June 2024 Wrestling Talk

[The Natural]

We're getting WWE Clash at the Castle, AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door and NJPW Dominion. Bigger still, happy pride month!

[twiztor]

here's my wrestling hot take to kick off the month:

ROH is severely overrated.

I'm talking specifically about the early years. i've watched every event from the first 3 1/2 years so far, in slightly quicker than real time. Yes, there's some excellent matches. Yes, it introduced a wider audience to so much talent. and Yes, it was definitely doing something that WWE wasn't offering. But every match doesn't need to go 20-30 minutes. The storylines are atrocious. Did anybody ever give a single solitary shit about Special K? Who finds the Carnage Crew compelling? Why the fuck is Jamie Noble treated like some wrestling god? He's very good, but next to the guys that were already there- Danielson, Joe, Homicide, etc., he's kind of an also-ran. His WWE run never gave him in aura of "amazing underpushed talent" or "held back by bad booking", so i don't get where the over-the-top appreciation comes from.

If they were running one show a month, with the occasional double shot, i would rate them higher. But i'm at the point in my watch that they are running FOUR shows a month, practically every month. And with so little of storyline importance happening on each show, we are seeing an even worse version of what AEW is constantly accused of: having great matches for the sake of having great matches. I'm knee deep in the "Summer of Punk" (hasn't been called that yet, FWIW) and it feels forced and lame. 

[J.H.]

I dunno, the ROH/CZW feud was crazy fun and during that you also had the crazy Cabana/Homicide feud and the never ending Jimmy Jacobs/BJ Whitmer quagmire. There was a little something for everyone

James

[AxB]

If you Google "Who owns TNA Wrestling?", it tells you Anthem Media Group does.

If you Google "Who owns Anthem Media Group?", it tells you that although Leonard Asper has the controlling stake, the majority of other shares are in fact owned by Fight Holdings Incorporated.

If you Google Fight Holdings Inc, Google is pretty sure that it's just TKO.

So WWE literally owns (part of) TNA.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

3 minutes ago, AxB said:

If you Google "Who owns TNA Wrestling?", it tells you Anthem Media Group does.

If you Google "Who owns Anthem Media Group?", it tells you that although Leonard Asper has the controlling stake, the majority of other shares are in fact owned by Fight Holdings Incorporated.

If you Google Fight Holdings Inc, Google is pretty sure that it's just TKO.

So WWE literally owns (part of) TNA.

In fairness, thanks to shoddy AI integration Google is also suggesting to mix glue with your cheese to put on pizza these days, so it's not exactly the most reliable source.

[AxB]

2 hours ago, twiztor said:

here's my wrestling hot take to kick off the month:

ROH is severely overrated.

You're looking at it in the context of 2024, not 2002. It's very easy to watch a lot of Professional Wrestling in 2024. Just on Free TV, there's 10+ hours a week of new run Wrestling, and just on YouTube you have a archive of matches longer than you could watch in your lifetime. Add WWE Network or IWTV or Fite+ to that, you get a whole other massive archive. So matches that are Just Good Matches, there's no novelty to that.

In 2002, YouTube didn't exist. There was no good wrestling on television, just Triple H's Reign of Terror era WWE, and Jeff Jarrett's Reign of Terror era TNA. A promotion offering Just Good Matches was like rain in the desert back then.

[sabremike]

38 minutes ago, AxB said:

You're looking at it in the context of 2024, not 2002. It's very easy to watch a lot of Professional Wrestling in 2024. Just on Free TV, there's 10+ hours a week of new run Wrestling, and just on YouTube you have a archive of matches longer than you could watch in your lifetime. Add WWE Network or IWTV or Fite+ to that, you get a whole other massive archive. So matches that are Just Good Matches, there's no novelty to that.

In 2002, YouTube didn't exist. There was no good wrestling on television, just Triple H's Reign of Terror era WWE, and Jeff Jarrett's Reign of Terror era TNA. A promotion offering Just Good Matches was like rain in the desert back then.

It's also the same trap people today fall into with "ECW was overrated and not that good" takes. Historical context matters.

[odessasteps]

3 hours ago, twiztor said:

 

here's my wrestling hot take to kick off the month:

ROH is severely overrated

 

QFT 

[assfax]

But yer about to get into the halcyon days of Pelle Primeau's peak!

[twiztor]

4 hours ago, J.H. said:

I dunno, the ROH/CZW feud was crazy fun and during that you also had the crazy Cabana/Homicide feud and the never ending Jimmy Jacobs/BJ Whitmer quagmire. There was a little something for everyone

funny you mention those specific things, because the CZW feud and the "Jimmy Loves Lacey" storylines are two of the things i'm looking forward to the most.

3 hours ago, AxB said:

You're looking at it in the context of 2024, not 2002. It's very easy to watch a lot of Professional Wrestling in 2024. Just on Free TV, there's 10+ hours a week of new run Wrestling, and just on YouTube you have a archive of matches longer than you could watch in your lifetime. Add WWE Network or IWTV or Fite+ to that, you get a whole other massive archive. So matches that are Just Good Matches, there's no novelty to that.

In 2002, YouTube didn't exist. There was no good wrestling on television, just Triple H's Reign of Terror era WWE, and Jeff Jarrett's Reign of Terror era TNA. A promotion offering Just Good Matches was like rain in the desert back then.

2 hours ago, sabremike said:

It's also the same trap people today fall into with "ECW was overrated and not that good" takes. Historical context matters.

i can see why you would assume that, but in this instance that's not the case. i have gone back and watched/rewatched WCW from '93 thru the end. I rewatched WWF's Attitude Era. i watched ECW in its entirety for the first time. I make a serious effort to view these things in the context of what/when they are. (@sabremike, anyone who hates on ECW for those reasons is definitely in the wrong!)

