El-P

Logan Paul is a piece of shit. I hope he enjoys his blood stain money while LGBT influencers get thrown in prison. See ya all during Pride Month, WWE Universe. Fuck all of this.

I think this is a good sum-up of why AEW doesn't *feel* the same. When it started, there was an enthousiasm about an alternative, a different way to do things, to present pro-wrestling that wasn't the WWE way and an approach that was fan-friendly, honest and transparent toward its audience. This lasted for a good while. But now, in 2022 (and really the first occurence was the MJF stuff, which now seems ages ago), AEW is not that anymore. It's just another pro-wrestling company.

I was all about praising Saya Kamitani's work and say about how she had some Steamboat in her.... and then she botched her finish on poor MIna Shirakawa.... twice. The second one is one of the worst thing I've seen in a while. Poor Mina's mouth and jaw was shattered. Hopefully not broken, but it obviously was absolutely brutal. Poor girl. She was having probably her best single match ever too. Syuri vs MAIKA was a terrific main event. I very seldom watch entire Stardom shows, but they always are pretty satisfying in overall quality. Can't wait until the chanting comes back though (same for NJPW).

The "normalization" of these shows is a huge embarrassment and black mark for pro-wrestling fans.

The undying Tyson love is something that baffles me as much as whenever someone deemed "progressive" wears a 2-Pac shirt. Actually, Iron Mike was better than what I expected, which says a lot. JR did not seem to have a lot of fun this week. That being said, neither was I. But JR comes off more and more out of date with every month passing by. The "unlimited" potential of Wardlow (sure), him wanting more of Gates of Agony (holy fuck, that was the worst take of all, these guys have no business in AEW, they bring nothing to the table at any level), taking that alpha-male/alpha-female shit that should be reserved to incels discussions on Reddit. Shibata vs Orange was quite good, but I was not comfy watching it, I must say. The randomness of the whole thing really made it work. Rest of the show, complete and utter waste of time. It seems like Hayter has cooled off. Well done. The angle was her vs Britt, and they have done nothing to develop that story in weeks now, and they are getting some storyline for her vs Storm (which should be terrific and I look forward to it, don't get me wrong) out of a hat. Hopefully she can get back some momentum, but she was crazy over when people wanted her to turn on Britt. She surely was not here. Gates of Agony are fast-forward material. I have no idea why these guys are getting TV time. They won't get over, the matches are boring as hell, they have no personality at all. This is NWO-B Team on Thunder level. What a waste of Joe. They really deserve to be killed in ratings by putting on stuff like this, it's like TK forgot why there was an audience for AEW to begin with (Orange vs Shibata was AEW from 2019-2021).

Well, except the LGBT ones who are thrown in prison of course. The level of straight propaganda nukes the first show they did. "His excellency"... Introducing, straight pieces of shit, husband and wife. Nothing but contempt for these people.

In other news, this company is actually still fucking disgusting. MBS chants, people.

Please don't. Hell, I was actually thinking about that one today, how if Punk returns to WWE, would he take part in those Saudi shameless shows ? I would hope not, I would hope he would be the one to say "nope".

Matt. Matt. YOU'RE NOT FUCKING HELPING NOW (allow me to underline how fair play I am by posting this myself and making fun of it, not that it changes anything in the grand scheme of things) I wonder if this is the Montreal of the 20's and in 20 years people will still argue about it.

The one thing that has to be said, is that TK should have stopped Punk's rant. No idea how Punk would have reacted, but TK needed to stop him before he went too far and reframe the interview pretty quickly. If Punk left the room, then he would have left the room pissed, but this was a debacle of epic proportion. I hope it's a lesson learned.

No one is accusing you personally of anything. But you're just not making sense. As far as irrational hatred of Punk, well, too bad (but maybe you weren't talking about me, I dunno), you'll see me say time and time again how much I was enjoying Punk's stint in AEW and how much of a fan of him I was in this very thread, including on stuff that have nothing to do with pro-wrestling. So, nope, not me. If I had my way, I would have all four of them in AEW again and work an awesome Omega vs Punk main event eventually.

May indeed have happened. May not have happened also. There's also that one thing though : a pet dog has nothing to do at your workplace. So there. Yeah but everything he says is a lie because he's in bed with the Elite and the proof is he gave Omega seven stars at the Tokyo Dome despite him being a geek who can't work and only does movez. I'm way caricaturing but deep down inside, I do think a part of the pissed off people have that exact mentality (that's the audience of Cornette/Bischoff/Prichard's podcasts also). That's ignoring no other version of the story was given by any other reporters, but whatever, it doesn't matter, all that matters is "Dave is just defending TK and the Elite". From this perspective, whatever comes from his side is null and void anyway, which is a super comfortable stance to take.

Even if he wasn't in a good mood. Though shit. What did he expect after publicly burying the promotion ? A hug and a cookie ? Sure, confronting him there wasn't the best idea, but again, people are grasping at straws for excuses.

