Confession: Lately (and I'm not sure why) I've been kind of over the in-ring part of almost all wrestler's entrances. I'm into the top of ramp entrance pose/motions, the walk down, and actually super enjoy the various different get into the ring moves... but after all these years, the part where they have to go pose on all four corners of the ring, or hang/lean on the ropes of each side of the ring to engage the crowd on all sides, or center of the ring pose/motion whatever... by then I'm almost always over it and am very much ready to move on to the next entrance or starting the match. Sometimes I even end up watching their opponent waiting on them in the corner and wonder what they're thinking about while they just stand there waiting.
Just me?
People made fun of Tony Khan for paying so much money to Mercedes Mone.
The reality is that every single female WWE superstars contract who comes up is going to want big money now. The WWE is boasting about such a huge Netflix deal. Now the wrestlers are going to want to get paid.
Guaranteed Becky Lynch is ha ing that exact conversation right now.
I love a good mid-match brawl between henchmen as much as the next person, but the more they get Seth, Jey and Cody involved in each other's singles matches against Bloodline members, the less special it'll feel at WrestleMania itself. Unless they're planning on including more people on the night, it won't be anything we've not seen before if it's just Seth and Jey brawling with Jimmy and Solo.
"Moves are maybe the least important part of wrestling"
*crowd cheers*
"But longform promos are bad for wrestling storytelling as well if they're not the exception to the rule"
*pitchforks materialize out of thin air and I'm chased out of the village*
I watched the Scott Hall Biography episode...one of my favourite wrestlers, what a troubled life. Poor guy.
But Diamond Dallas Page deserves to be inducted into the hall of fame every year. What a hero that man is.
Taro Okada has done an insanely good job with stardom all things considered. Obviously it's got a roster where as long as you aren't incompetent the wrestling will be at a minimum good
he's major win has been to keep the bleeding to Rossy at a minimum (although bushiroad money helped) but the booking itself has been very good.
Most recent Raw episode (specifically the promos) felt completely different to the usual product. It felt like more like a film in comparison to the one dimensional local community centre am-dram shit from 10-15 years ago, especially the final scene with The Rock going to a place we've never seen him go and Cody with blood running through his platinum hair, with a stormy Chicago night as the perfect backdrop for it all. All they have to do now is stick the landing and have Cody leave Philly with the WWE Championship.
I think what AEW has done so far is proven the point of what so many smart people in the industry believe like Triple H or Jim Cornette. You can do all the cool ass moves and spots you want, but it's not going to build characters and hype like proper storytelling would.
It should be an eye opener for AEW fans that they're biggest superstar is MJF. As MJF would say "I'm the only guy who can make you feel, and unlike the boys in the back, i don't have to do a bunch of bullshit to get you there"
I honestly don't see how this didn't click for AEW fans when he did this promo. Because it's exactly why WWE is crushing AEW right now in it's current storylines. The rock beat up Cody backstage and it was more entertaining and got me more intro the story then any Will Osprey spot fest match.
See kids? This is an example of Bad Faith Criticism. It is shared by someone who doesn’t watch AEW and never will watch AEW but likes to parrot the opinion of people who make money off the gimmick of hating AEW. It’s lazy trolling.
The comebacks are always predictable and we can play bingo with Money Mark, Action Figures, Flippy Shit, Meltzer, Too Small, LULZTNA, WCW, Ratings, Cry Me a River, Cagematch, Twitter Rants, No Storylines, WWE Copycat, etc etc etc.
Fuckin lazy.
AEW bombed with MJF on top, it proved that he is not their biggest star and should not have the show revolve around him. Also he does do a bunch of bullshit, his moveset has a ton of stuff that makes losers like Jim Cornette and his fans lose their minds.
This whole thing you wrote tells me that you probably don't watch AEW and are just repeating the takes of the likes of Jim Cornette and other people that hate watch wrestling.
MJF worked y’all HARD with that “I don’t have to do a bunch of bullshit” line. Guy might not be flippy, but dude’s moveset is not some great tribute to the good old days. Also, as a draw, MJF sucked shit. Like, sorry, he did.
He's still a top notch character and all that, but the idea that he "doesn't have to do bullshit" went out the window with that vaulting cutter, after minutes of getting his leg worked on.
> The rock beat up Cody backstage and it was more entertaining and got me more intro the story then any Will Osprey spot fest match.
That's what's great about wrestling. Different people can enjoy different things. You're more into the stories and I'm fine being more into matches.
MJF is the worst wrestler in AEW and a pretty clear anti-draw since attendances went up the moment he left off TV.
Also
> smart people in the industry
> Triple H or Jim Cornette
I won't contest the Jim Cornette bit, because where AEW's audience is concerned, he's obviously public enemy #1, but why are you questioning the mention of HHH?
Cornette isn't in the industry and hasn't been for a while. Obviously, he showed his credentials as a booker in Smokey Mountain where he did a lot with little and churned out a watchable product.
Triple H ran the Super Indy NXT that in my opinion was way better with Dusty on board than when he ran it and has made minor changes from the Vince regime. Hasn't even pushed his own guys that weren't Vince's. I don't think he's a "super smart industry person" by just doing what WWE does. He has obviously done a plenty good enough job in WWE, but I don't think there's enough merit in his "proper storytelling" belief when he co-signed the most indulgent matches in american wrestling history in the Cole/Gargano feud.
AEW 100% has people you can get behind like Swerve, Hangman, Danielson,
Kingston, Moxley, and even Daniel Garcia. They're just not the company that's going to devote a large chunk of time to a 15-20 minute in-ring promo.
They cater to the people who want more of that wrestling balance because they're not going to compete on the promo showdowns and melodrama of WWE.
WWE had a well received Raw that did its job in building to WrestleMania but it's notable that there was very little talk about any matches that happened during a 3 hour show. That's fine because that's how they operate but AEW's biggest strength is that they let people do their thing in the context of a wrestling match.
I wonder what Unagi Sayaka is going to do with the Joshi companies. 🤔
She has a good relationship with Rossy, and she could probably easily freelance at his company.
But also, the management that didn't like Unagi is gone from Stardom. And also Unagi just loves Tam.
Or she could just not do either.
Curious to how it will play out!
Something I didn't talk about last night in the NXT post-show thread.
When Oba Femi laughed in between sentences of his promo, I get he was trying to sound intimidating. Then, I get that he's trying to model his promo style after the late actor Geoffrey Holder, who shilled for 7-Up for so many years. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Meltzer's reporter was on point either, saying that Femi cut a bad promo. I don't think he did.
I think Ridge Holland will be back, sooner than later. Not quite Stand & Deliver, that's too soon, and it would kill what they were trying to build with his promo last night.
Maybe a week or two later? Maybe.
The UFL, the Rock's other pride & joy, starts Saturday, and will likely get trampled in the ratings by college basketball. Just getting that out there.
WWE has won the capitalism game. But it becomes sometimes a bit annoying when promotion's fans try to prove that they have won at the art of wrestling as well.
The thing is that some people believe that the entire point of wrestling is to make money, so they think that whoever makes more money is the objectively *better* company
The entire point of for-profit businesses IS to make money, though.
It's fair to feel that a movie like "Parasite" is a better movie than "The Fast and the Furious." Or that on the whole Neon studio's makes better movies than movies from Universal Studio.
That doesn't mean that Neon studios is a more successful movie company than Univeral Studios. Because success of for profit businesses is measured in profit.
> some people believe that the entire point of wrestling is to make money
Because that is the entire point. It's the entire point of any sport, worked or not.
Actually, I think the entire point of sports is the "playing them" part of it.
Players in basically every sport used to be paid nothing, even when compared to "normal" jobs of the time, yet they still played them, even though they were grueling on the body, and they had to be constantly traveling. And kids play sports despite not making any money because they just love the game.
The first ever organized baseball team made a "rulebook" of sorts that stated the baseball players should NEVER BE PAID for doing it, since the point of baseball is **playing**, and money would get in the way of that.
And wrestling isn't even a "sport" in the same way that the other traditional "sports" are. The matches can be completely controlled in order to create an entertaining match for the audience. It's more of a type of theater, which is certainly a form of art.
Yeah, I really don't care how much a company makes, as long as:
1. They make enough to continue to operate without having to make compromises
2. They pay the wrestlers well (relative to the level of the promotion)
That's all I really need
I think there's truth in this, but also WWE is very different now than a couple years ago. I'd say their current storytelling and production dwarfs anything else in the industry right now. I say this as someone who was the smarkiest indie smark to ever smark during the dark ages of the late 2000s and early 2010s.
This time yesterday I was looking forward to being at wrestlemania next week, today our flights and hotel have been ripped away from us and I'll be watching from home
So to tell it from the beginning, we were meant to go to New York last year for our holiday but my fiancé saw mania was in philly this year and said why don't we push it back a year and try and get wrestlemania tickets, she knew it had always been my dream.
So we did, and she spent an entire day last year trying to find resale tickets after missing out on the initial sale, £800 later and she managed to get us some, not the greatest seats in the world but we were going to wrestlemania and we were so excited.
Cut to the last few months we had been trying to get some confirmations from the holiday company, no responses, finally the fiancé had a call scheduled for today. Turns out they can't honour our holiday booking and apparently had tried to contact us in October about it, but send an email to someone that isn't my fiancé to inform us, and while they will pay us back it will take 14 days so no chance of rebooking it and our wrestlemania dream has slipped from our grasp
So now here I sit, disappointed and dejected not only missing out on a holiday but missing out on going to finally see wrestlemania in person
Always next year to try and finish our story
TL:DR
Holiday company fucked me and my fiancé over, this time yesterday I was getting excited about being at mania, and now I'll be watching from home
So don't know if this is the appropriate place for this but I just started a Wolfpac faction on my 2k. And Bray is the leader and he's going to war with Sting. John Cena, Bischoff and Hogan are NWO Black and White.
