BomberPat

It would make sense if it allowed them access to WWE's NWA archive footage.

But then doesn't Corgan own all the NWA video library that Bruce Tharpe used to own?

3 hours ago, Great Bear Promotions said:

One of the respondents (Colt Cabana..) quoted in said dissertation rejected that completely out of hand. He pointed out that wrestling is essentially the same story being told over and again. The end point must always be the same with one person pinning another. There are also only a limited number of ways that this can be instigated (legit competition/betrayal/revenge/jealous/desire to prove oneself/disagreement between parties). The number of actual stories wrestling can tell is constrained- it must involve conflict within a ring. 

I largely agree with Cabana's point here, but only because you could say the same about all storytelling. Christopher Booker famously argued that there are only seven basic plots in all narrative forms, Propp argued that there are only seven character functions and 31 plot functions in any given story. Broader still, someone once said that almost all western storytelling comes down to one of two plots - "man leaves home", or "a stranger comes to town".

Putting all the theory to one side, the point is that the bare bones of something might be the same story as you've told before, but it's about how you dress it up. We've all watched a lot of wrestling, and can likely all point to several distinct stories told within it, regardless of the fact that the story structure relied on a wrestling match culminating with a victory. I watched Summerslam '94 last night, and Undertaker vs. Fake Undertaker and Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart tell two distinctly different stories both in and out of the ring.

Going back to the question at hand, RAW vs. Smackdown teams is the least inspired booking in WWE, and it frustrates me because it could be so much more. People who spend months feuding with one another will put their differences aside because they happen to wear the same colour T-shirt, and rally behind an authority figure who, in many cases, they've also been feuding with, to fight for the honour of a TV show they have no real reason to show allegiance to.

Not that I think WWE should have any more corporate in-fighting storylines than they've already had for the past 20 years, but the core of a RAW vs. Smackdown rivalry isn't the wrestlers arbitrarily drafted to one or the other - it's a conflict between the authority figures in charge of the two brands as, logically, they're the people who have something to prove to the higher ups in this situation, and they're the ones who need to show that their brand is stronger, in order to keep in Vince McMahon/The Board Of Directors' good books.

Rather than just throwing everyone in red or blue shirts, would it not be a more compelling story to contrast how two different authority figures convince wrestlers to join their team, and how the wrestlers who ordinarily would hate each other are now able to work together? You could have so many interlocking stories going on in one match - how hated rivals are going to manage to work together, how a babyface authority figure might convince people to join his team (perhaps offering title shots, promising opportunities) compared to a heel authority figure, who might threaten people with punishments for not joining the team, or not winning the match. Then not only do you have stories to tell in the build-up, and in the match itself, but you have stakes, and stories that can continue long after the match is over.

And that's pretty much WWE's biggest problem now, and of the past few years - zero stakes. Nothing matters. It never feels like a win is a defining, star-making moment. I have no problem with Brock Lesnar as champion, but when they tried to use that to leverage Seth Rollins into being a bigger star by making him the "Beast Slayer", it was all for naught when Brock just won the title back from him. And then when Seth won it back from Brock, he didn't feel twice the star he was for having beaten Brock twice, he felt half the star he was for having not moved forward in any tangible sense.

She's been wrestling for 13 years, and in that time has wrestled the likes of Kenny Omega, Minoru Suzuki, Tajiri, Asuka, Piper Niven, and Emi Sakura about a hundred times, and has worked a full schedule pretty much the entire time, there's not really any definition by which she's not a veteran, even at her age.

I also don't really buy the criticism that she doesn't look impactful - it's not like she's being presented as a hard-hitting striker, she's a plucky underdog who manages to win through tenacity and never giving up, not through big impressive moves.

1 hour ago, Chris B said:

I disagree totally on this. They're feuding because Moxley attacked Omega, and it's been building up since then.

Have they explained why Moxley attacked him, though? I remember he did a promo afterwards, but it hasn't been shown on TV, and from memory it was more "this is why I'm here in AEW" than "this is why I don't like Kenny Omega".

5 hours ago, Supremo said:

And my second biggest take is how much of a fucking megastar Pentagon could be. It was spectacular watching him beat up a small boy.

100%.

I think both Lucha Bros have more upside as singles guys than as a tag team; aside from being one of the best high-flyers around, Fenix is superb at garnering sympathy through his selling, which is what the majority of luchadores that people try to make "the new Rey Mysterio" lack, while Pentagon just has such rare presence.

First time I saw Penta live, I remember there just being a hush in the room when he first stepped in the ring, he just commanded attention. The reaction to him just slowly removing a glove ready to deliver a chop was more natural, and more sustained, than any of the flips and high spots on the same show. Then a minute later he was hitting a Canadian Destroyer on the apron, because teaming with Fenix brings out his worst instincts. 

If the tag matches are sufficiently different to one another, I see nothing wrong with that. Some of the biggest stars, and biggest potential breakout acts, they have are tag teams, and historically there's nothing unusual about a promotion/territory focusing on tag wrestling as much as, or more than, singles matches. 

