NoFistsJustFlips

I hate this narrative. It's lazy. And it's inaccurate. Without "WCW cast offs" Jean Paul, Stunning Steve, Cactus Jack, & Mean Mark WWE never over takes the Monday Night Wars. Without "territory cast offs" the 80s WWF expansion never takes off. Without "WWF cast offs" Hogan, Savage, Hall & Nash WCW never becomes the number one wrestling promotion. Just because TNA sucks and could never make the formula work, doesn't make the formula a mistake.

For the doomsday crew that wanna cut a bunch of the AEW roster to make room... I don't think AEW is going to do releases. The only people they have released were problem issues stemming from speaking out. (And letting Kylie Rae go when she had issues and wanted out). On the flip side, Shanna & Awesome Kong's contracts just expired. Maybe AEW is going to be a the first wrestling company to, GASP, honor their end of a contract. It's kind of bullshit from a performer stand point you enter into an agreement you are stuck in for the duration of the deal, but the company can terminate whenever. maybe, just maybe, AEW is going to let people's contracts expire instead of cutting them early. Or maybe that is just wishful thinking on my end. Point being, maybe chill on the lets fire all these innocent athletes just doing their job because I personally don't like them / see the value in them. Even if your opinion is 100% valid and the truth, can't you just let them quietly collect their agreed to contracts instead of firing them? Just some food for thought.

Speak for yourself. I loved seeing random ass Marty Janetty vs Rick Martel and John Nord vs Bobby Eaton weirdness show up on Nitro.

Seeing that Braun was a paid athlete for a bodybuilding company. Now that doesn't stand out as anything weird for a pro wrestler right? Well they were saying he was making like $30,000(!) a month. With WWE cracking down on outside income... a dude pulling in $360,000 a year from outside income (and doing workout vids for the same company paying Brian Cage & Kenny Omega) he is probably getting cut if he doesn't pull out of that deal.

No. What? Why? Why are you booking a world tag title change on the enhancement show on You Tube??? No. That's a way to ensure the majority of the fans following your product DON'T see a big moment / important title change. Dark and Elevation are not the modern day WCW Saturday Night. They are the modern day Jacked & Metal. You don't book title matches for free on You Tube when Turner is paying you $40+ million a year.

You're 100% right. I should have used Flair as my example. His reigns were also inarguable epics. And he is better comparison for heel Kenny. I know it's 2021. But you're not supposed to like heels. @just drewis an avid Kenny Omega hater. GOOD. He's the bad guy. That's how he's supposed to make you feel. At some point we all fell so deep in the wrestling bubble we forget we're even in the bubble. You shouldn't get mad at the promotion when the champ is a heel you don't like. Be mad at the heel. Anticipate him getting his ass kicked. Pull for your guy beating him. That's how wrestling is supposed to work. I would have a different view if Kenny were supposed to be a face. But he's not. He's a heel. A scumbag cheating heel. Same with The Bucks. Trust in the storytelling. If AEW doesn't give us a satisfying babyface win when it's time, be mad at that. I'll be pissed off with you. Until then, enjoy the ride.

You both make good points. But even if the champions are unlikable, I disagree with short reigns. Those are concerns that need to be addressed before the title reign, not during them. I didn't like Hogan at all. But it's inarguable that his reigns were epic. And that's what I'm going for with my thought process. Even if a segment of the fan base is turned off by the champion, doing quick changes does a disservice to the long term purpose of titles being important. If Omega had dropped the title to OC and won it back on Friday, who does that help? Omega is still the champ after Friday so the people turned off by him are still mad. OC gets to say "I was champ" but that means nothing because he had zero moments in his reign. Fans of OC are also annoyed because their guy got chumped out. The belt also loses value because of the flip flops. Wanting to see the champs you don't like get beat is what the whole business used to be based on. If you don't like The Bucks, well that's great. You now get to experience what people in the 80s that hated Flair experienced. That's a blessing, not a curse.

100% absolutely not. That's one thing I scratch my head about reading the AEW threads here. Everyone wants there to be all these title changes and all these reigns for their favorites. No. Keep the long reigns. Keep the titles important. There's only 3 men out of like 100 that can say they made it to the top of the AEW mountain. While not an apples to apples comparison, almost everyone in the upper card of WWE has made it to the top of the mountain. Ziggler is a former world champ. Jinder is a former world champ. Kofi. Miz. AJ. Strowman. Orton. Rollins. McIntyre. Finn. Owens. I'm sure a bunch more. So why is being world champion a big deal in WWE? Most of the guys there get at least 1 run. Liken that to the 80s. Backlund, Sheik, Hogan, Andre (kinda), & Savage. That's it. Even NWA in the 80s only had Race, Tommy Rich, Dusty, Flair, Von Erich, Garvin, & Steamboat. WWE had 4/5 world champions in 10 years, NWA had 8. For fuck's sake the Universal title has only existed 4.75 years and has had 8 champions and 14 different reigns already. If you want to make stars you need to keep being a champion exclusive. Because then winning the title instantly means you're a star. I mean that's how I view it at least. If you want to keep importance on the titles you can't change them as often as the other guy does. Like people are saying they aren't sure who should beat the Bucks now. Well good. Because they should keep the tag title for at least another year. Then whoever beats them is instantly made.

