The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

I actually wish he'd go scorched earth on Cody and Punk. You know why? It'd actually generate some buzz and might also provoke a response. Punk in particular would not be able to stop himself. I'd want to get under Punk's skin just so he'd do something stupid that would make him look bad or piss off WWE higher ups.

I don't know if that would help to be honest. TK is already renowned for his outbursts, that tend to be perceived as childish. Punk and Cody are so over and popular with people right now (how and why did people do a full 180 on Punk?), unless TK has serious dirt on either, I don't see how it would help.

It's frustrating, because both are two faced hypocrites and backstabbers.

Cody is a shitweasel. He always does this nauseating "Oh I will always love AEW, I'll always root for them to do well" routine whilst actively being involved in a company that will happily destroy "that is pissant company" and will get involved in petty stuff like the "looks like you guys are in a good place now" line he delivered last night.

I don't know if AEW is ever going to find its spark again. They had a difficult 2023 that they ultimately managed to somehow manoeuvre their way through and didn't overall go too badly all things considered (MJF had a great run as champion, Wembley sold 80 something thousand tickets, Edge joined, they had many of the best matches of the year from any promotion) and then much effort went into making 2024 better. They have hired numerous new backstage roles, new writers, new people involved in marketing and getting the attendance and viewership up, not to mention they hiree Will freaking Ospreay, Okada and Mercedes Mone and yet the company seems to be on a downward trend? What can they honestly do at this point?

The issue is the same issue I see the dragons in Dragon's Den say over and over again: "What's your USP? Ok, and have you patented it? No? So what's to stop the market leaders copying you a week later? And then your business is over before you started it"

Unfortunately you can't patent wrestling and everything good AEW has ever done has been copied and stolen by WWE. People don't care enough about wrestling to want competition. They just wanted Vince McMahon to piss off and WWE to stop doing quite so many duff things and now that's all been resolved they don't feel they need AEW.

Here's what I would do:

The heel elite storyline is too one-dimensional, so I would have Okada be a real scary bad-ass heel. I want him to be destructive, ruthless and aggressive (haha ruthless aggression). I want him to start subtly taking over the group, maybe even leading Jack Perry astray a bit from the Bucks, have him being taken under Okada's win. I want the Bucks to start even questioning his motives and his actions. Turn Okada into a monster heel and establish him as THE top heel in the company. Make him scary. The kind of heel that makes children cry just by looking their way.

I'd start implementing much darker and more mature storylines too. Not in a goofy Attitude Era style either, but with psychological angles, manipulation, violence and so on.

I'd also establish a clear hierarchy of lower card, lower-mid, upper-mid and main event talent. None of this "hey our champs are going to have 20 minute competitive bangers with mid card talent" all the time business.

I'd get Hangman back asap too and keep him a heel.

MJF needs to be a tweener for now I feel.

I'd start building to All In now too and make the Owen Hart cup the focus over the next couple of months.

[Reprise]

PWInsider are now reporting that because of the huge interest that was gained from the recent angle involving Ricochet that WWE want to bring him back for another appearance and hope to change his mind about leaving (his contract is up in July).

Why do I get the impression Ricochet isn't going anywhere and WWE has just worked the dirt sheets again?

[Raging Justice]

Dave Meltzer agrees with you. I agree too.

I don't understand why wrestling companies "write off" talent when they leave and always go for the overused getting beaten up angle. How does that write them off television? Is the audience supposed to believe they're dead? Or that they're just so beaten that they never return to deliver retributions? It doesn't make sense to me when any company does it.

"If I didn’t know he was leaving, and I saw that angle, the last thing I’d think is he’s leaving. I’d think it was an angle for this, like big return - him and Bron. Especially when they had his fiancé… Samantha jump in the ambulance.

"That’s like classic pro wrestling angles, for a guy to be out for a couple of months and come back on a big pay-per-view months down the line for revenge."

