SomethingSavage

Jinder gave AJ better matches than anything that came out of the AJ/Owens series, the AJ/Sami stuff, and all but one of the AJ/Joe matches. Say what you will about his lack of chemistry with Orton, but Mahal matched up well with AJ there for a bit. Sometimes it's just a matter of styles making matches more interesting. To be honest, I think they failed Jinder from a creative standpoint. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not exactly crying out for another Jinder run up top. But the guy did put in the work. He carried a certain presence, and the overhaul for his entrance was really well done. But come on. That League of Nations level gimmick was absolute garbage. It's dated as fuck. It's the same anchor they've tied to Drew Mac right now. It's instant death. The crowd always reacts with apathy to that evil foreigner bullshit. It's 2019 already.

See, I grew up in the Gulf Coast along the TX/LA border. And Callihan's look feels very true to life. I could personally name at least a dozen dudes just like him - the irritating, loudmouth, Natty Light drinking, pudgy white-trash tough guy wannabe types. He's always itching for a fight, forever losing said fight, and still somehow convinces himself he's the biggest cock in the cage. All while being deathly afraid that his cutoff sleeveless shirt might come off when he goes swimming in the river. Amazing. Now that's heat with me. It's like I know this guy. Oh. And fuck Seth Rollins. Rational dislike. Irrational hatred. Whatever. Doesn't matter. The guy just plain fucking sucks. Plus he's all pigeon-toed and shit. Dude runs like a girl. For the love of God, someone give this guy an extra star so he can Falcon Arrow flip the fuck off.

A lot of my thoughts generally line up with yours, but I've enjoyed the hell out of Callihan in Impact. Do you build a fed around him? Maybe not. But he already feels like a centerpiece focal point and a worthy featured piece of the puzzle. His feuds have been mostly amazing, to be honest. The Penta program was a blast from beginning to end. It spanned across promotions. It had blood, brawls, swerves, sneak attacks, supporting players, stakes, masks, hair, you name it. The feud with Eddie told a solid story and actually progressed as it went along. It evolved Eddie as a character and actually mattered. It wasn't just matches for the sake of matches, which is one of those things that bothers me most about modern wrestling. And the program with Swann has been a revelatory experience. I really didn't expect Swann to step up as much as he has in a more serious, dramatic role. But he's totally run away with it. And the guy feels absolutely elevated as a direct result of this work with Callihan. That many critical rivalries in such quick succession cannot be just happenstance or luck. Callihan is certainly bringing something to the table in these things. The guy plays his part really well. If it's not your thing or simply not your taste, then that's fair enough. But I've dug his contributions to Impact in a big way.

The show isn't 3 hours. It runs about 2 hours and 20 minutes. I'm way burned out on 97/98 stuff. It's actually one of my favorite periods for their television, but Bruce & Conrad have just run these talking points into the ground. It's still refreshing to hear things from JR's perspective though. There's not a ton of variance from the Bruce episode we just got covering this show, but it's still worth listening to if you have the time. I did enjoy the sidebar about how it's extremely difficult to get a match over if the performers aren't over FIRST. I wish WWE would remember this and make their characters a priority again. Get the individuals over first & foremost. Then the matches can get over. Otherwise, everything's an uphill battle. Everything's unnecessarily made more difficult. And everyone's working harder rather than smarter. Showering the match with six dozen superkicks and five hundred thigh-slaps does not compensate for guys who simply aren't over in the first place. Fuck a star rating. Give me a God damn character worth caring about first.

A name change for ACH was inevitable, I think. The vague meaning behind the initials could have been played up, but they don't really have time for that when they could run (you guessed it) more rematches. I'd say Jordan Myles was an upgrade in that sense. Dexter Lumis is hokey af. Nobody strained themselves reaching for that one. Christ. It's just awful. Damien Priest is okay-ish, in the sense that it suits the guy. It suits his look and will probably summarize everything about the character in a nutshell. However, the same could be said if you also tossed this name on Aleister Black or one of the Ascension clowns. Very generic and low-rent ring to it. The name sounds like it belongs to a failed Spawn ripoff from some obscure mid-90s comic book company somewhere. Shane Strickland sounds like everything you want in a stage name. It has alliteration. It rolls off the tongue. It has a certain "stickiness" to it, in that it could easily stay in people's minds after hearing it a few times. This change was an unnecessary downgrade for him.

