The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

Am I the only person who saw the Cena heel turn coming?

Anyways, that was a damn good show! It's probably the best WWE PLE I have watched in a long time.

[Raging Justice]

Cena going heel is just one of those things that people gave up on ever seeing happen. I actually don't think it would have happened under Vince. I guess this is Hunter's response to everyone calling him a boring and predictable booker, as well as much of the recent backlash towards the Mania build up

If Cena was anyone else, then yeah it would have been predictable.

The show was pretty good. I think the women outdid the men as far as the Chamber matches go. The Naomi angle gave their match an exciting start. I hate Bianca winning, but she seems like the best choice at this point in time. Roxanne isn't quite ready to graduate from NXT yet, though it's obvious that she will soon. Liv and Rhea Ripley has happened enough times already, and Alexa Bliss has no real momentum as she just recently returned. Bailey also isn't as over as she was as last year's rumble. I have to say that Alexa, Roxanne, and Liv in one match was almost too much hotness for me to handle.

Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn managed to put on an amazing unsanctioned match without resorting to the over the top antics and blood we usually see in AEW. I wish we got some color from Owens after his face hit the barbed wire chair though.

The men's chamber match was the low point of the show in my opinion, but the follow up was historic. The match was bland and boring though.

Ironic that Cena finally turns heel on the guy who refused to do that in AEW.

Those Canadian fans are really something, singing "Nah nah, nah, nah, hey hey, good bye" at Naomi and booing the national anthem (which apparently happened at a hockey game too). What a bunch of trolls.

I haven't been too excited for AEW or WWE lately, so this show was a pleasant surprise.

Harley Cameron is still the best thing going in AEW's women's division. I wish the company would move on from this Toni Storm/Mariah May garbage and Mercedes Mone's title reign is boring. I hope Copeland takes Moxley's title, and then gets cashed in on by Christian. I've enjoyed Cope's feud with Mox, but that's entirely because of Cope as Mox and co. have been boring and Jay White just feels like he's just sort of there cause they've got nothing better for him to do.

AEW needs to release Adam Cole. There. I said it. He can take the Undisputed KIngdom with him. Get these losers off of my television

The Hurt Syndicate and Hangman Paige are some other bright spots in AEW's largely boring shows. MVP is the best manager in pro wrestling today and even makes Don Callis look like an amateur.

[Reprise]

I mostly agree with all that. I thought the tag match was pretty bad, but enjoyed the other three matches. KO and Sami was the best match, but I actually disagree. It looked too safe and the tame 'violence' did not warrant the over the top reactions of the commentary. KO not bleeding from the barbed wire is a perfect example. AEW might take it too far, particularly when they do it throw away matches with little heat, but a match between these two being hyped up as some kind of blood feud needed something a bit extra. It was still great though.

AEW has been fairly entertaining for me the last few weeks. The Hurt Syndicate are great (agree about MVP) and the Hangman and MJF feud has finally given me a reason to give a shit about MJF, mostly because of Hangman who remains the most interesting character in AEW. He has more depth than any other figure in that company. His transition between heel and face and vice versa has been masterful, because it is believable and has always been a slow burn. Harley Cameron is entertaining as hell. The Death Riders stuff is lame, but I admit the Cope and Mox feud has at least improved it somewhat and significantly so in the last couple of weeks.

And yes, I want Copeland to win and Christian to immediately cash in and get his moment. As for Jay White, I agree. I don't really get the point of his place in this story. And the only thing I can think of is a very sports entertainmenty WWE-esque theory I saw someone else come up with, that he will screw Copeland AND Christian at Revolution by taking out both, signing the contract Christian has and pinning Mox. Jay White is better as a heel.

The biggest issue with AEW is inconsistency and issues getting people to be invested in storylines and characters. Too many people are just there and nobody really cares. Adam Cole is a good example. His return from his injury could have been fantastic. Remember that vignette from nearly a year ago with him sat on a throne with the Undisputed Kingdom before Wardlow had his world title match? That was great. Now I find myself struggling to care about him and the Undisputed Kingdom.

[Raging Justice]

I wouldn't have minded some blood and a little more violence in the Sammy/KO match, but I think they reminded us that you can have a match like this still feel dramatic even without going overboard with gimmicks and over the top gore like AEW tends to do. If you're gonna go all out though, I still kind of feel like Swerve vs Dante in the Hell of War match in Lucha Underground is a gold standard.

I found Cole's reaction to Cena's heel turn kind of hilarious. Cole is like this little boy who has posters of John Cena all over his bedroom. He's such a dork and such a massive Cena shill. I enjoyed seeing how upset he was.

We're being remind once again that the 90s was one of the best eras of wrestling. The biggest storyline they have revolves around the Rock (one of the Attitude Era's biggest stars) and Cena's heel turn is very Hollywood Hogan.

