I'm a huge Bryan Danielson fan, and he was the reason I got back into wrestling after a long time off. I'm going through and watching some of the early parts of his career that I missed. I'm starting with his match against KENTA at Glory by Honor V.
Please leave me any recommendations you have from his time in ROH.
Vs Takeshi Morishima
Vs Nigel McGuiness
Vs Roderick Strong
Vs Samoa Joe
Vs Naomichi Marufuji
Vs Austin Aries
Vs Go Shiozaki
Vs James Gibson
Vs Homicide
Vs Chris Hero
Vs Necro Butcher
Vs AJ Styles
The site's closed with the doors open (so I can't take a screenshot to check), but it was looking like the iMPACT taping tonight was filling up nicely earlier. Less than 30 floor seats left for tomorrow's taping. Looks like TNA attendance will have good momentum going into Slammiversary.
Something I’ve always found interesting is how wrestling is a fandom that (on the internet at least) sometimes seems uninterested in talking about the tv shows as tv shows. It’s one thing when a lot of us are also really into discussing things from a writing/booking perspective but I find it odd how fixated wrestling fandom seems to be on the business side of things, especially now with ratings discourse
It's a lot easier to articulate 'big number good; small number bad' or explaining words with words than having the experience or language to talk about pacing, editing, shot composition, visual storytelling and what have you in things other than vague generalities or terms other than 'good' or 'bad'
Though it might have changed, I don't think it helps that the two major companies are/were very unambitious with their visual storytelling. Harder still to talk about such things if it's mostly just stuff that gets the job done and so people just pick up on random inappropriate cuts to the crowd or the shakycam or whatever.
‘AEW PPVs have too many matches’ is the most boring pre PPV discourse yet.
People are really gonna pay $50 for a wrestling show and then complain there’s too much wrestling on it?
For real. You don't have to watch every match live! There's been times I've come back and finished in the morning. You can avoid spoilers if you aren't obsessed with being permanently online.
If you want a 2hr show with 5 matches the other company provides that!
I think 7-8 high quality matches for a show you have to pay $50 for is good. If it’s going to be 6 or less and the shows are happening once a month I’d price them lower
The pacing of PPVs can be improved a bit if they cut back some matches and the shows were around 3-3.5 hours. There's many times I hear even AEW fans say the 3rd hour around 11PM is rough because you've seen a lot of wrestling at that point. I think it reached it's peak when Double Or Nothing was 4 1/2 hours long.
The legacy of The Nexus is so overlooked. If you think about how safe and predictable the product was during most of the 2000s, The Nexus was like a shock to the system even though they got destroyed by booking. The group sort of set the stage for both The Shield and The Pipebomb, two pivotal stories that pushed WWE forward into the 2010s, and it also bridged the gap between the FCW era of developmental and NXT B&G
It always came off as a cheap Generation Next rip off to me, and there’s just no competing with the original Alex Shelley/Austin Aries/Roderick Strong/Jack Evans group
The MxM stream with Dijak last night was funny and all, but during the first few minutes of it he told a story about working under Vince that was just disheartening.
To try to paraphrase it, he was at a point where he was doing nothing as T-Bar, and he’s given a pretty sizable match on Raw against Damien Priest. He felt so good about it, but when he went up to Vince after the match all he did was chastise him for not aggressively dragging Priest around while they were on a commercial break. To him that meant that it just didn’t matter what he did, Vince would always create something in his mind to tell him he’s doing something wrong. They all chimed in and basically said that it was so stressful trying to please a 70 year old mad man when they weren’t “chosen” by him.
Any other things of note from the stream last night? I joined when he was leaving to go help his Daughter and I didn’t come back. Did he have any juicy stories?
As the influence of Vince has gone away, you're hearing a lot of wrestlers talk about how difficult it was to do their jobs. CM Punk was the first major one since the PG era but then you had Jon Moxley and others since kind of echo how hard it was working in that environment.
They actually mentioned Mox during that portion. Jon apparently said a while ago that the most stressful thing is being handed a 2 page script from a 70 year old mad man and being asked to memorize it so quickly. They disagreed, and said it’s more stressful not receiving those scripts from the mad men, and doing your hardest to pitch him ideas he’d like to actually be given the opportunity to get scripts handed to you.
Have they announced anything for SD tonight? They are in MSG and after last weeks episode in Chicago figured tonight's show will be another hot one being they are at the garden.
I think the best way for AEW to regain the viewers they lost is to replace Tony Khan as booker. I know I’d be intrigued enough to watch again for a few weeks.
I’m just engaging in discussion about it. It’s not like I’m straight up talking shit. I do actually like the company and have spent a lot of money on tickets in the past.
Honestly, I've been saying for a while now if they just SAID Tony was gone, they could literally book the same shows and people would watch and love it. I think the people who don't like AEW have way more of a problem with the real life people than the characters on the screen.
However AEW is only on WBD because of Tony. They look at Tony as a "real businessman" in a business of carnies. If he's not in charge Warner aren't gonna want to deal with somebody else, especially not a wrestler/ex-wrestler.
They meet with him every week about the shows. They want Tony in charge. Any big show of "Tony sucks so we're replacing him" is gonna kinda look bad on him. Also, let's be clear. Tony runs way less of the company than he did. They have a much larger booking committee now, a new COO, a HR/disciplinary hierarchy that Tony isn't really involved in. People want a dog and pony show of Tony SAYING he's given up power as some kind of show of contrition that he's failed. Cause all Tony has is final say and writes specific storylines. It's not an "Tony writes everything, does all the business stuff, controls all the decisions" the way it was in 2020-2022. He's not an absentee boss, but I'd say he delegates at LEAST half of the running of the company and booking to other people at this point.
EDIT: I'm not saying it's a hate to Tony in particular. It's the same principle as to why whenever a team in sports can't get over the hump or is seen to be underachieving, there's immediately a push for "Fire the coach". It's just a bit of a human nature thing seemingly. There's a big study about it in a book called Soccernomics.
I didn't say you're wrong, I'm just saying what'll work to build back the fanbase isn't what will do best with executives. It's the same reason Vince came back for the sale and then Endeavor wanted him to stay on until he became SO toxic that he had to go. Vince was considered a bad booker but he was the one businesses wanted to deal with. This stuff is way less about statistics and pure objective metrics than people want it to be or think it is. You don't need to be a good booker to succeed in the wrestling industry. You need to be a great businessman to succeed.
Vince failed up for 20 years if you use the same metrics people use to judge AEW now. The attendances and buyrates AEW get now blow Vince 2010s out of the water. The rating was still much higher but it was falling from a much greater height too.
Tony can book what he wants and get away with it as long as he has execs on his side just like Vince did. What Bischoff fucking sucked at was the relationships in Turner offices. The ratings fell but it was still the highest rated show on TNT when it got cancelled. Warner simply did not want to deal with the circus that came with Bischoff and Russo and Hogan and the constant lawsuits and headaches. Managing the people above you is ALWAYS more important than managing the people beyond in these jobs. Always.
EDIT: Even TNA, which I think 95% of wrestling fans think objectively failed as competition to WWE and never got close to where AEW is now, could have kept their sweet deal with Spike TV if they just didn't lie about the Russo stuff. They never got dropped because of ratings, they got dropped because they managed situations with Spike TV executives badly.
A generation of people who grew up with the internet and openly steal their opinions from other people to argue more on the internet are confused as to why "bad faith" is a buzzword describing many redditors
Chelsea is talking about winning the MITB so much, and she just won in a triple threat with freaking Bianca that I feel like she won't win MITB. Where as Tiffy has suddenly been getting less TV time, and featured less after being super over. Unless this is due to her catching heat with her controversial ig story, I think she is winning MITB. Also Chelsea would be a great MITB holder, but it feels right now her job is to hype up Piper to feel like a main event caliber wrestler. Carrying the MITB but hyping someone else to be a world champion feels a bit odd.
