King Pitcos

Nailz. I had PTSD just from watching his debut on the telly, I can't even imagine how Bossman felt.

On 4/22/2020 at 8:17 PM, Chest Rockwell said:

I'm lucky enough to have a job where I can work from home. As a contractor I don't have the job security that a permanent employee has, so I am really even more lucky they haven't just got rid of me. But all that said, I am finding it really difficult at home to motivate myself to work. I should be busting a gut to prove my worth and keep my job, as there's no chance I'd get another one in this economic climate but I'm finding it tough to do anything more than the bare minimum. I need to do something to get myself to snap out of it..

I’m spending most days just trying to stay awake, hoping none of my colleagues skype me for anything, and texting my furloughed friends calling them jammy bastards. I live for the feeling of relief at about quarter to five, when pretty much everyone else has logged off and I know I’m safe from a bothering.

Because of this, on days with hard deadlines, I’m very rushed.

17 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

Tag Match, obviously. I really like the sudden switch, forgot that Matt knew how to do a proper promo like that. He could go Mick Foley with a few characters that all interact with eachother 

Shit, they can actually do it as well. I’d love it just for how much it’d drive Cornette nuts! 😂

It’d be a thing for the Revival to moan about as well, if they’re coming in doing the Tag Wrestling = Serious Business gimmick.

4 hours ago, Suplex Sinner said:

One question - Has the belt made anyone? There's always exceptions to the rule but I cannot think of one that couldn't be argued down.

JBL for sure. He got three years at or near the top of the card as a singles wrestler, and that’s off the strength of how well he grew into the role of WWE champion.

To a lesser extent, Triple H. As good as he is, in that era, he was not on Rock and Austin’s level. But beating them in title matches put him up there. Like JBL, he didn’t really get into the groove until he’d already been champion for a few months.

I’d even say Daniel Bryan, a little bit. He spent his first couple of years showing little to no personality, and it was only when he won the belt and started sniding to keep it that things really began to click into place for him.

The title alone can’t make someone, but for some wrestlers it absolutely elevates them and plays a huge part in them raising their game. Certain characters really need it to thrive.

2 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

Omega should've been putting a guy like that away easily. Terrible booking really.

They were rushing to shoot a load of shows quickly. Rightly or wrongly (wrongly), Kenny doesn’t give two fucks about coming off like a big star in AEW, and the match filled six minutes of TV - a two-minute squash would’ve meant coming up with something else to do for those four minutes. Which seems doable, but if they’re taping four or eight shows at once or whatever it is, going a bit longer on matches takes some of the pressure off to come up with other content for the limited number of performers that are there.

And as Maxwell said, they could explain it away easy enough on commentary for it to be passable.

My main question from the show: Is Sammy gonna fight Funhouse Matt and Jericho fights Fiend Matt, or is it the other way round?

4 hours ago, Meej81 said:

Has anyone noticed the ring was smaller on Dynamite last week? And why that might be so? I’m guessing previous shows were recorded in empty arenas where as this one was recorded in their version of the Performance Centre. 

Most rings will be smaller. There aren't many companies that have used a 20x20 ring other than WWE and AEW. As said in the post above, these tapings were all done when they had to scarper out of Florida and do what they could at a training school.

6 hours ago, Mr Butternut Squash said:

Still baffled how they didn't change a thing about Roman on his return from cancer. There's a lot they could have done better with booking etc. but changing up his look, ring gear and awful theme music could have been such an effective, simple boost for him that could have quelled the Pavlovian response. He felt stale again almost immediately. Like a guy still tragically hanging onto his best days.

His Shield holdover theme doesn't even include the best bit! The eerie, grimy, militant intro.

"Sierra, Hotel, India, Echo, Lima, Delta . . . SHIELD!!"

