Keith Houchen Posted December 4, 2019 Posted December 4, 2019 4 hours ago, gmoney said: El Santo was buried in his mask wasn't he? How embarrassing. So was Ultimo Dragon in WWE amirite?
Seratonin Posted December 4, 2019 Posted December 4, 2019 Looks like people FINALLY came round to realising AEW for the shite it really is.
wordsfromlee Posted December 4, 2019 Posted December 4, 2019 19 minutes ago, Seratonin said: Looks like people FINALLY came round to realising AEW for the shite it really is.
Paid Members Supremo Posted December 4, 2019 Paid Members Posted December 4, 2019 I didn’t dislike last weeks show as much as everyone else, but my main takeaway was that they need to stop relying on the Nitro run-in brawl angle. They’re really good at doing them but it’s got to the point of diminishing returns now and they need to branch out and do other things. How many did they do on that last show? It honestly felt like three or four of them.
Snitsky's back acne Posted December 4, 2019 Posted December 4, 2019 Who books the actual show? Is it Cody, Omega and the Bucks?
King Pitcos Posted December 4, 2019 Posted December 4, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, BomberPat said: Again, I think it's no less egregious than having "Gorilla Monsoon" on commentary decades after he stopped working a gimmick in which that name made sense. I wouldn’t say either case is egregious, Pauline. But Excalibur doesn’t come across as a character, or have any presence - he’s just a chubby nerd in a silly mask, referencing shite that means nothing to anyone but the nichest of fans. It’s his job to sell the moments and the characters, especially when the commentator sitting next to him has about as much knowledge of 2011 Chikara minutiae as the average viewer does. And Excalibur is shite at it. He acts like every fucker watching was either into the tape-trading scene or had an account on XWT. As someone said above, it just comes off as bush league. And he’s probably their best commentator as well. He just needs reigning in more, so that when it’s time to debut one of the Bucks’ mates from the indies that nobody who has touched a boob has ever heard of, he doesn’t just get excited and act like they’re already a big star. He should be getting excited and explaining what’s so great about them in an accessible way to help make them a star. It’s a problem AEW has in general, the lack of vision/micromanagement. A lot of the roster look and perform like bush league indie wrestlers, and there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to change that. Which on the one hand is fine, because some of their audience are drinking the kool-aid or are the hardcore nerd that Excalibur expects them to be. But then to the side of the audience that is just watching because it’s wrestling on the telly, or are just after an alternative to WWE, loads of the undercard is a turn-off. Edited December 4, 2019 by King Pitcos
CavemanLynn Posted December 4, 2019 Posted December 4, 2019 Lots of stuff to comment on. Re Jimmy Havoc, I have no problem at all with him so far - from what I've seen, he's not being pushed as a hulking hardcase, but a horrible cunt. He's taking mouthfuls of thumb tacks and stapling stuff to people while carrying himself like a swaggering prick. He's the anti Darby Allin, which is aright by me. If Excalibur was any good at commentary, nobody would care about him wearing a mask. Problem is, his shortcomings on the mic mean every other possible peeve gets blown up. It was pointed out by someone earlier that they've essentially got two play by play guys, so you're relying on guy with little TV experience expected to carry a clearly bored veteran to something entertaining, and he's not up to it. A few weeks in, I think AEW bit off more than they could chew, going from a few shows and a YouTube channel to committing to 3 hours of TV a week. They've got the in ring talent, but they're relying on that to fill airtime because either they don't have the content, they don't have the creativity, or they don't want to deviate from the WWE Raw formula. They still insist on dropping really good skits, vignettes and hype videos online, when they should be consolidating all of that for the wider TV audience. I don't recall seeing that great Blue Planet spoof of the Jurassic Express on the main show.
Paid Members Supremo Posted December 4, 2019 Paid Members Posted December 4, 2019 I was going to wait and see if that Blue Planet skit was shown tonight before commenting. If it’s not then that’s a terrible example of them still incorrectly thinking the key to business success is just let-the-cruiserweights-wrestle~!
