Hustler of Culture

I'm saying that my preference is for Sonny Kiss to act like Sonny Kiss the person instead of acting like an exaggerated version of Sonny Kiss. I've never said anything about 'acting less queer' or suppressing the person they are. If you're LBGTQ, I really don't give a shit. If you want that to be part of your in-ring persona, knock yourself out. I understand the general rule of thumb of wrestling gimmick is to take the real person and turn them up to 11. I just find when dealing with gender/sexuality it's become lame due to it being overdone and the gimmick becomes about the person's gender/sexuality instead of the person themselves. HoC

Good lord. The comparison that YOU made is a very big comparison. It would be like saying that the only comparison between Superstar Billy Graham and Hulk Hogan was that they were blonde huge, Venice Beach bodybuilder types. But you forget that they share other parts of their personalities such as their flamboyant behavior and the similar type of spots they do in the ring where they use their sexual preference to befuddle/embarrass the opponent. Doing a twerking spot to throw off/embarrass the opponent doesn't simply 'read as feminine' and isn't done in a 'sincere and enthusiastically queer manner.' It's a gimmick done for effect. Many queers don't act in the enthusiastic manner that you describe in your pigeonholing of the queer community. The real big difference now is that GG was a heel and SK is a face. Just like Billy Graham was a heel and Hogan was a face. I'd rather see more of normal Sonny Kiss than Sonny Kiss turned up to 11. And if that makes my opinions the worst on the board, then so be it. HoC

I think Grayson is an excellent athlete, probably a top-5 athlete in the company. I just hate the gimmick. I like the size and work style difference between him and Uno, but Uno and the gimmick just comes off like amateur hour. I do agree that there's a bit too much of offense from Grayson. Typical indie way of thinking instead of understanding that pro wrestling is one of the few places where less is truly more and you can still do some incredible athletic stuff in the ring, but do less of it and it get far more over with the audience. I don't see him as a singles star because he really gets lost in the shuffle in AEW because of his size and look and being in a faction with an awful gimmick. I could see him in the tag role of being the cocky, smaller guy teaming with the bigger guy (ala Al Snow & Unabomb)...writing checks his ass can't cash. Sonny Kiss is Tom Magee...very athletic, but the wrestlers he works with have to work around him and he isn't competent enough to return the favor. I find the 'gimmick' to be hack, but I feel the same about any reiteration of a Gorgeous George type gimmick and by judging Dalton Castle, the Gorgeous George type gimmick is still over in wrestling despite my disdain. I'd rather see the Kiss gimmick toned down a bit more and cut out the sexual orientation spots and instead be a wrestler that happens to be transgender and somewhat flamboyant. I think there's classic angles and storylines that can be used to make Kiss into a very over babyface that the fans are behind. I think some of the spots he does in the ring get lost in translation as far as becoming a white meat babyface. HoC

We have far greater access to pro wrestling/sports entertainment than we have ever had. The times changing has nothing to do with the lack of popularity and name recognition of pro wrestlers...it has to do with how pro wrestling is watched and thus the ratings are going to be completely different from the ratings say in 1996. The popularity of wrestlers has declined because the industry has failed them as a whole. WWE owned almost all of the market share and then drove fans away from the product and nobody was there to satisfy those fans. The Rock was not the most recent example I came up with as Jericho is still very recognizable and has a significantly higher Q-Score than even Steve Austin at this point. Unfortunately he's a shell of himself and doing stupid musicals and people aren't interested in that. A while ago Meltzer was giving insight about how you really need to be careful with babyface temporary transitional champions. He cited Kerry Von Erich winning the title over Ric Flair as an example that once the babyface loses the title, their heat is gone. I would also submit that Tommy Rich being a short-term champion really hurt his career as well. I think you need to be careful with anytime a very over babyface loses. Raven talked about this a couple of years ago with how when he won the ECW heavyweight title from the Sandman. Raven thought he would be heavily featured in the following week's ECW TV show and instead the focus was heavily on The Sandman. Raven thought that was stupid and told Heyman that and Heyman replied that Raven had been elevated and that they need to immediately rebuild the Sandman otherwise he would get diminished too much. Granted those instances are dealing with title losses, but I do think the same applied for Scorpio Sky, particularly since AEW was just formed and even getting a title shot was actually a bigger deal than getting a title shot for a well established company. It was fine that they booked Sky to lose to Jericho, but they needed to push him afterward to sustain his elevated status. Instead they basically forgot about him and a guy that had the potential to be one of the bigger names in the company and maybe go beyond that is basically back to the same status he was when he arrived in the company. But hey, the Dark Order needs TV time and Marko Stunt needs to get some offense in. HoC

