The Wrestling Thread

[Raging Justice]

Did you guys see the video on Serena Deeb? I saw it on TV so I assume you guys saw it in the arena as well. She's actually really good so I'm happy she's returning but again, it's likely AEW won't do anything great with her.

We did, but I had no idea who that was!

She gets compared to Brett Hart a lot, who she also happens to be a big fan of. She did the figure four around a ring post once, which is a known Brett Hart spot. She is known for having several submissions and is basically viewed as an expert on applying and escaping them, which is kind of what that video you saw was about.

Interesting little bit of history about her, she was once in a WWE faction led by CM Punk

She had one of the better women's feuds we've seen in AEW with Shida. It all started here:



If you get a little free time, this is a fantastic match she had against perennial AEW favorite Riho



She seems to work really well with Japanese wrestlers.

Anyway, I'm glad you had a good time. I've love to hear if you have any other interesting tidbits to share about your live experience. I've never been to a live AEW show. I haven't actually been to a live wrestling show in many years.

[Reprise]

TNA Hard to Kill is this weekend. Anyone going to be checking it out? Should be a fun refresh for the company.

I haven't really watched much wrestling lately. I caught Dynamite last week and thought it was decent. I plan to catch up with Collision tonight. At the least I will check out FTR vs House of Black.

I haven't really kept up with what happened on Raw on Monday or Dynamite last night. I just saw the Drew and Punk segment that was on Raw. Jinder gets a title shot against Seth for god knows what reason (... No let's not bring up Tony's new Twitter meltdown ughhh)

I also saw that the Bucks returned and will apparently be Sting's final opponents at his retirement match.

That's a big meh from me, but I don't know what else they could have done. The Bucks are a solid choice and they are better as heels, because they are so completely loathsome. Sting refuses to do a singles match (and it's not like one would be good, even if he did accept one for his final match), so I guess it will have to be a tag team match. Christian would have been a great opponent for Sting's last match. Christian and Nick Wayne perhaps against Sting and Darby? But I guess they have already done that feud.

Oh and I am really up for Joe vs Hangman vs Swerve at Revolution. I think Joe will retain.

[Raging Justice]

I skipped most of Dynamite and went to sleep. I didn't watch Raw either. I'm kind of bored with wrestling at the moment. I'm also really tired of the delusional internet wrestling fans that you see online. These little weirdos who say things like, "Toni Storm is one of the best things going in AEW". Really? Is Toni popping ratings? Is she selling pay per views? Is she selling tons of merch? Is she making wrestling more mainstream with talk show appearances and appearances in the news? No, she isn't, because NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT TONI STORM AND HER STUPID GIMMICK

The people you see on these forums are such a tiny, fraction, of the wrestling fanbase. On an even larger scale, they don't even reflect the way potential wrestling fans think, but marks like Tony Kahn pay attention to these idiots and then wonders why AEW isn't growing. WWE isn't much better, their ratings are dropping because they don't have a product than can appeal to casuals or lapsed wrestling fans and I don't think they care, so long as they are making just enough profit to keep the machine going. They hype up John Cena as "the greatest of all time" completely ignoring the rather large number of people who stopped following WWE over the years BECAUSE of John Cena. WWE will NEVER admit how much business this joke cost them. Greatest of all time my ass.

I'm so tired of the coping that exists in the world of wrestling, both from promoters/bookers to internet wrestling fans. The, "I close my eyes, cover my ears, and ignore anything that counters my ideas about what makes a great and successful wrestling product". It's tiresome. Guys like Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo kind of touch on this from time to time and it's true, there's so much goddamn COPING in the world of wrestling. Just people denying reality and telling themselves what ever makes them feel better. Ignoring that wrestling fell off a cliff after the Attitude Era and never recovered and ignoring any of the potential reasons why. Even in the 80s wrestling was in a glorious period FAR better and FAR more mainstream and successful than it is today. WWE and AEW are nowhere even close to the success wrestling had in those two periods and its because both of their products ABSOLUTELY SUCK

[Reprise]

As a guy quickly approaching his 40s, I don't know what coping means haha.

To be honest though, wrestling did drop off a cliff after the Attitude Era died.

The problem with wrestling today is neither company can tell a coherent overarching story, with compelling characters, that sort of binds everything together. Too many guys get a push, then pushed back down the card, then forgotten about, and then pushed back up the card. Stories stop and start, or go on forever and lose steam.

