Paid Members TheBurningRed Posted August 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted August 28, 2020 17 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said: I listened to Ricky Starks on the AEW podcast earlier and thought it was interesting he was one of the guys Taker trained with when he was preparing for the Cena Mania match. I dunno what surprised me more, the fact Taker was training with relatively unknown guys back then or the fact he bothered training at all for a 2-minute squash. I don’t know if it was referenced on the podcast as I haven’t listened to it yet, but Taker also appeared in a documentary with Ricky Starks and Aaron Solow last year.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted August 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted August 28, 2020 40 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said: I dunno what surprised me more, the fact Taker was training with relatively unknown guys back then or the fact he bothered training at all for a 2-minute squash. The impression I got from the 'Taker series is that he wasn't expecting it to be a squash. What's the story there, was Starks just local to him? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted August 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted August 28, 2020 3 hours ago, BomberPat said: The PC is an incredible set-up, with some of the best trainers in the world, but it's a finishing school. It's all about taking wrestlers from diverse backgrounds and putting them into a system where they can all work TV, and all work against each other - makes perfect sense from a promoter's perspective, you want to know that every combination of wrestlers you have will be able to work together without any difficulty, but it just means everything becomes homogenised and nobody stands out. Some of my favourite things in wrestling are when you see a match announced and you can't even quite picture what it would look like, because the wrestlers involved are so drastically different in style - you'd get it in late '90s WCW B-shows when you'd have matches like Fit Finlay vs. Psicosis or Marty Jannetty vs. Yuji Nagata thrown together, and you get it in modern indie wrestling when matches like Orange Cassidy vs. Minoru Suzuki are announced, but WWE's system means that you absolutely never get that with the rank and file roster. The only people I can think of that would elicit that kind of thought process in WWE are, as always, big enough stars to sit outside of the system - the Brock Lesnars and Goldbergs of the world. I think this is something not enough people touch on when they talk about the NXT vs. AEW ratings war. In AEW, whilst you don't get combinations as mad as Cassidy vs. Suzuki, that bit before the Dynamite main event where they run down next week's lineup always throws up a couple of interesting matches that leave you feeling excited or wondering what'll happen. The guys in AEW are just different enough and have enough differences in how they work that there's intrigue about how certain guys will work together. I never get that feeling with NXT. Even if they announce a match between two guys I really enjoy watching, I already know almost exactly how the match is going to play out. I know the style, I know what the structure will be, I know there'll be a dive just before the advert break, I know to not really care until they start doing the near falls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members mim731 Posted August 29, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted August 29, 2020 Adam Cole's 'Bay-Bay" during his intro is definitely one of the great victims of the lack of an audience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted September 1, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 1, 2020 On 8/27/2020 at 6:38 AM, Supremo said: Mauro Ranallo should be very worried about his job. Wade Barrett was infinitely better in his position. Great voice. Calm, grounded. All night it felt like he was actually supporting the action rather than distracting from it screaming stuff he’d workshopped the past week. That didn’t take long. Good riddance. Let’s just pray AEW don’t get any stupid ideas about bringing him in for some shouting and shit pop culture references. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The King Of Swing Posted September 1, 2020 Share Posted September 1, 2020 Sit him right next to JR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacko Posted September 1, 2020 Share Posted September 1, 2020 No great loss he started well but became a pain in the arse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WyattSheepMask Posted September 1, 2020 Share Posted September 1, 2020 Thank fuck for that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted September 2, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 2, 2020 (edited) I don’t know exactly what I expected from the main event, but the whole thing just left me cold. Video game pro-wrestling. Guys just doing moves for the whole hour. Building up their Special meters. No real story or emotion or anything to get engrossed in. Just some lads doing some moves as the clock ticks down. And then the typical over-booked, disputed finish. Mad how NXT became HBK’s e-fed. I joked last week that we’d get overtime but making people wait a whole week? Terrible! But yeah. Absolutely miles from the match of the year candidate people were suggesting it would be. It wasn’t even the best match on this show! Speaking of which, that opening six man was a fucking belter! So much fun! Fandango and Swerve just randomly appearing on the Forklift was hilarious. Everyone looked great, but Santos Escobar and Swerve Scott in particular felt like superstars. I can’t wait for their inevitable one-on-one Title match. It’s amazing Santos is still in NXT. You can only assume no-one from Raw or Smackdown is watching because if they were they’d already recognise how great he is and immediately poach him. Mauro was not missed. Wade is a million times better in that seat. A complete natural, it’s genuinely refreshing not having to hear someone crowbar some over-rehearsed shit in about the VMAs or whatever. Also - no Pat McAfee. Shame. ? Edited September 2, 2020 by Supremo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted September 2, 2020 Share Posted September 2, 2020 Have to agree unfortunately. I'd be mad if AEW pulled this shit so no excuses with NXT. I don't need that hokey finish crap. The match itself? It was okay. It should have been so much more considering the talent involved, and I was quite glad they didn't do any over-emotional stuff, but you're right - they almost went the other way and didn't have anything. It could've been a great show as the opener was a hell of a lot of fun and I'm really into Swerve now where I wasn't that bothered before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Callum1993 Posted September 2, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 2, 2020 8 hours ago, Supremo said:  Speaking of which, that opening six man was a fucking belter! So much fun! Fandango and Swerve just randomly appearing on the Forklift was hilarious. Everyone looked great, but Santos Escobar and Swerve Scott in particular felt like superstars. I can’t wait for their inevitable one-on-one Title match. It’s amazing Santos is still in NXT. You can only assume no-one from Raw or Smackdown is watching because if they were they’d already recognise how great he is and immediately poach him.. I mean they literally had this match last week on NXT. Clearly wasn’t that memorable ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted September 2, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 2, 2020 I think it just speaks for what a breakout performance that six man match was, the finishing sequence in particular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetofthedeed Posted September 2, 2020 Share Posted September 2, 2020 My dream is for kalisto to turn heel and bring legado del fantasmo up to SD, give lucha House party 2 new members and just have 3 months of ridiculous luchagasms among the 8 of them....... Are there any lucha lads in nxt I'm forgetting about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dopper Posted September 2, 2020 Share Posted September 2, 2020 Sounds like these won’t be flying off the shelves then.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted September 2, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 2, 2020 (edited) Loads of (unsubstantiated) whispers on Twitter of NXT perhaps moving to Tuesdays full-time in the future. You wonder if they would ever admit defeat like that. What’s more embarrassing? Bottling it and leaving a fight that you picked or staying on Wednesdays, blasting through Title and Gimmick matches like you’re Vince Russo, and still losing nine times out of ten. Edited September 2, 2020 by Supremo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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