AEW R-Evolution II - 3/7/2021

[John from Cincinnati]

3 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Nobody w/ sense thought they were coming.  Do you want to be on that side.. in that universe? Have fun over there..  

Still better than the Snyderverse.

1 minute ago, Hagan said:

I feel a lot of the arguments against Christian would have told WWE not to bring in those "vanilla midgets" who also weren't stars. 

If only you could find one of those people and ask. Oh well. 

[SirSmUgly]

20 minutes ago, Hagan said:

Greg Valentine was a pretty big star. Like, watch some 80s wrestling. I recommend something called "Mid Atlantic." He breaks a dude's leg. People were into it. Also, has a really big match at something called a "Starrcade" that drew a lot of money. 

I feel a lot of the arguments against Christian would have told WWE not to bring in those "vanilla midgets" who also weren't stars. 

 

Greg Valentine and Koko B. Ware were regional stars (see, I'm fine with using that word when appropriate!) who never hit those heights on the national level. Valentine's best known for really good upper-midcard feuds. 

It's okay to like guys who had good careers, but not to call them stars. This whole discussion is probably not a good one to have in this thread at this point, but surely you can see the difference between Greg Valentine, Koko B. Ware, Roddy Piper, and even Kevin Nash, right?

Like, the argument isn't that Christian wasn't good or useful or an important piece in a national company. Literally no one here is arguing that. But that =/= national star. And again...you can just refer to the confused reaction from the fans themselves for how they feel about Christian being a star.

Speaking of, "Like watch some '80s wrestling" is maybe snark that you could get away with at Wreddit, but not here. That's an all time silly thing to say to people who post at DVDVR. If you're going to snark, at least make it good. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Smelly McUgly

[NoFistsJustFlips]

5 minutes ago, Goodear said:

I would put Christian on the third tier of wrestling stardom.

First tier is your transcendents like Flair, Hogan, Savage, Cena, Rock, Austin (As an aside, I don't think there is a single first tier star active in the industry right now)

Second tier are people like Jericho, Reigns, AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan who are stars who can main event all the time and no one would complain

Then you have the Christian tier with guys like Kofi, Miz, The Hardy Boyz who are valuable and can main event regularly but you aren't going to give them more than a single World Title run and it won't go a year or anything crazy.

And so on and so forth.

Thank you. I actually agree with you and find this post very helpful in what I'm trying to articulate. There are tiers here and mine would very similar to yours. What I'm trying to argue isn't that Christian is in the top tier. What I'm trying to argue is that people are using the term star to represent the top tier and that's the wrong usage.

-Mainstream crossover / top draw / era defining talent (Hogan, Rock, Austin, Flair, Cena, Brock)
-Mega star / full time main eventer / *the guy* of a time period that didn't quite cross over (Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Edge, Orton, Taker)
-Star / big deal but not always a full time main eventer / well known in the wrestling bubble (RVD, Christian, Miz, Benoit, Mysterio)

The disconnect here is people misusing the word star. Christian absolutely is a star. Maybe now that Goodear helped me articulate my point better people can see where I'm coming from.

[J.T.]

2 hours ago, Goodear said:

Koko has legitimately become heavily underrated due to his long tenure run in WWE as a low card babyface. 

Koko B. Ware had the best looking brainbuster finisher in wrestling.  There, I said it.

 

Edited March 8, 2021 by J.T.

[TheVileOne]

Christian is/was a great worker. Was always a good promo guy, but in WWE, he was always treated as the lesser to Edge. IMHO he never fulfilled his true potential. As I recall, it did look like he was getting geared up for a feud with Cena in 2005, but it was basically cut short after that Vengeance triple threat. Christian was pretty over at the time and was getting cheered, and around this time, fans were getting pretty mixed and lukewarm toward Cena.

But even after Christian came back to WWE, it seems Christian only got put in the WHC situation because Edge got hurt and had to retire. And even during the Orton feud, I recall he got treated like a chump through most of 2011. 

I would say Christian hit his peak creatively during his second world title run in TNA. That was after he had turned heel, and Christian's overall look and character lends itself better to being a heel.

But in WWE, he was never truly given the ball and allowed to run with it like an Edge or Randy Orton. All things considered, Christian had a fairly good, successful career, but he never became that elite level top WWE Superstar I think he could've been. At the very least, I think he could've had a decent heel run as champion, dodging faces and getting out of things by the skin of his teeth as Orton sometimes would.

