CM Punk chat

[LaGoosh]

19 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

He can wrestle just fine. He was wrestling fine when he started

And is wrestling ability really important in WWE anymore? They don't seem to need it to tell the stories they want to or pack the houses. As long as you can hit the main beats they want then you're going to be fine.

[DavidB6937]

3 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

And is wrestling ability really important in WWE anymore? They don't seem to need it to tell the stories they want to or pack the houses. As long as you can hit the main beats they want then you're going to be fine.

Indeed, he's more over now doing what he's doing than he probably would be having 'good' matches or whatever. 

[Mr_Danger]

I think if you’re a smaller guy who is the son of a legendary luchador you probably need to show a bit more than good enough to get up the card. As it is he’s a great mid card heel and that might be his ceiling which is fine. LA Knight is a great face with a very basic generic style that he gets shit on for. I’d imagine a prolonged period near the top of the card would see Dom similarly shit on.

[DavidB6937]

He shouldn't be near the top of the card at the moment. Absolutely not. He hasn't even had a decent singles mid card run yet. But if he remains over then who knows.

[The Gaffer]

15 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

And is wrestling ability really important in WWE anymore? 

It depends what you consider wrestling ability, I guess. 

I get the point that's baked in there - and I know the WWE's production style isn't for you - but I'd argue being a well conditioned athlete who has to collaborate with other well conditioned athletes to hit beats in front of a live audience is exactly what wrestling is. It's just booked and styled in a different manner in the fed. There'll be people who are great at it, and people like Nia Jax who are always the drizzling shits at it no matter how much tech wizardry is in their trucks. 

I'd just take the easy road and call that good wrestling and bad wrestling, done by good wrestlers and bad wrestlers. 

To the layman, WWE and other companies are in the exact same industry and it's going to stay that way so long as what they're going out and doing is pretending to have fights. 

 

 

 

 

[LaGoosh]

30 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

I'd argue being a well conditioned athlete who has to collaborate with other well conditioned athletes to hit beats in front of a live audience is exactly what wrestling is. It's just booked and styled in a different manner in the fed.

Interesting. I'd argue otherwise. 

I would say that good wrestling is where every match feels like it's own story. Whether it's a 2 page short, a novella or a Moby Dick style epic. Clear purpose and structure throughout designed to draw in and create sustained emotional investment, satisfaction or interest from a live (and TV) audience. CM Punk is very good at this.

I would say wrestling designed around hitting singular beats rather than the whole (the current WWE house style) is bad wrestling (and basically a spot fest) and not true to what wrestling has been for most of its existence. But when your booking is based around matches being a vehicle for stories rather than the stories being a vehicle for the matches (or matches themselves being their own stories) then I suppose it doesn't really matter as long as the audience is happy. The few saddos like me will sob silently at the slow death of proper wrestling while everyone else laps up sports entertainment and WWE make billions.

Edited December 21, 2024 by LaGoosh

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

12 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Interesting. I'd argue otherwise. 

I would say that good wrestling is where every match feels like it's own story. Whether it's a 2 page short, a novella or a Moby Dick style epic. Clear purpose and structure throughout designed to draw in and create sustained emotional investment, satisfaction or interest from a live (and TV) audience. CM Punk is very good at this.

I would say wrestling designed around hitting singular beats rather than the whole (the current WWE house style) is bad wrestling (and basically a spot fest). But when your booking is based around matches being a vehicle for stories rather than the stories being a vehicle for the matches (or matches themselves being their own stories) then I suppose it doesn't really matter as long as the audience is happy. The few saddos like me will sob silently while everyone else laps it up and WWE make billions.

I don't disagree Gooshy, every match should be it's own story, but I would say that in the modern way of consuming wrestling which is on TV or on YouTube that is very rarely the case anymore, and when it is those are the matches the audience doesn't remember or care about. 

Nearly every TV match is part of an ongoing story, that's the nature of episodic TV. Darby and Ospreay had a blinder this week but it only matters as part of the Continental Classic, the match wasn't the story on its own. 

When I've been to WWE house shows they have been the opposite of spotfests. Much more emphasis on crowd work and selling with fewer big spots, which makes sense to me. Admittedly it's been a few years since I've been and it may have changed but there were definitely no spot fests. 

[LaGoosh]

5 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

Nearly every TV match is part of an ongoing story, that's the nature of episodic TV. Darby and Ospreay had a blinder this week but it only matters as part of the Continental Classic, the match wasn't the story on its own. 

Absolutely. In the best possible scenario the match is part of a story but the match itself also tells a story within the match itself. That's the good shit and sweet spot.

Edit: however! A match on it's own if it's good will justify it's existence without requiring a story around it. But what I will never be happy with is when the majority of a match is meaningless filler outside the required pre planned wider story beats which is how the WWE style appears to me.

Good to hear outside the shackles of TV the house shows aren't like this.

Edited December 21, 2024 by LaGoosh

[Hannibal Scorch]

What I think is interesting is what a spot fest is.  Because if you listen to parts of the internet or Cornette it’s Ospreay/Ricochet, or every young bucks match, when in reality a good chunk of matches are spot fests by the nature of them being built around certain spots happening in matches. But why are some acceptable and others dismissed? Both can look nonsensical at times. And let’s not forget the most famous spotfest, Savage vs Steamboat from Wrestlemania III.

