Quite a marvel, that blog entry. He was right on point & insightful with the Piper analysis, went absolutely ruthless with the Cena observation and then right back to even keeled with the Rousey/Piper bit.
J.R. is absolutely serious here & that's what grabbed my attention.
Jr doesn't seem to understand that what piper did then would only get him massively cheered today. Being an over babyface who isn't a kick ass one, like Daniel bryan the underdog is incredibly rare. the days of just coming out, smiling and waving to the crowd then executing some fast arm drags and high drop kicks automatically making you an over babyface are gone. Same as being cast as a superhero. By the same token, coming out and calling people idiots, and pulling tights doesnt make you a over heel. The fans dont care about that stuff anymore. They want to see intetesting characters, preferably ones who kick ass and take names. Roddy piper definitely kicked ass and took names and today hed be massively over as a face for doing what he did.
I am far from uneducated and I don't give a shit how badly broken his nose was, he finished the match as expected.
we all know cena is a tough man, and he's demonstrated that before. Is that callous? No its only what dozens of guys who aren't making 5 FIGURES a MATCH have done. That doesn't give him a free now you have to love me no matter what pass. He's still stale, sells tons of merchsndise, primarily because he gets new shit every 2 months that includes hat, shirt, wrist bands and a rally towel, all in the same eye catching colors. He will still get dominated during his matches, then win after a couple of moves and no sell what a beating he just took. He will continue his latest trend of losing the first match to a new guy, likely balor is next then winning the next 2 or 3 and the new guy will flounder in the mid card shuffle or his career will crash and burn.
Stop sucking rouseys ass. Layla Ali was just as dominant in women's boxing. She had the same attributes as rousey. Skilled, pretty, dominant. Everyone expected her to usher in a new respect for women's boxing, and women's athletics in general. The only thing was that she was so dominant because a lot of her opponents plain sucked. When she retired, so did women's boxing to a large degree. Rousey is so far above her contemporaries that when she retires the same thing will happen in women's mma, no one will care about it any more. Rousey and Ali perfectly capture one of the biggest secrets in combat sports: a lot of the best fighters simply are too much physically for their opponents to overcome and throw in skill it's not a fair contest. The true legends all exhibit this in their glory periods and it cuts across multiple disciplines:
Rocky Marciano hit too hard and was too tough and determined to lose
Floyd Mayweather was too smart and fast to even get hit most of the time, let alone lose. Roy Jones Jr IN HIS PRIME was exactly the same
teddy riner in judo is too tall, too strong for his opponents aND dominates.
Alexander Karelin was too big and strong in Greco-Roman wrestling, and would've retired undefeated except for wrestling 1 match more than his opponent and having a horrible call against him.
Ronda rousey and Layla as little are both too big, strong and skilled to be seriously challenged in their sports. It won't help women's mma for rousey to steamroll everyone. Want women's mma to suceed? Pray 3 or 4 women come along with style and charisma who drag rousey into a dogfight and beat her. If that don't happen, when she's gone no one will care until a new rousey comes along.