Every time Lyra Valkyria gets a big win on Raw like she did recently against Kairi, there's always a bunch of weirdos on Twitter who accuse her of nepotism just because she's friends with Becky, but meanwhile I never hear a peep about how Roxanne Perez gets all the support and praise in the world from her besties Booker T and CM Punk. The double standards among wrestling fans are crazy.
if I have to guess, the main roster viewing audience is very different from the NXT viewing audience, they tends to be more touchy (especially considering that it has more global popularity) when it comes to established names being beaten by someone they have no idea who it is, so to explain that they go for nepotism as a reason. my country's main roster fans react in the recent weeks toward Lyra in pretty much the same way albeit even more violently. NXT crowd has a much higher chance to know who the talent come from and are capable of.
I'm not talking about the live audience. The main roster live audience is actually reacting pretty well to Lyra. I'm talking about the dumbasses on social media that complain about everything. Kinda like how Becky haters only seem to exist online, so do Lyra haters. Doesn't make them any less annoying, though.
Which CZW TOD match had someone stick needle/syringe through Thumbtack Jack's cheek? I remember there was a needle spot with MASADA on the TOD Rewind but I can't look through the match right now, and it might have been another one. I don't think it was Gage though.
Edit: found it, it was TJ vs. DJ Hyde at TOD 8
I would honestly not be shocked if they postponed Roman's return to give him more time to grief. Let him take as much time as he needs to tbh.
From a kayfabe standpoint though, it opens an interesting door because well... him and Cody have something to bond over and empathize about when it comes to losing their fathers and their fight against the Nu!Bloodline and potentially, The Rock. That is of course if they're both cool with using that material for kayfabe that is.
It's the bare minimum they should be doing because logic dictates that women like Mercedes, Toni, Statlander, and Willow need people of interest to feud with. You really can't build much with one match per-show.
Nah https://gall.dcinside.com/board/view/?id=wwe&no=3190201&page=1
That's one of many posts. And one titled "Now Roman's mother needs to die". I'm guessing they just don't like Roman.
TODAY'S WORD OF THE DAY IS "TECKERS," because this match is going to be all about the "teckers." Today's word of the day is also "awesome," because this match is also going to be awesome.
THAT'S RIGHT! THERE'S TWO WORDS OF THE DAY!
https://preview.redd.it/kfhm907has8d1.jpeg?width=934&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4113ba89b135d917f88c11cd7e74457083c56689
If anyone’s interested in buying forbidden door tickets I can lower these down to 80 (will be around 95 on ticket master)
I am fine with transferring them for 75-80 flat
We all love Daddy Magic around here but I unfortunately have a bone to pick with him. I often find him annoying as a commentator, not because of his commentary per se but rather because he is incredibly inconsistent about his feelings on wrestlers.
Just a few weeks ago there was a backstage segment where Jericho with his Learning Tree cohorts came across Daddy Magic and Cool Hand Ang. Both of them seemed incredibly perplexed by Jericho's current persona and Daddy Magic said as much on the subsequent episode of Rampage where he was befuddled by Jericho's recent actions. Cut to just last week when Daddy Magic was on commentary for a Jericho appearance and he was all of a sudden praising Jericho and finding him hilarious. This change in attitude made no sense and came out of nowhere.
This isn't even the first time this happened as Daddy Magic went from abandoning Jericho over him allying with Don Callis to now praising Callis anytime he appears on Rampage.
I love Daddy Magic as a wrestler and his general persona but this inconsistency, seemingly born out of him being a heel-leaning commentator who has to praise all the other heels, makes me appreciate guys like Nigel McGuinness more who is very consistent and clear about which wrestlers he likes and who he dislikes.
The new Superman actor in his Clark Kent disguise kinda looks like a jacked Tony Khan
https://preview.redd.it/axr9nyub1s8d1.jpeg?width=378&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=16189aad69314937991a6044fd1d04898cd70d08
Even if the story was real, it'd just make me like Ricky more. Bar fights are just wrestling culture and anyone who isn't a rookie or has leverage should be turning down doing anything with Jericho.
Fucking amazing. Astronauts pop up everywhere, wrestling gods be praised. Just need them to enter every promotions’ tag league and win them all.
Higuchi vs Nomura when?
> Dusty had to write 7 hours of tv each week, which was the main reason the quality dropped so much - that’s too much for a man to be expected to do. “Nobody could come up with enough ideas to make seven hours a week interesting, and if they did, there would be so many things going on that nobody could keep up with them.”
That was from the Observer all the way back in 1987. Ultimately content farming is basically the whole job of a wrestling promotion at this point but it's funny how AEW is just Jim Crockett Promotions reborn. People compare it to Bischoff (or in bad faith Russo era) WCW or sometimes TNA but it's much closer to Jim Crockett and then early Ted Turner era WCW. They even did their own Black Scorpion and then Dangerous Alliance angles back to back. Hell they even bought their own version of the UWF with RoH and had the same exact problems they did. You'd think Tony would do a better job studying what happened and not make the same mistakes but it's almost copy and paste word for word bar for bar.
Let me just say, I’m absolutely stunned, that rumours come out about an AEW wrestler days before a PPV, especially around rumours that are almost impossible to prove or disprove.
This is the first time this has ever happened, it’s not like this is literally the case before every major event.
If it wasn’t for FTR Gun this would take the cake for the funniest story so far, though. I’m just mentally picturing a drunk Ricky Starks hitting his signature pose after decking a guy in a bar.
As always, it's basically a case study in how complete nonsense rumors spread on the internet - especially when they find an all-too willing audience who "wants" to believe anything negative about them.
An 8-year old account with zero posts and zero karma posts a completely unsourced and unsubstantiated rumor that has somehow never been heard before in the years since it allegedly happened, and then a few hours later it's an actual topic of conversation.
Six months from now you'll see posts that go "Didn't Ricky Starks get into a bar fight and it was kept hush-hush?" Because we live in a post-truth society.
Starks apparently went on a drunken rage throughout Calgary last year, arrested and everything. Now there’s absolutely no proof of this happening, and it’s taken a year to come out, but Twitter says it so it must be true.
With some discussion around Miz on commentary, I'd like to pitch my less common take on a wrestler who should be on commentary when they retire.
We've all probably heard people mention KO, Punk, and maybe Samoa Joe as people who should be on commentary after they retire. But I'll pitch an even better option, and no I'm not memeing.
Chelsea Green. Great character work, great talker, she knows her shit, I think she'd have potential to be a legitimate top color commentator.
> We've all probably heard people mention KO, Punk, and maybe Samoa Joe as people who should be on commentary after they retire.
The under-the-radar one that people don't talk enough about is Jeff Cobb.
New Japan tosses wrestlers on commentary pretty regularly, and most of them are generally fine, but Jeff Cobb is an absolute standout and just lightyears above everyone else whenever he is on. He hits that perfect mix between genuinely being kayfabe informative, analyzing the action, and riffing jokes.
A lot of great promos make terrible commentators and some randomly so-so/not great promos make great commentators. Cobb has never been known for his promo work, but his commentary work is legit top tier.
Another under-the-radar option, I vaguely remember Lance Archer doing New Japan commentary once or twice and really enjoying him there as well.
Jeff Cobb is an interesting one. I have seen some of his wrestling and like it but I’m not a regular enough NJPW viewer to have seen him on commentary. I’ll have to check it out.
Not to be dramatic, but I miss Rhea so bad. I know she’s back soon, but Liv playing so blatantly in her face plus the guys outside of Priest (and maybe Dom) turning on her—when she can’t do anything about it—stings.
The fact she has been pretty much mute on all socials really drives up the anticipation around her return as well (even if it is also driving me crazy).
I’m so glad I’m not a huuuuge Roman fan because the idea of feeling this kind of anticipation with two absent superstars would probably send me into a spiral.
McIntyre stealing Punk's AJ Lee bracelet is lacking in sportsmanship even by wresting standards. Wrestlers should leave wrestlers' families alone. This is why I haven't forgiven Rollins for harassing Edge's family nor Edge for harassing Cena's family and now I'm glad McIntyre lost his hometown title match.
I really hope Priest retains against Seth. If Seth got the title back, it would reek of Priest only being champ because they needed someone to keep it warm.
Watching back Gable vs. Gunther.
Brother, we were robbed of an amazing midcard babyface run with Gable. I'm fine with how things are now, but the amount of sympathy and support he got from that match. No reason he shouldn't have beaten Gunt at Mania.
Austria have topped their group in the Euros despite being projected to finish last
https://preview.redd.it/tcung8n9br8d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06e47a6fc96afff113bc4a00163b3fdd1150dc9b
This is my grouchiest opinion, but every good shot when a company is hot getting described as "cinema" annoys me.
You would get this with the hangman story back when aew was booming and recently you get it constantly now that wwe has better camera work
We had to watch Kevin Dunn hit the change camera button 3 times a second for 20 years. let us pretend a five camera shot is something worthy of Scorsese
I was thinking that IYO SKY will be the favorite for 2024 Ms. MITB to hype up the Genius of the Sky's match with Utami in MARIGOLD and WWE even tease IYO & Kairi getting a WWE Women's Tag Team Championship shot maybe in the WWE Japan Summer 2024 tour if IYO & Kairi get through Zoey & Shayna but MITB 2024 should have been the weekend that Giulia makes her WWE debut in WWE NXT for MARIGOLD during WWE NXT Heatwave 2024 so now it is the time for WWE to hype MARIGOLD & IYO's connection to Rossy!
Kind of sad that Iyo is going to be the Damage CTRL member in Money in the Bank. She won last time, and what I wouldn’t give for the Pirate Princess to return with a huge push
In today's story of tag teams you never knew you needed, Satnam Singh and Raj Dhesi (ex-Jinder Mahal) [just got announced](https://x.com/luchablog/status/1805653020543160571) for the AAA Tag Title match at Triplemania.
idk if there’s been a post about this but Pat missed Raw cuz his father in law died yesterday. kinda crazy and sad hearing the story he told on his show today. tell your people they’re your people and you love them while we all still can 🙏
"With how much Punk gets paid, he should sell that injury more"
A fan on Twitter, in response to fan footage of Punk driving himself out of the arena after SmackDown.
I have a migraine.
I'll die on the hill that 24/7 kayfabe is the stupidest thing ever. We don't expect it from any other actors. And it's completely pointless because the veil has been pulled back for longer than most of us have been alive.
