fakeplastictrees

Lucha Underground was great until the 3rd season when the network and/or LU felt the need to bring in the overexposed standard acts who bring nothing to the table. All of sudden Tommy Dreamer, Katarina Waters, and others showed up for a paycheck and that's when I checked out. There are still a lot of good things in LU season 3 and worth checking out, but I just am not a fan of seeing Tommy Dreamer on my TV 5 times a week.

This is an interesting thread that is worth a read: www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/114kziv/aews_storytelling_is_terrible/? Saraya's arrival to AEW seems to be the final straw of my AEW fandom. I am now in the sunset phase. My biggest issue with late WCW was its desire to be WWE. I tuned out. When TNA decided to ramp up the WWE lite nonsense, I tuned out. And now, AEW is fully committed to adapting WWE aesthetics to its programming. I wanted a true alternative and there were a lot of positives at first, but now it seems Tony Khan is unable to help himself. I know I am weird and this is a me thing, but I am not a fan of the forced stagey-ness of everything currently. We have, Sign pointing. Heels stopping beatdowns because they hear a babyface's theme music. Constant references to WWE. Stagey video game entrances. Wrestlers constantly looking at PPV banners hanging in the rafters. Champions raising their belt above their head at the most inappropriate and weird times (a wrestlers wins a match and that wins sets them up for a championship match, the champion's music hits and the champion stands on stage with the title raised above their head until commercial break). The completely exaggerated shocked faces (because that's the only way wrestlers know how to show surprise). BAD acting that can and should be completely avoided (and rather easily to do). Stuff like The Gunny Family Therapy segment. Half assed and completely fake looking fan attacks. Debuting or just turned heel wrestlers standing still and mugging for the hard camera as if they are Hogan at BATB 96. The adoption of the 20+ year WWE stage design. All of this and more is leaving a bad taste in my mouth and there are no signs its changing. I think this might be my last year watching AEW. My interest in modern pro wrestling is sunsetting due to the above and because a lot of wrestlers entitlement to be in this business whether they are good or not. Their weird obsession with presenting themselves as fans and not stars. The happy to be there looks and smiles. Its just all around terrible.

Emotion/Feeling > Data/Analytics Austin winning the world title at WMIXV Bryan Danielson winning the world title a WMXXX Lex Luger winning the title on Nitro Goldberg winning the world title on Nitro At the end of the day, does anyone remember or really care about the specifics of the events surrounding the build and even the match itself. I don't want to sound like Vinny You Know Who! Its Maya for pro wrestling! We don't remember what people said or did, but we remember how it makes us feel. I guess I say all that to say, Drew should have won at Clash at the Castle. Drew could have held the title for 3 months, drop it, and WWE could have done the expected Mania match. Nothing would have been lost. With that said, what's the end game? The most uninteresting and expected moment possible. Cody, unfortunately. If you want to know about Kross, think of The Bulgarian Brute during the Cena reign.

Good stuff! I will check it out!

Here's my bad take. Sue me. I am not interesting in any of this and find it disheartening. For 20 plus years there wasn't a real number 2 promotion. TNA/Impact was around, but we we all know the score. I don't expect any wrestling promotion to have a roster where everyone is holding hands all day, but at some point in time, these people need to realize that all the shoot nonsense, goofiness, etc. is not something anyone took serious or wanted to invest in for over 20 years. The heart of AEW is The Elite, the pocketbook of AEW (at this time) is Punk. At thee end of the day, what will win out is money.

I really enjoyed Seth's mid match speech. Pump that short, yet meaningful, dialogue into my veins!

Going forward, Elton John cosplay is the only cosplay I accept in pro wrestling.

Liv Morgan is the first to come out to little reaction.

Much like Bizzaro Land so many years ago, Cardiff is not part of the WWE Universe.

Love what I am seeing so far. Outside of the, expected, bad camera work, WWE is having a great show thus far. I am not a fan of a champion taking the pin fall in a non title match, especially a multi-woman match, but its WWE. It's expected.

