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Your wrestling HOT TAKES


A.M.B.

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11 hours ago, Hagan said:

My hot take is:

 

I don't get Dusty Rhodes. I mean, the promos are good but his weird NWA character of John Wayne/ladies man/ guy who also bragged about his money and wore a mink coat despite supposed to be representing the blue collar workers just always rang false to me. He was never super great in the ring and didn't look particularly tough. 

There was nothing especially cool about him.

I get why Vince just turned him into a goofy dancing fat man with an unattractive girlfriend. 

Dusty rolling around in that Mercedes right before the Horsmen parking lot attack wasn’t a good look 

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12 minutes ago, Mister TV said:

Dusty rolling around in that Mercedes right before the Horsmen parking lot attack wasn’t a good look 

That's America though. All just temporarily embarrassed millionaires. If Dusty could get that Mercedes then anyone in the crowd could.

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35 minutes ago, Matt D said:

That's America though. All just temporarily embarrassed millionaires. If Dusty could get that Mercedes then anyone in the crowd could.

If it was a Cadillac, Lincoln or Corvette sure, but it was a foreign car that was associated with yuppies, the xenophobic working class types that Dusty was supposed to appeal to hated foreign cars and yuppies. Dusty rocking the fur coats or fancy jewelry works since that’s what fellow sons of plumbers would buy if they hit it big. 

Edited by Mister TV
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I've avoided this thread as far as giving any of my own, but now I came up with one that is completely in line with my previous posts on the subject: Paul Roma was a cool addition to the 4 Horsemen and totally pulled his weight in the group and fuck you, and the four horses you rode in on, if you can't live with that! There!

Edited by Shartnado
That works better...
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1 hour ago, odessasteps said:

I noticed watching the 86 Crockett Cup that before the 2nd session, Ross went over the rules in the ring, including the one save rule, as well as the piledriver and top rope moves being legal. 

I vaguely remember an AWA color commentator once saying the first “save” gets a warning from the ref and the second is grounds for a DQ. 

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9 hours ago, Mister TV said:

If it was a Cadillac, Lincoln or Corvette sure, but it was a foreign car that was associated with yuppies, the xenophobic working class types that Dusty was supposed to appeal to hated foreign cars and yuppies. Dusty rocking the fur coats or fancy jewelry works since that’s what fellow sons of plumbers would buy if they hit it big. 

Eh, we're all hypocrites too?

As for saves, as I've been watching 89 AJPW, there's occasionally some karmic cost associated with saves, especially towards the end of the match. Making a save leaves you vulnerable for Stan Hansen to come charging across the ring and knocking your lights out. Every time there's a save or a rope break, it's a time where a move doesn't need to be kicked out of, which protects the move and allows you to avoid needless escalation. In my mind, there are way too many kick outs in tag matches.

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5 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Every time there's a save or a rope break, it's a time where a move doesn't need to be kicked out of, which protects the move and allows you to avoid needless escalation. In my mind, there are way too many kick outs in tag matches.

Yeah, one save rule works fine in a tournament setting, but in a title matches it obviously favors the champions, as they would retain even on a DQ. Not in AJPW later on, since there were no DQ endings, but in US in general.

If the rule was more specific and it would constitute a forefeit or a ref stoppage and the titles would change hands, then it would really keep people in their corners, holding on to the tag ropes. But that would be hard to enforce and would be conveniently forgotten or overlooked every time the booking would call for it, so I guess that's a moot point. Not a hot take, just a regular observation.

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31 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Eh, we're all hypocrites too?

As for saves, as I've been watching 89 AJPW, there's occasionally some karmic cost associated with saves, especially towards the end of the match. Making a save leaves you vulnerable for Stan Hansen to come charging across the ring and knocking your lights out. Every time there's a save or a rope break, it's a time where a move doesn't need to be kicked out of, which protects the move and allows you to avoid needless escalation. In my mind, there are way too many kick outs in tag matches.

Plus making saves was the sole reason BattlARTS tags were the greatest tags on earth.   Ishikawa procures the sleeper.  How much will Ikeda crush Ishikawa's skull making the save?  OH MY GOD!

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Interesting thread.  I don't agree with about 70% of the takes, but they're still interesting viewpoints.  This is quickly becoming my favorite thread:

My takes:

Now that AEW looks like it's going to be a success, we need a viable alternative to both AEW and WWE.  AEW can and probably will do very well for itself, but it's at at least as much a niche product as WWE, if not more.  Fans who enjoy WWE's style of wrestling, but don't like the booking or the over-the-top gimmicks (Fiend) aren't necessarily going to find a lot to love about AEW.  Tony Khan's tried to broaden the appeal, but there's only so much you can do without radically changing your philosophy or turning over your roster.  To me, AEW seems mostly designed to appeal to the hardcore indie crowd that spent money on PWG and Chikara.  That's fine, but it's ultimately going to limit how much you can grow.

