The NXT Discussion Thread

[Nick James]

I was reading a few bits on Twitter (I know, I know) about why MSK are being boo'd by the crowd and there seems to be two theories to it which have come about from regulars in the audience arguing amongst themselves. The first one is that one of the MSK boys said something in an interview about how Izzy the Superfan training to become a wrestler at age 13 wasn't very responsible and the family of Izzy took offence so the booing is to back up the family and the other is because they came into NXT, won the Dusty Classic and then the tag titles without 'earning' them.

Whichever reason, both are fucking awful. Impact Zone fans levels of shit. 

EDIT: Mandy Rose is also being accused of 'Blackfishing' quite a lot with comparisons of her tan being darker than Bianca's skin tone. 

Edited October 20, 2021 by Nick James

[CavemanLynn]

Dog-faced Poppa Pump is proof that they need to sack off anyone that's been with them in dev for 10 years, especially if they've already got 5+ years' "experience" on the indies. You either have it or you don't. Bronson had his first match just ONE YEAR AGO, and he's already more exciting to watch than anyone they've had in ages.

[Supremo]

I’m the hardest of hardcore fan who tries to watch everything I can, but the moment I saw the graphic for this week’s main event? Another title match being built up by the opponents trying to co-exist in tag matches? They can fuck right off.

Imagine getting those Friday ratings and then just doing the same fucking thing over and over again. Even WCW at the very end didn't treat their audience with the contempt WWE does.

[tiger_rick]

7 minutes ago, Supremo said:

I’m the hardest of hardcore fan who tries to watch everything I can, but the moment I saw the graphic for this week’s main event? Another title match being built up by the opponents trying to co-exist in tag matches? They can fuck right off.

Imagine getting those Friday ratings and then just doing the same fucking thing over and over again. Even WCW at the very end didn't treat their audience with the contempt WWE does.

In fairness, Steiner 2.0 references in the backstage segment that he "knows how this works" so it was actually self-aware which made it better than it usually is. Plus his work and his trash talking is so good that it worked completely.

[Supremo]

WWE’s Twitter account was making fun of the Co-ExIsT~! thing on Twitter during Raw too, but if anything that just makes it worse. If you’re self aware enough to recognise your lazy, vacuous, repetitive tropes, yet don’t actually address them beyond making cheeky jokes, it shows even more contempt for your audience. We know it’s shit. They know it’s shit. But they’re not changing anything. Here’s your shit. Enjoy.

I think the reason I find it extra disheartening is because Braun Breaker has so much potential. When you’ve got someone like him and he’s already being swallowed up and having his momentum flattened by all the shitty booking? Real Goldberg in 2003 vibes. When you plug everyone into the same system and they all go through the same storylines you can’t be surprised when no-one gets over and everyone feels the same.

It’s been mentioned a thousand times in the Raw thread but this is the perfect example here. You’ve got a guy everyone wants to invest in but when you can extrapolate his entire career and you know for a fact you won’t be rewarded for following and supporting him? Kills my excitement dead.

Five years maximum. Steiner will be dancing on Raw. Guaranteed.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Supremo

[air_raid]

26 minutes ago, Supremo said:

Another title match being built up by the opponents trying to co-exist in tag matches? They can fuck right off.

What’s the worst trope in WWE that they simply can’t stop repeating? This is woeful but “champion loses non title match to set up next challenger” is definitely the one which I hate the most.

[tiger_rick]

5 minutes ago, Supremo said:

WWE’s Twitter account was making fun of the Co-ExIsT~! thing on Twitter during Raw too, but if anything that just makes it worse. If you’re self aware enough to recognise your lazy, vacuous, repetitive tropes, yet don’t actually address them beyond making cheeky jokes, it shows even more contempt for you audience. We know it’s shit. They know it’s shit. But they’re not changing anything. Here’s your shit. Enjoy.

I don't see their tweets but there was no joking on the show. Steiner played it perfectly. I agree in general that it's usually horrible and lazy (think they just did it on Raw with Big E and McIntyre too) but this was fine.

3 minutes ago, air_raid said:

What’s the worst trope in WWE that they simply can’t stop repeating? This is woeful but “champion loses non title match to set up next challenger” is definitely the one which I hate the most.

Another of their forgotten little whims, they changed non-title matches to Championship Eliminators or something for about 2 weeks a few months ago. Again, because they're aware of their overuse of it but have no intention of actually fixing the real problem.

[Supremo]

Their worst trope will forever be tag teams and factions having animosity. I’m still convinced half the reason everyone bangs on about there being too many factions in AEW is because they’ve been conditioned by WWE to think no-one in pro-wrestling should have any mates that they actually get on with.

