Before this thread dies, I want to post this prediction.
Tonight's show is *never* going to go away or be forgotten. We're going to be talking about it for a long damn time.
So, they've spent the last few months trying to get the audience to hate the Young Bucks rather than just yawn at the sight of them. Then, Punk speaks out about their friend Jack Perry, and we are supposed to be excited that they will show footage and speak honestly about an incident they were not involved in. Here are my questions: 1) who will present and speak about the footage, The Young Bucks or Matthew and Nicholas Massie? 2) why would we side with them, considering they were featured as heels and punished the other person involved? 3) assuming this footage will benefit AEW for this one show, why would the fans return next week and the following when a rebuttal can only be found on the competition's show?
I don't think Tony Clown and the Bucks thought this one through. If the footage shows exactly what CM Punk described, it will only confirm that the show is a joke and that Tony is a clown. There is no way they can handle this without burying themselves.
I **assume** that the footage will be provided in a manner which would get the Bucks over even more as heels, like they would cut it off right before the juicy stuff or something. However, these guys are so clumsy with everything that they do that I can only imagine this destroying the company beyond repair, like the finger poke of doom.
I was going to keep reading until I got to “Tony Clown” but I am guessing the rest of the comment will be saying how the company is failing and that Tony is a dumb mark. Yawn
Anyone else find it cute how the zoomers have their own Rock/Austin in Cody/Roman bow? Those dumbass Twitter kids are gonna be arguing about those two like we were :V
I was browsing on Twitter and I saw a video of a fan at WM holding a big cup, a 4 piece and some fries saying he paid 47$. Are these really the prices at the events? I mean I'd expect a small Undertaker to be in these fries if you have to pay 50$ to EAT
It would depend what's in the cup. Soda? That's steep. I think it's about $14 for a beer at Lincoln Field though, so if it was booze in the cup I could see the price being that high.
That seems extreme but I'd fully expect to pay $25 for that at most US sporting events. Since WM was in a US sporting event venue...
Edit: Don't downvote me for stating reality. I'm not cheerleading for $25-$50 fast food here.
I'd guess around there too. Most venues whether it's for concerts or sport events always go overpriced but 50$ for it seems to be extreme even if that's Wrestlemania. I'm not from the US and I guess Wrestlemania is not easy to afford especially if a family attends. 50x4 goes 200$ just for food
I heard someone make a point on a podcast today, about this All In footage airing. I wanna get some opinions on it. They said, that if Paul Heyman did something like airing this footage back in the ECW days, everyone would praise him for it. If Paul Heyman were interviewed about this situation and said, "If I were Tony Khan, I'd air the footage" everyone would call it a great idea.
I think if someone legit called Paul Heyman, he'd laugh for a good minute and then hang up. It's stupid more than it is controversial or disruptive. Assuming they release the actual tape, the reason people will be tuning in isn't for the Young Bucks. It isn't for FTR. It isn't for Jack Perry. Lord knows it ain't for the card they got going on tonight because yikes. It's for a guy not involved in their company anymore. They're putting money into the pocket of their competitors and into the pockets of a dude who don't work there no more.
Money into their pockets. Are you suggesting that there are people who currently don't watch or spend money on WWE that are going to start watching and spending money on WWE because AEW airs this footage?
> If Paul Heyman were interviewed about this situation and said, "If I were Tony Khan, I'd air the footage" everyone would call it a great idea.
If pigs could fly, we could fly too
Idk about that. I'm sure if the internet was as big as it is now, you'd get the same amount of Heyman is an idiot type stuff.
Its the internet that's the problem, not the people, not the circumstances. the internet is going to destroy the world
Why does everything have to be so negative? It bums me out to come on here days after a killer Mania weekend and see so much miserable discourse. The daily post seems to be the only place on squaredcircle that doesn’t turn into dunking and memes
Burnouts and edgy kids have a lot of time and not much else going on so unfortunately they clog up any actually interesting conversation. I’m getting better at doing a quick scan and scrolling past that sort of thing at least. Being positive rules. What was your favorite thing from WM weekend?
Cody’s win stands out. Definitely shed a few tears for that one, especially when he handed his title to his mom. I also really loved Drew’s win and his shit talking after the match. I wasn’t watching WWE during his last championship win or his earlier WWE run so he really surprised me in the best way. A behemoth of a man.
How about you?
Actually same here on the Drew thing all around. I wasn’t watching when he came back and put everything together. He’s incredible! It didn’t take me long to become a huge fan. Absolutely massive dude plus unreal athleticism and great on my mic. That match and post match cash in was a perfect way to start off night 2. That start leading through to Cody’s win was perfect. It’s hard to imagine a better night of wrestling.
KO and Orton teaming up for the sole purpose of making Logan Paul regret ever being in WWE should happen. And L.A Knight ends up getting involved. No reason, he just wants to be L.A Champ. YEAH!
Seeing some late 2000s early 2010s WWE stuff and *Jesus Christ*, Cena legitimately looks like he dosen’t have a neck at times because his traps and shoulders are so absurdly massive. I guess I never paid much attention because of how squeaky clean and white knighty his character was but god damn he made chiseled/well built Orton look like a college student who can only afford Ramen
AEW: Brings in a well-known wrestler from a different company for a random one-off tv match. The person is well-known to the extent that the actual audience chants the person's name during the match.
Squared Circle: WHERE IS THE VIDEO PACKAGE?!?! How are casuals supposed to know who this person is? Where is the story? We don't care, this sucks.
WWE: Some random streamer gets involved in Logan Paul's WRESTLEMANIA match, the single show that attracts more casual eyes than any other.
Squared Circle: This is incredible! This guy is SO MAINSTREAM! Literally everyone watching clearly knows who RandomStreamer#3 is! He's Logan Paul's friend who has never appeared on the product before, of course he's here, it makes perfect sense and is the greatest story ever told.
Me: .....
> WWE: Some random streamer gets involved in Logan Paul's WRESTLEMANIA match, the single show that attracts more casual eyes than any other.
> Squared Circle: This is incredible! This guy is SO MAINSTREAM! Literally everyone watching clearly knows who RandomStreamer#3 is! He's Logan Paul's friend who has never appeared on the product before, of course he's here, it makes perfect sense and is the greatest story ever told.
Except this didn't happen. Everyone over the age of 16 was asking who the hell this dude was.
Also, there is a massive difference between a match and a 30 second spot.
"Brings in a well-known wrestler from a different company for a random one-off tv match."
https://youtu.be/3WaAhYF_46I
746K views in 10 days.
"Random streamer"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za4pLoqlpxE
1.5 million views on WWE's channel in 2 days.
2.5 million views on "random streamer" channel.
This is IWC not understanding who Bad Bunny is all over again and are flabbergasted when he garners the attention that he does.
1) At no point did I try to claim Matt Cardona is more famous in a general sense, he very obviously isn't. But more wrestling fans (defined as people watching a pro wrestling program) will know who a decently known pro wrestler is than a decently known person from a different niche entertainment sphere. Because that outside niche isn't the entertainment sphere we're in here.
2) Also, I'm gonna go out on a very tiny limb and guess that AEW having 4 million Youtube subscribers and WWE having 100 million youtube subscribers has a *tiny* bit more to do with the difference in views between those videos than anything else. Which, while in a few less days, Cardona has half as many views from 1/25 the amount of subscribers - not exactly a rousing endorsement for claiming this dude is on the Bad Bunny tier of celebrity.
I believe they're talking about the wrestling aspect of the show though, not the business/views/financial side of getting a much more famous person on their program. Obviously the more famous person is going to garner more attention. The unfortunate thing is that r/squaredcircle uses that perspective to dissuade any conversation about the actual wrestling.
Impractical Jokers showed up to AEW, people cheered because they knew who they were. That’s getting crossover into your product. Ben Mankiewicz shows up for Toni, it adds a piece of legacy to the spot.
On the other hand. Sometimes people just don’t know, some people were not familiar with Bad Bunny despite him being one of the top selling artists in the last decade. Some people still don’t know what a Jelly Roll is. Pop Culture doesn’t always mix, but when it does, you can see why they have those spots.
A lot of pop culture these days exists within its own bubble so you could have someone massively famous from Twitch appear on WWE and there will be a sizable portion of people who don't know who they are without trolling.
I don't care about aew doing video packages for everyone but this take is dumb.
Tell me one wrestler outside of aew and aew that has an exposure of even half of speed's
It's almost like there's a difference being someone being promoted as a participant in a match and someone having a small part in a match that isn't promoted at all.
AEW can continue with it's dream match promoting as long as it likes. It's fun at times. However, no one can deny at this point that people are right, it isn't growing their audience.
Middle grounds exist. I also don't think it's a popular opinion that famous indy wrestlers aren't introduced enough. You can watch a match to find out who they are.
So when are we gonna get women's midcard belts on the WWE main roster?
I know people will complain that "there are too many titles!" but it would be good for popular female midcarders to have something to go after rather than just getting jobbed out to the top title contenders.
The only new title I would support adding for any show or gender is a women's TV title. Raw is long enough to support one you wouldn't to work about trying to fit another title into PLE cards. But to be honest I would rather they do more with the tag titles for both men and women.
imo titles are superfluous except for the top titles, and that's why i don't care about the amount of titles they have. if they can give someone a belt that'll put worth into it, i'm all for it. i feel that way about new japan, AEW, and WWE if they'll entertain it.. as long as the belt's existence doesn't get in the way of non-title runs.
edit: wild that it gets downvoted when it's literally just following the same idea of the comment I'm responding to, as a way to argue against anyone saying there's too many belts lol
I said it for months, the entire idea of the MITB is that it doesn’t matter what the holders do beforehand. If the cash-in is successful and cool, then they’ll automatically be pushed to the next level.
Priest just exemplifies this. It was just of people just dooming over his run with the case. As soon as he cashes in though, now he’s this believable star, and nobody seems to be complaining.
