Hagan

Greg Valentine was a pretty big star. Like, watch some 80s wrestling. I recommend something called "Mid Atlantic." He breaks a dude's leg. People were into it. Also, has a really big match at something called a "Starrcade" that drew a lot of money. I feel a lot of the arguments against Christian would have told WWE not to bring in those "vanilla midgets" who also weren't stars.

The WWE once delivered Savio Vega as a mystery man in '98. As we all know, that derailed their momentum and they went on to have the worst financial run of their history as fans quit the company in droves.

Christian inspires a question of "how big a star is he?" Kayfabe wise he's a huge star. Either a four or six time world champion (if you count ECW). A member of one of the most popular teams during the Attitude Era. Has headlined PPVs for both TNA and WWE and JUST made the Final Four of the Rumble like five weeks ago. He's always been more popular than his push but he's also a guy the WWE has always pushed at least at an upper-midcard level. He'd probably be teaming with Edge and involved in the main event angle on Smackdown if he stayed with WWE. If he's healthy, and his work is still up to par, he could have some really good matches in this company. He's a good promo and angle guy too so there's a ton of value in this. He's always been weirdly over in the sense that he's probably a bigger star than people assume. I mean, if we were ranking the six TLC guys as far as star-power he's probably third behind Jeff and Edge and ahead of Matt and the Dudleys. The treatment of vets is such an interesting question. NJPW de-emphasizes guys once they hit a certain age with the exception of guys like Suzuki. Meltzer was ready to storm the Tokyo Dome at the way he felt Tana was being buried. WWE by and large treats veterans like broken down has-beens and buries them underground, especially if they were never viewed as top stars in their primes. Look at how Jeff Hardy and Rey who are legitimately money-drawing wrestlers are treated as cannon fodder. Edit: adding thoughts - as I noted in a previous post, I think TNA has just poisoned the well so much that any signing of a WWE guy is seen as going down a dark path. I dunno, if I'm Tony Khan I wouldn't shy away from any WWE vet barring the asking price wasn't Brock money. It's all about usage.

Re-watched Drew vs Sheamus from last week over the weekend and it got me to thinking that Drew really is reminding me of Bret Hart with this babyface run. His character is very believable and he avoids a lot of the silliness of WWE booking. His matches are usually solid, logical, and well-built with a mix of brawling and technical wrestling. His promos aren't flashy but are pretty straight forward with a bit of cockiness. He doesn't duck challengers and has that sort of fighting babyface spirit. It's all right out of that Bret '92 or '94 title run.

Double-post: Tanahashi is still doing great work at 40 as well.

What's interesting in this thread is because of how rapidly the WWE roster has aged there's a bunch of guys that now fit in this category. I mean, AJ was almost 40 when he got to WWE and had a really great couple year run before he's slowed down. Cesaro is now 40, as well.

"We have a surprise but it will mostly underwhelm you" isn't how you promote things. I mean, maybe Khan went a little overboard but you can't say the dude isn't into it. And, honestly, why WOULDN'T you treat every signing as a big deal? The Nets got the desiccated husk of Blake Griffin over the weekend and they're not like "he's a washed up, broken down vet who won't mean anything." They're treating him like he's the final piece of the puzzle that will do great things. If they just left it at what Wight said on the TV it would have been fine but, as I said, Khan got a little hype with it. Not a huge deal, though.

Note - I said I paid for it but I watch literally more wrestling than is healthily recommended. First time I've paid 50 dollars for an event since years before the Network. I liked this show more than a lot of WWE PPVs recently (with the exception of the Rumble.) It wasn't as good as the last Takeover for sure. Think I enjoyed it more than a lot of recent NJPW even if the work didn't peak as high. But NJPW has had an awful atmosphere and a lot of overbooking. I dunno. The gimmick match sold the show and overall I liked the match even with the disappointing ending. Was this a BAD show? I mean, it wasn't Wrestle Kingdom but believe me this won't be the worse PPV of the month.