One measure you can look at is Q-Score which helps measure the familiarity and appeal of a celebrity. Note that you won't find any Q-Scores for any active wrestlers these days outside of Jericho (who has a very high Q-Score). But before 2010 you would find Q-Scores for wrestlers in the WWE. Therein lies a big issue with the wrestling business...the universe is rapidly shrinking and casual and non-fans don't even know who these wrestlers are anymore. But they used to know who Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Steve Austin and even Bret Hart were. And to say that a wrestling promotion try to chase mainstream popularity is so outdated would mean that AEW's strategy is outdated as they have certainly chased mainstream popularity by having Mike Tyson, Shaq and now Snoop Dogg on their program. Is Sting being on the roster meant to hit the niche market or the mainstream market? Seriously...ask yourself that question. Finally, if anybody really believes that Moxley wasn't developed by the WWE...then there's no reason to take your posts seriously. You're just being a blind lemming for AEW. HoC

Good grief. Of course these wrestlers went from obscure to national prominence...they went from wrestling in VFW halls to being on TNT. You have 750K fans that are going to watch every single week, no matter who they throw out there. But outside of those fans, nobody knows who Britt Baker is or who the Butcher and the Blade are or Jurassic Express. When the Dark Order comes out, that's when people start to go for the remote or go make a bathroom break. And Orange Cassidy shows how the main eventers were not over. They pushed him to main event status because he was getting ratings and then they had him feud with Jericho and the ratings dropped to the point where the lowest rated segment in AEW Dynamite history was between Jericho and OC. Your legit superstars are Jericho (who faced the mockery of Twitter recently when lapsed fans saw how awful he looks), Sting (who isn't going to wrestle), Omega (who was over in Japan and most people don't know who he is) and Moxley (who was developed by the WWE). The focus should be on making stars and determining those that have the potential to be a star. That requires consistent air time. They want to give their friends contracts and air time. The real talents that have the potential to be a star get inconsistent TV time because indie level talent like the Dark Order, Butcher & Blade, Marko Stunt and talent that's not ready yet like Powerhouse Hobbs, Wardlow are instead getting that TV time. HoC

Wins and losses matter, regardless of what the WWE tries to tell the world. Guys that lose all of the time lose credibility with the fans and victories in key matches will elevate a wrestler's status. I think what AEW is doing is keeping track of a wrestler's/tag team's win-loss record...but even that doesn't matter as much as we've seen wrestlers with poor win-loss records inexplicably get title shots. AEW's mantra of 'wins and losses matter' is basically AEW trying to market themselves as something different than the WWE because the WWE has stated that 'wins and losses don't matter' which is ridiculous on the WWE's part. However, you can be elevated despite losing a match and conversely one can be diminished despite winning a match. That's what AEW and their loyalists don't really understand. When Lance Archer gives offense to Marko Stunt...even though Archer defeats Stunt he is diminished in the process. And when Sky loses to Jericho, if he shows that he could very well have beaten Jericho and shines in and out of the ring...it elevates Sky. Just like Jimmy Garvin feuding with Flair...in the end it elevated Jimmy and didn't hurt Flair. Or Terry Funk losing to Hogan...everybody lost to Hogan and it showed that Funk could have beaten Hogan and was elevated because of that. But the bigger difference is that Sky was a face in this scenario and Bundy (who was pushed prior to feuding with Hogan, pushed with Hogan and faced him at WM2), Funk, OMG were heels. Meltzer talked about this a while ago when discussing the issues with making babyfaces temporary transitional champions (i.e. Kerry Von Erich beating Flair)...once the babyface loses the title a short time after it diminishes the babyface. And it reminds me of Raven telling the story of winning the title from the Sandman and expecting to be heavily featured on the following week's ECW TV only to see that the focus was all on The Sandman. He asked Heyman why they featured the Sandman despite losing the title and Heyman replied that they had to push Sandman on TV because he was their top babyface who had just been diminished by losing the belt. AEW doesn't have the superstars to give a temporary push to a wrestler, see that wrestler get over quickly and then forget about the wrestler after they lose their title match. I think that would be bad booking for any promotion to not push a guy that instantly was over and didn't have any serious flaws (i.e. you wouldn't keep pushing New Jack to main event status given his wrestling style among other things). I do appreciate the idea of trying to not over-expose your talent to where they become stale. But doing it at the risk of building a wrestler's momentum so that they become a superstar is just bad booking. You can't become a superstar if the people can't watch you on a consistent basis. And if you're a legit superstar in the making...you won't be stale because people will want to watch you on TV every week. HoC

