411 Fact or Fiction Wrestling: Should Goldberg Beat Owens at Fastlane?

Welcome back to the latest edition of 411 Fact or Fiction, Wrestling Edition! Stuff happened, people loved/hated it and let everyone else know. I pick through the interesting/not so interesting tidbits and then make 411 staff members discuss them for your pleasure. Battling this week are 411’s Justin Watry and Jake Chambers!

Questions were sent out Monday.

Participants were told to expect wrestling-related content, as well as possible statements on quantum physics, homemade pharmaceuticals, the Turtle Total Trip Theorem, pizza and hydroponics.

1. Goldberg SHOULD beat Kevin Owens at WWE Fastlane

Justin Watry: FACT – Sure, why not? Kevin Owens has not exactly been presented as a strong main eventer since August, and before that, he was losing to Sami Zayn and teaming up with Chris Jericho. Keep in mind Finn Balor was the long-term champ penciled in, not KO. That was by fluke injury and a backup plan. Like all things, it is how you deliver the message. WWE delivered that from the onset; he was a weasel who couldn’t get it done on his own. Heading into WrestleMania, that can either be a good thing…or a bad thing. With a man like Bill Goldberg back in the fold that is loved by fans and has popped business, well, sorry Mr, RKO! That means your run is up. Instead of being serious and dominant, he played games and was a joke with Jericho every week. Now, we will get to find out at Fastlane is he can do it on his own. My guess: Goldberg walks out of Milwaukee as the new WWE Universal Champion and heads towards one final showdown with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 33. Two big events, both with me there live in person.

Jake Chambers: FACT – Ugh, that this is even sentence that can be written in 2017 gives me a headache. Ending up with Kevin Owens as the RAW champion in the first place was like a minor miracle, but the guy who is going beat him for that title is Bill Goldberg? Well, I figure WWE fans deserve this shitty situation. Who are these people chanting “Goldberg” in the arenas today anyways? This is why it’s so hard to take any WWE wrestling fan seriously. If you’re a WWE fan, and by that I mean born and/or started watching after the WWF turned into the WWE, then you’re either naive or an idiot. Us WWF fans already won this war. Gillberg was a joke to us because Goldberg was so shit. We weren’t those moronic WCW fans holding up “4 Life” fingers because a bunch of bump-phobic dads listened to too much 2pac. We didn’t spend a year cheering for a guy to drop in at the end of the show every week to just stand there and stare at stuff. And we certainly laughed at the fools who followed along with WCW’s pumped-in “Goldberg” chants to cheer for a guy who’s gimmick was to basically expose the business. We already rid the world of this kind of garbage, but you WWE fans have fallen into the same old traps: you let the Bullet Club “too sweet” themselves into a mainstream thing, you treat Brock Lesnar like a star for dropping in once in a while to stare menacingly and do nothing, and now you’ve chanted Goldberg into a championship main event match at Wrestlemania. You can’t be a part of a system that elects Donald Trump as president but then decide two weeks later that you want the whole system to change. WWE fans have bought into the creative machine on RAW for so many years now, and this is what you get. You (we) all deserve Goldberg beating Kevin Owens at Fastlane in some horrible match, and the disaster Wrestlemania 33 main event that will follow.

2. Samoa Joe vs. Sami Zayn will steal the show at WWE Fastlane.

Justin Watry: FACT – Tough call. You can eliminate a couple lower card bouts right off the bat. Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns will likely be a big brawl, with a non-finish. The Goldberg vs. Owens match will be short, after the champ stalls for awhile. That pretty much leaves Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe and Charlotte vs. Bayley. Believe it or not, the women’s title match may steal the show, as the outcome is extremely unpredictable. Zayn and Owens is probably going to be awesome. However, the result is clear. I don’t know; flip a coin…okay, Joe and Zayn steal the show. I will be there for their showcase, and my expectations are very high. Hope they have a classic.

Jake Chambers: FICTION – I’m not sure that it’ll take much to “steal the show” at some shit RAW-brand PPV with a card that looks that lame on paper, but it certainly won’t be 10-years-too-late Samoa Joe and newly minted jobber-to-the-stars Sami Zayn in a consequence-free match with two guys destined for some kind of Ladder Match or pre-show battle royal at Wrestlemania. Nah, given the names on that card there’s really only two performers who have a track record for putting on the best matches at a PPV: Charlotte and Roman Reigns – and it’ll come down to who really has the better opponent. I’d lean towards Strowman right now, if only because it’s generally more impressive to see a huge guy do anything half decent than it is to see a tiny person like Bayley work her ass off for half the pop.

