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AEW Dynamite - 7/22/2020


Dolfan in NYC

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10 minutes ago, AxB said:

They brought up that Excalibur was an ex-wrestler when Brandi was doing heel colour commentary in her angle with Kong and Mel. She was asking him why he wore the mask and he said he wore it when he wrestled and because he never lost it as a wrestler, he has to keep wearing it now he's not one.

Quite a lot of precedent for that, too. Plenty of other retired wrestlers (who stayed around the biz after retiring) kept their masks on.

exactly. It's only silly because nobody* has heard of him as an actual wrestler.

If he'd been famous in the ring he'd be celebrated for upholding the goofiness of wrestling and even be expected to keep it on.  Like when Liger (?) still wore his mask to Japanese Parliament or whatever.

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Yes perhaps. As it is, a bit of a leap from absolute legends in the Rey Mysterio/Liger mould upholding national traditions to a dude from Detroit who wrestled some local circuits in front of a couple hundred people and this one time was ranked 334th of the top 500 wrestlers in the world in 2006. All good with others having different opinions.

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it is also perhaps a bit of his own fault for not treating himself particularly seriously.  His twitter handle is the rather self-effacing ShutUpExcalibur.  He lets other wrestlers rip on him without retort.  They treat him like "a goof in a mask for no reason" and he doesn't challenge that perception, and doesn't really ever reference that he "used to lace 'em up" outside of that one moment early on with Brandi.  Monsoon was an old man decades removed from competition and he'd put current guys over by reacting to their best moves with "I'm glad I retired" but he never let people push him around or take the piss too far out of him without at least responding with "I'm gonna have you taken outta here in a minute" or something.

The other route is to do deep Color Analyst dives that make it super obvious this is an ex-wrestler who knows what he's talking about ("Here's why this move you're seeing works, this is why you do that in this situation"), like Taz does when he's in the role.  Of course, Taz is also way more famous an ex-wrestler and, furthermore, takes protecting his tough guy ex-wrestler aura far more seriously than most people, not just Excalibur.

As it is, Excalibur is more of the Mike Tenay style analyst, as befits the third man of a three man team.  Where he has the backstories on wrestlers and the historical context of why they're fighting, which can add to the broadcast but (obviously, since Tenay is the comparison point) is much more of a "non-wrestler" niche to fill.

tl;dr he acts like a non-wrestler instead of an ex-wrestler, so people treat him like such, and thus makes the mask look sillier.

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I actually don't mind Excalibur's approach. Thinking back to my own childhood, for example, Larry Zybyzko and Jerry Lawler couldn't have been more different on their respective shows both visually and with respect to their commentary. Even though Larry was presented on Nitro as the more "serious" ex-wrestler, Lawler screamed ex-wrestler more in a visual sense, so I tended to take him more seriously in the ring for those one-off late 90s matches than I did Larry Z when he wrestled Scott Hall for example. I think Excalibur is a nice mix of the two approaches (though whichever one of you guys said he's more like Mike Tenay was spot on).

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On 7/24/2020 at 10:14 AM, Ace said:

Regal's challenge of Triple H for Eugene is better than any Punk promo I can remember.

 

One of the promos of the decade. I know I missed out his run in the late '00s but it really feels like we only got to see glimpses of how great Regal could be throughout his career in WCW and WWF/E between personal problems, booking, and timing. He touches on that here. What a beauty. Fatalistic promos > *. 

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15 hours ago, A_K said:

The mask is what gets me. Pretty lame & bush league IMHO

 

15 hours ago, Casey said:

What a dumb reason to not like an announcer.

I don't like him for a couple of reasons; cosmetics not one of them. The main issue I have is he'll talk about things either 1) only he knows about or 2) no one cares about/wants to hear about. He's more tolerable on Dark with just Tazz as opposed to Dynamite and him constantly interrupting JR and Tony. I'm kinda glad they've had to have the empty shows as it's stopped the trend of him going "Oh my god, it's (person we don't know but he does really well for some reason)!" whenever some new debuted.

