NoFistsJustFlips

Odd thing to say. Why is it the side that wanted better for his run the narcissism side? Not the side gloating about it being right, just because they're happy it went the way they wanted it to? Neither side its wrong. Its all opinions. But projecting that anyone who disagrees with your opinions is a narcissist is a wild way to live your life. Had that been the way the run went leading up to the Gunther match, then the Gunther match plays out exactly the same, I think the opinion of it is way different. The problem is he was 50/50 booked since summer. You want it to mean something him losing to Gunther? Dont have him lose to Lesnar & Dom. Dont put him on a losing streak leading into such an emphatic loss. Without speaking for others, for me I would have been fine with it ending how it did it the lead up was better. But with the lead up they gave us it made way more sense to send the live audience home in celebration. In my opinion.

I know this is how Im thought of but I do want to say I want WWE to be something I enjoy. Thats where my posts are so passionate / aggressive. Its frustration. I want it to be good. I want to like it.

You're right. I went back and edited that part out.

https://x.com/RealJeffJarrett/status/2000073989474165154?s=20 Not sure why it wont embed, but ol Double J has a very similar take. Quick everyone go tell him how he doesn't understand the wrestling business lol.

What novel goes well instead of telling you a story, with emotional highs and lows and a narrative through line, we're just gonna throw 16 dudes out there and one of them will be the antagonist once we get to the last page and he has no relationship with the protagonist and you will be satisfied by the protagonist giving up and losing? I understand the point you're trying to make. I really do. But too many people are letting the lazy lead up to this go. You want John Cena to finally have to say thats it guys my body is finally broken down and I must give up? Im fine with that! Just do the leg work of telling that story. Not just oh hey this is the first time Ive wrestled this guy, guess his sloppy ass looking sleeper is just super deadly and enough for my body to give out but Im gonna smile while I do it. Im getting so much push back in here for a completely rational thought. Do. The. Work. Tell the story. I dont even want to go back in time and list examples of times WWE did this because everyone's just gonna shit on it and call me a hater anyways. Wrestling is story telling. Im being told I just didnt understand the novel. This shit wasnt a novel. This was a Highlights magazine in a dentist office with all the crosswords and shit filled out already and Im being told Im being irrational for not saying it should be a New York Time's best seller.

It's more so the mind set of higher ups in WWE that is my issue. Cena's retirement is a symptom of that but not the root issue. Correct none of the workers except Angle complained about how they went out. Some specifically requested it the way it went down (like Batista). What I'm saying is the pattern of going out on your back is tired. Seeing the same thing over and over is tedious. This was the one that made the most sense for the guy to win on the way out. I'm just tired of all the downer finishes, but more so than the finishes being downers it's the smug too fucking bad reaction from the higher ups (Triple H mocking my friend Mark, the smug laugh when he embraced Cena, etc). I have no doubt Cena requested it exactly as it went down. What I'm looking for is WWE to step and say listen John it's not the 70s anymore. The territory doesn't need you to "make" anyone on the way out, we can do that fo ourselves just fine. Let's "make" the fan's year by giving them an unexpected happy moment to celebrate you as you exit (ala Sting, the best retirement run in wrestling history in my opinion). Again it's not Cena losing his last match (or even tapping) that has me riled up. What has me riled up is the lack of story, the lack of character development, the lack of respect for your fans, it's the totality of what they presented on the platter. I'm tired of shit sandwiches. Would have been nice to get a steak. If you want Cena to lose, if you want his last moment to be finally tapping, then put the narrative work in to make it satisfying. But why put effort into any of this right record profits blah blah blah.

All of this is true. But let me show you a pattern to demonstrate my point of going out on your back not really helping the person who beats you by giving them a rub. -Flair retired by Michaels (didn't need it). -Michaels retired by The Undertaker (didn't need it) -Angle retired by Corbin (a case where it could have helped, but it didnt) -Batista retired by Triple H (didn't need it) -Goldberg retired by Gunther (didn't need it) -Cena retired by Gunther (didn't need it) -The Streak ended by Brock (didn't need it) Do you see why I don't think it's such a bad idea for some of these guys to get to win in their last match and give the crowd a feel good moment? Just follow me here. If Cena wins last night and the roster pours out and you play the video exactly the same, the audience is going ape shit with cheers and chants sending the man off in a moment viewers would remember forever. Does any of that *hurt* Gunther? In my opinion it doesn't. Does that reward your audience? Absolutely. When the last reaction of the night is chanting you fucked up at the booker, and not going ape shit with cheers for Cena, you've messed up. They're not going to all of a sudden go bankrupt because of this decision or anything. But it's a consistent pattern that they prefer to troll their audience in important moments instead of reward them and give them feel good endings for these icons. WWE in a nutshell. "We broke another gate record! Profits on profits on profits! Shut up marks you're gonna keep watching, eat a dick!" Just tiresome as fuck to me.

