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AEW - Feb 2020


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49 minutes ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

JR was saying on his latest podcast that they're looking for athletic big guys. Cobb of course is a move in that direction, even though he's not the tallest dude.

He also said re: Cornette's vocal criticism, with Conrad specifically bringing up the "All Petite Wrestling" thing: "He's very set in his ways. He knows what he likes. He knows how wrestling, in his view, should be positioned. And I'm not disagreeing with that. It's just that sometimes the message gets a little bit, I think, coarse, very overly-generalized. You know, we know what we have, we know what we need. I think basically Corny's pointing out the obvious. He's not providing any information that I've seen that's new and revolutionary. It's the same thing that many of us say behind the scenes."

Coming (hopefully) soon to AEW: Big meaty men, bumpin' meat! 

Yeah AEW totally needs more male model, 6'2" 235 jacked hosses like the steady pipeline of International Male Catalog rejects Cornette supplied to feed Vince's kinks back in the early/mid 2000s.  Why do you need talent when you look like La Resistance?  Ross is really talking out both sides of his mouth (holy shit am I trying to not make a tasteless joke here), calling out Cornette but casually alluding to that opinion, while harshly stated, being right.

It's a different era.  Guys like Schiavone realize it and it's so cool seeing an old guy enjoy today's business for what it is.  Guys like Ross and Cornette, with the Stockholm Syndrome they got working for Vince, should just go away.

Last night I realized I'm the combined ages of MJF and Jungle Boy!  I'd rather watch a modern spotfest then watch Palumbo and Conway slap on chinlocks.

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30 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

It's a different era.  Guys like Schiavone realize it and it's so cool seeing an old guy enjoy today's business for what it is.  Guys like Ross and Cornette, with the Stockholm Syndrome they got working for Vince, should just go away.

I don't have many issues with JR though tend to agree with some points made about him.  But seeing Tony have fun just makes me smile so damn much.  The guy quit wrestling to focus on other stuff and at the time he left who could blame him.  But to see him come back and be so damn happy again is damn near inspirational.  As for Britt while she's been killing it in her heel promos Tony's reactions really drive it home in a big way.  Of course we've seen him mouth "What the fuck?!" on the cruise but even last night when she's talking about his mouth Tony had a look like he was too afraid to dare speak for fear of showing its flaws.  I don't mind if JR's around but damnit we need more older dudes like Tony who care so much and give their all to it.  Same applies to Dustin though it's been documented by myself and others just how amazing he is.

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20 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I don't have many issues with JR though tend to agree with some points made about him.  But seeing Tony have fun just makes me smile so damn much.  The guy quit wrestling to focus on other stuff and at the time he left who could blame him.  But to see him come back and be so damn happy again is damn near inspirational.  As for Britt while she's been killing it in her heel promos Tony's reactions really drive it home in a big way.  Of course we've seen him mouth "What the fuck?!" on the cruise but even last night when she's talking about his mouth Tony had a look like he was too afraid to dare speak for fear of showing its flaws.  I don't mind if JR's around but damnit we need more older dudes like Tony who care so much and give their all to it.  Same applies to Dustin though it's been documented by myself and others just how amazing he is.

I've got some issues with Jr's commentary too, but it's not because he's old. Tony is awesome. I was never really a WCW watcher once ITV stopped showing it here so had no real affinity for him before this. He sells the action and his enthusiasm and the wow factor of what the athletes are doing. Jr too often sounds like he's fallen out of love with wrestling. He harks back to a time he enjoyed too often - comparing Darby to Hardy etc. Similarly Dustin and Jericho are older dudes but still love what they do and it shows and its hard not to enjoy it as a result. 

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1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

Yeah AEW totally needs more male model, 6'2" 235 jacked hosses like the steady pipeline of International Male Catalog rejects Cornette supplied to feed Vince's kinks back in the early/mid 2000s.  Why do you need talent when you look like La Resistance?  

Wasn't it Johnny Ace that recruited models?

