Your Wrestler 180s

[meandi]

In the vein of stuff I didn't like at the time, but when I look back on it now, I've done a 180 - R-Truth. I used to loathe the guy. When I look at his 2011 run now, though? I didn't know what I was missing. He was absolute gold. I think my dislike of his cheesy babyface "What's Up?" stuff hung around with me enough to not truly appreciate his conspiracy theory stuff.

R-Truth is very hit or miss. Mostly hit when his comedy is on point, though. How can we forget this?

[Mr Chop]

***deep breath****

Ric Flair.

When I started watching wrestling it was Austin and The Rock and DX just laser targetting my teenage rebel brain. Meanwhile WCW had this weird old dude taking off his clothes and screaming. Of course now I know hes THE MAN (Sorry Becky). Now I've seen Flair/Funk and a thousand Horsemen promos. I'm sorry Naitch! 15 year old me was a fucking muppet.

[mizfan]

That's probably the worst possible time to start watching Flair, in fairness. Even when I started watching, in '03, I liked him because he seemed like a good manager for Evolution and a fine wrestler for his age, though I didn't love see those moobs flopping around!

[SirSam]

I've done a full 360 on Batista.

He was the wrestler that initially got me interested in wrestling however after discovering other wrestlers I then went through a pretty classic 'big guy sports entertainers with no work rate suck' phase.

More recently when reassessing some of his matches for Skullduggery I've done another 180 and realised the guy has his limitations but in the right situation (eg, in a Hell in a Cell against The Undertaker) he is an awesome ball of intensity ready to explode.

[Powder]

I will have to say the Miz. When he first started I couldn't stand him, to me he had the go away, get off my screen vibe to him. Then in 2010 I began to really like his heel work when he was going for the WWE title. The WWE screwed the pooch on that run too, by immediately having the Miz feud with Lawler.

Then I hated him again during the enitre Hollywood A-Lister gimmick, but somewhere in there, the Miz became the best guy on the roster. His work on Smackdown Live and the feud with Cena and Nikki was the best persona on either brand. He was gold on the mic and made you want to cheer for him even though he was a heel. During that feud and the mixed tag match at Mania 33, the Miz and Maryse should have won.

The Miz is the ultimate company guy. As he points out all the time, he does whatever is asked of him. He does the talk shows, goes to the red carpets, does interviews, plays the fool, plays the victim, plays the heel, he does what ever.

The Miz should be given one more WWE title run, and I would love for him to finally beat Daniel Bryan and John Cena cleanly. He has earned both of those victories.

[mizfan]

I was a big Batista fan for most of his initial run actually, I only started to sour on him towards the end. His heel turn was less engaging to me than it was for others, though there are some gems in there for sure. Definitely felt bad for him in his return run, wrong place and time for sure. I actually don't even think he's particularly limited, he can do an awful lot and has some genuine classics to his name.

Also want to say that Miz/Lawler feud was great, they just should have had Miz win a whole lot more decisively and followed it up with feuds that didn't make him look like a 2nd rate chump.

[Mr Chop]

Yeah, I watched that Miz/Lawler TLC match with my then girlfriend (who had never watched wrestling in her life) and she HATED The Miz, was screaming for Lawler to win. She's a proper Indie wrestling nerd now too, like buys the ICW VIP packages to hang out with the wrestlers.. The Miz literally made her a wrestling fan.

[mizfan]

Sounds like a good one, go get her back Chopper!