The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

I saw someone suggest that the botch from Damien Priest, and maybe even Jade Cargill, were possibly due to the ropes being too stiff. Aren't people supposed to check that stuff BEFORE a big pay per view? What kind of operation is WWE running?

Yeah, everyone is fellating WWE these days. It makes me wonder if something is wrong with us? Like I wonder sometimes if maybe I'm just too jaded or something

I think we have a point though. I read about that ropes being too stiff argument. Think about it, would people give AEW so much slack if that happened on one of their PPVs? Nah, you'd seem an endless stream of gifs and youtube thumbnails of the botches for weeks afterwards with a bunch of comments about how AEW is some lame amateur indie promotion.

I was enthusiastic about the product for a while when Triple H took over, but eventually it just felt like WWE went back to their usual patterns.

Same. I even stopped watching AEW and was exclusively watching WWE for several months. And then after a while, once the initial honeymoon period waned for me, it just started feeling like the same WWE to me. I agree plenty has improved, but those things you mention, like the company being so corporate and not letting people getting over organically (or rewarding the audience for their investment in those characters who weren't handpicked by WWE to be the next big thing) is still an issue.

Also Cody is just fucking boring. I don't understand what people see in him. And he's a sellout who stabbed AEW in the back the first opportunity he had. I get that people don't care, because they hate AEW and love WWE, but why would people support someone doing something like that?

I missed most of Collision but I did see Christian open the show which was cool. I love how Christian really does believe that he's the face of AEW. I also saw the main event. Buddy Murphy may or may not have been injured. If it was a work, then they did an amazing job selling it. It even played beautifully into the post match angle. I really liked the main event and the closing of the show.

Yeah, I caught some highlights on social media and it looked like a great main event. I really hope that injury is a work, but it sure looked like it might be genuine. Hopefully it's nothing too serious if it is real.

[Raging Justice]

I love all of these little coincidences. Look what TNA just uploaded to their youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PyjQ4SED4s

I know I sound like a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but man it feels like everyone keeps reacting to everything that AEW does. Even with all of the issues that they have and the criticism that they get, AEW is still the company that everybody has their eyes on

[Raging Justice]

Jesus, I think I like Liv Morgan now. I mean, it's hard not to love a woman like this LOL:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/ ... ysterio35/

It's clever too, having Dom become her "daddy" when Rhea Ripley made him call her "mami". She's teasing Dominick with a very different type of relationship that he hasn't experienced before.

Here's some more speculation on the ropes thing:

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

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

I hate to do this, but I'll give Jade Cargill a pass on her one botch. I still don't understand what was going on with her and Shayna and the "receipt" though.

This right here, LOL:

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

It's a good thing MJF is a face now, because I don't think any heel on the roster can touch Christian Cage right now. Thank you Christian! We all love you!

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

"Eating Brie"

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

I would absolutely, 100 percent do this if I was Tony Kahn:

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

That is literally the ONLY thing that would TOTALLY make the EVP storyline worth it.

[Reprise]

Shane McMahon in AEW? I don't know. I must admit what I sometimes want in professional wrestling isn't always what is actually legitimately best for a business. I would love to see Shane McMahon in AEW just because it would be like watching a car crash with morbid curiousity. Just like when Punk had his first suspension and people wanted him fired and I was like "nah, bring him back in. Let's see what happens." Woops.

It could be great though. I think Shane, from a business perspective, is incredibly smart and probably has a lot to offer. In terms of just how mad it would be and how it would get people and the wrestling media buzzing, would also be good to see. Especially in that EVPs storyline. I can imagine Nicholas and Matthew Jackson coming out with a contract, with some kind of silly story about the co-owner of AEW or something and saying "the deal is finalised with AEW... and the name on the contract does say 'Khan', however... Sorry, I mispoke there. Did I say 'Khan'? What I meant to say was the contract reads 'MCMAHON'" cuts to *HERE COMES THE MONEY*

Otherwise though, do we really want to see Shane wrestling again or booking shows or even as an on screen GM figure again? I don't know

I bet he could do some great work behind the scenes in other areas though.

[Raging Justice]

Shane McMahon in AEW? I don't know. I must admit what I sometimes want in professional wrestling isn't always what is actually legitimately best for a business. I would love to see Shane McMahon in AEW just because it would be like watching a car crash with morbid curiousity. Just like when Punk had his first suspension and people wanted him fired and I was like "nah, bring him back in. Let's see what happens." Woops.

It could be great though. I think Shane, from a business perspective, is incredibly smart and probably has a lot to offer. In terms of just how mad it would be and how it would get people and the wrestling media buzzing, would also be good to see. Especially in that EVPs storyline. I can imagine Nicholas and Matthew Jackson coming out with a contract, with some kind of silly story about the co-owner of AEW or something and saying "the deal is finalised with AEW... and the name on the contract does say 'Khan', however... Sorry, I mispoke there. Did I say 'Khan'? What I meant to say was the contract reads 'MCMAHON'" cuts to *HERE COMES THE MONEY*

Otherwise though, do we really want to see Shane wrestling again or booking shows or even as an on screen GM figure again? I don't know

I bet he could do some great work behind the scenes in other areas though.

