funkdoc

My friends made a great point with regard to people like C.S. assuming this wouldn't become a big story: Most of the awful stuff WWE has done over the years just affects people, basically. This one actually affects business as well, which is what it takes to reach the mainstream under capitalism.

Okada's going to have a new baby to deal with soon, same situation as Hangman last year. Still kinda with Pete on this though, Okada & Tanahashi were the two guys the western NJPW fans really wanted to see there above all else. Also, this Jeff Hardy thing feels more and more like TK acting as a fan rather than a promoter. As a (former) Browns fan it reminds me a bit of Jimmy Haslam's fixation on Johnny Manziel...

Singh looks like he'll be better than Giant Gonzalez at the very least. Not sure how much past that but maybe he won't be a total waste???

What’s interesting right now is that AEW’s starting to have problems with their Attitude Era-style “booking to the pop” approach. I had considered that a strength of theirs, but certain wrestlers have a significant gap between live crowd reactions and how they’re received among the wider fanbase. Britt & Cole are mainly who I’m referring to here, of course. Apparently at their fan fest for DON the crowds just flocked to Britt instead of Ruby or even Rosa - that seems to be the sort of thing TK bases his creative decisions on. I just question how wise that is when the Internet wasn’t a huge thing yet in the Attitude Era and had way less influence on overall fandom…

Loss had an interesting theory that Page could retain here, then they rematch on Dynamite to change the title then. It's going to be their first time ever running LA, so i imagine they'll want something special for the main event there...

They have to be building to FTR getting the belts, that's the only thing that makes sense at this point

Nah i totally get that, it's a fun & efficient hour of wrestling and that's a format we don't have elsewhere anymore

So for those who missed Rampage, Ruby vs. Statlander was Ruby's best match thus far in AEW but the result just killed the crowd. Stat busted out a great promo before the match that completely got them on her side (with Ruby's promo badly paling in comparison), only to lose in the end. It all came off very "one of our own getting buried by a WWE expat again" and i think Ruby is entering the Sammy Zone now. Sucks because i love the idea of Ruby Soho a ton and she's had great matches elsewhere, but she just hasn't fit in AEW... Also this means the women's Owen finals might be a buzzkill no matter who wins now. This tournament has sucked lmao

i'm in two Discord servers, one where i actually watch and one with IRL friends where we talk about wrestling, and we're all getting a bit tired of AEW atm With Omega being gone, Orange Cassidy being injured, the Dark Order being mostly banished to the Phantom Zone anymore, Best Friends being put on the backburner in favor of Roppongi Vice...there's just so little FUN on the shows these days. About all we've got for that now is Hookhausen, and the Acclaimed/Ass Boys one-brain-cell stable when they get their brief TV segments. The new folks they signed are practically all serious wrestlemen and that's not what got us into AEW in the first place. We're a bunch who fell out of wrestling for so long because it WASN'T dorky/silly enough, and AEW hit that spot for us. They're now becoming the best possible NXT and i'm not really here for that. Ah well, at least 2021 was amazing and the experience got our watch group into DDT & TJPW!

This is def building to a title change haha Also Anna Jay is an obvious filler match for Jade...she's been great as TBS champ but needs a stronger foil Flyin Brian is right about Penelope, no way in hell they release her. They clearly see a lot in her - i've felt like she's the main reason Kip's still employed

Also, Takeshita is definitely someone i can see showing up in the next GWE poll after this one. Enjoy the "beating Uncle Jun & inheriting King's Road" arc he's been on

The crowd didn't get Maki Itoh at all during her entrance, but by the end they were chanting her name. Score another point for my argument in the Mercedes Martinez GWE thread...

Fuck Texas crowds & their "WHAT" chants, just sayin

MY GURL MAKI LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO

imo AEW has exposed something about her which may or may not be important to yall but does matter to me: she isn't working to get over with unfamiliar crowds. Since both these matches were on the same night, compare the Mercedes-Deonna main event from this week's Dynamite to Yuka Sakazaki vs. Riho from Rampage. The former had very little crowd heat while Yuka had the fans popping hard for all the big moves & nearfalls even though she hadn't been in AEW in a long time and there were likely a lot of newer fans who didn't know her (and this was Riho's first match back from injury to boot). What struck me was that the Dynamite match was very "mechanical" and didn't really throw in strong character touches or eye-popping spots, which are what you need to quickly make new fans in this day and age. My friends had an interesting theory here: Yuka & Riho (who was also amazing at this at the beginning of AEW when nobody knew her either) both come from promotions influenced by Japanese idol culture, which is a world that heavily stresses projecting a distinct character and connecting with the fans. Someone like Mercedes, on the other hand, comes from places like SHIMMER which had more of a "workhorse" mentality by comparison, a "your stuff in the ring will get you over" mindset. i'm not saying SHIMMER was just a bunch of female Dean Malenkos, of course, but TJPW is one of the most heavily character-driven promotions anywhere in the world so they pretty much do look like Malenkos by that comparison. AEW doesn't give you much space to show your personality unless you're one of a handful of people, so in that environment you need an extremely obvious hook (no pun intended) that's apparent right out of the gate. Idol experience is perfect for this, so imo there's something to that thinking. Just look at Maki Itoh, who actually was in an idol group before wrestling...she instantly got herself over in AEW as well and was selling more merch than a lot of their contracted talent while she was there. Again, i suspect this wouldn't make the difference in whether or not she makes your 100, but it kinda does for me as i've increasingly come to value the ability to win over any type of crowd.