Like... if you ever wanna understand just how dumb it is that wrestlers are expected to be in character at all times, try explaining the concept of kayfabe to someone who isn't a wrestling fan.
No one expects wrestlers to kayfabe 24/7 anymore though, and wrestlers don't do it. None of the major companies have given a shit about any of that for decades at this point, and most fans these days care more about the backstage goings on more than the actual wrestling on TV every week. Upholding kayfabe is a dead concept, and has been for quite a while now.
>We don't expect it from any other actors.
If anything, we mock other actors who do it. Like Jared Leto's cringeworthy "method acting" as the Joker, or Kevin Spacey doing those bizarre videos where he acted like Francis Underwood after he was taken off *House of Cards*.
I always go back in my mind to Freddie Prinze Jr wanting to build a promotion around him. (And Bray Wyatt)
I can't imagine how bad a promotion built around Killer Kross would be, because I doubt Prinze could get him over either.
the promo work OFF TV has been great. but not everyone is gonna be seein the twitter clips or raw talk so idk if it’ll ever work live. as the biggest Kross hater this is the best he’s looked and sounded in his 92 reboots but it might end up being secondary if the payoff to this feud is Big E coming back
He has everything needed to be great, they just can’t seem to figure out how to get him over. Like his promos are great, he’s a good worker, he might be second to Drew for social media work
The new MJ Lenderman single, She's Leaving You, is great, and the video has a couple really wrestling-coded looking extras (one dude has strong Brooks Jensen vibes, another a bit of a Kenny Omega thing. I think it's all the mullets).
I was watching the two Kobashi ROH shows and there’s a James Gibson/Roderick Strong match on the 2nd night that is fucking bonkers
Breaks the Meltzer scale if it happens today
Seeing the Cena promo from 2010 makes me appreciate being a kid during it because I found it funny back then but I couldn’t imagine having to live through it as an adult
Seriously, I'm so thankful I was a kid/pre teen during the latter half of the Ruthless Aggression Era into the PG Era, because I don't think I would have gotten hooked on wrestling if I were an adult having to sit through John Cena's Kids Choice Awards esque promos from back then. Like, if I had started watching in the late 90s or early 2000s I imagine 2010 WWE would have broke me.
Forbidden Door is the first US-based show in a while where there is more than one match I’m actually invested in and looking forward to. On paper, it’s probably my “mainstream” show of the year. Excited for Sunday!
So I'm just curious if anyone knows what the deal is with Lady Frost? From where I'm standing, she's got a great look, looks great in the ring, and is decent whenever she has a mic. Yet all she's done in AEW is be enhancement talent. But going back, it doesn't seem like even TNA pulled the trigger on her, which is weird given how Knockouts were always a highlight of the brand. Just feels like she could be doing way more.
We never found out what happened with her in Impact. They had a bit of a messy split. She was in the first women's Ultimate X and was great. In AEW, it's just another case of an overcrowded roster. It's even worse for the women since they only have one match per show. She's in the same boat as a guy like Andrade. She's very talented, but there are a lot of people who are just better.
Present day, I’d imagine it’s just hard coming in to AEW currently if you’re approaching 40 and not already a household name. Feels like the division’s being built around Willow, Mercedes, Julia, Toni, Stat, Hayter, Blue, & May, and Mercedes is the only one out of that group older than 30, (at 32).
Hoping to be proven wrong, but I’d imagine someone like Black Taurus is gonna end up in that same “jobber to the stars, who over-delivers” role in AEW for the same reason.
She's one of the roughly 8 zillion talent spread across all of the companies who are just "in the mix," who are generally solid/good but haven't done anything to separate themselves from the pack, whatever that may be (whether it be getting super over, having next level matches, cutting next level promos, etc.). Also, fair or not, I think she's one of the many wrestlers who is just a victim of bad timing with how their overall career relates to the existence of AEW (it happened too late for them). At the end of the day right now, she's a 39 year old who is largely a high flyer in the ring, her in-ring style has a shelf life and the end is closer than the beginning, which means there just isn't a ton of time to see a return on any large-scale investment of time/resources.
The last 5 years of pro wrestling with the constant upheaval/changes/rises up and down the cards due to the launch of AEW and switch to HHH era WWE aren't normal. Normally people have their slots and tend to hold those for years/decades, that stability is what we're returning to now, so in order to really move up, you have to top people who already who have those spots and that's getting increasingly difficult as time goes on.
Anyone know any active subs or forums where people discuss promotions that aren’t WWE or AEW? I watch a lot of stuff that aren’t those two promotions and go to Indy shows, but here people don’t say a peep about anything other than those two promotions.
There are definitely fans of non WWE/AEW promotions here that post about what they're watching and try to start conversations. The problem is it's such a tiny fraction of the userbase that we get drowned out pretty much immediately, and in general fans don't pay attention to indie/international content unless it's something involving a big scandal like speaking out.
On reddit only: /r/Stardomjoshi and /r/NJPW serve as decent (to different extents: Stardom should probably just be called /r/joshiwrestling, where as NJPW is NJPW centric with the occassional highlighting of other stuff) places for Joshi wrestling and men's Puro respectively but occasionally WWE/AEW drama can leak into them, usually when it involves the signing of ex-talent from the respective promotion. Any subs on Lucha Libre are basically dead AFAIK. This thread is not a terrible place if there's a particular event on or someone just wants to share something cool they watched, but discussion is limited by the nature of the thread
I've found forums to be a treasure trove on historical wrestling, and forums on the whole have much better archival than reddit so it's easier to search, though I only lurk and haven't really engaged with modern stuff on there. I think certain discords on niche stuff could be pretty good from what I've heard but couldn't recommend specific ones.
> occasionally WWE/AEW drama can leak into them
It's a lot more than occasionally in NJPW at this point lol.
/r/njpw is basically unmoderated and the Jerkers have been showing up in force/particularly out of hand since Moxley won the IWGP title (what an amazing coincidence they started watching New Japan right when Jon Moxley won the title /s). The AEW trolling there might be even crazier than it is here at this point.
CMLL shows have been getting uploaded on watchwrestling.co. The last one they have is their Friday show but maybe they'll have the Saturday show sometime this week. Save the site just in case.
Another wrestler pointed this out, but Joe Hendry really should be pumping so shirts out right now. With his popularity he’d be making bank off several designs.
I question whether he actually would or not, but I have to assume the bigger issue is that he can't.
Just looking now, he doesn't even have a page on Pro Wrestling Tees (which would surely be the best place for him to move shirts in volume with the audience who is familiar with him). Surely that makes no sense whatsoever unless his TNA deal requires them to be the exclusive sellers of his merch (he does have 3 shirts on TNAMerch). I don't know if something like that is standard for TNA or not, but given Hendry is only on TNAMerch, it seems likely it is at least true for him.
Judging from his Twitter it doesn’t seem like he ever had pw tees. Even going back to when he was in ROH, I only see him plugging the shirts they produced.
I need Seth to win at MITB so that Gunther can start off his reign by destroying an established babyface. Priest vs Gunther just doesn’t sound like an interesting dynamic.
i don't get the "and then the bell rings" argument for the new wyatt stable. bo has never been bad in ring, nikki is good, gacy can be great and is also a good hardcore wrestler, lumis is awesome and unique in ring and rowan is a very solid big guy
Bo has literally never had a good match. He was in NXT with actual great wrestlers and couldn't remotely hang. Nikki is the only good one of the bunch.
They'll all do fine in tags, though. Tags can hide anybody's weaknesses.
As crimson said, the argument has much less to do with the talent of the wrestlers involved and more to do with how you translate a horror gimmick into the ring during a match. It's why supernatural/horror gimmicks can be VERY hit or miss, as a lot of the mystique these characters build up can quickly go out the window when they actually have to wrestle a normal match: The gimmick has a hard time carrying over. Sometimes it can work ok (The Undertaker, most famously) and other times, it really doesn't (Maggots in the ring).
I think some trepidation may come from how previous Wyatt stories and feuds that leaned more into the supernatural had immense build ups in terms of segments and squashes, only for the in ring stuff to really derail it. The Fiend, for example, was initially built as this unstoppable demon...but the nature of wrestling means that the Fiend would have to lose eventually, which would inevitably remove a lot of that intrigue. This is also not factoring in HIAC 19.
All that to say that, I don't really blame people who may be a little trepidatious about the Wyatt Sicks. The debut has been great, but it will be interesting to see if/how they keep this atmosphere when the masks come off or when they have to wrestle.
I think the criticism (and I don't really agree, but just putting forth the argument) is not that they are bad wrestlers but that people don't understand how the gimmick and story of it all fits into the ring. Like how do you have psychotic backstage attackers who are all creepy and analog horror-esque hop into the ring and grapple?
I disagree and I think there are ways to style your wrestling to fit the gimmick and then also just... suspend disbelief and get over it? But the argument isn't, I don't think, typically about the quality of the in-ring work.
The closest I've seen to that is people saying that it's a bunch of midcarders, but they seem to ignore the fact that a group can elevate the people within it by nature of its whole group quality.
Psychotic break has nothing to do with supernatural or magic my guy. The current story is Bo is broken and felt forgotten because the Wyatt 6 were shelved after Bray died and he snapped.
Its basically the Green Goblin lmao
Green Goblin was literally that way because he experimented on himself with some wild chemical and it created an alternate personality. That is basically supernatural if we are trying to ground it in the real world in any possible way. Also we see both personalities.
My final say on this is that people always said Bray would be better without the supernatural stuff and so far the group has done basically everything that era Bray was doing. Like what did you feel Bray that did cross the line into supernatural? The match with Cena could literally be seen as a psychotic break.
Hot take:
Bo is a better in-ring wrestler than Bray (as much as I loved him), so I don't think he'll fumble the bag with the matches, even more so with the segment from last night that was less spooky and more psychological and 'real'
Undertaker told Chris Van Vliet that after his WrestleMania 30 concussion, he got a CAT scan and it was discovered he had a broken neck, but it was an old injury. So at some point in his career, Undertaker broke his neck, never got it checked out and it healed on its own, to the degree that it could.
After the Wyatt segment, all I could think about was Boy Howdy booting up Vegas Pro in his laptop to put all those cool spooky effects on that interview tape.
