brockobama

lol was he really an internet darling at the time? That seems absurd.

I didn't get into it until well into my teens and I know maybe two dozen people for whom that applies. If anything I'd wager that's becoming more and more common, especially as accessible alternatives to WWE are popping up. The logic of it doesn't have to appeal to any sort of ingrained nostalgia more than in any other media. It's not like the only people watching superhero movies these days are folks who read Action Comics #1 when they were a tyke. Haven't listened to it in a long time but that's a cute show. Might frustrate a longtime fan for how surface it is, somewhat by design, but I'd definitely recommend it to anyone venturing into wrestling for the first time. This is definitely a big help too, illustrating to people how wrestling compares to or connects to things like theatre and sports instead of separating it on a bizarre little island.

When I was trying to expose friends and S/Os to wrestling during college in the early to mid 2010s I usually went with some amalgamation of PWG and Chikara, sometimes with a little Dragon Gate too. With younger folks I felt that showing them relatively recent flashy, colorful, smaller scale, often character-driven wrestling was better than something older or more violent or more melodramatic, the sorts of things that might confirm all their suspicions and preconceived notions of wrestling. It also didn't hurt that a lot of the people in those promotions were a bit younger and more real-world attractive than your average 80s vet or musclebound freak. This was a while later but Lucha Underground was real helpful too. Having something that looked and felt more like your average TV drama and less like Monday Night RAW made a big difference and I found that the cultural/language barrier wasn't so bad so long as people understood ahead of time that this was a fantastical, semi-foreign sort of thing. As far as specific wrestler are concerned, I found that an endearing underdog worked to hook someone in far better than a sculpted adonis or charismatic heel. No matter how strange and absurd the situation is, people can immediately understand a little guy getting beat up by someone bigger. I got a lot of mileage out of people like Bayley, Rey Mysterio, The Colony, "Speedball" Mike Bailey, Mikey Whipwreck, etc.

Anyone happen to be familiar with the state of PPV services in Japan these days? Based on how much it came up in Observers in the late 90s and early 00s I have at least something of a grasp on it during that era but I'm curious about how that's changed over the decades and how it might relate to wrestling. Also, been watching a lot of ECW Hardcore TV recently and it got me and my friend to talking about Shane Douglas and Francine. Has there ever been a better man and woman duo in wrestling, one where they jelled together perfectly, played their respective parts well, and both could talk? We bandied around Tully and Baby Doll, Sunny and Sherri and their various partners, but none of them felt like they were both on the same level as those two. We thought Sullivan and Woman had a shot but we've seen precious little of that footage.

Came here to post Maeda kicking Choshu's face apart so I'm glad it was already brought up. Alongside Bret vs Austin (which solidified Austin as a major star, pushed the company fully into the Attitude Era, paved the way for their greatest successes, and eventually allowed them to virtually monopolize the American industry for two decades), I think it's probably the most influential match in anything approaching the modern era. As for something a little more recent, my friends and I were just talking about Lucha Underground's influence again. I definitely don't think there's such a prominent place for luchadors on the American indies (or the top level American promotions, for that matter) these days without that show. What's more I think that model of season-based, production-heavy, dramatic storytelling-driven wrestling is only going to become more and more prevalent as the 2020s roll on. Things like the Broken Hardy shit or whatever it is WWE is doing these days is spreading it out further but LU is where I'd say it first caught hold with any meaningful audience. I was thinking about the UK scene too, something that was real hot there for a minute and served to get a few big names out there, but I'm not sure if it would really count. It allowed for (or necessitated, considering who you are) the creation of NXT UK, the first foray into the worldwide mini-brand expansion WWE's been working toward for 15 or 20 years, but the jury's still out on how well that or any other offshoots are going to do. If you wanted a single match that kicked it all off, I'd say the PROGRESS vs REGRESSION eight man tag from September 2014.

Certainly hope this doesn't just fizzle out in a year's time. Seen entirely too much of that. Good luck and godspeed.

As far as merch is concerned, haven't we been hearing for years that heels make far less in merch sales in the fed? The Bucks and co. are an entirely different animal, obviously.

Yeah, count me in on the "what Roman Reigns character?" crew. Was tempted to cite him as an example of milquetoast nerds in my initial post. It's a whole complicated issue we don't need to get into here but his lack of a distinct character beyond a few catchphrases and a general demeanor has to contribute to his unpopularity in some circles, on some level.

I'm contractually obligated to throw Smith Garrett in the mix here. Speaking of uppercuts I'm glad they're relatively rare, all things considered. A bad uppercut to me is way worse than most bad punches. Maybe not so bad as a weak elbow because those should be almost foolproof.

