GeronimoJacksBeard

So, made a point of watching Dynamite over the last month after realising its on the ITVhub come Friday. Like others, I’ve fallen into watching most other things via chopped up YouTube highlights. Being so easy to access and intrigued decided to give AEW a fair go. So here’s some random ramblings from doing so;

It’s an easy enough watch for sure, 2 hours flies by, although saying that, I’m still viewing it while doing other things so it’s never had me exactly completely engaged or engrossed either. There’s plenty I really don’t like about the product or just isn’t for me, but just about enough to keep me watching and intrigued how they develop.

The first full show I watched was that one that opened with the tag tourney match between Lucha Bros and Private Party, which was hardly an encouraging start. Basically featured just about everything I can’t stand about modern wrestling. Overly choreographed nonsense lacking all logic, seemingly completely forgetting the art of story and the idea of getting the audience to buy into what they’re viewing as a combative contest rather than an exhibition of gymnastics and spots. Unfortunately a common theme with AEW in general. I really like what I saw of Pentagon Jr in Lucha Underground and he being here is part of the reason I’m intrigued enough to bother watching. Feeling that Lucha Underground may have actually just been the perfect setting for him. But I’ll be interested if they separate the two of them down the line and what they’d do with their pushes. Private Party are shocking though, every match of theirs has been guilty of the same.

Get the impression that’s been the motive behind getting a lot of their roster in - does impressive flippy nonsense. Decided to watch the Dark shows too and yeah, the women’s roster is a right mess. Terrible, dead matches full of botches and all sorts of fuck ups and all far too long. On Dark they get so edited and chopped up due to this it’s confusing as fuck watching if you don’t realise why. Gibbs is one of those that seems to have been brought in because of her impressive athletic potential...and because she can perform a Sasuke Special, although one week it cut from just before the spot, to all the girls outside, so I assume something went wrong. She’s no way near ready for TV and I worry she’s going to do herself or someone else some serious damage. In particular, completely unnecessarily dumped Allie on Mercedes Martinez’ head, due to being out of position, but could have adjusted pretty simply to avoid it.  Car crash viewing.

I may be wrong, but I get the impression those things that I’m not enjoying about the product stem from the vision of wrestling the Bucks and Omega have. Almost everything Cody has been involved with I have thoroughly enjoyed. The same goes for Jericho, who’s been a riot in general and seems to be having the time of his life. And I’m generally not a massive fan of the guy, but he’s been playing a blinder so far. Also Pac, who is another being on board makes me interested enough to watch. Since his King of the Cruiserweights and then Bastard personas I think the guy is fucking superb. Genuinely one of the very best there is and one guy that WWE could have dropped a bollock with and that I’d build a company like AEW around.

Seen JR seems to be getting a bit of stick for his work here, I’ve quite enjoyed him but I think that’s all down to probably having similar tastes in wrestling and any grumbles he has with the product echoing mine. Something you get a sense irks him though, as it should, is a lack of direction or agenting of some matches or angles. WWE gets stick for being micro managed, again probably rightly so, but AEW on occasion seem too far the other way. Usually all the angles that have been home runs have involved Cody, but that Butcher and The Blade angle was a prime example of not clueing up everyone involved on what the objective was. Excalibur was terrible here, something really simple that shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.
 

The latest show was bad for this kind of thing in general. A fun segment to start the show with a completely flat, nonsensical ending. And several matches/angles featuring the same spots. Sometimes back to back. Emi Sakura seemed to hit a fucking crossroads which shouldn’t be happening. And Pac/Omega straight into Page/MJF both featured moonsaults from the top to the outside. To name just a couple of instances. Simple, little things that shouldn’t be happening. Didn’t like Moxley not going passed the “invisible wall” after Cody had referenced it just a few weeks back either. Mox, supposed to be a crazy badass who’d throw himself into any mental situation without thought or regard for his wellbeing looked odd and awkward just hanging back in the crowd when Jericho was inviting him in. Never been crazy on Moxley either, but he’s had his moments and is certainly coming across better than he did for much of his WWE run.
 

Obviously, they’re still a very young company so shit will happen and they do seem to grow and learn from any such instances. But they have to really, they’re on a big tv network right from the off. Slight concern also, that they’re going to burn through all their big matches pretty rapidly. But perhaps they’ve got a lot more people they hope to bring in and why they’re keeping the Lucha Bros as a unit for now.

