Beech27
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Posts posted by Beech27
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6 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:
What was the gap in Hansen jumping from New Japan to All Japan?
Looks like Dec 12/10/81 to 1/15/82.
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7 minutes ago, Krone Meltzer said:
I was more or less referencing people who were there. Like the EVPs wouldn't count but FTR most certainly would. Jericho I also wouldn't count as he was in at the ground level before AEW took off.
I guess Moxley counts too, but damn it it Danielsons doesn't feel bigger. He almost feels like the Hogan to this situation over Punk. I really think getting Danielson may be the biggest coo of all, even more than Punk
Edit-Maybe it's because of how elite Bryan is in the ring still. He adds that layer of legitimacy to Elite Wrestling.
One way in which Danielson might feel like a bigger deal because he's not really rejecting WWE, so much as he's choosing something else. FTR, Moxley, and of course Punk could be written off as malcontents who just were never going to be happy, and with whom there would always be a disconnect between how they and WWE saw themselves. But Danielson is a famously easy guy to work with, who, even now, really has nothing bad to say about WWE or Vince, his time working there, his pay, booking, any of it. They would have happily paid him millions and presented him as a consistent main eventer with a high degree of creative freedom. (To a lesser extent you could say this about Cole, too.)
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Who knows if he still feels this way, but back in 2014 TK tweeted that the Wyatt family were a fine mid-card act with weird esoteric imagery, and overall an “anti-rub.” Doesn’t sound like someone who would have liked the Fiend gimmick more.
While we’re dreaming about video game rosters, I’m gonna hope for individual licenses for retired puro legends like Hansen, Kobashi, Kawada, Maeda, Tenryu, et al. My guaranteed purchase probably wouldn’t make up the cost, but it’s a start.
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Little things, but:
I love that we can now draw an in-ring line of “alt-kids’ favorite wrestler who sits weirdly in the corner” from Raven to Punk to Darby, and that they cribbed the “the kid got me” head nod from Bret/1-2-3 Kid.
And I’m really happy that, although he wasn’t the first choice and got overshadowed, Kojima got this spot, showed well, and got a really good reaction. And his twitter indicates he’s really happy, too.
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11 minutes ago, Lawful Metal said:
But … why?
He lives in America, so there are COVID complications.
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The only thing I can speculate is that large venues are willing to give steep discounts to anyone willing to run them right now, and/or New Japan thinks they’ll have some favors in hand when things return to normal.
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There’s a path to move forward from brutal MMA losses while still incorporating elements of that in your pro wrestling, and if AEW thinks most of its fans know their Nagata, Takara, Shibata, et al., maybe that’s a needle they/Punk could try to thread. But I don’t think they will, or should.
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A thing I can't figure out about Darby/Punk, is whether Sting's promo about not being ringside is blatant lampshading, foreshadowing, or legitimately just a way to keep the focus 100% on the match, and not even tease the slightest possibility of interference. I'm virtually certain it's the latter. But of course the trope is that anytime you're promised that interference can't and isn't happening, it definitely is. And no one was thinking that Sting was going to get involved anyway. And even if you did want him to leave ringside, he could have just done it, rather than promising that he would ahead of time. (But I really do think there's nothing to be made of all this, that Punk will win a competitive, clean match.)
As for Jericho, I think it's interesting that TK mentioned the cruise isn't an official AEW event. So, Jericho could keep booking himself even if he loses.
I'm not convinced that a lack of title changes matters, here. The theory that there should be one is mostly to make the crowd feel they saw something important, and got an "I was there moment" worth erupting for and remembering. They're going to get Punk's first match at the very least, and maybe an enormous debut or two also, which I think fulfills that emotional register.
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Nothing that stands out as a MOTYC, but a ton of his New Japan work is on YouTube (episodes 14 and 15 of Strong have singles matches), and is consistently smart and solid, and there’s an indie singles match against Jacob Fatu that’s also on YouTube.
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3 hours ago, christopher.annino said:
How is Fred Rosser doing at this point in his career? I always had a soft spot for him when he was in WWE, and I like the idea of him succeeding if not thriving on the Indies.
He's established himself as something of an anchor for New Japan's US shows, and has signed with the company. I'm not sure if, pandemic aside, he'd be touring in Japan; but if that happens of course it will raise his profile more, and maybe he could have a Juice Robinson type second act. (Though he's a few years older.)
