WrestlingPower

Catching up on the last few pages of conversation, so it appears that maybe Cornette isn’t out of touch so much as having trouble adjusting to the lack of a sports based connection between wrestling and its fans. And the way it’s presented is somewhat to blame. Doesn’t sound so bad. I also don’t think it’s inherently bad or wrong for someone to lose interest and respect in popular culture and what appeals to a younger crowd. I’m 10 years younger than Jim and I feel it’s just a natural occurrence of aging. Is that the definition of “out of touch”? Maybe. Do we prefer to think this way and be totally fine with society passing us by in ways? Yes. Regarding the comment about him having disdain for the SMW audience in pushing the Gangstas. I think that’s a strong accusation. He learned from the old school/Bill Watts. In the 70s/80s, playing up racism as a desperate attempt to maintain or regain business was just one play in the wrestling playbook. You could argue that maybe times had changed by 1995, but Jim seems to think that he properly read the mindset of people in that area of the country, but totally misread their reaction, in that they would rather stay home than pay money to boo the guys they didn’t agree with. There were many factors that led SMW to the point they were at when he tried pushing them, and the fact their push didn’t work probably didn’t hasten the promotion’s demise by all that many months honestly. So the subject of wrestling not be able to push or create young stars under the age of like 35. Yes, it is a real problem. The only modern wrestling I’m watching right now is ROH and it’s kind of crazy to see that even in a promotion of largely unknowns trying to make a name for themselves, there an amazing amount of guys there with 5-10 years of experience who honestly need A LOT more ring time & seasoning. I don’t know that guys get enough work in anymore to progress but so fast. Maybe the key is finding promoters/bookers more willing to go with young, unproven guys who are “good enough” in the ring just to try something new if they have something character wise. But yeah wrestling is in real trouble if they keep appealing to the 35+ crowd with guys of the same age bracket. It is kind of crazy to think that pro wrestling is like THE only sport where you really don’t peak until your late 30s/early 40s.

Not to unearth this, but it's only a few days old. There's a lot to unpack here and I know so little behind what this even refers to, I'm having trouble coming up with good talking points.. I'm curious why anyone needs to "get modern wrestling fans". I would question are these people even WRESTLING fans. I would guess this is trying to play into trying to paint a subset of the audience as out of touch. Anyone that most likely "gets" whatever this chick stands for or whatever 20-somethings are allegedly looking for in following wrestling, count me into the crowd that wants absolutely nothing to do with any of that. There's no reason that wrestling has to cut off its nose to spite its face and "evolve" into something unrecognizable to longtime fans just to stay relevant. Obviously you want to appeal to a younger crowd to make money and stay in business, but anyone promoting wrestling to fad fans and pissing on the history and legacy of the business needs to be run out of it. Maybe this Itoh has a deep appreciation for 80s and 90s AJW and has had a lifelong dream to be a wrestler, but I'm guessing not.

I really enjoyed the first show although it seemed a bit long. I guess I'm just losing interest in long shows in general. Unless WWE really doesn't want (proprietary?) details out there about the inner workings, which is extremely possible, I don't recall him saying anything controversial or anything that would make them upset on the surface.

Is there no way to download the shows as an mp3 without joining the patreon?

I really enjoyed the show, much better than watching the TV. The energy level of the announcers was up and the matches having meaning added to the excitement level. My endurance for wrestling shows is nowhere near what it once was so I watched it in 3 parts. I can't imagine watching a 4-hour show in one stretch so there may be those that thought it was on the long side. I'm really coming around on the pure rules matches. Tracy Williams is the master of them and Gresham too as you can tell they spend a lot of time thinking thru the psychology of working the matches around the rules of the division. Even so 2 Pure matches out of 10 is probably the limit. To me they should have no more than 1 per PPV show and only on TV every 4th week or so. I do have to wonder how these matches would play in front of crowds. They seem perfect for an empty arena where you have a captive audience at home that's hearing the commentators describe the minor "small room" details that form the structure of the matches. Not sure that live crowds are going to watch intently enough to get into 5 minutes of arm work that then gets capitalized on 5+ minutes later. My thoughts seem in line with a lot of online discussion I've seen and listening to Meltzer's review. I seem to be the low marker on the Jay Briscoe match. I want to see Jay doing more spots and have really grown tired of Taylor's strike based (and very little else) offense. If they do end up putting Taylor in their main title picture, to me that telegraphs how much of a depth issue the promotion has. So yeah, if you are tempted to watch modern ROH, you can't go wrong with this show. Is it must see? Not at all. Does it compare to previous years of ROH? Not at all. Are you going to be blown away by any performances, personalities or athletes to justify watching this instead of the 100s of videos in your collection? HELL NO A friend and I do the weekly "Honor Bound" podcast and we will be recording our recap show tonight and it will drop late tomorrow night. Go search it out for more fleshed out opinions.

