The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

I am also slowly catching up with Wrestledream... Kinda... I started over and rewatched some matches I had already seen, because I had forgotten what I had watched anyways.

The Julia Hart and Kris Statlander match was very good. Better than I thought it would be. I like Julia to be honest. She might not be the best and she might be pretty green still, but she has a good look and she seems to be getting better in each match I see her in. Kris Statlander is great and made Julia look good. Also, I remember Raging Justice criticising her entrance for being more emo than dark or black metal etc, but I thought was ok actually. The music reminded me more of folky black metal like Myrkur than emo.

The Hangman and Swerve match was great too. Swerve is a star and should be world champion within 12 months. I hope anyways. There is (or was?) rumours that WWE want him. Not sure how true that is and I have no idea when his contract is up, so I guess we'll see.

Starks vs Yuta was boring. Yuta does nothing for me. Mox was at least mildly amusing on commentary.

I have already forgotten the other matches. Oh the tag match was fun. Bucks won and became number one contenders right? I have no idea why they scrapped all plans with this angle. It was supposed to lead to FTR vs Bucks again at Full Gear (tbf why again? And why so soon?), then there was some weird business with Starks and Big Bill winning the titles and I don't know what's happening now, because apparently no one has even mentioned that Bucks are number one contenders since.

[Raging Justice]

Swerve is a bit like Bray Wyatt. He almost seems too good for wrestling. Those guys try to bring a level of evil to their heel characters that seems to go beyond a wrestling ring into movie/tv series territory. The Firefly Funhouse match Bray had with John Cena felt like some kind of arty, indie film student project.

Cassidy's second run with the International title is going as well as his first one. AEW is doing a remarkable job with him and MJF as champions. Cassidy has teamed up with a Japanese legend in Okada and is feuding with a former world champion in Moxley. Cassidy is a big fish now.

So I read something on f4wonline in regards to LA Knight's upcoming match with Roman Reigns that I think is a real problem for WWE right now:

"It’s pretty tough to be a top babyface in WWE right now when all roads lead to Reigns who nobody beats"

I'm disappointed in WWE for not uploading that awesome video package on Drew McIntyre from Raw to their youtube channel. It was a perfect summation of his WWE journey and also logically shows why he seems to be moving towards an eventual heel turn. It told his story of being the "chosen one" brought to WWE by Vince McMahon. It showed us how he failed to live up to that status, then was let go by WWE, only to return years later a completely different man. A man I like to call The HIghlander LOL. Anyway, it showed us how he slew the unstoppable beast that was Brock Lesnar and became world champion. Unfortunately this happened during covid, so there were no crowds to see him during the peak of his career. He then laments having a chance for redemption when given the opportunity to defeat the three years running, undisputed champion Roman Reigns in Drew's home country in front of a packed arena full of people just ravenous to see him win...and then got screwed by the Bloodline. It's an awesome story for someone going heel



Seth's douchey response to Drew's grievances further cement that Drew probably will go heel. Seth Rollins is an odd babyface. He seems to gleefully enjoy getting under his opponent's skin which leads to every one of his opponents trying to damn near kill him leading up to his title matches, as well as during his title matches. He just pisses everyone off, which seems heelish. His recent feuds with Finn Balor and Shinsuke Nakamura have brought out some particularly nasty, vicious sides to them. I feel like the only thing that really makes Rollins a face is that people love his entrance music.

So AEW had their Halloween silliness with Shida's match with Abaddon. The match was dumb but I mentioned that I liked Shida's Resident Evil outfit, which seems fitting given the large number of AEW fans who are gamers. Well, I'll give a similar nod to Chelsea Green and Piper Niven. Piper looked hilarious as Jim the anvil Neidhart and while Chelsea's match with Natalia was another stupid, Halloween themed, gimmick match...it was hilarious seeing Natalia get her ass kicked by Brett Hart. Whoever thought of that deserves a raise. Natalia for her part tried wearing this sexy, bunny outfit that she's just way too old for. Doesn't help that she looks like she's had lots of work done over the years and it hasn't done her any favors.

