FMKK

I think Ibushi has been booked horribly since the G1 but I think it's unfair to blame him for the poor drawing. Firstly they're capped on how many they can have in the buildings. This means that they're trying to make up for that by running ten million Road To shows, which given what time some of them have been on and how they mostly have the same card I don't think Hulk Hogan in 1985 could have drawn well in those conditions. Secondly, they lost the traditional Fantasticamania tour with the CMLL guys and they aren't doing Super Juniors so replacing them with bog standard house shows diminishes the need to buy a ticket even more. I don't think the company is particularly hot right now. Where New Japan used to have clear directions for all the big stars, everything now seems to be just freewheeling. What is Jay White's story right now? It seemed like they were onto something hot with his post-WK promo but now he's just doing the same old shit as 2018 with the cheating and a feud with Tanahashi. Okada finally landed the Rainmaker and beat Ospreay in a classic match at WK. So is he back to his best and chasing the title? No, he's just doing undercard nothing. I know the pandemic has turned a lot of shit upside down but they really need to establish some new narratives and fast. I would however caution against real close analysis of attendances right now for the reasons above. Wait til things are a bit more back to normal and see if they're drawing better houses. I think in normal conditions, things would be down a bit with this booking but not completely in the mud the way Meltzer and others are making out. As for the new belt, I don't hate it but to steal a point from John Carroll of Wrestling Omakase, they've traded in a 10/10 belt for a 7/10 belt. The prior IWGP title was up there with the Big Gold Belt for all time greatest wrestling titles.

I can see why he was a babyface at first mainly because they knew the crowds would want to cheer him and that they wanted to build around Jericho as the top heel to kick off the promotion so Kenny as a babyface in the tag division kept him out of the way. Once they were ready to properly pull the trigger on him as the top act they turned him.

I think his kinda hyper and dorky persona appeals more to a certain type of male wrestling fan. And tbf to the guy, he's been a legitimate draw on two continents and his segments on Dynamite generally do well. Impact is also way up year-on-year since he's been part of their storylines. I just think he might have a weak spot in this one area. I think Dave's idea that it's the amount of blood, Lanza's that it's Kenny and the Challenge taking away the female demo are probably all factors as opposed to it being just one. I'm interested in the fact that the Darby vs John Silver main event did well in the ratings a) because Darby is relatively new on this stage and Silver was basically no one a year ago and b) because I think Darby as a brooding emo dude who's attractive and sells a lot can appeal to a certain demographic of girls. I think AEW does have some hot guys that they could use to target the female audience, I just don't think Kenny Omega is one of them.

You’re aware that they aren’t cancelling doing matches on Dynamite to be replaced with Brandi shopping segments, right?

It might not but if they’re going to grow then they need to try different things and some of it will be stuff that wrestling fans like us might not necessarily like

It’s funny that there’s a 8 page debate on this forum about how wrestling can’t attract new fans and then there’s people going mad in here that AEW is doing something to appeal to a different demographic. Something that proved reasonably successful at making the Bella Twins stars for WWE.

Why is the existence of reality TV inappropriate when there's a pandemic? It's obviously going to be shit but it gives the company brand awareness with new people. Wrestling still = WWE to most people so getting Cody and Brandi into the TMZ z-list celeb arena at least gets the name out there. Who gives a fuck if its a dumb show? It's easily avoidable.

Coach Tony K definitely lurks in some spots online. Cody too allegedly. But I doubt they're hanging out on PWO.

Oh I agree that WWE stinks and has for most of that time. I just think there are bigger forces at play too. Ultimately, they could and should still be more popular than they are but they've eroded the concept of anyone being an actual star, the TV production is horrendous, everyone in the company speaks in this stilted corporate jargon language and people care way more about having WRESTLEMANIA MOMENTS and FULFILLING THEIR DREAMS and STEALING THE SHOW more than winning championships and fighting their rivals. I can't imagine them ever making new fans because the whole thing just seems like a really alienating viewing experience for anyone watching it for the first time. I think in recent years Daniel Bryan and Becky Lynch were probably their best chances of having new breakthrough stars in recent years but in both cases they ruined it either with deliberate sabotage or just not being able to get out of their own way. The Bryan story has been well told but not enough is made of how awful the build to Becky's Mania main event was. She did a promo segment with Ronda right after she won the Rumble that was electric. Fans were dying to see them fight. And then they did a fake injury angle, had HHH, Stephanie and Vince all over the programme, had Becky apologise to them, had the title shot up for grabs, Charlotte entering the match, Ronda doing worked shoot promos about how wrestling is fake and then had an underwhelming match at the end of a 7 hour show. Like, they absolutely killed her dead when she looked like she could be a superstar if they just put her over Ronda clean in a singles match. But this is all about WWE. The discussion is about wrestling more generally and in this thread I've seen AEW and indy promotions catch some unfair heat. It's unfair to really have expected them to have expanded the wrestling audience greatly. Indies just due to the sheer size of them and AEW because they're a two year old company who're having to work in the wake of WWE's 20 year monopoly of mainstream wrestling. People expecting them to create this swathe of new fans given the circumstances are either being naive or setting an impossible standard imo. But they do the right things with pushing young and attractive guys, getting some old faces involved and doing celebrity angles. Anything that can capture some attention is good. But that attention lasts for less time than ever nowadays. The big success in wrestling in the last decade has of course been New Japan. And I know we're dealing with a different set of circumstances there but they did create and expand a new fanbase from the doldrums. And really it's been a simple recipe performed to a high standard. Obviously there's the fact that their championships and accomplishments are treated with reverence and the matches are taken seriously. And you need to have performers who can deliver at a world class standard. But the other recipe is having long-term character arcs that fans can follow along with. Okada was the cocky young upstart who grew into a legendary ace, Tanahashi was the iconic savior of the company who had to come to terms with being eclipsed, Naito the rebellious and irreverent guy who pushed and pushed to unseat the golden boy champion, the bridesmaid who finally became the bride. You can also throw Ibushi, Nakamura, Omega, Hiromu etc into the mix. Charismatic performers with long-term career narratives that rewarded the fans for being invested in them. And it doesn't have to be convoluted angles or stereotypical faces and heels because each guy brought their own fanbase who wanted them to win. If you look at their crowds, there's a lot of women there who absolutely love those guys because of their looks, charisma etc. I know there are so many differences between how US television wrestling and a Japanese promotion are run but I see no reason why WWE couldn't learn from this approach and make their shows more interesting to follow. But they have no need to because they're just a content factory. I can see signs of AEW setting up long term arcs but it's obviously too early to tell how successfully they play out. And New Japan itself is now in something of a transition and trying to get new stars over in tricky circumstances.

