NoFistsJustFlips

So basically she is more up to date with wrestling than a good chunk of the board lol

Respectfully I'm just asking what would have been good enough for you? How much of this show should have been dedicated to the history of him? He was shown in the opening recap. Every time the graphic was shown he was verbally put over. Punk took time out of his promo to put him over. His name plate had a written explanation of his history. Would a 30 second promo of Suzuki talking to the camera been a good enough introduction of him? I'm asking these questions because I don't understand the point of view and want to understand it. Suzuki is the simplest of all characters. A legitimate old man shooter badass. I don't know how much more of that could have even been conveyed. Like are you looking for a 3-4 minute mini documentary on his career or clips of previous matches? For instance thinking back to any new additions that have debuted during battle royals / casino ladder matches none of them got any extra explanation. Brian Cage just showed up and they verbally conveyed his character. Ethan Page just showed up and they verbally conveyed his character. Lio Rush just showed up and they just verbally conveyed his character. Ruby Soho just showed up and they just verbally conveyed her character. Suzuki just showed up and they verbally conveyed his character. I just fail to see what's different about him versus everyone else. Because I don't remember anyone saying they needed more explanation on Lio Rush or Brian Cage. On this point I agree. The match was a miss for me. Didn't think it was either guy's best work. But I don't think doing more of an explanation on Suzuki's past or motivations would have changed that. Which is kind of my whole point on this talking point. Gregg insinuated he would have been better vested if he knew more about Suzuki. And I don't think any of what was given to us would have been elevated by more dialogue or backstory.

He has openly joked that he could never pass a wellness test and his piss would melt through a styrofoam cup... so I don't see WWE being an option lol. He's also on record as hating his time in WWE developmental. He's also older than 30 and has previous wrestling experience (which is now frowned upon ).

No, that's a pretty fair shot I'll allow it lol. All I'm saying is this is a wrestling bubble talking point that doesn't exist in regular episodic TV. Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Wire, Sons Of Anarchy, Dexter... whatever the episodic TV show is they reward viewers that pay attention. They don't hold anyone's hand and explain why you need to pay attention to whoever. Like Game of Thrones didn't role a clip show to people tuning into the last season to explain who Gendry is while Arya is trying to bang him. They did a recap before the show. If that isn't enough, it's on you to figure it out. And I'm in that boat as well. Sometimes there are things I don't remember and I look it up. AEW already did that opening video. They did a recap of All Out. They did show Suzuki. They talked about him being a multi time world champion. Punk put over he was trained by Karl Gotch. JR put over how surly he is. His name plate had 4 time world champion and New Japan legend. If you need more than that then this isn't the product for you. They aren't gonna slow down to the slowest person's cognitive function (that's not you, I'm meaning in general) and make everyone go at that pace. If that's what you enjoy you won't find it in AEW.

Or maybe AEW just isn't for you? I don't mean that to sound as condescending as it does. But me personally, I can not stand how WWE beats their viewers over the head about every single thing as if we're all first time viewers. So I love AEW not doing constant replays and doing things in hopes of keeping someone new that just clicked the wrong number on the remote. Plus we're in the digital age now. If you wanted to know more about Suzuki, take 10 seconds and type his name into a google search on your phone. At this point you not knowing about him is due to your own laziness, not AEW's presentation. The TV industry does a quick episode recap at the beginning episode. AEW did that. They did the quick recap of what happened at All Out. Beyond that if you have a question it's not out of the realm of possibility to assume you're smart enough to do a google search. Just like if I tuned into Breaking Bad season 4 episode 1 for the first time and wanted to know who Gale Boetticher was (like I just had to do to get the correct spelling).

So clearly Hobbs got a gnarly concussion on that dive, yeah? His head bounced badly on the floor. Took forever to get back in the ring. Was out of place and falling about. Ref & Dante talking to him to call what was left. He forgot to cover on the spinebuster because he was so loopy. Trust me dude, I've been there a bunch. All things considered they kept it from going off the rails. That's a big plus for two guys as inexperienced as they are.