I definitely don't want to see him wrestle, but I think it could be fun to use him for an angle. If that works out well, then maybe he can continue being an onscreen character. Not everybody in the wrestling business has to get in the ring in order to play a role. I actually could easily picture him interacting with the Young Bucks too, and even Okada. Okada has shown so much more personality in AEW than I ever expected from him.

I can't help it, I like surprises. Life in general is so boring and predictable. The EVP angle ending with Shane is something no one would see coming. Although if that were to actually happen now, JR has kinda spoiled it already

Here's the interesting thing too, he could sort of salvage the McMahon name if he were to have a successful role in AEW that legitimately helps the company. It's fun to think about. Now if WWE ever decided to work with AEW, you could easily use Shane for an invasion angle

[Raging Justice]

Why are people on the internet so weird?

There's a certain wrestling forum that's pretty active that I occasionally go to for info. I don't really engage with anyone because there's a lot of toxic people and morons on there. I just lurk. There's a thread on there dedicated to Stardom and joshi stuff in general. At first I thought, "Cool. Here's some place where as a casual joshi fan I can sort of keep up with things going on in that scene". I quickly learned the error of my ways though.

The people regularly posting in the thread just flood it with endless pictures every day, some of which could even be considered not safe for work. Obviously, no nudity or porn, but joshi girls do sometimes do sexy photo shoots. Anyway, back to my little rant. I like pics. I'm visually oriented like many men. I like gifs and pictures (you certainly see me using them in this thread) and I like to look at pretty ladies too. The problem is that they just FLOOD that damn thread with TONS of pictures, and often with no real point to them. They just post pictures simply to post pictures. It's so irritating. Every time I go there I have to scroll down through endless, pointless pictures of female wrestlers just hoping to get some info about upcoming events, major angles, storylines, learning about new joshi wrestlers, etc. Sometimes I do actually get useful info like that from the thread, but it's usually in between endless, stupid pictures and people in the thread making really nerdy, inside jokes and engaging in stupid banter with each other while occasionally commenting on how hot some girl is. I have never seen a thread just SCREAM losers like that one does. I just imagine everyone posting there looking like that South Park guy with no life:



You might remember I once did a post describing the different types of annoying wrestling fans you see online and one of them was that person who just spams pictures in threads all day. This particular thread I'm talking about is what inspired that.

[Raging Justice]

Water is wet. The sky is blue. Someone hates CM Punk:

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

Bazler throwing shade at Cargill, this situation is interesting. She tweeted:

@QoSBaszler “Ropes issue” but @ZoeyStarkWWE nails 3 perfect springboards

Cargill tweeted something in response, then deleted it



Interesting comments on the pay per view from Heydorn:

"That poor Scotland crowd.

Not only did the hometown boy, Drew McIntyre, come up short in his quest to win the world championship in front of his hometown audience, but they also were forced participants in one of the worst match finishes in recent WWE history.

Triple H has had a lot of hits since grabbing creative control in the company, but this McIntyre, Damian Priest, and CM Punk debacle wasn’t one of them. McIntyre vs. Punk was a shining beacon of hope for the Triple H led booking strategy of WWE and now it’s an inconsistent mess that’s in need of saving. More on that later.


The rest of the show was a fine to good event with some solid wrestling that was saddled with predictable outcomes. Not bad, but inconsequential.

Here are my Brass Ring Ratings for the event and here’s how they work … I call it like I see it. Period.

Cody Rhodes vs. AJ Styles - WWE Undisputed Championship “I Quit” Match
A strong opener for the show and the match of the night. The crowd gave Cody Rhodes a tremendous response and the match utilized that response for drama. Styles and Cody both beat the other up and flipped the “I Quit” concept on it’s head with the focus placed on big spots rather than prolonged pain. Styles very much needed to do more to Rhodes during this to justify Rhodes smashing him with the stairs after Styles quit and lost the match, but the idea was to show an edgy side of Cody. The match was good, but I wouldn’t give them a passing grade on that final point. He came across as unlikable instead of edgy and aggressive.

Heydorn’s Brass Ring Rating - OOO 1/4
Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill vs. Shayna Baszler & Zoey Stark vs. Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn - WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship
The worst match on the show because of some missed spots from all teams involved. The most confusing match too. Fyre and Dawn are tag champions? Really? Look, I get that you wanted to give the Scotland crowd a hometown title win, but really? Belair and Cargill came across as living down to the level of their competition in this. I don’t see Fyre and Dawn holding the belts long, but they shouldn’t go back into the hands of Cargill and Belair either. This finish plants the titles firmly in the realm of meaningless after this and WWE shouldn’t want Jade and Bianca in that spot with them.

