El-P

"On August 21, 2021, I left sports-entertainment.... November 27, 2023. I'M BACK !!!!" (at least that would be legit funny)

The funniest is Punk saying "I'm a different person" at the press conference. Oh yeah, now you're so different and mature, as the world got to witness the past year. BTW, remember Jade Cargill ? 2023 has just been a completely batshit crazy-ass year for pro-wrestling.

This. Honestly completely hilarious. Also, it's crazy that WWE, who absolutely don't need him *at all*, being the hottest they've been in what, 20 years, still had to get him out of spite (because really, after the AEW debacle, I would not have touched him with a ten foot pole when my company is hot as fuck already). The ultimate irony being, if AEW doesn't exist, they probably never het him back. They got current Cody Rhodes because of AEW. Now they get Punk back because of AEW. Again, WWE actually benefits from a healthy competition. Well, can't wait to see CM Punk wear that "Abortion right is human right" T-shirt in beautiful, progressive Djeddah, the new home of WWE, word of Vince McMahon, the sexual predator boss of CM Punk... Now, the real story is, who will be pissed about not getting that Mania main event next year, Cody or Phil ? Also, gotta say. Kinda sucks for Randy Orton. I mean. "OMG ! Randy Orton is b... CM PUNK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The WOO Energy Drink is grotesque and all, but the good thing is that you don't see the Draft King logo which was equally as gross (I mean, online betting and all, it actually always never sit well with me that while I paid for a PPV, I still got fucking online betting commercials) The G1 stuff is cool and all. It really is. And I like the Blocks. Samoa Joe getting a main event World title match PPV spot is awesome. I'm not into the wholesome "you deserve it" kinda stuff, but if one guy deserves it, that's Joe. He's been nothing short of awesome during his entire AEW run and at this point, I say put the belt on him. Have him or Cole be the Devil and fuck MJF around in his hometown. Nassau Coliseum sucks anyway. But honestly I don't have much trust in how this Devil thingy is gonna end. But now... that Christian/Luchasaurus/Nick Wayne's Mom/Copeland segment. This is WWE. WWE won. They just did. It's impossible to not do WWE when you do pro-wrestling in the US, apparently. And it sucks. This segment, despite however "well" it was executed, reeked of everything I can't stand about WWE's vision of pro-wrestling. Cheap TV drama bullshit that goes back to Russoesque writing with nonsensical twists and turns (why is Luchasaurus even considering maiming Nick Wayne's Mom seconds only after he stood up for her ? Why is babyface Adam Copeland hurting Nick Wayne on purpose in front of his own mother when Nick really did nothing to him ?). Stuff like this really makes me want to throw the towel, awesome pro-wrestling *matches* notwithstanding. This is the kinda stuff I would have made fun off endlessly if I had watched it during my old TNA watch. And it's not even badly executed enough to be entertaining to me in a car crash kinda way. Apart from Copeland's goofy-ass facials (damn, he's really THAT ridiculous), they pretty much all did a good job with it, including Nick Wayne's Mom (whom btw, respectfully and all, how old is she anyway ? She seems way young to have a 21 years old kid.). But still, I feel like I'm watching RAW or Smackdown. Yeah, it's sad that apparently it's impossible to think out of the WWE box for too long. Pro-wrestling is such a conservative, conformist and unimaginative little world...