3. Drew Galloway and The Hardys opting to not sign with TNA is not a good first step for the new Jarrett/Anthem led TNA.

Justin Watry: FACT – You know the funny part? Everybody is freaking out about The Hardyz and Drew Galloway (reportedly) departing TNA Impact Wrestling, but here are the facts. Even with those apparently ‘popular’ stars, the company was nearly sold in 2016 for pennies, currently in a mess of lawsuits, next to no profit, has zero touring to speak of, invisible pay-per-view buys, and just drew 275,000 viewers on television on an obscure channel that isn’t even paying them. Yes, that BROKEN nonsense sure was lighting the wrestling world on fire. Boy, let me tell you. What BUZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Right. Same with Drew. I like the guy and think he has another run in WWE left in him…but again, it was TNA. If the company can save a couple hundred thousand dollars and turn the page with new management, go for it. Not like things were going smoothly anyways. I say FACT because honestly, what does it matter? New boss, same as the old boss. Literally. It is TNA. They will screw up a million more times, I will somehow being called a ‘hater,’ and their supporters will defend them to the death. Who cares?

Jake Chambers: FICTION – If you’ve ever had any management experience, you know how difficult it can be when there are people under you who think they’re better than you, or at least better than the spot they’re in, and Galloway and the Hardy Boyz were probably going to be like this with the new management over at TNA Impact. And so they should be, Jeff Hardy is a natural crowd-popper, Matt Hardy has been able to stay relevant by changing his style with age, and Drew Galloway is as legit an in-ring performer in his prime as TNA had on their roster. These guys probably don’t need tampering with by a bunch of bottom-lining suits, or that new fresh-faced booking team they’ve brought in. So by saying “Fiction” here, I’m not saying this is not not a good first step for Anthem Impact as far as the show they produce, as they’re losing some top guys, but that it will have to be less annoying for the middle-management business people involved who won’t have to deal with talented, know-it-alls while they’re trying to wade out of the Ponzi-scheme-like creative mess they’ve bought into. And since this is the internet, and we are talking about wrestling, don’t we all really just care about “business” and corporate structure stuff anyways?

SWITCH!

4. Under no circumstances should Roman Reigns beat Braun Strowman clean at WWE Fastlane.

Jake Chambers: FICTION – “Under no circumstances” is a tough way to put it, especially when you’re talking about Reigns, the WWE’s clear face of the company for the next decade, and Strowman who is at best the new Big Show. Braun is working here to prove that he can deliver in an upper-card, marquee spot like he’s never had the opportunity to before, and part of the wrestling business for a monster character in this position is to put over the babyface star and make them look like a giant-killer. That’s his job. This isn’t the NBA finals here, winning “clean” is a concept only marks should get worked up about. The real question is, can Strowman hang for 15+ minutes on PPV with a bonafide main event level superstar, or is he gonna need a ton of rest holds before fucking up his big spots? We’ll see.

Justin Watry: FICTION – I wouldn’t say under NO circumstances. Personally, I do not think he will beat Braun Strowman cleanly. I would have said so a few weeks ago but not anymore. If WWE does indeed want to make Reigns THE GUY again and defeat The Undertaker at WrestleMania 33 in Orlando, then yeah – he should defeat Strowman. If things are still in the air and the company wants to keep both men looking good come WM, that means some kind of funky finish. Maybe Taker interferes to get revenge for his Royal Rumble elimination? I don’t know how this thing will end. I do know that each result makes sense, no matter which way it goes. Looking forward to being there live on Sunday at Fastlane.