Are you saying that now that he's in the HOF he's really starting to show that he belongs because he's now making a difference in 2 places? While that may be true, that essentially means the induction itself is premature when people could have waited another year to decide. From all I've seen and read, it appears the major bone of contention is that Omega was in the Japanese section, requiring less votes to get in, when most seem to say his AEW (non-Japan) work was a deciding factor. Let's compare him to AJ Styles, who if memory serves (feel free to refute this), he was on the American section coming off TNA, got dropped off due to shockingly low support, came back on under the Japan section, didn't get voted in, then moved to the American section upon entering WWE and then got in. If that's the case then Omega should have moved to the American section this year.

The Quinn thing is the only angle/storyline thing that hasn't been on the TV at all. There was a more extensive Brody King package done a month or so ago that was internet only where he was outside & burned a picture of Rush that was really cool. The Week By Week normally airs the pre-match packages for the TV a few days early and there have been occasions where that has sold me on watching the match. I'm to the point where I'm willing to pick & choose what I watch from the TV. Based on what's been announced, I'm really only interested in the Brody vs. Rush match for Final Battle. I would be fine with them putting the belt on King also. I'm not at all familiar with his ROH career but it would be a welcome change for them to put the title on someone on the rise. I guess I'm still thinking about the original ROH regime where there were several guys that got the belt like 6+ months too late.

The Titus reveal was done in an interview on the Week By Week a couple weeks back. Yeah, not enthused about him being repackaged yet again but they seem determined to keep him employed. I really enjoyed this week's episode in particular the Hoss Battle with Shane Taylor & Brody King just beating the fudge out of each other. I had never seen King until starting to watch ROH in recent months so he's over with me as a contender for their title. Taylor, not so much, send him back to the TV title picture. I was never a big fan of shoot style wrestling or MMA and while I can appreciate the strategy of the Pure matches, they have worn out their welcome a bit with me. I am looking forward to seeing Walters vs. Williams but to me that's a division that should be on TV maybe every 3rd or 4th week, not getting like 50% of the TV time.

I'm not asking for a deep dive of stats, but explain how Omega "took NJ to the next level" when Fumi Saito said that in Japan people just view Omega as one of the handful of guys on top in that era of NJ. That everyone who thought NJPW would suffer after he left, that they really didn't, just like the Bullet Club cycled thru Balor to AJ to Omega, New Japan just moved on after he left. I'm not sure the stats back up that take either though. Regarding the age 35 thing, while I agree that Dave is probably too stubborn to budge from that rule, I think there is some logic behind it though as that would kind of create a 10-year dry period of new candidates if he changed it from 35 to 45. But it did lead to a lot of interesting discussion on the 605 HOF shows about guys like Slaughter, Mistico, etc. on how they would have been viewed if they had been on the ballot coming off their prime years and if the picks would have aged well.

I haven't caught up on the podcasts, but based on seeing some of the twitter conversations btw Last & Meltzer over the weekend, it seems that Dave was taking things a bit far. Listening to Last's 605 HOF specials, it seems his main issue with Omega's induction is that he was considered in the Japanese category & should have been in the American if his AEW run was indeed a swing vote. Not sure if that factor was mentioned on the Cornette show or not since I haven't heard but based on what Last was saying on twitter was that they weren't seriously saying the voting was rigged. Sounds like Dave got overly sensitive that it could be interpreted as them questioning the validity of the voting (almost sounds as if they were doing a bit about the presidential election). Cornette and Last (and a majority of the guys on the HOF shows) say that Meltzer has lost a lot credibility in recent years due to his defending Omega & the Bucks and it's no doubt he influences his voters just based on him constantly sharing opinions. This dates back to when Nakamura went into the HOF as apparently there was at least one voter who voted for him based on all the talk he was getting in the Observer and even gave the wrong name for him, he was so unfamiliar. All that to say I think Last & Corny have a legit point of wondering why Meltzer has sacrificed a years-long reputation and friendships in order to appear as part of the "in crowd".

I saw the Week By Week. That show is much better than the TV, I guess because we get recaps and don't have to sit thru the matches in the sterile environment. The packages they do continue to be top notch. Hoping to see them make good use of Bennett & Taven as a tag team, they were really good together here & in NJ before Bennett left. Maybe they can build around them & get them away from the freakshow fued.

