Duke

25 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

not sure this is a story, tbf

The best stories come from real life.

On 1/10/2022 at 4:10 PM, LaGoosh said:

I don't think the stories are being diluted because AEW doesn't really have many stories.

Some of the stories currently taking place on AEW:

Tension between Undisputed and the Young Bucks, who will Cole choose?

Adam Page trying to prove that he is a worthy champion.

Christian cage mentoring and starting to take credit for Jurassic Express (also Jungle Boy wins the big one)

Varsity Blondes want revenge for what black did to the cheerleader, and developing a real mean streak.

Cody thinks hes cool, but everyone else hates him.

Jericho and Kingston have mutual enemies, but their egos are too big to align. P+P are caught in the middle.

CM Punk wants to fight MJF. MJF doesn't want to fight Punk.

Dan Lambert is Jim Cornette, but also represents WWE viewers because he's old. His men of the year think they don't get opportunities so they're going after Cody

I'm sure there are more, but those are top of my head. If you want to argue those stories are not told well, then go ahead. I actually think the problem is they're all too long term, we need a bit of wrestler A doesn't like wrestler B ( although it looks like this week is dealing with that a bit and setting up some new stuff). But there's no doubt they're telling some stories.

As I type, I wonder if this is to do with the fact that they build their stories around their matches, rather than vice versa. WWE has some stories that they tell in their weekly shows and fits matches in to tell them. AEW seems to book a load of matches each week and then try and fit the stories in. You get a more action packed show with more going on, but the story progresses a lot slower. WWE has the opposite problem, their stories tend to move faster but at the expense of quality matches on their TV (and these days the stories are crap).

12 minutes ago, 69MeDon said:

A slightly less amusing snippet from wrestling Twitter. I had no idea the brain rot that has affected so many people when it comes to areas like politics and public health had spread to the world of pro-wrestling in this way:

Spread??

Wrestling is Patient Zero.

That's Lashley winning the rumble then?

Gotta be really hard to hit that GTH with one arm.

Chelsea have George Osborne and Gus Mears, so pretty high in the table there.

6 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Who are these two?

The Architects favourite champion

The best thing about MJF's stuff this week is it would have worked just as well if the crowd hadn't liked him. The over the top claiming of being a hometown hero, if the crowd hadn't adopted him as that, would have been absolutely wonderful.

I think I agree that Punk wasn't brilliant. He did the right thing and was consistent with his character, but it was probably one too many Islanders jokes.

I'm very up for ReDragon vs Bucks in a Cole on a Pole match. It writes itself.

Ultimately though, Cole will need to stay away from O'reilly and Fish if he does come in. Don't hook them up as a faction after the inevitable, keep Cole with the Bucks, there's way too many miles in the SuperKliq as heels yet to start breaking them up, particularly as you have to assume Kenny is coming back as a face when he does return and the dynamic there.

You could do a story where Cole is just stringing Fish and O'Reilly along, pretending to be their best but being really insincere about it until they turn on him and go it alone, turning them face and keeping him heel, I Guess.

I'm a religious leader and some am allowed to book in a vaccine. I'm torn, to be honest. There's an element of getting it all done, but I'm also aware that I'm not supposed to act any differently if I get vaccinated and knowing that I'm not vulnerable that makes me think I'm best to wait. Maybe hospitals will let me in to comfort dying friends if I have it done? I don't know..

Best spoiler tags in forum history 

10 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

I just took it as QT being such a non-entity that Lee Johnson genuinely forgot to thank him.

that's funny, I took it as the Rhodes being so up themselves that they told him to make sure he congratulated the whole family, including Brandi, so he forgot QT so he could get all their stuff in.

3 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Regarding the whole Nightmare Family thing - bit of a reach, but is it possible they're trying to copy the dojo/gym culture of MMA? Like how you have fighters training with and "fighting out of" Tri-Star, American Top Team, etc., perhaps Cody's pushing a hybrid of stables and dojos, with trainees, rookies and lower-level guys building up their careers within these groups?

Came in to post the same thing. I think it's meant to be a group they train with as much as anything.

Makea sense for Taz, not really for Cody.

I honestly assumed the wedding was going to end with Penelope and Miro admitting they'd been having an affair and Miro battering Kip into oblivion and moving on. I have, clearly, watched too much wwe

Cody is the worst thing on the show and has been since he lost the tnt title. But it's definitely true that that's because hes been in some absolute tosh, story wise. Although I guess the response would be "who's fault is that?"The stip from his Jericho feud was a terrible idea and has worked out to be exactly the problem everyone thought it would be, because its keeping him away from the top of the card. Maybe its because hes trying to be more of a crossover star, I dunno.

He IS a star,  but he does also come across as massively self important: his entrance is as over the top as Omega's heel entrance and in his recent promos he is so unlikable. This is amazing considering his work when he had a strong heel.

