Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

AEW - 2019


Dolfan in NYC

Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

If AEW were to lean more adult and more mature, what would the reaction be if some of their talent were to partner with producers of tasteful nude photography? I know popular culture is different than it was at the turn of the century.

Heh heh. Chyna and Torrie Wilson posing for Playboy was 'empowering' at the turn of the century. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, MapRef41N93W said:

Youtube videos with suggestive thumbnails tend to rack up the views--there are Beyond Wrestling intergender match videos with literally tens of millions of views for that reason. If that were a lucrative crowd to cater to, Beyond would be nipping at WWE's heels, not AEW.

Sounds to me like whatever this Beyond Wrestling stuff is needs a larger stage to shine on after proving itself in the minor leagues. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think there is lucrative crowd for that stuff, I just don't think that any wrestling company really wants to go there outside of teasing it here and there. Lets not pretend that we don't know what kind of people really watch those "intergender matches".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's literally hundreds of places on the internet to see racier stuff for free.  We just got wrestling perception out of the gutter and not being lumped in with adult stuff.   Let's not run it back there for a couple cheap hits.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not particularly a fan of inter-gender matches but the few I have seen from Beyond are fairly tame, presented as just the regular wrestling match all-in-all although the man is generally in the heel role. the only match right think that the difference would really bother me was Brian Cage vs Jordynne Grace, haven't seen that one yet. Beyond seems to me like the East coast PWG in most other aspects. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man, those MLW contracts are almost as bad as the Lucha Underground contracts. $120-150 a pop and while they allow you to work for companies outside of WWE/WWN, they can pull you at any time for 'pre-taping'. It sounds like MJEFF signed a two year deal, so that sucks for him. PCO and the other guys who recently left mlw were not under contract. Lucha Bros aren't either and have offers from wwe and aew, one of which they'll sign once the LU nonsense gets sorted. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

Man, those MLW contracts are almost as bad as the Lucha Underground contracts. $120-150 a pop and while they allow you to work for companies outside of WWE/WWN, they can pull you at any time for 'pre-taping'. It sounds like MJEFF signed a two year deal, so that sucks for him. PCO and the other guys who recently left mlw were not under contract. Lucha Bros aren't either and have offers from wwe and aew, one of which they'll sign once the LU nonsense gets sorted. 

U sure about the Lucha Bros? Judging by Impact spoilers, it seems like they might be committed over there. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Archibald said:

I think there is lucrative crowd for that stuff, I just don't think that any wrestling company really wants to go there outside of teasing it here and there. Lets not pretend that we don't know what kind of people really watch those "intergender matches".

I'm not into that scene. ELI5?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Hypothetical question based on this from the Raw thread:

Seemingly there's an appetite from wrestling fans for a certain kind of content that WWE may not be interested in providing all the time. If AEW were to lean more adult and more mature, what would the reaction be if some of their talent were to partner with producers of tasteful nude photography? I know popular culture is different than it was at the turn of the century. But, as seen above, it isn't so different that such content wouldn't find an audience. 

The market for it never left, they're just choosing to ignore it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "pure sports build" for AEW is just a failure waiting to happen. These guys built their popularity largely off the backs of their quirky Being The Elite skits, catering to a fanbase that carries a deep appreciation for Joey Ryan's dick flip. Now they're going to hit the big time and try to become wrestling's version of UFC?

Judging from Tony Khan's interview with X-Pac though, I get the sense that the ranking/win-loss record mumbo jumbo is pretty much solely coming from him. His fondest memories of wrestling seem to be J-Cup matches between Benoit and Jericho rather than compelling characters/stories.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

People have already explained how that type of build would work, which is looking at New Japan where wins and losses matter or who you pin in tag matches matter. It doesn't have to be some kind of hardcore rankings type of thing. They can have rankings, but it doesn't mean they would or should stick to them. Shit, UFC has rankings too and the #1 contender isn't always the person ranked #1 in that division. Explaining how and why someone deserves a title shot becomes part of promos or what the announcing says and goes a long way beyond what WWE is doing where there's no rhyme or reason to anything.

Another big part to it is avoiding matches between people feuding and saving that shit for bigger PPV type shows or an episode of TV promoted weeks in advance. You're basically looking at some kind of hybrid between NXT and NJPW and that can work or at least I'm willing to believe that can work before saying it has no chance of working.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

NJPW has been booming while using broadly the same result-conscious booking they always have and the Elite will be familiar with that so they could easily cherry pick what they thought would carry over. But with wins and losses not mattering being a common complaint towards WWE in recent years the simplest interpretation is probably as a 'yeah, we're not going to be like that'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Idol books/magazines/dvds are kinda like the SI Swimsuit issue, but focusing only on a single person/group.  They're mainly PG-13, but can be... less so.  They are sadly only targeted at straight men, so feature only women.