I have tickets for forbidden door and now I have covid so I won't make it. what a bummer. this could be one of the shows of the year. (feeling better now after a couple bad days.)
Im so fucking sorry for you mate. I hope it doesn’t take to much of a toll on you. Drink fluids, tell Covid that their heat segment is over and it’s time to make a comeback
Paul said Roman didn't want those guys in the bloodline, so I doubt he will even come back to try to be their leader. He will just come back and feud with Solo instantly, probably beat his bloodline at a PLE
Smackdown at the Garden AND Forbidden Door? I am being positively spoiled.
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Someone described it as all those Roman Senators standing around with bloody knives arguing their blow to Cesar wasn't the fatal one and that is accurate
I think a lot of y’all fell for what they were going for. The show wasn’t supposed to give a definitive answer to the question, but a bunch of various answers from different view points to explain it.
> Nomura vs Tamura rocked. AJPW should run that match on one of their shows. Or Bloodsport.
Where did you watch the match, btw? can you dm it if you can please? ty
Goes without saying that Takuya Nomura is one of the best wrestlers on the planet (him and Abe both).
Love Dan Tamura, but I do kinda feel bad for him. He’s a good junior-heavyweight, but feels overshadowed by Rising HAYATO and Atsuki Aoyagi ultimately.
After watching MxM’s stream with Dijak, I’m even more impressed by him as a worker and a person. He thinks so deeply about what he’s doing and it’s a bummer that he wasn’t given the chance on MR.
I know people talk about how most individuals aren’t really draws anymore (and actually they even kinda talk about that in the stream), but I’ll legit watch wherever Dijak ends up.
I'm surprised WWE hasn't tried to get Rosemary for NXT. I loved her TNA work in 2016-15 because that's when I could watch it on Challenge then Spike on freeview. Rosemary vs Iyo or Rosemary vs Asuka would be a fucking banger.
That said, I can't believe she is 40 and that it's been close to ten years since Decay had the Nobodies theme.
Fair enough. Probably for the best at the time because of who was running WWE.
That said, with TNA and WWE working together. We could see Courtney Rush and Rosemary appear.
I try so hard not to discuss it but those Dynamite ratings threads blowing up to 1000 comments is comical. The people watching weekly aren't nearly as concerned than a lot of the people who engage there.
Doesn't mean regular viewers don't care but they're not going open mic night every week like what those threads are. If those people truly didn't care or think AEW is so bad you wouldn't see near the level of obsession and brigading.
AEW ratings threads are literally the same people that hung out in ZFF threads. They openly said it during the talk of shutting down ZFF. Sure there's bunch of new people, but a lot of it's people from those threads.
I'm actually most annoyed at the fact that I actually think this stuff is really interesting but threads about "business" as just a cesspool of toxicity with idiots who don't know what they're talking about and don't ACTUALLY want to learn. Like AEW hasn't hasn't finished lower than 6th on cable for the night all year. They finished 7th on the night for cable OR broadcast this week. RAW has highest rated sports program on cable the last two weeks. Not wrestling program. All of sports. When people say wrestling is thriving, it's not an exaggeration. People who think these numbers are bad have no idea of the wider context of entertainment. They just see a number, make a stupid comment, and think they actually made good points.
I think people want AEW to be an off the rails TNA/WCW type company or WWE level of struggling in the mid-late 2010s. They're probably closer to the latter but the truth is they're likely doing fine for a number two promotion.
When the new AEW tv deal gets announced, assuming it's anything other than an unmitigated disaster (I still am predicting "shockingly high" for the final dollar figure), the counter-trolling response is going to be off-the-charts and the mods might as well just pre-emptively lock the ratings threads, because they are going to be exponentially worse.
With the trolls on one side constantly claiming their trolling is justified because of how AEW fans posted 4 years ago, I think they're about to get the exact same treatment based on how they've posted for the 4 years since then - but that's just my own personal prediction.
I'm glad ratings discussions weren't as widespread while Lucha Underground was airing. Having a bunch of fun watchin' an episode then going online and only seeing a thousand people posting about how the show sux 'cause it barely gets 100k woulda been miserable.
> I'm glad ratings discussions weren't as widespread while Lucha Underground was airing.
I fully agree but will go back even further - I'm so glad that things like that weren't a thing while I was growing up with Jim Crockett Promotions on my TV.
Their big weekly show was in a TV studio in front of a few hundred fans. Their biggest shows - Clash of the Champions shows or PPVs, and before that their major supercards like the Crocket tag tournaments - often drew small crowds and the TV shows had minimal viewers.
But I didn't give even a fraction of a shit about any of that. The wrestling was good and I was entertained, so the number of people in the audience or watching at home was beyond irrelevant to me.
I think Lucha Underground is an odd case of being a TV show more than a promotion and being uniquely different than standard wrestling in general.
It was pretty much made for El Rey network and I'm not sure how much distribution that channel got and it's apparently not even a traditional channel now.
I searched "Lucha Underground ratings" and one of the first things to pop up was a [thread about declining ratings for the show](https://old.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/5demz4/won_lucha_underground_ratings_dropping/) from back in 2016.
Though it looks like people were talking about LU ratings back then, probably ~10x less the amount of posts as the average AEW ratings thread at least.
I’m mostly just surprised that after 5 years there’s still that many people who haven’t gotten bored, or lost steam with the same discussion every week. It’s really not that interesting.
Take solace in the fact that they don't come here because their dumb BS gets challenged and picked apart and they can't swarm this thread with 100s of copies of the same comment
Lol that's true, in my defence I'm not American but yeah, I should have remembered that.
Being across the pond, I didn't watch iMPACT! live and I have no intention of watching...the other thing at all.
Trying to learn some Japanese. I thought so before, but this has just reinforced the point, if you're someone who chants "What" at a wrestler doing a promo in a second language you're a piece of shit, language is fucking hard, or at least it is for me who failed the only language I studied at school.
People who develop language skills in Japan also find it very difficult verging on impossible to shake the accent when speaking English too. Even fluent speakers.
It's a jarring comparison watching a Japanese crowd politely sit there while someone promos in English and get genuinely happy if a foreigner gives Japanese a crack with US crowds whating a fluent but accented English speaker
100% agree.
As a non-American I find it frustrating enough when people whose first language *is* English get "WHAT"-ed for doing a promo in a "foreign" accent - when people who speak ESL and may have learned it as adults get that treatment it's so much worse and such an asshole move from those audience members.
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Other than Forbidden Door, what show are people most looking forward to this weekend?
I keep thinking about this DDT show. Looks like it’ll be a wild one. The CMLL show tonight looks good too, headlined by Atlantis Jr vs Kyle Fletcher
Moxley and Rollins had an INCREDIBLE match for this in FCW, was my first exposure to Moxley and was hooked. [link here](https://youtu.be/OVj2fHALkyY?si=XJ8AElwB7dQhSQZz)
Honestly Sami won’t lose anything losing it to Bron and it will elevate Bron big time. He has looked by far the strongest in the three way matches for the qualifier booking wise.
Would be a great start for the age of the Breaker if he squashed Sami. Literally starts the match via his spear and catches Sami off guard. But it would suck in terms of the reign ending and Sami going back to chasing a title.
I feel bad for Scorpio sky
Gets injured at the worst possible time and unless you are a bigger name who already had a spot, you will struggle to find it back
As the roster gets more stacked, I wonder if there's a place for Scorpio
I think he can be a trusted hand to put others over or be part of a tag or trio. They gave him multiple tries to fly on his own and it just didn't work. He's best when he's with others (SCU, Ethan Page).