This is definitely extremely odd and highly concerning. It’s really not like Dave Meltzer to have bad information or to not actually know what the fuck is actually happening. 🤔 Plan(e)s change.

7 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Need to post in the relationship thread, mate?

👀😭😭😭

2 hours ago, RIDDUM_N_STYLE said:

dem wanz are like an abusive relationship, you know you should walk away for good but can’t force yourself to leave

Indeed. Being a WWE fan is allowing yourself to be a cuck and kidding yourself that you’re ok with it, because she just needs to get it out of her system for a bit, constantly believing this one was the last time and she’ll realise she wants things how it used to be. The magic you once had will be back ...eventually. Besides, those rare occasions you do actually get to fuck her it’s still pretty incredible. When it’s good, it’s great! But 90% of the time you hate what’s going on, you’re embarrassed and you hate yourself for putting up with it and when you pluck up the courage to confront her about it she just tells you “wins and losses don’t matter!”.

Rick put it pretty perfectly there. Selfishly, I’d love to have him back as I rate him a hell of a lot more than a lot of guys around these days, good chance he’d feel like a real star a level up from much of the roster too and be useful in bringing others up a notch. And the current shape he’s in. A big hyped up WrestleMania return match could be lovely stuff. Imagine I’d enjoy him working with Reigns, Danny Bryan, Brock, Bray, Styles, Balor, Rollins.

But, he did just about everything in his career and although his retirement was forced upon him he’s always seemed completely content with it and settled into retirement life nicely, started a family and generally seems happy in life and also seems like a quality bloke. Selfishly I’d probably enjoy a return, but I wouldn’t want him to risk it.

14 hours ago, Statto said:

Will be interesting how they have/will cleared this by the TV networks though  - the whole "wildcard" thing was a knee jerk reaction to USA kicking off about Reigns being moved to the show that was going to Fox, IIRC.

The mess of the Wildcard rule gimmick has made me wish they’d always stuck with the idea (or hopefully switch someday) to having less titles, but title holders being travelling champions, appearing on both brands. The WWE champion would need to be your top star in that instance (as it should be) if you want to keep the networks happy. Might help make the belts worth a shit and having to make new stars too.

That reminds me of another one. What was with the main matches at Survivor Series ‘92 once Warrior was out the equation?

Why rush a Perfect face turn to give Macho a partner rather then putting new WWF champion Bret in there instead? Considering Bret just dethroned Flair, would go on to face Razor at the Rumble, it seemed a perfectly logical solution once Warrior wasn’t an option. Or if that leaves Shawn without an opponent why not a Survivors match with them all in there? Bret/Macho and some mates vs Flair/Perfect/Razor/Michaels and start a Perfect face turn there. Realise everyone was leaving or being sent packing around this time, but even still seemed a more logical way to go than want we ended up with.

Yeah, I don’t know who Bret and Machos mates would have been. Obviously Bulldog and Jannety would have made for a lovely Survivors match were they options.

Luger and Brets promo skills weren’t up to much. Or Diesel really. But moving away from and trying to make you forget about Hogan with a new generation of stars, he was a grand choice for being so different (fans seemed to want something different by this point) while still being a suitable candidate to do the “USA! USA!l stuff if you had to.

And he was bloody massive for a geezer busting out fucking Frankensteiners in that day and age!

Was coming in to suggest Cena ending the streak at WrestleMania and turning heel in the process, but it’s been covered. As much of a moment as it was how it played out, this way would have been much bigger still I feel and potentially had a far greater impact.

The other one I wanted to mention was actually covered in a thread here a while back. Although I actually posted the suggestion on a forum several years ago, to little response, which made me think really, it was a pretty unrealistic possibility. But I was blown away to discover years later, listening to the Something to Wrestle With podcast, that it was actually very much a considered possibility. And that’s Scotty Steiner getting the Lex Express push in 1993.