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17 minutes ago, Eivion said:
There a is a difference between excursions, working relationships with other promotions, and coming from the indies. Excursions are part of the NJPW tradition and are done partially so guys can repackage after the young lion phase. Suzuki was trained by NJPW. He just left with the original UWF guys. And while NJPW has people coming from outside of the promotion that has been more a case from the last decade after they fell a good deal and had trouble getting young lions. Reality wise even with the changes they have they probably haven't brought in even half the amount of indy talent that WWE has the past five years. That isn't even going into how NJPW used to have guys who joined from the outside retrain in their dojo system before they accepted them.
In general though Japanese promotions train the wrestlers from the ground up so they can know the specific style of the promotion itself. I don't really see why it bothers people that WWE supposedly wants do the same. I don't really see why those who hate the style and should know it won't change by now are bothered, especially when there are other noteworthy promotions to pick up their favorites now. It just feels like looking for a reason to be angry.
Sure, there’s a big difference between New Japan’s model and the US independent scene. But so too is there a big difference between that model and anything WWE has done, or might do.
Anyway, I don’t think anyone is objecting to the idea that WWE should look to sign impressive athletes and train them in their house-style. They unequivocally should do that. The objection is to the idea that the company should only do that, and (maybe, apparently) totally neglect other means of acquiring talent.
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57 minutes ago, Eivion said:
I don't really get why people get annoyed at WWE preferring to produce in house. What is wrong with wanting to train people from the ground up instead of breaking what might be deemed bad habits and then teaching to wrestle WWE's style? It just doesn't make sense to me as a complaint seeing that its more or less the system one of the most popular countries for wrestling uses in Japan.
Assuming you’re talking about New Japan, I don’t think this comparison holds. Okada, Ishii, Suzuki, Ibushi, SANADA, Shingo, Ospreay, ZSJ, et al, all trained elsewhere before working in New Japan. Naito and Tanahashi were dojo grads, but the former spent years in Mexico (as part of the excursion system and then a repackage), and Tanahashi worked extensively in NOAH and AJPW. They haven’t developed their main eventers in a bubble historically either, as everyone either went on excursions or toured with other companies.
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Punk, 16 years ago on Livejournal, reviews the Kobashi/Sasaki chop-battle, sounding every bit like you'd expect, complete with an XxX straight-edge post-signature.
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Reportedly, the plan is to tape Rampage after Dynamite, except on special occasions. So that's less travel. (Though maybe presents a challenge in pacing, for the TV audience vs the live audience.)
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23 minutes ago, Log said:
Ok, so far Suzuki is facing:
Daniel Garcia,
Homicide,
Calvin Tankman,
and Jonathan Gresham
on his trip to the U.S. Am I missing anyone?
Damn, I'm pretty hype for all of those.
Davey Richards, Anthony Henry, and Fred Rosser (fka Darren Young) are three more.
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48 minutes ago, Casey said:
Are they planning on using Suzuki to team with Archer for a match against Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page? He’s going to be here in the states doing indies and NJPW US shows, what, a week or two after All Out? Or the week of?
Too bad the Forbidden Door has largely forgotten about NOAH, poor Kingston might never get his Akiyama match.
My guess is they don't want to do Mox/Suzuki, since it would be a rematch. But yeah, US fans would like that better. If nothing else you get to belt out Kaze Ni Nare.
Akiyama actually doesn't work for NOAH (hasn't since 2012), but DDT... which has the same parent company as NOAH, granted. Omega was going to have a match against Endo, and Takeshita wrestled on Dark, so it seemed like that was maybe going to be the partnership before New Japan signed on. Now that they have, I don't think they would want the Cyberfight folks getting further US exposure.
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KENTA also tweeted that he had COVID (he's better now) and he's sorry for any change of plans that caused, so maybe he was the back-up plan for Tanahashi, and Kojima is now the third choice. And of course, Kojima himself is now tweeting that he knows he's "not famous to wrestling fans around the world", which is kind of a downer. But I'm confident that he and Mox can lariat, chop, and generally welt eachother for 10 minutes and bring folks around.
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Fwiw, Braun implied being in Chicago, too, and he could appear on Dynamite without signing with AEW, if the below is true.
