CavemanLynn Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 2 hours ago, LaGoosh said: The thing about AEW that I never expected but is a very welcome surprise is that when it start it was very much pushed as "wrestling not sports entertainment" but strangely I think they are really great and much better at angles, stories, promos, characters, gimmicks and sports entertainment stuff than the actual wrestling side of things which varies massively in quality from match to match. I hope they learn that hey maybe each match doesn't need 20 minutes and 5000 moves, the "sports entertainment" shit when done right will make you much more money and draw in the new fans and also less chance of the wrestlers dying. I would have absolutely no problem if Dynamite was 50-50 matches and angles. From the hits they've had with their outside-the-ring work, I reckon it'd still be the best wrestling show on at the moment. Despite what WWE have tried to drill into us with RAW in that "Every show's PPV quality!", I've realised I don't want that at all. I want that sense of build, of impatience, of looking forward to a show in a few weeks' time, so I absolutely HAVE to watch. That doesn't come from watching half a dozen multiman pile-ons or 25 minutes midcard bouts. Why would I want to watch 3 hours of wrestling when I've already watched 2 hours 3 days before? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted September 8, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 8, 2020 State of pre-roids Brian Cage. That cant be good for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ColinBollocks Posted September 8, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 8, 2020 A proper worker. Out of interest, how far apart are those photos? It's funny that in his first photo, he wouldn't look out of place on NXT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members garynysmon Posted September 8, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, BomberPat said: Though as I say that, Foley also did so much completely unnecessary shit outside of the big famous matches, so he was as bad as anyone - the Hell In A Cell bump was one thing, but he was getting shot knees first into metal steps in nothing TV matches, or taking bumps on the floor in a five minute filler match. There are some bumps that wrestlers think look more impressive than they do (because they actually hurt whilst not looking all that spectacular to someone who's never stepped in the ring). You raise a good point about how unnecessary the knees bump into the steps was, for example. I'm not sure how much more impressive that bump (which became routine after a while) was to joe public than being thrown back first onto the steps, but it certainly caused more long term damage. If anyone's taking a bump just to "pop the boys in the back" then what's the point? Edited September 8, 2020 by garynysmon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted September 8, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) I don't think the Attitude era is to blame for today's dangerous high spot style as the vast majority of matches back then were punch-kick and signature moves. Most the top wrestlers had about 4 moves each. Also if the Attitude era was so influential surely today's wrestlers would be more about over the top characters and promos? I think the bigger influence is the early X division stuff and early ROH. Most the wrestlers now are in their early to late 20s and would have been kids or teenagers watching this stuff. The popularity of those matches and wrestlers had massive long term effects on the style of modern wrestling. Evident by the number of dives, head drops, Canadian Destroyers etc. Edited September 8, 2020 by LaGoosh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members garynysmon Posted September 8, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 8, 2020 9 minutes ago, LaGoosh said: I don't think the Attitude era is to blame for today's dangerous high spot style as the vast majority of matches back then were punch-kick and signature moves. Most the top wrestlers had about 4 moves each. Also if the Attitude era was so influential surely today's wrestlers would be more about over the top characters and promos? I think the bigger influence is the early X division stuff and early ROH. Most the wrestlers now are in their early to late 20s and would have been kids or teenagers watching this stuff. The popularity of those matches and wrestlers had massive long term effects on the style of modern wrestling. Evident by the number of dives, head drops, Canadian Destroyers etc. It feels at times that the style is trying to be everything that the Attitude Era wasn't. For all the AE's short matches, lots of talking, promo time and storyline development and appealing to as big an audience as possible, the industry has morphed into longer matches. a bigger emphasis on workrate and scripted promos and trying to wring out more cash out of the smaller but more obsessed fanbase that's left. Not really sure I envisaged that 20 years on, 2002 ROH would be having such a big impact on the industry, given that at the time I considered ROH to be wrestling with all the fun taken out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_3165 Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) 56 minutes ago, IANdrewDiceClay said: State of pre-roids Brian Cage. That cant be good for you. Jesus his balls must be shrivelled up like raisins. Surprised he hasn't has a massive cardiac yet. Does AEW have a wellness policy re steroids? Edited September 