Apparently there was talk of Scott winning the Rumble as a relative unknown. I love that idea too, but I really feel Scott was such a good candidate for the new All-American hero rising up to slam Yoko and conquer him at SummerSlam and wouldn’t feel nearly as forced as it did putting it on Luger. Fairly sure SummerFest was even in Michigan! Find it mental that they had Scotty on their hands and didn’t want to push him to the moon and that they basically did fuck all with him. You’d think Vince would be jizzing his pants seeing this guy, going by how he reacted to Tom Magee and years later Brock Lesnar. With that physique and athleticism, Steiner was light years ahead of his time! He’d have been the perfect candidate to spearhead the “New Generation”, he’d have made Hogan look absolutely ancient in comparison. Sure, he didn’t have Hogan like charisma at the time, but with what he eventually became he had it in him. And none of who they ran with had that either anyway.

18 hours ago, Supremo said:

The moment they knew he was in remission they should've called the audible and fucked Seth off. Have Brock go apeshit and kill Seth in mid-February, injuring him to the point where he can't get the Title shot he earned at Wrestlemania. Then, bring in Roman to take his place and get revenge. The man beat cancer, for fuck's sake. The babyface of all bayfaces. This was his moment. After years of them trying to make him the hero and after years of making people want to see Roman vs. Brock, life handed them the ultimate opportunity. It couldn't have been more perfect. And then he just existed in limbo for what felt like forever until all momentum and potential upsides had worn off and - unbelievably - he was just another guy. Seriously, can anyone even remember what Roman did between coming back in one of the greatest segments of all time and then having some stuff sort of fall on him in the Summer? Fucked if I can.

17 hours ago, King Pitcos said:

If WWE had booked Roman to come back and take the WrestleMania title shot from Rollins, dey’d have had a shitfit. And Seth wouldn’t have lost all his internet points.

Yeah, that would have probably have done more for Seth getting the audience behind him. When Roman returned there was still plenty of pillocks calling it a work to gain sympathy for him when all else had failed. Had he swooped straight in and taken Seth’s WrestleMania spot it would have only had convinced them more so and made them all the more vocal about it.

It’s a tricky one. On paper it’s an incredible story and everything Supremo said should be right, but due to the shady as fuck, carny nature of pro-wrestling/WWE, angles they’ve ran in the past and the large number of entitled dickhead fans who like to make their opinions heard and think they know better than nottheirrealDad it’s probably been a good decision not to insert him straight back into the title picture.

Why on earth did they throw away Brocks cash in on that pointless back and forth title switching with Seth instead of saving it for this!?

If Brock is taking the title, I hope it doesn’t just return to business as usual with Kofi and the New Day. Needs to lead to something and some greater development. Feels like I only ever post to say it but I’m desperate for it to be used as a launching pad for Big E to get serious and step up. You’re next big baby face is right there.

Hilarious we’re getting a new draft and then a month later it’ll be Survivor Series -Raw vs Smackers with apparent brand loyalty.

That was great. Seen that original, horrible  Piper angle before and heard Stevie Rays story, but never seen the footage of the follow up with them in the kilts and Arns promo. The body language on Tenta there, you can tell he’s fucking pissed! Supposedly one of the nicest guys there was, reckon he’d do some real fucking damage if you managed to fuck him off though.

I saw a right cringeworthy tweet from Smallman a while back. I don’t know how you embed tweets unfortunately but it was along the lines of;

”thanks to work, I get to stay in some very nice hotels now, but I’ve noticed recently the rooms always stink of marijuana. It can’t be me, as I’m straight-edge. Has anybody else found this?”

In case you wasn’t aware, Jim is employed by WWE now and is straight-edge.

Progress have always been fairly hypocritical in what they stand for. They started out not having any female wrestlers on their cards because they only supposedly intended on showcasing quality wrestling and seemingly no females qualified. The first female that made it onto their shows, in the form of a valet, received the same kind of heat that of Francine in ECW and lead to her being beat up by both Doug Williams and Dave Mastiff in a match. Unsurprisingly, the angle received a big negative backlash and the response was not to book her again.

Recognising the changes in society and the attitudes of a lot of their fanbase as well as presumably realising they’d lucked out with their choice of brand name, they began painting themselves as this “everybody welcome” super progressive, forward thinking company when they really were anything but that when they “started from the bottom”.

