Leaderboard
Popular Content
Showing content with the highest reputation since 02/18/2024 in all areas
-
I could not give less of a shit about how the casual fan feels about that. This isn't a shot at you odessasteps. I just cannot understand why I, as a wrestling fan, have to tie my fandom to the financial interests of the promotion I choose to watch. I watch wrestling for my own enjoyment. That's literally the only reason. I would like the promotions I like to be successful and be able to continue to produce wrestling that I like so that I can watch it, but that's it. I was happy to see Jun Akiyama on my tv wrestling Bryan Danielson on a random Saturday night, and that's as far as I go with it.17 points
-
17 points
-
Wrestling media personality Matt Koon really stuck it to all around POS Val Venis today. Such a great move.17 points
-
16 points
-
16 points
-
You get old enough, you get good at taking a breath and just backspacing the sentence you were starting to write away.15 points
-
15 points
-
15 points
-
A couple of my favorite all-time matches were just matches that got booked because it would be cool if the two wrestlers faced each other. Kobashi/Joe and Necro/Joe jump to mind immediately. Hell, in Japan there for a while, we got all kinds of great shit because someone decided that Hashimoto wrestling Kawada would be cool and stuff like that. I'll take "Danielson vs random Japanese legend announced two days before a show" any day over "guys fighting because of a fake shampoo commercial snub" or "week 189 of one of the Usos feeling conflicted about Roman Reigns", personally.15 points
-
13 points
-
Can we be done with quarter hours and ratings talk, for fuck's fucking sake? This is not 1997. This shit does not matter. Using an outdated value system to criticize something is really really stupid.13 points
-
I think pro wrestling discourse on the internet has always been pretty dumb, but I think what you're seeing a lot of right now (going wholly on vibes here), is a couple of things: 1. You, me, probably most people on this board are old now. We have seen a lot of wrestling. We have lived through a lot of wrestling. More than new international markets, I think there is a whole generation of young fans coming online now who grew up in a post-WCW era where there was nothing but WWE, and who are YOU to tell them that your love of Steamboat-Flair is an iron-clad truth while their love of the General Manager era of RAW is dumb nostalgic revisionism. They don't want to be told that the things they loved when they were younger fucking sucked any more than any one else, so there's a real "Get out of my way old man" attitude -- which is good, honestly! -- but instead of it being applied in defense of more obscure, unheralded wrestling that you might have otherwise overlooked, it's about some real historic low points of American Wrestling. 2. As an extension of that, I would guess that maybe that same cohort are at about the age where you really push back against the idea of being seen as pretentious, and you learn the really fun judo move of being like, "Actually, I love dumb shit! Dumb shit is GOOD, and all that arty-farty crap that critics say is good is BAD." Which, again, is a totally fine way to approach things, but I think mellows out with age as you realize that there's more to appreciating the world than being contrary. Because the internet wrestling world has had to slog through, god, two decades(?) of there being an American Wrestling monopoly, not much kind has been said about WWE for a very long time on here, which results in there being sort of a clear consensus that can be bucked. 3. This has resulted in a lot of dumb culture war stuff bleeding into wrestling. Not in terms of political parties or anything, but in the sense that people are really defining who they are or are not as consumers. Like Marvel fans screeching about Martin Scorcese, there is this sense of identity that people are tacking onto their fandom. An AEW fan is THIS kind of person (fill in your own blanks here) and a WWE fan is THIS kind of person, and all arguments originate based around these fixed ideas of defining yourself in opposition to something else (nevermind the stupid binary that this creates). This results in really boring back and forths that never seem to be in good faith at all and are mostly defensive posturing. 4. Which also results in the very cool, very interesting people whose entire worldview seems to be, "In my opinion, everything is good and nothing is bad and nobody should ever say anything bad about anybody or anything." The most interesting people who talk about wrestling, I think, are people who have very specific, idiosyncratic viewpoints. Like, if you can write (or speak) compellingly about how JBL's Cabinet was the greatest faction of all time, I'm all ears, I would love to be convinced of this, but I need to actually believe that you believe that and not feel like you're just saying it because you're worried that liking Kenny Omega would make you look like a huge dork (it would, incidentally). 5. The internet is just worse than it's ever been. A total ramshackle, decaying version of itself that is breaking everyone's brain more every day.13 points