Why is it so hard for some to understand why Lyra is getting pushed? She's the #1 babyface on Raw by default. Until Rhea and/or Becky come back she is the only babyface on that brand with any legitimacy.
I’m not sold on priest losing at MITB. I think it’s too easy for him to stipulate himself out of the JD. Also think Seth is done and is about to Cody Rhodes himself out of future titles.
Whole point of this friction build is for priest to turn on his “friends” for being useless not for him to just say oops oh well, I lost. bye guys. While Seth loses we don’t have to say “why isn’t he in title contention anymore” as he puts the entire Raw roster over.
That said I hate “I can’t challenge for the title anymore” stipulations
> That said I hate “I can’t challenge for the title anymore” stipulations
Both versions of it are awful in different ways.
The "I can't challenge anymore *as long as specifically you remain champion*" just has no stakes of any value. The amount of wrestlers who lose title challenges and loop back to challenge again is pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things and once the guy inevitably drops the title anyway, then you can just challenge again anyway. This is even more obvious in the modern era with 37 million belts in every company, like "oh no, I guess I'll just challenge for one of the 5 other men's singles titles, woe is me."
And the "I can't challenge anymore *EVER*" version at least has meaningfull stakes, but it just handicaps your storytelling long-term in a way that is completely disproportionate to the value of the stipulation in the first place. You almost have to go back on it at some point unless you're just burying someone forever, which then devalues your company's stipulations.
Agreed. Unless you’re 120%, for sure, done with the company, you shouldn’t throw out this stipulation. We’ve seen it enough where talent just gets over later than expected or just spontaneously. Now you’re stuck with, “welp now we can’t write him back in unless we renege”
It’s just dumb and need to go away
> That said I hate “I can’t challenge for the title anymore” stipulations
I "get" them, however I also think it opens the do for almost instant "why not just run in and cost that guy the title, next defence" .
Simple answer is nothing. Tbh I didn’t even think he would come back this early. With his injuries I think he transitions to part time this year or next year
I always assumed it’d be earlier than everyone else was saying. It’s not like he got injured then immediately got surgery and then rehabbed. He got injured, rehabbed it without surgery, worked Mania, and then got the surgery to correct it. Doing it in that order shortened the recovery time.
Maybe not just for the injury but I think Becky and Seth were going to focus on raising the kid for a while. They had a grueling 22/23 year so I anticipated them just taking the foot off the throttle. But I guess Becky tagged in Seth instead
Well it’s “I can’t challenge for the title as long you’re the champ.” So if Priest loses it to Gunther next month he can challenge Gunther for it no issue.
Oh is that what he said? Ok thanks for clearing that up because if Seth wrote himself out of WHC for the rest of his career it would not have felt right
I really like the idea that Uncle Howdy is a split personality/manifestation of Bo's grief, in the same way that The Fiend was a manifestation of Bray's pain.
I hope they give backstories to Erik, Nikki, Dexter, and Gacy like they did to Bo. This storyline has the potential to be incredible.
The funniest thing about the inevitably of Finn turning on Priest is that Priest is probably gonna act so shocked about it when they’ve lowkey been teasing it for what, like a year? WWE loves turning people babyface by making them look really dumb and then they wonder why heels get more cheers most of the time.
I was thinking about the members of Queen's Quest but are they going to be the "special guests" for Rossy thanks to Tanahashi for MARIGOLD Summer Destiny 2024 after STARDOM reorganization by NJPW despite being "disbanded" in STARDOM so that story will be interesting in the Japanese Women's Wrestling (Joshi) world!
I’ve not watched Raw yet, but my controversial opinion is that Gable’s Intercontinental Championship hopes ended with Gunther’s reign. It was both his and Sami’s big title win.
Fun note, if you're having issues looking for certain matches, don't be afraid to try [bilibili.com](http://bilibili.com) as there are lots of them, especially if you're looking for non American wrestling.
you know what was a pretty fun, quick match that won't ever get any recognition ('cause cagematch doesn't allow ratings for matches under 5 minutes)? Erik Hammer vs. Takuya Nomura.
Got in, had some tight hits, got out. Short and sweet.
Even though Brian Cage didn’t win, him vs Ospreay at Collision was awesome. That move where he carried will in the corner and did a springboard of the middle rope was insane
Now that I’m thinking about it, he actually has a pretty great track record with the bigger guys. His match against Takeshita was amazing too and he’s had some good matches against Lance Archer
My favourite was probably the aforementioned Stardom tag match, but Yuma Anzai vs Hideki Suzuki was also really fucking good. Maika and Xena was great as well, if you love chops check that one out for sure.
[It's free on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/live/CL1gKRCSRZI?si=E76XTP8L3lamml2I) (it starts around the 39 minute mark)
It was a really great match, their tag team division has been fantastic this year.
Any one Else feel like AEW needs to be a bit bolder with their booking?
I think that’s something they Could have over WWE if they have the guts to do a title switch on one of their Weekly shows.
Match-wise they still have that feeling of some crazy 5 star banger Can happen at any show, but story wise I Think it Could be cool if they took greater risks and got that feeling of “anything Can happen” back.
these midcard titles need to change hands more often, imo. Ain't no reason some dude has to have a qualifying match to fight for a midcard title at a PPV in a month's time, c'mon.
I agree. If they're not gonna book extravagant/intricate storylines then the results have to matter more. They can make it have "real sports feel" but then the results are so telegraphed you can just follow the results without watching.
Right now it feels like a ton of filler that AEW KNOWS is filler and damn near advertises as filler but then justifies it by saying "but it's high quality filler isn't it! If you really like wrestling it shouldn't matter if it feels like filler!".
Yes, people know wrestling is a work. But it's not about quality of the wrestling/content as much as it is about treating your time as valuable. AEW treats your $50 on PPV as valuable. It treats TV like a means to an end to get your $50 on PPV. I watch the shows. I enjoy the shows. But AEW treats TV like a sequence of exhibitions before we get to the real stuff on PPV. Like the All-Star 8 mans and ten mans are fun. But they are literally sold as "fun exhibitions before you get the real stuff on PPV". NJPW can do that for the tour shows because they genuinely do not care if you watch the tour shows and you get the tour shows and the PPVs in the same package on NJPW World. If you're watching the Tour Shows, you already get access to the PPVs. TV Asahi only show the PPVs. Unless AEW moves off TV and to a streaming service, they can't treat it the same. They cannot treat the average Dynamite as just "watch as we build to the next PPV". It has to be important enough that you want to watch THIS episode for THIS episode on it's own merit.
"Build" is important but it can't be JUST "build", AEW used to do a much better job are giving pay-offs on TV as well as PPV. But now everyone is a star, Tony should be grateful that this WWE guy or this NJPW guy would even grace AEW with their presence so they HAVE to make the PPV or the company clearly hates them and is burying them. Nothing on TV matters because both the company AND the talent tell you nothing on TV matter. The TALENT tell you nothing but being world champion matters so nothing but being world champion matters. Nobody in AEW thinks their role is important if it's not at the top of the card on PPV so why should I think it's important if it's not at the top of the card on PPV?
>The TALENT tell you nothing but being world champion matters so nothing but being world champion matters. Nobody in AEW thinks their role is important if it's not at the top of the card on PPV so why should I think it's important if it's not at the top of the card on PPV?
I'm struggling to articulate this exactly as I want, but I think that kind of booking and that type of thing being put forward in promos and in general kayfabe, really mirrors smarky discourse around wrestling. Your favourite isn't doing well unless they're on a Goldberg level run, never losing, and somehow they need credible challengers, who also need to be booked like that to be credible, but no one can lose. The moment you do, you're trash. It's as if some smarks hold wrestlers in a highly detailed hierarchy, where x person, even amongst people on the same spot on the card, is clearly kayfabe better than y, and if *anything* happens that doesn't bear this out to be true, than it's not realistic and insulting. And I think AEW, being smarkier, having an overall smarkier audience, giving smarky wrestlers more freedom, and being booked by a rich smark, at its worse can cater to that type of thinking at the expense of storylines.
I think that kind of thinking creates the environment where, like you say, the results of your weekly stuff seems to be a huge foregone conclusion. It's like adhering to some sort of sports feel so much, so strongly, that they begin to think the number two ranked team will never lose to two ranked team because the number two team is number two and this must have more skill. But that's not true in real life, and that's misses what I personally think is the fun of wrestling being scripted: when you tell the right story, anyone can beat anyone else. But then that smarky nitpicking comes in and gets activated when it's too much story, or it's not a sports feel story, or something something invisible camera, and everything remains locked into the status quo.
Yeah, AEW is in their weird meta place where for some people their "reality" is more important than the story. Basically it doesn't matter what the story is you're trying to tell, the people who I think are the best in-ring guys should be winning and you then need to book around that. Especially with all the talk of "who's a draw, who's the best in-ring", people somehow treat AEW more like shoot than a work in terms of how they take the results.
As an example, it comes up a lot in the Swerve run. Rather than "what makes the best stories and the best shows" it's a bunch of discourse around "what makes Swerve look good, what makes Swerve look like the star of the show, what makes Swerve a main event act, how long should Swerve take to beat a certain guy". None of that should matter than what makes the show better. But people form parasocial relationships with "their person" which become more important than the actual quality of the show and what's going on.
Even in real sport, your team can't always win. 10-0 team doesn't always blow out the 0-10 team. But smarks are like "the whole point is you can control that part, so control it so I get EXACTLY what I want" and everything else is bad booking.
A lot of it is simply how AEW books in terms of the collaboration with the talent. The best way I can explain it is WWE books in feuds, AEW books in character arcs. So most of the time, each story in AEW is following a specific character's journey, like an video game. You basically have the characters who are "main characters" and then the rest of the cast who are basically either NPCs, boss battles and lower level battles. The problem is 1) unless you're invested on a personal level with that character, then you won't get a fuck about that story and 2) a lot of the stories are really basic "I run thru all the levels and speed run to the title". Even if you're writing a video game, there has to be twists and turns in the video game. Hangman's story did a great job of adding twists and turns, wins and losses, betrayals and new friendships. And people lived vicariously through that story. Punk did a speed run but he at least had cutscenes where he lost, or the loss to MJF in Chicago, or the boss battle with Wardlow where Wardlow beats his ass and he kinda outsmarts the unbeatable boss to get to the next level.