5. The Hardys will return to WWE at WrestleMania 33 to start an angle with The New Day.

Jake Chambers: FICTION – First of all, the New Day are 3 people. That’s not a tag team – am I the only one seeing this? Don’t let Xavier Woods’ non-existent in-ring talent fool you, he’s actually a person and apparently a legit member of the faction. So I don’t see why The Hardys would want to sign on to feud with 3 younger people right out of the gate. I figure if the Hardys return it will be way more like when the Dudley Boyz returned than people want to think. Headlining in TNA with a Scary Movie comedy gimmick is not going to endear you to the WWE producers in 2017, especially if you’re about 15 years past your prime. I’d have to imagine all those 10-year-old fans in New Day gear are gonna be pretty weirded out if a couple of guys who look like those deadbeats who sell Daddy pot are hobbling to the ring to make weird jokes they don’t understand. It’s more likely that Matt and Jeff end up in that Ladder Match with AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, Cesaro, Dolph Ziggler, Sin Cara, and Luke Harper that you just know is inevitable. But what do I know? I’ll just leave the Nostradamus-ing to a guy who legit predicted that Sheamus was going to beat Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania in less than a minute.

Justin Watry: FICTION – That was my first reaction to the news of The New Day hosting WM. Which team will come out to confront them? The Revival? The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express maybe? Nope, it had to be The Hardyz. Heck, if you believe certain sources, the brothers have all but agreed to appear at Mania already – while still being signed to TNA. Not sure how true that is, but the expectation has always been that Matt and Jeff will return to WWE. It was always going to happen. We know this. Same with Kurt Angle and every other “name” out there. These guys want to be in WWE. I never believe a single public comment that says otherwise. If Vince McMahon or Triple H calls, you answer that phone. My wish is they appear at Mania because I will be there live (in Orlando too for the TNA spit in the face, haha!). Gut feeling, though, is the next night on RAW would make for an enormous crowd reaction and ‘moment’ for the ages – more impactful than cramming them into a WM segment with The New Day. Then again, I have Shinsuke Nakamura debuting on the Raw after WM. We’ll see…rambling aside, The Hardyz will be back in a WWE ring, whether it is next month, next year, or in five years. It is happening.

6. What is your excitement level for Sunday’s WWE Fastlane PPV?.

Jake Chambers: 1 out of 10 – The RAW brand is terrible. Are we like, no allowed to say this? It always feels like there’s some sort of wait-and-see, apologist sentiment that keeps us all watching this terrible show. Now, normally, with a card that looks that bad on paper I’d still probably be about a 5 or 6 in excitement and raising as it gets closer because of that natural Sunday night PPV libido, that Justin Watry himself has many times described. But I’ll play grizzled veteran in this buddy cop movie and just give it a weary, “I’m gettin’ too old for this shit.” We’ve seen this crappy “Road to Wrestlemania” scenario play-out for almost a decade now, the WWE’s worst wheel-spinning couple months of the year where nothing happens other than setting up the matches they pretend weren’t leaked online. We’ve had to put up with weeks of terrible TV because, well, they can’t do anything before Fastlane. Then we’ll have to put up with this shit PPV because they were just setting up for Wrestlemania. And then when Wrestlemania is long, boring bloated show full of too-short matches everyone will forgive it because all the wrestlers needed a payday. I just get so little enjoyment out of the Road to Wrestlemania anymore aside from that quick thrill after opening the “SPOILER” post on 411 around December that gives you the whole rumored Wrestlemania card. I couldn’t give a fuck about seeing Goldberg main event a PPV in 2017, and I don’t want to see a 3-hour undercard of pointless matches either, especially when we’re looking at 3-hour TV shows for the next 5 weeks of exceedingly less point, energy or interest to anyone on the roster, because we’re all just waiting for these damn Wrestlemania matches we’ve known about for months to finally happen so we can move on to Backlash, etc. – and the REAL wrestling for the year. So as far as I’m concerned, Fastlane can go to “heck”.

Justin Watry: 10 out of 10 – A ten! Tye Dillinger would be proud of my response here. A 10 no doubt. Why? Because in case you haven’t heard, I will be there live this Sunday. Look, Wisconsin doesn’t exactly get a lot of big WWE shows. This is not like California, New York, or Florida when you get used to pay-per-views coming to town and feel entitled to them after a little bit. When the biggest wrestling company in the world is right around the corner for a major event on the Road to WM, you get jacked up. Pumped and ready. When you add in the interesting card and floor seats, yeah. Sorry for the enthusiasm; at last check, I am a fan. We are allowed to have fun, right? No explanation needed.