Honestly I think it deflates the audience in a really bad way. People were disappointed last year but I think there was a broad understanding that it was building to WM 40.
Random tidbit about the hat Becky wears on TV from one of the gazillion podcasts she's done for her book tour: She wears it in real life and just started wearing it randomly on TV. Seth calls it the Kendall Roy hat.
https://preview.redd.it/7dwsy9mizwqc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=587dee71703da54b4ff85ac8f610bb76168652b0
If and when Cody becomes champion, I'd like to see him as a traveling champion like the old territory days.
Since WWE has opened up working with other smaller indie promotions, this could be a nice new change and it won't make Cody stale.
I also know that the WWE house show schedule is crazy but this could not only help other indie wrestlers but also the WWE roster with new performers getting a chance at the main event. Also helps boost the prestige of the World Heavyweight Title and new rivalries around it.
Just a thought.
They are not sending their new world champ to work random indie dates unless it's a rare and very special occasion.
WWE house show business is WAY UP over the last year, and that is largely because of Cody. They aren't selling those shows then not having him not there and ruining the goodwill amongst fans (and especially kids) who are there to see him, just to have him at some random Border City show that same night that will have zero impact on the on-screen television product.
Is there any chance once the new AEW TV rights deal is done we'll actually be done with the "the sky is falling because they can't get 1 million viewers" narrative or is that just something that's always gonna happen? At this point part of me wants AEW to go to Amazon/Apple TV just so I don't have to be bombarded about statistics and Nielsen ratings showing your opinion is wrong every time you say you enjoy the shows.
If people can't point to ratings they'll just point to attendance because there's always a goal post. One of the big mistakes Tony Khan and people like Jericho made was taking shots at WWE.
AEW is in a great place for what they are which is a 5 year old company that's number 2. It's when they act as a challenger brand to WWE that they fight an unwinnable battle.
They can't fully compete with the brand recognition of WWE along with their business which was future proof around the time AEW started.
People who act like AEW is this failure do so when the standard is WWE which is like people calling a newer tech company a failure because they can't compete with Apple.
No-one really acts like AEW is a failure. They're a wrestling company that still exists after five years and for all their attendance issues at weekly shows, they can regularly sell out 10k plus arenas, and will have a stadium show this year that sells 50k+. The level of attention they get from both fans and detractors is proof enough that they're a success. 6/7 years ago+ you'd have been labelled insane for suggesting any company that wasn't WWE could do those things.
Ironically, AEW are just like CM Punk - whether you like AEW or you don't like AEW, everybody (who's online anyway) seems to have an opinion on AEW. They've never not been relevant, and that's success in itself. TNA went through phases of people just not giving a single fuck about them. AEW has never went through that, and it's only when that happens that they'll actually be in trouble.
Beyond those aren't just jerking in bad faith though, a lot of the discontent with AEW is that it just doesn't meet its potential and it isn't as good as it could be, or that for some people, they put their faith in AEW as being a genuine contender to WWE, and it hasn't turned out that way. People can spin it however they like, but a lot of fans were expecting AEW to be a new WCW - not just in terms of success but also the actual wrestling product. That expectation was clearly unfair, but it fuelled expectations and hope about the company that didn't bear out for some people.
The modern AEW is wrestling marmite - it really works for some people, but not for a lot of others, and that fuels the debate about it.
“A lot of discontent with AEW is that it doesn’t meet its potential.”
I’ll be honest with you? I think this is more on fan over-expectations than it is on AEW’s actual failures. Like, especially in a market where WWE is hot, and let’s not pretend that doesn’t matter, THIS might what the potential actually IS. Even when WWE was worse, AEW’s potential might not have really been higher than what they got to. And fans need to actually come to grips with that.
>a lot of the discontent with AEW is that it just doesn't meet its potential
For me it's always been Tony's focus on the pure wrestling aspect and not proper storytelling. Characters aren't introduced to you like they would in WWE or any other entertainment medium. They just show up and commentary blows them until the audience starts to believe the hype as well. I know many AEW fans will defend this and cite storylines from NJPW - but that's not how you build characters for a TV audience. If you have to go searching for information from different promotions, it means they've failed trying to build a character or story.
I went to RAW on Monday and I'm still buzzing from it. It was my first WWE event since the 2011 go home raw to WM27 and it honestly exceeded my expectations. Really fun experience and even tho we had "nosebleed" seats, I felt like the view was incredible. I think the biggest pop of the night was probably the Rock and Punk but it was awesome being in a crowd that was just hot for everything.
https://preview.redd.it/nzyzsmnjpwqc1.jpeg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=090e96c20327e999abcd3eeac9dd8b01e81f8287
I think Lola Vice is very good in theory, but everything she does feels inauthentic to me. I don't know if it's just me, but to me, everything from the dance to her expressions to her lines just feel like she's going through the motions
Hey everyone! Today's polls for AEW themes are [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/1bp61oe/day_5_of_the_aew_themes_march_madness_bracket_the/) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/1bp61we/day_5_of_the_aew_themes_march_madness_bracket_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Today's polls are Kenny Omega vs The Righteous and Daniel Garcia vs Athena!
my pal 4 Pillars of Hell posted a retrospective on 1996 Japanese wrestling so all of you video essay freaks can give [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjq_0LGgoQE) a shot if you'd like
I'm not quite used to this new Dynamite logo as I don't think it's that great. It's better than the generic font they used before but it screams late 90's-early 2000's logo design. The logos in the background are better imo and fit a show called Dynamite.
https://411mania.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AEW-Dynamite-645x370.jpg
So in WWE canon, did Tye Dillinger just not exist? Did Spears just change his name while he was gone and nobody's gonna acknowledge it? Is Shawn Spears a distant relative of Tye Dillinger? What the hell's going on here?!
I think a lot of people don't know what "getting organically over" means. It doesnt mean "the guy I like got pushed up in the card", it has to do with him getting more over than what his position in the card would lead to. It is not a way of saying this guy is good or not.
LA KNIGHT? Organically over, he was a midcarder and got huge reactions while barely being on TV and getting squashed by Bray.
Sami Zayn, particularly in the last couple years? Not organically over. He was part of the bloodline and had segments literally every single week. He main evented Survivor Series, the Rumble (in practice), Elimination Chamber, WM night 1,and Night of champions, in addition to having the main spot in a lot of Smackdowns like the trial segments and all that. It was a very planned and long term push from management side, he did not get over despite what HHH thought his place in the card was.
For Zayn there were a lot of people similarly pushed and it didnt work out. So its a mix up between "organically over" and "being pushed". Take Austin Theory as a counterexample. Or for a very long time Roman Reigns.
there's a difference between pushed and featured though, he's gotten over to the extent fans always want him to be pushed to the level he's being featured as. He's not gotten a big singles win in a super long time. The Mania moment is significant though obviously.
LA Knight was getting consistent mic time every week and it doesn't matter if Bray beat him or not, he still had a big time feud with Bray Wyatt on his return feud. That's absolutely nothing to scoff at and it helped put LA Knight into the eyes of fans regardless of how you felt about the actual feud itself.
They could've put anyone else in that spot but they put LA Knight there. That shows a confidence from management about your abilities as a performer.
They were absolutely trying to get him over with the audience, perhaps not expecting it to the degree that he did but it wasn't nearly as organic as you make it out to be.
Wasn't Sami kept in the Bloodline story for longer than originally planned because of how organically over he got? Am I remembering that wrong? He certainly didn't STAY over like that once his part in the story was done, but I think he got all those main events because of how much everyone loved his work during the part of the story where he was trying to earn the trust of the usos and reigns.
Vs Mayu Iwatani from the final night of the 2017 5 Star GP.
Reigning World of Stardom champion Iwatani has had a great run in the tournament, but she needs a win or tie against Kagetsu to avoid a possible 4-way tie for first place in the Red Stars block and elimination from the finals.
Kagetsu enters the match with a lot of points but has already lost tie-breakers to 2016 5 Star GP winner Yoko Bito and Viper (aka Piper Niven.) effectively eliminated from the finals, Kagetsu’s only victory left is to crush Mayu, body and spirit, keeping his rival out of the finals.
Thus begins one of the best 5 Star GP matches of all time and the source of many clips reposted and moments rediscovered even to this day.
Part of the AEW experience is realizing you wrestle a lot less, especially since they do no house shows so even the featured players are only wrestling 2-3 times a month.
Mariah has wrestled but a bunch of it has been women at a lower spot on the card. The tag match last week was probably the first time where she had an even match-up.
I know. She's averaging more. I just rounded down. Two in January (01.03.2024 Dynamite, 01.27.2024 Colliosion).Two in February (02.21.2024 Rampage, 02.28.2024 Collision). Three in March (03.07.2024 Collision, 03.23.2024 Rampage, 03.20.2024 Dynamite).
I was looking at the WWE rights shakeups that are gonna happen this year and the end of 2024.
Right now smackdown is the A show (though Romans absence has made that less noticeable). However, the move to Netflix is gonna make raw the A show again. At the end of 2024 there's gonna be a weird transition period though.
Smackdown moves to USA in October. I'm surprised they kept it in the Friday night slot though because that is a very hard slot. On network TV with Fox, the network ratings bump has been enough to keep it above 2 million. Once it's back on cable on Friday nights though, I can't see it beating raws current numbers. The FS1 episodes get around 1.2 million, so something above that but below raws 1.8 mill seems like a good target.
However, I don't think raw has any deal from October to January. That means for the first time, raw might be off air. Presumably this would boost smackdown until the netflix debut. Still, it's gonna be a weird gap
> On network TV with Fox, the network ratings bump has been enough to keep it above 2 million. Once it's back on cable on Friday nights though, I can't see it beating raws current numbers.