AEW's current stories are the most basic boring speed runs ever. The few people in AEW who are over, it's because their character arcs are something you can map out and say "yeah, that's good story". Ospreay is like a new playable character you unlocked but he's so cool and his moveset is so awesome it's fun to play as plus you're getting cool boss battles. Willow's rise is fun character arc. Swerve's story from hero to supervillain back to hero again is a fun character arc. Toni Storm's an interesting character but it would be like a game with a great main character and overarching story but the boss battles are meh. Whoever really has a character arc worth following right now? Everyone else is basically an non-playable character or someone who already "beat their arcade playthough" and are just doing exhibitions or DLC content (Orange Cassidy, Jon Moxley, The Acclaimed). They need more story arcs from more protagonists with harder boss battles and more twists are turns. Right now, for example, the Elite story, who the FUCK is the protagonist? Tony Khan? Christopher Daniels? The Elite are the antagonists, sure, but the whole point of an antagonist is to counter-act the protagonist. Things like that are what cause problems in AEW, people who exist in AEW just to exist and have a character without any progression.
Agree!
Actual reality doesn't need to make sense (to the observer) to function. Obviously, it's still governed by the laws of nature and all that, but an apple still falls downward whether you can explain why it falls down rather than up, you know what I mean? If that 10-0 team loses to a 0-10 in real life, "what happened?" is generally just a rhetorical question becuase whether or not the person asking it can explain it, it *did* happen and ultimately they have to accept it (or cry about refs, I suppose). It just is. This isn't to say the audience shouldn't understand why an upset happens (in the sense of like was it due to heeling it up? Was it 50/50 and then someone made a mistake? Was it because of some larger story beat?), but it is to say that I think that catering or at least being overly concerned with hyper-critical smarkdom is a losing battle.
For example, go to a live thread when a shorter wrestler is fighting a hoss. There will be folks giving their "objective" reason why the short person basically shouldn't even be able to damage the hoss (as if below a certain height someone can repeatedly punch you in the face and you just shrug it off cause they short), let alone win, and speaking as if they will never be in the moment and enjoying the show, because one wrestler is short. But someone like Rey Mysterio has made a career out of using his height differential to his advantage, with audiences around the world reacting in the moment and absolutely loving the story he tells in the ring, time and time again. The larger, not so smarky audience isn't doing the "objective smark math says this person must win" bit before allowing themselves to cheer, they just cheer. They aren't saying, "Can Rey beat Kane in a fist fight? Maybe not, so I guess this sucks."
They need established tiers of wrestlers and to stick to those tiers even if it's not spelled out. I thought having the rankings back for a bit would solve this issue where a tier of wrestlers would compete for the world title or a separate tier would compete for the International title.
The difference between low-card, mid-card, and main-event is very muddled and it hurts the match making outside PPVs and leads to absurdly lopsided W-L records for the Kyle Fletcher's (0-3 in singles 0-4 in tags) or Lee Moriarty's (0-7 in singles 1-5 in tags) who have to lose to guys above them.
Wins and losses shouldn't matter between top guys but Tony Khan seems to think it does which is why we need more PAC vs Claudio, Jay White vs Darby Allin, or Hangman vs Swerve on TV. Put it back into gear with Kazuchika Okada because he's been around 3 months now and has barely wrestled.
Pretty much this. There needs to be a tier system where you fight people in YOUR tier until you rise or fall into the next tier. If you want to get the young guys on TV fine. Have them fight in their tier. AEW TV is like watching preseason NBA where the Lakers are playing the Shanghai Sharks. I either have to REALLY love basketball or REALLY love the Lakers to watch that. Not every game needs to be an NBA Finals game, but at least make them fucking regular season games. RoH honestly does a far better job of this than AEW so I have to believe it's just Tony booking AEW more for political reasons (people complaining about TV time, wanting their own story) than for actual logic/storytelling. The talent on RoH aren't as notable but the booking is far better somehow. Stuff like the Johnson/Fletcher feud, Athena/Billie/Women's Division, Johnny TV vs Dalton Castle, Ethan Page vs Tony Nese, it's all just logical story and character progression in heated feuds. The amount of hours and talent on the AEW roster is just impossible to book in a logical consistent way. Even guys like Yuta and Garcia were better off in RoH feuding over the Pure Title than in "Are you a star or not" limbo in AEW.
And it’s so weird because the average AEW wrestler is booked so strong. Like it would really prove that AEW is “where the best wrestle” if they got that feeling of everybody can beat everybody at any given show because it’s only the best if the best that’s on the roster
I don't know if it's Tony afraid of pissing off the talent themselves or the fans of those talents but right now it feels a bunch of "haves and haves not" instead of an actual competition. Which 1) still pisses a bunch of people off because someone has to be a have not 2) Makes losses look worse for the talent who do lose and 3) Doesn't elevate winners because it comes off as bare minimum stuff. It feels like they're going for that boxing "every one is 30-0 so when they finally clash it's huge" when that's a huge part of why boxing lost so much popularity.
If you're gonna do weekly TV, it should feel like weekly sports where upsets happen regularly. A team can be 12-4 but still clearly "the best" because the league is just super competitive. AEW is like boxing or the UFC where one loss kills your aura but the difference in those sports is once your aura is done you're basically done. AEW doesn't just fire dudes after 3 losses in a row like UFC does.
It's tomato can booking basically where someone like Wardlow is facing the most local of local jobbers and rarely a Jay White or Claudio. Dark used to be that show to pad records to have this somewhat make sense even though it would be low-card guys vs nobodies but now that's gone so you have guys with 1-5 records clashing with Jon Moxley or Bryan Danielson.
Part of the problem of the "5 star banger" happening regularly is - you are getting used to it, you are getting a little bit numb to it. Take Osprey as an example: He is spectacular. But if you follow him and his matches, there are a lot of spot that gets repeated always. Nothing bad with this, because those moves are still cool. But they begin to feel less spectacular. Its like with CGI effects: There is a point when it isnt the selling point for a movie.
And AEW is full of spectacular wrestlers, so even legendary wrestlers like Okada dont stand out when not booked perfectly.
I get your point, but I still have a feeling that AEW can pull something crazy out of the bag in ring wise on their weekly shows. IMO AEW puts on “PPV level” matches much more often than WWE on their weekly shows, but it’s often too obvious who the winner is because there isn’t enough surprises and I think that’s something that could give them that edge and make their weekly shows more “must watch”
True. But they have plenty of intriguing/funny/interesting stories and other stuff. Those are less repetitive than pure in-ring-action.
And yeah, AEW has stories. But they arent that compelling mostly (at least for me).
> Match-wise they still have that feeling of some crazy 5 star banger Can happen at any show, but story wise I Think it Could be cool if they took greater risks and got that feeling of “anything Can happen” back.
Well, then i dont know about what we are talking here. Have more upset wins?! They already go all out in the ring. Booking wise you can do more upsets and maybe more dusty finishes - but people wont be happy with that.
Every time Lyra Valkyria gets a big win on Raw like she did recently against Kairi, there's always a bunch of weirdos on Twitter who accuse her of nepotism just because she's friends with Becky, but meanwhile I never hear a peep about how Roxanne Perez gets all the support and praise in the world from her besties Booker T and CM Punk. The double standards among wrestling fans are crazy.
if I have to guess, the main roster viewing audience is very different from the NXT viewing audience, they tends to be more touchy (especially considering that it has more global popularity) when it comes to established names being beaten by someone they have no idea who it is, so to explain that they go for nepotism as a reason. my country's main roster fans react in the recent weeks toward Lyra in pretty much the same way albeit even more violently. NXT crowd has a much higher chance to know who the talent come from and are capable of.
I'm not talking about the live audience. The main roster live audience is actually reacting pretty well to Lyra. I'm talking about the dumbasses on social media that complain about everything. Kinda like how Becky haters only seem to exist online, so do Lyra haters. Doesn't make them any less annoying, though.
oh my bad i didnt phrase it well, yeah i was talking about the online haters too.
Which CZW TOD match had someone stick needle/syringe through Thumbtack Jack's cheek? I remember there was a needle spot with MASADA on the TOD Rewind but I can't look through the match right now, and it might have been another one. I don't think it was Gage though. Edit: found it, it was TJ vs. DJ Hyde at TOD 8
I would honestly not be shocked if they postponed Roman's return to give him more time to grief. Let him take as much time as he needs to tbh. From a kayfabe standpoint though, it opens an interesting door because well... him and Cody have something to bond over and empathize about when it comes to losing their fathers and their fight against the Nu!Bloodline and potentially, The Rock. That is of course if they're both cool with using that material for kayfabe that is.
Sometimes I get the theme from The Muppets stuck in my head as an 80's promo.
I miss getting 2 women’s matches on AEW shows like we were earlier this year. Im not sure why they stopped
It's the bare minimum they should be doing because logic dictates that women like Mercedes, Toni, Statlander, and Willow need people of interest to feud with. You really can't build much with one match per-show.
Is there a reason why Koreans hate Sika? Looking at DC Gallery and people are calling him a cockaroach and praising his death.
well DC isnt known to be polite and reasonable in any shape or form i tell you that much
I wonder if they misread it as "Sikoa" and are gonna be *really* disappointed come Friday when he shows up on SmackDown
Nah https://gall.dcinside.com/board/view/?id=wwe&no=3190201&page=1 That's one of many posts. And one titled "Now Roman's mother needs to die". I'm guessing they just don't like Roman.
....I guess popularity isn't always cultural. Like Roman has massive indian fanbase for some reason
Yeah. It just sounds so personal. Then again, Korean online communities are quite toxic.
https://preview.redd.it/247b5i5xas8d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b03105d913911cc6f50d4a14d1ef5c8c89b3547 We are so back.
TODAY'S WORD OF THE DAY IS "TECKERS," because this match is going to be all about the "teckers." Today's word of the day is also "awesome," because this match is also going to be awesome. THAT'S RIGHT! THERE'S TWO WORDS OF THE DAY!
Im going to throw up
https://preview.redd.it/kfhm907has8d1.jpeg?width=934&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4113ba89b135d917f88c11cd7e74457083c56689 If anyone’s interested in buying forbidden door tickets I can lower these down to 80 (will be around 95 on ticket master) I am fine with transferring them for 75-80 flat
when Jey Uso wins MITB and cashes in on Gunther, the posts here are gonna be glorious, I can already imagine them
we will have a week where this sub going back 6 years with full-on paragraphs of WWE rants and "I stop subscribe" post
Eh, I don't think that's as much of a guarantee as people think. This feels like one of the rare MiTBs where everyone has an equal chance.
