Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted August 16, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted August 16, 2021 11 minutes ago, Merzbow said: It's 100% a behind the scenes reference, he's paraphrasing what Scott Hall allegedly said to one of the Dudley's backstage. I think you are well over thinking this. Commentators and Kenny himself have made reference to know one kicking out of the OWA. Also he's not lost, prior to Friday in what, 10 months? It may well also be a famous backstage incident, but that is just an easter egg in my opinon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merzbow Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 (edited) 2 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: I think you are well over thinking this. Commentators and Kenny himself have made reference to know one kicking out of the OWA. Also he's not lost, prior to Friday in what, 10 months? It may well also be a famous backstage incident, but that is just an easter egg in my opinon. What am I over thinking? I just said I had no issue with it, I thought it was cute. Edited August 16, 2021 by Merzbow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Nick James Posted August 16, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted August 16, 2021 1 minute ago, Hannibal Scorch said: I think you are well over thinking this. Commentators and Kenny himself have made reference to know one kicking out of the OWA. Also he's not lost, prior to Friday in what, 10 months? It may well also be a famous backstage incident, but that is just an easter egg in my opinon. These are the good things following a wrestling company ran by wrestling nerds, the Easter eggs are there for us fellow nerds, but seem to fit in well for the casual viewers to not notice the in jokes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vamp Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 I agree that if Callis had said "my guy can kick out of your best shot" it would have been fine. He didn't though. Instead he dropped a behind the scenes reference that was too obscure for everyone to get and also said that his guy "can't wait to kick out of a finisher." And yes, "my guy can't wait to kick out of your finisher" makes sense in the context of "my guys a politician behind the scenes" or "my guy is going to give you your first 5 star match" but why would you look forward to getting hit with a guy's best move and trying to kick out of it. Kenny's probably got one of the more protected finishers in the world, mostly thanks to the effort NJPW put into protecting it, that didn't happen because Gedo said "Okada can't wait to kick out of your finisher lolz." At the end of the day, it's only Christian and it doesn't really matter. But the promo was WWE "insider references instead of following the obvious story" levels of shit.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted August 16, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted August 16, 2021 (edited) 5 minutes ago, Vamp said: why would you look forward to getting hit with a guy's best move and trying to kick out of it He wouldn't. That's why Kenny didn't say it, Don did. Don Callis is a smarmy prick who repeatedly talks up Kenny Omega as the greatest wrestler of all time, and is clearing living vicariously through him to get more fame and fortune for himself. It's completely in keeping for Don Callis to say something like that about Kenny. Omega obviously doesn't want to be hit by anyone's finisher, but that doesn't stop Callis talking him up as if it wouldn't phase him, because that's exactly what Don does every time he speaks.  Edited August 16, 2021 by BomberPat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted August 16, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted August 16, 2021 1 hour ago, Nick James said: Are things not allowed to be criticised? If this was done by WWE (such as the Fandango thing), it would rightly be slated, just because it is AEW, doesn't give it a pass. It would be slated if it was WWE but not rightly. It's picking at the minutae for very little reason. When Fandango came about, I wasn't watching (I still haven't ever seen that Mania match with Jericho) but I wouldn't be critical of that. I know everyone wants it all to be organic but WWE shouldn't ever just cater to hardcores who want to set their own narrative. There are (or used to be) hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of fans who don't know this stuff and need some help to participate. There'll be people who criticise this stuff for "ruining it" but it has a tiny shelf-life anyway. All AEW are doing here is appealing to the people who haven't worked out what's going on here or don't know the lyrics (I don't and I've heard the thing 200 times). Yes, it's on the nose, but so is most of all good pro-wrestling ever. Subtle is fine when your audience is as invested as the AEW crowd are. But if you want to grow that fanbase, you've got to be inclusive and sometimes that involves annoying the people who'll watch and moan anyway. It's not about AEW vs. WWE, but if WWE was brilliantly booked at the moment and someone complained about some lyrics on the titan tron, I'd tell them to get a fucking grip, honestly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 (edited) Millions might follow them but I don't care, social media accounts aren't canon to me. AEW putting the lyrics up in a tweet is one thing, putting