5 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

It's understated how terrible a job they've done with Strowman since he was getting cheered over Roman and looked a good opponent for Lesnar. if he was a small guy with a worker rep, there'd be tears over it. They're not inundated with huge guys who move well, brawl well, deliver some good power moves and have some charisma. Astounding that they haven't made more of him, especially with two brands on the go.

You know he'd have got over as a heel with a world title run too because the list of guys to challenge him are all guys the vocal TV fanbase would want to be in his spot. Good dynamic there with Strowman as the chosen one against Styles, Bryan, Rollins, etc, etc.

This will continue to amaze me. There was a real buzz around Strowman at one point. That he’s not your typical Indy darling and ticks so many traditional WWE boxes and he’s not become that megastar is mental. He comes across as they type that would be great on the talk show run too and just be a great advert for pro wrestling, what the lapsed fan expects from a pro wrestler and grabbing the attention of potential new younger fans. Yet, when he was hot, maybe just because he was smashing Roman all the time, the Indy fanboys seemed to love him then too. They had it with him, they fucking had it. The reluctance to pull the trigger could ruin so many guys, I hope the same fate doesn’t befall Big E.

I don’t know. Some probably do. I don’t mean this in too derogatory a sense, but much of these guys are lifelong fans (maybe even marks 😬), just to be wrestling in a ring with the WWE logo on the turnbuckles blowing their minds. After Eddie Dennis got signed, he did a few promos on the whole quitting the teacher thing to chase the dream and now he’s signed with WWE. Fair play to the guy, pretty cool story and well done on risking it and gaining a secure pay from the wrestling gig. But they’d kind of come across in a “fucking made it ain’t i” way, when in reality, bloody everyone and his dog had been signed by WWE up to this point and he was one of the later guys and they were all hidden away on the shows nobody sees, not exactly main eventing WrestleMania. But not a knock on these guys, I’d be quite pleased with the situation myself and as mentioned by someone else, just being there, in the company, networking, etc there’s a world of potential to what they could go on and do.

To the original posts point though and touching on PROGRESS, if you followed them from quite early on it was quite hilarious to see they’re attitude toward WWE change from their days in the garage to not being able to contain they’re fangirling when they wanted to feature a CWC Classic qualifier on one of their shows.

Yeah, that image definitely looks like a “cast” photo/“the people behind AEW” as well as ticking all the PC appropriate boxes with who’s in it. Which might not have been chosen by them, themselves, who knows. If these guys have decided to present themselves in this fashion with the ultimate goal of attracting viewers to their wrestling tv show though I’d say it’s a mis-step. Yeah, it looks very different to a WWE style presentation (they’re actual product isn’t particularly), but it just looks like it’s the cast of any other tv show. That image isn’t going to grab the attention of anyone who’s got even a slight interest in wrestling or in them to have. To be honest, if I saw a wrestling tv show I wasn’t aware of listed and that image associated with it, I may not even bother.

Maybe that’s just me and what I like. I always thought that WWE image was class. Something like that, as mentioned, with Pentagon, Luchasaurus + Jungle Boy, Mox with the barbed wire wrapped round his forearm, MJF, Cody and The Bucks, Awesome Kong, Jericho, CIMA all in their gear doing their appropriate poses would certainly grab me and have me curious. Group of diverse, colourful characters, some like they’re straight out of a comic book, some you might recognise from the other wrestling and so on. People will always be drawn to an image, especially one like that even if it’s not for you. The visuals and aesthetic you can create with wrestling are a powerful tool to attract potential fans and interest and can tell you immediately, exactly what the product is.

5 hours ago, Accident Prone said:

I'm not going to enjoy this GoT-style story telling much. Layers? It's pro wrestling, not an onion. 

My favourite era of mainstream, week-to-week wrestling was January 2000 - May 2001. You had a cast of characters with defined characteristics and allegiances up and down the card, but most of it was still down to Good Vs Bad. 

Right smack-bang in the period of the Triple H/Steph/Kurt love triangle then? A long, layered story featuring all heels, intertwining their issues with and involving loads of others on the roster over several months. Shit payoff mind, so yeah quite GoT. Simple in pro-wrestling works great, gradually unfolding layers of a long story, building to a big climax works really fucking great in pro wrestling when it’s done well. Which it can be. And has been. And such a process can absolutely make a star coming out of it.

