NoFistsJustFlips

I understand your stance a lot better now, good post. And you're right it's mostly based on opinion. The United States is too arrogant to adapt the superior metric system so I have no idea how tall 163 cm is lol. But Rey Mysterio is 5'3 and he's a multi time world champion. Your opinion may vary on if that is believable storytelling but I'm good with it. Even if you don't buy a world title chase, there's still the TNT title. He's got about 30 pounds of mass on Darby so you can't say it's unbelievable for him to win that title, no? Comparing wrestling to UFC is not comparing apples to apples. In UFC you are not allowed to fight anyone outside of your weight class. So you don't have clear cut cruiserweight size workers competing for other titles. But you got Finn going for the NXT title and Bryan going for the SD title. How is it okay for them to fight out of the weight class but not the workers that are in a cruiserweight division? Not to mention all of the mixed up scenarios with tag matches. Pro wrestling is a movie. It's a creative endeavor where storytelling is the main purpose, not realism. I too like more realism added to my wrestling. But there's a tipping point. I don't watch UFC because it's boring to me. You start trying to force wrestling into that MMA box, it's gonna get boring to me and I will stop watching. Just saying "This is how it was in the past" is a disservice to my greater point. 100 years of learned behavior doesn't just go away. You would need to dedicate years.. maybe even decades to retrain the audience. "World Heavyweight Champion" / "World Champion" is the top prize and has been since Hackenschmidt. Just changing everything and saying welp all the weight classes are world championships that are equals now would go over like a wet fart. You would have to stick with that plan for like 20 years no matter how well it was getting over or not, just to maybe have people buy it. And remember no matter how good of an idea you have, you aren't allowed to let wrestlers from separate weight classes work each other. No intermixing in tags or multi mans or trios or anything. It's not worth the retraining. It's just a dead / bad idea for pro wrestling.

Maybe I'm a bit slow to catch your point. But what is stated here already exists. There *are* titles of varying esteem that exist. Tag Team, TNT, World. A ladder to climb. Your personal view of "realistically believed to compete for" is irrelevant tho because that's just your opinion. If you personally don't believe Silver can win the world title, does that mean we all have to believe that? Or that the company can't book that? Because I would buy into a Silver world title chase if it's booked well. But if you make 5 separate titles based on weight class I am not going to buy that Silver being world "middleweight" champion is equal to him being world "heavyweight" champion. There's 100 years of history in pro wrestling that defy that. Anything less than heavyweight in a weight class system in wrestling, is automatically not as important. Sure MMA and specifically UFC have been able to embrace weight classes and that's great for them. But projecting that system onto wrestling just will not work. Hell no one buys into separate brand "world champions" as equals, and that doesn't even have a weight tied to it. How many people view the WWECW world title / NXT world title / NXT UK world title as equals to WWE World Title / WWE Universal Title / World Heavyweight Title in the WWE system? Now replace the brand letters with inferior (as booked in wrestling historically speaking) weight designations. You just can't erase 100 years of story telling and history. I 100% agree with what @Goodearposted above. You should book different motivations and reactions for title wins based on character traits. But I'm very confused because you quoted his post and agreed with it. His post had nothing to do with adding separate weight classes or limiting who can vie for what titles.

Well from a kayfabe perspective his goal (and every wrestler in any promotion) is to be world champion. You're projecting you views and opinions as fact. There aren't any rules prohibiting him trying to be the world champion. The only limit for him is your perception. Not every guys is going to accomplish their goals from a kayfabe perspective. And that's okay. Because if everyone became champion, then it loses it's value. But just because the dude is short doesn't mean he can't be champion. That's what's cool about wrestling, anyone can get over and get the push if they get hot enough. It may never happen, but it could. Kofi Kingston is legit like 145 pounds. You think he could shoot beat up most guys in WWE? Nope. But he got hot as fuck, the company went with him and he became world champion. It's a work my man. This isn't UFC. And thank god for that because I can't get into a promotion that has 15 separate but equal "world" champions. F that nonsense. The real world goal for Silver should be making as much money as possible. Something that his height has zero bearing on in the real world. Someone writing on a piece of paper saying Im the champion doesn't mean a whole lot in the real world. But you use that pen on some paper and put a dollar sign and a shit ton of zeroes and now we're talking lol. And as an aside... Ever notice how AEW's world title doesn't even have a weight? It's the AEW World Championship, and anytime anyone uses the word heavyweight it's an error. No graphic or ring announcer has ever used the term heavyweight. And that's because weight classes in wrestling is an out-dated concept.

Totally agree. Dope set. Love that they went ahead and made a pirate ship 4x as big as the one that's built into the stadium lol. I'd venture to say WM 35 was the laziest WM stadium set ever. It's was literally just a 30 yard long LCD with no added design elements.

If I took that post wrong and @Goodear was talking about keeping all the narrative on Dynamite it's self, and not needing to seek out BTE / Sammy Guvara's vlogs / John Silver's Anchorman reenactments on Youtube / ect... then I totally agree on that. If there are bits of back story on any of the Youtube shows, they should show clips of the important parts on Dynamite. I don't watch BTE all the time, just once in awhile. But had they even showed 30 seconds of the who texted Hangman saga on Dynamite it would have helped the over all story telling out tremendously. It's also a weird dynamic tho. Because a lot of the BTE stuff is them filling in a backstory, or adding to a narrative, on their own. Like TK is the head writer, he writes the TV story. But then you have Nick Jackson writing stuff for BTE that comes up with more story on TK's story, that may not even be stuff TK wants part of the story. Also the legalities of Young Bucks having to sign rights away for AEW to use their IP on TV. I know they are EVPs of the company, but they didn't sign lifetime deals. Things can change down the road. I agree with you but I can also see why it's complicated to make that happen.

If I understand what you mean here, I disagree with this thought process. Don't dumb down the storytelling elements to the detriment of the current viewers. Don't hinder the people who do watch your show's enjoyment for the sake of maybe hoping new people are tuning in? I hate how WWE does this with Raw. They use at least 30% of the show's run time showing replays of stuff that already happened tonight, just in case new people are tuning in every 30 minutes. They prioritize new people who theoretically might tune in over long term viewers that are already invested in the stories. It's a major turn off for me. Imagine using this same logic for other story driven TV shows. Imagine if like Breaking Bad was written in a way to make sure first time watchers can follow what's happening even if they're jumping in at episode 8 of season 3. Just write compelling shows. If new people tune in and like what they see, they will stick around.

A quick google search shows QT started wrestling in 2004. Maybe he was cute then lol? He's one of those guys that has done way more than people realize. Had a contract with ROH in the mid 00s. And did a lot of enhancement work for TNA in the Fox Sports days.

I see where you made your first mistake lol. Kidding. But Cagematch misses a lot. As for Dark, how do they know what's on there? Unless someone at the taping messaged them how would they know? AEW doesn't announce what's on Dark until Tuesdays now right, so as to not upstage Elevation. So maybe they're right. But I'd take the over on that bet.

The Panthers made out here. Darnold hasn't looked great. But a 2nd, a 4th, and a 6th for the 3rd overall pick from just three years ago seems pretty reasonable. Especially in this era of crazy QB compensation on trades. If he never improves, they didn't bet the farm on him. But if he does improve, they didn't lose much capital to get him. The Jets are The Jets and will just ruin whatever their next QB is, until the end of time. It's the Joe Namath curse. He traded The Jet's soul to the devil for that Super Bowl guarantee.

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.)