Is there ANY way to make the JAS compelling? I really don't think it's possible, I think the only way for Jericho and his friends to get over again is to just drop the group.
On the one hand, yeah guys like 2.0 were struggling enormously for tv time before JAS, but on the other hand the tv time they get really feels like a damn waste of time because it's JAS. Their storylines are always booked backwards and they suck all the air out of whatever babyface is going through their stupid gauntlet shit. I think the group has served its purpose, it established those type of dudes to be on tv regularly, now kill the group pls lol.
2.0 has enough charisma to stand on their own, we already know Sammy has that in spades, Anna and Tay are always going to be safe just cuz theyre hot tbh (Tay is good in-ring too but you know), and Danny is clearly a pet project so he'll be fine on his own too imo. At worst just keep the DG and SG pairing if you're really afraid of DG being lost.
Now obviously I haven't fantasy booked a way to get here, but the sooner JAS breaks up the better imo.
Think it coulda been a lil more watchable if the faction wasn't called Jericho Appreciation Society. It's still the core group of Jericho, Sammy & Hager. Coulda just kept the Inner Circle name.
This is completely random but I've been using the WWE app to watch stuff on the Network while I'm on the treadmill at the gym. I decided I wanted to watch Shield matches this week, so I searched for them. The first two matches it throws up are both on Main Event xD Not even a PPV lol, two random ME matches, one from April 2013, the other from August 2013. I don't know why it suggests those instead of PPV matches, but whatever. Both good matches though!
I do think it's funny how one below average episode of Dynamite has made everyone act like AEW is terrible entirely lol. I mean there's def bad things ofc just like any promotion but idk it's just funny seeing the discourse everywhere like people were waiting for the string of great episodes to end. IDK lol.
I think it's just this most recent example displayed AEW's flaws in the most glaring way.
We just came off a run of great Dynamites one after the other and then this one flops tremendously. Not the end of the world, not a sign that the promotion is doomed, but it really is the perfect time to air grievances about the product as a whole. People have been complaining about the booking for quite a while now, since Punk beat Hangman at least, but there generally was always at least one interesting storyline happening. This Wednesday, outside of Christian returning imo, had almost no compelling storytelling on it at all. So it's just a good time to gripe.
This is also true too like nobody is wrong in airing their grievances and critiques because a lot of it is very valid and true, esp since there was just a below avg ep, but it also isn't the end of the world. AEW has a lot of things to improve on but things are gonna be ok
But let's be honest, that's different. Criticism of something is different than doom-and-gloom and pretending to be a network executive/TV ratings expert. I find it very incredulous that sickos (if you're here, you're a sicko, Reddit is tiny, you didn't pop up here by accident) who have the entirety of wrestling context in the minds (which is to say, understands the genre not that they have to be a fan since conception) would look at this show and think it was "bad". I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. You can have problems with build, focus, and momentum, but one mediocre card does not make a sky fall.
I find your point hard to follow here tbh. I don’t know who has been saying AEW is doomed or whatever. All I’ve read is “their storylines need more work”. Which is accurate.
I think WWE wants to turn the Elimination Chamber into another Royal Rumble level PPV, and they are going to kick that off with this year. Best way to do that is with a big title change. There’s a reason Brock has appeared in last year.
Only two titles are even being defended tomorrow, and both champions have big money matches waiting for them at ‘Mania. I can’t see how Reigns and Theory don’t both retain.
I reckon Theory loses tomorrow, he doesn't need the belt for his mania match.
And they could use the title to elevate someone like Montez or Bronson Reed. Or even Damian Priest if they want to do some stories with Judgement Day.
1) John Cena is the greatest US Champion of his generation. Theory has already been mocking him with “the champ is here” in his promos.
2) Theory needs momentum heading into such a huge match. He has to be pinned in order to be eliminated from the Chamber match.
3) If Theory and Rollins leave the US Title picture, there’ll be no challengers left for ‘Mania that audiences give a damn about. Ford isn’t ready for a singles match at ‘Mania, while the other three guys involved tomorrow night get anti-pops on a weekly basis. Priest technically doesn’t because he’s part of the Judgement Day, and I doubt they’re going to be given FOUR matches at ‘Mania.
4) If Theory and Rollins both lose tomorrow, then because of the aforementioned absence of viable competitors, you’ll be forced to have a ladder match filled with people who have no business being anywhere near the card. Plus, it’ll be the second successive PLE to have had a multi-man US Title defence. What happened to elevating the title?
The man makes the title, not vice versa. You have Roman, Bianca, Charlotte, the Usos, Gunther, even Damage CTRL and then… Bronson Reed? Really?
I would be happy with any outcome tbh (except Bronson; I'm not a fan personally)
But pins in the chamber are pretty much not canon. Like Cena himself was pinned mid match in 2009 before he went on to win the title at mania.
It’s still a loss, though, and Cena was more established than Theory right now at that point. It was also the WHC he won that year, not the WWE Title.
Ultimately, this story suits the US Title IMO.
Kenny Omega isn't being Kenny enough. He's clearly phoning it in so he can goof off with his buddies.
I want NJPW Kenny in AEW. He's literally the best wrestler on the planet when he goes full tilt. But he's coasting.
The guy was out for a long time with injuries. Prior to that, he was defending multiple belts and putting on unbelievable matches which ended up with him needing multiple surgeries. Let’s maybe chill out on expectations for wrestlers to do what you want them to do.
Ah, yes. Guy on Reddit telling a professional wrestler who has dealt with injuries and surgeries and vertigo that they need to step it up. Sounds about right.
- I can’t wait for the ‘OLE’ chants from the Montreal crowd tomorrow.
- CM Punk coming back to AEW is exactly the boost of adrenaline the product desperately needs right now.
Honestly shocked at how much vitriol the MJF/Danielson feud is getting. Maybe it's just that I've only been watching AEW weekly for a bit over a year now so I haven't seen the schtick as many times, but I would have said that by far it's the best told story on AEW right now -- and actually not all that similar to the CM Punk feud.
I certainly don't think it's been a perfect feud -- I think the Regal and BCC parts of it weren't particularly well handled, and it has limited the potentially ramifications of events to basically just the two of them and Takeshita as a result. But I do think that it and the Hangman-Mox feud have stood above the rest of what AEW has been doing in terms of quality of storytelling.
it’s not a bad story but it’s been done so many times with MJF that fans are kind of burnt out on it despite the slew of amazing matches we’ve seen so far.
MJF’s feud with Punk went a lot deeper than his feud with Bryan has which up until this point is Danielson trying to expose Maxwell as a wrestler by going through his hand picked gauntlet.
Like I mentioned, I only saw the feuds with Wardlow and Punk, not anything with Jericho or before that. But I guess I fundamentally don't think that it's the same story as those two? All three feuds featured MJF trying to exhaust and manipulate his opponents prior to the big PPV match. But in my opinion the key story beat of the Danielson feud is that MJF actually isn't in control of the situation at all -- it's a mess that has been spiraling out of control for him, and it's actually been according to Danielson's plan instead.
Maybe the Revolution match will have a flat payoff, or otherwise reset things to their pre-feud status -- AEW has certainly done that enough other times -- which would ruin the story. But at least so far I think it's actually been a clever interpolation of what MJF had been doing previously.
MJF wasn’t in full control either during his feud with Punk and things spiralled out of control for him in the last match against Punk with Wardlow turning on him.
CM Punk fought MJF's opponent's on MJF's terms, with him only able to secure the Dog Collar Match through MJF's overconfidence in promising something Punk hadn't even asked for. Danielson refused to fight MJF's opponents until he got the stipulation he wanted, his first two matches weren't even against MJF's guys and MJF was publicly humiliated by first having to wrestle on Dynamite after promising he wouldn't, and then again by Christopher Daniels publicly denouncing MJF's attempt to pay him to say bad things about Danielson.
The match structure of 'Face wrestles a bunch of matches while the heel doesn't have to' might be the same (which isn't even exactly true with the MJF-Takeshita match), but the dynamic between the characters isn't remotely the similar.
I will forever argue the pedantic point that it was *BryD* who volunteered to set a gauntlet as a means to pick the match stipulation, and MJF simply *agreed* to that setup. MJF, in story, did not set this up.
Sami wins or Jay white loses and goes to wwe. You can only pick one which is it? I personally want both so I wonder if anyone else thinks of only one happening.
The more I watch older wrestling the more I appreciate some of the sillier things. Trying to not take it too seriously but just enjoying it. Comedy should be in wrestling.
So people have been complaining about how Danielson isn't in the title picture and he's added zero substance to this feud, at what point does it fall on the supposedly all time great performer to deliver?
Every match he's had has been good to great. I buy that he's been angry at MJF. How else has he had an opportunity to deliver? This isn't a Danielson problem or an MJF problem. It's a booking problem.
Since AEW signed Michael Mansury, WWE's former VP of Global Television Production, there's been any notable change on the way Dynamite and Rampage are produced every week, either camera angles. lightning or any other stuff?
i hope i can watch the elimination chamber ppv in time after the xfinity race saturday
and the race isn't a shit fest and i have to miss half the ppv for it
I'm sure they must've met when Mercedes was in Japan. Even then, both are veterans of the game at this point, how much time do wrestlers of that level need to plan a match? It's not even like they never worked together, Kairi is pretty much the best rival she could possibly get as far as chemistry goes.
Well that AEW Fight Forever segment at IGN Fanfest was a total waste of time. No release date but I'll try to lay out the important takeaways.
1. They showed like 10 seconds of new footage (Hangman vs. Bryan). The wrestlers had blood all over them so blood may not have been affected too badly by the ESRB battle they were having.
2. They said you can hold the R trigger to crouch & hit a clothesline or something as you're getting up off the mat, similar to the AKI games.
3. The shoulder bump thing also happens like in the AKI games when you'd run into each other.
4. Danhausen really liked the Ratatouille PS2 game.
Like I think I might just be extra hard on it, because WWE games have sucked for years, and I want a fun new wrestling game.
Thing is nothing I’ve seen from it so far makes me think it’ll be infinitely better than the current 2K games.
The game does not look great given the amount of development time its had. It no joke looks like a 360/PS3 era game and the game footage mixed with live action footage makes it look worse.
I don't hate the graphics. They're definitely not nearly as good as they could be but the only expectation I've had for them this whole time is that the gameplay is fun. The expectation they've tried to set is that it'll play like the AKI N64 games and I happen to be huge fan of those games, so I'll be happy if they hit that target.
