Coffey

Well shit. Here I was thinking it was already filmed. Well, at least I can still look forward to the new season of Cobra Kai, I guess.

I can feel a rant, a tirade a diatribe building up within myself. I have not went off about professional wrestling in a long time. In all honesty, I just don't really ever feel that connected to it anymore like I used to. I used to spend a lot of time, effort & energy with professional wrestling & honestly, I have lost the passion over the years & became a bit apathetic to it all. I still follow, but mostly out of habit & a lot more seldom & leisurely than I used to. For example, I've still only watched the first night of the G1 Climax. What night are they up to now, eight? I watched this show tonight because the whole thing would begin & end before I had to leave for work. I wasn't interested in the late NFL game & the NBA game didn't start until 9 PM my time. I only knew about the PPV in the first place because of Twitter. As I said earlier in the thread as well, I don't follow the weekly TV, so I didn't have any idea of the angles or matches or anything heading into the show. Other than a quick Google search to see what the card even was, I went in completely blind. I have been watching pro wrestling all of my life. Or at least since I was like six or seven years old, so for over thirty years anyway. Just like a lot of the other regulars around here. We fell in love with wrestling because, for whatever reason, it grabbed us. It pulled us in. Be it a match, a character, a story... whatever. Somewhere along the way, something caught our attention & never let go. I still read about wrestling daily on social media. I listen to a lot of wrestling podcasts when at work. I talk to my friends about wrestling. But it is almost always in the past tense. Reminiscing or being nostalgic about the good ol' days. Wrestling is a business. A carny business, but still a business. And the goal of all business is to make money. Wrestling used to sell tickets, so you would create cards with draws that people wanted to see so they would buy a ticket. Well, right now, there's a pandemic, so no one is buying tickets or attending live shows. Well, wrestling used to sell Pay-Per-Views. So they would use the TV to build up angles & feuds so that people would pay to see the resolution or continuation of those stories on the big shows. Well, until WWE made WWE Network & got rid of Pay-Per-View. OK, well WWE have to sell their programming to networks so they can make money! Despite them currently already having the contracts, eventually they'll have to re-up. Oh & they're publicly traded now too. What the fuck happened to WWE? I honest to god don't even know what the fuck their business model is anymore. They have employees trying to fuck kids & they put them on the Network special shows. They have talent doing third party activities & they're trying to get a cut of it. Like every decision they make feels super scumbag but my point is, regardless of that, what is the business model? They're not selling Network subscriptions because they give those away for free. They're not selling Pay-Per-Views. They're not selling tickets. No live events to hock merch at. So their revenue right now is just the TV contract money & Shopzone merch? Did the Saudi Arabia thing fall through too? I dunno, man. WWE feels like they're in trouble to me. There's not always going to be a Fox TV deal on the table like that. So anyway - it was dead at work tonight so I had a lot of time to think & reflect on the NXT TakeOver show that we all watched. Here's the thing, it wasn't a bad show. It had matches that weren't bad. The issue is that come tomorrow? No one is talking about this show anymore. Just like a weekly RAW or weekly Smackdown. Just like any other throwaway show. And that's why I was talking about the business model. WWE right now knows that they're not selling tickets, or PPVs or Network subs. So they're just coasting. They're just filling time. They're keeping everyone even keel. They're basically just taking up their hours of programming with warm bodies. Yeah, the wrestlers do moves but no one really has a character, no one has a real angle, no one is doing any sort of emotional grab to pull on the heartstrings of a viewer & get them interested in any of the shows. Even the fans just watch out of habit, not because wrestling has grabbed them anymore. It's just apathy all around. You can't just see it, you can feel it when watching the shows. They're... lifeless. Not just because the seats are empty either. Gargano Vs. Priest, aren't both of them heel? Io Shirai Vs. Candice LeRae, aren't both of them heel? Kyle O'Reilly Vs. Finn Balor, aren't both of them heel? Where