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If WandaVision is this good with all the wackiness, I cannot wait to see how Loki does.

one of the subtler reasons why the 1992 one is the best is Jake Roberts' paranoid reaction every time the countdown starts because -- with no theme music cue -- he doesn't know when Macho Man Randy Savage is going to sprint from the back and beeline towards murdering him. Or Repo Man trying to sneak into the ring and staying hunched over his entire way down the ramp. People focused on doing their big entrance by rote look like they're admitting this is their highlight of the night, i.e. that they have no chance. It's one thing for us to think we know "oh this guy's not winning" it's another thing entirely for them to basically tell us we're right.

I'm going to beat the shit out of 2021 if it even THINKS about taking Terry Funk.

Free Will and Self-Expression by way of Creativity are both very good things, in my opinion. Also, I think it's great when people can Have Fun with their Friends at Work. This is my Guide to Enjoying AEW a Bit More, for those who aren't enjoying it as much as they might like. Opening Disclaimers: This is not intended as an attack on, say, @Goodearor @Andy in Kansas If he were still around, this might kind of be an attack on @Dogwhistler of Cornette-isms or whatever his name was. I am not intending to stifle criticism. Differing voices and opinions make for better discussion, and I am all for good discussion. I understand that not everyone will enjoy everything the way that I do. We all have different tastes, and tastes are often inexplicable. I don't think that AEW is perfect, or above criticism. I think it's possible to love something and still find flaws in it. To want the thing (or person) we love to be the best version of itself. All that being said: Here and, more so, elsewhere I feel like there are a lot of people pissing away a good deal of potential joy by wishing/hoping/oftentimes demanding that AEW be something that is is obviously not. My first point here is that AEW is not exactly like the pro wrestling that we loved when we first became huge pro wrestling fans. My thinking on this point is not that AEW should not try to be exactly like the pro wrestling that we loved when we first became huge pro wrestling fans. My thinking is that it would be absolutely impossible for AEW to be exactly like the pro wrestling that we loved when we first became huge pro wrestling fans. Even on this board, we all grew up on different types of pro wrestling and had different favourites. Even if you take two Big Bossman fans from the same general location and around the same age, watching the same show, maybe one of them likes that he's big and agile while the other likes how he handcuffs and beats up the jobber after the match. There might be money to be made in a well-run nostalgia-based pro wrestling promotion -and I enjoyed the first few episodes of NWA Powerrr largely because of my massive nostalgia for studio pro wrestling - but I think AEW are wise not to chase that particular golden goose. Also, AEW definitely set some fans up for disappointment when they announced before their debut that they were going to be "the sports-centric alternative in the pro wrestling world." I think some of us - myself included - immediately started imagining a kind of Americanized version of UWF-i or something. Obviously, that is not at all what AEW has turned out to be. The sports-centric things seems to have been reduced to keeping track of wins and losses, which don't have much effect on the stories being told anyway. It's fair enough to ding them for saying that and not following through. It might, however, be time to consider retiring takes like "AEW is supposed to be the sports-centric wrestling alternative, and yet here they are with a guy wrestling in sunglasses with his hands in his pockets..." I'm not trying to stifle criticism, but I am against bad, lazy, and/or basically pointless criticism. So, AEW is not a nostalgia-based promotion, nor is it a sports-centric version of pro wrestling. So, what is AEW? AEW is, very much so, the promotion where people can have fun at work with their friends. I think this is great. I am very much in favour of this. I have a lot more to say about this, and I have already said a lot about it here and elsewhere. I did a whole lengthy post on it in, I believe, The AEW Scouting Report thread. I'll probably copy and paste that post over here at some point, if this thread manages to generate some discussion. I think that a lot of the things that drive some people nuts about AEW can be explained pretty easily as "They are having fun with their friends at work." Why is Brandon Cutler on TV? Why is Luther in the main event? Why did they bring Sting in? Why are they "wasting" Miro in a program with Kip Sabian? Because the EVPs, the owner, and the wrestlers would all like to have fun working with their friends. This is it. This is, in my opinion, the first big key to enjoying AEW a bit more, assuming that's a thing you'd like to do. Skippable side ramble: (Maybe it isn't? Maybe for some folks being a hater is a thing that sparks joy? Not here so much - most of the criticism I see on these boards seems to come from a place of wanting AEW to be the best AEW that it can be. But haters exist, and maybe they enjoy being haters. Maybe it would be wrong for me to try and spoil their joy by helping them enjoy a thing)? Anyway, key #1 is this: Accept that the point, the function, the central tenet of AEW is to have fun at work with your friends. Not to be an ersatz sports program Not to tickle our nostalgia bones. Not to put on the best matches possible. Not to make the most money. Not to be the biggest promotion in the world. The main thing is to be a fun place to work. All of those other things can happen, and all of them are important, but the main thing is that this promotion is run by actual pro wrestlers (and their friend the extremely well-to-do pro wrestling fan) in the manner that they had always wished a pro wrestling promotion might be run. We are seeing what that looks like on TV and on YouTube, week in and week out. We've been able to watch that unfold and take place in real time for over a year now. And: It's often been glorious. Lots of people seem to love it. The pro wrestling TV show about wrestlers being treated well and enjoying their jobs is a genuine success! Obviously, this is one of the key ways in which AEW stands in stark contrast to WWE. On the one hand, you have an owner, surrounded by yes men, an absolute martinet who tears apart friendships and love relationships on a whim. On the other, you have an owner who is also a fan, surrounded by actual pro wrestlers with decision-making powers, making friendship and happiness a priority. And I like that second option. A lot. Which is why stuff like Luther main-eventing an episode of Dynamite delights me rather than pisses me off. I'm seeing it through the lens of guys I consider likable having fun at work. (And I'm seeing Luther as a stand-in for all the guys who traveled the world busting their asses for years and years without ever main-eventing a TV show or sometimes even getting on TV at all). Looking at it that way doesn't make Luther a better, younger version of himself, but it transmogrifies the decision to give him that slot from "baffling" into "delightful." Anyway... I still have a ton to say. I haven't even touched on Free Will and Creative Self-Expression (which I think are the keys to getting beyond a lot of other complaints about AEW) but I have gone on long enough for now. I hope at least a few people read this whole thing. I hope it generates some discussion. I hope it can be taken in the spirit in which it is intended.