[Reprise]

Why isn't AEW cool anymore? It's just not hot at the moment. All the usual talking heads have been talking about it, even Dave 'I give every AEW match like 14 stars out of 5' Meltzer. In all the wrestling discussion groups and forums I am on, AEW is the butt of all jokes. This has intensified over the last couple of weeks due to Ric Flair signing and Tony's silly "huge announcement". Even hardcore AEW fans aren't impressed.

I think there are multiple reasons for it and we have discussed it to death. In 2019 people were desperate for an alternative and they launched right when WWE was kind of sucking. 2020 AEW flourished during the pandemic and weathered the issues caused by Covid much better than WWE did. 2021, they built off of that momentum and brought in the likes of CM Punk and Bryan Danielson. At that point it seemed like AEW was the number one wrestling promotion to watch (no, not in terms of ratings and all that stuff, but in terms of quality, WWE was miles away from reaching AEW).

Of course there are criticisms that can be made of AEW, but I think the perception and people's attitudes online are pretty over the top. For my money, I would say by the end of the year we will be able to look back and say 2023 was a better year for AEW than 2022. 2022 had Hangman's shitty reign as champion, followed by Punk's shitty reign as champion, not to mention the whole silly shitty Interim champion nonsense with Moxley. I had given up on AEW before Punk's bizarre media scrum outburst, so he wasn't the only issue, only he was a big one. I would agree that Cody and Punk did the most damage to AEW, but actually I am going to have to include Tony Khan in that.

I digress though, my point is whilst 2023 has been a mixed bag, overall it has been a much better year and, at times (admittedly very briefly), I feel they have come close to the quality they had in the first three years. I just feel they have reached a point where it doesn't matter what they do now, people are always going to shit on them.

[Raging Justice]

Why isn't AEW cool anymore? It's just not hot at the moment. All the usual talking heads have been talking about it, even Dave 'I give every AEW match like 14 stars out of 5' Meltzer. In all the wrestling discussion groups and forums I am on, AEW is the butt of all jokes. This has intensified over the last couple of weeks due to Ric Flair signing and Tony's silly "huge announcement". Even hardcore AEW fans aren't impressed.

I think there are multiple reasons for it and we have discussed it to death. In 2019 people were desperate for an alternative and they launched right when WWE was kind of sucking. 2020 AEW flourished during the pandemic and weathered the issues caused by Covid much better than WWE did. 2021, they built off of that momentum and brought in the likes of CM Punk and Bryan Danielson. At that point it seemed like AEW was the number one wrestling promotion to watch (no, not in terms of ratings and all that stuff, but in terms of quality, WWE was miles away from reaching AEW).

Of course there are criticisms that can be made of AEW, but I think the perception and people's attitudes online are pretty over the top. For my money, I would say by the end of the year we will be able to look back and say 2023 was a better year for AEW than 2022. 2022 had Hangman's shitty reign as champion, followed by Punk's shitty reign as champion, not to mention the whole silly shitty Interim champion nonsense with Moxley. I had given up on AEW before Punk's bizarre media scrum outburst, so he wasn't the only issue, only he was a big one. I would agree that Cody and Punk did the most damage to AEW, but actually I am going to have to include Tony Khan in that.

I digress though, my point is whilst 2023 has been a mixed bag, overall it has been a much better year and, at times (admittedly very briefly), I feel they have come close to the quality they had in the first three years. I just feel they have reached a point where it doesn't matter what they do now, people are always going to shit on them.

TNA all over again

Okay, that's a bit of an over exaggeration. There is nothing to suggest that AEW will go the way of TNA, but this is sort of the same cycle. TNA was considered cool once upon a time, and they even drew good ratings and good crowds. If you watch early TNA shows it looked like a company that really could compete with WWE. Then interest eventually waned and eventually TNA become the butt of every joke in the pro wrestling community. Eventually, ratings and attendance plummeted. That last part is the one that I don't think will happen to AEW though. In fact, some say AEW has already been more successfull in its short life span than TNA ever was.

AEW is still doing well enough in the ratings and attendance areas to not end up in the state that TNA is currently in (hopefully). For all the criticism he gets, Tony Kahn is a far better business man than Dixie Carter ever was.

