchise. Give me the cavity filling. It’s not THREE HOURS!

Cavity filling

Tom:

The only Transformers film I’ve seen in its entirety was the first one, and it remains one of my most hated cinema experiences. I’m not a snob when it comes to summer blockbusters and I enjoy some mindless entertainment as much as the next jerk with no attention span, but the Michael Bay Tranformers films just make my brain throb.

What’s worse is that I can almost sympathise with people who like these awful films. Nostalgia’s a powerful drug, and I’ve found myself feeling some level of hope for the Bay-produced Ninja Turtles film that’s out this summer. There’s absolutely no reason for this beyond my own abiding love for the Turtles, so even though I consider myself a somewhat discerning and informed film fan, I might still go and see it.

HOWEVER, if it’s as shit as it’ll likely be, that’s it for me and the Turtles until someone who isn’t a dickhead is producing them. I won’t keep supporting a franchise once it’s gone rotten, so the fact that Transformers fans are so blinded by nostalgia that they’ve enabled Michael Bay to make four of these fucking films… well, fuck those people. Grow the fuck up, dickheads.

TL;DR: SNAP ON YOUR GLOVES AND BRING ON THE LOCAL ANAESTHETIC, I’LL TAKE THE FILLINGS.

Cavity filling