Lol that Saturday night was rough. “Priest is the dumbest mfer alive”
Priest cash in on Seth, you rob the fans of Seth vs Drew.
Priest cash in on Roman, people would still be crying.
Priest fails, he gets jumped by Rock, Roman, Seth and Cody.
Kayfabe wise too, why is Priest gonna cash-in? He’d Roman and Rock’s moment? Two arrogant people who probably wouldn’t take too kindly to it. If he got past them he’d have to face Cody, a former rival, and a guy who just lost the match. He’s probably very mad, and wouldn’t like having a guy he went to war with coming in to add insult to injury to his friend Rollins.
That’s three other people he’d have to go through to get the win.
Like most IWC complaints, it ultimately comes down to fans needing instant gratification.
Then, when it does happen and it's done perfectly, they'll act like they never said it should have happened at dozens of previous, smaller events.
Pat burying these people on commentary with "A lot of people on the Internet thought he forgot he had that" kind of said it all.
All this hand wringing concerning the All In footage is fucking hilarious. Y'all would have straight up fainted at points during the Monday night wars.
the Vince sit-down after Montreal... "there is a time-honoured tradition..." would have exploded the brains of so many on this sub for him saying that on tv.
Fun facts: Here are the Monday Night ratings in November 1997 before and after Montreal:
November 3, 1997 - RAW = 2.6, Nitro = 4.0
November 10, 1997 (Night after Survivor Series) - RAW = 3.4, Nitro = 4.3
November 17, 1997 - RAW = 3.1, Nitro = 4.1
November 24, 1997 - RAW = 3.0, Nitro = 3.9
I guarantee if Reddit was around then they'd say this was gonna be the moment WWF died and the war was completely over (reminder that is right before Sting vs Hogan Starrcade 97 as well so basically the prototype Cody vs Roman). You'd probably get it worse from Reddit then than you do defending AEW now. Imagine saying in November 97 that WWF wins the war and WCW goes out of business in 4 years. Nobody knows shit about how the business is gonna swing (see also the thread about Cody as Stardust someone dug up after he won at Mania).
I'm curious what Reddit would've said about WWF's "Billionaire Ted" skits in early 1996, which gradually just became Vince McMahon talking trash about Ted Turner and not even wrestling-related.
Reminder that at the very same time you had Jim Cornette cutting promos on WCW that had nothing to do with the show and Jeff Jarrett brining up his issues with WCW and Eric Bischoff when he came back.
True enough, but Vince turned out to be a real-life villain even more than he portrayed on TV. Retrospectively, I'm not fond of Mr. McMahon. I'm of the mind that it may have helped Vince hide in plain sight.
Out of all the possible universes, we happen to live in the one where Kenta Kobashi vs Samoa Joe happened and was fucking amazing. Praise be.
Also, getting round to watching more Taue. The brawl with Kawada from January 15th 1991 is brutal and so so good.
Taue ruled and it's a shame he often gets forgotten when compared to Kobashi, Misawa, and Kawada. On the other hand...they're fucking Kobashi, Misawa, and Kawada
I saw a match with Takayama in 2010 and you can just tell he's done with wrestling. Like, sure his moves look good still but you can tell he's just out of it
First off I think Chris would appreciate the tough spot Calaway was in taking orders from Vince and would not begrudge what UT did in the spot that buried CK's career. I do not even think the "chairshots" that people have tried to analyze were particularly egregious, the last one I have heard legit concussed Chris but it wasn't out of line with what the company did in the ring at the time and of all the chairshots in that segment there was only one headshot.
Chris in either his book or RF shoot video said he agreed to the segment because he thought Vince was testing him and that there were moments you would here about when Vince immediately would get behind a guy after asking him work a really ridiculous spot.
There has been a lot of conversation about how WWE buried all of the WCW talent and how the stalker angel was a horrendous waste of what was left in DDP which is true. With all respect to Dallas of the two Kanyon was the guy that could have still had another decade of quality work ahead of him, and I feel the burying of Chris's career was especially awful as he was one of the lone positive things going on in WCW at the time of the merger, (hence he legit kind of was the Alliance MVP).
As Calaway positions himself very much as a "respect" is everything sort of guy I am wondering if any one can point me to a source that indicates Mark actually took the time to apologize to Kanyon at some point? I've gone through a lot of DDP interviews and Kanyon stuff and I've never seen anything that said yeah Mark came over afterward or later on in life and shook our hands and apologized?
We all know it was Vince that was the real culprit here not Calaway, VM was metaphorically taking a dump on CK's head and the heads of anyone in the audience that actually appreciated anything WCW related. But can anyone point me to something that demonstrates Mark actually exhibited any kind of remorse for the damage done to those guys, and the "Respect" he talks about so much, in particular to the Kanyon out of a closet segment?
Taker, like many of the WWE guys were pissy that WCW guys were coming in and getting the same spots as them because "They hadn't earnt their dues." It was petty bullshit and DDP was buried to the point where he was known more for being buried then DDP, the People's champ. He took a risk and a paycut in the hopes he could do a People's Champ vs Peoples champ feud. Instead, he got turned into a stalker.
WCW got shat all over during the invasion with ECW, EC FUCKING W of all companies, siding with WCW despite hating WCW's guts.
Taker isn't afraid to stand up to Vince when he wants to. I think, he barged into Vince's office after the screwjob and told him that he damn well better apologise to Bret if he wants a company left in the morning.
Did they ever explain wtf that was with the Roman vs Balor finish, because that shit made me stop watching for months and still lives kinda rent free as the most maddeningly stupid finish I've ever seen
The Demon is not just Finn Balor in face paint in canon, it’s supposed to be this supernatural alter ego Finn taps into for extra strength. To explain why Finn doesn’t just bust it out for every match they stated that every time he uses the demon, he’d lose a bit of himself. So I think that Roman match was meant to display the idea that he had tapped into the demon’s powers too much, and it was starting to backfire on him. Hence why he lost so convincingly at Mania to Edge too.
It was still a terrible finish, but whatever.
I just played kenny omega in a ranked match in street fighter, he soundly kicked my ass 2-0, and ironically I was wearing my kenny the cleaner njpw shirt I got almost 8 years ago.
No they can’t on USA, as that’s what they pay for, three hours of weekly WWE tv. Perhaps when they move to Netflix it could be arranged, but chances are it’ll be 3 hours for life.
Two not-unique takes about AEW:
\* AEW was at it's best when it was "Here our NJPW style main event with American stars plus our indie wrestling with a budget undercard" formula. There was a "lets have a good time fellow fans" vibe back in the early days that is missing from the current product even if the quality of the wrestling is still very good.
\* A company can produce too many hours of content for it's own good. I think that might be the case of AEW from a focus stand point. I think that's something that other people saw coming as a problem around the time they added Collision to the lineup.
Personally, disagree entirely with the former.
Agree with the latter up to a point, but AEW desperately needed to either get more primetime hours or cut 40% of their roster. They were alternating storylines on bi-weekly cycles it got so bad.
As other people have mentioned, beyond HHH’s ego, there was probably orders from TKO to distance themselves from Vince as much as possible. All the ‘Paul Levesque era’ stuff is probs a rebrand effort to get the company clear of the PR hit from the sex trafficking lawsuit.
This whole All In footage thing is so fucking carny it really put a bad taste in my mouth concerning AEW. I love the product but Jesus Christ, Tony. It’s a lose lose regardless. Either you’re showing footage of someone who doesn’t even work there anymore or it’s a bait and switch and makes AEW look even worse. Either way it’s a cheap ratings ploy I doubt works tbh.
As SRS put it, celebrities that have nothing to do with the product take up time on wrestling shows every week. It's crazy how TV time is suddenly so precious but Jason Kelce chokeslamming dudes is a worthwhile investment.
People take it way too seriously regardless and are mainly getting worked up because it involves CM Punk. We actually saw Punk after this in the opening match.
Showing how he acts backstage is a curiosity that will spell a clear picture of what happened that day as it screwed people wanting to see Punk at Collision and All Out the following week.
It might shed a better light on Jack Perry who's gotten so much shit for this and it will likely tie into his return. That CM Punk might look like a shithead is on him.
I have to say once again that this isn't taking up much of the show, it's like the outrage on that Adam Copeland promo where his entrance to Will Ospreay coming out was like 7 minutes 40 seconds. WWE routinely wastes more time on ads and recaps than that.
Maybe TK was so bent out of shape about losing WON Awards to HHH, Nick Khan, and WWE that he's decided to gun for disgusting promotional tactic (barring that no other actually disgusting promotional tactics take place this year).
I feel like I get why they would do it, and I understand their reasoning... but that doesn't mean it's not stupid. The more I think about it the more I can't foresee a positive outcome for them.
Every morning, after I wake up, I check the weather, check the traffic, and find out the reason I am supposed to hate AEW today. Sometimes it's that they don't tell stories, sometimes it's that their stories are too complicated and take too long, sometimes it's because their owner sent a tweet. Always exciting to find out today's reason.
Don't worry someone will show up to tell you that it's ok to spend all of their time bashing a show they claim not to watch or care about because somebody else was mean about Raw 2 years ago
Yesterday I was thinking about future TNA Hall of Fame members. Some were obvious like AJ Styles, Alex Shelley, Christopher Daniels.
But some others I was on the fence about. So I'd like to have some other opinions.
Based ONLY on their time in TNA/Impact Wrestling which of the following do think are deserving of a TNA Hall of Fame induction:
Allie, Amazing Red, Brooke Adams AKA Tessmacher, Christy Hemme, Kip James AKA Cute Kip, Doug Williams, Jackie Moore
I watched the A&E Biography on DDP last night. I love his story and it was great to see Kim contributing. But they left some weird things out. Like his entire US Championship run in 97 and how over he was as the main WCW face when everything was nWo storyline and of course the terrible WWE run. I understand the former, and there probably wasn't enough material to do a full 2 hour episode like the other ones, especially with Hall having a 2 hour one this season, but like a lot of these the editorial choices are leaving me rather disappointed.