You mean the dude with the longest IC Title reign of all time, two World Title runs, the longest UK Champion, and the guy that already retired Goldberg still needed "made"? I don't know about all that lol. That's the thing. What's done is done. You should be putting one of the titles on him again and having an underdog face chase him for being such a prick. But from everything reported he's not in either title picture moving forward. Did this shine him up for Lesnar at Mania? Even still that match would have been over even without beating Cena. Also I'm not opposed to Cena losing his last match. I just don't like the presentation of how they did it. I also don't like that this wasn't the culmination of a long story. It was just a match. I do think Cena should have won in the scenario they presented us. But that doesn't mean I'm against all scenarios of Cena going out with a loss.

It wasn't always this way, but the reality of our times is that WWE is not a company trying to put on good art. They are a cooperation trying to pull as much profit as possible. And I get it. If an Avengers movie makes 2 billion dollars but everyone universally hates it and says creatively it was bad, but they keep showing up to the sequels and breaking the 2 billion dollar record every year why would Disney change anything? Who cares if people agree they suck creatively, we still made the most money ever. So WWE are gonna keep WWE-ing because the fans keep opening the wallet even when complaining about the product. Current day WWE just isnt for me. They arent wrestling anymore. They're Saturday Night Live with a ring. Over-scripted to the point every breath you take is mapped out and assigned to a camera. Glossy slick trash.

Cena himself has been positioning his retirement as "in three weeks no one will give a fuck that I'm gone". I dont agree with that but I will use that sentiment towards Gunther tapping him. If Sting's run was totally different and a makeup, can we get a makeup run for Cena then? His last year was awful. The difference is AEW treated Sting with reverence. He was an icon that they kept strong and allowed him to shine. WWE was like oooo we have a hook to sell a lot of tickets. Thats it. They didnt treat Cena with reverence. They treated him like just a dude on the roster they wanted to wring every ounce of profit out his name they could. Flair. HBK. Angle. Batista. Goldberg. Cena. Everyone loses. Its always a downer. Why cant they ever just once give the fans that happy ending they want at the end of a run? Undertaker won his last much but no one was sure that cinematic match would actually be the end, otherwise he would have lost too. Im not saying put everyone iver at the end. Just once and awhile when appropriate. Now saying that Im sure a shithead like Lesnar will randomly be the dude that gets to leave on a win. Even if Cena demanded to tap you over ride him and tell him it makes no sense for his character and it does more harm than good.

This is an all time bad take. There's a larger argument here beyond just Cena losing his last match or Cena tapping out. It's an argument that WWE never give their audience a win. There's a reason a large number of people say Sting had one of the best retirement runs of all time. Sometimes you need the guy on the way out to win to give any meaning to the loses on the way out. WWE just non stop does losses on the way out. Every single big retirement ends the same way, and this one should have been the one they decided to let the fans win. The ridiculous ticket prices to get in. The fact Cena was booked to take as many losses as he did in the lead up to this match. Gunther not needing this. The crowd not wanting this. Do we all remember when Triple H did hsi my friend Mark promo when Punk left. They had 4.5 million viewers then. People decided to leave after constantly getting trolled and made fun of by the people in charge. In a world where this is arguably your biggest attraction of all time who was thrown in a match with no story just a tournament... and he taps out to a dude that's already a made man. Gunter gains nothing from this. This doesnt build him to a title run. This doesnt get him over the hump. He's had two world title runs already and retire Goldberg as well. When the end of your John Cena tribute show has the audience chanting Bullshit, You Fucked Up, and AEW (on the post show), well... you fucked up. How does any of that reaction move anything forward or have anyone remember this night fondly? WWE the company and especially the higher ups making the decisions dont care about fans, they care about dollars. Profits are record high. But so is apathy towards your product. Cena should have won and got a giant celebration with the audience and the roster. His words putting over Gunther as great afterwards would have done as much for Gunther as any of the actual facts of the situation. It's the streak all over again. Brock didn't need it. Gunther didn't need this. WWE just always fills the heat balloon nonstop and lets it pop. rarely does a babyface ever get to pop it. And that's why this was such a tone deaf decision. But why should I focus on that? I should be marking out for the arena gate record they broke last night like Nick Khan & Triple H right?

Just putting it out in the universe... tonight at the game awards we findout what FF7R3's title is...

Quoting this shit post so everyone knows it's a shit post. Thanks for your thoughts. Very constructive. I'm sure we're all better people for having read it.

Yeah thought that was pretty telegraphed, but should still be good. Okada wins his block. Take wins his block. Take wins the tournament / Unified Title. Or just the Continental Title? Who the fuck knows with the scattershot way AEW books their titles. Take walking out for the main of Wrestle Kingdom (semi main because of Tanahashi?) with 4 belts would be a hell of a visual. Take winning both the G1 & the C2 in the same year, and beating Okada in the finals of the C2 would really cement him as a top act too.

