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El-P

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Everything posted by El-P

  1. Yeah, they are terrific together. But who are the "undercard trash tag teams" already ? Dark Order is a bad gimmick, but the guys underneath look awesome. What else ? Angelico & Jack Evans ? They are terrific. SCU ? They are terrific. So much potential for tons of cool tag team matches in the futur, especially when you throw in the Lucha Bros & Young Bucks at the top of the mountain. I guess he's freelancing, but damn I would love to hear Schiavone & JR call some Rhodes matches in the futur. And Tully has a manager for Shawn Spears against Cody ? Now that's an awesome idea.
  2. So, honeymoon's over. Ok, there's much to say about this show, but I'm burned out after 4 days of G1 + this. And G1 goes back on track tomorrow, and Liger in CMLL on Friday, and iMPACT going on another cycle ? Jeez, too much good wrestling... The setting is awesome. Way too fucking hot apparently, but it looked terrific and really different, which is something you want. The pre-show was pretty good this time around. The Librarian's theme being "shhhhhhh" so the people make noise works. "Reading sucks !" was pretty funny (and sad). I've gotta say, Sonny Kiss looked *way* better in Lucha Underground, I guess the awesome production over there helped. He was okay, but kinda sloppy at times and very choreographic. Maybe he didn't click with Avalon, who looks solid. I really enjoyed the female tag match, especially the joshi gals. But this : looks pretty damn stupid. You don't give a stiff kick to the *side* of the head of someone who isn't looking and doesn't expect it. Reminds me of the infamous Yumiko Hotta kick to Plum Mariko. Yep, awful for Britt Baker, hopefully she makes a recovery. Really enjoyed the 6-men tag. Jimmy Havoc actually wrestling >>>> paper cuts and comedy garbage. Shawn Spears looks good. He got a Perry Saturn vibe going on. Guevarra is such a millenial Youtube influencer douchebag, you want him to get slapped over and over. That's a compliment. I admit, Janella's fuck off to Corny was funny to me. Plus, knowing what we know now about the whole Callihan debacle, they may work an angle to sell podcasts and Twitter hits... Yeah, Brandi in the ring (first time I saw her) was kinda... okayish at best, and it doesn't help Allie that she doesn't get to work with someone really good, she was quite good in iMPACT. However, Awesome Kong showing up and Brandi being a bitch after all = good. And AJA KONG confronting AWESOME KONG would be the biggest mark out moment of the show for me. Old joshi fan, and huge Khia Stevens fan. With the season 3 of GLOW coming up, it would be cool to see some joint promotion. Zoya the Destructor showing up in AEW for a special match ? Oh, please, please, please... The multi-tag match was really good. Dark Order look like complete jobbers but their work is terrific. This gimmick is really hurting their heat. It's obvious despite having the cheapest Super Strong Machine cosplay costume ever, Evil Uno has shitload of charisma and knows what the hell he's doing. Plus I love fat guy in mask who can move, in a Super Porky or early Dick Togo way. But he looks like Fat Shark Boy. Amazing to see how over Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy are already. Marko Stunt was a nice touch. He needs a Hobbit gimmick. Angelico & Evans also looked terrific, although a bit in the background. Love all these teams, but the Dark Order need a revamping, at least in term of looks. Hangman Page vs Kip Sabian was a good solid match. I understand the predictability criticism, I thought the same thing watching the match, but really they still are at the stage of establishing workers and rankings, so they can't have Page squash this guy. I guess more intricate booking can occur (hopefully) when the TV show begins. Page may not be ready yet for the main event spot, but he's gonna get there. He's got the look and he's got the in-ring talent. SCU vs Lucha Brothers was a cool spotfest, as expected, but I thought Fenix was kinda off at points (a rare occurence). So overall, one of the lesser Lucha Brothers match I've seen in the recent months (not even blaming SCU). A ladder match against the Bucks could be insane. CIMA vs Kenny Omega was clearly the MOTN to me, and although it was predictable again, to