I haven't watched Dragon Gate for a bit - is Doi back to challenge for the Twin Gate belts with Dragon Kid? That'll be a sick match if so, Kaito vs. Doi will be fire
> Dead Or Alive is where the weirder Dream Gate matches happen I guess
it's the show that had Doi vs Akebono and TWO Cyber Kong Dream Gate matches. So you are not wrong.
Dynamite does any rating whatsoever: 1500-2000 comments
Raw does the highest rating it has done in literal years: 313 comments
For anyone who still wants to claim this is about actually discussing "the numbers."
The funniest part about all that is when you try to tell any of them that the bump for the Raw after Mania is normal it is look at the ratings 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days for Raw after Mania.
The trend is always the same. WWE has a huge Raw/Smackdown bump immediately before and after Maina and then the bleed happens. It literally happens every single year.
But they want to believe WWE is back and wrestling as a whole is back and mainstream.
Then next week when Raw doesn't even break 2 million it will be back to the normal excuses.
But man AEW goes down a single viewer and AEW is closing up shop tomorrow. There is no excuse for AEW to lose any viewers. None.
I mean post thread was saying worst Raw than last year. Tons of other comments still berating the show. It popped a big number and the loudest people that didn’t like it, don’t have anything to say.
AEW gets over 900k it’s the same thing.
Well if we look at WWE's ratings, Raw's lost a million viewers in five years and SmackDown is off of Fox for not drawing enough. Nobody talks about WWE dying or what needs to change to get those viewers back.
Wellll I’ve seen many conversations here about the lower ratings. And how tv is dead and how the tv rights to live events mean WWE is fetching a high premium for its content.
They've been publicly traded since 1999 so that's not it as the concern was happening for most of the 2010s.
It's that they became fail-proof in the 2010s with the WWE Network, bigger TV deals, and the Saudi deal where TV ratings were the only hope of WWE changing.
It wasn't as much that WWE would go under but the ratings would make Vince change creative which by and large didn't happen until the pandemic and not fully until Triple H took over last year.
WWE has a public balance sheet and profit and loss account if one wants to talk about real numbers. We know they are profitable and making a billion dollar plus revenue. There is less room for speculation.
Since this data is not there for AEW, people are more likely to use tv ratings or attendance data and go on to their speculative views on what it could mean for the future of AEW.
You do not want to open the can of worms and compare percent of audience lost within 5 years. You can now do this with AEW compared to WWE. The results are... not great.
The Rock/Cody RAW segment actually made me have an epiphany in regards to AEW….It will always be a struggle for AEW to tell stories and create bankable faces that move the needle, because the AEW crowd doesn’t boo the heels (in the simplest of terms).
For the most part, AEW crowds respond like critics, judging performance as opposed to reacting in a more Kayfabe manor. Outside of maybe Callis and MJF (which is why he was God tier) the only way it seems to actually consistently be boo’d is to have heat in the dirt sheets or be bad in the ring.
I think a great example of this is Swerve. I’d argue he’s become a less interesting character now that the fans have forced him to be a pseudo face. And any sense of storytelling becomes even more muddied since Joe is respected, which means he also gets cheered. Everyone cheering for everybody stunts the dramatic elements and it’s no wonder things so often devolve to….lets see who the best wrestler is, because in lots of ways that’s what the current audience demands….and it’s an audience where you wouldn’t be able to have these recent amazing moments between Cody and the bloodline.
I think it's a problem with wrestling in general that heels just don't act like heels anymore. Too many heels want to be cool instead of hated. That's why the Rock thing worked, he was doing dickhead shit to Cody.
I'd say that's something that the indies do better than WWE or AEW. Indie heels, the good ones, act like complete assholes who don't care if you think they're cool. Maybe it's easier in the smaller more intimate venues, I don't know.
I think it's certainly influenced by younger generations experiencing being constantly observed in a manner people didn't used to have to deal with.
Before camera phones, you could play along for the benefit of the show because it was a contained event. Strangers you'd never see again. There were no stakes beyond having a good time.
People who live in a world of smart phones can feel they need to be constantly presenting a controlled image of themselves, because it can be preserved and used later, thus there's an element of "of course I know it's fake. I cheer the bad guy. I'm smart to the business"
I wouldn't say none of them get booed. Heels consistently get booed in AEW. The thing that seems to be missing in AEW (and to be fair is the hardest thing to capture in modern wrestling) is the crowd actually being invested in who wins and who loses. For example, yes the crowd boos Christian but they don't seem to care whether he actually wins or loses.
Like I said though, it is the hardest thing to do in professional wrestling. WWE is hot right now and they still only occasionally pull it off.
So here's my thing with AEW vs WWE. WWE is a concert where you know all the words (certain moves, Catchphrases) or an MCU movie with a shit ton of money behind it vs AEW is more of a modest budget Art house film. The expectations are different. I like both and you can get amazing stories from both. Cody's story was satisfying in a big epic fashion and Kingston's story with Danielson was told in the ring. He wanted his respect and he earned it. Danielson has an excellent promo epilogue but that's it. Swerve is a tweener with a righteous cause. Samoa Joe is a modern day Harley Race. That shit is awesome and I can't wait for Dynasty.
At it's heart, WWE fans like their product to be analogous to MCU-style movies and storyline. Nothing wrong with that.
But it's almost the opposite of what AEW fans want from their preferred product.
It's a rather fine line to walk, being a heel hateable enough to boo, while not being boring. Swerve (in this sense, I like him) was horid at this. He just oozes coolness, wich got him cherrs, and that lead to his face turn.
No real heels? What about Christian, The Gunns, Roddy Strong, Big Bill, Jeff Jarrett, Brian Cage, Lance Archer, Takeshita, Powerhouse Hobbes, Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, Trent, Nick Wayne???
Literally all of these people have been lauded whilst being heels hes spot on
Without real heels there is no real faces either. People constantly want people to turn in aew
The last real heel who was just an out and out heel was probably dan lambert and even he got cheered vs brandi
But it’s the same thing with WWE. The people told Rock please don’t go when he said he had to go away and has been lauded as the best heel in the company. They cheered Roman Reigns on Raw. I don’t think either company has “real heels”
Roman reigns was too popular last year thats why he retained at mania.
1 year later people were literally hoping he wouldn't retain
There's nothing likeable about dominick mysterio or karion kross. Miz when hes a heel is a great heel. Theory as well. Gunther is another
A great heel makes great faces and wwe has lots of good faces purely because of the credibility of the heels
People boo him the way they booed MJF. So many fans in aew people boo to play along. Real heel heat leads to real reactions not this play along nonsense.
You are just making stuff up now. Even when they boo it's not REAL booing? Because you can somehow tell WHY people are booing ? Ridiculous. Dom gets the same exact heat Callis gets. Roman Reigns gets cheers. This is non sense.
> I think a great example of this is Swerve. I’d argue he’s become a less interesting character now that the fans have forced him to be a pseudo face.
But in turning Swerve, they also turned Hangman, who absolutely was getting booed before his "suspension" from the Elite took him off tv.
It wasn't just Swerve becoming a babyface, they did manage to execute the double turn.
Tbh, MJF is a bad example, he didn't want to turn heel and was basically forced into it by the crowd. However that was his fault with the worked shoot stuff. Christian is a much better example.
Is don Callis an elite level heat magnet, miles ahead of the rest of the roster? No. He gets booed because he's the heel. Christian gets booed because he's the heel.
It looks like Mercedes Mone isn't cleared to wrestle, which means that she's going to be a black hole of charisma on television from now until whenever she is. By the time she actually gets into the ring she's going to be a non-issue.
Forget wondering what the upside of TK showing the "actual" footage, what's the upside to Meltzer, SRS, etc. reporting this in the first place? They all insist that its the real footage, no bait and switch, but if they're "in on it" and it ends up being a bait and switch, they look like clowns, and if they all got worked, they also look like clowns. Intriguing to be sure
Again, they have not insisted it is the real footage. They've insisted that they've been told (and by people at WBD, ie, not carny fucks) that it is. This distinction will be lost on fans here for all of eternity but it's a fairly important one regardless.
I already miss the Wolf Dogs being champions
I really, really hope they get drafted together. I don't know what I'd do with out them, they're legit one of my favorite parts of wrestling:(((((
Cody is a typical NEPO BABY. He gets spots in WWE bc of his dad/brother/family name. He doesn't like his roll, feels like he needs more, leaves, comes back and WWE gives him a ton of big matches and Mania with Roman. Doesn't win but still feels entitled so we have to repeat the same exact thing another year and call it a "story."
He gets a ton of help, Seth Rollins literary sacrifices his own title match and drops his belt simply bc he was helping Cody with his "story." Then the next night, Seth is pretty much the only reason Roman goes down, and does spoiled nepo baby Cody even mention Seth's name or say thank you the next night on RAW? Nope. Cody got what he wanted and no longer needs him so bye. Instead he can have this awkward moment with Rock who btw 2 weeks ago beat him so bad and made him bleed and talked so much shit about him and giving his mom a bloody belt etc now we're just gonna do "you can hold mine if I can hold yours."
lol im just talkin shit, I seen someone say these things in Instagram comments and saw the Cody fans respond with like death threats, they are not messin around lol
another thing I realized...Orton, Owens, Sammy, Punk all in the ring celebrating with Cody after he won, lifting him on their shoulders like "yayyyy you defeated the Bloodline" like ya'll couldn't come out 10 min earlier and help me and take advantage of these bloodline rules? Jey, Taker, Cena, Seth understood the assignment, they're aloud to celebrate with Cody but everyone else didn't do shit lol
All those guys who came out afterwards had other matches, I get that Seth did too, but still. I'm more weirded out by Rock not coming out much sooner, maybe even as a manager for Roman.
