NoFistsJustFlips

I expect Bayley & Charlotte to be the surprise last team in the women's tag team gauntlet. I really can't see both of them being left off the card if they're healthy.

Yeah man I get it. But I had to scroll through people taking shots at me, 95% of which weren't even about my actual thoughts and feelings. I gritted my teeth and let it go for days and thought I could finally go back to posting in the monthly thread without feeling like I'm an albatross to the conversation. And post number one in the new thread takes veiled shots at me, of which again are not even on point of what I was actually saying. It bums me out. Sorry I'm human and felt the need to express that. I'll go back to suffering in silence. See yall in the May thread.

It's weird how my argument was literally just asking how far down the line are they going to go. Like are we going to lose Goldust & Macho Man & Eugene? And that has been stretched and twisted by just about every poster that has commented since. I stopped posting last month in the general thread, even tho there were other topics I would have liked to contribute to, just so the thread wouldn't get closed / arguments wouldn't carry over. And here you are bringing it into a whole new month for literally no reason. Again, I'm not a "cancel culture" pearl clutcher. I think the term is stupid. There's no such thing as being canceled. There's just companies making business decisions about the ethics they want to align with and society weeding out the shit bags. And no, what E posted about me is not true in regards to feelings on the n word. I'm sure nobody wants a whole paragraph about my views on racism. But if you guys keep projecting the lies and bullshit he claimed of me, I'm gonna have to clear my name. Lets. Just. Move. On. Kthanksbye.

Shit great point. 3 out of the last 4 endings have been top tier god segments to me. That's a hell of a run.

I fucking loved that main event. So many call backs. We all have opinions on styles and work rate and characters and such, and that's mostly subjective and based on opinion. But the true answer to being the WWE alternative is remember shit that happened months ago, and using it to bring things forward in the now. Stalander's return was a amazing coming out of the UFO game. Trent's mom, the van, the Scott Hall debuts on Nitro denim outfit, Trent's return. Them remembering Statlander & Orange had a angle beginning about the boop. That music over that ending with the 4 of them hugging and Trent's mom honking the horn. My god. One of the best endings of a wrestling show in a while. (Well I guess only since two weeks ago when Pinnacle's ending beat down was phenomenal as well). Loved Christian working a Christian match. We can get nit picky and debate of a a guy that big of a deal going that long with Kaz was a good idea. But regardless that style match was refreshing. The Cody / QT segment was effective and felt like a big deal. I know QT and the rest of those guys aren't a big deal. But it was a really simplistic and well executed angle. The six man tag was fucking bonkers. Really liked it for what it was. Legit action movie / car crash non stop adrenaline rush. It didn't have much selling. And it would benefit from slowing down a gear and letting shit sink in. But you can't deny some of those moves are just ridiculous. Thumbs up from me tonight.

Agreed. In theory a cool concept. But in actuality a big swing and a miss. The IWGP Title was so damn gorgeous. This belt is very futuristic and doesn't really fit in aesthetically. I know there's Cody neck tattoo memes, but this reminds me more of that redesigned WCW star ship logo. Just not visually pleasing in any way at all. Instead of it looking like their previous titles merged in a blender, it's the bad WCW logo, Cody's neck tattoo, and the Diva's butterfly belt in a blender. No bueno.

This is some bullshit. How do you extrapolate that? Yo can we get a moderator for when the moderator steps out of bounds? I never said anything remotely close to anything that could be rationalized as that. Yeah man this is where I tap out.

Fair enough. But you're smart enough to see that's what you're also doing in here as well. I disagree with you giving yourself an out for that being okay just because they are running a business. That's a little intellectually dishonest in my opinion. But that's okay we're allowed to have different points of view. But to me it's hard to accept someone's forceful tone in telling me I'm wrong when you're doing a version of the exact same thing. (You used the word racism, but I'm assuming that also extends to racism / trans-phopia / jingoistic views / a general catch all for the sleazy actions we've been talking about. I'm certainly not trying to tell you how to feel about racism specifically). It's still the same dude that used the N word on TV running the place. It's still the same company taking your money that keeps repeating these sleazy actions. And that's okay you're allowed to like what you like. But in the some breath you're also chastising me for not being as forceful as you are for the depth of stuff I think needs to be erased. Surely you can see how that comes off as you having your cake and eating it too? Good point. It's still the same sleazy people repeating the same sleazy shit. I think we should be far more mad about this in context, something that happened in 2020, vs something like Adrian Adonis in 1987. But that's just me. This is true and a fair point. But again this stuff is scripted. Wrestling is in this grey area where we want to treat it like it's real. But it's not. It's a play that plays out in a ring. Case in point the babyface in Revenge of The Nerds totally rapes a chick (pretends he's someone else with a mask and has sex with her without consent) and was cheered for it. Unfortunately that's how things were in the 80s & 90s. No one is saying that's how things should still be presented tho. Again good point. It's still the same sleazy people repeating the same sleazy shit.

