BomberPat

1 minute ago, bigfoote said:

It was unsanctioned so means nothing with their win-loss thing.

Ooh, I actually kind of like this. I've always hated the "unsanctioned" gimmick, though that's at least a logical way of creating the distinction as to how it differentiates from a regular No DQ match.

It's still nuts to do that match with absolutely zero build, though. Why are they promoting an "unsanctioned match" between two guys with zero previous interaction between them? 

Speaks to how little they value Bischoff's input if they're prepared to sack him off outright at a time when AEW are nipping at their heels, and the NWA are having another go at it. A fair difference from them keeping Heyman under contract for years just so TNA couldn't have him. Optimistically, maybe it's the realisation that "was good in the '90s" isn't going to cut it in making quality TV in this day and age, but it's much more likely a sacrifice to appease FOX.

Shame he's done completely, though, I was hoping we'd see him return as an on-screen gimmick. As far as heel authority figures go, he's one of the best, and having him manage a new heel act could have been a shot of credibility.

I think Kingston "looking like shit" has always held him back, but for me has been part of the charm. Kingston feels a real human being, and a real fighter, in a way very few indie guys do, and his look leans into that. He's one of the few I'd actually encourage wrestling in street clothes rather than his ring gear, though.

Those Tweets from Seth are hilarious. Suggesting that Foley would have wanted the match to be stopped, despite the fact that they tried to stop that match and he dragged himself off a fucking stretcher to stop them, just makes him come across like an idiot. Imagine 1998 Mankind saying, "oh, thankfully they stopped the match, otherwise I might have got hurt". That wacky Mankind and Undertaker just love to have fun for the WWE Universe!

Aside from all that, it's a babyface world champion who's spent the last month terrified of his opponent, and is not perfectly happy to accept a title defence on a technicality. My hero.

It's a little bit of a misnomer to just call it a "house show", as Madison Square Garden shows at the time were still treated as a major event.

Other than that, Backlund was only ever a transitional champion, Vince didn't think he'd be a PPV draw, so wanted the belt off him before the next PPV, but because ticket sales were in the toilet, figured that a big title change on an untelevised show would create an "anything can happen" vibe that would encourage more people to attend live shows. That's the version of events I always heard, anyway.

I seem to remember the story of the Kozlov win was that they were building Kozlov as a potential Wrestlemania challenger for 'Taker, only for them to abruptly shift gears to 'Taker vs. Michaels instead.

I think the problem both with Gotham and Joker is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.

The generally accepted story of Gotham City is that it was corrupt and crime-ridden, but the "costumed villains" didn't really start showing up until after Batman became a vigilante. The suggestion of some inherent need for balance, in which the very existence of Batman creates ever more elaborate villains - with The Joker in particular generally being seen as his exact opposite.

Telling origin stories as existing in a time before Batman just messes with things, and throws out the timeline. The Joker being around before Batman was just doesn't really ring true to me.

one step away from Seth Rollins declaring, "There's no Hulkamaniacs here!"

Didn't think much of Joker at all, think even less of it as a Joker origin story. It just felt like a mess of Angry White Male tropes, all of which have been done before and better, with no consistent through-thread to make it remotely believable, or for me to recognise any version of the character the Joker would become in the character as depicted in this film. Maybe it would have been better without the Joker name, but not by much, as it would still be a poor man's Taxi Driver/King of Comedy.

It was Phoenix being very good in a mediocre film, which maybe elevates it somewhat.

In terms of the Joker in general...I'm not a fan of Christopher Nolan's Batman films, but I think what he got absolutely right is not giving the Joker an origin story. He's much scarier as a character who just exists. We don't need to know everything. 

Got tarted up for a wedding on Saturday.

On 10/12/2019 at 1:55 PM, tiger_rick said:

NXT has been dull as fuck week to week for years. They got away with it because it was only an hour, people like good flippy matches and the Takeovers always deliver at the end of it. Over the last couple of years, it's got worse with every departure and now you've got Adam Cole and his band of shitarses on top opposite Johnny Gargano, who they've killed off in Vince-like fashion. And it's now got to fill two hours.

Glad Ciampa is back but him, Riddle and Dream need to work miracles. 

100%. It's been noticeably going downhill since they fucked the Gargano/Ciampa feud by trying to get too clever about it, fucked up the most organic whitemeat babyface they've had since Daniel Bryan, and then pivoted all their attention to the Gargano/Cole show, which brought out the worst in both men and in the NXT "style" as a whole.

For the past few weeks, if not months, if it feels like they're trying to coast on a reputation of putting on "great wrestling", with very little thought given to the long-term storytelling that people actually first loved them for. It's gone from being can't miss TV for me to something I routinely miss without really caring.

On 10/12/2019 at 6:52 PM, tiger_rick said:

So over the top.

Most people on the roster have had, like, 3 matches. Pac clearly has the best case from his three matches for a title shot. However, he's also a heel and Pac/Jericho is absolutely not a match you chuck on free TV. So they've gone with Allin and Havoc for the throwaway title match and made sure Pac is pointing out what a travesty it is. What more does anyone want at this point?