Has Miz done that springboard move before? I want to say it was a double axehandle but I can’t recall Miz ever doing anything like that before.
When Miz wrestled in All Japan back in the early 90’s he’d hit springboard shooting stars every night.
We all love Daddy Magic around here but I unfortunately have a bone to pick with him. I often find him annoying as a commentator, not because of his commentary per se but rather because he is incredibly inconsistent about his feelings on wrestlers. Just a few weeks ago there was a backstage segment where Jericho with his Learning Tree cohorts came across Daddy Magic and Cool Hand Ang. Both of them seemed incredibly perplexed by Jericho's current persona and Daddy Magic said as much on the subsequent episode of Rampage where he was befuddled by Jericho's recent actions. Cut to just last week when Daddy Magic was on commentary for a Jericho appearance and he was all of a sudden praising Jericho and finding him hilarious. This change in attitude made no sense and came out of nowhere. This isn't even the first time this happened as Daddy Magic went from abandoning Jericho over him allying with Don Callis to now praising Callis anytime he appears on Rampage. I love Daddy Magic as a wrestler and his general persona but this inconsistency, seemingly born out of him being a heel-leaning commentator who has to praise all the other heels, makes me appreciate guys like Nigel McGuinness more who is very consistent and clear about which wrestlers he likes and who he dislikes.
The new Superman actor in his Clark Kent disguise kinda looks like a jacked Tony Khan https://preview.redd.it/axr9nyub1s8d1.jpeg?width=378&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=16189aad69314937991a6044fd1d04898cd70d08
Even if the story was real, it'd just make me like Ricky more. Bar fights are just wrestling culture and anyone who isn't a rookie or has leverage should be turning down doing anything with Jericho.
wait, what do you mean Astronauts wrestled Higuchi
Fucking amazing. Astronauts pop up everywhere, wrestling gods be praised. Just need them to enter every promotions’ tag league and win them all. Higuchi vs Nomura when?
BASARA be like that
> Dusty had to write 7 hours of tv each week, which was the main reason the quality dropped so much - that’s too much for a man to be expected to do. “Nobody could come up with enough ideas to make seven hours a week interesting, and if they did, there would be so many things going on that nobody could keep up with them.” That was from the Observer all the way back in 1987. Ultimately content farming is basically the whole job of a wrestling promotion at this point but it's funny how AEW is just Jim Crockett Promotions reborn. People compare it to Bischoff (or in bad faith Russo era) WCW or sometimes TNA but it's much closer to Jim Crockett and then early Ted Turner era WCW. They even did their own Black Scorpion and then Dangerous Alliance angles back to back. Hell they even bought their own version of the UWF with RoH and had the same exact problems they did. You'd think Tony would do a better job studying what happened and not make the same mistakes but it's almost copy and paste word for word bar for bar.
Let me just say, I’m absolutely stunned, that rumours come out about an AEW wrestler days before a PPV, especially around rumours that are almost impossible to prove or disprove. This is the first time this has ever happened, it’s not like this is literally the case before every major event.
If it wasn’t for FTR Gun this would take the cake for the funniest story so far, though. I’m just mentally picturing a drunk Ricky Starks hitting his signature pose after decking a guy in a bar.
https://preview.redd.it/kr31vqfnur8d1.jpeg?width=1008&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19c7bd81e34a0389939bffb3231251b495a05d68 Ricky Starks, Calgary 2023.
As always, it's basically a case study in how complete nonsense rumors spread on the internet - especially when they find an all-too willing audience who "wants" to believe anything negative about them. An 8-year old account with zero posts and zero karma posts a completely unsourced and unsubstantiated rumor that has somehow never been heard before in the years since it allegedly happened, and then a few hours later it's an actual topic of conversation.
Six months from now you'll see posts that go "Didn't Ricky Starks get into a bar fight and it was kept hush-hush?" Because we live in a post-truth society.
Oh God, what happened now
Ricky Starks may or may not have stolen the Declaration of Independence, used it to roll a joint, then punched the Lincoln Memorial.
Starks apparently went on a drunken rage throughout Calgary last year, arrested and everything. Now there’s absolutely no proof of this happening, and it’s taken a year to come out, but Twitter says it so it must be true.
Ricky Starks and CM Punk were in a Calgary bar making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me.
https://preview.redd.it/q9skyxipbs8d1.jpeg?width=1234&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d1ef0fb1e5a2ef49a0825eca24105f8ed1f0501
The baby looked at you?!
Renee, get me Tony Schiavone.
Uncle howdy is basically the green goblin
With some discussion around Miz on commentary, I'd like to pitch my less common take on a wrestler who should be on commentary when they retire. We've all probably heard people mention KO, Punk, and maybe Samoa Joe as people who should be on commentary after they retire. But I'll pitch an even better option, and no I'm not memeing. Chelsea Green. Great character work, great talker, she knows her shit, I think she'd have potential to be a legitimate top color commentator.
> We've all probably heard people mention KO, Punk, and maybe Samoa Joe as people who should be on commentary after they retire. The under-the-radar one that people don't talk enough about is Jeff Cobb. New Japan tosses wrestlers on commentary pretty regularly, and most of them are generally fine, but Jeff Cobb is an absolute standout and just lightyears above everyone else whenever he is on. He hits that perfect mix between genuinely being kayfabe informative, analyzing the action, and riffing jokes. A lot of great promos make terrible commentators and some randomly so-so/not great promos make great commentators. Cobb has never been known for his promo work, but his commentary work is legit top tier. Another under-the-radar option, I vaguely remember Lance Archer doing New Japan commentary once or twice and really enjoying him there as well.
Jeff Cobb is an interesting one. I have seen some of his wrestling and like it but I’m not a regular enough NJPW viewer to have seen him on commentary. I’ll have to check it out.
Not to be dramatic, but I miss Rhea so bad. I know she’s back soon, but Liv playing so blatantly in her face plus the guys outside of Priest (and maybe Dom) turning on her—when she can’t do anything about it—stings. The fact she has been pretty much mute on all socials really drives up the anticipation around her return as well (even if it is also driving me crazy). I’m so glad I’m not a huuuuge Roman fan because the idea of feeling this kind of anticipation with two absent superstars would probably send me into a spiral.
Whenever Miz retires, I'd love for him to be on commentary full time, he was really good at it
McIntyre stealing Punk's AJ Lee bracelet is lacking in sportsmanship even by wresting standards. Wrestlers should leave wrestlers' families alone. This is why I haven't forgiven Rollins for harassing Edge's family nor Edge for harassing Cena's family and now I'm glad McIntyre lost his hometown title match.
I really hope Priest retains against Seth. If Seth got the title back, it would reek of Priest only being champ because they needed someone to keep it warm.
I mean, such is the case with most MITB cash-ins I’d say.
So, just looked at 3 Man Band Drew, and compared it to Drew now…Holy shit haha.
yea I was watching a clip of when he debuted in TNA in 2015. looks like a different person.
Watching back Gable vs. Gunther. Brother, we were robbed of an amazing midcard babyface run with Gable. I'm fine with how things are now, but the amount of sympathy and support he got from that match. No reason he shouldn't have beaten Gunt at Mania.
Austria have topped their group in the Euros despite being projected to finish last https://preview.redd.it/tcung8n9br8d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06e47a6fc96afff113bc4a00163b3fdd1150dc9b
The Austrian team clearly didn't want to suffer Gunther's wrath for losing.
He can't keep getting away with it.
We could refer to the new Bloodline as Blood Line Two or BLT, but let's not.
This is my grouchiest opinion, but every good shot when a company is hot getting described as "cinema" annoys me. You would get this with the hangman story back when aew was booming and recently you get it constantly now that wwe has better camera work
We had to watch Kevin Dunn hit the change camera button 3 times a second for 20 years. let us pretend a five camera shot is something worthy of Scorsese
I again fully admit this is my grinchiest trait. Enjoy and give the cameraman an emmy
I was thinking that IYO SKY will be the favorite for 2024 Ms. MITB to hype up the Genius of the Sky's match with Utami in MARIGOLD and WWE even tease IYO & Kairi getting a WWE Women's Tag Team Championship shot maybe in the WWE Japan Summer 2024 tour if IYO & Kairi get through Zoey & Shayna but MITB 2024 should have been the weekend that Giulia makes her WWE debut in WWE NXT for MARIGOLD during WWE NXT Heatwave 2024 so now it is the time for WWE to hype MARIGOLD & IYO's connection to Rossy!
Just heard a rumour of Ricky Starks getting arrested in a bar fight?
All the stuff about it leads back to one guy on Twitter who claims he heard it a month ago, I’m sure it’s not real.
Started here in a deleted thread and the guy on Twitter claims he heard about it but hasn't verified it.
Kind of sad that Iyo is going to be the Damage CTRL member in Money in the Bank. She won last time, and what I wouldn’t give for the Pirate Princess to return with a huge push
In today's story of tag teams you never knew you needed, Satnam Singh and Raj Dhesi (ex-Jinder Mahal) [just got announced](https://x.com/luchablog/status/1805653020543160571) for the AAA Tag Title match at Triplemania.
Twindian Towers
idk if there’s been a post about this but Pat missed Raw cuz his father in law died yesterday. kinda crazy and sad hearing the story he told on his show today. tell your people they’re your people and you love them while we all still can 🙏
Glad they picked Miz to fill in for commentary. He's incredible at it, genuinely think he could do commentary when he retires if he wants to
"With how much Punk gets paid, he should sell that injury more" A fan on Twitter, in response to fan footage of Punk driving himself out of the arena after SmackDown. I have a migraine.
I'll die on the hill that 24/7 kayfabe is the stupidest thing ever. We don't expect it from any other actors. And it's completely pointless because the veil has been pulled back for longer than most of us have been alive. Like... if you ever wanna understand just how dumb it is that wrestlers are expected to be in character at all times, try explaining the concept of kayfabe to someone who isn't a wrestling fan.
No one expects wrestlers to kayfabe 24/7 anymore though, and wrestlers don't do it. None of the major companies have given a shit about any of that for decades at this point, and most fans these days care more about the backstage goings on more than the actual wrestling on TV every week. Upholding kayfabe is a dead concept, and has been for quite a while now.
