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The Fiend vs Goldberg, WWE Super ShowDown 2020

When the thread has to use a weird talking point like "Randy Savage was not an ace worker" in order to defend shittiness of The Fiend, we have strayed way too far from god's light.

This is the dumbest fucking talking point. Even if ringwork mattered when it comes to picking a top guy, this whole “Bray Wyatt can’t work” thing has never been true.

I say this in all honesty: That main event was better than Cole-Ciampa.

Cena is there every week, you just can't see him.

I am just glad that Tony Clifton is still a wrestling fan and huge Orange Cassidy fan well

I guess he'll just stay home alone.

By giving the rub who is on the roster full time?

I didn't think the Iron Man Match was a lot... it felt about right especially considering what I've seen from NXT lately. This was LEAGUES better than the recent Gargano/Cole/Ciampa stuff. It was a great match and another great show top to bottom. I loved those Painmaker Posse tracksuits.

It was a combo of it being more sensible for the Stone Cold character and working with guys who had certain limitations. From the Dangerous Alliance run to when all of Hogan's guys came in (especially during the Blondes run), he was basically a more agile Arn Anderson which makes sense given he was in a stable with him. Then when he started getting hurt in 94 and had to work with dudes like Duggan, you can sense that he had to figure out a way to work with those guys because they weren't a Ricky Steamboat or a Dustin Rhodes. When he became the Ringmaster, it was all physical, gritty squash matches and he got to do those programs with Savio and Bret. He could switch back between the two seamlessly and sometimes out of necessity. Once he started having these super heated programs, it didn't make sense to be this technician. It wouldn't make sense for him to start a match with a collar and elbow lockup. Neck injuries or no neck injuries, his character demanded something else anyway.

In my own experience, solid classic wrestling ages well (Bret Hart, for example) and big, scary mofos throwing people around ages like fine wine. But innovative, highly athletic, "state of the art" wrestling ages poorly, because people come along who jump higher, flip more, move faster, and can go longer. I think the best example of that is watching the two classics from WrestleMania X. Bret vs Owen was a great match then, it's a great match now, it'll be a great match in 2035. Shawn vs Razor was a mind blowing, never before seen, I can't believe it match in 1994. Now, it's a ladder match with a bit more psychology and way less awesome moments than you expect. Which is fine, you aren't wrestling for the people who are going to see the match 25 years later.

No he won't. The match is going to blow chunks.

So tempted to close the thread two days early just so it ends on this.

LOL this stupid fucking company

I fucking love Tony. My first vivid memory of NWA/JCP was him calling Magnum winning the US title from Wahoo in a cage on Worldwide. March 1985? It's been so cool watching his new life in the business happen. Probably the best thing that has come out of Conrad's podcast empire.

Schiavone is great.

Have I mentioned how much I love having Tony back on tv?

I saw Gary Michael Capetta on live wrestling in 2020. This is good stuff.

Guys, this stuff is so good. The rule of three at play (over the span of a few minutes, with bridging elements within): 1. 2. 3.

Baron Corbin.

Who is this company building up for the future? Drew McIntyre and...? Ricochet earned a title shot and then got no offense in the match. Montez Ford and Aleister Black spent months barely wrestling (which, it could be argued, has at least kept them fairly protected). Andrade just got pinned by R-Truth. Braun Strowman was working midcard comedy matches until he won a title with no build. Bray Wyatt has resurrected himself from terrible booking twice now and is going to have to do it a third time. Multiple NXT guys have allegedly asked not to be moved because they want to maintain some sense of importance. The two heavyweight champions wrestled each other in a WrestleMania match 16 years ago. Seriously, who are the top guys supposed to be 3-5 years from now?

I kind of want to see Goldberg vs Bryan now.

The Fiend was finished as soon as he pulled out the mallet at HIAC. Goldberg/Reigns is the money match. All of those cool firefly funhouse vignettes did not translate into good in-ring performances, aside from the Bryan match, and I mean let's face it, Bryan could probably have a good match with anyone on this board. Ricochet/Brock was hilarious.

KO says that he will donate all profits that he receives from the Just Keep Fighting shirt will be donate to 2 mental health charities (one in Canada and one in the US)

While I love me an epic match sometimes you can't go wrong with two hours where you're just laughing and clapping and smiling seemingly the whole damn time. I loved the ironman match and that was some weird time sorcery going on. But the stuff that still has me smiling is thinking about random shit like Tony with Best Friends, OC with Bunny and maybe trying this Saturday, and Jericho with his Painmaker Posse. Oh, and Yuka's theme which is just incredible. With Revolution shaping up to have top to bottom killer matches it's nice to just dig this calm before the storm. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself last night.

I don’t know what’s funnier in this Tweet?

I love this show so much. There's just a ton to love from the Ironman match, setting up Pac vs OC, OC wearing the bunny ears, Best Friends winning, the entire interview with Tony, everything during the commercial with the Best Friends and Tony, YUKA!, Shida won!, feeling bad for Hangman that his friends are all pieces of shit, I hope Hangman lariats all of them, and that entire end segment was the shit.

As @Oyajisaid, the Gracie Train bit was fucking marvelous. Excellent episode of Dynamite and go home show.

So Colbert went off and Corden came on, they announced Big Dave was gonna be on so I left the channel there. Cedric the Entertainer pops out of his room in the intro and says he's the height of fashion and all I can think of is "you must not know who is going to appear right after you" haha. And of course, Dave looks great -- and surprisingly not as hipsterish as usual. Pics to follow! UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE They showed video of Leviathan, and Cedric brought up Wrestling at the Chase including Tojo, Dick the Bruiser, and JYD. Dave is wearing an all-black ensemble with stylish semi-motorcycle boots and is sporting the red-tinged glasses this time instead of his typical yellow.

