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tiger_rick

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Posts posted by tiger_rick

  1. 5 minutes ago, Loki said:

    The Dynamite Merch Stand last night.  That was the full product line.  Whoever is in charge of their merch division needs to be fired!

    This seems insane given that the range of AEW shirts you could get on PWT was absolutely massive at one point. Is that part of the problem though, allowing all these guys to sort their own shit? It's consistently a massive missed opportunity, although from the pics I've seen, they appear to have one shirt for every member of the crowd last night. 

    We went to an NXT show in Sheffield a few years ago and our kid was excited to get some shirts. The merch offering was dreadful. And it was still better than that.

  2. I like Mox a lot. Great worker and promo, obviously, but his is one of the few new wrestling books I've read and he seems like a good guy who worked hard it, is just trying to have the time of his life in what he's doing and is generally winning at it, so I liked him even more. 

    They all go back though, except Randy Savage. There's no way he doesn't - eventually. He'd never have gone back to the creative environment before but I'm absolutely sure that in another year or two, it will be unrecognisable from that POV and they'll throw money at him. Punk went back. He was the one I really thought never would. After that, I'd never give less than a 75% chance of anyone going back, except Mel Phillips and George Zahorian.

  3. 2 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

    This period involved him losing the IC title clean to The Miz on Raw 25 too, which was maybe the nadir of them half-arsing Reigns push.

    File that in things you'd completely forgotten happened. 

    That whole period existed because someone obviously thought the issue with John Cena all those years was that he won all the time. So they made Roman an absolute loser, presumably imagining it would get him sympathy. Just another terrible read of the audience in a good decade-long period of them.

  4. My daughter's gotta take a bus across Lincolnshire for her Uni placement. I couldn't work out the route and the stops from the website but googling it brought up a video over an hour long of a couple of lads getting the bus. Genuinely the dullest thing I've ever watched in my life and I've watched TNA Wrestling.

  5. 13 hours ago, Jazzy G said:

    Or how about Yokozuna? He wrestled two matches each for the WWF title at Wrestlemanias 9 and 10, then was tagging with Owen against the Smoking Gunns at 11.

    Yoko works the other way around too. Hadn't even been hired by Mania 8 and had very little national recognition before main eventing Mania 9. Very little precedent for that in the company's history.

  6. 1 hour ago, Shane O' Mac Version 2 said:

    Wait, what? How on Earth did WWE jerk him around? He's been earmarked as THE GUY from day dot. He's always been main event/top of the card, usually with some title in tow. Only times he hasn't been the top champ really is when Brock had the belt, and really Roman was still The Guy back then because he was actually the one on TV every week.

    All I can think of is Seth cashing in at Mania 31. And that only happened because the fans were rejecting Roman, I wouldn't call that WWE jerking him around.

    The booking of him and around him was atrocious for years. Their usual fetish with babyfaces who smile a lot, not striking while the iron was hot and then striking once it was stone cold, making him look like an absolute loser compared to that nerd Seth Rollins and a 67 year old Triple H, not turning him heel after he beat The Undertaker which would have been the hottest thing they'd done in years and then turning him heel in front of zero fans. He was a guy who beat cancer, came back and cut one of the most brilliant, heartfelt promos we'll ever see and they had fans booing him within months.

    As absolutely unforgivable as doing your most interesting possible heel-turn in the middle of the Thunderdome era was, they finally got the presentation of him spot-on from that point. Having him just win all the time as a heel, having him be the only World Champion (ahem), having him steamroll everyone isn't engaging week to week TV, but it's absolutely the way to make a star and re-establish your title and your hierarchy which they're benefitting from for the last 18 months or so, muddy-Rock waters aside. (Full disclosure, I've hardly seen any of the heel run but you know that already.)

  7. 1 minute ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

    Indeed. Plus I never really get the 'well just because they are the most successful doesn't mean they have the best product' narrative. It kind of does, actually.

    It may not be your personal favourite but the fact that the majority are consuming it does make it 'the best'.

    'Just because McDonalds sells the most burgers doesn't mean they're the best'. - yes, it kind of does. You may prefer another burger joint but more people prefer McDonalds.

    Now, sure, I get 'habits' and 'established brands' etc. and the fact that some amazing companies do not have the resources that the large corporations do BUT 'the best' is subjective based on individual taste. The only true barometer we have to measure 'the best' is success, because that gauges overall consumption, and in that regard WWE is the best.

    Apologies, I may have drifted off on a tangent there but it's a concept that interests me. 