are the fucking babyfaces? Where are the people that the fans are supposed to cheer for & support & care about & rally behind? It was just people out there doing spots. Forty people in that arena & some jobber is still trying to start "Fight forever!" & "this is awesome!" chants while they pipe in crowd noise over him. And that pretty much sums it up, pandemic or not. It's like that scene in the documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil where they go on "tour" & end up playing in some basement club to a packed house of eight people & there's one oblivious dude there headbanging like it's the best shit he's ever seen. That's us, the fans still watching & sticking around. We're that headbanging out-of-touch burn out still maintaining hope that "it'll come back around, man!" WWE isn't coming back around. They're just waiting for Vince McMahon to die. Nothing is changing until then. Nothing happens until then. They're just killing TV time. Shareholder meetings & conference calls & shit. A bunch of non-fans being placated with bullshit jargon & showing them numbers that they don't know what the fuck they mean but "well they're higher than last time, pal!" WWE is the Tylenol of pro-wrestling. The rest of the industry lives & dies, crashes or thrives based off of how WWE is doing. New Japan has a brief case that they "cash in" for the Wrestle Kingdom title shot, which is a 2-day event now. AEW is breaking thrones & cutting glass ceiling promos. There's 200 Indie shows during Wrestlemania weekend. But WWE isn't the golden goose anymore. It's not even wrestling anymore. It's wanna-be business men, that are in the wrestling business, that want to be anything but in the wrestling business, trying to convince non-wrestling people that their product is not wrestling. It's live sports! It's live programming! You can't DVR us! We're X amount of original hours a week/month/year! For years, YEARS the only people that stuck with wrestling were the *gasp* wrestling fans. Hey, we like wrestling. Hey, we'll pay for wrestling. Hey, we'll watch wrestling! And we've just constantly been beaten over the head & told it's not wrestling & our opinions don't matter, we don't know what we're talking about, we're losers/mom's basement/marks whatever. And now the fans that were always there through thick & thin, they're leaving. They're leaving in droves. They got tired of being told they didn't matter or being told to go do something else by going & doing something else that made them feel like they mattered. So you had this NXT TakeOver show & work rate wise, the matches were OK. But ultimately, it was just another two & a half hour reminder by WWE that they're not really in the business of selling professional wrestling anymore. It was more like watching a boxing exhibition or something at a local arena where you don't know or care about the fighters but see a couple of good shots that make you think "damn, he has a pretty good right hook." You can see there's talent. There's talent all through WWE, up & down the card. The black people are killing it. The women are killing it. The Latinos are killing it. There's so much talent but WWE isn't really providing them a platform to thrive. They're just clocking in, doing their time & clocking out. There's no over the top stars anymore. There's no draws anymore. The events don't feel like special must-see shows anymore. There's no reason to feel like if WWE comes to town you have to buy a ticket because there's nothing on the show you'll be disappointed in missing. When you put on RAW, the actual RAW show feels like the commercial break that just happens in between the ad breaks you're supposed to be watching instead. It just feels so completely artificial that it has lost anything & everything that ever made it feel special. The wonder is gone. The magic is gone. The real life behind the scenes is more entertaining than the fiction they try to come up with & put on the screen. I just want to also add. I fucking love professional wrestling. It has been my whole life. One of the only constants I've ever had in my life. If I am ever feeling down or need to pass some time, I can always put on some Terry Funk or Harley Race or Stan Hansen & just sit there & watch, smile & enjoy myself. I still love talking about it & hearing about it. I can still really get into it & watch it & have a good time with it. I even kind of regret not pursuing a job in wrestling in some fashion when I was younger. But the disconnect nowadays is real. I get more enjoyment from shoot interviews or wrestler autobiographies than I feel like I get from the shows anymore. Something is just missing. It's not just that I have just gotten older or that times have changed.