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29 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:
I’m just thinking to myself “Would AEW really benefit from having Adam Cole”? When it comes to locker room morale, definitely. You want to keep your talent happy with a move like that. But he’s not a needle mover for AEW. He won’t bring in a new audience to view your company. For ROH, if he has AEW exposure, he’ll bring back the fans they lost a long time ago, and maybe hardcores that weren’t into your company to start with will look now because of the AEW connection. Hopefully ROH gives them some Bandido appearances as a thank you in return.
The only issue I could see with this scenario is that IMPACT could get pissed that they didn’t throw the hardcore bone to them instead.
There’s something to be said for galvanizing your base. If you sign Cole and then don’t feature him, your core fans may happily follow him to ROH, or they may resent the fact that he traded one minor league for another. I think they would want to see him “in the show” for a little, first. And of course I imagine Cole would like that, too.
As for how he’d do on WWE’s main roster... he’s always been a pretty good smarmy promo, is willing to do any kind of comedy, everyone loves working with him, and he’s got a catch phrase people like. I think he’d be a valuable utility player around the IC/tag range, yeah. But I don’t think he passes the “stand next to Randy Orton and look like a superstar to Vince” test, nor does he have any S-tier skills to elevate himself despite that.
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2 hours ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:
I was thinking about this in the morning. maybe Adam Cole should be doing what Christian is doing right now. Be on a AEW contract, but also be on a per-appearance deal with ROH. ROH definitely needs that extra national exposure, and AEW would have a way to not have another new guy from taking up time of talents you want to push.
A quasi-territorial relationship with other promotions, allowing you to rotate guys in and out (and even give real time off) would probably be best for everyone. (Especially if we ever get the pandemic under control, and Mexico and Japan become real options.)
That said, I can't imagine AEW would bring in Cole and not feature him prominently for a little while on their own shows--especially if Omega does take some time off after dropping the title, Jericho keeps stepping further back, etc. I think they've got room for him, even with Punk and Danielson. (And hey, Britt is already speculating on her and "somebody else" facing Punk and AJ in a mixed tag--not that I think that's likely.)
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2 hours ago, Matt D said:
It’s moronic since the fans really want to cheer Becky after her absence. Total opposite of Reigns turning.
This has been pointed out many times, and for a long time, but turning Becky in this way illustrates the 'writing vs booking' tension pretty clearly. From a writer's perspective, this could be a consistent and interesting development of Becky's character: her star ascendancy began with an unexpected attack on Charlotte, was fueled by her continuing to transgress, and culminated in taking an injured wrestler's spot in the Royal Rumble after she'd already lost that night. That she would take advantage of the vacancy Sasha made and Bianca's naivete makes sense. And it gives Bianca -- supremely physically gifted -- a psychological hurdle to overcome.
Only, as much as WWE might occasionally insist and operate otherwise, wrestling isn't a scripted drama like any other, and you can't write characters/stories as if it is.
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3 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:
I think it's more of folks seeing how he debuted in AEW and thinking "well, he can be their Steve Austin", which isn't fair really. He's their Jon Moxley.
I feel like if you had a Venn diagram for people who cross into Austin territory, you would get a lot of names. Why? They let Austin do a lot of things in a five year span when they started to ramp up doing crazy shit and pushing the envelope.
I think it's also just the way archetypes and the critical vocabulary that results develops and atrophies over time, in the same way that "Kafkaesque" has been about the least useful thing you can say about a surreal or nightmarish piece of prose fiction for years.
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22 minutes ago, Eoae said:
I feel like there’s a big difference between saying “Punk didn’t move the needle” and “Punk didn’t move the needle as much as the Rock”
If Punk had moved needles as much as The Rock did and does, Triple H never could have called him skinny-fat. (This is dumb but it was also a lay-up. I'm still sorry.)
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AEW - SEP 2021
in ALL ELITE WRESTLING
Posted
We can always come up with more names that would add value, I think, and hypothetical reasons they might sign. For example: Jay White lives in the US already, hasn't gone back to Japan to quarantine and work for NJPW, and could be a real star in a promotion where he speaks the language (though we don't need any more "remember Bullet Club" drama); Pete Dunne's contract is about to expire, and I don't think it's been reported whether he resigned; Asuka is almost 40, loves streaming, and seems mired in creative purgatory; WWE's Japanese corporate arm dissolving might mean Kairi Hojo is a free agent, and maybe her head injuries have cleared up; etc.
But obviously AEW is in a "can sign people" not a "needs to sign people" situation, which is better for them.