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16 hours ago, rollthedice said:

This is easily my favourite version of Moxley. I never cared for him on the indys before his WWE run. Liked him in The Shield but probably because as a unit they were the business. I wasn't interested in him as a singles. I always thought he was trying too hard to look 'unhinged' and be the 'lunatic fringe' with the swaying of the arms and everything. 

Like Jeff Hardy as the charismatic enigma, if you go round with that as your nickname, you're probably a bit of a twat. Same with lunatic fringe.

‘Lunatic Fringe’ was a rib on his hairline, right?

I always assumed that was the real rationale. It doesn't make sense as a name for one person.

25 minutes ago, rollthedice said:

I liked the interaction with Kingston and Punk but it felt a little forced. Not really sure what Eddie's problem was. I know Excalibur said he misinterpreted Punk but even so, was there really anything there to misinterpret? 

Just think of it as Roy Keane kicking off on Patrick Vieira for looking at Gary Neville funny.

5 hours ago, mim731 said:

This even opens up the possibility of Kingston/Mox vs Punk/Danielson, which sounds amazing.

Was my first thought too, will be a barnburner.

The opening two thirds of this show were about as perfect a one hour wrestling show as I've ever seen. Kingston walks on water. Wasn't into Abadon in the main mind.

Yes a very interesting promo and great delivery. "I will not turn" sounds like the bad kind of fourth-wall-breaking but it worked for me here.

Obviously spending two decades pushing top babyfaces to overwhelming negative reactions played a big part in WWE burning all their good will with long term fans, but AEW have plenty of time to play about with this before it becomes counter-productive. Could definitely lead to some interesting scenarios and they've already put a fresh spin on it with Cody acknowledging it head on in a way Cena and Reigns never really did.

I'd still rather Black was undefeated though.

I saw the name 'Wyatt' mentioned on Twitter this morning so quickly closed the app so I didn't completely spoil myself.

Watched the whole of Dynamite expecting Bray to show up at the end. My eyes were nearly bulging out of my head at this point...

I loved the Cody/Black match but the finish was deflating. Should've ended with a still unbeaten Malakai and a newly heel Cody. Two hot characters with a million things they could do next. Instead its Malakai with his wings clipped and Cody as Roman Reigns 2016. I like both guys but this result cools them both down.

There's obviously still time for them to retcon this and do the heel turn a little later, but for now this feels like a big misstep.

I actually think Moxley will go over Danielson in the tournament final and then turn heel by cheating to take the title off Hangman. As was done to him.

Then you've got mega heel Mox as champ with both Hangman and Danielson lining up for their shot. Works for me.

A Cody heel turn just in time for him to be Hangman’s first feud as Champion would be great. Would obviously involve ripping up the no-title-shot stip, but that’d only add to the heat.

4 hours ago, air_raid said:

I think it goes back to…

…. which assumes everyone wants to subscribe to the “Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling” idea that you have consider a wrestlers multiple characters over time as being an ongoing character arc. Which is overcomplicating it massively regards to “legacy.” Somebody was as good as they were regardless of whether played the same basic character for fourty years like Ric Flair or modified it a few times like Hulk Hogan or The Rock.

I think the difference is that Jericho's reinventions all seem proactive. They seem to come from him, because after a while the audience has learned that reinventing himself is what Jericho does. Whereas Rock and Hogan's reinventions tended to be reactive to changes in fan sentiment towards them. The latter is organic and narrative driven, the former is performer driven. It reminds the viewer that the character they're watching is a guy playing a character.

All that said - neither approach is necessarily the 'right' one and I don't think Jericho is shite or anything. I just think he's been to the well a few too many times to the point that he's watered himself down. The exception being his current babyface character, which actually came from the crowd loving Le Champion so much that the face turn was warranted.

38 minutes ago, gmoney said:

Why should anyone earning big money on the top of a promotion at his age give a shit about their "legacy"?

Not sure this applies to Jericho given he’s been wearing ‘GOAT’ on his gear for years and frequently talks about being among the last to come up through the territories on his podcast. He isn’t a Nash type taking the money. Legacy clearly matters to him for better or worse.

20 hours ago, pitseleh said:

Despite all my criticisms of him, I still have to give him credit for able to reinventing himself as many times as he has done. I'd say that is his strongest quality overall. 

Good post, but on this. I personally feel he’s overdone it with the reinventions to the point it detracts from his legacy. Its hard to even establish what the canonical Jericho character is after a while. And its no good for your suspension of disbelief if you’re frequently reminded that the fictional character you’re watching is actually an actor ‘reinventing’ his shtick.