12 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Also what's going on with 'Wardog' or whatever that big guy was they ran a vignette for at their last PPV? God this promotion NEEDS some more big bastards.

Completely forgot he existed, which isn't a good start.

I don't think Marko is being booked as a "competitive threat", though. He's clearly positioned as a little guy, out of his depth, who gets a lucky move. People presenting it as if he's being booked as a world-beater are being disingenuous. The time he's spent in the ring and mostly been him getting thrown around by other people. He's Spike Dudley.

My grandad was a mole-catcher when I was a kid, because apparently I grew up in a James Herriot book.

Some garden centres will stock non-lethal repellents/deterrents - either devices that let out sound/vibrations to convince them to move elsewhere, or sprays/granules that will let off a smell they can't stand, or enter into the soil and deter them. Otherwise, you can try and construct a bucket trap, though I have no idea how you'd actually begin to do that.

1 minute ago, King Pitcos said:

But in a lot of matches, they treat it as though the referee can DQ the wrestler - otherwise why is he counting to five?

This tends to be a matter of preference that varies from promoter to promoter and referee to referee, but the way I would always do it is that I would still count to five to give the wrestlers a chance to break, and then step in to try and forcibly break the hold after I reach the end of my count. I don't think that a referee in a no DQ match should act as if the rules don't exist - they should try and enforce them, they just don't have the authority to call a disqualification for breaking them.

15 minutes ago, Accident Prone said:

By all accounts you won't be seeing those high-flying monks and martial artists from OWE that Matt Jackson promised either. There's been folk in the business digging up the dirt on the promotion and, with the collapse of the OEW-UK tour, all signs point to the Chinese lads (a great bunch) not making their way over to AEW.

That's a real shame if true. From the initial press conference, that was the thing I was most excited about from AEW - I honestly think the OWE roster are to modern wrestling what the cruiserweights in WCW were to the mid-90s, just a quantum leap forward in what fans' perceive as possible within professional wrestling.

It does look like everything's gone tits up across the board for OWE, though, so hopefully some of them find their way via other channels.

I know they want to shy away from WWE style 20 minute promos, but the shows need more world-building and character development, especially in the women's division. One match per show, with no promos for anyone else, isn't enough to establish the division.

They set up a Brandi Rhodes/Awesome Kong alliance, but then the only time we've seen Brandi on TV is as Cody's valet. They teased a Kong vs. Kong match, and haven't referred back to it once. They had a Battle Royal full of women we've never seen again. Nyla Rose hasn't been seen since she lost to Riho. 

The only rivalry they really seem to focus on is Bea vs. Britt, neither of whom have impressed in AEW, nor have they dedicated any time to telling us why they hate each other. In their first match against each other, we were being told that they were somehow simultaneously great rivals, but that they'd never fought each other. How does that work? Show, don't tell.

I have no problem with rope breaks in a No DQ match, and hate that WWE treat them otherwise.

Like @Accident Prone said, it's no DQ, not falls count anywhere. A hold or pin that breaks the plane of the ring is still invalid, and the referee should still call it as such, the only difference is that the referee can't disqualify a wrestler for refusing to break the hold - but any submission earned while in the ropes would still not be recognised.

The tag stuff is unforgivable, though - I'd sort of put some of it down to the Lucha Bros being used to working lucha rules tag matches, but then it's on the ref to enforce it and, besides, they've been working in the US for years now. Unless AEW have drastically different tag team rules to most US promotions (I know they have a ten count rather than a five count, and haven't done enough to explain/establish this), it's not good.

1 minute ago, WyattSheepMask said:

 Booking The Misfits in 1999 was a much worse idea

Largely agreed. Though that was Vampiro's doing, so probably more a case of Bischoff needing to keep a tighter control of talent/the creative process - though it could be argued that's always been his biggest failing. 

There's a point in WWE's Heyman documentary a while back, I think it was, when they bring up Kevin Thorn gimmick in WWE's version of ECW.

Heyman said he wanted to do it, because he felt like vampires were going to be a big pop culture phenomenon any day now. If that's true, that's him making that call the year after the first Twilight book, but two years before the first movie, and two years before True Blood. It's a really minor example, but it shows Heyman being enough outside of the wrestling bubble to look at broader cultural/societal trends to inform his booking. Bischoff, by contrast, was booking KISS in 1999.

is DDP the only wrestler alive that can't do a Dusty Rhodes impression?

8 hours ago, PowerButchi said:

What has Heyman done interesting and creative in 24 years? 

In some ways, that's part of his skill. He's managed to cultivate the image of himself as a mastermind by not taking the kind of jobs that would expose him, when he could easily have taken a TNA paycheque and shown that he's lost it. 

2 minutes ago, digitalversicolor said:

It's mad to think what the WWF would have looked like in 1998 onwards if Warrior was there, same goes for the rumours about Macho Man heading back in 1997 or so (that could have been a load of made up bollocks I read though).

Absolutely! 