To this I respond with this : Like if you want to take that stand, I'm all for it. But go all the way. Don't pick and choose. Because I think it's you who is compartmentalizing things here. I love pro wrestling. But unfortunately I know it's a fucking sleaze factory. The indys of today are way different of the indys of when I started in wrestling. Things are moving in the right direction. There is a lot of representation of all kinds of inclusive thought processes and it's great. But no matter how much better we do on the indys, that doesn't clean up the fact that this business was built on a pretty gross foundation. Deleting the characters you don't like when viewed through today's lens doesn't erase them from existing. It doesn't absolve the decision makers of the time for that gross decision. It doesn't change that WWE / WCW / ECW/ AWA / NWA / whatever else were sleazy as fuck. And in WWE's case can still be pretty sleazy today. So I would just point out maybe it's you who can't come to grips with enjoying this form of entertainment that always has, and still does, profit off of some pretty gross people.

In current day programming? Zero. Zero tolerance for people that should know better in this time and place. Which is why Peacock should have just bought the rights to the live PPVs and let the network be the network. I have a different view on the older content. It shouldn't be judged against today's standards, it should be judged against the standard of the time it existed. I'm not someone trying to stand up for the vile shit. I'm as socially inclusive as everyone else that posts here. My point with this is, through the microcosm of wrestling / scripted entertainment, we all have varying scales of what the line is. Anyone outside the bubble finds *all* of pro wrestling dumb & offensive. Hell there's people out there that find men and women being allowed to wear spandex trunks in public offensive. Do they get to draw the line? Do we have to adhere to the most strict views of that person? Does all old footage have to be cgi to include full body suits like they made the women wear in Saudi Arabia? Where does the line get drawn? Who draws it? This is scripted entertainment. These are characters. Movies have good guys and bad guys. Are we deleting chunks of movies from the 80s when the bag guy says a bad thing? I guess it's not an apples to apples comparison. But I love Macho Man. He was a heel who treated his significant other like shit in hindsight. In today's context it certainly comes off as domestic violence and gaslighting. Do we have to erase Savage's work because of the character? I think we all agree domestic abuse is not fucking cool right? So who gets to decide where a domestic abuse character weighs in vs trans-phobic character? Or vs jingoistic character? Delete all black face content. Delete audio of all slurs. But if you go further than that, the entirety of pro wrestling history is gonna go down with it.

In recent memory Cesaro when he was a babyface had the hottest hot tags I can remember in awhile. Charging uppercuts, dives to the outside, top rope double stomps, rolling through to springboard uppercuts... yeah Cesaro is my answer.

Essentially they paid two 1st round picks and one 3rd round pick to move up nine spots? They better be rock solid sure of the person they are taking at #3 or else Shanahan will be shot into the sun.

This is actually a very good point. This isn't a movie from 1966. This was Vince McMahon in 2005. Fucking yikes lol. Thank you for putting that in the right context.

And just to reiterate, I am in favor of erasing the black face segments. I have zero issue with those being erased from history. And the audio of any slur. My issue stems with who gets to decide what is problematic? There's 7 billion people on this planet and we all have a different scale of what is problematic. Do we get the person who has the highest standards of what's considered problematic? If so there's not much left on the network outside of Brad Armstrong matches. (Well except from 1999 on, because Buzzkill is a drug reference and those are problematic). I don't want to diminish the original issue. Black face is fucking gross and wrong and should be gone. Period. We agree on that. I think everyone universally agrees on that.