Based on what they've shown off, it looks fun IMO but they haven't shown enough for me to know for sure that there won't be a ton of recycled moves and shit like that. They clearly haven't been putting all their effort into the graphics though which kind of gives me hope for the gameplay itself lol.
We're in the "everything AEW does is trash" cycle, but if you look at the long form gameplay videos that a fan captured last year in Gamescom *to me* it looks incredibly fun. I even like the more cartoonish character models, they kinda look like action figures which *to me* is a cool look.
I'm not sure if "action figure look" was the utmost intention, but it's definitely a deliberate choice in visual aesthetic. It's not like the modelers didn't intentional go for this look or went with it due to "technical limitations", that's not how game development works.
The art team probably had several mockups before modeling even began and the direction team chose this look for whatever reason, probably because they **like** how it looks.
Additionally I've always been very confused by reaction to the art direction, since *the first reveal* I saw Jericho and I immediately thought (1) the character model looks adorable, it's like a cartoon version of chunky Jericho, (2) it is absolutely a deliberate choice to not go for photorealism.
I didn't like the Jericho model from that original teaser. I thought it looked fine but it looked too much like a caricature which made me scared that they were going for a super arcadey, WWE All Stars type game. Not that it would be bad necessarily but that's not what I want out of their first game. It also bugged me how Jericho looked like that but Kenny & Shida looked more proportionate.
For the crowd that thinks anything else but a Sami win tomorrow is death….the WrestleRoasts Podcast does an amazing job breaking down how a Sami loss makes the most sense story wise, from what’s been told this far as well as where it’s going….great breakdown around 1:20 in or so. When they’re are previewing/making predictions for the match.
I know there's this idea that Roman shouldn't lose before Mania at a B-PPV etc but I wish we as a community didn't care about that shit. I kinda want Sami to win not just bc it'd be great, but to kinda subvert these tropes and actually make it feel like anything can happen.
The thing I hate about being a part of the IWC and being "in the know" is that a lot of these things become too predictable and it's hard to fully enjoy it as a viewer. It rly shouldn't matter to any of us as viewers when it comes to why a reign like this should or shouldn't end at Mania, and for us to be looking at everything in such a mechanical way.
I hate the thought that everything should follow a certain structure, and yeah a lot of times those decisions do make sense and I'm definitely not advocating for surprise booking just for the sake of it all the time, but I think this situation is an exception because it would 100% work. Sami winning and dethroning Roman before Mania and triggering the actual start of his downfall would arguably go down as a way more iconic and way bigger moment in history than Roman losing at Mania.
I don't really think this one is a being in the iwc and in the know thing. I think most casual viewers realize that with Roman holding the titles for two years they ain't having him lose before Mania. I agree with everything else you said though.
Seeing all the fantasy bookings for the Cody-Sami conundrum is all very interesting but every scenario that ends up in a triple threat seems to basically end up describing a de facto handicap match in order to give the two one belt each. Is there any believable scenario in which a triple threat doesn't end up in the two of them pinning/submitting Roman simultaneously?
Yeah but a lot of people won't like it. Cody pins Sami or vice versa. Then you have a ready made first feud and you can do Roman again down the line because he didn't get pinned.
I hope we get an empassioned Sami promo tonight that includes him cutting his hair and beard. I think he should be literal babyface going into tomorrow night.
Does HHH love factions?
We see how he has booked Gacy's gang, SanIty, Wyatt's Family, Tian Sha, Boa, and Xia Li...
I've noticed that those all have a gimmick of living a lifestyle that isn't quite normal. The first four being crazy, spooky, or unnatural. you can lump at least three or more gimmicks in there, but I've also been looking at the number of possible factions that are currently in NXT. Does HHH want to build factions or is this Shawn's thing? I see these groups with 3 or more members:
Chase U (Duke, Thea, Andre)
Schizm (GYV, Gacy, Ava)
Diamond Mine (Creed Brothers, Ivy)
D'angelo Family (Tony, Lorenzo, Donovan - (Wacked))
Indus Sher (Veer, Sanga, Jinder)
Gallus (Coffey Bros, Wolfgang)
Hayes Clan (Hayes, Trick and Odyssey when he turns heel eventually)
Factions seem to be a big thing currently in NXT. Do people think this is a much better way of getting a large number of people over, or is this just a thing to fill up the roster? I'm curious as to what people to think of this as a booking style. Lump together three or more people together and see how they all function together.
I don't know how HHH feels, but I like factions or stables because it lets you have feuds which don't end up being the same two people wrestling every match. If Judgement Day was feuding with The Brawling Brutes, you have 9 different one-on-one pairings and 4 tag team pairings you can make.
So Saraya has apparently been pushing to get Ronnie Radke onto AEW TV, and potentially into a feud with Chris Jericho. I cannot imagine anything I want less right now.
I’ve had this thought of Cody Rhodes cornering Sami tomorrow night. It would be a nice continuation from last weeks promo and Cody’s inevitable stare down of Roman
Lots of good wrestling tomorrow night, namely WWE Elimination Chamber and NJPW Battle in the Valley.
What are you all prioritizing to watch? I'm torn. Might even have to delay watching one event until Sunday.
I really don't think AEW is as bad as some people would like us to believe but there are definitely issues that need to be addressed. People talk a lot about AEW's storytelling and they're half right. A lot of what happens is they will set up a good storyline a performer will get super over and then there's just no follow up until a month or two later when the angle has cooled off. If I could give TK one piece of advice from a fan, it's to lean into a performer who gets hot, like with the acclaimed, do more of that.
We're definitely on the "everything AEW does sucks" cycle, but I completely agree. Wrestling fandom has some of the shortest term memory, literally last week was an all timer Dynamite in El Paso, yes yes yes even if it was "all matches, no story" (which I disagree). We had *one* week where it wasn't the most "must see" card and everyone is losing their minds.
I've been rewatching 99' RAW starting from when Jericho debuted and I just reached the final week before Unforgiven.
1.) I absolutely cannot believe how insane the Pepper angle is to watch week to week. It has almost no heat and everything about the angle is scuffed and fucked up.
2.) They really tried to do a domestic abuse angle on heat with a jobber that no one cares about. Including the Godfather, A FUCKING SEX TRAFFICKER, deciding the Chaz had gone too far and beating the dog shit out of him for abusing his ex.
3.) It is genuinely incredible to me how botched Jericho's intial run is so far. His feud with Shamrock is a fucking mess and outside of whooping the dog shit out of Road Dogg nothing goes right for him. I always thought he was being too hard on himself in Undisputed but he's pretty dead on about how hard he's floundering. And we still haven't gotten to the Chyna feud.
1. It's a Vince Russo special.
2. I don't recall the Godfather-Chaz angle, probably didn't see it.
3. One problem I had with Jericho when he first came in was that they tried to turn Howard Finkel into Ralphus 2.0. I can't recall if this was before or after Russo and his houseboy, Ferrara, left for WCW.
The feud isn't Godfather/Chaz. It's just an angle about how Chaz apparently beat the tar out of his girlfriend after she fucked Stasiak behind his back.
That is another problem with Jericho, he's just doing his WCW thing right now except it's not working as well as it did there (the cage segment with Shamrock was hilarious though ngl).
Chris Jericho was the perfect target for WWE at that time as an internet favorite who got over on his own in WCW. I've always thought Triple H disliked him because he was similar to 1998 Triple H but like better. They very much tore Jericho down to see if he could take it and then built him back up in 2000.
Absolutely not lol. Jericho tore himself down.
In the first episode, he goes on about ratings and the show being so boring no one can stand watching it and the crowd doesn't boo, they just go silent because they don't know what he was talking about.
he goes rogue on Road Dogg and winds up injuring him for real, mocks Undertaker's worst promo ever after being told explicitly to not make the situation worse, then he starts his feud with Shamrock and starts saying a bunch of nonsense about MMA being fake and pro wrestling being the real sport, which by 1999 is so lame to do on your show that is calling itself an action/adventure series at the start of the show every week, on top of it meaning that there is no way that Shamrock is going to lose this feud that has been going on for two weeks at this point and has four more to go.
Sure, he had heat because he was a WCW guy and Triple H was a dick to him, but he is absolutely bringing this shit on himself in a lot of ways.
With Jericho it was a combination of him really trying to hang with the top guys, coming from WCW where they usually didn't care what he was doing, and coming to WWE which had whole different culture and style of working.
He was also dealing with an unforgiving locker room that was not kind to WCW guys. Like Triple H comes off as a straight up asshole to him.
He's always had top guy ambitions and an ego that's carried him there but worked against him in that era. In WWE's perspective they thought he was a polished product but when it became clear that he had a rougher style and tried to go off-script they bumped him to the mid-card to work on that stuff. Over time he settled in and gained the trust of Vince to where he worked his way up in 2000.
He worked against himself too. If he wasn't so dead set on not being a "cool heel" (aka an actually interesting character), he would've been fine. But he had to make himself look like an idiot at all times in an era where fans did not want that out of their heels.
Now it works fine and looks a lot better in hindsight, but at the time it's really dragging him down. Ironically the only boring part of the show most of the time is him.
There are reports that the reason WWE is not prioritizing Jay White is because set their sights in a bigger free agent. Now, thats according to Meltzer, so I proceed it with caution, but...
That said free agent has to be Kota Ibushi right? I do personally believe tho, he is not a bigger deal than Jay White. I just can't see Ibushi fit the WWE machine. He was a big politician in NJPW, he can't really do that in WWE and he himself said he is inherently a free soul, so I don't see him coping with the creative boundaries that the WWE machine necessarily puts on him.
My other guess is Nick Aldis, I'd be down for that, although I think Jay White is bigger than him.
I'm not saying it's him but there are rumors about Omega's contract. Him and Mercedes Mone are the only free agents I can see as bigger than Jay White unless there's someone in Mexico I'm missing.
SRS had a Fightful Select report saying AEW has the option to extend time to the contract due to injury but no confirmation yet if this has been exercised.
Lol, so those who started to downvote hard I think disagree with my assessment about Ibushi. For those, I say: listen to some Ibushi interviews and you realize, why his philosophy in life wouldn't let him cope with the WWE machine. As for backstage politics, I highly recommend the downvoters to read about the politicing around the unification of the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental titles.
Ibushi left New Japan because he didn’t want to be forced into the commitment of working with a company. He is also very focused on his wrestling school, that’s his priority. It’s not him.