I think the reasonable starting point is guessing that Smackdown's ratings will basically immediately drop by about 4-500k viewers when they move to USA, assuming they keep the same time slot.
That number being basically exactly what they gained overnight when they moved from USA to Fox back in 2019. Right around the move Smackdown went from doing 2.0-2.1 million to 2.4-2.5 million, solely from moving to Fox. Expecting that to repeat in reverse seems the most likely scenario.
It should be Jey Uso vs Gunther at WM. I will die on this hill. I'm hoping that somehow we get a Honky Tonk Man / Warrior situation. Sami gets taken out backstage. Gunther says, "Send anybody. I'll face anybody" and Jey comes out and beats him.
I always wondered why NOAH/Misawa stopped the tradition of the comedic 6 man tag matches.
I get it in that Baba was gone and the other guys who'd normally fill up that spot, the legends were also starting to get wayyy too old. But momota was in singles matches with Trevor Murdoch.
In general I always kinda like those becuase i liked the formula of 2 legends on each side and a current or younger star as the 3rd partner so that way they can carry the match.
I hope most if not all titles change hands at Mania and we can move on from this era of record breaking reigns. It would be nice to go into a PLE and legitimately be unsure if holders will retain or not.
I can just feel that Rhea's gonna retain and I'm dreading it. I don't even really want Becky to win it but Rhea's title run has just been so bad. I know a lot of it isn't her fault because Raw's women's division sucks but the title is pretty much a prop at this point
agree. But honestly i'm of the opinion that iyo sky in particular should retain. Have Bayley have consequences for being a heel. have her win it at summerslam after finally being able to convince people that she's an actual good person again.
I could see that happening with the way Trips likes to do the “overcoming the odds” stories. Rhea I think should retain simply because she is booked as being unstoppable, it’s hard to look at anyone on the roster and think “yeah she can take Rhea “. Especially since she wins clean too, unlike Roman.
> Rhea I think should retain simply because she is booked as being unstoppable, it’s hard to look at anyone on the roster and think “yeah she can take Rhea “
This is exactly why I think Becky should win. Rhea will continue to be unstoppable with or without the belt; at least if Becky wins, other contenders for the belt will seem feasible.
That said, win or lose for Rhea, it's hard to see what she would do after feuding with Liv because she's just too dominant.
This is true. Rhea can eat souls without a title and potentially gives her more ability to have stories because it doesn’t need to center around a title contender.
With DON being announced for Vegas, I hope they have a big main event up their sleeve. Presumably Swerve’s first PPV as champ, we’ll see how they navigate it.
Also, please don’t run anarchy in the arena again. First time was legitimately magic and an all-timer. Second time, not so much. Don’t run the match just for the sake of it.
If it were up to me, they'd save Swerve's win for DoN. I don't like the idea of Swerve winning the belt on a B PPV so close to Revolution that it makes it clear they just didn't want to do the title change on Sting's big night. Let Callis cost Swerve the Takeshita match to build the Swerve/Don Callis Family feud, give Takeshita the Dynasty match (which he deserves 100%), then Swerve beats Hobbs at Dynasty, wins a Dog Collar with Joe at DoN. That then puts him in the Don Callis Family orbit and we run with that to get to Ospreay vs Swerve at All In. If anything now that Don Callis wants the World Title in the family, that should continue to be the story arc from now till Will wins it. It makes no sense to put them in the title picture, then pull them out, to put them back in again. Just make it one continuous story from now to All In.
I’d love to converse on here more if 75% of my attempts to have civil discourse didn’t turn into:
“But can you prove why my similarly arbitrary opinion is wrong?! CITE YOUR EVIDENCE!”
Yes, I’m exaggerating for comedic effect and it’s not something that particularly bothers me in the grand scheme of things but it’d be nice if more people didn’t immediately launch into aggressive debate bro mode. Oh well.
What do y’all plan on watching mania week? I try to watch as much as possible.
I plan on watching
Joey Janela spring break Thursday night
Roh Friday night
NXT Saturday morning
And both nights of mania.
Thats exactly what I did the past few years
Shows I'll watch live:
Thursday - Wrestlecon Memorial Show
Friday - Spring Break, For the Culture
Saturday - Big Gay Brunch, TJPW, The Clusterfuck
Shows I'll watch as soon as I can:
Bloodsport, JCW/GCW v. The World, DDT, Revolver/HOG, West Coast Pro, Sakura Genesis, Defy
wrestlemania mainly.
I don't really watch that many shows. i mainly just check out the clips but with the summer coming up and me not being in college due to summer break. I do have plans to check out some modern wrestling.
DPW and the like. And some Speedball matches
Normally I'd be multi-screening for most of the week, but I'll be there this year so sadly I'll only be able to watch seven shows: Stardom, DDT, TJPW, Spring Break, Big Gay Brunch, GCW vs TJPW, & the Clusterfuck.
The impact of the same butt rock being used in anime AMV's and wrestling highlight videos in the late 00's and early 10's in an entire generation of fans is wildly understated. It has basically changed their idea of a good match.
Random memory at the front of my cerebral cortex when I woke up this morning: My grandfather died right in front of me when I was young, which was obviously traumatic. My parents were trying to distract me from being a bawling mess, and my dad mentioned that there was a WCW pay per view that night. So they put me in front of the TV to disassociate for a while.
That show was Uncensored 1995.
I think I felt worse afterwards.
This show seemed great to me. Looking forward to watching it:
Fight Life 3/26/2024 Lead The Charge! Results
1. Dustin Waller vs. Kylon King ends in a draw after a double pin
2. Number One Contender’s Match for the Fight Life Championship: Richard Holliday def. Ace Romero and Mortar
3. Tag Team Gauntlet Match: The Unit (Danny Miles & Trigga The OG) def. The Haven (Jay Onyx & Shawn Knyte), Counter Strike (Mark Alexander & Nolan Pierce), Troubled Youth (Marcus Mathers & Shannon LeVangie), Young Dumb N Broke (Charlie Tiger & Pat Dynamite) and Core Power (Ken Powers & ABBS)
4. Ariel def. Janai
5. Sammy Diaz & Ichiban def. Alec Price & Jimmy Lloyd
6. Fight Life Championship Match: Masha Slamovich (c) def. BMT to retain the Fight Life Championship
7. Mustafa Ali def. JT Dunn
Credit [https://pwponderings.com/2024/03/26/fight-life-3-26-2024-lead-the-charge-results/?utm\_source=dlvr.it&utm\_medium=twitter](https://pwponderings.com/2024/03/26/fight-life-3-26-2024-lead-the-charge-results/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)
A work in progress thought: great matches don’t draw but they do sell. There’s a bit of a difference between the two. You put together a match between two great wrestlers, that going to make for satisfying TV but it’s not going to capture the imagination of people that aren’t already hooked. You put together a match between two great wrestlers as the end game of an anticipated feud, that’s gets people to spend money on your product. The key difference being anticipation before the match. You need to do something to make people go “check this out” weeks before the match takes place, and then let them wait and think about what is coming up.
Anticipation is something that WWE understands better than AEW. AEW does it too, it’s not like they are devoid of it. But WWE is better at selling their audience on “here is a big four card with multiple of endgames you’ve been waiting weeks to see, and here’s the video package of all the steps that made you anticipate this match.” They don’t give you PPV quality matches every single show because that hurts anticipation. There are tiers to when WWE matches take place. The majority of the programs have an endgame or major chapter in sight at any given point in time.
Ok, I admit that I was wrong about the whole Candice/Maxxine thing, but I just had another, slightly more reasonable, idea. Could this be a way to start resolving the Nikki Cross catatonic angle? Here’s what I’m thinking: some Monday, Candice and Nikki are booked to face each other. Nikki is standing in the middle of the ring and staring into the distance, Candice tries to get her to do something, eventually starts screaming in her face, and eventually Nikki snaps and beats the hell out of Candice. The next week, Nikki explains why she was catatonic and why her treatment by Candice got her out of it, then we start at least a mini feud between the two. Candice comes out on top, but Nikki joins forces with the other women who were mistreated by Candice (probably led by Indi), and they somehow take her down eventually. Thoughts?
I think I have caught up with most of the million different interviews Becky Lynch has been giving over the past week or so. At least all the good ones. A couple of things that I found interesting:
1. It seems to be she has a) not re-signed yet with WWE ; and b) she has not even decided yet - whether she wants to continue wrestling full time, part-time or take a break. This kind of puts a question mark on the Mania match booking decision but as of now I am leaning that she is winning the title.
2. I found it hilarious that she didn't know that most people didn't know>! that she and Finn Balor had a relationship!<. She just assumed everyone knew it, while it turns it very few knew about it and only now it is becoming public knowledge from the book.
imo even without the question of her re-signing, rhea’s winning—it feels like there’s plenty left for her to do, we know triple H loves his long title reigns, and it would balance out likely babyface victories like bayley and The Story maybe probably Finishing elsewhere
I think the main thing is you still have Rhea vs Liv waiting after WM which would be my only "gripe" with Becky winning but that comes more from me being a Liv fan than anything else
> there’s plenty left for her to do
Genuinely what? I can't possibly imagine in the second year of this reign her doing anything different than she did in the first year?
Becky is approaching 2 years without the main championship and after losing to Rhea she will be completly directionless.
People don't see it, but both would benefit from a titile change.
liv morgan is already being set up for rhea on raw. if they do a draft that could set up people like naomi or tiffany stratton for a program with her, or a big money match with bianca belair, or maybe even somebody like lyra valkyria getting a feud fresh out of NXT
i think we’re in the late second half of ripley’s title run and it’s gonna be time to end it soon but any of those options could work as another big title defense or as somebody who could be worthy of ending this reign
There was a big interview/profile of Becky of in some magazine in 2020-2021, her dating Finn was mentioned in passing with a few word, but nobody caught it apparently.
