SturmCRF
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Posts posted by SturmCRF
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I love the Voices Of Wrestling Flagship podcast. Joe Lanza took some getting used to, but him and Rich Kraetsch actually have very sensible views on wrestling, they're not afraid to point out when things suck, but they're both infectiously enthusiastic about what they like, which is mainly but definitely not only NJPW. They (well, Joe) occasionally veer wildly off topic into shock jock territory, but they seem like really good dudes, and I've come to enjoy that element. They can also overdo it hammering home a point that it seems impossible for any sane human being to disagree with, but I'm sure they have to deal with so many Twitter morons and trolls that what seem like strawmen to me are actually what some people present to them as serious opinions.
Also on their network, the Super J Cast is a great listen, similar dynamic but all NJPW. And Joel Abraham has the honour of being one of the only fellow Brits I can stomach listening to talking about wrestling.
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Earthquake, Bret Hart, Mick Foley, Tomohiro Ishii.
Rumble 91 was what got me into wrestling, Quake was one of the characters that stood out to me most as a kid, with one of the best action figures, plus he sounds like one of the nicest people ever.
Bret Hart was always my second favourite wrestler, I'd have phases of loving the cool, scary heels like Adam Bomb, Ludvig Borga, Crush, but Bret was always the one good guy I was happy to get behind, because even as a kid I could tell he was a genius.
Foley got me back into wrestling in 98 when I took my only year out, because of HIAC and his subsequent rise to the title.
Ishii's been the highlight of the last few years of easy access to NJPW, he's somehow underrated even though nearly everyone loves him, and it'll be a massive shame that he never gets an IWGP title reign just because he's marginally less tall and handsome than Okada.
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15 minutes ago, MORELOCK said:
Again, though: that wasn't the argument being presented. He specified in-ring wrestling, not anything else.
I don't think you can separate the wrestling from the other stuff cleanly though. Context matters, and if two wrestlers are having a match for stupidly explained reasons, or they're having a fundamentally well worked match that nobody cares about because it's their fifth together in two months, it's a less enjoyable match to watch. Seth vs AJ from a couple of months back is a great example, it's one of Seth's better matches, it was a fresh pairing and I'd struggle to justify less than four stars for it, but I wasn't excited for it beforehand and there was no big clamour to talk about it afterwards, because of how they presented it. Does anyone remember the build? Something something contract signing brawl, AJ suddenly acting vaguely heelish for no reason, probably a begrudging tag partners match against The Revival where they can't get along but still beat The Revival, or maybe lose to them but not in a way that even slightly suggests being a full time tag team could have given the heels an edge. Total boiler plate. So then the crowd don't care particularly during the match, and AJ doesn't express concern one way or the other after the match. If they'd made a better go of presenting it as a dream match, and then sold its consequences for more than thirty seconds after it finished, people wouldn't have mainly forgotten it a couple of months later.
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Thing is, Seth can take issue with Ospreay, Moxley etc. as much as he wants, but he can't convincingly argue that WWE produce consistently compelling television. Yes the roster's great, yes there are often good to great matches in a vacuum, but there's still a lot of tedium and infantilised bullshit to get through even in an above average week of Raw and Smackdown. Also he's not a quarter of the pro wrestler Will Ospreay is, but at least that's mildly up for debate, the first bit really isn't.
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On 6/23/2019 at 10:30 PM, Venom said:
I'm not sure how much better they could've made their 20 competitors. Penta for Kenta? But that's about it. What an event.
Almost anyone else for Fale, but it's hard to complain with a field like this.
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Ospreay vs Corbin would actually be a really good match. Assuming it ends up similar to Ospreay vs Archer, which was one of my favourites this year.
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3 hours ago, AxB said:
If Alexa said nothing, it would be like when Saido Berahino was not getting games for West Brom. He kept working out in public gyms and running on public streets to let the fans know he wasn't injured. But then a reporter asked him why he wasn't playing when he was clearly fit, and he said he didn't know and it was terribly unfair on everyone. So the manager went public and said he wasn't playing because he was suspended for drug test failures, and they'd been keeping it quiet as a favour to him.
Besides which, the thing with head injuries is, you can't think straight when you've got them. Why did Bret keep working with multiple concussions? Because his ability to make wise decisions was compromised by damage to his brain, and because nobody was looking out for him.
There are a lot of American people here, but at least one person appreciates you drawing a parallel between Alexa Bliss and Saido Berahino. Good work.
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6 hours ago, RIPPA said:
I don't think anyone will complain but Meltzer said the Gallagher/Gable finish was a botch as it wasn't supposed to end in the countout but the ref called it as a shoot (as they are normally instructed to do)
Amazing, a finish that keeps both guys looking strong and leaves me wanting more, so of course it's an accident.
