Tag: Roman Reigns

December 5, 2018 /

It makes a busy wrestling blog proprietor’s day when a stranger shows up out of nowhere offering a shrewd critical take on the art of blading. Please enjoy this piece by new contributor Kid Mankind, and be forewarned: there is blood. There are three ways to bleed in a wrestling ring. There is an accidental split of the skin – maybe a baby face landed a lucky hit on someone’s nose, maybe the jagged edge…

June 12, 2017 /

This is the third installment of a five part series called On The -isms of Punkrockbigmouth. Check the first two here and here. Whereas PRBM’s crosshatching and impressionism are astute stylistic choices for her medium and subject, foreshortening is a very practical technique that bring the art of wrestling’s action and physicality into a visual space in such a way that allows a fast-moving tangle of bodies to be visually comprehensible. An object is foreshortened when…

September 23, 2016 /

You might have noticed I haven’t posted to this blog in like three months. AJ Styles has upended my theoretical stance on everything and thus, my affairs are a shambles. I’ve had to completely rebuild my worldview and it’s taken some time. I mean, I have been doing other things and not blogging, it’s true. Life has been on an extreme trajectory as of late. But in fact this hasn’t been writer’s block, I’ve written plenty,…

April 1, 2016 /

Image Source: wwe.com On this past RAW, the all-important RAW before Wrestlemania,Triple H delivered a promo I could tell he didn’t believe in. It was a promo in which he tried to do the job, in the classical jabroni sense—he said things he knew couldn’t sell in a desperate attempt to save Wrestlemania and put over Roman Reigns, one of the most embattled babyfaces in wrestling history. But even after that awkward display, we shouldn’t forget that…

March 21, 2016 /

Image Source: wwe.com “…but what’s puzzling you is the nature of my GAME.” —Rolling Stones, “Sympathy For the Devil” While I can’t say I’m giddy with anticipation over the upcoming HHH/Roman Reigns championship match at Wrestlemania, I have been spellbound by the treatise Trips has been whipping together about the authority’s oppression of the ninety-nine percent, the heroic rebel’s challenge to this tyrannical authority, and his assertion that corporate executives are in fact gods and…

January 26, 2015 /

It strikes me as a bizarre turn of events that people are rioting on Twitter over a Roman Reigns victory at Royal Rumble and making mean gifs at the expense of our old world knight of justice. Look, I am totally over Roman Reigns, even when I was swooning over him a year ago. But you know what? I’m also over Bray Wyatt. And Dean Ambrose. Oh come on, admit it, those guys have really…

August 6, 2014 /

 On Gods and Men   Randy Orton now like a John Hughes princely bad boy thug Tybalt in Roman Reigns face, never again, boy, Never again! He growls, with those godlike tattoos, more a fiery, arrogant deity, the kind that thunders down his wrath, Thor or maybe Zeus, slamming forth a hurricane on the old world warrior hero, dark handsome chivalrous police state thug gone rogue, resolved now like a knight to stand for truth…

July 19, 2014 /

Imagine the narrative complexity of the fatal fourway that awaits us at Battlground on Sunday. Any man can pin any man and become the champion. At first it will start more or less as two against two. But then it will start to break down, there will have to be a parallel storyline outside the ring. Cain will most likely turn on Randy Orton, that much has been telegraphed. There will be battles within battles.…

July 1, 2014 /

I see a rather interesting place that this could go — John Cena finds himself in a quandary.  He will somehow be in a position “to play the role of hero while everything around him burns,” as Bray Wyatt described him, and what will be burning is Roman Reigns. Will he sacrifice the belt or let Roman Reigns burn? The answer to this question will determine the next step for his character. If he doesn’t…

June 30, 2014 /

Though of course I was cheering for Roman Reigns, I’ve decided I do support a John Cena championship at this time. I wholeheartedly support the tweening of John Cena. This is rather unique — Hulk Hogan, if you will remember, turned heel when his fans were getting sick of him. And his whole complaint, if I remember correctly, was that his fans were turning on him, so screw them. John Cena, on the other hand,…