The "I have a set routine for me entrance" thing is a problem all year round, not just the Rumble. Guys have to hit their little pose on their way to a grudge match, or when they should be nervous, or when they should be bursting with excitement. It's pretty well known around here that I'm not the biggest Shawn Michaels fan, but watch him just coming to the ring during the 90's. His mannerisms, facial expressions, everything was different based on if he was a heel or a face, who his opponent was etc. He still was able to do his dance and pose and whatnot, but it didn't feel like a rehearsed routine. Then watch him during the last several years of his career. "Here's where I stop and kneel to Jesus, on this line I'm getting into the ring, then..." And his entrance told you nothing about who and where he was that night.

still one of my all time favorite entrances is the one time Warrior walked to the ring. A set routine is good if you periodically break the pattern it establishes, as that sends its own message. Tricky balance, though.

A true inspiration. I hear Austin Aries really looks up to Doug.

As much as I really don't care for Brady winning another Super Bowl, I am glad to see Bruce Arians is getting a ring as a head coach.

Hey, Ponce De Leon was right!

I'm open to giving you a hearing on this. But I would caution that if you feel that I'm one of these people you're describing here (and my being personally tagged in your post, I make the assumption that I'm one of the people you'd like to reach in this dialogue), it's my intention to disabuse you of that notion. I am getting the maximum amount of joy out their television show based on the way I choose to consume content. When I express my hopes of the company doing things that I feel would constitute an improvement in their product and provide me with a greater amount of joy, that's not me diminishing (or pissing away) any amount of joy that I would otherwise feel if I appreciated their content from a perspective that I'm naturally disinclined to take. I'm not going to take that perspective which means there is no such joy to be had for me from such, and thus I've pissed away nothing. I don't recall ever expressing a strong desire for the sports-centric thing or the nostalgia thing. And while I'm almost certainly guilty of making a crack here or there about all the ideas they should steal from Nitro-era WCW because that concept does tickle me, I don't think that ought to be a driving force of the promotion and it's certainly not something that colours my criticism of the company. I just want them to be the best possible modern wrestling promotion they can be in 2021 the year of our Lord. So knowing I don't subscribe to any of these feelings or desires, I'll file this one under *shrug* and cut this section brief. I'm still iffy on the pockets dude for my own reasons independent any of this. As to "bad, lazy, and/or basically pointless criticism," I don't know if you feel I'm a purveyor of such. But since you did tag me, I'll once again take it upon myself to get out in front of this one. If I have engaged in expressing things you find bad, lazy, or basically pointless, I apologize. You seem like a nice guy and it does kinda bum me out if you were displeased by having laid eyes on something bad, lazy, or basically pointless that I produced in your presence. And because I'm disinclined to change the nature of the things I choose to say on here unless told to by management, I also apologize in advance for any further displeasure caused by bad, lazy, or basically pointless things posted on this account. I think liking the people you work with is a good thing and organizations promoting an environment and culture that allows for that is a positive, full stop. And at a human level, I'm happy that these people largely get to have that experience working at a major company at the top of their chosen profession. Let nothing that comes after this sentence convince you that I think that is anything but great. As a consumer of entertainment, I largely don't concern myself with their feelings. I would be happy if everyone involved in producing the entertainment I consume is content in their professional lives and working with people they like. But it's not a strict requirement for my enjoyment of anything. And before I get further into this, let me be VERY CLEAR: I'm not asking anyone to suffer for my art or entertainment. BUT a little bit of suffering doesn't always ruin my enjoyment of either. Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider have a strong working relationship. They make each other laugh. They've collaborated on eighteen movies and counting. And it's nice for them that they get to have that. As a consumer, I don't generally don't care for what they do together. I'm not parking my ass in front of a screen and watching what they do with one another because I think it's great that people can make movies with people they like. Daniel Day-Lewis had a bad time making Phantom Thread. The townhouse where much of the film takes place was overcrowded with people and equipment to the extent that he expressed it was difficult for his process. He's joked that the crew hated him and it's difficult to make a movie like that. The material and process of making the movie left him with such a deep sadness that one of the greatest screen actors of his time retired prematurely. I haven't seen too many of the Sandler/Schneider collaborations. But I've seen enough to know I like Phantom Thread way more, in spite of DDL having a shit time at work and a rough time with the crew. You know who had problems with his co-workers? Bret Hart, during one of the most creatively interesting periods of his career. I still love his '96-'97 run. His misery does little to diminish my enjoyment. It sucks that he had that unpleasant experience. But the work is still great. People's liking one another is not paramount to my taste in entertainment. I like to think I try not to watch things or comment purely for hate. Most people barely have time for the thinks they enjoy or aspire to enjoy. I like watching wrestling, so I watch wrestling hoping for the best and criticize because I want better. I dunk on Snyder's DC movies because I've watched DC superhero stuff my whole life and would prefer money were being put into projects that use this IP in a way I enjoy. Being a hater in my mind would be me storming into the Mr Robot thread every once in a while to let everyone know how much a show I gave up on after 1+ seasons sucks and that they're stupid for liking it. I don't do that. Maybe some people like to be that way, but I don't see the appeal. And it would probably lead to watching more Mr Robot to have accurate hate to spread, and I don't want to watch any more Mr Robot than I already have! This is the point and function of AEW? Above making money? The most important return on investment Shahid Kahn expects is knowing Brandon Cutler gets the pleasure of working with his friends? These people having fun at work with their friends isn't a bad thing. But make no mistake, it's not the point or function of this as a business. I think you're slightly overstating your case, friend. I'm skeptical about how much the culture of people liking their coworkers and being treated well has contributed to their commercial success. If you'd like to make your case in that regard, I'm legitimately curious. I'm not sure I see it. Once again: Great for everyone involved. But I don't know about the places you're going with it. Well sure, but I don't know anyone involved in this discussion who looks at WWE and thinks that's the optimal culture to foster in a workplace. And this is where I need to firmly draw the line. The match was an embarrassment. The happiness experienced by Jericho and Luther from staging that does nothing for me as a consumer. If he's a stand-in for the guys who've never main evented on television or ever appeared on it, then he's a prime example of why they haven't. If these people are happy, that's fine. But I don't watch to see them make themselves happy. Before you touch on Free Will and Creative Self-Expression, I would caution against leaning too hard on WWE comparisons. I can't speak for everyone, but I know that I don't look at their heavy-handed approach to people reciting dumb material and adhering to a tired match format and think "yeah, more of that." I hope you're capable of extoling AEW's virtues in this department without leaning too hard on contrasting it with something many of us know is downright bad. All of this said, I do take this conversation in the intended spirit and welcome it. Constructive discussion of differing perspectives between well-intentioned parties operating in good faith is always welcome. I certainly prefer it to some of the more tired partisan attacks you see elsewhere. I'll take this over "IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THEN DON'T WATCH" any day of the week. I find this enjoyable, even as I disagree with a lot of what you're saying. If you do manage to broaden my perspective in a way that lends itself to my enjoyment of AEW, I'll welcome it and thank you for doing so. tl;dr: Phantom Thread is a good movie. Go watch it. Here's the trailer.