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted December 4, 2019 Awards Moderator Posted December 4, 2019 (edited) Having watched this week’s episode of Dark, what in the FUCK were Santana and Ortiz, the thugs of the AEW Champion’s top heel faction, doing selling for Marko Stunt. Dreadful. I am willing to believe Jack Perry lives in the woods and Luchasaurus is a dinosaur. But I will never believe anyone who sells anything Marko Stunt hits them with. Ever. Least of all these guys who are supposed to be on the level of the Rhodes brothers and the Young Bucks. Fucking hell, AEW. Edited December 4, 2019 by HarmonicGenerator
Merzbow Posted December 4, 2019 Posted December 4, 2019 (edited) So what happened with the thing between Nyla and Omega? On that one episode they teased something with him coming down to save Riho and then nothing mentioned again, there's been a few odd little things like that like with Awesome and Aja Kong too. Edited December 4, 2019 by Merzbow
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted December 4, 2019 Paid Members Posted December 4, 2019 2 hours ago, CavemanLynn said: If Excalibur was any good at commentary, nobody would care about him wearing a mask. Agree. It's the least of his problems.
Paid Members Supremo Posted December 4, 2019 Paid Members Posted December 4, 2019 I read someone online trying to put the puzzle pieces together with that Butcher and the Blade thing. They theorised that because Awesome Kong and Brandi Rhodes attacked Allie and cut her hair, that's what made Allie go and get her husband and his mate from the Independents to attack Brandi's husband for revenge. I'm all for intertwining storylines but they can fuck off if that's the direction they go in. It's bad enough that Brandi is suddenly a heel when Cody is arguably the top babyface, but if they start muddling them together it's going to do nothing but take even more shine off Cody when he should be having the simplest, most basic of feuds with MJF.
GeronimoJacksBeard Posted December 5, 2019 Posted December 5, 2019 On Excalibur commentating with a mask on, I agree with BomberPat and BomberCar that pro-wrestling should have (more of) this eclectic mix of weird and wonderful characters including the likes of ones that wear masks and that this sort of behaviour is perfectly acceptable existing purely within pro-wrestling’s barmy little world. But, they are having a right laugh comparing it to Sasuke, Lucha in general and Jerry Lawler in full King garb. The history and traditions of Japan and Mexico, a wrestling legend known as the King of Memphis is the same as some American bloke that used to wrestle on the indies, wearing a shit Lucha mask just to do play by play, that has no relevance...or relevant history to anything, for a new wrestling company that reckons it presents itself as more sports based than its big rival company (that hires people for similar roles that do similar jobs for actual sports) is it? Is it fuck. It’s fair enough saying explain why it’s more weird or embarrassing than any other shit in wrestling. But explain why he’s wearing it to commentate to begin with? There’s literally no reason beyond perhaps appealing to some PWG fans. There’s no grand history, tradition, mystique or wrestling legend behind it and it adds nothing to what he does or any semblance of character performance being portrayed. If any of those things applied, as it has with Lawler, Gorilla, Ventura, Savage, etc, fair enough. As it doesn’t, he may as well be wearing a fucking replica title belt while he’s at it.
Paid Members BomberPat Posted December 5, 2019 Paid Members Posted December 5, 2019 What is there to explain? He wears a mask because wrestlers wear masks. You don't need to know a single thing about PWG to understand that. I don't think I've ever watched an Excalibur match, but I'm not watching it thinking, "I can't possibly understand why this man would wear a mask". I think it massively insults the audience's intelligence to think that needs explaining, as if people can't figure that out on their own. I also don't think he's a bad play-by-play guy at all, but he can't do TV storytelling yet. His two biggest fuck-ups have both been surprise tag team debuts - The Dark Order and The Butcher & The Blade - where he's just acted as if everyone would know who they are, rather than selling it. JR in those situations doesn't act kayfabe shocked so much as like he's grumpy it's been left off his format sheet. Schiavone's sorely missed in those moments. The thing with Cody/Brandi is indicative of their characters from the moment they started booking each other. They flip flop from face to heel endlessly, sometimes within a single match.
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