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Welcome to the Weekly Report from the guys here @TheTopRope, if you haven’t already checked out our Audio Shows, you can catch our Weekly and Weekend Podcasts on iTunes and Talkshoe, just search The Top Rope Wrestling Report.

Lee Charleton – @Leeleemu

The Rock being a douche, trending worldwide, or at least it should be. His promo was lacklustre and I don’t think I am the only one getting fed up of his pathetic insults. “Lady Parts”, “Kung Pow Bitch”, all this Twitter Innovator crap, I honestly don’t care. I won’t open up on this segment as I know the other guys have.

Jericho and Punk stole the show, they showed up Dwayne, they showed how to put each other over and still build towards what should be a classic match at Wrestlemania 28. This is still the match I am looking most forward to and these guys added to that Monday night.

Did I hear Mr Exciting book a match in advance, finally the WWE are promoting matches for the week after, finally they are giving us something to look forward to, it’s just a shame its Kane v Aksana. One thing on Smackdown which highly irritated me was the fact Dolph was beaten by Sheamus, fine build Sheamus strong but have him defeat Dolph, not defeat Dolph even with assistance from Swagger and Vickie.

Now for me, it’s quite clear what the WWE are doing for this year’s Wrestlemania, we have heard The Undertaker, HHH and now Chris Jericho claim they are the last of a dying breed and therefore to me it is clear they are having some sort of Dying Breed vs. New Breed or Attitude Era vs. Present Era PPV. They are clearly brining older stars back in to try and bring older viewers in to see them in the hope they will connect to the younger stars from this era.

The Rock (AE) vs. John Cena (PE)
Chris Jericho (AE) vs. CM Punk (PE)
Kane (AE) vs. Randy Orton (PE)
Big Show (AE) vs. Cody Rhodes (PE)

To be honest, I am underwhelmed by the middle card currently and I am not a keen supporter of Sheamus so right now, I am only really invested into the Jericho/Punk, Taker/HHH and Rock/Cena match. I feel the Show/Rhodes and Kane/Orton matches are going to be woeful due to the lack of mobility of Kane and Show. They already have the big names in the Main Events so I much rather would have seen Cody Rhodes take on someone where they could have put a great match on.

Team Excitement vs. Team Long should be good and I am hoping it will be in a Team Ladder match. I am enjoying the little segments Teddy and Johnny are having on both Smackdown and Raw and if anything, this storyline has just been written as well as the others.

My last thought which myself and James discussed on our podcast, how are they going to set the Hell in a Cell up at Mania, it’s an open roof stadium so they can’t exactly have it hanging for the whole show?

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James Partridge – @GoofyVillain

The big talking point this week has been the promo that ended Raw between The Rock and John Cena. Now, this may not be a popular comment but…..I was starting to get a bit bored by The Rock’s promo. It just seemed to drag on and on for me, and I felt glad to see Cena interrupt. I’ve seen comments saying the writing on Rock’s wrist was “planned to try to get fans on Cena’s side”. Whether it was or not, it did seem suspicious. After all the years Rocky’s been cutting promos, now he suddenly has words on his wrist for his promo? He did seem a bit rattled by Cena though, just by the expression on his face, stumbled a few lines, and the curse word uttered after his promo. Let’s see how it continues on the next Raw.

Re-wind to the start of the show, where CM Punk and Chris Jericho had their own war of words. This one I really enjoyed, both getting in good verbal jabs at each other. Punk’s comments about Jericho inventing Canada made me smirk. This feud has got me hooked, and I’m always looking forward to these two appearing on Raw, just to see how this develops. It’s probably the match I am looking forward to seeing the most at Wrestlemania.

Randy Orton returned on Smackdown, and it kinda felt a flat return to be fair. There didn’t seem to be a usual fanfare from WWE about his return. At least I don’t remember seeing one on social media or WWE.com. Also, was it just me or did he look like he wasn’t as tanned as the Viper usually is?

As mentioned on this website recently, I really dislike the current Natalya storyline. I find it insulting to give a talented wrestler like Natalya, being used as a joke. And what made it worse, was having both Michael Cole and Booker T making not only a mockery of the Dynasty Diva, but also Jim Neidhart and Bret Hart. This storyline stinks, in more ways than one!

Big Show vs Cody Rhodes at Wrestlemania, a match I never expected at the start of the year. Their feud on Smackdown is enjoyable, and I like Cody taunting the giant. I really do think they can put on a good match, and expect Cody to pick up a 2nd consecutive win on the biggest stage of them all.

News recently broke out that Wade Barrett will be out of action for 3-4 months. It’s a shame to read that, especially as he’ll miss Wrestlemania. Many were hoping he’d have a good match this time round, considering the failure of a match Wade was in last year. Maybe Wrestlemania 29, he’ll get his chance, and in a title match.

Speaking of Wade and Wrestlemania, he was expected to be part of a Money in the Bank match at the event. Not only that, he was expected to win the match and be the holder of that special briefcase which has brought Titles to the likes of Edge, CM Punk, Jack Swagger and Daniel Bryan for the first time. Rumours are that the match has been removed from the card, due to Wade’s injury. If true, I find it a bit strange. Injuries often change plans, but surely they could have given it to someone else? Maybe even have Wade return and challenge the holder, as injury took his chance away, and have the Englishman steal the briefcase.

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Simon Iles – @Simon_TTR

Oooh, was that a little bit of tension I saw at the end of Monday Night Raw this week? In what I am going to call ‘wristgate’, it seems as if John Cena caught Rock red-handed (or should that be red-wristed?) with promo notes scrawled on his arm. Whether or not Cena was scripted to say that or not, Rock seemed genuinely flustered, blowing the end of his promo with a stumble and a stutter. Some people have suggested that it’s all a work to try and get Cena some more support (at this rate he’s going to get a worse reaction than most dictators would), but I don’t think The Rock is THAT good of an actor. I mean, have you seen him in The Tooth Fairy?! I get the feeling that, as these guys apparently really don’t have that much time for one another, Cena threw that in as a shoot. If I’m wrong, then I think Dwayne deserves to be in the running for an Oscar next year…

In any case, the tense climax to this week’s show certainly turned up the heat on a feud which has obviously lost steam due to The Rock not being around much, and to the fact that the match was announced a year ago. What I found really interesting was the fact that The Rock spent some time addressing what he really meant when he said that he was never going away again. He got some boos at the start of his explanation, but what was even more telling is that after that little blip, he had everyone in that arena eating out of the palm of his hand. Well, every male over the age of 12. Quite what comparing John Cena to an item on a Chinese takeaway menu achieved, I don’t know (to be fair, there were a few things in the promo which didn’t make complete sense), but he got the Portland crowd chanting pretty much everything he called John Cena during the lengthy promo, summing up the attitude of, seemingly, most of the WWE Universe.

And then, out came Cena, pulling off another strong performance on the stick to back up last week’s promo where he really laid into The Rock. He made some good points about The Rock (not that we haven’t heard his points before) but, then again, so did the target of his jibes. The WWE are trying to build this up as a 50-50 thing, and it will certainly split some elements of the crowd. However, the vast majority are going to be on Rocky’s side come ‘Mania (not least of all because of the event’s location) and so I think the WWE faces ‘Mania going off the air to a chorus of boos, as Cena surely has to win…. doesn’t he?

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