me it built and built to a truly great finishing stretch in which I actually wonder if CIMA would not win after all. This would have made a terrific G1 match. This is the Omega I want to see again. Impressed with CIMA too, as I'm not exactly familiar with his work (I had seen a few stuff from the Crazy Max era almost 20 years ago and that's it). In the end, great match. The main event had great moments, but it was *way* too long. They could have had a killer match lasting 15-20 minutes. Great selling by Matt. Dustin looked terrific again. But at some point, the match lost its steam. The actual heat surely didn't help, as it kinda burned the crowd too, but still, match went too long, lost its energy and pacing toward the end and fell apart, despite some great spots again. I really like the Bucks, but the Meltz driver is kind of a goofy finish, really (well, it's a brutal tombstone, so it's believable, but the second guy doing the rotation really isn't adding anything). Classic bad WCW moment was the announcer not recognizing Jericho under the mask. As funny and dumb as Schiavone pretending Kevin Nash dressed as Sting could actually be Sting. Hey, I guess you need vintage bad pro-wrestling stuff... Too long of a show, honestly. Mostly good stuff though, Allie vs Brandi and Kiss vs Avalon being the worst matches and Omega vs CIMA being great. And the Aja vs Awesome face-off was so cool.
  3. Yep, makes it really intriguing. Tana vs ZSJ should be excellent (and the booking makes it really really interesting since they have no win yet). Okada will have his usual good match with Fale that he always has, but honestly Fale in the G1 is overdone and boring at this point. KENTA vs Archer is another one I look forward to, Archer has looked great and KENTA is quite compelling to watch, for a number of reasons. EVIL vs SANADA has the novelty appeal, but it could go either way, very good or just there.
  4. That's hilarious. And sad.
  5. ZSJ vs Okada from Day 3 and Ishii vs White from Day 4 were great matches. I agree thus far it's not looking as insanely loaded as last years, but there's more "fun" stuff as opposed to say, Elgin or Makabe matches, which could be good but really uninteresting. Although I must say, thus far if anyone is under-delivering, it's been Jeff Cobb. His match with Mox was kinda disapointing and he's clearly not on the level as the best guys here. On the other hand, Jay White is bordering brillant. He's so great as little things and at heeling it up. It's no surprise White had an excellent match with Goto (whose bring comeback story I'm not buying, he's still good old solid but not engaging Goto to me) and Ishii had an excellent match with Cobb (who looks impressive in spots, but seems to not be able to put things together yet) and the two had maybe the best match of the G1 thus far together. KENTA, like with other posters here, I'm still unsure. I liked both his matches, although none I would call "great". He's kinda shaky to me at points in term of intensity, although he has that great bad-ass charisma still. May take a bit more time to get himself into his groove though, which would make sense. Loved Naito vs Taichi, but then again Taichi is ridiculously underrated (he's much more compelling than Goto for instance). Interesting booking thus far with Naito, Tanahashi, White & Ibushi at 0 point. Hopefully the Ibushi & Ospreay injuries don't get in the way too much. But Ibushi is obviously hurting, although I guess it can add some interesting tricks to his matches in term of psychology. The announcing is fantastic. The undercard stuff have plenty of fun stuff thus far with Suzuki being really salty, the LA Dojo young guys clashing with the Young Lions, Umino teaming up with Mox. I don't miss the Guerillas of Destiny in those one bit, go figure...
  6. Well, that's the concept of the honeymoon. Like you pointed out, the more the thing change the thing stay the same. Maybe there isn't even a honeymoon after all this time around...
  7. So, this time Extreme Rules is done. So this was the first trve Heyman show. So, I ask again : was this the shortest post-reboot honeymoon ever ? Because the honeymoon lasted exactly one show. How long is Daniel Bryan hooked with WWE anyway ? How long is his new contract ? It wasn't a 5 years thingy I believe.
  8. Please, let's not use that term, especially for stupid shit like this.
  9. El-P