8, 2020 by Michael_3165 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yakashi Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) I think the difference is that today’s wrestler wants to be in the business because they are fans and their main motivation is having good matches. Whereas back in the 80s and some of the 90s, most of the guys got in the business to make money and saw it as a job. If they could have a great match then that was sometimes an additional motivator but money usually came first. Now guys are turning down millions for the “art”. Edited September 8, 2020 by Yakashi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 16 minutes ago, LaGoosh said: I don't think the Attitude era is to blame for today's dangerous high spot style as the vast majority of matches back then were punch-kick and signature moves. Most the top wrestlers had about 4 moves each. Also if the Attitude era was so influential surely today's wrestlers would be more about over the top characters and promos? I think the bigger influence is the early X division stuff and early ROH. Most the wrestlers now are in their early to late 20s and would have been kids or teenagers watching this stuff. The popularity of those matches and wrestlers had massive long term effects on the style of modern wrestling. Evident by the number of dives, head drops, Canadian Destroyers etc. Yeah I'd definitely lean more towards the indies having a lasting influence, especially considering so many of these guys have come from there. It was always the style to try and stick out from the crowd and the mainstream, despite knowing they were half killing themselves in front of tiny crowds. Now over the last however many years that stuff has been sneaking in to the more popular products. You see guys like AJ Styles who have adapted, toned down the mental stuff, and (a) become better for it and (b) probably prolonged their careers for it. But others have no interest in adapting and still go balls to the wall with no real interest in slowing it down and making anything mean something. I don't just blame the wrestlers though. NXT's booking means that's the expected style these days, and AEW's run by a bunch of people that have made their money doing that shit - especially the Bucks. Thankfully they've got Jericho who is almost the polar opposite and I have no doubt he's putting a word in here and there, but he's just one man. If Tony Khan is happy to send his guys out there to half kill themselves on a constant basis then what's anyone going to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheffbag Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) Cage in NWA Hollywood in 2010/1 with Eli Drake Then looking a little different in 2012 Edited September 8, 2020 by Sheffbag Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members TheBurningRed Posted September 8, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) 24 minutes ago, Michael_3165 said: Jesus his balls must be shrivelled Apparently it’s all good down there. Edited September 8, 2020 by TheBurningRed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamicazze Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 That's quite a transformation. Has anyone asked him directly? he would never be able to deny it, though i've seen some deny it. I haven't heard of a wellness policy being in place in AEW. Who do we think are the users within the company? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted September 8, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 8, 2020 in terms of influences on today's style, it's a real mess of stuff - most broadly, I'd say that the mainstream style today owes more to WCW Cruiserweight matches than to almost anything else, but there's also been the influence of '90s AJPW (mostly as distilled through early 2000s US indies), early '00s Toryumon, and mock-MMA, with the Attitude Era influence being more apparent in the big bumps and so on that we're talking about. The problem is that most of these influences are passed on second or third hand, and completely divorced from the environment in which they came about - people are doing lucha spots outside of lucha psychology, or mimicking exchanges from the biggest AJPW matches without appreciating the years of build that made those sequences work. They're doing MMA routines in the same matches as hurricanranas and springboard arm drags. All of these things in isolation work, but all of them taken out of context and smashed together just means that wrestling everywhere - because this isn't just an AEW problem - is becoming increasingly homogenised; the WWE style now more closely resembles NJPW or ROH than it does the WWE of 15 years ago, but NJPW today resembles WWE more than it does the NJPW of 15 years ago - everything's meeting in the middle, and in a lot of ways to their detriment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merzbow Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) Video games are partly influential, I've heard interviews with more than one modern wrestler saying they got into wrestling through Smackdown games or whatever. Edited September 8, 2020 by Merzbow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members garynysmon Posted September 8, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 8, 2020 2 hours ago, TheBurningRed said: Apparently it’s all good down there. Not likely to broadcast on twitter that he has a bent cock that's all foreskin is she? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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