I agree. The tribalism and 'need' to defend pro wrestling outside of Vince's vision, has gotten way too silly and has led to some fans turning into grifters. It's a sad state of affairs, but not unexpected. WWE, to some fans, represent the old way, and the old way must die ASAP and by any means necessary (expect for the parts they like of course). Out with the old and in with the new! Combine attitude with the smoke and mirrors futurism incorporated into the WWE product. And I am with @Johnny Sorrow on this one. AEW has been awesome and appointment television. Back in the day, I use to hate watch wrestling. In my twilight years, time is of the essence. If I don't like it, I don't watch it. Makes for an enjoyable experience for those wondering! Which brings me to another way of consumption and the correct way to view pro wrestling. #Thunderdome

Blood in hardcore matches is bad! A real hardcore match doesn't need blood! Blood makes everything look so fake!

Oh God! Yes! How could I have forgotten the most obvious one! Oh yeah and AEW has 'no stories' aka (as touched on in my first post), the overall layout, introduction, and character development of the wrestlers. I would say AEW and WWE is definitely a great contrast between soft world building and hard world building.

This is part of it. WWE and TNA traumatized a generation of fans and for a long time people waited for the other shoe to drop with AEW. I will 100% admit that I was one of those people. Overtime, AEW has shown who they are, defined their product, and established a track record that speaks for itself. However, none of this matters to some. Thinking on this a littler further, and it seems this just goes into a deeper subconscious decision of tying one's thoughts to feelings (in the most unhealthy way) and failing to recognize and deal with the reactive abuse. And now, perhaps more than ever, the 'casual' fan is used as the biggest disingenuous phase and talking point online to discredit actual AEW success. Forbidden Door sold out United Center and did over 100K buys, but the WWE Brains could not handle it and complained about how a sold out United Center and 100K PPV fanbase needs to do something else to reach the 'casuals'. I guess this part falls into contempt for the fans. Projection, deflection, yuck!

I've seen people get completely worked up at the fact that AEW is around and serving up pro wrestling. What makes this discourse *ahem* 'interesting' is, what some have termed WWE Brain. What is WWE Brain? I am sure someone smarter than me will come up with a nice Oxford dictionary definition, but it essentially boils down to two things: 1. WWE is pro wrestling and provides the correct version of pro wrestling 2. WWE dominionism While both can be discussed and dissected till the cows come home, I thought it would be fun to list out some of the things this generation of fans (and some who believe they are in Vince's will) believe to be true. - A debuting wrestler MUST have video packages/vignettes - A lost in your first ten matches, after being signed, means the company lost faith in you and/or there are backstage politics involved - Dark & Dark Elevation are on the exact same footing as Metal, Jakked, Velocity, Main Event, post 2000 Superstars, etc. - Do not listen to the fans. The fans are wrong. Don't listen to them and if you do then you are 'pandering' and that's a bad thing I'll leave this here. I hope to get other people's thoughts. Let's add to this list!

I didn't think Shane had a job in the office since his return. I only remember seeing his performer contract salary and not WWE employee salary. I may be incorrect. Shane should pull a real life Invasion announcement at this point and get in bed with Khan. He should burn that bridge and ensure he is out of the will, all for the good name of pro wrestling!

WWE's lack of commitment is what really killed the finish of the main event. It's simple. If you want to be Sports Entertainment and do this nonsense, go all in. Music revives Demon, Demon hits Reigns with the chair, Demon takes out Usos, Demon rolls Roman in the ring and hits his top rope finisher, rolls out and hits it from the mat, Demon hits his finisher from the top rope again. 1,2,3. Lights are still red, music still plays, and smoke fills the ring. Lights slowly come on and as the smoke clears we see the Demon has vanished. Roman and Usos get to their feet yell at Heyman, takes out the ref, WWE officials come down to the ring as The Bloodline takes apart the ring and surrounding area and go all Bret Hart 97 SS. It's simple. If you want to do it, then do it. If you want to get silly, make everyone involved look like geeks ,and kill a gimmick, then do what was done. Just absolutely silly.