First proper PPV I've ordered at full price in like a decade and, well, I enjoyed it as a solid night of wrestling overall but obviously issues. What I think was interesting was that this was NOT a work-rate focused PPV the way a lot of early AEW was. This was stories, pushed guys, angles etc. I think there is a little push/pull with the crowd that wants these guys to go out there and have bangers and their pivot to being more of a traditional national wrestling company where just having a show of four-star matches isn't the goal to the larger stories. One thing that struck me is that AEW really does have a deep roster. The tag battle royale really highlighted that. There's so many tag teams and so many young guys and guys that didn't have a national name until now that we're getting to the point where guys feel under-pushed. As far as Christian coming in - listen, I think TNA really poisoned the well on stuff like this so everyone is defensive. I've been watching a boatload of old TNA on Pluto (which is awesome) and you really forget how often the "hey that used to be so and so in WWE and now he's here in TNA" as some dude runs in and attacks AJ happened. If a solid vet with name value wants to come into your company you take him. Now if he's hitting the Unprettier on MJF Wednesday, we have a problem. Of course, aside from being over-pushed the fear is that these guys just take up TV time that you should be giving to the younger guys. I think the Christian thing will be fine though. And, as far as "ex-WWE" guys who have they over-pushed so far aside from the various attempts to get Matt Hardy over? They really have to stop with the run-ins though. They're veering into NJPW territory where every match has a million guys or gals interfere. Match thoughts: - Baker and Rebel not Reba is such a great package and Rebel not Reba has really turned into an effective heel manager. Britt's clap of delight when Itoh came out was delightful. I always liked Riho but I think she's looked a LOT better since coming back. Just a little crisper and her moves look more impactful. She's been good. I like Itoh and Baker as a weird heel unit. Itoh is a treasure though I fear the act may be a little one-trick. - Bucks vs MJF/Jericho was really good and just shows how versatile the Bucks are. We're at the point where every time we see them we need to realize that we are watching a legitimate all-time tag team at their best. Them vs Pac and Fenix has the potential to be the Match of the Year if they have time. - Battle Royale was fun enough. Bear Country is a blast. Deep tag division. - Shida, like Rio, has also upped her game a lot. Decent match, if a bit sloppy at times. Shida has upped her intensity a lot. I can see a heel turn in her future, especially with Riho back. Baker/Itoh/Rebel not Reba/Vickie and Nyla could work as a bizarre heel unit. Like, imagine the image of them doing a old school Survivor Series team interview - The bloom is off the rose on Cassidy. Maybe when crowds are fully back you can get back to it but none of that match really worked. Miro looked good though. - Ladder match was okay. In a weird way, this showed how good WWE is at ladder matches even though everyone is sick of them. WWE has their template down and they just throw a bunch of flippy guys in there to kill themselves and maybe on chickenshit heel and/or big guy to base and this was not that. It was a hodgepodge of inexperienced ladder match guys, vets and newer talent and it kind of worked but also didn't have those big tentpole spots that the WWE lampshades. There were some brutal bumps but it wasn't a stunt show in the way the WWE does it. Ethan Page is a nice signing if it's like Darby feud Ethan Page and not meta-self aware "played by Julian" Ethan Page. - Big Money Match was a fine WCW '91 PPV match with like Brad Armstrong vs Wildfire Tommy Rich. Perfectly competent but asking Matt to go that long in a PPV singles is ambitious. - I liked the Sting match though it tried to be all things at all times. It's like they anticipated every criticism they would get and tried to do everything and ended up just muddying the waters. That said, it looked cool as fuck. Some wildly inventive spots, some brutal bumps, everyone looked good. That spot of Cage walking up the stairs with Darby was totally nuts too. They would have been better either having commentary and calling it like a street fight without the music or do the cinematic stuff and not have commentary. - Okay, so main event was one of the better barb wire matches as barb wire matches go. Moxley is just a remarkable wrestler and really is the torch-bearer for guys link Funk and Foley. Moxley turned down millions of dollars and is doing this because he loves wrestling so much. He is just the coolest babyface in the world. Omega looked great of course. Hated the run-in finish. And, then the ring didn't explode. So, here's the thing - they have an out with the "Omega built it" thing which is fine for the story though the fact that the announcers and the wrestlers initially sold it makes it silly but you can retcon that. Khan said "well you can't really blow these guys up." Okay, then - do the barb wire, do the explosions but don't promise the countdown clock and sirens. You don't HAVE to do the final explosion. But, if you do, it has to look cool and it didn't. Just a total swing and a miss. The ONE thing they were warned about was that if the final explosion looked lame it would kill the gimmick and they couldn't pull it off. It shouldn't take away from the match which overall was solid tho.

from everyone's Instagram I'd say it's not an issue. Honestly, the dirty secret is the WWE probably doesn't mind doing the Thunderdome because they can pipe in boos and cheers and running small capacity shows like AEW doesn't seem to interest them.

Apologies if this was mentioned but my favorite trope is "babyfaces loses a loser-leaves-town match and comes back under a mask" and the face announcers/commissioner play dumb while the heel manager/heels get increasingly exasperated at the lunacy of it. It never fails to entertain. Watch on Youtube promos of Bobby Heenan reacting to The Giant machine. This French giant is standing there and Tunney is like "I dunno who this man is" while Heenan looks like he's going to have an aneaur Midnight Rider, Yellow Dog, Stagger Lee, The Bullet, Mr America. It's always funny. The fact that we never got Juan Cena on TV is criminal.

A lot of states have been open for a long time. The fact that they haven't run a full crowd in Florida yet is them showing uncommon restrain, to be honest.

Also, and this needs to be said, the age of consent in Japan is 13 years old. I may be speaking out of my understanding of Japanese culture but would they have the same moral opprobrium towards Scurll over the age issue as we do in the United States? Note: I'm not getting into issues of consent/non-consent which are irrelevant to age but they may look at the Scurll allegation and see it as an unfortunate scandal but nothing disqualifying.