-Deeb vs Riho is up there for best pre show match ever. The crowd was loud and the work was excellent. And they didn't go crazy trying to out shine the main card. A perfect pre show match to get the party started. Deeb may be the best all around worker in the company right now. Love the vicious edge. Giving me Bret Hart in 1997 vibes for ring work. -Hangman vs Cage was fucking dope. Crowd was on fire. The match was all action. Your boy hangman took a superplex to the ramp followed by a top rope F5 and still kicked. Loved the move theft, I'm a sucker for that. Right man won. Wish they let the camera linger on the post match Hangman celebration. That's one big negative of the current product. they pack in SOOO much they don't have time to let things like this or SCU post match farewell get the shine. -Wild Thing with a full house singing was god damn electric. This match fucking rocked too. A clash of styles that meshed well. Bucks as heels are 30000x better than faces. I know there are some that still don't like them but they are in the discussion for best tag team in all of wrestling along with The Usos & FTR. I'm fucking begging for them to at least acknowledge on commentary that Rick Knox is their boy and that's why he's so lax with the rules. It doesn't solve the problem, but it gives it a plausible explanation. -Show fell off a cliff here. The casino royale format sucks. Lio is talented. But as an "advertised" surprise entrant it was not a good choice. If they're gonna keep doing these please for the love of god stop advertising everyone in it. Announce like 10 people. That way there's room for surprises without the pressure. 3 minor surprises is better than one big let down. -Cody vs Ogogo was not good. The angle for it was not good. And Cody using the American Dream name on THIS of all things was a wasted opportunity. As someone who has taken a proper Cop Killer wish Cody would either do it correctly or not at all. This safe one looks like shit so what's the point in doing it at all then? -Miro vs Archer was a disappointment for me. The match was pretty decent but the crowd was so bored from the last two that they didn't get much. Bad show layout. They also lost the crowd completely when there was the animal abuse spot and never got them back. -Women's match was... clunky. Britt was way over and her winning got the show back on track. Great moment where she hugged Tony. I want more of that. Some nuance. A face announcer being a heel wrestler's friend without it being some heel turn for Tony. -Sting pulling out a Code Red. Doing a dive off poker chips after taking a suplex on the ramp. Page going Bam Bam on Darby Dudley. That slick ass Scorpio Cutter catch into the Death Drop finisher. This match wayyyyy over delivered. Loved it. -Triple Threat was great. They got me to bite on a few of the false finishes. That's all you can ask for. These three all gel really well and the finish was really well booked. Heel sociopath cheats and murders tweener sociopath. Everyones fav babyface hits the big finish for a believable fall, but gets overzealous and reversed. Chef's kiss. -Stadium Stampede was solid. Feel bad for the ring crew that had to set up a whole ass wrestling ring on a football field for 2 minutes of wrestling in it lol. But this was laid out well. All the fight scenes came off well. Good funny cameos without being full on comedy. Blended the taped and live aspects well. The right guy got the big shine. Send the crowd home happy. Overall : Loved it. Wish they would have cut a match or two to let the moments breathe. But you can't deny almost everything delivered. No more casino royales please. Also wish Cody would get back to actual storytelling like the gritty Dustin feud instead of the weird political & celebrity kinda stuff he's been doing. As a paying customer I am super satisfied with this show. Almost perfect really, can't ask for more than that.

He was an entrant. He and Matt Hardy were in the same suit, so they came out together. They put the list of all five in the suit up at the end of each suit. Hardy & Kassidy were in one group, Marq Quen was in another. All 3 were in the match. I am not a fan of the casino battle royal structure. It's just too clunky and cluttered. In an effort to be different, it just ends up being worse. Like why do we need a 10 second zoom in on what the card is? Does it matter if it's spade or club or whatever? We don't know who are in the groups ahead of time, totally pointless thing to focus on.

I'm usually a very pro-AEW homer. But even I have to agree here. Every time they post his Impact videos I cringe. The time he came out on Elevation I cringed. And I cringed for this promo. Understand why he did this one, and it seemly worked for it's intended purpose. But Tony Kahn on screen just yells inauthentic. I've always viewed him as likeable, even a bit nerdy. He would always come off pretty mild mannered and well meaning at the after event media scrums and such. But his on screen "character" just screams lack of confidence, trying to be what he thinks a tough guy is. Again I get why they did it. And it worked. But he is not fit to be an on screen character. At this point at least. I mean Vince McMahon wouldn't have been a great character on his third year in the business either. But he didn't try to be an actual character until two decades in.