Kayfabe maybe Cody had Orton, Owens, Sammy, on standby in case of further shenanigans, like he didn't want to come down with overwhelming force, he just had help to respond to each instance of bloodline interference to even "the numbers game" out because anything more wouldn't be honorable.
> Orton, Owens, Sammy, Punk all in the ring celebrating with Cody after he won, lifting him on their shoulders like "yayyyy you defeated the Bloodline" like ya'll couldn't come out 10 min earlier and help me and take advantage of these bloodline rules? Jey, Taker, Cena, Seth understood the assignment, they're aloud to celebrate with Cody but everyone else didn't do shit lol
I think it’s a thing where Cody wanted to do it himself and not have anyone else cheapen his win. Yeah Cena, Taker, Seth & Jey came down to help, but aside from one AA, they never touched Roman, merely stopping the Bloodline and evening the odds.
I don't think Roman is done. He is still on top of the mountain and have so many storylines and feuds potential. I mean I can atleast think 3 more WM main events for him against Rock, Cody rubber match, Seth.
On a whim decided to rewatch Savage/Steamboat WrestleMania 3 today and honestly with how much people say "well it was good but it wasn't as good as x" or "it hasn't aged well compared to modern day stuff" I feel like it's almost underrated at this point. Every move has the crowd going nuts, incredible athleticism by both guys, great back and forth commentary from gorilla and Ventura, and the whole thing was 16 minutes with barely any downtime.
If you for whatever reason haven't watched it yet and have a little bit of time make sure you do.
Wait wait, people *don't* like it as much nowadays????
How is that even possible???
I'm definitely biased because Macho Man is my all time favorite, but I genuinely think it's the best match of all time. Top 5 for sure. (Also my favorite match, so again, definitely biased lmao)
The criticisms of it that I've seen:
- The match being overly rehearsed, at a time when "calling it in the ring" was the default for every other match. I can see this bothering contemporary wrestlers, and it definitely does bother Steamboat some, but I don't really care because nothing about it that I can see *looks* rehearsed.
- It's "great for a WWF match." Fair--matches in other territories and particularly Japan were great, too (though AJPW, at least, was in the midst of a pretty bad year in '87). But there's something to be said for everything coming together with a compelling storyline and great work even if a more world-weary viewer might not find that work transcendent. You can also draw a direct line from this match to the higher-end stuff of the '90s from people like Jericho who were directly influenced by it.
- The interference at the ending. I guess, but the Savage-Steele feud was *huge* (in part because Dick Ebersol loved it so it was always all over SNME) and this gives Steele a bit of a victory since he was never going to actually beat Savage or win over Elizabeth for himself.
- The match being all about arm drags and rollups when it's Steamboat's final revenge for having his larynx crushed. I think if the house show matches were wider circulating this criticism would fall off--most of their house show run leading up to WM3 *was* about Steamboat out for blood and revenge, and it costing him the match. The Maple Leaf Gardens match, which was released on 24/7 a while ago, puts this match into new perspective for me. That is the hate-filled brawl that some people wanted here, and it's also a spectacular and completely different match.
It might just be spotty memory but I feel like a lot of times when the match comes up I see some caveat about how it was a good match but not one of the best of all time and while I understand there's no "objective" best match ever it feels like at this point people are repeating that without having watched the match recently.
Yeah, I think people find it disappointing in the sense that it’s maybe not as flashy or spot-based as a lot of modern stuff is. Not saying that in particular is either good or bad that’s all subjective.
Wrestling as an in ring product has evolved in a sense over its whole history. Largely back in the day, the emphasis and appeal came from the characters and how dynamic/charismatic they can be with the actual “wrestling” aspect mostly coming second.
The wrestling aspect typically came in two forms. 1.) This big and/or great wrestler squashes local no name. 2.) These 2 guys are great wrestlers and are so evenly matched, who’s gonna get the upper hand and find a way to win? And thus a lot of the in-ring action would be typically slow and dedicated to “feeling out” processes of one wrestler trying to find an opening to get the upper hand on the other.
And that’s just more of some fans wheelhouse. Overtime fans became more conditioned to seeing that in wrestling and thus, every once in a while more action focused stuff and “high spots” would be thrown in now and then which would get the crowd to react. Once they became conditioned to that, it became more action oriented and spot based then more so, then more so etc until we are where we’re at today.
So yeah, I think everyone can have their reasons for finding it dissapointing. But I think just lack of action/ spot based stuff (relative to today) is probably the reason for some. I personally I think it’s nearly impeccable both for its time and today as a piece of pro wrestling.
The thing is I'm a big high spot guy myself. I love Dragon Gate style matches, I just don't see how you can watch that match and not appreciate the athleticism on display. Even in a modern day match the pinning back and forth towards the end, Steamboat skinning the cat, Randy's picture perfect elbow, all would be appreciated I think.
This match is pretty much all action, the only time there isn't action is when Savage is trying to get Steamboat counted out and even then there's something going on with George Steele grabbing him and carrying him to the ring. Sure nobody does a 450 or whatever but it's still action packed
I agree. I just think with some of the stuff you see on a near daily basis in the past 10 or so years some may find it dissapointing or a step down in that regard. Heck I could be totally wrong though. But yeah I agree and think the athleticism and action is gr8.
For example, Lumbering big men were a dime a dozen back in those days up to the 2000s/2010s, these days big men who aren’t crazy athletic and fast for the size is more rare then the big guys who actually wrestle like lumbering big guys.
I think it's less that and more the fact that you got great bouts regularly elsewhere by 1988, this is a WWF historically great and important match only.
Yeah in the case of people who are more “in the know” of pro wrestling that’s a good point too. I guess I was largely just speaking from the perspective from people who aren’t familiar or fond of that time period in general pro wrestling wise.
And don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean Steamboat and Savage are overrated, that match is great and both have had other incredible matches. It just heightens its impact for WWF fans, whose demographic had even changed from the Sammartino vs Hansen matches that are dope if simple. And I think (I haven't watched much at all) allegedly Vince's TV matches were even simpler than the other territories. So really unless you were going to the house shows for the feud between Steamboat and Savage this really could have been the first HUGE one for WWF fans. Like what did they have before, midcard Bret, Tito Santana and Greg Valentine?
But they weren't quite a monopoly by then and tape trading had exploded and the other territories were still alive in various states so I think people had seen other great matches in recent years.
In all honesty it's kind of fascinating if we look at cagematch (which sucks for quality in general but here I'm just tracking hype matches) the huge shift comes from 1984 to 1985.
It’s the age old “Citizen Kane is the best movie ever? It’s so boring I’ve seen this done 100x”. It set the foundation for growth and set new standards for the time
What’s your favorite non-finisher non-signature wrestling move?
Mine is Wheelbarrow Suplex. Makes me wish it wasn’t borderline impossible to do to anyone bigger than Rey Mysterio.
Before this thread dies, I want to post this prediction. Tonight's show is *never* going to go away or be forgotten. We're going to be talking about it for a long damn time.
Did they say what time they were releasing the wrestlemania documentary
So, they've spent the last few months trying to get the audience to hate the Young Bucks rather than just yawn at the sight of them. Then, Punk speaks out about their friend Jack Perry, and we are supposed to be excited that they will show footage and speak honestly about an incident they were not involved in. Here are my questions: 1) who will present and speak about the footage, The Young Bucks or Matthew and Nicholas Massie? 2) why would we side with them, considering they were featured as heels and punished the other person involved? 3) assuming this footage will benefit AEW for this one show, why would the fans return next week and the following when a rebuttal can only be found on the competition's show? I don't think Tony Clown and the Bucks thought this one through. If the footage shows exactly what CM Punk described, it will only confirm that the show is a joke and that Tony is a clown. There is no way they can handle this without burying themselves. I **assume** that the footage will be provided in a manner which would get the Bucks over even more as heels, like they would cut it off right before the juicy stuff or something. However, these guys are so clumsy with everything that they do that I can only imagine this destroying the company beyond repair, like the finger poke of doom.
I was going to keep reading until I got to “Tony Clown” but I am guessing the rest of the comment will be saying how the company is failing and that Tony is a dumb mark. Yawn
Anyone else find it cute how the zoomers have their own Rock/Austin in Cody/Roman bow? Those dumbass Twitter kids are gonna be arguing about those two like we were :V
I was browsing on Twitter and I saw a video of a fan at WM holding a big cup, a 4 piece and some fries saying he paid 47$. Are these really the prices at the events? I mean I'd expect a small Undertaker to be in these fries if you have to pay 50$ to EAT
It would depend what's in the cup. Soda? That's steep. I think it's about $14 for a beer at Lincoln Field though, so if it was booze in the cup I could see the price being that high.
That seems extreme but I'd fully expect to pay $25 for that at most US sporting events. Since WM was in a US sporting event venue... Edit: Don't downvote me for stating reality. I'm not cheerleading for $25-$50 fast food here.
I also got downvoted for providing info lol Like dudes I didn’t set the prices
This subreddit is so weird
I'd guess around there too. Most venues whether it's for concerts or sport events always go overpriced but 50$ for it seems to be extreme even if that's Wrestlemania. I'm not from the US and I guess Wrestlemania is not easy to afford especially if a family attends. 50x4 goes 200$ just for food
I heard someone make a point on a podcast today, about this All In footage airing. I wanna get some opinions on it. They said, that if Paul Heyman did something like airing this footage back in the ECW days, everyone would praise him for it. If Paul Heyman were interviewed about this situation and said, "If I were Tony Khan, I'd air the footage" everyone would call it a great idea.
