AEW Scouting Report

[Hustler of Culture]

4 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Please define "legit superstar."  Is there a poll someplace?  Is it the "would he get mobbed walking down the street?" test?  Is it "would non fans know him?"  Because "outside of AEW's audience, nobody knows who X is" is not a great argument in this age of pretty much every piece of entertainment being fractured and niche.  I mean WWE is the world leader in wrestling, right?  What percentage of their roster is actually known outside their fanbase?  It's got to be below 5%.  Who cares?  The very thought that a wrestling promotion should try to chase mainstream popularity is so outdated. 

One measure you can look at is Q-Score which helps measure the familiarity and appeal of a celebrity.

Note that you won't find any Q-Scores for any active wrestlers these days outside of Jericho (who has a very high Q-Score).  But before 2010 you would find Q-Scores for wrestlers in the WWE.

Therein lies a big issue with the wrestling business...the universe is rapidly shrinking and casual and non-fans don't even know who these wrestlers are anymore.  But they used to know who Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Steve Austin and even Bret Hart were.

And to say that a wrestling promotion try to chase mainstream popularity is so outdated would mean that AEW's strategy is outdated as they have certainly chased mainstream popularity by having Mike Tyson, Shaq and now Snoop Dogg on their program.  Is Sting being on the roster meant to hit the niche market or the mainstream market?  Seriously...ask yourself that question.

Finally, if anybody really believes that Moxley wasn't developed by the WWE...then there's no reason to take your posts seriously.  You're just being a blind lemming for AEW.

 

 

HoC

[AxB]

There's nothing of Ambrose in what Moxley does in AEW, that wasn't already a part of Mox pre-WWE. NOTHING. Moxley developed Moxley.

[Goodear]

Sonny Kiss

Let's take the Sonny Kiss gimmick and put it over here on the side and discuss the talents of Sonny before diving into what he's doing with himself. Sonny as a talent is built around his flexibility almost to the point of overemphasizing it with too many tumbles and splits interlaced through his matches. Not everything he does needs to end with him doing the splits or doing a cartwheel. Where his flexibility really comes to shine is selling especially when it comes to getting put into submission holds. Because he's so limber, Sonny really makes things like the Walls of Jericho or the Accolade look devastating. Otherwise some of his offense (especially his finish) actually look worse than just doing the move the standard way. EDIT: I forgot to mention that Kiss has a really bad habit of bailing out on big strikes as he has shown against Miro and Omega, falling out to the way before contact is made.

I really don't have an issue with Kiss' gimmick although he needs to show some different levels if he wants to move up the card. Right now, he's so paper thin that it is going to limit him to a lower card gimmick. It's a character that needs to be layered in order to be effective. Something in particular from his opponent breaks the character and Sonny goes up a gear for example.

Sonny's look is appropriate for the character but it's a character that doesn't have a lot of places to go as it stands right now. He's got to find somewhere to go with it that's not exploitive or going to get AEW heat with LGTQ folks by having the heel in the feud go too far. It's a character that you almost have to ignore as a writer because of the pitfalls.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Goodear

[Goodear]

Stu Grayson

Voted most likely to get his first name taken if he worked for WWE, Stu has a lot of tools to work with and only some minor wrinkles to iron out. Let's start with positives. Stu has lots of good intensity that meshes well with the more passive Evil Uno. Grayson plays bad cop pretty well and they should lean into that as they do different things with The Dark Order. This doesn't have to change if they all go face either as it's more important to show the differences in the membership than to make them all smiling weirdos. Stu's gear is okay even if it's very Kratos-esque. He might want to consider changing some small parts of that so it doesn't feel quite so blatant. 

Stu's offense is really good, I think there might be a little too much of it? I might drop the backflip kick thing he does, but the rest of it looks good. I quite like the senton to the apron especially and the torture rack backbreaker is impressive even if he's picking up bigger dudes with it. I don't know if I would have him move to something else that plays off his acceleration more than his power as I think that's Stu's breakout characteristic.

Stu's a guy who I think could break from his tag team and be a singles star, but I have issues thinking that he'd be bigger as a singles than as a tag guy. It would be more of a lateral move as far as I am concerned. I'd basically let the rest of my roster make that call and put Stu where I needed him most. I don't think Uno would work as a single as well.