(WOR)

I guess we're all correct on this one. Check this out:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/ ... we_update/

[Raging Justice]

Sorry, didn't see that you already posted about the Ricochet situation

[Raging Justice]

AEW is doing a fairly good job booking the TBS title right now. It's a refreshing change from all of the crap surrounding the Women's title. It's night and day seeing how they presented both champions tonight. The match for Forbidden Door is being built up in a serious, no nonsense way. The build to Shirakawa vs Storm on the other hand feels like mid card, WWE crap. Toni Storm and Mariah May feel like they BOTH belong in WWE at this point, and they might as well bring Mina along with them.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like they have a hot angle surrounding Mercedes, but at least she feels like a credible champion who is defending her title and is going up against the best CMLL has to offer at Forbidden Door. AEW just needs to figure out who exactly Mercedes wants to be (face or heel) and give her a compelling story line.

I think a serious and dangerous Okada is not a bad idea. I could see him as a sort of Yakuza crime boss type. Quite honestly, I could certainly imagine if his main goal all along was to infiltrate the Elite and try to take over AEW. Perry being in on it with him would make sense, after his bad experiences with Tony Kahn. This would be an easy way to turn the Bucks face again, though mending bridges with Omega would have to be handled in a smart way after what they did to him. Okada is getting fairly comfortable with speaking English, so that creates interesting creative options for him. Same goes for Mina Shirakawa, I'm just not a fan of the crap that they've saddled her with, but whatever.

Would it be a crazy idea to have Takeshita become Okada's muscle? I feel like him in the Don Callis family isn't very interesting. Takeshita can fit an enforcer role quite well and I love the idea that no one can get to Okada until they get past him, which would be no easy feat. The Rainmaker, The Alpha, and the Scapegoat. Perry could even be a bit of a mouthpiece for the group. I can't believe I'm saying this, but he's become a decent promo. You talked about Okada being a guy who could makes kids cry, I think it could be more interesting to have Takeshita be that guy. A lot of great martial arts movies and action movies have a scary motherfucker that the hero has to find a way to deal with before taking on the main villain. Think Shiva from Streets of Rage for example. I mean, look at this badass motherfucker:



You can make Takeshita look like a killer, especially with his hard hitting style. I want to see him knock someone's fucking teeth out and have that person taken out on a stretcher. If he's THAT scary, do you even want to face his boss i.e. Okada? I'd want "he's gonna kill you" chants whenever crowds see Takeshita. I'd like to see Perry become a bit of a psycho path. Twitter was trending something about "broken glass" during Ricochet's segment, a reference to the Perry/Punk thing. People still remember. You couple Perry's fascination with glass with the fact that the guy has literally experienced being on fire, and that's a recipe for a pretty fucked up, masochistic/sadistic character. I want Perry to be this crazy guy always threatening to light people on fire or how he's going to "fucking cut up your face". A much more serious version of the joke Jon Moxley has become. Moxley makes violence feel cartoonish. I want Perry to make it feel scary again. I also want to see Perry doing conchairtos on people as a call back to his time with Christian.



Stone cold killer Takeshita
Psychopath Jack Perry
and cold hearted crime boss Okada

That's a fun trio right there. Takeshita puts people in hospital beds. He's the one you WANT to deal with, because the sadistic son of a bitch Jack Perry might do far worse to you if given the opportunity. You could turn those three into AEW's version of The Shield led by this man:



Okada said tonight, "This is MY house" in reference to Swerve. I wouldn't mind seeing that actually happen

You wanna really get them over? Have them destroy the Blackpool Combat Club, then have them leave the House of Black as a bloody mess inside a ring. Have them then surround Julia Hart, until she turns tail and runs away from them. If it was like the mid 90s I'd have them put her through a table or something (like the Dudley Boys used to do), but AEW and WWE shy away from that kind of stuff nowadays. No touching the women.

