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December 2021 Wrestling Discussion


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17 minutes ago, caley said:

tl;dr Vince clearly likes Owens, but never really cared for Gallows/Anderson

All valid points and I agree with you. Owens and the Good Brothers are clearly on different levels. Just because Vince sees value in Owens today and likes him today, doesn't mean he always will. Vince loved Braun. Even wanted to program him with Taker at Mania out of the gate if the reports are true until he was talked out of it. And eventually whatever Vince liked about him didn't matter because he was deemed to not be worth the price tag anymore. That's what I'm railing against. Not beating the drum for The Good Brothers. Just trying to point out to the corporate sympathizes that beat the drum for WWE that WWE treats their guys like shit and you shouldn't "both sides" their terrible labor practices. But your take is entirely true here.

I also want to mention how much is saddens me that standout big man on the indys Josh Briggs is now just a cowboy schlub. I'm sure his paychecks are better and shit. But man, as someone who enjoyed his work on the indys... bums me out.

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Besides MJF, how many heels are really hated nowadays? Lashley and Roman don’t generate nuclear heat most nights.  Most AEW heels still get cheers from at least some of the crowd.  I dunno what Adam Cole would have to do to get booed out of the building.

I wish more guys generated MJF heel heat.  Not a big fan of cool heels.

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50 minutes ago, supremebve said:

This isn't the same thing. If my job fires me,  I don't get paid. If their job fires them they get 3 months of pay. The problem with WWE contracts are that they're one sided. The wrestlers have to honor the terms of the contract for the dustin of the contract,  but the WWE does not. With that said,  this is pretty much how nfl contracts work as well. 

NFL contracts have guaranteed money. They may cut you before you get the entirety of the deal. But you still know the floor of what you will get no matter if they cut you or not. OBJ got released by The Browns. The Browns are still on the hook for a portion of his salary this year that was guaranteed because he went unclaimed on waivers. So not exactly the same there either.

All I'm saying is making 11% of what they agreed to pay you sucks. And that there's no one here that can convince me that WWE is the baby face. Y'all know what Nick Kahn's annual salary is? $1.2 million. Plus a $5 million signing bonus. Plus $15 million in stock. You know what kind of severance the former VP they fired this year gets? $750k a month for an entire year. They treat their cooperate employees real well. So don't tell me they can't do better for the boys doing all the actual bumps.

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27 minutes ago, Mario said:

Besides MJF, how many heels are really hated nowadays? Lashley and Roman don’t generate nuclear heat most nights.  Most AEW heels still get cheers from at least some of the crowd.  I dunno what Adam Cole would have to do to get booed out of the building.

I wish more guys generated MJF heel heat.  Not a big fan of cool heels.

EVIL (and the rest of House of Torture) is pretty hated but I’m not sure it’s the right kind of heat.

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40 minutes ago, Mario said:

 I dunno what Adam Cole would have to do to get booed out of the building.

Cutting the shout-along entrance would be a good start.

Edited by Dog
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43 minutes ago, Mario said:

Besides MJF, how many heels are really hated nowadays? Lashley and Roman don’t generate nuclear heat most nights.  Most AEW heels still get cheers from at least some of the crowd.  I dunno what Adam Cole would have to do to get booed out of the building.

Tear up an Uno deck? 

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Going back to Cody and the joke of him wearing two belts. I mean, you joke, but that's exactly the ridiculous and somewhat irreverent thing that would get him over as a huge babyface again. It's practically the same thing that New Day did that turned them face. They kept doing more and more ridiculous shit with the trombone, the New Day Rocks/Sucks chant, and the dancing. They just got more and more ridiculous like they were something born out of Adult Swim and the next thing you know, they're the biggest faces in the company. 

Cody turning things up to 11 like that, wearing two belts, getting even more ridiculous with the entrance, etc. would make the crowd go full circle on him and start cheering him again. 

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Adam Cole literally needs to beat the crap out of Schiavone in the middle of the ring, one of those beat downs that take way too long, so the fans turn on him for 1) beating down Tony and 2) taking way too long.

Only problem is I’m 99% sure Tony can take him.

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1 minute ago, Ultimo Necro said:

Adam Cole literally needs to beat the crap out of Schiavone in the middle of the ring, one of those beat downs that take way too long, so the fans turn on him for 1) beating down Tony and 2) taking way too long.

I dunno.  Tony looks kinda punchable, lol.

Britt running down to save Tony then joining with Cole and putting the boots to Tony would work.  She’d become the most hated heel in the company.

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Just now, Mario said:

I dunno.  Tony looks kinda punchable, lol.

Britt running down to save Tony then joining with Cole and putting the boots to Tony would work.  She’d become the most hated heel in the company.

If AEW ever has a “Tracey Smothers Riot” that might be the cause of it.

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2 hours ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

This part is non-sense. Owens changed his location on Twitter to Mt. Rushmore (the name of his group with The Young Bucks & Adan Cole in PWG). He changed his bio to almost there. He's friends with them and clearly he himself entertained the idea of it. Now maybe he did it only to drive up his own price. But your fake story narrative dies a quick death because Owens himself was actively the one who started that story.

 

Purely speculation on my part (then again this whole discussion is based on lots of assumptions) but Owens could have just been annoyed at fans saying where he should go and trying to make the call he was making the jump to AEW so he decided to do that to troll them. He strikes me as the type of person who would do that for shits and giggles. As someone else mentioned he also likely ended up leveraging the WWE for more money by saying without saying that he was considering leaving.

