Watry Q&A: All In Succeeding, Braun/Heel, CM Punk, More

Hi, I’m Justin Watry. You may remember me from such columns as March 2012’s “WWE WrestleMania 28: Sheamus Should Defeat Daniel Bryan In Less Than A Minute” and October 2016’s “WWE NXT: Bobby Roode, You’re Next.”

Backstory

Once a month, I reply to the comment section. This is from September 2018. No cuss words or insults allowed.

I Am Not A Wrestling Fan

JD: HHH/Steph vs. Kurt/Ronda wasn’t even the best match at Wrestlemania, let alone in the entire WWE so far this year.

My column, my opinion. When you write a column, you can tell all of your readers about YOUR matches of the year. Until then, enjoy the comment section of MY columns.

Bop: LMAO. Watry column reactions never disappoint.

I knew this column would garner a strong reaction but 152 comments? Those are peak Ask 411 Wrestling numbers that I hit weekly. Ah, the good ol’ days…

John: The amount of clicks this generated will be unreal lmao

Talk to the boss man about that. Originally, the plan was to write Part 1 called “I Am Not A Wrestling Fan” and then Part 2 with “I Am A Wrestling Fan” following the Great Lakes Championship Wrestling event. Didn’t quite work out that way. Either way, this was planned for awhile. Just glad it is finally done and over with. Went about as I had envisioned.

AG Awesome: My guess is that it will be the top rated article they’ve ever done on the site actually.

I like the way you think.

Sometimes.

superjobber: So why ARE you a wrestling fan?

That was the point of the column. Everything I listed is why I am a wrestling fan, hence the final line. I have never seen a Bruno Sammartino match in full. FACT. I was a fan of Test and Alex Riley. FACT. I don’t watch Raw on Monday or Smackdown live on Tuesday. FACT. I didn’t write this controversial tidbit last week, but I also enjoyed WrestleMania 32. FACT. All of the same goes the opposite way, which is why I love this industry and am indeed a wrestling fan. A big wrestling fan.

Sol Have It All: In, like, 5 hours, there are already more comments on here than any other column on this site. And yet people are still clicking on the link to comment “why is Watry”still on 411. SMDH

Welcome to my world. Ten years strong. Truth be told, I was hoping mist commenters would explain why they are wrestling fans.

WWE Heck On A Deck Review

CS 22: Must be so hard being right all the time.

It’s always hard. Just ask my girlfriend.

My Issues With WWE

AG Awesome: Justin you shared a Jim Steinman song… and that is absolutely AWESOME of you!! No matter what you say or do in the future that may aggravate me, you’ve earned major points with me for doing that.

Well, whatever major points I’ve earned, I am about to lose them all – I have no idea who Jim Steinman is.

Conor: Oh no, Watry is developing some critical thinking ability! How will he be able to enjoy hours upon hours of mediocre product now?

Perfect example of a comment from somebody who does NOT read all of my columns. Or follow me on Twitter. I am plenty critical of WWE. Heck, just last week, I was told by somebody via email to cool it with all the WWE ‘bashing.’ Kinda ridiculous, right? Right. Regardless, anybody who knows me is well aware of my upbeat and positive outlook on life, so why focus on all the negatives? There are far too many great talents in WWE right now to whine and cry about pointless wins or losses or whatever. Appreciate the good now before it is gone. Like John Cena.

Saffin: I agree with most of this except Strowman. I like the way they’re going. Just because he’s a heel doesn’t mean he should suddenly be all sneaky and two faced. The guy is believable. He knows one-on-one he own Reigns so his motivation is to even the odds and get Reigns on that deck. If he has to get a bunch of guys to back him up and even tge odds on the way so be it.

Agreed, except Braun Strowman DID turn into a sneaky, two faced heel. The entire set up at Summerslam, the next night on RAW, and using a faction to his benefit was sneaky and definitely two faced. Ultimately, it is irrelevant. The Monster Among Men will be credible as a heel or face. Look no further than Raw this past week. Just up and went in the face of Dolph Ziggler for being the weak link and screaming at him for being an idiot. A clear bully type of move but something fans cheered. Two seconds later, it was Drew McIntyre staring him down and back to being a heel. Both moments worked for the big man, without changing his character whatsoever. No issues with his future at all. He’ll be fine.

