strobogo

Black does not have the "oh well we gotta push that guy" look and aura of Lashley come on lmao. He never did, still doesn't, and he also hasn't been pushed like that outside of his NXT run. From call up to main roster to entire AEW run, I'm hard pressed to remember much of anything he's done and it's probably less "we don't know what to do with him but we gotta do something" and more "doesn't work for me, brother" stuff.

Lashley is kind of the Lex Luger of his era where you look at them and are like "well of course we have to push him" and he rarely seems to hit the level it looks like he should but everyone still has the same idea looking at him.

Shelton was in solid stuff in the CC, Lashley would be fun to put up against the real flippy shit guys and just wreck them. I don't know if I'm going to go far enough to say they're a negative so far, but I don't know what to do with them either. It's better to have them in the tag division than a Lashley title run or something. AEW's problem has been too much talent for most of their run and that's about the best problem to have, really.

Oh for sure MVP ate him the fuck up but that's the nature of letting guys do their own thing in promos. A lot of times it works out, other times it does not. If I'm MVP after the second or third time I think I'd have started to feel bad and let Bill get his shit in.

MJF getting in Lashley's face and saying something like "you want to do this right now" was hilarious and I doubt it was supposed to be

Edge has extremely overdelivered his entire second run, including the WWE run. I've been a long time hater of Edge since probably the start of his singles run, dude has done the best work of his career in ring. I don't think he should be main eventing a bunch in AEW, but he's also lost most of them and has spent most of his AEW run working with people he's never worked with before. I think it's still important for perception for WWE talent to choose to go to AEW. Bryan didn't have to go to AEW, he wanted to. Edge didn't have to go AEW, he wanted to. Lashley didn't have to go to AEW, he wanted to. Cole, Ricochet, Mercedes, etc. It's not like all those stages of WCW and TNA where big WWE stars would go to half ass and have no pride in their work.

Counter arguments: Two of the biggest stars in AEW are Swerve and Toni Storm, who were hired directly from WWE runs. Somehow Billy Fucking Gunn has been one of the most over dudes in the entirety of AEW's run. Claudio had a longer run in WWE than Moxley and no one calls him thinks of him as an old WWE guy. It's funny tribalism. If you can remember them or saw them on the indies, they're not ex WWE guys. If you like them, they're not an old WWE guy. AEW's usage of former WWE talent is not like WCW in 1994/1995 filling the cards up with Hogan's buddies from 1988. That said I really wish Jericho would have gone away 20 fucking years ago.

Oh I thought she already was some kind of semi signed to AEW. She rules. Full time is a great shot in the arm.

There is no "to be fair" with Kamala's gimmick. One of the single most insane gimmicks in US wrestling history. The only pass for WWE is that it wasn't them that came up with it.

Oh wow the suplex onto the nail board was some C level late 90s Japan deathmatch shit

I really thought they'd go with Cena's turn being on some "Cody wouldn't do what's best for business, and I give my life to this business" deal, but instead it's him crashing out for 20 minutes on the fans having been mean to him for his whole career :dead Fair enough heel justification, really. Then made more and more clear as Cody comes out and they give him the hero treatment as Cena stands there seething. Last couple of years really shows they should have been doing international TV a long ass time ago.

No he's not

I'd rather Yuta get taken off TV. More than anyone in AEW, he's the one that I just can not figure out why he has gotten so much TV time for 5 years. The most non descript dude they have. Literally nothing sets him apart. I have to assume he's a nice guy that people really like being around backstage or something.

I guess I did. Those movies are blurred together in my brain.

Oh the storymode goes some places every bit as silly as the magical powers if you make the right choice and the wilder and goofier it gets is much better than the straight line story. On the topic of JR, all those years of JR saying "it ain't ballet, folks" as an insult to ballet when actually, wrestling IS ballet, down to the same existence of you can show people who think both or either are fucking dumb some high level ballet or pro wrestling and they get it with no knowledge of the history of either art.

Petition to rename the Muta Scale to the Toni Scale. Also lmao this storyline with all the references to 30s 40s classics including Ben Mankiewicz doing multiple appearances during it ending up in a Bloodsport reference.

Lol that 2K25's story mode frequently makes references to AEW. Examples: If you chose to be from a "rival company", they'll show you in the 2Kverse NJPW, but the first wrestler you meet is catching up with Jade from where you worked together, the next wrestler you meet is Punk saying similar things about having worked together before you got to WWE, and a whole lot of the story is talking about Punk as brittle and locker room cancer everywhere he goes.

I think it's going to be hard for crowds to turn on Cody with all these kind of videos they put out even if it is mostly or only online where he connects to all the 70s/80s/90s guys everyone his age and younger grew up with but has that direct connection with Dusty and it feels authentic even if shmaltzy.

It wasn't fresh. Only in the context of pro wrestling. In all other forms of entertainment, it was not even B movie (which many of my favorite movies are B movies), but like Neil Breen tier movies. But combined it's the worst of pro wrestling corn and bad C movies into one very bad package.

With distance from the pandemic and original Hardys stuff, surely we can all agree that the cinematic matches are the worst versions of entertainment from both pro wrestling and b movie shit

It's probably not that deep, just the same idea as westerns and super hero movies being the top genre for decades at a time. Easy and familiar and most mass appeal.

It's hilarious that these exact arguments have been made in fan mags and Usenet for 60 years.

Imagine watching that segment and thinking it means nothing. What world are you guys in?

Yeah men's match sucked, non stop worst punches you've ever seen from 6 men who are supposed to be professionals at making stuff not look super phony.

That was certainly an unexpected twist. I wish there was a way to get Austin involved and some kind of Cena/Rock vs Cody/Austin segment.