I don't disagree with you and certainly everyone has the right to make their judgment on issues and make a moral stand on what they will and won't support. My favorite artist of all time is Ryan Adams and when he got called out in a NYT profile for his sexual manipulation I didn't listen to his music for a long time. Then slowly got back into it and then when he released a new album it was in my rotation. That said, he's still an asshole. It helped that no legal charges got filed against him so I, personally, could contextualize that while being a toxic person he wasn't a criminal. I guess my point is that it just has to be hard to constantly weigh whether someone is a good person or not when evaluating whether you'll support an artistic work. Of course, we all have different lines. I guess my question is: for someone like Scurll - what would it be necessary for him to do to be allowed to resume his career without personally turning off you guys who do draw that line in the sand? Would an apology suffice? Therapy? The woman in question giving her blessing? Is it just an arbitrary amount of time that needs to pass? Or is it just a blanket, permanent write off? Here's what's weird - I don't/can't watch Benoit matches for obvious reasons but don't have that barrier when Snuka shows up on my screen. It's funny how we justify things.

NJPW and, well, Japan in general, seems to not care about any scandals except those involving drugs so not surprised Scurll is back in the fold and once travel is opened up he'll get pushed over there. Realistically, though, a lot of the Speaking Out guys are going to find themselves back in work inevitably if they continue on with their career, with the exception of Joey Ryan and maybe David Starr who seemed to be the most egregious cases. Edit to add further thoughts: it's pretty clear that the WWE won't shy away from signing people with pasts, especially in these cases that aren't cut and dry (like the Riddle stuff). AEW is definitely more hyper-aware of Twitter and social media reaction but a time will come where someone of value who is problematic will be too good to pass up. Hell, I mean, Jericho has engendered a ton of bad will these last few months due to his personal life but they'd be foolish to pull him off TV.

That WWECW run was great and I believe is what basically caused Wight to have all the injuries and wear and tear that plagued him the last several years.

Wight could be a pretty good commentator, honestly, and brings at least some early curiosity to a developmental show. Him used sparingly and as an attraction for marquee matches could work as well. I mean, WWE at least got that right by feeding him to Drew after Mania last year. You have him wrestle four times a year and build him to eventually put over your Wardlow's or whomever and it could be very effective. In regards to the weird dunking of "look at them signing these old WWE guys." That was never the knock on TNA. Of course you bring in stars. The issue with TNA is they would bring in these guys, let them run rough-shod over their rosters, reboot their creative around them and, with few exceptions, most of the jumps saw TNA as a paid vacation. Once you sign a wrestler, he's yours to make value out of. So far, AEW has gotten a lot of mileage out of guys that were maybe on the long-side of their prime in WWE.

So, what are the best barb wire and/or exploding ring barb wire matches to watch? I mean, has there ever been a GOOD one? It's all spectacle and voyeuristic bloodlust but is there one that legitimately can be called a great match?

Nia and Charlotte are both very good that even when they're supposed to be putting other people over they make it about themselves. Charlote's ridiculous constant laughing and Nia turning what should have been a babyface getting revenge on her into a comedy spot for herself is some Nash in WCW type behavior.

Fenix was incredible in that match.

I’m thinking Edge vs Drew is the match too. You can tell a good story with that devoid of whatever fucking science fiction universe Raw lives in now. Roman shouldn’t lose at Mania so just feed him whomever. Great show. Right people won both Rumbles. I would expect Charlotte to beat Asuka and then do the Ripley rematch. Bianca vs Sasha could be very special but uh, has Bianca ever had a great singles match? I know she hasn’t had the opportunities and she’s had fine matches and she’s athletic as Hell but this is a huge spot for someone who still is untested.

Ugh - double post. Anyway - that ending segment was probably worse than anything WCW ever did. I know that's usually hyperbole but I really think it might be. Edge winning the Rumble and going against Drew or Roman is honestly about the most interesting match around one of the few matches that I don't think would get screwed up with booking.

The WON recap is unreadable. Actually, that does beg the question of where are good written recaps of Raw and SD. The Post guys do an amazing job on audio of course but every written recap I stumble across is trash. Really makes me miss Larry Csonka more.

Xavier Woods took umbrage with Undertaker's comments apparently: Of course, as Twitter is helpfully pointing out, Xaver maybe not the best person to bring up wholesome behavior.

Man, Mox is just a star in a way that so many guys are not. He looks like he's having a blast and if anything AEW has done a good job NOT overexposing him. I'm really interested to see what his next big program after Omega is because there's a lot of fun stuff they can do. I will also brook no Team Taz slander. Edit: quick note on Jericho. I've kinda been afraid he's going to eventually botch the Lionsault and break his neck like Hayabusa but I do think last night was more of a rope issue. He didn't even jump and tried to kick himself off the ropes. Curious to see moving forward if it happens again tho.