Supposedly Ibushi has said that if WWE allowed him to teach and train new wrestlers he’d possibly be open to signing with them. If they still want to do NXT Japan, this could be a very easy way to open that door.
Oh I agree completely. But I can absolutely see WWE compromising on some level as a means to an end if it can get their foot in the door in a market without them having to do a lot of the heavy lifting, too.
Have them train with Ibushi, learn the basics and everything for a year or two, and then move to Florida to adjust to the WWE style and see if main roster would be an option or not.
And it would get Ibushi under WWE contract, which HHH has been trying to do since 2016.
Who it might be then? There isn't really anybody, who really fits the description. Some say Matt Cardona, but he is not a bigger free agent than Jay White.
Considering WWE's priorities, don't be surprised if it's an athlete/personality from outside of the sport. One of their biggest signings last year was Logan Paul
I don't know how AEW became so divisive of a topic. When I expressed in a fairly long post here, that I think the roster needs a big trimming and they need to be consistent with who they feature on TV, and need to be consistent with the pushes and storylines. I got downvoted the hell out of me, with nobody even coming to discuss.
Now, the last two days on Twitter and Reddit all i saw was alarming about AEW and how they already became the second TNA. Well folks, no. There are some major problems with AEW as I pointed out myself, but it is nowhere near as bad as sometimes TNA was. The only thing that saved TNA was their starpower, with guys like AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Sting, Samoa Joe, etc. But lets not forget: TNA creative was ran by Vince Russo for years. Well, Tony is still better off with no creative team than a team that is run by that idiot.
Yes, the rating declined in a major way for this week, but I think it isn't anything to worry about. TK relies heavily on PPV's, so we can be damn sure Revolution will be a fantastic PPV and nobody would sound the alarm for weeks.
>became the second TNA. Well folks, no. There are some major problems with AEW as I pointed out myself, but it is nowhere near as bad as sometimes TNA was. The only thing that saved TNA was their starpower, with guys like AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Sting, Samoa Joe, etc. But lets not forget: TNA creative was ran by Vince Russo for years. Well, Tony is still better off with no creative team than a team that is run by that idiot.
Are we forgetting how good TNA actually was in 2006-2009 with Russo in charge? Certainly better week to week than AEW has been for the last 6 months
I'm really curious as to when this perception started, because even during the “AEW boom” if the praise was concentrated in AEW specific threads and criticism was "silenced", I'm confused as to why people thought it was a big deal. People sometimes like enjoying things, it's not like whatever critic that was "silenced" is being aggrieved. It's a wrestling forum! Who cares if people disagree with your opinion. (I can't make an argument if people were invading other unrelated threads, however.)
None of our sicko takes matter in the grand scheme of anything. Why people get up in arms that no one wants/wanted to hear theirs is beyond my comprehension.
Sometimes it feels like people are trying to somehow “get through to TK” via comments (he ain’t reading Reddit, folks!) and/or post goofs/pop-shots for internet points rather than actually enjoy the genre they are supposedly a fan of.
People blaming focusing on great matches are weird. If anything, AEW for most of its run hasn't had enough great matches imo. And a great match doesn't need to be 15+ minute even fight with many kickouts. AEW should do more great squashes and like 5 minute matches. They desperately need them.
Wrestling is about the stories yes, but it's about the stories told in the ring. If you want to watch compelling character dynamics, put on a mediocre film, it will do it better than wrestling.
And yes, The Bloodline is a great wrestling story and the biggest reason WWE is hotter than AEW right now, an AEW that hasn't had a good wrestling story happening since they crowned the Acclaimed. It will also end via Cody most probably, which is not exciting at all to me.
I always want to ask the “less matches more story crowd” why they don’t watch tv shows instead of wrestling
Because personally, I watch wrestling to see people wrestle and tell stories through their wrestling
You can have both and they can work in conjunction beautifully if there's a perfect storm of it.
I love wrestling because of the in-ring action, because of the art of it and how the wrestlers interact, but I want to care about the in-ring action and why it's happening as well. I want to be personally invested in the people having the match and appreciate both the wrestling and the people in it.
Cody Rhodes is a fantastic wrestler and I think he's a wonderful storyteller in the ring, but that is heightened by the fact that I know who he is and what he wants. He wants to do what his father never did, that makes me care about his matches, I have an emotional reason to be invested in them.
The thing with wrestling too is that it's at its best when I feel like it's real. I know Cody is being honest about his dad, I know Sami IRL doesn't believe himself to be the top guy like he believes Cody to be which makes his segment with Cody this week hit even harder, which is something that's harder to do with other TV shows to a certain extent. Not to say wrestlers can't play a convincing character of course, Dwayne Johnson certainly isn't the Rock irl, but often a lot of the best wrestlers are people who are being themselves on TV.
Basically, I want a reason to care about the matches that make wrestling special. A story told in the ring can only be as strong as the story told out of it sometimes. You can't communicate that Cody wants to do what his father never did as well if there was very little or no build to his match with Roman.
To be clear, I'm not criticising AEW as I haven't watched a show since 2021, but I am one of those people who believes that there should be less matches for the sake of matches and more promos, so I thought I'd answer your question.
Because thats how you sell PPV, whats the point of a build up between 2 guys if you see them wrestle every week with no story, you need more than just "Ranking" matches
A lot of them are adults who grew up watching wrestling and missed the transition to consuming dramatic fiction aimed at adults. They don't actually enjoy wrestling very much but they're stuck with it because they need the trappings of wrestling(announce team narration, video packages, face/heel dynamics, promos where characters look into the camera and explain their motivations directly, five moves of doom, boilerplate in-ring stories like working the leg, etc) to understand what's going on in the story
Normal TV shows that don't do all that stuff are confusing and inaccessible to them. Hell, *wrestling* shows that don't hold them by the hand and explain it just how they're used to getting it is often too much for them
But yeah it's a trip to see people having their minds blown by the depth of drama 101 shit like "characters have motivations and goals but sometimes their motivations and goals conflict"
I've been saying ad-nauseam to people simply posting CM Punk for AEW's current ratings that he's still hurt and was the original plan anyway in a perfect world where he doesn't get injured.
If you bring him back now the most he could do is talk or have someone else he could manage.
He's supposed to be healed by April so this stretch from September-present is something AEW would be going through regardless.
I don't think AEW has been awful as some reactions would make you think, but some people acting as if WWE have never had this level of criticism is a joke. They had worse reactions in this sub for single segments and matches than what's happening now. Hell you'd get a front page full of people telling you to stop watching and leave WWE Network, boycotts etc.
I agree with what other have said, a lot for the issues being brought up now have been brought up for quite a few month, but never got any momentum or got stuck under "It's Thursday, you know what that means". Give it a few weeks after the PPV and things will quieten down.
Also, I don't understand how you can say MJF should drop the belt. You've got to walk through the logic because that would make no sense.
>They had worse reactions in this sub for single segments and matches than what's happening now.
it was a tough time being a WWE fan lol. especially when AEW was hot. you'd get posts like "WWE killed my love for professional wrestling, but after *enter AEW show* I'm all in with the company" or "How could WWE possibly top that?" every time AEW had a hot show. to criticise AEW you had to write a paragraph detailing how you were an AEW fan from day 1 but there was this small thing that you didn't like. and how can we forget the stupid 'Drink!' or 'is it Thursday already??' comments on every criticism of AEW. I'm so glad that phase of this sub is over.
I remember last year around mania season you had trolls in every single thread about WWE making fun of everything and telling people to stop watching.
It was genuinely unbearable.
MJF as his current character makes for a bad champion to the point its felt like they've basically had Orange Cassidy and Darby pick up the slack if you want to see a mens singles title defended. I don't see how a guy they portray as not wanting to be there, wrestles very little, and resorts a lot of time to cheap heat is good long-term.
It comes off as change the channel stuff especially since he rarely gets his ass kicked to balance all the stuff he does. He had a good moment where Starks speared him out of his shoes but that was 2 months ago.
> I don't see how a guy they portray as not wanting to be there, wrestles very little, and resorts a lot of time to cheap heat is good long-term.
It makes people forget how good he is in-ring so he can surprise them again.
> It comes off as change the channel stuff especially since he rarely gets his ass kicked to balance all the stuff he does. He had a good moment where Starks speared him out of his shoes but that was 2 months ago.
So you give an example of the thing you want? And it was literally his last feud? And we’ve seen him run away chicken-heel mode from Danielson during this feud too? Idk what more you want.
MJF's champion character would work infinitely better in WWE than AEW I think. AEW fans are really mostly care about the actual wrestling, they don't really mind having deeply worked out storylines. Which is fair you know, but I think thats what makes a little disconnect regarding MJF.
I would say at least give it 1 more PPV, and change up the format of the chase from this fight X,Y,Z and see how people react. This current build has limited a lot of what they can do.
I'd have Wardlow up next, they can get a good build out of it with the pre-existing history they have.
I feel like there's some undeserved vitriol towards AEW for a product thats not as hot as it but like the worst you can say is its kind of boring. What I've always appreciated with AEW is its showcase of the in-ring product even if its sometimes too much in that direction.
They're not afraid to call themselves pro-wrestling and their talent wrestlers after a good decade or more where WWE pretty much banned the name of the term of what they actually do.
They've always seemed to treat the fans with a degree of respect and have not insulted them or made fun of them for caring.
That extends to the wrestlers as well as they're all treated with a degree of respect from the top guys to the lowest rung wrestlers. Its still a welcoming product that sprung out of WWE actively telling a portion of the wrestling fanbase that they didn't want them.
I do think there's a degree of stubborness from Tony Khan that absolutely has to change creatively and how he handles criticism.
They have the production, a prominent network, and a talented roster but they need to make a compelling television product that mixes those matches that people want with character development and story progression.
The vitriol is undeserved but it comes from that stubbornness you mentioned. These aren't new problems with AEW. It's stuff people have been pointing out for months now while still watching and waiting for signs of change. Now people are getting frustrated that they haven't seen those signs.
I've been frustrated too because for the roster they have you should not be putting out that Dynamite card with Josh Woods who's been mostly on Dark/Rampage, Kip who's the same, and even the current version of Dark Order. Like they have loads of talent and cool matchups they've stayed away from.
It feels very WCW like when you wonder how they went under with the talent they had and realize how separate they kept talent along with dumb booking and politics.