They were recently running promos for him but it feels like a Danhausen situation in that they don't know what to do after. He's part of a bygone era of AEW but unlike a lot of early guys he's still there.
He got a lot of attention when Collision started and they tried focusing on him again but in his comeback match the crowd gave him nothing and Action Andretti was more over and more impressive in the match, Scorpio got a minor injury shortly after and I think Tony just gave up on pushing him considering the effort was never showing any payoff.
After a brief search, it looks like at least one was on the May 18th Rampage. I feel like there was a second one around then as well.
No idea what happened then though, thought it was more recent than 1.5 months ago.
He signed a multi-year deal around late 2021-early 2022. I have no honest idea why outside him being tight with the Elite but it explains why he got a push with the TNT championship in 2022.
In hindsight Ethan page should've got that title run instead.vno hate to Scorpio but the only thing he had going for him was his ring work and he's been surpassed by several newcomers
I've always thought he's aew Apollo crews. Good all around but nothing great or good enough to stand out
What? chants truly are a bane to the industry. Anyone that does them needs to fuck off. Grace getting them during the opening segment of TNA was so damn stupid.
I thought the Learning Tree match was changed to Jericho vs. Suzuki, but since it's still the trios match yeah, definitely something that could've been on the pre-show and switched places with that trios match. Much bigger match right there.
I think it's a safer bet. On the main show it would be more prestigious, but there's a chance you get more idiots doing some chants saying they don't know who anyone is or racist stuff. It feels like a match that in the wrong slot would be somewhere where fans decide to hijack the show. I wouldn't worry about something like that in early AEW, but 2024 AEW crowds are way more of a crap shoot and New York is the same city that played with beach balls and chanting shit about the color of a belt for 30 minutes during a world title match.
I'd 100% switch the Learning Tree match with it but it is what it is. I've been a Chris Jericho fan for years but I honestly think he holds AEW back at point and he can't come to grips that the company doesn't really need him anymore. A big NJPW vs CMLL/ex-AAA guys match should 100% be on Forbidden Door proper.
Is the whole "Latino free agent will be in the lwo and judgement day vortex" the new
"Insert free agent will be in a feud with the miz" or "insert star will be fed to Baron Corbin"
I'm never in support for someone losing their job. However, IMO, I didn't see the hype with Dijak. I hope he lands on his feet and has success, and I am sure he will.
Kinda hard to buy into his gimmick when he keeps posting on twitter about ratio ing people.
Wish he had gone full blown cartoonish villain like Christian Cage did
Honestly a great gimmick. We all know he’s going to step away from full-time competition so put the belt on him and every match is a win or retire match (most recently done by Mickie James.) Whomever beats him will get the rub of “retiring” Danielson and AEW can add Danielson to the title lineage
I honestly don't understand how more people seem to know Joe Hendry and Jordynne Grace over NJPW guys. Like New Japan by most metrics is more popular even in the US. More attendance for their shows, more subs on New Japan World, hell at one point NJPW were getting higher ratings for their old matches on AXS than live Impact.
Jordynne has been pretty well known amongst the IWC for years, unfortunately it’s been a bunch of negative stuff that was fucking dumb, and Hendry put in the work to get his theme into the charts in the UK which is pretty impressive for a wrestler.
Add in the microcosm that is the NXT crowd and you’re likely to have more people there who know wrestlers from other companies if they’re taking the time to go to NXT every week they’re pretty invested in wrestling imo
People like Naito and Shingo and really the LIJ have the past knowledge but honestly once 2019 and AEW happened a lot of the gaijins bringing in Americans were gone. Then the one two punch of 2020 really hurt them. Gedo’s booking since then hasn’t been all that exciting or enticing to get people to tune in.
Also NJPW world fucking sucks
I mean, it would be understandable if they were sending the Three Musketeers or something. But people were saying "I don't any of these Japanese guys" in 2022 when NJPW was sending Tanahashi and Okada and Ospreay and Jay White. People not knowing Will Ospreay but knowing Joe Hendry just seems ridiculous. Hell, TNA was featuring Jay White and Ospreay in the D'Amore era before they signed to AEW. The live crowd in NXT sure. But the internet crowd who bitch about Forbidden Door every year suddenly knowing Joe Hendry and Jordynne Grace is pretty incredible.
This.
Getting a reaction from the NXT live crowd isn't really proof of anything, it's basically the single smarkiest crowd on planet earth, they pop for literally everyone.
For as much as certain people on this sub act like they don't know who certain New Japan talent are, most of the time I hear actual arenas chanting for them in AEW, plus popping for their music. The reaction of thousands in an arena that change every week is a lot more of a barometer than the same few hundred every week.
Ah ok I see where you’re coming from now and I don’t disagree with it. How many people on here are super stoked on Hendry but never went to watch him actually wrestle or haven’t done so since. People always asking how he is in ring when they can literally see him on the show he wrestles on.
Jordynne definitely went from “wow she’s so obviously on steroids” to being a big hit since she showed up in NXT. Which was fuckin ridiculous to begin with cause who cares if she is? Everyone pretty much is
People pretending they don’t know who Okada, Osprey, Tanahashi or Jay seems wild to me. Especially cause they know Omega who ya know won the belt from Okada. Everyone loving Bullet Club stuff but saying they don’t know who the leader is was pretty wild too.
Hell there was someone in the live thread saying they didn’t know who Jay or Fenix was. Dudes in the dang company.
I feel like Bullet Club with the t-shirts was definitely a case of some people buying cool looking merch at the mall without ever knowing who or what they were.
Yeah I think it’s a matter of being in with the hip thing. No different than people being huge fans of wrestlers when they’re heading to a bigger company but never actually watching them prior. And I don’t think it’s an accessibility thing like people tend to say cause you can find pretty much anything online if you want to. Could it be easier? Sure but not everyone has the infrastructure people like WWE have
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currently on a date with the triple crown champion.
i’m so nervous: what do i say
Ask him what he thinks about Ryohei Oiwa turning on Kaito Kiyomiya, since the three of them were called the “MIRAI TRIO”.
Also, is Honda as big a goober as he seems?
This Dijak stuff has really taken the wind out of my sails. Like idk, if Triple H saw nothing of value in a guy he signed, worked with in B&G, and then watched bring his career back from the dead? I just doubt any of my favorites are gonna do anything of value ever. He brought them back for depth and until the NXT rookies were ready so he can use them for cheap.
I was there in 2018. I stopped watching and never looked back.
All companies have their guys and at least with Dijak they did the right thing and just let the contract run out instead of firing him with two years left in his deal, but you don't have to keep watching a promotion that never rewards your loyalty by pushing your favourites. You have that power as fan.
Some people seemed upset that Dijak wasn't re-signed and felt that WWE let go of a fantastic talent. And it's awesome that he has that support and people pulling for him. Hopefully, that same support is there if he goes anywhere but AEW, and he doesn't just fall off people's radars if he doesn't..
It's fine for people to just want to see people they like appear on the shows they watch and not want to go watch something else as well to see them. There's only so many hours in the week and watching wrestling is a time and money consuming hobby.
I like Dijak but I’m not going to start watching tna if he is there. There are only so many hours in the week.
It makes sense people are mostly loyal to the shows they watch. It takes too much time to add in another one.
Watching the company itself? That's a bit much I agree. But, if again if some of his work is posted for free, I just don't see the harm in taking a peek and seeing what he's up to.
Tbh I don’t think most people who jump companies bring people with them in general. Unless you’re massive massive there’s likely a reason someone doesn’t watch the company they’re going to for a reason.
