The Wrestling Thread

[Raging Justice]

So we're getting MJF vs Kenny Omega for the title on TV?

Hell yes!

Sounds like it was a great Dynamite indeed. I will check it out later this week.

MJF has lots of ongoing stories at the moment. I am enjoying how they are interweaving with one another. And of course, the devil mask angles is interesting.

Also I am really intrigued about who will be Sting's final opponent at Revolution. Will it be a tag match? Will we finally get a Sting singles match for his last match? Will it be the obvious choice (Darby)? Or somebody else?

I hope they don't mess it up. I hate it when a retirement match just doesn't seem like a fitting end. I can understand why The Undertaker just kept going, for example, because that match against Roman just felt off and wrong. And I never understood why Kurt Angle's final match was against Baron Corbin.

Yeah, we'll see. AEW did a nice job rehabilitating Sting's career. WWE didn't really do much with him, and TNA arguably tarnished his image. Sting hadn't really been Sting since his WCW days, until AEW hired him. This will always be one of my favorite AEW Sting moments:





They've tied Sting into the Edge/Christian thing so that's interesting.

MJF this week on Dynamite was maybe one of the best examples I've ever seen of how to present your world champion. Two groups and one individual trying to ally with him, two different people gunning for his title (one of whom has a faction helping him), another person coming after him just for revenge, and oh yeah, GETTING CHALLENGED BY KENNY OMEGA!

They even acknowledged like two or three times on the show that MJF has a lot going on right now.

Kind of amazing that we're talking about WWE, AEW, TNA, and NWA recently. Damn, usually only WWE/AEW dominate the news. Would be kind of awesome if TNA and NWA blew up all of a sudden and started getting everyone's attention.

[Markies]

And I never understood why Kurt Angle's final match was against Baron Corbin.

Vince.

https://twitter.com/dave_schilling/stat ... 5555481601

[Reprise]

And I never understood why Kurt Angle's final match was against Baron Corbin.

Vince.

https://twitter.com/dave_schilling/stat ... 5555481601

Haha I should rephrase that. I knew exactly why. I just don't know why Vince is the way he is.

[Raging Justice]

What I find kind of ironic is that Tony Kahn has turned out to be just as eccentric as Vince, but in totally different ways. Meanwhile, every other wrestling company seems to be run by sane people.

[marurun]

What I find kind of ironic is that Tony Kahn has turned out to be just as eccentric as Vince, but in totally different ways. Meanwhile, every other wrestling company seems to be run by sane people.

Is it ironic? I mean, this is a mode of entertainment that is filled with exaggerated drama that is meant to evoke some of the same interest reality TV does.

[Raging Justice]

What I find kind of ironic is that Tony Kahn has turned out to be just as eccentric as Vince, but in totally different ways. Meanwhile, every other wrestling company seems to be run by sane people.

Is it ironic? I mean, this is a mode of entertainment that is filled with exaggerated drama that is meant to evoke some of the same interest reality TV does.

Yeah, but with those guys the "exaggerated drama" seems to be who there are rather than an act.

I won't lie though, their antics grab people's interest, at least in internet communities. People there love discussing how crazy those two are (as well as many wrestlers too), or how evil they think Vince is in real life.

There is a certain reality TV quality to pro wrestling, that is true. In fact, some wrestlers actually had their own reality TV shows revolving around their pro wrestling lives.

The odd thing is that at one point in history, maintaining the illusion of pro wrestling was very important. That didn't just mean making matches look like real fights, but convincing people that the characters they see are like that in real life. Now, things are a bit different, as many fans are interested in the real people behind the characters.

I remember when they used to air a reality TV show revolving around certain AEW wrestlers immediately after an AEW show. So you spent like two hours seeing them play these characters, then immediately see a show air afterwards where they DROP those characters and drop the illusion. Many years ago this would have been unheard of.

