andrew "the ref" coyne

3 hours ago, RedRooster said:

Tony Khan is weirdly indecisive when it comes to elevating wrestlers. He’ll often go part-way there, and then not fully commit. He’s squandered so many wrestlers who could easily be knocking on the door of the main event scene - Rush, Daniel Garcia, Penta, Fenix, Hobbs, Miro, Ethan Page, Big Bill, Lance Archer, Swerve and Bandido to name a few. I’m not saying these wrestlers are unsalvageable, just that the Khan has missed more than a few opportunities.

Totally agree. I think Kahns eyes are too big for his stomach, as hell get in all this tremendous talent, then realize he dosent have enough resource to focus on all them.

Starks was in some ways a victim of having a great build but destined to fall to MJF. What next? 

On 7/19/2023 at 9:19 PM, Supremo said:

If you wanted to argue against LA Knight you could say there’s still every chance he ends up being the modern day Ken Kennedy. Being able to cut promos with a similar confidence, cadence and delivery as The Rock is always going to get you over to a certain degree, but what if that’s all you have? For example, can anyone name their favourite LA Knight match?

Fuck that racket though. Something no-one admits in pro-wrestling - particularly those who find success in it - is how a solid 75% of making it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most of those you give a fair chance to, with a proper push, get over. Most of those who you decide can’t make it, so give them a half-arsed push before grinding them down and burying them, don’t make it.

You decide Triple H is going to be a big star, so push him as such even when he’s shitting the bed throughout 1999, and eventually he makes it. You decide Rey Mysterio isn’t believable as Heavyweight Champion, so have him lose to everyone, then pat yourself on the back for being right all along when he bombs.

A good promoter should avoid all biases and give anything that’s clicking a fair shake regardless. And listening to the reactions LA Knight is already getting, when the most famous thing he’s ever done is lose to Bray Wyatt in the laser tag arena? I’d strap a fucking rocket to the man. Whether it ultimately works or not, imagine if his music hits when Roman Reigns is celebrating on the Smackdown after Summerslam? They’d have to measure it on the Richter scale.

Spot on. I've seen something similar in my marketing career. 

If someone has been hired by a manager, that manager will bend over backwards to ensure they succeed even if they are / were spotty previously.

Meanwhile if they inherent someone, they can subconscious bury that person regardless of actual ability and "I was right about them all along."

Self-fulfilling. Someone said "can you name a good LA Knight match... well no... because he hasn't been giving a match of any true significance or build.

1 hour ago, RedRooster said:

Oh I’m not disputing that - but I don’t think the top-10 best sellers are a good way to measure whether people care or not. I’d totally forgotten about Jaime Hayter until you made that post, and I’m kind of amazed at that. I also forgot about Serena Deeb, Taya Valkyrie, Layla Hirsch and even Tay Melo, who can have a solid match with the right opponent. The women’s roster in AEW has an embarrassment of riches these days. 

You asked for a measurements and I showed you merch sales and YouTube numbers. If merch sales isn't a measurement of popularity then what is?

Of course it is. Your just burying your head in the sand now. 

Now to follow up many are saying "well if they were presented as equal they'd be bigger draws."

Absolutely. Don't necessarily disagree with you, you COULD be right.

But its a gamble, and when its the alternative to shoving on a Chris Jericho vs Kormander match which is near enough a guarantee to attract more eye balls, that a tough decision to make when you have to appease stakeholders.

I don't want it to be the case, and we can argue "woulda shoulda coulda" all day, but historically women typically don't draw as well, regardless of the reasons and it's a shit reality.

Okay so here's your next stat; YouTube views.

The lowest YT views from battle of the belts 7 is Storm vs Valkyrie.

The lowest viewed match from Collision is Nightinggale vs Riot.

The lowest viewed match on Rampage is Athena vs Nightinggale.

The 2nd lowest viewed match on Dynamite is Soho vs Blue (lowest was the opening men's tag).

Previous weeks Collisions lowest viewed match was Julia Harts match.

Previous Rampage lowest was Hikaru Shida.

Previous Dynamite 2nd lowest viewed match was Baker vs Soho (lowest was trios match Acclaimed vs House of Black).

To answer Red Roosters multiple points... if I didn't have a three year old I could spend age pulling stuff up. 

But according to Wrestlenomics the top merch sellers in 2023 for AEW are as follows:

Overall for 2023:
1. The Acclaimed
2. The Elite
3. AEW generic
4. MJF
5. Danhausen & FTR
6. The Briscoes
7. Kenny Omega
8. Hangman Adam Page
9. Blackpool Combat Club
10. Sting

Wwe are similar in that most positions are male.dominated, but Rhea Ripley and Bianaca Belairs are in the top 10 (credit to wwe for that).