Irregardless, it's still 2021. Christian is 47 years old, and has wrestled in like one match in 7 years. If you are bringing Christian in on a multi-year deal to be a top star and main eventer, it's a headscratcher. This isn't exactly like Ricky Steamboat returning to NWA/WCW in 1989.

Edited March 9, 2021 by TheVileOne

[Goodear]

5 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Koko B. Ware had the best looking brainbuster AND TOP ROPE DROPKICK finisher in wrestling.  There, I said it.

Edited for facts. Why no one has lifted the top rope dropkick where you land on your feet is a damn sin.

[Bryan]

1 hour ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

That's not Tony's fault.  There's handful of guys that are out there who would be bigger signings and they are Punk and Brock.  if dumb fans thought those two were coming that is because they are dumb..  not because Tony said we signed a "HOF worthy"  talent.  

When the speculation went crazy, having people leak that the signing is shocking is on him and was not a good idea.

Similar to the “this will change wrestling forever” or whatever that was for a Dynamite a few months back.

AEW has a history of overhyping things and the problem with that is people will stop believing you, so if you have something that matches the hype, fewer people will show up to check it out.

[John from Cincinnati]

2 minutes ago, Bryan said:

Similar to the “this will change wrestling forever” or whatever that was for a Dynamite a few months back.

In his defense, PAC's team did win the battle royal last night. So how wrong was he?

[Niners Fan in CT]

23 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:

Still better than the Snyderverse.

What does me liking Snyder or Sasha or whatever else you constantly want to call back to have to do w/  AEW? 

[Kev]

The multi-man ladder match is a completely dead gimmick at this point and I thought it was really stupid having one here. It really didn’t feel like the reward was worth the risk. I defended Janela getting a title shot recently and I like how they mostly did open challenges with Cody, but that just made this feel more out of place. Why put your body through this when any one of these guys could feasibly get a shot anyway?

If you’re gonna use one of these to debut someone you need them to win it or be a big spot guy that can do something ridiculous to get over. That did nothing for Page.

I assumed the awkward waiting on the ramp was because we were getting a Cody turn where he feigns injury before stealing the victory, but it was just awkward.

I know they gave Sky a bit of a push early on, but he hasn’t done anything of note in ages and he really doesn’t feel like someone who has much of a higher ceiling. It’ll really have been an underwhelming run for Darby if he loses on Wednesday.

So presumably Mox was meant to be written off for paternity leave here. I’m assuming they’ll not have him go out on that ending so there’ll maybe be an injury angle on Dynamite over the next few weeks where they can re-do Kingston’s redemption in someway. Maybe have Kingston take some kind of hit for Mox, only for them to take out Mox afterwards anyway. Keep it simple with a Pillmanizer or something. Then have a half injured King seeking revenge while Mox is out.

[John from Cincinnati]

1 minute ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

What does me liking Snyder or Sasha or whatever else you constantly want to call back to have to do w/  AEW? 

You were clearly done with the conversation, so was having a laugh. I forgot that liking those movies means you don't enjoy such tomfoolery. My bad. 

[John from Cincinnati]

I'm happy the ladder match was so poorly received. Hopefully they stop doing them for at least two years, and then only bring it back if it's going to be one on one or two on two.

[Krone]

11 minutes ago, Kev said:

If you’re gonna use one of these to debut someone you need them to win it or be a big spot guy that can do something ridiculous to get over. That did nothing for Page.

I would normally agree with you, but they just did that with Brian Cage at the last "#1 contenders ladder match". Granted that was like 9 months ago now, but I'm also not a huge fan of the "surprise always has to win" route.

[AxB]

I'm going to change my sig so it says "Smelly McUgly thinks Christian Cage sucks".

[Big Z]

I honestly think that Christian was one of WWE's biggest missed opportunities to make a main event level star, as he was over at that level in 2005, during his return in 2009, and in 2011 (even if everything felt misguided after his very popular title win.) Now, in 2021 at age 47, I'm not expecting a main event run, (though I'd be cool with  a Dynamie main event title match against Kenny. I felt satisfied with Christian as the big reveal (and so did the live crowd.