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10 minutes ago, Hagan said:
Glad you enjoyed it! My issue is, and I'm not a huge stickler for this usually, is how can it possibly be reconciled in kayfabe? Like...is a meeting held where all the heels and babyfaces table their issues and agree to do summer theater?
Like, I can understand goofy shit within the confines of a wrestling match but this is basically GLOW skits as wrestling show. It just crosses my arbitrary line. It's beyond comedy wrestling, really. I can't think of anything that really compares.
Well, strictly speaking it can't be, as in kayfabe it's a show that happened 30 years ago and everybody in the building is a person from 1989, watching or performing in a wrestling show, as recalled by Jim Smallman's retro commentator alter ego.
If you go up (or down? I dunno) a meta layer from that, it makes a sort of sense in that the matches are still performed as if the moves are painful and both guys are trying to beat each other, they're just doing it while playing stupider characters. Like, Travis Banks and TK Cooper were still spiteful, conniving dickheads, they were just playing the Bushwhackers while doing it, maybe taking out their anger at a previous generation's backwards Kiwi stereotypes by reclaiming them while beating up their opponents. And Niwa was dressed as a Dudley Boy, cos he only remembered the bit of the memo about wearing camo.
A lot of the matches seemed to follow a formula of old style, clubbering wrassling to start while milking the comedy, with a finishing stretch where it all went PWG to give the people their work rate money's worth. It definitely can't be fully kayfabe justified, and it'd give Cornette a coronary, but he did say Jim Smallman should be hung, so fuck him. It's not a family show, so it's not like they're ruining things for kids, and the illusion is already shaky when you have heels at the merch table and Canadian Destroyers to spare. Can see why it'd cross the suspension of disbelief event horizon for some, though.
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38 minutes ago, Hagan said:
Yearly post - but the PROGRESS non-canonical eighties show should really get more criticism.
My tolerance for goofy wrestling stuff is pretty endless but PROGRESS basically doing a summer improv show is pretty beyond the pale.
I enjoyed it, and most of the audience seemed to have a great time, although in the interests of full disclosure, myself and most of the audience were drunk.
Of all the problems with current Progress, I'd put it way behind the loss of proper entrance music, the loss of half the roster to heatless WWE UK purgatory, oversaturation and a lack of compelling storylines on the level of the Jimmy Havoc era. It's a way to decompress after the three day SSS16 tournament, and a non canon comedy show is refreshing compared to the inconsequential filler show they might be doing otherwise.
Saying that, this year's 80's show failed to supplement the silliness with really good matches like I remember the 70's show doing last year. But I still can't honestly disapprove of anything that gave the world Ilja Dragunov as a patriotic American and Dan Maloney discovering his true calling as an Iron Sheik impressionist.
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I'll watch both shows, because I'm sure they'll both be worth watching, but if they expect people to take NXT UK seriously, they need to demonstrate that wrestlers can actually move from it to the main roster. Like, what the fuck is Pete Dunne still doing there? Whether or not he'd be used properly on Raw or Smackdown is another issue, but at this point if even he still hasn't had a proper shot, what hope does anyone else have? To use a football/soccer reference that's kind of fitting in this case, I might not believe that Amir Jordan/Newport County would thrive if they got promoted from League Two to the Premier League, but I need to believe there's an established route to get from one to the other if he performs well enough, if I'm going to be invested in his matches vs Jack Starz/Mansfield Town.
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Started watching it when I was five and saw the 1991 Rumble, and have only fully stopped between 96 and 98, because I started secondary school and cared what people thought of me, and because I hated Shawn Michaels.
However, I have recently had the life improving revelation that I can just not watch Raw and Smackdown. I'll check out the first half hour of the previous night's show over breakfast, and if it's bollocks, which it invariably is, I read the results once I'm at work and save hours of frustration and/or distracted half watching.
The Ambrose podcast also went some way to confirming how entrenched the malaise is, and why no amount of NXT call ups, or even the Matt Riddle megapush they should have started weeks ago, will fix the intrinsic problems. They produce wrestling shows that are hostage to the idea that they have to present themselves as something other than wrestling shows. I used to watch this shit live till 4AM cos I didn't want to miss anything exciting or unpredictable, now I'll watch the PPVs the next day and that's plenty. At least there's NJPW, Progress and the promise of AEW.
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I'd get Mike and Maria in AEW. That 205 match with Tozawa really won me over on him in terms of effort, and if there's one takeaway from that battle royale it's that they need to fill out the roster with guys who look like professional athletes. I see why it could seem like a TNA move, but only if they try and pass him off as a main eventer or have him beat their prospects like they're jobbers. Or cut a rambling promo about being held back. Just have him as a midcard gatekeeper with something to prove and he's an asset.
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13 minutes ago, The Natural said:
Manchester City 6
Watford FC 0
Hope @SturmCRF isn't badly drunk. Commiserations, pal. Sir. Elton John's destroyed three Yamahas.