In some cases I think it's just the case of poor or limited workers. Cass has never leapt off the page as a vibrant character to anyone I reckon. That's just not where his skillset lies (and shit, it may not lie much of anywhere). Ishimori too, who's a way better wrestler in most every front compared to Cass but never a guy I've looked to for strong character development. I'm sure he's a swell guy and there are certainly points where I've found him to be sympathetic, but there's no strong personality there for me to dig into, you know? In other cases it's just poor writing. Ishimori's now part of the Bullet Club which should theoretically make him a heel but that stable gets murkier and less well defined by the day. Joe's in the process of turning face from what I understand and it sounds like they don't know how to handle taking such an intimidating, physical character and making him a good guy without going the Braun route and leaning heavily into comedy. These guys are veterans who have been working for years but when they're given bad material or little material at all it's hard to know where to go. Along with that I think at some point wrestlers became less interested in being characters and more interested in just being (what they thought was) cool. Why be a conniving trickster when you could be a superhero and do Phoenix splashes and cool poses? Why be a career underdog who has to fight for every opening when you could go 50/50 for half an hour with guys who outweigh you by 80 pounds? Why be heartfelt and genuine when a snarky quip you say in a match could end up on a PWTees shirt? I imagine you can trace a lot of this back to the rise in the modern indie scene and what influenced those people (more so the later generations) and how that sort of approach has come to define a lot of wrestling worldwide. Thinking of those early indie stars, I also think it's fair to say that there are just fewer real-life characters in wrestling today. Like, take Homicide for example. One of my favorite wrestlers ever, a guy I've written thousands upon thousands of words about, someone I'd watch do literally anything, etc etc. Dee's a card outside of the ring as much as in it, a guy who's lived a full life and developed a strong, strong personality for having had those experiences. You look around today and those sorts of people generally aren't in wrestling. Over the years as the industry/fanbase/whatever changed, these sorts of people were discouraged from being in wrestling and/or wrestling grew more attractive for certain types of milquetoast nerds. And don't get me wrong, there are lots of milquetoast nerds working today who I love, but it's impossible for me to describe them in depth the way I could give you a deep analysis of who Homicide is. They don't stand out in the ring as larger than life figures because no part of them truly is all that exceptional or interesting.

Yeah I go in cycles too. Weeks that I'm in the swing of things and doing a bunch for the blog I'm probably watching about 15 hours a week, usually not more than two weeks in a row. On the average week, though, I'm probably hitting closer to 6-8 hours. And not all of it is actual matches in the ring, as I watch a fair amount of shoots and interviews and whatnot.

Hey, at least this means Chihiro's gonna get the belt back sooner rather than later.

The "unified voice" idea is an interesting one and useful in this context, I think. When you have Vince steering the ship on an entire show that he wants done a particular way or Patterson laying out how a big Rumble should work, you get a central idea behind a big piece of work for better or for worse. But when you have six sub-ten minute matches on RAW with six different agents saying how they should go you're spreading that influence out more and more, which can be good in some cases but often is just sort of jumbled, I think we can agree. More and more it feels like that unified voice is being delineated out to other, smaller voices. It's less of a lengthy novel and more a collection of short stories by different authors.

I mean yeah, Public Enemy were huge.

The thing is, as much as an agent can be instrumental in laying out a framework or giving advice on certain ideas or whatever, you still need two or more people in the ring clicking and doing that stuff correctly to make a good match. In the same way that your special teams coach can run you through all manner of drills and prepare you for the play and set you in the right direction, you still have to be the one out there on the field catching the punt and running it down. For the most part good training or good production or good agenting can't cover up a total lack of skill/instinct/confidence/etc., or at least not to the same degree that a good wrestler in the ring with someone lacking those things can, I think. There's also the problem that we don't really know who's agenting what most of the time. That sheet for Backlash or whatever it was got out and that was a neat peek behind the curtains, but beyond just having a general list of names we don't know who's covering what matches in WWE, right? TNA has agents from what I understand but I'm even more in the dark there. The way certain office guys are mentioned in New Japan it sounds like the same position is being filled there, but I don't know for a fact. This isn't as easy as going on IMDb and looking up who the cinematographer was on a certain flick; there's a bigger barrier to praising good agenting in wrestling. It's not like this shouldn't be considered when evaluating wrestling to some degree. One of the most common excuses you'll hear about people failing in WWE for any period of time is bad agenting. That's as much a part of booking as who wins and who loses, if not more so. I just don't know how we, in this current state, can evaluate this influence thoroughly.