I don't know, but Bischoff describing early 96 DDP as "straight out of the State Fair" had me cracking up. Sunshades. Bubblegum. Cigars. Gold chains. BattleBowl rings. Leopard-print accessories. Neon-colored gear. It's a walking, talking, romping, stomping shit storm on your five senses.

Except that is their formula for literally every program on their TV. Everything is tired. Everything is stale. Everything is exhaustive. Everything is meaningless, time-killing, unfulfilling nothing. Even their big monthly "special events" are booked like placeholders. They continuously show such a blatant disrespect for their viewers' time and patience. And they get away with it, because the niche audience allows it. Because they constantly show loyalty and refuse to demand anything more - or anything better. Instead of demanding greater quality, the "Universe" is content with a high quantity of horse shit. Sony is experiencing a similar dilemma with Dark Phoenix at the box office. It's become public knowledge that the X-Men franchise is ending, and the film series will reboot under the MCU umbrella at some point. Dark Phoenix is a placeholder. It's meaningless filler as a film. It's a literal waste of time. And so people can easily pass on seeing it. WWE is always this. Every show. Every week. The outcomes never matter. The results won't make any difference. Who is champion of what has never mattered less than it does now. And so championship opportunities don't mean a thing. Challengers are irrelevant. And on & on & on. Now they're running this shitty Corbin/Seth program "up top" for three or four months? My god, y'all. How do you do it? And why? They're basically flashing a big neon sign that's telling you nothing on their television will matter one bit through the summer. Why even bother? If you're truly that bored or bedridden or whatever, please believe I can point you in the direction of better wrestling and/or better television shows. You don't have to do this to yourself.

Ugh. Gross. Wrestling specifically for an audience of notepads and scorekeepers - who are intently watching with the deliberate purpose of assigning a grade to your performance - is the dirt fucking worst. I enjoy elements of AEW and Impact, but shit like this makes me irrationally angry at modern pro wrestling.

The "Ask Eric Anything" episode was fairly basic. Not a lot of noteworthy discussion. There were two highlights, however. Eric touches on advertising and how AEW may run into issues with stabilizing a healthy stream of ad revenue at first. I don't necessarily agree about it being a huge hurdle for them, for a variety of reasons. But Bischoff brings up some interesting points nonetheless. Eric also breaks down his formula and template for an ideal, money-making promo. Of course these things are subjective - and there will always be exceptions for every rule - but this is an intelligent, engaging listen. If you seek out nothing else from this episode (and I wouldn't blame you), then check this out. Bischoff seems really energized and enthusiastic about explaining what he thinks should be conveyed (and why) in every big money promo. It's pretty awesome, to be honest. The rest of the show is standard stuff. I tolerated it, since I was at the gym and didn't want to skip ahead or speed up the audio. I just endured a bunch of talk about Eric's dog and his bar-fight fables or whatever.

This company is such an afterthought that I completely slept on whateverthefuck has been happening with this fan. Wild stuff. Crazy to imagine ROH used to be the premiere independent feeder league for WWE. Now it feels like a wrestling promotion for an audience of two dozen people.

What was up with her post-Mania media stuff? She really seemed to be trashing the company and her involvement, although that could've just been her usual demeanor. She did seem more than ready to move on & put it in the rear view though. I don't really recall all that was said, but I do remember her response when asked about her broken hand: "Guess I'm not that good at faking it." Ugh. I mean, I get it. "Pro wrestling is a joke." MMA was her bread & butter. But Christ. She was just acting way above it all. And yeah. I'm familiar with Ronda's attitude. And I'm a fan. But I've seen her do interviews & things where she came off really well and promoted the company. She just seemed particularly salty after Mania for some reason.