You know, Tony, it's been 10 Super Bowls and Tom Brady hasn't been shanked in the postseason yet. Are you trying to jinx him, Jim?!?!?

Too bad he isn't 24/7 champ still. I would pay to see R-Truth just suddenly run onto the field trying to get the belt back.

The best would have been Holo Vince seeing all the people in the crowd and yelling "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT HERE"

The entrance music playing has given us some classic moments, though, like the John Cena surprise that someone posted a few pages back or like this: As always, it's all about how the match is booked. 1992 and 1997 are well-booked Rumbles that tell coherent stories. I haven't seen a Rumble since maybe the one where Bryan lost and Roman won and the crowd hated the whole thing, but yeah...I can't tell you a Rumble that I remember as being particularly well-booked past about 2005. Part of that is because some of these events blend together the older I get, but also part of that has to be the cookie-cutter booking and the use of tropes like "enter, pose, spam finisher, move to the corner to punch-kick so the next person can do it."

And once again that Orton sig is the perfect reaction to the gif.

Me after every WandaVision episode:

Bret Hart with Salt n Pepa. I think they like him.

Blaine Gabbert and Leonard Fournette picking up Super Bowl rings, fulfilling the potential Jacksonville saw in them both when drafting them.

That Bruce commercial was so beautiful that I know it will piss off about 40% of the country

Seriously, that's the most impressive incomplete pass ever, right?

At this rate KC has to hope Kyle Shanahan suddenly takes over Tampa Bay's playcalling.

Pretty sure that The Weeknd just got called for PI too

so the Honey Badger got a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for... Being Taunted At?

Fucking embarrassing display. The referees have been bad, too.

That Oatly commercial was horrible

Brady never stopped mid-game to hawk his psuedo-science training garbage to all the fans in attendance, can you believe that, Jim?

Oh, I'm sure I'm probably talking nonsense, but what else do we have to do but speculate until we get a new episode? Here's the Falcon & The Winter Soldier Super Bowl spot. I like Stan and Mackie's chemistry so I'm down for this.

Gonna really need Nantz and Romo to stop pulling this "guess what Brady has never done before" shit unless it's something nice like "Brady has never thrown 5 interceptions in a game" or "This is the first time Tom Brady has been piledriven through a flaming table, can you believe it Jim".

The set entrance routines stand out as particularly stupid in an empty arena. It’s kind of symbolic of a wider lack of creativity in how little WWE has adapted its presentation for the pandemic era shows. The fact that they thought the answer was to go even louder (visually) with the Thunderdome setup seems ridiculous to me.

My 2 year old girl with a picture perfect Hitman Elbow Drop on me followed by a top pillow splash and cover for the three. Certainly put a smile on my face today.

Its decent-solid but nothing amazing. Its hard to love coming off of the DCAU and then seeing Brave and Bold come after. It was stuck between two great series.