OSW (guess what the acronym is) Reviews

CZW. I have a genuine love for deathmatches and while the promotion truly does do and has done so much more than that, everything they do is covered in this veneer of grime and vulgarity that appeals to some deep layer of my dumb white boy lizard brain. It was so rarely ever good--and I wouldn't argue if you'd say it never was--but that in itself is almost part of the draw. Between the slew of charismatic trash monsters in the locker room over the years or the dozens of dumb, instantly recognizable highspots, it's very much a promotion for the wrestling music video generation and that community was a big part of my early fandom.

Does this make David Otunga objectively the most attractive man in wrestling for landing Jennifer Hudson?

I have zero real knowledge about his career before IWRG but Black Terry immediately came to mind when pulling this thread up.

Long before I realized I swung both ways I thought it was weird that I found just about no female wrestlers attractive. That didn't change until the crop of ladies popping up in the 2010s and I branched out into older stuff. There's probably a good chunk of 15-20ish years after the early/mid 90s where I only really dig one or two women active at the time. Guess I'll touch on some of the male wrestlers mentioned here too. Rollins' rattiness, while it does nothing for me, is 100% a big draw for a certain demographic. Ditto the sort of sleazy vibe you get from Ambrose, Dunne, etc. It's not all that far removed from the Hardys' alt-white trash hunk status that bled directly into other off kilter people over the years like Edge, Punk, to some degree Balor. Never occurred to me before but Parv's totally right about Ted. Charming, good hair, good laugh, natural body type. Could really develop a thing for the guy if I saw more stuff from his younger days. Bret's definitely overrated but there's something about the guy. Rustic, plain spoken handyman sort of handsomeness. A guy you can trust to take care of the pipes in winter. Famously had no hog but you make do with what you got. Tanahashi's got a similar vibe but he's obviously more of a pretty boy than a day laborer. Basically hated his hair forever and his barrel chest is too much for me but sometimes you catch him in the right light and the dude's gorgeous. Ibushi's strictly attractive but there's nothing there for me. Too plastic and cold. Dead behind the eyes. Fairly certain he skins cats in his spare time. Young Minoru Suzuki is probably the most attractive wrestler there's ever been, for me. Sharp features, great hair, tons of personality, just the right size. Certified hunk. Kinda surprised no one's mentioned Cena. He looks sort of less... human with every passing year, but Marine era Cena has a real charm. Obviously a guy with a ton of charisma and winning smile. In the same vein as Bret and Suzuki, Regal's got a huge appeal. Most daddyish wrestler behind Jushin Liger. Current guys who do it for me are the likes of Shibata, David Starr, and Dash Wilder. Guess I like hairy chests.

I think his WWE run so far is a little more layered. I'd definitely agree that it's been the weakest in-ring stretch of his career, though I'd point to a few high end matches other people might not. The Lesnar match is better to me than all but one or two of his NJPW bouts and I know there are people who would say the same of his Roman and Cena matches. More than that, though, I'm surprised by how well he's fit into the general format of WWE production and storytelling. It's not like he didn't spend a decade on TV with TNA but for a straightlaced southern boy who I've never considered a particularly good talker he's handled the transition to doing 15-20 minutes of promos most every week surprisingly well, especially considering that he's given material like the whole "beat up John Cena" shtick. As KawadaSmile mentioned, that Owens/Zayn feud should have been way worse and wasn't because of him. I loved the Ellsworth feud to death and I don't think it works nearly so well if anyone else in the company is doing that story. Despite being a guy who probably always would have been perceived as an awesome in-ring worker and little else, the dude's held his own in the "makin' movies" promotion.

Just that it's rather bland. Doesn't impress or intrigue me in any real way unless he's doing a special sort of match like the Tier 1 bout with Garrini last year.

I really like MJF but only in settings where he's not wrestling. During (or maybe more specifically before, in pre-match promos) his own matches his heel work degrades into the same old bullshit in my eyes and while it's not strictly bad it's just boring. Even more boring are his actual matches. Absolutely love the guy as a corner man or a commentator but I'd rather not see him in the ring until he gets a few more years of experience under his belt. EDIT: I don't know if there was an actual story behind it, but the name change is hilarious to me too. Did he not know about Feinstein or what that name might mean in indie wrestling, especially in the northeast? Too funny.

Yeah this latter idea is sort of how I feel about it. If I had the choice I'd sort of rather not know who every masked wrestler is before they're unmasked but it's a useful bit of knowledge for our sorts of purposes when talking about wrestling and especially in regards to something like GWE. I'd think of Drew Gulak and Fire Ant highly just based on what they've each done under those names but considering the Soldier Ant and Orange Cassidy stuff too it's hard for me to not think of them as top 100 contenders.