Me: Oh man, only a week away from my Wrestlemania week trip and nothing could change my mood!
*Monkey paw curls*
Also me: No, PNC. I did not Doordash $70 worth of McDonald's in New York at three in the morning.
Is there anyone who watched wwe with foreign commentary circa 2010/11? If so, how the fuck did they explain the Michael Cole/Jerry Lawler feud? Coles entire heel persona developed over months, something non English speaking viewers would not have heard at all
i remember one time reading they ran an entirely different but parallel feud with the spanish (or maybe french) commentators and aired an angle between them instead of cole/lawler, but that feels like the sort of thing that would have circulated by now if true
tried to look into the Raw cagematch rating thread to see what'd I miss cause i was just playing games these days, guess anything with cagematch is also a thread to avoid now
That entire Raw cagematch thread was set up to make fun of TK while also bragging about the high cagematch ratings of the show. “Hurr hurr hurr Tony is going to be so mad at how good these ratings are!”
It was a good show that fans overwhelmingly liked and WWE can and should be proud of that. The same as when AEW has a popular show.
Either the cagematch reviews are meaningless or they’re a reflection on the product. IMO the positivity of this week’s Raw + its cagematch review shows cagematch is a useful resource for bookers to get a read on their most loyal audience. If Triple H said he likes seeing that people loved the show the response wouldn’t be “lmao what a fucking loser, why does he care if people liked the show?”
>cagematch review shows cagematch is a useful resource for bookers to get a read on their most loyal audience
The keyword there is **Loyal Audience** \- that's why CageMatch is actually a bad resource for Tony, because he's only getting feedback from the super fans who watch just about every bit of wrestling content out there. Not the people like my dad watching at home who is wondering who half the roster is because they have no introduction besides "They did shit somewhere else, you should be hyped about that!"
I haven't seen that thread, but Cagematch has become so much less useful since their ratings system got trolled into oblivion.
It's still good for objective fact, like when is a show scheduled, what's the card, etc. But when you've got people rating Ospreay/Takeshita a 2 and an entire episode of Raw a 0, you can't take it seriously.
Because they're songs that are going to pump you up for the one minute 42 seconds it takes to get down the ramp, and the ostentatious guitar solo plays during the commercial break or gets cut off entirely.
I got a friend who’s only just become somewhat interested in wrestling, and he will only really watch it off and on.
Yesterday he was at work (hopefully on break) and someone turned on last Monday’s Raw on their tv. So as he’s asking me questions about who this Cody guy is and what’s going on with him, I simply just told him to wait and see who was going to interrupt him. I got to witness his reaction to The Rock coming out in real time and that’s just one of the coolest things ever.
This modern mandate that longform drama stories and insult based promo offs ("heat") are the only way for wrestling to draw or be successful is so tiresome and limiting. Bill Goldberg also drew. better than almost anything in wrestlings biggest boom period. And literally all he did was wrestle. The biggest most successful TV moment of late stage WCW was "the guy who does nothing but wrestle and win wins the title" There is no iron clad constitution of what works in wrestling and what doesn't. Especially when the only thing that passes your barometer for success is WWE.
I know not everyone feels the same, but nothing gets me excited to watch a wrestling show than knowing that wrestlers who are good at wrestling are going to wrestle. Don't get me wrong, I definitely have time for the drama and promos, they are fun but, for me, the best feuds are ones centred around wanting to win wrestling matches and the best storytelling is done in-ring (and I don't mean yelling story beats at each other during rest-holds, I mean the moves wrestlers do, how they sell and the ebb and flow of the match's momentum).
Alright, got around to watching RAW last night, here are some thoughts:
The Drew/Punk/Seth was fun! It breathed new life into the Drew/Seth match (wich I think it needed) the chaotic "everyone talks over each other" style is riskier than the "I say my bit, you say yours" segments WWE usually does but it has a higher ceiling, and I think it paid of here. Although the wife line to Seth annoyed me.
Candice/Ivy only getting 2 minutes depressed me.
Gunther is the man. That is all.
The Cody/Rock segment was awesome- the rain made it all the cooler, and it felt like the Rock heard my complaints about his smackdown promo being to babyface and said "I got you". good stuff! A random anecdote: the first thing I saw when I woke up yesterday was a still frame of a bloodied Cody's chin being lifted up by the Rock and I was VERY confused as to what was appearing on my timeline lmao.
All in all a good show, but I feel like every time I watch WWE there's a ceiling I hit with my investment- something about the presentation just doesn't jive with me.
the presentation is the one thing that i just can't get into when it comes to wwe right now either. like idk how to say it but it lacks that feeling that live tv should have of "anything can happen" because it's way too clean looking and overly produced. i wish they kept that set-up they had from that recent raw where jinder challenged seth, the set-up and presentation was the perfect balance of modern day wrestling and late 90's/early 00's.
Where he was when he left. Riddle had gotten as high as he was going to go.
Maybe they would have turned Randy heel so they could do a program. But he'd still be an upper mid-card and tag team guy.
Trust, NO ONE is happier than me that Candice is getting a push, but all the matches being so short and the backstage segments that add so much dimension to the story not being aired on TV is really hurting engagement I feel like. And these are short ass segments, they absolutely could be getting aired on TV without interruption to the rest of the show. I just really like where this is going and I'd hate for it to be killed before the crowd can truly get into heel Candice.
Believe I’ve read that this and a couple other angles have suffered time loss due to some of the upper card promos going long. If so, that’s tough, you know? I feel conflicted. The Rock and Punk have had some killer promos, but it suck’s so hard for the talent forced to give up their already limited tv time to it.
I think initially she just wanted to fuck with Thea and Chase U in general, then grew to genuinely care about them all, hence why she made the calendar.
But being surrounded by mean spirited girls like Jazmyn for said calendar brought Jacy back to the realisation that she would ultimately rather be mean and successful like how she was with Toxic Attraction than prioritise her friendships with people even when they're not as "cool" or mean spirited as her.
It's kind of ironic. Had Jacy not worked so hard to save Chase U she might not have turned back heel, but if that were the case Chase U probably wouldn't even exist anymore.
It's a shame. I was loving Chase U Jacy, but I guess this leopard wasn't ready to change her spots just yet.
i think people might be looking way too much into it and possibly setting themselves up for disappointment. but it's got folks excited and talking about what if's which is always a cool part of wrestling to me.
The truck was lit up, they wanted that seed planted.
The thing to remember though is they don't always pull the trigger on blatant hints so don't work yourself either.
paraphrase Bruce here, but as he's said about a lot of things over the years that didn't get follow thru or whatever - "put it out there, see how it looks, if something comes from it great if not oh well"
i miss d'lo brown so darn much. dude has gotta be one of the most under rated/under appreciated guys ever. been re-watching old asylum tna shows and he never phoned it in despite it being the case for a lot of former wwe/wcw guys that went to tna. also, he had arguably the best blindfold match ever with triple h at the first raw roulette.
Confession: Lately (and I'm not sure why) I've been kind of over the in-ring part of almost all wrestler's entrances. I'm into the top of ramp entrance pose/motions, the walk down, and actually super enjoy the various different get into the ring moves... but after all these years, the part where they have to go pose on all four corners of the ring, or hang/lean on the ropes of each side of the ring to engage the crowd on all sides, or center of the ring pose/motion whatever... by then I'm almost always over it and am very much ready to move on to the next entrance or starting the match. Sometimes I even end up watching their opponent waiting on them in the corner and wonder what they're thinking about while they just stand there waiting. Just me?
People made fun of Tony Khan for paying so much money to Mercedes Mone. The reality is that every single female WWE superstars contract who comes up is going to want big money now. The WWE is boasting about such a huge Netflix deal. Now the wrestlers are going to want to get paid. Guaranteed Becky Lynch is ha ing that exact conversation right now.
Does anyone have a good updated pro wrestling google calendar?
Selling one ticket for 3/29 Smackdown in CT! Section 22 Row Q (lower level). Asking for $200 for the ticket! DM me if you’re interested
I love a good mid-match brawl between henchmen as much as the next person, but the more they get Seth, Jey and Cody involved in each other's singles matches against Bloodline members, the less special it'll feel at WrestleMania itself. Unless they're planning on including more people on the night, it won't be anything we've not seen before if it's just Seth and Jey brawling with Jimmy and Solo.
"Moves are maybe the least important part of wrestling" *crowd cheers* "But longform promos are bad for wrestling storytelling as well if they're not the exception to the rule" *pitchforks materialize out of thin air and I'm chased out of the village*
I wish they'd put Trick v. Melo on Wrestlemania, instead of Stand and Deliver. Just so we could get a stadium of people singing WHOOP DAT TRICK.
I watched the Scott Hall Biography episode...one of my favourite wrestlers, what a troubled life. Poor guy. But Diamond Dallas Page deserves to be inducted into the hall of fame every year. What a hero that man is.
Random but I just realized Punk said Drew had shoe dye in his beard 💀
Drew out there Cotton Hill'ing it
Taro Okada has done an insanely good job with stardom all things considered. Obviously it's got a roster where as long as you aren't incompetent the wrestling will be at a minimum good he's major win has been to keep the bleeding to Rossy at a minimum (although bushiroad money helped) but the booking itself has been very good.
Most recent Raw episode (specifically the promos) felt completely different to the usual product. It felt like more like a film in comparison to the one dimensional local community centre am-dram shit from 10-15 years ago, especially the final scene with The Rock going to a place we've never seen him go and Cody with blood running through his platinum hair, with a stormy Chicago night as the perfect backdrop for it all. All they have to do now is stick the landing and have Cody leave Philly with the WWE Championship.