You make it sound like they mobbed the guy in the street of something. They went to his locker room after he publicly buried their company, okay. They probably should not have done that, considering how things turned out, sure. Doesn't change one bit of what Punk already had done that was damaging to the company. It has been established from the beginning that pretty much what came out was Punk's side and that the Elite actually never said anything. Repeating the opposite over and over again won't make it true. That's the job of a journalist. Getting infos from sources.

That's no ice-cream, but hey, that's better than nothing.

Unless the truth is "CM Punk was an asshole, it wasn't the Elite's fault" apparently. Because no source ever reported it at first despite only hearing the story that came from Punk's side. Because it confirms pretty much both what's been out there since the beginning (Punk and Ace physically attacking the Elite). Basically, being objective to you is siding with Punk despite all the actual facts of unprofesionnalism and results of the investigation pointing out to the other direction. The only pro-Punk's "arguments" at this point are conspiracy theory level. Really now. Get over it people.

So, Matt Hardy speaks on his podcast and says the Elite did not do anything wrong, as he witnessed the altercation. Of course it's gonna be deemed more conspiracy and politics by some, because no matter how many people will attest of the story, it always will be "but but but" unless it's going in Punk's favor. But anywoo. Hopefully the locker room morale gets better and we don't get any of that kinda stuff (see also, Andrade punching a guy to get fired), that can only help.

Oh, for sure, WWE is hot right now. Their Rumble advance is already huge and will be the biggest Rumble gate ever or something. Maybe the younger audience just likes LORE a lot. AEW has lost something. Maybe it's simply the freshness aspect of it. And I mean, speaking from someone who had more fun than ever watching pro-wrestling with the first 2/3 years of AEW, I'm catching up with IMPACT from this Summer, and if I had to chose to watch only 1 promotion right now as a tv weekly show, it would be IMPACT over AEW without much hesitation.

Because she's a woman. Simple as that. And yeah, they had the women headline Mania that year, but that was because of Ronda Rousey's status, not Becky's (which may or may not play against Becky's case too). And yeah, they had women headline Mania the next year, but it was also a two date Mania (and really, maybe that'll play in favor of Sasha Banks whenener it's her turn). Last year though, nope. So yes, things are evolving in the right directions, but we're still far off when we'll be able to really talk about equality. Which makes sense, it will take some time. And I mean, if we're strictly talking about booking, they had to throw Charlotte in there because Charlotte be like. For the details of booking, you'd have to ask for someone who actually was watching closely the TV then.

AEW is still by far the youngest audience in pro-wrestling though. They are losing their edge on that matter, but WWE's median age is still very old.

Nope. You compared her with Seth. But she isn't on the same standards as Seth or any other big male stars, no matter how you slice it. So, the fact she drew as much despite the equality issues should be taken in account when judging her case. It's not unfair to her male counterparts, it's just taking in account the fact women just aren't playing within the same rulebook. That's the neverending debate between "equality" and "fairness". Treating people like they have equal rights in a world actually filled with systemic inequalities is just playing along (and even validating to a degree) said inequalities (same thing goes with so-called "meritocracy"). The goal for sure from everybody should be equal rights for everyone. But it just isn't.

The issue with that is that there is an actual double standards *in life* for women. You can't call for equality of treatments for the HOF when there's no equality of treatment IRL. Not to say she should or should not be in (I actually never cared one bit about HOF and such, but enjoy some of the discussions).

Yep. And I cringe every time I see any of them still do shoot headbutts. I just don't get it. I guess Danielson and Shibata could just do a Taichi vs Ibushi. Not sure the audience would get it, but at least, not much risk there.

Sid had pretty much the same effect too by then. Always got a great reactions from the people who were already there, but never sold a ticket or a PPV buy for WCW. Very much a "status" pop, mixed in with nostalgia (and jingoist pandering, which always worked back then) with Duggan. Now, the Acclaimed may very well be selling merchandise and do good ratings (I haven't checked, I honestly am not very interested in ratings), but again, Billy Gunn on his own ? (and then again, The Acclaimed without Billy Gunn ? Who knows. They are hot together now, good for them) And then again, that doesn't mean at all anyone has to like it or consider it quality because it does good ratings. As we speak, the biggest draw in pro-wrestling in term of moving ratings from the norm and selling merch is Bray Wyatt.

The very much brand only oriented business kinda screws things up for modern candidates. Sure, Becky couldn't draw like the Crush Gals. She also doesn't work in the same country, in the same era (including technological), in the same market, under the same booking philosophy, in front of the same audiences. And on the other hand, working in WWE is also de facto an advantage in term of perception because WWE is the biggest company in the world. But also a disadvantage because of said brand oriented business model, which is pretty much everywhere now. This is why comparison don't always make the most sense anyways. From within the context in which she exists, it's hard to argue against the importance of Becky Lynch. The fact she never became bigger really is a testament to the complete ineptness of WWE at the time.