Yeah. All's good, man. It's all in the spirit of discussion. Seth felt buzzworthy for a moment there. Whether he was actually gaining any steam or not is irrelevant, because he SEEMED to be trending. And all of that - every last bit of it - was owed to the fact that he was running that mid-card spot. He owned it. I never enjoy his matches much, because I just don't care for the dude's work. But I won't deny that he had found a comfortable, suitable spot for himself there as king of the mid-card. Going back even further, the tag team with Dean was tremendous. I actually DID enjoy those matches. Seth is much more tolerable as a worker in tag team settings. So of course they strip away all those trappings and place him back in the main event scene - the one spot he has failed miserably time & time again. This is something like the fourth or fifth time they've tried it. The guy just isn't cut out for it. Seth would be a passable modern performer, nestled nicely into a mid-card program or a reliable tag team somewhere on these cards. But they're insistent on putting him up top, where he's essentially a drowning man in waters way over his head.

There's no way you watch ANY of Ricochet's later PWG stuff and come away thinking he's lacking charisma. Dude's a total show pony through & through. You can knock the Rock ripoff posturing and gesturing if you want, but Ricochet has shown a lot of personality - and I'm speaking strictly in terms of his in-ring performances. Not traditional promos. Not mic work. Truth be told, the criticism for awhile regarding his LU stuff was that the Prince Puma gimmick hindered and downplayed all that. He was actively hidden and blanketed under the mask. It was a total dampening of his actual personality, which always felt like a big part of his connection to the Reseda audience. It's fine to have a difference of opinion. But that's what this is, because I don't believe for a second the guy has been used well on the main roster. Maybe he doesn't have the tools to be a WWE main event act with staying power. Maybe he does. Regardless, this wasn't an ideal introduction to the guy. And just tossing him out there to kill time with filler matches makes him exactly the same as everybody else. It doesn't matter if the announcers shine him up with lines about being athletic or exceptional, because we've been educated that the announcers are geeks who go back and forth on their word at the drop of a hat anyway. They have zero credibility. Why should anyone take their word for it? Perception is key. And Ricochet is perceived to be just another guy. Whether you personally hold the opinion of him as a mid-carder or a main eventer doesn't matter if he's already cut off at the knees from day one that way. At this point, why even bother to sign guys and promote them to the main roster? They're just warm bodies killing TV time with meaningless matches.

You reference people complaining about Ricochet, but did anyone really complain about him not having good matches? Because that seems to be the point you're making, and I don't know that I saw anyone even suggest his matches weren't solid. You're sort of sidestepping the issue entirely & missing the point completely. The only complaints I've seen about Ricochet have been about his booking and presentation. Say what you will about the quality of his matches (I don't think anyone's saying any different, mind you), but he's still presented as just another guy having good matches. On a roster full of other guys having good matches. That's it, really. He's presented as just another guy. And so he's perceived as just another guy. The criticism comes from the idea that Ricochet easily COULD have (and arguably SHOULD have) been presented as something special. As somebody unique. As... Something. But he's just another guy. Having good matches. On a roster full of guys having good matches. In an environment where good matches are so commonplace and ineffective that the good match happening right in front of you means no more or no less than the good match before it or the good match that will follow it. He's having meaningless good matches. I think that's the point. It's a bunch of matches with no point. No purpose. No sense of progress. No advancement opportunity. No upward mobility. It's just good matches. For the sake of more rematches. Because matches.

Pretty fun. It's a rapid-fire, one-hour session. Quick, easy listen. I generally dig these Q&A episodes, because it gives them a chance to touch on talking points from a wide range of periods. Conrad mixes things up here, which is refreshing. There's nothing extraordinary, but they touch on everything from Tito Santana & Dino Bravo to Hade Vansen & Gunner Scott. Bruce does torpedo a couple of questions, but you were already getting that BEFORE he went back to work for the company. It is what it is.

