El-P

TNA LIVE on Monday Night ! Week 2 Flair is bleeding like a pig cutting a promo. Gross. Hey, total hotshotting of Jeff Hardy vs AJ Styles sounds like a good idea. No ? What the fuck is Hardy mean by "breeze" ? Did I miss something ? Corporate Mick Foley ? That's a fresh idea. Straight from 12 years ago. The Nasty Boys. With Jimmy Hart. In 2010. DA FUCK. Spike Dudley Brother Runt. Oh, fuck me. This show is getting worse by the minute. FOLLOW DIXIE CARTER ON TWITTER !!!! Did Knobs ate Brooke Hogan ? No, not that way. Fuck me twice, Jimmy Hart is part of the match. WCW 2000 heaven. Seriously, poor Team 3D, they have been nothing but troopers in TNA, they did not deserve that shit. WTF JIMMY HART PINS BUBBA ???!!! I have no words. The show wasn't good since Hogan showed up, but it's like going live on Monday made everything ten times shittier. Amazing. I wasn't ready. I have watched way too many good/great pro-wrestling TV lately. Waltman legit shitting on the company was kinda funny though, saying "We've been kicked out of better places than this." No fucks left to give I guess. Desmond Wolfe & Mr. Anderson vs Kurt Angle vs D'Angelo Dinero was a good short TV match. No complaint. Could have been much more with actual time. Anderson stayed the fuck away from the three good workers and honestly did not look bad when he was doing stuff in the post match, work or promo wise. Whatever happened with the Pope ? Quite a good worker, shitloads of charisma. Went nowhere I guess. TNA... I guess this segment will end up being the only good one of the show... Angelina against one of the Beautiful People. Of course, they choose Daffney, because it really doesn't make any sense. I like those girls though, less of a match than an angle. Daffney getting a tool box was cool, the beatdown was ok, much like the save by Tara. Title match for Daffney, which I can get behind. Ok segment, but once again, women are totally rushed. Racist Hogan cuts a promo, jack ! Hulk confronts Sting. He's in the catwalk. WCW circa sometime in the late 90's... Meanwhile, we're one week away from John Cena vs Batista at Mania....Meanwhile, in the IMPACT Zone, RVD jumps Sting from behind like any babyface would. Hogan is gonna use the bat and Bischoff interferes like he's still the boss of the nWo. He talks about Hogan's daughter > reaction shots of Brooke. Yay. "5 minutes challenge" match between Nash & Hall. Write the jokes yourselves. Waltman mock-facefucks Eric Young. Girls in the audience laugh. Almost sounds like a haïku. Ok, so Beer Money are heels, because. Against Hernandez in a handicap match. With Jeff Jarrett as a special ref. Not enough stip if you ask me. Plus, Matt Morgan is now basically turning heel on his partner (and tag team champ) too. No, no overbooking at all. That doesn't sound like the worse of Russo in 2000 at all. Eric Bishoff wants to cut Foley's hair now. Seriously, I don't think TNA has been that bad, like, ever. Not even during the weekly PPV era. Mr. Socko in the mouth of Uncle Eric. Then shaves his head. Whatever. Bischoff's hair kinda looks like Flair's now, only grayer... Motor City Machine Guns cutting a promo about Generation Me. aka, the Young fucking Bucks. This is surreal to think the Bucks where part of Hogan era TNA, but here they were. They really look like Young Bucks too. Brian Kendrick was also on the payroll. Crazy X-div roster, when you see Amazing Red showing up too. And Daniels. And Kaz. All these guys in an Ultimate X match is the stuff TNA was built on, so at least we'll get that at the PPV. Of course they have to already do stupid dives on TV from ladders, because Russo. Abyss using Hogan's old WCW theme (Jimmy Hart trademarked) is mind blowing, honestly. How transparent can you be ? Gotta love the announcers talking about how reckless Jeff Hardy is as he's grabbing a headlock 30 seconds in during a TV match after one offensive move. Apart from that, this was a good TV main event, considering how much I think of Hardy as a worker. Styles in 2010 was just ridiculous. Abyss counts three. I guess the power of the Hulkamaniacs contained in the WWE HOF Ring that Hogan gave him (yeah, the entire angle is based around a WWE HOF ring, I'm not even kidding) also allows him to referee any match. Holy shit, Abyss chokeslamming Flair INTO the ramp was an awesome spot. Idiotic, but awesome looking. Ok, so although mostly really terrible, it was not as terrible as the previous week, thanks to two good matches and a decent build to the PPV. Still, this show, which has been pretty poor anyway since the beginning of 2010, has totally fell off a cliff. And people are nitpicking every little things AEW does ? Comparing it to TNA in some respect (yes, Meltz actually said this, funny for someone who got so much shit for being "AEW's boy") ? Like, really ? You have no earthly idea.