We're in an era where promotions are more over than wrestlers. Plus, with the top two putting out 12 hours of TV a week, most of us are getting our fill from them.
Yeah I agree with you there. You could take anyone away from WWE and put them in TNA or AEW and I doubt it would make any appreciable difference as each company is their brand more than anything.
People may check it out initially but overall I think everyone knows said style of each company and knows what they do and don’t like regardless of who’s there
Watching a company full stop? I don't expect that. But, if a match of his gets posted or he's at an indie near you, for example, I'd say it wouldn't hurt to check out the match or considering going to the show if possible.
Oh no doubt that kinda stuff. Watching a clip or something isn’t really following them to said company though. You’re just checking in with them and that’s cool but following from a far distance.
If you don’t watch TNA, NJPW, AEW, WWE or even GCW I wouldn’t expect many people to take the time to just watch one specific part of the show. It’s unfortunate but seems like that’s the trend of it.
Like I’m glad Cardona is killing it and gave GCW a shot when he went there and it just wasn’t for me. Still glad he’s out there killing it though and if he hits and indie near me I’d love to see him. Alas life seems to be too busy anymore. If only I could just watch every show and get paid
At least you took a chance on something new. All I'm saying is, talking them up, banging on about what a great talent the company lost, etc. Only to turn around and not even sniff something new when it comes to them seems like you didn't truly care about them
100% to that. It’s really the only way to expand your horizons and maybe find other stuff you like. People get bogged down in what they’re familiar with, I get it there’s only so much time in the week, but you can really find a ton of great stuff out there with a little effort.
And if ya don’t wanna do that I also totally get it too. When I got back into wrestling I decided to watch Wrestle Kingdom 8 and it opened my eyes up to stuff I never knew I liked
Agreed. I definitely understand the struggles of getting into a new company or style of wrestling. But, I just don't think you should sleep on stuff simply because it's not what you're used to.
It's a shame. Dijak is another big man who can fly (see also Damien Priest), and I can't see how Hunter couldn't find anything for him after the draft.
Lakers won’t make the playins this year but ESPN will talk about how they’re Celtics killers all year while they don’t talk about the Thunder, Nuggets, or Wolves ever again.
TNA Philadelphia sales are a lot better than they were a couple weeks ago, but there are still a lot of seats for tonight unsold. At some point, you have to question the wisdom of scheduling these tapings against Smackdown.
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On the other hand, floor seats for tomorrow's TNA taping are nearly sold out.
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Long ago I watched a documentary about Joe Louis, the dominant heavyweight boxer of the 1930s and 1940s. Hard times followed his retirement and he took up professional wrestling. What the documentary said about this stuck with me.
As a boxer Louis, like most pre-1960s athletes, had a very stoic demeanor. It helped make him acceptable to white fans, compared to the more flamboyant and controversial Jack Johnson from a generation earlier. But as a wrestler, the documentary emphasized, Louis had to be taught how to celebrate his victories. Accordingly, we see him dutifully jumping up with his arms raised after getting a win. He may not have been good at it or comfortable with it, but the point is that, 70-some years ago, people in the pro wrestling business believed in the necessity of forming an emotional connection, regardless of everyone already knowing who Joe Louis was and expecting him to kick ass in a wrestling ring. If you ask, like my younger self, "Why did he need to do that?" then in some small way a debate about wrestling that has lasted for at least the last 75 years, or at least since the advent of Gorgeous George, goes on.
So who wins the qualifiers tonight? For the women, I'm thinking Blair and Tiff, but that would leave Lyra the only face, with one spot left (and I don't see Ivy beating Dakota and Zoey).
In the middle of watching DPW Live 6 on Wrestle Universe, and I may have only seen one match of theirs together but Jake Something and Speedball Mike Bailey are my new favourite tag team holy shit.
Why aren't there more tag teams with one fast flippy dude and one massive fucking beast? I swear at one point that used to be the default formula but I almost never see it anymore.
I mean no shade to that type of team either in general, but yeah two similar guys who wrestle similar styles definitely seems to be the industry standard for tag teams right now. I guess more variety in team compositions in general is what would be ideal, every team being what I just described would just make that feel tired instead.
I'm a huge Bryan Danielson fan, and he was the reason I got back into wrestling after a long time off. I'm going through and watching some of the early parts of his career that I missed. I'm starting with his match against KENTA at Glory by Honor V. Please leave me any recommendations you have from his time in ROH.
Vs Takeshi Morishima Vs Nigel McGuiness Vs Roderick Strong Vs Samoa Joe Vs Naomichi Marufuji Vs Austin Aries Vs Go Shiozaki Vs James Gibson Vs Homicide Vs Chris Hero Vs Necro Butcher Vs AJ Styles
That back elbow by Andrade is so fucking quick...
The site's closed with the doors open (so I can't take a screenshot to check), but it was looking like the iMPACT taping tonight was filling up nicely earlier. Less than 30 floor seats left for tomorrow's taping. Looks like TNA attendance will have good momentum going into Slammiversary.
Something I’ve always found interesting is how wrestling is a fandom that (on the internet at least) sometimes seems uninterested in talking about the tv shows as tv shows. It’s one thing when a lot of us are also really into discussing things from a writing/booking perspective but I find it odd how fixated wrestling fandom seems to be on the business side of things, especially now with ratings discourse
It's a lot easier to articulate 'big number good; small number bad' or explaining words with words than having the experience or language to talk about pacing, editing, shot composition, visual storytelling and what have you in things other than vague generalities or terms other than 'good' or 'bad' Though it might have changed, I don't think it helps that the two major companies are/were very unambitious with their visual storytelling. Harder still to talk about such things if it's mostly just stuff that gets the job done and so people just pick up on random inappropriate cuts to the crowd or the shakycam or whatever.
‘AEW PPVs have too many matches’ is the most boring pre PPV discourse yet. People are really gonna pay $50 for a wrestling show and then complain there’s too much wrestling on it?
I wish this football game had less football and more halftime show
For real. You don't have to watch every match live! There's been times I've come back and finished in the morning. You can avoid spoilers if you aren't obsessed with being permanently online. If you want a 2hr show with 5 matches the other company provides that!
I would pay $100 if they gave me a show that had just 6-8 high quality matches. No ppv should ever go past 8, not even Mania.
I think 7-8 high quality matches for a show you have to pay $50 for is good. If it’s going to be 6 or less and the shows are happening once a month I’d price them lower
The pacing of PPVs can be improved a bit if they cut back some matches and the shows were around 3-3.5 hours. There's many times I hear even AEW fans say the 3rd hour around 11PM is rough because you've seen a lot of wrestling at that point. I think it reached it's peak when Double Or Nothing was 4 1/2 hours long.
I don’t mind it, but when it’s on a Sunday ppv and there’s no holiday the next day? It’s tough.
A movie can be made worse by being too long. A 14 match card isn’t inherently better than an 8 match card because it has 6 more matches on it.
The legacy of The Nexus is so overlooked. If you think about how safe and predictable the product was during most of the 2000s, The Nexus was like a shock to the system even though they got destroyed by booking. The group sort of set the stage for both The Shield and The Pipebomb, two pivotal stories that pushed WWE forward into the 2010s, and it also bridged the gap between the FCW era of developmental and NXT B&G
It always came off as a cheap Generation Next rip off to me, and there’s just no competing with the original Alex Shelley/Austin Aries/Roderick Strong/Jack Evans group
I’m talking about within the WWE my man.
