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4 hours ago, BigJackTaylor said:

I would also base fueds on faction conflict. Say you have the bullet club. That faction will have a manager/spokesperson who deals with the governing body to put matches together kinda like a Bob Arum or Eddie Hearn. 

That's actually something I'd like to see more of. It was one of my favourite elements of DragonGate/Toryumon - it made for some interesting permutations, because they didn't just do the blue-eye/villain divide, they had degrees of face-ness and heeldom. Groups like Pos. Hearts were super-faces, never doing anything wrong, while M2K were mostly faces but with a bit of a nasty edge, CrazyMAX and later BloodGeneration were heels, but sometimes could be likable and would co-operate with the Florida Brothers in their comedy (such as playing along with the mime door/wall spot), and Aagan Iisou were the ultimate heels, who beat the shit out of everyone else, disrespecting everyone, and completely no-selling any comedy spots - one of the highlights being Brother Yasshi grabbing fistfuls of his own pubes and throwing them at opponents, or tagging in just to point, laugh, and mock, before tagging out again.

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One thing that AEW has me interested about is one of the things that's easiest to criticise. It's starting with an existing fan-base, who are already excited about what they're doing. Now, while that fanbase can be a little over-excited in some ways, it's so much better to start with enthusiasm. 

The All-In show wasn't, bell-to-bell, the greatest show ever. But in terms of atmosphere, it was probably the most I've enjoyed a show since Takeover: London or ECW: One Night Stand. And I think that does make a difference. 

One thing that interested me in ECW was the fanbase, which was absolutely rabid (possibly literally). It made it seem like they were doing this show in front of people who gave a shit about what was happening, and were doing so organically. Like there was a huge demand, at least locally, for what they were doing. Even if you didn't fully get it, it was clear that this was basically life-and-death to the people in the building, which made it feel more important. At its best, NXT has had this as well - but since I'm no longer watching WWE stuff, I'm all up for an alternative.

AEW might be running before it can walk, but if it can harness this audience and showcase the enthusiasm, it could make the whole product more exciting. There's obviously the concern that it could be an entire audience of "it's still real to me, dammnit", but fingers crossed, it won't come across too much as that.

 

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On 1/12/2019 at 10:13 PM, AdamTH17 said:

Isn’t Ziggler on daft money with the WWE? 

Whatever they're paying him is daft. However the last figure they released when he re-signed was total kayfabe as they wanted to make the story of him "walking out," people not knowing if he was done or not, then return, into a big deal. Another aborted go at making him a main eventer as far as Fast Lane before spectacularly spitting him back down to his real level.

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Ziggler has threatened to walk and go to NJPW, Lucha Underground, or wherever else is trendy, every time his contract has been up. That he's not done it yet makes me think he's a lifer. Ziggler's done well for himself in earning the kind of reputation that the workrate lot would ordinarily only give to an indie darling, being seen for some time as a kind of underappreciated super-worker held down by the machine, when he's never worked anywhere outside of the WWE bubble.

Genuine question - what would be the benefit of weigh-ins if you don't have weight divisions? What does it matter if someone "makes weight" or not if it has no bearing on anything? If they have something like a Cruiserweight title, sure, do weigh-ins to make that division stand out from the rest, but in general, what do they offer that regular promos don't?

 

The bottom line for all of this is simple - is there anyone aware of AEW that isn't already also watching WWE? Is there anyone that's going to start watching wrestling because of AEW (given that their content thus far has been very much aimed at "hardcore fans"), or stop watching WWE and watch AEW exclusively? All of that adds up to an extremely small potential audience, with very little scope to grow without a real game-changing approach. It could add up to a successful smaller scale promotion, but anyone expecting them to realistically compete with WWE is dreaming. 

Around 5 or so years ago there was a survey of self-described WWE and wrestling fans in the US, that found that fewer than 2% of WWE fans could name a single other promotion. Kevin Nash, Christian and Rob Van Dam all had stories of being stopped in airports while they working for TNA and being asked, "why don't you wrestle any more?". People massively underestimate the size of the gulf between WWE and every other promotion in terms of public perception. 

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I can personally attest to that. I was very much a lapsed fan from 2006-2011. I watched the big shows when I could but never really followed anything else. I was vaguely aware that there was wrestling in Japan and that Lesnar had been involved. 

I genuinely had never heard of TNA though or RoH. I was utterly bemused when a mutual friend was talkig about The Briscoes having an amazing match. I thought Jerry and Jack must have worked a show. Man did I feel silly.  

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4 minutes ago, Joe Blog said:

I was utterly bemused when a mutual friend was talkig about The Briscoes having an amazing match.

I've been there many times too but for different reasons.

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18 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Genuine question - what would be the benefit of weigh-ins if you don't have weight divisions? What does it matter if someone "makes weight" or not if it has no bearing on anything? If they have something like a Cruiserweight title, sure, do weigh-ins to make that division stand out from the rest, but in general, what do they offer that regular promos don't?

It could be a useful device for enhancing anticipation. The problem is you can't have a pull apart brawl every single month but if they are sensible and do about 4 PPVs a year, then having a weigh in and press day brings a bit of legitimacy to the thing and a killer angle there could add eyes on the product through social media interaction.

I always liked the pre-Mania 14 presser. That gave a sense of legitimacy and the WWF felt really big time, even though they were still losing. Better than that one where they announced Flair's opponent for Mania 8 anyway.

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13 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

It could be a useful device for enhancing anticipation. The problem is you can't have a pull apart brawl every single month but if they are sensible and do about 4 PPVs a year, then having a weigh in and press day brings a bit of legitimacy to the thing and a killer angle there could add eyes on the product through social media interaction.

I always liked the pre-Mania 14 presser. That gave a sense of legitimacy and the WWF felt really big time, even though they were still losing. Better than that one where they announced Flair's opponent for Mania 8 anyway.

Yeah. Say you do 5 or 6 big PPVs a year in Vegas with a presser and weigh ins it would give a big time feel. 

Get on the blower to Michael Buffer and get him in. 

Class.

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Bruce will probably be exclusively contracted to UFC; Michael charges stupid for appearances.

1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

The problem is you can't have a pull apart brawl every single month

I remember an episode of NXT having a table-in-the-middle-of-the-ring contract signing, and it not ended in a physical altercation. Was a breath of fresh air.

Can’t remember if it was this thread of another where someone mentioned NXT tried bucking on-screen tropes a few times, such as announcing a card but having a single match go the entire episode. I’d like to see more of that and get away from the formulaic, predictable feeling of shows.

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1 hour ago, Your Fight Site said:

I remember an episode of NXT having a table-in-the-middle-of-the-ring contract signing, and it not ended in a physical altercation. Was a breath of fresh air.

IIRC, in her relatively short career as GM Paige presided over TWO such events. Which when coupled with the last superstar shakeup in which SD totally had Raw over a barrel, makes her the kayfabe GOAT GM.

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1 hour ago, Statto said:

IIRC, in her relatively short career as GM Paige presided over TWO such events. Which when coupled with the last superstar shakeup in which SD totally had Raw over a barrel, makes her the kayfabe GOAT GM.

Until her skillfully assembled roster was humiliated at Survivors in a manner that Teddy Long would NEVER have let happen on his watch, playah.

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