-
13 points
-
12 points
-
The most realistic angle AEW has ever run is Angelo Parker getting a new punk rock girlfriend and just immediately ditching all his own friends. "Sorry I couldn't help out when Killswitch was beating your asses, Ruby asked me to work the door at her friend's basement show"12 points
-
12 points
-
My first post from that thread: Winning a round against Vince isn’t “beating” Vince. Vince beat Eric. WWF beat WCW, and it was all because of Starrcade. I know I know alot of other dumb stuff happened but they were just nails in the coffin. The coffin was Starrcade. I don’t even buy the “yeah but” concerning Sting being out of shape. Was Hogan in shape? Was ANY WCW champion since a young STING ever in shape? I wish Sting would have challenged Hogan to a lap around the building. It might have killed Hogan. I think I said that in the other 25 years thread. Heck not long after this the criteria for being champion was to be out of shape as Dean Malenko pointed out lol! So seriously, fuck Hogan. He ruined it. He ruined it all. It was the best build up to a match ever. Better than Hogan/Andre, better than Austin/HBK, and better than everything else. Hogan wussed out of doing business because he’s a chickenshit and a liar. And that’s really all there is to it.12 points
-
Alabama supreme court just ruled that all individual parts of any Frankenstein monster are each children with full constitutional rights. In a related story, they also ruled that already living immigrant children are not children but are, in fact, Frankenstein monsters and can be shot on sight.12 points
-
12 points
-
People are trying to quarantine the ratings talk again. The feeling has been restored.11 points
-
11 points
-
PWTorch reports that Kevin Kelly has been let go by AEW. His recent social media comments against Ian Riccaboni over the weekend led to his termination. Additionally, Kelly's on-air performances were deemed below par within AEW, with Tony Schiavone stepping in to assume the lead play-by-play role a few months into Collision's run, a move reportedly supported by Tony Khan.11 points
-
11 points
-
Well, you want a nice loud sound when you kick the leg out of somebody's leg.11 points
-
"Hakushi's First Seder" would dethrone Fuji Vice as the greatest WWF skit of all time! James11 points
-
10 points
-
I deleted all of my social media a year or so ago because I got tired of the massive scope of it all, and the thought of how people's behaviors were grating on me. Whenever I read something like "I want to read X from you, not Y", it's like... okay, but you don't have to read them at all. That's their life. They can live it how they choose. And in the same capacity, I can step away from it. I think I mentioned before that I had a decent amount of followers on social media due to my past life, and it was untenable for me. Once you hit five digits on the follower count, it's absolutely unworkable. "Don't tweet about this, tweet about that!" Like because you watched me on a thing, you're entitled to tell me what to talk about? So weird. I had friends who said it was more difficult to keep track of me without social media, but my phone doesn't just work when I text them, they can initiate the conversation. And if you didn't have my number, hey, you must not have been that close with me in the first place. It really helped to narrow who actually was interested in/important to my life and who was just there out of convenience/clout for said past life. Nowadays I have a locked Twitter account that I use just to follow my niche interests, I don't respond to anything, I block engagement farmers and paid shills, and aside from my private discord for friends and family and a couple of group chats, that's all I really use. And, real talk? Never been happier with my internet usage.10 points
-
Be it wrestling boards or other places online, ithink cultivating your feeds is the key to how horrible your experience will be. Life’s too short to deal with abuse or people you can’t stand.10 points
-
