El-P

Loving that quote.

The issue is that charisma is a very vague notion. Most people raised on 00's WWE probably consider Randy Orton to be super charismatic. I consider him a black hole who suck the interest of everything he's involved in. You obviously don't care too much for Kenny Omega's oddball character. I saw Japanese women cry in the audience when he won the title from Okada. I find Hulk Hogan to be a complete clown that should probably not appeal to anyone past 8 years old. It took forever to me to "get" Riki Choshu.

Totally agree. And I will add that yes, weekly TV storytelling has been heavily romanticized. I'm an old ECW fan, LU has been my favorite program in years and actually got me back into current pro-wrestling, but pretending that they were paragon of great stories with only logical development and totally coherent week-to-week stuff is really looking back with glass colored roses. There were tons of stupid shit that went nowhere both in ECW (speaking peak ECW, as past 98 is really nothing to brag about in term of weekly TV) and LU, tons of hot-shotting, tons of random stuff that was actually cool because the matches were just cool to watch. I won't even go back to the old territory TV because I went on and on and on for years about how this was way overrated and watched with total nostalgia/rose-colored glasses (not that it wasn't great at times and depending on the promotion). The same thing happened on the better years of Nitro. And back then, I remember people have *fun* with all the kinda random good stuff which went nowhere but was just, you know, fun pro-wrestling shit.

That went away with the neck tattoo. And now the real TV show. You ain't cool anymore man.

Kenny Omega can be a good babyface (the stuff with Ibushi). But he's a natural heel. The apex is Japan came from being the hottest heel that at one point, you gotta respect because he's so good. Currently, he's like one of the most amazing douchebag. Him & Callis are now just untouchable (not to mention the matches, which he delivers at a ridiculous rates including on weekly TV now, as shown by the great match against Sydal).

Watching the second half of Great Voyage in Fukuoka. Well, those NOAH big shows seem so fresh compared to the current (for the last two years I'd say) NJPW stuff. The fact you don't get any stupid stuf like the americanized bullshit of the Bullet Club nor mediocre gaijins nor stupid gimmick is soooo refreshing indeed. And when you look at some of the veterans there like Marufuji, Shiozaki, Nakajima (yes, a young veteran considering how young he started), there's some severely overlooked main event level talent that still deliver some great stuff (Marufuji ruled when he did the G1 a few years ago). And I admit, I'm loving the Mutoh stuff (no, the match wasn't as good as the Shiozaki one, but pulling out a top rope frankensteiner at 58 is Terry Funk like shit and it's awesome). Maybe I should check out current AJPW too...

I mean, I agree, like I said with your first post. Worked out well for them indeed, that was understood. But it's always good to remind ourselves where and from whom they got part of those huge sum of money the last few years.

Tony & Britt have had this bizarre relationships for ever now, it's an established fact in the AEW lore. I mean, Alvarez pretty much gave all the good arguments there. The main one being : Britt is supposed to be the actual star of the division. I'd be curious to see how many times Mean Gene got Flair on the ramp on Nitro despite him having lost his big match the previous week. And yes, we're in the days in pro-wrestling where you applaud the performance "in kayfabe", the fact matches are great is part of the lore too. Like it or not, that's the way it is. And Britt did get booed and did talk down to them for not appreciating her enough, so, there was heel work there. I dunno, that strikes me at nitpicking. I'll listen to what he said about Cody & QT though, as I think I may agree with him on that a lot more.

And so you went Lance Storm on my ass.

The MBS ref went straight over your heads I see. He's a guy who has a journalist kidnapped, murdered and beheaded. Hence why "a little bloodshed would not have prevented a deal with MBS"...

Britt Baker is a heel. She doesn't need the win. She can lose and gloat anyway. That's what heels do. I'm sure they will do the most to sign Rosa once her NWA contract is up.

Oh sure. I don't see how a little bloodshed would have prevented the MBS deal though...