Glad to see Bennett back. They need more "names" like him coming in to give some air of importance to things. Maybe Chris Hero can return. I think I read that Dragon Lee & Rush both have contracts coming due in Dec/Jan. Not sure about the others. I thought Horus and/or Bandido were actual Americans, is that not true? IF they can get some of these guys in to drop belts, that's at least better than them never coming back.

Another oddity regarding his rule of guys dropping off the ballot after 15 years (or having to get 50%) is it's 15 years from their first ballot appearance, NOT 15 years on the ballot itself. For example, if Reigns doesn't go back on the ballot for 2 years, that year would be considered his 4th year on the clock, not his 2nd. Not saying this is a factor for Reigns one way or the other, but it is an oddity of the rules. My guess on why he won't change the age 35 rule is it would be considered changing the standards and would mean anyone getting in after the change weren't judged on the exact same criteria as others already in.

After slogging thru what I watched of this week's TV, I'm going to be skipping thru a lot more until Final Battle it appears. I don't know that I've seen either Rush or Dragon Lee but a very few times ever so really interested to see ROH present anything exciting at this point. I've already deleted next week's show off the DVR recording list. And knowing the Bouncers are yet to come in weeks 4-8 of the TV, not looking promising.

I'm really curious what Final Battle will entail. Will it be a week or 2 of themed TV shows like Impact has been known to do? Will it be a PPV? And if so, live from somewhere other than UMBC where they don't have to do all the protocols between matches? Or a taped PPV where taped matches are cobbled together as a whole card? Regardless, I'm not sure what my interest level would be. What kind of matches are we looking at? Taven vs. Vincent, EC3 vs. Shane Taylor, not sure what else is being "built". Are they going to crown some sort of interim champs from these vaguely promoted as qualifier matches on TV? Maybe a 4-way with King vs. King/Taylor winner vs. ? vs. ?. None of that is of interest to me. I'm struggling to maintain interest at this point even with doing a podcast about it. Unless they book Jeff Cobb or some international talents soon, I'm not sure what they can do to interest me. It would be nice to at least know who else was at the most recent tapings.

Williams was the MVP of the tournament. The match with Lethal was the best of the whole tournament and the final, while a bit flat, was still decent enough. Williams seemed to be the main guy that came across like he sat down and really tried to build the story and psychology of his matches around the rules of the Pure title. I agree that the tournament by & large fell flat due to the combination of MMA stylings and the sterile environment. The philosophy (as delivered by Gresham's promo) is sound in that they realize this presentation is unique to them & they can create a niche around it. I hadn't watched any ROH in 2-3 years before starting back with the Pure tournament. The show this week was really weak too which was really disappointing as the first show of fresh content. I'm assuming the roster is coming across as really thin just because so many of their champions are from other countries & can't come in and it's just whoever they can cobble together for the tapings. Speaking of the champions, they have done virtually nothing to let viewers know who title holders are other than the tag and the Pure. The only reason I sat thru the entirety of either match this week is due to doing the podcast reviewing the TV but after seeing the lineup for next week, I'm planning to skip it. The opener this week was like watching an FCW/NXT match with greenish talents. As far as the main, I've never cared for Castle at all, and had never seen King before at all. The profile piece on him was excellent & made him come across as a "character" in the real sense instead of the wrestling sense. I would be interested in seeing him again but only because he came across as a 2nd rate Giant Bernard and hopefully he will be booked as such. The sterile environment continues to be to their detriment as it comes across like they are wrestling in a tomb. Makes these average at best matches a slog to get thru. They need to figure out how to inject more energy and faster moving action into the show. I'm afraid it's really starting to show that ROH is just trying to kill time until the restrictions are lifted. Really curious what Final Battle might be like and how it's going to be presented and delivered. I can't saw ROH has done much of anything to garner my attention in these 9 weeks.

I agree with a lot of what Savage said above about interest level. I think I hit the wall this week with podcasts. I’m weeks behind on Cornette and them pumping out 6+ hours a week of repetitive stuff that’s so based around negativity, I think I’ve had my fill for a while. I’ve been trying to fast forward thru most of the NXT and AEW talk but I think I need a break. I regularly keep up with the Bowdren shows and do occasionally mix in Jericho or Zellner shows (again a chore to get thru due to length), but I think I’m just burnt out on the time commitment level of it all. I never have time to listen to music or do other things I enjoy. It’s like I’m held captive by the time commitment of my hobbies and it can be draining. I’ve kind of been heading this way for years, it seems as consumers of wrestling, colllecting videos, indexing them, etc. after a while it’s just easier to bypass stuff entirely than spend the hours of overhead on top of just actually watching something & moving on.