People who think Kenny Omega or (insert name of highly pushed WWE, AEW, or NJPW wrestler here) is terrible need to watch more truly terrible wrestling.  it's fine to not enjoy a guy's work, or think he's overpushed or got his spot via backstage politics.  But the guys who are truly awful don't usually get far in a big company like WWE or NJPW.  Either they never get signed in the first place or they wash out quickly.  If you're main-eventing for a major company with TV, you're doing something right.  I think Bray Wyatt is consistently terrible and want him off my tv, but, objectively, he's connects with crowds well enough to sell merch, and can work the WWE style well enough to not piss off Vince.  The wrestlers who are truly useless are working county fairs or stinking up the opening match on local indie shows and will never get a second look from ROH or MLW, much less a bigger company.  

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If I wanted to watch anime, I'd watch anime. Omega looks like a goof. I've seen kids on Halloween trick or treating look more intimidating. 

I had to check out on AEW when that awful Moxley-Omega match from December was praised. That was not good. Pointless limb work. Awful dirty finish that months later lead to a botched explosion and painful weekly Tony Khan promos.

Then I went back a couple weeks ago and watched Omega-Fenix. I felt nothing by the end, just MOVEZ. Balor-O'Reilly was miles better on that same night. But it's not fair to compare the tumbling championship to a wrestling match.

At least it isn't Chris 'Vince Neil' Jericho as champion anymore.

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Here's a few.

Ric Flair looked better with the haircut Jim Herd made him get, the old one was way to 70's to look remotely cool in the early 90's.

Titles were pretty much meaningless in JCP/WCW due to half to roster walking around with a belt.

The nWo was never cool, a bunch of 40somethings trying to act hip and doing the bare minimum in the ring isn't cool.

Mid-South/UWF is extremely overrated, there's some good stuff but it's nowhere near what people make it out to be.

1984 to 1987 AWA is extremely underrated, people always point out the bad things that most of the time happened post 1987.

Joe McHugh should be in both the WWE HOF and the Observer HOF, he's basically 1B to Howard Finkel's 1A in the list of greatest ring announcers.

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On 4/2/2021 at 12:13 AM, The Natural said:

I didn't like Will Ospreay and Marty Scrull long before the Speaking Out movement. I know both polarised opinions pre Speaking Out. Like them even less now.

Stormbreaker is shit. I'd say that even if somebody else was using it.

Thank you thank you thank you.  I have never been impressed with Osprey's schtick.  He just comes off to me like an overblown, overselling cosplay dork.  Everything he does is overdone, and not in a "playing to the back of the arena" way.  Not even in a "god damn, Ricky Steamboat is playing to the fans three states away" way.  Ospreay's moves, reactions, selling, and everything else is so overdone that it makes the whole thing look phony.  I usually think Meltzer is spot on and pretty smart with a lot of things, so I'm absolutely baffled by his reverence for this nerd.

15 hours ago, Matt D said:

That's America though. All just temporarily embarrassed millionaires. If Dusty could get that Mercedes then anyone in the crowd could.

A million bonus points for using the phrase "temporarily embarrassed millionaires!"

I always excused Dusty's penchant for furs and jewelry, as he still looked blue collar as fuck and that stuff looked so out of place on him that it was comical.  Dusty cutting a promo in what was surely a free t-shirt, wearing a slightly undersized fur coat, with a bandage on his head was hilarious.  Whenever he wore expensive shit he just looked like a ditch digger who hit the number that week or got a decent tax refund.

Contrast Dusty's "drywaller who hit the pick 3 last night" clothes with Cody's fancylad gear and skinny "cheap hotel"* pants and you can definitely see which is pulling off the "working man babyface" gimmick.

 

*because there's no ballroom, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Edited by Technico Support
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2 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Thank you thank you thank you.  I have never been impressed with Osprey's schtick.  He just comes off to me like an overblown, overselling cosplay dork.  Everything he does is overdone, and not in a "playing to the back of the arena" way.  Not even in a "god damn, Ricky Steamboat is playing to the fans three states away" way.  Ospreay's moves, reactions, selling, and everything else is so overdone that it makes the whole thing look phony.  I usually think Meltzer is spot on and pretty smart with a lot of things, so I'm absolutely baffled by his reverence for this nerd.

A million bonus points for using the phrase "temporarily embarrassed millionaires!"

I always excused Dusty's penchant for furs and jewelry, as he still looked blue collar as fuck and that stuff looked so out of place on him that it was comical.  Dusty cutting a promo in what was surely a free t-shirt, wearing a slightly undersized fur coat, with a bandage on his head was hilarious.  Whenever he wore expensive shit he just looked like a ditch digger who hit the number that week or got a decent tax refund.

