August 2024 Wrestling Discussion

[Elsalvajeloco]

7 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

This guy over here is trying to get the Barbarian to get after me for my significant stash of saffron!

That's what you get for trying to be the Griselda Blanco of the underground black market spice trade. Serves you right. You're just lucky they're sending Barb and not Meng. 

[Technico Support]

1 minute ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

That's what you get for trying to be the Griselda Blanco of the underground black market spice trade. Serves you right. You're just lucky they're sending Barb and not Meng. 

You just reminded me of how awful the Griselda Netflix series was.  Thanks.

[COLETTI]

Speaking of transphobes, Logan Paul opened his big shitty mouth on Twitter, screaming about a false story regarding women's boxing at the Olympics. Curious to see what the "new regime" does about this. 

[Curt McGirt]

1 hour ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

This guy over here is trying to get the Barbarian to get after me for my significant stash of saffron!

I read that in the voice of the drug dealer complaining after Method Man got shot in the head on The Wire. 

[Cobra Commander]

"I've never been hit so hard in my life" would be an amazing line for a whiny heel to use in wrestling

[zendragon]

Roderick Strong saying that with the neck brace on while sitting in a wheel chair

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

3 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

That's what you get for trying to be the Griselda Blanco of the underground black market spice trade. Serves you right. You're just lucky they're sending Barb and not Meng. 

And here I thought keeping the Polynesians rolling in turmeric would keep me safe.

[AxB]

Mercedes Mone announcing that she's just finalised her divorce, and that she and her husband separated in late 2020 but kept it secret (for the good of her career):

https://x.com/KXNGAO/status/1819134090920206484

Hopefully everyone can be very normal and mature about this.

[username]

13 hours ago, Shartnado said:

Does anyone else get "Shane Douglas +10lbs of muscle" energy from TNA's Hammerstone? I can't unsee it now, but it's fine.

When I first saw Hammerstone in MLW I went "he looks exactly like what Chris Jericho probably sees when he looks in the mirror" >_>

 

Edited August 2 by username

[The Green Meanie]

14 hours ago, The Old-Fashioned Gamer said:

I have no idea what to make of the “Timeless” Toni Storm gimmick. Apparently, she is extremely over, but it looks like grade-a wrestlecrap to me. The weird promo last night was a total turn-off.

Apparently, you're not prepared to die, because she is.

In all seriousness, Toni before was very drab and boring, this character has actually shown that she can be entertaining. It's a favorite amongst my household and what she says (and does) gets progressively more and more wacky. Definitely not Wrestlecrap.

Edited August 2 by The Green Meanie

[Niners Fan in CT]

I didn't like what I had seen of Logan Paul before he came to WWE.  Then he came to WWE and started putting on some great performances out of nowhere and admittedly I was impressed with that and it also seemed like several of the wrestlers were going out of their way to say what a great guy he's been etc.. 

But now I'm reminded of why I didn't like him in the first place and this is horrible.  I don't want to see him on my TV. 

[odessasteps]

50 minutes ago, The Green Meanie said:

Apparently, you're not prepared to die, because she is.

In all seriousness, Toni before was very drab and boring, this character has actually shown that she can be entertaining. It's a favorite amongst my household and what she says (and does) gets progressively more and more wacky. Definitely not Wrestlecrap.

To me, the gimmick jumped the shark when everyone else just played along. And then got TCM folks involved. If she was a delusional wrestler who thought she was a silent film star, great. But it became too Meta and lost it's charm. 

[The Green Meanie]

20 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

To me, the gimmick jumped the shark when everyone else just played along. And then got TCM folks involved. If she was a delusional wrestler who thought she was a silent film star, great. But it became too Meta and lost it's charm. 

I liked that they leaned into it. There's nothing worse for a wrestling character then for the wrestler portraying it to not believe in the character and do it half-assed.

[odessasteps]

True, but when everyone else takes a crazy gimmick seriously, they lose credibility. If Renee, for example, plays along and treats her as if she's a silent movie star and not a crazy wrestler, you just move one step closer to it being something like Lucha Underground and not an actual wrestler promotion. 

[zendragon]

2 hours ago, username said:

When I first saw Hammerstone in MLW I went "he looks exactly like what Chris Jericho probably sees when he looks in the mirror" >_>

 

this was after his HHH phase

And before his Hulk Hogan phase

[zendragon]

6 hours ago, AxB said:

Mercedes Mone announcing that she's just finalised her divorce, and that she and her husband separated in late 2020 but kept it secret (for the good of her career):

https://x.com/KXNGAO/status/1819134090920206484

Hopefully everyone can be very normal and mature about this.

Gonna have to change her name to Mercedes Alimone 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOwJTjyecTI

[odessasteps]

Does he still make outfits for wrestlers? That's what he was doing when used to be on UUDD, right? 

[Elsalvajeloco]

3 hours ago, odessasteps said:

True, but when everyone else takes a crazy gimmick seriously, they lose credibility. If Renee, for example, plays along and treats her as if she's a silent movie star and not a crazy wrestler, you just move one step closer to it being something like Lucha Underground and not an actual wrestler promotion. 

...wait as opposed to wrestling promotions who had African headhunters with stars on their belly and a man who claimed to be the missing link of human civilization?

When you drill down into wrestling gimmicks, period, most premises are absolutely absurd. 

One of the over gimmicks in the history of wrestling was based on a guy who was undead and arbitrarily acquired had super powers that he sometimes arbitrarily used. But apparently he was never undead and was pretending to cause we must add exposition that he murdered his parents and almost murdered his brother. However, it was like on accident. Then, he became a biker for some reason. Keep in mind, I intentionally skipped over one of the most insane aspects of the character where he tried embalm someone who was alive and then became an evil demon who partnered with his boss so that they can kidnap people. All this happened decades before Lucha Underground.

The Goldust gimmick, which IMO was brilliant but they intentionally decided to play 90% into the homophobia aspect and slowly downplay the best parts of the gimmick over time. That was more of the issue than it being played as serious. And when he actually wrestled, it was taken serious. Same as when Matt Borne played Doink. The Doink character was great until (a) Borne got fired so you lost an awesome worker who knew how to portray it and (b) they overplayed the aspects where they felt kids needed their own character. The character itself was never the issue. Pre late 1993 and on, the character was ALWAYS suppose to be taken seriously.

Pro wrestling has always historically leaned into entertaining things that if this was traditionally sports would never be leaned into. However, it's more on how you treat those aspects over time and how fans themselves take them. All the gimmicks build as a natural antagonist for the Undertaker gimmick save for Kane over a 15 or 20 year period flopped cause the fans never saw those gimmicks with one iorta of credibility. From Giant Gonzalez to Underfaker to Kama the Supreme Machine to Mordecai, creatively they were all extremely flawed from the get go even if you totally let go some of those guys would have never made it cause they were well below average workers. They tried to balance ridiculous with even more ridiculous.

You'll know when a character has jumped the shark cause the fans will treat it as such.

My only issue with a Timeless type gimmick is you can only be an absolutely terrible heel with that type of absurdity if you're  booked to be a heel. It's played with such energy and passion where a generic, whitebread face is going to never going to get the support they need. Hence why almost every babyface Toni got put against never got any real crowd support. She's always going to be the babyface. She should have never been a heel to begin with especially if you're undercutting anything a babyface can do against you.

[The Natural]

13 hours ago, Coletti said:

Speaking of transphobes, Logan Paul opened his big shitty mouth on Twitter, screaming about a false story regarding women's boxing at the Olympics. Curious to see what the "new regime" does about this. 

Logan Paul, still a POS.

[The Green Meanie]

43 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Hence why almost every babyface Toni got put against never got any real crowd support.

I actually had to look this up, because I wasn't aware she was ever matched up against a babyface. I looked up her title matches since beating Shida:

Skye Blue, Riho, Deonna Purrazzo, Thunder Rosa, Serena Deeb, and Mina Shirakawa.

Three heels, one babyface, and two tweeners.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Serena was suppose to be a babyface. Suppose to be. Unless bringing up having seizures makes you a heel.

Mina is suppose to be a babyface.

Also, if you're a "tweener" in 2024, it probably means you're incapable of playing a babyface or heel. 

[The Green Meanie]

I listed them in order of their matches, not necessarily by their stances. The two tweeners were Skye and Mina.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Just now, The Green Meanie said:

I listed them in order of their matches, not necessarily by their stances. The two tweeners were Skye and Mina.

Wait....Mina is a tweener? What heelish thing does she do?

[The Natural]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uVJ9t-qw2VY&pp=ygUUY29keSByaG9kZXMgc25lYWtlcnM%3D

Cody Rhodes sneaker shopping. One for Niners and Casey.

[The Green Meanie]

20 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Wait....Mina is a tweener? What heelish thing does she do?

She tried to steal Mariah away from Toni for....reasons? I'm not confident enough to have called her a face, the dancing and champagne thing just seemed really disingenuous, like she was hiding something.