This is a much more rational post. I don't think our opinions are as far off from each other as I first thought. I do concede that there could be a Jericho effect. (In that the top of WCW had a rock solid glass ceiling he knew he had to leave to be a star). But I think it's a stretch because WCW didn't do rotational booking. They ran their top guys on every show and younger guys couldn't get any shine. AEW in that respect is already much different. Punk didn't come in and work Jericho or Moxley, as Hogan did when he worked Flair right away. He came in and worked a young AEW original. So while it could happen, I see less potential for that Jericho effect. AEW's most flattering booking quality is everyone gets some shine and they truly try to present all of their acts as important, not just filler. And Owens really could be pulling an Orton. I wouldn't blame him for it either. I think he would have more fun in AEW. But at a certain point WWE is going to decide they need to open the bank to pay big for some of their top guys to stay. He seems like a guy they would pay big to keep.

I'll grant you TNA failed. But in what world did WCW becoming super successful and over taking the number one spot for about two years (and going from losing money to mega profitable) a failure to you? Yes WCW went out of business. But your narrative isn't the reason why. The purse strings got closed. The handcuffs went onto the creative team. WCW was still kicking ass in 1998, even if WWE had pulled ahead. The corporate mergers / standards & practices handcuffs stopped them from continuing to sign big names and book more reality based gritty realism. They had to tone it down and go more PG on screen and it was not good. Then all the really bad management and booking changes accelerated things. They didn't fail because they signed too many big names. They went out of business because Turner stopped letting Bischoff do his thing without restrictions. And a neutered WCW vs the full on attitude era was a massacre. Another historically inaccurate take. The ultra successful WWE 80s expansion did this exact thing to great success. They rotated all of the big stars so none of them got over exposed. Hogan had less than 10 TV matches per year from 1984-1993. Is that a cause for alarm? No. Because 15 of those remaining TV weeks had a Savage match. 10 of the remaining TV weeks had a Bobby Heenan guy match building up a Hogan challenger. 10 of the remaining TV weeks was anchored by the tag title story. The last 7 weeks would feature some of the biggest stars they took from other territories. You're showing your recency bias by saying these doom and gloom things about a strategy that's worked incredibly well historically. Just because Hangman didn't work this PPV, doesn't mean the viewing audience has totally forgotten who he was. He still retains all of his value. Same with Cody / et all. Now I'm not saying AEW has things balanced perfectly by any means. There is room to improve for sure. But to assert that people like Ricky Starks that didn't make the PPV is now so far down the pecking order fans can't / won't care about them is so off the mark it's not even funny. Did fans of the 80s expansion forget about Savage or Steamboat (comparable to Stark's current position) if they didn't have a PPV match? Of course not. The truth is they are booking in a way you are not familiar with. You can certainly have an opinion on if you like it or not. But to state arguments framed about how they are doing it "wrong" or making "mistakes" or that they are going to "fail like TNA & WCW did" is just being historically ignorant. They may still fail. But it's not going to be because some of their good talent miss PPVs sometimes. Or because they signed too many great attractions.

The TNA meme is inaccurate tho. Especially since the original instance of this was WCW. They signed a shiiittttttt ton of WWE guys between 1994-1996. Hogan wasn't alone. It was Hogan, Bossman, Earthquake, Duggan, Nasty Boys, Brutus, Honkytonk Man, & Savage. Then Nitro starts with Luger. Then the hits keep on coming. Hall & Nash. Plus random undercard guys showing up out of nowhere like Martel & Janetty on a consistent basis. So the TNA talking point is clearly just for those not well versed in the history of wrestling. This is the strategy that wins. You get as many guys with TV hours under their belt as possible to mix in with top tier original guys. That's what creates the spark. Known dudes in a new environment vs the brand new hotness. nWo Hogan vs Sting. TNA was following the right plan, they just had terrible writing and kept shooting themselves in the foot with shitty management. That first Hogan show got 1.4 million viewers. It's just they couldn't sustain it with Russo's shit writing and Dixie's shit management. The method was fine, it was their unique brand of awful management that ruined it. Not the method of signing known quantities. And the quicker people stop with this uneducated hot take, the better off we will all be.

Guys. The steps have pegs that slide into place. It's not a weight issue. He was trying to lift the steps before the pegs were slid out. They are 25 pounds max. They are aluminum and a total work. Think of something you hang on the wall. It has the large opening for the screw, then you slide it down to the smaller area to lock it into place. That's how the steps connect.

Keep in mind it's not the buildings proving this stuff. It's a separate catering company that travels around with them using their own product and cooking equipment. You have to be at the building by 1PM on TV days and you're not supposed to leave. So you spend legitimately almost 12 hours on TV days at the buildings. And these are big beefy athletes in most cases along with the crews and production and office works. Getting 2-3 wrestler sized meals a day. With huge variety of things offered. Because you gotta have the clean food for the body guys, but the camera guys and stage builders don't want grilled chicken. They want real food. 20k per TV day is not at all shocking to me.

Disagree. After years of struggle Rey climbed the mountain and became the world champion. And in doing so was booked as if he was at the bottom of the mountain, not the top. He was always a flashy underdog that didn't win every match. But he was never a jobber that lost every single match he wrestled. He went from flashy underdog to enhancement talent with a shiny accessory. That doesn't create intrigue. It makes Rey less valuable. It makes your title less valuable. And it makes the next champion less valuable when you win the title off of a guy on a 50 match losing streak. Who does that help? Now Rey was over before the title win, during the title win, and after. But that is irrelevant. It was poor booking with no positives for anyone involved. You're supposed to be creating stories that people want to see. No one wants to see likable flashy underdog who finally won the world champion, treated as unworthy of the big accomplishment he finally achieved.

Also looks better because the traditional black strap is much better than a purple strap. But I do agree, the NXT logo center plate is more visually appealing than the WWE logo one. Wonder if all the titles are gonna get rainbow paint splatter straps and new plates with the updated logos for the transition.

I think all it takes is seeing the post Mania booking to see that wasn't the plan. In theory I could go with your premise. But the fact that the second he won the title he started losing all the time, doesn't really line up with the him being protected / lined up for a big push. It comes off as it was. Vince was begrudgingly pushed into the feel good story and in retaliation he booked Mysterio as way too much of an afterthought as a champion. I get that characters are different and Mysterio worked because he was always the underdog. Like just because Rey won they shouldn't have started booking him like Super Cena. But they went all the way the other way with it. He lost every single non title match he was in just about. That's not how you book someone you had meaningful plans for. It was the right call to put the title on Rey, he was ready. But the way it happened probably hurt his career more than it helped him. At least he got that second reign that lasted almost a whole episode of Raw during The Summer of Punk.

I do think he can last 45mins. Maybe if he had a super fast paced cruiser style to begin with I could see that as an issue. Or if he hadn't been working on any cardio since he left. But MMA training is grueling on cardio. So his normal style, being able to spend a few minutes here and there soaking in the most likely crazy loud crowd reactions, a couple breaks for each overtime... I think he'd be fine. A lot of what I expect the match to be is the old Michaels vs Diesel strategy of a pinball bumping around a stationary object. I don't mean that as a slight. I mean that as in Darby will be doing all kinds of craziness and most of Punk's stuff will be counters to the craziness / trying to slow him down. Take a full minute or two to setup his top rope elbow, he misses, big sell, Darby pinballs a series of offense. Ends with him missing. More selling / holy shit chants for the crash & burns. I think Darby is the perfect guy for his return match to be against in that sense. I'd be less confident if it wasn't in Chicago. But that crowd is gonna be giving Punk everything they got and that adrenaline can carry a dude.