[Goodear]

3 hours ago, AxB said:

There's nothing of Ambrose in what Moxley does in AEW, that wasn't already a part of Mox pre-WWE. NOTHING. Moxley developed Moxley.

This isn't the positive you think it is. If he learned nothing in 8 years, he wouldn't have grown at all since 2011. That's a very long time not to progress in any meaningful way.

[AxB]

No, you've missed my point. What I'm saying is, he's evolved and changed, but not in a way that's taken anything from Dean Ambrose. He's adopted some shootstyle influence, and his character is far more the battle scarred veteran than the self destructive youth that he was embodying ten+ years ago. But none of that is him taking anything from what Dean Ambrose was. It's the evolution of Moxley.

Now WWE has that performance centre, where they send people to teach them new ways of working and how to do different styles. But they mostly use it to homogenise everyone and turn them into the cookie cutter, bland, formulaic WWE television Wrestler. And that's what Dean Ambrose was. Now it's possible that some of Moxley's evolution could have been prompted by things he picked up from being around Regal or whoever, but none of that shit was Dean Ambrose shit. Dean Ambrose had his WWE mandated signature spots that he did in every match. And Jon Moxley currently uses none of them. Rebound Lariat? Nope. Elbowdrop to a standing opponent? Nope. He left that stuff behind him. Jon Moxley developed Jon Moxley.

[NikoBaltimore]

2 hours ago, Goodear said:

Sonny Kiss

Let's take the Sonny Kiss gimmick and put it over here on the side and discuss the talents of Sonny before diving into what he's doing with himself. Sonny as a talent is built around his flexibility almost to the point of overemphasizing it with too many tumbles and splits interlaced through his matches. Not everything he does needs to end with him doing the splits or doing a cartwheel. Where his flexibility really comes to shine is selling especially when it comes to getting put into submission holds. Because he's so limber, Sonny really makes things like the Walls of Jericho or the Accolade look devastating. Otherwise some of his offense (especially his finish) actually look worse than just doing the move the standard way. EDIT: I forgot to mention that Kiss has a really bad habit of bailing out on big strikes as he has shown against Miro and Omega, falling out to the way before contact is made.

I really don't have an issue with Kiss' gimmick although he needs to show some different levels if he wants to move up the card. Right now, he's so paper thin that it is going to limit him to a lower card gimmick. It's a character that needs to be layered in order to be effective. Something in particular from his opponent breaks the character and Sonny goes up a gear for example.

Sonny's look is appropriate for the character but it's a character that doesn't have a lot of places to go as it stands right now. He's got to find somewhere to go with it that's not exploitive or going to get AEW heat with LGTQ folks by having the heel in the feud go too far. It's a character that you almost have to ignore as a writer because of the pitfalls.

Very fair assessment but FWIW my wife is a HUGE fan of his and her coworker is obsessed with him. I don't think him or whatever feuds are one bit exploitative and  if he ever became a star I have a lot of faith in him appealing to that base. But I also say this as somebody who really loves the crap out of him.

Anyway, I think his ceiling is TNT title contention and hopefully a run with it for some time. If done right that's quite alright but it really depends on what they see in him. 

[Ramo2653]

That Sonny Kiss write up just makes me think of his feud with Jack Evans in Lucha Underground which was built around Sonny finding that second gear.

[Technico Support]

15 hours ago, Hustler of Culture said:

But they used to know who Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Steve Austin and even Bret Hart were.

 

And the common denominator is what?

Hint: times have changed, as has the way we consume media and the incredible volume of entertainment options we have.  The Rock is the most recent example you mention and he came to prominence over two DECADES ago.  We were on dialup back then and weren't even borrowing DVDs from Netflix by mail yet.  This is like saying some guy who had a program on the Dumont network was a bigger star than (insert current celebrity here).  Dude, the were like two channels back then.  Your option was to watch that guy or stare at the wall eating a brontosaurus burger.

[Hustler of Culture]

2 hours ago, Technico Support said:

And the common denominator is what?