We've seen audience splinter in all forms of entertainment all over the world as DVR then social media and then streaming conquered the world. Wrestling numbers are way down from 25 years ago but so is everything else. That's a quarter of a century. So many things have changed. Obviously WWE has generally been horribly booked for much of the monopoly period and is generally an off-putting television product but there are wider social economic factors at play here and I don't really understand how and why people think pro wrestling can be the one form of entertainment to subvert those trends.

Tbf, presumably even the regular NXT watchers were checking out the Brodie tribute show this week. Certainly all the WWE wrestlers were.

So The Fiend’s actual gimmick is that he has brainwashed Alexa Bliss to dress and act like a small child who is also in love with him. But despite that being...deeply troubling...he’s a babyface because he got murdered by Randy Orton.

Only Mick, Austin and Rock. You know, the real stars. He used NXT to launder his reputation so much but any reminder of the time before that has me hating him with just as much vitriol as I did when I was a teenage smark.

HHH talking all this shit about how she can learn from this year and it’s like his mythical de-push after the curtain call shows how clueless he is.

This time a year ago, people thought Shayna and Rhea were on the verge of being able to be main roster stars. Io Sharai is an excellent wrestler. Those are three people who are good enough to be in the top echelon of the women’s division; one is in a tag team with Nia Jax, another was basically buried for Charlotte and the third might not ever get called up. There are people they could push to feud with her if they cared to but we know they can’t and won’t make stars anymore.

It’s also astounding to me that Sasha Banks hasn’t been pushed as the main star of the company given that she’s in a big mainstream television show. In the past, they would definitely be bigging that up all over TV and pushing her hard. But instead she’s stuck in a feud with the horrendous Carmella. Either Vince has fallen so hard into his bad habits of being a control freak that he can’t see the woods for the trees or this is a sign that the much hyped WWE women’s division doesn’t actually have much depth outside of the top three or four women. At least on the main roster.

I miss the rap, what did he say? It would be weird for them do a homophobic rap when one of them is gay.

https://t.co/JPu0Z126eV" / Twitter Worse than Russo

Well supposedly Reigns and Heyman lobbied to have The Fiend drafted to Raw so that they could avoid a programme with him. Paul still knows how to play this game.

Never has a pregnancy been better planned than Becky's, at least in terms of wrestling.

Not necessarily that he was looking to leave, could've just been coming up to the end of his contract so you'd obviously talk to both sides. All time worst viewership for Raw and defeated by Dynamite in the demo in all three hours.

Worst show on all of television?

Orange Cassidy is older than you think but he’s not overexposed on US television whereas Miz has been on every show doing the same gimmick for over ten years and has never been overly good at it. Age is relative and ideally you’d want a good mixture. AEW has some old guys, some guys in their mid-30s and lots of guys under 30. WWE has everyone between 35-45 and most have been constantly on TV doing the same act forever.

Sounds like an all time bad show. Pretty sure Bray Wyatt and Drew are the only pushed acts on Raw under 40 and both are like 35.

I've seen this compared to a travelling NWA champion defending against the local babyface and I can see the parallels. They started off with some grappling before Omega used his size and strength advantage to take the lead. Outside brawling led to a wacky dive by Laredo from a stack of tyres and involvement from Vikingo, which sets up Omega's next defence. Kenny almost died on a dive when Laredo pulled Nakasawa in front of him but he totally failed to catch him. Omega basically jumped from the ring to the floor and landed on his ass. When they got back in, it seemed like they settled into a groove to trading big spots, including some V-Triggers and a Tiger Driver from Kenny and a Spanish Fly and poison 'rana from Laredo. Kenny gave him some nice nearfalls here. Things got more interesting when Laredo cut off the spot trading to work on Kenny's leg, exploiting a missed V-Trigger into the corner to put on an Indian Death Lock and then doing a super cool roll through on a One Winged Angel attempt to get on a reverse cloverleaf type of thing. Kenny really teased tapping on this. Finish came when Laredo was distracted by Nakasawa when he was on the turnbuckle, allowing Kenny to pop up with a OWA from the second rope. This was good stuff but would have gained a lot from a crowd with so many teased finishes. ****