Loss

What I don't understand is that I don't see how Rollins has changed all that much from a year ago. What has changed are the reactions to him. Why? Is it that the feud with The Fiend chewed him up and spit him out? He was a very cheered babyface at this time last year.

That one really shocked me. Gerald Brisco played a significant role in building the company into what it is. He's been there through a lot. Wrestling history would be very different if he and Jack hadn't sold their shares in GCW to Vince.

Baffled me a little, but it could be for a variety of reasons beyond his WCW title reign. Arquette is supposedly a great human being and has a real love for wrestling. Almost everyone who worked in WCW at the time, even those who hated the booking, defend him strongly on a personal level.

Blood happens in matches.

I don't even so much see it as a flaw that Flair would have that type of ceiling in the WWF. It was a different audience. He came from a company where fans liked heels, appreciated the long matches on top, and came for the action more than they came for the stars, even if they had their stars.

I would say that's more a general critique I've had of AEW than a specific one to Omega. They needed to assume that their audience didn't know who anyone was other than Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley and present everything that way. I do think they've done a great job of getting over their truly homegrown stars like Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara, but I think they've assumed too much in the case of not just Omega but the Young Bucks and maybe even Cody. They needed introductions as if they were fresh faces on national television, which they are, even if a lot of the audience indeed knew who they were.

Ric Flair was never going to be Ric Flair working for Vince. He'd get a push and be a guy at the top, but he'd never be Ric Flair. We have proof of that.

These days, he probably does get shielded, but I'm someone who tends to point fingers at the top first. Heyman hasn't had the final say on anything in wrestling in nearly 20 years.

Well, people blame "the writers" or for years, they blamed "Stephanie". Vince has always had full autonomy over his company, but people like to place blame elsewhere. I don't know if it's because Vince has personal sentimental importance to people or what, but he ends up personally shielded from a lot of criticism.

That cognitive dissonance is nothing new. For years, people have railed against WWE, but they do the "we're not worthy" bow every time Mr. McMahon walks out on TV. People have separated "WWE" from "Vince McMahon" (and possibly "Mr. McMahon") for whatever reason.

That feels like an outdated stereotype in some ways though. It feels like the modern stereotype is that wrestling fans are incels who don't know how to relate to women.

I had to turn off Smackdown in that opening segment. Those long talking segments with no audience actually make me uncomfortable because they're so bad.

That's exactly the point. X-Pac would show more ass than Steve Austin in a squash match. Kenny Omega would have a semi-competitive squash even if others wouldn't.

Maybe, although I suspect Orange Cassidy would work a squash very much the same way.

Kenny Omega is not over because of his dominance. He's over because his matches are a rollercoaster ride. You can agree or disagree with his approach to pro wrestling, but he seems to me like a guy giving his fans what they want.

Also, we should stop using Southern as a derogatory term. Just putting that out there because I'm seeing it a lot in this thread. Large parts of the South suck, but so do large parts of the Northeast and the West Coast.

This post touches on something important. The balancing act between making current fans happy and trying to pull in new fans. Almost no wrestling company I can recall has ever gotten that balance completely right.

Where is this match?

It comes from a place of insecurity about wrestling being a work.

I've been impressed in recent years that while many of the second or third-gen wrestlers clearly respect their parents because they're their parents, they don't have blinders on about who they are either. Charlotte seems to have had a tumultuous life before pro wrestling, but seems to have her head on straight now and seemed on ESPN to be very fair-minded about who her dad is. Natalya seemed to accept the good and bad with her father, but had no false ideas. The Usos even came across on one episode of Total Divas, whether it was just for the cameras or not, that their relationship with their dad is mainly cordial. I would imagine that Curtis Axel understands very clearly who his dad was as well. It's not the delusion we used to get with the Von Erichs, for example.

It also explains why Russo thinks nothing matters at all except ratings. Because Vince wanted him laser focused on ratings and basically taught him that nothing else mattered. But that's the WWE management style -- you don't get out of your wheelhouse and try to understand other aspects of the business. You focus solely on doing your own job. We're now in an era where ratings matter more than they have maybe ever, but Russo has argued that for years when it wasn't always the case.

It seems like the biggest issue with Cornette during his time running ROH was his eye for talent. He has a better batting average than almost anyone over the last 25 years in predicting who would be big (he was the first to advocate for both Rock and Cena), but he also missed the boat in a notable way on quite a few people who went on to be successful because he had trouble adjusting to the idea that you can get over now if you can work, even if you don't have the traditional look of a star.

The time for a cruiserweight title with meaning has long passed. When the heavies work the same style, it doesn't work.

It seems like most people are down on it, but I really loved Moxley-Hager. Seems like a match that would be remembered as a classic with a crowd. The early grappling was awesome and the whole match was worked in a more serious way that felt like a fight than so much stuff I see now. I can understand the argument that doing matches that long in empty arenas isn't the best approach, but I loved the match.

God, Cole's announcing (being Vince's voice) in that clip.