If that Ember Moon comeback was the big return, immediately following the Toni Storm video, that's pretty damn lackluster. Needless to say, following the Toni video made it feel like Ember was set-up to fail as well.

It is kind of interesting how the WWE brand split never really worked how WWE wanted, with the feeling of the Monday Night Wars. With RAW & Smackdown being like WWE & WCW. But they still get the surprise/return pop when someone from the main roster goes back to NXT. Like Breeze, Fandango, Balor.

Naw, that'll be a dude in the main event probably going back to NXT from the main roster.

Ha! I just tweeted this as well. Immediately made me think of Beyond the Mat. That backstage scene where the wrestlers are like "Oh, you're working the leg in your match? OK, we'll do something else."

Superstar status. Jesus.

He's supposed to be dressed like Doc Brown from Back to the Future because KUSHIDA is always dressed like Marty McFly.

I like the arena set-up. Damien Priest really looks like a star as well. Any of y'all that follow NXT TV, are both of these guys heel?

Corey Taylor of Slipknot wearing a Badstreet U.S.A. shirt was pretty damn cool.

Who is worse: WWE TV Producers or WWE Make-up Department?

Alexa Bliss gets graded on a different scale because she's so attractive. Just like Trish Stratus used to get. There were even a few odd people that claimed Trish Stratus was the best woman worker in the world at one point. Hyperbole at its best but I mean, what can you do? You can't tell someone their opinion is wrong, really. It might not be that big of a thing here, but if you read other wrestling corners of the internet, it's vary apparent - not just Twitter "Stans" but wrestling fans as a whole appear to be quite the horndogs. So Alexa Bliss wearing pigtails, acting "spacey" & channeling some Harleyquinn, is definitely some sort of fetishizing cosplay shit.

Or the Foley/Taker HIAC or the Brock/Angle Wrestlemania match. There's been a lot of "just tough it out" in the history of wrestling. Definitely not a good look.

I think it's more just that she's not very good & keeps fucking up. She seems green as shit, not just her hair color. And it's not going to end well.

Not to compare the two medically, but it sort of reminds me of how the public have treated PTSD over the years as well. I know that George Carlin had a bit on it once. People used to be "shell shocked" when coming back from war & they even went so far as to make light of it in programming, like the TV show SOAP, in example. The more we learned over the years & seeing the effects it actually had on people, a lot times even leading to things like suicide, people started to take it more seriously & it wasn't such a lighthearted topic anymore. Concussions are similar in that regard. People used to "get knocked loopy" or "get their bell rung" but after Junior Seau, I think people finally woke up a bit. I know there's a Rob Van Dam documentary that goes into his concussions that I'm interested in seeing eventually. I think it also comes up in the Vampiro documentary but I'm a bit more leery to watch that one as he might be one of the biggest liars in wrestling history.

Today is my birthday. So I wanted to watch some pro wrestling before heading to work. So I put on AEW Dynamite. I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed the Cody stuff leading to Brodie Lee coming out & multiple pull aparts. Brandi & Anna Jay getting into it. Nyla Rose outta nowhere. That was fun.

Just a casual Backdrop Driver to end it as well.

Yeah, you can't say we definitely don't have a group of differing opinions here on PWO, that's for sure. In my mind, I'm thinking "if you didn't like that, what the fuck do you like then?" We also have people that love what AEW is doing (not me) & people that loved what NWA Powerrr was (me, at least until they went too far into comedy). So we have an eclectic group.

Just goes to show that regardless of what the calendar year is, or if kayfabe is dead or whatever... if you have a good story, a good angle & you can make people buy into what you're selling, it leads to good things. That Uso story with Tribal Chief Roman Reigns beating the piss out of Jey... that was some good ass business. WWE needs more of stuff like that & a lot less stuff like Retribution. Just like when AEW did Cody Vs. Dustin. Pro wrestling is all about the emotion & it always will be.

The thing is, when someone comes around that's extremely talented, that doesn't necessarily mean they should be at the top of the card - especially in WWE. That's never been what it's about in WWE. There's a reason Hulk was on top during his era & although they were ridiculously talented, they didn't put Mr. Perfect & Rick Rude up there. Could they have? Yes, absolutely. Ted DiBiase too & probably also Jake the Snake. Honestly, looking back, it's kind of remarkable to me that Macho Man Randy Savage got a run at the top in WWF. I mean, there's a difference between being in the main event & being WWE champion, too, but there's a lot of talent that doesn't get put up there, for whatever reason. In all eras, really.

There were some crazy-ass bumps in that ladder match. Finish was a bit contrived but I dug the match. The handcuff through the ear lobe was pretty damn original.