I became a fan of wrestling at 5 years old and my favourites were Bret Hart and Sting. Still are as a soon to be 39 year old. I found WCW VHS harder to get than WWF in shops but I remember vividly my parents getting WCW The Great American Bash 1990 as Sting beat Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and WCW Halloween Havoc 1990 as Sting defended against Sid Vicious. Sting appealed to me through the face paint, the bright colours, the flat top blonde hair and the energy he had. My favourite version of Sting however was Crow Sting particularly September 1996-December 1997 as Sting representing WCW battled the nWo. This Sting grew out his hair long and brown, wore black and white, he didn't speak. Sting vs. Hollywood Hogan was the best built match in wrestling history with the worst payoff in wrestling history at WCW Starrcade 1997. Fuck Hollywood Hogan and Eric Bischoff for that more so Hogan pulling a "That doesn't work for me, brother". Sting should have run through Hogan in winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. WCW Starrcade 1997 was the beginning of the end for WCW. My least favourite version of Sting is nWo Wolfpac Sting, Sting in the nWo just wasn't right and the red facepaint looked like he'd overslept in the tanning booth. We now turn to TNA. My two favourite periods of this part were Sting briefly ditching the long singlet for tights as an amalgamation of his gimmicks from October 2006-November 2006. Sting regained the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for the second time 16 years after his first. The second was Joker Sting. Kudos to Sting for reinventing himself like that. Naturally (no pun intended) appealed to me as a huge Batman fan. In 2014 Sting made his WWE debut at Survivor Series which we never thought possible. Sting would have his first WWE match at WrestleMania XXXI and there's a lot I hate about this. The wrong opponent in Triple H, the wrong winner, the nWo helping Sting. Fuck it all. It should have been Sting vs. The Undertaker. The man who never left WCW vs the man who never left WWF. Worse still was Sting suffering a severe spinal injury vs Seth Rollins for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at Night of Champions 2015. Sting somehow finished the match. Sting would headline the Hall of Fame 2016 class announcing his retirement. Cinematic matches became a thing and that's how Sting thought he'd get his match with The Undertaker but sadly never came to pass. We were all taken aback when Sting signed for AEW in December 2020. Sting had his first match in six years at AEW Revolution 2021 in a cinematic match and wrestled regularly in 2021-2024 in tag team matches with Darby Allin and jumping off high things. I'm so glad Sting was able to go out on his terms and get his flowers. Sting had his final match ever at AEW Revolution 2024 three years after having his first AEW match there. Thanks for reading.10 points
-
10 points
-
Being there to witness this live with my daughter, which it was her very first live wrestling experience was surreal. I honestly didn't think anything would top seeing Kingston/Akiyama live on Zero Hour before Full Gear 2022, but I can confidently say that seeing Sting's send-off live with my kiddo and two of my best friends in the world is hands down the best live wrestling experience I've ever had in my life.10 points
-
Side note this men’s roster is sort of approaching 2002 WWE levels of stacked. And just like then, I’m not saying everyone is currently in a good story, or being used right, or whatever, but goddamn. You could literally Battlebowl the matches every week and you’re guaranteed classics.10 points
-
10 points
-
My enduring memory of Sting will always be the night when he and Lex Luger interrupted a NWO tape in the production truck during one of the Disney episodes of Nitro, and when he's being escorted out by security, shouts that there is free pot pie and Mountain Dew in their trailer. (This is followed up by Luger going "really? That sounds great!")10 points
-
HAKU watches the Shockmaster debut for the first time ever: https://twitter.com/DarkSideOfRing/status/176329382255594706410 points
-
10 points
-
