Pinc

Its completely killed my fandom all this 'movie' shite they've introduced in the Covid era. I hated the Boneyard and Firefly Fun House last year when everyone else seemed to love them, because they felt like they shattered my suspension of disbelief in the worst possible way. I love Brock, but I remember his match with McIntyre coming on straight after the Fun House on Mania last year and I just couldn't give a fuck. Because they'd just beat me over the head with the fact that they're all just actors for half an hour.

The swamp matches and Fiend shite and now this zombie stuff has just compounded it all. I don't even know what WWE is anymore. How does anyone manage to care about any of it when the story telling is so incoherent?

14 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

I haven’t seen anyone saying it’s fine, more about the inevitability. 

11 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I'm actually quite excited by this news and I'm not sure why there's such overwhelming opposition to the idea.

Surprised at the number of 'money is already a problem so its actually fine to make the problem much worse' takes in here.

13 hours ago, air_raid said:

Why did this rabbit hole become “is WWE also ran Liv Morgan a bigger star than two marquee names who drew massive gates to the Tokyo Dome in main events”? It’s a completely different proposition to suggesting Ambrose/Moxley is a bigger star now than when he was (pick one) part of one of the most over acts in the industry leader of the last 15 years, featured prominently in shows selling millions of tickets all around the world and at WrestleMania - the biggest event in the industry, or when he was WWE Champion. Which is nothing short of asinine.

It must count for something that if Moxley showed up in WWE in 2021 he’d likely be treated as a bigger deal than he ever was before. Certainly he’d get a marquee WrestleMania match the following year. Which he never really had as Ambrose outside of the damp squib Lesnar match.

There are qualitative elements to stardom as well as quantitative. Otherwise this thread would just be one post with every wrestler listed in descending order of their social media reach.

Rob Van Dam should’ve been the new Stone Cold beginning immediately after the Invasion but they had too many big beasts from WCW still to come in plus lads like Jericho, Triple H, Angle who they seemed to think were owed a crack at being ‘the guy’ for helping them win the war.

He had a good career and was certainly a big star at times but he should’ve been the face of wrestling for most of the noughties. He was basically Daniel Bryan before social media existed to allow fans to co-ordinate ‘hijackings’ of the show.

Them couple of weeks where Kane arrived to the arena chained up in the back of a Paddy Wagon were great. Think it only happened about twice. Once that was over the mystique was gone for me, Clive.

2 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Is that true? Could we have opted to do our ordering separately?

We could have, by the letter of the law. But Brexit undoubtedly made it politically easier to do so.

I'm not a Brexiteer whatsoever but it does seem to have provided us with some extra agility in this case.

Vince McMahon was able to look so ripped in his vest because he injected muscles into his arms. I never stopped to think until typing that out where the muscles were supposed to have come from.

All the goodies were always on the verge of announcing a new group too. 'Stone Cold's gonna come back and make a group with The Rock, Too Cool and the Hardy Boyz' kind of shouts.

Obviously ECW was real as well. And watching WCW meant you were likely a homosexual.

They probably should have turned Cena heel the night of the first Rock match in hindsight. I rewatched it recently and with P Diddy being there and all that it feels like 'the world is watching' moreso than any other moment in the preceding (or following) ten years. They had a chance to burn Cena into the popular imagination as 'that cunt who fucked over The Rock' there. I gather Cena is a household name in the states these days but it took fucking ages to get him over the line. Twatting Dwayne about with a chair in his big comeback would've made headlines.

12 hours ago, Cod Eye said:

The irresistible force meeting the immovable object!  

But enough about Sue.

Was totally on the Paul London wagon. I still think his performance at the ROH 1st Anniversary Show is one of the great double duty performances that no one ever talks about. Seeing him challenge Xavier after winning a knackering triple threat with AJ Styles and Low Ki was the first time I actually felt arsed about the winner of an ROH title match (rather than just watching for the flips) and it was all because of London.

I thought he'd rise to be one of the great underdog babyfaces of all time once he got to WWE TV, I suppose in a similar way to how Daniel Bryan did a few years later. Instead he had a fairly forgettable run either side of that mammoth tag title reign with Kendrick, though even then they somehow managed to fly almost entirely under the radar.

He’s the lunatic who interviewed David Icke in them Youtube streams about 5G causing Covid that got Dave in trouble with OFCOM last year.

Me Dad loved the name 'Scotty 2 Hotty' and took to referring to all the referees as 'Stripey 2 Stripey' on account of their shirts. Even now he'll ask 'is Stripey still in it?' when it comes up. I'm always happy to confirm that he is.

Yeah those are great shouts about the general turn to nostalgia in pop culture around the time of Rock/Hogan which I hadn’t fully considered before.

I’ve been reminded of it recently getting back into Coronation Street after years away. The parallels with WWE are really striking in how all the ‘real’ stars from the late 90s have elevated status over the newer cast members. Its almost post-modern in parts; the viewer is definitely supposed to know that some of them are still in it from ‘when it was good.’ Can’t help but think that it all stems from a nostalgia for ‘pre-internet’ entertainment. Its going to be interesting to see if old serial forms of entertainment like soap operas and WWE can even survive once their golden age stars are all gone. Do they finally start making new stuff or will they hit a terminal decline when the golden age is finally exhausted?

On 2/10/2021 at 10:36 PM, IronSheik said:

Respectfully disagree. That match was a masterpiece in how two elite talents can manipulate and pop a sell out crowd using ring psychology to its fullest.

Nostalgia has always existed in wrestling and always been mixed into the big cards of all feds.