Big meaty men slapping meat

While I'm this is not an attack on me and I'm not going to take it as such, I question the emotional appeal of this argument despite it clearly not being in bad faith. I have no doubt that Gordi believes what they are saying and they are not trying to set up a trap where you either like AEW or "you just don't get it" but it may just be the result of his argumentation. I will elaborate through quoting responses and while this may create the wall of text, I feel it necessary in order to make it very clear I am not taking anything out of context to alter their arguments. All of this is my ideal in terms of discussing all wrestling and not just AEW. I would personally find it very boring if we all agreed on everything even if we arrive to mostly the same conclusion. The debate to me is what has caused the majority of my growth as a fan. If we all just watched AEW and went "OMG great show!", there would be none of that discussion. I admit I do not watch wrestling like most people, even the ones here. I'm not saying I'm more correct that other fans. I just don't watch wrestling like they do and my voice is just as important as theirs. This is where your logic sort of falls apart. Because you can make this same argument for every wrestling promotion in history and it would be just as valid. You're pissing away a lot of joy by wishing GLOW wasn't about girls wrestling basic matches with super fun larger than life gimmicks. The fun in WCW is in seeing who is going to be in the nWo this week. The fun in current day WWE is in seeing people from the past come back once a year to wreck the current crop of non stars. If you don't enjoy those things, are you demanding that they be something they are not? Of course AEW is not the exact same as WWF circa 1989 (chosen because it is the literal time I first became a wrestling fan, not because of your examples) and I don't know who is saying that should be the case. What I advocate for is for current day promotions to examine past eras of wrestling for examples of what worked and what didn't and I usually use past examples to illustrate those points. For example, why did Batista get so over when he finally turned on Triple H and how can we use that information to help Wardlow? That's a useful question. I'd agree that AEW both set itself up for failure with the sports based wrestling thing and that it is time to let that go. My feeling is that they're way closer to WWE style sports entertainment than most want to admit. My personal dream is neither of these options by the way. I have always expressed a desire for good narratives and pure sports build can provide that but I can see why it could also stifle someone who wants to go outside that paradigm. This puts the emphasis completely on the process and none of it on the results and as this is an entertainment product, the results have to matter. I'm sure it must be very fun for Lither to main event Chris Jericho's 30 year anniversary thing. But none of us are watching AEW to entertain Luther. We are watching so we as consumers get something out of it. Now I understand that creatives want to work with their friends and that sometimes this can create a great result. But we've also seen nepotism sink companies because the friends or families aren't good enough to do their jobs. I'm sure there is a small segment of the general wrestling population who watch AEW so they can know what Cornette is going to be talking about. Just like I'm sure there are people here who watch WWE so they can get together with their friends and talk shit about it. I think you trying to get them to 'enjoy it' is a bit of a fool's errand and they are obviously enjoying it just in a different way. If they didn't like 'hating' it, they'd do something else. I enjoy watching AEW because I like deconstructing it and figuring out what they are trying to do, why its working or not, and how it could work. I enjoy the mental exercise of it. Most comparing AEW to WWE are people who want to make the point that AEW is so much better than WWE so shut up. Your mud sandwich is not tasty because the other option is a rock sandwich. I also don't care if people get to be on the same television show as their spouses or significant others. That's an interpretation. Another is that here is this guy who sucked and could only get a job doing death matches because he was willing to bleed and never did anything else in the business until his good friend could get him a job that he didn't deserve over anyone with any talent. That not being enough, we put him a main event match with one of our big stars that was celebrating an anniversary. He got blown up in that match even worse than Jericho normally does now and put on the worst main event in company history. And it's fine. Because they're having fun. If you can use 'the wrestlers are having fun' as a reason to excuse that main event. It can excuse anything. And that's the problem with this argument as a whole.

So I went and re-watch Age of Ultron to remind myself of the Wanda/Pietro/Vision background Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that Wanda and Vision had their love built offscreen and I would slightly and mildly disagree that it starts in Civil War just going by the intuition and seeing AoU again before starting the series Wanda mentioned that she'd read Visions mind, the impression it leaves her with after, she's slowly getting cozy with him imo in the very brief scenes they have together but once he's activated you see her have a sort of connection or bond with him from having "read" his mind. not a whole lot to go on tbh but it does set the stage some because at the end of AoU cap and widow are getting ready to train the new recruits which had both Wanda and Vision show up for training. So it's not a big stretch that we see some seeds planted and set the stage for more in Civil War, but i will agree the heavy duty of their relationship is offscreen at the same time we're supposed to believe thor is moping around about Jane when he doesn't exactly know her for very long in the first flick(although I got shit memories here since I haven't seen the early thor movies for YEARS). Having just seen AoU i feel bummed about Quicksilver, he goes from cocky heel to supporting team player in a more believable arc than Gamora in the 1st GotG and then he's gone so fast too (yup that was punintentional). Realizing that Ultron wants to kill humanity and then deciding to help the Avengers save all those civilians was a real great face turn, then Shield shows up to offload the Sokovians and he's got this fanboy appreciation like "I really did pick the side of good" and he's proud of joining the Avengers seeing how fast shield shows up for the civilian population. Like his animosity is all gone and you get a genuine reaction from him in the redemption arc.