EDIT : nervermind. I said everything I had to say about that matter. About MLW, I wonder what are the plans with MJF. How long him and Jimmy Havoc are signed with them ? It can't be sustainable to appear on both shows for too long. As far as DBS Jr., I'm sure either IMPACT (aka the Canadian mafia) or AEW would want him.

I know you weren't. Just making a broader statement about something that kinda annoys me.

On the other end, I'm so sick of hearing "oh, he's got mental health issue" as an excuse for every guy acting like assholes. Sorry. Fuck that. I HAVE had mental health and anxiety issues, including mental breakdowns. Not an excuse. Explanation maybe, but not an excuse at all. No sympathy whatsoever. Work on yourself. Seek help. But don't act like an asshole. I know the drill. I've been there, on both end of the stick. And that's all I'm gonna say about it.

Ask and ya shall receive.

Because if there's ever a time to revisit the last Monday Night War, it's now. Plus it's only 8-9 weeks I believe, so there. TNA LIVE on Monday Night ! Week 1 Oh yeah. Dixie Carter sighting. She was such a daddy's little girl money mark. I'll give her credit, she had that really hot cougar thing going on. So, TNA's plans (Russo on creative, mind you, it really is fake-WCW 00) for pro-wrestling in 2010 was Hogan vs Flair on TV basically, with TNA originals as tag along. Abyss is a Hulkamaniac, he's basically Evad Sullivan. GENIUS ! Hogan even has a fake NWO theme. Hey, Brooke Hogan in the crowd ! Things are setting up to be really good. I'm glad I'm not watching this shit in HD, Flair in tights in 2010 is gross enough in shitty resolution. AJ Styles with a Flair style robe is yet another ridiculous idea. I won't even mention the earring and the blondie stripes. He doesn't look like the TNA World Champ and ace, rather like El Hijo del Charles Robinson. Sting shows up three minutes after the match begins. If I says I guessed the swerve from a thousand miles, would you believe me ? So yeah, Sting turns on Hogan. 10 minutes in, and you have pretty much the worst of WCW 2000 already. This is so awesome. That's a nostalgia show people ! Backstage, Brooke Hogan and a bimbo friend of hers showing huge cleavage. Or maybe that's her mother. No idea. She's officially a character too now I guess. Holy shit, Kazarian looks young. Daniels looks pretty much the same. Yeah, TNA had talent, that's the saddest part. They have a really fun three-way with Doug Williams for the X-div title. Although it's pretty tame by today's standards, I'm sure people back then complained about too much movez and such. Shannon Moore with his cyberpunk look shows up. Well, this is quite ok. Dixie Carter is also an on-cam talent now I guess. Russo is such a perfect suck up. So, the women tag team champs of Hamada & Kong are no more because... basically because Kong slapped the fuck out of useless racist shit Bubba the Love Sponge who only got his job because he's a wife sharing friend with some other racist shit. Huge loss for TNA. Taylor Wilde & Sarita, really good workers. Beautiful People, really good gimmick. I love their music theme. Lacey Von Erich is clueless yet still worth more my time than either Ross or Marshall, since she's supposed to play clueless. Tara is an overrated WWE product, Angelina Love is miscast as a babyface and... yeah, ok, short nothing match, Daffney fucks over Tara, Beautiful People are the new champs. These women matches aren't the priority of the new regime, obviously. Post match, JB ask to "bring in the bubbly" to celebrate. Damn. RVD is the surprise appearance everyone knows about apparently. Can't hate that one, although he's still kind of a WWE stapled guy short-circuiting the entire promotion. Pins Sting in 3 seconds. Sting beats him up forever. Hogan does a walk-in. Bubba the Love Sponge sighting. Look at those two racists shit. Bat shots galore. Gawwwwwwwd. This IS WCW 2000. And now, Kevin Nash and... Eric fucking Young as Vincent or something... calling Hall & 6-Pac... The Battle of fake-NWO vs The Band aka Hall & Nash aka the Rehab-Wolfpack. This IS WCW 2000. Yeah, that was the plan for TNA going live in 2010. Well, Young vs Waltman was a fun very short match at least, as these two can go, but really... Kurt Angle was then working this whole patriotic, sucking up to the army gimmick. So Republican of him. I always hated jingoist shit, so this is a huge pass for me, thank you. Although Angle is good at *every* kind of promo, he really is. Brawl with Ken Anderson. Yeah, it seems like Angle can carry anyone, in any kind of angle. I'll admit too, Mr. Anderson does carry himself like a star and does take a good beating. Still, jingoist angles don't work for me brother. Speaking of which, more of the Racist Wife Fucking Friends. Earl Hebner sighting, because 12 years old buzz is the way to go. Jeff Jarret is pissed because he's not the chosen one anymore. Beer Money (babyfaces turning heel ?) beat on him. Mick Foley special ref. Ok what the fuck ? Was this set up during the commercials ? Could be a really good match or something, it kinda is actually all things considered because all three are super solid workers, but, WCW 2000 people : barb wire bat, second ref run-in etc... Brooke is a TERRIBLE actress. I wonder if she cries because she realize she doesn't make the best choices of boyfriends... Main event : AJ Styles & Flair vs Hogan & Abyssmaniac reboot. Old-ass Flair juicing like a pig. Really disgusting. He can still throw mean chops. Apart from this, Hogan vs Flair is pretty damn pathetic. Like the worst Nitro main event imaginable from 95, with guys 15 years older. Ok, nice, old-ass Hogan bleeding again too. I wonder why Styles ended up in NJPW, why would he want to work against Tanahashi in the Tokyo Dome ? Desmond Wolf was there too. (how many talent did TNA waste ?) And the Pope (who had been a highlight of the previous month). And... fucking Jeff Hardy, because we need MORE WWE rejects. So we're in the era of Jeffrey having been a huge star, which I never ever got, but whatever, so I guess he's a name. Pathetic show. The only good segment was the X-div match. 90% of the rest was trash. The focus was all on Hogan. Brooke on camera. Dixie on camera. Bubba the fucking racist Sponge on camera. WWE rejects Jeff Hardy & RVD shot to the top of the cards. NWO redux angle. Jingoist shit because when in doubt, get some american flag out there. The women, once the highest rated and hottest part of the show, were a complete afterthought. Yeah, WCW 2000, only even worst because of the wasting of great young talent. At least in 2000, WCW had barely anything to waste.