Best thing he could do right now would be a tag team run with Dustin. I repeat  Dustin. Bot QT Marshall, not his wife, not Pharaoh. Dustin. I think they're already doing the one last run with Dustin, would give them both some direction and the ftr match would be great

7 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

The Go Big Show is touting 12 million viewers. 

I hate to be that guy, but have you got a source for that? Everything I can find has it at just under 1 million.

I am assuming that Matt Hardy is taking the place of what they were originally going to have Brodie Lee do. They've rightly pivoted towards the Dark Order being faces now, but Hangman needs to get his horse back on the road. Hopefully Hardy will help him do it.

I enjoyed everything on AEW other than Cody being in the worst storyline on any show that doesn't involve fire.

I'm really enjoying the ongoing confusion with the Bucks. They want to trust their long time friends but they're uncomfortable with how they're acting. This week was a better week because they won and it was all straightforward. Great! I imagine something will happen at Beach blast that makes them more antagonistic toward each other. Maybe the Good Brothers cost them the belts? Who knows, but I'm keen to find out!

2 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

I hate the 'its no surprise they're right-wing racist/homophobic/daft cunts, look at where they come from' argument used when talking about people like Taker/Lesnar/Styles personal and political views. Like the fact he had an old-fashioned tough upbringing in Texas excuses what he says and thinks in 2021. 

Erm, no.

It's not a surprise is not the same thing as an excuse. It's saying it's not a surprise. It's an explanation, not exoneration.

It's really hard to look past Brick winning the rumble and then teasing either a return against Drew or a conflicted Heyman and Reigns. Bryan to get a chamber match against Roman,  Nakamura to get nothing.

I enjoy Cesaro. His promos don't particularly bother me these days, particularly when I saw him on the new day pod and realised that's just what he's like. The Austin Powers joke was pretty bad though, gotta be said.

I'd say he'd be perfect for a manager, but they tried that with Heyman and it didnt work. Hed be better being the strong and silent type, but wwe doesnt do that well. Always enjoy his matches though, and he feels fresh in the upper mid card after tag teaming for so long, so I shan't complain 

I've never been particularly surprised by takers political views. After all, he's an old rich white guy from Texas who lives in a total bubble. Of course he's going to be a Republican, and of course he's going to  not get the detail and think Blue Lives Matter is an actual, reasonable position to take.  He's wrong, obvi, but it's hardly a surprise. He was hardly going to have a Bernie sticker on the side of his coffin.

That said, to argue that the locker room he describes is better than what they're in now is absolutely absurd. The idea that the locker room is worse now that the boys dont think they have to carry a weapon to protect themselves is one I really can't get my head round. I guess this is what people are talking about when they talk about toxic masculinity.

No idea what was going on with that Cody match. The announcers were clearly trying to put Avalon over, Cody underestimated him etc, but he didn't! He beat him in 10 seconds with the cross rhodes. The only reason the match continued is because Cody hasn't shaken off his WWE stupidity and gets distracted by music and then gets punted in the balls. And the finish was atrocious too. Absolutely terrible.

Otherwise I enjoyed the show. The -1 one stuff was lovely for the family, although probably a bit bizarre if you're watching for the first time. Some progression on the Miro/Best Friends stuff, but the sooner Miro gets away from Kip Sabian the better.

We're presumably getting an Omega Mox rematch, which sounds great, but I don't know where he goes from there. Archer, maybe?

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

Super heel Omega vs. white meat babyface Cody sounds like a banging headliner for a PPV later this year once enough people are vaccinated.

Lest we forget, Cody isn't allowed to challenge for the title. If he breaks that stip as a babyface, he's sunk before he starts.

On 1/16/2021 at 11:39 AM, Liam O'Rourke said:

The PPV buys for Backlash and JD tanked, TV ratings fell sharply and house show business took a drastic downturn, with the company making something like $140,000 less per show than they were before. Heel Austin was a disaster business wise.

I think this is simplistic. Heel Austin combined with disappearing Rock and no top baby faces other than a very stale Undertaker and Kane.

It was always going to drop after the culmination of attitude that was wrestlemania x7, as discussed, but I think they really had an opportunity with Jericho to run as a top baby face. Austin HHH *again* wouldnt have helped anything, they needed to press the button on some guys, and Jericho was the most obvious of those.

8 minutes ago, MVP RULZ said:

It was 7 days after the legends show the Positive test was announced so they is surely a good chance he contracted the Virus after that show.

Whilst there is a chance they've withheld exactly when he tested positive to give it the longest period between when he was last seen mixing with people (be that Legends or normal roster) and his positive result to not have to answer those questions of "has he passed it on to people" but assuming he tested positive Monday morning during a routine Test before Raw then hopefully it wont lead to an outbreak of any kind.

I think the layout of the Raw show indicates that there is already an outbreak.

Chris Jericho would be furious that this topic stopped being about him.

Brandi has been the worst thing on the show for ages, but I'm also really starting to get fed up of Cody. That's partly because he's treading water, but also because everything he's doing at the moment feels so unearned. He just gets to do stuff because he's Cody, like hes a legend even though he really, really isn't.