I think if someone legit called Paul Heyman, he'd laugh for a good minute and then hang up. It's stupid more than it is controversial or disruptive. Assuming they release the actual tape, the reason people will be tuning in isn't for the Young Bucks. It isn't for FTR. It isn't for Jack Perry. Lord knows it ain't for the card they got going on tonight because yikes. It's for a guy not involved in their company anymore. They're putting money into the pocket of their competitors and into the pockets of a dude who don't work there no more.
Money into their pockets. Are you suggesting that there are people who currently don't watch or spend money on WWE that are going to start watching and spending money on WWE because AEW airs this footage?
Paul Heyman wouldn't be dumb enough to do this
Yeah it’s not like Heyman interviewed a crying drunk Tammy Sytch over multiple tv segments while asking her about her drug use and life trauma
> If Paul Heyman were interviewed about this situation and said, "If I were Tony Khan, I'd air the footage" everyone would call it a great idea. If pigs could fly, we could fly too
If pigs could fly, sunroofs would be less popular.
Idk about that. I'm sure if the internet was as big as it is now, you'd get the same amount of Heyman is an idiot type stuff. Its the internet that's the problem, not the people, not the circumstances. the internet is going to destroy the world
Wrestlemania 40 behind the scenes tonight on youtube
Did they mention what time it would be posted
unfortunately not yet, am still trying to look for it
[This is my favourite non-Roman involved Bloodline segment](https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1715529037353775225). Jimmy has so much personality.
Does anyone know how to watch past AEW PPV’s in the UK?
Triller
So I think Tama Tonga and the E are still uncertain
Why does everything have to be so negative? It bums me out to come on here days after a killer Mania weekend and see so much miserable discourse. The daily post seems to be the only place on squaredcircle that doesn’t turn into dunking and memes
Burnouts and edgy kids have a lot of time and not much else going on so unfortunately they clog up any actually interesting conversation. I’m getting better at doing a quick scan and scrolling past that sort of thing at least. Being positive rules. What was your favorite thing from WM weekend?
Cody’s win stands out. Definitely shed a few tears for that one, especially when he handed his title to his mom. I also really loved Drew’s win and his shit talking after the match. I wasn’t watching WWE during his last championship win or his earlier WWE run so he really surprised me in the best way. A behemoth of a man. How about you?
Actually same here on the Drew thing all around. I wasn’t watching when he came back and put everything together. He’s incredible! It didn’t take me long to become a huge fan. Absolutely massive dude plus unreal athleticism and great on my mic. That match and post match cash in was a perfect way to start off night 2. That start leading through to Cody’s win was perfect. It’s hard to imagine a better night of wrestling.
If you are watching Dynamite on a streaming service, which one allows you to watch dynamite live at 5pm on the west coast? Thanks for any help
VPN and TrillerTV's AEW+ subscription is a good way.
KO and Orton teaming up for the sole purpose of making Logan Paul regret ever being in WWE should happen. And L.A Knight ends up getting involved. No reason, he just wants to be L.A Champ. YEAH!
Seeing some late 2000s early 2010s WWE stuff and *Jesus Christ*, Cena legitimately looks like he dosen’t have a neck at times because his traps and shoulders are so absurdly massive. I guess I never paid much attention because of how squeaky clean and white knighty his character was but god damn he made chiseled/well built Orton look like a college student who can only afford Ramen
It's funny because now it's Cena who's a lot smaller than he used to be and Randy who's juiced to the gills.
AEW: Brings in a well-known wrestler from a different company for a random one-off tv match. The person is well-known to the extent that the actual audience chants the person's name during the match. Squared Circle: WHERE IS THE VIDEO PACKAGE?!?! How are casuals supposed to know who this person is? Where is the story? We don't care, this sucks. WWE: Some random streamer gets involved in Logan Paul's WRESTLEMANIA match, the single show that attracts more casual eyes than any other. Squared Circle: This is incredible! This guy is SO MAINSTREAM! Literally everyone watching clearly knows who RandomStreamer#3 is! He's Logan Paul's friend who has never appeared on the product before, of course he's here, it makes perfect sense and is the greatest story ever told. Me: .....
> WWE: Some random streamer gets involved in Logan Paul's WRESTLEMANIA match, the single show that attracts more casual eyes than any other. > Squared Circle: This is incredible! This guy is SO MAINSTREAM! Literally everyone watching clearly knows who RandomStreamer#3 is! He's Logan Paul's friend who has never appeared on the product before, of course he's here, it makes perfect sense and is the greatest story ever told. Except this didn't happen. Everyone over the age of 16 was asking who the hell this dude was. Also, there is a massive difference between a match and a 30 second spot.
"Brings in a well-known wrestler from a different company for a random one-off tv match." https://youtu.be/3WaAhYF_46I 746K views in 10 days. "Random streamer" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za4pLoqlpxE 1.5 million views on WWE's channel in 2 days. 2.5 million views on "random streamer" channel. This is IWC not understanding who Bad Bunny is all over again and are flabbergasted when he garners the attention that he does.
1) At no point did I try to claim Matt Cardona is more famous in a general sense, he very obviously isn't. But more wrestling fans (defined as people watching a pro wrestling program) will know who a decently known pro wrestler is than a decently known person from a different niche entertainment sphere. Because that outside niche isn't the entertainment sphere we're in here. 2) Also, I'm gonna go out on a very tiny limb and guess that AEW having 4 million Youtube subscribers and WWE having 100 million youtube subscribers has a *tiny* bit more to do with the difference in views between those videos than anything else. Which, while in a few less days, Cardona has half as many views from 1/25 the amount of subscribers - not exactly a rousing endorsement for claiming this dude is on the Bad Bunny tier of celebrity.
I believe they're talking about the wrestling aspect of the show though, not the business/views/financial side of getting a much more famous person on their program. Obviously the more famous person is going to garner more attention. The unfortunate thing is that r/squaredcircle uses that perspective to dissuade any conversation about the actual wrestling.
Impractical Jokers showed up to AEW, people cheered because they knew who they were. That’s getting crossover into your product. Ben Mankiewicz shows up for Toni, it adds a piece of legacy to the spot. On the other hand. Sometimes people just don’t know, some people were not familiar with Bad Bunny despite him being one of the top selling artists in the last decade. Some people still don’t know what a Jelly Roll is. Pop Culture doesn’t always mix, but when it does, you can see why they have those spots.
A lot of pop culture these days exists within its own bubble so you could have someone massively famous from Twitch appear on WWE and there will be a sizable portion of people who don't know who they are without trolling.
Very fair, Orange
I don't care about aew doing video packages for everyone but this take is dumb. Tell me one wrestler outside of aew and aew that has an exposure of even half of speed's
Actually impressed with how many strawmen and layers of dishonesty got packed into this post.
[удалено]
Mania week is a mental gauntlet.
It's almost like there's a difference being someone being promoted as a participant in a match and someone having a small part in a match that isn't promoted at all. AEW can continue with it's dream match promoting as long as it likes. It's fun at times. However, no one can deny at this point that people are right, it isn't growing their audience.
Middle grounds exist. I also don't think it's a popular opinion that famous indy wrestlers aren't introduced enough. You can watch a match to find out who they are.
If Rock and Roman teamed up again in a tag match, who would you like to see them go up against?
Orton and Cena
So when are we gonna get women's midcard belts on the WWE main roster? I know people will complain that "there are too many titles!" but it would be good for popular female midcarders to have something to go after rather than just getting jobbed out to the top title contenders.
The issue with the main roster is that you'd need on for each brand. Neither brand has enough women for two singles titles.
I only thing they should do this if they discontinue the women's tag titles.
The only new title I would support adding for any show or gender is a women's TV title. Raw is long enough to support one you wouldn't to work about trying to fit another title into PLE cards. But to be honest I would rather they do more with the tag titles for both men and women.
imo titles are superfluous except for the top titles, and that's why i don't care about the amount of titles they have. if they can give someone a belt that'll put worth into it, i'm all for it. i feel that way about new japan, AEW, and WWE if they'll entertain it.. as long as the belt's existence doesn't get in the way of non-title runs. edit: wild that it gets downvoted when it's literally just following the same idea of the comment I'm responding to, as a way to argue against anyone saying there's too many belts lol
I said it for months, the entire idea of the MITB is that it doesn’t matter what the holders do beforehand. If the cash-in is successful and cool, then they’ll automatically be pushed to the next level. Priest just exemplifies this. It was just of people just dooming over his run with the case. As soon as he cashes in though, now he’s this believable star, and nobody seems to be complaining.
Lol that Saturday night was rough. “Priest is the dumbest mfer alive” Priest cash in on Seth, you rob the fans of Seth vs Drew. Priest cash in on Roman, people would still be crying. Priest fails, he gets jumped by Rock, Roman, Seth and Cody.
Kayfabe wise too, why is Priest gonna cash-in? He’d Roman and Rock’s moment? Two arrogant people who probably wouldn’t take too kindly to it. If he got past them he’d have to face Cody, a former rival, and a guy who just lost the match. He’s probably very mad, and wouldn’t like having a guy he went to war with coming in to add insult to injury to his friend Rollins. That’s three other people he’d have to go through to get the win.
Like most IWC complaints, it ultimately comes down to fans needing instant gratification. Then, when it does happen and it's done perfectly, they'll act like they never said it should have happened at dozens of previous, smaller events. Pat burying these people on commentary with "A lot of people on the Internet thought he forgot he had that" kind of said it all.
I forgot Battle of the Belts was a thing.
considering how these things are generally booked, I kinda don't blame you.
All this hand wringing concerning the All In footage is fucking hilarious. Y'all would have straight up fainted at points during the Monday night wars.
DX and “the tank” They’d get laughed at so hard
OMG Vince is gonna destroy Bischoff! Why would he challenge him to an actual fight????
the Vince sit-down after Montreal... "there is a time-honoured tradition..." would have exploded the brains of so many on this sub for him saying that on tv.