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5 minutes ago, Infinit said:

Wasn't it Johnny Ace that recruited models?

Yes. The "every guy looks like discount Randy Orton, every girl is blonde with an absurd chest size" era was Ace signing people.

There's a lot to criticize Cornette about (like, a LOT) but he's not a body guy like Vince.

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JR's been like that since Austin retired. He did a job for WWE and it wasn't bad at least until I stopped watching in '05ish. But you can tell it's a job and not a passion for him. There are times when he reverts back to something approaching his best in AEW, usually when Jericho or somebody established and he's familiar with is presented, but it's rare. However, he has value in recognition from lapsed fans and he brings credibility with him. As much as I think the world of Excalibur, there are times when he trips over himself or doesn't strike the chord of a classic play by play announcer for a national wrestling promotion. It's kind of nice to have a bit of the old guard and the new school working together even if they haven't really synchronized up as nicely as one would hope. I don't think Ross is long for the position though. He should be doing those sit-down interviews and producing/giving input even if it's just to provide a counter-argument or play devil's advocate to the younger guys so they're given food for thought. He can be the antithesis in AEW's Hegelian dialectic. 

You know, AEW is starting to really find a sweet spot with their matches. I don't think we've seen a 4.5+ star TV match yet, but that's okay. Save the 30+ minute matches for PPVs. TV matches can be fun sprints or vehicles to advance characters and stories. I don't think I want there to be constant super epic matches on a weekly basis. Not even peak '90-'93 All Japan did that. There were a lot of weeks where it was Misawa & Kawada vs. two guys. Maybe once a month you get the classic match. Modern NJPW has fallen into some of its own trappings and even their biggest fan in Dave Meltzer spoke up about that when he was reviewing Sunday's show on WOR this week. Fans have smartened up to the formula and they need to break it. AEW is way less predictable. They don't have the high, high, high end stuff that NJPW has yet outside of Dustin/Cody but I find their shows are easier to watch regularly than NJPW as it is right now and their matches accomplish a lot without bleeding into excess as much as they were guilty of earlier on in Dynamite's run. I love where they're at. If they can give us something like Pac/Omega with a storyline and build once a month on TV to serve as the WORKRATE god tier match, I think that's the perfect balance.

Speaking of, Kenny needs his win so he can win the women's championship! Why the fuck was he the focus backstage after Nyla's big win btw? That was funny. The other women standing around like useless idiots. 

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3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Yeah AEW totally needs more male model, 6'2" 235 jacked hosses like the steady pipeline of International Male Catalog rejects Cornette supplied to feed Vince's kinks back in the early/mid 2000s.  Why do you need talent when you look like La Resistance?  Ross is really talking out both sides of his mouth (holy shit am I trying to not make a tasteless joke here), calling out Cornette but casually alluding to that opinion, while harshly stated, being right.

It's a different era.  Guys like Schiavone realize it and it's so cool seeing an old guy enjoy today's business for what it is.  Guys like Ross and Cornette, with the Stockholm Syndrome they got working for Vince, should just go away.

Last night I realized I'm the combined ages of MJF and Jungle Boy!  I'd rather watch a modern spotfest then watch Palumbo and Conway slap on chinlocks.

There is a reason that Brock Lesnar is such a draw and it’s not because he once did a shooting star press.

It’s because of the combination of how he looks physically and what he does in the ring. That’s always going to be the case. People are fascinated by monsters and always will be.

AEW would be foolish not to be looking for athletic big guys.

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Not trying to be a dick here, but honest question: is Brock actually a draw? They got two really good buyrates out of him in 2012, and then everything kinda just went back to normal. I know that they pay him like he's a huge draw, but is there any real evidence he moves the needle all that much?

Edited by Brian Fowler
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I don't see why people are harping on the Darby-Jeff comparison, I think it fits perfectly and those kinds of analogies are directed at the same lapsed fans that JR is there to attract. It can only help in making Darby look more like a star. If AEW is supposed to be about "let's look ONLY to the future" then why are Tully and Arn and Dustin there? Why all the Dusty references? Why the regional old school tributes?

