WrestlingPower

I think the story is Meltzer and JDW came up with the HOF list as something to do on a flight to Japan. Just curious, which male wrestlers did Moolah train? I think I’ve heard Del Wilkes for sure, and possibly Chris Kanyon and/or Dennis Knight/Mideon.

I haven't read or heard any of Meltzer's stuff in 6+ months but I remember he used to present things as how he's learned how the WWE office looks at things. I remember him saying that he didn't necessarily agree with stuff but it didn't matter, he needed to report on their point of view on stuff because that would explain why things are done the way they are done. He seemed to be more willing to stop banging his head against the wall on stuff than Alvarez and would resort to that excuse. I can see the argument that people like Cornette might make that Meltzer used to be more on a campaign to carry the flag & try to change things by pointing out what he thought was wrong and how things "should be done" and maybe now he's softened and just figures he can't change things so just report on things as they are.

You may not be wrong but wasn't her whole career as a trainer basically based on being a carny where she could train her own opponents/touring troupe, and use them to siphon money off their booking fees. If either of those 2 factors weren't in play she would have never trained people. Not saying this is exclusive to her in her era but more strong factors against her.

Re: Kyoko, my guess is she's considered above the others because she was in AJW whereas the others were in lower level/indy promotions.

After week 2 I’m really kind of bored with it. The matches for next week look better on paper. I really didn’t care for the Castle promo content wise. I couldn’t tell what he was going for. Is he intentionally trying to come across as a brooding, deranged, eccentric dude who could snap in the ring at any moment?

To me the presentation here was much more the story than the matches. If you are looking for a sports based presentation, they nailed it. Wondering how much of the graphics, stats, time on the screen, etc. continue after the Pure tourney. I’m wondering if they have more filler matches on future weeks. The shows are already a bit dull with the closed set but if they only have 2 matches in an hour that too could get a bit dull depending on whatever they fill the rest of the time with.

Episode 2 went up this week with us running down the competitors in the tourney & how they fit with the style. I’m looking forward to the TV starting as something fresh for me to watch. I don’t think I’ve seen much ROH at all for over 2 years.

After 7+ years, my friend Kevin Burr and I have started podcasting again. Way back when we used to review live shows we attended like DGUSA, ROH, Chikara, etc. as well as review the PPVs etc. My interest in current wrestling has totally bottomed out due to losing interest in AEW several months back. I decided that ROH may be the only promotion left that could possibly retain my interest and with them starting to tape TV again, we decided to start this show ahead of the new stuff airing. This debut episode contains a rundown of our history as ROH fans and wrestling fans in general (as in why you should care what we have to say) and then going thru the roster and reacting to who's there. I'm going in with a clean slate here, as there are LOTS of people on the roster that I've never seen wrestle or only a handful of times. I'm going to attempt to review things as they are as opposed to comparing against other things or fantasy booking "what I would do instead". Trying to give it a shot on its own merits independent of the wrestling landscape. We'll see if they can spark my interest and how long this experiment will last. https://open.spotify.com/show/2GPbGNelahEFwNIILoiohl

Do we know if he has a promo voice vs. real voice? This is the way he always sounds. This guy had his life's work ripped away all in the matter of a few days so probably hard to judge how much of this was him being mentally & emotionally distraught vs. actual sorrow. He seems to be one to try to overexplain. From dialog I saw elsewhere, it seems like most think it was a bad idea for his editor to edit this as it made it come across more stagey.

I enjoyed all the Chikara shows I went to or viewed on DVD, but I never really connected with the comic book/"it's all fun" style of presentation. I guess you could say I "used" the company to go see Japanese workers and indy darlings live but I never cared a whole lot for most of the homegrown Chikara characters. There were guys like Frightmare & Hallowicked who should have been much bigger deals elsewhere. I also never understood that "closed society" mindset of the promotion where no one was really allowed to work elsewhere without permission and how the company thought they were exempt from hardcore fans trying to break thru their kayfabe by trying to figure out who guys under masks were. Their legion of fans online acted as if you were trying to steal someone's identity for profit or something trying to figure out who was who and where else they may have worked.

