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NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13 in Tokyo Dome 1/4/19


Raziel

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6 hours ago, Godfrey said:

Cody was born to be a mid-card, secondary title holder. He can generate the right heat and hold up his end of matches but he can't really bring those skills to a main event level and Juice isn't the guy to help that. My worst nightmare is 8-time AEW World Champ Cody feuding with Zolph Diggler.

 

5 hours ago, Archibald said:

Whole Cody situation to me is funny. In my opinion his entire post-WWE run has shown that WWE didn't really "waste" him. But being out of WWE allowed him to fully use his "business mind" and present himself as main event star even if he really isn't. And well it worked, he got over and now is likely going to be main eventer in big new company. Question is, how long will it last.

I've liked Cody since he debuted in WWE so long ago, but yes so damn much to all of this. He has never been particularly good in the ring with his best stuff basically being tag matches with Goldust who was on fire at the time. He has a great mind on how to present himself, but he has never been a great or even particularly good wrestler and is probably past the point where he can become one.

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I’m not sure about that—he’s only 33. I think there’s at least one timeline out there where AEW does well, and he ages into a really good twice a year brawler/bleeder. The work rate-o-rama stuff just doesn’t suit him at all. (Maybe I’m being naive, but I suspect he knows that, and won’t book himself in a ton of self-styled epics.) But we’ll see. To the point of this thread, I won’t miss him in New Japan, even if I would have been curious to see what his TV match experience translated into during a G1. 

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Cody completely lacks this thing in pro wrestling (and Dungeons and Dragons) called Charisma. He's  hopelessly bland.

Robinson is just as bad outside his rope-shaking "yeah, daddy!" deal, which the Japanese fans seem to love. This gives him an advantage over Rhodes. He comes back to the WWE, though, it's gonna go from "look how cute!" to "what the fuck is that?" very quickly.

LOVED that main. I'm not a big fan of giving more than 5 stars to a match, but given that limitation, it was a five-star match. YMMV.

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50 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

I find "Cody has no charisma" a really strange opinion.

I mean, dude has been massively over, and it damn sure ain't the incredible matches driving that.

Cody is Adam Cole with a last name and more exposure. He can talk, he looks great, he has a good wrestling mind, and then he gets in the ring and we turn back the clock to the 1970s, he's just hopelessly bland in the ring. Everything he does, he does pretty well, but to me it's almost like a timewarp, he works state-of-the-art from forty years ago. 

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That really doesn't explain how he managed to be the most hated heel in wrestling for six months, and then immediately the biggest babyface on All In right after.

The one thing he's not lacking in is charisma. Like, you don't get over at that level, on two continents, because you used to work somewhere else. 

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Cody is the epitome of what Bruce Prichard has said multiple times on his show. "...but then that damn bell had to ring"   You can't deny the guy has charisma. Hell, dude was still in OVW at the time and blew everyone's minds with how good he was inducting Dusty into the hall of fame. Whether or not Being the Elite is your thing, you can't deny the guy stands out on the show(I laughed my ass off when he was possessed or when he told Flip, "I hope you fucking die". He does great character work in all his promos, and really comes off like a hell of a guy anytime I've heard him on a podcast(multiple Talk is Jerichos come to mind).

He really is a B+ player. He can give you a solid *** match, maybe even get into **** with the right guy(or tagging with his brother) but he's nothing spectacular. And there's nothing wrong with that. He's carved out quite the niche for himself and now he's running his own company. The old man would be proud of him

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17 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

I’d rather watch a Cody Rhodes match than a Seth Rollins or Roman Reigns match

Rollins, definitely. I think Cody had at least five matches last year I like more than any Seth Rollins singles match I've ever seen.

Reigns, not so much. 

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19 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Rollins, definitely. I think Cody had at least five matches last year I like more than any Seth Rollins singles match I've ever seen.

Reigns, not so much. 

Let me be clear, I don't think Cody is an all-time great worker or anything, but I think he's a solid worker who knows his way around the ring. Even plenty of the all-time greats from the late 80s/early 90s weren't putting on 4-5 star classics on a regular basis, at least on TV. I've enjoyed plenty of Cody's post WWE matches. In recent years I'm less into the whole 5-star ranking thing. I just want to enjoy the match and believe what's going on. 

Rollins on the other hand, dunno. Just seems lacking since he turned face.

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Cody is a guy who would have been great in the 80s territories, but not today when more athleticism is required.

 

Juice has real underdog charisma.  Just look at his match with Jay White which elevated both of them.   I won't be surprised if Juice ends up getting an IWGP title shot in the next year or two.

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That promo after he beat Jay White was epic. Even his stumbling over the words worked. Juice clearly has something. Dude just cuts these great natural from the hip promos. "Anybody who says titles don't matter in this business can burn in hell."

 

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For me problem with many babyface promos is that I kinda feel that the guy is thinking (or someone wrote it for him in case of WWE) that this is what babyface is supposed to say so I'm going to say it. And it comes out as insincere. With Juice I feel like he just genuinely thinks like a babyface so even when he is half assing some words you still "feel it".

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2 hours ago, Archibald said:

For me problem with many babyface promos is that I kinda feel that the guy is thinking (or someone wrote it for him in case of WWE) that this is what babyface is supposed to say so I'm going to say it. And it comes out as insincere. With Juice I feel like he just genuinely thinks like a babyface so even when he is half assing some words you still "feel it".

Dusty, and Flair were like that most days. Sure we love to look back at those “Hard Times” promos, but the majority of those outside of that one were just random gibberish that had great babyface fire, and charisma. Juice has that in spades. He just needs a cooler look, otherwise he’s the new Boogie Woogie Man. Which is not a bad thing in my book. It’s just we have a bunch of Paul Jones’s here.

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On 1/11/2019 at 6:56 AM, sevendaughters said:

 

Ace of Life v Ken *****1/2 ("Hopefully I can run this down next week. Live I went *****½, and most of the feedback was in that range (mostly *****1/4 to ******) but I need to be able to watch it without interruption to give a fair rating. In the building this was maybe the best live match I ever saw.")

He ended up giving it *****3/4.

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On 1/16/2019 at 7:30 AM, LoneWolf&Subs said:

Juice has that in spades. He just needs a cooler look, otherwise he’s the new Boogie Woogie Man. Which is not a bad thing in my book. It’s just we have a bunch of Paul Jones’s here.

I like Juice's look. It reminds me of somebody.

It ain't white boy day, is it?

Image result for drexl spivey

 

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