I'm currently watching TNA and ROH from the beginning. Before i started this, i assumed that i would find TNA lame and eye-roll worthy, and use ROH's more mat-based action to balance that out so that i could appreciate each for what they were. 
What i'm finding out is that (aside from early 2003, where it was fucking terrible!) i enjoy TNA's presentation and storylines significantly more. There's more variety in pagentry/personal presentation, the promos are better (with a handful of exceptions), the wrestlers themselves come in a wider array of bodytypes, i just find it a more pleasurable viewing experience overall. (sidenote: the Knockouts division hasn't even kicked off yet, but i am greatly looking forward to that happening!) TNA's far from perfect, but the 2005 product is WAY better than it gets credit for.

 

1 hour ago, assfax said:

But yer about to get into the halcyon days of Pelle Primeau's peak!

...ok? i don't know what/who this is in refence to, but if/when this person pops up on TV, i'll pop for it based on this post.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

5 hours ago, twiztor said:

funny you mention those specific things, because the CZW feud and the "Jimmy Loves Lacey" storylines are two of the things i'm looking forward to the most.

i can see why you would assume that, but in this instance that's not the case. i have gone back and watched/rewatched WCW from '93 thru the end. I rewatched WWF's Attitude Era. i watched ECW in its entirety for the first time. I make a serious effort to view these things in the context of what/when they are. (@sabremike, anyone who hates on ECW for those reasons is definitely in the wrong!)

I'm currently watching TNA and ROH from the beginning. Before i started this, i assumed that i would find TNA lame and eye-roll worthy, and use ROH's more mat-based action to balance that out so that i could appreciate each for what they were. 
What i'm finding out is that (aside from early 2003, where it was fucking terrible!) i enjoy TNA's presentation and storylines significantly more. There's more variety in pagentry/personal presentation, the promos are better (with a handful of exceptions), the wrestlers themselves come in a wider array of bodytypes, i just find it a more pleasurable viewing experience overall. (sidenote: the Knockouts division hasn't even kicked off yet, but i am greatly looking forward to that happening!) TNA's far from perfect, but the 2005 product is WAY better than it gets credit for.

 

...ok? i don't know what/who this is in refence to, but if/when this person pops up on TV, i'll pop for it based on this post.

Pelle Primeau was one of the ROH wrestling academy students. He wasn't bad and made for a good plucky underdog babyface. I haven't seen his name anywhere in forever, so I would assume that he left wrestling behind him. 

[The Natural]

• During an appearance on The Von Erichs Podcast, Goldberg took a shot at Bret Hart, referring to him as “the moron I kicked in the head.”

Fuck off Goldberg.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

2 minutes ago, The Natural said:

• During an appearance on The Von Erichs Podcast, Goldberg took a shot at Bret Hart, referring to him as “the moron I kicked in the head.”

Fuck off Goldberg.

I always knew Goldberg sucked. 

[Gorman]

23 hours ago, twiztor said:

ROH is severely overrated.

I'm talking specifically about the early years.

(walks sadly into the distance)

[Curt McGirt]

Everything I've seen from Goldberg outside of the ring screams "this guy is a jerk". He even looked like it in that opening 15 minutes of the death of WCW show that's on Youtube where he sat down for the interview looking like he was in a huff about something. 

[zendragon]

Can we get a fashion watch?

[caley]

My favourite Goldberg story is still when he didn't want to work with Jericho because he didn't do comedy so there was a meeting with him, Jericho, Bischoff and someone else and Jericho said something like "I'm doing the comedy, not you. I have no problem losing to you but let's do it at the ppv" and Goldberg responded "I'm the guy who walks through fire" as if that was the argument winning point. I imagine his wife asking him to take out the garbage and him going "Goldberg doesn't do garbage, I'm the man who walks through fire!" 

[zendragon]

KC On the Mat - Central States Wrestling Documentary (youtube.com)

[SovietShooter]

On 6/1/2024 at 10:25 AM, twiztor said:

But every match doesn't need to go 20-30 minutes.

I remember when the first ROH tapes started getting passed around the lockerroom, and this was the big criticism.  The mystique of ROH was certainly seeing the "super indy" guys like Danielson, Low ki, etc all in the same place, but there was a lot of stuff that were no-name guys that just went way too long. And since this was a very small time production, the matches were worked repetitively with the same moves being spammed over and over. Yeah, you could just watch Daniels vs Danielson vs Low Ki or Super Crazy vs Guerrero and walk away thinking "wow, that was great", but sitting thru a 3hr show with a lot of matcjes Ring Crew Express vs Cheech & Cloudy for 20min could be a slog.

I think at the time groups like Wildside and JAPW actually had a better product. But, ROH had the distribution thru RF.

[Robert S]

1 hour ago, zendragon said:

Can we get a fashion watch?

Is that Prague?

[Nice Guy Eddie]

2 hours ago, zendragon said:

Can we get a fashion watch?

Batista's strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk

[just drew]

I’m sure y’all will be shocked; Andrade is complaining on the internets (seemingly bout his usage). Tony Khan had a great response, though…

[Nice Guy Eddie]

50 minutes ago, Just Dave said:

I’m sure y’all will be shocked; Andrade is complaining on the internets (seemingly bout his usage). Tony Khan had a great response, though…

I hope his response was fuck Andrade. 

[tbarrie]

53 minutes ago, Just Dave said:

I’m sure y’all will be shocked; Andrade is complaining on the internets (seemingly bout his usage). Tony Khan had a great response, though…

Well, I'm certainly shocked by the second part.

[SovietShooter]

I just saw on Twitter that Indy wrestler (and DVDVR favorite back in the day) Jermaine "Dirty Money" Robinson has passed away.