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With all due respect, I think that complaining about Excalibur wearing a mask is nitpicking. In my opinion, I think that he's doing a good job doing what Tenay did with luchadors on Nitro being the "current/indy/moves" counterbalance to JR and Tony.

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46 minutes ago, The Green Meanie said:

I don't like him for a couple of reasons; cosmetics not one of them. The main issue I have is he'll talk about things either 1) only he knows about or 2) no one cares about/wants to hear about. He's more tolerable on Dark with just Tazz as opposed to Dynamite and him constantly interrupting JR and Tony. I'm kinda glad they've had to have the empty shows as it's stopped the trend of him going "Oh my god, it's (person we don't know but he does really well for some reason)!" whenever some new debuted.

fuck you with a cherry on top on that last part

I will forever remember "HEY IT'S THE BUTCHER !!! AND JR THAT'S THE BLADE"

That shit was glorious as someone who followed PWG to just to hear Disco Machine and Excalibur do MST3K commentary. It was like a goddamn fever dream I was having to hear him do it with two guys I've heard on commentary for the better part of 30+ years.

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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5 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

fuck you with a cherry on top on that last part

I will forever remember "HEY IT'S THE BUTCHER !!! AND JR THAT'S THE BLADE"

If they were established characters and named as such, I'd give him some slack. But it's hard to give credibility to him acting like he knows the brand-new people that no one has ever seen before.

Edited by The Green Meanie
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2 minutes ago, The Green Meanie said:

If they were established characters and named as such, I'd give him some slack. But it's hard to give credibility to him acting like he knows the brand-new people that no one has ever seen before.

He don't really need your slack because I'm pretty sure it's not him out there freestyling. His job is to be the intercessor between the two old fogies, which right now, he does tremendously.

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On 7/24/2020 at 2:06 PM, Technico Support said:

The reason I dislike Cody and JR is because both are examples of harmful aspects of wrestling that I'd hoped would go away with this new progressive company.

Cody is the guy with power who does whatever he feels like, regardless of whether it makes sense, is entertaining, or is good for the company.  He's just out there cosplaying Flair, or dressing in Star Trek gear, getting his wife and friends put in angles nobody likes, gaming the system so his title sometimes comes across as more important, etc.  There's nothing to Cody except for Cody pleasuring himself.  He goes out there with his stupid hammer and smashes that throne when really he's no better than HUN-TOR was at his worst.

Ross was the guy who carried out Vince's worst body guy wishes in an era where all the men were pressured to be gassed up and dying and all the women were pressured to have big fake titties and be nothing more than eye candy in lingerie matches.  On commentary he praises guys who are getting more muscular, buries guys who are softer, and says things about women's looks.

I'd hoped for better in AEW; it's the only national company I watch.  So this stuff bothers me a lot.

Is this talking point still a thing? C'mon...

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12 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

He don't really need your slack because I'm pretty sure it's not him out there freestyling. His job is to be the intercessor between the two old fogies, which right now, he does tremendously.

I'll agree to disagree. You may enjoy him, I don't. But that's okay! One thing I can say about this company is they have something for everybody.

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49 minutes ago, Death From Above said:

Excalibur is very good. I fucking hate when announcers pretend no wrestling exists outside of This Company You're Watching and we have no way of knowing who these new people are. It's 2020 we all have access to the internet.

To be fair, he never mentioned Aaron Solow being engaged to Bayley on Dark this week...  ?

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9 minutes ago, Phantom Lord said:

The only thing about Excaliber that I don't like is he'll react to someone like they're this huge name and we all should know who it is. The biggest example was him all OMG IT'S LUTHER and JR was all "who?". 

Excalibur should have responded with, "JR, he's Jim Sorgi to Jericho's Peyton Manning" and I bet he would have understood immediately.

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As someone who listens to What Happened When, I would call bullshit on Schiavone knowing who anyone is given he has forgotten whole stretches of time he was in WCW when he moved his family back to Atlanta in 1990 from Connecticut. Granted, it's gotten better as time has passed and he gets refreshed on a lot of stuff.