Niners thinking out loud saying hey they started editing A, wondering if this means they will edit B, C, D, & E now too does not make him a bad person. Write as many paragraphs as you feel necessary. But he isn't saying anything vile or hurtful by wondering if the flood gates are open now and they will edit everything, since the process has begun. Any instances of slurs should be edited out of commentary. The Nicole Bass quote of JR's you mentioned is disgusting. Erase the audio. The problematic part is the slur. So my point is let's not erase whole segments and matches. Does cutting Nicole Bass' existence out of WWE history help anything? No. Just cut the shitty thing JR says. Same with Goldust. But are you of the opinion that the entire Goldust character should be erased from existence, just because there were a lot of unsavory issues with it? Because once you start down that path you realize that's all pro wrestling in The United States has been for 30 years. Capitalizing on the shittiest segment of society with stories and characters designed to piss people off enough to pay money to see the resolution. Once you start down that track, what is the point of the network? Who wants 15 minute Raws from 1999? Who wants PPVs with 6 matches edited out? Taking them out doesn't erase it from history. Pretending it didn't happen doesn't make it so. Wrestling has done some fucking shittyyyyy things. But that's true about every aspect of society in a time period. Put content warnings on in. Have a sit down PSA before you play that event. Film someone eloquent like Titus explaining why things are the way they were for Goldust (just using him as an example). "In 1995 being gay was seen differently. In the 90s people wrongly judge based on your orientation. That's why Goldust's opponents acted the way they did in the following event. In 2021 we know how wrong that is. But in media in the 90s this was seen as okay. We've come a long way, but still have a ways to go to be a well rounded inclusive society. For more info go to yada yada yada" Wouldn't that be more helpful? Doesn't solidifying why something is wrong help us learn from it?? Especially vs just trying to pretend it didn't ever happen in the first place?

Listen I think there's a rational middle ground between the two sides represented here. Black face is highly offensive and I agree with Piper vs Brown & the DX / Nation segment being scrubbed. Vince dropping the N word as well. But Niners is going further down the path of what if and I don't think that makes him a bad person wondering out loud. We all agree black face has no place being celebrated. But then all the Goldust segments were mentioned. Nicole Bass. Bra & Panties matches. Overly bloody matches. Steph drugged and married. I don't find Eugene and George Steel stuff very tasteful at all in hindsight. If we start taking entire chunks of things off the network based on the past offending people in the present it starts getting pretty incomplete. If we scrub Goldust and Eugene and George Steel & attitude era women & massive blade job matches from history... well there goes WM3 Savage v Steamboat classic, almost all of Flair's amazing catalog, the majority of Trish Stratus' career among a bunchhhhhh of others. At a certain point it gets to be the more level headed sophisticated answer is do what Disney & Warner Brothers do. Put content warnings on there. Say hey this was different era and there's some unsavory things but we're keeping it in here and letting you decide what stuff you want to watch with the proper historical context. Changing and erasing the past doesn't fix our mistakes in the present. (And just for the record I fucking hate the term cancel culture. There's no such thing as cancel culture. It's literally just society weeding out the shit bags. If you don't want to get "canceled" don't do vile disgusting shit. Pretty simple way to live life.)

I agree with this sentiment by the way. But I did want to highlight this quote because it demonstrates exactly what I mean. WWE let McIntyre go 5 or 6 years ago with the same thought process they have about Andrade now. That he wasn't a star, that he wasn't ever going to be a star, and that he wasn't even worth having on the roster. So were they right about Drew then, or are they right about him now? It's a conflicting stance and the best representation of them not knowing what they have / what they're doing than any analogy I can come up with. WWE is straight up plug and play. You can't base too much value on how they do book a guy vs how they don't book a guy because of it. Anyone can become Jinder Mahal and go from jobbing to The WWE Championship out of nowhere with a commitment to a push, whether warranted or not.