Hint: times have changed, as has the way we consume media and the incredible volume of entertainment options we have.  The Rock is the most recent example you mention and he came to prominence over two DECADES ago.  We were on dialup back then and weren't even borrowing DVDs from Netflix by mail yet.  This is like saying some guy who had a program on the Dumont network was a bigger star than (insert current celebrity here).  Dude, the were like two channels back then.  Your option was to watch that guy or stare at the wall eating a brontosaurus burger.

We have far greater access to pro wrestling/sports entertainment than we have ever had.  The times changing has nothing to do with the lack of popularity and name recognition of pro wrestlers...it has to do with how pro wrestling is watched and thus the ratings are going to be completely different from the ratings say in 1996.  

The popularity of wrestlers has declined because the industry has failed them as a whole.  WWE owned almost all of the market share and then drove fans away from the product and nobody was there to satisfy those fans.  

The Rock was not the most recent example I came up with as Jericho is still very recognizable and has a significantly higher Q-Score than even Steve Austin at this point.  Unfortunately he's a shell of himself and doing stupid musicals and people aren't interested in that.

A while ago Meltzer was giving insight about how you really need to be careful with babyface temporary transitional champions.  He cited Kerry Von Erich winning the title over Ric Flair as an example that once the babyface loses the title, their heat is gone.  I would also submit that Tommy Rich being a short-term champion really hurt his career as well.

I think you need to be careful with anytime a very over babyface loses.

Raven talked about this a couple of years ago with how when he won the ECW heavyweight title from the Sandman.  Raven thought he would be heavily featured in the following week's ECW TV show and instead the focus was heavily on The Sandman.  Raven thought that was stupid and told Heyman that and Heyman replied that Raven had been elevated and that they need to immediately rebuild the Sandman otherwise he would get diminished too much.

Granted those instances are dealing with title losses, but I do think the same applied for Scorpio Sky, particularly since AEW was just formed and even getting a title shot was actually a bigger deal than getting a title shot for a well established company.  It was fine that they booked Sky to lose to Jericho, but they needed to push him afterward to sustain his elevated status.  Instead they basically forgot about him and a guy that had the potential to be one of the bigger names in the company and maybe go beyond that is basically back to the same status he was when he arrived in the company.

But hey, the Dark Order needs TV time and Marko Stunt needs to get some offense in.

 

 

 

HoC

 

[Hustler of Culture]

14 hours ago, Goodear said:

Stu Grayson

Voted most likely to get his first name taken if he worked for WWE, Stu has a lot of tools to work with and only some minor wrinkles to iron out. Let's start with positives. Stu has lots of good intensity that meshes well with the more passive Evil Uno. Grayson plays bad cop pretty well and they should lean into that as they do different things with The Dark Order. This doesn't have to change if they all go face either as it's more important to show the differences in the membership than to make them all smiling weirdos. Stu's gear is okay even if it's very Kratos-esque. He might want to consider changing some small parts of that so it doesn't feel quite so blatant. 

Stu's offense is really good, I think there might be a little too much of it? I might drop the backflip kick thing he does, but the rest of it looks good. I quite like the senton to the apron especially and the torture rack backbreaker is impressive even if he's picking up bigger dudes with it. I don't know if I would have him move to something else that plays off his acceleration more than his power as I think that's Stu's breakout characteristic.

Stu's a guy who I think could break from his tag team and be a singles star, but I have issues thinking that he'd be bigger as a singles than as a tag guy. It would be more of a lateral move as far as I am concerned. I'd basically let the rest of my roster make that call and put Stu where I needed him most. I don't think Uno would work as a single as well.

I think Grayson is an excellent athlete, probably a top-5 athlete in the company.  I just hate the gimmick.  I like the size and work style difference between him and Uno, but Uno and the gimmick just comes off like amateur hour.

I do agree that there's a bit too much of offense from Grayson.  Typical indie way of thinking instead of understanding that pro wrestling is one of the few places where less is truly more and you can still do some incredible athletic stuff in the ring, but do less of it and it get far more over with the audience.

I don't see him as a singles star because he really gets lost in the shuffle in AEW because of his size and look and being in a faction with an awful gimmick.  I could see him in the tag role of being the cocky, smaller guy teaming with the bigger guy (ala Al Snow & Unabomb)...writing checks his ass can't cash.