She's making more of a case over time. Hands down one of the best workers in AEW's women's division, i'd even put her above Rosa since she's more consistent and better at leading greener talent (very important in that promotion lol)

Takeshita came to play in this US trip - the match on Dark vs. Cutler was a great showcase, and this Lethal match just now was really nice even if the finish kinda sucked. Man's one of the best young talents in all of puro and i'm really glad

Thank you for the clarification, that makes me feel a lot better honestly!

Welp, appears the show is dead now in spite of some of the highest viewership numbers Vice ever had. As you'd expect, all the rumors say it's due to the heat they got from the Plane Ride episode. Even RVD complained about his portrayal there, which is odd to me since i actually thought he came off maybe the best of any of the wrestlers there - someone who was honestly coming to grips now with how fucked up things were back then. Annnnnnnnd the people behind DSOTR are apparently going to do a WWE docuseries with the Rock's production company so this seems like the bad ending as far as interesting content goes. The show will be about the territories at least, so *maybe* we could get a good ep or two out of that, but i doubt it. What a shame... In fairness, i'm not sure how much more steam the show would've had anyway since they'd already been delving into some more obscure topics. A lot of what would've been left is stuff that's too recent to cover with full perspective (Speaking Out, Saudi Arabia) and/or a minefield along the lines of the Plane Ride (the ring boy scandal). Maybe this was how it was always going to end, but i loved the series and wish we could've had at least a bit more of it.

i recall hearing that the AEW video game (which is apparently going to be called Fight Forever even though that's not officially announced yet?) will need to sell 1 million copies to break even. Even if that figure might be a little higher now, i'd still say whatever goal they have will be a breeze. Why? TIL that the TNA video game, released in the late 2000s by a developer that declared bankruptcy a few months afterward or so, sold 1.5 million. Think that says it all

Wardlow-Archer was not the kind of match i expected, but it was an absolutely perfect showcase and a fun time. Ward's swanton was a thing of beauty

Yeah that's been a pattern lately, Dynamite frontloading their cards...i mean it happens a lot with music albums too so hey! Wasn't entirely feeling the coffin match, that def needed more of the time given to Britt & Sammy. Those two are the leading go-away heat magnets among our watch group now.

i'm glad this is in all likelihood the last Page-Cole match - lots of rumors that Page-Punk will headline DON and this would be good timing to get that moving. Also shoutouts to two Vtuber signs in the crowd EDIT: That was better than the PPV Page-Cole match IMO

i'd say that's, at minimum, extremely likely given that it almost killed him. Think he's acquitted himself very well given the circumstances - in a way it might have accidentally made him work smarter for the AEW environment, making him lean more on power spots which stand out in such a flippy promotion.

Starting to see this talking point more and more around the internet so i wanted to bring it up here: the greener AEW women (for the most part) don't work indies and that's almost certainly hurting their development given how Dark is just squashes these days and how none of them except Jade get much TV time. The difference is striking when you look at how many of the best young talents on their men's roster still show up outside AEW pretty often: Daniel Garcia, Wheeler Yuta, Top Flight, etc. Hell, even the Acclaimed have more indie dates than an Anna Jay or Red Velvet. We never want to go back to the days of people working 250-300 matches a year, of course, but 30-50 proooooobably ain't enough to ever approach even mid-level joshi workers. Mentioned this before but it's related to this so - it's just so bizarre to me that Emi Sakura apparently hasn't done like any training in AEW??? She's one of the best ever at it but you never hear anyone talk about her helping their development. Note how Jade, for instance, mentions Dustin/Deeb/Billy Gunn but not Emi. Makes me wonder if the less experienced women just don't know about her history and don't think to approach her, or if people get hung up over the language barrier or what. Really the main exception to all this i can think of is Skye Blue, who still does a bunch of stuff around the Chicago area. Would be interested to see how she compares to the others i mentioned 6 months or a year from now. But i do wonder whether the talent genuinely don't want to work extra shows or if it's a directive from the higher-ups...