El-P

After the Taker debacle the other week there was this talk about the locker rooms being much better today than they ever were in the past too. Of course #SpeakingOut showed that there was still a lot of issues, especially with the rise of women pro-wrestling in the US and Europe with all the grooming and creepy coaching stuff (as before it was basically wrestlers having sex with groupies, the whole "rat" culture itself was probably quite an ugly thing at times), but overall, there are less true carnies in pro-wrestling. Maybe that was part of its "charm", or maybe we all romanticized this aspect of pro-wrestling for way too long.

AEW is definitely connected to pro-wrestling history, much more than any mainstream company ever was, really (I mean, before WWE "bought" a part of pro-wrestling history). Even IMPACT embraces their crappy TNA heritage (although in a very ironic way). I don't see any modern pro-wrestling that is just from nowhere with no attachment to pro-wrestling as it was. Even Lucha Underground was, despite the witches and killings and aliens.

Of course there are still pieces of shit in the business, but probably "less" than before, and really you won't hear a crowd chant "faggot" at a heel nor an announcer say "She likes it !" when a babyface sexually assault a heel valet. And probably less racist angles and characters too.

Maybe. But that was the 80's. 40 years ago. The idea that pro-wrestling in the 2020's should be anything like the pro-wrestling in the 80's doesn't make much sense to me (which is why I did not care for the first version of NWA Powerr). It's like saying hip-hop in 2020 should be inspired by Run DMC and Eric B & Rakim. I mean...

Yeah, totally agree with that point. I'm not sure I'd be interested in doing that honestly. I dunno. There's so much toxicity about old pro-wrestling especially in the US (blatant racism, homophobia, sexism) that it can be awkward to watch these days honestly (and really, some of these aspects already bothered me when I was 15 years old). As far as pure aesthetics, I take the Lucha Underground setting over anything from the past. And I love the more out there stuff that has been done both in IMPACT (Wrestler House) and AEW (Stadium Stampede). I for one love the fact pro-wrestlers of today have embraced the cheesiness of the history of pro-wrestling and have a meta approach to it at times. So it's really not a matter of "more 4* matches" (which really doesn't mean much since ratings are very subjectives). Basically I'm more excited about what's to come instead of what used to be. And I do believe that the best matches of today blow away the best matches of yesteryear in every aspect : moves and psychology. Not even close.

The end result showed that most of all, it was a pretty reactionary thing, very biased toward older and US stuff, very biased toward WWE (I guess 15 years of monopoly will do that), very biased against japanese women, lucha libre (which did better than in 2006 but not that great either, that being said the lucha libre fans did themselves no favors honestly with the goofy "lucha libre is the hardest pro-wrestling to get" argument which only gave bullets to some infamous lucha haters) and post 00's stuff that isn't WWE. I would hope a 2026 poll would balance itself with a much more open minded spirit toward the modern stuff, but considering the "pro-wrestling was better 20 years ago" mentality of many, I doubt it would be the case, sadly (or maybe in five years, people will complain that the zoomers can't work and that they miss the good old times of the 10's when pro-wrestling was good ). Fuck, I'd probably have a ballot with Omega, Okada, Tanahashi and Styles in the top 10 now, easily.

I've watched Hiromu vs Sho and yeah, you can scratch EASILY 15mn out of it. The first 15 minutes were basically wasting time with a totally aimless and neverending elbow exchanges and then two big spots outsides for fake drama purposes. And by fake drama I mean, no one ever wins a match by count out in NJPW, yet they do that "count goes to 19 and..... guy gets back in" every time. Ok, whatever, it's a trope. But they did it no less than 3 times in those first 15 minutes. Somewhere there's an excellent 17mn match buried in here, but the one thing going so long did for me was expose Sho as someone who just is not that great (he can do lot of stuff because of his physical abilities, but really he wasn't very compelling to watch out of himself, as it was obvious Takahashi was the one carrying the match from A to Z), which I don't think is the point. And kayfabe wise, you get the longest IWGP Jr. title match ever involving Sho ? Seriously now ? That doesn't make Hiromu look strong at all and that doesn't make this match go epic and legendary, it makes the whole thing just self-conscious about going way long for the sake of it. Considering the feedback, I'm not even sure I want to watch Ibushi vs Sanada, which I was quite interested in after WK. I wonder if this year is gonna end up being like last year, a great WK show (well, two of them), a great G1 Climax and really disappointing stuff in between with bad, repetitive booking with bullshit galore, and overlong matches.

WrestleMania 13 (1997) – Undertaker vs Sid First Taker Mania main event. First Mania WWF title match. Against Sid ! Poor fellow. We’ve reached the point where they begin to historicize Taker’s story in the company, and that goes along the fact he is wearing the old grey boots and gloves here, as if there is something to be « Old School » already. I did not remember Bret Hart cutting that awesome heel promo before they can start the match, but he sure did slay Micheals (who was announcing and doing a bad job at it) and tore down both Taker and Sid, before the later punched him out of the ring. One day I'll have to rewatch the whole Bret saga in 97, I think it's taken a bit for granted nowadays. So there goes a babyface vs babyface match with Taker doing his usual match beginnings until Sid... grabs a bearhold. I swear that’s the very first « offensive move » Sid does. And he lets go. And goes back to it. THREE TIMES. This match is already dead five minutes in. Taker takes a ridiculous backbump over the spanish table and we go into full incoming-Attitude Era tropes of slamming people on tables and stairs outside. Before.... grabbing a camel clutch ! Of course, why the fuck not. Sid is downright awful on offense and almost Giant Gonzalez bad on selling. And really, after Taker has done his requisite rope walk, which is a beginning-of-match spot, his comebacks aren’t really interesting as I pointed out before. And his selling isn’t super compelling either, he’s grimacing through his hair, his body is kinda wobbling around but there’s never something really specific about what he does. Oh fuck now HE grabs a nerve hold, this has to be a joke. Meanwhile, Sid does disgusting looking stuff like this pathetic powerslam which had zero power nor any slam to it. By the way, as nothing pretty much happens ever, Bret Hart shows up not once, but twice to fuck Sid up, which will actually cost him the match, so Taker’s win at the end really isn’t clean at all. Before that, they do a reverse Tombstone spot where Sid actually plants it and gets a nearfall out of it, so this is an interesting first occurrence of one classic spot-to-be of incoming Epic matches. This however is un-epic as fuck despite Sid kicking out of the chokeslam (again, that is gonna be a staple of big Taker Mania matches in the future). Hell, Sid does not even do the powerbomb nor even a simple tease of it, as the psychology is all over the place. In the end, just a bad, boring match. 1-5

Wow. They really have been killing it with TV main event since the start of the year. This was all I expected to be and then some. Actually, much better than I expected to be. There's a poetic justice to see KENTA here, after his hurtful NXT stint a few years ago. So much greatness in that match, the best insane brawl I've seen in a while. I also want to see Omega vs Archer now. Crazy to think that in a few months span, AEW Dynamite displayed the NWA women title, the IMPACT tag team titles and the NJPW US title. Sammy Guevarra shouting "You're recording me ?!" was funny as hell. Hey, Sammy, you actually brought a cameraman to feature this conversation on live TV. They should play it as Sammy was just looking for a reason to punch MJF ! But anyway, Sammy leaving and turning babyface is opening a lot of excellent stuff. On the minor stuff, it was interesting how they had Lee Johnson not credit QT Marshall for his training, as he looked pretty "WTF is this ?". Nice little teacher/student feud incoming there. Leila Hirsh going all Kurt Angle and doing a bunch of moonsaults and shit endears herself to me even more than she was before. She's green still, but I already enjoy to watch her a lot, tons of potential. Despite some rough spots, quite a good match thanks to Rosa. That women's tournament really is what the division needed, something simple and focused with good workers. I have seen enough of the Acclaim for now, thanks... Janela vs Allin was a very good opener I thought, despite not going at all for a crazy-as match, which they can do in the future. I wish they'd push Janela/Kiss instead of you know who, much better in every aspect. Odds that Sting is gonna get interrupted after one sentence next week ? I mean, good for him, he'll probably get a nice cinematic matches, but his weeky appearances have been diminishing returns AF, especially since he basically does the same thing every week, that is, nothing. I mean, the guy is 60 years old and hurt (thanks Rollins), he's not gonna bump around, so what do you do ? I wish they'd only have him on small doses, but what the hell. Hangman Page has to be the most sympathetic character in all pro-wrestling today. Loving every of his appearance and interactions. I could not care less about that Shaq match. It has been cursed from the beginning with bad promos, bad angles, there's no reason for it anyway (I mean really). I understand why they try to do, but AEW is best when they cater to the hardcore audience. Get this out of the way already and have Cody do something interesting again.

Well done. They sure glam'ed her up a notch...

That's interesting. I wouldn't know which one it is to me, really. I think I'd say the same thing, although binge watching pro-wrestling at times has absolutely been escapism from me (in times of depressive states for instance, I mean I did start to watch TNA in 2015 for that reason, as a shoot).

The very format of Twitter makes long "threads" unreadable to me.

Dylan was too good and too smart for us and the board, that's pretty much the feel I got from him in the end... Hey, that's Twitter gain I guess. (yeah, it's sarcasm)

Oh, I do agree about that. They did nothing with Chucky T, the wedding really wasn't good (come on ! a wrestling wedding ! so much they could have done). His booking has been mostly a miss, but there's still plenty of time.

Except he hasn't even been in the company for six months and most of the focus hasn't been on that wedding angle at all, actually there haven't been much angles about this (which is part of why it failed, although the wedding itself hasn't been good), the focus has been on a tag team feud against Best Friends and Orange Cassidy.

Well, Dreamer can still cut one hell of a babyface promo. Really cool of IMPACT to have him main event that special for the title against Swann. Pretty cool too to also have AEW talents send happy birthday wishes, of course MJF and Jericho totally shit on Tommy ! Black Taurus being the third person is Decay in really the perfect fit, he'll get one of the best intro too that way. I had not seen him for more than a year now, he still looks as awesome as ever.

Ok, so I just googled that one. Holy shit ! This is the way... out of the set. The irony of *Disney* firing someone for being antisemitic though... Times, they are a-changin'

Yes. I do. Because the fact DDT has its roots on comedic wrestling or the fact their finisher had a sexualized name doesn't mean it was not a genuine relationship/frienship story that came off very real, more real than most thing in pro-wrestling. Probably because it was. Now, I'll say this, the very first times I saw Omega, I hated him. I'm sure I would find old posts of mine from a few years ago and I would slap myself around the face for saying those things then, because the switch had not happened in my head and I was stuck into that viewpoint of "oh, it doesn't look like the pro-wrestling I know so it's sucks". Same things for the Bucks BTW. At some point I basically gave in and realized I was wrong (basically when I began to watch more and more and understand what was going on today).

He hasn't been there for 6 months. They were not gonna TNA themselves and have him show up in the promotion and run over everyone despite him being a JTTS in WWE. And it's not a case of FTR which had this buzz of them vs Young Bucks going on for years. They need to rebuild him. Granted, although I did enjoy some of his stuff, I admit the booking has not been the best with him, but he's displaying another side of his personality which is much closer to his real self, so the best is yet to come I'd say.

Sorry, but to say that Omega doesn't convey passion is so wrong. The entire storyline arc with Ibushi or within the Bullet Club with the Cody feuds conveyed more real emotion than whatever the Rock ever was involved in. He had people crying in Japan when he won the title from Okada. Funny thing, no Austin vs Rock match was really that important anyway. And the biggest one they had actually marked the end of the WWF peak because f the worst idea ever (turning Austin heel and shaking Vince's hand) Anyway, you know which one I'm referring to. Without Omega vs Jericho in NJ, there's probably no AEW (Tony Khan has stated many times that the fact this drew so much US viewers to subscribe to NJ World is what showed him there was an audience who wanted something else and ready to pay for it), which has totally redefined the landscape of the business.

Honestly I think you are. I'll tell you this, I'm not a fan of seeing Brodie Jr. on TV (apart from the tribute show) mainly because I don't care for kids on TV (and I never cared for kids on TV including when I was a kid, I did not want to see fucking brats on TV, I wanted to watch adults and monsters and robots). If this becomes regular thing (which I don't think it will at all, plus there was one spot on Dark and one on Dynamite and not much else I believe, I've not seen other social media stuff), yeah, I will probably not gonna like it for many reasons. But until now, to me they come off as making this kid's life as "fun" as it can be in this dramatic context, plus it's gonna be some nice memories to balance the tragedy of losing your father.

Chapter 3 : The Road to the main-event WrestleMania XII (1996) – Undertaker vs Diesel The first really big time Taker match at Mania, as Diesel had been the legit n°1 guy in the company for the last year and a half. Interesting as Nash was already on the outs yet he shows up as his best version of Diesel yet, displaying the snarky cool heel attitude that would basically make the nWo the hottest angle in the months to come. The difference of pace with other Mania matches is obvious from the very beginning, as there is maybe more action in the first five minutes than in all Taker matches thus far combined, as they go for the familiarity approach and counter each other again and again, including on big spots like Taker’s flying clothesline and even teasing a finish (that's big match mentality right there). They pretty much establish themselves as equals, with is also a first as Taker was either the no-sell zombie earlier on either overwhelmed by a big monster. The rope-walk spot gets sold perfectly by Nash who just doesn’t go down like an idiot. They clearly do a whole lot early on to heat up the crowd until Nash takes over after Taker fucks up a chair spot outside. From then, Nash slows down the pace but also uses his heel charisma a lot to keep the audience involved. The heat segment is slow but engaging and you can really feel Nash’s work on Taker’s back is leading toward his finish. Nice double big boot spot and it’s time for a selling transition, as this match as been quite good. By that point, even the zombie sit-up spot has nothing to do with Hogan’s hulking up anymore, as here he does it yet has to grab the ropes to really get up and Nash gets back on top... with a bear hug that kinda hurts the pace a bit. That being said, it doesn’t last too long, still makes sense (back work) and from there they work a side-headlock spot into a side-suplex from Taker, which is another new spot for him. I must say Taker’s incoming comeback is a little weak to me, as I do find his offense, outside of the big spot, to be a bit tedious, repetitive and to be perfectly honest, kinda sloppy. He punches a lot but apart when he does the super quick body shots, his punches are quite mediocre. He’s just not super compelling on offense during his comebacks and also kinda *looks* sloppy. On the contrary, anytime Nash counters him, you can feel the *weights* of the shots, that’s something Nash is very good at, much better than Taker’s whose celerity worked better when it was a contrast to his immobility during the early days. I’d go so far to say this is more of a Nash match, especially towards the end when he does not one, but two jacknife spots where he *doesn’t cover* Taker and acts like a total douchebag, sure of his victory, taunting the fallen Taker. Kind of a masterpiece of protecting his finisher too (although it has been pointed earlier on that it happened a lot during Taker's matches then, but Nash really made it like a big moment here) as Taker is not gonna kick out of it. Another interesting twist is Nash going for the pin only for Taker to grab him by the neck so Nash has to punch him down, and they do this bit three times before Nash can’t counter anymore. Except he actually does by applying the same side suplex Taker used earlier on. Ok, this has gotten really good. Ending stretch sees the flying clothesline Taker had missed earlier on, the chokeslam and the Tombstone for the win. Quite interesting that they managed to have this big match feel without working any real nearfall at all (replaced by the taunting part after the jacknifes). Tons of credit to Nash who had one of his best performances in WWF on his way out and finally gave Taker his first good match at Mania after five years. 1-4

Except it's really not, as demonstrated by his actual track record. Whether one enjoy his work or not, he's been a star in Japan for years, has main-evented the biggest events and buildings for NJPW, was one-half of the most important match or the last 20 years, is currently a star in AEW and at the center of the hottest angle going on today, not to mention the fact he's considered by many as one of the greatest wrestlers ever (again, whether one enjoy him or not, the facts are there in term of delivering the kind of match that an audience, both in Japan and in the US, considers great, and that for years and years now). Plus, in all honesty, and taking in consideration all notions of subjectivities involved, let's think back about Ricky Steamboat and his totally overexagerated body gestures and facials every time he would register a shot (not to mention his infamous "karate" offense) or Flair and Hennig pinballing around and taking goofy-ass bumps; this was all theatrical as fuck, and way more than anything Kenny does (Kenny looks and works much more "dangerous" than any of these guys, even taking account of the context and eras). Now, people are gonna talk about goofy facials but again, Randy Savage and his bulging eyes and coked out maneurisms say hello. I don't see how any of this is different (FTR, I love all of these guys who are all all-time favorites of mine) Cornette's "valid" criticisms of Omega are baseless, both in term of aesthetics and actual working ability.

Well, that's a downer. I thought he was just disinterested with pro-wrestling these days.

I did not say anything then because that would probably not have gotten over well with some people, but basically I was in awe of all the people who magically got their Master's degree in language science and sociolinguistics... (basically I thought this whole "boo Brandi you're doing code-switching it's offensive" thingy was completely ridiculous). And to quote Luchasaurus, I have a Master's degree (in language science). I'm basically of the unpopular opinion (especially in France where everyone is apparently a grammatical genius...) that people who aren't specialist in the field of language should just shut the fuck up about language matters ! But anyway, Brandi is not wrong. As far as her getting pissed off, she basically said went off Actor's Studio style, channeling real anger and real emotion to cut her promo. Which is probably why she's such a great promo. It's just too bad her booking had been all over the place, really.