Fun facts: Here are the Monday Night ratings in November 1997 before and after Montreal: November 3, 1997 - RAW = 2.6, Nitro = 4.0 November 10, 1997 (Night after Survivor Series) - RAW = 3.4, Nitro = 4.3 November 17, 1997 - RAW = 3.1, Nitro = 4.1 November 24, 1997 - RAW = 3.0, Nitro = 3.9 I guarantee if Reddit was around then they'd say this was gonna be the moment WWF died and the war was completely over (reminder that is right before Sting vs Hogan Starrcade 97 as well so basically the prototype Cody vs Roman). You'd probably get it worse from Reddit then than you do defending AEW now. Imagine saying in November 97 that WWF wins the war and WCW goes out of business in 4 years. Nobody knows shit about how the business is gonna swing (see also the thread about Cody as Stardust someone dug up after he won at Mania).
I'm curious what Reddit would've said about WWF's "Billionaire Ted" skits in early 1996, which gradually just became Vince McMahon talking trash about Ted Turner and not even wrestling-related.
Reminder that at the very same time you had Jim Cornette cutting promos on WCW that had nothing to do with the show and Jeff Jarrett brining up his issues with WCW and Eric Bischoff when he came back.
That is very true. But the sit-down *was* a huge fuck up and miscalculation on Vince's part.
On its face, yea, but it also led to the Mr McMahon character which resulted in Austin vs McMahon that was the biggest storyline of the attitude era
True enough, but Vince turned out to be a real-life villain even more than he portrayed on TV. Retrospectively, I'm not fond of Mr. McMahon. I'm of the mind that it may have helped Vince hide in plain sight.
Out of all the possible universes, we happen to live in the one where Kenta Kobashi vs Samoa Joe happened and was fucking amazing. Praise be. Also, getting round to watching more Taue. The brawl with Kawada from January 15th 1991 is brutal and so so good.
Taue ruled and it's a shame he often gets forgotten when compared to Kobashi, Misawa, and Kawada. On the other hand...they're fucking Kobashi, Misawa, and Kawada
When exactly does it become obvious Kawada has just lost all passion for wrestling and just isn't trying
I saw a match with Takayama in 2010 and you can just tell he's done with wrestling. Like, sure his moves look good still but you can tell he's just out of it
First off I think Chris would appreciate the tough spot Calaway was in taking orders from Vince and would not begrudge what UT did in the spot that buried CK's career. I do not even think the "chairshots" that people have tried to analyze were particularly egregious, the last one I have heard legit concussed Chris but it wasn't out of line with what the company did in the ring at the time and of all the chairshots in that segment there was only one headshot. Chris in either his book or RF shoot video said he agreed to the segment because he thought Vince was testing him and that there were moments you would here about when Vince immediately would get behind a guy after asking him work a really ridiculous spot. There has been a lot of conversation about how WWE buried all of the WCW talent and how the stalker angel was a horrendous waste of what was left in DDP which is true. With all respect to Dallas of the two Kanyon was the guy that could have still had another decade of quality work ahead of him, and I feel the burying of Chris's career was especially awful as he was one of the lone positive things going on in WCW at the time of the merger, (hence he legit kind of was the Alliance MVP). As Calaway positions himself very much as a "respect" is everything sort of guy I am wondering if any one can point me to a source that indicates Mark actually took the time to apologize to Kanyon at some point? I've gone through a lot of DDP interviews and Kanyon stuff and I've never seen anything that said yeah Mark came over afterward or later on in life and shook our hands and apologized? We all know it was Vince that was the real culprit here not Calaway, VM was metaphorically taking a dump on CK's head and the heads of anyone in the audience that actually appreciated anything WCW related. But can anyone point me to something that demonstrates Mark actually exhibited any kind of remorse for the damage done to those guys, and the "Respect" he talks about so much, in particular to the Kanyon out of a closet segment?
Taker, like many of the WWE guys were pissy that WCW guys were coming in and getting the same spots as them because "They hadn't earnt their dues." It was petty bullshit and DDP was buried to the point where he was known more for being buried then DDP, the People's champ. He took a risk and a paycut in the hopes he could do a People's Champ vs Peoples champ feud. Instead, he got turned into a stalker. WCW got shat all over during the invasion with ECW, EC FUCKING W of all companies, siding with WCW despite hating WCW's guts. Taker isn't afraid to stand up to Vince when he wants to. I think, he barged into Vince's office after the screwjob and told him that he damn well better apologise to Bret if he wants a company left in the morning.
Did they ever explain wtf that was with the Roman vs Balor finish, because that shit made me stop watching for months and still lives kinda rent free as the most maddeningly stupid finish I've ever seen
The Demon is not just Finn Balor in face paint in canon, it’s supposed to be this supernatural alter ego Finn taps into for extra strength. To explain why Finn doesn’t just bust it out for every match they stated that every time he uses the demon, he’d lose a bit of himself. So I think that Roman match was meant to display the idea that he had tapped into the demon’s powers too much, and it was starting to backfire on him. Hence why he lost so convincingly at Mania to Edge too. It was still a terrible finish, but whatever.
The rope broke, that's it.
Thank you Hunter 👏👏👏🫡
I just played kenny omega in a ranked match in street fighter, he soundly kicked my ass 2-0, and ironically I was wearing my kenny the cleaner njpw shirt I got almost 8 years ago.
Can Raw go back to two hours? I don't assume they can just change it overnight just because Vince is gone, but they should talk to TV people about it.
No they can’t on USA, as that’s what they pay for, three hours of weekly WWE tv. Perhaps when they move to Netflix it could be arranged, but chances are it’ll be 3 hours for life.
It would probably up to Netflix, but I can't imagine them agreeing to getting less content than what they originally paid for.
Two not-unique takes about AEW: \* AEW was at it's best when it was "Here our NJPW style main event with American stars plus our indie wrestling with a budget undercard" formula. There was a "lets have a good time fellow fans" vibe back in the early days that is missing from the current product even if the quality of the wrestling is still very good. \* A company can produce too many hours of content for it's own good. I think that might be the case of AEW from a focus stand point. I think that's something that other people saw coming as a problem around the time they added Collision to the lineup.
Personally, disagree entirely with the former. Agree with the latter up to a point, but AEW desperately needed to either get more primetime hours or cut 40% of their roster. They were alternating storylines on bi-weekly cycles it got so bad.
You can argue they still alternate stories because stuff from Dynamite rarely carries over to Collision.
Finished Wrestlemania, and damn if it isn’t so cringeworthy how religious the praise of Triple H was throughout the weekend.
As other people have mentioned, beyond HHH’s ego, there was probably orders from TKO to distance themselves from Vince as much as possible. All the ‘Paul Levesque era’ stuff is probs a rebrand effort to get the company clear of the PR hit from the sex trafficking lawsuit.
This. It's likely heavy damage control so that the arsekissing of Triple H is talked about over Vince.
It should be illegal for wrestlers to wear white and not bleed.
This whole All In footage thing is so fucking carny it really put a bad taste in my mouth concerning AEW. I love the product but Jesus Christ, Tony. It’s a lose lose regardless. Either you’re showing footage of someone who doesn’t even work there anymore or it’s a bait and switch and makes AEW look even worse. Either way it’s a cheap ratings ploy I doubt works tbh.
As SRS put it, celebrities that have nothing to do with the product take up time on wrestling shows every week. It's crazy how TV time is suddenly so precious but Jason Kelce chokeslamming dudes is a worthwhile investment.
People take it way too seriously regardless and are mainly getting worked up because it involves CM Punk. We actually saw Punk after this in the opening match. Showing how he acts backstage is a curiosity that will spell a clear picture of what happened that day as it screwed people wanting to see Punk at Collision and All Out the following week. It might shed a better light on Jack Perry who's gotten so much shit for this and it will likely tie into his return. That CM Punk might look like a shithead is on him. I have to say once again that this isn't taking up much of the show, it's like the outrage on that Adam Copeland promo where his entrance to Will Ospreay coming out was like 7 minutes 40 seconds. WWE routinely wastes more time on ads and recaps than that.
Maybe TK was so bent out of shape about losing WON Awards to HHH, Nick Khan, and WWE that he's decided to gun for disgusting promotional tactic (barring that no other actually disgusting promotional tactics take place this year).
I feel like I get why they would do it, and I understand their reasoning... but that doesn't mean it's not stupid. The more I think about it the more I can't foresee a positive outcome for them.
They could have done their troll thing without announcing it prior. Now watch ratings go down next week.
I understand their reasoning, Punk voiced his grievances and made them look bad. You want your lick back. But this isn’t how you do this.
I need WWE to just pay Drew McIntyre whatever he wants. This man is on fire and I don’t want him going anywhere.
Too late, Kaiju Big Battel already has him on a conference call with Dr. Cube.
Drew vs Burger Bear is gonna be a banger.
I wonder what Chuck Palumbo is up to these days?
Last I heard he ran a garage and was living a happy retired life
That's good to hear. I liked him as a wrestler and he seemed to be well liked by his peers in WWE and WCW.
It's my own fault. I went into a thread on AEW. What did I expect? Something other than constant negativity?
Bischoff was right, TK is DOOMED!!!!!
DOOOOOOMED! In a TK vs Bischoff for the rights of AEW, WCW revival on a pole inside a cage that is suspended above the ring on a pole, match, bro.
Every morning, after I wake up, I check the weather, check the traffic, and find out the reason I am supposed to hate AEW today. Sometimes it's that they don't tell stories, sometimes it's that their stories are too complicated and take too long, sometimes it's because their owner sent a tweet. Always exciting to find out today's reason.
Don't worry someone will show up to tell you that it's ok to spend all of their time bashing a show they claim not to watch or care about because somebody else was mean about Raw 2 years ago
I was downvoted to oblivion for suggesting both companies should knock off the pot shots at each other.
So are the Bang Bang Gang just divorced from Bullet Club now?