The momentum issue is interesting. To me you have to take in account that they are not only working for the long-term, but also working at a slower pace than WWE in term of how their storytelling is put together because they only have four or maybe five PPV a year. You can't work at the same frantic pace when you have to stretch the biggest issues and feuds to build to those PPV matches. You have to take it slower. Thus far they are not doing as good of a job as IMPACT is doing (same structure of a few PPV's a year with an even more limited roster) and it seems like they do have trouble keeping momentum sometimes for their hot acts like Allin. They are also learning on the job, while D'Amore and Callis are veterans (at least D'Amore as a booker who has been responsible for the best year and a half TNA had in the 00's in term of actual product). They need to find the right pacing for their main event feuds and the best way to fill up, structure (as in, not do *three* kinda cultish act/promos the same week, although I enjoyed the three of them) and keep midcards feuds going quicker, while also building the most important people with the most important matches for the PPVs.

He wanted to buy IMPACT from Dixie ? It's interesting that Corgan was interested in getting a pro-wrestling promotion when he was involved in ECW back in the days and may even have been interested in buying ECW at one point. The guy clearly wanted to be involved in pro-wrestling forever. That doesn't make him smart about it, but he at least knows what he's getting into and has a love for it.

This is confusing to me. People (maybe not you, I have no idea) have been complaining forever about the WWE TV being what it is, and now that AEW clearly is not using the same formula, and I think you're absolutely on the right track when you talk about older WCW programs or even Nitro (which had that revolving doors of characters and feuds mixed up together instead of guy A married to guy B and guy C married to guy D without anyone crossing paths which is WWE style booking), people are gonna complain about that too ? I'm definitely getting that older-school way of booking from Dynamite, where everything is not systematic, underlined and overproduced/overexplained. More space for the audience to actually think, fill up the blanks and breathe. It sometimes seems to me that a lot of people react and think about AEW like they are WWE and like the WWE way is the only existing way (as far as booking, working big matches, looks etc...). For instance, Shida doing a job this week doesn't mean it's 50/50 booking nor the fact they have "already given up on her", which is typically the WWE way of thinking. You want a more sports-like approach as far as win/loss mattering, well, this is how it works. NJPW worked that way for ever. You can have people winning some and losing some, the difference is that the wins and loss have to matter, whereas 50/50 means nothing ever matters.

