AEW WrestleDream 2024

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Wrestling booking is like my old mum trying to get down the stairs. Balance is key and if it all goes wrong it ends up in a confused heap. Long or short term doesn't matter, consistency is key. Lots of stuff gets dropped and we as fans are supposed to forget it, and some of us helpfully do. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

11 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

Wrestling booking is like my old mum trying to get down the stairs. Balance is key and if it all goes wrong it ends up in a confused heap. Long or short term doesn't matter, consistency is key. Lots of stuff gets dropped and we as fans are supposed to forget it, and some of us helpfully do. 

I think this is more what I was aiming at, but I was sat in a doctors waiting room and thought I heard the snap of the rubber gloves.

WWE can do subtle, consistent and nuanced booking over the long term now, even if they didn't under Vince.

Look at the Bloodline stuff as an example, the way they play with the idea of Roman asking for the mic now is because of how much energy they've invested in getting that over. So when Jimmy asks for the mic, everything that falls from that is the result of years of meticulously getting on top of the little details, even if it's not the whole point. If you didn't watch the last few years your enjoyment of that segment isn't impacted, but if you did you get rewarded for picking up on the little bits.

Equally; they can do in your face stuff like Drew actually bringing a bag of beads to a cell match.

WWE in the final Vince years I'm willing to say had lost it's way on pretty much all counts, but it's currently a pretty well booked show. It's different to AEW, and some like one, some like the other and some like both.

It's just a good time to be following, made a little more tedious by the squabbling.

Can't we all just get...

Sorry, Doctors calling.

Edited October 14, 2024 by d-d-d-dAz

[RedTwoster]

2 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

- WWE's booking philosophy seems very much inspired by the MCU. It's long term, safe and predictable, and often based around "moments", surprise returns and big entrance pops. It obviously works incredibly for them and their fan base. AEW's booking philosophy has never been clear but at it's best it's been slow burn character work based around the matches themselves and characters changing through struggle and pain (either physical or mental). AEW's booking is richer, deeper, and designed to be more satisfying longer term but unlikely to draw people in as quickly or easily as WWE's easier to digest stuff. And that's even without AEW's ongoing issues with consistency. On top of that the WWE audience is used to a certain type of wrestling and seem to reject anything that isn't that. AEW's strengths of being an alternative to the WWE style will probably also limit their growth.

A really interesting, well thought-out post as ever, but I don’t think I agree with your assessment here. I think there’s less that separates WWE and AEW than ever as far as booking is concerned, outside of AEW showing a willingness to go to darker places (not a bad thing by any means) - but I think both companies are thinking ahead, and attempting to book subtleties that make long term viewing satisfying. 

I also don’t think AEW’s booking makes it harder to draw people in quickly - I think, if you pulled out all of the angles from AEW each week and put together a highlight package it would make compelling viewing that would make people want to watch. I think the difference between the two is that AEW has - for whatever reason - struggled to nail the show structure, meaning you have loads of great content, muddled with things that don’t matter - long, meaningless matches where the outcome is obvious generally. So you can tune in, feel like nothing is happening and tune out, missing all the good stuff.

At the moment I’m actually more compelled by AEW’s big storylines than I am WWE’s - Moxley, Swerve/MVP, Hangman, Christian and Mariah May are all brilliant. But I’m loving WWE too, especially RAW. I started the year enjoying WWE more, but both companies are great right now.

Ultimately, I love the fact you can watch wrestling with someone who isn’t a fan and not feel a constant sense of dread that something embarrassing will happen. Wrestling, on the whole, is producing objectively good television consistently and I’m not sure I’ve had that experience ever as a fan. It’s pretty bloody great.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

14 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

but I was sat in a doctors waiting room and thought I heard the snap of the rubber gloves.

That sound will definitely concentrate the mind Daz. I'm surprised you could type anything. 

[LaGoosh]

23 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

Ultimately, I love the fact you can watch wrestling with someone who isn’t a fan and not feel a constant sense of dread that something embarrassing will happen.

Yeah, I'm definitely not there.

[Infinity Land]

36 minutes ago, Duke said:

I want to argue with this point but no, I absolutely do not remember this. 

After Revolution Darby was going to be written off TV to climb Everest. 1st Dynamite after the PPV Jay White & the Gunns confront Darby during his promo to set-up a match at Big Business.

What was going to be an injury angle, ended up with an actual injury to Darby. No Everest trip and a longer lay-off which ruined Plan A. Whatever Plan B may have been was scrubbed because Eddie Kingston was injured heading into Anarchy in the Arena and Darby's return was used to sub in for team AEW. Even if they planned to pivot back to Darby v. Jay, Darby still wasn't fit enough for a full-time return. By the time Darby's back in July, Jay was out until his recent return.

[The Gaffer]

3 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

It's really genuinely fucking weird how quickly people are to knock the company that basically saved modern pro wrestling from the toilet for any small reason.

I agree with the rest of your points, but I'm a bit hung up on this kind of stuff to be honest. It's probably me. I probably shouldn't be. But it kind of unwittingly encapsulates the hypersensitivity some people can be guilty of on here to AEW being criticised. 

If there's something I'm not feeling about a product then I might deign to air it on occasion. I'm not going to stop myself from doing it because it's not the Big, Bad WWE and that's sort of the equivalency I'm seeing in the wording here. 

Very good posters offer their subjective negative takes on AEW on occasion here and that's the kind of thing that should be taken in good faith, given the general high quality sexiness most of us bring to the table. It's baffling to me that anybody would think people here are just offering up bad faith takes on AEW on purpose in order to...I don't know...finish the sentence for me? Is there tangible recurring examples? Is anybody particularly annoying with it? Or is it just the odd person who didn't join the dots on some of the storyline intricacies developing across the weeklies? 