My biggest criticism is that I wouldn't throw away title matches. I would barely have Jericho wrestle on free TV. But they want ratings so they'll do it. I wouldn't.

Excalibur made a point of saying that the Darby Allin/Jimmy Havoc match had already been booked before PAC's win over Hangman Page, so they're at least trying to make it logical. It does seem very early to start questioning/subverting something that they've hammered home as a selling point, though.

I agree about Jericho wrestling on free TV at this stage, and definitely not in title matches. Him being the best promo in the company, and having an entourage surrounding him, gives them the perfect get-out to still have him showing up but not wrestling. That said, a match like Jericho/Allin probably isn't going to sell PPVs, but Allin will benefit from working with Jericho, so I'm in two minds about it. 

Enormously unscientific approach to determining if AEW is having an impact - I sat next to a bloke on a flight to Jersey yesterday who was wearing an AEW Cody T-shirt; first time I've seen one in the wild, and completely divorced from a wrestling show context, and I got a message from a mate in his late 40s, who hasn't watched wrestling regularly in over ten years, saying he put Dynamite on when he got in from the pub, loved the Young Bucks match, and thinks "Jurassic Express" is the best tag team name ever.

Shorty Gable is the most cringeworthy thing they've done in years. Massively out-of-touch, embarrassing, clearly just to amuse one or two people backstage. To have a guy of Chad Gable's obvious talent and reduce him to a short joke - and not even a remotely clever one, just the most blatant possible - is preposterous. Not that it makes it any better, but he's not even that short - he's 5'8". 

Are they going to Reverse Andre him and refuse to book him against anyone shorter than him to keep the gimmick alive?

Havoc's promos are 100x better when he's just being a mouthy prick, rather than leaning in on the goth stuff. Just let him be a nasty bastard.

I think Joey Janela is definitely in the upper regions of AEW's "below main event" tier, particularly when in that kind of "hardcore" environment, so Janela vs. Omega could be something that would have got eyes on a PPV card.

But "AEW Dark" is a new thing, and I think they're trying to ensure it gets a lot of views in the early going. If Dark is nothing but filler and "not good enough for TV" matches with zero consequence, no one will watch it. If they can convince people early on that you'll get big matches you won't see anywhere else, it's worth it.

I'm not a big fan of Private Party - Excalibur at one point said they reminded him of the Young Bucks ten years ago, and I'd say that's pretty accurate, but not necessarily praise. They seem like they have a lot of the right tools, but are still waiting the one thing that will make it "click" and pull all of that into focus - a lot of the gimmick at the moment feels overwrought, as if they know what they want to be, but feel the need to remind you every few minutes, which always strikes as someone lacking confidence in the essential elements that make the gimmick work. The billed hometown of "a location where you need an invitation" makes me cringe, as does the gimmicked "vodka & cranberry" weight - both together just feels desperate - and their promo skills aren't in line with their physical charisma yet.
JR played an absolute shocker all night, but particularly in this match, where he kept saying things like "this young man" and "Nick Jackson's adversary" as he clearly had no idea what the wrestlers' names were.

I know it's a bit "old man shouts at cloud" to complain about dives - but fucking hell, this match. A suicide dive through the ropes is now such a non-event that the commentators didn't even stop talking among themselves to call one of them, and the entire psychology of a dive as a reckless, dangerous, desperate move where you're risking doing almost as much damage to yourself as to your opponent is completely lost when Marq Quen is doing four in a row. If you do four of something, all you do is make each one of those means a quarter as much as if you'd just done one and made it count.

I liked the Young Bucks losing - opens up the tournament, makes things feel less predictable, frees up the Bucks to get involved in other stories, and helps quiet any criticism of the bosses using AEW as a vanity project to put themselves over. It also recognises that the Bucks are in the position to put other talent over strong. 

Chris Jericho's promo was solid. He really showed what AEW is missing in terms of character development, by just taking the time to introduce every member of the stable, explain who they were, why they're there, and what they all set out to do. It was a real "who, what, why" promo, while also feeling like Jericho was having a lot of fun with it.

Not a fan of Emi Sakura being essentially an afterthought in her first TV match - not getting her own entrance, and trying to do her upbeat Freddie Mercury entrance to Bea Priestley's Hot Topic music didn't work at all. Britt Baker just doesn't do it for me, and Bea's not really any better, and while I like Riho, she was given nothing to really sink her teeth into here. Emi vs Riho is, for me, a far more interesting story than Bea vs. Britt, but that's not where the focus was. Sakura managed to get a lot of her schtick in, and at points was the only one holding this match together, so again it's disappointing that, story-wise, she could have been swapped out for any warm body.

Allin vs. Havoc was a bit of a waste of time. I'm not as down on Jimmy as most of you are, but he wasn't good here, and against Darby Allin is basically only ever going to look like an inferior version of Darby Allin. Jericho and Darby could be great fun, but I'm morbidly curious about what Jericho vs. Jimmy could have looked like. 