The dream match of the 50 years old. Hell, PCO vs Jericho would kill it too. Damn, PCO is gonna stay in ROH or go to NXT and I'm gonna be all disappointed about those now.

He'll cut a promo next week, he'll be fine. BTW, two things I haven't seen talked about : As Nyla was putting both the ref and my girl Shanna through a table, they cut to Dr. Baker in the crowd and Excalibur said in a very matter-of-factish way "That's Dr. Britt Baker. She's Adam Cole's girlfriend". That was pretty funny. Also, just as Jericho's hilarious promo was interrupted by the Jurassic Express, was he about to say "Marty Scurll" ? I swear he said "Marty". Also, as I am rewatching the Lord of the Ring trilogy, pretty much like every Xmas seasons now, it just hit me : Marko Stunt looks like Frodo. And also, Luchasaurus namedropping Chretien de Troyes and Eleonore d'Aquitaine on a pro-wrestling show might be the most bizarre and awesome reference ever. What's up with all this French stuff on this show anyway ? (and I also have a master's degree in medieval history, so I have that in common with Luchasaurus, how cool is that ?)

Totally agree about the first point. Don't tease me about MLW. Salina coming back already has me hyped up a bit. If they do get their shit together, they could be one hell of a cool promotion as demonstrated by their PPV (and some ridiculous stuff I like like the GTA Vice City Death Match the other week).

He is. Fenix is awesome. He was one of the big revelation, the biggest probably, of Lucha Underground to me. Penta can be hit and miss, but he has that character that gets over big time. He can be really freaking good or be on cruise control (he's older too). But Fenix totally outshined Prince Puma (who was Ricochet under a mask) as a babyface in LU after only a few shows. And when he turned heel (damn, now I'm sad I won't ever see the closure of the awesome Dark Fenix angle with Melissa Santos), he showed another side of his talent. The guy is simply one of the very best in the world. He's this generation's Rey Mysterio Jr. (but he can be a rudo too). I think there's a reason why they have been featuring Trent 'not Berreta anymore' two weeks in a row now, he's a future single worker they can push further than his tag-team.

If we can learn something from this week, is that AEW don't really act like they are in any kind of war. After the worrying ratings of the previous weeks, they just kept business as usual, doing their show and building their talents, with single Penta & Fenix matches (which can be big deals at one point, but not now, especially not against other tag workers in single like Trent & Daniels), Joey Janela in the main event, another squash match. They did not even sell last week's ratings. To me it's a good thing. Yeah, the buzz is fading, but you can't sustain a buzz for ever, especially when your aim is long term. I happen to watch the former Monday Night Wars TNA shows right now to get a grasp out how badly they fucked this up (it's amazing to watch BTW, what a disaster) and they are doing the polar opposite. They never went into a war themselves, they just are getting a company on the ground and try to make it viable. I take long-term over quick buzz any day. As someone who had quit watching weekly wrestling TV for almost 15 years until LU showed up in late 2014, I'm just glad I get 2 weekly shows I'm looking forward to (IMPACT & Dynamite) at this point.

She was a great valet for Cody and absolutely helped him redefine himself and get over on the indies and NJPW. She's a terrific promo but a passable in-ring wrestler, so manager is her best role. She's also hot as fuck. Put that all together and put her with Kong, who is past her prime but was an amazing (pun intended) worker and just has IT in term of aura and charisma and you've got a winner act to me, as it's the best of both world. The whole kinda New Orleans witch image is also super cool. Gotta love that. As far as I go, I will always prefer a promotion for the hardcores any day over any kind of mainstream appeal. Hulkamania and Attitude Era sucked in term of in-ring content.

Well, it was fun while it lasted… or maybe at one point I'll feel sick in the stomach for ever enjoying a Teddy Hart match, no idea.

That's a good question. Maybe not, indeed. Although I did not care to watch the previous PPV with Aldis vs Cody II (despite loving their match at All In), but I was curious to see what Corgan would do with the franchise. But I guess a show with the same exact roster that was named something else and would look like ROH or even MLW would probably have gotten no attention from me. Like I said, this project is at least intriguing to me, maybe for wrong reasons.