He’s the most popular wrestler in the company, and merchandise can take up to about 18 months to produce. If he’d rocked up from the cancer break with a bowl cut and trunks, it would’ve rendered the bedspreads and pencil cases all out of date for a year. Doing big changes to the #1 star’s look is a big risk. Especially now, when there’s no gain to it because the people who moan about his current gear and music would do that about the new ones anyway.

Gran is Mexican for John. Not to be confused with Greg The Hammer Valentine, who is the spitting image of almost everyone’s Gran.

1 hour ago, The Cutting Edge said:

I've read comments of "make then no non sense badasses", they kinda did and went nowhere, this new part of them might not be bad if they still kick ass and are serious where needed.

There are idiots who think that’s the answer to everyone’s gimmick.

Regarding Drew doing well in his role, he is. Even WhatCulture are comparing him to the best of the best, and they usually don’t even like WWE.

https://www.orangecountyfl.net/BoardofCommissioners/PublicComment.aspx#.Xp8aCCXTXDs

There’s the form to put a comment in. “John” probably wrote his after his friend Mark didn’t get a reply from Snickers, and will be one of the first to get outraged when his favourite jobber goes in the next round of cuts if the TV shows get shut down.

Or it’s a real WWE crew member who is scared to speak out to his higher-ups because he doesn’t want to lose his job, yet contacted the government to shut the tapings down so he loses his job. 🤔

17 minutes ago, PowerButchi said:

You'll have to explain that one to me.

He hasn’t been on Raw for the last two weeks and they haven’t mentioned him.

4 hours ago, TildeGuy~! said:

They’re just gonna keep feeding Kairi to Nia Jax every week til her contract runs out aren’t they?

Vince probably hoping she injures her and they can get her to stay longer.

Knowing Vince 

Kevin Owens has been Benoit’d now as well.

1 hour ago, Brudaker said:

Ah, my bad, forgot to remove Braun. Has Dawkins really been about 7 years in developmental? I thought he signed 2016.

I, like wwe, forgot Nakamura existed.

Yeah, Dawkins has been in developmental since 2012, not long after it changed from FCW to NXT. He didn’t do anything on the show besides play jobber until 2016/17 though. He was a Jason Jordan type, where nothing really clicked for years until the right tag team partner came along. 

Nah, you’d have to cut Braun and Dawkins there as well. But you could put Nakamura back in.

3 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I assume you have a reason beyond just plucking a weirdly arbitrary figure out of thin air?

They’re all allowed one full body cell replacement cycle.

WWE has come to terms today on the releases of Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Daniel Bryan, The Miz, the Usos, New Day, Randy Orton and pretty much everyone else that anyone cares about.

Do Rey Mysterio, Jeff Hardy, John Morrison and Drew McIntyre count as they’ve had over seven in total, or does it just count from the last time they re-joined? 

On 4/19/2020 at 5:39 PM, Philjax said:

Well, there is that, but that's for the networks. It's more that NXT has held relatively steady while Dynamite has lost arguably 200,000 viewers.

Too much threadbare roster I guess.....

There are mitigating circumstances, though:

1) The weird empty arena shows aren’t really a fun watch, which doesn’t apply to NXT.

2) AEW’s audience is younger, and young people love watching the news.

3) The viewership has been in decline since the first few weeks anyway. It was inevitable - an ultra-niche version of wrestling aimed purely at hardcore fans is never going to be a big mainstream success. For five years we’ve had people saying Raw and SmackDown should just do everything NXT does. Well NXT is on telly now, and a lot less people watch it than watch Raw and SmackDown. 

4) Matt Hardy and Luke Harper are on a lot, and they’re both shit. If they’d not come along, perhaps it would have held steadier. And with the content of the shows already being filmed in advanced, AEW don’t really have the chance to course-correct in response to criticism the way they could have in the old world with live shows. They’re stuck with what’s in the can until the PPV.

2 hours ago, UK Kat Von D said:

Leaving after a big loss is one thing, disappearing the day before Wrestlemania is totally different. Can’t say it’s something I’m bothered about, I just like it when your wrong 

My wrong what?