Not sure if it's because I went in with such low expectations, but this show WAY over delivered. One of the best PPVs of the year I thought. Crowd unfortunately got a little tired and didn't give the last few matches 100%. But still a very good show. I did not expect Joe to win. That was a left field win for me. I assume Hook slides in as the Trios Champ now. I do not like The National Title. In concept. In execution. In design. None of it. I also thought that was the worst Casino Gauntlet they've done. A real low point for the show. I do like Ricochet getting rewarded for all of his hard work and character progression tho. But why in the world would the title design just be a straight rip off like that? Essentially makes the belt feel like a replica title for me. A very unserious move for a national wrestling company. I loved the Tag Title & TNT Title Matches. The cage match over delivered for me. Thought Mercedes & Stat had a great match. Million Dollar Trios was fun as hell. Them doing the overlapping match gimmick AGAIN was a little much. But I did like the nuance of Okada not even considering showing up for a pre show and only coming out once on PPV. Although no commentator mentioned that plot point unfortunately.

You cant blame the person doing a shitty thing for that shitty thing because of reason XYZ is a REALLY BAD take. It is 100% their fault for stealing if that's the case. No one held a gun to Gunther or the merch marketing team's heads. Could be an innocent mistake. There's a lot of unintentional overlap in ideas in wrestling. So that's certainly possible. But you advocating for someone to do a shitty thing just because someone didnt pay X amount of dollars to trademark something that shouldn't have to be trademarked is not a stance Id imagine many people agree with.

That's some Richard Arpin energy. And with that you'll be stuck with Richard Arpin draws.

As for this point, short answer yes. Long answer, yes. But not only due to that alone. I can only speak to my experiences here. But I helped out in the office for a few different promotions in my area before running something of my own. The title branding is one microcosm of a bigger coordinated effort to brand and market things a certain way. And just in my anecdotal scenario when you crafted the type of branding and actually put time into it, that stuff matters so so so much. The promotion I was part owner of kicked the shit out of anything that had ran here before. And all of that concerted effort on using terms for specific reasons, vs just doing whatever old school stuff the previous owners wanted, made huge difference. It's lots of stuff tho right. Like maybe an easier analogy. If you just grab the generic indy title of Highspots and slap your logo sticker on it, does that affect how you're seen by he fans? Versus spending the necessary money to have a custom top of the line title created for you from scratch? Like there's a lot of little tiny decisions that snowball into great selling points if you put the thought and effort into the marketing and branding. Its about positioning how you're viewed by the fans and trying to make your company as appealing as possible to as many people as possible.

I have noticed, but because I'm of the same mind as TK on this one. We omitted the word Heavyweight from our title name on purpose as well. Because weight divisions in wrestling are out dated. What happens if you want to put someone smaller over for that title? This Darby Allin sized dude is not a Heavyweight. It looks bad. You're limiting yourself and setting yourself up for failure when your small babyface gets heckled for it. Which is in contrast to the word World, which no one ever heckled or cared about (in my experience). I think it's just a generational thing. It annoys people from a prior generation but the current generation grew up only knowing it this way, so it's not that big of a deal.

Your greater point about the world today isnt lost on me lol. But its not dumbing it down. Its simplifying it. You want to draw from the largest pool of available fans possible? Dont alienate them with stuff they find weird. Telling them that the Omaha Middleweight Championship is the top title would be fine to die hards that go to every show they can big or small. But if you want people that casually know what wrestling is to understand instantly without being a barrier to entry you use the terms the widest amount of people know. Our biggest house was just over 800 paid. Not a super indy by any means. But you worked the scene in this area you know how hard 800 paid is to get.

You guys are way over thinking it. Its not about credibility. Its about ease of story telling. I ran an independent promotion. Our title was called the world title. Its as simple as anyone in the world is eligible to come to this promotion and challenge for it. Not a single fan questioned it or got pedantic that it was never defended internationally. Its an in the bubble semantics thing. By your logic the United States Title should never be defended off of US soil. But it is. World equals top. Specific region means below the top.

The truth is World being the term for the top tier title is ingrained in fans. It doesnt matter if your champion travels the world or not. You say so & so is their world champion everyone knows what you mean instantly. Getting cutesy with different branding of your top title may be more logically correct but it's gonna turn off your fan base. So why is this guy just called National champion. Why is this guy th PA Heavyweight champ. Theres no world champion in this company? Its just the easiest way to get your point across with the least amount of air time being munched up.

Was Raw live last night? I thought US events always aired live. But this one had to be filmed on a 1-hour tape delay or something. Cena's IC Title win was trending on Twitter at 630pm Easten time, an hour and a half before the show even started.

They're not banned. The NFL banned teams from distributing them to players. Players are allowed to use them if they provide them for themselves.

Yeah the Andrade situation is really weird how it played out. He got fired for wellness violations. Now with a firing there never used to be a no compete. Youre free to show up where ever because they stop paying you. I think WWE thought AEW wouldn't touch him. But AEW did. And when they did, WWE legal came calling saying not so fast. Now if you get fired for cause you sit for one year. Apparently its been in all the crantracts since a bit before the TKO merger. Totally illegal if challenged in court. Because thats not how independent contractor positions work. If I hire a plumber to fix my plumbing but fire him, he's not barred from plumbing again for one year. But I could rant on the illegal nature of workers getting fucked over in this business for daysss but I will pause it there for now lol.