Against the grain wrestling opinions

[LaGoosh]

27 minutes ago, Statto said:

It was such an overnight carbon copy I can only assume it was a network directive as that's what "big time" wrestling looks like to them.

They hired a new head of production who was ex-WWE under Kevin Dunn and yeah the TV morphed into WWE-lite look wise pretty rapidly afterwards. 

[Browser Brady]

Thumbtack spots are completely overdone in wrestling in 2025.

[Lorne Malvo]

14 hours ago, Statto said:

This winds me up something chronic when it's the TV show of a smaller promotion and it's so very obviously a taped event chopped up into TV episodes but they still try to give the pretence it's live every week, rather than doing an honest presentation of taped matches with studio links. You're being given the opportunity to do something a bit different, take it.

ROH is terrible for this. Most of the time it's cobbled together from about 3-4 weeks of pre-Dynamite/Collision matches and the entire venue changes from match to match, but they never present it as 'here's a collection of matches over the past few weeks, Riccaboni and Caprice are commentating from the broom cupboard' but more 'this is all happening live, just ignore the fact we've obviously gone from Jacksonville to Chicago and the commentary team are invisible!'

I'd rather my intelligence (what there is of it) didn't get insulted, thanks.

[Statto]

I think it bugs me so much as I'm scarred from WCW on Channel 5 pretending it was a continuous live show even when the entire look of the show magically changed from Nitro to Thunder in the space of an ad break.

[The Gaffer]

Been watching back a lot of timeline style videos of Austin feuds between WrestleManias 14 and 15 and...he's distinctly bad on the mic. 

His catchphrases are so over, and the audience wants every ounce of him so badly, and he is so protected as a top act that of course it didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now, but it stood out to me. It's particularly noticeable when interactions get a bit looser in terms of script and cueing (say...Commish Michaels is in the ring as well, there's a heel on stage, everyone's got the mic etc) and especially whenever he has a commentary headset on.

As soon as those safe lanes of what he's meant to be saying, the catchphrases etc come off, Austin quite noticeably trips over himself, repeats himself etc more than you'd like to remember. It's all "Well hell I'll give him all the credit in - uh - the world but - ah - you know he's got to know that - ah - Stone Cold's out for his...what I got to say...I'm out for his ass and that's that!" 

It makes sense of Austin always being happy to concede he was far more comfortable playing a heel. Both in 1996 and 2001 he never really came off as flustered, even if the improv skillset was the same. There was a dead-stare silence (1996) or psychotic repeating of himself (2001) that he could fall back on, but if you watch back closely in 98/99 there's points where he's floundering around trying to keep up with the stream of Austin-ness that the shows and the crowd are demanding of him. 

Edited August 28 by The Gaffer

[CTXRussomark]

I think "distinctly bad on the mic" is a crazy exaggeration.  Things were far rougher around the edges at the time and there were definitely times where his mouth moved faster than his brain and he would mispeak or pause or use an odd turn of phrase, but that rawness was all part of his appeal.  He was the antithesis of what would become the scripted Rock/HHH/Jericho etc. style promos over the next few years.  Just a straight up trash talker who you believed was making it up as he went.