A handy-dandy guide of things that I, personally, me myself and I only like in pro wrestling, and it will make me more likely to watch on a week-to-week basis: - Personalities I can get behind. I don't have a set type. Whether it's the Barbarian booting someone in the mush, Kris Statlander being a goofball alien, Greg Valentine slugging people, 2 Cold Scorpio doing ridiculous things in between dances, Hangman Page being depressed, whatever. If I don't feel a connection to anyone on the show, it's hard for me to get into it. - Those personalities appearing with regularity. I don't need my favorites to appear every single week, but if they aren't there three or four weeks in a row and there isn't a reason why, I'm going to get discouraged and start to watch something else. - Stakes behind why folks are fighting. A bigger share of the purse for the winner? Great! Moving up the rankings? Spectacular! These two folks just don't like each other and want to punch each other in the jaw? I can do that. But if it's just a cold match thrown out there for the sake of filling time and nothing ever comes of it, I'm going to be annoyed. In other words: is this match destined to be a Coliseum Video Exclusive, where it's just there to pad out the Supertape? Then I probably don't need to see it. (A note: Squashes and enhancement matches would fall under the stakes rule, as long as there's a clear establishment that Star Wrestler X is mauling Local Talent Y to help them climb up the ladder.) Things I absolutely don't care about: - Star ratings. Couldn't care less. Send them to the pits of Hades. Abolish the ratings systems on Cagematch, while we're at it. - How many fans are watching. Are people in the crowd supposed to make me care about what's happening in the ring? Why should I care about what the TV rating is? - Going back to my earlier point, filler matches and padding. Someone earlier said that it's fine to let the wrestlers wrestle, and I'm fine with letting folks get reps, especially in this era where house shows are going by the wayside. But if the match is just there to chew up ten minutes of a show, I'm okay with skipping it. If I want to watch a match in a vacuum for the sake of saying I'm watching wrestling, I'll pull up YouTube and watch a match featuring people I know I'll like rather than random people being presented to me with no context having a match that the promotion has no intention of following up on. I couldn't tell you how many of those filler matches are actually happening nowadays because I watch things after the fact if they interest me, but there you go. Someone get working on a time machine and get me a young 2 Cold Scorpio again.10 points
-
9 points
-
So now that I'm not on my phone but on a computer I might as well say a few things. I'll quickly say I didn't care for Joe/Wardlow and the Jericho tag. The Wardlow stuff is way too late and while I don't hate the guy there's just nothing that will make me care about what he says or does. I hope to be proven wrong one day. And the best part of the tag was how incredible GoA looked. They need to get some big wins. That aside the show fucking ruled. Sorry Curt but I love the CEO theme and so did Bo$$ton. Everything about Mercedes screams big-time star and if you're going to build the women's division of the future around somebody then why not her. I wasn't sure about heel Okada with the Bucks but holy fuck he absolutely completes them. If you didn't like Bucks themselves acting high and mighty here comes a legend and suave-ass motherfucker to give them tons of credibility. Plus he was wonderful throughout the match and it's all to setup him again Kingston. Jeeeeeeeezus. I want to be apathetic to what Ospreay does for various reasons yet it's impossible for me to with a promo like that. Nothing and everything made sense at the same time and I was fired up for the Danielson match once it finished. Though if he was pissing blood from his head then he might wanna get that checked. I'm eagerly anticipating Matt's writeup on Jay/Darby but this was by far Jay's best match in AEW. It might not have been a PPV epic but if you had one match to watch of Jay White this is it. He transitioned from trying to be a face because of BBCG to just shedding all that and going back to the heelish form he always should be. Darby was the perfect opponent for this as he bumped around like mad and had a fucked up back on top of that. The missed coffin on the apron might not be a top 10 "Dude, WTF?" type bump from him but factoring in the back it's pretty close to it. It all just fucking worked so well and is one I'll be rewatching for sure. Willow/Riho was good but it was all a means to get to the post-match. I'm glad Mercedes isn't starting right away with Toni and is instead in the Willow/Julia/Skye sphere. That'll be a great for her to get back into the groove and get her ready for the big stuff to come. One thing that I want to make sure is to not take what we are getting for granted. We're getting big-time stars coming in to mix it up with other big-time stars and we all will rejoice. This is fucking awesome times, folks.9 points
-
I forgot, speaking of money, I really liked the "coin flip into Okada's theme" entrance.9 points