Sky I really liked and when he got a match against Jericho and leading up to that, I thought AEW had developed a star and did it very quickly. Then he got lost in the shuffle. Some of it due to COVID-19, but Tony Khan's lousy booking playing a role. He just felt to me that if it were say 2005 and he was in the WWE and Vince wanted to push him, he would have been close to star status. And it appeared that AEW wanted to push him...then they killed his momentum. And that's my biggest gripe with AEW's booking...they have a real faculty for killing momentum. Spears killed his own momentum. Although I was really skeptical of the 'Chairman of AEW' gimmick since it revolved around giving chairshots in today's concussion/CTE conscious environment. I kept hearing about how good of a worker Spears was, but I wasn't really impressed by his work. He's another wrestler who has good footwork and can execute a lot of his spots and different opponents' spots cleanly, but that doesn't make somebody a great worker. I will say that on the mic he's been surprisingly good. But again, his momentum got killed and he killed it himself participating in goofy stuff and being in a program with Janela which only diminished Spears in the end. As I stated in an earlier post, I would have preferred Spears to have the QT Marshall role. But I'd like to see them go back to really pushing Sky because I think he was very over. I don't think they've killed him off by any means, so they could resurrect what they had for a brief amount of time and then build upon that. HoC

I agree with everything you said on Guevara. And as mentioned here, I don't see the comparison to Eddy Guerrero...not to take away from Guevara, but I just don't see it. One was short with more upper body strength and was more of the dastardly heel and was a great face and the other is more of a 'punchable face/Tully' type of heel who has a slender frame. Eddy was very much a New Japan junior style of wrestler even though he was brought up in Lucha. Guevara is kind of like a hybrid of chicken shit heel with American junior style which reminds me a lot of... Sean Waltman as the Lightning Kid in GWF. The first time I saw Guevara was at a PWG show and he instantly had heat and I have been following his career since and I was pleased to see that AEW took him from being 'just another guy' and elevated him to the Inner Circle. And I think, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he's a better heel than MJF at this point. Thankfully he stopped doing the 'live vlogging in the match' gimmick which reeked of WWE style sports entertainment. He was already over as a heel, he didn't need to make it comical and take away him being a threat as a heel. As an in-ring performer he has a knack of being able to do the modern high flying stuff but being able to make the fans forget about those spots soon enough so he can still keep his heel heat. If he does a dive to the outside which is a babyface move, he usually does it quickly enough that you forget about the fact he just did something amazing and go back to thinking he's the lil' rat fucker you want to punch in the face. I would like to see him develop more of a moveset instead of 'spots I do because I can do them well' and I'd like to see him have more moments of being vicious and coming off as having the intent to seriously injure his opponent. But you can't pull that off and get nuclear heat if the next week you're doing comedy spots with Orange Cassidy. Outside of potentially bad booking, the only thing I see preventing Guevara from wrestling stardom is that I don't think he has the qualities to turn face down the road. I could be wrong. Michael Hayes didn't seem like babyface material and then when he went to Georgia he was a really good babyface. Even Tully as a face in Texas was pretty good. I think he should be shortlisted as a top tier wrestler in about 5 years when the current top tier needs to be replaced. HoC