Heydorn’s Brass Ring Rating - O 1/2
Sami Zayn vs. Chad Gable - WWE Intercontinental Championship
A good match, but one that was marred by the lack of logical storyline progression. Otis needed to turn on Gable in this match to move that narrative forward. We’ve now kind of gotten the turn two times and it has hurt the value of the full turn from Otis whenever it happens. Big stages call for big moments in feuds and this was an ideal spot to do something significant. Instead, we got a match that was good, but one that left every person involved in the exact same spot as they were going in.

Heydorn’s Brass Ring Rating - OOO
Bayley vs. Piper Niven - WWE Women’s Championship
Solid, but without drama. Like, none at all. Chelsea Green was heavily involved in shenanigans outside the ring to try and create some belief that Niven would win the championship, but nobody bought it. Good spots here and there, but like a house show match, this was good while it was on and immediately forgettable once it wasn’t.

Heydorn’s Brass Ring Rating - OO 1/2
Damian Priest vs. Drew McIntyre - WWE World Heavyweight Championship
An unfortunate mess. Unfortunate because the match itself was excellent. Damian Priest and Drew McIntyre had nice chemistry and worked a match they didn’t plan once Priest got injured during a botched dive. The pivot made for fun drama and a gutsy performance by Priest that included some big strength spots that were even more impressive being done on an injured leg. The finish ruined everything. Punk was backstage at the exact right time next to a ref shirt? Not a soul was around to prevent him from grabbing that and running down to the ring? A stretch and that’s putting it nicely. The execution was bad and illogical, but worse was the inconsistent light that the finish put both McIntyre and Punk in. McIntyre is fully justified in wanting to hurt CM Punk — as the heel. Punk looked like a jerk getting involved in something that wasn’t his business — as a babyface. It’s senseless. WWE had a very organic feud brewing between these two talents and now they have a convoluted mess that will require fans to play along rather than stay invested because of how good the story has been. A tough night at the office and the first big example of a true booking miss on the part of Triple H.

Heydorn’s Brass Ring Rating - OO"

All good points, but people will still go on and on about how amazing the Paul Levesque era of WWE is. This is all Vince McMahon levels of bad booking and creative.

[Raging Justice]

Welp, you gotta give the devil his due. WWE made "cinema" tonight.

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

You know if there's one thing giving WWE an edge over AEW, it's being able to create cool moments like that which then get posted all over social media. Case in point:



That wasn't Bron saving Sheamus by the way, just a heel putting another heel in his place. Showing him who's the bigger dog in the yard.

I frequently criticize the booking and predictability of WWE as well as the generally weak in ring product, but they are killing AEW when it comes to character work and story telling. Problem is they tend to fumble a lot of these stories when they get near the finishing line. There's definitely a greater sense though of WWE trying to feel like a weekly TV series, whereas AEW tends to just be a few hours crammed with matches, some of which are just pointless matches, and some of which feature people we don't care about or haven't even seen before.

WWE is doing this Chad/Otis/Alpha Academy thing that is getting great reactions. We're getting the Dom/Liv/Judgment Day soap opera. They're doing this story of Iyo getting more and more frustrated with Damage Control. Drew just quit WWE and made some comment implying that he's pissed about something Triple H said. Raw actually feels like a stronger show than Smackdown with at least a few interesting stories going on, despite Smackdown being where their golden boy Cody Rhodes is.

That being said though, WWE still has problems. The overall reaction to Clash at the Castle doesn't seem to be great and Cody is really losing steam as the top guy:

https://prowrestling.net/site/2024/06/1 ... e-edition/

EDIT:





Joking aside, Chad has really taken to the heel role. He's getting legit heat right now instead of being a joke heel like he was in the past. Otis reminds me of 80s era wrestlers, and that's a compliment. He's getting great pops right now as he should:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSNwb5W1QcQ

[Reprise]

Drew just quit WWE and made some comment implying that he's pissed about something Triple H said.

That would have worked a whole lot better if he hadn't revealed he had just re-signed with the company and signed a large multi-year contract with them. I mean, it was just like two weeks ago.

WWE gets a lot right at the moment, which means when they do silly things like that, it's far more noticeable.

It also demonstrates the predictability issue WWE has. Because we know he's not quitting. In fact, we're going to see him this week on Smackdown attempting to get his own back on CM Punk. It's obvious.

WWE undoubtedly has a greater ability to tell compelling and cohesive stories and definitely has the better character work. They know how to get people invested in characters, whilst AEW really struggles.