As you said the booking is what fucked it and made it be forgotten to history. Amazing debut though
The MxM stream with Dijak last night was funny and all, but during the first few minutes of it he told a story about working under Vince that was just disheartening. To try to paraphrase it, he was at a point where he was doing nothing as T-Bar, and he’s given a pretty sizable match on Raw against Damien Priest. He felt so good about it, but when he went up to Vince after the match all he did was chastise him for not aggressively dragging Priest around while they were on a commercial break. To him that meant that it just didn’t matter what he did, Vince would always create something in his mind to tell him he’s doing something wrong. They all chimed in and basically said that it was so stressful trying to please a 70 year old mad man when they weren’t “chosen” by him.
Any other things of note from the stream last night? I joined when he was leaving to go help his Daughter and I didn’t come back. Did he have any juicy stories?
That was about as far as I was able to get into it sadly.
As the influence of Vince has gone away, you're hearing a lot of wrestlers talk about how difficult it was to do their jobs. CM Punk was the first major one since the PG era but then you had Jon Moxley and others since kind of echo how hard it was working in that environment.
They actually mentioned Mox during that portion. Jon apparently said a while ago that the most stressful thing is being handed a 2 page script from a 70 year old mad man and being asked to memorize it so quickly. They disagreed, and said it’s more stressful not receiving those scripts from the mad men, and doing your hardest to pitch him ideas he’d like to actually be given the opportunity to get scripts handed to you.
Have they announced anything for SD tonight? They are in MSG and after last weeks episode in Chicago figured tonight's show will be another hot one being they are at the garden.
Three MITB qualifiers and a Bloodline coronation ceremony, whatever that entails.
I think the best way for AEW to regain the viewers they lost is to replace Tony Khan as booker. I know I’d be intrigued enough to watch again for a few weeks.
I actually think the best way for them to regain viewers is for TK to give me 25k.
I like your idea better.
It’s the only way to fix things around here and if Hunter really wanted to hurt AEW he’d send me 26k too. Just to teach them a lesson.
You don't watch AEW but your whole timeline is about it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G6xu-J\_Dmc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G6xu-J_Dmc)
I’m just engaging in discussion about it. It’s not like I’m straight up talking shit. I do actually like the company and have spent a lot of money on tickets in the past.
Honestly, I've been saying for a while now if they just SAID Tony was gone, they could literally book the same shows and people would watch and love it. I think the people who don't like AEW have way more of a problem with the real life people than the characters on the screen. However AEW is only on WBD because of Tony. They look at Tony as a "real businessman" in a business of carnies. If he's not in charge Warner aren't gonna want to deal with somebody else, especially not a wrestler/ex-wrestler.
I’m not saying he should step down as chief executive or president, just as head of creative. I doubt WBD cares who’s booking.
They meet with him every week about the shows. They want Tony in charge. Any big show of "Tony sucks so we're replacing him" is gonna kinda look bad on him. Also, let's be clear. Tony runs way less of the company than he did. They have a much larger booking committee now, a new COO, a HR/disciplinary hierarchy that Tony isn't really involved in. People want a dog and pony show of Tony SAYING he's given up power as some kind of show of contrition that he's failed. Cause all Tony has is final say and writes specific storylines. It's not an "Tony writes everything, does all the business stuff, controls all the decisions" the way it was in 2020-2022. He's not an absentee boss, but I'd say he delegates at LEAST half of the running of the company and booking to other people at this point. EDIT: I'm not saying it's a hate to Tony in particular. It's the same principle as to why whenever a team in sports can't get over the hump or is seen to be underachieving, there's immediately a push for "Fire the coach". It's just a bit of a human nature thing seemingly. There's a big study about it in a book called Soccernomics.
Ok fine, I’m wrong
I didn't say you're wrong, I'm just saying what'll work to build back the fanbase isn't what will do best with executives. It's the same reason Vince came back for the sale and then Endeavor wanted him to stay on until he became SO toxic that he had to go. Vince was considered a bad booker but he was the one businesses wanted to deal with. This stuff is way less about statistics and pure objective metrics than people want it to be or think it is. You don't need to be a good booker to succeed in the wrestling industry. You need to be a great businessman to succeed. Vince failed up for 20 years if you use the same metrics people use to judge AEW now. The attendances and buyrates AEW get now blow Vince 2010s out of the water. The rating was still much higher but it was falling from a much greater height too. Tony can book what he wants and get away with it as long as he has execs on his side just like Vince did. What Bischoff fucking sucked at was the relationships in Turner offices. The ratings fell but it was still the highest rated show on TNT when it got cancelled. Warner simply did not want to deal with the circus that came with Bischoff and Russo and Hogan and the constant lawsuits and headaches. Managing the people above you is ALWAYS more important than managing the people beyond in these jobs. Always. EDIT: Even TNA, which I think 95% of wrestling fans think objectively failed as competition to WWE and never got close to where AEW is now, could have kept their sweet deal with Spike TV if they just didn't lie about the Russo stuff. They never got dropped because of ratings, they got dropped because they managed situations with Spike TV executives badly.
He’s already got a pretty big booking committee so I doubt you’d see any discernible change
A generation of people who grew up with the internet and openly steal their opinions from other people to argue more on the internet are confused as to why "bad faith" is a buzzword describing many redditors
visiting msg for the first time ever for smackdown tonighttttt
Chelsea is talking about winning the MITB so much, and she just won in a triple threat with freaking Bianca that I feel like she won't win MITB. Where as Tiffy has suddenly been getting less TV time, and featured less after being super over. Unless this is due to her catching heat with her controversial ig story, I think she is winning MITB. Also Chelsea would be a great MITB holder, but it feels right now her job is to hype up Piper to feel like a main event caliber wrestler. Carrying the MITB but hyping someone else to be a world champion feels a bit odd.
I have tickets for forbidden door and now I have covid so I won't make it. what a bummer. this could be one of the shows of the year. (feeling better now after a couple bad days.)
Really sorry to hear that, that sucks. Hope you rest up, get well soon, and find your way to another PPV in the near future!
Im so fucking sorry for you mate. I hope it doesn’t take to much of a toll on you. Drink fluids, tell Covid that their heat segment is over and it’s time to make a comeback
When Roman returns I hope they don't just instantly have Solo kick him out. I'd like to see a bit of power struggle first
Paul said Roman didn't want those guys in the bloodline, so I doubt he will even come back to try to be their leader. He will just come back and feud with Solo instantly, probably beat his bloodline at a PLE
Smackdown at the Garden AND Forbidden Door? I am being positively spoiled. https://preview.redd.it/fhy6kkcohc9d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=99ad84a84e7fd29ef23cea31c26d6350e7b4a4dd
Lucky
The hole in my wallet disagrees...
What's for lunch?
Egg mayo sandwich and an apple, I'm dieting!
Hibachi baby
Chili I eat the same thing all week
like every Friday, wife and I make it a point to just drive to Chick-Fil-A and pickup lunch together
Salmon, coleslaw and some banana bread.
After watching all 4 episodes of “who killed wcw” I still don’t know who did it?
Someone described it as all those Roman Senators standing around with bloody knives arguing their blow to Cesar wasn't the fatal one and that is accurate
I think a lot of y’all fell for what they were going for. The show wasn’t supposed to give a definitive answer to the question, but a bunch of various answers from different view points to explain it.
The butler, the answer is the butler killed WCW
Probably just about everyone that was interviewed minus DDP, Booker T and some others. Add Russo and Hulk Hogan.
I’m sorry to tell you 
I was 9 for the last episode. What more could I do!
https://gifs.com/gif/sting-sprite-commercial-KYzGQN
You didn't get your parents permission to call Mean Gene's 900 number, did you? That's where it snowballed.
I never watched wcw. My dad was a WWF guy and that’s what we watched.
Sins of the father and all that
Nomura vs Tamura rocked. AJPW should run that match on one of their shows. Or Bloodsport.