    We've been arguing about this on here since the dawn of the forum. It's nothing new. I'd say, respectfully, you're wrong. Most successful doesn't mean best. Maccies burgers might be the best branded, best known or best promoted but there's no way on the planet they are the best. Wrestling is a creative industry. In any creative industry, music, films, TV, theatre, etc - what is popular isn't always what is good.

    WWE does appear from all I read and hear to have hugely improved. Fair play to them. However, when everything you read and heard was about how fucking shit they were, how dreadful Dunn was, how out of touch Vince was, who was the most successful wrestling promotion in the world? Who signed mega deals with Fox and USA? Who sold to Peacock for billions? Yep. The "shitty" WWE.

  8. 3 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

    Oh in terms of reasonable discussion and all that - absolutely. I rarely directly engage with anyone on Twitter.

    However in terms of a wider picture and seeing how people are reacting to stuff, reading Twitter/Facebook/Reddit can give a more overall view of how things are being received as a general audience, which I would assume WWE care more about than us on here. Basically the opposite of Tony Khan.

    And right now, as far as I can tell, the questionable booking and shifts hasn't caused a mass turn against Cody or caused any issues with the business, nor has whatever work The Rock has been putting in. And that'll be all they care about really.

    The problem is that all those reactions are positive. I've never been big into wrestling Twitter, even when Twitter wasn't 80% bots and adverts, but if you click on trends, all you see generally is the enthusiasm and over-reaction of the moment. And any counter voices in the comments/replies are absolutely worthless because the counter 99% of the time is that someone is a WWE Drone or AEW Supermark. It's worthless from a critical POV.

    WWE are going to make a load of money. For all the people criticising Kevin Dunn and praising HHH this morning on the trend I clicked on, WWE made record revenues when Kevin Dunn was inducing epilepsy on a weekly basis. Not to drag down all the people who want to turn a blind eye, but WWE made billions after a scandal that should have brought the organisation to it's knees. It's revenues, clicks, likes, shares and subscribes are not evidence of good booking.

    No-one on Twitter, that I can find as a casual clicker of trends, is going to give the same well-thought out view on the poor booking as @d-d-d-dAz has in the last couple of weeks. As much as he's sometimes hyperbolic in the moment (Sorry Supes), no-one is giving things the thought that @Supremo does. 

    I don't really care too much as I'm not gonna watch, but I'm interested in whether HHH is a good booker because I'm a nosey bastard lifelong wrestling fan, for my shame. Seems to me that they've muddied the waters with Cody/Roman/Rock, Roman isn't the focus he should be, Rock is a reluctant heel, Cody has lost a little bit of the clear momentum he had, Seth Rollins is a waste of space, Jey Uso hardly ever wins, Sami Zayn has gone from the most popular man on the roster to being second preference to Chad Gable and very little else of consequence is happening on 57 hours of Raw and Smackdown.

    My take would be that HHH is a huge improvement on Vince, that isn't difficult because Vince is useless and none of it matters really because they'll cash in regardless. 

  9. 8 minutes ago, Mr_Danger said:

    Judging HHH’s booking by posts on here he might come across as fucking up the Cody story but if you judge it on the comments on Twitter he’s the best ever. I think he/WWE were doing a fine job considering it was a two year build but then in the final stretch of that build the remit changed from ‘Make Cody the focal point of the company’ to ‘Stop people talking about the perverted sex maniac by any means necessary’. Even so they’ve far from fucked it up. Cody is still mega over and they’ve laid the foundations for a couple of huge matches down the line. It absolutely can all far apart come Mania though.

    I think they fucked it the day they switched to Rock/Roman and then backtracked quickly without rhyme or reason. Completely agree with you that it's be alright in the end but it's piss-poor booking, let's be honest. 

    I'd much rather judge on the people on here than the people on Twitter who were telling me that shows in the Thunderdome were great, fwiw.

  10. 3 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

    And enjoying the experimentation each week with the shots. Definitely feels like they're more flexible now.

    Saw "Kevin Dunn" trending this morning so I clicked on it to see if he'd died or been arrested. It was everyone talking about this camera work. Which is pretty cool, in fairness. Hunter's an over-rated booker, as evidenced by every other post about him fucking up can't miss Cody (again) but he's not afraid to take stuff from the past that works great, like this. 

  11. Papa Shango ran in on the Main Event of Mania 8 (late if you believe the stories) ahead of his headline feud with the Warrior on the summer house shows and by the greatest Mania of them all, WrestleMania 9 - he was laying down for El Matador in the pre-show dark match.