@DEAN and @Zimbra.

They'd be lucky to get a Stafford loan for Wentz.

For any of you that went back and watched some of the earlier Royal Rumble matches back recently, Does it bug you how in these modern Rumble matches just about everyone has to have an elaborate entrance like the are going into a big time match on TV. Before the modern era, guys entered the Rumble like they were focused on winning now people enter like they have to do the same specific routine that they hate to do every time they leave the curtain

Kawada Chair

Here's the extended version of that Tweet/story:

Yes. Please push Murphy without the albatross of Seth Rollins dragging him down.

They're saving that for Vince at Wrestlemania.

Maybe I just ignore the obviously bad takes, but I think the AEW discussion on here is usually fairly balanced. Personally, I really like AEW but I still watch with a critical eye, as I would anything else, and like to think about what could have been done better, I think a lot of AEW ‘criticism’ I see on here is in this vein and is generally good natured. On the sports-centric talk, AEW is very much sports entertainment and that’s absolutely fine by me. I think they mostly fall on the right side of wrestling ridiculousness (OC, the wedding, attempting to take a man’s eye out, etc.) and the bad stuff they’ve generally course corrected on pretty quickly (pretty much anything Brandi related, and I’d also put the early Hardy stuff in this bracket as I think that gimmick was well past its sell by date). For years the talking point has been about a real alternative to WWE, and that’s maybe a bit of a red herring. I think the audience for anything overly sports-centric would be pretty niche, I’d suggest that most of the audience just wanted well done sports entertainment. And by improving on some of WWE’s weak points (meaningful matches, logical structure, not treating the audience with contempt) I think AEW has largely succeeded, but there’s still a lot of room to build, the bar should obviously be higher than “well at least it’s not WWE”.

Oh for fucks sake

It is quite simple, if you have two guys fighting and one eats horsemeat and the other doesn't, bet on the guy that doesn't eat horsemeat. Yes, that means that most of the time you will be betting against Overeem, which is perfectly fine when you stop to think about it. You can also have some fun by going to Jonathan Snowden's website and posting that the reason he lost his last match was due to eating horsemeat. He will go off like a rocket and demand that you send him your address so that he can come and "sort you out". Yes, a man in his mid-forties will spend a goodly amount of time challenging people to fights on the Internet. He's remarkably easy to provoke and you can have hours of fun tearing apart his ridiculous opinions on MMA in that instant-remainder book he put out a few years ago. Little-known fact, for non-fiction (read: "sports books") for anything that isn't a biography the most expensive part of the book is the cover. Publishers will often print "four up" that is to say that they will print four covers off the same plates because it is far cheaper to do it this way regardless of whether or not you actually have four books or not. As a publisher, you can always find some buffoon to fill 200 pages of drivel and pay them next to nothing because all you're really trying to do is break even on the cover cost. Since you really aren't putting any money into this (maybe giving your "author" $1000 as an "advance") and you likely have $5000 tied up in the cover photography, piggy-backing the printing of the cover with three other "real books" you can actually re-allocate most of that $5000 against the three "real books" which leaves you with having to earn back the $1000 advance you had to give your "author". That's not going to be a problem as your "author" will get himself on every MMA podcast you can think of to push the book. No worries about the fact that it was an "instant remainder", your "author" will spin that as a "special publisher's discount" for all their friends in the MMA community.

I sort of want to know who was the sole person to vote for Big Ben as Comeback Player of the Year instead of Alex Smith.

Aww.

Jumping around. Four gifs for this one. Next batch will have the set up for the finish which is insane. Spartacus vs Hans Schnabel. Here's the deal on Schanbel: http://www.eatsleepwrestle.com/?p=1170 This is a five minute match but he was an amazing heel here. See, great, unsportsmanlike heeling: He kept trying to disengage too, but this is what happened when Spartacus actually got his hands on him. I love how uncooperative this looks:

VERY IMPORTANT THREAD