Nah, stopped drinking an hour before the match, in anticipation of a very slim chance of picking it back up again afterwards. Our best chance of winning the FA Cup was VAR being used for City's match with Swansea. Hopefully one day we'll get there against a team who aren't so disgustingly rich they're calling a Leroy Sane off the bench at 4-0 up.
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Happy FA Cup Final day! I mainly just lurk, but as probably DVDVR's only Watford fan, I feel responsible for pointing out that we're going to/literally in Wembley, and I'm already drunk and imagine if we won the cup.
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Just saw off the last boss of Sekiro and feel like I've won an Olympic gold medal. I'm not good at games, and I'll often tap out if a final boss puts up more than token resistance, but I finished all the Soulsbournes up till now and I wasn't letting this one beat me. Took me four hours today, and must have been close to ten over the last few days on this one bastard, but I could feel myself getting better, and slowly coming to see each of his attacks as potential openings. Amazing game, but someone needs to tell Fromsoft that this is the absolute peak of how difficult they should ever go. The mechanics are masterful, it's always fair even when it doesn't feel like it, but they need to slam their multiple healthbar boner in a car door, they're spirit crushing, especially when they're hidden.
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Mainly when I've been before I've had issues with the shitty sound system at York Hall for the entrances, and Andy Quildan's ring announcing, which makes me cringe roughly as much as every British ring announcer who isn't Jim Smallman.
I'm mostly fine with current wrestling, but I do think every show everywhere should have a strictly imposed limit of one dive. And that's being generous. If I never see another cluster of wrestlers half heartedly pretending to brawl outside the ring while they wait to catch their opponent/tag partner who's risking severe injury for diminishing returns, I can very much live with it.
Oh, and one more - compete ban on backflipping out of a German Suplex. Sorry Messrs Dunne and Riddle, it was cool at first but it's outstayed its welcome and it makes me fucking nervous.
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Personally, I'm not watching it because-
There's too much wrestling to watch already.
I don't much fancy the idea of watching selected highlights from a company if I won't be watching any of their major shows because they're on a streaming service.
Having been to a couple of Rev Pro shows, the decent to excellent quality of the wrestling has always struggled against the naffness of the presentation.
I'm a Progress season ticket holder, so have a bit of a WWF vs WCW style prejudice against the other London company. Plus, NXT UK is already testing my tolerance for seeing the same guys face off, and the prospect of that plus added James Castle doesn't do much to challenge it.
In fairness though, most of the above also applies to Impact, which I've currently allowed into my rotation as something to stick on for an hour over Saturday breakfast, so I'm open to swapping in Rev Pro if I hear good things.
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It's not out until the 26th, but Daughters- You Won't Get What You Want is my album of the year and maybe decade. On balance, I'm willing to endure the fact that any criticism of it will feel like an attack on a close family member, as I want to read as much serious analysis of it as I possibly can.
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5 hours ago, Ryan said:
The Zero1/Former fake AWA World title is notoriously gigantic. The damn thing actually looked normal sized around Akebono's waist. I just can't find a photo of that. Sekimoto's short, but he's HUGE.
I stood right behind Sekimoto during the Sasuke vs Janela match in April, and am none the wiser as to how he works, proportionally speaking. I'm 5'11 and he didn't seem that much shorter than me, but most of him is just chest, with limbs and a head just kind of thrown in as a bonus.
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Yeah, I tried adding Impact back into my viewing rotation fairly begrudgingly when their last PPV got rave reviews, but it's starting to grow on me. The one thing it does that WWE sorely misses is that different feuds cross over and interact with each other sometimes. Two guys starting a programme doesn't seem to automatically lock them into a bubble for three months until they've had five matches where you know the first four won't matter, there are diversions to keep it interesting. That way you can have corny bollocks like Scarlet Bordeaux appearing out of thin air and LAX running over children, but maintain the integrity of the ludicrous world they're presenting.
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Do we still have a DVDVR Fantasy Premier League group? If not, I'm happy to make one...
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I'm sure the wrestling will be good too, but I doubt anything will top the kid who just ambled past me in the Superdome, who must barely have been born when Mark Henry had his big run, singing 'Beat him up, beat him up, break his neck, break his neck!'
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I've been at all the WWN shows so far, Evolve 103's audience was decimated by people heading off to the Rev Pro show (plus I guess mainly having different configurations of the same wrestlers who were on 102 and Mercury Rising), but it might be my favourite overall card so far, everyone worked like madmen. Munenori Sawa vs Jaka was right up there with AR Fox vs Will Ospreay for the match of the week, but I think Ospreay vs Riddle just topped everything, those guys have the best chemistry. The crowd was back up to a much more respectable level for the supershow too.
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AEW - SUMMER 2019
in ALL ELITE WRESTLING
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I think Cody's shown he has an excellent match in him, although I genuinely loved his triple threat with Kenny and Ibushi, so I may be an outlier.