Throughout the many years of my professional wrestling fandom, there have been a lot of wrestlers that I have changed my stance on over the years. Either because they got a new gimmick, or went to a new promotion, got a new look, new finish, I just saw more of their stuff... whatever. I'm not sure if I have ever had a bigger about face on a wrestler than I have with Jay White though. I used to think his matches were fast-forward material. Now he's one of my favorite wrestlers in the entire world & I look forward to every New Japan card that he's on.

I've not followed WWE for months. I never watch the TV. I'm hardly ever home for it nowadays anyway. But just reading Twitter, I can see the clips & whatnot. So it never feels like I'm completely out of the loop... but it feels so much better, as a fan, when you don't follow the weekly TV than try to stay current with the modern WWE product. The last Wrestlemania can be blamed on the pandemic, which was out of WWE's hands. But even Wrestlemania last year felt like just another show. It was too long. It was full of a bunch of matches that didn't mean shit. With wrestlers that didn't mean shit. Fighting over titles that didn't mean shit. With fans just happy to be there, not that were emotionally invested in any of the characters or angles. I watch the WWE Network quite often. I still love late 80's & early 90's WWF & WCW. I can't watch ECW because it doesn't feel the same without the music (this also irks me about Nitro era WCW but not as badly). I just downloaded the first two nights of the G1 Climax. I still have plenty of wrestling to watch when I get that itch that I want to scratch. But yeah, modern WWE isn't it. I don't know who the target demo is anymore, but it's not me... and it's not whomever they think it is either. It's painfully obvious that they're just booking to appease Vince McMahon, Jr. at this point. And when you're surrounded by guys like Michael Hayes & Bruce Prichard & when you think "trying something new" meant Eric Bischoff & Paul Heyman, and when you're being compared to shows from over twenty years ago, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. WWE isn't cool. And even they know they're not cool, that's why they constantly beat you over the head with the "hey, remember when we used to be cool?" shit. Talk about Austin. Talk about Rock. Talk about D-X. Talk about the Monday Night Wars. A lot of the modern wrestling fans that they should be trying to target & appeal to weren't even ALIVE for that shit. That's how fucking long ago it was. It would be like talking about the start of Hulkamania during WWF in 2004. I am waiting on some MLW to comeback but even they only have a handful of people that I care about (L.A. Park, Alex Hammerstone, Jacob Fatu & Mance Warner). AEW doesn't appeal to me as it's like all the modern tropes of recent wrestling that I don't like turned into a wrestling company. The weekly NWA Power studio YouTube show was OK but even that turned too much into guys that were well passed their prime, never had a prime or goofy comedy stuff. I just want emotional, dramatic, hard-hitting pro-wrestling again. I want blood & storylines that you can buy into. I want dastardly heels & babyfaces that have strong morals. I want to see a bad guy get his comeuppance. I want to see the fans rally behind the good guy & his comeback & see him get his revenge. I want matches that tell a story, that draw you in & make you care about what's happening, not just what moves they can do. I don't want to see lame bad actors portraying sports entertainers on TV trying to recite lines written for them by out-of-touch dudes while they promote their social media channels.

The problem with Ivelisse is that, even if you're willing to deal with her constantly being a headache - which arguably her work isn't good enough for even that, she also appears to be injury prone on top of that. Poor girl went through so much in Lucha Underground, I felt like I was watching Lionheart & was saying "just stay down!"

Well, there's a line too. Like Brian Cage is jacked but he's definitely not a big guy. And Luchasaurus is huge but he's doing karate kicks and front flips. Here's the thing for me that I think often gets overlooked & this has been an issue for a long time, not just in AEW. A good example would be Mike Awesome in ECW. If your giants can do the same things as your non-giants, what makes the non-giants special anymore? Just because guys can do something doesn't mean that they should. That used to be an unwritten rule in pro-wrestling but now more than ever wrestlers seemingly think they have to throw everything at the wall to try to get something to stick. So you have people killing themselves for nothing. There's a reason The Giant doesn't need to do a Moonsault. And why Rey Mysterio, Jr. should not do a Chokeslam. On an related note, Dustin Rhodes is the best worker in AEW. A lot of that roster could learn from him. But even Dustin Rhodes feels the need to do things like the Code Red nowadays for... reasons.