A few points I wanted to touch on. Knocking SMW is fighting words to me. But saying the booking there can be totally discounted because it was a "redneck hillbilly" promotion or whatever the words were is totally unfair. I don't disagree with that terminology though. That's what Southern wrestling is. Cornette knew his audience and what to sell them. Stories and personalities with issues and history is what sold, not workrate. He will readily admit that Gangstas was a miscalculation on his part. He didn't realize booking them caused heat that people didn't want them in their town and stayed home rather than paid money to see them get beaten up. The booking was really never the same after that point. He clearly got burned out by 1995, trying to run the promotion pretty much by himself and already having a foot in the door in WWF. If you want to criticize 1995 booking in SMW, I think you're on target but 1993 may be my tippy top thing from my fandom. As far as ROH, I can see both sides of this and struggled myself at the time as did lots of hardcores. I was a big Cornette fan and was resistant to changes he was trying to make but deep down knew he "wasn't wrong". His rationale of trying to grow the business beyond its current audience and doing things he thought needed to be done only pissed off the audience further. I was pissed off but also struggled knowing I wanted ROH to grow too. Wrestling has never been very good at this struggle. I would argue AEW is struggling with that now and seems to be leaning more toward satisfying the current base rather than trying to reach a larger base. Is someone "out of touch" for trying to take what's working and try to educate fans to something that may have a broader appeal? It seems the common conclusion folks have come to is yes when really the trick is to try to do both. Wrestling shouldn't just give into what the fans want, you should book in such a way that fans come around to wanting what the promoters want them to want. Finally I totally understand that you can't pick and choose what offends people. But at the same time, is it not unreasonable to also think that people have gotten way too sensitive and have become thought police? I wouldn't argue with you that Cornette is "out of touch" but I also would argue that some of these outraged people are way too sensitive and not as mentally tough as people from years gone by. Those 2 things aren't mutually exclusive. To me the best way to desensitize people is to offend them. I don't see his mindset as any different from most people as they age. People naturally become out of touch as they age and think things were better in the olden days. The older I get I think that opinion is justified. Thinking Cornette should be anything other than out of touch at this point may be a bit curious. To me that's a better place than being so hard-up for a position in the business that you give up your principles.

Hello and thanks to everyone here that keeps this place moving.

I don't think he wants AEW to fail and I think he does go a bit too hard on them at times, but there is something that I think he hits on that is a legitimate thing to discuss. HIs big deal is that AEW can't expand their audience doing what they are doing. Yes, he does lack respect for their 900k viewers and what their preferred style of wrestling is, but the issue here is what could they be doing better to reach more than the 900K. I've been thinking lately that they are playing too much to their audience and just trying to give their audience more of what they like. I'm not saying that's a bad thing but AEW has this platform locked up for several years, they need to take this opportunity to take the fanbase they have, and re-educate them a bit, to break their mindsets of how Vince has done things for all these years, etc. But by and large it appears to me that AEW is content playing to their base and satisfying them rather than looking for ways to move things in a different direction away from some of the comedy/light-hearted bullshit and more to the PWG style show that I think most think was promised when they started. That may not expand the base much either, but doing WWE-lite type stuff isn't trying to break the mold. Maybe Jim hasn't been explicit with spelling that out, but ultimately that's what I feel he's hitting on.

I kind of always assumed the historical candidates bucket was sort of intended to eventually go away. To me that was more to re-evaluate borderline candidates or people overlooked in the original class. To me, discussing a guy for up to 15 years in the current bucket only for him to then move to the historical bucket, potentially, for even more discussion seems like overkill. In that exact scenario I would agree with the idea of needing to assess the guy closer to when his career is going on.

Listening to Observer podcast & "trying to read the tealeaves" on what he's saying on here. Sounds like neither Orton nor Edge made it, called them borderline picks. Ibushi "should be in", Omega he called a "probable", said Naito should be decided after 2020 so sounds like he didn't get in. So I'm guessing it's mostly older candidates. He then defends the need to judge guys during their prime rather than in retrospect, claiming JYD and Slaughter look better in retrospect but no one would have considered them at the time. He talks about how both guys went into coast mode once they became stars, tarnishing their legacies. There is an interesting discussion where he seems to be questioning the need for the HOF in the future, feeling that once Okada is in, there won't be anymore quality candidates to even consider. This talking point seems odd to me as I guess I always thought we would get to the point where people would just vote for less candidates as time goes by, which is totally valid based on the guidelines. They talk about Reigns and Rollins as borderline candidates and how WWE's use of him has kind of killed Danielson.

I listen to these on occasion. I enjoyed the Brandi episode and the one with Alvarez plugging his book.

I can certainly live without ever seeing that Waldorf dude try to wrestle. Not sure why they can't just do like a 3 minute package showing highlights of the previous Omega/Janela match and have Omega make some comments on using that match to try to prepare for Mox. Do we really need to see these guys try to kill themselves again? So they have changed the "rib on me" match of Janela/Evans? If so that means I have less to FF over tonight. Too bad.

I agree the Pac and SCU packages were good. Glad I've completely missed any online hatred of Pac, he's awesome. Glad he's got some character to go along with the in-ring. I wasn't that crazy about the Taz/Excalibur pairing, and maybe it was the tone of the match but it didn't seem like they were taking things very seriously. I missed years worth of PWG so not sure if Excalibur evolved over the years to the excellent commentator he is now or if he had to do a cold turkey jump from the MST3K stream of consciousness stuff to serious work when AEW started. Anyway, I only had interest in watching the 8-man and maybe I had high expectations. The match was good, but more "fun" than a serious kick-ass match these guys could deliver. It was a true dark match, fun for what it was but guys were kind of taking it easy and seemed like going thru the motions a bit. Certainly not the "must see" I was expecting. My interest in AEW is starting to cool a bit. Hoping they can bring in a few guys from the outside that interest me.

Meltzer is the first to admit that sometimes he and other reporters/critics/experts get surprised by how something does. I just feel he was a bit harsh in writing off the project. Not saying his facts aren't valid and he may very well have a point on all of those things, but it's not up to him. If NJ wants to risk $ in trying this, let them. Let the marketplace dictate what people want to watch and/or pay for.