There's that, and there's also the issue of too much content. I mean, they technically PRODUCE fifty-eleven hours of content every week. But how much of that is actually PRODUCTIVE television? I maybe could be convinced that approximately an hour or so of their TV (spanning all their shows, mind you) is actually relevant or productive in any meaningful capacity. Everything else is filler. It's strictly time-killer. On-screen, that means the bulk of what we see is BUSY WORK. It's guys chasing devalued trophies and meaningless McGuffins just to give them something to do. It's "rivalries" with no rhyme or reason, so they attach a belt to them to make it seem like... Something. The only thing on the line is a title, or a title shot. Or a record nobody cares about, because they just thought it up and will quickly push it aside when they need something for the next rematch. Creatively, it's the path of least resistance. It's the laziest, most apathetic approach possible. It's running endless rematches to kill time & fill shows - rather than putting in the effort to come up with compelling or engaging characters, motivations, and differences to ignite these rivalries. It's a broken system from top to bottom. They're working harder instead of smarter, and that's always a red flag. Their focus is in all the wrong areas. I mean, yeah. It's neat to give someone a grand entrance and a nifty pose or whatever the fuck. But how about some attention to detail in your characters? Nobody gives a fuck what pose you strike if you're simply not over. No one cares what dinner theatre dialogue you recite through teary eyes before hitting your fifth finisher if you cannot establish a connection with your audience. They've forgotten the fundamentals. Hell, they've outright forsaken those fundamentals - in favor of this robotic, redundant, lifeless, monotonous horse shit presentation that people seem to have grown sick of AS SOON as an alternative rears its head & reminds them that, oh yeah. It doesn't have to be THIS bad all the time after all.

It's another fundamental flaw of this company that affects everything from the top down. They can't book. Everything has to be about a title. A record. A number. A first-ever. A meaningless statistic that will be wiped away as soon as it's established in the first place. It's like they have no confidence in themselves to create a compelling story without a belt - and they have no faith that their audience will bite unless there's a meaningless belt attached to every match. The problem is - these belts aren't stakes. These records aren't meaningful milestones. These numbers and dates and statistics aren't significant in any way, shape, form, or fashion. And the more they utilize them - then haphazardly sweep them aside for the next big show - the less & less they are ultimately valued. North American Title. South American Title. East Coast Title. 24/7 Title. First-ever two-time champion. All-time longest whatever the fuck. None of this shit matters. How about creating characters? Then pitting them against each other in compelling conflicts? Then promoting & hyping the shit out of THAT until the day they fight? This isn't rocket science. Stop getting so caught up on the fight choreography of it all. Stop being so obsessive-compulsive over verbiage and word selection. Stop lamenting over signature video game poses. Place the effort and emphasis where it needs to be for God's sake. The rest will follow.

Their creative is this toxic, repellant poison at this point. Their booking and presentation is so bad, it honestly doesn't matter WHO they promote or push. You guys are focusing on the wrong thing. It won't make a difference if it's a Ricochet, a Keith Lee, or a Baron Corbin. When they're all booked and presented like shit, it doesn't matter who's there in that spot. It's not a case of them picking the wrong guy and running with him. It's reached a point where it doesn't even matter WHO they select - it's their awful, uninteresting approach to, well, EVERYTHING. Their stories are nonexistent. Their ideas are such a black hole of creativity that they're beyond rebounding with simple character development or renewed focus. They practically need to strip away EVERYTHING and give everyone a total, wholesale overhaul. Nobody means anything at this point. None of the belts mean a thing. They've done so much damage through years and years of this booking.

Quoting myself feels weird af, but just bumping all this to say UFC has posted this series (as well as their first full show and a whole bunch of other fights) for free over on their YouTube channel. There's basically hours of content to revisit or even watch for the first time if anyone's interested. Those ESPN shorts are definitely worth scoping out though.