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I still remember Bobby Lashley’s debut in OVW, when he destroyed some fools and Cornette screamed, “OH MY GOD, IT’S BLASTER LASHLEY!”

This was his first appearance, no-one knee who he was, but Cornette instantly made him feel like a big name. Excalibur does that well.

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58 minutes ago, Linus said:

I still remember Bobby Lashley’s debut in OVW, when he destroyed some fools and Cornette screamed, “OH MY GOD, IT’S BLASTER LASHLEY!”

This was his first appearance, no-one knee who he was, but Cornette instantly made him feel like a big name. Excalibur does that well.

Funny you bring that up because Cornette surprisingly and painstakingly harps on people at home not being given information on who is on the screen (along with the lower third chyron and announcers introducing themselves at the top of the program) when I was still listening to his reviews/breakdowns of shows. By that I mean, introducing people and who they are as soon as they hit the screen AT ALL TIMES. Then again, when you emphatically shout someone's name and you only have a limited amount time in a given segment, that might be the better option given you cannot give every character who shows up their individual backstory and exhaustive exposition on every single episode. You cannot be the same people who complain about Bob Costas or Al Michaels or Greg Gumbel every four years giving the rules for your favorite sports (well known or otherwise) during the Olympic games, and then complain about a commentator acting like he knows everyone. Do you get mad when your favorite football commentator (especially in college where the rosters are immense) starts shouting out some perennial bubble guy/redshirt/practice squad guy you've never fucking heard of who barely hits the field and made a nice play on special teams. They give you their alma mater/hometown/major/GPA/the name of their high school sweetheart or baby mama or main squeeze and maybe a fun little factoid (again MAYBE), but they're usually on to the next cause the next play is about to happen in less than 90 seconds. Fifteen or twenty seconds if it's a sport like soccer or basketball where the ball is constantly in play. They're not going to baby you and hold your hand until you figure out who is who. I'm saying this as a casual fan now who constantly sees new faces all the time especially in the midst of this pandemic when new or barely used people are on television every other week. I'm not panicking and screaming bloody murder everytime I see someone unfamiliar. That's what Google (and inference) is for. And as a commentator, especially a supposedly hip one like Excalibur, is SUPPOSE to know everyone regardless if YOU don't know them. That's why I kinda disagree with Corny's hardline stance on the constant reset after every segment. Now, I definitely wouldn't discourage that or giving people just a little more information on what they saw. However, it's not a complete dealbreaker whenever I watch the show that doesn't do those things. If it was, I would never watch anything ever.

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5 hours ago, The Green Meanie said:

How do we know it's not a case of both of them doing their job?

If JR was hired to shit on things and people he doesn't like or know about, then he needs to take a walk to the unemployment line. As it is, though, I don't think that's the case, I think he's just given too much free reign compared to his time in WWE. He had Tuesday and most of Wednesday to come up with something to say about Butcher & Blade that night, it's not like their debut was a legit surprise to the announce team, and he chose to go with "WHO?".

Excalibur is the wrestling nerd fan, Schiavone is the guy who can be a color commentator and is obviously rediscovering his love for pro wrestling every Wednesday night live in front of us, and JR is.... just a bitter old man who doesn't get what's going on, can't keep up unless he's calling a match like Dustin/Cody, and doesn't do his homework on people beforehand (even dating back to his time with New Japan).

I understand that JR supposedly is an ear/eye catcher to these fabled casual fans (pssst they don't exist), but he's actively taking away from the presentation on-screen. If these "casual fans" actually do switch by, hear JR or see him, and he's shitting on how the Lucha Bros or whoever aren't holding the goddamn tag rope, he's either going to give off the impression that these two guys don't know what they're doing, or the fan isn't going to care one single bit - which, in that case, why even bring it up if only the purest and most hardcore fan would care about something like a tag rope, or guys being in the ring with their partner too long, or how the referee needs to do this and do that, etc.

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9 hours ago, The Green Meanie said:

If they were established characters and named as such, I'd give him some slack. But it's hard to give credibility to him acting like he knows the brand-new people that no one has ever seen before.

I'd seen the Butcher and the Blade before they debuted on Dynamite.

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