    Extreme Rules 2019

    For me, yeah, because I'm not gonna be tempted to watch stuff I don't care about. Although I'm gonna miss the big shows watch-along and bullshitting on these threads. This wasn't gonna last anyway since I'm gonna move out in a few months and was not gonna get those TV channels anyway. But for the WWE fans in France, yeah, it sucks really hard, especially considering how fond they are of Agius & Chereau (and for very good reasons). They still have RAW & SD but without the big shows, what's the sell in 2019 ?
  10. El-P

    Extreme Rules 2019

    Philippe Chereau posted some words on Instagram about the situation. They were basically told a few weeks ago they would not announce PPV anymore. "This is just business" being pretty much the "explanation" given to them. So I guess there's no French announcing on the Network either, apart from the Quebec guys, which makes it even worse. Completely stupid decision. WWE died in France when they were replaced by WCW in 1996. Now that are simply punishing their own audience for nothing, and considering the obscene amount of money they are making, this makes no sense. What a dumb decision...
  11. El-P

    Extreme Rules 2019

    Wow. I was ready to at least tape the show and watch Ricochet/Styles, but the PPVs aren't shown anymore on the channel AB1 (who also hosts RAW & Smackdown), starting now. No reason given. It's a HUGE blow to the French WWE fans community. Either another channel will pay to broadcast them eventually (although I have no idea which one would be interested), either I guess they hope French fans will subscribe to the Network (which is pretty dubious). Anyway, this is really, really bad for the French market I'd say, because fans are gonna feel betrayed after years and years of watching the PPV on this channel. Plus the two announcers Agius & Chereau (who are terrific) have a real deep bond with their fans I believe (they've been doing it since the early 00's I think). No idea if AEW wants to try and get some piece of the pie, but considering I've seen Lucha Underground, New Japan & AAA (all months behind, but whatever) on French TV channels, maybe that's a market they should try and get their foot in. Anyway, no more watch-along for me for big shows. I'll have these threads though.
  12. Well, you still have the IIconics, who really are over, have really hot matches and make that tag-team title really important…
  13. Ishii vs Cobb was spetacular but didn't get to *that* level indeed. That bieng said, still an excellent match. And Matanza Cueto in the G1 is pretty damn cool. It's gonna be really interesting to see him work against the rest of the block. Although there was no match as great as Tanahashi vs Okada or even Ospreay vs Archer, I still loved that first B Block showing. Juice vs Takagi was excellent and I like how they are gonna tell he story of powerful junior Takagi trying to prove himself against the heavyweights. White had bloomed mast year in the G1, he's only better this year. I can't say I'm a big Goto fan, but this match worked on so many levels. White is a terrific heel and his style is almost too smart for his own good in that it reflects his kayfabe character almost too much therefore his matches are maybe less spectacular that others, but he's crazy good for his age. Storytelling wise, the best match of the show. And then, two very different matches, with Mox destroying Taichi, to the distress of Miho Abe (she was indeed great in reacting to the whole table spot) and Yano & Naito working the absurd comedy/spoiler match. Yano is so great at what he does. Must be cool to have him in your block too, as it's a day off and good to rest your body a bit. I hope Taichi will get some victory, at least, so Miho can celebrate. Love it that Taichi made it this year, he's ridiculously underrated. After the first two shows, I can't say I miss Tama, Makabe, YOSHI-HASHI and Elgin at all, this year's gonna be so much fun. Suzuki in place of Fale would have been perfect. In the undercard, I quite enjoyed the LA Dojo vs Young Lions thingy too. Ok, still 17 shows to go. What a ride.
  14. Totally agree about all of this. He talked about the Fyter Fest pre-show during the GAB 90 episode and it was cool to hear his genuine thoughts.
  15. It's crazy. I'm watching Night 2 of the G1 tonight. Probably gonna watch AEW tomorrow, then I'll have to catch up with day 3 & 4. That's the issue with the G1, it's taxing to follow, as great as it is. Hell, I want to watch last Friday's CMLL show too before next week's show which will feature Jushin Liger. Thank god iMPACT was basically a recap show this week so I skip it.
  16. It is.
  17. That's cool, I had no idea. Let them be just that and have them speak French then ! The card looks pretty hot. I've never seen Brandi wrestle, so that's interesting to me, especially against Allie whom I really liked in iMPACT. Lucha Bros vs SCU & Young Bucks vs the Rhodes will compete for show stealers. Luchasaurus is the new Mortis. You can quote me on that.
  18. In the spirit of what brings us together about AEW : "Are you that good, Young Bucks ?" Dustin's so awesome.
  19. Now, that would be some heeling up.
  20. Gotta love the kayfabe priests.
  21. Come on. You know AAA is run by the power of the urn.
  22. The Perro Aguayo tribute from last week was nice. So, in Mexico they don't do the ten bell salute but rather a whole minute of applause, which is a whole lot warmer indeed. The trios title match that followed was terrific. Really curious to see if they have done anything special today for Paco Alonso's death.
  23. That's understood. But it's a wee bit early to talk about AEW driving fans away or not being able to grab an audience, especially since, for the very short time it's been there, it's been nothing but an unexpected success. And I'll be pretty honest, as much as I'm very excited about AEW, the whole "strict sport presentation" and "Mid-South as an inspiration" is absolutely not the part I'm excited about. For the record, what got me back following current pro-wrestling was Lucha Underground. If you ask me, I'll have this over any kind of "strict sport presentation", which is why I enjoy iMPACT doing some out of the box stuff (although nothing will beat Catrina the evil witch and Matanza eating people). The Raven fan speaking here, I guess. FWIW, the Micheal Nakazawa match got over great with the audience that was in the building. Let's see if Sonny Kiss vs Peter Avalon gets shit on by the crowd. If that's the case, well, let's not do this too much anymore. If it gets over, well, the disconnect is between some people's expectations of what the promotion should be in their opinion and the actual current AEW audience. I hear "they need to get the lapsed fans, they need to get the casual fans". Well, fuck me if I care about that. They need to find their niche and be successful at whatever they do, and I'll care as long as it suits what I enjoy. Last time the casual audience loved pro-wrestling, it was the Attitude Era, so thank you but no thank you. So, if AEW has to catter to its own audience with their own indiosyncrasies which may or may not include enjoying meta-gimmicks and the occasionnal Micheal Nakazawa crass comedy match, I'm perfectly fine with it.
  24. Well, since we're at it, I have to say I don't know who the Super Smash Brothers are. Never saw them work, don't know how they look, don't know anything about them. So the Dark Order stuff, yep, completely looks like an unimaginative third rate Wyatt Family-lite gimmick without the cool factor they had (I mean, from the first few months and vignettes). Lights going out and masked minions surrounding the ring from nowhere, yep, that's some washed up, seen a billion times already stuff. And the promos haven't been compelling at all. And this is not a comedy undercard gimmick. So, there's your big miss thus far.
  25. I do that all the time. Read my posts about iMPACT, which has been my favorite promotion for the last year. Thus far with AEW, I have nothing much bad to say about it, honestly. I liked the Battle Royal. The Nakazawa match made me laugh. I'm mostly indifferent to the Librarians. If they do something I find bad, or even something that doesn't work for me, I'll have zero issue saying it. I'm not a fan of them using Jimmy Havoc. I find it's too bad they won't do intergender matches. The Dark Order thus far is a complete miss.
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