Cena's heel turn is exciting, but him and The Rock are going to have to carry this feud because Cody Rhodes is about as exciting as vanilla ice cream.

I'm happy AEW has returned to the idea of Hangman as the "main character" of AEW, because I think he deserves that status (unlike a certain someone in WWE)

I wonder how many people will see "John Cena turns heel" videos on youtube today and think, "That's clickbait"

[Raging Justice]

WWE dropped the ball on one thing during the attack on Naomi. They seemed to have completely forgotten that Naomi and Bayley are friends. There was no emphasis whatsoever on Bayley's reaction to the attack. That, along with the trolls in the crowd poking fun at the whole thing, kind of bothered me.

[Reprise]

Huh, I never even thought about Bayley's lack of reaction. Good point. The focus was all on Bianca's response.

The question on my mind now though is does Cena now win the title one more time? He'd break Flair's record. It would be the most interesting outcome. If Cena doesn't beat Cody, realistically who is going to beat him? Are they just going to give him the Roman treatment and have him hold the belt forever.

[Reprise]

As an outsider looking in, I suspect the reason for this is the unique nature of wresting. It's physical, but it's not sports. There isn't legitimate competition because it's scripted. So in that sense it's more akin to acting, except few wrestlers are truly great actors outside of using their bodies in the physical wrestling itself. And because the drama of it is driven by exaggerated personas and conflicts, well, that's kind of what you get. In sports there's some of that, but people can talk about stats and performance in a way you can't with wrestling since the outcomes are scripted. And it's hard to talk about it the way movies and TV shows are talked about because the quality of the writing isn't really the point. It's more about that combination scripted/spontaneous choreography in the ring. And I know I've read a little about that that seemed less trollish and fandomy, going into athleticism and stamina and whatnot, but there's only so much you can really write about that, so it just comes back to people writing about the personas and people, which is a recipe for what you're describing, IMO.

AGain, I'm an outsider to this, so feel free to tell me I'm way out in left field (wrong sports analogy).

To me, at the moment, the climate online is not too dissimilar to that that is experienced in politics. That's how toxic and divisive I personally find wrestling discourse online.

There are several points I can think of.

Tribalism and a hatred of "the other side". For a while after its creation, AEW was the "baby face" organisation and WWE was the "heel" promotion. I am using wrestling terminology intentionally here (babyface being "good" and heel being "bad guy"), because they're just companies at the end of the day. No one has a legitimate investment in either, so it's silly rooting for one company and wishing another to fail, but that's largely what happens. People spent years fed up with the direction WWE was taking, fed up of Vince McMahon and so desperately wanted AEW to succeed and for Vince to get egg on his face. And then they got bored and turned on it. Now people root for WWE and wish dead on AEW every single day. It's silly. AEW and WWE fans fighting one another and shitting over each other's product is just ridiculous.

Which leads me on to how fickle people are. As soon as one person leaves one company and joins another, the fans of the company they depart turn on them almost over night. Whereas if someone leaves the other company and joins their favoured company, then suddenly they are a "game changer" and they absolutely love the new signing, even though they claim to hate the company they came from.

Cagematch, which is just wrestling community site where fans can rate and review everything from shows, to matches, to wrestlers, to belts and so on, has even had to enforce strict new rules to stop illegitimate reviews that aim to manipulate scores or engage in factionalism. One of the first measures happened last year when Ospreay vs Danielson was being praised as one of the best matches of the year and WWE fans decided to try to review bomb the match by giving it low scores. Of course, this isn't anything new and stuff like this has happened with video games before, but it's widespread with wrestling.

Even wrestling journalists get tons of hate online, much like (not to sound snobbish) 'actual' journalists who report on politics do. They are just people whose job is to talk about and write about wrestling and apparently that is, for some reason, worthy of being hated and targeted online.

By far the thing wrestling fans get most tetchy about now though is ratings and reviews for matches and shows. Everything in the world gets reviewed and scored whether it be books, films, television shows and video games, but for some reason, fans get really wound up by matches or PLE/PPVs being scored.

Fans just to get invested in wrestling in a way that almost comes across as obsessive. They will go into great detail, treating it almost like an artform that is done in a way to shit on specific wrestlers. Popular targets are Orange Cassidy, who people will claim has a gimmick that is offensive to wrestling, or Ospreay who allegedly "doesn't sell".

[Raging Justice]

So with the Cena heel turn, the list of things that can't possibly happen in wrestling is getting shorter and shorter. I wouldn't even be that shocked at this point to just see The Young Bucks show up on Raw or seeing Tony Kahn and Triple H take a picture together.

The last couple of years in pro wrestling have been kind of wild.

[Raging Justice]

Holy shit! Unpredictable booking! More please.

[Raging Justice]

Honestly can't remember the last time I got excited for a women's title win in AEW. Their women's division is on life support

Looking forward to this match: