El-P

Again, not patronizing at all BTW. Gotta love the way you're painting the people who indeed don't care and don't like this move as idiotic fans who get off on MOVEZ and irrelevant promotion (who's working with AEW and NJPW btw, but that's beside the point, I have loved irrelevant promotions before). For fuck's sake. It's not that hard to understand why a part of the AEW audience would not like that announcement at all.

Not patronizing at all. You could have added a lolMOVEZ or something to boot. And no, I'm not missing the point. Because I know that The issue is : I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT MAINSTREAM FANS. I don't know how to articulate that point better. It seems like an obsession of people on the board lately. Super hardcore niche fans caring about "humm.... what could make those mainstream people watch the stuff I watch" (not to mentions boomer going "humm.... if only pro-wrestling was more like 40 years ago that would hook the younger generations"). I see some people who aren't even enjoying the product as it is arguing how important it is to "get the casual fans". Why do you care to begin with ? I sure don't. Why doesn't mean that : AEW's future "survival" (the idea of AEW having to "survive" is comical considering IMPACT is still in business almost 20 years in despite having been a complete business disaster) has nothing to do with them producing a fucking reality TV show. If anything, it can only make the hardcore fanbase groan. And AEW is a hardcore based promotion. If they want to be WWE, they'll go the way of every other promotion trying to be WWE. AEW should focus on making the best hardcore promotion they can be instead of trying failed experiment to chase the dragon. I mean, the Shaq *match* was fun for what it was, but it did not attract any interested new audience (aka older single guys apparently), and the TV leading to it was *bad*. Having commercials or angles promoting a TV reality show on AEW TV is not what the AEW audience wants, because the AEW core audience was born out of frustration with WWE. Hey, if that works for them, cool. If that means AEW then becomes more like WWE in the long run : not cool. Because as much as they want this "brand awareness" as they say, they have no chance whatsoever of dethroning WWE on that front. Real TV show reeks of WWE-like programming.

Funny that, how athough things change they kinda always stay the same. Bobo Brazil vs RIkidozan from 63 : chop - headbutt. No one sells. Chop - headbutt. No one sells. Chop - headbutt. This time Rikidozan registers and sells. And immediately chops back, Bobo registers and bumps. You'd see pretty much the exact same kind of sequence in Ishii/Suzuki today.

Of course, that's understood. Which makes the mutual love for Bockwinkel (who was higher than Flair on my list in 2016 I believe) kinda puzzling.

TBH, there will be a lot of dissonance anyway. For instance, you and I agree about the fact it should be strictly in-ring based (although again, there's no way cognitive bias aren't gonna play a big part in term of people being influenced by for instance what they know about this or that guy promo ability and how it will affect their view of the in-ring work, not even mentioning every other cognitive bias at play in term of cultural familiarity, mainstream appeal, ideologic posturing, sentimental attachment to a certain period or certain workers, excitement of discovering a brand new fresh favorite worker etc...), but I don't think I'm wrong when I say we'll probably have a very different approach to the matter and very different opinions on the exact same footage because of the difference of approach itself. Which doesn't mean we won't agree about some stuff in the end (the greatness of Bockwinkel for instance), but when you'll talk about "narrative" I'll talk about "flux" and we'll you'll talk about "psychological flaw" I'll talk about "pace or form mattering more than psychology", so there is dissonance anyway.

There is gonna be an audience at the HoF ? Chanting "You deserve it" at Kane ? I mean, he sure deserves to be infected with COVID, but...

So wait. There are gonna be TWO Takeover nights then TWO Mania nights ? Are then insane ? Not at all exhausting to watch, even for the most hardcore fans. With indie promotions running shows to, odds of this turning into ClusterMania ?

This. It feels like Cody is now WWEing AEW with a stupid reality show., which is the last thing AEW fans wanted. I doubt there will be an actual backlash, but it's clearly not something I'm interested in *at all* and clearly makes AEW a bit more like WWE in term of what they are (we're in the entertainment business damnit !). Funny though, as the perception of Cody went from "He's the biggest star in the company, Kenny Omega & the Bucks ain'ts hit, he should never have done the stips of never challenging for the world title" to "Yawn... Cody and another crappy segment". Not that I think the whole QT thing is crappy myself (mucho respect for QT who seems to be one hell of a trainer), but Cody sure doesn't look *at all* like he did last year. Still : _Christian, the huge huge superstar _Dark Elevation = more Dark JJTS matches _Cody & Brandi doing a reality show Time to get La Sombra & Thea Trinidad or something, because the last three big surprises have not been positives. There, since we're a board of haterz, gota do my part too for once. (yayyyy Tay Conti !)

Speaking of "obscure" but not obscure at all, is there any footage of Dara Singh ? In the short clip of the match against Rikidozan in 55, that mofo looks great.

Well, as of this year, Kane and Great Khali have to be a toss-up. Both the same year is the ultimate 1-2 punch of suck. People will talk about Torrie Wilson, but she really never was a properly trained pro-wrestler anyway.

The guy had no talent whatsoever and was an asshole about it. Where was Akira Maeda when you really needed him in the 00's ?

The fucking Lou Thesz powerbomb. In 1953. Super cool footage.

Ospreay is banged up, but he works so much smarter than he used to do a few years ago, overall he's a much much better worker, which is kinda scary, as he can still do the craziest shit when he wants to. That counter off the Pumping Bomber is legendary. The match with Ibushi should be off the charts (which is crazy expectations, as if it's just excellent it'll look like a disappointment).

Nope. Genes are a scary thing. That being said, talent has nothing to do with genetics, because Ayako sure was still kicking ass in AAA when she showed up in 19. Unlike good old Sochi. (this really is throwback Wednesday, here I am talking Sochi Hamada & The Bloody on the same day !)

The Bischoff thing is like a bunch of abusive former lovers. The guy gets hired strictly to be a scapegoat, then gets fired in humiliating fashion, then get brought back for an "emotional" HOF speech. "But never mention that bitch Tony Khan again ! You can't see that guy anymore Eric ! I still love you. BUT YOU'RE FIRED !!!! Hey, can we be friends ? I'd love you in my HOF... xoxo"

True. They should have made it a big time Dark Elevation main event instead, in true Thunder spirit. But I'll take the awesome randomness anywhere anyway !

Damn, you know my tastes ! I did not do the Saturday Night shows during my WCW Highway to Death thread, so that little gem just eluded me for ever ! I'm a Raven fan, as you know. Thanks !

I haven't watched her in almost 20 years and I wonder how I would enjoy her stuff today. I do remember the crazy bumps now that you mention it. But yeah, I was all about the Bloody in my last years of following joshi and buying tapes (well, and Yoshida, of course). To me it looked all bleak though. The scene was basically GAEA, which I always found to be overrated in term of output, and a bunch of zombie promotions. But there were really good up and coming workers for sure. I remember Yoshiko Tamura was coming into her own and turning into a really terrific worker then too. I'd fun to revisit some of this for sure. Damn... In other news, Rikidozan, here I come.

Sydal vs Omega could steal the show if the Third Eye manages to channel his old self. Keep on bringing the fresh stuff AEW. The randomness is great like some WCW Thunder main-event with Marty Jannetty that never happened but should have.

Is he gonna wear his mask ? *wink wink nudge nudge*

He can work indies. He's doing his Spring Break Mania week show. But yeah, Janela was so fun doing insane shit in the indies I was looking forward to him in AEW, he had that terrific lights out match with Omega during the first months and really hasn't done much of anything after that. But his team with Sonny Kiss is really cool, they should get featured on Dynamite instead of wastes of space like the Acclaim or the Gunn Club. I never got it. To me the buzz came from people who had never seen Su-Yung, as her gimmick is to Su what Abyss was to Mankind (not that Su is a great worker at all but she does the creepy zombi shit like no one else ever). And they she went and had a bad match with Shida, and that takes Crusher Maedomari's level of suck to do that (yeah, that's a dated reference, I'm 45).

Leva Bates is apparently doing a lot of backstage work though, so her being a JTTS is no issue at all. Is Mel still around, really ?

Shawn Micheals & Razor Ramon went longer than they should at WM X too, and apparently Savage was pissed at them for being unprofessional and therefore having the 10 men match scrapped. I mean... yeah, I really wanted to see that random ten men tag match with IRS & Tatanka (and whoever, don't remember, the HeadShrinkers and the Smoking Gunns probably)...

I did not get that. I just googled him. Ok, now I know why this guy looked kinda familiar. I have no idea why he's on my TV though. Him and Max Caster are huge WTF, they reek of guys who belong in WWE in 2011. AEW should try to do a G1 of sorts. That would be a first in US wrestling. TNA kinda tried in 2011 under Vince Russo, resulting in the Bound for Glory Series, the ultimate dumbest tournament you could imagine, with guys getting points in tag matches, multi-men matches, meeting the same opponents several times, no brackets or blocks or whatever of course. Like, the most Russo thing ever.

I wasn't feeling the Finlay push to the semi-finals, although Ospreay really had a terrific match with him. The final was awesome. If there's something NJPW can bring with regularity despite the booking issues lately, it's great pro-wrestling matches. Speaking of booking issue, the post-match was completely stupid. Yes, and yes. It's funny because for a long time, Gedo had been praised by some because of his love for old-school territory US pro-wrestling. The issue is, he's bringing more and more US bad bullshit to NJPW instead of focusing on building great arcs with Japanese characters (like he did with Okada, Tanahashi and Naito, although you can argue he fucked it up with the later). The never-ending repetitive bullshit in EVIL matches, super dated gimmicks like Great-O-Khan and now yeah, a really dumb mid 00's WWE-like spot in front of a totally unreactive crowd (I will take a wild guess and say they would have not reacted anyway, they looked nonplussed). If that's his idea of growing NJPW has a global brand, especially in the US, well, tone-deaf indeed, in more ways than one. Gedo can still book a mean G1 (although the perspective of having both EVIL & Great O-Khan this year is really scary and pretty much kills the mere idea of it being as great as the last few years, including last year which only had one great Block, really), but to me the last year and a half shows he's going way into the wrong direction. Inspire yourself more from Choshu & Baba already and less from Dusty & Vince.