BomberPat

Reading that vignettes were cut makes a lot of sense - my main criticism watching last night was that there was very little character-building; wrestlers were showing up and a lot of knowledge was assumed of the audience. It's a pet peeve of mine when someone cuts a promo but doesn't make it clear who they are - on this show you had Lucha Bros coming out and calling themselves "the greatest tag team in the universe", but not saying "the Lucha Bros". 

For all of Tony Khan's criticism of the Invisible Camera, I was disappointed to see, very early on, a shot of Jericho and LAX in their locker room discussing strategy, seemingly oblivious to the presence of a cameraman.

The opening felt good, full of energy, and professionalism. Schiavone's voice adds so much credibility and enthusiasm, and he feels genuinely happy to be here, while being out of the mainstream since WCW means that he doesn't feel like someone who's outstayed their welcome. Even JR brought what passes for his A-game. Through the show in general, and particularly when he had an in-ring job, Schiavone did feel a little nervous at times, but when he had something on commentary he could get his teeth into, he was superb.
Something I loved from JR was how often he talked up the live aspect of the show - welcoming the TV audience but adding, "but there's nothing like being here live", reiterating at the end of the show that next week's show was sold out, but that you can still "join us" on TV; this ties into the Invisible Camera aspect of WWE. A theory I've had around WWE for years is that they've declined in quality the more they've switched focus from a live event recorded for TV to a TV show that happens to have a live audience. Presenting the show as live first and foremost gives it a more vibrant, urgent atmosphere, and makes the crowd (live and at home) feel more involved/connected. You watch it live thinking, "I wish I was there!" in a way WWE haven't managed in a long while. Even little things that WWE only started doing again recently, like having Moxley swat the camera out of the way, or wrestlers speak directly into the camera, establish that this is a real event being filmed, and cameras are a physical object within that space, not an invisible observer. Not to get too theatre nerd about it, but it's something akin to a Brechtian alienation technique in that it means you're constantly aware that you're watching a live performance, not a flat, stale TV product.

Cody vs Guevera was fine. It was the right choice to, after a brief intro from commentators, open with an energetic match that sets the pace. Flashbacks to WOS opening with WWE-lite dueling promos and evil authority figures as to how not to do it. I'd argue that the match had too much in the way of high drama hope spots and big moves for an opening match, and absolutely didn't need the spots with Brandi - basically because if you do it all in the opener, you've got nowhere else to go. That said, it was the first match on the first show of a new venture, so it's special circumstances and probably shouldn't play precisely by the rules. In any case, it was one of those Good Wrestling Matches we get a lot of these days, where it's all demonstrably well executed but you won't remember a single bit of it in a week's time.

Something I didn't like from Tony Schiavone's aborted post-match interview is that he just didn't say anything after Sammy stepped in to offer the handshake. If you watch Gene Okerlund do these segments in WCW, he never stops talking, and it adds so much to the angle - and why wouldn't you, when you still have a live microphone in your hand?

A pet peeve now, around inconsistency. For one, practically every time we've seen Cody he's had an entourage - they even made it a point of his last match, that he could only choose one of them. Where were any of them when he was being attacked by Jericho? And where were security? The following segment was an SCU/Lucha Bros brawl, in which agents and security got involved at the first sign of violence, yet none of them got involved at all for the brawl that happened not two minutes earlier? It sounds like nitpicking, but it's about establishing the internal rules of the promotion - why can Jericho get away with beating someone up outside the confines of a match, but the Lucha Bros get dragged away at the first sign of trouble? 

Inconsistency and repetition have been a point of contention for me with AEW since their first show, and I still think it's their biggest learning curve here. There was a lot of repeated spots. I counted three springboard stunners in one show, two in the same match, two consecutive matches featured a Standing Shooting Star Press (with one also featuring a top-rope SSP), and every single match had a dive to the outside. When Tony Khan said he didn't want DQs and non-finishes, I assumed he meant that he wouldn't be booking the situations that lead to DQs, but that's obviously not the case - this show saw managerial interference go unseen by the referee, a low blow missed by the referee, a steel chair spot go largely unimpeded by a referee and, most egregiously, a run-in right in front of the senior official that took a man out of the match, but got absolutely no admonition from the ref. Obviously I'm speaking from a point of personal interest here, but it just shits on the credibility of refs. It's not that the matches are ECW-style no DQ - we've had commentators talk about the risk of disqualification all night. It's not just a problem of referee credibility, or of believability, but one of long-term consequence - when someone inevitably does get disqualified for outside interference, you have to ask, "well, why not the time before?".