 

I don't do reddit, so I had to google "ELI5" :)

  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Craig H said:

People have already explained how that type of build would work, which is looking at New Japan where wins and losses matter or who you pin in tag matches matter. It doesn't have to be some kind of hardcore rankings type of thing. They can have rankings, but it doesn't mean they would or should stick to them. Shit, UFC has rankings too and the #1 contender isn't always the person ranked #1 in that division. Explaining how and why someone deserves a title shot becomes part of promos or what the announcing says and goes a long way beyond what WWE is doing where there's no rhyme or reason to anything.

Another big part to it is avoiding matches between people feuding and saving that shit for bigger PPV type shows or an episode of TV promoted weeks in advance. You're basically looking at some kind of hybrid between NXT and NJPW and that can work or at least I'm willing to believe that can work before saying it has no chance of working.

 

There's a lot of wiggle room between "wins and losses matter" and "we're going to have win-loss records and top 10 rankings and document every result every wrestler achieves." Hopefully they find a happy middle ground between those two, but if it veers more toward the latter, I think it's going to be a problem.

I don't really care how New Japan does it. American fans aren't conditioned to that and I think the cat is too far out of the bag on 'rasslin being fake in America for that kind of promotion to ever work on a mainstream level, and if AEW is presumably/hopefully/possibly/maybe getting a major TV deal, they're going to have to bring more to the table than "we're a bunch of wrestlers who wrestle because we love to wrestle and want to see who the best wrestler is."

And maybe they will. I mean, it's still all in its infancy, and they could very easily drop all this once they get a TV deal and find out what that network expects. Who knows. My opinion is just that considering what they've built their cult following on, switching gears to "we're real sports!" seems foolish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't hate on rankings.  JCP got a lot of milage with Flair dening Funk a title shot because Funk wasn't ranked, then Funk got pissed and destroyed Steamboat because Funk finally got ranked 10 and he wanted Flair, so he nuked the #1 contender to get there.  

 

I get the whole "It can't just be 'I want the belt"" mentality, because you can do that boring, which is what Impact's problem is.  At the same time, yeah, focusing on winning/belts/getting paid is the basis of all sports because if you're not trying to win and get more money and belts, then what the fuck are you actually doing this shit for?  Actors act to get money and awards.  Athletes compete to win/win titles/get paid.  It's possible, just needs to be entertaining.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Devil's advocate: A lot of people aren't interested in seeing that side of it.

Of course I'm just taking a knock at the comparison. You're totally right about athletes competing for titles being the whole point. 

I know, I went with actors because the argument could be: Wrestlers are action actors telling stories in promos and matches.  Which is fine, but you're telling a story in an athletic environment, which means, compete to win/get titles/get paid.  And even though no one wants to see the side of actors getting paid, they're in it for getting paid.  And people (at least my wife) watch the getting awards part.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, Fallacy! said:

 

There's a lot of wiggle room between "wins and losses matter" and "we're going to have win-loss records and top 10 rankings and document every result every wrestler achieves." Hopefully they find a happy middle ground between those two, but if it veers more toward the latter, I think it's going to be a problem.

I don't really care how New Japan does it. American fans aren't conditioned to that and I think the cat is too far out of the bag on 'rasslin being fake in America for that kind of promotion to ever work on a mainstream level, and if AEW is presumably/hopefully/possibly/maybe getting a major TV deal, they're going to have to bring more to the table than "we're a bunch of wrestlers who wrestle because we love to wrestle and want to see who the best wrestler is."

And maybe they will. I mean, it's still all in its infancy, and they could very easily drop all this once they get a TV deal and find out what that network expects. Who knows. My opinion is just that considering what they've built their cult following on, switching gears to "we're real sports!" seems foolish.

I agree with that, but at the same time, Inoki tried to make New Japan more real fifteen years ago and the level of push back from the fans nearly collapsed the entire promotion. That cat is out of the bag everywhere.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Given twitter the last few days, I’m now half expecting Josh Barnett to sign up and take over this thread with a full throated defense of Inokiism. (Full disclosure: I love a lot of that stuff, for better and worse.)

In any case, there’s a big difference between sacrificing your champ to prime, non drug tested Cro Cop, and presenting fictional fights with in-universe stakes. And fwiw, WWE is the company currently doing the shooter-as-champ thing with two belts and big checks, so I think American audiences are used to that aspect. Do they like it? I really have no idea. My totally trite answer is that anything done well will be received well, where anything done poorly will be received poorly. I don’t think Kenny Omega’s gonna go challenge Jon Jones—even if Callis does like to sell that he won a local rec-leve Jiu-Jitsu tournament years and years ago. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...