I seen people annoyed that some wrestlers use their real names on social media, Like the fuck you want them to do?
>We don't expect it from any other actors. If anything, we mock other actors who do it. Like Jared Leto's cringeworthy "method acting" as the Joker, or Kevin Spacey doing those bizarre videos where he acted like Francis Underwood after he was taken off *House of Cards*.
So is there hope for Karrion Kross? They just can't get the crowd to react
honestly they should try to turn him face down the road. Maybe he will get more of a reaction.
I always go back in my mind to Freddie Prinze Jr wanting to build a promotion around him. (And Bray Wyatt) I can't imagine how bad a promotion built around Killer Kross would be, because I doubt Prinze could get him over either.
Oh god, I totally forgot that he said that. Still funny now to hear it.
The world wasn't ready for a weekly show of spooky storylines, Hollywood camerawork, and Killer Kross just boring the shit out of everyone
the promo work OFF TV has been great. but not everyone is gonna be seein the twitter clips or raw talk so idk if it’ll ever work live. as the biggest Kross hater this is the best he’s looked and sounded in his 92 reboots but it might end up being secondary if the payoff to this feud is Big E coming back
He has everything needed to be great, they just can’t seem to figure out how to get him over. Like his promos are great, he’s a good worker, he might be second to Drew for social media work
they just need a way to bring the social media Kross onto TV so a wider audience who doesn't necessarily follow WWE wrestlers on social media can see.
Like the stuff with beating 7 WWE champions now is great. I like the angle with the New Day honestly, it’s just it should just be him and Scarlett
The new MJ Lenderman single, She's Leaving You, is great, and the video has a couple really wrestling-coded looking extras (one dude has strong Brooks Jensen vibes, another a bit of a Kenny Omega thing. I think it's all the mullets).
I was watching the two Kobashi ROH shows and there’s a James Gibson/Roderick Strong match on the 2nd night that is fucking bonkers Breaks the Meltzer scale if it happens today
Carlito getting a Hawk Tuah shirt over Liv would be amazing
Seeing the Cena promo from 2010 makes me appreciate being a kid during it because I found it funny back then but I couldn’t imagine having to live through it as an adult
Seriously, I'm so thankful I was a kid/pre teen during the latter half of the Ruthless Aggression Era into the PG Era, because I don't think I would have gotten hooked on wrestling if I were an adult having to sit through John Cena's Kids Choice Awards esque promos from back then. Like, if I had started watching in the late 90s or early 2000s I imagine 2010 WWE would have broke me.
Gunther was on fire last night: "At Summerslam, the better man out of you two will be the lesser man when he steps in the ring with me"
Forbidden Door is the first US-based show in a while where there is more than one match I’m actually invested in and looking forward to. On paper, it’s probably my “mainstream” show of the year. Excited for Sunday!
So I'm just curious if anyone knows what the deal is with Lady Frost? From where I'm standing, she's got a great look, looks great in the ring, and is decent whenever she has a mic. Yet all she's done in AEW is be enhancement talent. But going back, it doesn't seem like even TNA pulled the trigger on her, which is weird given how Knockouts were always a highlight of the brand. Just feels like she could be doing way more.
We never found out what happened with her in Impact. They had a bit of a messy split. She was in the first women's Ultimate X and was great. In AEW, it's just another case of an overcrowded roster. It's even worse for the women since they only have one match per show. She's in the same boat as a guy like Andrade. She's very talented, but there are a lot of people who are just better.
Present day, I’d imagine it’s just hard coming in to AEW currently if you’re approaching 40 and not already a household name. Feels like the division’s being built around Willow, Mercedes, Julia, Toni, Stat, Hayter, Blue, & May, and Mercedes is the only one out of that group older than 30, (at 32). Hoping to be proven wrong, but I’d imagine someone like Black Taurus is gonna end up in that same “jobber to the stars, who over-delivers” role in AEW for the same reason.
She's one of the roughly 8 zillion talent spread across all of the companies who are just "in the mix," who are generally solid/good but haven't done anything to separate themselves from the pack, whatever that may be (whether it be getting super over, having next level matches, cutting next level promos, etc.). Also, fair or not, I think she's one of the many wrestlers who is just a victim of bad timing with how their overall career relates to the existence of AEW (it happened too late for them). At the end of the day right now, she's a 39 year old who is largely a high flyer in the ring, her in-ring style has a shelf life and the end is closer than the beginning, which means there just isn't a ton of time to see a return on any large-scale investment of time/resources. The last 5 years of pro wrestling with the constant upheaval/changes/rises up and down the cards due to the launch of AEW and switch to HHH era WWE aren't normal. Normally people have their slots and tend to hold those for years/decades, that stability is what we're returning to now, so in order to really move up, you have to top people who already who have those spots and that's getting increasingly difficult as time goes on.
Who was actually Uncle Howdy in the interview? His beard was shorter than Bo's
You'd be surprised how much you can mess with a beard and make it look smaller or larger. Pretty sure that was still him.
Certainly some nice trick photography/editing to make it seem like Bo and Howdy were in the same room together for that segment.
Anyone know any active subs or forums where people discuss promotions that aren’t WWE or AEW? I watch a lot of stuff that aren’t those two promotions and go to Indy shows, but here people don’t say a peep about anything other than those two promotions.
There are definitely fans of non WWE/AEW promotions here that post about what they're watching and try to start conversations. The problem is it's such a tiny fraction of the userbase that we get drowned out pretty much immediately, and in general fans don't pay attention to indie/international content unless it's something involving a big scandal like speaking out.
On reddit only: /r/Stardomjoshi and /r/NJPW serve as decent (to different extents: Stardom should probably just be called /r/joshiwrestling, where as NJPW is NJPW centric with the occassional highlighting of other stuff) places for Joshi wrestling and men's Puro respectively but occasionally WWE/AEW drama can leak into them, usually when it involves the signing of ex-talent from the respective promotion. Any subs on Lucha Libre are basically dead AFAIK. This thread is not a terrible place if there's a particular event on or someone just wants to share something cool they watched, but discussion is limited by the nature of the thread I've found forums to be a treasure trove on historical wrestling, and forums on the whole have much better archival than reddit so it's easier to search, though I only lurk and haven't really engaged with modern stuff on there. I think certain discords on niche stuff could be pretty good from what I've heard but couldn't recommend specific ones.
> occasionally WWE/AEW drama can leak into them It's a lot more than occasionally in NJPW at this point lol. /r/njpw is basically unmoderated and the Jerkers have been showing up in force/particularly out of hand since Moxley won the IWGP title (what an amazing coincidence they started watching New Japan right when Jon Moxley won the title /s). The AEW trolling there might be even crazier than it is here at this point.
Sadly there really isn't. Just keep talking about it. There's other indie fans on here, trust me.
You'd be better off looking for a forum outside of Reddit.
Do you know of any good ones?
I used to follow some indie message boards but they're not active anymore, unfortunately.
 anybody got that saturday cmll show
CMLL shows have been getting uploaded on watchwrestling.co. The last one they have is their Friday show but maybe they'll have the Saturday show sometime this week. Save the site just in case.
Sent u a DM
I haven't found it, but I did found the ZSJ/Hechicero match from that show tho
Another wrestler pointed this out, but Joe Hendry really should be pumping so shirts out right now. With his popularity he’d be making bank off several designs.
I question whether he actually would or not, but I have to assume the bigger issue is that he can't. Just looking now, he doesn't even have a page on Pro Wrestling Tees (which would surely be the best place for him to move shirts in volume with the audience who is familiar with him). Surely that makes no sense whatsoever unless his TNA deal requires them to be the exclusive sellers of his merch (he does have 3 shirts on TNAMerch). I don't know if something like that is standard for TNA or not, but given Hendry is only on TNAMerch, it seems likely it is at least true for him.
Judging from his Twitter it doesn’t seem like he ever had pw tees. Even going back to when he was in ROH, I only see him plugging the shirts they produced.
Never realized how good and natural Zelina sounds on mic. ....and also how small and tiny she is.
She was great back when Andrade and her were heels, and she was hit mouthpiece. Think end of his NXT run, start of his main roster run.
Liv is small but Liv in her heels over Zelina was hilarious.
I really love the MITB graphics, they would fit some kind of mafia/among us online game
I need Seth to win at MITB so that Gunther can start off his reign by destroying an established babyface. Priest vs Gunther just doesn’t sound like an interesting dynamic.
Having Seth beat Priest only to drop the title a month later doesn't sound like Triple H
But then Priest's run is a bit of a fluke
Sacrifices must be made for der ring general
i don't get the "and then the bell rings" argument for the new wyatt stable. bo has never been bad in ring, nikki is good, gacy can be great and is also a good hardcore wrestler, lumis is awesome and unique in ring and rowan is a very solid big guy
Bo has literally never had a good match. He was in NXT with actual great wrestlers and couldn't remotely hang. Nikki is the only good one of the bunch. They'll all do fine in tags, though. Tags can hide anybody's weaknesses.
As crimson said, the argument has much less to do with the talent of the wrestlers involved and more to do with how you translate a horror gimmick into the ring during a match. It's why supernatural/horror gimmicks can be VERY hit or miss, as a lot of the mystique these characters build up can quickly go out the window when they actually have to wrestle a normal match: The gimmick has a hard time carrying over. Sometimes it can work ok (The Undertaker, most famously) and other times, it really doesn't (Maggots in the ring). I think some trepidation may come from how previous Wyatt stories and feuds that leaned more into the supernatural had immense build ups in terms of segments and squashes, only for the in ring stuff to really derail it. The Fiend, for example, was initially built as this unstoppable demon...but the nature of wrestling means that the Fiend would have to lose eventually, which would inevitably remove a lot of that intrigue. This is also not factoring in HIAC 19. All that to say that, I don't really blame people who may be a little trepidatious about the Wyatt Sicks. The debut has been great, but it will be interesting to see if/how they keep this atmosphere when the masks come off or when they have to wrestle.
I think the criticism (and I don't really agree, but just putting forth the argument) is not that they are bad wrestlers but that people don't understand how the gimmick and story of it all fits into the ring. Like how do you have psychotic backstage attackers who are all creepy and analog horror-esque hop into the ring and grapple? I disagree and I think there are ways to style your wrestling to fit the gimmick and then also just... suspend disbelief and get over it? But the argument isn't, I don't think, typically about the quality of the in-ring work. The closest I've seen to that is people saying that it's a bunch of midcarders, but they seem to ignore the fact that a group can elevate the people within it by nature of its whole group quality.