Got to give the people what they want!

Hardly anyone in Fite chat knew who he was. I tried telling them he was WCW's lead announcer in the pre-Hogan era, but that might as well have been ancient pre-history for these Attitude Era kids. They were really buzzing during the Ironman how this was the first time we've seen 'Kenny Omega from Japan' in AEW. Like, he'd been good, but here he was back to being transcendent. Who knew taking out the bit of his entrance video where he looks miserable in a backpack was the key to unlocking his top form?

Holy shit, Big Swole is not very good. She's cool, seems to have a good persona but she needs to keep it to the basics until she can hit the overcomplicated dipsy-do strike sequences at full speed without fail. That was brutal. Yuka has a little bit of the Riho complex in that she's sooo tiny that her strikes don't look very believable but her stature is also her biggest strength in that she's adorable and shows great determination and fortitude. I do wonder what Riho's future looks like. If she's thinking of retirement or sticking to Japan, replacing her with Yuka isn't the worst idea. Though I'd be totally cool with two tiny adorable Japanese women in the division. Cute "obsolete" bit in the Dork Odor (*LARRY Z, Y'ALL!*) promo. Iron man was a lot. Probably too much. Both guys have shown they can tell a great story with the right pacing. This felt like it edged towards big spots and not enough storytelling though I'd rather them veer towards a competitive match with broad strokes (Pac dominating the match after the chair shot because he was desperate, for instance) than the OTT cutesy bullshit you often see (i.e. Johnny Gargano/HBK) when wrestlers try to tell a story in an epic match setting. The Falcon Arrow to HELL, my God. That was up there with the worst of King's Road style. They did a very good job of getting Marko involved in the six man. His offense was almost all surprise high flying counters and such. Nobody looked like a dork taking it. Good, solid match (with maybe a bit too much going on). Felt like there was a bit of fat on this episode, which is not usually the case. GMC is great but does he need his own entrance? The Gracie train! Fuck, that is great. Wow, the headbutt looked great because he made decent contact. Fun show but a step down from the past 3 weeks or so of white hot television. Can't agree more with @AxBregarding the time trickery this show pulls with one's head. Goes by so quickly then it feels like it was eons since I watched it within minutes of the show actually ending. WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?!

You're assuming they are aware that their product is bad. But when the only voice that determines it's quality declares everything to be Such Good Shit, nobody can say it isn't. Nobody can even privately think it's bad. They've always been at war with Eastasia.

I wish there was more for TH2 right now. I've liked Jack Evans going back to the Generation Next days.

Chuck Taylor is the best:

It’s finally going to happen. Orange Cassidy might become a star after Saturday. Are the naysayers ready? Will you tell your kids this moment in history, when you were massively wrong to doubt OC Orange Cassidy? Get ready, the car is warmed up, I went to the toilet, the oven isn’t on, I think I got everything, and my wallet is in my pocket. Well what are you waiting for? Get on this bandwagon with us.

Speaking of things that aged spectacularly well, Goldberg in WCW is absolutely amazing to watch now. He was sloppy, but he was so explosive, so charismatic, so God damn impossibly strong, and so fucking over that even in early 2001, he was the best thing in wrestling.

Goldberg is 53 years old, and he basically peaked over 20 years ago. The days of guys dragging out decent three star matches out of him in the WWE era are long gone. Jericho is still a miracle worker at 49 but even he can't do with Goldberg now what he could do 17 years ago. You know it's one thing to have Goldberg come in and be the guy to squash Lesnar. That's already a sad state for wrestling, but it's even sadder to have this happen now with probably the best character they've had in years, a guy they've already constantly undercut and almost sabotaged left and right. It's once again proof that Vince McMahon's mentality of grabbing the brass ring is garbage. Guys grab the brass ring, they work hard, they get over, and then Vince McMahon shits all over them for it. And Bray Wyatt is the definition of a homegrown star as well. This vanity run with Goldberg is downright bizarre considering he's a guy that Vince never made in the first place. It's like Vince has nostalgia for the Monday Night Wars now. I don't get it.

To go back to the "who was more bothered to be there" - my vote is for these two

- Cool new gear for Kenny, he's worn the same tights for almost every AEW show till now. Felt like a big NJPW match with The Bucks outside the ring. One thought I had while watching this match: these two guys are SO good at what they do. Perfect execution, every single move looked crisp, nothing looked botched. Almost like watching a video game match where all the animations are perfect. It was just impressive how good they both are at their jobs. Kenny being dizzy and begging PAC not to dive on him before the pin was a great touch, much better than just laying motionless. I like that we only got 1 pin and 1 DQ during the match. I always think it's silly when 30min Ironman matches end in something like 3-2 because you would never get so many decisions between two guys like these in a normal 30min match. - OC with bunny ears getting the biggest pop of the night, I love pro wrestling. Butcher and the Blade are total jobbers tho. - Shida Yuka is just hilarious, she has so much personality. Loved Goku's and Storm's inspired outfits in this match. - "For the love of god, give me a lower third this week even if its just for one frame" Page biting his tongue and acting annoyed at what Kenny and the Bucks says is so well done and completely relatable. Such a good storyline, Page is clearly in the right here, he only ever wanted some space from the guys. - Loved Team Jericho coming out in the end, hilarious. Mox was MOLTEN after the Kenny match but im not sure if he's the one that should dethrone Jericho now. I'd rather have Jericho as champ for another 3-4 months before the next PPV.