"Kayfabe" used to be so important years ago, which is just a word that means maintaining the illusion of the fictional world of pro wrestling. There was a time when they WANTED people to believe that it is all real and wrestlers had to stay in character in public (sometimes putting the lives of wrestlers who played villains in real life danger from fans who hated them). Eventually though, the industry dropped the act. I think it was WWE that initiated this, but I'm not sure. Vince McMahon is known for breaking MANY of the rules of pro wrestling throughout his life and radically changing the business for better or for worse. You could argue though, that with the advent of the internet and social media, maintaining the reality of pro wrestling would have been impossible anyway. We see behind the curtain on pretty much everything in modern life these days, the Wizard of Oz can't fool anyone anymore.

[Raging Justice]

Omega vs MJF was predictably awesome. They had some minor slip ups, but they were easily dwarfed by all of the awesome stuff we saw over the course of 30 minutes. They even perfectly timed the picture in picture commercial breaks with the lulls in the match. I think they only had two commercial breaks and they were very short.

MJF's world title run is becoming one of the best AEW has done.

Shida's match with Abaddon was kind of ridiculous, but I couldn't help but love her Ada outfit from Resident Evil. Perfect not just for Halloween, but because her opponent's gimmick is that she's an actual zombie. This match was essentially a Resident Evil boss fight with Abaddon being some kind of super zombie who dominated most of the match.




Toni Storm came out after the match was over and basically made a fool of herself. Seriously, this feels like a really bad WWE gimmick. This was some of the dumbest shit I've ever seen.

Bryan seems to be out with an injury, I think it may be legit. The story we are being told is that it's unclear if Orange Cassidy or Okada caused the injury, so Claudio has declared vengeance on BOTH of them. I'm a bit worried for Cassidy and his title defense against Claudio on Wednesday. Bryan caught an Orange Punch right to the face, so it feels like that would be the cause of his injury, but the story they are going with is that him and Okada are both responsible so that's fine I guess. I just like to think it was Cassidy's finisher that did it, because it elevates his status if he can knock out a top dog like Bryan.

Anyway, Collision was fun. The main event was reason enough to watch the show

[Raging Justice]

These should be fun matches:







Mike Bailey has good matches with everyone, and ZSJ is one of the best technical wrestlers in the world

Stephanie Vaquer had a really impressive match with Mercedes Mone, just before Mercedes got injured in a second match with Willow Nightingale later that night for the NJPW Strong Women's title. I have been wanting to see her perform again. Mayu Iwatani is one of the best in the world, so this should be a great match.

Here's a great resource for anyone who wants to know what great matches they've missed on any given month, it covers the big North American promotions and they also have separate videos highlighting the best matches in Japan. They are short videos that tell you what the matches were (along with participants and event info) and the channel's personal star rating for them. I appreciate people who do stuff like this since it's so hard to keep up with everything in pro wrestling.




Oh, and you have to see this. The segment with LA Knight and Roman Reigns from Smackdown was awesome:



This was funny and badass. Not a single thing Cody Rhodes has done since returning to WWE has been as entertaining as this segment. Cody is a bland, by the numbers, babyface. LA Knight has attitude and charisma. Paul Heyman was gold here too, but he's always awesome.

[Reprise]

Ok, I finally watched last week's Dynamite. It was indeed a great episode. I loved everything involving MJF. *This* is how you book a world champion. I know I complained a few times during the Summer and early Autumn that it felt like the world championship belt became secondary and an after thought during many of the stories, especially with the whole 'odd couple' Better Than You Bay Bay angle, but they are fixing that. It finally feels that this is something that everybody wants. There are finally so many contenders clawing and fighting for that shot.

Great to see Ric Flair make his debut. Christian is the greatest heel in wrestling right now.

Solid wrestling overall.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that episode.

Now to watch Collision next. Can't wait to see the Kenny and MJF match. I bet it's a MOTY contender.

[Raging Justice]

One small thing about last week's Dynamite that was lame. Sting did like one of the cringiest dad jokes ever. He started fake sneezing and then told Christian, "Oh sorry, I'm allergic to jackasses"

and here I thought Ric Flair would be the one to embarrass himself

To Sting's credit though, he followed that up with a great backstage promo with Edge.