That said, I like watching good solid matches. I'd rather watch a 5 star Meltzer reviewed, Cagematch approved, match between guys like Seth Rollins, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Bryan Danielson, Swerve Strickland etc than 95% of the matches in the Attitude Era or whatever the eras in the 80s and early-mid 90s were called. God the undercard and midcard was so fucking wank in the 80s and 90s. It was only in the early 2000s when guys like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Edge, Christian etc saved it (in WWE at least)

[Raging Justice]

As a guy quickly approaching his 40s, I don't know what coping means haha.

To be honest though, wrestling did drop off a cliff after the Attitude Era died.

The problem with wrestling today is neither company can tell a coherent overarching story, with compelling characters, that sort of binds everything together. Too many guys get a push, then pushed back down the card, then forgotten about, and then pushed back up the card. Stories stop and start, or go on forever and lose steam.

That said, I like watching good solid matches. I'd rather watch a 5 star Meltzer reviewed, Cagematch approved, match between guys like Seth Rollins, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Bryan Danielson, Swerve Strickland etc than 95% of the matches in the Attitude Era or whatever the eras in the 80s and early-mid 90s were called. God the undercard and midcard was so fucking wank in the 80s and 90s. It was only in the early 2000s when guys like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Edge, Christian etc saved it (in WWE at least)

I was in a bit of a bad mood when I made that post, though much of what I said is how I really feel though. However, I did actually enjoy last Saturday's Collision/Battle of the Belts combo. There's still some decent stuff AEW puts out, WWE has totally lost me though. Like I still sometimes put on Raw and Smackdown, but I'm usually walking around the house doing other things or doing a bit of gaming on the Switch, with the show just kind of being background noise. Their product is stale as fuck right now so I won't be talking much about the shows going forward unless I feel there is a good reason to. The company is clearly in cruise control until Mania, and I don't even know if I will like what they deliver at Mania given the direction things seem to be going in. There's literally no reason to watch WWE right now until at least the Royal Rumble.

On the plus side, other companies like to put on shows on Mania weekend and there's often some really fun stuff to see. Stardom is actually doing a show in Philly during that weekend I believe and there will probably be one or two indie companies putting out a great show.

The FTR/Garcia vs House of Black match last Saturday was awesome even though I hate FTR, and the street fight on Battle of the Belts was stupid, silly, fun. I enjoyed the throwback of Sammy Guevarra using a golf cart. It's seems Jericho's crowd heat is already gone as is that whole story that amounted to nothing. I missed a few matches from that three hour block, having to go to the bathroom once or twice plus just getting a bit sleepy in the third hour as it's hard to watch three hours of wrestling at night unless every single match, promo, and angle is just mind-blowingly great. I may go back and see what I missed. I didn't get to see Anna Jay versus Julia Hart for example so I don't know if it was any good.

Jack Perry just showed up in NJPW and tore up an AEW contract. Make of that what you will. Probably just an angle.

I watched some old NXT videos on youtube recently revolving around Bailey. Remember when she was the women's champion and the face of the "Women's Revolution?". Remember the Four Horsewomen curtain call with Bailey as the centerpiece holding the title? Well, she got her ass kicked again by Bianca Belair on Smackdown adding yet another in what has been a long string of losses for her going back to last year, and her faction is clearly thinking about ditching her.

Man, how far that woman has fallen. She's definitely the lamest of the four horsewomen now in terms of booking (compared to Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair) or generating buzz (like Mercedes has done since leaving WWE). Here's a nice reminder of better times in her career:





I just want people to remember who she was once upon a time. She was always my favorite of the four back in her prime. This is also a nice reminder of how fucking awesome NXT used to be

[Reprise]

On the plus side, other companies like to put on shows on Mania weekend and there's often some really fun stuff to see.

I always enjoy that about Mania weekend. One of the NXT Takeovers (I think it was 2018?) was absolutely insane and probably better than the Mania

The ROH Supercard of Honor a couple of years back, that happened over Mania weekend, was also pretty awesome.

However, I did actually enjoy last Saturday's Collision/Battle of the Belts combo. There's still some decent stuff AEW puts out, WWE has totally lost me though.

Yeah, I saw some clips of that and it looked pretty good. I plan to catch up (I keep saying that and rarely actually do it, but will try).