I do think that AEW's product has recently improved and I'm enjoying some of the stuff they are doing. However, and I'm sounding like a broken record, it's nowhere near as fascinating to watch as it was in its first two years. It's sort of the pro wrestling cycle though. Lucha Underground had a lot of buzz online after its first season. Over time though, the hype died down and some of show's mistakes and flaws started to get noticed more. It seems like things in life tend to go one of two directions. Start off weak, then gradually become awesome. Or start off really strong (AEW, Lucha Underground), then start to flounder as time goes on. I could apply this analogy to a lot of TV shows, franchises, and metal bands.

To be fair, I think WWE's product has cooled off a bit too. At least to me, I'm not speaking for WWE fans in general, just myself. I think the Bloodline story line is dead in the water. It jumped the shark when Jimmy turned on Jey. The Judgment Day, entertaining and full of talent as it is, is still not a good enough replacement. The Bloodline storyline was so good we may not see anything that great in WWE again for quite some time. Also, WWE still suffers from predictability. You now how 99% of matches are gonna go. Oh, Charlotte is in a match. Gee, I wonder who will win? Oh, it's Bianca Belair. Surely she's not going to win like she does ALL THE TIME. Oh, it's John Cena. Surely, we won't get a promo that is fake and phony and exactly like every other promo he's done in his entire career right? "Blah, blah, NEVER GIVE UP!" "Blah, blah, hustle, loyalty, respect!" "Blah, blah, blah, for the WWE fans!"



With WWE, it's obvious who their favorites are, and they telegraph where they are going with things. Then there is the Roman Reigns problem. NO ONE CAN BEAT HIM which makes all of their babyfaces as well as the Raw world title look like a joke. We all know the only title that REALLY matters is the one Roman has.

Thing is, WWE is such a massive money maker (maybe even more so now with the TKO merger) that it just doesn't matter. It doesn't help that the current WWE fanbase are a bunch of sheep. That's been true for many years, but more so right now for some strange reason. The fans who hated John Cena. The fans who hijacked shows out of anger when Daniel Bryan wasn't getting pushed. The fans who rallied against the massive Roman Reigns push. They're all gone. The current WWE fans you see in attendance at live show are obedient little sheep now. It actually adds an element of boredom to watching WWE, knowing that you're rarely going to see fans do something unexpected, like when AEW's fans suddenly all decided that they hated Cody Rhodes, or just go into business for themselves. For whatever issues AEW has and for all the criticism it currently gets, it still has the most hardcore fans, who are opiniated and vocal. WWE has mostly "normie" and "casual" fans. AEW doesn't.

[Raging Justice]

Sounds like Crown Jewel was predictably boring, except for this:

[Reprise]

Another example of where I think people are just criticising AEW for the sake of criticising AEW and missing the point, is the recent complaints I have seen about MJF facing Daniel Garcia for the title next week.

'Where is the story?'
'Why Daniel Garcia, of all people?'

The thing is, as we were discussing the other week, the story is now that everyone is gunning for MJF. Everyone is now after that title (as they should be). It's him against the locker room. When he was a heel, his character was that he was smart, he was an opportunist and that he would barely wrestle, only doing it when it was on his terms and he felt he had an advantage. Now he's wrestling multiple times a week and multiple times on a PPV.

This is a long term story. Adam Cole has weakened him and opened up a vulnerability. Whether Cole will eventually return and turn heel, being the one to use that to his advantage is yet to be seen, but it's certainly interesting.

Most of all though, this will keep MJF strong. Eventually the pressure of so many defences will be to much for him and he'll be able to drop the title without looking weak. And then at some point he will be able to come back to reclaim it. It's a long term story and a match against Garcia is just a small part of that bigger story.

[Raging Justice]

One thing you can't criticize AEW for is the in ring action. I'm watching Collision and the matches are all solid. Willow Nightingale and Emi Sakura had a good match and Swerve and AR Fox had a barn burner. Those two ALWAYS deliver when they face each other. Swerve even dropped a subtle nod to his Lucha Underground days in a backstage interview which was cool. He talked about the days when him and Pentagon BOTH wore masks.