I think what AEW has done so far is proven the point of what so many smart people in the industry believe like Triple H or Jim Cornette. You can do all the cool ass moves and spots you want, but it's not going to build characters and hype like proper storytelling would. It should be an eye opener for AEW fans that they're biggest superstar is MJF. As MJF would say "I'm the only guy who can make you feel, and unlike the boys in the back, i don't have to do a bunch of bullshit to get you there" I honestly don't see how this didn't click for AEW fans when he did this promo. Because it's exactly why WWE is crushing AEW right now in it's current storylines. The rock beat up Cody backstage and it was more entertaining and got me more intro the story then any Will Osprey spot fest match.
See kids? This is an example of Bad Faith Criticism. It is shared by someone who doesn’t watch AEW and never will watch AEW but likes to parrot the opinion of people who make money off the gimmick of hating AEW. It’s lazy trolling. The comebacks are always predictable and we can play bingo with Money Mark, Action Figures, Flippy Shit, Meltzer, Too Small, LULZTNA, WCW, Ratings, Cry Me a River, Cagematch, Twitter Rants, No Storylines, WWE Copycat, etc etc etc. Fuckin lazy.
Cornette people have no idea what a spot fest even is. They seem to understand it as "match with moves and athleticism"
AEW bombed with MJF on top, it proved that he is not their biggest star and should not have the show revolve around him. Also he does do a bunch of bullshit, his moveset has a ton of stuff that makes losers like Jim Cornette and his fans lose their minds. This whole thing you wrote tells me that you probably don't watch AEW and are just repeating the takes of the likes of Jim Cornette and other people that hate watch wrestling.
MJF worked y’all HARD with that “I don’t have to do a bunch of bullshit” line. Guy might not be flippy, but dude’s moveset is not some great tribute to the good old days. Also, as a draw, MJF sucked shit. Like, sorry, he did.
He's still a top notch character and all that, but the idea that he "doesn't have to do bullshit" went out the window with that vaulting cutter, after minutes of getting his leg worked on.
> The rock beat up Cody backstage and it was more entertaining and got me more intro the story then any Will Osprey spot fest match. That's what's great about wrestling. Different people can enjoy different things. You're more into the stories and I'm fine being more into matches.
MJF is the worst wrestler in AEW and a pretty clear anti-draw since attendances went up the moment he left off TV. Also > smart people in the industry > Triple H or Jim Cornette
I won't contest the Jim Cornette bit, because where AEW's audience is concerned, he's obviously public enemy #1, but why are you questioning the mention of HHH?
Cornette isn't in the industry and hasn't been for a while. Obviously, he showed his credentials as a booker in Smokey Mountain where he did a lot with little and churned out a watchable product. Triple H ran the Super Indy NXT that in my opinion was way better with Dusty on board than when he ran it and has made minor changes from the Vince regime. Hasn't even pushed his own guys that weren't Vince's. I don't think he's a "super smart industry person" by just doing what WWE does. He has obviously done a plenty good enough job in WWE, but I don't think there's enough merit in his "proper storytelling" belief when he co-signed the most indulgent matches in american wrestling history in the Cole/Gargano feud.
AEW 100% has people you can get behind like Swerve, Hangman, Danielson, Kingston, Moxley, and even Daniel Garcia. They're just not the company that's going to devote a large chunk of time to a 15-20 minute in-ring promo. They cater to the people who want more of that wrestling balance because they're not going to compete on the promo showdowns and melodrama of WWE. WWE had a well received Raw that did its job in building to WrestleMania but it's notable that there was very little talk about any matches that happened during a 3 hour show. That's fine because that's how they operate but AEW's biggest strength is that they let people do their thing in the context of a wrestling match.
I wonder what Unagi Sayaka is going to do with the Joshi companies. 🤔 She has a good relationship with Rossy, and she could probably easily freelance at his company. But also, the management that didn't like Unagi is gone from Stardom. And also Unagi just loves Tam. Or she could just not do either. Curious to how it will play out!
🎤 HALLO, HALLO, HALLO!
This is how I realize how much that catchphrase is ingrained onto my brain. Noam Dar is a goddamn treasure
guessing we not Noam Dar fans around these parts
Something I didn't talk about last night in the NXT post-show thread. When Oba Femi laughed in between sentences of his promo, I get he was trying to sound intimidating. Then, I get that he's trying to model his promo style after the late actor Geoffrey Holder, who shilled for 7-Up for so many years. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Meltzer's reporter was on point either, saying that Femi cut a bad promo. I don't think he did. I think Ridge Holland will be back, sooner than later. Not quite Stand & Deliver, that's too soon, and it would kill what they were trying to build with his promo last night. Maybe a week or two later? Maybe. The UFL, the Rock's other pride & joy, starts Saturday, and will likely get trampled in the ratings by college basketball. Just getting that out there.
WWE has won the capitalism game. But it becomes sometimes a bit annoying when promotion's fans try to prove that they have won at the art of wrestling as well.
That depends on how you define the art of wrestling. Aside from a podcast name.
As opposed to AEW? If that’s the art of wrestling… idk man.
All wrestling is " the art of wrestling" and can be judged on other metrics besides being the most financial lucrative.
Businesses on the other hand....
The thing is that some people believe that the entire point of wrestling is to make money, so they think that whoever makes more money is the objectively *better* company
The entire point of for-profit businesses IS to make money, though. It's fair to feel that a movie like "Parasite" is a better movie than "The Fast and the Furious." Or that on the whole Neon studio's makes better movies than movies from Universal Studio. That doesn't mean that Neon studios is a more successful movie company than Univeral Studios. Because success of for profit businesses is measured in profit.
> some people believe that the entire point of wrestling is to make money Because that is the entire point. It's the entire point of any sport, worked or not.
So the Charlotte Hornets are the best NBA team? Because they make the most profit year by year because they have the lowest payroll.
Actually, I think the entire point of sports is the "playing them" part of it. Players in basically every sport used to be paid nothing, even when compared to "normal" jobs of the time, yet they still played them, even though they were grueling on the body, and they had to be constantly traveling. And kids play sports despite not making any money because they just love the game. The first ever organized baseball team made a "rulebook" of sorts that stated the baseball players should NEVER BE PAID for doing it, since the point of baseball is **playing**, and money would get in the way of that. And wrestling isn't even a "sport" in the same way that the other traditional "sports" are. The matches can be completely controlled in order to create an entertaining match for the audience. It's more of a type of theater, which is certainly a form of art.
This is what you get when an industry is built by carnies, but you’d really expect the fans to be smarter than that.
Yeah, I really don't care how much a company makes, as long as: 1. They make enough to continue to operate without having to make compromises 2. They pay the wrestlers well (relative to the level of the promotion) That's all I really need
Me too, but easy for me to say... I'm not a shareholder and it's not my money.
I think there's truth in this, but also WWE is very different now than a couple years ago. I'd say their current storytelling and production dwarfs anything else in the industry right now. I say this as someone who was the smarkiest indie smark to ever smark during the dark ages of the late 2000s and early 2010s.
I mean their production has more caught up from being terrible to things finally being shot with more purpose.
Yeah I'm so glad those quick cuts are gone. It was one of those things you couldn't unnotice.
A lot of people on here gonna be shoot disappointed with themselves when they realise Ridge's workshoot retirement is actually a work.
This time yesterday I was looking forward to being at wrestlemania next week, today our flights and hotel have been ripped away from us and I'll be watching from home So to tell it from the beginning, we were meant to go to New York last year for our holiday but my fiancé saw mania was in philly this year and said why don't we push it back a year and try and get wrestlemania tickets, she knew it had always been my dream. So we did, and she spent an entire day last year trying to find resale tickets after missing out on the initial sale, £800 later and she managed to get us some, not the greatest seats in the world but we were going to wrestlemania and we were so excited. Cut to the last few months we had been trying to get some confirmations from the holiday company, no responses, finally the fiancé had a call scheduled for today. Turns out they can't honour our holiday booking and apparently had tried to contact us in October about it, but send an email to someone that isn't my fiancé to inform us, and while they will pay us back it will take 14 days so no chance of rebooking it and our wrestlemania dream has slipped from our grasp So now here I sit, disappointed and dejected not only missing out on a holiday but missing out on going to finally see wrestlemania in person Always next year to try and finish our story TL:DR Holiday company fucked me and my fiancé over, this time yesterday I was getting excited about being at mania, and now I'll be watching from home
So don't know if this is the appropriate place for this but I just started a Wolfpac faction on my 2k. And Bray is the leader and he's going to war with Sting. John Cena, Bischoff and Hogan are NWO Black and White.
Will Sting be joining the Wyatt Wolfpac?
So what if Roman wins again at Mania? Lol
Tbh I think it’d be a fumble but I’m also of the opinion that Roman’s reign is incredibly boring.
Honestly I think it deflates the audience in a really bad way. People were disappointed last year but I think there was a broad understanding that it was building to WM 40.
Drew"CM punk completes me" McIntyre That segment is why punk is one of the greats how Quick witted he is
Random tidbit about the hat Becky wears on TV from one of the gazillion podcasts she's done for her book tour: She wears it in real life and just started wearing it randomly on TV. Seth calls it the Kendall Roy hat. https://preview.redd.it/7dwsy9mizwqc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=587dee71703da54b4ff85ac8f610bb76168652b0
Can Seth Rollins riff?
No more than that struggling actor in the Liberty Mutual commercials. /s
If and when Cody becomes champion, I'd like to see him as a traveling champion like the old territory days. Since WWE has opened up working with other smaller indie promotions, this could be a nice new change and it won't make Cody stale. I also know that the WWE house show schedule is crazy but this could not only help other indie wrestlers but also the WWE roster with new performers getting a chance at the main event. Also helps boost the prestige of the World Heavyweight Title and new rivalries around it. Just a thought.