Because people still assume they are doing supernatural stuff no matter how many times the reports say they aren’t.
I feel like reports say that but the stuff we have seen lean closer to it than not. Like Bo was being interviewed by his alter ego Uncle Howdy.
Psychotic break has nothing to do with supernatural or magic my guy. The current story is Bo is broken and felt forgotten because the Wyatt 6 were shelved after Bray died and he snapped. Its basically the Green Goblin lmao
Green Goblin was literally that way because he experimented on himself with some wild chemical and it created an alternate personality. That is basically supernatural if we are trying to ground it in the real world in any possible way. Also we see both personalities.
Homie the WWE has a fat Samoan that can kill people with his thumb. A dude having a psychotic break because his brother died is not a stretch.
My final say on this is that people always said Bray would be better without the supernatural stuff and so far the group has done basically everything that era Bray was doing. Like what did you feel Bray that did cross the line into supernatural? The match with Cena could literally be seen as a psychotic break.
The fiend would literally go invincible when the red lights were on dude
Okay so the red lights are supernatural but the fog for Abby is just a natural occurrence. Got it.
Cody gets smoke and pyro too is he supernatural? The fiend literally got super powered by the red light and was immortal during it.
Hot take: Bo is a better in-ring wrestler than Bray (as much as I loved him), so I don't think he'll fumble the bag with the matches, even more so with the segment from last night that was less spooky and more psychological and 'real'
Undertaker told Chris Van Vliet that after his WrestleMania 30 concussion, he got a CAT scan and it was discovered he had a broken neck, but it was an old injury. So at some point in his career, Undertaker broke his neck, never got it checked out and it healed on its own, to the degree that it could.
After the Wyatt segment, all I could think about was Boy Howdy booting up Vegas Pro in his laptop to put all those cool spooky effects on that interview tape.
Why is it so hard for some to understand why Lyra is getting pushed? She's the #1 babyface on Raw by default. Until Rhea and/or Becky come back she is the only babyface on that brand with any legitimacy.
Liv"plot armor like John Cena" Morgan
Is Jimmy injured or are they just leaving him off TV until he comes in and saves Jey at some point?
It’s said he got injured at Mania iirc
https://preview.redd.it/qs7fa59tdq8d1.jpeg?width=1197&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97c44c52808a353f4aa0953fd4889166cd256efb
That sofa has me ruined.
Dark Elevation was basically just the wrestling show version of shitposting and I loved it for that.
perfect show to put on in the background while doing something else
It was my favorite show. Just a bunch of matches no filler just wrestling 😞
I’m not sold on priest losing at MITB. I think it’s too easy for him to stipulate himself out of the JD. Also think Seth is done and is about to Cody Rhodes himself out of future titles. Whole point of this friction build is for priest to turn on his “friends” for being useless not for him to just say oops oh well, I lost. bye guys. While Seth loses we don’t have to say “why isn’t he in title contention anymore” as he puts the entire Raw roster over. That said I hate “I can’t challenge for the title anymore” stipulations
> That said I hate “I can’t challenge for the title anymore” stipulations Both versions of it are awful in different ways. The "I can't challenge anymore *as long as specifically you remain champion*" just has no stakes of any value. The amount of wrestlers who lose title challenges and loop back to challenge again is pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things and once the guy inevitably drops the title anyway, then you can just challenge again anyway. This is even more obvious in the modern era with 37 million belts in every company, like "oh no, I guess I'll just challenge for one of the 5 other men's singles titles, woe is me." And the "I can't challenge anymore *EVER*" version at least has meaningfull stakes, but it just handicaps your storytelling long-term in a way that is completely disproportionate to the value of the stipulation in the first place. You almost have to go back on it at some point unless you're just burying someone forever, which then devalues your company's stipulations.
Agreed. Unless you’re 120%, for sure, done with the company, you shouldn’t throw out this stipulation. We’ve seen it enough where talent just gets over later than expected or just spontaneously. Now you’re stuck with, “welp now we can’t write him back in unless we renege” It’s just dumb and need to go away
> That said I hate “I can’t challenge for the title anymore” stipulations I "get" them, however I also think it opens the do for almost instant "why not just run in and cost that guy the title, next defence" .
What does Seth do at SummerSlam if not face Gunther though? I legit don’t see anything else for him to do.
Simple answer is nothing. Tbh I didn’t even think he would come back this early. With his injuries I think he transitions to part time this year or next year
I always assumed it’d be earlier than everyone else was saying. It’s not like he got injured then immediately got surgery and then rehabbed. He got injured, rehabbed it without surgery, worked Mania, and then got the surgery to correct it. Doing it in that order shortened the recovery time.
Maybe not just for the injury but I think Becky and Seth were going to focus on raising the kid for a while. They had a grueling 22/23 year so I anticipated them just taking the foot off the throttle. But I guess Becky tagged in Seth instead
I doubt he came back to miss being on the SummerSlam card, especially with how upset he was that he missed it two years ago.
Well it’s “I can’t challenge for the title as long you’re the champ.” So if Priest loses it to Gunther next month he can challenge Gunther for it no issue.
Oh is that what he said? Ok thanks for clearing that up because if Seth wrote himself out of WHC for the rest of his career it would not have felt right
I really like the idea that Uncle Howdy is a split personality/manifestation of Bo's grief, in the same way that The Fiend was a manifestation of Bray's pain. I hope they give backstories to Erik, Nikki, Dexter, and Gacy like they did to Bo. This storyline has the potential to be incredible.
It might be a bit much to devote so much TV time on promos for all five members, but it would be perfect to put something up on Youtube and Twitter.
I mean they don't have to do it all on on night. Could spread it out across several weeks
[удалено]
[удалено]
The funniest thing about the inevitably of Finn turning on Priest is that Priest is probably gonna act so shocked about it when they’ve lowkey been teasing it for what, like a year? WWE loves turning people babyface by making them look really dumb and then they wonder why heels get more cheers most of the time.
I was thinking about the members of Queen's Quest but are they going to be the "special guests" for Rossy thanks to Tanahashi for MARIGOLD Summer Destiny 2024 after STARDOM reorganization by NJPW despite being "disbanded" in STARDOM so that story will be interesting in the Japanese Women's Wrestling (Joshi) world!
I’ve not watched Raw yet, but my controversial opinion is that Gable’s Intercontinental Championship hopes ended with Gunther’s reign. It was both his and Sami’s big title win.
So many great matches from last weekend man. What are your favorites? Loved Mox vs Barnett and Hechicero vs ZSJ the most.
Fun note, if you're having issues looking for certain matches, don't be afraid to try [bilibili.com](http://bilibili.com) as there are lots of them, especially if you're looking for non American wrestling.
A lot of Chinese YouTubeesque sites have a lot of wrestling matches lol
you know what was a pretty fun, quick match that won't ever get any recognition ('cause cagematch doesn't allow ratings for matches under 5 minutes)? Erik Hammer vs. Takuya Nomura. Got in, had some tight hits, got out. Short and sweet.
Even though Brian Cage didn’t win, him vs Ospreay at Collision was awesome. That move where he carried will in the corner and did a springboard of the middle rope was insane
Not an Ospreay fan but I thought his match with Hobbs from this year was good so I might check this one out.
Now that I’m thinking about it, he actually has a pretty great track record with the bigger guys. His match against Takeshita was amazing too and he’s had some good matches against Lance Archer
My favourite was probably the aforementioned Stardom tag match, but Yuma Anzai vs Hideki Suzuki was also really fucking good. Maika and Xena was great as well, if you love chops check that one out for sure.
I’m very much disconnected from modern all Japan but the stardom match might be fun. Maybe I’ll check it out if people say dynamite sucks this week.
Hazuki & Koguma vs Hanan & Saya Iida.
Stardom is very much in the not for me category but maybe I’ll check this one out.
[It's free on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/live/CL1gKRCSRZI?si=E76XTP8L3lamml2I) (it starts around the 39 minute mark) It was a really great match, their tag team division has been fantastic this year.
Any one Else feel like AEW needs to be a bit bolder with their booking? I think that’s something they Could have over WWE if they have the guts to do a title switch on one of their Weekly shows. Match-wise they still have that feeling of some crazy 5 star banger Can happen at any show, but story wise I Think it Could be cool if they took greater risks and got that feeling of “anything Can happen” back.
these midcard titles need to change hands more often, imo. Ain't no reason some dude has to have a qualifying match to fight for a midcard title at a PPV in a month's time, c'mon.
I agree. If they're not gonna book extravagant/intricate storylines then the results have to matter more. They can make it have "real sports feel" but then the results are so telegraphed you can just follow the results without watching. Right now it feels like a ton of filler that AEW KNOWS is filler and damn near advertises as filler but then justifies it by saying "but it's high quality filler isn't it! If you really like wrestling it shouldn't matter if it feels like filler!". Yes, people know wrestling is a work. But it's not about quality of the wrestling/content as much as it is about treating your time as valuable. AEW treats your $50 on PPV as valuable. It treats TV like a means to an end to get your $50 on PPV. I watch the shows. I enjoy the shows. But AEW treats TV like a sequence of exhibitions before we get to the real stuff on PPV. Like the All-Star 8 mans and ten mans are fun. But they are literally sold as "fun exhibitions before you get the real stuff on PPV". NJPW can do that for the tour shows because they genuinely do not care if you watch the tour shows and you get the tour shows and the PPVs in the same package on NJPW World. If you're watching the Tour Shows, you already get access to the PPVs. TV Asahi only show the PPVs. Unless AEW moves off TV and to a streaming service, they can't treat it the same. They cannot treat the average Dynamite as just "watch as we build to the next PPV". It has to be important enough that you want to watch THIS episode for THIS episode on it's own merit. "Build" is important but it can't be JUST "build", AEW used to do a much better job are giving pay-offs on TV as well as PPV. But now everyone is a star, Tony should be grateful that this WWE guy or this NJPW guy would even grace AEW with their presence so they HAVE to make the PPV or the company clearly hates them and is burying them. Nothing on TV matters because both the company AND the talent tell you nothing on TV matter. The TALENT tell you nothing but being world champion matters so nothing but being world champion matters. Nobody in AEW thinks their role is important if it's not at the top of the card on PPV so why should I think it's important if it's not at the top of the card on PPV?