Considering AEW is the coldest it's ever been (and yes, there are outside reasons for this too, one of which and maybe the most important being WWE being hot again), that's a tough one to support. And don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed MJF's reign a whole lot, but this match and the Wembley Stadium match really were very much so a WWE sport-entertainment style. I can say it's not my favorite style at all and recognize that it was a great match and that it worked. Then again, the facts are there, AEW is cold, and doing more of this kinda stuff makes them come off more WWE-lite. And their audience if more WWE-lite too, as Meltzer mentioned that when he was at the live shows, people leaving were doing the "Yeah !" LA Knight gimmick. This is not what made them cool and different. Even less so when WWE itself is hot. Sure the MJF & Cole angle was actually kinda hot for a while, so that one worked. But with Cole on the side and for how long, well... Although I don't think White ends up hurt by the result, I do think it was 95% a MJF match and 5% a White match, which is kinda too bad for White's very first big main event. And yes : this was utterly ridiculous and straight out of the Attitude Era playbook. I was expecting some fuckery, but not even. No Devil (which I thought was gonna be Samoa Joe when they shook hands, and still think it might be him), no Kingdom & Roddy. Still, great main event even though again, not my preferred style at all. Now, looking forward to more Samoa Joe (not looking forward at all about whatever they are gonna do with Wardlow though). But what are we talking about anyway. This show was all about Hangman drinking blood (that was a very rare occurence of legit holy fucking shit what the everloving fuck am I witnessing now moment) and Swerve shooting his way into being the AEW champ in 2024. Ospreay is a huge catch. The greatest pro-wrestler in the world (and maybe ever). Gotcha ! Now, gimme some Moné already to go along with it. Julia Hart winning was a nice sorta surprise, and the match was really fun. Watching Julia and Skye improve from the Daily's place days have been quite cool. Gonna miss Skye's old theme though. Timeless Toni Storm winning was the right thing, but Shida really comes off as the one who gets the belt only to pass it on to the meaningful character. She would kinda need to turn heel or something (plus I gotta say, she's only as good as the worker she gets in the ring with). I got a kick out of Luther being Storm's butler, because hasn't he debuted in AEW as Brandi's Rhodes' ill conceived faction's own butler in the early days ? I think he did. That guy who was doing hardcore matches with Onita in the 90's is now passing silver platter to an Aussie girl cosplaying Sunset Boulevard so she can load her buttcheeks and give some poor girl head trauma. That's quite a career arc. As far as Toni Storm goes, I do think the gimmick is fun and all, but it is also making her matches worse than they could be. Maybe need some balance between the zaniness and the actual in-ring work... Young Bucks being heels again makes me happy. They are just the greatest in this role. The ladder match not being the craziest match of this night is quite telling. I'm all for such clusterfucks. Adam Copeland is the definition of being there. I swear Sting did more than him. Ric Flair ! Hey, that means Very Legal Means only. Cool. Guy can't even throw a chop anymore.

I'm way behind on things. Gotta escape the infamous spoilers. See ya in a while. In the immortal words of Tommy Dreamer : "I'll take them both".

"Carlos Colon being called a youngster at the Royal Rumble" energy.

Gotta say, it's cool for the people who actually show up/stay for the ROH tapings. Also, the Athena/Billie Starkz thingy is one of my favorite thing going on these days, so I can't wait to see the thing actually play out.

Wait WTF ? I can't say I'm surprised, considering her showing at Pro-Wrestling Revolver to basically do an AEW match, but still, showing up on the ROH tapings of all things is beautifully random. Maybe she just reached that point that the WWE machine broke her passion for wrestling so much she just want to just do it to have fun with her friends and not be that big star with tons of pressure. More power to her if that's the case. If that it is, then honestly it's even better than Mercedes. Ospreay is the greatest wrestler in the world. With Omega & especially Danielson's career looking more and more like they're reaching a "rearview mirror" state, having Ospreay would garantee AEW still is on top of the pro-wrestling game, and that's all that matter to me as far as the product goes. I won't take anyone but him or Mercedes.

100% he has no earthly idea who he is. Apart from sexually assaulting women in tanning salons, Vince has no life outside of wrestling. He never even saw Scarface, which is why he thought Scott Hall was a creative genius.

It's crazy to me that the fact his movies were defended by cinephilic reviews in the 70's or something made him the topic of jokes about France. Hell, there's even a Wiki entry about this ! Talk about a totally twisted view of reality (yeah, that's kind of a trend lately on this board, uh uh). But hey, I guess Americans think France looks like Emily in Paris now, which in a way is even more offensive than when they though we lived inside the Amelie movie. Damn, which celebrity could they get ? Even better, which problematic celebrity could they get ? It's not like there's a lack of them. Probably should get some rap star or something.

Better be Mercedes. That's all there is. End this year with a much needed bang. People be bitching and all, but this is by far the best overall build to a PPV they've done in a long while. And the PPV will most probably be excellent, because that's a constant (although I must say that on paper, it won't touch the last bunch, because nothing can, really). Plus, since Flair is gonna be there, it's gonna be free. What's not to love, uh ?

A Jerry Lewis joke. In 2023. The references are getting a bit dated, people. Lyon is an interesting choice (in a very ironic way considering McMahon's friendship, you know. Lyon is the France capital of fascists). I wonder if the Olympic Games made it an easier choice not to be to Paris. They really wanted to go to Strasbourg and have Christophe Agius get a bigger pop than the Rock at Mania. I mean, the crowd is gonna be molten hot anyway. The one thing I'm interested in is what medias are they gonna do and do they get a local star, and which one (and this could be funny) ? I wonder if they try to establish Backlash as a tradition "out of the US" PLE now too. Which is smart, because it gives the immediate post-Mania period something different to look forward to.