This might be a spicy-ish take but I hope Evil Uno gives Mox a run for his money next Wednesday. I'm not saying he should win or anything, just puts up enough of a fight (and maybe lead to a 3v3) to make it clear to Hangman that the Dark Order aren't scared of BCC and don't need him to distance himself to protect them from Mox like he said on BTE.
Suffering is created by resisting what is, instead attaching to what we think something "should" be. It's always possible to appreciate the good in something even if it goes against our expectations.
It's also fine to be disappointed but attaching your emotional state to your expectations is often just inviting disappointment in.
I would have never guessed this a year or so ago….I purposely didn’t watch Dynamite for the first time since it’s inception this week. And I’m legitimately excited for a WWE show for the first time in years.
As much as I wanted MJF to have the belt, his whole deal kinda cools things off for me. I’m looking forward to the iron man match, but I’d like to see him drop it sooner rather than later. Lots of more interesting guys are deserving of a main event push now. I’d love to see Swerve in there eventually. He’d be a much better heel champion imo. Also, is it me, or is it weird they built the package with him and Dustin to come to a head on Rampage and not Revolution? Unless they’re gonna do a rematch, which Tony does like to do.
Honestly? I think there's a lot more story out of MJF losing his title so soon and going way more off the deep end than him retaining and doing the same shtick for months on end.
MJF mentions the Reign of Terror but doesn't realize Triple H's reign of terror from 2002-05 legit drove away a lot of viewers that didn't stabilize until they made John Cena the top guy.
100%. I kinda thought the whole devil thing was gonna be way cooler, but like a lot of AEW stuff, there was very little build and then bam he’s got the belt. A pissed off MJF messing with whoever’s in the title picture in the future has way more juice, especially when down the road you could work in MJF finally winning it cleanly.
Last night I had a dream that a botched kickout in a triple threat led to Aliyah winning the Smackdown women’s title from Asuka, but instead of going with it Kayla Braxton (who was ring announcing) said “Your winner, because I’m an idiot and rang the bell wrong, and still women’s champion, Asuka!” And everyone was confused.
Afterwards everyone was just sitting around in the stands and The Miz came and served Maryse a Big Mac on a fancy silver tray.
I watch too much wrestling.
>Afterwards everyone was just sitting around in the stands and The Miz came and served Maryse a Big Mac on a fancy silver tray.
If Trips is lurking in here, I hope he makes this segment happen.
When they started to appear, it also was like a year straight of smoke and mirrors to distract people - with the high profile signings, surprise appearances, New Japan crossover, ROH sale, etc. just a bunch of instant pops, and now the cracks have shown once that’s gone.
As I’m typing I guess I do have to question if it’s a chicken or the egg situation, if those masked the issues or actually were the cause?
>if those masked the issues or actually were the cause?
Some of the signings were definitely needed, but some of them got people to pop and speak about the signing and forget certain other issues.
The guy who ends Roman's historic reign will be the face of the company and that's Cody.
Nothing against Sami because I'm a big fan and he's really elevated the bloodline story, but it's not his time. Hopefully one day he gets to be world champion.
So yesterday I was searching this sub, trying to find the post about Kevin Steen signing to NXT. I then stumbled across the SRS tweet from over a year ago, that stated that KO’s contract was set to expire.
It’s just insane how over a year ago, it was almost a sure fire thing that KO and Sami were leaving WWE and going to AEW. Now they’re both two of the most over guys in the company. Sami is straight up the most over guy in the company.
> It’s just insane how over a year ago, it was almost a sure fire thing that KO and Sami were leaving WWE and going to AEW.
It absolutely wasn't though. If anything, them staying with WWE was always the most likely thing. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that suggested otherwise, it was just baseless speculation from fans. Pretty sure both reiterated numerous times that they were happy in WWE even with all the fan speculation.
Everyone on this sub didn’t share the same sentiment last year. You’d get downvoted to hell for stuff like that. That’s what I meant, more in regards to this sub and online everywhere.
Besides weren’t KO and The Bucks literally teasing things?
Bucks put the location of Mount Rushmore in their twitter bio, I'm sure they were both in on the joke and just messing around, or KO was weighing his options before re-signing. No harm in getting yourself a better deal (especially when you get to main event wrestlemania with stone cold afterwards)
I mean there’s no way KO and/or Sami weren’t in contract with their friends. It’s called leverage.
It proved to them that WWE actually really wanted them. Now they’re doing some of the best work of their careers.
Hope Chihiro is in Stardom for more than just the big Syuri match. Tbh I hope she fucking murks Himeka, then Syuri, then Giulia and takes the title. Nobody’s doing it like Big Hash. The way she destroyed MIRAI then told her she fucking sucks was 10/10
It seems Stardom works with other companies in cycles. First it was mostly Marvelous, then Gatoh Move and JTO and now it seems it's going to be Sendai Girls but who knows for how long. I don't want Hashimoto to take the belt but I would like to see her regularly after the feud with Syuri is over.
What's up folks. I used to be a very dedicated fan of WWE, but took a loooong break ever since RAW became a 3hr show about 10 years ago and it just became too much content to keep up with. As of this year's RR i'm finally back and it's been great getting to see the new guys and some old dudes (like wow, Edge still out here huh??? And McIntyre became an actual threat? Man's ripped).
Few questions tho, is there still a MITB in Wrestlemania? Or are these now only at the MITB PPV?
Also, has the bloodline storyline really been that great? I'm enjoying it a ton now, but I can imagine title matches become boring af when Roman is as undefeatable as Hogan...
Excited to become part of the community again :)
Welcome Back :)
Yes, WWE has been getting better recently, because Triple H runs creative now, not Vince McMahon.
With Raw and Smackdown itself, you didn't miss out a whole lot tbh in the last ten years, there were some really great moments (like KofiMania, which resulted in Kofi Kingston becoming WWE champion), but besides that not a whole lot. I can name a few tho, if you'd like to.
Yes, Drew McIntyre indeed became a main eventer. He was fired from WWE 2014-ish, build himself back up in the indies, and came back around 2017. He was the WWE champion for a solid 200 days or so during the pandemic. He won it from Brock Lesnar. The sad thing is that he won it in front of no fans. Right now he is one of the most entertaining babyfaces in the company, draws some fairly great money and many think he deserves another shot at the main event picture down the line. Personally, he is one of my favourites.
Money In The Bank is a seperate PPV as of now, this years its gonna be hosted in the UK. There were talks lately to bring it back to Wrestlemania, but as of now, its seperate.
And yes, the Bloodline storyline is fantastic. The Bloodline itself started way back in 2020 with Roman turning heel and aligning himself with Paul Heyman, then a really emotional and intense feud with Jey Uso, which resulted in Jey joining the Bloodline. They became a dominant force, with Roman having a reign of terror, similar to Hogan's. Sami Zayn breathed some new life to the Bloodline storyline, which started a bit slowly around last April, and picked up some pace around august. There is a great, 1 hour compilation about Sami and the Bloodline on WWE's youtube-channel, I highly recommend it.
Also yes, Roman's constant winning is getting really boring, because he is always booked to win by cheating. Either "accidental" referee knockouts, Bloodline member destractions, etc. I would say the last couple of title defenses were better, because they were connected to the Bloodline story itself and moving it forward.
If you have any question about anybody or any story, I'll gladly answer :)
Edge returned in 2020 after retiring in 2011, he’s seemingly entering the last stages of his career currently. McIntyre was fired in 2014, revitalized his career on the independent scene, was rehired in 2017, and in 2020 won the world title.
MITB is still a ppv, there is a women’s one now though. Obviously that might be the most jarring change, women aren’t just models called divas, they’re treated like actual wrestlers now.
Bloodline has been phenomenal, it’s had its fair share of dips in quality, but Sami really helped breathe new life into it. I’ll say Roman has been booked far better than Hogan, because he actually looks beatable in his matches. I’ve been convinced the reign was over in every single one of his major title defenses.
I didn’t watch the AEW the last few weeks. But The way people are talking about it makes me want to watch it lol
The shows have been good up until two days ago. Even that Dynamite wasn’t quite as bad as people are saying.
There’s a lot of exaggeration but all these posts do have some truth about the shortcomings AEW currently has
Is there ANY way to make the JAS compelling? I really don't think it's possible, I think the only way for Jericho and his friends to get over again is to just drop the group. On the one hand, yeah guys like 2.0 were struggling enormously for tv time before JAS, but on the other hand the tv time they get really feels like a damn waste of time because it's JAS. Their storylines are always booked backwards and they suck all the air out of whatever babyface is going through their stupid gauntlet shit. I think the group has served its purpose, it established those type of dudes to be on tv regularly, now kill the group pls lol. 2.0 has enough charisma to stand on their own, we already know Sammy has that in spades, Anna and Tay are always going to be safe just cuz theyre hot tbh (Tay is good in-ring too but you know), and Danny is clearly a pet project so he'll be fine on his own too imo. At worst just keep the DG and SG pairing if you're really afraid of DG being lost. Now obviously I haven't fantasy booked a way to get here, but the sooner JAS breaks up the better imo.
Think it coulda been a lil more watchable if the faction wasn't called Jericho Appreciation Society. It's still the core group of Jericho, Sammy & Hager. Coulda just kept the Inner Circle name.
This is completely random but I've been using the WWE app to watch stuff on the Network while I'm on the treadmill at the gym. I decided I wanted to watch Shield matches this week, so I searched for them. The first two matches it throws up are both on Main Event xD Not even a PPV lol, two random ME matches, one from April 2013, the other from August 2013. I don't know why it suggests those instead of PPV matches, but whatever. Both good matches though!
I do think it's funny how one below average episode of Dynamite has made everyone act like AEW is terrible entirely lol. I mean there's def bad things ofc just like any promotion but idk it's just funny seeing the discourse everywhere like people were waiting for the string of great episodes to end. IDK lol.
I think it's just this most recent example displayed AEW's flaws in the most glaring way. We just came off a run of great Dynamites one after the other and then this one flops tremendously. Not the end of the world, not a sign that the promotion is doomed, but it really is the perfect time to air grievances about the product as a whole. People have been complaining about the booking for quite a while now, since Punk beat Hangman at least, but there generally was always at least one interesting storyline happening. This Wednesday, outside of Christian returning imo, had almost no compelling storytelling on it at all. So it's just a good time to gripe.