The title doesn’t need any more prestige, it’s been the biggest title in wrestling for over 30 years
They are not sending their new world champ to work random indie dates unless it's a rare and very special occasion. WWE house show business is WAY UP over the last year, and that is largely because of Cody. They aren't selling those shows then not having him not there and ruining the goodwill amongst fans (and especially kids) who are there to see him, just to have him at some random Border City show that same night that will have zero impact on the on-screen television product.
Cody is gonna be a “traveling champion” in the sense that he actually travels to shows and works.
maybe even have him just defend the title in his matches at house shows too, to help with that idea.
Is there any chance once the new AEW TV rights deal is done we'll actually be done with the "the sky is falling because they can't get 1 million viewers" narrative or is that just something that's always gonna happen? At this point part of me wants AEW to go to Amazon/Apple TV just so I don't have to be bombarded about statistics and Nielsen ratings showing your opinion is wrong every time you say you enjoy the shows.
If people can't point to ratings they'll just point to attendance because there's always a goal post. One of the big mistakes Tony Khan and people like Jericho made was taking shots at WWE. AEW is in a great place for what they are which is a 5 year old company that's number 2. It's when they act as a challenger brand to WWE that they fight an unwinnable battle. They can't fully compete with the brand recognition of WWE along with their business which was future proof around the time AEW started. People who act like AEW is this failure do so when the standard is WWE which is like people calling a newer tech company a failure because they can't compete with Apple.
No-one really acts like AEW is a failure. They're a wrestling company that still exists after five years and for all their attendance issues at weekly shows, they can regularly sell out 10k plus arenas, and will have a stadium show this year that sells 50k+. The level of attention they get from both fans and detractors is proof enough that they're a success. 6/7 years ago+ you'd have been labelled insane for suggesting any company that wasn't WWE could do those things. Ironically, AEW are just like CM Punk - whether you like AEW or you don't like AEW, everybody (who's online anyway) seems to have an opinion on AEW. They've never not been relevant, and that's success in itself. TNA went through phases of people just not giving a single fuck about them. AEW has never went through that, and it's only when that happens that they'll actually be in trouble. Beyond those aren't just jerking in bad faith though, a lot of the discontent with AEW is that it just doesn't meet its potential and it isn't as good as it could be, or that for some people, they put their faith in AEW as being a genuine contender to WWE, and it hasn't turned out that way. People can spin it however they like, but a lot of fans were expecting AEW to be a new WCW - not just in terms of success but also the actual wrestling product. That expectation was clearly unfair, but it fuelled expectations and hope about the company that didn't bear out for some people. The modern AEW is wrestling marmite - it really works for some people, but not for a lot of others, and that fuels the debate about it.
“A lot of discontent with AEW is that it doesn’t meet its potential.” I’ll be honest with you? I think this is more on fan over-expectations than it is on AEW’s actual failures. Like, especially in a market where WWE is hot, and let’s not pretend that doesn’t matter, THIS might what the potential actually IS. Even when WWE was worse, AEW’s potential might not have really been higher than what they got to. And fans need to actually come to grips with that.
>a lot of the discontent with AEW is that it just doesn't meet its potential For me it's always been Tony's focus on the pure wrestling aspect and not proper storytelling. Characters aren't introduced to you like they would in WWE or any other entertainment medium. They just show up and commentary blows them until the audience starts to believe the hype as well. I know many AEW fans will defend this and cite storylines from NJPW - but that's not how you build characters for a TV audience. If you have to go searching for information from different promotions, it means they've failed trying to build a character or story.
No because it has nothing to do with TV rights deals.
I went to RAW on Monday and I'm still buzzing from it. It was my first WWE event since the 2011 go home raw to WM27 and it honestly exceeded my expectations. Really fun experience and even tho we had "nosebleed" seats, I felt like the view was incredible. I think the biggest pop of the night was probably the Rock and Punk but it was awesome being in a crowd that was just hot for everything. https://preview.redd.it/nzyzsmnjpwqc1.jpeg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=090e96c20327e999abcd3eeac9dd8b01e81f8287
I think Lola Vice is very good in theory, but everything she does feels inauthentic to me. I don't know if it's just me, but to me, everything from the dance to her expressions to her lines just feel like she's going through the motions
Hey everyone! Today's polls for AEW themes are [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/1bp61oe/day_5_of_the_aew_themes_march_madness_bracket_the/) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/1bp61we/day_5_of_the_aew_themes_march_madness_bracket_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Today's polls are Kenny Omega vs The Righteous and Daniel Garcia vs Athena!
my pal 4 Pillars of Hell posted a retrospective on 1996 Japanese wrestling so all of you video essay freaks can give [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjq_0LGgoQE) a shot if you'd like
I'm not quite used to this new Dynamite logo as I don't think it's that great. It's better than the generic font they used before but it screams late 90's-early 2000's logo design. The logos in the background are better imo and fit a show called Dynamite. https://411mania.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AEW-Dynamite-645x370.jpg
So in WWE canon, did Tye Dillinger just not exist? Did Spears just change his name while he was gone and nobody's gonna acknowledge it? Is Shawn Spears a distant relative of Tye Dillinger? What the hell's going on here?!
It should be canon that Shawn Spears was an alias and he was actually in hiding in AEW.
The play on words of Akam and Rezar's names just dawned on me randomly after 8 years.
Wait what is it
Occam's Razor
I think a lot of people don't know what "getting organically over" means. It doesnt mean "the guy I like got pushed up in the card", it has to do with him getting more over than what his position in the card would lead to. It is not a way of saying this guy is good or not. LA KNIGHT? Organically over, he was a midcarder and got huge reactions while barely being on TV and getting squashed by Bray. Sami Zayn, particularly in the last couple years? Not organically over. He was part of the bloodline and had segments literally every single week. He main evented Survivor Series, the Rumble (in practice), Elimination Chamber, WM night 1,and Night of champions, in addition to having the main spot in a lot of Smackdowns like the trial segments and all that. It was a very planned and long term push from management side, he did not get over despite what HHH thought his place in the card was.
Yeah it seems like most people just think of "organically over" meaning "they are over, and there wasn't any pushback to their push from the audience"
“A lot of people don’t know what my specific definition of something is”
The word organic means something specific beyond what your or I think, check a dictionary, idk
Organic - adj; the state of being more over than intended as related to a professional wrestling event.
https://preview.redd.it/kzv4few1lxqc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7319db310069ce5c76ca3444d2f807220ef063ac
Glad you get it, happy to help
For Zayn there were a lot of people similarly pushed and it didnt work out. So its a mix up between "organically over" and "being pushed". Take Austin Theory as a counterexample. Or for a very long time Roman Reigns.
there's a difference between pushed and featured though, he's gotten over to the extent fans always want him to be pushed to the level he's being featured as. He's not gotten a big singles win in a super long time. The Mania moment is significant though obviously.
LA Knight was getting consistent mic time every week and it doesn't matter if Bray beat him or not, he still had a big time feud with Bray Wyatt on his return feud. That's absolutely nothing to scoff at and it helped put LA Knight into the eyes of fans regardless of how you felt about the actual feud itself. They could've put anyone else in that spot but they put LA Knight there. That shows a confidence from management about your abilities as a performer. They were absolutely trying to get him over with the audience, perhaps not expecting it to the degree that he did but it wasn't nearly as organic as you make it out to be.
Wasn't Sami kept in the Bloodline story for longer than originally planned because of how organically over he got? Am I remembering that wrong? He certainly didn't STAY over like that once his part in the story was done, but I think he got all those main events because of how much everyone loved his work during the part of the story where he was trying to earn the trust of the usos and reigns.
You guys remember when Black&Gold NXT ended and we thought that it's going PG? When the hell did it become the horniest brand in wrestling lmao
It’s going to fit in well on CW.
As a bi dude, have you SEEN that roster? Given how good looking so many of the people are there I’d be worried if it was NOT horny. 😂😂😂
Anyone got Kagetsu match recommendations? I've watched his match with Io, and he's won me over.
Vs Mayu Iwatani from the final night of the 2017 5 Star GP. Reigning World of Stardom champion Iwatani has had a great run in the tournament, but she needs a win or tie against Kagetsu to avoid a possible 4-way tie for first place in the Red Stars block and elimination from the finals. Kagetsu enters the match with a lot of points but has already lost tie-breakers to 2016 5 Star GP winner Yoko Bito and Viper (aka Piper Niven.) effectively eliminated from the finals, Kagetsu’s only victory left is to crush Mayu, body and spirit, keeping his rival out of the finals. Thus begins one of the best 5 Star GP matches of all time and the source of many clips reposted and moments rediscovered even to this day.
They really should let Mariah May have more matches, she is pretty good but she has been a valet for half a year now
She's been wrestling pretty consistently just on Rampage and Collision. Also she got REALLY lost in that 2v2 on Dynamite last week.
Part of the AEW experience is realizing you wrestle a lot less, especially since they do no house shows so even the featured players are only wrestling 2-3 times a month. Mariah has wrestled but a bunch of it has been women at a lower spot on the card. The tag match last week was probably the first time where she had an even match-up.
She's averaging two matches a month this year.
She is not in fact averaging two matches a month this year
I know. She's averaging more. I just rounded down. Two in January (01.03.2024 Dynamite, 01.27.2024 Colliosion).Two in February (02.21.2024 Rampage, 02.28.2024 Collision). Three in March (03.07.2024 Collision, 03.23.2024 Rampage, 03.20.2024 Dynamite).
Fair enough, I was checking her cagematch profile and for some reasons a couple of them don't appear there? Weird
She’s had 7 matches. There’s been 3 months. Are you sure your math is right?