That's the issue. You aren't actually interested in French pro-wrestling history. You're interested in feeding a personal narrative based on your own apparent and assumed biased views on UK wrestling. You just want someone who will tell you what you want to hear. Which isn't me, because I'm only gonna give your the actual time. As far as the people who grew up watching that stuff, guess what : they don't exist. For reasons that have been clearly established by now.

This. 200% this.

Of all the people who could show up in GCW, I would certainly never have thought Andrade would be one of them. Against Joey Janela no less.

This may be the most ridiculous thing in this thread yet. There was barely a business to have. There was no "expansion" going on. It was just small time promotions trying to go to some cheap markets to be able to make a buck. Projecting your own narrative, making extrapolations out off a bunch of out of context clips you saw on Youtube. And even if it was. Macedonian TV ? Holy shit. Huge stuff. That's also ignoring that this kind of pro-wrestling is like the circus. It comes to town and people go see the show, they don't need to know about it. That's has been the model of Flesh Gordon's promotion for ever. Again. You're making grand extrapolations from a bunch of random videos on Youtube, for which you have zero context. As far as what Varini said, I don't think it's an extrapolation on my part, being a French wrestling fan of roughly the same age as him, to say that the feeling about French pro-wrestling was shared. It was kinda pathetic. It's no wonder the only thing that looked actually good to me on the New Catch shows were the foreigners (well, I liked Zefy too). As far as his overall knowledge of the French pro-wrestling business over the last 20 years, it's probably a little bit better than just picking up some randoms Youtube videos and google-translated interviews. No offense but... at one point, let's be real. Your insistance of making it way bigger and better than it was is just plain odd at this point. I don't care enough either to keep this going forever. I'll be glad to help understand some cultural points or translate some stuff, really, but as far as the business side of it, there's nothing much more than can be said unless some people want to debate more about whether Flesh Gordon was a household name or not. (He wasn't, end of debate, thanks. Actually if you watch the Strip-Tease documentary that I posted earlier, in the locker room scene, you can see one actual household name. You will never guess who it is if you're not French).

Is any of these people actually aware of anything, or they just don't give a fuck ? I guess celebrating Art Barr is good and all when you work for Vince. Too bad Lawler wasn't around. But I mean. Jeez. Maybe Dom doesn't even know though, I doubt the bedtime stories were like "Now, Uncle Eddie will tell you how the legendary lucha legend Love Machine raped a 19 years old woman and got away with a tap on the hand". Still. Vomit. (and really now to be fair, I cringe whenever I see Eddie Kingston, or anyone, sporting a 2-Pac shirt)

I think you have a very distorted view of the whole thing. Both in 1991 and 1988, New Catch for on TF1 for *a few weeks*. It wasn't that much longer on Eurosport and it was also around 1991 I believe, before Eurosport picked up New Japan a few years later (around late 93 or something). It was a matter of a few weeks every time around. There was not this presence of pro-wrestling on French TV (not to mention Eurosport was a cable/satellite TV, and this stuff in the early 90's in France means very few people had it). Eurosport used to fill its programs with the cheapest shit back then, I remember stuff like "strenght sports" with lumberjack kinda stuff and all. Not to mention the few weeks (4 maybe) that it was shown on TF1, it was at Midnight. It was just cheap stuff the fill the program grid. It's not like "there was pro-wrestling on French TV regularly". Rather, "pro-wrestling randomly popped up for a few weeks here and there over the course of a few years in France on TV". Actually the fact they had to do tours in Romania and Macedonia actually speaks loudly about the state of the business. And of course they would get decent sized crowd over there. You think they saw pro-wrestling everyday there ? Of course they would have a good crowd of kids. You're just projecting here, as you often do. It's not hard to understand why a 11 years old boy who was watching WWF would thing whatever French catch was shown was pretty pathetic considering the state of it at this point. As far as the overall French business, Varini has been around for what, 20 years or so. He knows what he's talking about. This is why google translation is ok, but why it will only give a foreign speaker a limited understanding of what is been said (or unsaid). First, literal translations are never good. That's not how language works. Plus, it'll always have issues with slang and idiomatics. The best I can try to explain is that he means it's a debacle.