I don’t get the confusion with the MJF booking either. From what I’ve followed and gathered this is the one thing I think they’re doing quite well. MJF feigning love and adoration for Cody and as a result disgust at Spears and being in this match and having to potentially keep his act up or get exposed suits what he seems to be about nicely.

One thing I don’t like that they’re doing though, which Prone touched on in another post, is really just a pet peeve of mine with new wrestling brands, but particularly these guys, having a tv deal and pushing the sports feel and wins/losses matter spiel. What’s the obsession with a new brand always needing to crown a “World champion” immediately. It does fuck all to create any kind of prestige for what should be your most important title. It’s just that because you tell us it is. Use the shows you’ve got and then TV to build a hierarchy, make every win and loss matter to build that hierarchy. Make it the main focus and goal of everyone on your roster and then only crown your champion after a “season” of sorts, you’ve established said hierarchy (who’s over, who isn’t and who people want to and will pay to see).

Wouldn’t say they’re necessarily better, but Adam Cole and Bray Wyatt’s real names are great for pro wrestling and sound like the sort of names you’d get from the old NXT name generator. Always thought Mark Calaway sounds class too. Ricky and Roddy hold the crown though.

On the subject of Kidmam, more incredible that he ever bagged prime Torrie Wilson, was that he got to feud Hogan. Him!

9 hours ago, Accident Prone said:

Eh, looks to me like Janela was backing down because he's smart enough to, but was also ready to defend himself whenever Enzo came near. He looks a bit shell shocked as he just went to say hi and ended up in a 'scuffle'.

Enzo comes off bad (:mild shock:) and he'd come off worse if he actually landed blows. Janela did the right thing and Enzo will wallow back to obscurity after the next Twitter news cycle.

Give over, you’re backing Janela because you like him and don’t like Enzo. He literally looks like a small child shitting himself and doesn’t know what to do. And he’s fucking rotten anyway. Really awful.

Christ though, what a wonderful representation of the pro-wrestler of today - these two, with that at a fucking Blink 182 concert!

Last week seemingly was the last episode of the Firefly Funhouse then. Shortly after this whole thing started I had a hunch that when he returns it would mirror his initial debut in some way - the time/date it occurs or the length of time leading up to it or something. I wasn’t sure when that was but thought I remembered it being on the Raw following Money in the Bank. Money in the Bank was a lot earlier this year though and turns out Brays initial debut was July 8th 2013. July 8th falls on a Monday this year and is a couple of weeks away so I can very much see that being when Bray shows up proper again, especially with the Abbie the Witch and Mercy teases this week. 

Yeah, I have the same fears with Big E. But then I also think he could well be too good, too charismatic, too likeable to fail also. There’s definite mainstream level megastar potential with him. Big E and Braun Strowman are too absolutely massive blokes that scream WWE, larger than life wrestling, superhuman type bastards that you’d think WWE would be desperate to cement as their next guys. As well as being able to bring the goods in the ring/on WWE TV they both seem like they’d be absolutely superb ambassadors for the company. One of these lads popping up on the talk shows wouldn’t leave viewers thinking “He’s a pro-wrestler!? That’s what they look like these days!?” either. You’d probably instantly assume as much!

6 hours ago, BomberPat said:

The beard thing reminds me of one of the great stories that never was; after the limo explosion, there was talk that when Vince was found to have faked his own death, he'd have gone all Howard Hughes, with long fingernails and a massive beard.

I’d love to have seen that. Mainly just because I have a weird fascination/curiosity to see how those who never grow out facial hair would look with it. I’ve always imagined John Cena could grow an immense, thick, proper lumberjack type beard that would just make him look like the most manliest of men. Never see him with so much as a bit of stubble though. Which makes me think he actually is a giant action figure come to life or he has a similar beard stance to mental Vince.

“...Know what I mean?”

1 hour ago, textonly said:

The Smackdown tag division is suffering, right...

Or just quietly drop the belts, keep the women’s tags exclusive to Smackers and the men’s exclusive to Raw. Absolutely no need for so many tag belts as it is and despite their immense roster and amount of tv time they’ve seemed to always struggled to have more than one worthwhile tag division. I like a travelling champion gimmick, but I’d rather it was just a few titles and all champions travelled between brands. Doesn’t make a lick of sense that just the girls tags do.