PAC vs. Page was good, but not great. I like that they're going with a bit of a slow burn on Page as a pick for the top spot, but he needs a little extra "something". PAC continues to be a brilliant heel, and one of the people on the show that really feels like a star.

Rhio vs Nyla Rose massively overdelivered for me, and was probably my favourite match of the night. The best performance by either woman since AEW started, and I still find it surreal to see Rhio given this opportunity. Not sure about Nyla being suddenly repositioned as a heel, as much as it made sense for the size dynamic in this match - it feels a bit lazy to go "big woman = baddy", particularly when said big woman has now lost more often than she's won, and when you've also got Awesome and Aja Kong on the roster.

I don't mind Kenny Omega getting involved at the end of the women's match, though it was odd positioning to have it right before the main event. I don't think there's anything wrong with having Omega show up twice, but back-to-back segments just feels like poor pacing. Main event was fine but unremarkable for who was involved, though was more about setting up the future than delivering a great match, and that's ground we've not really seen AEW tread yet, so that's good. Young Bucks' formula could get really over-exposed if they're on TV every week.

Post-match, meh. Very little interest in Jake Hager being there, and while Jericho leading a heel stable isn't a bad idea, there doesn't seem to be any connecting thread between the characters involved. Hager teaming with LAX doesn't strike me as a coherent unit, and Sammy Guevera stands out like a sore thumb. It makes sense to have a heel stable around, though, given that Cody has an entourage, and you don't want the babyface in the next big title match being the one with the numbers advantage. Every time Hager got to hit a move, he looked like a dominant monster. Every time they cut to his blank stare, and him fiddling with his hair, he looked like a complete idiot. And they kept doing it.
Reusing Guevera here raises another point - having talent recurring throughout the show can be good, as it creates a sense of narrative, and of continuity from the first match to the last. But it also runs the risk of making it feel like a very small roster, to have to rely on the same people showing up multiple times, rather than showcasing a broader array of talent. 

Anyway, Dustin got by far the biggest pop of the night for showing up, and the second biggest for hitting his first move, so let's hope they realise what they have with him and act on it.

1 minute ago, Richard said:

''Likes'' aren't necessarily endorsements.

Yeah, I'm always consistently liking the Tweets of political figures and political stances I disagree with for a period of several years. That completely holds up. 

There's nothing "authoritarian" about suggesting that the stated politics of a company are at odds with their actions. If they want to hire transphobes and bigots, they're well within their rights to, but it calls into question their stated approach to providing an inclusive working environment and a diverse roster. 

Yeah - I felt it was a little less fun than the previous film, because outside of the "We're Doing A Sequel" song and the gag about Walter's story being at the expense of long-standing characters it lacked the same constant state of self-awareness, and didn't have a villain nearly as strong as Tex Richman, but it's still a superb movie, even with Gervais in it. The songs are amazing, and I find myself singing the "Big House" tune to myself. "Goodnight, Danny Trejo" had me crying with laughter in the cinema, too.

22 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Is Hager actually like that in real life? I thought, given the furore over the "We, The People" gimmick and their response to it, that it was just that - a gimmick. I know that normally they're based on turning up an aspect of the real person up to 11, but it didn't seem like that with Hager. 

Have a look through his "Likes" on Twitter. Once you've scrolled past every bit of praise from last night, it's all typical right-wing Republican memes, anti-CNN, anti-vaxx, transphobia and so on. 

51 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

That whole "hurt the pop" thing is a myth. Real stars can come out time and again with no worries. It hurts these days because no-one is a star.

Very good point. In '98, you had episodes of RAW where Austin and Undertaker were interfering in every single match, and it never hurt them.

"I can't believe they had Stone Cold come out earlier and get kicked out of the building, really hurt the pop for the run-in he did in the main event" wasn't a sentence anyone was saying.

I'm pretty sure it was him. Looking around Twitter, it sounds like it was deleted last week.

21 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

He attracts a different audience, but I thought Stewart Lee's last show was recorded in Southend where he has the line (maybe slightly paraphrasing) "It wasn't just the racists who voted for Brexit.  No, it was the cunts too."

That seemed to go down alright with his crowd.