Edited March 8, 2021 by Big Z

[Jiji]

Christian was probably the best of the non-Brock/Punk guys to be honest because, if his neck holds up, he has the most to give.  But, and I too really enjoy Christian and he was my favourite dude in WWF 2002, he's a let down. Don't get why this is hard to grasp. I think I will find other means to watch Double or Nothing and see how it goes from there. They burned us badly and I'm not okay with that. Don't even care about the Christian thing big picture but when you say FMW style exploding death match and give us that then fuck you. 

[Kev]

9 minutes ago, Krone Meltzer said:

I would normally agree with you, but they just did that with Brian Cage at the last "#1 contenders ladder match". Granted that was like 9 months ago now, but I'm also not a huge fan of the "surprise always has to win" route.

Ah yeah, agree I wouldn’t have had him win here, I was speaking more generally about needing to win, I just wouldn’t have had him in at all.

I’ve not really seen much of him but I’m guessing he’s a bit more of a character guy, given the nickname. It reminds me of NXT bringing in EC3 in a ladder match a few years back.

For someone who’s biggest exposure is Impact, I really wouldn’t be bringing them in ‘blind’ unless it’s someone who’s gonna get over with movez.

 

[Ace]

8 hours ago, hammerva said:

Listening to Al Snow in the last decade or so, I can only imagine how miserable he was watching the show.   He had to have some stake in being there.

To get his shipment from Brian Cage?

 

[Hagan]

54 minutes ago, Smelly McUgly said:

Greg Valentine and Koko B. Ware were regional stars (see, I'm fine with using that word when appropriate!) who never hit those heights on the national level. Valentine's best known for really good upper-midcard feuds. 

It's okay to like guys who had good careers, but not to call them stars. This whole discussion is probably not a good one to have in this thread at this point, but surely you can see the difference between Greg Valentine, Koko B. Ware, Roddy Piper, and even Kevin Nash, right?

Like, the argument isn't that Christian wasn't good or useful or an important piece in a national company. Literally no one here is arguing that. But that =/= national star. And again...you can just refer to the confused reaction from the fans themselves for how they feel about Christian being a star.

Speaking of, "Like watch some '80s wrestling" is maybe snark that you could get away with at Wreddit, but not here. That's an all time silly thing to say to people who post at DVDVR. If you're going to snark, at least make it good. 

Fair enough. Was having fun and being overly sarcastic but, and not to derail the thread, but Greg Valentine was 100 percent a national star unless the argument is that anyone that wasn't headlining during WWF national expansion wasn't a national star.  I mean, every single wrestler before 1984 with the exception of Andre the Giant was a regional star by that logic. 

Greg Valentine probably drew more money by himself than Nash did, too. 

Edit: Valentine was IC champ at the first Wrestlemania and US champion at the first Starrcade. Not sure what a star is if that doesn't qualify. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Hagan

[NikoBaltimore]

Holy shit did y'all have a lot to discuss here.  I don't know how much my two cents will be worth at this point but what the hell.

There's a lot worse things in the world that are worth getting sad or upset about.  So for me the end of the main event was just a huge bummer.  Things were going well enough for a major company version of this type of deathmatch and as long as the ending was good then they had a good base to build off of.  Instead we got Kenny winning with five minutes to spare, the timer still going off for some reason and Eddie saving an old friend for a bunch of weak stuff.  

The thing that sucks the most about all this is that when something disappoints like this there's no good way to make this up.  It's pointless trying to kayfabe it when ultimately the owner should man up and apologize.  And if they try to get it right soon after it'll just feel hollow.  It was best to just not do the blast at the end and focus more on barbed wire shenanigans and well-shot camera angles for the explosions.  Heck, they could have done more with the exploding bat which was somehow only used one time.  Anything would have worked better than what we got.

Now this ultimately won't change the fact that I'll still be an AEW fanboy or anything.  But I'm just really, really bummed out by all this and would rather not think about AEW for a bit.  At least I had people over and we had a great time because if it was just me watching I would feel pretty worse about the whole thing.

On a positive note I did like the street fight a lot and got a hearty laugh at the Sonic ring for the ladder match.  And @Sex Machine Gunglad you had fun in the chat.  I plan on doing a chat room for WWE's big 4 shows and the AEW PPVs so even if I wasn't partaking in the chat it was great to see y'all using it.

[Spontaneous]

Honestly the discord chat is the only reason I watched the Royal Rumble and Revolution.

