funkdoc

My feelings on this are: 1. "Pretense that this is worked combat" is fundamentally impossible anymore and the Internet & the popularity of MMA were always going to make it that way in the long run. We know that even the bottom-feeders of UFC would destroy virtually any pro wrestler in a real fight, and really that's been apparent since the collapse of Japanese shoot style in the 90s. Wrestling at its core is a nerd fandom anymore, and nerds want athletic burlesque. Hell, my own watch group is into stuff like DDT/TJPW/Hoodslam/Effy's Big Gay Brunch that makes the "burlesque" part literal at times! 2. If you want to win over millennials & zoomers & whoever comes after, you *are* going to have to throw out a whole lot of what worked for even the Gen Xers. Again, i think the Internet has been the single biggest cultural gamechanger since at least TV, and any time before that feels like the Stone Age at this point. Here's an example of what i'm getting at: the infamous Sammy Guevara cum belt promo. A big reason that bombed so hard (besides the obvious) is that he was supposed to be a babyface when he did this. A ripped guy bragging about banging a hot chick could have gotten face pops in a prior era, but a key difference between then and now is that now we don't want our heroes to be the people we secretly wish we were. We want our heroes to be relatable, and that Sammy promo was the polar opposite of relatable to the core pro wrestling fanbase. There's a reason Hangman Page connected so strongly after initial skepticism of his push, and it's the way he felt like one of us with his depression & alcoholism & the audible lack of confidence he gave off in his promos. THAT'S what gets the non-boomers attached to you.

Overall this has been a much better show than i expected given how weak the card looked on paper, Jay Lethal winning aside Maybe the "RAW making them step up" narrative could have some truth to it

Hearing from more reputable sources that stuff was bullshit, which i figured from the start. i can buy Ahmed Johnson using PWI as a bargaining chip in the 90s, not a history buff in the modern era

Madness are a great example of their huge US hit being nothing like the rest of their work

pleased with this fire from Jungle Boy after his lackluster promos in the past

The 90s were the edgelord decade, which sometimes gets forgotten by Gen Z. Before nu-metal we had grunge rock and gangsta rap and Nine Inch Nails’ biggest hit having “I want to fuck you like an animal” in the chorus. Though Limp Bizkit actually has some defenders these days mostly from an ironic perspective - they’re the right kind of stupid to be hilarious for certain folks. Also once i tell you that Fred Durst’s SERIOUS BADASS voice is literally just Adam Sandler you will never be able to unhear that~

AEW continuing to feel more like 2021, which makes me happy. Really thought Hangman was done with the DO altogether

Yeah, that Wardlow match was booked perfectly when he badly needed it. Sad that Scorp was set up to fail between Sammy & teasing a face turn then not following through, but i think he still has a chance to come out OK in the long run.

Word from SRS is that they were going to let Colt go completely until the locker room pushed back against that, and now he’s getting an ROH-exclusive offer. Fits with everything else involving the Dark Order lately, though this was what i assumed would become of him anyway

One of my friends' favorite wrestlers just put out a highlight reel: i'm impressed for someone so new to the business (and who's already received enough toxic harassment over being transgender that she considered retirement recently)! Someone i'll definitely be rooting for going forward

Slightly off-topic, but a friend of mine made a good point: this suggests NJPW has a much bigger paying audience in the US than people assumed, but they have yet to figure out where all those people are located. They've kept running house shows in places like Texas & the east coast that don't draw well - the latter kinda surprises me but i guess that area is saturated with indies like GCW and whatnot. Is it all just in Southern California?

Stardom stays winning in the pandemic period, news at 11

re: Dark Order i'm glad to see a lot of yall agreeing with me. Angels is only 24, and i had thought he could be the most valuable member of that group in the long run...kind of a mistake there imo. i think Uno is pretty secure in AEW but only because of his job in their video game division - he does a lot of work there including Twitch streaming. Anna & Silver are the only ones i see getting any real push as wrestlers in the foreseeable future, alas

Don Muraco would be an obvious one for this board...maybe Booker T?

OK fair, also i just want Tay to be able to train with Suzuki & Shibata like she dreams of ok

i think the divide might be that you prefer the more serious AEW we've had a lot of this year (and Adam Cole who none of us can fucking stand anymore), whereas myself and my main watch group enjoy it more when it's closer to CHIKARA or DDT. Orange/Acclaimed/Danhausen are more what we're looking for in our wrestling these days, at least to go along with the more stoic workrate heroes.

Apparently i wasn't the only one who liked this show...they finally broke 1 million viewers for Dynamite again after a streak below that level. Hopefully they take the hint that people want to see faces win on TV once in a while and want to see some goofy bullshit

Yep, this was far and away the best Dynamite of the year. PiP during Blood & Guts was the worst part if anything

Supposedly Santana might have fucked up his knee and that's why he's just been laying there for a long time?

This has already been the best Dynamite in months, really felt like 2021 again. Good plot developments even in the squash matches, not afraid to be silly (an element that's been sorely lacking for a while), and LETTING THE BABYFACES ACTUALLY WIN ON TV wtf!!!

Apparently Cole was confirmed to have his 2nd concussion within a month too, so he should be gone for a while. Might throw a wrench into their All Out plans…

This is a very good point, particularly when you consider how much Fritz played up their Christianity and even aired their weekly show on Christian TV stations. Would definitely expect some of the hypocrisy there to be brought up

Part of what hurts Forbidden Door w/ the younger crowd imo is the lack of strong Youtube retrospectives on NJPW - there are people in my watch group who were completely out of wrestling until just last year, so they didn't know who any of these guys are. They get most of their wrestling history from videos since you can play those in the background at work (while you can't read the WON or forums), and NJPW is infamously anal about copyright to the point of striking Twitter GIFs. That last part makes it not worth it to try high-effort, longer videos about the promotion...there's better historical content available on Youtube for TJPW than NJPW, lol EDIT: If this bombs the way we think it will, though, i think it'll simply be a weird blip on the radar to look back at if AEW rebounds decently at all. i mean, how often do people bring up Starrcade '95 in wider histories of WCW?

DDT has been the best JP men's promotion this year, hands down. Their tournaments really show what an embarrassment AEW & NJPW have been in that regard as of late. Glad Takeshita's around to give Americans some taste of the non-comedy work they have to offer, considering how often they get written off as just that. Though on the comedic end, the gay folks in our watch group absolutely love the Pheromones...

postmodern kitsch is basically the primary form of entertainment nowadays soooooooooo