Now think about all the fun things you can do with guys like Hangman or Ospreay with a group like that in AEW. Hell, if you keep Hangman heel as you suggested, that's another fantastic villain right there. You can't have a great wrestling promotion without great villains. The way AEW is building up Hook, Samoa Joe, and Shibata right now, it'd be fun to see them eventually go up against this group of Okada/Perry/Takeshita. The eventual face off between Joe and Takeshita would be epic. Crowd could do a "someone's gonna die" chant. Hook has history with Perry too. If they gave Shibata a more serious vibe, you could do a fun one off match between him and Okada. Remember that it was a match with Okada that nearly ended Shibata's career.

Alright enough fantasy booking Your pitch for Okada just got my imagination going. That moment when Okada and Perry turn on The Young Bucks you could have Okada say, "Young Bucks. It's time...to change...the world"

Schiavonni - "What the hell!?!?!"

Excalibur - "Okada and Perry just attacked the EVPs...what the hell's going on"

EDIT: I could easily see a baby face Jay White and the Bang Bang Gang going up against this trio.

[Reprise]

Yeah, that's even better! Takeshita would be perfect for that role! It would definitely rejuvenate his character a ton and give him more to do than he is doing in the Don Callis family.

Tony, hire us already

Speaking of hiring, RD Evans, who used to work for WWE and more recently was working with TNA, joined AEW this week. He's a writer, so the company definitely has been hiring a lot of new backstage roles this year to help with creative and marketing, but it begs the question why the company hasn't been able to turn things around.

[Raging Justice]

WWE is ripping that forbidden door off its hinges:



WWE using social media to keep the Ricochet story going:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/ ... posted_of/

Why is AEW hiring what was widely considering an awful, cringeworthy WWE gimmick that held down one of its top stars?

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/repo ... collision/

This is what I mean about AEW starting to feel like TNA

Wow. Seeing this today is kind of wild:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/ ... wwf_world/

Can you imagine watching this for the first time on the WWE network without the Metallica theme:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/ ... e_ecw_one/

[Reprise]

Lol NXT with Cody actually lost viewers. I thought they were going to continue the upward trend.

Man is not a draw.

[Raging Justice]

Lol NXT with Cody actually lost viewers. I thought they were going to continue the upward trend.

Man is not a draw.

Yeah, but they still kicked AEW's ass.

Honestly though, the ratings for both shows are embarrassing. Fans on both sides are fighting over a shit rating from both promotions

WWE ain't what is used to be back in the 80s and 90s, but AEW is even worse. Taker made a great comment recently:

Undertaker: “Hopefully, one day, AEW gets their crap together and genuinely creates some competition. That's probably not a popular take from most WWE insiders, but the way I look at it, competition's only gonna make, it's only gonna make you better."

If AEW actually DID get their shit together, imagine what we'd see from WWE in response

[Reprise]

I mean they had 37,000 more viewers. But they were on a different night, with no competition, and ranked 11th on TV. Dynamite had competition from NBA and so were expecting the dip, but still ranked 2nd on TV.

Obviously, overall, there is a big gulf between WWE and AEW in terms of popularity, but I am still going to laugh at Cody being mid.

I hope AEW gets their shit together. It's the lack of consistency and cohesion that frustrates me. Daniel Garcia was hugely over for a long time and where is he now and what is he doing? (I am aware he was just on Dynamite, but I presume it was just a random match) Where is Ricky Starks? Where are the House of Black? It's all a bit random at times.

They still put on great episodes every now and again though and their PPVs still continue to be... (I hesitate because Double or Nothing was definitely weak in places, but...) must see events.

Oh and the build to Blood and Guts should be interesting, particularly for multiple reasons. It's 5 vs 5 and The Elite only have 4 men. We also have no idea who the 5 Team AEW guys will be, but we know FTR and Kingston are injured. So the question becomes... is Hangman returning and if so, whose side will he be on? And will Swerve also be involved? Could we see the two having to coexist on Team AEW?

Another interesting thing about Blood and Guts is a few of the women in AEW are hyping something up? Are we going to see a women's Blood and Guts match at last?