Can't say that worked very well for them. But yeah, juice is good when used sporadically. Especially now I'd guess.

Ok, because sometimes (a lot of times ?) I know these things are blown way out of proportions and taken out of context.

So, Lance Storm apparently doesn't get that Britt Baker is supposed to be the star of the promotion. And that Thunder Rosa is not even *signed* to AEW yet. Of course you have to focus on the talent designed to be *your* biggest star. Also, no, that loss doesn't technically counts because it's a lights out match. Also, a heel coming out to celebrate despite having lost is pro-wrestling 101. The one thing I agree is that they need to absolutely *not* do another match. In a year, in a different narrative context, why not. But it has to be done between the two of them for now. I must say, pissed off Lance is pretty funny though when you look as his face. So damn serious.

Agreed. I don't see how this can work well for AEW, although honestly Jake Hagger is not affected by doing MMA. Of course it's not the same case, one has not the same potential as the other in term of becoming a star in AEW, to say the least...

Ca you picture the reaction if you've said the same thing but the genders were reversed ? It would be called objectifying and sexist and whatever. And you can still argue that very point is sexist because what does that say about the women viewers, really ? Of course you're right (Dragon Gate anyone ?), but I think it's interesting how sometimes some stuff get undersold, about how pro-wrestling has always sold bodies and looks (not strictly this of course, but it has been part of the game for at the very least the last 30/40 years). It's been showed that women wrestling in WWE did not draw women well either. Riho did, so there. More Riho, less blood. Which is understandable. As far as Britt complaining, I've not seen it so I won't pass judgement, but if so that's really dumb. I mean, fans complaining about the Metz ratings is stupid, but a worker doing it... Really ? I mentioned in the HOF thread how I had much more sympathy for artists who did not care that much about those things. Plus, it's not like Meltz did not say it was like the best and most memorable women match in the US in forever, may one of the Top 2 ever (despite really disliking the style BTW).

IMPACT has the most coherent week-to-week booking you'd want. Everybody's got something to do, it logically leads to TV matches, logically leading to the big match the PPV/Special. Now, whether you want to see those matches in another matter, but in term of making sense and going from A to B to C, IMPACT is just straight on point.

That's reversed gatekeeping, basically. 20 years ago we would spend 25$ to buy VCR tapes from bizarre Japanese indie promotions and that was absolutely considered the normal thing to do. Today, you're kinda pissed that the big announcement of the week is a dumb real TV show > "Wow, you're such a weirdo man, plus why do you even watch those guys doing flips in promotions no one cares about, ya nerd ?" Ooooook.

That's right, I knew there was something important going on with Hase too but did not remember exactly (damn... getting old). Similar stories of abuse have happened in sumo before.

BTW, no one has dug up the story about Great Khali being reckless with a concussed guy during a training session in APW, with the ending result being the guy actually died ? I'm amazed.

Indeed. That's pretty much the only black spot on Liger's record, but it has been talked about before. We can't forget that in the 90's, a young kohai died in the NJPW dojo while "training" with Kensuke Sasaki (was Hiro Hase there too ? I don't remember the details). I probably reads way to much into this, but to me the whole Sasaki family man image in the 00's and almost adopting Nakajima as a son really stemmed from this. Either out of guilt either to whitewash his image, maybe a little bit of both. But it's kinda mindblowing that this was basically swept under the rug.

Well, that is one hell of a double-cross. Thanks for the insight !

If I never hear the words "geeks", "nerds", "weirdos" ever relating to wrestlers and/or posters on PWO no less, it'll be too fucking soon. The "look at us we're so mainstream and normal" shit can go away yesterday. Fucking normies.

I don't think it has anything to do with AJ vs Taker. Remember the House of Horrors match (with... Randy Orton too... ) ? Remember the worms on the map ? It's been Wyatt's thing for a while now. This is just pushing it to the extreme, but my guess is that it's Wyatt's great "creativity" pushing most of this stuff. I mean, he also had that "thing" with Cena last year.