Sonny Kiss is Tom Magee...very athletic, but the wrestlers he works with have to work around him and he isn't competent enough to return the favor.  I find the 'gimmick' to be hack, but I feel the same about any reiteration of a Gorgeous George type gimmick and by judging Dalton Castle, the Gorgeous George type gimmick is still over in wrestling despite my disdain.  I'd rather see the Kiss gimmick toned down a bit more and cut out the sexual orientation spots and instead be a wrestler that happens to be transgender and somewhat flamboyant.  I think there's classic angles and storylines that can be used to make Kiss into a very over babyface that the fans are behind.  I think some of the spots he does in the ring get lost in translation as far as becoming a white meat babyface.

 

 

 

 

HoC

[AxB]

Wouldn't it be funny if this thread got locked before the whole roster got discussed?

[Craig H]

I legit can't tell if it's Ganc or not.

[Goodear]

The Butcher and The Blade

Love that their first names are ‘The’. Anyway, B and B have been a while now and made some solid changes by altering their finisher away from the sideways backstabber suplex which never looked good and altering their gear some. I like the whites and aprons they where as street gear because it’s not generic and unique to them. They’re actually seem to be getting some steam with some much needed wins after a lot of losses upon their introduction. I assume this was done to level the playing field so Eddie Kingston’s group wouldn’t get blown out of the water by the Death Triangle. But any port in a storm right? 
 

Individually, Blade is the more polished guy but Butcher has more of an upside as he’s got a better look and presence. Blade wrestles better but Butcher is more Memorable and that’s more important. I don’t think AEW is really interested in promoting them up from being Kingston’s flunkies and I guess that’s an okay spot. I’m just worried they have so many factions that you have now the 7th most important faction in the company and they might just be better off being on their own working the mercenary angle they had when they first came into the company.

[AxB]

Nah, Ganc wants to stay on our good side, or we'll tell everyone how he was G Gordon Liddy and started the Savage/Steph rumours.

I thought it might be Victator, but Vic would have dropped the gimmick once he got sufficiently wound up.

[Goodear]

Tay Conti 

I’m actually pretty high on Conti. I like her style which is very different from pretty much every other wrestler in national prominence. She’s is going to have to learn to meld her judo stuff with her wrestling stuff a little better as it can be very ‘okay this is the part where I throw you around, now we are going back to regular stuff’. It’s not a seamless transition at this point is what I’m getting at.  Tay will have t be able to work that out if she’s going to get to a Four Horsewoman type level. Unlike some on the AEW roster, I think she has a chance. 

[NikoBaltimore]

3 hours ago, AxB said:

Wouldn't it be funny if this thread got locked before the whole roster got discussed?

 

3 hours ago, Craig H said:

I legit can't tell if it's Ganc or not.

Man, that guy is so not worth paying attention to.  I ignored his ass some time ago and I feel all the better for it.  Though I do hope a suspension or ban happens for him.

[John E. Dynamite]

5 hours ago, Hustler of Culture said:

I find the 'gimmick' to be hack, but I feel the same about any reiteration of a Gorgeous George type gimmick and by judging Dalton Castle, the Gorgeous George type gimmick is still over in wrestling despite my disdain.  I'd rather see the Kiss gimmick toned down a bit more and cut out the sexual orientation spots and instead be a wrestler that happens to be transgender and somewhat flamboyant.

Gorgeous George portrayed himself as effeminate as a means to get heat from audiences in the Nineteen Forties. Brilliant and influential as the ploy was, is was a gimmick that drew its power from the homophobia of eighty years ago. And I will gladly give you Dalton Castle as a babyface inversion of that trope for a North East millennial audience that grew up wondering why their crazy uncle was so against gay marriage.

Sonny Kiss is a a legitimately queer person portraying a character that is, by all accounts, Sonny Turned Up To Eleven. And he's being booked as a lower-card babyface/Jobber to the Stars, which is a good role seeing as how he's a bumping savant and - because opinions like yours exist - the gimmick generates sympathy. The only qualities Sonny Kiss shares with Gorgeous George, the prototype main-event chickenshit heel (which is the FURTHEST THING from Sonny's spot in AEW), is that they present personalities that read as feminine. That's it.