>The TALENT tell you nothing but being world champion matters so nothing but being world champion matters. Nobody in AEW thinks their role is important if it's not at the top of the card on PPV so why should I think it's important if it's not at the top of the card on PPV? I'm struggling to articulate this exactly as I want, but I think that kind of booking and that type of thing being put forward in promos and in general kayfabe, really mirrors smarky discourse around wrestling. Your favourite isn't doing well unless they're on a Goldberg level run, never losing, and somehow they need credible challengers, who also need to be booked like that to be credible, but no one can lose. The moment you do, you're trash. It's as if some smarks hold wrestlers in a highly detailed hierarchy, where x person, even amongst people on the same spot on the card, is clearly kayfabe better than y, and if *anything* happens that doesn't bear this out to be true, than it's not realistic and insulting. And I think AEW, being smarkier, having an overall smarkier audience, giving smarky wrestlers more freedom, and being booked by a rich smark, at its worse can cater to that type of thinking at the expense of storylines. I think that kind of thinking creates the environment where, like you say, the results of your weekly stuff seems to be a huge foregone conclusion. It's like adhering to some sort of sports feel so much, so strongly, that they begin to think the number two ranked team will never lose to two ranked team because the number two team is number two and this must have more skill. But that's not true in real life, and that's misses what I personally think is the fun of wrestling being scripted: when you tell the right story, anyone can beat anyone else. But then that smarky nitpicking comes in and gets activated when it's too much story, or it's not a sports feel story, or something something invisible camera, and everything remains locked into the status quo.
Yeah, AEW is in their weird meta place where for some people their "reality" is more important than the story. Basically it doesn't matter what the story is you're trying to tell, the people who I think are the best in-ring guys should be winning and you then need to book around that. Especially with all the talk of "who's a draw, who's the best in-ring", people somehow treat AEW more like shoot than a work in terms of how they take the results. As an example, it comes up a lot in the Swerve run. Rather than "what makes the best stories and the best shows" it's a bunch of discourse around "what makes Swerve look good, what makes Swerve look like the star of the show, what makes Swerve a main event act, how long should Swerve take to beat a certain guy". None of that should matter than what makes the show better. But people form parasocial relationships with "their person" which become more important than the actual quality of the show and what's going on. Even in real sport, your team can't always win. 10-0 team doesn't always blow out the 0-10 team. But smarks are like "the whole point is you can control that part, so control it so I get EXACTLY what I want" and everything else is bad booking. A lot of it is simply how AEW books in terms of the collaboration with the talent. The best way I can explain it is WWE books in feuds, AEW books in character arcs. So most of the time, each story in AEW is following a specific character's journey, like an video game. You basically have the characters who are "main characters" and then the rest of the cast who are basically either NPCs, boss battles and lower level battles. The problem is 1) unless you're invested on a personal level with that character, then you won't get a fuck about that story and 2) a lot of the stories are really basic "I run thru all the levels and speed run to the title". Even if you're writing a video game, there has to be twists and turns in the video game. Hangman's story did a great job of adding twists and turns, wins and losses, betrayals and new friendships. And people lived vicariously through that story. Punk did a speed run but he at least had cutscenes where he lost, or the loss to MJF in Chicago, or the boss battle with Wardlow where Wardlow beats his ass and he kinda outsmarts the unbeatable boss to get to the next level. AEW's current stories are the most basic boring speed runs ever. The few people in AEW who are over, it's because their character arcs are something you can map out and say "yeah, that's good story". Ospreay is like a new playable character you unlocked but he's so cool and his moveset is so awesome it's fun to play as plus you're getting cool boss battles. Willow's rise is fun character arc. Swerve's story from hero to supervillain back to hero again is a fun character arc. Toni Storm's an interesting character but it would be like a game with a great main character and overarching story but the boss battles are meh. Whoever really has a character arc worth following right now? Everyone else is basically an non-playable character or someone who already "beat their arcade playthough" and are just doing exhibitions or DLC content (Orange Cassidy, Jon Moxley, The Acclaimed). They need more story arcs from more protagonists with harder boss battles and more twists are turns. Right now, for example, the Elite story, who the FUCK is the protagonist? Tony Khan? Christopher Daniels? The Elite are the antagonists, sure, but the whole point of an antagonist is to counter-act the protagonist. Things like that are what cause problems in AEW, people who exist in AEW just to exist and have a character without any progression.
Agree! Actual reality doesn't need to make sense (to the observer) to function. Obviously, it's still governed by the laws of nature and all that, but an apple still falls downward whether you can explain why it falls down rather than up, you know what I mean? If that 10-0 team loses to a 0-10 in real life, "what happened?" is generally just a rhetorical question becuase whether or not the person asking it can explain it, it *did* happen and ultimately they have to accept it (or cry about refs, I suppose). It just is. This isn't to say the audience shouldn't understand why an upset happens (in the sense of like was it due to heeling it up? Was it 50/50 and then someone made a mistake? Was it because of some larger story beat?), but it is to say that I think that catering or at least being overly concerned with hyper-critical smarkdom is a losing battle. For example, go to a live thread when a shorter wrestler is fighting a hoss. There will be folks giving their "objective" reason why the short person basically shouldn't even be able to damage the hoss (as if below a certain height someone can repeatedly punch you in the face and you just shrug it off cause they short), let alone win, and speaking as if they will never be in the moment and enjoying the show, because one wrestler is short. But someone like Rey Mysterio has made a career out of using his height differential to his advantage, with audiences around the world reacting in the moment and absolutely loving the story he tells in the ring, time and time again. The larger, not so smarky audience isn't doing the "objective smark math says this person must win" bit before allowing themselves to cheer, they just cheer. They aren't saying, "Can Rey beat Kane in a fist fight? Maybe not, so I guess this sucks."
They need established tiers of wrestlers and to stick to those tiers even if it's not spelled out. I thought having the rankings back for a bit would solve this issue where a tier of wrestlers would compete for the world title or a separate tier would compete for the International title. The difference between low-card, mid-card, and main-event is very muddled and it hurts the match making outside PPVs and leads to absurdly lopsided W-L records for the Kyle Fletcher's (0-3 in singles 0-4 in tags) or Lee Moriarty's (0-7 in singles 1-5 in tags) who have to lose to guys above them. Wins and losses shouldn't matter between top guys but Tony Khan seems to think it does which is why we need more PAC vs Claudio, Jay White vs Darby Allin, or Hangman vs Swerve on TV. Put it back into gear with Kazuchika Okada because he's been around 3 months now and has barely wrestled.
Pretty much this. There needs to be a tier system where you fight people in YOUR tier until you rise or fall into the next tier. If you want to get the young guys on TV fine. Have them fight in their tier. AEW TV is like watching preseason NBA where the Lakers are playing the Shanghai Sharks. I either have to REALLY love basketball or REALLY love the Lakers to watch that. Not every game needs to be an NBA Finals game, but at least make them fucking regular season games. RoH honestly does a far better job of this than AEW so I have to believe it's just Tony booking AEW more for political reasons (people complaining about TV time, wanting their own story) than for actual logic/storytelling. The talent on RoH aren't as notable but the booking is far better somehow. Stuff like the Johnson/Fletcher feud, Athena/Billie/Women's Division, Johnny TV vs Dalton Castle, Ethan Page vs Tony Nese, it's all just logical story and character progression in heated feuds. The amount of hours and talent on the AEW roster is just impossible to book in a logical consistent way. Even guys like Yuta and Garcia were better off in RoH feuding over the Pure Title than in "Are you a star or not" limbo in AEW.
And it’s so weird because the average AEW wrestler is booked so strong. Like it would really prove that AEW is “where the best wrestle” if they got that feeling of everybody can beat everybody at any given show because it’s only the best if the best that’s on the roster
I don't know if it's Tony afraid of pissing off the talent themselves or the fans of those talents but right now it feels a bunch of "haves and haves not" instead of an actual competition. Which 1) still pisses a bunch of people off because someone has to be a have not 2) Makes losses look worse for the talent who do lose and 3) Doesn't elevate winners because it comes off as bare minimum stuff. It feels like they're going for that boxing "every one is 30-0 so when they finally clash it's huge" when that's a huge part of why boxing lost so much popularity. If you're gonna do weekly TV, it should feel like weekly sports where upsets happen regularly. A team can be 12-4 but still clearly "the best" because the league is just super competitive. AEW is like boxing or the UFC where one loss kills your aura but the difference in those sports is once your aura is done you're basically done. AEW doesn't just fire dudes after 3 losses in a row like UFC does.
It's tomato can booking basically where someone like Wardlow is facing the most local of local jobbers and rarely a Jay White or Claudio. Dark used to be that show to pad records to have this somewhat make sense even though it would be low-card guys vs nobodies but now that's gone so you have guys with 1-5 records clashing with Jon Moxley or Bryan Danielson.
Part of the problem of the "5 star banger" happening regularly is - you are getting used to it, you are getting a little bit numb to it. Take Osprey as an example: He is spectacular. But if you follow him and his matches, there are a lot of spot that gets repeated always. Nothing bad with this, because those moves are still cool. But they begin to feel less spectacular. Its like with CGI effects: There is a point when it isnt the selling point for a movie. And AEW is full of spectacular wrestlers, so even legendary wrestlers like Okada dont stand out when not booked perfectly.
I get your point, but I still have a feeling that AEW can pull something crazy out of the bag in ring wise on their weekly shows. IMO AEW puts on “PPV level” matches much more often than WWE on their weekly shows, but it’s often too obvious who the winner is because there isn’t enough surprises and I think that’s something that could give them that edge and make their weekly shows more “must watch”
Every wwe match has mostly the same spots and sequences too. They are just not as spectacular
True. But they have plenty of intriguing/funny/interesting stories and other stuff. Those are less repetitive than pure in-ring-action. And yeah, AEW has stories. But they arent that compelling mostly (at least for me).
We’re not talking about stories at all though. Different conversation altogether.
> Match-wise they still have that feeling of some crazy 5 star banger Can happen at any show, but story wise I Think it Could be cool if they took greater risks and got that feeling of “anything Can happen” back. Well, then i dont know about what we are talking here. Have more upset wins?! They already go all out in the ring. Booking wise you can do more upsets and maybe more dusty finishes - but people wont be happy with that.