Previous Q&A

MikeK.: So you’d add a guy a rung below Cena and the Rock to the match just because instead of having two of biggest names in wrestling history wrestle? You’d probably have thrown Dino Bravo into Hulk and Andre at WrestleMania 3 also.

Pretty much. The entire CM Punk/WrestleMania 29 debate is so tired. It has been over five years. The dude was never planned to be in the main event. Not for one single second did anybody believe that was a legitimate option. CM Punk was even told as such from the start – straight from his boss’ mouth. John Cena and The Rock are two of the biggest names in all of entertainement right now and did record breaking business for WM28 and WM29, and Punk is currently…I don’t know what he is doing these days. What I find under reported from the 2012-2013 time frame is that CM Punk openly mocked and showed distain in public to working with The FREAKIN’ Undertaker at Mania. He scoffed at the matchup and blatantly said “What’s the point?” Seriously. CM Punk was not interested in wrestling the legend of all legends at the biggest stage of them all. Instead of worrying about a main event that never belonged to him, we should probably be questioning THAT nonsense instead…

Missed Roman Reigns Down In Af: I only read Justin Watry’s articles. I don’t bother with any other section on this website. Does that not mean I don’t love 411mania?

I only read Justin Watry articles too…too…too…too too too too!

Ken Wood: I’ve never seen a Matt Riddle match either. I did see the Alexander versus Murphy match though, and it was excellent.

I am sure Matt Riddle will wrestle at the next NXT Takeover live special, and I am sure it will be spectacular. Against Kassius Ohno, likely to be very good. Before getting to that point though, he is just a name to me. Like Tyler Black, Bryan Danielson, El Generico, Kevin Steen, and others – show me what you can do on the main stage. Then I can gather an opinion and judge. BRO.

theNomad: I will go on the record, and say that I don’t always agree with your viewpoints Mr. Watry, but I can respect them. Having said that…. as stated, you did not attend, nor watched All In this past weekend, and I’m assuming you won’t. Having said that, I only had one question: do you think the success of the show is great for wrestling in general?

I wish for all companies to do well. The better they do, the better we do. If RAW was getting ten million viewers in this day and age, I would have a heck of a lot more Twitter followers than I do now. If RAW was getting ten million viewers, I’d get a heck of a lot more clicks on my columns each week. If Smackdown LIVE was in a sold out 50,000 seat soccer stadium every Tuesday night, don’t you think that would be an incredible sight? If Impact Wrestling was back at one million viewers, that means more paydays for the boys and actually getting paid on time without bounced checks. if Ring Of Honor was selling out Madison Square Garden, how cool would that be? Oh, wait!!!

I attended an independent show two weeks ago. I knew it was coming up but wanted to keep it secret as part of my “Not A Wrestling Fan” column. There was maybe 150 people there. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. It would have been awesome to be there with 1,000 fans or 5,000 fans. The atmosphere and energy was cool, but the more the merrier.

Believe it or not, if you actually followed me on Twitter, I had long said that I thought ALL IN would get 10,000 fans to attend. Others laughed and mocked that goal, but I thought it would happen…and it did. Personally, I didn’t care about going nor did I even know a single match announced for the show. However, I wrote about this all already (on another website). It is great for Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, and everybody else involved being able to pull that off. No doubts they made a pretty penny (despite their public comments of breaking even) and no doubts they want to do it all again next year. That is awesome for them and for their fans. As I said, I don’t care, but the better the business does, the better I do. Why wouldn’t I want more followers on Twitters? Why wouldn’t I want more readers and clicks for my columns? Why wouldn’t I want WWE Network to get two million subscribers? It makes no sense to root against something I love. No different than being excited for you favorite movie and seeing it make major bank at the box office. Nobody wants their favorite movie to tank at the box office. Or their favorite artist release a new album and get zeto sales. Makes no sense. We should want all wrestling to succeed.

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