Hard disagree. I'm so over colored straps. There has never been a title with a colored strap that looked better than the default black strap. The TNT Title looked so minor league until it was put on a black strap. Looks great now. I very much disliked the original AEW Women's Title design. Mostly because of the minuscule size. But the redesign making it bigger has made a world of difference to me. It looks 1,000x better now.

Yeah that was never advertised as a tag match. Why would they give away Sting's first live match in 6 years in a throw away squash match with some jobbers two days before the PPV? May just have gotten mistaken with Sting being in the match graphic, but it was definitely never a tag match. Pretty sure Hangman got busted open by bonking heads with Janela on one of his rolling forearms leading to the finish. It bleed like crazy tho, really added something to his promo when he's yelling and blood is spitting off his face lol. I get the weigh in, in concept. But in execution... yikes. Real boxer. Trying to blur the lines. Needing a segment where they could face off but not go crazy yadda yadda, but it just did not work. I also think Show's line was that he didn't have time to get a digital scale, not that he couldn't afford one. That Miro squash was perfect. Just the right amount of him looking like murderer and Martin getting a couple slick shots in to still come away from the match with a net positive.

Even still the only plausible case I can come up with, still paints Jake as a bullshitter telling stories to get a payday. It's plausible that sometime in 1990 Jake was told he was penciled in for a title feud with Warrior in the summer of 1991. I could see a case where Wrestlemania was originally envisioned as Hogan vs Slaughter in a non-title fight to save 'Merica and Warrior vs Savage in a Title vs Career match. Then once Warrior beat Savage he would move on to a summer of 1991 title feud with Jake that theoretically could have culminated in a title win. *BUT* Warrior loses the belt at Rumble 1991. So Jake's story of not finding out his feud had been scrapped / seeing Vince fire Warrior / telling Jake he has bad luck is just plain bullshit. He knew his summer of 1991 title feud with Warrior was off in January. Like I get it there could be lots of Vance manipulation, plus all the drugs Jake may have been doing there. But there's honest mistakes, and there's telling tales to get a Vice payday / seem more important to the story than he really was.

Jake's timeline makes zero fucking sense, calling bullshit on that. Warrior drops the belt to Slaughter in January 1991. Hogan wins the title in April of 1991. Warrior is fired in August of 1991 (and not the champion). How is Jake out a title run here? Now the guy that took it from Hogan was Undertaker in November of 1991. Is it plausible Jake could have been in that spot? Yes. But it's really hard to figure out how Jake would need permission to win the title by asking Warrior, when he would have beaten Hogan. Is it plausible he beats Hogan and goes into a title feud with Warrior right after? Possibly. But just not seeing the math here. Jake is gone in April of 1992 anyways. So yeah man full on bullshit on that story.

You still have the same issues. Who is going to pay to see a bunch Austin Gunn squash matches? This isn't even a knock on any specific wrestler, or AEW. Even red hot WWE in 2000 would have a hard time selling tickets to stand alone tapings of Jacked & Metal with Papi Chulo squash matches. Only the hardest of the hardcore fans would care to pay to see live events that have no meaning. No stories. No titles. Just enhancement matches. Not to mention you're spending the money to fly all these guys to a new city, renting another building, paying all your crew to setup and film... all for something that you can just tape before or after the live TV shows. It's redundant and will lose money. Is it worth $50,000+ in added plane tickets, $20,000 in per hour pay for the ring crew / production staff, & whatever it costs to rent whatever buildings you have in mind? No. They won't make back the $75,000+ they invest into the cost of the taping. I get that a lot of fans jut think like fans and talk about ideas they would personally like to see. But sometimes you gotta consider the business factors of if it makes sense. And this just doesn't make sense.

I think it's a safe bet that Nick Gage is in the Casino Royale. But I hope the twitter-verse doesn't take Tony's hype and run with it like they did at the last PPV. Punk, Lesnar, Cena, & D-Bry are not showing up. Never say never. But just keep those expectations in check lol.

WCW didn't get a rights fee. Their main source of income was ticket sales and PPV sales, making that a stupid move for WCW. AEW gets the majority of their income on rights fees (WWE too). It's a whole new world compared to 1990s WCW. But what AEW is doing is what the new model of wrestling looks like. They make their most money off of TV companies paying them for TV, so why "save it for the PPV" when they make more off of the TV? Just have to adapt your mind to the changing landscape of the business.