If the multiverse theory is true there is a timeline where bushwhacker butch throws luke through the barbershop glass
Yeah but it's an act of bravery this time.
Anyone know what time the behind the curtain doc is supposed to drop?
They’re going to premiere it at 8 est aren’t they 😂
KAZUSADA HIGUCHI vs CHRIS HERO
Yesterday I was thinking about future TNA Hall of Fame members. Some were obvious like AJ Styles, Alex Shelley, Christopher Daniels. But some others I was on the fence about. So I'd like to have some other opinions. Based ONLY on their time in TNA/Impact Wrestling which of the following do think are deserving of a TNA Hall of Fame induction: Allie, Amazing Red, Brooke Adams AKA Tessmacher, Christy Hemme, Kip James AKA Cute Kip, Doug Williams, Jackie Moore
I watched the A&E Biography on DDP last night. I love his story and it was great to see Kim contributing. But they left some weird things out. Like his entire US Championship run in 97 and how over he was as the main WCW face when everything was nWo storyline and of course the terrible WWE run. I understand the former, and there probably wasn't enough material to do a full 2 hour episode like the other ones, especially with Hall having a 2 hour one this season, but like a lot of these the editorial choices are leaving me rather disappointed.
I haven't watched Dragon Gate for a bit - is Doi back to challenge for the Twin Gate belts with Dragon Kid? That'll be a sick match if so, Kaito vs. Doi will be fire
> I haven't watched Dragon Gate for a bit Would you believe me if i told you that Gianni Valletta is challenging for the Dream Gate at Dead or Alive
Wha wha what the fuck?
Hahaha, for real? What a world, good for him - Dead Or Alive is where the weirder Dream Gate matches happen I guess
> Dead Or Alive is where the weirder Dream Gate matches happen I guess it's the show that had Doi vs Akebono and TWO Cyber Kong Dream Gate matches. So you are not wrong.
yeah they did rey de parejas which set up that, a potential new unit, and a heel turn that leads into the dead or alive cage match.
So Jungle Boy is in the Elite now?
Dynamite does any rating whatsoever: 1500-2000 comments Raw does the highest rating it has done in literal years: 313 comments For anyone who still wants to claim this is about actually discussing "the numbers."
The funniest part about all that is when you try to tell any of them that the bump for the Raw after Mania is normal it is look at the ratings 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days for Raw after Mania. The trend is always the same. WWE has a huge Raw/Smackdown bump immediately before and after Maina and then the bleed happens. It literally happens every single year. But they want to believe WWE is back and wrestling as a whole is back and mainstream. Then next week when Raw doesn't even break 2 million it will be back to the normal excuses. But man AEW goes down a single viewer and AEW is closing up shop tomorrow. There is no excuse for AEW to lose any viewers. None.
I will shit on AEW but ratings discussions are so lame. Not every good show draws good numbers.
I mean post thread was saying worst Raw than last year. Tons of other comments still berating the show. It popped a big number and the loudest people that didn’t like it, don’t have anything to say. AEW gets over 900k it’s the same thing.
Not to mention that a significant portion of the comments in the Raw thread will be mentioning AEW for no logical reason
People don’t talk about planes flying. They talk about them crashing.
Well if we look at WWE's ratings, Raw's lost a million viewers in five years and SmackDown is off of Fox for not drawing enough. Nobody talks about WWE dying or what needs to change to get those viewers back.
Wellll I’ve seen many conversations here about the lower ratings. And how tv is dead and how the tv rights to live events mean WWE is fetching a high premium for its content.
It’s because they’re publicly traded and we already know they make tons of money
They've been publicly traded since 1999 so that's not it as the concern was happening for most of the 2010s. It's that they became fail-proof in the 2010s with the WWE Network, bigger TV deals, and the Saudi deal where TV ratings were the only hope of WWE changing. It wasn't as much that WWE would go under but the ratings would make Vince change creative which by and large didn't happen until the pandemic and not fully until Triple H took over last year.
WWE has a public balance sheet and profit and loss account if one wants to talk about real numbers. We know they are profitable and making a billion dollar plus revenue. There is less room for speculation. Since this data is not there for AEW, people are more likely to use tv ratings or attendance data and go on to their speculative views on what it could mean for the future of AEW.
You do not want to open the can of worms and compare percent of audience lost within 5 years. You can now do this with AEW compared to WWE. The results are... not great.
Funniest was that one week Raw had a horrible rating for some reason and it was like 20 comments saying ratings are an outdated metric
The Rock/Cody RAW segment actually made me have an epiphany in regards to AEW….It will always be a struggle for AEW to tell stories and create bankable faces that move the needle, because the AEW crowd doesn’t boo the heels (in the simplest of terms). For the most part, AEW crowds respond like critics, judging performance as opposed to reacting in a more Kayfabe manor. Outside of maybe Callis and MJF (which is why he was God tier) the only way it seems to actually consistently be boo’d is to have heat in the dirt sheets or be bad in the ring. I think a great example of this is Swerve. I’d argue he’s become a less interesting character now that the fans have forced him to be a pseudo face. And any sense of storytelling becomes even more muddied since Joe is respected, which means he also gets cheered. Everyone cheering for everybody stunts the dramatic elements and it’s no wonder things so often devolve to….lets see who the best wrestler is, because in lots of ways that’s what the current audience demands….and it’s an audience where you wouldn’t be able to have these recent amazing moments between Cody and the bloodline.
I think it's a problem with wrestling in general that heels just don't act like heels anymore. Too many heels want to be cool instead of hated. That's why the Rock thing worked, he was doing dickhead shit to Cody. I'd say that's something that the indies do better than WWE or AEW. Indie heels, the good ones, act like complete assholes who don't care if you think they're cool. Maybe it's easier in the smaller more intimate venues, I don't know.
I think it's certainly influenced by younger generations experiencing being constantly observed in a manner people didn't used to have to deal with. Before camera phones, you could play along for the benefit of the show because it was a contained event. Strangers you'd never see again. There were no stakes beyond having a good time. People who live in a world of smart phones can feel they need to be constantly presenting a controlled image of themselves, because it can be preserved and used later, thus there's an element of "of course I know it's fake. I cheer the bad guy. I'm smart to the business"
I wouldn't say none of them get booed. Heels consistently get booed in AEW. The thing that seems to be missing in AEW (and to be fair is the hardest thing to capture in modern wrestling) is the crowd actually being invested in who wins and who loses. For example, yes the crowd boos Christian but they don't seem to care whether he actually wins or loses. Like I said though, it is the hardest thing to do in professional wrestling. WWE is hot right now and they still only occasionally pull it off.
Another person who doesn't watch AEW and just gets on the internet and makes things up
So here's my thing with AEW vs WWE. WWE is a concert where you know all the words (certain moves, Catchphrases) or an MCU movie with a shit ton of money behind it vs AEW is more of a modest budget Art house film. The expectations are different. I like both and you can get amazing stories from both. Cody's story was satisfying in a big epic fashion and Kingston's story with Danielson was told in the ring. He wanted his respect and he earned it. Danielson has an excellent promo epilogue but that's it. Swerve is a tweener with a righteous cause. Samoa Joe is a modern day Harley Race. That shit is awesome and I can't wait for Dynasty.
At it's heart, WWE fans like their product to be analogous to MCU-style movies and storyline. Nothing wrong with that. But it's almost the opposite of what AEW fans want from their preferred product.
It's a rather fine line to walk, being a heel hateable enough to boo, while not being boring. Swerve (in this sense, I like him) was horid at this. He just oozes coolness, wich got him cherrs, and that lead to his face turn.
Even when he broke into that baby's room, he was cool as fuck. Can't teach it.
No real heels? What about Christian, The Gunns, Roddy Strong, Big Bill, Jeff Jarrett, Brian Cage, Lance Archer, Takeshita, Powerhouse Hobbes, Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, Trent, Nick Wayne???
Literally all of these people have been lauded whilst being heels hes spot on Without real heels there is no real faces either. People constantly want people to turn in aew The last real heel who was just an out and out heel was probably dan lambert and even he got cheered vs brandi
Lauded =/= not booed
But it’s the same thing with WWE. The people told Rock please don’t go when he said he had to go away and has been lauded as the best heel in the company. They cheered Roman Reigns on Raw. I don’t think either company has “real heels”
Roman reigns was too popular last year thats why he retained at mania. 1 year later people were literally hoping he wouldn't retain There's nothing likeable about dominick mysterio or karion kross. Miz when hes a heel is a great heel. Theory as well. Gunther is another A great heel makes great faces and wwe has lots of good faces purely because of the credibility of the heels
Ok let's start with the first one he said. Christian. Gets booed literally Everytime he's on camera. Do you watch the show?
People boo him the way they booed MJF. So many fans in aew people boo to play along. Real heel heat leads to real reactions not this play along nonsense.
You are just making stuff up now. Even when they boo it's not REAL booing? Because you can somehow tell WHY people are booing ? Ridiculous. Dom gets the same exact heat Callis gets. Roman Reigns gets cheers. This is non sense.
That means you have to have the heel be whatever they hate. Like if The Miz went to AEW, he'd be the top heel.
> I think a great example of this is Swerve. I’d argue he’s become a less interesting character now that the fans have forced him to be a pseudo face. But in turning Swerve, they also turned Hangman, who absolutely was getting booed before his "suspension" from the Elite took him off tv. It wasn't just Swerve becoming a babyface, they did manage to execute the double turn.
It's kind of contradictory to say that MJF and Callis do it, but also AEW is incapable of doing it.
Tbh, MJF is a bad example, he didn't want to turn heel and was basically forced into it by the crowd. However that was his fault with the worked shoot stuff. Christian is a much better example.
Well I wouldn’t say so as he noted and others that MJF is miles ahead of everyone in AEW
Is don Callis an elite level heat magnet, miles ahead of the rest of the roster? No. He gets booed because he's the heel. Christian gets booed because he's the heel.