I do see what you're saying. I guess my outlook is just different from yours (which is okay). You cite Bret Hart as an example, but Bret wasn't in a place mentally after having his world shattered to produce at that point. Vince fucking him over so publicly in Montreal and more importantly Vince mind fucking Bret's own self worth by devaluing him so much he just let him go to WCW just ruined him. You can't analyze his run in WWE in 1997 vs his run in WCW in 1998 as if it was the same person. He was a totally new, totally broken man. As for my tastes, give me one too many surprises vs none. WWE's current programming is what I think of when I think of driving the speed limit in a Hyundai. Boring. Gets you to where you need to be on time. But there's no heart. There's no soul. In WWE there is no pulse and no reason to expect any surprises will ever happen. You don't ever have to kick yourself because you didn't tune in. There is nothing there that is can't miss. I prefer having too many guys doing too many things where you may not always be able to keep track of everything, or dudes may get lost in the shuffle or whatever, vs that super sterile predictable no frills programming. But that's just my opinion. If you don't agree that's okay. Gasp! Lol. I'm not professing he's a huge star. But dude. How can you add that "he would still be with WWE" part? Like they know what a star is anymore. They don't want stars. They want burger flippers. They wanna churn out content. They don't want gourmet chefs. They're McDonalds. 99 billion served. Same McDouble every time you pull in that drive thru. Saying he's not with WWE therefore he isn't a star / an asset / someone worthy of having is a point of view I just can not get behind.

I guess I just don't understand where you're coming from. There's dozens of situations they can announce things ahead of time and build anticipation for it. Especially with the roster that's already in place. But at it's core, isn't wrestling it's best when you don't know what's coming next? This isn't a catch all for every situation. But surprise is one of the main elements that make a wrestling show a destination program. "Oh shit wonder what's gonna happen this week gotta tune in." You never know who is gonna show up. You don't always know what's going to happen. And that's exciting. Now that's not discrediting anything you've said. I just don't understand why you think it would be better for them to say "Andrade will be here on the April 20th Dynamite, how cool is that. He's going to face Kenny Omega. That will be a great match!" vs him showing up and doing something unexpected or working a match with no tease. Dude just became available two days ago. Let's use the very rare element of surprise that's almost never possible under these circumstances. Sure they should reign in the stuff you complained about. But I don't see how any of that is relevant for a free agent that somehow got WWE not to do a no compete and he can show up just three days after he's a free agent. Use him as soon as he's willing to be there. And DON'T announce it ahead of time. Because the last time they teed up some anticipation for a new signing, everyone complained it was the most over hyped thing ever in the history of wrestling. So don't over hype, just do it.

Direct promotion, sure. But they built up The Exalted One until he was free to debut. They knew that was going to be Brodie. We didn't. But they did. Impact promoted a couple of the recently released dudes were debuting on that one PPV last year. they didn't say who directly. But they still built it up. What I'm saying is there is wiggle room to do things and build up them coming in when you can't have them right now. But this is a case of being able to have a dude right now. Will it matter as much if you let 90 days pass anyways? Seems like a waste of a rare opportunity.

Fair point. And I agree they have relied on that too much. But that's really the only way to capitalize on him being able to start right away. They can do vignettes and build to matches with dudes that have 90 day no competes. This one specific case, unless he shows up somehwre in person and does something it's kind of a waste of this unique situation. But again that assumes Andrade even has AEW on his radar. He very well may not want anything to do with them. It really does depend on what his goal is.

I mean, it depends on what his goals are really. But it can be as simple as starting Dynamite with Matt Sydal's entrance (he's booked to face Omega, if he wins he gets a title match) Andrade jumps him and beats the fuck out of him and demands a title shot. Omega is like fuck no you just murdered that dude I'm not wrestling you tonight with no notice. Then the powers that be sign the match for the main event. It can really be as simple as a one off match. He's hot. This lets AEW benefit from his buzz. AEW & Omega are hot right now doing the forbidden door shit. This lets Andrade get a high profile match in to raise his stock before signing elsewhere / prove he really does have a higher ceiling than US Title JAG midcarder. Like they don't have to sign him to a long term deal. They can get a shock moment / a dope match / and set everyone up for success by literally just pushing Matt Sydal's story off one week. I have the sense Andrade is going to more interested in NJPW / CMLL. But this move as a one off is totally do-able. And they could always revisit signing him longterm down the road. But it doesn't take a whole lot of creativity to get someone that's hot to fit in, at least for a one off.

Damn if that's true, it's a severe departure from their norm. And there would have to be a reason for it. I guess we'll see in the next week or so if he pops up anywhere.

For the sake of the board I'm just putting dude back on ignore. Sorry for the thread detour guys.

Strike one. But I'll find ya. Only so many ring announcers in FSW history lol. For the record I don't actually care who you are. I just wanna make sure I don't accidentally book any stooges that run to the internet to spread the hot gossip to validate their desperate need for acceptance.