Contrast Dusty's "drywaller who hit the pick 3 last night" clothes with Cody's fancylad gear and skinny "cheap hotel"* pants and you can definitely see which is pulling off the "working man babyface" gimmick.

 

*because there's no ballroom, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

That's the best explanation of Dusty's mid-80s character I've seen. He came across like a redneck guy who won a good amount of money in a lottery or got a nice pay raise but it's not enough to be classified as "rich". He'd have a fur coat because he remembered rich people in the tv shows he watched as a kid had one and a nice car but he'd mostly tool around in shitty jeans and a Hank William's Jr t-shirt.

Edited by cwoy2j
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Brock as an absent champion from 2014 onwards was a good thing (albeit mostly badly executed) and should have been used as a sort of reset for the WWE’s presentation/booking style.

Also, despite the diminishing returns, Brock matches were generally the most interesting thing about any given card during that time. 

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5 minutes ago, Kev said:

Brock as an absent champion from 2014 onwards was a good thing (albeit mostly badly executed) and should have been used as a sort of reset for the WWE’s presentation/booking style.

Also, despite the diminishing returns, Brock matches were generally the most interesting thing about any given card during that time. 

Which wasn’t credit to Brock and his shitty narrative-less finisher spam, but an indictment of the modern WWE product.

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1 hour ago, cwoy2j said:

That's the best explanation of Dusty's mid-80s character I've seen. He came across like a redneck guy who won a good amount of money in a lottery or got a nice pay raise but it's not enough to be classified as "rich". He'd have a fur coat because he remembered rich people in the tv shows he watched as a kid had one and a nice car but he'd mostly tool around in shitty jeans and a Hank William's Jr t-shirt.

Dusty was how we say... "New money". Still peasants in the eyes of them classy foke. ?

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14 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I noticed watching the 86 Crockett Cup that before the 2nd session, Ross went over the rules in the ring, including the one save rule, as well as the piledriver and top rope moves being legal. 

 

12 hours ago, Mister TV said:

I vaguely remember an AWA color commentator once saying the first “save” gets a warning from the ref and the second is grounds for a DQ. 

Love it! Bring it back!

Except...

10 hours ago, Matt D said:

Every time there's a save or a rope break, it's a time where a move doesn't need to be kicked out of, which protects the move and allows you to avoid needless escalation. In my mind, there are way too many kick outs in tag matches.

 

10 hours ago, DEAN said:

Plus making saves was the sole reason BattlARTS tags were the greatest tags on earth.   Ishikawa procures the sleeper.  How much will Ikeda crush Ishikawa's skull making the save?  OH MY GOD!

Considerations like these are why I favor giving each team two saves rather than just one. That way you get up to four per match, which would help protect double-team moves and give you some cool moments without going overboard.

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My fairly tepid hot take:


The Midwest indy scene of yore was always better than the more hyped Northeast scene. Give me a second tier Ian show over any ROH show ever...

JAPW is the exception that proves the rule, I guess? That always felt more like a Midwest company that just happened to run in Rahway instead.

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26 minutes ago, Shane said:

My fairly tepid hot take:


The Midwest indy scene of yore was always better than the more hyped Northeast scene. Give me a second tier Ian show over any ROH show ever...

JAPW is the exception that proves the rule, I guess? That always felt more like a Midwest company that just happened to run in Rahway instead.

I'd also personally rank peak IWA-MS over peak ROH, mainly because I thought IWA had more variety to their shows.

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11 hours ago, Mister TV said:

Ric Flair looked better with the haircut Jim Herd made him get, the old one was way to 70's to look remotely cool in the early 90's.

I think alot of people forget he had 2 short hair haircuts between his long hair and his last haircut in his 50s. The first haircut in 1991 was some toadstool looking nonsense. When it grew back and little that’s how he kept it and that was ok.

11 hours ago, Mister TV said:

Titles were pretty much meaningless in JCP/WCW due to half to roster walking around with a belt.

They pulled it off for a long time, even with the TV title. Prince Iaukea vs Savage for the title was epic, not really for the match but for the heat. It didn’t get much hotter than that for the last 10 minutes of a Monday night at the time.

11 hours ago, Mister TV said:

The nWo was never cool, a bunch of 40somethings trying to act hip and doing the bare minimum in the ring isn't cool.

This is the main reason I’m responding to this post. I just figured I’d respond to the rest of it since I’m here. The NWO’s gimmick wasn’t to be cool during their good run. When they tried to make it their gimmick it was such a joke though. They first “took over” claiming to be mad at all the old people in WCW. Then in 1998ish they tried to act cool and people hated them for being old more than they ever hated a Ric Flair or Arn Anderson.