Absolutely agree. I am not sure what WCW was doing back then with guys like Piper, Flair, Funk, Savage, etc. Both Flair and Piper should have been managers. There was enough 'new blood' in WCW at the time that needed it. Savage would have been best served on commentary on Saturday night (and doing the occasional house show and TV dark matches). Funk, Dusty, Larry Z, should have been ambassadors. Fan conventions, web radio personalities, featured articles on WCW.com, special VHS/DVDs, etc. WCW couldn't solve the Hogan problem and so he would have always been toward, if not at, the top of the card and hovering around the world title. Late WCW would have been slightly, and I do mean slightly, a little better if WCW made a strong commitment to put some of these guys in better roles. But yeah, I did not enjoy Piper's WCW run at all.

Lana and Rusev made all the sense in the world. Miro and CJ do not. Miro is charismatic, he can talk, and he can wrestle. The guy has presence. Lana should really focus on her dancing, modeling, acting career instead. She got her money and had nearly/over a decade in WWE. It's time for her to retire from pro wrestling.

@sek69 touched on it earlier in this thread regarding Vince. The cult of personality Vince built for himself is amazing. - WWE wrestler gets fired and (in most cases) often thanks WWE in an OTT way. - Fired WWE wrestler blames X (Ace, Creative, etc.) and talks about how much Vince loved him/her. - Wrestlers, not related to Vince, describe him as a father figure and talk about a son/daughter type of relationship with Vince (Nash, Angle, Strowman, Warrior, etc.) - Taking time off work is usually deterred due a Vince pep talk. - Wrestler is fired from WWE and proceed to base most, if not all, of their post WWE personality/gimmick on one man's opinion of them.

I'm ready for tonight. Should be a fun show. As long as the majority of these matches keep it ten minutes or less, we should be in for a stellar show.

Enjoy the show MoS. Should be very entertaining. My only compliant about AEW PPVs is that they tend not to know which matches should be 10 minutes or less. Outside of that, you should see a solid live show. I will watch on PPV.

Dream had all the talent in the world. A true student of the game. HHH, HBK, Hogan, Austin, and Cena all co-signed him. All that talent gone to waste. Unreal. Despite that fact, keep his ass out of WWE, pro wrestling, and more importantly away from children. You got to be fucking kidding me!

Dynamite was another fun show. I love AEW's undercard and future prospects. The Acclaimed (especially Max Caster), Varsity Blondes, Bear Country, Top Flight, Austin Gunn, Red Velvet etc. Just a really solid future for AEW. Everyone has some sort of personality with the exception of Top Flight, but it appears they are working on the selling point for that team to be its innovation as those guys are always trying something new. AEW uses these men and women really good as well. Austin (and his brother) are on Dark and Dark Elevation stacking up wins again unsigned talent from around the country and the world and build up a good record that looks impressive when going against one of the main stars on Dynamite. Wins and loses being counted really helps with this. Ogogo didn't beat a scrub, he beat a guy that was, IIRC, on an 11 fight win streak. Which brings me to my next point. I love being wrong. I was wrong about Guevara, Dark Order, Brit Baker, and Red Velvet. AEW has something with Red Velvet, I don't know what it is, but things are starting to click with her. I hope she stays the course and stays focus on the business, because I think she could be a really player for AEW in about two years time.

JJ was a solid worker. In 1999, he was over and one of the top heels of WWF. Going to WCW was a big get for WCW. However, WCW (and TNA later), decided to book JJ as a chicken shit heel who had enough stroke in the back (for whatever reason) to get things done. This did not help him at all. I think a good heel run requires setting the standard of being able to beat multiple babyfaces clean as a whistle or close to clean as a whistle. JJ was always the playing politics kinda guy and never really got to establish legit wins out of backstage politics/tomfoolery (is this correct?). People talk about WCW fucking up Bret Hart, but I don't think people talk about WCW fucking up the JJ return enough. The WCW booking set the standard of TNA. The "This Guys is a Big Deal" booking vs. actually showing he is a big deal in the ring via the booking. HHH's early 2000 WWF run and JJ's late 90's WCW runs are pro wrestling 101 on how not to get a heel over.