Coffey

I'll be tuning into the start of Smackdown as the Thunderdome gimmick at least grabbed my attention & I'm curious. That being said, how did WWE get the rights to use Thunderdome? There's no way that's not trademarked. And George Miller isn't exact the kind of dude that shies away from litigation.

I've read a lot of comparisons between MJF & heels of yesteryear. I have to say though, the guy he reminds me the most of, is Rick "The Model" Martel. During his cocky, confident phase where he was doing Arrogance perfume. Martel was a lot better in the ring of course, but Martel during that era, was already in his mid-30's. Already had the AWA run. Already did the early WWF tag team stuff. And his debut was in the early 70's. So that was almost twenty years into his wrestling career. Twenty years ago, MJF was four years old. lol It'll be interesting to watch MJF grow as a performer & see where he's at in a decade, for sure.

I don't understand why New Japan is doing this? It feels like something bottom-of-the-barrel WWE would do for a lame b-level PPV... like Extreme Rules: THE HORROR SHOW. Why is New Japan doing this?

It's not like I'm completely writing him off, either. Dude is only 24-years-old. He's still WAY ahead of the curve for his age. And will only get better.

Yeah, the crowd is a lot bigger deal for NFL games than NBA games. Like, I'm a Green Bay Packers fan. There's no Lambeau Leap without any fans.

NBA does pro-wrestling better than WWE. Basketballs don't hold grudges.

She could probably pull off the Imperator Furiosa look. Shit, honestly, I'm sure Sonya could too. That might actually be pretty damn cool. They're both beautiful women, so I'm sure they'll be fine. If they go through with the stipulation though, that's some hardcore dedication. I remember being completely stunned when Molly Holly went through with it. Crazy. As far as real, live sports go: the NBA bubble has been awesome. I'm genuinely super excited for the playoffs to start & I've been watching like two games a day. It's been great for me as an NBA fan. The Phoenix Suns not making the playoff play-in game was unfortunately, but they were a ton of fun going 8-0 in the bubble. I'm stoked for the Pacers/Heat series in the East.

I'm right there with you in that boat, man. To me, it just comes off as really corny when he's trying to pretend he's a 1980's heel in 2020. Nothing he does makes me think he's genuinely an asshole. It reminds me of an SNL character during a skit trying his best not to corpse while the studio audience is laughing & hoping for him to break. If that makes sense. Or to reinvigorate an old NWA Powerrr talking point... a COSplay wrestler. I'm sure part of that is on me as a fan. There is definitely a disconnect there though. I actually prefer, and I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, Richard Holiday from MLW. MJF's old Dynasty stable running mate. I buy Holiday more as a smug, conceited prick than I buy MJF as a genuine asshole. I also think that how a heel operates in the modern era has just fundamentally & drastically changed. The characters have to change the same way society changes. Some things in pro-wrestling are timeless & stand the test of time. Others do not. I don't think cheap heat works anymore. A wrestler coming out & insulting the local sports team, in example, is just fucking lame & makes them look like a geek. If everyone knows it's a work & is "in on it" - suspension of disbelief is a lot harder. So how do you get heat as a bad guy when everyone knows you're not really a bad guy? You have to make them think you really are a bad guy. And I just don't think anyone is willing to do that in the social media, gotta-move-merch era. Promotions themselves aren't willing to push the envelop or rock the boat either. So instead of coming off like a serious thing that people can get sucked into, like a movie, it comes off like parents watching their kids in a school play. But how do you push the envelop or rock the boat without being tasteless & getting "cancelled." That is the question. Nyla Rose is a better heel in AEW than MJF.

Is Abyss still able to work? I don't know if he retired due to injury or what his deal is. I know he's a backstage guy for WWE now but I would mark out if he hit a Black Hole Slam on someone on WWE TV.

I miss the pops & I think not having a live crowd actively hurts good moments like surprising returns or like the Otis/Mandy thing at Wrestlemania. But at the same time... we don't have people saying "What!?" over promos. We don't have "This is awesome!" chants. We don't have any of the ridiculous, over-the-top chants that started becoming way too prominent with ECW crowds. And I think those are all positives. We don't have smarky fans booing the babyfaces & cheering the heels.

Vince McMahon is trying to make the brand the sole draw because whenever the star is the draw, the draw leaves. I think he's paranoid. People look at WWE as a stepping stone to bigger things instead of the end goal. Hogan left. Austin left. The Rock left. Sable left. Cena left. Ronda left. Brock left. Becky left. Roman left. The circumstances of each are obviously different. And many came back & some like Cena were there forever, wanted to be there & were life long fans. But in Vince's crazy, deranged, "sneezing is a weakness" mindset, they all abandoned him. Much like when he tried to make a new Razor & Diesel after Nash & Hall left, he thinks it's his brand & his characters & his vision that is the draw, not the talent behind it. The only people I've really seen him give credit to is The Undertaker: A guy that came to WWF from WCW. That had a chance to leave & didn't. That has been there for thirty years that he can still call & talk into waddling to the ring with his broken body. And Triple H, whom married his daughter & has basically taken over half the company. Again, that came to WWF from WCW & stayed through everything, even after the MSG shit when everyone left & they buried him.

Watching Triple H just try to explain the decisions with Charlotte alone would be entertaining enough.

Imagine if you could go back to the 1980's & have that WWF roster. But then all of those talented wrestlers were trained at a WWE style Performance Center. Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, Bret Hart, Honky Tonk Man, Curt Hennig, Rick Rude, etc. All those guys going through a factory instead of working in Memphis, Florida, Minnesota, Calgary... The last few years, NXT has been home grown WWE guys while they sign-up anyone with buzz from working Independents. Well, now all the Indy buzz guys are gone or signed. So you just have WWE home growns without any experience learning their craft elsewhere. So you get guys like Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens as main eventers.

I felt like it was them trying to tap into some of the fun that made Lucha Underground look & feel different... only them completely missing the point. "Y'know what would make this cool? SHANE McMAHON!" Like when they named Stephanie McMahon the person in charge of ECW. Just another thing that feels out of touch.

So true. My biggest issue for the last few years of NJPW has been that you can EASILY skip the first half of every PPV. Like, the undercard is... really bad. And just giving those dudes titles doesn't improve the situation. Like some of the undercard junior stuff is good, but everyone under, say, Ishii/Goto level on the card? Complete waste of time. Taguchi, EVIL (regardless of if they're trying to hot shot him or not), Nakanishi, Tenzan, Yoshi-hashi, Taichi, Chase fucking Owens, David Finlay, Honma, Nagata... just all filler garbage or over-the-hill dudes still hanging on. The high point was that the top half of the show was so fucking good, with such great matches, that I could over look it. We kept getting great main events... but now that they put EVIL up there, they've lost that aspect as well. So it makes the faults more glaring.

Someone on Twitter made a joke about how the time between Ziggler getting a title shot would be like if WWE brought back Power & Glory era Paul Roma & gave him a title shot in 1999. Made me realize how different time in wrestling now feels compared to how it felt when I was younger & growing up through it. Like the years 2005 or so to present all blend together for me. Fifteen years now feels like three years used to feel. Hard to explain.

Scantily clad women, with their cameras focusing on their cleavage, just comes with the territory on Twitch. I'm indifferent to that. It's a never-ending, unwinnable battle to be honest. It would be fine, one way or the other. My issues is with the moderation favoritism that Twitch is ridiculously guilty of in a monumental fashion. The Just Chatting/LiveStreamFails drama runs deep. There's an ample breasted popular streamer that gets banned semi-regularly. Velvet 7. She's so top heavy that whenever she does anything, it comes off as sexual. Which, yeah, admittedly I'm sure she's milking some people when she's doing things like yoga or playing Just Dance. But if they're technically not breaking anything in the TOS, you can't just ban someone because they have large breasts. But every time someone like that does get a temporary suspension, the drama & surrounding controversy always leads to them becoming more popular & getting more viewers. So it's like a vicious cycle. Twitch is so popular now, it's hard to believe it's the same page that used to be Justin.TV That being said, there's quite a bit of available professional wrestling on the platform. Especially if you're wanting to watch Impact Wrestling or Lucha Libre. Not to mention seeing wrestling personalities like Rusev & Paige on the platform as well. I have watched Samoa Joe in the past.

As a fan, I was afraid of this. However, if he can make a good living without having to take bumps, more power to him.

Didn't he have the BBC as the Big Black Chop on the indies though?

If it makes you feel better, I didn't get the Lil' Spike Dudley joke for YEARS.

I also want to mention that NXT was one of the appealing programs that, at least to me, justified having the WWE Network. A service that is dying for content. Them moving that show to USA removed one of the biggest original non-PPV content shows they had on the pay service.

Agreed! And I was not the biggest Jay White fan. I did come around on him eventually. I'm not so sure I'll ever come around on EVIL. I just can't take him seriously. He looks like a K-mart cosplayer dressing up for Halloween.

Mark Henry taught me to never write a wrestler off entirely. Sexual Chocolate was awful. Hall of Pain Mark Henry was awesome.

To me, Rusev not being a main eventer & them using him to feed to John Cena is a good summary of everything wrong with WWE. Then they fed him to Roman Reigns too. Like, if you have a dude on the roster that takes whatever you give him & gets it over, why would you not want to use him? It's just so damn perplexing & confusing. Instead, Vince McMahon wanted to break-up the real life relationship with Rusev & Lana (allegedly), actively split them on TV & was (allegedly) upset that they got married because MUH STORYLINES. ...I dunno, man. I think wrestling is a lot better when the talent, not the initials of the promotion, is over. Andrade could be a top guy. Black could be a top guy. Big E. could probably be a top guy. And instead we get Randy Orton Vs. Big Show in 2020.

How is that different than exactly what we do here on this message forum?