I watched some old NXT videos on youtube recently revolving around Bailey.

Yeah, Bailey used to be awesome. She was incredible back in NXT, but has been definitely booked the worst out of the Four Horsewomen since moving to main shows.

[Raging Justice]

Watching TNA right now just on a whim

So I guess this is the start of their new era

Joe Hendry is funny

Xia Brookside is kind of cute. She was in NXT UK I believe before WWE just sort of disbanded it. Then she was in Stardom for a bit in Mina Shirakawa's new faction after Mina ditched the Cosmic Angels. With Brookside here and Mariah May in AEW does that mean Mina's group is done? What is Mina doing now? Maybe she should have stayed with Tam and Natsupoi. I never liked Tasha Steel. She plays this sort of badass from the hood or something and yet doesn't look even the slightest bit intimidating.

I don't care about Giselle Shaw, but it's always nice to see Gail Kim. Man, she had some amazing moments in TNA's history and she did the Mercedes Monet thing first and did it better when she literally walked out of WWE on TV during a live show LOL

Nic Nemeth's promo segment with Steve Maclin was pretty cool. I don't think it was intentional, but it felt like they threw some shade at Cody Rhodes and CM Punk claiming that Nic was there to suck the place dry then move on. We've seen wrestlers do that before. I like Maclin's line, "No one will remember Nic Nemeth years from now, they'll just ask, "Whatever happened to Dolph Ziggler?"". Ziggler's reaction sold that line really well. Ouch.

Opening match was fun, we've seen Vikingo already in AEW and know how awesome he is. I know Kushida from NJPW and NXT and Laredo Kid I've seen before too. Kid is very good. Of course, the highlight for me always is seeing Speedball Mike Bailey, a man I never would have known of were it not for Impact...*ahem*...TNA. I'm a big Kushida fan too though. Jake Something was impressive here with his big guy spots, but he seems out of place in the X Division.

Kazuchika Okada. Yes, he was on the show. It's funny sometimes to see him given the bad history he had with the company when he was under contract with them many moons ago. All water under the bridge now

I like PCO. His Frankenstein gimmick is cool and his entrance was awesome

Jordanne Grace is pretty cool, nice to see Naomi...*ahem*...Trinity still doing well in TNA after leaving WWE. I still feel like Mercedes got the better end of things though when the two of them walked out of WWE.

Dana Brooke is in TNA now. Meh

Where's Mickie James? I missing seeing those...uh..ballistics of hers. *Ahem*
Okay, in all seriousness, I do actually respect her and what she's done in her career. I wonder if she's done with TNA. Her hubbie seems to be doing well as the Smackdown general manager on Smackdown.

TNA gets relatively small crowds, but they seem happy to be there and make lots of noise. Almost feels like NXT crowds.

Frankie Kazerian's heel turn got some good crowd heat. I love his heavy metal entrance. It seems like he got bored with AEW a long time ago and I guess he's been in TNA ever since. He did an interview not that long ago where he said that AEW "has matches just to have matches". I kind of miss seeing him teamed up with "Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels

Will Ospreay in the main event, that's always a good thing and Josh Alexander is a guy who has delivered in big time, main event matches before

I kind of dig Moose, nice that he's the world champ again. Dude really looks the part. I remember when this guy was in Ring in Honor back before it went under and got purchased by Tony Kahn. I think that's where he started out and first started getting over.

TNA is certainly watchable these days, and worth checking in with from time to time I think. We talked about physical media a while back. I have this cool VHS they released of a big Slammiversary show they had like maybe 2 or 3 years ago. This was back when Kenny Omega was working with them while still under AEW contract and you can see him on the cover. I don't know why they released this show on VHS, but it's pretty cool.

[Reprise]

I didn't know they released that on VHS. That's kinda mad haha. I wanted to pick up the DVD of that show back when it came out, but it sold out really quickly in the UK.

[Raging Justice]

And so it has begun:

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/new-japa ... -offer-wwe

I didn't know they released that on VHS. That's kinda mad haha. I wanted to pick up the DVD of that show back when it came out, but it sold out really quickly in the UK.

If someone convinced WWE to continue releasing media but only on VHS, I'd be okay with that.

[Reprise]

Why do I get the impression that WWE would only want Okada for the optics and because it would mean AEW not signing him.