Great matches in WWE sometimes happen, but it's never a guarantee (unless it's a PPV where they usually try a little harder).

[Raging Justice]

Sounds like Crown Jewel was predictably boring, except for this:

If I'm not mistaken the last time we saw Kairi and Iyo teamed up together was:









Good times. I miss Lucha Underground

[Raging Justice]

God, I get so tired of the way people fellate Cena, including youtube morons like Solomonster. He's talking about what a great guy Cena is for putting over Solo Sikoa at Crown Jewel. Cena is in WWE to get a paycheck, because he can't do any acting due to the writer's strike. He's gonna do whatever WWE tells him to do. He's not an active wrestler anymore. He doesn't care what WWE has him do, he's all about his Hollywood career now. If Cena didn't want to put Solo over, then WWE simply wouldn't have had the match. He's not this super generous, uber, nice guy because WWE told him to throw a match against someone. That's an employee doing what he's told to do. Solo is one of the most protected guys in WWE right now, the company is not gonna just let Cena destroy him because Cena says so. Cena did what he was fucking told do, no more, no less.

This is the same John Cena we saw bend over for China about two years ago. The guy's bought and paid for.

Cena lost a match to Austin Theory months ago, and then didn't even show up after the pay per view to put over the loss and make a big deal about Theory beating him. He just disappeared back into Hollywood. The match itself wasn't even that great. Cena got his paycheck...then left. Theory has been something of a joke ever since. No one even cares that he beat Cena, because Cena didn't even care that Theory beat him.

The way these delusional people idolize some of these guys annoys the fuck out of me. It's like how some people look at celebrities like they are these flawless, righteous, perfect people. Ugh. They're just regular human beings.

[Raging Justice]

This Roman Reigns thing. It's like watching three seasons of a show with the same villain and he keeps winning. It's like prowrestling Game of Thrones. Also, the lazy writers just have him winning using the exact same methods over and over again. Even if you look beyond Roman Reigns...

WWE is very heel heavy right now. Most of the champions are heels. This includes the Money in the Bank holder, which basically makes him a future world champion. Take a look, everyone pictured below is a heel:










WWE is run by bad guys right now. Even Seth Rollins is a very heelish baby face, so I'm not even sure that he's the exception. This is something alluded to on commentary last night on Raw when he was in a title match with Sami Zayn. Sami wouldn't attack Seth Rollins' injured back. Wade Barrett pointed out that Seth would not be so kind if the roles were reversed, then reminded us all of the man Seth was 10 years ago. Sami ultimately lost the match because he was holding back in true babyface fashion.

Many of the champions right now are also backed up by some kind of group or faction (some of which seem to be growing over time like Iyo getting extra back up in the form of Kairi or JD McDonough gradually become part of Judgment Day). So when good guys challenge these champions, they are basically fighting the entire group. It's gang warfare but only the bad guys have a gang.

The only place bucking the trend is NXT (with the exception of Dominik), apparently the only place in WWE that isn't a den of evil run by awful people.

This has been a problem with WWE in the past. People used to constantly complain during the McMahon/Hemsley era, or any time Triple H was basically destroying every baby face on the roster, or any time WWE had McMahons or heel general managers (like Eric Bischoff) in charge. WWE falls back onto this pattern very often. It's like, when you know the bad guys have all of the power and keep using it, is there any reason to keep watching?

I know there are pro wrestling fans who don't care about face/heel dynamics. I actually like a lot of heels, but I know for a fact that some fans get tired of this shit. I watch a lot of shows with someone who gets constantly frustrated by the heels running things and doing so with impunity. Again, refer back to my comparison to other TV shows. You wouldn't stick with a show where evil always wins unless it was particularly compelling (like Game of Thrones). Also, not to get too off topic, but we see enough evil running amuck in the real world these days, and pro wrestling is certainly not providing people with an escape from that.

And here's the crazy thing, whenever heel authority figures are in charge in WWE, they do everything in their power to hold down the baby faces. Right now we have two baby face general managers and they aren't doing JACK SHIT to stop the heels from basically running things. So it's not even a management thing. Heels just rule in that company for some reason.

Nice guys (and gals) finish last in WWE.