I already mentioned this over in the Grilling JR thread, but I wanted to double down here anyway. The recent Owen Hart episode, wherein Jericho and Dave Meltzer reminisce over Owen's career and overall influence, is just tremendous. It's light. It's upbeat. It's the pitch perfect counterpart & companion piece to JR's Over the Edge '99 show. I know it's one of those things that gets talked up a lot, but it really is wild to fantasy book a scenario where Owen had lived to mix it up with the likes of Jericho, Benoit, Eddie, and Angle in the 2000s WWF. Just imagine a world where we get those series of matches. Or maybe a situation where Owen gets rewarded with a title run for tenure at some point. Maybe he gets a big moment at Mania XX in MSG, ten years after his big definitive moment with his brother. And on & on. Anyway, they have some fun daydreaming & talking about some of the matches that could have been. Dave also draws some parallels between Owen and Jericho in terms of creativity and character reinvention, as well as how they could adapt to work with more contemporary opponents. There's a fascinating little sidebar discussion about Davey Boy, in which Meltzer indicates that Davey's preference for size and muscle mass was actually counterproductive to his instincts and skill sets as a performer. I agree, and it sounds like a common sense kind of thing. But really, it's hard to envision Davey Boy without that frame and that physique. It was certainly one of his defining traits, even if he was better off working like a small, athletic guy. Jericho's description of "every babyface to ever work in Calgary" had me cracking up. Lightning bolts down the leg? Check. Three stars on the ass? Check. Good stuff. I also found it interesting to hear from Dave that Pat Patterson used two examples to help lay out what the Bret/Owen feud could look like: Cain & Abel, and Bruno/Larry. We've heard from Bruce Prichard that Vince didn't buy into the brother versus brother feuds for a long time. Apparently, Vince was opposed to running them and found them entirely unrealistic. "Brothers don't fight! Nobody's going to believe that." So I wonder if maybe Pat got ahead of the game and used the Bruno/Larry template to help convince McMahon how it could work. That's just me speculating, but yeah. It was interesting to hear Dave mention Patterson framing it that way. Anyway, this is an excellent episode. Check it out. Come for the Owen appreciation. Stick around for the Makhan Singh and Ken Timbs(!) shout-outs.

You guys just about covered everything from the Owen episode. Conrad used the resources well, and JR was respectful and tactful in his retelling of such a horrific tragedy. Although it's something I never really care to hear in detail again, kudos to both guys for how they handled it here. On that note, you guys should scope out Jericho's podcast for a more upbeat look at Owen's career. I always dig it whenever Meltzer chops it up & talks shop with Jericho, and this one's no exception. They hit all the high notes & even venture off into some unexpected detours along the way. It's great. So yeah. Highly recommended. It's the perfect counterpart & companion piece to the bittersweet Over the Edge episode we got here.

Right. Why would they waste time running profile pieces when they could be having matches instead? And why would they conduct professional sports style interviews when they could have face-to-face confrontations and *insert physicality here*, pal?

I've seen positive reviews of the Becky documentary and plan on watching it eventually, but Double Or Nothing (and my limited free time) have put that on hold for the meantime. How does it stack up against the Mark Henry doc? Because that's my new de facto #1. That shit was tremendous. I don't think I've seen a better produced piece of television from WWE in the last ten to fifteen years. Hands down. No exaggeration. So yeah. It may be a little unrealistic to expect this to match that, but that's the bar. If it's even in the same stratosphere, then I'd consider it a win.

Well, 2004 is apparently the new 97/98 for Conrad. We're getting every major show from 04 each month right now. And, to be fair, I dug the Mania XX and Backlash 04 episodes. But the rest have been pretty lackluster. There's just so much overlap and redundant stuff when they cover things this way. Booker T's bizarre voodoo gimmick lasted all of one month, and it was absolutely terrible. I'm talking embarrassingly awful. You just know that was a Bruce Prichard project, too. He had his hands all over Taker's programs at this time. Booker T as Papa Shango isn't a thing I ever needed or wanted to see, but I'm not even going to pretend that Booker would've been incapable of getting it over in the long run. Booker is pure entertainment, and the guy was able to spin the dated King gimmick into something special later on. Plus it's pretty impressive how the Shango shtick was refined into a fun, indulgent act for the Boogeyman shortly thereafter. Kenzo Suzuki. Rene Dupree. Mark Jindrak. Luther Reigns. Mordecai. Heidenreich. Snitsky. Ugh. These guys were once groomed like the heirs apparent for WWE main event stardom. I mean, shit on him all you want - but is it REALLY any wonder why somebody like Ken Kennedy was capable of convincing them he was the next big thing at one particular point in time? Compared to that crop, dude looks like a surefire slam dunk.

