El-P

No one is denying anything. Some people just don't give a fuck (you now, the infamous "toxic fans" ). I loved the show this week, I couldn't care less if it got bad ratings. That being said : That may very well be true. We've been made fun of with the Christian deal from day one, actually even before it happened, but the "huge huge star" announcement fell flat on its face hard (to the point they almost backpedalled into "Christian is a really good worker" mode almost immediately). If that had this effect on me, the Official AEW & Omega PWO Stan (or something) just picture the effect on some less hardcore AEW fans.

Both AEW and NXT ratings are down and both shows received major praise. Who cares ? Unless you're working in the office, I don't even get this fixation with ratings from the fans of either brands. From now on they'll both go unopposed, it'll be good for both of them.

No. In other news. Meltz on WOR, as they were talking about vaccines : "BTW, you know who's a complete idiot ?" I was hoping he would say the words... "Austin Aries !" The way he said it with that emphasis indicating that the answer was obvious cracked me up (well, that and the question about the Bunny).

I hope Tay Conti is smarter.

Damn ! I had forgot about her. Yeah. Great douchebag heel. The other month by haphazards of Internet, I ended up on his Twitter and to the surprise of no one (well, not mine anyway), he's a full-on complotist idiot, retweeting stuff from the RN (Le Pen's party, the far right, ok basically fascists) people regularly... Wonderful human being. Which is why I'm always a little wary when it comes to support anyone because, how great, you're from the same country. Like it means anything. I mean, I was certainly enjoying Shanna a lot, until I learned that she too had re-tweeted Le Pen's shit.

The "cancelled" stuff will be interesting, especially if we can get the origins of the votes (like you said, PWO, whatever other discord or community, the "Twitter crowd" etc...). Would be interesting also for stats if we get enough women to vote to see the differences and trends between genders.

Cool as hell !

I mean, I'm bored with some candidates because I have already watched their stuff over and over too many times, but is there someone I actively dislike that I would put in my top 100 ? I don't think so. Maybe in the end, who knows.

I'm not sure I would vote for Benoit this time. I know for sure I won't watch any of his stuff and will avoid any of his stuff with other guy I will vote for. Agree. Although as much as Hogan vs Andre did absolutely deliver, never in a thousand years I would call it this a great match, it was basically acceptable. I mean, in the Taker at Mania thread I touched on this about the second HHH match. Did I think it worked in the end ? Yes. Did I think it reached the "epic" quality ? Yes. DId I think it was a great match ? No. It worked, I put it in the W column, it reached the epicness it was reaching for. It was not a great match. I barely even enjoyed it.

I assure you there won't be a name in my list I don't really, really love.

I was actually thinking about that one, especially if we get more younger voters. I was asking myself for a while now, are gonna some names get "cancelled" ?

Well, actually, it kinda is, because we can't pretend to objectivity. At all. As far as Charli XCX, I absolutely could make the case she's the much more interesting artist than the Rolling Stones, as she has brought an experimental edge in pop music like very few have done in a long time now by having ears on the PC Music scene and working with AG Cook & SOPHIE. That's what the Beatles did too, not the Stones.

Doesn't that contradict your criteria for the GWE then ? To me it's the opposite. I don't care if the build was shit if at the end I get a great pro-wrestling match. The pay-off is the match. The pro-wrestling is the match. All the rest is just a way to make me want to watch the match. It's commercials. Dusty's case as part of making my list is non-existent even including the promos and in-ring charisma. Because the matches aren't very good or interesting to me. That doesn't mean I don't understand his case, but when I see a great Dusty promo, the issue I have is that I'm gonna have to watch an actual match. That goes with many other from the same era like Piper for instance. Yeah, great promo. I don't need to see the match, thanks. That was the double-edge sword of SMW : super fun angle & promo territory, but the pay-off in the ring was very often subpar to say the least.

If I can figure a nice top 20, I'll be happy about it.

What do you prefer ? Awesome promo work leading to a so-so match or so-so promo work leading to an awesome match ? You know where I stand. Of course, awesome promo work leading to awesome match is better overall, but if I can't judge the promo work because I don't speak the language (here I am talking in circles now), the only thing I can judge is the "awesome match" part of it. So, for the sake of equity, I'd better ignore the promo work altogether.

That's too much of a psychological approach to me. Which is also why I don't need the promos. Matches should work in and out of themselves. You don't need a promo to set up a spot that will work. Pro-wrestling isn't rocket science. It works within its own flux of movement. Just has to flow well and everything is fine. Sure, they did set up the spot *during the match*, but really whether they cut promos beforehand or not is irrelevant, anyone is able to get what is happening when it does ie Nash bumping off Rey's dropkick despite the fact it's not "realistic".

That would be funny as hell actually. And really, Nash did bump off Rey's dropkick, which is not *that* much realistic when you think about it.

Hum... I would disagree with this, because it dangerously goes toward "big guys should only work that way" and "small guys only should work that way", which we have debated the other week. To me there's no "should" in how to judge the work, because the "should" is only in the eyes of the beholder. It only works in a constructive and positive way in the case of "should not but actually does", as in Brian Cage for instance, whose appeal comes from the fact he doesn't look like someone who can do the stuff he does (to keep it with the "body" idea, but it also works in many other ways).

That's understood.

It's also a showing that the current audience cares about matches more than personalities. Which in a way is much more democratic, because it's not about worshipping the Star, anyone can get the "This is Awesome" chant, from the bottom up to the top of the card (in front of 200 people or a stadium of 100.000 also). Yes, much more democratic.

Ok, that makes sense.

Agreed. Sable had great genetics, but she worked her ass off to look like she did, and had the right "adds-on" to boot. So she did work to get the reaction she got. And she got huge reactions. What does that say about her as a pro-wrestler though ?

I never want to hear any complaint about "This is awesome" chants nor finisher spamming then. The only crowd which really tells me something about the work is a bored audience who suddenly gets involved. I always use the same exemple : Raven vs Saturn at that WCW PPV in 98. Crowd couldn't care less at the beginning, dead silent. They were going insane at the end. The genius of Raven's dog & pony show. He got them from 0 to 10. If the crowd is already at 10 because of the status of the workers, it tells me nothing (unless the workers in question *loses* them, in which case, that sucks)

That's fair enough I guess. Still, you can't fairly judge promos in a language you don't understand. I know I can't. I can infer him or her is a good promo, but usually there's a confirmation bias involved.

But maybe they are and you don't know because they're not working the super intense, super expressive style Hokuto does. You just can't know. Maybe Hokuto in English would come off super forced and overbearing, and the fact the crowd reacts doesn't tell me much because I don't trust captive crowds to tell me anything.