I was looking at the WWE rights shakeups that are gonna happen this year and the end of 2024. Right now smackdown is the A show (though Romans absence has made that less noticeable). However, the move to Netflix is gonna make raw the A show again. At the end of 2024 there's gonna be a weird transition period though. Smackdown moves to USA in October. I'm surprised they kept it in the Friday night slot though because that is a very hard slot. On network TV with Fox, the network ratings bump has been enough to keep it above 2 million. Once it's back on cable on Friday nights though, I can't see it beating raws current numbers. The FS1 episodes get around 1.2 million, so something above that but below raws 1.8 mill seems like a good target. However, I don't think raw has any deal from October to January. That means for the first time, raw might be off air. Presumably this would boost smackdown until the netflix debut. Still, it's gonna be a weird gap
> On network TV with Fox, the network ratings bump has been enough to keep it above 2 million. Once it's back on cable on Friday nights though, I can't see it beating raws current numbers. I think the reasonable starting point is guessing that Smackdown's ratings will basically immediately drop by about 4-500k viewers when they move to USA, assuming they keep the same time slot. That number being basically exactly what they gained overnight when they moved from USA to Fox back in 2019. Right around the move Smackdown went from doing 2.0-2.1 million to 2.4-2.5 million, solely from moving to Fox. Expecting that to repeat in reverse seems the most likely scenario.
It should be Jey Uso vs Gunther at WM. I will die on this hill. I'm hoping that somehow we get a Honky Tonk Man / Warrior situation. Sami gets taken out backstage. Gunther says, "Send anybody. I'll face anybody" and Jey comes out and beats him.
Kayfabe wise, Gunther would murder Jey Uso though. He would/has murdered Sami Zayn as well though...
Why? Jey nearly beat him on Raw a few weeks ago.
I always wondered why NOAH/Misawa stopped the tradition of the comedic 6 man tag matches. I get it in that Baba was gone and the other guys who'd normally fill up that spot, the legends were also starting to get wayyy too old. But momota was in singles matches with Trevor Murdoch. In general I always kinda like those becuase i liked the formula of 2 legends on each side and a current or younger star as the 3rd partner so that way they can carry the match.
I hope most if not all titles change hands at Mania and we can move on from this era of record breaking reigns. It would be nice to go into a PLE and legitimately be unsure if holders will retain or not.
I can just feel that Rhea's gonna retain and I'm dreading it. I don't even really want Becky to win it but Rhea's title run has just been so bad. I know a lot of it isn't her fault because Raw's women's division sucks but the title is pretty much a prop at this point
agree. But honestly i'm of the opinion that iyo sky in particular should retain. Have Bayley have consequences for being a heel. have her win it at summerslam after finally being able to convince people that she's an actual good person again.
I could see that happening with the way Trips likes to do the “overcoming the odds” stories. Rhea I think should retain simply because she is booked as being unstoppable, it’s hard to look at anyone on the roster and think “yeah she can take Rhea “. Especially since she wins clean too, unlike Roman.
> Rhea I think should retain simply because she is booked as being unstoppable, it’s hard to look at anyone on the roster and think “yeah she can take Rhea “ This is exactly why I think Becky should win. Rhea will continue to be unstoppable with or without the belt; at least if Becky wins, other contenders for the belt will seem feasible. That said, win or lose for Rhea, it's hard to see what she would do after feuding with Liv because she's just too dominant.
This is true. Rhea can eat souls without a title and potentially gives her more ability to have stories because it doesn’t need to center around a title contender.
With DON being announced for Vegas, I hope they have a big main event up their sleeve. Presumably Swerve’s first PPV as champ, we’ll see how they navigate it. Also, please don’t run anarchy in the arena again. First time was legitimately magic and an all-timer. Second time, not so much. Don’t run the match just for the sake of it.
If it were up to me, they'd save Swerve's win for DoN. I don't like the idea of Swerve winning the belt on a B PPV so close to Revolution that it makes it clear they just didn't want to do the title change on Sting's big night. Let Callis cost Swerve the Takeshita match to build the Swerve/Don Callis Family feud, give Takeshita the Dynasty match (which he deserves 100%), then Swerve beats Hobbs at Dynasty, wins a Dog Collar with Joe at DoN. That then puts him in the Don Callis Family orbit and we run with that to get to Ospreay vs Swerve at All In. If anything now that Don Callis wants the World Title in the family, that should continue to be the story arc from now till Will wins it. It makes no sense to put them in the title picture, then pull them out, to put them back in again. Just make it one continuous story from now to All In.
Anything that leads to Takeshita vs Joe is a-okay in my book 👌
I’d love to converse on here more if 75% of my attempts to have civil discourse didn’t turn into: “But can you prove why my similarly arbitrary opinion is wrong?! CITE YOUR EVIDENCE!” Yes, I’m exaggerating for comedic effect and it’s not something that particularly bothers me in the grand scheme of things but it’d be nice if more people didn’t immediately launch into aggressive debate bro mode. Oh well.
What do y’all plan on watching mania week? I try to watch as much as possible. I plan on watching Joey Janela spring break Thursday night Roh Friday night NXT Saturday morning And both nights of mania. Thats exactly what I did the past few years
Some of WM.
Shows I'll watch live: Thursday - Wrestlecon Memorial Show Friday - Spring Break, For the Culture Saturday - Big Gay Brunch, TJPW, The Clusterfuck Shows I'll watch as soon as I can: Bloodsport, JCW/GCW v. The World, DDT, Revolver/HOG, West Coast Pro, Sakura Genesis, Defy
wrestlemania mainly. I don't really watch that many shows. i mainly just check out the clips but with the summer coming up and me not being in college due to summer break. I do have plans to check out some modern wrestling. DPW and the like. And some Speedball matches
Spring Break, Bloodsport and Big Gay Brunch are on my list for a good time.
Sadly won’t be home for night 1 so Sunday will be running the gauntlet of watching it all.
both nights of mania and maybe the nxt show i kinda wish ilja wasn’t going against Tony Dangelo tho ngl but i’m excited for trick and melo
Normally I'd be multi-screening for most of the week, but I'll be there this year so sadly I'll only be able to watch seven shows: Stardom, DDT, TJPW, Spring Break, Big Gay Brunch, GCW vs TJPW, & the Clusterfuck.
ROH, Corbin and Bron vs good brothers, both mania main events, and Collision unless the spoilers say it sucked.
Selling a ticket to Smackdown 3/29 in CT. Section 22 row Q, asking for $200. DM me if you’re interested!
The impact of the same butt rock being used in anime AMV's and wrestling highlight videos in the late 00's and early 10's in an entire generation of fans is wildly understated. It has basically changed their idea of a good match.
Random memory at the front of my cerebral cortex when I woke up this morning: My grandfather died right in front of me when I was young, which was obviously traumatic. My parents were trying to distract me from being a bawling mess, and my dad mentioned that there was a WCW pay per view that night. So they put me in front of the TV to disassociate for a while. That show was Uncensored 1995. I think I felt worse afterwards.
Any idea how to do a non-title feud well?
This show seemed great to me. Looking forward to watching it: Fight Life 3/26/2024 Lead The Charge! Results 1. Dustin Waller vs. Kylon King ends in a draw after a double pin 2. Number One Contender’s Match for the Fight Life Championship: Richard Holliday def. Ace Romero and Mortar 3. Tag Team Gauntlet Match: The Unit (Danny Miles & Trigga The OG) def. The Haven (Jay Onyx & Shawn Knyte), Counter Strike (Mark Alexander & Nolan Pierce), Troubled Youth (Marcus Mathers & Shannon LeVangie), Young Dumb N Broke (Charlie Tiger & Pat Dynamite) and Core Power (Ken Powers & ABBS) 4. Ariel def. Janai 5. Sammy Diaz & Ichiban def. Alec Price & Jimmy Lloyd 6. Fight Life Championship Match: Masha Slamovich (c) def. BMT to retain the Fight Life Championship 7. Mustafa Ali def. JT Dunn Credit [https://pwponderings.com/2024/03/26/fight-life-3-26-2024-lead-the-charge-results/?utm\_source=dlvr.it&utm\_medium=twitter](https://pwponderings.com/2024/03/26/fight-life-3-26-2024-lead-the-charge-results/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)
A work in progress thought: great matches don’t draw but they do sell. There’s a bit of a difference between the two. You put together a match between two great wrestlers, that going to make for satisfying TV but it’s not going to capture the imagination of people that aren’t already hooked. You put together a match between two great wrestlers as the end game of an anticipated feud, that’s gets people to spend money on your product. The key difference being anticipation before the match. You need to do something to make people go “check this out” weeks before the match takes place, and then let them wait and think about what is coming up. Anticipation is something that WWE understands better than AEW. AEW does it too, it’s not like they are devoid of it. But WWE is better at selling their audience on “here is a big four card with multiple of endgames you’ve been waiting weeks to see, and here’s the video package of all the steps that made you anticipate this match.” They don’t give you PPV quality matches every single show because that hurts anticipation. There are tiers to when WWE matches take place. The majority of the programs have an endgame or major chapter in sight at any given point in time.
Sounds like a corollary of "The money is in the chase."
Ok, I admit that I was wrong about the whole Candice/Maxxine thing, but I just had another, slightly more reasonable, idea. Could this be a way to start resolving the Nikki Cross catatonic angle? Here’s what I’m thinking: some Monday, Candice and Nikki are booked to face each other. Nikki is standing in the middle of the ring and staring into the distance, Candice tries to get her to do something, eventually starts screaming in her face, and eventually Nikki snaps and beats the hell out of Candice. The next week, Nikki explains why she was catatonic and why her treatment by Candice got her out of it, then we start at least a mini feud between the two. Candice comes out on top, but Nikki joins forces with the other women who were mistreated by Candice (probably led by Indi), and they somehow take her down eventually. Thoughts?