I'm familiar with some of Waid's Flash, but that's about it. I may get around to checking it out eventually though. I've made the leap over to DC for the time being. Thor was awesome, but I started to feel overwhelmed with the War of Realms stuff approaching, and I started to feel burned out with too much familiarity in the Marvel lines. Figured my best bet was to see what I could sink my teeth into over on the DC side. And, since he was always my favorite as a kid, I just had to ask for some fairly recent Batman recommendations. I skipped past Morrison's run for the time being (although I loved his characterization of Bruce in JLA back in the day) and went straight into the New 52 stuff. Now I know why people have been praising Scott Snyder's work with the character. The Court of Owls was something I had only seen through the (excellent!) DC animated films, so this was mostly new territory for me. The concept of Thomas Wayne Jr. was handled very well. Like the idea of Damien Wayne, it's something I would normally be absolutely opposed to, but I dug it. I appreciated the way Snyder introduced the idea and rolled out the reveal. It was sort of left dangling as an open-ended question (at least at the point where I left off), and so that made it more acceptable for me as a reader. "Endgame" left me a little cold, if I'm being totally honest. I actually found "Death of the Family" to be a better, more cohesive story. I'd heard good things about Endgame and how it's supposedly the definitive final battle between Bats and the Joker, but meh. It just didn't strike me that way. I think the "last stand" for those characters will always be the Dark Knight Returns neck snap moment for me. Don't get me wrong. The Endgame finale was dramatic and impactful, but I don't know. The whole deal with Joker being scared sane by Batman's tactics rang a little hollow. It just didn't seem as true to their personalities as the Dark Knight Returns material. And really, none of it struck me as feeling part of official canon. Like, did that stuff actually happen? As an Elseworlds style tale, it's fine. But obviously they didn't die right there - yet Endgame is never referenced or brought back up in King's Rebirth. So I'm not even sure what the point of it was. It's an average story at best. That's my initial impression. Maybe I will warm up to it on a revisit later. I don't know. I've bounced around a bit, devouring samplings from various creators as I've browsed through some of my friends' suggestions. Tom King is another guy who gets a lot of hype, and - just like Snyder - I can understand why. "I Am Bane" was phenomenal. Whereas "I Am Gotham" left me underwhelmed and wondering why people would love his stuff that much, King definitely redeemed himself with Bane's story. The arc totally rejuvenates Bane as a top-shelf nemesis to the Dark Knight again. He's cunning. He's manipulative. He's menacing. He's intimidating. He's seriously presented as Batman's equal in every category. "Knightfall" put him on the map in a big, meaningful, major way. "I Am Bane" redefines him and reminds readers of how dominant he should have been all along. There's a very cool fight scene between Bane and Batman that summarizes the story extremely well. Bane is kicking ass and delivering this awesome speech. "I am not a clown. I'm not a riddle. Not a bird. Not a cat. Or a bitter old friend. Or a scorned protege. I am pain. I am suffering. I AM BANE." Fan-fucking-tastic. I've started getting into White Knight, which is just wonderful so far. THIS is how Endgame should have been presented. It's clearly happening in its own little self-contained universe, detached from the restrictions or limitations of the in-continuity stuff. There's a freedom and an enjoyment that comes with being able to play around with the characters and their back stories now. White Knight takes a basic concept and maximizes it to the fullest degree. What if the Joker decided to become a good guy and permanently fix the crime problem in Gotham? Sounds far-fetched, but the subject is approached in such a smart, compelling fashion. You can't help but be drawn into this world where intelligent, insightful questions are being raised - and ANSWERED - by the Joker of all people. Along the way, you get some truly fun nods to other Batman stories (including the animated series!). You also get a lot of real world social issues that are incredibly relevant in today's political climate. I'm only about halfway through the series' run at this point, but I'm absolutely digging it right now. Unless it takes a bizarre and unforeseen U-turn, it may rank up there as one of my all-time favorite Batman stories. I mean, nah. It isn't in continuity. But it's taking these established characters with such rich histories and relationships, and it's doing something very creative and refreshing with all of them. I'm loving it.