You imply that a queer person wrestling in a sincerely and enthusiastically queer manner, in 2020, is the same thing as Gorgeous George spraying himself with perfume so homophobes in 1947 Ohama will pay to see him get punched.  You have the worst opinions on this board.

Edited January 7, 2021 by John E. Dynamite

[NikoBaltimore]

Are you fucking serious with this shit? I really don't want to tag an admin but I'm sorry he needs to go.

I was too nice with my post before, but fuck you HoC. 

EDIT:  Sorry, but I'm gonna have to tag @Dolfan in NYC on this one after all.  Between what he's saying about Sonny plus his comments before about Japanese women it's just too much.  And I love the thread which considering we're on "S" names doesn't have much further.  It's just a shame his posts are in here.

Edited January 8, 2021 by NikoBaltimore

[John from Cincinnati]

So no scouting report on this Sting kid? 

[Hustler of Culture]

16 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

Gorgeous George portrayed himself as effeminate as a means to get heat from audiences in the Nineteen Forties. Brilliant and influential as the ploy was, is was a gimmick that drew its power from the homophobia of eighty years ago. And I will gladly give you Dalton Castle as a babyface inversion of that trope for a North East millennial audience that grew up wondering why their crazy uncle was so against gay marriage.

Sonny Kiss is a a legitimately queer person portraying a character that is, by all accounts, Sonny Turned Up To Eleven. And he's being booked as a lower-card babyface/Jobber to the Stars, which is a good role seeing as how he's a bumping savant and - because opinions like yours exist - the gimmick generates sympathy. The only qualities Sonny Kiss shares with Gorgeous George, the prototype main-event chickenshit heel (which is the FURTHEST THING from Sonny's spot in AEW), is that they present personalities that read as feminine. That's it.

You imply that a queer person wrestling in a sincerely and enthusiastically queer manner, in 2020, is the same thing as Gorgeous George spraying himself with perfume so homophobes in 1947 Ohama will pay to see him get punched.  You have the worst opinions on this board.

Good lord.

The comparison that YOU made is a very big comparison.  It would be like saying that the only comparison between Superstar Billy Graham and Hulk Hogan was that they were blonde huge, Venice Beach bodybuilder types.

But you forget that they share other parts of their personalities such as their flamboyant behavior and the similar type of spots they do in the ring where they use their sexual preference to befuddle/embarrass the opponent.  Doing a twerking spot to throw off/embarrass the opponent doesn't simply 'read as feminine' and isn't done in a 'sincere and enthusiastically queer manner.'  It's a gimmick done for effect.  Many queers don't act in the enthusiastic manner that you describe in your pigeonholing of the queer community.  

The real big difference now is that GG was a heel and SK is a face.  Just like Billy Graham was a heel and Hogan was a face.

I'd rather see more of normal Sonny Kiss than Sonny Kiss turned up to 11.  And if that makes my opinions the worst on the board, then so be it.




HoC

[Technico Support]

31 minutes ago, Hustler of Culture said:

I'd rather see more of normal Sonny Kiss than Sonny Kiss turned up to 11.  And if that makes my opinions the worst on the board, then so be it.

You realize you're saying your preference is for a queer person to "act less queer," right?  I'm trying to give you the benefit of a doubt but you make it really difficult.

[Hustler of Culture]

1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

You realize you're saying your preference is for a queer person to "act less queer," right?  I'm trying to give you the benefit of a doubt but you make it really difficult.

I'm saying that my preference is for Sonny Kiss to act like Sonny Kiss the person instead of acting like an exaggerated version of Sonny Kiss.

I've never said anything about 'acting less queer' or suppressing the person they are.  

If you're LBGTQ, I really don't give a shit.  If you want that to be part of your in-ring persona, knock yourself out.

I understand the general rule of thumb of wrestling gimmick is to take the real person and turn them up to 11.  I just find when dealing with gender/sexuality it's become lame due to it being overdone and the gimmick becomes about the person's gender/sexuality instead of the person themselves.

 

 

 

HoC

[Dolfan in NYC]

 

[Dolfan in NYC]

I've got a work conference call, so listen up.  

I'm locking this for 6 hours to let nerves calm.  

HoC, you are walking a thin line.  For further reference, see the saying under my avatar.