(Edit: Palace Theatre)

I think Stewart Lee has established his audience, and established a somewhat adversarial role in his material, whereas James Acaster probably plays better with a Stewart Lee crowd, but because he's on Mock The Week et al, draws the "it's him off the telly" audience.

It's that same show in which Stewart Lee refers to the town he's in, and by extension his own audience, as "a hive of racists", which comes close to when he said, "I don't know why I bother coming to Glasgow, I play Edinburgh every year, it's basically the same city" in terms of getting away with just openly insulting his own audience.

10 minutes ago, MPDTT said:

 Also what was the point of Kenny coming out at the end of the match?

Literally every single time Riho has wrestled the announcers have called her "the preferred intergender tag partner of Kenny Omega". It seems a more than obvious set-up to me.

I've only read the results so far, and it reads like a solid show, yet potentially underwhelming if you went in looking for a world-changer. I think it's probably the right pace to set for AEW to not front-load the debut show with big surprises and huge moments, as that sets a precedent they won't be able to keep up. 

I do question ending the show on a Jake Hager debut, especially as where I read suggested he's in a stable with Jericho, so already playing second fiddle. I'm sure he can work a good programme with Dustin, and bring something to the table, but putting him in the main event spot straight away is a TNA move in saying "the ex-WWE guy is more important than our own talent". 

To get a little "inside baseball" about it, though, I don't know if the self-styled "woke", inclusive promotion really should be looking to have someone on their roster that's a transphobic, Trump supporting, racist anti-vaxxer, and if I were in Nyla Rose's shoes, for example, I'd be questioning their commitment to that inclusivity by bringing someone like him in. To be cynical about it, when WWE are about to go back to Saudi Arabia, it would do AEW well to present themselves as the liberal, guilt-free alternative, even if it's just a gimmick.

3 hours ago, Accident Prone said:

I'm sure SBA has me on ignore but I'm highlighting the parts here that are laughably wrong.

Like it or not, Progress and the Havoc/Ospreay saga are a massive reason why the UK scene exploded like it did.

Absolutely. I'm not a PROGRESS guy - I've never been to one of their shows, have been pretty critical of them over the years, and generally recognise that they're not really my thing, so this isn't me as one of their "Ultras" giving them way more credit than they're due - but you can't deny the impact they had on the UK scene.

If nothing else, pre-PROGRESS, London didn't have a wrestling scene to speak of. The previous British wrestling "boom" barely broke into London, in the late '00s you could literally count the number of documented shows in London by British companies on your fingers. PROGRESS were the first promotion to regularly run central London, and laid the groundwork for a scene where, most months, you're pretty spoiled for choice. PROGRESS aren't the be all and end all, but you don't have the latest British wrestling boom without the emergence of London as a viable scene, and you don't get the emergence of the London scene without PROGRESS. The Havoc/Ospreay angle was a huge part of their success, and bought them a lot of goodwill as "good storytellers" long after their booking stopped warranting it, and it was largely the brainchild of Jimmy Havoc and Jim Smallman.

I'd disagree there. PROGRESS doesn't get where it is today without the Havoc/Ospreay feud.

I don't think Havoc will ever be anything more than a midcard hand for them, and I think that's the right spot - not everyone is going to be main eventing, they need a fleshed out undercard as well. He's got a fantastic mind for wrestling, though - I've seen him give the sort of feedback that really gives people the "lightbulb moment" they need to make something click, or to bring things into focus, and I've known him to spend a lot of time with newer talent offering advice for no real gain of his own. If they can make use of that side of him, he's a worthwhile signing for any company.

I've been pretty dreadful at watching new films for the past few years, and comedies for probably even longer, but the first to come to mind when reading the thread title was The Death Of Stalin. Then probably the 2011 Muppets movie.

8 minutes ago, PowerButchi said:

But even the set-ups haven't neccessarily been great. The Dustin vs Cody story was some arse water about killing off the attitude era when the match itself told the story that should have been told alll along. That of the aging gunslinger trying to turn back the years one more time.

You're not wrong. Wrestling so rarely gives you a genuine, compelling story with that much truth behind it, and that many layers behind it - you had Dustin as the old-timer trying to prove he could still go, Cody as the younger wrestler wanting to prove that he had made it to the top, but layered with decades of real life drama; Cody as the "favourite son", Dustin as the fuck-up, fighting over Dusty's legacy, decades of unresolved step-sibling tensions and generational struggle, plus the added backstory of their WWE run, Dustin having come to terms with the role Goldust plays in his career, while Cody has never fully accepted Stardust as part of him in the same way...then instead we get this "killing the Attitude Era" bollocks from Cody, and him effectively positioning it as Cody vs. Triple H by proxy. A real mis-step, that one.