Edited December 21, 2024 by Hannibal Scorch

[The Gaffer]

50 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Interesting. I'd argue otherwise. 

I would say that good wrestling is where every match feels like it's own story. Whether it's a 2 page short, a novella or a Moby Dick style epic. Clear purpose and structure throughout designed to draw in and create sustained emotional investment, satisfaction or interest from a live (and TV) audience. CM Punk is very good at this.

I would say wrestling designed around hitting singular beats rather than the whole (the current WWE house style) is bad wrestling (and basically a spot fest) and not true to what wrestling has been for most of its existence. But when your booking is based around matches being a vehicle for stories rather than the stories being a vehicle for the matches (or matches themselves being their own stories) then I suppose it doesn't really matter as long as the audience is happy. The few saddos like me will sob silently at the slow death of proper wrestling while everyone else laps up sports entertainment and WWE make billions.

Both the good and the bad things you are describing here happen both inside and outside WWE, though.

I just can't help but think it's the oft-repeated overreach to binary it into being "Sports entertainment is here, whereas real wrestling is over here!" Right down to the twist on hitting beats as being a sort of dispassionate carpool through the bullet points when in actual fact that's what they all do. 

I've watched loads of WWE this year and I feel like I've watched loads of great...wrestling? 

Basically, Logan Paul's a complete shit but he's a better wrestler in my gaf than Kyle O'Reilly. 

 

[RedTwoster]

6 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

Both the good and the bad things you are describing here happen both inside and outside WWE, though.

I just can't help but think it's the oft-repeated overreach to binary it into being "Sports entertainment is here, whereas real wrestling is over here!" Right down to the twist on hitting beats as being a sort of dispassionate carpool through the bullet points when in actual fact that's what they all do. 

I've watched loads of WWE this year and I feel like I've watched loads of great...wrestling? 

Basically, Logan Paul's a complete shit but he's a better wrestler in my gaf than Kyle O'Reilly. 

 

I mean, what is Harley Cameron but ‘sports entertainment’? What’s Hangman Page burning down Swerve’s house but ‘sports entertainment’? What is the entirety of the MJF/Adam Cole story (the good and bad) but ‘sports entertainment’? 

Sports entertainment is a nebulous concept anyway, but by how it’s typically defined, it exists in both WWE and AEW.

[LaGoosh]

21 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

Both the good and the bad things you are describing here happen both inside and outside WWE, though.

I just can't help but think it's the oft-repeated overreach to binary it into being "Sports entertainment is here, whereas real wrestling is over here!" Right down to the twist on hitting beats as being a sort of dispassionate carpool through the bullet points when in actual fact that's what they all do. 

I've watched loads of WWE this year and I feel like I've watched loads of great...wrestling? 

Basically, Logan Paul's a complete shit but he's a better wrestler in my gaf than Kyle O'Reilly. 

 

That's fine. We obviously see wrestling very differently. Wrestling is an art form and everyone can interpret it in their own way.

[LaGoosh]

38 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

I mean, what is Harley Cameron but ‘sports entertainment’? What’s Hangman Page burning down Swerve’s house but ‘sports entertainment’? What is the entirety of the MJF/Adam Cole story (the good and bad) but ‘sports entertainment’? 

Sports entertainment is a nebulous concept anyway, but by how it’s typically defined, it exists in both WWE and AEW.

Well quiet. In this instance I was using "Sports entertainment" as short hand to refer to WWE's ring style and general approach to wrestling matches (for lack of a more suitable term). But yeah, the term "sport entertainment" is complete bullshit. It's just a nonsense Vince McMahon-ism and means absolutely nothing. All the stuff you mention is just wrestling.

[RedTwoster]

6 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Well quiet. In this instance I was using "Sports entertainment" as short hand to refer to WWE's ring style and general approach to wrestling matches (for lack of a more suitable term). But yeah, the term "sport entertainment" is complete bullshit. It's just a nonsense Vince McMahon-ism and means absolutely nothing. All the stuff you mention is just wrestling.

You’re right about the ring style being different - on AEW TV, they go balls-to-the-wall, in WWE TV matches typically peak at ‘good’ with the top notch stuff generally (but not always) being reserved for PPV. But I’ve come to realise I kind of like that style - it makes the brilliant matches stand out more and feel more meaningful to me. It sounds counterintuitive I suppose, but tied in with the stronger storytelling as of late, it works for me.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

3 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

You’re right about the ring style being different - on AEW TV, they go balls-to-the-wall, in WWE TV matches typically peak at ‘good’ with the top notch stuff generally (but not always) being reserved for PPV. But I’ve come to realise I kind of like that style - it makes the brilliant matches stand out more and feel more meaningful to me. It sounds counterintuitive I suppose, but tied in with the stronger storytelling as of late, it works for me.

Often during boxing commentary they will talk about varying the power and speed of the punch so that your opponent doesn't get used to getting hit hard all the time. AEW hits pretty hard all the time, WWE definitely varies the punch, and to extend the boxing theme both of them throw punches that don't land. 

That is not a criticism or endorsement of either, sometimes you do just want to see someone punched really hard in the face repeatedly and sometimes you want a boxing match.