If it's me, Darby vs Punk main events. You have a 30 minute time limit. They go to a draw. 5 more minutes. It's still a draw. Second over time and one of them wins clean. Take your pick. This protects them both as virtual equals. I'd go with Punk over. Darby gets made to look equal and can survive the loss. Punk gets the story beat of "wow do I still have it? Sure I won, but just fucking barely." Then the handshake. Post match 2.0 & Garcia beat down. PPV ends on Bryan Danielson making the save and beating the shit out of Daniel Garcia for our enjoyment.

No he didn't. He broke a toe. Still not fun, but nowhere near blowing out a knee.

I've skipped over like 5 posts of your that I had the initial reaction to reply to, but this one is just a bridge too far. We get it, you don't like The Young Bucks. You don't have to like them. Like who you like. But you're just making up fucking lies at this point. Like who you like or whatever but I'm just kindly asking you to also do that while living in actual reality. In no way shape or form have The Young Bucks ever been presented as Steiner like. In no way are The Young Bucks reminiscence of The Mulkies. The Young Bucks are not body guys, but they don't have bad bodies by any means. And your stupid raging on their bodies is some weird body dis-morphia in your head shit. They are bigger than Punk, Darby, Bryan, Starks, and a bunch of other people. (Also TNT didn't cancel Nitro because of nWo beat downs. From January 1999 - March of 2001 there were exactly 2 months of nWo existing. Jan 1999 Finger poke version, Jan 2000 Bret version. And both were short lived and had nothing to do with the actual reasons WCW got sold / canceled.) Take a step back and chill out with your rants man. You make a lot of good posts here and everyone enjoys interacting with you. Except on this Bucks shit. Let. it. Go.

I'd gladly take an unadvertised Andrade vs Buddy Murphy match.

As someone who has tickets for that Giants vs Saints game a flight & hotel already booked... yeah I'm uhh... very hopeful they play that game there. Otherwise I'm going to be a very grumpy man.

I'm going to go ahead and step away from the conversation. I'm just not going to be able to express my point in a mature rational way conductive to continuing the conversation. I'll just leave it at this, hope no one on the other side of this conversation spends 18 years of their life working towards a life goal that just disappears over night.

Direct quote taken from your first reply: The training camps they have run since the performance center has been in operation had been diverse camps that had some athletes with no experience, rookies that have been fully trained with a solid look, and veteran talent from all over. Even the one they did in Vegas last week had some actual professional wrestlers in it. Going by their own wording, that's not how they are going to do it anymore. Again the exact phrase is find people with the look and train them from the ground up. That's exactly what they were doing 13-16 years ago all the way up until Triple H took lead and created the performance center. That hasn't been what they've been doing since 2013ish. While they have signed some people with no experience since then, that wasn't their *only focus* like it will be now. I disagree. It's not baseless speculation. It's going by exactly what they are saying and applying that to other time periods. If they had this same practice in place in the late 90s they wouldn't have hired Foley or Austin or Triple H or Kane. They would have hired a shit ton more of Brakkus. If you want to take a wait and see approach to it you're more than welcome to. But I'm sure as hell not interested in the timeline where they just hire 100 more Brakkus dudes and reject anyone that had previous experience from that era. And just as it's a crazy proposition for the 1990s, it's also a crazy proposition for the 2020s. And to your second point, The Ringmaster sure found a way to break through the 1995 / 1996 bad booking and writing issues. I get that now and then isn't an apples to apples comparison. But you don't seem to get you're disqualifying a shit ton of really talented men & women with the potential to break through all of that due to experience and knowledge. They are point blank saying yes we know this is professional wrestling, but if you have even done professional wrestling you can not be a competent professional wrestler. It's asinine.