It completely undermines any drama an eventual turn or break up might generate. If lads never got along, why should I be surprised when one of them smashes the other with a chair? And why should I support either of them in their inevitable feud when they’ve been a pair of insufferable pricks the whole time they were together?

The will-they-co-exist thing just feels like an extension of that. For a company so clearly written for one man, Vinny Mac must have fucking loved doing group work in school, where everyone is bitching and fighting and nothing actually gets done. That’s what his entire product feels like. Speaks volumes for what I imagine it must be like working there too.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Supremo

[DavidB6937]

47 minutes ago, Supremo said:

I think the reason I find it extra disheartening is because Braun Breaker has so much potential. When you’ve got someone like him and he’s already being swallowed up and having his momentum flattened by all the shitty booking? Real Goldberg in 2003 vibes. When you plug everyone into the same system and they all go through the same storylines you can’t be surprised when no-one gets over and everyone feels the same.

I get that they overuse certainly things but has his momentum really been flattened already? I've not seen any real issues with how he's doing so far. He still seems over to me.

[Supremo]

I wouldn’t know how over he is currently, I haven’t been enthused enough to even watch, which is surely the point. The moment I saw he was in the exact same storyline they’re doing with everyone else, I skipped the show. He will be swallowed up and flattened though. They all are.

Ladder match next week though! God bless them.

[Tsurutagun]

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

Their worst trope will forever be tag teams and factions having animosity. I’m still convinced half the reason everyone bangs on about there being too many factions in AEW is because they’ve been conditioned by WWE to think no-one in pro-wrestling should have any mates that they actually get on with.

You do wonder if this whole teams not co-existing in WWE is a result of Vince's world view of "don't trust people" and "everyone is out to get you"

Edited October 20, 2021 by Tsurutagun

[BomberPat]

3 minutes ago, Tsurutagun said:

You do wonder if this whole teams not co-existing in WWE is a result of Vince's world view of "don't trust people" and "everyone is out to get you"

I think there's a huge part of that - the only people who ever seem to be described as "best friends" are heels and women, and when it's the women it almost always predicates a turn. Having friends is a weakness, and you should be able to fight all your battles on your own if you're a real man. It's refreshing in AEW seeing most of the babyfaces have a bunch of mates.

There's also Vince's general dislike of tag team wrestling. Unless he stumbles on to a great couple of teams, more often than not he's booked tag team wrestling as a means to an end to get to a singles feud.

[WyattSheepMask]

10 hours ago, Nick James said:

I was reading a few bits on Twitter (I know, I know) about why MSK are being boo'd by the crowd and there seems to be two theories to it which have come about from regulars in the audience arguing amongst themselves. The first one is that one of the MSK boys said something in an interview about how Izzy the Superfan training to become a wrestler at age 13 wasn't very responsible and the family of Izzy took offence so the booing is to back up the family and the other is because they came into NXT, won the Dusty Classic and then the tag titles without 'earning' them.

Whichever reason, both are fucking awful. Impact Zone fans levels of shit. 

EDIT: Mandy Rose is also being accused of 'Blackfishing' quite a lot with comparisons of her tan being darker than Bianca's skin tone. 

I mean, he’s not wrong

[LaGoosh]

8 hours ago, BomberPat said:

There's also Vince's general dislike of tag team wrestling. Unless he stumbles on to a great couple of teams, more often than not he's booked tag team wrestling as a means to an end to get to a singles feud.

Based on various comments over the years I think he's always seen tag teams as a waste of money. "Why pay two people for one act" seems to be his mindset.

[BomberPat]

13 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Based on various comments over the years I think he's always seen tag teams as a waste of money. "Why pay two people for one act" seems to be his mindset.

Yeah, that's definitely it. If you don't see tag team wrestling as capable of making main event money (which he clearly doesn't), then it's just filling a spot on the card, and you may as well fill that spot with two blokes rather than four. And if you need tag team wrestling, just throwing two singles guys together rather than hiring a full-time tag team means that if one of them gets hurt, the other one goes back to working singles, whereas with a team like The Usos, up until very recently, if one of them got hurt, they just did sod all with the other. There's an element of truth to that - Animal or Hawk working singles matches always felt wrong.

To put the history nerd hat on, it's an interesting take from Vince, because Vince Sr was really one of the first to really treat tag team wrestling as a staple part of his programming, and not just a gimmick. The majority of Capitol Wrestling or WWWF cards had tag team matches on them at a time when they were a rarity elsewhere, and they would headline as often as not. One of Vince Sr's regular tag team main event guys was Dr. Jerry Graham, who was allegedly Vince Jr's favourite wrestler - and of course, the first Wrestlemania was headlined by a tag team match.