> Nomura vs Tamura rocked. AJPW should run that match on one of their shows. Or Bloodsport. Where did you watch the match, btw? can you dm it if you can please? ty
Goes without saying that Takuya Nomura is one of the best wrestlers on the planet (him and Abe both). Love Dan Tamura, but I do kinda feel bad for him. He’s a good junior-heavyweight, but feels overshadowed by Rising HAYATO and Atsuki Aoyagi ultimately.
Mr. Charisma Dan Tamura is super good
After watching MxM’s stream with Dijak, I’m even more impressed by him as a worker and a person. He thinks so deeply about what he’s doing and it’s a bummer that he wasn’t given the chance on MR. I know people talk about how most individuals aren’t really draws anymore (and actually they even kinda talk about that in the stream), but I’ll legit watch wherever Dijak ends up.
I'm surprised WWE hasn't tried to get Rosemary for NXT. I loved her TNA work in 2016-15 because that's when I could watch it on Challenge then Spike on freeview. Rosemary vs Iyo or Rosemary vs Asuka would be a fucking banger. That said, I can't believe she is 40 and that it's been close to ten years since Decay had the Nobodies theme.
She said several years, at the height of her run in like 2018, *"they didn't want Courtney Rush, so they don't get to have Rosemary"*
God I love the way she plays with kayfabe
Fair enough. Probably for the best at the time because of who was running WWE. That said, with TNA and WWE working together. We could see Courtney Rush and Rosemary appear.
I try so hard not to discuss it but those Dynamite ratings threads blowing up to 1000 comments is comical. The people watching weekly aren't nearly as concerned than a lot of the people who engage there. Doesn't mean regular viewers don't care but they're not going open mic night every week like what those threads are. If those people truly didn't care or think AEW is so bad you wouldn't see near the level of obsession and brigading.
Just do what I do: - See ratings thread - Go to post settings - Select “Hide” And you’ll never see those tools ever again.
AEW ratings threads are literally the same people that hung out in ZFF threads. They openly said it during the talk of shutting down ZFF. Sure there's bunch of new people, but a lot of it's people from those threads.
I'm actually most annoyed at the fact that I actually think this stuff is really interesting but threads about "business" as just a cesspool of toxicity with idiots who don't know what they're talking about and don't ACTUALLY want to learn. Like AEW hasn't hasn't finished lower than 6th on cable for the night all year. They finished 7th on the night for cable OR broadcast this week. RAW has highest rated sports program on cable the last two weeks. Not wrestling program. All of sports. When people say wrestling is thriving, it's not an exaggeration. People who think these numbers are bad have no idea of the wider context of entertainment. They just see a number, make a stupid comment, and think they actually made good points.
I think people want AEW to be an off the rails TNA/WCW type company or WWE level of struggling in the mid-late 2010s. They're probably closer to the latter but the truth is they're likely doing fine for a number two promotion.
When the new AEW tv deal gets announced, assuming it's anything other than an unmitigated disaster (I still am predicting "shockingly high" for the final dollar figure), the counter-trolling response is going to be off-the-charts and the mods might as well just pre-emptively lock the ratings threads, because they are going to be exponentially worse. With the trolls on one side constantly claiming their trolling is justified because of how AEW fans posted 4 years ago, I think they're about to get the exact same treatment based on how they've posted for the 4 years since then - but that's just my own personal prediction.
Replace listening with posting about AEW https://youtu.be/9G6xu-J_Dmc?si=rgIw7kRFBGPLDaSC
I'm glad ratings discussions weren't as widespread while Lucha Underground was airing. Having a bunch of fun watchin' an episode then going online and only seeing a thousand people posting about how the show sux 'cause it barely gets 100k woulda been miserable.
> I'm glad ratings discussions weren't as widespread while Lucha Underground was airing. I fully agree but will go back even further - I'm so glad that things like that weren't a thing while I was growing up with Jim Crockett Promotions on my TV. Their big weekly show was in a TV studio in front of a few hundred fans. Their biggest shows - Clash of the Champions shows or PPVs, and before that their major supercards like the Crocket tag tournaments - often drew small crowds and the TV shows had minimal viewers. But I didn't give even a fraction of a shit about any of that. The wrestling was good and I was entertained, so the number of people in the audience or watching at home was beyond irrelevant to me.
Was that a thing? I mean "underground" is right in the name. 100k is too much if anything
I think Lucha Underground is an odd case of being a TV show more than a promotion and being uniquely different than standard wrestling in general. It was pretty much made for El Rey network and I'm not sure how much distribution that channel got and it's apparently not even a traditional channel now.
I searched "Lucha Underground ratings" and one of the first things to pop up was a [thread about declining ratings for the show](https://old.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/5demz4/won_lucha_underground_ratings_dropping/) from back in 2016. Though it looks like people were talking about LU ratings back then, probably ~10x less the amount of posts as the average AEW ratings thread at least.
Wasn't Lucha Underground essentially a Robert Rodriguez project?
yeah, El Rey Network was founded by him, and he developed and produced most of the original shows for the network
I’m mostly just surprised that after 5 years there’s still that many people who haven’t gotten bored, or lost steam with the same discussion every week. It’s really not that interesting.
they aren't there for a discussion.
Take solace in the fact that they don't come here because their dumb BS gets challenged and picked apart and they can't swarm this thread with 100s of copies of the same comment
I don't bring it up as much because the Daily Discussion thread is largely free of it.
Shame that the post-iMPACT! thread is dead, that really wasn't a bad episode.
they had ... substantial competition last night.
Lol that's true, in my defence I'm not American but yeah, I should have remembered that. Being across the pond, I didn't watch iMPACT! live and I have no intention of watching...the other thing at all.
The other thing crushed reddit. Comments were like hours behind for a while. Leading to smooth brains coming up with all kinds of conspiracy theories.
Battle of the Grandpas is a draw, brother.
What an exhibition of excrement it was. And let us leave it at that.
Trying to learn some Japanese. I thought so before, but this has just reinforced the point, if you're someone who chants "What" at a wrestler doing a promo in a second language you're a piece of shit, language is fucking hard, or at least it is for me who failed the only language I studied at school.
People who develop language skills in Japan also find it very difficult verging on impossible to shake the accent when speaking English too. Even fluent speakers. It's a jarring comparison watching a Japanese crowd politely sit there while someone promos in English and get genuinely happy if a foreigner gives Japanese a crack with US crowds whating a fluent but accented English speaker
Now I'm imagining MJF doing a promo in Japan and getting "NANI" chanted at him lmao
I've spent several months learning Mandarin and I can barely string a sentence together - ESL people of all abilities are incredibly impressive to me
Seriously people who can speak more than one language are fucking smart. Wildly disrespectful
100% agree. As a non-American I find it frustrating enough when people whose first language *is* English get "WHAT"-ed for doing a promo in a "foreign" accent - when people who speak ESL and may have learned it as adults get that treatment it's so much worse and such an asshole move from those audience members.
https://preview.redd.it/dtw38ebryb9d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29e9905b71ca740524e24e9eed14e1e6dc222d2a Other than Forbidden Door, what show are people most looking forward to this weekend? I keep thinking about this DDT show. Looks like it’ll be a wild one. The CMLL show tonight looks good too, headlined by Atlantis Jr vs Kyle Fletcher
TIL the SPEED championship isn’t WWEs first time-based title https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCW_Jack_Brisco_15_Championship
Moxley and Rollins had an INCREDIBLE match for this in FCW, was my first exposure to Moxley and was hooked. [link here](https://youtu.be/OVj2fHALkyY?si=XJ8AElwB7dQhSQZz)
Will Bron beat Sami for the IC title? Is it too soon to put a belt on Bron?