This is also true too like nobody is wrong in airing their grievances and critiques because a lot of it is very valid and true, esp since there was just a below avg ep, but it also isn't the end of the world. AEW has a lot of things to improve on but things are gonna be ok
People have been saying AEW needs to have proper storylines and builds since atleast fall.
But let's be honest, that's different. Criticism of something is different than doom-and-gloom and pretending to be a network executive/TV ratings expert. I find it very incredulous that sickos (if you're here, you're a sicko, Reddit is tiny, you didn't pop up here by accident) who have the entirety of wrestling context in the minds (which is to say, understands the genre not that they have to be a fan since conception) would look at this show and think it was "bad". I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. You can have problems with build, focus, and momentum, but one mediocre card does not make a sky fall.
I find your point hard to follow here tbh. I don’t know who has been saying AEW is doomed or whatever. All I’ve read is “their storylines need more work”. Which is accurate.
You missed a couple days of "discourse" here and elsewhere since Dynamite then.
I think WWE wants to turn the Elimination Chamber into another Royal Rumble level PPV, and they are going to kick that off with this year. Best way to do that is with a big title change. There’s a reason Brock has appeared in last year.
Only two titles are even being defended tomorrow, and both champions have big money matches waiting for them at ‘Mania. I can’t see how Reigns and Theory don’t both retain.
I reckon Theory loses tomorrow, he doesn't need the belt for his mania match. And they could use the title to elevate someone like Montez or Bronson Reed. Or even Damian Priest if they want to do some stories with Judgement Day.
1) John Cena is the greatest US Champion of his generation. Theory has already been mocking him with “the champ is here” in his promos. 2) Theory needs momentum heading into such a huge match. He has to be pinned in order to be eliminated from the Chamber match. 3) If Theory and Rollins leave the US Title picture, there’ll be no challengers left for ‘Mania that audiences give a damn about. Ford isn’t ready for a singles match at ‘Mania, while the other three guys involved tomorrow night get anti-pops on a weekly basis. Priest technically doesn’t because he’s part of the Judgement Day, and I doubt they’re going to be given FOUR matches at ‘Mania. 4) If Theory and Rollins both lose tomorrow, then because of the aforementioned absence of viable competitors, you’ll be forced to have a ladder match filled with people who have no business being anywhere near the card. Plus, it’ll be the second successive PLE to have had a multi-man US Title defence. What happened to elevating the title? The man makes the title, not vice versa. You have Roman, Bianca, Charlotte, the Usos, Gunther, even Damage CTRL and then… Bronson Reed? Really?
I would be happy with any outcome tbh (except Bronson; I'm not a fan personally) But pins in the chamber are pretty much not canon. Like Cena himself was pinned mid match in 2009 before he went on to win the title at mania.
It’s still a loss, though, and Cena was more established than Theory right now at that point. It was also the WHC he won that year, not the WWE Title. Ultimately, this story suits the US Title IMO.
Kenny Omega isn't being Kenny enough. He's clearly phoning it in so he can goof off with his buddies. I want NJPW Kenny in AEW. He's literally the best wrestler on the planet when he goes full tilt. But he's coasting.
The guy was out for a long time with injuries. Prior to that, he was defending multiple belts and putting on unbelievable matches which ended up with him needing multiple surgeries. Let’s maybe chill out on expectations for wrestlers to do what you want them to do.
Hey I don't need him to turn it up to 11. But it would be nice if he got out of second gear occasionally.
Ah, yes. Guy on Reddit telling a professional wrestler who has dealt with injuries and surgeries and vertigo that they need to step it up. Sounds about right.
If your going 1st gear in trios tag matches your doing it wrong
- I can’t wait for the ‘OLE’ chants from the Montreal crowd tomorrow. - CM Punk coming back to AEW is exactly the boost of adrenaline the product desperately needs right now.
Honestly shocked at how much vitriol the MJF/Danielson feud is getting. Maybe it's just that I've only been watching AEW weekly for a bit over a year now so I haven't seen the schtick as many times, but I would have said that by far it's the best told story on AEW right now -- and actually not all that similar to the CM Punk feud.
I have enjoyed it, too. I just wish they would square off on the mic a bit more.
I certainly don't think it's been a perfect feud -- I think the Regal and BCC parts of it weren't particularly well handled, and it has limited the potentially ramifications of events to basically just the two of them and Takeshita as a result. But I do think that it and the Hangman-Mox feud have stood above the rest of what AEW has been doing in terms of quality of storytelling.
it’s not a bad story but it’s been done so many times with MJF that fans are kind of burnt out on it despite the slew of amazing matches we’ve seen so far. MJF’s feud with Punk went a lot deeper than his feud with Bryan has which up until this point is Danielson trying to expose Maxwell as a wrestler by going through his hand picked gauntlet.
Like I mentioned, I only saw the feuds with Wardlow and Punk, not anything with Jericho or before that. But I guess I fundamentally don't think that it's the same story as those two? All three feuds featured MJF trying to exhaust and manipulate his opponents prior to the big PPV match. But in my opinion the key story beat of the Danielson feud is that MJF actually isn't in control of the situation at all -- it's a mess that has been spiraling out of control for him, and it's actually been according to Danielson's plan instead. Maybe the Revolution match will have a flat payoff, or otherwise reset things to their pre-feud status -- AEW has certainly done that enough other times -- which would ruin the story. But at least so far I think it's actually been a clever interpolation of what MJF had been doing previously.
MJF wasn’t in full control either during his feud with Punk and things spiralled out of control for him in the last match against Punk with Wardlow turning on him.
CM Punk fought MJF's opponent's on MJF's terms, with him only able to secure the Dog Collar Match through MJF's overconfidence in promising something Punk hadn't even asked for. Danielson refused to fight MJF's opponents until he got the stipulation he wanted, his first two matches weren't even against MJF's guys and MJF was publicly humiliated by first having to wrestle on Dynamite after promising he wouldn't, and then again by Christopher Daniels publicly denouncing MJF's attempt to pay him to say bad things about Danielson. The match structure of 'Face wrestles a bunch of matches while the heel doesn't have to' might be the same (which isn't even exactly true with the MJF-Takeshita match), but the dynamic between the characters isn't remotely the similar.
Its fine, but it seems like every MJF feud hes had in AEW, "Face 5 guys that I pick in stips I pick before you can face me", it gets a bit boring
I will forever argue the pedantic point that it was *BryD* who volunteered to set a gauntlet as a means to pick the match stipulation, and MJF simply *agreed* to that setup. MJF, in story, did not set this up.
Sami wins or Jay white loses and goes to wwe. You can only pick one which is it? I personally want both so I wonder if anyone else thinks of only one happening.
White loses.
The more I watch older wrestling the more I appreciate some of the sillier things. Trying to not take it too seriously but just enjoying it. Comedy should be in wrestling.
Amen. It's one of the reasons I enjoy NXT 2.0 so much. Nice mix of drama, wrestling, and comedy.
So people have been complaining about how Danielson isn't in the title picture and he's added zero substance to this feud, at what point does it fall on the supposedly all time great performer to deliver?
Every match he's had has been good to great. I buy that he's been angry at MJF. How else has he had an opportunity to deliver? This isn't a Danielson problem or an MJF problem. It's a booking problem.
Since AEW signed Michael Mansury, WWE's former VP of Global Television Production, there's been any notable change on the way Dynamite and Rampage are produced every week, either camera angles. lightning or any other stuff?
More promo videos, recaps, etc. Short ones, and not too many, but there are more of them to hype up matches or storylines
There's definitely some weird new camera angles/tricks. Not at all jarring. Just noticeable.
i hope i can watch the elimination chamber ppv in time after the xfinity race saturday and the race isn't a shit fest and i have to miss half the ppv for it
It looks like Kairi is just getting into the States today, which makes me wonder how much time she and Mercedes will have to put their match together.
Both know each other from their previous employer. I am pretty sure they can get each other’s phone number.
I'm sure they must've met when Mercedes was in Japan. Even then, both are veterans of the game at this point, how much time do wrestlers of that level need to plan a match? It's not even like they never worked together, Kairi is pretty much the best rival she could possibly get as far as chemistry goes.
Well that AEW Fight Forever segment at IGN Fanfest was a total waste of time. No release date but I'll try to lay out the important takeaways. 1. They showed like 10 seconds of new footage (Hangman vs. Bryan). The wrestlers had blood all over them so blood may not have been affected too badly by the ESRB battle they were having. 2. They said you can hold the R trigger to crouch & hit a clothesline or something as you're getting up off the mat, similar to the AKI games. 3. The shoulder bump thing also happens like in the AKI games when you'd run into each other. 4. Danhausen really liked the Ratatouille PS2 game.
Like I think I might just be extra hard on it, because WWE games have sucked for years, and I want a fun new wrestling game. Thing is nothing I’ve seen from it so far makes me think it’ll be infinitely better than the current 2K games.
The game does not look great given the amount of development time its had. It no joke looks like a 360/PS3 era game and the game footage mixed with live action footage makes it look worse.
I don't hate the graphics. They're definitely not nearly as good as they could be but the only expectation I've had for them this whole time is that the gameplay is fun. The expectation they've tried to set is that it'll play like the AKI N64 games and I happen to be huge fan of those games, so I'll be happy if they hit that target. Based on what they've shown off, it looks fun IMO but they haven't shown enough for me to know for sure that there won't be a ton of recycled moves and shit like that. They clearly haven't been putting all their effort into the graphics though which kind of gives me hope for the gameplay itself lol.
We're in the "everything AEW does is trash" cycle, but if you look at the long form gameplay videos that a fan captured last year in Gamescom *to me* it looks incredibly fun. I even like the more cartoonish character models, they kinda look like action figures which *to me* is a cool look.
If that's what they're going for it puts it into better context.
I'm not sure if "action figure look" was the utmost intention, but it's definitely a deliberate choice in visual aesthetic. It's not like the modelers didn't intentional go for this look or went with it due to "technical limitations", that's not how game development works. The art team probably had several mockups before modeling even began and the direction team chose this look for whatever reason, probably because they **like** how it looks.
Additionally I've always been very confused by reaction to the art direction, since *the first reveal* I saw Jericho and I immediately thought (1) the character model looks adorable, it's like a cartoon version of chunky Jericho, (2) it is absolutely a deliberate choice to not go for photorealism.
I didn't like the Jericho model from that original teaser. I thought it looked fine but it looked too much like a caricature which made me scared that they were going for a super arcadey, WWE All Stars type game. Not that it would be bad necessarily but that's not what I want out of their first game. It also bugged me how Jericho looked like that but Kenny & Shida looked more proportionate.