them on screen in the arena and on TV would be something else entirely. They can do all the tweets they like, fundamentally what happens during that airtime is what counts. Edited August 16, 2021 by Gay as FOOK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted August 16, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted August 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, Gay as FOOK said: Millions might follow them but I don't care, social media accounts aren't canon to me. AEW putting the lyrics up in a tweet is one thing, them putting them on screen in the arena and on TV would be something else entirely. even if they do end up doing that, they can make a point of it. Jericho's got mates in the company. Who's to say Sammy Guevara hasn't paid off the production team to do it? Or even Jericho himself, to outsmart MJF and get under his skin? Almost anything in wrestling is excusable if there's a reason behind it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chili Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 I remember when Robert Goulet didn't know the lyrics to 'O, Canada' at Wrestlemania VI and the business never recovered until Austin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 It’s quite sad that wwe has hammered fans for that long that there seems to be a desperation that every show MUST have something wrong that needs hammered to the ground, than concentrating on the 118 or 58 good minutes we have seen over the last week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 13 minutes ago, Louch said: It’s quite sad that wwe has hammered fans for that long that there seems to be a desperation that every show MUST have something wrong that needs hammered to the ground, than concentrating on the 118 or 58 good minutes we have seen over the last week. There's LOADS of discussion on the good bits in AEW shows. Literally pages of it every week. What's wrong with pointing out the bad too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vamp Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 2 hours ago, BomberPat said: He wouldn't. That's why Kenny didn't say it, Don did. Don Callis is a smarmy prick who repeatedly talks up Kenny Omega as the greatest wrestler of all time, and is clearing living vicariously through him to get more fame and fortune for himself. It's completely in keeping for Don Callis to say something like that about Kenny. Omega obviously doesn't want to be hit by anyone's finisher, but that doesn't stop Callis talking him up as if it wouldn't phase him, because that's exactly what Don does every time he speaks.  Except Omega made a big mocking kicking out gesture rather than playing it as if he didn't want to get hit with the finisher. Omega played it as if he was completely in on the joke. Look, I thought it was shit, other people didn't, there's no need for people to make up lines or ignore the way it was performed. I like Don Callis, I like his character, I normally like what he does, I just thought that this particular promo was shit. No one is hammering anything into the ground. I just thought one promo was especially shit by AEW standards. As for the Jericho stuff, isn't he one of the EVPs? Not beyond the character to get someone in the social media department to post that tweet so that people listen to his song over and over again to learn the lyrics. Or to get someone in the production team to play the lyrics on the big screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 6 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said: There's LOADS of discussion on the good bits in AEW shows. Literally pages of it every week. What's wrong with pointing out the bad too? Not saying any bad shouldn’t be pointed out, but main chat on both threads has been on tiny parts of the shows that some didn’t like for most of the weekend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chili Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 (edited) Also the minor complaints are hysterically funny. Saw elsewhere a person losing their mind that Fuego losing, then still getting the contact devalued AEW stipulations in the future. I love wrestling, but we fucking deserve it sometimes. For the record I knew the Scott Hall reference and when Callis said it, I was like 'ha, nice, Kenny is so good, he'll kick out of his best move'. It's a line that if anything, just means we watch too much of this shit. But my head didn't see it as a cheap WWE dig. It wasn't like 1999 mid life up the creek Randy Savage literally cribbing Rock catchphrases. Edited August 16, 2021 by Chili Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Butternut Squash Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 (edited) AEW had one of their worst ever segments last week, with QT, Paul White and Schiavone's 'kid' . I don't think it's even been mentioned once in here. And the booking has been far from perfect. It's just that the dodgy stuff matters far less when the landscape happens to be this exciting and full of goodwill. You can overlook the Truth Commission while Austin and the Hart Foundation are on fire. Saying that though, Tony Khan is getting his own ring announcers to introduce him as "the man who saved pro-wrestling". So maybe he could do with getting knocked down a peg or two. Edited August 16, 2021 by Mr Butternut Squash Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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