Ok. Now I want this feud to happen and Marko Stunt to play Butters.

MLW has a TV deal. They are on BEiNG Sports. No idea what their actual watchers numbers are, but considering they actually sell tickets to shows and seem to do reasonnably well all things considered (better than IMPACT I believe ?), I guess they are doing ok on TV for whatever their reach is. The reason why I keep on watching NWA is because : A/it's on Youtube so it's easy as hell to watch. If it wasn't on Youtube, not sure I would get through the trouble of grabbing it somewhere, honestly. So yeah, that plays a part. B/I guess part of me still wants to find something about the show I like and hope it will get better. Hell, I guess from what I get, I like James Storm (from his old TNA days in AMW and Beer Money) and Colt Cabana more than most. I like Thunder Rosa. I like Kamille. I like Eddie Kingston. I like Trevor Murdoch. I'm quite ok with Eli Drake. So there. The day I have no interest at all anymore (or get busy IRL, that would be a change), I will just quit watching.

Ok, cool. Oh, and by the way, I'm not angry at all. Sometimes (often ?) I make a joke or a sarcastic comment and it may come off like I'm angry to some people, but I really don't take things so seriously.

I don't give a flying fuck about anyone liking what I like or not. I guess NWA Powerr is an interesting topic to me for several reasons (the whole "retromania" issue is something that is quite fascinating in general, not just in pro-wrestling), and the thread is always quite active so I guess there's more material for discussion than say, on the MLW and IMPACT threads in which I'm quite active too usually. The day NWA Powerr delivers something I will love (and who knows, like I said I was about to quit MLW several times and then their big show was terrific and I loved it), be sure I will talk about it too.

I have a hard time with this mentality. I explained why in endless details in this very thread. To me it doesn't work because just like you said, it's about aesthetics only. It's cosmetic. And that's why it's empty to me. The fact this show got way more traction that MLW, which is also on Youtube and available to everyone, speaks volume about how a simple cosmetic choice can create a positive bias for a product which, overall, really isn't very good. Yeah, the promos are good because they have a bunch of really strong talkers, but the wrestling has been mostly pure nothingness because of the cosmetic choice of doing super short matches. The reason the old territory shows were doing super short matches in a studio setting is because they were selling house shows. That was the necessity of the business model and had nothing to do with the belief that "Oh, short match and squashes are what makes a good pro-wrestling show". NWA Powerr isn't selling house shows, so they are replicating something totally out of context and so the cosmetics end up weighing more than the actual content of the show. What's left if most of the wrestlers, matches and angles aren't very good/cool ? Cosmetic. Aesthetics. The difference with Lucha Underground is that Lucha Underground was basically studio wrestling too, but with a modern, hell, you can argue even avant-garde approach with the entire vignette stuff being unseen by the announcers, as the whole thing was basically its own universe. The cosmetic was super important, but the matches were also presenting something looking forward, whatever people thought about it. And yet, it was studio-wrestling, quite literally.. So yeah, I agree there's a place for a cool, different kind of presentation, hell it's even needed. But this hasn't been it, because NWA Powerr has been a clear case of the cosmetics smothering the entire product, instead of just giving you that old-school style with a twist. I would watch a vaporwave studio wrestling show every week. Hell, I'd watch IPWF (the fake IMPACT early 80's promotion) every week. Yeah,it's pastiche, but at least it is funny and it is a more heartfelt and smart tribute to territory wrestling that Powerr has been to me. Wait, what was that ? FTR, Momma Storm is Judy Bagwell level lame. No idea why anyone thinks it's cool. A 50 year old guy talking about his "momma" sounds dumb as fuck. There's a George Carlin quote about that somewhere...

Not even close. Okada. Defined the state of the art pro-wrestling of the decade; took the torch passed on by Tanahashi and kept on rebuilding NJPW into a hot promotion (the only hot promotion in Japan, really). Reigns has been the rejected chosen one of a slowly crumbling down (in term of interest and attendance) WWE. So there.

So, last week meant zilch. Interesting. About all those wacky cult gimmicks, you know what, I for one love the fact AEW already has moved clear away from "sports oriented" approach and embraces the sillier aspect of pro-wrestling. More Lucha Undergound/BTE, less Mid-South fetish ! Yay !

So, basically, people were hyped about a LEGO studio setting and a Dokken song.