I'll start out by addressing my last comment. You are allowed to like what you like. It's a bit baffling to me personally that you are carrying water for this new policy. But even still I shouldn't have taken the Stockholm Syndrome shot. I apologize. In my head that wasn't me taking a shot at what you like (on screen) and was me taking a shot at you being okay with this (crazy) new hiring policy. But taking shots at all is unnecessary. "They aren't finding randoms with no interest." They are actually. You don't remember the stories of Johnny Ace going through modeling catalogs looking for attractive people to hire in the late 00s? Sure there are athletes that aspire to be wrestlers that can apply and get a shot in a tryout. But this new policy is also very similar to the old policy. Find people with the look and train them from the ground up. My actual point is, they aren't good at doing that. And if you disagree I'm gonna need some examples from you. Big E & Bianca are about the only ones I can come up with who are good and have no real previous experience. But Big E & Bianca are two names out of probably 200 attempts at this point. My point about previous experience still stands. Are you okay with losing out on potential Stone Colds, Undertakers, Mick Foleys, ect? Those diamonds in the rough that could be mega stars with a few character tweaks or given the right gimmick. You're not gonna get any of those anymore. You're gonna get 1,000 Ricky Ortiz dudes. 1,000 Omos dudes. 1,000 Candace Michelles. Bland people with no knowledge of what to do in certain situations when they have to deviate from the plan. They have no knowledge or experience to listen to a crowd and change up what is happening to get that reaction. You can take a shot at "small time indys" or whatever (which I find offensive), but the point remains getting real reps where you're own you own to figure out what works or doesn't work is far more valuable than having a script to follow and when that doesn't work panicking and having them call the match for you from the back, through communicating with the ref's IFB. If this policy was live in the 80s you wouldn't have gotten Hogan or Savage or Piper. In the 90s no Bret Hart, or Shawn Michaels or Steve Austin. In the 2000s no Cena, no CM Punk, no Daniel Bryan. We'll never know what awesome dudes we lose out on in the 2020s & 2030s because they won't exist.

The bad habits talking point is real. But 95% of bad habits aren't things that are wrong or dangerous. They are edicts from an eccentric erratic billionaire. Like we gotta teach them to say championship opportunity. Title match is too rasslin pal. A belt is what holds your pants up, it's called a championship title. Shit like that. And to do your rest holds / submission attempts / final pinfall facing the hardcam. Majority of those habits are already taught at legitimate schools or you pickup working with vets. It's an over rated talking point. This is so true. And it's not only a good match issue. The best characters are the ones that go against the grain. Stone Cold is certainly better than The Ringmaster as an example. When everything is smashed through that same mold, you aren't going to get a lot of variety. I think Orton is one of the best at the house style out there. But just because I enjoy him doing it well doesn't mean I want to sit through 10 more matches of dudes way worse than him just doing the same shit. The same reason people pull for a sports team for years and years, even when mismanaged. There's a love for the idea of what they are supposed to represent even if that's not what they represent in the present. A want to see them reclaim their former glory. I wasn't a big Hogan fan as a kid, but I'll be damned if The Mega Powers rise and explosion wasn't well crafted story telling that kept me gripped. I'd assume most people watching that don't enjoy it, yearn for it to be good again. It's just the dumbest fucking idea ever. Compare it to any other learned craft / skill / profession and see if it sounds any less ridiculous. Hey pal you're a very pretty man, want to be a plumber? No experience? Perfect! Hey mam, you have one hell of an athletic background. Want to be an emergency room surgeon? No experience? Perfect! There's a reason the best -at anything- are the best. They love it and they dedicate their life to leaning about it. Hard work. Dedication. Experience. All moot in WWE going forward. What a bland company they will have 3-5 years down the road. I mean if you want your emergency surgeon to have zero experience before signing onto a hospital and "learning their craft" more power to you. Sounds like you have a bit of the Stockholm Syndrome to me. Especially when the system WWE has setup to teach is currently batting about .100 with the success of the the prospects they send up .

If that is the new logo it sure as hell fits the new paint by numbers approach to wrestling they have. Death metal skull logo to nickelodeon logo is quite the change of pace too.