JR is doing fine. He was also apparently instrumental in getting Tony there. I shudder to think about what an Excalibur-Marvez booth would have sounded like. 

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To be fair, by All Out, they had reversed course and put Marvez in a backstage role. If they didn't hire Tony, I doubt they would have placed him back in that role - it would have just been Excalibur and JR most likely.

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1 hour ago, Brian Fowler said:

Not trying to be a dick here, but honest question: is Brock actually a draw? They got two really good buyrates out of him in 2012, and then everything kinda just went back to normal. I know that they pay him like he's a huge draw, but is there any real evidence he moves the needle all that much?

Well, he’s literally one one of the biggest ppv draws in the history of the UFC despite not being a very skilled fighter...

He’s the biggest draw the WWE has.

If AEW announced they’d signed him and he was debuting next week, what would the impact on their ratings be? They’d obviously go way up.

That’s how you know he’s a draw (his presence moves the needle) and that’s why he’ll get even more money whenever his current contract expires.

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Re: the 6’3” bodybuilder thing, I really think you need a mix of the aspirational and inspirational stars to be successful. You need the super humans (whoop whoop) for people to look up to and the Everyman for the crowd to self insert into. I think part of the reason there seems to be very few kids in the audience is because no one is larger than life in the John Cena type role and there’s no dragons for that hero to slay.

Seriously, is there a physically imposing heel on the roster? The closest I can think of is Hager and Wardlow and they’ve got a combined record of 0-0-0

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14 minutes ago, Bryan said:

Well, he’s literally one one of the biggest ppv draws in the history of the UFC despite not being a very skilled fighter...

He’s the biggest draw the WWE has.

If AEW announced they’d signed him and he was debuting next week, what would the impact on their ratings be? They’d obviously go way up.

That’s how you know he’s a draw (his presence moves the needle) and that’s why he’ll get even more money whenever his current contract expires.

Big draw in UFC, yes.

But he has little of any impact on TV ratings or ticket sales for WWE, and literally by his third ppv back in 2012-13, he literally had no discernible impact on buyrates.

It'll never happen anyway, but I doubt he'd move ratings much at all for AEW either.

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13 minutes ago, Goodear said:

Re: the 6’3” bodybuilder thing, I really think you need a mix of the aspirational and inspirational stars to be successful. You need the super humans (whoop whoop) for people to look up to and the Everyman for the crowd to self insert into. I think part of the reason there seems to be very few kids in the audience is because no one is larger than life in the John Cena type role and there’s no dragons for that hero to slay.

Seriously, is there a physically imposing heel on the roster? The closest I can think of is Hager and Wardlow and they’ve got a combined record of 0-0-0

I'd call Jeff Cobb physically imposing. Brodie Lee will be when he debuts. Lance Archer will be if he signs with AEW.

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1 minute ago, Brian Fowler said:

Big draw in UFC, yes.

But he has little of any impact on TV ratings or ticket sales for WWE, and literally by his third ppv back in 2012-13, he literally had no discernible impact on buyrates.

It'll never happen anyway, but I doubt he'd move ratings much at all for AEW either.

Brock in the UFC is a weird one. I would put an asterisk on that.

His buyrates were usually good, but as a gate attraction, he was surprisingly disappointing. And I think his buyrates were largely WWE fans eager to see him fight. He never really had that fight (specifically against Fedor who himself needed a Brock) that would catapult beyond just big name WWE guy in UFC. The Randy Couture fight was almost that, but Randy was also like 77 years old and long past it by then even to people who loved Couture.

But yeah, as soon as he signed with WWE, I knew he wouldn't that big of a draw because it's the world he came from. UFC fans who kinda begrudgingly respected Lesnar by the end of his UFC run aren't going to watch WWE. He's not converting MMA fans. 

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