Survivor Series 2024 - November 30th

[Statto]

I've thought that for a while. If not a PPV, a themed week of TV around the start of the Holiday period... 

Elite Elimination. 

[Vamp]

2 hours ago, Chili said:

Do people find the old WCW/NWA War Games matches shit because of the rules? Genuinely curious because the whole nobody can win until everyone is in, never bothered me personally that much. Obviously an example but War Games 1992 (which is still the best ever), felt like the whole bit before The Match Beyond stip felt perfect because it was 10 blokes who just wanted to use that time to beat and bloody each other senseless.

I wonder if it's a combination of things.

I don't think many wrestlers nowadays have experience of working that style and making it interesting. 

And I think both AEW and WWE present a very different type of wargames concept from the original, even if the rules are the same. Some of AEW's wargames matches are closer in concept to a Cage of Death match really. WWE's changed the tone of the match the moment they decided not to have a roof. I just don't think you go into either of their matches expecting to see people thumping each other. 

[BomberPat]

WWE just don't do heat, and they don't really do violence. So the only way they can up the stakes and sell a match as being more dangerous or more intense isn't through making you believe that the people in it hate each other and are really trying to hurt each other, it's with a succession of weapon shots and big choreographed high spots. So there's no tension, it's just waiting around for things to happen. 

If you don't have bad guys that you want to see get beaten up, and good guys who you want to see get their revenge, then there's no emotional pay-off to the bulk of a War Games match. 

[Devon Malcolm]

1 minute ago, BomberPat said:

WWE just don't do heat, and they don't really do violence. So the only way they can up the stakes and sell a match as being more dangerous or more intense isn't through making you believe that the people in it hate each other and are really trying to hurt each other, it's with a succession of weapon shots and big choreographed high spots. So there's no tension, it's just waiting around for things to happen.

This could easily be applied to AEW, though.

[DavidB6937]

2 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

and are really trying to hurt each other

I dunno, I've seen Nia Jax wrestle before.

(Ignore the chair shots)

[Supremo]

I feel like AEW go to the other extreme. Their War Games is all about the blood and the gore and the unprotected chair shots. Pure excess for the sake of it.

In both cases though, it’s still just people running down like an ITV Saturday Night Gameshow and taking turns to do stuff.

It seems like such an easy match concept to build heat and comebacks, and yet nobody seems capable of doing it. I never get excited to see people make saves or even the odds. It’s what the commentators are saying, but not what’s actually happening or what I’m feeling.

It’s nothing more than an assembly line of people doing stuff.

I haven’t watched many War Games matches of the past. Were they ever actually good? Or was it always just this?

[Chili]

3 minutes ago, Supremo said:

I feel like AEW go to the other extreme. Their War Games is all about the blood and the gore and the unprotected chair shots. Pure excess for the sake of it.

In both cases though, it’s still just people running down like an ITV Saturday Night Gameshow and taking turns to do stuff.

It seems like such an easy match concept to build heat and comebacks, and yet nobody seems capable of doing it. I never get excited to see people make saves or even the odds. It’s what the commentators are saying, but not what’s actually happening or what I’m feeling.

It’s nothing more than an assembly line of people doing stuff.

I haven’t watched many War Games matches of the past. Were they ever actually good? Or was it always just this?

Yes the 1992 War Games from Wrestle War 1992 between the Dangerous Alliance against Sting/Dustin/Windham/Steamboat/Nikita is one of the greatest cage matches and the greatest War Games match ever. Blood, violence and all for an actual reason.

The second best story based War Games would go to the 1996 match, which doesn't reach the 1992 heights, but the Sting story is fucking great and it's a fun story building match.

But yeah watch 1992, 1996 and 1991.

It's not that War Games matches are bad, it's just that it seemed only Dusty or Kevin Sullivan really understood the booking of them sometimes.

Edited December 5, 2024 by Chili

[DavidB6937]

2 minutes ago, Supremo said:

It’s nothing more than an assembly line of people doing stuff.

It's exactly what happens when they book the Royal Rumble lazily - people running down and hitting their shit - when really we all know the Rumble is at its best when there's inter-connecting stories and you should be excited to see these people get their hands on each other.

[LaGoosh]

6 minutes ago, Supremo said:

feel like AEW go to the other extreme. Their War Games is all about the blood and the gore and the unprotected chair shots. Pure excess for the sake of it.

I wouldn't agree with that. They've built a reputation that Blood & Guts will be a crazy bloody spectacle and because of that it always draws a bigger crowd and bigger rating. There's definitely a business reason for it rather than just revelling in blood for a laugh.

But I also think that like WWE, making Blood & Guts an annual event rather than when story demands it is the wrong move.

Edited December 5, 2024 by LaGoosh

[BomberPat]

18 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

This could easily be applied to AEW, though.

In some cases, but I don't think it's the case when it counts. It's as simple as the old Vince McMahon edicts being that the commentators couldn't even say the word "violent", everything had to be "disturbing" or "sinister". They never talk about pain or about how much something hurts, they talk about things being "career shortening" or "high risk", but they never just say that something causes pain. I don't know how it is now, but for a long time under Vince, they didn't even want their wrestlers to sell anything after the end of a match, and certainly not still be selling injuries from a previous show - the logic was that their wrestlers are human action figures or superheroes, and that the audience pay to see them at their best. 

The end result of that is that the only ways WWE have to make a match feel bigger or more dangerous are big choreographed table bumps, or someone getting speared through a barricade, or thrown off a stage, or someone doing a dive off a cage. AEW are certainly guilty of falling back on those things, but they also have stories built around Orange Cassidy or Bryan Danielson being banged up because of the cumulative injuries across multiple matches, or - and I know you're not a fan of Moxley, but his match with Orange Cassidy, which was built around a villain trying to completely pick a babyface apart and the face just refusing to die, and it's impossible to do that when you don't believe in at least the possibility of the match escalating into something more violent. And WWE rarely, if ever, escalate up to that point. 

 

But it's also my long-standing criticism of WWE just not booking heat or bad guys properly. Nobody cheats, or if they do, the good guys are as likely to do it as the bad guys. Their whole psychology is really janky, and not conducive to creating a a match where you want to see a villain get his just desserts from a hero - maybe Dominik Mysterio is the only heel in years they've created that you just want to see get the shit kicked out of them, and it's telling that he wasn't an NXT or Performance Center guy. 

It's also the end result of how WWE have presented wrestling for years, where the only part of a match that really matters is the finish. When you can't have a finish for half an hour, what are we here for?

[SuperBacon]

Said it before but the way some of you view wrestling sounds exhausting

[FLips]

Shocked and appalled at all this blood and guts in my Blood and Guts match.

[Dr. Alan Grant]

It would be a nice change from the norm if in a future War Games match, at some point the heel team decided to disobey the rules and storm the cage to overpower their opponents. These people are supposed to hate each other, but happily wait their turn to come in. Screw that. As soon as the little shark cage door opens, they could exit en masse to really up the carnage. Then the faces do likewise. You cut out the boring first half of the match, you stop Michael Cole from reminding us that the match hasn’t started and you actually make War Games seem like an out of control situation. 

[DavidB6937]

2 minutes ago, FLips said:

Shocked and appalled

Sounds like a new gimmick match.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Said it before but the way some of you view wrestling sounds exhausting

You know Bacon, On-topic might not be for you.