Keith's the closest we got with his jumping the shark gimmick but he's not knocking about now and was never really going after the booking anyway. 

Unless you're referring to X phantoms who don't actually post on here, in which case whatever. Not a fan of them either, but they're not here. 

I'm sort of glad this thread's descended into a mad comparison anyway to be honest since a lot of people have a lot to say about it. 

If I've misread any of your point, it's only because I can't follow shit unless it's in a twenty minute promo as a cold opening! 

[SuperBacon]

Completely agree @The Gaffer great post.

Maybe like you I don't see what others are seeing, but I genuinely can't think of many times when people have been "shut down" in WWE threads for making a comparison or whatever. And I too don't see what would be gained by that.

I also have no idea why people would read people's opinions on Twitter or Facebook (can you fucking imagine) but there you go. I can only imagine what other forums are like as well.

Anyway, Moxley beating Danielson eh? Tsk. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

10 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Completely agree @The Gaffer great post.

Maybe like you I don't see what others are seeing, but I genuinely can't think of many times when people have been "shut down" in WWE threads for making a comparison or whatever. And I too don't see what would be gained by that.

I also have no idea why people would read people's opinions on Twitter or Facebook (can you fucking imagine) but there you go. I can only imagine what other forums are like as well.

Anyway, Moxley beating Danielson eh? Tsk. 

It happened in this very thread. It happens in nearly any in topic thread.

[LaGoosh]

21 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

I'm not going to stop myself from doing it because it's not the Big, Bad WWE and that's sort of the equivalency I'm seeing in the wording here. 

That's not what I'm saying. I criticise AEW all the time. Including in the post you quoted!

21 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

But it kind of unwittingly encapsulates the hypersensitivity some people can be guilty of on here to AEW being criticised

I don't think that is the case here at all. Do you have any examples of this hypersensitivity?  I've seen it mentioned a few times by a few posters but usually only when people have questioned or engaged their criticisms rather than just agreeing. 

21 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

Very good posters offer their subjective negative takes on AEW on occasion here and that's the kind of thing that should be taken in good faith, given the general high quality sexiness most of us bring to the table.

Absolutely! That's what I'm here for!

21 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

It's baffling to me that anybody would think people here are just offering up bad faith takes on AEW on purpose in order to...I don't know...finish the sentence for me? Is there tangible recurring examples? Is anybody particularly annoying with it?

I wish I knew! It has definitely been a thing though. Look at the All Out thread for some recent examples. I don't think it'd be fair or particularly nice to start calling people out though.

But we're way off topic now!

JR mostly rambles when he does commentary now but he still occasionally throws out a call to remind you why he was the best. In this one it was "Danielson had to kick out at one, because if it got to two he might not have been able to!" Just bloody lovely emotional selling of the logic of a kick out at one and really getting over the danger and damage Danielson was in.

 

Edited October 14, 2024 by LaGoosh

[SuperBacon]

3 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

"Danielson had to kick out at one, because if it got to two he might not have been able to!"

That's a fantastic line.

[Supremo]

Nah, Jim Ross is back in my bad books for his sarcastic delivery of the, "not Jeff Jarrett," line.

Fuck off, Jim. Double J's having the ultimate career resurgence. It makes perfect sense for him to run out as a top babyface to save Bryan Danielson. You'd know that if you watched the product.

I saw a clip the other day where Bryan Danielson was talking about how Mick Foley was a huge inspiration to him, especially the 1997 stuff where he let the reality of his character shine through. I'd never made the connection before but I can totally see it. Same selfless approach to making stars and leaving the industry better than he found it, too. I just hope Danielson doesn't become an absolute whopper in retirement like Foley did. Creepy, penny-pinching knobhead.

"Who wants the honour of buying Mr. Danielson a vegan sandwich?"

Edited October 14, 2024 by Supremo

[SuperBacon]

3 minutes ago, Supremo said:

You'd know that if you watched the product.

I dont bloody have time...oh wait.

[The Gaffer]

5 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Do you have any examples of this hypersensitivity?

I've shown my hand on this already, it's just something we're agreeing to disagree on. 

I have no further questions in this comment so indeed, back on topic. Apologies for the interruption, everybody else. 

 

[DavidB6937]

33 minutes ago, The Gaffer said:

I agree with the rest of your points, but I'm a bit hung up on this kind of stuff to be honest. It's probably me. I probably shouldn't be. But it kind of unwittingly encapsulates the hypersensitivity some people can be guilty of on here to AEW being criticised. 

Yeah I don't think AEW is criticised more than WWE really. Not on here anyway. And if so, certainly not in a deliberately anti-AEW fashion. Most of us that watch both companies enjoy a lot of what both offer and there's always stuff we don't enjoy. It can change from one show to the next..  one week to the next.. but that can happen in the same company! One week Raw could be great. Another Smackdown could be better. I love Bloodline stuff. I think Bayley is shit. Etc etc. I may have been a WWE fan a lot longer - hardly surprising - but it doesn't mean I think they're perfect either.

Criticism is criticism for me and as long as people are reasonable and fair with it then I don't see a problem with it at all. 

And I get why some people can feel protective over their favourite companies too. It's obvious that there's an instinct to do so automatically for some and I actually admire the passion and loyalty that fans have. It's what drives the business and can be an immense positive. But it can definitely get toxic and get in the way of reasonable discussion too.