Moxley vs Spears was fine, but Spears still strikes me as someone playing at being a heel, if you remove Tully Blanchard from the equation. Just nothing he does feels believable to me, and that's only more apparent when you have him in the same segment as PAC, who's just so good at being unlikeable and bitter. 

Main event was good fun, and another clusterfuck brawl makes a lot of sense at this point, but they can't end every show like this. It feels like their formula at the moment is to do all the usual main event tropes (big spots, finisher reversals, close near falls) in the opener, and then the main event can largely bypass all that in favour of these big schmozzes.

Dustin Rhodes is such a star.

11 hours ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

The "no fish" vegan fish fingers from Iceland are the worst imitation meat product I've ever eaten so avoid those. 

I've yet to find a decent veggie option from Iceland, which is a shame, as they tend to have a good sized range, and obviously very cheap. But everything's just cardboard, it's like stepping back in time 20 years to when that was true of any imitation meat stuff.

Tesco are a bit much better option for vegan stuff, but still a little pricey. 

It's just a gimmick, as pretty much every bit of Brewdog marketing is, but the stated explanation from Brewdog is that it's for people wanting to cut down on their carbon footprint, and would aid anyone interested in "transitioning" to a plant-based diet.

Thing is, I don't believe that hypothetical person exists. Anyone I know who's interested in cutting down on their meat, or "transitioning" to a plant-based diet, would quite happily eat one of the several vegan/veggie burgers already on Brewdog menus. People cutting down on meat are doing it across their entire diet, not "transitioning" within the space of a single meal.

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Why do they have to do it at all though? They've been very clear that they want to be their own thing, I don't see any reason to tip their hat to a promotion that has been dead for 18 years at all.

It's not even necessarily about ECW, as much as Philadelphia as a whole. Watch early '90s WCW shows from Philly, and the crowd are literally baying for blood. They had a reputation as a tough crowd well before ECW.

And it's not like "hardcore" is something AEW are only doing because they're in Philly - their first show had Dustin Rhodes losing a pint of blood, their first TV show had Kenny Omega going through a glass coffee table, they've had thumbtacks spots, chairshots and so on all over their shows, so it's not like they're egregiously pandering to ECW nostalgia so much as potentially tailoring the show to their audience, even if they're even thinking about it in those terms at all. They might just want to give Darby Allin another shot at a break-out performance like they did against Cody.

They're not TNA teaming up Rhino, RVD and Tommy Dreamer for a nostalgia pop for the fifteenth time - if there's an ECW connection here at all, it's an incredibly tenuous one. If they start making explicit reference to it, I'll agree that it's a cheap move. For now, I see nothing wrong with it - we're four or five big steps removed from it being an ECW wankfest.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be back to eat my words next week when they make Tommy Dreamer the special referee or some shit.

17 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

The one AEW PPV I watched proved it was a promotion that, for the most part, probably wasn't going to be for me. But I have to say that it would be really disappointing to see this new upstart promotion kowtow to ECW fans who just won't let it fucking go by putting emphasis on 'hardcore' in any way just because they're doing a show in Philadelphia. Now *that* would stink of TNA.

I think they can do that without leaning too heavily into it. Doing a title match that happens to feature a more "hardcore" guy, with a bit of a nod to it being thematically appropriate is one thing. If they start trotting out Tommy Dreamer and Stevie Richards in featured matches, then I'd agree with you.

5 minutes ago, Seratonin said:

Seth got shitloads of heat for this and that's the aim behind it. 😎

Seth's a babyface, "shitloads of heat" couldn't be further from the aim.

Page's promo before the Jericho match, tearing out the stitches from the cut above his eye, was the best he's ever looked, and some real babyface fire. He can be a real Magnum TA throwback tough guy biker/cowboy babyface, which absolutely no one else in the company is positioned to be, but they need to invest the time in teaching us who he is. 

It's the very specific sequence of "flick bridge of nose, thumb penis" that gets me. Same every time.

We spent the subsequent couple of shows with at least one person on the show trying to get away with doing it without making the other guys in the ring corpse. One of the last shows of that run, we had Tatanka in for. We were out for a post-show meal, and someone started trying to explain the whole thing to him, and he just laughed and said, "Lex was always doing that", and we were all none the wiser. 

The notion of "we can't go to war without allowing every EU member a vote, and will pool resources" is something that I'd probably broadly agree with, and that's all an "EU Army" should be, and likely would be. 

But the people arguing against an EU Army are people who already think the EU are the enemy, so they don't see it as an army we would benefit from, but one we'd be fighting.

A couple of years ago, a wrestler introduced me to this video about Lex Luger. Enjoy, and then never watch a match of his without noticing it again;

I've often said that being a WWE fan is a lot like being a Doctor Who fan (though can probably be substituted for any long-running show). You keep watching, episode after episode, when they're putting out absolute dross that makes you think, "why the fuck do I even watch this any more?", and right before you're ready to give up on it altogether, they pull off one thing that reminds you how good it can be when they get it right - that sucks you back in, you're invested again, and then within a couple of episodes you're back to questioning it, but you have the memory of the One Good Thing that's giving you the motivation to keep going.

Problem is, the good stuff is getting scarcer and scarcer.