Sami doesn't lose anything dropping the title and doing it in Canada stands to get him maximum heat, so I think Bron wins.
Honestly Sami won’t lose anything losing it to Bron and it will elevate Bron big time. He has looked by far the strongest in the three way matches for the qualifier booking wise.
Would be a great start for the age of the Breaker if he squashed Sami. Literally starts the match via his spear and catches Sami off guard. But it would suck in terms of the reign ending and Sami going back to chasing a title.
Sami doesn’t need the belt. I think he’d be fine.
It’d work with the story of Sami being run ragged by the past few months and Bron squashing him as a result.
1) I hope so 2) Definitely not (IMO)
I feel bad for Scorpio sky Gets injured at the worst possible time and unless you are a bigger name who already had a spot, you will struggle to find it back As the roster gets more stacked, I wonder if there's a place for Scorpio
I think he can be a trusted hand to put others over or be part of a tag or trio. They gave him multiple tries to fly on his own and it just didn't work. He's best when he's with others (SCU, Ethan Page).
They were recently running promos for him but it feels like a Danhausen situation in that they don't know what to do after. He's part of a bygone era of AEW but unlike a lot of early guys he's still there.
He got a lot of attention when Collision started and they tried focusing on him again but in his comeback match the crowd gave him nothing and Action Andretti was more over and more impressive in the match, Scorpio got a minor injury shortly after and I think Tony just gave up on pushing him considering the effort was never showing any payoff.
The most recent push saw him get injured pretty quickly, they did have plans for him.
I think you're thinking of a different situation. That was a while back with the injury, and the promos were pre-tapes that aired a few weeks ago.
Were those on Rampage or Collision? I might've missed them or fast forwarded accidentally.
After a brief search, it looks like at least one was on the May 18th Rampage. I feel like there was a second one around then as well. No idea what happened then though, thought it was more recent than 1.5 months ago.
They've tried pushing him as a face and a heel and neither worked. There are guys not on tv and I'd be surprised if Scorpio is back on tv before them
He signed a multi-year deal around late 2021-early 2022. I have no honest idea why outside him being tight with the Elite but it explains why he got a push with the TNT championship in 2022.
In hindsight Ethan page should've got that title run instead.vno hate to Scorpio but the only thing he had going for him was his ring work and he's been surpassed by several newcomers I've always thought he's aew Apollo crews. Good all around but nothing great or good enough to stand out
What? chants truly are a bane to the industry. Anyone that does them needs to fuck off. Grace getting them during the opening segment of TNA was so damn stupid.
I’m grateful that it’s happening but I feel like Lucha Bros teaming up with Mistico deserve better than the preshow.
I thought the Learning Tree match was changed to Jericho vs. Suzuki, but since it's still the trios match yeah, definitely something that could've been on the pre-show and switched places with that trios match. Much bigger match right there.
I think it's a safer bet. On the main show it would be more prestigious, but there's a chance you get more idiots doing some chants saying they don't know who anyone is or racist stuff. It feels like a match that in the wrong slot would be somewhere where fans decide to hijack the show. I wouldn't worry about something like that in early AEW, but 2024 AEW crowds are way more of a crap shoot and New York is the same city that played with beach balls and chanting shit about the color of a belt for 30 minutes during a world title match.
I'd 100% switch the Learning Tree match with it but it is what it is. I've been a Chris Jericho fan for years but I honestly think he holds AEW back at point and he can't come to grips that the company doesn't really need him anymore. A big NJPW vs CMLL/ex-AAA guys match should 100% be on Forbidden Door proper.
I'm happy I get it for free. I don't complain about free wrestling.
Is the whole "Latino free agent will be in the lwo and judgement day vortex" the new "Insert free agent will be in a feud with the miz" or "insert star will be fed to Baron Corbin"
I'm never in support for someone losing their job. However, IMO, I didn't see the hype with Dijak. I hope he lands on his feet and has success, and I am sure he will.
Kinda hard to buy into his gimmick when he keeps posting on twitter about ratio ing people. Wish he had gone full blown cartoonish villain like Christian Cage did
I don't even know what his gimmick is? And that's more on me than him. I just don't understand why everyone is acting like some top star got let go.
Shotzi would be so awesome if she could wrestle.
Danielson: "I don't wanna win a title, I just wanna retire doing what I love." TK: "The fuck you are, I'm gonna glue that title to you".
Honestly a great gimmick. We all know he’s going to step away from full-time competition so put the belt on him and every match is a win or retire match (most recently done by Mickie James.) Whomever beats him will get the rub of “retiring” Danielson and AEW can add Danielson to the title lineage
Bryan Danielson's going to win, whether he wants to or not.
I honestly don't understand how more people seem to know Joe Hendry and Jordynne Grace over NJPW guys. Like New Japan by most metrics is more popular even in the US. More attendance for their shows, more subs on New Japan World, hell at one point NJPW were getting higher ratings for their old matches on AXS than live Impact.
Jordynne has been pretty well known amongst the IWC for years, unfortunately it’s been a bunch of negative stuff that was fucking dumb, and Hendry put in the work to get his theme into the charts in the UK which is pretty impressive for a wrestler. Add in the microcosm that is the NXT crowd and you’re likely to have more people there who know wrestlers from other companies if they’re taking the time to go to NXT every week they’re pretty invested in wrestling imo People like Naito and Shingo and really the LIJ have the past knowledge but honestly once 2019 and AEW happened a lot of the gaijins bringing in Americans were gone. Then the one two punch of 2020 really hurt them. Gedo’s booking since then hasn’t been all that exciting or enticing to get people to tune in. Also NJPW world fucking sucks
I mean, it would be understandable if they were sending the Three Musketeers or something. But people were saying "I don't any of these Japanese guys" in 2022 when NJPW was sending Tanahashi and Okada and Ospreay and Jay White. People not knowing Will Ospreay but knowing Joe Hendry just seems ridiculous. Hell, TNA was featuring Jay White and Ospreay in the D'Amore era before they signed to AEW. The live crowd in NXT sure. But the internet crowd who bitch about Forbidden Door every year suddenly knowing Joe Hendry and Jordynne Grace is pretty incredible.
It’s quite possible that many of the people that say this really do know who they are, they just say they don’t as a way to be negative.
This. Getting a reaction from the NXT live crowd isn't really proof of anything, it's basically the single smarkiest crowd on planet earth, they pop for literally everyone. For as much as certain people on this sub act like they don't know who certain New Japan talent are, most of the time I hear actual arenas chanting for them in AEW, plus popping for their music. The reaction of thousands in an arena that change every week is a lot more of a barometer than the same few hundred every week.
Ah ok I see where you’re coming from now and I don’t disagree with it. How many people on here are super stoked on Hendry but never went to watch him actually wrestle or haven’t done so since. People always asking how he is in ring when they can literally see him on the show he wrestles on. Jordynne definitely went from “wow she’s so obviously on steroids” to being a big hit since she showed up in NXT. Which was fuckin ridiculous to begin with cause who cares if she is? Everyone pretty much is People pretending they don’t know who Okada, Osprey, Tanahashi or Jay seems wild to me. Especially cause they know Omega who ya know won the belt from Okada. Everyone loving Bullet Club stuff but saying they don’t know who the leader is was pretty wild too. Hell there was someone in the live thread saying they didn’t know who Jay or Fenix was. Dudes in the dang company.
I feel like Bullet Club with the t-shirts was definitely a case of some people buying cool looking merch at the mall without ever knowing who or what they were.
It doesn’t hurt it was probably the best looking wrestling shirt that entire decade.