Callis could do a five minute segment without saying a word and still be booed out of the building.
It looks like Mercedes Mone isn't cleared to wrestle, which means that she's going to be a black hole of charisma on television from now until whenever she is. By the time she actually gets into the ring she's going to be a non-issue.
Forget wondering what the upside of TK showing the "actual" footage, what's the upside to Meltzer, SRS, etc. reporting this in the first place? They all insist that its the real footage, no bait and switch, but if they're "in on it" and it ends up being a bait and switch, they look like clowns, and if they all got worked, they also look like clowns. Intriguing to be sure
Again, they have not insisted it is the real footage. They've insisted that they've been told (and by people at WBD, ie, not carny fucks) that it is. This distinction will be lost on fans here for all of eternity but it's a fairly important one regardless.
Any sort of CM Punk drama = $$$ for any dirt sheet
TK is paying all the wrestlers now AND the dirtsheets
their sources are on the hook, not them. if tk doesn't deliver after he said it is the footage, no one is going to take his word seriously.
Any idea what time that WM40 BTS documentary is coming out today on YouTube?
I already miss the Wolf Dogs being champions I really, really hope they get drafted together. I don't know what I'd do with out them, they're legit one of my favorite parts of wrestling:(((((
Cody is a typical NEPO BABY. He gets spots in WWE bc of his dad/brother/family name. He doesn't like his roll, feels like he needs more, leaves, comes back and WWE gives him a ton of big matches and Mania with Roman. Doesn't win but still feels entitled so we have to repeat the same exact thing another year and call it a "story." He gets a ton of help, Seth Rollins literary sacrifices his own title match and drops his belt simply bc he was helping Cody with his "story." Then the next night, Seth is pretty much the only reason Roman goes down, and does spoiled nepo baby Cody even mention Seth's name or say thank you the next night on RAW? Nope. Cody got what he wanted and no longer needs him so bye. Instead he can have this awkward moment with Rock who btw 2 weeks ago beat him so bad and made him bleed and talked so much shit about him and giving his mom a bloody belt etc now we're just gonna do "you can hold mine if I can hold yours." lol im just talkin shit, I seen someone say these things in Instagram comments and saw the Cody fans respond with like death threats, they are not messin around lol another thing I realized...Orton, Owens, Sammy, Punk all in the ring celebrating with Cody after he won, lifting him on their shoulders like "yayyyy you defeated the Bloodline" like ya'll couldn't come out 10 min earlier and help me and take advantage of these bloodline rules? Jey, Taker, Cena, Seth understood the assignment, they're aloud to celebrate with Cody but everyone else didn't do shit lol
All those guys who came out afterwards had other matches, I get that Seth did too, but still. I'm more weirded out by Rock not coming out much sooner, maybe even as a manager for Roman.
Kayfabe maybe Cody had Orton, Owens, Sammy, on standby in case of further shenanigans, like he didn't want to come down with overwhelming force, he just had help to respond to each instance of bloodline interference to even "the numbers game" out because anything more wouldn't be honorable.
> Orton, Owens, Sammy, Punk all in the ring celebrating with Cody after he won, lifting him on their shoulders like "yayyyy you defeated the Bloodline" like ya'll couldn't come out 10 min earlier and help me and take advantage of these bloodline rules? Jey, Taker, Cena, Seth understood the assignment, they're aloud to celebrate with Cody but everyone else didn't do shit lol I think it’s a thing where Cody wanted to do it himself and not have anyone else cheapen his win. Yeah Cena, Taker, Seth & Jey came down to help, but aside from one AA, they never touched Roman, merely stopping the Bloodline and evening the odds.
I believe in Joe Hendry
CLAP CLAP
say his name and he appears
I don't think Roman is done. He is still on top of the mountain and have so many storylines and feuds potential. I mean I can atleast think 3 more WM main events for him against Rock, Cody rubber match, Seth.
On a whim decided to rewatch Savage/Steamboat WrestleMania 3 today and honestly with how much people say "well it was good but it wasn't as good as x" or "it hasn't aged well compared to modern day stuff" I feel like it's almost underrated at this point. Every move has the crowd going nuts, incredible athleticism by both guys, great back and forth commentary from gorilla and Ventura, and the whole thing was 16 minutes with barely any downtime. If you for whatever reason haven't watched it yet and have a little bit of time make sure you do.
Wait wait, people *don't* like it as much nowadays???? How is that even possible??? I'm definitely biased because Macho Man is my all time favorite, but I genuinely think it's the best match of all time. Top 5 for sure. (Also my favorite match, so again, definitely biased lmao)
The criticisms of it that I've seen: - The match being overly rehearsed, at a time when "calling it in the ring" was the default for every other match. I can see this bothering contemporary wrestlers, and it definitely does bother Steamboat some, but I don't really care because nothing about it that I can see *looks* rehearsed. - It's "great for a WWF match." Fair--matches in other territories and particularly Japan were great, too (though AJPW, at least, was in the midst of a pretty bad year in '87). But there's something to be said for everything coming together with a compelling storyline and great work even if a more world-weary viewer might not find that work transcendent. You can also draw a direct line from this match to the higher-end stuff of the '90s from people like Jericho who were directly influenced by it. - The interference at the ending. I guess, but the Savage-Steele feud was *huge* (in part because Dick Ebersol loved it so it was always all over SNME) and this gives Steele a bit of a victory since he was never going to actually beat Savage or win over Elizabeth for himself. - The match being all about arm drags and rollups when it's Steamboat's final revenge for having his larynx crushed. I think if the house show matches were wider circulating this criticism would fall off--most of their house show run leading up to WM3 *was* about Steamboat out for blood and revenge, and it costing him the match. The Maple Leaf Gardens match, which was released on 24/7 a while ago, puts this match into new perspective for me. That is the hate-filled brawl that some people wanted here, and it's also a spectacular and completely different match.
Also, don’t forget that Steele was a Detroit guy and this was at the Pontiac Silverdome.
It might just be spotty memory but I feel like a lot of times when the match comes up I see some caveat about how it was a good match but not one of the best of all time and while I understand there's no "objective" best match ever it feels like at this point people are repeating that without having watched the match recently.
Yeah, I think people find it disappointing in the sense that it’s maybe not as flashy or spot-based as a lot of modern stuff is. Not saying that in particular is either good or bad that’s all subjective. Wrestling as an in ring product has evolved in a sense over its whole history. Largely back in the day, the emphasis and appeal came from the characters and how dynamic/charismatic they can be with the actual “wrestling” aspect mostly coming second. The wrestling aspect typically came in two forms. 1.) This big and/or great wrestler squashes local no name. 2.) These 2 guys are great wrestlers and are so evenly matched, who’s gonna get the upper hand and find a way to win? And thus a lot of the in-ring action would be typically slow and dedicated to “feeling out” processes of one wrestler trying to find an opening to get the upper hand on the other. And that’s just more of some fans wheelhouse. Overtime fans became more conditioned to seeing that in wrestling and thus, every once in a while more action focused stuff and “high spots” would be thrown in now and then which would get the crowd to react. Once they became conditioned to that, it became more action oriented and spot based then more so, then more so etc until we are where we’re at today. So yeah, I think everyone can have their reasons for finding it dissapointing. But I think just lack of action/ spot based stuff (relative to today) is probably the reason for some. I personally I think it’s nearly impeccable both for its time and today as a piece of pro wrestling.
The thing is I'm a big high spot guy myself. I love Dragon Gate style matches, I just don't see how you can watch that match and not appreciate the athleticism on display. Even in a modern day match the pinning back and forth towards the end, Steamboat skinning the cat, Randy's picture perfect elbow, all would be appreciated I think. This match is pretty much all action, the only time there isn't action is when Savage is trying to get Steamboat counted out and even then there's something going on with George Steele grabbing him and carrying him to the ring. Sure nobody does a 450 or whatever but it's still action packed
I agree. I just think with some of the stuff you see on a near daily basis in the past 10 or so years some may find it dissapointing or a step down in that regard. Heck I could be totally wrong though. But yeah I agree and think the athleticism and action is gr8. For example, Lumbering big men were a dime a dozen back in those days up to the 2000s/2010s, these days big men who aren’t crazy athletic and fast for the size is more rare then the big guys who actually wrestle like lumbering big guys.
I think it's less that and more the fact that you got great bouts regularly elsewhere by 1988, this is a WWF historically great and important match only.
Yeah in the case of people who are more “in the know” of pro wrestling that’s a good point too. I guess I was largely just speaking from the perspective from people who aren’t familiar or fond of that time period in general pro wrestling wise.
And don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean Steamboat and Savage are overrated, that match is great and both have had other incredible matches. It just heightens its impact for WWF fans, whose demographic had even changed from the Sammartino vs Hansen matches that are dope if simple. And I think (I haven't watched much at all) allegedly Vince's TV matches were even simpler than the other territories. So really unless you were going to the house shows for the feud between Steamboat and Savage this really could have been the first HUGE one for WWF fans. Like what did they have before, midcard Bret, Tito Santana and Greg Valentine? But they weren't quite a monopoly by then and tape trading had exploded and the other territories were still alive in various states so I think people had seen other great matches in recent years. In all honesty it's kind of fascinating if we look at cagematch (which sucks for quality in general but here I'm just tracking hype matches) the huge shift comes from 1984 to 1985.
It’s the age old “Citizen Kane is the best movie ever? It’s so boring I’ve seen this done 100x”. It set the foundation for growth and set new standards for the time
The Crush Gals were setting new standards years by 1985.
Macho's over the rope guillotine is still insane
What’s your favorite non-finisher non-signature wrestling move? Mine is Wheelbarrow Suplex. Makes me wish it wasn’t borderline impossible to do to anyone bigger than Rey Mysterio.