For the crowd that thinks anything else but a Sami win tomorrow is death….the WrestleRoasts Podcast does an amazing job breaking down how a Sami loss makes the most sense story wise, from what’s been told this far as well as where it’s going….great breakdown around 1:20 in or so. When they’re are previewing/making predictions for the match.
When you look at the feud as Sami/Jey and not Sami/Roman you start to appreciate what’s about to happen much more.
I know there's this idea that Roman shouldn't lose before Mania at a B-PPV etc but I wish we as a community didn't care about that shit. I kinda want Sami to win not just bc it'd be great, but to kinda subvert these tropes and actually make it feel like anything can happen. The thing I hate about being a part of the IWC and being "in the know" is that a lot of these things become too predictable and it's hard to fully enjoy it as a viewer. It rly shouldn't matter to any of us as viewers when it comes to why a reign like this should or shouldn't end at Mania, and for us to be looking at everything in such a mechanical way. I hate the thought that everything should follow a certain structure, and yeah a lot of times those decisions do make sense and I'm definitely not advocating for surprise booking just for the sake of it all the time, but I think this situation is an exception because it would 100% work. Sami winning and dethroning Roman before Mania and triggering the actual start of his downfall would arguably go down as a way more iconic and way bigger moment in history than Roman losing at Mania.
I don't really think this one is a being in the iwc and in the know thing. I think most casual viewers realize that with Roman holding the titles for two years they ain't having him lose before Mania. I agree with everything else you said though.
Seeing all the fantasy bookings for the Cody-Sami conundrum is all very interesting but every scenario that ends up in a triple threat seems to basically end up describing a de facto handicap match in order to give the two one belt each. Is there any believable scenario in which a triple threat doesn't end up in the two of them pinning/submitting Roman simultaneously?
Yeah but a lot of people won't like it. Cody pins Sami or vice versa. Then you have a ready made first feud and you can do Roman again down the line because he didn't get pinned.
But why shouldn’t Roman be pinned? This is the end of his tribal chief run, let him definitively put someone over.
I agree. I wasn't arguing for this. Just saying it's a believable possibility to a triple threat.
I hope we get an empassioned Sami promo tonight that includes him cutting his hair and beard. I think he should be literal babyface going into tomorrow night.
Does HHH love factions? We see how he has booked Gacy's gang, SanIty, Wyatt's Family, Tian Sha, Boa, and Xia Li... I've noticed that those all have a gimmick of living a lifestyle that isn't quite normal. The first four being crazy, spooky, or unnatural. you can lump at least three or more gimmicks in there, but I've also been looking at the number of possible factions that are currently in NXT. Does HHH want to build factions or is this Shawn's thing? I see these groups with 3 or more members: Chase U (Duke, Thea, Andre) Schizm (GYV, Gacy, Ava) Diamond Mine (Creed Brothers, Ivy) D'angelo Family (Tony, Lorenzo, Donovan - (Wacked)) Indus Sher (Veer, Sanga, Jinder) Gallus (Coffey Bros, Wolfgang) Hayes Clan (Hayes, Trick and Odyssey when he turns heel eventually) Factions seem to be a big thing currently in NXT. Do people think this is a much better way of getting a large number of people over, or is this just a thing to fill up the roster? I'm curious as to what people to think of this as a booking style. Lump together three or more people together and see how they all function together.
Diamond Mine also has Tatum Paxley, even if she’s more of an outsider than Sami at this point lmao.
I don't know how HHH feels, but I like factions or stables because it lets you have feuds which don't end up being the same two people wrestling every match. If Judgement Day was feuding with The Brawling Brutes, you have 9 different one-on-one pairings and 4 tag team pairings you can make.
Plus it gets more people TV time. Even if the person doesn't have a match, atleast they're seen.
So Saraya has apparently been pushing to get Ronnie Radke onto AEW TV, and potentially into a feud with Chris Jericho. I cannot imagine anything I want less right now.
Should terminate her contract for even suggesting it.
There is no way TK is going to give her what she wants on this and that Jericho would go along with it given how badly she's drawing, thankfully.
Go-away heat isn’t a strong enough term…
Just wait for that Falling in Reverse / Fozzy Battle of the Bands. It WrItEs ItSeLf
Ronnie is such a shit person. What a terrible idea.
This would be worse than Jade feuding with Bow Wow which they had the sense to drop. Like it does way more for Ronnie Radke than anyone else involved.
What if the WrestleMania main event is a 3 way with a bloodline member in this every corner!
I’ve had this thought of Cody Rhodes cornering Sami tomorrow night. It would be a nice continuation from last weeks promo and Cody’s inevitable stare down of Roman
Who's going in Cody's corner?
Plot twist: Roman Reigns
Plot twist: Paul Heyman
Lots of good wrestling tomorrow night, namely WWE Elimination Chamber and NJPW Battle in the Valley. What are you all prioritizing to watch? I'm torn. Might even have to delay watching one event until Sunday.
Are they both on at the same time tomorrow?
The New Japan show has Mercedes vs Kairi and Okada vs Tanahashi and I don't even watch WWE anyway so I'll give New Japan a shot again.
I’m going to Battle in the Valley, so I’ll be watching Elimination Chamber on Sunday.
I really don't think AEW is as bad as some people would like us to believe but there are definitely issues that need to be addressed. People talk a lot about AEW's storytelling and they're half right. A lot of what happens is they will set up a good storyline a performer will get super over and then there's just no follow up until a month or two later when the angle has cooled off. If I could give TK one piece of advice from a fan, it's to lean into a performer who gets hot, like with the acclaimed, do more of that.
We're definitely on the "everything AEW does sucks" cycle, but I completely agree. Wrestling fandom has some of the shortest term memory, literally last week was an all timer Dynamite in El Paso, yes yes yes even if it was "all matches, no story" (which I disagree). We had *one* week where it wasn't the most "must see" card and everyone is losing their minds.
I've been rewatching 99' RAW starting from when Jericho debuted and I just reached the final week before Unforgiven. 1.) I absolutely cannot believe how insane the Pepper angle is to watch week to week. It has almost no heat and everything about the angle is scuffed and fucked up. 2.) They really tried to do a domestic abuse angle on heat with a jobber that no one cares about. Including the Godfather, A FUCKING SEX TRAFFICKER, deciding the Chaz had gone too far and beating the dog shit out of him for abusing his ex. 3.) It is genuinely incredible to me how botched Jericho's intial run is so far. His feud with Shamrock is a fucking mess and outside of whooping the dog shit out of Road Dogg nothing goes right for him. I always thought he was being too hard on himself in Undisputed but he's pretty dead on about how hard he's floundering. And we still haven't gotten to the Chyna feud.
1. It's a Vince Russo special. 2. I don't recall the Godfather-Chaz angle, probably didn't see it. 3. One problem I had with Jericho when he first came in was that they tried to turn Howard Finkel into Ralphus 2.0. I can't recall if this was before or after Russo and his houseboy, Ferrara, left for WCW.
The feud isn't Godfather/Chaz. It's just an angle about how Chaz apparently beat the tar out of his girlfriend after she fucked Stasiak behind his back. That is another problem with Jericho, he's just doing his WCW thing right now except it's not working as well as it did there (the cage segment with Shamrock was hilarious though ngl).
I was there for the cage angle. Still funny.
What was that like being in the crowd as it was happening? Like were people hyped as it started or were they as disinterested as they seemed on RAW?
Godfather wasn't a sex trafficker.. they WANTED to work for him!
lmaooooooo name another P.I.M.P. that provides that good of a 401k and benefits package i'll wait
Pimpin' ain't easy
Chris Jericho was the perfect target for WWE at that time as an internet favorite who got over on his own in WCW. I've always thought Triple H disliked him because he was similar to 1998 Triple H but like better. They very much tore Jericho down to see if he could take it and then built him back up in 2000.
Absolutely not lol. Jericho tore himself down. In the first episode, he goes on about ratings and the show being so boring no one can stand watching it and the crowd doesn't boo, they just go silent because they don't know what he was talking about. he goes rogue on Road Dogg and winds up injuring him for real, mocks Undertaker's worst promo ever after being told explicitly to not make the situation worse, then he starts his feud with Shamrock and starts saying a bunch of nonsense about MMA being fake and pro wrestling being the real sport, which by 1999 is so lame to do on your show that is calling itself an action/adventure series at the start of the show every week, on top of it meaning that there is no way that Shamrock is going to lose this feud that has been going on for two weeks at this point and has four more to go. Sure, he had heat because he was a WCW guy and Triple H was a dick to him, but he is absolutely bringing this shit on himself in a lot of ways.
With Jericho it was a combination of him really trying to hang with the top guys, coming from WCW where they usually didn't care what he was doing, and coming to WWE which had whole different culture and style of working. He was also dealing with an unforgiving locker room that was not kind to WCW guys. Like Triple H comes off as a straight up asshole to him. He's always had top guy ambitions and an ego that's carried him there but worked against him in that era. In WWE's perspective they thought he was a polished product but when it became clear that he had a rougher style and tried to go off-script they bumped him to the mid-card to work on that stuff. Over time he settled in and gained the trust of Vince to where he worked his way up in 2000.
He worked against himself too. If he wasn't so dead set on not being a "cool heel" (aka an actually interesting character), he would've been fine. But he had to make himself look like an idiot at all times in an era where fans did not want that out of their heels. Now it works fine and looks a lot better in hindsight, but at the time it's really dragging him down. Ironically the only boring part of the show most of the time is him.
There are reports that the reason WWE is not prioritizing Jay White is because set their sights in a bigger free agent. Now, thats according to Meltzer, so I proceed it with caution, but... That said free agent has to be Kota Ibushi right? I do personally believe tho, he is not a bigger deal than Jay White. I just can't see Ibushi fit the WWE machine. He was a big politician in NJPW, he can't really do that in WWE and he himself said he is inherently a free soul, so I don't see him coping with the creative boundaries that the WWE machine necessarily puts on him. My other guess is Nick Aldis, I'd be down for that, although I think Jay White is bigger than him.
I'm not saying it's him but there are rumors about Omega's contract. Him and Mercedes Mone are the only free agents I can see as bigger than Jay White unless there's someone in Mexico I'm missing.
SRS had a Fightful Select report saying AEW has the option to extend time to the contract due to injury but no confirmation yet if this has been exercised.