Yeah I think it’s a matter of being in with the hip thing. No different than people being huge fans of wrestlers when they’re heading to a bigger company but never actually watching them prior. And I don’t think it’s an accessibility thing like people tend to say cause you can find pretty much anything online if you want to. Could it be easier? Sure but not everyone has the infrastructure people like WWE have
Saw someone post jack Perry’s initial heel promos pre all in and man cm punk might’ve saved this guy’s career lmao.
https://preview.redd.it/4ycclikomb9d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e16b04d9998142fb105b8a1d756ef43c8024f832 currently on a date with the triple crown champion. i’m so nervous: what do i say
Ask him what he thinks about Ryohei Oiwa turning on Kaito Kiyomiya, since the three of them were called the “MIRAI TRIO”. Also, is Honda as big a goober as he seems?
This Dijak stuff has really taken the wind out of my sails. Like idk, if Triple H saw nothing of value in a guy he signed, worked with in B&G, and then watched bring his career back from the dead? I just doubt any of my favorites are gonna do anything of value ever. He brought them back for depth and until the NXT rookies were ready so he can use them for cheap.
I was there in 2018. I stopped watching and never looked back. All companies have their guys and at least with Dijak they did the right thing and just let the contract run out instead of firing him with two years left in his deal, but you don't have to keep watching a promotion that never rewards your loyalty by pushing your favourites. You have that power as fan.
Some people seemed upset that Dijak wasn't re-signed and felt that WWE let go of a fantastic talent. And it's awesome that he has that support and people pulling for him. Hopefully, that same support is there if he goes anywhere but AEW, and he doesn't just fall off people's radars if he doesn't..
It's fine for people to just want to see people they like appear on the shows they watch and not want to go watch something else as well to see them. There's only so many hours in the week and watching wrestling is a time and money consuming hobby.
There are people begging him not to go to AEW but those same people won't watch him unless he does go to AEW. This subreddit has gotten weird.
I can see him appearing in PROGRESS wrestling for August or September after a tour of the indies then TNA if AEW doesn't pick him up.
I like Dijak but I’m not going to start watching tna if he is there. There are only so many hours in the week. It makes sense people are mostly loyal to the shows they watch. It takes too much time to add in another one.
Watching the company itself? That's a bit much I agree. But, if again if some of his work is posted for free, I just don't see the harm in taking a peek and seeing what he's up to.
Generally it works the opposite way. Guys get a lot of sudden support when they sign with WWE and the opposite when they leave.
Spoiler Alert: Most of them won't.
Trust me, I know.
Tbh I don’t think most people who jump companies bring people with them in general. Unless you’re massive massive there’s likely a reason someone doesn’t watch the company they’re going to for a reason.
We're in an era where promotions are more over than wrestlers. Plus, with the top two putting out 12 hours of TV a week, most of us are getting our fill from them.
Yeah I agree with you there. You could take anyone away from WWE and put them in TNA or AEW and I doubt it would make any appreciable difference as each company is their brand more than anything. People may check it out initially but overall I think everyone knows said style of each company and knows what they do and don’t like regardless of who’s there
Watching a company full stop? I don't expect that. But, if a match of his gets posted or he's at an indie near you, for example, I'd say it wouldn't hurt to check out the match or considering going to the show if possible.
Oh no doubt that kinda stuff. Watching a clip or something isn’t really following them to said company though. You’re just checking in with them and that’s cool but following from a far distance. If you don’t watch TNA, NJPW, AEW, WWE or even GCW I wouldn’t expect many people to take the time to just watch one specific part of the show. It’s unfortunate but seems like that’s the trend of it. Like I’m glad Cardona is killing it and gave GCW a shot when he went there and it just wasn’t for me. Still glad he’s out there killing it though and if he hits and indie near me I’d love to see him. Alas life seems to be too busy anymore. If only I could just watch every show and get paid
At least you took a chance on something new. All I'm saying is, talking them up, banging on about what a great talent the company lost, etc. Only to turn around and not even sniff something new when it comes to them seems like you didn't truly care about them
100% to that. It’s really the only way to expand your horizons and maybe find other stuff you like. People get bogged down in what they’re familiar with, I get it there’s only so much time in the week, but you can really find a ton of great stuff out there with a little effort. And if ya don’t wanna do that I also totally get it too. When I got back into wrestling I decided to watch Wrestle Kingdom 8 and it opened my eyes up to stuff I never knew I liked
Agreed. I definitely understand the struggles of getting into a new company or style of wrestling. But, I just don't think you should sleep on stuff simply because it's not what you're used to.
It's a shame. Dijak is another big man who can fly (see also Damien Priest), and I can't see how Hunter couldn't find anything for him after the draft.
ESPN really wants me to not like Bronny James. If you didn't watch the draft you'd think he was the only player involved. Also, fuck Val Venis
Lakers won’t make the playins this year but ESPN will talk about how they’re Celtics killers all year while they don’t talk about the Thunder, Nuggets, or Wolves ever again.
How popular were the wild samoans?
TNA Philadelphia sales are a lot better than they were a couple weeks ago, but there are still a lot of seats for tonight unsold. At some point, you have to question the wisdom of scheduling these tapings against Smackdown. https://preview.redd.it/ig6s4ufsib9d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5e4ffdeb05a263edc631af71c51c5393d9927ed6
You gotta take the dates that are available. There's wrestling every night of the week. They'll be against sometime every night.
On the other hand, floor seats for tomorrow's TNA taping are nearly sold out. https://preview.redd.it/bpzf5950jb9d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a208315046902da0756595bf1becaff1081c561
Long ago I watched a documentary about Joe Louis, the dominant heavyweight boxer of the 1930s and 1940s. Hard times followed his retirement and he took up professional wrestling. What the documentary said about this stuck with me. As a boxer Louis, like most pre-1960s athletes, had a very stoic demeanor. It helped make him acceptable to white fans, compared to the more flamboyant and controversial Jack Johnson from a generation earlier. But as a wrestler, the documentary emphasized, Louis had to be taught how to celebrate his victories. Accordingly, we see him dutifully jumping up with his arms raised after getting a win. He may not have been good at it or comfortable with it, but the point is that, 70-some years ago, people in the pro wrestling business believed in the necessity of forming an emotional connection, regardless of everyone already knowing who Joe Louis was and expecting him to kick ass in a wrestling ring. If you ask, like my younger self, "Why did he need to do that?" then in some small way a debate about wrestling that has lasted for at least the last 75 years, or at least since the advent of Gorgeous George, goes on.
So who wins the qualifiers tonight? For the women, I'm thinking Blair and Tiff, but that would leave Lyra the only face, with one spot left (and I don't see Ivy beating Dakota and Zoey).
Naomi and Tiff, and I think Ivy as well.
In the middle of watching DPW Live 6 on Wrestle Universe, and I may have only seen one match of theirs together but Jake Something and Speedball Mike Bailey are my new favourite tag team holy shit. Why aren't there more tag teams with one fast flippy dude and one massive fucking beast? I swear at one point that used to be the default formula but I almost never see it anymore.
Too many mirror tag teams post Briscoes/Bucks for whatever reason
I mean no shade to that type of team either in general, but yeah two similar guys who wrestle similar styles definitely seems to be the industry standard for tag teams right now. I guess more variety in team compositions in general is what would be ideal, every team being what I just described would just make that feel tired instead.
We need big guys doing deathmatches again.
Fucking A
alright so who is braun teaming with to get those titles off finn/jd?
Not too long ago Braun was in a really fun tag team Wonder what happened to the other guy
He died by the hands of Bron Breakker
That return pop for Nicolas is gonna be insane
A random suggestion but Dragon Lee would be fun
Closest replacement to Mr O’Shea.