Looks like Yota Tsuji is getting most of the action then. Speaking of which. No big single match for him, nor Shota Umino, who just had a career defining match against Ospreay ? Utter nonsense. Well, they may end up having a match against each other or something I guess. If they end up in some tag match in the undercard, then it's really ridiculous.

Holy fuck !

Probably not. It probably means that the movie is more on the side of the myth rather than the truth, like most biopics are anyway, and probably very much cleaned up, with a heavy dose of Hollywood sappy pathos. The Von Erich story is dirty as hell.

He did not say anything about attendance and all though. He said it was a very small world with very little money and fame. Which it is. I made the comparison with small US indies, although that may be off the mark, but that's neither here nor there. There's very few people actually making a living as pro-wrestlers in France. Extremely few, and the ones who do have to work in the UK or Germany or elsewhere in Europe to make ends meet. That being said, and to put things in perspective, French referee Artemis, who was signed with WWE under NXT UK until they fired most everybody, told after the fact that she never earned less money than during her WWE contract. Ponder that for a second. Not that she's saying she was making a good living beforehand, but the fact that there is, or was, enough work around Europe to make more money than working for NXT UK. But it says a lot more about WWE's ridiculous salary policy than anything really.

I agree, it's pretty good. Which, for the biggest show of the year at the Dome, doesn't cut it. I don't feel there's any hype about Naito vs SANADA at all. SANADA doesn't come off as a legit big time main-eventer at all, he never gets those kind of reactions (on the contrary, every show I watched since G1, to me he was always one of the least charismatic guy in the ring). Naito's rise in the G1 only really happened in the last two days, thanks to awesome performances by Ospreay & Okada. The emotional reactions these two days were ridiculous, but I'm not sold on Naito getting the same support 6 months later after a cold-as-hell SANADA title reign. It will take a whole lot to make this a worthwhile Dome main event, and that's basically all on Naito and his charisma.

It's the special unemployment benefit regime for every worker in "entertainment", be it actors, musicians, technicians, circus artists, whatever. It allows them to receive money when they don't have any work, and it's the only thing that has allowed France to have a very vivid cultural life with workers actually being able to live from their jobs instead of having to do something else on the side to survive. You have to work a certain amount of hours over 12 months to be able to get the status. It's regularly been attacked by conservative governments for the last 30 years and it's not nearly as good now at it was 25 years ago. Very regularly during ceremonies like the Cesars (equivalent of the Academy Awards), someone is either gonna talk to defend the intermittent regime, or a bunch of intermittent are gonna jump on stage to bash the Ministry of Culture and their destructive politics. Mercier is saying they (the TV's) were paying under the table. I grew up watching his son Antoine doing funny bullshit on Canal +. I remember he was doing that show on the BBC, with an extremely French accent. It's just slang. Quedalle = zilch, jackshit. No, they're just dumping their product. That's what he accuses them of doing. Hence why Flesh Gordon's product is the one who ended up getting around towns and on TV (for whatever very small time they did). Makes sense. It's the law about freedom of creating non lucrative associations. Meaning your association can make benefits, but it is not created with the goal of making benefit, and no member can gain from it. What I get from this, which I had read before, is that Guy Mercier tried to clean up the business and make it more legitimate to protect the workers and get the intermittent regime for them, which absolutely makes sense. The "huge amount of cost" is the same usual bullshit from business owners who spend their time whining about paying too much taxes and how it's hurting their business boo boo cry me a river. I mean, when Mercier talks about pimping, that's no different from the ridiculous "independent contractors" that WWE forces on his wrestlers. Yes, some of them win ridiculous amount of money, but in the grand scheme of thing, this is nothing but a scam. Mercier says Richard is talking shit about him all the time and tries to sabotage what he does. What I get from this too in that apparently stuff went to trials (my best guess is defamation of character and such) and Richard always lost. The feel I get from this interview, which I had read before, and other stuff, is that Flesh Gordon is a huge old-school carny con-job, while Mercier positioned himself as legit and fought for a legit status for pro-wrestlers. Of course Mercier could be full of shit himself (pro-wrestling, ya know), although that's not what Varini says, and he probably knows what he's talking as he's been around for a while (he was the French announcer for TNA for like 10 years, he also announced for WWE I believe). I listened to an interview on France Inter from a few years back, and Mercier came off to me as rather level headed and legit, FWIW. The one thing Varini is underscoring though, is that French pro-wrestling is just tiny, tiny business with barely any money anyway. This "big fight" would be akin to two small US indies with no hype fighting each others for their "territory".