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1 hour ago, caley said:

If you wanted to start a new AJ Styles group, you could just as easily bring up those two corny country bar guys in NXT (One is named Briggs...I can't remember or bother to look up the other) as AJ's lackeys and they would be, at minimum, about as good as the Good Brothers were at much less money, at a much younger age, with less baggage.

Josh Briggs was exposed for allegedly sexually grooming a 13 year old during Speaking Out. So, quite a bit of baggage there.

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38 minutes ago, AxB said:

Josh Briggs was exposed for allegedly sexually grooming a 13 year old during Speaking Out. So, quite a bit of baggage there.

Fucking hell, apparently I missed this? Was it actually Briggs? If so, him continuing to be used at Beyond really sours my view of them...

Edit: looked into it and apparently they immediately cut ties. 

Edited by christopher.annino
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3 hours ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

I'm guessing people still hate The Miz?

That dude is the best heel of the modern era. He can actually garner legit heat. 

I saw a bit of "This Week in WWE" (Pretty much the only way to make the shows palatable...and even these are tiresome after the endless "I NEED YOU TO STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING RIGHT NOW...this business, I love it so much" commercials) and remembered the time when Miz would announce and talk about the birth of his daughter, to fairly huge amounts of heat...so you may be right.

2 hours ago, AxB said:

Josh Briggs was exposed for allegedly sexually grooming a 13 year old during Speaking Out. So, quite a bit of baggage there.

Okay since I didn't know his first name or the name of his partner...I clearly did NOT know about this nasty part of his past either! So substitute country guys with Von Wagner and someone else, and my point stands!

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4 hours ago, Infinit said:

People should just sign one year contracts with WWE to keep leverage on the worker's side.

Well WWE nowadays have been singing  guys to 3 year contracts. I believe 3 years deals are considered long-term so in the whole scheme that's not that long compared to five. 

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I think Matt Cardona is actually WAY more successful and entertaining than MJF w/r/t being a hated heel that the fans actually hate. 

I don't even mean that as a slight on MJF. He's successful in that regard. He's quite often very entertaining in that role. 

I just think Cardona has perfected the art of heeling it up for the post-modern fan base.

(Hmmmm... Maybe being well-built, handsome, talented, famous, good looking, and engaged or married to someone gorgeous, while not being humble and self-effacing is a good way to get heel heat these days. Are there any other wrestlers that come to mind who could leverage that?)

Edited by Gordlow
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One big problem with comparing WWE contracts to NFL contracts is that NFL players get actual guaranteed up front money in the form of a signing bonus.  So say the # on paper for player X is 30 million over 3 years, that player might get $5 million up front when he signs, but that's all that's guaranteed, he can be cut at any time after that and the team is off the hook.  It's also a way to circumvent the cap in many cases and we don't need to get into the minutia of NFL contract wizardry, but players will get a lump sum to sign even if they never realize the top line figure that makes the headlines.

i have no idea how exactly WWE structures their contracts these days with downsides, dates, bonuses etc. but I'm pretty sure KO for example didn't get like 500K-1M up front just for signing.  If he did, bravo!

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13 hours ago, Matt D said:

And now believes in feudalism.

Quote

The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown - Albert Camus

 

Coming back to the 100% immersion thing, I think it's ok to have fun with the audience - plenty of great TV shows do this. The Sopranos did it when Chris shot the pastry guy in the foot, The Deuce did it when they had Bobby Dwyer say 'It pays to go with the Union' #ReElectFrankSobotka. Seinfeld did it with the 'Jerry' TV show - though of course wrestling....'It Ain't Seinfeld'. But coming back to the point, it was probably ok for The Miz to talk about getting kicked out of the locker room in one promo, but it's not something that should have been returned to again and again. Similarly, Vince saying to Punk 'I can call you Phil right?' was funny, but 'this is Phil Brooks talking to Paul Levesque' was a bit cringe. Tbf to Trips, he knew better than to constantly talk about the Kliq Curtain Call....it got referenced a couple of times but it wasn't overdone and it didn't really drive storylines.

Wrestling has its own peculiarities....wrestlers largely call eachother by their working names (I am thinking this happens a little less now but I imagine it is still normal), and most wrestlers will at least answer to their working names pretty much 24-7. And Vince McMahon as a TV character is always going to be a play on the reality that he does run WWE. But the truth is, even method acting seeks to work with the reality of the actors' situation to a certain degree....that's good when it adds to the scene in a way that supports the narrative, it's bad when (to use an example from some acting book I glanced at) the scene becomes about how it's a bit hot in the theatre this evening. 

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think commitment needs to be 110%, every moment, but it should be your loci and careless use of 'shooty shoot shoot tropes' can definitely do a lot more harm than good and WWE should have a 2-3 year holiday from it. I genuinely think AEW understands the nuance a little better, but they should be careful.

Edited by RunningFromAmerica
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14 hours ago, Gordlow said:

I just think Cardona has perfected the art of heeling it up for the post-modern fan base.

(Hmmmm... Maybe being well-built, handsome, talented, famous, good looking, and engaged or married to someone gorgeous, while not being humble and self-effacing is a good way to get heel heat these days. Are there any other wrestlers that come to mind who could leverage that?)

I doubt it. If that person is out there, I've not seen their work. 

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