Was going to try and find more but my evening just got busy. Follow Wrestlenomics, they come up with tidbits like this all the time.

Credit to Kahn, at least he's pushing the women more visibly on the ROH show. Athena is having a great run as ROH Women's Champion.

Sadly as much as we may want, and it be righteous, for women to get even representation on these shows, the sad reality is that the larger fanbase do not get behind it as much as the male wrestlers. 

I also believe the more divisions you have the harder it's got to be to juggle all your long term programs. So even if you wanted to split it evenly 50/50, the reality is that it will impact the build for the other fueds.

It's a horrible no win situation.

22 hours ago, The King of Old School said:

Shotzi shaving her hair to no reaction at all was pretty funny.

Apparently the real world reason she shaved her head was because her sister is going through cancer treatment. So good on her.

Without that context... she came across as being a massively overreacting 13 year old whose rebelling over the injustice she can't have smiley potato faces at lunchtime, whilst playing Saw background music over the top of it. 

"I'm a little weird". Yep... just like every teenager I've met trying to figure themselves out.

So bad execution... might of been better if there had actually been sustained bullying from Bailey over several weeks, leading to her having her whole head shaved off by the heel faction.

6 hours ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Hasn’t that always been the point of them? Not meaning that as a dig at you, but I thought was always the case

Thay was my thought too. Hence "eliminator".

Mind you I'm sure you could still get title shots via other means. Rumble wins for example.

24 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

They have zero idea what to do with him. He’s more over than they want.

Man... all they have to do is steadily feed him low to mid card heels then pull the trigger on winning the US belt.

Got a real old school Attitude Era vibe from that. Love it.

3 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

What about Frobidden Door? Most matches had very little in the way of feuds, certainly not weeks or months of build up.

Credit to AEW, but I felt they did a good job creating matches with relevance and stories to them.

MJF vs Tanahashi: Was really an extension of the Adam Cole storyline. Sad that Cole wasn't available to wrestle Lawlor which would of tied the whole thing together nicely.

International Title Match: They've established a relationship between him and Shibata, and to a extent, Sabre. Honestly the story here is more the "how long can Cassidy keep this up".

The Elite vs Blackpool Combat Club 10 man: Huge fued going into this. Plus with added Eddie Kingston who is fueding with Castagnoli).

Toni Storm vs Willow: A continuation of the Outcasts vs the rest of the women storyline.

Will Ospreay vs Omega: No explanation needed.

Sting / Darby / Naito vs Le Sezuki Sex Gods: A reasonable effort was made to build up tentions with Allin/Guevara and Sting/Jericho.


But yeah Im actually in agreement. With two big show mere weeks apart, you could easily make All In a show with dream matches and matches that feed into All Out.

Man, if they really wanted to feed the fires of social media, Pokemon Red / Blue thing and release a CM Punk version and a Kenny Omega version, and just watch it all burn to the ground.

Not sure if anyone noticed, but one tiny thing I loved on the Bloodline segment, is as Roman is walking backstage, he walks past and snears at the new world championship belt.

That belt is going to drive him crazy.

1 hour ago, FelatioLips said:

In terms of belt absorptions how many belts deep are we going to be now?

WWE and World Heavyweight became Undisputed, Undisputed changed back to WWE but then also absorbed the Universal into a new Undisputed but now there’s another belt it’ll likely be absorbed again into one. Like, can they not just have belts stay as one belt and not merge or rename every few years?

- The wwe and (wcw) world was merged by Jericho.

- Seperated when Lesnar won it and became exclusive to Smackdown.

- Merged by Cena in a fued with Orton.

- WWE World Titled merged with Universal by Reigns.

- WWE world reintroduced.

It's a mess.

14 hours ago, BomberPat said:

the thing with "The Greatest Match Ever" is that it's actually a good example of why Randy Orton is Actually Good. Almost everyone else during that no-fans period was still working at the same pace, same rhythm, as they would with a full crowd, still leaving the same pauses and beats for a reaction. Orton in that match is quite interesting to watch in terms of how there are times when he would ordinarily slow down, where there he speeds up, or leaves very little breathing room, because the purpose of those pauses is to elicit a response, and with no crowd there's no need. But that's a level of detail that should be of more interest as a reference material for a training school than as a hotly promoted PPV match, and the branding was insane, even before they had the ghost of Howard Finkel announce it, so it's not a match that will ever be remembered for things like small detail work and timing, because it was sold as something it could never possibly be.

Im really down on the negativity because it was a REALLY good match. Had some great throw backs to little things they've done previously, including a nod to Christian vs Orton.  Was it the greatest match of all time, probably not, but it was a bloody excellent  match which  I thoroughly enjoyed and which saw me go "yeah... bloody good effort guys."