1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

When was the last time their #1 guy disappeared without explanation?

After the first Saudi show, when Brock disappeared until SummerSlam. And a bunch of other times with Brock. Multiple times with Cena since about 2013 or so. Austin after WrestleMania X8. Bret Hart after WrestleMania 12. Hogan after WrestleMania 9 (although that was early Raw, so there wasn’t as much expectation of being there every week).

But more importantly: When was the last time their #1 guy couldn’t wrestle because of a global pandemic? And have you thought of an example of how it could be explained away that avoids both a) going against the no-Covid-mention policy, and b) wouldn’t be met with rants of “THAT’S A FAKE REASON FFS JUST SAY CORONAVIRUS”?

Someone in the thread mentioned being annoyed when they were a kid and Sid Justice disappeared without an explanation. And yet here they are almost 30 years later moaning about wrestling on the Internet, having missed zero shows since then, so that serves as an example of how much that kind of thing puts kids off watching.

We’re properly through the looking class when the smark complaint of the week is that there’s not enough focus on Roman Reigns on WWE TV.

20 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

I don't know that I'd have him doing much. I'd have had him explain the connotations for him of Coronavirus one time to explain the Mania main event. Then I'd pretty much just keep him in people's minds by sharing his social stuff and showing his old matches along with everyone elses. Like they do when someone big goes off to do a movie.

Why not just be honest? If you feel still running shows is the right thing to do then front up and don't pretend he's vanished for the portion of the audience who don't live through social media.

As has been pointed out, they seldom explain away absences anymore, but even if they did routinely do that under normal circumstances, these are not normal circumstances. They’re clearly not using the virus in storylines or talking about it directly on the shows - so doing what you’ve suggested was never on the cards unless that policy changes. They’re also not really filling the shows with old matches much now.

They are still sharing Roman’s social media that doesn’t reference the virus. His Tweet about Fink was shown on Friday’s SmackDown.

3 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

While I wouldn't have Roman creating infomercials on Coronavirus at all, you'd have to be thick as fuck to not see the difference between a high risk guy who has had cancer twice and the rest of the roster of fit young athletes. It's not like that distinction is being made every day by everyone.

So what would you have him doing? You’ve got Roman Reigns at home and he’s just downloaded Zoom so he can contribute to Smackdown. He’s not gonna be wrestling, he’s not gonna be giving a timeline on a return because he’s not injured, and he’s not gonna be talking about Coronavirus on air because that’s the policy. So what has creative got for him?

15 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

Imagine them cutting from a “don’t try this at home” bit to Cesaro and Daniel Bryan battering each other in the performance centre. 

Cesaro and Daniel Bryan are not trained professionals at not getting Covid, so doesn’t really apply 😂

Imagine them cutting from a Roman Reigns speech on the importance of social distancing to Cesaro and Daniel Bryan sweating on each other in the performance center. I feel like that would stop 0 moans and create a lot more.

Around 2:00-2:50 in this video is my favourite thing in wrestling this week.

2 hours ago, GeronimoJacksBeard said:

Of all the things people could slate WWE for at the moment, not writing Roman off TV logically should be pretty low on the list.

We’re in lockdown, man. Fuck all to do. Everyone already spaffed all their anger beans about the releases in the first day and a half of them happening, and the righteous fury about still running shows had to go quiet when the other billionaire wrestling man with tastier boots announced he’s still doing them too. So we need new things to get outraged about every day, even if they’re bollocks or we have to manufacture them ourselves.

Speaking of which, rumours are circulating that Vince is done with Bianca Belair on the main roster. She was planned to win Money in the Bank, but the idea was dropped because she’s being punished for being in a relationship with another wrestler. Sources have reported that Vince is burying her as an example to other wrestlers to put their careers ahead of their family lives, unlike the ungrateful Samoan Crippler [Redacted Redacted].