In the same way too many face/heel turns can water a character down, I think Jericho shows the same can be true of gimmick changes. At least if done in the inorganic way that I would argue is Jericho’s trademark.

3 hours ago, Merzbow said:

I'm not sure about the presentation of CM Punk.. I'll wait it out but there is that scent of him being watered down too much too soon. I dunno.

Its lovely having him back but he definitely needs tweaking to work as a medium-to-long term character eh? I think they'll have a few goes at landing on a babyface character but sooner or later we're going to get Punk as sellout heel. It just makes too much sense for them to never go to that well.

MJF’s cheap heat shtick is great. Its his whole thing. He takes the low road on everything. Take that off him and I’m not sure what else differentiates him.

On 8/31/2021 at 12:35 PM, CL Punk said:

To quote a certain Olympic gold medallist; Oh it's true, it's damn true.

Daniel Amokachi?

Monty Python star John Cleese to explore cancel culture in new Channel 4 documentary.

The facial expression.

Every time I get a bottle of water with one of those small tops I think of Vince making movies.

3 hours ago, simonworden said:

That's what I love about AEW, I have fun watching it so a 'poor quality' match doesn't matter if it still felt like something enjoyable to watch because of everything around it. 

Yep, they're doing a hell of a lot right at the moment. When they started I worried it'd be a load of overly serious Meltzerbait matches and little in the way of characters or general nonsense. But the TV shows fly by because everything feels like its going somewhere. I worried the win/loss record stuff would push them towards shite 'pure sports' presentation and generally paint them into corners booking wise but even that's clicking. Christian's winning streak might've passed unnoticed otherwise but now there's something extra to all his matches as the crowd know he's due a title shot if he maintains form. I'm actually excited about bloody Christian in 2021.

Bray Wyatt as a Borne Again style 'real' version of The Fiend in AEW could be superb. No puppets / alternate universes, just a down on his luck nutter.

22 hours ago, CavemanLynn said:

IMO they'd be pissing money away if they brought Punk in. [...] Punk hasn't wrestled in 7 years, and when he did hit it big, it was a lightning in a bottle moment of being the right guy in the right place at the right time. He somehow managed to parlay his superior attitude from his best work as an evangelical heel into an evangelical Indie (tm) face, while being just as goofy and routine as the regime he was supposedly opposed to. He may have been an pioneer of that and the current style, but if he turns up now, beyond an initial pop, everything he does is done better by everyone else. Using the pipe bomb and Summer of Punk as reason to get excited about Punk in 2021 is nonsense.

Punk's UFC debut doubled the number of buys for UFC 203, such that he appears to be the biggest UFC draw ever outside of McGregor, Rousey and Lesnar. He's a proper star with mainstream cache. This isn't just a bunch of indie fans fapping over a hot month in 2011. He's a needle mover.

I'll give you both £50 if you'll work a 4 hour shift at me arld fella's pub.

So Definitely Maybe is already over the Pepper line?

The Summer of Punk was one of those moments when the fantasy booking pervs were right. Punk should've been working Indy shows and showing up on camera phone footage crashing WWE events with the 'real' belt for at least a few months before returning to Raw. And when he did return - it should've been because he'd got a load of concessions off a desperate Vince in exchange for a title defence, rather than just because.

Instead he did that one great bit of business with Rey and Triple H at Comic-Con and that was pretty much it. Back on Raw within two weeks was it? Completely going back on everything the character had said before MITB and knackering the angle.

Still, I don't think the original promo has aged badly like some have said. It was the good kind of shooty nonsense which strengthened the story/characters rather than detracting from them. And the contract signing with Vince was even better. And then tearing the house down with Cena in Chicago. Its one of the best months any character ever had in WWE and could've been a bridge to a whole new kind of story telling for them. I was reminded of it when I saw all the buzz that Logan Paul/Mayweather caper generated via camera phone footage last month. There's no reason contemporary WWE couldn't use the same tactics and Summer of Punk should've been the beginning.

Mark Henry's son interfering in the main event was a highlight.

Ah just remembered I saw Kota Ibushi in a sports centre in Colchester in a mad hardcore match with his cousin about 5 years ago and all. The mad thing is he was already a pretty big deal at that point.

I attended a 2008 ROH Show in New York which was headlined by the Artists Currently Known As Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins and Cesaro (and... Nigel McGuinness) in a fatal 4-way.

I believe it was also the show which Nicholas Cage attended incognito as research for The Wrestler, and was so repelled by what he saw that he ultimately passed on the role. It did give us this surreal photo of him with Marufuji, though: