Coffey

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?

I have no issues with Sonny Kiss either. I do genuinely feel bad that whenever he posts on social media, or AEW mentions him, it brings out all the hate - usually from troll/alt accounts - but it's just really sad to see & read. It's a shame we still feel so far behind the times in that regard. Then you factor in social media AND that we're in the pro-wrestling niche & it just becomes yikes. Also, The Concrete Rose is a GREAT fucking nickname. I don't know if I think Kiss has the potential highest upside though. I think the gimmick is dumb as dirt but Luchasaurus could be a giant star & the Jurassic Express as a stable at least seem over. I think they also have something in Sammy Guevera & Darby Allin. Of course they also still have Moxley & Omega too. Adam Page is the guy I'm completely cold on. I do wish they could warm up Pentagon, Jr. the way Lucha Underground did too. I like him a lot more as a single than teaming with Fenix. Shida for the women gives off a star vibe as well. AEW definitely have talent.

This made me realize I don't know who is there, who is staying away due to the pandemic, who is hurt or who is on which "brand." Even if I had that information, I'm not sure anyone on the roster currently has any credibility whatsoever. That answer will probably be a returning Brock Lesnar. WWE loves to go back to old stand-bys without ever building for the future, y'know.

I've always thought that Billy Gunn was an overlooked tag team wrestler. He might not be the best worker but you can't deny, his tag teams were all over: Billy & Chuck, Smoking Gunns, New Age Outlaws. And whenever anyone tried to use him solo, it didn't work. That dude has a strong decade of tag teams. I mean obviously he doesn't touch someone like Ricky Morton or Bobby Eaton or anything like that, let's not get crazy, I just wanted to name drop & acknowledge Mr. Ass. I do think I'd put him over Cesaro though, but I did love The Bar. Mostly because I'm a Sheamus mark more so than big on Cesaro.

This show has been not good. The main take away that I have is that no one in WWE seemingly understands ring psychology even a fucking little bit. The wrestling has been eh but it's the finishes that have hurt the show a lot, really.

I am ready for this sports entertainment™ Pay-Per-View on the award-winning WWE Network™ provided by World Wrestling Entertainment™.

This is a very valid - short & to the point - statement that shouldn't get lost in all the hoopla, admittedly.

I feel like the biggest stars NWA had, that I could see going elsewhere, especially now that Ricky Starks already left, are Kamille, Allysin Kay & Nick Aldis. Tim Storm is a great babyface but he's not exactly a spring chicken. Stu Bennett was awesome as a color commentator too. I also really liked David Marquez. If I were running a promotion, the people in wrestling I would have my eye on would be Alex Hammerstone & Salina de la Renta from MLW before anyone from NWA. I would also try to get Dario Cuerto from Lucha Underground & I would see about Marquez from NWA.

I would be all aboard any train that would lead to Meltzer's voice disappearing from the wrestling scene entirely, to be honest. All of his bullshit reviews, ratings & opinions going with him. Um, oh, y'know, I mean... just, y'know, I dunno.

I feel like they're afraid to do this. For more reasons than one. Like what happens if that show gets worse ratings? What happens when the women getting featured now on RAW & Smackdown suddenly start getting put just on that show instead? I think it would be a step backwards. Like giving the Cruiserweights their own show instead of featuring them on the main shows. Did anyone care about 205 Live?

Did C.M. Punk want more money than Christopher Daniels, Chuck Taylor, Colt Cabana, Frankie Kazarian, The Dark Order, Jimmy Havoc, Joey Janella, Matt Hardy, Shawn Spears, Trent, The Butcher & The Blade combined? Because he would have been a better investment. Granted that's not to say that none of those people have any worth or lack talent but they all just kind of take up space.

I have no problems whatsoever with Kevin Owens the man. By all accounts, he seems like a really good dude & nice family man with some pretty good morals. I'm just not personally a fan of his in-ring style, but that's not a knock against him as it pertains to real life, outside-of-wrestling circumstances or anything. That's just a personal preference to knowing what I enjoy in wrestling. Unlike, say, Seth Rollins, whom I'm not a fan of in-ring & seems like a cue ball outside of it as well, at least KO seems to have some sense. You can tell at least, regardless of how I personally feel about his style - or that whole later 2000s ROH style in general - that KO was a huge pro-wrestling fan growing up. There's an audience for that style. The AEW style. The Indieriffic style. The HBK/Taker false finish style. I don't even know what you call it - but when the match is worked around doing everything & kicking out of it all, it loses me. I know a lot of people, in example, love The Young Bucks. I've never "got" it. I guess I just like the more 1. storyline driven work and 2. plodding style I guess you call it? A good false finish is a great thing & can definitely lead to some awesome reactions but when they're expected, I think a match loses a lot of its charm & appeal. I honestly think a lot of it is just some people, such as myself, never really outgrow the style that we grew up watching. Other people, such as Dave Meltzer or apparently Ricky Morton, can. I can still put on like 1992 WCW or 1994 WWF & be endlessly entertained even by the undercard. I can put on old Nitros & love matches featuring Wrath, Meng, Bigelow, etc. But modern WWE or AEW, they trot out like Dolph Ziggler, Best Friends or KO & I just can't make myself care. I don't have any emotional connection to any of them. I don't have any nostalgia to them. I don't have any intrigue to any of them, their characters or their angles. It just all feels like... killing time because they have time that needs filled. They don't draw me in & I don't know what's missing other than I've just gotten older & I'm stuck in my ways while they're appealing to a different demographic.