11 hours ago, Mister TV said:

Mid-South/UWF is extremely overrated, there's some good stuff but it's nowhere near what people make it out to be.

Lies

11 hours ago, Mister TV said:

1984 to 1987 AWA is extremely underrated, people always point out the bad things that most of the time happened post 1987.

Not lies but not appropriate right under Midsouth is overrated 

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I said my hot take about Luger on page 1 and have since posted alot but only in response to stuff. Here’s 1 that will make you...well...I don’t know what it’ll make you think lol but here goes.

WCW always had the ballsiest, most original, and best ideas. They also had the worst problem of abandoning them at the first sign of trouble or backlash. That was the difference between them and the WWF, never the original idea. Here’s a short list of things that they either did or considered, that went down as alltime Wrestlecrap, that could have went down as alltime great.

The Ric Flair heart attack angle - Flair deserved an Emmy for that. A dang movie star couldn’t have done it better. It was so perfectly timed to. For the last like year every Flair promo, the casuals would watch and be like, he’s going to have a heart attack 1 day. They should have revealed that he was poisoned then promoted it the same way the WWF promoted the Higher Power angle. It could have been that big of an angle.

The Black Scorpion - we talked about this recently. It was a great idea until about halfway through when he started doing magic tricks.

Brian Pillman The Loose Canon - I guess technically they didn’t abandon this idea but they probably would have and he would have been back in tiger striped tights getting cheated out of the TV Title on Worldwide if he’d have came back to work like he was supposed to.

The Giant falling off a building - if he would have walked into that ring, chokeslammed Hogan, and won that match we all would have bought it. Those of us who wouldn’t have bought it would have f*cking loved it more than the people who bought it loved it. And no doubt they would have loved it.

 

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15 hours ago, Wyld Samurai said:

Dusty was how we say... "New money". Still peasants in the eyes of them classy foke. ?

"Rich" vs "wealthy."  As a wrestling fan, you can see the distinction by looking at Vince's disdain for/desperate desire to be part of the wealthy establishment who will never let him in despite how many times he tries to distance himself from rasslin.

Edited by Technico Support
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I think every wrestling company really wasted an opportunity to try new things during the pandemic.  Yeah, IMPACT had Wrestle House but that was just corny hokum.  Instead of running interesting angles, it's just endless cold matches everywhere.  WWE has spent years doing everything they could to get out of the ring and when they were given a good reason to, it's felt like more in-ring time than ever.  And even if the matches aren't as long as they seem, it's because there's no reason for them to be without any angles.  At least give me some kind of promos, like give me Wardlow sticking a jabrone's head up his own ass in a minute followed by a Pinnacle promo where everyone gets some personality over or Jey Uso shit talking and mollywhopping someone in a couple of minutes followed by Reigns and Heyman holding court.  People who needed to work on their promos could've done so without crowds "WHAT"-ing them to death but nope.

WWE's just unwatchable and not necessarily because of the creative but there's just too much visual stimulation.  There's just bright lights everywhere and the cameras are switching and panning and zooming in and out.  I'm surprised there aren't any reports of people having seizures watching WWE.  I really liked their WrestleMania set-up last year and then they just kept adding more shit.

AEW really benefited from no fans cause I felt like their live crowds were on the verge of turning on them before the pandemic.  You really expect me to believe that Brodie Lee dressed like Repo Man and acting like Vince McMahon leading the Dork Order was going to be a crowd-pleaser.  Or Matt Hardy being Broken again wasn't going to get played out as fast as it did even without fans.  So funny to hear "Hangman sucks" chants and the Dark Order getting booed at Revolution.  It isn't the violence that turns off female fans, it's all the dork-ass nerds.  Matt Sydal got a shot at the AEW Champion because he kicked a man whose pants were down around his ankles.  Can't wait to never watch AEW Dark Elevation after seeing that highlight.

IMPACT's big cuck energy is a real turn-off.  "A champion from another company is here, it's unprecedented, forbidden door, blah, blah."  This is a company that's had the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, the GHC Heavyweight Champion, the AAA Mega Champion, the reigning WWE Intercontinental Champion all appear on their programming before.  "Oh, Kenny Omega's the best in the world."  They had AJ Styles for a decade.  They've had Liger, Muta, Sting, Flair, Savage, Hogan; the goddamned Rock did Ken Shamrock's HOF induction and you expect me to care about this dweeb.  And they've got the TnT boys shit talking them during their own show and telling their audience to tune in the next night for a better wrestling show.  You got a roster full of guys who go out to murder each other in the woods and they're all just sitting back and taking shit from a fat guy who looks like he just woke up from under a park bench and a nervous guy who looks like he got hopped up on sugar to brave the camera.  And they keep moving Impact away from any competition.  Defend your night, you cowards!

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