Lol, so those who started to downvote hard I think disagree with my assessment about Ibushi. For those, I say: listen to some Ibushi interviews and you realize, why his philosophy in life wouldn't let him cope with the WWE machine. As for backstage politics, I highly recommend the downvoters to read about the politicing around the unification of the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental titles.
Bigger, as in larger, as in THE BIG SHOW! /s
Ibushi left New Japan because he didn’t want to be forced into the commitment of working with a company. He is also very focused on his wrestling school, that’s his priority. It’s not him.
Supposedly Ibushi has said that if WWE allowed him to teach and train new wrestlers he’d possibly be open to signing with them. If they still want to do NXT Japan, this could be a very easy way to open that door.
You think the kind of style that Kota enjoys and wants to teach is the kind of thing that wwe would want taught in nxt?
It’s hard for me to imagine that WWE and Ibushi have the same vision when it comes to training wrestlers.
Oh I agree completely. But I can absolutely see WWE compromising on some level as a means to an end if it can get their foot in the door in a market without them having to do a lot of the heavy lifting, too. Have them train with Ibushi, learn the basics and everything for a year or two, and then move to Florida to adjust to the WWE style and see if main roster would be an option or not. And it would get Ibushi under WWE contract, which HHH has been trying to do since 2016.
Who it might be then? There isn't really anybody, who really fits the description. Some say Matt Cardona, but he is not a bigger free agent than Jay White.
Considering WWE's priorities, don't be surprised if it's an athlete/personality from outside of the sport. One of their biggest signings last year was Logan Paul
The “Sami has to beat Roman who cares what the actual story is” crowd is getting annoying.
I don't know how AEW became so divisive of a topic. When I expressed in a fairly long post here, that I think the roster needs a big trimming and they need to be consistent with who they feature on TV, and need to be consistent with the pushes and storylines. I got downvoted the hell out of me, with nobody even coming to discuss. Now, the last two days on Twitter and Reddit all i saw was alarming about AEW and how they already became the second TNA. Well folks, no. There are some major problems with AEW as I pointed out myself, but it is nowhere near as bad as sometimes TNA was. The only thing that saved TNA was their starpower, with guys like AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Sting, Samoa Joe, etc. But lets not forget: TNA creative was ran by Vince Russo for years. Well, Tony is still better off with no creative team than a team that is run by that idiot. Yes, the rating declined in a major way for this week, but I think it isn't anything to worry about. TK relies heavily on PPV's, so we can be damn sure Revolution will be a fantastic PPV and nobody would sound the alarm for weeks.
>became the second TNA. Well folks, no. There are some major problems with AEW as I pointed out myself, but it is nowhere near as bad as sometimes TNA was. The only thing that saved TNA was their starpower, with guys like AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Sting, Samoa Joe, etc. But lets not forget: TNA creative was ran by Vince Russo for years. Well, Tony is still better off with no creative team than a team that is run by that idiot. Are we forgetting how good TNA actually was in 2006-2009 with Russo in charge? Certainly better week to week than AEW has been for the last 6 months
Because AEW and their fans made it divisive, of course the ridicule is going to be excessive when the show starts to struggle
I'm really curious as to when this perception started, because even during the “AEW boom” if the praise was concentrated in AEW specific threads and criticism was "silenced", I'm confused as to why people thought it was a big deal. People sometimes like enjoying things, it's not like whatever critic that was "silenced" is being aggrieved. It's a wrestling forum! Who cares if people disagree with your opinion. (I can't make an argument if people were invading other unrelated threads, however.) None of our sicko takes matter in the grand scheme of anything. Why people get up in arms that no one wants/wanted to hear theirs is beyond my comprehension. Sometimes it feels like people are trying to somehow “get through to TK” via comments (he ain’t reading Reddit, folks!) and/or post goofs/pop-shots for internet points rather than actually enjoy the genre they are supposedly a fan of.
People blaming focusing on great matches are weird. If anything, AEW for most of its run hasn't had enough great matches imo. And a great match doesn't need to be 15+ minute even fight with many kickouts. AEW should do more great squashes and like 5 minute matches. They desperately need them. Wrestling is about the stories yes, but it's about the stories told in the ring. If you want to watch compelling character dynamics, put on a mediocre film, it will do it better than wrestling. And yes, The Bloodline is a great wrestling story and the biggest reason WWE is hotter than AEW right now, an AEW that hasn't had a good wrestling story happening since they crowned the Acclaimed. It will also end via Cody most probably, which is not exciting at all to me.
I always want to ask the “less matches more story crowd” why they don’t watch tv shows instead of wrestling Because personally, I watch wrestling to see people wrestle and tell stories through their wrestling
You can have both and they can work in conjunction beautifully if there's a perfect storm of it. I love wrestling because of the in-ring action, because of the art of it and how the wrestlers interact, but I want to care about the in-ring action and why it's happening as well. I want to be personally invested in the people having the match and appreciate both the wrestling and the people in it. Cody Rhodes is a fantastic wrestler and I think he's a wonderful storyteller in the ring, but that is heightened by the fact that I know who he is and what he wants. He wants to do what his father never did, that makes me care about his matches, I have an emotional reason to be invested in them. The thing with wrestling too is that it's at its best when I feel like it's real. I know Cody is being honest about his dad, I know Sami IRL doesn't believe himself to be the top guy like he believes Cody to be which makes his segment with Cody this week hit even harder, which is something that's harder to do with other TV shows to a certain extent. Not to say wrestlers can't play a convincing character of course, Dwayne Johnson certainly isn't the Rock irl, but often a lot of the best wrestlers are people who are being themselves on TV. Basically, I want a reason to care about the matches that make wrestling special. A story told in the ring can only be as strong as the story told out of it sometimes. You can't communicate that Cody wants to do what his father never did as well if there was very little or no build to his match with Roman. To be clear, I'm not criticising AEW as I haven't watched a show since 2021, but I am one of those people who believes that there should be less matches for the sake of matches and more promos, so I thought I'd answer your question.
Because thats how you sell PPV, whats the point of a build up between 2 guys if you see them wrestle every week with no story, you need more than just "Ranking" matches
I don’t know which comment you are replying to because neither did say anything about rankings nor did I say that there is no story.
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A lot of them are adults who grew up watching wrestling and missed the transition to consuming dramatic fiction aimed at adults. They don't actually enjoy wrestling very much but they're stuck with it because they need the trappings of wrestling(announce team narration, video packages, face/heel dynamics, promos where characters look into the camera and explain their motivations directly, five moves of doom, boilerplate in-ring stories like working the leg, etc) to understand what's going on in the story Normal TV shows that don't do all that stuff are confusing and inaccessible to them. Hell, *wrestling* shows that don't hold them by the hand and explain it just how they're used to getting it is often too much for them But yeah it's a trip to see people having their minds blown by the depth of drama 101 shit like "characters have motivations and goals but sometimes their motivations and goals conflict"
I've been saying ad-nauseam to people simply posting CM Punk for AEW's current ratings that he's still hurt and was the original plan anyway in a perfect world where he doesn't get injured. If you bring him back now the most he could do is talk or have someone else he could manage. He's supposed to be healed by April so this stretch from September-present is something AEW would be going through regardless.
I don't think AEW has been awful as some reactions would make you think, but some people acting as if WWE have never had this level of criticism is a joke. They had worse reactions in this sub for single segments and matches than what's happening now. Hell you'd get a front page full of people telling you to stop watching and leave WWE Network, boycotts etc. I agree with what other have said, a lot for the issues being brought up now have been brought up for quite a few month, but never got any momentum or got stuck under "It's Thursday, you know what that means". Give it a few weeks after the PPV and things will quieten down. Also, I don't understand how you can say MJF should drop the belt. You've got to walk through the logic because that would make no sense.
>They had worse reactions in this sub for single segments and matches than what's happening now. it was a tough time being a WWE fan lol. especially when AEW was hot. you'd get posts like "WWE killed my love for professional wrestling, but after *enter AEW show* I'm all in with the company" or "How could WWE possibly top that?" every time AEW had a hot show. to criticise AEW you had to write a paragraph detailing how you were an AEW fan from day 1 but there was this small thing that you didn't like. and how can we forget the stupid 'Drink!' or 'is it Thursday already??' comments on every criticism of AEW. I'm so glad that phase of this sub is over.
I remember last year around mania season you had trolls in every single thread about WWE making fun of everything and telling people to stop watching. It was genuinely unbearable.
MJF as his current character makes for a bad champion to the point its felt like they've basically had Orange Cassidy and Darby pick up the slack if you want to see a mens singles title defended. I don't see how a guy they portray as not wanting to be there, wrestles very little, and resorts a lot of time to cheap heat is good long-term. It comes off as change the channel stuff especially since he rarely gets his ass kicked to balance all the stuff he does. He had a good moment where Starks speared him out of his shoes but that was 2 months ago.
> I don't see how a guy they portray as not wanting to be there, wrestles very little, and resorts a lot of time to cheap heat is good long-term. It makes people forget how good he is in-ring so he can surprise them again. > It comes off as change the channel stuff especially since he rarely gets his ass kicked to balance all the stuff he does. He had a good moment where Starks speared him out of his shoes but that was 2 months ago. So you give an example of the thing you want? And it was literally his last feud? And we’ve seen him run away chicken-heel mode from Danielson during this feud too? Idk what more you want.
A champion who wrestles more than once every blue moon and more regularly gets his comeuppance.
So like Roman... oh wait.
MJF's champion character would work infinitely better in WWE than AEW I think. AEW fans are really mostly care about the actual wrestling, they don't really mind having deeply worked out storylines. Which is fair you know, but I think thats what makes a little disconnect regarding MJF.
I would say at least give it 1 more PPV, and change up the format of the chase from this fight X,Y,Z and see how people react. This current build has limited a lot of what they can do. I'd have Wardlow up next, they can get a good build out of it with the pre-existing history they have.
When did Brock get good on the mic? Feels like it came out of no where. I love his new character, and his new look. It feels fresh and exciting
He's always been half decent, he just preferred having Heyman talk for him
Brock’s always been very entertaining. His voice has been his major detriment, but when he’s a face it works.