By the end, though, you could reduce it all to Dustin's promo package, the match, and the "I need my older brother" aftermath, and it's a great self-contained piece. But, like the Spears angle, like the match with Nick Aldis at All-In, they're on and done. They're "here's why we're having the match, here's the match", and then on to the next one. You can do that when you're working PPV to PPV, but it's not a good sign for working weekly TV, or trying to drag one of those feuds beyond one match and into a three match series or beyond.

3 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

On the ‘announce vs surprise’ front, The Rock being on this week’s SmackDown was big enough news to make it onto the big news screens at Edinburgh train station this morning.

The screen also said he retired in 2004, but the fact he was on there suggests a certain level of importance you wouldn’t get from a surprise.

I’m not suggesting Punk would command anywhere near that level of attention, but an announcement gets your eyes on the product in advance of the moment. You can’t miss out on it like if it was a surprise and you found out later on Twitter.

I don't disagree but, again, this is AEW's first TV show, with a lot of hype behind it. Smackdown has been on the air for 20 years, and the hype of this week's episode being a "series premiere" doesn't make sense outside of the US market, so you're much less likely to look to Smackdown for "must see TV" after years of it being an afterthought. So WWE need to go the extra mile to say, "this show that hasn't been important enough to watch live for a decade, you should make an exception and watch live this week", in a way that, "AEW TV for the first time ever" doesn't.

I suppose the question is that if you hype CM Punk for show one, where do you go for show two? You need the mixture of hooks and cliffhangers. You want to get people watching, but you also need to get them to come back. Where WWE routinely go wrong in wheeling out the legends for the big shows is that it rarely if ever translates into an ongoing narrative, so they don't give you a reason to watch the next episode.

It just occurred to me that it would be a typically WWE Ruining Everything dark bargain of a news story if it was revealed that CM Punk was returning....to join Team Hogan in Saudi Arabia.

It's difficult to say with AEW, as we have no frame of reference for what AEW weekly TV looks like, but from their PPVs, I'd say they're not risking overplaying their hand. 

When AEW first formed, the rumours around who they were interested in signing were insane. You had your CM Punk, of course, but there was Meltzer suggesting that half the WWE roster wanted to jump ship, gossip sites saying that they were talking to Randy Orton, Undertaker being booked for Starrcast had some people convinced he'd show up in AEW, with the Sportskeeda-type sites even suggesting that we might get Undertaker vs. Sting in AEW. I even saw someone on Twitter say that they were "confident" John Cena would go to AEW because he was friends with Cody Rhodes.

From day one, they've been a company having to manage expectations that they never realistically gave anyone - and I think they've done a good job of it. They talk a big game, but generally on things they can back up. They're not presenting themselves, by and large, as bigger than WWE, or as somewhere where anyone could show up a la '90s WCW. I think walking that line of balancing expectations while still delivering an impressive product is going to be one of their first stumbling blocks, though they've managed reasonably well thus far, along with their ongoing identity crisis. Cody is one person I can see suffering from weekly TV - he's developed the reputation as being the more "old school" guy and the "storyteller", but the "stories" he's had to manage have worked in isolation - Cody vs Dustin was a set-up and a match, Cody vs. Spears was a set-up and a match. The "story" was one and done. I'm curious how he's going to adapt to more long-form storytelling.

Barrie Masters of Eddie & The Hot Rods.

Still a banger.

10 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

You can have the 'anything can happen' vibe with someone else, but Punk? That's a guy that will make people choose to watch AEW over NXT, or even if you're a lapsed fan.

Broadly, I'd agree.

But, thinking only slightly outside the box, it's a way to get people to watch next week. Tonight already has the hype and the intrigue of being the first episode, but episode two can't rely on that. Ending episode one with as big a shock/surprise as CM Punk showing up, though? That's going to make you tune in again, and potentially make every episode "must see".

I saw people complaining that they revealed LAX as Jericho's partners early, rather than on the show. But the hype in some quarters around this company is such that people will have worked themselves up into believing just about anyone could be partnered with Jericho, so it would have been a disappointment to have the "surprise" turn out to be two guys already on the roster. They would run the risk of becoming TNA, over-promising and under-delivering on every "surprise".