In my opinion the only reason Taker and Goldberg and Angle and Sting and HHH and HBK and Edge etc have been getting wheeled out in recent years is to try and pop faltering ratings and in the main they have moved the needle in the right direction because true stars are a dying breed. 

Rock v Hogan was the box office money match we wanted to see delivered expertly at a time when business was hot. The nostalgia matches these days are desperate attempts to clamber some ratings or buys in a time when the business isn't hot. 

I agree that the match was a masterpiece. I suppose my point is that it was so successful that it caused the company (subtly, but palpably) to shift philosophy away from sustaining business by frequently creating new stars to instead using the cultural capital it had built up in the 80s and 90s to sustain it into the future.

They have made some stars since then but at a much slower rate than they did pre-Mania X8, and the new stars they do create are invariably shown to be inferior to the stars of yesteryear. It started with them ignoring the mega-popularity of RVD the year before because there were just too many ‘Big Beasts’ left over from the Attitude era in the top spots, but they still might have gotten their act together had Hogan/Rock not validated their new sense that ‘the old guys are better.’

Its true that nostalgia has always been a part of wrestling, but the shift to being a company driven by nostalgia was a new development in the early Noughties which might not have happened quite as it did without the fans siding with Hogan over Rock.

Rock/Hogan at Mania X8 shoulders a lot of the blame for WWE becoming the hauntological diminishing returns nostalgia show it has been for the last twenty odd years. There's a direct line that runs from that match to us getting Goldberg in a World Title match at the 2021 Royal Rumble.

I don't watch very much AEW but I tuned in to a couple of shows last year with Jericho on commentary and he was dreadful. Seemed to think he had to comment on every little thing that happened without dropping his heel character, but just didn't have the quickness of mind to pull it off. It was a really tough watch.

Eddie Kingston, Miro, the Usos, Heyman, Kevin Owens, Asuka, Orange Cassidy, Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey are cool.

I really want to put Moxley on this list but he occasionally tries a bit hard. Lynch is lucky to make it on now that we know she's going out with uber-geek Seth Rollins and all.

2 minutes ago, TomJones233 said:

Egos. Who would win in an Austin/Goldberg bout in 1998?
 

Have Vince double cross Austin to give Goldy a tainted victory and further the Austin/McMahon storyline. Or just do a double count out/schmozz if you need to.

A fuckton of money was left on the table by never coming together with WCW in 98/99 to do some real interpromotional stuff. Imagine Austin/Goldberg at the top of a big When Worlds Collide type card with McMahon and Bischoff in the opposing corners. They were both World Champs at the same time in Summer ‘98 as well. Would’ve done unholy business.

Thinking about it - I can’t remember ever hearing of overtures being made in either direction to do interpromotional stuff when both companies were peaking, which just seems insane. Like I understand why it never happened, but I find it hard to believe no one ever raised the possibility? And yet in the thousands of hours of podcasting and shoot interviews we’ve had about that period I’ve never heard a peep along those lines. You’d think there’d be some ‘JJ reached out about having Sting appear at SummerSlam but got told to fuck off’ type stories in the ether.

2 minutes ago, TomJones233 said:

How long until people realise that Biden is just as much of a out of touch and old fart like Trump was? When he starts WW3?

 

God yes I really hate how out of touch Trump was. Never mentioned Billie Eilish once. Totally his worst characteristic.

15 hours ago, CleetusVanDamme said:

About 75% of the good shit Austin was involved in post-99 came during that heel run. I'd hate to have lived in that alternate world where the reprieve only lasts one night.

The world where they rightfully run with Triple H as the top babyface, instead of having him be Austin's #2 because... reasons, or the world where Austin stays heel after Survivor Series? Sign me the fuck up.

This is the one. Have insurgent, fresh new babyface RVD win the Rumble and beat heel WWF Champ Austin at Mania X8 to become your new top babyface. Maybe have Austin retire afterward to give RVD the maximum bragging rights. Can always bring Austin back for a special attraction with Rock at Mania 19, which was the only thing of substance he did after X8 anyway.

On 1/12/2021 at 10:24 AM, AVM said:

If we're going down the BLM vs. MAGA route, the difference is pretty obvious. The worst of BLM is rioting. The worst of MAGA is actual domestic terrorism. The worst of the MAGA lot had a plan to kill and take hostages with view to overruling the democratic process through violence and intimidation. There's the difference.

And the MAGA lads were angry about completely made up rubbish (ranging from 'Trump won' to 'the Democrats are satanic paedophiles') whereas BLM were protesting against the very real murder of a very real person and the associated centuries of very real systemic racism.

I'm days late to the 'both sides' debate but its exhausting seeing it everywhere these days. This is how extremism is normalised - by reacting to every extreme right wing event by saying 'well the left are just bad, why can't we meet in the middle.' We will sleepwalk into some kind of dangerous neo-authoritarianism if we keep seeing every event through a 'both sides' lens. Left/right extremism is clearly asymmetrical in the UK and US and it isn't a lack of balance/objectivity to say so.

1 hour ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/chris-99178053752

A pretty good summation of just how serious the "protest" was.

When I first saw on the news that Trump supporters were storming the Capitol Building I didn't initially hear that they'd managed to evacuate all of the Congress members to a secure location. So when they started talking about shots being fired on the Senate floor my stomach turned and I had to go for a walk with the anxiety of thinking they might be killing politicians. It really doesn't bear thinking about if they'd been successful.

Presumably he'll go to Parler. But Google Store just kicked Parler off and Apple have given them 24 hours to introduce a moderation policy (i.e. to stop being Parler) or they're kicking them too.