To be honest, I don't even think there is a single character or story in AEW right now that I am invested in. I think Ospreay is great and watching him fly up the card is fun and seeing him go straight into the world title picture is also great. But in terms of any story, am I fully invested? Not really. I don't care about the whole Don Callis family aspect. Him being 'weakened' by his internal conflict after kayfabe injuring Bryan Danielson with the Storm Driver is interesting, but not OMG interesting. It would be more compelling if Ospreay faced real "adversity", as WWE kept banging on about last year when they didn't pull the trigger on Cody.

MJF is a character who I have been compelled by since the beginning and just as I thought he was stale and getting one-dimensional, he changed things up perfectly and added real character development. It's not entirely AEW's fault that both him and Cole getting injured meant they had to work with what they had and ultimately fumble that storyline. But that said, he returned and his first feud is with Rush. I am not sure why I care about that? I get that they don't want to rush him feuding with Ospreay or Swerve or having him go straight for the world title again, but still... AEW has this issue where they make it painfully obvious when stories or feuds are just filler that you shouldn't care about.

AEW has no card hierarchy. They want everyone to be capable of having competitive matches. They put mid card titles on A level talent and it is so rare you will see anyone truly being a jobber in AEW or anyone having squash matches. Maybe that's unfair, I think Samoa Joe, Hobbs and Miro have had a few in the last year. Did Jade Cargill have squash matches? I think I have actually blacked out most of her time in AEW now, because I cared so little about her until WWE tried telling me she was a big deal.

I will say I don't understand why WWE gets a pass for goofy shit though. RIP Bray, I would get so much hate if I said this on a larger platform, but I didn't care for 99% of his corny "oh so dark" gimmicks, or this Uncle Howdy silliness. They look like Slipknot when you order them from Wish.

Speaking of goofy, I have been watching a bit of TNA lately. I just realised (well, re-remembered) that they have loads of their old PPVs on Youtube for free. I was watching Bound For Glory 2005 and there is such a cool atmosphere. The in ring quality isn't amazing or anything, but the 6 sided ring allows for lots of cool spots and the crowd are super into everything. The fans seem to love TNA here. They're like AEW fans in some waya. For example during a segment where they talked to fans, one said something like "this isn't like that soap opera crap in the other place, this is real pro wrestling"

I laugh, because it was a lot like WWE. In fact, it's kinda funny how they went from being very WWE-esque with goofy booking and goofy (but mostly fun) stories, focusing more on 'sports entertainment' than in-ring quality or star ratings to what TNA is like today, which has much more of an emphasis on the in-ring quality.

[Raging Justice]

What's interesting is how WWE will layer a story line throughout the course of a show. Chad Gable and Otis went through an actual story arc throughout Monday Night Raw where we saw a physical confrontation in the ring involving all members of Alpha Academy, Otis later in the show quitting Alpha Academy, and Chad angrily dissolving the group in response in order to make himself feel like he's still the one holding the power in the situation. Chad then declared that he would win the Money in the Bank briefcase in order to show the world that he's better than Otis. Later in the show, Chad was targeted and then brutally attacked by the new Wyatt family leading to many people joking online that he was killed off. People on reddit were actually speculating on the possibility that Otis will feel guilty that he wasn't there to help Chad even after the fallout that they had. THAT'S...FUCKING...STORY TELLING!!!!

When is the last time any characters in AEW went through that much stuff in a single episode? That's with me not even bringing up all of the stuff Judgment Day was doing. They also have various people randomly interacting backstage or show people doing things in the background while someone else is doing an interview or something. Dare I say it? Is WWE actually in the process of what we as gamers would call "world building"? WWE has also been improving the camera work, production techniques, etc. to make everything happening on the show more visually interesting. They do a lot of long takes now where the camera follows people around and Triple H even seems to like having easter eggs for people to catch and speculate about online like carefully placed things in a camera shot for people to take notice of. WWE is trying to make their shows FEEL like a TV series. They even ended Raw on a very TV-like cliffhanger where the new Wyatt family wreaked havoc on many members of the roster. Ironically, WWE is more "sports entertainment" focused now then they were under Vince McMahon. The man gets hated on now, but WWE is fully following his vision for the company. They are just doing it arguably better than he did. His shadow still looms over WWE.

I give WWE a lot of shit, but they are putting some work into some areas that I have to acknowledge.

Also, maybe they are getting SOME mainstream attention. I saw a news broadcast talking about aliens and whether or not the presidential candidates should be asked about them, which blows my mind by the way. That's a subject for another thread though, we are literally in the future now with news broadcasts talking about aliens, AI, robots, the possibility of aliens being supernatural, etc. That's fucking crazy. That Harvard study got a lot of people talking on a lot of news networks and podcasts. Anyway, they mentioned Logan Paul's interview with Trump (where he actually asked Trump about UFOs and UAPs) and referred to Logan as a "wrestling influencer" then they talked about his past Wrestlemania exploits.

Things are very interesting right now