I take it all back, I've just seen a spoiler on Twitter that makes me love this now.

He was a miserable sod when I met him as well. Meet and Greet before one of his stand-up shows, so the whole thing was very perfunctory and mechanical anyway, but just seemed to put zero effort into pretending that he was interested in people. I don't know how many nights he'd already been touring, but just that one parade of neckbeards, black t-shirts and checked shirts was probably hard work enough, in fairness.

I did laugh when I got home and realised that he'd signed my photo, "To Patrick, Mick Foley", while my then-girlfriend got, a "Nice to meet you" added to hers. Wasn't nice to meet me, obviously.

Back on topic, one of my best charity shop finds was a completely untouched 1989 Ghostbusters colouring book.

21 minutes ago, uklaw said:

As for the matches, I saw a report from Night 1 that suggests that most of the matches were under 5 minutes in length and that only Aldis vs Storm went over 10 minutes. No spoilers here, as the match was announced ahead of the tapings.

Not necessarily a bad thing - if you watch old Memphis wrestling, you're not getting twenty-minute classics, you're getting a few four minute squashes and a ton of promos and character development, and it feels like that's the vibe they're aiming for here. I assume that when it makes TV it'll maybe be interspersed with promo footage and edited highlights of other matches? 

I guess the question is what, if anything, they're building towards, and whether there's still a market for this kind of wrestling presentation.

2 minutes ago, Accident Prone said:

With the exception of a couple of names, the roster looks dreadful so I'll be giving this a miss. It's a great concept though!

Yeah, looking at results from the tapings there's maybe three people that have piqued my interest, one of whom I can easily see elsewhere, and a couple of people who would actively turn me off a product.

Been taking a break from being a horrible goose to catch up on Final Fantasy VIII Remaster.

Backstory - I did not like this game when it came out. I adored VII, and went back and played previous games in the series, so could not have been more hyped for it on release. But then along comes this game with a wonky battle/stats system, a storyline that feels made up as they go along, and it just felt like a huge letdown.

I'm enjoying it a lot more this time around. Being older and "wiser", I'm enjoying the junctioning system of stat management a lot more, and playing a lot more tactically than I've probably ever played a Final Fantasy game before. There are still aspects of it than annoy me - characters having a maximum number of different magic they can stockpile, having to "junction switch" every time the story forces me to change party members, being limited to four commands so having to choose between whether Zell uses Magic or Items - but it's a lot more coherent than I remember. The fast-forward option is an absolute godsend when it comes to drawing a ton of magic from one or two monsters, and I've basically played the whole game with it switched on.

Because I've spent less time grinding/exploring than I would have done first time around, it's all gone by rather quickly (I'm up to Disc 3 now), so the story hasn't felt quite as cobbled together as it did previously. And there's some lines of dialogue, and weird hard to find supplementary text, that foreshadow some of the odder plot developments so they're not quite as out of nowhere as I'd always thought. Though the "here's a significant, insane bit of backstory, but I guess none of us remember, and the only who does just didn't think to mention it" reveal is still unforgivably ridiculous even with two lines of dialogue ten hours earlier to allude to part of it.

Lance Russell and Jesse Ventura for me, even moreso than Russell and Heenan.

While Heenan was amazing, and at times could add so much to a story, Ventura on a match-to-match basis felt like a more believable heel analyst - he wasn't just supporting the baddies because that was his job, or making excuses for them, he fundamentally believed that they were in the right.

That combined with Lance Russell, who wasn't just a by-the-books babyface announcer, but also a welcoming, familiar Saturday morning TV presence, would be wonderful.

2 hours ago, The King of Old School said:

Actually looking forward to NWA Power, do we know who is on commentary yet?

Joe Galli (me neither) and Jim Cornette

Oh that reminds me of this one from a few years back;

Picked up Mick Foley's novel for a quid or two, got it home and realised it was signed. I think it's personalised (to Dylan, IIRC), but still.

Boring typography nerd explanation, but "Back Spacer" was the correct terminology, as rather than an input key, it's an actual physical lever to perform the function of moving the page back one space. 

There's probably a whole sub-category of this thread for, "comments in reply to local news stories", and 99% of them seem to be somehow blaming whatever the story is on immigrants, but this took me by surprise.