Warrior coming back in 1998 would be mad enough, figuring out where he'd fit at the height of the Attitude Era (or if we'd even get an Attitude era if Vince was prepared to have another at stab at Warrior on top), but if he'd somehow managed to last out his five year contract he'd still be knocking about in 2003 - still around as Lesnar, Batista, Orton and Cena were coming in. Mixing it up with Goldberg and Rey Mysterio.

I think there's an element of downplaying Paul Heyman's influence if you look at it purely in contrast to Bischoff's too, though. 

There's the old Brian Eno quote about the Velvet Underground, that they didn't sell too many records, but everyone who bought one formed a band. Heyman's a little like that with ECW. That he achieved the level of influence he had, to the point that promotions and wrestlers are still dining out on ECW nostalgia twenty years later, and arguably played a part in shaping the creative direction of American wrestling as a whole in the late '90s, despite not having the money, the TV deals, the coverage, the history, and so on that WCW and the WWF had, is something that can't be measured in the same metrics as finances and TV ratings. 

Aside from the huge guaranteed money contract given to Marc Mero, McMahon offered the Ultimate Warrior a 5 year contract, $750,000 downside, with a better merchandise percentage than everyone else in the company, in December 1997. Barely more than a month after Survivor Series '97.

The money was there for the people Vince felt warranted it. 

31 minutes ago, JakeRobertsParoleOfficer said:

  Alot of wcw appeal was "who will jump from wwf" or appear next.

If it were all about the money, and all about which WWF star shows up next, then TNA would have been able to get a decent rating from Hogan, Jeff Hardy, Kurt Angle et al.

Wrestling has never been about the names in isolation, but in how they're packaged - and in the mid-90s, WCW was doing a much, much better job at promoting those names than the WWF were with theirs. It was never a TNA situation where guys were wrestling on TV every week but being stopped in airports and asked, "why aren't you wrestling any more?".

Ted Turner's money was without doubt a massive contributing factor in Bischoff's success. But the fact that WCW didn't have similar success under Kip Frey, Bill Watts, Vince Russo or Kevin Sullivan would suggest that it can't have been the only factor.

2 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

I wonder whether William Corgan & David Lagana will be approaching Bischoff to help with production etc at the NWA. What are things like between him and Cornette?

Hard to know with those two carnies.

They did a Table for 3 for WWE (because it doesn't matter how much he slags them off or how principled his opposition to a company is, Corny's taking a payday any way he can), in which they seemed to get on well, shook hands, joked about past infractions and whatnot, but then Cornette's slagged Bischoff off a ton on Twitter since then, so depends on how much you think Cornette's whole act is a work. 

4 minutes ago, King Pitcos said:

When you say on TV, do you mean on the actual TV show? I would be wary of using Dynamite to promote Dark as a vital part of the experience - the biggest problem with WWE isn’t really creative, it’s overexposure and oversaturation which has the knock-on effect of making everything seem boring and stale.

If Dynamite instils the idea that you also have to watch Dark to keep up with storylines, it might turn people off who don’t want to have to add more wrestling hours to their week. I think it’s best as a bonus for the hardcore fans who do want more content. In terms of Omega vs Moxley, I think the interaction with the hardcore brawl and the weapons set the table nicely - Omega is gonna play him at his own game. Kenny taking a hardcore match with Janela to build to it makes sense without much further clarification needed, so the announcers reinforcing the motivation during the match is fine for me. Maybe a quick pre-match promo on Dark.

Again, it's early days, so the rules are a little different. They need to establish Dark, and the easiest way to do that is by acknowledging it on TV.

If they want to use it for stuff like "Unsanctioned Matches" (and that's something that makes sense - a real "Too Extreme For TV" appeal), then I think it's something worth at least giving a nod to on TV. It still should be supplementary material rather than required viewing, but if it wasn't posted about in here, I'd have had no idea that Janela vs. Omega was even happening, let alone what the rationale for it is.

At the moment, big matches on Dark or TV are fine because they need to establish both. The danger is that they burn through big matches and have nothing left to sell on PPV.

I like the idea of Omega wanting to fight Janela to prove his hardcore credentials against Jon Moxley, but I shouldn't have to have that explained to me after the match has taken place. Put the set-up on TV. It would have taken twenty seconds of promo time.

That's far more the case in Super Dragon's variant, which feels a lot more indicative of that kind of assault - in Rollins' case, I just wish he'd called it something different.

Do they still actually call it the Curb Stomp? I have it in my head that the last time I bothered watching a Seth Rollins match, Michael Cole just called it a "Stomp".

I'm fairly sure that Joe E. Legend was the first to do Rollins' variant, and alleges that Rollins asked him permission to use it, and whenever I've worked with Joe he's just called it a "Boot Fame-Asser", rather than actually giving it a real name.

1 minute ago, Wrasslin said:

So because racists have done it that makes it racist?

The term is pretty widely associated with Neo-Nazi violence in general, and American History X in particular. It's not like "a racist did a chokeslam once", or that the move existed somewhere in the ether outside of that context, Rollins and others have given the move the name "curb stomp" after it had that connotation. 

"Making the show better makes them look bad" is some fucking brainworm logic.