Mark_Doctor

13 minutes ago, Liam O'Rourke said:

Here's a question - if you're AEW....do you even take Orton if he was legitimately interested?

Of course. He's one of the few (relatively) mainstream stars in wrestling.

11 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

"Who wants to watch her wrestle" isn't the same thing as debating the fact that she was wrestling for that long, though.

Other than the suggestion of audience noncery, that doesn't really seem to be a significant distinction. I'd be far more worried about a child potentially getting hurt in any of those sports than I would be worried about them having to perform in front of an audience. And we don't think it's wrong for young kids to play football or rugby at that age.

I'm not really defending Riho wrestling at that age, because personally I don't think kids should be wrestling that young, though I admit there's logical inconsistency there when you accept that we take it as read that kids will be involved in all sorts of other physical activity at the same age. The majority of Sakura's trainees when Ice Ribbon started (which was where Riho got her start) were young girls, with Emi training them predominantly in terms of exercise and physical fitness, through the means of wrestling classes. You can quibble with whether those kids should have been on shows or not, but the fact remains that they were, and that it does mean Riho has 13 years of experience at her age - which was the point you initially seemed to be contesting.

This is not a world I know anything anything about. Do adult men pay money to watch little girls wrestle each other?!

That's incredibly creepy and just plain wrong. If I were AEW, I wouldn't be bringing attention to this.

2 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Yeah - we can quibble about whether wrestlers should be training at that age or not, but you can't really deny that Riho was, and has been working consistently ever since.

I've not seen a lot of her work from that time period, but Emi's training style (and Ice Ribbon's house style under Emi) was very mat-based, and I don't think she has kids training to take big bumps or anything like that. I inherently feel uncomfortable with the idea of young kids being trained to wrestle, but in practice, is it that much different to kids that age doing karate, jiu-jitsu, or boxing, or kids learning rugby from the age of six or seven, or American football from even younger?

Pro wrestling is supposed to be entertainment in front of an audience though, unlike kids doing karate or whatever.

7 minutes ago, Accident Prone said:

She's 22. I don't understand what you're trying to get at here. Are you saying that she's crap despite having 13 years experience? 

Also, your point would have more stability if you said something akin to, "t's like me saying I've been a painter for 25 years, ever since I first went to art and painting classes when I was 5. It's absurd". She wasn't practicing wrestling moves in a pub by herself, she was training at a proper school.

I get that its Japan - but who wants to watch a 9 year old girl wrestle other than creepy nonces?

We're so far apart on this that its pointless debating it.

20 minutes ago, Accident Prone said:

Don't be such an insufferable, pedantic dork.

According to her Cageatch profile, she's had at least 877 matches since 2006 (CageMatch doesn't list everything, so I'd wager that number is probably higher). She's got steady work from Ice Ribbon ever since her debut and up until 2012, and wrestled on average at least once per week.

 

 

Behave.

If questioning the wrestling skills of a 9, 10 or 11 year old girl makes me insufferable, pendantic and a dork, then I don't want to be right.

It's like me saying I've been a painter for 30 years, ever since I first scribbled crayons on a pub napkin when I was 1. It's absurd.

43 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

She's been wrestling for 13 years, and in that time has wrestled the likes of Kenny Omega, Minoru Suzuki, Tajiri, Asuka, Piper Niven, and Emi Sakura about a hundred times, and has worked a full schedule pretty much the entire time, there's not really any definition by which she's not a veteran, even at her age.

I also don't really buy the criticism that she doesn't look impactful - it's not like she's being presented as a hard-hitting striker, she's a plucky underdog who manages to win through tenacity and never giving up, not through big impressive moves.

She worked a full schedule....when she was 9?!

I do really like AEW, but Cornette's burial of Marko Stunt on his podcast this week had me in stitches. 

Just bring Russo back. Fuck it all.

15 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Gotta feel for Bischoff - he moved his whole family to Connecticut for the job and doesn't seem to have been given much of a chance.

Nah.

I just watch the 20 minute highlights of Raw and Smackdown on hooky YouTube channels and can't make it through them sometimes. This is one of those weeks.

1 hour ago, Gus Mears said:

This was the first weekly wrestling show of any kind I have watched in perhaps five years and found it an acceptable couple of hours. Not sure I'll bother long term but that's less due to the quality of this program and more that I remembered that I don't like modern wrestling and that's why I don't watch it. So many big moves. So many kick outs. It just isn't for me. The finish to the women's title match should have been the big knee of the top and then it just kept going and going and going and going and going. 

Jack Swagger turning up in a main event angle was well TNA though. Was half expecting Jim Ross to yell "AND WE ALL KNOW WHO THAT IS!" as came boring his way out to ringside. 

That's why I think the MJF match was my favourite. It felt like a squash match compared to the other endless wankathons.

16 hours ago, Bohan said:

It's all so rare on WWE television these days that we get a big time main event, a massive suprise debut and a hook for next week's Tele - yet people still want to piss and moan.

We've been absolutely spoilt this week with wrestling and as a fan for over 30 years I've bloody loved every moment of it.  Forget about ITV don't deserve wrestling, wrestling fans don't deserve wrestling!

The entitled era can bloody do one!

Let's be honest the look of the show hasn't changed much at all. That's disappointing. I'm talking about the way the matches are shot, the lighting, Michael fuckin' Cole. It's just so antiseptic and kills any potential enjoyment that a surprise debut or cliffhanger might have for me. 

Good wrestler. Painful on the mic. 

Enjoyed that more than any other AEW show they've had. How much better was JR by the way? A world of difference when he isn't announcing with people he despises. 

Been ‘lurking’ for a few years and really enjoyed reading some of these so thought it was time for a contribution ….

After a show I was working as Crew on, Went for a curry in Nottingham with PJ Black and Matt Sydal. Back at the hotel we ended up watching Heatwave 98, which Sydal claimed was his first ever show he watched. Really cool watching that back and getting his take on what is one of my top 10 shows of all time.

Another time, went to London Zoo with Chris Sabin (Great Guy), Melina, Drew Gulak, Chucky T and Ospreay. Sabin threw out a great Barry Horowitz reference during a Penguin feed when the keeper said “ give yourself a pat on the back”

Speaking of Zoo’s, went to Woburn safari with Cedric Alexander just before he participated in the C/W classic. He was paranoid about not making weight so he went on the scales at the Zoo and we were winding him up that his reading of something stones had meant he was over the 205lb limit. After that, I whooped his arse comprehensively at WWF No mercy on the N64 using D’Lo Brown.  He picked Dean Malenko who Cedric said was one of his early inspirations.

Good Times.