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Dragon Lee signs with WWE


Nick James

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NXT in 2023 seems such a weird place for him. Bunch of ridiculously green trainees, and then one of the best workers in the world. You would think Smackdown would be the perfect fit for him to mix it up with Gunther, Ricochet, Sheamus, etc. Does he really need to spend twelve months learning to look at the hard cam?

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23 minutes ago, Supremo said:

NXT in 2023 seems such a weird place for him. Bunch of ridiculously green trainees, and then one of the best workers in the world. You would think Smackdown would be the perfect fit for him to mix it up with Gunther, Ricochet, Sheamus, etc. Does he really need to spend twelve months learning to look at the hard cam?

We haven't really seen HHH's vision for NXT yet as he puts together his main roster. NXT's back doing live events in the new year, NXT Europe, and the "global localisation" project to come. It has to become a ticket selling brand again. Gabe Sapolsky's back doing his seminars and scouting. Regal's back in the new year.

It's also a way of keeping wages down. Can't be signing indy kids to main roster money straight away.

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8 hours ago, Supremo said:

NXT in 2023 seems such a weird place for him. Bunch of ridiculously green trainees, and then one of the best workers in the world. You would think Smackdown would be the perfect fit for him to mix it up with Gunther, Ricochet, Sheamus, etc. Does he really need to spend twelve months learning to look at the hard cam?

Trips is going full black and gold again, gonna raid the Indys and lose 10 million a year, but we'll all lose our shit when 40 minutes into a match Nick Wayne stares at his hand because shooter umino kicked out of an arm drag.

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If we are heading back towards that kind of period then we're willing to admit some of it was pretty fucking great, right? I know it's easy to remember the overlong drawn out epics and shocked faces but there were a lot of positives in NXT too. Hopefully this signing is another step in the right direction for them.

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24 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

If we are heading back towards that kind of period then we're willing to admit some of it was pretty fucking great, right? I know it's easy to remember the overlong drawn out epics and shocked faces but there were a lot of positives in NXT too. Hopefully this signing is another step in the right direction for them.

There was, the takeover tag formula that arguably started with Blake and Murphy always guaranteed a fantastic match, the Sami Zayn story arc, asukas path of destruction, the whole women's revolution thing, there was some top shelf stuff.

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20 hours ago, Infinity Land said:

AAA still has ties to Penatgon, Fenix, RUSH (kinda Dralistico depending on how that goes I suppose), and Bandido who are within AEW. As well as using other non-Mexican talent over the years. I don't see the AAA/AEW changing much beyond what it has always been.

RUSH, Dralistico and Bandido are all freelancers rather than contracted to AAA. Penta and Fenix are big enough stars that Fenix was briefly able to work CMLL and AAA at the same time, which is almost unheard of, so I'm sure he'll still be able to work AAA events if they need to.

I was convinced early on that AEW's working relationship with AAA was almost solely because it allowed them to use the names Fenix and Pentagon Jr. (names owned by AAA) - given that they've been using Rey Fenix and Penta Cero Miedo/Penta Oscura for a while now, the writing's been on the wall. 

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16 hours ago, Supremo said:

NXT in 2023 seems such a weird place for him. Bunch of ridiculously green trainees, and then one of the best workers in the world. You would think Smackdown would be the perfect fit for him to mix it up with Gunther, Ricochet, Sheamus, etc. Does he really need to spend twelve months learning to look at the hard cam?

They had a can't miss lucha prospect in Mistico who was a disaster when they plonked him on the main roster. Dragon Lee has probably wrestled a greater variety of opponents than Mistico had at the stage so should slot in easier but there's merit in not rushing it. Plus it might help the rookies he wrestles with.

Dragon Lee is in a weird position really. He's one of those talents that could really stand out by being different to anyone else on a roster but he wouldn't do that in AEW and I'm not sure how much he'd do that in WWE at the moment. 

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3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

I was convinced early on that AEW's working relationship with AAA was almost solely because it allowed them to use the names Fenix and Pentagon Jr. (names owned by AAA) 

I wondered this too, but I guess it also gave them a set of tag titles to have The Young Bucks work around on the early PPVs/events before they crowned actual AEW tag champs in the Dynamite era. 

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I think it was also probably part of that early push to promise things that they knew wrestling fans would like. A bit like how they were going to work with OWE and their shows were going to be inspired by Mid-South. They knew how to work their audience before even putting on a show. 

To be fair, telling people you're going to be working with AAA and bringing in their top stars is probably way better said than actually trying to work with AAA which I'd imagine is as confusing as kids used to look in the audience when Psycho Circus ran around kidnapping them. 

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On 12/30/2022 at 5:20 AM, poetofthedeed said:

Trips is going full black and gold again, gonna raid the Indys and lose 10 million a year, but we'll all lose our shit when 40 minutes into a match Nick Wayne stares at his hand because shooter umino kicked out of an arm drag.

Bet he's already looking forward to his next fruit basket. 

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On 12/30/2022 at 8:53 AM, poetofthedeed said:

the whole women's revolution thing, there was some top shelf stuff.

These days they release the women for anything even close to top shelf.

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