I will say, the wimpy explosion will always crack me up. As a huge fan of unintentionally bad movies, the sparklers just killed me. So even in failing, I was entertained.

[RRR]

31 minutes ago, Jiji said:

Christian was probably the best of the non-Brock/Punk guys to be honest because, if his neck holds up, he has the most to give.  But, and I too really enjoy Christian and he was my favourite dude in WWF 2002, he's a let down. Don't get why this is hard to grasp. I think I will find other means to watch Double or Nothing and see how it goes from there. They burned us badly and I'm not okay with that. Don't even care about the Christian thing big picture but when you say FMW style exploding death match and give us that then fuck you. 

I think Tony K has reached Cody bubble level of having so much smoke blown up your ass you start buying your own bullshit.  

[Zakk_Sabbath]

Who doesn't test this kind of thing before hand?????????????????????????????????

[Shartnado]

44 minutes ago, Hagan said:

Edit: Valentine was IC champ at the first Wrestlemania and US champion at the first Starrcade. Not sure what a star is if that doesn't qualify. 

The list of guys who were an IC Champion at a Wrestlemania AND an US Champion at a Starrcade, isn't all that long to begin with , so it should count for something ! 

[SirSmUgly]

51 minutes ago, Hagan said:

Fair enough. Was having fun and being overly sarcastic but, and not to derail the thread, but Greg Valentine was 100 percent a national star unless the argument is that anyone that wasn't headlining during WWF national expansion wasn't a national star.  I mean, every single wrestler before 1984 with the exception of Andre the Giant was a regional star by that logic. 

Greg Valentine probably drew more money by himself than Nash did, too. 

Edit: Valentine was IC champ at the first Wrestlemania and US champion at the first Starrcade. Not sure what a star is if that doesn't qualify. 

I think the argument for Valentine is better than the one for Christian. Valentine was secondary champ in promotions where being secondary champ meant way more than it did when Christian was WHC or TNA World Champ (if you value that over WWE WHC).

This is maybe going to sound specious, but I still think that he's not a star by the standards of what a mainstream crowd would consider and that he just didn't have the mainstream recognition to hit that point. For an example, he didn't get into Rock 'n Wrestling even though he was in the company (and the IC Champ when the show went into pre-production, I think!). He doesn't have the profile of a star from a more general fan perception standpoint. No one who was an old school wrestling fan, but maybe isn't now, ever talks to me about the Hammer when they see me wearing an old-school wrestling shirt. I've had people come up to me and then go on and on about Hogan, Savage, Piper, Warrior, Flair, and any one of those guys showing up in 2021 would have gotten the reaction they were looking for (especially if Savage, Piper, or Warrior did it considering they've all passed...but I digress). Not Greg Valentine, though. 

Also, I wouldn't say that Valentine drawing more money by himself than Nash is a great argument just because Nash drew a shit-ton of money in WCW, so much so that at some point "he had Hogan and Hall with him" kind of becomes unimportant. But even though I don't quite agree with you, at least I could squint and see it for Valentine. 

Koko was fucking awesome in Memphis, especially when he destroyed jobbers who must have knocked over his morning cup of coffee in the back and then refused to brew a fresh pot to make up for it, and he was a good hand in WWF, but also not really a star. But yeah, the Bird/Ghostbuster is amazing, the top-rope dropkick where he landed on his feet is amazing, and in general, Koko is amazing at pro wrestling.

Christian was definitely also awesome at pro wrestling, but ECW Champ when ECW was on SyFy + WHC Champ in a time when the secondary championship had way less value + TNA Champ doesn't really do it for him. 

Really, this was a discussion about how people see the concept of a star very differently, but as good ol' @Jiji noted, it's not hard to understand some of the disappointment once you think about the concept of a star and how some people might really see that term as useful for a tier above Christian. 

So this goes back to the criticism of Tony Khan here, which I agree with: He has to know that wrestling in 2021 has very few stars like that: Cena, Batista, Punk, Brock, Okada, maybe? There, that's it, that's the list. I would argue that getting Sasha Banks would also count (or Ronda Rousey, Charlotte or Bayley [though Charlotte and Bayley are more fringe candidates for "stardom" and also maybe STARDOM if you're not a fan of their work]). 

If it ain't those folks, maybe find a way to introduce them that doesn't rely on "tune in to the PPV that you're paying fifty bucks for." A reveal at a PPV comes with raised expectations. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Smelly McUgly