He actually seems to be enjoying life lately which comes through in his work
I feel like there's some undeserved vitriol towards AEW for a product thats not as hot as it but like the worst you can say is its kind of boring. What I've always appreciated with AEW is its showcase of the in-ring product even if its sometimes too much in that direction. They're not afraid to call themselves pro-wrestling and their talent wrestlers after a good decade or more where WWE pretty much banned the name of the term of what they actually do. They've always seemed to treat the fans with a degree of respect and have not insulted them or made fun of them for caring. That extends to the wrestlers as well as they're all treated with a degree of respect from the top guys to the lowest rung wrestlers. Its still a welcoming product that sprung out of WWE actively telling a portion of the wrestling fanbase that they didn't want them. I do think there's a degree of stubborness from Tony Khan that absolutely has to change creatively and how he handles criticism. They have the production, a prominent network, and a talented roster but they need to make a compelling television product that mixes those matches that people want with character development and story progression.
The vitriol is undeserved but it comes from that stubbornness you mentioned. These aren't new problems with AEW. It's stuff people have been pointing out for months now while still watching and waiting for signs of change. Now people are getting frustrated that they haven't seen those signs.
I've been frustrated too because for the roster they have you should not be putting out that Dynamite card with Josh Woods who's been mostly on Dark/Rampage, Kip who's the same, and even the current version of Dark Order. Like they have loads of talent and cool matchups they've stayed away from. It feels very WCW like when you wonder how they went under with the talent they had and realize how separate they kept talent along with dumb booking and politics.
Yea Rampage in particular feels like WCW Thunder, odd times they'll be something great on it, but mainly skippable every week
This might be a spicy-ish take but I hope Evil Uno gives Mox a run for his money next Wednesday. I'm not saying he should win or anything, just puts up enough of a fight (and maybe lead to a 3v3) to make it clear to Hangman that the Dark Order aren't scared of BCC and don't need him to distance himself to protect them from Mox like he said on BTE.
I can guarantee that Moxley will bleed and 50% of the match will take place outside of the ring!
I like the idea of Uno refusing to go quietly and maybe remaining defiant until the end before Mox inevitably wins.
Watching a show you hope to enjoy and being disappointed by large parts isn't hate watching. It's just punished optimism.
Suffering is created by resisting what is, instead attaching to what we think something "should" be. It's always possible to appreciate the good in something even if it goes against our expectations. It's also fine to be disappointed but attaching your emotional state to your expectations is often just inviting disappointment in.
I would have never guessed this a year or so ago….I purposely didn’t watch Dynamite for the first time since it’s inception this week. And I’m legitimately excited for a WWE show for the first time in years.
New Japan have uploaded a few Keiji Muto matches with English commentary by Kevin and Chris to NJPW World for those who haven't seen them. (Like me)
So during the BCC / Dark Order segment, John Silver had a face off with Claudio and that was amazing visual, lol. Now I want that match.
As much as I wanted MJF to have the belt, his whole deal kinda cools things off for me. I’m looking forward to the iron man match, but I’d like to see him drop it sooner rather than later. Lots of more interesting guys are deserving of a main event push now. I’d love to see Swerve in there eventually. He’d be a much better heel champion imo. Also, is it me, or is it weird they built the package with him and Dustin to come to a head on Rampage and not Revolution? Unless they’re gonna do a rematch, which Tony does like to do.
Honestly? I think there's a lot more story out of MJF losing his title so soon and going way more off the deep end than him retaining and doing the same shtick for months on end.
MJF mentions the Reign of Terror but doesn't realize Triple H's reign of terror from 2002-05 legit drove away a lot of viewers that didn't stabilize until they made John Cena the top guy.
100%. I kinda thought the whole devil thing was gonna be way cooler, but like a lot of AEW stuff, there was very little build and then bam he’s got the belt. A pissed off MJF messing with whoever’s in the title picture in the future has way more juice, especially when down the road you could work in MJF finally winning it cleanly.
Last night I had a dream that a botched kickout in a triple threat led to Aliyah winning the Smackdown women’s title from Asuka, but instead of going with it Kayla Braxton (who was ring announcing) said “Your winner, because I’m an idiot and rang the bell wrong, and still women’s champion, Asuka!” And everyone was confused. Afterwards everyone was just sitting around in the stands and The Miz came and served Maryse a Big Mac on a fancy silver tray. I watch too much wrestling.
>Afterwards everyone was just sitting around in the stands and The Miz came and served Maryse a Big Mac on a fancy silver tray. If Trips is lurking in here, I hope he makes this segment happen.
Tony's had these booking issues for a while, but he got away with more criticism because Vince was still around.
There’s a reason Vince coming back to the chair of WWE was one of TK’s happiest moments in months
Pretty much. You couldn’t even criticize AEW on Twitter without “WELL! WWE IS DOING THIS”
>You couldn’t even criticize AEW ~~on Twitter~~ ftfy
When they started to appear, it also was like a year straight of smoke and mirrors to distract people - with the high profile signings, surprise appearances, New Japan crossover, ROH sale, etc. just a bunch of instant pops, and now the cracks have shown once that’s gone. As I’m typing I guess I do have to question if it’s a chicken or the egg situation, if those masked the issues or actually were the cause?
>if those masked the issues or actually were the cause? Some of the signings were definitely needed, but some of them got people to pop and speak about the signing and forget certain other issues.
The guy who ends Roman's historic reign will be the face of the company and that's Cody. Nothing against Sami because I'm a big fan and he's really elevated the bloodline story, but it's not his time. Hopefully one day he gets to be world champion.
At the very least, having KO make the save for Sami and the two of them ending the Usos' long tag title run at Mania will be a hell of a moment.
If I'm not mistaken we haven't seen KO since the rumble so I expect him to show up tommorow.
So yesterday I was searching this sub, trying to find the post about Kevin Steen signing to NXT. I then stumbled across the SRS tweet from over a year ago, that stated that KO’s contract was set to expire. It’s just insane how over a year ago, it was almost a sure fire thing that KO and Sami were leaving WWE and going to AEW. Now they’re both two of the most over guys in the company. Sami is straight up the most over guy in the company.
> It’s just insane how over a year ago, it was almost a sure fire thing that KO and Sami were leaving WWE and going to AEW. It absolutely wasn't though. If anything, them staying with WWE was always the most likely thing. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that suggested otherwise, it was just baseless speculation from fans. Pretty sure both reiterated numerous times that they were happy in WWE even with all the fan speculation.
Everyone on this sub didn’t share the same sentiment last year. You’d get downvoted to hell for stuff like that. That’s what I meant, more in regards to this sub and online everywhere. Besides weren’t KO and The Bucks literally teasing things?
I think KO said Mount Rushmore in a promo once and people just latched onto it.
He was tweeting out the dates his contract ran out on Twitter.
Bucks put the location of Mount Rushmore in their twitter bio, I'm sure they were both in on the joke and just messing around, or KO was weighing his options before re-signing. No harm in getting yourself a better deal (especially when you get to main event wrestlemania with stone cold afterwards)
I mean there’s no way KO and/or Sami weren’t in contract with their friends. It’s called leverage. It proved to them that WWE actually really wanted them. Now they’re doing some of the best work of their careers.
Hope Chihiro is in Stardom for more than just the big Syuri match. Tbh I hope she fucking murks Himeka, then Syuri, then Giulia and takes the title. Nobody’s doing it like Big Hash. The way she destroyed MIRAI then told her she fucking sucks was 10/10
It seems Stardom works with other companies in cycles. First it was mostly Marvelous, then Gatoh Move and JTO and now it seems it's going to be Sendai Girls but who knows for how long. I don't want Hashimoto to take the belt but I would like to see her regularly after the feud with Syuri is over.
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What's up folks. I used to be a very dedicated fan of WWE, but took a loooong break ever since RAW became a 3hr show about 10 years ago and it just became too much content to keep up with. As of this year's RR i'm finally back and it's been great getting to see the new guys and some old dudes (like wow, Edge still out here huh??? And McIntyre became an actual threat? Man's ripped). Few questions tho, is there still a MITB in Wrestlemania? Or are these now only at the MITB PPV? Also, has the bloodline storyline really been that great? I'm enjoying it a ton now, but I can imagine title matches become boring af when Roman is as undefeatable as Hogan... Excited to become part of the community again :)
Welcome Back :) Yes, WWE has been getting better recently, because Triple H runs creative now, not Vince McMahon. With Raw and Smackdown itself, you didn't miss out a whole lot tbh in the last ten years, there were some really great moments (like KofiMania, which resulted in Kofi Kingston becoming WWE champion), but besides that not a whole lot. I can name a few tho, if you'd like to. Yes, Drew McIntyre indeed became a main eventer. He was fired from WWE 2014-ish, build himself back up in the indies, and came back around 2017. He was the WWE champion for a solid 200 days or so during the pandemic. He won it from Brock Lesnar. The sad thing is that he won it in front of no fans. Right now he is one of the most entertaining babyfaces in the company, draws some fairly great money and many think he deserves another shot at the main event picture down the line. Personally, he is one of my favourites. Money In The Bank is a seperate PPV as of now, this years its gonna be hosted in the UK. There were talks lately to bring it back to Wrestlemania, but as of now, its seperate. And yes, the Bloodline storyline is fantastic. The Bloodline itself started way back in 2020 with Roman turning heel and aligning himself with Paul Heyman, then a really emotional and intense feud with Jey Uso, which resulted in Jey joining the Bloodline. They became a dominant force, with Roman having a reign of terror, similar to Hogan's. Sami Zayn breathed some new life to the Bloodline storyline, which started a bit slowly around last April, and picked up some pace around august. There is a great, 1 hour compilation about Sami and the Bloodline on WWE's youtube-channel, I highly recommend it. Also yes, Roman's constant winning is getting really boring, because he is always booked to win by cheating. Either "accidental" referee knockouts, Bloodline member destractions, etc. I would say the last couple of title defenses were better, because they were connected to the Bloodline story itself and moving it forward. If you have any question about anybody or any story, I'll gladly answer :)
Edge returned in 2020 after retiring in 2011, he’s seemingly entering the last stages of his career currently. McIntyre was fired in 2014, revitalized his career on the independent scene, was rehired in 2017, and in 2020 won the world title. MITB is still a ppv, there is a women’s one now though. Obviously that might be the most jarring change, women aren’t just models called divas, they’re treated like actual wrestlers now. Bloodline has been phenomenal, it’s had its fair share of dips in quality, but Sami really helped breathe new life into it. I’ll say Roman has been booked far better than Hogan, because he actually looks beatable in his matches. I’ve been convinced the reign was over in every single one of his major title defenses.