  12. I genuinely don't have the nostalgia I used to have for Mania, or anything really, for reasons I've banged on about, but I've very much enjoyed reading everyone's posts. A nice thread.

    • First WrestleMania watched?

    I think the first Mania I saw was 3 on a video a friend brought round but I'd consider 7 my first Mania. That was the first one I saw reasonably close to it airing and the first where I was following the stories, even if it was mostly through WWF magazine as we were too poor for Sky.

    • Favourite WrestleMania?

    9. I know everyone thinks it's the worst Mania. I know that objectively, it probably is. But I know it's still my favourite and along with 7 & 10, is easily my most watched ever. I'm all in for Bret Hart, for Doink and Crush, for Shawn and Tatonka, for Luger's deadly forearm, for the big naked Giant, for Taker's entrance, for Jim Ross being incredible on the call, for the 3 people who turned up in togas. Even my least favourite booking decision of all-time doesn't hurt this. 

    • Have you ever been to WrestleMania?

    No. I'd like to say I never will but who knows? Maybe they sort their shit out and I will one day.

    • Best/Worst WrestleMania matches.

    Warrior/Savage is my favourite match ever. Austin/Bret is the best match in pro-wrestling history. The double-header from Mania 10 is the best 1-2 ever. Rockers v Haku & Barbarian is a brilliant and under-rated opener at 7. Herc and Billy Jack Haynes and the midget match from Mania 3 are probably the best ones that have no right to be. And on that note, Hogan & Warrior are magnificent at Mania 6 considering the expectations there. Worst is difficult. There are millions of terrible matches on most of the early Manias but they're generally short and designed only to put someone over and maintain their momentum. I'd watch them any day over the "epics" of the last 15-20 years that everyone has decided are 7 stars before the bell. They're not for me. On similar note, Bret & Shawn is the biggest disappointment of your life. I'll never love Hogan/Rock as long as I live either. 

    • Best/Worst WrestleMania moments.

    Best - Savage & Liz reuniting, obvs. Doink cloning himself. Owen beating Bret and still watching him be the man. The spectacle of Hogan/Andre. The production on Bret/Austin is all-time great, particularly the camera work.

    Worst - Turning Steve Austin heel. 

    Also, I'd always give them a pass because of the circumstances but, a Mania with no fans and "Cinematic" "matches" can get to fuck. 

    • Favourite WrestleMania announcer call? 

    Not individual calls but Gorilla & Bobby at 8 and JR at 9 are magnificent calls. Nothing since JR's peak has been 1/10th as good as this.

  13. 2 minutes ago, Loki said:

    You are right that opinions are shaped by people's existing opinions of certain personalities, but you can't then claim to have "no skin in the game".  You're very consistent on your hatred (not unjustified I may add) of WWE but that will surely colour your opinion on this story towards the "they're all guilty" point of view you now hold.

    I edited that to make it clear what I meant. I don't dislike Triple H from what I know of him. He's a very good pro-wrestler, excellent backstage politician, good promo, comes across well in a lot of public appearances (when not dodging questions about major scandals) and is a very solid, but over-rated, booker. That doesn't affect my opinion that all of the people we know have been VERY intimately involved in the day to day running of the organisation should be seriously investigated.

    2 minutes ago, Loki said:

    But I'm loathe to point fingers at people indiscriminately.  

    It's not indiscriminate to suggest that Vince McMahon's closest and most trusted colleagues (and family) knew about these accusations. He spent company money paying NDAs. Stephanie was in meetings about the Ashley Massaro accusations. Two of their closest contacts are named in these papers. It's unrealistic to think any of them were blissfully unaware and if they knew and decided to keep out of it to absolve themselves, they've failed.

    It all needs investigating. The bad apples all need clearing out and there is absolutely no way anyone should be making the case for their defence until that happens.

  14. 1 minute ago, SuperBacon said:

    Could that not be "found out and wanted nothing more to do with him/company etc" though?

    Not defending Stephanie, as only she knows what she does or doesn't know, but doesn't the time line of all this add up to that being a possibility?

    She knew about Ashley Massaro and everyone in the world knew about Rita Chatterton. You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know about the rest.

    I've no wish to see innocent people dragged down by any of this. I've no idea why anyone would try and make the case for the people at the top though, considering how horrendously they have failed these poor women. And depending how far they go back in the organisation (not Trips and Steph here), they've failed a lot of young men too.