That was my first time watching Pres10 Vance. Given his lack of experience, I liked what I saw...I just hate the entire Dark Order gimmick. AEW could have gone a long way with me by never having the Dark Order gimmick to begin with (and other gimmicks like The Librarian). But Vance showed some real potential. He's a good athlete, has decent size...just needs more and more ring time. And that's the big problem I see with pro wrestling's future, so many guys not getting the ring time that they would have gotten in the territory days and it creates an inferior product. I think your assessment of Fenix, once again, is spot on. Like the Young Bucks, the Lucha Bros are limited in that they can only effectively work lucha style, tornado style and TLC type tag matches. If that's the sort of thing you prefer, then they are great at that. I don't prefer the lucha style and the tornado and TLC style should be something that they build up into a feud. Since AEW is 'bringing back tag team wrestling' and they have so many tag teams, they can afford to have an upper tier level of tag teams. The problem is I don't know where I would put the Lucha Bros at this point. I think the upper tier in tag teams should be no more than 4 teams who only do the job to one another. If they go with 3 teams, that's fine. The Young Bucks and FTR are definitely in the upper tier. But after that it's a tie between Santana/Ortiz, The Best Friends, SCU, Butcher and Blade and the Lucha Bros. So like you said, he just gets lost in the shuffle. Which isn't entirely bad in itself, but I may have a problem with that if I'm trying to appeal to lucha fans and fans in Mexico. HoC

IMO, the most underrated promo of all time. The great thing about Hayes was he could cut a great promo as a heel or as a face. Here as a face he gets the crowd behind him and sells them on he is going to kick Flair's ass with the support of all of the people. HoC

QT Marshall works as a loyal buddy to a top babyface and is a solid, but far from unspectacular worker. He needs to get more wins sprinkled with the occasional either big win/or close to big win to get him over as a reliable backup to the Rhodes family. The bigger issue with him is that he looks like an ad exec. Of course, Verne Gagne always looked like an tax accountant to me, but was mega-over. I think this role could have been better filled by Shawn Spears, but they turned him right away and then botched the every loving shit out of his character development. Now nobody takes Spears seriously. I feel Spears has more presence and can work in the ring just as well as Marshall. He also has a more legitimate backstory to being the loyal friend to a top babyface. The good thing about Marshall is that he understands his role is to get people over instead of getting his shit in and he doesn't have an ego about it. Often times that is more of value to the company than the guy that has all of the potential and can do all of the spots, but refuses to understand their role and doesn't know how to get others over. HoC

And yet AEW is filled with wrestlers that are anything but that. The Young Bucks, Guevara, Top Flight, Chuck Taylor, Darby, Jungle Boy, Janela, Marko Stunt, etc. aren't bigger than OC. I guess they can all be ironic comedy wrestlers. And what happens when the joke gets old? That's the thing about all types of comedy...jokes get stale and lose their effect over time. The average passerby doesn't get the joke. They don't get why he's in denim, why he has his hands in his pockets. They don't get why none of the heels just don't slap the taste out of his mouth or take a heel seriously when he puts over moves done while his hands are in his pockets. It just comes off as goofy, amateur hour wrestling. Granted, it's more humorous than anything Vince would put up...but that's like saying the urinal cake tastes better than the dog shit on the front lawn. HoC

I would be all for OC if he was bringing non-wrestling fans/casual fans/lapsed fans/fans Vince killed off/etc. back into pro wrestling and that would mean getting them interested in the rest of the AEW promotion like more serious wrestlers like Cody, Darby, etc. That would be worth it. But I just don't see that happening when looking at the ratings figures. In fact, at one point him and Jericho had the worst rated segment in AEW history. Instead I see that a very minimal amount of the fans I listed actually come to watch OC and then have no interest in the rest of the card because OC is comic relief that the rest of the card cannot provide. Given his ratings with Jericho were generally piss poor and how he diminished Pac's status...I don't think 'featuring' him is the right idea. Like I stated earlier, announce that he'll be on the show, put him at the 10 o'clock hour and have him in matches with mid-card talent that nobody cares about and/or have little in the way of potential. HoC

Most people outside of wrestling have no idea who Orange Cassidy is. And I would argue that most pro wrestling fans don't even know who he is. HoC