-
I like Bullet Club Gold being heels again. Hopefully, now we can get the trios titles unified.9 points
-
They’re overplayed but I love that recently they went out of their way to tell any racist/alt-right/fascists to fuck off, they don’t want them as fans.9 points
-
Just another patriot taken down by the deep state9 points
-
9 points
-
While absolutely a looser story, Hangman Page's storyline from the start of AEW to him winning the belt from Omega was definitely a good, long arc. They could have absolutely hammered it home better, and ending it just to give that goof Punk a vanity reign was a massive misstep, but it was definitely a good, long story. I'm probably missing some steps, getting some out of order, etc., but: Almost wins the belt from Jericho in the first title bout, gets too much too fast Meanders a while Tags with Kenny to win the tag belts That falls apart; Hangman talks about winning them back but Kenny wants nothing to do with the team, and turns heel Gets manipulated by FTR into screwing his longtime friends, the Bucks, so the whole Elite is gone and Hangman thinks it's his fault Is befriended by the Dark Order Gradually finds his confidence and strength through friendship, all the while Kenny is talking shit about how he'll always be below him Wins the world title I'd argue that AEW's story quality hasn't been the same since then. But you can put some of that at the feet of the Punk mess, Cole getting hurt, MJF getting hurt, and TK not really being the best at adjusting his booking plans due to injuries, etc.9 points
-
So I wrote a bunch of words about the story. Not to cross-post my stuff but... http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/02/aew-five-fingers-of-death-219-225.html Now, that said, I only spend about a paragraph on the match itself because the story isn't Danielson vs Akiyama, it's Danielson vs Kingston, and having an Akiyama/Danielson match is a cog in the machine. AEW does that a lot. Danielson vs Thatcher was a cog in the machine on the road to Danielson vs MJF, for instance. It's, to a degree, how AEW books outside talent when they're on the run up to a PPV and a PPV match. I think this was a pretty important match in the ongoing Danielson vs Kingston story, however. Sometimes you will get a throwaway match, like Orange Cassidy vs Kushida or Shibata, for instance (and you could argue those were to help define the nature of the International Belt, but.. eh). This was different than that. Does that mean that maybe there could have been a moment to build up Akiyama vs Danielson as a legendary dream match instead of a match that served a purpose of supporting two regulars about to wrestle? Yeah, probably, but they can come back to it now that there's some track laid. More than that, they're just running out of time with Danielson so there's only so much you can do and so many masters you can serve. I though that this navigated things pretty well, all things considered. It wasn't a cold match. It served a purpose. It was essential to the overarching story heading towards the PPV a week later.9 points
-
9 points
-
I wonder if Tony and the booking agents had to physically restrain Christian when Sting mentioned that his father passed away9 points
-
This is like disgusting levels of being a company man almost to the point where it sounds like Vince groomed and brainwashed him. Here’s a better take…Instead of talking about and saying repeatedly how you love the guy and he has a hill to climb, how about, oh, I don’t know, this is fucked up, what it looks like he did was fucked up, this was not the person I knew all those years but if this is the person he is then I can’t be associated with that and it sucks because we had a great relationship but it sucks even more for the life of a woman or even multiple women that he destroyed and THEY have an uphill battle to climb. Instead it’s this apologetic bullshit about loving Vince and he’s the one with an uphill battle and blah blah blah. like, fuck off man. We’re 2 days removed from Trump comparing Navalny’s murder to his own legal troubles of his own doing. The Venn diagram here has a lot of overlap. It's cool and all that Cena did all of those Make a Wishes, but this is such a fucked up response to the situation that in hindsight makes it feel like all of that charity work was a way to cleanse himself of the disgusting shit he knew was happening for years. And it’s equally likely that isn’t the case, but there’s plenty of examples of seemingly good people doing good things to make up for the bad shit they were witness to.9 points
This leaderboard is set to New York/GMT-04:00