  15. 1 hour ago, Loki said:

    I suspect Hunter is probably wilfully oblivious

    This is unfathomable. Like wishing Chris Benoit was just putting his poor disabled kid out of his misery. I've no skin in this game - as in, I don't particularly dislike Triple H- but given how close Trips has been to Vince in the past, how close he is to Nick Khan, Stephanie being his partner at work and his wife/ex-wife/mother of his children, and seemingly everyone having heard/known some form of story about Vince, it's almost impossible to imagine that he didn't know.

    What he knew and what he could have done to stop it is something only a proper investigation could decipher (insert massive GIF of someone laughing real hard at the prospect of a proper investigation with this bunch of carnies), but what is clear is that this stuff is systemic in this organisation and the top level all need investigating, and the wrong-uns clearing out. Until that happens, TKO are as big a bunch of frauds as Vince & co.

  16. 33 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

    I think the size of the WWE in particular will mean it's not always that cut and dry. And  to be honest your 'line' chiefly seems to come off as "I used to do what you guys do, now I don't, please hear about it loads." I'm not for a second disputing your merit or right to do that because the counterbalance is clearly needed, but it is what it is. 

    I don't want that to be the case, which is why I just don't post at times. Time for that again, I think. 

    33 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

    The argument becomes about "Can or should you drop one of your primary interests/hobbies/form of escapism".

      I don't think it is, personally. I think it's how can this be one of your primary interests/hobbies/form of escapism with what you know? For instance, how can anyone discuss the booking of Rhodes/Rock/Reigns and not be overwhelmed with disgust that the booker is Vince McMahon's son-in-law, is (probably) married to the woman who led a "Thank You, Vince" chant after his previous allegations, is still in place and getting away with telling the industry "media" that he didn't even read the documents? I accept that there are plenty of wrestling fans out there who want Chris Benoit in the hall of fame so I appreciate there's a bottom-feeder element who could never be reasonable but I find that harder with people who's opinion I respect, if I'm honest.

    33 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

    The industry is going nowhere and neither is people's enjoyment of it. Not supporting it is a discussion - and you should have it - but there's another discussion that can run in parallel to that. That's the discussion that - if we're being honest - the industry isn't going anywhere and so the main way it's going to have to make big changes positively is from within. And that people still engaged with the industry will be the prime movers and influencers in that. And that that sort of should happen because as much as wrong'uns still make money from it, thousands of really great people still feed their families from it too and don't particularly want your dreams of wrestling just popping out of existence like a soap bubble to come to fruition. 

    That's a good point. I think I've touched on it above. Change won't come while everyone does the fuck all they're doing now though, I know that.

  17. 3 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

    If you've not watched a movie that had involvement from Harvey Weinstein since the #MeToo allegations i'd be absolutely amazed. Everyone does, all the time. That's engaging with a piece of shit. Should HMV stop selling the DVD's? (or whoever sells films anymore), should they all be pulled from Netflix? Should otherwise progressive actors return their royalties? No, because that's nuts.

    There's probably a good chance I haven't but that's by the by. No-one is being asked to re-write history. Especially in a massively varied industry like that. There are no new Weinstein movies for for a reason but if there was, then no, of course they shouldn't be sold or bought.

    Pro-wrestling isn't that varied, Vince McMahon has pretty much been the entire industry for our lifetimes. This has been a live situation for a long time. People have continued to support his company since the Ashley Massaro allegations. Since Vince "stepped down" in disgrace in 2022. Since he moved aside again recently. And they do now, even though those who enabled or ignored his behaviour are still there. 

    This isn't really the thread for it because Punk shouldn't be singled out here. But until there's a proper investigation, a clearing out - from the top - of the people who are complicit and a real commitment to change, then no-one should be buying what these cunts are selling. And, to be clear, as long as the opposition are employing people like Ric Flair, then the same goes for them too. Clear out people who are no good. Put better people in key positions and commit to creating a safe environment and not repeating the mistakes.

    I'm not Jim Cornette, but that's my opinion.

  18. Just now, Devon Malcolm said:

    It isn't. You will watch something or listen to something this week where someone with dreadful views was involved in its making. It's unavoidable. 

    What though? What am I watching or who am I engaging with where I know what they've done? That's the line. We all know. There's no mystery here. We just want to use that so we can watch men in pants roll around. If I stick a Russell Brand DVD on tonight, then I know. And I'd be choosing to ignore everything he may have done. If I buy a loaf of bread and the CEO of W*rburton's is a paedo, then I don't. I'll mask that in case I get sued. Other bread is available.

    Just now, Devon Malcolm said:

    It is Hull after all.

    Did Houchen tell you to say that?

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