I don't think that's a great idea. The production and look of indys varies wildly. There are a few purposes of the enhancement shows, and one is to build their content library. They aren't going to want a lot of weird indy feds that might have shitty rings or poor medical practices (you'd be surprised how wild west some states out there are) in their content library. Plus you run the risk of your guys picking up bad habits from poorly trained indy guys that you don't want them picking up. I mean unless you are sending the AEW coaches with them. But that's basically hijacking a show built on someone else's money, I don't think you'll find a lot of promoters okay with that. They also use the win-loss records from the enhancement shows. So they certainty aren't going to want their guys putting over the indy guys and showing up on Dynamite 2-15 on the year.

If you're into making money, then yeah lol. Very different. Center stage gave away free tickets and still only had like 300 right? I also don't think, when you're having a bit of trouble selling all the Dynamite tickets in Jacksonville, you're gonna be able to sell any tickets for a 6 hour taping session of enhancement matches. Saturday Night was WCW's main show when they were doing Center Stage. Not asking people to show up for Austin Gunn vs independent talents of varying skill level... for six hours. I mean unless you are wanting them to keep taping these matches in empty buildings? But that's not how you improve. No matter how serious you take an empty building match, you're never going to learn as much from that as you will in front of a live audience. You can't really learn you listen to a crowd and feeling their energy.... if there is no crowd. Right?

You're crazy if you think they're gonna use Daily's Place to tape anything once they're on the road again. The logistics of running a touring schedule plus adding in regular stops to Jacksonville to do marathon taping they can just tape on the road is pure insanity. Not to mention you have a real crowd to film in front of, why wouldn't you use it? I assume the taping will look like: Weds 8-10 Dynamite live. 10-11 tape a few matches for Dark. Nothing like it's been during the pandemic with 15 matches, Dark will return to 4 or 5 matches. Fris 8-10 tape 7 or 8 Elevation matches. 10-11 Rampage live. Elevation with have more matches, just based on Rampage being only an hour show. So it will be the bigger and more high profile of the two You Tube shows. But still no where near 15 matches. That way both nights of taping get you 3 hours. From a live event standpoint both tickets are the "same". You get 3 hours of AEW action and a live TV show experience. And from a travel stand point you book two buildings in similar location. Fly the boys into Chicago for Wednesday night, they have Thursday off as a travel day, then Friday is in like Milwaukee.

Count me in on the band wagon, Killer Kross does nothing for me. Great entrance & presentation. Then the bell rings and it's the dullest work I can ever remember seeing. He's like a cooler Nathan Jones or Luther Reigns. Just big and boring and generic work in the ring. While Baron Corbin is the gold standard for a boring character, Corbin could at least bring it in the ring (in NXT). Kross is like 3 or 4 levels below Corbin, work wise. NXT has an interesting problem once they return to the road. They have over acts and fun characters in the Women's division and the lower card. But none of their main event guys have much steam. Watching last night I was wondering what about this roster would draw? Like the women, The Way, Hit Row, & Cameron Grimes are the acts clicking with me the most. Finn has been kind of boring. Kross is paint drying boring. Even Cole & O'Riley have been over exposed and don't have much steam. I just don't see much life at the top of the card. Am I missing something or do other people feel this way too?

I know absolutely nothing about The Eternals. I will see it for sure, because it's Marvel and I have a bit of completion-ist OCD. But I have to tell you that trailer looked boring to me. Very boring. Like paint drying boring. Zero excitement for this one. I have a feeling Shang Chi & Eternals are going to be a couple of big stumbles for Marvel. But we'll see, Marvel has certainly earned the benefit of the doubt.

If I had power at WB my pivot off of the DCEU would be to setup an extensive Batverse. Put all the other DC properties on ice. Joker made a billion dollars man. Instead of diving into a Batman film... I would have made singular films about each of the big villains. And in my Bat-villain-verse I always thought turning Riddler into a full on horror movie with elements of Saw was the way to go with the character. It fits. You make a gritty crime drama with Penguin. You make a heist movie with Catwoman (and maybe her team consists of other female villains). You keep Joker in canon. A court drama with Harvey Dent. You build up similar to how The MCU did. But instead of building your hero team, you're building your rouge's gallery. Then BAM you drop a Batman movie with a fleshed out team of heels for him to fight and make all the monies. All this is to say I really really dig The Riddler character tweak, in theory. The look is not exactly my favorite. *BUT* Ledger's Joker didn't strike me as a good look during promotional images either and I ended up loving it. It's *the* definitive Joker for me. So I will give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they pull off the new Riddler tone.

Let me tell you... one of the worst possible things to happen when you're doing high intensity high emotion false finishes, is for a dude with long dry hair to cover you in a way where you swallow his hair by accident. You lose all immersion is story telling when you legitimately start choking down a foot of some dude's hair. It's only happened to me a couple times. But I have never panicked so bad in my whole career. For whatever reason that has never happened to me with a dude with wet down hair. Pro tip, if they keep the wet down look throughout the whole match it's not water. It's conditioner. Water dries fairly quick. Condition stays slick for the entirety of the time it's in your hair.