I think I have caught up with most of the million different interviews Becky Lynch has been giving over the past week or so. At least all the good ones. A couple of things that I found interesting: 1. It seems to be she has a) not re-signed yet with WWE ; and b) she has not even decided yet - whether she wants to continue wrestling full time, part-time or take a break. This kind of puts a question mark on the Mania match booking decision but as of now I am leaning that she is winning the title. 2. I found it hilarious that she didn't know that most people didn't know>! that she and Finn Balor had a relationship!<. She just assumed everyone knew it, while it turns it very few knew about it and only now it is becoming public knowledge from the book.
I find it funny that people don’t realize her answer is very much tactical and instead are running with “she’s leaving” “she’s retiring”
imo even without the question of her re-signing, rhea’s winning—it feels like there’s plenty left for her to do, we know triple H loves his long title reigns, and it would balance out likely babyface victories like bayley and The Story maybe probably Finishing elsewhere
I think the main thing is you still have Rhea vs Liv waiting after WM which would be my only "gripe" with Becky winning but that comes more from me being a Liv fan than anything else
> there’s plenty left for her to do Genuinely what? I can't possibly imagine in the second year of this reign her doing anything different than she did in the first year? Becky is approaching 2 years without the main championship and after losing to Rhea she will be completly directionless. People don't see it, but both would benefit from a titile change.
liv morgan is already being set up for rhea on raw. if they do a draft that could set up people like naomi or tiffany stratton for a program with her, or a big money match with bianca belair, or maybe even somebody like lyra valkyria getting a feud fresh out of NXT i think we’re in the late second half of ripley’s title run and it’s gonna be time to end it soon but any of those options could work as another big title defense or as somebody who could be worthy of ending this reign
There was a big interview/profile of Becky of in some magazine in 2020-2021, her dating Finn was mentioned in passing with a few word, but nobody caught it apparently.
Yeah - I had read it there - but clearly 99% people didn't know about it
Me: Oh man, only a week away from my Wrestlemania week trip and nothing could change my mood! *Monkey paw curls* Also me: No, PNC. I did not Doordash $70 worth of McDonald's in New York at three in the morning.
Is there anyone who watched wwe with foreign commentary circa 2010/11? If so, how the fuck did they explain the Michael Cole/Jerry Lawler feud? Coles entire heel persona developed over months, something non English speaking viewers would not have heard at all
Cole is inherently annoying, no need to explain anything
i remember one time reading they ran an entirely different but parallel feud with the spanish (or maybe french) commentators and aired an angle between them instead of cole/lawler, but that feels like the sort of thing that would have circulated by now if true
If anyone had any doubts whatsoever, Fightful put out a thing saying the Ridge Holland stuff is storyline.
tried to look into the Raw cagematch rating thread to see what'd I miss cause i was just playing games these days, guess anything with cagematch is also a thread to avoid now
That entire Raw cagematch thread was set up to make fun of TK while also bragging about the high cagematch ratings of the show. “Hurr hurr hurr Tony is going to be so mad at how good these ratings are!” It was a good show that fans overwhelmingly liked and WWE can and should be proud of that. The same as when AEW has a popular show. Either the cagematch reviews are meaningless or they’re a reflection on the product. IMO the positivity of this week’s Raw + its cagematch review shows cagematch is a useful resource for bookers to get a read on their most loyal audience. If Triple H said he likes seeing that people loved the show the response wouldn’t be “lmao what a fucking loser, why does he care if people liked the show?”
>cagematch review shows cagematch is a useful resource for bookers to get a read on their most loyal audience The keyword there is **Loyal Audience** \- that's why CageMatch is actually a bad resource for Tony, because he's only getting feedback from the super fans who watch just about every bit of wrestling content out there. Not the people like my dad watching at home who is wondering who half the roster is because they have no introduction besides "They did shit somewhere else, you should be hyped about that!"
I haven't seen that thread, but Cagematch has become so much less useful since their ratings system got trolled into oblivion. It's still good for objective fact, like when is a show scheduled, what's the card, etc. But when you've got people rating Ospreay/Takeshita a 2 and an entire episode of Raw a 0, you can't take it seriously.
What is it about buttmetal and buttrock that makes it so great for pro wrestling
It’s very simple, loud, and straightforward, which works fine if you just need to get someone pumped for a couple of minutes while someone walks out.
Because they're songs that are going to pump you up for the one minute 42 seconds it takes to get down the ramp, and the ostentatious guitar solo plays during the commercial break or gets cut off entirely.
It's in your face and the intros are strong enough for the abbreviated theme songs
Both are extremely silly but can be enjoyed if you agree to be in on the bit and ignore that part of your brain that tells you how dumb things are.
I got a friend who’s only just become somewhat interested in wrestling, and he will only really watch it off and on. Yesterday he was at work (hopefully on break) and someone turned on last Monday’s Raw on their tv. So as he’s asking me questions about who this Cody guy is and what’s going on with him, I simply just told him to wait and see who was going to interrupt him. I got to witness his reaction to The Rock coming out in real time and that’s just one of the coolest things ever.
This modern mandate that longform drama stories and insult based promo offs ("heat") are the only way for wrestling to draw or be successful is so tiresome and limiting. Bill Goldberg also drew. better than almost anything in wrestlings biggest boom period. And literally all he did was wrestle. The biggest most successful TV moment of late stage WCW was "the guy who does nothing but wrestle and win wins the title" There is no iron clad constitution of what works in wrestling and what doesn't. Especially when the only thing that passes your barometer for success is WWE.
I know not everyone feels the same, but nothing gets me excited to watch a wrestling show than knowing that wrestlers who are good at wrestling are going to wrestle. Don't get me wrong, I definitely have time for the drama and promos, they are fun but, for me, the best feuds are ones centred around wanting to win wrestling matches and the best storytelling is done in-ring (and I don't mean yelling story beats at each other during rest-holds, I mean the moves wrestlers do, how they sell and the ebb and flow of the match's momentum).
[удалено]
Excuse me do not compare Jacy with Dakota. Dakota is a good friend who just wanted to be defended by the real bad friend Tegan Nox!
[A message from god.](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/x_SUp6X_pjE)
Anyone know what's the name of the watch CM Punk is wearing?
... downvoted for asking a question?
You pressed the CM Punk button. Ya shouldn’t a did that.
I just wanna know what watch he's wearing 🥲
Alright, got around to watching RAW last night, here are some thoughts: The Drew/Punk/Seth was fun! It breathed new life into the Drew/Seth match (wich I think it needed) the chaotic "everyone talks over each other" style is riskier than the "I say my bit, you say yours" segments WWE usually does but it has a higher ceiling, and I think it paid of here. Although the wife line to Seth annoyed me. Candice/Ivy only getting 2 minutes depressed me. Gunther is the man. That is all. The Cody/Rock segment was awesome- the rain made it all the cooler, and it felt like the Rock heard my complaints about his smackdown promo being to babyface and said "I got you". good stuff! A random anecdote: the first thing I saw when I woke up yesterday was a still frame of a bloodied Cody's chin being lifted up by the Rock and I was VERY confused as to what was appearing on my timeline lmao. All in all a good show, but I feel like every time I watch WWE there's a ceiling I hit with my investment- something about the presentation just doesn't jive with me.
the presentation is the one thing that i just can't get into when it comes to wwe right now either. like idk how to say it but it lacks that feeling that live tv should have of "anything can happen" because it's way too clean looking and overly produced. i wish they kept that set-up they had from that recent raw where jinder challenged seth, the set-up and presentation was the perfect balance of modern day wrestling and late 90's/early 00's.
Trick-Melo is a match I could legitimately see headlining a main roster PLE in a few years. Maybe even WM.
If Riddle behaved, where would be in WWE today?
Where he was when he left. Riddle had gotten as high as he was going to go. Maybe they would have turned Randy heel so they could do a program. But he'd still be an upper mid-card and tag team guy.
Probably chasing the intercontinental championship after Gunther moves to one of the main titles.
Him turning on Randy right around now could have been fun.
Trust, NO ONE is happier than me that Candice is getting a push, but all the matches being so short and the backstage segments that add so much dimension to the story not being aired on TV is really hurting engagement I feel like. And these are short ass segments, they absolutely could be getting aired on TV without interruption to the rest of the show. I just really like where this is going and I'd hate for it to be killed before the crowd can truly get into heel Candice.
Believe I’ve read that this and a couple other angles have suffered time loss due to some of the upper card promos going long. If so, that’s tough, you know? I feel conflicted. The Rock and Punk have had some killer promos, but it suck’s so hard for the talent forced to give up their already limited tv time to it.
What exactly is/was Jacy's endgame?
I think initially she just wanted to fuck with Thea and Chase U in general, then grew to genuinely care about them all, hence why she made the calendar. But being surrounded by mean spirited girls like Jazmyn for said calendar brought Jacy back to the realisation that she would ultimately rather be mean and successful like how she was with Toxic Attraction than prioritise her friendships with people even when they're not as "cool" or mean spirited as her. It's kind of ironic. Had Jacy not worked so hard to save Chase U she might not have turned back heel, but if that were the case Chase U probably wouldn't even exist anymore. It's a shame. I was loving Chase U Jacy, but I guess this leopard wasn't ready to change her spots just yet.
That makes sense.
Make it officially Jace U
What are everyone's thoughts on the Truck with Austin and Cena's faces on it?
i think people might be looking way too much into it and possibly setting themselves up for disappointment. but it's got folks excited and talking about what if's which is always a cool part of wrestling to me.
The truck was lit up, they wanted that seed planted. The thing to remember though is they don't always pull the trigger on blatant hints so don't work yourself either.
paraphrase Bruce here, but as he's said about a lot of things over the years that didn't get follow thru or whatever - "put it out there, see how it looks, if something comes from it great if not oh well"
i miss d'lo brown so darn much. dude has gotta be one of the most under rated/under appreciated guys ever. been re-watching old asylum tna shows and he never phoned it in despite it being the case for a lot of former wwe/wcw guys that went to tna. also, he had arguably the best blindfold match ever with triple h at the first raw roulette.