35 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Bray Wyatt against anybody sounds bad and always is bad. 

But what would you rather see  if you  were strapped to a chair Clockwork Orange style.... Omos vs Lesnar or Wyatt vs Lesnar.

Admittedly I do like the idea that they wheel out Lesnar once a year to despatch some random "monster of the year" villain. 

Surely there is zero chance of Omos taking on Lesnar? I presuming this is some swerve, like Lashley gets pissed that Omos is trying to hijack his Lesnar fued.

Lesnar and Lashley vs Howdy and Bray doesn't sound too bad now does it?

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Lesnar vs Lashley was alright for what it was but I'm assuming it will be a triple-threat with Wyatt at Wrestlemania now because otherwise who's Lesnar wrestling ?

I presuming Lesnar and Lashley as a tag team taking on Wyatt and Uncle Howdy.

On 2/15/2023 at 11:56 PM, d-d-d-dAz said:

I know people are going to say I’m only saying this because I’ve already lashed myself to the Cody mast, but watching that Sami/Bloodline retrospective today (at home riddled with Covid) has got me super hyped for a potential USOs v KOZayn match at Wrestlemania.

I’d forgotten how involved KO had been and for how long, and I’d forgotten how much of the story had been about Jey’s journey with Sami, as well as Sami’s journey with the Bloodline.

Either way, again…. HERE WE GO!

The long term planning has been fantastic. 

Kevin Owens made it clear he's gunning for the main belts just as Sami Zayn joined the Bloodline yonks ago. Theres even a scene where Roman welcomes Zayn into the bloodline, before moving quickly onto "hey... do you still talk to Kevin Owens?"

It's been really well executed. 

18 hours ago, RedRooster said:

Totally with you on this. When WWE themselves are talking about the storytelling here as ‘Emmy level’, I just don’t understand the logic of not paying that ‘Emmy level’ story off at Wrestlemania. They might get away with it in terms of crowd reaction, but not having your hottest storyline close your biggest show simply isn’t a good choice. It kind of does Cody a disservice too, as a fraction of the audience will find it harder to find an investment in his title chase that they otherwise would have had. 

Look if it ends with Sami Zayn doing a "Wrestlemania 9 Hulk Hogan" and beating Roman Reigns after Cody loses valiantly, it will be the greatest Mania moment ever. 

Especially if they tie up ALL the loose ends and have everyone Roman ever fuck around with in the year (Mcintyre, Sheamus, Owens, Brawling Brutes) come out to even the score. 

It won't happen. And I will cry myself to sleep over this fact.

Edit: Oh and next night on Raw after winning a tag match, Owen's powerbombs Zayn on the apron, as a flashback to their NXT days, because fuck it, if Im gonna overbook let's go the whole hog.

Grans watching wrestling is the best. I remember so fondly my gran telling me wrestling wasn't real, but when she saw it was for the World Championship (Shawn MIchaels vs Jerry Lawlor) she was adamant that THIS was real. 

11 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Yeah, Goldberg's MMA grapple strikes were OP if I remember right.

In addition if he  was pinning someone in a tag match after a Jackhammer, the opponents tag team partner could not kick you off. 

Made winning that tag team ladder pretty damn easy.

Fantasy booking time:

- Prick head Roman Reigns uses corporate shenanigans via Heyman to have Jey Uso's tag team title belts handed over to Silo Sikoa under the premise that it's some sort of "freebird rule".

- This leads to Sami / Owens / Jay vs Roman / Jimmy / Silo in a team elimination chamber match.

- Match ends with Jay betraying Sami and coming back to the fold. Maybe even repeat what we saw at Rumble, but this time Jay says sorry to Zayn before stabbing him in the back.

- Roman hands the tag titles back, and we're now on the way to the tag title match with the Usos vs Owens and Zayn.

1 hour ago, Tamura said:

I'm not sure why people are willing to pay money simply because someone wrestles in WWE/AEW/wherever. 

It's because psychologically you form a one way relationship with wrestlers. 

Bob the fan dosent want to watch some random girls knockers. No, Bob the fan is a voyeur and wants to see the knockers of the female wrestler he grown fond of over the years.

1 hour ago, air_raid said:

Do you think she'll still make that much without carrying the cache of "Mandy off the wrestling?" Sable thought she'd made it when she showed the lot in Playboy and didn't need the machine any more, and Mandy is far from Sable. Without her regular audience, those subs will dry up. So to speak.

Totally depends what she does next to stay in the public eye. For all we know shes content to collect the half a million a month, knowing it will eventually die down over time, and focus on her other projects and businesses. 

Or maybe she'll go indies / AEW / get into acting to maintain her public presence. Heck she may even go back to wwe in a year for all we know.

She'll be fine.